The Scottish Banker of Surabaya

( 3 )

Labour Day weekend has a peculiar impact on the Canadian psyche, and Ava wasn’t immune to it. The weekend represents the end of summer, the start of a new school year for virtually every child in the country, and the turning of new pages in many lives. It marks, very specifically, the time for play to end and for work to recommence in a dedicated way. Having a plan in mind would be a good start, but Ava didn’t have one. She was all loose ends, suffering from the same kind of melancholy that January 2 often induces in people.

She met Maria at the bus drop-off at Rama on Friday night. They lazed their way through the weekend, eating, drinking, walking, reading, and making love. Maria was one of the least demanding people Ava had ever met. She seemed content with doing little things — in fact, doing nothing at all — as long as it was in Ava’s company. It made Ava feel guilty at times, and she found herself overcompensating by planning activities she wouldn’t consider if she were on her own. So it was that on Sunday she drove them north to Midland, to the Martyrs’ Shrine.

They were both Catholic, both wore crucifixes, and, in their own quiet ways, both often prayed. Maria, like Jennie, rarely missed Sunday Mass, but knowing Ava’s aversion to the official structure of the Church, forewent it on her weekend trips to the north. So it came as a surprise when Ava suggested they drive to Midland. Ava debated asking her mother to join them but, knowing that the three of them would be sharing a car ride back to the city on Monday, decided one trip together was all she could handle.

They left the cottage just after eight, and the roads were so quiet they reached the shrine just before nine, in time for the ten-o’clock Mass. They wandered the spacious grounds and then stood at the back of the church reading the grisly details of the martyrs’ deaths. Most of them had been tortured at length by the Hurons. Maria was especially taken by the suffering endured by Jean de Brébeuf, and insisted on reading the details aloud to Ava.

Maria was Colombian, a graduate in English and business from the University of Bogotá. She was an assistant trade commissioner at Colombia’s office in Toronto, on a four-year assignment with two years left to go — a fact they didn’t discuss. Ava couldn’t understand how, with all that education, Catholicism still flowed so vigorously through Maria’s veins. For her own part, Ava had never had a true passion for the religion, and the Church’s position on sexual orientation watered down any other emotional pull she might feel. Still, she found comfort from time to time in prayer, and she was completely tolerant of other people’s religious beliefs.

The church filled quickly, mainly with summer visitors, Ava assumed. The church was built almost entirely of wood in the manner of the great longhouses the Hurons and Algonquins had once built. Even the roof was patched with enormous sheets of dried birch bark. The service began and Maria quickly fell into its rhythm, her face beaming, her voice loudly echoing the refrains, her arms held out, palms turned up. Ava’s mind began to wander five minutes in, as she replayed the options in her life.

She thought again about May Ling and her offer. It was flattering, and the money would certainly be great. But she didn’t need the money, and she had been working basically on her own for so long she wasn’t sure how well she would adapt to a more structured occupation. It was not that she didn’t believe in structure, but the idea of its being imposed upon her rather than self-imposed bothered her.

Maybe I should go into business for myself, she mused. But what would Uncle do? she thought for what seemed like the tenth time in ten days. He had never discussed retiring, and she wondered if the day would ever come when he would walk away from work. What else did he have? He had no family. He had no hobbies except betting on horse racing, and that wasn’t enough to occupy a man whose mind was still sharp and whose sense of adventure was still keen.

Well, I could always keep doing nothing for a while, she thought. And then an odd feeling gnawed at her. Was she really built to do nothing? Her best friend, Mimi, had a good job. Maria loved her work. Even her mother qualified as being employed, if playing mah-jong for money could be considered a profession. The only person she knew who actually did nothing was Mimi’s husband and her own best male friend, Derek. Like Ava, Derek practised bak mei. That’s how they had met — as the only two bak mei students of Grandmaster Tang. Derek was the only child of a wealthy Hong Kong family, and after graduation he had chosen to stay in Toronto and live a life of complete idleness, interrupted only by odd jobs he did when Ava needed him. But even those jobs had ended now. Mimi was pregnant, and Ava couldn’t ask her husband, a father-to-be, to put himself at risk.

Ava’s thoughts of Derek were interrupted when Maria leaned over and whispered, “That woman is staring at you.”

“What woman?”

“The one to the right a couple of aisles down.”

Ava saw only the backs of heads, and then she noticed one whose hair was pulled tightly back in a ponytail secured by a red rubber band. As the homily ended, the woman turned and looked back. It was Theresa Ng. Ava acknowledged her with a smile.

She hadn’t thought about Theresa since turning off her computer on Friday evening. After returning from their meeting, Ava had opened the computer with the intention of checking emails, but almost subconsciously she typed “Emerald Lion” into the search engine. There was a small story about the company in the Globe and Mail’s business section, but it lacked any kind of detail.

She went to the Sing Tao website and tracked several stories there. The first one was longer than the Globe’s but also surprisingly vague on specifics. It mentioned that Emerald Lion was a private investment fund that had run into problems. No numbers were mentioned, and the story consisted mainly of quotes from unnamed investors asking that the fund’s management come forward.

The same photo of Lam accompanied every article. Long, thin face. Sad, droopy eyes. A thick head of hair combed straight back and a thick, bushy moustache — unusual for an Asian. He was certainly distinctive-looking, and if Theresa’s sister thought she had seen him, she probably had. Not that it mattered. There was no reason for Ava to take on the job other than to appease her mother. She had decided to call Uncle on Tuesday, because keeping her word was important to her, but she knew already he wouldn’t want to take on such a minor job. Theresa and her mother would be disappointed. To avoid her mother’s sharp tongue, Ava would blame Uncle.

When the Mass finished, people began to file out of the church. Maria lagged behind as always, kneeling for a final prayer. Ava sat patiently, and when Maria was done, she reached for her hand and walked with her to the exit.

The church was dimly lit, and the contrast between its dark interior and the outside world, where the sun shone unfiltered, was almost blinding. As Ava struggled to adjust her vision, Maria said, “There’s that woman again.”

To their right, Theresa Ng stood with an older woman. Before Ava could react, Theresa was upon her, the other woman in tow. “This is Ava Lee,” Theresa said. “She is the woman who is going to help us.”

Ava didn’t know what to say.

“This is my mother,” Theresa continued. “I told her I was coming here today before work to pray, to thank God for sending you to us, and she insisted on coming with me.”

Ava still didn’t know what to say.

Theresa’s mother stepped forward, tears welling in her eyes, and reached for Ava’s hand. “Bless you,” she said.

“Auntie, please —” Ava said.

“Bless you for helping us.”

“Auntie —”

Theresa intervened. “I’m sorry for disturbing you on a Sunday, at church.”

Ava was grateful that at least she had restrained the mother. “I’ll call you sometime next week, okay?” she said.

Theresa nodded, looking a little confused.

What did Mummy tell her after I dropped them off? Ava wondered.

Ava felt a chill in the air, a hint of autumn, and a reminder that in about twenty hours she would be making the drive south, back to Toronto, back to a life that she had spent two months avoiding.