Winnie pressed her forehead into the palm of her hand. They didn’t have time for this.
“What if, instead of waiting for them to arrest me, I turn myself in?”
Winnie bit down on her thumb to hold back a shriek. “Then you’ll go to jail for sure.”
There again was that same self-possessed tone. “Not if we execute this exactly right.”
In Beijing, the sun has begun to set. Its rays slice through the blinds, striping the floor like the bars of a cell. The stiff couch cushions make the muscles in Winnie’s lower back ache. She rolls onto her side, trying and failing to get comfortable, wondering why the pain seems to have spread to her head. She checks the clock on the mantel. Of course. It’s time for her meds. She places two pain tablets on her tongue and goes to the bathroom to gulp down water. Bringing her face close enough to fog the mirror, she squirts a layer of thick translucent ointment onto her mottled, puffy lids, tender as an infant’s skin. To her reflection, the only soul she’s spoken to, really spoken to, face-to-face this entire month, she says, “Here’s to new beginnings.”
She carries her laptop to the bedroom, flips down the quilt, and climbs into bed without changing her clothes. Opening the computer, she pulls up the video she’s watched at least once a day for the past week. The video is produced by a major British newspaper. It features a diamond lab in Cardiff, Wales—yes, a lab that grows diamonds that are apparently indistinguishable from natural stones, though a good deal cheaper, which is, of course, where the opportunity lies. For why not take the counterfeit handbag blueprint that worked so well, and shift it fifteen, thirty, forty-five degrees? This time, though, they’ll supervise the entire supply chain from beginning to end. This time, they will not cede control.
Again she watches the scientist place the tiny diamond seed into the complicated-looking growth chamber; again she watches the seed grow in minuscule increments within a cloud of purple light. In a few weeks, the scientist says, this seed will be a full-blown diamond, ready to be cut and polished and set in a ring. Winnie imagines weighing the rough stone in the palm of her hand, and her heart thuds like a kettledrum. She hasn’t told Ava yet, not until she has a clearer picture of what the plan will entail. Besides, Ava doesn’t need any distractions right now.
On the nightstand, Winnie’s burner phone clatters against the wood surface. She checks the number and this time she answers. “Well? How did it go with the detective today?”
“So far, so good,” Ava says evenly.
“And what am I supposed to do with that?”
“What did you say about getting too confident?” Ava reminds her. “It’s going as planned, but there’s a long way to go.”
“At least tell me what you said.”
Ava dives into the events of the previous day, the way she regaled the detective with stories of heartbreak and alienation—her dying marriage, her repulsion toward Winnie and those menacing men.
“Listen to this,” Ava says, her voice rising in pitch.
Winnie can see her now, eyes blazing, cheeks flushed, unable to contain her excitement.
“I told her the factory girl was missing two fingers, and, Winnie, you should have seen her face.”
Winnie screams and then covers her mouth, shaken by the sound her own body produced. How did Ava come up with that? Her friend could have been a bestselling novelist, effortlessly spinning tall tales from golden thread. What will she invent next? A gangster with a raised scar spanning temple to jaw? A sex worker who dreams of going back to school? Winnie can’t wait to find out.
13
You know, Detective, that moment in a story when the main character realizes she’s made a commitment she can’t rescind and going forward seems the only available option? What’s it called—the point of no return. Well, that’s how I felt at the end of my trip to Dongguan. Out of options. All I could do was put one foot in front of the other, complete the minimum required to satisfy Winnie and the Maks. I thought I could cordon off my work and maintain that barrier, quarantine it in another dimension to prevent it from contaminating my real life and the lives of the people I loved.
But I could not control my dreams. Back at the hotel after that surreal and debauched evening, I crumpled into bed, only to be plagued by nightmares of fingerless children bearing tin cups of poisoned water. I awoke to the sun beating down on me, coating my skin in a suffocating sheen of sweat. My stomach churned, my calves and arches ached, and yet I was determined not to spend another second in this sordid town. I had to get across the border to Hong Kong to see my grandmother and the rest of my family, to remind myself who I really was.
I understand, Detective, that the timing of my grandmother’s birthday might seem coincidental, and I don’t know what more I can say to convince you otherwise. She was born on July 17, 1930. There’s nothing made up about that. Yes, her ninetieth. Ah, I see the confusion. Ninety is her Chinese age, not her Western age. Chinese people believe babies are born at the age of one because they count the months spent in the womb.
No, I can assure you I had no other reason to go to Hong Kong. From my hotel in Dongguan—you can see right here, I checked out at 10:02 a.m.—I went straight to the restaurant, ate lunch with my family, got back in the car, and went to the airport for my evening flight. No detours, no stops.
And I’m so grateful I went. Not only because I was there to celebrate my grandmother, but also because she is part of the reason I sit here before you now, telling you everything I know about Winnie, her associates, and this whole despicable affair.
What does my grandmother have to do with anything? Well, Detective, picture me showing up at the famous dim sum restaurant in Causeway Bay. It’s Saturday at noon and the light-filled room bustles with large multigenerational families just like mine. All around me children shriek with joy, and parents scold, and grandparents cluck indulgently. You could not imagine a more wholesome scene.
Over there at a prime table by the window is my family: My grandmother in a new floral blouse with freshly washed hair. My aunt and uncle who have taken charge of the ordering. My cousin Kayla; her husband, Winston; and their two little girls, all clad in lucky red to mark the occasion. My other cousin Karina has even flown in from Singapore with her boyfriend, Hugh, a tall, slouched Australian dressed in head-to-toe athleisure.
In that moment, I fingered the crimson silk scarf knotted around my throat and was restored to myself. These were my people, these clean, cheerful, bright-eyed souls, not those sleazy da kuan from the night before, dripping in dirty money.
At the sight of my cousin’s round-cheeked daughters, ages six and four, a hole yawned open in my chest and I longed to squeeze my goofy little boy. The girls were called Dana and Ella and they were stunningly well-behaved, conversing easily with the adults, downing dumplings with gusto.
When the little one, Ella, had eaten her fill, she climbed right into my lap to tell me, first in Cantonese and then, when it was clear I was having trouble following, in English, about the new kitten her father had brought home.
I asked its name.
He’s called Bear.
My cousin Kayla caught my eye and beamed.
I said, What an interesting name.
The little girl pushed the back of her head into my sternum and chortled up at me, the sound so pure and clear that in that moment, I was sure she was an angel, an otherworldly sprite. The previous twenty-four hours sloughed off me like flakes of dead skin. This, I reminded myself, was real. This was the true me. I was a mother, an aunt, a wife. I was a woman who was loved. I was the opposite of Winnie, with her severe, solitary life.