A Cup of Light by Nicole Mones Page A

the race came in. “And the Americans and I will arrange air shipment.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd none of the pieces will be sold in Hong Kong?”
    â€œNo.”
    The elder man allowed himself a long and thoughtful sigh of disappointment. “Regrettable,” he said. Pots of truly celestial quality were so impossible to find.
    He himself swept Hong Kong for imperial pots constantly. Daily. He spent a lot of time on Hollywood Road, that narrow looping curve on the hill above Central where the dealers in art and antiquities strung along in constant competition with one another.
    When Stanley walked down Hollywood Road, his first clue that a shipment had come through was the sight of Unloader Ma—a big, beefy Chinese who wore balloon-shaped shorts and a billowing T-shirt the year round. He was the man who took the crates off the trucks. He went up and down the street freelancing.
    When Unloader Ma had things down and stacked on the sidewalk, Uncrater Leung would take over. Leung was the opposite of Ma. He was a wiry, well-muscled man, older, gray-headed, with attentive, long-fingered hands. In his trademark cargo vest with innumerable pockets, he’d go through the mountains of rough-textured pink paper in the packing crates, removing the pieces in their bubble wrap but also checking every inch, never missing any separated handles or lids or loose pieces. While he worked, the pink paper would twist and wave in the wind down the street. Often this would be the first sign Stanley Pao would see—a skinny, wind-skipping banner of pink paper. And then Pao would walk faster, because he would know Uncrater Leung was working up ahead. And that meant something new was in town.
    And with any luck, it might be something good.
    There was one other way to find out if something choice had come into Hong Kong, and that was to go down and eat at the Luk Yu. Not at dawn, when the venerable four-story teahouse was packed with Chinese stockbrokers. Not at eight or nine, when the people who kept birds came in. Not at ten or eleven, when the art dealers showed up. The best way to find out was to go at noon, when the ah chans came for breakfast. They always ate at the Luk Yu. They hated for their rivals to see them and know whether they were in town or not, but at the same time they couldn’t resist seeing which of
their
rivals was there. So they all went to the Luk Yu.
    And when they celebrated, it was special.
    They always did it the same way. There’d be abalone spilling over platters, big steaks,
baat-tow
or eight-head, eight to a catty, smothered in oyster gravy. And then there’d be the pig’s lung soup with soaked almonds and stewed pomelo skin. Roast squab with Yunnan ham. Then shark’s fin. The victorious ah chan, the one who had scored, would treat all his friends. And two thousand Hong Kong dollars would be stuffed in his favorite waiter’s pocket on the way out.
    â€œAll right,” Stanley said to Gao Yideng. “Until our next meeting.” As soon as he clicked off, he dialed his chauffeur. He had an itch to go to Central and sniff his luck on the humid air, see how his destiny hung around him, open his senses to the bracing aromas of portent. “Ah Yip,” he said in his customary drawl when the second ring clicked over to his driver’s voice. “Bring up the car.” He looked at his watch. It was quarter to twelve. “I am of a mind to lunch at the Luk Yu.”
    â€œI’ll take this one,” Lia said to the woman behind the counter, and pointed to a tabletop box of fake Peking enamel, topped with a large brass knob shaped like two mandarin ducks. Her mother would love it. She might even give it a spot on the sideboard in her little dining room, where the cream of her animal canisters from around the world was displayed. This was by no means Anita’s only collection but one of her longest-running, and it gave Lia real pleasure to unearth