The Orchid Garden

By Janet Jenkins-Stotts

The child is called the “silent saint” by the members of ghost churches all over China, and her drawings are said to bring rain to parched fields and healing to both animals and people. Her father was the leader of the outlawed Little Flock until he and her mother were imprisoned by the Party in a re-education camp in Tibet, where, as intended, they died. After their death, Lei Ling became one of thousands of baby girls living in over-crowded orphanages throughout China. She stays there for five years, never speaking, until an American, Susan Ramirez, applies to adopt her. The normally smooth adoption process ends in chaos in the Orchid Garden, and the repercussions are far reaching. A ghost church dies, Lei Ling disappears, and five years later, murder comes to a quiet Kansas town.

Follow Kat Shahar, the American widow of an Israeli war hero and the favorite niece of Susan Ramirez as she searches for the truth about Susan's death. Her search leads her first back to her hometown in Kansas and then to China, where she meets Patrick Chen, the enigmatic son of a Hong Kong billionaire. His interest in Lei Ling is inexplicable although his interest in Kat is easier to understand. Together they encounter several citizens of Lei Ling's home village who have many motives for wanting to find the child, also. Kat discovers that the Chinese protocol of Lei LIng's adoption was completed; it was at the American embassy that the process was halted, followed immediately by Lei Ling's disappearance from the Orchid Garden. The climax returns to the Orchid Garden, where Lei Ling, Kat Shahar and Patrick Chen's lives are again in danger.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Janet Jenkins-Stotts
• Release date: Jan 18, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311984586

Janet Jenkins-Stotts

The last two months represent a major upheaval in my life. My husband and I have sold the farm and moved into the big city (Topeka, KS). After 21 years of raising horses, dogs, goats, and a goat that thought it was a dog, we have downsized to one miniature pinscher named Romeo. I teach part-time for Highland Community College: English, Creative Writing, and Anthropology.My love of writing was renewed two years ago thanks to the Topeka and Shawnee County Library and the National Novel Writing Month.

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THE ORCHID GARDEN

By Janet Jenkins-Stotts

Copyright 2014 Janet Jenkins-Stotts

Smashwords Edition

CHAPTER ONE

RIVERTON, KANSAS 2008

Kat Shahar glanced at the clock. It was 4:06 a.m., and the phone was ringing. Her stomach knotted, and she mentally prepared herself for bad news. Nobody called with good news at four a.m.

Kat, you tell them, her mother begged. She didn’t want to be buried!

Who? Who died? Kat interrupted.

"And besides, we don’t even have a body to bury. The police won’t release it, and I just don’t understand why. That nasty Sgt. Pope is saying your Aunt Susan. . .

Aunt Susan is dead? Oh my god, what happened?

If I could just finish a sentence, you would know. Sgt. Pope says she drank a whole bottle of wine and fell from second floor of the rotunda of the library, but she couldn’t drink a whole bottle of wine. We all know that anything over one glass, and she fell sound asleep. You can’t fall over a rail when you’re asleep. There was a note of incipient hysteria in Olivia Martin’s voice .

Mom, calm down. Tell me what happened?

I just did. Weren’t you listening? You have to come home today, Olivia Martin insisted.

Mom, I’ll be back as fast as possible. Surely the funeral won’t be before Tuesday. How is Dad?

How do you expect him to be? His only sister is lying dead on a slab, and we can’t bury her.

What do you mean you can’t bury her? Kat took refuge in a search for facts to put off the feeling of loss that was building in her chest. Kat tried to remember the exact configuration of Riverton’s lavish library. While she had almost total recall of anything she read or heard, her visual and spatial recall was only average at best. She couldn’t recall how high the ornate railing around the second floor of rotunda was, but she did remember the polished marble floor. The thought of that hard, unyielding surface made Kat queasy.

You just never listen. The police won’t release the body. You can’t have a funeral without a body. Honestly, Kat, you have to come home now. Your father needs you.

Kat was fortunate to get a flight out of Tel Aviv that morning. She usually felt an easing of her guilt for living half a world away from her aging parents when she came back to Kansas but not this time. Nobody, except Aunt Susan, understood why she chose to live in her adopted homeland of Israel after the death of her husband, Tamir. She paused in the check luggage line, struggling not to cry as the full impact of the loss of her favorite aunt flooded over her. Susan was the only member of her family who understood so many things about her . Like Kat, Susan was from Kansas, but not of Kansas. Susan had escaped through her foreign students, and Kat had married Tamir. After two short years in Israel, it was home to Kat in a way Kansas never could be. Susan told Kat being a non-conformist in Kansas was like being a surfer in Alaska, difficult but not impossible.

She had just Skyped her aunt last Saturday. They took turns calling each other every weekend. This time Kat knew something was different as soon as she saw her aunt.

Hi, Susan. What’s up?

Oh, Kat, they believe they found Lei Ling. She’s alive!

That’s great, Susan. Where is she?

Well, she’s still moving around a lot, but she seems to travel in a huge circle around Hefei. Patrick Chen’s cousin saw her; she’s a little thin, but she seems to be okay. He said he hoped to have more detail in a couple of weeks.

Jeez, I’m glad that leech finally did something to earn all the money you paid him.

I know you don’t like him, Susan, but he found her. I’m so happy I don’t know what to do. Should I contact our consul in Guangzhou or go over to China myself and bring her home?

I wouldn’t bother with our diplomatic corps. They really screwed you over the last time.

I know, Kat, but Patrick says the new consul is different, and we need him to arrange protection for her before she comes out of hiding or the Chinese government will snatch her.

They discussed the possibilities for several minutes but found no way to keep Susan’s adopted daughter safe. Lei Ling’s spreading fame as the silent saint of Anhui province made her a danger to the government or so the Party said. Her following in the outlawed Christian ghost churches, the Little Flock, was bad enough without the increasing rumors of miracles associated with her drawings.

Susan, I’ve got to get ready for work. Don’t rush into anything.

Okay, but I want you to promise me to continue the search for Lei Ling if anything happens to me.

Sure, but why? You aren’t sick, are you?

No, no. I’m fine. I just thought I saw someone . . . Never mind. I’ll talk to you next week. And she disconnected abruptly.

Kat reviewed this conversation over and over again on her flight home. She had almost perfect recall of anything she heard or read, but no matter how many times she went over their last conversation, what stayed in her heart was the promise she gave. Why did Susan ask her to make that promise?

As Kat’s taxi pulled up to her parent’s house, her heart sank to see her Aunt Pauline’s car in the drive. Pauline was both conservative and judgmental. Kat recalled her saying, Every generation, this family produces a cuckoo in the nest. In Pauline’s opinion, Susan had been the cuckoo in her father’s generation, and Kat was the cuckoo of this generation. Susan and she had both earned Pauline’s title by marrying – well , if Kat were to be honest, living unconventionally. Kat knew Pauline’s presence would exacerbate any situation, but that didn’t prepare her for the firestorm that met her when she stepped inside.

Kat, for God’s sake, tell your mother to calm down and think of the family. We have to do something and quick, or everyone is going to talk. Not that that would be anything new for Susan – she was always doing something to embarrass us – but my Jimmy is planning on running for city council this fall. We just can’t have another scandal like her last marriage. Pauline, her mother’s older sister, stood with her arms are crossed tightly across her chest and dressed as always in clothes no one could possibly criticize or admire.

Katherine thought, as she often did when back in Kansas, and they wonder why I stayed in Israel after Tamir’s death. She knew her parents loved her, but their unemotional upbringing kept them from showing their feelings even within the family circle. Turning to her mother, she said, Why wasn’t the body released today?

It should have been but now the coroner is dragging her feet, and she won’t say why, Kat’s mother complained. I don’t know what to hope for – accidental death due to intoxication is bad enough, but the only other possibility is suicide, and that’s even worse – isn’t it? I’m so glad you’re home, honey. Just put your things in your old bedroom. Supper will be ready whenever your dad gets back with the pizza.

The arguments continued during supper as various family members lobbied Kat to support their point of view. Her dad was full of his usual list of what-if’s. But Kat, what if her second husband, what’s- his- name Ramirez, finds out about this. I know he still calls her. What if he wants to take the body back to Peru? Can he do that? What if it is suicide? Can we bury her in the family plot?

Oh, Dad, you’ve been reading too many Agatha Christie novels. First of all, his name is Esteban, as you well know. You also know they are divorced, so he has no legal standing in her affairs. Secondly, we aren’t Anglican, and our family plot isn’t in a churchyard. Besides, you know what Susan always said, Donate any parts anyone wants and burn the scraps. She was very emphatic about cremation. She made me executor of her will last Christmas, just so arguments like this wouldn’t come up.

I don’t see why she made you executor, Aunt Pauline whined. I know you two were close, but surely it should have been someone ….um.. more mature, like your mother or me. I mean, I have my Jimmy to guide my legal decisions, so I would have been the natural choice. I’m sure none of this confusion would have happened if he had been in charge. Being an important employee of the city, he could have smoothed things out right away. Why, only last week the mayor was saying . . .

Oh, can it, Pauline, said Kat’s dad in a rare show of spirit. It’s over and done with, so let’s move on. Kat, what if the coroner won’t release the body? How long are body parts good for? I know the body is refrigerated, but it has been two days already."

I’ll call the coroner tomorrow, Dad, and see what the hold-up is. It’s probably just some bureaucratic paper shuffler trying to act important.

Now, Kat, you shouldn’t talk about your cousin that way, Aunt Pauline said. Besides he doesn’t have anything to do with vulgar suicides or crimes of any type. He’s a tax attorney for the city, that’s all.

Kat started to explain but instead pled jet lag and fled upstairs to her old room. It still hadn’t been re-decorated, which meant for sentimental reasons, none of which were hers, she was going to have to sleep in her lumpy single bed again. Only after she found a comfortable spot and curled up on her side, could she remember her Aunt Susan and mourn in private.

Kat remembered it had been Aunt Susan who inspired her to take a semester out of college to teach English in Southern China. Her tales about teaching students from around the world opened Kat’s eyes to the possibilities of life outside of Kansas. When Kat wanted to backpack alone through Central America , only Aunt Susan listened without prejudice to her plans, gave Kat’s parent’s the names of former students with whom Kat was supposedly staying, and ran interference with her parents. It was in Panama she finally saw Tamir Shahar in person after meeting him in a chat room on social justice and their attraction turned to love. What followed was a year of unmatched happiness followed by devastation and loss.

When her parents wanted her to come homeWhat to Kansas from Israel, only Susan had offered moral and financial support for Kat to stay in Israel and find out what the Israeli government covered up about Tamir’s death. That investigation took Kat almost two years, during which Kat not only grew a backbone, but teeth and claws as well. Tamir’s mother, who had not wanted her as a daughter-in-law, became one of her greatest supporters, and set up a foundation, Gadfly, to help provide assistance to others who needed information the government denied them. Kat loved the thrill of the chase, even if she was only chasing a paper trail. Kat ran the foundation with Tamir’s best friend, Aaron, and they were now paid a comfortable salary, but in the early days of the investigation, when she was denied Tamir’s army pension, it had been Aunt Susan who had helped all she could financially. So she had tried to listen without prejudice to what Susan said in a late night calls shortly before Tamir’s death.

Kat, I’m going to adopt a child.

You’re going to what? I think we have a bad connection. It sounded like you said you were going to adopt a child.

The connection is fine. I did say I’m going to adopt a child. She’s Chinese . . . Hello . . .Kat? Are you there?

I’m sorry, Aunt Susan, but I’m flabbergasted. Aren’t you the one who said you don’t have a maternal bone in your body?

"I may have said something like that. I also said your ability to remember conversations verbatim is more of a curse than a talent. I know this may sound strange, but there are so many unwanted children, and while I’m not wealthy, I make enough to share with another person. I know I’ll never get rich teaching at Riverton U., but the benefits are good, and I want to share my life with a child who has nothing. But that is only part of it, Kat. I find myself staring at babies in the grocery store and watching children play at my apartment complex. I always thought the old biological clock was a load of crap, but now I can hear mine ticking so loudly it keeps me up at night.

Are you sure you aren’t just lonely because Esteban is gone? Kat asked.

I’m sure that’s part of it, but I was thinking about it before he went back to Peru. Then, yesterday, I saw a woman who looked about my age at the grocery store, and she had a young child with her. I thought the child looked Chinese, but the woman seemed to be American. She caught me staring at her, and she smiled, pushing her cart closer to mine. It turns out the little girl, Ming Bo, was Chinese, and her mother, Anna Price, said she adopted her from China. Do you know anything about China’s one child law, Kat?

Yes, when I was in China, there were so few children in parks and most of them were boys, so I asked my sponsor about it. He didn’t feel safe discussing it until he was sure we were alone. He said families are only allowed one child, and most of the people who are farmers or live in the country, want a boy to carry on the family lineage. It is all tied up with the old religion. That’s all he would say.

Right, but did he say how they managed to have the precious boy? Ultrasounds are cheap and arranged through government health care. Anna said girl babies are usually aborted, or if the couple didn’t have a sonogram and carried the child full term, the girl was pronounced stillborn by the midwife even if it was a live birth. The poor baby girl is either killed or, if the parents are very compassionate, left on the door step of an over-crowded state orphanage. One of the things she loved most about her Aunt Susan was her empathy for the world’s poor and downtrodden.

So what are you going to do, Aunt Susan?

Anna gave me the name of the agency in Kansas City she used to adopt her child. I’m going to call them tomorrow. Please don’t tell anyone else, Katherine. There will be plenty of time for that when I have the child in my arms. Until then, the fewer who know about it, the better.

I promise, Aunt Susan, and good luck. How long will it be until I see my new cousin? Kat asked.

It may be awhile. Anna said the adoption agency won’t even talk to you unless you have $25,000 in the bank. I’ll have to take some of the money out of my retirement fund, but that’s okay. I really want to do this.

Well, if you’re sure, Aunt Susan, go for it, Kat said. Her dad’s younger sister had always been a risk taker. Kat was sure the hurtful things Kat’s mother, and especially Aunt Pauline, had said when she married Esteban, ten years her junior, were the reason Susan wanted secrecy about the adoption.

Susan married Esteban on what had seemed to everyone a wild whim, but marriage was her way of regularizing a very irregular situation. In the early nineties, the phrases cougar and toy boy hadn’t yet reached the heart of the Midwest, and it was the last place to accept May-December romances unless, of course, it was the male who was older. Her family told Susan that Esteban was a fortune hunter who only wanted to marry her as a way to get the coveted green card which would allow him to stay in the U.S. after graduation from Riverton U. Susan hadn’t expected it to work, and of course, it didn’t, but it was an interesting and entertaining five years she never regretted. When the political situation in Peru stabilized, and he and his family were no longer in danger, the marriage ended. Susan announced the divorce to the family matter-of- factly; only Kat heard the slight wistfulness in Susan’s voice when she broke the news in one of their first Skype’s.

Kat tossed and turned on the lumpy mattress, dreaming of her aunt holding a Chinese baby girl. Tomorrow, she would start doing what she was good at, finding information and putting things right.

CHAPTER TWO

TIANFU 1998

The tiny village of Tianfu is caught in a time warp it can’t resolve. A farmer plowing one of the communal fields with a wooden plow and an ox can look up and see a jet leaving the Hefei airport only a mile away. The village holds five one-story apartment houses, built of cheap brick, looking like an old fashioned motel, a tin shed filled with rice, and an enormous pig in a pen so small it can hardly turn around. Inside each two-room apartment are cement floors and very little furniture, but each house has a small shrine to their ancestors, containing scrolls with the names of all the male members of the family for hundreds of years into the past.

In one of the small apartments, the sound of a muffled scream is followed by a newborn baby’s cry. The mother, Lei Mei, crouches on a pallet as the father, Lei Fa, and the midwife support her. When the baby comes, the midwife wails because the baby is a girl, and her fee is always cut in half for not predicting such a calamity.

Comrade Lei, I apologize for my miserable mistake. I will take the child away.

Thank you. We are young, and have time to try again. Give me the child, my moon flower.

No, my husband. Our village has no young women for the sons to marry. It is our duty to ensure our village will continue to prosper. While saying this, Lei Mei made the secret hand signal of the Little Flock before falling back on the pallet, exhausted.

My wife has taken the teachings of our Leader to heart. We must forget the old ways and value the contributions of both sexes. Please take your money, comrade, and leave my wife to rest. The midwife seized the money and left before the couple could change their minds.

"Has she gone? Lei Mei asked.

Yes, my dove.

Close the shutters, and bring me some cool water, please. Hurry!

Here is your water. Why do I need to close the shutters?

Our daughter is going to be a special blessing to your ministry, my husband. Look at her left shoulder.

Lei Fa takes their daughter from his wife and unwraps the heavy swaddling to expose her shoulder. What he sees there makes him gasp – a birthmark that is a small, perfect representation of a fish- the key symbol of the Little Flock, a loose confederation of ghost churches. He hurries into the small patio between the two rooms of their house and, looking around cautiously, lifts a broken slab of concrete and pulls out a forbidden Bible. Kneeling by his wife’s pallet, he baptizes his daughter, Lei Ling. Throughout the next year, several people arrive in Tianfu after sundown, knock on Lei Fa’s door, and make the sign of the fish. The visitors talk with Lei Fa, telling him of the increased persecution of ghost churches in Anhui province, and before they leave, all ask to see Lei Ling’s birthmark, which her father shows with modest pride.

Another very similar village, Hanpai, is just four miles south of Lei Ling’s home. When Lei Ling is a thriving infant of 13 months, her father hurries there, knocks on a door and makes the sign of the fish. He is admitted into another brick and cement apartment and sits talking seriously with Zhu Jian, also known as the Benefactor, about his fear of being discovered. The Benefactor is a successful business man, living in Hefei, who provides secret financial support for the ghost churches in the Little Flock. He frequently visits his cousin in Hanpai to argue with Lei Fa about the future of the ghost churches . Zhu Jian wants to apply a business model to these fragile house churches and create a hierarchy of church leaders similar to those in Western churches. Lei Fa opposes this, fearing that such a structure would change the egalitarian nature of these tiny congregations and raise their visibility, leading to their discovery and the death of all the congregations. He tells Zhu Jian about the rumors of increased activity by the Red Guard in their area and asks Zhu Jian if his son, Zhu Ye, has heard anything about this. Zhu Ye is using his father’s money to move rapidly up the ranks of the Party. Zhu Jian encourages this because it helps to demonstrate his family’s loyalty to the Party, thus deflecting any suspicion from Zhu Jian and allowing Zhu Ye to gather information and warn his father of any impending raids.

Zhu Jian doesn’t wish to tell Lei Fa he rarely hears from his son, and he is beginning to doubt whether or not his son is still a true member of the Little Flock, so he assures Lei Fa that nothing unusual is happening in their area. The Benefactor promises, If anything should ever happen to you, my friend, my cousin here will raise Lei Ling with my help and support. I am sure her birthmark means she will be very important to our work. Zhu Jian doesn’t mention why he thinks Lei Ling is important to him. As a devout Christian, he could never tell anyone about his father’s sudden silence and shocked expression when he first had Jian’s fortune told, or how he dragged his son from one fortune teller to another, seeking to avoid the fate that they all said was Jian’s. Zhu Jian became a Christian to avoid that fate, believing his new God is mightier than all the soothsayers in China who confidently foretold the end of his family line. They saw Jian’s family scroll, holding the names of his forefathers for three centuries, being ripped apart in a mortal struggle between a young woman with a glowing mark on her shoulder and his future son. Until he became a Christian, the mark meant nothing to him, but now he believes the mark symbolizes the Little Flock, and he faces a future choice between the Flock and his son. So far, all is well and both the Little Flock and Jian’s son are healthy. Jian allows himself to believe he escaped his fate, but the birth of Lei Fa’s daughter with the mark of the fish on her shoulder shatters his confidence, and he knows this is the little girl on whom he must keep careful watch.

Neither Lei Fa nor Zhu Jian notice the less than enthusiastic response from the Benefactor’s cousin, Kang Xu, about the plan that Xu should care for Lei Ling. Xu already has a daughter who is alarmingly independent and even his daughter’s betrothal to Jian’s son doesn’t make him want another girl under his roof. The Benefactor elbowed Xu to be sure he was paying attention when Lei Fa describes the hole under the concrete slab where the Bibles are, so Kang Xu can find them if the worst should happen, and Zhu Jian has to carry on Lei Fa’s work.

As Lei Fa walks slowly back along the dusty road to Tianfu, wondering if Zhu Jian is right, he is almost run off the road by three lumbering trucks, carrying soldiers of the Red Guard. He could turn around and go back to Hanpai, saving himself from the ordeal that faces his village, but instead, he breaks into a run, arriving at Tianfu just minutes after the soldiers. He sees his wife, unconscious and bleeding, being thrown into the back of a truck. His eyes search for Lei Ling, but she is nowhere to be seen. Before he can look for her, he is grabbed by a soldier and roughly pushed into a truck, joining not only his wife, but all the members of his small village congregation. The next day, after a mockery of a trial, they begin the long trip to a re-education camp in Tibet. Once there, they convert many of their fellow prisoners to Christianity with their patient acceptance of the freezing temperatures, ceaseless labor, and inadequate food which, in only a few months, kills them and all but one of their congregation.

CHAPTER THREE

HANPAI 1985

Jade Kang or Kang Bi, as she was christened by the Benefactor, first leaves Hanpai in 1985 for Hefei preparatory school. She is only eight years old, but her teacher in the village noticed her aptitude in learning simple English phrases. An official of the preparatory school comes to the village and examines her over the course of a long, hot day in June. Her parents are told she was chosen by the Party to learn English, and she would be leaving in one week for the preparatory school in Hefei.

Her parents are very unhappy to have their daughter sent away to school. They used money from her father’s cousin, The Benefactor, to pay the exorbitant tax of a year’s income, for having a second child. Zhu Jian said he wanted to be sure there was a good country girl for his son to marry. Kang Bi is the only girl of her age in the village because most of the farmers’ wives either aborted their female fetus or left them on the steps of a state run orphanage not far from the village. This isn’t quite as heartless as it may seem to outsiders; property, including farming rights for state owned land, is always passed down from son to son. If a farm couple have no son, they have no one to inherit their right to farm the land that supports the entire extended family, and the family line is broken. There will be no one to feed the angry ghosts of their ancestors who will haunt any remaining family members.

Zhu Jian doesn’t want his son to marry any of the new women who live and work in the large cities where girls are welcomed into most families and where young farmers go to look for brides. However, her parents have no choice in the matter of Kang Bi’s schooling; the Party needs translators, and she is going to serve the Party in that capacity. The Benefactor is philosophic and said it will be good for them to have another family member who appears to have no ties to the churches, should the worst happen again.

Zhu Jian, the Benefactor, can afford to spoil his son because he is allowed to keep some of the profits from his factories. Most of the profits pass through his son into the pockets of local Party officials. Zhu Jian married a widow from Hanpai, and he is able to disguise his support for the ghost churches as support for his wife’s family. After his wife’s death when the Zhu Ye was three, the Benefactor showered more attention and toys on the boy to make up for the loss of his mother, spoiling him badly. If the Benefactor thinks that Kang Bi has not picked up the independent ways of city women after her education and appears to be properly submissive to his son, the marriage will still take place.

So, at age eight, Kang Bi leaves her village, her family, and even her name behind. She is given the English name of Jade Kang on her first day of preparatory school. The work in the school is grueling, but she succeeds beyond even her teachers’ expectations. At the Benefactor’s suggestion, she refuses the opportunity