Shayne and Shawn, as you may have guessed, are not Shayne and Shawn’s actual given names. Most people from Taiwan have Chinese names, and these two are no exception. When Shayne was born their mother, overwhelmed by his tiny newness, named him Xin (New). When brother Shawn unexpectedly followed moments later he was dubbed Xuan (Mysterious). The Canadian names were lifted from the August issue of the Hockey News on the flight from Taipei to Vancouver and Moncton. As identical twins they share a sympathy of purpose that most single-borns find magical and strange, but after twenty years together they know they are in fact polar opposites. So it comes as no surprise to them after they slip away to their separate rooms to get dressed for a night of break-and-enter that Shayne shows up at the rendezvous point dressed entirely in black and Shawn in white.
“Black sky,” says Shayne.
“White snow,” says Shawn.
They just laugh and trade balaclavas. Then they head for Korogi’s office. After a cat-and-mouse with the commissionaire they enter from the roof, turn the place upside-down, then carefully turn it right-side-up again. They climb back up on the roof and confer.
“It must be back at the house. We didn’t get a good look at the place.”
“Yeah, because we didn’t start soon enough.”
“No, because you hung around too long looking at the record collection.”
“You’re a bigger goof than Dwayne.”
“No, that’s what you are!”
“Wait! Dwayne calls it the Irish Spring Jade!”
“It’s in the bathroom!”
“Let’s go!”
They jump up to go. But in the moonlight on the roof of the library is a third figure holding a five-foot staff in two hands.
“That’s Da Xi Shuai!”
“Two against one! Let’s go!”
They run and launch off the roof, rise into the night and descend in adjacent arcs, rebounding and hurtling toward the fighting cricket feet first. Da Xi Shuai fends them off with a double sweep of the staff, turns and takes a defensive stance. Xin and Xuan tumble and leap up with fists poised. Da Xi Shuai attacks, captures the centre, establishes a periphery with a sweep of the staff, then butt-ends Xin and spears Xuan. They stagger back, then somersault over Da Xi Shuai’s head, each landing where the other was, and launch toward the fighting scholar, Xin high, Xuan low. Da Xi Shuai pitches from vertical to horizontal so that Xin goes over and Xuan under. They land with a skid while the vagrant continues into a hand-flip, comes down on two feet, catches the five-foot staff, and attacks. They crabwalk backward on hands and heels, reach the edge, exchange a frantic look, flip backward off the building and disappear.
Da Xi Shuai plants the staff, leans over the edge, and gets a snowball in the face—“Pfuh!”—then, yells after the departing figures, “Don’t bother looking in the bathroom! I already thought of that!”
Shayne, from beyond the swan pond: “Fuck you, Da Xi Shuai!”
Da Xi Shuai retorts: “Yo’ mother!”
Shawn, from the far corner of Convocation Hall: “You lay off our mother!”
The next day Professor Korogi goes up to the classical antiquities section of the library and walks along the peaceful aisle housing the little green Greek volumes of the Loeb Classical Library. Between volume twelve of Diodorus Siculus and volume one of Diogenes Laertius, wearing a white library label on its side like the rest, is the Spring Snow Jade. Korogi smiles inwardly and passes by.
Beijing. The appointment with the space officials does not go well. For one thing they are all army generals, and the meeting quickly takes on the tone of a disciplinary hearing. For another the business is conducted entirely in Chinese, with a state-appointed interpreter as intermediary. And for another the word policy keeps coming up. Having used the word himself many times, the Dean knows what a dealkiller it is. He leaves the Flying A sticker on the table when he gets up to go. As he goes out the door he shoots a glance through the narrow gap between the hinges and sees a hand reaching for the sticker. It’ll be on someone’s kid’s school notebook by suppertime tonight.
To the interpreter: “How long are you with me?”
“Till the airport.”
“To Shanghai then.”
The train trip to Shanghai is full of small events: a cardgame that is already in progress when the Dean and interpreter get on, and is still going strong when they detrain; an arrest for travelling without a ticket, carried out by two soldiers with semi-automatic weapons dangling under their arms; a motherly farm wife with a duck under her arm who treats the interpreter as her long-lost son and the Dean as a notorious ne’er-do-well bent on leading him astray in the city; a ten-year-old girl in braids reading an unauthorised Harry Potter sequel and trading smokes with her father. In fact they all smoke, like factories, perhaps to counteract the high particulate content of the air. The Dean begins to unwind and feel a little like he’s Michael Palin.
But the meeting at the College Memories head office is a bust. Again the Dean finds himself sitting opposite an officer of the People’s Liberation Army. This one affects a comic persona and meets any direct question or concern with gales of laughter and good-natured arm-punching. The Dean can’t get anywhere on when the Wanxian shop is slated to close, or what will become of the workforce. He points out that the company representatives who came to the university to research the heritage designs such as the 1930s hockey jersey and sweater coat walked off with much of the primary material, and are now by default the world experts. The colonel wipes his eyes, then asks the interpreter a question. The interpreter responds.
The Dean: “What was that?”
The interpreter: “He asked what colour. I said garnet and gold.”
The colonel is flipping through a file folder. He shouts the Chinese equivalent of “Ah-ha!” and shows the Dean the memo.
“What does it say?”
Interpreter: “Discontinued.”
“What? We had a contract!”
The colonel waves the objection aside, then says, “Doing Cornell now.” He makes a fist salute. “Go Big Red!”
March. Agnes and Dwayne are walking hand-in-hand in the fresh spring air. In front of the library they meet a disconsolate Shayne and Shawn.
Dwayne: “What’s wrong with you two?”
Shayne: “We can’t find—“
Shawn gives his brother an editorial smack.
“Our cell phone.”
Agnes: “Well, for heaven’s sake, don’t stand there feeling sorry for yourselves. Go get another phone, dial your number, and listen for the ring tone. I swear, nobody has any initiative anymore.”
Shayne: “Hey, that’s a good idea.”
Shawn: “That is a good idea.”
Dwayne: “All right. Catch you later.”
Shayne: “Hey, Dwayne. How come a goofy guy like you can keep a smart girlfriend like her?”
Agnes, dragging him off, “We won’t go into that.”
Over the next few days the Taiwanese brothers traverse the campus, trudge corridors, interrupt labs, disturb cramming classmates, all the while performing snatches of ancient Chinese folksong on a pair of wooden flutes. They make eighty-seven dollars and prompt several pissy letters to the editor about the infestation of buskers. They also find the Spring Snow Jade. As Shawn pulls it from the library shelf a voice from the Spring and Autumn Period lectures him on what to do when the cows escape.
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