White Tiger

servants. She needs to learn how to interact with children her age, ordinary kids that she can’t boss around. She’ll have to learn how to keep her father’s strange nature a secret—’
    ‘Oh, thank you very much,’ Mr Chen huffed.
    ‘Look me in the eye and tell me you’re not strange.’
    He glared at me but didn’t say anything.
    Leo snorted with amusement, then became fierce again. ‘Yeah. She’ll tell everybody about riding the Tiger and be thrown out of school.’
    ‘She hasn’t done it yet, Leo,’ Mr Chen said.
    Leo sounded desperate. ‘She won’t be safe !’
    ‘Simone will go to school. You will accept it. That is an order,’ Mr Chen said.
    Leo scowled and stomped out.
    I turned back to Mr Chen. ‘I’ll get onto it.’
    ‘Sorry I didn’t tell you about her birthday. After I’m gone, just use her Western birthday. Don’t bother trying to keep up with the Chinese calendar, it’s too complicated.’
    ‘I know. Some years you have a leap month .’
    ‘The second August is a very lucky time.’
    ‘How do you do it?’ I said. ‘You talk about your going, and leaving that wonderful child all alone, as if it was…’ I swallowed it.
    He seemed to understand. ‘Read the Tao.’
    ‘I have. It’s like a set of clues for a cryptic crossword.’
    He made a soft sound of amusement. ‘You have hit the nail exactly on the head.’
    ‘Why haven’t you been teaching me about the Tao? I thought it would be integral to the training.’
    ‘It is.’ He leaned back. ‘The Tao cannot be taught with words, it is wordless. The minute you try to encompass its nature with words, its nature will escape you. Those of us who are already there can assist you, but you must all find your own way.’
    ‘You’re already there?’
    ‘Of course I am,’ he said without a hint of impatience. ‘That is how I came to be. In human form though…’ He hesitated, thinking. ‘I am not pure Shen,and sometimes the human needs and feelings overcome me. It is quite exhilarating. I have not remained in human form this long since attaining the Tao. It is an experience.’ ‘Shen?’
    ‘Read the Tao. Go and buy Simone a birthday present—I’m sure you were planning to. I’ll mind her. Go to Causeway Bay or Tai Koo Shing.’
    ‘I’ll take her with me. She can spend the lai see money you gave her.’
    He nodded. ‘Good idea.’
    I looked at him. ‘How much money did you give her?’
    ‘Three thousand dollars.’
    I gasped a huge sucking laugh.
    ‘Is that too much?’
    ‘Just slightly. Then again, I suppose it’s average for a child of a wealthy family. My other clients’ children would get similar amounts. More at Chinese New Year.’ I rose to go out. ‘Who’s coming to the birthday dinner?’
    He ticked them off mentally, using the Cantonese and Putonghua names indiscriminately. ‘About ten of the Generals, about five of the Eight Immortals, Kwan Yin of course, Bai Hu, Sun Wu-Kwong—’
    I waved my hands in front of me. ‘Oh, no. No way. I’m out of here.’
    ‘The White Tiger will behave, I promise, Emma. It would be nice if you could attend Simone’s birthday dinner. As a member of the family.’
    ‘The White Tiger is a perfect gentleman now we’ve set some ground rules. But if the Monkey King is coming, I’m not going to be there.’
    ‘He intensely dislikes being called the Monkey King, and you know it.’
    ‘Yep.’
    Mr Chen sighed. ‘They will all be on their best behaviour, even the Monkey King. I have rented a room in Tsim Sha Tsui; there isn’t space here for them all. When they’re out in public they behave, Emma. It’s just here at home that they tend to let their hair down.’
    ‘Speaking of hair, yours is all over the place,’ I shot over my shoulder as I went out.
    ‘Damn!’
    I went back to my room and did some more research on Shen. Shen wasn’t mentioned in the translation of the Tao Teh Ching that I had. I wondered why he had asked me to read it to find out about Shen. Shen was the spirit in everybody; the soul. But it had another meaning: it meant a person who existed on the higher plane. Some of them were Raised humans, like the Eight Immortals. They had been born human and found the Tao, the Way.
    Others were more like forces of nature; for example, Xuan Wu, Emperor of the Northern Heavens, Dark Lord of the Martial Arts, Right Hand of the Jade Emperor, one of the Four Winds in physical form, and my employer. The literature claimed that he was, paradoxically,