The Trail to Buddha's Mirror by Don Winslow Read Free Book Online Page B

Francisco. He got put on hold several times before he got a staffer who was willing to have a phone conversation with a student doing a research paper.
    The bleached wooden door to Illyria was set back between two plate-glass display windows that featured large acrylic landscapes by Li Lan. The interior was a large, whitewashed, open room in which canvas partitions had been hung at strategic angles to display paintings and prints. A few bleached wood stands held small sculptures, and brightly colored printed textiles hung from the high ceiling like sails in a low breeze. A larger version of the poster he had seen was set on an easel just inside the door.
    A woman sat behind a desk writing in a ledger book.
    “‘And what should I do in Illyria?’” Neal asked her.
    “Buy something, I hope,” she answered. She was small and maybe in her early forties, with thick, shiny black hair pulled back severely from her face. Her blue eyes were also shiny; she had a small, aquiline nose and thin lips. She wore a black jersey dress and black ballet shoes.
    Neal couldn’t tell whether she was impressed with his erudition, but she sure did notice the “I Left My ♥ in San Francisco” bag.
    “Can I show you something?” she asked.
    Like the door, maybe?
    “Are you the owner?”
    “I am. Olivia Kendall.”
    “Olivia … hence the gallery’s name.”
    “Not many people who walk in here make the connection.”
    “Twelfth Night might be my favorite Shakespeare. Let me see…. ‘When my eyes did see Olivia first—Methought she purged the air of pestilence….’ How’s that?”
    She stepped out from behind the desk.
    “That’s pretty good. What can I do for you?”
    “I came to see the Li Lans.”
    “Are you a dealer?”
    “No, I just have a strong interest in Chinese painting.”
    Since about an hour ago.
    “Good for you. We’ve sold several. Tomorrow is the last day of the show.”
    “I’m not sure I’m buying.”
    “You’ll wish you had. Two of the purchases were museum buys.”
    “May I look at them?”
    “Please.”
    Neal didn’t know a lot about art. He had been to the Met twice, one on a school trip and once on a date with Diane. He didn’t hate art, he just didn’t care about it.
    Until he saw Li Lan’s paintings.
    They were all mirror images. Steep, dramatic cliffs reflected in water. Swirling pools in rushing rivers that showed distorted images of the mountains above. Their colors were bright and dramatic—almost fierce, Neal thought, as if the paints were passions fighting to escape … something.
    “Shan Shui,” he said. “‘Mountains and Water,’ a reference to the Sung Dynasty form of landscape painting?”
    Like the nice lady at the museum told me?
    Olivia Kendall’s face lit up with surprise. “Who are you?” she asked.
    I don’t know, Mrs. Kendall.
    “And she certainly shows a southern Sung— Mi Fei —influence,” Neal continued. He felt like he was back in a seminar, discussing a book he hadn’t read. “Very impressionistic, but still within the broader frame of the northern Sung polychromatic tradition.”
    “Yes, yes!” Olivia nodded enthusiastically. “But the wonderful thing about Li Lan’s work is that she has pushed the ancient technique almost to its breaking point by using modern paints and Western colors. The duality of the mirror images reflects—literally—both the conflict and harmony between the ancient and the modern. That’s her metaphor, really.”
    “China’s metaphor, as well, I think,” Neal said, grateful that Joe Graham wasn’t there to hear him.
    Neal and Olivia slowly examined the paintings, Olivia translating the titles from Chinese: Black and White Streams Meet; Pool With Ice Melting; On Silkworm’s Eyebrow —this last showing a narrow trail up a steep slope beneath the reflection of a rainbow.
    Then they came to the painting. A gigantic precipice was shown reflected in what seemed to be the fog and mist of the bottomless chasm below. On