Chapter 15: Dian Mu attends the opera
Dian Mu pushed the pedal of her newest Tesla Roadster firmly downward, accelerating out the tunnel under the Pearl River to loop 360 degrees around the nail house that had refused to sell to the highway developers years before. The nimble car leapt forward, its ultra-low center of gravity, wide tires and all-wheel driving holding it to the road firmly despite the exotic speeds she was pushing it to. She kept her hands firmly on the wheel, helping the car’s electrical systems with a few extra amperes here and there as needed to maximize the physical joy of its movement.
She had been elated a decade or so earlier when the transplanted South African industrialist had come out with the first version of this car, so perfectly suited to her. She still had an original Roadster, heavily upgraded, parked in the extensive subterranean garage of the siheyuan, but this newest one, with its out-of-the-factory 1.9 seconds to 100 kilometers per hour was much more fun to drive, especially with her extra assistance making it even quicker. It was slightly bittersweet, the memory of that first lover, so brilliant, so long departed, commemorated in the branding of this new company. Perhaps she should look this Musk up before he became too old to enjoy, rather than merely invest in.
The hard cornering ended, the road straightened, traffic built to levels she couldn’t subtly shunt aside. The most enjoyable part of the drive over, she sighed and turned over control to the autonomous features of the car, illegal still in China but she had bypassed the block on the features immediately. There was nothing so boring as driving herself in stop-and-go traffic. She had her iPhone place the needed call to the Chairman of the China Huaneng Group.
“Ni hao, diànxià.” The Chairman sounded nervous. This was understandable. The largest single investor in his company, one who was so knowledgeable about every aspect of the business, one who had so much dònglì, she called rarely and when she did, it was with specific, actionable and uncontestable demands, demands that he had to find a way to make work. The fate of his predecessor hung in his mind on the times that she called, sometimes not for a year, sometimes every month.
She gave him her instructions as the car dealt with stop and go traffic, quite a bit more aggressively than factory spec. He was startled, questioned her. That didn’t last. She hung up.
Dian Mu repeated the call, telling the Chairman of the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation that he would find a way to provide financing to the China Huaneng Group for the initiative she’d set in motion. He was delighted. Dian Mu had been instrumental to the return of the head offices to Hong Kong and his increase in influence locally and globally, and understood the profit implications for his organization.
Finally, she contacted Zhang Gaoli, long-serving First Vice-Premier of the State Council of the People’s Republic of China. After polite ni haos, she reminded him gently of certain ancient treaties and his personal obligations to her, told him a subset of what would be occurring and what was required of him. He accepted this graciously, seeing how this would turn to his and China’s advantage. They agreed that it had been too long and that they must meet again. She hung up, saddened by the aging of the brilliant technocrat she had mentored and seduced thirty years before, knowing that she would not see him before his funeral.
She arrived at the Baiyun airport, was waved through to the tarmac where her plane awaited. In minutes, the tiny electric wing was in the air, playing with isobars and temperature gradients, dancing in the ether, looping in the airspace between Guangzhou and Hong Kong. She pushed it to its coffin corner, then fed more volts from the atmosphere into the motor, pushing it further, then dove toward the water far below. She jacked it into wing overs, barrel rolls and yawed it for the sheer joy of feeling it rip free of laminar flow and falter in the sky. St. Elmo’s fire danced along the fuselage and wings as she revelled in the flow of power and wind.
She looked down upon the coastline, thinking of the tectonic changes that she had set in motion and grinned fiercely.
Too soon, the Hong Kong International Airport loomed, her tiny dart dropped to tarmac and she was once again earth bound. She slid into the Roadster she kept here and told it to go the Opera. It dealt with traffic while she meditated upon Chinese tradesmen, ennui and temptation, thinking through a strategy related to a man she was toying with.
She hopped out at the stage door, with a thought told the car to go park itself, adjusted her stark, modern and oh-so-sheer dark blue hanfu and walked into the back of the theatre. It was a good space, good feng shui, earthed. The ornamentation was a bit de trop, turned up to eleven as that satirical movie about music had it, but not too bad in the final analysis. She was looking forward to see how the imported artistic director had dealt with the more over-the-top elements, to see if she had chosen denial or subornment.
As always, her visible partner was camped behind the desk backstage. He looked up, nodded a kau tau, then went back to dealing with something that needed dealing with. It was his job, after all, and she rewarded him for it with an entire opera company to play with, along with a few other perks.
She slid through to front of house and out to the lobby, walked into Deli and Wine and sat at a table someone had made sure was kept clear once her presence tonight was suspected. Tuna tartare and a Bombay Sapphire martini with a twist arrived almost immediately, along with the list of specials.
She glanced at it and the waiter materialized at her side. She told him to send up the crispy roast duck, then applied herself to the tartare. Very good tonight, she thought. In toto, the day was turning out to be marvelous. Her expectations, enormous as they had been, were turning out to be realistic, the signs auspicious.
And she had an interesting opera to enjoy as well. Life in the future continued to be a wonderful experience.
