Love and the Art of War Read online

  Love and the Art of War

  by Dinah Lee Küng

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright 2012 by Dinah Lee Küng

  published bSt JohnE&E

  Eyes and Ears Editions

  130 E. 63rd St., Suite 6F

  New York City, New York

  USA 10065-7334

  mailto: eyesandears[dot]editions[at]gmail[dot]com

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  1. Küng, Dinah Lee 2. Sun Tzu 3. The Art of War 4. fiction 5. humor 6. family 7. romance 8. The Thirty-six Stratagems

  I Title

  Any resemblance between characters in this book and real persons, living or dead, (apart from historical Chinese persons) is coincidental.

  By the same author

  A Visit From Voltaire

  The Wardens of Punyu (The Handover Mysteries, vol. I)

  The End of May Road (The Handover Mysteries, vol. II)

  The Shadows of Shigatse (The Handover Mysteries, vol. III)

  Under Their Skin

  Dear Mr Rogge (stage play/radio play)

  Lady Macbeth’s Epilogue (radio monologue)

  To my husband Peter

  Here in the mountain village

  Evening falls peacefully.

  Half tipsy, I lounge in the

  Doorway. The moon shines in the

  Twilight sky. The breeze is so

  Gentle, the water is hardly ruffled.

  I have escaped from

  Lies and trouble. I no longer

  Have any importance. I

  Do not miss my horses and

  Chariots. Here at home I

  Have plenty of pigs and chickens.

  Lu You

  Table of Contents

  Part I

  Chapter 1 Man Tian Guo Hai, (Trick the Emperor Into Crossing the Sea)

  Chapter 2 Wei Wei, Jiu Zhao, (Encircle Wei, Rescue Zhao)

  Chapter 3 Jie Dao Sha Ren, (Kill with a Borrowed Knife)

  Chapter 4 Yi Yi, Dai Lao, (Preserve Your Strength, Await the Enemy’s Exhaustion)

  Chapter 5 Chen Huo Da Jie, (Exploit the Fire to Commit Robbery)

  Chapter 6 Sheng Dong Ji Xi, (Noise in the East, Attack to the West)

  Chapter 7 Wu Zhong, Sheng You, (Create Something Out of Nothing)

  Chapter 8 An Du Chen Cang, (Openly Repair the Path, Secretly March to Chencang)

  Chapter 9 Zuo Shan, Guan Hu Dou, (Watching Tigers Fight from the Mountain Top)

  Chapter 10 Kou Mi, Fu Jian, (With Honeyed Mouth, Carry a Sword in Your Belt)

  Chapter 11 Li Dai, Tao Jian, (Sacrifice the Plum Tree to Save the Peach)

  Chapter 12 Shun Shou Qian Yang, (Lead the Sheep Downstream by the Hand)

  Part II

  Chapter 13 Da Tsao Jing Shr, (Beat the Grass to Startle the Snake)

  Chapter 14 Jie Shr, Huan Hun, (Borrow a Corpse, Return a Soul)

  Chapter 15 Diao Hu, Li Shan, (Lure the Tiger Down Off the Mountain)

  Chapter 16 Yu Qing, Gu Zong, (To Catch Something, First Let It Go)

  Chapter 17 Pao Zhuan, Yin Yu, (Toss out a Brick to Attract a Jade)

  Chapter 18 Qin Zei, Zin Wang, (To Catch the Bandits, Catch their Leader)

  Chapter 19 Fu Di Chou Xin, (Steal the Firewood from Under the Pot)

  Chapter 20 Hun Shui Mo Yu, (Muddy the Waters to Catch the Fish)

  Chapter 21 Jin Chan Tuo Ke, (Shed Your Skin like a Golden Cicada)

  Chapter 22 Guan Men Zhuo Zei, (Shut the Door to Catch the Thief)

  Chapter 23 Yuan Jiao Jin Gong, (Befriend a Distant Enemy to Attack One Nearby)

  Chapter 24 Jia Dao Fa Guo, (Attack Guo by a Borrowed Path)

  Part III

  Chapter 25 Tou Liang Huan Zhu, (Replace the Beams with Rotten Timbers)

  Chapter 26 Zhi Sang, Ma Huai, (Point at the Mulberry and Abuse the Acacia)

  Chapter 27 Jia Chi Bu Dian, (Feign Madness But Keep Your Balance)

  Chapter 28 Shang Wu Chou Ti, (Lure Your Enemy on the Roof, Remove the Ladder)

  Chapter 29 Shu Shang Kai Hua, (Tie Silk Blossoms to a Dead Tree)

  Chapter 30 Fan Ke Wei Zhu, (Reverse the Positions of Host and Guest)

  Chapter 31 Mei Ren Ji, (The Beautiful Woman Trap)

  Chapter 32 Kong Zheng Ji, (The Empty City Scheme)

  Chapter 33 Fan Wen Ji, (Turn the Enemy’s Agents against Him)

  Chapter 34 Ku Rou Ji, (Inflict Injury on One’s Self, Win the Enemy’s Trust)

  Chapter 35 Lian Huan Ji, (Chain The Enemy’s Ships Together)

  Chapter 36 Zuo Wei Shang, (If All Else Fails, Run!)

  Acknowledgements

  PART I

  ‘Act quickly when perceiving the advantage. Halt when there is no advantage. It is too early to act an instant earlier and too late to act an instant later.’

  Summary of Military Canons, Wu Jing Zong Yao

  Chapter One, Man Tian Guo Hai

  (Trick the Emperor Into Crossing the Sea)

  Surrounded by YouTube, I-Pad, Android and Skype people, Jane Gilchrist prided herself on remaining a book person. Not that anyone noticed Jane these days. They were too busy Tweeting.

  She lived with Joe in a secluded square in NW1 along with her mother, the American-born actress Lorraine King, and their teen-age daughter, Samantha. Unlike Chalkwood Square itself, advancing from litter-strewn bohemia to celebrity-sodden hideaway, the Gilchrists were no longer a young couple in television with more good things before them. They’d peaked.

  Joe’s career at the BBC was still afloat, in a drowning-not-waving sort of way. Years ago, Jane had binned her telly job for managing the quiet stacks of their local library. She had always lived for books—real books. Lately, she’d lived more and more inside books, her mind cluttered with characters waving at her from printed pages. No one conversing with Jane suspected that she was thinking, So very Widmerpool, that pushy boy, or she’s headed for the gutter, like Zola’s Nana.

  Was Jane’s drift into a fictional universe getting worse with the years? Or was the world just abandoning its love of literature to stubborn holdouts like Jane?

  Teenagers from the estates across the Camden Road Rail slouched into the Chalkwood Library every Monday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon. Although deafened by earbuds to Jane’s cheery welcome, at least they still used the library’s services—if not the printed volumes. Skulking past Jane’s desk, they slithered in their fleecy hoodies straight for the Internet Alcove, where they clicked away like zombies until Jane or her colleague Chris signalled closing time.

  Books had saved Jane from the miseries of her own teenage years. She’d read her way from homely backstage child into plain and womanly helpmeet to her actress mother. In her late forties, Lorraine had left Broadway for a life in England with Jane’s father, the beloved thespian Jack King. Thanks to Jack’s mentoring, Lorraine had even enjoyed a second career on the West End.

  Jane mourned her father’s painful death from cancer privately and deeply but Lorraine had moved on, imposing on Jane a sequence of legal stepfathers and less official ‘uncles.’ A life spent watching her mother from the wings forecast a future of only supporting roles for the daughter.

  Then crusading documentary producer Joe Gilchrist whisked shy Jane into his arms and supplanted Lorraine as the glamour end of the pairing but unlike her mother, the Canadian was everything Jane needed. Joe was kind and funny—and on top of loving Jane—someone she could believe in. Joe faced down deceit and pursued justice. He dropped filming a sequence midway to wade into waist-deep floodwaters and save a child’s life. He donated the
earnings from his exposé on adulterated milk powder to an entire Chinese village. People applauded Lorraine, but they loved Joe, so it seemed natural that Lorraine dropped from lead to featured player.

  Still, there was a catch. Jane’s own casting didn’t improve—she remained a planet, not a star, and went from helpmeet to helpmate, cheering on two high flyers instead of one.

  The library was the safest place for Jane. She hovered around the computers, ready to recommend a book, even a software manual, to ignite a visitor’s page-turning habit. Despondent, she spent more time changing ink cartridges and loading printer paper these days than lending books. All the more precious to Jane then, when a tiny borrower, having tumbled to the promise of exiting the library with an armful of free picture books, queued between the DVD-toting teens and clucking pensioners.

  At such moments, Jane whispered to Chris, ‘One more little soul saved from the pixels.’

  So, when her crisis with Joe hit Jane that blustery September, she first scoured the self-help brochures at her branch and researched the how-to manuals. The experts knew best and their words would save her again, but it wasn’t enough.

  Finally, forty-three, frizzy-haired, and desperate, she queued along with the other ‘late registrations’ for an evening class in ‘Mending Marriage, Sane Separation, and Decent Divorce,’ (anything to delay asking Joe about that text on his BlackBerry that had provoked such a knowing performance from Sammie.)

  I’m a coward. I’ve panicked at the first hint of trouble. After all these years, you’d think I could simply ask him ‘So, who’s the girlfriend sending you tacky messages?’ Instead, I’ve run off like some silly Jane Eyre fleeing the bad news up in the attic.

  This wouldn’t have happened if Sammie had stuck her nose in a book instead of her father’s mobile. Jane wouldn’t have overheard her daughter: ‘What is this? “I’m simmering. You keep me on the boil?” You getting off with someone, Dad?’

  If only Jane hadn’t looked up from that delicious new biography of Eleanor of Aquitaine to catch Joe’s nervous glance. If only she hadn’t been gob-smacked with the unexpected but sure intimation that darling Joe, her best friend for life, Sammie’s father, was having an affair.

  Pre-registered students had grabbed the best slots. The latecomers jostled Jane aside, who was too busy fighting back tears to defend her place in the queue. But she couldn’t go home. She needed advice from the pros. Didn’t Joan Didion promise, ‘Information is control’?

  If only Sammie hadn’t played tag with Joe around their living room, waving that silly text message, Jane wouldn’t have panicked like this. She wouldn’t have invaded Joe’s closet to discover a new jacket, pair of trousers, and a French sports jersey with the tag still dangling, all stashed out of sight. Shamefaced, she checked Joe’s credit card receipts. He’d paid for three separate lunches at Ma Maison—all in the same August week Jane was escorting the authors of ‘The Big Gay Read’ around Manchester libraries.

  She tried calling Joe’s office at unexpected times only to end up chatting with poor Rachel Murty, Personal Assistant to cooking star Bella Crawford who was busy on the set of The Travelling Kitchen.

  ‘They’re shooting right now, Jane,’ Rachel explained; in other words, exactly what Joe was supposed to be doing.

  Jane felt idiotic standing in this queue and was turning away when the registrar grabbed her form with a perky, ‘No reason to shake, love—nothing frightening. Most don’t even set homework. Oh, hang on a mo’, might be full up, but then, would be, wouldn’t it? Let me see, 96B Working with Clients at Suicide Risk, 96C Women Loving Women, 96D Psychobabble, Where It Starts and Stops . . . Here you go, 96F, Mending Marriage, Sane, rhubarb, rhubarb. What not to talk about in front of the kids, how to get a good lawyer . . . Well, one place left. Meant to be. Most Friday classes are all full.’

  This stranger’s sympathy humiliated Jane. She said, ‘It’s actually the Mending Marriage part that I—’.

  ‘Course it is, love. We could all use a little mending.’

  Someone pushed past her with a question for the clerk. This reprieve lasted just long enough for Jane to succumb to tears. She’d be better off sipping a hot milky drink of denial back home.

  Too late. The printer slugged out her registration card while the clerk commented, ‘Poor Psychobabble, they’ll need a sixth person or they’ll have to close. Need to blow? Wait, don’t I know you? From the library?’

  ‘Yes, possibly.’

  ‘’Course. You are so wonderful! My Greggie wouldn’t have made it through his A-levels without you! He pointed you out, said that’s the one who keeps me at it and keeps the other blokes quiet.’

  ‘Greg. Yes, of course. Doing all right?’

  ‘Lovely, just lovely, dear. Here’s your card. Next, please? Polymers? Sorry, all full.’

  Jane brandished the computer card ahead of her like a wand illuminating the unfamiliar corridor. She took a breath and opened the classroom door.

  Six faces glanced up at her stubby figure. From behind a desk a skeletal teacher with iron-grey hair slicked against a high forehead broke off mid-sentence.

  ‘Slightly late, but ladies’ privilege.’ He gave her a tolerant smile. ‘Welcome. I’m Richard Baldwin.’

  ‘Jane Gilchrist. Sorry, last-minute registration.’

  She laid her cluttered satchel on the floor. A young Chinese man sporting pink and white stripes through his hair eyeballed her. He struck Jane as a Ma Jian Noodlemaker type. She gave him the same frown she shot kids sticking gum under a reading table.

  Professor Baldwin tilted slightly to one side, like a battered ship with its sails folded and its wooden masts splintered after a fatal storm has cleared. Ladies privilege indeed! Jane’s indignation subsided when she realized she was the only female in the class. Mending Marriage was taught by a man. Worse, was she supposed to confide her personal failures in front of Zebra Boy?

  ‘As I was saying, we start with the most basic principle from which all the others more or less follow.’ Baldwin wrote in bold letters on the board, ‘Win as much as possible without fighting.’ He slid Jane an encouraging smile. So far, so good, she thought. The last thing Jane wanted was to fight Joe.

  Then Baldwin veered off on a very odd vein: ‘For your purposes, this might mean capturing as much of the market as possible without destroying it. Expending capital only on sure investments, protecting assets, and including your staff’s energies as well as material holdings.’

  A Canary Wharf type jotted notes in a neat outline. Jane could well imagine divorcing him.

  ‘Keep those general principles in mind as we move to the specifics of the Thirty-six Stratagems, listed on this handout. I’ve also set you a short reading list—nothing you can’t find at Waterstones or Amazon, starting of course with the master, Sun Tzu.’

  A mobile near Jane’s feet burst into ‘The William Tell Overture’.

  The pink-striped Chinese stuttered, ‘W-W-Winston, Winston Chu. Sorry.’ He fumbled around the bottom of his briefcase until he located the criminal instrument. Rossini chirped on, defying the young man’s fumbling thumbs. The pinched note-taker bristled disapproval while a burly, dark-haired man reached across to help. ‘Hey, pal, let me arrest the Lone Ranger for you there.’ Jane detected an American accent. New Jersey? Brooklyn?

  Baldwin nodded. ‘Blessed silence. Thank you. You are?’

  ‘Dan. Dan O’Neill.’

  ‘Mr O’Neill, would you distribute these lists, please?’

  Hands came forward. Not one of Jane’s five fellow students wore a wedding band. In fact, there was a distinctly un-connubial air about this little gathering. Winston looked like a boy on his first date. Dan O’Neill was quite attractive in a muscle-bound way and might have stepped up to the altar at some point. Still, he struck Jane as breathing awfully easily for a man fending off maintenance payments. And the well-dressed suit in the centre was too self-absorbed to notice his marriage needed a mate, much less any mending.

 
Of course Jane hadn’t expected the cosy camaraderie of her senior citizens’ reading club at the library but still, something felt off. Mending Marriage was not for her.

  Raising a timid hand, she caught Baldwin’s eye, but he said, ‘I’ll take questions just before our break, if you don’t mind. Tonight we’ll take the first two of the six so-called Winning Strategies and continue with two a week until we’ve covered all thirty-six.’ Then to her astonishment, Baldwin sang out, ‘Man Tian Guo Hai.’

  Jane had had enough. ‘There’s been a mistake—’

  Baldwin smiled, ‘Feeling panic, Mrs Gilchrist? I don’t expect anyone to speak Chinese, unless Mr Chu would enlighten us?’

  Winston stuttered, ‘I-I-I took Cantonese as a kid, but never learned classical—’

  The sturdy Dan rescued Winston again, ‘Trick the Emperor Into Crossing the Sea.’

  ‘Excellent!’ Baldwin shot a curious glance at O’Neill before embarking on a fairy tale about a Chinese emperor who balked at crossing the Yellow Sea to attack Korea.

  He concluded, ‘His frustrated generals told their cowardly emperor that a merchant was giving him a banquet and lured the recalcitrant ruler into a merchant’s “house”. They drank and toasted, until the emperor heard the wind pounding on all sides. The candelabra swung back and forth.’

  Baldwin swayed back and forth in front of his desk. ‘Finally the dizzy Emperor opened the curtains and he saw nothing but the thrashing sea.’ His skinny hands spread out on both sides. ‘The house was a camouflaged ship carrying them to the Korean front.’

  The turmoil of the ancient storm settled around them. Winston Chu’s mouth hung open.