Rich People Problems

Nick notified Oliver that he and the family were ready to accept Jack Bing’s offer on Tyersall Park. Oliver replied that he was accepting it on behalf of the Bings. Nick was crestfallen to deliver the news, but Alix assured Rachel that he would be fine.

Oliver then called Kitty and confirmed that they had a deal. After hanging up, Oliver played Puccini’s “Nessun Dorma” on his computer and reveled in his newly found financial safety. With his 1.5% commission on the sale, he was going to earn $150 million, enough to pay off all of his debts and those of his parents. His family was never going to be rich, but they would be secure enough to survive.

At the Peninsula, Alex Leong told Charlie that Astrid’s disappearance was as baffling to him as it was to Charlie—especially because she left her son behind. Charlie worried that Astrid had a breakdown. She was gone for five weeks and her parents weren’t concerned. Alex said that his father was too concerned with his legacy while his mother was preoccupied with her social circle. He reminded Charlie that these preoccupations had caused them to excommunicate Alex from the family for marrying a young woman whom they considered too dark. Charlie remained surprised by this, considering that Salimah was “a Cambridge-educated pediatrician” (343). In the last conversation that Alex had with his father on the subject, Henry Leong warned him that, if he married Salimah, the blood of his children would never be pure.

Charlie said that, if Astrid ever returned, she’d never again have to be bothered with her parents. Alex said it was a pity that they hadn’t married the first time. He also said that, if he knew where Astrid was, Charlie would’ve been the first person he would’ve told. Charlie reached back into his pocket for the letter that Astrid had written him from Paris. The glow from the hotel room’s flat-screen TV illuminated the watermark. He realized that the envelope came from the Hotel George V., but the letter was written on stationary with the initials DSA. Charlie consulted with his friend Janice in Hong Kong—a socialite who seemed to know everyone. He sent her a snapshot of the stationary. Janice called back minutes later. The stationary belonged to Diego San Antonio—one of the leading socialites in the Philippines. 

Nick walked into the woods past the lily pond. He found Ah Ling beside a large tembusu tree, holding joss sticks. She prayed and bowed. Nick watched the smoke from the sticks waft around her. Ah Ling told him that she liked to pray near what she called her special tree. She prayed to her ancestors, her Monkey God, and to her mother. Nick remembered that Ah Ling had only seen her mother a few times since she had moved to Singapore when she was only a teenager. When he was little, he remembered seeing the packages of gifts that she had prepared for her rare month-long visits to China. Nick used to pout before these visits, not wanting her to leave. Now, he felt guilty that Ah Ling had served his family for her entire life, while neglecting her own. Tyersall Park was home to the servants, too, and he had disappointed them by letting the property slip away. He began to cry. Ah Ling hugged him, as she had so often when he was a child, and told him that it wasn’t the end of the world.

Nick told Ah Ling that he was glad that his grandmother was so generous to Ah Ling in her will. Ah Ling said that she didn’t believe that Su Yi wanted the estate to exist after her death, which was why she had provided for the servants in her will.

Ah Ling then suddenly remembered that there were a few more things that Su Yi had wanted Nick to have. She took Nick to her room where she handed him a bundle wrapped in satin. After unwrapping the satin, Nick uncovered a leather box. Inside, he found a Patek Philippe pocket watch, gold sovereigns in a purse, and old letters. Among the envelopes was a newer-looking one with his name written on the front. He tore it open and read a letter from his grandmother asking him to return the items to a man named Jirasit Sirisindhu who lived in Thailand.

Nick took the letter and walked back upstairs to his bedroom where Rachel googled his name. She found out that he was the grandson of King Chulalongkorn of Thailand. He was also a reclusive but extraordinarily wealthy individual. Nick wondered if he was the key to saving Tyersall Park. Rachel wondered about the deal with Bing. Nick said that the contracts hadn’t yet been signed. Rachel suggested that Nick visit this mysterious man while she stayed behind to ensure that his aunts didn’t sign anything until Nick had returned. 

Nick flew to Chiang Mai and took a chauffeured Jeep to the foothills of Doi Inthanon, where he found a hidden walled compound. He was then led through lush gardens and over a wooden footpath that floated on a lake. He saw and old man sitting at a beautiful table in an open pavilion. He rose to introduce himself to Nick, whom he was expecting. Nick greeted the elderly man as Your Highness, but the man insisted on being called Jirasit.

Jirasit said that Su Yi had talked about Nick all the time. He was also going to miss her. Nick asked how they got to know each other. Jirasit said that they had met in Bombay in 1941 when they had both worked at the British India Office. Jirasit was in the cartography department, while Su Yi had worked in the code-breaking office.

Nick took out the leather box and said that his grandmother had wanted him to return the things inside to Jirasit, who told Nick that he had given her those things “to bribe her way into Singapore” during the war (355). In the end, she hadn’t needed the items at all. The sight of his letter, written to Su Yi after the war, brought tears to his eyes.

Nick was about to present Jirasit with a prospectus for a plan to buy back Tyersall Park from the Bings, but Jirasit rose and led Nick toward a pavilion on the other side of the lake. When they got there, they entered a room that Jirasit called his private office. He went to a door, put his hand on a security pad, and a deadbolt unlocked. Nick followed him into a room that looked like a vault. In the corner, there was a safe. Jirasit asked Nick for the combination. Nick was clueless. Jirasit asked if he had brought his grandmother’s pearl earrings. Nick suddenly remembered that Rachel had them, and he called her.

When Rachel answered the phone, she was groggy from sleep. Nick asked her to look for the earrings, which were in a dressing table drawer. Nick asked if she saw any numbers on the pearls, but they looked smooth to Rachel’s eye. Nick suggested that they put the pearls in water. Rachel tried it. When she looked “on the underside of the backing” (357) she saw tiny Chinese characters carved into the gold studs. She deciphered the numbers, which were in Mandarin, and those numbers, indeed, provided the combination to the safe. Inside, Nick saw red leatherbound notebooks, stacked one upon the other. He quickly realized that they were his grandmother’s diaries. In them, she described how her brother, Ah Jit, was tortured to death by the Japanese in 1943 for refusing to give away the whereabouts of key people.

Nick found it puzzling that his grandmother was present during the torture of her brother. She was supposed to have been in India. As he leafed through the pages, a letter fell out. 

Eleanor waited with her friends, Daisy, Carol, Lorena, and Nadine for the arrival of Rachel. Eleanor’s niece, Jackie, was also in attendance, visiting from Brisbane. Jackie was a gynecologist. Rachel was invited under the pretense of participating in a Bible study group. When she arrived, the ladies had a maid present her with a flute of Champagne. Maids then entered with bento boxes filled with Hainanese chicken rice. The combination of the food and drink was to make Rachel drowsy.

Then, as planned, Nadine’s iPad buzzed with a call from her grandson in London who was having his bath. Nadine explained that, her grandson, Josh, was the greatest joy in her life, alongside her dogs Beyoncé and Rihanna. Rachel found this statement odd. Lorena then asked when Rachel would make Eleanor a grandmother. Rachel said that she and Nick were just waiting for the right time. Daisy said that there was never really a right time—one simply had to do it. She then asked Rachel if she was concerned about being too old. Offended, Rachel said that wasn’t the issue.

Jackie then interrupted the conversation, telling the women to leave Rachel alone. She offered to take Rachel outside for a bit of fresh air. Instead of leading Rachel outside, Jackie took her to Carol’s prayer room. Inside was a medical exam table with stirrups. Jackie handed Rachel a gown and offered to perform a pelvic exam to address any concerns that Rachel might have had about her reproductive health. Rachel refused and ran out of the room.

Outside, Rachel confronted Eleanor and said that her and Nick’s decision to have a child was personal and not at all about Eleanor. Daisy accused Rachel of selfishness. Nadine told her that her own daughter, Francesca, didn’t bother to get pregnant out of fear of stretch marks. Instead, she hired a Tibetan girl to be her surrogate. The girl gave birth to Josh. The next day, Francesca attended a party in Rio.