The door closed on Noli and Jiang, leaving Robin and Dr Zhou alone.
The luxurious, meticulously tidy room smelled of sandalwood. A red and gold art deco rug lay on the dark polished floorboards. Floor-to-ceiling shelves of the same ebony as the rest of the furniture carried leatherbound books and also what Robin recognised as hundreds of journals of the kind lying on her bed, their spines labelled with the names of their owners. Behind the desk were more shelves carrying hundreds of tiny brown bottles arranged with precision and labelled in minuscule handwriting, a collection of antique Chinese snuff bottles and a fat golden Buddha, sitting cross-legged on a wooden plinth. A black leather examination couch stood beneath one of the windows, which looked out onto a part of the property screened from the courtyard by trees and bushes. Here, Robin saw three identical cabins built of timber, each of which had sliding glass doors, and which hadn’t been shown to any of the new recruits as yet.
‘Please, sit down,’ said Zhou, smiling as he gestured Robin to the chair opposite his desk, which like the desk was made of ebony, and upholstered in red silk. Robin registered how comfortable it was as she sank into it: the chairs in the workshop were of hard plastic and wood, and the mattress of her narrow bed very firm.
Zhou was wearing a dark suit and tie and a pristine white shirt. Pearls shone discreetly in the buttonholes of his cuffs. Robin assumed he was biracial because he was well over six feet tall – the Chinese men she was used to seeing in Chinatown, near the office, were generally much shorter – and he was undeniably handsome, with his slicked-back black hair and high cheekbones. The scar running down from nose to jaw hinted at mystery and danger. She could understand why Dr Zhou attracted television viewers, even though she personally found the sleekness and slight but detectable aura of self-importance unappealing.
Zhou flipped open a folder on his desk and Robin saw several sheets of paper, with the questionnaire she’d completed on the bus lying on top.
‘So,’ said Zhou, smiling, ‘how are you finding life in the church so far?’
‘Really interesting,’ said Robin, ‘and I’m finding the meditation techniques incredible.’
‘You suffer from a little anxiety, yes?’ said Zhou, smiling at her.
‘Sometimes,’ said Robin, smiling back.
‘Low self-esteem?’
‘Occasionally,’ said Robin, with a little shrug.
‘I think you’ve recently had an emotional blow?’
Robin wasn’t sure whether he was pretending to intuit this about her, or admitting that some of the hidden sheets of paper contained the biographical details she’d confided in church members.
‘Um… yes,’ she said, with a little laugh. ‘My wedding got called off.’
‘Was that your decision?’
‘No,’ said Robin, no longer smiling. ‘His.’
‘Family disappointed?’
‘My mum’s quite… yes, they weren’t happy.’
‘I promise, you’ll live to be very glad you didn’t go through with it,’ said Zhou. ‘Much societal unhappiness stems from the unnaturalness of the married state. Have you read
‘Not yet,’ said Robin, ‘although one of the church members offered to lend me his copy, and Mazu was just…’
Zhou opened one of the desk drawers and took out a pristine paperback copy of Jonathan Wace’s book. The image on the front was of a bursting bubble, with two hands making the heart shape around it.
‘Here,’ said Zhou. ‘Your own copy.’
‘Thank you so much!’ said Robin, feigning delight while wondering when on earth she was supposed to have time to read, in between the lectures, the work and the temple.
‘Read the chapter on materialist possession and egomotivity,’ Zhou instructed her. ‘Now…’
He extracted a second questionnaire, this one blank, and took a lacquered fountain pen out of his pocket.
‘I’m going to assess your fitness to fast – what we call purification.’
He took down Robin’s age, asked her to step onto scales, noted down her weight, then invited her to sit down again so he could take her blood pressure.
‘A little low,’ said Zhou, looking at the figures, ‘but it’s nearly lunchtime… nothing to worry about. I’m going to listen to your heart and lungs.’
While Zhou pressed the cold head of the stethoscope to her back, Robin could feel the tiny pebble she’d tucked inside her bra sticking into her.
‘Very good,’ said Zhou, putting the stethoscope away, sitting and making a note on the questionnaire before continuing his questions on pre-existing health conditions.
‘And where did you get that scar on your forearm?’ he asked.
Robin knew at once that the eight-inch scar, which was currently covered by the long sleeves of her sweatshirt, must have been reported by one of the women in the dormitory where she undressed at night.
‘I fell through a glass door,’ she said.
‘Really?’ said Zhou, for the first time showing some disbelief.
‘Yes,’ said Robin.
‘It wasn’t a suicide attempt?’
‘God, no,’ said Robin, with an incredulous laugh. ‘I tripped down some stairs and put my hand right through a glass panel in a door.’
