by Mai Jia
‘Secret agents often do that kind of thing,’ he said, citing an example that made Hihara feel particularly pleased. ‘I’ve heard that in Europe and America – and Japan as well – secret agents are required to master two different styles of writing as part of their training, one of which they use only when sending intelligence.’
Of course, this hypothesis, plausible though it sounded, could be part of the conspiracy, Hihara thought. Yet another sting in the tail. When he’d heard what Wu Zhiguo had to say, he walked off without a word and went upstairs. His expression gave no clue as to whether he was persuaded by Wu Zhiguo’s intelligent defence or whether he was furious that the man was still trying to deceive him.
2
As far as Police Chief Wang was concerned, the situation had taken a most unwelcome turn. He’d thought that this evening would see the conclusion of their investigations, and he’d in fact gone so far as to make arrangements with a prostitute at the officers’ club. He’d been planning to really relax and enjoy himself tonight. But now circumstances seemed to have sent them down a completely different path. He found this hard to accept: it just didn’t feel right. He wanted to get the investigation back on its old track, but that would have to be without Colonel Hihara’s permission, and he didn’t dare openly defy him. He would have to do it in secret, without anyone else noticing.
He locked Wu Zhiguo in his room, then went out to the front for a smoke. Having clarified in his own mind how to proceed, he came back in and closed the door, after which he began to interrogate Wu Zhiguo by himself. It seemed as though he had now set himself up as sole judge and jury.
To begin with, Wang Tianxiang kept his voice down, so even though Staff Officer Jiang was right there in the sitting room, he couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying. Later on, their voices were audible from time to time, sometimes very loud indeed. Pretty soon, Colonel Hihara shouted down the stairs for Wang Tianxiang. Wang Tianxiang realized that he must have been yelling loud enough to disturb the Colonel, so he went upstairs sheepishly and tried to get his excuses in first.
‘Colonel, he’s just coming out with one lie after another. I don’t believe a word he says.’
Hihara gave a cold laugh. ‘So you’re feeling angry and want to cut through it all as quickly as you can. But there’s no need to be in such a hurry.’ He gestured for the Police Chief to sit down. ‘Commander Zhang is absolutely right – whatever it is that’s been going on, we’ll soon know all about it. Don’t try and force it. We don’t have to go into overtime on this interrogation. It’s not worth it.’
Rather than complaining about the Police Chief’s actions, he was actually showing concern for his subordinate. The thing that was really worrying Wang Tianxiang, however, was that Hihara might have been led astray by Wu Zhiguo’s lies. The thought was like a bone stuck in Wang Tianxiang’s throat; every attempt to swallow it had failed, so now he just had to spit it out. ‘Do you think he’s right, Colonel?’
Hihara considered this but didn’t express an opinion one way or the other. ‘Different situations call for different measures…’ As he spoke, he handed the newspaper he’d just been reading to Wang Tianxiang. ‘Where is she?’
He was talking about the concubine.
‘In the city, under guard.’
‘Bring her here.’
Wang Tianxiang hesitated.
Colonel Hihara glared at him. ‘Don’t tell me that she doesn’t know who Ghost is, because I already know that you brought her out here behind my back the night before last, in the hope that she’d recognize her contact.’ He clicked his tongue. ‘You’re always coming up with these little schemes, Police Chief Wang, but you really should learn to control yourself. One of these days you’re going to ruin everything.’
Wang Tianxiang stared fixedly at the picture of the concubine in the newspaper. He couldn’t begin to imagine what his boss was up to.
Hihara seemed to intuit this. ‘Don’t concern yourself with what I’m thinking, Police Chief Wang. Just go and get her and bring her here.’
3
The concubine was a young woman. For all that she’d been a concubine, joined the Revolution and experienced all sorts of life-changing events, she was still only twenty-two years old and very beautiful. Three years earlier, when she’d officially become Qian Huyi’s concubine, she hadn’t been particularly attractive – she was flat-chested and very thin, with a direct gaze, and her hair had been cut short by her fellow students, who held progressive ideas about women’s rights; really, she looked like a boy in girl’s clothing.
At that time she’d just finished senior school and her friends were encouraging her to take the entrance exams for the National Ginling Women’s University in Nanjing. The problem was that her parents didn’t agree, or rather they couldn’t afford it. Even if they’d sold their house and all its contents, there wouldn’t necessarily have been enough to pay her fees. Then one day this Qian Huyi came to meet her parents with a sack of money, saying that he wanted her for his concubine and that this was his gift to celebrate making it official. Her father calculated that the money was probably enough to allow his daughter to go to university, and he asked his wife to discuss it with her: was she willing to fund her undergraduate degree in this way? His daughter took the money, but in the end she didn’t go to university. Her father was never able to work out whether she’d genuinely agreed to what happened of her own free will, or whether she’d been tricked into it somehow or forced to accept it by her mother. Be this as it may, she squandered her youth on Qian Huyi.
Young women can change a great deal in a very short time. Wang Tianxiang had watched as her body became curvier and her hair longer, to the point where more and more people would turn and stare when she walked down the street. People joked with Qian Huyi that he must have something really special in his trousers, since the women he pronged turned into such beauties.
What rubbish!
If anything, the opposite was true; he ruined this beautiful young woman’s life by possessing and enjoying her. Fortunately, he didn’t get to inflict himself on her for too long. The concubine was still young and still attracted men’s attention as she walked down the road. As to her present occupation, she worked for a shipping company and was also one of Turtle’s subordinates: a whore who often went to his stall to buy cigarettes. She had learnt how to make herself up in a way that inflamed men’s desires. Her bag was full of make-up – rouge, lipstick, eyebrow pencil, perfume and so on – and with just a few puffs and sweeps of her brush she could create whatever effect she wanted.
When Police Chief Wang informed her that he was taking her to the Tan Estate, she assumed this was for another interrogation, so she got to work and made herself up to look like a real professional. That was her cover and it needed to withstand the most intense scrutiny. Under no circumstances was she going to admit that she was a member of the Communist Party or that she was Warrior. So what she said to Wang Tianxiang was, ‘Hey, bastard, if you want to fuck me, you can – that’s how I make a living nowadays, after all. I get fucked by bastards like you every day. But if you’re trying to say that I’m some kind of Red, then you’ve seriously lost it, the Japanese really have screwed with your mind.’ She almost spat in his face. ‘What the hell are you thinking? I’m a whore, a whore that got her life fucking ruined by Qian Huyi. If that doesn’t bother you and you still want a fuck, then go right ahead! But you’ll have to take me to your house – I’m not going anywhere near the Tan Estate. I hate that horrible place!’
Wang Tianxiang laughed. ‘I don’t want to fuck you. There are plenty of girls I can fuck who are a whole lot younger and prettier than you.’
*
It was lucky that Colonel Hihara didn’t get to hear that. If he had, he’d have cursed Wang Tianxiang for his stupidity and vulgarity.
When the Colonel caught his first sight of the concubine, he was immediately reminded of a line of poetry: ‘as shining as gold, as soft as silver’. It was a line from
one of his favourite Japanese classics, Murasaki Shikibu’s novel The Tale of Genji; a line written by its hero, Prince Genji, about the Rokujo¯ Consort.
The Rokujo¯ Consort was both superlatively beautiful and also a woman of great refinement and intelligence. Unfortunately, these qualities brought her no luck in life and caused only jealousy; in the end, she had no choice but to take refuge in a convent, shaving her head and becoming a nun. But the Buddha’s law proved no match for Prince Genji’s powers of seduction. One glance from him was enough to arouse the Rokujo¯ Consort’s long-suppressed desires, and the two of them enjoyed a night of love at the nunnery, where she should have been living free from all human passions. Afterwards, Prince Genji sent her a poem:
You have proved as shining as gold, as soft as silver,
So for you there was a way to hell even from the gates of Heaven.
Hihara saw in his first encounter with the concubine an echo of Prince Genji and the Rokujo¯ Consort at the nunnery. They were on opposite sides, and between them lay a gulf of a thousand fathoms, a mountain of knives, a sea of fire. But Prince Genji viewed the mountain of knives as little more than a molehill, and he leapt over the gulf as if he were merely crossing a bridge. No wonder he was considered such a romantic hero.
Hihara reminded himself that he had summoned the woman for a reason, so he put the poem out of his mind. No matter what his personal feelings were, he would not act on them.
There was only one reason for bringing in the concubine, and that was to see if she could identify Ghost.
So who would she be taken to see?
First she was to be confronted with Wu Zhiguo, and then she would meet with Li Ningyu.
From this it was evident that Hihara had found Wu Zhiguo’s theory persuasive.
4
Which of them was guilty? Which of them was innocent? Hihara couldn’t make up his mind.
He refused to believe that the concubine and Ghost didn’t know each other; or to put it another way, even if the concubine didn’t know Ghost, Ghost would definitely know her. And given that he would be using advanced interrogation techniques, it would be hard for Ghost not to react in some way. As the saying goes, a dog will always bark sooner or later, and a ghost will always fear the light. He wanted the concubine dragged there in chains to act as his dog, to test for the presence of Ghost.
The first to be tested was Wu Zhiguo, and every possible technique was tried on him. Traps were set, word games played; he was offered rewards, he was encouraged, he was threatened, he was beaten; they played good cop, bad cop on him; lies were told, promises were made. They tried everything they could think of, but nothing worked. He didn’t react to anything.
Then they took the concubine to the western building, where their target was Li Ningyu. It was the same all over again – first dulcet words and then threats; they tried talking to her straight and then they tried lying, and then in the end there was violence and the concubine was all but beaten to death right there and then. Again, there was no reaction.
This was driving Colonel Hihara mad. It was hard to say whether Wu Zhiguo or Li Ningyu had shown less of a reaction. The real loser here was Hihara. He’d gone to all this trouble for nothing.
However, the concubine card still hadn’t been played out – the woman was still alive. Hihara put it to her straight – ‘Don’t try my patience!’ – but she paid no attention to that either. There was then no point in keeping her alive. He wasn’t Prince Genji, to be so distracted by the sight of a beautiful woman that he would disregard all moral propriety. He was an officer in the Imperial Japanese Army. He decided to use the concubine’s life as the final card in this game.
The concubine was dragged back from the western building to the eastern one and thrown to the floor in front of Wu Zhiguo. A gun was produced and Hihara asked, ‘Shall I kill her or will you?’
‘I’ll do it.’ Wu Zhiguo picked up the gun and pulled the trigger three times, aiming straight at the concubine’s head, blowing her brains out.
‘Very nicely done,’ Hihara said admiringly, picking his way back across the floor, avoiding the globs of bloody flesh and clumps of hair. ‘It reminds me of a saying you Chinese have about killing your closest relatives for the sake of your cause.’
*
Despite what he’d said, Hihara was now even more confused. The way that Wu Zhiguo had shot the woman three times altered the balance of probability: he now thought Li Ningyu was more likely to be Ghost.
So he came up with a new plan, to try and trap Li Ningyu.
He ordered Police Chief Wang to get him some paper and a brush, and then he ordered Wu Zhiguo to write a letter that he himself would dictate. The letter was to be written in blood. The blood was there ready for him, after all; it was flowing noiselessly from the concubine’s head, coagulating, filling the room with a nasty rank stench.
Wu Zhiguo happily dipped the brush into the fresh, warm blood and wrote what he was told to in bright red characters. He pressed so hard that the words were visible on the back of the paper. It was a suicide note.
Commander Zhang,
I have killed myself in order to prove that I am no Communist – the Red here is Li Ningyu. Please believe me!
Be kind to my family.
Wu Zhiguo
With the bloody characters still dripping wet, Hihara said to Wu Zhiguo, ‘Remember, from now on you’re dead.’
‘I can’t die,’ Wu Zhiguo protested. ‘I have to see Li Ningyu brought down.’
Hihara smiled coldly. ‘Don’t celebrate too soon. I can tell you that if Li Ningyu proves not to be Ghost, you’re going to suffer a much worse fate than this…’ He nodded at the splattered brains of the dead concubine. ‘And your family too.’
‘I am positive she’s Ghost!’ Wu Zhiguo shouted.
Hihara glared at him. ‘Then I will keep my promises.’
But in the end Hihara did nothing of the kind, because Li Ningyu outplayed him.
5
In the next act, not only did Hihara perform the opening scene himself, but he also involved a great many other people and included various props such as cars and so on in order to build momentum.
He began by escorting Li Ningyu out of the western house, on her own. Together they wandered the wooded slopes of the Tan Estate, apparently aimlessly, chatting about this and that, almost as if they were old friends meeting again after a long absence. Eventually, when they reached a pavilion, Hihara invited her to sit, as if he wanted to continue their conversation.
The Pavilion of Cooling Breezes was set in the lee of the mountains and had been built on a ridge, with high foundations. Not only was it refreshingly airy, with its widely spaced pillars but it also afforded impressive views. Tracts of lush, spring-green forest surrounded them, dotted with the sweeping black-tiled roofs and tiered towers of West Lake’s temples and pagodas; they could even make out the bursts of pink plum blossom on the Su Causeway. Much closer in, there was also an excellent view of the entire rear courtyard of the Tan Estate.
Almost as soon as they had sat down, a white ambulance drove up and stopped outside the eastern building to take the concubine’s body away. At the same time, Police Chief Wang rounded up the others from the western building – Section Chief Jin Shenghuo, Gu Xiaomeng and Secretary Bai – and drove them away in a green Jeep.
All of this was clearly visible to Colonel Hihara and Li Ningyu up in the Pavilion of Cooling Breezes. He explained to her – and every word was a lie – that it was Chief of Staff Wu Zhiguo’s body that was being removed from the premises (not the concubine’s), and he also said that Jin, Gu and Bai were going home.
‘Why are they going home?’ Hihara answered his own question. ‘Because we’re done here. We know exactly who Ghost is.
‘And who is Ghost?’ Again Hihara replied to his own question. ‘Hmm, let’s not get into that right now. First I want to carry out Chief of Staff Wu’s dying wishes. Matters pertaining to the dead are so much more urgent than anything to
do with the living, wouldn’t you agree, Unit Chief Li?’ As he said this, he beamed at Li Ningyu.
He wanted her to talk him through how she had revealed the contents of the top-secret telegram to Wu Zhiguo in the first place. ‘You must understand,’ he said seriously, ‘that if you say something different from last time, if there are any mistakes, I will know exactly what to think.’
Li Ningyu thought about it for a while. Then she extracted a handsome mahogany comb from her pocket and began combing her hair. As she did so, she spoke quietly about what had happened: the time, the place, how it started, what happened next, what they said, what she’d thought, how he’d looked… Everything came out perfectly. Although she didn’t use quite the same words she’d used last time, she made no mistakes.
‘Very good! You’ve done very well indeed.’ Hihara clapped. ‘Well done! Of course, as Chief of Staff Wu said, if you can remember all your lies so well, all that proves is that you’re a very tricky customer indeed.’
‘I’ve told you the truth.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes.’ Li Ningyu looked straight at Hihara. ‘Colonel, do you really imagine that I’m a Communist?’
‘I don’t imagine, I’m quite sure. Why else would I have let the others go?’
Li Ningyu hesitated briefly. ‘Colonel Hihara, why do you—’
Hihara cut her short. ‘Stop pretending! The why is right here in front of you!’ He produced Wu Zhiguo’s blood letter and waved it at her, then put it down for her to read. ‘Isn’t this evidence enough of your guilt?’
At this point, the drama moved into its second act, but the climax was yet to come.
The blood-red characters against the white paper were a truly shocking sight. No matter how effective combing her hair was for keeping Li Ningyu calm under normal circumstances, it wasn’t working now. She sprang to her feet in alarm and stood staring into the distance, as still and rigid as a statue. Hihara was genuinely taken aback. It seemed almost as if she’d lost her mind.