by Tom Bradby
Field looked blank.
“I like having a partner who knows how to fight.”
Field smiled.
“There’s a teahouse around the corner,” Caprisi said. They stepped over a prostrate beggar and walked up to a building with a low entrance and dark wooden panels along its hall.
The tearoom overlooked a small but pretty oriental garden, the delicate sound of its fountain still audible above the hubbub. They were shown to a table and Caprisi ordered.
“You’ve been here before,” Field said when the waiter disappeared.
“A few times.”
“You have Chinese friends here. In the city, I mean.”
“Some.” Caprisi looked at him. “You’ll get there, Field. It’s not just about language.” The American touched his forehead. “You have to want to understand the people, and most foreigners don’t.”
Field lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “Doesn’t the poverty bother you?”
“Of course.”
“I worry that it doesn’t bother me enough.”
“There’s poverty everywhere.”
“Yes, but it’s so extreme here.” Field leaned forward again. “And yet, it doesn’t put me off the city. It doesn’t stop me being excited about being here. It doesn’t repel me. I feel guilty about that.”
“You’ll get over it.”
Field looked at the American. “So why do you stay?”
Caprisi sucked on his cigarette. “It feels like home now.”
“I’m not sure what that means anymore.”
The American didn’t answer.
“You won’t go back to Chicago?”
Caprisi shook his head.
“Never?”
“Probably not.”
“You don’t have family there?”
Caprisi’s jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“It’s all right. I don’t much like talking about the past, that’s all.”
Field nodded and the American’s face softened again. “I understand.” After a few moments Field added, “I feel the same.”
The waiter returned with a tray. He placed a red and gold china teapot in the center of the table and a cup and saucer grudgingly in front of each of them.
“You see?” Caprisi said as he moved away. “We’re foreigners. We’ll always be foreigners.”
Field watched him pour the tea. “It seems to me sometimes,” he said, “that everyone here is escaping, in one way or another.”
“Except for the ones who can’t.”
Field frowned.
“Look at the Russians. The girl I saw you mooning at.” Caprisi smiled as Field’s face reddened. “It’s a gilded cage, but that doesn’t stop it being a cage.”
“I suppose . . .”
“Where can they go? No visas. No passport. They don’t belong anywhere anymore, and yet they once inhabited a world they had every reason to believe would last forever.” Caprisi fell silent. “You say you feel the same, polar bear, but I don’t think we can begin to understand.”
Fifteen
By the time Field came out of the station, the day was fading fast. A rich red shroud had settled upon the buildings around him, the banners silhouetted against a darkening sky.
He walked quickly, gripping his holster, his jacket draped over his arm. He still had his tie undone and was grateful for the faint breeze.
Field hesitated at the entrance to the Carter Road quarters. He didn’t relish spending the evening in a ringside seat at Prokopieff’s circus.
But the Russian was out, and Field found, as he entered his own room, that a letter had been pushed under the door.
The envelope boasted the crest of the Municipal Council, and his name had been written in blue ink in a flowing hand.
My dear Richard, Geoffrey had written. It was good to see you again after all these years and to welcome you to Shanghai, albeit belatedly, for which, again, many apologies. I’m afraid the workload of a municipal secretary is rather a burdensome one.
We would be delighted if you could join us for a late supper tonight at home, however. I believe you have the address. About ten should do it, though alternatively you could join me earlier at a function at the headquarters of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank, and we might manage a drink before dinner. I have a talk to give at eight—some local worthy women—but should be free by nine. It’s in the conference room on the first floor. Mention my name at the door and explain who you are.
Penelope and I would be delighted if you would treat our home as your own during your time here. We know how lonely it can be to be so far away. I’m rarely in during the early evening, but Penelope usually is and would be very pleased to see you whenever you wish.
Fond regards, Geoffrey.
Field looked at his watch and then at the dinner jacket that hung from a line of cord he’d strung in the window. It didn’t sound like the kind of occasion at which a dinner jacket would be required, but he put it on to be on the safe side, then walked out and hailed a rickshaw.
If anything, the dinner jacket was hotter than his suit, but the wind had risen again, and as he turned onto the Bund, it was strong enough to keep him cool for the first time that day.
The waterfront was still busy. A crowd milled about on the sidewalk in the semidarkness beneath the trees on the far side by the wharf. A bright moon now shone above the well-lit buildings, which were decorated in honor of the king’s impending birthday. The Union Jack on the dome above the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank twisted and snapped in the breeze. Field paid the rickshaw man and walked through a line of parked cars. A group of Chinese children was patting one of the bronze lions guarding the bank’s entrance. Local superstition encouraged them to believe that it would give them strength.
Inside, the huge wooden doors through to the main hall were padlocked, so Field turned back and walked to the rear entrance. A wide stone staircase led up to the first floor and, at the top, a sign announced that Geoffrey Donaldson, secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Council, would be giving a talk entitled “The New Jerusalem.”
Two stout women in dark jackets sat behind a trestle table, next to a uniformed bank security guard.
“I’m Richard Field, Geoffrey Donaldson’s—”
“Yes, of course. He said you might be coming.” The woman smiled and wrote down his name, then handed him a leaflet. The doors to the room had been thrown open and he could see Geoffrey already at the lectern.
It looked like a ballroom. The carpet was crimson, and huge gilt-edged mirrors lined the walls.
“Here,” he heard his uncle say as he moved closer, “we are privileged to have an eyewitness view of the future. And this is the future, let no one be under any illusions about that. China is a developing market, on a scale undreamed-of in the history of commerce. And which nation leads the charge into this land of promise? As the secretary of the Municipal Council, I should perhaps not be partisan, but I hope you’ll forgive me a little native pride.” He smiled, surveying his audience. “British companies are leading this charge. Thirty-eight percent of all foreign holdings in China are British, and three-quarters of our 600-million-pound investment is here in this great city.
“But let me put back ‘my secretary of the Municipal Council’ hat. We are not technically part of the British Empire here, as you know all too well. And I know you share my frustration that we do not always get the support from Washington and London that we feel is our due.
“Anglo-Saxon values have built the greatest empires the world has ever known: decency, honesty, integrity, justice, a sense of fair play. A society based on all of these principles is what we are building so successfully here.”
Geoffrey shifted his weight from his good leg for a moment. He touched his mouth with his hand before smoothing the hair around one of his temples. “All of us are, I know, offended at times”—he had changed his tone and was speaking more quietly—“by the poverty we see on the streets every
day, and may I say again, I am not alone in admiring the Volunteer Corps of Shanghai for the tireless work it does—you all do—in alleviating some of the suffering, but this, let me tell you is the rub . . .” He leaned forward onto the lectern, a finger pointing toward the ceiling. “Every man jack out there in this city knows that if he works hard and is honest, then he can pull himself up by his bootstraps and secure his family a better future. That is what we are about here. That is why there is no city that has a future as golden as Shanghai’s. That’s why, I believe, we have every right to say that this is the New Jerusalem. A profitable city, of whose values we can be justly proud.”
There was a momentary pause and then the applause was thunderous, almost everyone—perhaps three or four hundred people—getting to his feet. Geoffrey raised his hand modestly. “I’m afraid . . .” He waited for the noise to die down. “I’m afraid I was intending to take questions, but have inevitably run on and . . .” He waited again. “I’m sorry to say I have some council business to attend to upstairs, so if you’ll forgive me . . .”
Geoffrey walked as swiftly as he could down the side of the room. Field found it almost painful to watch him. He followed him out of the room and into the lift. As he pulled the door shut, Geoffrey breathed a sigh of relief. “Sorry, a bit jingoistic, but got to fire up the audience, if you know what I mean.”
Field looked at the leaflet. There was a picture of Geoffrey in uniform and details of his career: Cambridge, service in the trenches, his Victoria Cross and beyond.
Geoffrey chuckled. “The Shanghai Volunteer Corps. Christ! Not a woman in there under forty . . .” The lift still hadn’t moved, so he hit the button for the sixth floor. “Don’t get Penelope started on that lot.”
The lift jolted into action and Field leaned back against one of the wood panels. It was the only lift he could recall having been in that had a carpet on the floor.
“I won’t be long,” Geoffrey said. “I’m sure the chaps won’t mind if you sit in.” He brushed a loose thread from the sleeve of his tailored gray suit. Field was already having second thoughts about his dinner jacket.
The lift stopped and they stepped out into the bank’s dining room. It was not big, but it was at the corner of the building and the windows were tall, so that it afforded magnificent views of the river and the bright lights of the city.
Geoffrey joined a group of men around a big oak table. A sideboard behind them was covered with silverware. Huge oil portraits adorned the walls. Field saw Lewis sitting at the far end in a round-backed leather chair with a cigarette in one hand and a drink in the other. Commissioner Biers was next to him, and Patrick Granger stood behind them with his hands in his pockets.
Geoffrey ran his hand through his hair, which was shot through with flecks of white. Field thought his face seemed older than it had the night before. “Some of you already know Richard, my nephew, new to the city. Just thought it would interest him to sit in, and since this is not a formal meeting of the council, I didn’t think you would have any objections.” A few of the men shook their heads. “Gin,” Geoffrey said, turning to a Sikh waiter in a red and gold tunic.
Geoffrey sat forward in his chair. Field moved to one of the windows. “Right,” Geoffrey said. “I’ve just had the pleasure of addressing the Volunteer Corps of Shanghai, women’s division!” He lit up. “So forgive me if I’m a little incoherent.”
“Never before you’ve had a drink, old boy,” Lewis said.
All the men wore dark suits. Field could see immediately that Lewis and his uncle were the driving forces among the group.
“I intend this to be a brief meeting,” Geoffrey said, “so that you all get an intelligence update and have the chance to give me some feedback. Patrick is here to fill us in.”
Granger took his hands out of his pockets, crossed them over his chest, and stepped forward from the shadows. “As Richard here and some of the rest of you will know, Michael Borodin returned from the south last night. Our intelligence is that he will now focus his attentions again on trying to re-create the atmosphere of last summer, but with greater intensity. He has formed a core unit of activists, mostly Chinese students, operating in various premises around the city. But we have intelligence that Borodin and his colleagues at the Soviet consulate have received considerable new funds from Moscow. Some of the propaganda outlets, like the New Shanghai Life, have received further subsidies, but we believe most of the money is going into street activity—producing leaflets and posters, obviously, but most seriously, buying action.”
“Buying action?” Lewis asked.
Granger turned to him. “Last summer they were funding the strike committees. This time we believe they may have enough money to pay the strikers directly.”
The room was silent.
“Thank you, Patrick,” Geoffrey said. “My own view is that further funds may be needed to counter this new initiative.”
A bearded man next to Lewis groaned.
“You may not like it, Simon, but if the Soviets are pumping more money in, then so, too, must we. The Branch and Patrick are doing a fine job, but we can’t allow them to slip behind in any way.”
“We should shoot a few more of them.”
Geoffrey cleared his throat. “I was the first to propose resolute action last year, but pictures of piles of bodies on the front page of the New York Times would be counterproductive to say the least.” Geoffrey looked around the room, as if daring them to disagree.
“Why don’t we just shut down rags like the New Shanghai Life?” Lewis asked. “Apart from anything else, it’s an interminable read.”
“They are putting the positive case for the new Bolshevik government, which we cannot in all conscience prevent them doing, or at least not without the risk of creating the kind of headlines that would prompt a stream of anxious telegrams from Washington.”
“Since he keeps feeding all this material back to New York, perhaps we should just shoot Stirling Blackman.”
One or two of the men laughed. Granger smiled. “We keep a careful eye on the New Shanghai Life, especially when Borodin is around,” Granger said, “but the rags are careful and always stop short of incitement. However, we suspect them of leaflet printing in secret, and, of course, if we catch them doing that, we’ll shut them straight down.”
There was a long silence.
“What’s Lu got to say about all this?” Lewis asked. He turned toward Granger, whose face was half in shadow. “Come on, Granger, you’re supposed to be the one with the contacts.”
Granger cleared his throat, ignoring the barb. “We are led to believe he opposes Bolshevism as forcefully as ever, but we . . . obviously we are doing our best to close down his criminal operations, so our intelligence may not be as good as it ought to be.”
“Perhaps,” Lewis said, looking slowly around the room, “we should consider reaching an accommodation with him until we’re sure there is no chance of Bolshevism making any kind of advance.” He pushed back his chair and crossed his legs. “Then we can turn up the heat again.”
“That’s out of the question,” Geoffrey said. “He is at least as much of a threat to this city as the Bolsheviks. Perhaps more so.” He, too, pushed his chair back. “Any other questions?” He stood. “I wanted you to be kept informed, that’s all.”
The Sikh waiter pushed open a pair of double doors built into the wood panels to reveal another room beyond, similarly furnished, with leather armchairs gathered around an empty fireplace. A long sideboard was covered in food, and as they entered, another Sikh waiter took a bottle of champagne from the ice bucket and popped the cork. Two strikingly pretty and scantily clad Chinese waitresses in silver dresses handed around food on silver trays.
Field looked out over the rooftops behind the Cathay Hotel, uneasy about his presence here. He turned back to find Biers alongside him, already with a glass of champagne in his hand. “We met before, I’m sure.”
Field took his hand. “We did, commissioner, but I was st
ill a Griffin . . .”
“Never forget a face.”
Field doubted this was true. Biers’s nose was red, a tracery of capillaries covered his cheeks, and he looked unsteady on his feet. Granger handed Field a glass. “Good evening, soldier.”
“Good evening, sir.”
Biers gulped down his champagne. “I’d better go, or Mary will kill me.” He smiled at Field and walked toward the door, stopping to shake Geoffrey’s hand.
For a moment Granger and Field stood in awkward silence. “I hadn’t realized Borodin’s return was quite so significant,” Field said.
Granger shrugged. “They like to be kept informed.” He leaned closer, smiling. “Geoffrey plays them beautifully.”