French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  Wang Yang, her ex-husband, was a young tutor at the Russian school, just a few years older than she was. He had spent time in the Soviet Union, and he was lucky not to have been caught in the Peking University dormitories when the military police had burst in. He fled to the Soviet Union, and upon returning to Shanghai, he gave her and Ko tutorials. He was a gifted speaker, and a phrase in Russian or German would occasionally slip into his lectures. He used mimeographed copies of a textbook called Introduction to Marxism, which she later recognized as a translation from the Russian, of Bukharin’s The ABC of Communism.

  Ko had always idolized Wang. That happened a lot—she had idolized Wang too, at least until they got married. Ko would do anything Wang asked him to do. In fact, he too had fallen in love with Leng, and he only kept his distance because he realized that Wang was already pursuing her.

  Now Ko was gone too. He had chosen suicide, the highest form of sacrifice, the only one worthy of the word—choosing death rather than being killed.

  The mission to assassinate Ts’ao should have been hers. She fought for it, but they had questioned her courage. It’s not that we don’t believe you’re capable of putting the revolution ahead of family ties, Ku had said. Family wasn’t the right word. But what would she have him say? After all, it was true that Ts’ao was her husband.

  What she really wanted to say was, let me die with him. Sitting at the window of the apartment and looking out onto Rue Amiral Bayle, gazing at the dark outline of the city, she could hardly believe she was alive.

  6. Be cruel to others and to yourself. All emotions, affections, friendship, romance, gratitude, even the love of honor, must be suppressed as forms of weakness, and replaced by the single-minded cruelty of revolutionary zeal.

  She found this line in Ku’s manifesto for People’s Strength incomplete. It wasn’t friendship or love she had to suppress—it was self-loathing. If single-minded tyranny had the cleansing power Ku said it had, it should free her from self-hatred and despair.

  “But when did he ask you to marry him?” Ko asked again.

  I don’t know. I really don’t know. I was being held in a cell at Lunghwa Garrison Command. No watch, no woman in a green cheongsam to smile at me from a calendar, no sunlight. Sometimes a gust of wind would carry the smell of sun, grass, and fried stinky tofu into the corridor.

  None of them responded. They were all quiet, even the boy in the white linen suit, who kept curling his bangs around his finger. Only later did she find out that his name was Lin. Ku too was silent. He became unusually hospitable, and kept offering her cups of water and tea. I’ve got Tiger Balm in case you have a headache, he said.

  I just don’t know. Every morning, the wooden doors would open, and a slight breeze through the corridor would dispel the stench of an entire night’s sweaty bodies—who knew women could stink like that. Then an iron gate would open with a clink, and even though this sound promised the smell of sun and grass, it was terrifying. If you were to be interrogated, then you would still be alive; if not, you would be taken out to the prison yard and shot. They executed prisoners nearly every day. I had no news of Wang. The guards were gentle with us. “You aren’t bad people, you were just doing what you thought best for our country,” they said. But they were far from gentle with the other women, and if any of them were insubordinate they would be taken outside and savagely beaten up. I’d never have thought that women could be so cruel to other women. But they never told you anything, and the men were in a completely different wing of the prison. How could I possibly have had any news of Wang?

  When she said this, Ko suddenly grew angry. She could tell that rage was welling up inside him. He stood before her, biting his fist, almost as if this were his way of declaring his love. If he wasn’t able to love her, he would have to hurt himself, and if he could not harm himself, he would hurt her—

  His fist shot out and sprang back, testing, before he punched her hard on the forehead and cheekbone. Lin rushed up and held him back, but Ko’s eyes bulged as he struggled to free himself and pounce at her, like a sculpture of a man throwing himself at a pyre.

  She felt humiliated. Not because Ko had hit her, but because Ku had said nothing. Actually, at that point she did not even know Ku’s name. All Ku had said was that he was gathering intelligence about her on behalf of the Party. He represented the Party. And the Party had stood by and said nothing while someone was punching her, or when she was arrested. That was humiliating. It showed that she was not important enough for the Party to bother rescuing her. She would have to rescue herself. The law student from the Communist Relief Society had said ambiguously: No, I do not represent the Party, but I am here on behalf of a Society, and I can offer you legal advice. You are free to take my advice as being from the Party, from your own cell. If Ts’ao asks something of you, you may acquiesce, he said, you may play along.

  So she had played along, even though she felt despicable. Ts’ao arranged for the guards to give her exercise. He brought her food. He acted like a gentleman, and he didn’t ask her right away. They knew each other from growing up in the same small provincial capital, where they had been classmates at the teacher training college. Then they had left that suffocating inland city at the same time, both young people who craved revolution, except that one of them had gone to the south, and one had gone to Shanghai. The one in the south had joined the National Revolutionary Army, and now headed the Military Justice Unit belonging to the occupying troops. And she was his prisoner.

  But slowly, he began to hint at it. This place is part of the Garrison Command’s Military Justice Unit, and it’s not within my purview, he said. It’s no secret that the Committee to Purify the Party is headed by madmen. Of course I know them well, and I did talk to them, arguing that the government should give a chance to a woman who made an honest mistake. But they asked me—is she family?

  Do you understand? Is she family?

  The coffee he had brewed for her was steaming. He had thoughtfully put one lump of sugar in the coffee and two more on her saucer. Somehow he had managed to get his hands on real china in the prison. This was the superintendent’s office, the best room in the building. It was sunny outside, and the room was cool even at the height of summer. He was a few years older than her—I only turned thirty last year, she thought. He told her he would pay for her to spend two years studying in Paris, as a birthday present.

  Of course I knew what he was suggesting. I didn’t respond. Until the Communist Relief Society came again, and I asked for their opinion. I thought—they must be acting on behalf of the Party.

  Ku had been deep in thought. He looked up and said to her: no, the Society does not represent the Party. They are only a charitable organization that offers necessary help to friends of the Party in prison. They are an organization affiliated with the Party.

  I see that now. But then I said yes. I agreed. This was when he asked me again, directly. He told me Nanking’s new policy was to be tougher on revolutionaries, and another round of political prisoners would be killed. Don’t wait any longer, say yes, marry me, he said. If I can tell them you are my family—surely we wouldn’t destroy families in the name of revolution?

  I only made one request: release Wang Yang at the same time that you release me. I can’t do that, he said—if you’re my wife, then what does that make him? That I cannot do. Then he hesitated for what seemed like ages, and told me that Wang Yang had been executed a month ago, in the prison yard. I cried for a long, long time.

  Had she cried? she wondered. She seemed to remember that she had cried. But maybe she only cried because she was weak and despised her own weakness. She didn’t remember ever having loved Wang Yang, and if she had ever loved him, it was only because she had been young then.

  Wang Yang once told her that a professional revolutionary didn’t need love, and could not permit it. If intercourse was a physical necessity, a revolutionary who felt that need should address it in the most straightforward way possible. No, a revolution
ary couldn’t afford to waste his time flirting like a bourgeois.

  Did she have doubts? If Ko had not asked her this question, would she have thought about the timing of Wang’s death? Had Wang Yang already been executed when Ts’ao proposed to her, or was he only executed afterward? That doesn’t matter, Ku said. Either way, Ts’ao is a counterrevolutionary army officer who slaughtered revolutionaries. But the question was of utmost importance to her, and to Ko as well.

  Ko seemed to believe that this was a test not only of Ts’ao’s character, but also of Leng’s loyalties.

  Ku spoke next. “Think carefully. The first time he asked you this question, did you give him a clear answer? This morning you said you didn’t give him an answer. Does that mean you didn’t say anything? We’re running out of time, and we’ll have to escort you back to Route Ferguson soon. All right, you didn’t say anything. Wasn’t that a clear signal that you wouldn’t agree to his request?” His tone of voice signaled that this was a mere formality, and all he needed was an answer to complete his interrogation notes.

  Outside the window, boards clattered and the lonely sound of hooves echoed down Rue Amiral Bayle.

  CHAPTER 11

  JUNE 8, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  5:18 A.M.

  She heard someone sigh outside the window. Peering out through the gap between the curtains, she saw that the sky was much darker than the streets beneath it. The streets were wet with dew, like wet blotting paper on which cartwheels clattered. A donkey was harnessed to a cart full of night soil, and the driver had been yawning, not sighing.

  The morning of the next day, the interrogation went on in the back room, right next to the room she was living in now. The back room had a sound-absorbing partition, and its window faced the courtyard. Her room, on the other hand, overlooked the street. One window opened out onto the longtang and the other onto Rue Amiral Bayle.

  Ko had brought her here. Telling the officer assigned to her that she was going shopping alone, she had gotten into the first of two rickshaws, while Ko got into the one behind her. If someone comes in, I am Chang Tung-sheng, and I used to manage your father’s silk store, Ku said as they were going into the room. We met each other by chance on the street, and I brought you here so that we could have a quiet chat about old times. That may seem strange, but it isn’t really. After all, I did watch you grow up. When you were little, and I was working in the store, I used to hoist you onto my shoulders to buy peanuts. You don’t know where I live, but I don’t live here. These are my friend’s rooms, and he isn’t home. A young man—here he pointed to Ko—opened the door, and you heard us say that he is my friend’s new apprentice.

  During their last month of Russian tutorials, Leng had audited the Polish man’s classes. He was an old Bolshevik who said he had been to Bombay, and gave classes on “the techniques of undercover work.” The class was mesmerizing, because all the stories drew on his own experience. She had paid attention in class, and she could tell Ku was fabricating a story they could use if they got into trouble. Ku must be an experienced revolutionary, she thought. He must have a senior position within the Party.

  She was still unable to answer the questions they had asked her the previous day. She didn’t know whether silence constituted denial. She could not guess what they would think. Did you ever say, let me go away and think about this?

  And what if I had said that? Did Ts’ao have Wang killed because he wanted to marry me? He didn’t have authority over the Garrison Command. But you couldn’t have known whether he had the authority. So you are all questioning my loyalty to the Party, and to Wang. But were you loyal to him? After accepting this marriage proposal, or even before you accepted it, did you ever once think of Wang? Remember how frightened you were, how the fear of death tormented you. You were too distraught to think of Wang. It was sweltering, the food was terrible, you washed once a day, and they only gave you enough water to wipe yourself down, so you didn’t even have a clean pair of underwear. Without sunlight, you would rinse your underwear with your last drops of water before hanging it on the iron fence to dry. You longed to get out of there, to escape the huge gates and enjoy the sunlight you craved.

  Even after marrying Ts’ao, you never thought back to this time. Maybe you didn’t dare, or you didn’t want to. By the time you left prison, you had become a new person. If no one had asked you what happened, would you remember? Did you hesitate? Did you ever turn him down? Didn’t things just happen of their own accord? Ts’ao wanted to rescue you, and he needed a reason, so wasn’t making you his wife the best reason there was? When did you even ask him about Wang? Did that cup of coffee even exist? The cup of steaming coffee in your memory?

  The Party finally, abruptly, made its decision: We trust you, said Ku, breaking the silence. The cell believes you. You were immensely relieved. Actually, you were overcome with gratitude. Your loyalty had been confirmed.

  But from then onward, the comfortable life you had led since leaving prison vanished. The house with a garden in suburban Kweilin, the ormosia tree, the servant Hwang and his family, failed attempts at getting pregnant, and Paris . . .

  Without warning, Leng was plunged back into her old lifestyle, which was so frenetic she was almost happy. She had not rediscovered revolution—it had rediscovered her.

  No. 13: He who has any sympathy for the world cannot be a revolutionary. The revolutionary cannot hesitate to destroy the world and everything in it. He must hate all things equally.

  In accordance with Ku’s directions, she and the other members of People’s Strength memorized the manifesto, recited it aloud, and debated it. When they first started, she found the exercise ludicrous, but slowly she came to see that it was actually strangely effective. Words can purify you, uplift you, make you strong. But she was weak, and when she went back to living with Ts’ao in Nanking and Kweilin, she began to have second thoughts. Whenever she wavered, she would argue with herself. At the pier in Hong Kong, she even thought about trying to stop Ts’ao from getting on the ship, though she would not know what to say or how to explain what was going on. Even when the passenger liner stopped at Wu-sung-k’ou, and they were waiting for the boats to pick them up, she was still wondering whether it was the right thing to do, whether she had imagined it all. She found herself weeping by the ship railing because she despised her own indecision, and as the sun shone on her, she kept whispering the words of the manifesto to herself. A wealthy young man had stared at her inquisitively.

  Daylight.

  She hardly ever ventured out. She felt abandoned. They had asked her to stay in this room on Rue Amiral Bayle and not to leave, especially during the day. She yearned to be given a mission, but she didn’t get one, and no one came to see her. The neighbors probably thought she was an abandoned wife or a single woman. There’s nothing wrong with spending all day at home, but if you never leave the house at night, or ever, people start asking questions.

  They told her that since she had disappeared exactly when Ts’ao was assassinated, the newspapers were full of reports of her, and her photograph would be everywhere. She was a top-priority suspect on the police’s wanted list, and they could be pinning her photograph up on notice boards in police stations this very moment. Anyone who bothered to look up her name would know everything about her—Lunghwa Garrison Command had a complete file on her.

  The apartment on Rue Amiral Bayle had been rented in Lin’s name. When Leng first moved in, they had told her that this was one of their safe houses. Ku appeared frequently, and whenever he did he would set up a table by the window and tip mahjong tiles onto it. If they heard the clatter of mahjong tiles, the neighbors would ask fewer questions about the unfamiliar faces upstairs.

  Lin looked like a wealthy young dandy. For one thing, he walked around with a couple of books under his arm, like a university student. For a man like him to rent a room and keep a pretty woman in it was not unheard of, even if she did happen to be a few years older than he. At most, the neighbors might smile
knowingly at him. Be careful of this kind of woman, young man, their looks said.

  But then her comrades stopped visiting. Her days were strangely quiet, and at night she had trouble falling asleep. She woke late, and even after waking up, she couldn’t go out, so she usually sat by the window daydreaming, whiling the day away. Finally, last night, they had come back. No, the cell had not forgotten about her. They knew she was here, and Ku said they had only temporarily stopped using the apartment as a safety precaution for her own good.

  This morning, she felt alive again. She felt that she could not go on like this. She had to be part of their work. She would speak to Ku. She decided she would go out for a walk, because if she kept hiding in fear of being recognized, she would really turn into a coward. She would forget what it was like to walk fearlessly on the outside. She would be terrified of strangers and panic whenever someone so much as glanced at her. Then she would really be unfit for urban undercover work.

  She got dressed, put on makeup, and decided to buy some vegetables at Pa-hsian-ch’iao Market. When she stepped out of the longtang at nine, Rue Amiral Bayle was its usual sleepy self. The corner store had just opened, and the hardware store was still shuttered. The storekeeper’s assistant was squatting on the sidewalk washing his face. She stood at the gate, waiting to flag down the first rickshaw that passed.

  It was eerily quiet. The sunlight fell cold at her feet. The water in the man’s basin splashed onto the asphalt and was absorbed immediately. All eyes were on her. She felt intensely uncomfortable, but she knew it was because so many days had passed since she last ventured out. Even so, shivers ran all the way up her back, from her knees upward, giving her goose bumps beneath her cheongsam.