by Xiao Bai
“Don’t worry, we know you care about Leng. We’re trying to locate her and we will. So have a good rest. Our comrades here will look after you. Ask them for anything you need. You’ve already met Ch’in.”
It didn’t add up—there was no reason why Therese would want Leng dead. Although he did see her pull out a gun, he didn’t believe she would really have fired at them.
Then Ku left the room hurriedly. From the footsteps clattering on the stairs, Hsueh could tell he had brought quite a group with him. He looked round at the paneled walls. Ch’in poked his head out the window, where someone was shouting up at him from the courtyard. Clearly the window overlooked a courtyard; glancing at the sky, Hsueh judged that their room was in the east wing of a shih-k’u-men house. There was someone in the living room.
He tried to get up, but he had no strength in his arms. Ch’in saw him try, and came over to help him up, propping his pillow behind him so that he could sit up in bed. Hsueh’s mouth felt dry, and he needed a drink.
After gulping down some water, he realized he was exhausted from having been up all night. He tried hard to picture that hut by the road. He remembered helping to carry those packages down a pebbly slope. In fact, he’d nearly slid into a grassy pit about five meters deep, with a hut at the bottom. The road lay higher than the thatched roof of the hut, and only a few steps away along the road, the hut disappeared from view.
The sun streamed onto the wooden floor in front of him. His coat had been draped over him, but he was getting too warm, and tossed it to one side. He thought of Therese taking the bullet in her stomach, and felt a sympathetic spasm of pain in his own.
He still couldn’t figure out why she would want to kill Leng. He thought about Leng. Could it be jealousy? Ku could well be right. Therese did keep a pistol in her handbag.
But you couldn’t just pull a gun out in Shanghai and casually shoot someone dead—this was a bustling city with a million inhabitants. Sure, the newspapers were full of stories of murder and arson, and Hsueh himself had seen gunfights on the streets before. In fact, a few years ago, they were actually quite common. But they had never had anything to do with him or with anyone he knew well. This degree of terror and suspense was what he might expect to find at the theater, to be enjoyed and then promptly forgotten.
He felt as though he had been hypnotized by Therese, by Leng, by Lieutenant Sarly and Inspector Maron, and by Ku Fu-kuang. He was in a dream world in which shooting someone dead was a perfectly ordinary thing to do, and he couldn’t just decide to wake up. Everyone around him seemed to have gone raving mad. Sarly’s words came to mind: Shanghai is like a volcano about to erupt.
Or maybe he wouldn’t want to wake up, because this life, so different from his old life, had its own appeal. It felt like a hair-raising and never-ending game of poker in which everyone thought they held the best cards. The same throbbing heartbeat, the same sensation of being numb to everything beyond the game. They were right about what adrenaline did to you, he thought. Poker wasn’t a perfect metaphor—perhaps it was more like looking down from the roof of a skyscraper, and enjoying the illusory feeling of tipping forward, the sensation of buoyancy. Or like cutting across the road just as a car was speeding past, letting it brush against his jacket tails.
He wanted to share these musings with someone, but neither Ch’in nor the other man who kept walking past the door to his room were likely to be the right kind of interlocutor.
Ch’in was leaning on the windowsill and staring out into the courtyard. That will make his hair warm from the sun, Hsueh thought as he drifted into sleep.
When he woke it was almost evening. Ch’in was still leaning on the windowsill and looking out when he turned with a startled look, and opened his mouth, as if to shout, but stifled his cry. He heaved his leg off the chair and called toward the living room: “Do you know who—”
But before he could finish his sentence, there was a knock at the door. Opening the door, Ch’in gasped with surprise.
Hsueh recognized one of the shadowy figures at the door. In fact, he recognized him from the night when this man was having dinner with Zung and Park. Hsueh knew that his name was Lin, and that he was one of the comrades Leng trusted most.
Someone said: “I’ll go and see if there’s anyone outside.” Then Hsueh heard footsteps on the stairs.
The newcomer stood motionless in the doorway. In the late afternoon light, you could see that his cheek had been badly scratched, and his neck and chin were bruised. The scar along his nose was so long it looked fake. Nonetheless, Hsueh knew the man at a glance. He did have a photographer’s memory for faces.
“Someone wanted to kill him, but we rescued him,” Ch’in explained, motioning to Hsueh. “But where have you been all this time? Ku said the police got you. Really, I was afraid you’d been killed.” He tugged at Lin’s shirtsleeves as if he were his younger brother.
Lin was quiet for a long time.
“Where is Ku Fu-kuang?” he asked abruptly.
“They’ve taken a boat to Mud Crossing. You don’t know what—” Here Ch’in cut himself off, glancing at Hsueh, before realizing that Hsueh already knew all this. “You don’t know what we’ve been up to. Ku is planning a huge operation. We bought some powerful new guns. Ku and the rest of the cell are on boats at Wu-sung-k’ou doing target practice right now. Leng went missing this morning, and Ku says she may have been killed,” Ch’in said all in one breath. His listener looked grave. “When is the operation?” Lin asked. But then he, too, glanced at Hsueh, and steered Ch’in into the living room.
They spoke in low voices. Hsueh couldn’t make out a word. Lin suddenly cried: “That can’t be true! That can’t be true!” His voice grew increasingly passionate.
They lowered their voices again. Someone got up and started pacing around. Hsueh suddenly wondered: if he and Therese had arranged to meet at the Astor, why would she go to his rooms first thing in the morning? And why did she bring her bodyguards and guns to the Astor? Why did she say nothing when she got there but point her gun directly at them?
Thinking made his head hurt. Hsueh detected the choking smell of smoke and the clang of a spatula—they must be cooking dinner in an iron wok down in the courtyard. He couldn’t hear what was happening in the next room. The Victrola needle was lifted, and a peal of operatic laughter stopped midlaugh, as though the singer had suddenly been stifled. A child was crying. Someone said something mean in a sweet voice.
Hsueh was dead tired, and he wanted nothing more than to sleep. But just then, Ch’in came in to say that dinner was ready. Despite his lack of appetite, he found himself being helped out of bed. There was a dining table in the living room, and at the table sat Lin.
CHAPTER 48
JULY 13, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.
11:15 A.M.
When she put the phone down, Leng didn’t know what to do next. She had been waiting all morning for a chance to sneak out, and she did so as soon as Ku left, telling the others that she wanted to go for a walk in the gardens.
She stood by the flower beds, gazing at a white camellia that had bloomed too late and was shriveling up in the July sun. She thought she saw a shadow at an upstairs window, and froze, terrified. She was stalling.
The guard was stationed at the gate on West Avenue Joffre, at the other end of the path, so there was no one by the door. The only words she could make out on the bronze plate next to it were 1230 GRESHAM APARTMENTS. She walked casually along the concrete edge of the flower bed, as if she were following a butterfly. She could feel someone looking at her. Standing at the window, you could see the whole garden without even craning your neck.
But soon she was standing inside Kovsk, a Russian-owned luxury women’s fashion store just outside the apartment building. She felt guilty about stalling, but also about what she was going to do, which was a form of betrayal. Then again, not doing anything would also be a betrayal. The previous afternoon, she had been there while Ku was giving Park his orders. Park was to d
rive to T’ung-jen Pier, where Hsueh would be waiting at the ticket office.
“The day after tomorrow, we strike,” Ku said. “No margin for error. Once we get hold of the grenade launchers, Hsueh mustn’t be allowed to leave, as a security measure.”
He didn’t try to hide this from Leng. She should understand that it was a necessary precaution.
“What about this White Russian woman? She knows a lot,” Park pointed out.
“We’ll have to kidnap her too.”
“There just aren’t enough of us. It takes two men to watch one prisoner. We’d have to assign three comrades to watch the two of them, and even that would be a stretch.”
Ku was thinking. He struck a match, lit his cigarette, and glanced at Leng.
“Hsueh is important to our cell, so we have to protect him. We must treat him as one of our own. But as for that White Russian woman, she knows too much. Even after the operation is over, it’ll still be too much.”
She couldn’t hide the fact that she understood what he was hinting at. Her eyes grew wide.
When a comrade is in danger and the question of whether it is worth attempting a rescue arises, the revolutionary should put aside his own private affection for this comrade, and consider only what would be best for the revolutionary cause. He should carefully weigh the usefulness of this comrade to the revolutionary cause against the revolutionary forces that would be expended in rescuing him. . . . When the question arises as to which individuals are to be executed, and in what order, neither the crimes of those individuals nor even the anger of the revolutionary masses should be taken into account, but only the usefulness of the executions to the revolutionary cause. Those who are most dangerous to the cause are always to be executed first. . . .
The words she had learned by heart came to mind, like intertitles appearing in black in a silent film. There was a ringing in her ears, and she heard their words distantly, as if she were underwater.
“We’ll have to execute her then?” That was Park.
Women can be divided into three categories: first, the frivolous, empty-headed, slow-witted kind, who can be used like the third and fourth category of men. Second, those who are passionate, loyal, and capable, but who do not belong to our cause because they have not achieved a truly pragmatic, rigorous level of revolutionary dedication; these can be used like the fifth category of men. Third and final, those who belong wholly to our cause, who can be completely trusted, who fully accept the revolutionary program. These should be treated as priceless treasures, for we cannot operate without their help.
The lines appeared in her mind, one after another. This was the group’s manifesto, which Ku himself had written, an oath that all new members of People’s Strength had to learn by heart.
“We won’t be able to find her,” Park said.
“Give this check to Hsueh. It’s an enormous sum of money, and he will want her to have it as soon as possible.” Leng’s ears were ringing again. “Wherever he goes, you must insist on taking him by car. He must be watched from tonight onward, at all times, until the operation is over.”
It wasn’t like her to speak up at a time like this, but she found herself saying: “If you kill her in front of Hsueh, you’ll give him such a fright. She is his friend, his former . . . lover.” She paused.
“You’ll terrify him,” she said softly. “He’s always been willing to help us. How will you ever get him to accept her death?”
“But what more could he want? Sure, he’ll be frightened, but what is he going to do about it? He’s already working for us and he can’t stop now. He’ll have you, and he’ll have all this money. We’ll explain things to him—in fact, maybe you could explain things to him. Maybe you are a good enough reason for him,” Ku said, speaking impassively, as though the thoughts weren’t his own.
That night, Ku didn’t leave the apartment. He sat there smoking, deep in thought. She went in to bring him some tea, wanting to talk him out of the idea, but when she saw him sitting motionless in the shadows of the desk lamp, she said nothing. Park had already left to execute Ku’s orders. The wheels were in motion and no one could stop them now.
Leng couldn’t sleep. It wasn’t as if she knew the White Russian woman—she couldn’t even remember what she looked like. She had only seen her in a photograph in which her face had appeared distorted, and her eyes were staring off to one side. Maybe she was lying down in the picture, which would explain the seventy-degree angle of the smoke rising from her cigarette. Therese was a stranger to her—she only knew that name from Hsueh, and she could barely bring herself to call that woman, of all people, by her first name.
She had first learned of that woman’s existence via a pair of stained, musty silk drawers under Hsueh’s bed. At the time they had repulsed her. But now she was reminded of them. They proved what the lipstick and photograph could not prove—that their owner was a living, breathing human being.
Her old nightmare was back and crowding in on her. She felt trapped between two choices. She was pacing through an inescapable maze.
I’ll go with the first instinct I have when I wake up, she decided. But she barely slept. She couldn’t tell when she had woken up because she felt as though she had never fallen asleep. She did try going back to sleep, but her first thought upon opening her eyes again was the complete opposite.
When she finally made a decision, she told herself it was because she wanted Hsueh to feel he was being treated fairly. He mustn’t have any doubts about working for the cell.
But when she left the apartment, she was at a loss for where to find Hsueh or the White Russian woman. Finally, she thought of the phone number on the back of that photograph.
She waited outside Yong’an, the greengrocer, for the first cab to come out of the Shell gas station. The driver said he wasn’t allowed to pick up a fare on the street, and told her to order a cab at the counters of the cab company. She didn’t know what to say, but she gazed sadly at him until he agreed to take her.
Now she was standing in Hsueh’s rooms. She knew exactly where the photograph was because she had put it there—in that newspaper package, together with the silk drawers. Together, those two things formed the face of a woman she had never actually met, but whose life she was about to save. She had to warn the White Russian woman not to go to her meeting with Hsueh. I’ve always wanted them to stop seeing each other, she thought. I’ve always wanted to wrap her in paper and stuff her in the gap between the closet and the wall. As soon as she picked up the phone, she felt like the jealous wife in the tales, telling the fox demon to stop seducing her husband, telling Therese not to go to meet Hsueh.
When she put down the phone, she didn’t know what to do or where to go. By now someone would have told Ku that she had disappeared in the crucial final hours before the operation. They would guess what she had gone off to do, and treat it as a betrayal, but she had nowhere to go. She couldn’t find Hsueh, and she was still wanted by the police. It was too dangerous to go out alone. She could be recognized by a policeman, or by an inquisitive but unfriendly journalist.
She eventually decided to return to the apartment on West Avenue Joffre. She had no home or friends. The cell was her home, and her comrades were her friends.
CHAPTER 49
JULY 13, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.
6:45 P.M.
The visitor Lin had brought with him was sitting in a teahouse opposite them on Boulevard des Deux Républiques and looking across to the east-facing windows of their house. Their rooms were in the eastern wing, and that rascal Hsueh was lying on the bed by the window.
It was the beginning of summer, and at nearly seven in the evening it was still bright outside. Lin sat in the living room. How could he even begin to explain what was going on? Things were happening so quickly he could barely catch his breath.
Not in his wildest dreams had he imagined that Cheng Yün-tuan might be a Communist mole who had infiltrated the Kuomintang’s Investigative Unit for Party Affairs. A real C
ommunist! He couldn’t stop thinking about it on the way back, replaying everything that Cheng had said to him. He realized Cheng had given him plenty of hints. Believe me, one of these days we’ll be comrades, Cheng had said. Why hadn’t he realized what was happening? Why hadn’t he caught the hint of warmth in Cheng’s voice?
The previous night after dinner, when the other operatives were getting sleepy, Cheng had opened the louver door to the storeroom. He didn’t shout at Lin as he had previously done. Instead he gave him a friendly look, a look that said we are comrades, though at the time Lin took it for fake chumminess. Cheng even bent over to lean into the dusty storeroom and extend his hand to Lin.
Lin had no idea what was going on. He figured the operative had a new trick up his sleeve. Only later, when he had come to trust Cheng and grasp that he was being rescued, did he see how difficult it must have been to plant a mole in the enemy’s most secret operations. Cheng had run the considerable risk of exposing his own identity. Liberating even a few misguided young revolutionaries was a tricky business.
He refused Cheng’s hand and looked coldly at him, but he did come out of the storeroom.
Comrade Cheng didn’t waste a single moment. “First thing tomorrow morning we’re sending you to the French Concession Police,” he breathed into Lin’s ear.
“Why? You don’t have my testimony yet,” Lin said tartly.
“A comrade at the Concession Police let slip the news that you had been arrested by Nanking. Just this morning, the police called to demand that we turn you over.”
“A comrade?”
“There’s no time to explain. You’ll understand soon enough. But be prepared. The Party is going to rescue you.”
Lin felt faint.
“Be careful. Don’t be nervous, but don’t let yourself relax. There will be another interrogation tonight. Tseng Nan-p’u is in Nanking and won’t be able to get back in time, so I’ll be interrogating you. Just do what you usually do. The Concession Police will send a car to pick you up tomorrow morning. Our inside man there has bribed someone to make sure the car will spend an extra half hour on the road. Another black car will come and take you away, and it will be a rescue squad sent by the Party. But if the enemy discovers this and there is a fight—whatever happens, you must tell them that the rescuers were sent by Ku Fu-kuang.”