The Plot

by Irving Wallace

  What he did say next was, “I sympathize with you. It has been that way in my country, too.” He nodded and went on. “My father suffered as you did, Mr. Brennan. My blessed father was an instructor in Peking Teachers College. As a youngster, he had followed Mao Tse-tung on the Long March. It was an epic flight that preserved and saved China. It began in Kiangsi Province in 1934. Chiang Kai-shek and his German General and his Kuomintang army surrounded Mao’s Communist band. Mao’s own wife was murdered by Chiang’s troopers. But Mao and his small band broke free, and made their exodus. For twelve months, they marched sometimes twenty-four miles a day. In rags, on bare feet, they marched, always fighting rearguard actions, and they covered 6,000 miles, until they reached the safety of the caves of Yenan. My father was among them, and in that time his admiration for Mao was boundless. It was only later, long after Mao had driven Chiang and his corrupt landowners out of China, and established a government of the proletariat, that my father had misgivings. My father believed that Mao, in his zeal to establish China as a self-sufficient power, had become too tyrannical, and the lack of freedom was oppressive. My father publicly protested that the Central Committee had made the nation a mute, and would soon suffocate it. Shortly after that, Mao instigated the period of the ‘Hundred Flowers.’ You know of that? A period when Mao permitted intellectuals to criticize the regime openly. The period was named after the legend, in red letters, above the Peking Teachers College. ‘Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a hundred ideas compete.’ But the intellectuals spoke too critically of the regime, and Mao revoked the ‘Hundred Flowers’ and commanded silence once more. My father refused to remain silent. As teacher and philosopher, my father continued to make his lectures and speeches that were critical of the Government. Finally, he was arrested, charged with counterrevolutionary activities, and sentenced to life in prison. He died in his prison cell.”

  With growing astonishment, Brennan had listened to this frank and tragic account from his grinning visitor. Brennan found that he was moved. His instinct told him that he could trust Mr. Ma Ming, whom Isenberg also trusted.

  “What made your father risk speaking out as he did?”

  “The efforts of Maoists to suppress the private beliefs of individuals. My father revered the teachings of Confucius. From 478 B.C. until 1949, generation after generation of Chinese lived and died by the moral principles set down in the Confucian Analects. Confucius was not, to us, a religious leader. He believed in no personal God. Confucius was a spiritual leader, a philosopher. He taught the five virtues—kindliness, truthfulness, politeness, integrity, sagacity—and he stressed worship of ancestors and obedience to parents. He taught subordination of one’s self to one’s parents and relatives, and this gave one immortality because it made one’s life merely a link in an infinite chain of lives. My father subscribed to this belief. But Mao Tse-tung felt the Confucian system was the opium of our people. In its time, he felt, it had been useful, promoting authority through its family system in days when there was no other authority. But in modern times, he felt, it was a feudal superstition that hampered China’s progress, favoring the old, burdening the young, impoverishing the peasantry, obstructing change, promoting selfishness, and opposing the central authority of the Communist party. My father understood Mao’s feelings, and would not have objected if the Maoists had proceeded to oppose Confucianism slowly, through education, yet allowing every man the freedom to determine his faith. My father’s objection was to the overnight dictatorial suppression of individual freedom.”

  “And today?” asked Brennan.

  “Today? Today, we have a new and better China, perhaps as a result of Mao’s ruthless activities. In that, my father may have been wrong. But today we not only possess the precious end products of Mao’s regime—adequate food, clothing, dwellings, hygiene, education, strength, pride—but we also have, at least by past standards, relative freedom. In desiring that, my father was right.”

  Brennan found himself fascinated. “I’ve read and heard that Chairman Kuo Shu-tung is more liberal than his predecessors, but I had no idea he could be as liberal as you say.”

  Mr. Ma’s pinpoint eyes were serious, but the grin was permanent. “Oh, make no mistake, Mr. Brennan. The bourgeoisie and exploiting classes are gone forever, and we are still Mao’s children, all of us, only we rebel a little and go our own way. Chairman Kuo has never repudiated Mao entirely. He has merely modified Mao and made use of Mao, to make it possible for us to be part of the world community. For example, in 1946, Mao stated that reactionaries were paper tigers who appeared frightening but were really not to be feared, since the proletariat was stronger and would prevail. Later, Mao stated that the atom bombs of China’s enemies were paper tigers, too, since they could not be used. But in 1957, while still insisting the reactionaries and their bombs were paper tigers if the long view were taken, he admitted that from a short view ‘they are also living tigers, iron tigers, real tigers, which can eat people.’ Chairman Kuo Shu-tung seized on this recently to tell our people that China was a real tiger itself now, living in a world of real tigers, and unless we tigers learned to live together in harmony, we would devour one another and none of us would survive. And when Chairman Kuo undertook to restore some freedom of speech in China, he shrewdly drew upon a remark Mao had once made in a different context, to the effect that ‘He who does not allow himself to be criticized during his life will be criticized after his death.’”

  “Very good.”

  If anything, Ma Ming’s grin had deepened. “The difference between Mao’s China and our own China of today can be put simply. Mao had told Nehru, in 1957, that he did not fear a nuclear war, since it would wipe out only half of mankind, and the half that survived would be predominately Communist, and so Communism would finally prevail. In short, because population distribution favored China’s survival, Mao felt that a nuclear war would completely eradicate imperialism, and that the sacrifice of 300 million Chinese lives, almost a third of our population, would be worth ‘the victory of the socialist world revolution.’ But our Chairman Kuo saw that with the neutron bomb, with the buildup of stockpiles and delivery systems everywhere, a nuclear war would wipe out not half the world’s population but all of it. And so he set China on its present course, and so he is treating today at the Summit for disarmament and the end of war.”

  Brennan had savored every word he had heard, yet he felt no safer. His bewilderment had returned. A respectable, decent, candid, apparently sincere Chinese journalist, one close to Chairman Kuo Shu-tung, had projected the firsthand picture of a respectable, decent, candid, sincere People’s Republic of China. Yet, elsewhere, throughout the week, Brennan had been led to believe quite the opposite. He stared at the roly-poly Chinese across the table from him. Either the man was a monumental liar, or else all the rumors and alarms that Brennan had been collecting were a tissue of lies. Brennan’s confusion was total.

  “Now, as to Varney,” Ma Ming was saying. “You wished to ask me about Professor Varney, did you not? Forgive my earlier digression. It is unlike me. I was carried away. But you would like to know of Varney?”

  “Yes, Mr. Ma, I would. You know my story. It would be important to me if he were alive and I could—”

  “He is alive, Mr. Brennan. But being alive is a relative matter. Varney is alive and he is not alive. He is suffering from an advanced hardening of the arteries of the brain. It is often a disease of the elderly. His mind is ravaged and his memory is no more. For all human purposes, Varney remains a living vegetable. I called upon him last year, hoping for an interview. I was too late. He lives out his days in the village of Nan Liu, in a modern convalescent sanatorium, where he is well cared for and venerated by those who come to see him as they would come to visit a Marxist monument. I am sorry, Mr. Brennan.”

  “I am sorry, too.”

  “Perhaps you will find other means.” Ma Ming was suddenly on his feet. Before Brennan could rise, Ma Ming had come around the table and with one plump hand h
ad forced Brennan to remain in his chair. “No formalities. It was a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Brennan. Perhaps we shall meet once more on another occasion.”

  “You were very gracious to come here to see me.”

  Ma Ming’s grin suddenly vanished. “I came because I did not wish you to waste further time seeking what does not exist. Good night, Mr. Brennan.”

  Brennan stared after the Chinese journalist, who was finding his way hastily between the tables. Mr. Ma’s last words still rang curiously in Brennan’s ears. Mr. Ma had come here, he said, because he did not wish Brennan to waste time seeking what did not exist. There had been an odd double edge to his words, and there had been no smile to accompany them. Had Mr. Ma meant that Varney did not exist? Or had he meant that China’s intrigue with Soviet Russia did not exist?

  The overhead lights in the cabaret were blinking on and off. With a start, Brennan realized where he was and why he was here. Nearby, at another table in the Club Lautrec, Willi von Goerlitz was drinking still. Everywhere the customers were settling back for the second half of the show. And soon there would be Denise Averil. The lights were lowered. Already Ma Ming was receding from Brennan’s memory, an improbable phantom who had come and gone and left nothing behind. Brennan was impatient for his talk with Denise and the more probable Joe Peet.

  He signaled a passing waiter. He wanted something that contracted time. Champagne was too slow. Willi von Goerlitz had the right idea. Brennan ordered a double Scotch on the rocks. And then, finding his pipe, he settled back for the last show to start and end, so that his evening could begin.

  AN HOUR LATER, the final curtain had closed on the Club Lautrec’s gaudy spectacle, and most of the customers had streamed out of the cabaret. The mammoth room was empty except for the diehard drinkers here and there about the room, sitting individually or in groups, still tippling steadily.

  Brennan had limited himself to three Scotches, enough to make him relax, not enough to make him foolish. Now, having paid his bill—an amount sufficient to pay up both Russia’s and China’s United Nations assessments for a year, he was certain—he waited for the appearance of Medora Hart and Denise Averil. ‘

  Although a miniature pinwheel seemed to spin behind his eyes, he felt it must be a hangover from the dazzling colors and intricate movements of the show and not intoxication from his several drinks. His head was clear enough. Yet, he was not sure that he would recognize Medora or Denise with their clothes on. He had seen them so constantly and intimately in the naked flesh these past hours, by now able to place every birthmark and scar (Medora’s birthmark, a strawberry, graced her left buttock; Denise’s scar, a mystery, was inside her right thigh), that he was fearful they would be strangers to him when fully robed.

  Forcing himself out of his chair to stretch, and to keep an eye on both backstage doors, Brennan was distracted by a small commotion off to his right. He saw that the altercation was taking place at Willi von Goerlitz’s table. A chunky red-faced waiter, brandishing a bill, kept trying to shove it under Willi’s nose, and Willi drunkenly kept pushing the waiter away. Cursing in German, Willi swung his arm against the waiter’s chest and sent him reeling backward. Satisfied, Willi laid his arms heavily on the table, knocking over a lamp, dropped his head wearily into his arms and prepared to sleep.

  The furious waiter was searching for assistance, and finding none, he charged at Willi again. He laid his hands on Willi’s shoulders, and began to shake him violently.

  Brennan decided that he had seen enough. Hurrying forward, he grabbed one of the waiter’s arms.

  “Leave him alone,” Brennan said. “He is a friend, comprenez-vous?”

  “Friend? Ça me fait une belle jambe!” Indignantly, the waiter yanked the crumpled bill out of his pocket. “Three hundred francs, monsieur! He will not pay!”

  “Because he’s unable to,” said Brennan, bringing out his wallet. “I repeat, he’s a friend of mine. I’ll take care of it.” He counted out the francs. “There, that should do it.” He added one more large note. “And that’s for your tip and a big pot of black coffee.”

  The red-faced waiter was all sweet benevolence now. “ . Merci beaucoup.. Of course, monsieur. I am sorry. The coffee at once. Thank you!”

  Brennan turned back to the table to find Willi’s head slightly raised above his arms, eyes blearily contemplating his rescuer. “Whoyou are?” he mumbled, words slurring. “Youfrom Switz—Switz—St. Bernard Hospice? Wheresyour-brandy—brandy keg?”

  Brennan knelt close to him. “I’m Matt Brennan. I saw you earlier with Carol Earnshaw. I know Carol.”

  “Guten—good—danke sehr—I’m friend of Carol, too, also.” Willi’s eyes began to close.

  Brennan shook him gently. “You’d better get back to your hotel, Willi. Let me call a taxi.”

  One of Willi’s eyes opened. “Lancaster, get me Lancaster.”

  “Is that your hotel?”

  “Carol. Carol in Lancaster. Gotta see Carol. Important see Carol.”

  His head had fallen into his arms once more.

  Crouching, wondering what to do next, feeling some vague responsibility to Carol Earnshaw, Brennan became aware of a pair of shapely female legs circling the table. He heard his name, looked up, and came to his feet.

  Medora Hart, hands on hips, was waiting. “Whatever are you up to?”

  “Well, this poor fellow passed out, and I was trying—”

  “Drunks,” she said. “Every club I’ve ever been in has at least a half dozen every night. If you bothered about every one, you’d never get out of here. Michaud’s staff’ll take care of him.”

  Brennan realized that Medora, identifiable despite her sweater and skirt, was quite alone. “Where’s Denise?”

  “She’ll be right along. Still primping herself. A good sign, Matt. She’s frightfully impressed by you.”

  Brennan swallowed. “That’s nice.”

  Medora laughed. “Don’t look so stricken. It’s not as if you’re married and sneaking off somewhere. You’re not, are you? Married, I mean?”

  “Well, no—but—”

  “It doesn’t matter. Despite the appearance she makes up there, Denise is quite tame. No trouble.”

  “Medora, I’m not sure what she expects tonight. Will she want to go on the town?”

  “After all that prancing on the stage? Are you mad? Crikey, never. Take her to some quiet side-street bar. One or two drinks. One or two jokes. She’s a sporting type. Exert a little charm. You’ve plenty. And then see her home. You’ll come away with what you want… Just listen to me, old Mother Hart, giving you advice. I’m sure you’ve been around.”

  The table rocked, and Willi lifted his head and groaned, as he tried to open his eyes.

  Brennan was instantly solicitous. “Don’t you feel well, Willi?”

  “Willi?” repeated Medora. “You know him?”

  “Not exactly. But I saw him with Carol Earnshaw before, and I know her.”

  “Carol Earnshaw? She’s a friend of mine. You mean—” She stared down at Willi. “Is this—? This must be Willi—that’s right, Willi von Whatever.”

  “Goerlitz,” said Brennan. “I gather he and Carol have been going out together.”

  “Yes, they have. I was with them briefly a couple of nights ago.” Immediately, Medora pulled a chair over next to Willi and sat down, massaging the back of his neck. “I must say, I hardly recognized him. Good Lord, if Carol had any idea of the condition he’s in. Utterly crocked. I wonder what’s troubling him.”

  The waiter had arrived with the coffeepot and service, and began setting them on the table.

  “Don’t you think somebody should get him back to his hotel, Medora?” Brennan asked.

  “I will,” said Medora firmly. “Safely back to his hotel. I owe Carol that much.” She shook Willi. “Come on there, wake up. I’m taking you back for some beddy.”

  Willi squinted at her, as she separated him from his folded arms and forcibly shoved him upright against the chai
r. “Now snap out of it, Willi boy. I’m a friend of Carol Earnshaw, and—”

  “Gotta see Carol, gotta see Carol,” Willi mumbled.

  “Not in the shape you are in, you’re not seeing anyone,” said Medora. “Come on, now, you’re going to drink down this coffee, and then you’re going to sleep in a right proper place. You’ll have plenty of time for Carol tomorrow.”

  “Too late tomorrow,” Willi mumbled.

  Watching, Brennan felt the slow movement of a hand down his arm. “Good evening, Mr. Brennan,” he heard a faintly French feminine voice say.

  He wheeled, and almost bumped into Denise Averil. She wore a teasing smile, and blouse and skirt, yet she looked more undressed than ever. The silk blouse, clinging as tightly as her brassiere cups, was slit deeply, yet revealed only the merest parts of the lacy brassiere webbing. The short skirt was also silk, draped to accent the contours of her hips and thighs.

  “Hel-lo, Miss Averil,” said Brennan.

  “Oh, cut it, you two,” called out Medora, as she began to feed the slumping Willi his black coffee. “Denise, meet Matt. Now you’re properly introduced, and off you go, both of you, and I’ll sober up this poor wreck.”

  Brennan hung back a moment. “Are you sure you can manage him, Medora?”

  Medora looked up once more. “I’ve managed men when they weren’t drunk, Matt, so I daresay I can handle this one.”

  “Well, if there’s any trouble, leave a message for me at the California,” said Brennan.

  “Don’t worry. Now off you go, both of you.”

  Brennan found Denise Averil still smiling at him. He smiled back awkwardly. “Anything you’d particularly like tonight?” he asked.

  Her smile remained. “You,” she said. She slipped her arm through his possessively. “Take me to You.”

  On leaden legs, he started her toward the lobby. Once outside the Club Lautrec, he said, “You must be exhausted after that show. Would you prefer some place nearby?”