Jasmine

by Noboru Tsujihara

  They fell silent. He felt he’d made an ass of himself. Then she vanished and the door closed in his face. It was so sudden, he almost had the impression that her figure remained visible by the door.

  On the way back, a wind sprang up and blew off the fog, but clouds veiled the moon. Amid the foliage of a plane tree, an owl hooted. For some time, Chen’s fingers had been beating a tattoo on the steering wheel. He was worked up about something.

  “What is it, Chen?”

  Ignoring the red light, he shot across the intersection of East Yan’an and Middle Huaihai roads. “Her boyfriend’s a fugitive on the most-wanted list. Everybody knows it. All you have to do is turn on the TV news,” Chen said matter-of-factly.

  “Who is he?”

  “Name’s Liu Hong. Sounds like a woman’s name, but of course he’s a guy.”

  “What kind of a guy?”

  “Watch the news.”

  The twenty-one people placed on the government’s wanted list in the wake of the Tiananmen Square incident included many reform-minded intellectuals and pro-democracy activists of international reputation, but the name Liu Hong was new to Aki. He nodded, understanding that Chen had given his first-ever ride to an actress, and as if that wasn’t enough, she’d turned out to be the girlfriend of a wanted political offender. No wonder he was in a state.

  Aki began fitting more pieces together. He had never, in all his life, seen a ghost or anything of that sort. Without a doubt, there’d been a woman standing on the pier. Since no one could be standing in that spot without connections, it seemed a sure bet that she’d gone there to meet Cai Fang – yet Aki found it impossible to believe that the lover of a wanted fugitive could have been standing there in the open.

  His foot touched something. Bending down, he saw it was the sun visor Li Xing had left behind. Now here, he thought, was proof that the woman sitting beside him till a moment ago – even if she herself claimed it was another case of mistaken identity – had been no phantom.

  He picked the visor up and held it protectively under his arm.

  They were on the Bund, heading towards Garden Bridge. A heavy, dust-filled fog now hung over the Huangpu. Not a fog that came down from Lake Taihu and the creeks, but one generated by the river itself. They entered the intricate silhouette formed by the truss of the bridge. Lining the bridge stood a platoon of the People’s Liberation Army, dressed in uniforms of the same dusty colour as the fog. The silhouette of the iron framework fell over them as well, like a net.

  The Cedric crossed the bridge and pulled up at the entrance to his hotel. Aki sent Chen home and stepped into the elevator, with the sun visor firmly in his grasp.

  His suite was on the fifteenth floor, and the windows facing south were open. From the confluence of Suzhou Creek and the Huangpu River below arose this sinister yellow fog that enveloped the Bund, crawled up walls, and crept through his windows. A resinous odour stung his throat.

  As he closed the windows and switched on the air conditioning, he realized he was still holding the sun visor. He was about to toss it onto the wicker chair between the sofa and the window, but then stopped short. When he checked in that morning and entered the room for the first time, there’d been no wicker chair. To get ready to see Xie Han, he had quickly showered, thrown on a robe, and then walked around the sofa, drying his hair. Had a chair been there then, it would have gotten in his way; he would certainly have noticed it. The wicker had a quiet, amber warmth, silently urging him to sit. He did so and heard a pleasant creaking sound. He found he was at the perfect height and angle to sit and look out on the streets of Shanghai.

  He felt tired, but with no expectation of sleep. Settling back, he let his thoughts roam slowly over the day’s events, squeezing them out like water from a sponge: coming ashore, the woman on the pier, Studio Four and Li Xing in the role of a spy, jasmine tea, the door to her room, his driver’s excitement…

  Suddenly remembering, he sprang out of the chair and, grabbing the remote control, turned on the TV. He clicked back and forth between Shanghai Television and Beijing’s China Central Television. Both channels were showing live relays of Party-sponsored variety entertainment: seated rows of the Party elite being treated to comic dialogues in Beijing and, in Shanghai, to panda stunts. For over thirty minutes, he was forced to sit through comedy too rapid for him to follow and tiresome panda tricks.

  The eleven o’clock news began. One after another, the names and faces of China’s most-wanted flashed across the screen. Captured offenders underwent interrogation. A young man with a moustache was led away to the scaffold – an unemployed teenager, to be executed for attacking a tank with a bamboo pole.

  Of the twenty-one people on the list, twelve had already been arrested, the announcer said. The remaining nine had either fled China or were on the run within the country.

  Liu Hong – Aki was sure he caught the name.

  “There he is!”

  He stared intently at the screen. A face appeared. A close-cropped head, a small moustache, eyes looking up at the camera. This was apparently an enlargement of a small snapshot; the facial outline was blurred.

  As the announcer’s voice continued, subtitles at the bottom of the screen supplied additional information: Liu Hong, born in Qinghai Province, age 36, head researcher at ESRIC, the Economic System Reform Institute of China, a wanted fugitive. Charged with supporting the pro-democracy movement, inciting riots, leaking state secrets to foreign media…

  The announcer began reading from a leaflet Liu Hong was said to have distributed:

  I, along with the university students and a broad spectrum of Beijing citizens, am unalterably opposed to the bringing in of troops. I want to know: when a Communist tank crushes the body of a Communist Party member, what sound does it make?…

  The announcer went on to state Liu Hong was believed to be … hiding out at present in a cave in the vicinity of Linfen, Shanxi Province.

  Liu Hong. Aki said the name over softly to himself. It sounded like a woman’s name.

  6

  The previous evening’s fog turned to rain. Aki passed the morning reading from the book of Arabic and Persian poetry he’d brought with him. Now and then he switched on the television. Every time he did so, Liu Hong’s face appeared on the screen. In the afternoon, he walked around the old Hongkew district with a map in one hand and an umbrella in the other. Old Zhao, who had shown him the photo of his father that day, was dead. He felt an urge to go and see his house. He paused for a while at the corner where North Sichuan Road turned west into Duolun Road, then followed his memory down the twisting lanes of the lilong, getting thoroughly mixed up before he finally located the place. What might have become of that photo album? He would have given a great deal for another look at the souvenir photograph in which Waki Tanehiko appeared twice as two different people. Had Zhao had any family? There’d been no sign of anyone else there before, and the dark entrance remained quiet, though this only made it seem more likely that the old man’s tall, stooped figure might emerge at any time. Aki stayed another few seconds, eyes closed, before turning on his heel and leaving.

  With some apprehension, he entered a dingy eating place nearby. On a sudden impulse he ordered malantou. As Xie Han had said, the dish was simple, made by stir-frying the greens with dried bean curd and a pinch of salt. As he ate, he found the flavour to be developing subtly. A dish his father may have loved, sampled more than half a century later by the son. He had the odd sensation of having caught his father out. Strange – this hadn’t been his intention in coming on this journey.

  The next morning, on his third day in Shanghai, amid a rain that bore signs of returning to the fog of two days earlier, he phoned for Chen to take him back to the studio. Chen was a different man today, having recovered his usual calm demeanour and way of speaking, but somehow he had a glum air of resolve about him. He never once honked his horn, and his driving was remarkably smooth.

  Aki, however, sat jiggling his knees and twiddling his
thumbs, as if Chen’s earlier agitation and excitement had transferred to him. He was in the grip of an anxiety that was part tiredness and part jitters. The reason was plain: Liu Hong. Every time he turned on the TV, there the man was. He tried to stop watching, but before he knew it his hand would reach for the remote control. I want to know: when a Communist tank crushes the body of a Communist Party member, what sound does it make? Aki could now reel off the words from memory; they spun round inside his head like a pinwheel.

  “Damn. I forgot the sun visor.”

  “Do you want to go back?” Chen slowed down.

  “No, forget it. But, hey, you’re certainly driving differently from the other night.”

  “Think so? I’m not doing anything different.” Chen was offhand.

  “Sure about that? You haven’t honked your horn once.”

  “It’s the difference between evening streets and morning streets.”

  Well, that might well account for it, Aki thought, then said, “I saw Liu Hong on TV all right – enough to be sick of him already.”

  “That so?” Another brush-off.

  “Is it widely known that Li Xing is his girlfriend?”

  “Yes. When she got the lead role in Moving Shadows and they knew she’d be coming here from Taiyuan, they ran a big article on her in New Star.”

  New Star was a weekly in the Shanghai area devoted to celebrity news. So far, Chen had responded to Aki’s questions by meeting his eyes in the rear-view mirror, but now all of a sudden he half turned around and blurted out, “Xiansheng, what’s the best place in Japan to live?”

  “Where’d that come from? I’m talking about Liu Hong.”

  “Liu Hong is Liu Hong. Let him run away if he wants to and take Li Xing with him, wherever he wants to go…”

  “Take Li Xing?”

  “She’s his girl, isn’t she?”

  Ah-ha, the thought popped into Aki’s head, Chen Ying is in love.

  “Chen, I was born and bred in Kobe. I live in Tokyo now because of my job. They say Sapporo and Fukuoka are nice, too, but for my money, it’s Kobe all the way. You know what they say? Transfer an employee to Kobe and he’ll never want a promotion.”

  Chen tapped the steering wheel and gave a small, appreciative laugh, nodding to himself several times.

  The tunnel of plane trees, whose dripping leaves had splattered the cab with raindrops, came abruptly to an end.

  “Looks like the rain has stopped,” said Aki.

  Sunlight straggled through a thin layer of clouds the colour of dishwater, making a rainbow along the edge. In no time every window in sight was in full regalia, laundry-decorated poles sticking out at right angles. Soon the spires of the cathedral came into view. This area was all built on landfill, to replace creeks. In the old days, people came and went not in automobiles but in skiffs and junks. Aki closed his eyes and imagined Chen’s taxi was a boat.

  Aki saw assistant director Gao Yong come running out of the office just to the right of the studio gate. The uneven ground was full of puddles, each iridescent with motor oil. Stubby-legged Gao skirted some and bounced over others as he tore along tos Studio Four. Twice Aki called out to him, but he didn’t hear and disappeared inside.

  Aki hesitated for a minute before making up his mind and pushing open the little side door. The big electric fans were groaning, and the round hand fans were waving. In spotlights here and there, motes of dust sparkled and drifted lazily upwards.

  “Why doesn’t anyone know where she was going?” Yu Ming’s shrill voice rang out.

  Hands thrust deep into his pockets, Gao shrugged. He was breathing hard. “You can’t expect us to know. Just because she’s the lead actress doesn’t mean we can keep a twenty-four-hour watch on her.”

  “What if she’s collapsed somewhere? In the bathroom maybe…”

  “It’s two days now. We’ve searched everywhere.”

  “Or what if it’s… you-know-what?”

  The murmurs died instantly. The hand fans paused. Everyone was thinking of Liu Hong. With their lead actress missing in unsettled times, they couldn’t help tying her disappearance to the fugitive.

  “Shall we notify public security?”

  “Wait a minute now,” said Xie Han, seated in his folding chair. “Think what you’re saying. That’s out of the question. Listen, everybody. Do you have any idea what would happen if they found out she wasn’t here? Yu Ming, why are you blinking like a cat? For one more day, anyway, we’ll go on as if nothing’s wrong. Li Xing is a bright and sensible young woman. She’ll be back. Where’s my megaphone? Ah, Mr Waki,” he said amiably to Aki, who had quietly approached.

  “Director, I need a word with you.”

  His manner was so guarded that Xie, taken aback, stood up. His megaphone rolled to the floor. Picking it up, he held it to his mouth and called out, “That’s all for today. We’ll pick up tomorrow at nine. Don’t be late.”

  Yu Ming repeated this, eyes blinking: “Be here at nine o’clock, people. On time.” They started filing out of the room, followed by the property and lighting crews.

  Xie Han sank back onto his chair, motioning for Aki to use a nearby metal one. “Have a seat. We can talk right here.”

  Aki sat, then leant forward. “Actually, the other night, I brought Li Xing back here to the studio in a taxi.”

  Xie Han inclined his head. “After the banquet?”

  “Somehow she got separated from everyone else.”

  “Funny, they waited for her quite some time. Nobody’s seen her since then.”

  That made Aki the last one to have seen her.

  Xie Han nodded lightly and got up. They were alone in the studio. “Mr Waki, it’s way too early, but let’s go for a drink. There’s somewhere interesting I want to show you.”

  Side by side they walked into the blazing heat. Aki headed towards Chen’s cab, but Xie said something about a detour, and on the way they took a left turn in the direction of the scenery storehouse. After continuing a while, they turned left again, this time entering a passage between two storehouses. Suddenly the air was sweet with jasmine. Behind the storehouses in an unused lot about a hundred metres square was Yin Dan’s garden. The tiny, narrow white flowers, tinged with pink, were in full bloom. Clinging like a barnacle to the concrete wall of the storehouse was a lean-to fashioned from scraps of lumber and cardboard boxes.

  “Chez Yin. Let’s have a look-see, shall we?”

  The front door was a board made up to look like the door of a fancy hotel for a movie set. Xie knocked on it. It wobbled and swayed. No answer. He turned the knob and pulled, and the movie door swung open easily to reveal a tidy interior.

  “Not here. That’s unusual.”

  They walked back through the field of jasmine.

  “Every once in a while I stop by for a cup of Yin’s tea. The other day I brought Xingxing with me, and she loved it. She started coming by herself.”

  “And now she’s nowhere to be found, and he’s gone too.”

  “It does look that way, doesn’t it?”

  “May I ask a question?”

  “Fire away,” said Xie, stopping to light a cigarette.

  “It’s something Mr Yin said the other night: ‘My own heart sinks, right down into my boots.’ What did he mean?”

  “Nothing much. It’s just a way of saying he’s disappointed. A pet phrase of his, that’s all.”

  “Disappointed? In what?”

  “As I said, it’s a pet phrase. He might have meant the food on the table. Or the wine, or something bigger. I wouldn’t worry about it. He’s always disappointed in one damn thing or another.”

  They got into Chen’s taxi. With Xujiahui Cathedral on the left, they went east on Hengshan Road, eventually merging with Middle Huaihai Road and entering the plane tree tunnel.

  “It’s nice after a heavy rain,” said Xie. The people there and the air itself were stained green by the lustrous, overlapping foliage. “But see over there on that corner, and in the shadow
of that building farther down – tanks.”

  Before long the cab stopped as instructed at the intersection of Fuzhou and Middle Jiangxi roads, letting them out at the corner. The Bund was close at hand; up ahead, a great ship was floating by. Aki followed Xie into the basement of a dilapidated hotel with its name in neon lights, “Xincheng Hotel.” Inside was a long counter covered in stains. Ten round mahogany tables were lined up, each one piled with chairs.

  Xie and Aki sat down at the bar. Xie ordered champagne and some pine nuts. The bartender, a man thin as steel wire, his face alone round and full, served them brusquely. They clinked the rims of their long, narrow champagne glasses.

  “This used to be the Metropole Hotel,” said Xie. “This bar was the second longest in the Orient. The longest one was in Shanghai, too, in the Shanghai Club. It’s still a hotel, but foreigners hardly stay here anymore.”

  In the old days this was the centre of Shanghai, he further explained, what they called “the City.” The Metropole had been one of a handful of glamorous hotels, along with the Park Hotel and the Cathay.

  “Your father lived on the seventh floor of this hotel, right upstairs. Commuted every day to Hamilton House, a stone’s throw away.”

  An ironical smile hovering on his cheeks, Xie Han looked at Aki as if to say, Isn’t that something? He was in an unusually loquacious mood. It pleased him enormously to be giving a tour of old Shanghai to a man from the old aggressor nation, a man who was also the son of his longtime friend.

  Leaning against the second longest bar in the Orient, he began to tick off buildings still standing in the City district and elsewhere that had been built in European neoclassical style.

  The former Shanghai Club was now the East Wind Hotel, with the longest bar in the Orient. The former Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank building with its colossal dome now enshrined Communist Party offices and City Hall. Sassoon House, named after the opium and real estate magnate, was now the north wing of the Peace Hotel.

  As Xie Han continued his recital, the Shanghai conjured up by the original names of these landmarks began to waver and shimmy. The disconnect between contours and content, slight though it was, created a double focus. Xie’s eyes were like specially treated lenses through which, thanks to that disconnect, the city took on a 3-D quality. The Shanghai of legend, nowhere to be found yet undeniably real, rose into being. Xie aimed to fix that image on the evanescent medium of film. Moving Shadows would be his final film.