“She learnt her lines long ago. Poor thing, when she hears the movie’s been cancelled, she’ll probably fall to pieces. Mr Waki, there may be trouble ahead. How will you cope?”
“With great acumen, I hope.” Aki smiled weakly and stood up. “By the way,” he added, “I insist on hosting a return dinner. I’d like to invite Yin Dan, too.”
“Unfortunately, he’s no longer around. He’s hidden himself away somewhere. You must have noticed at our dinner the other night – the fellow’s a master of sudden disappearances. And our cameraman Yang Jun was arrested last night.”
Just then Yu Ming came bursting into the room without knocking. “There’s been an order to cancel the film!” she announced, before noticing Aki, whom she greeted in surprise. Pursing her lips, she recomposed herself and said: “Xinxiang’s caught a cold, has she? What’s good for a cold is mushroom soup. The kind she needs is called silver wood ear. You can get it at Ronghuaji, and they have takeout, too. That’s on Kunshan Road. It’s a little out of your way, but do get her some.”
Aki shook hands quickly with Xie Han.
“When are you leaving?”
“Not sure yet… as soon as possible. I do want to host that return dinner first, though.”
“That’s good of you. You should probably delay your search for your father, I’m afraid. As soon I can, I plan to go to Jixian myself. I’ll let you know. And… tell Xingxing to come back soon.”
“I will. Thanks.”
He gripped him by the hand again, this time more tightly. The thought crossed his mind: This may be the last time I ever see him. It came from gripping his hand so tightly, he decided.
* * *
1. A prominent Chinese silent film actress in the 1930s who took her life at the age of twenty-five after vindictive coverage in the press compounded by personal problems. ↵
11
Do I want to meet my father? Aki asked himself. No, came the answer. There was something bogus in the notion of conducting a serious search for a father whose living face he could not recall. Why not act on the assumption he was dead? Better to forget about him. Forget me. His father’s own words were borne to him on winds sweeping from the ends of the Loess Plateau. I have forgotten myself. You forget me, too.
Then why this desire to see the films of Han Langen? Hearing that not one foot of them remained had only spurred his interest.
It wasn’t because of any interest in his father per se. Rather, he wondered about the kind of performances given by that Japanese youth turned Chinese comedian. What kind of vernacular did he speak, how did he eat, how did he spit? Questions like these aroused real curiosity in him.
His taxi arrived at Ronghuaji on Kunshan Road, the place Yu Ming had told him about. He got out, looked around, and saw to his surprise the back of his own hotel only a short distance away, rearing up.
Like a cathedral in a European town, the hotel with its distinctive setback silhouette was visible from almost everywhere. It looked like a great eagle that was either just landing or about to take wing.
Figuring it would only be a ten- or fifteen-minute walk back, he decided to dump his taxi.
The shop was crowded, and he had to stand at the end of a long line. Before him, in a file stretching all the way in, were some thirty customers. Another five or six pushed up behind him right away, shoving him forward. An array of smells filled the air, enveloping him: male sweat, female sweat, old cooking oil, face powder, rotten fruit, briquette smoke, and more.
“Waihin! Hei, waihin!” came the voice of the female owner. Everyone swung their heads to look at Aki. Waihin. Foreign guest. How could they tell he was a foreigner?
“We can’t keep a waihin waiting. Come on up here,” called the woman in a white chef’s cap and jacket, beckoning. He took a diffident step forward.
“Kuai, kuai.” Hurry, hurry.
People all around raised their voices in encouragement, urging him on: “Chin, chin.” Please, go ahead. He got her to ladle some of their special mushroom soup into a large plastic container to go.
“Are you Japanese?”
“Yes.”
“Well, our soup has cured plenty of Japanese colds, going way back. You’re getting a special discount. Tell your wife to get better soon.”
As he left the establishment with his soup, drops of rain began to fall. On the sidewalk, a fruit vendor was yelling at the top of his lungs: “Mangguo! Mangguo!” Aki paid for two mangoes, and as he took them, the patter of raindrops quickened. No sign of a taxi. He regretted having sent the other one away. Too late now.
Out of a dark, cave-like lane children came chasing after a soccer ball; by a steaming roadside ditch an old woman sat scrubbing out a matong potty. Clutching his soup and mangoes, Aki headed for the Broadway Mansions looming just ahead. Seen through the rain, it was dark and unprepossessing, like an old duffer. His suite was on the opposite side, overlooking the Bund. Li Xing was there now, sitting in the wicker chair with her notebook open in her lap, retrieving lost memories.
Tell your wife to get better soon. Aki repeated the words softly to himself, turning his face skyward. He could make out individual drops as they fell. Getting wet would be okay, he decided. Summer rain in Shanghai. For some reason it filled him with nostalgia. His father had bounded between the Metropole Hotel and Hamilton House in fifteen steps, dodging raindrops. Yet here he was walking slowly through the rain on his way to a woman on the fifteenth floor of his hotel, straight ahead, bearing mushroom soup and some nicely ripened mangoes.
Dark splotches on the newspaper bag holding the mangoes appeared, then more and more of them. A few drops fell also on top of the shiny persimmon-coloured fruit inside, and lingered there.
Feeling that he’d walked quite a way already, he looked up – to find the hotel no closer than before. It seemed in fact to have receded the exact distance that he had covered. He looked to his right and left. Without realizing it, he’d picked up an escort of two bicycles, one on either side. He quickened his pace, but they stayed with him. Casually, he checked the riders out; they were both wearing wide-brimmed plastic rain-hats and plastic raincoats over white open-necked shirts, and sticking out of the breast pocket of each was what appeared to be the antenna of a small two-way radio.
Now the distance to the hotel seemed to shrink. If he took a left at the next light, he’d be at Triangle Market. Then if he turned into a lane and ran for it, he should be able to make the rear entrance.
He turned left. The bicycles turned left along with him. As the road narrowed, they drew in closer on either side. The sounds grew louder: the squeak of pedals turning, the swish of tires on wet pavement, the squawk of the radios. When in front of him he saw another bicycle heading his way, with a rider in the same sort of raincoat, he was no longer in any doubt as to who these people were. That he was surrounded by bicycles, not cars like the black Peugeot, only made the sense of menace more personal.
He felt his throat constrict, his knees go weak. He looked up, then around; but although it should have been right at hand, there was no sign of the hotel, as if the building had magically flown away.
The man pedalling leisurely towards him was saying something into a hand radio. Just then, seeing the handlebars and front wheel wobble, Aki dived into a still narrower side lane, an alleyway little better than a crack between two buildings. It was so long and crooked that he soon had no idea which way he was running. Finally, a way out appeared. When he recognized the Peugeot blocking the exit, he almost felt a glow of familiarity. Over his shoulder, he saw the bicycles had increased to five or six and were coming towards him in single file. The riders seemed to be in a playful mood, taking their hands off the handlebars or standing up off the saddle. The brims of their hats were too deep for him to make out their expressions. His stomach clenched.
How did I stir this up? he wondered. He remembered Shuichi saying something about the panic he’d felt on being surrounded by bicycles in a Beijing hutong. This was what he’d meant. What
did I do? What do they want with me? With Li Xing? Don’t tell me they’ve taken her off somewhere already.
He started sprinting towards the Peugeot. She might be inside. Then the rear door swung open, and the man he’d met in the basement bar of the Metropole Hotel slowly got out, manoeuvring around a puddle. Again he was wearing a wide, loud necktie that looked completely out of place; whipped about by the wind and rain, it lay draped over his shoulder.
“Get in,” he said, grasping Aki by the arm. “You’re so wet, you’ll catch cold. Like somebody else.”
“Where are you taking me?”
“Where do you think? I’m escorting you back to your hotel.”
As they pulled away, Aki glanced back at the lane he’d just come out of, but the bicycles had vanished without a trace. The car’s interior was pleasantly cool. The ride, however, was far from smooth; the cushions were in a shocking state, and it felt as if the seat was scraping along the ground.
“Do you mind if we take a slight detour? I’d like to talk with you about something. My name’s Ma. Ma Zuqi.”
After entering North Sichuan Road, the driver swung right and headed west along the left bank of Suzhou Creek. Aki’s hotel slipped farther and farther behind them on the left.
“What’ve we got here? Mushroom soup from Ronghuaji. Ah, yes. It’s famous, you know. Just the thing for a cold. And you got some mangoes, I see – two of them. Of course. Mind if I open the window a bit?”
Ma lowered the window a few centimetres, letting in rain and smoke and the stench of the river. Breathing in deeply, he said, “Whatever anyone says, I love the smell of Shanghai. Care to read the paper? It’s today’s evening edition.” He took a folded copy of the Shanghai Evening News out of his pocket and held it out. Aki took the paper and laid it on his knees without looking.
“You ought to have a look,” said Ma, and pointedly opened up the newspaper in front of him. Even in a Communist country like this, there were tabloids devoted to gossip and scandal. Today’s front page was taken up by a large photo of Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, along with the contents of their speeches. Aki turned the page. Li Xing’s face jumped out at him.
Actress Li Xing has left her lover Liu Hong, a fugitive on the most-wanted list in connection with recent antirevolutionary unrest, and taken up with a Japanese man recently arrived in Shanghai.
They had thoughtfully supplied Aki’s name and the name of his hotel.
“Damn fools,” Ma said scornfully.
Who did he mean? Aki cocked his head, unsure.
“With a population of 1.1 billion, a quarter of who are illiterate and a third starving, who else but Mango do they expect to feed this country?” he demanded.
Hello, a member of the establishment just said “Mango.”
“The idea of democracy in this country is a joke. It could only lead to a worse mess.”
Aki turned towards the man and tried to read his expression, but found no sign of his true intentions.
Ma looked down, flexing his fingers affectedly and fiddling with the knot in his wide necktie. “Mr Waki,” he said, “you’ve done something pretty remarkable. Before the war it was different, but since the war no Japanese who’s come to China has had the balls to do what you’ve done.”
Aki cautiously swallowed the lump in his throat. He felt that the sound could be heard throughout the vehicle.
“You know why Li Xing came to your room?”
Aki emptied his head of all thoughts and stared at the driver’s profile, as pockmarked as a peanut shell.
“You may think we leaked the information in this article, but you’d be wrong. She gave it to them herself.”
Aki turned to look out the window. The car had reached Shanghai Station and was about to make a U-turn in the plaza with the clock tower. The sun was just setting, urged on its way by the rain. Aki had to go on listening to Ma.
Public security authorities had picked up Li Xing at Shanghai Airport trying to board a plane to Yangquan. They questioned her politely. Through her boyfriend, she knew the headquarters of the underground organization and the names of its leaders, but this was only a tiny fraction of the whole. The authorities had already ascertained that Liu Hong was in hiding in the province of Jiangsu. They were dead set on arresting him. He was certain to try to contact Li Xing. So, the day after her arrest, they let her go. A decoy.
For Li Xing to contact him herself was impossible; she had no way of knowing where he might be holed up. He would have to make contact. Then where should she wait for it to happen? Where could she? Nowhere in all of Shanghai was safe, nowhere could she avoid surveillance. Even if there were such a place, how could she notify Liu Hong?
“You see it now, don’t you? That was her whole reason for cozying up to you. She could get the Shanghai Evening News to headline her whereabouts in big letters. It’s the biggest-selling evening paper not just in Shanghai, but in Zhejiang and Jiangsu, too. That way, he’d get the message wherever he was. Even if he himself didn’t see the article, somebody looking out for him would, she figured, and would let him know. Frankly, not even we have control over foreigners – we’d naturally be cautious around them. So the best place, the only place for her to go into ‘hiding’ was your suite, and creating a scandal with you was a golden opportunity to let him know where she was. You see, she could’ve gone off with a famous filmmaker like Zhang Yimou or Chen Kaige and the Shanghai Evening News wouldn’t have written one line about it.”
It’s not true, thought Aki. She came to my rooms to write, and remember. It seemed useless to argue the point. Either way of looking at it was plausible. Either way, he came off as a patsy.
“He might figure it’s a trap.”
“Yes, he might. There’s a fifty-fifty chance. After all, it is a trap in one way, and in another it isn’t. I’ll grant you, the lady’s got guts. Throwing herself bodily at you, a short-term Japanese visitor, that way.”
Not true again, he said to himself in anger and frustration.
“Of course, any time we wanted, we could take you into custody and have you deported.”
“I haven’t broken any of your country’s laws.”
“Haven’t you? In this country, couples aren’t allowed to stay together in a hotel unless they’ve got a certificate of marriage or engagement. As I’m sure you know. It’s all there in the hotel regulations.”
Aki kept silent. So that was it. The hotel staff had been instructed to turn a blind eye to the presence of a woman in his room.
After making a U-turn at Shanghai Station, the car was now travelling back along the east bank of Suzhou Creek.
Ma continued: “That’s the law, anyway; whether or not it’s always upheld is another matter. High officials go unchallenged, and we know that a Hong Kong prostitution ring operates in foreigners’ hotels. We can’t go after every little misdemeanour… so in short, sometimes we look the other way and sometimes we don’t. Listen. Liu Hong is bound to send word to Li Xing, any day now. When he does, we’d like you to let us know right away. Here’s the number of my pager. If you cooperate, nothing will happen. Li Xing won’t be arrested. Nothing, absolutely nothing, will happen.”
Aki felt he’d been battered down.
“From now on, you won’t be followed anymore. Your phone won’t be bugged. We trust you. We trust Japanese people. And here we are at your hotel. Li Xing is waiting for you.”
Aki opened the car door and stepped out into the rain. Raindrops hit spitefully against the back of his neck. By now it was quite dark out. The Peugeot drove off. He looked up almost vertically at the hotel room windows above him, counted with difficulty to the fifteenth floor, and picked out his suite. A light was on. No doubt about it, that was the floor lamp Li Xing had placed next to the wicker chair. He slowly walked the short distance to the hotel entrance, getting soaked in the malevolent rain. Twisting reds, yellows, and blues projected by a neon sign in the bar next door gleamed on the surface of the road. A handcart loaded high with something or
other was coming this way. The shafts dug into the sides of the old man pulling it, who was leaning so far forward that his naked torso was virtually parallel with the ground. The neon sign shone on his back, where rain mingled with sweat.
In front of the revolving door, Aki was stopped by the old man’s voice: “Xiansheng.”
Aki didn’t want to see anyone else but Li Xing. He felt no desire ever to speak a word of Chinese again. Of all things, he had become that lowest of creatures, a Japanese national trusted by Mango.
The old man turned out to be Chen’s father. The night before, Chen had run off with his brother’s wife, Anli. They were headed for Japan. An underworld network had arranged, for a price, to smuggle them out of the country. Aki thought back to the East China Sea that he himself had crossed, imagining the two of them crossing that same vast area in the cramped quarters of a fishing vessel.
The old man had come looking for him because Aki was his son’s temporary employer, and Chen Ying had often said how well he was treated. Also, since Aki was from Japan, he wanted to let him know that his boy had arranged not just to elope, but to head in his country’s direction. Talking about it made him feel a little easier. His other son was still hospitalized and knew nothing yet.
“Xiansheng, how can I tell him?” the old man wailed, hunching over even further. “Xiansheng, if you ever come across that rascal in Japan, I want you to give him what-for. I know I can trust you – you’re Japanese…” The rest was lost in noisy sobbing.
So once again I’m a trusted Japanese, am I? He thought with fondness of the taxi driver. He’d always been on the lookout for Aki, and when he spotted him, he would thrust his hands into his pockets, hoist up his trousers, and come striding over.
12
What on earth had happened to her memory? It was like a house eaten away by termites.
Jasmine Page 13