Aki remembered Mr Memory’s satisfied, shining face.
“Thank you… thank you. I’m glad it’s off my mind. At last.”
Zhou Enlai’s aide-mémoire… Suppose Zhou had had his father arrested in Beijing and locked up as someone who knew too much about his past. Then came the Anti-Rightist Movement, the Sino-Soviet split, the Great Leap Forward and all its attendant damage, and finally the Great Cultural Revolution. A series of purges, each one leading to the deaths of tens of millions. Master politician that he was, Zhou had to be constantly on guard, walking a tightrope where one misstep could mean loss of power, imprisonment, execution. In fact, on 6th January 1967, a five-metre banner was hung up in Tiananmen Square by a group of Red Guards, reading “Imprison Zhou Enlai!” And Mao’s wife, Jiang Qing, tried hard to bring about his downfall because he knew everything there was to know about her past in Shanghai.
In 1976, when the Cultural Revolution was nearing its last gasp, Zhou relaxed. Perhaps then he recalled his old “aide-mémoire.” Thought fondly again of Han Langen, of Waki Tanehiko. But all too soon he died of cancer.
Aki stared at his own face reflected in the study window. My father was thirty-seven or -eight when he slipped back into China. I’m older now than he was then.
Just then a yellow train on the Seibu Line slid into Ichigaya Station, cutting across the reflection of his face.
31
Prudently, Zhang Liang had said that he wouldn’t send any papers involving Cai Fang by diplomatic pouch, that he would take them to Beijing personally and not leave them lying about his office in the consulate, either. He carried them around in his black German-made attaché case. Li Xing was fairly certain of this, but she’d spent all day yesterday combing the study while her husband was out, just in case. She found nothing.
But today, towards evening, she went into his study on a whim and found his attaché case sitting under the desk. Had he forgotten it? As he went out the door that morning, she’d been on the phone with the wife of the consul general, who called to invite her on an afternoon shopping trip to Hankyu Department Store – she turned down the offer, but having failed to see her husband off, she noticed that he’d left without his case.
The thing had a combination lock, so it probably wouldn’t open. She pushed the button anyway, and with a satisfying click the latch sprang open. A document was tucked in the inside pocket on the lid. Fifteen unlined pages, each headed “Official Paper of the Chinese Communist Party” in red ink, were crammed with neat, right-to-left writing.
The author of the report, Zhang’s friend, was now an associate professor at Xinjiang University who, as an archaeologist involved in mummy excavation, had been a member of the team that found the famous “Beauty of Loulan” in the Tarim Basin. For one so qualified, digging down a mere thirty or forty years into Cai Fang’s past should have been a simple task, and yet clearly he’d had great difficulty – a measure of the chaos created by the Cultural Revolution.
This is what Li Xing learnt:
Cai Fang was a Uyghur. Most likely involved in the underground separatist movement. His birth name was Tamur Damat. He was born in 1954 in Urumqi. His parents, both of them professors at Xinjiang University, were Uyghur Muslims. In 1968, during the Cultural Revolution, he was orphaned by the Red Guards. He was then a boy of fourteen. Later, he was taken in by a man called Cai Youcai, a kindly Han Chinese intellectual forcibly displaced from Beijing. Renamed Cai Fang, he was formally adopted into the Cai family.
In China, one’s personal history generally begins to be compiled on graduation from elementary school; it is officially registered when one lands a job, updated periodically, and preserved even after death. The official register listed him only as Cai Fang, of Han ethnicity, born 1958. Even his age was false.
The chaos of the Cultural Revolution meant the wholesale destruction of documents, valuable records, and the country’s historical heritage; at the same time, a vast number of papers were forged.
In 1980, at the age of twenty-two – twenty-six, actually – Cai Fang went to Beijing to enrol in Peking University.
The report went on to refer to the cottonseed plant in Tarim, the destination of the missing seven hundred million yen, the connection with the Islamic separatist movement…
The final page was not so much a part of the formal report as a scribbled personal memo to Zhang. Within the structure of the ministry, he was viewed as the brains behind Cai Fang. A thorough and complicated plan was laid out for erasing that perception, so that Zhang would escape any court of inquiry. The names of a dozen or so of his co-workers, bosses, and higher-ups were listed, with a diagram illustrating the connections between them. Ideas were spelt out on the type of contact to be maintained with each of them. The enemy wasn’t someone to be trifled with. Zhang had better watch his step, or he could come to grief.
Li Xing set about committing it all to memory. This was easy enough, she’d had practice memorizing lines, but midway through the task she felt a growing sense of futility. She decided, finally, that her only real course of action was to confront Zhang Liang and tell him who she really was.
She sat on in his chair, her mind so absorbed that she didn’t hear the phone ringing. By the time she noticed it, she sensed that it had been ringing for some time. What if it were Aki? But he would never call her here.
She rose and slowly crossed the room. She felt languid; somehow her responses were dull. If only the caller would give up…
It was Zhang. Let’s eat out tonight, he said.
“Will there be anyone else?”
“No, just us. I made a reservation at Zuien.”
She felt a flutter of apprehension. Normally he would decide these things only after consulting her. Today of all days, she had no say in it.
Although she’d already settled on that evening’s menu, gone shopping, and laid out the necessary ingredients, she gathered everything up and put it back in the refrigerator. She then ran a comb through her hair, but didn’t bother with any makeup. Slipped on a grey flannel skirt and white turtleneck sweater, threw a beige jacket on top. Stepped into grey pumps edged in orange. The restaurant Zuien was in Higobashi, barely a fifteen-minute walk away.
She cut through the tennis courts in Utsubo Park, came out on Yotsubashi Avenue, and walked north. As if he’d planned it, Zhang appeared from a side street, and the two of them walked along in silence till they reached the restaurant. A private room was ready for them.
Zuien, the largest of the long-established Chinese restaurants in Osaka, was owned and operated entirely by Chinese. The main offerings on the menu were Cantonese, but Huchou, Szechuan, and Shandong dishes were also available. The place did some catering for the Chinese consulate and would accommodate special requests.
“I ordered their best set course,” said Zhang, eyes restless in anticipation.
The owner stopped by to welcome them, and stayed to chat for five minutes. They didn’t talk about the Kobe earthquake. Li Xing had never met him before, but Zhang didn’t introduce her – an odd lapse for a diplomat.
A bottle of red Dynasty wine made its appearance, followed by a platter of elaborately arranged appetizers, then stewed abalone, steamed blowfish, Shanghai crab – a parade of delicacies each more expensive than the last. She forced herself to wield her chopsticks. Zhang’s peremptory attempt at red-carpet treatment had about it the rattle of bones.
Unable to manage another bite, she laid her chopsticks down, at which point he said: “You saw the report, didn’t you?”
Li Xing’s throat flooded with colour to the neckline, the pale skin turning pink.
“Well, what did you think? Were you surprised, or…” Zhang fixed his eyes on her neck, imagined the other, hidden parts of her body, and wondered how far the flush went.
“Yes, I was surprised.”
“Will you tell him?”
“No.” She drew in her chin and shook her head. The colour faded.
“You can’t forget Cai Fang,”
he said accusingly.
“Did you leave the papers there on purpose?”
He ignored this. “Everything you read is true. I’m not a cardboard villain or bad guy like they have in the movies. I’m a certified Party member and a genuine patriot. Yanyan, have I ever lied to you, even once? Cai Fang has betrayed the Party and his country, both. Did so from the first. He’s an anarchist, a Trotskyite, a terrorist. He’s misappropriated public funds. You saw where the seven hundred million went. I’m going to go after him, and I’m going to get him. There’s nothing you can do. You used to belong to him. Now you’re my wife; and by bringing him down I’m going to make you truly mine.”
She stiffened. With careful emphasis, she said, “Listen to me. I’m not Li Yan. That’s the name Cai gave me to smuggle me out of China.”
Her husband’s eyes swam.
“My real name is Li Xing.”
“Li Xing? Li Xing… I’ve heard that name somewhere.”
“I was never Cai’s lover. I was in love with his best friend, Liu Hong.”
“Liu Hong?… Wait – the guy on the most-wanted list. You’re the Li Xing they said was his girlfriend?”
“Yes.”
“But he left the country. Didn’t you go with him? What are you doing here?”
Zhang’s eyes stopped moving, and he groaned. He loathed people like Liu Hong, a charismatic figure among reform-minded intellectuals. He’d heard rumours that Liu had a girlfriend who was an actress. That woman was here now – his wife!
The early eighties, when Zhang was at Peking University, had been a time of enlightened politics when reformist intellectuals occupied prominent and influential positions in the Party and the government. Men of superior ability who were Westernized, flamboyant, and popular with women: this was Zhang’s assessment of them. He himself had been inconspicuous, mediocre as a student, and unimpressive to look at.
Antagonism towards that crowd had led him to enter the School of International Studies after graduation. Cai Fang was teaching a course there on covert intelligence. Zhang’s sense of betrayal was thus doubled: first his mentor and current boss had failed him, now his wife.
Yet he could see the bright side of it, even there. Unmasking Cai Fang was a sure-fire path to promotion, and having this actress as his wife was his way of giving Liu Hong a good poke in the eye.
“No matter what you say,” he told her through a mouthful of hot shark’s fin, “I’m handing those papers you saw to headquarters, and I’m not divorcing you till Cai Fang is nailed.” His tone was cocksure and insulting. “Here, eat some of this. It’ll get cold.”
“I don’t like shark’s fin.” Then she calmly added, “I’m leaving you.”
Zhang gave his head a decisive shake. He knew she disliked him. So be it. He would go her one better. She was old enough by now to understand that only men who’d made something of themselves were qualified to make a woman happy.
“Don’t be too hasty. What’s it matter if our marriage was arranged by Cai Fang? So what if we didn’t get together like other couples, all hearts and flowers? Before I caught on to Cai, he was my boss; I couldn’t say no to him. Besides, he singled me out for attention. I was more than happy to accept his recommendation and marry the person he suggested. And now… well, frankly I’m stunned. I had no idea you were somebody else. But why leave me? You’re not in a relationship with Cai Fang. Liu dumped you and went overseas to save his own skin. Cai’s career is over. Mine’s just beginning, and my future’s bright.”
He polished off the plate of shark’s fin and, bending over his swallow’s-nest soup, added, “But you had your own agenda all along, didn’t you?”
“What was that?”
“You tell me. What’d you marry me for?” After this leading question, he spilt some soup on his tie and began dabbing the spot with a damp napkin.
When he’d called earlier with this dinner invitation, Li Xing had sensed that now was the time to lay things on the line. No more living a lie, she said to herself. End it now… He’ll go into a wild rage. But his temper won’t kill me.
Zhang’s deep-set eyes reddened and he began to talk nonstop. He’d joined the Party out of conviction and had taken a government post to serve his country, and he believed in the supremacy of the People’s Republic of China. He poured out his fury at anyone infringing on or “liberating” any part of this sovereign territory. In his mind Cai Fang with his separatist movement had become a sworn enemy, the embodiment of all things anti-Chinese. He was a monster. That alone explained why Cai’s weight had ballooned, he went so far as to say.
The second his speech was finished, Li Xing looked straight at him and began to speak in a steady voice.
She was in love with someone else. She described meeting him, running away with him, getting separated and meeting again. Her words were terse, her voice unhesitating. The malice in Zhang’s face couldn’t stop her.
“Who is it?” he demanded.
“He’s Japanese.”
When she said the name Waki Akihiko, Zhang made a waving motion in the air as if to fend it off. This arrow had come from a totally unforeseen direction. He sat there stupefied, eyes fixed, gesturing blindly. His neck itched, but he scratched his wrist. He wanted to yell, but sound wouldn’t come.
“Liang,” she said, “I can’t stay with you anymore.”
Hearing her say his name revived him, gave him a second wind. Red-faced, he shouted, “That prick! That Japanese prick!”
But the other man’s name had cut him to the quick. He couldn’t bring himself to say it, had to get it out of his mind. All his hatred and frustration focused again on his boss, Cai Fang.
“Don’t be too sure of yourself. I won’t let you go that easily. No divorce. And I’ll get Cai if it’s the last thing I do. Just wait and see what happens to him.”
With this, he stood up. He took his left hand out of his pocket and laid a pile of dozens of toothpicks, each broken in two, onto the table.
“Cai Fang’s a dirty Uyghur!” he bellowed as he stormed out of the room.
Li Xing went over to the window and opened the curtain. She undid the latch and pushed the double windows open. The view was cut off by the dark concrete of adjacent buildings, but even so, a cold, moist breeze came in. She leant out into the air and cupped her face in her hands. She remained that way barely five or six seconds. By the time she raised her head and gone back to her seat at the table, her face was composed.
Zhang had apparently gone to the men’s room; he was refolding a handkerchief when he came back in, and walked deliberately around behind her before taking his seat. She suddenly wondered – has he been crying?
She held a cloth handbag on her knees. Ever since that spell of forced labour in the leather factory, she’d avoided leather bags completely. Inside the handbag were her divorce papers from the Beijing city government, tightly folded like an amulet.
“You can’t lock me in.”
“Yes, I can… but I won’t,” he responded coldly, without any expression. Staying angry was an admission of defeat.
“You’ll send me back to Beijing?”
His restless eyes were sullen. “I can do that, too… but I won’t.”
“What do you want to do?” She might have been asking if he was going to take an umbrella, it looked like rain.
“Nothing. Nothing is going to change.”
Zhang tried to pack maximum menace into his voice and words, but when she heard him say this, Li Xing knew instinctively he couldn’t touch her. Her eyes strayed to the mound of broken toothpicks. It was the most eloquent thing in the room, speaking volumes about the peculiar attachment he felt for her.
Just then the owner of Zuien came in and inquired if the meal had been satisfactory. Hastily, Zhang scooped up the toothpicks and swept them back into his pocket, then rose and replied, “Very good indeed.” To Li Xing’s amazement, he then introduced her: “This is my wife, Li Yan.”
As Zhang turned to look at her, his shoulders
sagged a bit. Her eyes caught this. So that’s that, she thought. But it wasn’t over. What would come next? She had Aki, but Cai Fang was surrounded by enemies. She must talk to Aki, fast.
As the owner stood at the table, Zhang told her that the owner was head of the Osaka Center for Overseas Chinese, someone you could always count on. To the owner, he mentioned casually that his wife was related to Xu Liping in Kobe.
“Well now! Related to Mr Xu!” The old man stared at her with frank curiosity. “He had a daughter who went back to China. Her name was Xu Lan. She graduated from Kobe College – a real beauty. You look just like her.”
32
They walked side by side up the long, steep trail. There was scattered frost on the ground and the stones. From somewhere down on the right came the sound of a running stream.
“Okay, let’s hear it,” said Aki. “What’s in this report on Cai Fang?”
“This goes up and up, doesn’t it?” said Li Xing, looking up at the path that led through groves of cedar and oak.
“Can you manage it?”
“Absolutely.”
“That’s right, I forgot. Your legs are stronger than mine. But watch out. You don’t want to slip on the frost.” He took her by the arm.
“Okay,” she said, “here goes. I’ll finish by the time we reach the top. Cai Fang’s real name is Tamur Dafat, and he was born in 1954 in Urumqi…”
The night before, after the owner left the room, Li Xing had excused herself, saying she was going to the toilet, and slipped out of the restaurant. She called Aki from a phone booth and told him about the document she’d seen. She also briefly described what had occurred in the restaurant.
“We have to hurry,” she said finally.
“Okay. Nothing I can do tonight, but I’ll be there first thing in the morning. Xingxing, better not go home tonight. You can’t just run away; but for the time being, check into a hotel…” He gave her the name and number of a reliable place in Osaka and made a reservation for her there as soon as they hung up.
Jasmine Page 30