by F. J. Chase
“Thank you. I’ve been admiring your hats. Where do you get them?”
“Hong Kong.”
“Your suits the same?”
“They know how to make hot weather clothing that doesn’t look like it’s cut from crinkly tissue paper.”
“They’re very nice.”
“Thank you.”
She noticed him limping slightly. “Are you all right?”
“A little bruised up, but otherwise fine.”
“You should come by and let the staff take a look at you.”
“Never on a first date.”
That got a laugh out of her. “You’re the talk of the town.”
Avakian had spent the past few days dodging the world press. “Take my word for it, it’s exaggerated.”
“Sounded heroic to me.”
“Heroism is having to do something drastic to keep from getting killed.” He opened the car door for her.
“Ni Hao, Kangmei,” Doctor Rose exclaimed.
“Ni Hao, Doctor,” Kangmei replied with a smile that revealed several missing teeth.
Avakian just shook his head. “You’re a positive influence on my driver. That’s a role I never thought anyone would play.”
The restaurant was located in the northeastern corner of central Beijing. For some reason all the traffic seemed to be going in the opposite direction. Then they drove past hordes of people on the sidewalks. They seemed pretty fired up and were all walking in the same direction, some carrying flags and rolled up banners, like a crowd heading home after a football game.
“This must be the tail end of the anti-Taiwan demonstration they had this afternoon at Workers’ Stadium,” said Avakian.
“On TV it said it was a spontaneous demonstration by tens of thousands of people.”
Avakian snorted. “There are no spontaneous demonstrations in China. Especially not at Workers’ Stadium. The government’s trying to make propaganda points and at the same time let everyone blow off some steam so there won’t be any spontaneous demonstrations. Note that Workers’ Stadium is far away from Tiananmen Square.”
Up in the front seat Kangmei was muttering quietly to himself. Doctor Rose smiled at that. “I was talking to a few people who’d been downtown and they said the streets were pretty empty today. That seems funny, doesn’t it? Even if you’re where something is happening, you have to watch TV to know what’s going on.”
“Same as if you were in Washington during the Cuban missile crisis. Or London during the blitz. You knew the Germans were bombing you, but other than that you had to listen to the radio.”
“You don’t think the Chinese are going to sit still for this, do you?”
Avakian leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Let’s wait until we’re out of the car to talk about that.”
He had Kangmei drop them off near the Yuyang Hotel. It meant a short walk to the restaurant, but that would give them a chance to look at the Liangma River. And talk out in the open.
“Not discussing things in the car is very intriguing,” said Doctor Rose. “Is it bugged?”
“No idea,” said Avakian. “Could be. But Kangmei’s definitely reporting on all our conversations. That’s just the way it’s done.”
“And we don’t want to talk about certain things because…?”
“Well, we really don’t care that the Chinese know what we’re talking about. What we care about is them using the topic of our conversation to make assumptions that aren’t based on reality. Not that they won’t do that anyway, but the less complicated I can keep my life here in China, the better.”
“So they might think you’re a spy.”
She was quick. “Oh, they halfway think that already.”
“Are you a spy?”
“No,” said Avakian.
“But if you were a spy, you’d assure me that you weren’t a spy.”
“Correct,” said Avakian.
“I seem to have lost my train of thought.”
“The Chinese think everyone is a spy. Mainly because all their academics and businessmen traveling outside the country, even the ones who aren’t actual intelligence officers, are expected to do favors for the Ministry of State Security.”
“Or else?”
“That’s how they work. The Chinese are only subtle when they have to be. But I’m just a retired army colonel who got hired to be the conference security liaison between the Chinese and the State Department.”
“A spy would say that, though, wouldn’t he?” Doctor Rose said mischievously.
“Correct,” said Avakian, another grin spreading across his face. “But—and this is the crucial point—if they ever became totally convinced I was a spy, I’d be followed around by a whole platoon instead of the couple of guys doing the job now.”
Doctor Rose suddenly spun around in a full circle. “We’re being followed right now?”
“Sure,” said Avakian. “When I first got here there was the two I was supposed to see, and then the pair who were really following me. Just to see if I’d try to give the first pair the slip.”
“And that would mean you really were a spy.”
“Well, sort of. But since all real spies are aware of this little detail, they rarely try to give their surveillance the slip.”
“Now am I supposed to be able to see them, or not?”
“The pair trailing us? Well, it’s kind of like they’re minor leaguers trying to get promoted to the majors so they can follow CIA officers around, so for the most part they practice staying out of sight. The manpower Chinese security has is amazing. They’ve got eight guys just on me—four shifts a day. And I’m not even a spy.”
“So you say. I don’t know whether this is more exciting or confusing. But I’m leaning toward exciting.”
“Not for the poor schnooks who have to follow us around all over the place.”
“Maybe we can send them out some hors d’oeuvres or something? Isn’t that what they’d do in the movies?”
“We’re not that fond of them,” said Avakian. “Besides, they’re like working dogs. It’s not good to spoil them.”
“I think I understand now. No spy talk, no war talk, in the car.”
“And, unfortunately, no jokes about it,” said Avakian. “Better to be safe than sorry. The Chinese don’t handle irony well.”
Occasionally the moon poked through the overcast, giving the low clouds a purplish hue. The rain had freshened the air a bit, but as they drew closer to the restaurant the hanging humidity made the smell of food equally heavy. But not unpleasant. It was doing wonders for Avakian’s appetite.
“What’s the name of this restaurant?” Doctor Rose asked.
“Din Tai Fung,” Avakian replied.
“And that means?”
“I haven’t the faintest idea.”
“Funny name for a restaurant.”
Avakian looked over at her.
“Sorry,” she said. “Couldn’t resist it.”
“It’s okay,” Avakian said. “You timed that perfectly.”
Concrete planters sprouting small trees were situated every twenty feet or so down the length of the sidewalk. The restaurant was in a two-story building with metal lattices running horizontally every couple of feet down a glass front. The evening lighting made the glass frames appear blue and the lattices green.
Avakian held the door open for her, then stepped around and presented the card with his name on it in Chinese characters to the hostess. He’d had his hotel concierge make a reservation because it was usually full with a crowd waiting. Tonight there were many empty tables.
A smiling waitress started to lead them to a table near the front windows, but Avakian pointed to one in the back while at the same time surreptitiously slipping a few bills into her hand. A quick look down at them made her smile even harder and guide them to the back. They passed by one of the attractions, a window into the kitchen. Cooks in whites, including baseball caps and surgical masks, were whipping up dumplings at a long
table and loading them into bamboo steamers.
“They look like they’re making microchips instead of food,” Doctor Rose mentioned to Avakian.
“The typical Beijing restaurant kitchen isn’t anywhere near this fastidious.”
At the table they were presented with menus printed in Chinese, English, and Japanese. Very short, only two pages.
“What would you like to drink?” he asked her.
“I’m sort of on call.”
“Tea?”
She nodded. So did the waitress who rushed off.
“What should I have?” Doctor Rose asked.
“The dumplings are the reason to be here,” said Avakian. “The fillings depend on your taste. Are you a vegetarian?”
“No.”
Another misconception sorted out. “Maybe we should have a little of everything, then. The dumplings are about the size of a meatball and come ten to a steamer, so you can eat quite a few of them.”
“Sounds great.” She picked up the black lacquered chopsticks and admired the gold inlay at the end. “I love these. Will I get pounced on if I try and walk out with them?”
“I won’t rat you out,” said Avakian.
The waitress returned with the tea and stood behind Avakian’s shoulder as he pointed to their choices on the menu.
When she left Doctor Rose said, “I love this tea set, too.” It was simple white porcelain with the restaurant name in red characters.
“I don’t think your purse is big enough,” said Avakian. “Maybe I steered you wrong on the Prada bag.”
“I’ll try not to be resentful about it. Why did you have her seat us back here?”
“When we walked in I noticed there aren’t any Chinese diners in here tonight. Then I remembered that even though they serve Shanghai-style dumplings this group of restaurants is based in Taiwan.”
Doctor Rose looked around the room. “You’re right, there aren’t any Chinese in here.”
“The way feelings are running in town, if by some chance someone threw something through the window we can step out through the kitchen door over there.”
“You mean something like a rock?”
“Something like that.”
“Or a Molotov cocktail?”
Avakian shrugged.
She just looked at him.
“This is what I do for a living,” he said.
“Better to be safe than sorry?”
“Better to be safe than sorry.”
“I’d never have thought of that in a million years.”
“Well, I wouldn’t try to repair someone’s ACL,” said Avakian.
“Now tell me what you think is going to happen now that Taiwan’s declared independence.”
“Are you sure that’s the dinner conversation you want?”
“Since we are here in Beijing, it’s a matter of some interest to me.”
“Whatever you say,” Avakian replied.
“And please give it to me straight, as opposed to tactfully not mentioning Molotov cocktails flying through the window.”
“Okay, unless Taiwan backs down, or some face-saving arrangement is reached, I think China’s going to war.”
“Even if it wrecks their economic boom?”
“That’s what Taiwan’s counting on. And I think they’ve miscalculated. Nobody in China believes in Communism anymore, but it’s still a Communist dictatorship. You can make money, but you can’t challenge the government or mess around in politics. Other than bribing politicians, that is. Communism used to keep a big, chaotic country with a lot of different regions, ethnic groups, and interests in line. The government turned to nationalism to fill that void. They don’t teach the dictatorship of the proletariat anymore, they teach a unified China as a great power, China’s rightful place in the world, and traditional grievances about being oppressed by the other great powers throughout history. The government made everyone happy by getting Hong Kong back from Britain and Macao back from Portugal. Taiwan’s the last piece of the puzzle. They can’t back down and lose face over this. Nationalism’s a powerful thing.”
“Powerful enough not to care about wrecking everything they’ve built?”
“I went to Armenian summer camp when I was a kid. Swimming, archery, and hating the Turks.”
“Did you?”
“Swim?”
“Hate the Turks?”
“Even as a kid, those ancient grievances never appealed to me. I have a rule. I don’t hate anyone I don’t know personally. But it gave me a little insight into what I’d have to deal with later on in the army.”
“The army has ancient grievances?”
Avakian chuckled. “That was good. Not as many as you’d think, but Central American Indians, Kurds and Pashtuns have a lot more. The Chinese have their share, too. Their economy’s booming, but there’s practically no economic security. The social safety net is gone. The law only works for the powerful. Any morning you might wake up to the tanks rolling in like Tiananmen Square, or the whole fabric of society could get torn to pieces like during the Cultural Revolution. Lot of fear out there. And I get a sense of barely contained hysteria.”
“Hysteria as a symptom of repression?” said Doctor Rose.
“Sure. And the Chinese are pretty high-strung to begin with. The leadership doesn’t mind using that as long as it’s directed outward at the Japanese, or Americans or whatever, but they’ve been very careful about reeling everyone back in before they get out of control. So far. The only thing they care about more than the economy and trade is power. They’ll do whatever it takes to hold onto power. Which is why I think they’ll have no choice but to go to war.”
“You mean invade Taiwan?”
“Now that I’m not so sure about. If you asked me before, I’d have said that the Taiwanese were too rich and too soft, that all China would have to do is fire a few salvos of missiles at them and they’d surrender rather than see their way of life go down the tubes. But I think this new group in charge in Taiwan would fight. They’d lose, of course—their military is equipped mainly for parades. And that’s not a good thing.”
“For Taiwan?”
“For us.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’ve promised to defend Taiwan from invasion. If they just gave up before we could get involved I think everyone would prefer that. But if our 7th Fleet gets close enough to make the Chinese nervous, that means real trouble.”
“You mean someone starts shooting.”
“We’ll try to bluff the Chinese out of it, the way we have before. But if they have decided to invade they’ve already made up their minds to fight us. And that means our fleet will get hit without warning. Our style is a big show of force. Chinese military strategy is based on deception.”
“Could our navy stop them?”
“In my opinion?”
“In your opinion.”
“I’m in the minority, but I say no. The Chinese don’t have to defeat the 7th Fleet to keep us from interfering with their plans. They just have to engage it far enough out to sea. They don’t have satellites like ours to locate our ships but they have a lot of fishing boats with radios. They don’t have aircraft carriers but they have a few hundred of the latest Russian supersonic anti-ship cruise missiles specifically designed to kill aircraft carriers. They can fire those from their brand-new Russian submarines or destroyers, their brand-new Russian Sukhoi fighters or their old 1950s-era Badger bombers, or even from launcher tubes strapped on the decks of fishing boats. It’s easier to shoot off a hundred missiles than it is to keep from getting hit by a hundred missiles. Quiet diesel-electric submarines get through to aircraft carriers all the time in exercises. No carriers, no fleet.”
“Do we have a defense against them?”
“The supersonic missiles? Yeah, our defense is the navy acting like they don’t exist because they don’t have a defense that works.”
“You’re giving me chills now. Would the Chinese throw us all out of the country?
”
“No,” Avakian said.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re smart enough to realize that tens of thousands of foreigners in your capital city is the best defense against air attack ever devised.”
Now she was staring at him again.
Avakian told himself to snap out of it. You just had to show off by running off at the mouth, didn’t you? “Pay me no mind. In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m kind of addicted to the worst-case scenario. Thankfully, our waitress is bringing food.”
She delivered the first course, cold cucumbers with chili oil and garlic.
“The longer you let the cucumbers sit in the chili oil, the spicier they’re going to be,” said Avakian.
“Are you married?” the doctor blurted out.
Avakian grinned. “Did I lose focus and miss the preamble to that question?”
Doctor Rose’s coloration turned deeper by several shades. “Sorry, I sort of skipped over that. I apologize.”
In Avakian’s experience, not answering a woman’s personal question only meant that she’d find thirty new and different ways of asking it in the immediate future. “I was, but I’m divorced.”
“How long?”
“Fifteen years.”
“I’m sorry. I’m starting to interrogate you. It’s a bad habit women and doctors have.”
“If you want to know, I’ll tell you. But I warn you, it’ll be even more of a buzz kill than my war lecture.”
“For the record, I freely acknowledge I was the one who asked both of those questions.”
“We fell in love in high school. I had a rough time at home, and she was my refuge. We got married after I graduated from West Point. She was a sweet naïve girl from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania who thought she was going to see the world and ended up seeing Fayetteville, North Carolina and Savannah, Georgia instead.”
“Savannah is nice,” Doctor Rose offered.
“For a week’s vacation. I was just as naïve, but totally wrapped up in the army. Always off either training or deployed, and I was too stupid to see what she was going through. It’s the one thing in my life I feel guilty about, and I still feel that way fifteen years later.” He held up a hand. “Here I go again.”
