French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  But Zung had not come to Bendigo to listen to Concession stories. He was neither a journalist nor a tourist, and besides, he had heard them all before. He was meeting someone here. It was Sunday, and the restaurant was almost empty.

  His rooms were in the Oriental Hotel, facing No. 5 Horse Road, opposite the bright lights of Ch’ün-yü Alley. The main door of the hotel opened northwest onto Yuyaching Road, as if its architect had hoped that the wealth of the Race Course would rub off on it. Zung had to sign himself into the hotel guest book using a Chinese name, so he called himself Ch’en Ku-yüeh. Of the fountain pen and calligraphy brush provided, he chose the brush and signed his name in excessively florid cursive, an honest form of dishonesty. He presented neither the proof of residence issued by the colonial Hong Kong government to Ch’en Chi-shih, nor the travel authorization granted by the Hanoi Police to Mr. Paul Ch’en. The Municipal Police required all hotels to record the names of guests, but few hotels did so.

  That afternoon, Ch’ien, the steward from Hopeh, beckoned to him from the hotel counter and told him to leave by the back door instead of by Yuyaching Road, which was jam-packed because the famous storyteller Li Po-k’ang had jumped ship to Eastern Bookstore, and every rickshaw in town seemed to be coming here to hear him perform.

  Zung put his skullcap on the counter. He was wearing a gray jacket that came down to his knees, cinched black trousers, and a length of silk for a belt, the ends of which hung over the back of the chair, as though he had draped a pouch over it. The police were here at noon, Ch’ien said. They inspected the sign-in books and asked questions about a certain Mr. Ch’en.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I swear I’ve never told a lie in my life.”

  Therese was right, he thought. I should be careful. Maybe I should move to another hotel right now. At the YMCA swimming pool, Zung told Therese what he had heard at the hotel. But she did not seem concerned. She did seem tired. On the weekends she disappeared, and Yindee told him that Therese was spending her weekends with that half-breed photographer. To top it all off, it was Maslenitsa that weekend, and Therese always made a point of taking Maslenitsa off. But he had pressing news for her. He had just closed a deal, and that night they would have to agree on a time and place for delivery.

  The young man sitting to the left of Zung was wearing a black leather jacket and round-rimmed spectacles. He had many names, and Park Kye-seong was only one of them. In Hong Kong he had been working for a trading company based in Busan, and he had placed an order with Zung for them. He could even speak the Cantonese dialect just as fluently as he spoke Mandarin Chinese.

  The other man was even younger, and he sat up very straight opposite Zung, with both his hands placed flat on the table, as if he were a Boy Scout or a student awaiting a boarding school inspection of fingernails. Zung had deliberately chosen this expensive Western restaurant to make his guests feel slightly uncomfortable. He picked out a table in the center of the restaurant, the better to observe how his guests’ wary glances darted across the room.

  Park introduced the youngster as Mr. Lin P’ei-wen. Just call me Lin, the other said. They barely spoke, and the restaurant was quiet. It had no bar, no gramophone, not even a mirror on the wall, lest it dampen the guests’ appetite. But there were flowers everywhere, and even the picture frames contained flowers and fresh fruit. Before the first course was served, Mr. Romantz himself came to the table, smiled, bowed, and laid the table.

  Park was not shy when it came to food. He plucked out the spine of an entire smoked trout with his fingers, and his knife and fork sparkled like weapons.

  There were five small tables, and a foot-high platform on the far end of the room held a larger table surrounded by an iron railing, beneath which potted roses had been arranged. A curved corridor to the left of the platform seemed to lead into another room.

  The sweetness of Alhambra cigars filled the room, and between the warm and cold desserts, Zung cut Luzon cigars. “La Flor de la Isabela,” he murmured, offering them to his guests politely, as if they were flowers from the Spanish royal gardens. But Park’s mouth was full of pudding, and he did not want a cigar. Nor did the overpowering cigar smoke agree with Lin, who leaned back on the soft leather cushions of the chair.

  None of them was in a hurry to talk business. This was a small restaurant, and you could smell the tang of a new bottle of pepper when it was opened at the next table. They said a bottle of pepper here cost more than a whole meal would elsewhere. Who would talk about a deal here, right in the middle of the room? Everyone would think you were a bunch of imposters—unless they took you seriously and started paying attention, which was worse.

  The coffee cup was the size of half an eggshell. It was hexagonal, like everything else in the room: the saltshaker, the small table, even the room itself. Mrs. Romantz appeared next, bearing a flat rattan fruit basket containing two mangoes and two American oranges. She bowed and smiled as she presented it to them, and then bowed and smiled again, as if congratulating herself on a successful performance.

  It was already nine o’clock at night, and the sound of a band playing on the rooftop of the French Club wafted toward them. Zung was waiting. He couldn’t tell whether his guests had the authority to make decisions about their deal. He had been expecting Mr. Ku, but Mr. Ku had not appeared, even though Zung had chosen the restaurant in part because it was near his quarters. The smoke played mysteriously in the electric light, and the air quivered with the rhythm of the Charleston. Zung asked his guests whether they wanted to go to a dance hall, but no one responded to his ill-timed joke.

  Park left the restaurant first, alone. Ten minutes later, Zung and Lin left together.

  When they came out onto the street, the Lyceum Theater was still playing. The Ford cars in the garage belonging to the cab service next door, Moody Inc., were arranged in two neat lines, like two rows of beetles staring with their large compound eyes, caught in the bright white light and unable to move. Zung and Lin stood on either side of the cavelike entrance to the garage. On the opposite side of the street, only one window was lit on the third floor of the Cathay Mansions, and its white window frames glowed pale blue in the night. Under the windows hung a large pair of glasses with arms that could be extended outward onto the street. Just then the arms were completely extended and suspended over the sidewalk, as though someone had smashed them. The left lens read LEUNG MAN-TAO; the right lens read MEDICAL DOCTOR.

  Zung did not know where Lin wanted to take him. Maybe his good faith had finally earned him the right to meet Mr. Ku. Maybe they were only going to keep him waiting elsewhere. He was on the verge of losing his temper, but he kept his cool. The car drove south along Route Cardinal Mercier and past Route Vallon. Then Lin motioned for the driver to stop.

  CHAPTER 9

  JUNE 7, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  9:25 P.M.

  Park hid in the driveway of a luxury bespoke tailor on Route Cardinal Mercier. The lowered shop awnings kept out the glare of streetlights. He saw a car drive past with Mr. Zung and Lin in the backseat, and waited until it was a couple of hundred meters away before hurrying in its direction. During the half hour between nine and nine-thirty, the streets were empty, like a stage at intermission. Nothing moved among the shadows of the parasol trees except the wind. It was warm and dank, and there was a putrid smell, as if a hidden monster had belched. Their car was the only one to drive along Route Cardinal Mercier for a whole two minutes. A cat meowed in the copse behind the walls of the French Club.

  Park saw the car gradually come to a halt at the side of the road. Then he waited a few more minutes to make sure they weren’t being tailed before walking up and getting in next to the driver. The car started up again. Park unbuttoned his top button and lit a cigarette. Before long he had smoked a third of the cigarette, as if he had been sitting there with them the whole time.

  Park was Korean. He had been a young actor playing bit parts in Shanghai when he joined a group of Korean Communists,
among whom he soon came to play a leading role. He traveled to all the coastal cities of southeastern China: Chou-shan, Hong Kong, and sometimes even Haiphong and Penang. Moscow funded the group’s activities and gave him three months of training in Khabarovsk. But before long, other Korean cells active in Irkutsk and Vladivostok began to ostracize Park’s cell. In Moscow, they were debating whether it was more important to protect the Soviet Union or to continue the task of world revolution. In the resulting bureaucratic reorganization, Park’s cell lost its financial support and ceased to receive orders from Moscow. They decided to send a delegation on the dangerous journey through Manchuria to Moscow, to defend themselves at the debates taking place there. The discussions grew so heated that someone started a fight, and word was that it was Park’s older brother.

  One night, the Municipal Police sent a large police squad to storm a meeting of Korean revolutionaries on Avenue Dubail. Park’s brother pulled out his gun, attempting to resist arrest, and was killed on the spot. It was rumored that the police had been tipped off, and some suspected the Korean Communists in Vladivostok, but Ku warned Park against believing the hearsay. The British police in the International Settlement were known to be crafty, and the rumors might be a smoke screen. In any case, Park’s cell suffered great losses, and if Ku had not accepted him into his own cell, he would have had nowhere to go.

  The car made a U-turn and headed east, toward the brick villas and the wooden-gated longtangs of the French Concession. As Park gave the driver directions, he kept glancing in the rearview mirror. At the restaurant, he thought he had seen a dark shadow flit past outside. He was suspicious. At any rate, he did not want to be careless. His training had taught him how to follow someone.

  The car turned onto Rue Amiral Bayle, and stopped at the entrance to the longtang. The corner store opposite it was still open, and two men stood inside: the shopkeeper, busy with sums on an abacus, and his errand boy, who stood shirtless by the counter, wearing a piece of black cloth tied around his waist, even though it was only June. Bundles of wooden clips, a row of metal spoons, assorted metal frames, and bits of wire hung above them.

  As soon as the car stopped, Park got out and melted into the shadows of the alley. Lin took his guest into the unlit longtang, turning left into the horizontal alley, and going into a house. Hiding behind the house across the alley, Park heard two sets of footsteps on the stairs. He knew those stairs were narrow, steep, and pitch-black. Then he heard rapping at a door, more footsteps, and the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor.

  He emerged ten minutes later and slipped into the house. The apartment was directly above the street. He pushed open the double doors at the entrance to the stairs. Leng sat on a stool, keeping watch, and staring at a kettle about to boil on a little gas stove. She looked up at him, and down into her own thoughts.

  He went into the room. Their guest was sitting at the table near the window. Ku sat across from him in long gray traditional dress, an oak hat on the desk. Lin stood behind their guest. Lifting a corner of the curtain to look down onto the street, Park took a seat at the table, facing the window directly.

  The cell was getting bigger, and Park noticed that Ku’s recruitment methods were not always upfront, but that did not trouble him. He trusted Ku. Like Park, Ku had been trained in Khabarovsk, but he was far more experienced than Park himself.

  Ku was a natural leader and careful planner. His cell was divided into several smaller units that operated in isolation and only collaborated occasionally. The master plan was written nowhere but in Ku’s brain.

  Firearms would be crucial. In Ku’s plan for revolution, firepower was everything. Money bought guns, and they had money. After the Kin Lee Yuen operation, they had done a few more assassinations to put the group’s finances on firmer ground.

  At a camp on the outskirts of Khabarovsk, Park had learned the techniques of persuasion, how to give your counterpart the illusion that he was winning you over rather than vice versa, how to frighten a man, how to tempt him, how to make him follow you, help you, put his life in your hands—with words alone.

  Their guest passed a piece of paper to Ku and looked at him as if he expected Ku to leap up and seize it. Instead, Ku took it from him calmly.

  “Our inventory is all in Hong Kong. We can have the goods shipped to Shanghai by a Blue Chimney Co. passenger liner. As usual, the delivery of goods will have to take place at the pier.”

  “Sure,” Ku said.

  “Payment on delivery. That’s what we agreed on in Hong Kong.”

  “Sure.”

  “Five thousand seven hundred and eighty yuan, in silver.”

  “No problem.”

  The tea had now been served. The room grew quiet. Tea leaves swirled in their cups. Their guest knew what he was doing, he knew the rules, and would say no more than was necessary. Park was reassured to see that Mr. Zung did not stand on ceremony and had not brought a bodyguard. He would not need one. The most dangerous moment was the delivery of goods, but that could be arranged without their even having to meet. Of course, payment would have to take place in person, but the very fact that they were meeting here signified that many important people in the complicated black market in firearms had vouched for both parties.

  Park’s own favorite rifle was the “box cannon” rifle, the Mauser C96 with 7.63 mm chambering, of which Ku was ordering a new high-velocity model from their guest. In a shootout, firing off all twenty rounds at once always had a powerful effect. The gangs also liked the Mauser. It was said that a defeated northern warlord who was lying low in Shanghai once engaged high-ranking members of the Green Gang for protection, and that his personal bodyguards were tricked out of their Mauser rifles as a result. The gangsters had demanded that they turn over their guns, claiming that unlicensed firearms were prohibited in the Concession, and when the men eventually got their guns back, the rifles had been swapped for rusty old pistols.

  Lin drew the curtains, closed the door, and left the room. He stood in the hallway and chatted with Leng. But the voices within fell silent before long, so Lin opened the door and went down the stairs.

  Their guest was about to leave. He reminded Ku that once they had received and paid for the goods, the two parties would be strangers to each other. Irxmayer & Co.’s policy was to ask no questions about how customers used their goods. Hunt wild ducks, murder unfaithful spouses, or hang your guns on the wall—just forget you got them from Irxmayer & Co., especially if things go wrong.

  “Mr. Zung, please rest assured, we’ll do more business in the future. Your company is selling us a bunch of goods, and we now represent a significant chunk of your business. You might as well have our entire ledger. We know you have to cut off a finger with gangrene right away—you can’t afford to do this deal if there is any chance it could go sour.”

  Honesty can be the best policy. Their guest looked pleased. Lin had already ordered a car for him from the hardware store opposite them, and this time it was Lin who took him back to their meeting point.

  Park waited until long after the car had taken off before he turned and left. Instead of going upstairs, he patrolled the dark streets for a while. When they were first escorting their guest into the car, he had noticed a shadow in a longtang about fifty meters away. It was the second time he had seen that checkered shirt today, and this time he clearly saw it flapping in the wind beneath a dim streetlamp suspended from the arched beam of the longtang. By the time he hurried over, the long alleyway was empty. He knew it led out to another road. It was possible that he had imagined the shadow, but he doubted it. Rue Amiral Bayle was the safe house for Lin’s unit and an important meeting point for the cell. In a little while, he would go back and report this to Ku, but not yet. Waiting on the street corner, he figured that Ku would soon notice that Leng was distracted, and her mind was wandering. Ku would speak to her the next time he had a chance. The leader of a secret organization must pay close attention to the mental focus of its members; the greatest threa
t to the cell’s security was distraction. He grew slightly worried for Ku. Leng herself seemed unaware that something was troubling her.

  CHAPTER 10

  JUNE 8, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  3:32 A.M.

  The dog howled. Leng looked at the clock on the dresser—it was only 3:30 A.M. Again she began to ask herself the questions that had tormented her for days.

  Ts’ao Chen-wu, the man who had been killed at the wharf, was indeed her husband, but he was also her enemy. Her first husband had died at his hands. She didn’t know which fact trumped which.

  A few months ago, she had come to Shanghai from Kweilin. At the time, Ts’ao was privately representing a senior figure in the Nanking government, a man active in the Kweilin army who was building a secret political coalition. If she had not run into Ko Ya-min that day, she might be in Paris by now. She had not seen him, but he had seen her. She was walking down Route Joffre to Route Ferguson, and he had followed her there. She was living in the Shanghai quarters of the Kweilin army, which had an armed police guard post outside. Military guards stood inside the gate, though they were unarmed because the Concession authorities did not permit firearms to be carried openly. He did not dare follow her inside.

  The next time she ventured out, it was to a small bookstore on Route Gustave de Boissezon. He came up to her and stood behind her. They used to study Russian with the same tutor, the old Bolshevik. Even before turning around she knew that someone behind her was looking at her with hostility.

  The Bolshevik was not old, but everyone called him that because of all the stories he told about his days in Moscow, St. Petersburg, Paris, about how he used to run circles around the policemen and spies. None of them had taken more than half a year of Russian classes, so he always spoke the simplest Russian in class. But every anecdote came to life as he recalled the expressions on people’s faces, the rustle of leaves falling to the ground, the color of a medicine bottle. He could turn the most ordinary things into the stuff of legends.