French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  Lin never made it to the apartment. He would later think he only got caught because he couldn’t stop thinking about Leng’s lie.

  He had just turned the corner. Afterward he wouldn’t for the life of him be able to remember which street he had been on. He did remember seeing basketfuls of peaches between those fingers—pink and flat green peaches. A pair of large callused hands had covered his eyes, digging its fingers into his sockets, making his temples hurt.

  The pair of hands had reached over from behind him, and the voice also came from behind, floating toward him like a disembodied voice:

  “Guess who I am? Guess who I am?” It was a high-pitched singsong voice, like someone reciting a nursery rhyme. He could hear laughter muffled by the street noises. The hands were also twisting his ears, making all those voices sound as though they were underwater.

  He heard a car screech to a halt. Someone was standing in front of him, pushing him, pulling him from the side. There was a brief burst of light, and then he could see nothing. He was surrounded by people breathing heavily.

  He didn’t notice when they twisted his arms behind his back. He was aware of being dragged to the edge of the pavement, and he noticed the step. Then a stab of pain—a punch, he thought. He was just thinking that when he was punched again in the stomach, his knees buckled, he bent over and collapsed to the ground.

  But this wasn’t the ground. It was soft and bouncy, with a smell of new leather. Before he knew what was happening, the door had been closed. He knew he was in a car because the door had caught on his pant leg.

  As it sped off, the hands pushed his head down into the car seat. It felt as if a thousand people were sitting on his back, and he could hardly breathe. His nose was wedged into the gap at the back of the seat, and his mouth tasted of rust, probably because his lips or gums were bleeding.

  Someone put a cloth bag over his head and tied it on tightly. The rope was right at his mouth, and it felt as though the corners of his mouth were going to split open. This must be to stop him from screaming, he thought. It actually hadn’t occurred to him to scream. He couldn’t make a sound if he tried.

  He was dragged out of the car by many pairs of hands. He couldn’t see where he was and he had no concept of time; he had never been trained to handle situations like this. But he remembered Park once saying that you could count silently using a regular bodily rhythm like your heartbeat or breathing. Count how many times the car turns a corner—you can always tell, because of inertia. Pay attention to changes in the ground surface, notice whether it’s sloping upward or downward, whether it’s hard or soft. If you stay calm, you can feel even the gaps between the tiles beneath your feet. Without Park’s training, Lin didn’t have the presence of mind to start counting. All he could remember was birdsong, the sound of wind in the leaves, and the smell of car exhaust. He didn’t remember to count the number of steps they climbed, but he knew that he had been taken to an empty third-floor room, and he noticed the dank smell of slaked lime.

  Now there was silence. No more breathing noises, no footsteps. He felt as though he had been abandoned, not just in an empty room, but also in an empty building. Before long, he heard someone talking in low tones through the ceiling. The voice sounded as if it was coming from a room to his left. His hearing was recovering. He could hear someone pouring water from a hot water bottle into a teacup. This couldn’t be the police station, he guessed. There were no clanking sounds of metal, no handcuffs, no metal doors. Besides, the police could arrest him openly. No, these men were more likely to be from the Green Gang. At first he thought it must be because of the Singapore Hotel, but he quickly abandoned that idea. Stay calm. He remembered what Park had told him: expand your senses of hearing, touch, smell, and the entire surface of your skin, so that you absorb every bit of sound, warmth, and humidity from your surroundings.

  Not long afterward, he remembered about the Singapore Hotel, and realized that he hadn’t had a chance to report his discovery to Ku. The entire cell was in danger, and there was nothing he could do about it. Lin began to worry.

  CHAPTER 36

  JUNE 29, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  2:30 P.M.

  The jargon sounded abstract and remote to Hsueh. All those new words came from Europe via the Soviet Union and Japan, and over the past twenty years, they had flooded in so quickly that it had been impossible to keep track of them all. They had caught on faster than imported goods, ships, or cars. Everyone these days was learning the new vocabulary. Even small-time reporters and errand boys could go on about the Left or Imperialism, and you’d have to be a real philistine or country bumpkin not to know those words. To be sure, some of the new words were useful. For instance, having sex with a hostess was now called sleeping with her, and being interested in someone could be described as falling in love. This made things simpler. If everyone used the same words, the words themselves would have the effect of a spell you could cast on people. Now that “love” had been invented by novels and movies, all the women servants in Shanghai would soon tremble like actresses at the mere mention of falling in love.

  Mr. Ku, Leng’s boss, was speaking to him. Spells had no effect on him, but Hsueh was intrigued nonetheless by Ku’s mystique. They had arranged to meet outside the gate of the Koukaza Gardens, but at the appointed time, Ku was nowhere to be seen. Five minutes later, two young people appeared behind him and Leng. Follow us, they said in a low voice.

  They followed them down the road that ran north-south through the park. At the northwest corner of the park, the two students slowed down and told Hsueh to wait there. Without ever looking directly at him, they hurried away.

  Two minutes later, someone in a black linen suit came toward them. His face looked familiar, and Hsueh remembered having once seen him in a black leather jacket. He sure likes wearing black, he thought. The man brought him and Leng to a Peugeot, and had them get in the back while he drove. Although they couldn’t see out the windows because of the blinds, Hsueh could tell that they were traveling west along Avenue Joffre.

  The car stopped in an empty yard surrounded by tall buildings, such that only the northwest corner of the yard was sunlit. There were camphor trees on the lawn and carefully tended flower beds. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom, and the ground was carpeted with petals. They were taken through a glass door into a building. There was no doorman, and the elevator was to the left. It went up to the fifth floor, where Mr. Ku was waiting for them.

  He sat in the middle of a horseshoe-shaped table, while Leng and Hsueh sat in soft chairs on either side. The man in black, whose name was Park, sat behind Hsueh. He slouched on his armchair and rocked it, with his legs propped up on a folding chair.

  Ku talked about the cell’s ideals and mission. The atmosphere was a little awkward. Leng played with a pencil. Park’s armchair rocked more violently.

  Then they took a break. Have a cigarette, Mr. Ku said. Let’s get some fresh air on the balcony. They went through the kitchen and climbed onto the rooftop via a spiral iron ladder that hung outside the building.

  They stood by the railing. Hsueh lit a match for Mr. Ku with his back turned to the wind, and then lit himself one. They both smoked silently. The corners of the railing were overgrown with moss, and the uneven floor was partly flooded. Hsueh shivered. He turned his collar up and held his hand up to let the breeze carry the cigarette ash away.

  “Tell me why you are helping us. Tell me why,” Ku said, almost to himself. He smiled.

  Hsueh shook his head. He had nothing to say. No one would believe him—he wasn’t very sure if he believed himself. He tried to make himself smile.

  “Because of her?” Ku’s smile grew wider, as if he wasn’t used to telling jokes but was telling one now.

  “Because of love. Is that a good reason?” Hsueh said, staring at a puddle by his feet. “I mean, is falling in love an acceptable reason for becoming a Communist?”

  “Right. Becoming a Communist.” Ku took a long drag of his cigarette, an
d tossed the stub over the railing. “Are you telling me that what you’re doing is joining the Revolution?” Hsueh thought he saw a shadow of loneliness or grief in Ku’s eyes.

  “Sure. Isn’t love supposed to transform you and make you want to alter your life?” This Ku is a canny type, Hsueh thought. He knows how to steer this conversation in the direction he wants.

  “We can accept any reason for joining, but you have to be honest with us. Even if you’re in it for the money.” He waved his hand, as though he himself regretted this policy, as though he had only mentioned the basest possible motive to put Hsueh at ease.

  “We always compensate well,” he said, stopping Hsueh from speaking with another wave. “No, not you. What I mean is that we can pay our sources if we have to. Your friend at the police station, for instance. Does he need money? Didn’t he come to China in order to make money? Of course it would be better if he were truly sympathetic to our cause, but if he would do it for the money, he could still be useful to us.” Ku’s voice grew fainter, nearly disappearing in the wind, and he spoke quickly, as if to avoid hurting Hsueh’s pride.

  The break was over, and they went back inside. Leng had disappeared. The next part of the conversation felt like an interrogation. Ku took his place inside the horseshoe, and the curtains were closed. Hsueh’s own chair had been moved just opposite the curved table to face Ku directly. Park was still sitting behind him, but he was no longer sprawled on the sofa.

  “We have a few questions for you. Standard procedure. Nothing to be nervous about.” Ku was laconic but his voice was gentle.

  “Tell me your name.” Ku did not take notes; it was unnecessary. Hsueh guessed that the interrogation itself was not strictly necessary.

  But the questions were full of double meanings, and they had a hypnotic effect on Hsueh, conditioning him to attempt to please his interrogator.

  “Tell me where you met her.” The first set of questions was about Leng.

  “On the ship.”

  “On the ship?” The voice suddenly grew stern. It occurred to Hsueh that he had completely forgotten what Leng had said to him. The hypnotism was working. Leng hadn’t been clear about wanting Hsueh to say they were old acquaintances, so as not to give Ku the impression she had been lying—she’d mentioned it but told him it wasn’t all that important. Hsueh had thought it was because she didn’t want to look like a flirt. He now realized that Leng might not have been telling her cell the truth.

  “How did you meet onboard?” Ku’s voice sounded calmer. Maybe he had only imagined it sounding stern.

  “We didn’t—well, meet isn’t the right word. Leng was on deck, walking toward the bow by herself. It was cold and windy. I happened to see her there.” She had looked sad but resolute, her face almost transparent in the sunlight.

  “She looked familiar, and I kept thinking I’d seen her before. We must know each other from somewhere, I later told her, and she agreed. Maybe sometimes a man and a woman just feel this way about each other. If she told you that we’d known each other for ages, it wouldn’t surprise me at all. Do you see?”

  “I see. That’s a clever way to describe love at first sight, isn’t it?” His questioner smiled again. “You didn’t even have to flirt with her—it was just meant to be.”

  “Maybe so,” Hsueh said.

  “Very clever of you. You’re clever, but you’re also honest,” Ku said generously.

  But after a pause, his voice grew stern again: “When was the next time you saw her?”

  “In the newspapers, I think. There were pictures of her in all the papers.”

  “So you fell in love the moment you saw her on the ship. Then her photograph appeared in the papers, and although you hadn’t had a chance to see her again, you couldn’t forget her face. We know you’re a photojournalist. So when you heard the police were planning to arrest her on Rue Amiral Bayle, did you track her down just so you could warn her?”

  Hsueh knew he was being mocked. He knew he should get offended, jump up, and shove these questions in his interrogator’s face. But he didn’t have the energy to do that. He wouldn’t know how to justify himself, not even to Leng.

  “That’s how it was,” he said simply.

  “Very good. That’s how it was. We believe you. We believe you precisely because your story sounds so implausible. And you look like you could be a hopeless romantic. Aren’t you half French?”

  Well, if Ku was going to fall for that, it only went to prove Hsueh’s conjectures about the power of words like love and revolution. Was a half-French man a hopeless romantic, by definition?

  “I didn’t believe what the papers were saying about her. I’d talked to her. I’d looked into her eyes. I thought I knew her.”

  But Ku stopped asking about love. Perhaps a few small untruths are permitted when ideals conflict with love.

  Instead they started talking about Hsueh’s friend. Ku asked for his name and occupation. He was very interested to hear that this man belonged to Maron’s new detective squad, although Hsueh had already mentioned this fact in his written report. The previous night, Ku had instructed Leng over the phone to have Hsueh produce a report. Sitting alone at the table in his room, Hsueh had done his best to put something coherent together. Mr. Ku is like Lieutenant Sarly, he thought: they both believe in written documents. Although the report consisted of scraps of intelligence, some of the information was very valuable, and in any case, intelligence is fragmentary by nature. He included the police’s conjectures about Ku’s background, which he had heard from his friend the poet. They were not entirely consistent—but that only goes to show that they reflect a wide range of opinions, he thought.

  Hsueh put all this in his report without fully understanding how valuable the information was. For instance, he did not realize that the police view of the Kin Lee Yuen assassination and reconstruction of events, as well as most of what the poet had told him, came from the Nanking investigators’ report. He also did not know that the police interpretation of the incident on Avenue Foch as a revenge killing had been influenced by the Green Gang’s view of events. And he had no way of knowing how relieved Ku was that Hsueh had handed him the report directly, instead of giving it to Leng. When he told Ku that Leng hadn’t read the report, he was just being honest, not trying to cover for her.

  CHAPTER 37

  JUNE 29, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  6:50 P.M.

  During the half hour in which Park dined with their guest, Ku read Hsueh’s report carefully from beginning to end. West Avenue Joffre was lined with expensive houses, and the only shops on the street were custom tailors. Park had had to drive all the way to Avenue du Roi Albert to find a cheap restaurant. He came back with a box of roast duck and rice.

  Ku reread the report, smoked a cigarette, and considered its contents. Then he threw the sheaf of papers into the glowing oven. He had to prevent the others from reading it, in part to protect his source, but also in part to preserve the ignorance that kept his troops disciplined. At all costs, he wanted to keep them from knowing that the attack on 181 Avenue Foch had been motivated in part by Ch’i’s death.

  The report was stylistically and grammatically jumbled. It alternately paraphrased the poet and quoted him directly. A few paragraphs had been cautiously rewritten, but then the writer would lace the facts boldly with his own observations. Ku paid extra attention to inconsistencies. For instance, at one point the poet was quoted as saying that he thought Avenue Foch had been a revenge killing, but the very next paragraph had him saying that “the police are sure these people belong to an underground Communist organization.” Could it be that the poet and his superior had different opinions?

  The safe house where Hsueh was taken to meet with Ku

  Ku believed that precisely these inconsistencies made the manuscript reliable. They proved it consisted of casual conversations recounted by one person to another and then crudely summarized by Hsueh—no wonder they had lost some of their original shape. The value of t
his intelligence lay in the contradictions, Ku thought. They showed that the Concession Police was still in the dark about Ku’s true identity.

  Before dinner, he summoned Leng and came down on her hard. She had broken the rules by making contact with a complete stranger at a crucial point of the operation, and to make matters worse, she had lied. Why claim that she and Hsueh were old acquaintances when they had only just met? Don’t be fooled by a petty bourgeois fling, he told her. And never, never think you can get away with lying to the Party. Only when Leng began to sob did he turn on his reassuring voice and praise her for winning Hsueh over to their side.

  The more violent the struggle, the more unexpectedly love can appear, he said. It didn’t surprise him at all. He mentioned a few instances in which fellow comrades had gotten married in the face of the firing squad. Who knows, the two of you could have a pair of little revolutionary babies, he teased. When you’ve completed all the missions you’ve been given, you can move on to the Soviet Union, to Hong Kong, or to France. Isn’t Hsueh half French? He got a little caught up in his own speech until he noticed that Leng looked confused. Of course, once the revolution has succeeded in one country, the proletariat vanguard will have to export it to other countries in the grip of capitalist oppression. Maybe the two of you will have a part to play in the Communist revolution in France.

  But after Leng left, he began to think about how difficult it was to maintain the focus of his team. These young people were as naïve as they were plucky, and up until now he had singlehandedly controlled what they thought. But he couldn’t guarantee that they would not waver. That was why they had to constantly be moving on to new targets. He felt defeated, somewhat lethargic—maybe the cigarettes were giving him a headache. He had never gotten over Ch’i’s death.