French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  He called the safe house on Boulevard des Deux Républiques. Most of Lin’s unit was with him at the moment; he had summoned them for this operation. Lin himself had been ordered to wait in the apartment, but no one was answering the phone. Time to plan a new operation, he thought.

  The cell was growing. There were three units under his command, all fully equipped. He had an eight-cylinder French-made car. And if he wanted another one, the steady stream of operations was bringing in plenty of cash. He even had a reliable police source. He had established himself in the Concession.

  After the operation at 181 Avenue Foch, one of those fixers who seemed to know everyone and have complicated allegiances brought him a message. The Boss was offering him 100,000 silver yuan for a truce. Ku hadn’t responded yet. The Green Gang was treating his group as one of those brash new outfits trying to make a name for itself by perpetrating a series of killings, but Ku wanted more. He wanted a revolution that would alter the balance of power in the Concession.

  The dark bricks of the building outside reflected the glow of the late afternoon sun. A foreign woman with auburn hair opened the window, through which piano music sounded faintly, in fits and starts, as though the Victrola was spinning erratically. There was a bitter taste in his mouth. Too many cigarettes. He was getting hungry. He came into the living room for dinner.

  “All the papers called him a public menace,” Hsueh was saying. He was telling a tall tale while Leng picked listlessly at her food. Park was trying to find the holes in Hsueh’s story:

  “That’s impossible. It can’t be done. You’ve never been in a gunfight. Americans love to exaggerate—you can’t just drive through a barricade like that, bursting through crossfire.”

  “Why not? As long as your engine’s powerful enough and running fast?”

  Hsueh stopped talking as soon as Ku came into the room. Hsueh is telling a story about an American outlaw robbing a bank, when all I want to do is have dinner, said Park.

  “Really, the president of the United States nicknamed him the enemy of the people. Think about it. Banks are the heart of the capitalist system.” Hsueh sounded ridiculous when he tried to use Communist jargon. He might get the words right, but they all came out sounding wrong.

  Ku had considered robbing a bank, but he wasn’t sure the cell was ready for an operation on that scale.

  He wouldn’t want to target a bank branch that was either too small or too big. The biggest branches had scores of guards and direct phone lines to the police station. They were all in the busy heart of the Concession, where police armored vehicles could reach them within minutes. As Park had pointed out, there was no way to burst through a barricade on a big street.

  No, he didn’t need tall tales. He needed intelligence, real intelligence. He wanted to sit down properly with Hsueh, get a piece of paper, and list everything he needed to know. He would give Hsueh some tips on the right questions to ask the next time he got a drink with his poet friend.

  All kinds of questions occurred to him right away. Inspired by Hsueh’s story, he wanted to know how many policemen there were and how their armored vehicles were fitted out. Of course, he also wanted to know more about that Inspector Maron who was after him.

  Putting himself in Hsueh’s shoes, he wondered whether the poet would smell a rat. An ordinary photojournalist at a French paper, asking all these questions about the cops? How could he work them into the conversation without raising suspicions? He would have to coach Hsueh not to ask them all at once. Ask a question in the pause between two toasts. If the poet is quiet, if he looks uncomfortable or tries to change the subject, then act like you were just wondering out loud, as if no one asked and you’re not interested in the answer, and never mention it again.

  He brought Hsueh to the room where they had originally met. Now they were sitting on the same side of the horseshoe-shaped table. He took out a pen and paper, like a tutor talking to a student. More questions came to mind. Hsueh mentioned the lieutenant in charge, the man from the Political Section. According to Hsueh, the poet had once said that this lieutenant thought Ku’s cell was nothing to worry about. It was a “little red flea”—Hsueh hesitated perceptibly before saying the words—that would amount to nothing. Ku didn’t lose his temper. He simply asked more questions about the lieutenant.

  “The police think there are probably financiers among you,” said Hsueh.

  “What does that mean?”

  “No idea. Financier, that’s the word he used. I thought he might be talking about banks.” Hsueh flashed him a cunning smile.

  Ku patted Hsueh reassuringly on the shoulders. He thought he knew what Hsueh was getting at. Only in retrospect, when he was reading the newspapers, had he realized why Ts’ao had to be killed. His contact hadn’t told him the truth—that man may not even have known. Ku had no idea why anyone would pay twenty thousand silver yuan to have Ts’ao Chen-wu assassinated. But later he discovered the hidden thread that linked everything together: Ts’ao’s mission in Shanghai, the influential Nanking man who was causing trouble in Canton, and the speculators betting heavily on public debt. The discovery didn’t upset him. That assassination had only been the first step in his master plan, a chance to give the cell some practice and make their name. Ts’ao was indisputably an enemy of the people. And back then the cell had been brand-new, so he’d needed the cash.

  That night the cell members who returned to Boulevard des Deux Républiques sounded distressed when they called. Lin had disappeared. He was supposed to be in the apartment, waiting for news from them, but by 10:00 P.M. he still wasn’t back yet. Ku could feel the anger rising inside him. Of all things that could go wrong, the one that worried him most was the discipline of his crew. It was a sign of danger. Young people are capable of doing things you’d never imagined, but give them a moment to themselves and they can ruin it all. The more he thought about it, the angrier he became. That idiot French lieutenant’s words came to mind.

  CHAPTER 38

  JUNE 29, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  7:35 P.M.

  Someone undid the piece of rope around his mouth, and tore off the bag around his head. Even so, it took a long time before Lin could make anything out in the dark, narrow room. He had been tied to a chair, and the moldy air made his nose itch. He could tell the room was full of dust and spiderwebs even though he couldn’t see them. Light filtered through a small gray rectangle in front of him, probably a louver door with both shutters closed. That was good to know. It meant he was probably in a house, and this dark room must be a storeroom, or perhaps a converted cloakroom.

  He knew that some time had passed. But probably less than half a day. He had pissed just before being dragged into the car, and he needed to piss again now, but not urgently. He was in good health, and he had walked quite a way without drinking much water. He guessed that it was probably before sunset, and that he had been abducted about three hours ago.

  He remembered what Park had told him about holding piss. In the absence of other information, it’s a good way of keeping track of time, Park had said. Lin was testing that out right now. If the darkness and loneliness terrifies you, then say you need to piss—no one will really punish you for that. If they won’t let you, they are testing your endurance. The principle is always to do the opposite of what you intuitively want to do. You have two options. If you don’t want to give in, and want to keep holding it in, then you should scream at the top of your lungs. But if you can’t hold it any longer and want to scream, you should just piss into your pants, because the greatest test of your ability to withstand pain is yet to come. The more you confuse your opponent, the easier things will be for you. I should scream, Lin thought. The ropes trussing him to the chair made it harder to project his voice, but he did his best. No one opened the door. There was no sound of footsteps, and he hadn’t disturbed anyone. Maybe I didn’t scream for long enough, he thought. Or is that proof that they want to test my endurance? He had too much self-respect to draw the conclusio
n that he should just piss into his pants. He stopped to breathe deeply and calm himself down.

  As he was panting in the dust, the door opened, and he was dragged out along with his chair into an empty room with white walls. It was dark outside the window. They loosened the ropes and slammed him onto the floor. The cement grazed his cheeks. He was lying facedown, and someone had yanked his arms up and was pushing them forward toward his head as if they were switchblades. He felt as though his shoulder ligaments were being torn apart, and he couldn’t breathe. The knobby parts of his face—his nose and lips—were scraping against the cement. He felt his rib cage being pulled taut like a bow, as if his insides were about to burst out. They let go, and then it started again. He couldn’t even scream. He was sobbing, bawling, and he despised himself.

  Finally, they unbound him and tore his clothes off. He was tied naked onto the chair again, but his ankles were pulled back and tied to the back legs of the chair in an odd position, forcing him to spread his legs. The spotlight in front of him shone up into his face and onto his testicles. He felt like a beaker in which humiliation and rage were two chemicals that had been made to react in predetermined proportions. He didn’t even know whom to be angry at. He couldn’t see anyone around him, and they all looked like shadows in the light.

  Before they left, someone poured a bucket of water over him, and someone else lugged an electric fan over and pointed it at him.

  He was cold. His teeth were chattering, and there was a rusty taste between them. His skin burned where the ropes were cutting into it. His bladder was distended with pain and about to explode, and the rope stretched across it cut into his skin. Before they closed the door, someone said: Want to piss? Piss on the floor.

  Before long he could no longer feel the pain, and the feeling of bloatedness disappeared, replaced by a comfortable numbness. He tried to fall asleep, but as soon as he did, he was awakened by a sharp pain.

  Maybe he had fallen asleep after all. As soon as the ropes were untied, he felt as though he was being pricked by a thousand needles, as though the air in the room had been compressed and was coming at him through an exceedingly fine mesh.

  Someone held him down by the shoulders. Others were busy bringing tables and chairs and more lights. They didn’t want to move him, he thought, they wanted to freeze him in this position. He remembered Park telling him that you have to seize any chance to move or shift positions, that change in your environment makes you more alert and helps you feel less like a slab of meat on the chopping block. But Lin simply couldn’t move—in fact, there was no need to hold him down. His whole body ached, and he could barely sit up in his chair.

  They began to ask him a load of useless questions. His name. Where he was from. They were asking these questions simply to make the interrogation sound official. He was still in the spotlight. Naked, he felt like a frightened, hunted animal. Eventually the pain subsided and his strength began to return. He planned to resist them as soon as he could pull himself together.

  The spotlight shone at him from the left. The shadowy man sitting at a table to the right looked like the leader of the group. He listened, rarely asking questions, and smoked a cigarette that glowed red. Lin wanted to express his anger, but he didn’t have the energy to put up a fight.

  He refused to answer the question. Where on Ming Koo Road had he been going? Which apartment? Lin remained silent, and the man behind him punched him hard on the back of his head. Unable to contain himself any longer, Lin leaped up and rushed at the shadow, his fists clenched—

  But someone reached a leg out and tripped him up, giving him a good kick in the ribs and stamping on his arms. The shadow suddenly spoke. His voice was low and gentle.

  “Let go of him. Let him sit down.”

  “All right. You’re not interested in answering this question. Let me tell you a few things we know instead. You were spotted at the scene of both the 181 Avenue Foch bombing and the Kin Lee Yuen Wharf assassination. That makes you a criminal. Someone recognized you.”

  That was a lie. He hadn’t been on Kin Lee Yuen Wharf—he had not yet been tested and found worthy by the cell, so he had only been an observer at the time.

  “I’m a student. I just graduated from Nanyang College, and I’m looking for a job.”

  “Don’t think you can weasel your way out of this,” the man said, lighting another cigarette. “Your interrogators are all specialists. Who are these people? You must be asking yourself that question. Who are my abductors? The gangs? I can tell you that you have officially been arrested. We’re expert interrogators, and we can force the most stubborn suspects to talk. Even Soviet-trained Communists will talk to us, never mind you. You’re just a band of ordinary crooks.”

  Lin was young, and easily incensed. He had been insulted. “We’re not crooks! You’re crooks.”

  He saw the face taunting him in the red glow of the cigarette, but it was too late to stop. “One day we’ll overthrow your system and get rid of you all!”

  “Are you telling me you’re Communists?” The man returned to the darkness, but kept taunting him. “All you do is kill people and blow things up. You’re a bunch of regular crooks. What you’re doing is making money off terrorizing people. And you’re wrong about us. We’re not criminals. We represent the government. I can tell you our real name: officially, we are the Central Organization Department’s Investigative Unit for Party Affairs. We often deal with real Communists, and we can make them talk too.”

  He was being long-winded on purpose, repeating himself over and over, as if he were casting a dizzying spell.

  “You killed Ts’ao to prevent him from going to Canton. Or rather, to prevent his boss from going to Canton. His boss was an important government man who was going to set up a separate government in Canton. His treasonous plans were backed by warlords in the southwest bent on destroying our fragile, hard-won unity, our fledgling state. They even wanted control of the customs at Canton. That drove the speculators here frantic, because they had all bought public debt backed by customs receipts. So they put a price on Ts’ao’s head, offering a reward to anyone who would kill him. And they found Ku Fu-kuang, your Ku—isn’t that his name? See, we do know a few things.”

  “You’re making this up! It’s not true!”

  “Don’t get too riled up. I applaud you. We applaud passionate young people.” He was provoking Lin with his smile and the way he lit a match and let it burn in his hand, gazing at it instead of lighting his cigarette.

  “As for 181 Avenue Foch, that was an ordinary crime. A simple revenge killing. For a woman, a prostitute. We know the Green Gang engaged hit men to kill Mr. Ku. They were hit men just like Ku, but on the other side, just as there are always speculators who’ve bought a stock pitted against others who are shorting it. This time they lost. They weren’t professionals, they hadn’t planned their attack well, and they only managed to shoot a woman. This prostitute was Ku’s woman, we’ve been told. His lover. His whore.”

  Lin pounced at the crowd of shadows. He had forgotten his shame, and forgotten that he was naked. He crashed to the ground again.

  CHAPTER 39

  JUNE 29, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  9:55 P.M.

  Tseng knew all about breaking down a man’s defenses. That was one of his specialties. He was an ex-Communist who had been trained in Soviet interrogation and counterinterrogation techniques. He had chosen a straightforward method because he judged the subject of interrogation to be a naïve, passionate young man. He had to destroy the foundations of this man’s belief, enrage him, confuse him, and make him doubt himself.

  He himself was lucky he had seen the light when he did. They had made an exception for him, not because they trusted him, but because they needed him. He and his colleagues had their own snoops inside the French Concession Police, so he was aware that Lieutenant Sarly referred to him and his colleagues as the “Nanking investigators.” He considered the description apt. He didn’t like using torture. The human abili
ty to withstand physical pain was limited, and torture was the fastest way to break down those defenses and force a subject to surrender and start talking. But people responded differently to pain, and if you crossed a subject’s maximum threshold too quickly, then torture would cease to be effective. In fact, he had heard that in some cases it could actually gratify the victim.

  Pain stimulated the production of adrenaline, the source of the fight response, which led to aggression, defiance, and hatred. If your subjects managed to stay calm, this hatred could erect mental barriers that would make it impossible to know whether they were telling the truth. They could even be clever enough to feed you false information leading to costly blunders later on.

  He allowed his people to rough this young man up a little, just to tire him out. Violence could be used to warm up the subject, to stretch his nerves to their breaking point so that anything would set them off. That was his subject of expertise, and it was exactly why Nanking needed him. He was an intelligent man, and he knew what he was doing. He knew that torture was necessary, but only in moderation—torture was a performance, intended to terrify the subject as much as to cause pain.

  With him and people like him around, he thought modestly, the Communists’ days in Shanghai were numbered. All those anarchists and revolutionaries with their childish demonstrations and protests, holding meetings and writing articles—all that would have to go. They used to walk openly on the streets and go from their meetings to restaurants where they continued their discussions. But now that the Investigative Unit for Party Affairs had developed a deep intelligence network in Shanghai, the photographs of known Communists had been widely disseminated. Many people had memorized these faces.