French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  Although they had little in common, he was now on their side. These men had their eyes on the next deal, whereas he had the long game in mind.

  The scheme they were going to discuss had been dreamed up by a bunch of American real estate speculators. The Americans were just as vulgar and ingenious as everyone made them out to be. When they landed in Shanghai bearing vast sums of money, the best land had already been bought up, and its owners were sitting tight. They had even formed a cartel, making it impossible for a newcomer to find so much as a corner to plant a stake in the ground. When one of them went bankrupt, or died, another would hold priority rights to purchase the land at a price worked out in advance in the cigar room.

  So the Americans had no choice but to buy up land on the outskirts of Shanghai. The biggest bets had been made by the Raven Group, a company registered in the International Settlement, which was buying up tracts of barren land along the Yangtze, as though Shanghai would become a second Alaska. But after they had bought and paid for it all, the Americans found that things were more complicated than they had realized. Shanghai was governed by rules of its own. Powerful interests controlled the Board of Works and the Municipal Office, which in turn controlled urban planning in the two concessions. That meant the Americans’ land would remain barren for the next hundred years. To add insult to injury, Nanking’s Greater Shanghai Plan would encourage development in the northeast of the city.

  In desperation, the Americans hatched an interventionist scheme to turn Shanghai into a Free City like Danzig after the Great War, and started hawking their idea to the foreign governments with interests in Shanghai. Danzig had originally been Napoleon’s brainchild, a semi-independent state that would be a haven for capitalist gambling, like a medieval city-state. Carving out a free Shanghai independent of the Kuomintang government would allow capital to stream into the city from all over the world and boost the value of even the most barren land. A proposal was drawn up for the League of Nations in Geneva, and the papers began to crackle with the news.

  Even veteran Shanghailanders found this a most interesting suggestion. The shrewder among them started inviting the once-despised Americans to discuss the idea over dinner. They soon formed a little lobby consisting of bank executives, politicians, journalists, legal consultants, and professional lobbyists who haunted the capitals of powerful nations. The most preposterous version of the idea was for the boundaries of the Free City to include a fifty-kilometer strip of land on both banks of the Yangtze, stretching from Shanghai to Wuhan, providing a neutral buffer that would protect China from being split by battling warlords, or so they argued. Shanghai would prosper, the Yangtze River Delta would export its wares to the world, and Shanghailanders would get rich all over again.

  But Sarly looked at this scheme and saw the germ of an unlikely opportunity for Shanghai to save the world from communism, just as the Comintern was planning to attack it as the weakest link in the capitalist chain. These people had overlooked the strongest reason in favor of their proposal: as a Free City, Shanghai would attract international attention and protection, making it harder for the Communists to gain a foothold, and safeguarding French and European interests in the concessions.

  Ku and his band of urban terrorists would be the spark, he thought. Ku’s attack would bring Paris and those dim European politicians to their senses, warning them of the dangers of Communist violence. Sarly could easily have had Ku’s whole gang arrested, and he was only letting them continue to operate because he wanted them to commit a real crime. He had few qualms about his plan—it was a small price to pay for a Free City. Sometimes it seemed crazy to him, but then the times themselves were crazy. The volcano was about to erupt.

  Someone screamed on the lawn. The woman playing tennis had been trying to hit a volley when the ball had knocked the racket right out of her hand. She seemed to have torn her deltoid, and she was sitting on the ground and massaging her shoulder while her racket lay several feet away. Her legs were sweating, and bits of grass were stuck onto her knee. Sarly recognized her. She was the American author who was said to be living with a Chinese poet, a monkey, and a parrot.

  Only then did Lieutenant Sarly notice the man on the other side of the court, who was walking toward the net. It was Mr. Blair of the British Foreign Service. “I hear he’s going to be posted back to London soon,” said an American businessman Sarly didn’t know well.

  Commander Martin looked embarrassed. He stole a glance at Baron Pidol, who preserved a dignified silence. Mr. Blair had voluntarily withdrawn from this inner circle when he realized that his tryst with Baroness Pidol had aroused public disapproval. Affairs were tolerated, and most of the men in the Concession would turn a blind eye to one. But having an affair that made the papers might be interpreted as a challenge to the authority of old Shanghailanders. Then the woman killed herself, and Blair had lost the sympathy of the foreign women as well.

  “No one but this author will talk to him now,” the younger M. Madier said. “She’s like a Chinese moth. She gets hot every time she sees a fire, and she flutters with excitement in the face of danger.”

  “All she wants is to put him in one of her stories,” the American businessman explained. He clearly knew her work well. “Maybe he’ll end up in The New Yorker, which could be his new claim to fame.”

  Baron Pidol tried to steer them all back to the matter at hand. “Just sending more troops to Shanghai from Haiphong won’t do the trick. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris must send an official memorandum to Nanking as soon as it possibly can.”

  “The best thing would be for Western governments to jointly send a diplomatic note to Nanking.” Colonel Bichat sounded impatient, as if he thought his Shanghai Volunteer Corps had a chance of becoming an independent Ministry of Defense.

  CHAPTER 44

  JULY 12, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  1:35 P.M.

  Lin was wondering why the man who claimed to be from the Investigative Unit for Party Affairs had not been in to interrogate him for three days in a row. He wondered whether this signaled a victory on his part. Had the enemy decided on a change of tactics because he was refusing to cooperate?

  They were certainly treating him better. He was allowed to wear clothes and no longer tied up, but they still kept him locked up in that dark storeroom. A man who said his name was Cheng often came to talk to him. He always brought a whole bunch of newspapers like Shun Pao or Ta Kung Pao, and pointed specific articles out to Lin. Lin didn’t believe their irritating claims about the whole chain of events. They thought they could dupe him.

  But why was he even listening to the enemy’s lies? He knew they always found ways to slander revolutionaries. Nonetheless, he couldn’t help leafing through the articles, which was exactly what they were counting on. Even if it was true that Ts’ao’s death had swung the price of public debt, then it only proved their cell had chosen their target well, that they had really delivered a shock to the capitalist system. He didn’t believe the shooting on Rue Eugène Bard had anything to do with Ku. Ku would never get involved with a prostitute. And he certainly didn’t believe that Ku had accepted a reward for Ts’ao’s assassination. If speculators had profited from Ts’ao’s death, well then that was a coincidence. They could enjoy their money while they were allowed to keep it, because it wouldn’t be long.

  It was hot during the day, especially in that stuffy little room. The dust and cobwebs kept making him sneeze. This is the end for me, he thought. Even if he refused to confess, the casino bombing alone would be reason enough for the courts of the French Concession to sentence him to death. Things wouldn’t be any different if they handed him over to Nanking as a Communist. But he was not afraid of death. His only fear was that the enemy would paint him as a terrorist. They could blacken his name by forging documents and testimonies that portrayed their cell as a bunch of criminals. He could already see signs of it, which worried him. He had to come up with a way to foil their schemes.

  He was event
ually summoned from the storeroom on a sunny day. The furniture had been reshuffled since his first interrogation. The spotlights were gone, and the table had been replaced with a square table placed next to the chair he had sat on. The electric fan was still there, in the corner next to the window, and it had been switched on.

  The man called Cheng had someone bring Lin a cup of tea. Tea leaves swirled in the glass. The other operatives had left the room. As he sat down, Lin held his cup up so that he was looking at Cheng through the glass filled with amber-colored tea. He might be powerless, but he wouldn’t stop trying to irritate his enemy.

  The door was locked and bolted. The windows were closed and the curtains drawn.

  “Comrade Lin, let’s talk some theory,” said Cheng with a smile.

  “We aren’t comrades, not since you betrayed the Revolution in the spring of Year 16 of the Republic. You’ve been pandering to imperialists and capitalists, and we’ll fight you to the death.” Lin tried to keep his voice steady.

  “Believe me, one of these days we’ll be comrades.” Cheng’s voice sounded fuzzy, like the steam rising from his teacup. “When you finally know the truth.”

  He coughed lightly, as if his cough was a punctuation mark signaling a new tone of voice. “When I was young, I was leftist like you. But I knew much more about the Communists than you do.”

  “Knowing isn’t believing. You didn’t know anything anyway.”

  “Believing won’t make you a revolutionary. You’ve got to be sharp. You’ve been misled, but you’re young, and we want you back on the right path.”

  Lin snorted through his teeth. He didn’t need to talk theory with a Nanking operative who had a few half-baked theories about the Party. And he did not want to be infected by their poisonous ideas.

  “Have you been reading the newspapers I gave you?”

  Lin decided not to answer. The poison could affect him subconsciously.

  “We know all about your boss, Mr. Ku. We know much more than you know or can even imagine. We know his entire life story. He was born at Mud Crossing in Pu-tung. As a young man, he worked at the China Import and Export Lumber Company and joined one of the gangs active on the pier. I know you don’t believe he was involved with the prostitute shot in her apartment on Rue Eugène Bard, but there’s proof.”

  He drew two photographs from his shirt pocket and put them on the table. He pushed them toward Lin’s teacup with his fingertips. Both photos were blurred, but one seemed to be of a document written with a brush pen on red-lined square paper, while the other was a printed form filled out with a fountain pen.

  He pointed to the one on the left. “This is a guarantor letter for two second-floor rooms rented on the western wing of a shih-k’u-men house on Rue Eugène Bard. The landlord has asked his new tenant to sign ‘Ch’i’ next to her real name, because Ch’i is what everyone calls her. He doesn’t know her occupation, and he wants a guarantor because he suspects she may be a prostitute. A candle store’s official chop has been stamped beneath the guarantor’s signature. We went looking for that elusive candle store, but it had already moved away, and no one seemed to know where it was. The guarantor signed his name, which you may or may not know. But at least you’ll know the man’s surname: his name is Ku T’ing-lung. The photographer focused on the name, so you’ll see it quite clearly.”

  He picked up the second photo. “This is the letter of consent for a surgical procedure performed at Nien-tz’u Gynecological Hospital on the corner of Rue Hennequin and Rue Oriou. It’s a small private hospital occupying a single shih-k’u-men house, not far from Rue Eugène Bard. The only surgeon is Dr. Ch’en Hsiao-ts’un, a doctor trained in Japan, where he may have had his name changed. The patient was in critical condition following a miscarriage. Ku T’ing-lung’s name appears again, under ‘nearest of kin.’”

  Lin could feel the anger rushing to his throat like lava. He wanted to throw up. Instead he picked up his teacup and smashed it on the ground. He could hear footsteps, and a key turning in the lock. The door wouldn’t open and was thick enough to be almost soundproof. Someone was battering at the door and shouting unintelligibly.

  Lin planted his hands on the table and stared at Cheng, who stared back. Then Cheng turned and shouted in the direction of the door: “There’s no need to come in, there’s nothing to worry about. Comrade Lin just got a little worked up.”

  The battering stopped. There was a silence, and then the footsteps went away.

  “Don’t get all riled up. If you’d rather talk about something else, we can do that.”

  He produced something else from his shirt pocket, like a magician.

  “What we have here is a copy of the manifesto for your so-called cell, People’s Strength,” he said, opening the mimeographed pamphlet and beginning to read. At first he read in a monotone voice, as if he were reading a grocery list or a bad student play. But then his face darkened. Before he had finished reading, he tossed the pamphlet on the table as if it were toxic to the touch.

  “Tell me what you think of this. What did your boss, that Ku Fu-kuang, tell you? That this is the latest Communist communiqué?”

  “That we will learn from your massacre of the revolutionaries, and repay an eye for an eye.”

  He looked at him coldly, and clapped his hands to his pockets, but he didn’t have any cigarettes on him. He didn’t smoke.

  “A real Communist would never write something like this!” Cheng sounded angry, maybe because he thought he had a better chance of convincing Lin that way.

  “Ku made this up! It’s garbage. In fact, he didn’t make it up—he plagiarized it. You joined the Party during the May Thirtieth Movement, right? During the student strikes? Young man, you need to learn some theory. Every Communist should apply himself to socialist theory. This is all plagiarized garbage, the work of a Russian anarchist! Marx rejected anarchism for treating revolution as nothing more than individual political theater, a game of violence. Let me tell you about the author of this manifesto. His name was Sergei Nechayev, and he was a consummate liar who started an organization aimed at terrorizing people. Your Ku is like that—he’s a fear-mongerer!”

  The man’s voice softened. He curled the corners of his lips into a smile. “Here’s a story that might give you a sense of who this Ku Fu-kuang is. Nechayev was a nobody until he came up with the idea of mailing an anonymous letter to a woman he knew. In the letter, a fellow student claimed that he had gone out for a stroll when he saw someone toss a note out of a police carriage. Apparently this was a note from Nechayev, exhorting his classmates to carry on with the revolution, as he was about to be killed. Then he ran off to Switzerland, where he told everyone that he had escaped police custody in St. Petersburg, posing as a hero! That’s how men like Ku Fu-kuang scam their comrades and seize power.”

  The electric fan whirred straight at Lin, drying the sweat on his body. His shirt was unspeakably dirty, and he was shivering inwardly.

  CHAPTER 45

  JULY 12, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  5:15 P.M.

  They crossed the river on the last ferry of the day, which left T’ung-jen Pier at 5:00 P.M. Hsueh was dressed as a Shanghailander going to Pu-tung to hunt rabbits and weasels for the weekend, wearing a white canvas suit tapered at the waist with a slit at the back. In a trunk under the backseat of the car, they had a single-shot hunting rifle and a picnic basket. Park was dressed similarly, in black. Hsueh didn’t recognize the other two men, but Park introduced one of them as Ch’in.

  They drove east along the main road that wound along the river, past the piers, and stopped for a break in an empty lot between warehouses belonging to British American Tobacco and the Japanese firm Iwasaki. It was almost sunset. Beyond the warehouse fences and the shipyards, the river shimmered. A Japanese warship was moored at the shipyard awaiting repairs, while its officers were off-duty and had gone ashore. Two men were wrestling on deck while a small crowd hooted and cheered, their cries echoing along the deserted river.
r />   They left the main road at Mitsui Pier, turned onto a dirt road, and took some time crossing a narrow stone bridge. Hsueh got off and beckoned to Park from the other side of the bridge, carefully directing him while the wheels of the car hung partly off the narrow bridge. When they had crossed the bridge, they stopped for some food.

  By then it was dark. The rapeseed fields had long since flowered and ripened into pods, but after a long day of sunshine, the soil oozed a residual fragrance of rapeseed flowers. After they had driven past a small copse, the dirt road vanished. The headlights shone into the Pu-tung wasteland ahead of them, and they finally realized that the clumps of soil they could see were actually gravestones. The night was cloudless and patterned with stars; lights flickered eerily in the trees. Hsueh felt as if his heart were being sucked out of his chest with a pump.

  An hour later, they drove back onto the main road before turning into a small village just off Min-sheng Road. Ch’in’s cousin was a boatman who sailed a fifty-ton cargo boat to villages along Soochow Creek for the Yü clan, a prominent local family, and they had arranged to meet him here. A few years ago, when the Yü clan had had difficulty covering their expenses with land rent, Ch’in’s cousin had set up a warehouse to buy hog hair and cattle bones, which he sold on to foreign firms.

  It was the Yü clan boat they wanted.

  They went into a yard that stank. The boatman stood in dim electric light outside a hut, waiting for them. They all sat around a small table, and Ch’in drank distilled liquor with the boatman. Park picked up the peanut shells littering the table and crushed them one by one between his fingertips. The constant croaking of frogs began to irk them. The mud was plastered with rotting hog hair that bubbled when you stepped on it, which felt like squelching a corpse.

  After midnight, when they were finally taken to the boat, Hsueh walked unsteadily onto the pallet, as if he were in a nightmare.