French Concession

by Xiao Bai

  He loved cameras, and he loved making movies. He would usually go anywhere with anyone who wanted him to shoot film. He didn’t want anyone touching his camera, and shooting film was his job.

  But now that it was over, he was terrified. He was afraid of being questioned by the police. This was a huge deal, and they could charge him with anything they liked. They could even accuse him of collaborating with the Communists and send him to the Kiangsu Provincial Supreme Court. That would mean an automatic minimum sentence of eight or ten years, and whenever they felt like being tough on Communists, they could simply have him shot.

  He told the rickshaw man to turn around and head in the opposite direction.

  He didn’t know whether to develop that reel of film. He wasn’t satisfied with his work. He hadn’t had an assistant, and those men knew nothing about film—they didn’t even bring a light-proof changing bag. From where he had been standing on the truck, his camera was too high up and there wasn’t enough depth of field, so the strong sunlight would turn most of the background white. These men would want to be recognizable; they wanted to be heroes. That meant he couldn’t make the aperture any narrower, and risked ruining the film by overexposing it. He hadn’t had his Watkins Bee Meter with him. It was still in his jacket pocket, draped over the chair in the film studio. An exposure meter like that wasn’t easy to come by.

  But this film was unlike any he had ever shot in his life. It was real, more real than all the weapons he had ever seen. He shot wide shots, then close-ups, then wide shots, then close-ups, wanting to convey the volatility in every moment.

  He didn’t dare show up at work. When he finally called in, someone told him that Pearl Yeh had taken fright and announced she would be resting at home. The studio had no choice but to stop production on the movie, and delay its release. But they couldn’t complain, because the sensational news would make the movie a box office success. The following night, he could hardly stop himself from destroying the film. It would be so easy. Cellulose nitrate burns instantly, so a single match would do the trick.

  Then last night, he had been sitting by the window, reading the papers. It was humid, and the clouds hung oppressively low over the city. Lightning sliced through the night sky. It could rain any moment.

  He didn’t hear the key turn in the lock. But when he looked up, there was a man standing in the doorway with a canvas raincoat on. His silhouette looked familiar. The man closed the door, locked and bolted it, and turned to face him. He was wearing a sou’wester pulled down over his eyes.

  The tea-colored glasses with tortoiseshell rims threw him off, but within seconds, he recognized the leader of the gang. The hero of his latest film, and the protagonist of the day in all the newspapers. His name was said to be Ku Fu-kuang. His newspaper fluttered gently onto the table.

  “I’ve come to get it,” he said.

  “I haven’t got the film. The police came for it.” He didn’t dare give the film to this man. He didn’t know what he wanted with it. Did he want a souvenir to corroborate his shaky memory? What if he decided to show it openly, and Yan’s own name appeared in the credits? That would land him a charge of collaboration and ten years in prison. You disagree? Well then the penalty is death, to be carried out immediately.

  “Mr. Yan.” The man was carrying a messenger bag, like an errand boy at a trading firm. He put the bag on the table and took out a cigarette case, matches, and a gun, which he tossed on the table. “I’ve been watching you for days. You haven’t gone to work, you’ve been hiding at home, and the cops haven’t been to see you. You still have it.”

  I commissioned this film. As the cameraman, you, Yan Feng, have no right to claim possession of it. How dare you fail to hand it over to me? The penalty is death, no appeal, to be carried out immediately with the gun on the table. I’ll give you a minute, or perhaps only thirty seconds. . . .

  “It isn’t here—it’s at the studio. Film is delicate, and it fuses into a sticky lump when it gets humid. It’s also highly flammable. And it has to be developed, edited, and matched to the sound track, frame by frame.”

  “Developed?”

  “All we have right now are the negatives, which will be exposed and ruined as soon as you take them out. They have to be developed before we can put them on a projector.”

  “That’s fine. I can go to the studio with you right now, and you can develop the film there.”

  Let’s go to your studio to get that reel of film. I need it, and I’ll get mad if you don’t give it to me. So get dressed and come along to the studio cheerfully, as if we’re good friends going someplace together. It’s a reasonable enough thing to ask, and you don’t have an excuse for turning me down.

  “We can’t do it today. I’d need the technician’s help, and he’ll already have gone home.”

  His visitor considered that for a moment. It started to rain, and the streets began to blur. A white film of rain melted into the vapor rising from the hot tarmac roads. After a single clap of thunder, the sky grew quiet while the rain kept pattering down.

  “Very good. In that case, I will come to see you tomorrow.”

  His eyes flickered behind his tea-colored glasses, but he made no threats. Instead, he slowly replaced the gun in his bag and left, closing the door gently behind him.

  The rain kept pelting down. Yan Feng felt as though he were dreaming.

  The next morning, he decided to ask the studio technician to help him develop the negatives. They had worked together for many years. It was a Sunday, and the studio was quiet. Watching the film on the little projector next to the film-cutting table, they were both blown away. It wouldn’t need to be edited at all. The sound track on the wax record, including the long announcement, could simply provide a background track played on repeat for the twenty-minute film. He had used five spools of film, each four hundred meters long, and every frame was so realistic that he couldn’t bear to cut it. This was the best film he had ever shot, and he would probably never get the chance to shoot another one like it. Actually, he would rather not have another chance.

  But as he watched it again, he grew dissatisfied. He cut a few sequences out to make the action look smoother. Some actions looked slower once you got them on film, and they didn’t convey the brutal shootout he remembered. Then he cut a few more frames to create a montage of fight scenes.

  The guard was calling to him from outside the window. He went over and drew the blinds.

  It was the police. A Frenchman in a uniform was standing by the car, along with a Chinese man in civilian clothes, who noticed him at the window. The guard was showing him to the stairs. Again, he felt as though he had just woken from a dream.

  Finally, they were here, he thought. No matter what happened, this piece would be his crowning piece of work. “Mr. Yan, we know you are in possession of a significant piece of police evidence, a reel of film,” they said. “Please come with us.”

  CHAPTER 57

  JULY 19, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  9:35 P.M.

  Hsueh was being held in an isolation cell in the northwest corner of the police headquarters building. He didn’t see Sarly until the fourth day he was there. But he had realized long before then that Sarly himself must be under suspicion. Only later did he learn that Chief of Police Mallet had been in charge of the investigation.

  It was confirmed that Hsueh was one of the special investigators recruited by Inspector Maron for the Political Section, albeit one who had never passed an examination or been sent to the colonial police school in Hanoi. Hsueh decided that Sarly wasn’t just sticking to this story to protect him.

  In the many conversations he had had about the incident—no one referred to them as interrogations—Hsueh insisted that he had never heard Ku speak of plans to rob the armored vehicles that transported cash from the Race Course. This was the truth. He never mentioned Sarly’s remark that he was waiting for Ku to “plan something massive.” That wasn’t a lie either—people’s memories of past conversa
tions are usually unreliable, and word-for-word recollections often turn out to be false memories. The only thing he did hide from the police was Therese’s role in the arms deal involving that new weapon. Strictly speaking he didn’t have to lie, since he was never questioned about it. At first he was suspicious that no one ever brought it up, but eventually he decided that Sarly must simply not have mentioned that weapon to anyone. Many years later, when they were longtime colleagues and nearly friends, Hsueh ventured to ask why. Sarly told him that he himself hadn’t recognized the weapon, but he had guessed it was a type of machine gun and wanted to get a weapons specialist to look at it. Then everything had happened so quickly and he had been so madly busy that he didn’t get around to it right away. By then Hsueh was much less naïve, and he had a hunch that Sarly had had his reasons for choosing to forget about the weapon. But a more worldly-wise Hsueh kept his suspicions to himself.

  He decided not to tell Lieutenant Sarly about Lin and the Communists, partly because they had been good to him, and partly because he didn’t want any more trouble. As for Leng, she was too deeply implicated in the Kin Lee Yuen assassination to be let off scot-free. The police hadn’t yet come after her because they had their hands full with this investigation, but she would have to leave Shanghai before they did. It was time he left Shanghai too, he thought. He even had the money. When they locked him up, he had rolled up the check Ku intended for Therese into a tiny roll the size of a cigarette, flipped up the sole of one shoe, picked open the inner stitching near the heel, burrowed out a hole, and buried the check in it. As soon as they let him out, he told himself, he would go to the bank and cash it before they froze the account—it was a check made out to cash. Then he would go to see Therese at the General Hospital. He both wanted to and dreaded seeing her. But he owed her a visit, if only because of the money he was taking.

  He had all kinds of plans for his future life with Leng. They would travel via Haiphong to Europe, or perhaps to America—he wondered whether he would have enough money to start a new life there.

  Lieutenant Sarly encouraged him to take a few weeks off before reporting to the Political Section to start work. That would give Hsueh just enough time to wrap up his affairs, buy a suitcase, and book a berth on a ship. He did not tell Sarly of his plans.

  When he got to the General Hospital, Therese was lying in a private room, still sedated, with Ah Kwai sitting with her. She had woken up a few minutes ago and murmured something. He held her hand silently, and before long, she fell asleep again.

  In the doctor’s office, he found the German doctor who had treated her. The surgery was very successful, and Therese would live another fifty years, but the injury had caused irreversible damage. Luckily, Therese had been wearing a chain belt with a huge pendant that dangled beneath her clothes, deflecting the bullet into her womb. It had saved her life, but she would never be able to have children.

  He sat by her bedside holding her hand, and feeling her fingers twitch. He didn’t leave the hospital until it grew dark.

  At home that night, he wasn’t able to convince Leng to leave with him. He didn’t even get a chance to bring up his plan. Leng was unrecognizable. He didn’t know what had happened to her while he was at the police station, but she was energetic and completely refreshed. He soon realized that his plan wasn’t going to work.

  Hsueh couldn’t understand why Leng had changed so dramatically. Ku had deceived her, she said. Now that she was back in the Party, she felt alive again. When he told her he wanted to leave Shanghai, she grew quiet.

  “Why not stay here? You could help us,” she said.

  “Help with what?” he said unenthusiastically.

  “You’re a good person. You sympathize with our cause,” she said, reminding him of his own words.

  Again she looked like someone he knew from a movie, as if she were an actress who had just gotten out of a bad rut and was back onstage in top form. For some time now, perhaps because she had been falling to pieces with exhaustion, she had stopped reminding him of an actress. He didn’t know which Leng he liked better: the new Leng, glowing with energy, or the old Leng, confused, disoriented, careless of her appearance. Then he decided he liked them both.

  “How can I help?” he asked.

  “We have a pressing mission for you.” Hsueh was amused that Leng had unconsciously used the word mission.

  “Before that truck robbery happened, Ku kidnapped a cameraman from a film studio and ordered him to film the whole thing. We found out about this through several other comrades misled by Ku. In that film, Ku makes a statement in which he poses as a Communist, and it could really hurt us. We have to find the film and destroy it! The Party has intelligence that if it gets into the hands of imperialists, it could seriously damage our cause.”

  “How?” He was only half paying attention.

  “Our mole reports that a handful of imperialist speculators in the Concession still hope to blame Ku’s crimes on the Communists, which will give the foreigners an excuse to send more troops to Shanghai, and turn it into a bona fide colony!”

  The plan was for Hsueh to pay a visit to the cameraman in his capacity as a police investigator, and ask him to hand the film over. It had the added advantage that as a photographer, Hsueh would also know what he was doing.

  Hsueh got hold of his friend the poet, and asked him to help drive the police van somewhere. Lieutenant Sarly had told the poet that Hsueh was on a special mission he could not reveal; he should simply do as Hsueh said. The cameraman was not at home, so they drove to the studio, where the guard told them that he was in the editing room.

  Negatives, a finished print that could be copied, and a wax record for the sound track all lay piled on the living room floor next to the table.

  They were waiting for Lin, who would take it all away to be examined by Party operatives, and then destroyed.

  It had rained the night before.

  During the day it was sunny, but a typhoon was supposed to reach Shanghai that evening. It rained hard, and the windows wouldn’t stop rattling. Leng was in the kitchen doing the dishes. Hsueh opened a roll of film and looked at it frame by frame, marveling.

  Leng came out of the kitchen with a towel. “It’s raining, I wonder—”

  She suddenly stopped and stared at the doorknob.

  It was turning. He looked at Leng, and turned to look at the door.

  It swung open, and a shadow in a canvas raincoat with a hat pulled way over his face stood outside. It was Ku Fu-kuang.

  The gun in Ku’s hands swung slowly between him and Leng, back and forth. A puddle formed beneath him on the floor. The wind grew louder. Ku’s arms were tense, and he appeared to be making up his mind. He looked tired to Hsueh, perhaps even a little wistful.

  Hsueh smiled at him and began to say, “Ku—”

  But before he could say anything, Ku made his decision, pointing his gun at Hsueh.

  “No!” Leng screamed, drowning out the roar of the typhoon and the rattling windows. She leapt at Hsueh, and her cry made Ku hesitate for a few seconds before pulling the trigger.

  A shot rang out, cutting off the scream. Hsueh thought he could hear the bullet penetrate Leng’s body, but he couldn’t describe the sound. It seemed to come from him, as if the bullet had hit him.

  He looked up at Ku.

  Ku looked disoriented and a little melancholy, as if he had been reminded of something.

  Hsueh felt for the gun beneath the reels of film. It was Leng’s gun, the pistol she had been given as a present. She had given it to Hsueh that morning, so that he could go out on a mission. The pistol was loaded, and she had disengaged the safety during dinner. At the time, Hsueh had privately made fun of this melodramatic gesture to protect the film reels with her life, as if she were acting. He couldn’t understand why she and her friends in the Party cared this much about a documentary film.

  He had never fired a gun. He had seen other people open fire countless times, and had taken countless photos of them
. But this was the first time he had fired a gun himself. He pulled the trigger several times.

  Ku collapsed in the pool of rainwater he had made himself.

  The bullet had penetrated Leng’s heart. She was convulsing just like all the other gunshot victims Hsueh had seen.

  She must be in agony. Hsueh held her, gazing at her furrowed brow. He thought he could feel a spasm of her pain.

  Her brain was slowly being deprived of oxygen. The pain was melting away, and her brows unfurrowed. Her lips moved. She was saying something to Hsueh, but he couldn’t tell what. She kept speaking. For a moment, Hsueh thought he could understand her, and he thought she sounded more genuine than usual, completely genuine. Right this moment, she wasn’t acting at all, he thought. Her expression grew wearier. . . .

  EPILOGUE

  FEBRUARY 7, YEAR 21 OF THE REPUBLIC.

  Four bombs had struck the Libia, an Italian cruiser. That attack and many other bomb attacks in the concessions, as well as plainclothes Japanese officers attacking shops and harassing civilians, forced the Chinese army to retaliate by dispatching plainclothes officers to arrest Japanese spies and Chinese traitors. Since the bombings of Chinese-administered Shanghai on the night of January 28, many European businessmen had watched the conflict from the safe distance of their expatriate clubs. They now woke up to the fact that war had broken out. No one would be safe from the conflict euphemistically referred to in diplomatic documents as the Shanghai Incident.