"What can I do?" she asked.
Oh, I love you, he thought. I love you. And, after all, I cannot involve you in this. I thought I could, but I cannot.
"In fact, there is nothing," he said, "because you do not speak Chinese. We need people to leave messages on Dung Chan's answering machine. Meiyun will do it, and three other friends, none of them in Beijing."
"Saying what?" asked Sheng.
"Mostly hints. References to demonstrating, printing leaflets, the American president's visit, locations, mainly Tiananmen Square, where the welcoming ceremony will be held, the Great Wall, which every head of state visits, and the Forbidden City; it will surely be on the list. All the messages should sound as if people are checking in with the head of an organization. I will write those."
Sheng was looking at his father with admiration. "You are very good. And I will call the State Security Bureau first thing tomorrow
and advise them to search Dung Chan's offices and listen to the telephone messages."
"Can you disguise your voice when you call? They will tape it."
"I know how to do that. And should I tell them about the Beijing Bank?"
"No, it will be enough that they find the deposit slips in Chao's desk."
"Does anyone search my hotel room?" Miranda asked.
Li frowned. "Why?"
"I just wondered. All this talk of bugging and opening mail. .."
"Of course they do," said Sheng, "since you delivered—" He caught his father's warning look. "Or maybe not. No, probably not. They wouldn't want an incident so close to your president's visit."
This time Li did reach across the table and take her hand. "What are you thinking about? You are not planning something—?"
Her eyes were wide and innocent. "You told me there was nothing I could do, because I don't speak Chinese."
"And you believe that?"
"I believe that not speaking Chinese would be a great hindrance to me in many, many ways."
"That is another subject," Li said angrily. "We will talk about that later. You cannot use this as a way of deciding ... anything."
Miranda laid her hand along his face. It did not matter that Sheng was there, or that Li was capable of doing things she would not have believed, or that tomorrow was filled with unknowns. All that mattered was that she loved him and that tomorrow was also her last day in China, and in that way, too, was filled with many unknowns.
Li kissed her palm, holding it to his lips. His thoughts moved ahead to the time when they would be alone, when they would go to bed and wake together and eat breakfast, and plan a visit to the Forbidden City, like an untroubled couple. But though he repeated it a dozen times, ten dozen times, they were not an untroubled couple, and he could not make it so by pretending it.
Do you think I am dreaming you and soon I will wake up and find none of these days has been real? Or perhaps you are dreaming me. In which case everything is all right as long as we don't wake up.
Chapter 13
Sheng parked his car a block away from the low building near the airport, and walked down the middle of the dark road to the door that led to Dung Chan's offices. In the blackness, he felt his way along the corridor to Pan Chao's office, sidling along the walls and around two filing cabinets and a work table, to the desk, angled in the far corner. A clock ticked; there was no other sound.
Finding the metal handle, he pulled open the middle drawer, cringing at the noise. He cleared a space at the back, behind notepads, a pencil sharpener, scattered paper clips, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter, and shoved in the documents he had signed with Chao's signature. He added a stack of Beijing Bank deposit slips, then slowly slid the drawer shut, shrinking again at the sound it made.
All this had taken less than two minutes. Good, he thought; easy. And then the telephone rang.
He froze. No one made phone calls at two in the morning. He stared in the direction of the telephone, hearing it but not seeing it, and then the answering machine cUcked on and he heard Pan Chao's voice telling the caller to leave a message.
"Pan Chao, we have thirty-six for Tiananmen at eight-thirty." A woman's voice Sheng did not recognize. "Behind the Great Hall of the People, as you ordered, to appear when the president arrives. We are trying to get fifty, as you requested; it is very difficult." The caller hung up.
Sheng felt a long shiver of excitement. One of his father's friends. They had begun.
He felt his way along the walls, reversing his earlier movements to
the doorway, and into the corridor. He had just reached his own office when all the lights went on.
Blinded, Sheng flung an arm across his eyes. "What the hell—!" His heart was thumping. He peered through half-closed eyes at a stranger in the doorway from the parking lot. "Who the hell are you?"
The stranger strode toward him. "I'm the watchman. You'd better tell me who you are."
"We don't have a watchman!"
"How do you know? Pan Chao hired me to—"
"When? When did he hire you?"
"This afternoon." He gripped Sheng's arm. "Come on."
"This is my office!" Sheng cried.
The man squinted at him. "You're lying. Pan Chao said there are only two people here, him and Meng Enli."
Sheng's stomach clutched. Akeady he had become a nothing. "He meant M time. I have another office in the city." He jerked his arm free and drew himself up. "Now get out of my office, or I'll call the police."
"Police," the man said scornfully. "I work here; I'll stay as long as I want." But his gaze wavered past Sheng, to his office. "What's your name?"
"Yuan Sheng." He had seen that wavering glance, and he was beginning to feel better. "I am partner with Chao and Enli, and I am telUng you to get out of here! Now!"
"I heard the telephone. It's my job to investigate."
"And you see that everything is fine."
"I should call Chao."
"Yes, wake him up; he will be so angry that you are calling to say his partner is in his own office that he will fire you. There is the telephone, call him!"
Once again the man looked into Sheng's office, at a box on the floor addressed to Yuan Sheng. "I guess I don't have to." He backed away, to the door to the parking lot. "Are you staying until he comes in?"
"It depends. I forgot what time he said he would be here."
"Six o'clock. He and Enli. He said they had a lot to do."
Sheng nearly fell over. He had been planning to call the State Security Bureau at seven. "I can't stay, but I'll be back at six," he said, proud of the smooth way the lies slid from his lips. He walked into his office. "Be sure to close the door on your way out."
He stood with his back to the corridor. When he heard the outside door close, he dashed back, to make sure the man was gone, then
returned to his desk and reached for the telephone. Can't wait until seven: have to do it now. He began to dial, then stopped. TTiey can trace the call. It has to be someplace else.
Racing now, he took a quick look through his desk and removed a few papers, stuffed his CD player into an old briefcase, and slipped his favorite fountain pen into his pocket. A silver-framed photo of Wu Yi smiled professionally at him. He weighed it in his hand, then tossed it in the waste basket No, he should leave nothing personal. He retrieved it and put it in the briefcase, to throw away at home, then turned off the lights, shut the door of his office, and walked out of Dung Chan for good.
Outside, the man was not to be seen. Sheng forced himself to walk normally and look straight ahead so that no one would think he looked furtive. Carrying the heavy briefcase, he walked the block to his car and drove a mile, until he found a call box. Don't look around; don't look suspicious. Inside the box, he dialed the general number of the State Security Bureau and listened to it ring. Somebody has to be there; they never close.
After twenty rings, a man answered. Sheng pitched his voice to a higher register with a Chongking accent, and rattled off the name Dung Chan and the ad
dress of the building. He repeated it more distinctly, to give the person on the other end time to write it down, then said, "Counterrevolutionary activities; trouble when the U.S. president arrives."
"Your name—?" But Sheng had hung up. His heart pounding, afraid to look around to see if anyone were watching, he strode to his car, and started the engine. No wait, he thought, I should call father. He'll want to know that everything is all right.
But he imagined Li in bed with Miranda, the two of them curled up together, and a stab of jealousy pierced him, and fear. What is he going to do about her? He looks at her as if there is no one else in the world for him.
He drove away, toward the center of the city. Ten minutes later, headlights blinded him. A car was approaching, at high speed: the only other car on the road at that time of night. Sheng slowed to look back as it passed him, going toward Dung Chan. Unmarked, but they always were. State Security, he thought; what else could it be? He had used the most potent words—Counterrevolutionary. Trouble. U.S. president—and here they were.
How speedily they responded! One could be proud of one's government for that. Father should know this, Sheng thought again. But he knew he would not call; he could not bear to hear Li's sleep-filled
voice coming from their tangled bed. Tomorrow, he thought. I'll tell him then.
And for what remained of this night, where would he go? Not his father's house, not Wu Yi's apartment, that was closed to him forever. He had nowhere to go but home, where his wife and son would be asleep, accustomed to his being gone most nights. But they would be glad to see him in the morning; they always were. Sheng found that a surprisingly comforting thought. I will go home, he thought, and be there for them when they wake up in the morning.
In the morning, Li drove Miranda to the Palace Hotel before breakfast, so that she could pack before her meeting. Methodically, she emptied the closet, the desk and bureau drawers, and the bathroom countertop and shelves, becoming so depressed by their bare anonymity that she could not prevent other thoughts from breaking through: her last day in China, checking out of the hotel, signing the final contracts, packing the gifts she had bought, packing the jade lady and a pair of carved wooden chopsticks she had bought at Liulichang for herself, packing the blouse and dress and jacket from Meiyun, packing, packing, packing.
But it will be all right, because Li will come to America. Not tomorrow, I know that's unrealistic; but soon. As soon as he can.
How did she know that? I know it, she thought smbbomly. I know it.
She packed her books, adding to them one Li had taken from his shelves their first night in his house. It was a collection of thirteenth-century poems translated into EngUsh and she had had no chance to read it, but now she saw a small gold clip on one of the pages. It marked a short poem, with Li's handwriting above it: "For Miranda."
Do you not see
That you and I
Are as the branches of one tree?
With your rejoicing
Comes my laughter;
With your sadness.
Start my tears.
Love,
Could life be otherwise
With you and me?
Tears sprang to her eyes. That's how I know it, she thought. Because he marked this for me. Because life could not be otherwise
for us: the branches of one tree. She tucked the book in her briefcase. And so of course he will come to live with me.
Come live with me and be my love, and we will all the pleasures prove ... That was from another poem, an English one she had learned in high school. I'll buy it for Li when I get home, she thought, and send it to him, for the time we're apart, before he comes to Boulder.
She slipped shoes into shoe bags, hung suits in her garment bag, folded the blue dress in layers of tissue, and began to do the same with the blouse. No, I'll wear it. Today with Li and tomorrow on the — Her thoughts faltered; they could not fasten on the word "plane." I'll wear it today and tomorrow. She packed an overnight bag with the things she would take to Li's house that night, squeezed everything else into her suitcase and garment bag, and set them in the vestibule for the doorman to put in Li's car when he came for her.
Once more, the room was an ordinary hotel room waiting for the next traveler. I'll miss it, Miranda thought, even though I haven't been here very much. She opened drawers to make sure she had emptied them, then came to the desk in the window, empty except for the telephone and the hotel's message pad and pen.
Does anyone search my hotel room?
Of course, since you delivered —
A letter, Miranda thought. Sheng thinks my room is searched because I delivered a letter. Probably Li does, too, though he didn't say so, and stopped Sheng from saying it, I suppose to protect me from being frightened.
But I'm not frightened. I'm leaving tomorrow; there's nothing they can do to me.
But I could do something for Li and Sheng. Leave some notes here for the Security people to find. Pan Chao's name, the date of the president's visit, Tiananmen Square. That would help cook his goose. Oh, I have to tell that one to Li. I wonder if he knows it. Cook his goose. She smiled. Chinese style. Excitement ran through her, the excitement of conspiracy and action. No wonder people get a kick out of this.
But as soon as she began to write, her excitement cooled. She could not do it. She might indeed help cook Pan Chao's goose, but it would make her even more suspect than before, and that would spill over to Li. He would be in danger, yet again, because of her.
She put down the pen. Li had been right. There was nothing she could do for him. Except love him and be here for him.
And even that she could not do. Not after tomorrow morning, when she boarded a plane for America.
Unless she stayed in China.
But there was no time to go over it again; it was time for her meeting.
Around the conference table, everyone was friendly, with smiles and nods of agreement. The meeting felt strangely valedictory to Miranda, with the same bittersweet feelings she remembered from high school and college graduations: she wanted to stay, she had mastered the survival tactics and had come to enjoy it, but she had no choice but to move on.
She shook hands, saying goodbye and wishing them well in Chinese, and the executives said goodbye in English, adding formally, "We hope you have so good trip home and that you come back to Beijing." It was all so congenial that she had difficulty remembering her anger and feelings of isolation at her first meeting, less than two weeks ago.
"They've gotten nicer," she said to Li when they met for lunch. "I couldn't have changed that much, so it must be that they have."
He chuckled. "All the leading garment manufacturers in Beijing were magically transformed in just ten days. Remarkable."
"It was magic," Miranda said. Then, more slowly, she repeated it. "Magic. All of it. A magical time."
"It will always be magic, with us." Li's hand brushed hers as they simultaneously reached toward the bubbling Mongolian hot pot before them. The pot sat on a circle of flame in the center of the table and with their chopsticks Li and Miranda took slices of raw chicken and beef, beady-eyed shrimp, and vegetables from a large platter and submerged them in the boiling broth, fishing them out when they were cooked and dipping them in different sauces before eating them. The soup, by then fully flavored, would close the meal.
Miranda found a piece of cooked chicken in the clear bubbling liquid and neatly removed it with her chopsticks. It's really so simple, she thought; like a lot of new things that were daunting only yesterday. Like getting along with Sheng. "Have you talked to Sheng this morning?" she asked.
"Yes, very early. He had to be more speedy than he had planned."
"But he did put the papers in Chao's desk?"
"Yes, and the bank deposit slips. And he telephoned the State Security Bureau. He thinks he saw a Security car headed for the office as he was driving away, so it is likely that the offices have been searched by now."
"And then?"
> "If I were they, I would be at the Beijing Bank, waiting for Chao to
make some transaction under the name Dung Chan. That would be the end of him."
"Cook his goose," Miranda said with a smile.
"Cook—? Oh, I like that. Cook his goose. But why goose? Why not duck or chicken or pigeon or even buffalo?"
"I don't know. It dates back to street ballads of the eighteen hundreds, but why they chose goose is a mystery."
"Like love. A mystery. Why it begins, why it grows, why it endures." He took her hand. "Miranda, don't go back. Stay with me. We cannot lose this mystery, this magic; we cannot let it go. Please stay with me; we can make a life here, a good life; Lisa and Adam will be happy; we will be happy. Please ..."
"Li, I can't talk about it; this isn't a good place."
"No place is good for you. Do we need Meiyun with us before we can talk about it? We keep putting it off; we run from it as if it frightens us. All right, it frightens us, but what will we say tomorrow when I take you to the airport and we have no more time to talk?" He gave her a long look. "Or is that what you want? That we hide and hide until time runs out and then you will not have to decide anything because it will have been decided for you, and you will go home even if you do not want to—"
"I do want to." She looked around, as if trying to find a way out. Yet she loved being there with him, she loved Li and everything that they did together. But— "I do want to go home; how can I say that I don't? To give up my whole life—"
"But isn't that what you want me to do?"
"Yes," Miranda said after a moment, "because it's better to live in America than in China. Everybody knows that."
Li was silent. In a moment, they returned to the business of cooking and eating, until Li said, "Do you want to go to the Forbidden City?" as if that plan had not already been made, and Miranda, tense and unhappy, nodded. Why not, she thought. One more day of seeing Beijing before I leave it.
One more day of being with Li before I leave him.
But that was not a thought she could hold on to.
A Certain Smile Page 31
