Flower Net

by Lisa See

  “You left out Uncle Zai.”

  “He was the muscle, Hulan. You accept that now, don’t you?”

  Her exhilaration faded. “The entire operation was clean in the sense that each person had his own separate and clearly defined role,” she said. “They all had different friends, business associates, and spheres of influence. They relied on the assumption that no one would connect them.”

  “But we did.”

  Hulan came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the courtyard. “What do we do now, David? Who can we trust?”

  They needed help, but Hulan doubted that they would get it from the ministry, nor could they expect much assistance from the embassy.

  “We shouldn’t talk here,” David said as he came to the same conclusion. “How can we get out of here without being seen?”

  She looked around. The ambassador’s residence was behind them. Guards stood at the gate, the only exit as far as she could tell. “I don’t think we can,” she said, “but I have another idea.”

  Outside the gate, she waited until several taxis passed by, then hailed one at random. She gave the driver instructions to her hutong home in Chinese. After she ascertained that he was from the remote region of Anhui and had never had a foreigner in his car before, she switched to English. “The ambassador’s in Chengdu. I’ll bet that Zai’s gone there, too. They’re probably at the farm.”

  “But we have no idea where it is.”

  “They had help from people at Panda Brand,” Hulan reasoned. “We have to go there and find someone who can help us.”

  “It’s a slim lead, but it’s the only one we’ve got,” David agreed. “We’ll get down there and we’ll follow whatever information we find. Then we’ll follow the next slim lead and the one after that until the truth comes out.”

  She took his hand and said, “You’re right. We have to finish this before…”

  “Before they finish us?” David tried to keep his comment light. When Hulan nodded solemnly, David felt his stomach contract in fear. He took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly. “Okay,” he said. “We know that everywhere we go we can be tracked. What did you tell me that day in Bei Hai Park? There’s a camera at every traffic light? But listen, Hulan. People do escape from Beijing. Many of the students at Tiananmen got out. I saw them interviewed on TV. How’d they do it?”

  “They had friends to hide them. They had connections in Hong Kong.” Hulan understood what David was getting at, but they had a problem the students didn’t have. The dissidents who disappeared into China to reemerge in Hong Kong or the West were Chinese. David was a fan gway, a foreign devil. All of this David was thinking through as well.

  “I need a phone,” he announced.

  Hulan had the driver drop them at a café. Hulan dialed, asked in Chinese for the room of Beth Madsen, and handed the phone to David. He didn’t give his name. Instead he said, “Remember me? We sat next to each other on the plane from L.A.?” There was a pause as Beth spoke, then David said, “No, I have a better idea. Can you meet me in two hours? No, not at the bar. You know the canal outside the hotel? Leave the hotel and turn right along the footpath. In about a quarter of a mile you’ll see a little store that sells kitchen goods. Meet me there.” He laughed with false heartiness. “I know it sounds mysterious. Just come, okay?”

  21

  LATER

  Escape

  They caught another taxi and drove back to Hulan’s home, where she hurriedly packed a few belongings and whatever cash she had in an overnight bag. Then she walked down the alley—keeping a look of indifference on her face as she passed the sedan that was still parked outside her home—to the house of Zhang Junying, the old grandmother and Neighborhood Committee director. Hulan knew that she didn’t have much time, but she could not hurry her neighbor. They had tea. Hulan ate a few peanuts. They exchanged small talk. Finally, Hulan said, “Yesterday I am riding my bike home from work. A country bumpkin pushed his cart of turnips right in front of me and I crashed into him. The chain on my bicycle broke and I fell to the ground and tore my only coat. I was wondering, auntie, if you would let me borrow your grandson’s bicycle so that I might go to the store to buy a new chain.”

  Neighborhood Committee Head Zhang agreed wholeheartedly but warned that the bike might be difficult for Hulan to ride, since it was so large and built for a man. “I promise to be careful,” Hulan swore. After a few more sips of tea, Hulan said, “I do have another favor to ask of you, but I am embarrassed to take advantage of your kindness again.”

  “We are from two old clans in the neighborhood. Our families have known each other for many generations. I think of you as I might a daughter.”

  “As I told you, my coat was torn and it is very cold. Your grandson has been out of the army for many years now. Perhaps I could borrow his coat just until I can buy a new one.”

  The old woman slapped her hands on her widespread knees. “You wear my grandson’s coat? My grandson is very tall. That coat will come down so long you will have to tie it up with rope. You will look like a pilgrim to the sacred mountain of E’Mei.”

  “Only for a day, auntie.”

  The old woman went into a back room and returned with the greatcoat folded into a neat square and tied together with a nylon stocking. Hulan thanked Zhang Junying profusely, put the coat in the wire basket on the handlebars of the bike, then retraced her steps, pushing the bike up the hill, past the sedan, and into her courtyard, where David was waiting for her.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  She looked around the garden, so barren in winter, and nodded.

  “Are you afraid?”

  She nodded again. He enclosed her in his arms, immersed himself in her essence, then whispered in her ear, “So am I, Hulan, so am I.”

  Then he pulled away. For their plan to work, they needed to move quickly and with absolute assurance. David put his coat in a plastic bag and threw it in his bicycle basket. Hulan regretted that she would have to leave her revolver behind, but with the way they’d be traveling, she wouldn’t be able to take it.

  While Hulan dressed in her own musty greatcoat, closed up her house, and put her bag in the basket of her bicycle, David untied Madame Zhang’s grandson’s coat, shook it out, and put it on. It was a tight fit, but between it, the old blue cap that Hulan had found packed away in a closet, and the woolen scarf that she wrapped around his neck and partway up his face, he was at least partially disguised.

  As soon as they lifted their bicycles over the old stone threshold, the sedan’s engine started. David and Hulan mounted the bikes and slowly began pedaling down the street. The car made a U-turn and followed them, making no pretense at discretion. “Stay close, David,” Hulan said over her shoulder as she began to pump faster, then swerved down one of the side alleys. The sedan kept right with them. Suddenly she turned down a narrow alleyway the car could not fit through. David chanced a look over his shoulder to see two men in plainclothes jump out of the car and begin cursing. David and Hulan pressed on, trying never to slow for pedestrians who strolled through the narrow labyrinth of alleys.

  David felt that they had disappeared into another century. There were no cars or even motor scooters here, only the soft whoosh of bicycles and the gentle ring of their bells, the sound of children at play, the melodious call of merchants hawking their wares. Across the city they rode, keeping within the narrow confines of the hutong alleys. When they came to a dead end, Hulan asked directions. When someone noticed that David was a foreigner, Hulan explained, “Oh, the stupid big nose got lost. I am helping him get back to his hotel. It is our responsibility to show friendship to Americans whenever we can, even if they are backward and stupid.” When they got to major intersections—which came with frightening regularity—David pulled his scarf up, focused on the asphalt before his front wheel, and tried to keep to the middle of the stream of bicycles crossing the road.

  They had two stops to make before meeting Beth Madsen. The first was at Hulan’s parents
’ apartment. While she went up, David waited on a side street, tinkering with the spokes of his bike, desperately hoping that no one would approach him.

  The maid let Hulan in. Hulan said, “Please, I wish to be alone with my mother. Do not disturb us.” Without another word, the maid backed out of the room. Jinli sat in her wheelchair, as she always did, staring out the window.

  “Mama, it is Hulan. I am going away for a few days. Don’t worry about me.” Hulan leaned over and gave her mother a gentle kiss. “I love you, Mama.”

  Then Hulan went to the desk. In the bottom drawer she found her mother’s papers in a yellowed envelope. Hulan took her mother’s identity card, tucked it inside her coat, and—without looking back—left the apartment.

  David and Hulan continued their journey across the city. A couple of blocks from the Sheraton Great Wall, they pulled over again. Hulan took off her greatcoat. Underneath she was dressed as usual in fine pastel silk. She brushed off her clothes and ran her hands through her hair. “Do I look all right?”

  “You’re fine,” he reassured her.

  A few minutes later, Hulan emerged from the alleyway, turned onto Xinyuan Road, and pushed through the doors of the Kunlun Hotel. She walked through the lobby and down one of the shopping arcades to a travel agency.

  “I’d like to book two seats on the next flight to Chengdu,” she said in Chinese.

  “Please sit down, madame,” the woman said. “Would you like to arrange a scenic tour?”

  “No, I just want to get there on the earliest flight. My mother is very ill.”

  The woman regarded Hulan. “You can’t be Sichuanese. Your Beijinger accent is too good.”

  “I have lived in the capital many years now. My work unit is here, but my family still lives in Chengdu.”

  The woman checked through the flight schedule. “Is this evening at six satisfactory?”

  “Absolutely. Two seats.”

  “Two seats?”

  “I said this already,” Hulan said impatiently.

  “I shall need to see your identity cards.”

  “Pshaw! You don’t need identity cards to travel in China anymore. You haven’t needed this for ten years.”

  The woman tapped her fingers on the desk as though summoning a waiter in a restaurant. “I want to see your…”

  Hulan reached into her pocket and quickly flashed her mother’s papers. Then she opened her wallet, took out two hundred-yuan notes, and placed them next to the woman’s hand. “My husband has his card at home.” The woman’s fingers tapped a few more times, then she swept the money off the surface of the desk and into her lap.

  “The names?”

  “Jiang Jinli. My husband is Zai Xiang.”

  After a few more tense minutes, Hulan left the travel agency with two tickets to Chengdu in hand. She met David down the alley, where they once again mounted their bikes, rode parallel to Liangmane Road, chose the middle of the block to cross busy Dongsanhuanbei Road, thereby avoiding the camera at the intersection, then made their way to the pathway along the canal past the Sheraton Great Wall to the little shop for kitchen goods that David had passed each day on his early-morning jogs.

  Beth Madsen, dressed in a thick red wool coat with shiny gold buttons, paced nervously along the bank. David pulled to a stop next to her. “Beth,” he whispered. When she turned, she saw a larger-than-average Chinese soldier with most of his skin covered by layers of wool cloth to protect him from the weather. David pulled his scarf down to show his face. “It’s me, David Stark.”

  “David? What are you doing out here?”

  “I need your help, Beth. I’m in trouble.”

  Beth looked over his shoulder to where Hulan was standing next to her bike. “What’s this all about?”

  “They’re trying to kill us.”

  Beth Madsen laughed. When he didn’t join in, she turned serious. “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  He shook his head.

  “Go to the American embassy,” she suggested.

  “I’ve been there.”

  Beth stared at him intently, then turned, walked a few steps away, and watched as an old man poled his boat along the canal. “I thought, a drink. Maybe, you know…”

  “Beth, please…”

  Beth straightened her shoulders, then turned back to face him. “If I’m going to help you, I need to know what I’m getting into.”

  Quickly they told her as much about what they knew as he felt she could grasp. When they reached the end, Beth said, “But if half of what you say is true, they’ll be looking for you.”

  “That’s what I’m counting on,” David said. “They’re thinking we’re going to try to hide, and we are. But we’re going to hide in plain sight.”

  While he outlined his strategy, Beth regarded Hulan. The Chinese woman met this scrutiny evenly. At the end of his description, Beth thought for a moment, then said, “Okay, but let’s do it quick before I lose my nerve.”

  Again Hulan shucked off her coat, looked at David one last time for reassurance, then the two women set off. David would wait here for fifteen minutes, then make his way down one of the alleys to where it met the main thoroughfare. If all went well, Hulan would arrive a few minutes later in Beth’s car, and they would drive straight to the airport. David scrunched down on his haunches as he had seen so many Chinese men do and looked out at the canal. The same old man David had seen on his morning runs was loading baskets onto his boat. Watching this man going about his everyday business calmed David.

  The two women had a long walk back to the hotel. By the time they passed through the side entrance, Hulan was shivering from the cold and from the fear she felt when she saw the two plainclothes policemen who watched the comings and goings of guests. But they must have been instructed to look for a Caucasian man or they were duped by seeing Hulan with a Caucasian woman, for they paid no attention to the women but kept stamping their feet to keep warm and puffing on their cigarettes.

  As soon as they got inside Beth’s room, the American sighed. “I think I held my breath the whole way,” she said, trying for a light conversational tone that came out more as a quaver. Beth giggled nervously, then opened the closet and pulled out an Armani pantsuit of fine gray wool and a silk blouse. Unself-consciously, Hulan stripped down to her underwear and slipped on Beth’s outfit. It was a little big in the hips, but otherwise it fit perfectly. To complete the ensemble, Beth added a velvet trimmed headband and a pair of Bally flats. In just five minutes, Hulan had changed from a Beijinger to a wealthy overseas Chinese.

  Beth gathered together a few other clothes and stuffed them into a plastic shopping bag from the Kempinski Department Store across the way. She picked her red coat up off the bed and handed it to Hulan. “Here, take my coat, too.”

  “You’ve done enough,” Hulan declined politely.

  “If you don’t mind my saying so, this isn’t a time to show your Chinese manners. Just take it.”

  A few minutes later, when they walked back out the side entrance, the two policemen again ignored them. Beth raised her hand and her driver pulled the Town Car up to the steps. As the two women slipped into the backseat, Beth gave instructions. A couple of minutes later the driver stopped at the designated meeting place. David was nowhere in sight.

  Hulan knew the best thing to do was to circle around and hope that he showed up shortly. Instead, she envisioned the worst: David was injured or dead. This thought propelled her against all reason out of the car. “If I’m not back in five minutes,” she told Beth, “don’t wait! Go back to your hotel and forget this ever happened.” Beth, whose skin had taken on a pale green tint, nodded. Hulan turned away and hurried down the alley, which led to the canal. David hadn’t moved from his spot on the bank.

  “David, are you all right?” she asked, her voice tremulous.

  He turned to face her. He seemed unconcerned that he had missed their rendezvous. “What do you see, Hulan?”

  “David, we have to get moving!”
r />   “Just tell me. What do you see?”

  Hulan looked around. “A gray sky. Some houses. A couple of shops. A canal.” She tried to appease him with these simple answers, but the danger of their situation got the better of her. “Come on! This isn’t the time to take in the sights! We’ve got to go!”

  He ignored her commands, saying, “The canal. Where does it go?”

  “I don’t know. I suppose it connects with others, maybe it pours into the Grand Canal or the port at Tianjin.”

  “And you still don’t see it?”

  “No, David, I don’t,” she said in frustration.

  “Every morning I’ve come out here to run. Every morning I’ve watched that man load baskets onto his boat. Do you see him over there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You didn’t mention him.”

  “David!”

  He creaked to a standing position, shook out his legs, and crossed to her. He turned again to face the canal, put one arm over her shoulder, and with the other pointed. “A boat, a man, a basket, a canal. It’s how they moved Henglai to Tianjin without being seen. They hid him in plain sight.”

  It was an important discovery, but Hulan was too scared to care. She grabbed David and their parcels and led the way to the car. The driver didn’t question anything but drove straight out the toll road to the airport. When David and Hulan got out, Beth said, “Good luck.” Then she closed the door and the Town Car pulled away.

  The next hour would be the trickiest if David’s plan was to work. They were traveling as Chinese but dressed as Americans. While David watched their few bags, Hulan queued up in the busiest line she could find, hoping that the clerk would be too harried to focus on the names on the tickets or the woman who stood before her. Wordlessly Hulan handed over the tickets. To Hulan’s relief, the woman behind the counter never even looked up but just typed the names into the computer, issued seat assignments, handed the tickets back to Hulan, and chirped, “Next.”