Xiao Bai - French Concession

The Vietnamese traffic cop wearing a red-tasseled hat looked like a puppet. Hsueh stood at the crossroad, waiting for the man to pull his card and turn the wooden sign mounted on a revolving pole. When the side painted red faced a particular street, the people and cars on that street would have to stop and give other traffic the right of way. But before the sign turned, a car pulled up, the window was rolled down, and Therese waved at him from the passenger seat.

“So, you’re alive then?” she asked huskily once they were alone in the Astor. The mahogany four-poster bed was hung with a gray mosquito net that smelled moldy in the breeze. The sun had set, but the floor next to the bed was still warm with the sunlight.

Therese was lying on her side on the edge of the bed near the window, with two pillows tucked under her arm. She curled up comfortably, stuck her ass in the air, and began to stroke his groin. A British warship sailed past, its steam whistle sounding a long blast. Therese cocked her head as the dying rays of the sun played on the edges of the cloud and shone into the room so that the tiny hairs on the skin of her hips grew bright.

He wanted to tell her right away, but he didn’t get a chance. She tore his clothes off and started playing with his dick until it sprang up like a punching bag assailed by blows.

His ribs were still sore, and he was so tightly wedged between Therese’s legs that he could barely breathe. Her knees were hooked around his waist like clamshells. Her muscles became visible when her legs stiffened. Hsueh had just watched them tighten around his cheekbone. He thought he was screaming, but he only produced a moan.

She took his fingers and brushed them along her crotch. He had to make up another story. He had to come up with something he could get away with. Nothing convincing came to mind. Instead, he found himself chasing her to a climax. . Afterward he stayed hunched over, to avoid looking directly at her.

As he fell onto his back, a bold idea occurred to him.

“Zung has to leave Shanghai immediately.”

The panting stopped. He had to go on.

“He’s in danger, and you’ll be implicated. He thinks he’s doing business with the gangs, dealing in firearms,” he said, staring bravely at her shoulders. “But his customer is actually an ambitious assassination squad active in the Concession.”

“How do you know all this?”

“I’m one of them,” he said, figuring that she would fall for that — after all, wasn’t everyone in Shanghai connected to the gangs in some way? He was proud of his invention. “I happen to know the head of this gang, and — well, actually, we’re old friends.”

This was absurd, he thought, no way would she believe him. He felt discouraged, but he went on: “You know I’m a photographer. They sometimes engage photographers, and that’s how we met — he used to hire me to do investigations. That’s why I investigated Mr. Zung. I followed him.”

She reached toward the bedside table, rummaging about in her handbag, as if she wanted the lighter, and produced an exquisite pistol. It happened so quickly he had no time to be frightened. The next thing he knew, the barrel was digging into the soft space between his chinbone and Adam’s apple. He was about to vomit.

Petrified, he opened his eyes wide and raised his arms in a gesture of surrender. His fingers were shaking.

“Tell me the truth.”

There was a long silence. The clock ticked, and seagulls could be heard foraging for rotten food along the river. Time passed so slowly he could barely stand it, as it does when you’ve got to piss. He was so terrified that he was about to piss right then. He had seen what a bullet could do when it pierced a man’s chin and tore off his lower chinbone, as if it was simply opening a box. He dared not answer, afraid that if his chin moved, it would trigger the gun. Strangely, his brain began to go through the terms he had been learning. Trigger? Or was it hammer? He wanted to remove himself from the situation by recalling those terms, as if remembering them would make what was happening to him seem far away, like a scene in a novel.

Therese began to laugh again. She looked at his face, and plucked a crooked piece of hair from his nose. It was her pubic hair, and he could still smell its scent, like cheese with a little apple vinegar. Sometimes a gun can get you out of a tight spot, but sometimes all it takes is a single damp pubic hair.

“Why did you follow him, and where to? I want the time and place. Why is he in danger?”

“It was Sunday evening. I followed him from the YMCA to a restaurant, and then to an apartment on Rue Amiral Bayle. It was a safe house for the assassination squad. The gang leader already knows something’s up. This lot is disgruntled. They’ve turned to contract killing, and they’ve been pocketing the bounty. He’s decided to have the police deal with it — you know the gangs always work with the police. So the police have been watching this apartment, and since Mr. Zung went there, they’ll be watching him too. They’ll start making arrests any day now. I was going to tell you right when I got here.”

This is ridiculous, he thought. This story is full of holes. Boy, am I an idiot. He watched Therese lift the mosquito net and open the cigarette case lying on the bedside table. He was in deep trouble. A single phone call would reveal his lies.

“Was it the gang leader who wanted you to spy on me and follow Zung?”

“Yes.”

“Tell me his name.”

Hsueh’s mind raced. He tried to remember the names he had seen in the newspapers. After the Kin Lee Yuen assassination, a small paper with links to the gangs had suggested that the leader might be named — Ku. Yes, that was it.

“Ku. We all call him Mr. Ku.”

“And was it Mr. Ku who had you follow Zung?” Therese’s voice had grown cold. It was the first time Hsueh had mentally connected this name to the people he had seen the other night. He pictured their faces. It had been dark, but the middle-aged man could have been Mr. Ku. He realized he had made an irretrievable mistake — if Ku was doing business with Therese, why would he have Hsueh follow Zung? Then he thought, if you believe me, it follows that Zung must be deceiving you.

“How dare you spy on me for someone else! How dare you follow Zung!”

The barrel jabbed upward again. He thought about the ridiculous mess he was in. His eyes watered with self-pity. The barrel jabbing into his skin sharpened all his senses. His tear glands began to itch, and his vision blurred. His voice came out as a whimper and he found himself speaking French, as though a softer, less forceful language would help him avoid triggering the hammer on the other end of the barrel. Even he himself could not hear what he was saying, but Therese seemed to understand him anyway:

“I followed him because he is a wicked influence on you, because I like you. I. . I love you.”

JUNE 11, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

6:35 P.M.

All that time, Lieutenant Sarly was homesick for France. He did not really belong in Shanghai. There were Europeans in the city who had long since forgotten where they were from. Not long ago, they had gotten on ships somewhere else and acquired new identities upon landing in Shanghai. These men had come to Shanghai with nothing, made their fortunes here, bought houses, married their wives, and started families in Shanghai — people called them Shanghailanders, and it was no wonder they considered Shanghai their home.