Xiao Bai - French Concession

Lieutenant Sarly’s comment about using your imagination came to mind. Hsueh thought the woman in the second-floor window might have something to do with the firearms deals, in which case the meeting the other night could have taken place in her rooms. He was pleased with himself for coming up with that. He had originally been forced to spy on Therese, and all the other people he came across were only characters he resorted to when he needed to make something up. But when he saw this woman, all the other figures began to find their proper place in the story taking shape in his mind.

He imagined how she must feel right then — frightened and bewildered.

While the police were falling over themselves chasing the shooter, he began to follow her. She walked briskly through dark alleyways lined with red brick walls half coated with rust-stained, mossy cement. In the sunlight, he could see wisps of cotton drifting onto her short, permed hair. On the ship, she had pinned her hair up in a braided bun. Her light wool coat was just a little shorter than her checkered yellow-and-green cheongsam. When she turned the corner, she would tip her head forward and sway slightly, as if she had caught sight of someone she knew and wanted to surprise them. When her arm swung and disappeared around the corner, her beige coat rippled as if a carp were squirming under it.

When he returned to Rue Amiral Bayle that morning and saw her standing at the window, he could already guess most of the story. But for reasons even he himself did not fully grasp, he had not told Maron the truth.

Hsueh caught sight of the Vietnamese policeman who was always grumpy, but even he didn’t scare Hsueh anymore thanks to Lieutenant Sarly. He stretched out his hand, grasped her wrist, and cheerily yelled something in French in the direction of the policeman, but no one understood him, or cared.

She glared at him but allowed him to lead her along a pebbly path lined with knee-high fences, which cut through the field toward the lotus pond.

He barely knew why he was doing this, perhaps because he had seen her weeping on the boat, or perhaps because he did not believe that a beautiful woman could also be dangerous, because he always observed danger through the lens of a camera. Even though Lieutenant Sarly had told him that a Communist cell was behind the Kin Lee Yuen assassination.

“Why didn’t you bring your camera?” she turned and asked abruptly. She seemed not to have noticed that this was tantamount to admitting that she recognized him.

Then she stared down at a magpie, at the rushes growing by the pond.

“I see you’ve been thinking of me?” He himself had thought back to that moment on the ship, shoals of fish gleaming in the sunlight, lifeboats draped in gray-green canvas, the walnut tables on the deck. She had been unhappy, his camera had surprised her, and then she had left angrily.

She looked just as angry now. She said nothing, giving him an icy look, and walked away.

“That’s my job, I’m a photographer, a photojournalist,” Hsueh called behind her.

He was telling the truth, of course. He had always sold his photographs to newspapers and news agencies, and now he even had a newspaper job. You’ll need another job, Lieutenant Sarly had said. I could give you a police badge, but then you’d have to work your way up from being a lowly junior detective, and earn your promotions based on years of service. Since this is the Political Section, I have discretion in hiring intelligence operatives. If I add a few words to your personnel file at the right time, the Concession Police could hire you directly as a sergeant, perhaps even as an inspector. So the best way to go about this would be for you to have an unrelated profession in public and work privately for me.

Lieutenant Sarly made a couple of phone calls and had drinks with his friends at the French Club. The next day, the editor of the French newspaper Le Journal Shanghai sent word inviting Hsueh to visit their offices. As soon as he arrived, he was handed a contract to sign and a box of gold-edged name cards, printed in French on one side and Chinese on the other.

She stopped in her tracks, hesitated, and spun around with a gleam in her eyes. Hsueh’s flippant words had gotten him in a dangerous situation.

The Concession tabloids had spent a whole week rehashing the Kin Lee Yuen assassination for scandal-hungry Shanghai residents. This woman was said to be an accomplice to murder, or perhaps even its mastermind. The editors produced photographic evidence that she was both beautiful and wicked.

A few of the foreign papers and the more serious Chinese papers speculated that the killing might be connected to Communist assassination squads. They also printed a statement provided anonymously by one such group claiming responsibility for the assassination.

He knew they were Communists. Lieutenant Sarly had told him so.

At this point, they were both standing by the lake, or rather, the pond. He took a few steps toward the pavilion in the center of the pond, which was supported by wooden planks planted in the mud at the bottom. On summer nights, the pavilion often hosted concerts featuring Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and the debonair composer Satie. Butterflies and other insects darted about in the sunshine.

He was not very afraid of the Communists. They belonged to another world altogether. For all he knew, they were hiding in a remote province somewhere outside the Concession. They were reckless students who had caused a great stir and terrified all the foreigners in Shanghai a few years back. The commotion had been amusing to watch, but it had soon died down. Their schemes had nothing to do with his. If anything, the Concession was his territory, and he should receive them like guests.

“You must know that I sympathize with your cause.” Hsueh regretted these generous words as soon as they left his mouth. The wind blew, and his shadow began to shudder on the face of the pond, as though it were an informant, listening.

“I can see where you’re coming from.” He tried a different way of putting it.

“I don’t know what you mean.” That’s right, don’t admit to anything. He looked at her mischievously. The longer they were silent, the more flirtatious the silence became.

He liked imagining he was an incorrigible Don Juan. It gave him more confidence.

She arranged her hair with a gesture like a Boy Scout salute, four fingers pressed together and the thumb bent.

“What do you want?” She looked dispirited, and her question sounded not threatening but resigned.

“I’ve been following you all this way.”

“What do you want with following me?”

“I want to help,” he said earnestly. “I don’t know what you are doing, you obviously don’t want me to know, and I guess I don’t want to know. But I know a few things you don’t, which I would like to tell you. In any case, you can’t go back to the apartment now.”

“Why should I trust you?”

“Well, why haven’t I already turned you over to the police? Why do you think they were searching people on Rue Amiral Bayle? And why do you think they haven’t found out where you live yet? How do I know you are a Communist? Why shouldn’t you trust me?”

His series of rapid-fire questions sounded like part of a monologue, and he felt as though he had pulled off a successful performance and deserved a round of applause.

“What I know will be useful to you. You must let me talk to you. Wait for me here. Today is a Sunday, and you can pretend you came here to read. I’ll go find out what’s happening on Rue Amiral Bayle.”

He turned to leave, but after a few steps he turned around, pointed at the pavilion, and cried, “Don’t go anywhere. Wait for me here.”