Xiao Bai - French Concession

“And then there’s the Greater Shanghai Plan,” murmured Colonel Bichat. Many Shanghailanders felt that the plan would severely damage international interests in the concessions. In fact, Lieutenant Sarly was well aware that Nanking’s scheme chiefly hurt foreign land developers. European and now American land speculators had bought up large tracts of land to the south and west of Shanghai. These firms would buy land, wait for the prices to be driven up, sell it, and then buy more land farther south and west.

But according to the blueprint for the Greater Shanghai Plan, the heart of Shanghai was to lie in the northeast. Government buildings, a university, model elementary schools, and even a sports ground were to be built in Chapei and Chiang-wan. Roads and public facilities would bring commercial activity to a part of town that was currently a wasteland, and future residents of Shanghai would buy property there. If that happened, the land in the southwest that foreign developers had acquired for huge sums of money would be worthless, and they would lose their investment. Not only would the speculators and banks suffer losses, but the whole system of profiteering would collapse.

“There’s also Tokyo — they keep sending naval and ground troops here, and they’ve always wanted more clout in Shanghai. The Japanese businessmen in the International Settlement have been getting aggressive, and the Municipal Police has spent the past year breaking up brawls between the Chinese and the Japanese in the streets,” Commander Martin said.

“If the Japanese are willing to help, I say the more the merrier,” said Colonel Bichat. “What’s that piece of cloth they wear at the back of their necks again?”

“Ah, neck flaps — they’re just afraid of having their heads chopped off,” said Martin, gesturing with a flick of his wrist. “I hear they like beheading people up there.”

“The Japanese Army got that idea from our North African troops. The Meiji emperor ordered military hats from all over the world to be brought to him, and he chose that one, despite the fact that it was designed for the desert and Japan is nowhere near one. He thought it looked most like the kabuto , a samurai helmet with a neck guard. Except they have two flaps instead of one — for good luck.” Sarly got his information from books.

“The Shanghainese are good people,” Colonel Bichat said. “I say letting Shanghai become a free city would be a wise decision.” But Sarly thought that was a rash thing to say, little better than the rash bets that speculators were making, snapping up farmland around Shanghai. In his view, policy had to progress incrementally, and sending more troops to Shanghai right now would be the right thing to do. The setting sun shone on the pool outside, and the water shimmered like the glistening skin of a belly dancer.

JUNE 29, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

12:30 P.M.

At first, Lin had no reason to be suspicious. But the class struggle had made him more vigilant. He was a quick learner, and he often learned by observing Park. For instance, he had noticed that Park always returned to the scene of even a minor operation, and talked to the shirtless errand boys who stood at the doors of the corner stores all day.

Without telling Ku, he went off to the Singapore Hotel on his own. It was only a short walk from the Rue Palikao candle store. On the way he wondered how he could strike up a conversation. Maybe he could pretend to be a wealthy man looking to set up a private gambling den, but he didn’t think he looked the part.

He stood on the opposite side of Rue du Consulat, at the door of Kuan-sheng Yüan, the candy manufacturer. When someone began to climb the narrow stairs toward the hotel, he quickly crossed the road and followed them. He would feel safer if he wasn’t the only person at the reception. The receptionist was standing behind the desk at the stairwell, talking to someone. He slipped past him and struck up a conversation with the steward sitting on a bench. He spoke in a low voice, winking to hint that it was sex he was after. But the Concession prohibited under-the-table prostitution, and he’d heard that this place had had a spot of trouble with the cops.

“I live in the longtang across the street,” he added unnecessarily. He shouldn’t have said that. A real john doesn’t tell people where he lives.

“The police were here just last week. You scared now?”

He shook his head and shrugged, rattling the coins in his pocket.

“It was the Communists they were after.”

“I heard it was a woman.”

The steward was a young man, but he had met all kinds of people. He gave Lin a meaningful look. Then he shook his head.

“She was a single woman. They took her to the police station, with a man.” That proved his point: you can always learn something useful by returning to the scene of an incident.

He bungled his exit by simply walking away, as though asking about hookers embarrassed him. That could well have made the steward suspicious enough to mention him to the manager in a spare moment. He rushed out of the building, trying to avoid the beggars who squatted in twos and threes by the colonnade, enjoying a few moments of peace during the police’s lunch break.

Leng had lied to the cell! Lin had been there when she called Ku — in fact, he had answered the phone. This has to be reported to Ku, he thought. What did it mean that Leng had been taken to North Gate Police Station? He didn’t have the time to think that through. Ku would be leaving the candle store this very moment, to meet Leng and that photojournalist friend of hers, as they had arranged. That man had real connections in the Political Section. He stopped at the corner of Rue Palikao.

Lin didn’t know where they were planning to meet, but he realized how serious the problem was. Leng was completely exposed: her photograph was in all the Concession newspapers, and it must have been plastered on the walls of the police station, to fix her face in the minds of all those policemen going off to their daily beat. She must have been arrested because someone recognized her, but despite knowing precisely who she was, they had released her anyway. The police weren’t blind, so there must have been some reason why they would turn a blind eye.

He couldn’t think straight. Ku wasn’t there, Park wouldn’t be there, and he always went to one of them when he had questions. His entire unit had been deployed to protect Ku, since this was one of the rare occasions when he would appear in public.

He should go to the new safe house, the apartment rented to replace the one on Rue Amiral Bayle. It was on Boulevard des Deux Républiques between Rue Buissonnet and Rue Voisin. Boulevard des Deux Républiques was the boundary between the French Concession and the Chinese-administered Old Town. The buildings facing the street were under Concession jurisdiction, because the longtang stretching from east to west opened onto Boulevard de Montigny, but the eastern windows opened onto Ming Koo Road, just across the street from the Chinese-administered area. The apartment was rented under his name, but the idea had been Ku’s. Ku said that one night, when he was being frisked by Concession detectives at the gate on Ming Koo Road, he had seen the light come on in a second-floor window. It occurred to him that it could be useful to keep a bundle of rope at the window facing east in one of these apartments and let it down in an emergency, said Ku. Then an unusually wistful look had come over him.