Xiao Bai - French Concession

She had tried all the sexy moves she could imagine, the ones she thought a Russian woman might know. Sometimes she would turn over in bed and crawl onto him. But as soon as she was sitting across his belly, she would realize she didn’t know what to do next. That was embarrassing, just sitting there, as if she were perched on an altar surrounded by a waiting crowd. She didn’t know whether to prop herself up with her hands — she didn’t even know where to look. She avoided meeting his gaze, which seemed to taunt her.

It was her duty to seduce him. Everyone knew that sophisticated men like him only fell for those other women. Her only weapon was psychological, and if she couldn’t keep his attention, he would soon find someone else. How else could someone like him be compelled to risk working for the cell?

He went out every day. When he was out, she always phoned Ku, receiving a constant stream of news from the cell and fresh orders. Since Hsueh’s meeting with Ku, they had gone from speaking every day to speaking twice a day. That was how she kept reminding herself that this was a mission, not a love affair. Whenever he left the apartment, she would start wondering whether he was off to see that White Russian woman. That always made her upset, until she reminded herself that she had never been all that into him, that she was just using him. That made her feel better.

But when he got home at night, or sometimes in the afternoon, all her resolve would melt away. At some point they had started going for walks through the cobblestone alleys, down to Chao-chia Creek and back via a more roundabout route. On those walks, it often seemed to her that everything she thought of as mere playacting was real, and all the harsh truths that were so clear to her during the day were a sham. She felt as if she lived in two different worlds, night and day, and she was reluctant to admit that she liked the nights more.

Once they got home, they would change out of their day clothes. She didn’t want to change in front of him, but he didn’t seem to care. She was slowly filling up his space with her clothes, her habits of arranging things, her flowers, food, the books she fished out of his dusty piles of stuff and arranged on the bedside table. Despite not having brought anything with her, she was gradually making the place hers.

At night they talked before falling asleep, and sometimes they made love. Usually she didn’t really want to, because it thrust her back into her playacting mode. But when they fell silent and she knew his mind was elsewhere, she would try to get his attention by cuddling or kissing him. That was always how they ended up having sex. Whenever he seemed either too wired or too relaxed, she would get into character and allow herself to seduce him.

Afterward, she often had the strange feeling that Hsueh enjoyed himself most when her exaggerated playacting became ridiculous. Almost as though genuine emotions and playacting were two sides of the same coin, and exaggerating her feelings would make them real.

Hsueh finished writing, folded the piece of paper up, and handed it to her. Tomorrow she would call Ku, who would have her send him the report. It should really be written in code, in chemical ink, and slipped into the pages of a book or inside an inconspicuous parcel. But Hsueh would find that all laughable. He wouldn’t understand.

He got up suddenly, and grabbed her by the shoulders. “This is too dangerous! You’ve got to leave. You can’t keep doing this.”

She looked silently at him.

“You’re not like them! You should leave the cell. They’re full of hatred, and that’s not for you. Let them do what they do.”

Of course his concerns were entirely bourgeois, but she was touched that he cared about her. Maybe he was only trying to obtain information for Ku in order to help her complete her mission and whisk her away. She should really be grateful to him.

“I can’t leave. I can’t just walk away. This is my job — it’s a calling. I’m not like you. I believe in the class struggle.”

She was too flustered to know what to say, and her brain was full of abstract phrases that didn’t help.

“You know I can’t just leave. I’m the prime suspect in an assassination case. I’m wanted by the police.”

She was trying to put it in a way he would understand, without realizing that she had already conceded ground.

“I’ll come up with something. I can talk to my friends in the Concession Police. I have a good friend in the Political Section, a very senior French officer. We’ll find a way to get you out of this crowd.”

“It wouldn’t work. You couldn’t do it. Even your friend couldn’t.” She could tell she had lost the argument. She should have been talking to him about the evils of imperialism, about class struggle. She was supposed to say that the very idea of running away repulsed her, and she certainly didn’t need the help or faux sympathy of a couple of imperialist policemen. But she didn’t want to go on about something Hsueh wouldn’t understand. Hadn’t she spent all this time trying to learn how his mind worked, so she could explain things in a way that would make sense to him?

“Of course it can be done. If that’s what you want. We could leave Shanghai together.” Hsueh cut himself off abruptly, because he realized he had lied about being able to just pick up and leave. But Leng didn’t know that. She had momentarily been tempted by his offer, and she despised herself for it. She thought back to the choice she had made in prison.

She was angry with herself and trying to make up for it by yelling at him.

“Get lost! Don’t you try to tempt me! Don’t mock me. I’m not in love with you. I’m using you, don’t you see?”

She enjoyed seeing the startled look in his eyes. She knew she could conquer him. Oh, she liked knowing that her words hurt him. She went on and on.

She hurled herself at him and started punching him (the hurling was largely imaginary, since they were standing only inches apart). She wanted to slap his face, but they were standing too near each other and he had his arm around her waist, so all she could do was slap him on the back.

He started kissing her, and she realized that her anger was melting away. That’s the end of it, she thought, he wants me in bed. She despised herself for not even resisting him.

JULY 2, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

3:35 P.M.

Ku’s greatest worry was that the cell was losing focus. He could tell it was happening. Three days had passed since Lin disappeared. At first Ku thought he might have been arrested, but Leng told him that Lin wasn’t being held by the police. He asked about the gangs, and heard nothing. He posted lookouts near the safe house on Boulevard des Deux Républiques, but there were no arrests, nothing out of the ordinary. He began to think that Lin might simply have left of his own accord. He told no one else about this suspicion. To the cell he maintained that Lin had been arrested.

If one member of the cell was arrested, they usually assumed that all the locations that person knew about had been exposed. Lin was the leader of his unit, and he knew about all the safe houses. The unit asked Ku whether they should evacuate the apartment on Boulevard des Deux Républiques, but with another operation imminent, they couldn’t afford the time. He told them Lin was being held by the Concession Police, and that he was being very brave and he hadn’t said a word, so the apartment was still safe. But he did station a few more guards around the candle store on Rue Palikao.