Xiao Bai - French Concession

He pointed to the one on the left. “This is a guarantor letter for two second-floor rooms rented on the western wing of a shih-k’u-men house on Rue Eugène Bard. The landlord has asked his new tenant to sign ‘Ch’i’ next to her real name, because Ch’i is what everyone calls her. He doesn’t know her occupation, and he wants a guarantor because he suspects she may be a prostitute. A candle store’s official chop has been stamped beneath the guarantor’s signature. We went looking for that elusive candle store, but it had already moved away, and no one seemed to know where it was. The guarantor signed his name, which you may or may not know. But at least you’ll know the man’s surname: his name is Ku T’ing-lung. The photographer focused on the name, so you’ll see it quite clearly.”

He picked up the second photo. “This is the letter of consent for a surgical procedure performed at Nien-tz’u Gynecological Hospital on the corner of Rue Hennequin and Rue Oriou. It’s a small private hospital occupying a single shih-k’u-men house, not far from Rue Eugène Bard. The only surgeon is Dr. Ch’en Hsiao-ts’un, a doctor trained in Japan, where he may have had his name changed. The patient was in critical condition following a miscarriage. Ku T’ing-lung’s name appears again, under ‘nearest of kin.’”

Lin could feel the anger rushing to his throat like lava. He wanted to throw up. Instead he picked up his teacup and smashed it on the ground. He could hear footsteps, and a key turning in the lock. The door wouldn’t open and was thick enough to be almost soundproof. Someone was battering at the door and shouting unintelligibly.

Lin planted his hands on the table and stared at Cheng, who stared back. Then Cheng turned and shouted in the direction of the door: “There’s no need to come in, there’s nothing to worry about. Comrade Lin just got a little worked up.”

The battering stopped. There was a silence, and then the footsteps went away.

“Don’t get all riled up. If you’d rather talk about something else, we can do that.”

He produced something else from his shirt pocket, like a magician.

“What we have here is a copy of the manifesto for your so-called cell, People’s Strength,” he said, opening the mimeographed pamphlet and beginning to read. At first he read in a monotone voice, as if he were reading a grocery list or a bad student play. But then his face darkened. Before he had finished reading, he tossed the pamphlet on the table as if it were toxic to the touch.

“Tell me what you think of this. What did your boss, that Ku Fu-kuang, tell you? That this is the latest Communist communiqué?”

“That we will learn from your massacre of the revolutionaries, and repay an eye for an eye.”

He looked at him coldly, and clapped his hands to his pockets, but he didn’t have any cigarettes on him. He didn’t smoke.

“A real Communist would never write something like this!” Cheng sounded angry, maybe because he thought he had a better chance of convincing Lin that way.

“Ku made this up! It’s garbage. In fact, he didn’t make it up — he plagiarized it. You joined the Party during the May Thirtieth Movement, right? During the student strikes? Young man, you need to learn some theory. Every Communist should apply himself to socialist theory. This is all plagiarized garbage, the work of a Russian anarchist! Marx rejected anarchism for treating revolution as nothing more than individual political theater, a game of violence. Let me tell you about the author of this manifesto. His name was Sergei Nechayev, and he was a consummate liar who started an organization aimed at terrorizing people. Your Ku is like that — he’s a fear-mongerer!”

The man’s voice softened. He curled the corners of his lips into a smile. “Here’s a story that might give you a sense of who this Ku Fu-kuang is. Nechayev was a nobody until he came up with the idea of mailing an anonymous letter to a woman he knew. In the letter, a fellow student claimed that he had gone out for a stroll when he saw someone toss a note out of a police carriage. Apparently this was a note from Nechayev, exhorting his classmates to carry on with the revolution, as he was about to be killed. Then he ran off to Switzerland, where he told everyone that he had escaped police custody in St. Petersburg, posing as a hero! That’s how men like Ku Fu-kuang scam their comrades and seize power.”

The electric fan whirred straight at Lin, drying the sweat on his body. His shirt was unspeakably dirty, and he was shivering inwardly.

JULY 12, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

5:15 P.M.

They crossed the river on the last ferry of the day, which left T’ung-jen Pier at 5:00 P.M. Hsueh was dressed as a Shanghailander going to Pu-tung to hunt rabbits and weasels for the weekend, wearing a white canvas suit tapered at the waist with a slit at the back. In a trunk under the backseat of the car, they had a single-shot hunting rifle and a picnic basket. Park was dressed similarly, in black. Hsueh didn’t recognize the other two men, but Park introduced one of them as Ch’in.

They drove east along the main road that wound along the river, past the piers, and stopped for a break in an empty lot between warehouses belonging to British American Tobacco and the Japanese firm Iwasaki. It was almost sunset. Beyond the warehouse fences and the shipyards, the river shimmered. A Japanese warship was moored at the shipyard awaiting repairs, while its officers were off-duty and had gone ashore. Two men were wrestling on deck while a small crowd hooted and cheered, their cries echoing along the deserted river.

They left the main road at Mitsui Pier, turned onto a dirt road, and took some time crossing a narrow stone bridge. Hsueh got off and beckoned to Park from the other side of the bridge, carefully directing him while the wheels of the car hung partly off the narrow bridge. When they had crossed the bridge, they stopped for some food.

By then it was dark. The rapeseed fields had long since flowered and ripened into pods, but after a long day of sunshine, the soil oozed a residual fragrance of rapeseed flowers. After they had driven past a small copse, the dirt road vanished. The headlights shone into the Pu-tung wasteland ahead of them, and they finally realized that the clumps of soil they could see were actually gravestones. The night was cloudless and patterned with stars; lights flickered eerily in the trees. Hsueh felt as if his heart were being sucked out of his chest with a pump.

An hour later, they drove back onto the main road before turning into a small village just off Min-sheng Road. Ch’in’s cousin was a boatman who sailed a fifty-ton cargo boat to villages along Soochow Creek for the Yü clan, a prominent local family, and they had arranged to meet him here. A few years ago, when the Yü clan had had difficulty covering their expenses with land rent, Ch’in’s cousin had set up a warehouse to buy hog hair and cattle bones, which he sold on to foreign firms.

It was the Yü clan boat they wanted.

They went into a yard that stank. The boatman stood in dim electric light outside a hut, waiting for them. They all sat around a small table, and Ch’in drank distilled liquor with the boatman. Park picked up the peanut shells littering the table and crushed them one by one between his fingertips. The constant croaking of frogs began to irk them. The mud was plastered with rotting hog hair that bubbled when you stepped on it, which felt like squelching a corpse.