Xiao Bai - French Concession

There was a tarp draped over the cargo bed. He let the cameraman sit in the passenger’s seat. You had to treat people well if you wanted them to do good work for you. They had plenty of time, so he sat in the driver’s seat and smoked a cigarette. In the early hours of the morning, he would have to drive the truck to Mohawk Road and drop the cameraman off at the stables. Then he would go to Rue Palikao, where Ku would be waiting for him with another unit.

“How do you hold this thing steady if you’re shooting outdoors? Over your shoulder?” he asked the cameraman.

“There’s a tripod,” the cameraman said.

He had someone get the tripod, which lay in a corner of the studio.

“Will it be stable enough on the truck, even if the truck is moving?” he asked.

“Of course,” the cameraman said proudly. “During the Kuomintang’s military campaigns in the north, I lugged it right onto the battlefields.”

Park clapped him on the shoulder cheerfully, and stuffed a cigarette in the man’s mouth.

JULY 14, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

4:35 A.M.

Leng ached all over. It wasn’t just that she was exhausted and hungry. She couldn’t turn over, her hands were bound behind her back, and she could only lie on her side. The room was filled with a choking smell of sulfur, which seemed to have coated her nasal membranes with a thin hard shell. But it was her own fault for having turned herself in a second time.

That afternoon, she had run into Li, the most bashful member of Lin’s group, a young man who used to be apprenticed to a pharmacist. They saw each other at the end of the path between Avenue Joffre and the gardens.

“Don’t come in. Ku says you’ve betrayed the cell and are to be shot on sight,” Li said.

“I haven’t betrayed the cell.”

“I don’t want you to die,” Li said, looking at her tenderly. “The White Russian woman came to the Astor this morning with her people, and they nearly killed Park. When we got the news, Ku said you must have warned her. He’d been worried ever since he found out that you’d disappeared, and then we heard about what happened at the Astor.”

“I didn’t betray the cell.”

“Well, there’s no point arguing over it. You’d better go.” Li was one of the cell members who had come to visit her when she was in Rue Amiral Bayle. He would haul bags of coal upstairs for her, and bring her water from the public water stove in a neighboring longtang.

“Where’s Mr. Hsueh?” she suddenly asked.

“Park brought him back. He is at another safe house. Ku says he is afraid this Hsueh may be a dangerous character too. A man appears out of nowhere, claiming to have contacts at the police station, and the next thing we know, you’ve betrayed the cell. Ku says he hasn’t decided whether Hsueh might turn out to be useful. But you are to be shot on sight. Park shot the White Russian woman, but we heard the bullet didn’t kill her, and she was taken to the hospital. Once the operation is over, she will have to be executed too. All three of you are severe threats to the cell, he says.”

“Mr. Hsueh is determined to join the revolution. And the White Russian woman helped us too — we can’t just kill innocent people.”

“Don’t you remember the oath we swore? The manifesto of People’s Strength? There’s no use talking, you’d better go. I won’t come after you. Don’t go upstairs.”

He gave her a gentle nudge, but when she started walking away, he called after her. “Wait!” Rummaging in his pocket, he turned up a handful of coins, a foreign silver coin, and several banknotes. He gave them to her. Then something else occurred to him, and he felt under his shirt for his pistol, and gave that to her too. It was a Browning the size of her palm.

She went back to Hsueh’s rooms on Route J. Frelupt, and sat by the table in a daze. Her legs were too sore, and she didn’t have the energy to go anywhere. She also didn’t know where to go. She buried her face in the pillow to weep. But it smelled of Hsueh’s hair, and she suddenly panicked.

He had fallen into Ku’s hands. She soon realized she had to rescue him — it was the only thing she could do. She didn’t want him to become collateral damage, as she had. She could plead with Ku. She didn’t believe that the cell would really harm her, or that Ku would have her killed. This was far from being the hardest decision she had made. But by the time she finally left Hsueh’s rooms, found a telephone booth, and made the call, it was almost sunset.

She found the candle store on Rue Palikao using the address she took down during the phone call. Neither Ku nor Park was there, and she hardly knew anyone else in the cell. Strangers took her upstairs and politely bound her to the bed.

There was nothing she could do but lie there and wait.

As it grew lighter, the sky turned a deep blue. She could hear the planks across the door being taken down, and soon the bamboo ladder was creaking with the sound of someone coming upstairs. It was Park.

He sat by the table looking at her.

“Why did you sneak away?”

She looked obstinately at him.

“Why did you warn her? Why betray the cell?”

She didn’t think she was in danger. She simply felt humiliated. She had made real sacrifices for this cell. She had been lonely, feigned emotions she didn’t feel, and made hard decisions. She looked at Park’s haggard face. He hadn’t slept or shaved. She thought about how many haggard faces she saw in the cell. They were tense, drained, high on exhaustion, and a little ridiculous. She suddenly saw herself as if she were observing herself from a distance.

Those were faces absorbed in the private world of their top secret missions. They were pale faces glimmering in a dark crowd, full of pride, fear, contempt, and yearning.

Looking at it from an outsider’s point of view made her realize that it was all meaningless, but she didn’t have the words to explain why. She couldn’t help forgiving them — they didn’t know what they were doing, she thought. Besides, she also had a pale, haggard face, she hadn’t slept a wink all night, and her face betrayed that she was sore all over.

She was thinking about the word Park had used, betrayal .

It was words like betrayal that tormented them all. They gnawed at your soul, crushing you or filling you with passion, keeping you up all night. Most people never used words like that, but letting them into your life could change it overnight. As soon as she started thinking, a whole slew of words poured out: operation, manifesto, country, oppression , and— love .

Would she have gotten along better with Hsueh if the word love didn’t exist? Would she have had to pretend less, if it weren’t for the words boxing her into a role she was too tired to keep up?

When it was almost light, she could hear Ku speaking downstairs. She wanted him to come so that she could tell him she hadn’t really betrayed them. She had only wanted to make sure Hsueh wouldn’t be hurt. She didn’t believe that Ku would really have her killed. In fact, she thought Ku might not want to come upstairs because he was sorry, as if it had been his fault that she had sneaked out to warn the other woman. She was no longer ashamed of what she had done; she was beginning to be ashamed for him.

“Ku! Ku!” she cried. Park came up the stairs to tell her that Ku had already left. He untied her and gave her a cup of warm water. She wanted to wash her face and rinse her mouth and change into some new clothes, but most of all she wanted to know how Hsueh was doing.