Xiao Bai - French Concession

I commissioned this film. As the cameraman, you, Yan Feng, have no right to claim possession of it. How dare you fail to hand it over to me? The penalty is death, no appeal, to be carried out immediately with the gun on the table. I’ll give you a minute, or perhaps only thirty seconds. .

“It isn’t here — it’s at the studio. Film is delicate, and it fuses into a sticky lump when it gets humid. It’s also highly flammable. And it has to be developed, edited, and matched to the sound track, frame by frame.”

“Developed?”

“All we have right now are the negatives, which will be exposed and ruined as soon as you take them out. They have to be developed before we can put them on a projector.”

“That’s fine. I can go to the studio with you right now, and you can develop the film there.”

Let’s go to your studio to get that reel of film. I need it, and I’ll get mad if you don’t give it to me. So get dressed and come along to the studio cheerfully, as if we’re good friends going someplace together. It’s a reasonable enough thing to ask, and you don’t have an excuse for turning me down.

“We can’t do it today. I’d need the technician’s help, and he’ll already have gone home.”

His visitor considered that for a moment. It started to rain, and the streets began to blur. A white film of rain melted into the vapor rising from the hot tarmac roads. After a single clap of thunder, the sky grew quiet while the rain kept pattering down.

“Very good. In that case, I will come to see you tomorrow.”

His eyes flickered behind his tea-colored glasses, but he made no threats. Instead, he slowly replaced the gun in his bag and left, closing the door gently behind him.

The rain kept pelting down. Yan Feng felt as though he were dreaming.

The next morning, he decided to ask the studio technician to help him develop the negatives. They had worked together for many years. It was a Sunday, and the studio was quiet. Watching the film on the little projector next to the film-cutting table, they were both blown away. It wouldn’t need to be edited at all. The sound track on the wax record, including the long announcement, could simply provide a background track played on repeat for the twenty-minute film. He had used five spools of film, each four hundred meters long, and every frame was so realistic that he couldn’t bear to cut it. This was the best film he had ever shot, and he would probably never get the chance to shoot another one like it. Actually, he would rather not have another chance.

But as he watched it again, he grew dissatisfied. He cut a few sequences out to make the action look smoother. Some actions looked slower once you got them on film, and they didn’t convey the brutal shootout he remembered. Then he cut a few more frames to create a montage of fight scenes.

The guard was calling to him from outside the window. He went over and drew the blinds.

It was the police. A Frenchman in a uniform was standing by the car, along with a Chinese man in civilian clothes, who noticed him at the window. The guard was showing him to the stairs. Again, he felt as though he had just woken from a dream.

Finally, they were here, he thought. No matter what happened, this piece would be his crowning piece of work. “Mr. Yan, we know you are in possession of a significant piece of police evidence, a reel of film,” they said. “Please come with us.”

JULY 19, YEAR 20 OF THE REPUBLIC.

9:35 P.M.

Hsueh was being held in an isolation cell in the northwest corner of the police headquarters building. He didn’t see Sarly until the fourth day he was there. But he had realized long before then that Sarly himself must be under suspicion. Only later did he learn that Chief of Police Mallet had been in charge of the investigation.

It was confirmed that Hsueh was one of the special investigators recruited by Inspector Maron for the Political Section, albeit one who had never passed an examination or been sent to the colonial police school in Hanoi. Hsueh decided that Sarly wasn’t just sticking to this story to protect him.

In the many conversations he had had about the incident — no one referred to them as interrogations — Hsueh insisted that he had never heard Ku speak of plans to rob the armored vehicles that transported cash from the Race Course. This was the truth. He never mentioned Sarly’s remark that he was waiting for Ku to “plan something massive.” That wasn’t a lie either — people’s memories of past conversations are usually unreliable, and word-for-word recollections often turn out to be false memories. The only thing he did hide from the police was Therese’s role in the arms deal involving that new weapon. Strictly speaking he didn’t have to lie, since he was never questioned about it. At first he was suspicious that no one ever brought it up, but eventually he decided that Sarly must simply not have mentioned that weapon to anyone. Many years later, when they were longtime colleagues and nearly friends, Hsueh ventured to ask why. Sarly told him that he himself hadn’t recognized the weapon, but he had guessed it was a type of machine gun and wanted to get a weapons specialist to look at it. Then everything had happened so quickly and he had been so madly busy that he didn’t get around to it right away. By then Hsueh was much less naïve, and he had a hunch that Sarly had had his reasons for choosing to forget about the weapon. But a more worldly-wise Hsueh kept his suspicions to himself.

He decided not to tell Lieutenant Sarly about Lin and the Communists, partly because they had been good to him, and partly because he didn’t want any more trouble. As for Leng, she was too deeply implicated in the Kin Lee Yuen assassination to be let off scot-free. The police hadn’t yet come after her because they had their hands full with this investigation, but she would have to leave Shanghai before they did. It was time he left Shanghai too, he thought. He even had the money. When they locked him up, he had rolled up the check Ku intended for Therese into a tiny roll the size of a cigarette, flipped up the sole of one shoe, picked open the inner stitching near the heel, burrowed out a hole, and buried the check in it. As soon as they let him out, he told himself, he would go to the bank and cash it before they froze the account — it was a check made out to cash. Then he would go to see Therese at the General Hospital. He both wanted to and dreaded seeing her. But he owed her a visit, if only because of the money he was taking.

He had all kinds of plans for his future life with Leng. They would travel via Haiphong to Europe, or perhaps to America — he wondered whether he would have enough money to start a new life there.

Lieutenant Sarly encouraged him to take a few weeks off before reporting to the Political Section to start work. That would give Hsueh just enough time to wrap up his affairs, buy a suitcase, and book a berth on a ship. He did not tell Sarly of his plans.

When he got to the General Hospital, Therese was lying in a private room, still sedated, with Ah Kwai sitting with her. She had woken up a few minutes ago and murmured something. He held her hand silently, and before long, she fell asleep again.

In the doctor’s office, he found the German doctor who had treated her. The surgery was very successful, and Therese would live another fifty years, but the injury had caused irreversible damage. Luckily, Therese had been wearing a chain belt with a huge pendant that dangled beneath her clothes, deflecting the bullet into her womb. It had saved her life, but she would never be able to have children.