A Map of Betrayal (28 page)

Gary wondered if he had painted too rosy a picture for his higher-ups. But he believed in his analyses, which he’d done as objectively as he could. By nature he was not an optimist, and there was no reason for him to lie to the national leaders about the U.S. goodwill. Yet it was possible that by now he had too much affection for this land, where life could be safe and comfortable and where few people died of hunger, and this positive feeling might
have affected his judgment. Although he had always remained an outsider capable of stepping aside to observe life flowing by, he did love American movies and the NBA games—he was an ardent fan of Wilt Chamberlain of the Lakers. He was also fond of the American landscape—the mountains, waters, vast agricultural fields, highways. If he were a common immigrant, he might have felt at home in this place, adopting it as his homeland. He could see such a possibility. Yes, the U.S. Army had been mercilessly fighting the Communists and even slaughtering civilians in Vietnam, where the war actually gave the number one superpower a bloody nose, but there’d been protests and demonstrations against the war all over the country. Yes, racism was rife and prejudices everywhere, but racial segregation had been abolished and the country had been making social progress. This was a place where one could live with decency and some dignity. This was a country that protected its people, many of whom in return loved it. Gary tried to fight down all the digressive ruminations that might erode the spirit and integrity needed for fulfilling his secret mission. He went on to revise his report, trying to be as reasonable and objective as possible.

At long last Father Murray notified him that Bingwen Chu had returned to his office. When the pomegranate tree in his backyard had dropped its last fruit in mid-November, Gary flew to Hong Kong directly, too eager to make a detour through Taiwan or Thailand. His handler, absent for more than four years, had finally been summoned back to Beijing. To Gary’s surprise, Bingwen had aged considerably: his hairline was higher, his eyes bleary, even his brows half gray, and dark lines meshed his face like a loosely drawn map. Worse still, he limped a little because one foot had been smashed by a cinder block at a construction site where he’d been made to labor. Hearing that Gary had flown to Hong Kong directly from America, his handler was disturbed and admonished him never to do that again. He even said that if Gary was caught by the Americans, their superiors would hold him, Bingwen, accountable. He’d
be punished and might go to prison. Gary promised he’d be more cautious in the future.

After a shot of Scotch, Bingwen got buoyant, saying he was happy to have left the countryside of Jilin province, and his health had improved some due to his work as an apprentice mason. He thanked Gary for just being alive and continuing to do some espionage work on his own, evidently motivated by his profound love for their motherland.

Caught unawares by his friend’s effusive words, Gary couldn’t answer and only chuckled out of nerves. During the last few years he’d seldom thought of his love for their motherland but had done his duty routinely.

“Now we’re a pair of mules harnessed to the same wagon. That’s why they called me back to work,” Bingwen said and lifted a spoonful of chocolate fondant to his mouth, shaking his head while chewing slowly. He also kept swilling rosé from his wineglass, its side stained with his finger marks. They’d chosen Café des Délices, a small restaurant in Tin Hau, because Bingwen missed a good French dinner, which Gary said he’d love to share with him. In fact, Gary no longer cared about food as most Chinese did, and he was conscious of this change in himself. Bingwen put down his spoon and went on, “You must take good care of yourself, brother. Your safety also means my safety. The higher-ups used me again only because you’re irreplaceable and I’m familiar with your work.”

Gary’s intelligence, accumulated during the past four years, was rich and essential. Bingwen had reviewed it before dinner and been so impressed that he told Gary, “I don’t know how much they’ll pay you for this invaluable batch, but I’ll try my best to get you a decent price.”

“Don’t bother about it,” Gary said in earnest. “I know our country is in bad shape and don’t expect to get paid. As long as my service is appreciated, I am rewarded and satisfied.”

“I will report to our leaders what you just said. Who knows? Your words might bring you some high honor.”

Contrary to Gary’s expectation, Bingwen got him four thousand dollars this time. Half the money was an equipment fund that he should have received long ago.

My nephew paid Henry fifty-four hundred dollars for the five microchips he’d bought for him. Having pulled in a one hundred percent profit, Henry was rapturous and agreed to continue to purchase stuff for Ben. I had a lot of misgivings about that but said nothing. Henry kept saying that Ben would “make it big” one of these days. I asked, “How big?” He said, “A multimillionaire.” That might just have come from his dream of getting rich. Intelligent though he was, Henry was very bad at handling money. I had to manage his paltry retirement plan for him.

One morning in mid-August, Ben called and thanked me for the articles I had mailed him. “What do you make of them?” I said.

“I knew my grandfather had done some important work for China’s intelligence service, but I had no idea he had been that prominent. These days I’ve been thinking about him a lot. Truth to tell, I used to resent him for marrying a foreign woman and living a comfortable American life, which I assumed might have been part of the reason he abandoned my grandmother. After reading the articles you sent me, I felt his life here was very sad and complicated.”

“I don’t think he loved my mother. He might have had more feelings for your grandmother. He often mentioned her in his diary. Imagine, he never saw her again after he’d left China in his mid-twenties. He dreamed of her from time to time. Once she hurt herself and was hospitalized in his dream, and that made him downcast for days. He was also amazed that she spoke English to him in his dreams.”

“She couldn’t speak a word of English!”

“I know. That shows how deep she was rooted in his consciousness.”

A lull fell between us.

Then Ben explained why he was calling: Sonya had been pregnant with his child for about two months. They’d found it out a week ago with a kit bought from a drugstore. For him the pregnancy posed two questions: whether they should keep the baby and what kind of relationship he should have with Sonya from now on. He and she couldn’t see eye to eye on giving birth to the child and had exchanged angry words. He blamed her for going off the pill secretly, while she accused him of just using her and flirting with Minmin and other Chinese women who had joined his Weibo. He suggested an abortion, which Sonya would not consider.

“That’s an awful suggestion,” I told him. “How could you do that?”

“Don’t take me to be heartless. I’m fond of children too, but these days I can’t get my grandfather’s life off my mind. I don’t want to repeat his mistake.”

“For God’s sake, what has your problem got to do with him?”

“Well, if he hadn’t started a family here or raised you, a daughter he loved, his life could have been much less tangled. He wouldn’t have felt like a divided man, as he claimed in court, saying he loved both China and the U.S.”

I was astounded, never having expected that the articles I’d sent Ben could set him thinking so deeply about Gary’s plight. “Look,” I said, “don’t ever use your grandfather as a negative reference. You have your own life to live and must do what suits you best.”

“All right, any suggestions?”

“Do you love Sonya?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Do you think you’ll be happy to sleep with her, only her, for the rest of your life?”

“Goodness, you sound as if I’m a connoisseur of women. To tell the truth, I’ve slept with only three girls to date, Sonya included. How can I say I’ll be happy with her for the rest of my life?”

“So doesn’t that mean you don’t love her enough to marry her
even though she’s carrying your child?” Getting no answer from him, I continued, “I’m not blaming you. I just want to point out that you won’t be able to wash your hands of her if there’s a baby bonding the two of you.”

“I don’t intend to break up with her. I just want her to have an abortion.”

“To be honest, it doesn’t sound like you love her.”

“I do love her, but I have more important responsibilities.”

“Like what? Can you tell me?”

“I must be dedicated to my country. That’s a bigger cause than my personal well-being.”

“Bullcrap! Don’t ever let China stand in the way of your personal fulfillment or lighten your personal responsibilities. You’ve been using your country as an excuse, as a big divisor to break your guilt into small negligible pieces so you can avoid facing it.”

He didn’t seem to fully understand me and remained silent, so I shifted the topic a bit. “Does Sonya demand you marry her?”

“No, she never said anything like that.”

Ben seemed confused. I told him not to suggest anything to Sonya again. He first had to find out how she felt about their relationship and what she planned do with the baby if she kept it. Would she raise it by herself? Would she farm it out to her parents back in Ukraine if he wouldn’t marry her?

Ben feared he might not be able to get Sonya to see reason, so that evening I spoke with her on the phone. She didn’t deny that she had lied to Ben and stopped taking the pill on the sly.

“I just want to have a baby with him,” she said in a guileless voice. “I’m almost twenty-six and shouldn’t wait any longer.”

“But you shouldn’t have kept Ben in the dark to begin with.”

“I won’t become a burden to him.”

“But a child will mean a lot of responsibilities to him as well.”

“Well, I don’t see it that way. I can raise the baby by myself. Besides, even though I’m not a regular churchgoer, I believe life begins with conception and nothing’s more sacred than life.”

“Sonya, let’s be rational about this. I also love babies and so does Ben. Tell me, would you be happy if you two got married?”

“Of course, I’d be the happiest girl on the East Coast!”

“So you used the baby to keep your hold on him?”

She let out a small sigh. “Lilian, you’re a smart woman and can see right through me. Let me say this: I can’t stand to see him blabbing with those bitches on his blog all the time, and I will be jealous as hell if he ends up with another woman. I know he’s just keeping me around as a girlfriend, but still I would do anything for him.”

It was clear she loved him. But did he really love her as he claimed? I wasn’t sure. How should I advise Ben then? In a way I was amazed to hear Sonya speak about her feelings like a young girl. Obviously she was not as sophisticated as her age and face might suggest. I liked her more for her innocence and bullheadedness.

I talked with Henry about Ben’s trouble. He said, “What’s the big deal? Get married. If the marriage doesn’t work, get a divorce.”

I wouldn’t suggest that, because a divorce can be a big block in a young man’s life, psychologically and professionally, a setback that can cripple his confidence. Perhaps it was unwise for Ben to attempt a solution right away. There are problems that are not supposed to be fixed once and for all but to be lived with. Sometimes a solution can give rise to a new problem—in other words, there might be no ultimate solution at all. We Americans tend to be self-proclaimed problem fixers of the world, and such a mentality is one of the causes of our tragedy—there are many problems we can’t possibly fix.

I called Ben the next day and asked him not to impose his will on Sonya. He needn’t rush. He had another two months to work with her for a solution. Once the pregnancy reached the fifth month, it would be too risky to abort the fetus. Then they might have to let the baby come into the world and figure out how to raise it.

“In fact, you should always take a child as a blessing,” I told Ben.

“Okay, I’ll try to think that way,” he said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“You should also do some soul-searching.”

“Why should I do that?”

“To answer the question of whether you’ll be happy if you spend the rest of your life with Sonya.”

“About that I have no doubt.”

He sounded a little blithe, but I didn’t press him to say more.

1971–1972

It was reported that Mao Zedong had been so impressed by Gary’s analyses of the U.S. motivation in publishing the news about the Soviets’ planned air strikes on China’s nuclear bases that the chairman told his comrades in the Politburo, “This man is worth four armored divisions.” Those words heralded an imminent rise in Gary’s spying stature.

The intelligence he had sent back helped Mao see the Americans’ motivations in a new light and make appropriate decisions in response to international events. For years the White House had been thinking about how to establish some relationship with Beijing, because the United States regarded the Soviet Union as the archenemy, more dangerous and destructive than China. The gulf between the two Communist countries was no longer news, but how could America exploit their animosity to reshape the world’s political structure to its own advantage? No one at the White House could give a definite answer. All they knew was that they should engage China, with whom they might even cultivate some trade in the course of time, considering its huge population and vast market. At the moment this policy of engagement was the rule they would follow.