A Map of Betrayal (35 page)

“Did you go see your father in prison?” Ben asked me, his hands in his jeans pockets. We were strolling on Wollaston Beach with Boston’s skyline in view, a bunch of skyscrapers partly obscured by the dissipating mist in the northwest. An airliner was descending noiselessly toward Logan Airport. The drizzle had let up, the clouds opening and revealing patches of blue.

I said, “I visited him once, in late November of that year, but I had to rush back to BU. I was teaching a course and had to meet my class. Dad didn’t say much to me because a guard was standing beside him and there was glass and steel wire between us. We spoke over a phone. He kept saying ‘I’m sorry’ and was tearful. I went through the visit as if I were drugged, unable to find words. That was the first time I’d ever seen him in tears, and at the end of the meeting he blew me a kiss and forced a smile. My mother saw him more often and made sure that he received proper medication and also had his ulcerated gum treated. I wished I could have stayed home longer so that I could visit him again.”

“He must’ve died miserably.”

“I was devastated when I heard about his suicide. I had a breakdown and couldn’t help my tears whenever I saw an older man.”

Ben had read that Gary smothered himself with a trash bag tied around his neck with two connected shoestrings. (He had skipped breakfast so that his body might not be messy. He lay on his bed in the solitary cell and died without making any noise.) We had talked about his death the previous night, when Ben finally confessed he was indeed a Chinese spy, though a minor one.

The ebbing tide kept the bay flat. Ben continued, “What touched me most is this sentence he said to his cross-examiner: ‘I am not a petty thief.’ I wept when I read that. It reminded me that
I was a petty thief. Recently I acquired a pair of new night-vision goggles just issued to the U.S. Marines, an F-18 manual, a list of the public radio frequencies, and some other stuff. I’ve been stealing technological secrets—a petty thief indeed.”

“On some level Gary was a conceited man.”

“He had to have a high opinion of himself or how could he survive? A spy of his kind had to convince himself of the importance of his mission so that he could continue in the face of adversity.”

Ben’s words reminded me of a sentence in Gary’s diary that had baffled me for a while: “For me, self-sacrifice is sweet.” My father seemed to believe in the grandeur of what he was doing. In spite of his remarkable intelligence, he lived in a fog, possessed by an ancient emotion whose validity his reason couldn’t penetrate. Indeed, an exalted vision or illusion might make pain bright and supportable.

Farther along the beach a little girl cried out. She was carrying a miniature saffron bucket with a spade in it and wobbling toward her mother, who was sitting on a boulder and flipping through a fashion magazine. The sun had come out, and the sand was turning whitish. Ben went on about Gary, “I still think he gave up too easily. China might have made a rescue effort to get him repatriated.”

“You’re too naïve,” I said. “Didn’t the Chinese ambassador deny that China had anything to do with him?”

“But that couldn’t be the final word. My grandfather held at least the same rank as the ambassador, probably even higher. That is to say, the ambassador had no right to decide Gary’s fate. The official denial might just have been routine bureaucracy. Once the media quieted down and the case was out of public view, there might have been a way to get him out of jail and back to China.”

“But the ambassador represented the country.”

“Look, even for small potatoes like me there’s an exit plan in the event of emergency. My grandfather’s case couldn’t be that simple.”

I was about to ask Ben how he could extricate himself, but I refrained. A pair of mottled seagulls took off from the teeth of the
soft waves and let out sharp squawks. They were suspended in the air, their wings hardly moving. I said, “Maybe Suzie Chao knows more about this. Last winter when we talked, she said she hated the Communists because they had abandoned your grandfather.”

“She’s someone I’d like to meet. She seemed to remain loyal to him, to the very end.”

“Maybe I should pay her another visit. Would you like to come if I go to see her again?”

“When do you plan to go?”

I thought about it and believed that the FBI might swoop down on Ben any minute, so I said, “The sooner the better. Let me give her a call.”

I fished my cell phone out of my black suede purse and dialed Suzie’s number. On the third ring her voice came on, halting as if I’d woken her up. I said, “Suzie, this is Lilian.”

“Lilian who?”

“Gary’s daughter.”

“Oh, I thought you’d wiped me out of your mind long ago.”

“How are you doing?”

“Still up and around.”

“Listen, my nephew, Gary’s grandson, and I would love to see you. Can we visit you if we come to Montreal?”

“Sure, anytime. I’ll be happy to see you. You say you have a nephew, a Chinese?”

“Yes, he’s from China. We’ll speak more about this tonight, okay?”

“That’s fine, call around nine.”

I was pleased by her agreement. Putting away the phone, I turned to Ben. “Suzie can meet us anytime. Today is Friday. Maybe we should head to Montreal tomorrow. What do you think?”

“Well, I can’t fly. The moment I board a plane, the FBI will know. Perhaps we should drive.”

“Good idea, but don’t you need a visa for crossing the border?”

“Not if I have a green card.”

“Then let’s drive.”

“Should we rent a car or use mine? I just got my engine replaced. The car runs like new.”

“We can drive your car. This should be safe.”

On our walk back to his place, Ben talked more about how he’d gone into the espionage business. He said, “Most of my schoolmates enrolled at the spy college in Luoyang because their parents or grandparents had been in the profession. We were told that we were the crème de la crème of our generation, handpicked by the Party, and we all pledged allegiance to the country and the revolutionary cause. In retrospect, I can see that the whole thing was quite sanctimonious, as if every one of us were a great man in the making. Our Party leaders even called us ‘linchpins of the nation.’

“They chose me because my grandfather had been a top spy, so I was supposed to be cut out for the work as well. But in most ways I wasn’t a good student. If anything, I was on the underperforming side. I couldn’t shoot well or swim more than two miles. In barehanded melee I usually lost to my opponents. But I had an ear for language, and my English was among the best in the class. I could reel off whatever we’d learned the previous day and could imitate all kinds of sounds and tones like a ventriloquist. What’s more, I had interpersonal skills; I was able to strike up productive conversations with strangers. I was nicknamed Superglue, which meant I could always find ways to make a connection with others. During our training, whenever we were sent out to gather intelligence from folks in small towns, I would get more useful information than my classmates. That impressed our instructors. I also was good at analyzing intelligence and could see implications in small details. That’s why they continued to train me after graduation, to prepare me for missions abroad. They let me enroll in a master’s program and I got an MS in technology.”

“What did they tell you about your grandfather?” I asked.

“They said he was a martyr who had fallen in the line of duty, so I was obliged to follow in his footsteps.”

“In hindsight, do you resent that?”

“Sort of. But they also made me a more capable man, well off and privileged in some ways.”

“Do you know you’re in danger now? The FBI might move in on you at any moment.”

“I’m aware of that and must act soon.”

“But you have been passive for so long. Does Sonya know your true profession?”

“She might’ve sensed it, but I didn’t tell her anything.”

“You have a lot to decide. To be honest, few women can stand your kind of passivity.”

“Actually, I asked my higher-ups for permission to marry her so that we could have the baby and live in America for some years, but they want to keep me more or less detached from this place. A baby born here will be a U.S. citizen, and that might bind me to America. My superiors reprimanded me for losing control of my sex life and told me to make Sonya have an abortion. I’ve been trying to figure out a solution. I can’t force her to do anything.”

When we arrived at his place, Sonya was cooking spaghetti and, with a wooden spoon, stirring the sauce of ground beef and black olives. She was wearing a mauve housedress like a maternity outfit, though her pregnancy wasn’t showing yet. In spite of her smile, which accentuated a pimple on her nose, her roundish face was a picture of worries, her eyes a bit shadowy, but she still looked pretty, especially in profile. She’d been suffering from morning sickness, and her nose was congested. The previous evening she had confided to me, “I just can’t figure Ben out. He seems sick of everything. He promised me this and that, but I’m not sure I can believe him.”

After trying the sauce, I told Sonya, “This is delicious.” Then I said in an undertone that we were going to Montreal the next morning, but she mustn’t let anyone know of the trip.

“What for?” she asked.

“We’re going to see an old friend of my father’s. We’ll be back on Sunday.” I kept my voice low and assured her, “Don’t worry too much. Everything will work out fine.”

“I hope so.” She breathed a feeble sigh. Another pot was coming to a boil. Sonya broke a bunch of angel-hair spaghetti in two, threw it into the water, and began stirring. I turned to wash the pans in the sink.

There was a gas station close by, so after dinner I took Ben’s black Mustang there and filled the tank. Then he worked for a while on his car in the basement garage. He poured a bottle of fuel treatment into the tank, saying that was something he’d done every fall. He also checked all the lights and added fluids. I put two coats into the trunk, having heard that the temperature would plummet the following day. Back in his apartment, he and I avoided talking about his spying activities and the trip openly, not so much because of Sonya as because the place might have been bugged. In a way, I admired Ben for his composure. He seemed to have inherited Gary’s ability to bear stress and uncertainty. Though knowing the FBI was after him, he was still clearheaded about everything—he must have gone through a considerable amount of mental training. In spite of my admiration, I feared he might not be able to find his way out of danger. Perhaps I should urge him to defect and file for political asylum, but we had to thoroughly consider the pros and cons of such a drastic move.

AFTER WE CHECKED IN
to a motel outside Montreal, I phoned Suzie to let her know we had arrived. She said her apartment was too messy for us to meet there. I offered to take her to lunch in Chinatown, where she lived. She suggested Kam Fung, which I knew was a pricey Cantonese place where all the tables had tablecloths. We agreed to meet at eleven the next morning.

At the front desk of the motel, I’d thought Ben might feel
uncomfortable about sharing a room with me, but he had stopped me when I asked for two rooms. He said, “Let’s have one room with two beds. This is more natural.” I was pleased he felt that way. We didn’t go to bed until midnight, even though the seven-hour trip had tired me out. We were talking about his family back in Fushan County and about my father. As our conversation continued, I managed to steer it to his current situation and even mentioned the possibility of turning himself in to the FBI. He shook his head and said, “You’re too naïve, Aunt Lilian. Like most Americans, you think only in clear and straight ways. What will happen to my parents and siblings if I defect? China will grind them down, and they’ll never forgive me.”

“I didn’t take them into account,” I admitted.

“You met them and saw how well they were doing in a godforsaken town. Do you think they could succeed like that just on their own? There’ve been powerful hands helping them ever since I started in my profession. If I betray my country, those hands can also destroy them.”

“What should you do?”

“That’s the question I’ve been grappling with these days. My business here is worth one and a half million dollars. It was the Chinese government’s investment. If I surrender to the FBI, the business will be gone and I’ll be blamed for the loss. Worse yet, I’d have to give the FBI a lot of information on Chinese espionage operations, especially in North America. Then to China I’ll become a criminal guilty of high treason.”

“Why can’t you reverse the roles of the plaintiff and the accused? Why is a country always innocent and always right? Hasn’t China used both you and your grandfather relentlessly? Hasn’t your country betrayed you?”

He looked astonished, his eyebrows locked together. I continued, “Ben, things have been changing in China, where many people no longer depend on the state for their livelihood and survival.
If your family’s economic situation takes a downturn, I can send them money regularly. So for now, just think about what will be the best for you and Sonya.” I had to mention money to fully convince him that his family’s survival might not depend on the state anymore.