French Concession (28 page)

Park sat on the concrete with his back to the gravestone. It was the grave of a Jesuit who had come to Shanghai at the end of the Ching Dynasty, in the Foreigners' Cemetery on Rue Gaston Kahn, and it was oval shaped, a meter deep in the ground, and made of concrete. A south wind from Chao-chia Creek carried the stench of boatloads of night soil toward them. The stench only grew worse when the wind died down. Ting-hsin Dye Factory lay across the road on Rue Gaston Kahn, and a chili factory lay to the north.

They all arrived separately within five minutes of each other, so as not to attract police attention. Park looked at his watch. He turned to Fu and said, “It's time.” Then he led them out of the cemetery through a gap in the wall.

The moon hung low in the sky, the summer night was crowded with stars, and the sky was dream bright. An occasional splash of oars came from the direction of the wooden bridge to the south, so faint that it could have been a rat paddling in the water. There were no trees or streetlights on Rue Gaston Kahn. The road was short, and as they walked north, the tarmac road narrowed into a longtang paved with concrete. They turned into T'ing-yüan Lane. The Hua Sisters Motion Picture Studio was at the end of the lane.

Behind the wall, the studio was bustling and brightly lit. Park knew nothing about making movies, and he couldn't understand why Ku had planned this operation. He had looked at the
Guide to Film Photography
Ku had given him, scratched his head, and asked Ku about it. “Never you mind, just make sure you get us the man and his equipment,” Ku had said.

Before the guard could cry out, Park punched him in the throat. The black wolf dog pounced at him, but Park ducked, slitting it open along its belly with the dagger hidden in his leather jacket. Man and dog fell noiselessly to the ground.

Inside the studio they were working overtime on a movie slated to open in August. The Concession newspapers were already full of reduced-size posters in which Pearl Yeh was draped in a translucent shawl, reminiscent of the spider demon she had played in a previous movie. A thousand years later, she had accumulated enough Tao to be reborn as a beautiful woman. But just as she was about to lure some man to his destruction, a black-cloaked Taoist priest came to warn her against it. On the poster, he was whispering into her ear, his nose about to touch her shoulder, about a university somewhere in Jambudvîpa called Shanghai. The circle of life had sent Yeh to a big city as a university student. She kept causing trouble for herself and everyone around her, but this time she was a modern woman wearing dresses tailored by a White Russian designer.

They crept onto the set and hid in the shadows. No one noticed them because the three floodlights trained on the stage had large reflectors set up all around them. A technician in a white undershirt stood on the frame of the cardboard set with an eight-meter retractable pole in his hand, shining a spotlight directly onto the bathtub. The scenery depicted a bathroom with thin gauze curtains draped over the windows, outside which painted skyscrapers glittered.

But the bathtub was not painted, and the water in the tub was real. Someone hid behind the bathtub pumping fog into it. Pearl Yeh, who was sitting inside the bathtub, was real too. Her shoulders were white, and her knees floated in the water like jellyfish. They said it was worth buying tickets to ten showings in a row, just to see her.

Park hesitated. He stood there. He had never watched a movie from this point of view. You couldn't see all this on-screen. The camera was propped against the bathtub, and the cameraman was sprawled on the floor. Park was standing behind the reflector, staring at the white shoulders that would appear on-screen in a swirl of steamy mist, but also at the warped refraction of Yeh's body and her bathing suit. He watched her limbs float in the water.

The intruders squatted down, because most of the film crew was squatting on the ground, and politeness seemed to demand that they follow suit. Park was the only one left standing, except for one man on the opposite corner of the set, who was leaning on the wooden frame, and alternately staring down at his feet and looking up at a couple of sheets of scribbled-on paper on a wobbly table. On the left-hand side of the set there was a single wall with a door. An actor sat on the other side of the wall, getting ready for the moment when he would burst into the bathroom.

The director was talking loudly to the cameraman, and to Yeh. “Maybe we'll sit you a bit higher up, with your head leaning back and your neck craning even farther back. Close your eyes and let your head sway a little. You're supposed to be singing. Louder! Don't you ever sing in the bath?”

“Of course not!” a shrill voice rang out from inside the bathtub.

“Well, imagine you're a student and you're relaxing in the shower. Sing out loud! Open your mouth wider!”

Her voice was uglier than Park's own voice when he was drunk. But it was a silent movie, so all she really had to do was move her lips.

“No one move!” Park cried in his textbook perfect northern accent.

No one paid any attention to him. He sprinted into the spotlight and right up to the bathtub. “Who are you? Get out of here!” someone cried.

Park cocked his Mauser rifle and fired a single shot at the roof of the set. Ku had said he could fire a shot or two. It was a movie set, and none of the neighbors would notice a couple of loud noises. To
assert control, you have to come on strong. Watch the director—he's in charge, and if he defers to you, then you're in charge.

The light wavered. It was the spotlight on the retractable pole. The technician standing on the frame had nearly fallen off. When the rest of the crew realized what was happening, they threw themselves on the floor for cover. The stage manager, who had been standing on one side of the stage, got down and crouched behind the table. Only Pearl Yeh screamed from where she was inside the bathtub. The bullet had burst a lightbulb, and the glass shattered onto her shoulder. She struggled to push herself up using the edge of the bathtub.

Park hoisted her out of the bathtub and flung her on the floor. Her bathing suit clung wetly to her skin, and the dark outline of her crotch showed beneath it. She curled up on the floor to hide her private parts.

Brandishing his pistol, Park pointed to the cameraman, whom he had picked out right away. “You. Come here.”

Park had Fu drag the cameraman out of that crowd of squatting people and point a gun at him while he got all the equipment he needed to shoot a film. Then he had the cameraman carry his heavy 35 mm camera to the truck. Park pointed to the spools of film on the ground—they would all have to go in the truck too.

“How many hours will these last?” he asked.

No one answered, and Park didn't really care. They were going to take it all anyway. They hadn't driven a truck there, because Ku's sleuthing had revealed that the studio had its own truck, which was always parked outside at night.

Truss them all up, Ku had said. Don't let anyone leave before three o'clock tomorrow. It's a small studio, a tiny movie set, and no one will come looking for them. Filmmakers work at night and in the morning they're all asleep, so no one will come barging in. Tie them up and leave a couple of people to stand guard. Easy.

We're short-staffed as it is—do we have to do this? Is it really that important? he had asked.

“We do have to. It's critical,” Ku had said. “You don't understand
how powerful movies can be. Have you heard of Eisenstein, the director of the movie
October
? They said more people were killed or injured in the making of Eisenstein's film about the storming of the Winter Palace than during the actual taking of the palace itself. Victory is easily forgotten, and a few deaths are easily forgotten. Only movies will survive.”

All this was incomprehensible to Park, but Ku was happy wondering out loud to himself about a theoretical problem.

A camera could turn one dead man into ten dead men by shifting slightly. It could make death look cleaner, elegant, no convulsions or splattered brains, as if death were a mere symbol. This Park could understand. A camera didn't have to show a dead person below the shoulders.

He had them all tied up, including Pearl Yeh and the cameraman on the truck. Park tied the actress up himself. They had brought enough rope with them, and he did a thorough job. He tied her hands behind her back, and bound the ropes over her shoulders and under her arms to cross in front of her and loop twice around her thighs, before tying her ankles together in a secure dead knot. The ropes would grow tighter as they dried.

He deposited Pearl Yeh, now a mass of ropes, under the blinding light where the rest of the film crew was huddled together, thoughtfully draping a curtain over her. He left two people there guarding them. There was no need to stuff and gag their mouths. Even in daylight, they wouldn't dare to make a sound, not with two pistols pointed at them.

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.

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.

Park was standing by the table with his back to her. He appeared to be studying the lightbulb.

“Let me take you to see Hsueh,” he told her.

She cheered up right away. There would be time to explain everything. Tomorrow, when the operation had been completed, this would all be over. In the meantime, she could go and see Hsueh. As for the White Russian woman, Therese, wasn't she in the hospital? A little pain might even do her some good.

It was early, and Rue Palikao was completely empty. A rat clambered over the heap of coal in the bathroom, on its last scavenging trip before dawn. A pickup truck was parked across the street, with a tarp covering its cargo bed. The tailgate wasn't fully closed. Park opened it to let her get in, and gave her a shove. She fell into the rear bed of the truck.

Park leaped in behind her. She turned in fright to look at him, but the tarp had already been let down, and it was pitch-black. Before her eyes could adjust, there was a stranglehold around her neck. Suddenly
it all made sense. She realized that Park was going to strangle her in the truck, so that he wouldn't have to lug her downstairs. But that thought only lasted an instant, because her brain was already short of oxygen, and she couldn't breathe. She started struggling, but he had shoved her into a corner against the tailgate, and he had his knee against her stomach. She tried to kick him, but he was sitting on her legs.

Her hands were empty, but just as she was about to lose consciousness, they brushed against the pistol. In Hsueh's rooms, she had taken off her cheongsam and changed into pants so that she could stick the gun in the back of her pants the way Lin did. Luckily she hadn't left it in her handbag, and no one had searched her.

She pulled the gun out, but she didn't want to kill him, and in any case, the safety was still on. As she flailed, the pistol butt came crashing down on Park's temple, and the hands strangling her loosened their grip. Without stopping to so much as cough, she tumbled out of the cargo bed, and started running toward the front of the truck. She heard the tailgate slam, and something heavy crashed to the ground, but she dared not look back as she dashed across the street.

She saw Lin standing on the corner of Rue du Weikwé. Then Hsueh appeared behind him. She thought she was shouting at them, but she couldn't hear her own voice. She couldn't seem to breathe. She saw them turn to look at her from where they were standing on the curb. She stumbled toward them, waving. She could hear an engine starting behind her. The truck shot out from behind her, its left wheel slamming into the sidewalk. It made a sharp right turn, leaving a twisted skid mark at the street corner, sped onto Rue du Weikwé, and disappeared.

She felt weak all over. She was trembling, crying, coughing. Hsueh clutched her by the arm as she leaned against him. She wanted to stroke his face, but she still had the pistol in her hands. She had nearly died. She didn't have to be embarrassed anymore, or wonder what Lin would think. After all, she had almost been killed, he was handsome, and she'd thought she would never see him again. She hung on Hsueh's neck and wept.