Inheritance (26 page)

She had taken something from him. She held in her hands a piece of his desire. Without it he was crippled.

JUNAN WROTE THAT
the family would soon join him in Taiwan. From this calm message he understood that the situation in Shanghai had grown acute. The city would soon fall. They would be together at last, she said.

He drank too much to celebrate the Lunar New Year. He lay adrift in his room, entertaining the cacophony of voices, young men carousing outside his window. Perhaps they were his own men, who might not suspect that they had been uprooted from their homes for good and that they had already embarked upon the lives of emigrants.

“Li Ang! Li Ang!” Once again, Hu Mudan’s small face floated before his.

“What is it?”

“You drunken fool, you need to hurry. You still have this chance to find her.”

“Yinan is on the mainland. Far away now.”

“You know your side will lose the country. If you don’t go see her now, the Communists will cut you off.”

Hu Mudan had aged in the last few years. Her small, almond eyes had sunk into her face; there were deeper lines in the corners of her mouth. Time had worn her down, as it would wear them all down.

THE FOLLOWING WEEK
he flew to Shanghai. An American he knew from Kunming, a pilot for the old National airline, was flying in to get some friends out of the country. Li Ang arranged to fly with him. He wouldn’t tell Junan. He planned to send a telegram to the Hangzhou Methodist Church. Then he would take the train to Hangzhou, where he would go to the church and ask for the American woman. She would know where Yinan was. He did not rehearse what he would say to Yinan when he saw her. He wasn’t even certain as to the purpose of his visit. He wished to see her, that was all, and his need to do this superseded any message.

The plane approached the Yangtze, following the wide delta inland. Below he could see the Communist Eighth Army gathering. There were thousands massing on the north bank, waiting. The land was black with them. In the river itself a few dozen junks and barges gathered. South of the river, he saw nothing.

As he watched the collection of the army that would bring down the city, Li Ang recalled, from years before, the story of Wu Shao, the boy who had stolen Wang Baoding’s lunch in the fourth grade. He remembered Baoding leaning toward him, his pinched face marbled with wine, his long, shrewd eyes and pale lips. “This was a boy with no decent family, no education, no property, no money . . . He was hungry.” Li Ang knew now that Baoding had been speaking of him. Li Ang wondered what Baoding would have thought now. But Baoding was long vanished, killed, or scattered by the Japanese he had discounted.

Li Ang’s foot throbbed. The blood vessels had been injured and it was painful to sit still. The ghost toes tingled and he longed to wiggle them, to scratch them. The air was thin; his eyelids twitched; he drifted into sleep. Again he saw, this time from above, the banquet table. He saw his brother listening and watching. “Young man. Do you know what makes me so curious about your Army’s arrangements with the Communist Party? It’s that you don’t seem to know that as soon as the Japanese threat diminishes, the Communists will not hesitate to turn and stab you in the back.”

And then he was no longer at the wedding. Or perhaps his thoughts simply abandoned him, following a wandering path that had been made by the malaria. To the north, the Communist foot soldiers were still gathering in orderly groups, the junks and barges collecting on the river. Closer to Shanghai, the land was terraced into painstaking paddies green and lush. He saw below him rows of peasants in their blue and brown rags, digging trenches and erecting bamboo palisades around the city. Within the city itself, he saw department stores; the embassies, besieged islands in the turbulence. He saw the smoke from small coal fires as people warmed their hands; he saw beleaguered banks assailed by throngs clamoring for gold.

The peril in return was that it made you think. Watching from above, Li Ang wondered at the path his life had taken. If he’d remained in the countryside where he was born, would he have joined the Nationalists? Or would he be on the other side, clustering north of the river, waiting to rush into the city and reclaim it for the countryside that fed it? He recalled his brother pressed against the wall of the student dormitory, the curve of his ear, the shape of his head barely visible in the morning light.

HOURS LATER,
on the ground, Shanghai flew before his eyes in vivid splinters—tragic and absurd, half familiar, half strange. He saw a young woman—slender and familiar, dressed in an old pair of trousers and a loose blouse. He hurried closer, but when the woman turned, her face was that of a stranger. “Got anything to sell?” she cawed. He exchanged his gold coin for a stack of soapy dollars. They had been washed and ironed in order to fetch more money at the exchange. He passed a small stationery stand and entered it. Inside, the familiar smell of paper and ink made his hands tremble.

“Where can I send a telegram?”

But the man only frowned; perhaps he spoke another dialect.

He left the store and wandered back into the street. The city was filled with trouble: broken people, broken faces. He considered his next move.

It was then when he thought he heard someone call out to him by name. “Li Ang! Li Ang!” He shivered and walked faster.

“Li Ang!” Closer now. Slowly, Li Ang turned.

A small, middle-aged man flew toward him, ignoring traffic signs and dodging other pedestrians. Not a military man; this much was clear from his excited face and his open manner. He seized Li Ang’s hand in his. “Chen Da-Huan,” he said. “It’s me, Chen Da-Huan, from Hangzhou, long ago, before the Occupation. It’s a small wonder you don’t remember me. It’s been over ten years.”

Gradually the name rose through the layers of years past. The Chens had been neighbors of Junan’s family in Hangzhou. The father, Old Chen, had been at the paigao game and he had also been the witness at the wedding. Staring now at Chen Da-Huan, Li Ang recalled the father, a small man in a perfectly pressed British double-breasted suit, waving a pigeon’s egg in his chopsticks.

“Chen Da-Huan,” Li Ang said.

“Too much has happened. I had heard that you were wounded. You seem like you have been through something. But you’re still healthy, still alive.”

“I can get around well enough.”

“From what I’ve heard that means that you’re a lucky one.”

Li Ang nodded, looking closely at Chen. He had suffered something—this was clear enough from his prematurely aged eyes, similar to soldiers’ eyes, but without the weariness of soul that came from seeing and from causing violent death.

Chen spoke in the familiar Hangzhou dialect, “. . . brother and I went to the Lianda University. After this, during the war, I finally sent for Yang Qingwei and married her in Kunming.”

Yes, Li Ang recalled: Chen Da-Huan had fallen in love with a friend of Junan’s, Yang Qingwei, and they’d been separated during the Occupation. “That’s good news,” he said. “What are you doing in Shanghai?”

“We’ve been visiting a specialist.” He paused. “She is pregnant. But she has suffered a relapse of her tuberculosis. I’m afraid that she will die.”

Li Ang shook his head. He dimly remembered Yang Qingwei, a gentle girl with a wistful smile. He would never have expected her to survive the Occupation, the journey to Kunming, and the war.

“I’m surprised to see you here. I’d heard you were in Taiwan,” Chen Da-Huan said.

“I am back—briefly.”

“A strange time to return, my friend.”

Li Ang said, “Business.”

Chen Da-Huan nodded. He looked exhausted—gray-faced, and with those haunted eyes.

“How long have you been traveling?” Li Ang asked. “You should rest.”

Chen Da-Huan shook his head. “I have an appointment. I’m going to see a man—it has to do with money to help Qingwei.”

“Who is he?”

“A man of influence—I’m trying to buy gold at the official rate and sell it on the black market. Over the years, with all the troubles, we lost the house in Hangzhou and the house in the countryside. The place in Shanghai we sold after the war. It had been ravaged and we couldn’t keep it up. Plus the prices were down—and still dropping. We had property to the north, in the countryside. But the people of the countryside—” He stopped speaking. “A darkness is coming, a darkness I would never have imagined. We are nobody now, we have nothing. Soon we will be lost. And Qingwei—she began to cough up blood . . . There were doctors—one I know of here—that might still be of help. But with this inflation . . . When we left for Shanghai, I had four million yuan. I thought that this would see us through to Hong Kong. But during our journey, prices have gone up many times—” he broke off and looked away. “I don’t have enough,” he said. “We got as far as Shanghai. I took her to the specialist. He said the only help for her is in Hong Kong.”

Li Ang thought of his travel funds. He had been warned of the inflation and had brought, in case of trouble, an extra wallet of gold coins. He had scarcely thought about Chen Da-Huan since his marriage. But the man’s own story—his faithfulness, persisting love, their union, and now her death—had played out in that space of time. He reached into his bag and brought out the coins.

“Please,” he said. “Take this.”

“I can’t accept.”

“My father-in-law was a good friend of your father’s. He would certainly want me to give you this.”

He wanted Chen to go away. He held out the wallet, pushed it into Chen’s hands. Would it be enough? He found his monogramed, gold cigarette case, opened it, shook out the cigarettes, and put them in his pocket. He held out the case.

“Li Ang, this is too much.”

“But not the cigarettes! Now, those are precious. Save the case and wait for a good time to barter it. I have to leave now. Please. I have to go.” He swallowed. “Let me know what happens.”

Chen Da-Huan nodded. His eyes shone with a painful light.

Li Ang said, “Be careful.”

“Yes. Yes.” He bowed, dazed. “Our family will show our thanks somehow, someday. We will be grateful to you forever.” Clutching the gold, he stood on the sidewalk staring as Li Ang hurried away.

Li Ang found himself favoring his foot. Would he make it to Hangzhou? He must wire money to Yinan and tell her to leave. It had been right to give the purse to Chen, but if he was going to help Yinan, he must save the rest of his gold.

He was thirsty. He felt out of his element in Shanghai, especially in this newer part of the city. A strong smell of salt water and a stiff breeze told him he was getting closer to the warehouses and docks. Someone told him of a telegraph transmitter near a certain teahouse. But after that, each man he asked would gaze at him from head to toe and say that he did not know where such a teahouse was. No one else had heard of it. After several minutes he began to suspect that he had misunderstood his instructions. Finally, he bumbled around a corner and through a courtyard, where he heard the dishes clinking and the welcome sound of voices.

He followed the sounds, through the courtyard and along a balustrade until he came upon a teahouse with an old sign over the door. It was a large, well-built room, with dark woodwork framing airy latticed windows. The place was busy. He stopped in the doorway. Several of the men glanced up, and he heard someone behind him.

The proprietor approached him. “What can I do for you?” he asked. He sounded friendly enough, but he spoke as if something were on his mind. Li Ang looked over the room again. Two men near the window were playing go, and white was nearly surrounded.

“I’d like to send a telegram,” he said.

“I am sorry,” the man replied. “I don’t think that we can help you.”

“What’s this about?” Li Ang wanted to leave. These people were irritating, without manners. Someone had moved behind him, just a little too close.

“I am sorry,” the man said again. He shifted almost imperceptibly closer to the doorway, glancing at the entrance. The hair rose on the back of Li Ang’s neck. Cold metal pressed against his ear.

“Don’t move.”

All around him, men stopped watching and turned back to their business.

Someone else entered the room, this time from the kitchen. He was an older man, with a military crewcut and a blunt face from which two shrewd eyes looked out.

“That’s him. That is Major General Li Ang.”

They seized him and bound his hands.