A Map of Betrayal (8 page)

On our drive north, Minmin asked me about my father. I told her that he had worked for China, living in Japan and then America. I even said he had planned to retire back to his homeland, but he died of an illness in DC. “Don’t let anyone know my family background,” I said.

“Of course I won’t,” she promised. “I guess your father might have been bamboozled by the Chinese government. It must be a sad story.”

“His life was very complicated. I’m still trying to piece it together. Don’t let anyone get wind of this trip, all right?”

“Sure, I’ll keep my lips sealed.”

1954

For the first time, Gary took a vacation. George Thomas, recently married and having just returned from the States, had granted him three weeks off. Gary went to Hong Kong in early February, hoping to be able to cross the border to enter Guangzhou; though he didn’t have a passport from Red China, he was still holding the one issued by the Nationalist government. He also had his refugee papers, which permitted him entry to the United States. For five years he hadn’t heard a word from his family and only joined them now and then in his dreams. Were his parents still able to work in the fields? Did Yufeng resent his long absence from home? What could he say about his unfulfilled promise to go back and fetch her in a year or two? What a lousy husband he had been. If he got to see her this time, he would try to give her a child so that she might feel less lonely when he was away, and so that he could have a solid reason for requesting discharge from his overseas mission.

He wasn’t sure whether his superiors would allow him to go home for a visit. All his planning might turn out to be wishful thinking. But in spite of the uncertainty, he was full of hope and couldn’t stop indulging in reveries about a family reunion.

On the very afternoon he checked into a small hotel on Queen’s Road in downtown Hong Kong, he called Bingwen, who was delighted to hear about his arrival and eager to see him. They agreed to meet the next morning, around eleven, at a restaurant near the ferry crossing to Kowloon. Bingwen reminded Gary not to eat too much for breakfast because they’d have an early lunch. Gary didn’t get up until ten thirty the following day. After washing, he set out for the waterfront unhurriedly. On his way he stopped at a bakery stall, bought a small bun stuffed with red-bean paste, and ate it ravenously while strolling. Like anywhere in China, nobody
here took notice of his eating on the street. He felt at ease, though he hardly knew this city, having once lived here for only a month (in the barracks at Stanley Fort), and was unable to understand the peddlers’ cries in Cantonese.

When he arrived at the restaurant, Bingwen was already in there, at a window table that commanded a full view of the room and a part of the terrace outside and the harbor. At the sight of Gary, he stood and rushed up to him. The man wore suede boots with brass buckles and a gray wool vest over a white shirt. They hugged, overjoyed to see each other at long last. Gary found that his comrade hadn’t aged in the slightest, having the same bright eyes and the same smooth, vivid face. After tea was served, a willowy waitress handed them each a small warm towel, with which they wiped their faces and hands.

They ordered lunch and resumed chatting. Bingwen pulled an envelope out of the pocket of his cashmere coat draped over the back of another chair. Dropping his voice, he said, “This is a little token of thanks from our country.”

“For what?” Gary asked in bafflement.

“For the information you provided three months ago.”

“Was it useful?”

“Certainly, it helped us smash a clique of spies disguised as returnees from Korea. We nabbed them all, executed a few, and put the rest in jail.”

Gary was shocked but didn’t say another word. He slipped the envelope into his rear pocket. He had assumed that all those anti-Communist POWs would go to Taiwan.

Their food came. The crabmeat dumplings, which Bingwen had ordered for the benefit of Gary’s northern palate, were steaming and puffy. Together with the entrée were some side dishes, all Mandarin. Gary lifted a dumpling onto his plate, cut it in two with his chopsticks, and put half into his mouth. “Oh, delicious,” he said, sucking in his breath because of the heat. “This makes me more homesick.”

A ferryboat blew its horn like a mooing cow, chugging away from the waterside and dragging a frothy wake. Bingwen said, “You’re from Shandong, so we’re having dumplings for this welcome-home lunch.”

“Thanks. When can I go back? You know I haven’t seen my family for five years.”

“Ah, that’s another matter I’m supposed to discuss with you.” Bingwen smiled cunningly, his hawk eyes scanning, as if to check whether the other seven or eight diners were eavesdropping. They were all out of earshot. He said to Gary, “Your family’s fine. We’ve been taking good care of them.”

“Can I go back to see them, just for a short visit?”

“No, you cannot, because the moment you cross the border, the Brits will inform the Yanks about you and that will blow your cover. The Party wants you to stay with the U.S. agency in Okinawa and to gather as much intelligence as you can. For this mission your identity must be kept secret. Brother, I know it’s hard for you. You’ve been making a tremendous sacrifice for our country. For that you have our highest respect.”

Hearing that, Gary felt touched and disarmed, unable to push his request further. A dull pang seized his heart again while a hot lump swelled his gullet. He lowered his eyes and asked, “What if the agency moves back to the United States? There’s been talk about that.”

“Go with them. That’s the instruction from above.”

Gary frowned, breathing hard as though something were stuck in his throat. “Look—I’m going to be thirty in a month, and this celibate life isn’t easy for me.” His voice took on a petulant note. “I won’t say I miss my wife terribly like a newlywed. My parents picked her out for me. But I feel bad, guilty—I shouldn’t have treated Yufeng this way. Besides, I miss home.”

“We know Yufeng is a good woman, and she understands you’ve been doing an indispensable service to our country. As for your personal life”—Bingwen blinked meaningfully and gave a
tight smile—“the higher-ups deliberated about that too. If necessary, you should consider starting another family abroad. This also means you must prepare to live overseas for many years.”

“So mine is a protracted mission?”

“That’s right.”

Gary was stunned, but he managed to say, “Okay, I understand.” He came within a breath of protesting but realized that would only make matters worse and might jeopardize his family. He heaved a sigh, unable to fathom the full implications of the directive.

As much as he was happy to see his friend and handler and to know he was a Party member now, the welcome-home lunch was a huge letdown. In addition to the $500 in the envelope, Bingwen notified Gary that he’d been promoted, now holding rank similar to a captain’s in the army. From now on he would earn two salaries a month—$230 from the American agency and 102 yuan, about $50, from China’s Ministry of National Security. He was sure that few of his comrades were paid so well. That lessened his despondency a little. If he lived frugally and saved, someday he’d be able to return home a wealthy man. Still, hard as he tried, he couldn’t reason away his misery.

Hong Kong was warm in February, and there was a scent of spring in the air. The streets were overflowing with pedestrians, many of them in rags, apparently refugees from inland. Yet few wore cotton-padded clothes or heavy coats as people did in the north. Walking back to his hotel, Gary heard pigeons cooing and raised his head to look around, but he didn’t see any birds. Instead, he saw colored laundry fluttering on bamboo poles stretched between the balcony rails. Along the street endless shop signs swayed like tattered banners. A uniformed Indian guard appeared, standing at the entrance to a grand stone building, his head turbaned and his beard trimmed. The air was musty and felt a little sticky. Summer must be insufferable here, Gary thought. Perhaps hotter than Okinawa.

A small cleft-lipped boy in a patched gown accosted him, stretching out his cupped hand, but Gary recognized him—on his way to lunch he’d given this same beggar two coins, so he shooed him away. An old woman was limping over from the opposite direction, holding an oil-paper umbrella under her arm. A rickshaw caught up with her to see if she needed a ride, but she waved it off. As Gary was nearing a street crossing, a midnight-blue Rolls-Royce with chrome lights and bumpers emerged, honking petulantly while the pedestrians jumped aside to make way. Still, the sedan spattered muddy water on some people and on the stands selling hot soy milk, magazines, flowers, fruits, deep-fried fish balls. A middle-aged woman in green slacks and rubber boots waved her arms vigorously while yelling at the bulging rear of the car, “Damn you, foreign devils!”

Gary had seen only the Chinese chauffeur and another Asian face in the Rolls-Royce, but he was sure it was a foreign car since it had a U.K. flag on its fender. This reminded him that he’d been engaged in fighting imperialism. China had to drive all the colonial powers off its soil, and he’d better stop indulging in self-pity and fretting about his personal gain and loss. He ought to be more devoted to the cause of liberating the whole country. He stopped to pick up the
South China Morning Post
, which he’d found had better coverage of international events than Chinese-language newspapers.

During the rest of his vacation, he tried to enjoy himself and felt entitled to spend a bit of money. He dined at restaurants that offered northern food and frequented some bars, where he developed a taste for fruit juices, some of which he’d never had before. He liked mango puree, pineapple smoothie, kiwi slush, squeezed guava drinks. Restless with stirrings and with a knot of lust tightening in his belly, he even went to some nightclubs, where girls danced provocatively, their red flapper dresses flaring out from their waists. At one of the clubs he picked up a twenty-something, speaking only English to her, partly because he’d been instructed
never to disclose his mainland background and partly because he meant to impress her with his U.S. affiliation. (Indeed, after he’d stayed more than four years with the Americans, his body language had changed enough that some people wouldn’t take him for a real Chinese anymore. He would shrug his shoulders and hold doors for others behind him.) The young woman of mixed blood, Brazilian and Cantonese, called him American Chinaman when they were both tipsy. She kept calling him that even in his hotel room.

As if suddenly liberated, he felt a kind of transformation taking place in him, and during the rest of his vacation he didn’t hesitate to seek pleasure, as though he meant to drop a cracked pot again and again just for the madness of it. He knew that once he returned to Okinawa, he would become the tame, quiet clerk again. Aware that this kind of dissipation might deform his personality and lead to a disaster, he made a vow that after his thirtieth birthday, on March 12, he would stop indulging himself.

Before Gary’s vacation was over, Bingwen gave him a lavish dinner at Four Seas Pavilion, a send-off attended by just the two of them. He told Gary that he should try to work his way up the ladder in the U.S. intelligence system. He needn’t collect every piece of useful information but should gather only what he considered vital to China’s interests and security. If possible, he should come to Hong Kong once a year so they could catch up and make plans. From now on he’d have an account at Hang Seng Bank, and the reward money would be deposited into it regularly.

“You’re our hero on the invisible front,” Bingwen told Gary in total earnest.

“A nameless hero,” Gary said with a tinge of irony. That was the glorious term used in the mainland media to denote a Red spy.

“Brother, I can’t say how much I sympathize with you. But I know this: you must feel like you’re living in captivity all the time, like a caged tiger. If I were in your shoes, I would crack up or die of homesickness.”

“Thanks for understanding,” Gary said. His comrade’s words
dissolved his bitterness a little. He swallowed. Again the pain was shooting up his throat. He wanted to say he might be out of his element once he landed in America, but he thought better of it. He wouldn’t want Bingwen to report his words to their superiors, in whose eyes Gary was reluctant to devalue himself. What’s more, he believed there was glory in serving his country.

Bingwen resumed, “Please always remember that China has raised you and appreciates your service and sacrifice.”

“I shall keep that in mind.”

“Also, under no circumstances must you contact your family directly. That would put a lot of people in danger.”

“I won’t do that.” Gary knew that “a lot of people” would also include his family.

They lifted their shot cups and downed their West Phoenix. The strong liquor was making Gary giddy and teary. They polished off a whole bottle of it.

As soon as I returned to Beijing, I wrote Yufeng a letter. I told her who I was and that I’d like to meet her. The address Uncle Weiren had provided might be out of date, so my letter was hit or miss. All the same, I expected to hear from my father’s first wife and checked my mail eagerly every afternoon.