Shanghai (109 page)

* * *

FONG'S GRANDMOTHER found him weeping in the corner of the room he shared with his six cousins. He held the two small glass beads in his hands. She
snapped, “Work time. New rulers shit just like old rulers.”

“Where's Papa?” Fong asked through his sobs.

“Dead probably, that one …” Her voice trailed off into nothing.

“He was your son, Grandma.”

“He was a fool getting involved in other people's problems. Now get up and get your brushes. Communist night-soil smells as bad as Republican night-soil, but both pay for us to cart it away—so let's go.”

Confucian Power

Once the Red Army had secured the streets, the real job of controlling Shanghai began with a swiftness that surprised everyone. The Confucian brought organizational skills to the Communists that they had never had before—and his burning hatred of the city fuelled the ferocity with which he attacked his task.

He found that women from the country bore an even greater grudge against the city dwellers than their men folk, so he put them in charge of housing and encouraged them to make all former building owners live in the most cramped, dampest, and smallest of basement spaces. Merchants were to be put out on the street and street people put in their homes.

Every alley had peasant guards who checked the identification documents of everyone who came or went,
although many could barely read. Most intersections were made into checkpoints, and a pedestrian could be stopped as many as three times in a single block by the shouted order, “Papers!”

The wardens all reported to the Confucian's horde of street scribes, who then reported to his forty Confucian lieutenants, who in turn reported back to him directly—and quickly. Even for a city used to vast webs of snitches and complex spy rings, the Confucian's city-wide system of informants was something new.

And each of the spies had been told to search for a man with a cobra carved on his back.

The Confucian was aware that the Compact members would know of his duplicity soon enough and would move against him. He would not have that. Now that he was near his goal, he would not have it taken from him. It was one thing to assume power, he knew, and quite another to keep it.

The first thing the Confucian had done after setting up his office was deal with the Carver. He ordered the man's entire collection of ivory and jade sculptures confiscated “for the state.” Then he had the man's workshop taken from him. Finally, the Carver was brought in shackles to the wide steps leading to what had been the heart of the Vrassoons' empire.

The Confucian made the Carver wait in the cold rain for three hours before ordering the soldiers to bring him up.

The Confucian, dressed in his traditional blue robe, stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out the floor-to-ceiling window that provided a glorious view of the Bund, its promenade, and the still wild Pudong across the Huangpo River.

The Confucian dismissed the soldiers, then allowed a long moment to pass before he turned to the Carver.

The artisan stood calmly, his naturally aristocratic bearing still intact.

It threw the Confucian, who had expected the man to be at least partially humbled. The opening that he had prepared seemed petty now, specious. He discarded it and strode to his desk, sat, and threw open a folder.

The Carver didn't bother moving, although his eyes followed the Confucian. Finally he said, “Do you know what you are doing?”

The Confucian looked up and said, “Absolutely.” But he heard the waver in his own voice, and it infuriated him.

“Perhaps you are inadvertently still in the service of the Compact,” the Carver suggested.

“How would that be?” the Confucian demanded.

“The Red Army has no love for the
Fan Kuei
. Perhaps they will rid the city of the Europeans and return it to the Black-Haired people.”

The Confucian nodded slowly and rose. “Perhaps.”

“But that is not your intent, is it? You seek the restoration of Confucian power. It's a foolish thing to want. History may circle itself, but it never returns to a discarded option. History tests various solutions, and those that fall short are thrown in the river. Your dream is a fool's dream.”

“Where is the Assassin?”

The Carver allowed a slow smile to come to his face, then he nodded. “Yes, you're right to be concerned about the Assassin's whereabouts. Without a doubt he plans your demise.”

“So where is he?”

“He is smart enough never to have divulged such information to me, or, I assume, to anyone else.”

A withering look from the Confucian stopped him. “Would you like to have your carvings back … your workshop?”

“I would.”

“Then tell me where the Tusk is hidden.”

“In Baghdad.”

“Where in Baghdad?”

The Carver lifted his shoulders and shrugged. “I have no idea where in Baghdad the relic is hidden, and you knew that before you asked.”

The Confucian stared at the Carver for a long moment, then said, “Do you know what Ti Lan Chiou is?”

The Carver nodded, and for the first time his confidence seemed to falter. “The new prison.”

“Yes, the new prison. If I commit you, you will never see the light of day again. So I want you to think about where the Assassin is and how I can discover where exactly in Baghdad the Tusk is hidden.”

The Carver looked down at his hands. Rough, scarred, workman's hands. The same hands as his father's, and his father's father's—and all the Carvers before them. Then he glanced at the Confucian's soft palms and pudgy fingers. Hands that had never known calluses, never carved in stone, let alone in ivory. He lifted his head slowly. “I have already told you that I don't know. And no threat or bribe or torture you could devise will—”

The Carver heard the sound of his skin ripping before he registered the pain in his cheek or the trickle of blood—or the small knife in the Confucian's hand.

The Carver's smile broadened. “You cannot make me know what I do not know.”

“Take that smile from your face!” the Confucian screamed. But he knew he sounded foolish—like a disappointed child. “Guard!” he called. “Get this man out of my sight!”

* * *

IN EVERY SPARE MOMENT Fong searched for his father—but the city was full of soldiers, most assigned to specific tasks, many confined to their barracks, all of whom had been instructed not to interact with the Shanghainese. It was getting harder and harder to move around the city. Fong was surprised to find that all the new wardens spoke hideous Shanghainese or none at all, and openly despised the people of the city at the Bend of the River.

Fong would finish his night-soil work as quickly as he could so he would have as much time as possible to search for his father. Soon his grandmother figured out what he was doing and added more streets to his daily route.

“Why, Grandma?” he demanded.

“Because it needs to be done, and with your father gone, who else is going to do it? Your cousins' fathers are doing their work. Only your foolish father saw fit to leave his family and his responsibilities for someone else's concern. So his work is now your work, permanently.”

“Why permanently?”

“Because he's not coming back. Grow up. Your foolish father is dead.”

So Fong's route now included sections of the Old City that he had never cleaned before. And it was on the first day in the ancient city that he found something
peculiar about the honeypot of one of his new “clients.” It smelled unusual—but he recognized its odour. As punishment, a year ago, his grandmother had made him work in the
jutaning
ghetto in Hongkew. Quickly he'd learned that Chinese night-soil smelled different from
Fan Kuei
night-soil—just as their skins smelled different. It had something to do with the strange
Fan Kuei
willingness to eat cheese and cow's milk.
And they think what we eat is peculiar!
Fong thought. But now, here in the heart of the Old City, in the most densely and exclusively Chinese section of Shanghai, was a night-soil honeypot that smelled like the ones in Hongkew.

He noted the address and made up to his mind to come back and explore this curiosity. Then, not knowing exactly why, he reached into his pants pocket and felt the two glass beads that his father had given him before he'd left to fight for “what is fair,” and said aloud, “I know you're not dead, Papa, I know you're not dead, Papa, I know you're not dead, Papa.”

As he did, a Han Chinese boy a few years his senior watched him closely as his hand went to the glass beads around his neck.

* * *

THE SOLDIERS SEEMED TO TAKE particular joy in smashing to bits every piece of furniture in Jiang's. Only the box seat that had housed the Tusk was spared. Jiang read the order presented to her and retreated to what she still thought of as her mother's room. Well before the Communists walked into Shanghai, she had moved most of her valuable pieces and had informed her best clients where they could find her in the future.
Despite some misgivings she had settled on a small building in the Pudong, then hired ten men from the Tong of the Righteous Hand to protect it. As well, two of the Tong members manned a boat that was reserved for her clients to make the journey from the Bund to the Pudong.

A loud knock on her bedchamber door drew her to her feet. When she opened it she was surprised to see the Confucian. She had assumed he was a coward who would have others do his foul work.

“Come in,” she said.

He stepped into her bedchamber and closed the door behind him.

Thank god my daughter is safe with my sister,
she thought.

“Have you spoken to the Carver?” he demanded.

“He contacted me after the delightful conversation the two of you had in your office. What does it feel like to sit in the chair of the great Vrassoons?”

He ignored her and said, “So I ask you the same questions I asked him.”

“And I offer you the same answers he gave you. I have no idea where the Assassin is, nor do I know the address in Baghdad where the relic is hidden.”

The Confucian took another step into the room, then slapped her hard across the face. “You are not properly dressed to entertain a scholar.”

Jiang blanched, then canted her head slightly to one side. “There is tea on the table. I will return in a moment—more appropriately dressed.”

The Confucian sat and watched her elegant figure leave the room. The tea was excellent. He felt himself returning to something important—his rightful place.

Then she re-entered, dressed in the formal attire of a courtesan.

He stood, for a moment, his breath locked in his chest.

“Have you read
The Dream of the Red Chamber
?” she asked, and flared her fan.

—

A week before the Communists actually walked into Shanghai, Jiang had met with the Assassin.

“The Confucian will close my business down. The Communists have a bizarre puritanical streak to them—although the Confucian's actions against me will be entirely personal.”

The Assassin raised a single eyebrow. “Does he have feelings for you?”

“He thinks of me as a courtesan and himself a scholar.”

“As in the old books?”

“Just so. But I don't care what he does. I have already moved my business.”

“Good,” the Assassin said as he reached for his tea. “You are no real danger to him, so you are safe. It is I whom he fears.” A darkness crossed his features. “I have moved my family out of the city.”

“Would the Confucian …?”

“Think, Jiang. He will need what every ruler of the Middle Kingdom has needed since the First Emperor himself—legitimacy. The Tusk can give him that. And he could use my family to …” He didn't bother to complete his sentence. “Did you bring the deed for the Baghdad property as I asked?”

Jiang hesitated.

“If you keep the deed you are in great danger. You are a brave woman, but you have a child, and physical pain is not something everyone can bear.”

Jiang looked silently at this hard man across the table from her, then reached into her sleeve and withdrew the deed for the property in Baghdad that hid the Tusk.

“Have you read it?” the Assassin asked.

“No. Even if I had wanted to, it's in Farsi script, and I can neither read nor speak that language.”

“Good,” he said, pocketing the deed. “Now prepare yourself. The Confucian will come to your door before long.”

“And you prepare too, old friend,” she said.

“My whole life,” he replied, “has been one long preparation.”

* * *

SHANGHAI HAD ALWAYS BEEN a cauldron that spewed out rumours. All sorts of rumours kept the people at the Bend in the River entertained—and safe. The Chinese are a practical people, and if a rumour continues, they reason, there is probably some truth in it. And the rumours that swirled around the great city kept returning to a moment in Nanking—and a red-haired
Fan Kuei
who flew above a fire with a Chinese baby in his arms.

The Confucian had ordered his people to investigate the story and they had come back with, naturally enough, contradictory information—but most of the details supported the unlikely story.

Alone in his great office, the Confucian contemplated the possibility that the hysterical tale of a flying
Fan Kuei
with a baby in his arms could be true. He considered what he knew of the Japanese and tapped the windowpane
with his long fingernails. He asked himself a simple question: “What could have stopped the Japanese marauding in Nanking? What would have made them give up a section of the old capital as a safe zone for Chinese?” He came back to the image of a
Fan Kuei
with a baby. He had no idea what to make of the stories of a great fire that surrounded the eventual sanctuary; it sounded oddly like a story from the Long Noses' Bible.