Three Souls (46 page)

“This is Comrade Ho,” says Young Wang the bookseller.

“Comrade, all is ready.” The other man twists a piece of rope in his hands. He is huge, with stubbled cheeks and big hands. He wears the clothing of a labourer, rough trousers and a worn, padded coat, his bare feet strapped into straw sandals. His accent, however, is that of an educated man.

“What’s the spot you’ve chosen?” Nanmei hugs the satchel to her chest, looking more like a schoolgirl than a spy.

“There’s an old warehouse not far from town,” says Ho. “The owner went bankrupt years ago. The loading dock is on the Shanghai Pond River.”

“Neighbours?”

“None. Just some fields gone to seed.”

“And afterward?”

“A barge loaded with coal. Shanghai Pond River runs into the Huangpu, near Damao Port, thirty, maybe thirty-five miles upriver from Shanghai.”

“What’s in the sacks?” Nanmei points at the rough jute cloth they are sitting on, mounds stuffed with something scratchy.

“Just straw.”

“Thank you, Comrades, for organizing this on such short notice.”

The cart stops. There’s an exchange of voices outside. Nanmei’s hands tighten almost imperceptibly around the satchel. Then the cart’s flap opens and the driver’s face appears, grinning.

“No need to go hungry while we wait. Best steamed buns in town. Two each.”

He passes them a bamboo basket. Nanmei’s hands relax. Outside, an icy rain begins a light, relentless thrumming on the canvas cover.

***

When my brother gets off the morning train from Shanghai, he resembles any other traveller, bundled up to face the cold day. For once, he is wearing nondescript clothing, an ordinary-looking padded jacket and long gown. The brim of his felt hat is pulled down over his forehead, and his scarf is wound up to his chin, hiding half his face. When he sees Nanmei pushing her way toward him he waves and points at the station exit. They wade through the crowd separately and meet out on the street, where rickshaw drivers shiver in their vehicles, sheltered under half shells of oilcloth.

“I’m glad you could get on the overnight train like I suggested in my telegram.” Nanmei opens an umbrella and they become just another pair of travellers, huddled close for shelter from the rain.

“Do you have the manifesto? That’s the reason you wanted me to come, isn’t it?” Tongyin is eager, animated.

“Yes, but let’s go somewhere less crowded. And let’s get out of the rain.”

She leads him farther down the street, toward where the donkey cart waits.

“Ah, but this one already has passengers,” says Tongyin, looking inside.

“No, no, we’re just getting out,” says the rough-featured man in labourer’s clothes cheerfully. “Let me help you in, sir.”

He holds out a big hand to Tongyin, who pulls himself up through the open flap. Nanmei positions herself so that the umbrella obscures the opening and in that moment Comrade Ho throttles Tongyin from behind. He shoves my brother down to the floor of the cart. Tongyin cries out, but his face is pushed into a sack of straw and no one on the street appears to have noticed anything. Nanmei closes her umbrella and climbs in. Only the slightest shaking of her hands betrays any anxiety as she closes the canvas flap.

The cart driver flicks his switch and the donkey trots off. In such foul weather, the streets leading away from the train station are nearly empty. A few passersby hurry along, eyes cast down, watching for puddles, arms struggling to keep the wind from inverting their umbrellas. Tongyin protests, but his words are muffled. Young Wang sits with one hand firmly pressed down on Tongyin’s head while Ho ties my brother’s hands behind his back. Then he turns Tongyin over and clouts him across the face with a giant fist.

“Now quit trying to talk or I’ll hit you again. You’ll have plenty of time to talk soon.”

The large man stuffs a rag in Tongyin’s mouth, gagging him. Tears stream down my brother’s face and he stifles a cry. He stares at Nanmei, who is now slumped against a pile of straw-filled sacks, her face pinched and pale.

She closes her eyes and refuses to look at him. “Let me know when we’re outside town.”

The sound of cartwheels rolling over stone-paved streets gives way to a gritty grinding noise. The passengers lurch as the cart splashes through potholes filled with water, now bumping down a muddy country road. The large man nods to Nanmei.

Nanmei reaches into her satchel and holds up an envelope to show Tongyin.

“Here is what we’ve been searching for. This is Yen Hanchin’s most precious work.” Her voice is as even as her gaze, which is fixed on Tongyin.

Tongyin stares at the envelope, then back at my friend.

“But do you know what else was in this envelope, Mr. Song?” A threatening tone now. “The names of the spies in his network, information he had kept in his head and never written down until he was ready to return to the front lines.”

She gestures to Ho, and Tongyin flinches as the large man reaches toward his face again.

“Stop cringing, you idiot,” Ho says. “I’m just taking off your gag so you can answer our comrade’s questions.” He pulls Tongyin up to a sitting position and yanks out the gag.

Tongyin splutters, his breathing ragged. “I’m on your side! My name should be on the list of spies who worked
for
your husband!”

“Actually, Mr. Song, your name is on a list of double agents and traitors.”

He gapes. “I swear to you, I was his friend. I rented an apartment for him in Shanghai, I subsidized the magazine. I took care of him! I kept him safe from the Nationalist Police!” Tongyin begins crying again, long choking sobs that shake his body.

My poor brother. I’m so sorry I set these wheels in motion, but the situation is out of my hands now.

Nanmei’s face is hard, unrelenting. “You were the one who tracked him to the jail in Ningbo and revealed his true identity to the Nationalists.”

Carefully she puts the envelope back in the satchel. She leans in to his face. “And what did you have in mind for me, dear Comrade? Were you going to add to your feats by turning in the wife of Yen Hanchin? Who else knows you’re here?”

“No one knows about you, Comrade! I wasn’t going to tell anyone about you, not until I was sure you’d found the manifesto!”

Ho hits him across the face. Tongyin cries out, blood gushes from his nose and mouth.

“I know, Song Tongyin. You were going to use the manifesto to get back in the good graces of your friend Cha Zhiming, the Nationalist Police captain.”

He moans, spitting blood. “No, I swear. I’m only friends with Cha because Hanchin told me to watch him.”

She nods to Ho and he smashes his fist into Tongyin’s stomach. My brother gasps, winded and unable to scream. Young Wang flinches, but just presses his lips tight.

“You can tell me everything now,” says Nanmei, “or you can wait until we get to our destination, where no one can hear you. Once we get there, my comrade won’t feel the need for restraint. For the last time, who else knows you’re here?”

They wait while Tongyin regains his breath, face contorted.

“No one, no one else knows! Why would I tell anyone? I’d just get in more trouble for not turning you in the day you showed up at our gates. Please, let me go, I won’t say anything.”

“Does anyone else know about the manifesto?”

“No, no. There were rumours, only rumours. I only knew for sure once you told me.”

“Does anyone know about me? Does Cha Zhiming know you’re using me to find the document?”

“No, no. I’m being more careful now. What if the manifesto wasn’t here? It would have been bad to make promises I couldn’t keep.”

“Why did Hanchin leave Changchow so suddenly?”

“He gave me false information that I passed to Cha Zhiming. Cha lost face terribly. He was fed up with Hanchin, had had enough of my promises, so he raided the offices of
China Millennium
and arrested everyone. He may still arrest me, he says he can’t trust me anymore.”

“He’s just playing with you,” Nanmei says in disgust. “If Cha really believed you were a Communist sympathizer, he would’ve thrown you in jail already. Why are you so sure he isn’t having you followed?”

“He thinks I’m a fool, not worth his men’s time.” His voice is bitter. My brother wants so much to be part of something important, but no one takes him seriously.

“That, I’m willing to believe,” Comrade Ho rumbles from the corner of the cart.

“Please. Let me go. I’m just a small fish. I’m nobody. Please, I have money.”

“I don’t want money.” Nanmei’s voice is cold. She leans forward and spits in his face. “I want revenge. You betrayed my husband and because of you, he’s dead.”

“No, no, your information’s wrong! I didn’t want him dead! I didn’t think they’d execute him! I never betrayed him. He’s the one who betrayed me. I loved Hanchin, I loved him!”

Stop,
I say to my brother.
Don’t say any more about you and Hanchin. It won’t help you.

Nanmei waves her hand again.

Comrade Ho has a brick in his hand. He strikes my brother on the back of the head and Tongyin falls unconscious, knees drawn up to his chest, curled like a mouse in his nest of straw-filled sacks. Outside, the rain keeps up its steady beat on the taut canvas, filling the silence. For the next twenty minutes, Nanmei and the two men say little to each other, but what they say is enough.

The cart driver gives a shout and Ho leaps out. They have stopped in front of a warehouse. He runs ahead to open the door. The donkey clops inside, shaking its ears when the driver calls a halt. Gusts of rain blow in through gaps at the far end of the roof and lightning flashes as the men drag my brother off the cart and toward the loading dock.

I remain behind in the cart. I have no wish to see any more. I don’t want to watch Nanmei and Ho climb into the covered barge that will take them to Shanghai’s riverside slums. I don’t want to see them hide Tongyin’s inert body inside a coal sack, to be heaved into the Huangpu River as they approach the city’s shoreline.

The driver and Young Wang return, soaked and shivering.

I return to town with them.

But I know exactly when my brother dies.

Because suddenly I’m lighter. I float closer to the glowing edges of the portal. My souls bob up like corks. They circle me in excitement, bright red sparks of anticipation and hope.

In the next moment, my mind’s eye sees Weilan’s future as it would have been if I hadn’t done what I did. She’s in an opulent house, looking through a long window at the park-like garden below, forbidden to go outside. She’s miserable and lonely, the adults around her indifferent to her despair.

I see her pressed against a wide sofa, Cha Zhiming leaning over her, pulling up her plaid skirt, and whispering, “Tell Uncle Cha how much you love him.”

I see Weilan as a teenager now, running terrified through the streets of a city in chaos. I see Shanghai neighbourhoods surging with panicked crowds, Japanese airplanes overhead. I hear the din of machine-gun fire.

Then in the next moment, a jarring lurch, a sinking feeling.

I grow heavy, heavier than I’ve ever been. The glowing portal recedes until it’s just an indistinct shadow. My souls scatter like startled birds, worry and fear dimming their brightness.

I witness the other consequences of my actions. I see the future as it would have been for my brother if I hadn’t helped Nanmei.

I see Tongyin strolling down a bustling Shanghai street, clad in a stylish wool suit. I see him enter a nightclub with Cha Zhiming, who claps him on the shoulder with a friendly smile. I see Tongyin while away the hours at an elegant café, taking his time over the newspaper, chatting with other customers. I see a life of leisure.

I see him boarding a steamship with Changyin and his wife, Geeling, Gaoyin and Shen ahead of them on the gangplank, herding children and nannies in a hasty exodus. I see the vessel pitching and rolling, making its way across the water to Taiwan, taking them all to a new home as the Nationalists retreat from China.

I see Tongyin older, much older, a handsome white-haired man promenading in downtown Taipei, dawdling in restaurants and shops, chatting with friends. I see a life of comfort. This is the future I have taken away from him.

***

A feeling of lightness, rising higher toward the shining portal. And then a long plummet into darkness, and now we are heavy, sucked down into the mud of my sins.

What crime could be worse than causing the death of a member of your own family?
My
yang
soul is a dull speck of light in the dim family shrine.
How many more lives must you save now, to atone for your brother’s murder?

But she didn’t know for sure how Nanmei would stop Tongyin. She only wanted to save her daughter.
My
yin
soul balances on the tip of my name tablet. It’s as though my souls are too tired now to manifest as anything more than weak sparks.
Her motives were good.

There’s no reckoning of motives good or bad,
says my
hun
soul.
There’s only a life, a death, what was averted, what was caused. You know that.
It’s no brighter than the ashen tip of an incense stick, on the verge of burning out.

I knew the risks and I accept the consequences. Can you put a price on Weilan’s safety?

***

At home, Jia Po’s indignation over Nanmei’s sudden disappearance has not been mitigated by the note she left behind.

“A sick mother, indeed,” says Jia Po with a snort. “I thought she was an orphan.”

“Well, nothing’s been stolen,” says Meichiu, “so she wasn’t a thief. A thief wouldn’t have left a farewell note.”

“This is most distressing,” says Gong Gong. “Our kinsman will lose face if we tell him the tutor he sent us left under such odd circumstances.”

Weilan still goes to the orchard each morning and lets the silkies out of the coop, scatters grain for them. Sometimes she picks up the docile birds one by one to stroke their soft black plumage. She spends the rest of the morning in the library, leafing through books and copying out words over and over. I hear her speak of her missing teacher only once. When Meichiu looks in on her one day, Weilan is gazing up at the photographs on the wall. Without turning to Meichiu, she says, “I wish I had a photograph of Teacher Wang.”