3
The only similarity between the fried eel and Wu Liang was the indigestion that struck him on the long train ride from Jinan down to Shanghai, making it hard to doze even in the deluxe soft sleeper cabin, with its private toilet and a view of the countryside blackness between stations. Nanjing was lit up like a landing field, even though the sun had risen by then, and it was afternoon by the time he reached Shanghai. Wobbly with fatigue, he stored his bag in a station locker, then took buses over to Fucheng Road and searched until he’d found, among the looming modern towers, a public phone booth. He called the Shangri-La and, putting on a slightly comical Hokkien accent, asked to speak to Mr. Xin Zhu. Two rings, then he hung up and called again, telling the clerk that he’d been disconnected. This time, it only rang once before a man said in a tired voice not unlike Xin Zhu’s, “Wei?”
“Mr. Xin Zhu,” Zhu said, keeping up the accent, “you called us regarding a date for this evening. We’re sorry that your usual friend is not available, but perhaps we can send someone else.”
“That may be acceptable,” said the hotel guest, who was in fact He Qiang, a field agent he had twice before used to impersonate himself. It was a rare man who had the build to impersonate Xin Zhu, though He Qiang still required ample padding.
Zhu stifled a yawn. “She will need to know your room number, of course.”
“Of course, it’s 1298. But maybe, to start, she and I could have a drink in the hotel bar.”
“An excellent idea,” said Zhu. “Might I suggest an eight o’clock rendezvous in the Jade on 36?”
Zhu gave it another half hour, strolling down to the dock and finding, to his delight, a Haagen-Dazs shop, where he bought a scoop of Chocolate Chocolate Chip that he ate while sitting on a bench and gazing at the Huangpu River. He watched faces again, but these were a more developed version of the New Chinese he had seen on the train to Qingdao. The high-rises of Qingdao had their share of business elite, but Shanghai was their breeding ground. They sported suits like second skins, the women comfortable in Western fashions, all secure in the knowledge that their city, the most populous city of the most populous country on the planet, had a reach that stretched around the globe. He hadn’t been lying when he told Zhang Guo that China was the superpower to be reckoned with, and though he could never feel comfortable with the economic policies that Shanghai represented, its very existence proved that their country was now something completely different. Arriving here was like arriving at a future of perpetual motion, and it was part of his responsibility to make sure that nothing external slowed it down. Perpetual motion, perpetual revolution. He ate his ice cream slowly, feeling it cut through the eel that seemed to still slither in his stomach, and thought of speed.
He entered as any guest would, through the glassy front doors and into the packed marble lobby, knowing that whoever was watching-and whether they’d been sent by Wu Liang, the committee, or the Americans, someone was always watching-would think that he’d eluded them on the way out, and that was something no watcher would admit in a report. He breezed past a gathering of Japanese businessmen and shared the elevator with a Canadian couple who were plainly in love. A rare sight.
The door to 1298, though displaying a DO NOT DISTURB sign, was ajar. He pushed it open to find a clean, empty room, the blinds drawn, and a key card left on the foot of the made bed. He closed the door behind himself, heard noise in the bathroom, and found He Qiang, a thick, big-shouldered man in his forties with a small mole on his cheek, sitting on the toilet, smiling. Hanging from the curtain rod, dripping dry, was a padded undergarment-the “fat suit” He Qiang had arrived wearing.
They shook hands, and Zhu leaned close to his ear, whispering, “I’m going to sleep. Wake me at seven.”
He Qiang nodded.
“She’ll make it by eight?”
“You’ll like her,” He Qiang whispered. “Xinyang girl. Very nice, and she knows the town. If you like, she can show you a good time.”
Zhu gave him a look, and He Qiang raised his hands.
“If you like, I said.”
Zhu washed up, and by the time he lay on the large, hard bed it was just after two. He Qiang plugged headphones into the television, settled on the floor, and began watching a DVD that, Zhu realized before falling asleep, was from Bollywood. So He Qiang liked the music and melodrama of those sorts of movies. He’d never have suspected the man was a dreamer. Xin Zhu certainly was not, and his dreamless sleep proved it.
He Qiang woke him gently with a shake of the shoulder, then pointed at a cup of hot black tea on the bedside table, alongside a sheet of paper filled with childlike scrawl. As he sipped the tea, he read over what proved to be He Qiang’s report of his time in the hotel. Who he’d spotted down in the street, how many calls (unanswered, of course) came to his room, and when, and the demeanor of the service staff that visited the room. Upon arriving, he’d changed his room but still found one camera in the overhead lamp, which he’d disposed of, and two microphones-he’d left one of them. No one had tried to replace anything. He Qiang’s assessment, which tallied with Xin Zhu’s, was that while there was no urgency to the surveillance, someone was certainly keeping tabs on him.
Zhu was able to verify this when he descended in the elevator, wearing one of the suits He Qiang had packed, and found, leaning against a wall outside the Jade, an athletic-looking young man working his way through a copy of People’s Daily. He was dressed like a factory worker ready for a big night out-a peasant’s idea of what the urban rich wear to gala events-but none of the hotel staff was kicking him out. Zhu passed him without a glance and found a place at the end of the Jade’s glowing bar.
The girl was in her midtwenties, small boned with a wide, flat nose and pebbly eyes. She found him as he was finishing his second drink, and introduced herself formally as Liu Xiuxiu, then took the stool beside him. A Caucasian man in the corner was playing progressive jazz on a piano. Zhu ordered her a glass of Chardonnay, while he drank his Glenlivet. She, like Sung Hui, was from Xinyang, but that was where the similarities ended. This girl knew exactly what she was doing.
The conversation began with formalities, and he admired how she was able to ride the flow of topics and then control it without ever seeming to interfere. Like most conversations that week, Wenchuan and the whole devastated Sichuan province soon became its focal point. Liu Xiuxiu said, “Fifty thousand. I can’t even imagine that many people, can you? If forced, I could count that high, but I can’t picture it.”
“After a certain number,” he said, “the mind just balks.”
“Exactly.”
He took a sip of whisky. “Earthquakes are just scratching the surface. In three years, the Great Leap Forward killed at least twenty million from starvation. That’s a number I’ve spent decades trying to grasp. I never will.”
Appropriately, Liu Xiuxiu grew quiet and looked into her glass. A lesser escort would have said, I don’t know anything about politics, but Liu Xiuxiu’s silence suggested she knew enough to hold her tongue. Xin Zhu, however, was drinking on a ravenously empty stomach, and his judgment suffered. He said, “Back then, Xinyang was hit very hard. The political semantics are wonderful-we call it the Three Years of Natural Disasters. There was nothing natural about what happened. The food was there, sitting in the silos, but no one was allowed to eat it because the grain was needed to fulfill quotas.” He smiled, raising his glass. “The Great Leap!”
Hearing his own delirious words, he expected her to set down her glass and walk out. Perhaps she would throw the Chardonnay into his face, but the glass remained in her hand, and she said, “Have you eaten?”
“No.”
“Perhaps a restaurant would be a good idea?”
She was going to take care of him. He Qiang had done very well.
Though she suggested a place up Minsheng Road, he patted his stomach and told her that speed was of the essence, so they hurried to the Fook Lam Moon in another wing of the hotel. Zhu ordered shark’s fin, while Liu Xiuxiu settled on fried rice with chicken and octopus. As he gorged himself on an appetizer of chilled shrimp they looked out over the Bund, where colonial-era European banks and customs houses cut through the high-rises. The sight filled him with the desire to discuss history, but he was starting to slide out of his idiocy and didn’t want to push his luck. “How long have you been in Shanghai?” he asked, switching to English.
She smiled modestly and placed her hands in her lap beneath the edge of the table, and he noticed in this different light of the restaurant that her skin was like opaque glass. It made him think that, if enough illumination were applied, he would be able to see through the skin to her organs and blood vessels. In very competent English,
