“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.
By early April I still hadn’t heard from Yufeng, and I grew more anxious. I talked with Henry about it. He suggested going to the northeast personally to find out what had happened to her, so I began making plans. I moved my seminar from the next Thursday afternoon to Tuesday evening (pizzas provided) so that I could have six days for the trip.