Lust, Caution (5 page)

She examined the ring under the lamplight, turning it over in her fingers. Sitting by the balcony, she began to imagine that the bright windows and door visible behind her were a cinema screen across which an action movie was being shown. She had always hated violent films; as a
child, she had turned her back whenever a scene became grisly.

“Six carats. Try it on,” the Indian urged.

She decided to enjoy the drowsy intimacy of this jeweler’s den. Her eyes flitted to the reflection of her foot, nestling amid clumps of peonies, in the mirror propped against the wall, then back to the fabulous treasure—worthy, surely, of a tale from the
Thousand and One Nights
—on her finger. She turned the ring this way, then that, comparing it to the rose red of her nail varnish. Though it seemed pale and small next to her brightly lacquered nails, inside the gloomy office it had an alluring sparkle, like a star burning pink in dusk light. She registered a twinge of regret that it was to be no more than a prop in the short, penultimate scene of the drama unfolding around it.

“So what do you think?” Mr. Yee said.

“What do you think?”

“I’m no expert. I’m happy if you like it.”

“Six carats. I don’t know whether there are any faults in it. I can’t see any.”

They leaned in together over the ring, talking and laughing like an engaged couple. Although she had been educated in Canton, the earliest
treaty port to open to British traders, the schools there had not attached as much importance to teaching English as they did in Hong Kong, and she always spoke the language in timid, low tones. Sensing her lack of linguistic confidence, the proprietor decided to spare her his usual negotiating preamble on the whys-and-wherefores of diamond-costing. A price was quickly agreed upon: eleven gold bars, to be delivered tomorrow. If any individual bars turned out to fall below the regulation weight, Mr. Yee pledged to make up the difference; likewise, the jeweler promised to reimburse them for any that were too heavy. The entire transaction—trading gold for diamonds— felt like another detail stolen from the
Arabian Nights
.

She worried that the whole thing had been wrapped up too quickly. They probably weren’t expecting her and Yee to reemerge so soon. Dialogue, she knew, was the best filler of stage time.

“Shall we ask for a receipt?” He would probably be thinking of sending someone over tomorrow, to deliver the gold and pick up the ring.

The Indian was already writing one out. The ring had also been taken off and returned to him.

They sat back next to each other in their chairs, relaxing in the postnegotiation détente.

She laughed softly. “These days no one wants anything but gold. They don’t even want a cash deposit.”

“Just as well. I never carry any on me.”

She knew, from her experience of living with the Yees, that it was always the aides who covered incidental costs—it was a minister’s privilege never to dig into his own pockets. Today, of course, he had come out alone, and therefore penniless, because of the need for secrecy.

The English say that power is an aphrodisiac. She didn’t know whether this was true; she herself was entirely oblivious to its attractions. They also say that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach; that a man will fall easy prey to a woman who can cook. Somewhere in the first decade or two of the twentieth century, a well-known Chinese scholar was supposed to have added that the way to a woman’s heart is through her vagina. Though his name escaped her, she could remember the analogy he had devised in defense of male polygamy: “A teapot is always surrounded by more than one cup.”

She refused to believe that an intellectual would come out with something so vulgar. Nor did she believe the saying was true, except perhaps for desperate old prostitutes or merry widows. In her case, she had found Liang Jun-sheng repellent enough before the whole thing began, and afterward even more so.

Though maybe that was not a valid example, because Liang Jun-sheng had been anxious, insecure, painfully aware of her dislike from the outset. His obvious sense of inferiority only grew as things went along between them, increasing her contempt for him.

Surely she hadn’t fallen in love with Yee? Despite her fierce skepticism toward the idea, she found herself unable to refute the notion entirely; since she had never been in love, she had no idea what it might feel like. Because, since her mid-teens, she had been fully occupied in repelling romantic offensives, she had built up a powerful resistance to forming emotional attachments. For a time, she had thought she might be falling for K’uang Yu-min, but she ended up hating him— for turning out just like the others.

The two occasions she had been with Yee, she
had been so tense, so taken up in saying her lines that there had been no opportunity to ask herself how she actually felt. At the house, she had to be constantly on her guard. Every night she was expected to stay up socializing as late as everyone else. When she was finally released back to the privacy of her own room, she would gulp down a sleeping pill to guarantee herself a good night’s sleep. Though K’uang Yu-min had given her a small bottle of them, he had told her to avoid taking them if she possibly could, in case anything were to happen in the morning for which a clear head would be required. But without them, she was tormented by insomnia, something she had never suffered from in the past.

Only now, as this last, tense moment of calm stretched infinitely out, on this cramped balcony, the artificial brightness of its lamplight contrasting grubbily with the pale sky visible through the door and windows downstairs, could she permit herself to relax and inquire into her own feelings. Somehow, the nearby presence of the Indian, bent over his writing desk, only intensified her sense of being entirely alone with her lover. But now was not the moment to ask
herself whether she loved him; instead, she needed to—

He was gazing off into the middle distance, a faintly sorrowful smile on his face. He had never dared dream such happiness would come his way in middle age. It was, of course, his power and position that he had principally to thank; they were an inseparable part of him. Presents, too, were essential, though they needed to be distributed at the correct moments. Given too soon, they carried within an insulting insinuation of greed. Though he knew perfectly well the rules of the game they were playing, he had to permit himself a brief moment of euphoria at the prize that had fallen into his lap; otherwise, the entire exercise was meaningless.

He was an old hand at this: taking his paramours shopping, ministering to their whims, retreating into the background while they made their choices. But there was, she noted again, no cynicism in his smile just then; only sadness. He sat in silhouette against the lamp, seemingly sunk into an attitude of tenderly affectionate contemplation, his downcast eyelashes tinged the dull cream of moths’ wings as they rested on his gaunt cheeks.

He really loves me, she thought. Inside, she felt a raw tremor of shock—then a vague sense of loss.

It was too late.

The Indian passed the receipt to him. He placed it inside his jacket.

“Run,” she said softly.

For a moment he stared, and then understood everything. Springing up, he barged the door open, steadied himself on the frame, then swung down to grab firm hold of the banister and stumbled down the dark, narrow stairs. She heard his footsteps break into a run, taking the stairs two or three at a time, thudding irregularly over the treads.

Too late. She had realized too late.

The jeweler was obviously bewildered. Conscious of how suspicious their behavior must look, she forced herself to sit still, resisting the temptation to look down.

They listened to the sound of shoes pounding on floor tiles until he burst into their line of vision, shooting out of the glass door like a cannonball. A moment later, the burly shop assistant also emerged into view, following close behind. She was terrified he might attempt to pull Yee back and ask him to explain himself; a delay of even
a few seconds would be fatal. Intimidated, perhaps, by the sight of the official car, however, the Indian stopped in the store entrance, staring out, his heavy, muscular silhouette blocking the doorway. After that, all they heard was the screech of an engine, as if the vehicle were rearing up on its back wheels, followed by a bang. The slam of a door, perhaps—or a gunshot? Then the car roared off.

If it had been gunfire, they would have heard more than one shot.

She steadied herself. Quiet returned.

She heaved a sigh of relief; her entire body felt weak, exhausted, as if just recovered from serious illness. Carefully gathering up her coat and handbag, she smiled and nodded as she got up from her chair: “Tomorrow, then.” She lowered her voice again, to its normal English-speaking mumble. “He’d forgotten about another appointment, so he needed to hurry.”

The jeweler had already taken his eyeglass back out and adjusted the focus to ascertain that the gentleman just left had not first swapped the pink diamond ring for another. He then saw her smilingly out.

She couldn’t blame him for wanting to make sure. The negotiations over price had been suspiciously brief and easy.

She hurried down the stairs. When the shop assistant saw her reappear he hesitated, then seemed to decide to say nothing. As she left, however, she heard shouting between upstairs and down.

There were no free pedicabs outside the shop, so she walked on toward Seymour Road. The group surely must have scattered the moment they saw him dash for the car and drive off; they would have realized that the game was up. She couldn’t relax; what if someone had been assigned to watch the back door? What if they hadn’t seen what had happened at the front, and hadn’t yet left the scene? What would happen if she ran into him? But even if he suspected her of treachery, he wouldn’t confront her there and then, much less summarily execute her.

She felt surprised that it was still light outside, as if inside the store she had lost all sense of time. The pavement around her was heaving with humanity; pedicab after pedicab rushed past on the road, all of them taken. Pedestrians and vehicles
flowed on by, as if separated from her by a wall of glass, and no more accessible than the elegant mannequins in the window of the Green House Ladies’ Clothing Emporium—you could look, but you couldn’t touch. They glided along, imperviously serene, as she stood on the outside, alone in her agitation.

She was on the watch for a charcoal-fired vehicle drawing suddenly up beside her, and for a hand darting out to pull her inside.

The pavement in front of the P’ing-an Theater was deserted: the audience was not yet spilling out at the end of a show, so no pedicabs were lined up outside, waiting for customers. Just as she was hesitating over which direction to walk in, she turned and saw that some distance away, along the opposite side of the street, an empty pedicab was slowly approaching, a red, green, and white windmill tied to its handlebar. Seeing her wave and shout at him, the tall young cyclist hurried to cross over, the little windmill spinning faster as he accelerated toward her.

“Yü Garden Road,” she told him as she got in.

Fortunately, while she’d been in Shanghai she’d had very little direct contact with the group,
and so had never got around to mentioning that she had a relative living on Yü Garden Road. She thought she would stay there a few days, while she assessed the situation.

As the pedicab approached Ching-an Temple, she heard a whistle blow.

“The road’s blocked,” her cyclist told her.

A middle-aged man in a short mandarin jacket was pulling a length of rope across the street, holding the whistle in his mouth. On the other side of the road, a second, similarly dressed man pulled the other end of the rope straight to seal off the traffic and pedestrians within. Someone was lethargically ringing a bell, the thin, tinny sound barely carrying over the wide street.

Her pedicab driver cycled indomitably up to the rope, then braked and impatiently spun his windmill, before turning around to smile at her.

Three black capes were now sitting around the mahjong
table. The nose of the new arrival—Liao Tai-tai— was speckled with white pockmarks.

“Mr. Yee’s back,” Ma Tai-tai smirked.

“What a wicked liar that Wang Chia-chih is!” Yee Tai-tai complained. “Promising to take us all
out to dinner then running away. I’ll collapse with hunger if she makes us wait much longer!”

“Mr. Yee.” Liao Tai-tai smiled. “Your wife’s bankrupted us all today. She’ll be the one buying dinner tomorrow.”

“Mr. Yee,” Ma Tai-tai said, “where’s the dinner you promised us last time you won? It’s impossible to get a meal out of you.”

“Mr. Yee ought to buy us dinner tonight, since we can never get him to accept our invitations,” the other black cape said.

He merely smiled. After the maid brought him tea, he knocked his cigarette ash onto the saucer, glancing across at the thick wool curtains covering the wall opposite and wondering how many assassins they could conceal. He was still shaken by the afternoon’s events.

Tomorrow he must remember to have them taken down, though his wife was bound to object to something so expensive being sidelined into a storeroom.

It was all her fault, the result of her careless choice of friends. But even he was impressed by how elaborately, how far in advance—two years— the entire trap had been premeditated. The preparations had, indeed, been so perfectly thorough
that only a last-minute change of heart on the part of his femme fatale had saved him. So she really had loved him—his first true love. What a stroke of luck.

He could have kept her on. He had heard or read somewhere that all spies are brothers; that spies can feel a loyalty to one another stronger than the causes that divide them. In any case, she was only a student. Of that group of theirs, only one had been in the pay of Chungking, the one who had gotten away—the single glitch in the entire operation. Most likely he’d stepped out of the P’ing-an halfway through a showing, then gone back into the theater once the assassination attempt was aborted. After the area was sealed off, he would have shown the police his ticket stub and then been allowed to slip away. The young man who’d waited with him to do the job had seen him check that the stub was safely stashed along with his cigarettes. It had been agreed in advance that he wouldn’t take up room in the getaway car; that afterward he would stroll inconspicuously back into the cinema. After they’d been roughed up a bit, the little idiots came out with the whole story.