The Shanghai Moon (27 page)

“Did the man threaten him? Did he seem frightened?”

“Oh, not at all. Sad, perhaps. Yes, a little sad. When he told us at dinner about the gentleman, his eyes sparkled as usual—he was a romantic, as I said, and a showman, too; he knew the effect of a story like this—but he had that cheery air adults sometimes wear when they’re hiding distressing things from children.”

“And you didn’t see the Chinese gentleman?”

“No, I was just a child, six years old.”

“Around when was that?” Bill asked.

“You’re asking me to tell my age?” Her eyes widened in mock horror. Then she smiled. “It was 1967. Early spring. I remember, because I liked the story so much I wanted to dress like a mysterious Chinese gentleman for Purim.
But Zayde said if I did, the gentleman wouldn’t be mysterious anymore, and he was part of our family secret. So I dressed like a pirate, to throw everyone off the scent.” She paused, then added, “I admit the story got more elaborate as my sisters and I got older. So maybe the gentleman wasn’t so mysterious, or maybe he and Zayde didn’t talk for so very long. But without doubt it was after that visit that Zayde started to deny to everyone but us that he’d made the Shanghai Moon at all.”

“So this mysterious Chinese gentleman,” I said to Bill as we headed back to the subway. “One of ours?”

“Ours being Mr. Chen, Mr. Zhang, or the other Mr. Zhang?”

“Right.”

“Why would they?”

“Why would anyone? Why would you want the jeweler who made the Shanghai Moon not to talk about it?”

“And why wait twenty years to ask?”

“Maybe it took him twenty years to figure out who the maker was.”

“If he was one of ours, wouldn’t he know?”

“Not necessarily. Two of them were children when it was made, and one wasn’t born yet.”

Bill lit a cigarette, took a puff, then stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. “Oh, for God’s sake. Even if they did know. Two of them weren’t here.”

I looked at him, and then, with new respect, at his cigarette. “Of course. Mr. Chen and Mr. Zhang came in ’sixty-six. Then it would have taken them time to find him.”

“But what about C. D. Zhang? When did he get here? If he sponsored them, he was a citizen already, so he must have been here a while.”

“But he was a kid, too, when it was made, and of them all, he’d have been the furthest out of the loop. So he might have needed Chen and Zhang to get here before he found out, assuming it was him who cared. ‘He,’ right? Aren’t you going to tell me to say ‘he’?”

“I wasn’t, no.”

“Good thing, too. So it still could have been any of them.”

“Or someone else.”

“You think?”

“No.”

I flipped my cell phone open. It was time we stopped getting the runaround from these Chinese gentlemen.

Which was an opinion apparently not shared by Mr. Chen or Mr. Zhang. Both Irene Ng at Bright Hopes Jewelry and Fay at Fast River Imports were sorry to inform me their bosses were not available. “I really have to speak to him” and “I know he’s ducking me” didn’t make either man magically reappear.

“Why won’t they talk to me?” My complaint to Bill was rhetorical, but his answer made sense.

“You’re representing someone whose clients wanted that jewelry enough to lie about their identity. Chen and Zhang are sure to have their own networks in the jewelry world, and I’ll bet they’re trying to track down Wong Pan themselves.”

“Well, there’s still one Chinese gentleman left. And we wanted to talk to him anyway.” I poked in another number and spoke to another secretary.

Miraculously, I heard, “Hold, please,” and then C. D. Zhang’s energetic voice: “Ms. Chin! Good afternoon!”

“Good afternoon to you, Mr. Zhang. I was wondering if you had a few minutes?”

“Of course! What can I do for you?”

“I’d like to come speak to you.”

“Is this a part of your quest for the Shanghai Moon?”

“And other things. I can be there in twenty minutes.”

“Such industry! Please, come! Though beyond what I told you yesterday I don’t see how I can help you.”

“I’ll explain when I get there.”

“Ah!” A tiny pause. “Have you made new discoveries?”

“Mostly I’ve found new questions.”

“This is quite exciting! I’ll be expecting you.”

C. D. Zhang and the sleek white tea set were waiting when we arrived. I introduced Bill, and a smile creased C.D. Zhang’s face. “Mr. Smith. Now, you more closely fit my preconceptions of a private eye.”

“It’s a liability,” Bill said.

“Not in all situations, I imagine. Now, please! Sit down! Tell me your new discoveries!” He poured tea and passed cups around.

“We’ve come across some information,” I said. “Facts I wanted to ask you about.” To be polite, I tasted my tea before I began. This was not the smoky tea from yesterday but a flowery jasmine. Delicious, I thought, and said so, and Bill agreed, though I was sure it was too sweet for him.

I decided to lead with yesterday’s question, to soften him up. “Mr. Zhang, you told me Rosalie Gilder took your brother to Hongkew because his mother, Mei-lin, had disappeared. Forgive me, but sir, what you didn’t say was
that she disappeared with you and your father. When you escaped the Municipal Police, who were coming to arrest your father for being a Communist spy.”

C. D. Zhang stayed silent for a long minute. His face slid from buoyant to rueful. “He wasn’t, of course.”

“A spy? No, Chen Kai-rong was.”

“Yes. The Communist cause, as miserable a failure as it became, was guided in those early days by idealism and ideology. Those were not goods in which my father traded. Tell me, how did you learn this?”

“We’ve been doing research. There’s a navy intelligence report that lays out the incident based on interviews with former members of the Municipal Police. Why did you let me believe you had no idea what happened to Mei-lin?”

“You came here to unearth the Shanghai Moon, not the disgraceful secrets of my family. What happened to my poor stepmother isn’t part of the story of the Shanghai Moon.”

“I think it may be. Can you tell us about it?”

“In what way could the two possibly be related?”

“I’d rather you told the story first. So your memories aren’t tainted by what I think.”

His glittering eyes regarded me. “And if I do, you’ll tell me why?”

“Yes.”

Another few moments; then he put his teacup down. He folded one hand over the other and let some time go by before he began. “My stepmother did indeed leave for Chongqing with my father and myself, and not happily. I was frightened, not because of our rapid flight—I was
twelve, young enough to be excited, not old enough to fully comprehend the danger—but because my stepmother was so wretched. I thought that was because we didn’t take the time to fetch my brother at the Chen home, and wondered why we didn’t. My father, of course, explained nothing.”

“How did he know to run? Did Mei-lin tell him?”

“No. He was warned—in your profession you’d say ‘tipped off.’ ” He gave a wan smile. “A bought-and-paid-for friend in the SMP.”

“What happened after you left Shanghai?”

“We boarded a train for the interior, rattling over the miles in air electric with Mei-lin’s misery, my father’s anger, and stiff silence. Late at night my father and Mei-lin left our compartment. He returned without her. I knew my father’s fury, and even in the weak lamp from the corridor I could see it was best to play at being asleep. But I didn’t sleep that night, though my father did. I heard his snores. In the morning I asked where my stepmother had gone. My father said she’d betrayed us and now she’d left us. I asked if she’d gone back to Shanghai, and when we would be going back. My father replied that I’d be punished if he heard my voice again before we reached Chongqing.”

“So you never knew what happened?”

“I never knew, and for years I wouldn’t let myself imagine. But it’s clear.” He looked at me sadly, and I had to agree.

“And after that?”

“After that? Where the train line ended, my father bribed the border guards. From filthy cafés he hired drivers. At one point we rode hidden in an oxcart. If not for my father’s
smoldering fury and my loneliness, it would have been thrilling. Finally we arrived in Chongqing. We set up house. A new amah—young and beautiful—and new tutors. My father, as always, gone much of the day, and I more lonely than before. I missed my stepmother. I missed my small brother, who made me laugh. It was a long time before I let go of the idea that Mei-lin had returned to Shanghai. I pictured the garden at the Chen home, the acacia in bloom, everyone playing, happy together. I was consumed with envy! But of course I said nothing to my father. He, in a change of heart I only understood years later when I learned the reason for our flight, had joined the army of Chiang Kai-shek. I did the same myself when I was of age, though as I said, my value increased with my unit’s distance from actual combat. But my lack of military talent pales beside my father’s political judgment. He had a genius, apparently, for picking the losing side. In a three-way war, he chose it twice.

“Now.” C. D. Zhang’s smile re-emerged. “That’s our sordid family story, and I’m ready to be enlightened. Where in all this is the Shanghai Moon?”

Well, we’d made a deal. Before I could start, though, Bill asked, “Could you just tell me one more thing? How did you and your father get out of China?”

C. D. Zhang waved an arm. “I’ve told this to Ms. Chin. I thought partners shared everything! Our escape was dramatic, but not unique. With companions from my unit, I reached Shanghai scarely ahead of Mao’s barefoot soldiers. My father had gone earlier, to negotiate passage on the
Taipei Pearl
—one of the last ships. I nearly missed boarding
it. A frantic crush streamed up the gangway, many losing their footing, plunging into the oily water. My father, on the deck, screamed at the crewmen repelling the mob to let me board. As though they were troops under his command! Of course they ignored him. As my friends and I fought our way to the top of the slope, a desperate sailor unhitched the gangway from the ship. I leapt, crashing onto the deck as the steel plates fell away below and sent hundreds into the river. My companions were among them. With screams still echoing we set course for Taipei.”

His sharp eyes flicked to me. “Ah, Ms. Chin, you look so sad! The past is gone. Those hundreds are long dead, and many worse things have happened since those days, and many better ones, too. As for my father and myself, when the ship reached Formosa—or as we now say, Taiwan—Chiang’s men settled in to await the day, sure to come soon, when they’d regain the country. My father mocked them as fools. He said China and the past had both betrayed us and he wanted nothing more to do with them. We continued to America, to start new lives in the land of opportunity! Where, for a man who told any who’d listen that he’d turned his back on the past, my father spent a good deal of time tending his garden of bitter memories.”

“One of those memories was Mei-lin’s betrayal?” My synapses suddenly made a connection. “That’s why he wouldn’t have wanted you to sponsor your brother and your cousin?”

“Yes, Ms. Chin. Exactly.” C. D. Zhang offered the teapot around. I accepted; Bill declined. “Now, you’ve heard my story and wrested from me a dark family secret. The very
least you can do is tell me why. Do you suppose Mei-lin had the Shanghai Moon with her when we left, and my father unwittingly . . . discarded it?”

“No, that’s not it,” I said. “Do you remember a German friend of your father’s, a Major Ulrich?”

“Major Ulrich, of course. A sneering fellow, not so different from my father. Why?”

“He’s the man who stopped the Municipal Police from beating Kai-rong. To get him to do that, Mei-lin and Rosalie may have promised him the Shanghai Moon.”

A flush of excitement crept into C. D. Zhang’s face. “Ms. Chin! New discoveries indeed! How did you learn this?”

“We’ve found some documents. Mei-lin’s diary and some other things. Papers no one’s seen before.”

“My stepmother’s diary! And other things?”

“Yes.”

I didn’t elaborate, and after a moment he asked, “Where did you find them?”

“As an academic told us, it’s unbelievable what’s maintained in government archives at taxpayers’ expense.” That was deliberately misleading and I felt bad about it. But Paul Gilder could have handed any of these men his rosewood box at any time over the years. If he’d chosen to keep it secret, it wasn’t my business to give him away. “There’s a lot of material, apparently, that hasn’t been translated.”

“And something you found says Major Ulrich had the Shanghai Moon?”

“No. The documents seem to say he was promised it. It’s not clear whether he ever got it.”

“Ulrich . . .” C. D. Zhang’s brows knit in thought. “He died not long after we arrived in Chongqing, I think. We were sent word. He was part of the escape plot?”

“Just that limited role, it seems, to keep Kai-rong safe while Mei-lin worked out the rest of the plan.”

“And you don’t know whether he actually got the gem,” he mused. “Although if he had . . . that would explain . . .”

“Explain what?”

C. D. Zhang kept his gaze on the nighttime photo. He spoke quietly. “As I told you, the rumor persisted that Rosalie Gilder always wore the Shanghai Moon at her throat. But when her body was laid out for burial, it wasn’t found. My cousin and my brother have always assumed it to have been stolen when she died. I never agreed. I’ve thought it must have been hidden in the gardens of the Chen villa—as we now see her other jewelry was. But if she and my stepmother gave it years before to Major Ulrich, that would explain why it wasn’t found.”

“Stolen when she died? Who by?”

“She died during a robbery near the end of the war. Li and Lao-li have always thought the robbers took the Shanghai Moon with them.”

“Do you know anything more about that? Rosalie’s death?”

He paused, then shook his head. “There was no law toward the war’s end. Money had no value, and life even less. Any object that could be traded for rice, fuel, or passage out of China was stolen and stolen again. We had been hungry so long we no longer felt hunger, just desperation and fear. It was a terrible time and drove many mad.”