Part 28 (1/2)

”I did not know that you were married.” Zilin was appalled at the barbarism of his own people. But then he should not have been surprised. He had been witness to plenty of the aftermath of the b.l.o.o.d.y and bitter civil war. Somehow, though, this one pathetic creature, caught between two warring sides through none of her own doing, affected him more deeply than the rest.

Perhaps it was because the gross injustice of his situation served as a powerful metaphor for the madness that drove countrymen against their brothers. Of a sudden, he was aware of just how monstrous was this game in which he had chosen to play. ”If you had only told me,” he said weakly, ”I would have dispatched men to see to her safety.”

Huaishan Han turned away. ”It was not a time when I could think of her, s.h.i.+ tong zhi. I had my job to do. It was dangerous, this double game, and I found all my mind concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other in the dark, making my way in the tunnel down which you and Mao tong zhi sent me.”

He turned back to Zilin. ”Considering your own personal circ.u.mstances, I think you of all people can understand that.”

It had not been meant as anything other than a compliment, a show of the degree of intimacy of their friends.h.i.+p, but this statement cut Zilin to the core. It was true. He had abandoned Athena and the baby Jake as well as his mistress, Sheng Li, and their child who would, inadult life, take the name Nichiren. All for the sake of protecting China, of carving out for it the proper future. He had sacrificed everything for his devotion to his country.

Zilin looked at his friend and said, ”I do not recognize that uniform.”

”It is of the Public Security Forces,” Huaishan Han said, the pride returning to his voice. ”Lo Juiqing has put me in charge of the Peking district bureau.”

”The secret police,” Zilin said.

”That is how I came to find Senlin, my friend. Our internal forces are powerful now. Our strength is growing every day. I sent my people out to find her and find her they did.” He turned and his voice changed. ”Senlin! We must go now.”

Zilin watched her as she rose. She handed him the empty cup, then bowed to him quite formally.

After they had gone, Zilin sat at his desk. The lines of calligraphy swam in front of his eyes. He tried to concentrate on them but could not. Instead, he saw Senlin's hands as they gripped the white porcelain cup: her long palm, the slender fingers, so delicate and white as powder. Only their nails, cracked and bitten to the quick, marred their transcendent beauty.

When he next saw her, her nails had grown out. And they had been worked on by an expert. They were glossy with lacquer and as gently curved as a swan's neck.

”I don't know what to do with her,” Huaishan Han said. They had come to Zilin's for dinner. Leaving the womenZilin had invited a female acquaintance over as well as another couple in order to get away from four, an evil number in Chinese numerology the two men had made themselves comfortable in Zilin's study. The third couple, who had a newborn infant at home, made an early departure.

”What is the problem?”

Huaishan Han smoked a thin black cigarette of Russian manufacture. He had a habit of flicking it even when there was no excess ash. But then Huaishan Han, in Zilin's opinion, was a rather high-strung individual who rid himself of excess energy through his work. When he was between a.s.signments and merely doing the drudgery of paperwork he was difficult to be around for long. As now.

He rose and began to pace back and forth across the deep wine-colored carpet. ”The problem is Senlin. Frankly, she's not the woman whom I left when I went to war.”

”She has been through a lot,” Zilin advised. ”Why don't you give her some time.”

”Time!” Huaishan Han snorted. ”I don't have time. There is far too much to do already. My head is filled with my work. Important work, mind you! I cannot have these constant interruptions at home.”

”Mmmm. What kind of problems?”

”The doctors. Tests. Reports. Interviews. Buddha alone knows what else.” Huaishan Han delivered this last in quick staccato bursts, as if his anger and frustration was making him tongue-tied. Through all of this he continued to prowl the room like a caged tiger.

”What, precisely, is Senlin's problem?” Zilin asked.

”I don't know.”

”Well, is it medical or emotional? What?”

Huaishan Han blew out a long cloud of smoke. His breath hissed like that of a great dragon's. ”No one knows. Buddha, the doctors can tell me nothing. They've tried acupuncture, acupressure, herbs. It would take all night to list them.”

”And Senlin?”

”You saw it yourself tonight at the table. She ate nothing at all. Didn't you think that odd?”

”She wasn't hungry.”

Huaishan Han threw up his arms. ”Buddha, she's never hungry! She drinks tea. But that is all she consumes.”

”She is losing weight.”

”What?” Huaishan Han puffed away like an engine. ”Yes. Of course she is. What creature wouldn't?”

”She was already dangerously thin when you found her.”

”Way below normal.”

”Then, from what you've been telling me,” Zilin said, ”she should be dead by now.” His friend stopped his pacing long enough to stare at him. ”And yet she is not. Perhaps that is what the doctors seek an answer to.”

”Whatever the question,” Huaishan Han said, resuming his prowling, ”they have found no answers. And time is running out.”

”Why?”

”I have been given an a.s.signment of the utmost political importance by Lo tong zhi. It entails my leaving Peking.” Huaishan Han ceased his pacing at last, perching on the arm of a carved wood chair. ”I am going south, my friend. To Hong Kong and thence, perhaps, even to Taiwan. Guomindang agents emanating from the Nationalist regime in exile in Taiwan have been found to be infiltrating our military units.

Perhapsand this is Lo tong zhi's theoryeven our political bureaus.” Huaishan Han's face was dark. ”There may come a time when a purge will become a political necessity. When we will have to weed out the traitors from within our midst. And when that time comes, it will be our people who will find these vile traitors.”

This was the second time that Zilin could recall his friend using the phrase our people. Huaishan Han was referring to the Public Security Forces. There was, Zilin thought, no more fervid ideologue than the converted one. Huaishan Han, once having made the jump from Nationalism to Communism, was now its most ardentand rigidenthusiast.

”I cannot leave Senlin at home alone.”

”A nurse, perhaps. Or a female companion.”

Huaishan Han shook his head. ”Neither will do. I have no intention of making my wife into an invalid. I want no nurses around. As for a female companion, there is none that I know or trust sufficiently for the task.”

”But surely she must have family.”

”Naturally she does. But Senlin is a Soong a descended from the Soongs, so she tells me. There is not a Soong or a Kung of note left even on the island of Taiwan. They have all fled to America with their lives and their wealth.” He shook his head. ”There is no one.” He stubbed out his b.u.t.t in an iron ashtray. ”That is why I must ask you, my friend, if you will look after Senlin. I know that you are wise. If anyone can find out what is wrong with her I trust it is you.”

Zilin said nothing. He had dreaded this moment from the time he became aware that Huaishan Han might ask this of him. The thought of having Senlin around the house a but there was no question of his answer. He could not refuse his friend. It would be impolite and worse, a slap in the face of their friends.h.i.+p.

Zilin at last nodded. ”All right,” he said.

Huaishan Han stood. He possessed a military bearing now that was unmistakable. To a politician such as Zilin, this was a disturbing sign. Politicians learned to use the soldier but never to trust him.

”What a great pleasure it is to look at this lake,” Mao said.

He and Zilin strolled side by side along the bank of Kunming Lake. They were within the impressive precincts of Yiheyuan, the Summer Palace. This series of buildings, temples, pavilions, gardens, walkways and mounded islets eleven kilometers northwest of Peking had been built for the successive generations of Chinese emperors who felt theneed to abandon the heat and high humidity of the imperial city during the high summer.

”Even you, s.h.i.+ tong zhi, cannot know how many times Kunming has changed shape and size. Each dynasty had its complement of architect-landscapers who saw fit to redesign this lake over and over.” Mao put his hands behind his thick back. ”Yet here it still stands, its waters unchanged. There is, I think, a lesson to be learned from this spot on earth.” He breathed deeply. ”I often come here and gaze out upon the water. I let my mind wander, as if that way I may be able to discern all its previous shapes, all its previous lives.” He shook his head. ”Yet I find myself reluctant to absorb its message.

”China must change, s.h.i.+ tong zhi. And I have no illusions about that change. It will be painful and it will be b.l.o.o.d.y.”

”It has already been b.l.o.o.d.y enough for me.”