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  Xie Han had been engaged in filmmaking without a break for the past half-century, surviving by adapting the calibre of his work to changing political circumstances. His way of thinking, which he would never have publicly avowed, was roughly as follows: writing you could always do on your own; even if you had no readers, even if you were in prison or hiding, you could still carry on. But filmmaking without a studio was impossible. Film didn’t last; it involved a fragile interplay of light and shadows. Particularity of time and place meant everything. Even under Hitler, he would have gone on making motion pictures.

  “How did my father and Lili get together?”

  “He was a spy, too – a double agent, in fact. So was she, for that matter. Here’s what happened: Waki Tanehiko infiltrated the Plum Blossom Agency, Japan’s military espionage organization in Shanghai, as a spy for the Comintern. Lili spied for Chiang Kai-shek, infiltrating Agency No. 76, the secret service of his enemy Wang Jingwei. The Plum Blossom Agency and Agency No. 76 were like an older and younger brother. But those two didn’t meet as spies, they’d already met years before, as a boy and girl who both loved the theatre. These are actual facts.”

  They were already approaching the gate. The same kindly guard was standing there, smiling.

  “This place has hardly changed from the old days. Your father appeared in several movies made here. Old Zhao used to stand right over there as a guard. And look – the spires of the cathedral, the same as ever.”

  The twin belfries of the magnificent French Gothic cathedral of St. Ignatius, commonly known as Xujiahui Cathedral, rose easily sixty meters into the air. The church had been destroyed in the Cultural Revolution and then rebuilt in 1985.

  As Aki looked up, the sun, which had just begun dipping to the west, poured dazzling light out onto the two spires as if suddenly pierced through by them.

  “I’m not out to learn everything about my father’s past. I’m here because I got that letter from you indicating he might be alive… What about the person who might have seen him in the Loess Plateau? Where’s that person now?”

  “He escaped to Hong Kong. Probably in Paris by now.” Xie Han looked at his watch. “Oh no, I’m late. A meeting. Let’s have dinner tonight. Where’s your car?”

  Aki indicated Chen’s Cedric, parked outside the gate. Xie went over and got Chen to roll down the window, said something to him rapidly, and came back.

  “I told him where it is; he’ll take you there. Let’s say seven o’clock.”

  The two men shook hands, their palms damp with sweat, then quickly disappeared—Xie into a building, Aki into the recesses of Chen’s cab, having decided to return to Broadway Mansions for the time being.

  Aki had not exactly chartered Chen Ying’s services, but Chen Ying was a hardworking, useful cabbie. On his last visit, Aki had happened to ride with him from the airport, and continued to rely on him almost exclusively for the duration of his stay.

  For his part, Chen, awed at having been spoken to directly by the famous film director, was in a state of excitement. He was ready to talk to an actress next.

  “Haven’t you ever given a ride to one?”

  “No, but at this rate, if I keep driving you around I might get my chance.”

  The cab was heading east on Huaihai Road. Aki let his eyes meander over the flood of people moving along under the arching plane trees that lined the street. So his father had been a spy in his youth. How did that tie in with his arrest on charges of espionage? A funny coincidence, if that’s what it was.

  Those were the thoughts swirling in half his brain. In the other half was the swirling figure of the actress Li Xing.

  4

  Xie Han’s Moving Shadows was based largely on an event commonly referred to as the “assassination attempt by a pretty girl.” The girl in question was Zheng Pinru, whose father was chief prosecutor in Shanghai’s Supreme Court and whose mother was evidently Japanese, although her surname and other details of her identity remain unknown. In 1937, at the age of sixteen, Zheng Pinru joined the anti-Japanese resistance in Shanghai. She was assigned to a terrorist operation designed to obstruct Japanese political manoeuvring, underwent training, and then infiltrated Hongkew, the Japanese area in Shanghai’s International Settlement, home to some hundred thousand Japanese. Zheng approached the upper echelon of the Japanese forces, seeking to trade sexual favours for information.

  Around this time, Wang Jingwei, the leader of the left-leaning faction of the Nationalist Party, parted company with Chiang Kai-shek. Saying he was going to unite China through peace with Japan, he has gone down in history as a notorious collaborator with the invading Japanese. With him went the also notorious Ding Mocun who took a leading role in setting up the Security Service headquarters of Wang’s faction in Shanghai. Because it was located at No. 76 Jessfield Road, this became known to all Shanghainese as “Agency No. 76.” The name was further simplified to “No. 76” or just “76.” An all-out terrorist organization, for a time it had the upper hand over both the Nationalists and Communists. Wang Jingwei had fled to Hanoi, but the success of No. 76 enabled him to move to Shanghai, where in August 1939 he began laying the ground for the establishment of his collaborationist regime.

  One day, Ding Mocun encountered Zheng Pinru on the Garden Bridge. He had trained her as a spy, and so she seemed more than willing to renew their acquaintance, but she claimed to have given up spying. Ding, who had a high-strung, sickly wife, took Zheng as his lover and installed her in No. 76.

  She became a core member of the agency, spying ostensibly for both Wang Jingwei’s lot and the Japanese. Actually she was more active than that – she was spying for Chiang Kai-shek’s side. Zheng was beautiful, and because her mother was Japanese, she spoke the language fluently. Maids and geishas in the Japanese-style luxury restaurants of Hongkew dubbed her “Otohime-sama,” after the daughter of the sea king in Japanese legend.

  In December 1939 the order came down from Chiang Kai-shek’s officials for Zheng Pinru to have Ding Mocun assassinated. She wheedled him into buying her an Astrakhan coat and took him to an expensive furrier, but there her accomplice’s shot missed its target and the plot fizzled. Ding escaped back to Hongkew. In his coat pocket he found a woman’s calling card with a note scrawled in pencil saying, “Rest in peace, Ding.”

  Arrested by the Japanese Military Police for attempted murder, Zheng was handed over to No. 76, and in February 1940 she was executed by firing squad on the Shanghai execution grounds.

  After the war, when the Japanese were defeated, Ding was put on trial in Shanghai, as were many other collaborators. Ironically, among the crimes he was charged with was the killing of Zheng Pinru. On 5th July 1947, at two o’clock in the afternoon, the sentence of execution by firing squad was carried out.

  At that time, the traitors’ trials proved a lively diversion for a Chinese populace exhausted from war and civil strife. Enthusiasm ran wild as the trials became a show. The visitors’ gallery in the courtroom was filled to overflowing, and newspapers featured extensive daily accounts of individual trials and their outcomes. People cheered and applauded as, one by one, leading members of the puppet government were convicted, sentenced to death, and executed. Ding’s trial stirred up particular curiosity. Of all the crimes mentioned in the indictment, the most sensational was his affair with Zheng Pinru and the assassination attempt.

  Throughout that time, director Xie Han had been in Shanghai himself and had known Zheng Pinru personally. In 1939 he became the last graduate of the Chinese Department of the East Asia Common Culture Academy. Even after graduation he continued to lead the student theatre group there. He also remained active in the Shanghai Communist group, which included Japanese members. Waki Tanehiko, two years Xie’s junior, had been involved in the same activities. Eventually, dissatisfied with the campus theatre group, the two of them founded the left-wing amateur troupe Hushe (Tiger Society), advertising widely for members. Among those who responded was Zheng Pinru. Both youths fell in love with he
r at the same time.

  When the war was over, Xie kept turning over in his mind plans for a film with Zheng Pinru as the lead character. But though she was an actual person, and her mother’s nationality was also a matter of record, the mere recitation of facts doesn’t make for drama. Waki Tanehiko had been Xie’s best friend and his rival in love, but in the script he wrote, Xie altered things so that only Tanehiko and Zheng were in love; himself, he kept out of the story. He would manipulate the other two from outside the film.

  Quite a surprise, thought Xie – Tanehiko’s son turning up here in Shanghai all of a sudden. And that look on his face, when he came in and saw Li Xing in the spotlight! As if he knew her from before. Not just knew her, but had fallen for her. Definitely love at first sight.

  5

  Around 6.40 p.m., after riding in Chen’s cab along the Bund, which was shrouded in a yellowish fog, Aki arrived at an old-style Chinese restaurant on Fuzhou Road. Inside he found Xie Han and his assistant director Gao Yong waiting for him. The first floor was filled with all the bustle and noise of a railway terminal. Every table, round or square, was fully occupied, and people were moving ceaselessly from one to the next. Some were eating and drinking standing up. The three men were ushered through the crowd and upstairs to a private room where some twenty people were already seated at two large round tables. As soon as Aki walked in the door, they all straightened in their chairs, then stood and applauded. An in-house party for the Moving Shadows cast and crew had already been planned for this evening; the event was not in Aki’s honour. Nevertheless, the sudden appearance of this guest from Japan caused quite a stir, especially as his father was a character in the film.

  Aki was seated next to the director. Li Xing was at the other table, the one reserved primarily for cast members. She had changed into a white sweater with an openwork design and black stretch trousers, and her hair was pinned up at the back of her head. Aki had on the same blue cotton suit as in the afternoon.

  He was introduced once again to those in attendance.

  “Of all those here, only Mr Yin,” Xie Han mentioned, pointing at a plump man with a bald, pear-shaped head, “is not a member of the cast or crew.” He added with a little laugh, “In fact, he’s nobody. So why is Yin Dan here, you ask? All I can say is, it’s because he’s always around. Our own squatter…”

  That explained it, thought Aki, looking at the man in question. In China, pointing was considered impolite; but if the person was a nobody, then apparently it was all right.

  Whether he was listening or not, Yin Dan turned on Aki a gaze as bold and expressionless as a pair of binoculars with the caps on. He alone had already spread his large, stiff napkin in his lap, in readiness for the drinks and food to come.

  Xie Han then thanked Aki for coming and toasted him with laojiu rice wine. Gao Yong served him some appetizers. Soon a couple of dishes arrived: rice paddy eel, fried to the point of charring, and stewed sea cucumber. Four or five bottles of laojiu were emptied straight away.

  “Mr Waki’s Chinese is perfect.” Someone – it was hard to say who – came out with this opinion, which quickly became the consensus. Hands bearing food and drink moved without cease. Lavishly steaming baskets were brought in, piled high with shrimp. These were river shrimp from the brackish waters of the Yangtze River Delta, found especially in the backwaters around the lock. You grabbed a handful and put them on your plate. Then you peeled one, held it so the tiny white body with the brownish-yellow entrails hung down, dipped it in soy sauce laced with red pepper, and popped it in your mouth. After that, you dabbed your fingers in a bowl of oolong tea, and started on the next one. Yu Ming, the production manager on Moving Shadows, was a middle-aged woman who wore her hair in a mushroom cap and had no sex appeal whatever, but as she performed these actions in a smooth repetitive sequence, her hands looked oddly seductive. From time to time, Aki glanced at Li Xing, seated at the next table. She hadn’t touched the shrimp, he noticed.

  Everyone became pleasantly drunk. As their stomachs got heavier, filling steadily with greasy foods, their tongues wagged more and more freely. People said anything, whatever came to mind.

  “We have a saying: the only times a Shanghainese will stop talking are in early summer, eating these shrimp, and again in winter, eating Shanghai crab,” said Xie, raising his glass and drinking to Aki’s health again. Gao inquired about the nature of his work. Aki offered a brief explanation, whereupon everyone unanimously agreed they’d never heard of any such thing as ODA from Japan. What was ODA, anyway? This general ignorance came as no surprise to Aki. The Party and the government saw no need to inform the public that large-scale infrastructure projects such as the construction of harbour facilities, railroads, expressways, and airports were financed by foreign loans. “Is this a kind of war reparation?” That’s what Aki was often asked at the sites he visited.

  “Does the money have to be paid back?” asked Gao Yong.

  “A portion of it is a grant, but the rest has to be paid back, of course,” he replied with a certain hopeful finality. Starting up a debate over Japan’s war responsibility and the issue of reparations would only lead to endless argument. Besides, the Japanese government, following in the footsteps of Western countries that had imposed sanctions against China in the wake of the Tiananmen incident, had just decided to terminate ODA loans to China at the end of June.

  For a moment, a pall fell over the room. For ordinary conversation to start up again, Aki needed to inject some appropriate comment here, but alas, Chinese was a foreign language. Nothing suggested itself. Then, as if drawn by some invisible force, his eyes came to rest on the face of Yin Dan. A peculiar expression rose in Yin’s eyes – a combination of shrewdness and candour. After a short pause, Yin ventured, “Malantou is a weed, Han Langen was a ham, …” Then he chuckled and added, with a kind of whistle between his teeth, “And you are his son!”

  Malantou, Han Langen. It made no sense. Han Langen was his father’s stage name, but who or what was malantou? Aki cocked his head and gave a strained smile, although deep down he was relieved to be off the hook about ODA.

  “You knew my father, then?”

  “Never had the pleasure. I’ve heard all about him from Xie, though,” said Yin, indicating the director. “Lousy actor, but one of the funniest people who ever lived…”

  The food kept coming, dish after dish without end. A communist who was a buffoon, one of the funniest people who ever lived? This was a far cry from the image of his father Aki had formed from listening to his mother. Taciturn, uncompromising, principled. You never knew what was going on in his mind, she used to say. Weren’t they two different people, after all, Han Langen and Waki Tanehiko? Or was it possible for a man to have two distinct personalities, one in Japan and the other on the continent?

  “Mr Yin, who or what is malantou?”

  “Malantou is malantou. Like I say, a weed.”

  They were now drinking clear maotai liquor. Yin drained his tiny glass and laughed.

  Xie Han intervened. “It’s an herb that grows wild all around the Yangtze Delta in early spring. As Yin Dan says, it’s really a kind of weed – you see it everywhere by the side of the road. First you boil it a little, then you stir-fry it with dried bean curd in rapeseed oil. A simple dish, but not one to be underestimated. When Spielberg came to Shanghai to film Empire of the Sun I brought him here, and he seemed to like it. You know, why don’t I see if they still have it on the menu?”

  He summoned the waiter, but the malantou season was over.

  Countless glasses of maotai were raised and drained. The heavy, throat-scratching fumes of Chinese cigarettes hung in the air, wreathing everyone in smoke and making them speak in raspy voices.

  “Lin Xiao is still young, but he uses ‘101’ on the sly,” Yu Ming let on to the cameraman Yang Jun. “After all, once a handsome actor gets thin on top, his image is never the same.” Lin Xiao was the young actor in the role of Han Langen/Waki Tanehiko.

  Yang turned i
n his seat and said, “Mr Waki, I understand that ‘101’ has been popular in your country, too.”

  “Yes, for a while, it caused a sensation. It was selling for twenty or thirty thousand yen a bottle, and even at that price, people would fight to get it.”

  Yu Ming clucked loudly. Compared to a Japanese cicada, the Chinese cicada sounds loud and brazen, and the tongue-clucking of a Chinese woman is harsher still. “They’re all snake oil, these hair restorers,” she snorted. “How much is thirty thousand yen?”

  Aki did a swift calculation and came up with the corresponding figure in yuan. Eyes widened in surprise. Imagine that, six thousand yuan for a bottle of hair restorer! What a country! And who was it that laid our own country bare? Let’s demand reparations after all!

  Yang Jun leant forward. “Until my grandfather’s generation, my family served as court cosmeticians. The imperial consorts were obsessed with their hair – once it got thin, they lost favour, you see –

  and my grandfather left us the secret formula for a hair restorer. A whole lot better than ‘101,’ if you ask me. That stuff relies on a kind of shock treatment – sulphuric acid and sulphur give a powerful jolt to the scalp and hair roots, so temporarily you do get some hair growth – a bit of fuzz, that’s all. It’s like setting fire to someone’s bottom as a prank; it can cause serious burns. The main ingredients in our family’s formula are dates and – no, that’s all you’re getting – it’s a secret. Mr Waki, do you think our stuff would sell in Japan? I’m willing to let your company have the patent and marketing rights.”

  “Yang needs the money,” Xie Han whispered in Aki’s ear. “Poor guy – he has a five-year-old daughter with cancer.”