A Map of Betrayal (2 page)

1949

At the beginning of that tumultuous year he arrived in Shanghai from the north. His first name was not Gary but Weimin, and he was a young secret agent working for the Communists. He had come with the task of worming his way into the Nationalists’ internal security system, specifically into the Eighth Bureau, which had been executing a large-scale plan code-named the Trojan Horse. It trained hundreds of agents who were to remain in the city after the Nationalists retreated to Taiwan. The Communists were eager to apprehend all those dangerous elements, who would sabotage factories, disrupt transportation, manufacture counterfeit currency, upset social order, gather intelligence, and would also coordinate with the Nationalist army when it came to retake the mainland. Weimin was a novice in the business of espionage, but as a graduate of Tsinghua University, he was intelligent and better educated than his comrades. In addition, having attended a missionary school for three years, he spoke English fluently and could mix with foreigners.

He had married a month before, and his bride was still in the countryside in northern Shandong. The marriage had been arranged by his parents, but he liked his wife, Yufeng, even though he didn’t feel deep love for her yet. She had a fine figure, abundant hair, glossy skin; her large eyes would twinkle when she smiled. For the time being he wanted to keep her in his home village so that she could help his mother with housework and take care of his parents. The Shangs were well-to-do and owned seven acres of farmland. Weimin believed that eventually he might end up living in a city, Beijing or Tianjin or Jinan, and he had promised his bride he would come back to fetch her in the near future. As a northerner, he didn’t like the south, despite the better food and the
foreign influences in the coastal cities. But living in Shanghai didn’t bother him that much, given that he was supposed to be here for only a short period. The political situation in the country was getting clearer every day; anyone could see that the Communists were defeating the Nationalists roundly and would soon take the whole country. It was very likely that Beijing, where Weimin would prefer to live, would become the new capital.

He hadn’t made it into the Eighth Bureau. He lacked the practical skills required for the police work: he couldn’t shoot well, nor could he drive or dismantle a bomb, and he failed the hands-on test miserably. But he aced the political exam, in which his answers all hit the bull’s-eye, and he wrote a concise, lucid essay on the Three Principles of the People put forward by Sun Yat-sen (nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood). The colonel reviewing the results of the exam was impressed and summoned Weimin to his office.

Opening the applicant’s file, Colonel Hsu said to the young man seated before his desk, “Why are you interested in this kind of work, Mr. Shang? As a Tsinghua graduate plus an English major, you can do much better than this. You must agree that none of the jobs we advertised are for someone of your caliber.”

“I need to eat and have to take whatever is available,” Weimin answered, looking at the officer in wonder.

“I like your attitude, young man. You’re able to stoop or straighten up according to circumstances. Tell you what.” The colonel was beefy and had a gold-capped tooth. He wriggled his forefinger to get Weimin closer to his desk. “You should look for employment in foreign services, for example, the U.S. embassy or an international bank. They pay much better.”

“I’m new here and have no idea how to do that.”

Colonel Hsu uncapped his silver fountain pen and wrote something on an index card. He pushed it across the desk to Weimin and said, “Here’s a place where you might try your luck. They need translators, I heard.”

Weimin took the card and saw the name of a U.S. cultural agency and its address. The colonel added, “They give tests regularly nowadays, on Monday mornings. You should get there before nine o’clock.”

Weimin thanked the officer and took his leave. He wasn’t sure he should try foreign services. For such a change of direction he’d have to get the Party’s approval. But to his amazement, when he told his superiors about the opportunity, they encouraged him to apply, saying that the Communists too had something like the Nationalists’ Trojan Horse plan, designed to penetrate all levels of the enemy’s military and administrative systems, including the diplomatic ranks. Yes, he must apply for such a job and do it under an alias, Gary Shang, which sounded savvy and fashionable for a young Chinese man. From now on he must go by this name. The legal papers would be prepared for him right away.

So Weimin became Gary. He went to take the test at the U.S. cultural agency. It was to translate a short essay by the writer Lao She into English without the aid of a dictionary. This wasn’t very hard for him, except that he couldn’t spell some words, such as “cigarette” and “philosopher.” For those two, he put down “smoke” and “thinker” instead. He was certain he had made a number of silly mistakes. Feeling embarrassed, he avoided mentioning the test in front of his comrades.

But the following week a notice came in the mail summoning Gary Shang for an interview. Did this mean he had passed the test? “You must have done pretty well,” said Bingwen Chu, a round-faced, hawk-eyed man, who was just one year older than Gary but was his immediate leader. Bingwen was a more experienced agent, sent over directly from Yan’an, the Communists’ base in the north. Gary figured that the foreign employer probably wanted to interview him because there hadn’t been many applicants—clearly the Americans would flee China soon, and few Chinese were willing to get too involved with them.

Winter in Shanghai was damp and gloomy. Gary had been miserable,
always chilled to the bone, because most houses had no heat and it was hard to find a place where he could get warm even for a moment. At night he and his seven comrades would share beds in a single room, sleeping head to foot. And worse still, people in the city were apprehensive as the civil war was raging. The Communist field armies were advancing from the north steadily and poised to cross the Yangtze to capture Nanjing, China’s capital then. Every day dozens of ships left Shanghai for Taiwan, transporting art treasures, college students, officials’ families, industrial and military equipment. Unlike Gary, his comrades all enjoyed the cosmopolitan life, especially the cafés, the nightclubs, the cinemas. Some of them even secretly frequented gambling houses. Gary liked movies too, but preferred tea to coffee, which he drank with three spoons of sugar for every cup. When the other men talked about Shanghai women and girls, most of whom looked down on provincials like them, he’d shake his head and say, “They put on too much makeup.” He missed Yufeng and every night thought of her for a while before going to sleep.

A junior American official, George Thomas, interviewed Gary at the American cultural agency. The man, in his late twenties, was wide-framed and had a head of woolly auburn hair. He gesticulated with his large hands as he spoke. He asked the applicant which English books he had read. Gary gave a few titles:
The Good Earth, Sister Carrie, Main Street, The Scarlet Letter
, and
Gone with the Wind
. He was a breath away from mentioning Edgar Snow’s
Red Star over China
, a book that he’d enjoyed reading and that had inspired tens of thousands of young people to join the Communists, embracing the revolution as the only way to save the country, but just in time he thought to bring up Ibsen’s
A Doll House
instead, though he’d seen it only onstage, not on the page. Except for Pearl Buck’s novel, he had read all the others in translation. Thomas appeared pleased with his answer and said, “You speak English better than you can write. This is unusual among Chinese.”

“I went to an American missionary school.”

“What denomination was it?”

“The Episcopal Church. They were from North Carolina.”

“Well, Mr. Shang, there’re some errors in your translation, but you did better than the other applicants. We believe that your written English will improve quickly once you start working for us.”

“You mean you want to hire me?”

“At the moment I can’t promise anything because we’ll have to run a background check.”

“I understand.”

“You’ll hear from us soon.”

The interview went so smoothly that Gary felt he was just a step from a job offer. That evening he briefed Bingwen on his progress, and Bingwen said he was going to report to their higher-ups immediately to get further instructions. He was pretty sure that the Party would have Gary take the job and stay with the Americans for some time. This opportunity looked like a windfall, though neither of them could surmise what it might entail.

Meanwhile, Gary was getting nervous, knowing the Americans were preparing to pull out of Shanghai. He wouldn’t mind working for them for a short period, but what if they moved to another country, say Australia or the Philippines? Would he have to go with them? He would hate to live overseas, because he was his parents’ only child and had promised Yufeng he would come back to fetch her. Within three days Bingwen got instructions from above: “Comrade Gary Shang must seize the opportunity to work at the American cultural agency, which is actually an intelligence unit in disguise. He must stay with them as long as possible and collect intelligence.”

George Thomas mailed Gary a letter a week later, informing him that he had been hired as a translator with a salary of $145 a month. As inflation was skyrocketing all over China, U.S. dollars had become a sought-after currency, and in some business circles
they were the only money accepted, save for gold bars. Gary was pleased about the pay, some of which he assumed he’d be able to send home.

Once he started working for the Americans, he was able to gather very little intelligence because he was allowed to translate only unclassified documents, such as information on shipments of merchandise, public speeches given by officials and noted figures, scraps of news. But his English was improving rapidly. When he counted things, he found himself saying numbers in the foreign tongue, and he also began to dream in English. The Americans liked his work, particularly the clarity and accuracy of his translations. His written English had a peculiar cadence and fluency that sounded foreign but elegant. With his first month’s pay he bought himself a new suit and a pair of oxfords. In half a year, he calculated, even after sending his family fifty dollars a month, he’d save enough for a radio set.

Then the Nationalist regime began collapsing like an avalanche. Nanjing fell in late April, and eight Communist field armies were approaching Shanghai from different directions. One day in mid-May, George Thomas called Gary into his office and asked if he could leave with the Americans since his service was “highly valued.” Gary couldn’t answer on the spot but said he’d have to speak with his family.

He reported this to Bingwen. The directive came from above the next day: “Follow the Americans wherever they flee.”

Gary wanted to see his parents and wife before leaving with the agency. He hadn’t heard from his wife for three months; in the turmoil of wartime, the mail had of course become erratic. He’d written Yufeng several times but never got a reply. How eager he was to go back and find out how his family was doing, but his Party superiors wouldn’t grant him permission. Even the Americans disapproved of such a trip; their Chinese employees had often used home visits as a way to quit quietly. Caught in the whirlwind of the retreat, Gary hardly had a moment to think about his future
and only executed the orders his higher-ups issued. He was upset, not only because of the prospective long separation from his family but also because he wouldn’t be able to directly participate in building the new country. His future immediate contact would be Bingwen, who promised to have his salary from the Communist payroll sent to his family every month during his mission abroad. The man gave Gary a German-made pocket camera, a Regula, saying it might come in handy.

Gary left Shanghai with the Americans in late May. The whole cultural agency stayed in Hong Kong briefly and then moved to Okinawa.

The spring semester started on February 15 at Beijing Teachers College. In my American history class, a survey course for undergrads, six or seven students were from Hong Kong and Taiwan. They didn’t stand out among their peers except that they spoke English better, not because they were smarter or better at memorizing the vocabulary and expressions but because they’d begun to learn the language in their childhood. Twenty years ago it had been unimaginable that such students would go to college in China. I gave lectures in a large room with sloped seating, and the class was always well attended. I noticed that many students were taking the course mainly to learn English, since they planned to go abroad for professional school or graduate work. One girl, an anthropology major, told me that her parents would pay for her tuition and living expenses if she was admitted by a decent graduate program in the States. I asked what her parents meant by a “decent” program, and she said, “At least a state’s flagship university, like Rutgers or UMass-Amherst. Any of the UC schools would be great too.” I was impressed by her parents’ savvy about American universities.