French Concession by Xiao Bai

him, I know nothing about him, but he looked a little shady, said Hsueh, glad of the chance to disparage his rival.
    â€œWell, then let us help jog your memory,” the sergeant cried.
    They dragged him into an empty room. Pushing him onto the ground, they tied him up and held his head down. Huddling on the cold cement floor, he watched apprehensively as the men brought a tin bucket. Then they jerked his head upward and pushed it into the bucket. It felt as if there was something clenching his heart. He heard loud voices, footsteps, and before he had time to process all this, his head was smashed first one way and then the other. He could feel the force of the blows through the bucket.
    The pain was concentrated at one point to begin with—his nose, which happened to have been bashed into a ridge on the inside of the bucket. That was just a dull pain, like walking into a pole in winter. But then his entire face started burning, and someone was clubbing the back of his skull, making it swell up. His shoulders ached. His head was being kicked this way and that, he was nauseated, and all his joints hurt. His throat felt as though it had a dried pepper stuck down it.
    Eventually his joints were pushed to their extremes and began to give out. A pleasant numbness replaced his exhaustion, and there was a roaring in his ears, as if a crowd of people were shouting andtalking into the bucket.
    After what felt like ages, the bucket was shaken hard, and his nose hurt sharply. He could taste and smell the rust. The bucket clanged to the ground behind him, and sunlight glinted on the windows, blinding Hsueh momentarily. Then the stench of rust went away. The setting sun played on the edges of clouds and reflected on the glass. Hsueh thought he could almost smell the sunshine.
    He was taken to another room, where his linen jacket, tailored at Wei Lee, had been hung carefully on the coatrack. He had quite forgotten when he had been stripped down to his shorts, and as he was putting on his pants, he examined the bruises on his bony knees with self-pity. He couldn’t tell whether he had gotten them from being kicked around or from kneeling on the ground.
    Someone lifted him up and put him on a chair, as if he were a photograph being fished out of developer and hung up to dry. Things became unblurred, took on straight lines, and came right side up. The man smiling at him was not the Chinese sergeant who had been grinning and screaming at him before his head was stuffed into the tin bucket, but a Frenchman.
    The burly Frenchman introduced himself as Sergeant Maron. Maron’s love of Indian food was evident from the scent of curry about him and the yellow-black stain on his lapel. His laughter echoed in the little third-floor room facing north on Route Stanislas Chevalier. Hsueh was brought a stack of documents to sign, and asked to sit on the chair.
    No one asked if he wanted a cigarette, but they forced one between his teeth. His ears were still ringing.
    Let’s start over again, said Sergeant Maron. Let’s say we’re just chatting like old friends, and it turns out I have a few questions that you might be able to help answer. Remember to give me as much detail as possible.
    He started with the journey. When Hsueh admitted that Therese had paid for the whole trip from Shanghai to Hong Kong, Haiphong, and Hanoi, that she had booked their passage and paid for hotels as well as restaurants, Sergeant Maron clapped him on the shoulder. Good for you! he said.
    But why did she pay your way? Surely not just because she’s rich—why wouldn’t she pay me, Sergeant Maron, to accompany her instead? Are you saying you’re a better man than I am?
    Or did she pay for you because you are her lover? What did you do when you weren’t in bed? Did you take her for walks, or go to the beach in bathing suits? If you spent all day indoors, does that mean you were in bed all day? Let’s talk about something more