French Concession by Xiao Bai Page A

interesting. What is she like in bed? Tell me—you’d like to help me, wouldn’t you?
    Hsueh remembered the warm subtropical wind, the humid bedsheets, and the way the overhead fan turned slowly. You bastard, you know I have to keep you happy because of that tin bucket of yours. He called his photographs to mind.
    â€œSometimes we’d smoke in bed and have the servants bring us meals. She could never have enough sex. If I got tired, she would get on top of me. She loved to lie on the edge of the bed and stretch her feet upward.”
    Like official newsreels of soldiers in the trenches, putting up their arms to surrender. His gaze would travel upward from her red knees and painted toenails toward her face, on which shadows of the ceiling fan flickered.
    â€œGo on,” said Sergeant Maron. He lit a match and began tapping lightly on the surface of the table. He seemed to believe Hsueh. He looked as if he were trying to picture the scene.
    â€œAs soon as we stopped, we would light a cigarette. Just one, and we’d take turns taking puffs. She likes Garricks, and you can get a whole tin of them for one yuan. They have no filters and are thicker and shorter than 555s. She would take the cigarettes out of the tin and keep them in a silver cigarette case. I always lit the cigarettes because she said she had better things to do with her hands. If the case wasn’t right there, she’d have me hunt everywhere for it. Some days I could turn the room upside down and not find the cigarette case. She probably hid it on purpose because she liked watching me walk about the room naked. My ‘Chinese ribs’ turned her on, she said. That was her private nickname for me. Later I would discover thecigarette case bundled up in the bedsheets with her sitting on it. She’d laugh and say, it was wrapped in black sheepskin and I was numb all over, that must be why I didn’t notice it was there.”
    Hsueh kept inventing things he thought Sergeant Maron wanted to hear. Desperation can be the mother of invention, he thought. He and the sergeant were beginning to share the conspiratorial pleasure of the interrogator and the interrogated. Words came flooding to him as if he were an author whose writer’s block had evaporated at the end of a sleepless night.
    â€œSo you’d been through her bedroom and never came across anything suspicious?”
    â€œYou mean a gun?” Hsueh didn’t mean to say that, but the words slipped out.
    â€œDoes she own a gun?”
    Sergeant Maron looked at him with a curious expression. He seemed to be momentarily fascinated by the buttonhole of Hsueh’s thin linen jacket, from which a withered cape jasmine sprouted. Then, as though awakening from a daydream, he began to ask Hsueh more questions.
    â€œHow much do you know about her? They say she’s German.”
    â€œNo, she’s Russian.”
    Sergeant Maron waved his hand dismissively. He disliked being interrupted. “Have you seen her documents? Does she have a Nansen passport or travel papers signed by the tsar? How dare you call yourself her lover when you know nothing about her?”
    He paused, as if he were about to announce something important, to rebuke Hsueh for his ignorance.
    â€œThe woman the Chinese call Lady Holly, your Therese, is Therese Irxmayer, an extremely capable woman who owns a company based in Hong Kong. She is far more dangerous than you think, and the Concession Police is presently investigating her undesirable activities. We believe she has crooked friends running a shady business. We would like you to help us by getting involved, and give us news of her friends. It would be in your interest to cooperate—thepolice department will not forget your assistance, and I will personally be grateful.”
    Two policemen took him to the hotel. The Frenchman drove, and Hsueh sat in the back with the Chinese man. The car stopped outside the Astor in the rain. When