A Map of Betrayal: A Novel

1961

The Shangs were living in a quiet cul-de-sac at the end of Riverview Street in Alexandria. Their home was a raised ranch with an attached carport; a huge rock sat beside the house, and holly hedges demarcated the property. A pomegranate tree, rare in Virginia but already more than ten years old, stood in a corner of the backyard, reminding Gary of the same kind of tree back in his home province. He had paid twenty-three thousand dollars for this place, a little higher than the market price, but he loved the tranquil location, the brick exterior of the house, the living room with oak-paneled walls, and the finished lower floor, where the windows were just above the ground and where he could have a room for a study, so without haggling he had clinched the purchase. Nellie also liked the home, particularly the bay window in the kitchen and the French doors between the living room and the dining room, which made the house feel more spacious than it was. She was fond of the peaceful neighborhood too and devoted herself to taking care of Lilian and to the housework. The girl was going to be four in July, and once she started preschool, Nellie would look for a job, doing something she liked. But what did she want to do? She wasn’t sure yet, though she thought about it now and then.

Gary would mow the half-acre lawn and trim the shrubs. All the work outside the house belonged to him, including digging out the weeds in grass — dandelions, creeping charlie, mallow, clover. He hated slugs and would get rid of every one he saw. He was good with his hands and maintained their car and household appliances. Sometimes when he was free, he’d take a walk in the nearby park, where the air would quiver with scattered birdsong. He’d bring along his daughter if the weather permitted, either holding her in his arms or leading her by the hand, and once in a while he would carry her piggyback. He’d teach her some Mandarin words or phrases. To some extent he was a good family man, gentle to his family and polite to their neighbors, who were all impressed by the chrysanthemums he had planted around his house. Yet he was detached from what was going on around him and wouldn’t mix with others, except for the fact that he followed the NBA on his own and could talk with his colleagues about the games. Try as he might, he couldn’t get excited about baseball; the game was too slow for him. Fortunately, his wife never complained about their lack of social life. Rarely would the Shangs invite people over. Not until their daughter was old enough to make school friends and to hold a pajama party once a year, around Halloween, did they begin to have a few visitors.

Although Gary was calm in appearance, 1961 was a tumultuous year for him. In the spring he was naturalized. At the citizenship ceremony he pledged allegiance to the Star-Spangled Banner and swore he’d bear arms to defend the U.S. Constitution, a document he had read with great admiration for its careful attention to the citizens’ rights defined and protected by the amendments. It was like a contract between the country and the people. He went through the whole ceremony with a numb heart, though he was deeply impressed by its solemnity and forced a smile when he showed a woman official his expired Chinese passport. With a pair of scissors she cut a corner off its front cover, handed it back to him, and congratulated him on his brand-new citizenship. By now Gary could honestly say he loved some aspects of American life — the orderliness, the plentitude, the privacy, the continuity of daily life, the freedom of travel (domestically with a car and internationally with a U.S. passport or green card). Nevertheless, his mind couldn’t help but wander to the distant land where his other family was. He had decided not to have more children with Nellie, not wanting further complications. For him, happiness lay elsewhere, and he could visualize it only in his homeland and in the reunion with his original family.

With his U.S. citizenship in hand, he had to pass a lie-detector test in order to become a regular CIA employee. He read about how the polygraph worked and knew that as long as he wasn’t disturbed by any question and didn’t make the needle jump, he should be able to fool the machine. To keep himself calm, he began to put into his teacups two herbs — schisandra fruit and tuckahoe, both of which he’d bought in San Francisco years before. For days the herbal tea made him slightly sedated, and a week later he passed the test without difficulty. Now he had access to documents classified as Top Secret, some of which were sent to him for translation directly from George Thomas, who had earned his PhD the year before and was now addressed as Dr. Thomas by his colleagues. He and Gary, though, were still on a first-name basis. They continued to frequent jazz bars together. Most times Thomas would talk while Gary just listened. Afterward he would recall their conversations, write down snippets of intelligence, and squirrel them away.

Now able to read more reports on the Far East, Gary could see that China was in shambles. The Great Leap Forward had been a catastrophe, and the whole land had been ravaged by a continuous famine. The collectivization in the countryside ruined the agriculture. People wouldn’t work hard anymore because they were no longer paid and could eat for free. During the previous fall a lot of crops were left in the fields, to be eaten by birds and animals or just to rot. Even fruit was not picked in some orchards. When people had consumed all the food before the winter set in, they began to eat the seeds. As a result, many fields couldn’t be sown in the spring. This reduced grain production drastically. Now in both cities and the countryside people were starving and dying. Many secretly left their villages for provinces where the famine was less severe.

Bad news came from all over China, but Gary focused his attention on his home province, Shandong, because he wasn’t sure whether some of the information had been doctored by Taiwan’s intelligence service to influence the White House and the Pentagon. (They were always eager to present a chaotic China to the Americans.) By following the events in a place he knew, he might be more capable of assessing the severity of the situation. Yet he could find little news about his hometown, though he gathered quite a bit of information on some nearby counties. Most country folks there suffered from dropsy, with swelled bellies and their legs puffed out like small barrels. Many women had prolapsed uteruses; even those in their twenties and thirties underwent menopause. An official in charge of birth control admitted that she no longer needed to hand out contraceptives because people were too feeble to conceive. The government tried to help some, issuing six ounces of grain per day for a grown-up and four for a child. But the emergency rations were distributed through echelons of cadres, many of whom would embezzle some for themselves and their families. As a result, country folks received hardly any food. According to one account, in the Huimin area, the prefecture where Gary’s home county was located, tens of thousands had died of hunger and some villages were deserted.

For a whole summer he followed the reports anxiously, still a tad incredulous. How could it be possible for the China that used to be poised to surpass the United Kingdom to collapse into such havoc in the blink of an eye? When dining at Chinese restaurants, he would prick his ears to catch bits of conversation and would talk with others about the situation back home. One day, he saw Suzie Chao, a Mandarin broadcaster at Voice of America, sitting alone in Bamboo Garden, an eatery that had only six tables and offered a lunch special for seventy-five cents. He asked her, “Can I join you?”

“Of course, welcome,” she said pleasantly, her almond-shaped eyes smiling as she waved her slim hand.

He placed his bowl of noodles on the table and sat down opposite her. She looked worried in spite of her bright face. She had a vibrant voice, which had struck Gary as tinged with yearning whenever he heard her on the air, as though she were speaking to somebody she knew well but couldn’t reach. They talked about the famine back in China. She was also anxious to learn more about it. Gary told her about the reduction of population in Shandong but added, “A lot of folks fled their homes or just disappeared, so the figures we got might have been exaggerated. Still, it looks awful.”

She sighed and flipped back her hair to keep her pageboy in shape. “I’ve just heard that my uncle’s family lost their home. The villagers went to tear down his house and used the bricks and timber to build a pig farm.”

“Why would they do that?” Gary asked, thinking it might have been because of her relatives’ connection with her family, who had fled to Taiwan.

“All the houses belong to the commune now. This makes me sick.” She sniveled, on the brink of tears.

“But can they still raise pigs — I mean, do they have something to feed to the pigs?”

“Actually, the pigs are all gone. Either died of disease or were slaughtered for food. People were too desperate to think about their future livelihood. They even ate grass and elm bark. A lot of them starved to death. I heard there was cannibalism in my home county.”

That came as a surprise. Suzie was from Jiangsu, a province known for its fertile paddies and abundant water supply, generally called “a land of fish and rice.” If the famine had wreaked havoc in a place like that, then the whole of China must have become hell.

After that lunch, Gary and Suzie often met at noon or talked on the phone. Initially he was cautious when speaking with her and suspected she might have a complicated background, with her family both in Taiwan and on the mainland. She was poised and somewhat pretty and had a fine figure and a distinct voice. As they got to know each other better, he was surprised to find her single. Unlike most young women, she was not in a hurry to look for a man, though she was already thirty-one. She even claimed she could never make a good wife (“Domesticity is not my strong point,” she confessed), so it would be better for her to remain single. She’d once had a boyfriend in Kao-hsiung, a journalist who’d died in a ferry accident seven years before. That man was an overseas Chinese from Indonesia but had lived in Taiwan most of his life. These days whenever Suzie heard something about the famine on the mainland, she would share it with Gary, who was good at analyzing the information and could see numerous implications. She was impressed and said, “If I had your brain, I’d go to law school or do a PhD in the history of science.”

The more time they spent together, the more intimate their conversations became. One day over dinner Suzie revealed to Gary that a few years ago she had dated an American man, an audio engineer at the Capitol, but they broke up because he looked down on things Chinese. She told Gary, “In the beginning Michael was all right, but he got spoiled. I was too easy on him, I guess. One evening I made rice crust soup and he said under his breath, ‘It’s impossible to eat Chinese shit every day.’ I heard him and shot back, ‘If you sleep with a Chinese woman, you ought to eat Chinese food.’ We had a row, and I just couldn’t stomach it anymore, so we split. Afterward I gave up dating altogether.”

Gary chuckled softly. Her story reminded him of Nellie, who never complained about the food he liked. For that he was grateful. Then Suzie sighed and said, “No matter where I go, I always feel I’m Chinese.”

For some reason her words moved him, though he pressed on, “But you’re a U.S. citizen, are you not?”

“I am. I don’t mean I can’t be a citizen of another country. I mean something inside me cannot be changed, was already shaped and fixed in China. In that sense I’m damned.”

“To be honest, I feel the same,” Gary said. “If you had come to the States before your teens, you might have been more adaptable.”

“Probably.”

They slept together a few weeks later on a late fall evening, in her apartment on Duke Street. After an early dinner she had invited him to tea at her place. Her apartment had one bedroom and a living room, a tidy cozy nest decked with flowered sofa covers and sage-colored window curtains that had big rings at the tops. They didn’t drink tea but shared a jar of rice wine instead, which a friend of Suzie’s had brought back from Taipei. Then one thing led to another. The sex that followed was bone-shaking and tempestuous. Her pillows dropped on the hardwood floor, next to their clothes crumpled in a pile. They panted out coarse words that neither of them had ever heard spoken here. “Ah!” she gasped, her mouth open like that of a fish just out of water. Holding her nipple in his mouth, he kept plunging, his back arched. They’d been raising a tremendous din, unafraid of being heard by others, assuming nobody in the building could understand their love cries. Engulfed in the whirlwind of desire, they’d lost the sense of shame and shed the armor of self-respect. The vulgar expressions gushed out of them with force, as though the words were forgotten incantations, coming back with a vengeance to drive them to copulate for the sake of self-preservation. They fucked like animals.

Suzie was in tears after she came for the second time. Her hair was mussed, but her flushed cheeks gave her a youthful glow. For a moment even her neck was ruddy. She confessed, “You made me feel like a woman again. Guess I won’t be able to sleep well for a couple of days. I will miss you.”

Her words unsettled Gary, and he checked his impulse to ask in jest what part of him she would miss. Then it struck him that she too was a lonely soul, homesick and restless in spite of her composed façade. What amazed both of them was that, lying shoulder to shoulder in bed, they became chatterboxes, as if there were endless things they could talk about — from their childhoods in the provinces to their college years in Beijing, from the local foods they missed to the mountains and beach resorts they had both been to, from the family members persecuted in the Land Reform Movement to the class statuses in China’s countryside now, from the differences in the sense of beauty between Asians and Westerners to some plain-featured Chinese women married by handsome foreign men. They talked and talked until around one a.m., when he had to climb out of bed and go home.

It felt chilly outside. Gary fastened the middle button on his light duffle coat. A thin blaze of moon was high in the sky, which was thick with stars, a few twinkling through the spiky branches. An oak tree dropped an acorn on a nearby roof, the nut thrumming down the shingles until it hit the ground with a tiny thud. Walking in the limpid moonlight to his car parked behind Suzie’s building, for some reason Gary remembered the English expression “talk a blue streak.” And he envisioned the two of them caged like a pair of birds that could chirp and warble only to each other.

IN THE PRACTICE OF ESPIONAGE, gathering intelligence is just the first step. After that, there is the task of analyzing the information, and then comes the challenge of how to make the best use of it. So much intelligence had gone through Gary’s hands these last few months that he couldn’t possibly photograph all the valuable pages, so he had adopted the role of analyst as well. He chose what he believed were important passages, and compiled and synthesized them to make a coherent report. In his analyses he highlighted the U.S. awareness of the catastrophic situation in China. He meant to convey to the Chinese leaders that if they didn’t get out of their mess soon, China might open itself to attacks from other countries. Unlike the United States, with oceans on the east and west and no powerful country to the south or north, a weak China, surrounded by hostile neighbors, many of which had territorial disputes with it, would be like an exhausted body floating in shark-infested water. He knew his analyses might sound a little far-fetched at times, but he couldn’t help himself and even mentally cursed the stupid Chinese leaders.

He went to Taipei in late December 1961 and from there made a short trip to Hong Kong. He told Nellie that his cousin’s mother-in-law had just died, so he felt obligated to pay a visit, but his cousin was living with his in-laws in Taiwan now. Bingwen was in Hong Kong to meet him again. The man looked sickly and emaciated, which further convinced Gary of the severity of the famine. But his friend shook his bushy head and said, “I just had hernia surgery and haven’t fully recuperated yet. Everything’s swell back home.”

That couldn’t have been true and must have been what Bingwen had been instructed to tell Gary. Plainly the man had a famished look, and when they dined in restaurants, Bingwen would order a tableful of food for just the two of them and would wolf down whatever he could. He informed Gary of a big promotion — now his rank was the sixteenth, which was equal to a major’s in the army. Gary was pleased, and together they downed three shot cups of Maotai in a row. Bingwen assured him that Yufeng and the twins were well but that his parents had passed away the previous winter — his father died first, then his mother, three months later. Both of them had been slowed by rheumatism in recent years and coughed some during the winter, but other than that, they’d had no major health problems. Bingwen assured Gary that their deaths were due not to hunger but to old age. They’d been in their sixties, so Gary believed they’d met their natural ends, even though his mother’s was caused by a bout of fever. Bingwen told him that he’d gone to the countryside personally to see to their funerals, whose expenses the local government had paid. Gary’s parents were interred in the Shang clan’s burial ground, both clad in new clothes, and a dozen or so wreaths were presented to them. Everything was handled in a proper manner.

Before the trip, Gary had thought about writing to his family and asking Bingwen to mail his letter in China, but now he quashed the notion, certain that such a letter would never be delivered. He was not allowed to communicate directly with his family back home. In addition, he’d feel uncomfortable letting others read what he wrote to his wife. Since his salary went to Yufeng every month, she and their children should be able to live decently.

He hadn’t shown much emotion when Bingwen told him about his parents’ deaths, but once back in the hotel room alone, Gary felt the waves of grief surging in him, paralyzing his will to do anything. He lay on the bed and wept from time to time, immersed in the memories of his parents. As a teenager, his father had gone to Siberia with a gang of villagers to seek his fortune. They’d ended up in Vladivostok, where by luck he was hired by an old Chinese couple who owned a small emporium. Literate and quick, he soon could manage the business on his own, and the childless couple loved him so much that they adopted him as a son. Three years later they both caught typhoid and died after bequeathing to him everything they owned. He sold the shop, returned to his home village, and bought four acres of good cropland. The next year he built his house of five rooms, which boasted a ceramic-tiled roof, and he married a girl from a well-to-do family. The bride wasn’t pretty but had finished elementary school, which was rare among girls at the time. The young couple planned to raise a big family, but somehow they could have only one child.

Gary would say that his parents had lived a decent life, though the old man had always toiled in the fields alongside his hired hands. His father and mother were so overjoyed when he had passed the entrance exams and enrolled at a top university in Beijing that they went to a lakeside temple to burn incense and donate twenty silver dollars to the local god, who had once been a chieftain of bandits but always protected the common people. It was in Gary’s junior year at Tsinghua University that his parents chose Yufeng for him. They believed that the girl, amiable and healthy, could bring good fortune to the household. Out of filial duty Gary went back to see his bride-to-be, who, to his delight, was lovely and well mannered, so he agreed to the engagement. Now, lying in the hotel bed and breathing the moldy air, he was tormented by grief and anger, seething at his superiors, who had kept him from his family. He was sure that his wife had been a conscientious daughter-in-law to his parents. If only he could have seen his mom and dad before they died. The sorrow yanked at his heart again and again, and for two days he didn’t step out of the hotel.

Summer vacation at the teachers college would not begin until early July, but because my classes were over, the final exam and papers all graded, I could head home in mid-June. Knowing that my nephew, Benning, was in the States, I was eager to go back and see him. I also missed home and my husband.

I found that Henry, though sixty-one, appeared younger than when I’d left half a year ago. I joked that he might live to be a hundred if I stayed away from him. He said, “That I don’t know, but for sure you’ll outlive me.” His was a family of longevity. His father had died at ninety-four, and two months prior to his death, the old man had still taken evening walks in the state forest south of his house. His mother, eighty-nine now, refused to go to a senior home and was able to care for herself. Most of their relatives, the Cohens, were in Europe, and some had migrated to Israel. Henry often said I sucked his energy, probably because he felt tired easily when I was around. In contrast, living with him, sharing the bed and the dining table, I always got refreshed. This may be a matter of chemistry. In my early thirties I’d had a brief but intense affair with a Chinese man, who I felt drained my energy whenever I spent time with him. He was a decent fellow and might have loved me. But because of the insurmountable obstacles — he’d have had to give up his career, his Party membership, his wife and son to marry me — we parted ways. I won’t say I loved him, but the affair left a deep wound in me. Yet bit by bit I managed to push him out of my mind, and I was healed. Even when I was last in Beijing, I hadn’t looked him up, but every once in a while my memory of him still crinkled the placid surface of my contentment.

Henry was delighted to see me back, following me from room to room so we could talk without letup. Though half Jewish, he looked a bit Mongolian, with heavy eyelids on his oval face, and wore his hair in a mullet. He had on a T-shirt and jeans, which set off his long limbs and little paunch. He had attended Northwestern Law School but had quit after a year because by then he no longer wanted to be a lawyer. Unlike his two siblings, a financial planner and an editor at The Wall Street Journal, he enjoyed working with his hands and was good at fixing things. We rarely hired others for the landscaping and maintenance of the building. He was as capable as any professional. Moreover, maintaining the property helped keep him in shape. We were a good team for the work — I handled the bills and kept the books.

We went to Seven Seas for dim sum the day after my return. Ironically, those Cantonese appetizers were what I had missed most in China, where food was more diverse and often better prepared, but ever since my student Minmin told me about the antibiotics and pesticides overused in food production there, I had grown more apprehensive and avoided dining out as much as possible. Whenever I saw giant pears for sale, each weighing over a pound, I’d feel uneasy. Later I discovered that many powerful and wealthy Chinese had their own food supplies that came direct from restricted gardens and farms. Some officials even had hills sealed off so that they could grow tea unaffected by insecticides and have it harvested manually. There were also organic grocery stores throughout the country serving only senior officers and officials. Henry and I sat in a booth, enjoying the meal at leisure. When I mentioned I had a nephew in Massachusetts, his eyes brightened.

“Take it easy,” I told Henry. “Benning is not a kid, he’s twenty-six.”

“That’s a kid to me. Why didn’t you tell me he’s in the States?”

“He just told me, and I haven’t figured him out yet. Let’s try to get to know him step by step, okay?”

“Sure, no need to rush.”

“It’s so good to be back and make a pig of myself again.”

Despite saying that, I hardly ever overate. In my childhood my mother would weigh me every week, saying that if a girl’s figure was gone, she’d lose her prospects. She allowed me to eat ice cream once a week, but I could have cookies more often, perhaps because she got them at a discount. I don’t know why she thought weight might be a problem for me; neither she nor my father was on the heavy side. At present I was five foot eight and 132 pounds. Of course, after a hearty meal of dim sum, that would be a different story — I’d be pushing 135.

That evening I phoned Benning. He sounded cheerful, calling me Aunt time and again. That pleased me. His sister Juli must have assured him that I was not an impostor but a real aunt of theirs. Still, when I said I’d like to come and see him, he paused, his breathing audible. Then he said, “By all means, I’d love to meet you in person, Aunt Lilian.” He gave me his address and the directions, which were unnecessary because I knew Boston well.

I loved riding the train between DC and Boston, especially when the ocean came into view in Connecticut and when I saw swans cruising in lakes, most times in pairs. Even Baltimore could appear beautiful after snow, like an abandoned battleground swathed in white serenity. In China, whenever people asked me what the biggest difference was between their country and the United States, I’d tell them that America had a different landscape — simply put, the land is more suitable for human habitation and more abundant in natural resources. They might not have believed me, but I said the truth. Chinese land by comparison seemed overused and exhausted. I suggested they take the Greyhound across North America if they came to visit this continent. Then they might see how much China could benefit from keeping a good relationship with the United States and Canada, considering both countries’ vast natural resources and plentiful agricultural products.

Benning was standing outside when I emerged from the subway station at Quincy Center. He beamed, as if we’d met before (in a way we had — we’d exchanged photos via email). He came up and took over my small suitcase, saying, “Welcome, Aunt Lilian.” I was struck by his resemblance to my father, the same kind of elongated smiling eyes, wide nose, round cheeks, and strong jaw. His legs were slightly bandy too, making him walk with splayed feet like his grandfather. He looked five foot nine, a bit shorter than Gary. He must have come directly from work, a brown leather briefcase hanging over his shoulder from two hooked fingers of his other hand.

He told me he had dropped “ning” in his first name, so I should call him just Ben. He lived by himself in an apartment building six or seven minutes’ walk from the train station. His unit had four rooms, and he insisted that I stay with him when I mentioned I wouldn’t mind spending the night in a motel. After I washed up and sat down in his living room, he said, “Aunt Lilian, for dinner, should we go out or eat in here? I can cook or order takeout.”

“Let’s go out. I did graduate work at BU. I want to see what Quincy’s like now.”

It was a cool day for late June, a steady breeze blowing from the northeast. My skin could feel the ocean as we ambled along Hancock Street toward downtown. The city had changed quite a bit — there were more Asian faces now. A few shop signs even displayed Chinese characters beside the English words. Small wonder I was told that Quincy was becoming Boston’s second Chinatown, but that seemed unlikely, because it was a city, sprawling in every direction and with four subway stations, and the Asian population was scattered everywhere, without a center. At most, some Chinese immigrants and expats might be settling in pockets of this big town. Ben and I decided to enter a restaurant that specialized in Taiwanese cuisine.

While waiting for our order, he told me about his life here. He’d been in the Boston area for a year and a half and had just gotten a green card, but he traveled a lot, going to Asia and Europe eight or nine times a year. “I might not be able to live here for long,” he said.

“Why?” I asked. “Don’t you like it here?”

“Love it. But my business is a branch of a state-owned company. I might get transferred anytime.”

He turned to speak Cantonese to a moonfaced waitress, who had greeted him in a friendly manner. I was impressed by his fluency in the dialect, and when the woman moved away, I asked him how he knew the language. “I lived in Guangzhou for a while” was his answer. I remembered that my father had complained in his diary that he couldn’t make head or tail of Cantonese when he visited Hong Kong. Once he observed, “They seem to call everyone a devil.”

Ben wanted to know how his parents and siblings were doing. I assured him that they were well but anxious to know what he was up to. While talking, I couldn’t help wondering how much he knew about my father. I hadn’t mentioned Gary to him yet, unable to bring myself to give him too much all at once. Our order came — he had steamed chow mein and I fish congee. We shared two dishes, sautéed green beans and orange chicken. I enjoyed such a simple, good meal and was glad to see that Ben wasn’t eating like a glutton. He said what he disliked most in China were banquets, which tended to be too wasteful. Indeed, I had noticed that some Chinese, particularly the nouveaux riches, identified lavishness and swank luxury with a high-quality life. Many young women wouldn’t hesitate to blow a whole month’s wages for a brand-name bag, a Louis Vuitton or Gucci or Kate Spade. They cared too much about appearances and price tags. I was often bemused by the way my young colleagues in Beijing spent money—“like running a tap,” in their own words. Given the pragmatic nature of the Chinese, they should have been more practical.

Ben went on to say about banquets, “After three or four dishes you can hardly taste any difference in what follows. What’s the point of eating course after course? It’s just wasteful. I knew people who were nicknamed different types of gluttons, like Great Eater, Expert Eater, and Indiscriminate Eater. Without exception they were proud of their nicknames. A genuine Chinese reform must start with the dining table.” Ben laughed, and so did I.

“The eating culture there bothered me too,” I admitted. “At some sumptuous dinners in Beijing I couldn’t stop wondering whose money we were spending. I once spoke with an official seated next to me at a table, and he said he would dine out five or six evenings a week. It was his job to accompany his bureau’s guests.”

“And the taxpayers would foot the bills, of course,” Ben said.

“So dining reform is a serious business, like political reform?”

“Number one priority to me, because most people, regardless of their ideologies, will support such a concrete change.”

When we were done with dinner, I waved for the check, but Ben was adamant about picking up the tab, saying I was his guest. I let him. He also asked for a doggie bag, which I appreciated. (Many Chinese, ostentatiously lavish, wouldn’t bother about leftovers at restaurants. The truth is that poverty and extravagance often go hand in hand.) Together Ben and I headed back to his apartment.

Over tea, I shared with him some photos of my father. One of them showed Gary hosing down his Buick Century. “So he had a luxury car,” Ben said, the corners of his mouth tilting up a little.

“He always drove a Buick.”

“I love American cars too, roomy, sturdy, and powerful. I have a Mustang.”

“A gas guzzler, isn’t it?”

“I don’t mind.”

Most Chinese expats and immigrants would have a Toyota Corolla or Hyundai Elantra for a first car; Ben seemed to have unusual taste. In another photo Gary was blowing at the conical flames of candles planted on a cake, the smile on his face crinkling the corners of his eyes. Nellie and I were standing by, clapping our hands while singing “Happy Birthday.” Ben put down the picture and breathed a small sigh.

I took a sip of high mountain tea (one of my favorite Taiwanese teas), amused that we were still using handleless cups like those in a Chinese restaurant. “You look sad,” I told Ben.

“Your mother had blond hair and blue eyes.”

“Her eyes were gray actually.”

“She was blond.”

“She and your grandfather made a handsome couple, in some people’s opinion. His American name is Gary, by the way.”

“I used to think he had lived a miserable life here, if not in destitution, and he sacrificed himself for our country.”

I didn’t know how to respond, unable to grasp what Ben meant. I managed to say, “He loved China of course.”

“Like him, I’ve been working hard for my country.”

“I hope you’re not a spy, though,” I said. He laughed.

Gradually our conversation shifted to patriotism, which seemed to have possessed some young Chinese, who often claimed they wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice themselves for their motherland. They insisted that their love for the country was unconditional, and many of them were proud of being nationalists. Ben and I couldn’t see eye to eye on this issue. I told him that I loved America, but not more than I loved my husband. I believe that a country is not a temple but a mansion built by the citizens so they can have shelter and protection in it. Such a construction can be repaired, renovated, altered, and even overhauled if necessary. If the house isn’t suitable for you, you should be entitled to look for shelter elsewhere. Such freedom of migration will make the government responsible for keeping the house safe and more habitable for its citizens. I went on to say, “It’s unreasonable to deify a country and it’s insane to let it lord over you. We must ask this question: On what basis should a country be raised above the citizens who created it? History has proved that a country can get crazier and more vicious than an average person.”

My argument caught Ben by surprise. He muttered, “Still, I love China unconditionally.”

“What if you have joined the church?” I asked. “A good Christian must never place his country above God. According to Christianity, God created humans first, so a human being is more sacred and must come before a country.”

Ben stared at me. I went on, “See, patriotism has become a religion to you. That’s dangerous. Now, come to think of it — what if your country has betrayed you or violated some basic principles of humanity? Will you still love it unconditionally?” Seeing him wordless, I added, “Loyalty must be sustained by mutual trust. It’s a two-way street. To be honest, many Chinese are ardent patriots because their existence depends on the state. As a result, they cannot envision an existence outside their country, and to them, nothing can be bigger and higher than China, which is actually a historical construct. Two centuries ago if you asked the ordinary Chinese about their nationality, they’d go blank, because they didn’t even have the concept of citizenship. China has never been a fixed entity, and its borders have changed constantly. So have its ethnic groups.”

“You’re American while I’m Chinese,” Ben said, his upper lip curled a little as if my remarks irritated him.

“Don’t let nationality stand between us. We are family,” I responded, flinging up my hand and then scratching my temple.

He grinned. “Sure we are. I’ll always have you as my aunt.”

I realized Ben might be ignorant of China’s treatment of his grandfather. Reluctant to share the whole story with him at the moment, I said, “Ben, I want you to remember this caveat: ‘The unexamined life is not worth living.’ ”

“Is that from a philosopher or a sage?”

“Socrates. Please be aware of the forces around you and assess yourself constantly. Your grandfather was an intelligent man, but he didn’t examine his life carefully and lived blind as a result.”

“Okay, I will remember,” Ben said offhandedly.

Before going to sleep that night, I thought about giving him a full account of my father’s life, but I decided to wait. The truth might be too upsetting to him, I thought, so I’d better disclose it gradually.

Around midmorning the next day, I went to Ben’s company, which was on the top floor of a small concrete building on Washington Street, near the public library. He had three employees, two women and one man. The man, screwdriver in hand and wearing an earring and a pink button-down, was at a desk working on a computer, its innards fully exposed. One of the female employees was a young Ukrainian named Sonya, whom Ben introduced to me as his girlfriend. She was slightly thick-boned but looked smart and energetic with straw-colored hair and hazel eyes. When we were alone again, I asked Ben what kind of women he was fond of. He seemed abashed. “Gosh,” he said, “you think I treat women as a commodity? That’s a capitalist mentality.” He gave a half laugh. “Sonya is somebody I can trust. When I travel abroad on business, I need a person to cover my bases.”

“It’s not easy to find someone trustworthy,” I admitted.

Sonya joined us for lunch at a noodle joint. I found that she used chopsticks more skillfully than I did; what’s more, she could use them with both hands. She said she was ambidextrous and could also write either way. I’d never met such a person before. Sonya grew more vivacious as we were conversing. She confessed she’d been “seduced” by Ben because he was a gourmet and used to take her to all the cheap but good restaurants. Ben protested, “Please, don’t be so forgetful. I’ve never been stingy to you. Didn’t our company help you apply for a green card?”

“I’ve been working my butt off for that,” she replied.

Sonya told me that her parents and two younger sisters were all back in Donetsk. She’d gone to Brandeis University on an international scholarship, and after college she decided to stay for a few years in the States. At this point she wasn’t sure how long she would live here, though she had applied for permanent residency. There was a possibility she’d go to Europe, to either the Netherlands or Denmark, where she had relatives, to see if she might like it there. She spoke about emigrating as if it were as simple as changing jobs. I was impressed. Her life must have been full of adventures.

After lunch Sonya returned to work while Ben drove me to a yacht club behind a mid-rise tenement whose flattish, undersize windows brought to mind a jailhouse. He said he was going to give me a boat tour. He unlocked the gate to a private dock and strolled along the pier, taking me to the waterside. When we had reached the end of the dock, he leapt onto a motorboat, shouting, “Let’s have a ride!”

I followed him and jumped aboard. He took a Nikon camera out of his shoulder bag and strapped it around his neck. The boat rocked a little while a rush of delight ran through me. Ben started the engine, and we sped out toward the greenish ocean. The wind was rushing by, tousling our hair. I felt a sophomoric thrill and began letting out happy cries. Ben handed me a pair of mirror sunglasses, and I put them on. The subdued light at once rendered all objects closer.

We stopped near a lighthouse, of which Ben shot a few photos. He also snapped pictures of seabirds and a passing ferryboat. He gave a few lusty shouts and waved at the passengers aboard. From a distance people might have taken us for a couple — with the shades on I would appear younger, my figure accentuated by the fluttering dress that hugged my body. Then we proceeded toward a shipyard, where some ships were docked for repairs. I thought we were taking a shortcut back to the pier, but a long destroyer emerged, nobody visible on its deck. Ben stopped our boat, its engine idling. He went to his knees to steady the camera and began snapping photos of the warship, its satellite dishes, front cannon, missile launchers. I stood stupefied, and he veered and took a picture of me. I must have looked silly in that one, my mouth perhaps agape. Before I could say anything, he revved the engine and we raced away, going back by the route we had come. I suspected he might just have committed an act of espionage, using me as a camouflage. On second thought, that destroyer, looking obsolete and docked there without being guarded, might no longer be a secret. The Chinese must have known everything there was to know about its type. Nevertheless, I couldn’t shake my misgivings.

That evening I spoke to Ben about what he’d been doing for China. He was unwilling to level with me and said, “You’re oversensitive, Aunt Lilian. How could I run the risk of doing anything illegal? I’m not that stupid. If I can’t settle down in the States, I’ll be worthless to China. That’s why I’ve been trying to persuade my company to let me live in America for another couple of years. Once I’m naturalized, I’ll be able to act more freely.”

“I hope I’m wrong,” I said. “I’ve always been sensitive about espionage activities, because your grandfather was a top Chinese spy.”

“I know. He sacrificed himself for our motherland and became a nameless hero.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Very few Chinese know about his heroic deeds.”

He seemed to have in his head an official version of Gary’s career. I felt as if I were chewing on something rotten but not daring to spit it out in front of others, so I steered the conversation away from my father, talking about American life instead. Ben said he’d buy a sailboat someday, or even a yacht if he had the wherewithal. One thing he felt uneasy about was that America had been growing more attractive to him. “This place can be very seductive and corruptive,” he said. “It can suck you in and make you forget who you are and where you’re from.”

“That’s why conventionally this country is called a ‘melting pot,’ ” I replied. “So you must fight your love for America from within?”

“It’s not love but attraction.”

“But attraction can develop into other feelings and can be the first step toward love.”

“Well, that’s what I fear.” He smiled thoughtfully.