A Map of Betrayal: A Novel

1962–1963

By the end of 1961 the construction of CIA headquarters was completed in the suburb of Langley, Virginia. Many of its support units in the DC area were moved into the immense new compound, and so was Gary’s translation agency. After February 1962, he’d go there to work every day. This relocation marked a significant rise in his spying career, because in his Chinese superiors’ eyes he was at last physically at the heart of the U.S. intelligence system. His value as a spy soared, and now the Ministry of National Security in Beijing could brag about this breakthrough to the Party’s Politburo.

Gary loved his new office, which overlooked a juniper wood. In a way the whole compound resembled a park in a forest, every side of the colossal building shielded by trees. He often stood at his window, gazing at the tranquil setting. Sometimes a pair of rabbits would come, chasing each other or sharing something they found in the woods, a tuber or a dried fruit; they would nibble on it unhurriedly. Gary noticed that all the squirrels, chipmunks, and rabbits were plump with sleek fur. In the mornings blue jays and cardinals would land on the grass, pecking around or fluttering their brilliant feathers in the sunlight. He enjoyed seeing the birds and animals so at ease, yet sometimes the fat rodents unavoidably reminded him of the famine back home.

It bewildered him that the catastrophe in China had drawn so little international attention. Indeed, the world tended to be galvanized by more inflammatory events. In the fall of 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and the Soviet Union to the cusp of a nuclear war. Gary followed the news raptly and was relieved when President Kennedy announced that the Russians had agreed to ship their missiles away from Cuba. The whole of America breathed a sigh of relief, and some were jubilant, since in appearance this was a huge victory for the United States. In truth, as Gary saw it, the Soviets had gained as much as the Americans, because the White House had promised, as an exchange, to remove all the intermediate-range missiles deployed in Turkey and Italy and not to invade Cuba. To Gary’s mind, Khrushchev had guts just as Kennedy did; both were willing to shake hands with the enemy and strike a deal for peace. Gary felt grateful that a world war had been averted. For that he admired Kennedy and would vote for him when he sought a second term.

Then, border clashes between China and India broke out in south Tibet. The Chinese troops crossed the McMahon Line and overran the Indian brigades. Though the victorious army had advanced dozens of miles into the disputed territory, it soon pulled back to its original positions. The world was amazed and finally relieved, because few countries would so easily give up land seized through bloody battles. As Gary translated the reports sent over from Taiwan, he began to see why the Chinese had retreated. Internationally China had become a pariah of sorts and had lost most of the prestige gained from the Korean War. The aftermath of the Great Leap Forward and the famine had reduced the country to an underdog, one that both the United States and the Soviet Union held as an enemy. Even most of the Third World nations preferred India to China, because Nehru had a better reputation and more personal charisma than Mao. Above all, there was no way China could have provided for its troops if they had occupied the seized land permanently. The roads to the front were arduous and unreliable, often disrupted by torrential rains, landslides, heavy snowfalls, and avalanches. (The ammunition and provisions for the Battle of Walong had been transported by mules and packhorses for months.) It had been wise of the Chinese leaders to withdraw in a timely manner. As a matter of fact, Chairman Mao claimed at a meeting, “With this victory we hope to have peace on the Sino-Indian border for a decade.” To Gary’s mind, when it came to international affairs, Mao seemed more astute and prudent, perhaps because he couldn’t wield absolute power in that context as he did domestically.

That was Suzie’s opinion as well. Gary could talk with her freely about the political and economic situations back home, since she also followed the news and was eager to compare notes with him. Yet their conversations would without fail shift to their own ongoing affair. Suzie seemed on edge lately and often insinuated that their relationship could not continue as it was.

“What are your true feelings about me?” she asked him one afternoon in her living room, staring him in the face.

Her question threw him. He said, “What do you mean?”

“Who am I to you? Do you plan to keep me as your whore forever?” Her eyes flashed with the smolder of hurt.

“Suzie, I’ve told you many times that I can’t leave Nellie. If I filed for divorce, I’d lose my daughter. I wouldn’t be able to pay the alimony and child support. Nellie wouldn’t go out to work — she’d be hell-bent on bankrupting me.”

“Heavens, you can think only in terms of money!”

“I don’t want to be a deadbeat, I have my responsibilities.”

“Don’t you have any of those for me?”

“We’re friends. You’re an independent woman.”

“You have a heart of stone.”

In silence he picked up his hat and made for the door.

“Where are you off to? Come back!” she cried.

He ignored her and dragged himself away.

She had often complained he was “a cold fish”; yet in bed he could be warm and tender, especially after sex. He could melt her without making deliberate effort. He’d even say something that jolted her. Once he whispered to her, “I’m your dog, totally at your disposal. If you want to kill me, you can do it now. You can use a knife or gun, or whatever.” She could tell he really didn’t care and completely surrendered to her mercy. She couldn’t avoid wondering what was wrong with him.

But the moment their lovemaking was over, he became his normal self again, collected and detached. She couldn’t possibly fathom how messy his life was — his first family was back in China, waiting for him to come home. But here, he had another wife and another child. Torn, hardly able to juggle the two families, he wouldn’t bring a third into the mix. Yet the more he resisted Suzie’s insinuations and suggestions, the more frustrated she became. She put his stubbornness down to his lack of ability to communicate. He would remain silent when she said she couldn’t understand why a professional translator was unable to render his own thoughts and feelings into words. If only he could spill everything to her. If only there’d been no children involved. If only China and the United States had not been hostile nations so that he could travel back and forth easily. If only he could become a citizen of both countries, a man of the world.

He was sure that Suzie was a good woman, but his inability to explain his predicament had widened the rift between them and made her more cantankerous. One day in mid-December, as he was leaving her place, he resolved not to see her again. Yes, he’d better extricate himself in time and stop seeking pleasure outside his family. He had to endure the bone-deep loneliness alone.

At home he and Nellie seldom talked about anything outside their household. Their daughter was a first grader now, a shy girl but full of beans. Recently Nellie had found a part-time job, keeping books for Outstanding Fences, Inc., a small business run by two men, father and son. She’d go to their office near a crossroads three mornings a week and do the rest of the bookkeeping at home. She made $1.95 an hour. The wages she pulled in were almost enough for her family’s groceries. Although Gary discouraged her from working outside their home because he made enough to support the family, she wouldn’t quit, saying, “I can’t depend on you.” Deep down, she felt he didn’t love her and might walk out on her one of these days. Indeed, even in bed he rarely used the word “love,” and lately sometimes she couldn’t turn him on however she tried. “You’re such a cold man,” she would mutter, wondering if it was true, as he’d told her prior to their marriage, that she was the only woman he’d ever slept with. How could that be possible? What a liar.

Only to his daughter was he attentive and lively. Every morning on his way to work he’d drop her at George Mason Elementary School. Before the girl clambered out of the car, he’d say, “Give Daddy a kiss.” She’d give him a smack on the cheek and then scamper away, her heavy book bag bobbing on her back. If there was no car behind him, he would wait until he saw her disappear beyond the entrance of the brick schoolhouse.

WHEN GARY WENT TO HONG KONG by way of Taipei in late September 1963, Bingwen told him that the famine was over — things had turned around and China was on the right track again. The national leaders had rectified their mistakes and introduced new policies, so people continued devoting themselves to building the new society. As for Gary’s family in the countryside, everybody was well. He should set his mind at ease and just focus on his mission overseas. The intelligence he had provided this time was invaluable, especially the international perspectives on China’s domestic troubles and the CIA’s operation in Indochina. After depositing five hundred dollars into Gary’s account in Hang Seng Bank, Bingwen told him, “We know this small amount is far from enough to compensate you, but we did our best. In the future, when our country’s rich and strong, we’ll give you more.”

“It’s an honor to serve our motherland. Please don’t mention compensation,” Gary said with feeling, his eyes hot and moist.

Bingwen gave him the contact information for Father Kevin Murray, a priest at a Catholic church in downtown Baltimore. From now on Gary could go to that man for help in case of emergency. “Rest assured,” his handler said, “Murray grew up in the Philippines, but his mother is Fujianese. His father is an Englishman. If you want to send us something urgent, he can handle that too.”

After lunch at a restaurant called Old Shanghai, the two got on a cruise boat heading out to the ocean. Gary was refreshed, as if the land and the water around him were more invigorating than those in Virginia. Indeed he hadn’t felt so alive for years, and there was a stir of joy in his heart that for the moment soothed the pang of homesickness. He gazed at the distant shoreline and the wooded hills, on which a few villas were shaded by shifting foliage and beyond which spread the land he had so often returned to in his dreams. A flock of seabirds were wheeling above the flickering waves, letting out cries like children in a game. Far away in the northeast a sampan with bronze sails jumped a little on the horizon.

To help Gary relax, during the following three days Bingwen took him to a waterfront club, two performances of traditional operas, a floating restaurant that served fresh-caught seafood, and arrays of stores in Sham Shui Po and Western Market, where Gary bought presents for Nellie and Lilian. He had a lot of fun on this trip and came back loaded with stuff that amazed his wife and daughter.

Among the things he’d brought home for Nellie were a necklace of pearls and a bamboo-handled back scratcher with a tiny ivory hand at its end. There were also two packs of smoked sausages, fiery red like shriveled hot dogs, which neither Nellie nor Lilian would touch. His wife and daughter were afraid of the fat visible in every slice like specks of cheese, but he ate the meat with relish. Several nights in a row he’d have a glass of whiskey while savoring the sausage on a butter plate alone.

TWO WEEKS LATER, Gary attended a small meeting at which eight of his CIA colleagues, all East Asia hands, deliberated on the military situation in Vietnam. Thomas took an internal report out of his chestnut portfolio and began to read some information on China’s involvement in the region. China had secretly sent thousands of engineering troops and several antiaircraft artillery regiments to help the Vietcong. Some Chinese infantry units, disguised in the North Vietnamese army’s uniforms, participated in battles against the Americans. There was also a supply line, maintained by Chinese personnel, winding from Yunnan province through the mountains and across the rivers all the way to Hanoi. Moreover, some Chinese army hospitals south of Kunming City had been treating wounded Vietcong soldiers. It looked like China was becoming the rear base of North Vietnam. If the Chinese continued backing up the Vietcong on such a scale, there’d be no way the Americans could win the war.

“We must figure out how to stop Red China,” Thomas said to the analysts around the oblong table. “The Pentagon wants us to give them some suggestions so they can make action plans to deter the Chinese.”

While the others were expressing their opinions, Gary’s mind wandered. He was thinking about how to get hold of that internal report, which obviously contained vital intelligence that showed how the United States considered China’s role in Vietnam and what measures it might take against China. Apparently the Americans regarded his country as a major opponent in that region; they might launch attacks on the Chinese troops there, and might even bomb some cities beyond the Sino-Vietnamese border. At any cost Gary wanted to make a copy of the report. He had planned to meet with Father Murray soon and ought to pass some valuable intelligence to the man as his first delivery.

One of his colleagues seated next to Thomas picked up the report and began leafing through it. He kept tapping his forehead with his fingertips while he read. As he was coming to the last page, Gary said, “Can I have a look?”

The man handed it to him. Gary started skimming it while listening to the others. Then he placed the report next to his manila folder as if it were something he’d taken out of his own file. He joined the discussion and threw in his suggestions now and then. He said that the Chinese were expert in night fighting, so the American barracks in Vietnam should be equipped with searchlights and flares; that our troops should stay out of the firing range of Chinese artillery, which was quite accurate, agile, and powerful; that we should consider a naval blockade since a large quantity of weapons were shipped from the Soviet Union to North Vietnam by sea.

Then a bespectacled man seated across from Gary asked, “Can you pass that to me?” He was referring to the report, and Gary had no choice but to hand it over.

For the rest of the meeting he tried to think how to get it back, but to no avail. Eventually it returned to the head of the table. When the meeting was over, Thomas gathered his documents, including the report, and put them back in his portfolio. He left the conference room with it under his arm. Watching his boss pad down the hallway with his stiff legs, Gary knew he’d have to pilfer it.

The next day, carrying his manila folder, Gary went to Thomas’s office on the pretext that he needed his authorization for some travel expenses for which the treasurer’s office wouldn’t reimburse him. Recently he’d gone to San Francisco to interview potential recruits, and while he was there he’d rented a car for two days. It was this item that the accountant refused to accept. Gary told Thomas the truth, that he’d driven to Berkeley to use its Asian library and also to meet with Professor Swanson, a noted translator of ancient Chinese poetry, whose work both Thomas and he admired. “Sometimes Sharon can be a tightwad,” his boss said about the chief accountant. “But we need someone who can keep our budget under control.” Without further ado, he uncapped his fountain pen and began to look through the sheet of paper with Gary’s receipts attached.

At this point the phone rang and Thomas picked up. The call was from his wife, Alicia. “Excuse me for a moment,” he said to Gary and went into the inner room, where he could speak privately. Seizing the opportunity, Gary opened his boss’s chestnut portfolio, which was lying on the sofa, found the report, and slipped it into his own folder. He had planned to create a small mishap, upsetting an ashtray or coffee cup, so that Thomas might go to the bathroom for a paper towel and give him a moment alone in the office. If that didn’t work out, he would come again with a pair of birdlike tropical fish, since Thomas and his wife kept an aquarium at home. Now Alicia’s phone call had come at an opportune time. Somehow Gary had always had luck with Thomas — never had he failed to lift a document from him.

Thomas came back two minutes later and wrote a brief note to the chief accountant, stating that Gary had gone to Berkeley on behalf of the agency and should be reimbursed for his expenses there.

That night Gary photographed the report, eleven pages in all. But afterward he grew anxious, unsure if Thomas was aware that the document was missing. There was a remote possibility that his boss had purposely let it circulate at the meeting so that it might prompt Gary to commit the theft. Did this mean he was already a suspect? Had they begun to lay traps for him? That was unlikely. He managed to quell his misgivings, believing he couldn’t possibly become a target of the mole hunt being conducted by the CIA’s counterintelligence staff. In recent years that unit had concentrated on searching for Soviet penetrations at the CIA. Despite the secrecy of the operation, it was whispered that many officers in the Soviet Division, particularly those of Russian extraction, had severe cases of nerves. But Gary was merely a translator in the East Asia Division, far away from the scrutinizing eyes, and had always managed to stay under the radar.

It was too bad he’d left his fingerprints on the report. What should he do about that? Then he remembered that several people had touched the pages at the meeting, so he might not be singled out. Now he had to figure out how to return the report to Thomas. There was no hurry. As long as his boss was unaware of the loss, Gary would have plenty of time to put it back. He’d done that a couple of times before and knew it would be easier to return a document than to steal it.

He called Father Murray from a pay phone on his way home the next evening. This was the first time he’d spoken with the man, who sounded resonant in spite of his subdued voice. They agreed to meet at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor in disguise as anglers. Gary told Murray that he’d wear a gray polo shirt and jeans and carry an olive backpack.

Two days later, on Saturday afternoon, Gary arrived at the waterside. He saw a fortyish man of medium build leaning against a wrought-iron rail and holding a glinting fishing rod. But the fellow didn’t look Asian. That made Gary hesitate for a moment; then he remembered that Murray was only half Chinese. Indeed the man’s round eyes and pale skin suggested mixed blood. Still, Gary had to double-check. He went over and put down his backpack and his beige enamel pail, which contained earthworms covered in damp topsoil. After dropping his line into the water, he rested his elbow on the rail, next to the man.

“Nice spot,” Gary said. Then he spoke the code words in an undertone. “How did you get here?”

“I drove,” the man answered casually. He turned to Gary. A knowing smile wrinkled his face, which had high cheekbones and a smooth slender chin.

“What kind of car do you drive?”

“An old Dodge.”

“What year is it?”

“Nineteen fifty-two.”

“What color?”

“Chocolate brown.”

Gary held out his hand, which the man grabbed firmly. The priest’s grip was sinewy and forceful. He must exercise a lot, Gary thought.

Gary offered him a cigarette, which Murray declined, saying he didn’t smoke. But Gary pressed the half-used pack of Camels into his hand anyway, whispering that it contained a film. He began to speak Mandarin, while the priest answered in English, saying he understood the official Chinese but his pronunciation was terrible, incomprehensible, so Gary switched back to English. They went on talking about their future work. Murray said he was merely a sidekick whose task was to help Gary communicate with China. This modified Gary’s perception of their relationship somewhat. He’d thought that Murray was his superior in charge of China’s espionage operation in the DC area or on the East Coast.

“No.” Murray shook his round head. “My job is simple — I just serve you. You’re the boss.”

“How often should we meet?” Gary asked, not fully convinced because Murray would pass orders from above to him and was at least a liaison.

“It’s up to you.”

“Okay, I’ll call when I have something to deliver.”

“Sure. I’ll be at your service.”

Murray had only a rubber tadpole attached to his hook. When he reeled in the line, Gary said, “Here, use an earthworm.” He pointed at his enamel pail.

“No way. I won’t touch any live worm or insect. They’re too creepy.”

Gary laughed, picked up a thick earthworm, and fixed it to Murray’s hook. “Fish don’t like dead bait. If you use a fake creature, you’d better keep it moving in the water, to make it appear alive.” He dangled the three-inch worm, which was wiggling a little. “This will fetch you a big shark.”

They went on fishing and chatting. In the distance, on a sprawling dock, the windows of a low-rise brick building flashed now and again. Beyond it, a tugboat crawled westward, dragging a plume of white smoke and an expanding triangular wake on the metal-blue water. “Gosh, I forgot to bring a bottle of soda,” Murray said, apparently thirsty. Gary took a fat tomato out of his bag and gave it to the priest, who started munching it ravenously. Behind them a truck sounded its horn like a guttural squawk, which spun Murray around. Gary realized that the man was jumpy, probably uncomfortable about this meeting spot.

The sun was broiling in spite of a fitful breeze, and perspiration stood out on both of their foreheads. Gary opened a new pack of cigarettes and lit another one. Suddenly the priest’s rod trembled and curved. Murray gave a yelp, pulling and reeling in the line. “I caught a fish, it’s a big one!” he cried out. His brown eyes sparkled like a young boy’s.

“Jesus, it’s just a baby bass.” Gary chuckled and shook his head. Indeed, the fish, writhing on the ground now, was less than half a foot long. “Man, you’d better throw it back or it’ll die.”

“Can … can you help me take it off the hook?” stammered Murray.

“You don’t know how to unhook a fish?”

“Never done it before.”

Gary picked up the striped bass and pulled the hook out of its mouth. “Here, hold it for a picture.” He thrust the fish toward the priest. “I have a new camera here.” His other hand pointed at his backpack.

Murray shook his head. “I don’t need such a keepsake.”

“All right then.” Gary dropped the bass into the water. After zigzagging a few yards, it vanished. “So you haven’t done much fishing before?” Gary asked Murray.

“Nope, this is my first time.”

“No wonder you have the brand-new gear.”

“I picked it up at Sears yesterday.”

“Probably we shouldn’t pretend to be anglers then.”

“I agree. The water’s so dirty that few people fish here. Besides, two Chinamen fishing together at the harbor can be too eye-catching.”

They decided to treat each other like buddies from now on and would not adopt any conventional method of spycraft — no code names and no secret drop. They both believed it would be safer just to keep everything simple and natural, misleadingly transparent. In front of others they should appear casual and relaxed to avoid drawing attention. Murray said he’d tell people at his church that Gary was his friend so that the two of them could meet at a moment’s notice.

My niece Juli wrote to me two or three times a week. She was still singing with the band, which had begun to get attention and often went to nearby towns and cities to perform. I once asked her if she’d like to come to the States. She replied: “Maybe for a visit. Honestly, I’m different from some of my friends who have the emigration bug in their heads. I feel too old to uproot myself. Besides, I can’t speak English.”

I wished she could come and stay with me for a few months. She was still carrying on with Wuping and perhaps kept dreaming that someday he’d leave his wife. I was worried and wanted to tell her that he might be an empty suit, not worth her love and devotion, but I refrained.

Then Juli informed me that two officers from the local National Security bureau had come to question her about me. Besides my “activities” in Guangzhou, they wanted to know what I’d told her about my father. To my amazement, I couldn’t recall telling her anything about Gary. My prudence turned out to have been prescient, because full knowledge of her grandfather might have confused her and prompted her to act rashly. The officers warned her about me, urging her to keep some distance from this American woman who was biased against China, even though they didn’t deny that I was her aunt. They also demanded that she notify them immediately if she heard anything unusual from me, such as an odd query or an unreasonable request. Juli had no option but to agree to do that. “Of course, I don’t believe a word of what they said about you,” she wrote me. “The instant I saw you, I could tell that you were my aunt. You and my mom really look like sisters, only you are in better shape and have light-colored hair. Family is family, right?”

She also revealed that the National Security people had questioned her parents about my visit to them. Her father urged her to be more cautious when communicating with me. “Lilian is American and might have another pot to boil,” he said to her on the phone. Father and daughter had a heated exchange — she was arguing that I was innocuous, while he insisted that she mustn’t tell me too much about China. He got impatient but conceded, “I won’t say Lilian is bad. I like her and believe she’s a good person, harmless. Just be careful and keep in mind that there’re other eyes to read what you write to her and other ears to catch what you say.”

I told Juli: “I don’t blame your dad. His concern is entirely justified. Do take precautions.”

But from then on I felt too self-conscious to speak freely when I emailed or phoned Juli. I was uncertain about to what extent the National Security people monitored our communications. I just told her to let her parents know I’d keep an eye on her brother and give him a hand whenever he needed it.

MY HUSBAND WAS FASCINATED by my nephew, so I invited Ben to visit us. There was another reason for my invitation — I needed his advice about how I could communicate with his family in China without compromising them. I didn’t want to ask him on the phone; his line might have been tapped by the FBI. Even his cell phone might not be safe. I suspected he was an agent of some kind, but perhaps involved only in some borderline espionage activities — at most a small-time spy.

I invited Ben to join us for Independence Day, but his girlfriend Sonya’s parents would be in Boston for a short visit that week. He arrived on July 8 instead, and we went to pick him up at the train station, driving my two-year-old Toyota Prius. This was his first trip to DC, and at the sight of me and Henry, Ben waved spiritedly. He hurried over, beaming, with a blue suitcase in tow. He hugged me, then my husband. The two of them had spoken on the phone.

Stepping out of the station, Henry asked him about the train ride, and Ben said, “Everything was splendid except for Baltimore.”

That made us laugh. On our drive home, Ben was impressed by how quietly and smoothly my Prius was running. He said that his Mustang, with 230,000 miles on it, was noisy and jerky whenever he accelerated, but he’d just found a used engine and would have his old one replaced soon. He’d never trade his Mustang for another car unless it was a Chinese model. Too bad China hadn’t produced safe, quality cars yet.

“How about a new Volvo?” I asked. “A Chinese company acquired Volvo from Ford last year.”

“Hope they won’t bungle the product,” Ben said. “But a Volvo is not for a bachelor like me. It’s more like a family car, isn’t it?”

“Why d’you say that?” Henry asked him.

“If I had kids I might consider a Volvo.”

“It’s expensive,” I put in.

“Sure, assuming I can afford it,” said Ben.

We ate at home that evening, mixed greens salad and boiled dumplings stuffed with shrimp, pork, and chives, which I’d bought ready-made at Maxim Super Market in Silver Spring. Ben liked red wine, so we uncorked a bottle of Merlot. As we were eating, all using chopsticks and mashed-garlic sauce mixed with balsamic vinegar, Henry asked Ben, “Don’t you miss home?”

“Sometimes I do,” Ben said, smiling with his top lip curled a little, as if the food were too hot. “But New England is quite similar to northeast China in climate and landscape. It could have been worse if they had sent me to Miami or Houston. I’m a northerner and not used to the hot humid weather. I lived in Alabama for half a year, and my first American summer down there was pretty miserable.”

“So you feel at home in Boston?” Henry pointed his chopsticks at his own plate as he spoke.

“Not really. I must learn to be detached, because at any moment my company might call me back or transfer me elsewhere.”

“If you had your druthers,” I said, “would you like to settle down in the States?”

“Absolutely, I like America. Life’s good here.”

“What d’you like most about American life?” asked Henry.

“Believe it or not, I like the order and peace you can have as long as you’re law-abiding.”

“And can pay your bills,” I said.

“Of course. For that matter, I’ve found Americans work too hard, harder than the Chinese, perhaps because there’re too many bills to pay here. I have friends who are doing two or three jobs at the same time. That’s crazy. They all believe that only by working hard can they get rich. I don’t see how they can get out of money troubles by making ten or eleven dollars an hour. On the other hand, this shows another positive aspect of American life — hard work is always rewarded more or less.”

Henry and I chuckled, amused and impressed by his remarks. After dinner, we retired to the living room and resumed our conversation. Both Ben and Henry loved hockey, so, teacups in hand, they turned to watch a rerun of the final match between the Canucks and the Bruins, while I retreated to my study in the basement to revise a paper on the depiction of Asians in Hollywood Cold War movies. There was a hard deadline for the submission, so I’d have to complete the piece within three days.

BEN TOLD ME I ought to avoid talking about politics when I phoned Juli, because her line was definitely tapped by Chinese National Security. In addition, I should be careful about what I wrote to her. The Internet police there monitored the online traffic and could break into your email to gather evidence against you. Recently they had banned a good number of bloggers and shut down their accounts because those users had grown too outspoken, their voices gaining too many readers. Whoever could hold the attention of the multitude might be suppressed sooner or later. Ben was worried about his twin sister, who could easily get carried away.

After breakfast the next morning Henry and I gave Ben a brief tour of our property. We took him through the three floors of the building and then to the grounds behind it. On the boughs of a sycamore hung two transparent bird feeders filled with mixed grains and sunflower seeds. We stopped to watch some goldfinches, red crossbills, and robins eating the feed. A handful of birds, already done with breakfast, were chattering while bathing and grooming at a granite birdbath next to a kidney-shaped flower bed, but most of the other birds stood quietly on the maples and hornbeams nearby, waiting for the two at the feeders to finish and fly away — then another two would go over to the plastic tubes and eat. They’d mostly been standing in line patiently, though a few scudded from branch to branch.

“Gosh, they’re more polite than the subway riders in Beijing,” Ben quipped. A red-breasted robin fluttered its wings as if in response.

Henry laughed. “They know each other.”

I joined in, “They’re not as tough as birds in China for sure, poor competitors.”

This time it was Ben who broke into laughter. He said, “They’re blessed without the need to compete.”

On the eastern side of the backyard spread a tennis court surrounded by a high chain-link fence; a few balls dotted the green court, some tattered and mildewed like overripe fruit. “Wow, you two are real landlords,” Ben blurted out at the sight of the court.

For a moment I was at a loss for words. Then I said, “Henry keeps everything in order. We take care of the property by ourselves.”

“You know I’m pretty good with my hands too,” Ben said and then turned to Henry. “If someday you want to retire, please hire me. I can do carpentry and plumbing. Last fall I helped my friend Deon fix his roof.”

“Can you really do those things?” I asked.

“Sure I can. I can do basic masonry too. You saw the floors in my parents’ home, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“I laid the bricks in all the rooms.”

“That’s impressive. Tell me, why didn’t you use grout instead of cement to seal the bricks?”

“That was too expensive.”

No doubt Ben was a handyman of sorts, but I wasn’t sure he knew how to do all the maintenance jobs here. It wouldn’t matter — he always could learn.

After rush hour, Henry took Ben into DC to visit some museums, while I returned to my study to finish the paper on Cold War movies. These days I had also been perusing my father’s diary, on which I’d spent hundreds of hours but which I still had to read time and again, especially some fragmented sentences, to connect all the dots, though by now I had grasped his story on the whole. Today, however, I had no time for my father’s journal, having to provide dozens of endnotes for the paper. That would take several hours.

Late in the afternoon Ben and Henry came back. My nephew couldn’t stop raving about the museums on the National Mall, which were all free to the public. He told me, “We even saw many original pieces by Rodin — they all stand in the sculpture garden, in the open! Amazing. I can imagine how privileged the people living in that area must feel. All those great museums must be like amenities in their lives. This is unbelievable. I wish I could live in DC so I could take friends to those museums when they come to visit me.”

“Which of the museums do you like most?” I asked.

“The air and space museum. I had never seen one like that.”

Before dinner I showed him my study. He looked through my little library, shelves crowded with books floor to ceiling, and admitted, “I’ve read only seven or eight of these books. I wish I were a scholar like you, Aunt.” He was seated in a rattan lounge chair, drinking almond milk.

“You’ve been doing pretty well in your computer business. I’m just a woman of books, not suitable for anything else.”

I showed him the six volumes of diary left by Gary. He opened one and began skimming some pages. I said, “I’m still working on your grandfather’s story. Once I’m done, I’ll let you have his journal.”

“Well,” he replied thoughtfully and put down the volume, “I might have to know more about his life to make sense of this.”

“I’ve been trying to understand him too.”

Ben and Henry seemed to have hit it off. They talked a lot about basketball and football games; both were fans of the New England Patriots. After Ben had left, my husband kept saying about him, “What a fine young man. I wish I had a nephew like that on my side.”

“You’ve met him just once,” I said.

“Look, Lilian, I’m about to be sixty-two. In a couple of years I won’t be very active anymore. If Ben can manage this building for us, that will make our remaining years free of lots of trouble. Don’t you think?”

“Can you trust him entirely?”

“Not yet. Like I said, we can try to get to know him better. I’m fond of him, that’s the honest truth.”

I was pleased to hear that. Sometimes I did feel a stirring of maternal feeling for my nieces and nephew and couldn’t help but try to get involved in their lives. Yet Ben seemed too ambitious to become a building superintendent. He’d once told me that he dreamed of living on Cape Cod, in a colonial home with a garden and a dog. And a boat, if he could afford it.