A Map of Betrayal: A Novel

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.

Many Chinese had quite a bit of cash now, in part because they spent mainly on food and didn’t pay property taxes. Of course, if you stepped off campus, you would encounter all kinds of people who struggled to scrape together a living. Not far from the school’s main entrance there was a job agency beside a billboard that advertised shampoo. Under the gargantuan ad, which displayed a charming female face smiling over a bottle spouting pink bubbles, migrant workers, young men and women who had just arrived from the countryside, would gather in the mornings, waiting to be picked up as day laborers or temporary hands who made five or six dollars a day. Some of them smoked and wisecracked, and some stared at the ground. If you went to the train or bus stations, you’d find people lolling around, and some of them were homeless.

I was also teaching a graduate seminar and met a group of fourteen students once a week for three hours. We discussed issues in Asian American history and culture. I’d taught both courses numerous times and could do them without much preparation, so I had a lot of time for my personal project of reconstructing my father’s story. These days Beijing’s atmosphere was tense because the government was nervous about the popular democratic movements in the Mideast and Africa. But on campus people could talk freely in private. I told a few colleagues about the impasse in my personal investigation. One of them was in the Philosophy Department, Professor Peng, an older man I had known for many years; he said I shouldn’t give up the hope of locating Bingwen Chu. Professor Peng believed we could track Chu down if he was still alive. Chu used to work in the Ministry of National Security, which must have a file on him. Given his age, he must have retired long ago, so there should be no rule forbidding him to meet with me. Professor Peng said that a former student of his was working in that ministry and might be able to help me. He called the young man, a junior official, and told me to go see him.

I went to the headquarters of the Ministry of National Security, which was a brownish seven-story building encircled by a high black steel fence. The sentry at the front gate phoned my contact inside, and the young official strolled out to meet me. He had a soft-skinned face and an urbane demeanor. I told him I was looking for an uncle of mine, which was true in a sense since Bingwen Chu had been my father’s longtime friend of some kind. I showed him Chu’s snapshot, which I had Xeroxed from The Chinese Spook. A photo was necessary because I was clueless about his real name. The young official was delighted to know I was teaching at his alma mater for the second time and to hear me speak decent Mandarin, a language I had never stopped learning since I was a child, so he was more than willing to help. He jotted down the information on Bingwen Chu and promised to get someone to look through the archives. He’d give me a ring if they found anything about the man.

He called at the end of February to tell me that Chu was living in a suburb of Beijing, in a residential compound for retired cadres. I phoned Chu that very evening, saying I was Gary Shang’s daughter from the United States and would love to see him. After a long pause, Chu said in a voice that suggested a clear head, “All right, I have plenty of time nowadays. Come any day you want to.”

We settled on the following Wednesday afternoon, since I’d teach only in the morning that day. Before visiting him, I reviewed some questions essential for reconstructing my father’s story. I took a taxi to Chu’s place, intimidated by the packed buses and subway. Two decades ago, when I was in my early thirties and teaching in Beijing, I’d ridden a bike or taken public transportation whenever I went out, but it was hard for me to do the same now, because the buses and trains were far too crowded and because I was no longer young.

Bingwen Chu was a small withered man with a bush of white hair and a face scattered with liver spots, but his eyes were still bright and alert. Given his age, eighty-seven, he was in good shape. He appeared at ease and glad to see me.

We were seated in his living room, its walls decorated with framed certificates of merit, all bearing the scarlet chop marks of the offices that had issued the commendations. After his youngest daughter, a forty-something, had served dragon well tea, he said to her, “Can you excuse Lilian and me for a moment?”

The stocky woman nodded and left without a word. Although he addressed me by my first name and I called him Uncle Bingwen, I felt a palpable barrier between us. He’d been my father’s sole handler for three decades, but not an unfailing friend. I reminded myself to be composed and that I was here mainly to ask him some questions. Chu allowed me to take notes but not to record our conversation. That was fine with me.

“Sure,” he said, “Gary and I were comrades-in-arms, also buddies. I was his recommender when he was inducted into the Party.”

“When was that?” I asked.

“The summer of … nineteen fifty-two — no, fifty-three. He was voted in unanimously.”

“Uncle Bingwen, in your opinion, was my dad a good Communist, a sincere believer?”

“Well, it’s hard to say. But I know this: he loved China and did a great service to our country.”

“So he was a patriot?”

“Beyond any doubt.”

“Did it ever occur to you that he might have loved the United States as well?”

“Yes. We read about that … in some newspaper articles on his trial. I could sympathize with him. No fish can remain … unaffected by the water it swims in. In a way, we have all been shaped … by forces bigger than ourselves.”

“That’s true. How often did you meet him?”

“On average, we met every two years. But sometimes we lost touch … due to China’s political chaos. Sometimes we met once a year.”

“Did he ever come back to China on the sly?”

“No, never. Our higher-ups wouldn’t let him … for fear of blowing his identity. Gary was always eager to return for a visit. He often said he was lonely and homesick. The people in the intelligence service all know … what those feelings are like. For his suffering, bravery, and fortitude, Gary had our utmost respect.”

“Then why didn’t China make any effort to rescue him when he was incarcerated in the States?”

“He was a special agent — the type we call ‘nails.’ ”

“Can you elaborate?”

Chu lifted his teacup and took a swallow, his mouth sunken. He seemed to have only a few teeth left. He said, “A nail must remain in its position … and rot with the wood it’s stuck in, so a spy of the nail type is more or less a goner. Gary must’ve known that. There was no help for it; it’s in the nature of our profession.”

I felt he was hedging by categorizing my father’s situation. Perhaps he couldn’t go into detail about his case, which involved some thorny issues, such as the diplomatic relationship between the two countries and Gary’s future usefulness or uselessness to China. I veered the conversation a bit, asking, “To the Chinese government, how big an agent was my dad?”

“Gary was in a class all his own, our highest-ranking spy.”

That was a shock. “But — he was a general merely on paper, wasn’t he?”

“Not at all. The intelligence he sent back … helped China make right decisions that were vital to our national security. Some of the information from Gary … went to Chairman Mao directly.”

“So for that he earned his due?”

“Yes. His rank was higher than mine, although he had started later and lower than me.” Chu paused as if to gather his strength. He resumed, “In intelligence circles, very few can reach the rank of general … purely by their abilities and contributions. Gary was an exception. He got promoted to general, well deserved. I couldn’t catch up with him.”

“You didn’t become a general?”

“I’d been a colonel … for more than twenty years before I retired. I thought they might give me the big promotion, but they did not, because I didn’t have enough pull and resources.”

“What do you mean by ‘resources’?”

“Basically money and wealth. You had to bribe the people in key positions. At any rate, Gary was different from the rest of us … and earned his promotions, granted directly from the top. To tell the truth, in the seventies, my colleagues would pronounce his name with reverence.”

“You mean they regarded him as a hero?”

“Also a legend.”

Again my father’s gaunt face appeared in my mind’s eye, but I suppressed it. I looked through my list of questions and asked again, “Uncle Bingwen, did you ever meet my father’s first wife, Yufeng Liu?”

His face fell as if I had hit a wrong note. He said, “I met her once, in nineteen sixty … when I went down to the countryside to attend … your grandfather’s funeral. We used to mail her money every month, but later we lost contact. She left their village in the early sixties. I have no idea where she is now … or if she’s still alive.”

“You have no information on her at all?”

“I have something.” He stood and went over to a bookcase. He pulled open a drawer, took out a spiral notebook, and tore off a page. “Here’s her old address in the countryside. Like I said, she relocated, so we stopped sending her Gary’s salary.”

I folded the paper and put it into my inner jacket pocket. “Why wouldn’t she let you know her new address so that she could get paid?” I asked.

“Money became worthless during the three famine years. I guess that could be a reason. Or maybe she got married again … and wouldn’t want to be tied to your dad legally anymore.”

We went on to talk about my father’s personal relationship with his handler. Chu insisted that the two of them had been bound together “like a pair of grasshoppers on one string.” It was Gary’s role as a top agent in the enemy’s heart, the CIA, that helped Chu, Gary’s sole handler, survive the political shifts and consolidate his position in intelligence circles in Beijing. For that he was still grateful to my father. In his view Gary was undoubtedly a hero, whose deeds all the Chinese should remember.

Chu seemed to be carried away by his remembrances, growing warmer and chattier as he went on. Evidently he had few opportunities to speak his mind like this. While I was wondering if it was time to take my leave, he said, “Do you know … you have some half siblings?”

“My father mentioned them in his diary. But he spent only a few weeks with Yufeng before he left home. Are you sure they’re his children?”

Chu chuckled. “Absolutely. Yufeng gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, in the fall of 1949. I told your father about them. The two kids really took after him.”

His words, though casually said, struck me, and my cheeks heated up. I had known about my half siblings but questioned their paternity. Something like a wash of shame crept over me as I realized I had unconsciously attempted to distance my half siblings from our father ever since I came to know of their existence. Before saying good-bye, I held Chu’s blotchy hand with both of mine and thanked him for speaking to me.

Now I was more determined than ever to find my father’s first family.