The Trail to Buddha_s Mirror

18

She sat on the bed. He closed the bamboo shades and turned the lamp down low. There was no lock on the door, so he set the chair against it and sat down. She closed her hands in front of her and looked at the floor.

He wanted to get up and hold her, but he couldn’t seem to move. He felt like he was living inside a marble statue.

“So talk,” he said.

“You are angry.”

“Goddamn right I’m angry,” he hissed. “Do you know what it was like in that shithole in the Walled City?!”

“Yes,” she said quietly. “You are well now?”

“Terrific.”

“Good.”

Yeah, good. Except I don’t know if I want to kill you or love you. Get out of here or stay here with you.

“So what’s your story?” he asked.

Li Lan

My mother’s family were rich landowners in Hunan Province, very important members of the Nationalist Party, the Kuomintang.

Mother grew up in privileged household, cultured… genteel. Her parents were very progressive. They believed that boys and girls should be equal. And they thought that China must become modernized. So they sent their oldest son to England, the youngest son to France, and the middle daughter to America. Middle Daughter was my mother. So as a young girl, just seventeen, she traveled to America, to Smith College.

But she did not stay very long. The Japanese invaded and killed very many Chinese. Mother came home. Her father was very angry with her, very worried. But Mother was patriotic. She ran away to join the fight.

She became a legend. She ran far away from Hunan, north to the area controlled by communist guerrillas. She trained hard in the mountains. She learned to shoot a rifle, to plant a mine, to make a deadly spear from a bamboo stick. Her officers also gave her political indoctrination, and she became a devoted communist. She learned how her own family’s huge landholdings oppressed the masses, and she longed to purge the burning shame of her class background. She became at first a courier, and then a spy. It was a role in which her family background and her education was useful. She spoke beautiful Chinese, and she could understand Japanese and English. Mother could walk among any kind of people and keep her ears open.

Her work was dangerous and she loved it. Every dangerous act was a redemption, every contribution to the war helped to build a new woman in a new China. And she fell in love.

He was a soldier, of course. A guerrilla leader and a brilliant political officer. She met Xao in the mountains when she smuggled a message from an enemy held in a town nearby. He admired first her courage, then her beauty, and then her mind. They went to bed that night. It was her first time, and it was all somehow the same thing: the war, the communist struggle, and Xao Xiyang. She knew their futures would always be together, hers, Xao’s and China’s. The war was long, so long, and after they defeated the Japanese, they began to struggle against the fascist Kuomintang and its leader, Chiang Kai-shek.

In the battle to liberate the country from the Kuomintang, my mother’s background became even more useful. She pretended to become obedient to her father. She went home, she attended parties, she “dated” American officers and spies. All this time she passed information to the Party, many times through her husband, Xao. When the communist forces appeared to be victorious, her family fled to Taiwan, but Mother hid, and stayed behind. She traveled to Beijing and found Father there! They were together on the birthday of the new China. Many times Mother told us the story of how she and Father stood in Tiananmen Square, with thousands of red flags waving in the wind and thousands of people in the square, how they stood there cheering Chairman Mao and weeping with joy as the Chairman declared the People’s Republic of China. Father stayed with the Party and was assigned a government post in Chengdu. Mother became a propaganda officer. I was born two years later, in 1951.

Poor father… he was destined to have only girls. But he did not mind. He loved us very much, and would buy us dresses and pretty things, and tie ribbons in our hair. Blue for me, red for my sister. So we became called Lan Blue and Hong Red. Xao Lan and Xao Hong.

At first, everything was well. We were so happy! Although we were sisters, Hong and I were so different. I was shy, she was very forward. I studied painting and music. Hong studied acrobatics and theater. I liked to walk in countryside, Hong liked to make fight. Mother and Father would joke that perhaps they had daughter and son also. There was much laughter in our house, much laughter and music and art. Great happiness.

Then the bad times came. When Chairman Mao said, “Let a hundred flowers bloom.” That was 1957, when the Chairman invited all people, most especially intellectuals, to criticize the Party.

Mother did so. With enthusiasm. She loved the Party, but she also loved freedom, and she thought that the Party had become too… authoritarian, too “one way.” Mother did not believe in “one way.” She said the world was too large for that. So she taught us everything. Chinese, but English also. Communist thought, but also Jefferson thought, Lincoln thought. Chinese music, but also Mozart. Chinese painting, but also Western painting, Cezanne, Mondrian. So Mother criticized the Parry, thinking that was her duty. She wrote letters to newspapers, she joined the students at Sichuan University who were putting up posters. She even criticized Father for not listening enough! This was also a joke in our house, because after that Father would cook and ask Mother to criticize his soup!

But Hundred Flowers Movement was a trap. It lasted one month only, May to June, one breath of fresh spring air before the doors slammed shut. Those who made criticisms were called traitors, called Rightists, and a new campaign replaced Hundred Flowers Campaign. They called it “Anti-Rightist Campaign.”

The Chairman did not really want free speech. Police suppressed newspapers, silenced speakers, and tore down the posters. Students in Chengdu rioted.

Mother came home in tears. She had seen the police use batons on the students and beat them bloody. Father argued that order had to be restored, and she became very angry with him. That night the police came for her.

We were little and didn’t understand, but we were very frightened. Mother did not return for two days, and when she did, she looked older and sad. We discovered later that the police asked her about her family, accused her of being a Kuomintang spy, waved the letters she had written at her, and ordered her to write out a “confession” of her mistakes. She refused. A week later the police came back and arrested her. Father explained that she had gone back to school to learn more about Mao’s thought. I remember that I asked if I could go to school with her, but Father said that I was too young. Hong wanted to fight the police, of course, but Father said that they had just made a mistake and would correct it soon. Why, Mother was a war hero and a patriot!

Mother was in jail for over a year. We visited her twice, which was all we were allowed. Father helped us get into our prettiest dresses and our ribbons, and get together a bundle of flowers. We went to a big building on the edge of the city. Mother came to a table behind a wire fence, and we took the petals off the flowers and pushed them through the wire to her. I tried not to cry, but I cried. Mother tried not to cry, but she cried. Hong did not cry and Father did not, but he looked sad and angry. I asked Mother what she had done wrong, and she said that she was a Rightist, because her parents were Rightists. I did not know what a Rightist was, but I remember I said that if she was one because her parents were, then I must be a Rightist, too. I remember that Father laughed a harsh laugh, but Mother looked serious and told me that I must never say that, that we children must be good communists and study the thought of Chairman Mao. She said that she was studying hard and had written many confessions, and when she had learned to overcome her own Rightist thought, she could come home and we would be together again.

We were together again, but not at home. Father was sent to the countryside “to help reorganize the peasants,” but really because he refused to divorce Mother, or even denounce her. This was the beginning of the Great Leap Forward, when the land was divided into production brigades, and Father was to educate the peasants about the great changes. We left our apartment in Chengdu and moved to a small village-Dwaizhou. It was very strange to us, very new, and we were frightened. The peasants did not want us there at first, because we were more mouths to feed and we knew nothing about farming. Father worked very hard, though, and learned much, and helped the peasants explain their problems to the Party cadres. The peasants began to respect him, and then love him, because he fought for them and got them equipment, and fertilizer, and medical supplies. He taught classes at night also and conducted political struggle sessions to explain to the people the great goals of the revolution. Mother joined us after a year, and we were so happy! We wore peasant clothes now, and had no pretty dresses, but we were happy to have our mother back. And we could see that Father and Mother were so happy to be together.

We came to love Dwaizhou. I helped in the fields and the kitchens, and wandered all over with a stick of charcoal and rice paper, making little childish drawings. Hong played that she was a brave PLA soldier, and she acted out stories of revolutionary heroes for the peasants. And she was so proud of her nickname-because red was the color of the Party, and she was Red!

But then food became scarce. The Great Leap Forward had failed, and even Sichuan began to feel hunger.

Father tried to stop the foolish edicts. He fought the cadres when they ordered the peasants to slaughter all their livestock because livestock was property and ownership of property was Rightist. But the cadres overruled him, and the peasants had to kill their pigs and chickens and ducks, and send the food to workers in the city. But then, of course, there were no animals left to breed. I remember Father standing with the peasants as they killed their cherished breeding stock, remember him standing in puddles of blood, weeping along with the farmers. I remember the trips through the countryside, where I saw farmers standing in once fertile rice paddies and begging for food. I remember families who were once good friends fighting each other over a few fish or vegetables. I remember hunger.

My family did not starve, because Father was still an official, and had yuan to buy food. But there was often not a lot of food to buy, and many meals were made up of some cabbage and perhaps some peanuts. Sister and I missed the bowls of white rice and the steamed rolls and the “mooncakes.” But we did not complain, because so many people around us were worse off, and it was the price we all had to pay for the revolution.

But I never forgot. Hong and I would eavesdrop on Father when he would tell Mother about his latest inspection tour. He would whisper to Mother about the sights he had witnessed: dead bodies on the roadside, men chopped to pieces by villagers for stealing grain, children with open sores from malnutrition. He would sit, smoking one cigarette after another, saying that they must put a stop to it, and never let it happen again. And Mother would ask, “What is wrong with the Chairman? Has he gone mad?” Father would just shake his head.

Then suddenly it seemed that Father became very important. We learned later that he had joined with a group of reformers led by Deng Xiaoping. It was in 1960, I think, that investigations were started, and then reforms, and Father was a leader of the reforms in Sichuan and the cadres hated him. But the hunger ended, and Deng Xiaoping supported my father, and after two more years we moved back to Chengdu because Father had been made Party Secretary, a very important position.

We didn’t know then, of course, that Chairman Mao was just biding his time. We were once again very happy. We had our family and we had our dreams. I was to become a great painter and Hong was to be a great actress. We studied our arts and worked hard in school, and our evenings at home were wonderful. Mother was always curious about our work, and we always had to tell her about our day at school. I would show her my painting and Hong would perform. Father would come home late and then we would have to do it all over again, but that was wonderful, too.

And mother had been “rehabilitated.” She even began to write for the newspaper. We all went together for walks in the parks or strolls through the city streets or drives in the countryside. We often went to visit Dwaizhou, because the people there were our family now. It was a happy time and we were still children.

But our childhoods ended in 1966. Then the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution turned all the children into Red Guards.

I was fifteen and it was springtime. Why do all the campaigns start in springtime? I was old enough then to have some small understanding of politics, so when the attacks began on Peng Zhen, the mayor of Beijing, I understood that it was really his sponsor, Deng Xiaoping, who was under attack. That was the method, you see-attack the subordinate to erode the ground beneath the superior, I was afraid, because Father worked for Deng. Then Chairman Mao himself attacked the Party professionals-such as Father-accusing them of taking the capitalist road, and we became very worried.

But also excited, because all the students at school were buzzing with Mao Thought and Making Revolution. We painted big posters supporting Chairman Mao and urging revolution. I felt badly, thinking that I was perhaps being disloyal to Father, but Hong explained that our duty to Chairman Mao and to the revolution came first, and that Father would be proud of us for our honest criticisms. She criticized our teachers for lack of revolutionary ardor and purity. She even criticized me for making “useless” paintings of hills and trees instead of “useful” paintings with revolutionary themes. I tried at first, but the pictures just would not come. Soon I did not make paintings at all.

Then the Red Guards began to appear, first in Beijing, then in Shanghai, soon after in Chengdu. Hong was one of the first to join, of course. She was so proud in her green uniform and red armband. I remember when she first walked into the house in her uniform. Mother turned pale and said nothing, and Father only observed that revolution was a complicated and sometimes painful thing. Hong was angry and said that they should support her in making revolution, in wiping out “The Four Olds”: Old Customs, Old Habits, Old Culture, Old Thinking. Father asked her if she wanted to wipe out Old China entirely, and she answered that the Red Guard was supporting Chairman Mao.

That August, Mao stood on Tiananmen Gate and reviewed a big parade of the Red Guard. That loosed the flood. Students all over China went crazy with power. Red Guard groups started everywhere, sometimes three or four groups in a single school! Mao officially announced the start of the Cultural Revolution. Students denounced teachers, professors, and party officials. They stopped going to classes. Schools shut down. All we did was make revolution.

I did as little as possible, but Hong was involved in everything. She marched with the Red Guard, she organized a theatrical troupe to act out revolutionary plays in the streets, she sometimes spent days away from home, staying at our school that the Red Guard had turned into a barracks.

Father was denounced that autumn. I was surprised and hurt that Deng joined the attack on Father to try to save himself. It didn’t work, of course, and Deng was toppled shortly after. The Red Guard went to Father’s office, tied his hands behind his back, and dragged him into the street. I was at home on the second floor of the house and heard the noise in the street. Mother went to the window first, then quickly closed the curtains. I pushed them aside and stood there watching as they put a dunce cap on Father’s head… and a rope around his chest… and paraded him down Renmin Road. I saw some of my schoolmates throw garbage at him… and spit in his face… as the Red Guard chanted “Capitalist Roader” and “Western Stooge.” Father just looked straight ahead. His face was calm and composed, and two feelings fought in my heart: hatred and pride. Hatred for the Red Guard and pride for Father. How could such opposite feelings live in the same heart?

Hong came home that afternoon. She was sobbing. I thought she was weeping for Father, but that was not the reason. She had been thrown out of the Red Guard because of Father. Her armband had been ripped off and her uniform was torn. She had bruises on her face. Mother tried to talk to her. I tried to comfort her, saying that Father had suffered a great injustice, but that it would be corrected soon, and she would have her revenge on the Red Guard. But she wasn’t angry at the Red Guard, she was angry at Father! Father had caused her downfall! We did not speak after that.

Father did not come home. We heard that he was in jail. Later we heard that he had been sent to a work camp in Xinxiang. We stayed in the house after that. We knew that it was only a matter of time before we would be attacked. The Red Guard had come to the homes of other purged officials, searching for evidence of Western influences or decadent belongings or just to loot. It was a terrible time. I was worried about Father, Mother sat for hour after hour saying nothing, doing nothing, and Hong sank into silence and acted as if she could not stand the sight of us.

Finally in November it happened. It was cold for Chengdu, and I was huddled beneath my quilt, late at night, when the front door crashed open. We all ran downstairs to see what had happened. There were at least twenty Red Guards. The leader was a tall young man. His face was flushed with rage! He screamed at Mother, “American spy! You must confess now!” Mother glared back at him and answered, “I have nothing to confess. Perhaps it is you who has something to confess.” He grabbed her by the neck and threw her to her knees. I rushed at him, but he easily threw me off, and two other Red Guards-one of them a girlfriend from school-held me down. The leader screamed again for Mother to confess, but she just shook her head. He hit her on the back of the neck and she fell flat on the floor. I screamed for him to stop and my old friend slapped me in the face. The leader kicked Mother and pulled her back up to her knees.

“You are a spy,” he said, “and the wife of a traitor. We are here to express the outrage of the masses and give you revolutionary justice!”

“You know nothing about justice,” Mother answered, “so how can you give it?”

He kicked her again and pulled her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. It was a very painful position, but Mother did not cry out. Then he ordered his helpers to search the house. All this time Hong stood in a corner and said nothing.

They tore our house apart. They ripped the beautiful paintings with knives, they smashed the record albums into pieces. When they found the writings of Jefferson and Paine, they let out shouts of triumph. The leader slammed these books down in front of Mother.

“English books!” he screamed. “Who are these American thinkers you admire?!’”

“They were true revolutionaries,” she answered. “You should learn from them.”

The leader spat on her and made a pile of the books in front of her face. Then he lit a match and tried to set them on fire, but he did not know what he was doing and could not get the fire to take flame. He became so angry that he picked up the books and threw them at Mother’s head, giving her cuts and bruises. All this time, I was held down on my knees, and I cried and cried… and Hong stood silently in the corner.

The Red Guard stayed for hours. The sun was coming up as they were getting ready to leave.

“We will be back for you later,” the leader warned. “So you can face the people and tell your lies!”

He took the handcuffs off Mother and stormed out of the house. I went to Mother and held her. She shook with pain and anger, but she got up and we walked through the house. Everything was destroyed. Even our beds were ripped up, so we put our quilts on the floor and tried to sleep. I could not sleep, because when I closed my eyes I saw them beating Mother.

They were back in a few hours. They handcuffed Mother again and ordered us to follow. They took us to the same government building where Father’s office had been. There was a large room there, full of people. Posters denouncing Mother were all over the walls. “American Spy!” “Kuomintang Snake!” “Treacherous Class Enemy!” They sat us down in the front row and carried Mother up on the stage. They hung a poster around her neck. “Death to American Spies!” it read. The crowd chanted these slogans and hurled insults, but Mother refused to lower her head. She stared back at the people, some of whom had been friends of hers and Father’s. At one point, the young man from the night before even pushed her head down to make her look ashamed, but she raised her head again.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” an older man asked her.

“I have nothing to say to a mob,” she replied.

“Then you will speak to the Committee of Revolutionary Justice,” the man answered.

Then several men grabbed Mother and walked her through the crowd. People hit her and spat at her as she passed through. After an endless hour, a young Red Guard came to Hong and me and took us upstairs to the fourth floor. We were left on a bench in the hallway by a door, but we could hear shouting from inside the room. They were screaming at Mother to confess to being an American spy.

“Your father was a Kuomintang official, a traitor! You are his spy! Didn’t you fraternize with Americans during the War of Liberation?!”

“Yes, that is true! I was spying for the Party!”

“Liar! You were working for the Kuomintang. You are still working for the Kuomintang!”

“That is a lie.”

“You hate China! You have American books and American music!”

“You are being ridiculous. Please spare yourself further embarrassment and stop being so foolish.”

This went on for some time. I flinched with every shout, and sometimes I could hear them kicking and hitting her. They were desperate for a confession. I realize now that Father’s powerful enemies were behind it, seeking to discredit him further, but Mother must have known it then, because she refused to give them anything. She knew that they had no real evidence against her, because she was innocent.

Finally, the young Red Guard who had destroyed our house came out. He was very red in the face, almost out of breath, and he ordered us to enter the room.

Mother was standing in the “airplane” position, her knees bent and her arms stretched behind her. She was in great pain, but she remained composed. Hong and I were pushed against a wall, opposite a draped window. It was dim and hot in the room.

“Denounce her!” the older man demanded.

I shook my head. Hong remained silent, and I was very proud of her.

“Tell us what you know,” he repeated. “You will be helping her. If she confesses, she can be rehabilitated, but if she does not, she can be executed a a spy. Help her to confess!”

I stole a look in Mother’s eyes. She shook her head so gently that only I could see it. I loved her so much and I started to cry, but I refused again to denounce her. So they tried another tactic.

“Then you are as guilty as she is! You are against the revolution! You hate Chairman Mao! Do you want to go to prison?! To a work camp?!”

I didn’t care. No prison could have been worse than that little room. All of China had become a prison to me. I remained silent. Hong remained silent. I felt that we were sisters again.

“You must correct your bad thought!” the young Red Guard screamed. “Your mother has poisoned your mind with bourgeois thought! She is a criminal! Denounce her!”

I do not know where I found the courage to answer, but I said, “You are the criminal, and I denounce you.” And I saw Mother smile. They gave up on me then, and talked only to Hong.

“Denounce her!”

Hong shook her head.

The older man spoke quietly to her. “Xao Hong, you were a Red Guard. Now you are in disgrace because of your parents. Do you want to be rehabilitated? Do you ever want to be a Red Guard again?”

Hong dropped her eyes to the floor. She shook her head, but very gently.

“Xao Hong, we know you love Chairman Mao. We know you love the revolution. Your mother wants to destroy Chairman Mao. She wants to destroy the revolution. She is your mother in body only. In spirit you are a daughter of the revolution.”

He lifted her chin up and looked her in the eyes. “You are Chairman Mao’s good daughter.”

“Yes, I am.”

“But you must prove that. You must prove yourself before you can become a Red Guard again. Help us to foil this woman’s conspiracies. Denounce her.”

I could not breathe. I could only watch Mother as she looked at Hong, looked at her with such gentleness, with such love, even as Hong suddenly shouted, “Yes, it is true! She is a spy! She hates Chinese things! She taught us to read American books, and to listen to American music!”

The older man smiled. “Yes, yes. But surely there is more!”

You see, he still didn’t have anything on Mother that he didn’t already know. These things were mistakes, but not crimes.

Hong was really yelling now. She was almost hysterical. “She encouraged my sister to make decadent paintings!”

“Comrade Xao, we need to know more.”

My sister’s eyes were wild. She shook her head furiously and almost seemed to be choking. I felt for a moment that we were both going to die. Then she pointed a finger at my mother and screamed, “She said Chairman Mao was insane! I heard her!”

At first I didn’t know what she was talking about, but then I remembered when we were little girls in Dwaizhou and eavesdropped on our parents and Mother had wondered aloud if Chairman Mao was mad. It had happened nine years ago, and in her desperation Hong recalled it.

“I heard her say it!” she repeated. “I heard her say that Chairman Mao was mad!”

Then my mother dropped her head and began to cry, not because she was guilty of treason, but because her own daughter had betrayed her for a green jacket and a red armband.

I tried to go to Mother, but the Red Guard grabbed me and took me into the hallway. They were all congratulating my sister, and they locked my mother in that small room and took us downstairs. They yelled to the crowd of their great victory as we entered the auditorium, and the crowd started to chant, “Xao Hong! Xao Hong! Xao Hong loves the revolution!” Her former Red Guard comrades ran up to her and draped a jacket on her. Then they gave her an armband. The crowd was shouting and celebrating the victory over Mother, and the demonstration swept out of the building onto the street. Hong was pushed to the front of the parade as it marched around the building underneath the window of the room where Mother was held. Hong herself held up a placard denouncing her.

They were not finished humiliating Mother yet, you see, and I believe to this day that they meant to leave her unguarded. They knew that she was a proud woman whose spirit had been broken, and they wanted to make an example of her.

Mother kicked out the window first, so we were all looking up when the curtain fluttered open and she plunged through.

I started to shut my eyes, but then I opened them because I wanted to remember, always.

She shut her eyes tight, but the tears came anyway. Neal sat down beside her on the bed and put his arms around her shoulders. She put her face in the crook of his neck and started to sob. The tears ran down her cheeks onto his neck and he held her tighter. She cried in choking gasps, as pain that was ten years old flowed out of her, and she cried for ‘ a long time. Neal leaned back and brushed a tear off her cheek, then he kissed one off, then kissed a tear on her neck, and then she brought her mouth to his.

Her lips were soft and warm and her tongue was hard and probing and her jacket seemed to unbutton itself and the silk slid down her legs and then he was inside her. She lay back on the bed, her long black hair rippling under her as she moved beneath him. Her legs clasped him tightly as her hands fluttered up and down his back, or stroked his hair, his face. She kissed his forehead, then his eyes, then his mouth again, before she clasped her legs tighter and rolled them both over.

She rubbed his chest with her hair as she moved back and forth on him, and he reached between her legs and stroked her as she stretched up and kept him just inside her. She slammed back down on him and they moved together and he could see her beautiful face, touch her breasts and her stomach; she was shiny with sweat. She rose and fell and twisted on him and then collapsed on his chest and he held her tight and still and thrust to the center of her once, then twice, and then again until they smothered the sounds of their joy in each other’s mouths.

They lay together under the quilt and she nestled her head in the crook of his arm as she went on with her story.

For weeks after Mother’s death I just wandered the city. I didn’t want to be at home among all the memories and where the Red Guard could find me. I took food from garbage piles and slept in the parks. I was not unusual; there were many “political orphans” and nobody seemed to care. The city was in chaos. The Red Guard splintered into several groups. They seized weapons from the armories and fought the police and each other. From time to time I caught a glimpse of Hong, always in the lead of something: a parade, a demonstration, a street battle. We never acknowledged one another. She was always in the center of the action; I existed on the margins.

In January the Beijing Red Guard tried to seize control of the government itself, and the army stepped in. Soon the Sichuan garrison did the same, and they fought bloody battles against the Red Guard all over the province, but especially in Chengdu. The fighting went on for weeks, and the last of the Red Guard seized a factory building in the northern part of the city. It took the army three days of hard fighting to get them out.

With the Red Guard shattered, there were so many young people wandering the streets! Schools were still closed, families disrupted. The police and the army rounded up thousands of the youth. The government made the decision to send the urban youth to the countryside, “to learn from the peasants.” I was arrested and spent weeks in a detention center. When I was identified, I was sent away to the far southwestern part of the province, up into the mountains.

It was not really a village, just a group of huts on the lower slopes of a great mountain, and the people there were not even Chinese. They were from the Yi tribe, primitive people who grew a little tea and some vegetables and hunted in the mountains. Only the headman spoke any Chinese, and he assigned me to live in his cousin’s hut. I was like a slave. They worked me very hard, and the cousin’s wife hated me because she suspected that her husband… wanted me.

I was numb from hunger, hard work, and the cold, but perhaps this was good for me, because it also numbed my grief. And the mountains were beautiful. As I worked in the vegetable gardens I could see the snowy peak on the Silkworm’s Eyebrow-Mount Emei-a mountain sacred to Daoists and Buddhists. It is part of my story, because I ran away from the hut and fled up the mountain.

The husband came to my kang one night. He was filthy and drunk and tried to press himself on me. I fought, and the wife heard the noise. She came in and beat me. Later that night I put my few things in a cloth and walked up the mountain. I was very afraid, because I had heard stories of the many wild animals there-tigers, snakes, big monkeys, even pandas.

I followed the path of the Buddhist pilgrims, stone steps up through the forest to the very top of the mountain. For a thousand years Buddhist… pilgrims… have climbed to the summit of the mountain to look into Buddha’s Mirror.

At the very top of the mountain you can look over into an abyss, thousands of feet deep, filled with mist. But magical light hits this mist and makes reflection. So when you look over edge, you see Buddha’s Mirror, and you see your true self. You see your soul.

That is called “enlightenment,” which is the goal of all Buddhists. So the mountain is sacred, and many pilgrims make the climb to Buddha’s Mirror to find enlightenment. The climb takes at least three days, so pilgrims sleep at monasteries along the trail.

There are many monasteries hidden deep in the forest, far away from the stone path, and I thought I would stay on the main path until daylight, then try to find a very remote monastery to hide in. As a good communist, I did not believe in God, but I hoped to find refuge among the monks and nuns.

But I became lost. It was dark and the path seemed to disappear beneath my feet. All around me was thick bamboo, and I heard the howling of wild animals. And it was so cold! Snowing now! I was freezing in my thin clothes. I sat down in a tiny clearing and hugged myself. I rocked back and forth and cried and cried. I did not know what to do. I just sat down to die. Then the miracle happened. A light appeared in the woods! A lantern! I walked toward it and then I saw that light was in a small cave, and in the cave was a man-a monk-and an ancient little statue of a beautiful woman-Kuan Yin, the goddess of mercy-one of the many faces of Buddha. The monk wrapped me in a blanket. He built a little fire and it was still cold, but not dying cold, and I fell asleep. When I woke up, it was morning, and the monk said it was time to go. I followed him up the mountain for many li. My feet hurt, and my legs ached, but I was happy. In Kuan Yin I had seen the beautiful face of my mother, guiding me to safety, and then I believed in God.

We climbed and climbed! I saw so many wonderful sights! Wild rivers, sheer cliffs, lovely pavilions from which you could see forever. The walk became harder and steeper, and the monk strapped spikes to my shoes so I could climb through the ice and snow. The first night we stayed at a monastery. I went into the temple and found Kuan Yin and sat with her for hours and my mind was at peace. I got up that morning ready for the climb. We walked along narrow paths across deep canyons. To fall would mean death, but I was not afraid.

At last we reached the top. There was a large beautiful temple there, and we slept there before making the final short walk to Buddha’s Mirror, because the monk said it was best to go at dawn.

We were off before the sunrise, and sitting at the edge of the great cliff as the sun appeared on the eastern horizon. The world became red and then gold, and finally we stood up and looked over the edge and I saw… saw my sister, and I knew that I would never be at true peace while her soul was tortured. It was the vision Kuan Yin had given me. It was Mother telling me to purge my hatred and save my sister.

The monk took me to a monastery on the far western side of the mountain, far away from anything. He brought me before an old nun, who asked me to tell my story. I told her everything. When I had finished, she said I could stay. She gave me a little room and some plain clothing. I had a job in the kitchen, carrying water, gathering wood… later, cooking… cleaning bowls and cups. I sat with Kuan Yin every morning and every night. Later I studied all the Buddhist arts-t‘ai chi, kung fu. I began to paint again. I was very happy.

I stayed there for almost four years.

Then Father returned from prison.

One day I came to the kitchen, and a monk I didn’t recognize was there. He was from lower down the mountain. He said that there were soldiers going from monastery to monastery looking for Xao Lan, searching cells, breaking things. Was I, perhaps, this Xao Lan? I admitted that I was. I asked who was behind this, did he know? Yes, it was Xao Xiyang, the new county commissar from Dwaizhou, a powerful official. He wanted his daughter back.

You see, Deng had been rehabilitated and slowly, slowly he began to locate his allies and supporters, including Father. The idea was to eventually gather them in Sichuan, to build a power base there to continue the reforms that had been destroyed by the Cultural Revolution. Father was on the rise again! But he was turning the Silkworm’s Eyebrow upside down to find me.

The old nun left it up to me. She said that they would do their best to hide me, if that was my wish. I was so torn! I loved my life on the mountain and I loved my father. I wanted to be away from the cares of the world, but I wanted to help Father’s reforms. I prayed to Kuan Yin, but I knew the answer. Father would never stop, and I could not hurt the people who had rescued me, given me a shelter and a home. I went down the mountain with the monk and turned myself over to the soldiers. But it broke my heart to say good-bye to the mountain I loved so much.

I was overjoyed to see Father again, but there was great sadness between us. Mother’s death, my sister’s betrayal. I asked Father if he had found her. When he didn’t answer, I became frightened. I asked again. Finally he said yes, he had found her-she was dead. She had been killed in the fighting at the Chengdu factory. Now I was the only daughter, he said, and I had to live for both.

Then Father surprised me. He said I must leave China. He had lost all his family to China, except me, and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing me as well. He said I must go away until the country was safe to have a family. I argued, I cried, I begged, but Father was firm. I asked if I could go back to the mountain, but Father said that no place within China was safe. I must go away.

We spent but a few days together. Then we said good-bye and I was taken secretly to Guangzhou and put aboard a junk. I was smuggled into Hong Kong much the way you were smuggled out. I was put onshore at the typhoon shelter at Yaumatei, and that neighborhood became my new home.

But how to live? Yaumatei was very dangerous for a single young woman without connections. But Father had seen to that. I was soon visited by a local 14K Triad member. I knew nothing about Triads then, but this man told me that 14K was closely allied with mainland China, that I did not have to worry about my safety. He gave me money to live on. I thought about what I wanted to do. All I knew to do was to paint, but I could not use my own name for fear of damaging Father. I took my mother’s name, Li, a very common one in China. And I did begin to paint. The freedom of Hong Kong was wonderful, and my painting began to thrive. I saw new possibilities, new forms, new colors. And there was no one watching over me to tell me what I could do or not do. I was lonely, but I was happy.

Then I met Robert. Robert had come on a holiday… let me see… two years ago? We met at the opening of a new office building where I had done murals. Robert’s company was doing business with a Hong Kong company, and-

Neal tightened his grip on her shoulder.

“Wait a second,” he said. “You met in Hong Kong? Not In San Francisco?”

“Hong Kong.”

“You told me San Francisco before.”

“Yes.”

“Are you lying now or were you lying before?” She covered his hand with hers. “I was not in bed with you before.”

“Was it love at first sight?” Neal asked. “With Pendleton?” She hesitated before answering, “For him.” Neal’s chest hurt. “But not for you?”

It seemed to take her about a week to answer, “No, not for me.” He was surprised to find himself using interrogation techniques with her, varying the pace of his questions, or using silences to hype her anxiety. Was it just habit, he wondered, or did he still consider her the adversary, this woman who was lying in his bed? He waited for her to go on.

“We were together perhaps one week,” she said, “before Robert had to go home. He was very sad to say good-bye, and I promised I would write.”

“Did you?”

“Yes, I promised! He wrote back, or sometimes telephoned. Then… I was contacted by a Triad leader. He had a message from Father. Father said that Robert’s knowledge would be very valuable to China.”

“I’ll bet.”

“He asked me to ‘nurture’ my relationship with Robert and persuade him to come to China.”

A goofy symmetry occurred to Neal: Li Lan’s father summoned her to talk Pendleton into going to China; Neal’s “Dad” got him to persuade Pendleton to go home.

“At first I refused. I wanted nothing more to do with politics. My life was so happy. I sent a message back begging Father to release me from this request.”

I did a little begging myself. Did you do any better at it than I did? And what card did your father play?

“Then Father sent back the message that persuaded me. My sister was alive.”

The ace of hearts.

“Sister was alive, but in prison. Robert was to be the price of her release.”

Family is fate.

“I could not then refuse. It was my duty, and the fulfillment of the vision Kuan Yin had shown me in the Buddha’s Mirror. I could not realize my true self until I confronted the face of my sister. I could not be released until she was free.

“Through Chinese agents in Hong Kong, I received more training. Training was easy for me because of my Buddhist discipline. I continued to write Robert. Then he wrote saying that he was coming to California. Would I meet him there? I told Father this news. He urged me to go. ‘Now is the time,’ he said.

“I had met Olivia Kendall in Hong Kong some time before. She liked my painting and had invited me to have a showing at her gallery. I wrote to her and accepted. I met Robert at his conference.”

“And everything was working out just fine until Mark Chin showed up.”

“We went to Olivia’s. And then you came.”

“So now they have Pendleton, and you have your sister back, and you can both go back to being Daddy’s good little girls.”

“Hong will be released when Robert begins his work here. Robert is in hiding, and we will only bring him out when it is safe.”

“When will that be?”

“When you leave.”

Ouch.

He traced the bones in her fingers and was surprised when she did the same on his other hand. “Let’s be grown-ups here for a minute,” he said. “You and I and all your buddies know that-once I’m home-there’s nothing to stop me from telling everything I know.”

She gripped his hand. “They would kill me.”

That would stop me.

“They’re bluffing.”

“‘Bluffing’?”

“Making an empty threat.”

She squeezed tighter. “I am a hostage to your honor.”

Boy, are you in trouble.

“Wouldn’t it be safer just to have me killed?”

“Yes.”

“Is that why you came to tell me your story? So I would understand? Sympathize?”

“Yes.”

He swallowed hard before asking the next question. “So you made love to me to improve the odds, is that it?”

She whispered the answer in his ear. “No. I made love with you because I wanted to make love with you.”

So there it was. The deal was pretty clear. Her life for his, his life for hers. Talk about symmetry. Talk about Buddha’s Mirror.

“I have to ask you something,” he said. “Is Pendleton a volunteer? Does he want to be here, or is he a prisoner?”

“Does this make a difference?”

“It makes all the difference. You have to understand that if Pendleton wants to go home, I have to help him. I can’t stay silent. So if that’s the case, let’s find a way to get all three of us out of here.”

“Robert is very happy. He has his work. He has me.”

Then Robert is very happy.

“That brings up another ugly question. Just what is Robert’s work?”

She looked at him oddly, an I-thought-you-knew-this-already look. “To make things grow.”

“And he’s worth all this? Just because he can make things grow?”

“You have not seen hunger.”

This is true, Neal thought. I always thought I had it tough after midnight when the Burger Joint stopped delivering and I had to walk down there.

“But you must have plenty of agricultural experts here.”

“No. So many were killed! And none with Robert’s knowledge.”

So Pendleton gets to spend the rest of his life growing rice and loving Li Lan. Okay. But what about Li Lan?

“What about you?” he asked.

“What about me?”

“Do you love him?”

“He is good. He is kind. He will do wonderful things for my country.”

“Right. Do you love him?”

She rolled over on top of him, stroking his face as she spoke. “You and I, Neal Carey, we are from different worlds. Your ‘love’ is not our ‘love.’”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

In a lifetime of questions it was the hardest one.

“Do you love me back?”

She looked him in the eyes, and it was heartbreak and grace at the same time. “Yes.”

“You’re breaking my heart.”

“I know this, too.”

“How can you send me away?”

“To save our lives.”

“I’ll risk it.”

“To save our souls.”

He saw himself in her eyes. Buddha’s Mirror.

“It is still dark out,” she said.

“Yeah.”

“We have some time.”

He shrugged.

She slid down and took him in her mouth. He tried to focus on his anger and hurt, but soon he turned her around and then he was drinking from her. Then he entered her and they laid side by side.

“Tell me,” he said.

“I love you.”

“Say it in Chinese.”

“Wo ai ni, Neal.”

“Wo ai ni, Lan.”

Their world erupted into the clouds and the rain before they fell asleep. He woke up a while later and listened to her breathing.

Li Lan’s life for my silence, he thought. The Book of Joe Graham, Chapter Eight, Verse Five: Every undercover operation ends in a betrayal. I wonder if Graham expected this one to end in me betraying him and Friends.

It was still dark when he woke her up.

“It’s no good,” he said.

“What is no good?” she mumbled sleepily.

“I have to hear it from him.”

“You are having a dream. Go back to sleep.”

I wish I could, Li. I wish I could put my conscience to sleep, make love with you once more before dawn, and then sleepwalk my way through the rest of this deal. But it is no good. I have to hear from Pendleton that he wants to stay. I was sent to save him from his infatuation, and that’s what I still have to do.

“I have to talk with Pendleton myself.”

“Not possible.”

“He has to tell me himself that he wants to give the rest of his life to this little 4-H project you have cooked up for him.”

She reached between his legs and stroked him. “Do not be so silly.”

He grabbed her wrist and held it still. “Take me to him. Let me talk to him alone for five minutes. If he still wants to stay, okay. I’ll go home and keep my mouth shut. Word of honor.”

He could feel the muscles in her wrist tighten against his hand.

“What if he says he wants to leave?” she asked.

“Will he?”

“No.”

“Then why bring it up?”

She snatched her wrist away and sat up. “What if?”

He looked at the sudden anger in her eyes. It looked odd against her sleepy face and tousled hair.

“Then I have to try to take him home,” Neal answered.

“You do not trust me,” she said.

“Don’t take it personally. I don’t trust anyone.”

He watched as her angry glare turned thoughtful. Then the look became seductive. She was an actress changing emotions for the camera.

“Go home tomorrow,” she said. “I will visit you once a year. For a week in San Francisco. Every year until you are tired of me.”

We’re right back in the hot tub, he thought. Nothing’s changed, including the sorry fact that I want to say yes.

“That’s sick and desperate,” he said.

She jumped out of the bed and grabbed her clothes, throwing them on as she spoke.

“You are the person who is sick and desperate,” she said. “You chase, chase, chase-then, when you are given what you chase, you do not accept. Answers… truth… me. I make this offer to make you happy

… to make me happy. Never mind. You have no choice. You do not know where Robert is, where I go. You cannot chase anymore.”

“Lan, I-”

“Go home! That is all! If you say what you know, I will die! Do what you want!”

She stormed out the door.

It took him a few seconds to get his shirt and pants on and follow her. It was still dark and foggy and he could just see her as she passed through the gate into the garden. He ran down the stairs and across the little bridge. When he got through the gate she was gone.

All he could see was fog and the eerie shapes of the garden statues: dragons, birds, and giant frogs. He could hear footsteps ahead of him and he followed the sound. The garden was a maze.

When in doubt, Neal thought, go to Buddha. The gigantic head was about the only thing he could make out in the fog. It glowed palely at the edge of the cliff. He ran for it.

Her black-clad form appeared in stark silhouette against the whiteness of the Buddha’s head, about twenty feet away. She was inching her way along, trying to feel for the railing that led down the stairs.

Neal realized that she was heading down to the river. She had a boat waiting. He couldn’t let her meet it. He broke into a sprint.

The bullet hit Buddha square in the ear. Li Lan dropped to the ground.

“Shit.”

Neal heard the voice. It was about fifty feet away, in a copse of trees to his right. He peered through the fog but couldn’t see anyone. He lay on his stomach, wishing his breathing didn’t make so much goddamn noise. Li Lan hadn’t gotten up, so she was either hurt or just being smart. Staying flat on his stomach, he crawled to where he had seen her fall.

His hand touched her elbow and she flinched. He grabbed her arm and pulled himself against her.

He heard cautious footsteps. The shooter was maneuvering for a better angle. If he was smart, he’d work his way back onto the path and come straight onto the landing. She heard it, too.

“Are you hurt?” he asked her. It was just the slightest whisper, but it sounded like a PA announcement to him.

She shook her head.

The footsteps stopped.

“You have a boat down there,” he said.

She nodded.

“You can back down the stairs without being seen.”

“There is not the time. He will shoot me on the stairs.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

The footsteps started again, slow and patient.

“Get going,” he said.

“Why would you do this?”

Good fucking question.

“Because you’re going to take me to Pendleton.”

If I live that long.

And you might as well tell the truth as long as you’re probably going to get killed anyway.

“And because I love you. Now crawl backwards onto the stairs. When you’re down to the next landing, get up and make all the noise you can going down. Got that?”

“Yes.”

“Where can I meet you?”

She didn’t answer. The footsteps had stopped. The bastard was in position and just waiting for the right moment. As soon as his quarry flinched, he’d move in for the kill.

“Look,” Neal whispered. “I know where your mountain is. I know it from your paintings. I can track you down, and I won’t give up. It will never stop until you let me speak with Pendleton. Never. Now tell me where I can meet you, and get your ass in gear before we both get killed.”

She squeezed his hand. “At the elephant.”

“Where?”

“You can find it. I will be there.”

“Get going.”

“I am very frightened.”

“I’m scared to fucking death. Now go.”

She squeezed his hand again and started to crawl backward, feeling for the edge of the stairs with her feet.

Neal could just hear her make contact with the wooden steps. Now what? he thought. The opposition has a gun, and you’re armed only with your fine sense of irony. Of course, he’s missed once already. Maybe he’s a lousy shot.

Then he heard the sound of footsteps running down the stairs to the river. She was making a real show of it, and that was just what he needed, because then he heard the shooter running along the path straight toward him.

The fucker doesn’t know anyone’s here, Neal realized with relief. He’s running straight, hard, and fast toward the stairs, where he’ll have her pinned against the river. He’ll have all the shots he wants.

Neal gathered his knees underneath him.

Simms burst out of the fog, holding the pistol, barrel up, in his right hand, running hard. He was almost on top of Neal.

Neal lowered his head and sprang. The top of his head smacked Simms on the bottom of the chin.

Neal figured it worked better when you had a football helmet on, and his head spun with pain as he fell. But Simms was out, and this gave Neal a few seconds to recover. He found the pistol just a few feet from Simms’s hand and picked it up.

Do it, Neal thought. You can pop him right now and toss him into the river. The currents will take care of the rest. Do it. He raised the pistol and lined the sights up on Simms’s forehead. Then he waited for Simms to come to. It didn’t take long. Simms sat up groggily and put his hand to his chin. He looked at the blood on his palm and shook his head.

“That’s twice you’ve missed an easy shot,” Neal said.

“Carey! It took you long enough to fuck her.”

“It’s not too late for me to shoot you.”

“You won’t. You’re not the type. If you were going to use it, you’d have done it when I had my eyes closed. In fact, give me back the gun before you hurt yourself. I think I need some stitches.”

“Put your hands up where I can see them.”

Simms didn’t move. “Did you hear that line on television? It won’t do you any good, Carey. As soon as the cobwebs clear, I can take you, pistol and all.”

“So maybe I should shoot you right now.”

“You won’t. You’re a pussy-whipped, sniveling little traitor, but you don’t have the balls to squeeze the trigger.”

Which pretty much sums it up.

“Get up,” Neal said.

“Okey-dokey.”

Simms wobbled to his feet. Blood dripped from his chin.

“Walk over to the edge of the cliff.”

“Oh, come on.”

Neal’s shot whizzed well clear of Simms’s head, but made its point anyway.

“Well, well,” Simms said. He started walking. “That was a pretty nifty block you threw on me. Did you play football in school?”

“No, I saw it on television. How about you?”

“I’m from basketball country. Used to be a white man’s game.”

“Sit on the railing, facing me.”

Simms looked at the spindly wooden railing that served as a shaky barrier between him and a three-hundred-foot sheer drop.

“Uhhh, Carey… this doesn’t look like it was built by the Army Corps of Engineers.”

“Gee, you might fall. Hippety-hop.”

Simms eased himself onto the railing, gripping it tightly with both hands. Neal sat down on the ground and steadied the pistol on his knees. “Let’s talk.”

“Can I smoke?”

“No.”

“You are a vindictive little bastard, Carey. You have got to stop taking these things so damn personally.”

“Pendleton doesn’t make herbicides, never did.”

“You just figured that out?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re a minor-leaguer, Carey. A good minor-leaguer, but you don’t have what it takes to make it in the bigs.”

“So what’s the big deal? Why is he so important? Why not let him come over here and grow a little food?”

Simms gave him that arrogant sneer that made Neal want to pull the trigger.

“A little food?” Simms echoed. “A little food, Carey? Grow up.”

“Age me.”

“It’s all about food, boy. All about food. China has one quarter of the world’s population. One out of every four people filling his mouth on God’s good earth is a citizen of the People’s Republic of China. And that’s not to mention the countless Chinese in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia-”

“I think I get it.”

“No, you don’t. Indonesia, Europe, and yes, America. Let’s talk about America for a second, Carey, as if you cared. How many Chinese did you ever see on welfare? Cashing in food stamps, in prison?”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“These people work their asses off, Carey. They save their money, they study like hell, they break their balls to make it. And they do. You let them out of this enormous open-air prison here, and they make it. In fact, they kick our butts. Now, what do you think would happen if mainland China stopped being a prison? What would happen if the Chinese here could do what their expatriate relatives have done?”

“Gee, I don’t know. What?”

“We’d be finished, Carey. The good old U.S.A. couldn’t hack the competition. Not with our standard of living, our unions, our big cars, our little savings accounts… our small population, our lack of discipline. The Chinese are organized, Carey, or haven’t you noticed? Have you seen a dirty street here? Litter on the roadside? They organize brigades to sweep and clean. In three years, during the Great Leap Forward, they reorganized their entire population into teams and brigades. Why, you let these people finally get their act together, and we couldn’t sell so much as a dress shirt on the world market. It would start with textiles, then it would be electronics, then steel and iron, automobiles, airplanes… then banking and real estate, and you can kiss us good-bye. One quarter of the world’s population, Carey? Unchained? Shit, look at what the Japs have done to us in thirty stinking years. China has ten times the population, and one hundred times the resources.”

Neal’s head hurt like crazy. He glanced sideways at Buddha’s head, and wondered about the organization and discipline it had taken to build the gigantic statue. One thousand years ago.

“Thanks for the geography lesson,” he said, “but what does this have to do with Pendleton?”

Simms started to raise his hand for emphasis, but grabbed the railing again when it shook.

“Food,” he said. “There are two things that are holding the Chinese back. The first is food, and the second is Mao.”

“Mao’s dead. It was in all the papers.”

“Exactly. Mao’s dead and Maoism is on the rocks. There’s a battle going on here between the democratic reformers and the hardline Maoists, and the major weapon is food. It’s China’s age-old issue: What system will provide the most food? Some boys down here in Sichuan have figured out that privately owned land is more productive than state-owned land. You get it? You take an acre and give it to a family. You take the next acre and have the government run it, and guess what? The family acre kicks significant butt. No contest.”

“How’s your backflip, Simms? Pretty good?”

“Don’t get itchy, I’m getting to Doctor Bob, I am.”

“Hurry up.”

“The boys down here are quietly converting the whole province to privately owned land. The only way they can get away with it is by being so successful that no one will dare to purge them. Old Deng Xiaoping knows that his road to Beijing runs right through the farmland of Sichuan, and he’s started his own little Sichuan Mafia down here. It’s going to surface if and when the agricultural experiment becomes an undeniable success. Then he’ll use that success to rout the Maoists and launch democratic capitalist reforms over the whole country.”

Neal’s head was whirling.

He asked, “Wouldn’t we want to get behind that? The democratization of the largest country in the world?”

“On the surface, sure. But think about it, Carey. Even you can think this through. Think about a China that looks like Japan. All those people, all those international connections, all that organization and discipline. You modernize that, you shrug off the Maoist yoke-I’m telling you Carey, when these people can feed themselves, it’s all over for the white man in the good old U.S. of A.”

Neal’s wrist started to ache. The pistol was heavier than it looked, a lot heavier than it looked on TV.

“Are you telling me,” Neal asked, “that we’re supporting the Maoists in this battle?”

“We’re supporting the legitimate government of the People’s Republic of China. Yes, it happens to be hard-line Maoist at this time.”

“And we want it to stay that way.”

“I believe I’ve explained the doleful alternatives.”

“It’s a long fall and I’m getting impatient.”

Simms smirked. “That’s just like you, Carey. I’m talking about the lives of a few hundred million people, and you’re bitching about your delicate emotional condition. My head’s getting clear, Carey. I can take you with one rush before you squeeze off a shot.” Come on.

“When I’m ready.”

“I’m ready to hear about Pendleton.”

“You just don’t get it, do you? Pendleton was on the verge of developing Supershit, Mighty Manure. It maximizes the nitrogen content of the soil, accelerates the growing process.”

“So?”

“So it would give these agrarian reformers down here a third crop. Get it, Carey? They get two harvests of rice a year now. With Doc Pendleton’s Homegrown Formula they could get three. That’s a thirty-three percent gain. You add thirty-three percent to what they’re already doing, and… well, it’s a lot of rice. More than enough rice to make Deng the top chink, more than enough rice to turn this fucked-up shithole into a modern country. We can’t let that happen, Carey.”

“Maybe you can’t.”

Neal watched Simms’s eyes. They were getting clearer and his breathing was slowing down. If Simms was going to make a rush, it could come anytime. Neal tightened his finger on the trigger.

“Well, it ain’t just me, Carey boy. It’s the Chinese government. They don’t want Pendleton here, either.”

“Why don’t they throw him out, then?”

“Boy, you are just dumber than mud, aren’t you? That slant must have balled your brains out! The Beijing boys didn’t bring Pendleton in. They don’t know where he is, and they can’t even prove he’s here. They have their suspicions, but suspicions aren’t enough anymore. Things are a bit delicate around here lately. Do you know how hard it is to hit somebody with a pistol shot, even from this range? Have you ever shot anybody?”

“Want to find out?”

“It was a rhetorical question, Carey. Anyway, it’s a renegade group running this Pendleton operation. Hard to say how high up it goes. Hard to say if Deng even knows about it. But I’ll tell you this, the Beijing boys and I are of one mind about this. I have free rein to find your friends and dispose of them as I see fit.”

“How did you find us?”

Neal saw Simms’s hands loosen their grip. He had found his balance and was getting set.

“You helped, in your debriefing. You told me all about the scrumptious dinner old Li Lan made for you. She could only come from around here, boy. Then I got hold of one of her brochures. She cooks Sichuan, she paints Sichuan… hell, I figured she’s from Sichuan.”

Bullshit. Good bullshit, but bullshit. Recipes and paintings couldn’t tell you my exact schedule and location, but what could? The Sichuan Mafia has a mole, a double, an informer. I wonder who?

“So how do you and Peng get along?” Neal asked. “Okay?”

The reaction was infinitesimal, but it was there. You’re good, Neal thought, very good, but I’m better. I’ve been watching people blink all my life, and that was a blink.

“Who’s Peng?” Simms asked.

“Yeah, okay.”

“You picked a hell of time to stop being stupid,” Simms said. “I was going to let you walk.”

“Where did you go to school?”

“North Carolina.”

“They have a diving team? Were you on it? How did you do in the three-hundred-foot freestyle?”

“You’re just not a killer, boy. You’re a disaster. The big mistake the girl made was coming to see you. We didn’t have a line on her until now. And now it’s just a matter of time. You fucked her good, all right.”

Time, Neal thought. Time is the issue right now. Simms had missed with his shot intentionally. He didn’t want to kill Lan, he wanted to make her run. Just as he’d done every step of the way. What we need here is a little time, a little lead.

He stood up and raised the pistol.

“Let’s go,” he said.

“Where?”

“Down the stairs.”

“You’re kidding.”

“I’m a funny boy. Come on.”

Simms eased himself off the railing and stepped onto the landing beside Buddha’s head. Neal gave him plenty of room and left four steps between them as he followed Simms down the steps. They walked down past Buddha’s chin, then his chest, paused at a landing by his belly, and finally made it down to his big toe. The brown river swirled just beneath them.

“Sit down,” Neal said.

Simms hesitated. He was thinking about taking his chance, but Neal stayed on the steps, out of reach but within pistol range. Simms sat down.

“Take off your shoes,” Neal said.

Simms untied his leather saddle shoes.

“Wallet and watch,” Neal said.

“What is this, a mugging?”

“You might want to take off your jacket.”

Simms got it just then.

“Carey, you don’t think I’m going to jump in the river, do you?”

“Now jump in the river.”

“I can’t swim.” “Float.” “Shoot me.”

Neal raised the pistol.

It was no good. He wasn’t going to shoot. He knew it and Simms knew it. Even Buddha knew it.

Neal stepped off the landing onto Buddha’s foot. Simms smiled and started to circle. He did a good job, maneuvering Neal between himself and the river. Neal kept the gun pointed at Simms’s chest, an easier target than his head.

“I can’t miss from here,” he said.

“Then shoot.”

Neal tightened his finger on the trigger. It was just enough to make Simms move. He jolted forward like he was on springs. He came in low, fast and hard, with his head down and his arms forward, straight at Neal’s chest.

Neal’s chest wasn’t there. Neal had dropped to the ground a half-second after bluffing with the trigger. All Simms hit was air, and then the water.

Neal watched the current carry Simms away.

Neal scurried back up the stairs, through the garden, and into the monastery. He went to his room and packed a few things into his bag. Then he went to Wu’s room and tapped on the door.

A groggy Wu came to the door, and Neal pushed him back inside the room.

“Are you drunk?” Wu asked.

“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

“What?”

“Where’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

“On the silkworm?”

“No, it’s a mountain. In Chinese, what’s the Silkworm’s Eyebrow?”

Wu came awake. “Oh! Mount Emei. ‘Emei’ means Silkwo-”

“How far is it?”

“Not far. Perhaps ten or twenty li.”

“I want to go there, right now.”

“Not possible at any time. Absolutely not.”

“I have to go there.”

“I cannot take you. I would get in big trouble.”

“Tell them I forced you.”

Wu chuckled. “How are you going to force me?”

Neal pulled the gun from his jacket and pointed it at Wu’s nose. Wu doesn’t know what a wimp I am with guns, he thought.

“You are crazy,” said Wu.

“This is a good thing for you to keep in mind. Now let’s go wake up the driver and go to Mount Emei.”

Wu flapped his hands in frustration. “Why do you want to do this?”

“Because I’m crazy. You have one minute to get dressed. Go.”

Wu got dressed and led Neal to the driver’s room. Neal greeted the driver with the pistol and held it on him while Wu explained the situation. The driver smiled calmly at Neal and shrugged.

“Emei?” he asked.

“Emei.”

The driver pulled his shoes on. Five minutes later they were in the car. Neal sat in the backseat and kept the pistol pressed to Wu’s head.

They were at the base of Mount Emei just as the sun came up.