The Chinese Assassin (6 page)

Behind Yang’s back
Scholefield
saw Nina shake her head twice quickly in
his direction,
apparently
trying
to convey her female disbelief in his story.
Scholefield
looked back into the
Chinese
man’s pudgy face, to
find
his narrow eyes watching him intently from under
lashless
lids
.
Scholefield
sat
down again
behind his desk and
stared at his
blotter.

‘Mr. Yang, perhaps I might ask you one or two questions.’

Yang moved towards the desk and
leaned
down towards Scholefield, his hands resting pal
m
s downwards on the leather top. ‘Please go ahead.’

‘How
was
it that you only found out about your homosexuality here in England? You
are hardly
an adolescent if you were born in
1934.’

Yang
leaned closer. The light from the desk lamp threw half his tense face into bright relief, leaving the other half in shadow. The one Cyclopean eye visible to Scholefield widened. ‘In China
and
Vietnam I had suspicions about
myself
because I
did
not fe
el
as other Comrades
did
about
the
opposite sex. But as you know the
Chinese
Communist Party does not
allow its male
members to marry until
they
are
thirty-five—and became
of this
rule I
could not be sure. But since I came to England
and
worked in the
acupuncture clinic
demonstrating the techniques to your
own students
I have been
constantly
confronted with the naked male body—’

Yang paused for
breath,
blinking rapidly. The
perspiration
on his brow glittered in the lamplight His voice sank to a
whisper
again. ‘The problem then became
intense..
I have
also been
studying
English
at Oxford
and
my
tutor
there is a homosexual. He
wears
a badge
announcing
this to the world.
Many
others wear badges in Oxford too
and
it
was
seeing such things openly flaunted in this way that made me
realise and
admit
finally
my
own tendencies
beyond any doubt’

‘Did you manage to conceal this from your
Chinese Comrades
from
Peking?’

Yang
straightened
up
and
looked round
nervously
at Nina. ‘No! Unfortunately not
.
What you call here “gay” literature was found in my room. Comrades from the Chinese Embassy here in London were called down immediately. I
was denounced
at a struggle meeting
and
sentenced to be returned
immediately
to China. But I
escaped their surveillance and
made my way here to the
capital ten
days ago.’

Nina let out a sudden high-pitched squeal
and
jumped to her
feet. ‘Good God,
just
look at
that time.’
She
stared
at her wrist in
disbelief
‘I should be in Shaftesbury Avenue now.’

She snatched up
her
make-up
bag and
ran out of the
room.
Scholefield
followed her into the ha
l
l. She
wrenched open
the door
then stopped and
turned, twisting her face into an
anguished
expression of puzzlement and
nodding
her head mutely towards the study.
Scholefield
, raised his eyebrows in silent mystification in return. She shrugged
and
smiled,
kissing
him quickly on the cheek, then on
the
way out bent
and
planted another kiss on
he
r
nose of the grotesque dragon head on the ha
l
l
table.
‘He’ll look after you,’ she
whispered in its
ear, and dashed out, slamming the door
behind
her.

When
Scholefield
returned
to the
study
Yang
was scrutinising
a scroll
painting
that hung on the wall by the desk, It depicted a group of
Ming
concubines playing a gentle game in
the snow
by a
winter
pavilion. In his hands he
was
holding a pale green jade
figure
of a
mandarin
and as
Scholefield
watched
he turned from
the painting
and held the
figure towards the
lamp on
the desk, twisting it
back and forth so that the light
reflected
on
the translucent
stone. He looked up
and smiled
as Scholefield moved
towards him. ‘A fine
representation of a member of the exploiting classes of
the
old China, Mr. S
ch
olef
i
eld, produced no doubt by the sweated labour of a working class artisan. A good negative
example—’

‘Mr. Yang.’
Scholefield
cut
in
on
hi
m with deliberate rudeness
‘Perhaps you would care to tell me why you chose me to relate your troubles to.
And
where
did
you
h
ide for eight days while
waiting
for me to pick up my telephone?’

Yang put
the
jade figure
down. His manner
suddenly seemed more confident with Nina gone. ‘Your work on
China is well- known,
Mr. Scholefield. Your
articles
in the quarterly
journals
of
international affairs analysing our political
problems are
influential in Western
government circles where
China
policy is set. You are no apologist for China,
unlike certain British writers
who have made it
their business
to ingratiate
themselves abjectly with my
go
v
ernment in Peking.’

Scholefield
didn’t
reply. Yang
frowned
as though searching
his memory.

‘You were one of
the
few
E
nglis
h
students allowed into
our universities in the fifties
and
made good
use
of your opportunities to get some understanding of
our
society. You speak and write
Chinese
well, you
are
also fluent in
Japanese and
you were
a Chinese linguist during
your National Service in the British
Army, monitoring mainland
radio broadcasts in Hong Kong.

Your determination to become one of your country’s
leading Orientalists has
also led you to study
the
“Kyoku-Shinkai” or
“Peak
of
Truth”
School of
Karate, founded
by the Korean,
Mas
Oyama, who fought
fifty-two bulls in his lifetime with his
bare hands. You are probably a black belt of the fourth rank—but you keep this to yourself: Your
critical academic views
on
China are
widely
known
through the
occasional articles
you write for
serious Western
newspapers
and
for your work in
the
broadcasting media of Europe
and
North America.
Isn’t that
correct?’ Scholefield smiled grimly. ‘You
seem to know
a lot for an acupuncture student from the People’s Liberation Army, Mr. Yang.’

Yang
smiled easily. ‘Chairman Mao has taught that
without
adequate investigation a Chinese cadre
has no right to
speak.
I have
investigated and
your
qualifications and
your
background
made you the
ideal candidate
for my
purpose’

‘I
may
as well
tell
you now, Mr. Yang, I have strong
reservations
about
your
story. What exactly was
your
purpose in
coming here?’

Yang
looked at him steadily. ‘It is precisely as I have told you; I wish to get to Cuba. I know of
a
doctor
in Sweden who will help me to get to
East Germany.
F
rom there I can go to Cuba
without
difficulty
But the first
step of a
long
journey is always the
most difficult. I must sail from Tilbury to Sweden.’

Scholefield
shook his head in disbelief.
‘Are
you trying
to
tell me you simply
came
here to ask for money for your passage
from
Tilbury?’

Yang stiffened
and
his eyes
fl
ashed. ‘I have too
much pride to
beg money from you.’

‘Then what are you after?’

‘Your help. I need
tune
to get the money together. Time to work. I
need a
secret
address
somewhere in
the country.
P
erhaps
you have
friends
who could help.’

Scholefi
el
d’s brow crinkled in a frown of
suspicion. What
“work” have
you
in
mind?’

‘If
necessary I could
work in
construction.’
He
looked
down at his
ingrained
hands. ‘Hard work, as you know, is
unfamiliar
to nobody in
the China
of
Chairman Mao.
Or I
could
work in a
restaurant.’

‘But you have no papers. I couldn’t assist you in finding work illegally without breaking the law.’

Yang eyed him calculatingly. ‘Or I could help you privately with your work—until I have the money I need.’

Scholefield’s face cleared suddenly. He walked slowly towards Yang and paused in front of him considering
h
is words carefully. ‘Is this a very subtle way of offering me information privately, Mr. Yang, that would more properly come under the category of “espionage”?’

Yang’s blank expression didn’t falter and he made no attempt to answer.