The Shanghai Factor (11 page)

There was nothing to do but wait. Burbank knew where I was. When the situation began to explain itself, as in his philosophy it must, he would make contact. Or maybe not.

Evenings and weekends, I worked on re-Americanizing myself. I had half-forgotten how to live in my own country while I spent one-fourth of my life blundering around Afghanistan or lying in army hospitals or living a lie as every honest secret agent must do, or reducing my mind to rubble by speaking nothing but Mandarin and screwing Chinese women whom I could not permit myself to love without breaking my solemn oath of loyalty to my country and my craft. In my absence, everything had changed just slightly—the slang, the food, the music, the clothes, the drugs, the etiquette or such potsherds as remained of it, the conscience of the nation and its hopes and fears, the president, the Constitution. The educated class, always less happy than it deserved to be, was deeply, maybe incurably peeved. Many who died on 9/11 were people like themselves, who were not supposed to die in American wars. Now that the taboo was shattered, something worse could happen with even more disconcerting results. No one was safe, no matter how many diplomas he or she had, no matter how special he or she might be. Suicide bombers could not be far in the future—in fact, they should have started blowing themselves up in America long ago. This loss of immunity, this end of specialness, was somebody’s fault, probably a hidden somebody or more likely a vast conspiracy of hidden somebodies. Mother had been right, America was askew. Anger was the fuel of politics. In her opinion, the atmosphere was worse than the sixties. Now as then, the nonconformists only succeeded in being all alike—same thoughts, same vocabulary, same costumes, same delusions, same cookie-cutter behavior masquerading as rebellion. Coming home to this country on the brink of a nervous breakdown was like waking from a coma and seeing two moons in the sky.

CEO Chen kept me busy running around the country to talk to harried executives who made time for me with the greatest reluctance. These were tough customers. They listened to my presentations with wandering minds. A deep recession was in progress. Business was slow. They had no interest in spending more money than they were already spending. Still, the work was not without interest. These entrepreneurs explained that they were biding their time until a new business cycle began. I had no MBA, it was true, but surely even I could understand that. Creative destruction was taking place. It happened at intervals in a free enterprise system. After the wrecking ball had done its work, something more profitable always resulted. Like Chinese philosophers of old, they believed in constants. The capitalists had their own scriptures, just like the Communists had had Marx and Lenin in their blood-drenched heyday. One irascible executive in Texas, his store of politeness exhausted and three drinks under his belt, reminded me that multinational capitalism had accomplished in a decade that which blundering international communism had failed to do in almost a century of effort—it had unified the world in the service of a single idea without murdering a single soul. The motivating force for this great revolution, he said, tapping on the gleaming conference table to emphasize each word, was the God-given love of money. That, he added, was the difference between an idea that harnesses human nature and one that denies it. “It woke up a billion-plus Chinese to their true nature,” he said. “They’re a nation of compulsive capitalists, always have been, and if they had channeled the energy they put into the Cultural Revolution and the rest of that Maoist bullshit into good old-fashioned business, they’d be running the world.” I was sorry Chen Qi was not present to hear this, but then again, if he had been, the words I heard would probably never have been spoken.

Right after this meeting, I flew back to Washington. An American Chinese gentleman was seated beside me on the airplane. After an hour or so of silence, I dropped something on the floor. As I bent over to retrieve it, so did the Chinese gentleman. Our heads bumped. I wasn’t much affected, but he was a small man, and he had a lump on his bald skull. He seemed so dizzy and out of it that I rang for the flight attendant and asked for ice. She brought it and told him, as if she were a trained nurse, not to go to sleep in case he was concussed.
“Concussed?”
the gentleman said. “Is that a word?” He held the plastic bag full of ice to his skull and soon recovered, though he must have had a bad headache. We began to talk about nothing. He spoke rapid colloquial English with a deep southern accent. He told me all about himself. I knew what that might mean, in terms of the craft. He was a third-generation American, born in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. He had served a hitch in the U.S. Navy as a gunnery officer on a destroyer. His children were all going to good colleges—Brown, William and Mary, Stanford. He himself had gone to Auburn.

He gave me his card. I told him I didn’t have one of my own on me—I’d given them all away on my trip. This didn’t worry him. Business comes first, he said. He said, “Do you like Chinese food?” He got out a pen and on the back of his card scribbled the name of a restaurant on Connecticut Avenue. “Excellent,” he said. “The chef is from China. So is everybody else. Nobody but the owner speaks English, so you have to point at the menu. If you like Peking duck, his is the best in town. Very prettily served, too. I advise you to order it even if you don’t like it, to enjoy the show.”

14

The next day
Chen Qi summoned me to London. He was accompanied by two Chinese in Italian suits. They were about my age. I had never seen either one of them before, but there were sealed floors in the tower, so there was nothing to wonder about except that they were now being revealed to me. Chen Qi always traveled with a couple of bodyguards, but these new types, comfortable in their suits and ties and quick to demonstrate how smart they were, were not members of the bodyguard class. They spoke good English, and to me, nothing but English. For a week, in meetings, they did the talking and the interpreting while I sat by, silent but tempted to raise my hand when something was garbled in translation. Chen Qi would not have noticed had I done so. Not once during the days we were together did he rest his eyes on me for as much as a second. I wondered why I was there.

After the final meeting, Chen Qi satisfied my curiosity. He drew me aside in the lobby of the office building and told me in Mandarin that this was my last day as an employee of the corporation. My return fare to the United States had already been paid. I would receive six months’ severance pay. I could remain in my Washington apartment for one month. He had no criticism to make of me. I had performed my duties in an entirely satisfactory manner, but unfortunately I was a speck in the eye of the corporation. My presence made others uncomfortable. I spoke Mandarin too well. I copulated with a Chinese woman on company property. My ways were not China’s ways. The authorities had noticed me and my unfortunate habits. I should go back to America, work in America, be an American. With my language skills and my experience of China, I should have no trouble finding a job even in these difficult times. He handed me an envelope. Then we were done. He turned on his heel without a word or a change in expression, and walked away. The hotshots followed. They would never give me another thought, and why should they?

There went Burbank’s fictitious network—or so in my innocence I supposed. I felt a rush of relief but also, I confess, a certain sour disappointment. I may have loathed the mission, but I also wanted to accomplish it. All my life I had been given Everests to climb—beat up the bully, make the team, make the girl, get into a college I could mention with nonchalance at a cocktail party, and in the army, take that hill, kill that stranger, hold that position, recover from those wounds. Something was up. Something worse would come next.

Half a day later my flight landed in New York. I took the shuttle to Reagan National Airport, the Metro to Dupont Circle. Walking home, dragging my carry-on suitcase behind me, I passed the restaurant the Chinese American gentleman with whom I bumped heads on a different airplane had recommended. For months I had walked by the place every day without giving it a second glance. It was still open at 11:00
P.M.
I stopped, read the menu, and went inside. The host, who spoke monosyllabic English, led me to a booth. I ordered a beer. I wanted noodles. Like my friend on the airplane, the host looked pained and recommended Peking duck. “You will like it,” he said. “Trust me.”

The duck was a long time in coming but finally it appeared, borne on a tray by an almost unbelievably beautiful Chinese girl. Smiling shyly, she showed me the glazed bird. It was whole and nicely displayed. She donned transparent plastic gloves, showed her perfect teeth again, picked up a razor-sharp Chinese knife, and carved the duck. She had a knack for it and she disjointed the bird and sliced its breast in minutes, arranging the pieces on a platter as she went. There was three times as much duck as I could eat, plus the usual mountain of rice.

When she set this feast before me, I spoke to her in Mandarin—a compliment on her deftness. Up to this point she had not looked at me. Now she did, with wide, startled eyes. Then she fled into the kitchen, heels clattering, raven hair flying.

A Chinese man, lean and saturnine, wearing jeans, Nikes, and a plain black T-shirt had just been seated in the opposite booth. He watched the girl go and caught my eye. No smile, but he had an intelligent face. He was unmistakably a native Chinese.

In English I said, “What was all that about?”

He said, “You speak very good Mandarin. Possibly she’s an illegal. She probably thought you were an immigration agent.”

“If I were, I’d certainly never deport her.”

“You’ve lost your chance,” he said. “By now she’s in a car on her way out of town. Bad luck for the restaurant. She was an attraction.”

He ordered a bowl of noodles. He switched to Mandarin. We had a polite conversation about Laozi. We quoted the sage’s famous sayings back and forth. I asked my new friend what his favorite lines were. He said, “The one about a small fish being spoiled by too much handling.” I said I liked the one about water, a soft thing, always overcoming iron, a hard thing. “Laozi is always relevant,” he said. He quoted another passage:

“Why are people starving?

Because the rulers eat up the money in taxes.

Therefore the people are starving.

Why are the people rebellious?

Because the rulers interfere too much.”

I said, “You sound like a Republican running for president.”

“No. Laozi sounds like Laozi.”

His noodles were delivered. He stopped talking. I left first. My friend, eating with his bowl under his chin, paid no attention. He had not divulged a single detail about himself except that he seemed to have memorized the whole of Laozi. This told me something—perhaps. Maybe he was a follower of the Dao. Or someone like me.

Trudging up the hill toward bed, I was too tired to care what he was or what that meant.
To be worn out is to be renewed,
according to Laozi.

15

The entry code
at the corporation’s office had been changed, so I had to ring the bell. Sun Huan came to the door and without a word or a smile, handed me a brown grocery bag containing my personal belongings. I gave her the CEO Chen—only mobile phone that had been issued to me in Shanghai. She received it solemnly, wrote a receipt, and shut the door in my face. Back on the street, I checked my bank balance at an ATM. The full six months in severance pay plus the dollar value of unused vacation time had already been deposited. This considerable sum, added to the banked salary I had not spent while I was in China, made me quite prosperous. I wondered how much of the windfall the Headquarters admin types would find ways to pilfer. Until they figured that out, I could afford to pay cash for a Maserati. I didn’t have to look for a job because I already had one, or so I assumed in the absence of information to the contrary. What now? Should I just wait for Burbank to show himself, or should I try again to make contact? Was I under any obligation to report my news? The last time I tried to keep him posted he ignored my letter and stopped answering the telephone. I felt a twinge of resentment. Should I just forget about Burbank, draw out my cash, walk away from my contract, find an American woman to marry, have kids, live an American life as Chen Qi had recommended, and when the end came, be tumbled into the grave with a rattle of dry bones after every last penny and every drop of life had been squeezed out of me by the system and the wife and kids?

Although I had consumed no alcohol since the Chinese beer I drank with my Peking duck the night before, I felt slightly drunk—woozy, reckless, beckoned I knew not where. I decided to go to New York. Now. I had inherited Mother’s apartment there, along with the house in Connecticut, some stocks and bonds, and all her belongings including her jewelry, which she had not worn to her cremation after all. The expense of maintaining the apartment and the house was considerable. I couldn’t sell them because of the slump, so why should I pay rent? I withdrew a thousand dollars from the ATM, went back to the apartment and packed my belongings, which fit into one large suitcase and one carry-on, and took the Metroliner to Penn Station. While still in the station, I bought yet another cheap unregistered cell phone and dialed Burbank’s number. The result was the same as before—a dozen rings, no pickup. Maybe he too had been fired, or been stricken with cancer, or died when a safe fell on him. Everything Burbank said or did was classified, so it made sense that his death would be stamped top secret. On the way uptown in a taxi operated by someone from central Asia who was just learning to drive, I sent him a text message, telling him in wild cards what had happened and where I was. Again, silence. I shrugged and went on with my existence. I had done what I could, and thanks again, pal, for wasting five years of my life. I thought about the future. Maybe I could become a banker. Or better because even more uninteresting than banking, get a Ph.D. and become a professor of Chinese.