The strange thing was that it was Du who led her to the Party in the first place. He had been having an affair with an actress, and to keep that fact from his newest wife, he began taking Song out with him in the evening for cover. In the fashion of the season, he invited the actress for coffee before dinner, and she chose the Vienna Garden, which in its late-night hours happened to be one of Du’s favorite clubs.
Yet in the early evening, the Vienna was a meeting place for leftists, something Song discovered as soon as Du and his lady friend disappeared to their private room upstairs, bodyguards surrounding them. Alone with the actress’s friends, she found the conversation instantly exciting, a plunge through white-water rapids. Never before had she been face-to-face with admitted Communists, people who in their aboveground lives were playwrights and musicians. Their sympathies were no secret, for the left-leaning playwrights created stage works that demonized foreign imperialists, just as the musicians wrote songs and motion picture scores with choral singing and stirring martial melodies. They eschewed the “you and me” lyrics of love songs for “we and us” lyrics of nationhood and progress. She had met such people before, but as to who was actually a secret Party member, usually no one was willing to say. Yet that evening, at the Vienna Garden, every one of those around the table said straight out that they were members. Her thrill was made even sharper by her awareness that Du, if he found out, would want to kill several of them-except that he could not, since they were people of reputation.
Ideas flew, not only from men but from women, which excited Song even more. They were all part of a theater world undergoing complete revolution, in which stage forms such as opera, stylized with male-only performers for centuries, were giving way at last to contemporary plays in which women could participate, and through which all the issues of the day could be aired. Theater could spread ideas not only quickly, but in metaphors the Japanese invaders did not grasp, which was why playwrights and producers took risks, and occasionally were assassinated. All theater people lived with danger, just by staging their work, and Song saw how for them, the leap to Communism was almost natural.
The real point was money, said a smart young woman from Nanyang University. Was it not true that the foreign powers used Shanghai for profit, with no concern for whether Shanghai people were free or were slaves? Had they not rammed through the 1932 treaty that prevented China from having her own troops in Shanghai, just so they could make more profit? Money, always money.
At that moment, Song noticed an exceptionally beautiful dance hostess seated against the wall, her qipao slit to the lower thigh, showing off silk stockings and high heels. “That is Miss Zhang,” said the man next to her. They had been introduced when she first sat down; his name was Chen Xing, and he was head of the League of Left-Wing Theater People. “She has become pregnant by Ziliang Soong,” Chen said. “Do you know the name? He is the younger brother of Mei-ling Soong, Chiang Kai-shek’s wife.”
Song drew a sharp breath. She had heard about this in the halls of Rue Wagner, through which rumors always expanded like fog. Normally such a pregnancy would not be a problem, as the girl would be paid to get rid of the baby, but gossip had it that Miss Zhang had refused. Look at her, she has nothing but a Soong baby inside her, and she fights. “What is she asking for?”
“Why, Miss Zhang wants ten thousand,” Chen Xing told her in mild surprise. “She says if she doesn’t get it, she’ll put the story in the papers.”
“Unwise!” Song cried. It was reckless to demand so much money. The Soong family was much too powerful.
“You want to tell her?” Chen Xing said, his mouth a rueful pucker. “Really, you should not become involved.”
His words were barely out when Du Yuesheng’s bodyguards reappeared in the corridor.
Song dropped her eyes before her master came into view and caught her speaking to the man next to her. These are Communists, and I know, and you do not. She could barely contain the thrill that swelled inside her, for she had found a source of power, a way to live. And years later, it had led her here, to wait alone in a secret room behind the herb master’s place.
A half-bald man in a rumpled gown whom she knew well stepped in-her guide. She hid her disappointment as he addressed her, using one of her false names. “Mrs. Ma, how are you? All is well?”
“Yes, Mr. Guo, thank you.” She did not know his real name either.
“Do you have any news?” he said.
“I know Du gave two hundred thousand Chinese dollars to the Nationalists for the war effort. Even if Chiang did just agree to fight side by side with our army!”
They traded smiles. A deal had been struck and Chiang Kai-shek released; now the Nationalists and Communists would form a united front against Japan. “How are your relatives up north?” she said, code for the Communist stronghold and the frontline struggle to push back Japan.
He shook his head. “They can eat bitterness and endure fatigue to the end, but they are overwhelmed. They are starving. They have no-” He abandoned all pretense of talking about his relatives. “They have no ammunition. We need money.”
She blanched. She had never been asked for money before, only information. It was impossible of course, she had no access to money. “I cannot imagine how I could help, Mr. Guo, but the cause is everything. I will go to the temple and pray to the gods to send a solution to your dilemma.” A light knock sounded on the door, and she rose, her moves well studied. “My prescription is ready. Good day.”
Out on the street, she tucked the packet of herbs away in a silk pouch she carried. How could she get money? Du’s money was out of reach, for he knew the whereabouts of his every copper cash. He also had his hands in all the city’s banks, holding a seat on their boards or simply controlling their directors as if by so many puppet strings. Curse all lords and bosses like him, all the masters who steal and extort and drown the city in opium. She may have willingly offered her life in trade for her father’s debt to be canceled, so her clan could avoid poverty and her little sisters could be educated, but she was still a piece of property-on the outside. Inside, she had this, her life, her pledge to her country. If they catch me, let them kill me.
This was real power, and it lifted her lips in a smile as she crossed the street.
“You gave the house steward your salary?” said Lin Ming. He and Thomas stood outside the Cathay Cinema, on Avenue Joffre, waiting to see Pennies from Heaven with Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong.
“He’s done well, so far. Eight and a half percent.”
Lin grinned at this proof that his bandleader was doing more than playing his role, he was thinking. He had deduced from the beginning there was something more to this one than met the eye. “That’s higher than the bank.”
“It was for that reason we reached a deal.”
With a blink, Lin Ming realized Thomas was staring at the shuoming shu Lin had been perusing, the bastardized and unfailingly entertaining English-Chinese plot summary that was passed out at most Shanghai movie houses. No, he was mistaken, the American had to be looking at something else. The shuoming shu, with its sophisticated cult following, was strictly the province of Shanghai’s cognoscenti.
“When you’re finished with that, can I keep it?” Thomas said, dispelling all doubts.
“You read them?”
“I collect them.” And they laughed together as the line started to move. Good. Lin needed something light to take his mind off the new danger posed by this Japanese Admiral.