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“And what has my brother done to make you want to find him?” Monique inquired, before she could ask herself whether she really wanted to know.
“This town-it is not an orderly town,” the SS officer said, his voice stern with disapproval. “Parts of this town might as well be thieves’ markets, such as they have in the Arab towns of Africa.”
“It is Marseille,” Monique said. Where Kuhn was stern, she was amused. “Marseille has always been like this, in France but not of it. The folk of Marseille have always traded where and in what they could get the best bargains.”
That had sometimes-often-included people. During and right after the fighting, Jews with money and connections had made it out of the Reich by the thousands from Marseille. Jews had a hard time of it nowadays, but other contraband still came in and went out. No one but the smugglers knew the details, but everybody had a notion of the broad outlines.
“You are familiar with the Porte d’Aix?” Kuhn asked.
“I don’t think anyone is truly familiar with the Porte d’Aix, not with all of it,” Monique answered. “It is a souk, a marketplace of sorts like those in Algeria, as you said. Everyone goes into the edges now and then. I have done that. Why?”
“Because your brother, my dear Professor Dutourd, is the uncrowned king of Porte d’Aix,” Kuhn told her. “It is my duty to attempt to arrange his abdication.”
“And why is that?” Monique asked. “Is it not that whoever takes his place will be no different? If you ask the opinion of anyone who has studied history, he will tell you the same, I think.”
“It could be,” Kuhn said. “But it could also be that whoever takes your brother’s place will be more inclined to remember he is a human being and less inclined to be so friendly to the Lizards.”
Monique’s first impulse was to drop everything she was doing and try to get hold of the brother she had not seen for so long, to warn him of his danger. Her second thought was that that was exactly what the SS man would want her to do. He would let her do the hunting, and then snatch Pierre once she’d guided him to his quarry. Doing nothing was not easy, but it was the best thing she could do if she wanted to go on having a brother, even one she did not know.
No. She could do one other thing, and she did it: “Please be polite enough to take me back to my apartment. Please also be polite enough not to call on me again. And please have the courtesy no longer to attend the class I offer at the university.”
“The first, of course,” Kuhn said. “I am not a barbarian.” Monique held her tongue, which was no doubt just as well. The SS man went on, “As for the second, it shall also be as you wish, although I have enjoyed your company aside from any, ah, professional considerations. The last-no. Even if I learn nothing about your brother, I do learn about the Roman world, which interests me. I shall continue to attend-without, of course, making a nuisance of myself.”
Monique could hardly order him to stay away. Recognizing as much, she shrugged and got to her feet. Kuhn slapped banknotes on the table-he was not such a boor as to make her pay for her own lunch. As they went back out to his illegally parked Volkswagen, she thought she knew what was in his mind: as long as he stayed close to her, he might get a line on her brother. You won’t, she thought fiercely, but at the same time she wondered how she would ever be able to keep from looking for Pierre now that she knew he dwelt in Marseille, too.
These days, the Communist Party hierarchy did not usually meet inside Peking, but out in the country. That lowered the risk of the little scaly devils wiping out the whole central committee at one stroke. The first time a meeting in a small town northwest of the city was called, Liu Han had eagerly looked forward to it, thinking it would take her back to the days of her youth and let Liu Mei see how she had lived then.
She’d ended up disappointed. Peasants hereabouts knew nothing of rice paddies like the ones she had tended near Hankow. They raised wheat and barley and millet, and ate noodles and porridge, not bowl after endless bowl of rice. The land was dry, not damp: a desert in summer, with yellow dust always in the breeze, and a frozen wasteland during the long winter.
Only one thing was the same among these peasants as among those with whom she’d grown up: their toil never ended.
Ducks and chickens and dogs and children made a racket in the narrow, dusty streets of Fengchen as Liu Han and Liu Mei came into the town in the foothills to talk with their comrades. “Eee, my feet are weary,” Liu Han said. “I feel I have walked ten thousand li.” She knew that would have taken her almost all the way across China, but wasn’t the least bit embarrassed to exaggerate.
“And mine, Mother,” Liu Mei said dutifully. She looked around. “I see no scaly devils here in Fengchen.”
“No, and I do not think you will,” Liu Han said. “There are not enough little devils for them to garrison every town. They have the same trouble the Japanese had before them, and they rule the same way: they hold down the cities and they control the roads from one city to the next. All they do-all they can do-in the countryside is raid and steal.”
“Now that they have ships landing, though, there will be more of them.” Liu Mei spoke seriously, as she usually did. When she spoke of the little scaly devils, she spoke even more seriously than usual. She rarely smiled, but her frown was fierce and stormy.
A middle-aged man came out of one of the buildings on the main street: a tavern, by the pair of drunks who snored in front of it. The man was not drunk. Though dressed in a peasant’s dark blue tunic and trousers, he carried himself with a soldier’s erectness. “Welcome,” he called. “Welcome to you both.”
“Thank you, Nieh Ho-T’ing,” Liu Han said. Liu Mei nodded a greeting.
“It is good to have you here,” Nieh said. “Mao has been asking after you. There are a couple of points on which he will be glad to have your views.” He hesitated, then went on, “And I am glad to see you, too.”
“I am always glad to see you,” Liu Han said, more or less truthfully. They had been lovers for several years, fighting the little scaly devils side by side till Mao sent Nieh Ho-T’ing to the south to command resistance against the imperialism of the scaly devils there and Liu Han stayed behind to help radicalize the proletarian women of Peking. They’d both found other partners since.
Nieh smiled at Liu Mei. “How lovely your daughter has become,” he said.
Liu Mei cast down her eyes in fitting modesty. Liu Han studied her. Her nose was too big, her face too long and narrow, her hair too wavy for her to conform to perfect Chinese standards of beauty: all tokens of her father. But Nieh was right-in her own way, she was lovely.
“So Mao is here?” Liu Han said, and Nieh Ho-T’ing nodded. “Who else?”
“Lin Piao and Chu Te from the People’s Liberation Army,” Nieh answered. “Chou Enlai has not been able to get out of the south; the little devils are being very difficult down there.” He paused, grimaced, and added, “And Hsia Shou-Tao is here with me.”
“Wherever you go, you have to bring your lapdog?” Liu Han asked, acid in her voice. Hsia Shou-Tao was a tireless and able revolutionary. He was also a tireless drinker and womanizer. He’d once tried to rape Liu Han; she still sometimes wished she’d cut his throat when she had the chance.
Nieh Ho-T’ing pointed. “We are staying at the inn yonder. They have a room waiting for the two of you.”
“Good,” Liu Han said. “When will we meet?”
Nieh chuckled. “You have not changed much, have you? Business first, everything else afterwards.” Liu Han did not answer; she stood there in the street, arms folded across her chest. Nieh shifted from foot to foot, then finally said, “We will meet tomorrow morning, early. Mao is always up early; he never sleeps well.”
“Yes, I know,” Liu Han said. She turned to her daughter. “Come on. Let’s see what kind of room it is.”
It turned out to be about what she’d expected: well away from the main hall of the lodging house (what better did women deserve?), small, dark, but with
enough blankets and with plenty of fuel for the kang, the low, thick, clay hearth on which they could lie to take greatest advantage of its warmth.
“It will be good to see Mao again,” Liu Mei said. “It has been a few years.”
“He will be glad to see you, too,” Liu Han said. She wondered just how glad Mao would be to see her daughter. He had-and, she knew, deserved-a reputation for being attracted to young girls. He was especially fond of young, ignorant peasant girls, though: to them, as leader of China’s hopes, he was the next thing to a god, or maybe not the next thing. Liu Mei had had the best education Liu Han was able to give her. She might admire and respect Mao, but she did not and would not worship him.
Liu Han had gone through a spell of worshiping Mao. She was glad she’d got over it. Some never did, not even after Mao cast them aside. Liu Han hadn’t had the sort of education she’d got for her daughter, but her own hard core of common sense had never quite deserted her: or not for long, anyhow.
Next morning, she and Liu Mei came out to have breakfast. Sitting in the main hall, chatting up a serving girl, was Hsia Shou-Tao. He scowled when Liu Han came in. He’d been subjected to stiff self-criticism any number of times, but his habits never changed.
By the way he looked at Liu Mei, he was imagining her body under her clothes. By the way he looked at Liu Han, he realized she knew what he was doing. His smile was half embarrassed, half afraid. Liu Han wished it were all afraid, but it would have to do. With it still on his face, Hsia said, “Good morning, Comrade… er, Comrades.”
“Good morning,” Liu Han said before Liu Mei could reply-she did not want her daughter speaking to the lecher. “Take me to the meeting place.”
She spoke like one who had the right to give orders. Hsia Shou-Tao obeyed as if she had that right, too. Since Liu Mei would not be at the meeting, he couldn’t try to do anything with her-or to her-for a while. And he knew better than to bother Liu Han.
