Free Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones Page B

anti-Jewish laws and seized Jewish property. I plan to find my friends, and if this is true, I will bring it up with Hitler. But above all, I will persuade him to join us in opposing Japan. That’s my commitment.”
    They raised their glasses to it, and drank. “And you?” said Kung. “What is yours? You have no clan, no place to sweep the graveyard—you’re just the sort who could commit to something.”
    “Never,” Lin said.
    “Isn’t that ‘forgetting the war, forgetting the motherland’?”
    Lin shook his head. “Of course I oppose Japan without question. I am Chinese. But I serve Du, remember.”
    “You’re not a member of the Gang, are you?”
    “No.” The
Qing Bang
initiates were sworn for life. “I am his son. That’s enough.”
    “And I suppose you’ll never inherit.”
    “No.” Lin was not a real son, born neither of a
nei ren
, an inside person, a wife, nor of a concubine, nor even of a mistress—but in the lowest possible way, of a whore. And his salary was stingy, just enough to keep his small flat in Frenchtown.
    Regarding Dr. Kung across the stacked, fragrant platters, Lin remembered why Kung was under Du Yuesheng’s power too: the Green Gang and the top Nationalist leaders were bound by a blood debt. It was Du Yuesheng who had carried out the 1927 Shanghai massacre that wiped out many high-level Communist leaders, lured to Shanghai by the Nationalists through the promise of peaceful talks. The bloodbath had cemented the power of the Nationalist clique and ended the Communists’ long-term status as a legitimate wing of the Nationalist Party. Everything changed for the Communists then as they were driven underground, at least in the cities. In the countryside, they pulled back to Jiangxi, where Chiang’s armies encircled them and drove them out. From there they set out on a long march to Shaanxi Province in north China, where they consolidated their new headquarters and continued to fight the Japanese.
    It was thanks to Du Yuesheng that the Communists had been driven out of the true government, and the highest Nationalist officials would always be in his pocket because of it. Moreover, they were all a family, the Nationalist leaders, related by marriage to the Soong sisters. Soong Mei-ling was the wife of Chiang Kai-shek, Soong Ai-ling was Kung’s wife, and Soong Qing-ling the widow of Sun Yat-sen. Their brother T. V. Soong was a former top Finance official. They brought the sense of a dynasty to the leadership of the Nationalist Party, and it seemed to cement their absolute power despite the fact that the Imperial system had fallen back in 1911. Whatever the case, they held China’s reins, and as a family had grown fabulously rich—yet still they had to appease Du.
    They also did not seem to be able to stop Japan. The fact that they had relocated their Nationalist government south to Nanjing and also prudently moved 640,000 priceless art treasures out of the Forbidden City seemed to signal that they expected Peking and Tianjin to fall to Japan. Would the enemy be allowed to occupy these cities, unopposed? If so, Shanghai would be next.
    “If they take us,” Lin said, “the night-world will wither and die faster than you can turn a head. The clubs, the money, the jazz—it will all be finished.”
    “Along with everything else,” said Kung. “On that day there will be gloom in heaven and darkness below. That is why I must go to Moscow and Berlin and London, and you, my friend”—Kung’s eyes ticked up, and Lin could see, behind his round glasses, the flicker of Christian compassion—“you must not interfere if they have a clear shot at Morioka. Do you understand? Even if he happens to be standing next to one of your men.”
    Lin’s face hardened into a mask to cover the roiling sea of his awareness. This was the end of his fragile equilibrium.
    “Agreed?”
    Lin lowered his eyes. “Agreed,” he lied.
     
    That Friday was Du Taitai’s regular visit from Dr. Feng. Song