Chapter Thirty-Two — 76 Jessfield Road
Thursday night, the eleventh of November, into the morning of Friday the twelfth.
76 Jessfield Road was the villa at the corner of Jessfield Road and the alley in the boundary zone the Settlement Council had called the extra-Settlement roads area. It had been built in 1924 by a French silk merchant of forty named Vauclin, who had taken his wife and three children back to Lyon in May of 1937 on the French liner Athos II and had left the villa, with its three floors of red brick and its second-floor balcony at the West and its small French garden at the gate, to the Japanese consulate at Wuhan Road for what the consulate had called a consideration of long-standing friendship. The consideration had been twelve thousand silver dollars in a black leather case, set on the second sideboard at the foyer at three in the afternoon on the third Wednesday of April, by a clerk of the consulate of thirty-six in a dark blue suit. Vauclin had taken the case to the second branch of the Banque de l'Indochine. The villa had become, by the second Friday of May, the second house of the Imperial Japanese Navy's intelligence section in Shanghai.
By November the consulate had set, at the second floor, two interrogation rooms; at the third floor, six cells; at the basement, the third room one did not speak of.
The Major set his gloved right hand at the door. The door was the door of the foyer, with the small brass bell-pull at the right and the small brass knocker at the left and the second oak panel at the centre. He opened it. He went in. I went in with the two MPs of the Imperial Japanese Navy Special Landing Force.
The interior was the interior of Vauclin of three months ago — the parquet floor laid in 1924 in the chevron pattern Vauclin had brought back from a hotel at Aix-les-Bains; the Persian carpet at the centre, a Tabriz of perhaps 1900 with the small medallion at the second border; the mahogany hat stand at the corner with the small brass hooks where Vauclin had hung his three felt hats. The hat stand, this evening, held a single naval cap of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the second hook. The carpet, by half past ten in the evening of the eleventh of November of 1937, had the small dark stain at the third corner that had not been there on the second Friday of May. I did not look at the stain.
The foyer had at the East end the stair to the second floor at the mahogany banister Vauclin had had cut from a single piece of Pingyang pine and stained the second mahogany red. The stair was the stair.
The Major went up. I went up with the two MPs.
At the second floor the corridor was forty feet from the stair to the East end. The wallpaper was a dark green damask Vauclin's wife had hung in the second autumn of 1925. It had faded, in the eleven years since, to the small flat green of a Settlement constable's coat at the fourth year of his service. The third sconce on the right was lit. The first, second, and fourth sconces were not.
At the East end of the corridor the door of the interrogation room was at the door.
The Major opened it. He went in. I went in. The two MPs stayed at the corridor.
The interrogation room was a carpeted room of fourteen feet by twelve, with the single overhead light at the ceiling at seven feet from the floor. The light was a small brass fixture the consulate had put in in May, with a frosted glass shade that softened the bulb to a small flat yellow. The carpet was a Khorasan of perhaps 1928, of a dull red the consulate had bought from the second dealer at Bubbling Well in the third week of May.
At the centre was the wooden table at four feet by two, with the chair at the East side and the chair at the West side. The table was a plain oak of the kind the consulate ordered in lots of six from a furniture dealer at the corner of Nanjing Road and Sichuan Road N. The chairs were the same.
At the East corner was the stenographer's wooden desk and the stenographer. The stenographer was a Japanese man of thirty in the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Navy Special Landing Force at the second class. He had on the round wire glasses of a stenographer of thirty. He had at the desk the typewriter of the Underwood, and the second stack of typing paper, and a small carafe of water and a glass beside it.
The Major went to the chair at the East side. He sat. I sat at the West.
The Major set both his gloved hands at the table. He looked at me for the count of nine.
He said: I am required to ask three questions. I will ask them in the order the orders have set. The first question is the name of the man who taught you the third verse.
I said: My brother. In 1925. My brother. Shen Ahuai. From Wuxian. He was nineteen. My brother died in 1927. You came late, Major.
He did not say anything for the count of nine.
He said: The first question.
I said: I have answered it.
He said: The first question is the question of the man who taught you the third verse.
I said: My brother. Ask the second question.
He looked at the stenographer at the East corner. The stenographer set his hands at the keys. The Underwood gave the small dry tick of an Underwood about to type. It did not, in the second second, type.
The Major said: The second question. The name of the man at the piano.
I said: My brother. In 1925. At the harmonium at the parlor at the corner of the second lane in Wuxian on the afternoon of the third Sunday of August of 1925.
He said: The second question.
I said: I have answered it.
He set his gloved right hand at the table. He set the gloved left hand beside it. He looked at the third button of my collar for the count of nine, the way a Major of the Imperial Japanese Navy at the second hour of an interrogation looked at a button when he had been refused, in his preferred grammar, three times.
He said: The third question. The third question is the question of the names. The names you have sung on the inaugural broadcast. The seven names. Where did you get them.
I said: I got them from my brother's letter of the eighth of April of 1927.
He said: The letter of the eighth of April of 1927 had two names. The seven had seven. Where did you get the other five.
I said: From the country.
He said: Where did you get the other five.
I said: From the country at the mistake of a Chinese pilot at the altitude at the hour of noon on the second Saturday of August who had dropped the stick at the wrong corner. From the country at the checkpoint of a Japanese marine of nineteen at half past two on the morning of the second Wednesday of September who had fired through the side of the rickshaw of Mr. Wang the rickshaw man. From the country at the third printing press at Zhabei on the second Saturday of February of 1934 at half past three when the country had set the door. From the country at the East gate at Longhua at the hour of dawn on the twelfth of April of 1927 when the country had set the forty-two names. I have answered the third question.
He looked at the stenographer.
The stenographer set his hands at the keys without typing.
He said: I will ask the three questions again. Three more times.
The Major asked the first question three more times. I answered the first question three more times with the answer of my brother. The Major asked the second question two more times. I answered the second question two more times with the answer of my brother. The Major asked the third question three more times. I answered the third question three more times with the answer of the country.
The hour of the third hour of the interrogation was the hour of one o'clock on the morning of the twelfth of November of 1937.
I had, by the third hour, become aware of the small ordinary fact of the room: that the room was at the East end of the second floor of a villa Vauclin had built in 1924; that the room had a single overhead light at the ceiling and a wooden table at the centre and a stenographer at the East corner; that the small carafe of water at the stenographer's desk had been set there, by the stenographer, at half past nine; that the water in the carafe had not been touched. I would, at the second hour, have thought about the water. By the third hour I had stopped thinking about the water. The water was the water.
The Major sat for the count of nine. He stood. He went to the door. He turned. He set his right hand at the doorframe. He looked at me.
He said: You should have let me love you.
I said: You should not have asked.
He did not say anything for the count of nine.
He said: I am leaving. I am not the man at the interrogation at the second hour.
I said: No.
He said: I will not come back. I will send another. I am sorry, Miss Su.
I said: Goodbye, Major.
The Major went.
The stenographer took the stack of typed paper from the typewriter. He stood. He set the small carafe of water at the second shelf at the West wall. He took his hat from the third hook. He went out.
The interrogation room at quarter past one on the morning of the twelfth of November of 1937 was the interrogation room.
I sat at the chair. I set both my hands at the table. I looked at my hands.
The hands were the hands of a Suzhou-born singer of twenty-three at the table at 76 Jessfield Road at quarter past one on the morning of the twelfth of November of 1937. The left hand had on the wrist the small silver bracelet Auntie Lin had given me at eighteen. The right hand had at the pad below the thumb the small thin red mark that had not, in five weeks since the slap at the brick room, fully gone. The hands were mine.
I did not, in the count of fifteen minutes the room gave me, weep. I had wept on the second Sunday of August at the cot at the brick room. I had wept on the morning of the twenty-eighth of September at the bed at the third floor at the East end of the French Hospital. I had used, in those two weepings, the third quota of weeping a singer of twenty-three was, by my private grammar, allowed. The third quota was the quota. The quota was at the table.
I thought, instead, about the count of nine. The count of nine had been, for fourteen months, the count Feng Sheng had taught me at the brick room — four counts in, six counts out — and had been, in the second translation, the count of his silences, which always lasted nine. I would, this evening, keep the count. I would, in any room of this villa, keep the count. The count of nine was the count of the brick room. The brick room was the brick room.
At half past one the door opened.
The door let in a Japanese officer of forty-two in the uniform of the Imperial Japanese Navy Special Landing Force at the rank of Lieutenant Commander. He had on the small flat expression of an officer of forty-two who had been told, at the second hour of the second night of the second hand-off, that the second interrogation was to begin at half past one. He had on the second cap of the Force at the second hook. He had on the gloves of black leather.
He did not say his name.
He sat. He set the leather case at the table. He opened it.
I will not write down what was in the leather case.
I will not write down what the officer of forty-two did with the tools at the leather case.
I will not write down what the officer of forty-two asked. The officer asked, in his Japanese-accented Mandarin, the three questions the Major had asked, in a different order, and in a different phrasing, and at the second hour at a different pitch. I answered, each time, with the same two answers — my brother and the country — and the officer of forty-two, at the third repetition of the second answer, set the tools of the leather case at the table.
I will not write down what I answered. I have written above what I answered to the three questions in the first form. I answered the same to the three questions in the second form. I answered the same to the three questions in the third form.
I will not write down what I did not answer. There were questions the officer of forty-two asked, in the fourth, fifth, and sixth askings, that I did not answer. They concerned the second man at the brick room, the second engineer at the Pathé studio, the second carpenter at the Paramount basement, the second cousin at the rail-line office, the second journalist at the Long Bar, the second Portuguese boyfriend at the Sikorsky. I did not answer them. The not-answering was a different shape than the answering. The not-answering had a different breath. The not-answering was the breath he had taught me — four counts in, six counts out — held at the rib without lifting the shoulder. I held the breath.
I will not write down the sound my own breath made at the interval of two counts in and two counts out. There was, at the second hour, an interval of two and two. There was, before the interval of two and two, an interval of three and three. The interval of three and three was the interval of a singer who had been asked, by an officer of forty-two, a question to which her answer was my brother. The interval of two and two was the interval after.
I will not write down what the left wrist did when the officer of forty-two set the pliers at the distance of the interval between the second knuckle and the third knuckle. The left wrist did what a left wrist did. The left wrist was at the third knuckle the bracelet Auntie Lin had given me at eighteen. The bracelet, when the wrist broke, did not break. The bracelet held. The bracelet was the bracelet.
The left wrist broke.
The sound of the left wrist breaking was the sound.
I had not, by my own counting, given the name of Lu Jiyuan.
I had not given the name of Mendelsohn.
I had not given the name of Mr. Hu the carpenter at the Paramount basement.
I had not given the name of Liang.
I had given, by the officer of forty-two's third asking, only the name I had sung.
The name was: my brother. In 1927.
The officer of forty-two set the pliers at the leather case. He closed the leather case. He set his gloved right hand at the table, the way a man set a hand at a table after he had decided that the table had given what the table was, in the second night of the second night of the second night, going to give. He said, in his Japanese-accented Mandarin: That is enough for tonight.
I said nothing.
He stood. He took the leather case. He went out.
The two MPs at the corridor came in. They set their hands at my arms. They took me down the corridor to the stair to the third floor.
At the third floor at the East end of the corridor the door of the cell was at the door. The cell was the second cell from the East end. The cell at the East end was the cell of Mr. Pang the Yu Garden tea-house proprietor, whose name had been the sixth on the third verse and who had been brought, by the Major's order at half past nine in the evening of the eleventh, to 76 Jessfield Road for a second consideration. The cell at the East end, by the second sound at half past two, was no longer the cell of Mr. Pang.
The two MPs set me at the stone floor of the cell.
The cell was eight feet by six. The walls were brick, painted a small flat white in 1924. The East wall had a barred window at the height of seven feet from the stone floor. The window was nine inches by twelve, with three small iron bars and a small wooden shutter on the outside that had not, in the third year of the consulate's tenancy, been closed.
The two MPs closed the door.
The cell at the hour of dawn on the morning of the twelfth of November of 1937 was the cell.
I set my right hand at my broken left wrist. The wrist had at the third knuckle the bracelet. The bracelet was cold. The wrist was hot. The hot of the wrist set the cold of the bracelet at the small careful contrast a hot wrist and a cold bracelet would set, at half past two on the morning of the twelfth of November, in a cell at the third floor of 76 Jessfield Road.
I set my back against the East wall under the barred window. The wall was cold. The cold went through the silver gala qipao at the seam of the back. I closed my eyes.
I held the count of nine.
The first count was for Pearl, at fourteen minutes past three on the morning of the fourth Tuesday of September of 1937.
The second count was for Auntie Lin, at noon on the second Saturday of August of 1937.
The third count was for Shen Ahuai, at dawn on the twelfth of April of 1927.
The fourth count was for An Wenjing, at the third day of February of 1934.
The fifth count was for the four other names the second appendix of the diary at the lacquer box had held, in the count of two years and seven months, in the small unhurried tick of the living kept for the dead.
The sixth count was for Mr. Hu the carpenter at the Paramount basement, who was, at the hour, sleeping on a cot at the corner of the cold-storage room with the dust-grey sparrow on his shoulder.
The seventh count was for Mendelsohn at the second floor of the red-brick building at the corner of Avenue du Roi Albert and Avenue Joffre, who was, at the hour, sitting at the small wooden table at the second corner of the pressing room with the round wire glasses set on the table and the pocket handkerchief with the embroidered M at the corner unfolded at his right hand.
The eighth count was for Lu Jiyuan, who was, at the hour, at the brick room under the Paramount, sitting at the bench of the Bechstein with both bare hands at the keyboard palm-down, waiting for the count of nine to give him permission to do what he had decided, by the third Wednesday of November, to do.
The ninth count was for me.
The cell did not say anything.
The cell said nothing.