Shanghai Girls (Shanghai Girls 1)

“People say you have.”

“What people?”

The agent doesn’t answer that question. Instead he asks, “Isn’t it true you blame Chiang Kai-shek for losing your money?”

Charley scratches at his rash-covered neck and sucks on his lips.

The agent waits and then asks, “Where are your papers?”

Uncle Charley glances through the plate-glass window, looking for help, for encouragement or possible escape.

The agent—a big lo fan with sandy-colored hair and freckles on his nose and cheeks—smiles and says, “Yes, let’s go inside. I’d like to meet your family.”

The agent enters the café, and Uncle Charley follows with his head hung down. The lo fan walks right up to Sam, flashes his badge, and says in Sze Yup, “I’m Special Agent Jack Sanders. You’re Sam Louie, right?” When Sam nods, the agent goes on. “I always say there’s no point in wasting time on these things. Someone told us you used to buy the China Daily News.”

Sam stands absolutely still, measuring the stranger, thinking about his answer, emptying his face of emotion. The few customers, who can’t possibly understand the words but certainly know that the flashing badge can’t mean anything good, seemingly hold their breath to see what Sam will do.

“I bought the paper for my father,” Sam says in Sze Yup, and I see the disappointment on our customers’ faces that they aren’t going to be able to follow this as closely as they’d like. “He died five years ago.”

“That paper is sympathetic to the Reds.”

“My father read it sometimes, but he subscribed to Chung Sai Yat Po.”

“Seems like your father was sympathetic to Mao though.”

“Not at all. Why would he support Mao?”

“Then why did he buy China Reconstructs too? And why have you continued to buy it after his passing?”

I have a sudden desire to use the toilet. Sam can’t possibly answer with the truth—that his wife’s and sister-in-law’s faces have appeared on the covers of those magazines. Or does the FBI man already know that those are our faces? Or does he look at the pretty girls in the drab green uniforms with red stars on their caps and think all Chinese look alike?

“I’m told that in your living room above your couch you have pages from the magazine taped to the wall—pictures of the Great Wall and the Summer Palace.”

This means someone—a neighbor, a friend, a competitor who has been inside our home—has reported this. Why didn’t we take the pictures down after Father died?

“In his last months, my father liked to look at those attractions.”

“Maybe he had so much sympathy for Red China he wanted to go back home—”

“My father was an American citizen. He was born here.”

“Then show me his documents—”

“He’s dead,” Sam repeats, “and I don’t have them here.”

“Then perhaps I should pay a visit to your home, or would you prefer to come to our office? That way you can bring your documents too. I want to believe you, but you have to prove your innocence.”

“Prove my innocence or prove I’m a citizen?”

“They are the same, Mr. Louie.”

When I get home with Vern’s lunch, I don’t say anything to him or to Joy. I don’t want them to worry. When Joy asks if she can go out that night, I say as lightly as I can, “Fine. Just try to be back by midnight.” She thinks she’s finally triumphed over her mother, but I want her out of the house.

As soon as Sam and May come home, we strip the pictures the agent talked about off the walls. Sam bags up every copy of the China Daily News that my father-in-law saved because of some article or other. I order May to go into her drawer and pull out the magazine covers that Z.G. painted of the two of us.

“I don’t think this is necessary,” May says.

I respond sharply: “Please, for once, don’t argue with me.” When May doesn’t move, I sigh impatiently. “They’re only pictures on magazine covers. Now if you won’t get them, I will.”