CHAPTER IX

Liu could not remember who it was ---- some old Chinese writer — who had said about the unhappiness of leaving someone you cared for, "Even if I go to the ends. of the earth, I will be sleepwalking-" There was an unsee­ing, unfeeling grayness in going among strangers- And in his case they would have to remain strangers because he dared not really talk to any one. The things he was experiencing in Shanghai now only became real to him when he pictured himself telling them to Su Nan. Not in his letters, of course, but some day, when he saw her again. It got so that sometimes right in the middle of an event, while it was still happening, he could hear his own voice telling her about it-
There was that time he had gone to the office of the Liberation Daily Newc, the biggest newspaper in Shang hai. His own office, the Resist-America Aid-Korea Association, had sent him there to ask for some photos of American atrocities in Korea. They had wanted the pic­tures for the China Pictorial. Comrade Ko Shan, the head of the Reference Department at the Liberation Daily News, had told him to wait while she went to look for them in the reference room.
A Chinese typewriter tapped slowly and hesitantly in the next room. Desk phones kept ringing. Employees rushed around, light on their feet, bending over to whis­per to colleagues at other desks- The room was dark be­cause it was so big- All the desk-lamps had already been turned on. On Comrade Ko's desk the lamp under its green glass shade shone full on a bright pink blotter, a large pink rectangle as spotlessly clean as a woolen sam­ple, only much larger.
"Looks like the Reference Department hasn't got much work to do," Liu told himself while waiting.
From what he had heard, there wasn't much to do at any of the newspapers, though it was hard to believe that, when witnessing the scene of hushed activity around him. All the news was supplied by the Hsin Hua News Agency. It was easy for the editors; even the headlines were sup­plied. Reporters had become obsolete. They could not interview important personages and were not wanted at law courts and scenes of murders, rapes and robberies be­cause the papers no longer carried such stories on the :assumption that these things were just not done any more.
Liu supposed that it was the same in all the big organizations. He could not say he was exactly over­worked even if the hours were long. Much of the time was spent in meetings and waiting around for meetings and in Self-Improvement. He had to start out for the office at six o'clock in the morning to attend the News­paper-reading Class at seven, one hour before going to the office.
Liu had been sitting by 'the desk for a long time. He looked across the vast room. The green desk lamps seemed to float in the semi-darkness like lotus lanterns set drifting over water on the fifteenth night of the seventh moon, All Souls' Eve. Then he saw Ko Shan coming in, walking among the green lamps- He was sur­prised that she reminded him strongly of some stage or film actress he had seen, though he could not place the actress at the moment.. Perhaps it was just her carriage, the combination of self-possession and self-consciousness peculiar to actresses.
She had one of those pretty moon-faces hollowed out at the cheeks. Her eyes under half-closed lids had what was traditionally known as the smoky look — as if veiled by smoke or distance. Her hair had been premed but she had allowed it to grow long and straight and merely push­ed it behind her ears. It fell over her shoulders in rum­pled half curls. A green-striped shirt collar showed above her dark blue double-breasted Lenin Suit, slim and belted, with trousers.
She did not fit in with his idea of an old kan-pu. But she was certainly holding too responsible a position for a new recruit. Of course you could not tell. Sophistication in appearance could also be a mark of rank. Some of the men kan-pu above a certain rank had dropped their uniforms for foreign suits and the women had blossomed out with new perms and colorful Russian shawls- But he doubted that Ko Shan was that important.
After she sat down at the desk he realized why he hadt not thought she looked anything extraordinary when he first saw her. In the bright light of the table-lamp she looked rather faded and drawn and was only pretty on and off, in flashes, with a toss of her head, a smile or glance.
She sat looking over the photographs before she pass­ed them to him. They were good clear snapshots, dark in tone, with an air of authenticity. The first picture showed a soldier standing with hands on hips beside a tree. He was visibly blond. A half-naked woman was tied to the tree- Another soldier was bending over, pick­ing up twigs to pile at her feet, apparently to build a fire.
Liu turned the picture this way and that in the lamp­light, examing it closely. If there were signs of faking he could not see them. "How in the world did they manage to get this picture? It's very valuable --- just what we need" he said.
"German soldiers- That's all we've got here," she said carelessly, without smiling.
"German soldiers?" He was slightly bewildered. "During the War against Fascism."
"Yes- You'll have to make the woman's hair darker," she pointed at it with . her pencil. "It doesn't look very black."
The woman in the picture looked distinctly Cauca­sian. "Where was this? In Europe?" Liu asked, and at once realized the superfluity of .his question when she just ignored it.
"The hair will have to be darkened. And you'll have to make some small changes in the soldiers' uniforms," she said- "Here's a picture from a foreign magazine of Ameri­can soldiers drilling. The uniform is shown quite clearly. You can refer to it." -
"But --" He did not know what to say. "We haven't got anybody who can retouch photos," he finally said-
"It doesn't take an expert," Ku Shan said, smiling. "Even the professional retouch man at the photographer's can only draw eyelashes on women's eyes, one by one, like rays of the sun in children's drawings. Not much use in this case."
Liu was silent as he flipped through the half dozen pictures.
"Let's see the first one again," Ko Shan said. "Oh, yes          she tapped on the woman's breasts with her pencil eraser. "You can blacken this part to show that these have been cut off-"
"Blacken it — entirely?" Liu said uncertainly. He imagined it would look like a black brassiere he'd seen the lacquered girls wear in the ads in the second-hand American picture magazines he used to look at once in a while when he was a student. But he was too embar­rassed to tell this to the woman officer he stood beside. He looked down at the part in her hair and saw the white skin underneath.
"Well, perhaps not entirely. In big blotches, maybe, so it will look like bleeding wounds. Use a bit of imagina­tion."
Seeing that he still looked troubled, she added reas­suringly, "It really doesn't matter how you do it. You know how our printing is at its present stage, making great strides but still room for improvement. The picture will probably come out blurred enough so that you won't be able to tell what it's all about. You'll have to rely mainly on the caption. The caption has got to be arresting and to the point-"
"Yes, of course," Liu murmured as he wrapped up the photos.
Ko Shan tilted her head back and looked at him with a half smile, her eyes pale and distant. "Maybe you think: what's the difference between this and the lies and distor­tions of the imperialists?"
"Of course there's a difference," Liu said blushing. "Well, what's the difference?"
"A difference in the essential nature of the act." Sometimes it was best to be brief with an air of finality.
She continued to look at him with a faint smile. He was beginning to think that he would have to do better than that. But then she dropped her eyes to the rubber tip of her pencil with which she was tapping the table. "Yes," she said, adopting that flat casual tone which Liu found seasoned Communists often employed when they did not wish to sound preachy. "First of all, we definitely know that the atrocities of American soldiers in Korea are absolutely a fact. And when we publicize that fact, it's not enough just to rely on verbal reports. The Masses demand that reports should be -- you know — Concrete-sized. Therefore photos are necessary."
"Right- Z agree with you completely." Putting the pictures away quickly, Liu stood up to go.
She remained seated, eyeing him in a half-smiling appraisal. Liu again wondered how she stood in the Party, whether she was in a position to comment on him to his superiors, adding some damaging remark to his record.
Quite abruptly she held out a hand across her desk, half rising, flashing at him a Party-mannered smile, wide, bright and warm, clean to the point of being sterilized. "We'll keep in touch," she said.