CHAPTER XXV

Ko Shan was not sure if she had been wakened by the sound of knocking. She lay still on her back listening. Sleep sat comfortably on her forehead in a big dark block, a heavy lid that did not close properly, leaving a chink of light, a rustling consciousness all round, from ear to ear.
Yes, it was someone knocking.
"Come in!" she called out. But of course you could not hear from outside. Such a bore — somebody afraid to open the door by himself and just walk in- The politely waiting silence irritated her- She stared up at the round patch of sunlight on the ceiling reflected from the hand-mirror laying on her table. A drinking glass on the mirror made a shadow up there, a whorled dark spot in the ghostly yellow moon on the white ceiling. The sunlight in the room made her feel idly unhappy. There was no longer any need to draw the curtains at night. Her private life had been exemplary ever since the Three Anti. And it had been going on for months. She was used to those periodical movements for Gheng Fen,;, Sprucing up Styles of Behavior. Like illnesses, they came as suddenly as an avalanche and left, as slowly as pulling an interminable thread. out of a fabric. She felt quite resigned, being used to them. But there came a time in life when a woman's looks were not going to survive many such. movements.
Another series of patient little raps on the door. "Come in!" she shouted, knowing it was useless- She supposed she had to get up. Investigations were still going on at her office in connection. with Yuin Yih-ch'un. For all she knew she might be wanted for questioning. Yawning, she pulled on her padded uniform, holding the unbuttoned front with one hand and giving the door a violent pull with the other.
 "Ah, it's you, Comrade Su!" she said, smiling hazily. With her surprise came a feeling of annoyance that was quite impersonal and purely a matter of habit- She did not like to be spied upon even if she happened to have nobody with her. "The little sneak," she thought, and then, automatically with traditional hospitality said, "Why, come in and sit down!"
She offered Su Nan a chair, first snatching away some clothes- And she rinsed a glass, put in a pinch of tea leaves and made tea for her with water out of a thermos. While going through the customary motions of a hostess she did not hear Su Nan make any protests, which was rather unusual behavior. The girl was looking odd too. Ko Shan regarded her with sudden interest, having remembered by now that she had heard quite a lot about her during the last few weeks. The Liberation Daily News had never stopped its news-gathering, fact-finding activities even with Yuin gone, like some amazingly efficient worm with its head cut off. Not national or international news, of which the New China Press had the sole monopoly. But the kind of news and gossip about sister organizations which were of vital concern to Yuin and his staff.
Ko Shan had managed somehow to keep up her contacts in spite of the fact that she and her colleagues had become temporary untouchables with the scandal about their chief. She had friends over in Wen Wei Pao and was interested to learn that, some time after she had arranged for Su Nan's interview with Sheng Kai-fu, the girl had disappeared. She had been absent from office without leave and did not return to her hostel. There had been cases. of kan - pa deserting their posts but right now this was virtually impossible. No traveling permits were being issued with the Three Anti and Five Anti on- It could be that she was in hiding somewhere in the city on account of some crime as yet undetected. The only other possibility was that a secret arrest had been made.
After a fortnight of wild conjectures and re-examination of her records, though she had already passed the Three Anti test, she suddenly turned up again with some unlikely tale of having been ill and staying with a friend. The Organization was seriously looking into her case. Then to everybody's surprise the investigations were mysteriously dropped and nothing more was said of the matter-
Ko Shan thought she had a pretty good idea of what had happened. She was anxious now to have her guesses confirmed. "How are you?" she said smiling, buttoning up her padded jacket and pulling the belt tight.
"I'm sorry I woke you up," Su Nan said, then explained in a rush, "I got your address, from somebody who knows you — not from your office, so I hope it's all right."
 "Why, I thought you had my address! I was always asking Liu Ch'uen why you never came to see me." Then her voice dropped and her face fell with sudden concern.
"Any news about Liu? He's not out yet, is he?"
Su Nan shook her head with a half smile that looked strangely mocking. She held the glass of tea with both hands to warm herself, looking at the pale steam that rose in front of her face like incense before an idol. She looked as if she would have been stone-cold, without breath, but for the tea which was breathing steamily for both of them.
"Did you go and see Sheng Kai-fu?" Ko Shan whispered.
"Yes," Su Nan said, clearing her throat. With Ko Shan waiting expectantly she finally added, "He said it's a serious case. Something to do with Tsui P'ing."
Ko Shan clicked her tongue with an air of helpless distaste and impatience. "That's just his luck," she said frowning, "to be working under Tsui, of all people. It's hard to work for anybody without getting involved in his business."
"Sheng told me he'd get him out if I promised never to see him again," Su Nan said-
Ko Shan looked at her blankly. She stopped speaking; evidently some comment was called for. Ko Shan offered her a cigarette instead and when she declined it, took one herself.
"I insisted on seeing Liu for the last time, so he arranged for me to go and see him," Su Nan said.
"At the Murkhead Road jail? But absolutely no visitors are allowed there. For the Three Anti prisoners, that is," Ko Shan said gently, as if helpfully pointing out a discrepancy in her story.
"Well, I went there. And I saw him. That was on the third day of the Chinese New Year," Su Nan said, suddenly rattled and angry because she had to argue over even such a small point.
Ko Shan did not say anything.

"He was supposed to be released the next day. But he wasn't," she added quickly, defensively. "I was going to make sure that I saw it with my own eyes. I thought I might sit in a parked car and watch him walk out of the prison gate without being seen."
She broke off again guiltily, looking away from Ko Shan. "I was going to insist on that point, but I was really in no position to bargain." She talked fast as if she had learned the piece by rote and would forget if she did not get it out fast enough. "I went to Sheng's office and he kept me there in that house for two days- Then his car took me to an apartment on Avenue Petain- All this time I didn't get a chance to see anybody or speak to anybody. He said I could go about free once he felt he could trust me. But not just yet. He said he didn't trust me a bit with Liu released and at large."
Ko Shan sat on her bed, leaning on the foot board,. puffing her cigarette- The wary reserve on her face had given way to growing astonishment and indignation which were meant to be taken as an .expression of sympathy but could just as well be taken as protest against this gross libel against a shoo chang.
"A week later he stopped coming to the apartment," Su Nan said. "After another week my keepers told me the place was being turned into an office. So I just walked out and nobody stopped me-
"Of course as soon as I got out I found out that Liu. never had been released- I tried to reach Sheng but he wouldn't see me. I couldn't even get him on the phone. I tried and tried. I was frantic."
That was why her superiors had dropped the investigations on her disappearance, Ku Shan thought. She had probably been haunting Sheng's office openly and ringing him up twenty times a day on public telephones.
"I stood waiting for hours outside his office, trying to waylay his car. But he had several and all their cars have those blue cloth curtains down. The sentry at the gate must think I'm out of my mind- Maybe I am."
Pink rings had appeared around. her eyes which were quickly filling with tears. And almost immediately her upper lip turned blotchy red and swollen as if she had been crying for hours.
Thinking how plain she looked for a girl that someone as important as Sheng seemed to have taken considerable trouble over, Ko Shan turned away a little to rearrange idly the towels and stockings draped, over the foot of the bed. It must have been a double blow to her - to be kicked out by Shang as well as discovering he had fooled her about Liu. She was probably all ready to settle down as Sheng's mistress- With those girls possession is nine-tenths of the law. These half baked new .kan-pu were actually no different from housewives- You might truly say of them that the shortest way to a woman's heart was through the vagina.
"Comrade Ku, you've got to help me reach him. I'm not going to make a scene or anything. All I want is to ask him to carry out his promise. Please. You've got to help me."
Was Su Nan implying that she was obliged to help because it was she who introduced Sheng to her? When Ko Shan spoke she weighed. her words, frowning deeply. "Really, I don't know what to say. I would have minded my own business last time you came to me, only you just wouldn't take no for an answer, you remember. But this time I'm really at the end of my wits. There's just nothing I can do."
"Isn't there any way to get in touch with him at all?"
"There must be, but I'm not the person to do it. You
see, we're in trouble right now - I guess you've heard.
Over in our office. I don't expect you realize the seriousness of the situation."
"Yes, I know." After a pause she said, "I know it's a lot to ask."
"It just can't be done. And even if I do manage to get in touch with Sheng, I won't know what to say to him. No matter how tactfully I put it, it would amount to the same thing. It's a serious business, you know, to charge a shou chang with a thing like that- Especially with the Three Anti on."
Su Nan said nothing.
"I'm not doubting your words," Ko Shan added soothly. "I can see you've been through a lot and your nerves are all shot to pieces. But since you've already made one mistake, it's best to be careful over your next step, don't you think? Rashness might get you into serious trouble."
It took Su Nan a minute to grasp her meaning. "Yes, Sheng won't like it, I know — the way I try so hard to get hold of him- People will talk."
Ko Shan nodded. "Sheng's always been very careful with his reputation," she said daintily, enunciating every word with care. "That's why I just can't understand how such a thing could happen."
"He shouldn't have let me out alive then," Su Nan said violently. "Well, he could still have me murdered. Easily. I really don't care what happens to me. The only thing is — Liu's still inside there." When Ko Shan did not answer she asked, suddenly nervous, "You don't think anything has happened to him, do you?"
"I really don't know what to think- As I said, the whole thing's fantastic. But from what you said, it seems that Sheng's not serious. Then I don't suppose he'll do anything about Liu one way or the other."
It would sound so silly if she were to argue that Sheng had been serious about her. He had told her about his wife, a survivor of the Long March and at present one of the vice presidents of the National Women's Association in Peking, a very active and influential woman- The Central Committee of the Party would never give permission for him to divorce her. Su Nan would have to remain under cover. But he wanted her to know it was for always. Only he had to be sure she would have nothing to do with Liu from now on, never see him again or write him-
He had said such a lot of unnecessary things, for one in his position- All lies, it seemed, in the light of his subsequent behavior. Maybe he had thought it would please her, not knowing that it only made her feel worse to know that she was tied to him for life. Though it also could be that he really meant it at the time and just changed his mind afterwards.
She did not want to tell Ko Shan any of this- It would only make her appear a bigger fool than size was- Perhaps she could have managed things better if shy had not felt en completely overwhelmed by the giving away of herself, though it had seemed to her then that she could not have acted otherwise.
She turned toward the window- Sensing that she was crying, Ko Shan came and stood beside her, leaning against the sill. The alley was quiet in the afternoon sun with most of the people away at work. In the old brick house opposite, the window kept banging in a deserted room. Brown-framed, tall and narrow, it was swinging slowly outward with determined abandon, grimly pulling itself short and swinging back again, painfully, for the inevitable jarring bang. It banged many times before either of them spoke.
Somewhere in the city a cock was crowing, so far away it was a mere high pitched creak, almost inaudible. To Su Nan the sleepy, plodding normality of the afternoon was unbearable. It discredited her story as much as

Ko Shan's attitude did. On such an afternoon in an alley like this the world of the chou chang seemed hardly possible- — Not that there was anything extraordinary on  the surface- The steam-heated rooms were quietly furnished and there was none of the cluttered profusion of a rich man's house. Things and people were produced instantaneously or whisked away out of sight at wish as by some efficient genii.
All that had happened to her there rose up uncontrollably inside her, goaded by the disbelief. The present just floated past her in pale misty puffs, vaguely annoy-. ing, like Ko Shan's cigarette smoke in the sunlight- Only the glass of hot tea against her palm felt real. And the tea was already cooling, the heat fading away to become as inpalpable as the thin warmth of the sun upon her.
There was another thing she had to speak of before she went. By now she knew it was useless asking Ko Shan anything- But since she had told her so much already, she might .as well say it- And it was easier somehow with Ko Shan standing so close.
"I've got to have an abortion-"
Ko Shan made a face of pained half-laughter. "You're certainly in a mess-"
"Please help me to find a doctor willing to do it- Please. You know more people than I do, Comrade Ko. Won't you try and find a doctor for me?"
"But that's against the law."
"I know, but lots of woman comrades do that, don't they? When the situation makes it necessary."
"That was before," Ko Shan said a little indignantly, "when everybody had to be on the move all the time- In the army or the underground. Now it's different. The People's Government doesn't allow it."
"Yes, but actually - at least here in Shanghai, where lots of irregular things are still going on —" Su Nan said hesitantly.
"Not this. Now you'd better drop the idea," Ko Shan said firmly in her best Big Old Sister manner. "I should think the best thing to do under the circumstances is to ask for sick leave, go somewhere quiet and have the baby. Do you think you can confide in your family?"
"I've already written home saying I have to have an operation," Su Nan said stubbornly, looking away. "They'll raise the money somehow."
"It's not a question of money. I doubt you can get anybody to do it for you."
"I have to have it. Soon. Please! Please help me! I haven't told anybody else about this."
It was on the tip of Ko Shan's tongue to ask her what made her think that she, Ko Shan, was the person to go to in a case like this. She wondered again how much Liu had told her- No, maybe she didn't need to be told. The furor at the Three Anti Confessional Meeting must be all over town-
Anyhow, all other considerations apart, she did not see why she should introduce Su Nan to an abortionist and prove beyond a doubt that she was well-acquainted with such practices. "I certainly feel honored because you trust me more than anybody else," she said smiling. "That's why I have no choice but to advise you to the best of my knowledge. Really — why don't you go into the country somewhere and stay there for several months until it's all over? That ought to be easily arranged, especially if you're going to receive money from your family-"
"I can't do that-"
She's thinking of the possibility of Liu coming out of prison, Ko Shan thought with relish. The best part about this business was that much of it had happened by itself. She had not gone out of her way to arrange it. It

proved once again to Ku Shan's own satisfaction that it was not in her to be jealous. She wouldn't have bothered if Su Nan hadn't pestered her so- Then she did have some vague idea of killing two birds with one stone -- introducing the girl to Sheng and getting Liu out. It's true that the girl had bungled her part of the job. At worst it might even cost Liu his life- But if anything could reconcile Ko Shan to his death it would be the thought that his girl had killed him through her stupidity.
Things were going her way so smoothly, swimmingly, it was enough to frighten anybody who had had any experience in life. — How long ago was it when Liu had spoken to her about Su Nan, right in this room — spoken as if it
 was something beyond her understanding, the cozy little igloo of their love, made of ice but warm and homey within and frozen hard to the ground, as firm as part of the living rock. Where would they be now when he came out of prison, if he ever did? How she wished he would, if only for the inevitable confrontation. She could very well imagine it, even if she probably wouldn't get to see it. But Liu was such a fool, she wouldn't be surprised if he sat beside Su Nan holding her hand when she was big with another man's child. It made such a funny picture that she had to lean outside the window, flicking ashes off her cigarette, to hide her smile. The smile passed, casting a shadow where she had felt pleasure just a moment before-
The girl was sobbing. Ko Shan put a hand on her shoulder 'without saying anything and distinctly felt her shudder- Instantly offended, she withdrew her hand, being more susceptible to this revulsion of the flesh than any insult.
But Su Nan was not really thinking of her. Any touch was repellent right now, even that of the filmy sunlight on her head and face, because she felt ill. There was im¬

patience in the feverish dryness of her skin and hair. Another time was ticking inside her, faster than the clock. "I've got to be going," she said.
"Do take care of yourself, and try not to worry too. much," Ko Shan said. "After all, to a kan-pu, personal affairs are always of secondary importance, compared to work. If you have difficulty getting your sick leave, let me know and I'll see what I can do -- I know some people. in your office," she volunteered, to soften her refusal to' help in other respects: And she knew that would not be necessary. Su Nan's superiors would be only too glad to let her go, seeing that she was in such a state and liable to cause trouble. If not for the restrictions on traveling. due to the Three Anti and Five Anti, probably they would. have transferred her already to some small town in the interior.