A Map of Betrayal (31 page)

At that, Suzie broke into sobs, her narrow shoulders convulsing while her face contorted. “Why did I meet you in the first place?” she groaned. “I must have owed you something in my previous life, or how could I let you torment me like this? What good will come of this wretched affair? I wish I could start my life over without you or could pluck you out of my heart!”

He kept silent, somewhat soothed by her ravings. She wasn’t thinking of abandoning him. He needed her. In this place she was the only friend he could rely on, and the revelation of his true identity, as he’d planned, would be a step toward another phase of their relationship. He reminded himself that from now on he’d have to accept whatever she might say or do to him. Let her blow off steam if she wanted to. She would become herself again. He trusted she loved him enough that she’d do her best to help him get in touch with his original family.

To Gary’s relief, thereafter Suzie stopped lashing out at him. Neither did she drop hints or suggestions again, as though she had finally accepted him for who he was, with the heavy baggage he carried. They continued to see each other once a week, and their affair grew more stable—every Thursday afternoon he would arrive at her apartment and would leave around midnight. She would inquire after Nellie and Lilian, as though she had also accepted them as part of her life. Before Christmas, Suzie bought the girl a pair of patent-leather boots, knee high and each with three brass buttons on the top of the side, which Lilian loved but dared not wear at home.

When Suzie went back to Taiwan for the Spring Festival in February 1975, Gary asked her to go to mainland China via Hong Kong and to see if she could find his family there. He told her that she wouldn’t have to speak at length with Yufeng or let her know who she was. Just take a look at their house and shoot a few photos of his family if possible, so that he could assess what their
life was really like. Suzie promised to try her very best to look for them. But when she attempted to enter China from Hong Kong on the pretext that she wanted to see her bedridden uncle, she was stopped. Her name appeared on some kind of blacklist, probably because of her work at Voice of America. They rejected her application for a visa and told her that as a U.S. citizen she couldn’t enter China, because the two countries hadn’t formed a normal relationship yet and she’d have to get her papers from the States directly. No matter how she begged them, they wouldn’t let her pass.

Suzie came back to DC in early March, harried and tired. She described to Gary the difficulties she had encountered in Hong Kong, saying, “I even told them that my uncle is hospitalized and I wanted to see him before he died, but they wouldn’t relent, every one of them remained stone-faced. I felt as if I was bumping into an iron wall, and even if I had smashed my head into it, none of them would’ve given a damn. They were all like automatons. The next day I went to Bingwen Chu and asked him to help. He went berserk and blamed me for not notifying him beforehand. He said he couldn’t do anything either, because I was a U.S. citizen and was not allowed to enter China unless I’d already got a visa. He urged me not to try again.”

Gary became unsettled. “Did you tell him that you know about my family in Shandong?”

“Of course not. I only asked him to help me get through customs. I told him we were friends.”

“He might’ve guessed your intention.”

“Probably. I shouldn’t have gone to him.”

Gary regretted having given her Bingwen’s contact information (to use in case of emergency). That was clearly a mistake. He feared that their superiors might learn of Suzie’s attempt. Indeed, the following week he received a letter from his handler, who expressed his worries and insinuated that their higher-ups had been furious about Suzie’s effort to sneak into China. They believed Gary must
have gone out of his mind; otherwise he wouldn’t have committed such a blunder, which might compromise his position at the CIA. They threatened to take disciplinary action against him if he continued to behave unprofessionally. That might imply they’d bust him down to colonel. “Please don’t let your friend run such a risk again!” Bingwen pleaded. “It would be too dangerous for everyone.”

The last sentence sent a shiver down Gary’s spine as he realized that Suzie might have run into danger if she had stayed longer in Hong Kong. To protect his identity, the Chinese might have had her eliminated. He wouldn’t let her get involved in this matter again, nor would he allow her to reenter Hong Kong. More than that, he gave up attempting to contact his original family.

THUS GARY
’
S LIFE RESUMED
its old pattern. He was a man accustomed to loneliness and to the torment of qualms and could always keep a cool head. Had he let his guilt overcome him, he wouldn’t have been able to function in his daily life. He had to convince himself that China was looking after his family’s livelihood—everything was fine back home, and all he should do was focus on the mission here. As time went by, he again managed to put Yufeng and their children into a vault deep within him.

In his American home, life had grown peaceful. Rarely would he and Nellie raise their voices. His wife, though still embittered, stopped griping despite knowing that Gary saw Suzie regularly. Nellie even appreciated that he came home every night, given that their daughter was far away in Massachusetts. Indeed, over the years Gary had developed a greater attachment to Nellie. When she had been ill with gallstones three years before, he’d been so worried that he often skipped meals and lost sixteen pounds. Nowadays he often watched TV with her just as a way of keeping her company. For better or worse, this American woman had given him a child and a home, where she was the only person he could speak to if he
had to say something. Deep inside, he was grateful, though he had never expressed this feeling to her.

Nellie wasn’t troubled by his remoteness anymore, revolving in her own little sphere of life. She enjoyed working at the bakery and by now had become an expert in cookies and cakes. She’d get up early in the morning to be at work before five to start baking. When the store opened at seven, she’d take a breather and return home to make breakfast for Gary—she would cook poached eggs, or French toast with an omelet, or pancakes, or even a frittata. The two of them would eat together. During the day she kept flexible hours and spent a lot of time alone in the bakery’s kitchen preparing the next batch of offerings. She would measure flour, sugar, and milk, knead bread, roll out piecrusts, blend in butter or grated cheese or sour cream if needed, and add chocolate chips or raisins or nuts to cookie dough. The bakery was less than half a mile from her home, so she felt comfortable about the work schedule and the walk back and forth, which she took as exercise. If she was pressed for time or the weather was foul, she’d drive. She had her own car, a burgundy Chevrolet coupe.

A Dunkin’ Donuts had opened recently on a nearby street and attracted droves of customers, most of whom went to work early in the morning. Both Nellie and Peggy noticed the thriving shop and wondered what made it so popular. Sometimes cars would form a line stretching from the parking lot onto the street. Nellie went there one afternoon and bought a muffin and a bagel, which didn’t taste at all better than those sold by their own bakery. Peggy and Nellie were both confident that they offered better baked goods. Then, what made that shop so successful?

Peggy wasn’t terribly bothered, saying the donut shop was similar to McDonald’s or Burger King, which couldn’t compete with real restaurants and drew in only junk-food lovers. But Nellie wanted to figure out what made the coffee shop thrive. She mentioned this to Gary at breakfast one day. He said, “David Shuman stops by Dunkin’ Donuts every morning too. He told me he was hooked.”

“Is the shop on his way to work?” Nellie asked.

“That’s part of it. David also said Dunkin’ Donuts has the best coffee.”

“Really? Then it must be the coffee that makes it tick.”

“Maybe. Why not go try it and see if it’s true?”

She looked at her big wristwatch. “My, I’ve got to run. Peggy’s face will drop a mile if I’m too late.”

On her way Nellie stopped by the Dunkin’ Donuts and bought a cup of coffee, the original blend, which was indeed strong and fragrant. She let Peggy taste it too.

After a swallow, the old woman said, “Oh my, this could keep a grizzly awake for a whole day.”

“We should offer better coffee too,” Nellie suggested.

“We don’t need to follow Dunkin’ Donuts.”

“But it could bring in more customers.”

“We’re a bakery, not a coffee shop. Don’t be troubled by this. We can sell more bread instead of donuts and muffins. We don’t need lots of bagel eaters for customers anyway.”

“Peggy, you’re a bad businesswoman,” Nellie said with a straight face, which had been getting pretty in a gaunt way as she grew older, even her eyes more vivid than a decade before. “We can’t let them take away our customers. I won’t just sit tight doing nothing. Why not offer an extra few kinds of coffee and make them all strong? Just see what will happen.”

Peggy shook her head. “A coffee bar will cost a pretty penny.”

“But we must do our best to keep our business.”

“All right, I’ll grab some coffeemakers and put them there.” Peggy pointed at the corner in the small dining area.

So the “coffee bar” was set up the following week, offering French vanilla, Colombian, hazelnut, and house blend, all twice as strong as before. To go with the coffees were whole milk, half-and-half, cinnamon powder, sugar, its substitutes, and bits of bread and pastry for sampling. The corner indeed looked like a tiny bar.
Morning after morning Peggy and Nellie could see that more people were now dropping by on their way to work.

Soon Peggy hired another full-timer, and the bakery continued thriving.

By the summer of 1975, Gary had grown tired of sourdough and developed a taste for Irish soda bread, so Nellie would bring one home every evening. He had quit relishing raw garlic long ago and was no longer a lusty meat eater; rarely would he have sausage. Like a senior general who needn’t go to the front line anymore, he would no longer travel to Hong Kong in person (in part because he dreaded jet lag).

When on vacation, he would stay home, reading and writing. Lately he’d been translating Kurt Vonnegut’s
Slaughterhouse-Five
. He knew this might infringe the copyright, but at the time no written works were covered by any rights in China, where foreign books were just translated and brought out without notifying the authors and the original publishers, so it might be possible for Gary to get his translation of the small novel published when he was back in his homeland. Ideally it would be a bilingual edition, with the original words and the Chinese characters printed on facing pages so that English majors could use it as a textbook for learning current American idioms. (Gary didn’t feel comfortable with Briticisms, which sounded mannered to him but were still taught throughout China.) He kept reminding himself that the translation was just a pastime, and proceeded at his leisure, three or four paragraphs a day.

He wouldn’t dig for intelligence anymore and preferred to just pick up whatever came through his hands. Of that there was plenty, because all the CIA’s reports on China would be checked by him for accuracy and stylistic consistency before they were dispatched to the White House. At long last he could afford to take it easy, like an old angler who didn’t care how many fish he caught and only settled in a beach chair, holding a rod while drifting in and out of sleep.

Nevertheless, every once in a while important information would come his way and he’d photograph the pages and provide his analyses. By now Gary’s views and assessments were highly valued in Beijing—he had become China’s ear to the heartbeat of the United States. He knew he was indispensable to the Chinese leaders thanks to the position he occupied. Whenever he had something to deliver, he’d drive to Father Murray’s church in downtown Baltimore. Even in the absence of urgent business, he’d go out with the priest for lunch or dinner once a month. Neither of them bothered about the rule that prohibited such a no-delivery meeting. Having gone through so many years’ fear and danger together, the two had become friends. Murray wouldn’t eat red meat but loved seafood and cheese. He often told Gary stories of his childhood in the Philippines. He was estranged from his father, a burly white man, captain of a British ocean liner, who’d taken Kevin’s mother as a “local wife” and had his legal family back in Manchester. The man provided for his Chinese-Filipina mistress, though; he also sent their son and daughter to an English school and then to an American college in Manila. “I hate my father,” Kevin said, munching on a soft-shell crab sandwich. “He’s a selfish asshole.”

Gary chuckled. He listened to Murray attentively but didn’t say anything about his own past, afraid that once he started, he might not be able to hold back the flood of emotions and memories.

Ben came to College Park on the pretext of picking up the microchips that had just arrived. Again he paid Henry a one hundred percent profit, $3,920, which thrilled my husband. But Ben didn’t look well; his eyes were slightly puffy and his face drawn, as though he were sleep-deprived. He told me that he had finished the book on his grandfather and then read more about Gary to figure out what actually happened to him. He came to see me because he’d been stonewalled in his investigation. He’d gone to the Boston Public Library and got hold of the microfilms of
The New York Times
and
The Washington Post
from the fall of 1980, and he had read all the articles on Gary’s arrest and his espionage activities. But the deeper Ben delved into the case, the more misgivings he had about his grandfather, who was very different from the figure Ben had pictured.