Then the sliding door at my back moved again, and another woman entered. She was young, barely more than fifteen years old, wearing flat sandals of woven reed, blue trousers, a quilted jacket and a single lilac flower in her hair. She folded herself neatly into the chair opposite me with the merest smile of acknowledgment, took her cup of green tea, rolled it beneath her nose once, to take in the by-now cold odour, then sipped it carefully.
She eyed me, I eyed her a while. At last she said, “I am Yoong, and I have been sent here to determine whether or not to kill you.” I raised my eyebrows and waited for the rest. She laid her cup carefully back down on the tray, fingers straightening as she adjusted the little vessel to place it in perfect alignment with the pot and my own empty cup. Then, folding her hands in her lap, she went on, “The Cronus Club has been attacked. Members have been kidnapped, their memories erased. Two have been terminated before they are born, and we are still mourning their departing. We have always lived discreetly, but now we feel that we are under threat. How do we know that you are not a threat to us?”
“How do I know that you are not a threat to me?” I replied. “I too have been attacked. I too was nearly destroyed. Whoever is behind this must have had access to and knowledge of the Club. This is an attack hundreds of years in the making, maybe thousands. My concerns are as valid as yours.”
“Be that as it may, you sought us. We did not look for you.”
“I came looking for the only Cronus Club which I know of as still being remotely intact. I came to pool resources, to determine if you had any information more than I currently possess which could help me track down the one behind all this.”
She was silent.
Irritation flared up in some pit of my soul. I had been patient–thirty-nine years of patience, no less–and was taking a considerable risk by even showing myself to these people. “I understand,” I went on, trying to keep the rising frustration out of my voice, “that you are suspicious of me, but the simple truth is, if I were your enemy, I would not be placing myself so absolutely in your power. I have gone to great lengths to hide my identity, it is true, but this is only to hide my point of origin and physical location from whoever is attempting to destroy us. I can give you some intelligence as to who our mutual enemy might be; I hope you believe it is in your interests to share any information you may have as well.”
She was silent a good long while, but by now my irritation was nearly on par with my self-control, and I felt that to say anything more would probably be to lose any restraint I had left. Abruptly she stood up, gave a little half bow and said, “If you would wait here, I will consider this matter further.”
“My cover is a Russian academic,” I replied. “If I am to be detained indefinitely, I hope you will supply means of extraction, should the need arise.”
“Of course,” she replied. “We would not wish to inconvenience you unnecessarily.”
So saying, she left as abruptly as she had arrived.
A few seconds later the smiling man with the gun came back into the room. “Did you enjoy the tea?” he asked, pulling the sack back over my head and guiding me to my feet. “It’s all in the simmering, you know!”
They deposited me back where they’d found me, outside Beihei Park. I had half an hour to get to a class, and ran wildly through the streets, making it two minutes late to the classroom. My students, far from reproaching me for my tardiness, chuckled, and I gave a breathless lecture on agrarian collectivisation and the benefits of chemical fertilisers before dismissing them three minutes early and running even faster than I’d run from the park for the nearest toilet. No one ever considers the question of bladder when dealing with matters of subterfuge.
For four days I waited.
They were four infuriating days during which I knew perfectly well that my alibi was being checked and every aspect of my cover story examined by the Beijing Cronus Club. I was confident that they would find nothing. I had put enough safeguards between Professor Sing-Song and myself to necessitate a lifetime of investigation. On the fifth day, as I was walking out of the university and heading for my hall, a voice said from the shadow of a door, “Professor?”
I turned.
The teenage girl I had met in the house by the pond stood there, wearing khaki and carrying a satchel over one shoulder. She looked even more a child than before, dressed in her baggy-panted uniform. “May I speak with you, Professor?” she enquired. I nodded, gesturing towards the street.
“Let me get my bicycle,” I said.
We walked together sedately back through the city streets, my foreign skin and undeniably quirky nose attracting all the usual stares, only enhanced by the presence of the girl by my side. “I have to congratulate you,” she murmured as we walked, “on the thoroughness of your preparations. Every document and contact indicates that you are who you claim to be, a great achievement considering that you are not.”
I shrugged, eyes scanning the street, looking for anyone who took too great an interest in our discussion. “I’ve had a while to get this sort of thing right.”