LIAISON

Citation preview

AISO *S*

w The gripping real story of the »j

j

^

diplomat spy ^& and the Chinese opera star

whose affair inspired

-&(.;

^

"M. Butterfly"

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Mi

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JOYCE WADLER

IN US.

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It was a scandal that provoked .and disbelief— and inspired a long-running Broadway play. But the convicted spy at the center of the storm never told his side of the story. .until now. .

LIAISON When Bernard Boursicot, an innocent and charming twenty-year-old yearning for adventure and romance, was posted to the French embassy in Beijing, he met and soon fell in love with a mysterious, seductive opera singer named Shi Pei Pu.

Over the course of the next eighteen two lived out a passionate and dangerous liaison that produced a son, drew them into espionage, and ultimately landed them both in a French prison. The whole time, Boursicot was unaware that Pei Pu, the love of his life and his longtime sexual partner, was a man. years, the

How could this happen? How could he not know? These questions intrigued the world, making Boursicot the subject of incredulity and ridicule,

and ultimately

inspired an immensely popular Broadway hit,

M. Butterfly. But the speculation could

not begin to

rival

the astonishing real story

To uncover the facts behind this sensational case, journalist Joyce Wadler spent three years researching court

documents and psychiatrists'

files,

interviewing relatives, friends, and t\ workers of the pair, including a form prime minister of France. Most irnpo, \n\ of all, she persuaded Boursicot, who had refused to discuss his story since m *

1

arrest, to

break his silence.

(Continued on back flap)

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3 1111 01475 1364

DATE DUE

DEC

1

JAN

~-&l§tij

3 1993

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OCT 4, OCT 9 1

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Digitized by the Internet Archive in

2012

http://archive.org/details/liaisonOOwadl

£

-j&i'yw'

ALSO BY JOYCE WADLER

My

Breast:

One Woman 's Cancer Story

^^ Joyce

Wadler

®5§

BANTAM BOOKS TORONTO LONDON SYDNEY AUCKLAND

NEW YORK

jSausdito Public iibra^ **-.

S&usaiito, Californiag*f4$§&

LIAISON A Bantam Book / October 1993

Grateful acknowledgment

is

made

to

The Guidebook Company I Ad. for permission Angela Terzani 1988.

from Chinese Days by Angela Terzani

to quote

©

All rights reserved.

Copyright

©

1993 by Joyce Wadler

Book design

No part

of this book

may

by

Ellen Cipriano

be reproduced or transmitted in any

form or by any means,

electronic

or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

For information

address:

Bantam

Books.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Wadler, Joyce. Liaison / Joyce Wadler. p.

cm.

Includes index. ISBN 0-553-09213-8 1.

Boursicot, Bernard.

—

2.

— France — Biography. France — Spies —China — Biography. — Biography. Espionage —China— History.

and employees Biography. male impersonators China

JN2737.W34

—

Civil service 4. Shi,

3.

Pei Pu.

Officials 6.

5.

7.

I.

Fe-

Title.

1993

354.44'00092— dc20 92-31384

[B]

CIP Published simultaneously in the

I

'nited States

and Canada

Bantam Hooks are published by Han tarn

Hooks, a division of Bantam Doub/eday Dell Publishing trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Hooks" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Regis fried in U.S. Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries. Marca Registiada. Bantam Hooks, 1540 Broadway, Mew York, New York 10036.

Group,

Int.

Its

PRINTED

IN

I

III

RRH

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 9 8

7

6 5 4 3 2

1

In

memory

of

my

father,

Bernard Wadler, a realist

c

ONTENTS

Prologue

Book One Book Two Book Three Author's Note

Index

3

Love

15

Betrayal

85

Knowledge

237 307 313

£

{frfy***

Bernard's Song

11 ere

the Palais de Justice.

is

They used to bring

an hour through

seventy, eighty kilometers

me

here, the secret police:

Paris, racing through the streets; they

thought the Chinese were standing on the street corners to save me, waiting to

"Monsieur Boursicot, Ambassadeur de Fresnes,"

shoot.

they brought

put me

me

in the

in before the judge. They

chained my hands

and also my feet and

back of this truck, with one car in back, one in front, sometimes a

On

motorcycle alongside.

the

way

would throw

to court it

was

okay, but always, on the

do not remember very

back

to prison, I

was

so full of drugs. They said this in all the newspapers. I

1

'hey

did not

You know to count.

let

me read

the

up. 'The trial itself I

papers myself. They thought

the sorts of things they say:

' '

said when

they

Or

that I

"For an

it

was told

way

well.

I

it later.

would disturb me.

accountant, he did not

know how

lie.

I go to parties. They say, "Everybody needs to be famous once." "Does

spying pay well?" I was not spying for money. I was not spying for the secret of the

washing machine. I was a diplomat. I had a

life.

New

York, Belize, Paris,

Marrakech, the same year I was arrested. Three continents the year

wanted to be Forgive he,

;

Mr. Onassis, with

me for speaking

like this,

I

am

caught

me

sooner, if they

Ah, they took

there, beside

me when

had caught me

was a

I

drunk. Then four years in prison while

"The Living Treasure of the Beijing Opera"

years in prison. Then I

before.

a plane to take me to New York or Harry 's Bar.

—

no, never mind, if they

in China, it

would have

had

been twenty

really great spy.

Notre-Dame,

there

I committed suicide.

is

the Hotel-Dieu, the hospital

There was blood on

where

the walls, there

was

Liaison

2

blood on the floor. recuperate your

No,

mean

My

client,

no, this

is

lawyer came for me in prison; they said

you will be

what I mean

lucky.

—Je me

in his

him, "If you

suis suicide, / committed suicide, I

this precisely:

When he took me

to

"

arms I was

lost.

p

ROLOGUE

here

is

p inner June ;

C

v

''• :

:

"V: >.Vr''.

:•

:

who had

hearing that alarm

He when

heard

30,

week, returning from

for fifteen years at the

on the Quai d'Orsay had been cold to him.

He

problems:

drinking too

is

man

in

the French

of distinction,

head.

earlier that

it

1983, on a busy commercial street in

always dreamed of being a

in his

man he had known

a

alarm that goes off in us, a small

Pans. Bernard Boursicot, an attache

.

Foreign Service is

.'-,'. '•-•

a little

voice that senses danger, and on Thursday,

his post in Belize,

Foreign Affairs office giving

It is

much and smoking

too

him the

old

much and he

cannot sleep. It

down of a

is

at

little

odd. Usually Bernard returns to Paris as a hungry

late-night adventure

— he approaches

In the arena of love, he tends to get thirty-eight, that a bit too

sits

he

is

a

it all

with cheerful greed.

what he wants,

handsome man by

too. It

is

not, at

Parisian standards: His face

is

round; at five seven, a hundred and eighty pounds, his belly, he

sometimes thinks,

is

a little too

round

also.

But

—when

his shoulders are broad,

energy

his hips narrow,

and he

announces

world that whatever the sport, he

But

man

the table. Old friends, good food, all-night bars, the possibility

to the

this

Bank, dressed the tension.

has a grin

morning, walking

his

is

is

high

down Avenue Bosquet on

for his holidays in loafers

and jeans,

all

— that

game. the Left

Bernard feels

is

Liaison

4

He

tries fighting

telling himself

it,

he has every reason

world

in the

to feel good:

He enough

new

has a

and

to

post in Scotland, which will keep

enough away from

just far

And

awaiting him at a shop that caters to diplomats.

been able

years of struggle, Bernard has

Du

Shi

Du,

he prefers

or as

in Brittany

Bernard

he

is

when

brown

eyes, his

He

will take

Bertrand

down

all,

car

after

He

to his family

at a

boy has

clear to Bernard the

adventuresome nature.

wants very

much

she

She

not.

to

is

less

is

glance that

his

own wide

rushed back to Paris

proud of Bertrand's mother, Shi Pei Pu.

old," Bernard thought

at the airport in

is

best of

new

Bertrand arrived from Beijing nine months earlier and introduced

to his friends.

"She has gotten

him

it is

just close

to get his sixteen-year-old son,

proud of Bertrand. You can see

terribly

of mixed blood, but

face, his

him

is

him

has a

him, by his French name, Bertrand,

to call

Tomorrow Bernard and show him off.

out of China.

He

Paris.

be included on

his old love,

he

between them. Already, over the sion sets, tape recorders,

Madame must

when

Pei

her usual guise, dressed as this

will

Grundig

the world, Bernard often thinks,

man. Though she

provide for her, but

it is

finished

he has given too much:

radios, four

He

to greet

outing to meet Bernard's family,

years,

have only the best.

a

Pu came

is

televi-

Rolex watches, because

the only spy in the history of

who paid

to spy.

Even now, he

is

paying: Pei

Pu has heard

owned by

wealthy Chinese friend, which might be had very cheaply,

a

and Bernard has agreed "I will

her

meet you

as

of an apartment on Boulevard Saint-Germain,

to

go with her early

this

evening and look.

planned," he told her the night before, calling

home from a phone booth near his borrowed studio. And she answered as she had since even before they had become

at

lovers in the spring of 1965.

"You

are

still

Her best

my

friend

best friend."

— her best resource — but no

trand; four boys in his family,

matter, he has Ber-

two married with children, and he

only one to provide his mother with a grandson. Bernard

how happy breakfast

still

is

the

remembers

she had been to meet him, coming up from Brittany with

mug

nized her the

a

with "Bertrand" stenciled on the side. Bertrand recog-

moment

she got off the

train.

PROLOGUE "Grandma!" he There

is

Then they

hit

from the

5

yelled.

something

to blood.

suddenly, on the busy shopping street of Avenue Bosquet,

him.

One man

sneakers tackles him from behind, another

in

Bernard thinks

side.

wallet and address

it

book down the

into a car, Bernard grabs a tree

holdup and

a

is

street.

Then,

in his panic flings his as

they

try to

drag him

and holds on. People are stopping

to

stare.

"What

Now two his picture

you doing

are

on

more of them and

it,

at last

"Come with us, we moment he gets into the "Say nothing," he

man?" one yells. on him and one is flashing

to that

are

Bernard realizes

just

want

Renault they

tells

who

to talk to slip

they

badge with

a

are.

you," one says, and the

on the

cuffs.

himself as they tear up the

street, north

toward the Seine. "Nothing, like Sorge."

There

is

an organization

in

France called the Direction de

la

Surveil-

lance du Territoire, which seeks out internal threats to national security,

and

in the

winter of 1982, operating, as they would later report, they

found "within the normal surveillance of the diplomatic representation est:

activities of the

something that piqued

in Paris"

their inter-

the relationship between Bernard Boursicot, identified in their

and "a Chinese

national living in Paris, later identified as Shi Pei

Shi Pei Pu, according to D.S.T. intelligence, was a

who made

his living as singer, writer,

France from Beijing with

opera. Shi Pei

and voice teacher.

teenage son on October

Pu had once been

a star of the Beijing

A

delicate

man who was

in

had arrived

8,

1982, at the

a

governmenton Chinese

Opera, and in

two network television

only a few inches over five feet

had strikingly tiny hands, Pei Pu,

as

performed both men's and women's

was

tall

and

traditional in Beijing Opera,

roles. In

Messenger from Beijing," he appeared

Pu."

of forty-five

He

institute for social studies, to give lectures

France was having great success, starring shows.

man

Maison des Sciences de l'Homme,

invitation of the

funded research

his

files

posted abroad,"

as "a civil servant at the Ministry of Exterior Relations

in

Chinese

as a

one

TV production, "The

shepherdess awaiting news

of her lover in a dreamlike fog beside a bridge.

Liaison

6

"Watching the ocean,

me

bring

eyes see

a

if

Pei

a

Pu had had all,

Revolution, had been

China. Mei was

He

for a

messenger

to

My

Pu was

he was,

a star.

Mei Lanfang,

When

the producer

as usual, vague: Pei

just

the greatest Beijing Opera actor in

made him famous

months mimicking the smallest

details of his

of his wrist as he executed any of the

kimono sleeve symbolizing

Pu

His teacher before the Cultural

so exquisite in the female roles that

movement

of

reappeared once, after

around the eyes.

scars

a face-lift

Pei

that his students spent style: the

a heart condition.

week, with

laughed. But after

of a

sheep and wait

high-pitched voice. "Oh, wait!

in a

Pu had played the prima donna. He complained

and spoke often of

an absence of

asked

my

guard

horse at gallop!"

Backstage, Pei fatigue

I

news," Pei Pu sang

gestures

fifty

feelings from love to subterfuge to pain;

the proximity of his knees and sway of his body as he portrayed an

empress taking tiny steps on bound

The Opera

feet.

D.S.T. had the opportunity

as Shi Pei

Pu went about

to learn a

his

good deal about Beijing

work on "The Messenger from

Beijing":

They had tapped It

was impressive

the phones. to

be the subject of

Pei Pif s circle of friends.

new

a

one-hour television show

Even more impressive was He was seen going several times to the em-

nine months after arriving in a

country.

bassy of the People's Republic of China.

with some of the highest-ranking

He

members

attended dinner parties

of the French diplomatic

community. One evening the man who had served

as

ambassador

China only the year before had personally dropped Shi Pei Pu

to

off at his

apartment.

Most

interestingly to the D.S.T., Shi Pei Pu's

home,

a sixth-floor

studio in a weathered old building on Boulevard de Port-Royal on the

Left Bank

in Paris,

was owned by

Bernard Boursicot. Boursicot was

Foreign Service employee

a

a loose

cannon

working-class kid with a tenth-grade education superiors as something of a maverick.

nothing even that

solid, just talk that

the globe: black-market dealings least

once

posted

in

in his career,

the French

in

It

in

who was viewed by

was never anything

his

serious,

followed him post to post around

Mongolia, his contract dropped

an enthusiastic drinker,

embassy

named

in the organization, a

China

in

a

at

Romeo. He had been

1964

for

one year

as

an

P R

G U E

I.

7

He

accountant and later spent three years there as an archivist.

had

defense secret clearance, giving him access to some classified docu-

He

ments.

embassy

had

He was in

also

—

unknown

for reasons

— twice

Chinese

visited the

in Paris.

posted in Belize, but since the

October 1982 he had made two

trips

arrival of

back

Pu

Shi Pei

to Paris. In

in Paris

mid-June 1983

he returned again.

"The

Pu was

surveillance under which Shi Pei

D.S.T. report of July

2

placed, " reads a

from Commissaire Divisionnaire

Raymond The

Xart,

"revealed that Bernard Boursicot was living with Shi Pei Pu. sion

was made

to call in

Bernard Boursicot

The

tions concerning this situation.

deci-

order to receive explana-

in

service suspected a cooperation

between Bernard Boursicot and the Chinese

intelligence

services

through the intermediary of Shi Pei Pu. Bernard Boursicot was arrested

on June 30, 1983,

Bernard can see "I

at

shaking

is

1

1:40 on the street during a surveillance operation."

as the car

is

afraid

they

it.

am

a

diplomat," he wants to say, "you cannot touch me," but he

can't speak. Everything

quickly he feels he

is

this

is

spinning around him; his mind

is

racing so

seeing sparks.

is

"They're going

'What

speeds across Paris and he

to ask

Chinese doing

me in

about Pei Pu. They're going to say, your place?' " he thinks. "Say nothing,

be strong."

They

tear east across

from the Ministry of the

Boulevard Haussmann and then, three blocks Interior, turn right

onto the

Rue d'Argenson,

pulling up before a five-story building protected by a metal gate. Ber-

nard can see no street

number on

opens and they drive down

the building and no name.

to a second-level

The

gate

basement. From there the

police take Bernard through a series of corridors and lead

him

into a

They do Somebody takes off the cuffs. The man who seems to be in charge is a middle-aged, beefy guv in a blue suit and tie, who introduces himself as Xart. He has the beginlarge room.

not speak. Just like the

nings of a belly and his hairline

is

Gestapo, Bernard thinks.

receding and he looks tough. There

are three others with him, dressed very

Bernard thinks, "They're dressed for

a

much

the same. "Nice suits."

big day."

Liaison

8

down," somebody

"Sit

cops seem to

Bertrand talking to

him look

at

and accusations

tions

"You were and

at

a lot

at

it

around

him

They

in its plastic case.

a picture of let

shoot ques-

once.

all at

the embassy of France in Beijing between '69 and

embassy of Mongolia from 77

in the

They have

about him.

in

will not.

neighbor near the apartment, but they won't

a

just pass

it,

know

hands

his

them from shaking, but they

the pockets of his jeans to stop

The

Bernard does, jamming

says.

to '79

and there are

72 five

hundred documents missing." "You went in

February

"Who

to the

'67

is

and

this

Chinese embassy and you saw the

mysterious Shi Pei Pu

who

"There were no documents missing them, but

his

in

is

my

living at your place?"

time," he wants to

But

it.

at

something was, there was no way they

if

the same time Bernard remembers the slides of

him and Shi Pei Pu and Bertrand he had taken on and the

tell

thoughts are scattered and wild. Nothing could have been

missing from the embassy, and could prove

cultural consul

again in April '68."

on top of

letters

his

desk

at

his last trip to

China

the apartment and he fears this

might be proof enough. "You're homosexual!" somebody

"Says who?" says Bernard, able

"Perhaps we could bring

somebody

is

saying.

for the

moment

some of your

to

be tough.

friends for questioning,"

else says.

"Bring

and he

in

is

in

anybody you

like,"

he

says,

but he knows

who

they

mean

scared.

And then they are waving something in front of him. "What about the plane ticket you got from the Chinese

in April

71?" April 1971

— the time during the Cultural Revolution when Pei Pu

had been sent

to the

countryside and Bernard had refused to give the

Chinese any more documents Beijing.

He

thought he had

The Chinese had

won

until Pei

Pu was allowed

that round, but

now he

to return to

sees he did not:

bided their time until they no longer needed him, and

then given him up.

The words come

out of him unstoppable, like a

moan: "Aaaah,

les

have sold me."

salauds Us tn'ont vendu!" Bernard cries.

"The

bastards

PROLOGUE The game

is

over.

money," Bernard

"I did nothing for

"Who

is

Nothing

somebody

Shi Pei Pu?" to

9

do but

let

asks.

go:

it all

know

"If you want to

says.

the truth, Shi Pei

Pu

is

a

woman," Bernard

says.

They

Silence. after

all,

Perhaps they think he

are stunned.

is

joking.

Why,

wouldn't they?

"Aaah, that's

my

"It's

why

she's with her son,"

one of them says

finally.

son," says Bernard.

Silence again. But briefer.

"And what about

the papers?" the senior

man

asks.

"There were no documents," Bernard wants

to say, but

"One

telegrams of Marshall

Green

.

.

letter of ."

Sihanouk," he begins.

and on and on, into the afternoon.

interesting to see

It is

"Some

he cannot.

what happens

man's signature when he

to a

is

held by the police for forty-eight hours without an attorney and by his

own

volition his

life falls apart.

In the early afternoon

on Thursday, Bernard Boursicot's

police custody, his signature on the

confession

one

is

first

bottom of each page of

his

day

in

typed

name connecting By nine-thirty that

cohesive and controlled, the letters of his

to the other as the letters in a

name

should.

evening, after ten hours of questioning, the letters are starting to sepa-

Friday morning,

rate.

when Bernard

in the night of additional

handwriting

mind

is

is

gives the police a

list

he had made

documents he had given the Chinese,

barely legible, like the writing of a child, or a

unraveling and

who

his

man whose

progressively unlearning everything he

is

knows. For years, Bernard Boursicot

says,

he has been

a spy.

His confession runs fifteen pages, single-spaced. Bernard admits giving the Chinese information on the Soviet Union, Southeast Asia,

Japan, and Laos in the early and late 1970s. larly interested,

embassies

in

he

said, in

The Chinese were

papers arriving in Beijing from the French

Washington and Moscow. They had visit

Henry Kissinger

in 1971, to

to

opening of American-Chinese

specifically requested

of American national security adviser

information on the secret

China

particu-

prepare for talks regarding the

relations.

Liaison

10

He He story.

how

none of the papers was

insists that

also

That

classified or top secret.

frames his espionage activities within the context of a love

story

is

more important

far

to

him than the documents.

"In October 1964,

French embassy

the French embassy,

presented to

me

was assigned on

I

in Beijing

end of December 1964,

as a

where

the acquaintance of Shi Pei Pu,

hit

it

off.

.

.

a

man," he

that this

il s'agit

is

(Tune femme qui se

about

a

woman who

has

says.

reveals the secret he promised Pei

she had been forced to live her

life

Pu he would never

and that when he returned

to

France

was without the knowledge that

returning to China in 1969,

when Red Guard

He

disguised as a man.

says that after learning Pei Pu's secret, he and Pei

force,

He

.

quen fait,

faisait passer pour homme. ..." "I wish to make it clear to you

He

who was

Chinese writer of about twenty-six years of age.

"Je vous precise des maintenant

passed for

a contractual basis to the

functioned as the accountant. At the

I

party given by the First Counselor of

at a

made

I

spoke French and we

it

It is

his formal confession begins:

at

why.

Pu had become

the end of his

He

lovers

stay in 1965,

first

was pregnant.

his mistress

when Mao's

tells

that

tell:

He

told of

Cultural Revolution was in

full

teenagers were beating government leaders

with "Quotations from Chairman

being sent to work camps deaths and forced suicides.

for It

Mao Zedong"

and intellectuals were

"reeducation." There were suspicious

was so bad then

Chinese would not

that a

say hello to an old French friend in the street. Everything foreign was suspect. Despite the dangers, Boursicot

When

their relationship

made

contact with Pei Pu.

was discovered by the Chinese

became

Bernard, in order to protect his mistress and child, "I gave [the Chinese], on

my own

who was then

in Beijing,

French diplomatic bag," he

my

time and prolong close their eyes.

.

.

a letter

I

from Siha-

addressed to Senator Mansfield via the

says. "I

thought that in

relations with Pei

Pu and

this

way I could

that the police

gain

would

.

"I didn't act for personal gain, but for

my

a spy.

initiative, a sealed letter that

had taken from the mailroom of the embassy ... nouk,

authorities,

son and his mother,

who

my

family.

constantly risked their

motivated by the hope that they could leave China.

I

wanted

lives.

I

to save

was always

My only regret

is

to

PROLOGUE have been placed to

me.

I

never

my

in

wanted

life

service."

"Elle est tombee enceinte" qu'il e'tait '

to

where no other

in a situation

11

was proposed

alternative

clandestine role in an information

a

— "She became pregnant"; "Elle a — "She me would be dangerous

dit

in

dangereux de la recontrer"

told

it

meet."

The

prisoner

obviously sincere. Taken before

is

a

judge and

dicted for "having relations with intelligence agents of a foreign

of a nature which would do of France or to a

its

harm

to the military or diplomatic situation

economic

essential

in-

power

interests," Boursicot waives his right

lawyer and reiterates his statement to police. "I gave information only in the

my child

out of China.

I

hope of one day being able

was successful

in this since

my son

is

now

to get

living

with me."

The

police take

him

gloomy maximum-security

to Fresnes, the

prison on the outskirts of Paris, and early the next morning, a Saturday,

climb the

Boulevard Port-Royal to interrogate Shi

six flights of stairs at

Pei Pu.

The boy

Shi

Du

falling over his eyes,

room.

The

studio

is

Du,

a tall

gangly teenager with deep black bangs

The police send him from the The curtains are drawn. The floors

opens the door.

large

and dark.

are covered with Oriental rugs, the walls with long, narrow

Chinese

paintings and calligraphy. Shi Pei Pu, in a man's shirt and baggy trousers

and

a

wig of wavy black

The police call home. The voice is

health. at

"An

better than I?" the smile

Chinese

fairy tale. "I

fonctionnaires

.

denied, the odd

."

.

little

and the mother of

was born

Pei

and allow the suspect

unusual for

sighs often and smiles sadly.

know

looks pale and weary and speaks of poor

hair,

a doctor

Pu

a man's:

into a

begins.

to say.

know.

tale,

I

The

story

is

Pu

Who could told like a

family of Mandarins, high-ranking

Though knowledge

creature admits she

his child.

be questioned

high and breathy. Pei

extraordinary

seems

to

is

of espionage

is

Bernard Boursicot's mistress

She has indeed gone through

life in dis-

guise.

The

D.S.T. are professionals, matter-of-fact

they cannot keep

a

note of excitement from this

"Shi Pei Pu was raised, right from the

in their reports,

but

file:

start,

as

a

boy by her

mother," the police report of July 2 reads. "Her true nature was hidden

Liaison

12

from everyone until

this day.

Pu

fact that Shi Pei

.

Du Du

Today, Shi

.

woman and

a

is

.

his

mother.

.

.

is

ignorant of the

Shi Pei

.

Pu

says

she was ignorant of the fact that Bernard Boursicot was turning over

documents.

.

This

.

.

One week

later,

is

possible."

they return and arrest Pei Pu anyway.

"I will never be able to stand prison," Pei

Pu

says

when taken

before the judge.

The

story breaks July 5, shortly before Pei Pu's arrest.

Le Monde, the French newspaper of record, giving

it

treats

it

as a

minor item,

only a few inches of space: a Foreign Affairs employee has been

charged with espionage in Beijing to a

The

for giving information

Chinese

woman

tabloids, fascinated

this story of secret love,

from the French embassy

friend.

by Shi Pei Pu's disguise and delighted by

banner

it

on the front page.

"spy for love," screams one headline, while another paper reports that Bernard Boursicot, while in China, provided

documents

to his se-

Chinese wife, the Beijing Opera singer Shi Pei Pu.

cret

French friends of Shi Pei Pu's, some of whom have known him eighteen years, are astonished. Shi Pei Pu likes an aura of mystery. tantalizes

mous a

China scholars by promising

literary figure or that.

They

to tell secret stories of this fa-

wait and wait

— he

rarely tells.

tendency, some are beginning to think, to embroider a

perhaps librettist.

this

to

is

be expected of

But Pei Pu

is

man

also a

man who made

a

it:

The boy was

Shi Pei Pu's gender: Pei

Pu

Pei

is

Two

a

Pu

is

to

adopted. Nor

artist,

France with is

tale,

He

has

though

his living as a

of stature in China, an

had surprised some old friends by coming

no secret about

for

He

and

if

he

a son, there

is

there any mystery about

effeminate, probably homosexual, but Shi

man.

days

later,

no one

is

certain

what Shi

is.

"espion ou espionne?" reads the headline in Le

Monde on July

8.

"French judicial authorities remain perplexed today after questioning,

be

a

on the 7th of July, the Chinese

woman,

lyric artist

Shi Pei

since he [she] has the appearance of a

reads. "Forty-six years of age,

Pu who claims man," the

to

story

he [she] was the lover of M. Bernard

Boursicot, a chancellery attache,

who

has been held since July 2nd

PROLOGUE

13

charged with passing information to foreign agents.

been ordered

perts have

Two

Friends of Bernard Boursicot's, the half dozen to confided that Pei

founded. story:

Pu

is

woman and

a

Margaret Thatcher, no matter that he

and he doesn't get within ten feet of

not crazy, he

can be

is

as British

dumb-

is

in first class

and next thing you know he's

New

York "with" Margaret

— especially when drinking—

not delusional, and he

good

Prime Minister

and she

in tourist

is

her,

talking about the time he flew out of

The

he has

true that Bernard often stretches the truth for a

It is

He

whom

the mother of his child, are

Let him find himself on the same plane

Thatcher.

medical ex-

determine sex."

to

histrionic.

But he

is

hardly inexperienced sexually.

when Bernard was in his twenties, had been a who is now a doctor in Paris. Bernard had adored

of Shi Pei Pu,

rival

beautiful French

girl

her body; she had taken her baths in front of him. Bernard had recently

proposed marriage to

a Polish girl.

She remembers an exquisite seduc-

man who bundled

tion far off in Mongolia: a

overcoat against the freezing winter and played

room. Bernard has also had

knows

certainly

— my made

Pu

wanted,

in press reports

will

soon be

The

difference

two weeks

for

who have examined

the globe:

The man who made

in his prison cell, hears the

news on the

after his arrest.

diplomat into spying,

is

"It's not possible!"

Hari,

a

who

is

accused of entrapping

He

refuses to believe

says.

The

it

police

refuses to believe

a

French

man."

Bernard

yells. "It

when

is

unbelievable!

it

lie.

It's a lie!"

his lawyer comes to see him the

following day and says he has seen the newspaper reports.

Bernard

a

eighteen years and did not know.

"The Chinese Mata

lie,

between

becomes

known round

man

Traviata back in his

And Bernard Boursicot, as he has always a man of extraordinary distinction who

public.

Bernard Boursicot, sedated

He

— the

greatest sexual buffoon of the century.

love to another

radio

a

the findings of the doctors

Shi Pei

are

La

significant liaison with a man. Bernard

God, anyone knows

woman and a man. On July 14, 1983,

her up in his fur-lined

Get the medical

one week

later

when

The

papers

reports.

the lawver announces

Liaison

14

that he has seen the medical reports and the newspapers are correct:

There

is

no sign of surgery. Pei Pu

is

and always has been

Order another examination, Bernard

Pei

Pu

is

a

woman. He sends tender

insists to prison psychologists that

letters to Bertrand.

"Your father

who

loves you," he writes.

Two and one

half

months

a closed hearing prior to

trial

after his arrest,

is

taken to

is

a

man, he refuses

to believe

either.

"I in a

when Bernard

before investigating judge Bruno Laroche

and told that Shi Pei Pu has admitted he

him

normal man.

lawyer. Order a blood test

tells his

my son. He

to prove the parentage of

a

must

tell

you that

I

am astounded by

this declaration,"

he

says,

lengthy and sexually explicit statement. "I have always considered

woman ever since we had sexual relations together, that is from May or June 1965. I have seen him naked on a number of

Shi Pei to say

Pu

a

occasions between 1965 and 1978. declares,

dark.

when we had

...

I

.

.

sexual relations

Contrary to what Shi Pei Pu

we were

not always

in

the

never had relations 'against nature' with Shi Pei Pu."

Eight months

from

.

a plastic

later,

locked

in a prison cell,

he removes the blade

disposable razor and begins slicing at his throat.

BOlOK

/ t is

imagine

difficult to

Ethan the ~ML January,

more exciting place

a

People's Republic of China in 1964. In President Charles de Gaulle announces

government has decided

the French

to recognize

China, and one month later the French open their embassy

becoming the

first

Western power

to

summer, Chairman Mao Zedong China's greatest

ally,

with

a

in Beijing,

do so since the Korean War. In the

attacks the Soviet Union, formerly

"On

speech entitled

Communism." And on October

Khrushchev's Phony

the Chinese

16,

make what is They

preted as their most aggressive and independent gesture: nate their

first

be

to

inter-

deto-

atomic bomb.

But the big thing on twenty-year-old Bernard Boursicot's mind on

October

24, 1964, as

he boards the Aeroflot plane

leg of his thirty-six-hour journey

from Paris

the accountant in the French embassy, It it

had looked wonderful back

even

himself

if it

was

among

a

fifteen years old.

group of

new

when

wool with an

Now,

down

at his lapels.

new job

as

his air

uncle had given

of adult prosper-

passengers, sixty or seventy French

They

more casually than

are very old-fashioned,

His huge wool coat suddenly looks like what

me-down. He takes

for the last

Bernard suddenly finds

as

students, confident and laughing and dressed far

he stares

Moscow

his overcoat.

in Brittany

to him: royal blue, double-breasted

ity,

is

in

to Beijing for his

off the overcoat

17

and

it is:

stuffs

it

he

he,

realizes.

a rich uncle's

hand-

clumsily into an over-

Liaison

18

head compartment, feeling everyone around him does

so.

hopes

Ten

nobody

finds

him

as

and ugly, and there

built, squat,

he

He

out.

plane lands in Beijing in mid-afternoon.

newly

him

hours, he tells himself, and he will actually be in China.

to hell

The are

staring at

is

is

The

airport buildings

an ominous precursor of

a

nation holding itself aloof and apart: At the huge international airport,

Bernard's

the only plane.

is

To Bernard

that only heightens the sense of

adventure and excitement. So does the Paye, a former Minister of Education, the students.

He

is

broad-shouldered

a

Bernard

jovial style; his interest in

"Aah, Boursicot," he

—

is

there's a car waiting,"

says.

Ambassador Lucien

fact that

waiting on the tarmac to greet

man

with

"We've been waiting

and then he turns back

Bernard with an embassy driver and

notebook named Jacques Marcuse,

ruddy face and

a

a

perfunctory.

is

time

you

for

to the students, leaving

with

a fellow

whom

a long

a

monocle and

Bernard takes to be

a

a press

aide.

There trip into

are

the

few

city,

cars

on the highway

men and women working comforting wave of

Buck.

He

as

they

make

the eighteen-mile

only an occasional bus or truck, and looking out

the

the land with their mules, Bernard feels a

literary recognition

also feels shy,

at

and

is

happy

—

aah, yes, the red dirt of Pearl S.

to let

Marcuse,

who seems

to

be

a

very sophisticated man, do the talking. "Interesting people, the Chinese," he says, removing a box of

matches from

"They can

How

his coat

pocket and trying unsuccessfully

build an atomic

old are you,

bomb

make

but they can't

a

to light his pipe.

box of matches.

by the way?"

"Twenty," says Bernard, wondering what

makes people always

it

is

about him that

ask.

"Same age as I was when I first came to China," Marcuse says. They arrive at his home, where a Chinese servant in a white Mao jacket opens the door. "You'll stay for dinner, of course," story to

file

and we can have

a

Marcuse

What

have

a small

drink and have dinner. We'll have dinner

at the Spanish time. I'm very fond of Spain.

riding on the Costa Brava.

says. "I

I

used to go horseback

Have you been?"

Bernard has ridden

in

Spain

is

his

thumb, hitchhiking, but he

LOVE

19

—

man who's been around. Dinner is superb duck, prepared by an old cook who was trained before the revolution. Impossible to get decent help from any of the young people, Marcuse says. The days before the revolution in 1949, now those were the days in China. Playnods

like a

ing polo on sturdy

little

Mongolian ponies. Casinos and opium dens.

Terrible poverty, yes, but even with that the Chinese

seemed

and happier people; they laughed then. And Beijing was city, a

jumble of narrow

streets

a freer

wonderful

a

and Chinese courtyard houses.

It

had not

yet been ruined. After dinner, Marcuse takes Bernard to the Beijing Hotel.

down Changan Avenue,

drive

Everything

street in Beijing.

Changan Avenue measures the center of the

city, is

Avenue of Eternal Peace, the main

the is

so big, so echoingly large

and empty.

Tiananmen Square,

eight lanes across.

gate of the square one can see the

outlines of the curving roofs of the palaces of the Forbidden City.

Changan Avenue,

hotel, just off

in

ninety-nine acres, the largest public square in

Beyond one red-walled

the world.

They

is

The

the grandest Bernard has ever seen:

Columns carved with dragons and painted

yellow and red and green

in

are at the entrance; the floors in the lobby are marble; there are rows of

blue and white Chinese pots

Then, walking

across

filled

the

with red chrysanthemums.

lobby,

Marcuse spots someone he

knows.

The embassy

voice he uses to greet the second-ranking is

at

the French

relaxed and easy.

"Aaah, Monsieur Chayet," Marcuse

new

man

says.

"Let me introduce your

accountant. Monsieur Bernard Boursicot."

Bernard's heart stops for a second.

"The game

is

up," he thinks, but

it

is

okay. Chayet does not

recognize Bernard's face or name.

"You had they arrive

"Oh,

good

a

at his

yes,

I

trip in to

the city?" Chayet asks Bernard

rooms.

came

in

with the press attache. " says Bernard.

"Ah, no," says Chayet. "Monsieur Marcuse

He

is

a journalist for

and

it's

is

not the press aide.

Agence France-Presse."

Bernard's face turns red thinks,

when

— the

got to be a mistake.

first

He

thing out of his mouth, he

fumbles

for

something

to say

but

L

20

is

Within moments,

lost.

a

i

i

o n

s

International Club, she says, a group

Bernard

is

Mme.

she has spotted his discomfort,

as if

Chayet, a slim, elegant woman, breaks is

There

in.

going

—

at

to say no.

He is relieved when he can finally retreat to his room. It is a The furniture is heavy and ornate, the bathroom enormous,

room.

when Bernard opens

the double

windows he can see the red

curving yellow roofs of the Forbidden City.

moat surrounds the

The view

little

He

an adventure book

feels guilty

ment

is

in

when he was

China. But he

is still

about the way he got here.

boy

impression he has

He

made with

moments you

Vannes.

more worried than

He

recalls

the minister councillor

He

excited.

with embarrassto

know was an the

first

makes him

feel

this

thinks of what his mother used to say about

during those

A

looking at an

in

important foreign correspondent, as an attache. That

awful.

walls and

marvelous.

It is like

a

M. Marcuse, who everyone seemed

referring to

and

white carved stone bridges

arch over streams, glowing softly under the moon.

cannot believe he

is

fine

palaces; there are four towers in each corner of the

sprawling grounds, and here and there

illustration in

the

Bernard join them?

will

exhausted but he does not know how

movie

a

is

is

how

to

behave

are not sure of yourself: "// faut tourner sa

langue sept fois da?is sa bouche avant de parler. " "Roll your tongue in your

mouth seven times before speaking." He not

make such

"Why the

a

will

watch himself.

He

will

mistake again.

home?" one sometimes asks a man who grew up in French countryside, and the answer comes back: "I left home be-

cause

did you leave

I

was

tired of eating soup."

Meaning, "I was

tired of fish

every

Wednesday and Friday, tired of the priest in his skirts, tired of the routine of homely things." Even a festive occasion, a communion lunch, which in Brittany is a ten-course affair, with first the champagne and oysters, then the fish, then the pheasant, then the roasted meats, then

the salads, then the cheese, then the fruits and the cakes and the

cognac, could

become

a

in Brittany just after the

a successful

farmer

heavy and oppressive thing.

Second World War

is

common.

after the

If a

such as

ceremonv

at

this

daughter of

in a village outside the old walled city of

married, the whole village would be invited for the

and

A meal

Vannes got

wedding breakfast

the church everyone followed the bride and

L O V E

groom back for

to the farm, singing.

which two cows had been

21

Then one

sat

down

to a

wedding lunch

killed.

Bernard Boursicot's family was not successful. His father, Louis,

had been

and

salesman

a

—

just like Willy

Bernard would think

a smile,

Loman, out there with

later,

a suitcase

reading an American play, ex-

cept that in his father's case he had only the suitcase, never the smile.

He

lost his inheritance in a traveling sales

shops came

He was proud man — he had been the Resistance —and he hated working Nor did he with a

in.

during the war

in

for others.

He

job for long.

venture that failed as large

stay

He

could not bear following orders.

had many

handyman, gardener, cop, but eventually he always 1950s are

money,

boom time

a

France,

in

five strong brothers,

Bernard. Everybody in town

who

is

knows

it,

He dreams "Life

of romance. is

not

It

making

are

some

in the

house? As

say, or

what

home,

for leaving

away from the provinces from the time he

to get

early

Louis the Loudmouth. Louis

too.

thing his wife can sew,

would they do with four young sons Bernard wants

men

the Boursicot

trades:

The

quit.

each one successful, except for the father of

A good

fond of his wine.

all

a

is

a boy.

drives his father crazy.

a fairy tale!"

Louis screams. "Get your head out of the

clouds!" a child, are as real as life.

When

he sees the film Samson and Delilah he weeps. The Count of Monte

Cristo,

Bernard cannot. Movies to him, as

Lord Jim, The Brothers Karamazov; when they he

never there, he

is

Russian steppes.

is

He

is

on Bernard

call

honor or

off dueling for a lady's

He

not an unintelligent boy.

in school

lost

on the

has a talent for

languages, excelling in English and Spanish; he reads books that are

advanced

But he reads only what

for his age.

of interest to him,

is

ignoring his studies, and on vacations he goes hitchhiking. turns eighteen and

That

suits

Bernard

two years behind

is

at

The army rejects X5," giving him a

school they throw

him, too.

—

psychological deferment.

"defaillant psychisme

serve in the military.

whose

His

father

first trip

him

is

When

he

out.

They classify him

fine.

fakes the psychological tests, he will later say

friend

When

— he

as

He

does not want to

an invitation comes from an old school

working

in Algeria,

abroad. Bernard

thousand kilometers from Vannes

he grabs

remembers

it

to Port-Vendres.

it.

so well: hitching the

Buying

a fourth-class

— Liaison

22

steamship ticket

—

His

look at Oran, high on

first

and

a chair

a

women,

Algeria, the veiled

a cliff

over the harbor, with

from the war that took

One

father

looking the

can

still

ocher

hills

see bullet holes in buildings

hundred thousand

a

still

its

Bernard loves

hills like lace.

the sinuous streets, the history. Algeria has

not been independent long.

eign Service people

a spot in

blanket are ten francs extra so he does without.

and palm trees and paths winding down the

whose

him

for Algeria for forty francs that gives

steerage

live

lives.

Yet the French For-

splendidly. Bernard's friend Bertrand

assistant consul general, lives in a two-story villa over-

is

with

city,

a

cook and driver and maid.

When

Bertrand's

father arranges for Bernard to tour the country with an assistant, he

is

when he

is

7

treated like a prince. Bernard also goes along with Bertrand

invited to the beach at Trouville with the family of the consul general,

Claude Chayet. Trouville

a

is

ramshackle

a stretch of weathered villas

beach with

little

and

town,

a

few miles of

and

a post office

a

bakery.

It

bears no resemblance to the elegant French resort adjacent to Deauville for

which

it

was named. But Bernard

man

so important a

as

M. Chayet. He

is

excited to be in the presence of

has, Bertrand tells him, just spent

four years as conseiller d'ambassade to the French delegation to the

United Nations

in

New

York. His father and grandfather

mats. His three children,

who

Of course, when

is

in

the visit

were diplo-

are Bernard's age, are fluent in English.

over,

it is

impossible for Bernard to remain

Vannes. At nineteen, dreaming of adventure, he returns to Algeria

and gets

a

job as an accountant in the bureau of Anciens Combattants et

Victimes de

Guerre, the French war veterans'

la

office.

Algeria having paled, Bernard returns to France and

Foreign Office headquarters

in Paris,

hoping

The war veterans'

Foreign Office. Bernard has

civil service

The man

in

interested.

larly

shame; there

is

a

makes

for a spot in

place as accountant or clerk.

office

A

is

year his

some

later,

way

to

exotic

a division of

the

experience.

personnel who interviews him does not seem particuCan Bernard speak German? he asks. No? What a spot for an accountant in Bremen.

Is

Bernard really

only twenty, or has he misread the form? Frankly, he doesn't have a thing.

He

does not ask Bernard the reason

how much time can one spend on no reason

to

volunteer the information.

Another man, who seems

to

for his military

a clerk, after all?

Then

deferment

—and Bernard sees

they are interrupted.

be the interviewer's boss, steps into the

LOVE room. There

is

23

problem that requires immediate attention. The newly

a

opened embassy of France the premier conseiller

in

China needs an accountant. The name of

mentioned.

is

"Monsieur Claude Chayet," the man "Chayet?" says Bernard,

says.

as if recalling

an old friend.

The atmosphere in the room changes. "You know him?" one man asks. went with him

"I

Eight weeks

he

tion,

on

is

later,

way

his

The French embassy the

to the

in Trouville," says

Bernard.

nervously guarding the secret of his

decep-

little

to Beijing.

is

located in northeast Beijing, in the outskirts of

10 Sanlitun.

city, at

beach

The

ambassador's residence

Bernard, nervous and wearing his

new

is

next door. As

day of

suit, reports for his first

work, he sees Ambassador Pave. Pave has a reputation for being an

easygoing ing so

man

but, Bernard

knows, he had originally been against hav-

young and inexperienced

a

person as Bernard on his

the urgency of getting an accountant had

Now, from

the look he gives Bernard,

"Twenty," he

And people to

do

and

at

says.

the embassy and there

will train

made him change

seems he

"Aaah, well. You

yet things do not go badly.

—Yu Tong,

it

do

will

There

is little

staff.

for

still

for

his

larly intrigues

now." two dozen

are only about

Bernard, in his

first

weeks,

Chinese national who has been handling the accounts

a

him,

is

on sick leave. Bernard, with time on

tells

himself, like Proust.

him:

A

French

qualini, born in Beijing to a

been

in

his hands,

There

is

Chinese mother and

Chinese labor camps

for

seven

years,

has

come

nard

is

fascinated

is

a

Jean Pas-

Corsican father, has

on charges of spying. His their

two

outcasts. Pasqualini, in his years of confinement,

close to death.

ating on the

says.

made

He

one case that particu-

citizen, thirty-seven-year-old

Chinese wife, though she loves him, has divorced him so that sons will not be

mind.

has doubts.

reads the accounting manual and soaks up the stories around him.

observing, he

Only

The French

when he

are

working

for his release. Ber-

hears his boss, consul Jean Colombel, negoti-

phone with the Chinese.

"The weather is so nice between "And yet, we still have a cloud in

our two countries," Colombel the heavens.

In his off hours, he explores the city.

Much

." .

.

of the old city

is

gone,

L

24

as

Marcuse warned. The

a

i

o n

s

i

pailoo, the triumphal arches in

marble and

wood erected in honor of emperors and nobility, are fast disappearing. They symbolized the old feudal society, Mao believed, and when he took power in 1949 he ordered them torn down. Many of the old palaces and traditional courtyard homes were also destroyed. The rickshaw runners, who lived an average of six years after assuming their trade, are also gone,

replaced by bicycle-drawn pedicabs.

French

them.

call

Yet there

is still

much

that

is

beautiful in Beijing. Bernard explores

He

the palaces of the Forbidden City. Purity where the Last Emperor,

married, as a boy.

He

"Pousse-pousse" the

Pu

visits

Yi,

the Palace of Heavenly

had forty years

earlier

been

fascinated by the traditional Chinese house, a

is

one-story building constructed about a central courtyard, hidden behind three walls.

The

exterior wall

next two walls, about gates,

notion, that the spirit world

a

sense of mystery. There

enough

his

a

on

is

a real world,

have

enchanted with

a

this

powerful enough to require

also intrigue Bernard.

no way

He

is

They heighten

passerby can get a sense of the

life

studies conversational Chinese, learning a polite

conversation about the weather,

phrase here and there in the talk around him. While

French colleagues

off alone

is

tries.

to ask directions,

and understand

ceremonial walls with circular

Bernard

evil spirits.

and mortar. Walls

within. But Bernard

high and encircles the property; the

six feet high, are

designed to keep out

barriers of brick

is

socialize

among themselves Bernard

often goes

his bicycle into the old quarters. Foreigners are so rare that

often the Chinese stop what they are doing and stare at him, but that

does not dissuade him. Bernard talks with the peddlers; he soon has regular pousse-pousse driver with

whom

night they ride about the streets.

he shares Gauloises. Late

at

Bernard studies the old ladies

in

trousers and black velvet caps, tottering along on their

inhaling their hand-rolled cigarettes as

up

stories

about them:

They

a

if

bound

they are a drug, and he

are thinking of the old days, he

feet,

makes is

con-

vinced.

But

finally

merchant or cab

Bernard driver,

meals, no going for

There

it

is

frustrated.

For while he can chat with

does not lead to anything. There

a drink,

are

a

no shared

no invitations home.

are other walls, invisible, around the Chinese. Social rela-

LOVE upon by

tionships with foreigners are frowned are a

few Chinese employees

Yu, in

their

government. There

the embassy whose ties to the French

who

date back to the forties and

who does

at

25

viewed

are

as special friends:

Antoine

the accounts with Bernard and whose father had worked

the embassy before the revolution; his brother Odilon Yu,

teaches Chinese to the ambassador and intellectual in his early sixties,

Chinese employees,

at

who

M. Chayet; San Chan

translates

newspaper

who

Liu, an

articles.

But

all

the embassy or in private homes, are screened

and selected by the Chinese government's Bureau of Foreign Services for

Diplomatic Personnel, and the veteran diplomats are aware that the

Chinese must report everything they see Beijing

is

a

segregated

city.

to their

work

unit chiefs.

Before the revolution, the diplomats of

the nations which had once occupied Beijing had lived in their

own

neighborhood, the legation quarter, southeast of Tiananmen Square.

The

streets

were lined with pink mimosa, the buildings were

compound was

of opulent European styles, and the French impressive: a

enter.

the Chinese

to live in the quarter, nor

tell

— the

particularly

better,

Bernard

could their police

the foreigners where to

China, the French are assigned rooms on the

Hotel

fifth floor

Chinese

realizes, for the

live.

to

Arriving in

of the Beijing

keep an eye on

them. As housing becomes available, they are moved to the Sanlitun, a neighborhood so far from the center of

nicknamed boy when

Siberia. Minister councillor Chayet,

his father

old relationship,

mixture

red gate at the entrance, flanked by two stone lions.

tall

Chinese were not permitted

Now

a

worked

in

who

town

district of

it

has been

lived in Beijing as a

the French ministry, has, by virtue of this

been given something very

special: a traditional court-

yard house for him and his family. But Chayet understands the social restrictions.

Though he and

his

Chinese teacher Odilon Yu have known

each other since they were children, and Odilon occasional French reception at

home

or at the

may be

invited to the

embassy, Chayet under-

stands that he will not be invited to Odilon Yu's home. Such an invitation could

make Odilon

where Odilon Yu

politically suspect.

lives.

The European community,

When

Chayet does not even know

to Bernard,

is

as insular as

Vannes.

the French arrived to open their embassy earlier in the year, there

were only

fifty-five

French nationals

living in

all

of China.

Now, with

Liaison

26

the embassy staff and exchange students, the Beijing

under one hundred.

still

is

number of French in The British, who recognized the

People's Republic in 1950, have a small consulate. Finland, Denmark,

Sweden, and Switzerland have some diplomatic personnel posted

The

Beijing as well.

who do

Americans,

in

not recognize the country, are

not permitted entry.

There

entertainment. Theater consists of revolutionary

little

is

ballets featuring girls in

Red Army uniform

glorify the worker's struggle.

who wants

to

.4

or operas

and plays which

Bucket of Manure, the story of

use manure for her private garden plot but

her husband to bring

it

to the

go to the International Club,

band wheezes out

communal

is

field, is typical.

in the old legation district,

is

difficult:

a

place for

where

illicit

a

dance

it is

not a

Foreigners cannot go more than

twenty-five miles outside Beijing without permission.

China

convinced by

A foreigner can

fox-trots learned before the revolution, but

cheery alternative. Travel

woman

a

Nor

is

Mao's

pleasures: Drugs, prostitution, even horse racing

are forbidden.

Foreigners are forced to amuse themselves.

which tail

in a

arrive via diplomatic

and dinner

parties.

Sunday mornings some attend Catholic

convent, the only Catholic

raised Catholic but

Bernard has

a

now

is

facility left in Beijing.

Chinese

for the

Press.

Bernard,

services

who was

an agnostic, attends for companionship.

children; Francoise, tutor to the children of second

Language

films,

few acquaintances: Francois, the tutor of the Chayet

Yves Pagniez; Nicholas Komaroff,

who works

They show

pouch from Europe; they have endless cock-

He

is

a

French

as a translator

embassy councillor

linguist in his early thirties

and editor

at the

Foreign

also befriended by Augustin Quilichini, the

fifty-

one-year-old embassy consular agent. Augustin had arrived in China in

1934 as

a soldier

and married

a

French-Chinese woman, Therese. Dur-

ing the sixteen years the French

embassy had been

closed, the couple

stayed on in China, where Augustin lived in a fine old house on Chan-

gan Avenue and served

Now

Augustin takes

tailor,

inviting

him

as consular agent, looking after

French

a fatherly interest in Bernard, bringing

interests.

him

to his

to their house.

But Bernard does not have any close friends and he

is

conspicu-

ously uncomfortable with his coworkers. Foreign Affairs employees,

LOVE

27

and privileged group.

particularly those of rank, are a well-educated

Their

style

is

the opposite of Bernard Boursicot's. While they prize

discretion and understatement, Bernard blurts out the

comes

into his head.

They have attended

thing that

first

the best schools in France: the

Ecole Nationale d'Administration, which has graduated finance minister Valery

Giscard d'Estaing; the Institut d'Etudes Politiques; the Ecole

Normale Superieure, which has trained

and teachers,

intellectuals

in-

cluding Jean-Paul Sartre. Bernard was expelled from school in tenth

The manners

grade.

of the embassy staff are perfect. Bernard

is

visibly

awkward.

He

fusses over his appearance and showers twice daily but

still

When he is excited or drinks he flushes, perspires, talks too much. A buffoon, some people consider him. One day in the embassy, the secretary to whom he gives the ac-

appears unkempt.

and

counts to type

tells

him

that another secretary

is

spreading the story that

his feet stink.

A

few days

"Your bath

later,

the story reaches the minister councillor:

facilities

— they

working order?" he asks Bernard.

are in

Bernard becomes very self-conscious times

There It is

is

something besides adventure that Bernard has never been

love.

agony,

parting, "is

in

eluding Bernard in China.

is

love but he

he had written

for,"

something creative which

feelings of fright and of vitality.

He

had also

knows what

it

entails:

.

more

I

should be working night and day;

I

I

should be meeting

out of this journal

But "fright

a

and

is

in

both the

lots

his

life.

should be living with

a

woman;

I

should be reading and writing

of people;

I

should leave

all

medioc-

." .

.

magnificent love vitality"

provoke

before de-

me

.

sports;

furiously;

will

in his journal

."

what was wrong with

listed

"I should be doing

affair

provoking

not working out.

The

a great

emotional flood of

truth

Bernard has never

is,

woman. He has never even had a steady girl. He had had schoolboy crush on the girl next door when he was eleven her father

made a

his socks three

longing, desperation, barriers.

"What I'm looking

rity

— he changes

a day.

love to a

—

Liaison

28 had been in

a civil

the yard.

servant in Africa, they had a big white Peugeot parked

was

It

up

tied

all

mind: the pretty

in his

the savannas of

girl,

Africa, the shining car, a great erotic escape fantasy.

He

had

bed on humid summer afternoons aroused, thinking about had been too shy to approach

once or twice just

when

Algeria,

been

easier,

woman

show

to

her. In high school,

took him to

a friend

a

whorehouse and it:

but he

he had taken out

that he could, but nothing ever

he could not go through with

lain in his

her,

came

of

a girl

In

it.

could not have

it

Nine dinar bought

a

women, some French, some Algerian, were fat sat in a big room on low Moroccan settees, pink

there, but the

and middle-aged. They and green

light

gowns up

to their hips,

bulbs in the lamps behind them, and hoisted their dirty

showing

fat

nervous boy from the old ruling

men amused "73/

them.

They

thighs with varicose veins. Seeing a

class in the

company

of older Algerian

toyed aggressively with Bernard.

vas venir avec moi?" they'd asked, jiggling

a fat leg.

Bernard found them repulsive. But sex, he often found himself thinking, was a dirty game. You could not get

away from

in a boys'

it

and

school. At night in the dormitory, the prefects patrolled the floors

the bathrooms, suspicious and knowing. At confession,

all

the priests

asked the same questions: "Did you touch yourself? Did you touch another boy?" Bernard always said yes, even though he had not, because he had done

in his

it

mind.

At sixteen Bernard meets

one year younger, but is

a

one of the best soccer players

and

and when Bernard

slim,

young man we at school.

sees

ass.

Bernard

is

He

always has a

him on the soccer

white shorts he finds himself looking

muscular

shall call Francois.

He is He

Bernard's mind a far greater social success.

in

girl.

at Francois' strong legs

good-looking

too.

He

is tall

field in his tight

and

Five feet nine inches

firm,

tall,

he

has clear skin and a muscular body with a swimmer's broad shoulders

and small waist. Bernard does some.

He

not,

considers himself short.

He

however, consider himself handalso thinks

he

is

stupid about sex.

women. He has kissed the having made love to an older

Francois has a magazine collection of naked prettiest girls in school.

He

woman of thirty-five. One day Francois shows days

later,

theater

is

they go to

dark and

a

full

brags of

Bernard some of his magazines.

deserted movie theater.

The

exit

is

of spiders. Francois shows Bernard

A

few

unlocked, the

some

pictures

LOVE of naked

and when Bernard

girls

and they have not

It is

to

Francois

Maybe

pointing. for

is

like

it is

"Did you touch

Now

and

if it

has,

—he comes

your

first

and despite the

Kissing truth

again.

Maybe once

will stop

guilt afterward,

There he

is

He

is

enjoy the

that

it

act.

He

is

boy must be good-looking, muscular, and

designed penis. Bernard never kisses his partners.

when he

will stop sleeping

it

with

turns eighteen, he

with boys;

it

is

makes

a boy.

He

The

feels so

promise to

a

a schoolboy's game.

He

masturbating, too.

Coming

he

something exciting about

starts to

China, Bernard

to

keep

tries to

desperate to lose his virginity, he wants very

and he

disgusted.

is

he knows he should be doing nothing with boys.

strongly about himself:

takes a while

it

month, sometimes with

a

between men and women; he cannot do

is

is,

toilet

Did you touch another boy?" anybody knew it would be awful.

particular in his tastes, too: a slim, with a nicely

seems

however, Bernard finds disap-

that afterward, Bernard

it is

it

meeting with

whiskey, he thinks;

Francois, sometimes with other boys. it,

to this

yourself?

yet he does

he

And

supple, accommodating, and

act itself,

be good. Or maybe

to

it

The

pocket.

his

in

hard Francois turns his back to him

sex.

difficult.

Bernard he has had experience

paper

is

29

finding

it

difficult

even

to get a date.

pick up after church that he

tries to

is

But he

that promise.

much

to

have

He may

a diplomat,

tell

steady

a

is

girl,

the students

but he

is

merely

a

contract worker, hired for a thirty-month period, and the girls can recog-

nize a clerk.

The more

and that makes

it

they look

And

him the more he exaggerates,

November,

my work

after an

and

I

regret it," he writes in his

evening with two French

of the outing: "I think Roselyn finds

Catherine It is

at

even worse.

"I boasted a lot about diary, in early

down

I

me

girls.

attractive but

it's

desire."

the old problem of the romantic:

The one you

can have does

not interest you, the one you cannot have, you must. Bernard does not give up easily, either.

who

haunts me,

When

A week

who tomorrow

later I

he

is

speaking of "this Catherine

will try to

have."

Catherine rejects him, he takes out Roselyn,

"who can

feel

the passion."

Bernard never makes love to either

girl.

He

tells

himself

it

is

Liaison

30 because he does not care to interest him.

to:

There has

love. Also, there

is

to

The

girls

do not

offer sufficient challenge

be some obstacle, some

In the French community, meanwhile, the sicot a

difficulty, for real

something very ordinary about these

nickname.

"Bourricot," they call him, "the donkey."

girls

girls.

give Bernard Bour-

2 n winter in France there are diversions for the | loneliest '*'

When

man.

it is

damp

too chilly and

for

the parks, one can go to the movies, or browse in a bookstore, or

sit

for

hours in a cafe. Bernard, as

the temperature dips into the twenties and a cold wind blows the yellow

dust of the Gobi across Beijing,

is

without those comforts.

the Beijing Hotel to a small apartment in the diplomatic

time

to kill

Moved from unable

district,

the streets and parks, he feels particularly alone.

in

Chinese rush past him bundled up

in

with surgical masks to protect their faces from the biting wind, as

The

an invisible man.

more

finds himself feeling like the

and Bernard, even when he

odd man

from the Chinese,

He

here.

civil servants,

out.

a misfit

He's tired of China, he decides. than pretentious

if

he

is

French, denied their walks and picnics, throw

cocktail and dinner parties,

outcast: cut off

The

padded blue cotton overcoats,

The

He

is,

among

is

in a sense, a

invited,

double

the French.

diplomats are nothing more

saving for retirement.

should be where he wanted to be

when he

He

shouldn't be

got this appoint-

ment.

For the truth

been

in

Aubry, called

is,

Bernard has another secret.

He

has, over the years,

correspondence with the French explorer Fernand Fournier-

whom

he read about

"Adventure

Is

as a

boy of sixteen

My Job." 31

in a

magazine piece

L

32

a

i

o \

s

i

"There's no resisting the winds of adventure"

"When

philosophy.

blows

it

feel

I

not to think and simply follow

He

it

my

and

I

obey. As

the

Amazon,

you can believe adventure

a boy's

it

—and Bernard does—sounds

he was so beloved by the

women

come

to

When

story:

he was

a tribe that the

to his

Gabon with

his first fortune,

he bought

too.

life,

he claims,

in Africa,

his children.

When

he beat the

Returning

to

he

man

France from

cream-colored Hispano-Suiza

a

name he used was

match. Even the

a suit to

shark hunter in

thieves. His

his African workers,

with his whip. His style was marvelous,

and ordered

try

witch doctor asked him to permit

bed so they might have

saw another European mistreating

I

something out of

like

young man

a

a

opium

the Pacific, and has traveled in Afghanistan with if

far as possible,

instincts."

Gabon and

has been a forester in

Fournier-Aubry's

is

fantastic:

Capitaine Tropic.

Most

boys, reading about such a man,

would have done nothing.

Bernard had written Fournier-Aubry telling him

him and

later

made

four pilgrimages to his family

At eighteen, Bernard even managed

who was back to join

had

to China,

embassy

When

in

him. His

France

trip to

really

meeting with

a fleeting

after traveling in the

how much he admired home in Monte Carlo. his hero,

Amazon. Bernard longed

the Foreign Affairs office in Paris, before coming

been

in Brazil, so that

to see if there

might be an opening

he could get from there

he learned there were no openings

in Brazil,

to

in the

Fournier-Aubry.

he grabbed the most

exotic available spot: China.

Now

Bernard writes Fournier-Aubry again.

"If you need me,

making

I

a point of saying

where he suggests

life is

am he

is

ready,

now

I

at the

to call,"

embassy of France

he

says,

in Beijing,

grand.

His true feelings are recorded

"What am

you only have

doing tolerating

in his diary.

this

empty

life?"

he writes

in early

December.

And

later,

But such

"Will take a bath and look at this unused body." is

the round of parties in Beijing in late

December

the most melancholy accountant cannot remain at home. invite the

French

to a

try to

like the British,

flummox them with

that

British

Christmas party with Scottish dancing.

French are not surprised: Just and then

The

The

they say, to invite them

that Scottish business. Well, they will

LOVE The

deal with that:

Bernard feels like an foot,

then the

puts him

know or like human trust,

pre-party party so the French can learn

a

master

idiot trying to

and feeling twice

right,

Why

off.

someone who knows the absurd

Quilichinis find

dance and they throw

as if

you are buddies?

among

particularly

girl,

when

but he

who

Claude Chayet

on

his arm,

awkward with the and goes off

diplomatic

is

is

is

is

has talked very

number

throwing

and he

is

really

no

who

of such a good-

to

He

is

British

make

feels

at his

good arriving with

a

make an evening

special.

music and people are dancing. Bernard but he takes her coat

girl,

—

if

when they

he has learned anything

sure the lady has a drink.

When

happily amusing herself on the dance

in

he comes

floor.

not that eager to dance.

in his

attention, yet there

a girl. is

a

His French

a

is

Mao

suit,

and

fluent and he

Chinese guest

He

at a private party.

mid-twenties, wearing

than

taller

is

the

excited to be at the Chayets' Chinese

— the only one Bernard has ever seen man

little to

French students

for the

But then he does see something that interests him:

built

He

invited to another party, which premier

to fetch her a drink

life it is

back, the lady

Bernard

He

British secretary.

There

It's a terrific party.

arrive

not so bad.

it is

looks like Julie Christie, and he

house: the courtyards and spirit walls

feels

And

girl.

home. Bernard takes the girl

reflect the nature of

in his diary.

coup, he feels, to get the

a

it is

Just before Christmas he

beautiful

forced intimacy also

impressed by her looks and the number of people

—

looking, popular

conseiller

does not

It

she gives him her number.

is

surround her

it.

left

diplomats.

to the British party.

blond British secretary

a

The

his bulk.

"I'm the worst," Bernard writes

meets

holding up the

first

it,

put your hand on the shoulder of someone you don't

Nonetheless he goes

pleased

33

is

is

is

a slightly

quite short,

the center of

something about him that seems tentative and

shy. Bernard also sees,

among

his colleagues, a solicitousness that

is

markedly out of character.

"May we

get you a drink, Monsieur Shi?"

"May we

get you some-

thing to eat?"

Bernard

"Why girls

here."

is

curious.

aren't

He

waits a

you dancing?" he

bit,

then walks over.

asks.

"There

are a lot of beautiful

Liaison

34 "I don't really like

it

so

much," the young man

says and turns

away.

Bernard goes to the dance

His date

floor.

is

some

chatting with

other young men; she has perhaps the same utilitarian view of Bernard that he has of her.

whom

to dance.

minutes

later,

He

But

doesn't really care. There are other

mind

his

he returns

to

is

still

They

on the Chinese man. Fifteen

the vivacious party,

and

to

is

"You should

won't permit

try it."

it."

is

impressed. Robert Richard had organized

commercial exposition between France and Beijing

diplomatic relations had been established, and for

the

Mme.

Pu

a

mercial councillor. Bernard a

says. "It

member of the Beijing Writers' Association and that of operas and plays. He also teaches Chinese to Francois, tutor of the Chayet children, who has invited him to this Mme. Eliane Richard, wife of Robert Richard, the com-

a writer

is

man

introduce themselves: Bernard Boursicot, Shi Pei Pu. Pei

Bernard he

tells

he

health," the

with

him.

"It isn't difficult, dancing," he says.

"My

girls

is

in 1964,

before

considered responsible

most successful aspect of Franco-Chinese

relations:

trade.

Richard, in Bernard's opinion, considers herself even grander

than the wife of the ambassador. Bernard doubts she even knows his

name. That

this

man

is

Bernard has never met

Bernard has

making

a

Richard's private tutor

something. Also,

is

a writer.

Chinese teacher, but

this doesn't stop

him from

suggestion now.

"Well,

he

a

Mme.

if

you

are a

Chinese teacher, maybe you could teach me,"

says.

"Perhaps," says M. Shi, going off. Not good enough. The party is breaking up. Bernard, looking across the room, sees Pei Pu writing down his address and phone number for one of the French students.

He

walks over and snatches

it

out of

writes his

name

the student's hands.

"This must be

for

me," he

The young man and and address

where

Pei

Pu

young man

for the

a pousse-pousse

is

says.

are speechless. Pei again.

Then he

Pu

goes into the street,

waiting.

Bernard follows him.

"Remember,

I

want

to see

you," he says. "I will call!"

LOVE Bernard doesn't days, playing It is

the

it

week

35

the next day, though he wants

call

then phones Pei Pu.

cool,

They

before Christmas and there

He

to.

waits three

arrange to have dinner.

work

is little

Bernard

to do.

puts in an appearance at the embassy in the morning, but in the after-

noon goes skating on the great lake he

British charge d'affaires,

an idiot

falls

—why does he always have

ranking men?

By

Beihai Park. Skating by the his wrist.

to fall

the time he meets Pei

on

Pu

Worse, he feels like

his ass in front of high-

in the

Covered Market,

a

antique shops and dusty bookshops unchanged by

street of small

the revolution, his wrist

cheers him.

in

and hurts

on

It's

The

The

up one

a little street,

no other Europeans. jackets; the food

swollen.

is

restaurant Pei

and there

flight of stairs,

Buddhas

waiters look like

Pu

delicate and delicious. Pei

is

Pu has chosen

is

in

white

are

Mao

treated with great

respect.

came here," Pei Pu

"I

says,

"with Mei Lanfang."

Bernard says nothing. Ilfaut tourner sa langue sept fois dans sa bouche avant de parler.

Mei Lanfang,

When

the greatest actor in China, says Pei Pu.

he

Mei perbefore he had become

died four years ago, there was a national day of mourning.

formed Beijing Opera and was Pei Pu's teacher a

playwright, Pei

Pu

says,

he had even enjoyed some fame. rant often in 1959

says Pei Pu,

is

He

and Mei had eaten

and 1960 during the great famine.

was more valuable than

Mei because

invited to eat with

Now he

—

he had been an actor and singer. At seventeen

it

left

A

in this restau-

bag of

rice,

he was always glad

gold;

more food

twenty-six and no longer performs.

for his

He

mother

at

then, to

be

home.

writes plays about the

workers. His tone suggests that the workers are not a subject of very great interest to him.

Pei

Pu speaks

a bit

of his growing up in

Kunming, the

southern province of Yunnan, north of Vietnam. ers, a

very cultivated family. Pei Pu's father,

sor; his

mother,

who

lives

has two older sisters; one table tennis champion.

vice-minister and tural education:

who

with him is

He

now

married to a

in Beijing,

famous

is

has,

Bernard gath-

dead, was a profes-

was

a teacher.

Pei

painter, the other

has an uncle, Ting Hsi Ling,

has traveled abroad. Pei

He was

He

who

capital of the

Pu

as a

who

is

a

a cultural

boy had

taught by French missionaries, which

Pu

was

is

a bicul-

how he

L

36

a

i

o n

s

i

learned the language. Later he received a degree in literature from the University of Kunming.

and

Then

Pei

insists

they go

but the

room

Pu

notices Bernard's swollen hand.

once to

at

One cannot be

to wait:

treated like everyone else.

The

waiting room moves Bernard

a foreigner in

Even

so,

stops his stories

The

a hospital.

spotting a foreigner, quickly

staff,

He

is

crowded,

to his

China and expect

own be

to

takes a long time to see a doctor.

it

injury turns out to be only a sprain, but Bernard

moved by

is

Pei

Pu's concern. Except for his mother, no one has ever taken care of

him.

The

holidays come.

There

is

sit-down dinner at the

a

high-ranking diplomat on Christmas,

New

Ambassador Pave on "According

to the

a black-tie party at

Year's Eve.

young

ladies, you're the best

twenty- to thirty-year-olds," Augustin Quilichini not convinced.

men

a

He makes

a point at

happy new year and kissing

for

But with Pei Pu, he

Bernard, but he

feels relaxed

all

the ladies, which he

is

the gentle-

knows

is

the

glum.

is

me," he writes

Bernard makes no entries

to him.

tells

dressed of the

midnight of wishing

all

correct thing to do, but privately he

"Many faux pas

home of one home of

the

—

in his diary.

perhaps because Pei Pu

in his journal of their first

is

kind

meeting

December, but by January he mentions meeting Pei Pu two

in

or three

times a week. Pei Pu shows him restaurants and parks and shops un-

known

to other foreigners.

and encourages him

He

to buy.

teaches him about paintings and ceramics

He

tells stories

of the emperors and of

palace intrigues: His family, he suggests, was related to the Last

Em-

peror. It

would seem, with Bernard's

history, that there

must

be, in this

friendship with an exceedingly delicate man, a sexual undercurrent, but

Bernard denies delicate

little

it

—those days

man would

are over,

he says and were they

hardly be his type.

Nor

not, this

are there indications in

Bernard's diary of a sexual attraction to Pei Pu. Unlike his

Pu

meetings

with the French

girls,

the barest facts,

and for such an important friendship they are surpris-

Bernard's entries regarding Pei

are limited to

ingly brief:

"Meet

Shi Pei

a restaurant,

Pu

Temple of Heaven, then February ..."

three o'clock; go to the

then to the movie Spring

in

LOVE "Wait

We

for Shi Pei

an

visit

art gallery

Pu

where they

at a place

and do

37

sell

milk and brioche.

Forbidden City."

a tour of the

"Rendezvous with Shi Pei Pu."

A sexual attraction?

make him

Pu's stories that

He

tells a tale: if

what he

his

is

like a

he

He

for

his

It is

Pei

and the marvelous way he

whispery, almost breathless voice, as

sisters

for

him

too.

When

he speaks of

were much older than he

—

it

poem.

my friends

"I took for stars,"

—

in a

some wonder

saying holds

mind, says Bernard:

his

so interesting,

speaks slowly,

lonely childhood

sounds

never crosses

It

moon and

the birds and the trees and the

the

says.

elevates the ordinary to the marvelous.

and Pei Pu

tells

Bernard the cook served

Emperor. They go walking on Coal

Hill,

They go

to a restaurant

the palace of the Last

in

the park north of the Imperial

Pu shows Bernard the locust tree from which the last Ming Emperor, Chong Zhen, hanged himself in 1644 after enemy

Palace, and Pei

troops entered the city and his

own eunuchs turned on him and

He

vented him from fleeing the palace grounds. life in

pre-

Bernard of his

also tells

the Beijing Opera, where actors and actresses often portrayed the

Mei Lanfang was the finest of all the Pu says. Pei Pu himself, at sixteen, played a

opposite sex on stage. His teacher

female impersonators, Pei

woman's

an immortal white snake

role in The White Snake, the story of

who comes

to earth in the

mortal man.

He

form of a beautiful

girl

and

sang the role so well that afterward

falls in

a

love with a

man came

to see

him from the audience. "Oh, what

The man,

a

golden voice you have," he

says Pei Pu,

said.

was Mei Lanfang. Pei Pu became

a favorite

member of his family. Two of Mei's children were actors. His son played women on the stage, while his daughter portrayed men. Both are now famous. But Beijing Opera, pupil, traveling with him, accepted as a

with

its

Only

tales of lovelorn aristocrats

last

summer,

and cunning demons,

is

out of favor.

at the government's Beijing Opera Festival on Con-

temporary Revolutionary Themes, Beijing mayor Peng Zhen said that Beijing Opera "prettified the exploiting classes and uglified the working

people."

Now

theater

who had been an new works and Pei Pu

Qing,

is

to extol the workers.

actress in the 1920s,

says he has updated

is

Mao's wife,

Mme.

Jiang

overseeing the creation of

some

pieces.

L

38 Bernard once attended not bear

The music

it.

scenery. Everything

"Small

as the stage

is

is is,

i

a

s

i

o n

Opera performance and he could atonal, and monotonous. There is no

a Beijing

piercing,

dependent on symbolism and the a

few steps

you

will bring

far

actor's skill.

beyond heaven,"

the actors' adage says: With a few gestures one can create a universe, but

you must understand the code. An actor

raising a foot symbolizes that he

entering a house. Walking in a circle means undertaking a long jour-

is

ney.

The movement

of a sleeve signifies remorse. Occasionally props

have their own language

are used, but they

someone explains

general,

as well.

That

horse jumps in a stream; you can

for Beijing

ers far

because there

tell

is

all.

Opera requires

a

a

Now

the

the word "water"

Bernard crazy, and among Westerners he

a sign. It drives

is

one the enemy; you can see

to Bernard, that

the difference in the masks. Bernard sees no difference at

on

actor

is

not alone,

complicity between audience and perform-

more demanding than the Western

stage. Assistants carry props

on- and offstage during a performance, dressed in black to signify that

The Chinese do

they are invisible.

supposed

to see

"How "Too

long

not see

them because they

are not

them, but the Europeans do and are distressed. is

Beijing Opera?"

long," he says, and

someone asks Bernard.

when

Pei

Pu

him

invites

to

one he has

cowritten, Bernard does not go.

Bernard with M. and

on

is

Mme.

a visit to the

a foreigner

him.

Richard

at

the Beijing Hotel.

Ming tombs

at

midnight

with a Chinese, stops the

tutors Francois

is

He

car.

He

and Francoise, and Francoise

a soldier,

seeing

enjoys spending time with also studies to

his

impressed and somewhat curious about

works closely with the Chinese

visits regularly

takes the Chayets

—during which

Bernard himself introduces Pei Pu

Komaroff

Pu

not Pei Pu's only French friend. Pei

as a translator

Chinese with

friend

Komaroff.

this friendship.

He

and never sees them

socially.

But

it

seems

to

Bernard that he and Pei Pu are best friends, telling

each other things they reveal to no abruptly silent.

women

He

tells

And yet sometimes Pei Pu turns when he was a famous young actor

else.

Bernard that

pursued him, but that he had nothing to do with them.

Bernard asks why, Pei Pu becomes

When

irritable.

"You cannot understand," Bernard remembers him saying. "You couldn't possibly."

L

He

He

says friendship

about

frets often

claiming fatigue; he

V

between

tires easily

39

Chinese and

a

his health;

E a foreigner

is

doomed.

he cancels dinners on short notice

on walks.

—

Even something that should be cause for fun the arrival from Hong Kong of Bernard's new bicycle, a light, smooth piece of equipment compared to the bikes in Beijing Pei Pu views fearfully.

—

"C'mon,

try it,"

Bernard

says.

"I don't ride bicycles," says Pei Pu.

buy

it

"But when you

leave,

I

will

from you."

So Bernard

at last

has a friend

—but he

still

hates embassy

people, he thinks, have no interest in China. All they do

life. is

about their servants and talk about the houses they will buy

These

complain

when they

retire.

Nor

are his

employers entirely happy with him.

In the beginning of the year, Bernard ing,

falls

and the normally easygoing ambassador

is

behind

in his

furious.

He

Bernard's office one Friday, knocking ledgers to the

floor.

"This place

is

A

at the French Embassy warns Pei Pu about Pu passes the comments along to Bernard.

a

mess," he

says.

high-ranking friend

Bernard, and Pei

"He's the lowest person

Pu

account-

bursts into

tells

in the

Bernard she has been

embassy,

accountant," Pei

a little

told.

"I have a very important job," Bernard says. "I pay the ambassa-

dor."

But inside, he

Even

social

hurts.

events with Pei Pu seem to go badly.

One evening

children's tutors, Francoise and Francois invite Bernard and Pei to the

house

—

perhaps Pei Pu put them up to

it,

talk about Beijing Opera and then Pei

music and

one of as

his

"The

most famous Story of the

about to give to settle in

a

piano

in

gent young lady

Pu

listen to

French

tells a story

about

"The Shadow of the Willow," also known Butterfly." He begins it just like a gentleman roles:

recital.

and the pianist

Long ago

Pu over

Bernard thinks, be-

They

cause he's sure the cultivated pair don't like him.

the

A

smile, a pause allowing for the audience

to hear his inner song,

China, Pei Pu says, there lived

named Zhu

Yingtai.

The

and then the music:

a beautiful

and

intelli-

daughter of a learned man,

L

40

she wishes very

much

I

to attend

A

S

I

N

()

one of the imperial schools that prepare

students for national exams, but being a

girl

she

not permitted to do

is

troubles her, particularly because she has a brother

so. It

badly

in school.

She begins

who does

very

dream.

to

/were a boy," the girl thinks, "I could be number one." She makes a plot with her brother: They exchange clothes and she "If only

goes off to school brilliant student.

pretending to be

in his place,

She

also

becomes

Liang Shanbo. They share

close friends with a

bed and come

a

Zhu

a boy.

to love

Yingtai

handsome

he feels

She yearns

to tell

him her

Then Zhu's

family.

very

but she

much is

boy,

feelings of

attracted to Liang, too.

afraid of

endangering her

They have found

her a

returns to school and reveals her identity

girl

though disturbed by the news,

to her friend. Liang,

he now understands

secret,

is

family calls her home.

husband. Anguished, the

for

Zhu

for this boy.

a

each other very

much, though Liang Shanbo does not understand the strange attraction

is

his feelings for his schoolmate.

is

relieved because

He

declares his love

her and asks her to marry him, but Zhu, though she loves him,

cannot disobey her family. "It

is

too late," she says.

She returns family

tells

says she

home. Distraught, Liang takes

to her

her she must go on with the wedding.

first

must go

his life. girl

burial dress," she says,

no

tomb

dies.

Her

family, finally understanding

Liang, buries her beside him. butterflies

And

is

and beneath

the willows shadowing Liang's grave, she throws herself on his

and

Zhu's

agrees, but

She sees now there

to her beloved's grave.

way she can love another. "My wedding dress will be my

The

as the

and they

fly

The

how much

souls of the

away together

their daughter loved

two lovers turn

into

to live in everlasting happiness.

willows under which Liang and

Zhu

are buried grow, the

branches intertwine. It is a

wonderful

enjoys Pei Pu's stories

story,

when

the story and interrupts.

Then

in

He

wonderfully

is

But Bernard, though he

makes fun of

not invited again.

mid-March he gets the

four years: Capitaine Tropic invites

the jungles of Brazil.

told.

they are alone, this evening

letter

him

he has been dreaming of

to join

him on an expedition

for in

The ,,

address

41

to Bernard:

"Territorio

Rondoniol,

ile

the envelope and paper so light they are practically tissue.

Brasil,

"Your

found

unknown

is

E

V

/.

me

letter,

made

having

after

around the world, has

six trips

corner of the jungle of the Amazons, a vast region of

in a

woods and plantations," Capitaine Tropic

writes. "If your intention

is

to

we are on the same wavelength." now that escape is possible, he not one-third finished. The govern-

be useful and live the great adventure, Bernard can't believe

And

it.

suddenly has doubts: His contract

yet,

is

ment has brought him here at great expense. His boss Colombel, seeing him buckle down after the ambassador's reprimand, has told him if he applies himself he may have a career with the Foreign Service.

know what

Bernard does not a

walk with him

to do.

in the railroad station. It

He

up Pei Pu and goes

calls

is

a big

Bernard

says.

marble

station,

but

for it is

not busy; they are quite alone.

'Tm

thinking

I

will resign,"

Pei Pu, though he

is

supposed

be

to

a friend,

seems unable

to think

of this in terms of anything but their relationship.

"So," he says, as

if

the decision has been

'i will not see you anymore.

I

am

made and was

Bernard feels bad. But he has dreamed of adventure if

he does not accept

ask again?

He

this invitation,

resigns.

inevitable.

sad."

who knows

if

his life,

and

Fournier-Aubry

will

all

Then, Pei Pu morosely accompanying him, he

goes to the post office and wires Fournier-Aubry that as soon as the

embassy

finds a replacement, he will join him.

Bernard

is

place that

it

replacement

at

a

a little

Is

it

only

when one

decides to leave a

the embassy a raise comes through for Bernard, and in

April he

is

monthly

trips to the

told

blue himself.

becomes more pleasant? While he awaits word of he

will carry the

consulate in

diplomatic pouch on one of the twice-

Hong Kong.

It

sounds

to

Bernard like

a

vacation, not work: a special travel allowance, first-class hotels, and the

famous there.

nightlife of

He

"Me

reveille

day before find in

Hong Kong. Bernard knows

will at last rid

songeant

exactly what he will do

himself of his virginity. .

.

his departure. "I

.

,"

he writes

in his diary

wake up daydreaming

on April 30, the

of the

women

I

will

Hong Kong."

It is

an excellent

trip.

Bernard

first flies to

Canton.

It is

May

Day,

the big workers' holiday, and there are fireworks and celebrations. Ber-

Liaison

42

nard wants to get out in the street and be part of

about

his responsibility to leave the diplomatic

his hotel

window. The next day he takes the

but he

it,

pouch.

He

is

too serious

watches from

train across the

border to

Kowloon, on the Hong Kong peninsula, and then picks up the

Hong Kong island. He Then he checks into the

He

has,

pouch from

to the

Embassy Hotel

elegant

he thinks, the best job

salary until the

pouch

delivers the

in the financial district.

in the world: five

Paris arrives to

ferry to

French consulate.

days of liberty, on

be carried

to Beijing.

He goes out to buy condoms and find a girl. The second is not so easy. He walks for two hours until, finding himself in a seedy strip near the ferry station, he sees two pretty Chinese girls. He strikes up a conversation, inviting them to the movies. Then he goes home and changes his socks. In the evening, he meets the

Cinema. The movie episodes of The

is

The Spy with

Man from

Bernard has no interest trying to decide

When

in

back

leave. Bernard goes diary, follows

at

it

all.

He

it

Face, a spoof consisting of a

concentrates on the prettier

friend gives

They

to him.

to the hotel dejected.

him back. A week

later

Bernard

A

is

him

named Daniel who

My

see

Frenchman,

friends with another is

girl,

a dirty look.

just hail a taxi

a

and

boy, he notes in his

back

in Beijing.

highlight of his stay in the capitalist center of vice will have

making

few

elapse before he takes her hand.

away and her

do not speak

girls

the Princess

U.N.C.L.E., an American television series.

how much time should

he does, she takes

Afterward, the

My

girls at

The been

twenty-six-year-old student

traveling around the world, and going with

him

to

Fair Lady.

when Bernard returns, is moodier than ever. There is a nice interlude when Bernard's new friend Daniel visits Beijing for ten days. Daniel is a quiet, intellectual young man who is making his tour on an

Pei Pu,

educational grant. There

him

Pu

is,

Bernard

feels,

— something that makes him sensitive

likes Daniel, too.

He shows him

and Daniel, who wants

Chinese

librettist. Still,

to

be

is

one of the

a

white Tibetan pagoda.

in

to

who need

help. Pei

the city and takes him to the zoo, is

fascinated by this

troubling Pei Pu. Bernard sees

it

Beihai Park, rowing on the North Lake.

It

is

prettiest spots in Beijing; there

The

people

a writer himself,

something

one evening when they are

something very decent about

is

an island on the lake with

park was once the

site

of Kubla Khan's

LOVE palace,

and lovers

sit

of summer, the park telling

him about

on the benches about the

open

is

his trip to

says Bernard, does

late.

But

Hong Kong,

lake.

Bernard wants to move

his

Pu removes

tells

With the long days

as

Bernard rows with Pei Pu,

Pei

Pu seems nervous. He

something that makes Bernard

puts his hand on Bernard's and

discomfort, Pei

43

him

that he

also,

feel very odd:

He

his "nice friend."

is

hand, but he does not. Perhaps sensing his his

hand and goes back

what

to

becoming

is

a familiar litany:

"You

are

my friend, but you When you leave,

understand me. It

anxious to find

for love

my

best friend."

— he

is,

after

He

this.

is

Hong Kong, even more

a girl.

May, he gets

his chance.

young Chinese man comes up girl.

will lose

has the ring of lovesickness, but Bernard does not see

busy looking elsewhere

In

do not understand China, you don't I

Officially prostitution

As he walks along Changan Avenue,

to

him and

a

flashes a picture of a pretty

may have been wiped

out,

but

it is

clear she

is

The young man gestures to him to sit on the handlebars of his heavy bicycle. They drive through narrow streets to a small shack. Inside, the lights are dim. The man walks to a bed and pulls down the blanket. A girl, in her underwear, is lying there. The man leaves. Bernard approaches the girl. She is his age and frightened. He moves his hand gently over her arms, trying to soothe her, and when he does, his hands come up against a knife. She is being offered. At eleven that night, Bernard returns.

clutching outside.

it

in

one hand, half hidden beneath her

The man seems

teur,

Bernard thinks; he

from

his

hip.

be nervous now, too

is

more worried about getting Bernard away

neighborhood than collecting

a fee.

He

drives Bernard back to

the center of Beijing, pedaling frantically. Bernard gives

—the equivalent, he The

later learns, of three

next day, Bernard

"You must not do

Bernard runs

— he must be an ama-

to

tells

weeks'

him

thirty

yuan

salary.

Pei Pu.

this," Pei

Pu

says.

"It

is

very dangerous in

China."

Soon afterward, Pei Pu time.

It is

invites Bernard to his

understood by both that the

ment would approve. To Bernard, Pu takes some

precautions.

He

this tells

home

for the first

visit is

not something the govern-

makes

it

particularly exciting. Pei

Bernard to wait

eastern gate of the Forbidden City in early evening

for

when

him

at

the

there will be

L

44

a

i

o n

s

i

fewer people. From there, they walk

few blocks

a

east, to

Nanchezi,

but Nanchezi

streets are rare in Beijing,

form

trees

a

is

and lush that the

so narrow

Number

dappled green canopy. At

25, Pei

Pu

stops and

takes Bernard through three circular gates, to a paved courtyard. are three

one, Pei

little

Pu

houses around the courtyard. Pei Pu's mother

in another. Pei

the entranceway

is a little

Pu's

home

burns and the lighting

bedroom with

low.

is

clean and spare.

is

netting; to the right are a writing table

A

lives in

the

left

of

canopy bed with mosquito

a

and chairs and

bulb shines through

Incense

a stove.

a red

lamp shade,

Pu disappears and

feeling of having entered a temple. Pei

ments

To

There

room blood amber, deep and unnatural. Bernard has the

tinting the

her

a

narrow street of courtyard houses with deep red gates. Tree-lined

long,

later returns

with his mother,

a

few mo-

a

woman

diminutive, gray-haired

in

sixties.

"Ni hao," she

She

says.

"How

stays only long

do you do?"

enough

to serve tea. Pei

Pu seems concerned

about Bernard's presence, so he stays just a short time. But he

Some people spend

is

excited.

years in China and are never invited into a private

home.

A

few days

later,

Bernard does not

tell

such

Pu

girl

Bernard has no plans of seduction.

a girl,

irritable.

he

He

mood does

When

feels.

to

dinner

at a restaurant.

there will be another, but he arrives with a

French-Vietnamese

strikingly beautiful party.

Bernard invites Pei Pu Pei

Pei

Pu

arrives

finds fault with the food,

as if

at

an embassy

could never succeed with

and sees the

he finds

not improve until they put the

Bernard keeps talking about her

he has met

He

fault

girl

girl,

he

is

at

once

with the service; his

on the bus.

he doesn't notice

his friend

is

jealous.

"But don't you

The

following

find her beautiful?" he says.

week

Pei

Pu and Bernard go walking near the en-

trance to the Forbidden City in one of their favorite places, a courtyard

beyond the main gate where Water Stream.

It is a

five

marble bridges arch across the Golden

beautiful evening, mild and not yet dark

— the

tiles

moon gold. It is a night when one feels close to emperors and legends, when one can remember the boy emperor Pu Yi, kept prisoner in his own palace; when it is possible to think of spirits like the White Snake goddess who come to earth to make mischief in of the Forbidden City are

L

human

form.

who

girl

Pu

Then,

as

"Look

at

And

my

who

it is

love with her

falls in

played that role on the stage, Pei Pu

re-

his favorites.

my

his little hands:

"Look

hands," he says to Bernard.

my

at

That

face.

story, too."

shadow of the Forbidden

then, in the

Pu

Pei

He

was one of

it

Bernard the story of the Butterfly:

tells

Bernard remembers, Pei Pu holds up

story of the Butterfly,

it,

again

dresses as a boy; the boy

not knowing her secret.

minds Bernard;

45

perfect setting for one of the old stories, and as they

It is a

stand on the bridge Pei the young

E

V

Palace, as Bernard recalls

another story: Pei Pu's mother, as Bernard knows, had two

tells

daughters before Pei Pu was born but there were no sons. Sons are

more important than daughters

Chinese home. With the

in a

far

birth of a

third child

imminent, Pei Pu's paternal grandmother, who ruled the

household,

made

Pei Pu's mother did not at

a decree: If

last

provide the

family with a boy, Pei Pu's father would have to take a second wife. Pei Pu's mother was terrified. She did not want to lose her position in the

household his

another wife. Pei Pu's father was upset also

to

one great

he could not bear

love;

to see her

And

Pu's mother gave birth to Pei Pu.

Pu had

lie to

man, struggling

to

be something against

far too

dangerous, in modern

one the

secret. It

in to

is

doing

so,

an incredible story

a girl.

along he has

He

is

known

to

as a boy.

So

be equals,

to

it

was. Pei

admit that

an old, feudal sense of values. But now, Pei Pu Pei

Pu

is

trusting Bernard with her

—and yet Bernard accepts

adjustment to be made, no space

buddy

was

men and women were supposed

telling Bernard. In It is

They

Pu

lived disguised as a

one had given

a pact:

the grandmother and raise Pei

nature, telling no

China, where

was

a girl baby, yes, a girl.

So Pei Pu's mother and father and the midwife made agreed to

his wife

unhappy. And then Pei

Pu was

Pei

—

The

is

not. It

is

strongest feeling he has

as if is

life.

as if there

to bridge, in learning that

surprised and yet he

this.

it

is

is

no

your best

somehow

all

one of compas-

sion.

"You But

are

my

later, as

on the hour-long

The

best friend.

he goes

home

will tell

I

trip to Sanlitun,

familiar streets

nobody," he

says.

in a pousse-pousse through the side streets

the

full

impact of the story

under the moon seem

hits

him.

like a stage-set in a black-

and-white movie. Everything has changed. Pei

Pu

is

no longer

a friend;

he

is

a

woman and nobody

else can see

Liaison

46

it,

and now

Pu

another romance Bernard will have with

it is

him

so

much, he

As Pei Pu

story.

—

this person. Pei

—

no, she has told him and him alone her woman, Bernard must save him no, her and her from China. He must care for her and protect her and later

trusts

deliver

—

a

is

on must do everything

make her

woman

a

even

again,

"Revelation!"

help her restore her personality.

to

This delayed reaction

—

He must

necessary to marry.

if it is

volcanic.

is

the one word Bernard writes that night in his

is

diary.

A Pu.

few days

He

Bernard

later

does not feel

and Pei Pu have

to do:

we

another, therefore

starts

thinking about making love to Pei

a great passion;

You

rather something he feels he

it is

woman,

are a

should have sex.

am

I

It is

a

man, we love one

almost like a clause

in a

contract.

"If you are a

Pei

woman, we should

Pu does not

sleep together," he says.

say yes, but she does not say no either.

"Not now," Bernard remembers her saying. "Whenever you think it is possible," he says.

They

set the date, finally, for the eleventh of June, at Bernard's

apartment. Bernard can think about nothing else for days. the rendezvous, he counts hours. Pei

Pu

arrives at his

The day

apartment

of

at six

o'clock.

She things

is

not dressed for an evening of love, in

— how can she be? She

leather jacket and a

Moved, he goes

Mao suit;

to her

is

dressed like

a

soft, pretty,

feminine

young man, wearing

a

she wears her secret story, thinks Bernard.

and kisses her on the neck, gently. Then he

starts

to undress her.

"Let

me

do

it,"

she says, taking her clothes

off,

down

to her

underpants.

Naked, Pei Pu has

tiny

little

breasts and

Bernard's touch seems to frighten her.

He

is

is

indeed rather plump.

somewhat nervous,

too.

He

goes into the bathroom and puts on one of the condoms he bought

Hong Kong; he comes back

to Pei

Pu and

lies

down

with her and

in

starts

to caress her.

Pei

Pu catches

"Let me do It is

his hand.

it,"

Pei

Pu

says,

guiding him.

over quickly and Bernard has to admit to himself that this

first

LOVE time with

because

a

all

woman

is

not so erotic as

the planning had

so worried about Pei Pu.

He

"My

leg.

He

had been with boys

finds Pei

feels terrible that

— perhaps

tense, perhaps because he

goes into the bathroom to get

condom and when he comes out he blood on her

it

made them

47

Pu

in

he has hurt

poor friend," he says, taking her

rid

was

of the

her underwear with her.

in his arms.

"My

wife."

J he movies are right about love %l thing. Bernard, except for

H

feelings of tension

him ful.

He

is

begun, feels wonder-

is

The

staff

is

put on a

schedule and Bernard has to work only two afternoons

love

affair.

know house.

is

He

with Pei Pu.

his true destination,

When

when he

he

arrives,

even more

is

Pei

now,

still

a

man

will

to Pei Pu's

kisses his wife

there

is

—the

Pei Pu's mother does not speak

cannot understand

much Chinese,

Shi dotes on Pei Pu. She does

as

summer The rest

to hide their

then walks two or three blocks

cleaning. Pei Pu, in turn, says her

word "comrade"

week.

Forbidden City, so no one

he kisses Pei Pu the way

feels, are prudish.

French and Bernard

Mme.

careful,

a

home, though not when her mother

returns

Chinese, Bernard

translates.

He

hires a pousse-pousse to the

inexplicable

Pu adores him. Even the

lover and hero and savior. Pei

of the time he

changes every-

it

which once or twice come over

shortly after the affair

Foreign Service seems to be aiding love:

—

some odd,

mother

is

all

so Pei

Pu

the cooking and

her closest friend. If the

used by the government reflected the feelings that

Pu and her mother have

for

one another,

it

would be

a

very fine

Pu says. After lunch, Pei Pu's mother leaves, and Pei Pu and Bernard make love under the mosquito netting on Pei Pu's canopied

thing, Pei

bed.

The

sex

is

Pu often seems

not entirely satisfying to Bernard. to prefer to

be

at least partially

48

It is

hurried, and Pei

dressed. Oriental

mod-

L

E

V

49

Bernard assumes, and the more universal fear that her mother

esty,

might walk into the room. Pei Pu does not allow Bernard he would

fully as

me"

"Let It

does not matter that

sit

for

and she

be

likes to

in control.

she always says.

knowledge of her they

like, either,

to caress her as

much

to Bernard;

secret, that binds

hours and

They

talk.

his love for Pei Pu, his

it is

When

them.

the lovemaking

same kind of

like the

education by French nuns has given her a knowledge of

is

over

Pei Pu's

stories.

Hugo and

Balzac and de Maupassant. Despite the growing government restric-

on what constitutes appropriate entertainment, Pei Pu has been

tions

exposed

to foreign movies.

A

few years

Writers' Association had screened

earlier,

her boss at the Beijing

some American movies

people with screenwriting. Bette Davis starred

in

to help his

some. Ignore the

content, study the structure, the boss said, for the movies of course

Pu could not ignore the

reflected a decadent capitalist system. Pei

content. She was mesmerized by Bette Davis: those eyes, that haughty style, that

Maid,

in

way she swept

When

child to her cousin so that

it

does not know Bette Davis It

makes Pei Pu

cry.

the soldier will not

her.

and Jim, the

What

fate?

He

songs.

in

Back

in

own

America who

The

death?

the two friends

Are there love

it.

Is

whom we

affairs so

at

made

is

love

pow-

love a question of

Pei

Pu

film's lilting, bittersweet love

France, British rock singer Petula Clark has a has

who

Hong Kong, and he and

Moreau singing the

"Downtown" and Bob Dylan Now, Baby Blue." In Beijing,

child

child? Bernard's favorite

woman and

has bought a tape recorder in

often listen to Jeanne

in

Bette Davis gives the

be marked by scandal.

Bernard cannot stop talking about

end

woman

killed,

The Old

is

greater pain can there be for a mother

tragic story of a

erful that they can only

is

movie

her mother and regards her with con-

is

than to be unable to reveal herself to her Jules

favorite

which Bette Davis plays an unmarried

has a child by a soldier.

tempt.

Her

across a room.

hit

with

the charts with "It's All Over

student parties, they're dancing to the

Beatles and the Rolling Stones. Bernard does not care for rock music

and he despises

folk.

He

likes torch songs.

He

likes

melancholy, sophis-

smoky voices of Juliette Greco and Edith Piaf; the dusky, sad tenor of Leo Ferre singing "Paname," his love song to Paris. If Bernard and Pei Pu have a song, it is that: of ticated, cigaret