Cheuk-Kwan did sleep after that, only waking up at the border when the French officials came to check passports. It occurred to Tinseng that this might cause a problem. To avoid political tension between England and France, Hong Kongers weren’t automatically monitored in France the way a Chinese visitor would be, so they wouldn’t have to worry about a tail the moment they stepped off the train. But Tinseng planned to do whatever was necessary to get Jinzhao back, and someone was going to ask questions in the aftermath. Grodescu used his real name on the cruise; they’d have a record of his crossing from whichever checkpoint he drove through. Cheuk-Kwan also used his real name on the cruise, and now his name would be down as crossing from Spain to France. Two dotted lines on a map, one following the other—it wouldn’t take a genius detective to link them, just the moderate dedication to make calls, request records, and slog through paper files.
Thinking quickly as they watched the official stop at the seats just ahead of them, Tinseng muttered to Cheuk-Kwan, “Use a thick accent.”
“What?”
“When they ask your name. Use a thick accent and don’t help them.”
The official moved to their seat. Their British passports sailed through inspection. Tinseng’s lips twitched as he watched the official write down Cheuk-Kwan’s name completely wrong next to the spelling he copied from the passport.
After the official left, Tinseng explained, “I wanted to muddy the waters. Make it harder for them to look you up. Westerners are horrible with our names. No one’s adopted pinyin; they’re all using a mix of other systems.”
“They’re not using pinyin?”
“No, it’s hilarious. They just write down a bunch of different spellings and hope for the best. That’s why they hired me—to try to make sense of everything. I’ve even had to learn the Americans’ Yale system.” He scrunched his nose in distaste.
“Even the British? They’re in charge of fucking Hong Kong.”
“Well, no, the British have a working system. Sort of. Internally. But it doesn’t match anyone else’s. And the French are a mess, so hopefully we’ll get lucky. But the worst are the Swiss, by far. Ah, if we were in Switzerland, they wouldn’t even know we were in the country! Too bad.”
“Incredible,” Cheuk-Kwan said and snorted derisively. “And you worked for these idiots. I’m going back to sleep.”
True to his word, Cheuk-Kwan shut his eyes and fell asleep in a few minutes. Tinseng couldn’t turn his mind off, and so he wrote: everything he knew about Grodescu’s Paris operations, every lead he might try, contingencies and fallbacks, decision trees based on responses to the telegrams he’d sent in Barcelona. On the train, he had no new information, but at least he had five years of experience—mostly behind a desk, but it counted for something—and the few connections he still trusted. He had medical aid in the form of his brother. He was far from helpless, and he wasn’t alone. Comforting himself with these thoughts, his eyes finally closed.
He woke when the train lurched to a stop at the first station outside Paris. They were only forty minutes out now. He turned to find Cheuk-Kwan watching him.
“What are we walking into?” Cheuk-Kwan asked, low and intent. It was time; Tinseng knew it was time. Still, it was awful betraying Jinzhao’s trust. On the other hand, Jinzhao had run off and left Tinseng in misery, so maybe he deserved a little turnabout.
“Well, first of all, his name isn’t Shan Dao. It’s Mei Jinzhao. That Mei Jinzhao.”
“Wh—” Cheuk-Kwan cut himself off to shift to a whisper no less intense: “What the fuck?”
“When everything with his family happened, Jinzhao told me everything. He knew I could help.”
“First of all, when did you . . . how long have you—and why would he think that? You’re just a . . .”
Tinseng stared until his brother said, resignedly, “You’re not a translator, are you?”
“I am, actually. But not just.”
Cheuk-Kwan rolled his eyes. “Fine. Okay. The Mei who came in from the cold, is that it?”
“With a different ending, hopefully,” Tinseng said with as much false cheer as he could muster. “I’ve just been trying to help him survive.”
“Ha. Where’d you go wrong?”
“Hey.”
“Am I wrong?”
He wasn’t. Cheuk-Kwan was due a little bitterness. Tinseng had never wanted his brother to know just how much he’d been lying to him.
“Well, after everything happened, we needed to get him out of Europe. And I’d been wanting to . . . I’d missed Yukying’s cooking. The plan was to get him to Hong Kong so he could lay low for a while. He hadn’t decided what to do from there. But then we’d heard there’d been information stolen from his parents. The kind someone would kill over. The Americans, the Chinese, the Russians. This man, Lucas Grodescu, has the only copy of that information, and he’s got them in a bidding war. And now he’s figured he’ll get a bigger payday if he sells Jinzhao along with them.”
“And Mei Jinzhao went with him?”
Tinseng shrugged, unwilling to share that Jinzhao did it for him. If he thought about it, he wouldn’t be able to function.
“Okay . . .” Cheuk-Kwan scratched his ear. “And what are you planning to do?”
“Get him back.”
“So let me get this straight. Sh—Mei Jinzhao goes with this guy of his own free will, presumably. To maybe make a move of his own, or to protect all of us from the blowback, or something else you don’t even know because he didn’t tell you. But you’re ignoring that and going after him anyway.”
“If it were me,” Tinseng said, “Wouldn’t you?”
“Depends what you did,” Cheuk-Kwan replied without missing a beat.
“Well then, good thing for Jianzhao it’s me going after him. You’re just along for the ride, right?” Tinseng brushed off the rest of the conversation, their motives and loyalties, with a final word: “It’s the right thing to do, Cheuk-Kwan. He needs help.”
Cheuk-Kwan shook his head. “You haven’t changed at all, have you?”
“I tried to tell you. It’s your fault you didn’t listen.”
Brothers would always be the same. It wasn’t funny, but you had to laugh. Tinseng had no choice but to accept that his brother still betrayed that Tinseng wasn’t the shining hero who’d saved his family. He’d only been thirteen, but already he had been a scholar, an orphan, a beggar, a thief, a drain on society, an adopted son, a bad influence, and a burden. He had worn many masks, which could also be called lives. He had no idea which one was most him.
Cheuk-Kwan sat back against the chair and crossed his arms.
“Who do you think Grodescu is trying to sell him to?”
