Page 48 of Never

‘These Americans!’ Wu said. ‘They know that we hate Muslim terrorists as much as they do. More.’

‘Much more.’

‘Our worst troublemakers are the Islamists in the Xinjiang region.’

‘I agree.’

Wu Bai shrugged off his indignation. ‘But what are we going to do about it? That’s the important question.’

‘We could push back against the American diplomatic campaign. Our ambassadors can try to change the minds of neutral countries.’

‘We can try, of course,’ Wu Bai said dubiously. ‘But presidents and prime ministers don’t like to go back on their promises. It makes them look weak.’

‘May I make a suggestion?’

‘Please do.’

‘Many of the neutral countries whose support we need are places where the Chinese government is making massive investments – literally billions of dollars. We could threaten to withdraw from those projects. You want your new airport, your railway, your petrochemical plant? Then vote with us – or go ask President Green for the money.’

Wu Bai frowned. ‘We wouldn’t want to carry out that threat. We’re not going to cripple our investment programme for the sake of a pesky UN resolution.’

‘No, but the threat alone might work. Or, if necessary, we could pull out of one or two minor projects symbolically. We could always restart them later anyway. But the news that a bridge or a school had been cancelled would scare those who are expecting a highway or an oil refinery.’

Wu Bai looked thoughtful. ‘This could work. Big threats, backed up by one or two token withdrawals that can be reversed later.’ He looked at his watch. ‘I’m seeing the president this afternoon. I’ll put it to him. I think he’ll like the idea.’

Kai thought so too. In the manoeuvring over the choice of a new Chinese leader – more secretive and byzantine than for a pope – President Chen Haoran had given the traditionalists the impression that he was on their side, but since becoming leader he had generally made pragmatic decisions.

Kai stood up. ‘Thank you, sir. My kind regards to Madame Wu.’

‘I’ll be sure to tell her.’

Kai left.

Down in the swanky lobby he called Peng Yawen. She gave him several messages but none demanded his immediate attention. He felt he had done a good morning’s work for his country, and now he could attend to a personal matter. He left the building and told Monk to take him to the Beautiful Films studio.

It was a long crosstown journey, almost all the way back to the Guoanbu. On the way he thought about Ting. He was passionately in love with her, but sometimes baffled by her, and occasionally – as now – embarrassed. He had fallen for her partly because he was enchanted by the free-and-easy ways of film people. He loved their openness and lack of inhibition. They were always joking, especially about sex. But he also felt a conflicting impulse that was just as strong: he longed for a traditional Chinese family. He did not dare to mention this to Ting, but he wanted her to have a child.

It was something she never mentioned. She adored being adored. She liked it when strangers approached her and asked for her autograph. She drank up their compliments and fed off the excitement they showed just meeting her. And she enjoyed the money. She had a sports car and a room full of beautiful clothes and a holiday home on Gulangyu Island in Xiamen, twelve hundred miles from the polluted air of Beijing.

She showed no inclination to retire and become a mother.

But the need was becoming urgent. In her thirties it would slowly become less easy for her to conceive. When Kai thought of this he felt panicky.

He would say none of this today. There was a more immediate problem.

A small crowd of fans, all women, stood outside the studio gate, autograph books in their hands, as Kai’s car approached. His driver spoke to the guard while the women peered into the car, hoping to recognize a star, then saw Kai and looked away, disappointed. Then the barrier was lifted and the car drove in.

Monk knew his way around the sprawl of ugly industrial buildings. It was early afternoon, and some people were taking a late lunch break: film workers could never rely on regular mealtimes. Kai saw a costumed superhero slurping noodles from a plastic bowl, a medieval princess smoking a cigarette, and four Buddhist monks sitting around a table playing poker. The car passed several outdoor sets: a section of the Great Wall, painted wood supported by modern steel scaffolding; the facade of a building in the Forbidden City; and the entrance to a New York City police station, complete with a sign saying: ‘78th Precinct’. Any fantasy could be realized here. Kai loved the place.

Monk parked outside a warehouse-like building with a small door identified by a handwritten sign that read:Love in the Palace. It could hardly look less like a palace. Kai went in.

He was familiar with the maze of corridors with dressing rooms, costume wardrobes, make-up and hairdressing studios, and stores of electric equipment. Technicians in jeans and headphones greeted him amiably: they all knew the star’s lucky husband.

He learned that Ting was on the sound stage. He followed a twisted plait of fat cables around the backs of tall scenery flats to a door where a red light forbade entry. Kai knew he could ignore the sign if he was quiet. He slipped in. The large room was hushed.

The show was set in the early eighteenth century, before the First Opium War that began the destruction of the Qing Dynasty. People thought of it as a golden age, when the learning, sophistication and wealth of traditional Chinese civilization were unchallenged. It was similar to the way French people harked back to Versailles and the court of the Sun King, or Russians glamorized St Petersburg before the revolution.

Kai recognized the set, which represented the emperor’s receiving chamber. There was a throne under a draped canopy, and behind it a fresco of peacocks and fantastic vegetation. It gave an impression of enormous wealth, until you looked closely and saw the cheap fabric and bare wood that the camera did not reveal.