The Princeling of Nanjing by Ian Hamilton Read Free Book Online Page A

looked as if they were twenty years old. On the stovetop was a pot of what Ava assumed was congee. On the counter sat a hot-water Thermos and a rice cooker.
    Ava and Xu sat across from each other.
    “Ava, do you want tea?” Auntie Grace said.
    “Please.”
    The old woman took a teapot from the cupboard and filled it with leaves and hot water from the Thermos. She placed the pot with a cup in front of Ava. She then went to another cupboard and took out a bottle of whisky and a glass. She put those in front of Xu.
    “Are you ready to eat?” she said to him.
    “Not yet.”
    “Let me know when you are. I won’t sleep,” she said.
    “Thank you.”
    Auntie Grace turned to Ava. “I spoke with my niece Fan tonight. She was very excited about her day.”
    “She seems to be a very intelligent young woman.”
    “She was my only sister’s only child, and she is my only immediate family.”
    “I understand,” Ava said softly.
    Auntie Grace stared at Xu and then walked out of the kitchen.
    He filled his glass half-full with whisky. “Here’s to family,” he said.
    “That sounds sarcastic.”
    “A day with Tsai will do that to you.”
    Ava sipped her tea while he took a gulp of the alcohol. “So, what the hell happened?” she asked.
    “I hardly know where to begin.”
    “Is it that complicated?”
    “It’s a fucking mess.” Xu ran his fingers through his hair, pressing down on his scalp. “They’re going to destroy me. They’re going to destroy everything I’ve built and everything I want to build. What’s making me crazy is that I don’t think it’s even deliberate. They just think they can do whatever they want and get away with it. I’m the one who sees the danger. But Tsai won’t listen because his father doesn’t listen and because his grandfather never had to listen. I’m dealing with three generations of people who have no idea what it’s like to be denied anything.”
    Ava leaned across the table and touched the back of Xu’s hand. “Why don’t you start by telling me about the grandfather,” she said.

( 6 )
    Xu was sipping the eighteen-year-old Macallan whisky with something close to respect.
    “Tsai Da-Xia marched with Mao,” he began.
    “The Long March?”
    “‘The Long March of the Red Army’ is how the Party people refer to it,” Xu said. “Do you know much about it?”
    “A little, but go on.”
    “In 1934 the Red Army was losing to Chiang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang in the struggle for control of China. The army was in Jiangxi Province and wasn’t strong enough to take on the nationalists. So the soldiers withdrew. They retreated for more than a year, marching 9,000 kilometres. When they finally confronted Chiang, they had grown large enough and strong enough to beat him. The men who were on that march became legends. It vaulted Mao into his position. And the other senior officers all became office holders of the highest rank. Tsai Da-Xia was one of those men. He was eventually appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee.”
    “Standing committee? That doesn’t sound like much of an appointment.”
    “It was the second most powerful group in the country. Only the chairman was superior to them. In fact, since Chairman Deng Xiaoping died in l997, the committee has been the main seat of power. There have been no more chairmen since then.”
    “So Tsai survived the Cultural Revolution, he survived Mao’s lunacies?”
    “Yeah. The Tsais know how to keep their heads down.”
    “How long did Tsai Da-Xia serve?”
    “He died in 1984, when he was seventy-nine. He was a member of the PSC until his last breath. He was one of eight men on the committee, and five of them were associated with the Long March. Tsai was ranked third. He had responsibility for government administration and the economy.”
    “How do you know all this?”
    “My father and Uncle made it a point to know. We were already holding hands with some government officials and they wanted to know who we