A Map of Betrayal Read Online Free PDF Page A

read ten thousand books and travel a hundred thousand miles to become a real man. But that couldn’t be true; not everyone had to leave home to grow up.
    Every night before going to sleep, he’d think of Yufeng for a while. The more he thought about her, the more excruciating their separation felt, as though her absence had only tightened the tie between them. He would replay her words and actions in his mind. Some of her phrases and facial expressions had been growing mysterious and more vivid, pregnant with meanings he couldn’t decipher. Sometimes in the middle of the night he’d awake with a start, feeling his wife standing at the head of his bed and observing him. Her breathing was ragged while her eyes radiated resentment. He wondered whether his preoccupation with her was due to his sense of guilt, but concluded it was not. He cherished Yufeng, believing he couldn’t have found a better wife. If only he could again hold her in his arms, caress her silky skin, and inhale the musk of her hair.
    At the radio station there was a Filipino man who spoke Japanese fluently and a Vietnamese man who knew French well. Both of them were formal and polite at work but turned foulmouthed like the Americans as soon as they called it a day. They had their families with them, yet once in a while they’d go to nightclubs to see local girls dance. They would wave dollar bills and packets of chewing gum at the performers while crying, “Shake it! Shake it!” Gary went with them once but regretted having spent ten dollars in less than two hours. He blamed himself for such extravagance as he remembered the rustic life his parents and wife had been living back home. He wouldn’t go to a place like that again.
    As the only Chinese translator here, he handled all the Chinese-language publications and could follow events in China. Time and again the Communists declared they would liberate Taiwan in the near future, but their plan for the liberation was thwarted by the lost battle on Jinmen, an island about six miles east of Amoy. The previous summer the People’s Liberation Army had launched an attack with three regiments—more than nine thousand men in all, assuming that the Nationalist troops hadn’t been able to build their defenses on the island yet. Under cover of darkness theassaulting force landed on a vast beach, but right after they arrived, the tide began falling away and made it impossible for the three hundred boats to go back to fetch reinforcements and provisions. As a result, the landed soldiers, some having seen the ocean for the first time, had no choice but to charge ahead at the defending positions. When it was daylight all the attackers were fully exposed on the beach, so the Nationalist army shelled them with artillery and raked them with machine guns. Then bombers came and destroyed all the stranded boats, a few of which were even loaded with live pigs and chickens, jars of rice wine, crates of liquor, and boxes of cash for the expected victory celebration.
    Before dusk, the invading troops were routed, and some fled to the hills, but they were either killed or captured. All told, about three thousand men were taken prisoner. The lost battle was a huge blow to the Communists’ plan to cross Taiwan Strait, and Mao had no option but to put “the liberation of Taiwan” on hold for the time being. If they attacked any island again, they’d have to be able to crush the defenders with overwhelming force. Gary realized that so long as the People’s Liberation Army was preparing to capture Taiwan, his superiors might not call him back, because they would need military intelligence from him. He dreaded getting mired in Okinawa for good.
    Through reading reports, interviews, and private talks, Gary could see that the Americans didn’t trust Chiang Kai-shek. They believed that the Nationalist government and army were too corrupt to have any future. Just a few years back the United States had granted them two billion