Tevun-Krus #50

The Comprador's Agenda - @paolojcruz

"The Comprador's Agenda" originally appeared in Tevun-Krus #15: DieselPunk

Author's note from paolojcruz: At the surface level, "The Comprador's Agenda" is a Batman homage. But really, the Vengeful Ghost's narrative DNA includes a host of other urban vigilantes who masqueraded as wealthy industrialists in pulp serials and radio plays: The Green Hornet, The Spider, The Shadow, and more.

Aside from riffing on the costumed hero tropes, the story represents my fascination with 1930s Shanghai: the unbridled trade culture, the glam nightlife, the ritzy "foreign concession" neighborhoods, and of course, the looming specter of another war. It's an intriguing mess of colonial power dynamics, corporate intrigue, and lavish Chinoiserie. I can only hope my story does justice to the city and the era.

Note from Red_Harvey, who selected it: I've run into Paolo's work many a time on Wattpad, and I've always enjoyed his approachable method of story-telling. The Comprador's Agenda is a great story with a unique storyline, set in early 20th century China, featuring espionage and romance.

The Comprador's Agenda

by paolojcruz

"COMPRADOR: The name given to the native managers in European business houses in China"

- 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

In the morning, I met with the board of the Whampoa Ever Prosperous Trading Company, to discuss our plans for fiscal year 1939. We agreed to focus on the basics: industrial quantities of fabrics, paper, and steel. War is now a matter of when, not if. I don't know about my peers, but I'm rather confident we can still make it out of this mess in the black.

I returned to the ancestral home in Changning District for lunch. My manservant Rajiv prepared his specialty: a hearty dal-bhat-tarkari befitting his fiery Gurkha heritage. Father George always thought it quite distasteful that I would be so fond of such an unrefined meal, but I've found it both a practical and tasty solution to the chill of a Shanghai winter. (Of course, my culinary preferences were the least of our disagreements, during that period when the good vicar served as executor of my family's estate.)

With a full belly, I took a moment to catch up with the day's papers. The latest edition of the North China Herald greeted me with yet another inflammatory headline: "VENGEFUL GHOST – HERO OR HAZARD?" The article featured the usual quotes from Commissioner Blake Connaught of the Municipal Police, lamenting how the masked vigilante's activities were getting in the way of his men's sworn duty to the public. To which I say: poppycock! Indeed, were it not for my Company's "special partnership" with the enigmatic crime-fighter, Connaught's forces would find themselves a lot more overwhelmed. The garden variety triads were difficult enough to handle, what more the flamboyant costumed types who've begun to emerge in the past year.

Shortly after noon, I test-drove the Bentley Mark V up to Eight Immortals Bridge Cemetery, near the border of the International Settlement. As usual, I made an offering at the shrine of my parents, renewing my vow to their memory.

Then it was off to supper at the Long Bar, on the Bund. It was there that I made the acquaintance of a rather persistent correspondent for the Herald, one Miss Rosalind Connaught. Indeed, that fine specimen of womanhood is every bit the spitfire as her father, the Commissioner. It was through our conversation that I came to know of a rumored business meeting between the tai-pan Sir John "The Younger" Keswick, of the Jardine Matheson Company, and visiting American mogul John D. Rockefeller, Jr. It appeared that the two Johns intended to discuss the possibility of developing experimental aircraft together. Whatever the true purpose of their liaison, it was to happen that evening, during the performance of the jazz leader Buck Clayton and his 14 Gentlemen From Harlem, at the Canidrome. The fair Miss Connaught implied that she had gathered this information from no less than Madame Chiang herself, Soong Mei-Ling, who is also Secretary-General of the Chinese Aeronautical Affairs Commission. And so it was that hearsay determined my plans for the night.