I don’t know what happened to those students. I never saw them at the restaurant again. I never heard news of any protests. I don’t know what became of all the others I betrayed. I think that was part of Mr. Gao’s plan. To keep me unaware. It worked. As long as I could not see the harm I was doing, I continued without complaint.

But now I know the truth, and you do too, don’t you? There was a famous case, that professor who taught at the prestigious American university and criticized the Nationalists, who returned to Taiwan on vacation. They captured and interrogated him, his body later found, the authorities claiming it was an unfortunate fall. That was long after I quit Reforging, but I am sure the same people were behind it, Mr. Gao’s team. Could I have sent those students to their deaths?

Taiwan eventually changed course and condemned that period of their history. Looking back, I can’t help wondering if I made the Nationalists’ reign worse? It is impossible to say. But then I see Monica lounging at our home in the United States, tapping away at her computer, without any of our fear, and I cannot regret what I did. I would not sacrifice her for the lives of those men. But then again, I was always the selfish one.

The next time Mr. Gao visited, I planned to ask what it would take to bring Mother here. I was prepared to cite my productivity, the number of incriminating reports I had uncovered, insist I needed her by my side so I might have a steady stream of pencils. We could establish a new company. Pencils were widely used, even in America.

I now followed the news carefully like my grandmother had back in Shanghai. I knew of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek’s prolonged stay on the East Coast, how she was trying to win US senators over to Taiwan’s cause. The sentiment of the American people could sway the outcome back home. I remembered so clearly the day we had learned the war was over. How we stared into each other’s eyes and even my grandmother praised the Americans, who rolled into our city days later with their huge tanks and white teeth. America would save us again, I was sure of it.

Mr. Gao arrived with a large suitcase. In my attic room, he unloaded box after box of pencils, fresh from Mother’s workshop. A good sign, I thought—he must want to expand our operation.

Then he sat on my bed and told me Mother was dead.

“We wanted to bring you back to Taiwan to take over,” he said, staring at his hands. I stared at them, too, the slender, calloused fingers. My wrist pulsed. I could not speak.