Since Canadians are prone to be offended by the success of other Canadians, I knew it was only a matter of time before someone got in the knife. I walked around looking over my shoulder, but the blow came from an unexpected quarter. My Canadian publisher had been agitating for an interview with the national newspaper, the Globe and Mail, and I finally agreed to do one with a female reporter unknown to me. Her name was Jan Wong. I didn’t know that she’d been a student in China during the Cultural Revolution, by her own account had been all for it, and had denounced her roommate to the Red Guards. It’s hard for anyone to get out of the habit of betraying people, overthrowing the ruling class, or stabbing anyone you perceive as an unfairly bloated target, once you’ve had a taste of the sense of power such stabbings can confer.
As soon as we sat down to lunch, Ms. Wong announced that she herself would not be eating. Having read “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves,” I knew that refusing to break bread with a meal companion was a bad sign. My spidey-sense tingled, but I didn’t need a spidey-sense to detect the hostility radiating from Wong’s every pore. She began asking intrusive personal questions, and I began avoiding them. I refrained from saying “None of your goddamned business,” but it took an effort. “And your daughter?” she asked. This wasn’t a subject I was willing to discuss: children and young people should be protected from the notoriety of their parents as much as possible. I got out of the restaurant as soon as I could.
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