Dragon Games

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Xiao Hu ended the call, disappointed, went to the kitchen, made himself a double espresso and fetched the letter from Paul, which he had hidden behind the coffee can. He pulled the copy of Yin-Yin’s piece out of the envelope, read it thoroughly once more and made notes in the margin. His sister wrote wonderfully well; it was another talent that he envied her for. His version would sound no where near as elegant, precise, or passionate.

  He flipped open his laptop and created a document incorporating his changes. He described Yin-Yin’s mysterious disappearance and the circumstances that had led to his parents’ suicide, and added a new conclusion: how much was a person’s life worth in China? How could people defend themselves against injustices done to them by the state? Could there be a “harmonious society” as long as law and justice that the Party was also subject to did not prevail? He called on all readers to protest by e-mail to the authorities in Hangzhou and to Sanlitun. To demand that Yin-Yin be released. To call for an investigation into the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Wu. Even though he did not have high hopes of many readers doing so. The risk was too high. There was too much fear.

  Or was he wrong? He knew the power of the Internet could not be underestimated. It had changed China, but how quickly, and in what way? Had it given courage to the cautious or only to those who were already brave? The story that lawyer Chen had told his sister about the role of the Internet in the police investigations in Henan province was an unusual case, but not the only one. Xiao Hu had recently heard of another instance, in which a security camera in a parking lot had filmed a Party secretary molesting an underage girl. When her parents had tried to press charges, the police had refused to investigate. The film footage mysteriously found its way online a few days later. The fury and bitterness it unleashed among bloggers and in chat rooms was so huge that the authorities had had to arrest the man. The story of Sanlitun and his village was significantly more explosive than that of a pedophile Party cadre. It just had to be online for long enough.

  Of course suspicion would fall on him immediately. They would look into who could have all the details of the case, and very quickly conclude that it was him. He was aware of what lay ahead of him: interrogations for hours, perhaps days. Threats and false promises. But Xiao Hu believed he was strong enough. The state security forces would likely not succeed in proving that he was guilty of anything. If anything, the death of his parents had given him courage that he had not had at his last interview at the Party headquarters, and his faultless Party file spoke in his favor after all.

  He put the document on a USB stick, which he would later put in the trash, and made his way to the area around Jing’an temple, where there were quite a few Internet cafés. After that he intended to go to the Xujiahui area of town and then later to Pudong, to cover his tracks.

  The first café was in a shopping mall. It was small and filled with cigarette smoke; at most of the terminals there were young people playing computer games. No one looked at him. He put his USB stick into a computer. Everything had to be done quickly so that no one could catch a glimpse of the text by accident. Xiao Hu marveled at how calm he was. After logging and pressing “send” his index finger hovered for a few seconds. And not because he doubted.

  He was sending more than a document. He was taking his leave. And within it lay, as always, a beginning.

  The freedom to leave. What a precious thing.

  TWENTY-ONE

  There was a bang on his door. The clock on his nightstand showed 05:27. They are here, was his first thought. Already.

  Another knock, loud and hard.

  “Let me in,” a voice demanded.

  Xiao Hu was terrified. He turned on the light, got up and put on a T-shirt and pants in a hurry.

  “Open the door.”

  “One second. I’ll be right there.”

  Bang. It sounded like they would shatter the wood any second.

  He rushed to the entrance but looking through the peephole, he did not see anybody. They must be hiding in the dead corners close to the wall, he thought. He held his breath and listened. It was quiet.

  “Hello?” he said. “Who is there?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  Xiao Hu did not dare to open the door.

  Suddenly he heard a loud scream from the apartment next to him. It was the young couple fighting; the man was angrily complaining about being shut out. The woman must have locked him out and just let him in again.

  Xiao Hu was too anxious to go back to sleep. He made himself an espresso, heated up a pain au chocolat and tried to work out. After a few minutes he had to get off his exercise bike, his heart was pounding so hard.

  A knock on the door in the middle of the night. It was the way they would get him, he imagined. Or they would come to his office, storm into a meeting and arrest him.

  When Xiao Hu left the garage on his way to the office, he was sure somebody was following him. A motorbike stayed right behind him. He made a detour and took the Nanpu Bridge instead of the tunnel. The bike disappeared long before he reached the bridge.

  He was under no illusion: As soon as the authorities became aware of the documents online he would be a prime suspect. They would monitor his every movement, his every call.

  When he walked into his office he noticed immediately that something was different. His secretary did not dare to look at him, his colleagues avoided his gaze. They already knew. The head of the department cancelled a meeting with him on short notice. There was a more urgent board meeting he had to attend to and in the evening he had to fly to Beijing unexpectedly. Were they already discussing his fate?

  All morning Xiao Hu sat in his office, staring out of the window instead of at his two computer screens, unable to concentrate on work or even make a phone call. He had felt so calm and strong yesterday, knowing he was doing the right thing. A clear path always leads to good. But the path was murky now, the inner act of detachment more difficult than he had imagined.

  The power of fear.

  His secretary came in and handed him a freshly brewed herbal tea. He still looked pale and sick, she said. The tea would help him to feel better but he had to take care of himself. If there was anything she could do for him, he should let her know.

  Her kind gesture confused him. Maybe he was just paranoid.

  He left early and when he turned into his street he saw two black Audis with tinted windows parked in front of his building. He drove by, turned back into Ruijin Lu and kept driving. After a while he made a U-turn, driving aimlessly, thinking what to do next. He had no place to go, no place to hide. His friend Zhou and his wife were an option, even though he had been less than welcoming lately.

  But he was desperate to talk to somebody. He drove to the People’s Hospital Number One and parked in front of the main gate. It was shortly after five p.m., the time when Zhou usually left work. He turned some music on and waited. After half an hour he saw Zhou’s Audi leave the compound. He got out and waved. Zhou stopped.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had a meeting not too far away and thought I would stop by. Do you have time for a drink?”

  “Now?” His friend sighed.

  Xiao Hu nodded.

  “I’m pretty busy, but maybe just a coffee? There’s a Starbucks round the corner.”

  They sat at a small table among busy shoppers.

  “How are you?” his friend asked.

  “I’m all right,” he lied. “What’s up?”

  “Not much. Going on vacation next week.”

  “Where?”

  “Thailand.”

  They fell silent for a while.

  Zhou leaned forward and lowered his voice: “I have something exciting for you. A friend of mine is working at Dragon, the real estate developer. He said the company is hugely undervalued. They will be announcing a landmark deal in the next few days. Think about it.”

  “I will,” Xiao Hu said, absent-minded. “How is your wife?”

  “
Good. She bought a new BMW last week. Great car. Didn’t you order a new one as well?”

  “Yes. I’ll get it next month.”

  “Which series? A five or a seven?”

  “Five.”

  They fell silent again, took a sip of their vanilla frapuccinos, looked around, avoiding eye-contact.

  Meeting his friend had been a mistake, Xiao Hu thought. It made everything worse. He did not want to talk about cars and stocks. He did not care about rising or falling share prices. Not anymore. But what else was there to talk about? Did he expect Zhou to ask about his sister’s whereabouts? His parents’ suicide? Not really. He could not share any of his anxieties, neither with him nor with anybody else. This superficial conversation made him realize how much he had to rely on himself now.

  They got up after ten minutes and left, their cups still half full.

  For the next few hours he drove around the city. He took the batteries out of his mobile phone, like his sister had once advised him to do, though he had ridiculed her for it at the time. He passed by his apartment building. The Audis were gone but a black Volkswagen looked equally suspicious. He made sharp, unexpected turns, drove fast on the inner city highway, switching lanes frequently, just to make sure nobody was following him.

  When he almost fell asleep in the car he checked into the Grand Hyatt at the Jin Mao Tower. It always had many international guests, and he felt safer among them even though he knew it would not make any difference. If the authorities wanted to arrest him, they would do so eventually.

  His room was on the eighty-second floor. He opened the curtains and looked at the city beneath him. Lights, billboards, illuminated skyscrapers, elevated highways, cars, stretching to the horizon. The face of a new China, the fabric of the Chinese dream. The skyline had filled him with pride only a few weeks ago. His sister had been right: It was nothing but a façade.

  He felt alone like never before.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Yin-Yin heard a steel bar fall into place. She was handcuffed. Then there was only an oppressive silence. She looked around. Her prison was small and round, a kind of sphere or diving bell made of metal, in which she could not even stand upright; she could have touched both walls at the same time if she had been able to stretch out her arms. Harsh sunlight came in through two portholes. She pressed her nose against one of the cold windows and saw nothing but a deep blue sky.

  She crouched on the floor, pulling her knees close to her chest and resting her head on her hands. A loud jolt startled her. Yin-Yin felt as if she was in an elevator, going up. The sphere began to swing back and forth, like a pendulum. Yin-Yin jumped up, banged her head, gave a little scream, swore, and peered through one of the portholes. She saw a pier and a giant crane on rails with a long rusty arm; she was hanging from this arm in her prison. On the quay below her she could see black automobiles with tinted windows and men in suits talking animatedly to each other. They looked up every now and then at the steel ball dangling over them. Then they laughed. There was another jolt, followed by a piercing rattle, the sound of a massive anchor chain falling into the sea. The sphere was gradually lowered.

  They want to drop me in the harbor, was Yin-Yin’s first thought. She screamed with all her might. The metal sphere crashed into the sea and the water surged up around it. Yin-Yin drummed her fists against the steel walls. One last brief look, then she had disappeared under the surface of the water and was sinking even farther. The sunbeams disappeared as she sank down to the bottom. All was lost. It grew darker and darker. She screamed and screamed.

  “Yin-Yin, Yin-Yin.” It was Lu, her roommate. “Wake up, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

  Lu’s hand on her shoulder brought her back from the bottom of the sea. The familiar smell of her room. She blinked and took some time to open her eyes properly. The light was blinding; she turned her head to one side to get away from it.

  “Are you okay?”

  Yin-Yin nodded.

  “Should I put on some music?”

  “No, please don’t. Just some talk radio.”

  “A particular station?”

  “Any.”

  The sound of a human voice was enough. During her imprisonment she had often not exchanged a word with anyone for a whole day; at some point she had begun to sing and talk to herself. Since then, she had found silence difficult to bear. Four weeks had passed since her release, but Yin-Yin had still not listened to a single note of classical music. She refused to, and kept postponing the moment without knowing why.

  “Call me if you need me,” Lu said, and switched off the light.

  Yin-Yin stared at the ceiling. The five o’clock news burbled away; she was waiting for the sounds of morning. Neighbors making their way to work; parents telling their children to hurry up. Old Mrs. Rong next door with her deep hacking cough every dawn. The first light of day entered the room, painting black patterns on the walls. She was exhausted but fought with all her might against falling asleep again. The nights, when all the memories came back and she had these terrible gut-wrenching dreams, were worse than the days. She thought about getting up so she wouldn’t fall asleep again, but she was too tired. She tried to turn her thoughts to something pleasant: a concert, a new dress, the score of the Kreutzer sonata, but the notes blurred before her eyes; her exhaustion overcame her.

  When she woke, it was already past nine. Lu was moving around in the kitchen, the smell of fresh coffee. There was a long day ahead of her. She had decided to leave China; for a few weeks or months, she was not sure. A former classmate who was studying at the Juilliard School of Music in New York had invited her to visit, and Yin-Yin was toying with the thought of applying to the school too. She had booked a flight via Hong Kong, to visit Paul and her aunt. The flight left at two, and she had neither packed nor tidied her room yet.

  Her brother was taking her to the airport. They sat in silence in the car for a long time. She did not feel like talking, and he had given up asking her questions. Not like the first few days after her release. Where were you? Did they beat you? Threaten you? He couldn’t leave her in peace. Can you remember any names? Faces?

  No, she couldn’t. No, they hadn’t tortured her. Not her body, at least. No. No. No. He shouldn’t worry about her. She was fine. Considering. No matter how hard he tried, Xiao Hu found it difficult to understand her silence. Say something, Yin-Yin, he said, when his questions led to nothing. Just tell me what happened. He wanted to write down what she said; the more details, the better. He wanted to hear what had happened to her, thus hoping to lessen her burden.

  The things you could not talk about you had to hold your silence on. She could not say anything. She was not there yet. Not for a long time yet. She held everything at a safe distance: her brother; Johann Sebastian, who she had broken up with right after she had been set free; her violin; the symphony orchestra. Even Mozart, Beethoven, and Schubert.

  She had dared to come out of her hiding place, or had been forced out of it, once: when she had scattered her parents’ remains. A small heap of gray ashes. Inconceivable. They had stood on the beach looking at the East China Sea and opened the urn. A moment of weakness. When she saw how some of the ashes trickled into the water and dissolved there while the rest were lifted into the air by the wind, carried away, and blown in all directions forever.

  Then she had rested her head on her brother’s shoulder and cried. Not sobbed; just a few tears before she had herself under control again. She had learned that in her five weeks of captivity. Control; not to lose control.

  Xiao Hu interrupted her thoughts. “Will you call me if you’re ever not well?”

  She nodded.

  “If you need help?”

  “Yes.”

  “If you like, I can come and visit you,”, he offered, though he guessed that she would stay away for a long time. “I have time now.”

  “I know, thank you.” She was sorry that she couldn’t really share this with him. She had him to thank for her release, and she was pr
oud of him. He really had risked everything, and it was only thanks to a combination of unreliable factors such as luck, coincidence, and the political expediency of the moment that he too had not been arrested and that they had not vanished into labor camps or a psychiatric ward by now. Shortly after her release, Xiao Hu had handed in his notice to China Life. He had told his sister that he too needed a rest, though, unlike her, he did not know yet exactly how he would be spending his time. He would look through offers from headhunters in due course, or set up his own law practice. Yin-Yin looked at her brother’s profile. From this angle he looked like Da Long, which she liked. He was now her only family. So near. So far. He meant well, and had generously given her the money for this trip. But she still needed distance. Even when saying goodbye. He hugged her and she did not respond.

  Could one be a stranger to oneself?

  The power of darkness.

  Paul was nervous. Yin-Yin could tell from the way he kept looking at the display board, from the way his gaze flickered all over the hall.

  She was not sure how she would greet him. Initially after her arrest, she had seen him as an ally; the thought of him, his encouragement, his confidence, had given her strength in those first few days. At times she even got the crazy idea that he would get her released. After a week, disappointment and rage took over. Everything was his fault. He was safe in Hong Kong; had more liberties. How naïve she had been. Now he was abandoning her. But those feelings passed too. What remained was an indefinite feeling of annoyance that she herself had yet to put her finger on.

  When he finally spotted her, an uncertain smile flitted across his tense face.

  He hugged her awkwardly. “How was the flight?” No one was safe from pleasantries.

  “Fine.”

  “Have you been to Hong Kong before?”

  “No.” She had already told him that in an e-mail.