The Language of Solitude

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  A few notes from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony startled him. It took him a few seconds to find his iPhone among his papers. It was Zhou again.

  “I’m sorry. Am I disturbing you?” It was not Zhou’s style to wait for an answer. “I totally forgot to tell you something. The Westerner made a strange observation on the way back from Yiwu. He wanted to know if your mother could have been poisoned.”

  “Poisoned?” Xiao Hu’s first thought was that this was an inappropriate joke, but Zhou tended to have a black sense of humor. What an absurd thought. “What made him think that?”

  “No idea.”

  “Did he say poisoned by whom?”

  “No. Surely only your father would come into question?”

  “That’s out of the question,” Xiao Hu said firmly. After a brief pause, he added somewhat uncertainly, “Did the symptoms indicate poisoning?”

  “Not directly. The brain is damaged. There can be many reasons for that. Maybe poison too. But why should your—”

  Xiao Hu interrupted him. “Absolute nonsense! Don’t waste any thought on it. Tell me instead if we’re meeting for dinner this weekend.”

  “Sure.”

  The matter was laid to rest for the moment, and it was much too busy in the office for Xiao Hu to give it much thought. There was one meeting after another, and in the evening, a dinner with clients, followed by drinks in a karaoke bar. Only when Xiao Hu was in bed and unable to sleep did he remember Zhou’s phone call. Was it possible that Da Long was responsible for the slow death of his mother? He believed his father capable of many things, almost anything, really. But the murder of his wife? He tried to think of a motive, but he couldn’t think of even a shadow of a possible reason or provocation. Unless his family was threatened by another secret; but he thought that was impossible. No, the thought of it was absurd. He had been deceived by his father once, but on this point he was as certain as it was possible to be about another human being.

  Why on earth had Paul Leibovitz asked such a question? What indications or observations at his parents’ house had led him to have such a thought? Why had he stayed on in Yiwu in the first place instead of flying back to Hong Kong? He would know soon enough. They had arranged to meet after Yin-Yin’s performance the next evening, and speak to him then. He held fast to this thought until his eyes closed.

  * * *

  His sister’s concert took place at 9 Dongping Lu, an old villa that belonged to the conservatory. It was in the French concession, which had been governed by France in the time between 1840 and World War II, when the Americans, the British, the Japanese, and the French had, to all intents and purposes, divided the city among them. Even though that was a shameful period in recent Chinese history, he liked what the Allies, the French in particular, had left behind in terms of architecture and town planning. Entire districts full of lilong alleyway communities. Small parks and gardens. Art deco villas and art nouveau buildings. Boulevards of plane trees like the ones he saw in photographs of cities in the South of France. The building on Dongping Lu was one of those constructed in a French style, with its many turrets and bay windows; he recognized it from Yin-Yin’s previous concerts. The mansion had been built in the 1930s; the stately driveway, the elegant hall, the old parquet floor, and the walls paneled in dark wood—that was all that was left of the bygone splendor.

  The room next to the entrance that served as an auditorium was so full that there were crowds standing behind the last row of seats, right up to the wall. Xiao Hu was happy for his sister that there were so many people there. In the first row, he saw Johann Sebastian Weidenfeller, Yin-Yin’s German boyfriend, who had reserved a place for him. Paul Leibovitz was in the next seat, and he introduced himself briefly before the musicians stepped onto the small stage.

  Yin-Yin wore a full-length cheongsam in red silk, in a contemporary cut; her shoulders were bare and the collar was buttoned up; the material clung to her skin and the slit in the side of the dress went up way above her knees. Xiao Hu was struck anew by his sister’s beauty.

  They began with a Mozart violin sonata. In the first five minutes three cell phones rang; one of them was his, but neither Yin-Yin nor the pianist let it disturb them. Xiao Hu closed his eyes and tried to concentrate on the violin and the piano. He had his mother to thank for his love of music; she had patiently taught him how to read music, trained his ear, and given him an enduring interest in Western classical music, which he had far too little opportunity to cultivate in his life now. So he was especially happy to be able to hear his sister perform. Her playing had always been technically highly accomplished, but it had now acquired expressiveness and passion. It was incomprehensible to him that the symphony orchestra had rejected her after her first audition. He envied Yin-Yin and her gift, even though she didn’t believe he did. He would have liked to have become a musician himself, but he lacked real talent. And, for quite some time now, the stillness.

  As the second Mozart sonata began, the background noise of his thoughts began to drown out the sounds of the violin and the piano. The more peaceful it was around him, the louder the clamor within him grew. It was a nonstop stream of thoughts, plans, associations, and voices coursing through his head. It started in the morning even before he opened his eyes and abated only late in the evenings, enabling him to rest for a few hours. He thought about Alibaba, about his share options, and whether he should exercise them. About his father. About his mother. About the nights when he had lain in bed in the darkness hearing only her singing and the breathing of his sister sleeping beside him. About the comfort of hearing her voice. About an old kitchen table that his mother had sat at in a dim light, wrapping his tattered schoolbooks carefully in old newspaper. He thought about his chances of being transferred to Beijing and about the young woman whom he had fucked twice after the visit to the karaoke bar.

  Yin-Yin had told him that there were days when she heard only music in her head and hours in which she thought about nothing at all. Emptiness. Quiet. Unimaginable for Xiao Hu. Horrible. He loved this stream of thoughts in his head, even if he sometimes found it a strain. If stillness was the price for a career as a musician, he did not want to swap places with her.

  They waited in front of the villa while Yin-Yin changed. Leibovitz was standing a couple of feet away under a streetlamp, taking a telephone call. Yin-Yin had described him as a peaceful and friendly person. Now he was pacing up and down beneath the light talking in a firm and serious voice. Xiao Hu had no idea what he ought to think of this man. He was not wearing a suit, but a pair of faded jeans and a white short-sleeved shirt. His curly gray hair was so long that he could have tied it back in a ponytail. His body was so fit and toned that it probably made him look younger than he was. His eyes had disconcerted Xiao Hu the most. Paul Leibovitz’s gaze was not one of those fleeting, quick ones that looked elsewhere immediately; it had rested on Xiao Hu for so long that he had turned away, unnerved. When Yin-Yin appeared, Paul Leibovitz ended his call, looked more relaxed, and walked over to them.

  His sister had reserved a table at Simply Thai, a couple of buildings away. They took their seats in a tiny garden, ordered immediately because they were hungry, and drank a toast. Then they fell into a silence that Xiao Hu soon found uncomfortable. Yin-Yin was exhausted from her concert, and Johann Sebastian Weidenfeller, unusually, seemed not to know what to say. Leibovitz was quiet, waiting.

  Weidenfeller found it difficult to tolerate silences. “Have you been to Shanghai before?” he finally said.

  Paul nodded.

  “Has it changed much since your last visit?”

  “No.”

  “When were you last here?”

  “Ten years ago.”

  Weidenfeller laughed in a pained way.

  Paul Leibovitz spread his napkin out and leaned over the table; his eyes wandered from Xiao Hu to Yin-Yin and back again. “I have to tell you both something,” he said in a quiet voice. “It’s about your mother.”

  All three of them looked
at him, curious.

  “She’s not suffering from a disease of the nervous system. She’s been poisoned.”

  Yin-Yin looked as though she had been abruptly torn away from the sonata playing in her head. Xiao Hu looked at Paul Leibovitz without saying anything.

  It was Weidenfeller who broke the silence again. “What makes you think that?”

  “I sent her hair for analysis. The laboratory rang me after the concert. She’s suffering from severe mercury poisoning. It’s a thousand times over the permitted levels in the US and in Europe. It’s practically a miracle that she’s still alive.”

  Xiao Hu was having trouble thinking straight. Who did this man think he was to interfere with their family affairs? What had made him take a hair sample from his mother without asking and send it to a laboratory for analysis without getting anyone’s permission?

  “Did my aunt ask you to make investigations?” Xiao Hu asked in a sharp tone.

  “No,” Paul said calmly. “I thought you would be interested to learn what your mother is really suffering from.”

  Arrogant asshole. Xiao Hu was just able to swallow the words. He started to speak, but his sister gestured curtly to him to stop. “Our father is not a murderer,” she said, with a cold look at Leibovitz.

  “I’m not saying that he is. You’re misunderstanding me. The fish poisoned her. The fish poisoned your cat. The fish turned Mrs. Ma into a cripple, and Mrs. Zhuo too.”

  “Which fish?” Xiao Hu asked in disbelief.

  “The fish from the lake near your village.”

  “How do you know that?” Xiao Hu’s voice had grown sharp again. He didn’t believe a word this man was saying. “Are you a doctor? A chemist? A toxicologist?”

  “None of those things,” Paul replied. “I used to be a journalist, and covered a story on cats a long time ago, who died miserable deaths like your cat. They were suffering from Minamata disease, just like their owners. I remembered the story and became suspicious.”

  “What is Minamata disease?” Yin-Yin wanted to know.

  “It’s named after a bay in Japan. A chemical company dumped its waste in the sea there in the 1950s; it included methylmercury, which was concentrated in the aquatic flora and fauna that the fish consumed in large amounts. More than two thousand people died of the disease; many more fell ill, and women gave birth to disabled babies. It was one of the greatest environmental disasters of the previous century, and has now been almost completely forgotten.”

  “Why should our mother, of all people—”

  Paul interrupted Yin-Yin. “The symptoms are exactly the same. I spent hours on the Internet researching it over the past few days. I’ve had conversations on the phone with scientists in the US and in Germany. The mercury content in your mother’s hair. Mrs. Ma and Mrs. Zhuo falling ill at the same time with the typical symptoms of the disease. All that fish. There is no other explanation.”

  “How could the poison have entered the lake?”

  The voice of his sister sounded like she was beginning to believe in the far-fetched story.

  “Golden Dragon,” Paul said immediately, as though he had been waiting for the question.

  “They make cough syrup, lozenges, and herbal teas for colds. Highly dangerous stuff,” Xiao Hu said sarcastically.

  “Supposedly. That’s what your father told me too. But the factory belongs to the Sanlitun chemical company, and according to its website, that produces not just harmless syrups but also many things whose production can harm the environment. Polyvinylchloride, for example, known as PVC. In PVC production certain processes can use mercury chloride. That is transformed by microorganisms in the water into methylmercury, which is highly toxic.”

  “But the factory in our village produces cough syrup,” Xiao Hu said loudly. “Didn’t you hear what I said?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “E-e-everyone in the village knows that.” Xiao Hu had started stuttering in agitation. Terrible. Like his father.

  “They could have changed production locations within the company in the last few years. It must be possible to find that out.”

  The waiter brought them two chicken curries, a glass noodle salad, a papaya salad, and a second round of beers. No one touched the food.

  “Assuming you’re right, would that mean that my mother can be cured?” Yin-Yin asked calmly.

  Paul shook his head.

  “Is there no cure for mercury poisoning?”

  “For an acute case, yes, but not at this stage.”

  “Why,” Xiao Hu asked, “do we have to find out the cause of our mother’s illness if it will not make her better again? It really doesn’t matter then.”

  Paul Leibovitz felt himself about to lose his composure for the first time. “Are you serious?” He was so worked up that he even changed to a more formal form of address.

  “Yes.”

  “If what I suspect is true, then we’re talking about a crime. You don’t understand the impact of this.”

  “I do, very well—that’s why I’m being careful,” Xiao Hu replied in a cutting tone. “I’m afraid you’re misjudging the situation.”

  Yin-Yin tried to smooth over the escalating quarrel. “But many people in the village have eaten fish from the lake. Why have only our mother, Mrs. Ma, and Mrs. Zhuo fallen ill?”

  Paul looked at her in surprise. “Are you quite sure that there are no more cases in the village of illnesses that have been diagnosed as strokes, Parkinson’s, or other diseases?”

  “No, of course I’m not,” she said thoughtfully.

  “Then we have to investigate.”

  “You want to what?” Xiao Hu asked, agitated.

  “Investigate. How many victims there are.”

  “What for?”

  “Are you really so cynical, or are you just pretending?” Paul cast him a look that wavered between indignation and contempt.

  “I’m not cynical,” Xiao Hu objected. “I’m pragmatic. That’s a big difference. At least in China.”

  Weidenfeller, who had been listening to the exchange in silence until now, joined in. “Mr. Leibovitz, how many times have you been to China?”

  Paul rolled his eyes in response.

  “I suspect this is not your first time,” Weidenfeller said, not letting himself be put off. “Yin-Yin told me that you speak excellent Cantonese. Your Mandarin is perfect, as far as I can tell from this conversation. Then you must know too that there are different laws here from those in the West. You’re not seriously trying to lift the lid on a possible environmental scandal, are you?”

  “No. I would merely like to know if Min Fang has been the victim of a mysterious illness or a crime. Wouldn’t you?”

  “No. Only if there would be a different outcome for her as a result.”

  Xiao Hu also shook his head. “No.”

  “What would my mother get from it?” Yin-Yin asked, her voice so low that she had to repeat herself.

  Paul folded his napkin calmly, put it down on the table, and stood up. “Then I’m afraid we have nothing more to say to each other. Good-bye,” he said in a friendly voice before pushing his chair away from the table, turning, and walking away.

  He left a heavy silence behind him, one that even Weidenfeller did not wish to break. Yin-Yin sank deeper into her chair and closed her eyes. Xiao Hu sipped his beer thoughtfully, helped himself to rice and curry, and started eating.

  “And if he’s right?” Yin-Yin asked.

  “It won’t help Mama, didn’t you hear that?” Xiao Hu replied with his mouth full.

  “And what about the other people in the village? Shouldn’t we at least warn them?”

  Xiao Hu continued eating and said nothing.

  “Does anyone still go fishing in that lake?” Weidenfeller asked.

  Yin-Yin shrugged. “No idea.” She stirred her glass noodle salad with her chopsticks and put them away again without tasting it. “Assuming that what he says is right, doesn’t Sanlitun have to pay compensation
to Mama and Papa?”

  Xiao Hu sat bent over his curry, gnawing at a chicken bone, and cast his sister a serious look over the top of his glasses. “You’d better not even think about that,” he retorted, spitting a piece of bone onto his plate.

  “Why not?”

  “Little sister, do you know what Sanlitun is?”

  “A chemicals firm?”

  “No. It’s the chemicals firm, at least in Zhejiang Province, and if I’m not mistaken, it’s one of the ten largest in China. We can go to my place after dinner and search the Internet to see who’s on the management board and what connections they have to Beijing. You don’t want to get involved with them.”

  “But—”

  “My little sister,” he said, his tone swinging between indulgence and warning. “I studied law for five years. I can tell you exactly what will happen if we try to fight for compensation. We won’t even find a lawyer in Yiwu who will take the case on.”

  “Maybe in Shanghai,” Yin-Yin interjected.

  “I don’t think so. But even if someone were crazy enough to represent us, not a single court in the province would be prepared to even hear our case.”

  “But if one did?”

  “Even if I were wrong and a judge was brave enough to hear the case, there isn’t the slightest chance of winning. We would have one lawyer, and Sanlitun would have a whole legal department. The burden of proof would be on us. We would have to prove that there is poison in the water, that Sanlitun is without a doubt the only source of the poison in the water, and that this poison caused Mama’s illness. It wouldn’t be a matter of suspecting or believing but of scientific proof! Even if we could prove that, which I doubt, think about what it would cost. And even if all the facts were established and all the information, figures, and witness statements were in our favor, we would still have no chance. The provincial government and definitely the cadres in Beijing are behind Sanlitun. Who will be behind us?”

  He looked her straight in the eye to lend his words even more weight. “No one. Did you hear me? No one. Don’t even begin to think about it.” He pushed his empty plate to the middle of the table, helped himself to a toothpick, and began to pick out the bits of chicken stuck between his teeth.