Paul buried his head in his hands. He was dizzy. For a moment he felt as if he were sitting in a small boat being rocked from side to side by high waves. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“There is a way out, if we don’t make any mistakes,” he heard Xiao Hu say. “A senior party official has intervened on her behalf at my request. The company is prepared not to press charges and even help my parents with some money. In return, Yin-Yin must withdraw her accusations and my father must not pursue the case any further.”
“That’s a mockery; that can’t be true,” Paul said. His heart was pounding with rage.
“But that’s the way it is, regardless of whether you think it’s right or not,” Xiao Hu said.
All three men sipped their drinks almost in synch and gazed silently at each other.
Yin-Yin’s brother broke the silence. “I’d like to ask you for a favor.”
Paul could see how difficult these words were for him. “What can I do for you?”
“You have to talk to my father.”
“Me?”
“Yes. According to what Yin-Yin has told me, he thinks highly of you. I don’t have a good relationship with him. We hardly speak. He doesn’t trust me. He would listen to Yin-Yin, but she can’t do anything now.”
“What should I say to him?”
“You have to convince him that he absolutely has to accept the offer from Sanlitun; there is no other way. And he must write a letter to Yin-Yin and tell her to do the same.”
“You can’t expect him to do that,” Paul blurted out. “Is he supposed to thank the criminals who crippled his wife for their magnanimity?”
“Not thank them. But my family must sign an understanding never to ask for further payments for damages or compensation in the future.”
“He can’t do that. You can’t ask him to do that.”
“What choice do we have?”
Paul got up, paced the room in circles a few times like a caged animal, and went to stand by the window. Shanghai by night lay before him. A restless sea of lights and neon signs advertising perfume, beer, and computers. Construction sites lit up bright as day, with dozens of cranes rising from them. On the roads below he saw the endless stream of cars and pedestrians passing. He grew nauseated. The offer from Sanlitun was not only cynical, it was, in a deep and true sense, evil; he could not think of a better word for it. How on earth was he supposed to convince Da Long to agree to a deal in which he had to betray his own family? He found it impossible to imagine what he would do if he were in the same position.
He felt the two men behind him watching him. He turned around and said quietly, “I can’t do it.”
“Why not?” Xiao Hu asked calmly.
“Because, because . . .” Paul was lost for words.
“You want to help my father, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And my sister.”
“Persuading him that we have no choice would be a great help.”
“Do you know what you’re asking me to do?”
“I’m asking you to do what is best for my family.”
“We . . . We have so much incriminating evidence. The laboratory tests. The other sick people. Sanlitun can’t just . . . I mean, no court . . .” The words tumbled out of Paul’s mouth without thought, not directed at anyone. He shook his head slowly. “It won’t work.”
“Why not? Do you mean for him or for you?”
It was a perceptive question, which he didn’t have a reply to straightaway. “I saw how deep in despair he was. I saw how he fought for your mother’s life. He asked me to help him find a lawyer. I promised to do that,” Paul said, avoiding the question.
“You don’t know my father.”
“What I have seen is enough for me. I don’t need to know more.”
“You think he wants justice?”
“Yes, of course, what else? People should be brought to account for what they do. What else would you call that?”
“My father’s sense of justice is not highly developed. I can assure you of that.”
“What . . . What do you mean by that?” Paul asked uncertainly. He had no idea what Xiao Hu was hinting at.
“I’ll tell you. Then you’ll understand why my father and I don’t get along. Are you sure you want to know?”
“If it will help you.”
“Not me. You,” Xiao Hu said, exasperated. “Do you know how my grandfather died?”
Paul shook his head.
“He committed suicide during the Cultural Revolution. He jumped out of the window. Out of fear of the Red Guards.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Paul said. “What does that have to do with your father?”
“When we were children he told us it was an accident. Our grandfather had lost his balance hanging the laundry out in front of the kitchen window.” Paul said nothing, so Xiao Hu continued. “Later on, he acted as if he was taking me and Yin-Yin into his confidence and told us that we were old enough to know the truth about the death of our grandfather. He said that the party was responsible for his death. It had persecuted him unfairly during the Cultural Revolution and had his life on its conscience.”
“Isn’t that right, since he jumped out of the window because he was frightened of the Red Guards?”
“My grandfather was an intellectual. He read forbidden publications that he hid under the kitchen floorboards at home . . .” Xiao Hu paused, as though he wanted to make sure that Paul understood every word. “Only his wife and his son knew about them. My father was the one who betrayed his own father to the Red Guards.”
Paul lowered his eyes. “How do you know that?” he whispered.
“It’s in his cadre file. A friend of mine in the party put it on my desk a few months ago. My father denounced his father at several meetings. He told them where the books were. I’ve read statements from the meetings.”
Da Long had delivered his father to the Red Guards. Paul thought about Christine. About her mother. About the almost forty-year-long silence in the Wu family. About wounds that never heal. That was why mother and son had never searched for each other. How would Christine react when she heard about this? Did she have to know?
“How old was your father then?”
“Fourteen. Why?”
“That’s very young, don’t you think?”
“Old enough to know what it means to tell the Red Guards what is hidden under the kitchen floor,” Xiao Hu replied angrily.
“Are you sure? Many children denounced their parents back then. School pupils did the same to their teachers, and college students to their professors. Your father obeyed Mao’s orders. Why are you laying the blame on him but not on the party? The party created the conditions for children to betray their own parents.”
“The party has admitted that mistakes were made during the Cultural Revolution. My father has not. He deceived us. Lied to our faces. I will never forget that.”
Paul looked at Xiao Hu. Red spots were showing on his neck; he was clearly one of those Chinese people who could not tolerate alcohol, and reacted to even a small amount with a rash. He looked tired and pale, but life had barely left any traces on his features to date. Paul did not know what else he ought to say to this young man. Should he remind him that it was pure coincidence, and not merit, that led to him being born in 1974 rather than fifteen years earlier? That he, by Chinese standards, belonged to one of the luckiest generations in this country for centuries? A generation that knew nothing but growth and a gradually increasing standard of living, who had so far been spared the terrible decisions that their parents had had to make. Who could say with any certainty how he would have behaved during the Cultural Revolution? Whether he would have been a victim or a perpetrator, or both?
Paul was not sure who was speaking to him here. The grandson who grieved for the circumstances of his grandfather’s death? The son who was hurt and disappointed because the father he had looked up to was also a traitor? Paul could have und
erstood grief, but not the self-righteous indignation that he heard in Xiao Hu’s voice. Did he have to remind him that he belonged to the same party that was responsible for a system that had locked his sister up; that people had to face difficult decisions like the one Da Long and Yin-Yin now had to make?
“Anyone who stays unharmed has not lived,” he said at last.
“Don’t you have anything more to say than that?” Xiao Hu asked, surprised and annoyed.
“No.”
“I don’t understand you.” There was more than a hint of resignation in his voice.
“You don’t have to.”
“Will you speak to my father anyway?”
“Yes. I’ll explain Sanlitun’s offer, or threat, to him quite clearly, and what the consequences of a refusal will be. He must decide for himself. Does Da Long know about Yin-Yin?”
“I haven’t told him.”
“Can he be sure that she will really be released if he agrees to the conditions?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course,” Xiao Hu said unconvincingly. The red spots were spreading on his face.
* * *
Paul flagged down a taxi on Huaihai Zhong Lu and told the driver to let him off at nearby Zhapu Lu. It was too early to go to bed, and he felt uneasy at the thought of being alone in the room. He was thirsty, and wanted to be among people.
Zhapu Lu was a lively road full of restaurants, karaoke bars, shops, and kiosks. Red lanterns were strung in front of the buildings, and loud music streamed out of the bars. The air was filled with the smell of cooking, rice wine, and cigarettes. Paul stood in front of a street stall stacked with several bamboo baskets, each as large as a wheel, which were sizzling and steaming away. He looked around to see if he was being followed, but no one seemed to be taking any interest in him. A stocky woman with red cheeks was standing behind the bamboo baskets, selling steamed buns filled with sweet pork. He bought one; it was so delicious that he bought another two immediately. A couple of feet away, a fly-by-night trader was selling pirated CDs and DVDs of the latest Hollywood films from a folding table.
Many of the food stalls had put tables and chairs on the street. Paul found a stool on the pavement at a fish stall. He sat down next to the fish tanks and a running faucet and ordered a beer. Directly across from him on the other side of the road was a hair salon, a traditional Chinese massage parlor, and a beauty salon. Paul could see the young women sitting behind the large windows. Some of them were watching television, looking bored, and the others were doing each other’s hair. One of them was painting her fingernails.
He drank his beer in a few gulps and ordered another. A Porsche four-wheel-drive vehicle made its way through the pedestrians; everyone moved aside without grumbling. Two young women in tight black dresses were standing in front of the hairdressers. They were about eighteen; twenty at most. They smoked their cigarettes, watched him, and finally beckoned at him. Paul acknowledged them with a thin-lipped smile and shook his head.
In his mind’s eye, Paul was remembering his first trip to China: people wearing blue-gray uniforms, no cars on the streets, ration cards. Bicycles, bicycles everywhere. Faces full of suspicion and curiosity. How much this country had changed in the space of one or two generations. The lives of most Chinese people were getting better year after year; what would happen when the economy stopped growing? When falling stock markets wiped out the savings of millions of people? Would this country stay peaceful, or would the Chinese tendency for mass movements create new victims? After all, Paul thought, the Communist Party of China was only in power because of a succession of political campaigns. The Anti-Rightist Movement. The Great Leap Forward. The Cultural Revolution. After that, the slogan “Get rich, comrade”; since then, money was the only thing that mattered. What could be next?
* * *
In his room, he did not see any further signs of an intruder. He put the security chain in place, propped a floor lamp against the door so that it would fall over if anyone tried to come in, and jammed the back of a chair under the door handle so that it would not be possible to push the handle down. He wanted to ring Christine and tell her everything, but he didn’t dare to. Who knew if someone was listening? He wrote her a short text message instead:
Darling
I wish I were with you. Missing you is hard.
In touch properly tomorrow. Sleep well.
Take care of yourselves.
With love, Paul
He took two aspirin to alleviate the effects of the alcohol, undressed, and, despite the thronging thoughts and the noisy air-conditioning, fell asleep immediately.
* * *
Paul woke when someone rattled the door handle. The floor lamp crashed to the ground with a loud thump. The sound of breaking glass. For a moment he thought he was dreaming, then he jerked himself onto his side, turned on the light, and jumped up.
“Who’s there?” he shouted, tense.
“Housekeeping.” A reedy woman’s voice.
He looked at the clock: 9:12.
“Later. Come back later,” Paul said, sinking back onto the bed. He had overslept. He was supposed to have been picked up at nine a.m. by a driver whom Weidenfeller had organized for him through his company.
He went into the bathroom and had a quick shower, sticking his head out of the shower curtain every few seconds to look at the bathroom mirror. The steam formed evenly over the mirror without showing any words.
The driver was waiting for him in front of the hotel. He was a friendly young man who nodded understandingly when Paul asked him not to drive too fast.
The journey to Yiwu seemed unbearably long to Paul. He called Wang the journalist, who replied in hurried snatches of speech. They arranged to meet that evening in the lobby of the Grand New Era hotel, where Wang would reserve a room for him.
When they got off the highway, he called Da Long.
Da Long answered in a tired voice that brightened somewhat when he recognized Paul, who said that he would be with him in about half an hour.
Paul wanted to focus on seeing Da Long again, but found it difficult to gather his thoughts. He’d tell him about Yin-Yin’s arrest but had no words of advice or comfort, only the vague hope that Wang might be able to help them, even though he couldn’t imagine how.
* * *
Paul slowed down as he approached the house. Sweat was running down his neck, and strands of hair were sticking to his forehead. The air there was less humid than in Shanghai, but just as warm. He opened the heavy wooden gate hesitantly. The hinges creaked loudly, drowning out the roar of the highway for a moment; the metallic sound hurt his hears. The courtyard was full of laundry drying: towels, cloth diapers, and bed linen, flecked with brown and yellow stains that could no longer be washed out. The water dripping from the laundry had covered the dry, dusty ground with a crazy pattern. The sound of a violin concerto came from the house; Paul thought it was Mozart.
Da Long sat on the steps to the verandah with his legs spread wide, his elbows propped on his knees, smoking. He got up and walked toward him, mustering a brief, tired smile. The sight of this small man touched Paul just as it had the last time; he resisted the impulse to reach out to hug him and hold him tight.
“G-g-good to see you. Have you eaten?” he asked, seeming as helpless as he had when he had met his sister.
“Yes,” Paul lied. He didn’t want to put him to any extra trouble.
“W-w-ell, surely you can manage a little more. I have some noodles from yesterday and vegetables and tofu from this morning.”
They went into the dim house, which smelled more strongly than on his last visit. Paul would have preferred to stay out in the courtyard and eat on the verandah. He walked over to Min Fang’s bed, and Da Long followed him.
She looked even more painfully thin than she had ten days ago. Her mouth was half open and her cheeks had collapsed; her head lolled back on her neck as though she were trying with all her might to look behind
her; her eyes were fixed on the ceiling. One leg stuck out from under the blanket, dry and stiff as a board, with shrunken folds of skin hanging from it. Paul could feel the pressure of tears in his eyes. After seeing this, how was he supposed to bring himself to tell Da Long about Yin-Yin’s arrest and the price of getting her released?
“Sh-sh-she is barely still there,” Da Long said, gripping the bed frame. “Y-y-yesterday she choked again and almost suffocated in my hands. And she’s getting bedsores. I don’t know what to do.” The helplessness in his voice.
He disappeared into the small kitchen and returned with two bowls. He set plates and chopsticks and put teacups, a teapot, and glasses on the table. In one of the bowls was a kind of salad with pieces of tofu, grated melon, cucumber, green beans, and sprouted soybeans; in the other were some cold noodles in a spicy sesame sauce. Everything was delicious. Paul could not understand how Da Long could conjure up such delicacies from so little.
“Christine sends her greetings,” Paul said, because he did not know what else to say.
Da Long sucked at some noodles, which disappeared into his mouth with a loud smacking sound. “I-I-I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
A polite way of asking, Why are you here?
Paul sipped his tea and looked across the table. Da Long was bent over his plate, looking at him over the top of his glasses. He was waiting for an answer, and Paul was losing his nerve. His hands felt numb, and he felt the urge to cough without being able to do so.
Da Long guessed that something was wrong. He chewed slowly, and when his mouth was empty, he pushed his plate into the middle of the table, sat back, and waited. When Paul still did not say anything, he asked, “Did you see Yin-Yin in Shanghai? I haven’t heard from her for a few days.”
Paul took a deep breath, ran his fingers through his hair, shifted from side to side on his stool, folded his hands on the table, and propped his chin on them.
“Wh-wh-what’s happened?” he heard a voice say in the half darkness.
The Language of Solitude Page 27
