The Far Side of the Night E-Book

Jan-Philipp Sendker

• Herausgeber: Polygon
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: The Rising Dragon Series
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Seitenzahl: 402

Beschreibung

During a trip to China, Paul and Christine experience the nightmare of every parent: their four year old son is threatened with kidnap. The only safe place for the family is the US embassy in Beijing, but they are two thousand miles away, with the police searching frantically for them, and all airports, train stations and major roads under surveillance. They'll have no chance without help from strangers, but who will be willing to risk their lives for them? Suspenseful and rife with the page-turning storytelling that has come to define Sendker's work, Far Side of the Night  is a brilliant and timely thriller that offers a penetrating look into contemporary China.

Leseprobe

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published Cracks in the Wall, a non-fiction book about China. The Art of Hearing Heartbeats, his first novel, is an international bestseller. He lives in Potsdam with his family.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Christine Lo is an editor in book publishing in London. She has also worked as a translator in Frankfurt and translated books by Juli Zeh and Senait Mehari from German into English. Her most recent translation is Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky.

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

The Art of Hearing Heartbeats

A Well-Tempered Heart

The Long Path to Wisdom

Whispering Shadows

Dragon Games

This edition first published in Great Britain in 2019 by Polygon, an imprint of Birlinn Ltd

Birlinn Ltd

West Newington House

10 Newington Road

Edinburgh EH9 1QS

www.polygonbooks.co.uk

Originally published in German as Am Anderen Ende der Nacht by Karl Blessing Verlag, Munich

Copyright © 2017 Jan-Philipp SendkerTranslation copyright © 2018 Jan-Philipp Sendker

ISBN 978 1 84697 417 5

eBook ISBN 978 1 78885 021 6

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from Birlinn Ltd.

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication DataA catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library.

Typeset by 3btype.comPrinted and bound by Clays Ltd, Elcograf S.p.A

For Anna, Florentine, Theresaand Jonathan and Dorothea

PROLOGUE

Paul saw him first. A young man on a street corner. His hands buried in the pockets of a light jacket, waiting patiently on the spot as though he had turned up early for an appointment. Conspicuously inconspicuous.

He sized up every car that turned into Jia Jou Lu with watchful eyes.

It was the look of suspicion in his eyes that gave him away.

Christine kept her son hidden on her lap; he lay beneath a black blanket that stank of stale smoke. Her eyes were closed, as though she was asleep.

Paul knew she wasn’t.

She had not believed that they would make it. Not when they had first fled, nor later on, as they had left Shi further behind them with each passing day. Not even this morning.

The traffic lights turned red and the taxi stopped. Christine opened her eyes briefly and he could see that she still did not believe it. One more street to go, he wanted to say. Look out of the window. Reassure yourself. Two hundred meters, maybe three hundred, no more than that. What was one more street after thousands of kilometers on the run?

The man on the street corner would not be able to stop them on his own.

Then he saw a second man.

And a third.

A black Audi with tinted windows, with its headlights off, drew up and parked not far from the security zone in front of the embassy. He noticed a group of young men lurking under one of the gingko trees, keeping watch.

“Don’t stop. Drive on,” he said to the taxi driver.

“The embassy is here.”

“I know where the embassy is. Keep driving.”

Christine. Alarmed. How strongly fear could show on a face, Paul thought. That was something it had in common with love.

“But you wanted to go to the embassy.”

“Carry on driving.

Go!”

“Where to?”

Sometimes there were no answers to simple questions. Especially not to those questions.

“Where to?” the driver said again.

_________

Two thousand kilometers away, lunch was interrupted by a phone call.

The gentlemen were in a meeting and not to be disturbed except in an emergency.

Not an emergency, no, but a matter of great urgency.

Then please call back later.

An exchange of curses and threats followed, then the call was put through.

“They’re here.”

“Where?”

“In Beijing. In front of the American embassy.”

A brief silence.

“What should we do?”

“Bring them here.”

“All of them?”

“No. Only the child.”

“And the other two?”

The City

Two weeks earlier

I

Paul had never liked dancing and he had not done it much. It was years since he had last danced. But he was one of those people who found it difficult to say no to a child, especially to his own, so he started moving.

He took a step forward to the beat of the music, a step to the side and a step backward. He swung his knees from side to side, and turned round in a circle with a flourish.

The weight of the world was on his shoulders. But it was so light that it was not difficult for him to carry.

David shrieked with delight.

Several hundred couples dancing the waltz surrounded them. Some of them took no notice of the two strangers in their midst. Others laughed at the sight of the tall man with the child on his shoulders, towering above them all by a head. They called encouraging words, waved and clapped whenever there was a break in the music.

David enjoyed the attention and Paul relished the lighthearted feeling of them dancing in the People’s Square in Shi. Instead of being oppressed by the heat in Hong Kong, he and his son were enjoying the warm air of a mild autumn day in Sichuan. Above them was a clear blue sky. Heavy rain that morning had washed the grime from the air; the wind had blown any remaining dust out of the city in the last few hours.

After a few dances his son grew thirsty. Paul lifted him off his shoulders and they walked over to a row of stalls lining the side of the square. They were selling ice cream, pastries, and drinks, and were surrounded by crowds of people. Hong Kong Canto-pop blared from loudspeakers and the smell of fresh coffee was in the air. Paul ordered a double espresso for himself and a scoop of ice cream and a soft drink for David. They perched on bar stools at the only free table. David wanted a straw. Paul got him one.

“No, not a yellow one. A red one.”

“There aren’t any red ones.”

“There are. The woman at the next table has one.”

“The color of the straw makes no difference to the taste of your soda.”

“Yes it does.”

“It definitely doesn’t.”

“It definitely does. Please, Daddy.”

Paul fetched a red straw.

They sat in silence, looking at the square.

In the middle of it, a grayish-white stone statue of Mao Zedong towered into the sky, much, much larger than life. Mao’s right arm was raised; whether he was waving at the people or showing them the way was not clear. The stone of his head and shoulders was noticeably lighter in color; the bird droppings had clearly recently been cleaned off him.

At Mao’s feet, the city had laid large flowerbeds, filled with red autumn blooms. Behind him was a banner with ‘Long live the Great Chairman’ on it.

David did not pay attention to any of this. His glass was empty and he had finished his ice cream. He wanted to dance again.

“In a moment.”

“When is that?”

_________

At twilight, more and more people streamed into the People’s Square: families enjoying the mild autumn evening, people laden with heavy bags of shopping, young couples pressing close to each other on the benches and chairs.

An old man came towards them and stared at them openly. When they met his gaze, he laughed. A strange toothless laugh. Not hostile, but not friendly either.

Drawn by curiosity, a couple of elderly women joined him, and immediately started talking in thick Sichuan dialect about the stranger and the unusual child. As far as Paul could make out, they were marveling at David’s curly black hair and the dark blue color of his eyes, which, they agreed, did not suit his Asian eyes at all. He was certainly not Chinese, but not a real white person. What was he, then? Japanese, maybe? Paul suppressed a laugh and said nothing. They gave him a penetrating look and asked if he was the child’s father or grandfather.

“Father,” Paul said.

Skeptical looks. The odd laugh of disbelief.

He must be a rich man who had taken a young Chinese woman as a wife. Where was she? She had probably left him by now. From what Paul could understand, there were conflicting opinions on this point.

David grew restless. He wanted to dance.

Paul got up and put him on his shoulders again.

In the middle of the next waltz, the music stopped. The dancers paused. Questioning looks. A quiet murmur that grew louder, then quieter, until it subsided completely. A strange, tense silence spread over the square. David leaned down to speak to him. “What’s going on, Daddy?”

“I don’t know. They’re probably changing the music.”

A fight broke out in front of the loudspeakers. Several men and women were shouting at each other; the sound of their raised voices carried over to them. A different piece of music started up, then it stopped and the fight escalated. Then the new music continued. Paul recognized the tune immediately, but it took him a moment to put a name to it.

Rise up, the damned of this earth

When had he last heard ‘The International’? A few couples had started dancing again but others hesitated, clearly waiting to see what the majority decided on. Gradually, everyone started moving again.

People, listen to the message!

David swayed enthusiastically to the music. Paul gripped his son’s legs a little tighter.

“Why aren’t you dancing?” David wanted to know.

Paul hated marching songs and fighting songs. But to please David, he moved a little, helplessly, against his will.

“Not like that,” the disappointed voice said from above. “Dance properly. Like you did before.”

Paul made an effort to do so.

Then came ‘Long live the Great Chairman’, a song in praise of Chairman Mao, which had been heard every day throughout the country when he had been alive. The old man next to them climbed happily onto a bar stool and started singing. His voice sounded like a crow cawing, but he knew the lyrics off by heart.

The young people sitting on the wall a few meters away laughed and grimaced.

Paul stopped moving.

“Keep on dancing,” his son shouted.

“In a moment.”

“No, now.”

The next song was ‘The East is Red’.

The East is red, the sun is risingChina has produced Mao ZedongChairman Mao loves the peopleHe leads usTo build a new ChinaHurrah! Lead us forward!

More and more young couples starting joining in, dancing and singing. Most of the people in the two coffee shops were standing too, some of them on the chairs.

‘The Song of the Red Star’.

The roar of a few thousand-strong choir singing echoed around the square.

The red star shines, it shines bright

The red star shimmers, it warms our hearts

The red star is the heart of the workers and farmers

The reputation of the Party shines for all time

The power of the people. Paul shuddered. He felt uncomfortable. He felt his pulse quickening and he was breathing heavily. Maybe he shouldn’t have had that double espresso.

David had stopped swaying, as though he felt the unease. He held on tight to his father’s head with both hands. Two men approached the food and drink stallholders and demanded in brusque tones that they stop playing Canto-pop music. When they refused, the men went to the speakers and yanked the cables out.

After that, they set to work on the young people. A few words were sufficient. The young men and women lowered their eyes, obediently got to their feet and joined in with the singing. Only one of them remained sitting in defiance. Despite the mild weather, he was wearing a leather jacket, ripped jeans, and fashionable motorcycle boots, and his hair was dyed a shimmering, almost white blond. Within seconds his nose had been broken by a punch in the face. Paul turned away, appalled.

David immediately asked to be let down from his father’s shoulders and to be held in his arms instead.

The old man shouted something at them and some other men who were standing nearby joined in. Paul did not understand exactly what they were saying. It was clearly something about Japan, for some reason. He replied with a helpless smile, which made them even angrier. The women who had been curious about them a moment ago gave them hostile looks and the young people nodded. Paul looked around for Zhang, who was more than half an hour late. He wanted to get away from here.

David was shivering.

Paul clasped his son tighter in his arms. He saw Zhang approaching in the distance.

His monk’s robes were flecked with spittle.

II

The Moshan monastery was only a few kilometers away from the People’s Square, but the taxi still took over half an hour to get there. The six lanes of traffic on the road moved at a walking pace when they moved at all. The driver swore. He switched lanes constantly until Zhang asked him to stop doing so. They were not on the run from anything, even though it had seemed like that at first. They swung out of a side lane and were stuck in the jam again.

Paul found the confines of the cab and the stationary traffic difficult. He hated not being in control of how fast he was travelling, and he felt trapped. The singing of the crowd still sounded in his ears. The wordless silence in the cab made their song ring out even louder. He wished he could get out and continue the journey on foot.

Zhang sat next to him in silence, staring at a photo of Mao Zedong that was dangling from the rear-view mirror and, beneath it, a white plastic figurine of the Great Chairman fixed on the dashboard. Paul could see how worked up he was. The great gob of spit on his chest had still not dried up completely.

The cab turned into a side street near the monastery. They got out and Zhang bought a few groceries at a small market. Just like before, Paul thought, feeling glad at how familiar this felt. For a brief moment that nonetheless seemed too long, the sight of his friend in the gray monk’s robes had unsettled him. He’s changed his uniform, was the thought that crossed Paul’s mind.

That of a policeman for that of a monk.

The thought subsided as quickly as it had appeared, but it still made Paul feel uncomfortable. He had known Zhang for almost thirty years now. They had met on one of Paul’s first trips to China. Zhang had been a patrolman in Shenzhen, and had had to protect the foreign visitor from a horde of curious onlookers at a public toilet. They had become friends over the years. No one else in the world, apart from Christine, perhaps, was closer to him.

Three years ago, Zhang had suddenly left the police force, from one day to the next. He had gone to Shenzhen as a young man and had quickly risen from a mere patrolman to police inspector in the homicide division. In the nearly thirty years that followed, he had been overlooked for promotion with remarkable regularity. The official reason for this was his Buddhist beliefs and his refusal to rejoin the Communist Party after he had been expelled from it in the 1980s in a campaign against ‘spiritual pollution’. The Party cadres might have forgiven him these misdemeanors given that he was one of the best and the most hardworking of the police inspectors, but what really ruled him out for higher office in the eyes of his superiors was his probity. Zhang was tenacious in his refusal to extract protection money from restaurants, bars, hotels, prostitutes, or illegal migrant workers from the countryside. He even turned down, politely but firmly, the red envelopes of cash, cigarettes, whiskey, and all the other gifts that were offered to him at Chinese New Year.

This honesty had often resulted in conflict in Zhang’s family. A police inspector’s salary and that of a secretary were not sufficient to take advantage of the promises of the new age. Not enough to buy a flat or a car. Not even enough for a regular shopping spree in one of the new malls filled with foreign branded goods. Zhang’s wife’s Prada bags and Chanel belts had been fakes of the cheapest sort.

Through the years of low-level but constant bickering and arguments – Zhang could not have said precisely when it had all started – the love between them had disappeared.

When he had been made head of the homicide division after a corruption scandal, but resigned from the position only a few months later because he knew that, being so honest, he could not but fail, it had been too much for his wife.

She left him soon after that, for a German businessman. Without saying a word to him, she had moved out with their son. When Zhang had come home from work one evening, half the contents of his household were missing. It looked as though she had even counted out the peppercorns and weighed out the sugar. Now she carried a genuine Prada bag and lived in a mansion in one of the suburbs of Shenzhen that rich foreigners and even richer Chinese people cloistered themselves in.

The split after twenty years of marriage had devastated Zhang. Paul had spent a lot of time with his friend in the weeks and months that followed. One evening, Zhang told him that he had left the police force and would be returning to his home province of Sichuan and entering a Buddhist monastery.

Paul had been disappointed and annoyed. Disappointed because Zhang was the only friend he had ever had, and he would miss him. Annoyed because this friend had not taken him into his confidence and asked for his advice or his opinion.

One week later, Paul took Zhang to the airport. He wanted to say goodbye and to help with his luggage. But Zhang was travelling with only a bright yellow imitation leather case that was so small he never needed any help with it. He had arrived in Shenzhen thirty years ago with nothing, and wanted to leave the city with nothing.

Since that farewell, they had not seen each other, only talked on the phone now and then and sent the odd email. Paul had been determined to visit Zhang, but something had always got in the way.

_________

Now he watched Zhang and saw his friend the way he remembered him. The way he bent over the tomatoes with a skeptical eye and examined the pak choi carefully, picking up a dozen aubergines before finding the right one. The way he sniffed at garlic and Sichuan peppers or asked the market stallholder about the quality of the fresh tofu. Even as a monk, he had clearly not lost his passion for cooking.

Paul had missed Zhang very much in the last few years. But it had been easy to put thoughts of his friend aside in Hong Kong. He realized that it would be very difficult to say goodbye again in a few days.

The monastery was surrounded by a red wall, several meters high, and was hidden in a development of new housing, between tower blocks that were forty stories high. Zhang led them into the courtyard. Red lanterns hung from the roofs of the three temples in the middle, one behind the other. Plumes of incense smoke rose from the temples into the evening sky.

They walked past piles of building rubble, pallets of new roofing tiles and bricks, wooden beams and scaffolding. A rat scuttled across the courtyard.

David clung tightly to his father, burying his face between Paul’s shoulder and neck. He raised his head only once and looked around.

“I’m hungry,” he whispered.

The kitchen was basic, with a long table, a couple of stools, a work surface, stove, and sink. Pots, pans, and crockery were on a dresser. A fire was burning in the oven.

Zhang put the groceries down.

“How about some vegetarian ma po tofu, lotus roots in sweet and sour sauce, stir-fried vegetables, and then dan dan noodles to finish? I’ll fry some spring onion pancakes for your son.”

“Don’t go to all that trouble. Rice and some vegetables will be enough.”

Zhang gave him a disappointed look. “What’s wrong with you? You want to celebrate our seeing each other again with just rice and vegetables?”

“No. I just don’t want you to have all that bother.”

“I’m not doing it on my own. We’re cooking together.”

Zhang fetched knives, chopping boards, and bowls from the dresser and put them on the table in front of them.

Paul was too surprised to say anything in response. He had never been allowed to help his friend cook before.

In the past, Zhang had barely spoken while cooking. If Paul had said anything he had not even heard him, so absorbed had he been in a world of aromas and spices, of herbs, oils, and pastes. Paul had long thought that cooking was just another form of meditation for Zhang, until he had told him the story of Old Hu. During the Cultural Revolution, Zhang had witnessed Red Guards beating the old man to death because he had dared to add some pepper to the soup from the commune’s kitchen. That had been sufficient proof of his ‘decadent, bourgeois’ attitude.

The soup had to taste the same for everyone.

Ever since this experience, Zhang said, every meal cooked with care and effort was a celebration to him. A small, quiet triumph of life over death. Of love over hatred. And the better the food tasted, the more the taste buds were tickled, the nose stimulated, and the belly filled, the sweeter the victory. He could not prepare a single meal without thinking about Old Hu.

_________

He put a bowl of water on the table and laid lotus roots, tomatoes, aubergines, courgettes, spring onions, red peppers, cucumbers and carrots down next to it.

“Hey, little one, you can wash the vegetables if you like,” he said, turning to David.

To Paul’s astonishment, his son knelt on his stool and set to work. He conscientiously dipped each vegetable in water, rubbed it, and showed each piece to Zhang, who nodded in approval.

Paul picked up the washed vegetables and cut them into thin slices. Zhang peeled garlic and onions, made the pancake batter and started busying himself at the stove.

The smell of garlic and spring onions frying and of sesame oil and ginger soon filled the kitchen.

Zhang fetched a can of Sichuan peppers from a drawer and sniffed it.

“Do you know what this used to be called?”

Paul shook his head.

“Barbarian pepper.”

“Because it’s so spicy?”

“No. Because it came from America to China.”

Zhang smiled, and for a moment Paul thought he was joking.

“The world is filled with barbarians – apart from us Chinese, of course.”

Half an hour later, dinner was on the table. Zhang had not forgotten how to cook even though he was now a monk. The lotus roots were neither too firm nor too soft. Paul knew from experience how difficult that was to achieve. The mapo tofu was delicious even without meat. Zhang had got the spiciness perfectly right – the Sichuan pepper spread its subtly numbing effect on the tongue and taste buds without the chili burning the throat.

Even David enjoyed it. He ate a second pancake, crept into his father’s arms and, exhausted, fell asleep in minutes.

“Shall we put him in my bed?” Zhang asked.

Paul nodded.

_________

Zhang’s room was on the other side of the courtyard. It had space for a bed, a chair and small closet. A bare bulb dangled from the ceiling. Paul laid his son on the bed, covered him with a blanket and switched off the light. Zhang and Paul sat down on two stools by the door. An elderly monk shuffled across the courtyard. His back was so bent that it was an effort for him to look straight ahead. He did not notice them.

III

“What’s wrong?” he heard his friend say.

“What do you mean?”

Zhang turned his head and looked at him thoughtfully.

“I’ve missed you,” Paul said, a little embarrassed.

Zhang did not reply. He turned his gaze away and looked once more into the courtyard, which was lit only by a couple of lanterns.

After a long pause Paul said, “Everything’s fine.”

“I’m glad to hear that.”

He heard David cough in his sleep inside the room.

“And how are things with you?”

“All fine too.”

Perhaps he had underestimated the differences between the paths they had taken in the last three years, Paul thought.

The monk and the father (once more).

They were both searching.

But each of them in a different way.

There was so much to say but they didn’t have much time. Where to begin? How to separate the essential from the inessential under such pressure?

The more oppressive he found the silence, the greater the tension within him. Until it unloaded itself in a torrent of speech. Until his longing to share his feelings with his friend was greater than his fear of talking about things that he would rather have kept silent about.

He tore through the last few years without stopping.

The birth of David and the hopes he had built around that.

Christine moving in. She had given up her flat in Hang Hau and had, along with Josh, her son from her first marriage, and her mother, moved in with him. That was a challenge; they both knew that. Although her mother had moved into a small flat in Yung Shue Wan after a few months, she was a permanent guest.

His efforts to share with them a house and life that had, until then, been occupied only by him and his dead son. His efforts to fit in, to meet the demands of living in a group of five people.

The way a family was meant to be only showed him what he did not have, or had only very little of: the ability to live in a community. To adapt. To tolerate closeness.

And how could he have learned that? He had not had any examples to follow. The day he left his parents’ house, when he was eighteen, had been the best day of his childhood and youth.

Family life. Eating together. Looking at each other. Conversations in which hints were often sufficient to communicate with the other. Or to hurt them. Wordless understanding, or the lack of it.

Sometimes he sat there, listened, watched, and felt like an impostor. Like someone acting the role of a family member.

He was a stranger in his own home.

Christine did not understand it.

A stranger in his own life.

She would probably understand that even less.

How lonely a person could be under a shared roof. And it was his fault. His failure – he knew that. And it did not make things any easier.

What was even worse was how torn he felt with regard to Justin and David.

After David’s birth he had done everything he had intended to do. Repainted Justin’s room. Replaced the gentle pale blue with a rich yellow. Put away the stuffed toys in a box that was now under their bed. On his side. Taken most of the drawings and photos off the walls. Put away Justin’s wellies and raincoat that had been in the hallway.

He had not been able to bring himself to paint over the doorframe with the markings for Justin’s growing body.

28 February – 128 centimeters. The final entry.

But after he had thought about it some more, he had allowed Josh to paint the doorframe for him. David’s growth must not be measured against that of his deceased half-brother.

And yet.

David’s birth had not made his memories fade away. They had animated them instead. The first time he crawled. The first steps. The first words. How could he not think of Justin each time? And of course those memories were cast in a deep black shadow that mixed every feeling of joy with so much pain that he could no longer tell the two feelings apart.

Pain, joy, joy, pain.

He had sworn not to compare them. But he did it anyway.

What had Christine expected? That he would erase his dead son from his memories? (Of course not, she said.) Forgetting was like dying. (That’s not what this is about, Paul!).

They fought often about that too.

Nevertheless, the love had not diminished. Not his, at least. Perhaps even the opposite had happened. But he was not so sure about Christine sometimes.

Zhang listened. Cast him sideways glances from time to time. The Zhang expression. An attentive, open face, with deep lines and more than a hint of melancholy in the eyes.

“Difficult,” Zhang said quietly after a long pause. “Very difficult.”

That was sufficient comfort.

The situation he was in was exactly that: difficult. Very difficult. No one could help him with it. He would have to find a path through it. Possibly a new one every day.

Paul heard his son cough violently so he got up and went to check on him. When he returned, Zhang was leaning against a pillar, looking at the night sky and smoking.

“I thought you’d given up?”

“I have,” Zhang responded laconically. A thin smile.

Maybe, Paul thought, he would find life on Lamma easier if there were more evenings like this one. He swore to himself to visit his friend more often in future.

“What on earth was happening in the square this afternoon?”

“Shi has a new Party chairman, Chen Jian Guo. Have you not heard of him?”

Paul thought for a moment. The name seemed familiar. “Chen Jian Guo? That sounds like the name of one of the heroes who fought alongside Mao on the Long March.”

“That’s right,” Zhang said. “Chen is his son. A rising star in the Communist Party. He must be a fervent fan of the Cultural Revolution.”

“Didn’t his father go to jail?” Paul asked.

“Yes. So did he. The whole family did. His mother committed suicide because of it. And yet he’s reintroduced the singing of those revolutionary songs in public.”

“Have all the placards and propaganda posters by the roadside got anything to do with that?”

“Yes. Every few weeks there is a new political campaign against some evil or other. And people love it. Hadn’t you heard of him before?”

“Yes, now I remember. But I don’t know much about him.”

Zhang nodded. “Remember his name. He has lots of charisma and he is very ambitious. Many people think he will one day be the most powerful man in China. He has Shi completely in his grip, and is governing the city like a red emperor. There are often show trials and a couple of executions. He threatens the rich and criticizes corrupt Party cadres and fat cats even though he is one himself. But it’s going down well with the people. He’s very popular.”

Suddenly they heard a voice in the darkness.

“Master Zhang?”

They turned around in surprise. A man was standing in front of them. He lowered his gaze and bowed.

“Xi, what are you doing here at this hour?”

“Please excuse me for disturbing you, but may I speak to you for a moment, Master Zhang? It’s urgent.”

IV

Zhang winced every time one of his students addressed him as ‘Master’. Even the sound of the word was unpleasant to him.

One year after his arrival, Zhang had, against the abbot’s will, started inviting visitors to the monastery for evening discussions on the teachings of Buddha. A small but loyal group had grown out of this; they met every week, and regarded Zhang as their teacher. They admired his decision to reject the temptations of the world and enter a monastery. They regarded him as a wise man because he had acted on his beliefs. Some of them revered him as a guru because he had no interest in material things.

Zhang was flattered by their admiration, but he knew that they had the wrong man.

He was no master. By no means.

He was weak. He was small, frightened, and vulnerable to temptation.

He was searching.

Like they all were.

Xi must really need help to visit him so late at night. Zhang made his excuses to Paul, took Xi aside and walked a few steps across the courtyard with him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I got a call from a friend in the Party,” Xi whispered. His voice trembled, betraying his anxiety. His brow was finely beaded with sweat. “I’m going to be arrested in the next few days.”

Zhang took a deep breath and gazed steadily at him. Xi was one of his most eager students, hungry for knowledge. Recently, he had made generous donations to the monastery more frequently. The monks had drily called these donations ‘soul salvation money’.

As far as Zhang knew, Xi had made his fortune with the construction of flats and retirement homes. He had a young wife, a son, and two mistresses and, in the last few months, mounting worries. He owed his riches to corrupt officials in the city administration who were now falling victim to Chen’s anti-corruption purges one by one. The new cadres were no less greedy, but they belonged to another faction in the Party, and did their deals with their own people.

Zhang was not sure what Xi wanted from him. He must have known this could happen. “Are you surprised?”

“No.”

“Do you think it’s unfair?”

“Yes . . . No . . . Yes.”

“Are there grounds to arrest you?”

“Yes.”

“Aren’t we all responsible for the consequences of our actions?”

“Yes.”

“Why is this unfair, then?”

“Because . . . because I only did what everyone else was doing.”

Zhang sighed briefly. He did not want to engage in a longer discussion about Buddha’s teachings now. “How can I help you?”

Xi hesitated before replying. He looked down at the ground and spoke in an even quieter voice. “I could escape to America tomorrow via Hong Kong. I have a visa.”

“And?”

“I would have to leave everything. My son, and my wife too. I don’t know what I should do.”

“And you think I can tell you that?”

Xi nodded. “Yes.”

Zhang shook his head gently. “You’re wrong about that.”

“Master Zhang, I trust you. You know what I should do.”

“No.” Zhang felt more and more uncomfortable. He did not like Xi’s tone of voice and his body language; it was meant as an expression of respect, but he found it submissive and obsequious.

“Please, Master Zhang. Give me some advice at least.”

“Who am I to give you advice? The answer is within you.”

“No,” Xi said vehemently. “No. Or I wouldn’t be here.”

“No one can take the decision for you.”

“I know. But I’m so confused. I need your help, Master Zhang. You must tell me what I should do. Can I leave my family on their own?”

Zhang tried not to let his increasing annoyance show. “I can’t tell you that. No one can, apart from you yourself.”

He saw the disappointment in Xi’s face. And the despair too.

But he felt no pity. “I can’t help you with this,” he said shortly. “Is there anything else?”

His student wanted to say something but then he thought better of it and stayed silent.

“Then you’ll have to excuse me. I have a friend visiting from Hong Kong.”

Xi swallowed, bit his lip, hesitated for a moment, then turned his back silently and slowly disappeared into the darkness. Zhang looked at him as he walked away and wondered for a moment if he should call him back, but that would have been dishonest. He had meant every word he said. There was nothing else to add.

_________

Zhang went back to Paul and told him about the brief conversation with Xi.

“I never knew that you could be so . . .” Paul paused, searching for the right word. “So abrasive.”

Zhang lit himself another cigarette, deep in thought. “Neither did I.”

“I thought monks learned the art of serenity in a Buddhist monastery,” Paul said teasingly.

Zhang closed his eyes for a moment and tried to breathe deeply, in and out. His breath was shallow. The exchange with Xi had disturbed him. What his friend was saying now had been on his mind for months.

Of course he had hoped for serenity. He had not left his old life in Shenzhen behind in order to go on an adventure. He had retreated to Shi only to realize that the city now merely shared its name with the place of his birth. He had not recognized anything: not a single building or street or park. His childhood and youth seemed to have been erased.

Zhang had traveled to a monastery in his home province of Sichuan in the hope of finding something. He had wanted to meditate and devote himself to the teachings of Buddha, but not as a goal in itself. The studying was to help him achieve more peace and serenity, to help him towards an inner equanimity. It was to drive away the melancholy that had followed him like a shadow ever since the Cultural Revolution. The older he grew, the more he longed for a peace of mind that, if he was honest with himself, he had never had in his life.

He had hoped to find answers but now he was no longer sure what the questions were.

He cleared his throat. Paul waited patiently.

“I don’t know if I’m in the right place,” he said. “Even after three years I’m finding it difficult to get used to life without Mei. I miss her laugh. I miss her smell next to me in the morning. I even miss her grumbling.”

“And I miss my son, even though we were never as close to each other as I would have wished. Or maybe that’s precisely why I do. Since I moved to the monastery we’ve had no further contact. My phone messages to his voicemail box remain unanswered, as do my emails. At some point I just gave up. I think that in his eyes I’m simply a loser. Someone who’s too old or too stupid to adjust to the new times. He can’t understand that I don’t want any of it. Apparently he’s working as an estate agent in Shenzhen.

“There are many ways a man can lose his children, Paul. I know who I’m talking to, so I don’t say that lightly.”

He had never formulated this thought so clearly, let alone spoken it aloud to anyone. It was only now that he heard these words himself that he understood how sad they sounded. How wounded he was.

Paul knew him well enough not to ask him any questions at this point.

“I imagined life in the monastery to be different. The first abbot was a Maoist in gray robes. He believed that the Enlightened One had preached his teachings directly into his ears and his alone. He was strict and severe in his interpretation of the words of Buddha. He knew of no doubts or contradictions and wouldn’t hear of either. You were either a believer or a nonbeliever. This suited the other monks very well but I could barely tolerate it.

“When he left a year ago to lead a monastery in Yunnan, I was relieved. With the new abbot everything is different but no better. He wants to extend the monastery and turn it into a tourist attraction. We now have a souvenir shop that sells jade pieces blessed by us monks. It’s clear that there is a big market for it in the city. Those were his words – can you imagine? Last week a marketing team from an advertising agency was here. The abbot wants to buy a second monastery in the countryside and offer retreats, yoga classes and weekend seminars there.

“I keep thinking about leaving the monastery.

“But what should I do instead? Who will employ a sixty-something former policeman, former monk and former husband? I could go and work as an advisor for a private security firm. I had an offer to do that once. That isn’t affected by the ups and downs of the economy and it has a future.

“People are always fearful.

“I even find meditating more difficult here than I did in Shenzhen. I don’t know why. Questions pile up. Doubts. Yes, even fears. But look who I’m saying this to.”

Zhang fell silent for a while and lit himself another cigarette.

“Living in a monastery requires passion and commitment,” he said pensively. “It is full of privations, though I couldn’t even say what I miss exactly, apart from Mei and my son. When I was in Shenzhen I didn’t have any friends apart from you. I wasn’t sociable. I was always a loner.

“Maybe it’s the dedication that I can no longer summon up. The passion for an idea. The humility. Or is it the ignorance that a person needs to follow the dogma of another without question? Perhaps I lack the will or the ability to feel at home in a community. Or maybe I’m making it much too complicated and it really is very simple: perhaps I have simply had enough of believing in my life.”

V

Paul woke before his son did. David had been restless in the night, as he had so often been in the last few months, talking in his sleep, and kicking Paul and waking him up several times. Now they lay quietly next to each other. Nose to nose. Paul looked at his sleeping child. The dry air of the air-conditioning had chapped the boy’s lips. He must remember to put some cream on them later.

He listened to the rapid, regular breathing. He looked at the high forehead and the small nose. David had inherited the southern Chinese skin color from his mother; he looked completely different from Justin, who had had pale, almost transparent skin.

Justin. A small child. Even at birth.

Paul shuddered. He did not want to remember. Why did his thoughts have to turn to the past again right now? He was here. In Shi. In a hotel, in bed. Next to David. He wanted to experience nothing else in this moment. There was no yesterday. And no tomorrow. He repeated the words and concentrated on the breathing next to him.

For a short, precious moment he felt only the warm air that came from David’s nose. It streamed gently over his skin. It still had the slightly sweet smell of childhood that would soon disappear forever.

Then the fear in him rose again, and he was unable to defend himself against it. It was the fear that the beating of this little heart could suddenly stop.

Just like that.

Why should it? Christine had asked him when he had told her about his worries once. She understood his fears, but David was a healthy boy who was growing perfectly well. That’s what the doctors said at every examination. Children’s hearts don’t stop beating just like that, Paul. Not without a reason.

He had nodded sadly. How could he have expected her to understand what he meant?

Paul got up and opened the curtains a little. He sat at the desk, picked up his phone and looked up the Hong Kong stock exchange on the Internet. He had earned a lot of money on shares in the last few years. He always bet on a falling market, which, as Christine remarked, was in line with his pessimistic nature.

_________

“Were you four once?”

Paul turned his phone off and looked round in surprise. “Good morning, sweetheart.”

“Were you four once?” David repeated his question.

“Of course.”

“And where was I then?”

“I don’t know,” Paul replied. The wrong answer. Admitting to not knowing anything always unsettled his son and led to more questions that Paul had no answers to.

David shot him a troubled look. “Why not? You always know where I am.”

Paul pulled the curtains back, sat next to him on the bed and thought for a moment. “I was talking nonsense. You were in Mummy’s tummy, of course.”

His son nodded contentedly.

Paul didn’t know what to say next. He found the silence uncomfortable. “Are you hungry?”

David did not respond. He was not a good eater.

“Shall we have breakfast in bed?”

“What are we having?”

“Whatever you want. An egg. Cornflakes. Bread rolls. Someone will even bring it to our room.”

“Really?” David seemed to like the idea. He sat up and thought about it. “I want to eat in the bath.”

“We can’t eat in the bath. Everything will get wet there.”

“In a cave, then!”

“What kind of cave?”

“Like the one you built yesterday.”

Half an hour later, Paul was crouching with his head lowered under the blanket that he had stretched like a tent between the desk and the armchair, held down by an iron, an alarm clock, and a kettle. David lay in front of him under the desk and they ate toast with raspberry jam and drank orange juice, hot chocolate and green tea. They were escaping from a green dragon spewing fire, so they could only speak very quietly.

“What are we going to do today?” Paul whispered.

“See the pandas,” David said immediately.

“But we saw them yesterday.”

“That doesn’t matter. Didn’t you like them?”

“Yes, I did. Very much.”

“Then we can go and see them again.”

Since Paul did not have a better suggestion, he could not counter this logic.

_________

He had actually liked the panda zoo very much. He had not seen a place like this in China before. The lawn was freshly mown and the trees were well tended. Elderly women emptied the rubbish bins. There were no plastic bags or empty bottles lying around. The toilets in the souvenir shop were clean and they worked. At every other bend in the path there were signs telling visitors what they were not allowed to do: spit, curse, push, step on the grass, be rude, wear dirty clothing. To Paul’s amazement, people obeyed the rules.

They walked through a dense bamboo grove, whose tall canes leaned over them like a roof. It looked like they were walking through a long green tunnel. A gust of wind made the bamboo sway and the loud cracking sound startled David. He stopped. “Are there dragons in China?”

“No.”

“How do you know that?”

“I read it somewhere. They died out many years ago.”

Satisfied with this reply, David carried on walking. Soon he could no longer wait to see the pandas, and ran ahead, drawing curious glances. Paul was used to that: wherever he went with his son, the boy attracted attention, even in Hong Kong.

David waited for him at the first enclosure. He had climbed up on a bench and was watching five pandas, who, separated from the visitors by a trench, were sitting less than ten meters away from him and chewing bamboo branches undistracted by the many spectators. Behind them, a panda lay sleeping in the fork of a tree.

“Why is he sleeping in a tree?”

“Because he finds it comfortable. Do you want to try sleeping in a tree in the garden at home?”

David gave him a stern look. Before he could reply, disquiet rose among the spectators. Men with walkie-talkies came down the path and brusquely ordered everyone to make way. They pushed the visitors in front of the enclosure roughly to one side and everyone made way without complaining. Two children stumbled and started crying but their parents hushed them. David climbed into his father’s arms.

Paul saw a dozen young people walking through the bamboo grove towards them. Their laughter and their loud voices could be heard from a distance. They were in their early or mid-twenties and were conspicuously well dressed. The women were carrying expensive handbags and wearing high-heeled leather boots, a lot of jewelry, and big sunglasses.

The other visitors shrank back as they approached. One young man was quite clearly the focal point of the group. Paul could see that from his body language and from the way the others looked at him, vied for his attention and made way for him. He was wearing a tight white T-shirt and his sunglasses were propped on his forehead. The prettiest of the women walked by his side. They stopped in front of the panda enclosure.

Suddenly the young woman shrieked several times.

“Oh, how sweet, how sweet!” she exclaimed rapturously.

Everyone around her looked at what she was staring at. The woman was not interested in the pandas – her eyes were fixed on David.