The Man From Beijing (22 page)

Even so, the key names were there. Including, most important, that of the man who had written the diary lying on his desk.

Ya Ru had searched for the house where his ancestor had sat writing in the light from a tallow candle. But there was nothing of it left. Where Wang San had lived was now covered in a network of main roads.

San had written in his diary that his words were meant for the wind and his children. Ya Ru had never understood what was meant by the wind reading the book. Presumably San had been a romantic deep down in his heart, despite the brutal life he had been forced to live and the need for revenge that never left him. But the children were there, above all a son named Guo Si. Guo Si was born in 1882. He had been one of the first leaders of the Communist Party and had been killed by the Japanese in their war with China.

Ya Ru often thought that the diary San had written was meant just for him. Although there was more than a century between its creation and the evening when he had sat reading it, it was as if San were speaking to him directly. The hatred his ancestor had felt all that time ago was still alive inside Ya Ru. First San, then Guo Si, and eventually himself.

There was a photograph of San’s son Guo Si from the beginning of the 1930s, posing with several other men in a mountainous landscape. Ya Ru had scanned it into his computer. Whenever he looked at the picture, it seemed to him that he was very close to Guo Si, who was standing just behind the man with a smile on his face and a wart on his cheek. He was so close to absolute power, Ya Ru thought. And I, too, his kinsman, have come that close to power in my life.

There was a soft buzz from the intercom. His first visitor had arrived, but he intended to make her wait. A long time ago he had read about a political leader who had reduced to a fine art the classification of his political friends or enemies according to the length of time they had to wait before getting to see him. They could then compare their times with one another and work out how far they were from the leader’s inner circle.

Ya Ru switched off the computer, and it disappeared under the desktop with the same faint humming noise as when it had appeared. He poured himself a glass of water from a carafe on the desk. The water came from Italy and was produced especially for him by a company partly owned by one of his own enterprises.

Water and oil, he thought. I surround myself with liquids. Today oil, tomorrow perhaps the right to extract water from various rivers and lakes.

He went over to the window again and looked towards the district where the Forbidden City lay. He liked to go there, visiting his friends whose money he looked after and increased for them. Today the emperor’s throne was empty. But power was still concentrated inside the walls of the ancient imperial city. Deng had once said that the old imperial dynasty would have envied the Communist Party its power. There was no other land in the world with a power base to match it. At this moment in time, every fifth person on earth who breathed was dependent on what the party’s emperor-like leader decided.

Ya Ru knew he was a lucky man. He never forgot that. The moment he took it for granted, he would soon lose his influence and his prosperity. He was the
éminence grise
among this elite in possession of power. He was a member of the Communist Party; he had solid connections in the very centre of the inner circles where all the most important decisions were made. He was also a party adviser, and at all times he felt his way forward with his antennae to avoid the traps, and seek out the safe channels.

Today, on his birthday, he knew that he was in the middle of the most significant period China had been through since the Cultural Revolution. Having been preoccupied with itself for centuries, China was in the process of looking out towards the rest of the world. Even if there was a dramatic struggle taking place in the politburo about which direction to choose, Ya Ru had no doubt about the outcome. It was impossible to change the route that China had already embarked upon. For every day that passed, more of his fellow countrymen found themselves slightly better off than before. Even as the gap between urban dwellers and peasants grew wider, a small portion of the new prosperity trickled out to the most poverty-stricken regions. It would be sheer madness to attempt to divert this development in a way that was reminiscent of the past. And so the hunt for foreign markets and raw materials must become more and more intense.

He caught sight of his face reflected in the big picture window. Wang San might well have looked just like that.

More than 135 years have passed, Ya Ru thought. San could never have imagined the life I lead today. But I can picture to myself the life he led, and I can understand his anger. The whole of China was overshadowed by the injustice of the past.

Ya Ru checked the time again; though half an hour had not yet passed, he was ready to receive the first of his visitors.

A hidden door in the wall slid open, and his sister Hong Qiu came in. A vision, she radiated beauty.

They met in the middle of the room.

‘Now then, my little brother,’ she said, ‘you’re a bit older than you were yesterday. One of these days you’ll catch up with me.’

‘No,’ said Ya Ru, ‘I won’t. But neither of us knows which will bury the other.’

‘Why mention that now? It’s your birthday, after all!’

‘If you have any sense, you always know that death is just around the corner.’

He escorted her to a group of easy chairs at the far end of the room. As she didn’t drink alcohol he served her tea from a gold-plated pot. He continued drinking water.

Hong Qiu smiled at him. Then she suddenly turned serious.

‘I have a present for you. But first, I want to know if the rumour I’ve heard is true.’

Ya Ru flung his arms out wide.

‘I’m constantly surrounded by rumours. Like all other prominent men, not to mention prominent women. Such as you, my dear sister.’

‘I want to know if it’s true that bribery was involved in order to land the Olympics construction contract.’ Hong Qiu slammed her teacup down hard on the table. ‘Do you understand the implications? Bribery and corruption?’

Ya Ru lost his patience. He often found their conversations entertaining, as she was intelligent and caustic in the way she expressed herself. He also welcomed the opportunity to sharpen his own arguments by discussing things with her. She stood for an old-fashioned approach based on ideals that no longer meant anything. Solidarity was a commodity like any other. Classical communism had failed to survive the strains imposed upon it by a reality the old theorists had never really come to grips with. The fact that Karl Marx had been right about many fundamentals concerning an economy for politics, or that Mao had demonstrated that even poor peasants could rise out of their wretchedness, did not mean that the great challenges now confronting China could be overcome by referring back to classical methods.

Hong Qiu was sitting backwards on her horse as it trotted into the future. Ya Ru knew that she would fail.

‘We will never become enemies,’ he said. ‘The members of our family were pioneers when they first set out to escape decadence and decay. It’s just that we have different views on the methods that should be used. But of course I don’t bribe anyone, just as I don’t allow anyone to buy favours from me.’

‘All you think about is yourself. Nobody else. I find it hard to believe that you’re telling me the truth.’

Ya Ru was angry. ‘What were you thinking sixteen years ago when you applauded the old men leading the party who ordered the tanks to crush the protesters in Tiananmen Square? What were your thoughts then? Did it occur to you that I might well have been one of them? I was twenty-two at the time.’

‘It was necessary to take action. The stability of the whole country was threatened.’

‘By a thousand students? Come off it, Hong Qiu. You were afraid of something quite different.’

‘What?’

Ya Ru leaned forward and whispered to his sister. ‘The peasants. You were afraid they would turn out in favour of the students. Instead of starting to think about new ways forward for our country, you turned to weapons. Instead of solving a problem, you tried to conceal it.’

Hong Qiu didn’t answer. She looked her brother unblinkingly in the eye. It occurred to Ya Ru that they both came from a family that only a couple of generations ago would never have dared to look a mandarin in the eye.

‘You should never smile at a wolf,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘If you do, the wolf thinks you mean to attack.’

She stood up and placed a parcel tied with a red ribbon on the table.

‘I’m worried about where you’re headed, my little brother. I shall do all I can to make sure our country is not transformed in a way that will shame us. The big class struggle will return. Whose side are you on? Your own, not the people’s.’

‘What I’m wondering at the moment is which of us is the wolf,’ said Ya Ru.

He started towards his sister, but she turned away and left. She stopped in front of the blank wall. Ya Ru walked over to his desk and pressed the button that opened the hidden door.

He returned to the table and unwrapped the parcel Hong Qiu had given him. It contained a little box made of jade. Inside the box was a white feather and a stone.

It was not unusual for him and Hong Qiu to exchange gifts incorporating private riddles or messages. He understood instantly what her gift meant. It referred to a poem by Mao. The feather symbolised a life thrown away, the stone a life – and a death – that had significance.

My sister is warning me, Ya Ru thought. Or perhaps challenging me. Which path shall I choose to follow for the rest of my life?

He smiled at her present and decided that for her next birthday he would commission a handsome wolf carved from ivory.

He respected her stubbornness. She really was his sister, as far as strength of character and willpower were concerned. She would continue to oppose him and those in the government who followed the same path. But she was wrong to condemn the developments he supported, which would once again transform China into the most powerful country in the world.

Ya Ru sat down at his desk and switched on the lamp. He slid a pair of white cotton gloves onto his hands very carefully. Then he began once more leafing through the book Wang San had written and that had been passed down through the family from generation to generation. Hong Qiu had also read it, but had not been gripped by it in the same way as her brother.

Ya Ru turned to the final page of the diary. Wang San was eighty-three years old by then, very ill, and he would soon die. His last words expressed his worry about dying without having done all the things he had promised his brothers.

Ya Ru closed the diary and put it away in a drawer, which he locked. He took off the gloves. He opened another desk drawer and produced a thick envelope. Then he pressed the intercom button. Mrs Shen answered immediately.

‘Has my guest arrived?’

‘Yes, he’s here.’

‘Ask him to come in.’

The door in the wall slid open. The man who entered the room was tall and thin. He moved smoothly and nimbly over the thick carpet. He bowed to Ya Ru.

‘It’s time for you to leave, Liu Xin,’ said Ya Ru. ‘The beginning of the Western New Year is the most appropriate time for you to carry out your task. All you need is in this envelope. I want you back here in February, for our New Year.’

Ya Ru handed over the envelope. The man took it and bowed.

‘Liu Xin,’ said Ya Ru. ‘The task I have given you is more important than anything I’ve ever asked you to do. It has to do with my own life, my own family.’

‘I shall do what you ask.’

‘I know you will. But if you fail, I beg you not to return here. If you did, I would have to kill you.’

‘I shall not fail.’

Ya Ru nodded. The conversation was over. Liu Xin left, and the door closed silently. For the last time that evening Ya Ru spoke to Mrs Shen.

‘A man has just left my office,’ said Ya Ru.

‘He was very taciturn but friendly.’

‘But he has not been here to see me this evening.’

‘Of course not.’

‘Only my sister, Hong Qiu has been here.’

‘I haven’t seen anyone else. Nor have I noted down any name other than Hong Qiu in the diary.’

‘You may go home now. I’ll stay for a few more hours.’

The conversation was over. Ya Ru knew that Mrs Shen would stay until he had left. She had no family, no life apart from the work she carried out for him. She was his demon guarding his door.

Ya Ru returned to the window and gazed out over the sleeping city. It was now well past midnight. He felt exhilarated. It had been a good birthday, even if his conversation with Hong Qiu had not turned out as he’d expected. She no longer understood what was happening in the world. She refused to acknowledge that times were changing. He felt sad at the realisation that they would drift further and further apart. But it was necessary. For the sake of his country. She might understand one day, despite everything.

However, most important, this evening, was the end of all the preparations, all the complicated searches and planning. It had taken Ya Ru ten years to establish exactly what had happened in the past and draw up his plan. He had almost given up on many occasions. But whenever he read Wang San’s diary, he had been able to find the necessary strength once again. He had the power to do what San could never have achieved.

There were a few empty pages at the end of the diary. That is where Ya Ru would write the final chapter when everything was over. He had chosen his birthday as the time to send Liu Xin out into the world to do what had to be done. He now felt relieved.