The Man From Beijing (41 page)

Shen fell silent. Hong Qiu thought about the struggle taking place behind the newspaper headlines between those who wanted to preserve the old residential district in central Beijing and those hoping to see it demolished to make way for the Olympic Games. She belonged to those who passionately defended the old residential area and had often dismissed angrily the accusation that she did so for sentimental reasons. By all means construct new buildings and renovate old ones, but short-term interests such as the Olympic Games should not be allowed to dictate the city’s appearance.

Hong Qiu could see that the questions she had been asking had managed to make Shen almost completely forget the execution that would soon be his fate. He started talking again.

‘Ya Ru is a vindictive person. They say that he never forgets an injustice to which he thinks he’s been subjected, no matter how minor it might have been. He also told me that he regards his family as a unique dynasty whose memory must be preserved at all costs. You had better look out and make sure he doesn’t regard you as a defector, betraying the family’s honour.’ Shen looked hard at Hong Qiu. ‘He will kill anybody who crosses him. I know that. Especially people who mock him. He has men he can always call upon when necessary. They crawl out from under stones and disappear again just as quickly. I heard recently that he sent one of his men to the USA. Rumour has it that there were dead bodies lying around when the man returned to Beijing. They say he’s been to Europe as well.’

‘The USA? Europe?’

‘That’s what rumour suggests.’

‘And does rumour tell the truth?’

‘Rumour always tells the truth. When lies and exaggerations have been filtered out, there is always a kernel of truth left behind. That’s what you need to look for.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘Power not based on knowledge and a constant flow of information will eventually become impossible to defend.’

‘That didn’t help you.’

Shen didn’t reply. Hong Qiu thought about what he had said. It had surprised her.

She also thought about what the Swedish judge had said. Hong Qiu had recognised the man in the photograph Birgitta Roslin had shown her. Even if it was blurred, there was no doubt that it was Liu Xin, her brother’s bodyguard. Was there a connection between what Birgitta Roslin had told her and what Shen had just said? Could that be possible?

The warden reappeared in the corridor. Her time was up. Shen’s face suddenly turned white and he grabbed hold of her arm.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to be alone when I die.’

Hong Qiu released herself from his hands. Shen started screaming. It was as if Hong Qiu was faced with a terrified child. The warden threw him down on the floor. Hong Qiu left the cell and hurried away as quickly as possible. Shen’s desperate cries followed her. They echoed in her ears until she was back in Ha Nin’s office. That was when she made up her mind. She would not leave Shen alone in his final moments.

Shortly before seven the next morning Hong Qiu turned up at the cordoned-off field used for executions. According to what she had heard, it was the place where the military trained before going on the attack in Tiananmen Square more than a decade earlier. But now there were nine people to be executed. Alongside crying and freezing cold relatives, Hong Qiu took up her position behind a barrier. Young soldiers with rifles in their hands were keeping watch. Hong Qiu observed the young man closest to her. He could hardly be more than nineteen years old.

She couldn’t imagine what he must be thinking. He was about the same age as her own son.

A covered truck rumbled into the field. The nine condemned prisoners were taken down from the back by impatient soldiers. Hong Qiu had always been surprised by how fast everything went on such occasions. There was no dignity in dying in this cold, wet field. She saw Shen fall over when he was pushed down from the back of the truck – he made no sound, but she could see tears rolling down his cheeks. One of the women was screaming. One of the soldiers barked an order at her, but she carried on screaming until an officer stepped forward and hit her hard in the face with a pistol butt. She fell silent and was dragged to her place in the row. All were forced to kneel down. Soldiers with rifles stood behind each of the prisoners. The gun barrels were barely a foot away from the backs of their heads. Then it all happened in a flash. An officer gave an order, shots were fired and the prisoners fell forward with their faces buried in the wet mud. When the officer walked along the row and gave each of them the
coup de grâce
, Hong Qiu looked away. Now she didn’t need to see any more. The next of kin of the dead would be billed for the cost of the two bullets. They would have to pay for the death of their relatives.

Over the next few days she thought about what Shen had told her. His words about Ya Ru’s vindictiveness echoed around her head. She knew that in the past he hadn’t hesitated to resort to violence. Brutally, almost sadistically. She sometimes thought her brother was a psychopath at heart. Thanks to Shen, who was now dead, she might get some insight into who he really was, this brother of hers.

Now the time was ripe. She would talk to one of the prosecutors who devoted themselves exclusively to accusations of corruption.

She didn’t hesitate. Shen had spoken the truth.

Three days later, late in the evening, Hong Qiu arrived at a military airfield outside Beijing. Two of Air China’s biggest passenger jets were standing there, bathed in light, waiting for the delegation of nearly four hundred people who were going to visit Zimbabwe.

Hong Qiu’s role was to conduct discussions about closer cooperation between the Zimbabwean and Chinese security services – the Chinese would pass on knowledge and techniques to their African colleagues.

As a privileged passenger, she was allocated a place at the front end of the aircraft, where the seats were bigger and more comfortable. Hong Qiu fell asleep soon after the meal was served and the lights had been dimmed.

She was woken up by somebody sitting down on the empty seat beside her. When she opened her eyes, she found herself looking into Ya Ru’s smiling face.

‘Surprised, my dear sister? You couldn’t find my name on the list of participants for the simple reason that not everybody on board is included on it. I knew you would be here, of course.’

‘I should have known you wouldn’t let an opportunity like this slip through your fingers.’

‘Africa is a part of the world. Now that the Western powers are increasingly deserting the continent, it’s time for China to step out of the wings, of course. I am anticipating huge successes for our fatherland.’

‘I see China drifting further and further away from its ideals.’

Ya Ru raised his hands defensively. ‘Not now, not in the middle of the night. Way down below us the world is fast asleep. Perhaps we are flying over Vietnam at this very moment, or perhaps we’ve gone further than that. But let’s not argue. Let’s get some sleep. The questions you want to ask me can wait. Or perhaps I should call them complaints?’

Ya Ru stood up and walked off down the aisle to the staircase leading up to the upper deck, which was directly behind the nose of the aircraft.

She closed her eyes again. It won’t be possible to avoid this, she thought. The moment is approaching when the huge gap between us can no longer be concealed, nor should it be. Just as the enormous split running straight through the Communist Party cannot and should not be concealed. Our private feud mirrors the battle the country faces.

She eventually succeeded in falling asleep. She would never be able to do battle with her brother without a good night’s sleep.

Over her head Ya Ru was sitting wide awake with a drink in his hand. He had realised in all seriousness that he hated his sister Hong Qiu. He would have to get rid of her. She no longer belonged to the family he worshipped. She interfered in too many things that were none of her business. Only the day before they left he had heard through his contacts that Hong Qiu had paid a visit to one of the prosecutors leading the investigation into corruption. He had no doubt that he had been the topic of discussion.

Moreover, his friend, the high-ranking police officer Chan Bing, had told him that Hong Qiu had been displaying an interest in a Swedish female judge who had been visiting Beijing. Ya Ru would talk to Chan Bing when he got back from Africa. He told himself that she would lose this battle before it had even begun in earnest.

Ya Ru was surprised to find that he didn’t even hesitate. But now nothing would be allowed to stand in his way. Not even his dear sister, currently below him in the same plane.

Ya Ru made himself comfortable on a chair that could be converted into a bed. Soon he was also asleep.

Underneath him was the Indian Ocean and in the distance the coast of Africa, still veiled in darkness.

28

Hong Qiu was sitting on the veranda outside the bungalow she would be staying in during the visit to Zimbabwe. The cold winter of Beijing seemed far away, replaced by the warm African night. She listened to the sounds emanating from the darkness, especially the high-pitched sawing of the cicadas. Despite the warmth of the evening she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, as she had been warned of the profusion of mosquitoes carrying malaria. What she would most have liked to do was strip naked, move the bed out onto the veranda, and sleep directly under the night sky. She had never before experienced such heat as overwhelmed her when she stepped off the plane into the African dawn. It was a liberation. The cold restrains us with handcuffs, she thought. Heat is the key that liberates us.

Her bungalow was surrounded by trees and bushes in an artificial village made for prominent guests of the Zimbabwean government. It had been built during Ian Smith’s time, when the white minority proclaimed unilateral independence from England in order to retain a racist white regime in the former colony, then called Rhodesia. At that time there was only a large guest house with an accompanying restaurant and swimming pool. Ian Smith often used it as a weekend retreat where he and his ministers could discuss the major problems faced by the increasingly isolated state. After 1980, when the white regime had collapsed, the country had been liberated and Robert Mugabe put in power, the area had been extended to include several bungalows, a network of country walks and a long veranda with views of the Logo River, where you could watch herds of elephants come to the riverbank at sundown to drink.

Hong Qiu could just make out a guard patrolling the path that meandered through the trees. Never before had she experienced darkness as compact as this African night. Anybody could be hiding out there – a beast of prey, be it with two legs or four.

The idea that her brother could be watching, waiting, gave her pause. As she sat in the darkness, she felt for the first time an all-consuming fear of him. It was as if she had only now realised that he was capable of doing anything to satisfy his greed for power, for increased wealth, for revenge.

She shuddered at the thought. When an insect bumped into her face, she gave a start. A glass standing on the bamboo table fell onto the stone paving and smashed. The cicadas fell silent for a moment before beginning to play once more.

Hong Qiu moved her chair in order to avoid the risk of standing on the glass shards. On the table was her schedule. This first day had been spent watching and listening to an endless march of soldiers and military bands. Then the big delegation had been conveyed in a caravan of cars, escorted by motorcycles, to a lunch at which ministers had delivered long speeches and proposed toasts. According to the programme President Mugabe should have been present, but he never showed up. When the lengthy lunch was over, they had at last been able to move into their bungalows. The camp was a few dozen miles outside Harare, to the south-west. Through the car windows Hong Qiu could see the barren countryside and the grey villages, and it struck her that poverty always looks the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich can always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there is nothing but compulsory greyness, the only form of expression available to poverty.

In the late afternoon there had been a meeting to plan the work to be done over the coming days, but Hong Qiu preferred to stay in her room and go through the material herself. Then she had gone for a long walk down to the river and watched the elephants moving slowly through the bush and the heads of the hippos popping out above the surface of the water. She had been almost alone down there, her only companions a chemist from Beijing University and one of the radical market economists who had trained during Deng’s time. She knew that the economist, whose name she had forgotten, was in close contact with Ya Ru. At first she wondered if her brother had sent a scout to keep an eye on her activities. But Hong Qiu dismissed the idea as a figment of her imagination – Ya Ru was more cunning than that.

Was the discussion she wanted to have with her brother going to be feasible? Was it not the case that the split dividing the Chinese Communist Party had already passed the point where it was possible to bridge the gap? It was not a matter of straightforward and solvable differences about which particular political strategy was most appropriate. It concerned fundamental disagreements, old ideals versus new ones that could only superficially be regarded as communist, based on the tradition that had created the republic fifty-seven years previously.

If men like her brother were allowed to call the shots, the final fixed bastions of Chinese society would be demolished. A wave of capitalist-inspired irresponsibility would sweep away all the remnants of institutions and ideals built up on the basis of solidarity. For Hong Qiu it was an undeniable truth that human beings were basically reasonable creatures, that solidarity was common sense and not primarily an emotion, and that, in spite of all setbacks, the world was progressing towards a point where reason would hold sway. But she was also convinced that nothing was certain in itself, that nothing in human society happened automatically. There were no natural laws to account for human behaviour.