The Language of Solitude

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  “What can I do for you?” he asked in his deep voice, lighting a cigarette.

  While Paul explained what had brought them there, the lawyer watched him intently, swaying his upper body back and forth; he farted quietly twice.

  Paul finished his account and asked, “Do you know anyone who would be willing to take this case on?”

  At first Gao responded with a smile that Yin-Yin could not read. Was it meant sarcastically, or was he making fun of them?

  “How do you like my office, young lady?” he asked abruptly. “It’s nice but a little small, isn’t it?”

  She nodded.

  “It wasn’t always like this. I used to have an office with four rooms, a secretary, and a colleague who did research for me,” he said in a tone of voice that implied that his visitors must surely know where he was heading with this story.

  Yin-Yin and Paul gave him questioning looks.

  “I had a car too. And a wife,” he went on. There was no self-pity in his voice. “Until I agreed to defend three families whose land was taken away from them to build a new housing development on. They were poor farmers who came to my office one day. It was an open-and-shut case. The land seizure was so clearly against the laws of our People’s Republic that I was convinced I would be able to help them. But I did not know our opponents well enough. That’s always a terrible mistake to make, especially in our country. The other side had connections high up in the party in the province. We had no chance,” Gao said, his voice still uncomplaining. “Have you ever been involved in a court case in China?”

  “No,” Paul and Yin-Yin said at the same time.

  “Do you know about our legal system?”

  “A little,” Yin-Yin lied, although she had never in her life had anything to do with public prosecutors or judges.

  Gao sighed. “Then I’ll sum up the most important points in one sentence: the party takes precedence over the law.”

  “I know, I know,” Paul replied impatiently. “But is that still the same today?”

  “The same as yesterday. And the day before. The judiciary is not independent. Verdicts are passed by a commission in which party cadres play a decisive role. It’s not like the West,” he declared, turning to Paul. “The lawyers too are not independent, like they are in your country. The justice authorities grant the lawyers their licenses, and they take them back too. They took away my license when I refused to back down on that case, and wanted to appeal to the highest court in Beijing. Since then I can no longer represent anyone in court, but can only offer legal advice. And that is fortunate for you.”

  “What do you mean by that?” Paul asked, bewildered.

  “Otherwise I would have to inform the authorities about our discussion. All registered lawyers in Zhejiang Province have received a directive to make an official report on any business to do with Sanlitun. Who visited you in the office? What did he want? What did you talk about?”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. You’re probably not the only ones who have cause to take them to court.”

  “How do you know about the directive?”

  “From a lawyer friend.”

  Yin-Yin and Paul were silent as they registered this.

  “Don’t forget where we have come from,” the lawyer said. “The concept of an independent judiciary does not play as major a role in Chinese thought and history as it does in the West. There was no legal system in this country twenty-five years ago. No lawyers, no notaries, no law degrees at the universities. Laws were barely written down. There were thousands of judges without any legal training. Now we have over two hundred thousand lawyers and over four hundred law faculties. The examinations to qualify as a judge or a lawyer are so tough that only ten percent of the applicants pass them. Go into a bookshop and you’ll find shelves full of legal tomes; books on taxation law, real estate law, criminal law. Even guides to the law for people who can’t afford the cost of a lawyer. So in that respect we have made great progress; ultimately, though, the progress we’ve made won’t be of help to you.” Gao sucked at his cigarette and looked at them. “Don’t get me wrong. I’m quite sure that you’ve been victims of great wrongdoing and that you understandably want to see justice done. But you must be very clear about this: you will pay a price for it. No one can tell you beforehand how high the price will be. That depends on many factors, and this uncertainty is part of the system. Count on paying the highest possible price and then ask yourself if, when it’s all said and done, it will be worth it.”

  He looked at them for a long time. “That is true for both of you.”

  “I am American and live in Hong Kong,” Paul replied.

  “So?”

  “That is still not part of mainland China. Not yet.”

  “Are you sure? Are you telling me that you feel safe there because it is a so-called Special Administrative Region?”

  “Yes.”

  Gao sighed again. “Do you have family in China?”

  “No.”

  “In Hong Kong?”

  “Yes, my partner.” Paul was becoming visibly uncomfortable. He shifted from side to side in his chair.

  “Is she Chinese?”

  Paul nodded.

  “You must be careful. That is all I am saying.”

  Yin-Yin sipped her tea; the warm glass in her hand felt good. The highest price? What could that be? She used to have a recurring nightmare in which a stranger broke all her fingers and her wrists so that she could never play the violin again. Would that be the worst punishment? Or was it to do with her life?

  Paul’s voice broke into her thoughts. “Do you really think that our lives would be in danger simply because we were threatening to sue Sanlitun for damages?”

  Gao took his glasses off and cleaned them with the blue cloth of his Mao jacket before he replied. “Are our lives the most precious possessions we have? Or is it the way our lives are lived? You don’t have to kill a man in order to destroy him. Take his work away from him. Take his family away from him. Take his friends away from him. Or the trust in his family and friends. Make him frightened. Anyone who constantly lives in fear is paying an extraordinarily high price, don’t you think?” Paul and Yin-Yin did not reply, so Gao continued. “I don’t want to discourage you. I just want you to know what’s at stake.”

  “I doubt we’re really—”

  “Doubts are good,” the lawyer interrupted. “Great wisdom comes from great doubts, that’s what Confucius said.” He laughed. “Apart from that, I cannot fail to mention that there have been incredible exceptions to the rule. Everything is about politics in this country, and sometimes you find yourself on the right side without knowing it. Who knows what forces may be working against Sanlitun in Beijing? You can only really feel safe here if you have nothing to lose, and there are not many people in that position. But you won’t find a lawyer to represent you in our province. If you’re lucky, you might find one in Shanghai.” He opened a drawer, dug around in it, and pulled out a crumpled business card that he handed to them. The name on it was the same as the one Wang had written on the napkin for them. “Say that I sent you, then you’ll get an appointment straightaway. And another thing: don’t be fooled by your first impressions when you get there.”

  * * *

  Yin-Yin and Paul decided to visit Da Long on the way to Shanghai, in order to tell him about their meetings with Gao and Wang.

  There was an oppressive silence in the car. Yin-Yin’s head was full of so many different thoughts that she did not know which she should concentrate on, which she should discuss with Paul first. Before her mother’s illness, she had never experienced anything that had really caused her serious worry; until now, she had never felt threatened, or that her freedom was being restricted, but the memory of the lawyer’s words and the intruder in her hotel room frightened her.

  “Do you think Wang and Gao are exaggerating?”

  “Maybe,” Paul replied, deep in thought.

  “Are you one of those pe
ople who have nothing to lose?”

  “Fortunately not,” he responded, smiling.

  “Neither am I,” she said.

  “There was a time when I was one of those people,” he added in a serious tone.

  She looked at him, confused.

  “I’ll tell you about it one day.”

  * * *

  A new VW Passat with tinted windows was parked in the village square, sunlight glinting on its shiny black paint. It was the kind of car that was rarely seen there. As Paul and Yin-Yin walked to her father’s house, they passed two young men whom she didn’t know, and who walked past without any greeting. An uneasy feeling came over her, and Paul dashed her a glance as if to say that he was feeling the same thing. They hurried toward her parents’ home.

  Yin-Yin had not seen her father behave in such a confused manner for a long time. He was sitting by her mother’s bed, and responded to their greeting as briefly and casually as if they had been away for only a few minutes. He offered them tea and fetched dirty cups from the kitchen; instead of a plate of roasted sunflower seeds, he put a dish of empty shells on the table.

  Paul wanted to tell him about Gao and Wang, but Da Long interrupted him as soon as he started speaking.

  “I-I just had some visitors,” he said.

  “Who?”

  “Two men from the Department of Health in Yiwu.”

  “What did they want?” Paul asked, surprised.

  “They wanted to know how Min Fang was. Did you notify the authorities?”

  Wang. Yin-Yin thought of her school friend immediately. He was a better actor than she’d thought he was. Why had he given them Gao’s number if he was going to betray them? So that they would be seeing the lawyer while the officials interrogated her father alone?

  “No, Papa. We didn’t do that,” she said.

  “Wh-wh-who did, then?”

  “I don’t know. What did the two men say?”

  “N-n-not much. Th-th-they wanted to know everything about Mama’s illness. When and how it started. What she had been eating and drinking in the months before that. What the doctors said. What treatment she had received. I told them everything and showed them the paperwork from the hospital. They didn’t even look at it, but put it straight into their case.”

  “You gave the documents to them?” she exploded. She had not meant to sound so upset.

  Her father flinched and stammered a slow “Y-y-yes” that seemed never-ending.

  “Did they examine Mama at all?” she asked more calmly.

  “No. They didn’t even go near the bed. They had no experience of sick people. They were not doctors.”

  “They didn’t say anything about themselves, did they?”

  Da Long thought for a moment. “N-n-not really. They asked about you and Xiao Hu. What you do in Shanghai, when you were last here. Where you were now.”

  “Do you know their names?” Paul asked.

  “No. They didn’t tell me who they were; or I’ve forgotten.”

  “Did they leave business cards or phone numbers?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did you tell them anything about mercury in Mama’s body?”

  “No. I only asked if her sickness might have something to do with the fish from the lake, because she had liked to eat it so much.”

  “What did they say to that?”

  “They asked how I could have such a ridiculous thought, and said it was completely out of the question. The water was clean, they said, and the Golden Dragon factory produced only cough syrup and tea. Apparently the plant and the lake were inspected and tested two months ago. What do you think?”

  Yin-Yin said nothing. Paul buried his face in his hands for a moment and took a deep breath. “Sanlitun factories are exempt from all inspections,” he replied, telling Da Long the details of the conversations with Wang and Gao.

  “Y-y-you mean they lied to me?” Da Long asked.

  Paul nodded.

  “J-j-just like they’ve always lied to us,” Yin-Yin’s father whispered, as though he were speaking to himself.

  “Would you approach the lawyer in Shanghai for me?”

  Paul waited before he replied. He drank a mouthful of tea, picked up a few sunflower seed shells, and crushed them between his fingers. Yin-Yin guessed what he was going to say, and she felt afraid.

  “Yes.”

  “T-t-tell him everything you know. I want you to ask him if he will represent me.” He gave his daughter a long look. “Y-y-you’re worried, aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Don’t be. I’m not afraid, and I have nothing to lose.”

  She wanted to say something, but she didn’t dare to speak. He was her father. She could not ask Mama. It was his decision. She would not go against it, but there was a voice inside her that said he was wrong.

  Only the dead have nothing to lose.

  XII

  * * *

  I liked eating the fish. Anyone who has been hungry enough to chew a piece of bark is not picky about food for the rest of their life. You know that. Eel, catfish, crab; it hadn’t tasted any different than usual. It was tender or tough, full of bones or easy to eat depending on the kind of fish and how old it was. I did not complain and I did not suspect anything. I was glad of every mouthful and never thought that death could be so furtive. Creeping up like that, making no sound underfoot, and with no odor at all.

  The dead fish floated belly-up on the water. Sometimes there were more, sometimes fewer. The bones of the animal carcasses protruded from the ground like small talons.

  Should that have been a warning to me? Two babies born blind and deformed. Two friends falling ill just days before me. Why didn’t we put one and one together? We didn’t dare. Because we believe what we have been told. Because we are good comrades. Always have been. Anything else would be too dangerous.

  Besides, I was never very good at being suspicious.

  I no longer hear every word that you say to each other, but I hear enough to understand what you plan to do. You want to go to court! You want to see those responsible punished! My beloved Da Long, what are you thinking? Has grief made you lose your mind? Have you forgotten where we live? If only I could speak again. If only for an hour, to bring you to your senses. Yin-Yin is right. Xiao Hu is right. No judge’s verdict will make me well again. And you cannot win in the first place. We were never able to win. We were able to outsmart them and we were able to try to slip away. But we could never win.

  We are a people suffering from memory loss. Either we don’t want to remember, or we will not allow ourselves to remember. We are a country without a past, or with a past that lies so far back it seems unconnected to the present. No one today has been brought to justice for the mistakes, the suffering, and the deaths of that time. The past lies so far back that we all submit to the illusion that it no longer hurts. We are a country that only knows the present. And the future. As though we do not all stand on the shoulders of our forebears. As though a tree does not need roots.

  Who will take any notice of a poisoned lake nowadays?

  Of an old and useless woman?

  Of a village in which the children are born cripples?

  He who knows others is clever;

  He who knows himself is enlightened;

  He who conquers others is violent

  He who conquers himself is strong

  My dearest Da Long. Be strong and conquer yourself. Subdue your longing for punishment. For atonement. For understanding. For justice. I know that Laozi did not mean his words that way. But I can see no other meaning in them for you today. He who strives for the impossible opens the gate to calamity.

  I don’t have much time left. I can feel it. My strength is going. How tired I am. Is this what death feels like? How much I would have liked to sing these lines out loud once in my life. I discovered them too late. I wasn’t allowed to listen to them before. Like so many other things. All the things they forbade us. All the nonsense we had to sing, re
ad, listen to, and say. How they lied to us. How they misused the most precious thing we could give them, our trust. Has anyone been punished for that? And now you want justice for your sick wife!

  XIII

  * * *

  They had reached the outskirts of Shanghai when Paul pulled the business card and the napkin out of his pocket and compared the phone numbers once again. They were the same, but it was only now that he noticed that they were prefixed with the area code for Singapore. He tapped the number hesitantly into Yin-Yin’s cell phone.

  “Hallo?”

  “My name is Paul Leibovitz.”

  “Who are you? Where did you get my number?”

  The voice was of a kind that made Paul wish he could hang up immediately. Sharp. Aggressive.

  “I got it from Gao Jintao in Yiwu.”

  “Okay. What do you want?” the voice demanded.

  “I need to make an appointment with you. As soon as possible, even if I have to fly to Singapore.”

  Silence.

  “Where are you now?”

  Every question sounded like an order. Paul shook himself. “In the car. On the way to Shanghai.”

  “Can you come to my office tomorrow at ten a.m.?”

  “Yes. Where is it?”

  “On the Bund. Number Two. In the building that used to be the Shanghai Club.”

  “There are two of us.”

  “No problem. Be there at ten sharp. I don’t have much time.”

  Paul gave the phone back to Yin-Yin. She put it away, looked him in the eye for a moment without saying anything, sank back into her seat, and looked out the window. He looked at her profile. A strand of hair had fallen onto her face; she had tied the rest of it up into a topknot and put a chopstick through it. For the first time, he realized how young she was. Even though she was tired, there were no lines on her face, around neither the mouth nor the eyes. She had the body of a young and very beautiful woman who could have been his daughter. She looked exhausted and fragile; the melancholy in her face moved him. Paul thought about the last thirty-six hours, which they had spent nearly every minute of together. The distress on her face when she had told him about the death of her childhood friend’s baby. Her laugh when Wang the class clown had said that Paul was too old for her. How she had trembled and not wanted to stay alone in her hotel room. He felt close to her, as though they had known each other for many years; he wondered if she felt the same way. He wanted to protect her, and would have liked to take her into his arms, but the fear that she would misunderstand the gesture held him back.