The Language of Solitude

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  Xiao Hu shook his head. He had not gotten used to evil. He had not even been aware of it.

  “If you are truthful, you have success in your heart, and what you do will succeed.”

  Truthfulness in the heart. One of those old-fashioned phrases that had made him not take the book seriously before. Now it sounded almost like an echo to him. Truthful. What did he have to do now to be truthful? What was important to him if he forgot about everything around him, if he did not let himself be distracted, if he peeled away layer after layer from himself like an onion and went right to his innermost nature? Yin-Yin. Little sister. Big brother.

  A clear path like this always leads to good. That was the last sentence that his father had left him.

  Xiao Hu read the hexagram on retreat over and over again; the more he read it and the more intently he engaged with it, the more he understood the advice that his father had found within it, which now applied to him too. He had to withdraw. From everything that he had learned in party training. From colleagues and friends. From his desire to be transferred to Beijing. The inner act of detachment is a clear-cut fact. Thus does one have the freedom to leave.

  He realized that a retreat was not the same as the end. A retreat had many faces; it could merely be a detour on the march forward. Properly used, withdrawals were not capitulations, but weapons. When one sees the way ahead so clearly, free from all doubt, a cheerful mood sets in . . .

  The situation was unambiguous.

  Xiao Hu thought about whom he could meet that evening. He picked up his iPhone and scrolled through the more than five hundred contacts in it. He knew countless acquaintances, colleagues, and friends from the party whom he could get in touch with to chat about cars, women, property, and stocks and shares. None of them was a friend he could ask for advice about his plans, someone who would encourage him. Maybe Zhou. Yes, he had spent a lot of time with him after buying two apartments from his wife the previous year. Since his parents had died two weeks earlier, they had only spoken once, briefly; every time Xiao Hu called, Zhou was at the hospital, playing golf, or out at dinner, and promised to ring back.

  “Hey, Xiao Hu. Sorry I haven’t called. Been too busy.”

  He felt uncomfortable hearing the embarrassment in his friend’s voice. “I know. No worries. Am I disturbing you?”

  “No. What’s up?”

  “Nothing in particular. I wanted to ask if you guys were free this evening.”

  Zhou hesitated before replying. “Hmm. This evening is no good.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Not good either. Maybe next week.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “I . . . I don’t know what my shifts are yet. Best if I call you at the beginning of the week.”

  Xiao Hu hated poor excuses. “Zhou, is everything all right?”

  “Of course. Why shouldn’t it be? Why are you asking?”

  “Just asking.”

  It was as if he had an infectious disease. He wondered if he was on some kind of list of people to be avoided. Did Zhou know something? The doctor was also a member of the Communist Party, though a passive one, but perhaps he had heard news by chance from within the party, through a patient or a relative, that Xiao Hu himself was not aware of yet. Or had he simply sensed that his friend’s fate was wending its way toward something undesirable and was therefore keeping his distance? Did he think that the double suicide was not the end of Xiao Hu’s problems but only the beginning?

  Xiao Hu ended the call, disappointed, went to the kitchen, made himself a double espresso, and fetched the letter from Paul Leibovitz, which he had hidden behind the coffee can. He pulled the copy of Yin-Yin’s piece out of the envelope, read it thoroughly once more, and made notes in the margin. His sister wrote wonderfully well; it was another talent that he envied her for. His version would sound nowhere near as elegant, precise, or passionate.

  He flipped open his laptop and created a document incorporating his changes. He described Yin-Yin’s mysterious disappearance and the circumstances that had led to his parents’ suicide, and added a new conclusion: How much was a person’s life worth in China? How could people defend themselves against injustices done to them by the state? Could there be a “harmonious society” as long as the law and justice that the party was also subject to did not prevail? He called on all readers to protest by email to the authorities in Hangzhou and to Sanlitun. To demand that Yin-Yin be released. To call for an investigation into the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Wu—even though he did not have high hopes of many readers doing so. The risk was too high. There was too much fear.

  Or was he wrong? He knew the power of the Internet could not be underestimated. It had changed China, but how quickly, and in what way? Had it given courage to the cautious, or only to those who were already brave? The story that the lawyer Chen had told his sister about the role of the Internet in the police investigations in Henan Province was an unusual case, but not the only one. Xiao Hu had recently heard of another instance, in which a security camera in a parking lot had filmed a party secretary molesting an underage girl. When her parents had tried to press charges, the police had refused to investigate. The film footage mysteriously found its way onto the Internet a few days later. The fury and bitterness it unleashed among bloggers and in chat rooms was so huge that the authorities had had to arrest the man. The story of Sanlitun and the village was significantly more explosive than that of a pedophile party cadre. It just had to be online for long enough.

  Of course, suspicion would fall on him immediately. They would look into who had all the details of the case, and very quickly conclude that it was him. He was aware of what lay ahead of him: interrogations for hours, perhaps days. Threats and false promises. But Xiao Hu believed he was strong enough.

  The state security forces would likely not succeed in proving that he was guilty of anything; his faultless party file spoke in his favor, after all. If anything, the death of his parents gave him a courage that he had not had at his last interview at party headquarters.

  He put the document on a USB stick, which he would later put in the trash, and made his way to the area around Jing’an Temple, where there were quite a few Internet cafés. After that, he intended to go to the Xujiahui area of town and then later to Pudong, to cover his tracks.

  The first café was in a shopping mall. It was small and filled with cigarette smoke; at most of the terminals were young people playing computer games. No one looked at him. He put his USB stick into a computer. Everything had to be done quickly so that no one could catch a glimpse of the text by accident. Xiao Hu marveled at how calm he was. Only after logging in, but before pressing Send, did his index finger hesitate for a few seconds. And not because he doubted.

  He was sending more than a document. He was taking his leave. And within it lay, as always, a beginning too.

  The freedom to leave. What a precious thing.

  XXI

  * * *

  He woke from a bang on his door. The clock on his nightstand showed 5:27 a.m. They are here, he thought. Already.

  Another knock, loud and hard.

  “Let me in,” a voice demanded.

  Xiao Hu was terrified. He turned on the light, got up, and put on a T-shirt and pants in a hurry.

  “Open the door.”

  “One second. I will be right there.”

  Bang. It sounded like they would shatter the wood any second.

  He rushed to the entrance, but looking through the peephole, he saw no one. They must be hiding in the dead corners close to the wall, he thought. He held his breath and listened. It was quiet.

  “Hello?” he said. “Who is there?”

  No answer.

  “Hello?”

  Xiao Hu did not dare to open the door.

  Suddenly he heard a loud scream from the apartment next to his. It was the young couple fighting—a man was angrily complaining about being shut out; the woman must have locked her husband out and just let him in again.

  Xi
ao Hu was too anxious to go back to sleep. He made himself an espresso, heated up a pain au chocolat, and tried to work out. After a few minutes he had to get off his exercise bike, as his heart was pounding too hard.

  A knock on the door in the middle of the night. It was the way they would get him, he imagined. Or they would come to his office, storm into a meeting, and arrest him.

  As Xiao Hu left the garage on his way to the office, he was sure somebody was following him. A motorbike stayed right behind him. He made a detour and took the Nanpu Bridge instead of the tunnel. The bike disappeared long before he reached the bridge.

  He was under no illusion: as soon as the authorities became aware of the documents online, he would be a prime suspect. They would monitor his every movement, his every call.

  When he walked into his office he noticed immediately that something was different. His secretary did not dare to look at him, his colleagues avoided his gaze. They already knew. The head of his department canceled a meeting with him on short notice. There was a more urgent board meeting he had to attend to, and in the evening he had to fly to Beijing unexpectedly. Were they already discussing his fate?

  All morning Xiao Hu sat in his office, staring out the window instead of at the two computer screens, unable to concentrate on work or even make a phone call. He had felt so calm and strong the day before, knowing that he was doing the right thing. A clear path like this always leads to good. But the path was murky now, the inner act of detachment more difficult than he had imagined.

  The power of fear.

  Suddenly his secretary came in and brought him a freshly brewed herbal tea. He still looked pale and sick, she said. The tea would help him feel better, but he had to take care of himself. If there was anything she could do for him, he should let her know.

  Her kind gesture confused him. Maybe he was just paranoid.

  He left early, and when he turned onto his street he saw two black Audis with tinted windows parked in front of his building. He drove by, turned back onto Ruijin Lu, and kept driving. After a while he made a U-turn, driving aimlessly, thinking what to do next. He had no place to go, no place to hide. His friend Zhou and his wife were an option, even though he had been less than welcoming lately.

  But he was desperate to talk to somebody. He drove to People’s Hospital No. 1 and parked in front of the main gate. It was shortly after five p.m., the time when Zhou usually left work. He turned the music on and waited. After half an hour, he saw Zhou’s Audi leave the compound. He got out and waved; Zhou stopped.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I had a meeting not too far and thought I would stop by. Do you have time for a drink?”

  “Now?” His friend sighed.

  Xiao Hu nodded.

  “I am pretty busy,” he said. “Maybe just a coffee—there’s a Starbucks around the corner.”

  They sat at a small table among busy shoppers.

  “How are you?” his friend asked.

  “I am all right,” Xiao Hu lied. “What’s up?”

  “Not much. Going on vacation next week.”

  “Where?”

  “Thailand.”

  They fell silent for a while.

  Zhou leaned forward and lowered his voice: “I have something exciting for you. A friend of mine is working at Dragon, the real estate developer. He said the company is hugely undervalued. They will announce a landmark deal in the next few days. Think about it.”

  “I will,” Xiao Hu said absentmindedly. “How is your wife?”

  “Good. She bought a new BMW last week. Great car. Didn’t you order a new one as well?”

  “Yes. I’ll get it next month.”

  “Which series? A five or a seven?”

  “Five.”

  They fell silent again, had a sip from their vanilla Frappuccinos, and looked around, avoiding eye contact.

  Meeting his friend had been a mistake, Xiao Hu thought. It made everything worse. He did not want to talk about cars and stocks. He did not care about rising or falling share prices. Not anymore. But what else was there to talk about? Did he expect Zhou to ask about his sister’s whereabouts? His parents’ suicide? Not really. He could not share any of his anxieties, neither with him nor with anybody else. The petty conversation made him realize how much he had to rely on himself now.

  They got up after ten minutes and left, their cups still half full.

  For the next few hours he drove around the city. He took the batteries out of his mobile phone, as his sister had once advised him to do, though he had ridiculed her for it at the time. He passed by his apartment building and saw that the Audis were gone, but a black Volkswagen looked equally suspicious. Xiao Hu made sharp, unexpected turns, drove fast on the inner-city highway, switching lanes frequently, just to make sure nobody was following him.

  When he’d almost fallen asleep in the car, he checked into the Grand Hyatt at the Jin Mao Tower. It always had many international guests, and he felt safer among them, even though he knew it would not make any difference. If the authorities wanted to arrest him, they would do so wherever he was.

  His room was on the eighty-second floor. He opened the curtains and looked at the city beneath him. Lights, billboards, illuminated skyscrapers, elevated highways, cars, stretching to the horizon. The face of a new China, the fabric of the Chinese dream. The skyline had filled him with pride only a few weeks ago. His sister had been right: it was nothing but a façade.

  He felt lost like never before.

  XXII

  * * *

  Yin-Yin heard a steel bar fall into place, and someone put handcuffs on her. Then there was only an oppressive silence. She looked around her. Her prison was small and round, a kind of sphere or diving bell made of metal, in which she could not even stand upright; she could have touched both walls at the same time if she had been able to stretch her arms out. Harsh sunlight came in through two portholes. She pressed her nose against one of the cold windows and saw nothing but a deep-blue sky.

  She crouched on the floor, pulling her knees close to her chest and resting her head on her hands. A loud jolt startled her. Yin-Yin felt as if she were in an elevator, going up. The sphere began to swing back and forth, like a pendulum. Yin-Yin jumped up, banged her head, gave a little scream, swore, and peered through one of the portholes. She saw a pier and a giant crane on rails with a long, rusty arm; she was hanging from this arm in her prison. On the quay below her she could see black automobiles with tinted windows and men in suits talking animatedly to each other. They looked up every now and then at the steel ball dangling over them. Then they laughed. There was another jolt, followed by a piercing rattle, the sound of a massive anchor chain falling into the sea. The sphere was gradually lowered.

  They want to drop me in the harbor, Yin-Yin thought. She screamed with all her might. The metal sphere crashed into the sea, and the water surged up around it. Yin-Yin drummed her fists against the steel walls. One last brief look, then she disappeared under the surface of the water and was sinking even further. The sunbeams disappeared as she sank down to the bottom. All was lost. It grew darker and darker. She screamed and screamed.

  “Yin-Yin. Yin-Yin.” It was Lu, her roommate. “Wake up, wake up. You’re dreaming.”

  Lu’s hand on her shoulder fetched her back from the bottom of the sea. The familiar smell of her room. She blinked and took some time to open her eyes properly. The harsh light was blinding; she turned her head to one side to get away from it.

  “Are you okay?”

  Yin-Yin nodded.

  “Should I put on some music?”

  “No, please don’t. Just some talk radio.”

  “A particular station?”

  “Any.”

  The sound of a human voice was enough. During her imprisonment she had often not exchanged a word with anyone for a whole day; at some point she had begun to sing and talk to herself. Since then, she had found silence difficult to bear. Four weeks had passed since her release, but Yin-Yin ha
d still not listened to a single note of classical music. She refused to, and kept postponing the moment without knowing why.

  “Call me if you need me,” Lu said, and switched off the light.

  Yin-Yin stared at the ceiling. The five o’clock news burbled away; she was waiting for the sounds of morning. Neighbors making their way to work, parents telling their children to hurry up. Old Mrs. Rong next door, with her deep, hacking cough every dawn. The first light of day entered the room, painting black patterns on the walls. She was exhausted but fought with all her might against falling asleep again. The nights, when all the memories came back and she had terrible, wrenching dreams, were worse than the days. She thought about getting up so she wouldn’t fall asleep again, but she was too tired. She tried to turn her thoughts to something pleasant: a concert, a new dress, the score of the Kreutzer Sonata, but the notes blurred before her eyes; her exhaustion overcame her.

  When she woke, it was already past nine. Lu moving around in the kitchen, the smell of fresh coffee. There was a long day ahead of her. She had decided to leave China, for a few weeks or months; she was not sure. A former classmate who was studying at the Juilliard School in New York had invited her to visit, and Yin-Yin was toying with the thought of applying to the school too. She had booked a flight via Hong Kong, to visit Paul Leibovitz and her aunt. The flight left at two o’clock, and she had neither packed yet nor tidied her room.

  Her brother was taking her to the airport. They sat in silence in the car for a long time. She did not feel like talking, and he had given up asking her questions. Not like the first few days after her release. Where were you? Did they beat you? Threaten you? He couldn’t leave her in peace. Can you remember any names? Faces?