The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  Elgstrand smiled.

  ‘I’m no doubt gullible,’ he said, ‘but not quite as naive as you think.’

  It took the oarsmen three hours to reach the ship and pull up alongside. Elgstrand climbed the ladder with San. A bald captain by the name of John Dunn received them. He eyed the oarsmen with extreme mistrust. Then he gave San a similar look and made a comment that San didn’t understand. Elgstrand shook his head and explained to San that Captain Dunn didn’t have much time for Chinamen.

  ‘He thinks you are all thieves and confidence tricksters,’ said Elgstrand with a laugh. ‘One of these days he’ll realise how wrong he is.’

  Dunn and Elgstrand disappeared into the captain’s cabin. After a short while Elgstrand emerged with a leather briefcase, which he ostentatiously handed to San.

  ‘Captain Dunn thinks I’m crazy for trusting you. Sad to say, Captain Dunn is an extremely vulgar person who doubtless knows a lot about ships and winds and oceans, but nothing at all about people.’

  They climbed back down to the rowing boat and returned to the mission station. It was dark by the time they arrived. San paid the leader of the oarsmen. As they walked through the dark alleys, San began to feel uneasy. He couldn’t help thinking about that evening in Canton when Zi had lured him and his brothers into the trap. But nothing happened this time. Elgstrand went to his office with the case while San bolted the door and woke up the nightwatchman, who had fallen asleep with his back to the outside wall.

  ‘You get paid for being on guard,’ said San, ‘not for sleeping.’

  He said it in a friendly tone of voice even though he knew the watchman was lazy and would soon drop off to sleep again. But the man had a lot of children to look after, and a wife who had been badly scalded by boiling water and had been confined to bed for many years, often screaming out in pain.

  I’m a foreman with both feet on the ground, San thought. I don’t sit on horseback like JA. And I sleep like a guard dog, with one eye open.

  He went to his room. On the way he noticed that there was a light in the room where the female servants slept. He frowned. It was forbidden to have candles burning at night, as the risk of starting a fire was too great. He went to the window and peeped cautiously through a gap in the thin curtains. There were three women in the room. One of them, the oldest of the servants, was asleep, but Qi and another young woman called Na were sitting up in the bed they shared, talking. There was a lantern on their bedside table. As it was a warm night, Qi had unbuttoned the top of her nightdress, exposing her breasts. San stared spellbound at her body. He couldn’t hear their voices and guessed they were whispering so as not to wake up the older woman.

  Qi suddenly turned and looked at the window. San shrank back. Had she seen him? He withdrew into the shadows and waited. But Qi didn’t adjust the curtains. San returned to the window and stood watching until Na blew out the candle, leaving the room in darkness.

  San didn’t move. One of the dogs that ran loose in the compound during the night to frighten away thieves came and sniffed at his hands.

  ‘I’m not a thief,’ whispered San. ‘I’m an ordinary man lusting after a woman who might one day be mine.’

  From that moment on, San set his heart on Qi. He was careful about it, not wanting to scare her. Nor did he want his interest to be too obvious to the other servants. Jealousy was always liable to spread quickly.

  It was a long time before Qi understood the cautious signals he kept sending her. They started meeting in the dark outside her room, after Na had promised not to gossip about it. In return for that Na received a pair of new shoes. In the end, after almost half a year, Qi started to spend part of every night in San’s room. When they made love San experienced a feeling of joy that banished all the painful shadows and memories that usually surrounded him.

  San and Qi had no doubt that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

  San decided to speak to Elgstrand and Lodin and ask their permission to get married. San went to visit the two missionaries one morning after they had finished breakfast but before they turned their attention to the tasks that filled their days. He explained what he wanted. Lodin said nothing; Elgstrand did the talking.

  ‘Why do you want to marry her?’

  ‘She is nice and considerate. She works hard.’

  ‘She’s a very simple woman who can’t do nearly as much as you’ve learned. And she shows no interest in our Christian message.’

  ‘She’s still very young.’

  ‘There are those who say she was a thief.’

  ‘The servants are always gossiping. Nobody escapes their attention. Everybody accuses everybody else of anything at all. I know what’s true and what isn’t. Qi has never been a thief.’

  Elgstrand turned to Lodin. San had no idea what they said in a language he didn’t understand.

  ‘We think you should wait,’said Elgstrand. ‘If you are going to get married, we want it to be a Christian wedding. The first one we’ve performed here at the mission station. But neither of you is mature enough yet. We want you to wait.’

  San bowed and left the room. He was extremely disappointed. But Elgstrand had not given him a definite no. One day he and Qi would become a couple.

  A few months later Qi told San that she was pregnant. San was overjoyed and decided immediately that if it was a boy, he would be called Guo Si. But at the same time he realised this news would cause problems – the Christian religion insisted that couples had to be married before they had children. Having sexual intercourse before marriage was considered a major sin. San couldn’t think of a solution. The growing stomach could be concealed for some time yet, but San would be forced to say something before the truth was revealed.

  One day San was informed that Lodin would need a team of oarsmen for a journey several miles upriver to a German-run mission station. As always with these boat trips, San would go as well. The evening before the journey he said goodbye to Qi and promised that he would solve everything upon his return.

  When he and Lodin returned four days later, San was summoned to Elgstrand, who wanted to speak to him. The missionary was sitting at his desk in his office. He usually invited San to sit down, but this time he didn’t. San suspected that something had happened.

  Elgstrand’s voice was milder than usual when he spoke.

  ‘How did the trip go?’

  ‘Everything went as expected.’

  Elgstrand nodded thoughtfully and gave San a searching look.

  ‘I’m disappointed,’ he said. ‘I hoped till the very last that the rumour that had reached my ears was not true. But in the end I was forced to act. Do you understand what I’m talking about?’

  San knew, but said no even so.

  ‘That makes me even more disappointed,’ said Elgstrand. ‘When a person tells a lie, the devil has found its way into the man’s mind. I’m referring, of course, to the fact that the woman you wanted to marry is pregnant. I’ll give you another opportunity to tell me the truth.’

  San bowed his head but said nothing. He could feel his heart racing.

  ‘For the first time since we met on the ship bringing us here, you have disappointed me,’ Elgstrand went on. ‘You have been one of the people who have given me and Brother Lodin the feeling that even the Chinese can be raised up to a higher spiritual level. The last few days have been very difficult. I have prayed for you and decided that I can allow you to stay. But you must devote even more time and effort to progress to the moment when you can declare your allegiance to the God we share.’

  San stood there, head bowed, waiting for what came next. Nothing did.

  ‘That’s all,’ said Elgstrand. ‘Go back to your duties.’

  As he reached the door, he heard Elgstrand’s voice behind his back.

  ‘You understand, of course, that Qi couldn’t possibly stay on here. She has left us.’

  San was devastated when he emerged into the courtyard. He felt the same as he did when his brother died
. Now he was floored once again. He found Na, grabbed her by the hair and dragged her out of the kitchen. It was the first time San had ever been violent to one of the servants. Na screamed and threw herself onto the ground. San soon realised that she was not the one who had gossiped, but that the old woman had heard Qi confessing the situation to Na. San managed to prevent himself from attacking her as well. That would have meant he would have to leave the mission station. He took Na to his room and sat her down on a stool.

  ‘Where is Qi?’

  ‘She left two days ago.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘I don’t know. She was very upset. She ran.’

  ‘She must have said something about where she was going.’

  ‘I don’t think she knew. But she might have gone to the river to wait for you there.’

  San stood up like a shot, raced out of the room, through the main gate and down to the harbour. But he couldn’t find her. He spent most of the day looking for her, asking everybody he came across, but nobody had seen her. He spoke to the oarsmen, and they promised to let him know if Qi showed up.

  When he got back to the mission station and met Elgstrand again, it was as if the Swede had already forgotten about what had happened. He was preparing for the service that was to be held the following day.

  ‘Don’t you think the courtyard ought to be swept?’ Elgstrand asked in a friendly tone.

  ‘I’ll make sure that’s done first thing tomorrow morning, before the visitors arrive.’

  Elgstrand nodded, and San bowed. Elgstrand obviously considered Qi’s sin so serious that there was no redemption possible for her.

  San simply could not understand that there were people who could never be granted the grace of God because they had committed the sin of loving another human being.

  He watched Elgstrand and Lodin talking on the veranda outside the mission station’s office.

  It was as if he were seeing them for the first time in their true light.

  Two days later San received a message from one of his friends at the harbour. He hurried there. He had to elbow his way through a large crowd. Qi was lying on a plank. Despite the heavy iron chain around her waist, she had risen from the depths. The chain had become entangled with a rudder that raised the body to the surface. Her skin was bluish white, her eyes closed. San was the only one able to make out that her stomach contained a child.

  Once again San was alone.

  San gave money to the man who had sent the message to inform him of what had happened. It would be sufficient to have the body cremated. Two days later he buried the ashes in the same place Guo Si was already resting.

  So this is what I’ve achieved in my life, he thought. I create and then fill my own cemetery. The spirits of four people are resting here already, one of whom was never even born.

  He knelt down and hit his head over and over again on the ground. Sorrow swelled up inside him. He was unable to resist it. He howled like an animal. He had never felt as helpless as he did at this moment. He once felt capable of looking after his brothers: now he was a mere shadow of a man, crumbling away.

  When he returned to the mission station late that evening he was told by the nightwatchman that Elgstrand had been looking for him. San knocked on the door of Elgstrand’s office, where the missionary was sitting at his desk, writing by lamplight.

  ‘I’ve missed you,’ said Elgstrand. ‘You’ve been away all day. I prayed to God and hoped that nothing had happened to you.’

  ‘Nothing has happened,’ said San, bowing. ‘It’s just that I had a bit of a toothache, which I cured with the aid of some herbs.’

  ‘That’s good. We can’t manage without you. Go and get some sleep.’

  San never told Elgstrand or Lodin that Qi had taken her own life. A new girl was appointed. San buttoned up the pain inside himself and continued for many months to be the missionaries’ irreplaceable servant. He never said anything about what he was thinking, nor how he now listened to the sermons with a different attitude than before.

  It was around this time that San felt he had mastered writing well enough to begin the story of himself and his brothers. He still didn’t know for whom he was writing it. Perhaps just for the wind. But if that was the case, he would force the wind to listen.

  He wrote late at night, slept less and less but without letting that affect his duties. He was always friendly, ready to help, make decisions, manage the servants, and make it easier for Elgstrand and Lodin to convert the Chinese.

  Nearly a year had passed since he had arrived in Fuzhou. San was well aware that it would take a very long time to create the kingdom of God that the missionaries dreamed about. After twelve months, nineteen people had converted and accepted the Christian faith.

  He kept writing all the time, thinking back to the reasons that he left his home village in the first place.

  One of San’s duties was to tidy up in Elgstrand’s office. Nobody else was allowed in there. One day when San was carefully dusting the desk and straightening the papers on it, he noticed a letter Elgstrand had written in Chinese. It was written to one of his missionary friends in Canton – they tried to practise their language skills together.

  Elgstrand confided in his friend as follows: ‘As you know, the Chinese are incredibly hard-working and can endure poverty the same way that mules and asses can endure being kicked and whipped. But one mustn’t forget that the Chinese are also base and cunning liars and swindlers; they are arrogant and greedy and have a bestial sensuality that sometimes disgusts me. On the whole, they are worthless people. One can only hope that one day, the love of God will be able to penetrate their horrific harshness and cruelty.’

  San read the letter a second time. Then he finished cleaning and left the room.

  He continued working as if nothing had happened, wrote every night and listened to the missionaries’ sermons during the day.

  One evening in the autumn of 1868 he left the missionary station without anybody noticing. He had packed all his belongings in a simple cloth bag. It was windy and raining when he left. The nightwatchman was asleep by the gate and didn’t hear San climbing over it. As he perched on top, he wrenched off the sign announcing that this was the gateway to the Temple of the One True God. He threw it down into the mud.

  The street was deserted. It was pouring down.

  San was swallowed up by the darkness, and vanished.

  16

  Ya Ru liked to sit alone in his office in the evenings. The skyscraper in central Beijing, where he occupied the entire penthouse with floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the city, was almost empty by then. Only the security guards on the ground floor and the cleaning crew were still around. His secretary, Mrs Shen, was on call in an anteroom: she always stayed for as long as he thought he might need her – sometimes until dawn.

  This day in December 2005 was Ya Ru’s thirty-eighth birthday. He agreed with the Western philosopher who had once written that at that age a man was in the middle of his life. He had a lot of friends who, as they approached their forties, felt old age like a faint but cold breeze on the back of their necks. Ya Ru had no such worries; he had made up his mind as a student never to waste time and energy worrying about things he couldn’t do anything about. The passage of time was relentless and capricious, and one would lose the battle with it in the end. The only resistance a man could offer was to make the most of time, exploit it without trying to prevent its progress.

  Ya Ru pressed his nose up against the cold windowpane. He always kept the temperature low in his vast suite of offices, in which all the furniture was in tasteful shades of black and blood red. The temperature was a constant seventeen degrees Celsius, both during the cold season and in the summer when sandstorms and hot winds blew over Beijing. It suited him. He had always been in favour of cold reflection. Doing business and making political decisions were a sort of warfare, and all that mattered was cool, rational calculation. Not for nothing was he known as Tou Nao Leng-‘the Co
ol One’.

  No doubt there were some who thought he was dangerous. It was true that several times, earlier in his life, he had lost his temper and physically harmed people, but that no longer happened. He didn’t mind that many were frightened of him. More important was not to lose control over the anger that sometimes surged through him.

  Occasionally, very early in the morning, Ya Ru would leave his flat through a secret back door. He would go to a nearby park and perform the concentrated gymnastic exercises known as t’ai chi. It made him feel like a small, insignificant part of the great, anonymous mass of Chinese people. Nobody knew who he was or what he was called. He sometimes thought it was like giving himself a thorough wash. When he returned to his flat afterwards and resumed his identity, he always felt stronger.

  Midnight was approaching. He was expecting two visits that night. It amused him to hold meetings in the middle of the night or as dawn was breaking. Having control of the time gave him an advantage: in a cold room in the pale light of dawn, it was easier for him to get what he wanted.

  He gazed out over the city. In 1967, when the Cultural Revolution was stormier than ever, he had been born in a hospital somewhere down there among those glittering lights. His father had not been present; as a university professor, he had been caught up in the frenzied purges of the Red Guard and banished to the country to tend peasants’ pigs. Ya Ru had never met him. He had vanished and was never heard from again. Later in life Ya Ru had sent some of his closest colleagues to the place where it was thought his father had been exiled, but without success. Nobody remembered his father. Nor was there any trace in the chaotic archives of that period. Ya Ru’s father had drowned in the big political tidal wave that Mao had set in motion.

  It had been a difficult time for his mother, alone with her son and her older daughter, Hong Qiu. His first memory was of his mother crying. It was rather blurred, but he had never forgotten it. Later, at the beginning of the 1980s, when their situation had improved and his mother had got her job back as a lecturer in theoretical physics at one of the universities in Beijing, he had a better understanding of the chaos that had reigned when he was born. Mao had tried to create a new universe. In the same way as the universe had been created, a new China would emerge from the mass tumult Mao had brought about.