The Man From Beijing

by Henning Mankell

  She thought about Wang again. I could track him here, but no further.

  She paid her bill, surprised by how expensive it was, then braced herself once more to face the bitterly cold wind.

  That evening they went to the theatre located inside the enormous Qianmen Jianguo Hotel. Earphones were available, but Karin Wiman had arranged the services of interpreters. During the whole of the four-hour performance, Birgitta sat leaning to one side, listening to the young woman’s frequently incomprehensible summaries of what was happening onstage. Both she and Karin were disappointed, as they soon realised that the performance consisted of extracts from various classical Peking operas, no doubt top class, but aimed exclusively at tourists. When the show finished and they were finally able to leave the freezing cold auditorium, they both had stiff necks.

  Outside the theatre they waited for the car the conference had placed at Karin’s disposal. At one point Birgitta had the impression she had caught sight of the young man Huo, who had earlier addressed her in English amid the hustle and bustle of the street.

  It happened so quickly that she hadn’t really registered his face before it had vanished again.

  When they arrived at their hotel, Birgitta looked over her shoulder, but nobody was there, nobody she recognised, at least.

  She shuddered. The fear she felt seemed to have come from nowhere. But it was Huo she had seen outside the theatre; she was certain of it.

  Karin asked if she fancied a nightcap, and she did.

  An hour later, Karin was asleep. Birgitta was standing by the window, gazing out over the glittering neon lights.

  She was still worried. How could Huo have known that she was there? Why had he followed her?

  When she finally crept into bed beside her sleeping friend, she regretted having produced the photograph of Wang Min Hao.

  She felt cold. She lay awake for many hours. The chill of the Beijing winter’s night embraced her.

  23

  There were snow flurries the following day. Karin had risen at six o’clock in order to check through the lecture she was due to deliver. Birgitta woke up and saw her friend on a chair near the window, reading by the light from a standard lamp; it was still dark outside. She experienced a vague feeling of envy. Karin had chosen a life involving travels and contact with foreign cultures. Her own life was played out in courtrooms featuring a constant duel between truth and lies, arbitrary decisions and justice: outcomes were usually uncertain and often frustrating.

  Karin noticed that Birgitta was awake.

  ‘It’s snowing,’ she said. ‘Not a lot. You never get heavy snowfalls in Beijing. It’s powdery, but quite sharp, like grains of sand from the desert.’

  ‘You are a busy bee. Up so early.’

  ‘I’m nervous. There’ll be so many people listening to what I have to say, bending over backwards to find errors.’

  Birgitta sat up and moved her head tentatively.

  ‘I still have a stiff neck.’

  ‘Peking operas demand a high level of physical stamina.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind seeing another one. But without an interpreter.’

  Karin left shortly after seven. They arranged to meet again that evening. Birgitta slept for another hour, and by the time she’d finished breakfast it was nine o’clock. Her worries from the previous day had vanished. The face she thought she had recognised outside the theatre must have been a figment of her imagination. The range of her fantasies sometimes surprised her, although she should have been used to them.

  She sat in the large reception area where silent servants armed with feather dusters were busy cleaning marble columns. She felt annoyingly idle and decided to look for a department store where she could buy a Chinese board game. And she had also promised Staffan some spices. A young male concierge marked the way to a suitable store on her map. She changed some money in the hotel, then went out. It was not quite as cold as it had been. Occasional snowflakes were whirling around in the air. She pulled her scarf up over her mouth and nose and set off.

  It took her almost an hour to get to the department store. It was on a street called Wangfuijing Dajie, occupied a whole block and, when she stepped in through the imposing entrance doors, felt like a gigantic labyrinth. She was immediately caught up in the crush. She noticed people on all sides giving her curious looks and commenting on her clothes and appearance. She looked in vain for a notice in English. As she made her way towards one of the escalators, she was shouted at in bad English by various sales staff.

  On the third floor she found a department selling books, paper goods and toys. She spoke to a young shop assistant, but unlike the hotel staff she didn’t understand what Birgitta said. The assistant said something into an intercom, and within seconds an older man appeared beside her and smiled.

  ‘Board games,’ said Birgitta. ‘Where can I find those?’

  ‘Mah-jong?’

  He led her to another floor, where she suddenly found herself surrounded by shelves containing all kinds of board games. She picked out two, thanked the man for his help and went to one of the cash registers. Once the games had been wrapped up and placed in a large, colourful plastic bag, she found her own way to the food department. She could smell spices and soon found a large selection in small, pretty paper packets. After buying some she sat down in a cafeteria near the entrance. She drank tea and ate a Chinese cake that was so sweet she had trouble getting it down. Two small children came to stand and stare at her until they were called brusquely back by their mother at a neighbouring table.

  Just before getting up to leave, Birgitta had the feeling she was being watched. She looked around, tried to scrutinise several faces, but there was no one she recognised. She was annoyed by these imaginings and left the store. As the plastic bag was heavy, she took a taxi back to the hotel and wondered what to do for the rest of the day. She wouldn’t be able to see Karin until late that evening – Karin had a formal dinner that she would have liked to skip, but couldn’t. Birgitta decided to visit the art gallery she had passed the previous day. She knew the way there. She remembered having seen several restaurants where she could have a meal if she felt hungry. It had stopped snowing now, and the clouds had broken up. She felt younger, more energetic than in the morning. Just now, I’m that freely rolling stone we used to dream of becoming when we were young, she thought. A rolling stone with a stiff neck.

  The main building of the gallery looked like a typical Chinese tower with small platforms and projecting roof details. Visitors entered through two majestically imposing doors. As the gallery was so big, she decided to restrict herself to the ground floor. There was an exhibit on how the People’s Liberation Army had used art as a propaganda weapon. Most of the paintings were in the familiar style she recalled from the illustrated Chinese magazines in the 1960s. But there were also some non-figurative paintings depicting war and chaos in bright colours.

  Wherever she went, she was surrounded by guards and guides, mainly young women in dark blue uniforms. None of them spoke English.

  She spent a few hours in the art gallery. It was nearly three o’clock when she left, glancing at the hospital and behind it the skyscraper with the jutting-out terrace. Quite close to the gallery was a simple restaurant; she was given a place at a corner table after she had pointed at various plates of food on other diners’ tables. She also pointed at a bottle of beer and noticed how thirsty she was when she began drinking. She ate far too much, then drank two cups of strong tea in order to overcome her drowsiness while thumbing through several postcards she’d bought at the gallery.

  Then it hit her. She had had enough of Beijing, although she’d only been there for two days. She felt restless, missed her work and had the feeling that time was simply slipping through her fingers. She couldn’t continue wandering aimlessly around the streets. She needed something specific to do, now that the board games and the spices had been bought. First she needed to go back to her hotel and rest, then come up with a proper plan – she
had another three days, two of them alone.

  When she came back out onto the street, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds again, and it felt much colder. She wrapped her jacket tightly around her and wound her scarf over her mouth and nose.

  A man came up to her with a piece of paper and a small pair of scissors in his hand. In broken English he begged her to allow him to clip her silhouette. He produced a file of plastic pockets with other silhouettes he had made. Her first reaction was to say no, but she changed her mind and took off her woolly hat, removed her scarf and posed in profile.

  The silhouette he made was astonishingly good. He asked for five dollars, but she gave him ten.

  The man was old and had a scar on one cheek. She would have loved to hear his life story, if only that had been possible. She put the silhouette into her bag; they bowed to each other and went their separate ways.

  She hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening when the attack took place. She felt an arm wrapped around her neck, bending her backwards, and at the same time somebody snatched her bag. When she screamed and tried to hang on to it, the arm around her neck tightened. She was punched in the stomach and left gasping for breath. She collapsed onto the pavement. It had come about so quickly and lasted no more than ten or fifteen seconds. A passing cyclist stopped to try to lift her to her feet, together with a woman who put down her heavy grocery bags in order to help. But Birgitta Roslin was unable to stand up. She sank down onto her knees and passed out.

  When she recovered consciousness she was on a stretcher in an ambulance with sirens blaring. A doctor was pressing a stethoscope onto her chest. Everything was a blur. She remembered having her bag stolen. But why was she in an ambulance? She tried to ask the doctor with the stethoscope. But he answered in Chinese: she deduced from his gestures that he wanted her to keep quiet and not move. Her throat felt very tender. Perhaps she had been seriously injured? The thought scared her stiff. She might have been killed. Whoever had attacked her hadn’t hesitated to do so, despite the broad daylight in a busy street.

  She started crying. The doctor reacted by feeling her pulse. Even as he did so the ambulance came to a halt, and the back doors were opened. She was transferred to another stretcher and wheeled along a corridor with very bright lights. She was sobbing uncontrollably and didn’t notice being given a tranquilliser. She drifted away as if on a groundswell, surrounded by Chinese faces that seemed to be swimming in the same waters as she was: their heads, bobbing up and down in the waves, were preparing to accept the Great Helmsman as he approached the shore after a long and strenuous swim.

  When she regained consciousness she was in a room with dimmed lights and drawn curtains. A man in uniform was sitting on a chair next to the door. When he saw that she had opened her eyes, he stood up and left the room. Shortly afterwards two other men in uniform entered the room, accompanied by a doctor who spoke to her in English with a strong American accent.

  ‘How are you feeling?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m tired. My throat hurts.’

  ‘We have examined you carefully. You survived that unfortunate incident without serious injury.’

  ‘Why am I here? I want to go back to my hotel.’

  The doctor bent down closer to her face.

  ‘The police need to talk to you first. We don’t like it when foreign visitors are treated badly in our country. We are ashamed. Whoever attacked you must be found.’

  ‘But I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘I’m not the one you need to talk to.’

  The doctor stood up and nodded to the two men in uniform, who carried their chairs over to her bed and sat down. One of them, the interpreter, was young, but the man asking the questions was in his sixties. He had tinted glasses, which meant that she couldn’t see his eyes. He started asking questions without either of the men having introduced themselves. She had the vague impression that the elderly man didn’t like her at all.

  ‘We need to know what you saw.’

  ‘I didn’t see anything. It all happened so quickly.’

  ‘All the witnesses have agreed that the two men were not masked.’

  ‘I didn’t even know there were two of them.’

  ‘What did register with you?’

  ‘I felt an arm around my neck. They attacked me from behind. They snatched my bag and punched me in the stomach.’

  ‘We need to know everything you can tell us about these two men.’

  ‘But I didn’t see anything.’

  ‘No faces?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you hear their voices?’

  ‘I didn’t even know they said anything.’

  ‘What happened just before you were attacked?’

  ‘A man cut my silhouette. I’d paid him and was about to leave.’

  ‘When your silhouette had been cut – did you see anything then?’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘Anybody waiting?’

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t see anything at all?’

  When the interpreter had translated her answer the police officer leaned towards her and raised his voice.

  ‘We are asking these questions because we want to catch the men who attacked you and stole your bag. That’s why you should answer without losing your temper.’

  The words cut her. ‘I’m just telling you the way it was.’

  ‘What did you have in your bag?’

  ‘Some cash, not a lot, Chinese, and some American dollars. A comb, a handkerchief, some pills, a pen, nothing important.’

  ‘We found your passport in an inside pocket of your jacket. I gather you are Swedish. Why are you here in China?’

  ‘I came here on holiday, with a friend.’

  The elderly man thought that over. His face was expressionless.

  ‘We didn’t find a silhouette,’ he said eventually.

  ‘It was in my bag.’

  ‘You didn’t say that when I asked you. Is there anything else you’ve forgotten?’

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. The interrogation was over. The elderly police officer said something, then left the room.

  ‘When you feel better we’ll take you back to your hotel. We’ll come back to you later and ask a few more questions for the records.’

  The interpreter mentioned the name of her hotel without her having said it.

  ‘How do you know the name of the hotel I’m staying at? The key was in my bag.’

  ‘We know things like that.’

  He bowed and left the room. Before the door closed, the doctor with the American accent came back into the room.

  ‘We need you for a few more minutes,’ he said. ‘Some blood tests, an assessment of your X-rays.’

  My watch, she thought. They didn’t take that. She checked it. A quarter to five.

  ‘When can I go back to my hotel?’

  ‘Soon.’

  ‘My friend will be very worried if I’m not there.’

  ‘We’ll arrange transport back to your hotel. We’re very keen to make sure that our foreign guests are not disappointed by our hospitality, despite the fact that unfortunate incidents do occasionally take place.’

  She was left alone in the room. Somewhere in the distance she heard somebody screaming, a lonely cry echoing down the corridor.

  She chewed over what had happened. The whole episode seemed surreal – the sudden shock at having been grabbed from behind, the punch in the stomach and the people who had helped her.

  But they must have seen something, she thought. Have the police asked them? Were they still there when the ambulance arrived? Or did the police get there first?

  She had never been attacked before in her life. She had been threatened, but never physically assaulted. This was the first time she was the victim.

  She felt afraid but knew this was usual after a person had been attacked. Fear, but also anger, a feeling of having been humiliated, distress. And a lust for revenge. Just now,
lying in bed, she would not have protested if the two men who had mugged her had been forced to kneel down and shot through the back of the head.

  A nurse came into the room and helped her to dress. She had a pain in her stomach and a graze on her knee. When the nurse gave her a comb and held up a mirror in front of her, she could see that she was very pale. So this is what I look like when I’m scared, she thought. I won’t forget it.

  The doctor returned as she sat on the bed, ready to go back to her hotel.

  ‘The pain in your neck will pass, probably as soon as tomorrow,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you for all you’ve done for me.’

  Three police officers were standing in the corridor, waiting for her. One of them was carrying a frightening-looking automatic weapon. They accompanied her down in the lift and stepped into a police car. She had no idea where she was, didn’t even know the name of the hospital where she had been treated. At one point she thought she might have recognised one side of the Forbidden City, but wasn’t sure.

  The sirens had been switched off. She was grateful not to have to return to her hotel in a car with flashing blue lights. She recognised the hotel entrance and got out of the car, which moved away even before she had time to turn round. She was still wondering how they could have known where she was staying.

  She explained at the front desk that she had lost her key and was given another without question. It happened so quickly that she realised it must have been prepared in advance. The woman behind the counter smiled. She knows, Birgitta thought. The police have been here, told the staff about the assault and prepared them for her return with no key.

  As she walked towards the lifts, she thought she should be grateful, but instead she felt uneasy. That feeling was not banished when she entered her room. She could see that somebody had been there. But the maid had come earlier in the day. It was possible of course that Karin had stopped in briefly, to pick up something or to change clothes. But what was there to prevent the police from making a discreet search? Or somebody else, for that matter?

  What betrayed the unknown visitor was the plastic carrier bag with the board games. She saw immediately that it wasn’t where she had left it. She looked around the room, slowly, so that nothing would escape her notice. But it was only the bag that had been moved and not put back.