by Mai Jia
Zheng said with a smile, ‘How could I possibly ask him to come and see me? I should go and visit him!’
And just as he had said, that very evening, Zheng the Gimp went to see Young Lillie . . .
[Transcript of the interview with Master Rong]
It was I who went and opened the door for him. I didn’t recognize him and I didn’t know that he was the mysterious man who had been the subject of so much gossip in the department over recent days. To begin with Daddy didn’t know anything about what was going on, but some of the people in the department had been dragging people off to meet the mystery man at a rate of knots, and I had happened to mention this to him. When Daddy realized that Zheng was one and the same as the mysterious man that everyone was talking about, he called me over and introduced me. I was very curious and asked what exactly it was that he wanted someone for. He didn’t answer my question directly; he just said it was important work. When I asked what kind of important we were talking about – for humanity or the development of the country or what – he said it was a matter of national security. I asked him how the selection process had gone, but he didn’t seem very satisfied – he muttered something about picking the tallest out of a group of dwarves.
He must have discussed the whole thing with Daddy at some point in the past, because Daddy seemed to know exactly what kind of person he was looking for. Seeing him so unhappy with the results of his search, Daddy said in a joking kind of voice, ‘The fact is that I know of someone very suitable.’
‘Who?’ He immediately pricked up his ears.
Daddy, still in a joking tone of voice, said, ‘Someone suitable might be the other side of the globe; on the other hand they might also be right here with you . . . ’
He thought that Daddy was talking about me and immediately started asking about my work. Daddy just pointed to a photo of Zhendi pushed into the frame of the mirror on the wall and said: ‘Him.’
‘Who is he?’ he asked.
Daddy pointed to the photograph of my aunt, Rong Lillie, and said, ‘Don’t they look alike?’
He went over to the mirror and had a good look; then he said: ‘They do.’
‘That’s her grandson,’ Daddy said.
As far as I can remember, Daddy didn’t often introduce Zhendi to people like that – in fact it was practically the first time. I don’t know why he spoke to the man in that way; perhaps it was because he wasn’t local – he didn’t know more than the bare outlines of the story so it did not matter so much. On the other hand he was a graduate of our university, so he would know who my aunt was. After Daddy had said that, he started asking us excited questions about Zhendi. Daddy was perfectly happy to tell him all sorts of things about Zhendi, all about how clever he was. Nevertheless, right at the end of their conversation, Daddy still told him not to think about trying to take Zhendi away. When he asked why, Daddy said: ‘The research institute needs him.’
He smiled and said nothing. He didn’t return to the subject again, so we had the impression that he had put the matter of Zhendi aside.
The following morning, Zhendi came home for breakfast. He told us that someone had come to find him really late the previous night. Because the facilities at the research institute were so excellent, Zhendi often spent the entire night there, sleeping in his office, coming home only for meals. The moment he spoke up, Daddy knew exactly who had gone to find him. He burst out laughing and said. ‘Clearly he hasn’t given up yet.’
‘Who is he?’ Zhendi asked.
‘Don’t pay any attention to him,’ said Daddy.
‘I think he wants me to go and join his work unit,’ Zhendi said.
‘Do you want to go?’ asked Daddy.
‘That is up to you,’ said Zhendi.
‘Then ignore him,’ Daddy said.
Just as they were talking, there was a knock on the door and Zheng walked in. When Daddy caught sight of him, he began by asking very politely if he had had breakfast already – he said he had eaten at the guest house. Daddy asked him to go upstairs and wait, that he would be finished soon. When he had finished eating, Daddy told Zhendi to go away. He said exactly the same thing as he had said before: ‘Don’t pay any attention to him.’
After Zhendi left, Daddy and I walked upstairs together. Zheng was waiting in the sitting room, smoking a cigarette. Daddy might have looked very courteous and polite, but his meaning was quite plain. Daddy asked him if he was here to say goodbye or because he wanted someone. ‘If you are here because you want him, then I am afraid I can’t help you. As I told you last night, I don’t want you taking him away from me – there is no point.’
‘If you can’t help then you can’t help,’ he said. ‘I will just say goodbye.’
Daddy asked him to go into his study.
I had a class that afternoon, so after a few pleasantries, I went to my room to collect the things I needed. On my way out, a little bit later, I thought I should go and say goodbye. However, the door to Daddy’s study was closed, something that very rarely happened. I decided not to disturb them and went off. When I got back after my class, Mummy told me sadly that Zhendi would be leaving us. I asked where he was going and Mummy had to wipe away her tears before she could reply. ‘He is going with that man. Your father has agreed . . . ’
[To be continued]
Nobody knows what Zheng the Gimp said to Young Lillie in his study that day, behind closed doors. Master Rong told me that until the day he died, her father refused to answer questions on the subject – if anyone mentioned it, he would get angry. He was clearly determined to take this secret to the grave. One thing is perfectly clear and that is that Zheng the Gimp managed to change Young Lillie’s mind in the space of just over half an hour. Whatever it was that he said, when Young Lillie walked out of his study, he went straight to tell his wife that Jinzhen was leaving.
These events made Zheng the Gimp even more mysterious, and now an atmosphere of secrecy began to envelope Jinzhen too.
3.
Jinzhen began to become mysterious that very afternoon – the afternoon that Zheng the Gimp and Young Lillie shut the door to his study to talk in private. It was that afternoon that Zheng the Gimp collected him in the jeep and took him away – he did not return home until the evening. He was brought back in an ordinary car. Once he got home, there was already a secretive look in his eyes. Faced with the questioning glances of his family, it was a long time before he opened his mouth. Everything he did now seemed to be touched with mystery. Having gone away with Zheng the Gimp for just a couple of hours, it seemed as though a wedge had already been driven between him and his family. After a very long time, and repeated questioning from Young Lillie, he sighed deeply and then said hesitantly, using the same respectful term of address as usual, ‘Professor, you have sent me somewhere that really doesn’t suit me.’ He spoke lightly but the words had underlying implications that horrified everyone present: Young Lillie, his wife, and Master Rong. They had no idea what to say next.
Mrs Lillie said, ‘If you don’t want to go then don’t – it’s not as if you have to.’
‘I have to go,’ Jinzhen said.
‘What are you talking about? He – ’ she pointed to Young Lillie ‘ – is he and you are you: if he wants you to do something it does not automatically mean that you have to agree. Listen to me. Decide what you want to do for yourself. If you want to go then go; if you don’t want to go then don’t – I will talk to them for you.’
‘That won’t work,’ said Jinzhen.
‘What do you mean it won’t work?’
‘If they want me to go, I don’t have the right to refuse.’
‘What kind of work unit is that? Who has such powers?’
‘I am not allowed to tell you.’
‘You are not allowed to tell you own mother?’
‘I am not allowed to tell anyone. I had to swear . . . ’
Just then, Young Lillie clapped his hands and stood up. He said seriously, ‘Right, in that case you must
not say another word. When are you leaving? Has it been decided yet? We need to pack your things.’
‘I am leaving before dawn tomorrow morning,’ Jinzhen said.
Nobody got any sleep that night, because everyone was busy packing Zhendi’s belongings. At around four o’clock in the morning, his stuff was pretty much packed – his books and his winter clothes had been corded into two cardboard boxes. After that it only remained to collect some daily necessities: even though Jinzhen and Young Lillie both said he could buy whatever he needed when he got there, the two women were both in packing mode and rushed up and down the stairs, racking their brains for anything that he could possibly need. First they put in a radio and some packets of cigarettes, then tea leaves and a first-aid kit – they managed to fill a leather suitcase with the fruit of their labours. At about five o’clock in the morning, everyone met downstairs. Mrs Lillie was almost hysterical – she could not possibly make breakfast for Jinzhen that morning, so she had to ask her daughter to do it for her. She went with her to the kitchen and sat there, explaining exactly what it was that she had to do. That was not because Master Rong couldn’t cook, but because this was to be a very special meal – they were saying goodbye to Jinzhen. Mrs Lillie was determined that this meal had to comprise four important elements.
1. The main dish was going to be a bowl of noodles, just like the kind that people eat on their birthdays to symbolize many happy returns of the day.
2. The noodles had to be made of buckwheat. Buckwheat noodles are softer than the ordinary kind. This would symbolize that people have to be more forgiving and flexible when they are among strangers.
3. The flavourings for this noodle soup should include vinegar, chilli peppers and walnuts. Walnuts are bitter. This would symbolize that of the four flavours, bitterness, sourness and spiciness would be left behind at home; once he left everything would be sweet.
4. Not too much soup was to be made, because when the time came, Jinzhen was supposed to drink every last drop, to symbolize completeness and success.
It was just a bowl of soup, but it represented all the old lady’s fondest hopes and wishes for him. When this meaningful bowl of soup was brought bubbling into the dining room, Mrs Lillie called Jinzhen to table. She took a jade pendant, in the shape of a crouching tiger, out of her pocket and put it in Jinzhen’s hands, telling him to eat up and then tie this to his belt, where it would bring him good luck. Just then, they heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. Shortly afterwards, Zheng the Gimp came in with his chauffeur. He said hello to everyone and told the chauffeur to put the boxes in the car.
Jinzhen sat there quietly eating his noodles. Once he started eating, he did not say anything, but it was the kind of silence that you get when someone has a great deal that they want to say but no idea where to start. Even when he had finished his noodles, he sat there without a word. He clearly had no intention of getting up.
Zheng the Gimp came in and clapped him on the back, as if he were in complete charge of the situation. He said, ‘It is time to say goodbye. I will be waiting for you in the car.’ He said goodbye to Young Lillie, his wife, and Master Rong, and then left.
The room fell silent. The people present looked quietly at one another; their gaze became concentrated, fixed. Jinzhen was still holding onto his jade. He was stroking it with one hand. That was the only movement in the room.
Mrs Lillie said: ‘Tie it onto your belt. It will bring you good luck.’
Jinzhen put the jade up to his lips and kissed it, after which he started to tie it onto his belt.
It was just at that moment that Young Lillie took the jade out of his hands and said: ‘Only a fool would expect something to bring him good luck. You are a genius and you are going to make your own luck.’ He took out the Waterman pen that he had used for nearly half a century and put it in Jinzhen’s hands, saying: ‘You will find this much more useful. You can use it to make a note of your ideas. If you don’t let them run away from you, you will find that no one can even come close to you.’
Jinzhen did exactly the same thing. He kissed the pen in silence and then put it in his breast-pocket. At that moment, they heard the brief blast of a car horn coming from outside – very short. Jinzhen didn’t seem to have noticed it; he sat there without moving.
Young Lillie said, ‘They are trying to hurry you up. Off you go.’
Jinzhen sat there, without moving.
Young Lillie said, ‘You are going to be working for the nation – you should be happy.’
Jinzhen continued to sit there without moving.
Young Lillie said, ‘This house is your home. When you leave this house, you are in your country. If you have no country you can have no home. Go on. They are waiting for you.’
Jinzhen sat there, unmoving. It was as if the sorrow of parting had nailed him to his chair. He couldn’t move!
There was another blast from the horn of the waiting car. This time it was much longer. Young Lillie realized that Jinzhen was still showing no signs of going, so he glanced at his wife, wanting her to say something.
Mrs Lillie stepped forward, resting her two hands lightly on Jinzhen’s shoulders. She said, ‘Off you go, Zhendi. You have to go. I will be waiting for your letters.’
It seemed as though the touch of the old lady’s hands had woken Jinzhen from his sleep. With a curious stumbling motion, he rose to his feet, moving as if in a trance. When he got to the door, Jinzhen suddenly turned round and fell to his knees with a thud. He kowtowed to the old couple with resounding knocks of the head. In a voice choked with tears, he said, ‘Mum, I am leaving now. But even if I go to the ends of the earth, I am still your son . . . ’
It was five o’clock in the morning, on 11 June 1956. Jinzhen, the star of the mathematics department for the last ten years, a man who had quietly become a fixture at N University, upped and left on a mysterious journey from which he never returned. Before he left, he requested permission from the old couple to change his name – in future he wanted to be called Rong Jinzhen. He said goodbye to his family and embarked upon a new life with a new name – an already tear-soaked parting was now rendered even more upsetting, as if both sides were aware that this was no ordinary separation. The fact is that when he left, no one knew where Rong Jinzhen went. He got into the jeep just as dawn was breaking and it took him away – he disappeared into another world. He simply vanished. It was as if his new name and his new identity fell like an axe, separating his past from his future, marking his departure from the mundane world. All that anyone knew was that he had gone somewhere else – the only contact address that they had was right there in the provincial capital: Box No. 36.
It seemed that he was really close by, right beside them.
But in fact no one knew where he had gone . . .
[Transcript of the interview with Master Rong]
I asked a couple of my former students who had ended up working for the post office, what work unit had Box No. 36 and where was it? They all said that they did not know – it seemed to be an address for somewhere beyond human ken. To begin with we all thought it was a box associated with an address somewhere in the city, but when we got the first letter that Zhendi posted to us, the amount of time it had taken since posting told us that the local address was just a fake, designed to mislead people. He might well be a very long way away from us, maybe even further than we could imagine.
The first letter that he wrote to us was written three days after he left, but we received it twelve days later. There was no indication on the envelope of a sender’s address – where that would normally have been written there was one of Chairman Mao’s slogans: ‘Who Dares to Make the Sun and Moon Shine in New Skies?’ It was printed in Chairman Mao’s calligraphy, in red ink. The strangest thing was that there was no frank from the post office from which the letter was sent, just a frank from the receiving sorting office. All the letters we received afterwards were the same: the same kind of envelope, the same lack of a post office frank, an
d roughly the same amount of time spent en route – around eight or nine days. At the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, the quotation from Chairman Mao was exchanged for a line from a really popular song of the era: ‘Sailing Across the Ocean, We Rely on the Helmsman’. Everything else stayed the same.
What does it mean, working for National Security? I got to know at least a little bit about it from the letters that Zhendi sent home.
In the winter of the year that Zhendi left us, in December, there was a terrible storm one evening and the temperature simply plummeted. After supper, Daddy told us that he had a bit of a headache – probably because of the change in the weather – and so after taking a couple of aspirin, he went upstairs to go to bed even though it was still early. A couple of hours later, when Mummy went to bed, she found that he had stopped breathing, though his body was still warm. The way that Daddy died . . . it seemed as though the couple of aspirins he took before bedtime might as well have been arsenic; now that Zhendi was gone he knew that his research institute working on artificial intelligence was going to collapse, so he took this way out.
Of course, that is not what happened at all – the fact is that Daddy died of a brain haemorrhage.
We debated whether or not we should ask Zhendi to come back – after all he had not been gone for long and he was now attached to a very mysterious and powerful work unit – not to mention the fact that he was so far away – we had already discovered by that time that Zhendi was not at the provincial capital. In the end Mummy decided to call him back. She said, ‘Since his surname is Rong, since he calls me “Mother”, he is our son – his father is dead so of course we ought to call him back.’ So we sent Zhendi a telegram asking him to come back for the funeral.