by Chris West
Fei scowled then shook his head.
‘It is that human life doesn’t matter, that killing can sometimes be justified by clever words. Karl Marx’s clever words, Chairman Mao’s clever words, Red Tiger Zhang’s clever words. And now, since you found this illusory “freedom” by killing an old man, your clever words. “It’s OK to kill because of what happened in the past, because of history.” That’s just what Mao and Marx and Lenin and Stalin and Engels all said. But it isn’t OK and it never will be.’
Fei Duan’s gun hand suffered the slightest of tremors.
‘If you really want to beat the Party, you’ll put that gun down, Duan. Use it on us, and you’re just playing their game. All the resistance you’ve put up, all that you’ve fought to protect and nurture – your dignity, your daughter’s future and reputation – all that will be wasted and destroyed. Two pulls of a trigger and you negate your whole life.’
The former rich peasant said nothing for a while, then spoke. ‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?’
‘Not while you’ve got that gun in your hand. It’s done you one turn, that thing. It’s given you a second chance to be free. Really free.’
‘Then to die like an animal.’
‘No. Like a human being. As long as you can choose: honourably or shamefully, having lived by your beliefs or having given in to the Party’s.’
‘How d’you know what I believe?’ Fei snapped.
‘I know what Huiqing believes,’ Rosina said. ‘And I know the respect she has for you. Leave her that.’
As if on cue, Huiqing’s colourful curtains billowed in the wind.
‘Put that gun down,’ Rosina went on, ‘and I’ll tell her how you defeated Marx and Mao and Red Tiger Zhang and the whole Communist Party of China by one simple action. She’ll build a memorial to you in her heart that puts that stupid piece of concrete in Snake Valley to shame.’
Duan’s eyes returned to the Browning. Its black-market purchase had cost every yuan he’d saved, but he’d felt so good buying it. A freedom fighter. A revolutionary.
‘Your daughter loves you,’ said Rosina.
Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
Says Chairman Mao.
‘She needs you now, more than ever,’ said Rosina.
*
‘I don’t believe it!’ said Station Chief Huang. He put down the binoculars.
Three figures emerged from the compound.
‘What’s happening?’ said Kong.
‘You can see as well as I can!’ Huang snapped back. ‘That woman, Bao’s wife, is talking to Fei Duan. He’s not got the gun. Well, I can’t see it. He must have realized the value of making a full and frank confession of his crimes.’
20
Bao sat in Huang’s office typing out his report. He offered no opinion on what had taken place, just described it.
‘There,’ he said, rolling the text out of the machine. ‘Your case, Huang Guo.’
‘Thank you,’ the local man replied.
There was a pause.
‘Fei Huiqing … ’ Bao began.
‘We’ll bring her in for questioning later.’
‘Leave her.’
‘She is probably an accessory.’
‘She needs protection, not harassment.’
‘I have a job to do!’
‘And you’ve done it. Very well, as this report testifies. So well that they will probably want to hear about it in Qianmen East Street. It is time to move on.’
‘She might know where the paintings are. Fei Duan is not co-operating.’
‘Maybe those things have caused enough trouble.’
‘Wu Weidong is entitled to them.’
‘I’ll type out another report for you about Wu Weidong.’
‘Report?’
‘It’ll be a substantial one. Attempting to impersonate a Party official. Accepting a bribe. I’ll leave that matter with you, of course.’ Bao smiled. ‘You might also want to ask Teacher Hu about the death threats he sent to the Secretary.’
‘Death threats? Hu?’
‘There’ll be a report from Jinan some time. If I were you, I’d take Hu aside, note what a conscientious teacher he seems to be, tell him that his secret is known and leave the matter. But you are the man in charge here, not me.’
‘Anything else I should do?’ Huang sounded like he was trying to be ironic, but failed dismally.
Bao wanted to suggest he got some better tea, but desisted.
*
Rosina walked out across the fields. She felt an odd mixture of triumph and fear. Triumph at having saved her own life and that of her husband. Fear at the encounter that was to come. But it had to be.
One of the other compound-dwellers opened the door. ‘Huiqing’s in her room,’ she told Rosina. ‘She won’t see anyone, but you can try if you like.’
Rosina went in, remembering her feelings as she had last left this place.
‘Huiqing?’ She tapped on the window. How ironic those bright curtains, pulled back and hanging limp, now looked.
A figure in the room turned round. Red-eyed, pale as a ghost. ‘You!’
‘I’ve come to say how sorry I am.’
‘Sorry!’
‘Yes. There are things I must tell you.’
‘There’s nothing I want to hear from you.’ The ghost shook its head. ‘To think, I trusted you!’
‘Listen to me!’
‘Go away!’
‘Your father said – ’
‘Don’t you dare mention him! His name on your lips – it’s disgusting. Long Live the Party! Those are your words, Rosina Bao. Death to all Capitalist Roaders! Exterminate all Poisonous Weeds! Learn from the People’s Liberation Army! Support —’
‘Listen to what I’ve got to say!’
‘Criticize Confucius and Lin Biao! Seek Truth from Facts! Work to Build the Four Modernizations!’
Rosina began banging her fists on the window frame. ‘Stop. Stop! Stop! Stop!’
Huiqing stopped.
Silence fell.
The main door opened. Fei Huiqing stood in it.
‘Say what you have to say’ she said.
‘I know how you must feel at the moment,’ the visitor began, ‘but I have to tell you what happened. And how I feel about it.’ She then recounted the story of the siege, with as much accuracy as she could. Huiqing listened in silence, except for a huge sob of grief at the end. Drying her eyes, she looked up at Rosina and spoke in a quiet voice.
‘Thank you for telling me that. But it’s still true that if you and your husband hadn’t gone snooping into this business, my father would still be free. I know, that thief would have been shot, but I’m afraid I don’t care about him. I care about my father and me. Our lives have been destroyed.’
Rosina bowed her head. ‘Your life hasn’t been destroyed. I’ll do all I can to help.’
‘What can you do? All that way away in Beijing. The moment you’re gone, they’ll all be after me.’
‘No they won’t. My husband has had a word with Station Chief Huang, who has promised you will be left in peace.’
‘He’s a Party member. Since when have their promises meant anything?’
‘My husband has made some kind of deal with him. If he breaks it, you must write to me. Here. My address. Don’t throw it away.’
Huiqing took the piece of paper Rosina handed to her. Rosina still half expected her to crumple it up, but she simply held on to it.
‘This matters to me,’ Rosina went on. ‘Deeply.’
*
‘I’m ripping up my Party membership card,’ Rosina said when she got back to the guesthouse and told Bao about the encounter.
‘What good would that do?’ Bao replied.
‘It would make me feel a better person.’
He winced, as if in physical pain. ‘It would – for a few days. Then some idiot would get promoted over your head, and there’d be nothing you could do about it. You’d not be able to do mu
ch for Fei Huiqing, either.’ He paused. ‘You can do more good from inside.’
Rosina scowled. ‘Maybe,’ she said, after a long while.
*
Next morning, they slept late. They were woken by a knock at the door.
‘Inspector!’ It was Mrs Li.
‘What is it?’
‘Mr Lian is back!’
‘Oh. Good,’ Bao said unenthusiastically.
‘I thought you’d like to know.’
‘I would. Thank you. I’ll – talk to him later.’
‘There’s a letter for you, too.’
‘Ah, that will be from Chun.’
‘Look at that paper,’ said Rosina. ‘She’ll be using silk next. What does it say?’
‘I have talked the matter through with my husband, and we have no spare cash at the moment. Even if we had, I can’t help feeling that throwing money at Ming won’t cure his illness. What he needs to do is depend less on handouts and take more responsibility for himself.’
Rosina shook her head. ‘Frogs. Lots of them. And toads, and newts and snakes. If I had them now I’d shove them all down her dress.’
The subject of that letter had had to work late shift that night, their last in the village, so Bao and Rosina invited him up to the guesthouse for a lunch. Mrs Li produced a fine meal. Ming turned up sober and left in a similar state.
‘Do you know, at one time I was hoping he’d get together with Fei Huiqing,’ said Rosina, once he had gone. ‘Fat chance of that happening now.’
Bao nodded sadly. ‘That would have been better for him than any care we could organize.’
‘Do you really think he’s a fool?’ Rosina said after a pause.
‘Yes. But he’s still my brother.’ He spread his hands. ‘What can we do?’
She walked up to him and put her arms round him. Bao felt a strange clutching sensation at the back of his throat. He wasn’t sure how to react, so just let her hold him.
‘Maybe that talking you did with him will have an effect,’ he said after a while. ‘Maybe it’s chased away the ghosts.’
‘We can only hope,’ Rosina replied.
*
Bao knocked on the door. The man who opened it was wrinkled and wizened, like those poor-quality oranges from Hainan that used to be the only ones you could get.
‘Lian Gang?’
‘That’s my name. What d’you want?’
‘I’m staying next door. My name’s Bao Zheng.’
‘Oh,’ Lian replied.
He clearly wasn’t the conversational type, so Bao produced his ID. ‘I have some questions to ask you.’
Lian looked puzzled. ‘You’d better come in, Inspector.’
Bao- did so. ‘I believe you were investigating the history of the Snake Valley ambush,’ he said, once they had sat down.
The old man started. ‘How did you know that?’
‘It’s my business to know things. But I need to know more – what you have found out, and who from.’
‘Who from? What do you mean? Why should I? What’s this about?’
‘Tidying up loose ends. Of a murder investigation.’
‘Murder? Who’s been murdered?’
‘Party Secretary Wu Changyan.’
Lian looked surprised, but not excessively so. Maybe he was used to surprises. ‘Wu? I see. When was this?’
‘The Wednesday before last.’
The old man began to look worried. ‘What time?’
‘Evening.’
‘Ah, well, I was on my way to Liaoning province by then.’
‘Don’t worry. The case has been solved. I said – this is about loose ends. Do you think Secretary Wu had had something to do with the Snake Valley ambush?’
Lian scowled. ‘I don’t know. Possibly. He was supposed to have been one of the guides for the partisan column, but backed out at the last moment. But he was very young, so maybe he was just unreliable. We’ll never know, now.’
‘Han Haotong was of no help, then?’
Lian looked horrified.
Bao smiled at him. ‘I said; it’s my job to know things. What did Han tell you?’
‘Why … ?’ Lian began, then fell silent. ‘Nothing,’ he went on finally. ‘His daughter warned me that would probably happen, but said if I wanted to try my luck I was welcome. So I did. But couldn’t get a word of sense out of him.’
‘That’s a long way to go for nothing.’
‘You have to try.’
‘I guess you do. And you’ve no other leads?’
‘Not yet. But I’ve got the rest of my life.’
Bao nodded. He knew he should get up and leave now, but – as usual – he didn’t. ‘Your real name is Shen, isn’t it?’ he said instead.
The horror returned to Lian’s face.
‘Shen Zirong was … your brother?’ Bao went on. ‘Yes, I can see he was. I had to do a little research into the ambush, too. All in the line of duty, of course. If it’s any consolation to you, I wish you every success in clearing his name. He was obviously innocent of the crimes attributed to him.’
Now go.
He stayed. ‘I owe you an apology, Mr Shen. Or rather my family owes one to your family. My father was Bao Jingfu.’
Lian said nothing for a long time.
Bao spoke, finally. ‘My father had no option but to sign that order.’
‘That’s what they all say.’
‘Maybe. Some of “them” mean it.’ Bao sighed. ‘So many injustices occurred in the old days. The passage of time doesn’t mitigate them: I’ve learnt that in the last couple of weeks. Only human forgiveness can do that. That’s not easy to give. I’ve learnt that too. But I ask for it, anyway, on his behalf.’
‘Go to hell,’ said the old man.
*
In the evening, the couple took a last walk up to Snake Pass. Bao suddenly said that he wanted to visit the memorial one more time.
‘You really want to?’
‘Yes.’
They made their way along the old path, and Bao stood gazing at the memorial.
Revolutionary heroes will never perish.
Had Secretary Wu really wanted to flood this place to wipe away the memory of a shameful incident? The Secretary needn’t have actively been a traitor. Maybe he just gave away some information stupidly, then panicked. He’d have been a teenager at the time. Committed to the cause, but possibly boastful and overtalkative. The Party so often sought to hand out simple, bad-guy blame, but the truth was so often much more complex.
‘I’ll probably never know,’ Bao said to himself. ‘And if I don’t know, I shouldn’t drag the name of a public servant into the dust.’ This thought reminded him of the Secretary’s ideogram, ‘See through red dust’. Maybe Wu had genuinely come to believe places like this didn’t matter any longer. Everyone seemed to be thinking that way nowadays.
‘They’re wrong!’ he said out loud, his voice petulant as a child’s. ‘People are forgetting how bad the old China was. How harsh, how backward, how unjust. They mustn’t!’
He crossed to the stone bench and sat down. The stream was babbling, as always. Apart from that, Snake Valley was silent, as if in respect for the dead.
Bao began reading the names on the plinth, but only got halfway before he broke off, shaking his head. This memorial told half a story, not a full one. There should be other names on it, too, if it were truly to commemorate the sufferings of his home village in this turbulent century. The Xu family, for example.
‘Landlords!’ an inner voice objected.
He pondered this for a while, then got up, gathered a stick and traced three characters in the lichen on the plinth.
Xu Yi Feng.
As he did so, he heard the voice object, even louder.
‘Sorry, father,’ he told it defiantly. He added another name, the scapegoat Shen Zirong.
‘Justice,’ he muttered.
He stared at the names.
‘It’ll be dark soon,’ said Rosina, pointing at her w
atch.
Bao nodded. He stared a little more, then turned away. ‘Let’s go.’
They began to walk back to the guesthouse. Tomorrow they would be heading home. To the city.