The Far Side of the Night

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  They had to stop every now and then because a horse- or oxdrawn cart was blocking the way, or because farmers were drying their chillies on the road. Each time this happened the driver, who had not said a word to them yet, cursed and swore. Christine noticed whenever he looked at her in the rear view mirror. Their eyes met but it was difficult to read his expression. He probably couldn’t wait to be rid of his risky passengers.

  David was asleep. His head was nestled in Paul’s lap and his feet were in hers. She held them tight with both hands, pushed his trousers up a little, stroked his pale skin and looked at his thin calves. Since he had returned she had had to touch him constantly: smell his skin, stroke him, and cuddle him. She would have preferred never to let go of him, but David made it clear to her that that would have been too much.

  David, who usually couldn’t sit still for a second and was always talking, had fallen into a deep and strange silence on his return. “Hungry” and “thirsty” were the only two words that they heard from him. As though he was only just learning to speak. He had wet himself twice, even though he no longer wore nappies, not even through the night. He ignored her questions about what had happened in their absence.

  She had wanted to know everything, every detail, as though she could regain control over that period in which he had been so defenselessly at the mercy of strangers. Had they locked him up? Had he been alone? Where had he slept?

  Paul looked out of the other window. Shortly after Zhang had got out of the car, he had tried to take Christine’s hand but she had pulled it away. He had remained silent ever since.

  Zhang had given them exact instructions. But no address. No names. They were not to be in a position to give away anything if anyone stopped them. The journey would last several hours. The driver knew where he was bringing them and that was enough. Zhang had given them a mobile phone and told them that they were not, under any circumstances, to make any calls from it, but simply wait to receive calls on it. In the gravest emergency they could send a text message to a number that was saved in the phone. At the place they were being brought to, they would be safe for a couple of days, no more. Zhang would try to get to where they were by roundabout means. If he didn’t manage to do that, they would receive further instructions by text message on the phone. If they did not hear from him within a week, they were on their own. In reply to their question of how they were to get to Beijing, he had simply looked at them with his tired eyes and said nothing.

  _________

  “Paul?” It took a moment before he turned his head to her. The exhaustion in his eyes. The fear. She did not know him like this.

  What do you think they did with David, she wanted to ask.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you think they beat him?”

  He shook his head. “Why would they have done that?”

  His reply annoyed her. “How should I know?” she snapped at him. “Maybe because he didn’t do what they told him to do?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why don’t you think so?” His hesitant manner infuriated her even more. “He was frightened. He cried. I’m sure they beat him. Don’t you wonder what they did with him?”

  “Yes, of course I do.”

  “But?”

  “He was apart from us for fifteen hours. He probably slept through ten of them. I think . . .”

  “Paul,” she interrupted him in a sharp tone, “what are you trying to say? That everything was really not so bad?”

  “No, I don’t mean that.”

  “Maybe he didn’t sleep at all. Maybe he spent most of the time crying and there was no one there to comfort him. Can’t you see how changed he is? He doesn’t say anything any longer. He’s wetting himself . . .”

  “I know,” Paul said very quietly. “But is it helpful for us to imagine what they . . .” He turned away without finishing his sentence and looked out of the window again.

  Christine was too furious to say anything else. She did not want to force herself to imagine what strangers had done to her child. Surely that was the first question to ask. Fifteen hours could be an eternity. Maybe it would help to talk about it? She needed his help, and he was turning away.

  The car juddered as it hit a pothole. David woke up and stared at his mother, looking strangely absent. As though he was looking through her. Christine recognized this glassy look in his eyes from the few days that he had lain in bed with a high fever. She put her hand on his forehead; his temperature felt normal.

  “Are you all right, sweetie?”

  He closed his eyes without replying.

  “Are you thirsty? Do you want something to eat?”

  Not even a shake of the head.

  She pushed his T-shirt up and checked his torso once more for bruises, scratches, or other signs of maltreatment. He pushed her hands away, pulled his shirt down and turned to one side.

  A larger village appeared before them. The car slowed down, suddenly braked hard, turned right and stopped after a hundred meters in a square on the edge of the village. Another car was waiting there. Their driver told them to get into it.

  Christine cast a questioning glance at Paul. He shrugged. The driver got out, talked to the other man and passed him some envelopes. Then they transferred their luggage and Paul carried David to the other car. He opened his eyes briefly and immediately fell asleep again.

  _________

  The new driver gave Paul one of the two envelopes and started driving. Paul took the letter out, skimmed through it and passed it to Christine.

  My dear friend,

  Xu, my nephew, is editor-in-chief of a weekly newspaper in Shi. He organized this drive and the first stage of your journey for you. He thought it would be better for you to change cars once; he does not completely trust his driver. You are on the way to a farmer called Luo Jia Ding. My nephew once did a story on him and his family. He thinks you will be safe there for a few days. Luo only knows that you are travelling and that you need somewhere to stay for a few nights. You don’t have to pay him; he does not expect money from you, and you will have urgent need of your money later.

  I’m trying to organize the next stage of your journey, and hope that we will see each other at Luo’s place in a few days.

  Zhang

  Christine passed the letter back to Paul. She felt queasy. Perhaps that was down to the twists and turns in the road or the speed at which the new driver was going. She did not want to think about how much they were at the mercy of strangers. Dependent on them. On their willingness to help. Their honesty. Their decency.

  Paul opened a window. She took a deep breath in and out. The fresh air did her good.

  The roads they were travelling on got even smaller and were in even worse condition than the ones before. The villages they passed had hardly any stone buildings, only wooden or mud huts. Half an hour later, they stopped in front of a farmhouse. It stood behind a high wall whose red paint had long faded away. Glazed green tiles lined the top of the wall and there was a round wooden gate in the middle that had recently been painted a deep red.

  An elderly man stepped through the gate as though he had been expecting them. He walked with a stick and limped heavily. A dog, barking loudly and agitatedly, followed him. The driver got out of the car and passed him a thick envelope. The old man took a letter out of it, read it, looked over to the car and nodded at them.

  The Village

  I

  The farmer was short but thick-set. He wore a greasy blue Mao jacket, had white hair that was cropped short and thin grey stubble. There was a cigarette tucked behind his left ear. It was difficult to guess how old he was. His was the kind of face – with deep wrinkles and tanned, weather-beaten skin – that Christine no longer saw in Hong Kong. He was certainly over seventy and was perhaps already over eighty.

  The dog barked more furiously and aggressively. A sharp retort from the man was enough to quieten it. The old man sized them up in silence, then finally inclined his head to indicate that they
should follow him.

  They stepped into a small courtyard. The driver followed with their luggage, put it at their feet, said a hasty farewell, and left. The farmer closed the gate behind him.

  Christine looked around uncertainly. There was a well in the middle of the courtyard and firewood was stacked against the side of a shed; two bicycles were leaning against it. A couple of chickens were running around and red chillies were drying on a large cloth spread on the ground. The chillies were covered in a grayish-brown layer of dust. In another corner was a basket full of corncobs and a wooden wheelbarrow.

  A child’s voice came from the house. “Grandpa?”

  “I’m out in the yard. We have visitors.”

  A young boy came running out but when he saw them, he stopped suddenly. Christine thought he looked about seven, maybe eight years old.

  “Who are they? What do they want?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Behave. They are our guests,” the old man murmured.

  He turned to Paul and said, “My name is Luo. Have you eaten yet?” Without waiting for a reply, he added, “Come in.”

  The young boy gave them a dark look, turned his back and disappeared into the house.

  They followed him into a dim, damp room that reeked of smoke. On the chest of drawers by the door, two black-andwhite photographs could be made out in the half-light: one of them was of an older woman and the other was of a young man gazing very seriously into the camera. In front of them was a dried-up cob of corn, two sweets, and a handful of burned-out incense sticks in an old can.

  “I’ll make some dan dan noodles,” the old man said, hobbling into the kitchen.

  Christine had no idea what she should do. She could see from Paul’s face that he was just as much at a loss as she was. David had laid his head on his father’s shoulder and kept his eyes closed the entire time.

  The young boy hunched on a chair and stared at them. He had short cropped hair too, a narrow face, and notably large eyes.

  They heard the old man clanging pots and cutlery in the kitchen.

  “Can we help?” Paul called out.

  “Da Lin!” came the reply in a loud voice.

  The boy stood up reluctantly. Only now did they notice how gaunt he was. Sticking out of his short-sleeved T-shirt that was several sizes too big for him, his arms looked as thin as sticks.

  He went into the kitchen and returned with a tray full of bowls. There was a portion of noodles for everyone. The noodles were covered in a red sauce that was so spicy that Christine’s lips were burning after the first bite. The two men ate their noodles in loud slurps, saying nothing. Da Lin looked at his food and did not touch it.

  “Eat,” his grandfather ordered him.

  The grandson remained silent.

  “How old are you?” Christine asked.

  The boy did not reply.

  “What’s your name?”

  He gazed at her with eyes that were alert but much too wary for his age. How could a child have such shadows in his face already?

  He probably didn’t understand her Mandarin. She had been learning it for four years in Hong Kong, but still had a thick Cantonese accent. “I’m sorry. My Mandarin isn’t very good,” Christine said.

  “He can speak a little Cantonese,” Luo said with his mouth full. “He lived in Shenzhen for a couple of years with his parents. His name is Da Lin and he’s twelve years old.”

  “Twelve? I . . .”

  “But he doesn’t talk,” the old man interrupted her.

  “Not at all?” Christine asked. Hadn’t she heard him speak in the courtyard?

  “Not to strangers.” Da Lin gave his grandfather an angry look. “Only to me,” the old man continued. “And to his mother.”

  “Where is she?”

  “In Beijing.”

  “And his father?” Too late, she remembered the photograph of the young man on the chest of drawers.

  The old man ignored her question and continued slurping his noodles. When he was finished, he wiped his mouth on his shirtsleeves and said, “You can sleep in Da Lin’s room. He can sleep with me.”

  He showed them the bathroom behind the kitchen. The toilet bowl had neither cover nor seat and had clearly not been cleaned by anyone for years. The sink looked equally filthy.

  Da Lin’s room was behind his grandfather’s, at the end of a dark corridor. Christine had imagined a child’s bedroom. How stupid. It was a windowless room with bare, un-whitewashed walls. A lamp without a shade was next to the door.

  “Thank you,” Paul said.

  The old man said something he couldn’t make out and left them alone.

  The air was humid and smelled as if they were in a musty basement. Christine looked around the cold room again. Several blankets were strewn across the floor, along with old vests, a pair of torn trousers, a few socks, and a dirty jacket. In one corner was a rusty tricycle, covered in a thick layer of dust. Thumb-sized cockroaches were crawling on the ceiling. She felt like screaming.

  Christine felt Paul, who was still carrying David, put his arm around her. She let him.

  “I want to get out of here,” she whispered.

  “I know. I do too.”

  “I want to go home.”

  He held her a little tighter. She could feel his warm breath on her neck.

  Christine fought back her tears. She had had lots of practice with that.

  “What do we do now?”

  “Wait.”

  “For how long?”

  “I don’t know. A week?”

  “And then?”

  Paul shrugged.

  “I won’t be able to stand it.” As if there were an alternative. As if they had the power to change anything in their situation. She felt her strength slipping away, and started sobbing.

  “Christine, please!”

  Not in front of David, of course not. She made an effort to control herself. But a reprimand was the last thing she needed now.

  “What’s wrong with Mama?”

  It was the first full sentence David had spoken since he had been returned to them.

  “She has a headache,” Paul said.

  “Is that why she’s crying?”

  “Yes.”

  David’s little hand stroked Christine on her head, which made everything even worse. She cried with abandon.

  Paul led her to the bed, spread the blankets out, sat down next to her with David and took her hand.

  “Do you need a plaster?” The concern in her son’s voice could barely be borne.

  “No, my darling.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because it’s Mama’s head that hurts. She hasn’t cut herself.”

  David stroked her again, with both hands this time. The thought of losing him was unbearable. Her little David, beloved above all else. She would rather kill herself than hand him over to those strangers.

  And Paul.

  And him.

  II

  What did these people want from them? The woman with all the questions got on his nerves. Didn’t she realize what a nuisance she was being? Why was the child held by the man throughout, and why didn’t it move? And now they were sleeping in his bed too. Why had Grandpa asked them to stay?

  Da Lin hated visitors.

  The last time there had been strangers in the house they had brought his father. They had come on a horse cart. He had heard the clip-clop of the hooves when they were still far off. He still heard them today, at night, when he was awake and Grandpa was snoring away.

  He had been lying in the back of the cart. Wrapped in white cloths. Soaked through with blood.

  But Da Lin had not understood that at first.

  They had carried him off the cart and into the courtyard and laid him down on the bench in front of the house.

  Grandpa had watched the entire time, expressionless, not saying anything. Then they had unwrapped him from the cloths. Or at least what was left of him.

  He had not recognized his father.
/>   Grandpa had turned his back, hobbled into the house, and returned shortly after.

  Da Lin had not been able to tear his gaze away. As if he only had to stare at the body long enough to bring him to life again. He had even stepped closer to him, hoping to recognize his smell, at least. Nothing was more familiar to him than the warm, comforting smell of his father. For as long as he could remember, they had slept in the same bed every night and woken up together in the morning.

  What lay before him now did not smell.

  It stank.

  That is not Papa, he thought, no way. That is a stranger that they have brought here. But then he had seen Grandpa’s face and known that this was his father after all.

  When I’m grown up, he had told the strangers, I’ll find the murderers. First I’ll earn enough money so that Mama no longer has to work in Beijing. Then I’ll find the murderers.

  The men laughed. A strange laughter. Brief and cold. You don’t need to do that, child, they said. We know the murderers. Everyone knows the murderers. There were enough people watching.

  Grandpa listened to their story. Da Lin had not understood much of what they said.

  When the men were gone, he started retching. The whole afternoon and into the night.

  And the next morning too. And the evening.

  He had been sick for a month, and grown so thin that the skin stretched over his ribs.

  Since then he had been silent. And he hardly ate.

  He only spoke to the dog and to Grandpa, who got so worried otherwise. He did not want to worry him. And he talked to Mama of course.

  But he had not seen her for a long time.

  He did not speak to anyone on the telephone. Not even with Mama.

  III

  Luo read the letter and looked into the envelope. There was a bundle of red hundred-yuan notes as thick as his thumb. Several thousand yuan: wages for half a year’s labor in the fields. At least.