The Far Side of the Night

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  “How much are they paying you to do this shit?”

  The policemen walked past him into the house.

  “Do you have no respect whatsoever? Even for yourselves? Why are you not above doing this shit? How much is Golden Real Estate paying you in order to let my son’s murderers run free?” he called after them in utter contempt. “Tell me! How much?”

  XXI

  Christine clung to him from behind. Paul knew what she was thinking: all was lost. It was the end for them. It was all over. They hadn’t cleared the lunch dishes from the dining table yet. The police would find their suitcase and books in the bedroom, and would not stop until they found them.

  They crawled deeper into the shed and hid behind a tall stack of chopped firewood. Paul looked around him for a weapon. He would not be arrested by the police. He had promised an anxious Christine that last night. No matter what happened, they would not give themselves up. They would not be separated from David. He had made his promise to reassure her, even though he did not feel comfortable with it. He thought that they actually stood more of a chance in court than by resisting with violence. He saw a sickle by the wall. Christine passed it to him. As far as they had been able to tell, the policemen were not armed.

  They heard the two men come out of the house.

  “And who do these knickers belong to?”

  Paul was afraid that they had found Christine’s underwear.

  “Do you run around in these?”

  “They belong to my daughter-in-law,” Luo said. “She left them here on her last visit. Or do you really think that a Western man would wear women’s red pants? What do they actually teach you in police training?”

  The policemen did not reply but walked over the courtyard to the outbuildings. Paul lowered his head and he and Christine crouched closer together with David between them. Someone opened the door of the other shed. And slammed it closed again.

  Their door was opened.

  They held their breath. David’s eyes were full of fear. Paul gripped the sickle more tightly.

  The door closed again.

  Silence.

  Steps going off into the distance.

  Paul slid back to the wall to see out better.

  Luo’s voice was almost shrill with relief. “What did I say? Are you happy now? Do you believe me now?”

  “Shut up,” the older policeman said. “Do you have any idea where the foreigner could have gone?”

  “No. Ask your spies. They must have some idea.”

  “We want you to think about it.”

  “Why? Even if I knew something, do you really think I would tell you?”

  For a moment it looked as if the policeman was about to hit him. He had already raised his arm and his hand was balled up in a fist. But he dropped it and turned away. “Asshole. Be careful or you’ll end up like your son.”

  The policemen walked over to the gate. Suddenly, a loud cry was heard.

  “Stop!”

  It was Da Lin. “The cue! It’s mine!”

  Later, when Paul remembered this moment, in which several lives took a tragic turn, he sometimes thought that things might have been different if Da Lin had been more polite. Asked for his cue in an obsequious manner. And if Luo had chimed in with two or three sentences about how much the cue meant to his grandson. Pleading looks. A few tears from the boy. Perhaps the policemen would have had sympathy then. But that was probably too much to ask from them, and what happened was the unavoidable ending to a drama that had begun two years earlier with a disagreement over a piece of land. Or perhaps much earlier than that.

  Perhaps, thought Paul, we are all too much like prisoners for the story to have ended a different way. Just like most stories carry their endings within them from the start.

  The policemen stopped in their tracks and the one holding the cue turned round.

  “So you can speak after all,” he said, shaking his head in amazement. “That is good to know.”

  He lifted his leg, snapped the wooden cue against his thigh with a mighty crack and tossed the pieces in the boy’s direction.

  “You can keep those,” he said, smiling.

  Before he had reached the gate, he collapsed with a short, shrill cry.

  XXII

  He was usually overcome by a wave of nausea whenever he saw policemen. Whether they came to the house, or he had to go to the police station with Grandpa, or if he saw them in the town. The sight of them made his stomach turn, and he felt like throwing up. There was nothing he could do to prevent it. It was just like when other children felt ill if they saw a dog or cat that had been run over on the street, with its entrails bursting out of its body.

  But today everything was different. Instead of freezing in fear, he knew what he had to do. Hide the visitors. Fetch Grandpa. Clear away things in the house.

  While his grandpa had been arguing with the policemen in the courtyard, he had erased all traces of the guests. He had hurried to put the dirty dishes in a cupboard, hidden the toothbrushes behind the toilet bowl, tossed the toys and books into the suitcase and pushed it far under the bed. He had spread his dirty clothes all over the floor, with his unwashed underpants right by the door. They would have to search thoroughly in order to find any evidence of the visitors. He picked up his catapult and a couple of stones and stepped outside.

  How could he have overlooked the red underwear?

  When one of the policemen opened the door of the second shed, he put a stone in the sling of his catapult. He would not allow them to take Paul, Christine, and David away with them.

  He knew how it would all end.

  Wrapped in white cloths. Soaked with blood.

  Then everything happened very quickly.

  The cue. The sound of splintering wood.

  He did not need patience or concentration for this shot.

  Lift.

  Pull.

  Take aim.

  There was only one place. The head – and it wasn’t small.

  Release.

  XXIII

  The shot hit the temple above the ear and drilled into the head. Blood streamed from an open wound and ran down the neck, trickled onto the ground and was absorbed by the sand. The policeman groaned in pain a few times before he lost consciousness.

  The young man next to him stood there, pale with shock. He looked around the courtyard in confusion to see what had hit his colleague, but could see nothing. “Stop!” he screamed into the silence. “Stop!”

  Luo thought he had heard the stone fly past his ear. A light hiss. A dull thud. At first he was gripped by the same panic he had felt when they had brought the body of his son to the courtyard. A few seconds later, all he could think of was what had to happen now. He had to get the policeman out of the courtyard and make arrangements for Da Lin’s escape.

  He leaned over the man. It looked as though an artery had burst. “He needs a doctor, otherwise he will bleed to death.”

  _________

  The young policeman grew even paler. “What has happened?”

  Without answering the question, Luo picked up one of the unconscious man’s arms. “Help me. You have to take him to town.”

  The two of them carried the man to the car and, with great effort, heaved his motionless body onto the back seat.

  “Do you even have a driving license?”

  The policeman nodded.

  “Then drive as fast as you can to the nearest hospital.”

  Luo hobbled back into the courtyard, where Da Lin, Paul, Christine, and their son were waiting for him. Their questioning looks.

  “Pack your things,” he commanded. “The police will be back in two hours at most. I’ll try to find someone in the village to drive you.”

  There was only one man there who was fearless enough to accept the request. Luo didn’t trust him, because he was more in thrall to the lure of money than everyone else in the village. But he had no choice.

  The Monastery

  I

  The car
was a run-down Volkswagen Passat that stank of stale cigarette smoke. None of the displays on the dashboard worked, and there were loose leads dangling everywhere. Wires held the panels and the glove compartment together. The windscreen had two cracks in it.

  The driver gave them a suspicious look and insisted on Paul sitting in front next to him. He opened the trunk with a claw hammer and put their luggage in. He said it would take him sixteen to eighteen hours to take them to Hongyang, depending on how many breaks they took.

  Payment in cash upfront. That was non-negotiable.

  Paul made attempts to strike up a conversation at the start of the journey. He found out that the man had been a seaman before, and had opened a restaurant in the village with his savings. But he had gone bankrupt shortly after and his wife had left him, taking their daughter too. Since then, he had lived with his parents and did odd jobs such as this one. He had not married again, and was not in contact with his child. He did not even know where she lived. He didn’t think much of the government. Nor of the Party. And even less of the police. They were all corrupt. He had nothing against a return of Mao.

  The conversation died away after that.

  The driver lit himself one cigarette after another. He ignored their requests for him to stop or at least to smoke less.

  Paul thought about Luo, about the few words in which the old man had made it clear to him there that was no other choice but to take Da Lin with them. He and Christine had merely nodded silently and gathered their things hurriedly.

  Luo had taken him aside at some point and pressed a black and white photo of his wife into his hand. “Can you take that to Beijing for me?”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “She always dreamed of going to Beijing one day. We never managed it.”

  It had been a strange leave-taking. Luo had pushed his grandson to the car, patted him on the back of the head silently, turned away and limped back into the courtyard. No hugging, no final words. Da Lin hadn’t looked around either; he had simply got into the car. When Paul ran back to the house, because he had left their passports in a drawer in all the commotion, Luo was sitting on the bench crying. Paul stopped and wanted to say something but Luo made it clear to him with a gesture that he should go back to the car and leave him alone. He could not get the image of the old man crumpled and crying out of his head.

  They had been given Da Lin’s mother’s address and telephone number in Beijing, and had promised to hand Da Lin over to her there. In person. Da Lin was not to be left in the care of anyone other than his mother. Paul had given his word on that.

  Darkness had fallen and it had grown cooler. In the rear view mirror, Paul saw Christine dozing off. David was sleeping in her arms and Da Lin was leaning against her shoulder, asleep too.

  Suddenly, the driver braked and turned off the main road.

  “What are you doing?” Paul asked suspiciously.

  “It’s not enough money,” the man said firmly.

  “What do you mean? We agreed on a price,” Paul said, annoyed. “You’ve got your money. Drive on.”

  The driver turned the engine off. “The price has changed.”

  Paul thought this was one of the usual tricks to try to get more money out of a deal. He had experienced these often on his travels in China: fees and prices that doubled overnight; quotes and amounts cut in half. It was a process of haggling and trying one’s luck. If he had refused to be cowed and insisted on the terms of the original agreement being met, his opponent had always given in eventually.

  “No way. Forget it. We made an agreement. Drive on, now.”

  “Pay, or get out.”

  Was this man daring to threaten them? “Now listen. You want a tip, don’t you? It’s not far. Drive on.”

  “Get out,” the man repeated calmly, but in a tone of voice that left Paul in no doubt that he was serious.

  Paul felt his throat going dry. The children were awake now and Christine wanted to know why they weren’t moving. He looked out of the window into the darkness. As far as he could make out, they were by the side of a harvested field and there were no buildings or farmhouses to be seen in any direction. The last village they had driven through had been at least twenty kilometers ago.

  “How much?”

  “Three times more.”

  “Are you mad?”

  “Not one yuan less.”

  Paul made his calculations. All the Hong Kong dollars and Chinese yuan they had would not be enough to cover even twice the original sum agreed on. “We don’t have that much.”

  The man shrugged.

  “You can’t do this. We have two children with us.”

  “Get out,” he said again, unmoved.

  “Twice.”

  The driver drew on his cigarette, blew the smoke in Paul’s direction and shook his head.

  “Please believe me. That’s all we have.”

  “Then get out now.”

  “Listen, I would give you more but we don’t have it. Search our things if you think I’m lying.”

  “That doesn’t interest me. Get out.”

  “No.” Paul sized up the man properly. He was two heads shorter than Paul but also twenty years younger and had a very muscular build. Paul stood no chance against him.

  “I beg you. You can’t leave us here in the night, not with children. At least take us to the next village.”

  “No. Get out now.” His voice had a threatening undertone to it now.

  Paul knew that there was no more bargaining to be done. “All right. Three times more. Luo will give you the rest of the money.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense. He doesn’t have a yuan to his name. Anyway, I won’t be seeing him for a long time. He’ll be arrested long before I get back.”

  “Then I’ll transfer it to you once we’re back in Hong Kong.”

  “Transfer?”

  “I promise. I give you my word.”

  “Your word?” The man looked at him as though Paul was making a bad joke. “How stupid do you think I am?”

  With a quick movement he took a switchblade out of the side compartment in his door and flicked it open.

  “Get out of the car.”

  II

  Da Lin watched the two men in the front seats. They were arguing over money. The tone of their voices told him that the journey would end here. He held his catapult more tightly in his hand. He wanted to help Paul but at this distance and in the confined space of the car he could do nothing with his weapon.

  Why had Grandpa trusted this driver of all people? How could he have thought that this man would keep his word? The whole village knew that he was an idiot. A swindler. Someone who was said to beat even his parents when he was drunk. Da Lin could not stand him. Whenever he had seen him coming down the street, he had crossed to the other side.

  It was pitch black outside. He could not even see the faint light of a farm building. At this rate they would soon be standing out here with their luggage with no idea what to do next. The thought did not frighten him. Ever since he had seen the policeman lying bleeding in the courtyard, he had felt nothing any longer. Or at least not much. As though all the things that were taking place now were happening to someone else. He was merely watching. From a safe distance.

  After the policemen had left, he had stuffed a few things into a bag, following Grandpa’s instructions. Then he had sat in the courtyard and waited.

  When the car came, he got in. Grandpa said nothing. He did not even wave. He turned and hobbled back into the courtyard before they drove off.

  Da Lin understood then that he would never see his grandfather again. There was no “see you soon” to be said any longer. Not for them.

  The police would come looking for him and since he would not be there, they would arrest his grandpa. He would resist, just as Papa had resisted, and they would beat him, like they beat Papa.

  He would never see the farm again. The dog. The chickens.

  He would never see the billiard table again.
The table tennis table. Of all the things his father had made for him, the catapult was the only thing he still had.

  He was not even sure if he wanted to see his mother again.

  Paul had promised his grandpa to deliver him to her in person. He had seen Grandpa write her address and mobile phone number down on a piece of paper.

  But what did that mean after all? Maybe she had moved house long ago, to Shanghai, or back to Shenzhen. Maybe she had a new husband and a new child. Why else had she not come home for Chinese New Year?

  What would happen to him if his mother no longer wanted him?

  He could not go with them to Hong Kong. And there were no other family members. They would probably leave him on a street corner in Beijing. Or in a restaurant. Wait here for us, we’ll be back, they would say. He would sit there and wait. And wait.

  He did not feel anything even at this thought

  Or at least not much.

  _________

  Paul and the driver were still arguing.

  Da Lin dug a stone out of his pocket and put it in the sling. He was about to raise the catapult, but the driver was too well protected by his headrest. The weapon was useless inside the car.

  Da Lin saw the tip of a metal rod sticking out of the seat in front of him. He pressed his knee against it until it hurt. He pressed harder. He felt the cold metal pierce his flesh, just a little a first, then deeper as he pressed harder.

  The pain felt good.

  Blood ran down his leg.

  It was pleasantly warm.

  III

  It took a while for Luo’s tears to dry. There was no one left to hold them back for. Along with the grief he felt over the parting from Da Lin, he felt a burning pain in his leg that rose to his hips and only subsided gradually.

  Luo sneezed and looked round. The courtyard already looked as deserted as it would be in a few hours. Through the open gate, the wind blew in one cloud of dust after another. The table tennis table and the billiard table were already covered in a gray layer. The house door, which was open, creaked. The dog lay at his feet dozing.