The Far Side of the Night

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  “Why don’t you take your time?” Christine wondered.

  “Because I’m now doing everything very quickly. Then we’ll be at home more quickly.”

  A smile flitted across Da Lin’s face.

  “Did you make the dumplings yourself, Mrs. Qian?” Paul asked. “They’re delicious.”

  “Call me Gao Gao,” she replied with her mouth full. “I don’t make anything myself. I hate cooking.”

  “Where do you buy your food then, Mrs. Qian, I mean, Gao Gao? All the shops we saw were closed.”

  “I only buy things online, and frozen, if possible. Everything is delivered to me. I have croissants and pain au chocolat for breakfast if you like.”

  “Pain au chocolat?” Paul repeated.

  “Yes, supposedly baked fresh in Paris, frozen immediately, and flown to China. I don’t believe it, but they really taste as though they were from a boulangerie.”

  “That sounds good.”

  “I’d like to ask something,” Christine asked cautiously.

  “I’m listening . . .”

  “What’s going on with this town?”

  “You mean the empty streets?”

  “Yes.”

  “Isn’t it wonderful? No traffic. No jams. The air is good.”

  “Doesn’t anyone live here?”

  “No. Hongyang New Town is a ghost town.” Turning to the children, she added, “You mustn’t be frightened. It’s not haunted.”

  “There aren’t any ghosts in a ghost town?” David asked, for reassurance.

  “No.”

  “What’s a ghost town then?” He was clearly confused.

  “A town in which there are many, many homes, but only very few people.”

  “But why are the homes empty?”

  Gao Gao smiled. “You’re a clever boy. But I’m not a clever woman, so I can’t answer your question.”

  “How many people live here?” Christine asked.

  “The town has been planned and built for nearly a million people. How many people really live here? Maybe fifty thousand. Probably fewer.”

  Gao Gao’s gaze wandered to Da Lin. “You there, are you always so quiet?”

  Paul could see Christine shifting uncomfortably from side to side on her seat. They had not discussed either with Da Lin or between themselves how they would introduce him. At Pastor Lee’s he had simply declared that Da Lin was his son without much thought. What should they say if he contradicted them on that now?

  Da Lin’s intense gaze lay on Gao Gao for a moment, but in the end he merely nodded. Paul hoped she would not feel annoyed by his silence.

  “He is the quieter of the two,” Christine said.

  David and Da Lin yawned almost in unison.

  “The children are tired. I’ll show you where you can sleep.” Gao Gao got up to lead them to two rooms. The doors opened only halfway, and with difficulty. Both rooms were piled to the ceiling with boxes and packages. The cartons even blocked part of the windows. Paul pushed some of the piles aside to find a double bed in each room.

  Christine said that she wanted to sleep with David in one of the rooms. Paul could share the other one with Da Lin. It was a sensible arrangement, but Paul still felt stung by how firmly Christine made the decision without discussing it with him beforehand.

  Da Lin fell asleep in minutes. Paul gave his son a goodnight kiss. Christine had disappeared into the bathroom.

  He wanted to go to her, but the door was locked. He knocked hesitantly.

  “Christine?”

  “Yes?”

  “Open the door.”

  “Why?”

  What kind of question was that? It hurt him to have to answer it. “Because I want to see you.”

  He heard her moving around in the bathroom.

  “Christine?”

  “Yes.”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Not now, Paul. I’m too tired. Tomorrow.”

  He knocked one more time.

  It sounded as though she had turned the shower on.

  III

  Christine closed her eyes and ignored Paul when he knocked again. She was tired. She was exhausted. She did not feel like talking. Not tonight and not tomorrow either. There was nothing to say or, at least, nothing that she could put into words at the moment. Later, when they were safe. Perhaps.

  Warm water ran down her face, over her shoulders, her breasts and her stomach. She turned the temperature up, until her skin was burning and her shoulders were turning red. The bathroom filled with steam.

  This was the first time she had taken a shower since she had left Hong Kong more than a week ago.

  There were half a dozen bottles of shower gel on the ledge, and just as many bottles of shampoo and conditioner. She picked up a bottle and sniffed it. Then a second one. Lavender. She used something like this in Hong Kong. The familiarity, if only of the smell, did her good.

  She washed her hair thoroughly and spread shower gel over her body a second and a third time. As though the events of the past few days were a layer of dirt that she could wash herself free of if she only used enough soap.

  Christine had a flicker of feeling safe for the first time since they had fled Shi. She couldn’t say why, but she felt protected by this woman with her big laugh, in this untidy, chaotic flat full of boxes and cartons. As long as they were with her, no one would find them. Paul had said that Beijing was no more than a day’s journey away from here. Or a night’s journey. Gao Gao surely must have a car. With her help it might be possible to get to the US embassy.

  She thought about Josh and her mother. About their house and their beautiful garden on Lamma. They would be back there soon. Enjoying the mild autumn days. The peace. The security. Playing with David in a sandpit. Watching butterflies. The time in China would seem like a bad dream and very far away indeed. She would get up first in the morning, as usual, have a shower and get ready. She would kiss both of them goodbye while they were still asleep, and take the ferry to Central. And in the early evening she would return and Paul and David would be standing at the pier waiting for her.

  Everything would be the same as it had been before.

  Christine reached for a towel and wiped the mist from the mirror. She got a shock when she saw herself. She had grown even paler and must have lost several pounds while on the run. Her face looked thinner and the faint lines around her mouth and eyes were much deeper. Her pelvic bones stuck out like a starving person’s. Her legs, which had always been thin, were now even thinner and less shapely. As if she was standing on two sticks. Her breasts had lost all pertness. They looked fragile and vulnerable. How weak she was. How quickly her body could waste away. Christine crossed her arms over her chest as though she wanted to hold herself or protect herself from something. The thought of Paul seeing her in this state was unpleasant, almost repellent.

  The longer she looked in the mirror, the more unbearable she found the sight. She took a bath towel and wrapped herself in it.

  The fear returned, but it was no longer the same. In addition to the specific fear that her child would be taken from her came a general panic. She could not say exactly what it related to. The feeling that something had gone off track and was lost forever, never to be retrieved. The deep-rooted belief that things would turn out all right in the end was gone. They had robbed her of that feeling once before, when her father died and she had escaped from China. Back then she had been overcome by a deep mistrust and fear of people. She had freed herself of that feeling only through great effort and an agonizing struggle. It had taken many years before she finally felt the ground beneath her feet again. Paul had been a huge help with that. And now? She had retreated into the bathroom alone and been happy the door could be locked. She did not want to see him. She did not want to be touched by him. Christine felt the distance between them growing, and it only made everything worse. She needed him. She longed for him. For his sense of humor. His strength. His warmth.

  She did not feel any of
these things now. He felt more and more like a stranger to her with each passing day. Even in his appearance. He had a full gray beard now. He had lost weight and his face had grown thin. He looked years older.

  Her feelings did not obey her any longer. Her life was betraying her.

  She was losing control over herself.

  Or had she ever had it? Had that belief just been an illusion?

  IV

  After hesitating a little, Paul went back to the living room, where the strong smell of men’s cologne still hung in the air. He did not want to go and lie down awake and alone next to the sleeping Da Lin just yet.

  Gao Gao sat rapt in front of the biggest television he had ever seen. She paid no notice to her guest. On a shopping channel, a man was rhapsodizing about the advantages of a brand new generation of rice cookers.

  Paul went to the window and looked out into the darkness. He could see the outlines of buildings opposite, but there were lights on behind only a few windows.

  He was lonely and helpless. And furious.

  He had not deliberately got their child kidnapped. He was not suffering any less from this situation than Christine was. Her behavior was only making the situation worse. For all of them. She was still turning her back on him, and he did not know how he could reach her. That made him feel afraid. In the high-rise building opposite, a half-naked man appeared at the window of one of the few lighted apartments and stared across curiously. Paul took a step back and turned around.

  Gao Gao was still fiddling with the remote control. On the couch next to her were a tablet and half a dozen credit cards that she was clearly using in turn for her purchases.

  Paul went to the other end of the room, where there was a white Steinway grand piano. Among the many plush toys on it, he found the photo of a young woman with an older man by her side. They were standing on the Tsim Sha Tsui harbor promenade in Hong Kong. The woman was slim and beautiful. She was wearing a figure-hugging black dress and a pearl necklace. Her hair was pinned up and she had a Prada handbag in one hand. Her companion also looked impressive. He had a Louis Vuitton shopping bag hanging from his shoulder. She had her arm in his and both of them were smiling at the camera, proudly and confidently.

  He picked the photo up and looked at it for a long time.

  “My father and I.”

  Paul started. He had not heard her coming up behind him.

  “It’s a lovely photo.”

  She took it from his hand and put it back on the grand piano.

  “Do you go to Hong Kong often?”

  “I used to.”

  “Now no longer?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She looked at him for a moment. “You’re a curious person.”

  “I don’t mean to be impolite,” he said apologetically. “I only ask because we live on Lamma.”

  “The island without cars and with lots of seafood restaurants?”

  Paul had to laugh. “Yes.”

  “Is it boring there?”

  “It depends on what you’re looking for. We don’t find it so. When was the photo taken?”

  “That was three years ago.”

  He thought he had misheard her. The woman in the photo looked ten years younger and was at least four stones lighter.

  A sad smile flitted across Gao Gao’s face, as though she could tell what he was thinking.

  “Does your father live in Hong Kong?”

  “No. He’s dead.”

  Paul swallowed. “I’m sorry.”

  They stood opposite each other in silence. He stroked a plush toy rabbit in embarrassment and felt a desperate need for a drink. “Do you have any whiskey, by any chance?”

  “Yes. Would you like one? I also have French red wine. Or champagne?”

  “Will you also have something?”

  She hesitated for only a moment. “A glass of champagne. Why not?”

  She fetched the champagne from the fridge and put glasses and a bottle of whiskey on the table. “Ice?”

  “No, thank you.”

  He opened the bottle, poured her a glass, and put the champagne back in the fridge. When he returned, she had poured him a generous measure of whiskey. They sat down, and Gao Gao turned the TV off.

  Paul took his glass. “Thank you very much.”

  They clinked glasses and both of them took a big sip.

  “What’s the smell?”

  She took a couple of deep breaths through her nose. “What do you mean?”

  “A strong men’s perfume.”

  “I don’t smell anything,” she said shortly.

  V

  Gao Gao seldom drank alcohol, and she felt the effect of the champagne from the first sip. A comforting warmth spread through her body. Just like before.

  Her thoughts turned to her father.

  He had brought her up with the knowledge that there was one person to whom she meant more than everything else in the world. That had been both a blessing and a curse.

  Her mother had given her life and paid for it with her own.

  Her father had been father and mother to her. He had never married again and had been discreet with his lovers. She had never seen even one of them.

  For that she was grateful to him.

  She took a second sip of champagne. Oh, this outrageous, seductive lightness of being. If only it could last forever.

  Images passed through her mind’s eye. Old black and white photos showing a little Gao Gao with the housekeeper and the nanny.

  They had lived in a detached house in a compound for senior party cadres and military personnel. Walls had separated them from the world outside. Policemen had kept watch over the entrance. And the exit. There had not been many children there and the days had been long and dull, despite all the household staff.

  Her father had worked a great deal, but had made an effort to be at home on time every evening. After having dinner together, he read to her, and put her to bed. As soon as she was asleep, so she was later told, he drove back to the office and chaired meetings or trained party cadres.

  Even when he rose higher and higher in the party, he still kept to the evening routine with her.

  She thought about the Sundays, which had been just for them, and which had become a fixed ritual, unchanged for years. When she thought about it, if there was anything in her childhood she missed, it was the tender intimacy of those Sundays.

  They had risen early and walked to the market without having any breakfast before leaving. There, they had eaten pancakes or warm pork buns, and bought groceries. At home, they had spread everything out in the kitchen. Her father had explained the various kitchen utensils to her and showed her how to sharpen a knife, section a chicken, gut a fish, how to tell fresh vegetables apart, and when cooked winter melon and aubergine had reached the right consistency. They had made the dough for her favorite food, dumplings, and experimented almost every week with new fillings for them. The smell of lightly browned garlic. Of fried pork belly. A fine line between happiness and great grief.

  “Would you like more champagne?”

  Her glass was empty. So was his.

  She nodded.

  Paul got up to fetch the bottle.

  Gao Gao slid back into the past. She saw herself laying the table for four, five, sometimes even six people, depending on who was coming. Gao Gao had made the decisions on how many guests came and who they were. They had greeted the guests at the door together and led them to the table. There, her father had started the conversation. While they ate, they had had lively conversations with his daughter’s teachers, her favorite actresses, the neighbors, or the market stall woman who often gave her a sweet bun. Her father played all the roles with gusto, putting on different voices, and sometimes even changing seats, making Gao Gao laugh till she cried.

  She remembered those meals as the funniest and most enjoyable dinners of her life, without any of those people ever having been in the house.

  The feeling that she cou
ld rely on him no matter what happened.

  ‘Xiăo Chángjǐnglù’, my little giraffe, had been his pet name for her, because she had not stopped growing. By sixteen she had grown taller than the tallest of her classmates.

  When she got it into her head that she wanted to be a ballet dancer, he arranged for her to have dance lessons, even though aspiring to become a prima ballerina was not at all a suitable ambition for the daughter of an ambitious senior party cadre.

  He was cold and distant to her first boyfriend. He was more well disposed to the second one. He took only a passing interest in all the later ones. As though he knew that it would never get serious with any of them.

  Perhaps everything would have turned out differently if they had not set up a company to do business together. It had been his suggestion. China was going through a boom-time – everyone was taking what they could get, and as much as they could get. It was a gold rush, and anyone who hesitated or held back would suffer the consequences. Almost every senior party official in every province was granting privileges to their friends and families or was using front men to build personal corporate empires. Why should they be any different?

  They made sure that her father stayed in the background. The mere mention of his name was enough, and if there were any problems, a phone call from him sufficed.

  She got everything she wanted at the price she wanted. Land. Property. Building permits. Shares in companies. All her companies prospered. She made profits on everything she bought and everything she invested in. It was as though she had a license to print money.

  Gao Gao had been unperturbed by this. “Let some people get rich first,” Deng Xiaoping had said.

  On their travels, Gao Gao and her father had of course booked separate rooms, yet they had often been taken for a couple. An older man and his young and beautiful lover. He had been uneasy about this at first, but later his pride in the compliments his daughter was receiving outweighed his discomfort. She was amused by it all.

  Father and daughter. They had been very close.

  But never closer than that.

  _________