The Far Side of the Night

by Jan-Philipp Sendker

  “No. I’d tell you immediately if I did.”

  “I wonder where Da Lin . . .”

  “Christine,” he interrupted her in a slightly weary tone.

  “Why do you immediately get annoyed whenever we talk about Da Lin?”

  “I’m not annoyed,” he said. “But it doesn’t help at all to constantly be speculating about what’s happened to him. We can’t do anything for him at the moment.”

  “Don’t you feel guilty?”

  The question surprised him. She could see that from the searching look in his eyes and the way he tipped his head to one side. “No,” he said, finally.

  “Why not?” she asked in surprise.

  “What happened was not our fault. We were victims, just like Da Lin is a victim. I could only feel guilty if we had had the chance to do anything differently. I don’t think we did. What did we do wrong?”

  “What do you mean? If we had not come to stay with him at the farm . . .”

  “Christine, I’m sorry to be interrupting you again. We were on the run. We had no choice.”

  She poked around at the mango on her plate in silence. It was delicious but she had lost her appetite. “Have you heard anything from Zhang?”

  “No, not from him either.”

  “Do you think about him often?”

  He put his fork down, had a sip of wine, and sat back in his chair. “Yes. I miss him. I only noticed how much I missed him when I saw him again. I miss the closeness between us.”

  “Do you worry about him?”

  “Yes. He wasn’t well when we saw him in Shi. He was lonely. After everything that has happened since, he won’t be doing any better.”

  “Will you phone Mei or his son to ask if they have heard anything from him?”

  He shook his head. “I think he’ll get in touch with me first.”

  They ate their pasta in silence.

  “Paul,” she said finally, “I’ve thought things over again.”

  “I know what you’ve been thinking about.”

  “And?”

  “You want to leave Hong Kong.”

  “Yes.”

  He sat up straight, pushed his hair away from his face and looked at her thoughtfully, without saying anything.

  “I’m frightened. Are you?”

  “No,” he said.

  Something in his tone of voice made her prick up her ears. “Not at all?”

  Paul thought for a long moment. “Now and then, perhaps.” He paused again. “But I won’t let myself live in fear. I want to decide where I live or not. If we . . .”

  “Me too,” she interrupted. “I thought it would get better with time, but it isn’t. We’ve been back for over two months, and seeing an unfamiliar face on the ferry is enough to get me into a panic. I have the feeling it will get worse.”

  “Hmmm.” He sipped his wine. “Have you thought about getting some professional help?”

  “What kind of professional help?” she asked, unsettled.

  “There are therapists who specialize in dealing with fear.”

  “Are you crazy?” Christine threw her napkin onto the table angrily. “I don’t need a therapist. I’m not imagining things. Someone tried to kidnap our child. If we had been less lucky we would now be stuck in a Chinese jail, with no chance of release. Have you forgotten that?”

  “No. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “We’re safe here.”

  “What makes you think that?” she retorted.

  “Because Hong Kong is not yet part of China.”

  “No?”

  “Not completely. There are agreements and contracts that guarantee Hong Kong’s autonomy. ‘One country, two systems.’”

  “Are you serious?”

  He was silent.

  “You think I’m paranoid, don’t you?”

  “No,” he said weakly, sounding unconvincing. That only made her angrier.

  “People who get into a panic for no reason need help. There are good reasons for my fears. I’m not imagining things.”

  “Why do you think you would feel safer in Sydney?”

  “What kind of question is that? Because it’s further away, and not part of China.”

  “Hong Kong is my home,” he said, almost sullenly.

  “Mine too! As though . . .”

  “Shit,” he suddenly said, standing up. He walked up and down the terrace restlessly. “I don’t want to leave.”

  V

  Zhang got his phone out from beneath his monk’s habit with some difficulty. He had been expecting this text message for too long to wait till he was back in the monastery to read it. His hands were red and frozen from the cold and they hurt. It took some effort for his stiff fingers to press the keypad. The phone vibrated again. Even in this remote Tibetan high plateau, the world could reach him.

  The sender was a former colleague from Shenzhen who had been working in Beijing for years. They had often gone on patrol together as young police officers and had got along well. He had immediately agreed to make enquiries about where Da Lin was when Zhang had asked him to. His messages had not been encouraging and had grown gloomier and gloomier. The boy was in police custody. He did not speak. He did not eat. Zhang had sent his former colleague Da Lin’s mother’s address but she could not be found; neither could any other family members. After that there had been no contact. He had not heard anything from Beijing for over three weeks.

  Zhang read the message a second time and let his hand fall. Da Lin had died the night before. Alone in hospital. No one had been with him, not even a nurse. According to the police, he had starved himself to death.

  Zhang wondered how to let Paul and Christine know. In this remote place there was no internet access and he did not know their phone numbers off by heart. They had been saved in his old phone, which he had been forced to discard while on the run. Apart from that, they could not do anything anyway. Da Lin was dead.

  Zhang picked up the phone, took a deep breath in and out, and tossed it in a wide arc down the escarpment. He saw it fly through the air for a couple of seconds before he lost sight of it. He did not want to be contactable any longer. Not by anyone.

  Could he have saved him? For the first few days after Da Lin’s arrest he had tortured himself with this question day and night. If only he had not fallen asleep on that fateful afternoon . . . If only they had immediately set off for Tibet . . .

  After much thought, Zhang had concluded that it would have made no difference. Da Lin had known exactly what he was doing. The boy had decided to help Paul, Christine, and David. Would Zhang have had any right to stop him? More than ever, he now believed in karma. It was the only explanation for Da Lin’s brief, tragic life. The punishment for misdeeds in his previous life. In his next life he would be rewarded for his sacrifice. Wherever he was now, he was better off than he would be in this world. It was a comforting thought, though he knew Paul would argue vehemently against it.

  The icy wind grew stronger. Zhang sought shelter behind a stupa. His gaze wandered over the snow-covered valley.

  Although he had been born and bred in Sichuan, he had only been to Tibet once before. It had been in the summer, on a kind of delayed honeymoon with Mei. The landscape had moved him at first, then impressed him, and finally made him feel fearful. He still dreamt about it years later. The bleak mountains and valleys. The craggy rocks, the wide-open spaces, their bareness. He found nothing about the landscape inviting. He had felt unpleasantly overwhelmed by it, lost and lonely even with Mei by his side. The longer they travelled through the landscape, they more he found it repellent and even hostile to human beings.

  At the end of the trip he had been glad to be back in subtropical Shenzhen with its colors, its warmth, its humidity, and its bursting vegetation.

  Now it was different. Snow made the landscape brighter, if no more inviting than before. It was still bleak and inaccessible, but it didn’t matter to him now. He felt that the isolation spread out before hi
m, the lack of people, and the monotony of the days reflected his inner life. For years he had tried to detach himself from the world through meditation. To let go. To not get worked up over corruption among his colleagues, or the demands of his wife, or the alienation from his son. He had only succeeded in making the first steps. Now he felt the detachment that he had sought for so long. There was no-one and nothing he felt an attachment to any longer. He doubted if that was really a state of being to strive towards.

  In the past few weeks something had happened to him, but he was not clear what had caused it.

  Was it the last time he had spoken to his son on the phone? Unlikely. Even though the wordlessness between them had hurt him. Especially the way his son had ended the silence without a word of farewell, but by simply pressing a button.

  Was it the knowledge of the farmer tortured to death? Probably not that either. He had seen many murder cases as a police detective.

  Was it seeing Paul again and saying goodbye to him for the last time?

  Or was it simply the end point of a journey that had started many years, perhaps many decades ago?

  There was no point in looking for an answer. It would not change anything.

  It had started snowing. His feet were so cold he could barely feel them. Zhang turned to walk back to the monastery. Each step through the deep snow was difficult for him. He pulled his robes over his head and round his face. The cold and the gusts of mountain air made progress more difficult than he expected.

  The monks had warned him that it was not a good time to go for a walk. But he had not been able to receive any text messages in the monastery. His mobile phone only had reception a few hundred meters away.

  The snow grew heavier. It was hardly possible to see the outline of the monastery.

  Zhang came to a stable. He was completely out of breath. There were probably still a hundred meters to go before the gates. He was not sure if he would make it. He could stay here and wait till the cold crept from his hands and feet into his arms and legs, until it had his whole body in its grip, made him tired, and sent him to sleep.

  He leaned against the wall of the stable. He could shout for help but the monks were meditating. They would not hear him from behind the thick walls of the monastery. He dug out a hollow in the snow with his hands and crouched in it. In the silence he heard the rustle of the snowflakes falling. They covered his shoulders and his head and after a few minutes he was completely covered in snow. He had no more feeling in his hands or in his feet.

  He heard the voices of two novices. They were not too far away. They were struggling through the snowstorm calling his name repeatedly. He only had to answer their call.

  They came towards the small white mound by the stable wall and walked a few meters past him without seeing him.

  The men were slowly walking further and further away.

  “Hello,” he called out, a few seconds later, as loudly as he could. “Here I am.”

  VI

  Paul put the breakfast dishes into the dishwasher, sat at the kitchen counter, opened his laptop and looked up the latest stock exchange figures from the US, feeling anxious. He had bought highly speculative stocks in the last few days and weeks, betting on the market falling. It was a very risky business. He had trusted his intuition more than the opinions of almost every financial market analyst. One look at the closing figures from the New York stock exchange told him that he had been right. If he sold now, his profit would be more than his entire income in the previous year. And that had already been a very good amount. But should he wait until the market fell further? If his intuition and the figures were not wrong, it would fall by ten or maybe twenty per cent. Should he hold?

  Paul stared at the figures from New York. One year’s income! In one click. It was incredible. He used to find people who bought speculative shares rather suspect, but now he was feeding his family with the proceeds. Hold or sell?

  He heard David upstairs. He was awake and calling for him.

  Paul entered half a dozen “sell” trades. He wanted to enjoy the day with David and not think about the market all the time, checking the figures on his phone and worrying about whether he should have held on to the stocks after all. He waited for the confirmation, shut down the laptop, and went up to David’s room. David was sitting in bed playing with his toy pandas.

  Paul raised the blinds. Birds were singing outside and the hibiscus bushes were blooming in rich reds and yellows in front of the window. A mild, sweet scent was coming into the room from the frangipani tree. “Shall we go swimming after breakfast?”

  David nodded enthusiastically.

  _________

  Paul took the mail from the postman absently. He was too busy packing towels and swimming gear for himself and David to look at it closely. A letter from a bank, two bills, and a large envelope from the People’s Republic of China. Paul could see that from the postage stamp. It was addressed to Paul Leibovitz and Christine Wu. There was no sender on the back. He put the small pile on the kitchen counter and carried on looking for swimming armbands.

  They were the only people swimming at the beach.

  He thought about Christine.

  _________

  The envelope with no sender was addressed to them both. They opened it together in the evening. There was no letter inside, only two photos, without any writing. Christine turned them round.

  She screamed, loud and long, and dropped the photos. Paul was just able to stop her from falling to the ground. He hugged her and led her to the couch.

  From his room, David called, “Mama? Mama?”

  “Everything’s fine, sweetheart,” Paul said. “Mama just hurt herself a little. It’s nothing serious.”

  “Will she have to go to the hospital?”

  “No, no, honey.”

  Christine buried her face in his shoulder. “Have you looked at the photos?” she whispered.

  “No.”

  Paul tried to get up to look at them. She held him back. “Don’t go.”

  He held her tight but began to feel anxious. He could not imagine what kind of photos would have made her react so strongly.

  “Is it about Da Lin?”

  She shook her head.

  “Zhang?”

  “I don’t think so. But maybe.”

  Paul could not wait any longer. He got up and she let him go reluctantly.

  He walked over to the kitchen counter and looked at the photos.

  It took him a few seconds to realize what his eyes were seeing.

  VII

  A scratching noise woke Paul that night. It sounded as though someone was trying to open the front door. Christine was fast asleep.

  He got up quietly, pushed two slats of the venetian blind apart and looked out of the window. He could not see anyone on the terrace or at the entrance. Was someone in the house? He listened. Stepped quietly into the corridor. The sound was coming from the living room. He walked to the top of the stairs and thought about whether there was anything on this floor he could use to defend himself. A knife? A candlestick? From the bathroom he took the bamboo frame that they used to dry hand towels and went down a few steps. The scratching stopped briefly then started again.

  “Hello?” He listened. “Hello? Is someone there?”

  Paul crept into the living room. Through the large glass door to the terrace he saw a stray cat on the decking in front of David’s sandbox, scratching at it as if it was sharpening its claws. When Paul went up to the glass it disappeared into the bushes in a few swift movements.

  He collapsed onto the sofa, feeling exhausted. Until this evening he had thought that it was only a matter of time before they regained a feeling of security. The power of the everyday and routines would help them.

  He had been wrong. And if he was being honest, he had to admit that he had also been feeling deeply unsettled. Most days he managed to suppress these feelings but they came to him in the night all the more strongly. He had dark dreams or lay awake for hour
s waiting for any suspicious noises.

  Paul went into the kitchen and took out the two photos that he had slid between the cookbooks in the evening. The sight was almost intolerable. Two horribly distorted corpses. A man and a woman. One small, the other well built. The woman was lying on her side and was so disfigured that he could not identify her. He had no doubts about the man. The large dark mole on the forehead. That was the couple that had brought David back to him.

  Christine was right. They were no longer safe in Hong Kong. He could not rule out the possibility that they might try to kidnap David from Hong Kong.

  They had to leave. But where should they go? He could trade his stocks almost anywhere. All he needed for that was a fast internet connection. But he did not have friends or family anywhere else in the world. Nothing apart from the language drew him to America. Going to be with Josh in Sydney was an option, at least in the short term. Paul doubted that they would get the necessary visas and permits to migrate there at their age. Taiwan? It would not be far away enough from China for Christine to feel safe. He could apply for a German passport but nothing drew him to the country where he had been born. He had not been there since he had moved from Germany to New York with his parents in the 1960s.

  It didn’t matter where they went, Christine had said to him. The main thing was to get away. Far away.

  London? He had been there often with Meredith, and he had grown to like the city more and more with each visit. He had toyed with the thought of moving there several times. But he had never made the move because he did not want to leave Hong Kong.

  But Hong Kong had changed. It was no longer the place that had become his home. The former British crown colony had turned into a Chinese city, not overnight, but gradually. Over one million visitors crossed the border every month and more and more Mandarin was heard on the streets. Chinese corruption money was driving property prices up. The press was becoming less and less critical of the People’s Republic. Deng Xiaoping’s promise of “One country, two systems” had turned into “One country, one and a half systems”, and it was only a matter of time before it would be “One country, one system”. They would export not only China’s laws to Hong Kong, Paul thought, but also China’s lawlessness. When Hong Kong had been returned to China in 1997, it was meant to stay autonomous for fifty years. But Beijing would not wait so long.