INCARNATION

by Daniel Easterman

They’d talked for a long time that day about his future, and what shape it might take. He’d been confused. Part of him wanted to fly a jet-plane or command a submarine, another part wanted to teach Asian languages at a great university, somewhere like Oxford or Cambridge or Wales, which Mrs H. had told him was the greatest university in the world.

  Now, the future seemed infinitely far off, somewhere at the end of a very uncertain road, a dusty road full of hidden holes, and steep drops on either side.

  There was a knock on the door. He got up to answer it. Mrs Hughes always brought him a late supper, some sandwiches and a mug of Horlicks. Living here, he’d discovered that he was naturally a late-night person. David Laing had told him that. He’d got on well with Laing, found him honest and genuinely concerned for his well-being. The news that his son had been killed had upset Tursun badly. He’d already got used to thinking about Sam as his first English friend, had imagined going places with him once he was free, maybe even attending the same school.

  ‘No ham tonight, love; but I’ve cut some nice chicken breast.’ Mrs Hughes eased her way into the room, squeezing her ample figure through the door-frame. ‘Lovely with a fresh salad, it is, lovely.’ The plate on her tray held a chicken-and-salad sandwich big enough to feed seven cats.

  ‘Diolch yn fawr, Mrs Hughes,’ he said. ‘Rwy’n hoffiawn o gyw ia.’

  ‘Oh, no, dear,’ she corrected him, ‘not ia. That would mean you like frozen chicken. Gyw iar is what you want.’ She set the tray down on the foot of his bed. She’d been teaching him Welsh - "proper" Welsh, not like that rubbish they speak in Caernarvon - almost from the day of his arrival. A trip to next year’s eisteddfod was already on the agenda.

  ‘Soon be seeing the back of you, I hear,’ she said, placing his Horlicks on the dresser. Steam lifted from the heavy china mug, thick and comforting.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m told you won’t be with us much longer, bach. Couple of days and you’ll be heading on. I hope you’ll remember your old friends when you go. Come and visit us. Keep your Welsh up.’

  He was upset to hear he’d be leaving so soon: he’d started feeling at home at Carstairs, and he’d grown very fond of Mrs Hughes. He’d miss his mug of Horlicks every night, and the little aimless chats that went with it. At the same time, he was excited to think he’d soon be on his way. A new school in September, new friends, a proper life for his parents. He might even go to Wales and enrol in a Welsh-speaking school. His father would be happy there, he could find a job repairing cars - something he’d done in his spare time in Sinkiang. He didn’t expect there’d be many mulberry trees in Swansea.

  ‘Will they let me visit you, Mrs H.? I just ask because ... well, you know this is a very private place. I don’t think people just come and go.’

  ‘That’s to make sure you’re safe, love. We’ll ask Mr Laing and see if he can fix you up with a pass. I mean, it’s not as if you’ve been like some of our guests, have you? And if Carstairs is out of bounds, there’s plenty of towns round here where we can meet. Not to mention Swansea.’

  ‘And St David’s.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, hiding the faraway look in her eyes, biting down memories that were no concern of the boy’s, no concern of anyone but herself. The sorrowing cathedral, and the small town like a trap.

  ‘I’ll show you the coast,’ she said, as she always did. ‘We’ll go to Solva together. We’ll have tea in Narberth. Now, eat up your sandwich. Arwel will be wondering what’s become of me.’

  She left him alone, stranded between thoughts of quiet bays and the recent memory of a warplane booming through the quick darkness outside. He ate his sandwich, the bread home-baked, the meat salted just so, the salad fresh from the garden at the back. In all his life he’d never known such comfort, and it saddened him that a good man had had to die in order to bring him to this.

  He lifted the Horlicks. It was at exactly the right temperature for drinking. His first sip left a white moustache across his upper lip. As he raised a finger to wipe it away, there was a knock on the door. Mrs H. must have forgotten something.

  ‘Come in,’ he said.

  The door opened. It was not Mrs Hughes. When the man stepped into the room, Tursun thought he did not know him. The stranger closed the door and turned, his face caught in the light from Tursun’s bedside lamp. Now Tursun thought he recognized him. He’d seen him somewhere before. Or had he? Perhaps it was just another false memory, not his own memory, but Matthew Hyde’s.

  ‘It’s you,’ he said, not knowing who he meant. Another plane chose that moment to rip the darkness apart.

  ‘Nasty buggers, aren’t they?’ said the man. He was tall and slim, and everything about him fitted perfectly.

  ‘What do you want?’ asked Tursun.

  The man’s finger went to his lips.

  ‘Silence,’ he said. ‘Just silence.’

  And he put his hand into his pocket and brought out a short blade that had been sharpened until it was silver-bright.

  ‘I promise I’ll be quick,’ he said.

  And he was.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Kashgar lay grey and sullen beneath a yellow sky. Sand from the desert blew across its heart like smoke, turning and spiralling until everything was covered in a pale ochre haze. And higher than that, in their own atmosphere, cradled between city and sky, a flock of hoopoes dipped and soared, feeding in mid-air.

  She touched his arm and pointed ahead through the window of the coach.

  ‘Look,’ she said. He leaned across her and gazed out.

  Above the soft, hanging dust there rose a line of mountains, their white peaks imperfectly outlined against the most distant horizon. A faint nimbus floated about some of them, a trick of the sunlight, cast slantwise through cloud upon their eastern flanks.

  ‘The Pamirs,’ he said. He’d seen them before, many times; but he’d never forgotten the thrill of that first sighting. He’d been eighteen, and he’d come to Sinkiang for the first time. That night, he’d sat in a torch-lit courtyard in Tashmalik, listening to a young girl sing a lament to the accompaniment of a single dutar. The perfect, long-drawn-out notes, and the face of the young girl, shimmering in the light of torches, had made a lasting impression on him. The following morning, looking through his window soon after waking, he’d seen them at close quarters, giants of ice and snow.

  From the Tien Shan in the north to the Altun Shan in the south-east, great mountain ranges encircled Sinkiang like a necklace of ice. Except in the east, where the Jade Gate and the Sun Gate protected the roads into China, no one could enter or leave the province unless they crept through one of the high passes, at the mercy of cutting winds and freezing snow. The mountains seemed impossibly remote to David, smothered down here on the desert’s edge, choking on warm sand, sweating and aching from the long journey.

  They’d been on the coach for what seemed half a lifetime. Apart from overnight stops at Korla and Aksu, they’d spent three days on board, thumped and shaken and pummelled all along the northern rim of the desert. David felt like a lump of dough that was ready for the oven.

  He and Nabila had hung on at the conference to the very end, leaving just before the dinner to take the first available coach to the south-west. The police had been everywhere, stopping people, checking papers, and from time to time arresting anyone whose face didn’t quite add up.

  They’d hurried to the coach station to find it horrendously overcrowded. Everyone who could - and quite a few who couldn’t - was trying to get on a bus out of Urumchi. It was easier said than done. Every coach had two or three policemen waiting to scrutinize travel documents and send off those whose papers didn’t measure up.

  For the first hundred miles they’d been stopped regularly by military patrols, but after that things returned to normal. In Sinkiang, security checks were rare, unless you took a wrong turning and wandered into one of the many forbidden zones. Go too far, and there’d be no check: just a bullet in the back of the h
ead.

  They splashed across an irrigation ditch and headed down into the town. Slowly, the faceless concrete slabs of Communist rule gave way to traditional buildings fashioned from mud brick. Almost everyone on the streets was Uighur. David stretched his legs and began to feel more comfortable.

  ‘Have you been to Kashgar before?’

  It was strange, he thought, that she hadn’t asked him the question earlier.

  ‘Once,’ he said, ‘when I was much younger. I don’t think anyone will remember me.’

  He’d taken on a fresh identity, calling himself Ruzi Osmanop, a university researcher from Kazakhstan with unspecified qualifications, currently employed by the Chinese government to write a report on medical developments in the south of the province.

  The coach pulled in to the bus station off Tian Nan Lu and pulled in to a narrow bay, where it wheezed and clattered to a halt next to a yellow-painted mule cart piled high with hessian sacks. Three uniformed policemen were standing waiting by the bay. One was cleaning his teeth with a small stick. David felt a knot form in his stomach and tighten into a ball as he caught sight of them.

  Ordinarily, the arrival of a coach would have been a signal for bedlam to break out. Now, everyone went about the routine of clambering over seats, pulling down luggage, and struggling for the door as quietly as though they were children ordered to silence by a strict teacher.

  As they stepped down from the coach, each passenger was stopped and questioned. Two young men in front of David were arrested and dragged off by two policemen who’d been waiting at the back. A woman in her seventies had her veil ripped off.

  David’s papers were examined closely.

  ‘Where did you board the coach?’

  ‘It’s on my ticket: Urumchi.’

  ‘What were you doing there?’

  The questions were routine, but the attention being paid to the answers by the policeman was not. David could almost see his brain scanning and analysing everything he said.

  ‘Who spoke on the second day of the conference?’

  David rattled off a list of names.

  ‘What was Professor Liu’s paper about?’

  ‘The use of Ilex cornuta in kidney-deficient backache.’

  It was all noted down, to be checked later against some master-list, or by telephone with someone in Urumchi itself.

  He got through and waited for Nabila. When her turn came, he saw her arguing and expostulating with one of the policemen, and he grew anxious that he was about to strike her or arrest her on the spot. Neither happened. She calmed down, slammed shut the suitcase he’d asked her to open, and stormed off in David’s direction.

  ‘What happened there?’

  ‘Happened? What do you think happened?’ She was still furious.

  ‘Keep your cool. I’m not the one you’re angry with, remember?’

  She took a deep breath and nodded.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that ... something like this happens every time I go away.’

  ‘Not just to you ...’ He glanced back at the line of their fellow-passengers who were waiting to be let past.

  ‘To me in particular,’ she insisted. ‘They know my name. The moment I say who I am, I can see little lights going on behind their eyes: “Nabila Muhammadju, isn’t that old Azad’s kid? I wonder what she’s been up to". That’s how it starts. I told this one to fuck himself. I was at a legitimate conference with official approval. If his mates decide to start a massacre in Urumchi at the same time, that’s not my responsibility.’

  ‘You shouldn’t take risks.’

  She was about to answer, then he saw her mouth close and her eyes set.

  ‘David, go to the Chini Bagh. I’ll meet you there later, then we can make proper arrangements about where you’re to stay.’

  ‘Nabila, what’s wrong?’

  He followed her gaze. A tall man was standing a little way off, near the exit. He was dressed in traditional Muslim costume, but all in black, even his dopa hat. The knife at his belt was long and lacking in ornament. He stood without movement, and no one jostled or pushed him. His eyes were fixed on Nabila.

  ‘I have to go,’ she said. And, picking up her suitcase, she hurried to the waiting figure. They exchanged no greeting. David saw him take her case, then go ahead of her through the doors. She followed him closely, and she did not once look round.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Urumchi Airport

  Professor Kirim Ishmail coughed and looked round the little departure lounge apprehensively. He hoped no one would recognize him. Urumchi was such a small place, however, that it was hard not to be recognized ten times a day. He didn’t mind that usually, except when the person doing the recognizing was employed in some capacity by the Public Security Bureau. Today of all days and here of all places, he could not afford to be recognized. He wasn’t supposed to leave Urumchi on foot, much less by air. Much less carry a one-way ticket in a false name to London.

  For several years now, the little professor had been Sinkiang’s leading dissident, a thorn in the flesh of the authorities, protected only by the fact ‘that he had a reputation outside China as an economist and that the same authorities who loved to keep him shut up also beat their way to his door every so often for counsel.

  He was not a likely-looking dissident. In the event of an uprising or a protest, he’d have stood at the back looking on. Kirim was not a rabble-rouser. Normally, he wore thick quartz glasses, a thin moustache that did him no favours, and a straggle of white hair that had lost all sense of purpose or direction.

  The day before, his wife Roshan had got rid of all that for him, giving him dark hair and greenish contact lenses, and shaving his moustache completely off. He kept putting his hand up to stroke it now, only to let it fall back to his lap disappointed. He was nervous, but he knew it was vital to keep control. If anyone asked, he would say he was afraid of flying. It was true enough.

  But flying wasn’t his real fear. His real fear was being sent back to a labour camp, and he’d heard rumours that moves were afoot to have him packed off to one in the desert around Lop Nor. He knew he wouldn’t survive even another year in a camp. That was why he was here, clutching his ticket to London via Peking and keeping a close watch on the flight bag that contained his British passport under the name of Dr Aziz Khan. He also carried papers, a badge, and a brightly printed folder from the Conference on Traditional and Scientific Medicine that had just been held in Urumchi. It had all been left at the house of a friend by the real Dr Khan. Assuming there had been a real one.

  He knew British intelligence was behind the whole thing. They’d been in touch with him before. After all, no one knew more than he did about the economy of western China. His ideas had formed the basis for more than one Western research paper on the subject, and for dozens of crudely-printed leaflets issued by other dissidents. Despite being a pariah, he had access to classified information, culled from pages left by late-night visitors.

  The British had initially made contact with him after his release from his first prison camp. His students had denounced him soon after the Cultural Revolution, he’d been condemned as a rightist, and he’d spent several years in a camp near Korla making amends for his past and learning the humble virtues of ignorance. He’d gone back to the university in Urumchi after its reopening and the rehabilitation of staff, and gone on teaching quite happily for three or four years. And then he’d started arguing for separatism for Sinkiang and Tibet. The authorities hadn’t liked that. Holding rightist views on economics was one thing - combining them with calls for the liberation of vast chunks of the Communist empire was quite another.

  So now he sat in a flea-bitten airport lounge, clutching a badly stitched flight bag and wondering when, if ever, he would see his wife again.

  A bell chimed softly and a voice announced in Chinese that Flight AC 17 for Peking would be boarding in fifteen minutes. Professor Ishmail looked round again, scanning the faces of his fellow-passengers. They were
all strangers. He planned to keep it that way.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Kashgar

  The warm amber sunlight that had caressed the city all day like a cat’s paw lifted itself up at last and, with a quiet exhalation of breath, vanished behind the mountains hard against the western sky.

  David had been in his hotel room ever since his arrival, chafing for Nabila to come. He felt alone and out of sorts. Now, darkness crashed down like a huge stone lid, shutting him in more narrowly than ever. He looked round the shabby, coffee-coloured room. They’d put him in the old building. The new block out front was packed with Gilgiti wheelers and dealers who’d come down along the Karakoram Highway from Pakistan. They’d stay a night or two, sell what they could, buy what they could, and split at first light the next morning.

  A snatch of qawwali music wafted down the long corridor outside, losing itself in the high ceiling and intricate, dusty mouldings. The Sabri Brothers praised God and extolled the Prophet, and their audience responded with enthusiastic cries of "Allah" as the music grew in pace and volume.

  David put down his pen. He was having trouble with the letter he’d started to write. He wanted Maddie to know he was all right, and he’d got off to a good enough start, giving her a heavily sanitized account of his first few days.

  I’m in Sinkiang investigating traditional forms of medicine. Don’t laugh! I just collect data and samples, stuff they can analyse properly back home. Who knows? Maybe I’ll come up with something that could help you, get you off those drugs. I’ll ask Nabila about it - she’s my guide and teacher, a doctor in Uighur medicine. She’s a Muslim, so you can be sure your old Dad’s safe from any risk of hanky panky …

  But the more he wrote, the more he wanted to tell her about Sam. He could tolerate the small, necessary lies that covered him and his mission: he’d been telling them most of his life and had learned to live with them. But pretending Sam was still alive was more than he could do, and he knew Maddie would notice if he didn’t mention him.