Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

After the meal they all lay down on the ground and closed their eyes. San was the only one still sitting, staring at the flames. The next day they wouldn’t even have a dog to eat.

He could see his parents in his mind’s eye, hanging from the tree that awful morning. How far away from his own neck were the branch and the rope now? He didn’t know.

He suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. He squinted out into the night. There really was somebody there, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness. The man approached the fire. He was older than San, but not especially old. He smiled. San thought he must be one of those lucky people who didn’t always have to walk around feeling hungry.

‘I’m Zi. I saw you eating a dog.’

San didn’t answer. He waited to see what would come next. Something about this stranger made him feel insecure.

‘I’m Zi Quan Zhao. Who are you?’

San looked around uneasily.

‘Have I trespassed on your territory?’

Zi laughed.

‘Not at all. I just wonder who you are. Curiosity is a human virtue. Anybody who doesn’t have an enquiring mind is unlikely to live a satisfying life.’

‘My name’s Wang San.’

‘Where do you come from?’

San was not used to being asked questions. He started to be suspicious. Perhaps the man calling himself Zi was one of the chosen few who had the right to interrogate and punish? Perhaps he and his brothers had transgressed one of those invisible laws and regulations that surround the poverty-stricken?

San gestured vaguely into the darkness.

‘From over there. My brothers and I have been walking for many days. We crossed two big rivers.’

‘It’s great to have brothers. What are you doing here?’

‘We’re looking for work, but we can’t find any.’

‘It’s hard. Very hard. Lots of people are drawn to the city like flies to a honeypot. It’s not easy to make a living.’

San had a question on the tip of his tongue, but decided to swallow it. Zi seemed to be able to see through him.

‘Do you wonder what I do for a living, as I’m not dressed in rags?’

‘I don’t want to be inquisitive about my superiors.’

‘That doesn’t bother me in the least,’ said Zi, sitting down. ‘My father used to own sampans, and he would sail his little merchant fleet up and down the river here. When he died, my brother and I took over the business. My third and fourth brothers emigrated to the land on the far side of the ocean, to America. They have made their fortune by washing the dirty clothes of white men. America is a very strange land. Where else can you get rich from other men’s dirt?’

‘I’ve thought about that,’ said San. ‘Going to that country.’

Zi looked him up and down.

‘You need money for that. Nobody sails over a great ocean for nothing. Anyway, I wish you goodnight. I hope you manage to find work.’

Zi stood up, bowed and disappeared into the darkness. San lay down and wondered if he had imagined that short conversation. Perhaps he had been talking to his own shadow? Dreaming of being somebody else?

The brothers continued their vain search for work and food, walking for hours on end through the teeming city. San had decided to rope himself to his two brothers, and it struck him that he was like an animal with two youngsters that kept pressing up against him within the large flock. They looked for work on the wharfs and in the alleys overflowing with people. San urged his brothers to stand up straight when they stood in front of some authoritative person who might be able to offer them work.

‘We must look strong,’ he said. ‘Nobody gives work to men with no strength in their arms and legs. Even if you are tired and hungry, you must give the impression of being very strong.’

Any food they ate was what other people had thrown away. When they found themselves fighting with dogs over a discarded bone, it struck San that they were on their way to becoming animals. His mother had told him a story about a man who turned into an animal, with a tail and four legs but no arms, because he was lazy and didn’t want to work. But the reason that they were not working was not that they were lazy.

They continued to sleep on the jetty in the damp heat. Sometimes heavy rainfall would drift over the city from the sea during the night. They sheltered underneath the jetty, creeping in among the wet timbers, but they were soaked through even so. San noticed that Guo Si and Wu were beginning to lose heart. Their lust for life shrank with every day that passed, every day of hunger, torrential rain, and the feeling that nobody noticed them and nobody needed them.

One evening San noticed Wu hunched up, mumbling confused prayers to gods his parents used to pray to. That worried him for a moment. His parents’ gods had never been of any help. But then, if Wu found consolation in his prayers, San had no right to rob him of that feeling.

San was increasingly convinced that Canton was a city of horror. Every morning, when they set out on their endless search for work, they noticed more and more people lying dead in the gutters. Sometimes the rats or dogs had been chewing the faces of the corpses. Every morning he had the nasty feeling that he would end his life in the gutter of one of Canton’s many alleys.

After yet another day in the damp heat, San also found himself losing hope. He was so hungry, he felt dizzy and was incapable of thinking straight. As he lay on the jetty alongside his sleeping brothers, he thought for the first time that perhaps he might just as well fall asleep and never wake up.

There was nothing to wake up for.

During the night he dreamed yet again of the three severed heads. They suddenly started talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they said.

When he woke up as dawn was beginning to break, he saw Zi sitting on a post, smoking a pipe. He smiled when he saw that San was awake.

‘You were not sleeping soundly,’ he said. ‘I could see that you were dreaming about something you wanted to get away from.’

‘I was dreaming about severed heads,’ said San. ‘Maybe one of them was mine.’

Zi eyed him pensively before responding.

‘Those who have a choice choose. Neither you nor your brothers look especially strong. It’s obvious that you are starving. Nobody who needs workers to carry or drag or pull chooses anybody who’s starving. At least, not as long as there are newcomers who still have some strength left and food in their rucksacks.’

Zi emptied his pipe before continuing.

‘Every morning there are dead bodies floating down the river. People who don’t have the strength to try any more. People who can’t see the point of living any longer. They fill their shirts with stones or tie sinkers to their legs. Canton has become a city full of restless ghosts, the souls of people who have taken their own lives.’

‘Why are you telling me this? I have enough pain to bear already.’

Zi raised his hand dismissively.

‘I’m not saying it to worry you. I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t have something else to add. My cousin owns a factory, and many of his workers are ill just now. I might be able to help you and your brothers.’

San had difficulty believing what he had just heard. But Zi said it again. He didn’t want to make any promises, but he might be able to find them work.

‘Why are you singling us out?’

Zi shrugged.

‘Why does anybody do anything? Or not do anything? Perhaps I just thought that you deserved help.’

Zi stood up.

‘I’ll come back when I know,’ he said.

He placed a few fruits on the ground in front of San, then walked away. San watched him walk along the jetty and disappear into the crowds of people.