Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

‘What will happen?’

‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. It makes sense to be worried and on the alert. There’s a power struggle going on in the party that’s more serious than it ever was in Mao’s day. Nobody can foresee what the outcome will be. The military is afraid of chaos that can’t be brought under control. You and I know that the only thing we can do, the one thing we have to do, is restore the basic principles that used to apply.’

‘Baoxian yundong.’

‘The only way. Our only way. It’s not possible to take a short cut to the future.’

A herd of elephants was making its way slowly down towards the river to drink. When a party of Western tourists came onto the veranda, the pair returned to the hotel foyer. Hong Qiu had intended to suggest that they eat together, but Ma Li forestalled her by saying that she had an engagement that evening.

‘We’re going to be here for two weeks,’ said Ma Li. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk about everything that’s happened.’

‘Everything that’s happened and is going to happen,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘All the things we don’t yet have an answer to.’

Hong Qiu watched Ma Li walk off on the other side of the big swimming pool. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, she thought. Just when I badly needed to talk to somebody, one of my oldest friends turned up out of the blue.

She dined alone that evening. A large party from the Chinese delegation had gathered around two long tables, but Hong Qiu preferred to be on her own.

Moths danced around the lamp over her head.

When she had finished eating she sat for a while at the bar by the swimming pool and drank a cup of tea. Some of the Chinese delegation got drunk and tried to make advances on the beautiful young waitresses moving from table to table. Hong Qiu was annoyed and left. In another China that would never have been allowed, she thought angrily. The security guards would have intervened by now. Anybody who got drunk and started throwing his weight around would never again have been allowed to represent China. They might even have been imprisoned. But these days, nobody pays any attention.

She sat down on her veranda and thought about the arrogance that followed in the wake of the licentious belief that a less regulated capitalist market system would be good for the country’s development. It had been Deng’s aim to make the Chinese wheels roll more quickly. But today the situation was different. We live with the risk of overheating, not only in our industries but also in our own brains, she thought. We don’t see the price we’re paying, in the form of polluted rivers, air that suffocates us, and millions of people desperate to flee from the rural areas.

Once, we came to the country that used to be called Rhodesia to support a liberation struggle. Now, almost thirty years after liberation was achieved, we come back as poorly disguised colonisers. My own brother is one of those selling out all our old ideals. He has none of the honest belief in the power and prosperity of the people that once liberated our own country.

She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night. All thoughts of Ma Li and their conversation slowly ebbed away from her weary head.

She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a noise that pierced the song of the cicadas. It was a twig snapping.

She opened her eyes and sat up straight. The cicadas were silent. She knew that there was somebody in the vicinity.

She ran into her bungalow and locked the glass door. She switched off the light.

Her heart was pounding. She was scared.

Somebody was out there in the darkness. He had inadvertently stepped on a twig and snapped it under his foot.

She threw herself onto the bed, afraid that someone would force his way in.

But nobody emerged from the darkness. After waiting for almost an hour, she closed the curtains, sat down at the desk and wrote a letter that had been formulating itself in her head during the course of the day.

It took Hong Qiu several hours to write her summary of what had happened recently, with her brother and the strange information from the Swedish judge, Birgitta Roslin, as the starting point. She did it to protect herself. She established once and for all that her brother was corrupt and one of the people well on the way to taking over China. In addition, he and his bodyguard Liu Xan might be involved in several brutal murders far outside the country’s borders. She didn’t switch on the air conditioning so that she would be better able to hear any sounds from outside. The night insects were buzzing around the lamp in the stiflingly hot room, and heavy drops of sweat kept dripping onto the desk. She had every reason to feel worried. She had lived long enough to be able to distinguish between real and imagined dangers.

Ya Ru was her brother, but above all else he was a man who didn’t hesitate to use any means in order to attain his goals. She was not opposed to development heading off in new directions. Just as the world around them was changing, so must China’s leaders think up new strategies to solve present and future problems. What Hong Qiu and many others of like mind questioned was that leaders were not combining socialistic foundations with development toward an economy in which free markets played a major role. Was the alternative impossible? A powerful country like China didn’t need to sell its soul in the hunt for oil and raw materials and new markets in which to place its industrial products. Was not the big challenge to demonstrate to the world that brutal imperialism and colonialism were not an inevitable consequence when one’s country developed?

Hong Qiu had seen greed take possession of young people who, by means of contacts, relatives and not least ruthlessness, had managed to create huge fortunes. They felt untouchable, and that made them even more brutal and cynical. She wanted to offer resistance to them and to Ya Ru. The future was not a foregone conclusion; everything was still possible.

When she had finished writing, read through the letter, and made some corrections and clarifications, she sealed the envelope, wrote Ma Li’s name on it, then lay down on top of the bed to sleep. There was no sound from the darkness outside. Although she was very tired, it was some time before she fell asleep.

She got up at seven o’clock and watched the sunrise from her veranda. Ma Li was already in the breakfast room when she arrived. Hong Qiu joined her, ordered tea from the waitress and looked around the room. Members of the Chinese delegation were sitting at most of the tables. Ma Li announced that she intended to go down to the river to watch the animals.

‘Come to my room an hour from now,’ said Hong Qiu in a low voice. ‘I’m in number twenty-two.’

Ma Li nodded and asked no questions. Just like me, she’s lived a life that has taught us that secrets are a constant presence, Hong Qiu thought.

She finished her breakfast, then retired to her room to wait for Ma Li. The trip to the experimental farm wasn’t scheduled until half past nine.

After exactly an hour Ma Li knocked on her door. Hong Qiu gave her the letter she’d written during the night.

‘If anything happens to me,’ she said, ‘this letter will be important. If I die in my bed of old age, you can burn it.’

Ma Li looked hard at her. ‘Should I be worried about you?’

‘No. But the letter’s important even so. For the sake of others. And for our country.’

Hong Qiu could see that Ma Li was surprised. But she asked no more questions, merely put the letter in her bag.

‘What’s on the agenda today for you?’ Ma Li wondered.

‘A discussion with members of Mugabe’s security service. We’re going to assist them.’