Хеннинг Манкелль - The Man from Beijing

Birgitta turned to look at San. ‘Tell me about your mother.’

‘Didn’t you know her?’

‘I met her, but I can’t say that I knew her.’

‘It wasn’t easy to be her child. She was strong, determined, often considerate; but she could also be angry and spiteful. I freely admit that I was scared of her. But I loved her, because she tried to see herself as a part of something bigger. To her it was just as natural to help a drunken man onto his feet when he falls over in the street as it was to conduct intensive discussions about politics. For me she was more of a person to look up to than somebody who was simply my mother. Nothing was easy. But I miss her and know that I now have to live with that sense of loss.’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to be a doctor. But I’m taking a year off. To mourn. To try to understand what it involves, living without her.’

‘Who is your father?’

‘He died a long time ago. He wrote poetry. All I know about him is that he died shortly after I was born. My mother never said much about him, only that he was a good man and a revolutionary. The only part of him left in my life is a photograph of him holding a puppy in his arms.’

They spoke at length that night about China. Birgitta admitted that as a young woman she had wanted to be a Red Guard in Sweden. But the whole time she was waiting impatiently for the moment when she could read the papers Ho had brought with her.

At about ten she called a taxi to take Ho and San to the railway station.

‘When you’ve finished reading,’ said Ho, ‘get in touch.’

‘Is there an end to this story?’

Ho thought for a moment before answering.

‘There’s always an end,’ she said. ‘Even in this case. But the end is always the beginning of something else. The periods we write into our lives are always provisional, in one way or another.’

Birgitta watched the taxi drive away, then sat down with the translation of Ya Ru’s diary. Staffan wasn’t due back home until the following day. She hoped she’d have finished reading by then. It was no more than twenty pages, but Ho’s handwriting was hard to decipher because the letters were so small.

What exactly was it, this diary she was reading? Afterwards, when she looked back on that evening alone in the house, with traces of Ho’s perfume still in the room, she knew she should have been able to work out for herself most of what had happened. Or, rather, she should have understood, but refused to accept what she really did understand.

Naturally, all the time she was wondering about what Ho had left out. She could have asked, but knew that she wouldn’t get an answer. There were traces of secrets that she would never understand, locks she would never be able to open. There were references to people in the past, another diary that seemed to have been written as a sort of counter to the one JA had written, the man who became a foreman on the building sites of the American cross-continental railway.

Over and over again Ya Ru returned in his diary to his frustration at Hong Qiu’s failure to understand that the path China was now following was the only right possibility, and that people like Ya Ru must be the controlling influences. Birgitta began to realise that Ya Ru had many psychopathic traits that, reading between the lines, he even seemed to be aware of himself.

Nowhere could she find any redeeming features in his character. No expression of doubt, of a guilty conscience with regard to the death of Hong Qiu, who after all was his own sister. She wondered if Ho had edited the text in order to depict Ya Ru as a brutal man. She even wondered if Ho had invented the whole diary herself. But she couldn’t really believe that. San had committed murder. Just as in the Icelandic sagas, he had taken bloody revenge for the death of his mother.

By the time she had read through Ho’s translation twice, it was almost midnight. There were many obscurities in what Ho had written, many details that still weren’t explained. The red ribbon — what was its significance? Only Liu Xan could have explained that, if he had still been alive. There were threads that would continue to hang loose, perhaps forever.

But what still needed to be done? What could or must she do on the basis of the insight she now had? She would spend part of her holiday thinking about it. When Staffan was fishing, for instance — an activity she found deadly boring. And early in the mornings, when he was reading his historical novels or biographies of jazz musicians and she went for walks on her own. There would be time for her to formulate the letter she would send to the police in Hudiksvall. Once she’d done that she’d be able to put away the box containing memories of her parents. It would all be over as far as she was concerned. Hesjövallen would fade slowly out of her consciousness, be transformed into a pale memory. Even though she would never forget what had happened, of course.

They went to Bornholm, had changeable weather, and enjoyed living in the cottage they had rented. The children came and went, days passed by in an atmosphere generally characterised by drowsy well-being. To their surprise Anna turned up, having completed her long Asian journey, and astonished them even more by announcing that she would be embarking on a political science degree at Lund in the autumn.

On several occasions Birgitta decided that the time had come to tell Staffan what had happened, both in Beijing and then later in London. But she didn’t — there was no point in telling him if he would never be able to get over that she’d kept it from him. It would hurt him and be interpreted as a lack of confidence and understanding. It wasn’t worth the risk, so she continued to say nothing.

She did not say anything to Karin Wiman either about her visit to London and the happenings there.

It all stayed bottled up inside her, a scar that nobody else could see.

On Monday, 7 August, both she and Staffan went back to work. The previous evening they had sat down at long last and discussed their life together. It was as if both of them, without having mentioned it in advance, realised that they couldn’t start another working year without at least beginning to talk about the decline of their marriage. What Birgitta regarded as the major breakthrough was that her husband raised the question of their almost non-existent sex life of his own accord, without her having put the idea into his head. He regretted the situation and was horrified not to have the desire or the ability. In response to her direct question he said that no one else attracted him. It was simply a matter of a lack of desire, which worried him but was something he usually preferred not to think about.

‘What are you going to do about it?’ she asked. ‘We can’t live another year without touching each other. I simply couldn’t take it.’

‘I’ll try to get help. I don’t find it any easier than you do. But I also find it difficult to talk about.’

‘You’re talking about it now.’

‘Because I realise that I have to.’

‘I hardly know what you’re thinking any more. I sometimes look at you in the morning and think that you’re a stranger.’

‘You express yourself better than I ever could. But I sometimes feel exactly the same thing. Perhaps not as strongly.’

‘Have you really accepted that we could live the rest of our lives like this?’

‘No. But I’ve avoided thinking about it. I promise to call a therapist.’

‘Do you want me to come with you?’

He shook his head. ‘Not the first time. Later, if necessary.’

‘Do you understand what this means to me?’

‘I hope so.’

‘It’s not going to be easy. But with luck we’ll be able to get past this. It’s been a bit like wandering through a desert.’