Peter May - Chinese Whispers

The receptionist shrugged and lifted a telephone on to the counter. Li dialled the number on the back of the card, and when he finally got through to an operator demanded to know why they would not process the transaction.

‘Your card has been cancelled,’ the operator told him.

‘Cancelled?’ Li was incredulous. He looked up to find the receptionist watching him. ‘That’s not possible. Who authorised the cancellation?’

‘I’m sorry, I am not at liberty to give out that information. Thank you for your enquiry.’ And the operator hung up.

Li stood smouldering, angry and humiliated. If they had somehow been able to cancel his credit card, there was a good chance that his bank account had also been frozen. Which meant he would not be able to access any cash, except for the few hundred yuan he carried in his wallet. The receptionist was unable to keep the smirk from her face. Li took the registration card from his father and tore it in half. ‘We’ve changed our minds,’ he said. And he took his father’s arm and led him back across the marble firmament towards the doors.

The old man was confused. ‘I don’t understand,’ he said. ‘What’s happening?’

‘They’re fucking with my life, Dad. They’re trying to ruin me and discredit me and grind me into the ground.’ He took a deep breath to regain his composure. ‘I’ll have to find you somewhere else to stay.’

‘I know what it’s like,’ his father said. ‘They did it to me, too. All those years ago. When I was “hatted” and paraded for public ridicule.’ He pulled on his son’s arm and made him stop, and looked up into his eyes with a directness Li had never seen there before. He found empathy in them. ‘Don’t let them break you, son. Not like they broke me. You have to fight them. I know that now. Your mother died fighting them. And I lived because I didn’t. And I’ve regretted it every day of my life since.’

* * *

Every west-facing twisted, knotted branch of every tree was edged with a golden pink. The faces of the old men, normally washed pale with a winter pallor, glowed in reflection of the dying day. Thoughts of cards and chess were turning to the bicycles stacked three deep along the fence, and the cold ride home in the fading light.

Old Dai did not seem unduly surprised to see Li, but was clearly fazed by the sight of his best friend’s brother standing there in the park in his fur hat and baggy duffle coat, clutching a battered overnight bag. He gave the older man a long look, then turned back to the final moves of his game. ‘You didn’t come to play chess,’ he said.

‘No,’ Li said. ‘I need a place for my father to stay overnight.’

Dai nodded without taking his eyes from the board. ‘Can your father not talk for himself?’

‘Yes, I can,’ said Li’s father.

Dai raised a hand over the board as if about to make a move, then changed his mind. ‘I hear you have been suspended, Li Yan.’

‘Word travels fast.’

‘A word whispered in the ear can be heard for miles.’ Dai moved his horse. ‘ Jiang si le ’, he said, and his opponent gasped his frustration. He immediately stood up and shook Dai’s hand, then nodded to Li and his father and headed off towards the bikes. Dai said, ‘My apartment is very small.’

Li said, ‘So is mine. And Margaret and the baby and my niece are already there.’

‘Where is Xiao Ling?’

‘She has been arrested for possession of cocaine.’

Lao Dai’s head lifted, and his eyes searched Li’s. ‘So now they are trying to destroy you.’

‘Succeeding, too.’

Dai nodded again. ‘Of course,’ he said, ‘Yifu’s brother is welcome in my house.’ He paused. ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’

Li said, ‘You can tell me what I should do?’

Lao Dai shook his head sadly. ‘When the blind lead the blind they will both fall into the water.’ He thought for a moment. ‘The Tao says, overcome by yielding. Unbend by being upright. Be full by being empty.’

Li’s father spoke for the first time, surprising them both. ‘Those who know the Tao do not need to speak of it. Those who are ever ready to speak of it, do not know it.’

Li almost smiled, in spite of everything. In other circumstances he might have enjoyed being a fly on the wall in Dai’s apartment tonight. The two old men were like oil and water. But his father was not finished. He said, ‘A wise person makes his own decisions, a weak one obeys public opinion.’ He turned his head to look at his son, and in his face Li saw for the first time in his life the encouragement of a father. And he knew that his father was telling him to put his trust in himself.

Dai was packing away his chess pieces. Li said to him. ‘Thank you for taking my father. I won’t forget it.’

Dai shrugged, without looking at him. ‘Don’t worry. I won’t let you.’

Li turned awkwardly back to his father, and could not think of anything appropriate to say. And to his father’s surprise, as well as his own, he found himself embracing the old man for the first time since he was a boy. Then his father had seemed like a giant. Now he was like a child, and Li was afraid to squeeze him too hard in case he broke.

They were holding Xiao Ling in the detention centre at Pau Jü Hutong, a white multi-storey block next to the forensic science building. It was the home of the Section Six interrogation unit. The light was fading, along with Li’s confidence, as his taxi pulled up in the hutong outside the centre. He could see fires burning in siheyuan courtyards, and smelled the sulphurous smoke of the coal briquets which were the standard fuel of the Beijing household. The hutong was busy, cyclists returning home from work, motorists inching their way along its crowded length, schoolkids with satchels chatting together in groups, spilling into the roadway and causing a chorus of bells and horns to sound. Their world kept turning, while Li’s had frozen on its axis. It was this constant reminder that while other people’s lives continued unaffected, he had become like a ghost moving amongst them, unseen, unable to make a difference, trapped somewhere between heaven and hell.

He had expected implacable faces, a thousand reasons — legal and bureaucratic — for not being allowed to see his sister. But the duty officer had nodded unhesitatingly and told Li to follow him down to the cells. He could have fifteen minutes, he was told.

Xiao Ling rose to her feet when Li walked into her cell, but the light of hope that burned briefly in her eyes died again when the door slammed shut behind him. They had given her white overalls and black canvas shoes to wear. She had no make-up on her face, and her complexion was pasty white, dark shadows smudging her eyes. She searched his face for some clue, some hope. And found neither.

‘Why am I here, Li Yan?’ she asked quietly.

‘You know why.’

‘No.’ She shook her head vigorously. ‘I know that they found cocaine in my locker, and that’s what gave them their excuse. But that’s not why I’m here, is it?’ Li could not find the words to answer her. So she provided them herself. ‘I mean, you don’t frame up some nobody worker on the production line of a car plant unless you have a good reason.’ She paused. ‘Like she’s the sister of the top crime cop in Beijing.’ A pained expression fell across her face like a shadow as she tried to understand. ‘Why, Li Yan? What have you done? What have I done?’

He said, ‘Did they search anyone’s locker other than yours?’

‘They didn’t need to. They said they had received a tip-off.’

He nodded. ‘I know the answer, but I still have to ask you …’