Peter May - The Fourth Sacrifice

His mouth was dry as he righted the armchair and sat on the edge of it to read the letter. It was dated May 15th, 1995.

My Dear Cousin Tao,

I wrote to cousin Liu in San Francisco in search of your address, but since the death of his father he was no longer sure where you were living. He was, however, almost certain that you were still teaching at the University of Berkeley, and as I was able to confirm this on the Internet I am writing to you now.

You are probably not aware that my mother died about six weeks ago. She was nearly ninety. She had had a good life, and the end was peaceful. It was only when I was going through her things last week that I came across the enclosed diary. There was a letter with it, from your mother, dated 1970, which I have kept. In it she asked her sister to see that you got her diary. It covers the years after you went to America.

At first I did not understand why my mother had not done as her sister requested. That is, until I started to read the diary. I am sorry that I did so. I did not mean to invade your privacy. As you will see, it is written as a personal account to you. I did not read it all. In truth, I think I would have found it difficult to do so.

I suppose my mother was trying to protect you, but I think she should have sent it, none the less. Although it might be she was afraid that it would not have reached you at that time. And perhaps with the passage of time she thought it better to leave well alone.

However, it all now seems like such a very long time ago, and I think you have the right to know what happened. So here is the diary.

Please write to me to let me know how you are. Did you ever marry? Do you have children? I have a daughter who is at university now. If you should ever return to Beijing, I would very much like to see you again after all these years. I remember you only as a teenager, when I was not much older myself.

With all my very best wishes.

Your faithful cousin,

Yang Shouqian

Li was aware of the letter trembling slightly in his hand. Somewhere, just ahead, there was a door that he felt certain must open on to enlightenment. And in his hand he held, if not the key, then the intimation of its existence. He had the letter, but where was the diary? He had no idea what it looked like, whether it was large or small, black, red, blue … He laid the letter carefully on the table and cleared the bookshelves, checking each and every book, stripping the covers off hardbacks in case they concealed the diary underneath. Nothing.

He turned then to the piles of books and magazines under the window. Again he found nothing that remotely resembled a diary. He stood in the centre of the room and looked hopelessly around the disarray. He could not think where else it might be concealed. He crossed to pick up the letter again and felt the faintest of creaks beneath his foot. And paused. He stepped back and then rocked forward again. But this time there was nothing. Had he imagined it? And, anyway, what if he hadn’t? Floors creaked. Li followed again the line of the linoleum around the edges of the room with his eyes. If Yuan Tao had hidden anything under it, he had not envisaged requiring quick or easy access. But still, Li figured, if he had hidden something under the floor in the other apartment, might he not have done the same here? His earlier stab of disappointment became a spur of hope and anticipation.

It took him nearly twenty minutes to clear all the furniture and books to one end of the room so that he could pull back the linoleum. It had stuck a little to the floorboards around the edges, then as he rolled it back, he saw that there was a layer of old newspapers underneath it. He checked the dates and saw that they were all about six months old — just around the time Yuan Tao would have taken possession of the apartment. He rolled the linoleum right up to the furniture, then swept the newspapers aside, clearing a space in the middle of the floor where he had felt the boards creak underfoot. Immediately he saw where a single board had been lifted at a join, cut about twelve inches from it, and then nailed down again. Li had no idea whether Yuan had cut it, or whether it had been done long before by some tradesman accessing cables or pipes. He had no idea, either, how he was going to lift it again.

He searched the apartment for something with which he could prise up the floorboard, eventually finding a small box of tools in the cupboard under the sink. Taking a stout screwdriver, he drove it between the boards and forced them apart, levering the cut board upwards. The wood splintered, and the nails groaned as they were forced free of the joist. Eventually the twelve-inch length of board sprang free and clattered away across the floor. Li found himself looking into a space made dark by his own shadow. He moved so that he was not in his own light and saw, among the deadening rubble, the gleam of something plastic and shiny. He took a handkerchief from his pocket and reached in to lift out a small red book wrapped in clear plastic. For a long time he kneeled there, staring at it, hearing the sound of his own breath rasping in the silence of the apartment. A tiny rivulet of sweat ran down his forehead and dripped from his brow on to the bare floorboards.

*

The duty officer at Section One was astonished to see Li coming down the corridor on the top floor. He checked his watch. It was after 2 a.m. He had just been to refill his flask with hot water and was on his way to make a mug of green tea. He hurried into the detectives’ office after Li. A couple of detectives looked up in surprise. ‘Either you’re very early boss, or you’re very late,’ the duty officer said.

But all Li said was, ‘I don’t want to be disturbed. For any reason.’ And he slammed the door of his office shut behind him.

July 17th, 1966

A boy whom I recognised as one of your old schoolfriends came to our house this morning. His name is Tian Jingfu, a pudgy boy whom I seem to remember you called Pigsy. Your father remembered him, too, as a former pupil. Not a very bright one, he said. Anyway, now he wears a red arm band. He is one of the hung wei ping , the Red Guard activists who are spreading the word of Chairman Mao. He told us that all teachers were to report back to the No. 29 Middle School. Your father has not been there since classes were suspended in June. I do not know why Tian Jingfu was sent. He is no longer at the school.

When your father returned, he told me that da-zi-bao posters had been pasted up on all the walls by the pupils, who are being encouraged to criticise their teachers. When he and the other teachers got there the children were all painting slogans. They stopped what they were doing and watched their teachers with great caution, as if they were afraid that they might be punished. But your father said that when they realised the teachers no longer had power, they started to taunt them, calling them ‘rightists’ and ‘counter-revolutionaries’. There were several posters that mentioned your father by name.

You probably do not recall that your father was denounced as a ‘rightist’ in 1958 and sent to work in the countryside for six months. We thought that was all behind us — until today.

A meeting was held in the square and a cadre from the party addressed the whole school and told them it was now the duty of every student and every teacher to take part in the ‘Anti-Four Olds’ campaign. The ‘Four Olds’, he said, were old ideas, old superstitions, old customs, old bourgeois life-styles. The worst exponents of the Four Olds, he said, were persons in authority taking the capitalist road. Then everyone was told to go home.

Your father believes he will be all right because he has already been punished as a ‘rightist’ and can claim that he has been reformed through labour. But he is always the optimist. I am not so sure. I am just happy that you will not be a part of this. And although you are far away, at least I feel I can talk to you by keeping this record of what is happening. I will try to keep it up to date so that like a photo album you will have a record of your family. But I am scared, Tao. Not so much for me as for your father.