Mai Jia - Decoded

At first, with his head bent, he didn’t realize I was watching him, but after eating, as he stood up to leave, our eyes met. At that moment, a spark of something suddenly appeared in his eyes, as if life had just been returned to them. Turning towards me, he moved closer, with a kind of robotic movement; a shadow of pain clung about his face, like a beggar stumbling towards his chosen mark. Standing in front of me, he stared at me with two goldfish-like eyes, stretching out both his hands, as if begging for something. With great difficulty his trembling mouth sputtered out the following words: ‘Notebook, notebook, notebook. . ’

I was scared out of my wits, at a complete loss. Fortunately the duty nurse had noticed what was happening and quickly rushed over to extricate me. Immediately she started consoling him — then, putting her arm around him, she guided him step by step out of the room and into the darkness of the corridor. He continued to look back and forth between her and me.

Afterwards, my father told me that it didn’t matter who it was, but if your eyes met his, he would move towards you and ask after his long-lost notebook as though somewhere behind your eyes he had caught a glimpse of it.

‘He is still searching for it then?’ I asked.

‘Yes, still searching,’ my father replied.

‘Didn’t you say that they had found it?’

‘Yes, it was found,’ my father said. ‘but how could he know that?’

I couldn’t help but gasp in astonishment.

I thought that as a mentally crippled man, a man completely undone, it is perhaps no wonder that he had already lost his memory.

But there was something strange about this: the memory of his lost notebook seemed to be etched in his mind, carved in stone; he seemed to be almost brooding over it. He didn’t know that it had been found, he wasn’t aware of how time had cruelly passed him by. Nothing remained — nothing except for this one last recollection, this notebook. As the seasons passed, he staunchly held on, continuing to search for his notebook — for more than twenty years now. And the search continues. Even today.

What about tomorrow?

Might something unexpected happen?

Sadly, I think: maybe. . maybe. .

The third reason I wrote this final section has to do with the demands of my readers. There are those who are keen to believe in dark forces and evil plots. They believe in secret, clandestine meetings behind the scenes. They believe in all the conspiracies. These people, of course, hope that I will pick up my pen and write something in this fashion. The problem is that there are also many people, the majority, who are extremely practical — they like to get to the bottom of things, they want to understand everything thoroughly; they cannot help but keep turning things over and over in their minds. So they ask, what happened after BLACK? Indeed, this type of person seems to hold a grudge if they remain unsatisfied. They need to know. It was for this group that I decided to write this final section.

So, in the summer of the following year, I once again found myself paying a visit to Unit 701.

Just as time ate away at the colour of the gate to Unit 701’s compound, it also eroded some of the mystery surrounding the entire place, and eroded some of its imposing and yet serene nature. I used to find that being granted permission to pass through those gates was a painfully tedious and complicated affair. But this time the sentinel on duty simply inspected my credentials (my national ID card and reporter’s pass), instructed me to register my name in rather a nondescript logbook, and that was it. It was so easy that I couldn’t help but think that something was amiss, as if the guard was neglecting his duty or something. But once I made it deeper into the compound, these misgivings soon disappeared. Before me, in the large courtyard, peddlers hawked their goods, temporary workers idled about; everyone looked rather carefree and unconcerned, as though they were in some uninhabited sector. It was a veritable picture of bucolic simplicity.

I am not especially fond of the traditional image of Unit 701, but nor do I like seeing what it has become: it made me feel as though I were stepping on something insubstantial, like air. However, after asking about, I discovered that there was yet another inner courtyard within Unit 701’s complexes and I had simply stepped into the newly constructed residential area. This courtyard within a courtyard was like a cave inside a larger cave. Not only was it not easy to find, but if you did, you would not even notice that you had entered it. The sentinels on guard in this sector were like spectres. They would appear in front of you suddenly and without warning, striking a rather threatening and chilling pose, like an imposing ice sculpture towering up before you. They would forbid you to draw any closer. They seemed, in fact, almost afraid that you would come closer, as though the very warmth from your body would melt them; as if they really were made of ice and snow.

I spent ten days at Unit 701. As you can imagine, I saw Vasili, whose real name is Zhao Qirong. I also saw Rong Jinzhen’s no longer young wife, whose full name is Di Li. She was still a security officer. Her tall frame had been worn down somewhat by the passing of the years but she was still much taller than most people. She had no children, no parents; all she had was Rong Jinzhen, whom she considered to be both at the same time. She told me that her greatest trouble at present was her inability to resign from active duty, given the nature of her position. However, once her resignation was accepted, she planned to make her way to the Lingshan nursing home immediately, where she would spend every day seated beside Rong Jinzhen. Until that time came, she could only spend her annual leaves with him, about a month or two in total per year. I don’t know if it was because she had worked for such a long time as a security officer, or because she had spent so much time alone, but she gave me the impression of someone even more detached and reticent than Rong Jinzhen. To be frank, even though both Vasili and Di Li should be considered good people, they didn’t really help me all that much; nor did anyone else, save one. It seemed as though most of the people in Unit 701 weren’t really willing to drag up the tragic tale of Rong Jinzhen, and even if they did, their reminiscences would be fraught with errors and contradictions, as though the tragedy itself had made them forget that which they should have remembered. It was as though because they didn’t want to talk about it, they couldn’t. That is a very effective means to leave a story buried in the past.

On one of the first evenings of my stay I paid a visit to Rong Jinzhen’s wife. But because she wasn’t really forthcoming, I returned to the guest house soon afterwards. Once back in my room, I began to go through the few notes I had taken when a complete stranger, who must have been about thirty years of age, burst into my room. Introducing himself as an administrator from the security office by the name of Lin, he began to badger me with questions. I must say he was really rather unpleasant towards me, even searching through my room and luggage without permission. Of course, I knew that the result of his search would only make him believe and trust me — that I was here to praise and eulogize one of their own, the hero Rong Jinzhen — so I let him proceed with his investigation without making a fuss. The problem was that even after he searched everything, he didn’t trust me. He began to interrogate me again, making things very difficult, and finally telling me that he was going to confiscate all of my credentials — my reporter’s pass, my work permit, my ID card and writer’s association ID — as well as my tape recordings and notebooks. He had to investigate me further was all he said. I asked when I could expect to have my documents returned, but all he told me was that would depend upon the outcome of his investigation.