When she had calmed down a little she got up, put on a long undershirt, went to the kitchen and made some tea. She heard Paul’s words again: Your mother was poisoned. Like something said in a film. She repeated the words in her head several times. Whispered them out loud. Poisoned. No, things were not as simple as they had seemed at the Thai restaurant. Was the question of who was guilty really only important if Mama could be saved as a result? The longer she thought about it, the more uncertain Yin-Yin became. Apart from that, there was the second point on which her opinion was different from her brother’s: Why shouldn’t Sanlitun help them if the company had really caused the illnesses of Mama, Mrs. Ma, and Mrs. Zhuo? It wouldn’t take a great deal of money to pay for better care for them. It was not a crime to ask for compensation; the worst that could happen was that they said no.
She wondered if she should call Paul. She had grown to like him over the two days in Yiwu. She was grateful that he had stayed with her father, and had been glad when he rang yesterday and accepted the invitation to her concert. She was sorry that she had upset him with her reaction in the restaurant, but what had he expected? Simple gratitude for his help? She did not think that he was so naïve.
It was just before three in the morning when she picked up the phone.
“Paul Leibovitz speaking.” His voice did not sound as though she had woken him.
“I’m sorry to disturb you in the middle of the night, but I was afraid that you would be taking an early morning flight to Hong Kong.”
“That’s what I plan to do,” he said coldly.
“I’ve thought about our discussions, and wanted to ask if you would come with me to see my parents in Yiwu today.”
“What for?” He was still annoyed, and did not bother to hide his feelings.
“To talk to my father. I don’t know if he will believe me, and how he will react. You’ll be able to explain things better, and besides . . .”
“Besides?”
“I thought that if we had the time, we could ask around the village to find out who else has fallen sick in the last few months.”
“Yin-Yin, no matter what we find out, it won’t make your mother well again.”
“I know.”
“You said that you weren’t interested in anything else.”
Was he being annoying or self-righteous? “Do you hold that against us?” she retorted indignantly. “Our first thoughts are for ourselves and our mother. Is that a bad thing?”
“If I’m right, then this is not just about your family.”
Yin-Yin felt herself getting angry. “Are you so sure you would have behaved differently if you had been in our position?”
He said nothing.
“You have no right to accuse us of anything.”
Still no reply.
“I say this to you honestly: Even if I could, I don’t want to expose some environmental scandal. I don’t want to fight a large chemical company. If your suspicions are right, then I simply hope that the authorities fence off the lake and that Sanlitun pays us a small compensation of its own accord, without a court case. That would make life a little easier for my parents. I’m not interested in the rest.” She paused for a moment before she repeated her request. “Will you come with me later today or not?”
“Yes,” he said without hesitation.
When Yin-Yin woke in the gray light of morning she was unsure for the first few seconds if she had dreamt the conversation with Paul or if it had really happened. She immediately felt her head pounding. A bad sign. She only had this kind of headache when she was extremely tired or anxious. Her brother would be very angry with her, and not speak to her for days. There were not many situations in which she acted against his advice, and actively defied him. She felt like canceling the trip but it would be an embarrassing loss of face in front of Paul. She had to see her father anyway, and Paul would be a great help with talking to him. The rest could wait.
Paul had organized a car and a driver. They met just after nine in the morning on Yanan Xi Lu in front of the Hilton Hotel and traveled on the highway toward Yiwu. He looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes and he yawned often.
“Christine sends her greetings,” he said, as though he was trying to be conciliatory after the previous night’s conversation.
“Thank you. She’s probably not very happy that you’re traveling to Yiwu again with me, and staying on in Shanghai.”
“No, she’s not.”
“Have you told her about the laboratory test results?”
“The gist of it.”
“What did she say?”
“She can’t believe it; she thinks the laboratory made a mistake.” Before Yin-Yin could reply he added, “That was a very beautiful concert yesterday evening.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“I especially liked the Beethoven sonata.”
“Thank you.”
“Did you play it for your mother?”
“What makes you think that?” she asked, astounded.
He shrugged. “I don’t know. Just a feeling. I’ve heard it played often, but rarely with such intensity. But maybe it’s just me. I thought about her many times during the concert.”
“I dedicated the whole evening to my mother,” Yin-Yin said quietly, aware once more of why she was sitting in the car on the way to Yiwu.
“What does your boyfriend do? What was his name again?”
“Johann Sebastian Weidenfeller. He’s a manager with a German pharmaceuticals firm and is head of the Shanghai and South China office.”
“With a name like that he must know something about music.”
“Yes. His father is a professor at a conservatory.”
“How long has he lived in China?” Paul asked.
“For almost ten years. He spent a year in Nanjing while he was at university as well.”
“How long have you known each other?”
“Almost two years. We met in the Hyatt Hotel. I used to play regularly in the hotel lounge.”
“How long have you been together?”
“Hmm. Well, you could say that he didn’t waste any time,” she said, with an embarrassed smile.
“That’s the impression he gives.”
“You don’t like him?”
“No,” he said matter-of-factly.
“But you don’t know him at all.”
“I do,” Paul shot back in a decided tone.
“Have you met before?” Yin-Yin asked in surprise.
“No. I don’t know him personally, but I know people like him.”
“Are you always so quick to judge?”
“Not really. Christine actually thinks that I take far too much time to do so. But with some people I don’t need long to form an opinion of them.”
What a strange person, Yin-Yin thought. He surprised her with his sensitivity one moment, then with his heavy-handed judgments the next. She wanted to ask Paul exactly what he had against her boyfriend, but decided against it at the last moment. What could he possibly say to her apart from giving his superficial impressions of Johann? She did not want to ask him to expand on his presumptuous statement by asking more questions.
“I’m sorry,” Paul said after a pause. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I’m sure he has many good qualities.” When Yin-Yin did not react, he added, “He must have, if you love him.”
She looked out of the window without really seeing anything. At some point her eyes closed and she slept until the driver woke her to ask for directions shortly before they arrived.
Da Long listened to Paul’s detailed report without any reaction at first. After a few minutes his left eye started twitching and he pressed his lips together with such force that they remained white and bloodless for some seconds after he released them again.
When Paul had finished talking, Da Long said nothing for such a long time that Yin-Yin grew frightened.
“Papa?” she said carefully, after some time.
He nodded. “Are yo
u sure?”
“The laboratory’s findings are clear,” Paul replied calmly. “I can’t think of any other way that so much mercury could get into Min Fang’s body.”
Da Long shook his head helplessly. “H-h-how could that happen? It must have been an accident, mustn’t it?” His words sounded more like a plea, an entreaty, than a mere question.
“Probably.”
“D-d-do you think they didn’t notice?”
“I can’t imagine so, with that amount.”
“W-w-why did no one warn us? Why did they let us carry on fishing there?”
His stammer, the disbelieving look, full of questions. Yin-Yin felt the pressure of tears in her eyes. Her father looked as despairing as he had done on the day her mother had been taken to hospital, a little man, collapsed into himself, defenseless as a child. It hurt.
“Do you know who else in the village has fallen sick in the last few months?” she asked.
He looked at her in surprise. “N-n-no. Since Mama fell ill I’ve barely been out. And we hardly get any visitors. If you want to find out about that you’ll have to go from house to house in the village. Start with the Zhangs. I often saw their daughter at the lake. The Jiangs too. And the Guos. Mama used to talk about them often.”
Yin-Yin wondered if it would be better to go on her own. A Westerner by her side could make people suspicious and make the neighbors more reluctant than usual to open up about their private lives. She wanted to start with the Zhangs, without Paul, and see how far she got. She had played with Feng, the daughter, often as a child, but they had grown apart after school.
The Zhangs lived at the more populated end of the village, where Yin-Yin had not been for years. It looked just as she remembered; there were wooden benches by some of the front doors, red lanterns hanging from some of the houses and laundry lines full of shirts and trousers in front of others. Chickens pecked in the sand for grain in between the buildings. A man was squatting in one corner blowing continuously at a pile of glowing coals with a metal sheet on top, with sweet potatoes cooking on it. When he heard her approach he looked up; his left eye was milky white and the other eye was missing; the eyelid hung loosely like a scrap of cloth. The image of the animal carcasses by the lake that Paul had described flashed into Yin-Yin’s head, and she thought about the dead cats. She walked into the small square with the dried-up well in the middle. Four old men and women who she did not know were sitting in the shade cast by a wall; they watched her as she approached. When she looked at them more closely she noticed that two of them were staring past her with fixed expressions. She was not sure if they were aware of anything at all. Their hands were trembling. No one returned her greeting. She repeated her “ni hao” but they remained silent.
The village in which she had spent most of her childhood and youth began to seem stranger to her with each passing minute. Yin-Yin was relieved when she finally found Mrs. Zhang, who recognized her immediately.
“Yin-Yin! Have you eaten? Come in. Sit down. How are you?”
Mrs. Zhang was a small plump woman with red cheeks who had always had time and a smile for the children of the village. She offered Yin-Yin a chair and they both sat down at the kitchen table. Gradually the memories returned. The cold and damp winter afternoons that she had spent sitting in front of the stove wrapped in blankets. The delicious pancakes that Mrs. Zhang had made; the rare smell of roasted chestnuts.
“How is your mother?” Mrs. Zhang wanted to know. She put a plateful of biscuits, a Thermos flask of tea, and two cups on the table.
“Not well.”
“I heard what happened. I’m so terribly sorry.”
Yin-Yin nibbled a biscuit. It was stale and dry, and tasted as dusty as the roasted silkworms that her father sometimes served. “Are you all well, though?”
“I’m fine. My husband too.”
“And Feng?” Yin-Yin asked, sounding relieved. Maybe it was just coincidence after all, and Paul’s suspicion was unfounded.
Mrs. Zhang sighed. “We’re worried about Feng.”
“Why? Where does she live now?”
“She lived with us until just before her son was born. Now she lives with her husband in Guangdong province.”
“I didn’t even know that she had a child,” Yin-Yin said, surprised. “Who looks after the boy?”
“He’s dead. He died a week after he was born.” Mrs. Zhang wiped tears from her eyes. “Our only grandchild. He was born a cripple. I was there for his birth in the hospital; I saw him. He looked terrible. Like a . . .” Her voice trailed off and she started to cry.
Yin-Yin took her hand. She felt sorry that she had asked her question. “I’m sorry. No one told me.”
“It’s okay. You have your own troubles.”
“What was wrong with Feng’s son?”
“He was born blind and deaf. His heart was much too big and his hands and feet were deformed. The birth was difficult. Feng won’t be able to have any more children now,” Mrs. Zhang said, her voice growing unsteady again. She swallowed a few times before she continued. “Things like that happen, the doctors said. It’s fate. Just like the Bas’ daughter. The only two young women who stayed on in the village give birth to cripples. There’s a curse on this place, Yin-Yin, I’m telling you. You did the right thing to go away early.”
“What happened to the Bas’ grandchild?” Yin-Yin asked cautiously.
“It’s a girl. She’s blind and was also born with a heart defect, but has survived, so far anyway. Didn’t you know that?”
Yin-Yin shook her head. “I don’t know the Bas at all. They only moved here when I had already gone to Shanghai. Which house do they live in?”
“They live with their daughter and the child in Yiwu now. Near People’s Hospital Number Two. I heard that the little one often has to go to the hospital.”
“Were Feng and the Bas’ daughter good friends?”
“Not very close.”
Yiwu felt nausea rising and her heart racing. Just like in the few minutes before an examination at the conservatory or an audition for the symphony orchestra. She no longer doubted that Paul’s theory was right; she only wondered if she wanted to know everything. The more people the poison in the lake had victimized, the lower the chances were of some small damages being paid. Sanlitun would never admit to the wrongdoing and pay compensation to the whole village. What was the use of knowledge if they could do nothing with it? She was a young woman dreaming of a career as a musician; not a career really; all she wanted was to play in an orchestra and live modestly from her music. She did not need to own an apartment or a car. She didn’t want much. If she met the right man she would want to have a child and bring it up in the hope that it would have a life no worse than her own. She did not want to concern herself with toxic chemicals in a lake. She did not want to find out any more about poisoned fish, dead cats, and crippled newborn babies. She didn’t even want to know how the poison had come to be in the water; whether it was an accident, an oversight, or a coldly deliberate action. She did not want to know who was responsible. She did not have what it took to be a hero.
“I’m very sorry,” she said, standing up. “I hope Feng gets well soon.”
Paul and her father sat quietly on the small verandah while Yin-Yin told them what she had found out, in a breathless rush.
“Could the mercury also have something to do with the deformed babies?” she asked Paul.
He nodded. “It’s one of the poisons that can penetrate the placenta and damage the embryo. That happened in Japan too. I read through everything again.”
“H-h-how did the mercury end up in the ocean then?” Da Long asked.
“Chisso, a Japanese chemicals firm, dumped it there over several years.”
“I-i-it wasn’t an accident?” her father asked, astounded.
“No.”
“Th-th-they knew what they were doing?”
“Yes. The connection between the poison and the sick and dying wasn’t immediately clear,
but even after the tests had proved it, they continued pouring mercury into the sea for years.”
Da Long’s interest in the Minamata disaster grew with every sentence. He was sitting up straight and listening carefully. “What did the fishermen do?”
“They sued Chisso.”
“And then?”
“The case dragged on for years.”
“Were people punished in the end?”
“Not as far as I know. But the company had to pay damages.”
“H-h-how much?”
“Many, many millions. Nearly a hundred million US dollars, if I’m not mistaken.”
The father looked at his daughter expectantly.
She did not feel like talking. She wanted to go back to Shanghai. She wanted to practice for the symphony orchestra audition.
Da Long stood up. “I’ll look for a lawyer then.”
Yin-Yin cast a shocked look at Paul. “You what?”
“I’ll sue them. If they are guilty of causing Mama’s illness then they must be punished.”
“But, Papa, what do you imagine will happen?”
“I’ll find a lawyer who will represent me.”
“Xiao Hu says that will be impossible. No one will take this case. It’s much too dangerous.”
“What does your brother know about it?” he said angrily.
“Papa!” she protested. “He’s a lawyer.”
“I don’t care. I’ll find one.”
“Sanlitun is a big company. We can’t win in a case against them,” she said, repeating her brother’s words.
“Maybe not,” he murmured, barely audible. “But we must try. Let them see, we’re not going to be pressured.”
“Do you know a lawyer in Yiwu?” Paul whispered to her.
“How would I know any lawyers?” she replied curtly. “I know a journalist who works for the People’s Daily in Yiwu.”
“How do you know him?”
“He’s a friend. We were in the same class.”
“Maybe he can help us?”
“How?”
Paul ignored her question. “Can you ask him if we could meet for dinner this evening?”
Yin-Yin hesitated. She did not know where Paul was heading with this.