He repeated his question.
“I don’t know. My husband was arrested the day before yesterday. I don’t know when he’ll be released.”
“Arrested?” Zhang asked, looking as surprised as he could. He was not a good actor.
“Yes, arrested. Two days ago three policemen came and took him away. They wanted to talk to him, they said. I have no idea what about. He can’t have done anything recently. He’s been sick.”
“Sick?” The word slipped out of him much too quickly and loudly, but she had either not noticed his agitation or had decided that it didn’t matter who this stranger was.
“With stomach problems.”
“Since when?”
She thought for a moment. “For quite some time now. He couldn’t even work in the last few days. He’s been lying in bed all the time.”
XVI
The taxi took them to Shekou via the Guangshen Expressway. The traffic had gotten heavier with every passing kilometer; they were only moving very slowly now and jolted to a sudden standstill every few meters, making the photo of Mao hanging from the rearview mirror dance back and forth wildly. The air in the car was sticky; the air-conditioning was merely blowing warm air into the back; they had rolled the windows down, but even the breeze created as they drove along was warm. Zhang watched the young woman and her baby from the corner of his eye. The child was half asleep, dozing on the lap of the mother, who was looking out of the window silently. She had given short, brusque replies to his few questions about her husband. He felt sorry for her and he felt a pall come over him at the sight of her.
“I used to work there,” she said, tipping her head toward the factory grounds not far from the expressway.
“What did you do there?”
“I painted wings.”
“You painted wings? What kinds of wings?”
“Angel wings. Small white angels made of clay were delivered, and we had to paint them. Red cheeks, blue eyes, blond hair, and golden wings. They were sold to America. Our boss said the people there would hang them on trees. I don’t know if that’s true.”
“And?” Zhang asked.
“And what?”
“I mean, what was the work like? Were you treated well?”
She turned to face Zhang and looked at him as though he were mad. “What strange questions you ask.” After a pause she added, “It was fine. I got thrown out when they noticed that I was pregnant.” She turned away again and looked out of the window.
Zhang slid around on the backseat trying to find a position in which his legs did not hurt so much. Ever since the young woman had, without knowing, provided her husband with an irrefutable alibi, his whole body had rebelled. The pain in his knee had increased with every passing minute; he felt it creeping slowly but mercilessly and relentlessly up his back; it would reach his head in a few minutes. The old Chinese physician whom he had consulted regularly for years and who, with great dedication, brewed him herbal teas that tasted awful, claiming that they would do Zhang good, was proved right yet again. Everything was connected to everything else; nothing in the body, or, as the doctor liked to add, in life, was to be viewed in isolation. The stomach problems, the nausea, the rheumatism pains, yes, even the knee, was directly connected to his soul and the burden that it bore. It had not taken much for the physician to convince him of this, but Zhang was still constantly surprised at how quickly his body reacted and how little he could outwit or deceive it as he grew older.
The old man claimed that this was a good thing; the detective should count himself lucky that his body was so sensitive. He just had to stop ignoring the signs it was giving him. Zhang was not so sure. There were days like this one when he would have liked to be a little more robust, would have preferred to have a body that reacted a little more leniently to stress. He knew exactly what his knee and his back were protesting against. An innocent man was sitting in a harshly lit, white-tiled room in the basement of the police headquarters and was in the process of signing a confession that had every likelihood of leading to his own death sentence.
Even with the cabdriver’s help, he had difficulty finding his friend’s restaurant. He had not been there for at least half a year, and the street looked different now. On the corner, a large supermarket had just opened on what had once been a piece of empty land. It was flanked by two new pink-tiled buildings that had gilded columns and swan statues at the entrances. The two buildings that had stood there six months ago had disappeared.
The restaurant owner greeted Zhang in a friendly manner but looked skeptical when he sized up the young woman and child. Zhang could see that he did not believe that they were distant relations who needed a bed for a couple of days, and a job if possible. He seemed to be calculating what advantages and disadvantages doing this favor could bring him. After few moments’ thought, he clearly concluded that the pros outweighed the cons; doing a police detective a small favor could not possibly be a mistake. He led them up to the second floor. There was a bed free there and Zu’s wife could help out in the kitchen while the baby was sleeping.
Zhang thanked him, turned down an invitation to stay for dinner in a pleasant but firm manner, and promised to be in touch over the next few days.
He had hoped that the pain in his body would recede a little, at least for a time, after doing this good deed, but he had fooled himself. Now he felt as if someone was sitting on his shoulders, striking him on the head over and over again.
He went to the supermarket, bought a bottle of water and a packet of aspirin, sat down in the pedestrian area in the shade cast by a meter-high plastic inflatable beer bottle, and thought about the possible courses of action left to him.
So many thoughts flitted through his head that he had trouble concentrating. He had to find out more about Michael Owen in order to get any further. Who could help him? Who knew how Michael Owen had spent his time in Shenzhen? Had he always just come over from Hong Kong for the day or had he stayed the night here? Did he have any friends or acquaintances in the city? Zhang had no idea where he should start looking. Maybe Owen’s parents knew more, but they would only talk to Paul at best, not to him. There were probably clues about contacts in Shenzhen on his computer, but Zhang had already asked Paul for help with that and not heard anything back. He really didn’t want to ask him again, not because of his pride but because Paul had told him quite clearly that he did not want to have anything more to do with this. He had sworn to himself that he would respect this wish, but there was no one else whom he could turn to right now.
“What will this cost me?” His friend’s words still echoed in his ears. It was a strange thing for Paul to say. Paul was not the type who subjected everything he did to a cost-benefit analysis beforehand; he was often remarkably generous. He must have felt very much under pressure from Zhang to have responded as he did. Apart from that, the question was quite justified. The probability of them finding Michael Owen’s murderer on their own was very small, and even if they got on the trail of the murderer, it would be practically impossible to bring him before a court. This much was certain: Whoever was behind this had powerful friends in Shenzhen.
As his melancholy worsened, he closed his eyes and tried breathing calmly to meditate for a short period to soothe his nerves, but he could not do it. Instead he saw the young woman and her child before him once again. The image of her cowering on the bed, crouched with her child in her arms and looking at him with fear and suspicion, would not leave his head. Now he knew what he had found so moving about this woman. It was the deep suspicion, distress, and loneliness in her eyes. It reminded him of the frightened look in his own eyes when he was her age. But he was a child of the Cultural Revolution; he had been forced to spend years in the countryside; he had seen Hu die and experienced things that he had not even told Mei or Paul about before. She, on the other hand, was a child of the new era; more than a generation and the economic reforms lay
between them; she had left her village of her own accord and moved to the city to determine the course of her own life. Discovering a familiar fear in her eyes made him feel shaken and confused.
———
Zhang started at the sound of his cell phone ringing. A new era, an old fear.
“Zhang, where are you?”
Zhang had to swallow a few times before he could say anything.
Luo raised his voice. “Zhang, for God’s sake, can you hear me?”
“Not very well. My phone is running out of battery. I’m waiting for a taxi. Just left the doctor’s. My knee . . .”
“We have the murderer, Zhang,” his boss said, interrupting him. “It was that worker. He signed a confession an hour ago.”
Zhang did not know what Luo expected him to say. Congratulations? Well done? Liar? It wasn’t Zu; he had an alibi? Who are you covering up for? He could think of neither a stock phrase nor a Chinese saying so he said nothing.
“Did you hear what I just said?”
“Yes.”
“Zhang?” Luo’s voice now sounded severe, almost threatening.
“That’s . . . that’s . . . that’s . . . great news,” Zhang stuttered.
“You can tell your friend in Hong Kong. The parents are being told right now. And so the case is closed, Zhang.”
“It certainly looks like it,” Zhang replied.
“It doesn’t look like it, Zhang. It is.” After a brief pause he asked, “Are you coming back to the office now?”
If he said no, if he made up some reason not to go back to the police headquarters now and share in Luo and his other colleagues’ pleasure at the case being solved, then there would be no going back. Then he would have to start looking for work. He thought about Mei. He thought about his son. He thought about their apartment, having dinner together, and the wonderful gentle smile that often lit up his wife’s face when he cooked for her. He thought about the hours that he spent in front of the computer with Zheng playing chess together. What would it cost his family? Did he have the right to make them pay any price? If he, Zhang, fell foul of those in power in this city, if even one of those people felt threatened by him, his family would have to pay for it. That was how it had always been in China and that was how it was now. He felt his heart pounding more heavily. Did he have any chance of getting something out of it? He would have liked nothing better than to jab the red button of his cell phone and toss the phone straight into the fountain in the square at the end of the street. But that wouldn’t have changed anything. He had to make up his mind.
“Zhang?”
“Luo,” he said in a shaky voice. “Luo, I was just at the doctor’s. My knee. I can hardly take a step. You know my problem.” Zhang took a deep breath and continued. “He said it would be better if I moved as little as possible in the next few days. Lying down would be best, he said.”
Now it was Luo who was silent.
Did he suspect anything? Was he calculating if Zhang could still do any damage or were his thoughts somewhere else altogether?
“Hm,” was all Zhang heard. His battery beeped once more. He had to hurry.
“I’m sure I’ll be fine in three or four days. Call if you need me. I’ll be lying on the couch at home.”
Maybe it was this that allayed Luo’s doubts or maybe his boss had decided that Zhang was no longer a threat, no matter what he got up to. “All right. Get well soon,” he said, and hung up.
Zhang listened to the hiss of the phone for a moment before he put it back into his pocket with trembling hands.
Had he really made up his mind?
If Mei were in front of him now, he would not have been able to put into words why he was doing what he was doing. Because right now in Shekou, in a shabby room among all the bars and brothels, there was a young mother with a baby whose father was to be executed for a murder that he did not commit? Because he felt that he would be partly responsible if he did not try to find out who was responsible for the crime? Because as a Buddhist he feared the bad Karma that would result? Because he had looked away more than once before in his life when an innocent man had died? Because three miserable little peppercorns still haunted his dreams?
No, that all sounded much too honorable. He was anything but a hero. He was a human being, small and fearful, defenseless and vulnerable. A human being who wished he had a choice, who wished he could just hide away now, look away, or shout “kill the traitor” when he was ordered to, but he could not. Something in him revolted. It was that simple, that complicated.
Zhang tried to reach Paul. He let it ring through to voice mail, then he hung up. He did not want to leave a message. He wanted to speak to Paul; he tried again and again, without success. Where could his friend be? Why wasn’t he picking up his phone? He wanted to call Mei and let her know that he needed to go over to see Paul urgently and that he would be back by tomorrow at the latest, but his phone battery had finally run out. He would call his family from Paul’s phone in Hong Kong.
Zhang looked for a taxi and told the driver to take him to the pier by the quickest route possible. He could take one of the express ferries straight to Hong Kong from there.
Paul was now the only one who could help him.
XVII
The storm whipped up the sea so much that the Yum Kee, with its diesel engine, only made very slow progress. The ferry was almost empty, and Paul, unusual for him, had taken a seat on the upper deck by the window. Heavy waves pounded the side of the ship and made the whole vessel shake. The white spray of the breaking waves slapped against the window with such force that Paul flinched when it first hit.
Everything indicated that a typhoon was on the way. He had not paid attention to the news; the authorities had probably already issued a warning.
Paul wondered if all his windows were closed and if the gutters on his roof terrace were clear. He had left home in such a hurry that he had even left his cell phone on the kitchen counter.
He did not quite know what he was doing. He had lived alone on Lamma for almost three years and had always found his own company sufficient; he had relished the quiet and solitude, had set up his world around him and never had the feeling that he missed anyone or anything, apart from Justin, of course. He was surprised and unsettled by his longing for Christine, his need to hear her voice and to see her, not tomorrow or the day after, but now, immediately. Did she mean more to him than he wanted to admit? Or had the death of Michael Owen, the photos and the letter that he had found on his computer stirred things up so much that he suddenly could no longer stand being alone?
Was missing her a betrayal of his son? What was he to do with all these new impressions and experiences? They were certainly not going to fall away from him, drop by drop, like the water on the window in front of him. They left traces and awakened longings. Could he stop them from overlaying and gradually dulling his memories of Justin?
He thought about his dark hallway, about the door frame with the markings, the rain boots and the raincoat, and felt that he would like to go straight back there if he could. He felt guilty, as though he had left his son alone at home, breaking his promise. He would have mango pudding with Christine; he would see her and calm down, and if he hurried he could still comfortably make the last ferry back to Lamma.
The journey to Hang Hau took much longer than Paul had expected, and the longer he spent on the metro, the clearer it became to him what he had let himself in for. Hang Hau, of all places. He, who went out of his way to avoid a group of even five or six hikers on Lamma because they were just too many people for him to cope with, was now making his way of his own accord to a satellite town with several hundred thousand inhabitants.
He was to get off at Hang Hau and go to Exit B1, where Christine had promised to pick him up. It had sounded quite simple on the phone. Now Paul stood lost on the platform, confused by the many different signs. He f
elt as if he were taking the Hong Kong metro for the first time. To the left was Chung Ming Court. Hau Tak Estate. On Ning Garden. Exit A1. A2. To the right for Wo Ming Court. Yuk Ming Court. La Cite Noble. Exit B2. B1.
Paul took the long, seemingly never-ending escalator and went through the turnstile hoping to see Christine immediately. Instead, he found himself looking into the faces of strangers waiting for others, and saw their eyes pass over him. They looked at the other people arriving and one face after the other lit up once they had met the eyes of a friend or acquaintance. He did not see Christine anywhere.
Paul walked hesitantly toward the exit. It had stopped raining, and he walked out onto the plaza but stopped abruptly as though he had come up against an invisible wall. One high-rise building after another stretched out in front of him in the night sky. He looked left and right: It was the same everywhere. Even though he had lived in Hong Kong for over thirty years, he had never seen such a concentration of tall buildings before. He leaned his head back and tried to count the number of stories in a building but lost count somewhere between twenty-five and thirty and gave up. There had to be fifty, maybe sixty stories.
He turned around and saw Christine coming toward him with quick, light steps. She was smiling at him, and he knew immediately that it had not been a mistake to come. Nothing else in the world soothed him as much as that smile did. He felt as if he had never seen her looking so beautiful before, even though she was wearing just a simple white T-shirt and floral pants in a light fabric that billowed around her legs with every movement. Before she could say anything he had taken her in his arms, feeling her slim, muscular body and her soft breasts. He stroked her hair to one side and kissed her carefully on the neck.