Birgitta changed over into Swedish. Ho frowned and shook her head. ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Are you sure? Or do you actually understand Swedish very well?’
‘If that were the case, surely I’d have spoken to you in Swedish.’
‘You must realise that I’m very unsure. You might find it advantageous to pretend that you don’t understand my language. I even wonder if you’re wearing a yellow raincoat to make it easier for somebody to see you.’
‘Why should I?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t know anything at all at the moment. Most important of course is that Hong Qiu wanted to warn me. But why should I turn to you for help? What can you do?’
‘Let me start with your last question,’ said Ho. ‘Chinatown is a world of its own. Even though thousands of English people and tourists wander around our streets – Gerrard Street, Lisle Street, Wardour Street, all the alleys – we only allow you to see the surface. Concealed behind your Chinatown is my Chinatown. It’s possible to hide away there, change identity, survive for months and even years without being discovered. Even if most of the people living here are Chinese who have become naturalised English citizens, the bottom line is that we all feel that we are in our own world. I can help you by giving you entry into my Chinatown, a place you would otherwise never be allowed into.’
‘What exactly should I be scared of?’
‘Ma Li wasn’t at all clear when she wrote to me. But you mustn’t forget that Ma Li was also scared. She didn’t say as much, but I could sense it.’
‘Everybody’s scared. Are you scared?’
‘Not yet. But I can be.’
Her mobile phone rang. She checked the display and stood up. ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked. ‘Which hotel? I have to go back to work.’
‘Sanderson.’
‘I know where that is. What room?’
‘One thirty-five.’
‘Can we meet tomorrow?’
‘Why do we have to wait that long?’
‘I can’t get away from work before then. I have a meeting this evening that I can’t skip.’
‘Is that really true?’
Ho took hold of Birgitta Roslin’s hand. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘A Chinese delegation is going to talk business with the bosses of several big British companies. I have to be there.’
‘Right now you’re the only one I can turn to.’
‘Call me tomorrow morning. I’ll try to get time off.’
Ho went out into the rain, her yellow coat fluttering as she walked. Birgitta Roslin stayed for quite some time, feeling incredibly weary, before walking back to her hotel, which of course was not the Sanderson. She still didn’t trust Ho, just as these days she mistrusted anyone vaguely Asian in appearance.
She ate in the hotel’s restaurant that evening. It had stopped raining by the time she finished dinner. She decided to go out to the park and sit for a while on the same bench that she and Staffan had sat on once upon a time.
She watched people coming and going. A young couple sat briefly on her bench, kissing and cuddling, followed by a man carrying yesterday’s paper, rescued from a rubbish bin.
She made another attempt to call Staffan on his sailing boat off Madeira, even though she knew it was a waste of time.
She noted how many fewer and fewer people were strolling through the park, and eventually stood up to return to her hotel.
Then she saw him. He came along one of the paths diagonally behind where she had been sitting. He was dressed in black and could only have been the man whose photo was taken by Sture Hermansson’s surveillance camera. He was walking straight towards her, carrying something shiny in his hand.
She screamed and took a step back. As he came closer, she fell over backwards and hit her head against the iron edge of the bench.
The last thing she saw was his face; it was as if her eyes had taken one more picture of him. Then she faded away into an all-embracing and silent darkness.
35
Ya Ru loved the shadows. He could make himself invisible there, just like the beasts of prey he both admired and feared. But others had the same ability. It had often occurred to him that young entrepreneurs were in the process of taking over the economy, and hence before long would be demanding a seat at the table where political decisions were made. Everybody starts in the shadows, where they can watch and observe without being seen.
But the shadow he was hiding behind on this particular evening in rainy London had a different aim. He watched Birgitta Roslin, sitting on a bench in a little park in Leicester Square. From where he was standing he could see only her back. But he didn’t dare risk discovery. He had already noticed that she was on her guard like a restless animal. Ya Ru didn’t underestimate her. If Hong Qiu had trusted Birgitta Roslin, he needed to take her extremely seriously.
He had been following her all day, ever since she turned up outside the building where Ho lived. He had been amused to realise he owned the restaurant where Ho’s husband Wa worked. They didn’t know that, of course – Ya Ru seldom owned anything under his own name. The Ming Restaurant belonged to Chinese Food, Inc., a limited company registered in Liechtenstein, where Ya Ru had placed his European restaurant portfolio. He kept a careful eye on the accounts and quarterly reports produced by young, gifted Chinese employees he had recruited from the top English universities. Ya Ru hated everything English. He would never forget what history told him. He was delighted to rob the country of talented young businessmen who had taken advantage of the best universities.
Ya Ru had never eaten a meal at the Ming Restaurant. He didn’t intend to do so on this occasion either. As soon as he had fulfilled his mission he would return to Beijing.
There had been a time in his life when he’d regarded airports with almost religious emotions. They were the modern equivalent of harbours. In those days Ya Ru had never travelled anywhere without a copy of The Travels of Marco Polo. The man’s fearless desire to investigate the unknown had been an inspiration. Nowadays he thought more and more that travelling was a pain, even if he did have a private jet and was usually spared the agony of hanging around in disconsolate and soul-destroying airports. The feeling that one’s mind was revitalised by all these sudden changes of location, the intoxicating delight of passing through time zones, was negated by all the pointless time spent waiting for departures or baggage. The neon-lit shopping malls at airports, the moving walkways, the echoing corridors, the ever-smaller glass cages in which smokers were crammed together, were not places where new thoughts or new philosophical ideas could be developed. He thought back to the time when people travelled by train or by transatlantic liners. In those days intellectual discussions and learned arguments had been taken for granted, as much a part of the accepted environment as luxury and idleness.
That was why he had fitted his private jet, the big Gulfstream he now owned, with antique bookshelves, in which he kept the most significant works of Chinese and foreign literature.
He felt like a distant relative – with no blood relationship, only a mystical one – of Captain Nemo, who travelled in his underwater vessel like a lone emperor without an empire but with a large library and a devastating hatred of the people who had ruined his life. It was believed that Nemo modelled himself after a vanished Indian prince who had opposed the British Empire. Ya Ru could feel an affinity to this, but what he really sympathised with was the gloomy and embittered figure of Nemo himself, the inspired engineer and widely read philosopher. He named the Gulfstream Nautilus II. An enlargement of one of the original etchings in the book, depicting Nemo with his reluctant visitors in the extensive library of the Nautilus, was displayed on the wall next to the entrance to the flight deck.
But now everything was about the shadows. He concealed himself efficiently and observed the woman he would have to kill. Another thing he had in common with Nemo was his belief in revenge. The necessity of revenge left its mark through history like a leitmotif.
It would all soon be over. Now
that he was in Chinatown in London, with raindrops falling on the collar of his jacket, it struck him that there was something remarkable about the end of this story taking place in England. It was from here that the Wang brothers had commenced their journey back to China, the country that only one of them would ever see again.
Ya Ru didn’t mind waiting when he was in control of the time involved, unlike at airports. This attitude often surprised his friends, who regarded life as all too short, created by a god that could seem like a miserable old mandarin who didn’t want the joy of existence to last too long. Ya Ru had argued that, on the contrary, the gods responsible for creating life knew exactly what they were doing. If humans were allowed to live too long, their knowledge would increase to such an extent that they would be able to see through the mandarins and join forces to exterminate them. A short life span prevents many revolutions, Ya Ru maintained. And his friends usually agreed, though they didn’t always understand his thinking.
Ya Ru always looked to animals when he wanted to understand his own behaviour and that of others. He was the leopard, and he was also the stallion that fought off all challengers in order to become the sole emperor.
If Deng was the colourless cat that hunted mice better than any other, Mao was the owl, the wise bird, but also the ice-cold raptor that knew exactly when to swoop down in silence and seize its prey.
His line of thought was broken by Birgitta Roslin standing up. During the day he had spent following her, one thing had become abundantly clear: she was scared. She was always looking around, never still. Worries were flowing constantly through her head. He would be able to make use of that observation, even if he hadn’t yet decided how.
But now she stood up. Ya Ru hung back in the shadows.
Then something happened he was totally unprepared for. She gave a start, screamed, then stumbled backwards and hit her head on a bench. A Chinese man stopped and bent down to investigate what had happened. Several other people came hurrying over. Ya Ru stepped out of the shadows and approached the group standing around the prostrate woman. Two police officers came running. Ya Ru pushed his way forward to get a better view. Birgitta Roslin sat up. She had evidently lost consciousness for a few seconds. He heard the police officers asking if she needed an ambulance, but she said no.
It was the first time Ya Ru had heard her voice. He memorised it – a deep, expressive voice.
‘I must have stumbled,’ he heard her saying. ‘I thought somebody was coming towards me. I was frightened.’
‘Were you attacked?’
‘No. It was just my imagination.’
The man who had frightened her was still there. Ya Ru noticed that there was a certain similarity between Liu Xan and this man, who by sheer coincidence had entered into a story he had nothing to do with.
Ya Ru smiled to himself. She is indeed scared and on her guard.
The police officers escorted Birgitta Roslin back to her hotel. Ya Ru remained in the background. But now he knew where she was staying. After checking once more that she was steady on her feet, the police officers walked off while she went in through the hotel doors. Ya Ru saw her being given her key by a receptionist who took it from one of the highest shelves. He waited a few more minutes before entering the hotel lobby. The receptionist was Chinese. Ya Ru bowed and held out a sheet of paper.
‘The lady who just came in, she dropped this in the street outside.’
The receptionist took the paper and put it into the empty mail slot. It was for room 614, on the very top floor of the hotel.
The sheet of paper was white, and blank. Ya Ru suspected that Birgitta would ask the receptionist who had handed it in. A Chinese man, she would be told. And she would become even more on edge. There was no risk to himself.
Ya Ru pretended to be reading a brochure advertising the hotel while thinking about how he could find out how long Birgitta Roslin was staying. The opportunity came when the Chinese receptionist disappeared into a back room and was replaced by a young Englishwoman. Ya Ru went up to the counter.
‘Mrs Birgitta Roslin,’ he said. ‘From Sweden. I’m supposed to pick her up and drive her to the airport. It’s not clear if she’s expecting to be picked up tomorrow or the day after.’
Without more ado the receptionist tapped away at the computer keyboard.
‘Mrs Roslin is booked in for three days,’ she said. ‘Shall I call her so that you can sort out when she needs to be collected?’
‘No, I’ll sort it out with the office. We don’t like to disturb our clients unnecessarily.’
Ya Ru left the hotel. It had started drizzling again. He turned up his collar and walked towards Gower Street to find a taxi. Now he didn’t need to worry about how much time he had at his disposal. A very long time has passed since all this began, he thought. A few more days until it reaches its inevitable conclusion are of no significance.
He hailed a taxi and gave the address in Whitehall where his company in Liechtenstein owned a flat he stayed at on his visits to England. He had often felt that he was betraying the memory of his forefathers by staying in London when he could just as well go to Paris or Berlin. As he sat in the taxi he made up his mind to sell the Whitehall flat and look for a new place in Paris.
It was time to bring that part of his life to a close as well.
He lay down on the bed and listened to the silence. He had insulated all the walls when he first bought the flat. Now he couldn’t even hear the distant hum of traffic. The only sound was the sighing of the air conditioner. It gave him the feeling of being on board a ship. He felt very much at peace.
‘How long ago was it?’ he said aloud into the room. ‘How long ago was it when this story that is now coming to a close first started?’
He did the calculation in his head. It was 1868 when San first sat down in his little room at the mission station. Now it was 2006. One hundred and thirty-eight years ago. San had sat down in the candlelight and meticulously chronicled the story of himself and his two brothers, Guo Si and Wu. It had begun the day they left their squalid home and set off on the long trek to Canton. There they had been exposed to a wicked demon in the guise of Zi. From then onward death followed them wherever they went. In the end the only one left alive was San, with his stubborn determination to tell his story.
They died in a state of deepest humiliation, Ya Ru thought. The succession of emperors and mandarins followed Confucius’s advice to keep the population on such a tight rein that rebellion could never be possible. But just as the English maltreated the natives in their colonies, the brothers were tortured by Americans when they were building the railways. At the same time the English displayed icy contempt for the Chinese and attempted to make them all drug addicts by swamping the markets in China with opium. That is how I see those brutal Englishmen, as drug dealers standing on street corners selling their dope to people they hate and regard as inferior creatures. It’s not so long since Chinese were depicted in European and American cartoons as apes with tails. But the caricatures were true: we were born to be humiliated and turned into slaves. We were not human. We were animals. We had tails.
When Ya Ru used to wander around the streets of London, he would think about how many of the buildings surrounding him were built with enslaved people’s money, their toil and their suffering, their backs and their deaths.
What had San written? That they had built the railway through the American desert using their own ribs as sleepers under the rails. Similarly, the screams and pains of slaves were infused into the iron bridges that spanned the Thames, or in the thick stone walls of the enormous buildings in the fine old financial district of London.
Ya Ru’s train of thought was broken when he dozed off. On waking he went into the living room, where all the furniture and lamps were Chinese. On the table in front of the dark red sofa was a light blue silk bag. He opened it, having first placed a sheet of white paper on the table. Then he poured out a pile of finely ground glass. It was an ancient method of killing
people, mixing the almost invisible grains of glass into a bowl of soup or a cup of tea. There was no escape for anybody who drank it. The thousands of microscopic grains of glass cut the victim’s intestines to shreds. In ancient times it was known as the invisible death because it was sudden and couldn’t be explained.
The pulverised glass would bring San’s story to an end. Ya Ru carefully tipped the glass back into the silk bag and tied it with a knot. Then he switched off all the lamps except for one with a red shade inset with dragons in gold brocade. He sat down in an easy chair that had once belonged to a rich landowner in Shandong Province. He was breathing slowly and sank into the peaceful state in which he thought most clearly.
It took him an hour to decide how he would conclude this last chapter by killing Birgitta Roslin, who in all probability had given his sister Hong Qiu information that could harm him. Information that she could well have passed on to others without his knowing. When he had made up his mind, he pressed a button on the table. A few minutes later he heard old Lang starting to prepare dinner in the kitchen.
She used to clean Ya Ru’s office in Beijing. Night after night he had observed Lang’s silent movements. She was a better cleaner than any of the others who between them kept his skyscraper clean.
When he heard that, in addition to her cleaning work, she also prepared traditional dinners for weddings and funerals, he asked her to cook him a dinner the following evening. He then appointed her his cook and paid her a wage she would otherwise never have been able to dream of. She had a son who had emigrated to London, and Ya Ru arranged for her to fly to Europe in order to look after him during his many visits.
That evening Lang served a series of small dishes. Without Ya Ru having said anything, she had divined what he wanted. She placed his tea on a small kerosene-flamed heater in the living room.
‘Breakfast tomorrow?’ she asked before leaving.
‘No, I’ll see to that myself. But dinner – fish.’
Ya Ru went to bed early. He hadn’t had many uninterrupted hours of sleep since leaving Beijing. First the flight to Europe, then the complicated connections to the town in the north of Sweden, then the visit to Helsingborg, where he had broken into Birgitta’s study and found the word ‘London’ underlined on a scrap of paper next to her telephone. He had flown to Stockholm in his private jet and then on to Copenhagen, followed by London. He had assumed that Roslin would be going to visit Ho.