Whispering Shadows by Jan-Philipp Sendker
“That doesn’t sound entirely convincing either. Think about it. The truth can be very dangerous,” Tang said with an almost devilish laugh. Now it was his turn to leave Paul guessing about how serious he was about what he was saying.
“I know,” Paul said evasively.
“The search for the truth can sometimes bring great danger.”
Paul was not sure if they were talking about truth in general or about the case of Michael Owen. “Let me put it this way. I always want to know the truth. I don’t know if I will always have the strength to take it.”
Tang put his chopsticks down and looked him straight in the eye. The two servers remained frozen in their places. It was so quiet that Paul could hear the barely audible flickering of the candle flames.
“Mr. Leibovitz,” Tang said, speaking quietly, almost whispering, so that Paul had to lean forward to hear him. “What will you do if the truth is too much for you? Will you suddenly realize that you don’t have the strength to take it? Will you give it back then?”
Paul shook his head, feeling a slight uncertainty rise in him. Had he not expressed himself clearly or was Tang deliberately misunderstanding him? “Who should I . . . ?”
“That’s right,” Tang interrupted immediately. “That’s exactly what I was talking about. Who should you return the truth to? Who will take uncomfortable, awkward, complicated truths back? No one. It’s not like a suit that you realize does not fit you when you get home, that you can exchange. Once a truth is spoken all the weapons in the world will not suffice to catch it again and lock it away or extinguish it. For a time, perhaps, but not forever. You know a little bit about us Chinese and you know what I mean: We think long term. Once a truth has been spoken there is no going back. Do you agree?”
Paul nodded. It was a rhetorical question, and this was not the moment to contradict Tang.
“That means that we have to be very, very cautious and carefully weigh the risks to ourselves and to any confidants before we start searching for the truth, don’t we? Because the truth can do many things. It can heal. It can comfort. It can give us wings, yes, give us almost superhuman strength. But it can also do exactly the opposite. It can destroy marriages, tear friends apart forever, bring governments down, start wars. In other words, truth has its price. Do you follow me, Mr. Leibovitz?”
Paul barely dared to move. Tang did not wait for a reaction.
“Knowing the truth can sometimes be tantamount to a death sentence, Mr. Leibovitz. Are you ready to accept this price?”
XXVIII
“You’re lying, you miserable, dirty little traitor. Tell the truth now, do you hear? We want to know the truth! The truth!”
They had grabbed him by the back and forced him onto his knees. He was surrounded by half a dozen young men and women who could easily have been his children and they were taking turns shouting at him, spitting at him, and kicking him. He cowered at the edge of a raised platform with his head lowered; a heavy wooden placard on which someone had written “traitor” hung from his neck. He was bleeding from a wound on his forehead. He was trembling all over and was not making a sound. Several thousand people had streamed into the old city square of Chengdu that hot summer’s day, and they were watching the spectacle of this public tribunal with rapt attention.
“The truth! The truth! We want to know the truth!” The voice of the screaming young man cracked with rage. He spat in the face of the man kneeling in front of him one more time and kicked him in the back so he lost his balance and tipped over, his upper body hitting the boards with a dull thump.
The fourteen-year-old Tang Mingqing stood on a small side street that led to the square, not thirty meters away from the stage, which he could not tear his eyes away from. He was crippled with fear. The tall and powerfully built man who was lying there was his proud, strong, beloved father. Weak like an old man. Helpless as a beetle that had fallen on its back.
He could not believe what he saw. If his father could be arrested in the name of the Great Chairman and publicly put on trial like this then anything was possible. If it had not been enough for him to leave the family as a boy to join the Communists, if it had not been sufficient that he had fought for Mao in the civil war and then supported every one of his political campaigns, then, Tang thought, there was nothing in this world that could be relied on. Then everything was possible and it was really randomness that ruled life, hiding behind the everyday routine. Then any feeling of security was an illusion. At any time and without notice, from one moment to another, evil could take over the entire country and the lives of every individual.
The young Tang leaned against the side of a building, closed his eyes, and felt the tears running down his face. He felt cold even though the sun was burning his skin. “Dissenter, counterrevolutionary, friend of capitalism.” He heard this from thousands of throats. No, he wanted to scream at them, it’s a mix-up! You’re wrong, my father is not a traitor—most definitely not!
But what if they had not got it wrong? What if they were telling the truth? It was a monstrous thought that he would have liked to banish but that spread like lightning through his head. Could he really rule out, with absolute certainty, the possibility that there was any truth in their accusations? Of course not, for he saw his father so seldom. Who knew what he had talked about in the barracks with the other officers who had almost all been arrested in the past few weeks on counterrevolutionary charges? The Red Guards must have found out something about his father from them, something that had escaped him. There had to be some basis for their accusations; after all, they were acting in the name of Mao. He himself had called upon the Red Guards to liberate the country from old ways of thinking and not to show anyone mercy, not even the older people who appeared to have earned it. And who wanted to doubt the orders of the Great Leader? The Red Guards knew something that no one else knew, that was surely how it was. Then everything that Tang had experienced in the last few hours made sense—their apartment being stormed, the plunder, his mother’s fear, and his father’s silence. He had something to hide; they both had something to hide, otherwise why did they say nothing? His parents clung to old ways of thinking that had to be stamped out. Had his father not been very reserved in his support for the Cultural Revolution at the start? Had he not questioned the point of this great proletarian movement with his mother just a few days ago? Of course he had. Tang had been lying in the next room and he had heard everything even though they had spoken quietly, practically whispering. He had gotten up, stood next to the door, and listened, making out every word. How had they dared voice even the slightest doubts in Mao’s politics? What were they thinking? Tang felt ashamed of his parents.
He opened his eyes and turned around once more. Two Red Guards were kneeling next to his father on the stage; one of them clutched his hair so he raised his head with his face frozen in a grimace. Traitor. They were all shouting it—the people on the stage and the men, women, boys, and girls who surrounded him. Tang joined in. Quietly at first, barely audibly, then louder and louder until he was screaming with all his might, “Liar! Traitor! You miserable, dirty little traitor! Tell the truth now!”
But his father said nothing, and they continued beating and torturing him until he lost consciousness. Eventually they dragged him onto a truck, drove away, and locked him up. Almost ten years passed—during which time his mother died—before Tang saw him again, and he barely recognized him. The proud PLA commander had turned into a broken old man who could barely speak a coherent sentence and who survived for exactly two years, two months, and two days after his imprisonment ended. He liked to spend his days sitting in a rocking chair in the semidarkness of his bedroom, letting his son care for him until his heart stopped beating one night.
He was officially rehabilitated two years later.
Tang was called to the party secretary’s office, where he was handed a letter in which the party informed him that, according
———
Tang wondered whether he should tell his guest this story. Maybe then Paul Leibovitz would understand that there was no such thing as the truth, that to seek it out was to search for an illusion, for the truth could be bent at will and warped, if necessary even completely dismantled and constructed anew, assuming, of course, that you were one of those who gave orders rather than took them, who was standing upright and spitting at others rather than one of those lying helplessly in the dirt. Victor Tang had sworn to himself long ago that he would never belong in the latter group. Never! And if doubt sometimes crept over him he only had to look around him or out of the window. The Ferrari outside the door, this villa, the Dom Pérignon in his glass. To Victor Tang, the meaning of these luxury goods was that they constantly reassured him that he was one of those who was standing upright. One of those who could determine the truth. These luxury goods were much more than expensive toys or status symbols—they were a part of his protection against his fear of randomness. If he had learned anything from the fate of his family, it was the realization that anything was possible in his country and that there was nothing on earth that you could rely on. Every feeling of security was an illusion. Anarchy could be lying in wait around the next corner, to seize power and destroy everything.
Why was he thinking about this now? It had been a long time since he had given his father so much thought. He could not remember when he had last conjured up that afternoon in the summer of 1966 in his mind’s eye so clearly. The memory had stirred him up, and he did not like it. People who felt ruffled made mistakes. His guest, on the other hand, was sitting across the table from him without expressing any obvious emotion. If Victor was not wrong, this Leibovitz guy was impressed neither by threats nor by symbols of wealth. The lie detector had been a good joke, and Tang was extremely unhappy that he had fallen for it at first. Leibovitz sat in front of him listening very carefully, but there was no fear in his eyes—he had that in common with Michael Owen. Owen had also never understood who he was dealing with.
Tang felt himself growing warm. Was it the many candles or was the air-conditioning not working properly? Maybe, he thought, it would not be a bad idea to tell Paul the story of his father. It could not hurt for his opponent to know where Victor was coming from. Perhaps then he would understand that this was about much more than a couple of half-finished contracts between Michael Owen and another company. Their joint venture, Cathay Heavy Metal, was a gold mine that, thanks to the hunger of the Chinese for cars, yielded more and more every month, and he would not let anyone destroy it, not at any price.
So Tang began to tell his story.
When he had finished, there was a long silence in the room. Paul Leibovitz listened thoughtfully to what he was being told. Now he put his chopsticks down and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for you and your family.”
“You don’t have to feel sorry. We are anything but a tragic exception. Ask other Chinese people my age and you will hear similar stories.”
“That’s true, but I’m still sorry. I’m also asking myself why you’ve told me all this.”
“Certainly not to awaken your pity. But perhaps so that you’ll understand me better?”
“Or so that I’ll stop searching for the truth because it doesn’t exist?”
“That too, yes.”
“I suspected that, and I’m telling you this: You’re wrong. In your father’s case there was a truth. He was innocent. And in the case of the murder of Michael Owen there is also a truth. The man who is sitting in prison is just as innocent. The murderer is still a free man.”
Tang took a deep breath. He had to control himself, not let his anger show too clearly. Did this man not want to understand him or was he taking him for a ride? “That’s not the point, Mr. Leibovitz. Why don’t you get my meaning? It’s about who establishes what the truth is, and in this case that has been done. The man is guilty, that has already been decided. Tomorrow he will go to trial. Judgment will be passed on him and he will be executed. Anyone who wants to stop that puts himself in danger. In this respect not much has changed in this country.”
“Are you trying to frighten me?”
“What makes you think that?” Tang responded, making an effort to speak in just the right innocent-sounding tone of voice that would leave Paul unsure about how what he said was meant. “I merely wish to warn you. You and your friend the detective. The head of the homicide division, Luo, is a friend of mine. I’m afraid he won’t be very pleased to hear that one of his men has disobeyed his orders. It’s not only you who are putting yourself at risk, it’s your friend too. What was he called again? Zhang, yes?”
Paul looked at him without replying.
“In Sichuan I knew . . .”
“I know,” Paul interrupted him immediately. “You and my friend Zhang know each other from before. He told me.”
Keep eating, slowly, Tang thought to himself. Don’t let him notice anything. Take a piece of smoked duck and be careful not to let it slip from the chopsticks. Put it in your mouth calmly, without trembling, and chew leisurely. Sip a little from your glass. How long had it been? When did a murder become no longer punishable? Did this Leibovitz fellow know about it? Tang could not imagine that Zhang had told anyone about the afternoon they had spent together in the temple. Zhang had not betrayed him then so why should he have broken his silence to a foreigner?
“How long have you known him?”
“For over twenty years.”
“Oh, how unusual,” Tang replied, trying not to let his surprise show. “What did he tell you about me? Only positive things, I hope.”
“Not much. It’s a long time since you last met.”
Tang had no idea if he could trust what Paul was saying, given that he had proved his talent for acting so impressively already. “I couldn’t say when I last saw him. It would certainly be interesting to meet him again.”
“I doubt that will happen. Both of you have very different attitudes, at least to the truth.”
“Are you quite sure?” Victor Tang asked.
“Yes. Zhang does not lie. I’d trust him blind.”
“That’s always a mistake.”
“You’re a cynic. I’ve known Zhang for a long time—he has no reason to lie to me. There isn’t a person I trust more than him. Anyway, I really think that in the end we don’t have any choice other than to trust people.”
“You’re a dreamer. I’m convinced of exactly the opposite. We don’t have any choice other than not to trust people.”
“Zhang has never given me a reason not to trust him.”
“He is Chinese.”
Paul laughed, surprised. “And what about it? You’re not trying to tell me that I can’t trust any Chinese people?”
“I don’t. At least not those from my generation.”
“You’re crazy. That’s absurd.”
“Weren’t you listening to what I just told you? I wasn’t telling you a fairy tale!” He had to keep his voice in check. Paul Leibovitz was not someone you shouted at.
“I know,” Paul said calmly.
“Then I don’t have to explain to you how often in the past a truth was declared a lie and a lie the truth. How many children betrayed their parents. How many pupils their teachers. How many supposedly ‘best’ friends denounced each ot
“No, but the Cultural Revolution ended over thirty years ago.”
“So? What are thirty years? Not even half a human life. Anyone who lived through the purges will never forget them as long as they live. Never, do you hear me, never! Anyone whose father . . .” Tang broke off.
Paul also said nothing for a moment. “I understand.”
“You don’t understand anything,” Tang interrupted. He could barely conceal how worked up he was. The memories had flooded into him with a force that he would not have thought possible.
“I’m trying to understand,” Paul continued undeterred. “But in the last thirty years a great deal has happened in China.”
“Yes, I’ve noticed that too. The buildings have grown taller and the streets wider.”
“You’re not being serious.”
“Of course not. But this country cannot reinvent itself. Only the Americans could think that. We all have something to hide. Your friend is no exception. And I would not trust anyone who has anything to hide, they’ll do anything to keep their secrets private.”
“My friend has nothing to hide from me. You will not convince me that I cannot trust him.”
“No?”
“No!”
“Did you know that he lived in a village in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution?”
“Of course.”
“And do you know what he did there?”
“Like the others, he helped the farmers with the harvests. He worked morning to night to prove that he was a good revolutionary and he is still paying for it today. He has problems with his knees and suffers from rheumatism.”
“Ah, knee pains and rheumatism. I would say he was a lucky man if they were all the problems he had.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did he tell you that we were in the same work brigade?”
“Yes.”