I Am China (30 page)

“Yes—well, on the whole, but I’m still struggling to work out the whole story, to be honest,” Iona answers, a little evasively. “It’s very challenging. I’ve done nothing this complicated before.”

“Right.” Jonathan holds her gaze for longer than feels normal and she begins to feel her colour rise.

“You know … in the most recent diary entries I’ve read, Jian mentions his grandfather was a war hero who died on the Long March and received the highest medal from the CCP. I did a bit of research but I have no way of knowing who his grandfather really is, or finding out his father’s name.”

“Oh, brilliant! A war hero’s descendant. What a great story! But perhaps it’s no surprise then that a family like that might also produce rebels.”

“Yes, I thought the same. You hinted in your email that you’d found out more about Jian’s parents … I’d love to hear anything you’ve found out.”

“Well, finally I’ve actually got some solid information,” Jonathan says, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head. “I tracked down a person at the British Embassy in Beijing who seems to know the inside story. He asked me to be very discreet, not only because Jian’s a dissident musician, but also to protect his own position at the embassy. It makes sense of course. Can’t ever be too careful with things like this in China.”

Iona studies Jonathan intently as the information spools out of him. She has a notebook open to a blank page in front of her on the table and a pen poised to write down vital facts, but for some reason, just listening to him is enough.

“Now, where to start? Let’s begin with Jian’s mother first … Is there any mention of his mother in the texts? What my contact at the embassy knew was largely hearsay—though it sounds pretty credible to me—but it would be great if we could back it up with information from the diaries and letters.”

“Can’t help you there, I’m afraid, Jian barely mentions her. Actually, hang on, there was a reference to a knife and Erik Satie. It all seemed shrouded in mystery but pretty bleak, I think. Suicide, perhaps? I didn’t get much further. Do you know any more?”

Jonathan leans forward and looks very serious. “I’m afraid your suspicions are correct. It’s a really tragic case. I’m not surprised he doesn’t bring her up; it must be hard to think about. Her name was Ling Rui and her family was originally from Mongolia—she came from a rich half-Chinese, half-Mongol family in Ulan Bator, but she was born and raised in Beijing like Jian. We thought her background might explain Jian’s adopted Mongolian name—Kublai. It seems Jian’s mother was very well educated, which I think must have been very rare for a woman in sixties China. She worked as a secretary for the Culture Bureau of the Beijing Communist Party.” Iona makes a note of this as Jonathan carries on talking. “It seems she wasn’t a wholehearted believer, though: rich family background, good education, access to Western ideas—not the interests of a model party worker. I think Jian grew up largely with his maternal grandparents, and his father was a somewhat shadowy figure in the background who didn’t live with them. There was that diary entry about the father nearly hitting Jian and locking him in a room overnight—”

“Yes, that awful moment with the steel ruler. I couldn’t get that out of my head for days after I’d translated it.”

“Well, let’s say Jian’s father was away, as far as we know. And one day, a group of Red Guards came to Ling Rui’s office. It was a random check, I assume, though perhaps they had a tip-off, I don’t really know how these things work. It seems they found a cassette of Erik Satie’s piano pieces in a drawer of her desk. Apparently it was normally locked but just by chance on that day it wasn’t. Along with the Satie, they found a tube of lipstick and a small cosmetic mirror. That’s it. Satie and lipstick!”

Iona stares at him, horrified. “What do you mean? What happened?”

“I think they just saw blood. They went into paroxysms of righteous anger. Just the lipstick, let alone the piano music, would have been enough to slam her into re-education camp for ten years. Of course, no one really knew who or what Satie was, certainly not in the seventies
in Beijing, but it was enough to see a photo of a Western man in tweeds. The guards would obviously just ‘know’ he was a counterrevolutionary. She was forced into the street. They got her up on a temporary stage on her hands and knees and, holding her head down, told her to confess her ‘capitalist dog’ lifestyle. Angry crowds bayed at her. My contact had to look hard—all the information’s under strict lock and key, of course. But he found a horrible account of the event which is how we know all this. After the spectacle onstage she was officially labelled a—hang on, I’ve got this written down somewhere—yes, this is it: she was labelled ‘a bourgeois hidden inside the Party Committee to poison the masses.’ And I think it just got worse. Each day more punishment, more haranguing, more public humiliation and more beatings. The report says that on the fourth morning they were told she had died. It seems that Jian was the one who found his mother. He was only four. I can’t even imagine what that would do to a four-year-old.” Jonathan exhales heavily. “Apparently she was on the bathroom floor, lying in her own blood. She had cut her wrists. And Jian’s father didn’t even come back for the funeral!” Jonathan stops talking, sighs and leans back. Then he says, with a little venom and power in his voice, “It’s pretty fucking tragic.”

16
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 2013

Jonathan sips his coffee. For a moment, he seems to hesitate and search to find the right words.

“We’ve kept this pretty quiet.” He looks into Iona’s eyes again. “You must also keep it quiet, absolutely confidential, while our publication plan is coming together.”

Still in shock from the news about how Jian’s mother’s died, Iona raises her upper body from the hard white triangular chair, a familiar tension rising from her shoulders to her neck.

“Kublai Jian is the son of a very high-ranking politician.”

“Yes, yes, you said that already. Is there more?” Iona waits impatiently. The room is too hot, there are no windows through which to release her tension.

“I mean
very
high-ranking. This is huge, Iona. His father is the current prime minister, Hu Shulai.”

“What? Hu Shulai!” Iona exclaims. Although she has had lengthy mental preparation for this news, it is still shocking to have confirmation that he is quite so important. In the Western media Hu is seen as a charismatic character, the most appealing in the Chinese Communist Party of recent years.

Jonathan nods his head, his eyes lighting with a well-groomed twinkle. “Kublai Jian’s original name was Hu Xingjian. He cut off contact with his father after his father’s second marriage, and changed his name to Kublai Jian. Apparently neither the son nor the father has mentioned each other’s existence since then. It was a mutual hatred and denial too, from the information I have.”

“Hu Xingjian …” Iona repeats that name, so alien, yet so familiar. The name sounds very insignificant to her, any man could have that
name in the whole of China or even across the entire continent of East Asia. Kublai Jian is a totally different man from Hu Xingjian. Or perhaps Kublai Jian is the reincarnation of Hu Xingjian.

Iona drinks a mouthful of coffee. Her throat burns.

“It makes me wonder how that country is going to evolve,” Jonathan says, “given that one of their most famous dissident artists is the son of their most powerful politician. And it’s just unbelievable that their government doesn’t want to do anything about it. It seems they’ve washed their hands of the whole thing.”

“But how is that possible?” Iona speaks bitterly. “If he’s the prime minster’s son, he would be protected surely, even in the West.”

“Not if he was perceived to be a problem for the current government. It’s all about consolidating power. Not at all surprising in the light of recent Chinese history.” Jonathan shrugs. “Think about their previous leader, Deng Xiaoping. His son was pushed out of a third-storey window by the Gang of Four and ended up with a broken back and life in a wheelchair. And there are many other cases. Mao sent his only non-dysfunctional son to the Korean War to be killed by Americans. It’s a tradition. Think of the emperors and their offspring.”

Iona feels her eyes pricking, as if a mote of sharp dust has got under the lid. The piercing lights are not helping either: bright white neon, as if she’s been laid naked on an operating table and there’s no place to hide. She covers her eyes to soothe the sharp pain.

“And how do you think Stalin’s wife died? Killed herself after an argument with her husband.” This is not news to Iona, but she’d not connected the dots before. Jonathan continued, “Jian’s father renounced his wife and young son in the seventies by starting a new family. I guess that’s why the son ended up such a bleak character.”

When they have both finished their coffee and she stands to leave, Jonathan makes a suggestion.

“I’ve got something else for you. I’d love to know your thoughts. If you like, we can meet for a drink this Friday. I’m just completely caught up weekdays. You can imagine how it is.”

Iona can’t, but nods her head. “That would be great.”

As she’s leaving, Jonathan brings out a CD, a blank cover with the title handwritten in marker pen:
Yuan vs. Dollars
.

“Almost forgot to give this to you.”

Iona smiles, putting the CD in her handbag.

17
LONDON, SEPTEMBER 2013

As the ancient Chinese phrase says,
—shui luo shi chu:
when the water rushes over the riverbed, the stones on the bottom become clear to the eye.

Iona sketches out Jian’s family tree:

Iona is hungry for any information at all. Now she’s started finding things out she wants to know everything, every little detail, every distant family member, in the hope that perhaps Jian might appear, might let her in a little, if only she knows all the facts.

She knows that Jian’s father—Hu Shulai—was brought up by strangers in the 1930s. Jian’s maternal grandparents, on the other hand, are barely mentioned, though she’s pretty sure they’re the ones Jian grew up with once his father had taken off. The information Jonathan gives here is a collection of random facts, rumours and titbits of a story, but she gathers that Ling Ting and Bolormaa Bagabandi, Jian’s maternal grandparents, were born in the 1920s and were medical doctors from Ulan Bator. The notes say they died sometime in the 1980s in Beijing, which means, by Iona’s working, Jian was alone throughout most of his teenager years.

Kublai Jian is, perhaps, the last remaining romantic pessimist on earth, Iona thinks to herself. His personal history, his family history, must have cut every illusion out of his heart. The family, the father, mother, grandparents, were all so driven by ideology and revolutionary sacrifice. No place for the love of a young boy in that. But it seems he did not become utterly cold inside. The boy’s romantic soul continued to spin out its song. Iona sighs while she reads the latest diary entries from Jian.

No words from her
.

Pain in my stomach
.

I am cut by a sword
.

Her skin is still in the dark
.

Her moon-shaped face is lit
.

Her dark hair bleeding out
.

She turns to the next entry.

“I don’t believe Communists can make people happier. It just doesn’t happen. Look at history.” That’s Vasily Grossman’s big statement in his massive book. It takes him at least three hundred pages to say that, then another five hundred pages to prove it. The icy conclusion of an iceberg of argument, sunk in a history of devastation and madness. The great machine of power, grinding up people and dreams
.

Each page has a short, mysterious, melancholy message. She feels weighed down by his words.