I Am China (13 page)

He takes her upstairs and pushes her gently onto the bed. He fumbles with a condom and she feels him enter her. A slight pain flickers through her body. She gasps with the welcome sensation of intrusion. The hollowness is momentarily filled. But it isn’t absolute. She’s in a zone between losing herself and remaining with herself. At the moment of climax, after his own thrashing groans, she feels a certain completeness, so brief, so ungraspable; it’s like the farthest reach of a wave upon a shore. No sooner has it conquered the sand than it recedes, leaving wet sand bubbling under the sun; and she is left alone as the tide goes out.

When they finish, they both feel slightly embarrassed. The man goes to the kitchen to make her some tea. She looks around the empty room, almost devoid of furniture. There’s a bookshelf in the corner but it’s rammed with files and folders, and she can only see one book, a large hardback,
Great Railways of Britain
. An engineer? She gets out of bed and looks out of the window. The back garden is overgrown and seems utterly abandoned.

“Do you live here?” Iona asks, trying not to show her curiosity.

“Sort of.” He’s come back with two cups of tea. “We’re selling it. Divorce, you know …” He smiles at her, ever so slightly.

Iona reaches for her shoes and zips up her dress. A tiny piece of material gets caught in the zip. She doesn’t want to force it. She thanks him for the tea and leaves the house, with the side of her dress half open.

Hearing her heels knock on the cobbled street, she leaves Baker’s Close. As she walks up the crowded high street Iona feels a sad urge for love, an urge for something substantial and lasting, something beyond the excitations of her pubic area. Perhaps I should never see a man of my own age again, she thinks to herself. They are too young, the way they embrace me lacks warmth and patience. Iona longs for something that can take her into a world of sun and earth, like a warm tropical island where people can grow their own vegetables and rest on their own land.

3
LONDON, MAY 2013

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Regarding the translation

Dear Jonathan,

Excuse my writing to you again. I did contact your assistant Suzy, but she said she didn’t know much about this project and promised she would speak to you first, before she got back to me. But I don’t seem to have received any further news. Please forgive my impatience; I’m eager for any advice or information you can offer. I would be very grateful if you could get back to me when you have a chance.

Yours,
Iona

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Regarding the translation

Dear Iona,

Thanks for your email. So sorry about the wait—things are manic, as ever, so I’m afraid your email got lost in my inbox. Very pleased to hear you are immersed in the work. Needless to say we’re all very curious to read your translation as soon as you finish a draft.

To answer your question about “the book”—well, I can only say that I’m equally curious about what to make from these files. I guess you might have been wondering where these documents come from. Well, it’s all rather mysterious, to be honest. A few months ago, I was in Beijing for an international literature festival. In a talk about the publication history of post-Soviet literature, I mentioned the importance of certain banned books, including Grossman’s
Life and Fate
. Afterwards, a woman came up to me. She introduced herself as Deng Mu and told me that
Life and Fate
was one of her favourite books. She appeared very agitated. She then gave me a package of photocopied Chinese letters and diaries. She told me her boyfriend was missing in Europe and they had lost contact two months ago. She asked if I could give this package to the London office of Amnesty International. Surely she could just send the documents, I said, but she was really insistent. She said in a quiet voice that it would be too dangerous for her to deal with this situation in person. She even said that if Amnesty couldn’t find him, then perhaps I should read these documents, to find a way to help him. She gave me her Beijing phone number and walked off. It all happened rather quickly—I was whisked off to dinner with the other speakers and then had to rush to get my flight. To be honest, I didn’t take it very seriously. What am I supposed to do with a package of documents written in Chinese? I can barely get around in Beijing!

I returned to London and phoned Amnesty. They said they didn’t know anything about the case, had never heard of Deng Mu or this Kublai Jian person, and they would need someone to translate the documents before they could take any action. I tried a few times to find this woman again. The number she gave to me is no longer valid. And that’s about the size of it. There’s no obligation to translate this material or even do anything with it, but I’m a sucker for a mystery and this grain of a story has sort of got its hooks into me. Once I’ve read your rough translations, I’ll have a clearer idea of the kind of story we’re looking at.

This is pretty much all I know so far, but I’m happy to meet up for a proper chat once I’ve had a read. Can you send me what you’ve translated so far?

With all best wishes,

Jonathan

Iona reads the line again: “
She told me her boyfriend was missing in Europe and they had lost contact two months ago
.” She reads Jonathan’s email for a second time, and writes down the title of the Russian novel that has cropped up in Jian’s letters,
Life and Fate
, in her notebook. One for bedside reading perhaps?

She moves around the flat and finds herself examining the little bookshelf by her bed. There are a few books she has kept with her since her schooldays: Céline and Milan Kundera, Wu Cheng’en and Eileen Chang. Lots of fiction in translation. Then a few academic tomes on China and Chinese language, written by her professors at SOAS. These are the kinds of books that filled her years of study at school and university. She preferred Kundera to Céline. And she liked Eileen Chang more than Wu Cheng’en. “History” is too big a subject for someone like her, growing up marooned on a Scottish island, chilled by an arctic ocean. Oddly, she thinks, for all she gorged herself on books as a teenager, she has remained untouched by Russian literature: not much Tolstoy, certainly no Grossman. But there seems to be no excuse now. Iona goes online at once, and orders herself a copy of
Life and Fate
. The book will arrive within a week, it tells her. A week, she thinks, in her urgent impatient state. She cannot wait that long!

She has an idea and calls her sister. “Nell? Hi. What are you doing?” Iona can hear the kids screaming in the background. Her sister has twin boys of three years old.

“Oh God … I’m just about to collapse … hold on—” Nell’s voice is interrupted by crying. Lots of noise on the other side of the line, water running, chairs banging, Nell’s scolding …

“Is everything OK? Are the boys fighting? I can call back later if that’s better.” Iona’s words vibrate through the noisy echoing phone line but fail to catch her sister’s attention.

No answer, only Nell’s bustling and busy motherhood muffling the shrill voices. It sounds like the twins are in the bath, making mayhem in their watery playpen.

“They were going nuts with their new water pistols, the whole floor’s wet, and I’ve no dry towels left …”

Iona hasn’t much patience for her sister’s warm domestic anarchy. She imagines the steamy press of the young milk-fed pink bodies, and the mother enclosing them both. With a shiver, she feels her own distance, and a vision of the solitary night ahead suddenly flashes in her head.

“Listen, is Volodymyr around?”

“No, he’s still at work … Can I help?” Her sister switches off the tap. Now her voice is clearer, although still breathy and puffed.

“No, I don’t think so. I just want to ask him if he knows about a Russian novel.”

“Oh, right, which one’s that then? He’s been foisting lots of long Russian novels on me recently.”

“
Life and Fate
? I thought Vlods might know—”

But before she can say anything else the water war breaks out again, and a bursting, keening scream comes down the phone. “Stop, will you?!” Nell shouts to one of the twins. “Iona, look, sorry. Call again later when Vlods gets back, will you?”

“OK.” Iona hangs up the phone, feeling a bit disheartened.

The sun is sending golden beams onto Iona’s desk and her fake-Persian carpet. She can see motes of dust dancing in the light. Outside it’s a beautiful spring day. She misses her bench in the shadowy spot where
she often sits and ponders. It’s an old wooden bench in Duncan Terrace Garden, but in her mind it’s her own private shelter. It is sometimes occupied by homeless men; most of the time, though, it’s hers. She’ll happily sit there, even on a rainy day, camped out under her umbrella, watching the squirrels jumping in and out between the bushes, and listening to the sound of the wisteria whispering in the urban breeze. It’s thinking time.

Iona puts on a jacket and slips her feet into a pair of trainers. Closing the door behind her, she walks down the bright street.

4
LONDON, MAY 2013

The publishing house is very close to Hyde Park. Iona comes out of Queensway Tube station and walks along the edge of the park. She notices the bright-yellow daffodils are blooming. From time to time, here and there, her leather boots encounter tiny buds of blue irises on the soil. She hasn’t noticed spring flowering in her part of London. The sky above the Bayswater Road seems bluer and brighter. This is west London, not her north-east messy bohemian hangout, she grins to herself.

She gives her name to the receptionist and looks around. The publishing house has obviously been recently refurbished: it looks newly painted and immaculate, like they have been running a good business. Iona still remembers the time she came here for an interview, right after she had received her MA degree. “No, I don’t think you’re quite right for the position. You know, we get so many applications, and some of them even have PhDs.” Iona had failed immediately, yet at the time, newly graduated and without much sense of direction, she had only wanted to become one of their PR staff, or even a receptionist, picking up the phone to say, “Hello, Applegate Books, how can I help you?”

She waits for Jonathan in the staff cafe. The cafe has the same white, clean, fresh design as the lobby, with white tables and white chairs, an extremely bright white ceiling and white walls dazzling to an eye accustomed to the modulated lamplight of her small flat. As she sits there alone, she watches a tall, handsome man crossing the room. His smile is generously directed towards her.

“Hello, I’m Jonathan.” He puts out his right hand. “You must be Iona.”

“Yes. Good to finally meet you,” Iona says as she stands up and extends her hand, feeling his strong grip.

“I don’t have much time, I’m afraid, something urgent has just
come up. Can I get you something to drink—a coffee? Tea?” He talks in a quick, practical businesslike tone, laced with charm, which makes Iona suddenly unsettled.

“Yes, a white coffee would be great, if it’s no bother.”

As Jonathan orders the coffee, Iona discreetly observes him. He is lean, wearing a close-fitting black suit and a pair of polished shoes that tap on the wooden floor as he waits for the coffees. His wavy, dark hair betrays hints of the dandy and bounces gently on his shoulders while he leans on the counter and turns to Iona. His voice is a warm, smoky baritone.

“Sorry we couldn’t meet earlier. I was travelling in Asia until last week.”

“Right. Do you travel a lot for work?” asks Iona, slightly nervous.

“I go to India often. We seem to have so much business with them these days—their publishing industry is really starting to take off, especially English language. And I’m sometimes in Russia.” He smiles—he’s warm, but professional. My time is short, his face seems to say, as he brings the coffees to the table. “So, how’s the translation coming along? I’ve read those few pages you sent over. I know you said they were still draft, but it seems very intriguing.”

“Indeed, intriguing is the word.” She holds the coffee in both her hands and takes a tentative sip; it’s too hot and her tongue stings with the burn.

Iona feels his eyes on her breasts. She is wearing a low-cut pink blouse. “I’m quite bewildered by the absence of any background information. As I said in my email, there are hints of all sorts of mysteries—there’s the prison, then this manifesto thing, and Kublai Jian seems to have serious issues with his father, who sounds like an official of some kind. Hard to know what this could be about. I wondered whether Jian’s father was someone important but every search I do is completely fruitless. I know there’s a really stringent Internet filter in China, but I sense this is somehow more suspicious. Have you found anything?”

“Well, not much. I can only infer, of course, as we have almost no information. I’m hoping we can unravel this somehow and—if this
doesn’t sound too horribly commercial—that we find something big. Obviously the story, the writing, et cetera, is interesting regardless, but I have this feeling there’s something big lurking underneath that we haven’t got at yet.”

As he talks the professional screen slips away and something more organic takes its place. She begins to understand why his publishing house has been so successful.

He picks up his coffee, drinks quickly and continues. “We’ve not been able to find anything online about him at all, which seems odd if he was a famous musician. The only reference we could find was for this album,
Yuan vs. Dollars
. You must have had the same experience.” He looks straight at her—it’s unnerving—and Iona nods as she looks down into the coffee. “I also wondered whether Kublai Jian was a stage name. If he’s banned and censored, then we’ve got a great story here—a big story, what’s more—about the suppression of artistic freedom, the state of China today, you know, all that jazz. So little gets out about real censorship in China. We take it for granted but what do we know, really?” He sits back and smiles. “Anyway, it’s all in your hands, Iona. It’s very exciting. Potentially.”