Whispering Shadows (13 page)

Victor Tang did not have a single day more to waste. He was so busy that he did not even have the time to envy his fellow students. He wanted to understand what made America so successful. There had to be a secret to the superiority of the West, and he wanted to find out what it was.

His day began at five in the morning. During his time at Harvard he only had four hours' sleep a day. When there was barely anything left of his English to improve, before and after the seminars he devoured every book in the university library about the American Civil War, the robber baron era, and the Great Depression. He also took supplementary courses in philosophy, economics, literature,
and history.

He was well known among the students for his ability to refresh himself with five minutes' sleep. He could fold his arms and put his head down on them for a short nap anywhere—in the cafeteria, during a seminar break, or in the library—regardless of any hustle and bustle around. The others thought he was an oddity but respected him; his capacity for hard work and boundless thirst for knowledge was a little strange to them. How could he explain it to them? How could a well-fed, well-nourished person ever understand the despairing greed of a starving man? Thirty years. Half a life!

During the semester breaks, he traveled on Greyhound buses to several American states. When he accidentally knocked over his plastic cup of iced tea in a coffee shop in Butte, Montana, and read the words on the bottom of the cup, he knew, from one moment to the next, that he had found what he was looking for. Made in China was written on the plastic cup. It was the first time in America that he registered a product made in his homeland. Why were the plastic cups not produced in Texas, Florida, or California? Because they were produced more cheaply in China, even when you added the costs of transport. What was true of plastic cups would also be true of plastic toys. Or rain boots. Pants. Shirts. Sweaters. Or even, much later on, TVs. Phones. Fridges. Cars. If one of the lessons that he had learned from his economic history seminars was right, then in the end, every product would be manufactured by whoever could do so most cheaply. That was as obvious as the fact that water always flowed downhill. A law of nature in economics.

When he told a few classmates this a few days later in the cafeteria, they laughed in his face. China? TVs from China? There were hardly any TVs there. Phones? From a country in which only one out of every ten thousand people owned one? Cars? They snickered and cackled; they slapped their thighs, roaring with laughter as though he had told a fantastic joke. China did not even produce six thousand cars in a whole year. Tang must be crazy. If anything, these products would one day come from Mexico. Or Brazil. Or
maybe from India. But not from China, which was poor and had a Communist government.

There were 1.3 billion hungry people waiting for their opportunity in China. Why did they not see what was so obvious? Was he wrong or did these American students lack imagination? In that moment, Victor Tang understood that the first thirty years of his life had not been as much of a waste as he had previously thought. True, he had not been able to attend school regularly during the Cultural Revolution, and before he had come to America he had no idea of history, economics, law, literature, or classical music, but life had taught him important lessons instead.

They had not the faintest glimmering of where he was coming from. Their laughter made clear to him how privileged he was. Not in comparison with the people in his homeland, he knew that already, but in comparison with the young men and women sitting in front of him, who had spent their lives up to now in town houses and homes in the country. He slowly began to understand their world, but they had not the least idea of his. They did not understand how hungry the people in his country were and they would never completely understand it. That was neither their fault nor a failing; it simply was the way it was. And he, Victor Tang, belonged with the others, not with them, even though he ate in the same cafeteria with them, wore jeans, sweatshirts, and baseball caps, could barbecue pork ribs, and knew what a quarterback and a fastball were. Despite this, he did not belong, and he would never belong, even if he wanted to. He was a guest here; he belonged to the world of the others; he knew the hunger, the despair, and the greed, the willpower and capacity for suffering that were over there. They were the qualities he possessed. They had brought him to Harvard, to this very table, and they would drive him onward. On to a point when no one would laugh about him anymore.

———

He stayed four years at Harvard. On the grounds of his outstanding
talent, despite his age, his scholarship was extended twice after the two-year period, one year each time. It came to an end in the early summer of 1989. Students in Beijing were staging demonstrations for freedom and democracy in Tiananmen Square at the same time. When the Chinese government was declaring martial law, Victor Tang was traveling through Arkansas on the bus. When the People's Liberation Army began marching and the tanks rolled through the streets of the capital city, he was sitting on a beach in Los Angeles, looking at the Pacific Ocean, on the other side of which his homeland lay.

He could have stayed. Nothing would have been easier. An application for political asylum, a written declaration to follow the American way of life, and a mention of a made-up family member who had been crushed by a PLA tank in the streets of Beijing in his fight for freedom and democracy would have been enough. That was what thousands of Chinese students in America did in the weeks and months after, and they were given a warm welcome. Tang had the prospect of an assistantship at the University of California in Los Angeles, and they would surely have found something for him at Harvard too.

Tang did hesitate, but only for two days.

The interviews on campus and with the professors in Los Angeles put an end to every one of his doubts. In their pity and their appalled reactions to the events in Beijing was too much self-justification; in their offers for him to stay in America was too much self­-importance. He did not want to be passed around as an exile at official events and receptions, marveled at as an exotic creature who had just about managed to wriggle his head free from the Communist noose; thanks to help from the Americans, no one would fail to mention that. Tang did not want to serve once again as a living example of the superiority of a system; he had done that for long enough.

He wanted to go back. His place was in China; anything else
would have been a betrayal. His time would come. He was still young enough. With his American education, the future was his in his homeland; he had understood that in the run-down coffee shop in Montana, even though he still had to be patient. The exceptional circumstances, the events in Tiananmen Square, were no more than setbacks, and the falling markets were no reason for panic; they were buying opportunities; his professor at Harvard had explained that convincingly. China's market had crashed in the summer of 1989, to the very bottom; it could go no lower. Economic sanctions. Trade embargoes. No investment. Horror over the “Beijing killers.” From the analysts' point of view, it was like an extremely undervalued company; there was no better time to get in.

Only a fool could have believed that it would last. Only an ignoramus could have believed that, in the end, everything would not be manufactured by those who could do it most cheaply.

The world needed China. China needed the world.

After four years in America, he was convinced that the land of unlimited future opportunity no longer lay on the American side of the Pacific.

And he did not doubt it over the three years that followed, when China was politically and economically paralyzed as a result of the student protests and the military intervention. There was a leaden heaviness in the country: All the foreign investment that had been on the cards was canceled or suspended and economic reforms that had been agreed on were put on hold or rescinded. The state security apparatus hunted down the leaders of the protests and their followers; hundreds of them disappeared into forced labor camps and prisons. Everyone who had demonstrated sympathy for the demands of the students too openly was thrown out of the party; the liberal and conservative factions of the Communist Party fought over the future of China in Beijing, and what the outcome of these power games would be was unclear. Was the new party chief Jiang Zemin a reformer or did he want a return to a socialist planned
economy? Which side was Deng Xiaoping on? What influence did the old man still have? The country was crippled, right down to the lowest levels of the party and the provincial governments. No one dared to make any decisions because everyone was afraid to be found standing on the wrong side of the political divide when the conflict came to an end.

Tang took only a passing interest in all this. He worked in a sort of division for economic development in Chengdu, but had practically nothing to do, so he spent his time networking and laying plans. For him, the continuation of political reform was only a matter of time. There was, as he had learned in America, a kind of economic logic that no one could resist in the long run, and it made a further opening up of the country inevitable.

In the spring of 1992, Deng Xiaoping traveled through southern China with his family. His speech in Shenzhen, his call for further vigorous economic reforms, was the sign that Tang—and practically the whole country besides—had been waiting for. That summer he persuaded the provincial government of Sichuan to send him to the Special Economic Zone of Shenzhen to seek out investment opportunities and establish contact with foreign investors. He established several firms on their behalf, built a shoe factory, one for plastic cutlery, and one for Christmas decorations, and set up a construction and property business of his own, seeing his vision of China as the factory of the world taking form very slowly.

———

The finale of the Kreutzer Sonata came to an end, and Tang told his driver to put on the Beethoven violin concerto. There would be enough time for the first movement.

They passed the site of an accident. Several policemen were waving traffic past it: In the right-hand lane was a smashed-up minibus with a motorcycle in front of it; next to it, Tang saw the outline of a person under a cloth. The Mercedes gradually glided into motion again, and exactly twenty minutes later they rolled through the
gates of the Cathay Heavy Metal works. He remained sitting in the car for the final one-and-a-half minutes of the first movement of the violin concerto, looking out at the factory grounds. Thick white smoke was rising from the three chimneys, and several containers were being loaded at the front of the yard; farther behind, two big trucks were delivering fresh steel. The plant was working at the limits of its capacity; it was barely managing to produce enough. It was high time for them to start building a second factory. Tang had counted on a boom in the Chinese car industry from early on. He had started with a shoestring outfit that had grown quickly, but it had only grown into a goldmine in the last three years with the help of the Owens, their years of experience, and their contacts with the big American firms. And that was only the beginning. The best years lay ahead of them. China was growing into the biggest market for cars in the world. Everyone, whether American or Chinese, seemed to dream of having their own car. Tang was profiting from it and he would not let anyone take that away from him. Not for anything.

The limousines of the chief of police and the head of the homicide division were already parked in front of the office building. Both of them were much more than old acquaintances. In a town like Shenzhen a businessman had to have the most important party functionaries and the police on his side. He had taken care of that. He had given the chief of police an apartment and the most senior homicide detective a BMW. He had often taken these men to brothels and been generous with his gifts; he had enough incriminating information about them to finish their careers the next time there was a political campaign against corrupt officials.

He would not have to remind them about that.

XIII

The Cathay Heavy Metal factory was in an industrial park in the northwest of Shenzhen, a good way from the new airport. Zhang had gotten hold of the last one of the unmarked police cars available, an old VW Passat whose seats and suspension were so worn out that every little bump in the road caused him pain in his back. Like most of the manufacturing plants Zhang had visited, the grounds of this one looked like a small fortress. It was surrounded by high metal fences with security guards crouching by watch posts in front; young men in ill-fitting uniforms who stood at attention and saluted whenever a vehicle that they knew passed but who checked on every stranger with an attitude of suspicion. Zhang drove around the factory compound once, slowly; it covered about a block. He saw an office building and several halls, with the workers' living quarters behind them. Next to the entrance, three big Chinese flags and two big American ones were fluttering in the wind.

Black limousines were waiting in the parking lot outside the office, one of them a big Mercedes. He recognized two of the cars by their number plates: They belonged to the police headquarters' fleet. He wrote the numbers down so that he could find out later who the Mercedes belonged to and who had ordered the official cars. Zhang could not remember any of his colleagues mentioning a visit to Cathay Heavy Metal during their meeting that morning.

Opposite the factory were several streets full of shops, restaurants, and tearooms where the workers of nearby businesses could
meet after their shifts or on weekends. Zhang searched for a Sichuan restaurant. The migrant workers from that province no doubt gathered there, and he could strike up a conversation with them in their dialect without anyone asking him where he came from and what he was doing there. Coming from Sichuan would be enough for them to accept him as one of their own.

He was in luck; only two streets away, he spotted the Old Sichuan. The neon sign over the entrance promised the best hot pot in Shenzhen. The restaurant was run down, the red carpet was worn and covered with oil and food stains, and the fish bobbing up and down in the tank by the back wall looked half dead. But the place was full. The food must be good, Zhang thought, and he walked slowly through the restaurant, glancing around as if he were looking for someone he knew. He did not see anyone he wanted to sit next to. There were a dozen tables with plastic stools in front of the door; even they were all occupied despite the heat.

A group of men wearing gray overalls with the Cathay Heavy Metal logo on them was sitting at one table talking loudly among themselves. He drew up a stool alongside them, asked for a cigarette, asked if they would recommend the hot pot, whether it was as good as it was in Chongqing, said how happy he was to hear his dialect being spoken, and before he knew it they had invited him to eat with them, ordering another plate, a glass, and a beer for him without being asked.

The men were just starting on their meal. In the middle of the table was a pot of bubbling broth that smelled delicious. Around it were several plates of ingredients: shitake and oyster mushrooms, watercress, cauliflower, bean sprouts, lotus roots, tofu, chicken, smoked bacon, thin slices of meat, and pig's kidneys. The very sight of it all made him homesick. Although he had lived in Shenzhen for over twenty years, he had not taken the town to heart. How was a person to become familiar with a place that changed so quickly that none of its inhabitants recognized it after a few years? New developments had to make way before long for newer buildings, while
someone somewhere was already planning even newer buildings. How was a person supposed to put down roots when he was being uprooted every few years? Zhang also did not like the southern Chinese hustle and bustle, doing business here, there, and everywhere. He often missed the relaxed and easygoing atmosphere that he was familiar with in Chengdu. Mei had to constantly promise that they would move back to his hometown once he had retired.

The men around him clearly felt the same way. They told him how homesick they were and how difficult it was for the unmarried among them to find a wife, about their dreams of opening a small shop, tearoom, or restaurant in Chengdu or Chongqing with their savings. They had originally only wanted to stay two years, but now they had been there for five or six years and there was no end in sight. Their salaries supported their families in their villages. He saw the sadness in their faces, their melancholy, their exhaustion, and their fatigue. He knew their stories. They were the typical stories of the migrant workers, who could almost never save enough money to open their own businesses, who worked until their bodies were completely worn out and sucked dry, only to return to families who had grown strangers to them over the years and with whom they no longer had anything in common apart from a terrible wordlessness.

The more Zhang listened, the more the men told him. Getting people talking was one of his gifts. Mei sometimes asked how he managed it: why people said things to him that they normally kept to themselves. He himself did not know why.

When they had eaten almost all of the hot pot and the row of empty beer bottles filled half the table, the men started talking about their work at Cathay Heavy Metal. They did not complain. The management did not treat them better or worse than in many other factories. They worked twelve hours a day, six days a week, sometimes more, and they had one week's holiday per year. They slept eight to a room and earned about a thousand yuan per month. That was enough for a beer in the evening and a meal out now and then; they sent most of the money back to their parents and brothers
and sisters in Sichuan. They couldn't complain; life was work, wasn't it, and they were better off in comparison with their fathers, who had worked much harder hauling boats up the Yangtze against the current, day in, day out, barbarous drudgery that had caused many of them to collapse and die from sheer exhaustion. And they had not even been able to feed their families properly from the few yuan they got for that work. They would think of their fathers whenever their work seemed too hard or too dangerous for them.

“Why dangerous?” Zhang asked casually.

The circle of men laughed at Zhang's naïve question. The men raised their glasses of beer and toasted Xu and Yang, who had died in a work accident two weeks ago. There had been an increase in accidents at Cathay Heavy Metal in the last few months. When production was being increased so rapidly and so many inexperienced young men were being employed, it was bound to happen. They had told the management that many times already, but anyone who complained too much would end up like Yee. The security guards had beaten him half to death one evening and had cast him and his few possessions out of the factory gates after that.

Two weeks ago there had nearly been a riot. A young foreigner—supposedly the American joint venture partner—had visited the factory, and a few workers had wanted to speak to him about the lack of safety measures in the factory. On management's suggestion, they had drawn up a petition that they wanted to present him with. A fight broke out and the petition had fallen on the ground; the foreigner stepped on it and some of the men took this as an insult and a loss of face so it really fired them up. In the end, the foreigner had fled in his car, which the workers had surrounded, shaking it as though they wanted to overturn it.

“And the security guards?” Zhang asked, surprised. “Where were they?”

“They had looked on and only intervened at a very late stage.”

“Why?”

The workers considered this. They had asked themselves this
question before, but not come up with a conclusive answer. They were certain that it wasn't because of inattention or carelessness.

———

Back at the police headquarters, Zhang checked the Mercedes's number plate. The car belonged to one of Tang's companies, so Victor Tang had likely been at the factory. He called the booking office and asked who had used the two service limousines that afternoon. He did not know the man on the other end of the line; he was probably temporary.

“No one,” the unfamiliar voice told him.

“Are you sure?”

“Nothing is recorded.”

“I'm pretty sure I saw the cars,” Zhang said, baffled.

“Where was that?”

Zhang hesitated. Why did the man want to know that? Who was he speaking to? “Never mind. I must have been mistaken,” he said, hanging up.

He hated being suspicious.

———

Chief Detective Luo Mingliang called the homicide division to a meeting. Luo had been friendly with Zhang in the past; they had solved a few difficult cases together and Zhang had come to appreciate what a tough and sharp-witted investigator he was. Apart from that, they shared a passion for Chinese sayings and aphorisms and had often gone out for meals together, engaging in heavyweight verbal duels in which each proverb had to be countered with another until one or the other of them ran dry. Since Luo had been promoted to the head of the division five years ago, they had seen each other less and less outside of work. Luo was now mainly occupied with official matters to do with the authorities and the party and their easy relationship of the past had now turned mistrustful, more and more so with every “gift” or “token of appreciation” that Zhang
turned down.

———

Luo Mingliang greeted his colleagues briefly. He was in a great hurry, but he still wanted to let them know about the pleasing developments in the case of the murder of Michael Owen. The very first investigations, ordered by him, had led to a promising trail. There was already a suspect. Zu, a thirty-year-old worker from Henan Province, who worked in the foundry operations at Cathay Heavy Metal, was the man. He had fought with Michael Owen at the factory gates the evening before Owen had disappeared. It had been about the low pay and the poor safety conditions for the workers at the factory; the American and Zu had left the factory grounds together; several security guards had witnessed it. The next day, Zu had not appeared at work. They were now searching for him. Luo told his colleagues that all they had to do now was to help with this search; until further notice, no independent investigations were to take place. With any luck this sensitive case would be solved by the next day.

Zhang saw how his colleagues all exhaled with relief.

“What do we know about Zu?” Zhang asked. Even the sound of his voice made most of them wince.

“Not much yet. He's been working at the factory for a year. We'll get a photo and all the personal details from the HR department at Cathay Heavy Metal this afternoon. I'll let you all know once we have them.”

The policemen got up and returned to their desks. While leaving the room, Luo asked Zhang to come with him.

His office was a large, bright room at the end of a corridor, with a reception area in front and two secretaries. Zhang took note of the new furniture: a red couch and two red armchairs, with white cloths protecting the armrests.

“Take a seat,” Luo said, offering him a cigarette and tea. “Zhang, how long have we known each other now?”

This familiar tone is a bad sign, Zhang thought. What does he
want from me? “I don't know. Nearly fifteen years, I think.”

“A long time. Enough to get to know each other a little, to know some things about each other, isn't it?” Luo replied, sipping his tea. “You told me that the killed American was a friend of your friend Paul, right?”

That was not a question but a statement, and Zhang did not know what his boss was getting at. He decided it would be better to stay silent.

“The death of a good friend of one's best friend cannot leave a person untouched, and of course one wants to do everything to find the murderer. No, what I should say is, one will not rest until he finds him, am I right, Zhang?”

He rephrased it, “One would, especially since one is a detective, leave no stone unturned to solve the case, so that the murderer can be properly punished for this cowardly and dastardly deed. Friendship calls for that, doesn't it?”

Zhang did what Luo expected him to do: He listened attentively and nodded.

“One would conduct investigations, follow up every trail, independently, if necessary. We all know what we owe our friends. Am I right?”

Before Zhang could nod once again, the slow, lecturing tone fell away from Luo's voice and it became so hard and severe that it reminded Zhang of party meetings and their endless self-criticisms.

“Is that why you were at the Cathay Heavy Metal factory this morning? What were you doing there?”

“I . . . I . . .” Zhang was so surprised that he started stammering. Why did he have to justify himself for perfectly everyday investigative work? How did his boss know about it anyway? Had the driver told him? Had he been seen at the factory, or was Luo hiding something from him?

Without waiting for a proper reply, Luo continued speaking.
“You did not discuss that with me. Making these kinds of wayward inquiries could jeopardize the whole investigation. You must stop immediately. Do you understand?”