Asia Literary Review No. 14, Winter 2009 by Asia Literary Review

ASIA LITERARY REVIEW WINTER 2009 No. 14

Publisher Editor-in-Chief Managing Editor Deputy Editor Poetry Editor Consulting Editors Contributing Editors

Ilyas Khan Chris Wood Duncan Jepson Tim Cribb Martin Alexander Ian Jack, Peter Koenig Justin Hill, Wen Huang, Karl Taro Greenfeld, Nam Le, John Batten (Art)

Production Designer Circulation, Sales & Marketing

Sandra Kong, Alan Sargent, Reggie Hui Steffan Leyshon-Jones Anil Kumar

Cover Image Xavier Comas Back Cover Image André Eichman Asia Literary Review is published by Print Work Limited 2401, Winsome House, 73 Wyndham Street, Central, Hong Kong www.asialiteraryreview.com To subscribe email subs@asialiteraryreview.com Editorial: 852.2167.8947 Email: chris.wood@asialiteraryreview.com Advertising: 852.2167.8910 Email: anil.kumar@asialiteraryreview.com Typeset in Adobe Garamond Printed in China by C&C Offset Printing Co. Ltd.

Contents

Chris Wood

Editorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Notes

Edwina Shaw Haresh Shah

Fiction Broken

Fiction Killing Rajen

Niki Marangou

Poems Roses Jerusalem Translated by Stephanos Stephanides Electricity In Fyti Albania On the Spilt Blood Translated by Xenia Andreou

Wen Huang

Non-fiction Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

Didi Kirsten Tatlow

Interview Gao Xingjian Additional translation by Bruce Humes 3

37 38 38 39 39

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Anis Shivani

Fiction The Fifth Lash

Alexandru Cetăţeanu

Poem Romania

101

Xavier Comas Thomas Lee

Photo Essay Noe’s Jiuta-mai

103

Fiction Nova initia

121

Daljit Nagra

Poems Phallacy Our Daughter, The Bible Flasher! The Punjab Have I Got Old News For You

145 146 146 148

Henning Mankell

Fiction From The Man from Beijing Translated by Laurie Thompson

Peter Mares Mariko Nagai

Transcript Reading India – Kerala’s Literary Mission

177

Poem From Imaginary Death

183

Sam Chambers

Travel Liberation Road 189 Pictures by André Eichman

Contributors

149

203

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Editor’s Notes

hristine Lim Su-chen hurries over as the lights come up in the lecture theatre and, taking me firmly by the arm, leads the way to the Singapore Writers’ Festival bookshop. ‘There’s something I want to show you,’ she says, and reaching up high she takes down a copy of her novel Rice Bowl from the shelf and flips the pages. ‘Here,’ she moves her index finger slowly over the text. ‘I read this for the first time in public two weeks ago, just before the festival began.’ She is delighted. ‘It’s the first time I have felt able to.’ The passage has one young Singaporean telling another: ‘You and your kind are full of contradictions! You want people who are intelligent, critical and analytical, discriminating blah, blah, blah and then you say, that’s enough. Don’t rock the boat. Any false move and we sink. Enemies are lurking in the corners ready to jump on us and jealous foreign powers will exploit us. This is rule by fear … This garrison mentality will soon rob us of our vitality. We build our walls higher and higher, eating our rice in fear.’ Rice Bowl was Lim’s first novel, published in 1984, and in it she sought to question Singapore’s system of regulated pragmatism, which the country’s founding leader, Lee Kuan Yew, would go on to articulate as ‘Asian Values’: ‘With few exceptions, democracy has not brought good government to developing countries. What Asians value may not necessarily be what Americans, or Europeans, value; westerners value the freedoms and liberties 7

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of the individual. As an Asian of Chinese cultural background, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient.’ Rice Bowl drew harsh reviews in a time when, says Lim, Singapore was a nation ‘hard-nosed and hard-headed in pursuit of economic development, where criticism and ideals had no place.’ But it resonates today. ‘After my public reading, the young people came forward to thank me for writing this book. I felt affirmed by them. If I had read Rice Bowl publicly in 1984, I doubt I would have had the kind of positive reception that I received this year. People were more cautious and fearful then. Not now.’ It has been twenty-five years since Rice Bowl, and much has changed in the island state of Singapore. It is no longer obsessed by a sense of economic insecurity, and poverty is unheard of. Where once they clashed, its ethnic groups – Malay, Indian and Chinese – now live in harmony. Its schools and hospitals and public infrastructure are the envy of the developing world. Still, it is always with a mild sense of unease that I enter Singapore. Since the 1960s, open discussion of politics, religion, sex and race has been ‘out of bounds’. Any publication deemed to promote religious discord is banned. The criteria by which applications to the National Arts Council for writing and publishing grants are assessed include how a novel or play deals with: ‘Politics/government policies, Religion, Racial or Social issues, and Homosexuality’. Ian Buruma said in a recent issue of Asia Literary Review that, in Singapore, the government ‘struck a deal’ with the educated middle class, the deal being that, ‘we create conditions of order and stability and prosperity so that you can grow richer and richer, and in exchange for that you stay out of politics and you don’t question us’. This ‘social pact’ is a theme picked up by John Kampfner in the Singapore chapter of his new book Freedom for Sale: How We Made Money and Lost Our Liberty. He describes a society in which seemingly everything is prescribed, and a system that extols ‘Asian values’, promoting notions of collective wellbeing over individualism, social harmony over dissent and socio-economic progress over human rights. It’s a system that has brought China to the door, eager to learn the secrets of an approach to government that offers a subtler path to containing the forces of individual freedom of expression and collective self-examination 8

Editor’s Notes

– so feared in the political arena, so essential to cultural life – while also stimulating economic advancement. In this issue of ALR, Chinese Nobel laureate Gao Xingjian speaks of ‘total mental freedom and independence of thought [being] necessary conditions for the author, for literature’. In China, Gao encountered great difficulties with the authorities when publishing his work but notes, perhaps more tellingly, that ‘the writer also had to place limitations on himself and exercise “selfdiscipline”’. It was not a proposition he found realistic, and so he left. It’s a dilemma Lim and other Singaporean writers of her generation might recognise, and they bear the same scars. ‘The boundaries are still there. The challenge facing the Singapore writer is how to circumvent these boundaries and deal with such issues with openness and integrity in our writing. Some of us have witnessed how playwrights were jailed in the 1970s and 1980s. Such things are hard to forget. Some writers have lived with fear for so long that we can’t let go even though the government is no longer as heavy-handed.’ As China sets out to remodel itself on Singapore, in the island-state at least Kampfner does recognise the beginnings of a loosening in the cultural arena. It is evident in the emergence of writers prepared to question the virtues of the ‘social pact’. Writer and editor Alvin Pang says that while there are still petty annoyances with the authorities, he knows of no one in the past fifteen years who has been arrested for their writing. He gives Cyril Wong’s poetry, with its strong erotic and gay themes, as an example of how once controversial writing has crossed into the mainstream. Wong says: ‘One minute we are “conservative”, the next we seem on the brink of actual globalisation or cultural open-mindedness, diversity and depth.’ It is, he admits, ‘a little schizophrenic’ but ‘slow and steady will win the race.’ Perhaps China will follow suit.

Chris Wood

Half Moon/Ma Ning Li (2005) by Jens Uwe Parkitny. Digital print on archival paper, 58.4cm x 58.4cm. Courtesy of Asia Fine Art Gallery, Hong Kong.

Liberation Road

Broken Edwina Shaw

spitball hits the back of my neck. I thought it would be different here. But it is the same. Always the same. ‘Chamar!’ my tormentors call loudly, though the rest of the class at least tries to stifle the laughter. ‘Filthy untouchable,’ says the son of a merchant who lives near me. ‘Why are you sitting in the front? Know your place. Get back to the village.’ My eyes remain fixed on the blackboard and the algebra being chalked by the teacher, pretending he is deaf. I know better than to acknowledge insults. ‘You are the smartest in the class,’ my mother says. ‘It is only right you should sit at the front.’ ‘I will,’ I tell her. ‘I promise.’ And this morning as I rode my bicycle the miles to my new high school and found my first class, I urged myself to keep that promise. That others think differently is beyond my control. My mother told me the new school was better and, though further away, the distance would be nothing compared with the journey I would soon be taking to university and beyond, far from our village, far from the curse of my family’s caste. Gandhi-ji called us Harijan – ‘children of God’; my mother says they killed him for his beliefs. When I was born my mother gave me a name, though no one uses it but her. Outside the house, I am simply ‘Chamar’, the name of my sub-caste, for even among the lowest there are degrees of wretchedness. I am forbidden to wear shoes. I cannot enter the temple or pump water from the well. When someone takes pity and gives me a drink, I 11

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must use a clay cup that is destroyed afterwards so others will not be tainted. ‘What disease do I have?’ I ask my mother. ‘None,’ she says. ‘Am I stupid, or ugly or poor?’ ‘No,’ she answers stroking the hair back from my forehead, ‘you are the opposite; clever and handsome and richer than any of them. You will be a greater man than any in the village. You’ll see.’ But still I am called ‘broken’. My father works in the south now, where they do not know his caste. He has gone far and there they call him by his name and he is happy. He is building the road that will one day bring Bihar into the twenty-first century, with the rest of India, and every month he sends home more money than others in my village see in half a year. But because his forefathers made hides into leather, I am considered less than a man, less than the beasts that are free to roam the streets, snarling traffic in their wake. I am Chamar. When a cow died and its bloated carcass fouled the village, only the hands of my family were considered soiled enough to touch its rotting flesh, though there are other Chamar who are lesser than us. But because my father works, because we eat meat twice a week, because our hut has a cement floor, and we stand with our eyes looking forward and not down at the dirt, the task was ours. Just as I learned early to swallow my pride, I swallowed the bile that rushed to my mouth at the stench of the maggoty cow when my mother and sisters and I dragged it to the edge of town near the railway tracks and set it alight. A crowd watched, scarves held to their noses, as the kerosenefuelled flames rose and danced. I will escape, somehow, the sins of the past. My mother made me promise. ‘Chamar!’ the merchant’s son hisses again. ‘Enough,’ the teacher says, turning from the board and clapping his hands in a cloud of chalk. ‘Need I remind you that the Dalit have a place here. Even the lowest and most hopeless of the scheduled classes are entitled to education.’ Such is the law, which he states as if reciting a multiplication table. ‘But Sir,’ says the merchant’s son. ‘Must he sit at the front? I am being polluted.’ ‘Me too,’ says the boy on his left. ‘Also me,’ says the boy on his right. 12

Broken

I feel the hair on the back of my neck prickle as the rest of the class chimes in against me. ‘I’ll be forced to go to temple for cleansing. It takes hours. How can I study?’ ‘Yes, cleansing,’ comes the chorus. I am quiet, studying the teacher’s face. He is annoyed, but it is not the class that annoys him. It is me. The law requires him to teach me, but it cannot make him do so willingly. In the village many times the teachers made me sit outside the classroom and here, I now realise, even though I will be the best student in the class with scores almost always one hundred per cent, this Brahmin teacher will send me to the back row with the other Dalits. He tilts his head towards me. ‘If you wouldn’t mind?’ It isn’t a question. ‘Sir,’ I nod respectfully, but I move slowly, thumping my books and scraping the bench against the floorboards as I rise and shuffle, eyes down, to the back of the room. When I am seated, the teacher continues his lesson. I open my book three chapters ahead and begin to read. When I look up, I see Babai glancing at me sideways under the cover of her hair. She offers a smile of comfort, her lips soft, the colour of roses. I love her. Babai is an untouchable, too. We two were the only ones from our village to win scholarships so we could continue our education. Her family is of a higher sub-caste. Their ancestors were washers of clothes, an occupation the family still pursues. Her mother takes in washing from the neighbours and her half-blind father works in Patna in a laundry. I love Babai. I love her because she is strong, like me. I’ve loved her since we were children and she stood up to her mother, refusing to cook chapattis for her brothers when she had homework to do. I heard her mother’s screeches and the blows she rained upon her daughter. But Babai didn’t give in. She even managed to convince her father to allow her to continue studying, not marry as others from the street have done; barely thirteen, sent to service the rooms and flaccid organs of men old enough to be their grandfathers. Everyone knows about her family. About her father. When he was young he joined a gang of robbers who lived in the woods. They were caught and punished by the policemen in Bodh Gaya, blinded in one eye with bicycle 13

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spokes and acid. He is a fierce man, but he loves Babai. He beats his wife with his strap, but never his daughter. I’ve loved Babai so long she feels like a part of me, though we have never spoken. I was proud when she excelled in the examinations and smiled when she refused to clean the shirt of a boy who tried to put her in her place. She doesn’t answer to ‘Dalit’, as even I sometimes do. She has a name. I decided long ago that she would be my wife. Babai flashes her eyes towards me again, as if to give me courage. I promise myself I will speak to her after school, on our way back to the village. The school is five miles from home; there is a bus for those who can afford the fare. I never take it. I have my bicycle, which my father said would help set me free, and when I am riding fast and alone with the wind, the whirring wheels and oiled chain sing my name. Over dinner my mother assures me. ‘We’ll show them. How many in the village sit down to such fine dishes? How many of their sons score one hundred per cent and win scholarships?’ On the wall, next to Gandhi-ji and Ganesh, the elephant god, remover of obstacles, is a portrait of Ambedkar, the untouchable who became a politician and fought for the scholarships that now give us an education. My mother tells me to pray each day to all three. When she was young her father took her to see Gandhi-ji and taught her to believe in change. She has great hopes for me. In the cover of trees only a mile from the school, I gather a small bouquet of wild flowers and wait for Babai. I know she will be walking today as she does not board the afternoon bus. As I spy her approach, I am suddenly shy and drop the flowers to the ground; weeds that somehow found their way into my hand. Babai is a little startled when I emerge from the trees. I draw courage from the slight upward lilt of her lips as she lowers her eyes. From the rutted road come the rattles of light traffic, and the odd bony cow lows mournfully, but the school bus passed a while ago. We have the walk home to ourselves. I push my bike behind her, maintaining a respectful distance, trying to form the perfect sentence to break the silence. I should like to offer her a ride, to have her sit on the crossbar as I do my sisters, to ride us both home, her long hair brushing my face. But I am Chamar; even washerwomen are polluted by my presence. Her father would 14

Broken

kill us both if he saw her on my bike. He has killed for less. So I walk behind, watching the gentle rise and fall of her footsteps, the cloth of her sari clinging to her hips from the heat. ‘Why are you walking?’ she asks. I look back over my shoulder for someone else. ‘Why don’t you ride your bike?’ I cough and stutter, heat rising to my face. ‘I’m n … n … not following you.’ Stupid. ‘You were having so much fun on it this morning,’ she laughs, her hair swirling as she flicks her head around and smiles. ‘I … I was … it is second-hand, but it runs smoothly now, so fast …’ My shyness is forgotten until I catch a glimpse of an approaching cart and realise that, in my enthusiasm, I have crept dangerously close to her. ‘Sorry,’ I whisper, dropping back. ‘Don’t be,’ she says, turning towards me in a movement so full of grace and promise I feel like riding to the moon. The cart passes and I edge closer again and say, ‘Maybe tomorrow I could give you a ride? I mean … not here, not on the road. Maybe we could … go a little bit down one of the forest paths.’ I’ve gone too far. If she repeats what I’ve said, I’ll be chased from Bihar with sticks. I hold my breath as a bus chugs up behind us. ‘I’d like that.’ We are nearing the end of the shelter afforded by the forest and the borders of our village approach, so I mount and ride away, grinning like the greatest of fools. I hardly sleep for visions of Babai’s loveliness, her sitting in front of me on the bike, my arms around her waist, my wrists brushing the skin between her sari and blouse. I dream of her face leaning towards me, her lips, her soft lips, coming closer to mine. I look for Babai in the woods on the way to school and wait so long that I’m late for class. She is already there. After, though, she ignores the bus and walks home. I ride in circles behind and follow her into the cover of the forest, where she stops and turns and smiles. I swing my front wheel back and forth in half-circles to keep my balance. ‘My mother gave me bus money this morning,’ she says. ‘Oh.’ I don’t tell her that all day I’ve been feeling as if bears had torn the heart from my chest. ‘Want a ride?’ 15

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We linger by a sidetrack and, with no one in sight, she climbs onto my bicycle and I pedal furiously as we race down the path. She squeals with delight and I feel as if perhaps I am a man, not broken at all. We stop at a clearing and I teach her how to ride, running beside her until she finds her balance. Her cheeks flush red as plums and we laugh like innocents who do not yet know their place in the world. When she tires of riding, we sit with our backs against a tree trunk and talk. We speak about our lives and ambitions and family. Her face is close to mine. I smell the rice-sweetness of her breath. Her father is returning from Patna tonight, she says, and she’s already late. She mustn’t make him angry. Before we leave the shelter of the track I touch her hand. The thrill of electricity that races between us makes me jump. She does too. ‘What was that?’ ‘That’s us,’ I say, as if I’m a holy man who understands everything. I only know that the two of us together make some kind of magic and I never want the long walk home through the forest to end. Most days she walks and I wait for her, but other times I ride home alone and see her eyes dart towards me as the bus bumps past. That she even attempts to look at me in a bus full of high-castes makes my heart ache. We’re not able to sneak down the track often. The road to our village is not big, but India has many people, all coming and going somewhere. One afternoon we carve our names into the bark of the old fig we’ve come to call our own. Afterwards, we sit side by side and, in my mind, I rehearse an elaborate kiss, something I so want to give her, and have wished to do as many times as there are stars in the heavens. Babai brings the warmth of her hand to my cheek and runs her finger along my lips. ‘You have a moustache,’ she giggles. I nod, afraid to speak, feel my face flush. I lower my eyes, blinking, embarrassed. ‘Shhh. You are a man now.’ My hands are cupped at the front of my trousers, trying to hide the effect her touch is having. ‘So handsome,’ she whispers close to my ear, the heat and scent of her neck making speech impossible. 16

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Then she kisses me. Her lips on mine. Sweet and soft. Her mouth. Her whole mouth. I am afraid and have to break away. ‘We must go back.’ ‘Now?’ ‘It’s late. We must remember …’ I rise quickly before I can forget who I am and lose myself in her mouth, melt into her forever. Angry, she stomps before me. As we near the road I reach for her. ‘I will marry you. I don’t know how, but I will.’ That night I write by the candle until the roosters begin to crow. I write a letter telling Babai everything I have planned for us. University, good jobs, money, a wedding bigger than any our village has ever seen, a wedding so large and a dowry so rich that my sub-caste will amount to nothing. I write of my love, as full and deep as Shiva’s for Shakti. My lingam, her yoni. Together. The children we’ll have. The life we’ll make, away from our past and the curse of being born broken. Together, we will be whole. On the last page I write, ‘I love you. I love you, I love you.’ More than one hundred times, ‘I love you.’ That was two weeks ago. She keeps the letter in the front of her blouse, near her heart. When I walk close behind her I swear I hear the pages rustle. But there will be no more secret kisses today. Her brothers are waiting at the school gates to take her home. As I pedal out, glancing in her direction, I hear them say that their father has lost his job. In the dark after dinner I am in bed, my hands pretending they are Babai’s, when I hear her cries from down the street. I sit up in a panic, ready to run to her rescue. Her father is ranting. Her brothers are shouting. Her mother screams. And then all is quiet. ‘Don’t go to school today,’ says my mother at breakfast. ‘Don’t go. Wait. See what’s happened. Her father …’ But I have to go, to make sure Babai is alright. My mother makes me pray before Gandhi-ji, Ganesh and Ambedkar, and blesses me three times. She watches as I ride down the street, which is empty, quiet. I smile back at her, a smile that says, ‘See, nothing to worry about, just another family argument, nothing about me.’ I do not see the wire strung across the road. My bike careers out of my hands and I am in the dirt, winded, struggling to find my breath when Babai’s brothers are upon me. As my vision clears I see her father 17

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at the roadside. He barks orders. In his hand is a sheaf of crumpled paper, my letter, my letter to Babai. My hundred declarations of love. I struggle but the brothers hold me fast, ripping off my shirt. My mother runs to me, but one of them rises and kicks her down. Half the village is now watching. No one moves to help my mother. ‘Filthy Chamar!’ the father shouts, marching towards me. The sharp slap of his strap striking his hand sounds like gunshots. ‘With my daughter!’ His voice is high pitched with fury, his face like an angry god. The destroyer. The face of my death. The strap comes down and I twist myself to take the blows on my back and feel its cut. Skin comes away with the leather as he pulls back for another blow but I do not cry out. I clench tight my teeth and send my screams deep into my heart to make it hard. He will not see my tears. He will not take my pride. Again and again the strap comes down, until the pain blurs into one sharp terror. Streams of blood course over my ribs. The villagers call, ‘More … more … teach him his place.’ ‘Get my razor!’ the old man bellows to his wife, who stands apart from her men. My mother cries for mercy, begs the gods to intervene. She pleads with Babia’s mother as a mother who has also given birth to sons of her own. But the woman turns her battered face away as she brings the glinting razor and the crowd is suddenly quiet. The brothers pin me on my back in the muddy pool of dirt and cow dung and blood as their father lowers a knee onto my chest. The circle around us tightens. The old man is heavy; I struggle for breath and my nostrils burn with the stink of laundry soap and sweat. He holds the blade high. His fingers squeeze my cheek as he brings the razor down on my face and I taste the metal of my own blood, thick and salty. I hear my mother weeping. I spit and cry out, ‘Babai!’ Is she already dead? The razor scrapes across my skull, hacking off my hair until my face is covered with dark curls stuck together with blood from my lacerated scalp. ‘That’ll teach him,’ I hear the merchant’s son shout, ‘the filthy Chamar.’ ‘This piece of dirt has shamed my family!’ the old man roars, his one eye sweeping wildly over the crowd. He fumbles with my belt. I hear a collective gasp and pray for death to come quickly. ‘Noooo!’ I hear. It is Babai, and I twist my head to see her fight through the circle of onlookers; her face is swollen and blue. ‘Get back to the house, slut!’ her father says, and I feel an easing of his 18

Broken

weight as he twists to unleash a torrent of foulness upon her. Her brothers, too, have loosened their grip and I lift my knees, kick out at the old man and roll from between his legs. Scramble in the dirt through the crowd. A sharp kick to the groin stops one brother. My mother grasps at the ankles of the other who punches her face. ‘Run, my son, run!’ I almost stop out of fear for her, but I find my feet and race away, the two brothers giving chase, the father raging, the whole village in his wake, ‘Chamar! Chamar!’ I run. I run to the end of the houses, through the yellowing fields and across the railway tracks. Run fast as I can, tears stinging my slashed cheek. Run far, all the way to the monks at Bodh Gaya if I must. But I will come back, for Babai. I am not Chamar. I am not broken. I am a man. My name is Gopal Kumar.

In memory of Manish Kumar, fifteen, thrown in front of a train in Bihar a year ago for writing a love letter.

Flower (2007) by Ron Lau. Digital print, 58cm x 58cm. Courtesy of Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong.

Liberation Road

Killing Rajen Haresh Shah

e was still relatively young, probably only in his early fifties, and had looked after himself, judging by the body revealed by family and friends as they awkwardly stripped off his clothing. Hands reached out or came together in front of faces bowed in final farewell. A few broke down and had to be led away from the pyre. Many shed tears. The son came forward and touched his father’s toe with the tip of flame from the torch he had carried from home before handing the brand to a sombre-faced undertaker who, with precise movements, lit the fire that quickly engulfed the corpse until its shape was lost in mesmerising orange flames. The crack of bones echoed off the scorched iron roof of the open-sided structure as I watched the slow collapse of the pyre until all that remained were glowing embers to be later sifted for shards that would be dutifully wrapped and given to the next of kin. I have no idea who this man was, or what he did with his life, or even if the tears shed were real or contrived, but I couldn’t help wondering as one does at such events: Is that all there is? I was in the realm of smasan vairag, overcome by a sense of the futility of life, the struggle to succeed, the pursuit of elusive happiness, the greed, the jealousies; all that makes us who we are, and for what … a handful of ash and bone to be cast into sacred waters? It was with similar disillusion that Prince Siddhartha left his kingdom, his beautiful wife, his young son – denouncing the temptations of samsara – 21

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and crept out into the night, a vairagi in search of Nirvana, turning his back on the deceptive world of Maya. It was the familiar chant of death – ‘Ram bolo bhai Ram, Ram bolo bhai Ram’ – that had drawn me out of my thoughts and into the funeral procession to Sonapur and this cremation. Perhaps it was the teenage boy at the head of the procession that trailed the four men bearing the thathdi, probably the dead man’s grandson. He was carrying a flat round clay pot containing a burning piece of wood in the Hindu tradition. In an instant, the boy was me and the thathdi held my grandfather and it was the height of summer and the soles of my feet were being seared by the road’s sticky hot tar and I could only try to quicken my pace as the procession clipped at my ankles. Entering tree-shaded Sonapur, I followed the relatives and friends of the deceased to the open-air crematorium and watched as other bodies were reduced to the contents of a copper urn. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. A fresh pile of wood was arranged on the pyre, including a small bundle of sandalwood. With one final chant of ‘Ram bolo bhai Ram’, the body was laid on the pyre and the corpse was rubbed with ghee to hasten combustion. After, I went to Chowpati Beach and sat on the sand, waving away the bhelpuriwallahs and kulfiwallahs offering ‘special’ deals for their delicacies. I looked at the horizon beyond the waves and thought about Rajen and what I had to do. ‘Haresh, don’t you dare!’ a voice inside me threatened, not for the first time. But I could think of no alternative. ‘Babuji?’ The kulfiwallah was in front of me, lowering from his head a heavy insulated ice box. ‘Kulfi babuji?’ He watched my eyes in anticipation. ‘Aare khalo! Have one, it’s really delicious!’ Rajen escaped from my mind. ‘Okay, give me a leaf.’ He took out a tin cone and rubbed it between his palms to release a frozen kulfi, which he slid with professional flair onto a dried leaf, cut the cone into bite-sized pieces, stuck a toothpick into one and presented the leaf to me with a bright white smile. I watched the sun go down, kulfi melting slowly in my mouth. I knew I was procrastinating, but it felt nice to let time simply slip by. There was no getting around the fact that the task of killing Rajen had fallen squarely upon my shoulders. It was something I had agreed, understood and accepted. I was having trouble crossing the gap between idea and action, but the inevitability of Rajen’s impending death had to be 22

Killing Rajen

faced, sooner rather than later, and only two questions remained: the how and the when. Everything else had gone according to plan. It was just a matter of pulling the plug. And I had, if I pushed it, only two days left to bring about his demise. But why couldn’t I do it? The cancer was terminal. Dr Mehta said there was nothing else they could do and maintained that Rajen’s hold on life was but a thread. I could end his life that very night. Instead, I sat on the beach, savouring kulfi, and watched the cremation of someone I didn’t know, rather than that of someone I knew almost better than myself. I dreaded the idea and wished I had never started the thing at all. * * * At my desk, nervously and dangerously swinging in my chair, I felt like having a cigarette, though I don’t smoke, or something strong to drink. I kept seeing the room where my grandfather had lain, dead. Everyone, even my father, was crying. I stood a couple of feet from his body, paralysed. I looked at Dada’s face and then into the mirror across the room. I didn’t know if I really felt sad or just indifferent. Uncles clutched at my grandmother, who was banging her head against the wall, overwhelmed with grief. Elaxi would probably do the same when Rajen died. If it weren’t for their daughter Malini, she’d probably try to kill herself. A cloud of sadness swept over me, a sadness I hadn’t experienced with Dada. It was agonising. My hands felt icy cold. I threw my pen across the desk and fled to the relative warmth of the living room. * * * I don’t remember when I fell asleep; I must have finally exhausted myself with my tossing and turning, but I seem to recall the clatter of the milkmen as they made their rounds before dawn. Perhaps I managed a couple of hours before lurching awake with the realisation that I was late. After a quick shower and an even quicker breakfast, I cut through the crowds heading towards the Vaishnav temple for the late morning service, then down the flower lane dotted with freshly picked and bound bouquets, some still glistening with dew; the air was heavy with the fragrance of mogra. 23

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Along another lane housewives haggled with the fruit and vegetable vendors over a couple of paisa; the usually pleasant bells of the nearby Shiva temple tolled harshly; the woman who lived on the pavement with her two kids and her man was already making tea as they washed and spat and gargled in the street. Taxis, scooters and private cars honked incessantly. Two sweat-soaked coolies pulled a handcart loaded with heavy gunnysacks stuffed with wheat grain. The jewellery shops were still shuttered, but other stores were in various stages of opening, rolling up their metal shutters and spreading out displays of colourful bangles, delicate saris displayed in their windows. A boy sprinkled water outside the entrance to the Surti Hotel to cool the pavement, which was beginning to shimmer under the climbing sun. Jayantbhai, the owner of the corner newsstand, had already sold hundreds of copies of the daily newspapers as he cracked open another bundle. I saw the A4 bus, which goes close to my office, zooming towards the stop, but I didn’t feel like running and I definitely didn’t feel like riding a bus crowded to bursting with morning commuters. I needed to be alone, to think. I gave up my race against time and kept walking. * * * My Uncle Jaisukh has a small publishing company. I work with him. He was on holiday in Delhi and the only other person in the office, Dhondu, was in the back room sorting and packing books for shipment. I looked at that morning’s mail and put it aside; there was nothing that couldn’t be left until tomorrow. When the phones rang, I told callers I was in the middle of something important and would call them back, and returned to idly flipping the pages of the morning’s Free Press Journal. ‘Excuse me? The door was open.’ I looked up from the newspaper and a man and a woman were sitting down, uninvited, in the chairs directly opposite my desk. ‘Can I help you?’ I was confused, and a bit annoyed at their rude, familiar behaviour. I was sure I had never met the couple before in my life. ‘You’re Haresh Shah, aren’t you?’ the man inquired. ‘No … yes … I’m … I think you have me at a disadvantage.’ ‘Don’t you recognise us?’ he said with unmistakable sarcasm. 24

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‘No, I’m sorry. Your faces look somewhat familiar, but …’ I tried to smile apologetically, stifling my annoyance in case they were important clients of my uncle. ‘Did you hear that? “Somewhat familiar”.’ ‘I’m not surprised he doesn’t recognise us,’ the woman said. ‘Well …’ ‘Never mind,’ the man said curtly. ‘It’s not important. What is important is that, before you kill Rajen, I want to know what gives you the right?’ The words came in a rush of anger. ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ I pushed my chair back, made to rise. ‘Sit! And take care. Do not forget there is a lady in the room. Besides, you don’t have to get upset. Just listen to me. I do not like being interrupted.’ I sat. ‘You have no right whatsoever to play with Rajen’s fate. The way I understand it, you are going to kill him today. But I wanted to make you aware of the fact that if Rajen dies, then Haresh Shah will be committing murder, and I shouldn’t need to remind you that murder is a sin. It is also a crime.’ ‘Murder? What does this have to do with murder? And who are you to come here and talk to me like this?’ ‘I am Shailesh and this is Gita.’ The names rang a faint bell somewhere in the recesses of my mind. ‘You don’t seem to remember us, but you know us from Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan and the annual intercollegiate drama competition.’ I was having a hard time making a connection. ‘Remember Seema?’ ‘Seema?’ ‘He doesn’t remember Seema,’ he said to Gita. ‘How can you forget her?’ Gita said and gave me a peculiar look, which I did my best to ignore. ‘She played the lead in Those Were The Days.’ Something was coming back to me. ‘I still don’t know why you are here in my office!’ ‘Well, I am Rajen’s closest friend, and if anyone knows him best, I do. How he thinks, what his values are, his world, his dreams – the way he walks, the way he talks. I know him better than he knows himself. 25

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And you! How could it be that I apparently don’t know you nearly as well?’ ‘To tell the truth, I still don’t understand what you are talking about.’ ‘You may not want to admit it, but that’s your problem. I just wanted to warn you that should you choose to kill Rajen, you better be prepared to face the consequences.’ He paused for a moment, his eyes like daggers. ‘Come, Gita.’ And they left as abruptly as they had arrived. I stared at their backs through the clear glass of my swinging office door until their forms disappeared. Gita’s orange sari floated in the air, her swan-like neck arched as she tossed her long black braid over her shoulders. I thought I would probably like her under different circumstances. My impression of Shailelsh was that of a happy-go-lucky young man, but his words echoed in my ears long after he and Gita left. Confused and disoriented, I kicked my chair back and crossed the office to our display of new titles, taking down a copy of the latest Gulshan Nanda. I turned a few pages, but couldn’t connect with the words. I put it back and took down another and then another, but the words meant nothing to me. I felt like pacing, back and forth, hands clasped behind my back, head down. But ours is a small office; big enough for the three of us and the various publication displays, but not what one might call spacious. The newly lowered ceiling and the covered fluorescent lights make it a cosy place to work. The walls were freshly painted and the three windows, secured with metal bars to deter thieves, were open enough for a generous dose of unfiltered morning sunlight, which reflected off glass surfaces. I sat down again at my cluttered desk and imagined the room in its original aged state – rugged timber floors, high wooden ceilings, cracked walls, everywhere the patina of centuries of office clerks. It was almost lunch time. I didn’t feel like going home to eat, nor did I feel like sitting around the office on my own. Anyone might barge in. ‘I’ll be back in an hour or so,’ I called to Dhondu in the back room as I went out. It was cloudy and windy out, but still quite pleasant as I walked past first the Chetna and then the Khyber restaurants, deciding against both. I didn’t know if I could eat at all, but I had to try something. I turned right at the corner for my favourite south Indian restaurant and found a quiet table. I ordered idli and masala dosa. The busboy brought water in a stainless steel cup and streaked the table with his dirty rag. I watched a boy across the room 26

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pouring boiling coffee in long arcing streams, back and forth through the air, catching the contents of the higher cup with another at his hip. It was a precarious manoeuvre; one slip and it would all come splashing to the floor. In that continuous stream, I saw Rajen’s fate flow between life and death. My food was put in front of me, but I wasn’t hungry. I swallowed some of the idli, poked at the masala dosa, took a sip of water and walked back to the office, but the morning’s visitors had so unsettled me that I couldn’t concentrate on work. The idea of having to kill Rajen was excruciatingly painful. I think I have a realistic outlook, though sometimes I can be such an emotional bastard! Still, I had to do it. Procrastination was only postponing the inevitable. It did nothing but exacerbate the pain. * * * Monsoon was in the air, which was hot, humid and stifling. The heat was making me nervous. I left the office a little earlier than usual and decided to take the long way home, cutting through the crowd at Flora Fountain and walking towards Churchgate Station, from where overflowing trains carry countless commuters to distant suburbs. At Maharshi Karve Marg, I turned, rather than continuing straight as I might have, and hopped onto an approaching double-decker bus. Twenty minutes later I was climbing the stairs to the upper level of Café Naaz on Malabar Hill by the side of Kamla Nehru Park. The café overlooks the Hanging Gardens and its terrace has a marvellous view of all Bombay. The ocean front and Queen’s Necklace curving along with the high-rises of Marine Drive is a vista as beautiful and breathtaking as it is peaceful, and I had no sensation of time until I felt dusk drift across the open terrace. As I twirled the plastic straw in my iced coffee, I noticed a handsome young man and a pretty young woman climbing up to the terrace. Naaz is quite popular with the affluent young. A public venue of utmost privacy, and an atmosphere quite conducive to nurturing matters of the heart. I expected them to take a vacant table in a discreet corner, but instead they crossed the terrace in my direction. ‘Mind if we join you, Mr Shah?’ the young man asked politely. He wore a pair of loose-fitting white pants and a silk kurta with a Nehru vest. The 27

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woman was stylishly dressed in a comfortable salwar kameez, unpretentious loose white pants and a dark-blue long top that touched her knees. The flower-print dupatta wrapped around her neck fluttered in the evening breeze. ‘I’m Manoj,’ he said, taking the seat across from me. ‘You must be Smita, then?’ I motioned towards the woman, who sat on my right. Not that I recognised her, but who else would be with Manoj? Unlike Shailesh, Manoj was quiet and rational. He and Smita almost put me at ease, but by their expressions I knew our conversation would not be convivial. They had sought me out with a plea for mercy, for Rajen, and especially for Elaxi – her suffering would be beyond words. I heard them out, for they were the most charming of couples, and for a moment my resolve weakened. But it was no use. ‘Let me think it over,’ I said, concluding our conversation. Manoj and Smita thanked me for the courtesy of listening and as I watched them go in the gathering evening, my dissembling, to them of all people, made me feel miserable. I really didn’t know what I should do. Ela and Rajen were closer to me than blood family, and I was going to destroy them both. I paid my bill and, waving off a taxi outside Café Naaz, made my descent on foot. Beyond the waves of the Arabian Sea, I could see the tears rolling down Smita’s face and the deep sadness in Manoj’s eyes. * * * Don’t ask me how I managed to end up walking the most notorious street in Bombay, known in equal measure by its three distinct names of Falkland Road, Golpitha and Kamatipura, but most commonly as Randi Bazaar – the market of whores, displaying their wares so blatantly and with gestures so vulgar there is nothing left for the imagination. At the foot of the Malabar Hill, I walked past Wilson College, opposite Chowpati Beach. Filling my lungs with fresh ocean air, I turned left on Sardar Patel Road, which at some point forks into two diagonal streets. I haven’t a clue what lead me to take the left fork instead of right, which ran directly past my home, but I found myself on a road less travelled by me and most denizens of Bombay. A cacophony of music blared from every little café and restaurant, kebab house and dhaba, as if my ears were but inches 28

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from a cymbal clash. I knew the street as a short cut to somewhere else, and usually from the interior of a car or taxi. Up close and on foot was an entirely other experience and the yellow glow of incandescent light bulbs turned otherwise drab human mannequins, sun-bleached and cracked dark skin barely disguised by cheap make-up and powder, into women. The perch outside every cage door on both sides of the street swarmed with closely huddled females in their crudest and most revealing rags. My eyes lighted on one, probably sixteen years old, if that, in a midriffbaring blouse with pushed-up conical breasts and a skirt that flaunted more than it covered. She sensed my look before she saw me and extended a hand to pull me in, puckered her lips and thrust her crotch at my face – ‘Aa jao babuji, thodi maja kar lo’. I recoiled, spying through the gap of a quivering curtain made from a tattered sari that beyond the bars of the caged door was a small cramped bed. I pulled away as if stung by a scorpion and jumped backwards off the pavement. A car-horn blast broke the spell. I was in a cold sweat. It was only nine at night, but deep darkness had already enveloped the city, except here in the street of disgust and desire where lights blazed and qawwalis blasted from opposing restaurants, colliding in my ears, and traffic crawled through crowds worse than rush hour in the business district but far more dangerous as hands reached into pockets, slipped off watches, snipped at indiscreet golden chains from oblivious necks. My eyes began to see things that were invisible in daylight – narrow dark and dirty alleys that ran off the main street and each other like capillaries that feed off a major artery. Now I was scared. Here, in Golpitha, someone could kidnap me, rob me clean, even kill me and dump my body on a garbage heap in a back alley and no one would ever know what happened to me. A young Gujrati man, properly dressed and from a respectable middle-class family, does not walk these streets alone at night. Even if I escaped unscathed, if someone I knew saw me walking here I faced the kind of blackmail that could ruin my life and reputation. All around me women whistled, blew kisses and squeezed their thinly bloused breasts. One shouted, ‘Aadmi ho ke hijda?’ At that moment, I felt neither man nor impotent eunuch. Another lifted her skirt, exposing a thickly tufted triangle, and shot me a look that went beyond the definition of lewd. I wanted to run, as fast as possible, but was afraid of being mistaken for a thief and being chased down and beaten 29

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by a spontaneous mob that would scatter like pigeons at the approach of a police car or ambulance, leaving the officers to rescue whatever of me was left. I slowed my breathing. The street only stretched two blocks, I reasoned. I was already halfway to the end, where the residential area began. A further two blocks and I would be home. I kept walking, as fast as I could. Would this be the fate of Ela, driven here by a widow’s poverty and desperation? And Malini? Would she one day be cursing men and lifting her skirt? Surely not. They were a good family and their circle of friends would rally around them. Surely not. The very thought made me sick to my stomach. I reached the end of the fork and rejoined Khetwadi, the street I had missed, but didn’t dare slow down until the familiar sights of Kamal Talkies, and the corner café, the pasti shop where everyone brings their old magazines and newspapers for recycling and gets paid cash per pound. I smelled the familiar stench of the public lavatory and the huge garbage area next to it filled with rotting waste. The shops on the right side of the street were now closed and seemed deserted compared with the left, where street vendors had rolled in their flat trolleys equipped with gas burners and lanterns, all offering wonderful delicacies of the night, the best food in Bombay. Their clientele comes from the homes nearby, including ours. We go for midnight snacks and slabs of kulfi – a family favourite. Other customers include the overworked traders from the nearby Bombay Stock Exchange, which has a link to New York and brings out the night owls playing the world markets. They are always hungry and devour freshly cooked aloo chole and bhatura, potato cutlet, pattis, samosas and dozens of other things that tasted like heaven. I swallowed my hunger and kept going until I saw the gates of our compound and the lights burning in our first-floor flat. Street sleepers were already unrolling their bedding in front of the shuttered shops specialising in stainless steel; soon there would be just enough room in the middle of the street for pedestrians and cars to pass. Once inside the flat, I leaned back against the locked door behind me, exhausted. I needed to wash and change, and my mother had prepared an evening meal for me, which I ate without tasting to quiet my hunger. I felt tired, but it was too early to sleep. I went to my room and sat at my desk. There was a new stack of mail, which I ignored, a book I’d been reading, opened 30

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face-down, which I pushed aside. There were piles of paper, typewritten pages covered in scrawls, my writing pad vivid with blue ink. This too I ignored. I tried to make sense of the day, make sense of my encounters with Shailesh and Gita and Manoj and Smita, make sense of the turmoil into which I had been plunged. It is sad to die, but it happens all the time, everywhere and to everyone. The end comes for us all. For Rajen, that end was sooner rather than later, and for them to try to sway me from my path was both unfair and unrealistic. There was no other way. I could see it. Why couldn’t they? Weariness settled upon me from too little sleep and I was struggling to keep my eyes open, to keep my thoughts clear, but they began to wander and I knew that if I didn’t surrender to sleep, sleep would take me anyway. I had one day left, which should be time enough. I made for the bed. The morning would resolve everything, I thought, my head dropping onto a pillow, and let the quiet and stillness and peace take me. * * * It was the first good sleep I had had for a long time, a dreamless nothing some might call the sleep of the dead that left me feeling recharged and full of purpose. At the office, I went through the mail collecting on my desk, sorting it into piles, handing to Dhondu the ones concerning orders and shipments and bills, putting on my uncle’s desk those specifically for him, stacking those in need of my attention, and dropping the rest, by far the bulk of it, in the bin. I was a model of efficiency, and rewarded myself by ordering a coffee from the corner south Indian restaurant. I was in my chair, reading the Free Press Journal, when I saw a young man and an elderly gentleman standing hesitantly at the door, as if they were not sure they had found the correct office. ‘Please, please come in,’ I said, but my encounters the previous day put me on guard. ‘My name is Naresh and …’ the young man began. ‘… and this is Sohanlal Sheth,’ I said, finishing his introduction. ‘I am not Sheth today,’ the old man said. ‘I am just a beggar.’ His eyes were already moist. ‘Please don’t embarrass me, vadil.’ I addressed him with the respect one accords the elderly in a family. 31

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‘I must speak with you,’ he said. Naresh helped him to a chair opposite my desk and took the other. ‘Ela is the only child that I have. Her mother left her and this world when Ela was barely five. Ever since, I have been her mother as well as her father. I have raised her with a mother’s heart. All her life, her happiness has been mine and her sorrow too. I don’t think I can bear to see her unhappy ever again. Please have mercy on her.’ Shohanlal looked at me with the pleading eyes of a father. ‘I beg of you, her chudi and chandlo, I’m a falling leaf, I don’t have too many days left on this earth, but if I were to see Ela become a widow … my soul will never be able to rest in peace, never. If someone must die, kill me. Why does it have to be Rajen?’ His voice broke, his eyes overflowed. Naresh was crying too. I felt pity for the old man’s plaint for his daughter’s colourful glass bangles and the red bindi on her forehead, the auspicious symbols of the presence of a Hindu woman’s husband. ‘Sohanlal Sheth … Naresh …’ Silence lingered. ‘I understand your feelings. My heart too aches at the thought of Rajen’s death. But you must understand. I am helpless. I am a realist. I am bound by reality.’ Quite out of character, the always calm Naresh exploded. ‘Reality? Reality! For God’s sake, can’t you forget reality for just one moment?’ I looked into the face of a man in pain. * * * I loved Seema. My heart throbbed for her in a thousand dreams. My soul craved her. To have held Seema in my arms, my fingers brushing her face, my lips touching the petals that were hers, my eyes looking deep into her being. I was a student then and she was unattainable, to me and everyone else, except her fiancé, who was studying chemical engineering at Sayajirao University in Baroda. They had only met a few times, but she loved him and their wedding date was set. She was studying economics at Jaihind College, as was I, and we had become as close as friends can be. The more I got to know her, the more I adored her, the more I fell in love with her. We spent a lot of time together, working in such close proximity it was extremely difficult sometimes to control my emotions, but she was engaged to be married and that was all there was to it. How do you 32

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convince your heart of something as rational as that? I never confessed my true feelings. I chose to ignore the wedding. I could do nothing about her getting married, but I could not bear to be witness to a ceremony that bound Seema to another man forever. They said she looked radiant as the Gujarat Mail slowly pulled out of Bombay Central Station, taking her to a new life. Two years went by. Seema was in Bombay with her husband. He had been diagnosed with leukaemia and was under the watchful and intensive care of their family doctor and two specialists. ‘He can’t have too many days left,’ I said to myself, and flushed with shame at my selfishness. Before long, black saris were hanging from the clothes line on the huge balcony at the front of her parents’ home; they could be seen from half a block away and they told me the story. I knew in my heart I had killed him with my words. The real tragedy was that I knew she would never be mine. * * * At the very end of Nariman Point I sat on an isolated rock just a few feet from the splashing waves. I was so confused. Nothing made sense anymore. The night hadn’t even begun, but I felt I was already in a nightmare. Why won’t they leave me alone? It’s my decision, not theirs. ‘You have no right to kill Rajen.’ ‘Don’t you dare.’ Even the waves said so, over and over, as they assailed the rocks at my feet. I looked at the sea in search of a clue among the flotsam. Useless. I headed back to the shore and grabbed a taxi, wanting only to get it over with. I just couldn’t take it anymore. * * * ‘Ela?’ I stumbled at the doorway of my room. It was just a shadow at my desk. But why was the shadow reading my pages in the dark? And why the look of growing dejection? I didn’t have to turn on the light to know it was Ela. Of them all, I think I loved her most. More than I loved Rajen. 33

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More than I loved myself. Ela was everything that I ever would have liked to find in a woman. Brave, feminine, discreet, friendly, unique and always smiling. Like Seema. But tonight her face was clouded with suffering, her eyes shadowed with sorrow. I reached to touch a reassuring hand to her shoulder. She turned and looked at me, an instant without end, then collapsed into the chair, her face buried in her hands. She said nothing. Raising her eyes, she looked into mine. She had no need for words. * * * Alone. ‘Do you really have to kill Rajen?’ There was no one talking but me this time. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I do. Life is not made up of happy endings. This is not the movies. Reality is not like that. Look what happened to Seema?’ I walked over to the window and rested my elbows on the sill. It had started raining. The sky was pitch-black. There was lightning, a growling thunder. I thought about Ela’s pensive face. So sad and yet so dreamlike and beautiful I was thrown into reverie – a cosy little cottage, far away, somewhere on the shore of a lake, the dim illumination of candles. I am kissing her forehead and brushing my lips over her eyelids. My thumb gently sliding over her lips. My whole being craving every atom of her carnality. ‘I love you, Ela. I love you Seema. I love you, I really do …’ The window rattled to a too close crack of thunder and a flash of lightning threw everything in the room into sharp relief. Alone. ‘You’re jealous, Haresh,’ I said. ‘Admit it. You’re in love with Ela. Rajen doesn’t have to die. But you want him to. You want Ela all to yourself. You can’t have Seema, so you want Ela. But guess what? Ela will never be with you and all you’ll be doing is condemning her too.’ ‘Nooo!’ I screamed. ‘That’s a lie. I will not let that happen.’ The storm vanished as abruptly as it had come. Monsoon. Long neglected drains struggled to clear the streets below of pond-sized puddles as torrents streaming from the rooftops only fed them more. The sky cleared, but the sun was already beginning to fade with the day. 34

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‘Yes,’ I said, my forehead marking the window pane. ‘Yes, it’s true. I’m in love with Ela. I’m jealous.’ I dropped into the chair at my desk and rested my head in the circle of my arms, vaguely aware of the flickering shadows around me, the sun’s last rays dancing through raindrops that clung to my window. Alone. * * * Asher looks disappointed. More than disappointed. The phrase ‘silence speaks volumes’ would be appropriate here. ‘You’ve gone soft,’ he finally pronounces. Normally sympathetic, his look, often difficult to comprehend because of the fish-eye magnification of his Gandhi frame spectacles, communicates not only his disappointment but carries more than a hint of intimidation. I try to follow his eyes, searching for the right response. ‘I just couldn’t.’ ‘You couldn’t what?’ ‘Kill Rajen.’ ‘And why not? You promised. We agreed.’ ‘Because … because …’ And I begin to tell him what happened, just as it happened. He knows them all, of course, almost as well as I do myself, so there is no need to explain who they are. I tell him about Seema and how I loved her and how her husband’s death didn’t change anything. I even tell him about my accidental walk through Randi Bazaar and all that I felt. I don’t dare look at him, but I can feel Asher’s gaze burning into my skin. ‘Is that all?’ ‘Yes … No … Okay … I am desperately in love with Ela. I just couldn’t stand to see her so unhappy. She is my heart and soul. I thought that by killing Rajen I could have her for myself, but the reality is …’ ‘… that you can’t,’ says Asher. I look at him, shaking my head, not understanding. ‘How do you mean?’ ‘Because she loves Rajen and no one else. She’s never loved you and never will. To you, she is the reincarnation of Seema. But you just can’t make 35

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someone love you. Even if Rajen were dead. Shailesh and Gita tried to tell you that, but you didn’t remember how close they were to Rajen because it was just a passing line from long ago. And when even Manoj and Smita, such a lovely couple – they really are magic together, always my favourites – made it clear how selfish you were being … Haresh, you know they always speak from the heart and, though they are blessed with so much, you never thought them selfish.’ I always listen to Asher when it comes to criticism because he is unerringly right. ‘That’s precisely why,’ I say quietly. ‘Why what?’ ‘Why I couldn’t kill Rajen. He and Ela deserve to live happily ever after.’ ‘And you?’ ‘I guess I’ll continue to love her. After all, aren’t all true loves unrequited?’ Asher is silent. He makes a steeple of his long fingers and looks at me from across his desk. ‘I must say, the last-minute reprieve, a return to life at the stroke of a pen, “spontaneous remission”. Very clever, and entirely plausible. Instant reincarnation. You must feel like almighty Vishnu. The all-too-powerful preserver of life. ‘And Ela’s tears as she holds his hands amid the beeping machines speaks as much of your love for her as her love for him.’ The sardonic note in his voice was unmistakable. ‘Happy endings belong in Bollywood. I deal in realism, and the real world is brutal and mean and full of suffering.’ Asher considers the pages in front of him. ‘“Elaxi – A novel about love”. You don’t really think I would publish this mush, do you?’

Liberation Road

Poems Niki Marangou

Roses In company with the aphid and the caterpillar I have planted roses in the garden this year instead of writing poems the centifolia from the house in mourning at Ayios Thomas the sixty-petaled rose Midas brought from Phrygia the Banksian that came from China cuttings from the last mouchette that survived in the old town, but especially Rosa Gallica, brought by the Crusaders (otherwise known as damascene) with its exquisite perfume. In company with the aphid and the caterpillar but also the spider mite, the tiger moth, the leaf miner, the rose chafer and the hover-fly, the praying mantis that devours them all, we shall be sharing leaves, petals, sky, in this incredible garden, both they and I transitory.

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Jerusalem In the underground waters of the great mosque some hear the waves of paradise and others hear the wailing Just like Father Theodoritos speaking of the fish and the golden ring Symeon found in its belly while Abu Farouk sweeps the yard and children play war among the ruins. Lord now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace and let this City have its rest this deadly City, this stone-throwing City with the machine-guns set around the Wailing Wall, let its people walk in peace around the city wall at dusk that they may say the Dominus Ivimus Lord We Are Coming with a blue boat graffiti on the white marble Poems above translated by Stephanos Stephanides

Electricity In Fyti Mr Nicos told me that when fifty years or so ago electricity came to his village the animals cried all night and the birds flew anxiously about not knowing what was happening. 38

Poems by Niki Marangou

Albania Vassos, a tavern owner in Kassiope said that his neighbour with the souvenir shop the Albanian swam from Agioi Saranta one night when it was snowing and the waves were so high that the patrol boats could not come out with their searchlights and harpoon with their tridents those who tried to swim away.

On the Spilt Blood Sergei was a store-keeper At warehouse 7 or as he said repeatedly lest he forgot at the Church of Our Saviour on the Spilt Blood. His grandfather recounted how the murder took place. From time to time he cleaned the wall with a cloth at a secret spot that was not visible and then the agate, the jasper, the porphyry and the rhodonite would shine through. And he took care not to scratch the marble when he carried the wood to the warehouse with the forklift until times had turned. Poems above translated by Xenia Andreou The Church of Our Saviour in St Petersburg was built on the spot where Tsar Alexander was assassinated. After the revolution the church became a place for storing building materials. 39

Wen Huang

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009 Wen Huang

Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

October 10, 2009 At the luggage carousel , a black youngster cam e up to me and asked, in fluent M andarin if I was a Chin ese . He was an Ethiopian-born German and had studied in Ch engdu. In the old days, people always assumed that I was a Jap anese tourist. How things have change d. Now China is guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Its posters are everywhere. As a Chinese native, it felt quite good to see the presence of Ch ina in a foreign city. At the same time, I wondered if it was overk ill. It’s only a trade fair. Liao Yiwu, a Sichuanbased poet and writer, wa s supposed to talk about his book at an Asia-Pacific literary fes tival in Berlin today, ahead of the Fran kfurt Book Fair, but he was barred from leaving China. That wa s the twelfth time Liao has been refused an exit permit. They th ink he’s a national sec ur ity threat. I wonder what kind of th reat Liao could pose? He was incarcerated for four years because he composed an anti-go ve rnment poem, ‘Massacre’, following th e bloody crackdown on the 1989 student pro-democracy movemen t in Tiananmen. The government decision to ban Liao’s travel gene rated a media storm in German y. I went on Google after coming back to the hotel and typed ‘L iao Yiwu’. There were sev enty-six related news stories just for tod ay. The German version of Liao’s The Corpse Walker is now on Der Spiegel’s best-seller list. Liao’s German publisher, Fisc her, has his poster on pr om inent display at the fair. My friend Mitch at PE N International emailed after hearing about Liao’s case: ‘You ’d think being a powerfu l empire-in-theascendant would impa rt a sense of invulnera bility and an even more astute sense that the soft power projected by letting your writers speak would ou tweigh the damage they could do, such as it is … and not a crank y paranoia.’

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

October 11, 2009 At the subway station, I ran into Bei Ling, the exile d Chinese poet. He looked lik e a Taoist monk with his long hair and flowing ga rment. Bei had a history of bucking Chinese auth ority. I wrote a story abou t him in early 2000, when he was arrested in China for distributing his literary journal there. He was in th e news last month when he and dissident journalist Dai Qing were struck fro m a symposium on Chin a ahead of the book fair. Th e organisers reinstated their invitation following a massive public outcry. However, the appearance of Bei and Dai caused the official Chinese deleg ation to walk out. Mei Zhaorong, China’s form er ambassador to German y, was quoted as saying: ‘W e didn’t come for a lesson on democracy. Those tim es are over.’ Bei said he and Dai felt ve ry isolated. ‘Nobody stood up for us and the Ch inese officials were arrogant,’ he said. ‘The org anisers apologised profusely to the Chinese de legation for our presence. ’ Bei said the European med ia covered the stand-off, which meant internationa l attention to China’s intolerance of dissenting authors. ‘It is not my intention to stir up troubles at the book fair,’ he said. ‘I just hope to sit in the same roo m with members of the offic ial delegation. We could start some kind of dialog ue.’

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

October 12, 2009 The China Pavili on at the fair was designed by Li Ji who was also the wei, architect of the W ater Cube for the Olympics. The ce Beijing ntrepiece of his de sign, ‘Book Mou is a giant piece of n tain’, “handmade paper” flying over shelve of bound Chinese s books. About 300 people put together installation. Chi the na has made an outstanding effo At a dinner with rt . some writer frien ds, I sat next to a PR executive for the book fair. He expressed disappoi at the European m ntment edia for being ov erly critical of C guest-of-honour hina’s status: ‘We are m erely running a fair, not a human tr ade rights convention . I hope the media don’t solely focu s on the controver sies.’ His remark reminded me of a s similar argumen t during the Oly Games in which mpic some athletes urg ed the media to fo sports, not politics cu s on . The difference w as that the Germ public were celebr an ating the twentiet h anniversary of fall of the Berlin the Wall. The media were sensitive to actions that brou any ght back memorie s of the totalitari rules under comm an unism. I heard that the C hinese governmen t was upset at the negative media re ports and dismay ed th at China was ‘unfairly’ treated. Reportedly, Chin es e V ice Premier Xi Jinping had even considered skippi ng his speech at opening ceremon the y.

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October 13, 2009 The opening session was uneventful. No one shouted slogans or threw shoes. Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping and German Chancellor Angela Merkel shook hands for the cameras. On stage, they played to their constituents. I jotted down some of Merkel’s nice sound bites. ‘Books are burnt and forbidden in dictatorships,’ she said, essentially referring to the Nazis. Merkel recalled her own past in formerly communist East Germany, saying that some courageous Westerners, instead of sending oranges, would smuggle books into East Germany. ‘Books point out inconsistencies that endanger a dictatorship.’ Books were decisive in overthrowing the East German dictatorship and ‘books are a part of our history’. Xi calmly stuck with his message: enhancing cultural exchanges to boost world peace; different cultures should learn from each other to build a harmonious world. At a Chinese restaurant near Frankfurt train station, we spotted Dai Qing and Bei Ling. Dai, in her seventies, looked young and energetic, as determined as ever. She raved about Angela Merkel’s speech. I asked how she felt about Mo Yan’s keynote speech, which I missed. Mo Yan’s Red Sorghum used to be banned. ‘So full of empty slogans,’ she said. He talked about how freedom was relative and different in each country and that writers in China were enjoying relative freedom. A business friend frowned: ‘A writer may be free to write anything but if the publishing houses are controlled b y the government, you can’t say writers enjoy freedom of speech.’ I had to leave for Lang Lang’s concert, which was held in the beautiful old Opera House. He played The Yellow River Piano Concerto, a patriotic choral piece written in 1939 by Xian Xinghai, though revised under Madame Mao’s supervision during the Cultural Revolution. I always have problems with this piece because I think the concerto, which describes China’s resistance against the Japanese in the 1940s, exaggerates the Communists’ role in the war. In the third movement, when ‘East is Red’, a song that elevated Mao Zedong to saviour status, becomes a dominant theme, I found it jarring. Lang Lang had spread this propaganda piece around the world. As the audience was wowed by the former child prodigy, I snuck out.

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

October 14, 2009 The fair kicked off today. Years ago, delegates from mainland China travelling in major American or European cities would always walk in groups and wear the same ill-fitting grey suits. Nowadays, Chinese on official business still travel in groups, but their suits are well-tailored. When they’re not talking loudly, they actually look sophisticated. I wanted to talk to Chinese publishers. The government has officially recognised the existence of private publishing houses. They have been around since the 1980s, but called themselves ‘book sellers’ and, to publish anything, they bought ISBNs or book rights from state-owned companies. With the new regulation, private publishers can now operate in the open, but they’ll have to enter into partnership with state companies. ‘It’s all a matter of ideological control,’ an editor with a private publishing house said, but added that the new rules were a sign of progress. Xinhua News Agency says about 300 publishing companies brought 7,600 books and printed products to Frankfurt. Many of the books on display were Chinese language textbooks, but there were books on tourism, cooking and popular science fiction, and some children’s books and science journals. The only political books were by Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. I ran into a Chinese-American friend and he said over coffee he had seen a German reporter perusing a Chinese cookbook. The reporter struck up a conversation with a young female executive of a state publishing company. They were speaking German and her supervisor became nervous when they started laughing. He tried to interrupt the conversation, but the woman ignored him. After the reporter left, the supervisor scolded her and demanded to know what they had talked about. The reporter had asked if the Chinese still ate dog. ‘I joked with the journalist that only Cantonese eat dog. I said we never consider Cantonese as Chinese anyway.’ The supervisor was somewhat relieved that his staff didn’t discuss anything politically sensitive. After he left, she told my friend: ‘They monitor everything and take everything way too seriously. It’s so tense, my muscles ache.’ At the end of the story, my friend commented: ‘Many people consider China’s support for the book fair as soft-power expansion. I think a more appropriate phrase might be “rigid soft power”.’

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Postcards from Frankfurt Book Fair 2009

October 15, 2009 Today was ‘Dissidents’ Day’ – with the increasing publi c outcry over China’s action to exclude dissident writers from the book fair, the organiser has set up platforms so people could hear alter native voices from China. Bei Ling, Dai Qing and Zhou Qing were busy talking to reporters and joined Ma Jian, author of Beijing Coma for a late morning session with the media at the PEN German Centre booth. They described China’s publishing industry as ‘Orwellian’. Ma Jian was point ed. ‘When you commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall, have you ever thought of China and the student protest movement that happened twen ty years ago?’ Zhou Qing offered more sound bites. ‘The governm ent divides writers into two groups – “us” and “them”. Those who toe the Party line are treated with special favours whereas independ ent thinkers are persecuted,’ he said. ‘The Chinese government uses the opportunity to show off its new wealth and has sent a group of write rs that have been specially selected by the Party.’ Dai Qing said she had visited the Chinese section at the book fair. ‘If you look at a book on Chinese history there, you won’t find a single one that deals with the past brutalities of the Communist regim e. There is no way you can get anything published without the approval of the Party,’ she said. I ran into a publisher who was part of the Chinese deleg ation but was trying, despite his blue suit, to remain incognito. He shook his head: ‘These people are using the book fair as an effective platf orm to promote their political views,’ the publisher said, a situation he described as ‘unfortunate’. ‘China has made tremendous progress. One can’t igno re the fact that writers and publishers are gaining their freedom inch by inch.’ At a party hosted by a major German publisher, I chatt ed with a German publicist who had been busy pitching Chin ese governmentsanctioned writers to the German media but with disap pointing results. ‘The media are not interested in wasting their time talki ng with writers who feel obligated to toe the Party line,’ he said.

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October 16, 2009 China’s e-publishing indu stry is booming. I interviewe d the thirtyfour-year-old CEO of Shan da, a major online publishin g company that operates several literary websites in China. Writers can register with Shanda and post their fiction online. So far, abou t 700,000 writers have posted over 2.7 million titles. When I asked the CEO how his company managed pol itically sensitive writings, he quickly explained that the sites are purely commercial, but edi tor s monitor the sites for talent, and ‘problem s’. I ran into Da Qing. She exc itedly led me to a publisher of oriental spiritual books; pages of the Chinese version of ‘Charter 08’ – a manifesto signed by Chin ese human rights activists cal ling for political reforms – had been hung in front of the tiny sta nd. Dai, one of the signatories, said: ‘The Chinese government mi gh t have suppressed the document bu t it’s been spread all aroun d the world.’ At universities around Fra nkfurt, China-related event s were held throughout the book fair. Th ey were by all reports well att ended. I stopped by China’s hall at the fair and it was almost em pty . The book fair is a trade show where those in the publishin g industry negotiate the buyi ng and selling of publishin g rig hts. China had dubbed the event its Olympics of Books. It ga ve the organisers a US$15 mi llion contribution and promi sed a contingent of 2,000 writers, artists and publishers. At a time when the sagging publishing in dustry worldwide threaten ed att endance at the book fair, it was a gene rous gesture. The Chinese government pu t on a big show and was me t with indifference. I felt a little sad .

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October 17, 2009 Chinese firms have so ld the rights for more than 1,300 books to foreign publis hers, while signing up to import 883 overseas titles. Ac cording to China Daily , most of the exported books were about ‘ancient Chines e culture and history, the natio n’s scientific and tec hnological development roadmap ’. A Shanghai-based publi sher, who purchased the rights of several western bests ellers he was confident would do well in China, told me: ‘The economic reforms in th e past thirty years have made it poss ible for a large number of Chinese to join the ranks of a weste rn-style middle class. As a result, the value gap between th e East and West is smal ler. Pop fiction such as Harry Po rter and Da Vinci Code ar e equally popular in China, sellin g millions of copies.’ I ho pe the middle-class values also include freedom of expr ess ion. In exchange, the West ge ts the collected writing s of former President Jiang Zemin.

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October 18, 2009 Like the suits they used to wear, Chinese officials mi ght look uncultured and clums y at the beginning, but eventually they learned ho w to appear sophisticated. They also find they feel mo re accepted when they begin to adopt the universal stand ards of a modern society. Many dissident writers con demned China’s participation in the Frankf urt Book Fair as an attem pt to expand its soft power an d enhance its influence in the world, but what I saw was something more positive. At the book fair, I could see the strong desire by Chinese officials and publi shers to reach out for recognition. I think it’s a good thing. They may have been disappointed by the ne gative media coverage, but the controversies will provid e a learning experience. To quote a US-based indepen dent Chinese publisher, ‘Ch ina is the beneficiary of the glo bal economy, but it can’t stand on the world stage wi thout accepting the basic values of our modern civili sation.’ I agree. It’s far more prefer able that the government spends millions of dollars on promoting books than burning them. On that poi nt, it’s a tremendous step forward.

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Sun & Moon: Floating? Sinking? (1970) by Liu Guosong. Ink on paper, 58cm x 94cm. Courtesy of University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong.

Interview: Gao Xingjian

Courtesy of Singapore Art Museum

Interview: Gao Xingjian

hree times China has forced playwright, novelist and painter Gao Xingjian into exile and, despite winning the biggest literature prize in the world – the first Chinese to be so honoured – his work may not be read, seen, or even openly talked about in the country of his birth. ‘I suppose my independent thinking is something they can’t tolerate,’ he tells Asia Literary Review. Gao, a slim man with a delicate, sallow face, who is dressed entirely in black and grey, holds out his hand in the dim corridor to his apartment on the Rue Sainte-Anne, between Opéra and the Comédie Française, and leads the way through an almost-empty, white-painted front room to a sitting 59

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room. He pours tea into two white, bone china tea cups – pale liquid that is barely stained green. ‘I drink tea very weak. I hope you don’t mind if I pour myself first,’ he says in a light voice, leaning forward on a white leather sofa. Four hours away by high-speed train, war has been waged all week at the Frankfurt Book Fair, as the guest of honour, China, dodged dialogue with critics and tried to present a tightly controlled, party-approved version of its literature; and though Gao dipped his toe in by appearing in public there with exiled poet Yang Lian, to talk on ‘Living Between Worlds’, (some of Gao’s comments from that exchange are included here), he’s uninterested in the fracas. ‘What does any of it have to do with literature?’ he asks. Gao’s lifelong search for freedom is central to both his person and his artistry, the thing without which he believes true art is impossible. It is this uncompromising stance, this insistence that only true, absolute freedom of the mind can produce great literature, and his raised international profile since being awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2000, that sets him apart and makes him such a central figure in Chinese writing. Three times Gao paid for his art with exile. Born in Ganzhou, Jiangxi province, in 1940, he knew early to wrap his stories in plastic and ‘exile’ them to a carefully dug hole in the ground, to avoid discovery. Publication was out of the question. It was the 1970s, and China was in the grip of the Cultural Revolution. By then a university graduate and fluent French speaker, he had been both a peasant farmer and a Red Guard, and knew the danger he was putting himself in by the mere act of writing. Only with the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 did his work begin to appear in public. The second exile came in 1983 when he learned that his absurdist plays, such as Bus Stop (1983) and Absolute Signal (1982), inspired in part by his work as a translator of the likes of Samuel Beckett and Eugène Ionesco, had been condemned as ‘spiritual pollution’ and he was to be sent to a labour camp. Gao fled Beijing, heading south along the Yangtze, travelling for ten months and seeing China as if for the first time. He headed for his hometown on the Gan River, a tributary to the Yangtze, and that journey inspired his masterpiece Soul Mountain (1989). He found in that novel a voice that, at age forty-three, would enable him to write his way out of the nightmare of China’s history, to tease out the meaning of ‘I’ in a collectivist world where there was only ‘we’. 60

Interview: Gao Xingjian

‘You have to find your own language,’ he says. His third, and final, exile came in 1987 after rehearsals of a new play, The Other Shore (1986), were banned. He left for France, which he now regards as home. Gao contends that three decades after China began to open up to the outside world following Mao’s death, artistic freedom, that is, the freedom to create free of fear, is still absent. His stance is a reproach to the snail’s pace retreat from the political interference that has pervaded people’s lives since 1949. Many Chinese writers learn to accommodate this absence of creative freedom, censoring themselves in exchange for the chance to publish. There are others who resist and find themselves banned, and sometimes imprisoned. Dissident writers have an audience in the West, but that’s not the writing Gao cares much about. ‘Too much politics and not enough literature,’ he says. Only writers prepared to disregard politics, write entirely truthfully and ‘bear witness’ can hope to make literature. It takes courage, he says. ‘The writer stands alone and in full consciousness in the face of truth and describes it with all his might.’ Gao has more than a little of the hermit about him. He is remote, softspoken and absolutely devoted to his craft, seeing merit in the Buddhist rejection of ‘chen’, or the ‘dusty’ world. His concept of ‘meiyou zhuyi’, or ‘none-ism’, expresses his absolute rejection of any religious, political or ideological constraint, and favours unbridled independence. This is not nihilism, Gao says, which is in itself a form of constraining belief. His is a dark view of the twentieth century, and he posits that the blame lies with the embrace of two thinkers of the nineteenth century – Nietzsche and Marx. Nietzsche is a ‘madman’ who killed God and opened the way for a form of individual despotism fuelled by a political ideology that ‘hasn’t the first understanding of human society’. For Gao, ‘God’ is an abstract that provoked real thinking by such religious figures as Sixth Zen Patriarch Huineng about whom he wrote a landmark play, Snow in August (2000). Religion, otherwise, is about idolatory, which impinges on the absolute freedom – ‘l’indépendence totale’ – of the mind. Set against the virtues of conformity in both Confucian and Communist culture, Gao’s uncompromising, independent stance is electrifying. Yet he is no blind worshipper of western culture, no ‘crossover’ who spurns his own. Today, via his theory of omnipotent theatre – ‘quanneng xiju’ – Gao 61

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is probably doing more than any other artist to merge the subtlety and sophistication of traditional Chinese acting aesthetics with western traditions of innovation and individual expression. His biography may offer some clues. Gao’s mother, who attended a Christian school in the Jiangxi capital of Nanchang, was a theatre-lover and member of the local YWCA troupe, who acted in many western plays. During the Sino-Japanese war of 1937–45 she joined a resistance theatre troupe. ‘It was not a Communist troupe, it was organised by her church school,’ Gao says after our interview. ‘My father loved Peking opera, and often took me along. So, traditional Chinese and modern theatre, I saw it all.’ Gao’s early plays, in particular, such as Bus Stop, have been criticised as too Beckettian, and his novels, notably Soul Mountain, as difficult and obscure. There is some truth to both criticisms – the play is an early, derivative work, and the novel is no light read. But that isn’t the point. As he races against time and ill health – Gao is sixty-nine and has had a triple heart bypass operation – his oeuvre grows in depth and range. He is now trying to forge a new method for Chinese opera actors that will enable them to express individuality without losing traditional skills. Though exiled by his country, he is still Chinese, but believes borders are irrelevant because ‘Chinese surpasses national limits’. Didi Kirsten Tatlow Additional translation by Bruce Humes

Interview: Gao Xingjian

Gao Xingjian … … on ‘yansu wenxue’. Not all writers pursue literature. You can go and do your writing, but what I’m doing is the kind that addresses the truth, face on. You must also overcome your own weaknesses, because every writer is a human being. You have to surpass yourself in terms of self-knowledge, overcome your narcissism, in order to see the world clearly and with consciousness. This is what I call ‘yansu wenxue’ – serious literature – and it’s the same in the East as in the West. There’s always been this kind of writing, and it’s the only kind of writing that will be passed down. It surpasses national boundaries. It surpasses languages and can be translated. It surpasses eras. It can be read forever. It’s universal and eternal. And this is humanity’s treasure trove. … on the limitations of language as medium of expression. Language is inadequate to express feelings, and you have to expend a lot of effort to find a language that can do it. With each form of creativity, whether literature, painting, music or theatre, the artist’s creative power comes from having found a creative language that can express the inexpressible. He must find a form for that language, and that is creativity. In this way, he enriches the expressiveness in his artistic sphere. Everyone can use a language, be it Chinese or English. But to express the feelings that are in Soul Mountain you have to find your own language. Take, for example, the form of the ordinary novel today. If you were to use that you would not be able to write Soul Mountain. You have to find another form for the novel to do that. So every author has to find his individual form in order to express his individual experiences. A ready-made language can only express ready-made feelings. But if the writer wants to express an entirely individual and fresh feeling, the writer must find an individual and fresh language, a special language. Of course, not every writer does this. Only a small number do. The ones who do have to be entirely conscious of what they are doing, and their experiences have to be really luminous and sharp. You can say an author has to have talent to do this, to have this very individual feeling, to find his own, original form and language.

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… on the need for creative freedom. Total mental freedom and independence of thought are necessary conditions for an author, for literature. But this freedom isn’t limitless, nor is this independence casual. It’s not about freedom for the sake of freedom. Or freedom for people to write any old rubbish. The author must face the truth. A work has value because it is about the human predicament, about eternal predicaments, about the complicated nature of the human heart. Literature demands this freedom to truly address these things and cannot be subject to interference, from politics, religion, ideology, human habits and customs, from all kinds of prejudices that can interfere with the truth. The writer stands alone and in full consciousness in the face of truth and describes it with all his might. He needs a lot of courage. China has never given writers this freedom. It controls what can and what cannot be published. This is why I left. For me it wasn’t realistic, it wasn’t possible to write under such conditions. Everyone makes their own choices. This was mine. I believe the first priority for a writer is inner freedom. ‘Freedom’ does not necessarily refer only to freedom in the outside world. There is also inner freedom. Only once this freedom has been obtained can one engage in ‘writing’. … on Chinese writing today. What is Chinese writing? A Chinese writer (zhongguo huaren zuojia) can write in Chinese, and cannot write in Chinese, can write about China and cannot write about China. I write in Chinese about Chinese subjects, but, like Taowang [The Fugitives (1989), banned in China because of its reference to Tiananmen Square protests], while it’s written in Chinese, it’s got nothing to do with China, it surpasses China. Writing surpasses national limits, surpasses physical limits. Today, in this world, national boundaries are of no interest. In terms of politics they matter very much. But in terms of writing and literature, national borders are not interesting and preaching nationalism is irrelevant. But how to continue writing in Chinese in a western environment, when you don’t count on this sort of writing being published? Naturally, after I came to France and won the right to express myself freely, I have particularly cherished this freedom, and in the twenty-one years that followed, I’ve never taken a holiday. I have no Sundays. 64

Interview: Gao Xingjian

I don’t just write now in Chinese, I also write in French, and this is a new challenge. Is a writer capable of transcending his country and the limits of his mother tongue to undertake creative work in another language? I believe many writers answer this question via their literary works, thereby proving it is indeed feasible. And this is my experience too. Singing at Night is the fifth play I composed in French and it has just been translated into German. I believe a writer cannot only transcend national borders, but can also transcend his own language.

… on the limits of a writer’s power and the recourse to exile. The writer is a weak individual and cannot overcome political oppression; he can only flee, or he has to write for the government. The writer can’t change an era. The writer can’t change the world, or society, can’t overcome political disasters, religious restrictions, social habits and strange customs. But he can, as an individual, take up a pen, and, if he can face his loneliness, he truly can write down the truth of his times, and if he can truly write of people’s predicaments in an honest way, then he can write a work that is of value, and it will naturally overcome restrictions – the political, the religious, the social. This is the writer’s strength. Cao Xueqin [eighteenth-century author of Dream of the Red Chamber] was writing in a closed and despotic society in the early Qing dynasty. His books could not be published. He wrote in secret. But today in China, he’s of the stature of Shakespeare, and we are still studying him! [Laughs] Look how many interpretations there are of Shakespeare; it’s the same for Cao Xueqin. China and the West are the same. These kinds of works can be written under conditions of autocracy. It’s a question of the writer’s strength. But sometimes strength is not enough. During Mao’s time, during the Cultural Revolution, it was totally impossible to write. All you could do was flee. Dante fled Florence because he couldn’t write. Ibsen fled Norway; it wasn’t until Norway began to recognise him that he went back. … on exile. Exile is salvation. Exile is a writer’s salvation. The goal is not exile. The goal is to write. There have been so many writers who have been forced to flee in order to write. Sometimes the oppression isn’t even that extreme, but they still leave. Like James Joyce. It wasn’t political oppression. But Joyce and 65

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Beckett, they never went back. It was psychological oppression in Ireland; the Catholic Church made them exile themselves. No, a writer cannot defeat a society. But he can save himself, which has been the case from ancient times until today. After Mao died [1976], after the Cultural Revolution, Chinese society had a relative period of liberalisation and I could travel and look at things. Lingshan was about seeking a starting point for consciousness, looking for an entry point on a spiritual level. It was mostly written in China and finished in France, but I had to wait until after Mao died and even then I couldn’t think of having it published. I began writing Lingshan in 1982.

… on being banned in China. I cannot go back to China, though you’ll have to ask the authorities why because I have no idea. I don’t get involved with politics. I suppose my independent thinking is something they can’t tolerate. But I’m not interested anymore in going back. I’m busy here. My life is in Europe, and in America and Asia. But my health isn’t good, so I avoid a lot of events. If I took everything on I’d be running around all year long! [Laughs] I like Europe. It has permitted me to do everything important. My audience is here, my creative environment is here. … on writing as a means of making a living. Relying on writing to eat? I think it’s best to abandon such an idea. That’s my own experience. The reason I write as I do – ‘cold literature’, I call it – is because it isn’t linked to the market. It’s an inner need. Only when I feel compelled to write do I pick up my pen. Not in order to sell books. There is a market for books and we are not opposed to commercial promotion, because ‘cultural consumption’ does exist. But we shouldn’t confuse the two. A writer should be clear about the boundary between cultural consumption and serious literature. Is he writing for consumption by others, or writing for himself? In my view, serious literary writing is inherently written for oneself. It is precisely because one is writing for oneself that one can gain access to authenticity in life, and therefore has something valuable to convey to the reader. The same is true for words. When the reader reads them, he can experience them too. This ‘transcends’ the market. 66

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Descartes said, ‘I think, therefore I am’. For the writer, that does not mean, ‘I express myself, therefore I am’, but rather, ‘I write, therefore I am’. By writing, he is no longer living in a blind and befuddled manner, but in a very clear state of mind. In itself, this experience of self-understanding and confirmation of the value of his written works – occurring while writing – is also an affirmation of the writer’s value in and of himself, and is sufficient reward.

… on the limitations of ‘self-discipline’. Everyone knows I encountered many difficulties getting published in China. Besides the limits on publication by the authorities, the writer also had to place limitations on himself and exercise ‘self-discipline’. But in China, even when I showed ‘self-discipline’, my works were still banned. So I rejected it as ludicrous. Soul Mountain is one work I thoroughly enjoyed writing precisely because I did not expect to see it published within my lifetime. … on writers as philosophers of their time. My understanding is that clarity refers to clarity of thought. If the thought is not clear, neither will be the writing. The writer must first of all reflect carefully upon the object about which he is writing, and what he wishes to convey. In this sense, there are two kinds of ‘thinkers’. One employs a philosophical mode to contemplate human existence and serves up answers to many questions. There is also a kind of thinking that revolves around images. The writer and the artist are, in the final analysis, thinkers. They must have thoughts that are deep and clear in order to be able to compose good works. So behind clarity of language lies profound thinking. The works left behind by the finest writers of every era could only be written because they responded to the conditions of the era in which they lived, and the writers were thoroughly familiar with the complexity of man’s nature, his selfcontradictions and confusion. In this sense, I believe that Shakespeare was undoubtedly a great thinker. Many of his contemporary philosophers could probably not match his intellect, status or level of sophistication. The writer is not simply a stylist; a pre-requisite is that he must possess penetrating, profound thinking.

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… on Nietzsche, Communism and contemporary writers in China. For the past hundred years the impact of politics on Chinese writing was too large. The whole left-wing writing movement was just too much politics and not enough literature. You can see that at the Frankfurt Book Fair. For too long politics has been overwhelming literature in China. There are a lot of writers who themselves think they are very strong. But that’s an illusion, a kind of self-inflation, ego, a narcissism. It’s linked to Nietzsche. And Marxism. Last century, the major streams of thought in China came from Europe: Marxism, Communism, Idealism, the belief that we could change society. It was an illusion. Marxism hasn’t the first understanding of human society. Marxists used politics to change literature, they judged it by political standards, they used literature as a tool to condemn capitalism. That was what happened in the twentieth century and it’s a strong current still. A lot of western intellectuals joined in and supported the Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution. We have to walk out of the shadows of the twentieth century. Then Nietzsche killed God, and this inflated people’s sense of their own importance. Nietzsche was a madman. Most of his life he had to be taken care of by his sister and his mother. He couldn’t even manage his own life. He wrote some interesting things, but I don’t think you can use him as a guide for life in the twentieth century. How can you think that every person is God and that that is a legitimate position from which to judge life? Intellectuals, especially left-wing ones, used the position of being God to judge the world, to condemn it. They judged people, and forgot that the judge was also a weak person full of contradictions, full of weakness and perplexity. They wanted to play God. How else can we explain why so many intellectuals ran madly after revolution, madly advocated violence? We can only see problems from the perspective of people’s limitations. And we can’t solve many problems. [Laughs] And the problems that there are to be solved might be ones you haven’t even thought of! [Laughs] … on political correctness and authenticity. Boundless freedom does not exist in real life. But freedom of thought does exist in any era even under authoritarian rule, political oppression, or social constraints, including religious ones. In a democratic society, does one have 68

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full freedom? No. The market does not give you freedom. The market exerts massive pressure. Political correctness is like a straitjacket that inhibits one’s thinking. In past eras, public morality was the judge and there were ‘morality trials’. In our era, political correctness has taken the place of morality trials. Within the writer’s society, politically incorrect ideas are considered heretical and are banned. Today, in our comparatively democratic and free western societies, we have prohibitions. Political correctness is omnipresent. Politically incorrect thinking is criticised and inhibited. But the writer is a unique being: his existence is conditional upon absolute freedom of thought. Absolute freedom of thought does not mean one does not have a confirmed set of moral values. Behind absolute freedom of thought lies a set of values. For the writer, I believe, the most wide-ranging value is that of ‘authenticity’. Sincerity is the writer’s ethic, and authenticity the writer’s moral compass. He transcends political correctness, ethical judgments and society. These are the values the writer must maintain. This thinking is not constructed upon unbridled imagination, but rather upon a freedom based on authentic, confirmed values, and the premise that the writer has a sincere attitude.

… on the influence of Buddhism. Huineng [638–713] was an important figure in Buddhism. People always see him as a religious man and leader, but I see him as first and foremost a thinker. He had very deep understanding of the lives of ordinary people and in this way he was a source of liberation and not of repression. He didn’t worship idols – in religion, people always worship idols or images – and in this way he was a liberator. He smashed people’s obsessions. I wanted to bring that out in Snow in August, which is much more than a play about an historical Buddhist figure and I think everyone understood it, both in the East and the West. Many people thought it would not be possible to use western opera in a play like this, but it worked. This year it was played in Düsseldorf, translated into German, and it was very warmly received. The French conductor Marc Trautman really hopes it will go around the world. But it needs 250 people, including the workmen, to mount. It’s a big thing, very expensive, a big cast and set. But it cannot be staged in China. My works are all banned there.

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… on the writer as a witness? Where are we going in the twenty-first century? We should be going to a place where we can observe reality with clarity. We need to see the problems of people’s lives, and the complicatedness of people and their weakness. We are all mere witnesses, and the best thing we can do is see things as they are. You are not the creator, you can’t overcome the world, but you can bear witness. And when it comes to art, to talk about a country is meaningless. A writer is a witness to humankind, a witness to humanity.

Liberation Road

The Fifth Lash Anis Shivani

hutto hardly ever wanted to sleep; he would go for days without his face or body betraying weariness, without a crumple in his impeccably tailored English suit. But that night I saw hurt and disappointment in his eyes; what was left of the white hair on his head was wildly awry. ‘Do I drink the blood of the people?’ he asked, and sipped again at the heavy crystal whisky tumbler clutched in his left hand. Zia, silent, ran his fingers along his thin, waxed moustache. Had Ghulam Mustafa Khar been there, he would have known how to lift the master’s spirits by echoing without a trace of irony another of the many sayings of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, and the pair would have laughed uproariously. But the Lion of the Punjab had been promoted and purged one too many times, and, though he had stood at Bhutto’s side since the heady days of 1968 when the scent of revolution was as persistent and undeniable in Karachi and Lahore as in Berkeley and London, had decided enough was enough. Instead, Bhutto was alone in the room with his ‘bandar general’ Zia ul-Haq, chosen by him, as all-powerful head of state, over six more senior generals to be his army chief of staff. He used to like mocking Zia. In front of visiting leaders and ambassadors, he’d pull on an imaginary string to bring his monkey general close. ‘See how my monkey obeys me?’ he’d say to his astonished guests. ‘He can do any trick I ask for.’ And clapping a hand on 71

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Zia’s shoulder, he’d say, ‘Go on, show us your tricks.’ Zia would fold his hands over his stomach and, bending at the waist, execute a deep bow and smile, revealing his hideous teeth and sending shivers down the spines of those present. ‘So kind of you, sir, so kind of you, all these attentions, so many attentions.’ The prime minister of Pakistan no longer mocked Zia. ‘Do I drink the blood of the people?’ he asked. * * * He takes the first four lashes well, eyes fixed on a point in space in front of him, teeth set in a clench, only the corners of his mouth quivering each time the whip cuts into the flesh of his back with a sharp crack. The flogger, a huge man, probably an award-winning pehlwan in the wrestling ring not too many years ago, wipes his brow with the back of his wrist and takes several deep measured breaths. His face is devoid of expression. Clearly, he wields the whip for work, not pleasure, though I have seen floggers relish the pain they inflict, even playing to the crowd that roars its approval each time the whip is brought down, flexing their muscles theatrically between blows, accepting a bottle of Vimto or some sweet paan from the front row as they focus their strength on the next lash. The flogger knows the importance of the next lash, though the fifth lash is almost identical to the four that have come before. The prisoner’s composure breaks and he cries out, as if releasing a lifetime’s anger, frustration, sadness, and misery. The crowd is silent as the man’s agonies echo around the stadium. Would my master have broken? Would my patron, my benefactor, my murshid, who had dragged me out of the filth of fatalism to believe in the power of a single man to change history, have surrendered his dignity to the fifth lash? I tremble at what it would have been like to hear the fateful cry of the man who contained within himself the powers and failings of a hundred million people, who was the living personification of all that his nation had become in the course of its sins and mercies. There is arguably little to be gained by the next five lashes, except to finish off the prescribed punishment. The prisoner, having absorbed the finality of his fall, cries out freely as the last lashes are delivered with measured force. 72

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Red Crescent officers watch from the side of the platform, on hand to revive the prisoner should he lapse into unconsciousness before the sentence is complete. From the stadium they will take the man, his back forever scarred, to Civil Hospital, where, amid the rats and roaches and the darkness into which the electricity-starved facility is so often plunged, he will live or die. I have seen many floggings in the past couple of years and no longer wonder why they don’t move me to forget my own sorrows for the sake of the condemned man. I try not to be bothered by the delirium on the faces of many in the hot, sweaty, troubled crowd jostling for a view of the tamasha. I am no longer surprised that there are women here, too, more than one might imagine, and the occasional child who might otherwise have been left unattended. Certain state functionaries are required to attend floggings, but the rest, and there must be ten thousand here today, are from the lower classes. Public interest in these spectacles is rising, which may be attributed to the absence of other forms of mass entertainment: foreign films are now banned, tame low-budget romances from Lahore shown in their place, and peddlers of video porn are aggressively prosecuted. There has been talk in the Urdu papers of the floggings, and hangings, being nationally televised, but the Minister for Religious Affairs – a controversial portfolio, every minister believing his own, too, touches on religious matters – is blocking such a move on the grounds that those who wish to be educated by the beneficial aspects of the Islamic punishments ought to be able to find their way to the nearest flogging venue without the government having to bring it live into their homes. It amuses me how he cleverly sidesteps the question of whether watching television is itself haram. The blood of any man, no matter how anaemic, is always the richest red, the brightest in nature, as if God is emphasising its preciousness. The flogged prisoner, the dhoti at his loins turned a deep crimson, hangs limp across the five blocks of once-white stone that support his torso. Neither hands nor feet are bound, the only restraint being his own recognition that life as he knew it has come to an end. He is a former activist for the Pakistan People’s Party, and violated martial law by engaging in political activity, namely, the alleged distribution of a leaflet of sayings by Chairman Bhutto to fellow workers during lunch hour at the Pakistan Steel Mill in Pipri – the very one that Bhutto founded in 1973. There are other prisoners in line to be flogged this afternoon, on varied charges of disturbance of law and order, theft of 73

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government office supplies, consumption of contraband goods, failure to observe the prohibition against public eating and drinking during Ramadan. Their names and occupations will be published in tomorrow’s newspapers. I must confess that I have yet to witness public amputation for theft – the right hand for a left-handed man, and the left for a right-handed man – though I have been told the punishment has proved popular in Quetta and Peshawar, and is coming soon to Karachi and Lahore. The public will be pleased. During the delivery of the final lashes across the raw and pulpy back of the prisoner, a young man not far from where I stand calls out, ‘Kill him! Kill the haramzada. Fahhash! Qatil! Mardood!’ I turn, hoping my face delivers a stern rebuke, while others shuffle away from the lout, silently unsure how to react. ‘Chup kar!’ the flogger yells, glaring at the man, which only serves to incite the crowd, and a chant spreads through the stadium, ‘Kill him! Kill him!’ The police cordon tenses, skull-breaking lathi raised to the ready, tear gas canisters at hand, and it pushes the pressing crowd back a half-pace. The police all wear the same mask, the unmistakable look of utter contempt. Having concluded the punishment, the flogger, assuming the posture of the pehlwan he most surely is, signals the end of the show. The crowd moans. Those other condemned, aware now of what awaits them, must endure another night in terrible anticipation of their punishment for crimes against the regime. I am glad to be a free man. I’m at best a lowly protégé of limited gifts and means, not a stoic Hercules like my master, refusing until the very end to bend to the tyrants. You may have loved him, you may have hated him, but it is hard not to admire his courage when faced with men determined to kill him. I used to be with Bhutto when he stopped by this very stadium for half an hour or so during cricket matches against England or the West Indies. Bhutto was not a fan of cricket, he cared little for sports, and he made no secret of it, unlike Zia, who makes every cricket match against India a national event. None of the rabble here today in the National Stadium are allowed anywhere near the VIP enclosures, which I can see are empty, the chairs not dusted in a long while, the shamianas becoming tattered by the loo, the hot wind that blows in from the Sind desert and deadens mind and spirit. 74

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I am at a loss for why the people of Pakistan, many of whom now have to fight tooth and nail with the flood of Afghan refugees for precious menial jobs, approve of this and other new tamashas. America and Pakistan have banded together to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviet infiltrators with their godless ways and disrespect for the fundamental beliefs of the tribesmen, and their alliance promises an eternity of misery. I have made a bargain with Zia’s people to save my own flesh. Selfpreservation, I tell myself, is not the same as betraying my master. Would he have wanted me to act in any other way? There is almost nothing I can tell the Inter-Services Intelligence or the Federal Investigation Agency that they don’t already know. What they want is my abject compliance, which, I am both proud and ashamed to say, I have given them in full measure. Twenty years ago, on the same boulevards I now walk from the stadium, I was thrilled to watch the transformation of Pakistanis, the women putting away their saris for skirts and dresses, their long lush hair sheared into tough western perms. Then ten years ago, a new style of their own, at once modest and aggressive, innocent and knowing. Today, well, one doesn’t see women in public anymore, certainly not from the middle class, except where they are needed for teaching or nursing. Working-class women hide themselves from the public gaze in the burqa. Only the truly rich and the truly poor are beyond the constraints of veiled modesty. I find it unsettling how half of the country’s population has simply disappeared overnight. * * * When the master challenged the adoring masses in Karachi, Pindi, or Lahore – ‘Do I drink the blood of the people?’ – they would return a roaring ‘No!’, and he would reward them with his signal gesture, tearing open his shirt and baring his chest, bellowing, ‘Is there anyone who dares to shoot me? Then shoot me! I am ready to die for Pakistan’, and he would win the people all over again. But we weren’t at a rally, like the one he staged after bringing home the 93,000 prisoners of war from India in 1973, or when he greeted ‘my brother’, Muammar Qadhafi, after the 1974 Islamic summit at Lahore – Bhutto was 75

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a giant, then. We weren’t at a siasi jalsa, either, tens of thousands of PPP supporters bussed in to show public approval for the declaration of yet another thousand-year war with India to defend Pakistan, or to hear his memorable words to Henry Kissinger that Pakistan would get the bomb even if it meant having to eat grass. We felt like a great people, then. No. It was just Bhutto, in his living room. It was an auspicious night in January 1977, and he had summoned Zia to tell him there would be elections two months hence. The prospect of long-promised elections filled him with dread, I knew, but this night he seemed giddy with joy. ‘We’re going to have elections in sixty days,’ Bhutto told Zia. ‘That ragtag bunch of opposition parties, led by traitors and idiots – let’s see what they come up with.’ ‘At your service, sir,’ Zia said, and smiled. I flinched at his obsequiousness, the dark circles around his eyes the murkiest I had ever seen. He bowed his head, showing the knife-edge parting down the middle of his thickly pomaded hair. At that moment, I realised Zia was no man’s servant, so unlike myself who was destined always to be of service to even the most unlikely of masters. ‘Asghar,’ Bhutto summoned me to his side. ‘Bring me the files.’ I hastened to his bedroom where, on the Louis Quatorze bureau, I knew was stacked a neat pile of dossiers compiled by his internal security advisers on every one of his enemies and allies. Numerous sources had revealed numerous secrets, some voluntarily, others less willingly. I had been directly in the service of the Bhutto family since the age of fourteen. I was born in the same year as Zulfiqar Ali – 1928. But his was a powerful wadero family of Sind, ranked alongside if not above the Khuhros, the Soomros and the Jatois, whereas I was born in a humble peasant household on the lands of Sir Shahnawaz Bhutto, his illustrious and handsome father, a much-decorated freedom fighter who had worked side by side with Muhammad Ali Jinnah to win independence from the British. A tall, muscular boy with a presentable appearance and alert nature, I was picked in 1942 from many others to accompany Sir Shahnawaz on hunts with the British when they visited his lands. ‘Listen, but do not speak,’ my father instructed me as I began my new life. On these hunts, I gathered that with the world war engulfing Europe and East Asia, Britain was fighting for its own survival and would find it impossible to hold on to India for too 76

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many more years. It was never clear to me, in those ambiguous years of war, with whom lay the upper hand, the Indians or the British, and both sides always had to tread carefully. I learned from both Sir Shahnawaz and his British guests the manifold arts of deference. Sir Shahnawaz was my first Bhutto benefactor. I was sent to school in Bombay for a while, and then Hyderabad and Lahore after Partition, returning to the ancestral lands in Larkana, where, with a pat on the head, I was presented to Zulfiqar Ali’s mother, Lakhi Bai. Sir Shahnawaz said, ‘Among the humble of the earth, walk the truly proud.’ Lakhi Bai used to be a seductive Hindu dancer before converting to Islam. She was Sir Shahnawaz’s second wife, he having early on been betrothed to an older woman in a ‘political’ marriage, an alliance between two powerful families to consolidate lands. For similar reasons, Zulfiqar Ali was ‘married’ to Shireen, a twelve-year-old who brought with her tens of thousands of acres of fine land. He would tell his second wife, the beautiful Iranian debutante Nusrat, that he never loved Shireen, nor ever slept with her, but I know that Shireen visited him at Al-Murtaza in Larkana, and I am also certain there was a daughter, the existence of whom has never officially been confirmed. I had the full run of the Bhutto library in Larkana and spent there what time I could get. My reading helped me to better follow the many meetings involving the founders of Pakistan as they deliberated over a constitution, even if they were never able to resolve their fundamental differences. It took Zulfiqar Ali’s own miracle of constitution-making in 1973 to achieve this goal, while also balancing the country strategically against the imperialist aims of India, China, the Soviet Union, and America. When Zulfiqar Ali returned from Berkeley and Oxford and became a barrister at the prestigious law firm of Dingomal in Karachi, defending his friends against criminal charges, I made the new capital of the new country my home, in fact and at heart, and gained the master’s trust as he quickly acquired a reputation as a man who was going places. At the Sind Club, Bhutto spoke often of Sind becoming the Indian subcontinent’s California, which at the time, despite the similarity in climate, seemed beyond comprehension. It was a sign of Bhutto’s charisma that he could convincingly compare Karachi to Los Angeles before Karachi even had suburbs. I knocked gently on the bedroom door and Begum Nusrat Bhutto, still beautiful and graceful though approaching fifty, said politely, ‘Come in.’ 77

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She knew, of course, that it was me. Bhutto himself never knocked on any door. No night owl like Bhutto, she would still manage to be awake when he finally came to bed, even at five or six in the morning. She lay sprawled on the bed now, amid unrumpled white silk sheets, going through picture albums of the children again – Pinkie and Sunny, Mir and Shah. ‘My children grew to be as beautiful as they were when they were young,’ she said. Begum Bhutto was making a habit of nostalgia, and it worried me. ‘Yes, Begum sahiba. They all grew up beautiful.’ ‘Is that Zia still with Zulfi?’ I nodded yes. ‘I’ve never seen a more repulsive man,’ she said, and fell silent. If she was afraid of Zia – and Begum Bhutto was herself a formidable woman – she let it show that night. Pakistan had typically been run by the military, even when a civilian administrator took the official reins for a while. The army chief of staff was as powerful as one could legitimately become without having to face an election. It was disconcerting to see her unsettled, but she quickly recovered. ‘If it’s true that the ugliness on the outside reflects the ugliness inside …’ She didn’t finish the thought. ‘Come, look at this picture of Pinkie picking roses in the garden.’ The photo had been taken at 70 Clifton a few years after the dashing Bhuttos – Zulfi and Nusratam – built their sprawling mansion to complement their growing social reputation in the Karachi of the 1950s. I made appreciative comments before assuming a more formal posture. ‘Begum sahiba, I came to get some files.’ ‘Of course,’ she said, and the light went out of her eyes. The photo album slid limply from her hands as she sank back. ‘This has been a long night.’ I was about to leave the room when she said, ‘Asghar, I want you to remain the eyes and ears of this family. Listen to Zia carefully when he thinks you’re not being attentive. Bring the information straight to me if he ever slips up.’ ‘Yes, Begum sahiba,’ I said. ‘And wire Pinkie to come home from Oxford for the elections. Tell her I said so. Zulfi needs her.’ Perhaps, but I would have to check with Bhutto first. Glancing through the names on the files as I headed back to the living room, I was impressed by their scope. Bhutto’s Federal Security Force chief, 78

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Masood Mahmood, and his internal security adviser, Rao Rashid, had clearly identified the potential security challenges of the coming election campaign. I noted there were also reports by the chief ministers and governors of all four provinces – I eased one of them open – building on information from police inspectors and intelligence operatives. The election could easily degenerate into chaos; the opposition parties smelled blood. Zia had not relaxed his stiff posture; his eyes were shining as if viewing God. Bhutto sat untidily, almost in a slouch. I thought again that had Khar, the Lion of the Punjab, been in the room – or even JA Rahim, Hanif Ramay, Malik Meraj Khalid, or Mubashir Hasan – he would have been able to draw on his energy and in turn feed his stature. But Zia seemed to suck the very life force from him. ‘Sir!’ I said loudly, wishing to break this unpleasant spell. ‘Thank you, Asghar,’ Bhutto said, taking the files. ‘And Asghar … you may go to bed now.’ In all my years with him, he had never once suggested that I sleep before he himself was ready to do so. So long as Zia was there, I wanted to stay, but I daren’t disobey. Perhaps their next topic of conversation was too classified even for me – and I have heard the most sensitive of secrets conveyed to the leader. * * * The Landhi jail hadn’t been much on the map of my imagination until I started going there every Thursday to pump information from JA Rahim, my favourite among the PPP founders. Landhi is nothing compared with the fortress-like Kot Lakhpat prison in Lahore, where Bhutto underwent his farcical trial for allegedly ordering his Federal Security Force to murder Ahmad Raza Kasuri’s father. Nor does it compare to the prison near Pindi, where Bhutto was hanged. I spent a few days behind bars in Kot Lakhpat. I am familiar too with incarceration in the various lesser prisons of Punjab and Sind. Suffice it to say that the British left behind a most efficient system of administration and justice by combining in one office the functions of judge, jury and executioner, as well as administrator and tax collector. Jinnah and Ayub and Bhutto and Zia all found the machinery useful, not least the prisons: solid, well-built, architecturally imposing, terrifying to contemplate, 79

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their foreboding façades rising on busy thoroughfares to instil fear in the population. I like Rahim sahib. He was the one who, when Mubashir Hasan advocated including in the party’s motto ‘Islam is our faith’ – along with ‘democracy is our polity’ and ‘socialism is our economy’ – spoke against such a proclamation, calling it a slippery slope. Waiting for me in the visiting room is an Inter-Services Intelligence agent I only know by the pseudonym of ‘Talib’, a round, bald and blotchy man who cares little about his appearance. He lights a cigarette and offers me one. I haven’t smoked since 1967, the year the PPP was founded and I decided to do away with all my addictions and temptations. Talib is a private man, though he did once tell me his niece had been accepted at a college in Surrey to study animal husbandry. Today he looks at me with particular intent. ‘Something’s afoot,’ he says, making smoke rings and watching them rise toward the ceiling, ‘some conspiracy to overthrow the regime, some movement to bring the crowds out on the streets. As if we haven’t had enough of crowds to last until the next century. Do you know anything about it?’ ‘I’m an informant,’ I say, ‘not the visionary leader of the opposition. I can’t take you where they haven’t gone yet.’ Talib looks affronted. The flogging has left me annoyed – even more than the flogging, the rebel in the crowd and the reek of the minibus I took to Landhi, human sweat and excretion that reminded me of Kot Lakhpat. The Pathan conductor, noting where I had alighted, pestered me for details of the ‘phansi’ even when I told him it was a flogging, not a hanging, insisting on knowing whether the man’s eyes had popped out. ‘We make the rules now, you understand,’ says Talib. ‘If we say you have to do something, you do it. If we say you do something else, you do that. You’re like a human camera, making instant Polaroids of what goes on inside the rotted skulls of your great leaders. Once we have the snapshot, we decide if we’ll shit on it, or preserve it for the gallery of rogues we’re assembling at the presidential palace.’ Whatever the regime, chameleons like Talib will be with it one hundred per cent; the minute the other side is in, they switch colours, as if they’ve never believed anything else. They move from certainty to certainty without the least discomfort. 80

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‘I’ll tell you if Rahim sahib says anything important. He’s a peculiarly quiet man. He wasn’t always, but now he is.’ Over my shoulder, Talib sees something and yells, ‘If it isn’t Ghulam Mustafa Khar, the Lion of the Punjab himself!’ Turning, I am face-to-face with the former governor and chief minister of Punjab, second only to Bhutto in the charismatic pantheon that used to be. Khar looks composed, but I detect a hint of vexation, as if he’s just finished a disagreeable late-afternoon meal with a touchy subordinate. I cannot tell if he is still with the party, or turned informant, or worse. He engulfs me with a hug of greeting. So Khar is also visiting Rahim sahib, evidence enough for the truly suspicious that there was indeed something afoot inside Landhi jail, though I could easily assure them that Rahim sahib would be the least likely suspect. It was he who repeatedly told Bhutto and the rest of us that the PPP was not a party of ‘dogmatic fanatics’, and he was furious when Bhutto announced plans to nationalise the cotton-ginning and rice-husking mills so the poor farmers could get a fair share of the profit taken by corrupt middlemen. It was he who warned that further nationalisation would serve only to alienate the middle class once and for all. I’m increasingly convinced that the regime has lost its head, seeing conspiracies where none exist. Since Zia rejected Jimmy Carter’s offer of 400 million dollars in aid to the Afghan jihad as ‘peanuts’, he has been pursuing ghosts and spirits rather than confronting real dangers. ‘Be strong,’ Khar whispers to me. ‘Enough with the sentimentality,’ Talib hisses. ‘You guys are lucky we’re not the FSF.’ Indeed we were. It was the 20,000-strong Federal Security Force, which Bhutto set up at the urging of Zhou Enlai, his own People’s Army, that helped kill the PPP. Even Rahim sahib, having insulted Bhutto in front of others once too often, was paid a visit late one night at his home by the FSF and ‘seriously injured in a scuffle’. ‘Be careful,’ Talib says as we reach Rahim sahib’s cell. Talib’s tone makes it sound as if my deal with the regime could be off. The cell has been recently cleaned. The stinking hole in the corner has been scrubbed; a fresh sheet is on the wooden charpoy, itself a step up from the iron beds in worse prisons. 81

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Rahim sahib gets up from the charpoy. ‘Ghaddar! So you’re here too! You’ve joined the gang of hypocrites. Khar, Pirzada, Jatoi, Mumtaz, they’ve all been here this week. I’m telling you straight up, I don’t know anything about a conspiracy. I’m from the awami wing of the party, not the fascist wing.’ ‘I know that, Rahim sahib.’ Surely the cell is bugged. I feel like an actor in some old radio drama. He collapses back on the charpoy. ‘Sit,’ he says. There is nowhere to sit, so I settle on the floor near his feet. For a long time, we are quiet. My ears strain for something and I realise the constant buzz of the flies hovering over the shit and stink is today absent from the cell. The space measures just ten feet by twelve, a small, barred window in the upper corner of one wall letting in a tantalising stream of sunshine and just enough noise from the outside – the shouts of the rehriwallas, the screeches of speeding minibuses, and the wails of police cars – to make you do anything to get out. ‘Tell Rehana to make you some of your favourite kheer,’ Rahim sahib mutters. ‘Sir …?’ Rehana, Rahim sahib’s pretty, loyal wife, is under house arrest in the Karachi suburb of Nazimabad. A double MA herself, she was a star pupil when she met Rahim sahib at his lectures at Punjab University. Rehana begum has been trying to hitch me up with a succession of her nieces since the days I first got to know them. Is Rahim sahib hallucinating? He is suddenly aware that his mind is wandering and shakes his head, sitting up straight. ‘I’ll tell you a secret,’ he says. ‘It’s not Khar and Pirzada and Jatoi, those morons full of hot air, they have to worry about. Come closer, and I’ll whisper in your ear.’ I obey him. ‘Zulfiqar,’ he says softly, ‘Al-Zulfiqar.’ Rahim sahib still has his wits. He’s talking about Mir Murtaza Bhutto, who left Oxford after his father’s arrest in 1977, and four years later reportedly heads a terrorist organisation formed to avenge the hanging. He’s said to have been in Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Afghanistan, even Germany, plotting revenge. ‘There’ll be something big in the news soon,’ Rahim sahib says. ‘I’ll tell you more.’ But when I move closer he boxes me on the ear, not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to sting. 82

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‘Ghaddar,’ he says, ‘you’ve joined them. Bloody traitor.’ ‘Sir, for what it’s worth, I think what they’re doing to you is wrong. You shouldn’t be here. This place is for criminals. You should be teaching at some respectable place, under any regime, under any political system. Your mind shouldn’t be wasted.’ ‘So that’s what you think? And what about the party? Who’s going to take care of the party?’ ‘The party’s over, sir,’ I say firmly, because I know it to be true. When you put away the bandar ki topi and the dug-dugi, the masses move on, restless to find something to be amused by or someone to hurt. ‘The party’s over, sir,’ I repeat, ‘good and done. Finished.’ ‘You liar,’ he shouts. Rahim sahib needs psychiatric attention and I make a silent promise to press the issue again with the warden. Rahim sahib knows little that might be of any use about the PPP’s inner circle, and they know everything anyway, but he refuses to submit to the regime and so is punished. I can’t decide if there is any truth to the Al-Zulfiqar plot, or whether Rahim sahib is playing a joke on his jailers. * * * I wouldn’t exactly have called it a dismissal, more a suspension, yes, laced with choice words, which was only to be expected after my momentary slip of class, my lapse of judgment. Mir and Shah and Sanam, I could handle, but there was something about Pinkie. She was inflexible. Like Khar, she had latched on to politics as a latecomer, rather than from conviction. I’d disagreed with her before when her father sought her counsel, but that morning in April 1977 at 70 Clifton, I miscalculated. To me, she always sounded like a naïve undergraduate at a western university who has recently read John Stuart Mill for the first time, and that was fine when she was nineteen and at Radcliffe, and accompanied Bhutto and his entourage, the lone woman among ninety-one men, to the Simla negotiations with Indira Gandhi in 1972. But a twenty-five-year-old graduate student at Oxford studying international diplomacy should have been capable of more than the same old inanities. ‘Tell me, should I call fresh elections?’ Bhutto had asked her. 83

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The opposition, the Pakistan National Alliance, a motley bunch of mostly fundamentalist and ethnic parties, was alleging that the March elections had been fixed – the PPP had won sixty per cent of the vote and seventy-five per cent of the seats in parliament – and was organising protest rallies. We would have won the 1977 elections regardless, but Bhutto wanted a two-thirds majority in parliament so he could amend the constitution and vest more powers in the prime minister – that is, himself. Yes, some of the races were probably fixed, but by no means as many as the PNA would have it. Not that it mattered; borrowing an old tactic used against the Raj, the opposition aimed to bring the country to a standstill with a pahyya jam hartal that coming Friday. I knew the poll was rigged when I saw the absurd margin of victory in Punjab, which would have gone to the PPP in any case. Bhutto’s reaction was worse than it had been to the debacle of East Pakistan. ‘What have these foolish people done, Asghar?’ he said, dismissing his advisers so he could drink whisky until the early hours of the morning, aware he was facing a new threat now that accusations of fraud would cost him dearly in support among the military, the landlords, and the capitalists. ‘If you make concessions now …’ Pinkie began, her British accent more pronounced and cultivated during her years at Oxford, ‘they’ll ask for more and more. Don’t call new elections. Let them come around to accepting the results.’ ‘Ah, Pinkie,’ smiled Bhutto, ‘if only it were that easy.’ Pinkie was undeterred. Having got herself elected president of the Oxford Union debating society, she was becoming a skilful rhetorician and as such knew a little about a lot, but not enough about any one thing to be of practical use for counsel. The list of topics she’d told me they debated sounded juvenile: Is the British Commonwealth a viable entity?; Should drug addicts be allowed to satisfy their compulsions in prison?; Does the US or Britain have the more idealistic foreign policy? Begum Nusrat Bhutto couldn’t brag enough about Pinkie’s own presidency and all but skipped like a happy sparrow now that Pinkie had returned home, pleading with Bhutto to take her on the campaign trail – but only after she’d been fed and fattened up again. There was no doubt in my mind that Pinkie had become anorexic, though she took pains to hide that fact from her parents and her sister. I wished she would surrender 84

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to doubt, as her father would sometimes do in private, but she never did. ‘Papa, the awam count on you to be steady under pressure. Don’t give in, or they’ll sense weakness and lose trust in you.’ That wasn’t the point; the awam’s support was never in doubt. I was losing my patience with Pinkie and Bhutto noticed. ‘Asghar?’ ‘Sir, if I may, I think we have to bend to the new political reality. We made a mistake. The overeager party functionaries in Punjab made a huge blunder. Now we have a chance to correct it by being humble and apologetic to steal the wind from the opposition’s sails.’ I surprised myself with my own forcefulness. I was not one of his political advisers and decades of service had taught me my station and to keep my own counsel, but I could not resist. ‘Miss Bhutto is wrong.’ The silence was electric. ‘Bravo!’ cried Bhutto, putting aside the Morning News and clapping a short applause. ‘Pinkie, here is a man who would offer you some competition at the Oxford Union.’ But I knew I was doomed as I watched Pinkie struggle to maintain her outward composure. She seethed with anger, her skin turning from rosepink to crimson. ‘Papa, this is an outrage! The Bhuttos set their own destiny. Their hearts tell them what to do. They don’t stick a finger in the wind and … and … take cues from the gutless and obedient.’ Bhutto laughed uproariously, opening an avenue of escape for me, but I missed it. Instead, I argued that Asghar Khan of Tehrik-e-Istiqlal, the most secular member of the PNA, should not be dismissed because he expressed the wish of the people to be free of tyranny in ways Bhutto had not yet managed, and that Maulana Mufti Mahmood and the other leaders of the religious parties, reprehensible as their aspirations to take the country back to the seventh century might be, represented a genuine aspiration of the people for spiritual as well as material solace. I must have gone on for quite a bit, because Pinkie tapped a spoon against the side of her china teacup. ‘Asghar, I think your time is up.’ Bhutto’s eyes did not leave me throughout my little tirade, his long, graceful fingers fiddling with the pipe he had lately taken up and which he now clamped between his teeth. He struck a match and lit the pipe, puffing in the silence that followed before delivering his judgement. 85

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‘Pinkie is like my friend Qaddafi. They get inspiration from beyond the horizon, whatever motivated Bulleh Shah and Shahbaz Qalandar.’ These frequent comparisons of Pinkie to luminaries beyond her ken annoyed me. In truth, we are all incomparable – although only Pinkie’s name, Benazir, literally means without compare. ‘You and I, Asghar, are like …’ ‘Like what, Papa?’ Pinkie asked pointedly. Bhutto did not finish because Zia, his knobbly hands clasped in front of his private parts, was bowing and scraping his way to the breakfast table. Zia was in the habit of giving me a bigger smile than he had for others, displaying each and every one of his sharp, straight teeth, but I could never understand whether he was revealing to me, a servant, his inner compassion or his deeply rooted cruelty. I once shared an awkward few hours with Zia soon after his unexpected promotion to army chief of staff as he was made to wait in the outer office while Bhutto met with his political advisers. He started talking about the difficult time soldiers had in keeping their heads above water on their abysmal salaries. But he wasn’t complaining. He just didn’t know how to take temptation away from soldiers who saw corrupt civil servants getting ahead without penalty, sending their kids to study in England and their wives to shop in Dubai. ‘Asghar, the human soul is infinitely corruptible,’ Zia said. ‘Every power in the hands of the authorities needs to be exerted to keep corruption in check. We’re inherently fallible.’ ‘But that’s what politics is for,’ I said, feeling emboldened by his lack of nobility, ‘the exchange of ideas in the marketplace, so that truth wins out.’ Zia’s smile was one of tolerance. ‘As often as not, politics leads to dissension. The unchecked ego can play havoc with the fragile minds of the people.’ He talked some more about the lives of the soldiers in the cantonments, and he brought me to an understanding of what their daily struggles were like. He knew of them first-hand, which was more than I could say about the latter-day socialists, the student and union leaders, who’d jumped on the PPP bandwagon. * * * I began to wonder if Pinkie lacked a soul. I don’t know what compelled me to enter her private rooms the afternoon after our ‘debate’ to go through the 86

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drawers and look under the bed. Was I looking for something incriminating to drive a wedge between father and daughter? Or was I just protecting my master from possible danger? My ostensible excuse, that I was looking for some misplaced files, didn’t convince me either. Bhutto took me aside and suggested I take some time off, go to al-Murtaza to clear my head, have a well-earned break from his ceaseless demands. I knew I should be at his side during these most critical manoeuvres, but I could also appreciate the extent of Pinkie’s wrath and my master’s need to at least symbolically put me in my place. I was on the Larkana train that night. In those two weeks the country went up in flames. Hundreds of people were dead as anti-Bhutto protesters and the FSF clashed in all the major cities. It seemed that everyone outside the PPP apparatus had a single goal in mind: my master gone, at any cost. As if that would solve the country’s problems in a single stroke. Bhutto asked Zia for martial law in Karachi, Hyderabad and Lahore. For five years I had listened to Bhutto and his ministers talk, day and night, about solving Pakistan’s complex and intractable problems, both domestic and foreign. Squeezing us were America and Russia, Afghanistan, Iran, China, and always India; the treasury was in constant crisis due to the incompetence of the state-run enterprises and the out-and-out thuggery of the business class; provincial politicians in the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan threatened secession with every small acknowledgment of their right to self-determination. It was all Bhutto could do to hold the country together. But the opposition acted as though the country had become an advanced democracy in the five years since the last election, the first since Partition. If that wasn’t enough, Khar was behaving like a spoiled child and so, despite their greater wisdom, were the PPP founders, with the exception of Rahim sahib, in wanting Bhutto to go faster and farther with reform than the people were prepared to accept. Pinkie seemed to think that if you repeated certain words, over and over, they would magically come true. I was worried about Begum Bhutto, who was unnaturally happy in the midst of this end-of-the-world turmoil. The rallies through May and June of 1977 grew monotonous and taxing and, back at his side, I could see my master wilting under the pressure, more even than during the 1971 civil war. As Bhutto conceded ground, the opposition demanded more, smelling blood. It wasn’t confirmation that 87

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Pinkie had been right about sticking to our guns. The problem was that Bhutto’s rapid-fire concessions had taken on a life of their own, becoming haphazard and triggering yet more concessions, which could easily be branded opportunistic by the opposition – a logic that was difficult to refute. And with each new concession the air of desperation grew. Bhutto’s strength had always been to appear to be one step ahead of everyone else. Now it seemed he was a step behind. We were at a large jalsa at Lahore’s Minar-e-Pakistan when Bhutto dropped the bombshell. ‘Mere aziz bhaiyo, behno, hamwatano, kisano, talibo, mazdooro, assalamu-alaikum.’ He began by directly addressing the peasants, workers, and students as he’d always done in his speeches since 1967. Lahore had been good to him. It was here only a few months earlier that he’d announced new land reforms going beyond those of 1972; though everyone knew that signing a piece of legislation did not actually give land to the landless, we had to start somewhere. The towns and villages around Lahore had over the years heard Bhutto call on landlords and peasants to talk to each other in open kutcheries – modern-day durbars – to air their grievances in front of the PPP’s local and provincial administrators, who would immediately take note of the problems. Bhutto was at his best among the poor and hopeless, acting as if he were born one of them, their blood in his veins. With a hundred thousand people hanging on his every word, Bhutto launched into a peroration on Pakistan’s very identity as an Islamic nation. Hoping to undermine the political aspirations of the militant Islamic parties, he reminded the crowd that his 1973 constitution declared Pakistan an Islamic Republic, and that he had branded the Qadiani sect kafir, depriving them of their rights of citizenship under an Islamic state. Bhutto said he was going to outlaw alcohol, gambling, horse racing, nightclubs, discos, all forms of blight on the purity of Pakistan, and declare Friday, instead of Sunday, the day of rest and worship. My mind was numb. Bhutto did not end his speech by tearing open his shirt and inviting the assassin’s bullet. Bhutto asked Zia at 70 Clifton during each of their meetings in the days leading up to the final collapse on July 5 whether he’d gone far enough with his reforms. ‘As far as you can go, sir,’ Zia would reply. He knew he was coming into his own and I began to view the man with new admiration, and fear. 88

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Pinkie never attended her father’s speeches. Her mother said that she was right to worry about the possibility of sunstroke in the heat, and the risk of heart palpitations brought on by the crushing crowds. * * * Talib declines my offers of tea and cookies, even the few leftover samosas I have from last night. Intelligence people must always be suspicious of poisoning and other conspiracies. He has brought two other ISI officers with him, one, he says, to take notes. He assigns no role to the other, a giant of a man, who would be useful should the need for hand-to-hand combat arise. Talib relaxes in my rattan chair, the note-taker fiddles with pen and paper, and the wrestler pokes around my room without so much as permission or apology. ‘I’ve never been inside your place,’ Talib says, blowing smoke rings. I don’t believe him, but remain silent. ‘You must have had nice rooms at 70 Clifton? I hear Bhutto had you in charge of some of the most secret dossiers compiled by the FSF. You had one on Zia, didn’t you?’ That is true, and I confirm it. ‘The file said Zia was the most loyal of generals. He had his finger on the pulse of the jawans, to whom he only reacted in a very conservative fashion. The chances of Zia calling on the army to take over, even under turbulent conditions, were said to be nil.’ ‘Intelligence people do have their blind spots,’ Talib said. He was being friendly with me. Perhaps he empathised with my position as someone just doing his job at the bidding of others, a messenger conveying information from one stubborn party to another. ‘You know, for a couple of years after the 1971 debacle, I continued to believe that Bhutto had saved the country’s honour, salvaged what little could be kept of Pakistan. I honoured him for bringing back the POWs, for pressuring Mujib not to put those hundred and ninety-five soldiers on trial for so-called war crimes, for getting back the five thousand square miles of territory taken by India. Then I realised that the bastard brought about the East Pakistan tragedy in the first place. I have my problems with democracy, but Mujib had won fair and square and deserved a chance. Bhutto would rather break up the country than live with the results. Personal ambition, Asghar, my dear fellow, pure personal ambition, run amok.’ 89

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‘Is Zia less motivated by personal ambition?’ I ask with measured calm. Talib is surprised by my boldness. No one asks such questions anymore, at last not in public. ‘Zia’s motivation is the greater good of Pakistan. Never forget that.’ He remembers whom he serves and slips back behind the bureaucratic screen. I try to draw him back out. ‘What do you think of jailing and stoning women for adultery if they bring forth complaints of rape? What do you think of cutting off the hands of people for petty thefts?’ ‘You think that is the sum of his reforms? Why do you PPP fellows always latch on to the most sensational of the other guy’s actions, always look for the most vulnerable spot to strike? Zia is a humble man who genuinely cares for the downtrodden. Besides, no one’s hands have actually been cut off yet.’ ‘I see. You’d rather have the Mughal durbar, the Raj kutchery, the arbitrary exercise of compassion, than the rule of law applied equally to all.’ Talib lets me speak, sensing that I’m letting off steam before some major act of betrayal. The other two are at ease. I must have missed Talib’s signal: the note-taker has stopped scribbling despite the opportunity to record my wild accusations about the regime’s intentions. ‘We’re very suspicious of people who never get married,’ Talib says when I finally stop talking. He looks slowly around my bare apartment. I’ve removed everything that might in any way be considered compromising, even tossing out books on literary theory by obscure Romanians and Hungarians translated into bad English. I doubt Talib is up to reading more than newspapers, but he’s surely imagining how many books were removed from the sparsely populated shelves. He would not understand Faiz, the socialist poet, who always seems to be the first arrested under martial law. ‘You don’t have any perversions, do you?’ Talib asks. ‘If I did, you’d already know.’ ‘Be that as it may … Getting down to business, what’s the big news you have to share?’ He darts a quick look in the direction of the note-taker, who now holds his pen at the ready. I marshal my thoughts, having taken Rahim sahib’s hints at things ‘afoot’ to pry information out of the party hierarchy, corralling those at the top as well as the lesser lights. Something is indeed ‘up’. The Bhutto family isn’t down and out, yet. 90

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Pinkie is in detention at Sukkur jail, in very bad shape from what I hear, having lost a lot of weight. Begum Bhutto is said to have been diagnosed with lung cancer, but Zia won’t give her permission to travel abroad for medical treatment. He says there is ‘nothing the matter with Begum Bhutto’, but she is free to travel – if ‘she wants to do some sightseeing’. Mir and Shahnawaz, married to Afghan sisters Fauzia and Rehana, are in Europe and beyond the reach of Zia’s enforcers, even as they organise terrorist actions. Indeed, scarcely a week goes by that Mir and Shahnawaz do not appear on European television claiming responsibility for acts of terrorism. Europeans pay them more attention than the exhausted Pakistani public. From what I gather, they plan to hijack a Pakistan International Airlines passenger jet from Lahore, fly it to Kabul, and demand the release of scores of political prisoners. I got this not from Khar or the other PPP officials, but from low-level supporters of Mir and Shah’s Al-Zulfiqar organisation in the PPP stronghold of Lyari, where it’s being talked about in the backrooms of paan shops and restaurants, as if a bunch of ten-year-olds were planning a prank on some quiet residential street. I was taken to meet one of the so-called leaders, who goes by the name of Abdul Karim Baloch. He confirmed the plan and asked me to convey a message of allegiance to Pinkie, believing that I’m still in touch with her and loyal to the old PPP structure. He wanted to know how she thinks the party apparatus should proceed once the regime gives in to the hijackers. I seriously doubt I’m telling Talib anything the ISI doesn’t already know. Since it absorbed Bhutto’s FSF it’s not like the plodding ISI of old, cut off from reality. Those FSF people are damn good – I’ve read their reports, and they were on to things long before they happened. It was a pity they so alienated my master from the party. No, I have other, more complex reasons for drawing attention to the activities of Al-Zulfiqar. If it succeeds with its plans, my informants say the next step will be something on a catastrophic scale, so big that Zia will have to release Pinkie and Begum Bhutto and exile himself to Saudi Arabia or a Gulf sheikhdom. Pinkie is ten times more feudal than Bhutto ever was and she’ll embark on an unprecedented vendetta, cleansing everyone who had anything to do with her father’s ‘judicial murder’, as she always refers to that travesty of a trial and execution. No one will be spared. If her father didn’t have something like the East Pakistan bloodbath in mind to deal 91

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with the 1977 PNA agitation, I wouldn’t put it past her to take the country down such a path. Bhutto didn’t have that remorseless streak of brutality. He earned his power through charisma and sincerity, no matter how confused and cruel he may have been at times. When he called out the army to deal with Baluchistan and the NWFP, it was to put down secessionist movements. There was no way he could have countenanced a replay of Bangladesh. ‘Can we fully trust you, Asghar?’ Talib finally says when I’m done reciting the details of the plot as far as I’ve been able to piece it together, and given him the names and locations of several key PPP activists – potential terrorists, if you will – that the ISI may not be on to yet. ‘Why are you doing this?’ ‘I want all this to stop. I want the cycle of violence and counter-violence to come to an end; anything to bring a halt to this viciousness.’ ‘Anything?’ says Talib. ‘A few selective floggings to put the fear of Allah in the hearts of the people?’ I look at him, defeated. ‘I only meant the goondas.’ Talib smiles. So do his two companions. Benevolence is in the air, and I must admit it feels good after four years of terror. ‘I’ll see what I can do about your petition to travel abroad,’ Talib says when he leaves. ‘Thank you, my friend. You’ve been of invaluable service to the state. You won’t regret your actions. I’ll pass the word about your loyalty to my superiors all the way up the chain.’ ‘My loyalty?’ ‘Loyalty,’ Talib repeats. ‘Come on, fellows.’ The note-taker clicks off his pen and inserts his notes in an envelope, which he licks and seals. ‘Los Angeles or London?’ Talib asks. ‘Excuse me?’ Then I realise he’s talking about my preferred place of exile. ‘Los Angeles,’ I mutter, without much thought – Bhutto’s sunny California, where he first imbibed his radical ideas, even if Rahim sahib claims to have ignited them. London is a hive of PPP activists; whenever Mir and Shahnawaz declare a terrorist victory, the BBC and the Guardian treat them as heroes. I would have thought that killing innocent people was grounds for their arrest and prosecution by whatever judicial system they were hiding behind. And they pale in comparison to what I’m afraid of from Pinkie. I look around my desolate room, as if already a stranger to this misery. Somewhere in the city – perhaps in Baldia or Korangi – no doubt a tiny 92

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rebellion is being put down by the guns of the regime. Lives are being lost in vain. Some are fighting for Bhutto, some for Mufti Mahmood and the other mullahs. Who knows what any of us is really fighting for? * * * Husna, Bhutto’s Bengali beauty, lived in a large house built for her across the street from 70 Clifton. I never saw the master get as angry with Husna as he might have, given her flirtatious ways with men. In times of political crisis, Bhutto would have her move to an annexe he had added to 70 Clifton, from which she knew better than to wander. Begum Bhutto never acknowledged the annexe or Husna’s presence there, not to me or anyone else, and even if she had, there was nothing she could do about it. The attraction for Bhutto, apart from Husna’s undeniable physical charms and seductive dark looks, was her intelligence. She could hold up her end of a nuanced political discussion for hours at a time, something Begum Bhutto could never have matched. On that last evening of our freedom, Husna stalked the annexe while the rest of 70 Clifton was in an uproar. Zia was due to arrive at any minute. There was supposed to be a deal in place with the PNA, cancelling the results of the previous elections and calling fresh ones to satisfy the opposition. But something was wrong. I had a sense of dread. Rao Rashid, Bhutto’s most trusted intelligence and security aide, with a finger in every unpalatable Pakistani pie, had assured him that the opposition would soon fracture and said more than once that Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was the only national leader. I had lately come to question Rao Rashid’s perennial optimism. Husna called me to her room at nine o’clock. She wore only a silk slip, her heavy breasts mostly exposed, her thighs shifting around in the flimsy covering like pillars of solace. She caught me staring, which only made her more daring. She may have been amused; I was not, and asked how I might be of service to her. She wanted to make sure we found a replacement for one of Zulfi’s favourite pairs of black wingtips the next time we were in London. She had noticed a scratch on one of the shoes. I did not like being dragged from Bhutto’s side at crucial moments like these for such trivial distractions, and I told Husna so. She came close to 93

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me, patted me on the cheek. ‘Asghar,’ she said, ‘you’re such a child.’ Then she turned and went into the bathroom. I could hear her crying. I took that as a dismissal and hastened back to the living room at 70 Clifton. It wasn’t true what they said about Husna’s preternatural calm: when her husband, a leading intellectual, was killed by the Pakistan Army in 1971 in Dacca, after she’d moved to Karachi to be near Bhutto, she was said not to have shed a tear. A lie. I never knew Zia was a chain-smoker. I never saw him so much as touch a cigarette, even when cooling his heels for hours before a meeting with Bhutto. Tonight, the air was thick with smoke. As I came in, Bhutto slipped me a note with instructions to get one of his new suits ready as soon as Zia was gone, and to make sure the press secretary passed the word to the television, radio and newspaper reporters that there would be a press conference at 70 Clinton at eleven-thirty that evening. ‘Sir, I can assure you the army will do its duty by the government in strict adherence to the constitution in all respects,’ Zia said in that squeaky, blatantly modest voice of his. ‘The jawans expect no less of me. You elevated me above six more senior officers. I’ll forever be grateful for your generosity, sir.’ Bhutto had been telling Zia how he needed martial law retained in Karachi, Lahore, and Hyderabad, and the army to keep its tight grip in Baluchistan and the NWFP, all through the campaign and elections, possibly in November. But he was saying nothing of his plans for later that night. They talked then about the Shah of Iran, Bhutto’s fair-weather friend who’d pitched in with American planes and arms to help suppress the Baluch insurgency, but refused him 300 million dollars to bail him out of an economic crisis that year. ‘The fundamentalist threat is being exaggerated by the Shah to squeeze more aid out of the Americans,’ Zia said. ‘Iran’s is a sophisticated civilisation. The Shi’ite clerics have not an enlightened arrow in their quiver. The proud Persian civilisation would never go for clerics who propagate senseless rebellion from the holy shrines.’ ‘That is not what my intelligence reports,’ Bhutto said. ‘Khomeini is a real threat.’ With some irritation, Zia said, ‘The Shi’ite clerics are so rigid, they wouldn’t forgive my poor daughter Zain for a mistake.’ Zia doted on Zain, 94

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his twenty-year-old mentally handicapped daughter; he’d shown me pictures of her once, and spoke of her with great fondness. Agitated, Bhutto paced around the room. Zia lit another cigarette. ‘If anything happens to me, I expect Pinkie to continue my legacy,’ Bhutto said from nowhere. ‘I have groomed her well. I don’t expect to live more than another ten years anyway. Ten years, maximum. My heart, my liver, they’ll give out long before then.’ ‘Children are the pride of dutiful parents, sir,’ Zia said, rubbing his long hands as if performing wudu before prayer. The black mark on Zia’s forehead, of the kind acquired by diligent namazis after years of persistent head-banging while performing sajda, shone brighter than ever. It sat like an ugly beacon on his head, calling forth medieval demons, the legendary churayls and bhoots of the rural imagination. I had the sudden impulse to grab a heavy brass ornament from the mantelpiece, one of the gifts from the Shah of Iran to his ‘brother’, and bludgeon Zia to death in front of the master. ‘Anyway, it’s all over now,’ Bhutto said to Zia. ‘We’ve resolved all our differences, the opposition and I. You can go home and rest.’ ‘The army, I can assure you, sir, will follow the constitution to the letter,’ Zia repeated. ‘It will never do anything to destabilise the country. The jawans are one hundred per cent behind me, sir.’ Bhutto had, at first, refused to negotiate altogether with the PNA; it had no ideology save his ouster. Secularists like Asghar Khan nakedly cohabited with hotheaded mullahs like Shah Ahmad Noorani, united in their hatred of Bhutto, resentful of the sway he still held over the awam. Bhutto tried to have his friends in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates intervene in the name of sanity and order. He gave the army a freer hand to quell protests. A month ago, he had announced a deal with the PNA to hold new elections and left on yet another tour of the Middle East, denying the opposition any specifics. But last night he told Pirzada, Rao, Rashid, and his other deputies, that he would go along with each and every one of the opposition’s demands. The PPP leadership drank to the decision until six that morning. Husna joined them toward the end. Begum Bhutto was nowhere to be seen and I don’t think she waited up for him. Only Rahim sahib seemed intent on ruining Bhutto’s mood. ‘You’ve left it too late, I’m 95

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afraid,’ he said. ‘The army is emboldened. Dangerous precedents have been set. They think the constitution is a piece of paper they can toy with.’ Bhutto was enraged and I feared for Rahim sahib’s life. He was in his seventies and the FSF had long since become inured to the consequences of its actions. Pirzada tried to defuse the situation. ‘Rahim-ji, as law minister I cannot allow any downer tonight. That would be … a crime against the state, yes, punishable by … five years’ rigorous imprisonment.’ And they all laughed, except Rahim sahib. I didn’t find it particularly funny either. Bhutto wanted to drag the desperate opposition negotiators over the coals a bit more, let them imagine worst-case scenarios, before announcing his intentions and stripping them of every idea that might make them attractive to the voters. But in the meeting with Zia he must have found what he was looking for, something in the general’s manner to confirm his suspicion that time was running out – that it was now or never. As soon as Zia left, Bhutto gave instructions to inform the PNA leadership that he agreed to every one of their demands. ‘We have concluded an historic deal with the opposition,’ Bhutto told the assembled media. ‘We’ll have a public ceremony tomorrow to sign the accord. This is unprecedented in Pakistan’s history. Politics is the art of giveand-take. If I play hardball, the other side is welcome to as well. The interest of the country, the legitimacy of the constitution, its preservation, comes first. I apologise to my brothers and sisters who’ve had to suffer through the nightmare of the last four months. We hope the return of stability will attract much-needed investment to the country. Pakistan is open for business again. Let there be an end to the strikes, the riots. Let politics, the supreme human art, take centre stage again. My thanks to the Shah of Iran, to King Khalid, to all those who lent their good offices to resolve these sticky matters.’ Bhutto took no questions and left the room to its understandable scepticism. How many times had they heard this before? Was this deal real? Pakistan had been caught up in too much politics since 1967, when Bhutto started the first populist movement. Siyasat, siyasat, every step of the way. Bhutto loved it, it gave him life. Husna claimed to love it. I let it consume my life. But did the people love it, too? Or were they more like Begum Bhutto, their tolerance strained, leery of the prospect of yet more of it? 96

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At two o’clock that morning, 70 Clifton was surrounded by the army. A military helicopter took Bhutto to the Murree rest house, and I went with him, part of the retinue of aides he was allowed to keep for three weeks. Zia was now in charge and at first he was inclined to allow Bhutto a degree of comfort during his detention. The soldiers sent to wake me seemed amused that the detained prime minister would want his servants with him. A colonel glanced briefly at the papers I collected from the file cabinets in my room and said, ‘You’ll be needing all of these, I suppose, to mount your defence. Take all the papers you want. Documentation is always good.’ I thanked him for his generosity. * * * More than a quarter century has passed. How do I feel, now that Pinkie is dead? I feel a sorrow I didn’t think possible, and I blame myself, I blame the legions of Asghars, loyal Pakistanis, loyal PPP men, who couldn’t save her, who couldn’t save any of them. Chen, the only one of my neighbours with whom I have friendly contact, drops by to commiserate. His wife, older by fifteen years, is with him. ‘We’re very sorry to hear, Asghar,’ he says, his sympathy sincere. Chen’s wife says, ‘Will you be going to Pakistan? We know how close you were to her. Such a shame, a modern Islamic woman leader, gunned down by fanatics. They’ll never catch the perpetrators. It was the government. That’s how it always is.’ Other than the Chens, no one calls on me; no one else knows I’m from Pakistan. In the Southern California suburb of West Covina, unfounded gossip has it that I recruited large numbers of men from the Arab world to fight the Afghan jihad in the 1980s and received a special commendation from President Reagan himself. Almost three decades on this street and my neighbours are as much strangers to me as I am to them. It’s easy for rumours to get started, about a single man who doesn’t seem to have any visible source of income. America is no different than Pakistan in so many ways. Until retirement, I used to do the accounts for numerous small businesses – travel agencies, restaurants, doctor’s offices, and the like. I have had the occasional fling – with an Afghan or Persian or Turkish divorcee or widow with a taste for the arts and music – but mostly I have kept to myself. The Bhuttos train 97

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their acolytes well and it’s impossible to spurn asceticism once it’s ingrained. Women understand I’m not the marrying kind. Though I avoid news of Pakistan, so much in the limelight again, there is the rare exception, Pinkie’s assassination being one of them. I knew in my heart it would happen, sooner or later. That leaves just Sanam, who never wanted anything to do with politics. Shahnawaz was killed in the 1980s, by his wife, they say. Mir was gunned down in Karachi in the 1990s when Pinkie was in power. People claimed her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, orchestrated the murder, with Pinkie’s knowledge – as absurd an idea as I’ve ever heard. Begum Bhutto is as good as gone, her mind lost to dementia. I feel a sudden sadness that she has been robbed of even the faculty to lament. Rahim sahib is dead. So too are Rao Rashid and Maulana Noorani. Even beautiful Husna is dead. Asghar Khan lives, as does Khar, the Lion of the Punjab, who prospers still. At UCLA in the 1980s, I met a scholar, perhaps the pre-eminent scholar, on Pakistan. He was very welcoming. He was writing what he called the authoritative biography of Bhutto, having made a name for himself with his book on Jinnah. He invited me to his office in Bunche Hall, offered me tea, and we sat and talked. ‘To meet someone who knew Bhutto so closely, almost a member of the family, now that is a stroke of fortune. It’s as good as being at 70 Clifton, digging around in the files,’ he said, brimming with enthusiasm. ‘The files are sealed, of course, as long as Zia stays in power, but you, my dear Asghar, are an open book. I hope to get many, many hours of useful information out of you.’ I was flattered. I had nothing better to do; the evenings and weekends made me depressed. Not even the Pacific Ocean could lift my spirits. ‘The Baluchistan insurgency …’ he began. ‘That was bad. The way it was crushed. A second genocide, you might say, so soon after the Bangladesh tragedy. How did Bhutto feel about the slaughter of innocent Baluchis?’ ‘Genocide?’ I sputtered, aghast at such a reading of events. ‘What do you mean, genocide? It was an out-and-out insurgency, rebellion against state authority. It had to be put down, or Pakistan would have split into five pieces.’ The good professor seemed unperturbed by my outburst and our conversation continued until it turned to Islamisation. He clearly enjoyed 98

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the sound of his own voice, and I began to suspect that what he wanted from me was confirmation, my endorsement of his version of the truth. ‘In 1977, Bhutto started the first-ever wave of Islamisation in Pakistan. Friday as the holiday, banning drinking, gambling, what have you. That set the stage for Zia. Pakistan will find it hard, perhaps impossible, to ever escape that trap. Bhutto let the genie out of the bottle …’ I cut him off. ‘He didn’t let the genie out, as you call it. It was already out. He gave it a little air, released some pressure, but it was never his intention to make the country a haven for fanatics and crazies. A little economic prosperity, a little breathing room, and all would have been well. He was secular to the core, I tell you, just like Jinnah.’ ‘Ah, Jinnah, yes, another great enigma. Always playing both sides of the game. Anyway, Asghar, what do you think of Bhutto’s role in the break-up of Pakistan? We know the history. Did he express any regret to you? About not letting Mujib become prime minister? I always thought the situation was salvageable until the very end.’ That did it. Nothing I would be able to say would change how he thought of Pakistan. ‘Good luck writing your biography, professor,’ I said, rising from my chair, ‘but please don’t use my name as a source anywhere in it. I don’t want to be associated in any way, shape, or form.’ When Pinkie became the first elected female Muslim leader after the death of Zia, I forgave her, wished her luck, and closed the door on my past. But how does one put Pakistan out of one’s mind? I am healthy, live a soft life, have nothing to fear from the state or police. In this bizarre war on terror I am forgotten, a dated fossil; no one would think of enquiring after me. At one time, I was a prized political resource. Now, I’m mislaid, lost. In a few weeks, the turmoil over Pinkie’s death will pass. She is already buried in Larkana, next to the master. The Bhuttos will live on; the awam will never stint in their loyalty to the name. And nor, in the ways it most counts, will I. And if I mistake insipidity for loyalty, so be it.

The Individual (Flock of Wrongs) (2009) by Louie Cordero. Acrylic on canvas, 152cm x 102cm. Courtesy of Osage Gallery, Hong Kong.

Liberation Road

Poem Alexandru CetÄ&#x192;ĹŁeanu

Romania Herodotus once said that Our ancestors, the Tracs Might have become all-powerful If each did not against the other fight. But for them, there was never a desire for unity. Gods in vain have told them to relent. They have fought, and fight again. We, descendants of their blood, Have walked their roads for centuries. But never, and nowhere Have we found the healing flowers. To argue is our way as their cursed schemes remain. We are wedded to the conflicts That Herodotus knew well. 101

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Noe’s Jiuta-mai Xavier Comas

hree o’clock ‘is the darkest part of the night – the hardest part’, says Haruki Murakami in After Dark, and it was then that I was making photographs on the narrow streets of Kabukicho’s red light district. No one talks to foreigners in Tokyo, but that hour is a time for strange encounters everywhere in the world. Still, Noe Tawara astonishes me, walking up without the least hesitation, and asking, ‘Are you a photographer?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I am a jiuta-mai dancer.’ Serendipity is the only word I can find to explain the moment.

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Noe Tawara is from Fukuoka, in southern Japan, and began her training at the age of ten at Hanayagi School. At the age of nineteen, during her acting studies at Hihon University, she took the advice of her classical dance teacher and specialised in jiuta-mai. Noe was fascinated by its obscure origins – it is today a secretive ancient style of dance – and the fierce rivalry between the Shirabyōshi who sought through their art to become the Shogun’s favourite concubine. Jiuta-mai is intensely intimate – it is only ever performed for an audience of one, a man – and its elegance is an underlying pillar of Japanese choreographic sophistication. ‘When I first saw jiuta-mai, I thought “this is it”. I had found the sole tool that could express something that filled me,’ she says. Noe says that beyond the sophisticated style of dance she found an extraordinary art of rare depth and poignant introspection. Jiuta-mai requires skills substantially different from other traditional dance, such as kabuki, which exaggerates movement and emphasises form for the sake of large theatre crowds. Jiuta-mai is its opposite, confined in space to small tatami room and a single viewer, and requiring slow, delicate and hugely symbolic motions based on the natural movement of the human body and demanding the subtlest of muscle and breath control.

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Noe turns slowly on the tatami to the plucked notes of the jiuta, warm candlelight casting trembling shadows on the translucent shoji. Her body curls in an harmonious loop of movement and, the three strings muted, succumbs to unbearable sadness and she kneels, inconsolable amid the pain of lost love, bending back, extended arms flowing from her sides in a slow and graceful motion, evoking solitude, her hands grasping at imagined snowflakes. Jiuta-mai is rarely seen by foreigners, yet here, in Daio-ji, a small Buddhist temple in Yanaka, my camera is seeing a style of dance little changed since the twelfthcentury Heian period.

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Jiuta-mai is one of very few Japanese traditional arts belonging to the woman’s realm of expression. Its major themes are passion and distress expressed with a sensual and symbolic story-telling dance form. It was developed as a chamber art and enjoyed aesthetically sensitive patronage. Its choreographies involve a series of simple movements that yield complex internal emotions. The purity of the technique transforms jealousy or desolation into movement, the expression of which is subjugated to the sympathy and comprehension of its essence. That process of sympathy starts when the master choreographs the dancer to match the story told by the song. ‘Let’s say the choreography requires you to raise your arm,’ Noe explains. ‘Through practice and deep understanding of the song’s story, that simple movement becomes deeply meaningful.’ She says her master, Hanai, once told her, ‘You cannot dance without your soul.’ This often painful path to self-awareness requires a high degree of sensitivity, delicacy and strength.

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Noe makes full use of the techniques of traditional dancing but adds to her original performances those of acting, modern choreography and more general artistic expression. Creation of these performances begins with the choice of a theme drawn from her life experience as a woman, which she tries to recreate within the emotional space of the accompanying music. She searches the music for connections with daily life, perhaps reading a book, watching the news or strolling along the street. A mental image of the story will arise and from that she constructs the narrative of the piece through a combination of subtle movements. If the space she has created in her mind is rich enough, her dance need only hint at the extraordinary purity and emotional and physical distillation that is the heart of jiuta-mai.

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Map â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Home (2008) by Ho Sin Tung. Ink on paper, 21cm x 30cm. Courtesy of the artist, Hong Kong.

Liberation Road

Nova initia Thomas Lee

oon Shik thought the sun shone brighter in Los Angeles than Korea. America gave him what became a perpetual squint, which exaggerated what westerners would consider beady eyes and encouraged his preference for working at night. Yoon Shik rarely basked under the broad blue California sky, or took his family to the shimmering beaches that served year-round as magnets for families on the West Coast. Since Yoon Shik was a night person he found employment working the graveyard shift, as a clerk in a small downtown convenience store a few blocks from the cramped one-bedroom Chinatown apartment he considered spacious enough for his wife and son. Before heading off to work each evening, he’d mutter a Latin phrase – ‘nova initia’ – he’d picked up in his classes on western literature during his university days. It meant ‘new beginning’. ‘Nova initia’ was what he’d tell himself as he sold liquor and snacks to poor blacks. His wife, Kyung Ah, worked for tips at a sushi restaurant. They set aside at the end of each week as much cash as could be spared for a down payment on their own little grocery. ‘Nova initia,’ he said each time he was screamed at by drunks a nickel or dime short of the price of a bottle of malt liquor, or mocked and taunted by arrogant, foul-mouthed youths twice his size, or as he listened to his tearful wife after sake-soaked Japanese suits and red-faced whites groped her as they held the tip money just out of reach. Nova initia. A thousand times ‘nova initia’ and thousands more until a bank could be persuaded to 121

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finance a store in South Central Los Angeles so they could properly begin their new beginning. * * * David had forgotten more than he remembered of his early childhood in Korea, which by his father’s telling was spent at a big fold-out table in a small apartment hunched over children’s books. David also had beady eyes, though not nearly as pronounced as his father’s. Yoon Shik readily praised his son’s academic achievements to anyone who would listen but was scornful of his son’s other interests, except when he noticed a skateboard left provocatively by the front door. He mostly forbade time-wasting activities that detracted from study or proper work. If the boy had time to spare, it should be put to good use in the shop, but Yoon Shik let the skateboard go, because he could not control his son twenty-four hours a day, and had to make a few concessions. Yoon Shik was disappointed that David was less and less able to answer the simplest questions in Korean, but learned to accept that this was not unusual in a country where only English mattered. In 1992, his son was accepted into Berkeley, the store was thriving, and Yoon Shik moved his family to a three-bedroom house in Fullerton. Nova initia. * * * David once calculated for his father that Kwangju was five thousand, nine hundred and fifty miles from Los Angeles and, if he could somehow walk across the Pacific Ocean, he could get there on foot in about a year. Yoon Shik couldn’t see the point of knowing such a thing. Why would anyone want to go back to Kwangju? In 1980, when Yoon Shik was a young father, he sold rice cakes in hot sauce from a street stand in a public square near the main gate of the Chonnam National University campus, where he studied part time; he wanted to become a high school teacher, or even a university instructor. His father was a barely literate farmer, as had been his father, and his father’s father. Yoon Shik was encouraged by his mother to believe that he needn’t live his father’s life knee-deep in mud and hostage to the rains. After Yoon Shik’s compulsory military service, she urged him not to return to the farm but to apply to the 122

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university. She had saved some money for him, and she would send him her prayers. The newly married Yoon Shik, his young wife already pregnant, promised he would graduate so that her grandson – he was sure it would be a boy – would have a new beginning. He worked hard in his classes and in the evenings extracted small change from the pockets of younger, richer, lighter-skinned students with his rice cakes. They called him ‘country trash’ when they thought they were far enough from his stand, but dug into the pockets of their American jeans to buy from him all the same. Yoon Shik, after a boyhood working in the paddies, was a compact bundle of leathery skin and wiry muscles; he could not hide his peasant heritage, but did not envy their smog-choked city of sullen concrete apartment complexes and wooden shanties. And not all of them put on airs of superiority. At the end of each night Yoon Shik would pack up his cart and count his takings into numerous small piles, trying each time to set some aside against the future. Yoon Shik knew the moods of the square and could sense the nights when business would be brisk, others when a book would be needed to while away the time. It was spring – demonstration season in Korea. On campus, there were rumblings of discontent. General Chun Doo-hwan had led the armed forces in a coup against the government, installing himself as president and imposing martial law throughout the country. Soldiers no older than Yoon Shik had been during his compulsory service could be seen in nervous and uncertain squads on the street corners of Kwangju. General Chun’s main concern was crushing dissent in Seoul. Kwangju would come later, Yoon Shik and everyone else knew, as they watched strident young men and women frequently gather in the square handing out leaflets that said ‘down with the dictatorship’ and ‘america supports a korean tyrant, not the korean people’. It was in Kwangju, almost fifty years earlier, that students began a nationwide uprising against the Japanese colonisers, so there was something inevitable about the events of that balmy spring when hundreds of young men and women in uniform button-downed white shirts poured into the square chanting anti-government and anti-American slogans. Yoon Shik had set up his stand on the edge of the square and watched as a mousey undergraduate he recognised as Oh from his English class took an American flag, doused it with kerosene, and set it alight. Yoon Shik was surprised; in class, he seemed docile and attentive and the last person he would think of as 123

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being a radical. He looked up at the decrepit multi-storey concrete buildings that lined the square and saw many faces watching, cameras too. On the streets, he saw men in blue uniforms with more cameras clicking away. The demonstration was noisy, punctuated by angry speeches and chanted slogans, and then slowly petered out. Yoon Shik saw Oh coming towards his stand as the students dispersed. Yoon Shik pulled his weathered cap down to his eyes and pretended not to notice Oh until he was in front of his stand. ‘Rice cakes?’ he asked. Oh handed him a pamphlet that said, ‘american imperialists: do koreans not deserve american democracy?’ The men in blue uniforms were now roaming the square, questioning the remnants of the demonstration, examining identity cards and writing down names. ‘I don’t want trouble,’ he said, handing back the pamphlet. ‘Elder Brother, don’t be afraid,’ Oh said. ‘You are poor, just like all but a few in our country.’ ‘I’m not a radical.’ Yoon Shik concerned himself as little as possible with politics. People who spoke too loudly tended to disappear. He asked his father once about the war that divided Korea into south and north. ‘Communists. Capitalists. Whoever feeds me is the team I’ll cheer.’ And he pointedly discouraged Yoon Shik from further questions. ‘Join us,’ Oh said. ‘We’re not scared.’ Yoon Shik was scared for his wife and young son, and vigorously shook his head. ‘Americans can say what they want without fear; why can’t we?’ ‘That’s nice for them. Do you want rice cakes?’ ‘Americans are not persecuted by a dictator. We are. They give us their Coca-Cola, but not their freedom.’ ‘If you don’t want rice cakes, please go away,’ Yoon Shik said, but Oh did not move. Yoon Shik snapped. ‘Get away from here. Maybe you want to die, but I don’t.’ Over the next few days, the university closed by the military regime, Yoon Shik watched from his stand as the demonstrations grew larger and bolder, thousands of skinny boys and girls shouting for democracy, believing themselves united and powerful. Oh burned an American flag during each demonstration. When the police fired tear gas into the crowd, Yoon Shik 124

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closed his stand and spent the rest of the day lying on a mat with a wetted cloth over his eyes. As Kyung Ah knelt by his side and bathed his scorched eyes, she said, ‘They’re gonna get us all killed. The army will come and that will be the end of us all.’ Yoon Shik heard from the older merchants at the cart garage that troops were massing outside the city. They agreed on the need for caution. When crowds of students began spilling from the square and into the surrounding streets, the situation became impossible. Kyung Ah pleaded with Yoon Shik to stay indoors, so they got supplies for their four-year-old boy and took refuge in their tiny one-room apartment, buried inside a filthy grey tower block only the poor would live in, and waited. Neighbours would gather and report what they had seen outside. Thousands of students had taken over the streets near the square and were planning on fighting the army with Molotov cocktails, a few carbines stolen from the police armoury, and stones. On the night of May 17, the shooting began in terrifying staccato; Yoon Shik recognised the distinctive sound of military issue M4s. His transistor radio played only happy Korean tunes set to western dance beats, while his black-and-white television with rabbit-ear antennas reported Korea’s economic progress. A neighbour who drove a cabbage truck around the city, the only man Yoon Shik knew brave enough to venture outside after the shooting started, came crying down the hallway during the night. He said that the army had come with tanks and jeeps, and killed so many that the square was covered with corpses. A few days later, afraid of the army, but out of cash and his son wailing with hunger, Yoon Shik ventured out to the square again with his rice cake stand and took his old spot. Other sellers were there, too, and the square was busy as always. It was as if the past week had been just a bad dream. After a few hours he had replenished his cash reserves and the day was looking profitable. The cabbage-truck driver must have been mistaken. He didn’t see the several men, peasants judging by their dark skin, in blue uniforms until they were almost upon him, one of them screaming in a thick country accent, ‘We know you’re friends with that Oh! We saw you talking to him!’ Veins bulging from their foreheads, they pulled him into an alley and beat him with batons. ‘Where is Oh?’ they demanded. 125

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‘I … don’t … know,’ he grunted as the batons thudded into his body. ‘I barely … know him.’ They left him there in the alley, head bleeding, eyes swollen shut, rasping for breath. ‘He knows nothing,’ said their leader, as he released his grasp on Yoon Shik’s hair and spat in his face, his head hitting the pavement with a dull crack. They turned over Yoon Shik’s stand, and kicked and stomped its aluminium frame until it was mangled and useless. Then, they returned and pulled Yoon Shik to his knees, making him swear he would never support the students, and leaving him to crawl home, startled pedestrians stepping carefully around him. No one stopped to help him to his feet. Kyung Ah went to work with bandages, acupuncture needles and candles, beseeching, ‘What will we do? What will we do?’ Over the next days, Yoon Shik decided on a simple plan. They would leave, go to America, raise their son somewhere safe, somewhere that he might have a future. Americans gorged on beef and lived free while Koreans like him were beaten and killed by a dictator armed with American weapons and made powerful by American money. America owed his family. If Koreans could not have justice, Yoon Shik was determined to put his family on the better side of injustice. * * * ‘We don’t know anything, either,’ Yoon Shik shouted desperately into his kitchen phone, as he tried to reach anyone who might have an answer. All he had were rumours – the blacks were on the rampage, and they were burning the Korean businesses. ‘But why us? It makes no sense,’ he said to Kyung Ah, who was glued to the twenty-seven-inch colour TV in their living room for the latest news. The top story that spring evening was the acquittal of white cops over the video-taped beating of a young black man named King. That saga seemed to have nothing to do with Koreans, but that night, dozens of Koreans kept ringing Yoon Shik’s Fullerton home, saying they heard that angry black mobs were attacking Koreatown. Kyung Ah screamed when the TV screen showed a helicopter view of the block of old strip malls and cramped store-fronts where their little shop was located. Orange flames jutted out of just about every window with a Korean sign. 126

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Yoon Shik could smell smoke as he drove to his shop that night despite Kyung Ah’s pleas, refusing to stay shuttered in his home, as he had in Kwangju, while his livelihood was under attack. When he reached his store, he saw several Korean men huddled behind old sedans parked bumper-to-bumper in the middle of the road to barricade their little block from black youths roaming the streets. The Koreans held pistols in their hands, though behind them was nothing but charred, bombed-out remnants of a thriving merchant avenue. Yoon Shik ran to his store and was chilled by the sight of shattered windows and cinder-block walls blackened by smoke. With the power out, he carefully stepped in between broken glass shards in the dark and saw only trash scattered across the tile floor. Everything of value, including the cash register, was gone. Though heavily armed, the Koreans had arrived too late to stop the blacks who had gutted and burned store after store in the initial few hours of the riots. The Koreans held their line now, firing warning shots into the air, as armed young black men packed into cars drove near the makeshift barricade, testing the Koreans’ willingness to shoot. There were no police, and would not be until the next day. Yoon Shik was the only one who was unarmed. He was the only Korean business owner in that neighbourhood who had refused to buy a gun. A Christian, he hated firearms. ‘What did we do to you, you animals?’ he screamed out at the dark faces with eyes squinted in mockery of him. When he found Jesus, he swore he would never resort to violence, as it was the most damnable of sins, except to defend his family. But he was angry enough at that moment to rescind his promise to God, if he only had a gun in his hand. The Los Angeles riots of April 1992, called ‘Sa-I-Gu’ by Koreans, destroyed everything Yoon Shik had worked – sixteen hours a day, seven days a week – to build for his family in America. There was nothing to take stock of in the aftermath. * * * David’s mother and father were evangelicals, fanatics if David thought about it from the perspective of his middle-class agnostically ambivalent white friends, but about average by Korean standards. Yoon Shik and Kyung Ah 127

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were converts from the day Korean neighbours invited them to a tiny church run out of an abandoned warehouse shortly after they first immigrated in the early 1980s. It was perfect timing; they were thrilled by the chance to wash away the past and start life anew in God’s eyes. Kyung Ah went to the church in Buena Park every morning to pray before opening the grocery. Yoon Shik consulted the minister before making any major decisions, and was scrupulous and generous with his tithes, giving ten per cent of the gross profit, rather than the net. David, however, stepped inside the church only after he had exhausted all avenues of resistance. Yoon Shik took his family to church the Sunday after the riots. The minister hurt David’s ears as he bellowed in thundering Korean how so many in the pews that day had survived torture, war and hunger and would survive this tribulation, too. David saw his father cry for the first time. They weren’t angry tears, which David might have expected, but mournful, as if no suffering on earth could be compared with that of this moment. Yoon Shik had time on his hands, there being no store to open early each morning and close late each night. He would meet with other church members and they would share stories of their desperation. David came home from school and found on his bed a note in Yoon Shik’s hand: ‘John 15:18. Remember if the world hates you, that it has hated me before it hated you.’ Yoon Shik and Kyung Ah were among the few to have insurance, not enough to make up for everything lost, but sufficient to save them from destitution. They could, with more hard work, start again. After much equivocation and religious consultation, they decided that a fresh start was to be made in New Jersey, where Yoon Shik’s sister lived. They could find a vacant space for a convenience store somewhere in New York City. David would be leaving for Berkeley in a month or so and starting his own future; for Yoon Shik and Kyung Ah, Los Angeles was now nothing more than a city of poisoned hopes. * * * ‘We’re moving east,’ David said, pushing his skateboard back and forth with a dirty-sneakered foot and pulling a crumpled pack of Camel Lights from the back pocket of his cargo pants. His sweat-soaked black T-shirt clung to 128

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his narrow chest, accentuating his wiry build. Jenny, his girlfriend for the past year, took the lit cigarette from his mouth and started smoking it. ‘Why?’ she said with that nasal whine David found annoying but knew better than to try to correct. ‘You can’t find a new place here?’ The day was scorching, so they ambled over to a solitary tree outside the apartment complex were Jenny lived with her single mom on the edge of the nicer side of Buena Park. Jenny, who was shorter than David and had bulbous breasts, hung out with the Korean and white skaters who acted cool but weren’t tough enough to be jocks. David had never told his parents about Jenny. ‘Just friends from school,’ he said when they asked where he was going, which he knew would be enough because they were too busy to find out more. Jenny, father unknown, curvaceous and Caucasian, opinionated and prone to run off at the mouth, was everything a Korean parent would hate. David liked her enough that he wanted to keep seeing her after he went off to school. The guys laughed at him for being ‘romantic’ and said it would never happen, that he’d be chasing Asian twigs by his third week. ‘They don’t want to start over again here, not after what happened,’ David said. ‘My dad thinks it’s time to start fresh. He keeps going on about this Latin thing – nova … something – about “beginnings”.’ David made finger quotes in the air. ‘I can’t believe this stupid shit is gonna make us leave.’ ‘I’m sorry, David. Shit is stupid. They attacked Koreans when Koreans didn’t even do anything.’ David pulled up the front of his T-shirt and mopped at his face. ‘You hear the Koreans marched down Wilshire?’ ‘Yeah, I saw on TV. They held up signs that said “We Want Peace”,’ she said. ‘The signs shoulda said “Fuck You All!”.’ ‘My mom was watching the news report with me. She was like, “Which one of them is your boyfriend?’’’ David didn’t laugh. For the first time in his life, he felt under attack for what he was, rather than for something he’d done. Working hard to build a life seemed rather pointless when some worthless morons would tear it down just because he was Korean. ‘Time’s gonna come when someone needs something from us, and we should just say, “Fuck yourself. Where were you after the riots?’’’ 129

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Jenny’s eyes widened. ‘Never seen you so angry. You’re all Korean-pride all of a sudden, like the FOB kids.’ David had never really thought of himself as ‘Korean’, like the ‘Fresh Off the Boat’ immigrants who hung out in tight circles at lunchtime, imitating effeminate Korean boy bands, instead of football players or American rock stars. After the riots, he’d been thinking about whether the term ‘Korean-American’ applied to him and if that meant he was an outsider in two worlds, looking like he belonged in one, but feeling more attuned with the other. David couldn’t speak Korean, like the FOB kids, and never saw the need to learn. He could barely understand his parents when they shouted Korean at him in anger or whispered it when discussing secrets they didn’t want him to hear. Only when Koreatown burned down did David realise that he shared one critical trait with all Koreans, he was looked down on. David spat without much effect because his mouth was dry and said, ‘Everything fucking sucks.’ She put her little hand on his shoulder. ‘Come on. Not all of it sucks. You’re going to college. I’m staying here.’ He threw his cigarette as far as he could. ‘I saw him cry.’ ‘Who?’ ‘My dad. It was in church. Never saw that before. Gonna make sure I never see that again.’ Jenny put her arm around David’s thin waist, but he just stared out at nothing, trying to make himself numb, trying to shut down his brain. David called Jenny sometimes from Berkeley, usually when he was drunk, never making much sense, until she ended it, saying she wasn’t some longdistance phone sex service. His parents would ring every Sunday to remind him to go to church, which he never did, and he stopped answering the phone before noon, too hung-over to move. * * * Yoon Shik held the grand opening of the New Park One-Stop Store in New York in late August of 1992. David was at school then, but he was in New York during his Christmas vacation, which was anything but a break; Yoon Shik treated him like returned chattel. Helping out with the family business had always been a part of David’s life, though he loathed it so much he’d 130

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force himself to study, join clubs, take on extra-credit projects or even do volunteer work at the hospital to stay out of the shop. Avoiding the store got him into Berkeley, but now that he was there, he had no excuse not to help out during his vacations. He was given the choice of taking his mother’s place from five in the evening until eleven-thirty at night, when the store closed, or getting up early to open the store at seven and work through with his mother until half-past one. David rarely saw noon at the best of times, so he took the nightshift. It would be good, he reasoned, to give his mom a break. David had never been to the real New York City before he boarded the four-twenty bus out of Edgewater to the Port Authority Terminal carrying a bag with two Tupperware containers of kim-bop for dinner. From the bus window, it looked overwhelming, but emerging from the bus station, he was at a loss to find the scantest redeeming feature. What he saw was squalor; twenty-five-cent peep shows, hookers, kung-fu shops, the homeless, drunks, druggies and pushers, all in the same Polaroid snapshot. He did the two-block walk to the convenience store at a brisk step. Night shift in Hell’s Kitchen was a mistake. Normal people with normal clothes, normal jobs and normal lives were leaving as fast as they could as David arrived for work. The store was about the size of a classroom and along its three aisles could be found everything a New Yorker might need, from toilet paper to breath mints. The refrigerators along the back wall held six-packs of beer, a varicoloured range of sodas, juice and milk. Behind the counter, where David and his father stood side-by-side at the cash registers, were the easiest and most sought-after targets – the bottles of liquor, painkillers, condoms, and tabloid newspapers, one reporting the skyrocketing crime rate under the inky banner ‘Big Apple Is Rotting’ on David’s first day. By Christmas Eve, David knew that in Hell’s Kitchen he should expect to face a long line of misfits. He arrived for work in his good black trench coat, a baby-blue button-down shirt and khakis. After they closed, he would go with Yoon Shik to pick up his mom and head to midnight service at the Korean church in Leonia. They could easily have closed early, but that was not his father’s way of doing business, even if they only had just a trickle of Manhattan holiday orphans as customers that night. At about half past eight, a young, overweight blond man in a navy Armani suit walked up carrying a six-pack of Guinness. David guessed the man was 131

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a banker, maybe a lawyer. He held a brown paper package under his arm, so David guessed he was on his way home, stopping first at one of the nearby Pakistani-owned porn shops before stocking up on alcohol. David presumed he would take off the expensive suit, no doubt acquired after he received a substantial Christmas bonus that justified his sorry existence, before seeking holiday cheer from two paper bags; the ghost of Christmas future for half the kids in David’s classes at Berkeley. David smiled as he thought Merry Christmas, dipshit before saying, ‘That’ll be eight-ninety-nine, please.’ A heavy-set, olive-skinned woman, so obviously a prostitute that she might as well have had a placard around her neck, planted a tub of skin lotion on the counter. The cheetah-patterned fake-fur coat and platinum wig were a nice touch, he thought. She had probably done her share of porn movies, though not the high-end ones with the taut and surgically enhanced bodies like the ones the last guy would get off on. No, she belonged in the low-budget ones, the girls sallow, spiritually drained, and doomed at the start for the clearance bin, four for twenty dollars. And you charge how much? And for what? A body that wouldn’t place in a prison beauty pageant? ‘Thank you. Come again,’ he said. ‘Good night, sweetie,’ she said with a wink. Shortly after nine he told his father he was taking a break. Yoon Shik grunted his assent. Down Eighth Avenue, he passed a string of porn shops, a small cadre of low-tier pimps and hookers, and vacant storefronts, until he hit Chelsea and a fanciful row of glowing bars and restaurants. He kept walking. David would need a flashier fashion sense and a taste for older white men harbouring house-boy fantasies to drink there. He found his place a few minutes further south, a dingy underground cave of a bar that looked like a hangout for dissolute middle-aged loners. David was only seventeen, but drinking was, in his freshman year, already part of his daily routine. When he drank, he was not haunted by the feelings the riots had triggered in him, fear for his parents’ livelihood and the brutal awareness of how different he seemed wherever he went. The bouncer ignored him. Inside was a scene of grim holiday reverie. David had to force his way through to the bar, where he ordered six shots of tequila; he pocketed his change and downed them one after the other. ‘Keep that up,’ the bartender smirked, ‘and you won’t live long enough to get chest hair.’ 132

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‘Are you drunk?’ Yoon Shik spat as he watched David return somewhat awkwardly to his register. ‘No! … I just had a couple of drinks to relax.’ ‘David, I drank in college too, but I didn’t need to do it every day. Sit down over there and eat something.’ His father pointed him toward the small table at the entrance to the stock room. Kim-bop. Fourth night in a row. Yoon Shik was now silent, the way he got whenever David disappointed him. David watched a diminutive, elderly woman tiptoe her way to the medicine section. She came to the store almost every night. She wore bright suits that were probably fashionable decades ago when somebody might have noticed her. She had that petulant, crazed look that abandoned old women seemed to get in New York. David had learned she was a complainer and she would find some excuse to try to humiliate whoever was at the register. ‘Well, just don’t come back if you hate us,’ his dad would say in a restrained voice. And the next night she’d be back. ‘This isn’t supposed to cost so much,’ she squawked, waving a bottle of flu medicine. ‘That’s just stealing. That’s all you people know how to do is steal. It’s disgusting.’ David felt for his father and stared daggers at the woman. Worthless old cunt. So you’re all alone on Christmas Eve. Not even a cat to keep you company. Why do you even bother with the pills? Take the whole damn bottle, and here’s another on the house, just to make sure. Like anyone gives a rat’s ass. The old woman was staring at him. She looked shrunken and aghast. Oh God, David thought, I said all that out loud. ‘What’s the matter? Am I talking too fast for your fucking hearing aid?’ said David, figuring he might as well finish what he’d started. ‘What part of “worthless old cunt” don’t you understand? Now get the fuck out of here.’ The woman left, muttering something about the Better Business Bureau. David tried to steady his breathing. Yoon Shik was watching him. ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ he said quietly. ‘She was just an old lady.’ ‘A mean old lady,’ David shot back. ‘I know she’s not nice, but she’s a good customer. She spends a lot of money here. It’s bad business to chase her away.’ ‘It’s not that bad for business. She’s gonna die soon enough.’ 133

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‘David! You are really becoming terrible. You didn’t used to be like this.’ Yoon Shik was glowering at him now. ‘You used to go to church,’ he said, and refused to speak another word to him. * * * Yoon Shik’s move to New York meant another life change, another nova initia to be endured. It took a week or so to fit out and stock the store he had found; its location convenient for the Port Authority bus terminal and ripe with potential. He had heard about Hell’s Kitchen, but put much of what he’d been told down to local lore. Nonetheless, once the store was ready, he bought a handgun, a nine-millimetre Beretta 92F – like the one he had learned to use in the army – and taped it under the counter between the two registers. Yoon Shik prayed that he would never have to take a life, but New York was still strange to him and he had Kyung Ah’s safety to think about. He regularly cleaned and checked the weapon as he’d been taught, telling himself that he would only use it out of necessity, never in anger. Anger turned God’s blessings into poison. * * * Brooklyn was just two bus rides from New Jersey, but David rarely visited, not wanting to hear stories about the grown children of his parents’ Korean friends, who were all well-salaried professionals on their way to becoming cloying happy endings to immigrant fairy tales. After college, David had moved nine times in New York, forced out by the rising yuppie tide that, never with any warning, would reach his street and send the rent far beyond his meagre wage. Most years, he had struggled to stay sober and out of debt. David, now thirty-four, lived in an apartment share in a Vietnamese neighbourhood in Brooklyn, as far from the gentrification as he could get while still considering himself a New Yorker. He worked as an English teacher to immigrant kids, trying to gain respectability after years spent in a hand-to-mouth alcohol haze. He had been on a true downward spiral, as drinking helped him to forget who he’d become, but prevented him from becoming anything else. He had gone nowhere near his father’s store on Eighth Avenue between Thirty-Eighth and Thirty-Ninth in seventeen years, but his mother had told 134

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him it was closing for good and he felt he should see it one last time. He left a dive bar near Murray Hill a little past midnight, figuring the shop would be shut by the time he got there. David had heard that the neighbourhood had boomed in the late 1990s, but he was still stunned by its transformation. Crowds of white twentysomethings minted from the best universities and dressed by glistening fashion magazines stumbled home from bar-hopping. Gone were the brown and yellow immigrants who had kept the neighbourhood going when none but the most hardened would venture there. The store lights were still on, the interior stark and empty save for bare splintering shelves. His father was there, emptying the contents of a closet at the back into a large cardboard box. ‘David, what are you doing here?’ Yoon Shik asked. ‘Mom told me you closed the store,’ David said. ‘The Italian is throwing me out. He wants another bar for rich white kids and won’t renew the lease.’ Ethnicity was always a factor whenever Yoon Shik felt wronged. David could hear only a trace of defiance in his father’s words, as if that was all he could muster. Though only in his fifties, Yoon Shik looked old. David took the cardboard box and walked with his father to an aged Buick parked around the corner on Thirty-Ninth Street. He looked inside the box through its unsecured top: a green toolbox, an old paper-roll calculator, some odds and ends, and the Beretta, worn with polishing, almost antique. David felt his father’s eyes on him and looked up. * * * After David’s tirade against the old lady, Yoon Shik cold-shouldered him for much of Christmas Eve. David resisted his growing need to ‘take a break’. At closing time, one unkempt red-headed customer was loitering in the back by the beer, as if unable to process the simple enough task of selecting the cheapest brand on the shelf. David watched him through the convex mirror that covered the register’s blind spot. The man was drug-addict skinny and wore a green winter coat that looked like it had been ravaged by piranhas. Hurry up, Wastoid, it’s not that hard. It’s the one with the littlest number at the start. Remember numbers? One, two, three, four … 135

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‘You remember a man named Mr Oh from LA?’ his father asked. Yoon Shik was ready to be conciliatory. ‘He used to stop by our store sometimes?’ David nodded; a portly man, bald, thick glasses, looked like an Asian Mister Magoo. He owned a big house David remembered visiting as a little kid. Yoon Shik said, ‘He used to burn the American flag during protests in Korea.’ ‘No! Really?’ David shook his head, his residual anger at his father evaporating with the revelation. Mr Oh? Overworked, passionless Mr Oh? A radical? ‘He burned many American flags. He was a student activist. He tried to get me to join the cause.’ David remembered his father’s story about Kwangju. ‘Is he the reason they beat you? Why you came to America?’ ‘It wasn’t Mr Oh’s fault. They just saw me with him and that was enough. But isn’t it funny that he came to America after burning American flags? He really hated the Americans. He blamed them for everything. I never told you that part.’ David again shook his head. ‘Things got really complicated for him after school. No one would give him a job. He was starving. Then he found God, and came to America and got rich selling beauty products to Mexicans. I joked to him, “You, who burned the American flag, now fly one over your mansion”.’ Yoon Shik laughed quietly at his own joke. His father continued, ‘Mr Oh called me yesterday, to see how we were doing on the East Coast. I told him we were barely surviving, and you know what he told me?’ ‘No,’ David said, half-listening, watching Wastoid at the back of the shop. ‘Oh said, “You’re the rich one. You have a good son.” His son’s been in trouble, no college, jail, drugs …’ David’s suspicion grew as Wastoid continued to loiter. He looked like he was in a very heated argument with himself. ‘What I am trying to tell you, son, is someday, bad things will happen to you, too. But there’s always hope. I lost everything, but I still have you. Mr Oh is rich, but he envies me. I can’t stay angry if I know I have you.’ David was uncomfortable with emotional interactions involving his father and didn’t even turn to acknowledge his words. Wastoid was pacing back and forth in front of the bank of refrigerators, muttering, and wringing 136

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his hands in their tattered black gloves. David stepped out from behind the counter and walked towards the back of the store. ‘We’re closing now. Could you please buy something or leave?’ he demanded. Wastoid turned sharply and met him with an impish face, greyish eyes and a belligerent manner. He was very skinny. David felt no physical threat. ‘I’ll leave when I’m ready.’ ‘You have two more minutes,’ David replied pointing to his watch. Junkie trash, he thought, as he turned away. At least he didn’t smell nearly as bad as he looked, and he looked like a total failure, which, if you’re white, male, and bodily able is about as bad as it gets, as there’s no one to blame except yourself. ‘Turn around, asshole.’ David stopped walking and turned. Wastoid held a Saturday Night Special, more likely to blow his hand off than hurt anyone else, but a threat not to be ignored, particularly when pointed directly between one’s eyes. ‘Get back to the counter. Walk backwards, real slow.’ Wastoid could see Yoon Shik now in the convex mirror. ‘And don’t you try anything either,’ he shouted, ‘or the boy’s dead.’ Yoon Shik made no overt movement, his hand already on the pistol under the counter. His thumb flipped off the safety catch. ‘Show me both hands,’ he ordered Yoon Shik, who raised his hands to shoulder height. To David, breathing directly into his face, Wastoid said, ‘You think you’re better than me, you smug piece of slit-eyed shit? What do you think now?’ His gloved thumb cocked the hammer and David saw the bullets rotate by one chamber. ‘He doesn’t think he’s better than you,’ Yoon Shik said gently, trying to calm things down. ‘Tell him, David. Tell him you don’t think you’re better than him.’ David said nothing, just kept stepping backward, trying not to slip or make any sudden movements as he inched towards his father. ‘Yeah, that’s right. Listen to him. Tell me I’m better,’ the junkie said. ‘Please, don’t shoot him,’ his father said. ‘Please, I will give you everything. Please, he is my only son.’ ‘Say it, you piece of shit. Say I’m better.’ Wastoid made a move to hit David with the pistol, but instead he clipped the edge of a display stand of 137

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fifty-cent Lay’s potato chips with his hip. The chips cascaded to the floor. The metal frame of the stand entangled his legs as he tried to jerk clear of the falling chips, causing Wastoid to fall flat on his face. His Saturday Night Special skittered across the tile floor and stopped at David’s feet. He caught a glimpse of his father yanking the Beretta from under the counter, and taking a double-handed bead on Wastoid before pulling the trigger. One, two, three, four casings pinged off the floor. Yoon Shik came out from behind the counter, pointed the pistol at the writhing bloody body on the ground and fired twice more. Wastoid lay still. Yoon Shik expertly cleared the final four rounds into his hand and put the bullets and the gun on the countertop. David’s ears rang from the explosions of gunpowder, and the air stank with the acrid smell. Yoon Shik appeared calm. ‘Enough,’ David thought he heard his father say in Korean. ‘Enough.’ And then he turned and reached for the phone. ‘Dad, what are you doing?’ ‘Calling nine-one-one.’ ‘No. Stop. Wait.’ David took the phone from his hand. He imagined Yoon Shik in an American prison. A convicted murderer. Those last two bullets had surely sealed his fate. ‘He tripped,’ David said slowly. ‘But he still had the gun. He got up, pointed it at me, said he would kill me. You shot him. He wasn’t dead, still pointing the gun at me like he was gonna shoot. You shot him again. Got it? He still had the gun the whole time. You had to kill him.’ * * * When David was twelve, he found some old photo albums in a closet in the master bedroom. At the bottom of the stack of memories was one that creaked when opened. Inside were pictures of young men, boys really, one of them his father, the others his army buddies. His father looked good in his uniform. David thought he, too, would join the army someday. Near the back of the album was a loose, yellowing picture of three skinny men in light-coloured uniforms, not the dark ones his father and his buddies wore in the other photos, lying on the ground. Their eyes were wide open, but David could tell they weren’t looking at anything. 138

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He took the album into the family room where his father was watching Sunday afternoon golf. Yoon Shik was surprised by what was in his son’s hands. David held up the photograph. After a short pause, Yoon Shik told David that those were North Korean troops. They were trying to cross the border into South Korea. ‘They were our enemy then.’ ‘Did you shoot them?’ David asked. ‘Put that back where you found it,’ his father said. David tried again. ‘Did you shoot them?’ Kyung Ah entered from the kitchen, saw David holding the album, and shrieked as if an intruder had entered the house. ‘Why are you showing him that?’ ‘He found it,’ his father said. ‘I didn’t show it to him.’ From the shiftiness in Yoon Shik’s voice, David could tell his father was scared of his mother at that moment. Yoon Shik and his platoon had been on duty at the DMZ at night, and readied their rifles when three shadowy figures moved across their outpost and into the thick pine woods on the southern side of the demarcation line. Their sergeant led Yoon Shik and several of the other conscripts in pursuit. His heart in his throat, Yoon Shik pointed his rifle wildly at every rustle as they tracked the northerners deep into the brush. About a half-hour into their pursuit, they were met with a sudden volley of rifle fire, which dropped one of his buddies from basic training, a quiet eighteen-year-old from a village outside of Pusan. Yoon Shik and the other soldiers shot wildly in the direction of the volley, nearly emptying their magazines, until their sergeant ordered them to stop. The woods went deathly quiet, and a lone scrawny boy in tan fatigues came forward out of some bushes, crying, his hands raised, his comrades dead in the shadows. Yoon Shik’s mind was a chaotic blur. Angry at the loss of his friend, shaking because this northerner had just tried to kill him a few seconds before, he pointed his M4 and fired at the North Korean boy as if he were a target at a shooting range. The other soldiers watched the boy drop, blood blooming over his heart. After shouting the basest Korean slurs imaginable, the sergeant calmed himself and said to Yoon Shik, ‘Find the boy’s rifle and put it next to him. Do it! Now!’ ‘He … killed … killed my friend,’ Yoon Shik stuttered through tears and adrenaline. 139

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‘Quit crying, you stupid boy. Keep your mouth shut and this won’t get any bigger than three kids who crossed on to our side.’ The South Koreans posed three bodies side-by-side with their rifles beside them, and the sergeant ordered a soldier to get a Polaroid camera from the outpost to take pictures as evidence of the platoon’s heroism in the face of the North’s aggression. ‘A souvenir,’ the sergeant said as he handed Yoon Shik a picture of the bodies. Yoon Shik cringed at the sight of the boy he had shot dead. Over the years, Yoon Shik, no matter how many ways he rationalised his actions, could not shake the nightmares. Afraid of karma, he tried to live a good life, hoping to lessen the weight of his past wrongs. In Los Angeles, he found Christianity so appealing, because no matter what he’d done before, his first day with Christ was a new birth. The vision of that trembling boy with his hands up was no longer of any consequence after baptism, and Yoon Shik could finally think of himself as a clean man without blood on his hands. The picture of the dead soldiers became a reminder of how wretched he was before God, and how he was saved by a new beginning. Nova initia. ‘Those were bad North Koreans trying to get into the South to spy. We shot them because we had to,’ Yoon Shik told David. David could tell from his mother’s scream, and Yoon Shik’s downward eyes, that his father was not telling him the full truth. If that’s all there was to the story, why did they look so scared to tell him? He was old enough to know about death. For the first time in his life, he thought that his father might be more than a simple man with a past made of neat parables, each ending with a moral about why we must follow God. He was a man capable of lying and perhaps much more. The eyes of those dead soldiers lingered in the recesses of David’s memory as he grew up – was he being visited by the sins of the father? They flashed before him vividly, vapid and lifeless. He would be haunted by them in the years that followed, along with rioting black mobs in Los Angeles, and a lone dead junkie on the floor of the Hell’s Kitchen shop, until he’d reach the bottom of his last glass at some dingy bar. * * *

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‘Nine-one-one emergency?’ a woman’s voice said on the other end of the line. David explained there had been a shooting and gave the address of the shop and nearest cross-street. He heard sirens, said, ‘I can hear them now,’ and hung up the phone. David met the two cops in the open door, his father behind him, Wastoid’s body in clear view with blood pooling across the tile floor. ‘Anyone else?’ the older cop asked. When David shook his head, the cops took in the wider scene: the position of the body and its attire, the counter with the spent Beretta, the convex mirror, the gun on the floor, and the blood. ‘Holy … What happened here?’ the older cop asked. David took the question to be rhetorical. The younger cop held his fingers to the junkie’s neck. ‘No pulse.’ David narrated what needed to have happened. ‘He was talking crazy. He kept saying he was gonna kill me. He tripped and when he got up, he was so mad, he was shaking. He raised the gun like he was gonna shoot me. That’s when my dad reached for our gun and shot him. He fell to the floor. He still had the gun and wasn’t dead. So my dad shot him again.’ ‘Is that what happened?’ the older cop asked Yoon Shik. ‘My son is right. That is what happened.’ The younger officer asked David if he had been drinking. ‘I had like two beers with dinner. This shit sucks so bad, I gotta get through somehow.’ They didn’t ask any more questions about the alcohol, or much else. Detectives were summoned. Two tired men in suits listened to David’s story, took Yoon Shik aside and got the same, ‘My son is right.’ One of them sketched a broken line on the floor to show where David had been forced backwards to the counter, and an ‘X’ for the position of the body. The other detective, a sweaty, robust man, picked up the Beretta, looked at the magazine to check it was empty, saw the four unspent bullets and counted the shell casings. ‘Nice gun,’ he said. ‘Not the first time you’ve used it?’ he was looking at Yoon Shik. ‘I was in the army, the Korean army. I was a soldier. DMZ.’ The detective nodded. ‘So, four shots, then two more shots. Then you disabled the weapon?’ ‘Yes.’ 141

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‘A good soldier would have got him with the first four. Why shoot him again?’ ‘He was not dead. I was not a good soldier, and that was over thirty years ago.’ The two detectives conferred briefly in a corner. The uniformed cops, after helping themselves to coffee and a couple of candy bars, had taken up blocking positions in the doorway. Nightmarish faces gawked through the window. One of the detectives radioed that there’d be no need for an ambulance and to ‘send a meat wagon for the morgue’. ‘Once we body-bag this one,’ the detective pointed a thumb at the junkie, ‘we’ll need you to come down to the station and give us a formal statement. You said you were about to close? Why don’t you finish up with that and we can get going.’ David’s mother, frantic, found them later at the police station. She was on the verge of hysteria when David saw her approach the sergeant’s desk. She flung her arms around him. ‘Your father?’ she asked. David responded, ‘He’s fine. Someone tried to rob the store. They’re just taking his statement now.’ ‘Praise God!’ They shared a long, hard wooden bench with prostitutes for whom the florescent lighting did no favours, gang boys wearing various colours and a couple of well-dressed, red-faced men who probably should have just picked up a six-pack and a porno and gone home for the night. Throughout, his mother cried. A female police officer brought them coffee and touched his mother’s shoulder and said, ‘It shouldn’t take too much longer; procedure.’ David expected the ‘good cop, bad cop’ routine he’d seen on the TV, but instead the cops asked for the short version of his life story and his account of the shooting. Then came a series of softball questions requiring only a ‘yes’ or ‘no’. In courtroom dramas, the defence counsel would have been jumping up shouting, ‘Objection! Leading the witness.’ ‘You folks have had a tough night,’ the senior detective said in the crowded waiting area. ‘Go easy on the drive back to Jersey. We may have a few loose ends to tie up, but I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Just procedure.’ New Park One-Stop was closed for a couple of days. A few cops dropped by and helped themselves to coffee as they drew and photographed lines on 142

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the floor. A fingerprint check of the deceased turned up two priors, one for attempted murder, the other for armed robbery. A clear case of self-defence. The store was open for business within a week. ‘We’re lucky he wasn’t black; we might have had problems,’ David said when the cops left for the final time that Christmas break. Yoon Shik looked at his son and shook his head. They never spoke of the incident again. * * * Seventeen years later, David was nothing to be proud of, certainly not ‘the good son’ Korean parents hope for. He had tried and failed at writing and journalism. He got his parents to pay for a year of playing graduate student in literature and spent the money in bars, gathering material he called it, though he was also looking to exorcise ghosts of North Korean soldiers, the riots and a dead robber. He thought as he emptied each glass, once, his father had been willing to kill for him. ‘Are you still teaching?’ his father asked. ‘Yes,’ David nodded. ‘Teaching is an honourable profession,’ he said, taking the box from David and putting it in the back of the car. ‘Are you going to be okay, Dad? Are you going to be able to get by without the shop?’ Any dutiful Korean son would have been gainfully employed in a lucrative profession that would have afforded his parents a comfortable retirement, repaying with filial loyalty their years of hard work. No one would ever call David a dutiful son, more a soul-crushing disappointment. ‘I don’t know what to do, son. I prayed to God yesterday, and thought maybe I’m being punished for something I did … or something I didn’t do.’ ‘You have done nothing wrong, father,’ David said, surprising Yoon Shik because the words he heard were Korean. ‘You did what you had to do. You always did what you had to do.’ His father shook his head. ‘Not always, son. I’ve been angry many times.’ ‘I’ve been angry too.’ David said in stuttering Korean. ‘You haven’t done what I’ve done.’ 143

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‘I didn’t live through what you lived through.’ David looked intently at his father, ‘Remember what you used to say, that Latin thing.’ His father smiled, impressed that his son remembered, ‘Nova initia.’ ‘Yes.’ ‘I was already born again. Started anew many times. I’m too old for another beginning.’ ‘Never too old, father. Not till you’re dead.’ Yoon Shik looked at his son, ‘You’re a lot younger than me. It’s not too late for you either, you know.’ ‘I guess not.’ David did not quite believe his own words. People had already given him more chances than he could count, and he knew his own capacity for failure. ‘Why don’t you come home for once? Your mother would love to see you,’ Yoon Shik said as he walked to the driver-side of the Buick. David nodded and entered the passenger-side of the car, which started after some whimpering turns of the ignition. The musky smell of the worn leather interior reminded David of family drives, and the solace and promise of his childhood. For the first time in years, David wanted to go home.

144

Liberation Road

Poems Daljit Nagra

Phallacy How oft do mates bang on at length about how well they’re hung, they grab their crotch then slash the air, then chuck an arm at will around a chum while necking Stella till they’re lashed. To tell the truth, I’m really not well hung and thus I hide from mates my prince’s state, this conk is king of my poor frame, no trunks would lunchbox find to bank a lady’s gaze. And yet I hope the guys won’t feel too down when I recount I praise my lover’s reserved mind that rises over the corrrrr! from louts who check her out too long like sonnet pervs. She says: I die each night your subtle touch expands the case for serving our true love.

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Our Daughter, The Bible Flasher! … but you must our daughter cure Dr Jekly! At party for full moon, wid girls whooping on broomstick dance and wise-hair ladies gassing voodoo-powders in corner, I leav di Bacardi Bernand-Manning-to-Edingborough-Duke joke-cracking boys who show we haha, ah! can make; her nose, could it be…? O Dr Jekly, our Rapinder, her sari – tutt-tutt-tuttering to lino! Underneath she hav white collar and black cotton costume! Wid eyes to ceiling artex, wid bible she march for party marquee screeching like dis (I sing): All tings briiight and beauuutipel, di God-lord changing all … Such jumble Dr Jekly she mumbo, so quick up I roll her to play wid Black Magic masks in attic. I ask, Vut is rong vid Rub? Always again in British on me: Does he too do Christmas making money for charities with Cliff Richard?

The Punjab Not ‘The’ – just ‘Púnjab’! Was there once upon before partition a Púnjab whole? A Pan-jab of Hindu, Sikh, Muslim – anything? Are Punjabis all partitioned? How many times a putsch my Babel sank – that bank after river-bank got flagged by clan? To play the pipes of a Punjamental – must I pin a badge – must I drop my pants – must I join a junta and jab-jab-jab for my Púnjab?

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Do di Indi Punjabs luv Khalistan? Do di Paki Punjabs luv Talibans? You say ‘Pún-jab’ – we say Punjaaab – it’s our land of five wide rivers! Well it’s five for the ‘punj’ and for ‘jaab’ it’s a river so you’ll never step on my – Ekjaab – Dohjaab – Tenjaab – Charjaab – Punjaaaaab! What a jape! – Not a jape just each jaab is my King of Roll through the blue suede seam of cloud and sea that rocks me back for the count! Do di Punjabs go punting from jaab to jaab to Bhalti the W-W-W-World!!! I’m a Paki-Púnjab or an Indi-Púnjab – I’m a bow-bells knees-up-mother-brown type who’s an Ali Alias & Chapatti Charlie – I’m a popped-up Poppadum Pete cum Jullunder Johnny! Ah honey they think I’m Niagra on the fall – but I’m your jabby gobby toyboy – your beached up beluga-bhaji when all you wanted was a pie and mash Monday. Ek-jaab – A row row your boat gently down the…swanny from Thames-jaab! The jameen – the ghee – the jaggery or gor – all those jagirs of gold – in your name – going down… Young Punglanders – I declare you are the map of your maa-baap! Take a pan & a man jump aboard for your jut-land unplucked – your unclaimed land – your bee-glade Indusfree! Look at you jump! You golly well jump my old Huckleberry friend – Look at you jumping and jabbing your song down the jaabs – going merrily – Ekjaab-Dohjaab-Tenjaab-Charjaab-Punjaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaab!!!!! Ek-Doh-Ten-Char-Punj – one-two-three-four-five; maa – mother; baap – father; jameen – land; jaggery – palm sugar; gor – cane sugar; jagirs – estates; jut – landowner caste

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Have I Got Old News For You You’ve been mapping the best mortgage for our first house in these skint times, recalling the latest tracker rate you hint we play it safe with a five-year fixed. You’re by the telly when Dubya flashes up twitching a smirk in his cowboy gear, now safely in the past, yet verged on a mind-blowing thought. I’m sorry Love, in the head to head, my head had gone astray so you were second best, it’s just that I banked on a dead cert gaffe to raise us a laugh. You don’t hand me another Bud, but quiz my smiles at this sniggery ad-lib game of gags (that won your broken laughter back then). I’m thrown to our courtship years glued to the smoke of Guantanamoww, Eyraaq, and of course Affghanestaan freed by John Simpson for the Crusades, way before our daughter trod the earth.

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Liberation Road

From The Man from Beijing Henning Mankell Translated by Laurie Thompson

ong sat on the veranda outside the bungalow she would be staying in during the visit to Zimbabwe. The cold winter of Beijing seemed far away, replaced by the warm African night. She listened to the sounds emanating from the darkness, especially the high-pitched sawing of the cicadas. Despite the warmth of the evening she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, as she had been warned of the profusion of mosquitoes carrying malaria. What she would most have liked to do was strip naked, move the bed out onto the veranda, and sleep directly under the night sky. She had never before experienced such heat as overwhelmed her when she stepped off the airplane into the African dawn. It was a liberation. The cold restrains us with handcuffs, she thought. Heat is the key that liberates us. Her bungalow was surrounded by trees and bushes in an artificial village made for prominent guests of the Zimbabwean government. It had been built during Ian Smithâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s time, when the white minority proclaimed unilateral independence from England in order to retain a racist white regime in the former colony. At that time, there was only a large guest house with an accompanying restaurant and swimming pool. Ian Smith often used it as a weekend retreat where he and his ministers could discuss the major problems faced by the increasingly isolated state. After 1980, when the white regime had collapsed, the country liberated, and Robert Mugabe in power, the area had been extended to include several bungalows, a network of country walks 149

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and a long veranda with views of the Logo River, where you could watch herds of elephants come to the river bank at sundown to drink. Hong could just make out a guard patrolling the path that meandered through the trees. Never before had she experienced darkness as compact as this African night. Anybody could be hiding out there â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a beast of prey, be it with two legs or four. She was alarmed at the thought that her brother could be out there. Watching, waiting. As she sat there in the darkness, she felt for the first time an all-consuming fear of him. It was as if she had only now realised that he was capable of doing anything to satisfy his greed for power, for increased wealth, for revenge. She shuddered at the thought. When an insect bumped into her face, she gave a start. A glass standing on the bamboo table tumbled onto the stone paving and smashed. The cicadas fell silent for a moment before beginning to play once more. Hong moved her chair in order to avoid the risk of standing on the glass shards. On the table was her schedule. This first day had been spent watching and listening to an endless march of soldiers and military bands. Then the big delegation had been conveyed in a long caravan of cars, escorted by motorcycles, to a lunch at which ministers had delivered long speeches and proposed toasts. According to the programme President Mugabe should have been present, but he never showed up. When the lengthy lunch was over, they had at last been able to move into their bungalows. The camp was a few dozen miles outside Harare, to the south-west. Through the car windows Hong could see the barren countryside and the grey villages, and it struck her that poverty always looked the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich could always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there was nothing but compulsory greyness, the only form of expression available to poverty. In the late afternoon there had been a meeting to plan the work to be done over the coming days, but Hong preferred to stay in her room and go through the material herself. Then she had gone for a long walk down to the river, and watched the elephants moving slowly through the bush and the heads of the hippos popping out above the surface of the water. She had been almost alone down there, her only companions a chemist from Peking 150

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University and one of the radical market-economists who had trained during Deng’s time. She knew that the economist, whose name she had forgotten, was in close contact with Ya Ru. At first Hong wondered if her brother had sent a scout to keep an eye on her activities. But she dismissed the idea as a figment of her imagination – Ya Ru was more cunning than that. Was the discussion she wanted to have with her brother going to be possible? Was it not the case that the split dividing the Chinese Communist Party had already passed the point where it was possible to bridge the gap? It was not a matter of straightforward and solvable differences about which particular political strategy was most appropriate. It concerned fundamental disagreements, old ideals versus new ones that could only superficially be regarded as communist, based on the tradition that had created the republic fifty-seven years previously. If men like her brother were allowed to call the shots, the final fixed bastions of Chinese society would be demolished. A wave of capitalistinspired irresponsibility would sweep away all the remnants of institutions and ideals built up on the basis of solidarity. For Hong it was an undeniable truth that human beings were basically reasonable creatures, that solidarity was common sense and not primarily an emotion, and that in spite of all setbacks, the world was progressing toward a point where reason would hold sway. But she was also convinced that nothing was certain in itself, that nothing in human society happened automatically. There were no natural laws to account for human behaviour. Mao again. It was as if his face was beaming out there in the darkness. He knew what would happen, she thought. The future is never assured, once and for all. He repeated that wisdom, over and over again, but we didn’t listen. New groups would always emerge and seize privileges for themselves, new revolutions would constantly take place. She sat on the veranda and let her thoughts come and go. Dozed off. She was woken by a noise. She listened. There it was again. Somebody knocked on her door. She checked her watch. Midnight. Who would want to visit her this late? She wondered whether she should open it. There was another knock. Somebody knows that I’m awake, she thought; somebody has seen me on the veranda. She went inside and peered through the peep-hole. An African was standing outside. He was wearing the hotel uniform. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the door. The young man handed over a letter. 151

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She could see from her name on the envelope that it was Ya Ru’s handwriting. She gave the boy a few Zimbabwe dollars, unsure if it was too much or too little, and went back to the veranda. She read the short message: Hong, We ought to keep the peace, for the sake of the family, of the nation. I apologise for the rudeness of which I am sometimes guilty. Let us look one another in the eye again. During the last few days before we return home, please let me invite you to accompany me into the bush, the primitive nature, and animals. We can talk there. Ya Ru.

She checked the text carefully, as if she expected to find a hidden message between the lines. She found none, nor could she fathom why he had sent her this message in the middle of the night. She gazed out into the darkness and thought about the predators who have their prey in their sights, without the victims having the slightest idea of what is about to happen. ‘I can see you,’ she whispered. ‘No matter where you come from, I shall discover you in time. Never again will you be able to sit down beside me without my having seen you coming.’ Hong woke up early the next morning. She had slept fitfully, dreaming about shadows creeping up on her, menacing, faceless. Now she was on the veranda, watching the brief African dawn, the sun rising over the endless bush. A colourful kingfisher with its long beak landed on the veranda rail, then flew off immediately. The dew from the damp night glittered in the grass. From somewhere in the distance came African voices, somebody shouting, laughing. She was surrounded by strong aromas. She thought about the letter that had reached her in the middle of the night, and urged herself to be alert. She somehow felt even more wary of Ya Ru in this foreign country. ‘We shall now meet President Mugabe. The president will receive us in his palace. We shall enter in a single file, the usual distance between ministers and mayors and other delegates. We shall greet one another, listen to our national anthems, then sit down at a table in assigned seats. President Mugabe and our ministers will then exchange greetings via interpreters, after 152

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which President Mugabe will deliver a short speech. We have not been given an advance copy. It could be anything from twenty minutes to three hours. Advance visits to the rest rooms are strongly advised. The speech will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Those of you who have been given prepared questions will raise your hands, introduce yourselves when called to speak, and remain standing while President Mugabe answers. No follow-up questions are allowed, nor is anybody else in the delegation permitted to speak. After the meeting with the president, most of the delegation will visit a copper mine called Wandlana, while the minister and selected delegates will continue their discussion with President Mugabe and an unknown number of his ministers.’ Hong looked at Ya Ru, who was leaning with half-closed eyes against a column at the back of the conference room. It was only when they left the room that they established eye contact. Ya Ru smiled at her before clambering into one of the cars intended for ministers, mayors and specially selected delegates. Hong sat down in one of the buses waiting outside the hotel. Her apprehension was growing all the time. I must speak to somebody, she thought, somebody who can share my fear. She looked around the bus. She had known many of the older delegates for a long time. Most of them shared her view of political developments in China. But they are tired, she thought. They are now so old that they no longer react when danger threatens. She continued searching, but in vain. There was nobody there she felt she could confide in. After the meeting with President Mugabe she would work once more through the whole list of participants. Surely there must be someone whom she could trust. The bus headed for Harare at high speed. Through the window Hong could see the red soil stirred up by the people walking by the side of the road. The bus suddenly stopped. A man sitting on the other side of the aisle explained to her. ‘We can’t all arrive at the same time,’ he said. ‘The cars with the most important people must arrive first. Then we will arrive, the political and economic ballet to make up the pretty background.’ Hong smiled. She had forgotten the name of the man who had spoken, but she knew that during the Cultural Revolution he had been a hardpressed professor of physics. When he returned from his many privations in 153

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the country, he had immediately been put in charge of what was to become China’s Space Research Institute. Hong suspected that he shared her views about the direction China ought to be taking. He was one of the old school still managing to keep going, not one of the youngsters who have never understood what it means to live a life in which something is more important than they are. They had stopped close to a little market-place running along both sides of the road. Hong knew that Zimbabwe was close to economic collapse. That was one of the reasons why their large delegation was visiting the country. Although this would never be made public, it was in fact President Mugabe who had begged the Chinese government to make a contribution toward helping Zimbabwe out of the country’s severe economic depression. The sanctions imposed by the West meant that the basic infrastructure of the country was close to collapse. Only a few days before leaving Beijing, Hong had read in a newspaper that inflation in Zimbabwe was now approaching five thousand per cent. People tramping along by the edge of the road were moving very slowly. It seemed to Hong that they were either hungry or tired. Hong suddenly noticed a woman kneel down. She had a child in a carrier on her back, and a head-ring made from folded cloth for supporting heavy loads. Two men by her side helped each other to lift up a heavy sack of cement and balance it on her head. Then they helped her to stand up. Hong watched her stagger away. Without a second thought she stood up, hurried down the aisle and spoke to the interpreter. ‘Please come with me.’ The interpreter, who was a young woman, opened her mouth to protest, but Hong prevented her from speaking. The driver had opened the front door to allow a flow of air into the bus, which had already started to become stuffy as the air-conditioning wasn’t working. Hong dragged along the interpreter to the other side of the road where the two men had settled down in the shade and were sharing a cigarette. The woman with the heavy burden on her head had already disappeared into the haze. ‘Find out how much the sack they put on the woman’s head weighs.’ ‘About a hundred and ten pounds,’ the interpreter informed her after asking. ‘But that’s a horrific burden. Her back will be ruined before she’s thirty.’ 154

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The men merely laughed. ‘We’re proud of our women. They’re very strong.’ Hong could see in their eyes that they didn’t understand what the problem was. Women here suffer the same difficulties that our poor Chinese peasants have to put up with, she thought. Women always carry heavy burdens on their heads, but even worse are the burdens they have to bear inside their heads. She returned to the bus with the interpreter. Shortly afterwards they set off – now they had an escort of motorcycles. Hong let the wind from the open window blow into her face. She would not forget the woman with the sack of cement on her head. The meeting with President Robert Mugabe lasted four hours. He came into the room looking like a friendly schoolmaster. As he shook her hand he was looking beyond her, a man in another world who just brushed against her in passing. After the meeting he would have no memory of her. She thought that this little man, who radiated strength despite being both old and frail, was described by some as a bloodthirsty tyrant who tormented his own people by destroying their homes and chasing them off their land whenever it suited him. But others regarded him as a hero who never gave up the fight against the remnants of colonial power he stubbornly insisted lay behind all Zimbabwe’s problems. What did she think herself? She knew too little about it to be able to form a definite opinion, but Robert Mugabe was a man who in many ways deserved her admiration and respect. Even if not everything he did was good, he was basically convinced that the roots of colonialism grew very deep and needed to be cut away not just once, but many times. Not least of the reasons she respected him was having read how he was constantly attacked brutally in the western media. Hong had lived long enough to know that loud protests from landowners and their newspapers were often intended to drown the cries of pain coming from those who were still suffering from torture inflicted by colonialism. Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe were under siege. The West’s indignation had been extreme when, a few years previously, Mugabe had forcibly annexed land owned by the white farmers who still dominated the country and made hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans landless. The hatred of Mugabe increased for every white farmer who, in open confrontation with the landless blacks, was injured by rocks or bullets. But Hong knew that as early as 1980, when Zimbabwe was liberated from 155

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Ian Smith’s fascist regime, Mugabe had offered the white farmers discussions aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the vital question of land ownership. His overtures had been greeted by silence, on that first occasion and then many more times over the following fifteen years. Over and over again Mugabe had repeated his offer of negotiations but had received no response, only contemptuous silence. His patience had finally run out, and large numbers of farms were handed over to the landless. This was immediately condemned by the West and protests flowed in from all sides. At that moment the image of Mugabe was changed from that of a freedom fighter to the classical African tyrant. He was depicted just as anti-Semites used to depict the Jews, and this man who had spearheaded the liberation of his country was ruthlessly defamed. Nobody mentioned the fact that the former leaders of the Ian Smith regime, not least Smith himself, had been allowed to remain in Zimbabwe. Mugabe did not send them into the law courts, and then to the gallows, as the British used to do with rebellious black men in the colonies. But a refractory white man was not the same as a refractory black man. She listened to Mugabe’s speech. He spoke slowly, his voice was mild, he never raised it even when talking about the sanctions that led to an increase in the infant mortality rate, widespread starvation, and more and more illegal immigration to South Africa alongside millions of others. Mugabe spoke about the opposition in Zimbabwe. ‘There have been incidents,’ he admitted. ‘But the foreign media never reports the attacks on those loyal to me and the party. We are always the ones who throw stones or make baton charges, but the others never throw firebombs, never maim nor beat up their opponents.’ Mugabe spoke for a long time, but he spoke well. Hong reminded herself that this man was eighty years old. Like so many other African leaders he had spent a long time in jail during the drawn-out years when the colonial powers still believed they would be able to face down attacks on their supremacy. She knew that Zimbabwe was a corrupt country. It still had a long way to go. But it was too simple to place all the blame on Mugabe. The truth was more complicated. She could see Ya Ru sitting at the other end of the table, closer to both the minister of trade and the lectern where Mugabe was speaking. He was doodling in his notepad. He used to do that even as a child, drawing 156

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matchstick men while he thought or listened, usually small devils jumping around, surrounded by burning bonfires. Nevertheless, Hong thought, he is most probably listening more intently than anybody else. He is sucking in every word and assessing them to see what advantages he can gain in future business between the two countries, which is the real reason for our visit. What raw materials does Zimbabwe have that we need? How will we be able to get access to them at the cheapest price? When the meeting was over and President Mugabe had left the big conference room, Ya Ru and Hong met each other by the doors. Her brother had been standing there, waiting for her. They each took a plate and filled it from the buffet table. Ya Ru drank wine, but Hong was content with a glass of water. ‘Why do you send me letters in the middle of the night?’ ‘I had the irresistible feeling that it was important. I couldn’t wait.’ ‘The man who knocked on my door knew that I was awake. How could he know that?’ Ya Ru raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘There are different ways of knocking on a door, depending on whether the person behind it is awake or asleep.’ Ya Ru nodded. ‘My sister is very cunning.’ ‘And don’t forget that I can see in the dark. I sat out on my veranda for a long time last night. Faces light up in the moonlight.’ ‘But there wasn’t any moonlight last night?’ ‘The stars produce a light that I’m able to intensify. Starlight can become moonlight.’ Ya Ru eyed her thoughtfully. ‘Are you challenging me to a trial of strength? Is that what you’re up to?’ ‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’ ‘We must talk. In peace and quiet. Revolutionary things are taking place out here. We have closed in on Africa with a large but friendly armada. Now we are involved in the landings.’ ‘Today I watched two men lift a sack containing over a hundred pounds of cement onto a woman’s head. My question to you is very simple. Why have we come here with an armada? Do we want to help that woman to alleviate her burden? Or do we want to join those lifting sacks onto her head?’ 157

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‘An important question that I’d be happy to discuss. But not now. The president is waiting.’ ‘Not for me.’ ‘Spend your evening on your veranda. If I haven’t knocked on your door by midnight, you can go to bed.’ Ya Ru put down his glass and left her with a smile. Hong noticed that the brief conversation had made her sweat. A voice announced that her bus would be leaving in thirty minutes. Hong filled her plate once more with tiny sandwiches. When she felt she had eaten enough, she made her way to the back of the palace where the bus was waiting. It was very hot, the sun reflecting off the white stone walls of the palace. She put on her sunglasses and a white hat she had brought in her purse. She was about to enter the bus when somebody spoke to her. She turned round. ‘Ma Li? What are you doing here?’ ‘I came as a substitute for Old Tsu. He’s been struck down with thrombosis and couldn’t make it. I was called in to replace him. That’s why I’m not on the list of participants.’ ‘I didn’t notice you on the way here this morning.’ ‘Somebody pointed out to me rather sternly that I’d sat myself in one of the cars, which protocol forbade me to do. Now I’m where I ought to be.’ Hong reached out and grasped hold of Ma Li’s wrists. She was exactly what Hong had been hoping for. Somebody she could talk to. Ma Li had been a friend ever since her student days, after the Cultural Revolution. Hong recalled an occasion early one morning, in one of the university’s day rooms, when she had found Ma Li asleep on a chair. When she woke up, they started talking. It seemed to be preordained that they should be friends. Hong could still remember one of the first conversations they’d had. Ma Li had said that it was now time to stop ‘bombarding headquarters’. That had been one of the things Mao had urged the Cultural Revolutionaries to do. Not even the very top officials in the Communist Party should be spared the necessary criticism. Ma Li maintained that instead, it was now necessary for her to ‘bombard the vacuum inside my head, all the lack of knowledge that I have to fight against’. Ma Li trained to become an economic analyst, and was employed by the Ministry of Trade as one of a group of experts whose job it was to keep 158

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a constant check on currency variations throughout the world. Hong had become an adviser to the minister responsible for homeland security, for coordinating the top military leaders’ views on the country’s internal and external defence, especially protection for the political leaders. Hong had been at Ma Li’s wedding, but after the birth of Ma Li’s two children their meetings had been irregular. But now they had met once again, on a bus behind Robert Mugabe’s palace. They spoke non-stop during the journey back to the camp. Hong noticed that Ma Li was at least as pleased as she was at their reunion. When they reached the hotel, they decided to take a walk to the big veranda with the magnificent views over the river. Neither of them had any important engagements until the following day, when Ma Li was due to visit an experimental farm and Hong was supposed to attend a discussion with a group of Zimbabwean military leaders at Victoria Falls. The heat was oppressive as they walked down to the river. They could see flashes of lightning in the distance and hear faint rumbles of thunder. There was no sign of animal life. It seemed that the whole place had suddenly been deserted. When Ma Li took hold of Hong’s arm, she gave a start. ‘Did you see that?’ asked Ma Li, pointing. Hong looked but couldn’t see any sign of movement in the thick bushes that lined the river-bank. ‘Behind that tree where the bark has been peeled off by elephants, next to the rock sticking up out of the ground like a spear.’ Now Hong saw it. The lion’s tail was swinging slowly, whipping against the red earth. Its eyes and mane were occasionally visible through the leaves. ‘You’ve got very good eyes,’ said Hong. ‘I’ve learned to notice things. Otherwise your surroundings can be dangerous. Even in a city, or a conference room, there can be traps to stumble into, if you’re not careful.’ In silence, almost reverentially, they watched the lion venture down to the river and begin lapping up the water. Out in the middle of the river, a few hippos’ heads bobbed up and down. A kingfisher just as colourful as the one on Hong’s veranda alighted on the rail, with a dragonfly in its beak. ‘Peace and quiet,’ said Ma Li. ‘I long for it more and more, the older I become. Perhaps it’s the first sign of getting old? Nobody wants to die surrounded by the noise from machines and radios. The progress we make 159

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costs us a lot in the way of silence. Can a person really live without the kind of quiet we are experiencing right now?’ ‘You’re right,’ said Hong. ‘But what about the invisible threats to our lives? What do we do about those?’ ‘I suppose you are thinking about pollution? Poisons? Plagues that are constantly mutating and changing their appearance?’ ‘According to the World Health Organization, Beijing is currently the dirtiest city in the world. Recent measurements recorded up to 142 micrograms of dirt particles per cubic metre of air. The equivalent figure in New York is twenty-seven, in Paris twenty-two. As we know only too well, the devil is always in the detail.’ ‘Just think of all the people who discover that for the first time in their lives it’s possible for them to buy a moped. How can you persuade them not to?’ ‘By strengthening the Party’s control over developments. What is produced by goods, and what is produced by thoughts.’ Ma Li stroked Hong’s cheek gently. ‘I’m so pleased every time I realise that I’m not alone. I’m not ashamed to maintain that baoxian yundong is what can rescue our country from disintegration and decay.’ ‘A campaign to preserve the Communist Party’s right to lead,’ said Hong. ‘I agree with you. But at the same time we both know that the danger threatens to come from within. Once upon a time it was Mao’s wife who was the mole for the new upper class, despite the fact that she waved her red flag more ardently than anybody else. Today there are others hiding within the Party who want nothing more than to undermine it and replace the stability we enjoy with a sort of capitalist freedom that nobody will be able to control.’ ‘The stability has been lost already,’ said Ma Li. ‘As I’m an analyst who knows the way in which money flows in our country, I know much that neither you nor anybody else is aware of. But of course, I’m not allowed to say anything.’ ‘We are alone. The lion isn’t listening.’ Ma Li eyed her up and down. Hong knew exactly what she was thinking – can I trust her or can’t I? ‘Don’t say anything if you are in doubt,’ said Hong. ‘If you make the wrong choice when it comes to people you can rely on, you are both defenceless and helpless. That is the insight we were given by Confucius.’ 160

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‘I trust you,’ said Ma Li. ‘Nevertheless, you can’t get away from the fact that one’s natural instincts for self-preservation always encourage caution.’ Hong pointed to the river-bank. ‘The lion has gone now. We didn’t notice when he left.’ Ma Li nodded. ‘This year the government has increased military expenditure by almost fifteen per cent,’ Hong continued. ‘In view of the fact that China doesn’t have any real enemies close at hand, naturally enough the Pentagon and the Kremlin wonder what is going on. Their analysts can see without too much of an effort that the State and the armed forces are preparing to cope with an inner rebellion. In addition we are spending almost ten billion yuan on our internet surveillance systems. These are figures impossible to conceal. But there’s another statistic that very few people know about. How many riots and mass protests do you think took place in our country during the past year?’ Ma Li thought for a moment before answering. ‘Five thousand, perhaps?’ Hong shook her head. ‘Nearly ninety thousand. Work out how many that is every day. It’s a figure that casts a shadow over everything the Politburo undertakes. What Deng did fifteen years ago, when he liberalised the economy, was enough to damp down most of the unrest in the country. But not any more it isn’t. Especially when the cities are no longer able to find space and work for the hundreds of millions of peasants who are waiting impatiently for their turn to enjoy the good life we all dream about.’ ‘What will happen?’ ‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. It makes sense to be worried and on the alert. There’s a power struggle going on in the party that’s more serious than it ever was in Mao’s day. Nobody can foresee what the outcome will be. The military is afraid of chaos that can’t be brought under control. You and I know that the only thing we can do, the one thing we have to do, is restore the basic principles that used to apply.’ ‘Baoxian yundong.’ ‘The only way. Our only way. It’s not possible to take a shortcut to the future.’ A herd of elephants was making its way slowly down toward the river to drink. When a party of western tourists came onto the veranda, the pair 161

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returned to the hotel foyer. Hong had intended to suggest that they eat together, but Ma Li forestalled her by saying that she had an engagement that evening. ‘We’re going to be here for two weeks,’ said Ma Li. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk about everything that’s happened.’ ‘Everything that’s happened and is going to happen,’ said Hong. ‘All the things we don’t yet have an answer to.’ Hong watched Ma Li walk off on the other side of the big swimming pool. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, she thought. Just when I badly needed to talk to somebody, one of my oldest friends turned up out of the blue. She dined alone that evening. A large party from the Chinese delegation had gathered round two long tables, but Hong preferred to be on her own. Moths danced around the lamp over her head. When she had finished eating she sat for a while at the bar by the swimming pool and drank a cup of tea. Some of the Chinese delegation got drunk and tried to make advances on the beautiful young waitresses moving from table to table. Hong was annoyed, and left. In another China that would never have been allowed, she thought angrily. The security guards would have intervened by now. Anybody who got drunk and started throwing his weight around would never again have been allowed to represent China. They might even have been imprisoned. But these days, nobody pays any attention. She sat down on her veranda and thought about the arrogance that followed in the wake of the licentious belief that a less-regulated capitalist market system would be good for the country’s development. It had been Deng’s aim to make the Chinese wheels roll more quickly. But today the situation was different. We live with the risk of overheating, not only in our industries but also in our own brains. We don’t see the price we’re paying, in the form of polluted rivers, air that suffocates us, and millions of people desperate to flee from the rural areas. Once, we came to the country that used to be called Rhodesia to support a liberation struggle. Now, thirty years after liberation was achieved, we come back as poorly disguised colonisers. My own brother is one of those selling out all our old ideas. He has none of the honest belief in the power and prosperity of the people that once liberated our own country. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night. All thoughts of Ma Li and their conversation slowly ebbed away from her weary head. 162

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She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a noise that pierced the song of the cicadas. It was a twig snapping. She opened her eyes and sat up straight. The cicadas were silent. She knew that there was somebody in the vicinity. She ran into her bungalow and locked the glass door. She switched off the light. Hear heart was pounding. She was scared. There was somebody out there in the darkness. He had inadvertently stepped on a twig and snapped it under his foot. She flopped down onto the bed in the darkness, afraid that someone would force his way in. But nobody emerged from the darkness. After waiting for almost an hour, she closed the curtains, sat down at the desk and wrote a letter that had been formulating itself in her head during the course of the day. * * * Ya Ru was her brother, but above all else he was a man who didn’t hesitate to use any means in order to attain his goals. She was not opposed to development heading off in new directions. Just as the world around them was changing, so must China’s leaders think up new strategies to solve present and future problems. What Hong and many others of like mind questioned was that leaders were not combining socialistic foundations with development toward an economy in which free markets played a major role. Was the alternative impossible? A powerful country like China didn’t need to sell its soul in the hunt for oil and raw materials and new markets in which to place its industrial products. Was not the big challenge to demonstrate to the world that brutal imperialism and colonialism were not an inevitable consequence when one’s country developed? Hong had seen greed take possession of young people who, by means of contacts, relatives and not least ruthlessness, had managed to create huge fortunes. They felt untouchable, and that made them even more brutal and cynical. She wanted to offer resistance to them and to Ya Ru. The future was not a foregone conclusion, everything was still possible. When she had finished writing, read through it and made some corrections and clarifications, she sealed the envelope, wrote Ma Li’s name on it, then lay down on top of the bed to sleep. There was no sound from 163

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the darkness outside. Although she was very tired, it was some time before she fell asleep. She got up at seven o’clock and watched the sunrise from her veranda. Ma Li was already in the breakfast room when she arrived. Hong joined her, ordered tea from the waitress and looked around the room. Members of the Chinese delegation were sitting at most of the tables. Ma Li announced that she intended to go down to the river to watch the animals. ‘Come to my room an hour from now,’ said Hong in a low voice. ‘I’m in number twenty-two.’ Ma Li nodded and asked no questions. Just like me, she’s lived a life that has taught us that secrets are a constant presence, Hong thought. She finished her breakfast, then retired to her room to wait. The trip to the experimental farm wasn’t scheduled until half past nine. After exactly an hour Ma Li knocked on her door. Hong gave her the letter she’d written during the night. ‘If anything happens to me,’ she said, ‘this letter will be important. If I die in my bed of old age, you can burn it.’ Ma Li looked hard at her. ‘Should I be worried about you?’ ‘No. But the letter’s important even so. For the sake of others. And for our country.’ Hong could see that Ma Li was surprised. But she asked no more questions, merely put the letter in her purse. ‘What’s on the agenda today for you?’ Ma Li wondered. ‘A discussion with members of Mugabe’s security service. We’re going to assist them.’ ‘Weapons?’ ‘Partly. But first and foremost helping to train their staff, teach them close combat, and also the art of keeping watch on people.’ ‘Something we’re expert at.’ ‘Do I detect hidden criticism in what you just said?’ ‘Of course not,’ said Ma Li in surprise. ‘You know I’ve always maintained the importance of our country protecting itself from the enemy within just as much as from the one without. Many countries in the West would like nothing better than to see Zimbabwe collapse into bloody chaos. England has never accepted totally 164

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that the country liberated itself in 1980. Mugabe is surrounded by enemies. It would be stupid of him not to demand that his security service should operate at the very top end of its ability.’ ‘And he’s not stupid, I suppose?’ ‘Robert Mugabe is bright enough to realise that he must resist all attempts from the former colonial power to kick the legs from beneath the ruling party. If Zimbabwe falls, there are many other countries that could go down the same road.’ Hong accompanied Ma Li to the door and watched her disappear along the paved path meandering through the luxuriant greenery. Right next to Hong’s bungalow was a jacaranda tree. She gazed at its light blue blossom, and tried to think of something to compare the colour with, but in vain. She picked up a flower that had fallen to the ground. She placed it between the pages of her diary in order to press and preserve it. She took her diary with her wherever she went, but seldom got around to writing in it. She was just about to settle down on the veranda and study a report on the political opposition in Zimbabwe when there was a knock on the door. Standing outside was one of the Chinese tour guides, a middle-aged man by the name of Shu Fu. Hong had noticed earlier he seemed scared stiff that something would go wrong with the arrangements. He seemed to be highly unsuitable as a guide on a big venture like this one, especially in view of the fact that his English was far from satisfactory. ‘Mrs Hong,’ said Shu Fu. ‘There’s been a change of plan. The minister of trade wants to visit a neighbouring country, Mozambique, and he wants you to be one of the party that accompanies him.’ ‘Why?’ Hong’s surprise was genuine. She had never been in close contact with the minister of trade, Ke, and indeed had barely done more than shake hands with him before leaving for Harare. ‘The trade minister has just asked me to inform you that you will be travelling with him. There will be a small delegation.’ ‘When shall we be leaving? And where to?’ Shu Fu wiped the sweat from his brow then flung out his arms. He pointed to his watch. ‘I am unable to tell you any more details. The cars will be leaving for the airport in forty-five minutes. No delay will be tolerated. Everyone involved is 165

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requested to take light baggage only and to be prepared for an overnight stay. But it’s possible that you will return as soon as this evening.’ ‘Where are we going? What’s the point?’ ‘Minister of Trade Ke will explain that.’ ‘But surely you can tell me the name of the town we’re headed for?’ ‘To the city of Beira on the Indian Ocean. According to the information I have the flight will be less than an hour.’ Hong had no opportunity to ask any more questions. Shu Fu hurried back to the path. Hong stood motionless in the doorway. There is only one explanation, she thought. Ya Ru wants me to be there. He is obviously one of those going with Ke. And he wants me there as well. She remembered something she had heard during the flight to Africa. President Kaunda of Zambia had demanded that the national airline, Zambia Airways, should invest in one of the world’s biggest passenger jets at that time, a Boeing 747. There was no market to justify such a large aircraft flying regularly between Lusaka and London. But it soon transpired that President Kaunda’s real aim was to use the 747 on his regular journeys to and from other countries. Not because he wanted to travel in luxury, but to have enough space for the opposition, or those in his government and among the top military leaders that he didn’t trust. He crammed his aircraft full of those who were prepared to plot against him, or even to engineer a coup d’état while he was out of the country. Was Ya Ru trying something similar? Did he want to have his sister close by so that he could keep a check on her? Hong thought about the twig that had snapped in the darkness outside her bungalow. It could hardly have been Ya Ru standing out there in the shadows. More likely somebody he had sent to spy on her. As Hong didn’t want to oppose Ke, she packed the smaller of her two suitcases and prepared for the journey. A few minutes before departure she went to the front desk. There was no sign of either Ke or Ya Ru. On the other hand she thought she had caught sight of Ya Ru’s bodyguard Liu, though she wasn’t sure. Shu Fu escorted her to one of the waiting limousines. Also in her car were two men she knew worked in the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing. The airport was only a few miles outside Harare. The three cars in the convoy drove very fast with a motorcycle escort. Hong noticed that there were police officers at every street corner, holding up other traffic. They 166

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drove straight in through the airport gates and, without further ado, boarded a waiting Zimbabwe Air Force jet. Hong boarded through the rear entrance, and noted that there was a screen separating off the front half of the cabin. She assumed that this was Mugabe’s private airplane that he had lent the Chinese delegation. After only a few minutes of waiting, the plane took off. Sitting next to Hong was one of Ke’s female secretaries. ‘Where are we going?’ Hong asked when they had reached cruising altitude and the pilot announced the journey would be fifty minutes. ‘To the Zambezi valley,’ said the woman by her side. Her tone of voice made it obvious to Hong that there was no point asking any more questions. She would eventually find out what was involved in this sudden trip. Or was it really so sudden? It occurred to her that not even this was something she could be sure of. Perhaps it was all part of a plan that she knew nothing about? When the aircraft prepared for descent, it swung out over the sea. Hong could see the blue-green water glittering down below, and little fishing boats with simple triangular sails bobbing up and down on the waves. Beira was glistening white in the sunlight. Encircling the concrete centre of the city were endless shanty towns, possibly slums. The heat hit her as she stepped out of the airplane. She saw Ke walking toward the first of the waiting cars, which was not a black limousine but a white Land Cruiser with Mozambique flags on the bonnet. She watched Ya Ru get into the same car. He didn’t turn round to look for her. But he knows I’m here, Hong thought. They headed north-west. Together with Hong in the car were the same two men from the Ministry of Agriculture. They were poring over small topographic maps, carefully checking them against the countryside they could see through the car windows. Hong still felt as uncomfortable as she had when Shu Fu first appeared outside her door and announced a change of plan. It was as if she had been forced into something that her experience and intuition warned her about, all alarm bells ringing. Ya Ru wanted to have me here, she thought. But what arguments did he present to Ke that resulted in me sitting and bumping along in a Japanese car whipping up thick clouds of red soil? In China the soil is yellow; here it’s red, but it blows around just as easily, and gets into your eyes and every pore. 167

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The only plausible reason for her being present on this visit was that she was one of many in the Communist Party who were sceptical about current policies, not least those of Ke. But was she here as a hostage, or in the hope of seeing her change her mind about the policies she found so distasteful? High-ranking Ministry of Agriculture officials and a minister of trade on an uncomfortable car ride in the heart of Mozambique had to mean that the aim of the journey was of major significance. The countryside flashing past outside the car windows was monotonous – low trees and bushes, occasionally intersected by small rivers and streams, and here and there clumps of huts and small well-tended fields. Hong was surprised that such fruitful ground was so sparsely populated. In her imagination the African continent was like China or India, a part of the poverty-stricken third world where endless masses of people fell over one another in their efforts to survive. But what I’ve always imagined is a myth, she thought. The big African cities are not much different from what we see in Shanghai or Beijing. The culmination of catastrophic development that impoverishes both people and nature. But I knew nothing at all about African rural areas until now, as I actually see them and travel through them. They continued in a north-westerly direction. In some places the roads were so bad that the cars had to slow to a walking pace. The rain had penetrated the hard-packed red earth, loosened up the road surface and turned it into deep ruts. They eventually came to place called Sachombe. It was an extensive village with huts, a few shops and some semi-derelict concrete buildings from the colonial period when the Portuguese administrators and their local assimilados had ruled over the country’s various provinces. Hong recalled reading about how Portugal’s dictator Salazar had described the gigantic land masses of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, which he ruled over with an iron fist. In his linguistic world these distant countries were called ‘Portugal’s overseas territories’. That was where he had sent all his poor, often illiterate, peasants, partly to solve a domestic problem and at the same time to build up a colonial power structure concentrated on the coastal areas even as late as the 1950s. Are we about to do something similar? Hong wondered. We are repeating the injustice, but we have dressed ourselves in different costumes. When they left their cars and wiped the dust and sweat from their faces, Hong discovered that the whole area was cordoned off by military 168

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vehicles and armed soldiers. Behind the barriers she could see curious natives observing the strange foreign guests. The poor are always there, she thought – the ones whose interests we say we are looking after. Two large marquees had been erected on the flat stretch of sand in front of the white buildings. Even before the convoy came to a halt a large number of black limousines had assembled, and there were also two helicopters from the Mozambique Air Force. I don’t know what’s in store, Hong thought, but whatever it is, it’s something important. What can have made Minister of Trade Ke suddenly agree to visit a country that isn’t even on our programme? A small part of the delegation was due to spend a day in Malawi and Tanzania, but there was no mention of Mozambique. A brass band came marching up. At the same time a number of men emerged from one of the marquees. Hong recognised immediately the short man leading the way. He had grey hair, wore glasses and was powerfully built. The man who was now greeting Minister of Trade Ke was no other than Mozambique’s newly elected President Gebuza. Ke introduced his delegation to the president and his attendants. When Hong shook his hand, she found herself looking into a pair of friendly, yet piercing eyes. Gebuza is no doubt a man who never forgets a face, she thought. After the introductions, the band played the two national anthems. Hong stood stiffly to attention. As she listened to the Mozambique national anthem she looked around for Ya Ru, but could see no sign of him. She hadn’t seen him since they arrived in Sachombe. She continued scrutinising the group of Chinese present, and established that several others had vanished after the landing in Beira. She shook her head. There was no point in her worrying about what Ya Ru was up to. More important just now was that she should try to understand what was about to happen here, in the valley through which the Zambezi River flowed. They were led into one of the marquees by young black men and women. A group of older women danced alongside them to the persistent rhythm of drums. Hong was placed in the back row. The floor of the tent was covered in carpets, and every member of the delegation had a soft armchair. When everybody was comfortably seated, President Gebuza walked up to the lectern. Hong put on her earphones. The Portuguese was translated into perfect Chinese. Hong guessed that the interpreter came from the leading school in Beijing that exclusively trained interpreters 169

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to accompany the president, the government, and the most important business delegations in their negotiations. She had once heard that there wasn’t a single language, no matter how small and insignificant, that didn’t have qualified interpreters in China. That made her proud. There was no limit to what her fellow citizens could achieve – the people who, until a generation ago, had been condemned to ignorance and misery. Hong turned to look at the entrance to the marquee, which was flapping gently in the breeze. She caught a glimpse of Shu Fu standing outside, a few soldiers, but no sign of Ya Ru. The president spoke very briefly. He welcomed the Chinese delegation and said a few introductory words. Hong listened intently in order to understand what was going on around her. She gave a start when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Ya Ru had slipped into the marquee unnoticed and was kneeling behind her. He slid aside one of her earphones and whispered into her ear. ‘Listen carefully now, my dear sister, and you will understand something of the major events that are going to change our country and our world. This is what the future will look like.’ ‘Where have you been?’ She blushed when she realised how idiotic the question must sound. It felt like when he was a child and was late coming home. Hong had often taken on the role of mother when their parents were away at one of their frequent political meetings. ‘I go my own way. But I want you to listen now and learn something. About how old ideals are exchanged for new ones, without losing their content.’ The president handed the podium over to the chairman of the committee that had made the preparations for this meeting on the Mozambique side. He was strikingly young, with a bald head and frameless glasses. Hong thought they said his name was Mapito, or possibly Mapiro. He spoke in an enthusiastic tone of voice, as if what he was saying really inspired him. And Hong understood. The circumstances slowly became clear, what the meeting was all about, the secrecy surrounding it. Deep in the Mozambique bush a gigantic project was getting under way, involving two of the poorest countries in the world – but one of them a great power, the other a small country in Africa. Hong listened to what was being said, the soft Chinese voice translated after each pause, and she understood why Ya Ru had wanted 170

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her to be present. Hong was a vigorous opponent of everything that could lead to China being transformed into an imperial power – and hence, as Mao used to say, a paper tiger that would be crushed sooner or later by united popular resistance. Perhaps Ya Ru had a faint hope that Hong would be convinced that what was now going on would bring advantages to both countries? But more important was that the group Hong belonged to did not frighten those in power. Neither Ke nor Ya Ru were scared of Hong and those who shared her views. When Mapito paused to take a sip of water, Hong thought that this was precisely what she feared most of all: China had reverted to a class society. Even worse than what Mao had warned against: it would become a country divided between powerful elites and an underclass locked into its poverty. And worse still, it would allow itself to treat the rest of the world as imperialists always had done. Mapito continued speaking. ‘Later today we shall travel by helicopter along the Zambezi River, as far up as Bandar and then downstream to Luabo, where the huge delta linking the river to the sea begins. We shall fly over fertile areas that are sparsely populated. According to the calculations we have made, over the next five years we will be able to accommodate four million Chinese peasants who can farm the areas currently lying fallow. Not one single person will be obliged to move. Nobody will lose his livelihood. On the contrary, our fellow citizens will benefit from big changes. Everybody will have access to roads, schools, hospitals, electricity, all the things that have previously been available to very few in rural areas and a privilege for those living in towns.’ Hong had already heard rumours about Chinese authorities, working on the enforced removal of peasants because of the construction of huge dams, promising those affected that one day they would be able to live the life of landed gentry in Africa. She could see the large-scale migration in her mind’s eye. The fine-sounding words conjured up an idyllic image of the poor Chinese peasants – illiterate and ignorant – immediately settling down in this alien milieu. There would be no problems, thanks to the friendship and will to cooperate; no conflicts would arise between the newcomers and those already living on the banks of the river. But nobody would be able to convince her that what she was now listening to was not the first stage of China’s transformation into a predatory nation that would not hesitate 171

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to grab for itself all the oil and other raw materials needed to maintain the breakneck speed of its economic development. The Soviet Union had supplied weapons – often old, outdated ones – during the drawn-out liberation war that led to the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonisers from Mozambique in 1974. In return the Soviets had asserted the right to overfish in Mozambique’s teeming fishing grounds. Was China now about to follow in this tradition based on the one and only commandment: always put your own advantage before everything else? So as not to draw attention to herself, she applauded with everybody else when the speaker sat down. Then Minister of Trade Ke began to address the delegation. There were no dangers, he assured his audience: everything and everyone was uncompromisingly conjoined in equal and mutual advantage. Ke’s speech was brief. Then the guests were ushered into the other marquee, where a buffet table had been prepared. Hong was handed an ice-cold glass of wine. She looked around for Ya Ru, but could see no trace of him. An hour later the helicopters took off and headed north-west. Hong gazed down on the mighty river. The few places where people lived, where the land had been cleared and cultivated, were in sharp contrast to the huge areas that were totally untouched. Hong wondered if she had been wrong after all. Perhaps China really was doing something to help Mozambique that wasn’t based on the expectation that China would put in far, far less than it would take out? The sound of the engines made it impossible for her to marshal her thoughts. The question remained unanswered. Before climbing into the helicopter she had been handed a little map. She recognised it. The two men from the Ministry of Agriculture had been studying it during the car journey from Beira. They reached the most northerly point, then turned eastward. When they reached Loabo the helicopters made a short diversion over the sea before returning and landing at a place Hong identified, with the aid of the map, as Chinde. There new cars were waiting to take them along new roads made from the same tightly packed red earth as before. They drove straight into the bush and stopped when they came to a small tributary of the Zambezi. The cars pulled up at a lot that had been cleared of bushes and undergrowth. Some tents had been pitched in a semi-circle facing 172

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the river. When Hong left the helicopter, Ya Ru was waiting to greet her. ‘Welcome to Kaya Kwanga. That means “My Home” in one of the local languages. We’ll be spending the night here.’ He pointed to the tent closest to the river. A young black woman took her suitcase. ‘What are we doing here?’ Hong asked. ‘Enjoying the silence of Africa after a long day’s work.’ ‘Is this where I’m going to see the leopard?’ ‘No. Most of the wildlife here is snakes and lizards. Plus the hunter ants that everybody is so scared of. But no leopards.’ ‘What happens now?’ ‘Nothing. The work is over and done with. You’ll discover that not everything is as primitive as it seems. There’s even a shower in your tent. And a comfortable bed. Later this evening we’ll have a communal meal. Anyone who wants to sit around the campfire afterwards is welcome to do so; those who want to sleep can do that too.’ ‘You and I must talk things through,’ said Hong. ‘It’s essential.’ Ya Ru smiled. ‘After dinner. We can sit outside my tent.’ He didn’t need to point out which one it was. Hong had already gathered that it was the one next to hers. Hong sat by the door of her tent and watched the sun setting rapidly over the bush. A fire was already burning in the open area in the middle of the semi-circle of tents. She could see Ya Ru there. He was wearing a white tuxedo. It reminded her of a picture she had seen long ago in a Chinese magazine, in connection with a major article describing the colonial history of Africa and Asia. Two white men wearing tuxedos had been sitting deep in the African bush, eating at a table with a white tablecloth, expensive crockery, and drinking chilled white wine. The African waiters were standing motionless but at the ready, behind their chairs. Hong was the last of all those present to take her place at the set table by the fire. Nothing, she thought, is certain any longer. Nothing at all. * * *

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After dinner, enveloped by the shadows of the night, they were entertained by a troupe of dancers. Hong, who had not even tasted the wine served with the meal as she wanted to keep a clear head, watched the dancers with a mixture of admiration and the remains of an old longing. Once upon a time, when she was very young, she had dreamt of a future as an artiste in a Chinese circus, or perhaps at the classical Peking Opera. Hong observed Ya Ru sitting in his camp chair, a glass of wine balanced on his knee, his eyes half closed; and she thought about how little she knew of his childhood dreams. He had always existed in a little world of his own. She had been able to get close to him, but not so close that they had ever talked about dreams. A Chinese interpreter introduced the dances. That wasn’t necessary, Hong thought. She could have worked out for herself that the traditional dances had roots in everyday life, or in symbolic meetings with devils or demons or benign spirits. Popular rites come from the same source, no matter what country you come from or what colour your skin is. The climate has a role to play – those used to the cold generally danced fully dressed. But when in a trance, searching for lines to the spiritual world or the underworld, with what has been or what is to come, Chinese and Africans behave in more or less the same way. Hong continued to look around. President Gebuza and his retinue had left. The only ones left in the camp where they would spend the night were the Chinese delegation, the waiters and waitresses, the cooks, and a large number of security guards skulking in the shadows. Many of those sitting and watching the frantic dances seemed to be deep in thought about other matters. A great leap forward is being planned in the African night, Hong thought. But I refuse to accept that this is the path we ought to be following. There’s no way that this can happen: four million, perhaps more, of our poorest peasants migrating to the African wilderness – without our demanding substantial recompense from the country that receives them. A woman suddenly started singing. The Chinese interpreter informed her listeners that it was a cradle song. Hong listened, and was convinced that the melody could also lull a Chinese child to sleep. She recalled stories about cradles she had heard many years ago. In poor countries women always carried their children in bundles tied to their backs, because they always needed to have their hands free for working with – especially in the fields, 174

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in Africa with hoes, in China while wading knee deep in water for planting rice. Somebody had compared this to cradles rocked with the foot, which were common in other countries, and even in certain parts of China. The rhythm of the foot rocking the cradle was the same as the hip movements of the women walking. And the children slept, no matter what. Hong closed her eyes and listened. The woman finished on a note that lingered before seeming to fall like a feather to the ground. The performance was over, and the guests applauded. Some of the audience moved their chairs closer together and conducted conversations in low voices. Others stood up, went back to their tents or hovered around the edge of the light from the fire as if waiting for something to happen, but not sure what. Ya Ru came and sat down on a chair by Hong that had been left vacant. ‘A remarkable evening,’ he said. ‘Absolute freedom and calm. I don’t think I’ve ever been as far away from the big city as this.’ ‘What about your office?’ said Hong. ‘High up above ordinary people, all the cars and all the noise.’ ‘That’s not the same. Here I am on the ground. The earth is holding on to me. I’d like to own a house in this country, a bungalow on a beach so that I could go for a swim in the evening and then straight to bed.’ ‘No doubt you could ask for that? A plot of land, a fence and somebody to build the house exactly as you want it?’ ‘Perhaps. But not yet.’ Hong noticed that they were on their own now. The chairs around them were empty. She wondered if Ya Ru had made it clear that he wished to have a private talk with his sister. ‘Did you notice the woman dancing like a sorceress on a high?’ Hong thought for a moment. The woman had exuded strength, but had nevertheless moved rhythmically. ‘Her dancing was very powerful.’ ‘Somebody told me she’s seriously ill. She’ll soon be dead.’ ‘From what?’ ‘Some blood disease. Not AIDS, maybe they said cancer. They also said that she dances in order to generate strength. Dancing is her fight for life. She is postponing death.’ ‘But she’ll die even so.’ ‘Like the stone, not the feather.’ 175

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Mao again, Hong thought. Perhaps he’s there in Ya Ru’s thoughts about the future more often than I realise. He knows that he is one of those who have become a part of a new elite, far removed from the people he considers himself to represent and to take care of. ‘What’s all this going to cost?’ she asked. ‘This camp? The whole visit? What do you mean?’ ‘Moving four million people from China to an African valley with a wide river. And then perhaps ten or twenty or even a hundred million of our poorest peasants to other countries on this continent.’ ‘In the short term, an awful lot of money. In the long term, nothing at all.’

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India – Kerala’s Literary Mission Peter Mares

alman Rushdie may dismiss India’s vernacular literature as ‘provincial’, but if he restricts himself to a diet of English language books from the subcontinent, then he will miss out on some stimulating reading. A tell-all tale by a former nun and the confessions of a sex worker are currently the two best-selling books in the state of Kerala in southern India. When it comes to literacy, India is ranked one-hundred-and-twenty-third in the world, with a rate of sixty-five per cent. But in Kerala, literacy is close to one hundred per cent, which translates into a market of thirty-one million people with a vociferous appetite for literature written in their mother tongue of Malayalam. Mridula Koshy is an Indian author who was educated in Kerala and now lives in New Delhi. In July, she published a collection of short stories called If it is Sweet, which has been shortlisted for India’s Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize. She recently discussed Kerala’s love of literature on ABC Radio National’s The Book Show. Mares: Are the people of Kerala India’s biggest readers? Koshy: I think pretty close to being the biggest. There are a couple of other regional languages: Bengali, Assamese, maybe Marathi and Gujarati as well that have significant-sized literature being written and read in those languages, being translated into those languages. But there’s nowhere else in India where you have the literacy level that Kerala enjoys. 177

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Mares: And why is Kerala such a literate state? Koshy: I think it has a lot to do with the communist-led governments in Kerala. Kerala is a pretty restless electorate, so there is this habit of switching parties from one election cycle to the next, so they are either voting in the Congress Party, which has dominated national elections in India, or they’re on alternate cycles electing the communists. And there’s more than one communist party – I can’t always keep track of which is in power at the moment. Their literary mission has seven objectives, the sixth of which was the provision of facilities for libraries and reading rooms. It’s not just about making sure that one hundred per cent of the population can read at a simple level; at the government-level there is an interest in literature. Mares: There’s also PN Paniker, who’s seen as the founding father of the literacy movement in Kerala. Koshy: He’s sort of a demigod figure. He spearheaded a lot of what is still going on today: door-to-door sales of books, literary rallies, reading rooms, libraries. This work started in the early 1960s. Mares: Is there a particular genre of literature that appeals to people in Kerala, or do we see the full range? Koshy: No particular genre. The literacy movement under PN Paniker and some of the organisations he created, like the KSSP [Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishad – Kerala People’s Science Movement] promoted ‘scientific literature’, and Kerala is one of the interesting places in the world where girls perform at par or surpass boys all the way through higher levels of education in the sciences. This kind of reading certainly seems to have a deep impact on the population and on gender roles, for one. But the Kerala reader also reads fiction, written in Kerala by writers in their language, Malayalam, and literature from other parts of India, and from all over the world. The biggest publisher in Kerala is DC Books, and DC Books, if you go to their web site, lists authors including Che Guevara, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens. So you get your political literature, your biology and your literature from a century ago in England. And all of it in translation, in Malayalam. Mares: Are there many writers from Kerala writing in Malayalam who are translated into English – or indeed, into other vernacular languages of India? Koshy: There are some efforts. India has a body charged with this work, the work of translating regional languages into English, and into other regional languages, but English in particular, because it becomes the bridge language from which other translations occur. If you translate a novel written in 178

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Malayalam into English, it can then be translated into Bengali or Assamese or Marathi, or even French or German. It doesn’t happen as much as it should. The literature from Kerala, written in Malayalam by Malayali writers, is so very lively, so experimental, so compelling, that I feel it’s quite a shame that we don’t see more of it in English. I read in Malayalam, but at a basic level, so mostly I read it in English. We had one of the Malayalam language greats, MT Vasudevan Nair, celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his book Nalukettu in 2008. It has sold maybe 400,000-plus copies over the past five decades. Oxford University Press published an English translation last year. Mares: Many of us tend to think of Indian literature as coming from Bengal, the great Rabindranath Tagore, for example, or of writers from the Indian subcontinent writing in English – people like Salman Rushdie, and many others. Rushdie, however, has been very disparaging about literature in vernacular language. He suggested that books written in languages like Malayalam weren’t worth very much. Koshy: This was quite a huge controversy in the community of readers in India. And I think this was in the preface to a collection that he edited in 1997 with Elizabeth West, for a compilation of writing in the English language from India. And he actually claimed in the preface that the vernacular languages were inferior to the stronger and more powerful body of work which comes from Indian writers writing in English. And the controversy extended so far as to produce a counter-anthology of works written originally in regional languages. There is a war of books and a war of ideas around what Indian literature actually is and, if Rushdie, as he said, felt that true Indian literature was best represented by Indian writers writing in English, then we had another whole camp that thought otherwise. There’s been a lot of angst over the years about who we are, writing in English, and what does this mean to use the colonial language, and whether we are participating in a project of subjugating ourselves and the regional languages are getting wiped out. Time has passed and I think there is less of the angst now because regional languages are not being wiped out. They’re lively. Literature is being produced in these languages. States like Kerala are an exemplar of this. Mares: There’s been a boom, too, in newspaper publishing in the vernacular and so on, so certainly India’s regional languages are very much alive. I wanted to ask you about some of the titles, because, as I understand it, one of the best-selling books in Kerala at the moment is written by a nun. What’s the story there?

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Koshy: This is a book titled Amen in English, and we have an author who was a nun until about a year or two ago, and this ex-nun quit the church after thirty-two years. And the book is being released at a time in Kerala where there’s a lot of introspection and controversy around the church and particularly around how nuns are treated in the church. There are claims that there’s a good deal of oppression. Girls are entering the nunnery in numbers, as they always have in Kerala, where Christians are a significant portion of the population – something like almost twenty-five per cent of the population. And it’s a powerful institution; young girls join and there’s no way to unjoin easily because there’s social pressure. In many cases they’ve joined it in the first place because of economic reasons within the family – perhaps there are a number of daughters and as each one gets married off the family’s resources are depleted. The church is seen as an option. Mares: The other book that’s had phenomenal success in Kerala was written by a grandmother, a woman in her fifties, and it’s her exposé of her life as a sex worker. Koshy: Yes, this is by Nalini Jamila, the book is Autobiography of a Sex Worker, and it is a little bit older than Amen, Sister Jesme’s book. Both of these books are examples of a particular trend or current in Malayalam literature right now, which is the autobiographical memoir-style writing, from people who do not normally fall into the literary world, who would not be considered writers and would not see writing as an option for them. There’s one with a labouring-class person writing about his life. There’s a hunger and an avid interest in hearing the genuine story right from the horse’s mouth, so to speak. And that mirrors a trend in literature all over the world, where the authentic story is being privileged. Mares: Nalini Jamila’s book also provoked a lot of debate about the role of women; she took a view that working as a sex worker, prostitution, gave her a certain mount of freedom – from her husband, for example. Koshy: Yes, that’s right. In the book there is mention of a number of relationships that she’s had with men in the years that she worked as a sex worker. And she prefers the term ‘sex worker’. These were in some cases men who fell in love with her when they first encountered her as clients and wanted to marry her. In some cases she had children with them. I was at the Jaipur Literary Festival last year and Nalini Jamila spoke. There was someone in the audience, a young man, a journalist, who stood up and made an impassioned plea to her; did she not see that she had hurt these men with the kind of drive toward independence that she professes. And he was clearly quite rattled by the kind of politics that she professes. They had 180

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an interesting exchange after the panel discussion and I translated between them. I really enjoyed her personality, her take on what it is to be a woman, her very interesting but not completely unique understanding that being a woman finding her place in the world does not have to be prefaced on being with a man in a monogamous relationship. For her, sex work was the door to a kind of freedom. Nalini is now a grandmother; her daughter understands that her mother is a sex worker. The book covered quite a bit of the mother-daughter engagement around this question, with the mother initially unwilling to tell her daughter who she is, and finally telling her. Mares: And what about the affordability of books and the value placed on books. Are books very highly valued in Kerala? Koshy: There is a long tradition of making books affordable. This was important to Paniker, the founder of the literacy movement; it’s important to the KSSP, the organisation that publishes a lot of the literature that the movement advocates. Copies sell at about sixty, seventy rupees a copy, sometimes even cheaper. Some books are as cheap as ten or twenty rupees a copy. In the city I live, New Delhi, we don’t have a Barnes & Noble but we have Crossword Books, we have Oxford University Press, we have Teksons Bookshop. These are big bookstores, air-conditioned, with displays and plate-glass windows, and you can browse, and you can get yourself a cup of coffee in the café built in to the bookstore. Books sell for anywhere from three hundred rupees a copy; easily five to six times what a book in Kerala costs, and upwards. A Harry Potter would cost you maybe nine hundred rupees – close to twenty US dollars. You could walk out of a bookstore with a fancy hardback collection of photography, an art book, for three thousand rupees. We’re talking one hundred times the price of a book in Kerala. There’s also a long tradition of serialising books in a number of magazines that have been in existence in Kerala for decades. I think a novel has actually been written as the magazine is being issued, so that each week the writer is coming up with the chapter that the reader then encounters. It’s very much like what I’ve heard happened in England when Charles Dickens wrote his novels – people waiting for the ships to come in with the next episode of Little Dorrit or The Old Curiosity Shop. In the homes of family members of mine, the shelves that run along the living-room walls are stacked with old, dusty copies, eighteen or twenty issues, each with an episode of the book. The magazines have another kind of value now.

This is a transcript of an interview broadcast on 15 October 2009 by The Book Show on the Radio National network of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow). 181

The Coherent Desires (2008) by Sum Wing-man. Lambda print on aluminum, 43.2cm x 64.8cm. Courtesy of Blue Lotus Gallery, Hong Kong.

Liberation Road

From Imaginary Death Mariko Nagai

July 8, 1944: A Man Dies, Where the Story Starts He dies because he must â&#x20AC;&#x201C; because without his death, there is no story, and, in the end, no history itself. And because history, by its nature, follows linear time, it goes forward, leaving behind bodies of men and women whose worlds and dreams die when they die. But here is a man. He has just turned twenty-eight half a month ago. He has three children and a wife back home in Japan. He is a sergeant with a dozen or so men under his command, and he is in New Guinea. He is a seasoned soldier: first, as the Emperorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s guard, then on a tour of duty in China for two years. His third and final tour on this green island where men die from hunger as quickly as seven-day cicadas, where they die from malaria and simple infection. Until here, he did not know that men die, most of all, from homesickness so keen that the soul disengages from its body even while not asleep to make its way back home. He has received a command, the first in eighteen months: to march toward Driniumor River for the final offensive attack. And in the next scene, he lies by the riverbank, dead. As he dies, he takes with him the memory of his first embrace, his love, his thoughts, his dreams, and all the hopes he never actualised during the life he lived â&#x20AC;&#x201C; so short it could have been the mere sigh of a god. 183

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1936: What the Soldiers Want to Believe You become a god when you die in war. No one will forget you – after all, people may forget the names but not the gods themselves. Your family will be honoured as Homare no Ie – the Revered Home. They will receive a letter from your commanding officer, praising how gallantly you fought until your last breath or how you threw yourself in front of your brother-soldiers to save them. Don’t worry, you will never die a miserable death in this war, in this army. You are a chosen child of the Emperor-god; you are invincible. Your cause, just and heroic. If you leave a wife behind, the Emperor-god will take care of her. She will be compensated, first with consolation money, then with a pension, all based on your rank (do take care to rise in rank, because your family, too, will be affected). Your body will be retrieved. Be sure about that. No one will leave a body behind to be buried in the heathen land. You will get a proper salutation once your ashes return to the motherland. Twice a year, the Emperor will come visit you and pay respect at your new home at the Yasukuni Shrine; your family, too, will be given a round-trip ticket to come see you. But there’s a trade-off. No one in your family will be able to mourn for you openly; none of them will be able to put you under the family gravestone. You will no longer have your name. You will have to stand off in the corner of the plot, under a pointed gravestone, your enshrined name woven in with the characters that signify that you were once a soldier, and even in death, you remain as such. Your family will only be able to talk about you in the darkest hours of the night when no one is around, whispering the smallest details that make you a singular human being, a unique member of a family, amongst themselves like a secret. What a small price to pay for the honour.

1938: A Man’s Worth A man is worth six yen a month, or the equivalent of thirty kilograms of rice. No one ate that much rice in a month. Not back in 1938. That would have lasted a year back then. But if you are a man, and if you have been chosen as the child of the Emperor in the Imperial Army, you will start out at that rate. And if you need a good fuck, because you’re tired and sick to death of fighting one battle after another against an invisible army, day after day, slicing off the fingers of your brother-soldiers to carry them around, so that 184

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later, when there is no battle, you can cremate them all to send the ashes back home; when the mortars explode all around you and you pray to gods, any gods, because you are scared shitless and there’s nothing you can do but wait to die; when you have lost your way and you don’t know what is real and what is not real anymore, and you need something, someone, you can buy a woman – a comfort woman – for one and a half yen. Thirty minutes. You can buy a cheaper one – a Chink whore – for one yen for thirty minutes. With your salary, four women a month. But no one can live off women only. And if you are the breadwinner of the family, your savings books mean a lot more than women. A cheap fuck. Remember: you still need to buy extra socks, extra shirts, alcohol, and cigarettes. You can write home and ask for these things, if they are well-off, but more than likely, they aren’t. In this war, whether you are an Imperial soldier or women serving as the Imperial girls’ force, your life does not amount to much.

November 1943: Papua New Guinea We rename the landscape, one place after another, undoing the former coloniser’s names, and we rename our river after another into the familiar language: Driniumor River becomes Bandou River, and here and there, Tazaki, Tsurumaki, are renamed after the rivers back in the innerland, to conjure up the memory of the home we can hardly see any more, not even when we close our eyes at night. To ease the disorientation, the homesickness, we tame the unfamiliar jungle island into a familiar place, a place we can, for a moment, mistake for what we left behind six thousand miles north.

The Old Japanese Saying Give us three years of failed harvest but do not give us three days of war, an old man mutters. Give us three years of hunger but do not take our men away. When a man is torn from the farm, there are not enough men to toil the land, the gods are angered at being abandoned. So like children, and in their bounty and in their anger they are children, simple in their punishment, loving in their bounty, as long as they are loved. Give us three years of failed harvest and we will sell the girls for the price enough to survive the season; we will sell them so that they can shoulder the debts 185

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and so we can live a little longer. But give us three days of war and we are done for.

Mid-March 1945: The Emperor-God Observing Bombed-Out Tokyo The god walks amongst us. He walks. He sees. He observes. Then he gets back in his car and the driver starts the engine. The Emperor-god does not look back. When asked how the observation went, he may answer, in His god-language so archaic that only prophets can decipher, that His great city is flattened, that the Americans cleaned the city in the darkness while he and his family huddled in the strongest bunker in the world, in the deepest womb of the imperial palace. His children have been squirreled away like important artifacts, as the prophets have done with priceless statues of Buddha and paintings. Nothing in the world would have hurt him, not the B-29s, not the atomic bombs being developed on the other side of the Pacific, under the deepest cover of the desert. Though he is a god, all knowing, he does not know that before he came, before he even thought of where to go, the prophets chose the place, told the bombed-out people where to hide so as not to pollute his sacred sight, commanded them to clean out the rubble, the charred bodies, and where to take the bodies to. The Emperor-god saw the sanitised version of the war, he might have believed what the prophets told him, weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re winning the war, and when the war is over, he will see the sanitised versions of his own country as he makes pilgrimages throughout Japan, and everywhere he goes, the railroads will be rebuilt, the roads will be repaved or repaired, giving him the sight of the country well on its way to reconstruction. He will never see the true devastation of the war. August 9, 1945: The Border Bending, the Nation Erased from History The border bulges inward, the Soviets pushing it in. Breaking it. Tanks roll in from the north, bringing with them boy-soldiers with hair the colour of the Siberian snow and eyes of the clearest lake filled with the water of melted arctic ice, who march with rifles as part of their bodies, as if they were born with them, as if they were born for this war, just for this war. They come from north. They roll into one village after another, laughing and killing, because this is their first war, because it is an easy war, because they didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know that war could be this easy: hunting down old men and women and children. No men are there to stop these boy-soldiers. Of course, there was 186

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slight resistance when they first crossed the border, but what of these older men who didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t put up much fight, men who carried their ancient rifles awkwardly, as if they never knew what rifles were? The sky was empty and so was the earth; no planes or tanks met these boy-soldiers. The boy-soldiers just aimed, pulled the triggers, and these men just fell, even without taking a shot. Just like the war movies showed: pop, pop, and the enemy falling. And now, look how these women and old people run like rabbits, leaving behind bags, babies, and old people who canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t run. The boy-soldiers come across village after village full of dead bodies, stabbed to death, strangled, poisoned, villagers who killed themselves in their moment of desperation, and the boy-soldiers shake their heads, canâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t understand these Nipponese, and continue on their way southward, following the escaping Manchurians. The country does not exist anymore. Manchuria is a country that existed for a blink in the eye of history, but it is no more.

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Doggie! (2007) by Tsang Kin-wah. Acrylic, emulsion and silkscreen on canvas, 91.4cm x 122cm. Courtesy of the artist, Hong Kong.

Kindred Spirits

Liberation Road

Liberation Road Sam Chambers Pictures by André Eichman

ar-weary Kashgaris welcomed the ‘peaceful liberation’ of their city in China’s far west by the People’s Liberation Army in 1949. Years of civil war, inter-ethnic conflict between the Hui and Uighur Muslims and Han Chinese, the brutality of pro-Kuomintang warlord Sheng Shicai and the threat of expansion by the then Soviet Union had taken a heavy toll. Sixty years later, little is left of the ancient city of Kashgar that sat at the confluence of the great northern and southern Silk Roads. A pall of red dust now follows the bulldozers as they steadily demolish two millennia of history that ties East with West. ‘Our way of life is coming to an end,’ says an elderly Uighur woman, who asks that she not be named. Her head covered by an intricate white shawl, she clearly recalls the coming of the Communists – she was thirtyseven – and says in a hushed voice, fearful of being overheard, ‘From then on, our lives were never to be the same, for better or worse.’ She recalls electricity coming to the city in 1958, which transformed centuries-old traditions of work, and, ten years later, the Red Guards, who charged through the old lanes, tearing off women’s scarves, smashing ancient relics and mosques, burning books and pillaging homes. ‘We survived that,’ she says. ‘That was easy compared with what came next.’ In the 1980s, much of the ancient city wall – an imposing earthen structure standing ten metres high – was torn down and the city’s moat 189

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filled to make way for a ring road, from which the monotonous roar of cars and trucks is amplified by the blue-and-white patterned tiles that decorate this woman’s lifelong home. * * * Architect and historian George Michell wrote in Kashgar: Oasis City on China’s Old Silk Road (2008) that Kashgar was ‘the best-preserved example of a traditional Islamic city to be found anywhere in Central Asia’. The city is also host to an extraordinary interplay of cultures, with the influences of Hinayana Buddhism evident in the artwork, music and dance of the Uighur people. 190

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In 644, the travelling Chinese monk Xuanzang recorded not only the widespread practice of Buddhism, but also the vibrancy of Kashgar’s bazaar and the multi-ethnicity of its people, some with ‘blue eyes’ and ‘yellow hair’, perhaps of Sogdian or East Iranian origin. Manichaean and Zoroastrian influences and early Nestorian Christian practices also marked the city as it grew rich from trade in China’s silk and jade, and the furs, rugs and spices of Central Asia. Kashgar is at the far western edge of the Xinjiang Uygur Automonous Region, which is larger than Western Europe and shares borders with eight countries. Due west from Kashgar is Tajikistan, to the northwest is Kyrgyzstan, and southwest, along the soaring Karakoram Highway that passes K2, lie Afghanistan, Jammu and Kashmir, and Pakistan. 191

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The city first came to prominence in western minds around the end of the nineteenth century as the Russian and British empires squared off for supremacy in Central Asia, London and Moscow each convinced of the other’s diabolical intent. It was ‘The Great Game’, as the two empires engaged in regional bluff and counter-bluff, with both Russia and Britain mounting hazardous expeditions to Tibet to enlist its feudal support. Kashgar was a vital listening post and both maintained consulates. Explorer and adventurer Peter Fleming recorded in his dramatic 1936 travelogue News from Tartary: ‘The [British] Consulate was a pleasant house with a lovely garden, standing on a bluff outside the city. From its terrace you looked across the green and chequered valley of a small river towards the too seldom visible mountains.’ The consulate is now a restaurant at the back of a drab hotel built in the neo-Soviet style well within the sprawling city limits, the views urban grey, ‘the green and chequered valley’ a vast expanse of concrete. 193

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Most Uighur claim descent from the Uighur kingdom of Karabalghasan, which was conquered by Kyrgyz tribesmen in 840 and now lies in Mongolia. The Uighur fled south and dispersed among the oasis towns surrounding the Taklamakan desert before establishing Turpan as their new capital and Kashgar as one of their most important trading centres. The regularity of the caravan trade between the oases of Marv, Balkh, Bukhara, Samarkand, Kashgar, Turpan, and Khotan, and from the distant European and Asian capitals, placed Kashgar in a central role. The city flourished as an economic broker and cultural mediator until the coming of the Mongol hordes in the twelfth century. * * * ‘Because many houses were built privately without any approval, the life of residents is not convenient and the capability against earthquakes and fire is weak,’ says a report in the local state-run newspaper. ‘Our target is every 194

Liberation Road

family has a house, every family has employed members and the economy will be developed.’ Since 1949 Xinjiang has been of strategic importance to Beijing, for its minerals and as a buffer with the former USSR and India, and the erasure of Kashgar’s heritage is not a new phenomenon; in recent decades the city has been populated with the indistinguishable white-tiled accommodation blocks found throughout urban China. ‘What do [the Han] know about desert life?’ asks the elderly Uighur woman, waving a small wrinkled hand dismissively and patting the hardpacked earthen wall behind her. ‘We know how to live in the desert. These walls are cool in summer and warm in winter.’ No matter; the authorities announced earlier this year that eighty-five per cent of what remains of the Old City will be razed. * * *

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Kashgar is closer to the Mediterranean Sea than to Beijing; it has always looked and felt the least Chinese city in the Middle Kingdom, but with the influx of Han, the legendary Silk Road city in the shadows of the Pamir mountains is being transformed into just one more sterile utilitarian centre. ‘They might be able to bulldoze our houses, but not our culture,’ a carpet seller on the edge of the Old City says. At his feet is a black brick path, worn down and polished by time. New, hexagonal-shaped bricks mark the path of progress, as old adobe-style homes – some standing more than five hundred years and with walls nearly a metre thick, behind which hides often splendid Turkic opulence and intricate courtyards – are replaced with uniform brick-and-tile structures. Mark Smith, who organises tours of Xinjiang, says, ‘Kashgar has not been a true Uighur city for more than twenty years. Soon it will just be a smaller version of the provincial capital, Urumqi, a staid set of identical, uninspiring concrete boxes.’ 196

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The afternoon arrival of a wrecking ball usually means that by next morning, another quarter-hectare of history has been reduced to rubble. Police are on hand to restrain angry Uighur, one of whom wails, ‘Why? Why?’ * * * The railway came to Kashgar from Urumqi in 1999, cutting the more than 1,500 kilometre, thirty-six-hour bone-jolting journey by bus to a relatively sedate train ride of twenty-four hours, the Tienshan mountain range on one side and the Taklamakan, one of the world’s cruellest deserts, on the other. The train is staffed by Chinese, the constant piped music is Chinese, the signs are in Chinese, the food is Chinese and the passengers, almost to a man, are Chinese. Xinjiang as a whole has seen huge Han immigration. Ethnic minorities make up less than ten per cent of China’s 1.3 billion people, but the autonomous regions, led by Xinjiang and Tibet, account for sixty per cent of the land mass. Xinjiang also accounts for nearly three-quarters of China’s mineral wealth. In the 1950s, Mao Zedong formed the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a vast organisation that can claim to be the world’s largest company, employing about three million people and effectively controlling a geographical area the size of Scotland. Han migration has been an important component of its operations and an estimated fifty-five million Han will settle in the region between 2000 and 2025. In Kashgar stands a white marble statue of the Great Helmsman, arm aloft. It is the second-largest statue of Mao in all of China. In the unrelenting sun, it casts a large shadow. Around it, the signage proclaims: ‘Follow the Communist Party for 10,000 years’, ‘Give up superstition, embrace science, embrace modernity’, ‘The many peoples of China are one: Hate separatism from the Motherland’. * * * Once a glory of the Silk Road, Kashgar’s bazaar – now the Kashgar International Trade Market of Central and Western Asia – carries on the city’s commercial traditions: intricate, rich red carpets from Turkmenistan; handcrafted Uighur guitars; pointed felt hats from Tajikistan; almost 197

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luminescent spices from Pakistan; Afghans, Russians, Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, haggling and hawking. Down an alley of maze-like stalls, a sack of flour is emptied onto a table; a fist sinks a well at its centre, into which goes a handful of salt and a large bowl of water. The flour is gently folded in on itself and a pair of hands mashes the mixture, strong fingers kneading the dough, more water, more kneading. There is a poster of the mosque of Medina on the wall of the stall. Den Den, a man of middle age, pushes the mixture to the side of the table, some oil is splashed onto the shiny-smooth wooden surface, and the dough is rolled back, kneaded again. He repeats the process twice more, and pumps the dough with a technique usually associated with restarting a stopped heart. He spreads the dough and folds it back into itself, spreads and folds, spreads and folds. It is then covered and left to rest for tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s noodles. Den Den takes the dough from yesterday and begins to roll it back and forth across the table until it is a metre long, stretching and folding, 198

Liberation Road

swinging the rope of dough in an arc through the air, pinching off a section and swinging again, coating the thin strands with a little flour on his table to keep them separate before chopping off a handful and dropping them hissing into a cauldron of boiling water for just a minute or two. He serves todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s noodles in a steaming soup of lamb, an Uighur staple, flavoured with garlic, cabbage, onions, tomatoes, chilli and aubergine. A nearby stall is serving glistening lamb skewers on naan. They both provide a glorious and fragrant local tea, rose petals combining with the dark, smoky leaves. On the way out of the bazaar is a small shop selling pasta machines made by Jia Yong Ya Mian Ji. Ticket price Rmb65. Just over half that after haggling. * * * The Old City had no running water until a decade ago, but already the old lanes and courtyard homes were proving a hindrance to the dramatic 199

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changes sweeping the country. In the big cities of Beijing and Shanghai, the residential hutongs are being ploughed into the ground to make way for gleaming commercial buildings, shopping malls or high-priced residential projects the former occupants of innumerable lanes could never afford. So, too, with Kashgar. Redevelopment reached the Id Kah Mosque in 2002; the bazaar and old residences in front of the mosque were replaced by a broad, dull square flanked by undistinguished commercial buildings. ‘If they could touch [the mosque], well, we knew nothing was sacred in their eyes,’ the old woman says. ‘We knew then that it would only be a matter of time before they came knocking our way.’ Her home has a red ‘X’ daubed on its outside wall. 200

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Along her lane, a teenager makes stuttering attempts to control his rollerblades as they skip over the rough-hewn brick. Toddlers sit on a doorstep, picture-postcard cute in handmade clothing, Uighur motifs woven into the fabric. A girl, no older than nine, steps away from a group of friends and asks the foreigner, ‘What you do in Kashgar?’ Her eyes are the colour of emeralds. ‘You have come at the right time,’ she says, adding with a sweep of her hand. ‘Tomorrow – all gone.’ Everywhere is the noise of traffic from the broad thoroughfare that cuts through the heart of Kashgar. It is called Liberation Road.

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Contributors

Xenia Andreou was born in Nicosia in 1967. She taught history, which she studied at Southampton and Oxford, at secondary school level. For the past decade she has been a freelance writer and translator. She lives and works in Nicosia.

Alexandru Cetăţeanu was born in Romania, which he escaped during the Ceausescu regime to Canada where he now lives. He edits Destine Literare and runs Scritorii Romani, an association of expatriate Romanian writers. Cetăţeanu’s published works include A Romanian in Canada (Helios, 1995), Canada – Country of Hyperboreans (Antim Ivireanul/Edition Langues et Cultures Européennes, 2004), and A Foreigner in America (Junimea, 2007). Sam Chambers, an award-winning journalist and author, has been covering east Asia for a decade. Now based in Dalian, half his time is spent on the road, predominantly in China and Korea. His next book – Oil on Water – will be published in early 2010, and he is currently putting the finishing touches to his magnum opus, Life on the Periphery, a six-year odyssey tracking the lives of China’s ethnic minorities. Xavier ComaS is a creative director, photographer and illustrator focusing on book covers published internationally. Based in Bangkok, his photo essays have been published and exhibited in Spain, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan. His ‘Pasajero’ project has been recently showcased as installation at the Singapore Art Museum, published by La Vanguardia’s newspaper magazine in Spain, and featured in Quotation, the prestigious art magazine in Japan.

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Contributors André Eichman has been a fine art documentary photographer for twenty years. His work has appeared in numerous publications, including Royal Geographic, The Sunday Times, Vogue and Wanderlust. He is currently exhibiting his latest project, ‘The Chairman and I’, around the world, with venues in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Shanghai and St Petersburg.

Bruce Humes hosts the ‘Chinese Books, English Reviews’ web site and recently translated Chinese Dress & Adornment Through the Ages (CYPI Press, 2009), a lavishly illustrated coffee-table tome, which is admittedly somewhat more politically correct than his earlier bestselling translation, Shanghai Baby (Pocket Books, 2001) by Wei Hui.

Thomas Lee lives in Northern California and is currently working on a collection of short stories about the experiences of Korean American immigrants in New York City, where he lived for most of his life. His work, for which he has received several awards, has appeared in American Literary Review, Eclectica, Brink Lit, Kartika Review, AIM Magazine, Lullwater Review, Asian Pacific American Journal, and Short Fiction World. Henning Mankell is an internationally acclaimed novelist who has received Germany’s Tolerance Prize and the UK’s Golden Dagger Award. His Kurt Wallander mysteries are published in thirtythree countries and have been adapted for film and television, most recently the award-winning BBC television series Wallander, starring Kenneth Branagh. He divides his time between Sweden and Maputo, Mozambique, where he has worked as the director of Teatro Avenida since 1985. Niki Marangou was born in Limmasol, Cyprus, in 1948. She studied sociology in West Berlin, worked for ten years at the State Theatre of Cyprus, and since 1980 has run the Kochlias Bookshop in Nicosia, where she now lives. She has published books of prose, poetry and children’s fairy tales. In 1998 she was awarded the Cavafy Prize for Poetry in Alexandria. Her paintings have been widely exhibited.

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Peter Mares presents the weekly public policy discussion programme The National Interest and is a regular contributor to The Book Show on ABC Radio National in Australia. He has been an ABC journalist and broadcaster for more than twenty years, having previously presented the daily regional current affairs programme Asia Pacific and worked as a foreign correspondent based in Hanoi. He is the author of Borderline (UNSW Press, 2001) an award-winning book on Australia’s refugee policies. Mariko Nagai is the author of Histories of Bodies (Red Hen Press, 2005), the winner of the 2005 James Saltman Poetry Award; and Georgic, the winner of the 2009 GS Chandra Sharat Prize and forthcoming from BkMk Press in 2010. She has received fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center, Yaddo, Djerassi, and UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists. She is Assistant Professor and Director of Writing Programs at Temple University, Japan Campus, in Tokyo. Daljit Nagra was born and raised in England of Punjabi parentage. He received the Forward Prize for Best Individual Poem for Look We Have Coming to Dover!, also the titular poem of his first collection (Faber & Faber, 2007) for which he was awarded the Forward Prize for Best First Collection and The South Bank Show Decibel Award.

Haresh Shah is a Norman Mailer Writers Colony fellow. He was born and raised in Bombay, educated in England, and has lived in Germany, the US, Mexico and the Czech Republic. Former editorial director of Playboy magazine’s international editions, he conceived and edited the Czech magazine Serial. His first book was Of Simultaneous Orgasms and other Popular Myths: A Realistic Look at Relationships (Kindle Edition, 2009). He is currently working on his second, Parallel Lives: Mumbai and I. He lives in Chicago. Edwina Shaw was born and raised in Queensland, Australia. She lived in Singapore, Cambodia and Germany before settling in Brisbane where she completed a Master’s degree in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. Her debut novella, Thrill Seekers (Ransom Publishing) is forthcoming in early 2010. Her fiction and memoir has appeared in Griffith Review, Island, Hecate and Idiom 23. In 2008 she was awarded the Griffith Review Frank Moorhouse mentorship for most promising new writer.

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Contributors Anis Shivani is a fiction writer, poet, and critic living in Houston, Texas. He is the author of Anatolia and Other Stories (Black Lawrence Press/Dzanc Books, 2009) and he is finishing a novel, The Slums of Karachi, and a book of criticism. ‘The Fifth Lash’ is part of a forthcoming collection, Alienation, Jihad, Burqa, Apostasy. New work appears in Boston Review, Georgia Review, Threepenny Review, Iowa Review, Agni, Prairie Schooner, Michigan Quarterly Review, Stand and Meanjin. Stephanos Stephanides was born in Cyprus. He left the island as a child and returned thirty years later in 1992. He is a translator, fluent in Greek, Spanish, English and Portuguese, an award-winning poet, and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at the University of Cyprus.

Didi Kirsten Tatlow was born in Hong Kong and completed her schooling there before moving to China aged eighteen to study Chinese. A journalist, she has worked at The Associated Press, Die Welt and Deutsche Welle. In 2003, she returned to China to report on social and personal transformations there, winning eleven prizes for her feature work at the South China Morning Post. She lives in Beijing with her husband, seven-year-old son and toddler daughter. Laurie Thompson was born in York, England, and lived in northern Sweden for several years. He taught Swedish language and literature in the University of Wales, and was editor of Swedish Book Review (1983–2002). He has translated some fifty books from Swedish, including works by Henning Mankell, Håkan Nesser, Åke Edwardson, Mikael Niemi, Peter Pohl and Stig Dagerman. He lives in rural Wales with several cats and a Swedish wife. WEN HUANG is a writer and freelance journalist whose articles and translations have appeared in The Wall Street Journal Asia, the Chicago Tribune, the South China Morning Post, The Christian Science Monitor, and The Paris Review. His translations include The Corpse Walker (Pantheon, 2008) by Liao Yiwu and Woman from Shanghai (Pantheon, 2009) by Yang Xianhui.

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“Hwang Sok-yong is undoubtedly the most powerful voice of the novel in East Asia today.” – Kenzaburo Oe

You in there, me out here, that’s how we spent a lifetime. It was tough, but let us make peace with all the days. Goodbye, my darling.

The Old Garden by Hwang Sok-yong author of The Guest

a novel of the Kwangju Uprising Available at bookstores everywhere.

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Read the ﬁrst ﬁve chapters online for free at sevenstories.com/oldgarden