No one can deny that for a man who lacks courage, who is overly sensitive and rather cold and detached, to be removed from close proximity to others is a most pressing desire, an overriding concern. At Unit 701, Rong Jinzhen was always taciturn and uncommunicative, always aloof from the world around him. This was how he maintained his distance from people, how he separated himself from the crowd. Whichever way you looked at it, his motivation for befriending the chess-playing lunatic must have been to ensure his own ostracism from everyone else. To associate with the lunatic was the best means to make sure that he was left alone. He had no friends and no one tried to be his friend: they respected him, they admired him, but they weren’t affectionate towards him. He lived a solitary life (and even the chess-playing lunatic left Unit 701 when his dementia began to come under control). Most people said that he was untouched by the world around him: he never got close to people, and was always alone and rather depressed-looking. But loneliness and depression did not bother him; the greater torment was enduring the myriad idiosyncrasies of other people. From this point of view, he did not much fancy the rank of section chief, or even the title of husband. .[Transcript of the interview with Director Zheng]
Rong Jinzhen got married on the first of August in 1966. His wife’s surname was Di, an orphan who had come to work for us quite early, initially as a telephone switchboard operator. In 1964 she was transferred to the cryptography section as a security officer. She was a northerner, rather tall — half a head above Rong Jinzhen — and she had quite large eyes. She spoke a most proper Mandarin Chinese, although she never said very much. When she did, it was in a low tone of voice. Perhaps that was due in large part to her position as a keeper of secrets.
To speak of Rong Jinzhen’s wedding — well, I’ve always felt that it was exceptionally odd, as if fate were teasing him in some way. Why do I say that? It’s because I know that in the beginning there were a great many people who were concerned about his marrying someone. Some even thought that they should propose to him, in an effort to somehow bask in his glory I suppose. And yet maybe not, perhaps it was his own indecisiveness, or some other reason. But whatever the cause, whenever the possibility of marriage arose, he always shut the door. It seemed as though he simply lacked interest in women and marriage. But then later, I don’t know how, and with very little fanfare, he married Miss Di. He was thirty-four at the time. Of course, his age was not an issue, I mean, he was a little old, but if someone was willing to marry him, then what’s the problem? None. The problem came after they were married: BLACK came and stole him away. It goes without saying that if he hadn’t married Miss Di at that time, he would probably never have got married: BLACK would have prevented that. Their wedding gave people an odd feeling, just like when you are about to close a window and a bird abruptly flutters into the room: it’s a little strange and yet it seems almost like fate, and you don’t really know what to do — is it good or bad omen, something right or wrong?
To tell you the truth, he was a terrible husband, completely unreasonable. He would often not return home for days, sometimes staying away for the best part of a couple of weeks; and then when he did go home, he would hardly say a word to his wife: he would just eat then leave again, or eat, sleep, and then leave when he got up. That was their married life. They lived together but she rarely saw him, and spoke with him even less. As section chief, an administrative leader, Rong Jinzhen was not up to the task. Generally, he would show up at his office an hour before the day ended; the rest of the time he was squirreled away in the his cryptography room. He would even unplug the telephone to ensure that he would not be disturbed. It was in this fashion that he shirked the responsibilities and pains of being a section chief as well as a husband. He seemed to preserve his customary habits and longed-for style of life: a solitary existence — living alone, working alone, not wanting anyone to trouble him or to help. What’s more, things only became more extreme after BLACK entered the picture. It was as if he had to hide himself away, that doing so was the only means by which he could find the hidden secrets of this cipher. .[To be continued]
Rong Jinzhen was reclining in a rather cosy soft sleeper bunk, feeling as though he had finally found a safe place to take refuge in. It had been indeed rather fortunate that Vasili had secured two berths in a soft sleeper car. Their travelling companions were a retired professor and his nine-year-old granddaughter. The professor must have been around sixty years old. He had previously served as vice-chancellor at G university, but because of an eye disease he had resigned not long before. He carried himself with authority, liked to drink and smoke Pegasus cigarettes — this was how he whiled away his time on the road. His granddaughter, who aspired to be a singer when she grew up, spent the time singing, using the carriage as a stage. The two of them, one old, one young, served as a tranquilizer for Rong Jinzhen, putting him at ease. In this simple and unsophisticated space, he felt devoid of any sense of foreboding. Or to put it another way, he was able to forget his own timidity, and he devoted his time to his two most important endeavours: sleeping and reading. Sleep compressed the long dark nights into a dream; reading dispatched the boredom of the days. Sometimes he would lie in the dark, unable to sleep, unable to read, and instead passed the time by letting his imagination run wild. This was how he spent the journey home — engaged in sleeping, reading, and flights of fancy. The hours slipped by one after another, as he gradually drew ever closer to the last leg of the trip and home, back to Unit 701.
The second day of the trip was coming to a close. The train was briskly making its way through a wide open field. At the far end, the setting sun was flushed red; its last rays of crimson light had a beautiful, benevolent hue. The remaining sunshine bathed the train in a warming, tranquil light, much like a dreamscape or a gentle landscape painting.
During dinner, Vasili and the professor struck up a conversation which Rong Jinzhen only listened to with half an ear. That was until the professor said in an envious tone of voice, ‘Ah, we’ve just entered G province — by tomorrow morning you two will be home.’
Hearing this was music to Rong Jinzhen’s ears, and he asked, ‘When will you arrive at your destination?’
‘Tomorrow, at three in the afternoon.’
That would be the terminus for the train. Rong Jinzhen joked, ‘You two are certainly faithful passengers: you’ve accompanied this train from beginning to end.’
‘While you are a deserter. . ’ The professor laughed heartily. It was quite evident that he was happy to have found people to talk to on the train. But his happiness was fleeting. After a couple of chuckles, Rong Jinzhen once more turned his attention to Johannes’ The Riddle, paying the professor little heed. All the latter could do was stare at him curiously, wondering whether or not he might be unwell.
Rong Jinzhen was not ill, of course; this was simply his customary manner. Once he had finished what he wanted to say, then he was finished. He didn’t drag things out, he didn’t switch topics, he wasn’t polite; there was no preface, no postscript: he spoke when he had something to say, he was silent when there was nothing to say — like talking in one’s sleep, he made his interlocutors feel as if they too were dreaming.
Speaking of Johannes’ The Riddle, it had been published by the China Publishing House before the Revolution, translated by the Eurasian author Han Suyin. It was a rather slim volume, more a pamphlet than a book. On the title page it had the following epigraph:
A genius is the spirit of this world, there are few but they are the finest of humankind, they are noble, they are to be treasured. Like any other treasure in this world, they are delicate, fragile as a newly planted bud; once hit they crack; once cracked they fracture.