Unlike the high-rises a street further on, number 1276 contented itself with six floors, had generously sized balconies and also flaunted what looked a bit like a pagoda roof. On either side of the balconies, the dirty white boxes of the air-conditioning system clung to the plaster. Listlessly flapping in the wind was a tattered banner, on which the inhabitants of the building demanded the immediate suspension of building work on the maglev, another elevated highway that would lead right past their front door, and whose pillars already loomed high above the street. Aside from this pitiful gesture towards revolt, the building was no different from number 1274 or 1278.
The flat, covering an area of thirty-eight square metres, comprised a living room with a wall unit, dining area and sofa-bed, a separate bedroom, a tiny bathroom and a kitchen, only slightly bigger, that opened onto the dining table. There was no hall, and instead a screen at the side masked off the front door, creating a small amount of intimacy.
Until recently at any rate.
Now it leaned folded against the wall, so that the whole of the area around the front door was visible. Xin had made himself comfortable on the sofa-bed, a little way away from the chair on whose edge Chen Hongbing sat as if lost in contemplation, tall, angular, bolt upright. His temples glistened in the light that fell through the glass façade to the rear and dissolved into tiny droplets of sweat that covered his taut skin. Xin weighed the remote control for the automatic rifle in his hand, a flat, feather-light screen. He had told the old man that any sudden movement would lead to his death. But the mechanism had not been activated. Xin didn’t want to risk the old man bringing about his own demise through sheer nervousness.
‘Maybe you should take me hostage,’ Chen said into the silence.
Xin yawned. ‘Haven’t I done that already?’
‘I mean, I – I could put myself at your mercy for longer, until you no longer saw Yoyo as a threat.’
‘And where would that get you?’
‘My daughter would live,’ Chen replied hoarsely. It looked odd, the way he uttered words without any gestures, struggling to keep even the movements of his lips to the barest minimum.
Xin pretended to think for a moment.
‘No, she will survive as long as she convinces me.’
‘I’m asking you only for my daughter’s life.’ Chen’s breathing was shallow. ‘I don’t care about anything else.’
‘That honours you,’ said Xin. ‘It brings you close to the martyrs.’
Suddenly he thought he saw the old man smiling. It was barely noticeable, but Xin had an eye for such small things.
‘What’s cheered you up?’
‘The fact that you’ve misunderstood the situation. You think you can kill me, but there isn’t much left to kill. You’re too late. I’ve died already.’
Xin began to answer, then looked at the man with fresh interest. As a rule he didn’t set much store by other people’s private affairs, particularly when they were eking out their final minutes. But suddenly he craved to know what Chen had meant. He got up and stood behind the tripod on which the rifle stood, so that it looked as if it were actually growing from his belly. ‘You’ll have to explain that to me.’
‘I don’t think it will interest you,’ said Chen. He looked up and his eyes were like two wounds. All of a sudden Xin had the feeling of being able to see inside that thin body, and glimpse the black mirror of a sea below a moonless sky. In its depths he sensed old suffering, self-hatred and repulsion, he heard screams and pleas, doors rattling and slamming shut. Groans of resignation, echoing faintly down endless, windowless corridors. They had tried to break Chen, for four whole years. Xin knew that, without knowing it. He effortlessly identified the focus point, he could touch the spots where people were most vulnerable, just as a single glance into the detective’s eyes had been enough to spot his loneliness.
‘You were in jail,’ he said.
‘Not directly.’
Xin hesitated. Might he have been mistaken?
‘At any rate you were robbed of your freedom.’
‘Freedom?’ Chen made a noise between a croak and a sigh. ‘What’s that? Are you freer than me right now, when I’m sitting on this chair and you’re standing in front of me? Does that thing you’re pointing at me give you freedom? Do you lose your freedom if you’re locked up?’
Xin pursed his lips. ‘You explain it to me.’
‘No one needs to explain it to you,’ Chen croaked. ‘You know better than anyone.’
‘What?’
‘That anyone who threatens anyone else is frightened. Anyone who points a gun at anyone is frightened.’
‘So I’m frightened?’ Xin laughed.
‘Yes,’ Chen replied succinctly. ‘Repression is always based on fear. Fear of dissident opinions. Fear of being unmasked. Fear of losing power, of rejection, of insignificance. The more weapons you deploy, the higher the walls you build, the more ingenious your forms of torture, the more you are only demonstrating your own impotence. You remember Tiananmen? What happened in the Square of Heavenly Peace?’
‘The student unrest?’
‘I don’t know how old you are. You were probably still a child when that happened. Young people demonstrating for something that had already been fought for by many others: freedom. And lined up against them a State almost paralysed, shaken to its foundations, so much so that it finally sent in the tanks and everything sank into chaos. Who do you think was more frightened then? The students? Or the Party?’
‘I was five years old,’ said Xin, amazed to find himself talking to a hostage as though they were sitting together in a tea house. ‘How the hell should I know?’
‘You know. You’re pointing a gun at me right now.’
‘True. So I would guess that you’re the one who should be shit scared right now, old man!’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ Again a ghostly smile distorted Chen’s features. ‘And yet I fear only for the life of my daughter. And the other thing that frightens me is that I might have got everything wrong. Stayed silent when I should have talked. That’s all. Your gun there can’t scare me. My inner demons are more than a match for your ridiculous gun. But you’re frightened. You’re frightened about what might be left if you were robbed of your weapons and other attributes of power. You’re afraid of backsliding.’
Xin stared at the old man.
‘There’s no backsliding – haven’t you worked that out? There’s only striding ahead in time. Just a permanent Now. The past is cold ashes.’
‘I agree with you there. Apart from one thing. The cold ashes are what destroys people. The consequences of destruction, on the other hand, remain.’
‘You can even cleanse yourself of those.’
‘Cleanse?’ Bafflement flickered in Chen’s eyes. ‘Of what?’
‘Of what was. When you consign it to the flames. When you burn it! The fire purifies your soul, do you understand? So that you are born a second time.’
Chen’s wounded gaze drilled into his own. ‘Are you talking about revenge?’
‘Revenge?’ Xin bared his teeth. ‘Revenge only makes an adversary bigger, it gives him meaning. I’m talking about complete extinction! About overcoming your own history. What tormented you, your… demons!’
‘You mean you can burn those demons?’
‘Of course you can!’ How stupid did you have to be to deny that fundamental certainty? The whole universe, all being, all becoming, was based on transience.