“I expect you’re right,’ answered Van Mey absently.
In his mind’s eye he could already see the little flames of the candles at the next séance, and their own anguish as they waited for the spirit to come.
7
Director Tchan had imagined it quite differently, the fateful day when the mikes would reproduce the very first voices, when his spies of flesh and blood would be joined by an army of soulless instruments. But nearly a fortnight had gone by since the first microphones were installed, and no great day had arrived. On the contrary, the first time he’d listened in live to microphones installed in people’s homes he’d found it tedious and wearisome, as well as unproductive. The mikes in question weren’t those that had been placed in the villa reserved for foreign visitors: the villa was empty at present, and the mikes there silent. The ones Tchan listened in to were in the main hotel, but these transmitted snores more often than words, and if there was a conversation it was usually trivial and devoid of interest. The mikes in government offices conveyed nothing but endless discussions, and Tchan soon gave up listening: he had enough boring meetings himself in his own office!
Disappointed by listening in direct, he waited eagerly for the first “harvest” from the temporary mikes, the ones placed in private houses and bedrooms, and above all those fixed to people’s clothes. There were seven of these, almost the number prescribed in the bi-monthly plan. Tchan was sure that what was recorded on these tapes would prove to be the most important part of their work.
Everyone was waiting for them and trying to conceal the gleam of anticipation in his eyes.
One morning when he walked into the building where he worked he sensed that they had arrived. He couldn’t have said where he felt it first: by the box where the sentry stood; as he passed some of his colleagues on the stairs; or in the characteristic silence of the corridors. Anyhow, when his assistant came into his office, Tchan knew already what he was going to say:
“Comrade Tchan — the first tape …!”
“It’s come, has it? Bring it in at once.”
“I’ve got it here.”
Tchan had given orders that no one was to listen to it before he did. He was very excited. He locked the door, lit a cigarette, and asked his assistant to start.
After an hour’s listening he was even more disappointed than he had been by the permanent mikes. His assistant tried to catch something of interest by rewinding the tape several times, but it consisted mainly of silences with crowd and traffic noises in the background. There was an occasional hoot from a taxi, or a car door banging; the few odd scraps of speech were of no significance whatsoever. But what could be more natural? Tchan tried to reassure himself. He ought never to have listened to this tape just as it was, even before his closest assistants. It was like a great mass of mud and stones which would have to be carefully sifted if it was to yield the least particle of gold.
“The sound quality’s very good, isn’t it?” said his colleague,
Tchan nodded wearily. What more could you expect from a soulless piece of apparatus? He remembered his speech about the human ear. If he could have talked to his old spies now he’d have treated them with even more deference.
But his disillusion didn’t last long. Three days later his assistant received the first serious results, selected from tapes on mini-mikes that had just been recovered.
Tchan shut his eyes so as to concentrate better. The recording contained complaints about the state, the Cultural Revolution the unprecedented shortages and the universal chaos. Some people objected to the banning of ancient customs, others to anything that undermined the authority of the Party. Thee came some very dubious remarks made by the first secretary of the Party in N— to some dinner guests of his: he was being malicious and sarcastic at the expense of the central government Tee-hee, Tchan chuckled. His relations with the first secretary had cooled since he’d summoned Tchan to ask him for a report about the installation of the qietingqis. Tchan had refused to tell him anything, and the first secretary had flown off the handle. After they’d exchanged a couple of quotations from Mao Zedongs Tchan, realizing the first secretary had the advantage of him on that score, decided to tell him straight: “I’m not accountable to anyone but the Zhongnanhail” At the mere sound of that dread name the first secretary started to stammer so much that Tchan almost felt sorry for him. “I’m not even accountable to my minister,” he’d said to soothe him down a bit. And now here the fellow was, making fun of him to his guests: “He’s not a bad sort, old Tchan, but he really is as thick as two planks!”
Laugh away, thought Tchan grimly. His face showed no expression. His assistant stopped the tape and glanced at him to see if he wanted to go on listening.
“Perhaps more out of curiosity than for the actual content…?” suggested the aide. “It’s only a private matter…intimate, really…very intimate …Though perhaps one might detect something that’s-… Well, the way the couple try to imitate the West, even in. their physical relationship…a certain excess in their love-making… In short, they adopt capitalist ways of doing it, like …like…”
This last, unfinished phrase made Tchan’s mind up for him, and he signed to his assistant to start the tape again. They both listened in silence, as before. Not a muscle moved in the director’s face.
From the loudspeaker there came first the panting of the man, then that of the woman, quieter. She was almost sobbing as she implored him not to do something which she apparently at the same time desired: “No, not like that …No, please, not like that… It’s wrong…Don’t you think it’s wrong?…Ah…”
“Well, at last we’ve got something really important,’ said the assistant when the couple’s moans had ceased…
From the very first words, director Tchan had known why his aide had kept the next bit till last. He knitted his brow. This was what he called results! Just what he’d been waiting for all this time. Words hostile to Jiang Qing. He started to break into a cold sweat. This wasn’t the first time he’d heard people insult her…So why was he so worked up? …The black-souled Empress Vu was an angel of light compared with this one…The old dodderer must have gone soft in the head to put up with such a viper…Director Tchae had heard all this before, or rather read it in his spies’ reports, bet it was another matter altogether to hear the words spoken by human voices and accompanied by malicious laughter.
It wasn’t until his aide had left the room that Tchan began to feel a little calmer. He lit a cigarette, though there was another, still unfinished, resting on the ashtray. The material supplied by these mikes was clearly quite a different kettle of fish from the work of his spies. They merely reported things orally or in writing, relying on their memories, and the value of their evidence depended not only of the acuteness of their hearing but also on their training, talent, culture, and state of mind at the time. However reliable and devoted they were, there was always an element of uncertainty about their reports, which might exaggerate things or play them down, distort them wholly or in part, or even invent them altogether. It depended on the individual spy’s ambition, his recent successes or failures, and his personal relations with the suspect, if he happened to know him. The spies looked down on agents provocateurs and ordinary informers as underhand, unreliable, and often corrupt. “We don’t skulk around deceiving people,” they boasted. Our work is clean and straightforward: we put our ear to the wall or the ceiling and report truthfully. We heard this or that, or we didn’t hear anything at all Whereas informers and agents provocateurs — ugh! they make things up, they slander people, they settle personal scores…” Nevertheless, the spies themselves weren’t always entirely objective, whereas this new equipment was honesty itself, and reported everything exactly as it was, fully and impartially. Now Director Tchan really could pride himself on doing his job properly.