Ya Ru knew he was a lucky man. He never forgot that. The moment he took it for granted, he would soon lose his influence and his prosperity. He was the éminence grise among this elite in possession of power. He was a member of the Communist Party; he had solid connections in the very centre of the inner circles where all the most important decisions were made. He was also a party adviser, and at all times he felt his way forward with his antennae to avoid the traps, and seek out the safe channels.
Today, on his birthday, he knew that he was in the middle of the most significant period China had been through since the Cultural Revolution. Having been preoccupied with itself for centuries, China was in the process of looking out towards the rest of the world. Even if there was a dramatic struggle taking place in the politburo about which direction to choose, Ya Ru had no doubt about the outcome. It was impossible to change the route that China had already embarked upon. For every day that passed, more of his fellow countrymen found themselves slightly better off than before. Even as the gap between urban dwellers and peasants grew wider, a small portion of the new prosperity trickled out to the most poverty-stricken regions. It would be sheer madness to attempt to divert this development in a way that was reminiscent of the past. And so the hunt for foreign markets and raw materials must become more and more intense.
He caught sight of his face reflected in the big picture window. Wang San might well have looked just like that.
More than 135 years have passed, Ya Ru thought. San could never have imagined the life I lead today. But I can picture to myself the life he led, and I can understand his anger. The whole of China was overshadowed by the injustice of the past.
Ya Ru checked the time again; though half an hour had not yet passed, he was ready to receive the first of his visitors.
A hidden door in the wall slid open, and his sister Hong Qiu came in. A vision, she radiated beauty.
They met in the middle of the room.
‘Now then, my little brother,’ she said, ‘you’re a bit older than you were yesterday. One of these days you’ll catch up with me.’
‘No,’ said Ya Ru, ‘I won’t. But neither of us knows which will bury the other.’
‘Why mention that now? It’s your birthday, after all!’
‘If you have any sense, you always know that death is just around the corner.’
He escorted her to a group of easy chairs at the far end of the room. As she didn’t drink alcohol he served her tea from a gold-plated pot. He continued drinking water.
Hong Qiu smiled at him. Then she suddenly turned serious.
‘I have a present for you. But first, I want to know if the rumour I’ve heard is true.’
Ya Ru flung his arms out wide.
‘I’m constantly surrounded by rumours. Like all other prominent men, not to mention prominent women. Such as you, my dear sister.’
‘I want to know if it’s true that bribery was involved in order to land the Olympics construction contract.’ Hong Qiu slammed her teacup down hard on the table. ‘Do you understand the implications? Bribery and corruption?’
Ya Ru lost his patience. He often found their conversations entertaining, as she was intelligent and caustic in the way she expressed herself. He also welcomed the opportunity to sharpen his own arguments by discussing things with her. She stood for an old-fashioned approach based on ideals that no longer meant anything. Solidarity was a commodity like any other. Classical communism had failed to survive the strains imposed upon it by a reality the old theorists had never really come to grips with. The fact that Karl Marx had been right about many fundamentals concerning an economy for politics, or that Mao had demonstrated that even poor peasants could rise out of their wretchedness, did not mean that the great challenges now confronting China could be overcome by referring back to classical methods.
Hong Qiu was sitting backwards on her horse as it trotted into the future. Ya Ru knew that she would fail.
‘We will never become enemies,’ he said. ‘The members of our family were pioneers when they first set out to escape decadence and decay. It’s just that we have different views on the methods that should be used. But of course I don’t bribe anyone, just as I don’t allow anyone to buy favours from me.’
‘All you think about is yourself. Nobody else. I find it hard to believe that you’re telling me the truth.’
Ya Ru was angry. ‘What were you thinking sixteen years ago when you applauded the old men leading the party who ordered the tanks to crush the protesters in Tiananmen Square? What were your thoughts then? Did it occur to you that I might well have been one of them? I was twenty-two at the time.’
‘It was necessary to take action. The stability of the whole country was threatened.’
‘By a thousand students? Come off it, Hong Qiu. You were afraid of something quite different.’
‘What?’
Ya Ru leaned forward and whispered to his sister. ‘The peasants. You were afraid they would turn out in favour of the students. Instead of starting to think about new ways forward for our country, you turned to weapons. Instead of solving a problem, you tried to conceal it.’
Hong Qiu didn’t answer. She looked her brother unblinkingly in the eye. It occurred to Ya Ru that they both came from a family that only a couple of generations ago would never have dared to look a mandarin in the eye.
‘You should never smile at a wolf,’ said Hong Qiu. ‘If you do, the wolf thinks you mean to attack.’
She stood up and placed a parcel tied with a red ribbon on the table.
‘I’m worried about where you’re headed, my little brother. I shall do all I can to make sure our country is not transformed in a way that will shame us. The big class struggle will return. Whose side are you on? Your own, not the people’s.’
‘What I’m wondering at the moment is which of us is the wolf,’ said Ya Ru.
He started towards his sister, but she turned away and left. She stopped in front of the blank wall. Ya Ru walked over to his desk and pressed the button that opened the hidden door.
He returned to the table and unwrapped the parcel Hong Qiu had given him. It contained a little box made of jade. Inside the box was a white feather and a stone.
It was not unusual for him and Hong Qiu to exchange gifts incorporating private riddles or messages. He understood instantly what her gift meant. It referred to a poem by Mao. The feather symbolised a life thrown away, the stone a life — and a death — that had significance.
My sister is warning me, Ya Ru thought. Or perhaps challenging me. Which path shall I choose to follow for the rest of my life?
He smiled at her present and decided that for her next birthday he would commission a handsome wolf carved from ivory.
He respected her stubbornness. She really was his sister, as far as strength of character and willpower were concerned. She would continue to oppose him and those in the government who followed the same path. But she was wrong to condemn the developments he supported, which would once again transform China into the most powerful country in the world.
Ya Ru sat down at his desk and switched on the lamp. He slid a pair of white cotton gloves onto his hands very carefully. Then he began once more leafing through the book Wang San had written and that had been passed down through the family from generation to generation. Hong Qiu had also read it, but had not been gripped by it in the same way as her brother.
Ya Ru turned to the final page of the diary. Wang San was eighty-three years old by then, very ill, and he would soon die. His last words expressed his worry about dying without having done all the things he had promised his brothers.