Just before getting up to leave, Birgitta had the feeling she was being watched. She looked around, tried to scrutinise several faces, but there was no one she recognised. She was annoyed by these imaginings and left the store. As the plastic bag was heavy, she took a taxi back to the hotel and wondered what to do for the rest of the day. She wouldn’t be able to see Karin until late that evening — Karin had a formal dinner that she would have liked to skip, but couldn’t. Birgitta decided to visit the art gallery she had passed the previous day. She knew the way there. She remembered having seen several restaurants where she could have a meal if she felt hungry. It had stopped snowing now, and the clouds had broken up. She felt younger, more energetic than in the morning. Just now, I’m that freely rolling stone we used to dream of becoming when we were young, she thought. A rolling stone with a stiff neck.
The main building of the gallery looked like a typical Chinese tower with small platforms and projecting roof details. Visitors entered through two majestically imposing doors. As the gallery was so big, she decided to restrict herself to the ground floor. There was an exhibit on how the People’s Liberation Army had used art as a propaganda weapon. Most of the paintings were in the familiar style she recalled from the illustrated Chinese magazines in the 1960s. But there were also some non-figurative paintings depicting war and chaos in bright colours.
Wherever she went, she was surrounded by guards and guides, mainly young women in dark blue uniforms. None of them spoke English.
She spent a few hours in the art gallery. It was nearly three o’clock when she left, glancing at the hospital and behind it the skyscraper with the jutting-out terrace. Quite close to the gallery was a simple restaurant; she was given a place at a corner table after she had pointed at various plates of food on other diners’ tables. She also pointed at a bottle of beer and noticed how thirsty she was when she began drinking. She ate far too much, then drank two cups of strong tea in order to overcome her drowsiness while thumbing through several postcards she’d bought at the gallery.
Then it hit her. She had had enough of Beijing, although she’d only been there for two days. She felt restless, missed her work and had the feeling that time was simply slipping through her fingers. She couldn’t continue wandering aimlessly around the streets. She needed something specific to do, now that the board games and the spices had been bought. First she needed to go back to her hotel and rest, then come up with a proper plan — she had another three days, two of them alone.
When she came back out onto the street, the sun had disappeared behind the clouds again, and it felt much colder. She wrapped her jacket tightly around her and wound her scarf over her mouth and nose.
A man came up to her with a piece of paper and a small pair of scissors in his hand. In broken English he begged her to allow him to clip her silhouette. He produced a file of plastic pockets with other silhouettes he had made. Her first reaction was to say no, but she changed her mind and took off her woolly hat, removed her scarf and posed in profile.
The silhouette he made was astonishingly good. He asked for five dollars, but she gave him ten.
The man was old and had a scar on one cheek. She would have loved to hear his life story, if only that had been possible. She put the silhouette into her bag; they bowed to each other and went their separate ways.
She hadn’t the slightest idea of what was happening when the attack took place. She felt an arm wrapped around her neck, bending her backwards, and at the same time somebody snatched her bag. When she screamed and tried to hang on to it, the arm around her neck tightened. She was punched in the stomach and left gasping for breath. She collapsed onto the pavement. It had come about so quickly and lasted no more than ten or fifteen seconds. A passing cyclist stopped to try to lift her to her feet, together with a woman who put down her heavy grocery bags in order to help. But Birgitta Roslin was unable to stand up. She sank down onto her knees and passed out.
When she recovered consciousness she was on a stretcher in an ambulance with sirens blaring. A doctor was pressing a stethoscope onto her chest. Everything was a blur. She remembered having her bag stolen. But why was she in an ambulance? She tried to ask the doctor with the stethoscope. But he answered in Chinese: she deduced from his gestures that he wanted her to keep quiet and not move. Her throat felt very tender. Perhaps she had been seriously injured? The thought scared her stiff. She might have been killed. Whoever had attacked her hadn’t hesitated to do so, despite the broad daylight in a busy street.
She started crying. The doctor reacted by feeling her pulse. Even as he did so the ambulance came to a halt, and the back doors were opened. She was transferred to another stretcher and wheeled along a corridor with very bright lights. She was sobbing uncontrollably and didn’t notice being given a tranquilliser. She drifted away as if on a groundswell, surrounded by Chinese faces that seemed to be swimming in the same waters as she was: their heads, bobbing up and down in the waves, were preparing to accept the Great Helmsman as he approached the shore after a long and strenuous swim.
When she regained consciousness she was in a room with dimmed lights and drawn curtains. A man in uniform was sitting on a chair next to the door. When he saw that she had opened her eyes, he stood up and left the room. Shortly afterwards two other men in uniform entered the room, accompanied by a doctor who spoke to her in English with a strong American accent.
‘How are you feeling?’
‘I don’t know. I’m tired. My throat hurts.’
‘We have examined you carefully. You survived that unfortunate incident without serious injury.’
‘Why am I here? I want to go back to my hotel.’
The doctor bent down closer to her face.
‘The police need to talk to you first. We don’t like it when foreign visitors are treated badly in our country. We are ashamed. Whoever attacked you must be found.’
‘But I didn’t see anything.’
‘I’m not the one you need to talk to.’
The doctor stood up and nodded to the two men in uniform, who carried their chairs over to her bed and sat down. One of them, the interpreter, was young, but the man asking the questions was in his sixties. He had tinted glasses, which meant that she couldn’t see his eyes. He started asking questions without either of the men having introduced themselves. She had the vague impression that the elderly man didn’t like her at all.
‘We need to know what you saw.’
‘I didn’t see anything. It all happened so quickly.’
‘All the witnesses have agreed that the two men were not masked.’
‘I didn’t even know there were two of them.’
‘What did register with you?’
‘I felt an arm around my neck. They attacked me from behind. They snatched my bag and punched me in the stomach.’
‘We need to know everything you can tell us about these two men.’
‘But I didn’t see anything.’
‘No faces?’
‘No.’
‘Did you hear their voices?’
‘I didn’t even know they said anything.’
‘What happened just before you were attacked?’
‘A man cut my silhouette. I’d paid him and was about to leave.’
‘When your silhouette had been cut — did you see anything then?’
‘Such as?’
‘Anybody waiting?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you that I didn’t see anything at all?’
When the interpreter had translated her answer the police officer leaned towards her and raised his voice.
‘We are asking these questions because we want to catch the men who attacked you and stole your bag. That’s why you should answer without losing your temper.’