Decoded (22 page)

You could say that on the trail to deciphering some secret cipher or other, passing through the narrow passageways of the genius, Rong Jinzhen never cried out in distress, nor did he exert himself praying for assistance. Instead, from beginning to end, he made his way on crutches: one was diligence, the other was solitude. His loneliness hardened his mind and soul, his diligence made it possible for him to reach out to the stars and take hold of good fortune. Luck is crafty: you cannot see it, you cannot touch it, nor can you say for sure what it is. You cannot understand it, nor does it wait for you. If you pray for it, it will not come. Luck is sublime and mysterious, perhaps the most mysterious thing in this world. But Rong Jinzhen’s good fortune was not mysterious, it was very real, it was hidden away between the lines in his notebook . . .

But now his notebook had been spirited away!

Realizing what had happened, Vasili became agitated, nervously moving about. He went first to see the head of the train’s security, to alert him and his staff to prevent anyone from disembarking; then he used the train’s telegraph machine to wire Unit 701 and report the situation. Unit 701 in turn reported to General Headquarters, who then reported to their superiors – on up the chain of command it went until reaching the most senior director. He issued forth the following directive: ‘The missing documents involve national security; all departments are instructed to provide whatever assistance is necessary. The files in question must be recovered as quickly as possible!’

How had Rong Jinzhen’s notebook been lost? It involved sensitive institutional secrets and it contained explicit information on the problems they had encountered in their attempts to decipher BLACK. Rong Jinzhen had used it to record his thoughts – these most important ruminations on the intricacies of BLACK. How could it have been lost?

Lost!

It had to be recovered!

The train had picked up speed. It was hurrying to the next station.

Everyone knew that the next stop was A City. You could say that Rong Jinzhen had met with calamity just outside his front door, as if it had been long predestined, set in stone. No one would have imagined that so many days could have gone by without anything happening – and now this! It was terribly unexpected, to get all the way home only to have a leather briefcase go missing (not even the safety-deposit box). The culprit behind all of this could not be considered to be someone especially villainous, rather just a damnable thief. It was all like a dream. Rong Jinzhen felt weak and confused; a pathetic, hollow web of intrigue had entangled him, was torturing him. As the train roared ahead, he felt worse and worse. The train wasn’t heading for A City, it was heading to hell.

Once it reached its destination, the train doors were all locked. The orders had been given an hour ago by the Intelligence Service. But common sense told everyone that the thief in question had already left the train. He had disembarked once he had taken the briefcase, and that was in B City.

It is well known that if you want to conceal a leaf, the best place to do so is in a forest. If a person wants to conceal himself, the best place is in a crowd, in a city. Solving this case was not going to be easy. Establishing the particulars was going to be harder than hard. To give you an example, to give you a general idea of the features of this case, consider the following.

According to the records of the ‘Special Investigative Team’ at the time, this case involved, directly and indirectly, the following departments:

1. Unit 701.

2. A City’s police force.

3. A City’s PLA detachment and military reserves.

4. A City’s railway authorities.

5. All of A City’s affiliated government ministries.

6. B City’s police force.

7. B City’s PLA detachment and military reserves.

8. B City’s railway authorities.

9. B City’s health authorities.

10. B City’s Administrative Bureau.

11. B City’s Construction Administrative Bureau.

12. B City’s Communications Bureau.

13. B City’s Reporters Club.

14. B City’s Postal Authorities.

15. All of B City’s affiliated departments; and a countless number of other small work units and departments. The terrain to be covered included:

1. A City’s train station.

2. B City’s train station.

3. The 220 kilometres of track between A City and B City. 4. B City’s seventy-two registered guest houses.

5. B City’s 637 dustbins.

6. B City’s fifty-six public toilets.

7. B City’s forty-three kilometres of sewers.

8. B City’s nine rubbish tips.

9. The homes of all of B City’s residents.

More than 3,700 men were directly assigned to carrying out this job, including Rong Jinzhen and Vasili.

All 2,141 passengers on board came under direct scrutiny, as well as the 43 employees working on the train and the more than 600 plainclothes military men in B City. The train was delayed for five hours and thirty minutes.

The intelligence services in B City used up 484 hours on this case, equalling ten days and four hours.

According to what people said, this was the largest and most mysterious case G province had seen: tens of thousands of people had been disturbed, whole cities were thrown into upheaval; the scale and depth of this operation had never before been seen.

Returning to our main story (this is after all Rong Jinzhen’s story, which still isn’t over but rather is just entering a new phase). As soon as Rong Jinzhen stepped off the train and onto the platform in A City, he spied a delegation from Unit 701 approaching him – at the head was a rather exasperated and intimidating looking Director (not Zheng the Gimp, who had yet to be promoted to the post, but rather the predecessor of his predecessor). This was as it should be, thought Rong Jinzhen. Walking up to him, it was clear that the Director had lost all the respect he had once had for Rong Jinzhen. He looked at him with cold, menacing eyes.

Filled with terror, Rong Jinzhen cowered away from those eyes, but he could not escape the Director’s voice: ‘Why didn’t you place such sensitive and secret documents in the safety-deposit box?’

Everyone on the platform was fixated on the scene and saw what happened. There was a quick flash of something across Rong Jinzhen’s eyes that died away almost immediately, just like a tungsten filament burning out; then everything seemed to freeze as Rong Jinzhen went rigid and collapsed to the ground.

When the early morning light shone in through the window, Rong Jinzhen returned to the conscious world, and his eyes opened upon the hazy face of his wife. For one brief moment, he had fortuitously forgotten everything. He thought he was at home, in his own bed, and his wife had just woken him from some disturbing dream, her face looking anxious (perhaps she performed this duty quite frequently). But soon the white walls and the smells of medicine brought him fully back to reality; he realized he was in hospital. The shocking memory of what had happened returned and he heard the imposing voice of his Director: ‘Why didn’t you place such sensitive and secret documents in the safety-deposit box?’

‘Why?’

‘Why?’

‘Why . . . ’

You must believe that Rong Jinzhen did not deliberately try to lose his attaché case. In fact, he was always very vigilant. Therefore if you said that this mess was the result of him lowering his guard, or because he was treating the whole thing too lightly, or that he was somehow neglecting his duty, well that would be awfully unfair. But not putting his notebook in the safety-deposit box was a lapse in judgement on his part; his vigilance had certainly left him then.

I remember clearly that before they set off on this trip, Vasili and I had repeatedly requested – had urged him over and over again – to place any secret documents (including anything that could identify him as a member of the intelligence service) in the safety-deposit box. And he had assured us that he would do so. On the trip back, according to Vasili, Rong Jinzhen had been very careful, he had placed all sensitive materials in the safety-deposit box, including a book of maxims written and given to him by the Director-General of the Intelligence Service, to secure anything that might expose his identity, especially his particular position, or compromise him. Virtually everything was placed in the safety-deposit box except for his notebook. As to why he left the notebook out: well, that has become an age-old and profound mystery. I believe, unconditionally, that it wasn’t because he intended to write in it that he made sure to leave the notebook out; that’s not possible. He didn’t take risks like that; he didn’t have the courage to do so. It’s as though there really was no reason for him not to put the notebook away, and although he tried to figure out why after it had been stolen, he couldn’t imagine a reason. What is strange, however, is that before it went missing, he didn’t really seem to be conscious of having the notebook with him (and even after it disappeared, he didn’t immediately think of it). Like a woman failing to notice that she has a needle slipped into the cuff of her shirt until it pricks her; normally you just wouldn’t think of it.

But for Rong Jinzhen, his notebook was most certainly not an overlooked needle – there was no reason for him to think of it as being something worthless. No doubt his original intention was to remember it, to think much about it, to ensure that it was not forgotten, to enshrine it within his very being itself. This was because for Rong Jinzhen, his notebook was his most important and most valuable possession. To use his own words: his notebook was the vessel for his soul.

If this was the case, how is it that he had neglected to put away his most precious possession?

That is a most impenetrable riddle . . .

[To be continued]

Rong Jinzhen felt a profound sense of remorse about what had happened, and as though he had stumbled into a mysterious labyrinth, vainly searching for an answer to the riddle as to why he neglected to put his notebook away. At first, the darkness that lay within his mind was nearly impenetrable and brought about an acute feeling of vertigo, but gradually he adapted to it, and the darkness became his means of discovering the light. In this fashion he brought himself towards a most important thought: ‘Perhaps it was because I had prized it too much, had hidden it too deeply in the heart of my heart, that I had failed to see . . . Perhaps I had subconsciously come to understand that my notebook was no longer my solitary companion, no longer a real concrete thing, just like my glasses . . . Something so necessary can so easily be lost! For so long my notebooks had been part of my life, they had become part of my blood, a bodily organ . . . I never felt them, just like a person is never truly aware of his heart or his blood . . . It is only when sick that a person becomes cognisant of his physical body; only when your glasses go missing that you discover that you need them: that’s what happened with my notebook . . . ’

Rong Jinzhen leapt from his bed as though he had been electrocuted. He got dressed and made haste to leave the hospital. He was like a fire consuming its fuel, a man desperately trying to flee. His wife, this young women who stood a half a head taller than him, had never before seen her husband act like this: she was shocked, stupefied; all she could do was chase after him.

Because his eyes were not accustomed to the darkness of the staircase, he stumbled quickly down the steps, finally tumbling out onto the ground floor. His glasses fell with him, and although they didn’t break, the delay allowed his wife to catch him up. She had just hurried over to the hospital from Unit 701 because she had been informed that due to the stresses of travel, her husband had taken ill and had been sent to hospital, and was in need of care. This was her reason for hurrying over, but she had no idea as to what had really happened. She urged her husband to return to his bed to rest but he resolutely refused.

Outside, he was pleasantly surprised to see his jeep parked in the courtyard. Rushing over to it he saw the driver hunched over the steering wheel taking a nap. The jeep seemed to have been brought for him to use. Lying by telling the truth, he told his wife that he had left his briefcase at the station and had to go and retrieve it. But he never went to the station, going directly to B City instead.

Rong Jinzhen understood that the thief could be either on the train or in B City – there were no other possibilities. If he was still on the train, then there was nowhere for him to run. That meant that Rong Jinzhen had to make great haste to B City. A City didn’t need him, but B City – B City might yet need its entire population!

Three hours later, Rong Jinzhen pulled into the courtyard of the city garrison. From there he learnt that he had to go the Special Incidents Task Force, located within the garrison guest house. The man in charge was a Deputy Minister dispatched from General Headquarters; but he had yet to arrive. Below him were five deputy heads whose responsibilities had been divided up between the relevant departments of the military in A City and B City. This group included one deputy head who would later become Director of Unit 701: Zheng the Gimp. Upon reaching the guest house, Assistant Director Zheng gave Rong Jinzhen some bad news: the train had been searched from top to bottom and the thief was nowhere to be found.

This could only mean that the thief had alighted in B City! Without delay, everyone involved was dispatched to B City. In the evening, Vasili himself arrived, initially under orders from Director Feng to escort Rong Jinzhen back to the hospital; but sensing that Rong Jinzhen would most likely refuse to return, Director Feng had included supplementary instructions: if he would not relent in his desire to remain in B City, then Vasili had to accompany him everywhere and ensure his safety.

This is more or less what transpired.

No one knew that Vasili would potentially compromise the very security of Unit 701 and nearly bring ruin upon them all.

Over the course of the next few days, Rong Jinzhen drifted through the streets and alleys of B City much like a wandering, displaced soul. During the long endless nights – nights that would have driven the most resolute person insane – he whiled away the hours contemplating the most far-off things. He had passed through hope and now felt the most extreme despair; the night had become torture. Every evening, his most pitiable fate nagged at him, tortured him and stole away his sleep, and yet the mornings only served to pressure him even more, like burning moxa on his body. He delved deep down into his mind in an effort to recall that day and evening, to censure himself, and to try and understand how he had committed such a terrible mistake. But in truth, it seemed as though everything he had done had been a mistake, and yet free of mistakes: it was all a dream, a fantasy. Tangled up in this bewildering, agitating and yet shameless predicament, miserably hot tears scorched his eyes, drowning him within this torture. Rong Jinzhen felt he was a withered flower, his petals in the process of falling off. He was like a lamb that had lost its way, whose mournful calls grew weaker and weaker, ever more heartwrenching.

It was now the evening of the sixth day since the incident had occurred. This most important and yet most hurtful evening began with a torrential downpour. The rain drenched Rong Jinzhen and Vasili to the bone, giving rise to a ceaseless cough in the former, and causing them to return early from their search. Stretched out on beds that had been provided for them, the weariness in their bones was not entirely unbearable, but the endless rain outside was tormenting.

As someone intimately involved in the situation, Rong Jinzhen had a unique point of view when compared to the other investigators assigned to this case. For instance, he believed that the main motive for the theft had to have been money, and that once the thief had taken what was financially valuable, he would dispose of the rest, including Rong Jinzhen’s most precious notebook. This perspective was not without reason, and so once Rong Jinzhen set it out, everyone working on the case paid it special attention. Consequently, men were sent out to search all the city’s dustbins and landfills. Of course, Rong Jinzhen himself went out to scour through the city’s rubbish, taking the lead in many instances, putting his energy into being especially meticulous, even going over the same places that someone else had already looked through.

But on the evening of the sixth day the city was immersed in a deluge of rain that showed no signs of stopping: it howled through the sky and beat against the ground, and soon the city’s nooks and crannies were inundated with water. The rain made Rong Jinzhen feel even worse for all the personnel from Unit 701 who had come to search for his notebook, that most precious repository for his thoughts that the rain would now transform into an undecipherable blotch of ink. The rain had coalesced into a torrent, most likely washing the notebook away with it, making it even more difficult to find. The heavy rain drenched everyone with a feeling of acute pain and a terrible sense of anguish. But for Rong Jinzhen it must have been even worse, more dispiriting. To tell the truth, this rain was really no different from any other downpour: it harboured no ill will, and certainly had no connection to the thief ’s actions; but from a certain point of view, it did seem as though the rain was the far-off echo of the thief, as if the two were in silent collusion, the rain carrying on the malice of the thief, nurturing it, ensuring that this disaster became more intense, heightening its impact.

The rain drowned any remaining hope that Rong Jinzhen still held . . .

[To be continued]

With this torrential downpour, it was easy to see how severely this catastrophe had affected Rong Jinzhen. It was as if some unknown outside entity was manipulating the situation, bringing whatever was dreadful and unexpected all into line, to form a freak combination of events; an abhorrent situation. Because of the rainstorm, Rong Jinzhen looked back on the last twelve years, back upon its mysteries and profundities: he saw how the inspiration he received on how to decipher PURPLE, gleaned from a dream about Mendeleev, had in one night metamorphosed him into something glorious and splendid. He used to think that this type of miracle, this form of divine providence, was no longer something he possessed because it was too extraordinary: such miraculousness meant people dare not seek it. But now he felt that this heavenly intervention had returned, but not in the same form as it once had. Now it was brightness together with darkness, a rainbow together with menacing clouds; it was the reverse of a ‘thing’ – as though over these many years, he had been circling round this ‘thing’ but had only seen the ‘proper’ side. Now, however, it was inevitable that he would witness the reverse.

But what was this ‘thing’?

To this former student of Mr Auslander, a student whose heart had been influenced by the teachings of Jesus, this ‘thing’ could be nothing else but God, the omnipotent Holy Spirit. Because he felt that this ‘thing’ must be God, it possessed a complicated and yet absolute nature. While it possessed a beautiful side, it also and necessarily possessed an evil side; it was benevolent, but also malevolent. Though it seemed to be only a spirit, it possessed enormous power and capabilities, forever forcing you to revolve around it, spinning and spinning; allowing you to observe all: all that was happiness and pain, all that was hope and despair, all that was heaven and hell, all that was glorious and in ruin, all that was honourable and dishonourable, all that was exultation and grief, all that was good and evil, all that was day and night, all that was bright and dark, all that was proper and improper, all that was yin and yang, all that was above and below, all that was inside and out, all that was this and that, all that was everything . . .

The radiant and grand appearance of God on the scene thoroughly and decisively put Rong Jinzhen’s heart at ease. He thought, ‘If this is how it is, then this must be God’s plan: how could I oppose it? Resistance is futile. God’s laws are just. God would not change these laws to satisfy the aspirations of any man. God’s ultimate plan is to make clear to everyone the beauty of all creation.’ God had shown the nature of everything to Rong Jinzhen by means of PURPLE and BLACK –

All that was happiness and pain.

All that was hope and despair.

All that was heaven and hell.

All that was glorious and in ruin.

All that was honourable and dishonourable.

All that was exultation and grief.

All that was good and evil.

All that was day and night.

All that was bright and dark.

All that was proper and improper.

All that was yin and yang.

All that was above and below.

All that was inside and out.

All that was this and that.

All that was everything . . .

Upon hearing these parallel slogans issue forth from deep inside, Rong Jinzhen calmly and serenely turned his eyes away from the downpour still raging outside. Whether it stopped raining or not seemed no longer to matter: the sound of the rain was no longer unbearable. When he lay down, the sound of the rain was amiable, so pure and unadulterated, so mild and gentle, he was entranced by it; he felt himself dissolving into it. He slept and dreamed. Within his dream he heard a far-off call – ‘You still have this superstitious faith in God . . . God is a coward . . . God never gave Johannes a perfect life . . . And don’t tell me that God’s laws are just . . . God’s laws are entirely unjust . . . ’

The last phrase repeated over and over in his mind, the voice getting louder and louder; finally sounding like lighting cracking in his ears, forcing him awake – and yet he still heard the voice linger in his ears: ‘Unjust – unjust – unjust . . . ’

He didn’t recognize who or what spoke these lines, and he certainly didn’t know why it had wanted to speak these mysterious words to him – ‘“God’s laws are unjust!” All right, let’s say they are unjust, but then what?’ He began to ponder. But whether it was from the pounding in his head or from some unconscious worry or unknown fear he harboured, his thoughts were uncoordinated and unfocused. Every starting point drifted out of reach, like a headless dragon not knowing which way to go. A quarrelsome cacophony raged in his head: his mind was like a pot of boiling water, bubbling and gurgling. But if you removed the lid you would discover nothing of value inside. His mind was simply going through the motions; nothing of substance was happening. A moment later, the mental undulation ceased – as if food had been put in the pot to cook. Then memories of the train ride, the thief, his leather attaché case, the rainstorm rolled over him in succession, bringing into the frame once more his own personal doom. But this time, Rong Jinzhen did not understand the significance of these memories – as if the food had yet to be fully cooked. Later, the memories pressed themselves upon him once more – like the pot beginning to slowly boil again. But now the pot was no longer empty. His mind was beginning to become excited as a mariner is once he sees land after a long sea voyage. Moving at full throttle towards his destination, moving ever closer, Rong Jinzhen once again heard that mysterious voice speak to him: ‘Allowing this accident to herald catastrophe for you, to beat you down, how is that just?’

‘Noooooo – !’ Rong Jinzhen roared, smashing through the door and rushing out into the downpour, assailing the darkness with invective: ‘God, you have been unjust to me! God, I want to let BLACK defeat me! Only by letting BLACK defeat me can there be justice! God, only the vilest person need suffer such unfairness! God, only the vilest divinity could force me to suffer such blame! Oh wicked Lord, you shouldn’t do this! Oh vicious God, I will fight you to the bitter end – !’

After this raging outburst, Rong Jinzhen felt as though the freezing rain were burning him, and his blood began to gurgle and flow forth, making him realize the rain too was gushing. As this thought flashed in his mind, he soon felt that his entire body was streaming forth, becoming one with the sky and the earth, drop by drop melting into them, like air together with cloud, like dream together with fantasy. It was then that he heard once more that faint, indiscernible voice from somewhere beyond. It was as if this most pitiable sound issued forth from his lost notebook, in the dirt and the mud, miserable and desperate, appearing and disappearing, intermittently crying out: ‘Rong Jinzhen, listen . . . the rainwater is surging, turning the ground into a bubbling mass . . . even though the water may have carried your notebook away, it might also carry it back to you . . . back to you . . . after everything that has happened, why can’t this also happen . . . even though the water may have carried your notebook away, it might also carry it back to you . . . back to you . . . back to you . . . back to you . . . ’

This was the final strange thought Rong Jinzhen had.

It was an eerie and evil night.

Outside the window the sound of the rain was indomitable, unceasing.