Charlie’s Apprentice

Ten

Li stayed closer to Jeremy Snow than a second skin. In every hotel the reservation was for a shared, two-occupancy room. Always Li chose as their restaurant setting small, two-place tables away from any chance encounter with other Chinese. The man invariably positioned himself on buses or trains to create a physical barrier between Snow and other passengers. The initial morning in Zhengzhou – and at every subsequent hotel -he accompanied the priest to the communal shower facilities, outside the washing cubicle when Snow entered, damply on duty when Snow emerged. No conversation between them was ever interrupted by Snow needing a lavatory: every time, Li seemed to feel the same need and occupied the adjoining space. He waited dutifully outside of lavatory cubicles. Each day he offered to dispatch any correspondence Snow wanted sent during their journey, while they travelled. Each day Snow said he did not intend to send any. Li kept asking.

It was Li who established the regime for their conversations: Mandarin when they were sufficiently away from the possibility of other Chinese joining in, English when they were among people, but loudly spoken and with many official references, proclaiming his escort function to create the block against the frequent Chinese eagerness to practise the language with a foreigner. At the beginning in Zhengzhou, Snow had feared the usual approach from money-changers, convinced from the outset that Li would have summoned a plainclothes policeman or detained the man himself, but so obvious was Li’s authority that they were never once solicited.

Li was also a diligent questioner, but too eager. The man started, with seeming innocence, by praising Snow’s command of Chinese but alerted Snow at once by asking why he had perfected the language and why he was in China. In Beijing, which had appointed Li his escort, all those details were listed on his Foreign Ministry accreditation, to which the Chinese would have had access.

Because they were known, Snow talked easily of being a priest – even of his particular Order – but quickly insisted on his contentment at currently teaching English.

‘How can you be content, having abandoned your calling?’

‘I believe the need for what I am doing now is as much a calling,’ said Snow, wishing he had a stronger answer.

Li missed the opportunity to press the point, instead trying to hurry a comparison between Western theology and Mao’s version of Marxist-Leninist philosophy. Snow agreed that religion was a philosophy sometimes obscured by complicated mysticism but asked in return if the two thousand years of Western religion and the even longer Confucian, Buddhist and Taoist philosophies in China hadn’t proved more durable than the communism now abandoned in the Soviet Union and its former satellites. From someone so clearly – so proudly – a Party zealot, Snow expected the recorded-message response of Mao’s interpretation being the pure creed to continue forever, not the corrupted doctrine of self-serving criminals in Moscow. Instead Li accepted that Christianity and Confucianism and Buddism and Taoism were formidable persuasions to be respected, pointing out that the three Asian philosophies were recognized in China, as was Catholicism. Snow considered making the point that Confucian and Buddhist and Taoist temples existed more as tourist attractions than as places of worship. He was glad of his restraint when Li asked, still in open-faced innocence, if Snow believed communism was a philosophy as doomed in China as everywhere else. Snow at once insisted he was apolitical. Li abandoned the conversation, as if it were of no importance, but tried to re-introduce it on four further occasions, each time phrasing differently the questions which, responded to wrongly, could have brought against Snow accusations of a counterrevolutionary attitude. Snow did not once respond wrongly.

By the second day of their travelling together Snow accepted that Li was assembling a file upon him. He confronted the awareness without undue concern: Father Robertson had openly warned of such a possibility, when Snow had talked of being officially escorted for more than half the journey. Snow believed he handled the personal questioning as smoothly as he had everything else, disclosing nothing he did not think the authorities already knew and had on record about him. Li expertly extracted the information by comparison, offering facts about himself to get responses from Snow, and although the priest was not sure Li would ever become someone of sufficient importance he mentally created a matching file on the Chinese, in the event of his emerging at any level in the Gong An Ju security service, to which he was convinced the man aspired if he was not an already overly enthusiastic member.

It transpired that they were the same age. Li volunteered an education at Shanghai University, identifying himself as the only son of parents who dutifully obeyed the government edict on the correct size of the family unit. Snow ignored the invitation to criticize the penalty-enforced method of Chinese birth-control, saying that he, too, was an only child. He avoided disclosing that his now dead father had been a general whose career culminated as NATO second-in-command of land-based forces in Europe, knowing that would elevate the importance of whatever information Li was gathering upon him. Li said he was married, with a son of three: it would, of course, be the only child he and his wife would consider having. When Snow said priests in his Order did not marry, the Chinese nodded and remarked that celibacy was a Buddhist tenet as well. It was after that particular exchange that Li made one of his other attempts to get an ill-considered response from Snow about the future of Chinese communism. Snow completed his file on the other man by manipulating a typical vacation photograph session, posing the escort in three different settings in Anqing, around the middle of the tour. Li responded at once, producing from a rucksack a camera of which Snow had, until that moment, been unaware. The Chinese seemed to have a problem getting someone of Snow’s height into the frame, bending and twisting for a final elevation.

Snow had given the authorities in Beijing a vacation as the reason for his travelling throughout the country, and although it would also have been listed on the paperwork held by Li the Chinese still asked, in more than one way and on more than one occasion, why Snow was making such an extensive tour. Snow said that he saw it as essential to his teaching work in China to travel as widely as possible, to increase his understanding and perfect his command of the language. It was the cue for another entrapment attempt. Li asked openly – his first crude demand – if Snow saw his work as converting people to his faith. Snow insisted he did not live and work in China to practise as a priest but as a teacher of English. His faith was his own: he did not seek to preach it to others. What did he do if someone asked about his religion? Explain it. To convert? To reply to a question. How many people had asked for an explanation during his current journey? None. Was he disappointed? He felt nothing to be disappointed about: the purpose of his journey was to see and better understand the country and this he was doing. He was not a practising priest. Li industriously cleaned his spectacles, a gesture which over the course of several days Snow had come to recognize as a mark of frustration at having failed in whatever he was trying to achieve.

And Snow won, succeeding – although not to the degree of detail he would have wanted, such as developing another source like Zhang Su Lin – in his information-gathering mission. He had not expected to, in the first two days of their meeting in Zhengzhou. During those early days he had, in fact, been despondent at the control he was now under, refusing to weigh the undeniable successes before he’d met Li against the futility of achieving anything worthwhile afterwards.

And then he realized Li would identify for him anything he wanted to isolate as officially restricted, in any of the closed areas through which they moved.

All he had to do was ask.

If Li agreed, then where Snow wanted to go did not have anything the authorities wanted to keep hidden. If Li refused, it was a specifically designated high-security area, the best possible map coordinates of which were memorized or actually written down, in confused or apparently meaningless fashion, in the journal Snow was officially keeping of his travels, to be passed on to Walter Foster on his return to Beijing, possibly for some satellite aerial reconnaissance if the information was considered sufficiently interesting to be pursued further.

It was nevertheless exhausting, particularly with a companion who never relaxed the intrusive personal interrogation or the ambiguous, incriminating-reply questions. Snow visited copy-book communes epitomizing the Beijing government’s successful marriage of communism to the private enterprise system which gave the country its economic strength, visits which Snow judged not to be an entire waste of time, hopeful of their being of some interest in London. He visited another private enterprise pottery and three agricultural centres boasting self-sufficient rice harvest for a vast area. He politely admired two bicycle manufacturing plants, and was properly respectful in four Buddhist temples the only occupants of which, besides themselves, were monks who seemed surprised to see any visitors, one mosque and an archeological site which Li claimed to be the remains of one of the first Confusian meditation centres in China. Somone had chipped ‘J.W. Iowa. 1987’ in one of the larger stones. Snow wondered how the graffiti carver had been able to finish his meaningless memorial before being arrested.

But at the same time Snow collected his information from the unsuspecting official escort.

There was an area to the south-east of Wuhan, in the direction of Echeng, that Li said was impossible to visit, using a hastily concocted excuse of transport difficulties. The man went to extraordinary trouble ensuring they took a night train to Tongling, from which Snow inferred there to be something of interest that could be seen from the line: the first hour of the journey was in fading daylight, narrowing the location, and Li became agitated near Huangmei, as they were passing what appeared to be a large factory complex brightly illuminated by its own lights. At Tongling Snow suggested a Sunday cruise on the Yangtze. Li was adament they take a boat northwards down the river. From the timetable Snow calculated the southerly boats sailed for a total of two hours, before returning, from which he estimated whatever it was Li did not want him to see was between Tongling and Huaining. Shanghai, where Snow planned to remain for three days, was not officially restricted and he was initially intrigued that Li did not leave him there. On their first full day Li pressed for a trip inland, which Snow refused. In the afternoon, on a walk along the Bund, the historic road bordering the Huanpu River, Snow counted a flotilla of warships, three with what appeared to be extremely sophisticated radar and electronic equipment visible on their superstructures. Snow managed four photographs. Again he was matched by the rapidly snapping Li.

Throughout the trip Li had steadfastly insisted upon a precise division of every expenditure, but on their last night together Snow demanded to be the host for dinner. As always, Li sat them at a table that could only be occupied by two.

‘It has been a successful tour?’ asked Li.

‘Extremely interesting.’ Snow was curious at the report the man would submit. He had little doubt by now that Li was a member of the Public Security Bureau: if he was, he had to be one of their best informers. The closeness with which his movements had been monitored was something he should also report upon, to Foster, although he was personally sure he had avoided all suspicion. He’d try to make contact with the embassy man as soon as he got back: he was excited by what he had to pass on. ‘You are returning to Beijing?’

‘I am meeting a party of American tourists here in Shanghai. They are going south, as far as Tunxi.’

The reason for Li remaining with him, accepted Snow. Quickly he realized a possible benefit. ‘So many rail journeys,’ he suggested, hopefully.

‘We are travelling by car,’ disclosed Li.

Something else to pass on. Car hire was only possible for foreign visitors in China with a driver and a guide to determine the route. What was there on the road to Tunxi that had to be avoided? ‘You must miss your family?’

‘I will see them again in ten days.’

Snow determined to put the limit into his account as well: the driving time to Tunxi could be estimated, so the length of any detour might be possible to calculate. ‘Perhaps we will meet again, if I make another vacation tour?’

‘You intend travelling again?’ demanded Li, alertly.

Snow regretted the careless remark. ‘I am always anxious to extend my understanding of China.’

‘You see your life being here?’

It was a personally intriguing question, conceded Snow. China was his first posting and he hadn’t ever imagined another. Father Robertson had to be in his sixties and should be withdrawn, although Snow suspected the old man wanted to die in the country in which he had served all his life. ‘I will remain as long as I think I can help China,’ said Snow.

‘Are you happy here?’

Another intriguing question. Snow did not honestly know if he was happy or not: spiritually he was content, but to himself he admitted there was still sometimes a tug of apprehension about his other activities. ‘Very much so.’

‘Isn’t the philosophy of China in direct contradiction to your beliefs?’

Persistently trying until the very end, thought Snow. ‘My beliefs sustain me, as yours sustain you. I do not make a comparison. My vocation here now is as a teacher, as I have already made clear.’

‘I detect some satisfaction in your attitude at the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union?’

This was verging upon desperation, decided Snow. And was pleased: it had to confirm that he had not committed any indiscretion with which Li felt he could colour his report. ‘Then I have expressed myself wrongly. I have no satisfaction about that. The population of the Soviet Union have chosen a different method of government. That is their decision.’

‘No opinion at all of your own?’

‘My opinion is that people are free to make their own choice on how and under what authority they choose to live.’

‘Some counter-revolutionaries claim the people of China are not free to choose how they live.’

Snow decided he could be straying into a conversational minefield if he allowed himself to become ensnared in such a direct debate. ‘Do they?’ he said. And stopped.

Li stared across the restaurant table, waiting for Snow to continue. The priest busied himself with his rice bowl and when that was empty made much of refilling his teacup. Li had refused wine.

‘Do you?’ pressed Li, finally.

‘Do I what?’ questioned Snow, not finding it difficult to convey the false misunderstanding.

‘Consider that the population of China is not free to choose how it lives?’

Snow fixed the frown. ‘To believe such a thing would surely make me a counter-revolutionary! Which we both know I am not.’ For the first time, in any of their fencing conversations, Snow thought he detected an angry tightening of the other man’s face. The spectacles came off once again, for a disgruntled polish.

‘From someone trained as a priest I would have expected judgements.’

‘A priest who is now a teacher.’

‘Have you abandoned your God?’

‘Of course not. It is not my function here to be a priest.’

‘You live in the temple of your faith.’

‘Church,’ corrected Snow. ‘By the instructions of the Chinese government, who wish us to act as caretakers. It is no longer used for religious purposes.’

‘I would be interested to see your temple.’

Suspecting a reason for Li’s remark, Snow said: ‘I do not, of course, conduct my classes in the church. They’re in a quite separate building.’

‘Do you pray with your class?’ demanded the man, confirming Snow’s suspicion.

‘Never,’ replied Snow. ‘They only come to learn English.’ There had only ever been one Zhang Su Lin.

‘No one has ever asked about your religion, knowing you are a priest? Able to see you live in a temple, like other priests do?’

If he answered honestly – that some had – Snow guessed he would be asked their names, if not now then later in Beijing. ‘Never,’ he insisted, strong-voiced.

Li regarded him with open disbelief. ‘Maybe I will come one day.’

Snow answered the look, unflinchingly. Father Robertson would regard any visit as hostile interest from the authorities – which it might well be – and be thrown into panic. With no alternative, Snow repeated: ‘You will be very welcome.’

‘So we will probably meet again,’ said Li, increasing Snow’s discomfort.

‘It would be my pleasure,’ lied the priest.

Natalia finally gave way to her conscience, which she’d always known she would, and when she made the decision she became irritated at herself for needlessly delaying it. With so much authority at her unquestioned disposal, it only took two days to discover Eduard’s complete military record. After Baku – the last posting she had known about – her son had served briefly in Latvia and after that had been assigned to East Germany. It was there he had been promoted to lieutenant. His had been one of the last units to be withdrawn, after the reunification of Germany. His final posting, before the premature discharge brought about by the reduction in the armed forces, had been in Novomoskovsk. Eduard’s record listed one commendation and four convictions for drunkenness. His character was assessed as superior, an average classification. His Moscow address was given as the Mytninskaya apartment Natalia no longer occupied. The new occupants had been there for over a year: no one resembling Eduard whose photograph they were shown, had come there during that time believing it to be her home.

Natalia got up from her desk after receiving the report of the Mytninskaya enquiry, going to the window to gaze out in the direction of the city, wondering where her lost son was now. She’d tried, Natalia told herself. But Eduard hadn’t made any attempt to find her. So there was nothing more she could do. Or wanted to do. About Eduard at least.

How difficult would it be to find someone else: someone she wanted to see more than anyone else in the world?