Sitting down, he said, ‘It should have been me going to meet you, because after all I am the one who requested to see you. But, as you can see, I don’t get around as easily as I used to, so I asked you to come here.’
I replied, ‘If I am right, you must be the man who went to recruit Rong Jinzhen at N University: Mr Zheng.’
He gave a roar of laughter. Pointing his cane at his lame foot, he said, ‘That’s what gave me away, isn’t it? You reporters are not all the same, eh? Ah, not bad, not bad. I am indeed that man, so now may I ask who you might be?’
I thought to myself: surely you’ve seen my credentials? Do you still need to ask? But out of respect for him, I quickly introduced myself.
After listening to my introduction, he waved a number of photocopied pages in front of me, saying, ‘How is it that you came to know of this?’
What he was waving about was a copy of my notebook!
I couldn’t help but ask, ‘I know I did not give my consent, so how is it that you copied my notebook without permission?’
‘Please don’t take offence; we really had no other option. There were five people who each felt a need to examine your notebook and if we were to pass it along to each in turn, I’m afraid it would’ve taken much more time before we could have returned it to you. Now, everything is fine, all the interested parties have read it and there are no issues — you could say that your notebook touches on nothing which counts as classified information and so we have returned it to you. If that had not been the case, well, it would have remained with me.’ He laughed a moment and then continued, ‘I do have one question that has plagued me since last night. How is it that you came to know of this? Please, comrade reporter, could you enlighten me?’
In the simplest manner possible, I related to him my first-hand experience at the Lingshan nursing home.
He listened, smiled knowingly, and said, ‘Oh, so that’s it. You are the child of someone in our organization.’
‘That’s not possible,’ I replied, ‘My father was a mechanical engineer.’
‘How can that be? Tell me, who is your father? Perhaps I know him.’
I told him who my father was and then asked if he knew him.
‘No, I don’t,’ he replied.
‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘How could you know him? My father can’t have been a member of your organization.’
‘Ah, but each and every one of the patients in the Lingshan nursing home is one of ours,’ he said.
I was truly overwhelmed by this news. My father was close to death and now suddenly I didn’t even know who he was. It goes without saying that had Director Zheng not mentioned this by chance, I would never have known about my father’s true identity — just as Master Rong was kept in the dark about Rong Jinzhen. Now I could understand why my father had never shown my mother and I the love we needed — why my mother had wanted a divorce. It seemed as though she had treated him unjustly. But the problem wasn’t there. Rather, the problem lay in the fact that Father had accepted this unfair treatment rather than trying to defend himself. What can I say about that? Was it conviction, or inflexibility? Worthy of respect or a source of sorrow? I suddenly felt a terribly suffocating feeling welling up in my heart. It would not be until six months later, in conversation with Master Rong about these events, that I would finally come to feel that my father’s stoicism ought to be respected and not mourned.
Master Rong told me that to conceal the truth from those closest to you for a long time, even for a lifetime, is unfair. But if they didn’t maintain such secrecy, it is possible that our country might not even exist today, or at least it would be under threat of disaster. It’s unfair, but the fact is that it has to be that way.
That was how Master Rong allowed me to appreciate my father anew, to permit the love and respect I felt for him to grow.
Returning to our story: the fact that the Director was satisfied that my notebook didn’t reveal any secrets left me feeling pleased, especially since had it not, it wouldn’t have been mine any longer. But his second remark made me feel as though I had been pushed into the Cold Palace — *
He said: ‘I believe that more than half the details that you have learnt have been acquired through hearsay. This is quite regrettable.’
‘Do you mean to say the details aren’t accurate?’ I asked anxiously.
‘No,’ he shook his head, ‘what’s real is real, it’s just that. . hmm, how should I put it, I feel that you don’t really understand Rong Jinzhen. Yes, that’s it: your understanding is rather deficient.’
Having reached this point, he paused to light a cigarette. Taking a long drag, he seemed to be mulling things over; then he raised his head and intoned seriously: ‘Looking at your notebook, it is rather scattered and fragmentary, with more than half of it based purely on word of mouth. But it has evoked within me many memories of Rong Jinzhen. I understood him the most, or at least — out of all of us — I understood him the best. Would you be interested in hearing me speak of him?’
I was floored. This was simply too good to be true. I couldn’t have asked for better!
It was in this manner that my book received a new vitality.
I met with the Director many times while I was staying at Unit 701. My understanding and grasp of Rong Jinzhen’s history expanded immensely, providing me with the ‘Transcript of the interview with Director Zheng’ sections in the earlier chapters. Of course, his purpose was not solely to provide me with material for this work; that was not his real aim. Before I got to know Director Zheng, Rong Jinzhen was something of a mystery to me, a legend. But now, after having talked with Director Zheng, he had become real, unquestionably a part of history. What is more, the man primarily responsible for putting Rong Jinzhen on this path, for changing the course of his life, was none other than Director Zheng. Not only did he not mind sharing his reminiscences with me, but he also provided me with a long list of names of people who were also familiar with Rong Jinzhen and his past, even though quite a few of them had already died.
I have only a single regret concerning my time spent at Unit 701. All the while I was there I had repeatedly referred to him as Director. I never thought to ask him his name and even now I still do not know it. As a member of a secret organization, one’s name is, as a rule, of no value; it is usually hidden behind a serial number and one’s official designation. For Director Zheng, his position in history was thoroughly identifiable by his lame foot. But covering up one’s name doesn’t mean that the name disappears; it just means that it has been buried. I truly believe that had I asked him — in a professional capacity — what his name was, he would have told me, but I was too enthralled by the image he projected and so I forgot to ask. As a result, I’m still confused as to what to call him — the Gimp, Zheng the Gimp, Section Chief Zheng, the Crippled Director, Director Zheng, Sir, and so on. Most people from N University referred to him as the Gimp or as Section Chief Zheng. He usually referred to himself as the Crippled Director. I generally addressed him as Sir or Director Zheng.
* Translators’ note: The Cold Palace refers to the area within the Forbidden City to which members of the imperial family would be confined if they displeased the emperor.
3
Director Zheng told me the following –
His connection to Rong Jinzhen had begun with his maternal grandfather. In the second year after the Xinhai Revolution, his maternal grandfather had got to know Old Lillie at the theatre and the two had become quite friendly thereafter. Since Director Zheng had grown up in his maternal grandfather’s residence, he had come to know Old Lillie from a very early stage. Later on, when Old Lillie died, his maternal grandfather had taken him along to N University to attend the memorial service and so he had met Young Lillie. He was fourteen at the time, in his second year of middle school, and the beauty of the campus left a deep impression on him. Once he graduated from middle school, he took his school transcripts in hand and went off to see Young Lillie to request that he be allowed to enrol in the high school attached to N University. And that was that, as they say. While a pupil at the affiliated high school, his language teacher was a member of the Communist Party, who would later recruit him. Once the War of Resistance against Japan broke out, teacher and student left the school and made their way to Yan’an. This was the beginning of his long revolutionary career.