particularly since the man of the house, named Djang, was
a local official in the China Bank with much to lose. The face of the infamous
counterrevolutionary, Li Kwan, was very well known, after all, despite the
bullhorn he’d been holding to his mouth when that news photo was taken. So
Djang it was who worked out Kwan’s next escape route, and drove him to the
rendezvous in his private car, a perk of his job at the bank.
This time, Kwan saw Hong Kong at night, across a mile of black water, the
city a frozen firework never quite sinking into the sea. cc The boat
will be down there,” Djang said, braking to a stop along the narrow dark road,
they the only traffic, the rocky weedy brush-dotted slope leading down on the
right side of the car to the water’s edge.
They both got out onto the
packed-stone road, looking around in the darkness of the night, afraid of
patrols: by land, by sea, by air. They scrambled together down the steep slope,
holding to the tough shrubbery for balance, then made their way crabwise along
the water’s edge.
The boat was there, as promised, old
and battered but watertight, with the oars hidden under brush nearby. Kwan and
Djang shook hands formally, bowed, and separated, Djang to return to the
relative safety of his normal life, Kwan to begin the final leg of his trip,
across the water to Hong
Kong .
Steadily he rowed through the dark,
and every time he looked over his shoulder, the city was still there, a million
white lights painted on the black velvet of the ocean’s night. And every time
he pulled on the oars, facing the stern of the boat, the deeper and more
dangerous darkness of China was also still there.
Kwan’s enemy then had been the army,
and the old guard, and two thousand years of unquestioning obedience. His enemy
now traveled under the name “normalization,” and that was why Kwan had to come
out of hiding, had to cross the city in the full hot light of day to meet with
the reporter from America. Normalization meant that Japanese aid to China was in place as before, that American
businessmen had gone back to China to “protect their investments,” that
politicians all over the world were prepared once again to raise delicate small
bowls of rice wine to toast the ancient murderers. Normalization meant that a
little time had gone by, a year or two, and it was enough for memories to
bleach away. Normalization meant that it was possible after just this little
time to forget a tank driving
ponderously over a dozen unarmed human beings. And finally, normalization meant
that last year’s hero of Tiananmen Square was this year’s fugitive, hiding from the Hong Kong police.
Kwan locked the bicycle to a lamp
standard a block from the hotel, and as he walked he checked his appearance in
the tourist shop windows along the way. Small and slender, looking younger than
his twenty-six years, with prominent round cheekbones that he’d always thought
detracted from his looks (and which made him distinctive, a litde too
distinctive, even among a billion), he was dressed neady in pale shirt and
chinos, and still walked with an optimistic bounce, forward-moving, like waves
on a shore.
There was no obvious police presence
around the hotel; good. The fact is, Hong Kong was a decent city full of decent people, with a government as decent as most;
but Hong Kong had to bear in mind 1997, just around the
corner. In 1997 the British lease would end, and Hong Kong would revert to the authority and control
of the mainland Chinese government. The quickly receding events in Tiananmen Square were to be deplored, but for the
politicians reality had to be faced. (Some reality, of course, had to be faced
rather more squarely than other reality: 1997, for instance, was relatively
easy to face. The image of the tanks on top of the bodies of the
a local official in the China Bank with much to lose. The face of the infamous
counterrevolutionary, Li Kwan, was very well known, after all, despite the
bullhorn he’d been holding to his mouth when that news photo was taken. So
Djang it was who worked out Kwan’s next escape route, and drove him to the
rendezvous in his private car, a perk of his job at the bank.
This time, Kwan saw Hong Kong at night, across a mile of black water, the
city a frozen firework never quite sinking into the sea. cc The boat
will be down there,” Djang said, braking to a stop along the narrow dark road,
they the only traffic, the rocky weedy brush-dotted slope leading down on the
right side of the car to the water’s edge.
They both got out onto the
packed-stone road, looking around in the darkness of the night, afraid of
patrols: by land, by sea, by air. They scrambled together down the steep slope,
holding to the tough shrubbery for balance, then made their way crabwise along
the water’s edge.
The boat was there, as promised, old
and battered but watertight, with the oars hidden under brush nearby. Kwan and
Djang shook hands formally, bowed, and separated, Djang to return to the
relative safety of his normal life, Kwan to begin the final leg of his trip,
across the water to Hong
Kong .
Steadily he rowed through the dark,
and every time he looked over his shoulder, the city was still there, a million
white lights painted on the black velvet of the ocean’s night. And every time
he pulled on the oars, facing the stern of the boat, the deeper and more
dangerous darkness of China was also still there.
Kwan’s enemy then had been the army,
and the old guard, and two thousand years of unquestioning obedience. His enemy
now traveled under the name “normalization,” and that was why Kwan had to come
out of hiding, had to cross the city in the full hot light of day to meet with
the reporter from America. Normalization meant that Japanese aid to China was in place as before, that American
businessmen had gone back to China to “protect their investments,” that
politicians all over the world were prepared once again to raise delicate small
bowls of rice wine to toast the ancient murderers. Normalization meant that a
little time had gone by, a year or two, and it was enough for memories to
bleach away. Normalization meant that it was possible after just this little
time to forget a tank driving
ponderously over a dozen unarmed human beings. And finally, normalization meant
that last year’s hero of Tiananmen Square was this year’s fugitive, hiding from the Hong Kong police.
Kwan locked the bicycle to a lamp
standard a block from the hotel, and as he walked he checked his appearance in
the tourist shop windows along the way. Small and slender, looking younger than
his twenty-six years, with prominent round cheekbones that he’d always thought
detracted from his looks (and which made him distinctive, a litde too
distinctive, even among a billion), he was dressed neady in pale shirt and
chinos, and still walked with an optimistic bounce, forward-moving, like waves
on a shore.
There was no obvious police presence
around the hotel; good. The fact is, Hong Kong was a decent city full of decent people, with a government as decent as most;
but Hong Kong had to bear in mind 1997, just around the
corner. In 1997 the British lease would end, and Hong Kong would revert to the authority and control
of the mainland Chinese government. The quickly receding events in Tiananmen Square were to be deplored, but for the
politicians reality had to be faced. (Some reality, of course, had to be faced
rather more squarely than other reality: 1997, for instance, was relatively
easy to face. The image of the tanks on top of the bodies of the
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