In the dark, p.19
In the Dark, page 19
Comrade Chen’s word of warning startled everyone, and we all looked at each other, including Huang Yiyi; and then in the end all eyes turned to me, waiting for me to make the final decision. You know, right at that moment I found it very difficult to know what to do. It was a massive exercise which would involve an awful lot of time and effort, and what happened if the premise it was based on was wrong? That would be a disaster! But then I thought about it from another point of view: breaking a cipher is like looking for a needle in a haystack, so what is the chance of getting it right first time? But if you don’t go into the tiger’s den you can’t capture its cubs; if you don’t carry out the exercise how do you know whether the premise is wrong or not? So I was silent for a bit and then resolutely made my decision: ‘If you are right, we have made a massive step forward in cracking RECOVERY. For that, a month is worth it!’
You can guess how we spent the next month. Everyone in our special working group was entirely caught up in the work of the calculations division, and although they came into work they couldn’t concentrate on anything. It was as if they were in a trance: the only thing they could think about was the exercise going on in the Calculations Office; their ears were filled with the sound of moving abacus beads, like the swish of nuts being swirled across a roasting pan. During this time, even I who am normally so serious and calm found myself becoming increasingly restless; in the course of a single day I would go many times to stare out of the window in the direction of the quiet single-storey building housing the team working on the calculations – just like a shipwrecked sailor on a desert island, scanning the horizon for the ship that would rescue him.
Of course, Huang Yiyi suffered the worst. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, she kept running round to the Calculations Office to look at their results. She was so nervous that she almost stopped laughing, and when I cracked a joke with her, she hardly reacted. She just lifted the corners of her mouth, like a sleepwalker whose soul is far away. I saw that she was getting thinner day by day, and I found myself feeling a kind of wordless sympathy for her. One day, as I was going upstairs with her, I don’t know exactly what happened but her foot seemed to give way under her and she fell down the stairs. I helped her up and took her to my office, telling her that she ought to relax; this exercise wasn’t that important. She saw that I had tears in my eyes, but nevertheless she shouted at me as though she was trying to pick a quarrel. ‘How can I not take it seriously? This is the first time I have suggested a premise for cracking RECOVERY since my arrival at Unit 701. If Comrade Chen is right, everyone is going to laugh at me!’
That was the very first time I felt like taking her in my arms and hugging her tight. Of course I immediately realized that was a really bad idea; and my emotions were under iron control, thanks to my love for Xiaoyu and my long experience as a secret agent. At all times and in all places my self-control protected me. I knew that nothing in this world is perfect, and we had to accept pain and suffering.
On day twenty-nine, the exercise reached its final conclusion. Everyone in the special working group rushed to the Calculations Office, to wait for the final result. On the dais in the office, the data was piled up in heaps two or three feet high, but there were still a couple of people there reciting numbers without stopping, like the traders at a stock market: ‘1234567890. 0187654329. 2345678901.’
When all the data had come in, Comrade Jiang, the cynosure of everybody’s eyes, sat down in front of a large abacus and prepared to make the final calculations. Huang Yiyi and I were both unbearably nervous. Everyone had their eyes fixed on Comrade Jiang’s fingers, and watched unblinkingly as his hands flew across the abacus. There was not a single sound to be heard in the whole of the vast Calculations Office, just the click of the beads on his abacus. The sound was tiny, but it thudded in our minds like the blows of an axe.
In the end, his fingers seemed to receive an electric shock. They convulsed and then hung in the air unmoving – but beneath his rigid fingers there were still several beads up by the central bar! That meant that the result of this calculation was an infinite number: we could never work it out. Or to put it another way, it meant that Huang Yiyi was wrong!
Comrade Jiang was appalled and just stood there, not daring to report.
A dead silence reigned in the Calculations Office, but there was a tension in the air that could explode at any moment.
Huang Yiyi lost control of herself and shrieked, ‘It’s not possible! You must have made a mistake!’
I pulled myself together and went over to comfort her. She suddenly seemed to go mad and got up, grabbed hold of an abacus, and then threw it violently to the floor, before bursting into tears and running out of the Calculations Office.
The beads of the abacus scattered across the ground, bouncing and rolling around our feet.
That was how an amazing theory and an enormous effort ended in failure.
That evening I went to Huang Yiyi’s room for a second time. I was intending to try and cheer her up, but she seemed to have done that herself, and so she was comparatively calm. I found her lying on the sofa reading a foreign fashion magazine. When she saw me come in, she sat up and said shamefacedly, ‘I’m sorry. I … behaved really badly.’
‘It doesn’t matter: everyone understands how you feel. If you hadn’t smashed the abacus, quite possibly I would have done.’
When I said that, she became very cheerful and said, ‘Really? I was afraid you’d be angry because I made you look bad.’
‘The person who made us look bad is Sivincy.’
She ground her teeth and swore. ‘That witch! I thought this time I’d got her, but we’ve come away empty-handed.’
‘I wasn’t expecting it, either. I really thought you’d pull it off.’
‘And that’s why you made such a big decision, roping everyone else in to help me out. And now I’m a laughing stock.’
‘No one is laughing at you. This is cracking ciphers, not spreading nets to catch fish. This was an unusually large exercise and our comrades all worked extra hard on it, and so you might expect that they are extremely disappointed it didn’t work out. But they all understand what you are going through, because they get to see Jiang Nan wandering around outside their windows every day. They see him every day, they think about it every day – that even though cracking ciphers is an intangible achievement, it can make you pay a truly terrible price.’
She was deeply moved. ‘I don’t know what to say … that’s terribly kind of you. Thank you.’
I smiled. ‘Thank you for your praise: it is a great compliment.’
She said seriously, ‘It’s true: I have a lot of respect for you. You don’t seem to mind when things go wrong. I simply am not like that – I can’t do it.’
I tried to cheer her up. ‘You mustn’t let this get you down. This isn’t a failure, this is just one of those setbacks that any cryptographer has to face. Cracking a cipher isn’t like doing a crossword, where a moment of inspiration gets you the answer.’
Her eyes sparkled and she put her hand down lightly on my shoulder. ‘I understand. Don’t worry, this won’t get me down. Before leaving Beijing I went off to bow to the statue of the god of mathematics, Zu Chongzhi, and made a wish. I believe that the gods will protect us.’
I took her hand with the intention of getting it off my shoulder, but she grabbed hold of me and said seriously, ‘Zaitian, I know that you don’t dare to love me, and so I have been doing my best to forget you, to move on, but it’s not working. What am I supposed to do?’
I quickly whipped my hand out of her grasp and got up to go. She didn’t try and stop me, just asked me to sit with her for a little longer. I was worried that she was up to her old tricks, and insisted on leaving. She was clearly upset but still walked me to the door, turning expectant eyes upon me. She clearly wanted to talk to me and was holding herself back painfully, which made me feel profoundly uncomfortable. I sensed that if I stayed there any longer I might no longer be able to resist her, so I was even more determined to leave. On the road home, I couldn’t stop myself from thinking of something that Anderov once said to me: ‘Until you have cracked a cipher, only an idiot would be sure that he can do it. This isn’t a plot of land and a cipher isn’t a potato, from which if you plant it and look after it carefully you can be guaranteed a harvest.’ Involuntarily I found myself becoming more and more depressed by the horrible nature of cryptographic work, and I didn’t sleep the whole night.
18
Late one evening a few days later, just as I was getting ready to have a wash, I suddenly heard a knock on the door. I went to open it somewhat suspiciously, and it was Huang Yiyi who was standing there. I was more than a little surprised. ‘It’s really late, why aren’t you at home? Is something up?’
She stared at me but didn’t speak. I saw that her hair was in a mess, and she didn’t look at all well – in the yellowish lamplight she looked as white as a sheet, as if there really was something wrong with her. I was worried that she might be getting ill, so I quickly told her to come in, and asked, ‘Are you OK? You really don’t look well – are you coming down with something?’
She suddenly seemed to become completely boneless as she pitched forward against my chest silently, her eyes closed, as if she had fainted. I got her down into a chair, called to her, felt her forehead, and rushed around in a panic not knowing what to do for the best. I had just decided to put her down and phone for help when she suddenly opened her eyes, shook her head, and said, ‘I’m fine, don’t bother phoning anyone.’ Then she looked at me silently, lovingly.
‘You just fainted,’ I said. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
She nodded as if she were at the very end of her resources. ‘I’m tired … I am so very, very tired … Between you, you … and RECOVERY … have worn me out …’ As she spoke, she took hold of my hand.
I tried to remove my hand from her grasp. ‘What’s wrong with you?’
She held tight to my hand, staring fixedly at me, and then after a long pause she said, ‘Zaitian, you must believe me, we need God’s help. Do you remember that before leaving Beijing, I went to pray in front of the statue of Zu Chongzhi?’
‘Of course I remember.’
She said in a sad and despairing voice, ‘But how can someone like me, unwanted by men, possibly be loved by God? Zaitian, do you really think that I can crack RECOVERY like this?’
I had a feeling that we might be working round to that old tune, so while I was trying to get her to let go of my hand, I said with a laugh, ‘What are you talking about? I, more than anyone, am sure that you can crack RECOVERY.’
She simply wouldn’t let go of my hand. ‘Love me, Zaitian. I need your help, and God knows I love you … If God sees you don’t love me, then how can He love me? Really, Zaitian, this time … this failure … Zaitian, help me – for you to love me would be the biggest help …’
‘Yiyi, how can you … what are you saying … ?’
‘Otherwise we can’t crack RECOVERY …’
I cut her short. ‘You’re wrong!’ I wrested my hand free and stood well back, looking for all the world like a recaptured prisoner, begging to be forgiven. ‘Yiyi, please don’t do this to me.’
She ran after me and grabbed hold of me. ‘Why don’t you love me? Zaitian, I love you, I really love you … and I know you love me …’
I was absolutely furious, and looked across at the casket of Xiaoyu’s ashes standing on the altar. Then I dragged her to the door and pointed at it: ‘Out! Just get out!’
She was completely at a loss. ‘Zaitian, I don’t know what to say …’
‘Don’t say anything. Out!’
‘I’m not leaving.’ She threw herself against me. ‘Zaitian, love me, hold me …’
I flung her aside and took a step back. ‘Don’t come any closer … just go away …’
She stood there, and there was both bitterness and anger in her wet eyes. ‘Zaitian, I really don’t know what to say … I know I shouldn’t be here now demanding your love … I should wait until we’ve cracked RECOVERY … but, Zaitian, this failure was a terrible setback for me. God isn’t helping me, God isn’t on my side … I ask myself all the time, why? Why isn’t God helping me? And it’s because I haven’t made you love me … Someone who isn’t loved by a man can’t hope to be loved by God … Zaitian, believe me, I love you, I need your love …’
I walked round to stand in front of Xiaoyu’s altar and pointed at the casket containing her ashes. ‘Huang Yiyi, please show a bit of respect for me, and don’t ever again mention love in front of my wife. You have no right to love me: I’m married!’
‘But Xiaoyu’s gone, and I’m sure … she’d understand.’
‘To you, maybe Xiaoyu is dead, but to me she’s going to live for ever. Go away, and in future show me a bit more respect.’
‘But you don’t respect me … Zaitian, hold me, I need you, I love you, please …’
I couldn’t stand it any more and shouted, ‘Stop that! I don’t love you and I never will! You have no right to love me, so will you please leave! Get out of here!’
She sat down on the sofa. ‘No.’
‘If you won’t leave then I’ll go!’ I started marching towards the door, and when I got there, I couldn’t stop myself from turning back to say, ‘Don’t you think you’re behaving really disgustingly? How can you say you love me?’
She looked at me, and then collapsed back against the sofa.
That evening Huang Yiyi sat in my room for over an hour, and then slowly and hesitantly she walked away. She didn’t look to left or right, but just walked straight ahead like a sleepwalker. Once I had seen her disappear into her own building, I went quietly home.
There was a note on the tea table, just a single line: ‘An Zaitian, I hate you!’
I quickly struck a match, and having turned my back to Xiaoyu’s altar, I burned the note.
The following morning I went to the canteen for breakfast, but though I waited a long time, I didn’t see Huang Yiyi. I started to get worried. I kept looking around in all directions, and just then Comrade Wang, the head of the training centre, came over to me and asked, ‘Hey, what was wrong with your new mathematician last night?’
I was surprised to suddenly be asked such a question by someone from the training centre, which stands a long way away from our cryptography division, so I replied somewhat coldly, ‘What do you mean?’
Wang said that the night before, just as he was on his way home from the guest house through the lashing rain at about two o’clock in the morning, he had seen Huang Yiyi wandering around looking like a lost soul, soaked to the skin, and she had refused to go home whatever he said.
I knew exactly what was the matter, so I got my food and started gulping it down. My idea was to eat up and then go and find Comrade Zha to see if Huang Yiyi was OK. I wasn’t expecting that Comrade Wang would get his breakfast and then come and sit down next to me, looking inquisitive. I had no idea that later on this same man would cause such terrible trouble in our efforts to break RECOVERY, nearly destroying both Huang Yiyi and myself! If I had had the slightest premonition, I would have ordered him to leave the table. But I had no inkling of the future, and there was no way for me to know what was in store. However, I had always hated outsiders trying to find out what was going on in my division, particularly anything to do with Huang Yiyi, and the moment anyone started in on it, I got cross. So when Wang was getting ready to ask his questions, I looked as unhelpful as possible, shovelled in a few more mouthfuls and left.
I went to her office, but I didn’t find Huang Yiyi. I asked little Comrade Zha, who was cleaning up the place, and she said Huang Yiyi hadn’t come to work. An hour later I went back and asked again, and Comrade Zha said she still hadn’t come in.
I got angry and criticized her. ‘You’re supposed to be her assistant, don’t you care that she hasn’t come to work? Go to her home and get her.’
Comrade Zha said in a put-upon tone: ‘I’ve already been and there’s nobody there. I have no idea where she’s gone.’
I stood there for a moment, and then a horrible thought suddenly crossed my mind. I was scared practically witless, and ran to find her with Comrade Zha at my heels. We went to her room first, banging hard on the door, shouting and calling to her, but there was no response from inside. But I could sense that she was in there. I went round to the neighbours’ to rustle up some strong young men, and they broke the door down. We found Huang Yiyi lying unconscious on her bed, running a high temperature. We immediately phoned the hospital, telling them to send an ambulance, and they took her off to hospital.
They gave her a check-up and discovered that there was nothing much wrong with her other than a really bad cold. I could relax.
19
Young man, it’s getting late, let’s carry on tomorrow.
You know, time lets you forget many things, but there are some that you remember all your life. What I need to tell you now is something I have tried hard to forget, but have never been able to …
20
I think I have already mentioned that as a young man I had three serious girlfriends, but that none of these relationships worked out, so that in the end the Party had to help me find a wife. To tell you the truth, I didn’t have much experience with women, and particularly not a relentless nagger like Huang Yiyi. I really didn’t know what to do. I did have one weapon though, and that was stubbornness. During the course of my life there have been a number of successes that I owe to stubbornness and determination, and I believed that I could use these qualities to sort out the problems I had with Huang Yiyi. I thought I could resolve the situation so that no one got hurt and the country benefited.
Looking back now, you could say that was a terrible mistake. Or maybe it wasn’t a mistake, but at the very least it didn’t work out the way I wanted. But at that time and in that situation, did I have any choice but to make that mistake? I had no choice! This seems like a paradox. But then decrypting ciphers is a paradox, and there were many people in Unit 701 who had to live with that. I don’t know if that is impressive, or tragic.
