In the Dark, page 12
‘I don’t know how to dance,’ I said.
‘If you don’t know, I will teach you,’ she replied. She was determined to make me dance.
I was determined to refuse. I felt the whole thing was very peculiar: the idea of dancing with a strange woman in a coffee shop. I didn’t dare think about it, let alone actually do it! But Huang Yiyi seemed fixated on the idea, and when she saw that I was absolutely resolute, she went over to the foreigner and asked him to dance with her. I don’t know if she was thinking of getting back at me in some way. The foreigner stood up smartly and said thank you to me, as if I had given him something. Before they started dancing, Huang Yiyi went over to the owner of the coffee shop and said something to her in Russian; the owner laughed and came out from behind the counter to sit with me. Her Chinese was pretty good: other than an ugly accent, she could actually speak quite fluently. She asked me if I was Carmen’s boyfriend. I asked who Carmen was, and she pointed at Huang Yiyi. I said I thought she was called Huang Yiyi. She laughed and said that clearly I wasn’t Carmen’s boyfriend. Then she explained to me that Huang Yiyi was her name, but that Carmen was her nickname, and that everyone here called her that. I asked why they called her Carmen, and she said, ‘Don’t you think she is adorable? Just like Carmen.’
To tell the truth, at that time I didn’t know that Carmen was a character in a novel, but I could certainly judge whether she was adorable, and as to that the answer was: No! Not at all! How could you say she was adorable? Mad, more like! A lunatic!
Seeing the two of them circle me like a pair of disgusting flies, I felt really uncomfortable; and so pretty quickly I got up and left. I didn’t say goodbye.
The following morning I went to find Party Secretary Wang because I needed to look at the files on my three candidates. I happened to mention Huang Yiyi, and the Party secretary explained her situation. As he spoke, I could tell that he was very impressed by both her erudition and her capacity for original research. She was directing research on differential mathematics and mass differentials, one of two ongoing projects at the institute that had received much praise from the international mathematical community. On the other hand, he didn’t seem to be too pleased with her free-and-easy, independent character.
‘I think she’s a classic idiot savant. She’s obviously brilliant, but in some ways can hardly look after herself, because it seems she can’t control her own thoughts and actions. She’s always far too self-willed in what she says and does; far too unrestrained and independent. As a result she’s always getting into fights, and some people have criticized her for being too bourgeois.’ He looked at me and added, ‘But then, who on this earth is perfect? Everybody has some shortcomings. She did live for years in the States, so of course her way of thinking has been affected by that. We need to reform her, but we also need to understand her. I do understand her, and I keep trying to persuade her that when in Rome she has to do as the Romans do. Her real problem is that she can’t, or perhaps it would be fairer to say that she’s not very good at it. But I think that in the end she will learn to fit in.’
I was wondering why, if her work really was that good, he hadn’t recommended her. I asked him, and he laughed. ‘You’ve met her, and you think she’d do? As you said, the woman’s crazy!’
I thought, yes, how could we choose someone like her? Fundamentally she was just a clever bourgeois element.
As I left the Party secretary’s office I put Huang Yiyi to the back of my mind, but it wasn’t that easy. Her appearance, her voice, her words, her movements as she danced, came flying in front of my eyes like a persistent bluebottle. The thing is that the Party secretary’s praise had aroused my curiosity, particularly as I realized that someone like that in your work unit must cause a lot of headaches. I hadn’t expected him to say such nice things, which meant that her work must be absolutely brilliant. A crazy woman but an exceptional scholar: I thought she was awful but some people clearly liked her, like the woman running the coffee shop … She obviously wasn’t just wild with nothing else to recommend her, and should not be lightly dismissed. I thought that it would be interesting to see her again, but then I remembered that I had put her in an awkward position the night before (walking out without saying goodbye), and if I now went to find her, for all I knew she’d just make fun of me. And of course she wouldn’t be suitable for us – after all we were a special unit with particularly strict regulations, so only people whose behaviour and moral qualities were above question could work for us. Thinking like that, I finally let go of her.
I went back to the guest house with the candidates’ files, and when I entered my room, I saw two envelopes on the floor. I knew that these would be the answer papers. The previous day I had given the three of them a mathematical maze, and now according to how they had solved the problem – whether they were right or wrong, how quickly they had done it, and how complex their proof was – I would make the final decision about which of them would be employed. Two people had already turned in their finished papers, and I sat down to read their answers, and discovered that both of them were correct, which made me very happy. I had been thinking that if none of the three were able to turn in an answer in the set time, or if they were all wrong, I really wouldn’t know what to do for the best. As I saw from their workings, even though each of them had their own strong points, there wasn’t much in it from the point of view of complexity and sensitivity, and it would be very difficult to choose between them. That meant that given that I had to pick just one of them, it would all come down to the material in their dossiers. So I was getting ready to go through them with a fine-tooth comb, and then make my choice, when I heard someone knocking on my door. When I went to open it, I discovered that it was Huang Yiyi. She stood in the doorway looking at me with the same dreamy smile as yesterday.
‘Do you want something?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I’m not here to ask you to dance; don’t worry.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Can I come in before I tell you?’ Without waiting for my reply, she marched in and said, ‘I’m here for the test. You are going to let me take it, aren’t you?’
‘What test?’ I pretended not to know anything about it.
‘Aren’t you here to find someone special?’ She opened her eyes really wide.
‘Yes.’ I didn’t want to talk to her any more; I just wanted to get rid of her. ‘But we’ve found the person we want, so it’s over.’
‘You mean I’m too late?’
‘Yes.’
‘You still haven’t told me your name, so that I can get to know you.’
‘My name is An Zaitian.’
‘And what work unit do you belong to, Comrade An?’
‘The same as you: a research institute.’
‘And what kind of work are you expecting the person you are looking for to do?’
I didn’t want to go into details, so I just said: ‘The work of a mathematician and good citizen.’
‘Mr An, can you please try to be a bit less sour?’
‘Don’t call me Mister. We’re comrades.’
‘I can tell you for free, you’re still being sour.’ Then she burst out laughing. A breath of wind through the window blew away the top page of the test paper lying on the tea table, exposing the question. Huang Yiyi was clearly transfixed by the equations set out there, and glancing at me she asked, ‘Is this what you’re working on?’
‘No, it’s for the person I’m here to find to work out.’
‘So that’s the test?’
‘Yes.’
‘Can I look?’
Before I had even agreed, she had picked it up and started reading.
I smiled coldly. ‘Laughing and joking won’t help you with this one …’
She didn’t pay any attention to me; it was as if she were quite alone. She was muttering to herself: ‘It’s a mathematical puzzle … someone’s gone to a lot of trouble to make this look complicated … whoever came up with this is not entirely psychologically normal …’ She seemed almost to be sleepwalking, and then she suddenly sat down, her lips moving silently. She seemed half awake and half dreaming. I had been startled by the sudden change: one moment she was laughing, the next she was in a world of her own, but without any obvious transition. It was as if there was a switch somewhere, which allowed her to change personality at will.
After a short time spent in a daze, she suddenly came to herself again, and raising her head she said, ‘I can solve this equation, but it’s going to take a bit of time. Can I take it away with me, or do you want me to work here?’ I told her she could take it away, and found another copy of the question paper to give her. She picked it up and walked out, still somewhat disorientated. She seemed to be a completely different person from the one who had first entered my room.
I showed her out and, struck by her dazed look, I felt like a sleepwalker myself.
8
I was sleepwalking.
About half an hour later I heard the sound of her footsteps in the corridor, coming towards my room. The footsteps stopped when they got to my door, but there was no sound of knocking. Instead I saw that something was being pushed under the door. When I picked it up, I saw it was an answer paper, and a note. At the top of the note she had drawn a really cute cartoon of me instead of addressing me directly, and below she had written:
I got out of the first maze in twenty-seven minutes, and I am sure I got full marks. I have had a quick look at your second maze and I am sure that given time, I can find my way out of that one as well. However right now I don’t have time, I have to go and teach a class. From my knowledge of my colleagues, Xie Xingguo, Zhang Xin and Wu Guping have solved your first equation, but only Xie and Wu will have solved the second one; Zhang Xin will have handed in a blank paper. Oh, yeah, and I am pleased to make your acquaintance …
I am quite sure that at that moment my eyes were wide open with surprise, because she was absolutely correct: the only people who had solved both equations were Xie Xingguo and Wu Guping! I couldn’t help thinking about what she had said, and I seemed to hear Anderov’s voice in my ear: ‘Most ciphers are decrypted accidentally, and most great cryptographers are also discovered accidentally …’
Really, I could hardly believe it, but she had solved the first equation in the time it took me to smoke two cigarettes. Amazing! I was so excited I couldn’t sit still, and I kept going to the window, hoping that she would soon be on her way back from class. The umpteenth time that I looked out of the window I caught sight of her walking along carrying a bundle of mimeographed teaching materials, looking for all the world like a princess, her shoulders squared and her back straight. I was so excited to see her. All of a sudden she raised her head and looked straight at me, as if she had sensed something. When our gazes crossed, she seemed both surprised and pleased, and she casually blew me a kiss.
I really don’t know how to describe her. What can I say? I made up my mind that whatever personal problems she had, provided there were no political problems, I could make allowances. The minute she solved the first problem so easily, I had no hesitation in putting her name on the list of candidates. I really hoped that she would solve the second equation as soon as possible. It was almost midday, so I decided to get a room at the hostel for her, and demanded that she give me an answer by two o’clock.
‘No,’ she said.
‘What do you mean, no? If you want to take the test you’re going to have to complete it according to my conditions.’
‘Right. Then you’re going to have to tell me what you want the person you are looking for to do.’
‘Don’t ask. If you’re selected, of course you’ll be told. Otherwise I will never tell you.’
‘That’s not fair. If you’re asking me to leave here without telling me what I’m going to be doing, how do I know if I want to go or not?’
‘You don’t have a choice. That’s part of the test. You have to be able to put the needs of the country first, and have a revolutionary consciousness that means you’re willing to go wherever and do whatever the Party demands.’
‘Well, I’m afraid that right now I don’t have such an impressive level of revolutionary consciousness.’
‘Then give up,’ I said. I picked up the answer papers of the other two candidates and waved them in front of her. ‘You were absolutely right; only two comrades solved both equations. However, right now you have only solved one, so if I pick you, if I make you the winner of this competition, that won’t be fair.’
‘I can tell you for free that I know both of them well, and if you’re expecting them to be able to work independently, to do something earth-shattering, you’re out of luck. Particularly with Xie Xingguo.’
‘Why?’
‘I know him only too well. He’s a very proficient scholar, meticulous in his research, and a classic example of a super-patient person, but he lacks creative ability. If you want to set him to do some kind of theoretical research, he’d be perfect: you just have to tell him your idea, and he’ll work out a beautiful proof for you. You won’t be able to pick a single hole in it, and it may well be even better than anything you could ever think of yourself. But if you’re hoping he’ll come up with something independently, you’ll find him completely lacking in inspiration. He has neither the ability nor the gumption to create something from nothing.’
‘Have you done anything together?’ I asked.
She replied in a tone as flippant as that she had used before, trying to keep me in suspense: ‘Have we done anything together? Do you mean work or something else? Well, let’s just say we’ve done all sorts of things together. We share an office at work, and as for the rest, that’s my private business, though I dare say you can guess.’ She smiled wickedly.
I really did not like the way that she was carrying on, so I said coldly, ‘I’m really not interested in the rest of what the pair of you have been up to, but I’m somewhat surprised to hear you bad-mouth him in this way.’
‘But I was praising him!’ she said. ‘I’m telling the truth!’
‘You know perfectly well that saying those kinds of things about him might well mean that I decide not to hire him. But then that’s what you want. You need him for your theoretical research, and you’re afraid I might take him away.’
She laughed heartily. ‘I’m not as small-minded as all that. Really, what do you think of me! Though I wouldn’t mind if he did leave. That way … well, to tell you the truth, we were having an affair but it didn’t work out. These things happen. I guess you know that when people have been having an affair and then stop, quite often they end up as enemies, leaving a kind of festering sore. Who wants to spend all day, every day together under those kinds of circumstances – seeing each other every time you raise your head? If you want him, take him with you. If you want him to be your assistant, or indeed someone else’s, that would be wonderful, and I’m sure you’ve made an excellent choice. He’s very conscientious and hardworking. But if you want him to do original work, you’re going to cause him a lot of unnecessary pain and suffering, because he simply can’t do it.’
I could hear footsteps approaching in the corridor outside. Huang Yiyi heard them too. ‘That’ll be our Party secretary wanting to invite you to lunch. I’ll say goodbye, then. After all, you won’t be wanting me to join you.’
‘Are you going to take the test?’ I asked her.
She smiled and said, ‘Nope.’ Then she left.
The footsteps weren’t actually those of the Party secretary, but one of the canteen staff, who had come up to tell me that lunch was ready. After lunch, I had a meeting with Xie Xingguo and Wu Guping. I had already read their files, and wanted to have a chat with them. It was strange, though: pretty much the only topic that we talked about was Huang Yiyi. She seemed to dominate my thoughts, like having a fish-bone stuck in your throat: you can’t be happy until you’ve got rid of it. Clearly Huang Yiyi’s independence had strongly aroused my interest and curiosity. When I discussed her with the others, what I really wanted was to find out the truth. The appraisal of the other two men made me realize that the Huang Yiyi that I had seen was the real one, but only part of her and not the whole. Much more than I had understood, they thought of her as a genius, an eccentric, a shameless woman, an original, a riddle … To quote her former lover, in Xie Xingguo’s own words: ‘She has a good side and a bad side – half angel and half devil.’
I should say that I had had that kind of impression too, so they were just confirming what I thought. It was not a feeling that I had had very often, and so it piqued my interest. I could clearly feel that the non-committal way in which the other two were talking about her, and the evidence that they adduced, was not only not reducing my curiosity about her but even adding oil to the flames; they were just adding to the impression that Huang Yiyi had already made in my mind. When I compared them to her, I could feel that she had a kind of wickedness and brutality about her – that they were domesticated, but that Huang Yiyi came from the wild. Yes, that’s exactly what I felt, and it was a very strong impression, so strong that I could not get rid of it.
In spite of everything I was absolutely clear that I didn’t want either of them, but I did want Huang Yiyi! Because this was the world of cryptography, and as everyone knows, ciphers are counter-intuitive and inhuman. A counter-intuitive subject is just the same as any other science, and so research and cryptography both require intelligence, knowledge, skill, experience, genius. But at the same time they also need a kind of evil – regardless of whether you are talking about research or cryptography – because both are inhuman. When you get right down to it, ciphers are deceitful, they are concealed, they attack you from the dark. Soldiers do not despise tricks, and ciphers are a kind of weapon, they are just hidden. They are the biggest trick in the world. In a world full of deceit, danger, wickedness and cruelty, perhaps an arrogant, overbearing, difficult and wild person would find it easier to survive … Once I got to that point, I picked up the phone and told Party Secretary Wang that I wanted to see him that afternoon.
