In the Dark, page 30
On the one hand, Father pressured my every move – he closed in on me, cut me off and besieged my pieces. Although he was greatly stretching his forces, he continued his relentless attack. He was tenacious, unyielding. Nevertheless, all his moves seemed to be part of a larger plan; a plan I could not discern. I was at a loss. His intentions remained hidden, and yet he carried them out ingeniously; danger seemed to be all around me. The board changed repeatedly: black and white stones crisscrossed each other, forming strange, bizarre patterns; the battle for dominance was increasingly bitter and hard-fought, and I began to doubt and question my every move. Then the endgame arrived. Father played his advantage, but – perhaps because he was too anxious for victory, I don’t know – he managed to grab only one of my stones whilst I took several of his. Later, although he had exhausted his strategy, he hit out in all directions, striving to regain the initiative, fighting against his impending doom, but it was all for nothing. This is how our first game ended. Father lost by three pieces.
But he didn’t lose the rematch.
We played three more games. Father won them all, each one more easily than the last. Our final game ended before I had even played half of it. Afterwards, Father played Ah-bing. In total seven games. The result was the same: Ah-bing won the first match before losing the next six. I thought: just a few days ago, Father was completely ignorant of the game, he didn’t even know the squares from the circles, but in the blink of an eye he seemed to have mastered it – he had destroyed the two of us. We were both left speechless.
On the following day, Ah-bing invited over a fellow go enthusiast. They belonged to the same work unit. Ah-bing’s friend was a more accomplished go player. Generally, Ah-bing was able to take two of his stones, but nothing more. I remember that day clearly. The sky was crystal clear. There was a freshness in the air that had come with the newly fallen snow. It had been the first major snowfall of winter, and the hurried and sudden blast of cold had covered the landscape with a soft blanket of whiteness. I should say, it was an absolutely perfect day to play go. In the first match, Father started poorly and by his twentieth move he knew he would lose. I don’t know if you are familiar with go or not, but you need to understand one thing: to realize that you have already lost shortly after beginning is not something an ordinary player is capable of.
Do you know the ancient parable, ‘Defeat or Victory in Nine Moves’? It’s the story of an ancient chess master by the name of Zhao Qiao who travelled over land and sea, over the entire realm, all in search of a worthy opponent. Finally, on the banks of the River Wei, at the foot of Phoenix Mountain, he encountered a woman with long, glistening black hair. The woman’s husband had enlisted in the army and was far away at the frontier. Her house was barren and empty, without even a bowl of rice, and she made a living by playing go. So by the banks of the river and in the shadow of the mountain, the two sat down to play. After Zhao had made nine moves, the woman conceded defeat and began to gather in her pieces. Zhao did not believe her, and so the woman explained: each game of go is quite clear and logical, from up in the mountains water begins to flow, unceasingly it makes its way down, but there is only one outcome. Zhao listened to her explanation and humbly conceded defeat: the woman was his master. In other words, since Father was able to determine the outcome of the game after his first nineteen moves, it meant he possessed a far-reaching insight; he was able to see across and into the board. I realized then that the man who had come to play him would ultimately lose, for the most important ability when playing go, regardless of the quality of the opposition, is to be able to see your moves in advance, to know what you are going to do before you do it. As expected, Father won the next five matches. Ah-bing’s friend couldn’t believe it when we told him it was only last night that Father had learnt how to play.
I think I can say that Father’s sensitivity for the game was amazing. It was like … love at first sight. They seemed to share an implicit mutual understanding. The game of go saved my father, and helped us immeasurably. For a long time after this, Father was fascinated with everything related to it. If he wasn’t reading some book or other on the game, he would be searching for an opponent. His life was finally satisfying; he was his old, vigorous self again. People’s minds are not easy to understand … We had expended so much energy and thought on trying to solve Father’s problems, without success, but then, in one night, everything seemed to be resolved – all because of a game.
In the beginning, he spent most of his time playing against opponents who lived within the neighbourhood, usually in the work unit’s recreation centre. It was there that you could find the go enthusiasts. Some were quite accomplished players, others not so much. Father played each of them, one by one. About a month later he had gone through the ranks; there was no one who had not conceded defeat. Of course, there were any number of go masters still to be challenged, but those types of players would never come to play in such a place. I mean, really, what would they do there? They’d easily tire of the social niceties and interactions of such a place, much preferring the peace of their own homes – hidden away, as it were. This is what happened to Father; he turned into one of those go players. You could say that it was the recreation centre that had forged him, and had broadened his understanding of the game, but the level of play at the centre never changed, and now Father was unable to find a suitable opponent – no one matched his ability, or presented a challenge to him. What’s the fun in playing go without a worthy opponent? Victory now meant nothing to him, it held no appeal; and thus there was no need to go to the recreation centre. It was then that he began to venture out into the garrison town to find an adversary, someone to measure his abilities against. But even before the warm breezes of summer arrived, there was no one in the town who had not suffered defeat at his hands. It took him only six months to become the best-known and most feared go player in the area!
Afterwards, Ah-bing and myself, as well as my husband (you can call him Little Lü), would often go into the city to find an opponent for Father. Once we found someone, we’d invite them over and arrange a game. That’s how we satisfied Father’s love for go; satisfied his addiction. Even though this was a tiresome task, once we saw Father absorbed in the game, fascinated by it, we felt nothing but happiness. At the beginning, the search for adversaries was somewhat annoying, mostly because we had to rely on other people’s introductions, and so the range of abilities of these opponents was extremely large, the good mixed in with the bad. Some, for instance, had quite a reputation, but a very limited outlook, and even less ability. They were very difficult to convince to come round, and when they did, they often left angry … their abilities were just no match for Father’s. Later, Ah-bing was able to arrange, on the recommendation of a friend of a friend’s father who happened to be head of the membership committee, for Father to become a member of the local Go Association. From then on we were able to invite over a load of opponents, some highly skilled, others not so much.
The Go Association had a membership of about thirty or forty people. These were the most highly proficient players in the city. Amongst them, there was a small group that had achieved a 5th dan ranking. These were the city’s champions. They were all exceptionally seasoned players who played with style and sophistication; they were like silent killing machines waiting in the darkness. To them, Father was, at most, a beginner who demonstrated some talent. As you can imagine, the first match ended in disaster; Father was shattered like an egg smashing against a rock. But that wasn’t the end of it – something rather strange happened, practically unbelievable, really! The best player in the group wanted to do battle with Father, so the board was set up. But things didn’t turn out as expected. Whilst the match began with him employing his superior skill, Father quite quickly began to catch up, began to take his stones, and eventually surpassed him, by a large margin in fact. Facing such superior opponents, it was perhaps to be expected that Father would lose quite a few games, but it wasn’t long before he began transforming every defeat into victory, ultimately becoming an unbeatable opponent. It was as though in the span of a single night Father’s go skills had grown by leaps and bounds. Yesterday he was easy to beat, but today he was invincible. The truth was, basically, no one could challenge Father, at least not for long. Quite a few well-known go players did pay him visits, and for more than a couple of weeks, Father would be continuously locked in battle with these adversaries. In most instances, the expert players would win the first match, they’d be the lords and masters of the game, but the result always turned out the same: without exception, they would all lose to Father in the end. Father truly was a formidable player; eventually every opponent would fall against him. It practically became routine! Later on, Father would often say, every time he began a match with a new opponent, he’d never worry about defeating them, he was only ever concerned about them defeating him. Father understood that it was getting difficult for us to find him a challenger, especially if they had no chance of winning. Not only did this depress us, but it also greatly annoyed him. He always longed for a challenge. He loved coming face to face with an imposing enemy and then destroying them, conquering them – giving his all to achieve victory. He couldn’t stand not being able to find a worthy foe; not being able to play a game of go that didn’t already have a foregone conclusion. And so, as with the tediousness of normal life, he soon began to grow weary of the game.
I remember it was in the afternoon of the day before the Mid-Autumn Festival. I was on the balcony reading, Father was playing go with the city’s champion player in the living room – they played game after game, from early midday until late in the evening. Throughout the afternoon, over and over again, I heard them begin a game and then finish, and then start a new one. The conversation between them was brief, but I could hear that Father was winning. Occasionally I stepped into the living room to refresh their drinks. Father’s expression was always calm and level-headed as he sipped at a bowl of tea or smoked a cigarette – he was happy, joyful even. The champion, on the other hand, smoked not one cigarette, nor did he drink a single bowl of tea. Both his eyes were glued to the go board, and there was hatred and vengeance upon his face. He was unyielding, determined to struggle on. He gritted his teeth, occasionally reaching out his hand to grasp a piece, and then suspending that hand in the air, the stone wedged between his fingers. It didn’t seem like a go stone at all, but rather a bomb. Should he put it down or not? And where? These were the questions he struggled with. He was cautious, careful, hesitant. His consternation was obvious, his face contorted, resolute; his entire body seemed to be dedicated to making the correct move. In contrast, Father was a picture of serenity, peacefulness, calmness; it looked as though his train of thought had already left the game in front of him – already flown off into the ether. Later I heard them conclude the match, and then the champion spoke. ‘How about another game?’
I heard my father’s reply; it was firm and peremptory. ‘It’s like this – if we play another game, I’ll have to start with a handicap and I don’t like playing that kind of game.’
This was how Father rudely ended all possibilities of a rematch, by saying that he had no desire to inflict defeat upon yet another opponent. Needless to say, his form of curt refusal drove people mad. What’s more, in this case, the opponent was a revered champion go player. As he left he fired off these words at me: ‘Your father is a go prodigy, there’s no one he cannot defeat.’
That’s what the champion said. There’s no one Father cannot defeat.
As you can imagine, there was no one in this city who could challenge my father.
No one!
Absolutely no one!
Speaking of this, I can’t help but feel that Father was a stranger to me, mysterious, imponderable. Perhaps you want to ask, was all of this real? I tell you it was, every word. All true. And, yet … I can’t help but have my suspicions that perhaps it wasn’t … it’s just so unbelievable, beyond the realms of possibility.
Day Three
… It’s mid-afternoon, but my three co-workers still have not arrived. Perhaps they won’t be coming. It’s raining outside – maybe that’s why. I guess there’s some logic to it … However, thinking of my father: what would have served as a legitimate reason for him not to report to work? As far as I can remember, Father never once failed to enter that red-walled compound. Not once. Occasionally we’d ask him to take the day off – Mother needed him, there was some family emergency; he had to stay at home, at least for half a day. On those occasions Father would halt mid-step and stand still for a moment, mulling it over. We’d look at him, trying to use our eyes to implore him to stay. But he wouldn’t look at us, he’d deliberately avoid our eyes; he’d look at his watch or stare off into space, hesitating, deciding whether to go or stay … it was a difficult choice it seemed. Nearly every time we would mistakenly believe that perhaps on this occasion he would stay, and we would walk up to him and take the permit from his hand, reach for the hat he held in order to hang it up. But just as we reached for it, Father would seem to make up his mind; he’d take back the permit and say firmly, ‘No, I have to go.’
It was always like that.
His reasons for refusing were always simple and effective – impervious to argument. Even though we would use any number of excuses to implore him to stay, none of them worked. Even when Mum’s illness became really serious, when she had only a few days left with us, Father still wouldn’t spend those last remaining days by her side.
My mother died of that illness. Perhaps you didn’t know – it happened the year before you arrived, that would’ve been 1972. Thinking back, her symptoms developed quite early on, during the Spring Festival of that year. Without warning, her stomach would cause her terrible pain. At the time, we didn’t think much of it, nor did she – I guess she thought it was just a passing problem. She’d drink a bowl of warm, sweet water and take a couple of aspirin. Once the pain subsided she’d forget about it; it would be business as usual and she’d head off to work. I heard that her career had begun in some provincial office or other. Then, once she married Father, she transferred to this work unit … but it wasn’t Unit 701 proper, it was somewhere else, several kilometres away. She would ride her bicycle back and forth every day. She also took us to and from school, cooked our meals, washed our clothes – for years it was the same. To be honest, the way I saw it, Mum was the only person that kept the family together. Father did nothing. You know, our house was only about two or three kilometres away from the red-walled compound, about thirty minutes on foot, but Father rarely came home; at most once a month, and even then it would be late at night when he’d arrive and he would leave early the next morning. I remember one evening – we hadn’t seen Father for ages, and we were at the table having dinner … My mother’s ears were like her eyes. Father was still some distance away, and we didn’t hear anything, but Mum’s ears were sensitive to his approach. She turned to us and said, ‘Your Dad’s back.’ As she spoke she put down her bowl and chopsticks and went into the kitchen to prepare for his arrival. We thought she was imagining things – hallucinating – but as she came out of the kitchen with a bowl of warmed water for him to wash his face, Father’s heavy footsteps sounded at the door …
When he was at home, Father rarely spoke. His face and eyes were cold, and he didn’t seem like someone’s husband, let alone a father. He never once sat down and chatted with us, and on those rare occasions when he did speak, it always sounded like a command – he never minced his words. Whenever he was home, the whole house became tense and nervous; we all felt like we were walking on eggshells. We would lower our voices, fearful of upsetting him. If we did upset him – cause him to get angry, to curse at us – Mum would enter the fray and reprimand us, not him. She was always on his side. Don’t you think that was strange? I think I can safely say that, as a husband, Father’s life was much happier than most other men’s. Mum’s life was devoted to his. If it seemed as though his life had been given to the red-walled compound, then surely her life was his – given to this man who had been bewitched by something she could never understand!
I’ve never been able to comprehend life or the things around me according to logic. To everyone else around us, it seemed natural that my mother belonged to my father; but they didn’t marry because of love, they married because of ‘revolutionary necessity’. Mum said that for everyone in Father’s work unit, the organization decided whom they would marry. Potential partners had their political, social and family backgrounds vetted by the intelligence service; their present and past circumstances were thoroughly investigated. This was how Mum married Father: it was arranged by the Party. She was only twenty-two but Father was already past thirty. Mum also told me that she had met him only once before they actually married. They had spoken very little, perhaps only a sentence or two. I can imagine that Father must have been terribly embarrassed the time they first met; he probably didn’t dare look her in the face. I guess you could say that once outside those red walls, he was simply a man who didn’t know where to put his hands and feet. He didn’t come from the real world; he came from somewhere else – a special laboratory, outer space, some dark, hidden corner. If you forced him out past those red walls and into the real world, into the world under the sun and blue sky, he’d be like a fish out of water; he’d be all out of sorts, a sorry wretch of a man – this was something we could all imagine. But there was something we couldn’t understand: a month after they met, Mum married him. She believed in the intelligence service, more than she believed in her own parents. I heard that at the beginning, my grandmother had not been in favour of the marriage, but her husband had. He was an old Red soldier, an orphan at birth, a revolutionary by fourteen; the Party had raised him, educated him, given him a family, a fortunate life. Not only did he feel thankful to the Party with all his heart, but he wanted his children to feel the same, to consider the Party and the intelligence service more important than parents, more important than family. And so my Mum, from very early on, had complete faith in the organization. If they said that Father was a great man, she believed them. If they said he was exceptional, she believed that, too. So they got married. It wasn’t for love; it was for the Party, for the revolution. You could say that she married him out of political responsibility … If Mum could hear me speak like this she’d be angry, so let’s forget about it.
