Whispering Shadows (36 page)

Past the rain boots and the raincoat.

EPILOGUE

November, Hong Kong

Dear Justin,

It's still very early in the morning. The sun just woke up about half an hour ago and it's bright red and “crawled” out of the sea, as you always used to say. (Do you remember the first time we saw it sink into the sea? You were afraid that it would go out forever and when it rose again the next morning you were convinced for a very long time that it slept in the water and that is why the sea was so warm.)

I woke up much earlier than usual today and couldn't settle down again because my head was full of a very special experience I had yesterday. But I'll tell you more about that later. Anyway, I hadn't slept much and couldn't lie in bed anymore so I got up when the birds and the little children were still sleeping. Now I'm sitting, as I have every morning for the last few weeks, on the roof terrace. There is a pot of tea in front of me and in the distance through the bamboo I can see the sunlight dancing on the sea. Today will be a good day—I feel it. The air is clear, which it only ever is in November in Hong Kong, and my garden is honey scented because the frangipani tree is blooming with more flowers than ever before.

There is a big pile of paper next to me, covered in closely written handwriting—all the letters I have dedicated to you. I
had the idea of writing to you a long time ago but never had the courage to. Who writes letters to his dead son? It was only after I returned from my trip to China as an assistant detective that I dared to start. I felt very strange writing the first few sentences, but Christine strongly encouraged me to keep on writing, for she wanted to get to know you, and this is the only way. Every letter became easier to write, and a few days ago I thought about an older French journalist I used to meet often in Saigon at the end of the war. Maybe I already told you about him before. No matter what time of the day or night it was, I always saw him writing on the terrace or in the lobby of our hotel. He even wrote while having his breakfast or during his dinner. One day, I went up to his table and asked him why he did it. “Writing helps!” he said. I was in my early twenties then and did not know what he was talking about. What was writing supposed to help with? Now that I have written over fifty letters to you, I know what he was talking about. Writing really does help. It helps with loneliness. It helps with fear. It helps with the terror of forgetting. It helps with the melancholy of the everyday. Writing has an almost magical power—and I don't need anything other than an empty piece of paper and a pencil. (Yes, yes, and a pencil sharpener, I hear you say.)

I have written down everything that has been important to me since you were born: The moment I first held you in my arms, the first bath I gave you. I have described our trips to the Peak, the many bruises that suddenly appeared and that we did not recognize as symptoms, and everything else up to the story of Michael Owen and his parents. I have felt better with every sentence, with every line. (Now that reminds me of the afternoon when you lay ill on the couch and refused to let go of your book. And when I asked you over and over again to rest properly and finally getting annoyed, you claimed that reading helped.
What did it help with? I wanted to know. You didn't reply for a long time. Finally you said in a very firm tone, “Tummy aches, boredom, bad moods, scolding dads.” So writing and reading help!)

Yesterday afternoon I cleaned the house thoroughly. Since your illness I have a mania for cleaning that I can't get rid of. I suddenly stopped in the hall—it was as though I heard you calling me. I was standing in front of your yellow rain boots and the red raincoat with the blue polka dots. I looked at the markings on the door frames that I had moved here from our apartment in Repulse Bay. The last one was dated February 28 at four feet two and a half inches. You were a small child. Even at birth.

I wonder how tall you would be now. If you would reach up to my chest, and what shoe size you would have. I saw you standing in front of me—your curly blond head, your deep-blue eyes, and that smile that could soften my heart like nothing else in the world. I felt the pressure behind my eyes building again, and suddenly something happened that I had thought never would. I wasn't filled with sadness when I thought of you, but with a different, completely new feeling. At first I didn't even know what it was or how I should describe it. I thought about it the whole evening and half the night, and I think I now know what I can call it: gratitude. I can't think of a better word for it. Now I hear you saying quite clearly, “What do you mean by that, Daddy? Why gratitude? What have I done for you to be grateful to me?” That's the way you always used to ask me questions when you didn't understand something.

I'm grateful to you for every smile. Now don't look at me like that, as if a smile were nothing that a person had to be grateful for. I mean it seriously. For every time we went looking for shells on the beach. For every good-night story that I was able to
tell you. For every morning that you crawled into our bed. I'm grateful for every question that you asked me, every moment that I was able to share with you. Grateful without end. I did not always feel like that before because I took that all for granted, but your illness taught me never to take anything for granted again. I know now that some memories may fade or even disappear altogether, but it doesn't matter. I don't have to think about you all the time to know you are with me.

I think that yesterday afternoon was the first time that the gratitude was stronger than the sadness. Before, the pain of your physical absence, the fact that I can no longer touch you, that you no longer walk beside me and grab my hand when you're startled by something—this pain overshadowed everything. I knew the power of fear. I knew the power of jealousy and sorrow, but not the power of gratitude.

Now you ask me why I felt it yesterday of all days. Why not a week ago, a month ago, or a year ago, as your mother did, maybe? I don't know. I can't answer that question. I only know that there are no shortcuts in life, no matter how much we long for them, and that everyone goes at their own speed and that any attempt to significantly influence this speed in any way either fails or exacts a high price. My path to this feeling went via the route of separation from your mother, living in Lamma, endless hours of loneliness, a dead young American man, and, most importantly, Christine, who I have always written a great deal about to you. This path took me exactly three years, two months, and eleven days.

I remember that our doctor, Doctor Li, predicted something
like this in the days after you died, but I rejected what he said brusquely. No, more than that, I was really angry because I found the very thought a betrayal of you, of my sorrow. How was a person who had just been robbed of his son by death to feel grateful? That was asking too much.

So, it's almost time to stop now, for I still have to go to the village to get my groceries. I'm expecting visitors in the late afternoon. You won't believe it, but Christine and her son, Josh, are coming and Zhang and his wife, Mei, are coming too, with their son, Zheng. Of course I'm quite excited about it. I've never had more than two people at a time come to visit on Lamma and I hope that this won't be too much for me. These friends are all I have left, and I want very much for them to meet. Will they like each other? Will they have anything to say to each other? I feel the way you used to before one of your birthday parties.

Mei moved back in with Zhang again two weeks ago, I think. She loves him so much that she couldn't do anything other than forgive him eventually. They want to make him the head of the homicide division, by the way, but I don't know if that would be the right thing for him. I made up with him a few weeks ago. Christine was right, and it's good when Chinese philosophers sometimes get it wrong—trust that is lost can be regained.

Don't be sad, but this could be the last letter for some time, for I feel as if I have told you everything now.

“Paul, life goes on,” your mother said to me once, and I was terribly appalled by that, because it sounded heartless to me, like she wanted to forget. But that's not possible. You've become a part
of me. The person who is writing these words would not exist without you. You have no idea how rich you have made me. Life, though very different now, does go on, and that's good.

It's the only answer we have.

With love,

Your Daddy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This book is fiction. The plot and characters are imaginary. I got the ideas for them on the many journeys I have made to China since 1995. I was also inspired to write this novel by the innumerable conversations that I had with friends, acquaintances, and strangers in China and in Hong Kong, where I lived for a time. Countless people helped me on my travels and with my research, and I feel incredibly grateful to them for their trust, their openness, and their support. Special thanks go to Zhang Dan, Ted Fishman, Clara and Derick Tam, Paul Chiu, Bessie Du, Angela and Carsten Schael, Lamy Li, Greg Davis, Aaron Fu, Werner Havers, and Thomas Bohlander for their help. Also to my parents and my sister, Dorothea.

I owe my wife, Anna, a very special thank-you. She gave me her advice, her encouragement, and her suggestions at every stage of this manuscript, and was an indispensable help to me. It is her love that has made this book possible.

Jan-Philipp Sendker, born in Hamburg in 1960, was the American correspondent for Stern from 1990 to 1995, and its Asian correspondent from 1995 to 1999. In 2000 he published
Cracks in the Wall
, a nonfiction book about China.
The Art of Hearing Heartbeats
, his first novel, was an international bestseller. He lives in Berlin with his family.

ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Christine Lo is an editor in book publishing in London. She has also worked as a translator in Frankfurt and translated books by Juli Zeh and Senait Mehari from German into English. Her most recent translation is
Atlas of Remote Islands
by Judith Schalansky.

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