07.02.2008 / EP. 19
Useful Skills
Nothing happened.
In love and war, Rao said to himself, doing nothing always triumphs in the end. He noticed a chair, obscured in the darkest corner of the room. It faced thick curtains. Rao peered intently, but couldn’t be sure the chair was empty. “You’re right, Rao Guang-Jun. You aren’t alone.” A man rose from the chair and walked toward Rao. “I can’t offer you a seat,” the man seemed apologetic. “We try to encourage brevity.” The man didn’t look directly at him. He’s blind, Rao thought.
The room was designed to preserve what remained of the man’s sight. Lighting there was, but only enough so Rao didn’t trip over his feet. The man’s fingers wandered across a hand-held device. He oriented himself with it. The fingers were crippled with arthritis. Or had they been broken and healed improperly? The man must be seventy. One of the old survivors that ruled the capital. Maybe even a party boss. Rao had a lot to learn from men such as this. He stood straighter. A range-finder gps, Rao said to himself, that’s what it was. He’d never seen one before. The broadcaster was on the ceiling. The receiver translated the location of objects in the room into bumps on the device’s convex face.
“You don’t have many friends, Rao Guang-Jun. Why is that?” the man said in a gentle tone. He looked at the ceiling as though seeking the answer to a puzzle.
“Too busy, sir.”
“Doing what, I wonder?”
“Serving my country.”
“Serving my country.” The man nodded. “I see. No hobbies. No friends. And a novice could listen to a tapped telephone.” All motion was arrested in the room. The man seemed to stop breathing. “You scarcely exist at all.” Rao dared not utter a sound. “That’s good, very good,” said the man. He’ll pull a lever, Rao thought. Rao would plunge down an oubliette and end up nourishing a jolly rice paddy west of the city.
The man in speculative frame of mind: “You joined the army as a volunteer, a ranger unit.”
Rao was becoming bemused by the casual air of these observations. He couldn’t put his finger on their pulse. The underlying purpose escaped him. Had an old friend been arrested, and the police were looking at everyone in his telephone directory? “Yes, sir,” Rao replied. In confusing circumstances, the wise man aims for simplicity.
“Marksman award, unarmed combat medal, and so on.” The man knew Rao’s career like the back of his hand. He spoke softer and softer, trailing off on occasion as though contemplating the import of one or another detail.
Rao had laid those years aside, suppressed the events that had taken place and the feelings they had aroused. Memories, however, cannot remain entombed. They escaped his vigilance in fragments, surviving in nightmares or vivid images that during unpredictable instants overlaid the conventional streets and shops around him. At such times, Rao wouldn’t know where he was. But the present always asserted itself promptly. His former enthusiasms, except in this indirect form, had quite dried and perished.
Rao had assembled weapons blindfolded, struggled against many opponents simultaneously, again and again absorbed intense, white-hot pain. The secret of victory in the Chinese tradition, he learned, was to persist. He was a military machine and such devices have a peculiar emotional physiognomy. They laugh often and are well liked, but have no friends. They have keen wit and a fine sense of irony. They have no sense of humour. They follow orders and trust no one. In Rao’s training, there was always a fatal error awaiting credulity, a guide who would betray him, map coordinates that were wrong, bullets blank. Was it to teach self-reliance? Endurance? Anyone, anything, might be a trap. A lovely woman, a fragile old lady, might be the enemy. He fought alone, was always alone. He commanded a squad, platoon, company. They were expendable extensions of his arms and legs. Then promotion – was it demotion? – took these away. Rao was released. He never knew why. Asking was out of the question. He’d served eight years and seven months. The army assigned Rao to this boring job for a couple of years. They changed his name, but Rao never told his mother. She was the only family that survived. The army was his life. Rao knew who he had once been, but that person was fading like a photo exposed to the sun. The person was someone he’d read about once, long ago. He was now Rao Guang-Jun.
“Enough time has passed. It’s time to put you into play,” the man said. “You’re officially dead of food poisoning. I can tell you where you’re buried, if you want to know.”
Rao shook his head. What did this man want of him?
“You’ll have special training, then a long mission overseas.”
I’m not going to work in a consulate, counting pencils, thought Rao.
“Compatible with your expertise.”
Better, thought Rao.
“The offer,” the man hesitated, “is voluntary. We may order you not to return to China.” The man gazed at Rao almost fondly. “We shall see to your mother’s needs. May I take it that you accept the post?”
There was no choice. “Certainly,” Rao said. He knew an order when he heard one. The state would provide an “iron rice bowl” for his mother, which was his only personal concern. A man who serves his ruler lives well and so does his family, Rao knew. His mother did her best, but she would have more now than her customary rice, cabbage and pork.
