Free Whispering Shadows by Jan-Philipp Sendker Page B

would probably have left him long ago and accepted one of the many advances from her German boss if not for the fact that his stubbornness, his honesty, his courage, and his unbending nature were also the very qualities that she loved most about him. She could not really be angry with him. He saw that in her eyes, even in the moments whenthey were full of displeasure while looking at him. He could rely on Mei, and this knowledge gave him the strength to put up with the hostilities and the temptations he faced at work.
    He looked at Paul, how he was scraping the bowl of mapo doufu clean and smiling at him gratefully from the side. It was good to see him sitting in this kitchen again. Mei did not understand why Paul had withdrawn himself so much; she thought he should have done the opposite and not turned away from life but thrown himself into it until it swallowed him and his pain up. Zhang, on the other hand, marveled at how resolutely his friend grieved for his son, how he took the time that was necessary for himself to do this, even if he would grow old in the process.
    Paul looked at the clock and panicked. It was late, almost ten thirty, and on no account did he want to miss the last ferry. They made their way to the metro station, and were just crossing the plaza in front of the shopping mall when Zhang’s cell phone rang. He flipped it open, looked at the small screen, and picked up the call. His face darkened with every sentence he heard. He interrupted the caller with questions every so often, but in a dialect from Sichuan province that Paul did not understand. After he had ended the conversation, he turned to his guest again.
    â€œSorry, that was Wu, one of our pathologists. He’s from Chengdu and he cooks the best mapo doufu that I know. Amazing. He’s an old friend of mine and I asked him to ring me as soon as he had news. He hasn’t quite finished yet, but it turns out it’s true that the skull was smashed. Apart from that, the left arm is broken in several places and the right shoulder is dislocated. Whoever the victim is, he didn’t give himself up to his murderers without a fight. He’ll tell me the rest tomorrow.”
    They walked down the west side of Shennan Road to the metro station in silence.
    â€œShall I take you to the border?”
    â€œThanks, but I’ll manage on my own. Do I look that tired?” asked Paul.
    â€œYes. Exhausted.”
    â€œI am. It was all a bit much for a hermit.”
    Zhang nodded understandingly. “Can you do me a favor, though? When you speak to the Owens tomorrow, please ask them if their son ever injured his left knee.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThe body has a big scar on the left knee, probably from an operation. Wu thinks it’s from an accident or a sports injury.”

VIII

    The voices of the night were no more than a whisper. The water lay smooth as a mirror in the glow of the red and blue neon advertisements, and a lone barge or tugboat made its way across the pond every now and then. Tiny waves lapped against the walls of the quay in exhaustion, as if the harbor had been transformed into a deserted, windless lake. The white lights in the office blocks had almost all been switched off, bit by bit, like lighting for a celebration that someone had carefully blown out candle by candle. Even the never-ending roar of traffic during the day had fallen silent. The hour after midnight was the time when the city that never otherwise stopped allowed itself a rest.
    Paul stood at the pier from which ferries to the outlying islands departed and thought about what he should do. He had missed the last ferry. At this hour it was impossible to find a private vessel that would take him to Lamma, and there was no one he could stay the night with. Undecided, he sat down on the steps that led down to the water. He had slept in the train, and felt wide-awake in some strange way, yes, almost a bit hyper, but not unwell at all. The air