translated by Laurie Thompson

 

HONG SAT ON THE VERANDAH outside the bungalow she would be staying in during the visit to Zimbabwe. The cold winter of Beijing seemed far away, replaced by the warm African night. She listened to the sounds emanating from the darkness, especially the high-pitched sawing of the cicadas. Despite the warmth of the evening she was wearing a long-sleeved blouse, as she had been warned of the profusion of mosquitoes carrying malaria. What she would most have liked to do was strip naked, move the bed out onto the veranda, and sleep directly under the night sky. She had never before experienced such heat as overwhelmed her when she stepped off the airplane into the African dawn. It was a liberation. The cold restrains us with handcuffs, she thought. Heat is the key that liberates us.

     Her bungalow was surrounded by trees and bushes in an artificial village made for prominent guests of the Zimbabwean government. It had been built during Ian Smith’s time, when the white minority proclaimed unilateral independence from England in order to retain a racist white regime in the former colony. At that time, there was only a large guest house with an accompanying restaurant and swimming pool. Ian Smith often used it as a weekend retreat where he and his ministers could discuss the major problems faced by the increasingly isolated state. After 1980, when the white regime had collapsed, the country liberated, and Robert Mugabe in power, the area had been extended to include several bungalows, a network of country walks and a long veranda with views of the Logo River, where you could watch herds of elephants come to the river bank at sundown to drink.

     Hong could just make out a guard patrolling the path that meandered through the trees. Never before had she experienced darkness as compact as this African night. Anybody could be hiding out there – a beast of prey, be it with two legs or four.

     She was alarmed at the thought that her brother could be out there. Watching, waiting. As she sat there in the darkness, she felt for the first time an all-consuming fear of him. It was as if she had only now realised that he was capable of doing anything to satisfy his greed for power, for increased wealth, for revenge.

     She shuddered at the thought. When an insect bumped into her face, she gave a start. A glass standing on the bamboo table tumbled onto the stone paving and smashed. The cicadas fell silent for a moment before beginning to play once more.

     Hong moved her chair in order to avoid the risk of standing on the glass shards. On the table was her schedule. This first day had been spent watching and listening to an endless march of soldiers and military bands. Then the big delegation had been conveyed in a long caravan of cars, escorted by motorcycles, to a lunch at which ministers had delivered long speeches and proposed toasts. According to the programme President Mugabe should have been present, but he never showed up. When the lengthy lunch was over, they had at last been able to move into their bungalows. The camp was a few dozen miles outside Harare, to the south-west. Through the car windows Hong could see the barren countryside and the grey villages, and it struck her that poverty always looked the same, no matter where you come across it. The rich could always express their opulence by varying their lives. Different houses, clothes, cars. Or thoughts, dreams. But for the poor there was nothing but compulsory greyness, the only form of expression available to poverty.

     In the late afternoon there had been a meeting to plan the work to be done over the coming days, but Hong preferred to stay in her room and go through the material herself. Then she had gone for a long walk down to the river, and watched the elephants moving slowly through the bush and the heads of the hippos popping out above the surface of the water. She had been almost alone down there, her only companions a chemist from Peking University and one of the radical market-economists who had trained during Deng’s time. She knew that the economist, whose name she had forgotten, was in close contact with Ya Ru. At first Hong wondered if her brother had sent a scout to keep an eye on her activities. But she dismissed the idea as a figment of her imagination – Ya Ru was more cunning than that.

     Was the discussion she wanted to have with her brother going to be possible? Was it not the case that the split dividing the Chinese Communist Party had already passed the point where it was possible to bridge the gap? It was not a matter of straightforward and solvable differences about which particular political strategy was most appropriate. It concerned fundamental disagreements, old ideals versus new ones that could only superficially be regarded as communist, based on the tradition that had created the republic fifty-seven years previously.

     If men like her brother were allowed to call the shots, the final fixed bastions of Chinese society would be demolished. A wave of capitalist-inspired irresponsibility would sweep away all the remnants of institutions and ideals built up on the basis of solidarity. For Hong it was an undeniable truth that human beings were basically reasonable creatures, that solidarity was common sense and not primarily an emotion, and that in spite of all setbacks, the world was progressing toward a point where reason would hold sway. But she was also convinced that nothing was certain in itself, that nothing in human society happened automatically. There were no natural laws to account for human behaviour.

     Mao again. It was as if his face was beaming out there in the darkness. He knew what would happen, she thought. The future is never assured, once and for all. He repeated that wisdom, over and over again, but we didn’t listen. New groups would always emerge and seize privileges for themselves, new revolutions would constantly take place.

     She sat on the veranda and let her thoughts come and go. Dozed off. She was woken by a noise. She listened. There it was again. Somebody knocked on her door. She checked her watch. Midnight. Who would want to visit her this late? She wondered whether she should open it. There was another knock. Somebody knows that I’m awake, she thought; somebody has seen me on the veranda. She went inside and peered through the peep-hole. An African was standing outside. He was wearing the hotel uniform. Curiosity got the better of her and she opened the door. The young man handed over a letter. She could see from her name on the envelope that it was Ya Ru’s handwriting. She gave the boy a few Zimbabwe dollars, unsure if it was too much or too little, and went back to the veranda. She read the short message:

 

Hong,

 

We ought to keep the peace, for the sake of the family, of the nation. I apologise for the rudeness of which I am sometimes guilty. Let us look one another in the eye again. During the last few days before we return home, please let me invite you to accompany me into the bush, the primitive nature, and animals. We can talk there.

 

Ya Ru.

 

She checked the text carefully, as if she expected to find a hidden message between the lines. She found none, nor could she fathom why he had sent her this message in the middle of the night.

     She gazed out into the darkness and thought about the predators who have their prey in their sights, without the victims having the slightest idea of what is about to happen.

     ‘I can see you,’ she whispered. ‘No matter where you come from, I shall discover you in time. Never again will you be able to sit down beside me without my having seen you coming.’

     Hong woke up early the next morning. She had slept fitfully, dreaming about shadows creeping up on her, menacing, faceless. Now she was on the veranda, watching the brief African dawn, the sun rising over the endless bush. A colourful kingfisher with its long beak landed on the veranda rail, then flew off immediately. The dew from the damp night glittered in the grass. From somewhere in the distance came African voices, somebody shouting, laughing. She was surrounded by strong aromas. She thought about the letter that had reached her in the middle of the night, and urged herself to be alert. She somehow felt even more wary of Ya Ru in this foreign country.

     ‘We shall now meet President Mugabe. The president will receive us in his palace. We shall enter in a single file, the usual distance between ministers and mayors and other delegates. We shall greet one another, listen to our national anthems, then sit down at a table in assigned seats. President Mugabe and our ministers will then exchange greetings via interpreters, after which President Mugabe will deliver a short speech. We have not been given an advance copy. It could be anything from twenty minutes to three hours. Advance visits to the rest rooms are strongly advised. The speech will be followed by a question-and-answer session. Those of you who have been given prepared questions will raise your hands, introduce yourselves when called to speak, and remain standing while President Mugabe answers. No follow-up questions are allowed, nor is anybody else in the delegation permitted to speak. After the meeting with the president, most of the delegation will visit a copper mine called Wandlana, while the minister and selected delegates will continue their discussion with President Mugabe and an unknown number of his ministers.’

     Hong looked at Ya Ru, who was leaning with half-closed eyes against a column at the back of the conference room. It was only when they left the room that they established eye contact. Ya Ru smiled at her before clambering into one of the cars intended for ministers, mayors and specially selected delegates. Hong sat down in one of the buses waiting outside the hotel.

     Her apprehension was growing all the time. I must speak to somebody, she thought, somebody who can share my fear. She looked around the bus. She had known many of the older delegates for a long time. Most of them shared her view of political developments in China. But they are tired, she thought. They are now so old that they no longer react when danger threatens.

     She continued searching, but in vain. There was nobody there she felt she could confide in. After the meeting with President Mugabe she would work once more through the whole list of participants. Surely there must be someone whom she could trust.

     The bus headed for Harare at high speed. Through the window Hong could see the red soil stirred up by the people walking by the side of the road.

     The bus suddenly stopped. A man sitting on the other side of the aisle explained to her.

     ‘We can’t all arrive at the same time,’ he said. ‘The cars with the most important people must arrive first. Then we will arrive, the political and economic ballet to make up the pretty background.’

     Hong smiled. She had forgotten the name of the man who had spoken, but she knew that during the Cultural Revolution he had been a hard-pressed professor of physics. When he returned from his many privations in the country, he had immediately been put in charge of what was to become China’s Space Research Institute. Hong suspected that he shared her views about the direction China ought to be taking. He was one of the old school still managing to keep going, not one of the youngsters who have never understood what it means to live a life in which something is more important than they are.

     They had stopped close to a little market-place running along both sides of the road. Hong knew that Zimbabwe was close to economic collapse. That was one of the reasons why their large delegation was visiting the country. Although this would never be made public, it was in fact President Mugabe who had begged the Chinese government to make a contribution toward helping Zimbabwe out of the country’s severe economic depression. The sanctions imposed by the West meant that the basic infrastructure of the country was close to collapse. Only a few days before leaving Beijing, Hong had read in a newspaper that inflation in Zimbabwe was now approaching five thousand per cent. People tramping along by the edge of the road were moving very slowly. It seemed to Hong that they were either hungry or tired.

     Hong suddenly noticed a woman kneel down. She had a child in a carrier on her back, and a head-ring made from folded cloth for supporting heavy loads. Two men by her side helped each other to lift up a heavy sack of cement and balance it on her head. Then they helped her to stand up. Hong watched her stagger away. Without a second thought she stood up, hurried down the aisle and spoke to the interpreter.

     ‘Please come with me.’

     The interpreter, who was a young woman, opened her mouth to protest, but Hong prevented her from speaking. The driver had opened the front door to allow a flow of air into the bus, which had already started to become stuffy as the air-conditioning wasn’t working. Hong dragged along the interpreter to the other side of the road where the two men had settled down in the shade and were sharing a cigarette. The woman with the heavy burden on her head had already disappeared into the haze.

     ‘Find out how much the sack they put on the woman’s head weighs.’

     ‘About a hundred and ten pounds,’ the interpreter informed her after asking.

     ‘But that’s a horrific burden. Her back will be ruined before she’s thirty.’

     The men merely laughed.

     ‘We’re proud of our women. They’re very strong.’

     Hong could see in their eyes that they didn’t understand what the problem was. Women here suffer the same difficulties that our poor Chinese peasants have to put up with, she thought. Women always carry heavy burdens on their heads, but even worse are the burdens they have to bear inside their heads.

     She returned to the bus with the interpreter. Shortly afterwards they set off – now they had an escort of motorcycles. Hong let the wind from the open window blow into her face. She would not forget the woman with the sack of cement on her head.

     The meeting with President Robert Mugabe lasted four hours. He came into the room looking like a friendly schoolmaster. As he shook her hand he was looking beyond her, a man in another world who just brushed against her in passing. After the meeting he would have no memory of her. She thought that this little man, who radiated strength despite being both old and frail, was described by some as a bloodthirsty tyrant who tormented his own people by destroying their homes and chasing them off their land whenever it suited him. But others regarded him as a hero who never gave up the fight against the remnants of colonial power he stubbornly insisted lay behind all Zimbabwe’s problems.

     What did she think herself? She knew too little about it to be able to form a definite opinion, but Robert Mugabe was a man who in many ways deserved her admiration and respect. Even if not everything he did was good, he was basically convinced that the roots of colonialism grew very deep and needed to be cut away not just once, but many times. Not least of the reasons she respected him was having read how he was constantly attacked brutally in the western media. Hong had lived long enough to know that loud protests from landowners and their newspapers were often intended to drown the cries of pain coming from those who were still suffering from torture inflicted by colonialism. Zimbabwe and Robert Mugabe were under siege. The West’s indignation had been extreme when, a few years previously, Mugabe had forcibly annexed land owned by the white farmers who still dominated the country and made hundreds of thousands of Zimbabweans landless. The hatred of Mugabe increased for every white farmer who, in open confrontation with the landless blacks, was injured by rocks or bullets. But Hong knew that as early as 1980, when Zimbabwe was liberated from Ian Smith’s fascist regime, Mugabe had offered the white farmers discussions aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the vital question of land ownership. His overtures had been greeted by silence, on that first occasion and then many more times over the following fifteen years. Over and over again Mugabe had repeated his offer of negotiations but had received no response, only contemptuous silence. His patience had finally run out, and large numbers of farms were handed over to the landless. This was immediately condemned by the West and protests flowed in from all sides.

     At that moment the image of Mugabe was changed from that of a freedom fighter to the classical African tyrant. He was depicted just as anti-Semites used to depict the Jews, and this man who had spearheaded the liberation of his country was ruthlessly defamed. Nobody mentioned the fact that the former leaders of the Ian Smith regime, not least Smith himself, had been allowed to remain in Zimbabwe. Mugabe did not send them into the law courts, and then to the gallows, as the British used to do with rebellious black men in the colonies. But a refractory white man was not the same as a refractory black man.

     She listened to Mugabe’s speech. He spoke slowly, his voice was mild, he never raised it even when talking about the sanctions that led to an increase in the infant mortality rate, widespread starvation, and more and more illegal immigration to South Africa alongside millions of others. Mugabe spoke about the opposition in Zimbabwe. ‘There have been incidents,’ he admitted. ‘But the foreign media never reports the attacks on those loyal to me and the party. We are always the ones who throw stones or make baton charges, but the others never throw firebombs, never maim nor beat up their opponents.’

     Mugabe spoke for a long time, but he spoke well. Hong reminded herself that this man was eighty years old. Like so many other African leaders he had spent a long time in jail during the drawn-out years when the colonial powers still believed they would be able to face down attacks on their supremacy. She knew that Zimbabwe was a corrupt country. It still had a long way to go. But it was too simple to place all the blame on Mugabe. The truth was more complicated.

     She could see Ya Ru sitting at the other end of the table, closer to both the minister of trade and the lectern where Mugabe was speaking. He was doodling in his notepad. He used to do that even as a child, drawing matchstick men while he thought or listened, usually small devils jumping around, surrounded by burning bonfires. Nevertheless, Hong thought, he is most probably listening more intently than anybody else. He is sucking in every word and assessing them to see what advantages he can gain in future business between the two countries, which is the real reason for our visit. What raw materials does Zimbabwe have that we need? How will we be able to get access to them at the cheapest price? When the meeting was over and President Mugabe had left the big conference room, Ya Ru and Hong met each other by the doors. Her brother had been standing there, waiting for her. They each took a plate and filled it from the buffet table. Ya Ru drank wine, but Hong was content with a glass of water.

     ‘Why do you send me letters in the middle of the night?’

     ‘I had the irresistible feeling that it was important. I couldn’t wait.’

     ‘The man who knocked on my door knew that I was awake. How could he know that?’

     Ya Ru raised an eyebrow in surprise.

     ‘There are different ways of knocking on a door, depending on whether the person behind it is awake or asleep.’

     Ya Ru nodded.

     ‘My sister is very cunning.’

     ‘And don’t forget that I can see in the dark. I sat out on my veranda for a long time last night. Faces light up in the moonlight.’

     ‘But there wasn’t any moonlight last night?’

     ‘The stars produce a light that I’m able to intensify. Starlight can become moonlight.’

     Ya Ru eyed her thoughtfully.

     ‘Are you challenging me to a trial of strength? Is that what you’re up to?’

     ‘Isn’t that what you’re doing?’

     ‘We must talk. In peace and quiet. Revolutionary things are taking place out here. We have closed in on Africa with a large but friendly armada. Now we are involved in the landings.’

     ‘Today I watched two men lift a sack containing over a hundred pounds of cement onto a woman’s head. My question to you is very simple. Why have we come here with an armada? Do we want to help that woman to alleviate her burden? Or do we want to join those lifting sacks onto her head?’

     ‘An important question that I’d be happy to discuss. But not now. The president is waiting.’

     ‘Not for me.’

     ‘Spend your evening on your veranda. If I haven’t knocked on your door by midnight, you can go to bed.’

     Ya Ru put down his glass and left her with a smile. Hong noticed that the brief conversation had made her sweat. A voice announced that her bus would be leaving in thirty minutes. Hong filled her plate once more with tiny sandwiches. When she felt she had eaten enough, she made her way to the back of the palace where the bus was waiting. It was very hot, the sun reflecting off the white stone walls of the palace. She put on her sunglasses and a white hat she had brought in her purse. She was about to enter the bus when somebody spoke to her. She turned round.

     ‘Ma Li? What are you doing here?’

     ‘I came as a substitute for Old Tsu. He’s been struck down with thrombosis and couldn’t make it. I was called in to replace him. That’s why I’m not on the list of participants.’

     ‘I didn’t notice you on the way here this morning.’

     ‘Somebody pointed out to me rather sternly that I’d sat myself in one of the cars, which protocol forbade me to do. Now I’m where I ought to be.’

     Hong reached out and grasped hold of Ma Li’s wrists. She was exactly what Hong had been hoping for. Somebody she could talk to. Ma Li had been a friend ever since her student days, after the Cultural Revolution. Hong recalled an occasion early one morning, in one of the university’s day rooms, when she had found Ma Li asleep on a chair. When she woke up, they started talking.

     It seemed to be preordained that they should be friends. Hong could still remember one of the first conversations they’d had. Ma Li had said that it was now time to stop ‘bombarding headquarters’. That had been one of the things Mao had urged the Cultural Revolutionaries to do. Not even the very top officials in the Communist Party should be spared the necessary criticism. Ma Li maintained that instead, it was now necessary for her to ‘bombard the vacuum inside my head, all the lack of knowledge that I have to fight against’.

     Ma Li trained to become an economic analyst, and was employed by the Ministry of Trade as one of a group of experts whose job it was to keep a constant check on currency variations throughout the world. Hong had become an adviser to the minister responsible for homeland security, for coordinating the top military leaders’ views on the country’s internal and external defence, especially protection for the political leaders. Hong had been at Ma Li’s wedding, but after the birth of Ma Li’s two children their meetings had been irregular.

     But now they had met once again, on a bus behind Robert Mugabe’s palace. They spoke non-stop during the journey back to the camp. Hong noticed that Ma Li was at least as pleased as she was at their reunion. When they reached the hotel, they decided to take a walk to the big veranda with the magnificent views over the river. Neither of them had any important engagements until the following day, when Ma Li was due to visit an experimental farm and Hong was supposed to attend a discussion with a group of Zimbabwean military leaders at Victoria Falls. The heat was oppressive as they walked down to the river. They could see flashes of lightning in the distance and hear faint rumbles of thunder. There was no sign of animal life. It seemed that the whole place had suddenly been deserted. When Ma Li took hold of Hong’s arm, she gave a start.

     ‘Did you see that?’ asked Ma Li, pointing.

     Hong looked but couldn’t see any sign of movement in the thick bushes that lined the river-bank.

     ‘Behind that tree where the bark has been peeled off by elephants, next to the rock sticking up out of the ground like a spear.’

     Now Hong saw it. The lion’s tail was swinging slowly, whipping against the red earth. Its eyes and mane were occasionally visible through the leaves.

     ‘You’ve got very good eyes,’ said Hong.

     ‘I’ve learned to notice things. Otherwise your surroundings can be dangerous. Even in a city, or a conference room, there can be traps to stumble into, if you’re not careful.’

     In silence, almost reverentially, they watched the lion venture down to the river and begin lapping up the water. Out in the middle of the river, a few hippos’ heads bobbed up and down. A kingfisher just as colourful as the one on Hong’s veranda alighted on the rail, with a dragonfly in its beak.

     ‘Peace and quiet,’ said Ma Li. ‘I long for it more and more, the older I become. Perhaps it’s the first sign of getting old? Nobody wants to die surrounded by the noise from machines and radios. The progress we make costs us a lot in the way of silence. Can a person really live without the kind of quiet we are experiencing right now?’

     ‘You’re right,’ said Hong. ‘But what about the invisible threats to our lives? What do we do about those?’

     ‘I suppose you are thinking about pollution? Poisons? Plagues that are constantly mutating and changing their appearance?’

     ‘According to the World Health Organization, Beijing is currently the dirtiest city in the world. Recent measurements recorded up to 142 micrograms of dirt particles per cubic metre of air. The equivalent figure in New York is twenty-seven, in Paris twenty-two. As we know only too well, the devil is always in the detail.’

     ‘Just think of all the people who discover that for the first time in their lives it’s possible for them to buy a moped. How can you persuade them not to?’

     ‘By strengthening the Party’s control over developments. What is produced by goods, and what is produced by thoughts.’ Ma Li stroked Hong’s cheek gently.

     ‘I’m so pleased every time I realise that I’m not alone. I’m not ashamed to maintain that baoxian yundong is what can rescue our country from disintegration and decay.’

     ‘A campaign to preserve the Communist Party’s right to lead,’ said Hong. ‘I agree with you. But at the same time we both know that the danger threatens to come from within. Once upon a time it was Mao’s wife who was the mole for the new upper class, despite the fact that she waved her red flag more ardently than anybody else. Today there are others hiding within the Party who want nothing more than to undermine it and replace the stability we enjoy with a sort of capitalist freedom that nobody will be able to control.’

     ‘The stability has been lost already,’ said Ma Li. ‘As I’m an analyst who knows the way in which money flows in our country, I know much that neither you nor anybody else is aware of. But of course, I’m not allowed to say anything.’

     ‘We are alone. The lion isn’t listening.’ Ma Li eyed her up and down.

     Hong knew exactly what she was thinking – can I trust her or can’t I?

     ‘Don’t say anything if you are in doubt,’ said Hong. ‘If you make the wrong choice when it comes to people you can rely on, you are both defenceless and helpless. That is the insight we were given by Confucius.’

     ‘I trust you,’ said Ma Li. ‘Nevertheless, you can’t get away from the fact that one’s natural instincts for self-preservation always encourage caution.’

     Hong pointed to the river-bank.

     ‘The lion has gone now. We didn’t notice when he left.’

     Ma Li nodded.

     ‘This year the government has increased military expenditure by almost fifteen per cent,’ Hong continued. ‘In view of the fact that China doesn’t have any real enemies close at hand, naturally enough the Pentagon and the Kremlin wonder what is going on. Their analysts can see without too much of an effort that the State and the armed forces are preparing to cope with an inner rebellion. In addition we are spending almost ten billion yuan on our internet surveillance systems. These are figures impossible to conceal. But there’s another statistic that very few people know about. How many riots and mass protests do you think took place in our country during the past year?’

     Ma Li thought for a moment before answering.

     ‘Five thousand, perhaps?’

     Hong shook her head.

     ‘Nearly ninety thousand. Work out how many that is every day. It’s a figure that casts a shadow over everything the Politburo undertakes. What Deng did fifteen years ago, when he liberalised the economy, was enough to damp down most of the unrest in the country. But not any more it isn’t. Especially when the cities are no longer able to find space and work for the hundreds of millions of peasants who are waiting impatiently for their turn to enjoy the good life we all dream about.’

     ‘What will happen?’

     ‘I don’t know. Nobody knows. It makes sense to be worried and on the alert. There’s a power struggle going on in the party that’s more serious than it ever was in Mao’s day. Nobody can foresee what the outcome will be. The military is afraid of chaos that can’t be brought under control. You and I know that the only thing we can do, the one thing we have to do, is restore the basic principles that used to apply.’

     ‘Baoxian yundong.’

     ‘The only way. Our only way. It’s not possible to take a shortcut to the future.’

     A herd of elephants was making its way slowly down toward the river to drink. When a party of western tourists came onto the veranda, the pair returned to the hotel foyer. Hong had intended to suggest that they eat together, but Ma Li forestalled her by saying that she had an engagement that evening.

     ‘We’re going to be here for two weeks,’ said Ma Li. ‘We’ll have plenty of time to talk about everything that’s happened.’

     ‘Everything that’s happened and is going to happen,’ said Hong. ‘All the things we don’t yet have an answer to.’ Hong watched Ma Li walk off on the other side of the big swimming pool. I’ll talk to her tomorrow, she thought. Just when I badly needed to talk to somebody, one of my oldest friends turned up out of the blue. She dined alone that evening. A large party from the Chinese delegation had gathered round two long tables, but Hong preferred to be on her own.

     Moths danced around the lamp over her head.

     When she had finished eating she sat for a while at the bar by the swimming pool and drank a cup of tea. Some of the Chinese delegation got drunk and tried to make advances on the beautiful young waitresses moving from table to table. Hong was annoyed, and left. In another China that would never have been allowed, she thought angrily. The security guards would have intervened by now. Anybody who got drunk and started throwing his weight around would never again have been allowed to represent China. They might even have been imprisoned. But these days, nobody pays any attention.

     She sat down on her veranda and thought about the arrogance that followed in the wake of the licentious belief that a less-regulated capitalist market system would be good for the country’s development. It had been Deng’s aim to make the Chinese wheels roll more quickly. But today the situation was different. We live with the risk of overheating, not only in our industries but also in our own brains. We don’t see the price we’re paying, in the form of polluted rivers, air that suffocates us, and millions of people desperate to flee from the rural areas.

     Once, we came to the country that used to be called Rhodesia to support a liberation struggle. Now, thirty years after liberation was achieved, we come back as poorly disguised colonisers. My own brother is one of those selling out all our old ideas. He has none of the honest belief in the power and prosperity of the people that once liberated our own country. She closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the night. All thoughts of Ma Li and their conversation slowly ebbed away from her weary head.

     She had almost fallen asleep when she heard a noise that pierced the song of the cicadas. It was a twig snapping.

     She opened her eyes and sat up straight. The cicadas were silent. She knew that there was somebody in the vicinity.

     She ran into her bungalow and locked the glass door. She switched off the light.

     Hear heart was pounding. She was scared.

     There was somebody out there in the darkness. He had inadvertently stepped on a twig and snapped it under his foot.

     She flopped down onto the bed in the darkness, afraid that someone would force his way in.

     But nobody emerged from the darkness. After waiting for almost an hour, she closed the curtains, sat down at the desk and wrote a letter that had been formulating itself in her head during the course of the day.

 

*   *   *

 

Ya Ru was her brother, but above all else he was a man who didn’t hesitate to use any means in order to attain his goals. She was not opposed to development heading off in new directions. Just as the world around them was changing, so must China’s leaders think up new strategies to solve present and future problems. What Hong and many others of like mind questioned was that leaders were not combining socialistic foundations with development toward an economy in which free markets played a major role. Was the alternative impossible? A powerful country like China didn’t need to sell its soul in the hunt for oil and raw materials and new markets in which to place its industrial products. Was not the big challenge to demonstrate to the world that brutal imperialism and colonialism were not an inevitable consequence when one’s country developed? Hong had seen greed take possession of young people who, by means of contacts, relatives and not least ruthlessness, had managed to create huge fortunes. They felt untouchable, and that made them even more brutal and cynical. She wanted to offer resistance to them and to Ya Ru. The future was not a foregone conclusion, everything was still possible. When she had finished writing, read through it and made some corrections and clarifications, she sealed the envelope, wrote Ma Li’s name on it, then lay down on top of the bed to sleep. There was no sound from the darkness outside. Although she was very tired, it was some time before she fell asleep.

     She got up at seven o’clock and watched the sunrise from her veranda. Ma Li was already in the breakfast room when she arrived. Hong joined her, ordered tea from the waitress and looked around the room. Members of the Chinese delegation were sitting at most of the tables. Ma Li announced that she intended to go down to the river to watch the animals.

     ‘Come to my room an hour from now,’ said Hong in a low voice. ‘I’m in number twenty-two.’

     Ma Li nodded and asked no questions. Just like me, she’s lived a life that has taught us that secrets are a constant presence, Hong thought. She finished her breakfast, then retired to her room to wait. The trip to the experimental farm wasn’t scheduled until half past nine. After exactly an hour Ma Li knocked on her door. Hong gave her the letter she’d written during the night.

     ‘If anything happens to me,’ she said, ‘this letter will be important. If I die in my bed of old age, you can burn it.’

     Ma Li looked hard at her.

     ‘Should I be worried about you?’

     ‘No. But the letter’s important even so. For the sake of others. And for our country.’

     Hong could see that Ma Li was surprised. But she asked no more questions, merely put the letter in her purse.

     ‘What’s on the agenda today for you?’ Ma Li wondered.

     ‘A discussion with members of Mugabe’s security service. We’re going to assist them.’

     ‘Weapons?’

     ‘Partly. But first and foremost helping to train their staff, teach them close combat, and also the art of keeping watch on people.’

     ‘Something we’re expert at.’

     ‘Do I detect hidden criticism in what you just said?’

     ‘Of course not,’ said Ma Li in surprise.

     ‘You know I’ve always maintained the importance of our country protecting itself from the enemy within just as much as from the one without. Many countries in the West would like nothing better than to see Zimbabwe collapse into bloody chaos. England has never accepted totally that the country liberated itself in 1980. Mugabe is surrounded by enemies. It would be stupid of him not to demand that his security service should operate at the very top end of its ability.’

     ‘And he’s not stupid, I suppose?’

     ‘Robert Mugabe is bright enough to realise that he must resist all attempts from the former colonial power to kick the legs from beneath the ruling party. If Zimbabwe falls, there are many other countries that could go down the same road.’

     Hong accompanied Ma Li to the door and watched her disappear along the paved path meandering through the luxuriant greenery. Right next to Hong’s bungalow was a jacaranda tree. She gazed at its light blue blossom, and tried to think of something to compare the colour with, but in vain. She picked up a flower that had fallen to the ground. She placed it between the pages of her diary in order to press and preserve it. She took her diary with her wherever she went, but seldom got around to writing in it.

     She was just about to settle down on the veranda and study a report on the political opposition in Zimbabwe when there was a knock on the door. Standing outside was one of the Chinese tour guides, a middle-aged man by the name of Shu Fu. Hong had noticed earlier he seemed scared stiff that something would go wrong with the arrangements. He seemed to be highly unsuitable as a guide on a big venture like this one, especially in view of the fact that his English was far from satisfactory.

     ‘Mrs Hong,’ said Shu Fu. ‘There’s been a change of plan. The minister of trade wants to visit a neighbouring country, Mozambique, and he wants you to be one of the party that accompanies him.’

     ‘Why?’

     Hong’s surprise was genuine. She had never been in close contact with the minister of trade, Ke, and indeed had barely done more than shake hands with him before leaving for Harare.

     ‘The trade minister has just asked me to inform you that you will be travelling with him. There will be a small delegation.’

     ‘When shall we be leaving? And where to?’

     Shu Fu wiped the sweat from his brow then flung out his arms. He pointed to his watch.

     ‘I am unable to tell you any more details. The cars will be leaving for the airport in forty-five minutes. No delay will be tolerated. Everyone involved is requested to take light baggage only and to be prepared for an overnight stay. But it’s possible that you will return as soon as this evening.’

     ‘Where are we going? What’s the point?’

     ‘Minister of Trade Ke will explain that.’

     ‘But surely you can tell me the name of the town we’re headed for?’

     ‘To the city of Beira on the Indian Ocean. According to the information I have the flight will be less than an hour.’

     Hong had no opportunity to ask any more questions. Shu Fu hurried back to the path.

     Hong stood motionless in the doorway. There is only one explanation, she thought. Ya Ru wants me to be there. He is obviously one of those going with Ke. And he wants me there as well.

     She remembered something she had heard during the flight to Africa. President Kaunda of Zambia had demanded that the national airline, Zambia Airways, should invest in one of the world’s biggest passenger jets at that time, a Boeing 747. There was no market to justify such a large aircraft flying regularly between Lusaka and London. But it soon transpired that President Kaunda’s real aim was to use the 747 on his regular journeys to and from other countries. Not because he wanted to travel in luxury, but to have enough space for the opposition, or those in his government and among the top military leaders that he didn’t trust. He crammed his aircraft full of those who were prepared to plot against him, or even to engineer a coup d’état while he was out of the country. Was Ya Ru trying something similar? Did he want to have his sister close by so that he could keep a check on her?

     Hong thought about the twig that had snapped in the darkness outside her bungalow. It could hardly have been Ya Ru standing out there in the shadows. More likely somebody he had sent to spy on her. As Hong didn’t want to oppose Ke, she packed the smaller of her two suitcases and prepared for the journey. A few minutes before departure she went to the front desk. There was no sign of either Ke or Ya Ru. On the other hand she thought she had caught sight of Ya Ru’s bodyguard Liu, though she wasn’t sure. Shu Fu escorted her to one of the waiting limousines. Also in her car were two men she knew worked in the Ministry of Agriculture in Beijing.

     The airport was only a few miles outside Harare. The three cars in the convoy drove very fast with a motorcycle escort. Hong noticed that there were police officers at every street corner, holding up other traffic. They drove straight in through the airport gates and, without further ado, boarded a waiting Zimbabwe Air Force jet. Hong boarded through the rear entrance, and noted that there was a screen separating off the front half of the cabin. She assumed that this was Mugabe’s private airplane that he had lent the Chinese delegation. After only a few minutes of waiting, the plane took off. Sitting next to Hong was one of Ke’s female secretaries. ‘Where are we going?’ Hong asked when they had reached cruising altitude and the pilot announced the journey would be fifty minutes.

     ‘To the Zambezi valley,’ said the woman by her side.

     Her tone of voice made it obvious to Hong that there was no point asking any more questions. She would eventually find out what was involved in this sudden trip.

     Or was it really so sudden? It occurred to her that not even this was something she could be sure of. Perhaps it was all part of a plan that she knew nothing about?

     When the aircraft prepared for descent, it swung out over the sea. Hong could see the blue-green water glittering down below, and little fishing boats with simple triangular sails bobbing up and down on the waves. Beira was glistening white in the sunlight. Encircling the concrete centre of the city were endless shanty towns, possibly slums.

     The heat hit her as she stepped out of the airplane. She saw Ke walking toward the first of the waiting cars, which was not a black limousine but a white Land Cruiser with Mozambique flags on the bonnet. She watched Ya Ru get into the same car. He didn’t turn round to look for her. But he knows I’m here, Hong thought.

     They headed north-west. Together with Hong in the car were the same two men from the Ministry of Agriculture. They were poring over small topographic maps, carefully checking them against the countryside they could see through the car windows. Hong still felt as uncomfortable as she had when Shu Fu first appeared outside her door and announced a change of plan. It was as if she had been forced into something that her experience and intuition warned her about, all alarm bells ringing. Ya Ru wanted to have me here, she thought. But what arguments did he present to Ke that resulted in me sitting and bumping along in a Japanese car whipping up thick clouds of red soil? In China the soil is yellow; here it’s red, but it blows around just as easily, and gets into your eyes and every pore.

     The only plausible reason for her being present on this visit was that she was one of many in the Communist Party who were sceptical about current policies, not least those of Ke. But was she here as a hostage, or in the hope of seeing her change her mind about the policies she found so distasteful? High-ranking Ministry of Agriculture officials and a minister of trade on an uncomfortable car ride in the heart of Mozambique had to mean that the aim of the journey was of major significance.

     The countryside flashing past outside the car windows was monotonous – low trees and bushes, occasionally intersected by small rivers and streams, and here and there clumps of huts and small well-tended fields. Hong was surprised that such fruitful ground was so sparsely populated. In her imagination the African continent was like China or India, a part of the poverty-stricken third world where endless masses of people fell over one another in their efforts to survive. But what I’ve always imagined is a myth, she thought. The big African cities are not much different from what we see in Shanghai or Beijing. The culmination of catastrophic development that impoverishes both people and nature. But I knew nothing at all about African rural areas until now, as I actually see them and travel through them.

     They continued in a north-westerly direction. In some places the roads were so bad that the cars had to slow to a walking pace. The rain had penetrated the hard-packed red earth, loosened up the road surface and turned it into deep ruts.

     They eventually came to place called Sachombe. It was an extensive village with huts, a few shops and some semi-derelict concrete buildings from the colonial period when the Portuguese administrators and their local assimilados had ruled over the country’s various provinces. Hong recalled reading about how Portugal’s dictator Salazar had described the gigantic land masses of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea Bissau, which he ruled over with an iron fist. In his linguistic world these distant countries were called ‘Portugal’s overseas territories’. That was where he had sent all his poor, often illiterate, peasants, partly to solve a domestic problem and at the same time to build up a colonial power structure concentrated on the coastal areas even as late as the 1950s. Are we about to do something similar? Hong wondered. We are repeating the injustice, but we have dressed ourselves in different costumes.

     When they left their cars and wiped the dust and sweat from their faces, Hong discovered that the whole area was cordoned off by military vehicles and armed soldiers. Behind the barriers she could see curious natives observing the strange foreign guests. The poor are always there, she thought – the ones whose interests we say we are looking after. Two large marquees had been erected on the flat stretch of sand in front of the white buildings. Even before the convoy came to a halt a large number of black limousines had assembled, and there were also two helicopters from the Mozambique Air Force. I don’t know what’s in store, Hong thought, but whatever it is, it’s something important. What can have made Minister of Trade Ke suddenly agree to visit a country that isn’t even on our programme? A small part of the delegation was due to spend a day in Malawi and Tanzania, but there was no mention of Mozambique. A brass band came marching up. At the same time a number of men emerged from one of the marquees. Hong recognised immediately the short man leading the way. He had grey hair, wore glasses and was powerfully built. The man who was now greeting Minister of Trade Ke was no other than Mozambique’s newly elected President Gebuza. Ke introduced his delegation to the president and his attendants. When Hong shook his hand, she found herself looking into a pair of friendly, yet piercing eyes. Gebuza is no doubt a man who never forgets a face, she thought. After the introductions, the band played the two national anthems. Hong stood stiffly to attention.

     As she listened to the Mozambique national anthem she looked around for Ya Ru, but could see no sign of him. She hadn’t seen him since they arrived in Sachombe. She continued scrutinising the group of Chinese present, and established that several others had vanished after the landing in Beira. She shook her head. There was no point in her worrying about what Ya Ru was up to. More important just now was that she should try to understand what was about to happen here, in the valley through which the Zambezi River flowed.

     They were led into one of the marquees by young black men and women. A group of older women danced alongside them to the persistent rhythm of drums. Hong was placed in the back row. The floor of the tent was covered in carpets, and every member of the delegation had a soft armchair. When everybody was comfortably seated, President Gebuza walked up to the lectern. Hong put on her earphones. The Portuguese was translated into perfect Chinese. Hong guessed that the interpreter came from the leading school in Beijing that exclusively trained interpreters to accompany the president, the government, and the most important business delegations in their negotiations. She had once heard that there wasn’t a single language, no matter how small and insignificant, that didn’t have qualified interpreters in China. That made her proud. There was no limit to what her fellow citizens could achieve – the people who, until a generation ago, had been condemned to ignorance and misery. Hong turned to look at the entrance to the marquee, which was flapping gently in the breeze. She caught a glimpse of Shu Fu standing outside, a few soldiers, but no sign of Ya Ru.

     The president spoke very briefly. He welcomed the Chinese delegation and said a few introductory words. Hong listened intently in order to understand what was going on around her.

     She gave a start when she felt a hand on her shoulder. Ya Ru had slipped into the marquee unnoticed and was kneeling behind her. He slid aside one of her earphones and whispered into her ear.

     ‘Listen carefully now, my dear sister, and you will understand something of the major events that are going to change our country and our world. This is what the future will look like.’

     ‘Where have you been?’

     She blushed when she realised how idiotic the question must sound. It felt like when he was a child and was late coming home. Hong had often taken on the role of mother when their parents were away at one of their frequent political meetings.

     ‘I go my own way. But I want you to listen now and learn something. About how old ideals are exchanged for new ones, without losing their content.’

     The president handed the podium over to the chairman of the committee that had made the preparations for this meeting on the Mozambique side. He was strikingly young, with a bald head and frameless glasses. Hong thought they said his name was Mapito, or possibly Mapiro. He spoke in an enthusiastic tone of voice, as if what he was saying really inspired him.

     And Hong understood. The circumstances slowly became clear, what the meeting was all about, the secrecy surrounding it. Deep in the Mozambique bush a gigantic project was getting under way, involving two of the poorest countries in the world – but one of them a great power, the other a small country in Africa. Hong listened to what was being said, the soft Chinese voice translated after each pause, and she understood why Ya Ru had wanted her to be present. Hong was a vigorous opponent of everything that could lead to China being transformed into an imperial power – and hence, as Mao used to say, a paper tiger that would be crushed sooner or later by united popular resistance. Perhaps Ya Ru had a faint hope that Hong would be convinced that what was now going on would bring advantages to both countries? But more important was that the group Hong belonged to did not frighten those in power. Neither Ke nor Ya Ru were scared of Hong and those who shared her views.

     When Mapito paused to take a sip of water, Hong thought that this was precisely what she feared most of all: China had reverted to a class society. Even worse than what Mao had warned against: it would become a country divided between powerful elites and an underclass locked into its poverty. And worse still, it would allow itself to treat the rest of the world as imperialists always had done.

     Mapito continued speaking.

     ‘Later today we shall travel by helicopter along the Zambezi River, as far up as Bandar and then downstream to Luabo, where the huge delta linking the river to the sea begins. We shall fly over fertile areas that are sparsely populated. According to the calculations we have made, over the next five years we will be able to accommodate four million Chinese peasants who can farm the areas currently lying fallow. Not one single person will be obliged to move. Nobody will lose his livelihood. On the contrary, our fellow citizens will benefit from big changes. Everybody will have access to roads, schools, hospitals, electricity, all the things that have previously been available to very few in rural areas and a privilege for those living in towns.’

     Hong had already heard rumours about Chinese authorities, working on the enforced removal of peasants because of the construction of huge dams, promising those affected that one day they would be able to live the life of landed gentry in Africa. She could see the large-scale migration in her mind’s eye. The fine-sounding words conjured up an idyllic image of the poor Chinese peasants – illiterate and ignorant – immediately settling down in this alien milieu. There would be no problems, thanks to the friendship and will to cooperate; no conflicts would arise between the newcomers and those already living on the banks of the river. But nobody would be able to convince her that what she was now listening to was not the first stage of China’s transformation into a predatory nation that would not hesitate to grab for itself all the oil and other raw materials needed to maintain the breakneck speed of its economic development. The Soviet Union had supplied weapons – often old, outdated ones – during the drawn-out liberation war that led to the withdrawal of the Portuguese colonisers from Mozambique in 1974. In return the Soviets had asserted the right to overfish in Mozambique’s teeming fishing grounds. Was China now about to follow in this tradition based on the one and only commandment: always put your own advantage before everything else?

     So as not to draw attention to herself, she applauded with everybody else when the speaker sat down. Then Minister of Trade Ke began to address the delegation. There were no dangers, he assured his audience: everything and everyone was uncompromisingly conjoined in equal and mutual advantage.

     Ke’s speech was brief. Then the guests were ushered into the other marquee, where a buffet table had been prepared. Hong was handed an ice-cold glass of wine. She looked around for Ya Ru, but could see no trace of him.

     An hour later the helicopters took off and headed north-west. Hong gazed down on the mighty river. The few places where people lived, where the land had been cleared and cultivated, were in sharp contrast to the huge areas that were totally untouched. Hong wondered if she had been wrong after all. Perhaps China really was doing something to help Mozambique that wasn’t based on the expectation that China would put in far, far less than it would take out?

     The sound of the engines made it impossible for her to marshal her thoughts. The question remained unanswered.

     Before climbing into the helicopter she had been handed a little map. She recognised it. The two men from the Ministry of Agriculture had been studying it during the car journey from Beira.

     They reached the most northerly point, then turned eastward. When they reached Loabo the helicopters made a short diversion over the sea before returning and landing at a place Hong identified, with the aid of the map, as Chinde. There new cars were waiting to take them along new roads made from the same tightly packed red earth as before.

     They drove straight into the bush and stopped when they came to a small tributary of the Zambezi. The cars pulled up at a lot that had been cleared of bushes and undergrowth. Some tents had been pitched in a semi-circle facing the river. When Hong left the helicopter, Ya Ru was waiting to greet her.

     ‘Welcome to Kaya Kwanga. That means “My Home” in one of the local languages. We’ll be spending the night here.’

     He pointed to the tent closest to the river. A young black woman took her suitcase.

     ‘What are we doing here?’ Hong asked.

     ‘Enjoying the silence of Africa after a long day’s work.’

     ‘Is this where I’m going to see the leopard?’

     ‘No. Most of the wildlife here is snakes and lizards. Plus the hunter ants that everybody is so scared of. But no leopards.’

     ‘What happens now?’

     ‘Nothing. The work is over and done with. You’ll discover that not everything is as primitive as it seems. There’s even a shower in your tent. And a comfortable bed. Later this evening we’ll have a communal meal. Anyone who wants to sit around the campfire afterwards is welcome to do so; those who want to sleep can do that too.’

     ‘You and I must talk things through,’ said Hong. ‘It’s essential.’

     Ya Ru smiled.

     ‘After dinner. We can sit outside my tent.’

     He didn’t need to point out which one it was. Hong had already gathered that it was the one next to hers.

     Hong sat by the door of her tent and watched the sun setting rapidly over the bush. A fire was already burning in the open area in the middle of the semi-circle of tents. She could see Ya Ru there. He was wearing a white tuxedo. It reminded her of a picture she had seen long ago in a Chinese magazine, in connection with a major article describing the colonial history of Africa and Asia. Two white men wearing tuxedos had been sitting deep in the African bush, eating at a table with a white tablecloth, expensive crockery, and drinking chilled white wine. The African waiters were standing motionless but at the ready, behind their chairs.

     Hong was the last of all those present to take her place at the set table by the fire.

     Nothing, she thought, is certain any longer. Nothing at all.

 

*   *   *

 

After dinner, enveloped by the shadows of the night, they were entertained by a troupe of dancers. Hong, who had not even tasted the wine served with the meal as she wanted to keep a clear head, watched the dancers with a mixture of admiration and the remains of an old longing. Once upon a time, when she was very young, she had dreamt of a future as an artiste in a Chinese circus, or perhaps at the classical Peking Opera. Hong observed Ya Ru sitting in his camp chair, a glass of wine balanced on his knee, his eyes half closed; and she thought about how little she knew of his childhood dreams. He had always existed in a little world of his own. She had been able to get close to him, but not so close that they had ever talked about dreams.

     A Chinese interpreter introduced the dances. That wasn’t necessary, Hong thought. She could have worked out for herself that the traditional dances had roots in everyday life, or in symbolic meetings with devils or demons or benign spirits. Popular rites come from the same source, no matter what country you come from or what colour your skin is. The climate has a role to play – those used to the cold generally danced fully dressed. But when in a trance, searching for lines to the spiritual world or the underworld, with what has been or what is to come, Chinese and Africans behave in more or less the same way.

     Hong continued to look around. President Gebuza and his retinue had left. The only ones left in the camp where they would spend the night were the Chinese delegation, the waiters and waitresses, the cooks, and a large number of security guards skulking in the shadows. Many of those sitting and watching the frantic dances seemed to be deep in thought about other matters. A great leap forward is being planned in the African night, Hong thought. But I refuse to accept that this is the path we ought to be following. There’s no way that this can happen: four million, perhaps more, of our poorest peasants migrating to the African wilderness – without our demanding substantial recompense from the country that receives them.

     A woman suddenly started singing. The Chinese interpreter informed her listeners that it was a cradle song. Hong listened, and was convinced that the melody could also lull a Chinese child to sleep. She recalled stories about cradles she had heard many years ago. In poor countries women always carried their children in bundles tied to their backs, because they always needed to have their hands free for working with – especially in the fields, in Africa with hoes, in China while wading knee deep in water for planting rice. Somebody had compared this to cradles rocked with the foot, which were common in other countries, and even in certain parts of China. The rhythm of the foot rocking the cradle was the same as the hip movements of the women walking. And the children slept, no matter what.

     Hong closed her eyes and listened. The woman finished on a note that lingered before seeming to fall like a feather to the ground. The performance was over, and the guests applauded. Some of the audience moved their chairs closer together and conducted conversations in low voices. Others stood up, went back to their tents or hovered around the edge of the light from the fire as if waiting for something to happen, but not sure what.

     Ya Ru came and sat down on a chair by Hong that had been left vacant.

     ‘A remarkable evening,’ he said. ‘Absolute freedom and calm. I don’t think I’ve ever been as far away from the big city as this.’

     ‘What about your office?’ said Hong. ‘High up above ordinary people, all the cars and all the noise.’

     ‘That’s not the same. Here I am on the ground. The earth is holding on to me. I’d like to own a house in this country, a bungalow on a beach so that I could go for a swim in the evening and then straight to bed.’

     ‘No doubt you could ask for that? A plot of land, a fence and somebody to build the house exactly as you want it?’

     ‘Perhaps. But not yet.’

     Hong noticed that they were on their own now. The chairs around them were empty. She wondered if Ya Ru had made it clear that he wished to have a private talk with his sister.

     ‘Did you notice the woman dancing like a sorceress on a high?’

     Hong thought for a moment. The woman had exuded strength, but had nevertheless moved rhythmically.

     ‘Her dancing was very powerful.’

     ‘Somebody told me she’s seriously ill. She’ll soon be dead.’

     ‘From what?’

     ‘Some blood disease. Not AIDS, maybe they said cancer. They also said that she dances in order to generate strength. Dancing is her fight for life. She is postponing death.’

     ‘But she’ll die even so.’

     ‘Like the stone, not the feather.’

     Mao again, Hong thought. Perhaps he’s there in Ya Ru’s thoughts about the future more often than I realise. He knows that he is one of those who have become a part of a new elite, far removed from the people he considers himself to represent and to take care of.

     ‘What’s all this going to cost?’ she asked.

     ‘This camp? The whole visit? What do you mean?’

     ‘Moving four million people from China to an African valley with a wide river. And then perhaps ten or twenty or even a hundred million of our poorest peasants to other countries on this continent.’

     ‘In the short term, an awful lot of money. In the long term, nothing at all.’