The Accusation

The accusation did not come on Thursday. It did not come on Friday. It came on the following Monday afternoon, at three twenty-two.

Lin had spent the weekend in a state of careful, unbroken normality. He had gone to the library on Saturday morning. He had carried boxes for Su Wanyin. He had eaten noodles. He had not — even once — mentioned to her what was happening in the office. He had decided that she would learn of it only if it became necessary for her to know, and that he would not, for the present, place the weight of it upon her.

She had noticed that something was off. She did not say so. She watched him with the same patient eyes for the entirety of the morning. She gave him, at the end of the noodle lunch, a small folded paper across the table. She said: "Read it later. Not now."

He had read it, that afternoon, alone in the boarding house. The folded paper contained one line, in her small neat hand:

*The water still beneath the wind. The river underneath the storm. Whatever you are facing, the storm will pass. — W.*

He had read it twice. He had folded it. He had put it inside the cover of the Su Shi book.

On Sunday he had attended the Eastern Hall reading group. He had sat in the cold room with the eight regulars and read aloud, when called upon, three lines from a Du Mu poem on autumn rivers. The reading had been unremarkable. He had met her eyes, briefly, across the room. She had not smiled. He had walked her partway home afterward, as he had done every Sunday for four weeks now, and at her bus stop she had said: "Thursday," and he had said: "Thursday," and she had got on her bus and he had walked back to the boarding house through the cold streets.

On Monday morning, he had returned to the office at eight. The day had been ordinary. Documents. Tea. Small errands. Zhang Xiaodong had eaten his pumpkin seeds. Lao Wei had read his journals. Section Member Ye had filed her files. The interior of the small office had been, on the surface, indistinguishable from any other Monday.

But the building, Lin had observed, was not indistinguishable.

He had observed, walking through the lobby at eight, that the duty roster for the elevator security cameras was being reviewed by a man he did not recognize — a man not from the regular building security, but from somewhere else. He had observed, in the hallway outside Pang's office at nine forty-five, two men he did not recognize entering and not coming out for forty minutes. He had observed, at lunch, that Director Wu of the Office of Inspection and Discipline had eaten with the secretary of Vice-Mayor Liu in the senior cadres' dining room, which meant that Wu was — formally or informally — coordinating with someone in Mayor Cao's faction.

He had observed all of this without remarking on it, even to himself, except in the small careful entries in his daily-record notebook each evening.

And on Monday afternoon at three twenty-two, the secretary appeared at the door again, and her face this time was — different from Thursday's.

She said: "Director Pang. Section Chief Wei. Section Member Lin. Director Wu's office. Now."

#

Director Wu's office was on the fifth floor — an office Lin had never been to. It was substantially larger than Pang's. Three windows. A long desk. A small conference table at the center of the room, around which six chairs had been arranged. Wu was already seated at the head of the table. Two other men were with him — one of them an inspector Lin did not recognize, the other a man whose face Lin had seen at a banquet but whose name he had not learned. A small recording device sat on the table in front of Wu. It was switched on; the small red light was illuminated.

Wu gestured at the three remaining chairs. They sat — Pang at the seat closest to Wu, Lao Wei to Pang's left, Lin at the end.

Wu said: "Director Pang. Section Chief Wei. Section Member Lin. This conversation is being recorded. I want to make this clear at the outset. The recording will be retained in the files of this office, regardless of what the conversation produces. Anything any of you says in this room is on the record. If you wish to discontinue at any point, you may do so. If you do, the discontinuation will be noted."

He looked at each of them in turn. None of them spoke.

"In the four days since I last met with you," Wu went on, "my office has conducted a preliminary review of the document's path. The review has produced certain findings. I will share the relevant findings now."

He opened a folder.

"The document is, as we established on Thursday, the first draft of the General Office's annual budget proposal. It was drafted by Section Member Lin between November first and November fourteenth. It was submitted to Director Pang on November fourteenth at four-eleven in the afternoon. It was filed in Director Pang's secure office files on November fourteenth at six-twenty-three in the evening."

A pause.

"Between November fourteenth and December eleventh — the date on which the document came into the possession of Provincial Audit — the document was accessed within this office four times, by four different persons. Each access has been logged and confirmed."

Wu turned a page.

"Access one. Director Pang. November fourteenth, four-eleven PM through six-twenty-three PM. Initial review and filing.

"Access two. Director Pang. November twenty-second, two-fifteen PM through three-forty PM. A second review. Notes were made on the document in red pen, which we have recovered.

"Access three. Deputy Director Wang Lihua of the Secretariat Section. December first, ten-eighteen AM through eleven-twelve AM. The Deputy Director was preparing related budget materials and accessed the file with Director Pang's authorization.

"Access four — and this is the access we believe to be relevant — Section Member Zhao Yifan, of the General Office. December seventh, eight-forty-six AM through nine-fifty-three AM. Section Member Zhao accessed the file from a workstation that, by office records, was assigned to a different clerk. The access was, however, made under his login credentials. The duration of the access is consistent with the time required to copy the file to an external drive."

The room was very quiet.

Wu set down the folder.

"Section Member Zhao has, this morning, been interviewed by my office. He has stated, under questioning, that he did access the file on December seventh, but that he did so on the verbal instruction of Section Member Lin Zhaoxu — who, he claims, asked him to retrieve a copy for what Section Member Zhao understood to be an internal coordination purpose. Section Member Zhao has further stated that he handed the copied file, on a USB drive, to Section Member Lin Zhaoxu in the General Office's small lounge area on December seventh at approximately ten o'clock in the morning."

Wu looked at Lin.

"Section Member Lin. Do you wish to respond to Section Member Zhao's statement."

Lin sat very still.

He thought, with a clarity that was almost serene: *Zhao Yifan has been turned. Or Zhao Yifan has acted on his own. Or Zhao Yifan has been instructed by someone outside this office. The three possibilities are not now distinguishable. What matters is that Zhao Yifan has named me. The naming is the move. The move is — well-played. It transfers the entire weight of the leak onto a junior with no protection.*

He thought: *Zhao Yifan would not do this without believing he is protected. His protection is — his father. His father has, at some point in the past two weeks, decided that the destruction of Director Pang and the simultaneous destruction of Lin Zhaoxu would serve some purpose I do not yet fully understand.*

He thought: *Or — Pang has done it. Pang has, at some point in the past four days, since Wu first appeared in his office, decided that the entire weight of the matter must fall on a single person, and has chosen me, with Zhao Yifan's cooperation, as that person. This would be — a very expensive move for Pang. It would require giving up Zhao Yifan's father's friendship. But it would, in exchange, save Pang.*

He thought: *Or Zhao Yifan has acted on his own, out of injured pride, after observing for three months that Pang has been ignoring him in favor of me. The injury would be enough to motivate a stupid son with a powerful father to do something stupid.*

He thought: *I cannot, from this chair, distinguish among the possibilities. I can only — defend myself. The defense must be in the form of facts, not protests.*

He thought: *I have one fact that can save me. The fact is that I did not, on December seventh, between nine-fifty-three AM and eleven AM, meet Zhao Yifan in the lounge area. I was not in the office at that time. I was — by Lao Wei's instruction — at the public library, retrieving a reference document for Deputy Director Sun.*

His mind moved very fast.

He thought: *Lao Wei knows this. Section Member Ye knows this — she watched me leave with the slip of paper Lao Wei had given me. The librarian at the public library will, almost certainly, remember me — because she stamps each retrieval slip and signs it, and the stamped slip is in my desk drawer at this moment.*

He thought: *I have an alibi. The alibi is documented. The alibi is — verifiable.*

He took a breath.

He said: "Director Wu. I do wish to respond. I will respond briefly and factually.

"On December seventh, at approximately nine-twenty AM, I left the General Office on the instructions of Section Chief Wei to retrieve a reference document from the Qingyuan Public Library on behalf of Deputy Director Sun of the Policy Research Section. I left the building at nine-twenty-five. I returned at eleven-fifty-two. During the entire window of two hours and twenty-seven minutes, I was not in the General Office building. The retrieval slip, stamped and signed by the duty librarian, is in my desk drawer in the small office. The stamp records the time of retrieval as ten-twelve AM.

"Section Chief Wei can confirm that he gave me this instruction. Section Member Ye can confirm that she observed me leaving with the slip. Deputy Director Sun can confirm that he received the reference document from me at twelve-fifteen PM. The duty librarian can confirm my presence in the library between approximately nine-fifty AM and eleven-thirty AM.

"I did not meet Section Member Zhao in the lounge on December seventh. I did not receive any USB drive from him. I did not, at any point in my employment in this office, request that he or anyone else copy any file for my use. The statement Section Member Zhao has made to your office is — false."

He stopped.

The room was — for perhaps four seconds — completely silent.

Wu looked at him.

Wu said, slowly: "Section Chief Wei. Can you confirm Section Member Lin's account."

Lao Wei said: "I can. I gave Section Member Lin the instruction at approximately nine-eighteen AM on the morning of December seventh. The instruction had been requested by Deputy Director Sun's office at eight-forty AM that morning. The instruction was logged in my own daily record book, which I keep at my desk."

"You will produce the daily record book."

"I will. It is in my desk drawer. I can retrieve it now."

"Please do."

Lao Wei stood. He left the room. He returned, four minutes later, with a worn cloth-bound notebook. He opened it to the relevant page. He set it on the table in front of Wu.

Wu read it. He turned the page. He read more. He looked up.

He said: "The entry is consistent with Section Member Lin's statement."

"Yes."

Wu looked at Pang.

Pang's face, Lin observed for the first time, was — not the face Pang had worn on Thursday. On Thursday Pang had been surprised. On Monday at three twenty-two, in this room, Pang had been — still. The stillness was the stillness of a man who was watching events unfold along a course he had, perhaps, anticipated.

Wu said: "Director Pang. Were you aware that Section Member Lin was at the public library on the morning of December seventh."

Pang said, after a small pause: "I was not specifically aware. The General Office assigns junior clerks to small errands of this kind on a daily basis. I do not track each one."

"But you would have been aware that Section Member Zhao Yifan was in the office that morning."

"Yes."

"And that he accessed the budget file at eight-forty-six AM."

"I was not, at the time, aware of his access. I have become aware in the past four days, through your office's review."

"Mm."

Wu turned to one of the other inspectors.

"Inspector Yang. Please retrieve Section Member Zhao Yifan from the holding office. He will need to be questioned again, in light of this new information."

Inspector Yang stood. He left.

Wu looked back at Lin.

"Section Member Lin. You will remain available to my office for further questions in the coming days. You will not — under any circumstances — discuss this matter with Section Member Zhao directly, or with any colleague who may serve as an intermediary to him. Do you understand."

"I understand, Director Wu."

"You may return to your desk."

Lin stood. He bowed his head. He left the room.

#

In the corridor outside, Lao Wei followed within thirty seconds.

They walked, side by side, back toward the General Office. They did not speak. At the door of the small office, Lao Wei paused. He turned to Lin.

He said, quietly: "Tonight. Seven. The noodle shop in the back alley."

"Yes, Lao Wei."

They went in.

Section Member Ye looked up. Her face was drawn — she had clearly heard, through some channel, that the morning had not been ordinary. Zhang Xiaodong's desk was empty. He had been called out, sometime in the last hour, by some other supervisor for some other reason. Lin sat down at his desk.

He took out the next document on his stack. He bent over it.

He worked.

His hands, he noticed after a moment, were steady. The trembling that had come on Thursday afternoon did not come now. He thought: *That is — interesting. The first attack frightened me. The second one has not.*

He thought: *Perhaps that is — what experience is. Each attack is slightly less frightening than the one before it, because the body has begun to know that attacks can be survived.*

He worked until five forty-six.

Then he packed his satchel and walked out.

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