Four in the Morning, Three at Night

Zhang Beihai, author of the novel that inspired the film Hidden Man, began writing the story of his life at the age of eighty. In his preface he mentions a riddle: “What animal goes on four in the morning and three at night?” The answer is “man”—and this book is his own four-in-the-morning, three-at-night. During the War of Resistance, when his father refused to surrender to the Japanese, his mother had no choice but to take the children from Tianjin and flee inland, crossing the Yellow River to Xi'an, until the family was reunited in Chongqing. As a rebellious youth, he was thrown out of the house by his father and witnessed the bizarre, garish society of 1950s Taiwan. His second brother, Soong Mei-ling's personal pilot, died young in a plane crash, leaving behind a daughter—none other than the future star Chang Ai-chia. He became a United Nations official, working and traveling all over the world, with experiences no one else could claim; in old age he returned to his native Shanxi to explore the ways of his hometown, and in his twilight years was reunited with his first love. Such is life: we come together, enjoy ourselves, and then the music ends and the guests disperse. These spare, calm words carry a clear-eyed, open-hearted humor—the last gift to the world from an old rascal.