He had nothing to lose, apart from one day.
After breakfast, Paul bought a notebook, a ball pen, and, after a moment’s hesitation, a cheap compact digital camera. If he found anything suspicious he wanted to document it.
The taxi driver dropped him off in the village square just before eleven a.m. and promised to pick him up around six p.m., at the very latest at dusk. He gave him his cellphone number just in case. It was oppressively hot; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. The village seemed even more abandoned than it had on the previous two days. The heat kept everyone in their houses. Even the dog that had barked so furiously the day before yesterday was now lying in the shade of a building, and simply raised its head wearily at the sight of a stranger.
During the taxi ride, Paul had remembered the sick woman who Christine had encountered in one of the side streets. He set out to look for her. He wanted to speak to her or to her family before he went to see Da Long.
The layout of the village was more complicated than it had seemed at first. He turned off the narrow road a few times, stepped through a rotting wooden gate and stumbled into an empty courtyard that was connected to two others by a concealed path. The network of courtyards was as complex as the tunnels of a labyrinth. The single-story houses were of a very basic build; Paul could see common Chinese architectural embellishments on only a few of the doors and windows. Everything seemed to indicate that the farmers here had always been poor. An abandoned bamboo chair, broken straw baskets, a tattered red lantern hanging over a door; these were the only signs of people living here. When Paul entered yet another unfamiliar courtyard a few minutes later, he had no idea where he was.
“Ni hao,” he called, loud and clear, but the only reply he got was a silence that seemed hostile. He stood there for a moment, undecided about what to do, until he suddenly became aware of cooking smells. He turned and followed the aroma, which led him down the very next alleyway. Once again, he called “ni hao” loud and clear.
The head of an old man appeared in a doorway, staring at him suspiciously.
“What do you want?”
“Excuse me for disturbing you. I’m looking for Mrs. Ma,” Paul said in his best Mandarin.
“Who are you?” the old man asked, unimpressed.
“A friend of Da Long’s and his family.”
The old man stepped out. His face was pock marked and he was wearing a faded, worn blue Mao suit; he had the sturdy build of a farmer. He was holding a wooden spoon in his hand. The frames of his large spectacles were held together on both sides with brown elastic bands and there was a crack across the whole of the left-hand lens.
“Mrs. Ma is my wife. What do you want from her?” he snapped, putting both hands on his hips.
“Just to ask her a few questions.”
“If you’re a friend of Da Long’s you should know that she can no longer speak,” the man said, starting to turn away.
“Perhaps you could answer a few questions?”
The old man gave him a suspicious look. “Are you a doctor?”
“No.”
“Then get lost.”
“But I could still possibly help you.”
“No one can help us.”
“I’m interested in your wife’s illness.”
“Go away now.”
“Don’t you find it strange that Min Fang and your wife both fell ill at the same time?” Paul said in a friendly manner, as though he had not heard the man.
“You forgot about Mrs. Zhuo,” the old man added with a sarcastic edge to his voice.
“Who?”
“Mrs. Zhuo. The wife of Da Long’s neighbor. You’re supposed to be a friend of the family and you don’t know about that? Who the hell are you?”
“The husband of Da Long’s sister.”
“Da Long doesn’t have a sister.”
“I’m sorry, that was meant as a joke,”Paul stammered awkwardly. “I’m a friend of Yin-Yin’s. I live in Shanghai. We play music together.”
“Why are you interested in my wife’s illness then?”
“Yin-Yin told me about it. I mean, about her mother and her mother’s friend.”
“What about it? What’s it got to do with you, since you’re not a doctor?”
Paul ignored the question. “Two women, three in fact, fall sick in this village at the same time. Doesn’t that seem strange to you?”
“No. There’s a curse on this village.”
Paul started. “What do you mean?”
“Three strokes in two weeks. I call that cruel fate.”
“How do you know that they were strokes?”
“That’s what the doctors told us. Are you trying to tell me that you know better than them?”
“No. But I’d still like to know if your wife’s sickness started in the same way as Min Fang’s did.”
The old man hesitated. Paul had clearly succeeded in making him a little less suspicious. “The same way. She dropped the tea caddy. Numb in the left hand.”
“At the same time?”
“A few days earlier.”
“And then?”
“She found it more and more difficult to talk. Our son just happened to be here and we took her to People’s Hospital Number Two in Yiwu straightaway. She got worse and worse by the hour. The doctors couldn’t do anything. But we count ourselves lucky. Min Fang got it much worse.”
When Paul heard oil spitting inside the house, he knew that it was a matter of seconds before the man would break off the conversation and hurry back to his wok. Then he wouldn’t get a single word more out of him.
“Do you have cats?”
“Two. They died miserable deaths. Why are you asking about them?”
“The Wus also had a cat.”
“So? The Zhuo family didn’t have one. Does that help us at all?”
“May I ask what your wife liked eating?”
Mr. Ma thought a moment, unsure about whether to finally end this exchange. “Whatever there was to eat,” he said coldly. “Or does it look like we have much choice here?”
“No,” Paul said quietly. “Rice and vegetables, then?”
“Yes.”
“No cats?”
“Cats? Are you one of those crazy animal rights people?”The man’s voice was indignant. “They eat cats in the south. In Guangdong province. But not here!”
“Sorry, I didn’t meant to insult you. I have absolutely nothing against eating cats.”
“They don’t taste good,” the man interrupted. “What else do you want to know?”
“May I ask where your wife is?”
“In the house.”
“May I see her?”
Mr. Ma gave him a fierce look. “You want to come into my house?”
“I just want to see if—”
“No. That’s enough. Leave us alone.”
“Would it be possible for me just to take a quick photo of her?”
“A photo? She’s not a tourist attraction. Go to hell, whoever you are,”the old man said, moving forward and waving the wooden spoon at him furiously.
Paul flinched and took a step back, even though he was at least a head taller than the man. He had nothing to counter this man’s firmness. He apologized a few times and hurried out of the alley.
Da Long was in the courtyard bent over a deep wooden washtub in the middle of a mountain of laundry, washing a bed sheet. He lifted it up high, looked at the several yellow stains and two brown stains, each the size of a palm, on the light-colored material, tipped a bit more detergent powder into the water and scrubbed away at the sheet until the stains were mere shadows. He put the sheet aside and dunked some gray pajama bottoms into the soapy water.
He looked up briefly when his visitor stepped through the gate, but didn’t seem too surprised to see him. Paul thought he even saw the hint of a smile on Da Long’s weary face.
“How are you?” was all he said in greeting.
Christine would probably have been irritated or disappointed b
y such a cool reception, but not Paul. He knew that for a person who was fighting for their child’s or their wife’s life, there were only two kinds of people: those who were or could be helpful or useful, and the others. All their attention went to the first sort of person; they ignored the rest.
“It’s hot today,” Paul said in reply.
“Mm,” Da Long murmured as he rubbed the pajama bottoms together.
“Do you have to do the laundry every day?” Paul asked, trying to start a conversation.
“Nearly.”
Paul helped him to wring the laundry out. “I thought I would come and visit rather than spend the day sitting around in Yiwu.”
Da Long nodded and hung the laundry on a clothesline that was strung across the courtyard.
“Yin-Yin told us yesterday that Mrs. Ma, Min Fang’s friend, also had a stroke. I met Mrs. Ma’s husband on my way here.”
“Uh-huh.” Da Long had nothing more to say. He clearly had no idea what Paul was getting at. Paul didn’t know himself.
“It’s strange, isn’t it? Two friends, two strokes, within two weeks.”
Da Long poured the dirty soapy water out of the washtub, ignoring him. Paul had the feeling that, this morning, he was one of those people whom Da Long thought could not be of any use.
“Tell me, are there any people in this village who eat cats?”
“I don’t think so. Chicken, woodlice, and fish, yes, but no dogs or cats,” Da Long said, lighting a cigarette.
Paul sat on the steps leading into the house, feeling at a loss. Perhaps he was on the completely wrong track. Perhaps the cats had nothing to do with the sickness. But what else did Mrs. Ma and Min Fang have in common? They drank the same water and ate rice and vegetables from the same fields, but so did the whole village. Suddenly, he remembered the name of the place he had been wracking his brains to recall for the last two days. A fishing village in Japan. What hadn’t it come to him sooner? He got the pen and notebook out of his backpack and wrote it down.
“Did you say fish?”
Da Long sucked at the cigarette stub between his lips and nodded. “Min Fang and Mrs. Ma often went fishing together.”
“Where?”
“At the lake.”
“You didn’t go?”
“Hardly ever.”
“And your neighbors, the Zhuos?”
Da Long shook his head.
Paul thought for a minute. “What did you do with the fish?”
“Ate them, of course.”
“How far is the lake from the village?”
“Forty-five minutes on foot. It takes longer to get back. On good days the buckets were heavy with fish.”
“Is it easy to find it?”
“You go down the alleyway in front of the house, straight down. After several few hundred feet you get to the end of the village and it becomes a footpath. Just keep walking and you’ll eventually see it.”
“Is it in an industrial area?”
Da Long smiled. “Quite the opposite. There’s nothing but fields and a few bamboo groves all around. Why are you interested in the lake?”
“Just asking. I like fishing too.”
“Try your luck if you like. Min Fang’s fishing rod is right there next to the house.”
Paul filled his water bottle, borrowed a faded old Mao cap from Da Long to protect him from the sun, and set off.
He followed the path that Da Long had described, and in half an hour he found himself on the brow of a ridge of hills. In the valley before him was a lake that snaked through the landscape almost like a wide river. Paul guessed it was a good two miles long and two or three hundred yards wide. There were reeds growing almost all around the edge of the lake. Paul left the path and climbed down the steep hill to the water. He found a gray-brown liquid that had a shimmering silver-blue film over it in places. There were patches of red, yellow, blue, and white everywhere by the lake, plastic bags that the wind had blown into the reeds. Paul trudged through the long grass. After a few steps there was such a peculiar crunching underfoot that it gave him goose bumps. He had stumbled across a family of ducks, all dead. Paul could make out the carcasses of the mother duck and four young ones; he had stepped on the bones of the fifth. Not far away lay the carcass of a bird. And another. A little farther away, he saw the skeleton of a larger animal, probably a dog. Paul took a few deep breaths. The air was filled with the sweetish smell of decay. He cleared his way through a bamboo grove, picked up a broken-off bamboo rod and went over to the water, pushing it into various places in the reed beds without really knowing what he was looking for. He felt more and more uneasy with each passing minute, and he gradually began to feel that he had been mistaken that morning. There was more at stake than a wasted day. He emptied his water bottle, put his hand into the water and grabbed some mud, which he put in the bottle. Then he held it in the lake until it was full. He didn’t know exactly why he was doing this, but it was the only thing he could think of.
The ground by the lake grew more and more marshy and difficult to walk on. After half an hour he had reached a bend from which he could see to the end of the lake. There he saw a factory with two high chimneys out of which white smoke was rising. He tried to walk on farther but every step made a loud squelching noise and he kept sinking to his ankles, deeper and deeper into the sludge. Eventually he gave up and turned back. The bank on the other side looked better, but it was too late for that now. He had to speak to Da Long urgently.
About an hour later, he was back in Da Long’s courtyard, using some water from the fountain to clean his shoes. Suddenly the loud groaning of someone who was straining beyond human limits sounded from inside the house.
“I’m back. Can I help you?” Paul called out, hurrying in.
Da Long stood by his wife’s bed, holding her right leg in his hand, trying to bend it. There was a mixture of shame and relief in his eyes.
“M-m-maybe,” he said, completely out of breath. “Th-th-the doctors said that I should move her limbs for a few minutes twice a day, otherwise she would get completely stiff. But her muscles are getting more and more rigid. Today is especially bad. Could you try?”
Paul stood on the other side of the bed and lifted Min Fang’s left leg carefully. It was thin and pale, and so light that it made him feel nauseous. It made him think about his son. He too had been horribly emaciated in the final weeks of his life: his skin had grown paler and paler from day to day and the blue veins beneath it had shown so clearly that his skin seemed transparent. The eight-year-old body had been so light that Paul had had no problems lifting it with one arm. It was no longer the weight of life, Paul had thought then, it was the weight of death that he held in his hands. He hesitated.
“Y-y-you have to try to bend the knee and push the thigh b-b-backwards, ten times in a row.”
Paul took a firmer hold and tried to bend Min Fang’s leg and push it toward her stomach. Da Long was right. Even though her leg was thin it was much more difficult to bend than he had imagined. He had to use so much force that he was worried he would break her bones. Min Fang groaned quietly each time.
“I-I-I don’t know if it hurts her,” Da Long said. “But the doctors say it has to be done.”
After Paul had managed ten bends he put her leg down, walked round to the other side of the bed, and rested for a bit.
“Da Long, tell me, how many sick people are there in the village?”
“N-n-no idea. At our age everyone is sick in one way or another, aren’t they? Why are you asking?”
Paul nodded and started on Min Fang’s right leg.
“Didn’t you catch any fish?” Da Long asked.
Paul shook his head. “No. I didn’t even try. To be honest, it didn’t look very inviting.”
“Why not?”
“There were more than a dozen animal carcasses around. Ducks. Birds. There were only skeletons left of some others. I couldn’t tell what they were.”
Da Long did not react.
�
��There were lots of dead fish in the lake. Is that normal?”
“Min Fang told me about it. She said it had grown worse in the last few months.”
“But she kept on fishing there?”
“She said the fish didn’t taste any different than before.”
Paul did not know if he should ask the next question. After a while he said, hoping to sound casual, “What kind of factory is that at the end of the lake?”
“What factory?”
“At the far end of the lake I saw two chimneys with smoke rising, a few buildings and a wall.”
“Oh, that one. It’s been there so long that I completely forgot about it. It’s become a part of the landscape. Golden Dragon. It produces cough syrup, cough lozenges and all kinds of teas to relieve colds.”
“Are you sure? How do you know that?”
He shrugged as if to say that everyone who lived here knew that.
Paul looked at him carefully. Why should this tortured man lie to him? But this was China: His friend Zhang used to say that since the Cultural Revolution all Chinese were suspicious of one another. Distrust had become such a part of society’s fabric that even after three decades of traveling and working in China, Paul often found it hard to tell whom he could believe and whom not.
“How long have you been eating fish from the lake?”
Dragon Games Page 10