In the Lap of the Gods

by Li Miao Lovett

  At long last, Liu arrived in a neighborhood alley, where scraggly rows of low-rises loomed on both sides. The smell of urine wafted up from the cracked pavement, and rats whisked across the narrow alley into shadows and crevices. The corpse of a dead cat lay beside the gutter. Here the rats nibbled on its desiccated flesh. Liu recoiled in disgust. Was it an omen? He pushed the thought out of his mind, but imaginary spiders kept crawling down his legs and feet.

  The edifices of buildings were blackened by soot, but the wash hung from a few balconies in motley colors, like flags of protest, signifying a refusal to surrender to the decay and squalor that had befallen the remnant neighborhoods of Fengdu.

  Liu crept along the silent alleyway, gazing up at the sprawl of apartment buildings. A choking sensation gripped his chest, but the sky was painted only with the ordinary haze of fumes and exhaust from the new city across the river.

  The neighborhood was strangely devoid of signs of the final apocalypse—no red symbols shouting “TSAI” to seal the destruction of buildings, no bold numerals on billboards to forecast the rising level of the Yangtze reservoir. Liu stood uncertainly in front of a gray brick building that appeared even more pitiful than the rest.The window dressing of laundry was absent from the balconies; the iron bars across the windows had been scavenged; fragments of broken glass at Liu’s feet rested like fingerprints at the scene of a crime. It could have been an act of thievery, the suicide of a desperate soul, vandalism committed by a rogue pack of boys. His muscles twitched. He wondered how he might climb up to that second-story balcony. Perhaps he could scramble up the bars of the window below and throw a rope onto the balcony railings. If only he had rope.

  As he stepped back to get a better look, his ankles took a blow from a thin, hard object, and he nearly lost his balance. Liu swung around, his knapsack snug against his ribs, and stared into the eyes of a crippled man whose nose resembled a slab of lotus root above his hollowed cheeks. His gnarled hands gripped his cane like a weapon.

  “Aieeee!” the fellow yelped. Shifting his weight, he raised his cane in the air and shook it at Liu. “What are you doing here? If you’re here to take me away, you can’t!”

  Liu ducked instinctively, clutching his knapsack. He fumbled for the pocketknife as he backed away from the man. Heart pounding, Liu flicked the blade, crouching low to meet his gaze.

  A cool breeze funneled through the alley, flanked on both sides by the silent sentries of buildings. The man kept his stick suspended in the air, but it was not pointed at Liu like a spear; rather, it flailed like a broken branch in the wind.

  Liu shook his head and blinked. Fear had clouded his judgment. How could he possibly be threatened by this fellow, with a lifeless stump of a leg, whose trousers flapped in the wind? Gazing at the invalid’s flickering eyes, Liu felt pity for the man. He retracted the blade.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he declared in a flat voice.

  “Why are you here then?” The man’s tone was still belligerent, although more restrained.

  “I came to find my uncle’s old apartment.”

  “Can’t you tell that ghosts live here? The dead and the dying. You should leave well alone.”

  Liu was at a loss. He knew little about the town beyond its rough layout. His alibi did not assuage the man, who kept his cane raised in from of him. Liu decided he would have to try his luck elsewhere, perhaps a few blocks away.

  “I’ll be on my way then.”

  The fellow’s demeanor softened. His body slumped, and the folds of his shirt bunched up like dead autumn leaves, as if his chest were simply a big cavity.

  “If you’re looking for someone, might as well ask the authorities. They’re stationed a few blocks away. Over there.” The man pointed uphill toward Mt. Mingshan. He thrust the tip of his cane into the ground, propelling himself forward with a rowing motion, and disappeared into the shadows.

  AS LIU MADE HIS WAY THROUGH THE FORSAKEN NEIGHBORHOOD, he began to hear the sounds of life inside the buildings, the creaking of rusty hinges, the dull thud of coal blocks fed into stoves, a raspy, uncontrollable cough emerging from an open window. Liu crept along like a stalking cat, scrunching his toes. He tiptoed around decaying garbage, dried spittle, a dead sparrow. Yet he was afraid of being stalked himself, facing off with another angry resident in a town on its last limbs.

  The mumbling of voices perked up his ears as he approached an intersection. He turned up the hill in the direction the man had pointed. These were not mumbling voices, these were shouts that grew louder as his footsteps took him past row upon row of old buildings like too many dominoes stacked and ready to fall with the flick of a finger. The shouts pulsed, alternating with the rhythm of Liu’s labored breathing.

  A small crowd appeared at the next turn. Men dressed in rags, each a stick man with a bruised arm here, a limping leg there. Crumpled leaflets fluttered against the sky.

  The voices rose in a din of escalating chants.

  “Pay our fair share or we won’t go!”

  “Punish the crooks! Defend the lao bai shing!” These were the old hundred names, the common folk whose families, like Liu’s, had tilled the land for generations.

  The government building, with a crumbling roof and chipped tiles, was held hostage by the angry crowd. Liu pasted his body against a lamppost across the street, and stared at the rioters raising their fists like rifles.

  “No, no, we won’t go!”

  An official’s voice blared from a bullhorn behind a second-story window. “Go home, pack up and leave! You have been duly compensated. There is nothing to complain about.”

  “Fat cats profit while lao bai shing starve.”

  The crowd pushed closer; more people appeared around Liu. A woman pressed against his shoulder, moving with the crowd toward the disembodied voice. She had teeth like dried corn kernels, and her peppery hair had fallen out of its bun. Liu tried to escape, but could not find an opening through the mass of warm bodies pushing forward.

  Arms swayed in unison, like a mass of sea kelp, the bulbous fists of the petitioners rippling in waves of retort.

  “Pay our share or we won’t go!”

  “No! No! We won’t go!”

  Around the corner, a van lurched to a stop. A dozen burly policemen swarmed around the crowd, and their lusty hollers rang across the square. “Break it up! Go home!”

  “No, no, we won’t go!” the lao bai shing chanted over and over again, in unison. Their unwavering refrain was loud, yet soporific in an odd way, like the voices joined in song at Mei Ling’s church.

  “Break it up!” A dozen nightsticks swooped through the air in an acrobatic arc before descending on the heads of the lao bai shing. All around, heads swayed and bodies crumpled to the ground. The jumble of arms and legs flailed against an indifferent sky.

  The nightsticks flew in ten directions. Protesting heads fell silent. Uncombed heads fell into disarray, surrounded by the gleam of silver-capped teeth, and the grizzle of unshaved beards. Frightened heads cried for mercy, but the nightsticks soared into the air and swooped down like buzzards.

  A bristly head near Liu sank to the ground, and cracked teeth scattered on cement, bathed in a crimson pool. A wispy gray head, fragile as a dandelion puff, surrendered to the lamppost, as ancient legs fell against Liu’s heels. Liu crouched down, wrapping his arms over his head as the air sizzled with moans, screams, the swishing of nightsticks, the crunch of oak wood on brittle bone.

  Liu pressed his forehead into the ground, struggling to breathe, but not daring to move. The putrid odors of pus and sweat mingled with the brick-kiln smell of cement. The sidewalk was bright as a revolutionary painting, splattered with blood-stained Mao jackets, blood red for protest, faded blue for dashed proletarian dreams. Nearby, the woman with the unkempt hair bun lay unconscious, her lips parted in an unfinished cry. Liu lifted his head slightly and spied a thick band of jade on the ground, beneath the sprawl of her clothing. Bracing his toes, he propelled himself forward an inc
h, then another, and his right arm sprang out and snatched the bracelet. A second later, he returned to a fetal position. The screams around him subsided, but Liu sensed that his ordeal had only just begun.

  14

  AS THE PROTEST DISSOLVED INTO SWOLLEN-LIPPED SILENCE, AN entourage of military trucks rushed to the scene. Two dozen protestors were crammed into the back of each truck. As the unconscious regained their senses, and the injured wrapped their hands over broken jaws and ribs, the riot police tucked away their nightsticks. Their captain ordered the truck drivers to take the prisoners to an empty warehouse adjoining a fertilizer factory that had shut down.

  Liu had managed to escape any serious blows, but his lot had been cast with the protestors. He thought of declaring himself an innocent bystander, but that would have aroused further suspicions. Crammed into the center of one truck, Liu felt the bony shoulders of another man pressed against his ribs, forcing his breath out with a jolt as the truck careened down one of the remaining roads. Elbows jostled for space, but there was none to spare. In front of Liu, a man’s oily hair smelled like turpentine, and another fellow coughed continuously into his ear.

  By the time the prisoners arrived at the warehouse, the sun had sunk low on the horizon. Armed guards hustled the protestors up the ramp of the loading dock. “Move it, come on! We haven’t got all day.” A burly guard with a broad jaw swiped his nightstick at the prisoners as they passed by.

  Most of the men, and the handful of women in the crowd, moved along listlessly, but one fellow swung around and grabbed the nightstick. “What have we done to deserve punishment?” he hissed. “We just want the government to treat us fairly.”

  “Hey, I’m following orders. Gimme the stick.” The guard tugged on his end, but the man wouldn’t let go.

  A few other protestors chimed in, emboldened by their ring-leader. “Yeah, let us go. We haven’t done anything wrong.” They swarmed around the guard. As the circle closed in, six other guards swung into action and grabbed the petitioners by their collars, tossing them aside like runt piglets. Liu backed away as a tussling match ensued. The rabble-rousers outnumbered their oppressors, shoving, hurling insults, meeting the blows with ragged knuckles and palms.

  A single shot was fired into the air. Gunsmoke lingered like a comet’s tail, then dissolved in the red glow of twilight. The crowd fell silent. A death sentence had been dealt to their protests.

  The prisoners filed solemnly into the warehouse; ninety-six men occupied the main room, while six women were ushered into an adjacent empty office.

  The guard who had been the target of resistance fished out his cell phone. “They fought like pigs at the slaughter.” He flung them a curse with his bruised fingers.

  “Detain them all,” came the authoritative voice at the other end.

  “This isn’t the first time; we gotta teach them a lesson.”

  “I’ll send in some guys to do an ID tomorrow, single out the repeat offenders. Trust me, they won’t give you trouble again.”

  THE NINETY-SIX MEN LINED UP IN THE OLD WAREHOUSE, awaiting the two inspecting guards. Standing in six long rows, they resembled a ragtag army forced into surrender. Skinny men stood next to husky ones; tall and short, hairy and bald, toothy and toothless, they were now united by one identity, that of prisoners. The men were told to strip down to their underwear.

  Soiled shirts and trousers fell in heaps at the feet of the prisoners as the two guards sauntered down each row. The men reluctantly handed over their good-luck pendants and other personal belongings.

  While they were undressing, Liu snatched the jade bracelet from his knapsack and stuck it down the front of his underwear, where elastic bands held it in place.The polished girdle of jade sent a cold tickle through his belly.

  When a guard appeared before him, Liu handed over his knapsack. The guard lingered a moment, noticing an odd bulge above his crotch.

  “You hiding something?” the guard growled, tapping his nightstick on Liu’s hip.

  “Nothing sir, just my family jewels,” Liu said with a straight face.

  The guard smirked and moved on to the next prisoner. An hour later, after their clothing was inspected, the guards told the prisoners to get dressed and threw them some blankets for the night.

  The men were kept in the main warehouse, separate from the women. Twice a day, the prisoners ate a thin porridge of rice and cabbage, sprinkled with a few anchovies. At night, they huddled together, two or three sharing a blanket against the cold damp that set in with nightfall.The concrete floors pierced their spines like knife blades, and during the night, mice scurried about in search of food, on occasion nipping a tender earlobe or a ripe toe.

  The warehouse had once stored fertilizer, but the place smelled less like manure and soil than like curdled tofu. Liu spat repeatedly, but couldn’t clear the phlegm from his throat.

  Languishing in their dank cell, the men got used to the squalor. They fell into a somber state, as the guards refused to tell them when they would be released. The police detectives who arrived on the second day pried out their names and residences, threatening to execute anyone they caught lying. Liu’s alibi was met with suspicion, but a fellow spoke up for him, saying he was an outsider never seen before in town.

  During the evening meals, the prisoners grumbled about the circumstances that led them to protest. They clanked their spoons loudly against the metal bowls so that the guard on duty could not hear them.

  Liu’s new friend, Ji Nan, slurped his porridge noisily. “Do I want to live in a new city? Sure. But I can’t afford rent that’s three times what I’ve been paying.”

  “That’s right. And the government is unwilling to pay,” replied a fellow next to Ji Nan. “Why, I haven’t received a single fen, and I’ve worked for the government for twenty years.”

  “What d’ya expect?” said an elderly man with deep jowls and chipped teeth. “Those damn officials skimmed off a big portion of the funds for themselves. Took the wheat kernels and left us the husks.”

  “I heard a guard say they’re teaching us a lesson here,” said Ji Nan.

  A skeleton of a man fingered his rice bowl. “I lost my wife to cancer and my young boy was born with a bad heart.What else can faze me?” Liu stared across at the widower. He wanted to speak to the man, let him know that he shared his sorrow. But Liu merely choked back his words along with a mouthful of rice.

  MRS. SONG HAD REFUSED TO ACCEPT PAYMENT FROM LIU FOR taking care of Rose for a few days. It was her chance to fatten the baby up a little. On the second morning, she felt a sharp pain in her arch. “Oh dear, this old body needs a tune-up.”

  Rose was awake, and cried to be fed. Mrs. Song had some trouble finding the baby’s spoon, and when she spotted it on the floor, she wondered what it was doing there. The old woman felt a nagging ache in her bones; it seemed to spread upward from that bad arch.

  While Rose was awake for more hours during the day, Mrs. Song was staying in bed longer. Her energy flagged soon after breakfast. Over the next few days, she spent much time in front of the TV, and took long naps in the afternoon. She never used to indulge in such idleness. No, she did not feel like her normal self.

  Standing in front of the mirror above the little sink, Mrs. Song pulled back the gray hair from her face, but she had trouble tucking it into a bun. She did not recognize that face. So wrinkled, almost frail looking. Where had the years gone? She grabbed a dirty sponge and brushed back the gray wisps that strayed from her temple.

  When the pain in Mrs. Song’s arch finally subsided, she decided it was time to see the herbalist. Dr. Liang could give her something to tonify her system. “My body must be weak after that long bout of flu,” she muttered. Glancing over at the sink, she had a fleeting image of some disaster in the kitchen. A fountain of water pooling at her feet. A wet mop. She must have mopped for an eternity. “All that water should have taken the excess heat out of me,” she thought ruefully.

  Rose, however, seemed to be in excellent spir
its. She launched into a chorus of shrieks, her arms waving madly like a sailor chasing away the demons astern.

  “Dear, dear, you are a fiery little goddess, aren’t you? Now hush, or the fairy’s going to turn you into one of her sisters, and like it or not, you’ll be silent as the peaks of Wu Gorge.”

  Little Rose kept up her protests; Mrs. Song would have to take her along. Since she was getting too heavy to carry, Mrs. Song put her in the wheeled cart that she used for grocery shopping. As they meandered through town, Rose clutched the wire mesh, her head bobbing about like a giant bulb of garlic.

  The herbalist’s shop faced a small square in town where vendors lined up their kiosks during the day. A young man opened the door, and Mrs. Song pushed her cart inside. “Greetings, Dr. Liang, how is business?”

  The herbalist’s broad face lit up. “My dear Mrs. Song, what brings you here?”

  Mrs. Song leaned her elbows on the counter. “I tell you, my energy’s not what it used to be. Feeling tired a lot, not sleepy you know, just not my old self.And I’ve been kind of forgetful. Couldn’t find my keys this morning. And my shoes. Looked under the bed, the couch, everywhere. Oh, that was bad on my knees! Oh dear, and a bad arch, too. But that’s better now. Oh, what was I saying? Been tired a lot. Maybe because I was sick. Dr. Liang, I need some mending herbs, some nice strengthening herbs to build up my chi.”

  Dr. Liang listened patiently, then laid Mrs. Song’s palm on a small cushion, and felt her pulse. “Mmmm. . . .” He nodded, writing in his ledger with an ink brush. At his bidding, she also stuck out her tongue, and he peered at the cracked lines that covered its surface. “Tsk tsk....” Dr. Liang shook his head, and jotted another note in sweeping strokes.