by Jinkang Wang
Xue Yu answered on behalf of everyone. “That’s fine, we were planning to do that anyway.”
Prime Minister Miki added, “And the two children can stay too. I’ll make all the arrangements personally. You won’t be able to leave the quarantine zone, but there’s plenty to do in Tokyo. I can get you invited to the Imperial Palace and the prime minister’s office.”
Jiji and Jiaojiao were overjoyed. “Really? Thank you.” Then Jiji thought of something. “But our winter vacation is almost over. If Mom, Dad, and Granny aren’t going back, then who’ll tell the school?”
The Chinese leader smiled. “Don’t worry about that, I’ll take care of it personally. How about that?”
“That’s great, if you ask for permission, the teacher won’t dare say no!”
They all burst out laughing again.
Two weeks later—Kabul
The fighting in Kabul had finally ended two years previously, but the place was still an open sore, most noticeably in the way the air was constantly full of dust. After so many years of neglect, and damage from heavy military vehicles, the roads were a complete ruin. The city’s buildings were also scarred and broken, so the slightest breeze, or a passing car, would leave the city shrouded in dust.
Amid the poverty and destruction, many were forced to furtively slip into the world’s oldest profession.
Salma was one of them. She was only twenty, and her grandfather and father had both been rabid anti-American fighters. Her father was dead, and her grandfather had only just returned home after vanishing for many years without a word. He was missing a leg when he showed up again.
She’d just spotted a new customer, and was hurrying toward him. The man was in his fifties, neatly dressed, looking like a Westerner or at least a Westernized Afghan. He held a briefcase and looked coldly over her and the other women on the street. Salma went up to him and said, in English, “Sex?”
He paused, then sneered, “Sex.”
In her painful English, Salma said, “Whole night, two hundred afghani. One time, hundred fifty.”
“All right, I’ll pay two hundred.”
Salma led him home. Walking behind her, the man stayed alert for any signs of movement. After the terror attack in Tokyo two weeks ago, Interpol would have questioned He Zhichao, and should have been able to narrow down his whereabouts. Who knew how many dogs were prowling Kabul right now, trying to pick up his scent. He had to be careful. They arrived at Salma’s house, tiny as a pigeon coop, her room only big enough for a bed and small table, and heated by a coal stove. A shabby home, but the man was satisfied. It was precisely a space like this he needed in order to carry out his plan.
Salma lit the stove, and the icy room thawed a little. Pulling some condoms from the table’s drawer, she said in English, “Protect. AIDS.”
He shook his head. Seeing as he didn’t have much more than ten days to live, AIDS was no threat to him. Salma didn’t insist, but simply said, “No condom, five hundred.”
She studied his face carefully as she named her price, prepared to lower it quickly if he seemed angry. But the man was exceptionally generous, and nodded woodenly. “Fine.”
Salma beamed. It wasn’t every day that she came upon such a good prospect. Five hundred afghanis! Her grandfather had sold his whole life to the Taliban, and only got a payout of five hundred at the end. After being out of touch for many years, he’d suddenly shown up twenty days ago. Salma’s mother had sent word for her to come visit. Grandfather had lost a leg and was dressed in rags, his eyes shrinking from his daughter-in-law and granddaughter, clearly aware he wasn’t welcome. Salma didn’t want anything to do with the man. When had he ever done his duty by the family? Later, he’d pulled five hundred afghanis from a pocket and handed it to his granddaughter. Her mother told Salma that this was the payout he’d received at the end. He’d begged for food all the way back, not touching any of it. Salma’s heart softened, and she agreed with her mother that he could stay with them, though it would put even more pressure on her.
She swiftly removed her clothes and slipped beneath the covers, cooing, determined to show her customer a good time. The man stripped too and lay on top of her. Gradually, Salma sensed something was wrong. He was full of rage, and possessed an enormous sexual drive for his age. He thrashed about, bucking and thrusting, and after he climaxed, his whole body went limp. Yet not long after, he was enthusiastically climbing back on top of her. He was determined to get his money’s worth, Salma thought ruefully.
It was late at night before he finally calmed down, sleeping in Salma’s bosom like an infant, one of her nipples in his mouth, his lips clamped around it. Salma found this uncomfortable, but didn’t dare push him away. Sometime later, she felt something cold on her breast, and when she reached down, she realized he was silently weeping, his tears soaking a patch of blanket. She felt a stab of sadness for whatever unspeakable torments this man was holding inside himself, alongside a fear that he might be unbalanced, maybe even a madman.
He didn’t do anything else after that, just slept quietly. Having been put through the wringer, Salma was exhausted, and soon drifted off too.
It was almost dawn when Zia Baj woke. He looked around the room, and at the sleeping Salma. He was about to bid the world farewell; he’d had a moment of weakness the night before. If he could turn the clock back twenty-six years, he would not choose this path again. Looking back, he saw no family, no happiness, no joy—nothing but murder, murder, so much killing that his heart had grown thoroughly hard. Yet this was the road he’d taken, and he would end what he had begun.
After leaving America, he’d spent more than a decade cultivating smallpox pathogens, using up all his financial and mental resources on this terror attack on Tokyo. Although the Japanese anti-epidemic measures were effective, they should have been overwhelmed by such a large-scale attack. If he could have killed two hundred or even one hundred thousand, he’d have died happy.
Yet half a month had passed, and the news made it sound as though a hundred thousand had been infected in Tokyo, but all with mild symptoms, no worse than cowpox. There were only two deaths, both weak and elderly victims. Later on, he learned the reason for his defeat: a virologist named Mei Yin and her technique of inoculation using an attenuated virus. Zia Baj was stunned. He’d once been a world-class virologist, but after so many years out of contact with the profession, it seemed he’d been left behind. He hadn’t even heard of this new invention.
Now he recalled that his previous attack in America had also been foiled by Mei Yin—she and another American investigator had sounded an early warning, speeding the response of the American government by a few days. He and Mei Yin had met once, at an open forum, and he could still remember her appearance: not too tall, elegant, fragile on the outside but steely within. It seems he’d found his nemesis.
Zia Baj had begun to lose his appetite for the fight. But he couldn’t leave this world without leading one last charge. When he’d been given the viruses all those years ago, there had been a virulent Ebola specimen among them. Since then he’d cultivated huge quantities of smallpox, but done nothing with the Ebola—with no effective vaccine, it was too dangerous to work with. To someone determined to die, though, that was actually an advantage. Ebola had no cure: Let’s see how the Japanese, and Mei Yin, deal with it!
The Ebola virus had been in cold storage close to thirty years, and had been allowed to breed in that time, but never tested. It was easy to find a test subject, though. He’d chosen a woman with her own room for precisely this purpose. She was sound asleep now. He rose quietly, got some tape from his briefcase, and nimbly bound her hands and legs together. When she woke, she stared at him in terror, screaming hoarsely, “What are you doing? Help—”
He grabbed her underwear and stuffed them into her mouth.
Salma struggled fruitlessly on the bed. Zia Baj ignored her, removing the syringe and distilled water from his bag, breaking the seal on the virus vial, plunging it into the wat
er, then filling the syringe with it. He intended to inject her with it, then wait a few days for the symptoms of Ebola to appear, to judge the strength of the virus. Salma’s eyes were fixed on the needle. She didn’t know what was in the syringe, but she knew it couldn’t be good, and would likely cost her her life. So scared she forgot to struggle, she looked pleadingly at the man, tears rolling down her cheeks. Baj glared coldly at her, ripped off the blanket, grabbed her arm, and prepared to inject her. But suddenly—he stopped, brow furrowed in thought. Just before he’d gagged her, she’d called out in a familiar language. He’d thought it was English, but now it struck him that it wasn’t. It was . . . Pashto? That would mean the woman was from the same tribe as he was . . . He lowered the needle and asked in Pashto, “You’re Pashtun?”
Seeing a chance to save herself, Salma nodded frantically. Baj thought about it, and pulled the underwear from her mouth, murmuring, “No shouting! Tell me quietly, where are you from?”
Salma obediently lowered her voice and answered in Pashto, then continued gazing piteously at him. So she really was of his tribe. This wouldn’t have meant a thing to him, before, but now he decided to spare this prostitute’s life. He was planning to turn himself into a human bullet, anyway, and head to Tokyo with the Ebola, so perhaps the test was pointless. He put the syringe to one side, untied the woman, and commanded her, “No shouting! One sound from you, and I’ll kill you at once.”
Knowing her life had been spared, Salma nodded vigorously.
“Quick, get dressed.”
Staring at him, she did as he said.
“Now come over here and stick this in me.”
Shocked, she shook her head, and said in Pashto she didn’t know how to inject someone. He said in a hard voice, “Do as I say! I’ll teach you.”
She could only take the syringe, both hands trembling, and under his guidance, stick it into the bend in his arms a few times, finally finding a vein. Baj told her to pull the plunger back, sucking a little blood into the chamber, then pressing all the liquid in the syringe into his vein. As she pushed, he stared silently at the chamber, his expression peaceful. Salma grew calm too, thinking she’d been worried about nothing earlier. It didn’t look like the syringe could have contained poison. Perhaps it was some kind of aphrodisiac? With that in his veins, who knew what demands he’d make of her next. Still, it was better than losing her life. The strange thing was, after the injection, the man had no reaction, but sat on the side of the bed, looking at her despondently. After a while, he got dressed, took five hundred afghanis from his wallet and placed them by the bedside, then picked up his briefcase and departed in silence.
Salma watched curiously as he shuffled out. She was certain she’d just had an encounter with a madman, though his five hundred afghanis were real enough. She picked up the banknotes and spent some time happily admiring them, then carefully put them away and went back out to find more clients.
Zia Baj didn’t dare delay, but went immediately to buy a ticket to Tokyo. After his plastic surgery, he’d gotten a fake passport with his new appearance, and used that to apply for a Japanese visa. Ebola had a short incubation period, and at its quickest could strike a person down in two days. Within five days his skin would be falling off and he’d be leaking blood from every orifice. It was important to get through customs before any symptoms appeared, or he’d be in trouble. He himself would be the vector of Ebola’s spread in Tokyo. This single point of transmission wouldn’t create too large an outbreak, but he’d do his best, and if before his own death he could drag a few dozen others down with him, it would be enough.
Six days later—Tokyo
Jiji and Jiaojiao ended up having the most decadent winter vacation. The infection was completely over after twenty days, but for the sake of caution, Mei Yin and the Xues decided they should stay in Japan for forty days, the legally defined period of quarantine. It was forty days of fun as far as the children were concerned, even if they couldn’t leave Tokyo. Miki kept his word, and arranged for them to visit the prime minister’s office. He personally showed them around, and also arranged for them to visit the Imperial Palace. The emperor didn’t put in an appearance, but Prince Akishino welcomed them in person, and walked with them among the lakes and greenery. The Japanese Imperial Palace was completely different from China’s Forbidden City, in that it was open to visitors, but the royal family still lived there, so tourists were only allowed access to small areas. Regular visitors could look around the East Garden and Kitanomaru Park as part of a guided tour, but had to walk in a quiet, orderly manner, and could only stop in certain spots, with barely enough time for photographs. By contrast, Mei Yin and the others were treated like foreign dignitaries, and white-haired Prince Akishino led them across Nijubashi Bridge into the palace itself. They saw the royal household’s chambers, the imperial meeting rooms, the palace square, and so on. Within the high walls grew an ancient forest, almost three hundred thousand trees from all over Japan. The palace was set in the midst of these trees—all white walls and dark tiles in the Japanese style, a creature with the head of a dragon and the tail of a fish looming over the roof as a figurehead, the emperor’s symbol of the chrysanthemum carved on either side. Everyone looked on with great excitement, and Xiaoxue asked her son, “Isn’t that beautiful?”
Jiji said honestly, “Very beautiful, but it’s not as grand as the Forbidden City.”
Hastily, Xue Yu said, “Don’t be rude. What nonsense!”
All of this was in Chinese, but Prince Akishino noticed their expressions and spoke softly with his interpreter, then chuckled. “The child is right. Compared to the Forbidden City, our Imperial Palace is much less magnificent. After all, Japan is a smaller country, and our imperial household couldn’t put up as big a show. China’s feudal society was the most mighty in the world, but that also meant its peasants suffered the most.”
Xue Yu and the rest were startled by his words. But it made sense. It was easy to forget that the glories of ancient civilizations—the Forbidden City, the Great Wall, the Taj Mahal, or the Pyramids—were built upon the bodies of peasants. But without those vicious tyrants and the suffering of their subjects, wouldn’t human civilization be much duller? A paradox.
Their extended forty-day vacation would be over in two days. Now they said good-bye to their Japanese escorts, and headed to Yoyogi Park to admire the cherry trees. During the cherry blossom season in March, visitors from around the world crowded the place. But now it was colder, and there weren’t as many tourists. At the entrance, strangely dressed young people congregated, some doing warm-ups, some throwing Frisbees or practicing acrobatic tricks. In a little square farther on, more young people were practicing street dances. Many others sat around the fountain, hugging their knees, enjoying the peaceful green surroundings.
The park was beautiful, the greenery lovely, and the stillness wonderful. Thick-trunked tall trees blocked out the sunlight, and streams flowed quietly through the dim woods. The two couples sat on the grass chatting, while Jiji and Jiaojiao each took one of Mei Yin’s hands, running off among the trees. The adults watched the old woman and her two young companions disappear, and Xiaoxue said enviously, “Jiji’s closest to his grandma, even I can’t compete.” He Ying laughed. “Never mind Jiji, look at how Jiaojiao sticks close to her Auntie Mei, tossing me aside.”
Xue Yu sighed. “Mother Mei loves children so much, maybe because she never had any of her own. She’s had a hard life, and I know Xiaoxue often feels sorry for her.”
Sun Jingshuan said, “Her life was hard, but we shouldn’t pity her. She fought hard, and was lucky enough to see her struggles bear fruit. To a scientist, that’s the greatest good fortune. You could call it the perfect life. No one with her accomplishments could claim to have regrets when they left this world.”
Jingshuan began delving into his memories, telling the other three everything he knew about Mei Yin’s life, including what had happened to her in Russia. The stories continued until the sky gre
w dark, and Mei Yin appeared again with the two children in tow. She called, “Hey, what are you talking about? Looks like a deep conversation.”
Jingshuan smiled but didn’t answer, and He Ying said, “Jingshuan’s telling us that you have a perfect life.”
Mei Yin shot a glance at him, and a flash of pain passed through her eyes. But it quickly passed, and she hugged the children to her. “That’s right. My life is absolutely perfect. I have a daughter and son-in-law, a grandson, and now I’ve just acquired a new little niece. Isn’t that right, Jiji and Jiaojiao?”
The kids obediently threw their arms around her neck and kissed her, and everyone laughed.
The seven of them walked out of the park. There were two black statues by the entrance, a half-naked one dressed like a Japanese warrior, holding a samurai sword; the other was almost completely nude, a re-creation of Rodin’s The Thinker. Jiji shouted, “Look, statues! How come we didn’t see them on our way in? Daddy, I want a photo with them. Hey!” he yelped in shock. “The statues’ eyes are moving!” They were human statues—faces and bodies painted, so still they looked convincingly statuelike. The children happily posed for pictures with them, while Jingshuan placed five hundred yen into each of their bowls.
Outside the park, they stood by the side of the road, waiting for a taxi. One appeared round the corner, but even at a distance there was something odd about it: it was going too fast and zigzagging, as if driven by a drunk person. Xue Yu and Jingshuan reacted first, grabbing the two children and three women and stepping back onto the sidewalk. The taxi zoomed past them and screeched to a halt in front of the human statues, almost colliding into some people taking photos of them. A man dressed in black got out of the cab, lurching toward the crowd. He grabbed a woman’s arm and bit hard. She shrieked, too stunned to fight back. Before anyone else could respond, the man in black turned quickly and bit someone else. Finally the onlookers began to react, the men quickly pushing the women and children behind them, others charging the man, ready to fight. The performer dressed as a warrior pointed his sword at the attacker and shouted in Japanese, “Don’t move!”