Wild Fruit

by Keyi Sheng

  She did not answer, but went on talking about Liuzi getting picked up and taken to the police station, then shuttled from the police station to the shelter, then moved to the rehabilitation centre.

  ‘. . . He’s dead.’ She looked at me as she came to an end of her story.

  ‘Dead?’ I had always been intrigued by death, and I felt my interest perk up now.

  ‘At the rehabilitation centre, they said he had a heart attack . . . but he didn’t have any heart problems at all!’ She was getting a little worked up. ‘Auntie, I have never bothered you, but Liuzi’s death is mysterious. You’re a reporter. You have to help me investigate.’

  I tried to get the measure of Yihua. She had a childish face, but a deep cleavage. This combination did not match. She was tall and had long limbs, and she possessed the trouble-causing appearance that could control all living creatures, while unfortunately also leaving her brain empty. Of course in hindsight, my point of view was all wrong, as proven by life’s realities. In fact, men are never critical about a woman’s intellectual capacity, and what they want to hold is not a woman’s knowledge or the wisdom in her brain.

  ‘It is definitely strange. Don’t panic, wait here for me. I will go speak to my editor,’ I said, leaving Yihua and going to search for Yu Shuzhong.

  In Yu’s estimation, this was a case worth investigating. There certainly was something not quite right about Liuzi’s death. He talked about the notorious system of custody and repatriation, saying it was not concern for the weak but rather exploitation of the weak, and a human rights violation. He wanted me to start with the deceased and dig deeper. ‘Remember what I’ve said. We have to abolish the unjust detention system. Perhaps it will start from here, from the Today Newspaper.’

  I did not doubt Yu’s professional sensitivity, but I suspected that what he said might be too idealistic. The Today Newspaper had limited freedom. Yu had written numerous self-criticisms on the matter.

  ‘What about the hospital interview?’ I asked. ‘Two people from my hometown died. Maybe this really is connected to an epidemic?’

  ‘I’ve already arranged for another reporter . . . ’ Yu was always quick to sort out his ideas. ‘Xiaohan, when you see a corpse, does it still give you nightmares?’

  ‘No. On the contrary – right now, I’m quite keen to observe anyone who died under mysterious circumstances.’

  I smiled. I did not want him to worry.

  Sometimes, I felt Yu and I were already in a romantic relationship.

  We took a taxi to the Detention Treatment Centre. Yihua said Liuzi must certainly have been beaten to death. When I asked her why she said this, she replied, ‘Lu Mingliang, a friend I met at work, has a friend from her village who was beaten to death. Liuzi was in good health. He didn’t have heart problems. He never had a cold, or even a touch of diarrhoea, and now he’s suddenly dead. There’s definitely something wrong. We have no education and no backing. If we die, we die, and no one cares. Our relatives from the countryside can only come and collect the corpse – what else can they do?’

  Yihua said she knew a support worker at the treatment station, Hu Lilai, and he had promised to grant an interview. He was waiting for us there now.

  Yihua even provided me with a source. I felt like hugging her, but I didn’t. This sort of gesture was too intimate, and I was not used to it. I asked her how she knew Hu Lilai, and she told me the whole story about the deal she had made with him and their trip to the hospital.

  I was shocked. ‘Are you really prepared to sleep with a stranger?’ I asked.

  As soon as I said it, I recalled my own indulgences during my time with Yehe Nara, and I felt ashamed to no end. I thought, How did I become such a self-righteous person?

  Yihua said, ‘Whether Liuzi died or not, I still have to sleep with Hu Lilai ten times.’

  I nodded. ‘It’s good to keep your promise, but you can’t gamble with your body.’

  ‘What do I have, other than my body?’ Yihua said.

  I did not answer.

  I felt confused, both because of what Yihua had said and because of who she was. It was like I was dreaming. To think that she was our next generation, my own niece, and she was so beautiful, like a mare. And now she was just like me, in this complex society, acting like a philosopher. Her family name was Liu, but she had inherited the piercing coldness of my ancestral beauty. This made me secretly envious. But when I thought of my blood ties to her, I felt I should do something for her. Several years earlier, I liked to preach; every time I met Yihua and Yicao, I told them to study and think diligently, constantly going on about ideals and goals. It was one ear in and out the the other for them. They kept a respectful distance from me.

  I asked Yihua, ‘Why didn’t you sleep with Liuzi?’

  ‘Sleeping together is the easy part,’ she said. ‘Once you do it, it’s gone . . . Like when you eat sweets and are left with nothing but the wrapper.’

  The driver glanced at us in the rearview mirror. I could see that he was a little excited and hoped to participate in the conversation.

  I did not want to satisfy his lust. I shut up and donned a thoughtful expression.

  Before long, we reached the shelter. Yihua pointed to a camouflage-clad, dark-skinned boy straddling a motorcycle. ‘That’s Hu Lilai,’ she said.

  A police car stopped at the gate of the Detention Treatment Centre. The gate was wide open. Several officers went in and out. They were carrying away Liuzi’s corpse.

  ‘I reported the case,’ Yihua said. ‘As soon as I did, I went looking for you.’

  ‘That was the right thing to do,’ I said, secretly admiring how capable Yihua was. ‘Be careful. The police might have been bought.’

  ‘Right. I don’t believe them. I believe you, and I believe in the media. In these past few days, I’ve learned what those old feudal government offices were all about, and what people in such offices still do now.’

  Hu rode his motorcycle over and stopped in front of us. He wanted Yihua and me to get on the bike with him so we could find a place to talk.

  Yihua sat in the middle, and I sat behind her. Two minutes later, we stopped under an old banyan tree. It had luxuriant foliage, and fine roots hung all over its body. Its branches were old and black.

  Hu had a lot to say. For instance, his salary was less than 2000 yuan each month, and he often worked overtime. When new patients came in at midnight, he had to tell them the treatment code at the Detention Treatment Centre. He had a 70-year-old mother who was in poor health and bedridden. From his pile of nonsense, the only useful information I got was that the night Liuzi had come to the Detention Treatment Centre. Hu had not only lectured Liuzi, but had also kicked his stomach twice. He said that, because of this, he would cancel the debt of ‘ten times’ that Yihua owed him.

  I told Hu, ‘This is no small matter. The more you tell me, the better it will be for you.’

  He said, ‘Every newcomer to this place has to be beaten. It’s a sort of “regulation” before one crosses into the cells.’

  ‘Cell regulation?’ I was a bit confused.

  ‘The sickroom in the Detention Treatment Centre is called the cell. Transferring rooms is called transferring cells.’

  ‘Then what do you call the people you take in?’

  ‘Rats.’

  When he had said this, he started to leave. He wanted to go home to help his mother eat, drink, and empty her bladder and bowels. He did not feel he was a bad person for kicking Liuzi twice. When he had ridden away about a hundred metres, he turned back and offered one last parting comment, ‘Go look for the head nursing worker, Qiao Feiyan. He knows everything.’

  Yihua and I made our way back to the Detention Treatment Centre. The police had left, and the centre was restored to a state of calm. The gate was closed, and everything was silent.

  An hour later, Yihua and I visited the shelter and the police station. We did not finish the interviews until it was dark outside.

  Yihua had los
t her lover, and I felt society was a real mess. The weather was a bit oppressive.

  For dinner, I took Yihua for Teowchew cuisine. I knew which dishes were the best.

  ‘Let's get a drink,’ Yihua said.

  ‘What kind of drink?’

  ‘Beer.’

  ‘No problem. Teowchew dishes go well with alcohol.’

  I ordered oysters, roasted goose, brine, vegetables, porridge, and four bottles of beer. Yihua took a couple of bites and said, ‘It’s pretty plain. I want something spicy – like peppers fried with meat.’

  ‘It’s as hard to change one’s tastes as it is to change the accent.’ I couldn’t help but laugh. When Yu had brought me to this place, I had wanted to eat peppers fried with meat too.

  ‘You don’t have an accent. Your Mandarin sounds like the people on TV,’ Yihua said.

  ‘I spent three years correcting my accent. If you want to do something well, you just have to be serious and work hard, then you’ll most likely succeed. I bet you don’t have any desire to learn Mandarin.’

  ‘I do want to learn.’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t asked. Where in Guangzhou are you working?’

  ‘If I tell you, you’ll look down on me more than you already do.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Promise first that you won’t scold me.’

  ‘I’m not your mother.’

  ‘. . . At the Oriental Pearl.’

  ‘A nightclub?’

  ‘But believe me, I’ve kept my hands clean while I worked.’

  ‘Who would believe a girl in a nightclub is pure? I believe you, but will your parents? Or other people?’

  I had already guessed she worked in a hotel or entertainment facility. Only those places required youth and beauty. But hearing it with my own ears, I still felt a little uncomfortable.

  ‘Auntie, you are not much older than me. We’re basically peers . . . ’

  ‘Hey, hey, hey . . . Have you had too much to drink? I’m clearly your senior, you know.’

  ‘Seniority in the family is just seniority, but we belong to the same generation in society. Don’t you also like Leslie Cheung? When he committed suicide, you even wrote an article in memory of him.’

  ‘You read that?’ I was a little surprised Yihua read the newspaper.

  ‘I stumbled across it. I just mean to say that the only difference between you and me is that you went to the university, and I didn’t,’ she said lightly.

  ‘Why didn’t you look me up?’

  ‘I wanted to make something of myself first.’

  ‘Well, you have good prospects.’ I meant it. ‘What do you hope to make yourself into?’

  ‘My teacher at school always loved to ask me that. To tell you the truth, I still don’t have an answer.’

  ‘Give me a rough idea.’

  ‘I want to open my own company.’

  ‘You still can’t open a brothel legally in China.’

  ‘Li Xiaohan, if you talk like that again, I’m out of here.’ Yihua called me directly by my full name.

  ‘You’ve got a temper.’ I pretended to be severe, but inwardly, I liked her more and more by the minute.

  ‘If you don’t set aside the empty facade of being my “senior,” we can’t really talk because we won’t be equals.’

  ‘OK,’ I said, persuaded. ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘What do we do next, for Liuzi’s case?’

  ‘I need to find a way to get into the Detention Treatment Centre for an interview.’

  When Sun Xiangxi came back from Hong Kong, Chuntian slipped out to see him. Sun had brought a cheap hairpin back for her. It seemed to be inlaid with small diamonds, and it sparkled. My sister was just happy Sun thought of her. Laughing, she asked him which woman he had taken with him. He said, ‘There’s no woman. You mean you took my little joke seriously?’

  Chuntian said, ‘Even if there was a woman, I wouldn’t know.’

  Sun pulled two pairs of socks out of his bag, and a condom came out with them. The red package fell to the ground. It was quite striking.

  My sister picked it up. The words on the package were English, so she did not understand. She rubbed and pinched it with her fingers, and it was slippery. It dawned on her now, and her face slowly turned red. It looked like she was biting something in her mouth, and it escaped her teeth, then her emotion burst forth. It was a big monster, and it was closing in on its goal, bringing with it disappointment, contempt, and pain.

  ‘Bringing this along, you were quite well-prepared.’

  Sun was an old pro. This little flaw would not deter him. He laughed and embraced Chuntian. ‘What nonsense are you talking about? I meant to use this with you.’

  This was a huge insult to my sister’s intelligence. She was not stupid, and he knew she had had her tubes tied. She pushed Sun away forcefully, and he almost fell.

  ‘You think you’re fooling a small child? When did we need this? When did we ever use it?’

  Sun still grinned. ‘Don’t worry. Let me explain. This thing is different, it has spirals.’ Sun moved to whisper in Chuntian’s ear, ‘You’ll enjoy it.’

  These words suddenly broke down Chuntian’s stand. She gave herself a moment to consider, and she thought maybe she had accused him unfairly. Perhaps he just wanted to do something a little more interesting; he was after all a romantic fellow. Sun saw her hesitation and knew it was a turn for the better. He understood the train of her thoughts quite well. She could not handle two issues at the same time. As long as one issue had the upper hand, with a bit of effort, it could squeeze the other off the cliff.

  Sun put forth that bit of effort. ‘You’re talking about me . . . But you, what have you been doing the past few days? Day and night you’re with Zhima. It makes me uncomfortable. Who knows what you two have been up to?’

  Sun changed targets, focusing on her weak point. She immediately fell in line. After all, he was single, while she was a married woman. Feeling a little ashamed, she argued hotly, ‘He’s injured. His ribs are broken. I’ve been waiting on him hand and foot until I’m exhausted. Do you think it’s a holiday for us?’

  Inwardly, Sun laughed with joy. He put on a magnanimous front. ‘You two can get up to any sort of mischief you want, and what can I do? You’re his wife.’

  She said, ‘With Zhima in this condition, I really can’t mention anything to him.’

  Sun felt now that the issue of the condom was settled, he could use that foreign plaything with her, consolidating his lies. But she refused. As soon as she saw the red package with English print, it was like cold water had been poured on her, waking her up. On top of that, she had been gone too long. She had to go back to the hospital. She was an emotional wreck, and had completely lost all interest in Sun.

  ‘Some time back, I heard you got a secondary school teacher pregnant. Was that true?’ she said suddenly.

  Sun froze. His mind spinning, he searched for a defence. ‘Ah, yes . . . I wanted to tell you about that myself, but I felt like it was a relationship in the past, so I didn’t tell you. I didn’t think you’d like to hear me talk about having loved another woman. We were together for a year. She wouldn’t get a divorce . . . You know how it is. I’m an old man, and I can’t wait forever. We had broken up, but she showed up one day . . . I just saw her once. We lost our minds. We did it again, but I never imagined . . . ’

  ‘Why did she refuse to get a divorce?’ My sister had some sympathy for the male lead of this tale.

  ‘Sometimes, I really don’t understand what you women want . . . She had a kid,’ Sun said. ‘Maybe I had more money than her husband, and was more cultured . . . But in the end, she played me.’

  My sister thought for a moment. ‘Are you saying that to accuse me?’

  ‘No. How could I? I know you. You’re not like her.’

  ‘What am I like?’

  ‘You . . . You’re upright, and kind, and simple . . . And you’re beautiful.’

  ‘Forget it. I know what I’m like.
You’re just trying to flatter me.’

  ‘I think you’re beautiful. I love the way you look. What about you? Don’t you care about me?’

  She wanted to leave. She answered lightly, ‘I like ordinary men. I don’t mind if a guy’s old and ugly, as long as he doesn’t fuck around.’

  Yu Shuzhong got hold of an important document that made the Detention Treatment Centre open their gate obediently. The staff obliged, but coldly. The atmosphere inside the facility was strange. They did not allow me inside the cells, saying that some of the mental patients were unruly, and it would not be safe for me. I could not differentiate between doctors, nurses, and nurse support workers. Their identities were confusing, and each person seemed to have multiple roles. They were like ghosts, their eyes shifting and their faces expressionless. When they answered my questions, there was no logic, as if they were all psychotic. When they finished their interviews, they turned into busy worker bees, very abruptly leaving me like a dead branch in the midst of flowering shrubs.

  I smelt a bloody stench – a hot, disgusting smell. The cells were silent. The whole facility was quiet and stifling. There was a pot of devil’s ivy outside every window. At a glance, I knew they were all newly bought. Obviously, the staff heard that someone was coming to interview them, so they had made a series of arrangements, sprucing up the Detention Treatment Centre, but I could still detect the chaos underneath the surface. I conducted interviews for two hours, but got nothing.

  When I asked about Qiao Feiyan, everyone became imbecilic and incoherent, as if a gun was secretly pointed at their forehead. One by one, they all praised Qiao fervently. From my interviews, I found out Qiao was ex-military, and he was strong. He had been recruited the previous year to work in security, and had done very well. He was quickly made team leader. The security and nurse support workers were the same at the Detention Treatment Centre, and everyone followed his orders willingly. One girl panicked a little. She was Qiao’s girlfriend, but she said she had just come back from a holiday and did not know anything.