Night Heron

by Adam Brookes

  She sighed.

  “Some bright spark in Zhongnanhai decided it was ‘bourgeois liberalization’ and there’d better be a campaign against it. So all the kids were packed off to the villages in their summer hols to learn from the peasants. Can you imagine? Peanut got all agitated. They’re going to do it again, Sonia, you watch. We’ll all be locked in broom cupboards. Our lives do not belong to us, Sonia. We cannot create. Fewer lists, more guff after that. Peanut on the nature of true reaction. Peanut on the failure of Chinese civilization.”

  She stopped, took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes.

  “It was the summer of the yellow dress.”

  There was a pause.

  “I don’t think I’m familiar with that,” said Patterson.

  Clarke smiled. “There was a market up in Haidian, near the Beijing University campus. And that summer one of the stalls started selling a little cotton dress in bright yellow. And it sat there for a few weeks, no one daring to try it. I mean the girls had moved on from baggy Mao suits by then. They were wearing blouses and sensible trousers. But the idea of a dress that showed your legs, and your shoulders! And in bright yellow! Scandale! And then some brave soul bought one and wore it. And before you knew it the campuses were blooming with these gorgeous girls in stunning canary yellow. The stall couldn’t keep up with demand. And then someone bought one in red! And the girls started moving and holding themselves differently.” She let her hands weave gracefully through the air. “They were suddenly women, not Communists.”

  She paused and gestured to Patterson.

  “We work our whole lives, don’t we, looking for that shard of information, that secret, which has—what did we call it?—predictive value. A signpost. A precursor to understanding. And sometimes it’s staring us in the face. And because it’s not secret we ignore it. That yellow dress told us that a whole climate of belief and behavior was giving way to something new. And the new—when it came—would be bright and sexy and young. But we had no idea of its significance.”

  She was tiring now, Patterson could see.

  “How did it end, Sonia?”

  “I hardly know. We saw less and less of Peanut. The others seemed to lose interest. They all watched that television series, River Elegy, and it was as if they’d found religion. We must tear down the walls, Sonia. We are strangled by isolation, suffocated by a cruel and grandiose culture. Stunted by chauvinism. Modernity, Sonia! They all declared themselves for democracy. Poor loves. I contacted Peanut directly. Late eighty-eight, I suppose. Activated a meeting by letter. We were supposed to prepare for handover to a new case officer. Fat chance. He had the grace to turn up, but it was only to end it. Go away, Sonia. This is my cause now. You’re not relevant. And that was that. And by the following April he was demonstrating on Tiananmen Square. They all were.”

  “What happened to him, Sonia?”

  Clarke spoke very quietly. “I don’t know. When the troops moved in to clear the square, June third, we thought he was arrested. But he vanished so completely. No notice of any trial. Word got out about where a lot of those arrested got sent, but no one ever mentioned Peanut. Did he die in custody? His sister said he was in labor reform up in the north-west. But I don’t know if it was ever confirmed.”

  “He’s back, Sonia,” said Patterson.

  “I thought he might be.”

  “We don’t know if he’s real.”

  “Did he use the word ‘lotus’?”

  Patterson paused, calculating.

  “Yes. Yes, he did.”

  Sonia Clarke looked towards the window, the gathering darkness.

  “Oh, they’d never turn Peanut.”

  She drove back to London in darkness, thought of agents she’d run. The little Iraqi boy in Nasiriyah, a runner for the local hoods, stubby teeth, eyes like torches, riding his moped barefoot between insurgent safe houses. Lieutenant Patterson had put a tracking beacon under his rear mudguard, which delivered the exact coordinates of every local nasty, superb operational intelligence. For about three weeks. And when they found the boy, on a rubbish dump outside town, his fingers were gone, and someone had taken to his head with a power drill. She turned the radio on.

  At Archway, she let herself into the house. Damian, from downstairs, was in the hallway, checking the mail. He gave her a mock salute.

  “Captain Sensible. You’re late tonight.” Damian, who worked in an advertising agency, knew that Patterson shuffled paper in an administrative backwater of the Foreign Office. In a moment of Chablis-induced weakness, she had told him of her army background. She brushed past him.

  “Night, Damian.”

  She could feel him watching her as she climbed the stairs.

  “You look tense, Trish. Come in. Have a bowl of soup.”

  “Night, Damian.”

  Her flat was freezing. She turned on the heat and sat on the sofa. The news showed bombings somewhere, the brown dust, the screaming widows. She put her hand to her chest to calm the sharp-clawed, squirming thing that lived there.

  14

  Yunnan Province

  They left the car and walked the last half-mile, Harvey with the camera and run bag, Mangan carrying the tripod on his shoulder. The track was steep and Mangan broke into a sweat even though the air at this altitude was crisp. To their left, terraced paddy fields swept down to an emerald valley floor, morning mist just burning off. The village clung to the side of the mountain, weathered wooden houses, chickens in mud alleyways, posters warning of HIV, slogans on the walls in white characters a foot high: STABILITY OVERRIDES EVERYTHING. A woman in a faded gray tunic stopped sweeping and watched them pass.

  The contact who was supposed to take them into the village hadn’t turned up. They’d sat and waited in a peeling hot pot restaurant in Kunming, trying the phone, but it never answered. At Mangan’s insistence, they had come anyway, stopping and asking directions, leaving a trail, Harvey shaking his head and following reluctantly. Now they were here, the village closed and silent.

  Mangan looked around.

  “I’d guess we’ve got half an hour before someone blabs to someone we’re here. Can you just start?”

  Harvey said nothing, took the tripod from Mangan’s shoulder easily, set it down and clicked the camera into place.

  Mangan turned and walked between the silent houses. Up ahead the pinched cry of an infant. Mangan walked towards it. Through a doorway he could see two women kneeling by a fire, a cooking pot suspended over it. One was peeling some sort of root vegetable with a knife. The other held the child. Mangan knocked on the door jamb. The two women turned, startled. The one with the child stood up and backed away into the gloom.

  “Good morning,” Mangan said, in slow Mandarin.

  The women said nothing, watching him.

  “I am sorry to disturb you. Could I come in?”

  Still nothing. Mangan gingerly entered the room.

  “Are you Followers of the Master?”

  The standing woman, holding the child, said something fast to the other in a dialect Mangan could not understand.

  The kneeling woman, knife in hand, tipped her chin at Mangan. Who are you?

  “I am a journalist. I want to find out what happened to your husbands.”

  The woman put the knife down.

  “Why’s it your business?” She was trying to speak Mandarin. Mangan could feel out the sense of it.

  “Someone told me your husbands were taken away because they followed the Master.”

  The woman with the child spoke again, sharper now. She turned to Mangan, raised her hand and moved it from side to side. No. Her eyes were red and crusted—some sort of infection.

  “Can you help us?” said the kneeling woman.

  “If you tell me what happened it might help,” said Mangan.

  “How will it help?”

  “When did the police come?” said Mangan.

  The woman looked down. “They told us this is a political problem.” Zhengzhi wenti. “We mustn
’t talk about it.”

  Mangan sensed some of the light disappear from the room, and turned. A man was blocking the doorway, silhouetted against the sun so Mangan could not see his features.

  “Ni ya. Gan ma?” You. What are you doing? A hard tone, which Mangan didn’t like.

  “We’re just talking,” said Mangan.

  The woman with the child started speaking fast, gesturing at Mangan.

  The man walked into the room, over to the kneeling woman, leaned down and took hold of her arm. She looked at the floor. He pulled her to her feet and said something quietly into her ear, then looked at Mangan. He was broad-shouldered, wore a white shirt. He didn’t work in the fields. Or perhaps he had once.

  “I’m very sorry to have disturbed you,” said Mangan. He began to move towards the door.

  “She’s very sorry, too,” the man said.

  Mangan stepped out into the sunlight. He could see Harvey, gesticulating. Two other men stood next to him, one had a hand on the camera.

  Mangan walked towards him. “We’re leaving, Harv. Now.” Harvey tried to pick up the camera, but the man wouldn’t let go.

  “You don’t have any permit to be here,” said the man.

  “We’re leaving,” said Mangan.

  “You can’t leave.”

  “We’re going to go and get a permit.”

  The men both laughed.

  “The women here talk shit,” said the other man. “You shouldn’t believe them.”

  “They said nothing to us.”

  “Let’s hope so.” He looked over Mangan’s shoulder. Mangan turned and saw the man in the white shirt emerging from the house, leading the woman. He held her upper arm and her wrist. They walked in the other direction and disappeared around a corner.

  Mangan turned back around and held his hands out, tried to speak forcefully.

  “Really, she said she couldn’t talk to me.”

  The men did not reply, just looked at him. Mangan tried again, nearly shouting now.

  “Who are you? What’s your work unit?”

  One of them gave the camera a heave and it toppled over and fell into the dust.

  When they reached the bottom of the hill, their car and driver had gone.

  They walked to the next village, carrying the equipment, Mangan trembling with anger, Harvey silent. They found a boy in a T-shirt who agreed to drive them back to Kunming in his van at exorbitant cost. Mangan had to sit in the back, on a mat.

  It was cool, late evening as they pulled into the city. They paid off the boy, found a food stall near the lake, sat on tiny three-legged stools and ate chicken wings crisp-fried in Yunnan peppers, and noodles in a clear broth, ladled into chipped bowls by a quiet, smiling man who asked them gentle questions about where they came from. He gave them a fiery, clear liquor poured from a bottle filled with ginseng root. Mangan’s phone rang.

  “So how was it?” Ting, expectant.

  “Catastrophe. Busted. We got nothing.”

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “Okay.”

  “Honestly, it’s not.”

  Harvey gestured for the phone.

  “Ting, it’s Harv. Not your fault. Nothing we could do. Honest.”

  Ting was speaking, Harvey listened.

  “No. Nothing to be done, sweetheart. Except for sacking the two of us. Or starting a revolution. Yeah. Yeah. Bye.” He handed the phone back to Mangan. Ting was still on the line.

  “There’s one more thing, Philip. Check your mail. Some people called from Singapore. They want you to fly there. Some sort of conference? They’ve sent you an invitation.”

  “What people?”

  “Um, Pan Asia Institute for International Affairs. But it’s short notice, so you must reply.”

  “Never heard of them.”

  “Me neither. Check your mail. Philip, I’m really sorry.”

  “Not your fault.”

  They walked back to the hotel in silence, the disappointment weighing on them. Behind it, guilt.

  Dear Mr. Mangan,

  I take great pleasure in inviting you to participate in a small conference we’re holding here at the Pan Asia Institute later this week.

  The title of the conference is “China: Stability Hopes, Security Challenges.”

  Many at our institute are aware of your groundbreaking reporting on challenges to Party authority of late and would welcome an on-the-ground media perspective.

  We hope you would provide us with a short (thirty-to forty-five-minute) presentation, to be followed by a round-table discussion with fellows and scholars.

  The institute is able to offer a small honorarium, and we will of course carry the cost of business class travel and accommodations. We do apologize for the short notice, and hope very much you are able to join us.

  Yours sincerely,

  Marissa Leung

  Director, External Relations

  Pan Asia Institute for International Affairs

  Ting had booked his ticket to Singapore for him and then insisted he accompany her to the theater. They left the apartment in a cold, wet sunset of slate and gold, took a cab.

  The theater was in Zhongguancun, an inauspicious doorway between two computer stores. In the basement, a dark boxy space with hard wooden seats. Ting led him in by the hand. She was wearing black boots of mock snakeskin, her silver quilted jacket, a hat of gray fur with earflaps; all with such ease, thought Mangan. Three or four people greeted her as she walked in. One, a tousled artist in a green army overcoat—its own fashion statement in this place, tonight—gave her an exaggerated imperial bow, hands clasped before him. She smiled, kissed him and introduced Mangan. The artist feigned amazement. Foreign journalist, everyone! Quick, prepare to be closed down! There was laughter, which Mangan joined in.

  “If only I had such influence with the authorities,” he said, in Mandarin.

  The artist smiled. “Really, it’s good to see you. Do you think you might write something?”

  “Not if it will close you down.”

  “Well, perhaps just be delicate, yes? The authorities have, well, noticed us, and we’re living on our nerves a bit here. The last thing we need is to be celebrated in a western newspaper.”

  He grinned, and Mangan thought of the woman led away in the village and felt a hollowness in his stomach, forced a smile. Ting, only partially understanding his discomfort, leaned in to him.

  “Poor Philip,” she said. “Such noble intentions, yet all China mistrusts you.”

  The play was extraordinary. Two performers costumed as Red Guards danced the dances of the revolutionary operas from the high days of Maoism, against a pounding beat. But their heroic posturing degenerated into the hypnotic, angular shuffle of characters in a video game, revolution refracted into digital dream. Above them, on an enormous screen, their avatars danced through a virtual China, rendered in the style of a game, its point of view dipping, twirling through rolling seas of banknotes, vast imagined structures against an ice-blue digital sky, fractured urban landscapes littered with soft toys, superheroes, anime characters. The digital and real dances converged and parted, the performers dwarfed by the virtual dance behind them, and Mangan found something deeply poignant in their disintegrating revolutionary postures, shadows against the screen.

  Afterwards they all went to a dim Guizhou place with walls of slatted bamboo. Ting ordered fish in an ocher soup of deep, rich sourness, blindingly sharp pickles. They smoked and gossiped animatedly about Beijing’s arts scene, the scandals, the love affairs and, sometimes, the arrests. Mangan listened to the sharp playfulness of it, the Beijing wryness. The tousled artist told a story of an underground exhibition of conceptual art. Its chief exhibit—event of the season!—had been a one-day installation of live seafood, crayfish and eels suspended by thread, twirling and writhing in the air. The police, confused, assumed the installation to be subversive and closed it down, ushering Beijing’s demi-monde from the gallery.

  �
��What happened to the seafood?” said Ting.

  “Well, that’s the thing,” said the artist. “The police confiscated the lot and ate it.”

  They screamed with laughter and thumped the table. Tai bang le! Too perfect! Mangan ordered more beers and the artist turned to him. He was not drunk, but getting there. He looked hard at Mangan.

  “So, that’s us. Mollusks, video art, ways of seeing and interpreting. But we’re fucked, because everything we see and interpret is at the Party’s pleasure. But what are you? What are you part of?”

  Everyone at the table was watching Mangan.

  “Well, I see and interpret,” he said. “But I do it for a newspaper, for television.”

  “Yes, I’ve watched television,” said the artist.

  Mangan took another swallow of beer.

  “Journalists like to say that we’re writing the rough draft of history,” he said.

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Why are you writing the rough draft of my history?”

  “I’m not writing it for you. I’m writing it for people in Europe and America. Anyway, no one owns history, do they?”

  “Why don’t they want to see my rough draft of history?” The artist was lighting another cigarette. “I’ve a sculpture. The Great Wall in mixed media, wire and animal skins. That’s rough history. But no one will exhibit it.”

  “I’m sure they would in London,” said Mangan.

  “Fuck them in London. Have you ever been arrested?”