Bad Traffic

by Simon Lewis

  To Ding Ming this was hardly news. Any peasant could tell you: the government were a bunch of gangsters. The emperor might be benign but his officials were venal and that’s how it had been for five thousand years. You didn’t expect to hear it, though, from the mouths of policemen.

  He said, ‘I wanted to learn English. I got up every morning and studied under the bedclothes and at night I studied under streetlamps. I won a prefecture scholarship to teacher training college and I was very happy. I had top marks in all my classes and my English level was better than my teachers. But the township said the college has informed us that you are not suitable, and they took my scholarship away. They gave it to the cousin of an official in the public security bureau. I met that man, the cousin. He could not speak one word of English. Not one word.’

  Ding Ming threw a stone, and this one went twice as far as the last.

  ‘That’s a pity,’ said the policeman quietly.

  Ding Ming did not want to dwell upon past injustices, to do so, he knew well, was to paralyse himself with pointless emotion. He turned away from the lake, as it seemed the sight of all that dark water was encouraging this morbid bout of reminiscence.

  ‘Because I didn’t graduate, I can’t be a teacher. I should never have tried to get an education. It was a waste of time and money when I should have been working.’

  ‘How did you get over here?’

  ‘Snakeheads smuggled me.’

  Ding Ming shivered as he remembered. The journey had taken three and a half months. In between trips by truck, cart and boat, he and Little Ye had been hidden in safe houses and forbidden to leave. Subsisting on rice and bread, sometimes they’d gone weeks without seeing sunlight. The people who dealt with them obviously did not see them as anything but a troublesome cargo that required a certain minimum quantity of air and food.

  He had fallen out of the habit of asking what city or country he was in. His only concern, day after day, had been when would they be moved again? On a map, he would be able to trace very little of their route.

  ‘And how much did you pay for this?’

  ‘Twenty thousand dollars.’

  ‘US dollars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where did you get that kind of money?’

  ‘I didn’t. That is how much I owe to the snakeheads. I pay it off while I am working here.’

  ‘How long do you think that will take?’

  ‘A couple of years.’

  ‘How much are you earning, with that man?’

  ‘A dollar an hour, maybe. I’m not sure.’

  ‘Do the snakeheads charge interest on the loan to you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I think it’ll take ten years. Twenty.’

  ‘At least it is a chance.’

  ‘You couldn’t get a job at home?’

  ‘Easily. For fifty yuan a month. No chance to save. There are no good jobs for a peasant in China. Not without connections or qualifications.’

  ‘What about your girl? You going to let her sit at home and play mah jong for ten years? Eyeing up the lads who stayed?’

  ‘She’s in this country, but another place.’

  ‘She came too? She also owes twenty thousand dollars?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have brought her. It’s no life for a woman.’

  ‘She insisted.’

  In fact it was Little Ye, Ding Ming’s sweetheart since the age of fourteen, who had convinced him to go. The couple had married a few days before the trip. They’d had a small do in a restaurant and there had not even been time to get the disposable camera’s pictures developed before they were packed into the pitch-dark hold of a Taiwanese fishing vessel.

  Ding Ming added, with some pride, ‘She is a modern woman.’

  ‘She is, is she? Maybe she will suck you off, then.’

  Offended, Ding Ming turned away. Underneath this man’s hard shell was only sourness. He saw a car approaching. Here they were, then. Finally it was going to happen.

  (46

  The engine of the car grew louder, the headlights brighter. Ding Ming sidestepped along the beach. Why was it so slow? He wanted it all to be over with quickly, but the thing was taking an age just to arrive. He began to jog, and pebbles crunched.

  Jian called, ‘Where are you going?’

  Ding Ming looked over his shoulder. It was a small car, shaped like a beetle with a chugging engine, and driven by an old woman. A second stared with a pale pinched face out of the passenger window. It seemed to Ding Ming that her lips pursed and her eyes narrowed, and for a moment he saw what she saw – two Chinese men with wild hair and dirty faces, one holding a stone. The car sped up and in a few moments it had chuntered past.

  There was a bench here, and, oddly, a litter bin. He gestured towards them and started talking, just to prevent having to make up an excuse for his odd behaviour.

  ‘This must be a beauty spot. Perhaps poets come here to write about the moon reflected in the water and the hills like…’ a pause stretched as he tried to think of a clever metaphor… ‘fish heads in soup.’

  ‘Where I come from, it looks like this. I could almost believe I was home.’

  ‘I’ve heard the northeast is beautiful.’

  ‘Some places. We have landscapes that can make your heart sing.’

  Jian tried to skim a stone, but it dropped in without bouncing. ‘My daughter had an idea to open a travel company That was going to be its name. Singing Heart Travels. History tours, photography tours, wildlife tours…’

  ‘Wildlife – to eat it?’

  ‘To look at it.’

  Jian tried skimming and again had no success. Ding Ming skimmed a stone and it bounced twice.

  ‘You have to pick flatter stones. And it’s a flick of the wrist, it’s not about power. So you have a daughter.’

  ‘She spoke English like a native. Even better than you, I think.’

  ‘Where is she now?’

  ‘I see. It’s a toss, not a throw. She’s dead.’

  Jian’s stone again vanished with a plop. He watched the ripples spread out and diminish and rubbed a hand over his face and bent over with his hands on his knees.

  Ding Ming said, ‘I’m sorry.’

  After some time, Jian stood and said, ‘She’s dead and now I’m going to go and kill the men who killed her.’

  Ding Ming would like to have asked more questions but delicacy held his tongue. To have a child die was a terrible thing. He stood with his hands clasped in an attitude of sympathetic mourning, as if the blackness before them were not a lake but a grave. He let his respectful silence stretch and grew aware of the midges buzzing round his head.

  The policeman took his jacket off and said, ‘The arm needs to be more free. I’ll get it now – you watch.’

  When he laid the jacket on the bench it made a clunk. Ding Ming was alarmed to see a gun butt poking out. The policeman would shoot Kevin and his lieutenants dead, then, cursing traitors, turn the weapon on the man who had betrayed him. Nauseous with worry, he tapped his damaged lip with nervous fingers. The policeman had presented his back to him as he sifted through pebbles. Ding Ming contemplated the thick neck. He guessed that the man, in the grip of strong emotion, was composing his features.

  ‘This is a good one. Flat and round. Watch this.’

  The man drew his hand right back. Ding Ming pulled out the gun, pincering the butt between thumb and first finger. It was so unexpectedly heavy he almost dropped it. He put it in the pocket of the parka.

  The stone arced across the water, dipped, and bounced.

  ‘Got it,’ said Jian.

  Ding Ming’s fretting did not abate, for now, at any moment, his theft might be discovered. But there was, too, a giddy sense of achievement. He could hardly believe what he had done, he had never been so reckless.

  ‘Do it again,’ he said, struggling to control a flutter in his voice. ‘That might have been a fluke.’

  ‘What’s your record?�
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  ‘Five.’

  ‘I’ll get six – you watch.’

  ‘You’ll be here for years.’

  Ding Ming stepped to the shore and the gun banged against his thigh. He put his hand in his pocket and held it still, fingers around the cold barrel. He watched the policeman skim stones and realised that he had to keep the man busy at his childish activity – as soon as he put his jacket back on, the theft would be discovered.

  ‘Two. You see that? I got two.’

  ‘Not bad.’

  ‘Not bad? Watch this.’

  But his next stone did not skim.

  ‘It was the wrong shape. You do it again. I want to watch.’

  There was something dark about the policeman’s enthusiasm, it had a touch of mania to it. Ding Ming groped among the cold pebbles with shaking hands. He shut his eyes hard in the hope that when he opened them his captor would have vanished from his life. Why had this man, with his grief and rage, come into it? Were his own troubles not large enough? He opened them and saw a hand holding a stone.

  ‘Here.’

  It was the ideal shape, smooth and flat. He arranged trembling fingers around it and tossed it. It turned in the air and splashed straight in, a couple of metres out.

  ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I just didn’t do it right that time.’

  ‘You look terrified. What is it?’

  ‘I was wondering if there are fierce animals here. Bears or wolves.’

  ‘I think they are the least of our worries.’

  Now, at the same level as the insect noise, a distant engine hummed. Ding Ming looked about. Yes, a vehicle was approaching, its headlights burned through the darkness.

  Jian said, ‘I’ll take you back tomorrow morning.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘After we get the map book, mark upon it where I have to go. I’ll find it myself. It’s not fair to take you with me. I’ll take you back to that place tomorrow. You’ve only missed a day’s work. I don’t think they’ll be too angry with you.’

  The noise of the vehicle grew louder, and Ding Ming could see it now, a boxy green truck. He recognised it, he was sure, yesterday it had been parked by the mud. He told himself that the policeman deserved whatever was about to happen.

  He squeezed his eyes shut as hard as he could, opened them and stepped away as he said, ‘Men are here. Run away now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I called my boss. That’s him – run away. Men have come for you. I’m sorry. Run.’

  (47

  Headlights swept across the beach and spotlit the two men in a yellow glare, and their long shadows fell shimmering over the water. The tyres crunched pebbles and the engine cut out.

  Ding Ming stepped away and implored, out of the corner of his mouth, ‘Run!’ If Jian left now, there was still time. He’d be swallowed by the darkness and perhaps they would never find him.

  But instead the man grabbed his jacket, swung it, and plunged his hand into the pocket. Consternation crossed his face when he found it empty. He must have realised what had happened, but he did not even look at Ding Ming. He picked up the litter bin, turned it over and shook it out. Cans clattered, packaging drifted. He grabbed a bottle and smashed it against the side of the picnic table. Jagged glass glinted.

  The doors of the truck opened and two figures got out, things like men but with huge heads, giving them the proportions of monstrous children – and one had a brutal spike in place of a hand. This one pointed at Ding Ming and a deep voice said, ‘You, go and wait in the van.’ The second aimed a shotgun at the policeman and said, ‘You’re going to fucking get some, you fucking fuck. Down on the ground.’

  Jian hurled the jacket and lunged after it. He knocked the gun barrel aside and rammed broken glass into a neck. The gun roared and shot made momentary fountains on the lake.

  The thing dropped slowly to his knees and clawed at pebbles and said, ‘Fuck, I’m stabbed,’ and blood splashed over his fingers. Ding Ming saw that they were, of course, only men, given a fierce aspect by the motorcycle helmets they wore and the tools they carried.

  The second figure swung a spanner and the policeman stepped away. But now another man was coming down from the truck carrying a bat. Jian retreated into the shallows and the men closed on him with their weapons raised.

  Ding Ming pulled himself away and sprinted to the van. He fumbled the passenger door open and sat in the dark, gnawing at his knuckles, his head bobbing.

  He could not see the fight now, the truck was in the way – all he could see of it was ripples spreading on the water. He remembered the awful weapons those men carried. They meant to kill, there was no mercy in them, they would batter and gouge and smash, and the body of the Chinese policeman would be ruined. And it would be his, Ding Ming’s fault, as much as if he had wielded the instruments himself.

  Ding Ming realised that another man was sitting in the truck, in the driver’s seat, hunched over the steering wheel and watching the fight. The man turned and looked at the van, and Ding Ming recognised him, and just for a moment Ding Ming and Mister Kevin locked gazes. Kevin winked.

  Ding Ming shrank from that podgy face and scrambled over the seat and into the back of the van, where the darkness was complete and welcome. He curled up on the floor with his arms around his knees. His stomach was tight with cramps. He wanted to be sick, and he wished he could be sick because then the feeling might stop.

  He heard running feet. It was over, then, the white men were coming to take him away. The front door of the van opened and Ding Ming wondered what he could possibly say. But it was the policeman, dripping wet and panting. Cursing under his breath, he started the engine. The van lurched off the verge and into the road.

  Ding Ming, terrified, bit on his hand to stop a gasp escaping. The man would want revenge. He cracked open the back door and jumped out, hands raised to protect his face. He glimpsed the grain of the road between fingers before impacts jarred his arms, then his side, then he was sliding on tarmac, then rolling on grass. He came to rest on his back, looking up at throbbing stars.

  He heard gruff voices, speaking English.

  ‘Quick,’ said Kevin, ‘Get him in.’

  ‘He’s bleeding loads.’

  ‘Just get him in. Come on.’

  Ding Ming found a host of new pains laid over his old ones. His arms were burning where they had scraped the road. His head felt like it was splitting open. He touched it and screwed up his face at the pain, then looked at his finger. Thankfully, there was no blood. Something lumpy was jabbing into his side. He rolled over and realised it was the gun in his pocket.

  He got to his hands and knees. He was sore but he was functioning. He winced and told himself, ‘I’ve got to stop jumping out of moving vehicles.’ The thought made him giggle. Of all the times to start laughing, part of him observed. He thought that he was very silly, and that made him giggle again. Pain slammed down and he had to lie grimacing on the cool grass. The stars stopped moving and behaved themselves.

  He rolled and looked at the road. The truck shot past him. Someone had written ‘cleen me’ with a finger in the dust on its rear. Beyond it, the van sped away, engine roaring. The back door swung, then, as the van turned onto the ridge, slammed shut.

  The green truck accelerated after it, its engine noise a high whine. The van sped up and the truck sped up, too, and the engine noise dropped to a rumble. The truck got faster and bumped into the back of the van and the crunch of metal carried across the water.

  Ding Ming stood. Now he couldn’t see much more than the slashes of distant headlight beams. The truck, big and dark and loud, bore down again, and rammed the back of the van, and metal crumpled and the lights burst with a pop.

  The van veered off the road and dropped bonnet first into the lake. A splash, and in a fraction of a heartbeat it had vanished. A ripple fringed with foam swelled, smaller undulations followed, and the moon’s reflection wavered.

  Ding Ming wat
ched in distress. He had the impression that the ripples were not going to stop, they were going to come all the way across the lake and up the shore and overwhelm him. A voice in his head said, that policeman is drowning and it is all your fault.

  The wave subsided and Ding Ming realised the truck was receding. He stood and shouted and waved his arms. ‘Mister Kevin! Wait! I’m here!’

  It seemed impossible that they could not hear him. But the truck did not stop: its headlights dimmed, and the drone of the engine faded away.

  ‘I’m here!’

  He shouted himself hoarse, but the truck was gone. The only sound was the slosh of water and the tick of insects. The only light came from the empty petrol station and the moon and the stars. He crossed the road, sat at the picnic table and drank a long glug of water from his bottle. It chilled his stomach. He had never been so alone. He drew the coat around him and shivered.

  (48

  When Mark came into the Happy Duck chippy, Joy caught her breath and turned so that he wouldn’t see her flush. She hadn’t seen him for three days, not since they’d swapped spit on the bench by the lake.

  He’d said he really liked her and that he’d certainly be dumping that Jessica, and he’d stroked her face and looked into her eyes. The moon had been almost full, the stars had been glittering and she hadn’t felt the cold at all.

  She’d wondered how it would feel when she saw him again, and now here it was. It was a jittery, pre-exam feeling.

  He strolled to the counter. In real life he was more commonplace than the Mark she’d built in her head. He was only okay-looking with his small features and gingery hair. But he was solid and the fact of his presence thrilled her. It was his confidence that made him appealing, really. You could see it when he moved.

  She caught his eye and grinned and turned aside. She looked a right state, in her work apron, no make-up on, tired. It was unfair of him to walk in on her like this – she almost resented him for it.