Bad Traffic

by Simon Lewis

  Jian tapped the man on the shoulder and thrust before him a picture of a girl rearing in a bikini.

  He said, ‘I’m going to borrow your car. Look at this picture while I steal your keys.’

  Both looked baffled. Jian tweezered the keys with his free hand and, holding them behind the magazine, grinned and winked and said goodbye, hoisting his golf bag over his shoulder.

  He walked out of the café without hurrying and glimpsed the policemen in the restaurant, queuing up with a tray, their backs to him. The exit got closer and he kept a steady pace, and nobody tried to stop him.

  He repressed a grin. He’d arrested a few pickpockets in his time and he knew their tricks, but it wasn’t something he was practised at. Probably it had only worked because he hadn’t considered it, he’d just done it as soon as think it, and if he’d paused it would never have come off.

  The sound of the automatic doors opening was like a sigh of relief. All he had to do now was find the right car, and again luck was with him because it was the third that he tried, a little red runaround, with no babies or dogs inside and a full tank of petrol. He started the engine and the radio came on – a chirpy tune. He drove the car round to the children’s playground, where he’d left the peasant. The peasant wasn’t there.

  (61

  Jian went twice around the car park, then up and down the access road. Possibly the lad had run away… No, of course, he’d got it into his head to phone his mother. Or his boss – he wouldn’t put that past the little rat. He must have had some money hidden. He parked the car and cursed – ‘Cao, cao, cao’ and slapped the steering wheel.

  He went back into the service station. One of the policemen was sitting in the restaurant, the couple in the café still argued. No – now they were getting up to leave. The peasant wasn’t by the phones. Jian ran a hand across his head, feeling the pressure. The couple were looking around the table and might look up and see him. He strode quickly away and into the bathroom.

  The peasant was washing his hands in the sink.

  Jian grabbed his arm and hissed, ‘Get out here now, you idiot.’

  Ding Ming shrugged him off.

  ‘There are policemen out there and I’ve just stolen a car. Let’s go.’

  ‘I’m not going out if there are policemen out there. We could hide in a cubicle. The doors have got locks on.’

  Jian put a hand on the lad’s elbow and led him out. He wished this place wasn’t so bright.

  ‘I told you to stay put. You’re going to get us both killed.’

  ‘I needed to go.’

  ‘You couldn’t have gone in the bushes?’

  ‘It was a children’s playground.’

  ‘Keep talking as we go for the exit,’ said Jian. ‘Talk fast and walk slow, don’t look round and don’t catch anyone’s eye. Don’t look at them and they won’t notice you.’

  Jian was finding it hard to obey his own command. His eyes swivelled left and right, scanning for the policemen.

  ‘What do you want to talk about?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. Anything.’

  ‘Er… I’m impressed with the high level of sanitation in public conveniences. When you press a button, soap comes out of a nozzle.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  Jian glimpsed the second uniformed figure putting money in a vending machine. He fought the impulse to speed up.

  Ding Ming looked at a bank of phones and said, ‘I want to phone my mother.’

  ‘Not now.’

  The lad shook himself free.

  ‘I’m not moving until I can phone her.’

  ‘Stupid peasant. I’m sure she’s fine.’

  A clunk was the vending machine dispensing a can. The policeman bent to pick it up. The couple in the café were looking under the table. The man got down on his hands and knees. Other people were beginning to look round. The policeman approached his companion.

  Jian pushed Ding Ming into the phone cubicle, a transparent plastic bubble. At least in here they were not so noticeable. He slotted change into the phone and said, ‘You speak only Mandarin to her. Just say you’re fine. If I hear a male voice, I’m pressing the lever.’

  Ding Ming dialled and waited. The phone rang and rang. Jian wondered, had his daughter done this? Had she rung and rung and waited in desperation for an answer? No. He had answered. If he had failed her, it had been when they talked.

  ‘Okay, she’s not in. Let’s go.’ Jian took the receiver out of the peasant’s hand and replaced it on the cradle. The lad had been pressing the phone to his ear so hard that it had left a red mark.

  Jian put an arm around his shoulder and steered him towards the exit.

  ‘I’m not a stupid peasant.’

  ‘I will never call you stupid again. Just look straight ahead at the door and keep chatting. Talk to me.’

  In the café the woman was feeling in the crack at the back of the chair.

  ‘I don’t like being called stupid. Stop pulling me around. Give me some face.’

  Jian resisted the temptation to observe any more or hurry Ding Ming along. He talked, hardly hearing what he was saying, concentrating only on those automatic doors.

  ‘There’s a big guy at the station and everybody calls him Titch. It’s the same when I call you stupid. It’s funny because it’s so obviously the opposite.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s funny.’

  ‘I won’t do it again.’

  They were passing the restaurant. If the policemen looked up they would certainly be spotted.

  ‘There they are,’ said Jian. ‘Act normal.’

  ‘Them? They aren’t policemen.’

  ‘Don’t look.’

  ‘I’m telling you they’re not policemen. You know what it says on their back? It says ‘Emergency Breakdown.’ They’re mechanics.’

  (62

  Out in the car park, the peasant said, ‘When did you see a policeman with a spanner on his belt? What do they call down the station? Do they call you Brains?’

  ‘Hey. They call me Head-cracker because of what I do to funny guys. Do you like my shirt? I bought you one, too. This car here.’

  ‘You want me to drive?’

  Jian realised he’d opened the passenger door. Of course, the steering wheel was on the wrong side – it was easily forgotten. They got in and Jian handed Ding Ming his gift.

  ‘Good material. Look how stretchy it is… that’s quality. Look at these lions – they’re quite like Chinese lions. I’ve never had anything this nice before. It says it was made in China. I don’t know who Rooney is.’

  Jian had his eyes closed to savour his first pull of a cigarette in what felt like weeks. It was a very good smoke, with no rough edges at all. Sparkly sweetness diffused through his body.

  ‘He’s the young firebrand of Manchester. Very fierce. A good striker of the ball. You should be pleased. Who have I got?’

  ‘Lampard.’ Pronounced in Chinese, Lan Pa Du. The rock of Chelsea, a sturdy man of steady character, and a clinical finisher. That was a good omen.

  ‘Can I have the coat back?’

  ‘You know you look ridiculous in it.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You look like a baby.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘Don’t put the hood up. I can’t hear what you’re saying.’

  Jian looked through the window of the coffee shop as he drove past, and saw the woman peering under the table and the man down on his hands and knees looking at the floor. He could hardly believe it: he had got away with it so far and he was continuing to get away with it, and maybe he would get away with it all the way until everyone he wanted dead was dead.

  He accelerated as he hit the access road. They were back on the expressway. This car was clunky, but much less obvious. The radio was on.

  ‘I like this song. I used to learn English to it.’

  ‘Look at these maps.’

  It took more than five minutes but finally Ding Ming said, ‘I’ve found it – it’s ma
rked. Look.’

  Jian pulled up on the hard shoulder. Ding Ming showed him a cluster of brown oblongs on a white ground.

  ‘That’s the village.’

  Jian pointed at a box with a cross on it.

  ‘What does that symbol mean?’

  ‘A temple.’

  ‘You know where we go after we get to the village?’

  ‘The hill of the bloody gate.’

  ‘I don’t think you’re stupid. I think you’re one of the cleverest people I ever met. For someone like you to go and get himself an education, that’s amazing. Really. You’re a credit – you know that?’

  ‘Get there and do what you have to do, then get me back.’

  ‘I’ll try.’

  (63

  Ding Ming pointed at a giant plastic strawberry marking a farm turnoff. ‘Imagine having a real strawberry that big. You could jump into it and eat your way out.’

  They had left the expressway. Now the land was lush and flat. Houses were far apart and kept private and sheltered by trees. Jian felt more secure on these small roads, but there were lots of the annoying roundabouts. He was careful to keep the speed down, hovering at around fifty, and in the villages even slower.

  ‘I think you should dip the headlights for oncoming traffic. Look, he’s dipped for you, you should do it for him.’

  Jian imagined he saw his daughter in the back seat of the passing car. The hypnotism of the road was stealing over him. Perhaps a conversation would keep him focused.

  ‘What’s your wife like? Apart from modern.’

  ‘Very lovely.’

  ‘Pretty?’

  ‘Very pretty.’

  ‘Obedient?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘She speak English?’

  ‘She left school when she was twelve.’

  ‘So you’re more educated than her.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘Of course you don’t care. But they don’t believe that.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You worry that she worries about it.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘You miss her?’

  ‘All the time. I don’t know where she is.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They took her away to pick flowers.’

  The peasant choked down a sob. His hands fluttered about his face as he fought strong emotion and the map book slipped off his lap. Jian squeezed the steering wheel in exasperation. Was there no end to the man’s tales of woe? He wished he’d never started this now.

  ‘I’m sure she’s fine.’ He put as much honey in his voice as he could muster. ‘She’ll be okay, of course she will, and you’ll see her soon.’

  ‘You think so?’

  ‘Definitely. You dropped the map.’

  They hit a roundabout with three exits.

  ‘I’m worried. I didn’t know they were going to split us up. My boss said he would give me a telephone number to call her. But…’ he tailed off. He was sitting on his hands and rocking back and forth.

  ‘You should both go home. I’ll make sure you’re okay.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘The force needs upright citizens. You’d be an asset.’

  ‘You mean that?’

  They’d been all the way round the roundabout. Much more of this, Jian felt, and he’d be too dizzy to drive.

  ‘Of course I mean it. You dropped the map.’

  This time the lad retrieved it.

  ‘We’d still owe money to the snakeheads.’

  ‘They wouldn’t dare touch you if you worked for us.’

  ‘That exit there.’

  Jian could see the man’s mind working, and knew what was coming next before it was said.

  ‘Don’t kill Black Fort. It won’t change anything. Leave him alone. Go home.’

  ‘I have to do this. I sent my daughter abroad because she was an embarrassment to me. I took a bribe to let a murderer go.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I don’t want to die a bad father and a bad policeman.’

  Jian wondered if any more arguments would come up. He could think of plenty. The fact that he was one against many, for example, and of course the old ‘it won’t bring her back’ and the ‘forgive and move on’ stuff. But the peasant didn’t push it.

  ‘What was your daughter like?’

  ‘She was trouble. She was wild.’

  ‘Like her dad.’

  ‘She hung around with the wrong sort.’

  ‘Like her dad.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘A policeman spends his time with criminals, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Arresting them, not… You don’t know a thing about it.’

  ‘I expect she just wanted you to pay her more attention. You only noticed her when she did wrong. That’s why she went wild.’

  ‘Your opinion has been duly noted, Granny Wang. Read the map. Think about strawberries.’

  Jian decided he didn’t like hedges. They turned the road into a tunnel. It was like being a rat in a run, scurrying through undergrowth. A rat… Perhaps he had heard the peasant talk about it too often, he was starting to think like him.

  Ding Ming pointed at what looked like a fortress. The crenallated battlements of a tower were crisp against the sky.

  ‘That’s it. That’s the temple.’

  Jian stopped the car.

  ‘Definitely? That’s it?’

  ‘The village is just up ahead.’ The peasant was excited. For him it was merely a step on the way to his objective.

  An old man was approaching, the first pedestrian they had encountered in a hundred kilometres. Jian watched, mentally ushering him away. He was stooped and his round glasses gave him an owlish look. He opened a wooden gate and shuffled between stone stele in the temple garden, and gave no indication of having seen them at all.

  ‘Where now?’

  ‘There should be a road round here. The name is the hill of the bloody gate.’

  ‘What do you mean round here? Where is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Look at the address, then.’

  ‘It’s all blurred.’

  Jian closed his eyes and rubbed his face, working to keep irritation out of his voice.

  ‘You can’t read it and you’ve forgotten what it says.’

  ‘I got you this far. It’s really close. It’s just… round here somewhere.’

  Jian looked balefully across and the lad shied away. Over his lowered head Jian could see the temple. The garden was unkempt and its stele jutted like bad teeth. With narrow windows and rough stone walls, the place really looked like a citadel. The old man was unlocking a door.

  ‘You’re going to ask him.’

  (64

  The gloomy worshipping hall emanated a forbidding silence. Above the altar hung a macabre effigy, a hanging man, dead or dying. The old man sat on a bench with his head lowered. Jian walked up the central aisle, with the peasant hanging close behind. Their footsteps rang on the stone floor and even the sound of their breath seemed a noisy imposition.

  ‘Lao tian a,’ whispered the peasant, and crossed his arms.

  ‘Just ask how to get to the hill of the bloody gate – that’s it.’

  The old man looked harmless, though anyone could phone the police. Jian pushed the peasant forward. While they conversed in hushed tones, the peasant bowed and the old man bobbed clasped hands. He got the impression that they were trying to outdo each other in politeness.

  He turned his back on the unhappy image of the dying man with his crown of thorns. He had no time for theology. It was a ruse by the ruling classes to justify their wealth and power, it was nothing but superstition, people succumbed to its allure from fear of death and an inability to accept that they were not important. Modern people should learn to overcome this weakness. He did not fear death and he knew that there was nothing after it and he knew he was nothing and he was not afraid to face that, either. His gaze passed over bafflin
g accoutrements of worship – a wood carving of a lamb carrying a cross, statues of men in dresses – and settled on the homely sight of dried flowers.

  The peasant bowed some more and took his leave.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘He said he was happy to meet such early-rising worshippers. He said—’

  ‘Did he give you directions?’

  ‘He thinks it’s on the other side of the village.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Please don’t swear.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  ‘Wait.’

  The peasant kowtowed before the altar, touching his forehead three times against the floor. ‘Give something,’ he urged.

  ‘Do you even know what this religion is?’

  ‘They’re the gods of this place. We should leave them an offering for luck. Please.’

  There were two notes left in the wallet, a twenty and a five. He slipped one out, and saw it was the twenty. He picked out the five, but realised it was too late: the gods who were not there would remember only his parsimony and not his generosity. He put the twenty-pound note on the altar and asked that this god that he did not believe in look after him and his cause and, in particular, look after his daughter in a spirit world that did not exist.

  As an afterthought, he put the wallet down. It would be returned to its owner, who’d be glad to get back his credit cards and pictures. Yes, he was glad that had been done. He left feeling naked, and told himself he was ready for battle and death.

  Outside in the garden the peasant said, ‘Do you know what he said? He said the name ‘rings a bell’. I think it’s an idiom meaning to remember something but not clearly.’

  Jian pointed at steles. ‘These are graves.’

  ‘Who would surround a temple with graves?’

  ‘They are. Look, there are dates on them.’

  Jian considered a headstone topped with a statue of a winged woman. She had closed eyes and an expression of serene repose. So humans everywhere tried to gloss their brute end with prettiness. It reminded him of a Buddha statue he had seen many decades ago. Red Guards had toppled it and he had stood on its shoulders and smashed that composed face away with a sledgehammer. He’d felt good about it at the time, and sour ever since.