The Book of Crows

by Sam Meekings

  How is the future measured out – in acts, deeds, words, in the ebb and flow of karma, of that which tips the balance and that which lives on in ripples spreading upon the surface long after the stone is sunk – in what is lost or in what remains? As I turned to face the tear-streaked faces of the two women, I could not help but think that I alone might change the current of their lives, that if I took this tiny, mewling child back to the monastery to be proclaimed the latest incarnation of the Panchen Lama, then the widow would be free to another marriage, to another life (for rebirth does not only happen after death); if not, he might become another child left at the edge of the lake for the cat-faced birds or devil-headed storms to claim, or else another mouth slowly stolen by hunger, for two ragged-boned women could not work land like this alone – and yet he was not the Lama, the other child surely was – and yet the other child might, with his looks and wits, build a life of his own; for surely it is by the strength of faith that Lamas are made, not the flicker of distant constellations in newborn eyes; and it was then that I wondered what might happen if, when the Dalai Lama came to Tashilhunpo to formally recognise the latest incarnation of his spiritual brother, I was to present this second child instead of the first as the one who would lead us from darkness, who would stay within the monastery with us and work hard upon his studies that he might rise among us and assist all in escaping the temptations of desire, the root of suffering, and unknot the bonds of dreams by which we are bound – for I wondered then if it is not faith itself that forms our future, if it is not by longing alone that each moment is called into existence; if we are made by what we give, not what we take, and it was that night that I dreamed once more that I was a fish, as I was in my last life and as perhaps I shall be in my next – and I was blotting the water with the curve and snag of my scales, pulsing up towards the surface when another, bigger fish appeared, beating its tail fast towards me, and all I saw was the deep black pit of its throat as I was swallowed, and came tumbling in; and it seemed as if I lived then as the bigger fish, consuming my former life, and trembling on through the blue for more lithe food, until an even larger fish attacked; and once more my eyes were changed and I was then the large fish who had fed on my last life, and I swam on, through streams to rivers to the coast and far out into the ocean, searching for the great whale who trawls through the ravenous deep and might open his great jaws and beckon us all in, and then perhaps there might be peace, the cavernous, endless darkness of his churning stomach, the sound of waves breaking far above, and his mournful song, rumbling out towards the edges of the universe.

  A Delicate Matter of Phrasing

  PART 3 · 25 FEBRUARY 1993 CE

  It took me about twenty minutes to reach the town nearest Jawbone Hills. Along the same dull highway, halfway out towards the hills. The place was a mess, its one concession to modernity a single dingy tower block. But even that couldn’t dent my sense of anticipation. I was close. I knew it. I’d been to Jing Ren’s home, and I’d found out who he worked for. If I could figure everything out by the end of the day, tomorrow I’d be able to relax and enjoy my time with Li Yang. My head was swimming – I wasn’t used to things going right. Perhaps that was how I knew it wouldn’t last.

  An old man with rancid black teeth gave me directions, and I found the dumpy little building in no time. The Public Records Office. As soon as I walked in I knew something was wrong. The uniformed woman at the front desk fidgeted nervously as I showed my ID. She didn’t look up. She must have known I was coming.

  ‘I’m sorry. I can’t help you.’

  Like my wife, she had plucked out all her eyebrows and had black lines tattooed on instead.

  ‘And what is it you can’t help me with?’

  ‘You’re not allowed to look at our files. I’m sorry. I’ve got this note for you. He said you would be coming.’

  I took the piece of paper from her hand. Her handwriting was a jumble of loops and squiggles. It was a message from Mr Xu, aka Fishlips. Or, as Wei Shan used to say, the tumour that keeps on giving. Shit. How the hell had he known that I’d be coming here? Something didn’t add up. He’d phoned to say that I didn’t have clearance to go through their files. Oh, and he wanted to meet with me in his office as soon as I got back. So that was the end of that, was it? Great. Today was shaping up to be nearly as awful as yesterday.

  I handed the paper back to her.

  ‘I’m sorry, I have no idea who this Mr Xu is. I mean, Xu is a pretty common name these days, but there isn’t a single one in the Public Safety Office.’

  Her painted-on eyebrows began to rise.

  ‘Really? But he had the right security clearance code. And he gave your name and described exactly what you would look like, and said you would probably be coming in this morning. And here you are.’

  I leaned forward over her desk.

  ‘Do you have any idea how many enemies the Public Safety Office has? Let me fill you in on something. Perhaps you’re too young to remember the Great Proletariat Cultural Revolution, back when everyone was turning everyone else in. Lot of fights, lot of feuds. Lots of grudges. And some things haven’t changed – there are still snitches everywhere, two-faced liars wanting to bring down this glorious country. You do know what we do, don’t you? How are we supposed to keep things safe for ordinary people like you and your family if we don’t have access to local information? It seems to me that you’ve been tricked. So I advise you to think again and give me the business registration details of the Black Light Mining Company. Then I might reconsider talking to your boss and mentioning that you tried to help dissident criminals thwart a national investigation.’

  She blushed and bowed her head. My bluff had worked.

  ‘Just the details of some local mining company?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘They’ll be in the records room downstairs. I’ll call down. Take a seat, it’ll be a couple of minutes.’

  I sat down and basked in the results of my powers of persuasion. You just keep talking till you see the tiny sharpness of the iris suddenly grow large into black, like spilt ink covering a blank page. That’s when you know you’ve got them. Doesn’t really matter what you say. You could be talking about dogs or last night’s dinner or the moon. It’s how you say it. It’s about conviction. Certainty. It’s about meaning every single word you say. And if you lie with enough assurance for long enough, you’ll even be able to fool yourself.

  It wasn’t too hard to find what I was looking for. The Black Light Mining Company, owned by Hong Youchen, established in 1992. I thanked the uniformed woman for her time and took the tiny scrap of paper on which I’d scribbled the details out to my car. For once, the sun was beating down over the hills, the colour of a fresh, bubbly beer.

  I felt pretty pleased with myself. For about ten seconds. Then I started wondering what on earth I was going to do next. So I’d found out that there definitely was a mine on Jawbone Hills. Since everyone kept denying its existence, it wasn’t a great leap to posit that a) the digging or explosives or whatever they were doing down there somehow caused the accident, and that b) this Hong Youchen guy was well-connected enough to get Fishlips and Officer Wuya and possibly countless others to keep its involvement in the accident a secret. That second part also seemed to include hiding away the casualties. But that’s as far as I could get. Every bit of information I managed to find only added more questions to my list. Who were Fatty, Spotty and Horseface – local peasants or miners? And why weren’t the bodies being returned to their families? What was the purpose of the mine? None of the Public Safety Office files about the area suggested anything about gold, coal, iron or any other precious mineral deposits in the vicinity. Why had they employed a tattooed historian rather than an experienced site manager? And to top it all off, I still hadn’t come any closer to finding out a single thing about the most important question of them all: what the hell had happened to Wei Shan?

  I drove back to the city as quickly as I could. I wasn’t
quite sure what Fishlips wanted, but it was unlikely I was going to be offered a promotion or a raise. So far he’d lied about the mine and accurately predicted where I was going to start looking. Sneaky bugger. Then there were the dark-suited guys he’d been talking to at the scene of the accident. There was something he knew that I didn’t. Things weren’t looking good.

  I parked my car outside the office and stopped on the steps for a quick cigarette and a good gulp or two of baiju before making my way inside. As soon as I walked in, I spotted Fishlips hovering by my desk. Shit. This wasn’t going to be pretty. He beckoned me into his office and closed the door before slumping down in his chair without bothering to offer me a seat.

  ‘What’s been keeping you? You didn’t get the message I left for you at the Records Office out near the landslide?’

  ‘I’m sorry, what? I’m not sure I know what you’re talking about. I’ve been out on a long working lunch, going over those blueprints for the office blocks near the river with Hu. I’m sorry it overran, but there’s no need —’

  ‘Spare me the bullshit. I know what you’ve been up to. I know you’ve been to the Public Records Office, and I know you paid a visit to a policeman the other day. You’ve not achieved anything except making a fool of yourself. I want you to stop this nonsense before you piss off all the wrong people.’

  ‘Then you’d better tell me who the right people to piss off are. All I’m doing is looking for my colleague.’

  ‘The police are looking for Wei Shan. There’s nothing you can do. And please don’t bother with the sanctimonious act, it really doesn’t suit you.’

  ‘You don’t understand. It’s not just Wei Shan anymore. I’ve found bodies —’

  ‘Do I look like I give a shit? We deal in structural issues, support, balance, probabilities. Not bodies. That’s not our business. If there’s no safety issue, then we keep out of it.’

  ‘How much did they have to pay you before you believed that?’

  Fishlips sighed. ‘I don’t have the energy to get angry. Just look at yourself. Go and freshen up, then get back to your desk and do your job while you still have one.’

  ‘What, and just forget about the corpses, forget about Wei Shan, forget about justice?’

  ‘Don’t you start lecturing me about justice or morality. Don’t think I don’t know what you get up to after work. You disgust me, but your father was a decent man and I owe him. That’s pretty much the only reason you’ve still got a desk in this office. So think about that next time you’re moaning about connections or corruption. And what’s more, if you keep digging into this case, chances are someone’s going to do a bit of digging about you – and if the truth comes out, then there’s no way I’m going to stand behind you. Have a think about that. I believe you’ll find that some things are better left uncovered.’

  Shit-faced bastard. I didn’t know what to say. I took a deep breath.

  ‘So you want me to just pretend that nothing happened?’

  ‘Yes. A man like you ought to be pretty good at pretending. Now go and do your job for a change, and stop acting like you know better than the rest of us. The case is none of our business. Just let it be.’

  ‘Understood.’

  I slouched out with my head down, clenching my fists so hard my nails dug deep into the skin of my palms. I let the rage burn through my pores as I strolled, as nonchalantly as I could manage, back to my desk. My teeth were grinding together and my leg was shaking up and down beneath my desk, but I made a show of opening up the file at the top of the stack and, pen in hand, scanning carefully through the application. I don’t know how I managed it, but I did. I’d show him – if he wanted a robot, I’d be a robot. I made myself hold out for at least an hour, maybe a little more, until I saw Fishlips lock his office and head off to a meeting. Then I was out of there.

  I went straight to the good old Golden Dragon Seafood Palace. I did think about phoning Li Yang to see if there was any chance we could meet up sooner than tomorrow night, but I didn’t want to look desperate. So instead I settled at my usual table and decided, for a change, to splash out on a bottle of the expensive stuff.

  When the drink came I filled my glass and raised a toast to Wei Shan. Perhaps he was still out there somewhere, after all. Why not? Life is absurd. Men have flown to the moon. A whole country uprooted its whole history over a Little Red Book. So one guy making his way out of a landslide isn’t so crazy. A thousand more ridiculous things happen every minute. And anyway, I refused to believe he was dead. Not till I saw his body laid out on the slab like the others.

  Not that death doesn’t have its benefits. An end to all this pissing around, all this clock-watching and acting-up, all this arse-kissing and shit-stirring, all these headaches and fuck-ups. An end to the stomach-cramping, brain-mangling work of guilt and regret, and an end to the endless days of disappointments and petty humiliations. A bit of peace. I don’t buy any of that other crap. Getting born again as a donkey or a flea? Superstitious nonsense, designed to stop the workers from gathering together to overthrow the tyranny of the feudal system – just you be a good little farmer for the next fifty years and maybe in your next life you’ll get to be an emperor. Yeah, right. And as for all that heaven and hell stuff, well don’t get me started. I can’t even imagine what heaven might be like. Like being in Li Yang’s arms up in the flat overlooking the river? Somehow I doubted it. Wei Shan would probably say heaven was a field in Mizhi County, out near Yulin, with a beautiful farmer’s daughter and enough sun to warm you down to the toes. He could be a real bore. But listening to him still beat sitting on my own and letting my thoughts soar in relentless circles, like crows picking over the same old carcass.

  I ordered another little something to keep the daydreams from conquering me and sank back in the chair, staring out of the window to see suit after suit hurrying through the cold, rushing back to their desks before their bosses noticed they’d been gone.

  My mind kept coming back to what Fishlips had said. Was I ashamed? Of course. Every day I felt pretty disgusted with myself, to tell the truth. Every day I thought of what my father would have said. What he would have done. He’d probably have tried to beat it out of me with his belt. Every day I worried about what would happen if my wife found out, if my daughter knew, if it all got out. You do a thing like that and then you carry it round with you, and it poisons you from the inside out. And now my boss knew. How? Had I been followed, had someone trailed me? It wouldn’t be the first time. When we’re not spying on other people, we spy on each other. So now he can hold it over my head, drop in reminders whenever he needs to. The perfect way to keep everyone in line – by threatening them with their own secrets. Knowing everyone else’s secrets: that’s probably as good a definition of absolute power as you’re going to get.

  I fished in my suit pockets and dug out the note with the business registration details I’d picked up at the records office. I found myself reading the name at the top over and over again, as if it was some kind of mantra I couldn’t quite fathom. Hong Youchen. Hong Youchen. It meant nothing to me. Another important businessman invisible in the well-worn camouflage of expensive suits and chauffeured cars. I picked at the damp shreds of sour potato in front of me, and realised everyone but the dozing manager had left. I looked at my watch. Almost three. It was just me and my cold dish left. Taking my time. Letting the clear stuff tingle its way through my veins. I poured another glass. It was too late to go back to the office now without being noticed. I ought to go and see Chun Xiao. Try and explain what I thought might have happened to her husband. Not that I had a clue. But with a few drinks inside me I ought to be able to think of something suitably sombre yet vague. My sincere commiserations, and all that crap. But she wouldn’t finish work before five, so there was no point rushing. I’d just have to stay here.

  I toyed with my scrap of paper again. Hong Youchen. Hong Youchen. I could imagine him. A fat oaf sitting in a plush office surrounded by expensive books. Paying off hospita
l orderlies to make sure the bodies disappeared after the accident. I hated him already. No doubt sitting up in his penthouse imagining he had the whole city in his pocket. Phoning Officer Wuya for a little chat, just to clear things up. But how had he kept the families of the dead men quiet? Threats or bribes probably – it’s always one or the other. I wanted to hunt him down and pound my fists into his stupid fat face. No, I wanted to drag him whimpering and pleading up to the top of the hill where his mine used to be, and then push him over into the great empty expanse, just to hear his bones crunch as he finally hit the bottom.

  But wait. If this guy really had invested thousands into some mining operation, he wasn’t going to suddenly give up. He’d probably already spent a small fortune on land leases and bribes and manpower. Sure, he’d probably keep a low profile for a while until all the fuss about the accident blew over. But then it’ll be business as usual, with a new team of workers fresh from the trains.

  I took a deep draught and my head began to spin. I tried to work out what to do next, but my mind wouldn’t stay still. It wasn’t long before I was drifting in and out of daydreams. I found myself wondering what might have happened had I been one second quicker, if I’d been passing the unmanned desk on the way back from the bogs when the phone started ringing, instead of Wei Shan, if I’d dashed over and picked it up instead of ignoring it, if I’d spoken to the irate caller – whoever it might have been – then sighed and headed off to Jawbone Hills. People think it’s the big acts that change history. The grand gestures, the heroic moments of selflessness, the intractable acts of passion. But sometimes the stupidest little things can change whole lives – if Wei Shan hadn’t drunk too much beer at lunch and snuck away for his third piss of the afternoon, then he wouldn’t have been wandering back past that phone when it began chirping, and some other sap would be buried under twenty metres of shit while the two of us sat at our usual table in the Golden Dragon.