by John Gapper
The roof was flat and uncluttered, the surface pebbled. Two lines of pipes, supported two feet or so from the surface by metal brackets, ran along its length to a water tank in the middle. There were no air-conditioning units; she thought of the workers sprawled watching television or gossiping outside their rooms in the sultry air. It must be hot in those dormitories. She looked at the edge of the roof, moving her head back to ward off vertigo. She was a couple hundred feet from either side, but she felt tremors at the idea of getting closer.
Suddenly she realized that she was not alone.
The Wolf stood in the middle of the expanse. Before she could react, he walked toward her, his eyes glittering as he approached.
“Why are you here?” he demanded.
“I followed you.”
He reached out to touch the badge on her tunic, rubbing a thumb on Tang Liu’s photo.
“You look like her. Do you want to die like her, too?”
Mei shook her head.
“Unless you’re careful, you will.”
“Why are they falling?”
“You don’t think they’re so miserable in this place that they throw themselves from roofs, like that boy?” The Wolf pointed to the side of the roof under which the body had been found. “You don’t believe the official story?”
“Do you?”
“When you’re my age, you’ll know it’s rarely true. The first one, I mean. It’s drafted by a committee to play for time. They’ll say he jumped, of course. Let me show you something.”
He turned and walked in the direction he’d pointed. Mei’s shoes crunched on the pebbles as she followed, her eyes down to ensure that she stayed on solid ground. It reminded her of trailing him through the banana fields, into the night. Glancing up, she saw him on the edge of the roof, etched against the sky. She was fifty feet away, nearly frozen with fright.
“Come here,” he said.
“I can’t.”
“Why not?”
Her shame was overwhelmed by terror. “I’m scared of falling.”
“You won’t fall. Quickly now.”
“I can’t.” It was unthinkable. She felt her knees sink beneath her, talking to him. “I have—”
“Wait.” The Wolf paced along the edge of the roof like a tightrope walker, and she emitted a low yelp of fear. He halted and looked down, his cigarette marking the border of roof and sky.
“Stay,” he commanded.
He twisted and ran past her, with a surprising turn of speed, toward the door that the guard had locked behind her. Still on her knees, Mei heard him striking it with both fists, calling out loudly.
“Open it! Now!”
There was no response and he struck it more heavily, sending a dull echo into stairwell voice.
“Now, you fool! That is a command.”
Nothing.
The Wolf placed his palms flat against the unyielding metal, muttering an obscenity, and then ran over to her.
“You’ve brought the snake out of its lair,” he said.
He shook his head and scanned the roof from one side to the other. He remained silent for a long moment, then took hold of her wrist. He began to walk, pulling her behind him.
It struck Mei that she was about to die.
“No, no. Please,” she called to him, “Please let me go.”
Her body started to shake, and she dug her heels into the pebbly ground, but he kept on pulling. He was far stronger than she’d imagined; she couldn’t even slow him down. She trembled, her vision dimming. The edge was twenty feet away when she dropped down to her knees.
“Get up.”
She moaned in panic. “No. No.”
He dragged her again, her body twisting in the dirt and pebbles scraping her hips as she writhed. When he let go of her wrist, she curled into a fetus on the ground, her eyes clamped shut.
“Stand up.” His tone was stony, colder than any she’d ever known. She’d made a terrible error in trusting him. She knew then that she should have taken Pan’s advice and kept her distance from him. She should have had faith in the Party.
Mei rolled onto her knees and raised herself to a standing position with her eyes clenched shut. She felt him take her shoulder and position her body at attention, seizing control of her.
“Open your eyes.”
She obeyed, a crack at first and then a squint, and saw his face, grave and impassive. Her feet were at the edge of the roof, the border between solidity and nothingness behind her. She felt the suction of the void.
“Turn around,” said the Wolf, taking her by the shoulders.
“I can’t.” It was unthinkable to face the sky and look down. Her feet were fixed, her muscles locked. She scanned his black eyes and weathered face in search of some compassion, but there was none to be found.
“Goodbye, Song Mei,” he said, and pushed.
With the first lurch, Mei’s center of gravity was thrust into empty space. She didn’t breathe as she hung there, holding her arms desperately toward the Wolf for him to pull her back. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Her body was a watch’s hand, halted for a split second at midnight. Then her hips buckled, her arms splayed out, and gravity took her.
Mei dropped into space, hands spread wide, back and hips flattening. She blinked and saw sky above her, as if she were lying in a field—stars, clouds, soft blackness. Her life would soon be finished. It was like drowning, sinking into the depths after a final, liquid breath—almost peaceful. The air rushed past as she picked up speed, plunging downward.
Something clutched her.
Wires bit into her back and closed around her legs and shoulders. Her head jerked, wrenching her neck to the side, and the breath was knocked out of her. Her fall slowed, stopped, then reversed itself—all within the smallest instant. She rebounded, then lay gasping, unable to make sense of what had happened. When she opened her eyes, she was hanging in a wire net, twenty feet beneath the roof. The Wolf was standing above, looking down at her.
Her heart was racing, and she shook uncontrollably with the rush of it all, but she was alive. As she watched him, he brought one finger to his lips, beckoning for her to be silent. Then he passed from view. She tilted her face to the side in tiny increments and examined the net, gripping the cables tightly in each hand. The line reached all along the side of the building, strung between poles about thirty feet apart, strung there to catch wayward objects. Yao’s words came back to her: They’ve been falling off the buildings for months. They’ve put up nets to catch them. She could sense the ground looming far below her and she stiffened, the terror returning.
Above her, she could hear a bolt slide and the door push open so forcefully that it slammed up against the wall. She heard a drumbeat of steps—it had to be a dozen men—scrambling across the roof, with one shouting commands.
“Check there! And there! The tank!”
A man’s face poked over the edge. He wore a green helmet, and she caught a glimpse of PLA fatigues. She shut her eyes, waiting for a shout of alarm, but none was forthcoming. When she looked again, he was gone.
“Clear!” The man in command shouted and stamped his feet at attention, then the unit ran across the roof in unison. She could hear their footfalls, like a herd of cattle, as they disappeared down the stairs.
There was silence, and then she heard the door creak again, slowly this time, and someone stepped onto the roof. He had an unhurried gait, and his shoes crunched gently for a few steps. When he spoke, his voice was as gentle as his walk—it had a rich timbre.
“So, old comrade. What brings you here?”
“I could ask the same.” The Wolf’s voice was closer, not far from where she lay. In the moment when he’d pushed her off the roof—a few minutes ago, although it already felt like hours—she’d believed he was her murderer. Now he had become her guardian again.
“I heard you were here, and we haven’t spoken in so long. Not the two of us alone. Not like the old days.”
“And you alw
ays liked a view.”
“You don’t forget anything, do you? I’ve always envied your memory.” The voice turned sharp. “Where is the girl?”
“What girl?”
“The one you had fetched here. That one, Comrade Lang. Perhaps your memory’s fading, after all.”
“Her? I sent her away. I wanted someone to tell me about the boy who fell. She didn’t know him.”
“That is a pity.” The voice was soft. “One thing puzzles me, though. Why are you so interested? It’s not any of your business, is it? Some kid in a factory takes his own life. The Party’s got bigger things to worry about. Tramping around the marshes last night? It sounds like one of your obsessions.”
The Wolf laughed, the gurgle of phlegm in his throat.
“That’s my life. Chasing after stray incidents, trying to make them add up. Most of it comes to nothing. I don’t know why you’re interested.”
“A couple of sad kids, far from home? That’s trivial. It’s for the security bureau, if anyone. You’ve got more urgent matters to address—criminals and capitalist roaders. Eliminating antisocial elements in our society. The standing committee has warned of the threat to the Party. There are temptations in this world—not a simple life, like when we were young. You’ve always been loyal, but someone who didn’t know you might wonder if you’ve lost your way. Maybe it’s deliberate—vested interests have blinded you. That would be serious. We don’t mind you taking a red envelope here or there, but perhaps you’ve gone too far.”
“You needn’t worry. I do my job.”
“Oh, I trust you. I’m just worried in case others misunderstand your behavior. I’ve heard disturbing stories. Come, let’s take a walk.”
The two sets of footsteps receded. Mei heard a few more words and then an indistinguishable mumble, getting softer.
Without them to distract her, her senses focused again on her plight. Her hands tightened, fingering the tight threads wrapped and bound into squares. As the wind blew, they whistled softly. She felt paralyzed, afraid to let go in case she rolled over and fell. She had an image of the corpse far beneath, limbs twisted against hard earth. Where had he jumped from? How could he have evaded the net? Either he’d been hell-bent on dying, or someone had helped him into the air.
The voices returned, at first faintly and then louder. Eventually the murmurings turned back into words.
“Come. Let me take you back.”
“There’s no need. I can find my way,” the Wolf said.
“I insist.”
“Very well.”
“Come along.” The stranger’s tone of voice was somewhere between an invitation and a command.
The Wolf’s boots scraped on the gravel, and a burst of dust and stones tumbled over the roof onto Mei. She flinched as debris scattered on her face, one pebble bouncing against the ropes as it fell, making it hum like the string of an instrument. She listened to his steps—heavy, bearing the weight of age—follow the other man’s toward the door. The last thing she heard was the shuffle of boots and the scrape of the bolt.
Alone, Mei looked at the stars and calculated her chance of escape. It felt close to zero. She could not climb onto the roof. It was twenty feet above her, and the wall was smooth. She’d first have to clamber to her feet and try to stand on the cable mesh, an intolerable thought. There was no way down—she could not even dare to look.
For the time being, the darkness made her invisible. Nobody could see her from the ground; from below, she hadn’t spotted the net, even though it ran the length of the building. Come dawn she would be obvious. She was doomed, not just by where she was but by her status—a young woman with no connections. The Wolf had tried to shield her, but he couldn’t now. She lay in the web, waiting for the spider.
Lying there, she thought about what she’d overheard. It frightened her how easily the Wolf had submitted. She had thought of him as all-powerful, with the privileges that high Party rank brought. Yet he had followed meekly, as if he lacked the power to resist. Time passed slowly. She gripped the cables, holding tightly as the wind sent shivers through the net.
Above her, the bolt scraped and the door opened. Someone came through it and called out in a high voice.
“Liu! Liu! Are you here?”
She soon realized who was calling her. It was the man who’d stood excitedly by her in the crowd and then melted away at the guard’s approach. As if to confirm it, she could hear the click of his cane striking the roof as he walked toward the edge. She wondered whether to give herself away and realized there was no choice.
“I’m here,” she called, quietly at first and then louder. “I’m over here. Beneath the ledge.”
The cane clicked more rapidly than the other men had walked, and the man’s face peered down.
“Shit, girl. You jumped?”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“What happened, then?”
“Just help me.” She no longer bothered to disguise her accent.
“As easy as that?” He laughed suddenly, as if tension had been released from him. “You’re the same, even down there. Push me around, dangle me from your finger. You know I’m your puppet.”
The head vanished and she heard him clicking away, then an echo on the stairwell. Mei lay back, her fingers slackening a notch. There was something about his laugh that reassured her. She heard the bang of a door and the tap of his cane from beneath her position. As she twisted to look down, a rush of vertigo made her head snap back again.
“Look this way. Crawl toward me.” His voice sounded from somewhere below, but at least a hundred feet distant, at a diagonal. It appeared to be coming from midair, as if he were a sprite.
“I can’t do it,” she cried. “I’m scared.”
“Scared? Not the woman I know. Come on, we don’t have time to mess around. They’ll be back from the overtime shift soon.”
Mei took a deep breath and calmed herself: She would do this if it killed her, and indeed, she felt as if it might. Clenching her eyes, she lifted her arm and rolled onto her stomach, making the cables sway. Then, counting to three, she forced her eyes open. The lights of the city and the vision of the delta spilling toward the Pearl River disoriented her, but she peered across to see him standing below the net. A line of balconies was punched into the side of the building, hung with laundry. He gripped the rail with one hand and waved his cane.
She had to obey. Pushing her arms, she got herself up on all fours and crawled, climbing the incline toward one of the poles. That part was bearable, but she now faced the drop on the other side. She grunted to block her thoughts, placed her palm on the downward slope, and slithered her hips over the pole. Her left hand went down, missing the cable and plunging through the gap into space, making her cry out in terror.
The young man laughed, closer now. “God, girl. You’re making a mess.”
“You try it,” she called out in pain, making him laugh again.
She inched her way slowly across until she was suspended about ten feet above him, with a view of his upturned face from the balcony. He climbed on a tattered chair and reached out with his cane, rattling the small gap between the building and the net.
“Through here.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You said you couldn’t do this. Pull yourself over and twist.”
Mei obeyed, letting her legs slide until her butt hit the wall. Then she thrust herself into the gap, feet first. She slowly wiggled her hips past the cable and squeezed it over her breasts, then hung there, trying to calculate a soft way down. Finding no way to do so, she twisted her face sideways and let go of the wires, falling into his arms. She landed with a painful crack on one ankle and sprawled on the balcony.
Hopping off the chair, he bent down and kissed her, then clapped his palms, hands upright.
“Baby, you made it.”
Mei pulled herself to her haunches, with her arms wrapped around her knees for comfort. She was on a solid surface—still a dozen
stories up, on a balcony that she’d never have ventured onto by choice, but safe. She felt faint with the shock of what she’d achieved.
“Thanks,” she croaked. Her voice wasn’t working properly.
“So?” The young man’s face was still lit up with excitement at the escapade, as if it had been a game he’d invented.
“So?”
“You’ve got a lot to tell me. Remember the last time we saw each other before you went? What I said?”
“How could I forget?”
“Let’s get out of here.”
He grabbed her hand and pulled her up so that she was standing in front of him, his face tilted. Then he pulled her through the door to the balcony, into a dimly lit room. It was a women’s dormitory, in which a lamp glowed softly from behind a pink and white sheet veiling a bottom bunk. There were eight bunks, crammed top to bottom in the room, lining the walls on both sides and leaving a narrow path through the middle. As they passed, a row of teddy bears stared at them.
He didn’t pause, pulling open the door and emerging onto a long corridor, empty apart from two green-uniformed workers gossiping at its end. He trotted toward them, tugging Mei in his wake. Despite his cane and three-legged walk, she had trouble keeping up. Her wounded ankle made her limp, and the scrape in her cheek was starting to burn—she was beginning to feel sensations other than terror. The two women turned, staring at her red tunic, then turned away, sensing trouble and not wanting to get involved. The young man nodded to them as he pushed the elevator button.
She stood at the back of the elevator until the doors opened on the first floor and her companion peered out. Satisfied, he took her hand and they limped hurriedly past the same array of workers in front of the same television show, as if nothing of interest had happened, and emerged onto the road, where normality had resumed. The crowd and the guards had dispersed, and the corpse had been taken away. Mei saw the flickering headlights of an electric cart in the distance.