The Ghost Shift

by John Gapper

  She reached inside the ventilation shaft. There was nothing there at first but then, as she pushed her hand to the left, she touched the edge of an object. She twisted her fingers and pulled it out.

  It was an envelope with something inside—a blue passport with an eagle on the front, and “United States of America” embossed in silver.

  “I knew it!” Feng clapped in delight.

  Still standing, Mei opened the passport to the picture page. Beneath the bald eagle and the “We the People” declaration was a photograph of the woman whom Lockhart had mourned.

  SURNAME: Lockhart

  GIVEN NAMES: Elizabeth Song Ping

  NATIONALITY: United States of America

  DATE OF BIRTH: 7 May 1989

  PLACE OF BIRTH: Guilin, China

  By the time they got back to Guangzhou, it was two o’clock in the morning and Mei was exhausted from the drive. Feng waved goodbye as she crossed the compound, leaving Mei to drag herself upstairs. She undressed, put on a T-shirt, and took a pill to block her thoughts, then fell asleep, hugging the pillow.

  They came for her thirty minutes later.

  Mei was so deeply unconscious that she didn’t hear the knock on the door at first. Then the pounding started, like thuds against her head. She rose groggily and pulled on sweatpants. She still couldn’t figure out what was going on—was the building on fire? When she opened the door, blinking in the light, she saw others ajar down the hallway. There were three people at her threshold—two PLA guards and Pan Yue. The official’s eyes were bright, as if exhilarated by her mission.

  “Get dressed, Song Mei. We’re leaving.”

  A woman soldier came into the room and watched as she dressed. Then they filed along the corridor, as the other cadres pulled their doors shut, trying not to be caught spying.

  Two Audis were parked outside with their engines running and drivers at the ready. One soldier took a seat in the front of one car, and the other opened the rear door for Mei to climb in. Pan leaned forward to adjust the heating as they pulled away, passing through the compound gates on to Yuexiu Bei Road. The city’s lights looked pale and ghostly, and Mei wondered when she would see them again.

  She summoned the nerve to speak. “Where are we going?”

  “You’ll find out.”

  “Have I done something wrong?”

  “Do you think you have?”

  Mei didn’t answer—it was a rhetorical question and Pan had not turned to look at her. The lights of a police car shone in the mirror as they hurtled along Baiyun South Avenue, heading toward the mountains. The car pulled ahead to form a three-vehicle convoy going 95 miles per hour, then 110. Nobody wore a seat belt, and Mei was terrified.

  As they drove on into the countryside, the passing lights pulsed hypnotically, and the warmth made her sleepy. Despite her fear, she was terribly tired. Her head rolled forward and snapped back painfully and she dug her fingernails into her palms to remain conscious. The convoy started winding along a long, curving road, and she drifted off.

  She woke abruptly in a parked car, just in time to stop herself tumbling out as a guard opened the door from outside. Pan already stood at the entrance to a low building with a corrugated roof. It felt high up, in cleaner air than the city, with a splash of stars overhead. Two helicopters rested by a row of green hangars on the far side of a runway. She glanced at her watch. It was nearly four o’clock—they’d driven for more than an hour and a half.

  “Go through.” Pan pointed at the door, and one of the soldiers nudged Mei forward.

  She had to bend to step past the door into a narrow corridor lit with barred lamps. It was lined with metal doors on each side, one of which was open, displaying a small cell with no window and padded walls. The facility looked half-abandoned, as if it had been a military prison but now had another use. The smell of confinement made Mei’s chest tighten, but she kept on walking to the end of the hallway. They passed through another door to a landing, with stairs down to a cellar.

  As they reached it, Mei heard the slap of flesh and the guttural cry of an animal in a trap.

  There were three men in the cellar. One sat by a table, holding a cigarette that sent spirals into the cramped room. The other had a close-shaven head and wore an apron over a blue shirt. His sleeves were rolled up, and he wore latex gloves. He stood by the third man wearing an inquisitive expression, as if interested to discover how long he could last.

  The third man was the Wolf.

  The Wolf wore only a pair of cotton pants, tied at the waist. He was sitting on a narrow iron bench, six inches off the ground, bound at the ankles and knees. His hands were cuffed behind his back, and he strained to keep himself from falling backward into a lying position. Blood trickled down the white hairs on his chest from a gash on his neck, and his face was gray.

  “Release him,” Pan said.

  The interrogator scowled. He gestured at the Wolf, and the other man stubbed out his cigarette, walked over, and undid the handcuffs, then unwound the straps around his legs. The Wolf sprawled sideways onto the floor, gasping in relief.

  “Get up.”

  The Wolf rubbed his legs to make the blood flow and tried to obey, but he couldn’t rise.

  “Bring him here. And fetch a shirt. Have you no respect?”

  “Not for traitors,” said the interrogator.

  He bent and grasped the Wolf under both arms, hauling him up in one motion. Then he pulled him to a chair by the table, the Wolf’s legs dragging across the floor like those of a puppet. Walking to the corner of the room, he picked up a sweat-stained shirt and threw it at Mei.

  “You dress him. I’m not his little sister.”

  The Wolf had slumped on the table. As she offered the shirt to him, he raised his body and threaded his arms through the sleeves, then buttoned it. He brushed back his hair and stared at Pan.

  “Song Mei is here,” the woman said.

  “I can see.”

  “So let us ask you the question again. What was in the envelope she brought you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How can you not know?”

  “I burned it.” He looked at Mei, and a light came back into his eyes for the first time.

  “Why did you do that?”

  The Wolf sighed. “Because it was a trap, set by you. When you’ve been around as long as I have, you can spot them.”

  Pan’s eyes narrowed. “Have you lost your senses, Lang Xiaobo? You burned the evidence of a crime? No court will take that seriously.”

  The Wolf laughed, phlegm rattling in his throat. “Now you’ve gone crazy, Pan Yue. No court will treat it seriously because it won’t be a serious court. The Party will decide on this after a few months of shuanggui. We know that. You seem to have your verdict already.” He pointed to the bench on the floor, to which he’d been lashed. “The tiger bench is the only judge.”

  “It will not help to criticize Party justice. This isn’t my imagination. We have a witness.” She turned to Mei. “Tell us what was in the envelope, since the culprit won’t admit it.”

  Both pairs of eyes were on her, the woman’s expectant and the Wolf’s curious. It felt like she’d been brought to play a part in a play. She knew the truth, and they did too, but Pan needed her to say it. The Wolf had been discredited and discarded. He would end up in a distant province, under house arrest for the rest of his life. He’d never be spoken of again, after this.

  “I don’t know,” she said.

  Pan’s face froze, and the Wolf looked at her with concern, as if she were a child in danger.

  The woman’s voice softened. “Song Mei, tell us honestly and don’t be confused by old loyalties. What did it contain?”

  Mei gazed at the Wolf, blood-spattered and degraded before her. She could stay blindly loyal to the Party or protect the man who cared enough about her sister’s death that he’d risked his career to stop her from being forgotten. Days ago, she couldn’t have imagined this choice; now she didn’t hesitate
.

  “I don’t know.”

  Pan stared, pulling her head back as if seeing Mei for the first time as a threat. She turned to the Wolf’s inquisitor, who was in the corner, chewing areca husk and watching the show. He’d hung his apron from a hook while he took a break.

  “Take her to the car.”

  “She can find it herself.”

  “I want you to take her.”

  He smiled, his upper lip pulling back to show a row of yellow-stained teeth, and spat into a metal pail. Gesturing at Mei to climb the stairs, he walked so closely behind that she could feel his breath on her neck. They passed along the corridor between the cells, with him tracking her.

  The driver had the engine running and the headlights on as they reached the car. Mai opened the door and climbed in, then tried to close it behind her. The man reached forward and held the door open. He leaned in close and whispered.

  “I’d like to have you on my bench.”

  “Screw yourself.” She pulled the door shut and turned away so that she wouldn’t have to hear him, but her hand trembled as she pressed the lock. He cursed and spat, leaving a glob of saliva trickling down the glass, then backed away, staring.

  Mei shifted to the far side of the seat and looked out at the stars. The Wolf was in shuanggui and Lockhart had abandoned her—strange, but that was how it felt. She had betrayed the Party; she was alone.

  It was half an hour before Pan opened the door and sat beside her.

  “Why did you lie?”

  “It’s the truth. I—”

  “Stop.”

  Pan reached over and placed a hand on hers.

  “You know who you remind me of? My daughter. Clever, headstrong, and willful, but loyal. She felt uncertainty but, with guidance, she triumphed. You hate to contradict your mentor. I understand. But hard choices must be made. Remember the words of Deng Xiaoping? We cross the river by groping stones. When we go astray, we must change our direction. You will be suspended for a week, and your error will be noted in your file. You will take time to reflect. Then your reeducation will start.”

  Mei was on the K36 night train from Guangzhou. She’d paid 320 yuan for the soft sleeper with only four bunks, and she lay on her mattress as the train pulled out of the city at sunset. An old couple lay in the upper bunks, legs entwined in baskets of food and clothes. The man was already snoring so loudly that Mei had to stick her fingers in her ears.

  She was going home.

  She’d been given an hour to pack, and then a guard had come to escort her off the compound. Nobody asked where she was going—it was enough that she’d be absent for a while. The news was out, and other cadres had whispered as she passed them in the hallway. Yao was nowhere to be found, and she hadn’t called Feng, not wanting to implicate her further. Now, as the train throbbed around the curves, she tried to sleep.

  When she woke again, the shades were down, and the man was still snoring. She tried to let the steady rhythm of the train lull her but was disturbed by a woman speaking English nearby. She drew back the cover and took a shawl from her bag, draping it around her shoulders. It was two o’clock, and the train was passing through Hunan, Tang Liu’s province. She saw scrubby hillside and a lake, bare in the starlight.

  The English speaker stood three cabins down, dressed in a down jacket and jeans. She was about Mei’s age, and her hands were thrust in her pockets as she described the landscape to a friend inside the cabin. Mei knew she was American from the way she talked blithely in the corridor, unworried at being overheard. She was a tourist who could visit the Guilin hills, take a scenic boat trip on the Li River, and return home with her snapshots of rural China.

  Mei felt like a tourist herself now—a stranger who didn’t know the place. She had thought she did, but now she carried the evidence of her ignorance in her pocket—Lizzie Lockhart’s passport, with her birthplace marked there: Guilin, China. They had been born together on the same day, in the same place, yet she’d never known that Lizzie existed. Nobody had ever told her, until too late.

  She looked at her watch: one-thirty in the morning. They would be in Qidong soon, then a climb toward Yongzhou, and homeward. She got back into her bunk and slept fitfully until she felt a weight pressing on her foot. The snoring man had climbed from his bunk and was sitting on it, eating noodles.

  The osmanthus trees rustled in the breeze as she hauled her bag from the train at Guilin in the morning light. This was what she missed most in Guangdong—the green lakes and hills, the clean air. It was a city of five million now, far bigger than in her childhood. But it had a sweet, provincial air—women with parasols smiled at her from motorcycles, and the streets were divided with flower displays beneath decorative streetlamps. After the terror of Dongguan, she was relieved to be back. Pushing her way through the crowd, she found a driver leaning on his taxi.

  They took the second ring road past Xishan Park, then through tunnels into the city’s northern districts. Mei felt herself regressing to childhood as they drove, past her elementary school, along Fulu Road by Guilin Railway Middle School, where she’d trudged, day after day. Finally, he swung along the curving lane at Aishantangcun to her destination. Here, behind a barred gate, by green fields and ponds that stretched down to the Li River, under the wavy outline of the karst hills, was the closest thing she had to family.

  She walked into the courtyard and stood, looking at the four-story block of the Social Welfare Institute. It smelled the same as ever when she put her head through the front door—an aroma of boiled food and bleach. A toddler rushed along the hallway, kicking a ball.

  “Where are you going?” She squatted next to him.

  “I want food.”

  “It is back there.” She took his hand and they walked toward the babble of high-pitched voices, entering a breakfast room full of adults and kids.

  “Come, Tian.” An assistant hurried him away to a table where toddlers sat, eating noodles. She glanced blankly at Mei as she reached to prevent one of the bowls falling off the table.

  “I’ve come to see Zhu Wing.”

  “You know the way?”

  The handrail to the stairs felt low. She remembered being not much older than the boy, shrieking with laughter as she chased another girl up the stairs, hardly able to reach the rail. She wondered what had happened to those kids who’d been her gang, the closest thing she’d had to siblings until she’d discovered her sister, too late. Some of them had been adopted. Others must still be here, stranded in the adult home. One boy she’d played with had Down syndrome and had been left for adoption as a baby by the gates. She’d been relieved to escape, but now she felt guilty for abandoning them.

  On the fourth floor, she walked along the hallway to the last door to the east, with a jade number eight pinned on the outside for luck and a nameplate: Zhu Wing. She dropped her bag and knocked.

  After several moments, an old woman in a cotton tunic and pants opened the door. Her face was unlined, but her eyes were cloudy and she breathed shallowly. She stared at Mei, trying to figure out what she was seeing and then a smile spread across her face, like sunrise. She held her arms wide and Mei bent down for her embrace, crying at the feeling of comfort.

  “Hello, my child.”

  “Hello, Auntie.”

  “Are you well, Mei?”

  Mei nodded, unable to speak.

  “Come in, come in.”

  The woman guided her into a study with a small kitchen and a bedroom to one side. Mei stood for a while, with the light on her face. Wing bustled in the corner, heating water for tea and hunting for cake.

  “What a pleasure for an old woman to have you back here. I don’t see many of my children now.” She carried a teapot to a table and set it down, waving for Mei to kneel by it.

  “I’m sorry I haven’t visited for so long.”

  “Hush, hush. You’re here now. That’s all that matters. And you brought a bag. Are you staying?”

  “Only for a day or two.”

 
“You will have my bed. I prefer the mat on the floor anyway. It’s better for my joints.” She clapped her hands, and then her face turned serious. “There’s nothing wrong, is there?”

  “Not serious. I’ll tell you later, Auntie.”

  “Why have you come to see me now?”

  Mei sipped her tea and bowed her head. She couldn’t look at the old woman as she spoke.

  “I found something. I have it with me. I don’t understand it and you’re the only one who might.”

  She reached into her pocket for the passport. The old woman looked at it carefully, holding it lightly in her hands. Then she walked to a table and reached into a drawer for a pair of spectacles. She knelt opposite Mei and leafed through to the identity page.

  Wing looked at the photo for a long time and then traced her finger slowly across the image.

  “Read this to me, will you. Mei? It’s all in English.”

  Her voice was light, as if she knew the truth already but was trying to delay it. Mei read the lines slowly, letting the vowels of the dead girl’s name roll slowly off her tongue. When she came to the birthplace, Wing nodded and reached across to hold it again.

  “Where is this girl now?”

  “She died, Auntie.”

  Wing placed the passport on the table and rose, walking into the bedroom stiffly. When she came out, she held three incense sticks and a figure of Buddha; she knelt and put it by the passport, then lit the sticks. There were tears on her face as she looked at Mei.

  “Did you come all this way just to bring me sorrow?”

  Mei flushed with anger at being blamed for a secret she should have known long before. Throughout her life, she’d had substitutes for sisters, playmates who had come and gone. No one had mentioned the real one.

  “Why did you never tell me?”

  “I didn’t think it would be right.”

  “Who was she, Auntie?”

  “Later, child. It is a long story. First, you rest.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  “I knew you as a baby. You never admitted it, even when you screamed and stamped your feet. I would sing to make you stop. Do you need a lullaby, or have you grown up?”