by Rob Mclean
Angela watched in stunned immobility. He’s going. He’ll get in his car and go and I’ll never see him again. Is that what I want? The thoughts flashed through her mind as she watched him pull the keys out of his pocket.
“No wait.” She leapt up and threw her arms around him, as much to stop him from leaving, but also to soak up his pain and comfort herself. They stood motionless together and with her ear pressed to his chest, she could hear his heart hammering as fast as hers, but he stood rigidly with his arms at his sides.
She looked up into his face, her hands wrapped around his upper arms. “It might have been like that at first, but now…”
“Now?” His hands moved to her shoulders, cradling her in his steady gaze.
“Now it’s not so simple.” Her eyes slid away.
“Isn’t it? All you have to do is ask yourself; what do you want?”
Angela shook her head, her lips pressed in a sad sardonic smile. “What I want is only the smallest part of it. It’s what God wants.” She searched his face for understanding, but only saw confusion. “Also, it’s about what my parents want and what my church expects.”
“Wouldn’t God just want you to be happy?”
She smiled sadly at him. His simple question told her how naïve he was in matters of her faith.
Seeing her expression, he tried a different tactic. “You are over twenty-one aren’t you? I mean, you’re an adult. Can’t you live your own life?”
“I’d have to leave home to do that. I can’t wilfully disobey my parents and stay living under their roof.” She shook her head at his blank response. “You know, honour your parents?” Honestly, hadn’t he even heard of the Ten Commandments?
“Besides,” she continued. “I can’t leave my dad, not the way he is. I wouldn’t want him to, you know… go, if things weren’t right between him and me.”
“Sure. I can understand that,” he nodded. “But would it be disobeying your parents if you were to keep seeing me? I mean, I thought our chastity pledge thing was the deal clincher?”
“Dad thinks you’re Christmas, Thanksgiving and all the holidays rolled into one.” She gave him a big grin. “Can’t imagine why?”
“Maybe all those years on the force made him a good judge of character.”
“Hmmm, yes but mom, well…”
“I don’t think I’m at the top of her Christmas card list.”
“No, but don’t take it personally.” Angela gave his arm a squeeze. “It was her idea for me to be seen with you, to make Zeke jealous. Not to…”
“To what? Fall in love?”
“Love?” She savoured the thought as it resonated in her mind. She remembered the excitement when Zeke had first suggested that they should be an item. She thought that had been love. It had been an affirmation of her place in the world, the first step in the fulfilment of her destiny, her pre-ordained role as future wife, mother and homemaker.
But this was different. This felt more natural, from the heart. Like coming home and slipping on a favourite pair of loafers. The way she felt around John could almost make her believe in reincarnation, that they had already spent many long happy lives together. She could imagine that John being at the club that night had only been the latest of a long history of him looking after her throughout many lifetimes, but she dismissed it and chided herself for such un-Christian romantic notions.
“I guess not then,” John said, his shoulders slumping.
“No, well, I don’t know,” Angela knew she sounded like a flustered princess to him, but she hated being put on the spot like this. Even more, she hated not knowing herself how she felt. “It’s too soon, we’ve only just started seeing each other and I really don’t know you all that well.”
“All the more reason to keep seeing you,” he said, drawing her closer. “If that’s what you want?”
“Yes,” she whispered in his ear without hesitation. Like a guilty secret confessed, it felt liberating to finally admit to it and set it free. “Yes, I do,” she repeated much louder, almost shouting.
“Definitely too soon for that phrase,” he grinned. It earned him a punch on the shoulder.
Chapter 11
Ling Zou cut through the press of prisoners like a bow of a ship through sheets of ice. They moved reluctantly and with frozen stares.
During the moment she met their glares, before they dropped their eyes and turned or moved away, she could see the animosity and resentment churning within their souls. Some scowled but most were eager to avoid any trouble.
Ling knew what they thought of her, but she didn’t care. She had always been a practical girl, but more importantly, she had always been a survivor. She had no qualms about what she had to do to stay on the right side of the powerful and she knew there could be no secrets in a place like this.
A growing hush fell behind Ling as she passed through the mess hall. Dinner conversations died suddenly, voices strangled mid sentence lest they incriminate. Behind her, a watchful silence grew, gradually filling the room. Downcast eyes followed her wordlessly as she passed. Prisoners before her, alerted by her unhurried footsteps echoing amid a looming wall of silence, looked about for the source of the disturbance, then seeing her approach, turned almost as one to seek her destination, her victim.
The American girl sat with three fellow prisoners around a square table. They were all of a similar age and all had a fresh faced innocence about them that Ling had come to associate with the delusional optimism and hope that their faith inspired. As far as Ling could tell, they were the closest things to friends one could have in a place like this.
The trio fell silent as Ling neared. They cast worried looks about before turning to Michelle. One of them, Ling saw, had a long horsey face with a matching lanky mane that hung over her eyes. She clasped at the American girl’s left arm and whispered urgently before averting her eyes. The American girl sat up straighter and spread her hands out on the table. Her friend on her right, a moon faced girl whose teeth were mostly missing, a result of earlier re-education, reached out and held her other hand.
Ling stood directly across from the American girl. ‘Hello Michelle,’ she said in English.
The American girl didn’t move, but her third friend, with her back to Ling, twisted her head around and glared at her through the cracked lens of her glasses. The broken frame was held together by tape. Her nose was flattened and crooked, presumably from the blow that had broken her glasses. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“I am…”
“We know who you are,” the friend’s eyes narrowed behind her glasses. She made no attempt to hide her animosity. “Leave her alone. She’s had enough.”
Ling gave the insolent girl a disarming thin smile before she grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her head backwards. Ling grasped her firmly around the chin with her other hand, digging her long painted nails into the woman’s cheeks. Ling then pushed the woman backwards, sending her glasses skittering across the floor. While she teetered on the two back legs of the chair, Ling then released her grip on her hair, but kept her victim from falling by holding her by her face.
“It would go better for everyone if we could all be friends,” Ling said, watching blood well up where her fingernails had pierced the skin. She turned to Michelle. “Don’t you think so?”
Horseface had made to grab one of the knives, but Michelle had stopped her with a short rebuke. She then turned to Moonface to make sure she had no similar ideas, before giving Ling an icy stare.
“Friends?” Michelle gave a derisive grunt. “Did she send you?”
Ling released her victim, who fell to the floor. The woman rubbed her injured face, wiping a thin smear of blood over her face and fingers. She squinted at her wet hands and then groped about for her glasses.
Ling watched it all with bored amusement while she examined her fingernails. “Nothing happens here without her knowledge.”
“Or approval?” The American girl’s face hardened.
Ling knew that this girl had been through the suffering of the isolation cells and it showed. Although she had been hosed down, cleaned up and given newer clothes, the black stain of the coal water still marked her nails, shaved scalp and creases in her skin. That stuff took weeks to scrub out and as Ling knew, the black memories could never be washed away.
She scrutinised the American girl and wondered what it was that the Captain saw in this gweilo. Her face was far from pretty, ugly purple bruises marred an otherwise youthful skin which in part compensated for banality. Her ears protruded unflatteringly, but they would be covered up when her hair eventually grew back. She conceded that this girl could be made up to look passable, but she suspected that it wasn’t her looks that her Captain was interested in.
“How old are you?” Ling asked, ignoring the hostile stares from all sides.
“Twenty two.”
‘So young.’ Ling remembered how her own life was at that age. She had been so full of ambition and drive back then, telling herself that her life spent at business school by day and escorting by night was a temporary necessity. Only until she had enough money to get a reputable business established, then things would get better. She smiled ruefully at her own youthful arrogance, but when she felt the stares of the ring of faces at the table, she made her smile broaden. “See? What a nice conversation we are having.” She looked up to the observation deck to see if the Captain knew how hard she was trying, but her expression was unreadable.
“How old are you?” Michelle asked, putting a subtle emphasis on the word ‘old’. To Ling, it carried the insinuated slur that her extra decade and a half was a liability. It took an effort to remind herself that she was supposed to be making friends with this girl and to restrain herself from slapping her impudent face.
“Old enough to know how things work around here,” Ling put on a bright smile for all those watching.
She saw that someone had found the broken glasses and had handed them to the friend. She was putting them on when guards appeared and grabbed her. One put her into an arm-lock and the other drew her baton. She had it poised, ready to strike when Ling intervened.
“Everything is in order,” she assured the guards with a broad smile, “we are all friends here.” She turned to Michelle. “Aren’t we?”
Ling saw the American girl look to her friends for guidance, but their expressions only mirrored the collective helplessness. Her shoulders sagged slightly before she gave Ling a small nod.
Ling reinforced her command to the guards with a stern glare. She saw them look up and she followed their gaze to see that they sought the Captain’s direction. She silently fumed that they had publicly humiliated her by not instantly recognising her authority. She would see to it that they were put on sporadic night duty.
With a terse shake of the Captain’s head, the guards released their prisoner. She flexed her arm and shook the ache from it before she adjusted her glasses and resumed her place at the table. She bowed her head as she gave Ling her thanks.
Michelle put a reassuring hand on her friend’s arm, before turning to Ling who had taken a chair from a nearby table and placed herself between Michelle and Horseface.
“What does she want from me?” Michelle cast a scornful glance up towards the observation deck.
“Apart from giving up your delusional beliefs, I don’t know.’ Ling surprised herself with her honesty. “But whatever it is she will get it – one way or another.”
“I’ll never renounce my faith. And if there’s anything else,” Michelle grimaced, “whatever that might be I won’t give that to her either.” She sat up straighter, drew her legs together and protectively crossed her arms.
“She hasn’t violated you yet, has she?” Ling tried to hide her jealous anxiety, by sounding casual and uncaring.
Michelle’s eyes widened, but she shook her head.
“No? I didn’t think so,” Ling said with a wave of her hand. “You’re not really pretty enough to be her type…”
“You would know,” Michelle spat.
Ling smiled in return, happy to see that her taunts had brought a reaction. She knew the girl had a reputation for being defiant, but so forthright, so confrontational. If everyone in America was like her and knowing they all carried guns, it was a wonder they didn’t all kill each other. It was miracle enough that she had survived in this prison for so long. If she were anyone else, if Captain Lau had not taken a special interest in her, she would have been broken or buried long ago.
“As a matter of fact I would. I know a lot about our Captain, some of which good Christian girls like you would not like to hear.” Ling scrutinised the American girl for some sort of a reaction, but either she lacked imagination or wasn’t that easily shocked. The horrified faces of her friends showed they were far more innocent of the ways of the world.
Ling continued, savouring the reaction she was having. “There would have been a time when she would have taken a special delight in corrupting the virtues of such pious young ladies.” Ling tried hard to keep her wicked glee from showing, although she knew that the Captain would never sully herself with these ugly mountain trolls, but she felt a grin creep across her face at the scandalised expressions she saw around the table. She put her arm casually around Horseface’s shoulders and took delight to feel the girl’s body stiffen with revulsion. Ling shared a seductive smile as she placed her hand over Horseface’s hand. It must have taken all of the girl’s willpower not to pull her hand away.
“Luckily for you, our Captain has me.” Ling slid her fingers up Horseface’s arm. Under her unkempt fringe, Ling saw the girl’s eyes widen in horror. She could feel her trying to recoil and pull away from her touch, but Ling held her too tightly.
“Don’t look so horrified,” Ling said, suddenly releasing her victim and waving a slender finger at the faces around the table, “if it wasn’t for me and all the unmentionable things I do for her…”
“Oh my God,” said the girl with the bloodied face and broken glasses. Her expression, a mixture of pity and revulsion was mirrored around the table.
“I’m so sorry,” said Moonface.
“I don’t want your pity,” Ling drew herself up. She felt angry at herself for saying too much to these naïve but well intentioned innocents.
“What do you want then?” Michelle asked. The pointed hostility was gone from her voice. Ling could hear compassion behind the words. Her eyes searched Ling’s face, looking for a crack in her façade, a path to openness. Their eyes met and in the moment before the fear of discovery made her look away, Ling saw compassion and empathy. After all she had been through, why would this gweilo pinyin care about the hopes of the Captain’s consort? Of course she didn’t. Ling dismissed the notion with a quick smile.
“Nothing.” Ling put away her dreams of freedom. “At least nothing you can give me.”
“Then why bother us with your… stories?’ Horseface asked.
“Because you need me.” Her finger swept around the table, encompassing all. “I was once like you. I was once a believer in your Christ.” Their faces showed more disbelief and astonishment than when she had intimated about her sordid dealings with the Captain. “How do you think I ended up in here?”
“So why don’t you just renounce the Lord and proclaim your love of the state and walk out the door?” Michelle asked in a compassionate tone that yearned to understand.
“As if it was that easy.” Ling stood, pushing back her chair. “Don’t you think I’ve done that? I’ve been up on stage, in front of everyone, renouncing your God so many times that I’ve lost count.”
Michelle shook her head. Her perplexed look was reflected around the table.
“She trots me out to confess my sins in front of everyone regularly. Maybe she does it to humiliate me, or to make it easier for others to do the same. It doesn’t matter, nothing changes.”
“I don’t get it…” Michelle began.
“Don’t you see? There are far worse things that can
happen to you than being forced to renounce your God. You need me. Without me, those things could happen to you.”
Michelle spoke quietly but insistently. “Have you thought that maybe those things happen to you because you have renounced God?”
Ling raised her hand to strike, but stopped herself. She knew that slapping this ignorant fool would only get her in trouble with the Captain. “Don’t talk to me of God. Did your God help you when you were arrested? Did He help you in your solitary cell? Has He helped you since?” Ling shook her head. This pinyin didn’t understand how things worked around here. “Your God has abandoned you. It is only your own foolishness that stops you from seeing this clearly.”
Ling started to stride away hoping to put both Michelle’s words and her irritatingly sincere face behind, but Moonface’s voice stopped her.
“Michelle was just telling us about her visitor.”
Ling turned slowly to face them. “Visitor?”
Horseface and Broken Glasses both scowled at Moonface, but Michelle placated them both with quick reassurances.
“Who visited you? How?” Ling knew that visitors from outside the facility were almost unheard of. It was a long-standing policy to isolate the offenders. Ling directed her question to Michelle, who, with a nod, allowed Moonface to answer.
“Michelle had a divine visitation.” Her face shone as she recounted the story. “An Angel appeared to Michelle. God sent a messenger of light.”
“When?” Ling asked. “When you were in isolation?”
Michelle nodded. “He told me not to fear, that everything would be well, that my parents were alive and well. He filled me with hope and gave me the strength to endure.”
Broken Glasses reached across the table and took Michelle’s hand in hers. The other friends laid their hands on top.
Ling remembered her own time in isolation. The visions that haunted her were definitely not angelic. Grotesque, lurid faces appeared from the darkness, whispering words of hate and revulsion. Forms had pressed upon her immobile body, probing and pinching her, filling her mind with terror and laughing as they fed on her fear. In the darkness of her delirium she couldn’t tell if her tormentors were real or imaginary, but she knew the fear was very real. In her despair, she had prayed to God and anyone who would listen, but it was only the laughing demons who answered her prayers.