by Andy Oakes
“And flies never visit an egg that has no fucking crack, eh Boss? I’ll see what I can do, Boss.”
Piao taking an ice cube from the glass. Melting in the heat of his fingers. Water down his hand, across his wrist, reminding him of Ankang. It’s icy cut reminding him of an old papa’s suicide scars.
A door opening, a door closing. Rentang in a measured, dignified walk back to the table. The Senior Investigator already knowing what his words would be.
“I will continue to help you. I am an idiot, but I will help you. What do you want me to do?”
“Do what you do best, Wizard. Find us things on your computer that will tell us of our Colonel Qi. Things that have barbs and will stick in his throat, and in the throats of others. Also find a way into that file that has a lock on it.”
“The 40-bit encryption. I already have someone for you to see, Sun Piao. a hacker, the best.”
“And …”
Even the thought of saying the name bringing bitterness to his tongue, as if a pill were melting its soporific spell across it.
“Ankang. I need to know who it was that got me released. Who it was that placed me in its grip.”
“It will be difficult. Ta ma de. Very difficult.”
“But that is what you are good at, Wizard. Difficult things.”
A paper pulled from his pocket. Piao laying it on the table.
“This also. I wrote these words that came from a Comrade Scientist’s mouth.”
Mao Zedong … Southern Kiangsi … August 20th, 1933
“Find out what they relate to.”
A nod to the waitress. Her pen racing across the face of her bill pad.
“That is it, Wizard. That is what you can do.”
Bill in hand, the waitress came, not even bothering to mention in any of ten languages, that service was not included. Recognising a lost cause when they had first entered the bar.
Graveyard teeth, the Big Man smiling, leaning forward in confidential whisper.
“I don’t suppose that a girl like you would consider going to the cinema with a man like me?”
A flick of her hair, a tug at the hem of her mini-skirt as she started to walk away, towards the dahu’s table, her gaze fixed on his tinted contact lensed eyes.
*
A grandstand view from the Sedan. Brief, and interrupted by traffic flow. Five thousand young women in leotards, more rehearsals for the Festival of the People’s Army of Liberation. A bag of chilli hot dumplings on his lap, haemorrhaging grease on to his trousers. A little piece of heaven set down to Nanjingxilu, but Yaobang, a taste for neither. Concrete in the pit of his stomach.
“Lingling, Boss, it was Lingling who wanted you out of Ankang.”
“My wife?”
Just the words, a switch thrown to a hundred tape loops. Memories of memories. With difficulty cutting them adrift. But still her perfume in his nostrils, on his fingertips the silk of her skin. The Senior Investigator’s gaze returning to the People’s Square.
“Lingling wanted you out of Ankang. She telephoned me. Told me to look after you. As if I fucking needed telling. It was her guan-xi that got you out. But Zoul, he must have fucking known as well.”
No response from the Senior Investigator.
“I asked her the cost. ‘There is no cost for a husband’, she said …”
“Why not tell me earlier?”
“I’m sorry, Boss. I know that I should have told you. But you were so weak when you were released from Ankang. And …”
“And?”
“She said that telling you would put your, our, lives at risk.”
A spasm to start the Sedan. Racking the chassis, juddering the windows.
“Where Lingling is involved there is always risk.”
In the rear-view mirror, a tableau of the Great Helmsman with one eye, and a clench of confused faces looking out from his sweet mouth.
“Sorry, Boss. I should have fucking known better.”
Fuxingdonglu, before the Senior Investigator was able to speak once more. And then only by using a cyclic breathing exercise that a psychologist had demonstrated to him in Ankang. Three seconds inhaling through the nose. Three seconds holding the breath. Three seconds exhaling through the mouth. The psychologist had been young, pretty. He had still remembered young, pretty, even in Ankang. But the psychologist with breasts that didn’t move, didn’t jiggle, or wobble. He didn’t trust the owners of breasts that didn’t jiggle or wobble.
“You should have told me. Words between friends are diamonds and not difficult to trade.”
A deep exhalation as a full stop. As an exorcism. Piao’s hand into the dark greased bag of dumplings sluggishly rolling on top of the dashboard.
“Mama Lau’s, or the stall in the Jinling Road?”
Smiling, the Big Man and holding a fat greased pearl of dumpling toward the windscreen, as if he was looking for a flaw in a rare diamond.
“Mama Lau’s of course, Boss. What do you think I am, tight, someone that would skin a fucking flea?”
Chapter 25
You do not know how a violin sounds before you play it.
You do not know how deep a river is before you go across it.
You do not know if a new bottle leaks before you put water in it.
You do not know if your lover loves you or not, but how to test it?
Hakka Chinese Mountain Song.
Piao, the Big Man, over days, counting four BJ 750s, identically sprayed, plated, and liveried. But to the trained eye, four different Beijings, each with its own distinctive marks and features.
The car that they called Mao. A small ‘V’ shaped dent in the middle of the Beijing’s back bumper. Above the front right wing headlight, two chips in the paintwork, grey undercoat showing through. Driver’s side window, a horizontal scratch in the window’s tint.
The car that they called Breshnev, had a slight depression on the driver’s side wing and an ‘s’ shaped scratch under the door handle on the passenger’s side. As well as a double dent in the very centre of the rear bumper.
The car that they called Nixon. Passenger side rear light, a slight crack. Rear number plate, skewing down, left to right.
The car that they called Zhou Enlai. Left windscreen wiper’s rubber missing. Passenger side door, depression just below the window frame. Rear bumper, two dents, both driver’s side.
Through the corner of the curtain, Mao, a street away, in shadow. In its velour interior strained eyes watching through high powered binoculars. The smell of long ago smoked cigarettes, sticky armpits, sweat groined pants, and talk of jobs well done, perhaps of a girl’s hot cry to the razor’s hot track.
Walking to the Sedan, starting it up, driving. Act normal, but questioning what your normal is? Do I walk like this? Drive like this? Look this way?
A constant speed, shadow Beijing in tow, no sudden moves. foot on accelerator. Across the Wusongjiang, eight ribcage bridges, veins into the artery, traffic building. Ahead, staggers of red lights, traffic in awkward jerks and pulls. A knotted thread through a needle’s eye. Xizanglu. Beijingxilu. Xinzhalu. Beijingdonglu. A haze, heat and diesel … folding metal, glass, buckling tarmac. Lights blossoming. The traffic freed and Piao easing ahead. Behind, a Friendship Taxi and an old and beaten Fiat, the Beijing; tethered like a black dog on a metal-linked chain. Passing on green, the last lights on the very edge of the junction, the traffic ahead slipping through. Piao touching the brake, revs, speed, needles falling. The car ahead slipping through amber. Piao pulling the Sedan up gently by the lights.
From Beijingxilu, a truck moving swiftly, through the death of amber lights.
Piao easing the Sedan forward, turning as the light changed to green. Only the Sedan, the Friendship Taxi, making the turn. The Liberation truck just missing them, back wheels sliding, front wheels locked. A mask of concentration the driver’s face, frantic hands. The aged truck jerking violently to a halt blocking the flow of traffic from the Hongkou end of Xizanglu. A chorus of horns le
ant on by a host of elbows. Hands out of wound-down windows in wild gesticulations. Behind the old Fiat, eyes watching from a black Beijing 750, as a Shanghai Sedan drove leisurely out of sight down Beijingdonglu towards Huangpu Park.
Eyes watching from a black Beijing 750 as the driver of a Liberation Truck jumped from his cab. Holding his head in his hands. Examining the damage to a load which had been spilt and crushed. At least twenty minutes to exchange arguments and then to sweep the mess to the side of the road. Twenty minutes, if he had a broom. The splintered pallets, broken trays, the crush of 5,000 mooncakes, the best in the old French Concession. Yes, at least twenty minutes if he had a broom, which of course, he did not.
Only when past the Huangpu Park the Big Man commenting.
“A lot of yuan that many mooncakes, Boss. The cousins will need paying.”
Piao nodding, the mathematics of the situation already orbiting his brain. Mooncakes at 10 fen a cake, translated into bottles of whisky. A lot of whisky for a lot of crumbs.
*
Beidaihe, the Sea of Bohai.
A ‘wave day’, when you look skywards to the ritual of the ages. The confluence of flyways over Beidaihe and its theme park hotels. Over its Twinkle Night City Palaces and its razor wire bangled zhau-dai-suos. Seasonal rivers of birds linking northeast Asia, south China, Indo-China, Australia, Africa. Black ribbon strands, interlocking chevrons. Grey Cranes, white Siberian Cranes, red Crowned Cranes, far from home and flying further. A whisper, un-whispered, calling them to a place that they know only in the helix of their DNA. No language to its voice. No words, just a calling of triggered actions and responses.
A longing. A longing that you didn’t even know that you had longed for.
*
“Fuck me. Some place Boss.”
Whispered even though at least thirty metres away. Observing the house from the dark olive lace shadows of chestnuts. An a-yi, wishbone bent. A Security Officer, built like a Party headquarters, thick bricked and with a sense of permanence. A studded outer door set into the fifteen foot high razor-wired topped wall, that shielded the zhau-dai-suo from the outer world. A bell, an intercom system, and perched above the door, a CCTV camera. Through the old East German binoculars Piao searching each brightly-lit window.
“The higher the wall the more powerful the cadre.”
“Or those that they are fucking sleeping with Boss.”
Shadow to shadow, moving through trees, lush grass, that skirted the western wall, fleetingly around the front of the zhau-dai-suo and the eastern wall, looking for a weakness that was not there.
Approaching the corner and hearing before seeing it, the sea and the beach; pressed as one in the uncertain minutes of a day moving into night. The zhau-dai-suo, its private access to the beach might prove its weak point. Moving down the paved path, a steady stream of people passing. On the sand now, the light fading, and suddenly they were there, as if waves that had reared from the nothing belly of the sea were now shifting into liquid moving form. Two figures trailed by a darker figure. A woman in silhouette, slim, so slim. Her long graceful arm trailing, her hand gently resting on a very small child’s head. Fingers moving in and out of his fine hair. Even from many metres away, the sensual delight of the simple act, obvious, and for Piao a moment of almost unbearable pain. Nemma bai nemma pang. He should be my child, my son.
Just beyond them a third figure. Black hair, suit, shoes, the kind of shoes that are worn to funerals.
Closer. Thoughts of hot food, hot drinks, already prepared, waiting. The woman animated, talking to the child, but the words lost in the slip of metal waves running to the metal beach. Staring directly at Piao as they approached each other. She not knowing him, but he knowing her as you would know your own reflection in a mirror.
Recognition dawning in her eyes, a question forming on her lips. He, the Senior Investigator, looking past her to the Security Officer walking in her footfall. Eyes widening. He too feeling the adrenalin and rush. Its taste, of perhaps years to be cut prematurely short. A pension never to be realised.
Her hand from the child’s head to her face. Sweep of Security Officer’s jacket as his fingers fumbled for steel. Pistol facing pistol. Piao, hand over hand, and pointing. An obscene anodised finger in uncompromising stance. Screaming.
“Drop it.”
Yaobang in a slow move to the flank, but not daring to pull his pistol. The Security Officer aware of every possible movement. Piao conscious that he was crouching ball-like, making himself a smaller target. Already shrinking from the bullet. Shouting at the top of his voice.
“Drop it.”
And she all of the time, silent, paralysed. Her child held protectively to her. Her body wrapped around him, a damp cotton, maternal shield.
“Drop it.”
A wild gaze to the woman. The Security Officer seeking a signal. To spill blood or acquiesce. A cheap-suited gladiator waiting for the thumbs up or down.
“Drop the pistol. Drop the fucking pistol.”
Then her voice.
“Do as he says.”
A sound, at that instant the best sound in the world, the pistol dropping onto the sand. Yaobang scampering to retrieve it. Pulling his own pistol, its black snout grating on the back of bony skull. No words necessary.
For some seconds Piao looking seaward. Gathering himself, torn by divergent thoughts. Holstering his pistol. Moving to the woman, his words unrehearsed and sounding stupid.
“There was no need to scream, Lingling. Why would a wife scream when she sees her husband?”
*
Dark now, hardly able to see her face. The words that he spoke, in the darkness, seeming detached from everything.
“You will go to the entryphone. You will ask the other Security Officer to come out of the house. Say that you are concerned about a hole in the fence at the back entrance to the beach. Say nothing that alarms him. Do nothing that alarms him.”
The entryphone buzzer pushed. Somewhere in the zhau-dai-suo a monitor filled by a woman’s face.
“Ni nar?”
“There is a hole in the fence. I need to show it to the Security Officer, send him out to me.”
“Certainly, Madam.”
The voice tinny and old. Fifteen seconds later a door opening, closing. Heavy feet on a pebble path. Closer. The outer door, opening. An instant reek of fake tabac, mixed with vinegary sweat. An arm out of darkness around his throat. Another with a pistol bruising against his temple.
“Breathe too loud and it will be the last breath that you fucking take.”
The Senior Investigator into his other ear.
“I would listen to what he is saying. He has been very stressed lately.”
Sweat across the Security Officer’s fat pork face.
“Where is the a-yi?”
“In the kitchen.”
Searching him. A knife. A pistol, its butt well worn with violent use.
“Where is the kitchen?”
“Last door on the left down the hallway.”
“Anyone else in the residence?”
Nothing. Another deep, scraping prod.
“I asked if there was anyone else in the residence?”
“No.”
Moving to the woman in shadow. Blind to the CCTV.
“We need to talk, in private, off the record …”
“Off the record? Is anything ever ‘off the record’ with the PSB, with you Sun Piao?”
“You have a basement or a lockable room without windows for these and the a-yi.”
“And if I do not tell you, Sun, what will you do, break my arm? Treat me as you have treated him?”
Her eyes, just an instant, moving to the fat Security Officer. Blood across his ear and the collar of his shirt. The barb of her words hitting home. That she should even think of him in that way. But perhaps such violence had always lain at the horizon of his vision? The final refuge from words.
“Just tell me and tell me now.”
In his eyes somethi
ng that she had not seen before. Something of the street. Some ugly remnant of the Ankang.
“There’s a basement at the bottom of the main staircase.”
Yaobang prodding the Security Officers down the double flight of stairs to the windowless basement. A jangle of large keys against thickly-painted wood. The woman and the child with Piao moving down the red-carpeted hallway to the kitchen. Everywhere boxes, packing cases. Negotiating them in silence. Into the kitchen, a scream, muffled, calmed. A pot falling to floor. The woman leading the a-yi by her elbow to the Big Man in the basement. For some minutes the child left with Piao in the kitchen. A boy, small, pale, but with his mother’s cold beauty. Not an endearing look, but one that snared the eyes with its perfection. The child regarding the Senior Investigator with a serious unblinking and unsettling gaze, making Piao think of his dirty shoes, the hole in his sock, the black moon crescents of dirt underneath his fingernails. That a child could do this, disconcerting. With haste the woman who was still his wife, returning. A protective arm thrown around the child’s shoulders as if to save him from some un-named but terrible threat. For the Senior Investigator, the pain not diminished. Nemma bai nemma pang. He should be my baby, my child. The same thought perhaps striking her?
“We need to talk. I think that you should put the child to bed.”
“His name is Kang, the same name that his father had.”
Piss and pressed suits. The septuagenarian Politburo member whose bed she had warmed. Whose shrivelled cock she had hardened to sculpt a better life for herself, far removed from poverty. Away from a Senior Investigator who could only offer the fickle notions and impracticalities of love.
“I know his father’s name when I hear it. Put the child to bed. Now.”
Stairs of solid hardwood, as dark as bitter chocolate. Silk-hung walls studded with paintings, originals. Flowers by the ‘Jading Intimists’, Wang Shimin and Wang Yuanqi. A landscape by Yun Shouping. Painted using the ‘four treasures of the artist’: ink stone, ink stick, water pourer, brush. On the landings ornate alcoves with treasured items of porcelain. Famille rose, blooms of pink, ‘dusted’ by the craftsman’s very breath. Colour blown onto the object with the aid of a bamboo tube sealed with a piece of gauze. But mainly noticing the boxes filled with tissue wrapped objects. Everywhere boxes as if someone were moving away. Not a panicked move, not a running away, but a planned, organised withdrawal. Care taken, time invested.