by Andy Oakes
Curling, the grass.
“It beckons to you.”
Pulling Piao closer.
“And it speaks to you. Hear?”
A fine sizzle and an aroma bringing tears to his eyes.
“Hear? Of course you hear. Eat me, it’s saying. Eat me.”
Brown juice and a sliver of carp across the tip of the old papa’s finger and onto Piao’s tongue.
“Good, eh? Of course good. The best you have ever tasted.”
Eyes closed. A taste, as if never tasted before, as if life, and the countryside that fed it, had all come together in that instant. And within it, a fingerprint of the old man’s sweat … the old man’s life.
“Yes. The best that I have ever tasted.”
Smiling, the papa. Carp to his fingers, to his lips and to his tongue. Smiling again.
“Eat. We might not be on the paddy field rota for weeks, months.”
Piao, his fingers teasing the carp from the steel. Flesh, branded in mesh diamonds. For many minutes just eating. The thought of words, a violation. Their mouthing, a sacrilege. Only when the old papa burped, wiping his chin of the carp’s juices, did Piao feel that he had been given licence to talk.
“Tell me of the shame, old man? Tell me of our greatest shame?”
“They come for you. Take you, four at a time. Always four.”
Moving the fish around on the mesh.
“You always know it will be you, that’s the worst of it. He comes a day, two days before. He takes your measurements. Height. Weight. Callipers, checking your fat levels. Fat levels. More flesh on this carp than on any of us. Blood tests also. Rarely he rejects you. Rarely. I have been lucky so far. Thank the ancestors.”
Spitting to the floor. Coughing.
“Too old for him. Too ill. Too near meeting the ancestors, I suppose.”
Piao, taking carp from the mesh and feeding it to the old papa.
“That place, it is not a hospital. A hospital releases those that it cures. But no one that walks through those doors ever returns, do they, Comrade? No one is ever cured.”
His eyes meeting Piao’s.
“Cured?”
Laughing with the gums of a baby.
“Perhaps they are cured, Young Comrade. Death after a life such as this could be seen as a cure.”
Blowing out the candle, the old man. The light, fading from his eyes.
“Such shame in that place. Our greatest shame.”
“What is this greatest shame, old papa? That it is a place in which to die?”
One by one, licking his fingers the daddy, until they glistened.
“You have much to learn, Young Comrade.”
The rough blanket pulled over his emaciated shoulders.
“Did you not know? There are worse things in life than death.”
*
They came for the old papa at night, a day later. Still in their mouths, the taste of carp and young river grass.
Piao, moving forward, but beaten back. Forward again. The bamboo cane’s kiss across his cheek. A welt from the corner of his eye crossing his mouth to his chin, in a raw red warning of silence. With all of his might, pushing against the guard’s strength. Too weak to help. Watching as they pulled the old papa from the cell, his eyes wide with fear. Toes dragged over concrete and dust. Watching his tears fall silently. The old man’s lips in a soundless chatter. In the corridor more guards, and moving from the shadow into the light, a tall figure. His smell of complex things, of medical things and dead things, but flooded in an overpowering odour of red roses. Soap of red, red roses. The old papa, resigned; no energy, no will to fight the callipers’ pinch, the measuring, the weighing. The list of medical questions, answers demanded and given in a faltering voice. The tall man, his Chinese clumsy. A nod, and last words.
“Bring him, and the others.”
Piao, face to bars, watching them move down the corridor, and only as they were almost lost to the night, Piao able to find the words, baptised in blood as sweet as Shaoxing rice wine. Shouting, its echo rebounding.
“Pasechnik. Kanatjan Pasechnik.”
The Russian turning, moving back down the corridor with a steady footfall. Eyes to eyes with Piao, through the rusted bars of the cell door. Then the Russian smiling. His finger pointing.
“You. I have been told about you, Senior Investigator.”
Moving from the bars with purpose and back down the corridor toward the night.
“Do not fret, Senior Investigator. I shall return for you in precisely seven days, and you shall be my guest. My very special guest, I promise. And I never break a promise.”
And at that moment, a decision made. Not to struggle in futile resistance, but like a video camera, to record all. To label each scream, number each beating, catalogue each abuse, until one day those who perpetrated these acts stood bound in justice’s harsh dock.
Chapter 55
‘Communism is not love.
Communism is a hammer which we use to crush the enemy’.
The Great Helmsman
And on the seventh day …
Sour, medicated air. A room, harshly white. Pegs on one wall, hanging from them like anorexic bodies, full length visored suits, strung with the piping and gauges for their own independent breathing units.
A room leading from that room. The walls and floor tiled. Large shower cubicles, heavily rubber curtained. A collection of large scrubbing brushes and disinfectants in prime colours. On another wall, behind bright glass cabinets, sharp and shiny medical instruments, beside them a large refrigerator set into steel. Also set into steel, a large rubber sealed door with a triple glazed window and bordered by complex gauges and a CCTV monitor screens. Grey, protective-suited figures moving around grey iron beds encased in thick plastic tents.
Piao, his fevered brow against the window’s cold glass in a smearing of perspiration.
“What is this place?”
Pasechnik, the Russian, beyond the broad khaki shoulders of the guards, beyond the shadows of their rifles.
“I think that you already know, but let me demonstrate. We are after all, world leaders in this area of research.”
Pale fingers to a control panel set in the wall. Above a distant bed, a CCTV camera slowly arching into position. A stuttered panning over the leadened monitor screen. Stopping, zooming in, focusing. In the anonymity of a middle bed, polythene sheathed, in its sweating shroud, the old papa. Shackled to the steel bedstead. Across his sunken naked body, a pestilence raging. The Senior Investigator, with difficulty, remembering his vow to bear witness, at all costs.
“I have brought you here because I thought that you would like to see the progress that your friend is making.”
A smile, stalking slowly across his features, as a shadow across a wall.
“Days one to three, the pre-eruption phase. A period of flu-like symptoms, punctuated by high fever. Days four to five, the first appearance of papules, ‘elevated bumps’. The first appearance of pustules, ‘bumps containing liquid’.”
The Russian’s voice calm.
“Day six to ten, the papules and pustules phase. The eruptions covering the whole of the body area. Bursting, weeping. The infected patient now highly contagious.”
Then almost with pride.
“There is no known antidote. One in three patients dying of generalized toxaemia, or skin sloughing, or lack of immunity to further infections. This unique strain of smallpox runs its course within two weeks.”
The old papa, his heavy eyelids swollen by pustules, for an instant opening. The fingers of a tethered wrist lightly against the inside of the oxygen tent, in a faint fanning. And then his energy dissipated. Fingers slithering down the inside of the oxygen tent, falling back to the discoloured sheet. His eyes rolling in upon themselves to a secret universe, known to only himself.
“Why?”
“You are an intelligent comrade, Senior Investigator. You already know why. Do you not?”
Piao, knowing that even to say the words wa
s somehow to share the guilt. Yet not to say them was a blasphemous denial.
“Zhong Ma.”
“Very perceptive, Comrade Investigator. But in a few days from now, once I have obtained the necessary authorisation, you to will complete the tour of this facility and will take those words to your maker …”
Smiling, the Russian.
“An authorisation that I very much look forward to receiving.”
Chapter 56
Inarticulate grunts from an empty mouth, over Dukang glistening lips. Spinning in the Wizard’s fingers, a silver disc. A deep breath. Pushing the CD-Rom deeply into the drive. A series of clicks. Back door manoeuvres. Hacking protocols. Qi’s PC, its files open, accessible.
The Wizard sucking the straw deeply, warm Dukang swimming to his throat. Tongue-less words swimming out and gagged words aimed at the monitor’s scroll. A constant grunting commentary. But in his own head sparkling words, cool and beautiful words. Perfectly formed and delivered.
Gagged words of regret as he highlighted whole tracts of data, technical commentaries, field test reports. His finger hovering over the delete button. A mistake, he was sure, but the Big Man had been adamant. A shake of the head. A push of the button. All references to Golden Rice banished.
Loading the data from the disc onto the front of File Twenty. A key to the door. Codes, de-coded. Names, where there were initials. Positions, government departments, political organisations, where there were abbreviations. Also darker things. Video footage, stills, the gape of a cut-throat’s kiss. Clasp of knuckles frozen in concrete. PLA faces, smiling. And other data, a regular trickle from Piao and the Big Man, now all incorporated into a dam busting tide.
Accessing the Internet through Qi’s PC. His user name, code name, known only to the comrade himself, but broken months ago. A few useful tips picked up on the net. Hacking tutorials. A protocol snipped from a hacker’s forum. Character by character, typing them in.
Compose. Downloading the email addresses that the email, with its voluminous attachment, were to be sent to. A hundred lines, more. Every name in File Twenty to get a copy. Every political organisation. Every media outlet in the People’s Republic. Every Internet café. Beyond the Republic’s protective virtual fire walls, the free flowing World Wide Web. The outside world. Copies of File Twenty to foreign media organisations, human rights monitoring agencies.
SEND. His finger to mouse button. Virtual hand, pushing virtual button. Hundreds of emails winging their way. Black flock of characters, entering departments, crossing desks. By-passing lemon-sucking-mouthed secretaries. Vaulting committee agendas. Black flock of characters, burning through diary pages. Scalding across international boundaries. No appointments, no knocks on doors, no protocols … no fucking manners.
“60 days. Sorry you’re not here to enjoy the party. But may the ancestors guard you and be as generous with their Dukang as I am with yours, Sun Piao.”
The Wizard pouring himself another full glass and sitting back, watching the flow of emails flying to their hosts. Data that would stick like mud. Data that would be as fish bones to high cadre throats.
Chapter 57
THE GREAT HALL OF THE PEOPLE, TIANANMEN SQUARE, BEIJING.
16 hours later.
Tableaux of the Long March, the Gongchandang triumph, the period of the Hundred Flowers. Portraits of the heroes of the revolution, Mao Zedong, Zhu De, Zhou Enlai, Liu Shaoqi, Chen Yi. Blood on cheeks, fire in eyes, bodies at feet. Heroes of the revolution. Their chests puffed out in pride, rifles still smoking.
The top of the pyramid, the high cadre, no one below grade seven. A smell of septuagenarian breath, dark wood panelled walls, Italian leather shoes, and incontinence’s yellowed weep. A smell that held the breath at bay. And in the pit of the stomach, the unease of power, the sense of something decisive, inevitable and fatal about to occur.
Polished shoes across the lacquered wood floor. Others from adjoining offices joining them in purposeful walk towards the dark oak committee rooms. The highest cadre, the look of a man who would never have need of the help from another man.
“A mess, a terrible mess.”
A voice like concrete being mixed. They all nodded, the comrade was the current General Secretary of the Central Secretariat, the highest ranking cadre amongst them, a grade two. High enough to be in sight of the very top of the pyramid.
Yes, they nodded. With a cadre of such a high grading, no other action being appropriate.
The doors of the Great Hall of the People, flung open. For some seconds, the General Secretary, minions flanking him, staring into its empty vastness. 10,000 seats. 10,000 with one voice. A shiver running up his spine, every time. Every time. Eyes drifting to the illuminated red star ceiling. A vast and glorious rubric sun. His eyes, tear misted. Even though a grade two cadre, a General Secretary of an important organ of the Communist Party, not embarrassed to wipe the tears from his eyes with monogrammed handkerchief. Indeed, making a show of the very act. A sudden and urgent feeling of benevolence in his heart for the proletariat.
“ ‘Know this, that it is not the tree which chooses the bird, but the bird which alights upon whichever perch he pleases.’ ”
Dabbing his eyes once more.
“Look around you. Look at the heroes of our People’s Republic gazing down upon you. Can you not feel their blood coursing through your veins?”
Words ragged with emotion.
“That bird has chosen us, Comrades. It perches upon our branches as I speak.”
Turning. Walking. A phalanx of neat Italian suits, turning, walking with him. Footfall matched, but just a few steps behind.
“Come, Comrades, we have decisions to arrive at. Difficult decisions that fall upon the shoulders of those whom the bird has chosen.”
Leading them to an ancillary room, decorated in the style of the southern lands and peoples. The Bai, the Lisu, the Yi, the Naxi, the Va. Timber from the jungle valleys between the Salween River and the Irrawaddy. Animal skin seats, still musky, still earthy, from the hills around the boundaries of Guizhou and Hunan Province.
One hundred and fifty the room could seat comfortably, but only eight behind its closed doors. A trusted and powerful eight. The meeting would be brief, but to the point. The General Secretary’s eyes falling onto the comrade furthest from him. A raise of eyebrow, a prompt to him to speak, to sweat.
“We have limited the Internet exposure of the files in question, Comrade General Secretary. Several western websites had posted a full transcript of the file. The ISPs that allowed these to appear are now not accessible from the People’s Republic.”
“ISPs?”
“Internet Service Providers, Comrade General Secretary.”
Nodding, smiling, the General Secretary. The young cadre basking in the approval.
“The search engines of Google, AltaVista, Yahoo, cannot now be accessed from within our borders. Our Ministries of Information and Industry have already issued ISPs with a set of new regulations that they must adhere to.”
Dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief devoid of monogram, the young cadre.
“I have posted a full set of these new regulations to your office, Comrade General Secretary. These will make it impossible for such an occurrence to happen again.”
The same nod. The same smile.
“So the situation is contained?”
A raise of his eyebrow.
“We have contained what we can contain, Comrade General Secretary.”
“Explain?”
“Comrade General Secretary, Sir, we can do little about the file and its details being out there. This information is now in the public domain.”
“It cannot be erased from the Internet? Removed?”
“It is impossible to do so, Comrade General Secretary. Once on the Internet it is as water into water. They cannot be separated.”
“ ‘Water into water’. Very poetic, Comrade. Very graphic. And what is your assessment of the situation?”
No
ticing the reticence written on the young cadre’s face.
“Say what you need to say, Comrade. In this place, in this situation, we need to give expression free rein.”
Hand to mouth, coughing, as if the words were choking him.
“Comrade General Secretary, there will be much fallout from this episode. The files and what they contain, especially the video footage.”
Interrupting him, the General Secretary.
“In a situation such as this there is only one effective strategy. Denial.”
“Yes, of course, Comrade General Secretary. My department has already been briefed. Our news agencies will also be briefed this afternoon and will be releasing articles pouring scorn on the files. Denying that the files and what they contain are authentic. Blaming it on undesirables, enemies of the People’s Republic, political extremists. Statements and press releases have already been prepared.”
“Good. Good …”
“But, Comrade General Secretary, this case is different. It has complications.”
“How so?”
“The released files contain details, names, facts that can be tracked stage by stage. Denial will not be enough. Human rights issues will be raised about some of the bars and other ‘business enterprises’ named in the files.”
A nervous sip of water. Dab of linen over sweating brow.
“And there are the Olympic Games, Comrade General Secretary. You will recall that the video tape of the murder of the young woman took place underneath flags bearing the symbol of the Olympics itself. The Olympic Committee will not wish to be associated with murder. It is already under pressure from powerful nations to act and to act swiftly. An emergency meeting of the IOC has been called for tonight in Geneva.”
Clearing of his throat. Nerves getting the better of him.
“We are fortunate enough to have sympathetic friends within the Olympic Committee. These friends have already been contacted. However, we will not manage to keep the Olympics unless we make some changes, some concessions. Unless we offer something in exchange, Comrade General Secretary.”