Citizen One (13 page)

“Clinical Psychiatrists can be persuaded to say anything, doctor. I know personally.”

Leaving the wallet on the table. The burn of the People’s Republic’s star so persuasive.

“The girl also has rights in this situation. One of them being to see what the wielding of a razor has done to her. Have you or the Clinical Psychiatrist asked what her wishes are?”

“Her wishes, Senior Investigator?”

“Yes doctor, the patient’s wishes. Ask her if she is ready for the bandages on her face and body to be removed. If she says yes, you and the Clinical Psychiatrist will walk away and not look back. If she says no, I will pick up my badge and walk away.”

“Such a practice is highly irregular, Senior Investigator.”

“Immerse yourself in some ‘irregularity’, doctor. Ask her, I insist.”

The doctor was away, consulting, for precisely five complete orbited pacings of the room, Piao counting each pace. When the doctor re-entered the anteroom, he was not smiling. His gaze locked fully onto Piao’s documents of authority, as if it were an angry gash that required his full and immediate attention. His words brief.

“The
yeh-ji
wants to see her face, or what is left of it,” was all that he said.

*

Spots, to islands, to continents
…

Last dressings. The closer to her face and skin the bandages, the stronger, the darker the hues in vicious coloration. Stained curtain of gauze, stickiness, yielding. A nurse gently bathing her face. Cerise rivulets as tears, falling down her cheek and chin.

“Senior Investigator …”

Carefully rising between Piao and the Big Man, the nurse with a stainless steel bowl in her hands. Water with the colour that mature violence has. The doctor’s words in CocaCola breath against Piao’s stubble.

“She is all yours. Be gentle with her. I will return in a minute.”

Moving to the door, the nurse following; it closing in a reassuring huff of air.

The patient, her head unmoving. Slowly the Senior Investigator moving around the side of her. His eyes never leaving what had been a once beautiful face, now just pallid sections of flesh, criss-crossed by railtracks of stitches. But something about her. A brightness of eye. Even in a soporific halfway house, a posture of defiance.

For a reason that he did not fully understand, his heart was held in a vice of pain. About to speak, but the girl, Lan Li, speaking first. Words as unpractised as a baby’s first steps. And calm, with the resignation of an evil lived through, conquered.

“The mirror. My face. I wish to see my face.”

From the back of the room, Yaobang bringing the scratched mirror.

“I wish to see what they did to me.”

A look in Piao’s direction. A nod. A quizzical look at first in her eyes, as if seeing a reflection that was not hers, but where her own reflection should be. And then a realisation. Silent tears, in two silver tracks gliding from her eyes. Crying as she talked. Silent tears, the ones that hurt the most.

“They chased me. I remember losing a shoe. They caught me by the Wusong river. I could not escape.”

Her fingers exploring the reality of her new face, as if she could not trust her eyes solely.

“Three of them and a fourth with a cut-throat razor. The fourth was laughing. Even as he cut me. Laughing. I remember. I remember, but I wish that I did not. They held me down. Over and over again they cut me. I remember looking up. His face against the sky, and the iron bridge over the river with people walking by. But nobody came. Nobody helped. I remember looking up, the blue sky turning red. My hands were held down. He pulled the cut-throat razor across each wrist. I remember the coldness of the blade.”

Her hand moving to her opposite wrist. Only as she spoke again, the Senior Investigator realising that he had done the same. The ache inside him almost drowning out her words.

“He pushed another forward as if it was a dare, a game. Holding him on top of me. And all the time the rivers of blood from my wrists.”

Piao wiping her eyes. Dabbing her cheeks. Calming now, a steely horizon in her eyes.

“And then I was running. I do not know how. Running down the river pathway. The noise of traffic above me. The sound of their feet on the gravel running after me. And laughter. And then I was in the water. The Wusongjiang, its current sweeping me away from them towards Suzhou creek.”

Piao taking some cotton wool and gently drying her face of tears. So many tears. Only now able to see her beauty and to look past the rudely stitched scars. Her face one of the most perfect that he had ever seen. A rare beauty, stealing the breath away.

“I remember the water so cold but comforting.”

Pushing through the door, the doctor. Then standing, held in the Senior Investigator’s gaze.

“The men that did this to you, Lan Li, would you recognise them?”

“I would recognise him …”

“Him?”

“The one who held the razor, I would recognize his laugh. I would recognise his holed face.”

“Holed face?”

“Acne scars. His face, it looked like the moon.”

Piao’s eyes seeking the Big Man’s. A glance, brief, but within it, a conversation shared. A whisper, less … as Piao passed his Deputy Investigator.

“Doors leading to corridors.”

The Senior Investigator’s eyes returning to the girl’s.

“Is there anything else that you would recognise him by?”

“His lip. His top lip stitched together. A scar, the skin shiny …”

A sudden barbed strike of resonance pulling her back; thinking of her own skin, her own scars. The Senior Investigator stroking her head. So gently stroking.

“And he had the smell of a PLA princeling.”

“A PLA princeling, how can you tell?”

Across her eyes a misting. The eyes of the whore staring at the ceiling, and beyond, to another place, another life, as the punter pumps his load in frantic hunt for hot sex in a cold life.

“His suit was silk from the Peiluomen Garment Store. His shirt from the Paramount in Beijing. His eau de cologne was Gucci, not an imitation. Italian leather shoes. His nails had been manicured and he wore three heavy gold rings.”

A brief pause, as with pain, she remembered.

“He had eaten pheasant and quails eggs. These smells were on his breath.”

“A princeling, perhaps. But how can you be certain he was PLA?”

For the first time, her eyes meeting his.

“I am a whore. I know men in a way that only a
yeh-ji
can. He was PLA.”

Delicate fingers, long crimson nails, now broken, unbuttoning her nightdress. Tears streaming, but no sound of weeping.

“And there is more that I will remember him by …”

Her full breasts once cushions for the soul, now a racetrack of slits, gouges, gashes. Below her navel a large padded dressing.

“Nurse.”

From the door the nurse silently advancing.

“Are you sure?”

A nod. Slowly, carefully, the nurse’s fingers loosening the adhesive tape around the dressings. The last dressing gently bathed away. Cerise rivulets down her inner thighs. On her stomach, precisely fashioned by the cut-throat’s geometric carve, the crimson bleed of a five-pointed star. The star of the People’s Republic.

Piao holding a fresh dressing to her stomach as the nurse applied adhesive tape. Struggling to control his rage. Acid burning in the pit of his stomach.

“At the moment we are as, ‘frogs in a well-shaft seeing only the sky’. But that will change.”

The Senior Investigator’s eyes reflected in hers. With the back of his hand, tears wiped away.

“It will change.”

Piao, moving to the window, through the gaps in the blinds looking out onto the street at the homeward bound traffic. So many cars. So many homes.

“Do you have family that you can go to?”

“I have no family. I was brought up in a state orphanage. I had foster parents, but I do not wish them to know of this. I do not wish them to know what I do.”

“No one that you can go to? Your safety must be our main consideration.”

“It is too late to think of my safety.”

The Senior Investigator turning, from concern to investigation. Investigation, the base on which he had built his life. Remembering what an old colleague had advised him, when he had first been placed as a Deputy within the Homicide Squad. Words, smells also, hand-rolled tobacco, moth balls, three-day-old shirt.

‘Investigate your own life, yes, young Piao? Take some time from your investigations to look inside yourself.’

Remembering the warmth of the old Investigator’s hand on his bony shoulder.

‘To know yourself is also to know each victim. And each murderer.’

It was advice that he had never taken. He wished that he had. Hindsight, indigestion to life’s rich meal. Sour in the belly, worse in the toilet pan.

“Where did you work? Perhaps this PLA princeling knew you from there?”

Lan Li, her face being cleaned, re-dressed. Medicated padding, festoons of clean bandaging.

“The Ming Ren.”

“The Famous People Club on the Beijing Road, Boss. Smart place. Expensive. Exclusive. Just high
cadre
and
tai zi
.”

Piao moving to the bed. Watching her face transformed.

“You have an arrangement with the club, the owner?”

So dark her eyes, but no acknowledgement of his words.

“Lan Li I need to know these things. I know that it must be painful for you, but such details could help us in our investigation. Who was your pimp, Lan Li? We will not prosecute him. I just wish to talk with him. Perhaps he has knowledge of this PLA princeling.”

The reply reluctant, whispered.

“You are, Senior Investigator. You are my pimp.”

“I do not understand, Lan Li. What is it that you mean?”

“You do not know how vice works, do you, Senior Investigator?”

“We are new to the department, very new.”

Words, darker. Redder.

“Then learn, Senior Investigator. Learn fast. The Ming Ren, it is owned by the Public Security Bureau. I am owned by the Public Security Bureau. So you are my pimp, Senior Investigator.”

You hoe the field until your hands bleed. Blister upon blister, as numerous as the Western Mountains. You work in the heat of the foundry, each crucible’s pour as hot as the sun. Your skin cracking, as the arid river bed. Eyes as dehydrated as apricots, split and left to August middays. You plant the rice seedlings until your back is as set as concrete. Lying in your bed bent, like a human question mark, unable to straighten yourself.

And then the next day comes, and the next day, and the next …
Ku-hai yu-sheng
… ‘Alive in the bitter sea’.

And what of the high
cadre
, and the
tai zis
, their ‘princeling’ sons, how bitter is their sea?

The shops that are guarded by middle-aged women attendants in horn-rimmed glasses and short hair trimmed in pudding bowl shapes, you will not be allowed to enter. They will ask for your ‘special purchase card’. And you will say, ‘what is this place?’ And they will answer, ‘not a place for you.’ It is not a place for you because it is a place for the high
cadre
. They will show their card. They will purchase what you cannot.

At number 53, Dong Hua Men Street, foreign foodstuffs, fine chocolate, wines, scotch whisky, hams from Italy, cheeses from France. Also the home grown foodstuffs that the ordinary citizens of the People’s Republic hold in high regard, but rarely see. Giant prawns from the Sea of Bohai, yellow croaker fish, whole sides of pork. The best and finest leafed teas, not the dust and the warehouse swept debris.

They will show their card. They will purchase what you cannot. Number 83, Chao Yang Men Street. Western videos, books, and magazines. And for those in very special favour, those whose
yuan
is plentiful and whose power throws long shadows, western pornography.

They will show their card. They will purchase what you cannot. The Friendship Stores. Perfumes, luxury items, designer clothing, soft leather footwear, jewellery.

They will have their hair cut in salons that you cannot enter. The Peking Hotel. See their
Hong-qis
pulling up outside the hotel with its grey-uniformed guards? On the mezzanine floor, the barbers, the women’s hairdressers, full of their milky meat-fed faces. Their bloated jowls.

They will educate their children in countries that you see the silver winged planes flying to in reflection, in the waters of your paddy fields. America, Britain, Switzerland. Special places held for them on their return, at Fudan University, Beijing University. Special positions held for them within the Party structure. Within the People’s Liberation Army. Dynasties of the children, of the fathers, of the grandfathers.

Even in death, a card to be shown. In Babaoshan Cemetery, where many of the People’s Republic’s political leaders are buried, room is at a premium. Many die, the cemetery small. It is not unusual to see mourners fighting for a space for their newly departed loved ones, but if you have a card to show, there are special Number 1 vaults that are reserved for the highest of
cadre
only. Vaults that are well apart from those of lower ranks. In these vaults their cremated remains can rest forever. If you are not a high
cadre
, after five years your loved one’s ashes must be removed.

And in the neon bright clubs in Dainty Delicacies Street that the
cadre
and their princeling sons play in, opium served in silver pipes. A bottle of wine for $200. Whisky for $500. A private room for $1,000. And a whore to comfort them for beween $1,000 to $15,000, depending on what they wish her to do.

Such is the bitterness of their sea.

“Is this a good fucking idea, Boss?”

Late. 2 a.m. Moving up the stairs. Street-night colours swapped for the hues that secret night places have. Sharp, rich colours, frosting
yuan
grabbing hands. Gilding dollar stuffed wallets.

Yaobang, at the top of the stairs, feeling out of place. A queue with suits, sharply-creased, hand-stitched. The Senior Investigator, documents of authority already in hand, roughly pushing forward to the queue’s head. Thin, worn linen rubbing past the finest cotton. Polyester bruising against the most expensive silk.