Citizen One (26 page)

“So, I am to turn my back on my investigations and let sadistic serial killers go free?”

Her finger across his lips, so cool and soft, so perfumed. An urge, bottomless, to take it into his mouth.

“That I know is not in your nature. You are the storm that rains on every roof. I know this. So do your superiors. That is what frightens them so much, especially in the extraordinary circumstances that prevail at present.”

Not removing her finger. His words sealed in crimson by its presence.

“You just need to be very careful. If I can assist you I will.”

His lips, shaping to speak. But a second finger silencing them.

“You have had your say, Sun. Now is the time to listen to the sound that your rain makes on others’ rooftops. Yes, I had you released from
Ankang
and returned to the PSB, in what I thought would be a safe place for you. I spoke to Zoul and he promised me that he would keep you safe. He failed.”

Her eyes on his.

“But how can you stop the wind from blowing.”

Her eyes on his and ten thousand memories brought back to life.

“You have enemies, Sun, from past investigations. Many enemies in high places. Not all appreciate the storm’s rain falling on their rooftops. It loosens tiles, floods basements. Your enemies, they were almost upon you. They were so close that you did not see them.”

Across his lips her fingers, but not able to still the question, like the seventh wave, rearing up from deep within him.

“It was you, wife. You were the one who put me in
Ankang
in the first place?”

In her eyes, reluctance, secrets in dark-cornered hiding places.

“
Ankang
was hard, I know. But it offered you a sanctuary, a place where not even their arms could reach and people within it to keep you safe from
Ankang’s
worst horrors. I have no other involvement, Sun. I know nothing of these deaths or of this
tai zi
.”

Still her fingers, calming the fever of his lips, holding back the questions.

“Shh. There is no agenda here, Sun. There has never been an agenda.”

Slowly her fingers leaving his lips. An instant sense of loss. Wondering if she would ever touch his lips again. About to speak, but she interrupting.

“I will allow you one more question, Sun, and I will answer it truthfully.”

And he, realising that he was no longer an investigator, but a husband asking the simplest, yet most complex of all questions.

“Why?”

She smiling, and in his eyes seeing all that was to be seen, and that which was hidden. Half turning her face, eyes hidden by the night. Looking out to the blackness of the sea and sky. No witness as to where they kissed. Some minutes before she spoke. The one question, answered truthfully.

“A relationship is not like signing off a report. Or did you not know that, Senior Investigator Sun Piao?”

*

Beyond the Shandong Peninsula, moving from the Sea of Bohai, shadowing the Yellow Sea, the rain as grey spears, streaking the darkness. Piao falling asleep to the windscreen-wiper’s fretful lullaby.

Waking with a jolt as they crossed the Great Bridge. The Yangtze the colour of worn coins. The light, at an obtuse angle, hitting the windscreen through the spread of plane trees, as if the very world itself were sliced into manageable slithers.

Yaobang only now daring to speak.

“So Boss, what exactly would you say is the secret of a successful marriage?”

In the People’s Republic of China three overlapping components provide the Party, the state, with radar that can pick any comrade up wherever they decide to go. Whatever they decide to do. The Party, the state, organising society as a security system, as much as a social or an economic system.

The
danwei
, cradle to the grave, providing the housing where you live, the school where you are educated, the clinic for when you are sick. The purchase cards for rice, cooking oil, soap. You will need their authority, their written permission, to get married, divorced, to have a child. A travel permit to go beyond the city limits. A docket to purchase, if you are well off, a car, a refrigerator, a washing machine. A docket to bury your dead. A docket to register the living.

The
xiao-xu
, the ‘small groups’. These, based on the techniques developed in the Communist’s cave headquarters of Yanan in the 1940s, to indoctrinate the thousands of disparate new adherents flocking to the cause. Thousands split into groups of no more than ten, undergoing months of what the Communists called ‘thought reform’. Stage 1, specific Party documents to study. Stage 2, mutual criticism of past attitudes and activities. Stage 3, a time for submission and re-birth. Not unlike a religious conversion. Each individual writing, rewriting a personal confession. Over and over again, until the Party accepted it.

And now? The ‘small group’ will meet in your school, your university, your neighbourhood, once or twice a week. Central Committee documents and dictates will be read out and studied. Each member of the
xiao-xu
, at designated times, will write a report on themselves to the Party. It should contain the ‘three levels’ of consciousness. The first, what you think about yourself. The second, the things that you tell only your closest friends. The third level, the feelings that you hide even from yourself.

The third component of control, the ‘Street Committee’, providing the Party, the state, with a mechanism to watch each comrade at home. Their members a cross between building inspector, police informer, social worker and spy. In each
long
, in each tenement building, they will sit. They will note each coming, each going. They will keep a strict eye on their residents’ neatness, reprimanding you if your shoes are dirty, if you do not sweep your hallway. Entering and searching your flat wherever they wish. Inspecting your
hu-kou
, your household refrigeration certificate. They will count the members of your family, searching for relatives from the countryside who you might be trying to smuggle into the city. They will berate you if you do not wash your dishes and plates after a meal. A written report to the Party, if you do not have a photograph of the Party Chairman in a prominent position in your living room.

Each province, each city, are awarded quotas for the numbers of babies which they are allowed to sire every year. Street Committee Members decide which family should have a child and which family should not. A person from the Street Committee assigned to monitor each woman’s menstrual cycle. If a period is missed by a comrade who has not been given permission to have a baby, an abortion is ordered. A Street Committee Member nominated to escort you to the clinic. To be present with you while the procedure is carried out and then to escort you back to your
long
.

‘His eyes upon your face. His hand upon your hands. His lips caress your skin. It’s more than I can stand.’

Dark, darker, moving through the Yanan East Road Tunnel. Nixon, the black Beijing, six cars back. At the exit, north river side, traffic lights on red. Cars backing up. Everything the colour of sun-dried tomatoes. Piao squeezing through the narrow gap of door and pressed steel. Keeping low, rolling behind the concrete parapet. In its faded khaki slip the handprints, boot marks, of the workers who had toiled to build it. The lights to green and Nixon passing in a belch of diesel fumes. Eyes watering, moving out of the tunnel, the Big Man would keep them running west, Piao running east. A Friendship Taxi picked up on the Bund, its dead-eyed driver moaning incessantly about the weather and the wait for his wife’s hysterectomy operation. Piao tossing a crumpled 10
yuan
note and jumping out north of Daminglu. Moving into the
longs
around Haininglu. River mist skirting the confluence of the Wusongjiang with the Huangpu, smoothing cracked walls, dulling every sound. Following the Big Man’s instructions; biro drawn onto palm. The Shanghai Stadium, a bowl of light, a crucible of sound, not executions tonight, just football. A goal, 60,000 voices in joyous unison. Moving through the rabbit warrens, away from the stadium’s leggy shadow. Single sounds now, a mosaic of identifiably tenement life. Fretful babies, playful lovers, ill drunks.
Mah-jongg
tiles snapping down.
Renao
, life, hot and spicy.

On the fourth floor, the apartment. Moving silently. Noodles simmering, dumplings steaming, cheap cuts of fatty pork roasting. Climbing the steps, mouth watering. Tsingtaos, China Brands, but not able to remember the last full meal he had eaten. Knocking lightly, the far door on the left. Three locks, a spy hole and an insistent voice.

“Ni nar.”

An old woman’s voice. Piao whispering his name, rank.

“Ni nar.”

Another two times before the Senior Investigator took out his badge and slipped it, grating, under the door. Seconds of silence and then one, two, three locks being released. Through the narrow gap smells of food, fresh and Sichuan spiced, and the creases of an old mama’s crumpled velvet face. A finger to her lips, words whispered.

“Quickly, the Street Committee.”

A hand pulling him in.

“My grandson told me to expect you. He says that you are a good man.”

Silently closing the door. Her arm, thinly veiled bone, already through his arm, guiding him into a lounge. Rich fabrics, hand woven rugs. Plump, upholstered armchairs, lace antimacassars, fine appliqué cushions. And smells: lavender and tea tree,
xunhuacha
and carbolic soap. The room, a mother’s room, a grandmother’s room. Teats sucked dry of milk, but still nurturing.

“A good boss also, he says.”

Pointing a crooked finger toward the kitchen. The sound of bowls being washed. Faintly, a song being sung.

‘After peach flowers are bloomed, chrysanthemum blooms.

My lover wants something that belongs to me.’

“I was a good nurse, a very good nurse. The old ways are the best. You shall see.”

With his assistance, lowering herself into an armchair. Cushions already sculpted to her form by hours of sitting. The small table at her hand, a half-full glass of
Dukang
, a pair of wire-rim bi-focals and a leather bound book, already open. Piao recognising the work, the very page of the
Shijing
, ‘The Book of Songs’. The ode,
Dong Fang Zhi Ri
.

The sun is in the east,
and that lovely girl is in my chamber.

She is in my chamber.

She treads in my footstep,

and comes to me.

“Go to her. See for yourself.”

A knot of concern and anticipation, nagging at Piao like the August bite of the mosquito. Moving to the half-open door. A view of her from behind. A floral dress, tight to her bust, waist and hips. Her figure perfect, that of the summer wave listlessly tumbling to the shore. Moving to the slow samba rhythm of washing up. For some time just watching her. Listening to the words tumble from her lips in whispered and glorious off-key.

‘First he wants my pillow,

and then he wants my bed,

and then he thinks that I am his medicine.’

Sensing his presence, Lan Li slowly turning. For the first time, Piao feeling that he was really seeing her as she had been, as she now was. Sutures un-picked and drawn out like the bee stings. Bandages, gauzes, fallen away. The change from when he had last seen her almost choking him. Scars still visible, but as the imagined lines drawn between the stars that make up the constellations. But now only seeing the brushstroke curve of eyebrow, sweep of mouth, glint of hazel eyes and the purse of her lips.

She smiled, her face alive. Summer breeze across a field of golden corn. Drying her hands. Still that smile. Lips to slumber on and to dream about. Her gaze lowered.

“I want to thank you for placing me here with your Deputy’s grandmother. It has felt like the home that I have never had. When all you’ve known is orphanages, clubs and …”

Words trailing away as bathwater down the waste pipe.

“It has been so good being here, being safe. And look …”

Hands held to her face.

“Look at how she has helped. So many secret potions, the mama. Always something bubbling away on the stove.”

Her smile fading. Suddenly a chill to the room.

“There is something wrong. I know it.”

Her hand on his shoulder, porcelain cool.

“What is it? You must tell me.”

Perception, the whore’s most essential talent. Seeing the ghost at the back of Piao’s eyes.

Guilt that he was not more powerful, not a
cadre
strong and in a high place, and able to assure her, protect her.

“The man that did this to you, we arrested him, charged him. You were correct, he was a PLA
tai zi
. Powerful with
guan-xi
and friends in high places …”

Piao looking away, words that he knew would hurt.

“We had to release him.”

Her hand leaving his shoulder. Instantly mourning the loss of her touch. Walking away, turning her back on him.

“After what he did to me and to the others?”

Her back as soft as the arching bow of the willow. An urge to touch her, hold her, as many men had wished and with enough
yuan
, realized such wishes.

“It is wrong, but he is powerful. Murder is not enough, apparently, to hold such a princeling as this.”

Her arms folded, holding herself.

“We need to make sure that you are safe. In the next few days you will be moved again out of the city. One of Deputy Yaobang’s cousins will take you there. You will be safe, I promise you. They are good people, fine people.”

“I am just a witness, nothing more to you. Of course you will keep me safe, until I have served my purpose.”

Turning with tears down her cheeks. He had seen so many women cry in his life, but never so generously. His hand gently across her cheek, hoping that it would say more than his words, mean more than his words. Words, the palest ink.

“I want you to be well. I want you to be safe. Yaobang’s cousin will make sure of that.”

“Where will I be taken to?”