Year of the Tiger (34 page)

The Emperor is far away.

People keep coming, banging on their pots in rhythm now.

‘Well, hey, at least it’s not about us,’ I say.

‘No,’ John says, staring down at the street. ‘But I think we should leave. If this gets too bad, maybe riot police come, seal off the town. Then we can’t go.’

We gather up our stuff while the crowd passes by, walk as quietly as we can down the stairs, through the storefront, whatever it is – a pedicure place? – where a tiny woman wearing an
Ice Age 2
sweatshirt who looks like she’s about a hundred years old shuffles around, spraying the plastic tubs with some mutant offspring of ammonia and jasmine.

‘Hey,’ she says, her voice a rusty quaver, ‘you don’t leave without paying.’

‘We already paid,’ John snaps, steering me toward the door.

‘I call the police!’ she screeches.

‘Shit, John, let’s just give her some money.’ I pull out a wadded hundred-
kuai
note from my pants pocket, straighten it out, and fold it in half. ‘Thanks, Madame, this is a very nice place you have here, and we really like it. Very comfortable.’

She takes the note and gives me the evil eye like I’m some cheap foreign slut.

‘That is plenty,’ John says, grabbing my wrist. ‘Come on. We are going.’

I don’t like the way John grabs me, and I pull away. But I follow him out the door.

A few stragglers make their way down the street. There’s a vague glow in the sky, not bright enough to cast shadows, but it must be nearly dawn, muted by a thick layer of clouds.

We go down the street in the general direction of the protesters. At the end of the block, John stops and swivels his head, scanning up and down the intersection.

‘Where are we going?’ I ask.

‘Bus station,’ he says shortly. ‘Or just find a car to hire.’

John pulls out a smartphone from the inside pocket of his jacket. A nice, sleek one that looks brand-new. I peer over his shoulder. He’s pulling up maps of China.

‘Hey, that’s pretty cool,’ I say, because it’s hard to get good maps in China with stuff labeled. It’s like the government’s afraid you might find out a state secret if you know how to get around Lower Treasure Chicken Village. ‘Where’d you get it?’

He shrugs. ‘Online.’

And I’m thinking weird things again, because I’ve never seen a database of Chinese maps on a smartphone before.

Google Earth’s mapped Treasure Chicken Village? Seriously?

Maybe it’s some kind of, I don’t know, GPS service. They have GPS mapping for cities like Beijing.

But for Treasure Chicken Village?

Right.

‘Okay,’ he says. He checks the street sign, checks his phone, and tilts his head to the right. ‘This way.’

We head down the street, turn onto a broader avenue. The gray sky whitens, seeming to suck the light from the streetlamps until they hiss and fade. People filter onto the street, emptying trashcans, sweeping sidewalks, riding scooters with stacks of plastic cartons strapped flimsily to the luggage racks. Street vendors set up bowls of congee and fry
you tiao
, twisted strips of dough, to dip in it. The normal stuff of daily life.

But now and again I hear something else. Shouts. Breaking bottles. Wooden spoons banging on pots.

Here’s the bus station.

It’s basically a big parking lot packed with buses and a small, low terminal with a shiny plastic façade and white-tile-clad walls. A couple of taxis wait by the curb.

John approaches one of them.

‘Hey,’ I say, tugging on his sleeve, ‘where are we going?’

‘Maybe just to that place you mentioned. Yilin Village, with the monastery. Do tourist things.’

‘Okay. I guess.’

I stand back. Let John handle it. It makes sense for us to act like tourists. What are our options, really?

If he’s some undercover State Security guy, I’m pretty much fucked anyway.

The taxi John hires is a piece of shit. The seats are sprung, the seat covers are stained; it smells like gas and sweat and burning wire.

Oh, well.

‘What’s this protest about?’ John asks the driver, as we pull away from the bus station.

‘Turtle egg officials and rich men ripping off the common people, like they always do,’ the driver says. ‘But this time it’s too much. The people can’t stand for it. Half the town marched yesterday.’

I close my eyes as the driver launches into the saga of the Treasure Chicken Village Rebellion. It has something to do with land seizures and factory layoffs and I don’t know what else; I can’t understand it all. The dialect here is pretty thick, even though he’s trying to speak Mandarin. But I’ve heard it all before. Like the driver says, it’s the same fucking story as always.

‘Yesterday we blockade the factory,’ the driver says. ‘Keep the trucks from leaving. That really pissed them off.’

‘And today?’ John asks.

‘Surround the county government office. Demand justice. People have rights. The laws say so.’ He waves his cell phone. ‘I get a message, I text everyone I know. Today’s demonstration even bigger than yesterday’s.’

John settles back in his seat, mouth tight, eyes grim.

We drive a while. I’m not paying too much attention. We’re on this road with two lanes, one in either direction. We pass an intersection, a crossroads, where a smaller road climbs up a mountain on one side and winds down a hill on the other.

Up ahead, there’s a mob of men blocking the road.

‘
Ta ma de!
’ the taxi driver yells. He hits the brakes.

The men, six of them, carry clubs. They wear dark clothes. No pots. No protest signs.

‘The Party Secretary’s dogs,’ the driver spits. ‘Making sure the protest leaders don’t leave town.’

‘Turn around,’ John says urgently, grabbing his arm. ‘Just turn around.’ I see him pull out his phone, hit a couple buttons.

The driver shoves the gear into reverse; it grinds, catches, and we jerk backward. He twists the wheel; the tires spin and rubber burns; the car lurches forward, back the way we came.

A car pulls up in front of us, blocking our way back.

‘What’s going on?’ the driver yells, sweat and panic on his face. ‘Who are these motherfuckers?’

John ignores him. He puts his hand on mine. ‘Ellie, I am going to open the car door and get out. When I do, you should run. Just run.’

That’s stupid, I want to say. There’s one of you and at least six of them. And I can’t run. Not very well. I’ll never outrun them.

But I don’t have time to say that. John opens the car door.

He gets out, raises his hand, and walks toward the men behind us.

‘Hey!’ he calls out. ‘What’s this about?’

I guess this is my cue to run.

A couple of the men take a few steps toward John.

I’m thinking: run where? The road is blocked in both directions. The only way to go is up the mountain road. But it’s stupid. I’m never going to get away.

I get out of the car. I run.

I see, out of the corner of my eye, the men swarming John. I see him kick, hit, see one of the men clutch his knee and fall. Clubs lift and descend.

I run up the road. Stumble a little. I look back over my shoulder.

John’s on the ground now; they’re kicking him, hitting him with clubs, kicking him in the ribs, the head. He’s got his arms raised, trying to ward off the blows, but his arms are sinking, slowly, like they’re in water.

I can’t say that I like Creepy John, but I’m not going to get away, am I?

So I turn around. And I run toward these guys, screaming, ‘Hey! HEY! Leave him alone, you cocksuckers! Leave him alone!’

I’m screaming in English, but I get their attention.

They stop. It’s almost funny. They all kind of freeze in various positions, some crouching, some standing, some in mid-kick, and stare at me. Like, who’s this crazy bitch?

I don’t hear them come up behind me. Arms circle around my waist; fists push up between my ribs, knocking the breath out of me. I gasp as someone kicks my legs out from under me, and before I catch my breath, someone puts a black hood over my head and wrenches my hands behind my back and clamps the flex-cuffs on my wrists, and there are no thoughts in my head, just fear so intense that my mouth tastes like metal.

A shot. I hear gunshots. Two. Three. I can’t see; I can’t see anything. A hand pushes in the center of my back; another grabs the flex-cuffs and yanks them up. Pain shoots through my shoulders, and I stagger forward. The car, I think we’re at the car; my shoulder hits the doorframe; then the hand lets go of the flex-cuffs, pushes my head down, and shoves me forward. I fall inside. The door slams shut.

I just lie there for a minute.

I think: this bag on my head, it smells like one of those woven plastic shopping bags the peasants carry, like a plastic tarp.

I struggle to sit up.

The car door on the other side opens. I hear a cry of pain, sounds of struggle; then the seat bounces, and something – someone – falls against my side with a moan.

‘John?’ I whisper.

The car door slams. Someone gets in the front seat; I can feel his presence; I know he’s there, this solid object that displaces air. Someone else gets in the passenger side, doors slam, then the engine starts, and suddenly we’re moving, fast.

‘John,’ I say. ‘John, can you hear me? Are you there?’

‘
Bi zui
,’ one of them says.

Shut up.

Someone turns on the radio. Chinese hip-hop. ‘
Daibiao wo hutong
,’ the rapper chants. Represent my home.

We hit a pothole. John’s head slides down onto my lap. I try to reach him, stretch my hands from behind my back. I strain, and my fingertips graze the back of his neck. I try to reach his carotid to check for a pulse, but I can’t.

My fingers come away slick and greasy, and I know it’s blood.

I think I can hear him breathing through the plastic hood, over the radio and the engine. I think I hear a rattled breath, filtered through snot and blood. He’s not dead, I’m pretty sure. I feel the weight of his head on my thigh, and it’s warm, so he can’t be dead.

As we drive, I feel the warmth spread, and I realize his blood is soaking me.

I don’t know how long we drive. At some point, they switch the radio to a talk show. I can’t hear it all that well, but I think it’s a call-in show about people’s sex problems. Every once in a while the driver and the passenger chuckle in response.

I’m going to die, I think. They’re going to kill me. I’m going to die. I’m breathing too fast, I can’t breathe in this fucking hood, I’m going to suffocate, I’m going to die.

Shut up, I tell the voice in my head. Just shut the fuck up. I can breathe. And they don’t want to kill me: they think I know something.

Okay, I think. Okay. So … so what? So they’re going to try and get me to tell them things. Things I probably don’t even know. Well, okay, I know how that goes. I know the kinds of things they’ll do.

Lah lah lah. Stupid cunt.

Oh, Jesus, I think. Can’t you help me out here? Can’t you give me some strength? So I can suffer, like you did, and still be strong?

But I’m just praying into my hood. No one answers. A part of me thinks that means my faith was never strong enough. That I’m not good enough. Then I think: that’s bullshit. You accept Christ as your personal Savior, and it doesn’t matter what kind of miserable piece-of-shit sinner you are, what horrible wretched things you’ve done. You get forgiven anyway. Free pass!

I’m thinking about all this, and there’s just silence. No words of comfort from my former best buddy Jesus. There’s only me, cut off from the world by the hood. There’s John’s head in my lap, his ragged breathing and blood. On the radio talk show, the hostess berates a caller, and the driver laughs.

I stretch out my arms so I can touch the back of John’s neck again. ‘Hang in there, John,’ I whisper. ‘Keep playing. Okay?’

‘Shut up,’ the driver says.

Then I know that I’m not forgiven. It matters what I do.

Okay, I think. I’ve got to do this right.

Shit, I really have to pee.

The car pulls over. Stops, though the engine keeps running. The passenger door opens with a metallic creak. Someone gets out. Opens the back door.

A hand grabs the collar of my jacket and pulls it off my shoulder.

‘What are you doing?’

The passenger ignores me. Lifts up the sleeve of my T-shirt.

I don’t think. I just react. I jerk back, then slam my head and shoulder as hard as I can at the hand, and I think I hit his head.

‘Fuck!’ he says. In English.

He slams me back against the car seat. His forearm pushes against my throat, like a metal bar. I can’t breathe.

I feel a sharp prick on my shoulder, a burning in the muscle. The arm comes off my throat. I suck in air, gasping.

Oh shit. Oh god. I don’t …

My breathing slows. I feel the air move through me, like warm water.

I can’t lift my head. It’s all water.

‘Hey,’ I manage. ‘Hey … why’d you do that?’ My voice slurs.

‘Because you’re taking a little trip,’ he says.

Cold. I’m cold.

I open my eyes, and it’s all white.

White walls. Cold white light.