by Andy Oakes
It was cold, getting colder, but Barbara felt the perspiration shock her forehead. The car doors barely closed, and they were shooting toward the main gate. Students spilling into the road. Piao wrestling with the wheel. And a roar of a thousand voices pitched in protest. A PSB officer was in the distance, arm raised. Behind him the gatehouse barrier lowering. The Shanghai accelerated with a jolt. The Senior Investigator pulling his badge from an inner pocket and slamming it against the inside of the windscreen; head out of the side window, roaring …
“Homicide. Homicide. Homicide.”
The PSB officer straining to make sense of the oncoming vehicle. His eyes, a dark slash across his face. A hand moving to his hip, to the pistol buttoned into its small, neat holster. But a sudden realisation. A recognition. A thump of adrenaline. Waving the barrier up with both hands; barely escaping the charge of the bumper’s peeling chrome. Getting to his feet and brushing down his trousers. The red and white candy stick barrier lowering behind him as Piao joined the flow of traffic into Hongkou’s belly, toward the stadium. The high-rise cityscape falling back around them. Still in the Senior Investigator’s hand, in a tight clasp … his badge. A five pointed star embossed in his palm. He replaced it in his pocket. The red and gold eclipsed in darkness.
*
People’s Square swirled with colour. Peasants bussed in from outlying villages, dressed in traditional regional folk outfits. Long Magyar dresses. Embroidered silk kimonos. Ladakhis robes of silk on broadcloth, quilted with fur. Boots of thick felt. Turkestan full-length dresses of orange bleeding to yellow and into white. Long jackets of vertical and horizontal stripes; candy stripes. … black, red, blue, yellow. The New Year would be full of dance, beckoned in by the music of the provinces. The New Year would be a parade of earthen and fired hues; of slashing sky bound fireworks. But above all … the New Year would be organised.
“Slow down, slow down. I want to see this.”
Barbara put a hand on Piao’s shoulder; the Senior Investigator put a foot gently on the brake. She wound the window down. Drums and high pitched pipes on the breeze. Her hair in flight.
“So much colour and look at the different costumes. When I see this I realise just how bland Fifth Avenue is. How dull the States can be.”
Piao turned to look out of the side window as the vista slowly passed. The lines of costumed peasants being shepherded into order; choreographed into their precise place by serious-faced and stern-voiced comrades … Smile, smile. You’re not on the pig farm now!
He’d seen it all before, every year. The Senior Investigator pushed his foot down firmly on the accelerator.
“So. America is bland. Dull. Even with Coca-Cola, tee shirts and Minnie Mouse jackets?”
Barbara wound the window up, the music truncated. The silence suddenly felt threatening, Piao wishing that he had not spoken.
“I did say it, didn’t I? An America official putting down God’s own country. Back in the States that’s treason, I guess you’d call it counter revolutionary sabotage. I could get twenty-five to thirty years solitary in Disneyland for saying such things.”
The Senior Investigator looked at her, startled.
“Really? Such severe sentences exist also in America?”
“No, no, I was just joking, making fun.”
Barbara threw back her head and laughed. It reminding Piao of the sound that water makes lapping over pebbles.
“It is the very first time that I have heard you laugh.”
“It’s the first time that I’ve laughed in a long time. I use to laugh a lot. I guess lately that I’ve not had much to laugh about.”
The words, Piao knew … such feelings, he also knew.
“Laughing can be more difficult than crying. To laugh is to realise a little of what God had in mind when he created the world.”
Barbara’s hand was on his shoulder once more. He never wanted it to leave.
“That’s lovely. So beautiful. Where did you hear it? Is it from Confucius?”
“No, it is not from Confucius. I read it in an old American book. I think that it was called the Reader’s Digest.”
She laughed again. Piao ploughed the car into the Jinling Road, drinking from her laughter, but with no idea as to why her laughter had occurred. It was true. Americans could be very complex people.
*
The Shanghai Jing Jiang Hotel was busy. Coaches end to end on Maominanlu. Piao double parked, a coach driver suggesting that he fuck off, until spotting the gold and red of the Senior Investigator’s epaulettes. The driver returned to his three day old copy of the ‘People’s Daily’, his eyes hidden from view by an editorial diatribe on the latest production figures for Liberation Trucks.
“If you would not find it offensive or a great inconvenience, I would appreciate it if you could perform an important function for me?”
Barbara leaned, bracing herself against the frame of the open car window, eyes narrowing on Piao inside. The last person to ask her to ‘perform an important function for him’, an obese Congressman from Iowa, in the cramped confines of the Washington Hilton elevator, was still nursing a bruising knee to his nuts.
“My cousin Cheng who was killed, his children have a love of chocolate. I would like to give them some, but it is difficult. I do not have a card for the ‘Friendship Store’, and the hotels will not accept money unless it is from a tourist. Would you feel able to get me some chocolate?”
A sense of relief washed over her. A man for all seasons this Investigator. Pumping a car underneath the blunt nose of a pistol and a fast descending barrier, an hour later, wanting to buy chocolate for his cousin’s tearful children.
“Sure, sure. I’d be glad to. It’s a lovely thought. The hotel shop over there is great. What did you want, Twinkies, M&Ms, Hershey bars?”
“They have Swiss chocolate, or English … Cadbury’s?”
“Cadbury’s? Yes, yes I suppose so. I’ll see what I can do.”
The Senior Investigator pressed the neatly folded bed of bills into her hand. Feeling a sense of guilt in accepting them. She earnt more in an hour than the Homicide Detective made in a month. Barbara was moving up the steps of the hotel, amongst a flock of Italian tourists, their hands flapping like flightless birds, when Piao caught up to her.
“Barbara Hayes, this case, your dead son and the others. Nothing is moving. Sometimes, when it is like this, we must ‘turn the dead cat’. Change the situation. Our approach. Perhaps take a risk …”
Noticing that his hand was on her shoulder. Not knowing why, but it concerning her in the same way that lilies did. That breaking a mirror did. But at that instant, she couldn’t have stood him removing it.
“… we are being followed. You or me. I am not sure where their interest may lie. But I can’t help thinking that an American government official is more of a catch than a Senior Investigator. And particularly an American government official still crying tears for her son found dead in the Huangpu.”
Saying nothing, but in the knots of her eyebrows, questions … and answers.
“Is there anything that an American government official should be telling the Senior Investigator who is conducting the case into her child’s murder?”
Saying nothing. Her lips, soft gateway of secrets.
“Then I want to say to you that you should be vigilant, aware of everything. Accept nothing by its face. Accept only that which you know by name.”
Barbara moved up a step, her eyes, ice and fire. His touch, lost.
“You’ve already done it, taken a risk. Christ, what have you done?”
But Piao was already beyond her words. When he looked back in his rear-view mirror she was alone on the hotel steps, the last in a long line of tourists being swallowed by the revolving doors of the hotel.
The dead cat turned.
He accelerated into the snarl of Fuxing Park … Cao-mu jie-bing …
*
Barbara slept for three hours. Devoid of dreams. The room boy had silently v
isited, a flask sat on the bedside table. She poured the tea when she had awoken. Wulongcha. Sips of its bitterness before and after showering. Sips of its bitterness while dressing. She answered the telephone before it had rung three times, drawing back the curtains, the room flooded in a light the hue of under-ripe lemons. A pause at the other end of the line. The caller reticent, hiding behind the anonymity of distance. And then a man’s voice … whispered.
“Madame Hayes. This is Madame Hayes who I am talking to?”
“Yes it is. Who are you?”
Another silence. Longer, full and plump with expectation.
“Your child, Bobby Hayes. I knew him, he was my friend.”
His name coming from the lips of someone else who knew him; it seemed to make Bobby breathe again. The words propelling Barbara backwards to the bed. She asked the questions, but her voice seemed to belong to somebody else.
“Who are you? How did you know Bobby?”
“The telephones, they are not safe. It is best that my name is not said.”
“Sure, sure, I understand. But how did you know him?”
His voice lowered even more. Barbara straining at the ear-piece, aching with concentration.
“The university, Fudan. I am a student. Bobby, your son … he was my friend. He gave me cigarettes. Marlboro. He gave me a Los Angeles Raider’s cap”
She closed her eyes tight, so tight until they hurt. She could see the Raider’s caps. Silver and black. Bobby was never without them. Surely, only someone who knew Bobby could have known his cigarette brand; could have known about his Raider’s caps.
“How did you know that I was in Shanghai … how did you know where to find me?”
“You were in the university today, yes? I saw you pass my lecture hall. I saw Bobby in your face …”
The dead cat turned.
The son of a bitch. I was the bait. He knew exactly what he was doing making me walk around Fudan. It was a shop window.
“… I knew that it would be Bobby’s hotel that you would stay in. The Jing Jiang. We joked, we call it his hotel. Room 201, it was his room, yes? For so long he stayed there. Long enough to own the room. You know that?”
“Yes. Yes I know that.”
She could feel the pump of the blood through her heart. So many questions to get out of the way, so many answers to embrace. And truths.
“You know that my son is dead?”
There were no words, just time interspersed with gagged breaths and distant voices on crossed lines.
“Dead?”
He was sobbing. Its openness, its honesty, shocking.
“He was found in the river. He was murdered.”
“I did not know. Forgive me. Forgive me. He was my friend and I did not know.”
The crying lessening, its tide on the wane and replaced with a deep well of anger.
“Bobby was not at the university, it was sudden. When my friend was no longer there we were told strongly, warned … ‘do not talk of the American boy. He was not at Fudan. He was never at Fudan …’”
He paused to blow his nose. Barbara counting the seconds.
“… one day Bobby was at Fudan, the day after that he was not there. But it was nei-bu, we must not talk of it. All that was your son, my friend, was now classified. To talk of such things could mean laodong gaizhao. In the west you have no knowledge of this. In China it is the unspoken words; lao gai, ‘reform through labour’. Lao jiao, ‘re-education through labour’. Many, many die.”
Barbara was on her feet; pacing seemed to ease the anger. She spun the top from the bottle of brandy, pouring two fingers into the heavy glass, spilling a little onto the table. Drinking deeply. Its effects immediate and centring on her forehead.
“Who warned you, who told you not to speak of Bobby?”
“I did not know the men. They were not of the university. But not to know the face, does not mean that you do not know the threat …”
She understood. Her silence being all that she could give him.
“… Madame Hayes, I would like it if I could see you. I would wish to give you the Raider’s cap that was Bobby’s. Your son would think that good, right. I know that.”
“Yes, Bobby would think that good. And so would I.”
“But I cannot come to the Jing Jiang Hotel, you understand? It is well that we meet outside, apart from the hotel. Perhaps the corner of Maominanlu and Shanxilu. The tea shop is a good place. Is one hour enough time Madame Hayes?”
“Yes, an hour from now is enough time. That would be good. Could I bring a PSB Homicide Officer along with me, he’s investigating Bobby’s murder? He’s a good man. A Senior Investigator. He can be trusted.”
An edge to the callers voice. Not anger. Just fear. Undiluted, real.
“No. No PSB. There are no PSB that can be trusted. I know this …”
His voice trailing off, re-balancing itself. Softer this time, trying to comfort.
“… no PSB, Madame Hayes, but if you would wish you may bring Bobby’s girlfriend to the tea shop. I would like it if I could offer her my sad wishes.”
The glass slipping from Barbara’s fingers, its crash distant, her thoughts focused on crescent moons of cherry-red fingernails.
“A girlfriend? Bobby never told me.”
It was some time before the caller spoke again. His words a sigh through the uppermost branches of the trees.
“But Madame Hayes, did you really not know? Your son, Bobby, he was to be a father. His girlfriend was pregnant with his child.”
*
The supermarket that slept under the shadow of the Jing Jiang was fat bellied, full of expensive delicacies from all around the world. But there was no aroma of food … just polish.
“Do you have Cadbury’s chocolate, it’s English I believe?”
“Yes we do, Madam.”
“Give me as much as this money will buy.”
Barbara unfolded Piao’s notes, placing them on the counter. The assistant, starched blouse, starched accent, instantly calculating the total and converting it into bars of chocolate. The few fen in change was pushed towards Barbara. She left the light alloy coins as a tip. The assistant smiled, said nothing, and continued to gift wrap the bars of milk chocolate.
*
Barbara ordered a mooncake and a Coca-Cola. The sticky dough lodging in her throat.
The Xinhuizhai was unexpected; Pop art, chrome tubing, and waitresses dressed in the Chinese perception of 1960s’ western clothing. During the whole of the 60s, Barbara had never, on any occasion, met a hippy wearing a Stars and Stripes bandanna around their forehead. It had taken a trip to Shanghai to fill that yawning gap in her experience.
She sipped her Coke. Its taste too complex, evocative of everything sad, everything about Bobby and home. The student was late, very late. She paid the bill, five dollars for a tea and a cake. A factory worker’s daily wage. The feeling of guilt etching into her. She was just about to leave, but staring across to the other side of Shanxilu, and in an instant recognising him … and the cap in his tight hand. Silver and black. A Raider’s cap. She had moved from the Xinhuizhai, the ‘New Taste’, and onto the pavement. Watching him as he crossed from Shanxilu. Wanting to run to him, embrace every word that Bobby had ever said to him. But in the corner of her eye a ramming blunt shadow, black … accelerating across her vision. Eating its way into the carousel of traffic. When the car hit the boy, everything slowed. His body in flight, already limp. An oncoming bus slewing across the road, blocking the black car’s forward momentum. A gear change. The car reversing back over the body, with not an instant of hesitation. And the sounds. The race of an engine. Tyre rubber burning. Brakes. Clashing gears thrust into reverse. Screaming metal. The car shooting back in the direction from which it had come. As if a film were being rewound. And the sound. A skull colliding with the road. A sound, never to be forgotten.
Barbara ran toward the body. A second car passing her at speed, also in reverse. Piao at the wheel, hands frantic. Head
turned violently across his shoulder. His face, a mask of blurred concentration.
Turn the dead cat … turn the dead cat … a rhythm that replayed, as if on a tape loop in her head, with every step that took her closer to the student’s body. And when she finally reached him, only a single question. How was it possible for such a compact body to have so much blood? And so warm, across her arm as she cradled him. Across her chest as she held him.
Barbara picked up the baseball cap from the road; also the gift wrapped bars of chocolate that she had dropped. They were broken.
*
You can appreciate the beauty of the Tiger even as it leaps at you.
Piao had sensed the onrush of something just about to occur, but when it did … the speed of the event, its grotesque efficiency; he was left cold, dazzled. The Shanghai Sedan was passing him at speed, in reverse. He could do nothing, just a glimpse of shooting black and silver. Piao rammed the car in front to give himself more space. The road ahead blocked by the side-on bus. Throwing the car into reverse. Foot hard down. Spinning the Sedan around a parked Volkswagen, clipping its bumper. A smell of tyre rubber. Half spent fuel. His head wrenched across his shoulder, looking up Shimenlu. A steel ribbon of oncoming traffic, with the black Sedan weaving violently in and out of it. A gap in the parked cars … Piao slicing through it, aware of the speed of his own hands. A vicious thump as the car hit the kerb and mounted the pavement. People screaming. People scattering. One hand permanently on the horn. The pavement ahead clearing, shop doorways jammed with faces. A blush of shock across his forehead. Temples aching. The colour drained from his sight. Images only in the harshest of monochromes. The incident, the murder, replaying in his head. And still an edge of disbelief … to kill in the centre of the Patuo of Huangpu, in the middle of Shanghai. What sort of men are these? So fast. So hard. So cold. I could not do this … never could I do this.
Are they stronger than me because of it?
A junction ahead, on the fringes of Huangpu Park … the busy flow of Zhongshandonglu biting across their path. Suzhou Creek, just north, lumbering into the Huangpu in a wash of mud driven undercurrents. The junction was wide, perhaps he could pull a handbrake turn, throw the car in a 180 degree arc. Facing forward. By the time they hit the creek he would have caught them … and then what? Knowing that the other driver would be thinking the same, exactly the same. Brains linked, their hands also joined … as Siamese twins. Piao thrust the Sedan down the kerb and into the madness. The black Shanghai just twenty-five metres ahead. No plates. Tinted windows. A hint of three shapes, maybe four. The Shanghai making a sudden weave across the lane, a gouging smudge of an arc against a stuttering shift of pastels moving down Daminglu. No room to turn, both Sedans still in reverse. The Senior Investigator following. Engine shrieking. Shoulders on fire. Neck locked. The Shanghai, two car lengths in front, hitting a series of bumps. Four wheels leaving the road, meeting it again with a dislocating jolt. Piao’s stomach rammed into his throat as his Sedan met the first bump and then in freefall as the stubby car took off. Occasional disjointed views of the black Shanghai’s roof, its wheels and flexed suspension as it bounded past the new industrial areas of Hongkou and Yangpu. A tight bend taken on two wheels, screaming wheels. Plumes of smoke lazily drifting across the fringe of the river. A race of oncoming traffic thrown into confusion. A wall of breaking steel. Sichuanlu impassable … cutting hard right with Piao on the Shanghai’s bumper. A carousel of sprinting colours. The road leading only one way. The buildings of the Shanghai Port Facilities looming above the dock walls. A single breach in the weathered brickwork, Gate 12 … a long articulated red lorry poking from its mouth. There was a narrow gap between the lorry and the dock wall, the Shanghai slamming through it. With arms of lead, the Senior Investigator plunging the Sedan murderously into the dark alley, slamming it heavily against the lorry’s towering wheels. A yelp of torn metal as the rear bumper was wrenched off. And still no room to turn from reverse and into forward gears … the alleyways between the yellow bricked wharves too narrow. An expanse of water opened up to view. Grey, metallic, lifeless. The only roads a series of narrow bridges crossing that water. Dangerous. Precarious. The tyres picking up a rhythm from the steel grated road base. Piao, head jammed across his shoulder, tearing backwards … staring into the blind windscreen of the Shanghai. Both cars occasionally out of control and clipping the steel parapet. A machine gun of thumps. A flail of dull yellow sparks. The water on both sides of the narrow bridge gazing back blindly. The bridge spilt onto a slim warehouse apron of oil stained concrete, which pushed them toward another bridge, more substantial with great pectoral arms of girders. A tilt bridge crossing an inlet of the Huangpu and leading to the deep water berths … home for fat-bellied tankers. In the distance, the derricks of the Zhonghua Shipyard on Fuxing Island, sitting like a black steel bed of nails. Through the gaps between the warehouses, flashes of river … the colour of an old man’s tongue, and rusting red and blue paintwork as a Panamanian tanker was hauled by tugs up the inlet, heading toward the bridge. At the lip of the dock embankment, where the concrete of the apron was grafted to the steel of the riveted structure, four red eyes blinked into life. The bow of the tanker already breaching the half horizon of brick. The bridge already dividing at its centre. The road not a road at all. … but two dividing lengths of steel arm, cranking slowly from horizontal to vertical. Sky, widening between them. There was no other route. Options all run out. … water through cupped hands. The Senior Investigator expecting the Shanghai to brake. But no. Running up a hill, a hill becoming a cliff. Piao following. Ridiculously following. The breath frozen across his lips. A fist in his chest, clenched around his heart. The Shanghai above him … and then gone. Leaving a black edge of iron against sky. He grounded the accelerator, but there was no response. The Sedan losing traction. The incline steeper. It’s passage to the vertical speeding. Rubber scarring steel. Smoke billowing … as the car slipped back. The Panamanian tanker almost breaking the water that the bridge spanned. Its bow baring down, an iceberg of pitted red paint and blue paint. The Sedan slid, skewing to the left, wheels still powering against the skid. Piao thumped his fists on the steering wheel. The Sedan falling back and coming to rest, straddling the concrete apron. Its interior flooding magenta to the pulse of the bridge’s warning lights.
