by Bi Feiyu
The room was unbearably hot and stuffy from a fire roaring in the stove. The bottom half of the chimney and the surface of the stove had turned bright red from the furious heat. Hot air swirled around the room, making dusty cobwebs in the corners dance. Suddenly he itched all over and his nose ached dreadfully.
The gatekeeper watched Ding Gou’er’s face with smarmy attentiveness.
‘Cold, Director?’
‘Freezing!’ he replied indignantly.
‘No problem, no problem, I’ll just add some coal . . .’ Muttering anxiously, the gatekeeper reached under the bed and took out a sharp hatchet with a date-red handle. The investigator’s hand flew instinctively to his hip as he watched the man shamble over to the coal bin, hunker down, and pick up a chunk of shiny black coal the size and shape of a pillow. Steadying it with one hand, he raised the hatchet over his head and-crack-the coal broke into two pieces of roughly equal size, shining like quicksilver. Crack crack crack crack crack-the pieces kept getting smaller, forming a little pile. He opened the grate and released white-hot flames at least a foot into the air-whoosh! The investigator was sweating from head to toe, but the gatekeeper kept feeding coal into the stove. And kept apologising, ‘It’ll warm up any minute. The coal here is too soft, burns too fast, got to keep putting in more.’
Ding Gou’er undid his collar button and mopped his sweaty brow with his cap. ‘Why do you have a fire in the stove in September?’
‘It’s cold, Director, cold . . .’ The gatekeeper was shivering. ‘Cold . . . plenty of coal, a whole mountain of the stuff . . .’
The gatekeeper had a dried out face, like an overcooked bun.
Deciding he’d frightened the man enough, Ding Gou’er confessed that he was not the new director, and that the man was free to heat the place up as much as he liked, since Ding Gou’er had work to do. The toddler on the wall was laughing, incredibly lifelike. He squinted to get a better look at the darling little boy. Gripping the hatchet firmly in his hand, the gatekeeper said, ‘You impersonated the Mine Director and assaulted me with your pistol. Come along, I’m taking you to the Security Section.’ Ding Gou’er smiled and asked, ‘What would you have done if I had been the new director?’ The gatekeeper slid the hatchet back under the bed and took out a liquor bottle. After removing the cork with his teeth, he took a hefty swig and handed the bottle to Ding Gou’er. A yellow slice of ginseng hung suspended in the liquid, along with seven black scorpions, fangs bared, claws poised. He shook the bottle, and the scorpions swam in the ginseng-enhanced liquid. A strange odour emanated from the bottle. Ding Gou’er brushed the mouth of the bottle with his lips, then handed it back to the gatekeeper.
The man eyed Ding Gou’er suspiciously.
‘You don’t want any?’ he asked.
‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ Ding Gou’er replied.
‘You’re not from around here, I take it?’ the gatekeeper asked.
‘Old-timer, that is one plump, fair-skinned toddler,’ Ding Gou’er said.
He studied the gatekeeper’s face. It was a look of dejection. The man took another hefty swig and muttered softly, ‘What difference does it make if I burn a little coal? A whole ton of the stuff" doesn’t cost more than . . . ’
By now Ding Gou’er was so hot he could no longer stand it. Though he found it hard to take his eyes off" the toddler, he opened the door and walked out into the sunshine, which was cool and comforting.
Ding Gou’er was born in 1941 and married in 1965. It was a garden-variety marriage, with husband and wife getting along well enough and producing one child, a darling little boy. He had a mistress, who was sometimes adorable and sometimes downright spooky. Sometimes she was like the sun, at other times the moon.
Sometimes she was a seductive feline, at other times a mad dog. The idea of divorcing his wife appealed to him, but not enough to actually go through with it. Staying with his mistress was tempting, but not enough to actually do it. Any time he took sick, he fantasised the onset of cancer, yet was terrified by the thought of the disease; he loved life dearly, and was tired to death of it. He had trouble being decisive. He often stuck the muzzle of his pistol against his temple, then brought it back down; another frequent site for this game was his chest, specifically the area over his heart. One thing and one thing only pleased him without exception or diminution: investigating and solving a criminal case. He was a senior investigator, one of the very best, and well known to high-ranking cadres. He stood about five feet eight, was gaunt, swarthy, and slightly cross-eyed. A heavy smoker, he enjoyed drinking but got drunk too easily. He had uneven teeth, and wasn’t bad at hand-to-hand combat. His marksmanship was erratic: in a good mood he was a crack shot; otherwise he couldn’t hit the broad side of anything. Somewhat superstitious, he believed in blind luck, and fortune seemed to follow him everywhere.
The Procurator General of the Higher Procuratorate handed him a China-brand cigarette and kept one for himself. Taking out his lighter, Ding lit the Procurator General’s cigarette, then his own. The smoke filling his mouth tasted like buttery candy, sweet and delicious. Ding Gou’er noticed how ineptly the Procurator General smoked. He opened a drawer and took out a letter, glanced at it, then handed it over.
Ding Gou’er quickly read the scrawled letter from a whistleblower. It was signed by someone calling himself Voice of the People. Phony, obviously. The contents shocked him at first, but then came the doubts. He skimmed the letter again, focusing on the marginal notations in the florid script of a senior official who knew him well.
He studied the eyes of the Procurator General, which were fixed on a potted jasmine on the window-sill. The dainty white flowers exuded a subtle perfume. ‘Do you think it’s credible?’ he asked. ‘Could they really have the guts to braise and eat infants?’
The Procurator General smiled ambiguously. ‘Secretary Wang wants you to find out.’
Excitement swelled in his chest, yet all he said was, ‘This shouldn’t be the business of the Procuratorate. What about the public security bureaus? Are they napping?’
‘It’s not my fault I’ve got the famous Ding Gou’er on my payroll, is it?’
Slightly embarrassed, Ding Gou’er asked, ‘When should I leave?’
‘Whenever you like,’ the Procurator General replied. ‘You divorced yet? Either way it’s just a formality. Needless to say, we all hope there isn’t a word of truth in this accusation. But you are to say nothing about this to anyone. Use any means necessary to carry out your mission, so long as it’s legal.’
‘I can go, then?’ Ding Gou’er stood up to leave. The Procurator General also stood up and slid an unopened carton of China-brand cigarettes across the table.
After picking up the cigarettes and leaving the Procurator General’s office, Ding rode the elevator to the ground floor and left the building, deciding to go first to his son’s school. The renowned Victory Boulevard, with its unending stream of automobiles, blocked his way. So he waited. Across the street to his left, a cluster of kindergartners was lined up at the crossing. With the sun in their faces, they looked like a bed of sunflowers. He was drawn to them. Bicycles brushed past, like schooling eels. The riders’ faces were little more than white blurs. The children, dressed in their colourful best, had tender, round faces and smiling eyes. They were tied together by a thick red cord, like a string of fish, or fruit on a spit. Puffy clouds of automobile exhaust settled around them, glinting like charcoal in the sunlight and filling the air with its aroma. The children were just like a skewer of roast lamb, basted and seasoned. Children are the nation’s future, her flowers, her treasure. Who would dare run them over? Cars stopped. What else could they do? Engines revved and sputtered as the children crossed the street, a white-uniformed woman at each end of the line. Faces like full moons, encasing cinnabar lips and sharp white teeth, they might as well have been twins. Stretching the cord taut, they brusquely maintained order. ‘Hold on to the cord! Don’t let go!’
As Ding Gou’er stood beneath
a roadside tree with yellowed leaves, the children crossed to his side, and waves of cars were already whizzing past. The column began to curve and bend; the children chirped and twittered like a flock of sparrows. Red ribbons around their wrists were fastened to the red cord. No longer standing in a straight line, they were still attached to the cord; the women only had to draw it taut to straighten them out. Thoughts of the earlier shouts of ‘Hold on to the cord! Don’t let go!’ enraged him. What bullshit! How, he wondered, could they let go, when they’re tied to it?
He leaned against the tree and asked one of the women coldly, ‘Why do you tie them like that?’
She gave him an icy glare.
‘Lunatic!’ she said.
The children looked over at him.
‘Lu-na-tic-!’ they echoed in unison.
The way they drew out the syllables, he couldn’t tell if it was spontaneous or coached. Their lilting, falsetto voices rose like birds on the wing. Smiling idiotically, he nodded an apology to the woman on the far end, who dismissed him by looking away. He followed the column of children with his eyes until they disappeared down a lane bordered by a pair of high red walls.
It was a struggle, but he finally made it to the other side of the street, where a Xinjiang vendor roasting skewers of lamb hailed him in a heavy accent. He wasn’t tempted. But a long-necked girl walked up and bought ten. Reddened lips like chilli peppers. Dipping the skewers of sizzling, greasy meat into the pepper jar, she bared her teeth as she ate, to protect her lipstick. His throat burning, he turned and walked off.
A while later he was in front of the elementary school smoking a cigarette and waiting for his son, who didn’t see him as he ran out the gate with his backpack. He had blue ink smudges on his face, the marks of a student. He called his son’s name. When the boy reluctantly fell in behind him, he told his son he was being sent to Liquorland on business.
‘So what?’
Ding Gou’er asked his son what he meant by So what?
‘“So what?” means So what? What do you expect me to say?’
‘So what? That’s right, So what?’ he said, echoing his son’s comment.
Ding Gou’er walked into the mine’s Party Committee Security Section, where he was greeted by a crewcut young man who opened a floor-to-ceiling cabinet, poured a glass of liquor, and handed it to him. This room, too, was furnished with a large stove, which kept the temperature way up there, if not as stifling as the gatehouse. Ding Gou’er asked for some ice; the young fellow urged him to try the liquor. ‘Drink some, it’ll warm you up.’
The earnest look made it impossible for Ding Gou’er to refuse, so he accepted the glass and drank slowly.
The office was hermetically sealed by perfectly dovetailed doors and windows. Once again, Ding Gou’er started to itch all over, and rivulets of sweat ran down his face. He heard Crewcut say consolingly, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll cool off as you calm down.’
A buzzing filled Ding Gou’er’s ears. Bees and honey, he was thinking, and honeyed infants. This mission was too important to be undone by carelessness. The glass in the windows seemed to vibrate. In the space between heaven and earth outside the room, large rigs moved slowly and noiselessly. He felt as if he were in an aquarium, like a pet fish. The mining rigs were painted yellow, a numbing colour, an intoxicating colour. He strained to hear the noise they made, but no dice.
Ding Gou’er heard himself say, ‘I want to see your Mine Director and Party Secretary.’
Crewcut said, ‘Drink up, drink up.’
Touched by Crewcut’s enthusiasm, Ding Gou’er leaned back and drained the glass. He no sooner set down his glass than Crewcut filled it up again.
‘No more for me,’ he said. ‘Take me to see the Mine Director and Party Secretary.’
‘What’s your hurry, Boss? One more glass and we’ll go. I’d be guilty of dereliction of duty if you didn’t. Happy events call for double. Go on, drink up.’
The sight of the full glass nearly unnerved Ding Gou’er, but he had a job to do, so he picked it up and drank it down.
He put down the glass, and it was immediately refilled.
‘It’s mine policy,’ Crewcut said. ‘If you don’t drink three, how edgy you will be.’
‘I’m not much of a drinker,’ Ding Gou’er protested.
Crewcut picked up the glass with both hands and raised it to Ding Gou’er’s lips. ‘I beg you,’ he said tearfully. ‘Drink it. You don’t want me to be edgy, do you?’
Ding Gou’er saw such genuine feeling in Crewcut’s face that his heart skipped a beat and softened; he took the glass and poured the liquor down his throat.
‘Thank you,’ Crewcut said gratefully, ‘thank you. Now, how about three more?’ Ding Gou’er clamped his hand over the glass. ‘No more for me, that’s it,’ he said. ‘Now take me to your leaders.’
Crewcut looked at his wristwatch.
‘It’s a bit early to go see them now,’ he said.
Ding Gou’er whipped out his ID card. ‘I’m here on important business,’ he said truculently, ‘so don’t try to stop me.’
Crewcut hesitated a moment, then said, ‘Let’s go.’
Ding followed Crewcut out of the Security Section office and down a corridor lined with doors, beside which wooden name plaques hung.
‘The offices of the Party Secretary and Mine Director aren’t in this building, I take it,’ he said.
‘Just come with me,’ Crewcut said. ‘You drank three glasses for me, so you don’t have to worry that I’ll lead you astray. If you hadn’t drunk those three glasses, I’d have taken you to the Party Secretary’s office and simply handed you over to his appointments secretary.’
As they walked out of the building, Ding saw his face reflected dimly in the glass door and was shocked by the haggard, unfamiliar expression staring back at him. The hinges creaked when the door was opened, then sprang back and bumped him so hard on his backside that he stumbled forward. Crewcut reached out to steady him. The sunbeams were dizzyingly bright. His legs went wobbly, his haemorrhoids throbbed, his ears buzzed.
‘Am I drunk?’ he asked Crewcut.
‘You’re not drunk, Boss,’ Crewcut replied. ‘How could a superior individual like you be drunk? People around here who get drunk are the dregs of society-illiterates, uncouth people. Highbrow folks, those of the “spring snow”, cannot get drunk. You’re a highbrow. Therefore, you cannot be drunk.’
This impeccable logic completely won over Ding Gou’er, who tagged along behind the man as they passed through a clearing strewn with wooden logs. A bit bewildering, given the range of sizes. The thick logs were a couple of meters in diameter, the thin ones no more than two inches. Pine, birch, three kinds of oak, and some he couldn’t name. Possessed of scant botanical knowledge, he was happy to have recognised those few. The gouged, scarred logs reeked of alcohol. Weeds that were already beginning to wither had sprouted between and among the logs. A white moth fluttered lazily in the air. Black swallows soared overhead, looking slightly tipsy. He tried to wrap his arms around an old oak log, but it was too thick. When he thumped the dark red growth rings with his fist, liquid oozed out over his hand. He sighed.
‘What a magnificent tree this was at one time!’ he remarked.
‘Last year a self-employed winemaker offered three thousand for it, but we wouldn’t sell,’ Crewcut volunteered.
‘What did he want it for?’
‘Wine casks,’ Crewcut answered. ‘You must use oak for high quality wine.’
‘You should have sold it to him. It isn’t worth anywhere near three thousand.’
‘We do not approve of self-employment. We’d let it rot before we’d support an entrepreneurial economy.’
While Ding Gou’er was secretly applauding the Mount Luo Coal Mine’s keen awareness of the public ownership system, a couple of dogs were chasing each other around the logs, slipping and sliding as if slightly mad, or drunk. The larger one looked a little like the gatehouse dog, but not too much. They s
campered around one stack of logs, then another, as if trying to enter a primeval forest. Fresh mushrooms grew in profusion in the plentiful shade of the huge fallen oak. Layers of oak leaves and peeled bark exuded the captivating smell of fermented acorn sap. On one of the logs, a mottled old giant, grew hundreds of fruits shaped like little babies: pink in colour, facial features all in the right places, fair, gently wrinkled skin. And all of them boys, surprisingly, with darling little peckers all red and about the size of peanuts. Ding Gou’er shook his head to clear away the cobwebs. Mysterious, spooky, devilish shadows flickered inside his head and spread outward. He reproached himself for wasting so much time at a place where he had no business spending any time at all. But then he had second thoughts. It’s been less than twenty-four hours since I started this case, he was thinking, and I’ve already found a path through the maze-that’s damned efficient. His patience restored, he fell in behind the crew cut young man. Let’s see where he plans to take me.
Passing by a stack of birch wood logs, he saw a forest of sunflowers. All those blossoms gazing up at the sun formed a patch of gold resting atop a dark green, downy base. As he breathed in the unique, sweet, and intoxicating aroma of birch, his heart was filled with scenes of autumn hills. The snow-white birch bark clung to life, still moist, still fresh. Where the bark had split open, even fresher, even more tender flesh peeked through, as if to prove that the log was still growing. A lavender cricket crouched atop the birch bark, daring someone to come catch it. Unable to contain his excitement, Crewcut announced, ‘See that row of red-tiled buildings there in the sunflower forest? That’s where you’ll find our Party Secretary and Mine Director.’
There looked to be about a dozen buildings with red roof tiles nestled amid the contrasting greens and golds in the forest of thick-stemmed, broad-leafed sunflowers, which were nourished by fertile, marshy soil. Under the bright rays of sunlight, the yellow was extraordinarily brilliant. And as Ding Gou’er took in the exquisite scenery, a giddy feeling bordering on intoxication spread through his body-gentle, sluggish, heavy. He shook off the giddiness, but by then Crewcut had vanished into thin air. Ding jumped up on to a stack of birch wood logs for a better vantage point, and had the immediate sensation of riding the waves-for the birch wood stack was a ship sailing on a restless ocean. Off in the distance, the mountain of waste rock still smouldered, although the smoke had given up much of the moisture it had carried at dawn. Undulating black men swarmed over the exposed mounds of coal, beneath which vehicles jostled for position. Human shouts and animal noises were so feeble that he thought something had gone wrong with his hearing; he was cut off from the material world by a transparent barrier. The apricot-coloured rigs stretched their long limbs into the opening of the coal pit, their movements excruciatingly slow yet unerringly precise. Suddenly dizzy, he bent over and lay face-down on one of the birch wood logs. It was still being tossed by the waves. Crewcut had indeed vanished into thin air. Ding slid down off the birch wood log and walked toward the sunflower forest.
