In the far-right corner of the room, a screened-off area prohibited the accused from seeing the face of a witness that was visible to the rest of the courtroom. I later found out from Chinese prisoners that this had been a Cultural Revolution-era courthouse and that the screen was still used for hiding witness identities. How many people had been tried in this room, I wondered. Probably thousands, and without even knowing who was testifying against them. I was bewildered by why so many police officers were being summoned to witness such a minor offence. Had I been caught at Heathrow, I’d have got a customs evasion ticket and been back in London within hours, as had happened to friends of mine. Instead, I was to be paraded on national TV as an example of foreign decadence and every cop in Shanghai wanted a piece of my fame.
The head officer sat judge-like in the centre of the stage and began to talk to me through a plain-clothes interpreter to my left. After introducing himself as Inspector Wong, he immediately started to quiz me about my reasons for being in his country.
‘Why did you come to China?’
‘I came to China as a tourist. I have had a long-held interest in your country and recently had the opportunity to visit. I’ve always wanted to see the Great Wall and to travel the Silk Road from Kashgar to the eastern seaboard.’
After quizzing me for some time about my travels, he finally got to the point.
‘Why did you get involved with criminals in our country?’
I’d been waiting for this question and decided it was the best chanceI was going to get to change my story. I realised I’d have been much better off telling the truth about buying the hash in Pakistan since passing through China with hash would be looked upon less seriously than dealing with local criminals. It would also make my trail much more vague. Earlier they’d been asking me if I’d recognised a picture of the guy I’d bought the hash from in Kashgar market, and I didn’t want to spend hours looking at mug shots of people I’d never met. I finally came clean.
‘I didn’t get involved with criminals in China. I brought the drugs from Pakistan. I had no intention of breaking the law in your country.’
The change of story caused all sorts of problems, not to mention reluctance on the authorities’ part to believe anything else I’d previously told them, but it proved a good move in the long run. I’d been able to show them how clever they were to have disbelieved me in the first place. It showed that their diligent interrogations had paid off and that I had opted to tell the truth in exchange for leniency. A smug, self-congratulatory air hung over the proceedings. Everyone was happy; everyone except the officer to Inspector Wong’s left, who climbed down from the stage and began wagging his finger at me and shouting. He made no secret of the fact that he detested me for no other reason than that I was a foreigner, which was not typical of most of the officials I met, who were respectful and even friendly. I looked to the translator, who did not bother to inform me what his colleague was ranting about. In fact he looked embarrassed, and he told me to tell the story again from beginning to end.
It was about 10.30 and I’d been talking constantly for 12 hours. The number of police hours the whole fiasco was taking up over a minor hash bust seemed absurd. Was it really necessary to have 20 high-level officers in the room with me? I took the opportunity to chat to the translator while the rest of them talked amongst themselves and found him to be a genial enough man. I was impressed by how well the translators spoke English. None of them had ever left their country, but they spoke with strong American accents that they’d learned from language tapes. Every question took ages to be processed, as the various parties would talk between themselves and then via the translator.
Like the customs people and the earlier police interviewers, these officers found it virtually inconceivable that I’d been acting alone and were eager to get me to tell them about my accomplices. Since there were none, I didn’t have to lie as much as I’d feared. This put me in a better frame of mind, but they were suspicious, reasoning that since I’d lied about the place I’d bought my hash I was probably lying about my co-conspirators. In time I would be vindicated by the fact that hotel staff closely monitor foreigners’ movements, and after checking my records the police would smile knowingly and say, ‘Yes, we know you were travelling alone.’ It wasn’t until much later that I discovered the extraordinary lengths the Chinese go to to watch each other, let alone tourists.
By midnight the police were ready to go to bed, and my back was beginning to ache from all the hours I’d spent sitting on uncomfortable hard wooden chairs. I half jokingly asked the translator if I could go home now, but he looked almost embarrassed as he smiled and said I would be taken to a cell for the night.
Two guards led me from the room, back across the courtyard to another part of the compound and into a tunnel that opened up into another courtyard with a large gate manned by armed guards, who were preoccupied playing chess. Seeing us coming, they jumped to their feet and unbolted the gate, and above me I could see dozens of square windows with steel shutters across them. The place smelled of an unhealthy mix of stale vegetables and chlorine, but was not dirty. Doors clanged and creaked, and I could hear prisoners yelling to each other across the courtyard. Once inside, we walked up a concrete-and-steel staircase to the first floor, where some more officers were waiting, and after changing personnel the new guards led me down the block to the last cell on the left.
As the large wooden door was unbolted I could hear the muffled voices of the room’s inhabitants, and as it swung open two Chinese guys stepped forward to check out the new arrival. The guards said a few words to them and the door was closed behind me. I barely had a chance to look at the cell before they were offering me hands to shake and smiles to share. I felt immediately relaxed in their company and heaved a sigh of relief after so many hours with the police and customs people. One was a large man in his mid-30s, I guessed, who spoke very little English and introduced himself as Liu. He was a typical-looking Han Chinese with pale skin and jet-black hair. He wore a blue tracksuit and trainers and had overlapping teeth and a gummy smile. The other guy was short and stocky and wore jogger bottoms with no top. He was muscular, with a blurred home-made tattoo on his arm. His skin was much darker and he spoke no English whatsoever. I guessed he was in his early 30s. His name was Yen.
They were eager to know what crime I’d committed, so I gave them a brief description of how I’d been busted at Shanghai’s main port on my way to Japan. Neither of them had ever tried smoking dope and were barely aware of what it was, though they’d heard there had been other foreigners in the detention centre for the same thing. I was intrigued to know more about this, but they said they didn’t know the details. The room was larger than I’d expected, about ten by sixteen feet, but there were only two beds. Liu said the bed on the left would be mine, and I wondered who would be on the floor. Yen pointed to a pile of linen on the floor and said he was happy to sleep there, but I felt guilty and offered to change places. He seemed almost offended at the suggestion, pretending he preferred to sleep on the wooden floor.
As I began to relax, my mind drifted away from the traumatic events of the day to Rosie. Where was she? Had she experienced some kind of psychic awareness of my situation? We’d often talked about such things. Our parting on the platform of Kyoto station had been sad and disconcerting, coming as it did at the end of the happiest years of my life. We’d met in the warm, balmy tropics of India, where we’d forged a rambling gypsy life for ourselves buying crystals and jewellery to sell in Japan. We’d ventured off into the unknown together and the world had fallen at our feet. Life had been good, as if the love we had was a magic carpet that would carry us for ever. Neither of us had known such happiness, and for a while the joy of each other’s company kept coming, as effortless as sunshine. But it wasn’t enough for me: perhaps it was too good to be true, and in time a tiny cloud appeared, which grew bigger and bigger until every day was dull again and I couldn’t understand what had happened. So I did what I a
lways did at such times: I bought a one-way ticket to somewhere else. Some place far away, and China seemed as good a place as any. So that’s where I was going, and don’t ask me why, because I didn’t know myself.
That day in Kyoto, an uncertain future lay ahead of us as the immaculately dressed guard in dazzling white gloves and shiny black shoes blew his whistle. The train slid out of the station as if in slow motion as we lip-read each other’s assurances that we would meet up soon. In three years we had not been apart for more than a week, but this time I had a one-way ticket, which carried with it the curse of endless freedom and the possibility of a final separation.
Yet travel has its own consolations, shifting the mind from its selfish obsessions into a fresh perspective with the promise of new experiences and diversion from the old. I sat on the train surveying our latest twist of fate. And then I found a bar on the train and smoked a pipe out of the loo window, and an old Bob Dylan song, ‘It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry’, ran round my brain, and as the bullet train hurtled through the rice fields, I fell asleep smiling to myself.
The Kanjiro pulled out of Kobe harbour at midday. My economy-class ticket meant I had to share a large dormitory cabin with some 20 or so mainly Chinese passengers, who sat huddled round Calor gas camping stoves eating noodles, playing card games and yelling at each other in a manner that would make a Japanese wince. I made use of the one Chinese phrase in my vocabulary and said ni hao (hello) to the gathering, who glanced up momentarily before returning the greeting and slapping another card onto the deck. There were beer machines on each deck of the ship and I sat guzzling a can while eating the sandwich Rosie had made me earlier that day. A cloud of heavy fog hung in the air, suspended a few feet above the waterline, and I wondered how the captain managed to navigate the huge vessel, which cut through the water like a great iron on a steaming damp shirt.
On the deck I spied an elderly Korean couple I’d noticed at the immigration checkpoint in Kobe. They were sharing a bento box of fish, pickles and rice, taking care to leave the best till last. We’d made small talk about the trip ahead, and I’d congratulated them on their youthful looks when they’d told me they were retired and having a second honeymoon after 40 years of marriage. Had I just arrived in the Far East, I’d have guessed their ages as being somewhere in the mid-50s; neither had a grey hair on their head and they had barely a wrinkle between them, but I’d long become used to the way in which the people of the Orient managed to slow down the ageing process. Some said it was the ginseng, traditionally believed to be a cure-all elixir promoting longevity, while others said it was the diet of raw fish and seaweed washed down with copious quantities of green tea. Perhaps it was the sobering influence of Buddhism, with its tranquil acceptance of life’s uncertainties. I couldn’t put my finger on it, but I envied the cheerful resignation of Asian people. Rosie had been my link between the East and the West, and without her I was stranded in my occidental prison. The elderly couple made me reflect on the choice I was making. Was I closing the door to happiness? And if so, what would I replace it with?
I lit a cigarette, cracked open another bottle of beer and wandered along the deck gazing out across the ocean as numerous small islands appeared in the distance, jutting out of the sea as if they’d come to spy on us. Peering over the edge of the railing I could see dolphins gliding beneath the surface of the water, their grey backs like new-age submarines traversing the side of the ship. I’d last seen the fresh-water round-nosed species with Rosie from a small dinghy on the Ganges river, where we’d made vows to each other under the auspices of a Hindu ceremony known as a pooja. Now my mind flashed back to revisit that sacred river, the lifeblood of millions, where bodies were burned and babies were born and dreams came true. On an earlier trip to India, we’d watched their salt-water cousins frolicking around in the Indian Ocean and from that day on had seen our romantic fortunes linked to those creatures. Now, as I glanced across the water, dark thoughts of sadness and loss overcame me.
One of the dolphins came up for air and I felt an inexplicable urge to take its life. I imagined myself hurling a harpoon into its side and watching the poor creature writhe spastically in the pink-tinged phosphorous surf, its tail lashing the water in a deadly dervish dance before rolling onto its belly. The image sickened me almost as much as it shocked me, yet I was momentarily engulfed with bloodlust, like some crazed Ahab coming face to face with my own white whale. I’d left the woman I loved and could now feel myself being sucked into a whirlpool in which only pain and suffering could redeem me. But the fleeting picture I’d conjured up in my head represented far more than the termination of the loving bond we shared; its connotations were signs representing an ominous glimpse into the descent into which I was taking myself. I was flirting with disaster and I knew it. Looking out across the grey-blue cusps of the waves, I could see the earth’s curvature on the horizon, and sensing I might slide off the edge of the world, I returned to my cabin and slept.
Now I lay on my prison bed and felt engulfed with emotions. I’d managed to keep my cool and stay calm throughout the ordeal, but now I felt overwhelmed and within seconds I was in floods of tears. I rolled over onto my stomach to shield myself from my cellmates’ gaze, but the tears turned to convulsive sobs and I felt a hand on my shoulder. Rolling over, Yen and Liu were smiling kindly at me, and Liu told me not to worry. I felt a sudden desire to laugh and did so, which made them laugh, too. It felt good to be amongst criminals: they helped me relax, they didn’t have the baggage that people in uniform carried, they were themselves, and I could be myself. We talked for hours, with Liu’s bad translations and my sign language, squatting mosquitoes against the stained brown walls of the cell.
[3]
Killing the Rooster
I woke early. At least I think it was early – the 24-hour lighting gave the impression of being in an airport lounge, with its permanently illuminated sanitised glare. I could hear the clatter of mess-tins down the corridor and the yakking of voices moving down the cell block until the bolt on our door rattled. Liu leapt out of bed and took three tins of rice from the trustee behind the door. A small group of prisoners gathered in the doorway to look through the hatch at the captive foreigner. A guard barked down the hall and they scuttled off as he took their place and gawped at me before slamming the hatch shut again. My first meal in the cell arrived in a rectangular metal mess-tin. The container was half filled with rice, with a thin veil of something resembling cabbage on top. My cellmates ate theirs as if it were the last meal of their lives, hoovering up the contents in seconds, encouraging me to do the same. I peeled back the slivers of snot-yellow vegetable with trepidation, revealing a gluey white brick. By chance, my rice had a millipede lying on the surface. I guess it had to really – it was one of those Third World jail clichés. There was something almost cinematic about it. The other guys found it particularly amusing, and after a brief retch I saw the joke too. As a kid, Henri Charrière’s prison memoir, Papillon, had been one of my favourite books. Now I was spending my days pacing the floor of my cell, picking insects out of my rice bowl. I began to imagine myself as Steve McQueen, teeth falling out, riding a sack of coconuts to freedom through shark-infested waters.
I’d barely eaten a mouthful when the hatch of the door opened again and my cellmates leapt to their feet and stuffed their washed bowls through the door. I was ordered to do the same before Yen pointed out I’d barely started. A small commotion ensued before it was agreed I needed more time to eat. Later in the day, it was decided that since I was suffering from a contagious disease I should have my own bowl that never left the cell. I would get a tin like everyone else and empty it into my ‘personal’ bowl, and from then on I was free to eat in my own time. But during that first meal, after a couple of mouthfuls I lost my appetite and left it. Yen bounced over and asked for my ration, which I gave him. He seemed to swallow it whole.
After breakfast, I took time to check out the cell. At one end of the room there w
as a toilet and washing area with a bath and a white-tiled three-foot-high wall. I climbed onto the wall and lifted myself up to the level of a steel-barred window with heavily shuttered panels that restricted the view to a small gap at the bottom and top. Below was what appeared to be a flowerbed; above, a slim band of sky. The steel mounting plates that bolted the shutters to the window obscured what could be seen from the sides, leaving a letter-box view of either the sky or the muddy ground.
At the other end of the cell was a red door, its paint chipped by the rectangular rice tins that were slipped through a ten-inch-square hatch three times a day. The first was at 5.30 a.m. , when one of us had to leap out of bed and hold a plastic bowl under the opening to receive a bowl of hot water. A trustee stood at the other side with a metal watering can. A different prisoner would use this bowl each day to wash himself. With three in our cell, we were able to wash twice a week in the freezing winter months. In the summer, we were at the mercy of the frustratingly sporadic cold-water supply. When water was available, the bath was used as a storing space. No one ever got in the bath; it would have been considered the height of bad manners.
Monkey House Blues Page 4
