by Andy Oakes
The wind keener. Whistles, reeds, shriller. The old man, calling into the wind, into the reeded music. Pigeons, grey arrows, falling to earth, to hands. Gentle fingers, releasing reeds, whistles, ivory tethered ornaments.
‘The transgenic engineering have resulted in a rice variety that can produce its own vitamin A. They also give the rice its unique coloration; hence its name, Golden Rice.’
Pigeons, from hands, to cages. Gentle words as lids, closed. Partitions slid into place. Seed, for the birds. Supper calling the old man, the boy … home. Home.
‘The implications of this rice for our population, for our economy, for the harmony and political stability of our nation are beyond measure.’
Piao, starting to gather up the books and only now seeing it at the bottom of the report released from FILE TWENTY, the names of the scientists who had worked on the Golden Rice project. One name, two names, three names, but there were four such scientists. One had not signed the report, not wishing to own it or its findings. It had it cost him his daughter’s life. But then, signing the report had not saved the other daughters of the other fathers.
Walking, pausing by the bridge, staring into the lotus waters.
Maybe even after they killed his daughter the fourth scientist still refused to sign. So they had killed his colleague’s daughters to put yet more pressure on him. But why would he wish to disassociate himself from a miracle? And at such a cost?
Moving back across the Bridge of Nine Turns, Piao, not afraid of the queue of evil spirits, but increasing his pace none the less.
There was a sign to be read in the actions of this brave comrade. A trail of breadcrumbs left in a vain hope that they would not be eaten by birds. He would visit the fourth scientist, the fourth father whose name was missing from the report. He would visit him, if only to share his grief.
Chapter 46
Beyond Jixi the land falls as a stone dropped from heaven with soil as brown as a Lisu girl’s eyes. The house stood on a rocky headland, overlooking an ocean of corn; a crop more golden than the sun that beckoned it from the warm soil. But the house out of place with its surroundings, its posture that of the prospective swimmer, too scared to brave the cold salt water.
From the path you could see him, the Comrade Scientist, sitting in the heart of the garden on a bench, as if he had always been in that place, the comrade.
Few callers to such a house; the knock on the door was answered quickly.
“You remember me, Madam?”
“Yes, I remember you and your Deputy, in the church, the communists. What do you want?”
Her meagre body guarding the gap between door and doorframe.
“You know what we are here for, mama.”
Mama, a label that she thought cremated with her baby, her daughter. Instantly to her eyes, tears as bright as lead crystal.
“I have been expecting you, but I had hoped that you would not come. He is too ill to see you. He has no words.”
“But he does, mama. I see them in the things that he has already done.”
The file clasped tightly in Piao’s other hand. The report from FILE TWENTY. Three signatures and a gap of smooth paper where a fourth signature had been omitted.
“The things that he has refused to do, these are his words.”
Her eyes falling to the report. Its contents lost on her, but not its significance.
“Then you have what you want, Senior Investigator. Or do the PSB never have completely what they want?”
“You know us to well, mama.”
An understanding smile.
“He is a brave man, your husband. Foolishly brave, some would say. But not me. But there are now words that he must put to actions. Words that he must use to fill the trail of gaps that he has left, and that he knew would lead us here.”
Something in the Senior Investigator’s eyes that would not be denied, like her husband’s, her dear scientist husband.
Standing back from the door, the mama, allowing Piao and the Big Man to pass through it.
*
Even as the two shadows fell over him, the Comrade Scientist unmoving.
“Comrade Biologist, you had hoped that we would come. Your signature being missing from this report on the blessing that is Golden Rice, Comrade.”
Placing the file gently on his lap.
“By not signing it, although you do not talk, you shout at the top of your voice.”
The biologist’s hand moving to the report. Gently, like breeze over the heavy heads of corn, his fingers over the ink.
“A brave thing to do, Comrade. The PLA are harsh, but Colonel Qi more than harsh. Help us on our way. We want those who took your daughter from you.”
“He cannot speak. He has no words. Leave him alone. Can you not see, he has been through enough.”
Her hand on his wasted shoulder, not in comfort but in a persuasive grip.
“Go. Go. He has no words. They have dried up. All, dried up …”
In the breeze through the uppermost branches of the trees, a rasp. A sound not unlike the first breath after a resuscitation.
“I have, I have words.”
To the comrade’s mouth, Yaobang’s ear.
“Speak up, papa. The wind is high, your words will be lost.”
His hand moving to his wife’s, removing it from his shoulder. For many seconds cradling it in his lap.
“I have words. I have, I have words, wife.”
Breathless. Calming himself. Regulating his breaths, in unison with the breeze.
“Get it. Get it for him. Now.”
“No. No. Have we not been through enough?”
“Get it for him, wife. For, for her sake.”
Moving through the garden, the mama, until she was lost in the dark interior of the house. Piao kneeling in front of the scientist, for the first time, eyes meeting.
“Why now Comrade Scientist? Why now letting your words flow?”
Looking past the Senior Investigator’s gaze, across his shoulder, to the field of corn.
“Because you bothered to look and ask.”
Shaking his head, the Comrade Scientist, as if attempting to shake a devil from his shoulder.
“I, I still see her in the field playing. But now her feet do not bruise the corn nor her footfall disturb the dew.”
Moving from the house and onto the sunlit lawn, the mama. In her hand paper, as brightly reflective as a shard of glass. A sideways look from the comrade as she placed the papers into Piao’s hand. Turning her back and walking to the garden’s very edge, her form broken by a sway of trellis shadows.
Across the front page of the papers, Yaobang’s hand.
“It’s just a copy of the report we already have, Boss.”
“No, not a copy …”
In between each word, struggled, breathless breaths from the scientist.
“The original. There are important, very important differences. Read. Read. See.”
Pointing to the house.
“Go. Read.”
*
The kitchen smelt of old people: of food kept for too long, of floors only rarely cleaned, of dreams long fallen from the vine. On a table stained by tea cups’ rings and crescent moons, the reports spread side by side, page by page, turned by the Big Man’s soy-stained fingers. Every page identical, every word in each report shadowing every word. Only as the pages of the first report, gathered by the Wizard’s skills, came to an end, the differences evident. The Comrade Scientist’s report two pages longer. Two pages phrased in a more confrontational style. Two pages speaking, screaming with a very different voice.
‘It would be negligent of us not to point out some of the problems that could arise from this technology that has been used in creating Golden Rice and the highly complex constructs that are at its heart. The gene constructs are new. In billions of years of evolution, they have never existed before. In essence, we do not know what we are creating. We do not know what the repercussions will be.’
&nb
sp; Whistling, the Big Man. Long, low.
‘All cells, including those of human beings, are now known to take up genetic material. Invasive pieces of genetic material may jump into the genome to mutate genes. Some insertions of foreign genetic material may be associated with cancer. This is particularly significant in this case as the genetic material used is associated with diseases in plants that have many of the characteristics of cancer.’
Turning the page, figures, a graph and a summing up of the project of Golden Rice and its promise of liberation from malnutrition, blindness, and premature death.
‘We must point out urgently that the development of Golden Rice will do little to ameliorate Vitamin A deficiency within the population. We must further point out that, to generate sufficient Vitamin A from Golden Rice, a woman of average height and weight would need to consume more than 16 lbs of cooked rice every day, a child 12 lbs of rice every day. An impossibility. Vitamin A deficiency within the population should be approached through a programme of oral delivery. Vitamin A pills are affordable and immediately available. In the long term, the problem should be addressed with the re-introduction of agricultural bio-diversity in a sustainable fashion.’
The Senior Investigator reading the last lines out aloud.
‘In essence, Golden Rice does not perform the task that it was developed for. It must also be considered to be based on a hazardous technology. We would suggest an immediate cessation of the project.’
At the bottom of the page four signatures.
“This is the original report before the PLA doctored it. The papa refused to sign the edited version of the report. It cost him his daughter. This project cost too many Comrade Scientists their daughters.”
Yaobang incredulous.
“Fuck me, Boss, the PLA knows Golden Rice doesn’t work, it’s just a scam. He’s hiding the evidence. Golden Rice is a confidence trick. Millions of dollars he’s taken foreign governments for.”
Reports folded, re-folded, deeply into the Big Man’s inside pocket.
“Pity this Golden Rice doesn’t fucking work; Mao, if he were still alive, would have pinned a medal on these Comrade Scientists’ chests if it had. Maybe even Qi would have got a medal.”
“Yes, perhaps.”
“I’ll get a copy of the report to the Wizard, Boss, and when he’s finished with it, destroy it.”
“Yes. And perhaps some of the Great Helmsman’s words to act as wrapping paper. Seventy year old wrapping paper.”
*
The garden softer now. The sun lower, the shadows longer and the perfume of the flowers more gentle.
Sitting beside the old comrade in a mash of dappled light. His hand upon the scientist’s. Eyes to corn field, but seeing only the paper-pale face of a girl in the chill of a mortuary drawer.
Across the old papa’s lips, a breeze smelling of over-farmed land and of sacrifice.
“Senior Investigator, this tai zi, you will make him pay for what he did to my child and the other daughters who life no longer possesses?”
Holding the old papa’s hand more tightly.
“Yes, papa. But what can ever pay you back for a daughter’s hand that can never be held again in your own?”
Chapter 47
“He leaves the penthouse just twice a week. Same day and at the same time. A comrade of habit, eh Boss?”
“Where to?”
“The hotel’s second floor, room 168, to see a woman. He leaves his minders in the penthouse and makes the journey alone.”
“Who is she?”
“Another old tong zhi. He’s known her forty years. They drink tea and Dukang, look at old photographs of dead comrades and play mah-jongg.”
“A good way to die, drinking and playing mah-jongg with an old comrade.”
“Sure Boss, better than the liu-mang’s blade that we’ll get.”
“This guan-xi, the cost?”
“Two bottles and a permit for the Friendship Store.”
A little inebriation. A little camouflaged capitalism. Guaranteed to loosen any comrade’s lips.
“When is the next time that they meet?”
“Tomorrow, as usual. 4p.m. sharp, Boss.”
“Enough time to do what I need to do.”
Absent-mindedly his fingers feeling for the CD-Rom tucked deeply into his pocket.
“It is a long time since I played mah-jongg. Many other games, but not mah-jongg.”
*
4 p.m…. The Heping … Hotel of Peace.
Like an old maiden aunt, the Heping, the Hotel of Peace, on Nanjingxilu. Aged now, standing back from the avenue as if too afraid to cross it. Beyond the gaudy lobby, her beauty now faded. Features worn, fondant-icing plasterwork, nicotine-stained, statuesque art deco forms, cornices of frozen roses, ivy climbs, chipped, cracked and hurriedly repaired with harsh albino filler; like pan make-up over a lifetime of worry lines. The once rich hued silk wallpapers, fading … faded.
And in the lobby bar, cracked antique leather and worn brass, where Coward would tell his whispered tales, the Sassoons would hasten their deals … a trio of sixty-year old musicians playing to a background noise of dahus’ mobile phone mutterings. Denture mouthed lyrics such as, ‘I’d like to get you on a slow boat to China’ sung in warbled unison.
*
The same room, the same time and the same hostess, an esteemed comrade that he had known through fat times, but mostly thin times. A good woman, but a bad mah-jongg player. On the table the same board and worn ivory tiles that had been their battlefield for over a quarter of a century now. On the table the same brand of Dukang waiting to be poured into the same crystal glasses, and in the corner a television, a video recorder and a toppling stack of illicit American films.
But something had changed. As she had opened the hotel room door to his familiar knock; seeing it across her eyes, as fleeting as the crane’s flight across the face of a full moon. During the struggle he had seen men executed for less. A downcast eye to a question, or a nervous shuffle during a political tirade. He was a man who had always acted on instinct. A true friend of that small voice within, now whispering, ‘turn, walk away to the sanctuary of the penthouse, Comrade’. But the mah-jongg board with a louder voice, combined with the gold glint of Dukang and a fellow tong zhi who knew of times before mobile telephones, Armani-suited politicians and ‘sound bites’. Ignoring the voice, he entered the room. She closed the door. And regret upon him, as fast running as a dog after a Liberation truck. The hungry mouth of a pistol tight behind ear and skull. And with it, uttering the most stupid words that had ever passed his cautious lips.
“Do you know who I am?”
Yes, to come this far, to go to such lengths, such men as these would know exactly who he was. The man standing in front of him, half-blood eyes of turquoise, his words disarming. Breached, the old comrade’s defences, by their cheap tobacco perfumed taint.
“Tong zhi Citizen One. You are a hero of the People’s Republic, one of the last who knew how it was before.”
Piao taking a photograph from his inside pocket. A bright eyed child with the sense of a victory, yet to be won shining through his eyes in evangelical certainty. A few paces in front, the swirl and lick of red banner, the Great Helmsman.
Citizen One scanning the photograph with Dukang fuelled tears.
“It has been many years since I have seen this painting, many, many years. My uncles, I called them. Mao, Zhou Enlai, Deng Xiaoping, and so many others. By day they could kill a thousand, ten thousand Kuomintang, but by night they would make me safe, tuck me into a bed, tell stories now forgotten and explain to me the shining path of communist reasoning.”
Shaking his head.
“Men such as these are as gem stones amongst cliffs of mud and shale. The politicians of today are just interested in ‘shoving the shit back up the horse’s arse’.”
The Senior Investigator taking back the photograph and returning it to his pocket.
“Yes, tong zhi, that is why we
are here. We wish to show you what has grown from the earth that was watered by your fellow comrades’ blood.”
*
Tong zhi Citizen One was quite correct, the woman comrade was a poor mah-jongg player. Piao winning game after game as the Big Man supplied them with Dukang. And through it all, the old comrade reading, with the single-minded focus that only an accountant can muster. FILE TWENTY in its pristine inked entirety. A hand that had once been shaped around a rifle butt, child’s finger to trigger, now armed with something more dangerous, a pen, in copious barbed scrawl and a calculator trailing strings of noughts.
Four hours before he stopped to take a drink, rejecting the offer of food.
“I am used to much, but also very little. I was a child during the Long March. It was sometimes days between a drink, or a meal.”
Carefully placing FILE TWENTY on the floor.
“Such an experience fashions a man. Even now I find a dough stick or a crust of bread that I have secreted under my pillow, or in some other safe place. Now I can afford the best things in life, but still I hide food.”
Picking up the papers once again.
“And this is why you have come to me? This PLA princeling, this trusted officer, he is dirt under the fingernails of the peasantry. He is a robber of the proletariat.”
Shaking his head vigorously.
“Millions of yuan obtained in the foulest of fashions. Prostitution, thuggery, the ‘olds’ that Mao struggled to free us from, resurrected by my own PLA. I swear by my fallen comrades’ blood that I knew nothing of this outrage. If I had, I would have …”
Angrily tapping the papers on the table.
“A curse on these princelings and their excesses. How is it possible that the heroes of the People’s Republic have spawned such a plague as these?”
Anger now replaced by sadness and determination.
