David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

That’s how it had begun. He requested and received permission from Beijing’s powerful minister of the interior to start excavating the sunken shoal to cover his approaches to the island – to Chu Shi. The fisherman arranged the meetings with Chu Shi but each time he seemed a little sadder, a little more wistful.

The love between Dr. Roung and Chu Shi had been fast, secret and more important to him than anything that had happened before. With her he seemed to understand things. He felt part of the great flow of the blackhaired people. He felt her connect him to the past and the future. He began to dream of their child – somehow living forever.

He had kept the ministry in Beijing abreast of his progress at the shoal, which he had intentionally slowed. Then, in the sixth month of his work, he was surprised to receive a personal communication from the minister of the interior herself asking to be kept strictly up-to-date with his work and a request that he find out what he could about . . . the farmers on the island.

He didn’t know what to make of the request, but he didn’t care. It offered him an official reason to visit the island regularly.

It was on one of these sanctioned visits that he found himself alone with Chu Shi in her family house.

“This is my room, but this is my father’s home.” Her eyes twinkled.

“It could be ours when he passes on.”

Chu Shi turned away from him, the dim light of the hut somehow making her even more alluring.

“I meant no offence.”

“I know,” she said still looking away from him. Then she turned back and smiled.

“What?”

“It’s odd to be alone in this place. Usually there are so many others.”

“Little privacy, huh?”

“We islanders are not prudish.” Her smile broadened. “You may have noticed that.”

He smiled. “I have.”

“Good,” she said. “Now take off your pants – Excellency.” Her voice danced around the final word but her eyes devoured him.

Their bodies fit together as if they had been made from one piece that had been separated by the Maker.

Later, lying naked and enwrapped, he ran his fingers along the rise of her hip. “Do you have the gift I first gave you?” She nodded and reached across him. His fingers traced the strong muscles of her back as she extracted the small statue of the horse’s hindquarters from her clothing on the floor. She lay back and, smiling, placed it on her left breast. Then looked at him.

He rose from the bed, naked, and crossed to his pants on the far side of the room. He put on his delicate French glasses then knelt and dug into his pockets. She loved to watch him. He was so different from the islanders. So different from Iman’s favourite, Jiajia, to whom she’d been promised, and who constantly sought her attention.

He returned, knelt over her and repositioned her statue. Then he opened his hand and showed her his matching statue of the horse’s frontquarters.

She bent her head forward to get a closer look, but he held her still and placed his bronze figure on her right breast.

She shivered. She’d never seen anyone look at anything the way her lover looked at her now. Finally, after what seemed forever, he gently moved her breasts together. The figures slid toward each other. They touched, then interlocked – perfectly – every plane of one fitted to every plane of the other.

She was about to giggle when she looked up. He was staring deep into her eyes. “Do you see how they lock together.”

She nodded, a little lost.

“I want us to marry. To have children.”

She moved so quickly that he was lucky to catch the bronze pieces before they crashed to the ground.

As she shoved a leg into her pants she said, “It’s not possible.”

“Why?” he demanded.

She turned to him and held his eyes. “Because, here, on this island, we marry our own.”

Then she was gone.

He held the completed bronze horse in his fingers for a longish moment. Then he detached the hindquarters and left them beneath her pillow.

As he put on his clothing he wondered what he would do next. What life would be like without Chu Shi.

He did his best to wrap up the excavation of the shoal. It was proving much more difficult than he had originally thought. He faced little resistance from the ministry.

Then the foreigners arrived. Foreigners from several countries. Elderly men asking questions. Asking about the family backgrounds of the islanders. Not from the fishermen; only from the farmers.

He dutifully followed the foreigners to the island and then reported their activity to the interior ministry. He was surprised to get an urgent message ordering him to continue excavating the shoal and to go to the island and report back everything that he could find about the interaction between the foreigners and the farmers of the island.

Despite Chu Shi’s rejection, he obeyed the orders from Beijing and went to the island. He talked to as many of the islanders as he could. On his way back to his boat he saw Chu Shi in the darkness down by the beach. He was about to approach when a young man broke from the nearby thicket and ran into her arms.

Jiajia, Iman’s chosen. Her betrothed.

The weather turned suddenly cold as he returned from the island. Early for it. He bundled up as he sat in his room and wrote to the Ministry of the Interior.

MADAME MINISTER:

Two weeks ago, the Islanders, after an initial resistance, accepted sizeable sums of money from the foreigners in return for which, Iman, their leader, agreed to give the foreigners the family histories they wanted.

Why the foreigners would want the islander’s family histories is a mystery to me.

Now the foreigners want to take blood samples from the islanders. Iman categorically refused and violence was only narrowly avoided as the foreigners had to be escorted off the island by local police.

Work on the shoal is proving almost impossible. Could I request, with all respect, a return to my work in Xian?

C.

Madame Wu received the communique just as she was finishing another long day in her office. Her old eyes read the words and sensed their meaning. The man’s love affair was over and now he wanted to go home. He may be exceptionally talented, this one, but he acts just like every other male.

Madame Wu felt her assistant’s steely eyes on her. Had she spoken aloud? No. Absolutely not. She returned the stare and the man backed off. “Perhaps it’s time to get myself a younger, prettier assistant. It had been a long while since someone young and pretty had been her companion.

“Madame Minister?”

“Respond that he is to stay at Lake Ching until I tell him that it is time for him to go. As well, tell him that he is not to presume. That all normal formality shall be used in all his communications.”

The man quickly left the office.

Madame Wu turned to the window. Police were already on the island to help the foreigners. So the danger was near. For a moment she thought about her son. Then about her mother.

So many ghosts these days. But this is an important time. A time of change. They were dangerous times for individuals. The good of the country came first. The future needed to be addressed – no – forged. What could she care for a dead mother and a son who was lost to her.

Two days later the archeologist was surprised to see the old fisherman approach the shoal. He was wrapped in rags to keep out the cold. “What now, old man?” he yelled.

“They’re scaring off the fish!” the old man barked.

“Who is?”

“The visitors! Don’t you know anything!”

Dr. Roung was about to rise to the bait when something told him to hold his temper. “Are the foreigners back, old man?” It came out awkwardly – half-question, half-accusation.