David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

“Worse than that.” What could be worse to this man than foreigners? “Government people. Beijing government people.”

This was new. “Take me.” He reached into his pocket and threw a few bills at the older man. The fisherman did a good impression of a cabbie who thought his tip was too light.

Chu Shi wasn’t happy to see him when he entered her hut. “I’m a married woman now.”

“I know.”

She started to leave, but he reached for her. At first he thought she was going to scream. Then he thought she was going to hit him, and then, somehow, their clothing lay in piles on the floor and he flowed into her as she sang his name over and over. When they were done, she handed him his clothing and his expensive imported glasses. They dressed slowly staring at each other.

Then suddenly she was crying.

He held out his arms to her, but she shook her head.

“I need answers to a few questions.” A look of shock crossed her face. It was almost comical.

“You came here to ask me questions?” she blurted out.

“No. It’s the only way I think I can get to see you again.”

“Don’t try to see me again.” But her fingers were interlocked with his.

“Who are the new people on the island?”

“Government people,” she answered.

“Police officers?”

She looked away. When she spoke, her words came out slowly as if their very sounds were dangerous. “No. Different. Government people from Beijing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes.”

“What do they want, Chu Shi?”

“They threatened Iman that if he doesn’t agree to give blood samples to the foreigners they’ll remove our people from the island. They claim we never had any right to be on the island in the first place.”

“Will Iman give in to the demands?”

“He already has.”

That night in the cold, haunted silence of his room in Ching he wrote again to Madame Minister Wu.

This missive she received while attending a formal state banquet for the Japanese ambassador and several of that country’s leading industrialists. Toasts were exchanged. History forgotten. A swollen future embraced.

“Just like before the liberation,” she thought as she raised her glass. “Foreigners everywhere, owning everything.”

Madame Wu sipped the heated saki. The air conditioning puffed out the silk of the woman’s blouse across the table from her.

Silk!

Throughout her youth, Madame Wu had been forced to carry silkworm eggs strapped to her body. It kept the eggs warm. Many nights she was awakened by her mother screaming at her not to roll over in her sleep and crush the precious eggs. Other nights she awoke feeling a feathery movement on her skin. One ounce of eggs produced twenty thousand worms. They’d hatch in the night. She hated having to stand naked and still as her mother picked them off her.

The worms had to increase their weight ten thousand times before they spun their cocoons. Since noise was harmful to their growth, the house was a place of silence. But in the silence was intense anger.

It was always a relief when the worms finally began to spin their cocoons from the loose stalks of straw that the family had provided. The two or three days needed to spin were the happiest times in the house. But it was short-lived. Once the cocoons were spun, the chrysalis had to be killed.

Boiled.

Her mother’s hands, an angry red from fishing the cocoons out of the boiling water and carefully unravelling the still-wet pouches, were the stuff of her childhood nightmares. And it had all been done for a silk factory owned by the very Japanese they were toasting here tonight.

Traitors.

The men who run this country are traitors to the people of China – to the memory of her mother.

But they will not get away with it. Her family will see to that.

The Japanese ambassador was speaking. Something about business bringing our two great countries together. Madame Wu sipped at her saki again. She grimaced. The taste made her angry. Yet another foreign thing to be swept out of the country. Then she looked at the saki and a slow smile crossed her features.

Dr. Roung was surprised when the case of wine arrived with the note from the Interior Minister:

Please present this to the Islanders with my compliments on their new business venture. Enclosed please find a requisition order to cover your expenses for the banquet that should accompany my gift. – M.W.

He stared at the case of ceremonial wine. Then at the note from Madame Wu. This was definitely her writing style. But something was wrong. Why send a case of wine from Beijing? Although he didn’t drink himself, he was pretty sure this wine was available in Xian. But before he followed this line of inquiry he saw that this presented another opportunity to see Chu Shi – and all reason vanished before the onslaught of desire.

It took little persuasion to get the islanders to accept Interior Minister Wu’s offered banquet. Shortly, the archeologist was dressed in his best clothes, his thinsulate vest beneath his coat, and on his way to the island.

The light was dying as he crossed the lake. Through the murk and far to one side, he saw a cormorant’s head pop out of the water and crane around. “As if searching for him,” he thought.

It was bitterly cold. He looked past the cormorant and scanned the horizon for the fisherman who always seemed to be there. Always seemed to know when he was coming. But he couldn’t see him or the lanterns of the boat, although he knew some fisherman had to be near. A cormorant was a valuable asset and never allowed too far from the boat. Of course, should the bird decide to fly away, its newfound independence would soon give way to starvation. The metal circlet on its neck made it impossible for the animal to swallow fish – its only natural food. Once the circlet was in place, the bird could only receive sustenance from a narrow lengthy dropper, and that could only be manipulated by a man’s hand. “We’re all on a leash of some sort,” he said aloud. His boatman ignored him. Just another city person who talked to himself.

The banquet was set in the large communal hall halfway up the central terraced hill. The building was a storage place for the upper level crops at the three harvest times. In the winter it was seldom used.

Tables had been made from planking set on crude wooden cubes. Lanterns were lit and hung from poles. Dung burned in the metal braziers. The place, like so much of the island, literally smelled like shit. But the archeologist didn’t mind. Chu Shi had just come into the room with her husband, Jiajia. She wore a woven shawl to keep out the chill of the night. Her eyes were focused on the floor.

Something was different with her. What?

The room was filling quickly. The whole island seemed to be here. Just the farmers not the fishermen, he corrected himself. Food was piled high and savoury on the central table. The braziers and lanterns added to the smoke from the islanders’ harsh cigarettes which featured such fanciful names as snake charmers, bullet proofs and smacks.

He rose. All eyes turned to him. He delivered Madame Interior Minister Wu’s congratulations to the islanders on their business acumen then opened a bottle of her gift, the ceremonial wine. He filled glass after glass as they were presented to him. When the last bottle was almost emptied, he looked up. Even the young had glasses in their hands. They awaited him. He raised his glass and was about to speak when he saw Chu Shi. She seemed very close to him although she was far across the large crowded room. The smoke in the room made him dizzy. He lifted his glass a little higher and shouted, “To the future.”

The room filled with cheering. Glasses were emptied and exclamations filled the air. He took the opportunity to tip his glass over onto the hard mud floor. He was no drinker. The wine seeped into the ground like a brown slug seeking the dark.