David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

It felt as if the evening zoomed by. He didn’t get to speak to Chu Shi. Before he knew it, he found himself back on a boat, frozen stiff, heading toward Ching.

He spent that night, that seemingly endless night, wrestling with his loneliness.

Two days later he was by the shoal, leading the beginning of the excavation of the south end of the mound when he looked up to see the old fisherman sitting in his boat not twenty yards away. His birds were on the gunwales, not in the water. He wasn’t fishing. The archeologist took the paddle from the floor of his own boat and made his way out to the fisherman.

“What?”

“There’s sickness.”

“Where?”

“The farmers. Many are sick. Deep sickness.”

“Influenza? What?”

“She may die.” There was no need to name Chu Shi. To Dr. Roung’s surprise, the old man’s sadness seemed to be aimed at himself. As if he was to blame somehow. Without another word, the fisherman grabbed his oar and headed toward the island.

Dr. Roung sat dead still, his boat bobbing gently, the creepy-crawly of fear dancing on his spine.

Three days later, on December 1, the archeologist was shocked into waking by a hand pressing down hard on his chest. Four men were in his room. Islanders. Before he could speak, Iman stepped forward. “Chu Shi is dead.”

Dr. Roung didn’t know what to do.

“We are not foolish people, Excellency. We know about you and her.”

“Then why didn’t . . .”

“We stop it?” Iman completed the archeologist’s question. For a moment he was lost in thought. Then he shrugged. “The others are getting better, but she died from the sickness.”

Dr. Roung’s head filled with questions as he felt himself falling down a great pit of blackness. Then Iman closed off the light at the top of the pit. “She died carrying your child.” He didn’t see Jiajia’s blow coming. It caught him full on the face. Only Iman’s presence saved his life.

He was not allowed on the island for the burial. No one from outside was allowed on the island anymore. Rumours on shore spread that the islanders blamed the sickness on the foreigners with whom they had done business. That giving blood had caused the sickness. That all business deals were off.

Blood was sacred to the islanders in many ways.

Fires burned constantly on the uppermost parts of the island. Rumours became fact when two of the islanders’ foreign business partners arrived and were chased away at gunpoint.

Twenty-four hours later, special assault units of federal soldiers were helicoptered onto the island. Stories. An exhumation. The foreigners insisted. The islanders resisted. The army backed the foreigners. Several islanders were shot. The islanders came out in force and fought a pitched battle with the federal forces. Then another helicopter, this one a small, modern, single-passenger model without markings, landed on the far side of the island. Away from the fighting. Iman and his best fighters stood silently waiting for the rotors to stop their lethal circling. When they did, the door slid open and Madame Minister Wu stepped out.

She looked at him, identified herself and canted her head slightly to one side.

He matched her gesture – this would be a meeting of equals.

Quickly, a small fire was built on the sandy beach and the two sat facing each other across the flames.

Jiajia stepped forward.

“Was it this young man’s wife who died of this foul contagion?”

“It was, Madame Minister.”

“My condolences, young man. Now let me have words in private with Iman.”

Jiajia started to protest then stopped as he saw the flecks of rage the flames of the fire brought to life in Madame Wu’s eyes. He turned and left the ring of light.

Madame Wu picked up a stick and poked at the fire. Iman watched her closely. Finally, she raised her eyes and said, “He is reckless in his grief.” Iman nodded but said nothing. Madame Wu smiled. “But such men can be of use in times such as we are living through. Don’t you agree, Iman?” Again he nodded. “Good,” she said. “Now let us plan a response to these indignities the foreigners have heaped upon you and your people.”

“We are already seeing to that,” Iman said in a cold flat voice.

“By fighting with federal assault troops? Folly, old man. Folly.” Before Iman could respond she added, “There is a better way of dealing with this . . . situation.” She caught his eye. “Let them dig up the dead girl.” Iman leapt to his feet. She shouted, “Sit down.” He did. “One must get one’s revenge when the enemy is not ready for it.” She slipped a small, beautifully bound copy of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War from her pocket and held it out to Iman. “Have someone read you the chapter on spies.” She checked to see if Iman was offended. He wasn’t. She went on, “Pay special attention to the part about lulling the enemy into a false sense of security – friendship even.”

Iman took the book.

“I’m sure you will agree with me that letting the foreigners dig up the dead girl is the best way to proceed.”

Madame Wu rose and walked out of the fire’s circle of light. She didn’t want him to see the hatred on her face.

As she allowed herself to be helped into the helicopter it occurred to her that having come all this way, maybe she should see her son, Chen. Then she dismissed the thought as bourgeois and sentimental. They’d been apart all these years. Why bother seeing him face to face now? She barked an order and the pilot engaged the engine. The rotors began to howl. She put her head back against the plush seat and closed her eyes. The islanders would do as she suggested. They were people of the land, just as she was.

Jiajia put down the minister’s copy of The Art of War. He had just finished the brief chapter on spies. For a moment he looked at the cover of the book – so fancy, so decorated – so unlike war. He shook his head and strode out of his mud hut – at one time their home, his and Chu Shi’s. He reconsidered Sun Tzu’s advice as he walked quickly up the steep path to the graveyard. It seemed to him that Sun Tzu’s instruction on the waging of war was flawed. It assumed a dispassion, a cold logic. He crested the final rise and stepped into the graveyard. He stood over Chu Shi’s grave for a long time then he hawked up a wad of phlegm and spat it right at her heart.

Jiajia kicked at the grave’s night soil-clotted earth then began to tear at the dirt with his fingers. As he did, he planned. Not as The Art of War had suggested. But then again, Sun Tzu was waging a military campaign. Not seeking revenge.

Jiajia flung aside clods of the thick dirt until he unearthed the edge of the crimson burial shroud. He leaned back his head and howled Chu Shi’s name.

Revenge was not dispassionate. It was not cold and logical. It was human – and hot.

The next day Iman ordered the islanders to put down their weapons. A dead girl. A pregnant dead girl was dug up and transported to the mainland where her body was hacked to pieces in a secret foreign ritual.

So went the story.

Dr. Roung knew better. He didn’t know what had changed the islanders’ minds to allow it, but he knew that Chu Shi must have been exhumed so that an autopsy could be done. Probably in Xian. He assumed that the foreigners insistence on the exhumation and autopsy had something to do with their business deal. But again he didn’t know what. And he said nothing. Did nothing. Just sat in the darkness of his Ching room wondering over and over again why the ceremonial wine had been shipped from Beijing. That night he awoke in a cold sweat, his mind crawling with fear. Fear that he knew the answer to the question. It was just past 6 a.m. He went out into the freezing darkness.