A Death in China (15 page)

An hour was plenty of time, David Wang figured, to break out, slip away from his brother’s museum and lose himself in the streets of Peking. The guards had dressed him in an old-fashioned undershirt, more gray than white, baggy blue trousers and cotton shoes. In the darkness of the street, he would be indistinguishable from millions of other Pekingese.

He would walk to the American Embassy if he could. Failing that, David Wang decided, he would approach the first policeman he saw and ask for help. The policeman would not believe his story, of course, but he would take him in, just the same.

David Wang would find someone to tell: My brother is committing a terrible crime against China, against humanity. I have seen it in Xian. He must be stopped.

David had reached this conclusion with sadness. His important brother was a criminal. For days he had expected Wang Bin to appear at the attic to explain, to apologize, to disavow any knowledge of David’s imprisonment. Then he had prayed that Wang Bin would come in repentance, denouncing his own crazed scheme, begging forgiveness. David would have given it, willingly, and returned to the United States without saying a word.

On the third day, David Wang had shouted at his jailers, demanding an audience with Wang Bin. The jailers had laughed at the old man.

By the fifth day, a new thought had occurred to David, and he came to fear that Wang Bin would appear. Death itself did not frighten him, but he did not want it like this, in Peking, at the hands of his own brother.

David convinced himself that the only perilous part of the escape would be finding his way out of the museum. In dim lighting, his weak vision suffered from a loss of depth and distance. He would have to move slowly, maybe too slowly.

After the jailers brought the dinner tray that night, David meticulously counted one hundred and twenty nervous seconds before he slipped the latch on the door.

The corridor was poorly lit. At one end, light seeped from a room where the jailers dined raucously. Peering intently, David Wang could make out a doorway that appeared to lead to a flight of stairs. His confidence rising, he tiptoed along the hall until he reached the door and his feet found the first flight. Cautiously, he began to descend.

The stairwell was dark. David felt his way like a blind man—one hand groped the grimy wall, the other clung to a cold metal handrail. Would it be four flights, or five? He tried to remember the size of the building from the day he had first visited the museum as his brother’s honored guest.

After two flights, David Wang stopped to rest. A reassuring stillness wrapped the museum; the only sounds he heard were his own shuffling, tentative footsteps. At the third landing, David’s questing hand encountered something tall and wooden. At the same instant, his foot kicked something bulky and metallic. David dropped to all fours and used his hands to identify the objects: a ladder and a chest of tools. He found the handle of the tool chest and lifted it. Not too heavy. He would take it with him as protective coloration. It might be just the thing to get him out the back door and into the street.

Suddenly the lights in the stairwell snapped on. From above came agitated shouts, and the rumble of feet on the stairs.

For a few precious seconds David Wang was paralyzed, rooted and tremulous as the din escalated. Only when the first young cadre appeared at the top of the stairs did he act.

With a desperate jerk, David toppled the ladder. It fell in front of his pursuer. As David lunged for the door on the landing, the cadre hurdled the ladder easily. A hand clamped David by the shoulder. He spun around and breathlessly shoved—nearly threw—the tool chest into the cadre’s gut. The young man staggered backwards and doubled up. When his heels hit the ladder he tumbled down the stairs in a groaning somersault.

David Wang did not wait to see his enemy stop rolling. He was already anxiously exploring the second floor of the museum. It was a large room, dominated by rows of display cases, dimly perceived, their contents a mystery. If only there were someplace to hide, and if only he could see it. Across the gallery was another doorway. David Wang did not particularly care where it would take him. He ran for it. His gait was the huffing half-waddle of an old man, no match for the athletic cadres who streamed behind him.

David was but halfway to the door when he realized that he would not make it. He meant to stop, to gather himself and surrender with dignity. Instead, he lost his balance and skidded into a glass display case housing a collection of seventh century bronzes. David Wang and the exhibit went down together with an ear-splitting crash.

When his wits returned, a circle of young men was standing over him. He expected that they would scream at him, perhaps jeer, or even beat him. But they did not. Rather, the cadres simply led David back to his attic cell with the impatience of peasants who have frustrated the ungainly escape of a commune mule.

Later, the keepers even brought the old scholar tea and dumplings to replace the dinner he had fled. This time the spoon was plastic.

In another cell, hundreds of miles away, Tom Stratton shakily faced a contrived tribunal. The jailer returned to the chair on Zhou’s left. Zhou himself sat down next, his back straight, his face unreadable. Kangmei wordlessly took the chair on Zhou’s right. Her long hair had been braided in pigtails, and her Western clothes had been replaced with standard Mao blue. Stratton searched her eyes for a clue, but Kangmei looked away.

“Nice room, huh?” Stratton said. “This is what I get for taking the American plan.”

“You are to remain silent,” Zhou warned, “until these accusations are read. Then you will be permitted to state your confession and sign it. Then sentence will be declared. Wang Kangmei?”

“Yes, Comrade Zhou.”

“Do you see the man named Thomas Stratton in this room?”

“Yes, Comrade.”

“Describe him,” Zhou commanded.

Kangmei studied the half-naked Stratton for several moments, up and down, and this time it was he who looked away.

“He is an American. He is tall and light-haired. With a mustache.”

“And what is he doing now?”

“Kneeling, Comrade Zhou.”

“And what is he wearing, Wang Kangmei?”

“A shirt, a torn shirt.”

“Filthy? Unclean?”

“Yes, Comrade.”

“And what else? What else is he wearing?”

“A bandage. A filthy bandage.” Kangmei glared scornfully down at Stratton. “And that is all, Comrade Zhou. He has no other clothes on.”

“And do you find him … attractive?”

“No! He is disgusting. He is a pig. A pig and a liar.”

“Liar!” shouted the jailer. He propped one of his shoes on Stratton’s bruised shoulder. “Liar! Liar!” Stratton pushed the foot away.

“Kangmei, what crimes did Mr. Stratton commit against you?”

“He asked me to come to his hotel room in Xian. He said he wanted to give me something that belonged to my uncle, David Wang, who had died in Peking. He said it was something of great sentimental value.”

Zhou said, “Did you believe the lying pig Thomas Stratton?”

“Yes, Comrade. I believed him.”

“What happened when you went to his hotel room in Xian?”

“He held me against my will. He abducted me. He beat me. He said my father, the deputy minister, represented all that was evil about the Communist Party, and that he must be destroyed.”

“So,” Zhou said, “he threatened to kill a Chinese deputy minister. What else did he say?”

“Thom-as Stratton admitted that he is an agent of the imperialist United States government, and that he was sent to China to encourage terrorism and disrupt the efforts of the loyal workers.”

To Stratton’s surprise, Kangmei did not recite her indictment in monotone. Rather, her tone was impassioned, the words seemingly spontaneous. Her eyes seemed to glisten, but whether in rage or sorrow Stratton could no longer be sure.

Zhou said, “What did you do when you heard Stratton denounce your father?”

“I argued with him, Comrade. I became angry. I told him he was not worthy to visit our country, and that I was going to report him to the Public Security Bureau. When I tried to run out of his room, he grabbed me by the arms and threw me down on the floor. Then he kicked me between the legs … “

“No!” Stratton bellowed. “Kangmei, please, I know what’s happening, but—”

Zhou motioned to the jailer, who swiftly moved behind Stratton and dug a knee into the small of his back. Then he seized Stratton’s hair and yanked back so that Stratton was forced to stare up at the roof, his neck stretched tight. Zhou scooped a handful of rancid manure from the floor and dropped it into Stratton’s face. He retched.

“You will remain silent from now on,” Zhou said mildly.

Stratton stared back with dead eyes. His face was chalky.

Kangmei continued her story: “Stratton gagged me so I could not scream. Then he tied me to the bed in the room.”

“Then what?”

“He ripped my clothing off … and raped me.”

“Several times?”

“Yes, Comrade Zhou. Several times … and once in a terrible way.”

Stratton grimaced. A horsefly landed on one cheek, beneath his left eye. Even as it bit him, Stratton made no move to brush it away. His arms hung like butcher’s meat.

“Finally I was rescued when two comrades came to the hotel room. They must have heard me righting back. Stratton escaped, but at least my ordeal was over.”

Stratton gazed sadly at Kangmei, and shook his head back and forth with determination. Her eyes never softened.

Zhou said, “Kangmei, do you now see the folly of your actions? Do you understand why the government discourages contact with foreigners, especially decadent Americans? They are a menace to the state, a threat to everything we are working for. They are not to be trusted, and never to be believed. Stratton is a model of this—a murderer … “

“Murderer!” Kangmei agreed.

“A thief, a corrupter … “

“A thief!” she yelled in a suddenly shrill voice that startled Stratton.

“A rapist,” Zhou concluded.

“Rapist!” Kangmei cried. “A murderer and rapist!”

“You were deceived,” Zhou said.

“Yes, Comrade, and I am truly sorry. He seemed sincere and I believed him. I was blind, like a man who suddenly loses his sight and becomes confused.”

Stratton wasn’t looking when she said it, but he heard Kangmei’s voice crack.

“Blind, Comrade Zhou,” she repeated. “Nearsighted. Clumsy. Foolish.”

Stratton stiffened. He tested the muscles in his arms and legs with invisible isometrics. He hurt everywhere, but he willed himself to be ready.

“Blind,” Kangmei said softly. “Blind, blind, blind!” And with that, she plucked the bottle-bottom glasses from Zhou’s eyes and tossed them across Stratton’s cell. They landed in the worst corner. Insects scattered.

Zhou was utterly bewildered. The jailer shouted a question in Mandarin. Stratton did not wait for the answer. He rammed a fist into the side of Zhou’s head, spilling the inquisitor off the chair into a writhing heap.

Stratton grunted to his feet and stood rubber-legged, facing the jailer. The man dove for Stratton’s waist and brought him down. They rolled together in the fetid slop; the jailer, clawing for Stratton’s throat and eyes; Stratton, weak and nauseous, using his long arms and his weight to entangle his wiry attacker. Kangmei stood to the side, crying nervously.

“In the corner,” Stratton yelled. “Dig! By the window.”

The jailer hung on Stratton’s back, arms clenched around his neck in a fierce choke-hold. Stratton held his breath and rolled over.

Kangmei dug feverishly. Her hands uncovered the crude three-foot spear Stratton had fashioned from the leg of the chair. In another corner, Comrade Zhou groped pathetically for his eyeglasses in the excrement.

In the middle of the small cell, only Thomas Stratton was breathing normally. The jailer, pinned beneath him, was slowly suffocating in the muck. Stratton reeled to his feet and snatched the weapon from Kangmei.

Somehow Zhou had found his precious glasses and now he was at the door, pounding loudly. His black hair was matted, his clothes stained and sodden.

“Comrade. Tongzhil” he cried.

Stratton’s handmade bayonet tore through the inquisitor’s chest. He collapsed making noises like a leaky bicycle tire, a death wheeze.

“Thom-as, I am sorry. I am so sorry.” She was sobbing. “He made me do it.”

Stratton put a finger to his lips. For several moments, he listened at the door. “We must hurry,” he whispered. Kangmei dabbed at her eyes. Self-consciously she turned away as Stratton slipped into Zhou’s trousers. When she turned back, Stratton held her by the shoulders and said, “Your uncle is alive.”

“Oh, Thom-as!”

Stratton tested the door of the cell. It was unlocked. The corridor was empty. Kangmei took his hand and together they ran.

“Idiots! My orders are to be followed. When I say that a man must be guarded, I speak for the state and for the Party. I must be obeyed. You listen to stupid rumors like old women, and you behave as donkeys. I am still the deputy minister, and I still command here.”

Wang Bin burst into the attic cell. In a pregnant moment, much was said between the two brothers, but no words were spoken. David Wang looked up at his brother quizzically.

“It is not what it seems,” Wang Bin said finally. “I will explain later … and apologize. Now we must go quickly. Here, put on these, there is a chill.”

The deputy minister handed his brother a well-cut gray Mao suit with a mourner’s band pinned to the sleeve of the jacket, and a pair of vigorously polished black shoes, one-half size too small.

“Please, hurry, David. We must go.”

Befuddled, unspeaking, David Wang dressed and followed his younger brother into the night. Wang Bin walked briskly. He had but thirteen hours left.

“What do you mean you can’t drive?”

“I was never permitted to learn … it was not my job,” Kangmei stammered. “In this country, we have drivers—”

“Get in,” Stratton said.

The truck was a bad Chinese imitation of a bad Russian flatbed, but it was the only vehicle in the museum’s parking lot with keys in the ignition. Stratton’s original plan had been to hide under some lumber in the truck and let Kangmei navigate the escape, but now he had no choice. Night was on his side, but not much else. Any half-blind idiot would see that the driver of this truck was not Chinese. Stratton turned the key and urged the transmission into first gear. The clutch yelped like a dog on fire.

“This is terrific,” Stratton muttered as they trundled down the two-lane blacktop.

Kangmei gave him a puzzled stare. Stratton laughed and reached out for her hand. “Never mind,” he said. “Where to?”

“A very safe place,” she answered, “but a long, long way, Thom-as. Eighty kilometers.”

Stratton flicked the headlights on and tried to hunch down as low as he would go in the driver’s seat. Kangmei found a dirty canvas cap under the seat, dusted it off and stuck it on Stratton’s head.

“I’m worried about you,” he said after a few minutes. “If we get stopped, I’m running. You tell them I kidnapped you and stole the truck. Tell them you never saw me before. I want you to promise.”

“No,” Kangmei said quietly. “I will not lie again. My father made me say those things at the struggle session. I am very sorry. He told me you were a spy.”

“Did you believe him?”

“No.” She looked at him pridefully. “It wouldn’t matter if you were.”

The sluggish truck picked up speed alarmingly on a long downhill stretch. A quarter-mile ahead, Stratton could make out a group of commune workers, trudging home down the middle of the road. He pressed on the horn and they parted slowly. Their ox, however, was disinclined to yield the right of way. Stratton honked again and pumped the brakes slowly.

Incredibly, the barn-shouldered animal turned to face the noisy intruder.

“Oh, shit,” Stratton said. As the truck bore down on the ox, Stratton leaned hard on the horn. At the last second, he cut the wheel and steered onto the shoulder, around the ox and its peasant entourage. In the rearview mirror, he saw several men shake their fists at the truck. Kangmei trembled next to him.

“Sorry,” Stratton said sheepishly. “They acted like they own the road.”

“They do,” Kangmei said evenly.

The unlit road was newly paved in some sections, pocked and dangerous in others. The hill countryside was lush with citrus stands, cane fields and banana groves. Here and there the night was broken by a commune’s lights or the pinprick headlights of a distant truck, but mostly Kangmei and Tom Stratton were alone. Stratton recounted his confrontation with Wang Bin in the museum cell.

“But how could my uncle be alive?” Kangmei asked.

“Because your father is planning something, and he needs his brother—at least for a while,” Stratton conjectured. “When he’s done, I think Wang Bin will kill David. We don’t have much time. Kangmei, it’s important that we get out of China so I can contact the State Department. Hong Kong would be the best.”

“An overnight train from where we are going,” she said. “But you have no papers. How will you leave China?”

“Can we go tomorrow?”

Kangmei did not answer right away.

“If I return to Peking, your father will have me arrested,” Stratton said. “There is nowhere I can go but out. There’s nothing I can do here for David.”

“The place I’m taking you is very safe, Thom-as.”

“For me, maybe. Think of your uncle. If the U.S. Embassy only knew he was alive. Kangmei, we could call them in the morning—”

She shook her head glumly. “Where we are going, there are no telephones.”

“Do you believe what I’m telling you, that David is alive?”

Kangmei said, “I don’t know. It is hard to accept.” In the darkness, Stratton could not see the tension on her face, but he could sense it.

The boundaries of the mountain road became indistinct as it snaked through acres of tall pines. When the truck rattled past a plywood sign erected at the foot of a hill, Kangmei sat up and grabbed Stratton’s elbow.

“Slow down, Thom-as. The sign says there is a police stop ahead. One half a kilometer.”

Stratton quickly downshifted, pulled off the road and dimmed the lights. “We’ll never slip through with me at the wheel,” he said, turning to Kangmei. “How’d you like a driving lesson?”

Her eyes surveyed the simple dashboard instruments with trepidation. “I don’t think so,” she said.

“You’ve got to. Come here, sit closer and I’ll show you.” Stratton kept his foot on the clutch and ran through the gears one time. “Hell,” he said, “my father drove one of these tanks for thirty years. How hard can it be?”

Kangmei practiced with the truck idling.

“That’s good,” Stratton encouraged. “Remember to watch the speedometer needle. When it gets to here, shift into second. And here, third. When we get to the checkpoint, press the clutch pedal with your left foot, and put your right foot on the brake. You’ll have to use most of your weight because the drums on this truck are nearly shot. The important thing is to slow down smoothly so we don’t attract attention.”

“There is no one else on the road at this time of night,” Kangmei remarked. “The police certainly will ask questions.”

“I’ll be hiding in the back. There’s a bundle of wood and some old vegetable crates back there—”

“Thom-as, I don’t have my identification papers. They might arrest me.”

Stratton got out of the cab. Kangmei moved into the driver’s seat.

“Make up a story,” Stratton said, scouting the foggy highway. In both directions it was quiet, deserted. “Tell them you’re on the way to get medicine for the commune. The regular driver is sick.”

Kangmei’s hands explored the steering wheel. “What if they don’t believe me?”

“How many policemen will there be?”

“One, perhaps two at the most. It is so late … “

Stratton was thinking. He removed the dusty driver’s cap and placed it on Kangmei’s head. Gently he tucked her silken pigtails underneath it. “There! You look like a teenaged boy.”

She glanced down at her chest.

“Well, almost,” Stratton said. He climbed into the flatbed and concealed himself in the rummage and lumber. “Okay,” he called from the back. “Let’s go.”

The truck lunged forward, then coughed into a stall. Kangmei tried again with the same results. The third time the clutch engaged perfectly and the truck found the pavement. Stratton smiled to himself.

Kangmei drove slowly, eternally grateful that the stretch of road was straight so she could devote all concentration to mastering the transmission.

As the truck crested a small hill, Kangmei noticed a swatch of yellow light below. Half in panic, she mashed both feet on the clutch and let the truck coast. Gradually the details of the small police station became clear: a white booth, with a Chinese flag posted on the tin roof. Three bulbs hung from a slender wire; one lit the building and the other two a zebra-striped gate that blocked the road. Inside the booth stood a man in a blue-and-white uniform. He seemed not to notice how the truck stuttered downhill, Kangmei fighting for the brakes.

She brought it to a stop with a brief screech of the tires. The policeman, who had been dozing on his feet, glanced up sharply and peered out the window of the booth.

As he approached, Kangmei shook her hair out from under the cap.

“Ni nar?” the policeman demanded—the universal inquiry of Marxist China.

Kangmei gave the name of a commune not far from her own birthplace. She told the policeman she was a barefoot doctor there.

“Are you a driver too?” The policeman eyed her. He did not have a flashlight so he stood very close, sticking his head through the window of the cab. In the flatbed, Tom Stratton held his breath.

“No, Comrade, I am not a driver. This truck is assigned to the commune.” Kangmei made up a common name. “Children are sick, and so is the regular driver,” she went on. “We have run out of medicine and I am going to get some more at the clinic in Chungzho.” She fumbled in her blues for an imaginary piece of paper.

The policeman shrugged and waved her on.

“Xie xie, ni,” Kangmei called in the earnest tones of a heroic worker. She pressed the accelerator, lifted her foot off the clutch—and promptly stalled the truck. Heart pounding, she wrestled with the stick shift. First gear. She could not find first gear. Again she tried to move the truck and again the engine died. Don’t flood it, Stratton prayed from beneath the lumber and crates.

The policeman laughed and ambled back to the truck. “I hope you are a better doctor than you are a driver,” he said. “Let me try.”

“No, Comrade, I can do this,” Kangmei said defiantly. “I must do this myself—for my commune.” She turned the key, and from under the hood came a dying whine.

“Too much fuel in the carburetor,” the policeman diagnosed. “Wait a few minutes and it will be fine.” He opened the door to the cab. “Would you care to come in for a drink of tea?”

Kangmei reached for the door and slammed it. “No,” she said sternly. “I must hurry, Comrade. I told you, the children are very sick.”

Stratton had no idea what was being said. The slamming of the truck door alarmed him. Through the slats of the crate above his head, Stratton could see nothing but stars and wispy clouds. Gradually he levered himself up, turning his head slightly to gain a view of Kangmei. Suddenly the woodpile shifted and one of the vegetable crates fell, banging on the steel flatbed.

The policeman jumped at the noise. “What!” he said. “What was that?” He walked to the back of the truck and peered into the rubble of cargo. “Are you alone, driver?”

Kangmei twisted the key and jerked on the stick shift with all her strength. This time the engine responded, and the truck surged forward.

“There, I did it!” she exclaimed.

The flustered policeman dashed ahead of the truck to lift the zebra-striped gate before it could be demolished.

“Xie xie, ni,” Kangmei sang out as she drove past.

Stratton waited several miles before sitting up in the flatbed. Then he tapped on the rear window of the cab and signalled for Kangmei to pull over. She surrendered the driver’s seat with a sigh of relief.

“Your father must be a very skilled man, to drive a truck like this,” she said. “I am sure it is a most important job.”

“Well, it doesn’t exactly put you at the top of the social ladder in America,” Stratton said. “I’m not sure what you told that cop, but you must be a wonderful actress. And your driving isn’t bad for a beginnner. My old man would approve.”

Kangmei shyly turned away. Stratton tenderly stroked the back of her neck; her skin was warm velvet.

“Are there more road checks?”

“I don’t think so,” she replied distractedly. “None that I remember.”

“Are you tired?”

“Just a little, Thom-as. You are the one who needs to sleep.”

Stratton cruised slowly through the hillsides until he found what he was looking for. He drove the truck off the asphalt and steered it down a washboard track until it was out of sight from the road. He parked and turned off the lights. Tall trees swallowed them into shadows.

“We can nap here for an hour, but no more. We must not be on the road after the sun comes up.”

“Yes, we must finish the journey tonight.” Kangmei took Stratton’s hand and led him through the trees until they found a clearing. They lay down together on a natural mat of pine needles, ivy and crisp cedar leaves. Stratton closed his eyes; his mind fell, spinning through the clouds toward sleep. He barely felt Kangmei’s hands, gently pulling his shirt off. He heard her soft footsteps fade into the forest.

He quivered out of sleep when the cold water drenched his thigh.

“Ssshh. Lie still, Thom-as.” She sponged his face with a rag and kissed him on the forehead.

“There is a brook nearby, with clean water.” Kangmei washed the bullet wound in Stratton’s leg. She had pulled his trousers off. In the grayness of deep night, he lay pale and limp.

“We will see a doctor tomorrow,” she whispered. “He will treat the leg properly.”

Stratton smiled and reached up to capture her hand. Tenderly he kissed it. She looked down at him for a long moment, a young woman of timeless wisdom.

“Yes,” Stratton said at last. “Please.”

In silence, Kangmei stripped. Suddenly she was astride him, a velvet presence. She moved gently at first, back and forth, until she found his lips, and then his neck. Stratton closed his eyes and held her fiercely as she sank down on him again and again.

Later, when they were in the truck again, Kangmei revealed her secret. It was as if she had saved it for Stratton, saved it for the end.

“After they dragged me from your room in Xian, I was delivered to the police,” she began. “They were told I had been caught pilfering at a market. I was thrown into a cell with three other women. Each had been accused of stealing items from the Qin burial vaults. They were not mere peasants, but trusted workers on the site. Petty thieves, my father called them. Their arrests were part of a new campaign—banners, leaflets, announcements on the loudspeakers—all arranged by my father to show the ministry that he was cracking down against pilfering. It was a charade, Thom-as.”