A Perfect Crime (10 page)

‘You could’ve killed your aunt. Why the girl?’ the prison officer said.

‘My aunt’s strong. It was easier to kill the girl.’

The officer gestured to the others not to laugh.

‘And to think I thought you might have been someone.’

The others bent over, gasping, ‘strong’, ‘easier’, jumping around in their laughter. This lasted for some time. I decided to take a lesson from my favourite Hong Kong films. It was all a matter of patience. I could spend years grinding down my toothbrush, until it was sharp enough to murder them. Then I’d take them, one by one.

I looked at the overturned piss pot lying on the floor and tears of humiliation ran down my cheeks. The officer was yawning and flapped the blanket over his flabby belly. I tossed the wet towel on the floor, picked up the piss bucket and smashed it down on his head. He fell to the ground. Then I started smashing his face as if it was a stone. I nearly pulverised him.

Thinking he was dead, I turned to my fellow inmates, now trembling. But at that moment, the
officer grabbed hold of my trouser leg. I heard him spit blood, then he spoke.

‘Go on, kill me.’

I picked up the bucket and hit him again. He gasped, his limbs twitched out and he fell unconscious.

‘He asked me to kill him,’ I said to the others, quietly. But it sounded too soft. ‘I’ve already murdered one person. Doesn’t make much difference now,’ I snarled.

The inmates seemed to realise that something was up and started beating at their washbasins. The officers came rushing and tried to bring order, but the cells were rowdy, like the boys’ changing room after PE.

I was put into solitary.

Again, the investigator asked me, ‘Why did you kill Kong Jie?’

‘Because I hate my aunt.’

‘But why kill Kong Jie if the person you hate is your aunt?’

‘I couldn’t kill my aunt, but I wanted her to know I’m not a pushover.’

It was a forced kind of logic, I know, but it was good enough. In order to make it more persuasive, I added something about wanting to rape Kong Jie, and then I decided to implicate old Mr He next door by making up something about how he and my aunt had hurt me badly. That they were in cahoots. I finished with some
bull about my aunt being a country woman with the mindset of a petty capitalist. This made their eyes light up. The loose links of my logic had now become tight and unbreakable, all because of these buzzwords. I was feeling pretty satisfied.

I
n truth, it’s pretty difficult to kill a man. On one of our breaks outside, I saw the officer being led around, his face blue and swollen. He spotted me and in his eyes I saw panic because he couldn’t get his revenge. He wasn’t faking it. If it hadn’t been for the other guards, he would have accepted the death penalty as a price worth paying for being able to run over to me there and then and strangle me. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye, almost coquettishly. This would probably make him more sick.

A few days later I was led into a meeting room. I sat waiting until the door opened and then a man wearing reading glasses and with neatly combed white hair walked in. He bowed to each of the prosecutors, one by one.

‘Excellent, excellent,’ he said.

My first impressions were not good. This guy was a running dog if ever I’d seen one.

He acted like we were old acquaintances, asking me politely where he should sit. Wherever, I said. He said
he didn’t want to cause me any pressure. Finally he moved a bench over and sat in front of me. Only then did I realise that he was right, having him sit in front of me like this made me feel trapped in his gaze. It was pretty uncomfortable. But I didn’t say anything.

‘Relax,’ he said. ‘I’m not a policeman and I don’t work for the judiciary. I have no legal right to punish or incarcerate you and I’m not here to pass judgement. I’m an old man of sixty-four and you are only nineteen, but here we are equals. I want us to talk, open up. Fate has brought us together.’

I took his business card:

He watched me read it, then said, ‘I’m just an ordinary citizen.’

He took out a packet of cigarettes and asked if I wanted one. I accepted without saying anything and he leaned over to light it. I remembered a film I saw once where a man lit a cigarette like this and was then captured by the prisoner and taken hostage himself. The lighter wouldn’t produce a flame, but he kept
flicking patiently. I was starting to like him. Maybe I could tell him some personal things. The thought was a beautiful one, in the same way mathematics is beautiful and in that beauty you can find comfort. I needed the right person to listen. I just wanted him to listen.

He took a pile of loose papers from his briefcase, licked his finger and began flicking through them. They were covered in red notes. He put some to one side. He carried on like this for some time. I smoked alone. It was my first cigarette in ages and I was surprised by the taste. It almost tasted of shit. I felt dizzy, like I’d been drinking cheap booze. The sun came flooding through the window. I’d been longing for it while alone in my cell, but now I just felt hot and itchy.

Eventually he finished tidying the papers on the table, looked up. ‘Uh huh.’ He pinched the fingers of his left hand together (as if catching a mosquito) and spoke.

‘Do you think this kind of incident is an exception or quite common in today’s society?’

‘An exception.’

‘Uh huh. It does seem to be an exception, but in fact exceptionality and normality are united in their opposition. Normal behaviour contains abnormal behaviour and exceptional incidents embody society’s norms. We must find the reason here.’

The chances of us talking had been ruined. He was
right, but it was the kind of right that gave no moral nourishment. I had no idea what he was doing here, other than showing off his education. He was like an old sheep, soft and warm, kind-looking. He could have decided to be a good listener.

Suddenly he asked me who I lived with before the age of five.

‘Grandpa and Grandma.’

‘What did they give you?’

‘Love.’

‘What kind of love?’

‘Unconditional. They spoilt me.’

‘To what degree?’

I began talking, it flowed out, moving stories of their love. His pen moved quickly. In the gaps between my stories he drew lines in his papers, as if solving a mathematical problem. He wanted answers and that made me despise him. If he’d given the matter two seconds’ thought, he would have realised no one could have such clear memories of life before they turned five. I reminisced about my short life just as he requested: when I went back to live with my parents, when I left again, my moves between schools in the village, county town and provincial capital, the pressures and troubles that had brought me to my critical juncture.

‘Do you think leaving the life in which you were the
object of your grandparents’ love was beneficial or detrimental to you?’

‘It did much more harm than good. It’s essentially the reason I killed Kong Jie.’

He was jumping with excitement, as was his pen on the page. He made one last stab in his notes. Full stop. He took to his feet like a scientist who had discovered a new wonder cure or a writer who had just finished his masterwork. Caught in the ecstasy of creation. He would probably have embraced me had it not been for the armed police in the room. Controlling himself, he feigned a pained expression.

‘You, son, are a typical case of a fallen prince.’

‘No, I’m the redeemer.’

I brushed him away, my heart filled with loathing and bitter disappointment.

T
wo days later I was led once again into the meeting room with the same camera set up. I felt an overwhelming weight, like I was standing high up on a stage, my lapels fluttering in the wind, and thousands of expectant faces looking up at me. I was used to straightening my hunched spine, putting on a show of spiritedness, but not capriciousness. It was a painstaking performance, a completely different me.

The person sitting before me, trying to make me feel
comfortable, was a female journalist. The table had been removed, there was nothing between us. She had short, permed hair, alabaster skin and an ever so slightly plump, round face. She wore a hemp-grey Western suit jacket and navy skirt. She was leaning forward, her fingers criss-crossed and placed on her raised knees, smiling (as if smiling was the mouth’s only function). Her chin was raised, ever so slightly looking up. Her eyes never left me.

It was like being cursed. I felt a sudden urge to plead with her. I was awaiting her instructions.

‘Don’t think about the camera,’ she said.

‘Uh huh.’

I was shy. Her teeth were white and straight, the tone of her voice warm, like a breeze flitting through leaves, deep and richly magnetic. Every word was itself a form of clarity.

She passed me the morning paper. The vice-president of the City Education Association had concluded that there were three contributing factors as to why I had committed murder:

1.  A failure in my upbringing.

2.  Pressure resulting from the college entrance exams.

3.  Negative societal influence.

He finished with more nonsense, meant to prevent

similar incidents in the future:

1.  Understanding and comprehension.

2.  Attention and patience.

3.  Equality and reciprocity.

‘What do you think?’ she asked me.

‘Bullshit.’

I already knew what she wanted. She smiled broadly.

‘Then why do you think you did it?’

‘Diversion. I’d say diversion.’

‘What did you want diversion from?’

She nodded, her eyes leading me on. I was desperate to speak. I began telling her the truth, one sentence, two sentences, but then in burst a middle-aged man (like a lion trespassing into our territory, she was my lioness). He was clutching a piece of paper which she read, reclined in her seat and exchanged meaningful looks with him as he left.

That was it, it was over, whatever there had been between us. I shut my mouth.

‘Diversion from what?’ she asked with a heavy heart, having seemingly forgotten my earlier explanation.

‘Nothing,’ I said.

Then I said, ‘For a moment, you reminded me of my cousin.’

She liked this and leaned forward again. It was the
most hypocritical thing I’d ever witnessed. To think I’d thought her worth trusting, just like my cousin. Now I could see that supposed sincerity for what it was, a superficial technique. She was trying to cheat an answer out of me. Everything was leading to this; even her dress and make-up were carefully chosen to this end. As soon as I’d given her what she wanted, she would leave, high- fiving her colleagues on a job well done.

‘Please continue with what you were saying,’ she said.

‘I’ve got nothing to say,’ I said.

The atmosphere became frosty and she wasn’t expecting it. In one last-ditch attempt, she started an onslaught of ridiculous questions.

‘What does it feel like to be sent away from home?’

‘It’s not what you’re thinking, I wasn’t constantly burning with anger.’

This was possibly my last offer of kindness, but she didn’t take it. Instead she rushed to the next question.

‘What was it that stopped you from putting the fire out?’

‘Putting the fire out?’

‘I mean, the flames of your rage, your desire to kill?’

‘It was impossible.’

‘How come?’

‘Because the ground beneath me was burning.’

‘So you just let the flames grow?’

‘I didn’t let them grow, they were going to grow without me.’

We carried on like this, not fully understanding each other, until she decided she had had enough. She turned her back on me and spoke to the camera. She read the words beautifully:

I wanted to cry. If I’d known someone was going to write such a shit poem, I wouldn’t have killed her.

N
o one came to visit after that. I was handcuffed and tied by my feet, like a bear in captivity. After hours of sitting for too long, I began to feel like I’d become stuck to the cold, damp floor, that I had become part of the building. I’d heard people say that prisoners could spend a whole afternoon playing with one ant and eventually were able to distinguish between males and females. But there were no insects here, so I had my hands on my crotch most of the time. In, out. My hands were sticky from semen and smelt like a fish market. I took to wiping them on the soles of my feet until they were black with grime. I didn’t do it for pleasure, I was just bored senseless.

I asked the guard for a Rubik’s cube, but was refused. I said it wasn’t exactly a lot to ask.

‘What would be the point of locking you up if I were to give you a Rubik’s cube?’

He pulled the small metal window shut and I start thumping at it.

‘What’s a Rubik’s cube got to do with my incarceration?’

He ignored me. I asked him again when he came with food.

‘You want to play with the Rubik’s cube. If I gave you one, I would be undermining any sense of punishment.’ He was kind of right.

I started obsessing over my arrest; the blue skies of freedom outside my window didn’t occupy my thoughts much. I could have pushed over the police officer and run. I could have used stones or a kitchen knife to keep passers-by away. They would probably have shot me. Instead, I sat alone in my cell facing the immeasurable void that was time itself. Life’s petty problems (frustrated commutes, tedious work, inconsequential arguments, sexual escapades) were all designed to create a screen between the flesh and time’s inevitable stranglehold. But I was stuck in my cell, with nothing to do, or at least nothing that could keep me occupied for more than a few minutes, and time’s infinite embrace kept leaning towards me. Herculean, invincible, omniscient, flesh without feeling, it listened not to your entreaties, cared not for your sorrows, it was the dirt always crushed, the waves always crashing, it forced itself into every space, drowned you, dismembered you, it pressed on top of you so that its weight felt solid, it dug into you like a quick, relentless bamboo arrow piercing through your nails. There was no resisting it. It was a slow demise. My father’s image came to me and hot tears gathered in my eyes.