The Ghost Shift (4 page)

They finished by boxing in pairs; one partner holding up a pad while the other launched a flurry of punches, throwing vertical fists forward with the full weight of arm and body. The
sifu
partnered with Mei; she tried to force him backward with punches, but he didn’t move. He looked at her impassively, absorbing the force with ease as her face reddened. He was an old man, small and white-haired, but it was like trying to shift a tank.

“You’re shooting a cannonball from a bow, Song Mei. What is wrong this morning? You must be relaxed, like water flowing, then the force is in the punch. Hold this.”

She held the pad against her chest, and he stretched out his right arm, resting his fingers against it. Then he straightened his arm from the elbow, forming a fist that flowed forward as though she weren’t there. She felt an explosion against her chest and found herself flattened on the grass.

“No tension,” the
sifu
said.

Yao was in
his usual seat in the commissary, eating with the appetite of a man who had not seen a corpse the night before. He was dipping deep-fried
youtiao
into a bowl of rice congee, and he grinned at Mei as he stuffed the golden stick of dough into his mouth. Bile rose in her throat as she watched, dehydrated from exercise and haunted by the night.

“Yao, you’re disgusting.”

“What’s wrong?” His smile grew wider, and she looked away to avoid the sight of half-chewed dough.

She sat next to him with a glass of orange juice and a bowl of congee and picked at the white gruel with a spoon.

“Why so silent last night?” he said. “What’s the Wolf’s secret?” He sounded amused, but she knew it was killing him not to know.

“Nothing.”

“The cops said there was a body out there. Wen told them to wait for a guy from the Party, then the Wolf turned up and took over. Who was she?”

Mei thought of the Wolf’s last words in the marsh.
No one knows who she was. Remember that.

“How should I know? Some girl who got herself into trouble. I didn’t ask questions.”

“But he wanted you to see. You’re his special agent now?”

“Get lost.”

She shoved a spoonful of congee into her mouth, then regretted it and tried to ease the slimy rice down her throat without gagging. Yao looked dissatisfied, but he didn’t say any more. He always pushed as far as he could until she got angry and then backed off. That had been the pattern since they’d been matched as interns.

Mei had to fight the urge to be grateful for Yao’s friendship. She was a nobody and he was a chosen one—fresh out of Tsinghua University in Beijing, lanky and good-looking, charm to spare. She hadn’t known how to treat him at first because she’d never known anyone so privileged, anyone who took his status so much for granted. The cadres all laughed at his jokes, and the lecturers indulged him if he needed more time to complete an essay after a weekend home in Beijing. Yet without knowing why, she noticed that he was trying to please her—his eyes would rest on her as he told a story, waiting for her approval.

Mei didn’t have a brother, but that was what he’d become. He asked for her help on assignments and she indulged him, feeling a glow of superiority. They wrangled over everything from how to handle cases to who would eat the last dumpling. For some reason, she caught his attention in a way others could not. Even if he had a girlfriend in tow, he would spend the evening talking mainly to Mei and neglecting the girl. He irritated Mei, often infuriated her, but his presence was reassuring.

As she gulped down the last bit of gruel, Yao scrambled to his feet, his eyes on someone behind her. She followed his gaze and then stood up herself. Standing at her shoulder was Pan Yue, the deputy secretary in charge of training.

“Comrade Song, come with me,” Pan said, walking toward the exit that led to her office.

As Mei followed, the others watched out of the corners of their eyes, wondering if she was in trouble or being singled out for praise.

Pan had been the first official to address the twenty recruits three months before, and they needed to satisfy her to get permanent jobs at the Commission at the end of their training. She had no life other than the Party: none that anyone knew about, anyway. She was the first one to her desk in the morning and never seemed to leave—her office light gleamed constantly. Her only respite was to the gym in the compound; her clothes hung on her as if she had lost weight and had never bought new ones.

“I’ve examined your reports, Song Mei,” Pan said as they walked. She gave a thin smile and nodded approvingly. “They are excellent. You are fulfilling our expectations when we recruited you.”

“Thank you, Deputy Secretary. I try to do my best.” Mei had seen Pan’s mouth move and heard her words, but they felt disconnected. She always wondered how she’d been recruited to the Commission. It remained a mystery. A letter had come one day asking her to an interview, even though she hadn’t applied. She had been “recommended,” it stated.

“You performed excellently at Sun Yat-sen University.”

“Yes, thank you.”

“I am impressed by your achievements. You did not have an easy upbringing, but you show great character.”

Mei nodded. It felt foolish to keep thanking the woman. Mei had worked insanely hard to ace her exams, spending long nights memorizing facts. From childhood, she’d been driven by the fear of not escaping Guilin, of spending her life in a backwater. She’d known she had to break out.

“Sit here with me,” Pan said as they reached her office, indicating a leather chair in the corner. The springs sank uncomfortably under Mei when she sat, and she had to hitch herself upright.

Pan’s office was featureless—ugly desk, steel cabinet that seemed to date from the 1949 Revolution, Party certificates on the walls, Party mementos on the shelves. There was a photograph of Pan with
a Politburo member in the Great Hall of the People, and a pair of tiny flags commemorating a friendship event with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. If she had any pleasures in life apart from doing the right thing, they were not visible.

“Secretary Lang asked you to help him last night.”

Pan’s eyes fastened on her and her smile dimmed, the pleasantries over. Mei came to attention with a jolt.

“Yes, Deputy Secretary.”

“He clearly understands your potential and wishes to encourage you. Tell me what happened.”

Mei picked her words carefully, trying to seem cooperative without giving too much away. “He asked me to attend a crime scene in Dongguan. A young woman had died, I’m not sure how.”

“What an interesting mission.” Pan’s smile returned and she nodded, endorsing the Wolf’s decision. “Who was the girl?”

“I don’t know. I was not told.”

“And now the police have closed the case. Ah well, nasty things can happen in Dongguan, I’m sad to say. Some girls do not do behave themselves in the city. You are not too shocked?”

“No, I am okay.”

“Secretary Lang has had a distinguished career, serving the Party. I expect you know that,” Pan said.

“I believe so.”

“We can learn much from him. He had to overcome obstacles, as you did. There was an incident early in his career involving his wife. It could have set him back, but he regained the Party’s trust.”

Pan nodded significantly, and Mei nodded back. A lesson was being imparted, but she was mystified as to what.

“Even good men can be led astray. Their brains do not always guide them. Women hold up half the sky, Mao said. Sometimes, we carry more of the weight, don’t we?”

“Yes, we do.” Mei tried to smile in a complicit way, but Pan seemed to be talking to herself.

“Especially old men.” The warmth was gone from Pan’s face. “They often make fools of themselves.” She paused. “I will give you a
piece of advice, Song Mei. Do not permit yourself to be misled. It would be a shame.”

“No, Deputy Secretary.”

Mei felt a tremor of panic. Without doing anything but obey orders, she had been caught between the Wolf and his deputy. She had no idea what was going on. All she knew was that a body had appeared to her in the night and turned her life into a mystery.

“Now,” Pan said, smiling. “I have a task for you.”

The blue steel cranes stood to attention at Humen Port, saluting the sky. Far above Mei and Yao, a crane lifted a container toward a cargo vessel docked by the side of the Pearl River. She gazed upward as the operator, invisible in his cabin, swung the giant box through space and settled it in place on the pile of others, like giant Lego bricks.

It was a fine day for Guangdong. The smog had thinned sufficiently to allow the sun to gleam and for Mei and Yao to feel its glow. Yao had removed his jacket and walked with it slung over one shoulder, Dolce & Gabbana shades perched on his nose. He swung the other arm in rhythm to one of his father’s old marching tunes, which he whistled to get on Mei’s nerves. She still had a headache a day after her encounter with Pan, not helped by the tang of oil and chemicals in the air.

The ship was one of five sitting under the row of cranes. The vessels were leviathans—vast and fat underneath hundreds of containers piled so high that it seemed as if they might roll over at sea. As Mei and Yao walked, the ground trembled. A train moved slowly along tracks set into the dockside as cranes removed the load from one ship. The river looked muddy green in the sunshine. In the channel, an enormous number of boats—steamers, ferries, and cargo vessels—plied their way back and forth. Water lilies and weeds floated by the dock, feeding on the oily scum.

Dongguan sprawled to the east; a mile to the south, a line of trucks trailed across the Humen Bridge, high above the river. The
Pearl River was a trading place for the world, as in the nineteenth century. The iron cannons that had fired on British gunships in the Opium Wars of the 1840s still sat in their stone barricades by the bridge. The British had enfeebled the Canton population by trading opium from Indian poppies for Chinese commodities, so weak and compliant had been the Qing emperors. The Party was a far tougher negotiator with its trading partners—it took Treasury bonds instead.

“This is better than lectures. How did you get us the job?” Yao said.

“Treat me nicely and you get rewarded.” But Mei wasn’t as happy as Yao about their day out. She wondered if it wouldn’t be simpler to be back in a stuffy classroom than doing Pan’s bidding.

Two dockers stood smoking by the side of a truck a hundred or so feet ahead. One of them bent down and snorted, vacating phlegm onto the dockside. Then he looked up at Mei and grinned, showing the gap where a tooth was missing. He said something to his companion that Mei couldn’t hear, and the other man laughed in response, gazing at her. As Yao drew his breath to speak, Mei put a hand out and touched his arm. She could handle it.

“Which one is the
Yunnan
?” she asked tooth man in Cantonese.

He looked blank, so she repeated the question in Mandarin. It was hard to tell before anyone spoke what language or dialect they used. Like a magnet, Guangdong drew people from all across China and beyond—dockers, workers, traders, and hucksters of all kinds. The local taxi drivers and market stallholders complained loudly in Cantonese about becoming a minority in their own province.

“You hitching a ride, baby? Where are you heading?” He had a northern accent Mei couldn’t place—perhaps Heilongjiang?

She said nothing, reaching into her jacket to produce her identity card. He saw the five gold stars—the largest one representing the Party—stamped on a red circle and stiffened. He threw his cigarette aside, twisting a foot on it to crush the embers.

“That way.” He pointed to the next vessel, two hundred yards beyond. It sat higher in the water than those around it as the last of its cargo was removed.

The
Yunnan
looked as if it had seen a good portion of the world.
It was black and red, its paintwork faded and battered where it rubbed against the dock. The deck was flat, with nothing to block the view of the ship’s stack of cabins, topped by a navigation deck with its broad sweep of glass that glinted in the sun. A gangway slanted on the ship’s side, and Mei saw a tiny figure walking up it. Her heartbeat quickened and her palms pricked as she realized that it was the way to board.

She’d spent her childhood in Guilin with her feet planted firmly on the ground, but Guangzhou was full of skyscrapers. Two years earlier, when they’d finished the new Canton TV Tower, which rose above the Pearl River like a twisted bundle of firewood molded in white steel, a college friend from Sun Yat-sen had insisted on ascending what was then the world’s tallest building. Mei felt a vague sense of dread but lacked the nerve to refuse. She knew she was in trouble when they were shown into the elevator at the foot of the tower. After one glance through the steel girders as they rose, she closed her eyes and pushed against the rear of the elevator.

When they stepped onto the 107th floor observation deck, she’d felt a new kind of terror, like nothing she’d ever experienced. The black tiles stretching to triangular windows at the edge seemed to melt before her, tipping her toward the river, nearly fifteen hundred feet below. Luli, her girlfriend, had clattered to a glass-floored wedge protruding into space and cried at Mei to take her photograph. It was unthinkable. Crushed by vertigo, she knelt on the cold floor with her eyes gripped shut. She could not bear to watch the jagged rows of apartment blocks and office towers melting into the misty distance beyond the curve of the river.