The Golden Mountain Murders (15 page)

“Yes. I made a fire. For the first time since we left our village we were warm. I put chunks of the flesh on sticks and heated them over the flames. I burnt most of them but I don’t think I ever tasted anything as good as that meat – ever, in my whole life.”

“Did your wife like it?”

He looked away then said, “She cried for the thing. She said it was just a baby that it had its whole life ahead of it and all the lives it would help make. I looked at her. So sick. Yet she was concerned for this deer. ‘Its leg was broken,’ I said to her. ‘It would have died in the bamboo even if I had not found it.’ She looked at me. Her eyes were like the deer’s but angry. ‘Do not lie to me.’ ‘It is no lie. It would have died with me or without me. Animals would have eaten it, not us.’”

“Only then did she eat a little of the flesh. I begged her to eat more. She wouldn’t. She did help me cut the remaining flesh into thin strips and put it over the branches I’d spread by the side of the fire to start the drying.

“The next morning we packed our meat and began our descent. It was harder going down than up. The heavy mist clung to the rocks and I slid and fell many times. She, even that sick, had extraordinary balance and moved from one rock to the next like the jugglers that came through our village. No, that’s not right. She was more graceful. More beautiful. She was like a ghost in a dream.

“That night, our sixth, we lit no fire. We were closer to the east end of the mountains. The mouth to a large valley was to our east. There was a small village at the end of the valley. I put my jacket around her and told her to rest. I needed to go ahead and see what was what. I couldn’t imagine that the soldiers would have come this far. But they may well have called ahead. Besides small villages are suspicious places. Dangerous places for outsiders. Outsiders are not welcomed and when they do arrive the Party official is notified right away. I waited until the darkest time of night then approached from across their rice paddies. The night had gotten very cold. There was smoke coming from the chimneys of several of the larger huts. I moved from one to the next, avoiding the windows, then stepped into the mud street. At the far end of the row of huts was a wooden sign hung from the curved eaves. I can’t read but I recognized the character. An apothecary.

“The next morning we buried most of our herbs under a pile of rocks. Then we waited until the sun was high in the sky and entered the village. Wary eyes followed us as we made our way to the apothecary’s shop. Inside an old man was surrounded by dozens of jars of herbal medicines. The man looked away. He didn’t say a thing. ‘We have ylang-ylang for sale,’ my wife said. The man spat. ‘No, this is the real ylang-ylang.’

“He looked at us for the first time. His right eye was clouded and milky. He tilted his head to get us in focus with his left eye which was dark and very very clear. He held out an ancient claw. My wife reached into her pocket and pulled out a small piece of cloth. She unfolded it on the counter and put the small portion of ylang-ylang in the old apothecary’s hand. He held it, as if weighing it in his palm. Then he took one bud and crushed it between a yellowed thumbnail and his index finger. He brought his hand to his nose and sniffed. A surprised look crossed his face. ‘Ylang-ylang.’ ‘Ylang-ylang,’ my wife agreed. ‘How much?’

“Twenty minutes later we had agreed on a price. We returned to our hiding place. Took out the agreed-upon amount of ylang-ylang that we were going to sell to the apothecary. Put the rest of the herb inside my wife’s jacket – it made her look fat. It made me smile. My wife fat. How odd. An hour after that we had given the apothecary the amount of the ylang-ylang he had wanted and he gave us both the information about bus service to Beng Pu and more than enough money to buy two bus tickets.”

“We sat at the very back of the bus. My wife kept the bags of ylang-ylang safely inside her clothing. She slept. I watched. I’d never been east of the mountains before. There are great flat fields planted in wheat. Flat fields. No need to make paddies! And great temple gates outside some of the cities we passed. Have you seen them?”

These were common enough features in the country but he had evidently not seen them before, Fong. They were stone structures often four or five storeys in height. Usually three or stone four pillars supported a large slab crosspiece. On the crosspiece there was often an inscription honouring a person of significance from the region. The Red Army often had the tributes rewritten so that they praised the army or peasants in general but some of the original inscriptions still remain. Some are quite ancient. Many have been restored recently. These free-standing tributes to special people from the towns were often as close to shrines as China now has. Few were very impressive to us from Shanghai but to this man they were plainly special.

“Yes,” said Chen. “My village has one honouring a fisherman from long ago who taught us all how to fish with cormorants.”

The man smiled. “The bus passed many wonders. A huge raised bridge across farmland. Not across water. A bridge with no water beneath. Just fields down below.”

He was referring to one of the many viaducts that stretch across the best of our farmlands. A wise thing. China needs every available field to feed our population so the roads are lifted up over the most fertile farmland and the fields are planted in and around the posts of the raised roadway. That way very little arable farmland is wasted to road ways. But you know this already, Fong.

“Then we came to a great dam that holds back a river. I’d never seen anything so big. A huge lake was held back by the dam.”

As you know, Fong, that’s only true sometimes. Flooding in the interior plain is still common and deadly. But the dams are impressive. I hoped they hadn’t thought that the water being held back by the dam would lead them to the Yangtze because this water flows into the southern basin, not north to the Yangtze that would at least get them close to Shanghai. Then something occurred to me.

“Why go to Beng Pu?”

“There is a hospital there.”

I looked at Chen. He signalled me to continue.

“But there’s got to be a hospital in He Fei, and it’s the capital of your province, isn’t it? And it’s closer to you.”

Dong Zhu Houng stamped his feet, shuffled back and forth, then looked away from me. “It was the train, wasn’t it?” Chen said.

Chen was talking about the express train to Shanghai that stopped in Beng Pu.

Dong Zhu Houng stood. Chen came to him and put a hand on his shoulder. “It was good thinking.”

Dong Zhu Houng looked at Chen. “Beng Pu has the hospital and the train. He Fei has only the hospital.”

Classic peasant thinking. Good thinking. Chinese thinking. If you are going to have to travel, travel to the place where you have as many choices as possible. This kind of thinking is part of the strength of the whole country. Chinese. Very Chinese.

“What happened when you got to Beng Pu?” Chen asked.

The peasant didn’t answer.

Chen tried again, “How long was the bus ride to Beng Pu?”

“A full day and most of the night.”

Probably just over sixteen hours.

“We arrived in a drizzling rain in the biggest place I have ever seen.”

No doubt.

“There were so many people. Some not Han Chinese.”

There was a small but quite visible Muslim population in Beng Pu. They were closely monitored and had to this point caused no trouble, unlike their Western cousins.

“We asked directions to the hospital but people either ignored us or spoke so quickly that we couldn’t understand what they were saying. We were concerned because we didn’t have residency passes and there were many police officers. So we walked. And walked. We went through the markets that only sold straw mats. Some blue and some wheat-coloured. But so many and just mats. Then we came upon the ox- and cow-trading market. People shouted numbers and . . . it’s funny but the thing I remember most is the thousands and thousands of bicycles that were all parked together in one place. I couldn’t help wondering how you ever found your own bicycle in all that. What if you took the wrong one? And none of them were locked. And they were all basically the same colour. Isn’t it funny, but that’s what I remember most about the markets in Beng Pu.”

“Then what happened?” Chen asked.

“We found Hao Zhou.”

The herbal medicine market.

“All day my wife had been walking like she was in a fog. She bumped into things. Sometimes I had to almost carry her. I couldn’t actually lift her and carry her in the city or some police officer would have seen so I held her up by her arm. But even that attracted attention. I noticed that none of the other couples touched. So I had to let her sort of stagger along beside me. She hadn’t spoken since we got to Beng Pu. I was hoping that the bus ride would allow her time to regain her strength but I was afraid it hadn’t. In fact something new seemed to be happening to her. I couldn’t say what. But something new . . . something bad.”

“What happened when you got to the herbal medicine market?”

“My wife seemed to wake up. Her eyes got a little clearer and she looked with real interest at the products that were being sold there from tables and burlap bags on the ground. About halfway through the market she tugged on my sleeve, ‘Ours is much finer than anything here.’ ‘Shall we try to sell some of our herb here?’
‘No. These are sellers not buyers. We need to know who they sell to.’ I pointed to all the people here. ‘No,’ she said. ‘These are regular people looking to buy small quantities for themselves or their families. We need to know what stores buy here then resell the herbs.’

“I looked at her in wonder again. I have no idea how she knew things like that. She approached a woman a little older than herself who had a white hospital hat on her head. ‘Are you a nurse?’ my wife asked. ‘No, sweetie, but the hat is good for business.’ I didn’t understand this but my wife evidently did. ‘Gonna buy something? You look a wee bit peckish.’

“My wife smiled and moved away. I followed her. She approached several different dealers. Most sold medicinal herbs. Some sold spices. She ignored the spice sellers but watched closely as the biggest of the vendors plied their trade. About an hour after we arrived something caught her eye. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘That man,’ she said, pointing to a very ordinary-looking man who, like most of the others in the market, was dressed in a blue Mao jacket with a blue cap on his head and dark blue pants. ‘What about that man?’ I was worried that this might be a police officer. ‘He has a notebook.’ I hadn’t noticed that. ‘And he’s been at almost all of the biggest stands. He talks to the sellers then jots down something in his book.’ ‘The price?’ I asked. ‘Probably and the quantity available. He also touches the herbs in the right way. He must be a buyer for a shop.’ ‘Maybe his own shop?’ ‘Maybe.’

“I followed the man with my eyes and sure enough he approached another large stall and did just as my wife had said. ‘So what do we do?’ I asked. ‘We follow him until he goes back to his shop.’

“And that is what we did. It wasn’t until late in the afternoon that he finally left the market. We followed him. ‘What if he goes home and not to his shop?’ I asked. ‘Then we sleep outside his home and follow him the next day.’

“I couldn’t believe how strong she was. But fortune was with us. We followed him down several back alleys, through a courtyard and finally to a small door with a sign over top. It was not an apothecary sign. I looked from the sign to my wife. She was ghostly pale. ‘What does the sign say?’ ‘Nothing.’ ‘What do you mean it says nothing?’ ‘This man is not allowed to say what it is he does, so the sign says Medical Help.’ ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ ‘No, husband. He’s an abortionist.’

“I was shocked. I had only heard of such things but never imagined in my life I would ever meet such a man. ‘What kind of herbs was he looking for then?’ ‘Those to put people to sleep. Those to stop bleeding. Those to produce heat.’ ‘But I thought he was also noting our ylangylang.’ ‘He was.’ ‘But what would an abortionist want with a plant that helps men stay strong.’ ‘I don’t know. Let’s ask.’

“Before I could do anything, she had knocked on the door and pushed it open. The place was small and dank. A single bare light hung from a ceiling. A table that smelled of bleach was in the centre of the room. Around it were counters with herbs and plants in bottles. The man threw aside a leather curtain and walked into the room. Without any introduction he came right up to my wife and reached for her. She allowed him to touch her – rather to touch the bags of herbs she wore around her body.

“‘What’s this?’ His voice was thin and there was a slyness in his eyes that I really didn’t like. He reached up and turned her face into the light. ‘What do you two want?’ He pushed her aside and noted exactly where his hands had touched her. ‘You sell ylang-ylang,’ she said. He looked at me; a nasty smile was on his lips. ‘He’s a little young to have the droops.’ Before I could say anything, my wife said, ‘He does not droop. He is strong like a young horse. And ready any time I call.’ The man backed off a step. ‘Then what are you here for. You’re not pregnant. You’re sick somehow, but not pregnant.’ ‘I’m not sick,’ my wife said, with so much strength it astonished me.

“Then she opened one side of her Mao jacket to reveal one of our three bags of herbs tied to her side. ‘Ylang-ylang,’ she said, ‘directly from the high valleys of Da Bie Shan.’ ‘All the way from the mountains? You wouldn’t be lying about that, would you?’ ‘No.’ ‘You wouldn’t by any chance have a government licence to sell ylang-ylang, would you?’ ‘You wouldn’t by any chance have a licence to perform abortions, would you?’ my wife fired back. The man permitted a small smile to his lips. ‘So is it real ylang-ylang?’

“My wife nodded and held out two perfectly intact dried yellowish-green flowers. The man looked at them, then reached out and plucked one from her palm. He turned it slowly in the light and allowed himself to nod. ‘Ylang-ylang.’ ‘Ylang-ylang.’ ‘Wild ylang-ylang.’ ‘Wild ylangylang.’ Then he looked at her more carefully. ‘How much of this do you have?’ ‘How much money do you have?’”

“We spent that night in a room that we paid for. I have never been in such a place. The bed smelled bad, but it was a bed. The water ran brown from the tap, but there was water. Down the hall was a place for my wife to clean herself. I think she suffered most because in our travels she couldn’t relieve herself whenever she needed to. Here she could. As well, for a few more grams of the herb the man told us the name of both a hospital and a traditional healer and how to get to both.”