The Golden Mountain Murders (16 page)

He looked up at me. “Finally there was a way to get my wife some help. But that night she was very sick. She called out all night long and the people in the next rooms complained. Well before daylight the proprietor had thrown us out of the room. He also charged us much more than we had agreed upon. But I could not fight. I needed to find help for my wife.

“It was hard in Beng Pu to know when the sun was up. The whole place seemed surrounded in clouds but not like in the mountains. There were smoke clouds from the factories. The walls and streets were slick with wet ash. We both held our noses as we made our way towards the traditional healer’s shop.

“We bought some food from a ten-spice egg seller. I ate mine in almost one swallow but my wife only took a tiny bite from the top of her egg. ‘Please, eat.’ ‘I can’t.’

“When we arrived at the traditional healer’s shop, he was finishing his morning porridge. He smiled at me. He had no teeth. He turned to my wife. He allowed his old head to nod up and down several times and pointed to a chair. My wife sat and he indicated that she should remove her jacket. I stepped to one side when she did. The scars were much more numerous now and several of them bled. Again the old man let his head nod up and down several times. ‘Have you been sick long, child?’ ‘Months.’ ‘Did you give blood?’ It hurt me deeply to see her cry. ‘Yes.’ ‘Put your jacket back on.’

“He turned to me. ‘Take her to the hospital but be careful. They may deport you to one of the compounds. Do the authorities at your home village know about this?’ I nodded. ‘Well, then, I wouldn’t be surprised if your entire village is already under quarantine or moved to the camp.’ He went to his jars of medicines and began to put bits of this and that together into a stone bowl. Then with a large pestle he mashed the ingredients together. When they were fully mixed, he took small amounts of it and put them into each of twelve small paper packets, which he folded shut. ‘Make her a tea out of this. Boil the water fully then let it sit until it is just too hot to put your hand in. Then put one packet of this into the hot water. Swirl it around until the mixture is basically dissolved. Then she must drink it right away. And she must drink it all. It will not get rid of the sores but it will help her system fight the infection that is causing them. She can only take the medicine for twelve days. It is very strong and can kill her if she takes too much. Bring her to the hospital. See what they can do. But be careful. Do you know what this disease is called?’

“It hadn’t occurred to me until that moment that my wife had a disease. I just thought she was sick. I know that sounds stupid.”

“It doesn’t. You are not a doctor. You are just a man with a sick wife.” I shot Chen a look. His use of the present tense bothered me. This man’s wife was dead, not sick. “What did he tell you the disease was called.”

“AIDS.”

“Had you heard of this disease?”

“No.”

Chen nodded. “How did she take to the tea.”

“I’d never seen her so sick. So terrified. I had begged an outdoor stall to let me brew the tea. I couldn’t believe how much money they charged me to boil water. I prepared the tea as I had been instructed. My wife sat at the end of the alley with her back against a wall. I think she was delirious. I brought the tea back to her. At first she pulled her head away from the smell of the drink. Then she opened her mouth and allowed me to put some in her mouth. She spat it out. I begged her to drink it. She finally did, then threw away the bowl. It crashed against the cold stone wall of the building on the other side of the narrow alley. Then she burped. It made her smile. Then her smile disappeared and she grabbed her stomach and cried out in pain. She was like that for hours. I held her and rocked her. And cleaned her when she shat in her pants. Finally she slept on my lap. We stayed like that all night. I just hoped we were far enough back in the alley not to be seen and reported.

“The next morning she had a little strength and we made our way to the hospital. I tried to figure out if it was safe for her but I really didn’t know how. I discovered where you had to go to get to see a doctor but saw quickly that you had to present a residency card for Beng Pu. So I waited and watched. A young doctor was looking after those checking in. Several nurses worked for him and were efficiently dividing up the incoming patients. The flow of patients continued without let up until just before noon. Then things began to slow down. I watched a patient being led through the doors by the doctor. I let a little time pass then followed them. I went down several hallways and then saw an open door. This young doctor was tapping the patient’s back with his hands. Words were exchanged between the two then a nurse stepped forward and talked to the patient. As she did the young doctor slipped out of the room and headed down a corridor. I followed him. He left the hospital by a side door and travelled quickly for several blocks then went down a series of steps into an eating place. Once I saw him take his seat I rushed back to the hospital and got my wife who had been sitting on a bench in the sun at the east side of the building. For a moment when she saw me, I don’t think she knew who I was. Then she smiled, ‘Let’s go home,’ she said. ‘No, let’s go see the doctor.’”

“The young doctor was very surprised when I sat down beside him in the restaurant. ‘I mean you no harm, doctor.’ ‘You’re the one who was in the waiting room all morning but never registered to be seen, aren’t you?’

“I really didn’t understand what he meant, but I nodded my head. ‘You are a good doctor,’ I said. The young man smiled a little and said, ‘Thank you.’ ‘My wife is sick.’ ‘I’m eating my lunch here. Bring her to the hospital and I will see her there.’ ‘I can’t do that.’ The young doctor put down the chopsticks he held in his right hand and asked, ‘Why is that?’ ‘I think she has AIDS.’

“I was looking for a backing off from him but I saw none. He picked up his chopsticks and swirled some noodles around them and put them in his mouth. He must have noticed me watching him. ‘Hungry?’ I nodded. He ordered me some noodles with pork then asked, ‘Where is your wife now?’ I pointed out the window. She was leaning against a building across the street.

“The young doctor shouted to the waiter to put the food in a bag, got up and crossed the street to my wife. ‘Can you walk with me a little?’ he asked her. She nodded. They walked. I couldn’t overhear their talking. At one point she took out one of the eleven remaining packets we had gotten from the traditional healer. The young doctor opened it and took a pinch of the mixture up to his nose. Then he returned the mixture to the paper, carefully refolded it and handed it back to my wife. Shortly it became clear that they were walking back towards the hospital. My wife kept looking back to make sure that I was following. I was.

“They entered the hospital from one of the back courtyards. Around the open space, the only green I’d seen in this entire city, sat elderly patients taking in a little sun. The young doctor led my wife into the basement of the building and down a long dim hallway. Just before I followed them I thought I noticed one of the old patients get up from his bench and walk fast towards another entrance to the hospital. But I had no time to check this.

“At a heavy door the young doctor stopped and knocked. No one responded. He knocked again.

Still no response. He slipped a key out of his pocket and opened the door. She went in and he signalled for me to follow. The place was a cold open room with a cement floor and a table made of iron, slightly tilted with a bathtub drain at the bottom end. “The young doctor turned to my wife. ‘Take off your clothes.’ Then he turned to me. ‘Do you know what room this is?’ I shook my head. ‘The temporary morgue,’ he said. Before I could question him, he said, ‘It’s the only place I could think of that would be safe to examine your wife. If one of the nurses were to find out about this you would be reported and I don’t even know what they would do to me.’”

Probably he’d be sent west of the Wall. Internal exile was an effective way of keeping people silent but productive – as well you know, Fong. Beijing has not admitted that there is a single case of AIDS in the whole country, let alone an outbreak in the far reaches of rural, peasant China. No doubt they want to control the dissemination of such volatile information.

“My wife stood on the cold floor with her clothes off but pressed hard against her body. I could see lesion marks down her legs. And she was so thin. With the bags of the ylang-ylang wrapped around her I had forgotten how thin she was. She was shaking violently. ‘Help her up onto the table,’ the doctor said to me. Then to her, ‘I’m sorry but it is going to be cold.’

“His examination of her was not long. She cried out several times when he touched her or pressed his fingers against her. Finally he told her to get dressed and waved me over to one side. ‘The herbs you got from the healer may well deal with the infection that is causing the sores. But her lungs are badly infected. She has pneumonia and I think there is a growth beneath her breastbone and another behind her left knee. Both may not be life-threatening but the infection in her lungs could kill her.’ He reached into his pocket and extracted a bottle of pills. ‘These are a very strong general antibiotic. It’s hard to tell, but these may help. Give her two every time you give her the tea.’ He stopped and looked away. Then he turned back, ‘This is just the beginning of this. If you manage to stop the infection in her lungs she may get better for a while but she will get infected again with something else. Probably much worse and most probably fatal.’ ‘What do I . . . ?’ ‘Do? Get her to Beijing or Shanghai. Try to get her treated there. There is a thing called a cocktail that if she is not too far gone could save her life for a while.’ ‘Don’t you have . . . ?’ ‘No. This is China, remember. There’s not suppose to be any AIDS in China so why would there be a need for this cocktail here?’ ‘But why in Shanghai or . . . ?’ ‘Because the powerful are there. And when their wives or sons get sick, they want them treated.’

“Before I could nod, there was a loud knock on the door and a command to open it. I saw the young doctor’s face grow pale. I looked around the room. There was a storage room in the back. I grabbed my wife’s hand and we ran in there and hid behind the boxes. From the next room we heard hard voices questioning the doctor. Why was he here? ‘To check on our autopsy facilities.’ ‘Why, are you a forensic doctor now too?’ ‘No. I’m just trying to familiarize myself with the hospital’s capabilities.’ Then an old man’s voice said, ‘He came in with a young girl.’

“So that was it. The old man thought the young doctor had dragged my wife into the hospital’s basement for some illicit reason. I looked at my wife. Her face was stained with tears. She whispered in my ear, ‘I don’t want them to hurt him.’ Then I heard a dull thud and the sound of a body crashing to a concrete floor . . . then the sound of it being dragged out the door and down the hallway.”

“Two hours later we snuck out of that room and out of the hospital. Beijing or Shanghai? We made our way that night all the way across the city and in the cold morning finally got to the train station. We waited until well after sunrise before I went into the depot. I thought, I have money, I’ll just buy tickets to Shanghai. I looked carefully at the soldiers around the station. If they were looking for someone it would be a couple, not just an ordinary countryman like me. I stood in a line that was surprisingly short. When I got to the window I asked for two tickets hard seat to Shanghai. The man laughed at me. ‘What?’ I asked. ‘The train stops here to refuel but no one gets on or off.’ ‘Where’s the train from?’ ‘Depends on the direction. Going south it starts in Beijing and ends in Shanghai. Going north, the reverse.’ ‘Are there other trains?’ Going west, yes, but nothing going east, to the coast or north. You want to go west, give me your money, otherwise step aside.’

“I stepped aside. No wonder there really wasn’t much of a line for tickets. This station sold tickets to go west back into the countryside, not east to the city. I went back out and told my wife. She nodded but seemed almost in a daze. I put my coat around her and hid her back behind a row of parked railway cars. Then I went towards the platform and watched.

“The trains heading west were small, with three, four, five cars. The first trains from Beijing amazed me. More cars on one train than I’d ever seen. The train came just before noon. As it approached I saw many men running towards the platform with carrying rods and baskets on their backs. They all had the same kind of shirt with a crest on the right sleeve. I guessed it identified them as train personnel. As I watched, the train stopped and the men with the train shirts filled their baskets and headed onto the train. As soon as they entered the first car I began to count. I was up to just over nine hundred counts when they began to leave the train from the rear cars. Their baskets were empty and already the train was beginning to pull out of the station heading towards Shanghai.

“Two hours later the process was repeated on a train coming from Shanghai and heading towards Beijing. This time the porters were off in just over eight hundred and fifty counts and the train was already picking up speed as it headed out of the station. Neither time did any passengers get off the train.

“I watched two more trains, one in each direction. The last one pulled out just before sundown. For those last two times I wasn’t counting. I was watching the porters. Finally I found what I wanted. A thin young man with an angry face. As he left the last train I fell in beside him and offered him a cigarette.

“He took it, but said, ‘What do you want, old man.’ He called me an old man.”

I could see that being called an old man really hurt him, Fong.

“At first I didn’t say anything to him, just walked by his side. ‘You not able to talk, old man, or what?’ ‘I can talk,’ I said. ‘Good. Talk.’

“I told him I wanted to buy his shirt. He didn’t act surprised. The first price he named made me laugh out loud. My counteroffer made him cry out loud. Eventually we settled on a price and he gave me his shirt. I had never spent so much money for anything ever before in my life. I returned to the railway car and wrapped my wife in my arms and sang to her. It was all I could think to do. I sang. She cried.