Rare Earth Page 3

  There is, in the picture, a strange haze to do with more than just the fading light. The camera swings upwards; Carstairs’ cockney grimace blocks the sky out and is in turn blocked out by a chamois leather as he tries to wipe dust off the lens.

  “Yes they will talk,” says Chun-li, at 03.02.27.

  “Did you explain we are a Western documentary team?” says Brough.

  “Yes they say no problem. They very angry.”

  The camera follows Brough and Chun-li up the street. Carstairs pulls a nice slow pan off them to a dirty kid, its smile revealing only half the normally allocated number of teeth.

  Now Brough walks up to a group of local people who are looking a mixture of puzzled and wary:

  “David Brough, Channel Ninety-Nine News.”

  Brough shakes a few hands while Chun-li does rapid-fire introductions, and then clears his throat:

  “Is the air always as bad as this?”

  Pause, translation.

  They all start shouting at once. There is a woman in a Qing-dynasty silk jacket, an old man with a face the colour of lead, two middle-aged men and a yappy housewife. Kids skip around them to get into shot. Carstairs goes in tight, the lens out to its full wide-angle making the faces loom, distorted, at the edges. The camera mic picks up the sound of what they’re saying and Chinese listeners will, later on, go pale once they make it out.

  Man with grey face: “It’s like this every night. During the day they switch it off so the sky looks blue. But every night at seven o’clock it comes over here. You can tell the time by it.”

  Woman with silk jacket: “We have to shut our doors and windows. Every night.”

  Yappy housewife: “You journalists should launch an investigation into it!”

  Brough tells Chun-li to tell them to slow down and speak one at a time, then he has three goes at asking the same question, his voice tight with adrenaline:

  “Have you not complained?”

  Man, grey face: “We complained but nobody gives a shit! My chest is tight!”

  Chun-li translates: “We have contacted the authorities but nobody seems to care.” You can tell from the tremor in her voice she knows how close they are to saying something bad about local officials on camera.

  Silk-jacket woman: “If you breathe this stuff you feel like vomiting and if its windy, your eyes burn.”

  And she clears a small space around herself and acts out the final agonies of her dead mother, coughing into her hands and struggling for breath.

  Chun-li explains that it’s a battery factory that’s the problem.

  “Where?” says Brough.

  Everybody points into the distance. The camera - Carstairs is a genius - swings slowly round in a very useable one-eighty degree pan and pushes in, holding steady, to the flaring gas pipes that had made them stop the van in the first place.

  It is a modern plant, big slabs of concrete wall and gross, concrete chimneys painted red and yellow, the whole base of the complex shrouded in white vapour.

  Off-camera there is more uproar, the crowd shoving each other aside to present their case: “My kids are choking on this shit!” “My son is a dwarf!” “I ran the marathon once but look...”

  “Chun-li what are you doing?” Brough asks.

  “Just wait a minute. I need to type word into translator”

  The camera goes tight on the small translation machine in her hands. Her nail job catches the last of the natural light.

  “Chlor-,” she says, then after a long pause: “ine”. “Pollution contains chlorine.”

  Brough says:

  “How do we know it’s chlorine? It could be just steam.”

  Chun-li translates and the crowd - it has grown to a small crowd now-goes slightly wild. They shout at him in a cacophony of anger.

  “This factory very notorious polluting factory owned by brother of local city mayor; whole cemetery is full of residents dying below age of 50,” Chun-li translates.

  Carstairs is getting cutaways now, of kids, dogs, crumble - walled shacks. A two-shot of Brough and the grey-faced man:

  “What do you want the authorities to do?”

  “They should move us like they promised,” the man begins, but Carstairs whip-pans off him to a woman standing at the edge of the crowd who is staring coldly at Brough, barking questions at him that he is not hearing.

  “This lady want to know who you are,” Chun-li’s voice conveys the clear subtext: “let’s leave”.

  “Good evening madam: David Brough, Channel Ninety-Nine News-and whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”

  “Do you have permission to be here?” the woman asks.

  It’s Busybody Guo, head of the district management office. She’s been watching the 7 o’clock news bulletin, but luckily with the sound turned down or she would not have heard the commotion.

  “Yes of course, we are here with the full permission of the Ningxia Province wai-ban,” says Brough, using a supercilious form of English both he and Carstairs know they will cut out in the edit, especially when he adds: “We have been personally invited by Premier Wen Jia-bao to tell the story of the fine efforts of the Communist Party in the sphere of environmental protection.”

  Busybody Guo spins on her heel, flipping her mobile open as she stamps back into the alleyway.

  “Ignore the bitch,” somebody shouts.

  “Piece to camera,” Brough mutters and breaks away from the group, taking up position with his back to the factory, which is now spewing vapour, thick and greenish, towards them. It’s already started to obscure some of the roofs and reduce the flames from the chimneys to a sickly yellow glow.

  “Here in Western China, the official story is...”

  “Wait ten seconds,” says Carstairs.

  Brough checks his reflection in the camera lens, sees the approaching cloud behind him and understands. He takes a breath, drops his shoulders and smiles wearily.

  “Go” says Carstairs.

  “Here in Western China the official line is that pollution’s been outlawed. But the residents tell a different story. Every night, they say, a cloud like this comes over the fence and makes the air impossible to breathe. They say it contains chlorine. In the west they’d be able to call in scientists to test the air. Here all they’ve got is the Communist Party, and the local leadership seems more worried about our presence, than about this...”

  He turns, with only mild theatricality, to the tsunami of vapour that is now a few yards away and then turns back to face the camera as the cloud engulfs him.

  “David Brough, Channel Ninety-Nine, Western China.”

  “Wrap,” says Carstairs. The camera drops to knee level and they walk quickly up the smog-wreathed alleyway towards a van with a blonde woman gesturing at them out of the side-door.

  “What the fuck?” she is saying: “I’m choking to death here!”

  The camera goes back to its starting position, the lens wedged up against the door. Slamming sounds are heard and the engine revs.

  “What did you get?” Georgina’s voice is a mixture of annoyance and excitement.

  “The fucking works. This cloud is full of chlorine,” says Brough.

  “Is that dangerous?”

  “No idea. Wait till you see the tape. Do you think that woman was pissed off enough to phone the pigs, Chun-li - I mean the police?”

  “Pollution very sensitive in this part of China. Maybe she will not want trouble for herself. Better get away from area. Also switch tapes.”

  The screen goes blank. The timecode says 03.23.34: that’s twenty-three and half minutes on tape. Two gigabytes on disc, max.

  ~ * ~

  6

  Xiao Lushan’s eyelids were becoming soft under the damp flannel; on the stage the dirty-joke comedian had given way to a monologue artist. Xiao’s feet were being massaged by a demure girl. And his cellphone was on vibrate.

  Friday night, for Police Superintendent Xiao, was sauna night. Sprawled in the next armchair, snoozing in
a pair of yellow-stripe pyjamas, was Zhou, Secretary of the Tang Lu chamber of commerce. On the other side, flashing a smarmy smile at the tea girl was Sheng, editor of the Tang Lu Daily (founded 1958), wrapped in a cotton robe.

  Soon the monologue artist would give way to a drag act and, feigning distaste, the three men would put their slippers on and glide, cracking timeworn jokes, up the escalator to the cafeteria, where they would make menopausal small-talk with the waitress, slam dice cups on the table, shout chaotically for Chairman Mao’s Red-braised Pork and slurp green tea.

  This was Superintendent Xiao’s routine. No other cops would dare show up at the Tang Lu Public Sauna Number One on a Friday night-except his driver, who was outside in the command vehicle, a BMW X5 with three digital comms antennae.

  By Friday night all the drunks and fighters from the past weekend would have been processed to pre-trial detention centres; let somebody else take the rap if they got mistreated. Most strikes and industrial accidents happened, as every good cop knows, towards the beginning of the week. And any politically dodgy sermons at Friday prayers were a problem for the State Security Police, not Xiao.

  Only “mopes” were the reason Xiao kept his cellphone on at all. “Set phasers on stun,” the three men always joked on arrival.

  “Mope” was a word he’d picked up from The Wire-Series One, which the command group at the station had been watching on pirate DVD with Chinese subtitles. It was satisfyingly close to the Mandarin word for con-man. Ningxia Province was home to all kinds of mopes, some driving SUVs, others zipping between the hairdressers, karaoke bars and acupuncture shops on little motorbikes. They would stare into space violently when the traffic cops busted them. Whether it was drugs, betting, prostitution - it was always executed with a profound failure of imagination: disorganised crime, Xiao called it.

  He’d busted a whole gang of mopes last year, supplying trafficked women to a “ballroom” servicing the flint quarries in the Helan Shan. A spectacular bust - even rescued three of the girls alive and got a mention in the People’s Daily.

  He was one pip short of Commissioner and with his good connections-and bearing in mind the rule that says one out of every three officials in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Province actually has to be a Hui Muslim, and not, like Xiao, Han Chinese-he would one day make it.

  “Hey Spock, your tricorder is registering signs of life!” said Zhou.

  Xiao’s phone was a fat Nokia; its gold-lacquered fascia decorated with fake gemstones in the shape of the Taj Mahal. His daughter had given it to him when she’d left for Beijing and, though he knew it made other police officers snigger behind his back, he couldn’t bear to change it. He had taped her photograph onto the back of the handset. Now, as he peeled the flannel off his forehead, it was her face he could see vibrating its way towards the edge of the table.

  He leant wearily across, motioned the massage girl to leave his feet alone and grabbed the phone.

  Xiao Lushan is a big man, so when he shot upright in string vest and shorts, purple-faced, neck veins protruding-like a giant walking penis-scattering pumpkin seeds and frightening the massage girl rigid, the whole room fell silent.

  The duty officer had been too scared to call so had put the entire situation into a text message:

  “Foreign media in Tang Lu East Village. Threat to social order. Await instructions.”

  Xiao’s face went into the shape of a vengeful warlord’s face, like in a TV shouting-drama:

  “I’ll give them a threat to social order,” he said between clenched teeth.

  “We will eat your portion of Chairman Mao’s Red-braised Pork,” Zhou chuckled.

  “Somebody is going to regret that they were born,” newspaper editor Sheng sniggered, reaching for what was left of the pumpkin seeds as Xiao strode-wordless and with fists clenched-toward the changing room.

  ~ * ~

  7

  At Tang Lu Police HQ he found the control room deserted apart from his deputy, Tong, and the riot-squad leader, Hard Man Han:

  “Why were we not told the foreign media were in Tang Lu?” Xiao yelled,

  Tong stood silently to attention, face like a show-trial convict. There was a metallic racket coming from somewhere in the depths of the building. It was Han who summoned up the courage to answer:

  “We’re onto the Propaganda Department now but nobody’s picking up.”

  Han had a Kevlar vest draped loosely around his pectorals and was punching at the keyboard of a computer with one finger as he spoke, sweating slightly.

  “Why did the East Village management office allow local people to talk to a foreign news crew?” said Xiao.

  Hard Man Han cocked an eyebrow in the direction of Busybody Guo-who was standing, arms-crossed and furious, in a waiting room on the other side of a two-way mirror.

  “Where are the journalists? Where are their Chinese minders?” Xiao let his face veer very close to Tong’s.

  Tong pulled his lips back to reveal mustard-coloured teeth and went into report mode:

  “Three foreign journalists have been apprehended, accompanied by one Chinese female, Beijing registered, and one Chinese male, a driver, Yinchuan registered. All the journalists have English passports with valid visas. The driver has been questioned and released. He is in the van outside, smoking twenty cigarettes. Claims he’s a casual informant for the State Security Police. We’re checking that, discreetly. Says it all happened before he knew what they were up to.”

  “And the Chinese minder?”

  “No minders. Decree Number 447.”

  “What?”

  “It’s a law they passed for the Olympics,” Hard Man Han chipped in. “They don’t need minders. They can go where they like as long as they tell the wai-ban their itinerary and stay away from sensitive installations. They brought their own copy.”

  He skimmed a sheet of A4 across the table. The words were in English but the State Council logo at the top of it looked real enough. Xiao had heard, vaguely, about Decree Number 447 but assumed it didn’t apply to Ningxia Province, or had been rescinded.

  “It’s still in force.” Hard Man Han was reading his thoughts.

  “Where are we holding them?” Xiao checked his reflection in the glass of Chairman Mao’s portrait and fiddled with the top button of his tunic.

  “In the cafeteria, boss.” Tong’s voice betrayed nervousness.

  “The cafeteria? Why not the cells?”

  “That’s the problem, boss,” Hard Man Han was looking uncomfortable now. “Some of the lads were having a bit of fun with this mope; a drug dealer from Linhe. And it got... out of hand.”

  “What kind of fun?”

  Xiao felt his face going mauve. He’d spent the whole car journey trying to calm himself, letting his head go heavy into the leather headrest and expelling his anxiety on outward breaths. He tried to keep his breathing steady now as Tong exploded, machine-like, at Han:

  “Upside down! From the ceiling! Rubber truncheons! They get the cattle prod out! The mope has a coronary seizure!”

  Xiao sank into the nearest swivel chair and let his fingers squeeze the bridge of his nose for a second, comb through his hair and then form into a fist. He punched the table half-heartedly and looked up, as if to the heavens, but actually at the words “Maintain Social Harmony, Promote Scientific Development” stencilled across the azure ceiling in gold leaf.

  Then he stared a silent question at Hard Man Han, who responded:

  “Alive, but in intensive care. But then the riot started. We’ve still got fifteen anti-social elements down there from last weekend because Pre-Trial is full. So it all kicked off. They got hold of some iron bars-we don’t know how - and we’ve cornered them into the holding pen but they’re as crazy as frogs in a napalm strike. Quarry workers mostly. Young lads. We were going to CS-gas the whole basement but then this happened!”

  He jerked his head once again at Busybody Guo, through the mirror, her face crumpled with spite.

  Xiao’s mind se
arched for a course of action. Cell-block riots he had handled many times but he had never met a Western journalist. He knew the Standard Operating Procedures for dealing with them, but only the ones in place before Decree Number 447.

  “What did they actually see?”

  “Not much,” Tong allowed himself to relax a little. He had seen Xiao physically attack subordinates before now, but the moment had passed:

  “The usual cloud of shit from Tang Lu Nickel Metal Hydride, bang on the stroke of seven. A bunch of idiots started mouthing off to them in the street. They legged it soon as Busybody Guo turned up. She’s got a face like a carp.”