The Ghost Shift (11 page)

Blue lights shined at the barrier, and lamps illuminated the body. Two guards in black-and-white uniforms and peaked caps stared intently at the crowd, looking for unrest. Their job was simply to be there, to occupy the space and be counted in the records. Mei felt like
stepping out and taking charge, but her badge wouldn’t allow it. Instead she tried to melt into the crowd. The corpse wore Anta sneakers, unmarked apart from a black scuff running the length of the right one.

As she stared, she saw a shape moving jerkily on the outside of her vision and glanced to her left. A man was making his way toward the crowd in some haste. There was something wrong with his right leg, so he hobbled along with a lacquered bamboo walking stick. It had a silver handle that he squeezed into his hip each time his weak leg twisted. He was dressed in black pants and a crisp white shirt—not a uniform—and was suppressing a smile.

Mei returned her gaze to the body, trying to follow the man out of the corner of her eye as he got within a few yards and then curved his path to the right, walking to the rear of the crowd. She could sense him a little ways behind her, the click of his cane approaching as if the throng was parting for him. The ripple of the human wave reached her a moment or two before he did, the last layer of onlookers behind her shifting aside to accommodate him.

The man stood to her left, the cane planted in front of her foot, not quite grazing it. He was significantly shorter than she was; the top of his head was level with her eyes. She flashed a look sideways, catching sight of a shallow nose with broad nostrils and long, black eyelashes. He stared ahead, ignoring her.

“You made it out. Why didn’t you tell me?”

He whispered, his light voice quavering with nerves. Behind the reproach, he sounded happy.

Mei realized that she had never heard the dead woman’s voice. Her face was identical, but Mei didn’t know if, just by speaking, she would give herself away. It flashed through her mind to stay silent but she heard the sentence emerge from her mouth before she’d made a decision. She spoke in a stolid country accent, like a factory girl, rationing the words.

“I tried to find you.”

“You’re so brave. I must know everything.” He rested the handle of his cane on her arm, and she felt its chill.

“Not here.” Two more words, this time deliberately chosen. He hadn’t noticed any difference.

“You’re right. Come to my room in an hour.”

His instruction was interrupted by a shout.

“You in red!”

A guard stared in their direction, one finger pointing. His partner held a walkie-talkie that crackled with the sound of voices, making the Cantonese vowels harder. She felt the man shift on his leg as if considering; a moment later he had melted back into the crowd with a few clicks of his cane.

The guard marched toward her. Her Party card, her best protection, was out of her reach beyond the gates. She’d always taken risks to get her own way, relying on talking her way out of trouble. Now, she realized, she could not save herself.

She felt a change in the crowd around her, an organism facing danger. Whatever faint sounds of breathing that had been present were now gone, replaced by a frozen silence. The girl to her right expelled a hiss between her teeth, audible only to those next to her; it sounded like she wanted to spit. The guard arrived at Mei and stared at her, then reached for her badge without speaking. His fingers were as rough as a farmer’s, one thumbnail split. He looked unblinkingly at the card, lips moving as he read it.

“Come.” He grabbed her by the arm and dug his nails into her flesh.

She grunted in pain but he didn’t stop, pulling her with him out of the crowd toward the building.

“Let me go,” she cried, but she felt his fingers punish her arm with even more force. She had turned from an official with authority over this dolt into a factory girl who had no power to stop him. She could feel the nervous energy behind his aggression; he was scared to let her go.

They came to the building’s entrance. Moths were crashing against the sodium lights as off-duty workers sprawled in front of a large television set tuned to a dance show. None looked up as the guard pulled her to a stairwell and pushed her up the first stairs, prodding her to keep moving.

“Where are you taking me?” she said.

She spoke in clipped Mandarin, but it had no effect—he grunted
and shoved again. They were on a dark stairwell that led up one side of the dormitory building, with only dim lamps to show the way. At each landing, the space opened up to a view of a walkway—the sky on one side and a row of dormitory doors on the other. Some doors were open and groups of workers lounged outside, smoking and chatting or hanging clothes from the wire mesh. It was a vast cage, holding them inside the building like chickens.

A woman with weathered skin, clutching a mop, gave a half-glance as they passed a landing. Mei grimaced at her, hoping for an intervention, but it was useless. They were on the eighth level, passing another row of doors along another identical balcony. She could cry out for help, but the kids on the balconies would freeze and withdraw.

“Tell me,” she gasped, her breath short.

His only response was a further push against her back, his fingers straying toward her hips. Her anger was overridden by fear—she had to escape, but there was nothing she could do. On the top floor, they stepped onto a pitch-black landing, with a floor that smelled of urine. The guard stepped closer, and she flinched, fearing what he might do to her in the dark, but he reached across to a steel door. He pulled it open, thrust Mei through, and bolted it behind her.

Mei swayed, trying to find her balance. Her senses were on alert as she tried to feel for a wall or a door—her eyes were adjusting to the dark and she couldn’t see anything. Then she felt a gust on her face and knew she was in the open, not locked in a cupboard or a prison. A dark rectangle stretched a thousand feet in front of her, ringed by reflected light. It was like an inverted pool—solid in the middle, with gravity controlling the outside. She was on the roof. Mei breathed slowly to reassure herself—she was far from the edge, provided she didn’t stray.

The roof was flat and uncluttered, the surface pebbled. Two lines of pipes, supported two feet or so from the surface by metal brackets, ran along its length to a water tank in the middle. There were no air-conditioning units; she thought of the workers sprawled watching television or gossiping outside their rooms in the sultry air. It must be hot in those dormitories. She looked at the edge of the roof, moving her head back to ward off vertigo. She was a couple hundred feet from either side, but she felt tremors at the idea of getting closer.

Suddenly she realized that she was not alone.

The Wolf stood in the middle of the expanse. Before she could react, he walked toward her, his eyes glittering as he approached.

“Why are you here?” he demanded.

“I followed you.”

He reached out to touch the badge on her tunic, rubbing a thumb on Tang Liu’s photo.

“You look like her. Do you want to die like her, too?”

Mei shook her head.

“Unless you’re careful, you will.”

“Why are they falling?”

“You don’t think they’re so miserable in this place that they throw themselves from roofs, like that boy?” The Wolf pointed to the side of the roof under which the body had been found. “You don’t believe the official story?”

“Do you?”

“When you’re my age, you’ll know it’s rarely true. The first one, I mean. It’s drafted by a committee to play for time. They’ll say he jumped, of course. Let me show you something.”

He turned and walked in the direction he’d pointed. Mei’s shoes crunched on the pebbles as she followed, her eyes down to ensure that she stayed on solid ground. It reminded her of trailing him through the banana fields, into the night. Glancing up, she saw him on the edge of the roof, etched against the sky. She was fifty feet away, nearly frozen with fright.

“Come here,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“Why not?”

Her shame was overwhelmed by terror. “I’m scared of falling.”

“You won’t fall. Quickly now.”

“I can’t.” It was unthinkable. She felt her knees sink beneath her, talking to him. “I have—”

“Wait.” The Wolf paced along the edge of the roof like a tightrope walker, and she emitted a low yelp of fear. He halted and looked down, his cigarette marking the border of roof and sky.

“Stay,” he commanded.

He twisted and ran past her, with a surprising turn of speed, toward the door that the guard had locked behind her. Still on her knees, Mei heard him striking it with both fists, calling out loudly.

“Open it! Now!”

There was no response and he struck it more heavily, sending a dull echo into stairwell voice.

“Now, you fool! That is a command.”

Nothing.

The Wolf placed his palms flat against the unyielding metal, muttering an obscenity, and then ran over to her.

“You’ve brought the snake out of its lair,” he said.

He shook his head and scanned the roof from one side to the other. He remained silent for a long moment, then took hold of her wrist. He began to walk, pulling her behind him.

It struck Mei that she was about to die.

“No, no. Please,” she called to him, “Please let me go.”

Her body started to shake, and she dug her heels into the pebbly ground, but he kept on pulling. He was far stronger than she’d imagined; she couldn’t even slow him down. She trembled, her vision dimming. The edge was twenty feet away when she dropped down to her knees.

“Get up.”

She moaned in panic. “No. No.”

He dragged her again, her body twisting in the dirt and pebbles scraping her hips as she writhed. When he let go of her wrist, she curled into a fetus on the ground, her eyes clamped shut.

“Stand up.” His tone was stony, colder than any she’d ever known. She’d made a terrible error in trusting him. She knew then that she should have taken Pan’s advice and kept her distance from him. She should have had faith in the Party.

Mei rolled onto her knees and raised herself to a standing position with her eyes clenched shut. She felt him take her shoulder and position her body at attention, seizing control of her.

“Open your eyes.”

She obeyed, a crack at first and then a squint, and saw his face, grave and impassive. Her feet were at the edge of the roof, the border between solidity and nothingness behind her. She felt the suction of the void.

“Turn around,” said the Wolf, taking her by the shoulders.

“I can’t.” It was unthinkable to face the sky and look down. Her feet were fixed, her muscles locked. She scanned his black eyes and weathered face in search of some compassion, but there was none to be found.

“Goodbye, Song Mei,” he said, and pushed.

With the first lurch, Mei’s center of gravity was thrust into empty space. She didn’t breathe as she hung there, holding her arms desperately toward the Wolf for him to pull her back. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Her body was a watch’s hand, halted for a split second at midnight. Then her hips buckled, her arms splayed out, and gravity took her.

Mei dropped into space, hands spread wide, back and hips flattening. She blinked and saw sky above her, as if she were lying in a field—stars, clouds, soft blackness. Her life would soon be finished. It was like drowning, sinking into the depths after a final, liquid breath—almost peaceful. The air rushed past as she picked up speed, plunging downward.

Something clutched her.

Wires bit into her back and closed around her legs and shoulders. Her head jerked, wrenching her neck to the side, and the breath was knocked out of her. Her fall slowed, stopped, then reversed itself—all within the smallest instant. She rebounded, then lay gasping, unable to make sense of what had happened. When she opened her eyes, she was hanging in a wire net, twenty feet beneath the roof. The Wolf was standing above, looking down at her.

Her heart was racing, and she shook uncontrollably with the rush of it all, but she was alive. As she watched him, he brought one finger to his lips, beckoning for her to be silent. Then he passed from view. She tilted her face to the side in tiny increments and examined the net, gripping the cables tightly in each hand. The line reached all
along the side of the building, strung between poles about thirty feet apart, strung there to catch wayward objects. Yao’s words came back to her:
They’ve been falling off the buildings for months. They’ve put up nets to catch them.
She could sense the ground looming far below her and she stiffened, the terror returning.