And how typical. The Party, in a frenzy of self-consuming self-righteousness, could not see fire, but invented smoke. What he was accused of was making his ministry fairly open, semi-efficient and less backward than most in the Chinese government. His true guilt was unmentioned, unknown, invisible to zealot cadres who found termites in healthy trees, but never noticed that the forest was burning. Wang Bin fought back a sneer. If you really knew my crimes, comrades, my friend the general would end this charade with a single shot-and I wouldn't blame him.
It was amazing. The prosecutor seemed immune to breathing. He read without pause, increasing shrillness his only concession to an indictment of forty-seven different crimes over seven years.
"Forty-seven. You are accused of meeting privately with a foreigner, namely Gerta Hofsted, in the dining room of the Peking Hotel and charging your ministry for the meal when in fact it was paid for by the foreigner."
My, my, how thorough. A lunch seven years before with a West German anthropologist. She had never noticed when he pocketed the receipt, but obviously a waiter had.
The prosecutor shut up as suddenly as he had begun. Wang Bin remembered a joke a Russian had told him back in the days when Russia and China were allies. About the factory worker who left every night carrying a heavy load of sand in a wheelbarrow. The KGB knew he was stealing something. They tasted the sand. They sifted it. They sent it away for analysis. The results were conclusive: plain old ordinary worthless sand. It took them months to realize the worker was stealing wheelbarrows. Marxist myopia.
"One other matter has come to the attention of this commission," said the moribund cadre who sat next to the president. "It is not within the province of this investigation since the accused is not a Party member, but it does reflect on the failure of Comrade Wang Bin to inspire his own family to live according to Party principles." The cadre sucked, hollow-cheeked, at his tea.
"The commission has evidence that Wang Kangmei, daughter of Comrade Wang Bin, left her unit without permission, that she traveled without permission to the city of Xian, and that there she engaged in sexual relations with a foreigner."
"She was abducted," Wang Bin blurted, and instantly regretted it.
"This commission is forwarding the relevant testimony to the Public Security Bureau for action," the cadre intoned without expression.
That was the cue for the prosecutor. He jerked back to his feet.
"In view of the seriousness of the charges, I call for a full trial and a sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor."
It was a formality. Still, in the calculated silence that followed the prosecutor's demand, Wang Bin began to sweat.
"The commission agrees with the prosecutor's request," said the president.
Again, the old men allowed a cruel silence to build. Wang Bin braced for the sound of the door opening, the rush of air, the footsteps of the guards summoned by a buzzer beneath the table.
"However," the president began.
At last! Wang Bin felt a sudden release.
"In view of Comrade Wang's long service to the Party, this commission will waive a trial in exchange for Comrade Wang's admission of guilt, a self-criticism, his removal from all state and Party posts and his reeducation through labor in…
"-he consulted a printed list in front of him-"Jilin Province."
It was a sentence of slow death. Manchuria. Backward and cold, so bitterly cold and primitive he would not survive two years there.
"Jilin," said the second cadre.
That left the general.
"Hunan," said the general. "And as an office worker. He is an educated man."
Hunan was backward, too, but warmer. To work there as a bookkeeper on a commune would be dull, but not dangerous, almost like retiring. Such were the fruits of a fifty-year friendship between men who had once fought together.
The two hacks dithered for a while-Jilin was what their paper decreed-but the general proved implacable.
"Hunan." The president surrendered. "You have twenty-four hours, Comrade, in which to inform the commmission whether you wish a trial or will accept the Party's mercy."
Wang Bin squared his back and strode from the room.
Twenty-four hours. He had counted on that. It was time enough.
CHAPTER 14
Stratton's makeshift chisel splintered after only an hour. A cone-shaped pile of concrete dust and a faint groove in the mortar were all he had to show for his furious scraping. There was no way out of the cell. Stratton snapped another leg off the wooden chair and rubbed one end back and forth across the rough wall until a sharp point was formed. Then he buried the stick in a corner. Another corner was used for defecation. A third corner he reserved for sleeping.
He curled up, facing the wall, and shielded his eyes with one arm. That night, for the first time, the jailers had left the light bulb burning in the rafters; insects darted and danced around it. Stratton closed his eyes and thought of his parents. For thirty-one years his father had driven a UPS truck in Hartford, while his mother had reared five children. Now the Strattons were retired, living in a small apartment in Boca Raton, Florida, entertaining grandchildren and feeding the ducks in a man-made lake behind the high rise. Tom Stratton had visited his parents only twice in their new home. He telephoned once a month from wherever he was. He had promised them postcards from Peking, but of course he had forgotten. They wouldn't be worried, not Dale and Ann Stratton. They knew their youngest son. The restless sort, his mother used to say. Pity the poor gal he marries, and pitied she had.
The flat horn of a truck jolted Stratton into daylight. He unfolded, stretched his arms, and watched through the window as the first morning visitors arrived at the small museum. It had been more than a day now since his keepers had brought fresh rice or water. Stratton was famished. He considered pounding on the door on the remote chance that he had been forgotten, but rejected the idea.
He knew he was a VIP. Whatever awaited him had been carefully planned by Wang Bin.
The day passed slowly, and Stratton napped intermittently, using sleep as a substitute for food. Finally, late in the afternoon, he heard footsteps in the hall outside the cell. He sat up, and shrank into the shadow of the cleanest corner, his sleeping corner.
Two men entered the cell. Stratton recognized one of them as a jailer, one of the men who had paraded him to his public bath.
The other was a wan, slightly built Chinese who wore bottle-bottom eyeglasses.
He squinted at Stratton until he became accustomed to the light.
Each man carried a large tin bucket.
"Stand," ordered the man with the eyeglasses.
Stratton obeyed. The two men heaved the liquid contents of the buckets on the floor in a large puddle at Stratton's feet. The odor assaulted him and he tried hard not to gag.
"Pig manure," said the same man, again in clear English. "Kneel."
"Why?"
"You will not argue. You will not ask questions. You will do as I say. You are unfit to speak in this room. You are unfit to stand. So you will kneel, and you will be completely silent."
Stratton did not move. The man with the bottle-bottom glasses circled him disdainfully, eyeing the American as if he were a roach.
"You have broken this chair!"
"No, it fell apart."
"Liar!"
"Liar!" shouted the jailer, chiming in.
"An accident," Stratton repeated.
"My name is Comrade Zhou," said the man in the glasses. "We have met before."
"Oh, yes. You were Wang Bin's interpreter in Peking," Stratton said.
Zhou lifted the mangled two-legged chair as if examining it. Then he swung it over his head and brought it crashing down on Tom Stratton's shoulders. Stratton pitched forward, face down into the warm pig dung. A small hand seized his neck, and another clutched his hair. Roughly, he was jerked off the floor, and propped on his knees like a mannequin.