In the end, Bin Laden fell victim himself to a government crackdown.
The day of his execution, people swarmed to see him. As they dragged Bin Laden from the prison truck, the crowd went wild. They surged forward shaking their fists and shouting.
‘Shooting’s too good for him!’
‘Death by a thousand cuts!’
‘Dig out his kidney and eat it!’
The police were losing control. They fired shots in the air, but nobody took any notice, so they linked arms to keep the crowd back. Someone threw a stone at Bin Laden. He jerked his head and glared around him. There was a stunned silence. Then a child standing towards the back shouted ‘Bin Laden’s still alive!’
The crowd stampeded forwards …
I hadn’t seen Water since the day I’d stormed out of the massage parlour, a lifetime ago. When he came over to my house he didn’t even mention it, just started bragging about how many chicks he’d laid — or eaten, as he put it.
‘You’re such a loser,’ I said.
‘Not like you. You’ve got a chick that’s not even a chick. Classy.’
I was taken aback, but gave him a smile.
‘I haven’t “eaten” her.’
‘No. She’s just your sex object.’ My heart missed a beat. ‘Love is sex, and sex is all about the imagination,’ Water continued. ‘After all, what’s so exciting about a lump of meat?’
‘You talk a load of crap.’
‘The world is vast and we should have the imaginations to find our heart’s desires and leap over any walls we want,’ he said. ‘But let me offer you a bit of advice: however many walls you jump over, mind you guard the wall of your own home.’
I was shocked.
‘Don’t listen to the rubbish my wife says.’
‘I’m right, aren’t I?’ He laughed. ‘Look, we’re old mates, there isn’t much we don’t know about each other. Your wife hasn’t found out your secret yet, so take your chance while you can, and live the good life. Live to steal, steal to live … ’
‘For god’s sake! If you’ve got something to say, damn well spit it out!’
‘Here’s something I can’t hide from you.’ He gave me a sly smile, as if we were partners in crime. I didn’t like this one bit. ‘Want to do a bit of business?’
‘What?’
‘Kidneys.’
‘Not kidney tonics again? What is it this time? Yan Nian Tonic, Hui Yuan Tonic? Viagra?’ I teased him.
‘Bin Laden’s kidney,’ he said, drawing his finger across his neck.
I almost jumped out of my skin.
‘Bin Laden’s kidney is worth a fortune. Did you see him after he’d been executed, eyes still glaring like a tiger?’
‘It’d be easier to sell a dog’s kidney.’ I smiled. ‘But this is a man’s kidney. Are you going to open up a hospital? Do transplants?’
‘I knew you wouldn’t understand. We don’t need any hospital. What’s the point of a hospital anyway? A “public” service. However much money there is swilling round the system, it always goes to someone else. You got to do a deal like this outside the system. That way, you can keep all the profit for yourself.’
‘I suppose you can name any price you want,’ I said, ‘there’s plenty of money around. I’ll fix you up with a dialysis machine.’
‘What are you talking about?’ he shouted. ‘They just eat it.’
I thought I was going to be sick.
‘What — are you scared?’
‘Get lost’ I said.
‘Don’t worry, it’s totally safe. It’ll go on their health insurance, a special deal.’
‘Get lost,’ I said again.
‘What’s up with you?’
‘Fuck off.’
In all my years of selling tonics and supplements, I’d dreamed up all sorts of scams. I’d palmed off pig brains as monkey brains and field mushrooms as cancer-beating lingzhi mushrooms. I’d mixed tonic wine with wood alcohol, and made pills from flour. I’d even tried to sell people human urine and menstrual blood. But eating a human kidney — a kidney taken from a healthy human body — had never even crossed my mind. Where had this remedy come from? There must have been some secret imperial recipe, handed down through the generations. Or maybe I had let things slip, and new trends had passed me by. I had only ever heard of robbing organs from dead bodies in hospital. I’d never heard of stealing them from condemned criminals.
I thought back to the crowds after the execution, rushing after the prison truck with Bin Laden’s corpse on board and its windows sealed shut. Hordes of people pursued it as if they had gone mad.
The whole world had gone mad.
6
The very first time that I went to get the binoculars out of the bathroom, my daughter spotted me.
‘What’s that?’ she asked.
‘Nothing … It’s medicine.’
‘I know what it is. It’s Hui Yuan Kidney Tonic,’ she said triumphantly.
I couldn’t believe it.
‘How do you know that?’
‘I saw it on TV. “Hui Yuan Kidney Tonic’s a hot seller. Good for your man and good for you too!”’
She was very good at parroting the adverts. She mimicked the voices perfectly — it didn’t matter what they were advertising. From ‘Have you had a drink today? — Robust Company Foods’ to ‘Da Bao hair and skin products — for tomorrow and every day’ and from ‘Mei Yuan Chun wrinkle remover’ right the way to ‘An Er Le sanitary towels — fresh and cool and never leak’. We snickered behind our hands. Grown ups couldn’t say things like that out loud, but it sounded hilarious when a kid said it. But this time I didn’t know what to say. I wasn’t up to explaining what a kidney tonic was, or how it could be ‘good’ for your man and for you too.
‘You wouldn’t understand,’ I told her.
But she wasn’t giving up.
‘Why not?’
‘Because these are grown-up things, not for kids,’ I said. What did I mean? The binoculars were something kids shouldn’t know about, a secret to be kept hidden.
‘I do understand!’ she yelled. ‘I do! I do!’
She grabbed my bag. I held on to it. What if my wife heard her shrieking?
‘I’ll buy you a toy!’
‘Now!’
‘No, not right now.’
‘I want it now!’ she shouted.
‘Why can’t she have it straight away?’ My wife had appeared out of nowhere. Had she seen anything?
‘I’m busy,’ I said.
‘But aren’t you on your way out?’ she said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll bring her back up afterwards.’
There was no way out of it.
As they escorted me down the stairs we passed some of our neighbours.
‘Where are you off to?’ they asked my daughter.
‘To buy a toy,’ she said.
‘Then you make sure get your daddy to buy you a nice one,’ they teased. ‘He can afford it.’
I hugged the bag tight. I couldn’t let anyone find out what was inside it, no one at all. Especially not the neighbours.
It was like being kidnapped. By my daughter. She was a sweet kid, everyone said they loved her. Her mother and I used to joke ‘If you walk out on me, just leave the girl.’ Though recently that joke had gone a little sour.
A family with a daughter had a constant source of amusement. Laughter, tears, even a hissy fit was fun. When she asked difficult questions, you could just laugh them off. She was only three — who the fuck wanted to be serious?