Ulugqat is not exactly a tourist destination, so for most of its citizens a visit by a foreigner was an interesting event.
David and I took long walks at night. It was our only chance to talk to each other with a reduced chance of being recorded. The streets were hardly less crowded after dark and you could find excellent food in the Tajik quarter—not the usual sticky Han delicacies but fat roast mutton with noodles and fried bread, and delicious yogurt made from sheep’s milk. We found a particularly good restaurant and went back three nights in a row. On the third night, when we were still empty of new information and close to giving up, a Tajik with the butterscotch skin of a man who lives outdoors seated himself at a table facing us. Our minders were behind him, so they could not see his face. He engaged us in a jolly conversation about religion. He had the hearty, self-certain manner of an Episcopaliandeacon. If Moses and Jesus Christ were among the Christian prophets, why did Christians call God by the wrong name? Why did they reject Allah’s last messenger? As he got ready to leave, he came over to our table and leaned on it, and while David talked, slowly and distinctly whispered to me two short phrases in Mandarin.
One of these phrases was the name of a cemetery and the location of a grave. The other was a man’s name, Yang Geng Qi. Paul Christopher.
On the way back to the hotel I told David what the man had said to me and what I thought it might mean.
David shrugged. “We can dig up the grave, Horace, but think for a minute. Maybe that’s what they want us to do, so they can grab us in the act and get rid of us forever.”
It was not impossible that he was right. Robbing graves is a serious offense anywhere in the world. In China, with its ancient reverence for last resting places, the penalty might very well be a bullet in the head. All the same, I wanted to know. David shrugged again and went along with me.
We set out for the cemetery in the wee hours of the morning. Even gumshoes have to sleep some time, and ours were exceptionally tired after the workout we had given them that day. They were dozing in the lobby. The receptionist was also asleep, but there was no question of tiptoeing past all three of them. We went out a back door, split up, and made our way through empty and silent streets, a strange and unsettling experience in China, where one never expects the crowd to be absent. It was a moonless night, but the stars were brilliant in the black desert sky. They gave off enough light for us to find our way among the markers.
It took time to find the grave of Yang Geng Qi. We had brought a metal tray from our hotel room and with this clumsy tool we dug through the gritty sand at the head of the grave. I had never before tried to be quiet in China, where noise is as omnipresent as the air itself. At this hour of the night the country was as quiet as sleep itself, and each bite of the tray into the earth sounded like the clash of cymbals.
Atlast we found what we were looking for. There was no coffin, just a body wrapped in cloth and trussed with rope. Feeling in the dark, I uncovered the face. Shielding ourselves under my raincoat, we shone flashlights into the grave. We found ourselves looking into the empty eye sockets of a young Han who had been shot through the back of the head. David slit the shroud to the man’s waist. There was a gaping hole in the chest where the heart had been removed and another where his liver used to be. I felt beneath the body. The kidneys were missing, too. This was a criminal whose organs had been harvested immediately after he was executed.
David took several flash photographs of the mutilated corpse, which was well on its way to becoming a mummy.
Clearly Zhang
had
planned to show us a grave before presenting us with Paul’s belongings. But then someone decided to send us ashes instead. A wise precaution.
6
I wanted to make contact with the Episcopalian
David and I took long walks at night. It was our only chance to talk to each other with a reduced chance of being recorded. The streets were hardly less crowded after dark and you could find excellent food in the Tajik quarter—not the usual sticky Han delicacies but fat roast mutton with noodles and fried bread, and delicious yogurt made from sheep’s milk. We found a particularly good restaurant and went back three nights in a row. On the third night, when we were still empty of new information and close to giving up, a Tajik with the butterscotch skin of a man who lives outdoors seated himself at a table facing us. Our minders were behind him, so they could not see his face. He engaged us in a jolly conversation about religion. He had the hearty, self-certain manner of an Episcopaliandeacon. If Moses and Jesus Christ were among the Christian prophets, why did Christians call God by the wrong name? Why did they reject Allah’s last messenger? As he got ready to leave, he came over to our table and leaned on it, and while David talked, slowly and distinctly whispered to me two short phrases in Mandarin.
One of these phrases was the name of a cemetery and the location of a grave. The other was a man’s name, Yang Geng Qi. Paul Christopher.
On the way back to the hotel I told David what the man had said to me and what I thought it might mean.
David shrugged. “We can dig up the grave, Horace, but think for a minute. Maybe that’s what they want us to do, so they can grab us in the act and get rid of us forever.”
It was not impossible that he was right. Robbing graves is a serious offense anywhere in the world. In China, with its ancient reverence for last resting places, the penalty might very well be a bullet in the head. All the same, I wanted to know. David shrugged again and went along with me.
We set out for the cemetery in the wee hours of the morning. Even gumshoes have to sleep some time, and ours were exceptionally tired after the workout we had given them that day. They were dozing in the lobby. The receptionist was also asleep, but there was no question of tiptoeing past all three of them. We went out a back door, split up, and made our way through empty and silent streets, a strange and unsettling experience in China, where one never expects the crowd to be absent. It was a moonless night, but the stars were brilliant in the black desert sky. They gave off enough light for us to find our way among the markers.
It took time to find the grave of Yang Geng Qi. We had brought a metal tray from our hotel room and with this clumsy tool we dug through the gritty sand at the head of the grave. I had never before tried to be quiet in China, where noise is as omnipresent as the air itself. At this hour of the night the country was as quiet as sleep itself, and each bite of the tray into the earth sounded like the clash of cymbals.
Atlast we found what we were looking for. There was no coffin, just a body wrapped in cloth and trussed with rope. Feeling in the dark, I uncovered the face. Shielding ourselves under my raincoat, we shone flashlights into the grave. We found ourselves looking into the empty eye sockets of a young Han who had been shot through the back of the head. David slit the shroud to the man’s waist. There was a gaping hole in the chest where the heart had been removed and another where his liver used to be. I felt beneath the body. The kidneys were missing, too. This was a criminal whose organs had been harvested immediately after he was executed.
David took several flash photographs of the mutilated corpse, which was well on its way to becoming a mummy.
Clearly Zhang
had
planned to show us a grave before presenting us with Paul’s belongings. But then someone decided to send us ashes instead. A wise precaution.
6
I wanted to make contact with the Episcopalian
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