Dead Heat by CJ Carver

Author:CJ Carver
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction

Twenty-six

Georgia spent the remainder of her visit chatting about general things. If she was going to help this family, she felt she ought to learn something about them. Like the fact Julie was a doctor too, specialising in shiatsu and acupuncture, and that Vicki hadn’t been to school since she’d been in the detention camp but they’d been giving her lessons and she could, if she wanted, speak English reasonably well. All Georgia gleaned about Fang Dongmei, however, was that she hated cereal and toast, thought marmalade the most execrable thing she’d ever tasted, and would give her right arm for a decent fish porridge breakfast.

Georgia wondered how the old hag would cope with Price’s supermarket. Probably extremely well, she decided, watching the way she was smacking and twisting her rubbery lips together. She looked as though she’d survive anything.

Eventually, she pushed her chair back, and said her goodbyes. When Julie kissed her cheek, Fang Dongmei looked astounded and pulled Vicki aside in case the girl might try to copy her mother. Georgia raised a hand in salute to Vicki, who saluted solemnly back, and smiled at Fang Dongmei, who pretended not to see, then she let Paul walk her to the door.

The guard glanced up. ‘Been a bloody long time—’

‘One minute, please,’ said Paul.

‘No way, I’m bored to fucking tears here—’

‘One minute,’ Georgia snapped.

The guard groaned and reached for another magazine.

Paul turned to her. He spoke fast. ‘You know how I got these scars? I got them in a laogai. Gulag.’

‘Gulag?’ The word made her think of Stalinist Russia.

‘Few people know of them. The Chinese government keep laogai well hidden, but one day, the laogaidui system will be in the history books, alongside Dachau and Treblinka. They’re labour reform camps. Same thing as a gulag. Prisoners work in terrible conditions, making shoes, clothes, machines . . . Mostly for export, like T-shirts.’

He took a breath.

‘I was sent to a chemical factory. At a reform camp they don’t care about safety provisions for prisoners. The acid baths have no splash guards and we were always getting burned. I was forced to scoop out old acid with my hands. I didn’t do it fast enough. Two men rubbed my face in it. They were laughing.’

‘Why were you sent to prison?’ Her voice was very faint.

‘For being Falun Gong,’ he said patiently. ‘I only got out of laogai because I signed a bunch of papers that said I would turn my back on Falun Gong. But I couldn’t not help my patients. They love it. It helps them with their family, their relationships, their stress, and everything in between. So I’m on the PSB’s death list. Because I’ve broken their rules.’

Her brain was trying to catch up with all this horror when he said, ‘I’m going back to China next week.’

‘What?’

‘It’s the only way to stop the whole family being deported at the end of the month. Our application to stay has been rejected. The Chinese government don’t often take back refugees, so the Australian authorities are leaping at the chance to get rid of us.

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