Party Members by Arthur Meursault

Author:Arthur Meursault [Meursault, Arthur]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: China, fiction, novel, dark fantasy, Communist Party, corruption
Publisher: Camphor Press
Published: 2016-08-07T23:00:00+00:00

18

“I want to buy one of the new Audi A6 saloon cars. Show me what you’ve got.”

The weeks following New Year’s Day are traditionally a glorious time for bargain hunters. Many of the large department stores offered attractive discounts on their unsold stock after the Spring Festival; in addition, a large amount of cheap luxury goods floated their way through various unofficial channels to those with the right connections. The more exclusive luxury brand names had not sullied their reputations yet by opening in a dirty, third-tier city like Huaishi, so more affluent residents flocked to the larger cities on the weekends between New Year’s Day and the Lantern Festival to satisfy their craving for discounted luxury. Certain brands, however, had such a steady stream of aspiring owners that they did not need to discount their wares. Their customers preferred it that way.

There was a strange, double-sided glory to how the post-New Year money was spent by the middle-class inhabitants of the wannabe Middle-Class Kingdom. Much face could be gained from hard bargaining with a lowly sales clerk and browbeating them into the lowest price possible; but diametrically opposed to this was the even greater face gained from unquestioningly spending one’s entire life savings on an overpriced folly. There was no glory to be found between these two disparate attitudes towards money: It must either be spent completely or not spent at all – two attitudes forming different sides of the hourglass, with only a sliver of squeezed value in the middle.

It was no coincidence that the Audi showroom was situated directly opposite the Ministry building. Two buildings held pride of place opposite the foreboding Stalinist architecture of officialdom: the KFC restaurant, where junior officials could hold meetings during the winter when their non-heated offices became unbearably cold, and the Audi showroom, where those who had made it could flaunt their status. The Audi was the vehicle of choice for all successful public servants, not just in Huaishi but also across the whole of China. This sleek and efficient piece of German engineering was originally seen as a humbling alternative to the garish limousines that had riled the masses in the former Soviet Union. The government had ordered Audis by the bulk for those senior cadres who needed to be chauffeured around, and soon their smooth black exteriors and tinted windows struck terror within any motorist who saw one approaching. Knowing the power of those that resided in them, lesser vehicles would make way for the Audis on the road so that they could speed past like an old woman cutting through a queue. To anybody who wanted to express their good fortune and join the ranks of the ruling class, an Audi was an essential purchase.

It felt good to be looking around the Audi showroom. The gathered saloon cars and four-wheel drives (all in black) whispered to Yang Wei, making him feel – at last – that his efforts were leading somewhere. As soon as he saw the dark-coloured

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