New Shanghai

The nature of my job, I admit with some reluctance, is not altogether desirable. Nevertheless, with an iota of pride I can at least proclaim myself gainfully, legitimately employed – this being no mean feat, really, in a town as decadent as mine.

Well. But I should be frank, yes? I would do well to recount a fairly typical episode, that the aspect of my city and the flavour of my trade might both be made sufficiently explicit.

You, be the judge.

On last Tuesday the seventh of September our 'wagon' traversed the murk of the streets, bound this time for the Emerald Palace in the district of Tshingshan. It was noon, if memory serves – but of course the time of day matters little to New Shanghai. Dawn to dusk here the skies are the same, a pallid yellow-brown suffused with vapours the sun will not deign to cleave. Always the smog lies dim and thick upon the rooftops, perturbed only by the dull, wavering glower of distant industrial fires; always there is the reek of sulphur. And at night? At night a greenish miasma drifts insidiously over from what remains of the Luzon. It reeks and stews just over the streets, yielding a ghastly bioluminescent glow…

But already I see that I digress; it is pointless to persist in bemoaning our city’s air. No effort of man can hope to change it. To return, now, to what I had in mind to narrate.

Angslee was at the wheel that day; he drove through the murk with proper caution. The perils that lurk in any metropolis increase in proportion to the severity of its ailments… and ours was one sickened city. Indeed – while driving, as we were, through the decades of detritus that had accumulated in its silent urban wastes – one would be forgiven for thinking it void of habitation.

The dingy façades to either side of us parted of a sudden, and we burst into the open. The wagon tilted to the rear as our road began to mount the immense hulk of black iron that loomed, cables draped languid, before us.

Central Suspension Bridge, it had been rather baldly dubbed, in the city’s noontide. It spanned all nine hundred metres of the sweeping expanse of rank mire cleaving New Shanghai in two. The wagon shot onto the bridge, and we motored now over that vast tract of noisome waste. I glanced down, and the hulks of decaying vessels were plain for all to see. Hosts upon hosts of silent watercraft, hulls crumbling, sails hanging ragged, wheelhouses gaping empty; abandoned where they had come to splayed rest a century before. Year after year – by scarcely perceptible degrees – they slid deeper into that sucking, rust-red morass in the heart of our rotting metropolis.

In elder days, it had been called the Luzon River. Lifeblood of the city, ere it ebbed and dried out forever.

Some have said it was the barbarian hordes what dammed and diverted the mighty Luzon. Yet, were they not barbarians after all? They knew nothing but camels, desert, and unintelligible yodelling. Surely they could’ve possessed neither the foresight nor the cohesive might requisite to bring the task to fruition. As to these things, though, we who live here will never know. Not as long as there are dread realms beleaguering us.

I looked up past the riverbed… and what a dark, dark place I beheld. A city landlocked and dead, a smog-shrouded scape punctuated by massive, silent towers rising intermittently from the depths. Pinprick lights of red and amber smouldered in the gloom like eyes of coal; they were the only intimations of life. Certainly our wagon had crossed the bridge before, but in nearly all of those occasions the encroaching deserts had been whipping up their dust storms. Visibility, I would readily attest, would be barely north of zilch in one of those.

Perhaps, however, that had been for the best. None of us needed to be reminded of the shambles our city-state was in.

Ten minutes later we pulled up at the flecked green gates of the Emerald Palace. ‘Palace’ being something of a misnomer here, for even in its times of glory it had been no more than a sprawling amalgamation of apartment complexes.

We drove onto the vehicle lift. Walachat leaned out the window and jabbed at the button, and there came the hiss and whine of hydraulics warming up. Presently the grilles clattered shut and the elevator shuddered into motion. Some ninety feet up the ancient contraption grinded to a most bone-jarring halt, and we motored out into the subdued hustle of the Palace's Market Level.

The place, I saw, had changed little in the year or two since we had been there last. For the most part it was a shabby wilderness of drab canvas awnings erected upon a wide plaza of dusty ochre. Said awnings facilitated all manner of retail and barter for the extant residents of the Palace. As was the unhappy case in the rest of the city, however, these tenants were a steadily dwindling number – as such it was never certain just how long the market’s relative activity could be sustained.

There would, of course, be no driving through the market to reach the scene of this particular job; duly we parked the wagon and made to proceed by foot. Our countenances were appropriately grim as we disembarked, walked round to the back, and began unloading the equipment. The four of us certainly were not short on practice – as a team we had done this countless times. One thing about our trade was that the demand never let up. All that remained was to get the task over with, and I daresay that we were each of us more than eager for that to happen.

So I steeled myself, hoisted the stretcher and my sack of gear, and trudged off after the others. The square could not in all candour have been deemed busy, but sights and smells accosted me at once. Markets, it must be said, are getting scarcer in the city these days. As one of the thousands who procured just about all they needed from its diminutive provision stores, I had perhaps clean forgotten what they could be like.

Lighting here was achieved by means of incandescent bulbs strung upon the tangle of hastily-insulated wires crisscrossing overhead. These aerial lanes the bulbs shared with bands of blood-red onion lanterns, and the sallow glow issuing collectively forth seemed to augment rather than sunder the gloom. We marched on, and arrayed wherever we cared to look were goods and sundry of the quaintest order. Jade statuettes, intricate ornaments of wood, accessories for the shrine and altar… live serpents, agamids, and other exotics shut away in cages of wire.

Nonetheless we were not here to take in the sights. We made at once for the central aisle, knowing from experience that progress through it would be swiftest. This last ran as a thoroughfare right through the square, and as such proved no challenge to find. We turned into it shortly, and there our unfledged eyes were truly opened.

This was food territory and we could not help staring around a little. Beneath the harsh radiance of tungsten lamps whole legs of cured lamb swung upon hooks. Strings of shrivelled red sausages depended from the awnings and collected in heaps upon greasy board counters. Flies droned round a dry, table-sized rack of ribs; haggler and vendor paid them no heed and persisted with their altercation.

There was fish dried and salted, roast fowl skewered neck to tail – all of them retaining assorted, pinched gapes of death agony. Sacks of grain and cartons of preserved vegetables crammed the stall fronts, vats of oil simmered with mystery contents. Amid all this delved the dim silhouettes of the common folk, and peddlers followed these with expectant eyes.

Ahead where the square ended there loomed a long, severe block of derelict gray flats. Along its open corridors not a soul was visible, and the few windows that hadn’t been boarded up stared black and sightless out at the dour skies. I discerned a faded number ‘31’ upon its drab concrete flank; this building, it seemed, was the site of today’s assignment.

And so our little procession made its way thither. Plebeians and tradesmen alike took care to avert their gaze, for squads like ours were sights far too familiar for comfort. Thankfully we did come in due course to the end of the lane – here the solemn rows of bulb and lantern were at an end, and the plaza abutted in a wide and lofty flight of steps. We ascended in silence, passed a little shrine with a roof of green shingle, and came shortly to the foot of the building. Its ground floor was naught but a long, open concourse, barren save for the occasional stone table and bench.

Into the single, dingy, tiny elevator. We were wedged in with no windows, the door ground shut with a disconcerting finality… then nothing, nothing but a feeble fluorescent tube and the throb of a distant furnace. Tergu pressed for the eleventh floor, and we felt our ride begin to creak its way up.

By the time the door opened again I vouch that I was just about reduced to gulping for air. The corridor that lay before us was bleak and dusty and adorned only with the occasional pot of withered plant. It overlooked the market level and, indeed, much of Tshingshan; ever the romantic, Walachat could not resist gazing past the parapet.

Angslee, however, wasted no time consulting the unit number marked upon the nearest door. That done, he raised a slender finger to the one right at the end of the passage.

The few overtly inhabited dwellings we passed had no lights on in their windows apart from the ubiquitous red lamp or lantern. By dint of their eerie illumination I perceived, through one unit's open doorway, the stooped and wizened spectre of a decidedly ancient woman; she was hunkered over a stool in a corner and I couldn’t make out if she was eating or simply mooning. The interior of her flat was cluttered and tiny, the walls black and begrimed and hemming her in like those of some beast’s pit. Well it was unbecoming to nose around, and I looked into no more windows after that…

Because then, at any rate, I caught my first whiff of the site. One which I knew could only intensify as we drew closer.

The tell-tale stench had been reported already for a week. The honourable town council, however, hadn’t thought to call us in until the end of that period. We had a schedule, of course, and so when they got round at last to engaging us we had to put the job on hold for the whole of yesterday. Still, one had to admit that this – as far as our jobs went – probably wasn’t too bad. The Emerald Palace counted as a fairly populated neighbourhood, and as for the more isolated locales in these shabby times… Well, one would get the picture.

We stopped outside the door, took a breather, and began to don our gear. Gloves first, long and rubbery, out of the sack. Pull them on one after the other, careful so they don’t tear. Boots next, out of their hemp bag… step into them and lace up. And do not ever forget the mask, lest the fetor hit you like a wall the second you step through the door. Lastly (for it was my turn today), ready the stretcher and leave it outside. Then grab the Bag with the Zip.

Tergu was on spray can shift; accordingly he was on point. I could see him grimace behind his mask as he got to work picking at the keyhole.

A satisfying click at the first try. It wasn’t even locked.

Tergu shrugged. Armed with the disinfectant mister, he turned the knob and went in.

The half-open door beckoned. My turn now, and (as always!) I quite patently hesitated. Damned if I know how many more jobs I’d have to do before I rid myself of the jitters. With the resolve borne of self-censure, I grit my teeth and stepped into the void.

The interior was all stygian gloom, and when my vision adapted I saw he was sitting before me on a low, mouldy armchair. Inwardly I sank in relief, for judging by the look of our client’s visage he couldn’t have gone very far beyond the initial stages of decay. Given – all of him that was visible beneath the scratchy woollen blanket he’d holed in under against the death chills was of a livid, cadaverous white; the veins in his arms and neck standing prominent in fulvous green, the lips purplish and distended… but for all that, I’d say, the ravages of 'black' putrefaction hadn’t truly set in.

An abrupt crash to my left, and I started – but of course it was only Angslee wresting the window open. Sullen light washed in, and by dint of it I was gratefully able to turn my attention to the rest of the unit. It was low-ceilinged and oppressively small, the sitting room was scarcely nine feet across and there were but two other doorways. Of the pair, one was open and led into a narrow kitchen; the other, which was shut, indubitably guarded a bedchamber of sorts. There was a heathen altar against the far wall, this being replete with joss sticks, tiled roof, ominous carved statuette, and little bowls of incense. Red electric candles stood like sentinels around it; happily they hadn’t been switched on, or their florid glow would have been too much to bear.

Paint peeled, the floor was bare concrete rent with cracks. The dumpy television set propped on a stool three feet before our client’s armchair looked like it could not have worked for half a century. The place was, on the whole, most abject and dismal. Around it we shuffled to work.

Angslee had it easy today. He commenced his search for the dead man’s identification, scouring surfaces and rifling through cabinets in the light he’d let in. Town councils these days haven’t the faintest who tenants in which apartment. If we failed to come up with positive information we’d have to give him an anonymous cremation, one with little else but his estimated age chiselled on a plaque. He looked, to me, like he’d been upwards of seventy.

Walachat busied himself scribbling a report dealing with the scene as it appeared then, as well as the state of the body – a mere formality, we all knew, but it conferred a sliver of dignity to the fellow’s miserable death. I should say, however, that Walachat wasn’t quite as lucky as Angslee. As I shall narrate shortly, his duties did not end with that report.

For my part I could only stand by as Tergu busied himself with our spray can. Whistling tunelessly he laid a fine carpet of scented disinfectant over anything within three feet of the armchair. Having achieved that he stepped up and did the same with the body itself, albeit with somewhat more vigour. Still glancing about, I noted a ventilation grate up one corner of the ceiling – units in this block, it seemed, shared the same system. A good thing for us, or it could well have been weeks more ere someone phoned.

Right. Tergu stepped aside, he was done with the hosing down. He looked at me as if to say, all yours, and the wince flickering past his countenance betrayed how glad he was that he hadn’t pulled my shift today. I certainly didn’t blame him.

I lay the Bag with the Zip down on the floor beside the armchair, swallowed hard, and approached the body.

Try to look for the person behind that death mask, Lon. It helps overcome any lingering squeamishness.

And to that end I tried. I did my damnedest to look past the decay, the pallor and the blackened eye sockets… to empathise with the poor geezer before me. Odds were that he’d been scraping out a hard, lonely existence, a life which evidently hadn’t seen much improvement in its golden years. How many wretches like him, whose sorry remains we’d been called in to clear? Penurious old men and women with absolutely nothing to their name; even a phonebook in one of their humble abodes would be accounted a rarity. Most of them were old enough to have watched the city’s rise and fall… many had had a hand in building it. And now, in the death throes of New Shanghai, their generation too had seen its time. As each of them dropped in their obscure little flats the government they’d been serving all their lives would quietly close the book on their existence. A yawning official would scrawl a signature on the certificate we’d produced, fax it over to the tax department so they’d make a note to quit milking the late citizen. Then the town council would seize the few cents’ worth of assets, scatter the cremated ashes to the whispering desert winds… and that would be that.

I reached forward and gingerly pulled the blanket away from the man’s chest. Suddenly he seemed to me to take on this air of serenity, this comportment of halcyon peace; and looking down I believed I could see why. Clutched tight to his breast was a photograph sealed in a plain wooden frame. It was clearly very, very old, hued in sepia and faded round the edges. The young lady within, however, had ridden it as if a time capsule.

Her bright eyes smiled archly at the camera from a fair, heart-shaped face. Short hair that could only have been a most vivid hue of red framed a sharp, sprightly chin, fell down to caress a delicate neck. Sepia-toned photos were last century’s fad, and chances were she’d probably be the same age now as he’d been when he drew his last breath. Given, of course, that she was still alive.

The three of us could do no better than stand and stare. I was abashed, I had the sentiment I was intruding on something that had been private for a long, long time.

I looked upon the man’s face again, and it seemed that I finally had a measure of who he could’ve been. Beneath mortality’s defilements one could distinguish the quiet, honest mien of a man with gentle regrets. There was loneliness in there, a lifetime’s worth of pensive, forlorn destitution; of fruitless enduring and thrice-shattered hopes, of elder dreams that could never be. It is absurd, I grant – but it did seem to me as well that, in death, much of those years had been taken off him. That his passing was a release of sorts, an arduous cul-de-sac that had the mercy to return him to an earlier age.

With these I realised that there was something else to the apartment that hitherto I had not been able to put my finger upon.

Unlike the scores of other dwellings we had found ourselves in, this one had no signs of life interrupted. No clothes hung upon poles at the kitchen window to dry, not a drawer was opened or pencil out of place. The cutlery was dry, the chipped plates stacked primly beside a dry sink. It was – not to put too fine a point on it – quite like he’d anticipated what had been coming.

Walachat thought as much. ‘You know,’ he finally said, ‘if he knew it was coming he could have phoned first…’

‘Well,’ said Angslee as he came over, ‘that would defeat the point wouldn’t it. All of them wanting to die in their homes? Nobody would’ve let him do it, if he’d told them.’

It was funny how none of us, seasoned as we were, had it in him to make the next move. We stood around that armchair in a kind of quiet reverence, and a truly ghastly spectacle it must have been to the bystander.

But finally Tergu cleared his throat, and I reached forward gently to do my thing. ‘Sorry,’ I murmured, as I pried the little frame from his lifeless hands… and I most emphatically meant it. I placed the photograph carefully aside – lordy, he’d even had it taped in plastic so it stayed clean – and handed the blanket to Tergu so he could stuff it in one of the trash bags we used for ‘sullied’ articles.

Then me and Walachat (remember I mentioned he wasn’t half as lucky as Angslee?), we worked in tandem to lift the wasted body off the armchair. It will suffice to say that the corporeal form is immensely delicate this far beyond death, and it was imperative that the two of us exercise the utmost in caution.

Nevertheless, I am glad to state that we got our client into the Bag without incident. I stooped, and was about to draw the Zip closed… when my eyes fell upon that sepia photograph lying forsaken upon the floor. The cleanup crew would come in tomorrow to retrieve his possessions and decide what best to place on the pyre with him, but somehow it just didn’t seem right.

I made a decision. I reached over for the photo and laid it to rest in the old man’s arms. Then I pulled the Zip, felt a good deal lighter, and together with Walachat carried the Bag outside onto the stretcher.

The nature of my job, I admit, is not altogether desirable. It is an occupation that is taxing on one’s emotional sensibilities.

But still… I am gainfully employed. An achievement, in itself. Right?