Chapter Twenty

Transcription

Chapter Twenty

1
Blue
or
好事多磨
(The path to happiness is strewn with difficulties)
by
Christopher E. Kutarna
© 2009
© Christopher Kutarna 2009
2
Table of Contents
Note to the Reader
4
Foreword
5
Chapter One
7
Chapter Two
14
Chapter Three
20
Chapter Four
29
Chapter Five
32
Chapter Six
43
Chapter Seven
68
Chapter Eight
83
Chapter Nine
100
Chapter Ten
109
Chapter Eleven
122
Chapter Twelve
143
Chapter Thirteen
152
Chapter Fourteen
163
Chapter Fifteen
179
Chapter Sixteen
189
Chapter Seventeen
192
Chapter Eighteen
201
Chapter Nineteen
215
Chapter Twenty
236
3
Chapter Twenty-One
246
Chapter Twenty-Two
265
Chapter Twenty-Three
272
Chapter Twenty-Four
283
Chapter Twenty-Five
293
About the Author
302
4
Note to the Reader
The purpose of this book is to tell a good story. Along the way, I hope to do two things more:
first, to portray a slice of modern China; and second, to shake up some attitudes toward it. I am
assisted in this task by a cast of fictional characters: two Americans, Nathan and James; Kirsten,
a Danish girl; Constantine, a Russian; Donato, an Italian; and four Chinese friends, Ting Ting,
Menu, Harry, and Cynthia (aka Li Fan). You will come to form your own impressions of them in
the pages ahead.
While they are not real people, much about their lives is true. The places where they live and
work are real. The opinions and ideas they profess are real, and you are likely to encounter them
in similar situations among your mainland friends. The circumstances they confront are real as
well — be it media censorship, marriage or divorce, or death — and in most cases based on, or
supported by, actual occurrences.
Here and there I have forced them to take part in fictitious events. It was necessary, in order to
draw out deep feelings that they customarily keep quiet under less stressful circumstances. I
apologize to them — and to you — if I have misrepresented their reactions. To reduce the
chances of that, where I have had to exercise such judgment my bias has been to believe two
things: first, these people undoubtedly disagree on what meaning to give the events they
encounter; and second, there is merit in what each of them has to say.
To each of them, and to all the others who make an appearance in this book — thank you. Thank
you for lending me your voices.
5
Foreword
It was a stately sort of street. Great houses stood at haughty distances from the roadway, and
patient gingko trees spread their solemn branches over lawns far too pretty to be stepped across.
Not that one could. Each manor was surrounded by a high wall or fence — and often both —
capped with hooks and spears that promised to maim or skewer inquisitive trespassers and
generally gave the impression that visitors were not welcome.
There was irony in that observation — something about the original notion of an embassy being
at odds with concrete walls and barbed wire — but if Nathan paused to contemplate Beijing’s
every incongruity he would never get anything done, and today was a busy day.
He kept walking.
His pocket wiggled, and the lanky man hurriedly pulled out his mobile phone. < Aren’t you
coming to my party tonight??? > the text message wondered.
It wasn’t the message he was waiting for. < I'll be there. Just got a bit held up at work. >
Nathan tapped out his reply, then clicked send. It wasn’t a lie, but it was far from the whole
truth.
Up ahead, a column of public security guards appeared from around a corner, marching in a nononsense double-file toward him. They were a common sight in the embassy district, and,
Nathan thought with sarcasm, really added character to the community. He kept his eyes fixed
carefully on the pavement, and fidgeted with his phone as if still tapping something out. He
knew the script. He just couldn't bring himself to follow along with it.
A voice up ahead called for his attention, and though he understood the words it was easy to
pretend he didn’t.
“Hey!” the call came again, louder this time, but Nathan was too engrossed with his shoes to
notice.
He blundered right into the first two soldiers.
“Oh,” Nathan looked up finally in mock confusion and privately savored their disbelieving
glares. “I’m sorry,” he stammered, and offered a sheepish smile. He apologized all the way
through their muttering column, a pinball bouncing clumsily amongst olive green bumpers. In
his head, he rang up the points.
6
By any standard it was rude. They were uniformed men executing a civic responsibility; he was
just a civilian bumming around — and an alien one at that, according to the strangely-worded
cover of his work permit. One day, his irreverence was going to land him in serious trouble.
But not this day. He made sure to catch the eye of the last soldier in the line, a young man whose
shoulders were not yet broad enough to fill out his uniform, and offered him the briefest of
winks. It was the finishing touch and elevated Nathan’s impromptu affront into the realm of art.
The soldier-boy scowled as if he were about to slug the impetuous foreigner, but his column was
marching on and he was duty-bound to follow.
If only you knew, Nathan thought to himself and watched the column march away. He saluted
their backs.
His phone wriggled again. Nathan glanced at it again. This time he smiled.
< It’s done. >
7
Chapter One
“It was brilliant,” Kirsten gushed. “Here's this guy. And he looks every inch the Party man,
right? Right down to those ridiculous glasses and the greased-back hair. He’s going on and on
about some ‘exciting new plan’,” she quoted in a sarcastic tone, “to widen Chaoyang Street...”
“Widen!?!” Constantine scoffed. The hairy, heavyset Russian shook his head in disbelief. “For
what? Cargo ships? Already it has twelve lanes!”
“I know!” the Dutch woman exclaimed. Her short, fiery hair framed a freckled face that shone
with alcohol-enhanced enthusiasm. “So here he is, putting us to sleep with a speech about, like,
asphalt, and then all of a sudden he starts calling on the government to free Falun Gong
prisoners.”
“He did WHAT?!?” Donato gasped, and started coughing on his wine.
The lithe Chinese woman at his side slapped him hard across the back.
“Ow!” Donato protested.
“Oh, did I hurt you, baby?” Ting Ting asked with mock concern, her lacquered fingernails
suddenly tracing soft lines against the chubby Italian’s face and her pert breasts pressing close.
“Sposato! Sposato!” he pleaded, his face burning. “Married! Married!”
Nathan just grinned.
It was one of the intangible riches of living in Beijing, this easy yet improbable gathering of
misfits from all corners of the globe. All told, over half a million foreigners called the city their
temporary home, by Nathan’s guess. (Since most foreigners cheerfully ignored the official
directive requiring them to register, his guess was as good as any.) Most were peripatetic singlephiles. They came with vague intentions to study the language or do research, and left long
before they could accomplish something significant either way. That was the nature of Beijing.
It was a fad. The new thing. People came because they felt they ought to, and left as soon as
they realized they had other more important things on their list.
But Nathan’s circle was different. They belonged to that smaller, self-selected group who had
remained, for one reason or another, past the one- or two-year threshold that separated the
dilettantes from the deliberate. As such they had gained admission into the expat aristocracy, set
apart from the steady stream of new arrivals by their street smarts and cultural nous. They knew
8
that the Chinese word for crisis did not, in fact, derive from ‘danger’ plus ‘opportunity’. They
knew that any license plate beginning 京-A8 was a State vehicle worth avoiding, and that by
dialing 1-7-9-5-1 they could make cheap long-distance calls from their mobile phones. They
could watch and understand the local evening news (unlike the majority of official diplomats at
their respective countries’ embassies), and if any one of them wanted to book out Ritan Park’s
idyllic pond-side cafe for a private party on a prized Friday evening in early summer, they all had
the guanxi to make it happen.
“Somebody piped a recording over the sound system. It wasn’t his own voice,” Kirsten
continued to relay her story once Donato caught his breath. “But his face! It was — horror.
Here’s this guy, whose most exciting career moment up until then was being promoted district
secretary in charge of tar, and suddenly he’s standing in front of national media calling his own
government a bunch of castrated cowards who don’t have the balls to let their own people think
and speak for themselves.”
“In English?” Constantine guessed.
“No,” Kirsten shook her head. “In Chinese. With a Beijing accent.”
Constantine frowned. “How does one say ‘castrated coward’ in Chinese?” The language
training supplied by the gas company he worked for hadn’t covered political epithets.
Kirsten grinned. “Beiyanle danxiaogui.”1
Ting Ting laughed, her long black curls dancing with mirth around her almond eyes. “Even I
didn’t know that.”
“Why didn’t he just shut off his microphone?”
Kirsten laughed. “He tried. He grabbed it from the podium and started pounded it against the
floor.” She demonstrated, splashing beer everywhere. “The noise was awful. It broke into
pieces, and when even that didn't stop the voice he just ran back and forth shouting ‘It’s not me!
It’s not me!’ Finally the power cut out in the whole room. Everything just went black.”
“Who would set up a stunt like that?” Donato wondered aloud.
“It was the FMA,” Kirsten intimated.
Constantine harrumphed. “So was Kennedy assassination,” the Russian said scornfully.
beiyanle danxiaogui (被阉了胆小鬼)
9
‘The FMA’ had been Kirsten’s pet investigation ever since ‘I love democracy - FMA’ bumper
stickers had mysteriously appeared on several hundred cars in the embassy district several
months prior. Every week she had a new theory for what the three letters meant: Freedom’s
Mainland Assault. For Many Atrocities. Forever Mao’s Adversary. She had professed and
subsequently abandoned each one.
“What makes you so sure?” Donato challenged.
Kirsten grinned. She loved to be right. “Because when the lights came back on, there it was —
‘FMA’ — scrawled right across the lectern in black marker.”
“What?!” It was Nathan’s turn to choke.
She nodded enthusiastically. “It was, like, so cool. One second, it was chaos, and the next it was
dead silent and we’re all screaming, ‘It’s somebody in this room!’ ‘It’s somebody in this room!’
We probably would've all been sent to an interrogation cell, except there was, like, no security. It
was just a run-of-the-mill press event — at least, until that happened. And I was there,” she
sighed happily. “It was brilliant.” Kirsten thought everything the FMA did was brilliant.
“It’s stupid,” Constantine bluntly disagreed. “You Americans. Always to rush in and fix other
countries’ problems. There is no point to it. The Chinese are already on the liberal road.
Вся́кому о́вощу своё вре́мя,” he said philosophically, and Ting Ting ooh’ed appreciatively at
the masculine timbre of his native speech. “Things just need time to ripen.”
“That's a myth,” Nathan quickly corrected, breaking into the conversation.
“What is?”
“That time will necessarily make things better. Time is neutral, Constantine. Whether things get
better or worse depends entirely on how we use the time that’s given to us. This is a country of
people content to be uninvolved. I’d love to believe that somehow they’ll just leap from stagnant
socialism to dynamic democracy, but according to history it doesn't work that way. People need
to build the bridge.”
Constantine scowled. “How many times you rehearsed that speech?”
Nathan laughed. “A few,” he admitted. And his friends laughed with him. Nathan had a habit of
speaking in quotes, a consequence of having spent too much of his life studying the works of
Enlightenment philosophers in America and France. To his friends, his whole existence in
Beijing seemed an anachronistic throw-back to the intellectuals of that era. He read widely. He
painted. He drew. On weekdays while they toiled in their office cubes, he could be found in the
gardens outside his apartment block, sipping tea and playing Chinese chess with the old men in
his neighborhood. Occasionally he wrote articles in various French and American publications,
10
or deftly dabbled in that lucrative freelance industry vaguely labelled ‘consulting’. But he had
no obvious form of stable income. He was a man of ideas, with the talent and convictions to see
them realized and the patience to do little else.
To a one, they suspected he would retire broke and come knocking on all their doors looking for
money.
“But anyway,” Nathan continued, “Who said this FMA business is run by Americans? I mean —
maybe it's Constantine.” His blue eyes sparkled. They were his most remarkable feature: twin
cerulean orbs that danced and twinkled joyfully whenever he spoke, especially when expounding
ideas. They were beautiful. Honest. Innocent. Nathan could lie like a champion, and his eyes
were the reason.
“My money’s on James,” Donato disagreed. “At least we know he’d have the money to fund it.”
James was their sugar daddy, an American investment banker whose income was entirely
uncorrelated with effort and spent money as easily as he earned it.
“Where is James anyway?” Ting Ting pouted. “Don’t tell me he’s not coming to my birthday
party?”
“He’ll be here,” Kirsten assured their flighty guest of honor. “I’m sure he just got tied up at the
office.” She spat out the last word as if a desk job were her own private version of hell.
“Well, now he owes me a dance,” the birthday girl announced firmly. “A good dance.”
“I think this is him now,” Nathan fished out his phone. It was flashing. “I’ll go get him.”
***
Nathan found James loitering at Ritan Park’s south gate with a carefully boxed birthday cake
under one arm.
“Is that your alibi?” Nathan said by way of greeting, pointing at the boxed confectionary. He
pulled out a red packet of cigarettes and gave it a shake.
James nodded. “Triple chocolate.” The tall, muscled man slipped out one of the sticks, and
together they lit up. Smoking was a dying art form in many parts of the world, but not here.
People who had never smoked a day in their life somehow picked up the habit quite easily before
11
their first month in Beijing was out. It had become their tradition at the end of each heist: one
stick apiece of pricey Zhongnanhai Reds.2
It started to drizzle. “So, how’d it go?” Nathan grinned. The rain was a nice touch. In the
movies, meetings such as theirs always seemed to take place in the rain.
James inhaled deeply, let out a long, contented sigh, and raked his fingers through his closecropped hair. It had grayed some thirty years too soon — whether by genetics or the stressful
nature of his banking job, Nathan didn't know. But it granted him a distinguished edge — and a
parade of female admirers.
“Kirsten gave you the news?” James guessed.
Nathan nodded. “‘It was amazing!’” he imitated her enthusiasm. Then his face turned serious.
“But the lectern stunt was dumb. The plan was to go straight from the A/V room to the back
door. You didn’t have to take that risk.”
“It wasn't part of the plan,” James admitted, and took another puff. “But it was just so confused
and — I hadn't imagined it would get that chaotic. People rushing in and out. The guy on the
podium, I thought he was going to have a heart attack. I really did. Then they killed the lights,
and I just thought — screw it, let’s do it.”
“If you had been caught —”
“I wasn't.”
Nathan nodded slowly. There was no use debating that point, but his partner’s actions still
frustrated Nathan. Their clandestine activities had already imbued their lives with more than
enough risk. They had worked out clear rules of engagement, a sort of code for getting things
right — as well as surviving.
And rule number one was to strike only from shadow. Frontal assaults were suicidal. The main
arena, Tiananmen Square, had a figurative landmine under every flagstone. So they had
schooled themselves to look for meaningful side skirmishes. They studied the territory for each
encounter carefully, like a tiger stalking its prey when it knows there are humans with guns
roaming about.
The hotel hadn’t been a random choice. It had been the best choice, out of the dozen they had
considered. Like all hotels built with government money in the 1980s, it boasted a ballroom big
enough to seat fifteen hundred people — just in case the Party needed to host a congress and the
Zhongnanhai (中南海) - A brand of Chinese cigarettes. In the late 1960’s, the company custom manufactured
cigarettes for Chairman Mao. ‘Red’ is an expensive, limited quantity variety.
12
Great Hall of the People was booked. Of course, no clients ever had cause to rent such a space,
and so it had been permanently subdivided into a dozen smaller venues. But there was still only
one audiovisual control room. It meant that the wiring for each event was set up in advance —
and then abandoned until somebody found time to go back and pack it up again.
All that careful preparation had become moot when James walked straight into the conference
room anyway.
“What is this really about?” Nathan asked directly. They had been through many battles
together, now. Too many to hide things from each other.
For a while James didn’t answer. “What did Constantine think?” He asked his own question
instead.
It revealed much. Nathan shrugged. “You know what he thinks. FMA is a joke.”
“Maybe we are,” James echoed.
Nathan rocked back on his heels.
James grimaced. “There were forty journalists in that room, Nathan. How many do you think
are going to write up the story?”
“Including or excluding Kirsten?” Nathan tried to make it into a joke.
But James would not be sidetracked. “None,” James answered his own question. “It’ll be as if it
never happened.”
“Somebody has to swing the axe against injustice,” Nathan slipped into a professorial tone. “It
doesn't matter whether we’re the ones who finally topple it. We’re not the first; we won’t be the
last. What matters is that we take our turn. And this is it.”
James hated when Nathan tried to answer tough questions with fluffy rhetoric, as if the man were
speaking to history instead of to him. He slumped back, exasperated — or maybe just exhausted.
“Is that right?” James pressed. “Or do we just say that line to ourselves to avoid taking a hard
look at what we haven’t accomplished?”
Now Nathan did stop and think. “You’re saying we need to think bigger?” It didn’t completely
surprise him. Nathan was the mastermind of their clandestine existence, but James was the
muscle and the courage. He was always pushing the boundary of what Nathan considered sane.
James nodded. “We're trying to be the pebble in the pond. Maybe we need to be the boulder.”
13
Nathan hesitated at that. “What are you suggesting we do, specifically?”
“I don't know yet,” James confessed. “I just know I can’t go on this way: all risk and no return.
I’m not like you, Nathan. I need to see it to believe it.” He tossed his cigarette butt to the
ground and started chewing on one fingernail.
Nathan discarded his own cigarette and stepped right to the water's edge. He was glad that Ting
Ting had chosen to have her birthday party here. The one-room alfresco cafe/bar was a good
place for friends to gather, neither loud nor dull. And the park itself was beautiful, a wellmanicured forest that sheltered shrines and temples and contemplation pools like this one.
They were deep inside the city, but the high trees in every direction masked that truth. Only one
building, the towering China World Trade Center, stuck out above the tree line. And even that
didn't disturb the aesthetics of the moment. The four corners of the steel pillar tapered upward as
they climbed, and the resulting soft curve seemed somehow very natural.
Something moved on the visible face of the tower, near the top where the setting sun had lit the
glass panels afire. Window washers, Nathan guessed, and their ant-like appearance helped him
get perspective on the building’s size.
Anything dropped from that height would certainly cause some waves. He chuckled to himself.
Then his eyes widened.
“I think I have an idea.”
14
Chapter Two
Cynthia — Li Fan — was not a morning person.
She dragged herself out her front door at nine o’clock in the morning. The city had been awake
for hours, but not she. She rarely saw morning light, preferring to live in the hours between noon
and three a.m.. But every Monday morning at ten o’clock she had her weekly editorial meeting
at the office, and so she forced herself to wake against nature.
Not that she didn't like the office. It was one of the few places in Beijing where she could hear
herself think. Modernization was a loud, jarring process, and the city was so big it spanned
decades. Some districts zoomed and flashed along twenty-first century car-infested mega-ways,
while others still creaked about on donkey-driven carts from the 1950s. Her office belonged to
the latter variety — tucked away on a crumbling side street, the sidewalk’s bricks having long
since been pried up and carted away by people who, quite frankly, needed them more than her
feet did.
An old man on one corner repaired bicycles, and she gave him a lazy wave as she walked past.
He smiled back. She had never learned his name, but he was usually her first smile on Monday
mornings. He'd probably been there since five o’clock, claiming his corner before someone else
could muscle him out of the territory. Bicycle repair was a sacred occupation in Beijing.
Although bikes were far fewer now than when she had first arrived from Nanjing eight years
ago, enough people still depended on them to get from A to B that this rickety man was
indispensable. He sat on a low stool, and beside him was the battered suitcase in which he kept
his tools, organized according to a logic only he could decipher. A little tub of water at his side
served to help him find leaks. He kept a couple of spare tubes on hand for holes too big to patch.
That was about it.
Her next waypoint was a little bakery. The front of the store was only a few feet wide, just a
countertop facing the road. In behind, the baker and his younger brother were already hard at
work rolling out balls of dough for the lunchtime crowd. Cynthia walked up. The baker smiled
—- her second of the day — and handed her her usual sweet-cake in a little plastic bag. She
gave him one yuan. He gave her half of it back in change.
Her destination was a low-rise office building — just five stories high — and her newspaper
occupied most of the top floor. It was the perfect location for a media company: not so high that
you couldn’t hear the workers grumbling in the street below, but high enough that you could look
out over the rooftops and see the big picture of things happening around the neighborhood. She
stepped into the ground floor elevator and smiled. She’d have to write that down.
15
The first thing anyone saw when the elevator re-opened was the receptionist. If Cynthia were a
man, she would hit on the young girl every time she walked in. In that way, Aviva was the
perfect secretary. Her beauty was a mark of the prestige of the man she worked for. It was
sexist, of course. But a lot of things in China were sexist. It wasn’t done deliberately; people
just hadn’t gotten around to deciding that some things ought to be different.
“Good morning,” Aviva smiled. Cynthia’s third of the day. For a Monday that was pretty good.
“Good morning,” Cynthia mumbled and dragged herself past. The girl ought to model
cosmetics. Every time Cynthia passed Aviva by, she felt the need to try out a new brand of
whitening cream.
“Your meeting’s already started,” the girl added. Cynthia looked down the hall and saw that,
sure enough, the conference room was already full.
“Ni ma de,”3she swore. She snatched a pen and paper from the front desk and darted to the door.
***
“Hi guys, sorry I'm late,” Cynthia said, taking her usual seat as close to the exit as possible.
“No problem, Li Fan. We're just getting started.” Her chief editor, Zhang Yun Hui, tolerated her
chronic tardiness because she was the only editor on his team whose pages he never found ways
to improve.
Their newspaper was a science and technology weekly. Cynthia was responsible for the six-page
Life section: the latest gadgets, mostly, but occasionally some good interviews and thought
pieces. Their readers were mostly researchers and scientists, but they tried to sex it up here and
there for the mass market.
“How was your vacation?” one of her colleagues asked in a low voice. It was Cynthia’s first day
back in over a week.
She grimaced, and hid her instinctive reaction behind a cough. She hated lying, but preferred it
to pity. “Changsha? The street food there is so good. And I finally made the trip to Mao’s home
town.”
ni ma de (你妈的) - Literally, ‘your mother’s’. Figuratively, a crude swear.
16
“Here’s our scrub list for this week,” Yun Hui was saying, and passed around copies of a onepage government memo. The original in his hand sported a bright red letterhead with a single
gold star in the centre.
Once a week their chief editor received the memo and passed it on to them, his associate editors.
It was a list of the stories they were not permitted to print. Failure to abide by that list carried
severe penalties — temporary, sometimes even permanent closure.
“Well, the Tibet story has been scrubbed,” one of Cynthia’s colleagues noted.
Ou Yang, their special assignments editor and reigning office billiards champion, started to
swear. He had spent two weeks in Tibet, interviewing and writing about a pair of traditional
practices among rural Tibetans. It was a great story, worthy of print and weird enough to push
copies. The first was the practice of brothers sharing the same wife. The second was the
practice of hauling the bodies of deceased relatives up to hilltops to be eaten away by vultures. It
wasn’t the oddity of the practices that Ou Yang had focused on, but their origins. The former
arose because property rules in traditional Tibetan society were loose. Marx would have been
proud. The latter, because the spirit realm was in the sky (a fairly logical idea to have evolved at
the rooftop of the world). Vultures were not carrion beasts, but rather carriers, helping to
transport the deceased's soul to the afterlife.
Apparently the General Administration of Press and Publication was not on board with Ou
Yang’s scholarship. Yun Hui read aloud: “The story reinforces an already dangerous stereotype
that rural Tibetans are a barbarian race, and such views...”
“...are not consistent with the promotion of a peaceful and harmonious society.” The associate
editors recited the well-worn policy phrase in unison.
“I hardly think the readership of Beijing Science Weekly is going to take up their microscopes
and wage genocide against the barbarian goat herders of the Himalayas!” Ou Yang couldn’t
argue the judgment, but he could vent his frustrations.
“We can file it,” Yun Hui offered some consolation, “and maybe publish it in a future edition.” It
was his way of saying: I’m not going to burn guanxi4fighting this one.
He had done that a few weeks prior for a story that mattered, and relationships with his Party
associates were still raw. A senior scientist had blown the whistle to their newspaper on a
scholarship corruption scheme: Chinese scientists who were funded by the Chinese government
were, contrary to the terms of the scholarship, secretly “double-dipping” by accepting more
lucrative funding from overseas universities.
guanxi (
系) - ‘relationship’, either interpersonal or logical. Also a measure of one’s ability to influence or ask
favors of another.
17
It was a sensational story. That first tip, followed up by some solid investigative journalism, had
rooted up a trail of corruption: kickback after kickback after kickback that finally encompassed
a dozen prominent rising stars in the scientific community. No one had said he couldn’t — yet
— and so Yun Hui had run it, and then spent the next week on the phone placating everybody
who had been implicated.
It was a game of cat and mouse between editors and their bureaucratic overseers. Do what's
good for the country. Do what's good for the Party. That was one half of their mandate. Uphold
the ethics of your profession. Sell as many papers as you possibly can. That was the other. And
the grease that resolved those often incompatible imperatives was the delay between saying what
you were planning to print and being informed that you weren’t allowed to.
There was really only one hard rule. Criticize the government all you want; just don’t criticize
the one-party model. It was a fine line sometimes. But if they didn't print a story every now and
then that made people with money and power nervous, they would never be able to sell papers to
those who had neither.
At the end of the day, Cynthia didn't mind the odd episode of censorship all that much. She was
in this industry for selfish reasons: to know the why of things. At the end of the day, whether or
not she got to publish that reason, she still knew it for herself. “Freedom” was never an absolute.
It was always a question of degree and perception. Of boundaries and rules, and the power to
shape those boundaries. That was the pragmatic truth. She wasn’t a political philosopher, but in
her years as a journalist she had figured out that much.
“What’s the FMA?” Cynthia asked suddenly. The item was listed at the bottom of the page, as if
it had been a late addition.
She looked up from her sheet. And met a circle of ignorance.
“Boss? At the bottom.”
Yun Hui took another look for himself. “I don't know,” he admitted. “Ou Yang?”
Ou Yang shook his head.
“Well that's fairly safe,” Cynthia remarked sarcastically. “We don't even know what it is we're
not supposed to write about. Does anyone know what it stands for?”
More shrugs around the circle.
“Good luck finding out,” Yun Hui said, and smiled.
18
“Me? Why me? I've already got my week’s pages.”
He shrugged. “You’re the one who’s curious.”
Cynthia silently berated herself for speaking up.
“Just some brief coverage,” her editor compromised. “So we know what not to write about.”
***
She didn’t loiter after the meeting. Before the room had fully cleared, Cynthia was already at the
elevator, already thinking about returning to the sleep that had been so cruelly interrupted.
The walk home was a blur of images that had nowhere to register themselves because her brain
had already climbed back into bed. She did remember unlocking her front door. Like every
other day, a small business card was curled up between the door handle and the jamb, offering
the convenience of in-home massage by a woman who looked nothing like the one in the picture.
Her apartment was big. She paid ¥3000 per month for a one-bedroom unit in Building Eight of a
residential complex that had been built in homage to urban density. Most of her friends had
smaller apartments. But Cynthia liked this one: high up on the twenty-first floor where the
constant commotion of Da Wang Road faded to a distracting buzz, and large enough that the
activities of living weren’t all stacked one atop the other inside a multipurpose space. She could
eat in her dining room, watch TV in her living room, and cook in her kitchen.
I wish I could afford to stay.
She pushed away the wasted thought and made a bee-line to her bedroom, peeling off clothes as
she went, and settled back into bed. The bed was her most cherished possession: king-sized and
over-soft, in a room with large bay windows that looked out onto the courtyard gardens. A floorto-ceiling cupboard along one wall struggled in vain to contain her clothes. Elsewhere around
the room stood other drawers and boxes and stacks and heaps for all the clothes that she owned
or had forgotten to return to friends. The only thing she possessed more of was shoes, but she
had begun to sell those off on Taobao.5
Some days she never left her bedroom. Her workday began whenever her groping hand closed
upon the clunky laptop she had discarded on the floor the night before. She could go online and
chat with friends or if struck by some inspiration write in her blog, or simply read the news.
When she got hungry, she could have food delivered to her door by the little Sichuan noodle
house that catered to the crew constructing the new Carrefour next door.
Taobao (淘宝) - The Chinese version of eBay. Its name literally means ‘to uncover treasures’.
19
Under ordinary circumstances, Cynthia enjoyed her lifestyle. She worked a total of maybe twoand-a-half days a week — hand out stories to her journalists on Monday; edit them on Thursday;
lay them out on Friday — and spent the rest of her time doing the things she loved: reading new
novels, writing on her blog, hanging out with friends at the club or KTV.
How quickly things could change. Now suddenly she had too much time, time alone, to worry
and to wait.
She closed her eyes and begged for sleep to steal away her afternoon.
20
Chapter Three
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, dear Ting Ting,
Happy birthday to you!”
Ting Ting closed her eyes and offered a few humble bows to her circle of Chinese friends.
“Happy birthday!”
The circle parted and Cynthia came in through the door of their private karaoke room, a
gargantuan cake topped by blazing wax candles cradled in both arms.
“Cynthia!” Ting Ting jumped up from her seat with a burst of girlish excitement. “Where have
you been? I almost thought you wouldn't make it to my party.”
“I was out of town on assignment,” Cynthia lied, a bit too quickly. She struggled to set the heavy
cake down and embrace her friend at the same time. “You know I wouldn’t miss this.”
“And you’ve lost weight.” Ting Ting held her friend out at arms length and inspected her
critically. At forty-seven kilograms, it wasn’t meant as a compliment. Unlike Ting Ting, nature
had not gifted Cynthia with much visible evidence of her femininity.
“You’re imagining things,” Cynthia self-consciously smoothed her skirt and stumbled on,
groping for a way to change the subject. “Make a wish!”
Ting Ting blew hard across the surface of the cake.
“What did you wish for?” the pretty girl at Ting Ting’s side teased. With her right hand, the girl
offered Ting Ting a cake knife. Her other hand gripped the pudgy young man at her left. The
sparkling diamond on its ring finger suggested she would not be letting go anytime soon.
“I can guess,” one of the men standing around the cake winked, and exhaled a large puff of
cigarette smoke between leering lips.
“Harry!” Cynthia gave the man a withering look.
Harry grinned, and Cynthia’s mock hostility melted under the attractive man’s smile. He was
built like a dragon — with a thick neck, broad shoulders, and great paws instead of hands. He
21
smoked like one, too. He was never without a pack of expensive Zhongnanhai Reds — or three.
And like a dragon, he had his own treasure hoard — a seemingly inexhaustible pile of cash
which he doled out magnanimously for events like this party.
“So how old are you?” The man asking inappropriate questions was short and pudgy, with
chunky eyeglasses. The heavy-rimmed spectacles slipped down his nose, and he stuck them
back up to the bridge with an index finger. It was his signature gesture. The glasses were
prescribed wardrobe for anyone with serious political ambitions, but Cynthia thought they were
ridiculous.
Ting Ting grimaced. “I’d rather not say, Menu,” she evaded, and knelt gracefully in front of the
mammoth cake to cut it.
Menu giggled and took a swig from the metal flask in his hand. “I picked out the cake,” he
boasted to nobody in particular.
“Don’t you think it’s a little big?” Harry dared to observe. They were seven. The cake could
have fed twenty.
“Jenny and Zhang Po can use the leftovers for their wedding,” he shrugged, predictably. Menu
was a government man. A Party man. Assistant Deputy District Manager for Beijing’s Ministry
of Roads & Infrastructure. Today it was a different party from the weirdness of the Great Leap
Forward and the Cultural Revolution, but within all Party members, high and low, there persisted
a deeply rooted appreciation for magnitude. For accomplishments of scale and the efficiency
that scale could bring. People called the Chinese government Communist, but in fact it was a
technocracy. Menu was a technocrat. There were no fundamental questions left about what to
do; only about how big to do it.
“She’s thirty!” Jenny chimed in helpfully and shoved a glass of red wine into the birthday girl’s
hand. Ting Ting took a long drink and swallowed.
I’ll bet that tastes bitter, Cynthia thought. Welcome to the club. Thirty. Worse still, by Chinese
reckoning Ting Ting was thirty-one, since they counted the nine months in the womb.
By either count, both of them were way behind on every schedule.
“Here’s to mature single women!” Menu toasted loudly. The chubby man raised his flask in
salute and knocked the contents back again. Menu was a heavy drinker. Whenever the men
drank beer, Menu took swigs from his own supply of clear liquor instead. It was seemingly
bottomless, and foul-smelling.
Ting Ting frowned, then giggled. “Speaking of which, where’s Jin?” she asked Cynthia in the
too-innocent tone she reserved for inquiries about other girls’ boyfriends.
22
Cynthia bit into a piece of cake slowly. “We broke up,” Cynthia admitted. There was no use
hiding it anymore.
“What?” Harry exclaimed.
“When?” Ting Ting spouted.
“Before I went back to — before my trip to Shandong,” Cynthia corrected her slip. “Just before
I left. I figured I would just tell everyone when I got back. Anyway, it's old news now.”
“But I liked him!” Ting Ting pouted. Of course she had. Jin was rich, Singaporean, and had
flirted with her outrageously at every turn.
“Well, now is your chance,” Cynthia said, her voice flat. Emotionless. She had had two weeks
to put him in her past, and she firmly intended to keep him there.
Her friends had other ideas.
“How’d it happen?” Ting Ting dug.
Cynthia shrugged. “He was taking a shower. It was two in the morning, and he got a text on his
phone. I opened it.”
“Uh oh,” Ting Ting foreshadowed.
“Yeah. Uh oh. Turns out he’d been sleeping around with one of the serving girls at Mix. I left
before he got out of the bathroom.”
Harry started to swear. “That sha B!6 I knew it. I knew it I knew it I knew it! Half the time he
was chatting up every girl in a dress; the other half he was missing. Mao pai huo!7 The man’s a
pig. I should've taken him outside the very first night we met him and punched him in the face
just for looking at you. I hope I see that niao ren at a bar tonight.8 I’m going to pick him up
with one hand and punch him in the face with the other until he begs for death.”
The girls winced at his indelicate language. Cynthia waited for his tirade to exhaust itself.
“Harry, I just don't want to think about him, okay. I wasted six months. I don’t want to waste
sha B (
B) - A vulgar swear.
mao pai huo (冒
货) - Liar! Fake!
niao ren (鸟人) - A vulgar swear.
23
tonight. He can do whatever he wants with whomever he wants whenever he wants. I don't
care.”
“How can you not care?” Harry retorted. He was obviously worked up over the news. “That
hun dan9is going to pay. This is a small city and he’s about to find that out. I'm going to tell
everyone I know to kick that ben dan in the ribs because no one, no one messes with my —” 10
“Harry?”
“— little sister. He never cared about you. He never —”
“Harry?”
“— treated you the way you deserve to be treated.”
“HARRY!”
“What?”
“It’s Ting Ting’s birthday party,” Cynthia complained. “Please. Can we talk about something
else?” In many ways Harry was the stereotypical Chinese single man — always ready to jump
into the fight when women were watching. A part of her was flattered: there was a magnetism
about Harry, a self-confidence to determine what he wanted and a belief that the rest of the world
would conform to his desires, as surely as a master potter shaped clay. But she didn’t need a
chain-smoking tough guy to go out and defend her honor on the body of a witless, lying,
cheating, arrogant, selfish, smelly —
She abruptly tied off that line of thought and forced her mind to turn to happier matters.
“So when are we going to smoke some Xi’s?” she asked, referring to the brand of cigarettes
supplied to every table at any respectable Chinese wedding banquet.
Jenny smiled with the girlish simplicity of the too-young to marry. Jenny was beautiful.
Optimistic, sincere. She lived inside a protective bubble of happiness, and she stubbornly
refused to be drawn out of it by any ugliness or sorrow. Cynthia envied her.
“Nearly ready. Just a few more weeks.” She gave her fiancé's hand a tight squeeze. Her
diamond ring sparkled. “And then you’re mine forever.”
hun dan (混蛋) - Asshole.
ben dan (笨蛋) - Stupid asshole.
24
Zhang Po smiled. He had the panda-like face of the softly-spoken and kind-hearted. He spoke a
bit slowly, but that just gave him more time to consider his moves. Conversation with him was
like playing weiqi11with one of the old wizards who haunted the Temple of Heaven on Sundays.
From the beginning, he could see the end, and he made his moves patiently to see it fulfilled. If
anything kept their marriage together, it would be his patience and his wisdom.
“We were beginning to worry you weren’t going to make it. You can't just run off like that and
not tell us where you're going.”
Cynthia forced a chuckle. So she had learned.
“You will be there, won’t you?” Jenny pressed worriedly.
“The day won’t be complete without you,” Zhang Po chimed in. It was a trite phrase, but in her
fragile state Cynthia felt the words deeply.
“It’s still a month away!” Cynthia chided them both, and the couple giggled sheepishly. Cynthia
used the moment to patch the crack in her armor. Jenny reminded her so much of herself — a
younger, scar-free version of herself, who trusted in love and naively believed that life's darker
days were still many, many years away. Her marriage to Zhang Po would sustain that innocence,
Cynthia knew. Zhang Po was a good man, whose family had money, but no political power. His
quiet, gentle love for a young peasant girl from the South had never been overruled by parents
determined to preserve family status. It was love that bound them together, nothing less and
nothing more.
Cynthia beheld their simple happiness a bit wistfully. She might have snatched Zhang Po up for
herself, had circumstances been different. Instead she had introduced him to one of her single
friends, and schooled herself to smile at the good fortune of others.
They chatted about nothing for a while, and then Cynthia found a quiet corner to eat her cake.
Menu spied her standing alone and made his way over to her side.
“You okay?” Menu asked, his face showing concern for his friend.
“Just great.”
“Yeah.” Reading between the lines was an essential skill for any good bureaucrat. “Want me to
send somebody to beat him up?”
wei qi (围棋) - The game of Go, invented in China and played by alternately placing black and white stones on a
19x19 grid.
25
Cynthia sniffled out a laugh. Menu always kept his friends guessing about what an Assistant
Deputy District Manager for the Beijing Ministry of Roads & Infrastructure could and could not
make happen in the city. “No. I want to kill him myself.”
“Well, let me know when you do,” he winked. “I’ll keep the streets clear for your get-away.”
They shared an almost sisterly smile. It was a widely-held but unspoken suspicion among the
girls that Menu was gay. He hid it well, to be sure, behind a prodigious drinking ability, a sharp
wit, and the occasional rude comment that had the guys roaring lecherously. But the eyes didn't
lie. Every girl in the room, not just Ting Ting, was accustomed to a certain amount of
speculative male perusal. It was in some primal way the glue that held the co-ed group of friends
together. But Menu never gave Cynthia that look.
If he was gay, no one could blame him for choosing to hide the fact. It wasn't something that his
bosses would easily wrap their heads around. Cynthia wasn't sure if she could, either, for that
matter. It didn’t seem natural to her. Natural variation, maybe, but not natural. Love led to
marriage. Marriage led to children. If it didn’t, people divorced and tried again. Where did
homosexuality fit into that picture?
Something in that train of thought had given her an idea. “Have you ever heard of the FMA?”
she asked.
“FMA?” Menu repeated, sharply. “Where did you hear about that?”
“It was on our scrub list this week. So you’ve heard of it?”
Menu’s beady eyes became evasive. He pushed his glasses up his nose again. “No, not really.”
Cynthia set down her cake and hit him with the same steely glare she had used to shake the truth
out of a thousand other tight-lipped middle managers. In mere moments she had Menu slumped
back against the wall, defeated. “Okay, okay. But I’m an anonymous source, right?”
Cynthia nodded. Of course.
“Actually, I’m not sure it’s that big a deal. Our office held a press conference yesterday. It was
routine — just announcing the Chaoyang Street renewal project — but there was a lot of press
because it’s all part of that big CBD expansion program we kicked off this year. Anyway, so my
boss is going through his slides on stage, and suddenly the microphone stops working and
everyone hears some weird recording come over the PA system. It goes on for about half a
minute, and nobody can seem to turn it off. Then finally somebody cuts the power to the whole
room — and the lights. A minute later they’re back on, and there it is — ‘F.M.A.’ — written in
big letters, right across the face of the lectern.”
26
Cynthia looked skeptical. “What was the recorded message?”
“Just some protest stuff,” he said vaguely.
“What sort of protest stuff?”
He hesitated again. “Falun Gong,” he admitted in a quiet voice.
Cynthia rolled her eyes. That was old news. Falun Gong was a well-organized society of
supposed meditation enthusiasts that the government cracked down on from time to time. No
one was quite clear on exactly what Falun Gong did — the censors had seen to that — but for a
wellness club, they did have aggressive recruitment methods. Cynthia and her friends had all
received Falun Gong text messages on their phones, spam facsimiles at their offices, and
booklets on their front doorsteps. Somebody was funding it all — that much was clear — and
given that the founder lived in the United States, it was easy to see the group as a foreign-backed
propaganda effort. It was also clear that their purpose went beyond meeting in the park to stretch
— since everybody already did that anyway.
“Falun Gong?” Cynthia scoffed. “It wouldn’t even have been a story if it hadn’t been put on the
scrub list.”
“There was a bit more,” Menu admitted, scratching his head. “The word is that these FMA
letters have shown up in a few other places this year. All low-level, amateur stuff. Posters and tshirts and that kind of thing. But this is the first time they’ve struck directly at the government.”
“Struck directly at the government?” Cynthia gawked at his choice of words. “You’re the district
office for the municipal Ministry of Roads & Infrastructure, for heaven’s sake. Am I supposed to
feel scared now?”
Menu spread his fat hands. “An officer from the public security bureau had my boss in the
conference room all afternoon today. He looked pretty miserable when the guy finally let him
out. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but I don’t think he’ll be doing any more press
conferences anytime soon.”
By now their lengthy discussion had attracted the notice of the rest of the room. “What are you
guys whispering about over there?” Ting Ting called.
“Your breasts!” Menu called back.
Cynthia sniggered. Ting Ting was very proud of her breasts, that much was obvious. She had a
habit of wearing button-up shirts a size or two too small and then buttoning up one less hole than
good taste would normally dictate. Her girlfriends had stopped saying anything long ago; she
was who she was, and they accepted her anyway. The boys had never made an issue of it.
27
Ting Ting swaggered over, her weapons armed. “I thought I heard someone say FMA.”
“Why, have you heard it, too?” Cynthia asked, and kept just a bit more breath in her lungs than
usual to fill up her chest.
She nodded. “My foreign friends gossip about it all the time. Like that press conference
yesterday. Anytime something like that happens, they seem to know about it right away.”
“How did you find out about the press conference?” Menu asked, surprised.
“Like I said - my foreign friends. One of them was there.”
“You think they’re in on it?” he probed.
Ting Ting waved away the ridiculous notion. “There’s one — a Russian guy — who I’m sure is
up to no good,” she joked. Then she added: “But they do seem to think it’s a group of expats
behind it.”
Menu rammed his finger up the ridge of his nose again. “That actually makes some sense,” he
admitted. “Something about that voice in the recording. It might just have been because the
sound quality was bad but...I just couldn’t place the accent. It's like he was a Beijinger — had to
be a Beijinger — but then there were just a couple phrases where I thought, this guy has been
watching too many bootleg American movies. I’d never believe a foreigner could speak Chinese
that well, but maybe if he’d practiced it over and over...” He trailed off into his own thoughts.
Suddenly he laughed. “If it was a foreigner on that recording, he’s got one dirty language
teacher.”
“You think they might be terrorists?” Ting Ting squeaked with nervous excitement, like a child
fishing for ghost stories.
“Terrorists?” Cynthia laughed. “I did worse in elementary school! Now if they had blown up
the lectern...”
“If they had blown up the lectern, I wouldn't be here right now,” Menu soberly pointed out.
“Please! Behind those blast shields you wear on your head?!” Cynthia tapped his lenses for
emphasis.
They all laughed at her clever quip, and the conversation moved on.
28
Cynthia leaned back against the wall and resumed her cake. This was how they liked it. Let the
masses go wild on the dance floor, at some crowded bar full of nameless bodies. Real luxury
was to hang out with your friends, in a room where only friends were invited.
A while later Harry stood up in the center of the room and cleared his throat. “Erm...I think it's
about time for us to get going,” he announced. “I've got our table booked at Cargo, and I for one
am ready to start some serious drinking.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys,
the four interlocking rings of an Audi crest dangling visibly. (By happy coincidence for Audi
brand managers, interlocking rings symbolized longevity.)
They all gathered their coats and headed outside.
“I can take four,” Harry said. “Who’s taking a cab?”
Cynthia shifted her weight uncomfortably. “You guys go ahead. I've got some work to do.”
“You aren't coming?” Ting Ting exclaimed, incredulous. “But it’s my birthday!”
Cynthia smiled apologetically. “I really can't. I’m sorry guys. I’ve been away for two weeks,
and I've got a mountain of stuff I have to submit tomorrow. I just gotta get it done.”
Her friends groaned and protested, but readily accepted the lie. She was a journalist — her
immovable deadlines had often spoiled their fun before. She didn’t like the stress of having to
remember not only things as they were, but also things as she had said them to be. Still, it was
necessary.
She needed their friendship, these easy hours of idly being together, so much more than their
sympathy.
29
Chapter Four
Tonight is red.
Cynthia pried the crimson stick from its box and began to grind it against the rough surface of
her ink stone. Round and round and round and round, she ground away confusion, and fear, and
worry. She ground the hardness into dust with the slow steady pressure of her palm. It was her
meditation. A task, simple yet precise. All else — the insects whispering at the moon from the
canopy of aged cypress trees, the mechanic rumble of a maintenance truck somewhere else in the
vast urban park, and the pa-thump, pa-thump, pa-thump of her fluttering heart — faded to
oblivion.
She got out a small flask of water. Quickly, so that some whimsical summer breeze did not steal
away the precious dust. She needn't have worried. The night air was dead calm. As it often was.
That was why she came here, to this tiny forgotten clearing in Temple of Heaven Park,
somewhere between the Pavilion of Longevity and the West Gate. This was her sanctuary.
Dribble. Dribble. Just a little bit. Just enough. There was a time when she had to measure.
Now she just knew.
The water turned red instantly; thick, like sorrow.
She worked the paste carefully until the powder was fully dissolved and the color smooth and
consistent. She rolled out a sheet of paper. She bought her paper at Panjiayuan, the weekend
antique market. One of her friends had a little stall there, selling art supplies. He always gave
her a deal on the best paper, the paper she liked, snow-white streaked with threads of pearly silk.
The fine rice material crackled satisfyingly as she laid it flat on the low, polished stone table.
It was a strangely out-of-place square of white marble. She’d always wondered why it was here,
hidden in a thicket of trees, far away from the park’s other imperial relics from six centuries ago:
the Altar of Heaven, the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests, or the Long Corridor. Perhaps it was
a surplus block, and rather than haul it back to the quarry as they had been instructed to do the
workers simply dumped it here in the bushes. Or perhaps some servant girl of the Temple had
pleased her master, and he hid this table here so that in secret she could kneel under the cypress
boughs and learn the secrets of pen and ink.
She didn’t know. It didn’t matter. She was its story now.
She loaded her brush and held it the way her father had taught her, the long wooden shaft pressed
between her thumb and three fingertips, her wrist cocked down like the head of a swan. And she
30
waited for the word to come. It couldn’t be forced. Poetry, if it is pure, must come from the
place before thought, where truth is instinctive.
So she waited.
Her eyes drifted, her mind lost focus. The small rectangular box that held her ink sticks blurred
and became two. Each held five sticks of pressed dry pigment ink: Blue. Red. Green. Yellow.
Black. Since she had been a little girl, she had always organized her colors the same way. They
wore out, from time to time. Yellow and green slowest. Black and red fastest.
All had been replaced many times over. Except her blue. It was the original blue. She’d never
used it, not once since the day her father had given her the set. She didn’t remember how old she
had been. Not that old, because two of her older sisters still lived at home. The three of them
shared a tiny bedroom together. Cynthia’s bed had been under the window, and when the sun
woke her up that morning, as it always did, the first thing she saw was the box. It was sitting on
the crowded little desk amidst her grammar books and Sanjie’s make-ups and the trinkets Erjie 12
had collected from her boyfriends. The cardboard was printed over with glorious and complex
patterns, spirals and knots without end, all in juniper green. A little piece of red ribbon tied it
shut. A slip of paper sat atop the box, and written on it in her father's careful calligraphy were
the two characters of her name: 13
李凡
With the anxious fingers of a child sneaking the last mooncake, she had pulled apart the silk
knot, opened the lid and beheld those inks. Her inks. She had spent a long time gazing into the
box, not daring to touch the inks for fear that the dirt on her hands might mar their shiny
perfection. She admired each one in turn. But she fell in love with the blue. Deep. Fathomless.
It reminded her of why grown men feared the ocean, of how she held her breath whenever the
last sliver of sunlight slipped below the horizon.
There was a mystery bound into that unique block of pressed ash and pigment, she did not doubt
— a secret to explain why its edges were not so finely squared as its companion colors, why it
felt so much heavier than the others in her hand, and why her father’s eyes seemed to focus far,
far away when she asked him where it came from. ‘Someday I’ll show you,’ he had promised,
but would say no more.
Erjie (二姐) - Literally, Second Sister. Siblings customarily call one another by their order of birth rather
than by their given names.
Sanjie (三姐) - Third Sister.
31
That morning she told herself that she would save the blue for a very special day, for a day when
the deepest part of her soul felt the joy of dreams come true.
Tonight was red.
She waited.
And waited.
And waited.
A drop of ink formed on the tip of her brush, the fine horse-hair’s thirst slowly overpowered by
gravity’s impatient tug. The drop swelled and expanded, like sand flowing down into the bottom
bulb of an hourglass.
And then, inevitably, broke free. It fell
fell
fell.
And crashed against the paper and the stone. Splattered. An open wound on an otherwise
flawless field of white rice.
Her tears would be invisible once they dried.
32
Chapter Five
James sat back on his heels, his athletic frame sweating heavily under the scorching midday sun.
“Time!”
Nathan looked at his watch and calculated. “Four hours, thirty-five minutes.” He looked up.
“Give or take a few seconds.”
James hung his head. He let the roll of duct tape fall from suddenly limp fingers. “That's way
too slow,” he admitted, and chewed again on his favorite fingernail while he contemplated the
complex assembly in front of him.
“Way too slow,” Nathan echoed. “So how can we speed it up?”
“Move indoors,” James moaned, and in that moment he was about ready to give up on the whole
enterprise. “The problem is the wind,” he complained. “I can't set the pieces properly before it
blows them all out of position.”
“It's only going to be windier up there,” Nathan offered unhelpfully.
Their workshop was the rooftop of Nathan’s apartment building. It afforded them both the space
and the privacy they needed to design and assemble their project. It also helped to simulate the
conditions they expected to face when they put their plan into motion. If they got that far.
Rooftop access wasn’t in Nathan’s rental agreement, obviously. Ordinarily, the accordion gate
on the twenty-sixth floor blocked the final flight of steps up to the roof, and the heavy padlock
and chain it sported made quite clear to residents that admission was by invitation only.
But James and Nathan had learned over the previous months that locks were far from absolute
things. They were more properly understood as contests, between those trying to get in and
those trying to keep people out. Whoever put in more effort would usually win. Most locks,
they had discovered, existed to deter the merely curious, and as such could be readily overcome
by the serious invader.
In the case of this rooftop, the threshold had been set even lower. The padlock had proved to be
an unbreakable beast, but the gate itself was anchored to the wall by only three simple concrete
bolts — all on the outside. Whoever had installed the gate had done so upside-down, and so it
had taken no more than the wrench function on Nathan's swiss army knife to gain entry to their
own private workspace.
33
Nathan paced thoughtfully. “You know, I can get my maid to come up here and help us out.
She’s only ten yuan an hour. Things would go a lot quicker with an extra set of hands.”
“I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea,” James said sarcastically. “Shut up, I’m thinking.” A
dealmaker by nature, James was perpetually calculating life on the back of the napkin. “We’ve
got at best one hour to assemble and one hour to arm each package. That’s eight hours, total.
We’ve got to speed up by a factor of four.”
Nathan continued to pace. He liked pacing. He had discovered back in graduate school, in
France, that he could visualize a problem better if instead of staying seated at his desk he stood
up and wandered back and forth in vague circles for a while.
He flirted within a couple meters of the rooftop’s edge. He could see the whole apartment
complex from here, nine high-rise buildings standing in two rows running east to west, with the
government-mandated fifty meters of breathing space between them. The Nine Dragons
Apartments were only ten years old, but they looked older, the once-white exterior paint
weathered to a sickly yellow by Beijing’s dirty rains, and rusting air conditioning units clamped
onto the exterior at every window. Had the stairwell proved impassable, a serious Plan B could
have been to climb those A/C units like a ladder all the way up here.
Now there’s an idea.
“What about carabiners?” Nathan turned and asked his partner in crime. “You know, those clips
that climbers use. It’s assembling the tarp that’s taking so long, right? We can sew grommets
into every corner, maybe a few extra along the sides, and then just click the pieces together.
Click, click, click. It’d be a lot faster than duct tape.”
“Stronger, too,” James noted, warming to the suggestion quickly. “All right, good idea. Let's do
it that way.”
“There’s a seamstress on the ground floor of Building Four,” Nathan said. “I’ll get her to sew
the grommets.”
James frowned. “What if she figures out how the pieces fit together?”
“You can’t figure that out, and you made them!” Nathan laughed. “No, I think our secret is safe.
But just to be sure, I'll mix up the pieces and give them to her in random batches. It'll take a bit
longer that way, but I can only carry a few at a time anyway.”
They shared a grin. Another problem solved. It was exciting, this project, something on an
altogether different scale than their previous escapades, something that would very likely get the
attention of half the city.
34
Assuming that they weren’t caught and sent to jail first.
“How are we coming along with the detonators?” James asked then.
Nathan grinned. “Everybody needs to find an excuse to build an explosive device,” he enthused.
“Although: it looks a lot easier in the video.”
“You got the instructions off YouTube?”
Nathan shook his head. “No, I can't get through from any of my proxy servers. It's totally offlimits. I’m using Youku.” Youku was the domestic YouTube ripoff. Unrestrained by intellectual
property concerns, it was in fact a far richer repository than the original. “You want a
demonstration? I've got one set up in my apartment.”
James surveyed the catastrophe laid out on the rooftop before him. He rose up onto his feet with
a groan. “Anything to get me away from here.”
***
They made sure everything that could blow away was weighted down, then slinked into the
apartment stairwell. Nathan crept down the stairs to the accordion gate and waited for several
long breaths. When he was certain there was nobody out in the hallway beyond, he reached
through the gate with one hand and spun the loosened retaining nuts off their bolts. He pulled
the gate away from the wall for James, and then quickly followed through.
There were cameras in the elevators, and so as a rule they took the stairs to and from their
clandestine workshop. It was perhaps an unnecessary precaution. Although cameras were
omnipresent in Beijing, both men suspected that few were actually being watched by somebody.
The fact was, they really didn't know how rigorous surveillance was, or how careful they ought
to be. It was easy to be lulled into a sense of normalcy. So much of daily life resembled their
world back home. In fact the most noticeable difference was often the policing that was not
present: not online, not on the streets, not in the bars. Perhaps there was less freedom in China,
but there were fewer rules, too.
On the other hand, they were seasoned enough expatriates to have witnessed the Party’s power to
penetrate swiftly, whenever and wherever it wished. It was everywhere. They had no doubt that
many of the old folks who wandered Nine Dragons’ communal gardens were loyalists. The old
white-haired man who sat at the main entrance all day, smoking his pipe despite signs
admonishing him not to, was surely one of them. For these people the Party wasn't a political
party so much as a community association. There were chapters on every city block and in every
residential district, hanging up the latest banners with that month’s public service message,
35
ratting on juvenile drug pushers to the local police, and applying peer pressure around the
mahjongg table anytime they heard rumors of families planning too many babies.
The hard part was not knowing whether those people had decided to take an interest in them. It
seemed safer to assume that they had.
They reached the 16th floor without incident and moments later were stepping through the door
to Nathan’s apartment. Nathan disappeared into his kitchen, and left James to wander into the
living room. “What do you want to eat?” he called out, his face in the fridge.
“Whatever you’ve got,” James hollered back.
“I still have some of the fish my ayi made left over from last night. And some green beans with
beef. It's pretty good.”14
From the living room, James heard the sound of the microwave being shoved some food. He
sank into Nathan’s couch with a sigh. “When are you going to give me her phone number?”
James complained.
“I'm not,” came the unsympathetic reply. It was always the same answer. “She has enough
clients as it is. That's her problem. She always takes on too many jobs and then I'm the one who
suffers because she doesn't have enough time for me anymore. You have a good enough ayi as it
is. Xiao Mei is mine.”
Nathan always had the vague sense that his employing a domestic servant might be a bit
hypocritical somehow. Perhaps because seventy U.S. dollars seemed like too small a sum to pay
somebody to clean and cook for him five times a week. Perhaps because he was implicitly
endorsing a regime that refused to provide migrants from rural provinces, like Xiao Mei, the
same social services that someone with a Beijing residency permit enjoyed. Perhaps because he
knew that she lived in the basement of his building with the other migrant workers, and that her
room was a simple ten-foot by ten-foot concrete square, with a bed, a light and no window.
It was an intellectual project on his list somewhere, but he was quite confident that if he ever
took it on in a philosophically rigorous way, he’d find a way to justify the practice. After all,
seventy dollars a month was pretty good for an uneducated peasant born in the middle of the
world's largest pool of unemployed labor.
They sat down and enjoyed their underpriced feast with relish.
“Plotting revolution is hard work,” James observed between mouthfuls of fish.
Ayi (阿姨) - Literally, Aunt. A common form of address for maids and other domestic staff.
36
“I think the hard work is ahead of us still,” Nathan reminded him.
At that James picked up his bowl of rice and wandered over to Nathan's desk. The surface was a
pile of papers, books, and opened courier boxes of things he’d purchased off of Taobao. A space
had been cleared in the center, and a jumble of little electronic components sat there. It
resembled a mobile telephone after a service call gone bad.
“This is our detonator?” he asked a bit dubiously.
“It is,” Nathan confirmed. He pulled his own phone out of his pocket and tossed it across the
room. James caught it deftly. “Try it yourself. 1-3-5-2-0-4-9-0-4-9-0.”
James tapped the numbers into Nathan’s phone and hit dial.
They waited.
“Nothing happ —”
A sharp crack interrupted James mid-sentence, and a small pillar of black electronic smoke rose
up from the table.
“Not bad,” he complimented instead.
“Yeah, but you just cost us one hundred kuai. And now I need a new phone.”15
“A lot of new phones,” James corrected. He considered the still smoking circuit board. “Are
you sure that's going to be enough of a bang?”
“It's kind of hard to test it for real,” Nathan shrugged. “But yeah, I hope so. Or did you want me
to go over to the hardware store and pick up another package of C-4?”
“No, that's okay. You'd probably blow your fingers off, and I don't think your travel medical
insurance would cover it.” He nodded approvingly. “And where are we at on transport?”
Nathan set down his rice bowl and dug out his journal from the rucksack beside his desk. He
flipped through pages of plans and portrait sketches, locating his notes. “Still stuck,” he
admitted. “The underground shopping mall isn't complete yet, and none of the tunnels that
connect to the China World Trade Center are open yet. So we've got to go above ground. Pretty
much through the front doors.”
kuai (块) - Common parlance for ‘renminbi’ or ‘yuan’.
37
He turned a page and scanned some more. “The elevators are blocked by security guards. To get
up we either need to show them a key card, or get a temporary card from reception.”
“So somebody has to let us up?” James summarized.
“Yeah, it looks that way. Now, I figure we've got a few options. One, we played the mole.
Make friends with a girl who’s got access, you do your Don Juan routine, and get her to take you
up. There are two companies on the top floor, a law firm and the government relations desk for
one of the state oil companies. The third office is vacant. Now, I think this works in theory — I
know you have a thing for lawyers — but...”
“But how do I explain to her the four large crates I’m bringing up the elevator which I won't let
her open?” James guessed.
“Yeah.” Nathan pulled out his pen and crossed out that idea.
“Option number two: diversion. We wait for some event, ideally something in the lobby that has
a lot of people working and making big deliveries. We try to blend in with the crew and just
bring the gear in right under their noses.”
“Problems?”
Nathan nodded. “We don't know when the event we need will come along, if ever. Even if it
does, we’re still relying on a lot of luck. I give it one chance in four. Not enough for a green
light.”
“And option number three?”
Nathan spread his hands.
“You’ve only come up with two crappy options?”
“The sticky part is, the total package is so big,” Nathan explained. “Bigger, now that we’re
going to use a whole bunch of climbing gear to secure it. We can't just sneak it in. Whichever
way we do this, people are going to see it. We need a cover story for why they shouldn’t care.”
James slumped heavily into Nathan’s desk chair.
“I'll keep working on it,” Nathan promised.
James picked one of the empty courier boxes up off the desk. “Maybe option three is we rent
that vacant third office space and then just FedEx it all to ourselves,” he laughed.
38
“I had thought of that,” Nathan revealed. “Moving offices would give us a great cover story.
But I'm not sure it would fit within our budget.”
James grimaced. “Probably not.”
“It would also completely blow our cover. The contracts. The permits. The registration
certificates. And when we vacated one week after the big bang, they’d put it all together pretty
quickly.”
James frowned again, thinking hard. “What we need is a friend inside a courier company. Their
delivery people already go in and out of that building ten times a day, I’m guessing, and nobody
gets suspicious.”
Nathan frowned, too. “But who could we trust?”
***
At over one thousand feet, the China World Trade Center was the tallest building in Beijing,
towering a full twenty stories above its nearest rival. Its footprint was a simple square, but its
four corners tapered gracefully as it rose, enhancing the horizon effect and making it seem even
taller to the UPS delivery boy who craned his neck skyward from its base.
He grunted, unimpressed, and stepped into the airy, slate-sheathed lobby. Somehow Beijing's
skyscrapers all looked ugly to him, with their exposed girders and small windows tinted to match
the sky’s dirty grey. He preferred New York’s — smooth sheets of priceless glass that poured
like translucent waterfalls from heaven. He’d get back there soon enough.
“Delivery for Lan Tian Law,” he said, walking up to the the lobby’s reception desk and hoisting
the box under his arm for emphasis.
The lithe female attendant behind the desk scratched a few numbers onto a card and handed it to
him. “Seventy-fourth floor,” she said.
The delivery boy headed for the farthest bank of elevators, switching the parcel from his left
hand to his right en route. Whatever it was, it was heavy. A black-suited security guard with the
disinterested face of one whose job was simply to stand around collected the receptionist’s card
and waved him through. “Seventy-four,” the guard echoed, and helpfully pushed the call button.
He waited beside the delivery boy, looking thoroughly bored, until the car arrived and the doors
closed again.
From beneath the cap of his forged uniform, James breathed a sigh of relief. He had passed the
first test.
39
He needn’t have worried. In a country where counterfeit Louis Vuitton bags could fool the
brand’s own product inspectors, copying a UPS uniform was child’s play. All it had taken was a
trip to a local tailor with some downloaded photographs and a casual alibi. “It’s for a party,” he
had explained. A weak story, but no one was going to argue with the opportunity to make
money. He had paid extra to have the UPS patches for his cap and shirt manufactured
professionally - a minor price, considering the stakes.
Thirty. Forty. Fifty. The elevator was a rocket, and fast approached the destination floor. James
crossed his fingers. Here was the dangerous part.
The elevator dinged upon arrival, and the shining steel doors slid smoothly open. James casually
stepped out into a wide hallway richly finished with granite and glass. It extended left and right,
and at either end a set of wide, double glass doors opened up to an office beyond. Out of the
corner of his left eye he saw the law firm’s receptionist raise her head, and before her eyes could
focus on the handsome new arrival he turned and started walking right.
After a few steps he turned right again and ducked into a side corridor that led to the women’s
washrooms — and the stairwell. So far, so good. He slowed his breath and tried to think
through his next step.
“Excuse me,” a voice right behind him spoke.
James jumped and whirled. Behind him the door to the women’s bathroom stood open.
“Sorry,” James apologized, and stepped awkwardly out of the way for a striking middle-aged
woman in a slim black suit.
The woman seemed amused by James’ nervous manner. “Where are you headed with that?” she
asked helpfully, pointing at the package.
“State Petrol,” James replied quickly, guessing from the woman’s clothes that she was with the
law firm.
“Oh,” she seemed disappointed at that. “Right there,” she pointed at the nearby double-doors.
“The men’s washroom is on the other side,” she added. She strutted out of James’ view.
James silently cursed his luck. Things would get tricky if he kept having run-ins like that. The
last thing he wanted was to get friendly with the people who worked on the floor.
He waited several long moments until he was satisfied the hall was quiet once more, then walked
casually to fireproof door at the end of the hall and stepped through.
40
Luxury, he noted immediately, did not extend backstage. A sound-sensitive light switched on
and illuminated a stairwell of dull grey concrete. He imagined it would take forever to walk all
the way down to the ground floor, and wisely wedged his box in the doorway to prevent having
to find out. What interested him far more were the ten steps leading up and the door at the top
marked ‘Rooftop Access’.
He tried the handle, but of course it was locked. Unlike the gate back at Nathan’s apartment, this
was a far more serious barrier. Whoever had installed this door meant for it to be respected. It
would be impossible to break down, and the hinges were on the other side. Nothing short of the
actual key would unlock it.
But they had come this far. They had solved similar problems before. This one, too, would
present a solution. They would find a way in. Maybe.
James gave the door a good shove and bruised his shoulder in the process. “Damn, they learn
fast,” he muttered.
This is why we do recon! he would have lectured Nathan had his partner been there. Nathan
seemed to go through life with far too much faith that things would work out in his favor. James
preferred to make sure. The man was brilliant, James didn’t dispute that. And he had an
inspirational edge that pulled many people, including James, to his cause. But he desperately
needed a good secretary.
He pulled out his phone and punched out his field report. < Door is a beast. Need C-4 after
all.>
He smiled. That had become their code for any problem that seemed unsolvable. Thankfully,
they had always managed to find less hazardous solutions. So far.
< Will ask grandmother to send more > came the reply. < Am picking up next package right now.
Will leave @ drop point. >
< Okay > James replied back. < I'll get it tonight after I’m done the paint job. Don't forget:
rendezvous Amsterdam, 10 p.m. >
< I'll be there. >
Time to go. James retrieved his makeshift doorstop from the stairwell entrance and wondered
where he would find a place to stash it — and twenty-four others like it.
***
41
Nathan’s seamstress occupied a one-room studio on the ground floor of Building Four. She was
a crotchety old hag. She had salt and pepper hair — streaked white and gray and black — all
tangled together in a cascading mass, as if her whole life she had grown it out in anticipation of a
Rapunzel moment that never came. Now she took out the bitterness of her shattered fairy tales
on her customers.
She was one of his favorite people.
Cheap sewing services was a luxury that everyone here took for granted, and one that Nathan
knew he would miss when he returned home. Back in America he discarded things as soon as
they were broken — it didn’t pay to get them fixed. But here there was an entire sector of the
economy devoted to prolonging their useful life. For four dollars someone would take Nathan's
dirty, smelly running shoes and scrub them with a toothbrush and industrial cleansers until they
looked almost new again. And Rapunzel added months, maybe years, to the life of his wardrobe
by darning his socks, replacing the worn-out Velcro on his board shorts, and patching his
trousers.
“You again!” she cackled as he walked into her shop. Another customer was already there, and
Nathan settled into line behind her. “I’ll be with you in a minute.”
The young woman in front of Nathan pulled out her claim ticket. Rapunzel waved it away. “I
know the one, I know the one.” The hag turned and started rummaging through her rack of
finished garments.
Meanwhile, Nathan’s mobile phone jiggled again.
< Okay. I'll get it tonight after I’m done the paint job. Don't forget: rendezvous Amsterdam, 10
p.m. >
Nathan looked at his watch and smiled ruefully. He still had well over two hours. That was
James, always running to a schedule, always looking for the wrinkles that hadn't been thoroughly
ironed out. There was no mystery to his success as a banker. He obsessed over details, obsessed
over them until he believed he was their master, and as master, could speak his opinions on the
minutest factoid with unquestioned confidence.
What he lacked was vision, a larger sense of how things ought to be, toward which he could
direct his powers of persuasion. Nathan had given him that.
< I'll be there > Nathan texted.
Finally Rapunzel pulled out a small dress with alternating black and white horizontal bands.
“All done,” she reported.
42
“How much?” the girl asked. She had a small, pleasant voice.
“Thirty.”
The girl counted out the cash and the old woman snatched it up.
“Scandalous, if you ask me,” the hag said, shaking her head. “I don't know why you kids always
want to go out half-dressed. It's not respectable.”
The girl mumbled something faint and hurriedly turned to go. Nathan saw that she was blushing.
He offered her a friendly smile, but wasn't sure she noticed.
43
Chapter Six
“I’m back!” Cynthia announced, and closed her apartment’s front door behind her.
Ting Ting rushed out of her friend’s bedroom wearing only a towel. “About time!” she
exclaimed. “The party’s going to start in an hour.” She snatched the dress out of Cynthia’s
hands and examined it critically. “Did you alter it like I asked?” she demanded.
“Yes,” Cynthia blushed. “Not short enough for you?”
“Maybe,” she judged. “I’ve picked out some other clothes you can try, too. They’re on the left
side of the bed. You get started and I’m gonna take a quick shower.”
Ting Ting disappeared into the bathroom and Cynthia stepped apprehensively into her bedroom.
It was even worse than she feared. A tornado had swept through her closet. Very few items had
made it to the dubious safety of Ting Ting’s ‘maybe’ pile.
She heard the water start. When she was convinced that Ting Ting was safely stuck in the
shower, she slid the newly hemmed dress off its hanger and over her body. It felt nice, but —
She stepped in front of her mirror and gasped. The seamstress was right — it was scandalous. It
showed curves that had no business being seen at Suzy Wong’s, the city’s meat market, let alone
a simple house party. Even more frightening, she was sure Ting Ting would approve.
“How does it look?” Ting Ting called out from the bathroom.
Cynthia quickly tore it off and looked frantically for a place to hide it. Maybe I should just throw
it out the window... She was still fretting from room to room when she heard the scream.
“Zhen ta ma liang!” Ting Ting shrieked.16
Her wail pierced Cynthia’s eardrum. “What’s wrong?!” Cynthia bolted half-naked out of her
bedroom and into the small bathroom to find Ting Ting wrapped in a towel and shivering. “Ting
Ting?!?”
“There's no more hot water!”
zhen ta ma liang (真他妈凉) - [Expletive] cold!
44
Gingerly, Cynthia reached around her and turned on the tap again. The water was icy, icy cold.
She cranked the temperature control all the way over. The water should have been scalding.
Instead her fingers stiffened under the glacial stream.
“Did you forget to buy it?” Ting Ting accused.
“No.” Cynthia shook her head. “I bought ten tons just last month.” In her building they prepaid for hot water by the ton. Very few things were available on credit in Beijing — especially
utilities.
Her hot water meter was under the kitchen sink, buried beneath the compacted heap of plastic
shopping bags she used for her household trash. (The government had passed a law mandating
big retailers to charge their customers for every plastic bag they used. Luckily Cynthia had
already amassed a lifetime supply.)
She finally uncovered the meter: 8.1 tonnes remaining. She could have filled a swimming pool.
She called up the building management. “Hello? This is Cynthia in room 2108. My hot water
–”
“Yes, yes.” It was the impatient voice of someone in crisis management mode. “The hot water
is down. The whole district. The construction crews at the Jia Le Fu next door hit the main.”17
That didn’t sound good. “Well, how long until we have hot water again?”
“We don’t know yet. A month at least.”
“A month?”
“The construction workers hit a main. There's nothing I can do.” The line cut off.
Cynthia sank down to the kitchen floor, and sighed.
Meanwhile, Ting Ting continued cursing in the bathroom.
Cynthia pulled out her electric kettle. She schooled herself to ignore her friend while the water
boiled, then poured it out into the bucket she ordinarily used to wash floors. She tossed in a rag
and carried it into the bathroom.
“What's this?” Ting Ting had towelled herself off.
“Hot water. Mix in some cold. I'm heating some more.”
Jia le fu (家乐福) - Carrefour, the French hypermarket chain.
45
Ting Ting pulled out the rag and watched the steam rise from its surface. She looked at her
friend the way she might look at a farmhand from Guizhou. 18How do you live like this?!
“Hurry up,” Cynthia snapped impatiently. “I want to wash, too.”
Then Ting Ting’s eyes widened. “This is your dress!” she exclaimed, shaking the rag.
Cynthia affected confusion. “Oops.”
The kettle began to squeal again. Cynthia rushed back to the kitchen and retrieved it before the
water could get too hot. She emptied it into the bucket, then added some cold water to make it
usable.
Just like back home, Cynthia thought.
***
“How about this one?” Cynthia asked, and slipped into another dress.
Ting Ting, already outfitted in her signature tight white blouse, shook her head disapprovingly as
the hem settled down around Cynthia’s calves. “No. I keep telling you! Foreign guys are
mosquitos. They only see skin.” She tossed a leopard-print dress onto the already mountainous
‘reject’ pile.
“I’m still not sure this is a good idea,” Cynthia admitted.
“Come on,” Ting Ting protested. “How long has it been since you and Jin broke up — a
month?”
Cynthia nodded.
“Do you think Jin has been sitting at home for a month? No! He’s probably hitting up that minx
right now. This city is crawling with gorgeous, single, expatriate men who want nothing more
than to get inside your pants for one night and then leave the next morning.”
“I’m not like that!” Cynthia protested.
But Ting Ting was. She was a daughter of the ’80’s. In some ways, the two friends looked out
onto different worlds. Though only three years separated them, Ting Ting had spent her teen
Guizhou (贵州) - China’s poorest province by per capita GDP, located in the mountainous southwest.
46
years drinking Coca-Cola and eating at McDonald’s. Cynthia had spent hers gobbling jiaozi at
her uncle’s house.19
But Ting Ting was only trying to help. So ultimately Cynthia had relented — and now her room
was uninhabitable. She had no choice but to find some other place to sleep the night. “So,
what’s it like, dating foreigners?”
Ting Ting discarded a pleated skirt disapprovingly. “They’re romantic. Maybe it's all the
American movies that they watch. Or maybe it's the loneliness of being in a strange place. I
don't know.”
Ting Ting was the expert on foreign men — in part because she’d never had much success with
her own kind. Sure, Harry and the rest liked to flirt with her, but deep down Chinese men
wanted a modest girl they could safely marry. Ting Ting, unfortunately, turned every man's
thoughts to sex instantly. Her hair was dark and curly. Her skin was startlingly white. Her eyes
were large and mischievous. And then there were those tight white shirts that the appreciative
could, well, appreciate.
She also ran her own business — a marketing agency that had had a string of successes helping
entrepreneurs from Russia break into domestic women’s retail. That was a double-strike against
her as far as local men were concerned. Most were not yet emotionally equipped to share a bed
with a woman who earned more than they did.
“They give flowers. Sometimes perfume. Open doors for you, that sort of thing. Remember
John?”
Cynthia had a hard time keeping track of Ting Ting’s résumé.
“Last year, English guy.”
“Oh, yeah.” Cynthia nodded and pretended to recall.
“He was back in England on my birthday, but he still managed to book me a night at the Westin.
When I checked in, they told me he had booked me a free day at their spa. I spent the whole
afternoon getting a facial and the whole evening sitting in rose water.”
“What about...the other stuff?” Cynthia couldn’t help but ask.
She grinned, a bit wickedly. “Oh, yes. Well,” she qualified, weighing experiences in midsentence, “It depends on the guy. Stay away from the kids, unless you’re desperate. But the
jiaozi (饺子) - Dumplings, filled with ground meat or vegetables and typically accompanied by a soy-vinegar
dipping sauce.
47
group we’re meeting tonight, they’re our age. They all seem to know what they're doing.” She
grinned lecherously. “You’ll find out for yourself soon enough.”
“Ting Ting!”
“Well, what did you think all this is for?” she laughed her friend’s innocence away and swatted
another dress into the ‘no’ pile. “Don’t worry. I know your type. You definitely want to meet
James.”
“James?”
“He’s from the States. Very cute, very smart and very single. He can’t wait to meet you.”
“What did you tell him about me?”
“Enough that he wants to find out more,” Ting Ting eyed Cynthia up and down meaningfully.
Cynthia shook her head at her friend’s single-mindedness, although she was honest enough to
admit that she was curious to meet this ‘James’. “But would you ever get into a serious
relationship with one of them?” she pressed.
Ting Ting appeared to give it some thought, and Cynthia took advantage of the distraction to
move a scandalous mini-skirt from the ‘maybe’ to the ‘donate to North Korea’ pile. She had
worn it only for Jin; it needed to go anyway.
“I don't know,” Ting Ting admitted finally. “Maybe if I meet the right guy? Sure. Why not?
But long-term...that's a dangerous game. The odds aren't good.”
She discarded an armful of t-shirts en masse. “John and I sort-of talked long-term, a bit. But it's
not what they come here for. They're here to pick up some Chinese, or get some work
experience, or write their blog, and yeah, have plenty of good, free sex. But marriage? There are
too many questions buried behind that idea that they don't want to answer. Do I want to get
married? Do I want to have a Chinese baby? Do I want to live in China for the rest of my life?
John didn’t like to talk about stuff like that. Maybe because he knew in the end it would break us
up. And that would suck. Because the sex was good.”
She laughed and Cynthia joined in with her. But the younger woman’s eyes were a bit tight.
They sorted in silence for a while.
“I give up!” Ting Ting announced finally. She started unbuttoning her shirt.
“What are you doing?!” Cynthia asked, a bit alarmed.
48
Ting Ting rolled her eyes at her friend’s prudishness and handed Cynthia her shirt. “Here, try it
on.”
Cynthia blushed slightly, but slipped it on. It was cut very low in the front, as low as the cross
wire on her bra. It was also noticeably looser than it appeared on Ting Ting. She didn’t have
much cleavage, but what she did have was clearly visible.
“Nice,” Ting Ting nodded approvingly. But Cynthia felt self-conscious showing so much and
having so little to show.
“You really are scrawny,” Ting Ting, apparently thinking along the same lines, observed
critically. “Have you ever considered implants?” Shirtless, Ting Ting’s own breasts stood
almost proudly in a bra a good two sizes larger than Cynthia’s. Cynthia admired them
grudgingly.
“I...” Cynthia’s cheeks felt uncomfortably hot. She was about to say, I've never thought about it,
but that would have been a lie. Every single woman in China had thought about it. It wasn’t
possible to find an unpadded bra in stores. Who would want one? Implants were the logical next
step.
“Have you?” Cynthia tossed the question back.
“I've had it done!” Ting Ting laughed. “Years ago. I thought that was obvious.”
“Really!? I didn't know. I just assumed...” Somehow, the knowledge made Cynthia feel better.
“I debated for a while, but eventually I decided: why not? I don't see anything wrong with it, and
I could see a lot of reasons that it might be worthwhile.”
“Did it change how guys look at you?”
She smiled. “Oh yes. I'm not saying it's right, but there's a big difference.”
“Men are pigs.”
“Yeah. Let’s go find some.”
***
They pulled into a side street in the embassy quarter. Ting Ting parked her new model VW
Beetle behind one of the district’s ubiquitous Audi A4’s. She led Cynthia into a four-story
49
courtyard complex, walking with the sure steps of one who had travelled a path many times
before.
Cynthia’s steps were considerably less certain.
They could already hear the party. They followed music up an unlit stairwell to the third floor.
A corridor-cum-balcony ran along the outside of the building, broken here and there by a
doorway. A trio of tea lights burned cheerfully in a tin pan outside #307.
Ting Ting banged on the door as hard as she could. “Pretty girls are here!”
The door quickly opened, and a giant of a man appeared. Cynthia had never seen so much hair:
his hair, beard, even his hands were a shaggy, dirty blonde. He could have passed for one of the
gorillas in the National Zoo.
“Ting Ting!” he shouted so that people in Shanghai could hear.
“Hey, baby!” Ting Ting couldn’t quite match his volume. She disappeared from view into a
enormous hug and had to fight for her breath. “Constantine, this is my friend, Cynthia.”
Constantine held Ting Ting in a tight squeeze with one hand and extended Cynthia the other. “It
is nice to meet you.”
“Nice to meet you,” Cynthia repeated the greeting. She couldn’t remember the last time she had
spoken English. Her mouth formed the awkward shapes slowly. Even gentle, his hand’s grip
was terrifyingly strong.
“We are just getting started,” Constantine switched to Mandarin with surprising smoothness.
“Come on in.”
It was a cozy apartment, smaller than Cynthia’s and more run-down, but rent in the embassy
district was five, maybe ten times what she paid per square meter at Nine Dragons. The table,
chairs and TV consumed the available space completely, and the little gaps between them were
littered with the odd curiosities that only travel to places Cynthia hadn’t been could accumulate.
A dozen people, their skin all various shades of white, crammed onto chairs and stools or simply
stood, eating off of napkins, drinking out of plastic cups, and making noises with their mouths
that she could not decipher.
A tall, wiry man came up to the newcomers, a serving dish balanced on one hand.
“Hey, Ting Ting,” he smiled. He offered Cynthia his free hand, and she shook it. “I'm Nathan,”
he said.
50
“Cynthia,” she replied.
Ting Ting leaned in to kiss Nathan’s cheek, then sniffed at the plate suspiciously. Small rounds
of toast sprinkled with chopped bits sat in an artful arrangement that smelled of tomatoes and
vinegar. “What’s this?”
“Antipasto. Donato’s on kitchen duty.”
“It’s amazing,” the new speaker, a girl, was changing records on a turntable.
“That’s Kirsten,” Nathan explained.
“Hi, Cynthia,” She looked up briefly. Kirsten was pretty. Her hair was cut very short, above her
ears, and her face was littered with bright red freckles. She carefully lowered the needle onto the
vinyl, and nodded approvingly with closed eyes as rhythmless and psychedelic sound waves only
she could appreciate issued forth.
Cynthia took a piece of toast between two fingers and lowered it cautiously into her mouth. The
bread was uncomfortably hard on her palate. But one by one her tongue discovered the rich,
vinegary flavors that lay atop it. She decided that Kirsten was right.
“So why haven't you brought Cynthia out before, Ting Ting?” Nathan was asking.
“I've been trying,” Ting Ting explained. “But she didn't think you guys would be any fun.”
“My English... not so good,” Cynthia, blushing, struggled to put the phrase together.
“No problem,” Nathan assured her, switching smoothly into Mandarin. “Most people here are
ESL anyway.”
Ting Ting abandoned Cynthia to run a circuit around the room. She collected kisses from the
men and hugs from the women, and chatted in their own language with a fluency gained through
her business dealings abroad. The easy intimacy intimidated Cynthia, and she stood awkwardly,
not quite sure where to begin.
“Come on, let me introduce you to some more people,” Nathan offered.
Cynthia smiled gratefully.
He led her into the kitchen. An olive-skinned man with curly, short-cropped hair fussed about
the cramped workspace. Cynthia thought his face very familiar somehow.
51
“Hey, Donato,” Nathan knocked on the doorway frame to get the chef’s attention. “Say hello to
Ting Ting’s friend.”
Donato immediately looked up. “Hello!” he said brightly. “I am Donato. And you are
beautiful.” He took a step closer and leaned in to kiss her cheek.
She squinted instinctively but couldn’t form a phrase fast enough to escape the peck. “I’m
Cynthia,” she said. Her mouth began to water and she forgot the momentary discomfort. “What
is that?” she pointed, suddenly curious, at the plate Donato was loading.
“This,” he presented the plate with a proud flourish, “is bruschetta.” His voice lilted oddly with
every second syllable.
“Broo-shet-tah,” Cynthia tried out the unfamiliar word.
“No, no, no. Bru-SKET-ta!” He enunciated the round syllables with a rolling hand gesture.
“Bru-shet-ta.”
“Bru-sket-ta!”
“Bru-sket-ta!” She imitated his rolling hand.
“Yes!” And he popped a morsel into her mouth. She chewed curiously.
“Do you like? Yes?”
“Mmm...” Wow. “So good!”
His lips curled into a smile and his eyeballs rolled goofily. Suddenly, Cynthia placed him.
“Mis...ter Bean!” she exclaimed, and an image of China’s favorite British comedian blended
flawlessly with the man standing before her.
Donato’s smile turned upside down instantly.
“Mister Bean!” Cynthia proclaimed again, clearer.
Constantine hard laughter wafted in from the living room. “See, Donato, I told you so!”
Donato grunted. He even sounded like Mr Bean.
“So handsome!” she told him earnestly.
52
Donato’s frown melted away. “Open wide.” He picked up another crust from his plate and held
it up.
Cynthia shook her head, not understanding.
“Your mouth,” he demonstrated with his own. “Open.”
“Oh.” She smiled and obeyed. He dropped a second delicious morsel onto her tongue.
“So good,” she repeated.
“Wait for the tiramisu,” his eyebrows jumped up and down like Mr Bean’s whenever he played
with his teddy. Cynthia didn’t know what dish he was referring to, but she couldn’t wait to try it.
Nathan’s phone began to ring. He glanced at it, and frowned. “Sorry, Cynthia, I gotta get this,”
he apologized, and darted out toward the front door. “Constantine!” he slapped the man on the
shoulder as he passed, “Be good to our guest.”
She sighed. Abandoned again. This wasn’t turning into much fun. Cynthia wandered back into
the crowded living room and wondered who would take momentary pity on her next.
It was Constantine. He stepped carefully over a box of Kirsten’s vinyl records and lumbered to
her side.
“Ting Ting says you like football,” he tossed out an easy conversation starter.
She nodded. “Yes. All Chinese like football. But I prefer watching Germany. Balake.”20
Constantine grinned. “You think he’s cute?”
“Yes! No! I mean, yes, but that’s not why I like him. He’s so strong. Up here.” Cynthia tapped
her temple with two fingers.
“You should come watch us play sometime,” he offered. “Donato and I play every Sunday at the
Beijing International School.”
Cynthia smiled noncommittally and continued to survey the room with declining interest.
Nathan slipped back in and glanced her way, but apparently decided to leave her in Constantine’s
hands. She wished he hadn’t. The Russian man’s eyes kept slipping down to the open buttons of
her shirt, and in spite of Ting Ting’s coaching the blatant attention to her flesh felt
uncomfortable. It was far too hot in the small, crowded space.
Balake (巴拉克) - Michael Ballack, a German midfielder.
53
“Can I get something to drink?” she asked.
“Try some of this.” On cue, Constantine produced a small flask. She brought it to her nose and
sniffed. It smelled like sweet Chinese medicine.
“Wow.” She put the small opening to her lips. Glug, glug, glug, Cynthia filled her mouth before
letting go. The ussuriyski (although she had no idea what that was) was hot and fruity. She
swallowed it slowly and considered the unfamiliar taste.
“Wow!” she said again and handed it back. “So good!”
“Yeah,” he agreed, and looked again at her bra.
“Constantine, go easy on my friend!” Ting Ting shouted a playful warning from the sofa, then
leapt to her feet when the front door opened again and an athletic man with unusual grey hair
stepped into the room.
“James!” Ting Ting squealed in delight, clapping her hands excitedly.
The newcomer sauntered into what Cynthia assumed to be his accustomed place at the center of
attention.
“The party has officially entered Phase Two,” he proclaimed in English. He nodded at Nathan
and extended his hand — “Hey man, good to see you again” — as if it had been days, not
minutes, since their last meeting.
“Hey, mate,” Nathan shook his hand casually. “We’re speaking the local lingo tonight for Ting
Ting’s friend, Cynthia.” He pointed to Cynthia, who had taken advantage of James’ arrival to
duck out of Constantine’s reach.
“Oh, I'm sorry,” James apologized, and switched mid-sentence into Chinese.
“You’ve got some dirt on your arm, there.” Sharp-eyed Kirsten pointed at a smudge of black on
James's forearm. She rubbed it away, then frowned when it was still there. She rubbed again.
“Paint?” she asked.
“It can’t be,” James disagreed.
“You got some on your neck too, baby,” Ting Ting traced the dark smudge with light fingertips.
Constantine took a pull from a bottle of Tsingtao beer. “Don’t tell me: you’re painting the deck.”
54
James flushed. “Okay, okay. Well, actually I met this artist girl at 798 last week — you know
that gallery opening you all bailed on? Anyway, I was at her studio this afternoon, and she was
showing me some of her work, and well, things just sort of got out of hand.”
“All right, all right, spare us the details, please!” Kirsten rolled her eyes.
“You can tell me later,” Constantine grinned, and handed James an open bottle of beer. They
clinked bottles in a show of male comradeship.
Nathan let out a loud sigh, which everyone mistook for disdain. They had dodged another bullet.
James took a long swig of Tsingtao. “So, Kirsten, what's the latest gossip on FMA?”
Kirsten gulped down a jelly shot, then frowned. “There isn't any, actually. They've been really
quiet the past few weeks.”
“What? No more crashing Party press conferences?” Nathan pretended to pout.
“Maybe they’ve retired,” Constantine offered hopefully.
“No!” Kirsten objected fiercely, as if the words were blasphemy. “No. Don’t even think that!”
“It would be a much quieter Beijing without them,” Nathan pointed out.
“You mean boring,” Kirsten corrected.
“They have given us some good times,” Donato reminisced. “My favorite was the 6/4 t-shirts.”
He pulled up his sweater. The t-shirt he wore underneath had the Roman numerals
“VIIVVIIIIX”, or 6/4/8-9, printed across the chest. Hundreds of the t-shirts had been handed out
at Sanlitun nightclubs back in June, on the anniversary of Tiananmen Square. It was hours
before the authorities figured out their significance.
“Oh my god! You still have yours?” Kirsten gaped. “That is so unfair. Mine was confiscated.”
“That’s because you kept waving yours in that policeman’s face,” James reminded her.
She frowned. “Oh, yeah.” Then her face brightened. “But actually, I've heard a rumor that the
reason they’ve been so quiet is that they’re plotting something big. Really big.”
James looked surprised at that. “A rumor? From where?”
“I have my sources,” the Dutchwoman said defensively.
55
“Kirsten, I think you’re the source for all these rumors,” Constantine declared with exasperation.
“You’re obsessed.”
Cynthia stepped a bit hesitantly into their circle of conversation. “Are you talking about the
FMA?”
Nathan nodded. “You’ve heard about it?” He seemed pleased by that.
Cynthia nodded. “I'm researching it for my newspaper,” she explained.
“You’re a reporter?” Kirsten hurriedly asked.
“Editor,” Cynthia corrected. “For Beijing Science Weekly.” They all seemed impressed by that,
which made her feel a little bit better.
“Why is a scientific paper interested in the FMA?” Constantine wondered.
“We’re not,” she admitted. “Not yet, anyway. But maybe we will be someday.”
“Well you’ve found your source,” Nathan smiled. “Kirsten here is the world’s foremost —”
“— only,” Constantine interjected.
“And only,” Nathan agreed, “expert on the FMA. What does FMA stand for again, Kirsten?”
She frowned at their light-hearted jabs. “Freedom from Mao’s Autocracy,” she asserted
confidently.
Donato counted the letters out on his fingers. “Wouldn’t that be FFMA?”
“The ‘from’ is silent,” Kirsten hissed.
“Oh, it’s a silent ‘from’,” Constantine said with heavy sarcasm.
“You watch your mouth, gas man,” Kirsten snapped back. “Actually, I'm almost sure they’re
funded by Russians.”
“That’s nonsense!” Constantine snorted.
“How do you figure that?” Cynthia probed.
Kirsten started ticking off clues with her fingertips. “One, the press conference. Something like
that would need help on the inside. I checked: there's Russian investment in that hotel.”
56
“Two, Donato’s 6/4 t-shirts. As far as we know, they first appeared at Cosmo, a club which has
—”
“Russian investors,” James completed for her.
Kirsten nodded. “Exactly. And three, remember those ‘I love democracy’ bumper stickers?”
“Stupid,” Constantine remarked.
“Yeah, they were lame,” Kirsten admitted. “But anyway, I followed up with everyone who ever
said they saw one.”
“I got that text,” Nathan recalled. “You wanted to know where we were when we spotted them.”
“Right. And a full third of witnesses saw them in or near the Russian quarter.”
Constantine shook his head. “That's pretty weak. First, every big hotel in Beijing has a Russian
investor hiding in it somewhere. Second, if I were going to distribute t-shirts I knew would get
confiscated a few hours later, I would start at Cosmo, too. Not because it's Russian, but because
on a Wednesday night it’s the busiest bar this side of Tiananmen. And three, the Russian quarter
is just a block north of the embassy district, which if I recall correctly is where all the stickers
were stuck in the first place.”
“And four,” Kirsten ticked off her final fact triumphantly, “You, Constantine, seem to know an
awful lot about the subject but you never want to talk about it.”
Cynthia found herself thinking the same thing.
“You’re impossible!” Constantine raged. “Ni ma de! I am not a member of the ‘FMA’! I don’t
want to be a member of the FMA. And even if I did I wouldn’t know how to become one,
because no one has a clue who or what they are, yourself included.”
He finished off his beer in one mammoth swig. “I’m going to take a piss.” He stormed out of
the room.
They all watched him go.
“He’s hiding something,” Kirsten relentlessly asserted.
“Of course he’s hiding something,” James scoffed. “He works for a Russian gas company, for
Christ’s sake. They’d have to kill him if he told us all the stuff he knows.” He picked one of the
remaining bruschetta from Donato’s plate. “I’m starving,” he realized suddenly.
57
“Painting really works up the appetite, huh?” Ting Ting teased.
“Hey, Kirsten!” Constantine’s peevish shout came from the direction of the bathroom. “There’s
a hole in this door where the handle should be!”
“The handle broke so I took it off!” Kirsten called back. “Just pull it closed with your finger.”
She rolled her eyes. “Russians. They gave the world Boris Pasternak, but it’s been garbage ever
since. God, I miss the Cold War.” She shot another square of vodka-infused jelly down her
throat.
“Who’s Boris Pasternak?” James had to ask.
Kirsten’s jaw dropped. “Doctor Zhivago? Hello? Do you even have culture in your country?”
James let that pass. “Why not just get your door fixed?”
“Now why didn’t I think of that?” Kirsten said with heavy sarcasm. She scraped up the last of
the bruschetta with her fingers. “I asked my landlord, a couple of times, but you know how it
is,” she moaned around a mouthful of tomato. “First he has to call the locksmith. Then the
locksmith needs to come over and size the hole. Then he goes away and buys the handle, and
then he has to come back some other day to install it. And then there’s the question of who pays.
Oh, it’s on my landlord’s list all right: Things He Hopes I’ll Stop Pestering Him About If He
Ignores Me Long Enough.”
“Beijing is full of lists like that,” Nathan noted philosophically.
“Mmm,” James agreed, and suddenly had an idea.
They heard the toilet flush — the walls in Kirsten’s apartment were built with profit, not privacy,
in mind — followed shortly thereafter by the clanging and crashing of many bottles in the
kitchen.
“Hey, Ivan!” Kirsten barked. “Try not to break everything.” She offered a glare to her guests.
“If he even breathes on my AppleJacks mug, I’m throwing him out the window.”
A moment later Constantine burst back into the living room, a tray loaded with mismatched shot
glasses balanced between his hands. A green fluid filled each glass to the brim. He started
handing them out. “Too much talk, not enough drinking!” he proclaimed.
Cynthia sniffed it suspiciously. It smelled like licorice. “What is it?” she asked cautiously.
“Absinthe,” Nathan realized, and grimaced. “Have you tried it before?”
58
Cynthia shook her head.
Kirsten’s moodiness fell away. “Oh my god! An absinthe virgin!” she exclaimed with
characteristic over-enthusiasm. “Wait, wait, wait! Everybody stop!” They froze, shots already
moistening their lips. She crouched and began flipping madly through her record collection.
“We gotta do this right!” She found the disc she was looking for, and flipped it onto her
turntable with a deejay’s practiced twist. The needle dropped to the vinyl, and one hundred watts
of Oasis burst their eardrums. “The first time is the best!” she shouted at Cynthia over the
sudden ruckus.
“That's what she said!” James quipped, also shouting.
“Well, then, that's your fault!” Constantine dug right back. They laughed at their raunchy humor
and collectively coiffed the potion. Cynthia followed suit.
“Aarggh!” she gagged, and mewed in agony. The liquor burned a trail down her throat.
“Isn’t that brilliant!” Kirsten gushed.
Cynthia nodded weakly, eyes unfocussed, and prayed for the gnashing bite in her throat to stop.
Then someone put a hand on her shoulder. “Drink this,” a man’s voice advised quietly. A strong
hand guided a cup to her lips, and she numbly knocked back its contents. Water. It mercifully
washed the pain away.
“Actually, the first time is the worst,” James admitted, his voice sympathetic. Cynthia’s eyesight
recovered and she found herself in the arms of quite possibly the most beautiful white man she
had ever laid eyes upon. Her whole body felt suddenly warm.
“Oh, James!” From across the room, Ting Ting issued a seductive, sing-song call. “You owe me
a dance, remember!”
Cynthia looked over James’ shoulder to see her friend perched seductively on a bar stool near the
window, waving a ten-yuan bill in the air.
“Umm,” James looked back and forth between the overripe Ting Ting and her innocent friend.
“Can you excuse me for a moment?” he apologized, and stalked across the room, a gray-maned
lion cornering its prey. He clasped his hands behind his back and began a slow, grinding slide to
the accompanying electronic chords of Kirsten’s latest selection. Ting Ting giggled at his
theatrical advance.
59
Cynthia had never seen a lap dance before, but she could well imagine Ting Ting had. It was the
sort of dance one expected to pay for. The crass American pressed against her friend’s every
curve with a brazenness that did not belong in public. The whole room stopped to watch the
blurred boundary between play and foreplay. Head. Shoulders. Chest. Butt. He used
everything but his hands, which he kept carefully under control, and no part of her body
remained untouched. As if to goad him further, Ting Ting wedged her ¥10 note upright between
her breasts — where every man looks but none dare to go. James seemed oblivious to the
prohibition. His mouth began at her fingertips, teeth nipping playfully, then traveled up, up, up
her arm until his face was buried in the elegant curve of her neck.
She squealed under his clean-shaven caresses. He grasped his payment between pearly white
teeth, and she shoved him away, still laughing. He lifted his hard-earned prize proudly.
The room howled its approval. “James! James! James!” they cheered, and he took a ridiculous
bow. He tried to spot Ting Ting’s girlfriend, but she was nowhere to be seen.
***
Nathan found her leaning against the low wall just outside the apartment, sucking on a cigarette
and staring out into the night.
She did not say anything at his approach. She noted his presence, then turned her head and her
attention back to the empty space in front of her eyes. It was not a dismissive gesture, nor a
particularly welcoming one. He was free to stay, or go. What did it matter to her?
“I saw you step out,” Nathan began. “My friends go a bit overboard sometimes. It can be a bit
intimidating for first-timers.” He smiled a bit sheepishly. “Sorry.”
Cynthia took another long drag. “So are all your parties like this?”
Nathan smiled. “No. Well — when Kirsten hosts, then maybe yes. She likes to bring out the
hard liquor. I’m more of a charades man myself.”
She tossed the butt of her cigarette amidst the tea lights. “What’s ‘charades’?”
In answer, Nathan hopped into a seated position atop the low wall, crossed his legs in an
exaggerated feminine pose, and began to move his lips and tongue in various suggestive patterns.
“Who am I?” he asked.
Cynthia giggled. “Ting Ting?” she guessed.
He hopped back down from his perch. “There, you see,” he congratulated her. “You’re a
natural.”
60
Cynthia smiled shyly.
She was somehow very plain, Nathan decided. Innocent. Her eyes were not large and round like
saucers. Her skin was not white like new-fallen snow. By the standards of her culture she was
thoroughly unremarkable. And yet, he recalled clearly where he had seen her before.
“Hey, do you live at the Nine Dragons?” he asked.
Her face scrunched up in confusion. “How did you know that?”
Nathan grinned. “I live there, too,” he explained. “Building Five. I saw you there just today, at
the seamstress shop. You were picking something up — a dress. A nice dress, by the looks of
it.”
Cynthia scowled. “But didn’t show enough skin.” As far as she could tell he hadn’t peeked
down her shirt yet.
Nathan noticed then that she had buttoned up her shirt. He smiled knowingly. “The French have
a saying for women like Ting Ting: ‘It is hard to be modest when you’re a nobody.’” He made a
face. “Sorry, that sounds pretty harsh in translation, doesn’t it?”
But it made Cynthia laugh. “Have you been to France?”
Nathan nodded. “I spent two years there doing my graduate degree.”
“I’m jealous.” She thought hard for a long moment. “Bon-jour,” she said finally. “Comment cava?”
“Where’d you learn that?”
She shrugged. “The clubs.”
Nathan nodded knowingly. “Yeah, that’s where I began learning Chinese, too.” He grinned
suddenly, “Wo kending yiqian zai nar jianguo ni?”21
“Did that get you some pretty girls’ phone numbers?” Cynthia teased.
“A few,” Nathan admitted. “None that I held onto.”
Wo kending yiqian zai nar jianguo ni? (我肯定以前在
儿见过你) - Literally, “I know I’ve seen you somewhere
before.” A common nightclub conversation starter.
61
“Your Chinese is amazing,” Cynthia marveled, honestly.
“So-so,” Nathan demurred modestly. “Your English is pretty good, too.”
Cynthia blushed and retreated turtle-like into her borrowed shirt. “Nali, nali,” she denied. “I
study...studied in school, but...No chance practice.”
“Well, here’s your chance,” he offered. His eyes were blue, almost purple, and earnest. They
seemed hungry to look out at the world. It was a color she knew well. “Your best pickup line in
English. Come on, hit me with it.”
Ordinarily she would have found some polite way to decline, but something about this man put
her at ease. He had an air of contentment about him, an amused disinterest in what other people
might think that quietly urged her to demonstrate her individuality. And those eyes! Wide,
bright — they promised to hide nothing from her.
She smoothly let the distance between their bodies close by half, and felt the absinthe coursing
through her veins. “I like...play with fire,” she said, trying to make her eyes smolder the way
Ting Ting’s did whenever she was stalking prey. “Buy me a drink that burns.”
Nathan gulped. Then his loud laugh cut through the night. “Who taught you that?!” he gasped
finally.
“I said it right?”
“Perfect. That’s....very powerful. Maybe you can give me lessons.”
She gave herself a triumphant little smile. In that brief instant before his laughter had melted
away all tension, she had seen something honest, something primal in his face: hunger. It felt
good to win over a man, even a stranger; it gave her something else to think about besides...but
she didn’t want to think about that.
They fell silent, although the distance between them remained close. They stood, shoulders
almost touching, leaning over the dark courtyard. The night air was warm — and would be, all
the way through to sunrise. Cynthia saw no reason to move.
“Shall we go back inside?” Nathan nevertheless suggested after a while.
She hesitated.
“Look at it this way,” Nathan offered. “If you go back in, I promise you’ll have a lot of fun —
and that you’ll really regret it when you wake up tomorrow. Or you can go home right now, and
miss out on a lot of fun — and then regret it when you wake up tomorrow.”
62
His blue eyes twinkled with mischief. “Either way, you’re in for a bad morning.”
***
*groan*
Where am I? She slowly opened one eye, just a crack. She knew the sunlight was going to
sting.
My bed.
She rolled over groggily. It could have been worse.
She turned her head slowly, side to side, and assessed the damage. The awkward cling of
wrinkled fabric told her that she had not managed to undress before falling asleep. She
considered worming out of her clothes then, but the feathers in her pillow and between her ears
made it hard to hold on to consciousness.
She drifted back asleep.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
What is that noise and why won’t it stop? Oh. One hand groped atop her bedside table until her
fingers closed about her mobile phone. Who's calling? Harry. Not now, Harry.
There was nothing she wanted to talk about now.
More sleep.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
“Hello?” she croaked. Her tongue felt like it was made of sandpaper.
“Xiao Fan? It’s Xiao Ke! Did you see my email? I was smoking this great pack of
Hongtashans the other day and then I thought — I’ll bet they don’t have Hongtashans in Beijing
and maybe we could —”22 The voice scurried like a rodent through Cynthia’s ears.
“Can I call you back, cousin?” Cynthia begged, and was asleep again before she heard his reply.
Hongtashan (红塔山) - A popular brand of cigarette, manufactured primarily in Yunnan Province.
63
She was having a familiar nightmare. She hated this one. She felt alone. Failed. Scared. It was
terrible.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
Will it please stop? At least it interrupted her dream.
“Hello?”
“Cynthia? Are you okay? I've been trying to reach you all morning.”
Yun Hui. Wo cao! She had missed her Monday meeting. “Not so okay. I'm sick; I don’t think
I’m going to make it out of bed today.”23
“What happened?”
She tried to lick her lips but there was no moisture in her mouth. “I had dinner last night with
friends. Something didn’t go down well. My stomach hurts.” It wasn’t precisely a lie. Her
stomach did hurt — just not as much as her head.
“Can you still manage your pages for this week?”
“Yeah. No problem. Just e-mail me my list of stories. I’ll get some people on them.”
“Okay. I'll send something right away.” He sounded relieved.
“Okay.” She rubbed her temple and remembered something. “Hey boss, I’ve got some stuff on
this FMA business for you to look at, too. I’ll try to put something together today. There are a
couple good angles, I think.”
“Okay, but that’s still on the scrub list,” her editor reminded her.
“Not forever,” Cynthia predicted.
“Get well: I need you.” Yun Hui was a good guy.
Her body was screaming hunger and thirst. But she couldn’t bring herself to sit up, much less
get out of bed. Not yet. Instead she sent her mind’s eye to tour her refrigerator. Nothing. She
should go to the new Carrefour and buy some proper food. That's what she should do.
Instead, she picked up her phone again and dialed the little grocery downstairs.
Wo cao! (我肏) - F—- me!
64
“Hello?”
She had no idea who the person on the other end was. Somebody else always made the delivery.
“Hi. This is Cynthia in 2108, Building Eight. Can you send up some things? One, no, make
that two soy milks. The green packets. And a package of custard cakes.”
“Anything else?”
She thought about that. “A couple newspapers. The Beijing Daily and the Beijing Evening
News. And if the newsstand still has a copy of Sports Weekly, pick that up, too.” It came out
three times a week, despite its name. She wanted to get caught up on World Cup qualifying
action.
“Okay.”
Cynthia hauled herself into a sitting position and nearly swooned. Ow. Had she really drunk
that much?
She peeled off her dress. It reeked of cigarettes — like her hair. What an awful day. Did they
go to a bar afterwards? She couldn’t remember. She stumbled, naked, out of her bedroom and
into the bathroom. She didn't bother to turn on the light; there was plenty coming in through the
window. It must have been mid-afternoon. She cranked the water open, full blast.
“Zhen ta ma liang!” She shrieked, and rammed the faucet shut.
“Wo cao cao cao!” Of cao cao cao course. No hot water. Tears of frustration mingled with the
cold water on her face. She wrapped herself inside a towel and shivered.
Boiling water was a slow and painful process. But finally she returned to the bathroom with her
bucket, and with sponge and soap she scraped away the filth and sweat from her skin. She boiled
a second kettle for her hair. She leaned over the bucket, scooped hot water in a cup and poured it
over her head, and let the water find its own way through her tangled tresses. Over and over and
over again, she repeated the action until her hair at last slid cleanly through her fingers. It took
forever. When she was done, the water in the bucket was a brackish brown. It made her sick.
But the heavy pounding between her ears had dwindled to a dull ache.
She swilled the brown water down the drain and patted herself dry just in time to hear the knock
at her door.
“Just a minute!”
65
She wrapped a couple more towels around herself before opening the door.
“Here you go.” It was a young girl. She handed Cynthia her groceries.
“How much?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Cynthia carefully counted out exact change.
Provisions in hand, she headed back to bed, pausing just long enough to drag along the brick she
called a laptop. She settled herself into a sitting position under the covers and promised herself
to stay there for the rest of the day.
One of the satisfactions of journalism was that laziness could be a virtue. For the best stories,
you had to wait. If you were always going out, running after the breaking news, you'd just end
up standing in the middle of the crowd, telling people what they already knew. It was the lazy
people, sitting in bed, who noticed what had been overlooked in the rush to see what everyone
else was doing.
She opened her e-mail. At the top was a note from Xiao Ke. He lived in far-away Yunnan, her
mother’s home province, and at least once a month he sent his big-city cousin a business idea in
the hopes that it might be his ticket out of there. He apparently wasn't aware that the cigarette
manufacturers already had national distribution in place and needed no help from either of them
to get their product to the capital city. She smiled despite her headache and resolved to call him
back soon. It had been over twenty years since they’d blown up her mother’s flower bed
together.
She met Yun Hui’s message with more trepidation. The danger of missing the weekly editorial
meeting was that she lost all influence over story selection. Sometimes it turned out okay; most
of the time it was a disaster.
This week was a mixed bag. Lenovo was putting out a new ultra-portable computer and wanted
their paper to do a product review. Yawn. Next came an investigative piece on a new underwear
product that claimed to burn fat through heat retention. She had seen the infomercials. Who
would believe that you could slim your butt just by wearing thermal underwear? Answer: a
surprising number of people. And there was a second investigative piece about bottled water. A
chemist at Beijing University had tipped them off to his findings that at least half the purified
water sold in Beijing was ordinary tap water. Yun Hui had put a dozen asterisks beside that one.
No wonder: if she could verify that story, their paper would sell out for sure.
Cynthia got on the phone to her journalists and handed out their marching orders. Get a trial
machine from Lenovo’s PR people and put it through its paces for a couple of days. Go visit the
66
thermal underwear factory and talk to their product developers. Don't tell them you're a reporter,
for heaven’s sake. Tell them you want to be a distributor, or that you want to buy wholesale and
send it overseas. But get inside that factory. And try to find somebody stupid enough to have
bought a pair.
Not in her circle of friends.
The water story would be easy, barring any bureaucratic entanglements. The professor was here
in Beijing: give him a call. Take his statements, confront the big purified water companies and
get their reply. Of course, the scam, if there was one, wasn’t at the factory. No, she figured the
wholesalers were running this racket. Instead of returning empty bottles to their supplier, they
refilled them with tap water, slapped on new seals, and sold them back to the shops. These
operations were so transparent.
But this FMA was not, and that intrigued her.
Her memory was foggy, but Cynthia compiled as best she could what she’d learned about that.
The little debate between Kirsten and Constantine had practically gift-wrapped for her a
balanced mix of facts and fiction — more than enough content for a background piece to satisfy
Yun Hui.
And her instincts told her there was even more lurking beneath the surface. Did all expats know
as much about it, talk as much about it, as this group seemed to? She didn’t have the answer to
that question. But pretending for a moment it was ‘no’, then chances were good that someone in
that group was connected — directly connected — somehow.
So who had a secret? She had known even before she had asked that Kirsten, too, was a
journalist. The ability to package fluff into a meaningful sequence for other people was a
universal hallmark of their profession. No, it couldn’t be Kirsten. Her motive was already clear
— like Cynthia, she was just looking out for the next big story. Donato? The memory of his Mr
Bean impression made her giggle all over again.
Constantine? Ting Ting was right. There were a lot of things that man wasn’t telling people.
Russians — so big and so hairy. She shuddered involuntarily and hoped her story didn’t lie
there.
What about that James character? Cynthia regretted that she didn’t get his phone number. The
same flamboyant style that Ting Ting found so appealing turned Cynthia off just as much as
Constantine’s drooling down her blouse, but a guy like that might give up a lot of information in
an (ultimately unsuccessful) attempt to get her into his bed.
And then there was his friend. What was his name? Nathan. He hadn’t left much of any
impression. Nice guy, easy to talk to, ultimately responsible for her present condition — but
67
otherwise totally forgettable. He didn’t seem to be hiding anything, and didn’t seem to have a
strong view either way.
Unless that was his act. If so, he was clever — very clever.
She fired off the background piece to Yun Hui, shoved her laptop to one side, and sank with a
long sigh back down to sleep. She had bigger problems to worry about.
Besides, there wouldn’t be any story. Not unless things really got out of control.
68
Chapter Seven
“Seventy-fourth floor,” the lobby attendant advised, and handed him a card. “Lot of deliveries
up there.”
Nathan ignored the invitation for small talk. It was the last package. He didn’t want to get
creative now. He tipped his cap briefly to the elevator attendant as he passed and boarded the lift
with a cluster of other people.
The crowd dwindled as the elevator rose, until only one other man remained for the trip to the
top. Nathan tried his best to disappear inside his uniform.
“Is that for Lan Tian Law?” the other man asked conversationally.
“I'm sorry?” his question startled Nathan from his thoughts.
“That package,” the man pointed. He was dressed in a fine black suit and had about him a
polished scent. Cologne, Nathan realized. “Is it for Lan Tian Law?”
“Erm. Yes. Yes, it is,” Nathan fumbled.
“Would you like to give it to me?” the man offered helpfully. “I can drop it off on my way in.”
Uh oh. Not good. “Thanks for the offer,” Nathan declined, thinking fast. “But I have to drop it
off at reception myself. Company policy.”
“Ah.”
They rode the car in silence for a few more moments. The elevator dinged to announce its
arrival.
“It’s this way,” the man advised.
Nathan inwardly grimaced. That was the problem with hiding in plain sight. Sometimes, you
had to do what was ordinary even if it messed up your plans. He fell in line behind the overly
helpful executive.
“Nancy,” the man said to the receptionist as they passed through the glass doors. “This man has
a delivery for...”
69
Nathan fumbled with his cue. “Um...actually, the package doesn’t say.”
“Oh, that’s alright. I’ll take it then, thank you.” The petite girl behind the desk smiled, and held
out her hand. Nathan had her sign the forged packing slip, cursing silently all the while. She
stuck a knife into the top of the package and tore it across. Nathan stared, frozen on the spot.
“Thank you,” the girl repeated in a dismissive tone.
Broken from his shock, Nathan bolted back to the bank of elevators and pushed the call button
furiously.
“What on earth is this?!” He heard the receptionist exclaim.
The elevator doors slid open.
“Hey, excuse me!” she called out into the corridor. He pretended not to hear. and stepped
aboard. He was already on the phone to James by the time the doors slid shut.
Time for Plan B.
***
“What exactly was in it?” James hissed into his phone after he had shut his office door.
“Flashlights. A bunch of climbing gear. Some of the chains and the elastic bungee cords —”
“That doesn’t sound too bad.”
“And half the detonators,” Nathan finished.
A pause.
“Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” James continued to swear for several long moments. He began to chew
on one fingernail. “Okay, let’s just think this through. She opens up the box and finds all this
stuff. What happens next?”
“Worst case?”
“Sure. Worst case.”
“Worst case is she calls up the courier company, who say they have no record of a package being
delivered to that floor. And she says, ‘But your deliveryman was here just this afternoon. I
70
signed for it myself. I have the packing slip right here.’ And they say, ‘We have no record of
that package in our system.’”
James paused. “That doesn’t sound too good.”
“Then she calls the front desk and asks ‘Did you let a UPS deliveryman up to the seventy-fourth
floor today?’ And they say ‘Sure, they’ve been making deliveries every day for the past two
weeks.’ And she says, ‘That's impossible, we received only one package, and that was today, and
UPS doesn’t seem to know anything about it. And by the way, it looks sort of like a bomb.’”
Back in his office, James grimaced.
“Then we show up next week as planned, but instead of going up to the seventy-fourth floor we
get escorted off to a very small room and face some very awkward questions about what we’ve
been doing up there these past few weeks.” He paused to collect his breath and his thoughts. “If
they do a search of the floor, will they find your stash?” Nathan wondered.
James snorted. “That depends on whether they search with their eyes open or closed. Yeah,
they'll find it.”
They both fell silent.
“Well, that’s it,” Nathan concluded. “We've reached our abort limit.”
It was another one of their rules. Of course, things went wrong with every operation. Real life
had so many more dimensions than the paper on which they scratched their plans. The relevant
question was, ‘Were you still in control?’ They hadn’t ever pulled the plug yet, but they knew —
guerrillas have to value freedom higher than success. Otherwise the jungles get empty quick.
“I say abort,” Nathan stated, this time with conviction.
The silence again grew long.
James stood up from his desk, shaking his head. He could see the China World Trade Center
from his window. It rose, tall and inviting, right before his eyes. “We’ve put so much into this,
Nathan. And we’re right there! We’re three days away, for Christ’s sake. I say we keep going.”
“Jesus, James, our cover is blown. We step foot inside that building one more time, and maybe
our next stop is a jail cell. And it all comes down to whether or not that receptionist called down
to the lobby.”
“Our cover isn’t blown,” James argued. “Not yet, anyway.” He paced back and forth in his
office. “Let’s think about this from her perspective. To her it’s just another hassle: a package
71
addressed to no one with contents that mean nothing to her. It’s somebody else’s screw-up, but
now it’s landed on her desk and become her problem. If she’s anything like our receptionist over
here, she’s going to sit on this thing all day before she gets around to figuring out what to do with
it.”
“So what do you propose?”
“Just wait there. I’m coming over.”
An hour later, a well-dressed man with distinguished grey hair stepped up to the receptionist at
Lan Tian Law, a sheepish UPS courier in tow.
“Good afternoon, Nancy, I’m James Shaw,” James flashed her his best smile. “I understand that
our man here mistakenly delivered a package to you this morning.” He pointed at Nathan, who
kept his face downcast.
Nancy couldn’t help but answer James’ smile with one of her own. “That was fast,” she noted.
“When I called they said you probably wouldn’t be by until after four.” She seemed to be
studying them carefully. “They said that there hadn’t been any deliveries to this address at all
today. To be honest I'm not sure what's going on.”
Nathan thought he heard sirens.
“It’s been a bit of a crazy day,” James confessed. He folded his arms on the marble of the
reception desk and leaned closer so that she might whiff the subtle fragrance of his aftershave.
“Several parcels were damaged at our sorting point this morning, and we had to repackage the
contents. It’s possible that this was one of those packages.” His voice was soft. Pleasant. “I'm
so sorry for the confusion. We take parcel security very seriously and are taking the necessary
steps to ensure this sort of thing doesn’t happen again.” James played the part of contrite
customer service manager smoothly.
“I'm sorry, too,” Nathan added.
“Do you still have the package in question?” James continued.
“Yes, yes, it's right here,” the young woman, a tell-tale blush rising in her cheeks, stammered.
She reached under her desk and presented their missing box. “I'm sorry it’s been opened — we
didn’t know who it was for.”
“Not a problem,” James said, taking the package and handing it to Nathan. “I’m really sorry
once again.”
“Not at all,” she smiled, and seemed almost sad when they turned to go.
72
They walked back to the elevators. James resisted the urge to pump his fist in the air.
“Is she still watching us?” James hissed.
“Yes — wait, she’s put her head down.” Nathan sighed audibly. “Nice play,” he muttered
quietly. “Sorry I tried to pull the plug so quick. I guess I got scared.”
But James was shaking his head. “No. No, you were right. We should have aborted. She
already made the call! I was so sure she wouldn’t bother. Not right away like that. What would
we have done if the real UPS guy had already shown up?”
It was a rhetorical question. Neither one had the answer.
Ding. The elevator announced its imminent arrival.
“And what happens when they do?” Nathan wondered.
James shook his head again. Things were unravelling fast. “Let's hope they get stuck in traffic.”
“For three days?”
The elevator doors slid open. Nathan stepped toward it.
But James put a hand out to stop him. “Nathan.” He took a deep breath. “We’ve got to do this
tonight.”
They camped out in the men’s bathroom all afternoon, waiting impatiently in a single cramped
stall for the seventy-fourth floor to fall silent. By the changing patterns of foot traffic to the toilet
they sensed that State Petrol had emptied out entirely by six o’clock, but stress-ridden lawyers
kept making visits — often for an illicit cigarette — until well into the night. It was approaching
midnight and the surrounding air was truly foul by the time James dared to peek into the hallway
and confirmed that all the office lights were out.
“We’re good to go,” James reported, and climbed onto the tank of one of the toilets. Holding
onto a partition wall with one hand for balance, he pushed up on the ceiling panel above his head
with the other and slid it to the side. He reached his free hand into the revealed space and pulled
out of a large, plastic-wrap bundle. “That's one,” he counted, and passed it down into Nathan.
Again his hand went up. “Two, three, four, five...” Each bundle was marked in one corner with
a letter — A, K, Q, J — and a number, one through twelve. Nathan sorted them all on the
bathroom countertop.
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“Okay, next.” James replaced the ceiling panel, stepped down carefully from his perch and then
climbed atop the toilet tank of the adjoining stall.
By the fourth stall Nathan had run out of counter space.
“Forty-six, forty-seven,” James finished. He looked at Nathan’s sort job approvingly, then
pointed at the UPS box they had recovered from the law office next door. “Forty-eight. I think
we’re ready.”
“I think we are,” Nathan agreed.
“Then let's give the city something to talk about. The roof’s this way.” James cautiously poked
his head out into the hallway again, then led Nathan to the large door at the end marked “EXIT /
出口”.
“Is the stairwell alarmed at night?” Nathan suddenly wondered aloud.
James froze in the act of pushing down the door handle. He slowly eased it back up. “I don't
know,” he admitted.
They stared at each other for a long, indecisive moment.
“If an alarm goes off —” James began.
“We hide out in the bathroom,” Nathan finished.
“On the roof,” James disagreed. “They search the bathroom and we’re trapped. At least on the
roof, we’ll have room to move around. If there's only one or two guards, we might be able to
stay ahead of them.”
“But they're still going to want to know what set off the alarm. They’ll keep looking until they
find it.”
“So what are you saying?”
Nathan stared hard at the door. Finally he shook his head. “We’ve risked it this far. Try it and
see what happens.”
James nodded slowly. “Okay.”
74
He pressed the fingertips of one hand against the door, and with the other slowly squeezed down
on its handle. James closed his eyes and consciously relaxed the muscles in his shoulder and
arm. If an alarm began to sound, he would react instantly. He hoped.
Gingerly, he pushed the door handle down and eased it, millimeters at a time, out of its frame.
“Go slow,” Nathan begged.
Finally the latch slid free.
Silence.
They both released their breath explosively, then shared a triumphant grin.
The stairwell beyond was dark. James stomped his foot and the sound-sensitive lights switched
on.
Nathan frowned.
“Relax,” his partner advised. He swung the door inward until it held itself open. “Let’s bring
over the equipment.”
They transferred the packages from the bathroom to the stairwell — quickly, knowing they had
little time for the long and complex task that lay ahead. When that was done James led the way
up the short flight of steps to the rooftop access door. The imposing lock that James had first
encountered was missing entirely, and the heavy door was crudely tied in place by a short length
of rope. The rope had been tied off against the stairwell railing and looped through the hole
where the handle should have been.
James undid the knot. “Bless you, Kirsten,” he smiled. The door, he had eventually discovered,
was unlocked each time window washing crews took to the roof. With the door open, a
screwdriver was all it took to sabotage the lock past the point of repair. Bureaucracy had handled
the rest.
The knot came free.
James paused. The heavy door creaked restlessly on its hinges. “This is it.” His eyes met
Nathan’s. “Are you ready?”
Nathan took a deep breath. “Let’s do this.”
James pushed open the door, and the pair stepped out into the night.
75
***
He Wei hated this part of his day. Six o’clock in the evening, sitting in his steaming car on the
misleadingly named ‘high speed roadway’, waiting for the car in front to budge an inch.
Traffic would be bad the entire way home, but here it was the worst. Here, at the Guo Mao
intersection, the ten lanes of Jian Guo Men Avenue met the ten lanes of the Third Ring Road.
The interchange was a pretzel, and traffic twisted to a halt every morning and night, seven days a
week. He Wei wasn't an urban planner. He was a marketing executive for an American biscuit
company. But if he had been an urban planner, he was certain he would have come up with
something better than this.
“Come on!” he shouted aloud, and laid his hand heavily on the horn. The loud bleat of his
BMW 3 reminded him of the cows on his parents’ farm in Gansu Province.
It accomplished nothing, but it made him feel better.
Not far up ahead was the new headquarters for China Central Television. Any company with a
de facto monopoly over the world's largest television advertising market was going to build a big
office building, obviously, but not even CCTV should have license to erect monstrosities, He Wei
felt. For two years, he had watched with distaste as the edifice grew higher and more ugly. In its
arrogance, CCTV had decided to build against gravity — just because they could — and the
whole structure was criss-crossed with the massive reinforcing beams that allowed its twin
towers to rise at odd angles from plumb. It looked like a postmodern toilet seat that some drug
lord had scratched up with his razor blade.
He Wei had been quite satisfied, he could admit privately, that the adjoining — and equally
hideous — hotel had been gutted by a massive fire one Chinese New Year — ironically, by
CCTV employees, who launched fireworks without a permit and ended up committing $250
million worth of unintentional arson. The torched husk still stood, years later, because the costs
to tear it down were huge, and because the courts still hadn't figured out who was going to pay
for it.
He Wei sighed, and hit the horn again.
Now across the street — that was architecture he could appreciate. The China World was a
simple, elegant tower that soared exactly seventy-four stories. He knew — he had had more than
enough time to count them over years of rush hour boredom. A simple tower, its corners
gradually converged so that it seemed to taper toward heaven. He craned his neck to admire the
view.
Was that a helicopter?
76
Finally, the car ahead crept forward. But He Wei didn't notice. Like many others on the elevated
highway he stepped out of his car, and couldn't believe his eyes.
***
Three hundred forty-two. Three hundred forty-three. Three hundred forty-four. There were
three hundred forty-four paving stones between the sidewalk and his guard post at the front doors
to Cartier’s Guo Mao boutique. He shifted his weight from side to side to relieve the fatigue in
his legs, then settled once more into an impassive stance.
Let's see how many women with Louis Vuitton bags pass by in the next ten minutes, he decided.
One. Two. Three...
Li Bai had hoped all of the sweat and boredom of university would have paid off with something
better. After two years of trying to figure out a way into a proper desk job, he had given up and
taken his friend up on the offer to join his squad of security guards. It was easy, mindless work.
All he had to do was stand and look disinterested — which, given the task, came naturally.
It was a strange paradox, his job. On his very first day, the store manager had cautioned him not
to look at the customers and to stay far away, outside the door, where he wouldn’t interfere with
the boutique’s ambience. His job was to be seen, not to see — to give the illusion of security
without intruding upon a reality to which he did not belong.
Li Bai didn’t care. Anyway, there were never any actual security threats. There was only one
person in the store right now — a young woman decked out in designer labels — and Li Bai
knew her type. Ninety percent of the customers who stepped through his door were women —
housewives of the newly minted rich, out to gather sufficient evidence that they had separated
themselves from the masses. No one wanted to steal anything here. The whole idea was to pull
out a piece of plastic — gold, grey, or best, black — from a Burberry-printed wallet, flash it in
the light a few times so that other people in the store could get a good look at it, and then drop it
on the table negligently, as if money were a nuisance rather than an obsession. The other ten
percent of customers were their dutiful husbands, invariably dressed in fashionable golf attire.
Once in a while a genuine celebrity came by, snooping for a gift for some sweetheart. Just two
months prior, Lin Dan, who had won the gold in badminton at the 2008 Olympics, had walked
in. Celebrities, Li Bai had noticed, seemed to enjoy themselves more inside the shop. They
smiled more, anyway, and spent money simply because they liked what they bought. But most
of the people who came into the shop weren’t so much buying what they wanted, as advertising
what they wanted other people to believe. Li’s degree had been in philosophy. Perhaps that was
why he was a security guard now. He felt he should explain to the young woman browsing
bracelets at the counter that, by her efforts to prove her audience wrong, she was, in fact, proving
it right. But he was pretty sure that would go by too fast for her.
77
Lin Dan had nothing left to prove. He was the world champion, and everybody knew that. He
just wanted something nice for his girlfriend.
Another Louis Vuitton bag crossed his field of view. How many was that now? He had lost
count. Not that it mattered. He looked across the street, across the wide Jian Guo Men Avenue,
to the China World Tower. Seventy-four floors, by his last count. This time he would start from
the bottom.
One. Two. Three... The sound of a helicopter chopping overhead distracted his gaze upward.
He lost his count again.
***
“Let me see that one,” the young woman instructed softly, taking the fabulously sparkling tennis
bracelet off her wrist and laying it back down on the combed leather blanket.
The white gloved Cartier saleswoman smiled patiently and wiped the tennis bracelet down
carefully before replacing it in its case. She pulled out a bright string of sapphires next.
“It's lovely,” Mimi purred with appropriate grace. She held her wrist forward delicately while
the shopkeeper fastened it into place. The young woman took a slight step back and evaluated
the bracelet in the small mirror resting atop the counter. It matched well, she judged, with her
creamy white Chanel bag, her elegant Hermes skirt, and her Manolo Blahnik shoes.
Except for the tennis bracelet, it was all fake. Mimi ran a shop on Taobao, specializing in Aclass luxury knockoffs. The saleswoman couldn't tell the difference, Mimi knew. She enjoyed
playing this game: pretending to have wealth, being fawned upon by salespeople, or admired by
the older women in the same shops who wondered how one so young had risen so fast. And she
especially liked coming here, because it gave her another chance to admire the security guard
who stood outside the door. She wondered if today would be the day she said hello to him. So
far, he hadn't paid any attention to her. But then, she supposed it was his job not to.
Mimi walked over to the full-length mirrors near the store's entrance, both to better evaluate the
bracelet against her wardrobe, and to take a closer peek at the handsome security guard.
The helpful saleswoman followed along behind. She held a pair of sapphire earrings up to
Mimi’s ears, and Mimi turned her head this way and that to appreciate the added sparkle.
“I think these really complete the outfit,” the saleswoman said, but Mimi wasn't really listening.
Her eyes were focused through the glass doors upon the young man in his uniform. She
wondered yet again how she might introduce herself.
78
What was he looking at? His jaw dropped open. He took a few slow steps away from his post.
His eyes seemed fixed upon something high up, up, up.
Mimi followed the line of his gaze.
Heaven!
Unthinking, she stepped out the door to get a clearer view.
“Miss!” the saleswoman cried, horrified. She scurried outside after her sapphire bracelet.
“Security! Security!” she managed to call out twice before the bizarre scene stole her voice
away — and then she, too, stood transfixed.
Fifty stories above them all, four giant banners dangled from the suspended window washing
carriages of the China World Trade Center. Each one was a rectangle that covered the windows
of four stories. Together they read:
西藏自由
24
Free Tibet
***
Guo Mao broke into hysteria. People poured out of buildings and onto the street, pointing and
shouting. People with cameras pulled them out and police officers everywhere shouted for them
to put them away.
An alarm sounded, seeming to come from inside one of the buildings, and people started pouring
out as the tower was evacuated. Only when they came out onto the street did they see what all
the fuss was about, and then they too joined the crowd pointing, shouting, and taking
photographs and video. Somewhere a person loudly clapped approval, and was very quickly
overwhelmed by a barrage of angry boos.
As the last workers streamed out of the building, an entire motorcade of police vans pulled up to
its main entrance, and a troupe of special tactics officers, complete with body armor, hopped out.
It seemed foolish, and proved futile. It was obvious to any seasoned observer that despite
whatever response plans had been put in place, no one had thought of this.
Xizang ziyou (西藏自由) - Free Tibet.
79
A second helicopter joined the first, and the two circled mindlessly, like flies around a neon
zapper.
The window washers had been working on the south side that day, and the wind blowing from
the east occasionally swirled behind the banners. They billowed out like dirty rags on a
clothesline, or triumphant flags. People with zoom lenses shouted excitedly at what they saw:
the unfortunate workers in the carriages, clinging desperately to their cars each time they swung
out into space.
One of the carriages started to rise back toward the rooftop, and it seemed that the show might
soon be over. But then the swirling banner beneath it got tangled up in the cabling for the
carriage next to it. It continued to winch upward, and one side of the tangled carriage started to
rise up with it.
From the ground they could hear the screams as the worker on the tangled platform clung
frantically to the floor of his car — a floor which was slowly turning to vertical. Then just when
it appeared he would tumble out to his doom, the tangled banner tore and the carriage crashed
back down to a level position.
The vast throng of onlookers gasped, then clapped.
Eventually cutting tools were fed down to each carriage. One by one the sails were cut loose to
float down to the ground far below. When the last banner came undone, a great cheer went up
from the crowd far below. It hung in space for a long moment, as if reluctant to depart, then was
caught up in the wind and floated out over the Third Ring Road. It snagged atop one of the
communication spikes of the CCTV building, and there it fluttered, a giant flag bearing a single
word: free.
***
An apt message for a television station if ever there was one, Nathan thought to himself.
Exhausted but triumphant, Nathan and James lit their customary cigarettes and looked out over
the mayhem from the 66th floor wine bar in the hotel across the street. Hotel guests and bar staff
stood packed beside them along the floor-to-ceiling windows, still snapping photos and chatting
excitedly.
It had been a long night.
The rooftop had been more crowded than expected, with great air conditioning units dominating
the center and a perimeter that bristled with aerials and antennas for cellular, Internet, microwave
and satellite services. The cramped workspace had slowed their assembly down considerably.
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Then James had dropped a full set of carabiners over the side while working underneath the
window washing carriages to clip the rolled-up banners into place. He had cursed himself for a
fool right up until the moment when Nathan discovered that half his detonators were inexplicably
low on battery. The crucial devices armed the pins that would let the banners unfurl at the
moment of their choosing.
Preparation saved them each time. James had drilled a contingency for every foreseeable screwup into their heads, and they wasted no time switching from Plan A to Plan B at each stage of the
process. They had assembled, installed, and armed every banner by six o’clock in the morning.
With time to spare, they had camped out again in the men’s room until the building woke up and
they could casually walk out the front doors amidst the morning foot traffic.
Out the front doors. That was the other problem with hiding in plain sight, James brooded. As
soon as people knew what to look for, they could find you anywhere. Investigations would take
place. Enough heads would roll to leave no doubt about that. And someone would make the
link. The secretary. Maybe the guard who manned the elevators. They would review the camera
footage. Possibly find an angle that gave them something to work with. A face.
“We’ll need to be careful now,” James concluded aloud. “We’ll both need to be careful.”
Nathan simply nodded at the sober statement. But his mind was racing with the implications of
what they had done. How many conversations had they just stirred up? And what might
eventually come of them? “This is — by far — the craziest thing we've ever done,” he marveled
aloud.
James chuckled. “Not for long.”
***
Nathan arrived back at his apartment to find Xiao Mei reclining on his couch, watching
television. She stood up, embarrassed, at her boss’s unexpected entrance.
“I’m sorry,” she stammered, blushing guiltily. “You’re home early.”
Nathan waved for her to sit back down. “It's alright, don't get up.” What did it cost him if she
spent her idle hours on his sofa while he was away? In fact it made him feel better. “Watching
the news?”
Xiao Mei shook her head sheepishly. “Rich Man, Poor Love,” she confessed, and immediately
gathered up her shoes and bags despite his invitation to loiter. The popular mainland soap opera
told the story of a young billionaire in love with another man’s girlfriend. The girl agrees to be
the billionaire’s wife for one year after an accident leaves her boyfriend in a coma and she’s left
struggling to pay the hospital bills.
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Nathan had surreptitiously seen a few episodes himself. “Oh.” He stopped off in his kitchen for
a glass of orange juice, and noticed that his ayi had made stir-fried shrimp for his dinner. Nice.
“Did you catch the news today?” he pressed. “Some Tibetan protestors hung a giant banner on
the south face of the China World Trade Center this morning. There was a huge crowd. I’ve
never seen anything like it.” He stepped back into his living room. “I wonder if they showed it
on TV.”
His maid shook her head, and blushed again.
“I have some more receipts for you,” she reminded him. “I put them on your desk with the
others.”
He glanced at the pile of paper slips. It was large — probably because he hadn’t reimbursed her
for almost two months. Too busy.
He flushed in embarrassment. “I'm so sorry. I'll add them up right now.” He sat down at his
desk and totaled them up while his maid stood awkwardly in the doorway. Over four hundred
kuai. Christ. That was a lot of credit for her to extend. He counted out the money and handed it
to her.
“I've just been so busy the past few weeks,” he apologized. “I’m really sorry.”
The money swiftly disappeared into her purse. “Your dinner is in the fridge. Do you need
anything else today?”
“No, no,” Nathan said quickly. He sank into his sofa.
“Okay. Goodbye.”
“Bye. Thanks again.”
He wondered if news of their victory would reach her on her way home.
Of course not. She lived in the basement.
He sighed. A problem for another day.
He reheated the dinner she had prepared in his microwave and sat down in front of the TV.
Maybe a brief segment had slipped through the censors’ nets. Doubtful. He surfed all the news
channels diligently for an hour, but despite the chaos they had unleashed in the downtown core,
not a whisper was spoken of it in prime time. He did see a great deal of the Chinese prime
minister visiting a wind farm in Inner Mongolia, however.
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Finally he shut off the TV, and ate dinner at his window instead. In the garden below, a small
troupe of retirees went through their evening stretch routine on the communal monkey bars. The
old men stretched and gossiped and spat, and admired the sashays of every short-skirted girl who
passed along the garden paths.
It was hard to compete for airtime with that.
His thoughts idly turned to the girl he had met at Kirsten's party — Cynthia, that was her name.
Where was she? And he began to scan the grounds below with purpose. Either she rarely came
into the gardens, or the two of them simply kept very different hours. Either way, he had never
seen her around.
She hadn’t struck him as remarkable. So why was it he could recall her face so clearly? The soft
almond curve of her eyes, the thick tangle of jet black hair, the pinched skin at the corners of her
mouth that hinted at some secret pain.
Nathan wished he had her phone number. He tapped out a short message to Ting Ting:
< Can you give me Cynthia’s number? Or ask if she’d like to meet me for coffee sometime? >
Which building was hers, anyway?
His phone wiggled back.
< Hey, baby. We’re both in Qingdao. Friend’s wedding. Will pass on your txt. *kiss* >
83
Chapter Eight
“Shouldn’t he be here by now?” Jenny fretted.
Cynthia held her friend’s jet-black hair in one hand and combed it with the other. She smiled.
The girl was young. And anxious. And radiant. It was her wedding day.
“His mother hates me,” Jenny confided.
The groom’s mother always did. Traditionally, Chinese marriage was asymmetrical: a man
merely changed his status, but a woman changed family. Nan hun, nu jia.25Zhang Po would go
from being single to having a wife, and life would carry on much as before. But Jenny’s world
would move — from the home of her parents to the home of her husband — and her welfare
would become her husband’s responsibility.
A whole genre of Chinese literature was devoted to the resentment mother-in-laws felt at the
addition of a new — and prettier — female dependent to the household, and the diabolical
methods by which they chastised the usurper.
“She’ll love you,” Cynthia lied encouragingly.
It didn’t help that Zhang Po and Jenny stood on different sides of the proverbial economic gorge.
She, like Cynthia, was from Jiangsu Province.26Her dad was a high school teacher there —
noble, to be sure, but possessed of a bygone poverty that the newly minted rich could only
admire curiously, like public toilets in Beijing’s vanishing hutongs.27 Zhang Po’s father,
meanwhile, was a top executive in one of China's biggest private companies. That company,
Haier, was the biggest enterprise in Qingdao, and according to Zhang Po’s father the third-largest
white goods manufacturer in the world. (Cynthia’s microwave, refrigerator, washing machine
and air conditioner were all Haier products.) He earned the kind of salary that made Americans
salivate.
“He’s here! He’s here!” Ting Ting called up from downstairs.
“If she doesn’t, Harry will beat her up,” Cynthia offered.
nan hun nu jia (男婚女嫁) - A man marries and a woman changes family.
Jiangsu (江苏) - A province on the east coast. Given its coastal location and superb transportation infrastructure,
Jiangsu is one of China’s fastest developing provinces. It also sports one of the country’s widest rich-poor gaps.
hutong (胡同) - Narrow streets and alleys formed by the joining together of traditional courtyard homes.
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Jenny frowned, then giggled. “Or Menu can lecture her to death.”
They had all come: the central committee — Harry, Menu, Ting Ting and herself — plus a
couple of the groom’s buddies — the twin brothers Da Qi28 and Xiao Qi.29 It would have been an
expensive trip for the friends — except that with one phone call, Menu had turned their Qingdao
vacation into a liaison visit for the Assistant Deputy District Manager for the Ministry of Roads
& Infrastructure, plus entourage. Yes, it could be labelled corruption — how else could one term
free hotel accommodations for one’s friends at taxpayer expense? — but Menu’s duty to his
friends had outweighed such considerations.
Together, they were Jenny’s honor guard, and they would not let her go without a fight.
“Positions!” Harry and Menu roused the twins from their endless card game and trooped out the
main door.
“Sis’!” Harry called back from the front. “How much do you think we should take him for?”
“The more the better!” Cynthia, coming down the stairs, called back from the living room. “Tell
him I’ll accept Haier stock!”
“Don't take him too hard,” Jenny admonished from upstairs where she waited.
“What was that?” Harry, outside, couldn’t hear Jenny's plea for moderation. Cynthia poked her
head outside to witness the would-be-groom’s arrival first-hand. A trio of sleek black Audi
sedans rolled to a stop on the street outside the sprawling, two-story German manor house that
Zhang Po’s father had rented for Jenny and her family to use during their visit.
“She says to bleed him dry!” Cynthia reported. Behind her, Ting Ting giggled.
“Damn right,” Harry muttered to his mates. “The after-party is costing me a fortune.”
The back door of the last sedan opened, and Zhang Po stepped out. He wore a Western-style
tuxedo, black-on-white. He had always resembled a panda. Now he was one.
“Hey, Panda,” Harry greeted their friend nonchalantly as he made his way up a leaf-strewn path
to the house. The well-manicured front yard was bursting with late-summer colors.
“Hey,” Zhang Po smiled, a bit uncertainly. A quartet of stony-faced men blocked his way.
Da Qi (大七) - Big 7.
Xiao Qi (小七) - Little 7.
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“You might as well get back in the car,” Menu advised. He snapped his fingers imperiously, and
Da Qi and Xiao Qi took Zhang Po by either arm.
Zhang Po wasn’t likely to break free of the athletic twins. Da Qi had narrowly missed a spot on
the national badminton team; his brother played volleyball in Beijing’s semi-pro league. “And if
I don’t?”
Menu simply shrugged and adjusted his glasses — a kingpin who found direct threats inelegant
and preferred his intentions to be understood implicitly.
Zhang Po’s question dangled, unanswered.
“Back in the car!” Harry ordered his regiment into action. In a moment, Zhang Po’s feet had left
the ground and he bounced bruisingly atop his friends’ shoulders, back towards the street.
“You’re too heavy!” Da Qi gasped from Zhang Po’s hip.
“Then put me down!” The groom feigned anger but couldn’t contain his giggles when Xiao Qi
tore off his shoes and socks. He was too busy trying to keep his shirt to find a way back to the
ground.
Suddenly a hong bao appeared in Zhang Po’s hands, materialized from somewhere inside his
tuxedo.30Menu snatched it away and tore it open with all the greed of a little boy at New Year's.
He counted the bills.
“Eight kuai!” Menu shook his head. “You think you can buy me off with eight kuai?”
He sprinted ahead to the sedan and started fiddling with the power controls. “Into the sunroof!”
The wide glass top slid back.
“One...!” Harry’s men reached the car and heaved Zhang Po onto the roof with a loud thump.
“No, don’t!” Zhang Po voice was panicked.
“Two...!”
“The cake’s inside! The cake’s —”
Menu hopped up onto his toes and peered into the car. “Wait! Wait! Wait!”
hong bao (红包) - A red envelope containing money, traditionally given at New Year’s to children or on occasions
where gifts of money are expected.
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“Three!” With a final shove from the twins the panda toppled out of sight. His landing sounded
softer than one would have expected.
For a second time, the back door of the sedan opened. Zhang Po crawled out. Slowly. His face
and hair were a thick mess of white icing and sponge cake. What wasn’t on his face remained
upon a large, round platter.
He held it out to Harry.
“I brought you guys a cake.”
***
Ting Ting sat Zhang Po down upon a studded leather chaise in the living room and fussed over
his appearance while the men finished up what remained of the cake. She tried to make a white
smudge vanish from the groom’s tuxedo lapel, without success. “You didn’t have to rough him
up quite so hard,” she admonished them.
“Eight kuai,” Menu explained. “He had it coming.”
She set down Zhang Po’s jacket. “Eight kuai?” She flashed the panda an incredulous stare.
“I can’t find his other shoe,” a frustrated Da Qi reappeared from outside.
“I threw it in a tree,” Xiao Qi apologized around a mouthful of icing.
His brother’s stare was flat and unfriendly.
Xiao Qi swallowed. “Uh, why don’t I go and get it?” He scurried out the front door.
“Eight kuai?” Ting Ting repeated, the edge in her voice unmistakeable.
Zhang Po shrugged apologetically. “It was a joke.”
“You are too if you think I’m going to let you into Jenny’s room for a lousy eight kuai.”
Zhang Po took back his jacket, pulled out several red envelopes from an inside pocket, and gave
one to her. This one bulged from the sheaf of bills within.
Impulsively, she gave him a hug.
It’s extraordinary, the effect upon Chinese women of a red packet filled with money.
87
Zhang Po stood up and went around the room, handing out handshakes, hugs and envelopes one
at a time to the chosen few — Jenny’s friends. Friendship was a serious responsibility — a
commitment to say and do what neither family nor strangers could be expected to in order to
help her find happiness, health and security. From this day onward, that would be Zhang Po’s
job. Cynthia climbed back up the stairs to Jenny’s bedroom and watched this simple ceremony,
this exchange of roles, unfold below her.
Jenny was free now. Not free from want — that was far too much to ask from this life — but
free from fear, the real and present fear of being caught by life's misfortunes alone, with no one
to fall back on. Family, and therefore marriage, was the core of the Chinese welfare state. You
certainly couldn’t look to the system to support you — not for a few more generations, anyway.
China's population remained a cruel denominator that turned almost any quantity of public
support into per-capita poverty.
In rich countries where all the basic things like food and shelter and clothing and healthcare and
education were universally taken for granted, maybe ‘freedom’ could mean more exotic things:
like the power to force the government to follow rules, or to get rid of it altogether; the power to
say things, even if they were wrong or dangerous; and stuff like that. For Jenny it meant health
insurance, for herself, her eventual children, and her mom and dad back home in Jiangsu. It
meant private schools, so that her son or daughter would stand a fair chance of getting into a
good university. It meant a house with a manageable mortgage. And good food on the table.
Marriage brought all these goals closer.
Cynthia thought all these things as Zhang Po climbed the stairs toward her. She was jealous, but
also happy for her friend. She stood sternly in front of Jenny’s door, the last line of defense
before Zhang Po could gather up his bride-to-be.
He held one more red envelope in his hands and presented it to her. “The last one is for you,
Cynthia.”
She shook her head side-to-side.
“Keep it.” Emotion swelled her throat shut. Her voice was the inaudible side of a whisper.
“I’ve always wanted this for her.”
***
Cars honked and pedestrians waved as their little motorcade proceeded through the city streets.
The license plates were papered over with small red banners that read ‘One Hundred Years of
Happiness’, one hundred years being shorthand for forever. It was a typical wedding-day wish,
but in their case the banners served more than a festive purpose; they also hid the license plate
numbers. These were company cars meant for company business, not private functions. But
88
what father could resist chauffeuring his new daughter-in-law around in executive style on the
day when all of his friends were watching? Hence those cute little banners, which celebrated and
obfuscated at the same time. Cynthia’s world was full of devices that manufactured acceptable
compromises between official policy and personal face.
The building up ahead was their destination: St. Michael’s Cathedral, one of picturesque
Qingdao’s obligatory wedding photography backdrops. It was so obviously alien that it could
only have been built by an occupying power: a yellow-stone castle without a wall, whose twin
turrets soared high above the surrounding neighborhood of dusty gray brick-and-slate
bungalows. Each steeple was capped by the peculiar off-centre cross that marked a temple as
Christian.
It had been built by the Germans. In 1891 Qingdao had been only a fishing village on China’s
north-eastern coast. But the port is very deep, and the Qing Dynasty, struggling to catch up to a
rapidly industrializing world, had seen the potential for modern naval bases – and, in times of
peace, trade.
The Germans, too, saw Qingdao’s potential, and in 1897 they forced Beijing to cede control
under a 99-year lease. For the next twenty years Qingdao was a German naval base, the center
of German power in the Pacific. After World War I, when the Allies divided the spoils of victory,
it was handed over to Japan in thanks for their part in the Pacific. Japan had always lusted after a
mainland toehold. In 1922, the city briefly reverted to Chinese rule, but the greedy Japanese
reoccupied Qingdao in 1938 as phase one of their bloodthirsty master plan to occupy the entire
country. By the end of World War II, their brutal aggression had extinguished the lives of
hundreds of thousands of Chinese civilians.
In school Cynthia had been taught this history assiduously – a sequence of national disgraces that
contributed, on one hand, to the collapse of imperial rule and, on the other, to the bold emergence
of the Communist Party as moral and military unifier. What greater shame could a people know,
than to be forced to give up their land? What greater honour, than for the son who rose from
their midst to restore it to them?
Cynthia’s blood stirred with righteous resentment each time she came here. She could still hear
Wang Laoshi, her sixth year social studies teacher, narrating that awful slideshow on ‘Unequal
Treaties And Their Aftermath’. She had pieced it together herself from the national archives and
presented it with passion every year. Cynthia had cried all the way home that day. 31
Was it shameful that on this happy day so many people flocked to a site that symbolized foreign
occupation and national humiliation? No, Cynthia decided finally. Actually, it made her proud.
Proud that her people were pragmatic enough to set history aside and put this building in their
laoshi (老师) - Teacher.
89
wedding albums because it looked pretty. Maybe it was hypocritical. If so, hypocrites were the
ones who were going to move this world forward — by forgetting.
Cynthia climbed out of the car and widened her eyes to take in the menagerie of white dresses
and satin suits swarming over the structure. It was one of the most popular spots in all China for
wedding photos, and summer was peak season. Their photographer, no novice to the locale,
handed a fifty-kuai note to the squatter who had been there since before dawn to reserve a corner
of the castle for Zhang Po and Jenny’s shoot — an ivy-wrapped stone stairwell that led up to a
second-story door.
Cynthia was tasked with holding up a giant flat disc. It was shiny on one side, and the
photographer placed her just...so, no, a bit to the left, a little bit higher, now forward...there! and
soon her arms trembled with fatigue. They took shot after shot after shot. Jenny by herself.
Jenny by herself with a rose in her hand. Jenny by herself with a rose in her hand facing left.
Jenny by herself with a rose in her hand facing right. Jenny with a rose in her hand facing left,
with Zhang Po sitting two steps below her, looking up. Jenny with a rose in her hand facing
right, with Zhang Po sitting two steps below her, looking down...and every possible permutation
of two people, a rose, and a kiss.
Cynthia eventually concluded the photographer had no idea how to compose a shot. But if he
took a thousand photographs, chances were good Jenny and Zhang Po would accept at least one
of them.
Harry saw her hands trembling and mercifully took over. It was going to be a long shoot, so she
let herself wander around.
A Chinese flower and an olive-skinned man had secured the premier backdrop, on the main
entrance steps. Cynthia really didn’t know where he might be from. Somewhere in the world
with a lot of sun.
He looked a lot older than his wife. Maybe this was one of those ‘mail-order brides’ that you
sometimes heard about in the news, and tomorrow they’d get on a plane for Moscow. She
wandered in closer, trying to intrude and be unobtrusive at the same time. She overheard a
snippet of conversation between the bride and groom. They were speaking Chinese; that told her
a lot. Maybe they really were in love, and he'd made China his home. Cynthia liked that story
better.
She continued to eavesdrop. His Chinese was really excellent. The only foreigner she had met
who spoke it better was Nathan.
She wondered what he was up to these days.
90
Whatever good taste had once guided the aesthetics of the temple grounds has long since been
erased by the wedding photography industry. A rose-bush bower offered a canopied aisle down a
red carpet into a clearing equipped with additional props. There was a swing bench, wrought in
the shape of a half moon; an arching stone bridge that led over nothing to nowhere; and a large
valentine, with the words ‘I love you’ painted in garish gold letters, across the center.
And how did the church’s priest feel about all this? she mused. Windows punctured the temple’s
towers at evenly-spaced intervals, and she could imagine him peering down into the street as
couple after couple paraded by, snapped their souvenirs, and left. He was wishing, hoping, that
just one couple might step through that door and take a moment to understand the tradition
whose facade they borrowed. Of course, none did.
The church had, however, opened a gift shop to one side of the building. And here, the wedding
parties did flock, and browsed through display cases filled with amulets and good luck charms
and paperweights sporting the faces of bearded Christian heroes Cynthia did not recognize. She
eventually settled upon a long, beaded necklace that had a miniature version of that odd, offcenter cross dangling from the end.
She put it on. For some reason, it made her feel better.
***
It was a banquet hall big enough to host a Party plenary, with five hundred guests crammed
around tables of ten. Zhang Po’s parents had obviously footed the bill for this one, and the
overwhelming majority of guests were theirs. Beyond her parents and closest friends, no one
from Jenny’s side had made the trip — over twenty hours on the train — just to go to a party.
Their small delegation colonized a corner table: close enough to see the bride and groom, but
not so close as to embarrass their parents and any VIPs they'd brought along.
What Jenny’s entourage lacked in size, they would make up in rowdiness. Or at least try. Like
any good wedding, it was already noisy. Men in suits stood, smoked, shouted and pointed
around the room, calling out “Yeah, I see you!” and “You finish that!” and obediently chugging it
down.
Zhang Po’s father had hired a couple of professional emcees to run the evening. The woman was
dressed in dazzling blue and possessed the unnatural beauty of the cosmetically altered. Her hair
was thick and done up in curls that twirled around her head and then cascaded down one
shoulder. She could have been one of the hosts of CCTV’s extravagant New Year's Eve Gala32 —
for which her male co-anchor, in his garish sequined jacket, appeared to be auditioning.
CCTV’s New Year’s Eve Gala - The premier Chinese television event of each year since its 1982 inception,
featuring performances by China’s cultural, musical and television celebrities.
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As the guests got settled, the pair walked around the room with cordless microphones and paused
here and there to introduce important people in the room, lay out the program and drool about the
menu. Cynthia and her friends ignored them completely. Menu, no novice to the plenary
experience, produced a small flask and passed it around and around the circle until the courtesies
were complete. By the time the emcees came to Jenny’s parents to start off the program proper,
Cynthia and her friends were well into a celebratory mood.
The aging couple from northern Jiangsu Province stood up a bit awkwardly, a wispy pair of
forgettables seeming out-of-place next to the big-city glitz of the hired celebrities.
“How does it feel to gain a son?” Green Dress put her microphone under the father’s nose.
Jenny’s dad wrapped both his hands around the microphone and leaned in very close. “My
doctor says I need to eat more meat,” he said, too loudly. He smiled as the unfamiliar sound of
his own voice came back to him, magnified fifty-fold. He looked over to Jenny, who, still
looking lovely, had already changed out of her white bridal gown and into a traditional red
qipao.33 “And it sounds like there’s a lot of meat on tonight’s menu. So I wish my daughter had
married Zhang Po sooner.”
There was a collective pause while they all connected the dots, then everyone laughed at the
inadvertent country wit. It was funny because he hadn’t intended it to be.
Next in line were Zhang Po’s parents. Unlike Jenny’s, they seem perfectly at ease with the scale
and splendor of the event. Zhang Po’s father, who evidently had no trouble putting pork on his
plate, took the microphone from Mr. Glitz. In the monochrome manner of someone reciting a
well-rehearsed speech from memory, he simultaneously welcomed his new daughter-in-law and
alluded to the obvious fact that he had paid for everything.
Harry rolled his eyes and lit another Xi cigarette.
Next were the grandparents, and then the uncles and aunts, brothers and sisters, cousins, nephews
and nieces. Zhang Po’s side of the family took a lot longer than Jenny’s. Even the hired emcees
looked bored by the end of the long roll call. Menu materialized more bottles.
Finally, the formal program closed.
On cue, pretty girls in more qipaos slit up to the thigh floated like red butterflies around the
room, delivering trays of chicken feet or shrimp or crab or sweet lotus root. Soon the tables
groaned with food. Qingdao was by the sea, so seafood was the local specialty — and, for landlocked Beijingers, the ultimate delicacy. Tray after tray of aquatic bugs appeared before the
friends. They dived into them with relish, and heaps of discarded carapaces soon littered the
qipao (旗袍) - A body-hugging one-piece dress with a high cut up the leg.
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table. Cynthia’s favorite were the pipixia.34It was about five inches long, with a tail like a shrimp
and a head like a cockroach, with fierce-looking pincers. All along its belly were row after row
of the tiny legs it used to crawl along the sandy ocean floor. It required patience to eat your fill
of pipixia: first twist off the head, because there was no meat you could safely get to there, and
then carefully peel off the hard exoskeleton, chink by chink. The soft flesh beneath was pink and
tasted like mushy lobster.
“Jenny’s dad is right,” Xiao Qi spoke around a mouthful of dumpling. “She should have married
a lot sooner.”
Ting Ting suddenly hooted from across the banquet table. “Hey, Cynthia!” she taunted. “I think
you've got an admirer.” She waved her mobile phone in the air triumphantly.
“What are you talking about?”
“That guy? Nathan? The one you snuck out with at the party in Sanlitun? He just sent me a text
begging for your phone number.”
“Who's Nathan?” Harry asked, a bit darkly.
“Yeah!” Menu grinned lewdly. “Who's Nathan?”
“Nobody,” Cynthia demurred. “A guy we met at a party a couple weeks ago. I didn't even take
his number.”
“It’s one-three-five-eight-four-five-five-two-two-four-oh,” Ting Ting hollered helpfully, tapping
away on her phone. “I’ll tell him you can’t wait for his call.”
“No!” Cynthia said, sharply. She wasn’t in the mood for romance.
“Why not?” Ting Ting pouted, and even threw a discarded shrimp tail in Cynthia’s direction.
“The whole point of that party was to find you some fun! How can you do that if you
don't...work it a little?” She mimed a strange movement in her chair, then blushed. The table
broke into howls of laughter.
“Maybe Ting Ting can give Jenny some tips,” Harry suggested.
“Harry! You're disgusting!”
“Where are they anyway?” Cynthia asked, relieved that the table talk had moved on. The bride
and grooms’ chairs at the front of the room were empty.
pipixia (皮皮虾) - A small crustacean.
93
“Over there.” Menu pointed with an unsteady finger.
Zhang Po and Jenny were already making their way around the room. Jenny was onto her third
dress of the evening, this time a dark green gown remarkable only for how ordinary it was. It
was always Cynthia’s favorite, the third, because tradition was silent and she could choose it
freely. Clearly Jenny had chosen this one for herself.
Table by table, guest by guest, they gave thanks and drank a toast. Cynthia felt a bit sorry for
Zhang Po, watching his slow and painful progress through five hundred sips of wine. But it was
not without its rewards. Along with every toast they picked up a red envelope. Tangible gestures
were always appreciated at weddings. And surely no one would give less than ¥100. At some
point in the evening, every guest would enviously do the math.
Zhang Po, juggling wine and money and wife, stubbed his foot against a chair and stumbled
badly into his new mother-in-law. His friends watched, and winced.
“I hope Jenny’s not expecting a big performance tonight,” Da Qi sniggered.
The pair found their friends’ table last.
“To the newlyweds!” Cynthia led the table in a loud salute.
Menu broke out a decorative ceramic bottle that he’d been saving for this moment. The whole
table sighed appreciatively at the sight: fifty-year Moutai could run up to ten thousand kuai per
bottle. Menu cracked open the cap and filled a pair of cups to the brim with the innocently clear
liquid. Cynthia could smell the potent baijiu all the way across the table.35
“No way!” Jenny eyed the liquid fearfully. “You'll knock me out.”
“But you can't refuse!” Cynthia took the cups from Menu and pressed one into each of their
hands.
“Anyway, Jenny, considering Zhang Po’s a virgin, you might as well pass out right now.”
The men all laughed and clinked glasses and congratulated Harry for the sharp barb. Zhang Po
just smiled sheepishly and whispered soft denials into Jenny’s ear.
“Don’t worry,” Cynthia jumped to her friend’s defense. “She’ll show him where it goes.” The
laughter ratcheted up a notch, and Zhang Po tossed back his drink to raucous applause.
bai jiu (白酒) - ‘White liquor’. A clear spirit, generally 40-60% alcohol by volume and distilled from sorghum,
wheat or glutinous rice. Of the many distilleries that exist, Moutai is arguably the most famous.
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“Qi hu nan xia!”36Menu expounded sagely.
“Not a tiger, a panda!” Da Qi corrected.
Menu frowned. “I’ve never ridden a panda before.”
“Didn’t you and Zhang Po share a bed in Fujian?” Ting Ting asked slyly, referring to the
infamous week-long ‘no women allowed’ romp to China’s deep south that Menu had organized
the previous May.
Menu scowled. “It wasn’t like that,” he corrected hastily. “The hotel screwed up our booking.”
The racy table talk went on.
This was their job tonight. Family was for ceremony. Friends were for fun. They dug up every
sexual barb they could think of and tossed it out, the way a drunken philosopher, with unfocused
gaze and smelly breath, might throw up half-formed theories for their drinking buddies to
contemplate.
It was a hallowed tradition. In an age when sex before marriage was unheard of, it had been the
job of close friends to soften the frightening reality of what they were now expected to do — all
the way up to the nuptial bed, if necessary.
These days Cynthia doubted that many couples needed the help. But the friends thought of it as
a responsibility. What could be more wonderful than to awaken the morning after your wedding,
hung over and smelling of cigarettes, with your best friends sleeping on the floor?
There was some justification for it. This was their punishment for having broken the sacred trust
of friendship and polluting it with something more. How many times had they sneak out early
from karaoke night or from a birthday party or from the boat trip or from the hiking trip? Once
love began, friends were secondary, and seen less and less, if at all.
So this night their friends played with them. They teased them. They gave them explicit advice
they’d never had the opportunity to follow themselves. And all the way, all the while, a part of
them mourned the passing of what had been.
“Now stop stalling and drink!” Cynthia put her fingers under the glass and raised it to Jenny’s
lips.
She knocked it back. The table cheered.
qi hu nan xia (骑虎难下) - ‘When one rides a tiger, it is hard to dismount.’
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“By the way, we've talked to the hotel,” Jenny, her face screwed up with disgust, warned her
friends. “They’ve promised to keep you off our floor.”
“That's alright,” Harry grabbed one of the serving girls as she passed by and planted a big wet
kiss full upon her startled lips. “I’ve talked to the hotel, too.”
***
The elevator ride was a disaster.
“Ten!”
“No, eight! Eight!”
“Where is eight?” Da Qi, squished against the elevator panel, tried to decipher the alien scripts.
(The hotel had been built by Russians.)
“Below seven! Hurry, they’re getting away!” Cynthia fairly swam through the tightly packed
elevator car. Somebody had to take charge. Jenny and Zhang Po had slipped out of the banquet
hall while the rest of the hall watched two comedians from Beijing perform crosstalk. Clever
snakes.
“No, no, no worries. I got it. I got it.” And Da Qi proceeded to push button after button until
the panel was one solid bank of red lights.
The ride up was torturous. The elevator stopped on every floor. And on every floor, somebody
mistakenly stumbled out and could not find his way back in.
“Eight!” Cynthia shouted to Harry as the door shut between them, leaving him stranded on the
third.
“Eight!” His hoarse cry echoed back for everyone in the hotel to hear.
At last they arrived on the eighth and piled out.
“Which room?”
“Eight-oh-eight!” Cynthia shouted. Was she the only one who knew this stuff?
“We’re on the eighth floor!”
“I know! Eight-oh-eight!”
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“But we’re on the eighth floor!”
“This way!”
The stairwell door at the end of the hall banged open, and Harry stumbled into the hallway, the
same banquet waitress from before on his arm.
“Eight!” he shouted again and gave her another kiss. For a fleeting moment Cynthia wondered
where Jin was.
By the look of the carved double doors, 808 was a VIP suite.
Cynthia tried the door. “It’s locked.”
Knock, knock, knock.
No answer.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Still no answer. “Maybe they’re on the beach,” Ting Ting offered. A chorus of speculation
ensued.
“Shh! Quiet!” Cynthia put her ear to the door. “I'm trying to hear.”
“Shh!” The call for quiet went up behind her, until everyone in their headless entourage was
shh-ing or slurring or giggling at their attempted stealth.
“SHUT UP!” Cynthia shrieked, and even she was sobered into silence by the volume of her own
voice.
The hallway was instantly still.
Cynthia delicately put her ear to the door, and listened.
At first, she heard nothing − but then, a knock, followed by a muffled, feminine moan that
could only mean one thing.
“They're in there! They're in there!”
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A loud roar of disapproval went up. Harry stumbled into the door, and hit it hard. “Jenny!
Jenny!” He implored through the wood. “Make sure he uses a condom!”
“Harry, they just got married!” Ting Ting laughed. “They don't need to use a condom anymore.”
“Oh, yeah.” Harry pounded on the door again. “Jenny, take the condom off!” And he collapsed
under the weight of his own giggles.
Menu pulled out his flask − again. The friends made camp in an oddly-shaped circle and passed
it around. Occasionally an embarrassing sound filtered out into the hall.
On an inspiration, Menu launched into the national anthem. “Arise! All who refuse to be
slaves!”
“As the Chinese panda faces his greatest peril, all forcefully expend their last cries!” Harry
played along.
“Arise! Arise! Arise!” The men shouted the lyrics lustily. The women tried not to laugh. Da
Qi lurched unsteadily to his feet and led them through the second chorus:
“May our million hearts beat as one! Brave the enemy's fire. March on! Brave the enemy's fire.
March on! March on! March on! On!”
“On, on, on!” They cheered and jeered, their hearts singing, their voices crying triumphantly.
Harry sighed lecherously. “I want to go horseback riding.”
Suddenly the door unlocked. A somewhat disheveled Zhang Po looked out into a hallway
crowded with his drunken friends. “Why don’t you guys come in before we get kicked out of the
hotel?” he suggested. Obediently, they staggered inside.
Jenny had changed again, the fourth or fifth time that day. She got up from the disorderly bed
where she'd been watching TV. Cynthia was the first girl inside, and the first one she hugged.
They opened their arms to each other: two women in a crazy world of men. It was an unusual
thing. For one of the rare moments in Cynthia’s life, she held a woman in her arms. The
alcoholic fog and all other distractions lifted, and for a silent moment they celebrate this day, her
accomplishment, as women. She had found love. She had secured a home for her future. It
belonged to her and was real and she trusted it. Her life’s most anxious question had been
answered. Cynthia was happy for her.
And suddenly they were crying. Holding each other, tears running freely down both their faces,
great round drops of salty water that Jenny had held back all day for fear of marring her makeup.
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Drops of joy that she had wanted to share, but waited, waited, for the moment when it would be
okay. Cynthia was that moment. They passed through it together.
The men didn’t understand, and who expected them to? It was all celebration to them, and with
their tears they increased their cheers, and slapped Zhang Po repeatedly on the back. Menu
jumped onto the bed and began a lewd pantomime.
“Open a window,” Ting Ting wrinkled her nose. “We smell like a male locker room.”
“And just how do you know what a male locker room smells like?” Harry sniggered, poking fun
at Ting Ting’s well-earned reputation for adventurism.
“I’ll do it,” Cynthia said, and at last let Jenny go.
A pair of glass doors led out onto a balcony. She opened them wide, and instantly the room was
filled with the aroma of sea salt. Cynthia stepped out into the night to breathe it more fully. It
was one of those storybook breezes, full of pirates and treasure and mermaids from the deep. It
caressed her skin with phantom fingertips and dried up the last traces of her tears.
She felt hands on her waist, and Jenny was back, her chin coming to a rest on Cynthia’s shoulder.
She knew what Jenny was thinking — how hard this day had been for her still-single friend.
“Do you remember the first time we went to see a foreign movie?” Jenny said instead.
Cynthia laughed away the dark thoughts. Jenny’s fingers slid down Cynthia’s arms until she was
grasping both Cynthia’s hands in hers, and they faced the unfathomable sea together.
“I'm flying, Jack.”
“Come Josephine in my flying machine...”
She hugged Cynthia again.
“We had your puppy, Go-go.”
Cynthia remembered. “I kept feeding him my ice cream. He loved ice cream.”
“But it wasn't good for him.”
“No. But it made him happy.”
They hugged yet again. Once Jenny had settled into her married life, they would see precious
little of each other, they both knew.
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Harry's voice carried out onto the balcony. “Zhang Po, you'd better break that up, or Jenny is
going to leave you for another woman.”
“You're too late!” Cynthia marched Jenny back into the room, triumphant. “I've already stolen
her.”
She gave Zhang Po a laugh and a hug, and all seriousness escaped her.
The evening wore on. They played games — nao dong fang — that tested the new husband’s
fitness, willingness and ability to please the woman her friends had granted into his care. The
details were known only among those who shared the kind of trust that made friendship
meaningful. Anyway, Cynthia was too drunk to remember. 37
But she did remember the fireworks. She didn't know who had set them up, presumably Harry.
The still night was sundered by loud cracks, and they crowded onto the balcony and watched
flare after flare shoot up into the dark sky over the beach and then explode into a million
sparkles, a canopy of stars suddenly come crashing down to earth. Gold and blue and red and
even green, the fiery blooms blossomed, then faded to invisible ash. As the last bloom expired,
Cynthia wiped fresh tears from her eyes and thought: today was a perfect day.
Except it wasn't hers.
nao dong fang (闹洞房) - Literally, ‘to play games in the bridal chamber’.
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Chapter Nine
They laughed.
“The best was the helicopters,” James declared, setting down his camera for a moment to wipe
tears of mirth from his eyes. “I mean, what were they trying to do? Blow them down? Circling
and circling and circling. All they did was bring people pouring in, wondering why the hell
those helicopters were spinning circles around the CBD. It was beautiful.”
Nathan smiled. “I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: O Lord make my
enemies ridiculous. And God granted it,” he quoted.
James laughed. “Voltaire again?”
Nathan smiled. “Who else?”
They stood atop the rostrum of Tiananmen Gate. Tiananmen Gate, the Gate of Heavenly Peace,
was the contemporary entrance to the Forbidden City, the imperial homestead from the 15th
century Mings up to the 20th century Qings. The Gate was China’s loftiest pulpit: it was on this
very spot that in 1949 a peasant from Hunan Province named Mao Zedong had stepped up to a
bank of microphones and proclaimed the end of democracy for the world's largest population
group.
Now it was simply a mandatory photo op for wide-eyed tourists who failed to see the many
levels of irony in the smiling photographs they snapped, with Tiananmen Square and the
Monument of the People’s Heroes in the background.
James snapped several more photos through his zoom lens.
“I liked the public security police best,” Nathan decided finally. “Scurrying around in the plaza
like ants. All the shouting. And a new van load arriving every minute. I honestly thought one of
them was going to pull out his gun and start shooting at the side of the building.”
He relived the moment in his head. “It felt so good to see them lose control. Even if it was just
for an hour.” He leaned against the rail and sighed contentedly. “I think I’ve been wishing for
that for five years.”
Their prank had made headlines all over the world — except in China, of course. Photos of their
massive banner had made it into major publications across North America and Europe, and they
reveled in their two seconds of anonymous fame.
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Overnight, Kirsten had become something of an international media celebrity. She had guessed
correctly where the next big story would break, and now she was reaping the rewards. The
world’s only purported expert on the FMA, her fiery hair and freckled face had made
appearances on CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera and two dozen other networks in the previous two
weeks. They all gobbled up her theories as fact. Even Constantine had stopped teasing her.
If things went ahead as planned, they would give her much more content to write about in the
weeks ahead.
“We had a couple close calls, too,” James turned the conversation in a more sober direction.
Nathan nodded. “We stuck our heads out pretty far a couple times, yeah.”
James snapped a few more photos, being careful to note visible guard posts and security
cameras.
“But God bless Kirsten and her fallacious journalism. Even I’m starting to think the Russians
are behind it all.”
“God bless Kirsten,” James agreed. “But poor Constantine. I wouldn't be surprised if the secret
police already have a tail on him.”
“Speaking of which, has he given you any word yet?” Nathan asked suddenly.
James nodded from behind his viewfinder. “Yeah. Tomorrow night, 10 p.m. Chocolate.”
“That was faster than I expected.”
James chuckled. “My guess is Constantine keeps more secrets in this city than you and me put
together, mate.”
They laughed again, and loudly, and a couple of guards on the rostrum looked their way with the
professional curiosity of paid law enforcers.
Security had always been there, lurking in the audience or the background of every public event
and place, but they felt it more now. Someone was protesting publicly against the state —
someone they had not yet found — and that was enough to make every foreigner a suspect.
Whenever public security went on high alert, you saw it first in Tiananmen Square. From their
vantage point atop the rostrum of the Tiananmen gate, they could look out over the whole
expanse of gray stone, and through his viewfinder, James counted the swarms of uniformed
officers. “One hundred thirty,” he quietly reported after a long while, and Nathan added the
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statistic to the memo he was unobtrusively tapping into his mobile phone. For every guard they
could see, they knew there were two more dressed in plain clothes that they couldn’t.
By whatever combination of history and accidents, Tiananmen Square had become the chief
symbol of the one-party state. It was vast, but the only word Nathan could think of to describe
the Square was ‘small’. Only small men built on so outrageous a scale. Only small men
commanded the permanent preservation of their corpses in colossal marble tombs. Only small
men caused their portraits to be hung immortally at the heart of their country's heritage.
Great men left the bestowal of such laurels up to history.
“This is where people come to be not heard,” James said, offering his own summary of the
Square’s place in history.
Nathan nodded soberly. He peered over the rostrum's edge. They were a good fifty feet from the
ground. Directly below them hung the Great Helmsman himself, a giant portrait that easily
measured fifteen by twenty feet. From above they could see the heavy steel brackets that fixed it
to the brick wall of the Gate. The bottom edge was bolted flush against the wall, while the top
edge hung out about a foot — presumably to offer venerating pilgrims a better angle for
adoration.
Nathan tried hard to imagine himself as one of them — standing in the Square on that historic
day in 1949 alongside several million of his comrades. All eager to feast at Mao’s banquet of
revolution.
He failed. It was a bridge too far.
“Please step away from the edge,” a security guard stepped forward and offered Nathan a polite
but unsmiling admonition. Leaning over the Chairman was not permitted, apparently. Nathan
backed away.
“We should move on anyways,” James told his friend. “I want to get some angles from inside
the Square.” He snapped a last series of shots along the broad avenue that approached
Tiananmen Gate from the east. This would be their most dangerous task by far — doubly so,
given the heightened security. And very likely their last.
The only sensible thing to do afterwards would be to flee the country.
***
Chocolate was an underground night club in the heart of the Russian quarter. Access was via an
unremarkable street level doorway — easily mistaken for the entrance to the adjacent car park.
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Beyond the door was an escalator, and as James and Nathan rode it down, the city of Beijing
disappeared and was replaced by a world of red velvet drapes and great, gold-gilded paintings.
At the bottom they were met by a leggy blonde with high cheekbones and assets that would have
put Ting Ting to shame. Her welcoming smile gave them both the distinct impression that men
who came here looking for a good time departed with very little money remaining in their
pockets.
“We’re here to see Dmitri,” James told the hostess. Constantine said they wouldn’t need his last
name.
She looked them over carefully. Apparently she reached the conclusion that they didn’t have the
muscle to cause trouble. She smiled again. “Please follow me, gentlemen.” She signaled a redheaded co-worker to take over her duties at the door, and sashayed ahead of them into the club.
It was a large space — the whole basement level of the shopping complex above them. Nathan
absently wondered what landlords would do with such spaces if humans hadn’t evolved the
custom of spending large sums of money to serve their vices in dark places.
A group of four men who looked like they had just gotten off the train from St Petersburg stood
atop a stage at one side of the main room. They played and sang music that neither James nor
Nathan recognized but that seemed to be a hit with the large crowd of thirty- and forty-something
Moscovites and Beijingers who jived on the open floor before them. Other guests sat at tables
and chairs around the stage, drinking wine and feasting on chunks of roast meat and borscht, and
all the while singing loud accompaniment to the professionals on stage.
It was a tribute to the ‘50s, when Russia and China were partners in a war that divided the world
between two ideologies. Not democracy v. communism — those grand-sounding, fuzzy-edged
words that politicians and field marshals threw out to justify their plans for murder. But
Vladimir Vysotsky v. Elvis Presley.
Away from the main festivities and to the opposite side of the room, high-backed, half-crescent
sofas formed several open-faced booths — staggered and tiered so that each had an acceptable
view of the room. The effect was to render them less, rather than more, private. The people who
sat in them very much wanted to be seen. Nathan wondered which one of them was Dmitri.
They suspected their hostess was leading them that way, but at the last moment she veered and
led them down to an unoccupied table directly opposite the stage. She removed the ‘Reserved’
card and motioned for them to take their seats.
James hesitated. “Dmitri — ?”
“Invites you to enjoy the show.” She smiled and disappeared into the velvet shadows.
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James and Nathan looked at each other across the table. “Did Constantine give you any idea of
how this is going to go?” Nathan asked his partner. They both sat down.
James shook his head. “Not a clue. He’s probably laughing right now at the thought of us being
trapped in a room full of Russian mafia kingpins.”
“Who all want to kick us in the teeth for beating them in the Cold War,” Nathan concluded
gloomily, and mentally noted the number of people he’d have to fight through to get back to the
escalator. The odds didn’t look good.
“Makes me wish I had stuck with my kung fu classes,” James lamented, and started chewing a
nail.
Nathan frowned.
“Sorry. Bad habit.” James forced his hand down and immediately started to drum his fingers on
the tabletop.
Their hostess returned and deposited an unopened bottle of Stolichnaya vodka between them,
along with two short glasses. She returned shortly with a bucket of ice. “With Dmitri’s
compliments,” she explained, and leaned deeply over the table to give both glasses a long pour.
Nathan felt the heat rising in his face, and followed her sashays almost hungrily until they had
disappeared into the shadows. James took one look at his seemingly inexperienced partner and
rolled his eyes.
“It helps if you don’t look,” James advised. Nathan swallowed the fiery potion in his glass and
exhaled a long, calming breath.
The band put down their instruments. From one moment to the next, the music of the club
switched from nostalgic folk tunes to techno-punk. Apparently the club’s regulars were
accustomed to the switch, because they rapidly cleared the floor and clapped and hooted at the
sudden appearance of a half-dozen girls from behind the stage. Each was dressed — or
undressed — to fulfill a different fantasy. They strutted, more than walked, to pre-arranged
positions on the polished floor, and their eyes threw down the gauntlet to every man in the room.
“Maybe Constantine just didn’t want to spoil the surprise!” James, clapping along, shouted over
the loud music and hollering voices.
One by one each girl took center stage and delivered the kind of performance that Nathan had
only seen back home on late night PayPerView. They danced with the sort of mature sexuality
that made grown men blush and young women jealous. They were obviously pros. None of the
local girls James preyed upon at Cargo could generate quite so much momentum in their hips as
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these Moscow imports. Of course, the comparison was unfair. There was much more shape in
the Russian form. And much more sex. Every Katerina and Nicoletta evoked imagery of ballet
dancers and figure skaters and diamond white skin wrapped in furs.
“We gotta bring Ting Ting out here someday,” James grinned.
“And ruin her ego?” Nathan shouted with mock shock. “It would destroy her.”
Each dancer made at least one trip to their table. It was obvious they knew where their patron’s
special guests sat. One girl, dressed in a military cap and a matching uniform whose pants were
somehow missing, climbed into James’ chair and took a long swig from the Stolichnaya on their
table before forcing a similar quantity down James’ own throat. He emerged, gasping, from the
pour only to have the breath sucked from his mouth by a pair of red-painted lips.
James watched her march away, his eyes hungry for more.
“It helps if you don’t grope,” Nathan advised.
James shook his head as if to clear away the cobwebs. “So much for keeping a low profile.”
Nathan nodded ruefully. Everyone in the room who wasn’t blind or passed out must have
marked their faces clearly. They all seemed to be smirking. Even the band members flashed
vicious grins their way when they returned for their next set.
Their over-sexed hostess reappeared. “Did you enjoy the show?”
They nodded dumbly.
She smiled. “Then would you follow me please?”
They rose, a bit unsteadily, to their feet and followed her toward the raised booths at the back of
the room. At one of the tables, a middle-aged man sat alone, his eyes on the stage. He had one
hand in a bowl of walnuts; the other held a vicious looking nutcracker. A small mountain of
discarded shells rose up from the tablecloth.
He looked up at their approach.
“Thank you, Kristina,” he wheezed. He gave her a command in Russian. She nodded and
dutifully disappeared. “Please, have a seat,” he waved them down. “You are Constantine’s
friends, yes? Yes. Did you like the show? Sit. Sit.”
James and Nathan took seats opposite the man. He was not what they expected from the city’s
purported Russian kingpin. He was a big man, more fat than muscle, and his cheeks swelled into
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twin peaches when he grinned. He wore a red t-shirt that stretched tightly across his chest and
displayed a line art drawing of Mao, Lenin and Castro drinking beer together.
They settled into their places a bit warily.
The man gave both of them an extended, shrewd look — then laughed. It was a short, barking
sound — and it ended as abruptly as it started, to be replaced with that same shrewd stare.
There was an aura of violence about him that seemed inconsistent with his easy-going
appearance. They had the uncomfortable feeling that he had already decided what sort of people
James and Nathan were, what their probable resources and resource constraints were, and most
importantly how little power they had to cause him trouble — or to protect themselves from
trouble he might visit upon them.
Kristina reappeared with a pair of nutcrackers. Dmitri pushed his walnut bowl to the center of
the table and motioned that they should help themselves.
“So,” he said in a voice that was neither warm nor cold. He fiddled with a nut. “What shall we
talk about?” The nut cracked loudly in his hands. Nathan wondered if that was how bones
sounded when they broke.
Nathan and James shared a sidelong glance. “Would it be possible to speak somewhere a bit
more private?” Nathan asked delicately. Once again he cast an uneasy eye around the large
room and its many unfamiliar faces.
“No.”
He delivered the word flatly, without emotional varnish. It sounded like a dead man talking.
More than the ongoing crack of walnuts, his voice made Nathan and James nervous.
“This is the way it works,” the man explained calmly. “You ask for meeting. Constantine’s
father is a friend. So I accept. Now, you know who we are, da?” He waved his hand in a vague
arc that encompassed the room. “And now, we know who you are. This way, we all have clear
reason to be respectable toward each other. Respectable,” he repeated the word, and managed to
make it sound ominous.
He cracked another nut and carefully picked the meat out from the shell.
James chose his next words as carefully as the vodka in his veins allowed. “We understand that
you are able to get in contact with most of the Russian expatriates who live in Beijing.”
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Dmitri nodded. “The interesting ones,” he clarified. “People who want get something done
learn eventually that they can get it done faster if they ask me for my help. As for other
people...you have to ask Kristina.”
“This man would be interesting,” James assured him. “He was a member of a circle of
programmers who called themselves 9b. His last name is Suchkov. We don’t know his first.”
The man’s poker face was perfect. “And what makes you think this...Suchkov...lives in
Beijing?”
“Just news stories,” James admitted. “If he doesn’t, then we’re very sorry for taking your time.”
Dmitri waved the thought away. “And why you look for this man?”
“We have a business proposition for him,” James answered.
Dmitri chuckled. “That, I already know.”
James and Nathan shared another look before James continued. “Before 9b split apart, they
developed a special piece of software. A virus that infects mobile phones. We would like to
speak to Mr. Suchkov about it.”
Dmitri sat back and was silent for a long moment.
“Americans,” he said finally. He waved a hand, and Kristina appeared again. He gave her a few
more instructions in the consonant-heavy Russian language, and she returned swiftly with a box
of fat Cuban cigars. He selected one, and she cut and lit it for him. He took several long drags.
Finally he looked back to them. “I do not like Americans. Please, do not be offended. It is an
old privЫchka. A habit.”
“But you have the bearing of idealistic men. That is what Constantine said — and I think he was
right.” He leaned in again. “I like idealistic men. Idealistic men — they make things happen.”
He puffed. “Change things. Sometimes. It is good for business.”
“Other times,” Dmitri looked far away, and he seemed to drift into another conversation.
“Mikhail, Mikhail, Mikhail.” He exhaled smoke in three regret-filled puffs. “He wanted to be
loved. I understand this. All people born peasants want to be loved by the masses. It is nature.
So he hands out a bunch of little clubs to everyone. Perestroika. Glasnost. Demokratizatsiya.
Uskoreniye.” He rattled off Gorbachev’s policy resume. “And they love him. And you
Americans love him.”
He smiled coldly. “And what do the peasants do with those little clubs? They pick them up, go
after the people with the big clubs, and they get squashed.”
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He stabbed the stub of his cigar into the ashtray, and twisted it side to side until it was
extinguished.
“That is what happens to people who think their ideals are more powerful than the politics that
oppose them.”
“The Chinese, now.” He picked up his nutcracker once again. “They came up with a simpler
model. There is only one big club. And the one who carries it leaves everyone else alone, so
long as you don't come after it for yourself. If you do that, then you get squashed.”
He returned to munching walnuts and let them puzzle through his meaning for awhile.
“Software can be expensive,” Dmitri warned, suddenly businesslike again. “It is, say, a little
more pricey than your average ring tone.”
“We understand,” James affirmed simply.
“Then I will see if I can find this man, and if he wants to be found. Within two weeks, you will
know the answer. Are we agreed?”
James and Nathan took one last collective breath. “Agreed.”
“Very well.”
He waved Kristina over again. “Kristina, take the rest of the night off. Show these two young
men around the club.”
“Yes, sir,” she replied, and gave them both a welcoming smile. “Would you follow me, please?”
Apparently that was the signal that the meeting was over. Certainly it was better than being
thrown out onto the street.
109
Chapter Ten
With all her recent travels, and the wedding, Cynthia had been able to put it off. But no longer.
She paid her rent in advance, three months at a time, and the next payment was due.
She loved her apartment. It was big enough that she could live inside it all day — for several
days, even — and not get claustrophobic. But the rent was suddenly more than she could afford.
She tossed her coat onto the bed and grimly appraised the scale of the task before her. She had
far too many clothes for this space, let alone a smaller one. And her shoes. She didn’t even want
to think about that. Wealthy women who bought things whimsically could discard them with
hardly a thought. For Cynthia, everything she owned was a memory she hoped to hold onto.
She had bought these sandals the first time she travelled to the coast to see the ocean. These
boots, she had bought to celebrate her promotion to assistant editor. She had worn these shoes to
her sister’s wedding. After two hours of dreadful indecision, she managed to part emotionally
with a single pair. She ought to call Ting Ting over to help. Cynthia was too soft-hearted to
execute the necessary purge.
She picked up another shoebox and inspected its contents. So that’s what happened to my black
Nine Wests! she thought. I’ve been looking for them for months! Oh, that’s right! Ting Ting
wore them to the wedding and returned them in this box after badminton the following week and
I put the box right here and just completely forgot about them and they were right here the whole
time! Oh! I can’t let these go! They’ve still got plenty of —
She slammed the box shut. It was impossible. She gathered up her keys and headed out her
door.
***
Cynthia rarely wandered the government mandated green space between the north and south
blocks of the Nine Dragons apartment complex. It made her uncomfortable: the children who
spun around the central square on skateboards, daring each other on to greater and greater feats;
the young couples who lay on shaded park benches and said nothing and nothing needed to be
said; even the goldfish that swam idly among the boulders and lily pads without apparent
purpose. They all possessed a calm that, for all its apparent simplicity, stubbornly eluded her.
What have I done to deserve — she cut the thought off before she could complete it. The
answers to such questions would never help her, only weaken her resolve to endure.
110
She sat down next to the monkey bars and exercise equipment. There was one set for children
and another for adults. Today several bedsheets were draped over the former. A matronly
woman stood guard, watching them dry in the late summer sun. It was one of the hallmarks of a
rapidly developing economy: public goods were rarely put to the use policymakers intended, not
when so many more practical applications could be found.
A cluster of little children huddled noisily in the shadow of one tree, pointing and shouting and
giggling. Cynthia wandered over to investigate. Over their diminutive heads, she saw a whiteskinned man sitting cross-legged on the ground with a notebook of some kind resting in his lap
and a pail of crayons spilled out before him.
“A tiger! Tiger!” one little girl squealed.
The man grinned. “With long fangs?”
The girl’s eyes widened and she nodded vigorously.
The man's hand blurred over the page, laying lines with quick, decisive strokes. In only a
minute, the outline was there, and a couple minutes later the finished sketch was startlingly real.
The man tore the sheet out of his book and handed it to the kid, who immediately began rooting
through the crayons at his feet.
“Orange and black?” the man queried. The kid stuck out her tongue. “A green tiger!” she
announced, and giggled as if she had made some vast joke. Cynthia smiled faintly despite her
black mood. All foreigners looked the same to her, and yet it seemed to her she had seen this one
before. Then she placed him.
“Nathan?” she asked.
Nathan looked up from his ad hoc kindergarten class. His eyes widened in recognition, and he
smiled.
“What are you doing here?” she asked incredulously.
He laughed. “I live here, remember? So do you, apparently — although you’re so hard to get a
hold of I was beginning to wonder.”
“I've been busy,” Cynthia apologized lamely.
“Oh,” he said simply. He turned to the child. “How’s your tiger, Lulu?” In answer, she held up
the sheet of paper he had given her. The fine lines of his drawing were utterly obscured by a
great smear of green wax.
111
“Not enough green!” Nathan admonished her with mock seriousness.
Cynthia didn't know how to answer. “Well, I have time now.”
“Great!” Nathan enthused. He picked up his pencil once again and held it, expectantly, above his
page. “Well?”
“Well what?”
“Everyone who sits under this tree has to color their favorite animal — right kids?”
“Right!” they chorused. More giggles.
Finally she broke into a smile. “A dog,” she said.
“Hey kids, who likes dogs?”
“I do! I do! I do!” they clamored.
Cynthia smiled again.
***
The children had all gone home, and the two sat alone together under the tree. Nathan had
disappeared briefly to buy a pair of ice cream bars from the small shack near the Nine Garden’s
main gate, and he quietly licked the grainy milk product while Cynthia gave him the highlights
from Jenny and Zhang Po’s wedding.
“I don’t see much of them anymore,” Cynthia concluded. “I guess they’re busy setting up their
new life together.” She licked her ice cream thoughtfully.
“Did this Harry guy keep in touch with that waitress?”
Cynthia laughed. “Her name is Yu Meng. Apparently, their affection ran deeper than a one-night
stand: it lasted two weeks. Then on the second weekend Harry organized a trip for all of us to
the Great Wall near Dongjiakou.”
“Dongjiakou?” Nathan exclaimed with some surprise. “That’s wild wall.” Wild wall was the
term for little-travelled and overgrown sections of the Great Wall that people scaled at their own
risk.
112
Cynthia nodded. “It turns out that Yu Meng is afraid of heights — not surprising, really, for
someone who grew up at sea level and whose previous climbing experience amounts to the stairs
leading up to the penthouse.”
“What happened?” Nathan’s grin was vicious.
Cynthia giggled. “Let’s just say wild wall is not a good playground for the vertically sensitive.
Anyway, Harry decided that he had no future with a woman who couldn’t share his sense of
stupidity.”
They shared a hearty laugh. Nathan’s smile lingered long after his chuckles had faded. Her
speech was so clever, so colorful. It was obvious she composed sentences for a living, and
Nathan realized that he wanted to hear more — many more.
“What about your friends?” Cynthia asked suddenly, lobbing the ball back into his court. “How
are they?”
“You mean the people you met that night at Kirsten’s party?” Nathan clarified.
Cynthia nodded.
“They're all good,” Nathan summarized simply. “I just saw James the other night, at a Russian
bar called Chocolate. Do you know it?”
Cynthia shook her head.
“Everyone should go to that bar at least once,” he grinned. “And then stay away for the rest of
their lives.”
Cynthia raised her eyebrow at the oblique comment, but didn’t press for details.
“And Kirsten — she’s doing very well. Ever since that big deal with the FMA’s banner at the
China World Trade Center, she's been doing interviews almost non-stop for the international
press. Speaking of which, did you see that?”
Cynthia made a sour face and shook her head. “Only in photos online. I was in Qingdao,
remember?”
“Of course,” Nathan nodded, remembering. “Kirsten is still convinced they’re Russians. At the
rate she's going, she’ll have the rest of the world convinced, too.”
“And what do you think?” Cynthia probed, curious.
113
“I'm not so sure,” he admitted. “Could they be foreigners? Possible. Although this stuff goes
far beyond the usual pranks I’ve see kids pull on their study breaks.” He smirked. It was a
peculiarly self-satisfied look. “And what do the Russians care about Tibet, really? The whole
fight-for-freedom spiel is more an American thing, don't you think?”
“You Americans,” Cynthia accused with mock seriousness. “It’s like your movies. American
style: they’re all the same. The good guys win, the bad guys lose, and no matter what happened
in the middle everyone is smiling and clapping at the end.”
“We all want to be the hero,” Nathan agreed.
“It's more than that,” Cynthia chided him. “It’s as if you haven't lived until you've stood at the
center of an adoring crowd.” She paused. “And it never occurs to you: what you had at the start
of the movie was already more than enough to be happy.”
Nathan considered her words. “Your editorial must have come down on the FMA pretty hard.”
“We didn’t publish one,” she corrected. “We couldn’t, even if we wanted to. The whole topic’s
been scrubbed.” She filled him in on the mechanics of her weekly editorial meetings.
He absorbed it all with intense interest. “And what do you think?” he insisted. “You,
personally?”
She paused. “I don’t think you’d like my answer. As far as I’m concerned, no one worthy of my
respect would even have the time to put a stunt like that together.”
Nathan winced at the harsh assessment. Still, he pressed on. “Please. I’m dying to know.”
“Alright,” she relented. “Honestly? I’m sick of it all. It’s like you said: there's always someone
on a visitor’s visa climbing up the Great Wall and dropping down a banner that lectures us to
Free Tibet or Remember Tiananmen. It happens so frequently, you’d think they’re afraid we’ll
forget our own history if it weren’t for their monthly reminders. They don't seem to get that the
causes they shout in our faces were our own problems long before they became international
student pranks, and the real memories — the real scars — will forever be ours, not theirs.”
She felt a fury building up inside her. “And who made you people the world’s moral compass,
anyway? You don’t see us hanging a banner from your Statue of Liberty saying ‘Free Texas’, do
you? And you never will.”
“Hu bu ganshe neizheng,” Nathan interjected, citing the central plank of the Chinese
government’s foreign policy. 38
hu bu ganshe neizheng (互不干涉内政) - ‘Mutual non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.’
114
Cynthia nodded. “That’s right. Maybe it is cynical to leave every country to its own affairs, but
at least we doesn’t suffer from the hypocrisy of preaching grand-sounding words like ‘freedom’
and ‘justice’ and ‘democracy’ and then only backing them up with guns when there’s oil or white
people at stake.”
The blunt précis made Nathan grimace again. Still, his well-trained mind spotted several weak
spots in her argument. “There’s no question pragmatic interests weigh anytime a people takes up
arms,” he prefaced, “But does that mean we abandon the cause of justice entirely? It seems to
me the central question isn’t whether or not the form of protest is appropriate, but whether there
exists an imposed social condition of unreasonable suffering for which no prior consent has been
given. If that’s the case, then shouldn’t we all do what we can to expose and ameliorate that
condition?”
Cynthia gave him the same sour look. She could tell from his first sentence that she would lose
any serious argument with the man. Or lose track of it. “Philosophy isn’t really my thing. If
you want to have that debate, you should talk to Menu.”
“The Assistant sub-Deputy Minister of...whatever it was?” Nathan prompted.
Cynthia nodded. “He’ll talk and talk and talk, then talk some more until you're so tired of his
voice that you'll renounce everything you believe and join the Party just to shut him up.” She
glanced at an incoming text on her mobile phone, then eyed him appraisingly. “You want to
meet him?” she offered.
“Right now?”
“Yeah. He’s heading over to the KTV with some of my other friends. You two can bore each
other, and I can actually have some fun this evening.” She softened the barb with a smile.
Nathan thought it over. It was probably a terrible idea.
“I'd love to.”
***
The establishment boasted three sprawling stories of private rooms, ranging from small, fifteenfoot square boxes to luxurious suites complete with a dining table and baby grand piano.
Cynthia led Nathan impatiently through the labyrinth, her troubles fading with every step. KTV
was her strong suit.39She had been blessed from birth with a voice unhindered by octaves and
KTV - Abbreviation of karaoke television, originally derived as a reference to ‘MTV’. A popular social activity
where groups of friends or associates rent private rooms containing karaoke equipment in a hotel-like establishment
that also provides food and beverage services to its sing-along guests.
115
notes. She could soar through the sky, or crawl through the deep. When she picked up the
microphone, people stopped to listen, even if the song was familiar, because they knew they
wouldn’t hear it sung quite so well again for a long time.
At least, that was her belief. It was a common hubris among those who sang too much.
Nathan followed along. He peered through the porthole-like windows in the doors they passed
and saw room after room packed full with revelers, and table after table groaning with food and
drink that was most definitely not complimentary. KTV was a lucrative business.
Room 120 was already full when they arrived. For a government man like Menu, frequent trips
to Cashbox or Melody or one of the other karaoke clubs in the city were part of the job
description — an important facet of the guanxi-building that kept his career on track. The pudgy
mandarin stood in front of a large television screen, belting out the saccharine Hui Jia de Lu
while everyone else covered their ears and suffered through the accompanying video. 40
“Hey!” Cynthia announced their arrival, holding the door open for Nathan as he apprehensively
slipped inside behind her.
“Hey!” the crowded room responded. It didn’t surprise Nathan that he was the only non-yellow
face in the room. But he hadn’t expected the party to be quite so large or boisterous.
“Let me introduce you to some of my friends,” Cynthia offered, sensing Nathan’s hesitation. She
tugged Nathan toward a cluster of mismatched people sitting around one corner table. He was
relieved to see a familiar face.
“Hey, Nathan!” Ting Ting grinned cheerfully. They forwent the kiss on the cheek that was
customary whenever they met in Nathan’s circle. “Looks like you got Cynthia’s number after
all.”
“Nope,” he admitted, and returned the grin. “But I know where she lives, so I can stalk her
anytime.”
Ting Ting giggled. The gruff man sitting beside her barely cracked a smile.
“This is Harry,” Cynthia introduced him.
Harry looked up at Nathan through a ring of cigarette smoke. He exuded strength. His casual
clothes fit snugly over a broad, athletic frame, and he greeted the newcomer with a confident
smile that was as much a threat as a welcome. Nathan knew immediately that this was the alpha
male of the pack.
Hui Jia de Lu (回家的路) - ‘The Road Home’.
116
“Do you drink?” Harry asked. The words were laced with a challenge.
“A little,” Nathan confessed. “Not enough to keep up with you guys, I’m sure.” He had no
intention of waging that contest. He had played it many times before — and always lost. Better
to lose face now and still remember what it looked like in the morning.
But Harry would not let him slip off the hook that easily. Without another word he poured a
glass for himself and a second for the newcomer, and pressed the latter into Nathan’s hand.
“Gan bei,” he saluted.
“Gan bei,” Nathan dutifully repeated the gesture, and downed his drink in one long tilt. It would
have been too rude to refuse. At least it was only beer — and Chinese beer was not particularly
potent. Harry refilled the glass immediately.
“Who are all these other people?” Nathan asked, gesturing around the room and hoping to break
Harry’s momentum.
“Menu’s traffic cop cronies,” Ting Ting answered. “You can always tell them by the broad
shoulders and short haircuts.”
Nathan, in the midst of a sip, nearly spat the beer from his mouth. He covered up his shock with
a fit of coughing.
“I think the standard is no longer than their girlfriends’ skirts,” Cynthia added dryly, and arched
an eyebrow as one such specimen bent gracelessly to retrieve a fallen tambourine from the floor.
“Are you all right?” Cynthia asked Nathan, who already seemed to be having trouble holding his
drink.
“I'm fine,” he gasped, and tried again to clear his throat. “I'm fine,” he repeated, more clearly
this time. He grinned in Harry's direction. “I told you I wouldn't be able to keep up.”
The burly man finally cracked a smile.
“Oh, and that’s Menu,” Cynthia concluded her introductions, pointing at the man behind the
microphone. She winced as he missed a particularly high note. Mercifully, the song quickly
ended. Harry stood up to take his turn at the microphone, and their host hurried over to greet the
new arrival.
“What’s that you’re drinking?” Menu asked immediately, before any pleasantries.
“Beer.”
117
The bureaucrat frowned disapprovingly, and wrested the glass from Nathan’s hand. He
immediately replaced it with a clean one, and started to pour from a pitcher. Nathan knew it to
be Chivas cut with iced tea — the only thing the Chinese seemed to drink at clubs these days.
“Lai, lai, lai!” Menu insisted when the glass was full. “Gan bei!” he toasted.
“Gan bei!” Nathan repeated, and emptied his glass again.
Menu giggled — “Good!” — and quickly poured another round.
“If this goes on much longer I’m not going to be much fun,” Nathan dryly observed to no one in
particular.
“Or maybe more fun,” Ting Ting pointed out. “No offense, Nathan, but you’re stiff.”
Menu sniggered at the unintentional double entendre, and Ting Ting blushed. Then he turned to
Cynthia. “Say, his Chinese is really good!” he observed.
Nathan half-smiled, half-grimaced. He had lived in Beijing for more than half a decade, and
could count on one hand the number of times a get-together with locals had not begun with that
observation. It seemed they could never quite get used to the idea of foreigners speaking their
language fluently. Well, he would leave them no doubts:
“Si shi si, shi shi shi. Shisi shi shisi, sishi shi sishi. Sishisi zhi shishizi shi si de.” Nathan swiftly
rattled off the notoriously difficult tongue twister.41
Menu blew a silent whistle. “Wow.”
But Ting Ting stuck out her tongue, unimpressed. “He practiced that it in front of a mirror for a
full week — am I right?”
“More like three,” Nathan admitted with a grin.
“Did you learn your Mandarin in Taiwan, by any chance?” Menu asked him.
Nathan cocked his head curiously, as if he had just witnessed an impressive slight-of-hand.
“That’s right — how on earth did you know that?”
“Ho ho!” the bureaucrat exclaimed, and his eyes narrowed shrewdly. “We’ve been following
your movements for quite some time now,” Menu joked.
Si shi si, shi shi shi... - Four is four. Ten is ten. Fourteen is fourteen. Forty is forty. Forty-four stone lions are
dead. A common tongue twister.
118
“It’s the tempo of your speech,” Cynthia revealed, laughing away Nathan’s apparent discomfort.
“Where you put your pauses on a few key phrases. Don’t worry — you’re still intelligible.
Barely.”
“But it does solve the mystery,” Menu nodded to Cynthia. “That voice at the press conference
sounded kind of like that. So it might have been a foreigner’s, after all.” He pursed his lips and
eyed Nathan appraisingly.
Nathan overheard the comment, and looked at Cynthia for clarification. “What’s this?”
“It’s —”
“— nothing,” Menu finished, and Cynthia guessed that his office had been instructed to shut up
about the incident. He seemed eager to move the conversation along. “So tell us, O Great White
Devil, in your vast experience what is the single deepest insight you’ve gleaned from the Middle
Kingdom?”
Nathan stared up at the ceiling thoughtfully. “You like to play with small balls,” he dropped
finally.
It was Menu’s turn to choke on his drink.
“Excuse me?!” Cynthia demanded for all of them.
Nathan appeared flustered by their reaction. But his eyes sparkled with mischief. “I mean...it’s
true, isn’t it?” He tried to explain. “Ping-pong. Badminton. Billiards... No?”
Ting Ting grinned at the still-gasping mandarin. “What’s the matter, Menu?” she asked
innocently. “Don’t you like to play with small balls?” As if for emphasis she popped a small
dumpling into her mouth and carefully licked her chopsticks clean.
Menu opened his mouth to speak but couldn’t compose a sufficiently clever rejoinder in time.
Defeated, he saluted Nathan and swiftly downed the contents of his glass.
Harry finished up his sub-par rendition of Wanmei Shenghuo — everyone was having trouble
holding their key this evening — and strutted proudly back to their table.42 Menu stripped the
microphone from Harry’s hand and pressed it into Nathan’s. “Your turn!” he enthused. He
seemed quite taken with this sharp-witted foreigner who’d unexpectedly popped up in his social
circle.
“Oh. No.” Nathan put his hands behind his back. “No, you definitely do not want me to sing.”
Wanmei shenghuo (完美生活) - ‘Beautiful Life’.
119
“Come on,” Menu chided him. “It’s my party. If I say sing, you sing.”
“Sing!” Ting Ting insisted.
“Sing!” Harry commanded.
“I...uh...” he looked to Cynthia for a way out.
“Sing!” she clapped. No exit there.
He took the microphone from Menu’s hand and stepped to the front of the room full of traffic
police. “Well...I do know one song that you all might enjoy,” he admitted.
He fiddled with the console next to the television screen. Suddenly a very familiar brass flourish
filled the room. Nathan took a deep breath. “Qilai! Buyuan zuo nuli de renmen!” Abruptly he
began to belt out the national anthem in a deep baritone, his voice thrumming with all the
enthusiasm of a first-day army recruit.43
Jaws dropped. Whether through study or alcohol, he was pitch-perfect. The lyrics rolled off his
tongue and filled the room with patriotic fervor. A few of the cops in the room sang lustily
along. The rest looked like they’d love to arrest the blasphemer, but Menu, seemingly delighted
by this latest unexpected turn, jumped up beside Nathan and joined him for the second verse —
an official pardon that released everyone’s voice.
“Rise up! Rise up! Rise up!” the pair trumpeted the final notes together. The room cheered.
Menu, grinning, poured Nathan yet another drink.
Things went steadily downhill from there. One by one, every officer in the room came up to the
affable lao wai, bearing a full glass and a wide smile. Cynthia hovered by Nathan’s side and did
her best to insulate him from the onslaught, but she couldn’t overturn custom.44
Nathan got up, somewhat unsteadily, yet again. “Gan bei!”
“Are you alright?” Cynthia asked when he flopped heavily back down to the sofa between her
and Menu.
“Oh, I’m okay!” Nathan replied with unnecessary volume and a heavy slur.
Qilai! Buyuan zuo nuli de renmen! (起来！不愿做奴隶的人们) - ‘Arise! All who refuse to be slaves!’ The first
line of the March of the Volunteers, China’s national anthem since 1949.
lao wai (老外) - A foreigner.
120
Harry topped up Nathan’s glass once more and pulled out a fresh pack of Zhongnanhai Reds. He
extended a stick Cynthia’s way.
“No, thanks,” she passed, just a bit peeved at all the testosterone Nathan’s arrival had unleashed.
Harry flashed his disapproval.
“I’ll take it,” Menu offered, and reached across her to grab it.
“Nathan is a politics major,” Cynthia informed the pudgy mandarin while he lit up, hoping some
conversation might slow the destruction.
Menu’s bleary eyes snapped wide.
“No!” Harry cried aloud.
“Western politics?” Menu dared to hope.
Nathan nodded.
“Well. Well, well, well.” The smile on the bureaucrat’s face was beatific. “We have so much to
talk about.”
“No politics!” Harry bellowed. “Let’s go horseback riding instead.”
“He thinks Tibet should be an independent country,” Cynthia whispered conspiratorially into
Menu’s ear.
“Blasphemy!” Menu shouted in an angry tone that was softened considerably by the grin on his
face. “He's going to need a thorough reeducation.”
He staggered to his feet. “I will turn him into the next Norman Berthune,” he proclaimed with a
finger thrust unsteadily skyward, invoking the Canadian doctor who had served the Chinese
Communists as a battlefield surgeon in the late 1930’s. Chairman Mao had lionized the man —
foreign converts to the Communist cause were rare and precious propaganda gems — and the
man had been a fixture in China’s elementary school curriculum ever since.
Harry groaned.
“But this is just too rare, Harry!” Menu protested. “A white devil who can speak the civilized
tongue. It’s our duty to instruct the boy before the misguided ideologies of his youth blind him
permanently to the transcendent wisdom of Maoist Marxist Leninism.”
121
Nathan grinned in spite of the ridiculous declaration. The Communist hack was simply too
pleasant not to like.
“When I'm through with you, my boy,” he slapped his would-be comrade on the back, “You will
happily yield your personal judgments to the Party’s teachings.” He grinned. “You won't
understand any of it, but you will yield!”
“I want to go horseback riding instead,” Harry complained again, loudly.
Ting Ting giggled. “Harry, baby, it's four in the morning.”
Nathan blinked. Four o’clock? Where had the night gone? He had to meet James in five hours.
Harry refused to be swayed by logic. “If we leave now, we’ll get to the riding fields by six. It's
Saturday, right?” He surveyed their ambivalent faces. “What? You guys have something better
to do?”
“It’s called sleep,” Ting Ting said tartly.
122
Chapter Eleven
“Hold the reins closer, like this,” Nathan instructed, demonstrating from his saddle.
Cynthia gathered the reins of her disobedient mount — who seemed more interested in munching
grass than keeping up with their troupe — and hauled its head skyward. The nag reluctantly
settled back into line.
“I didn’t know you ride,” Cynthia remarked, silently grateful that she could, in fact, control the
beast beneath her to some degree.
“I don’t,” Nathan grinned. “I’m just doing what he does.” He pointed to the head of their little
column, where Harry and Menu trotted side-by-side ahead of a pair of Menu’s policemen friends.
Harry did not seem to ride so much as flow. They moved as one unit, horse-and-rider, up and
down, up and down. But there was no question who was master. Cynthia could kick and yell
with all the strength she dared to urge her horse into a faster walk, but all the stupid beast did was
turn his head and cast her a withering look. Harry needed only to shift his heels, and his mount
obediently leapt into a gallop.
The ranch where Harry stabled his horse was a couple hours’ drive west of Beijing, in the
foothills of the Taihang Mountains. It was a pleasure park, of sorts. Horseback riding.
Motocross. Dune buggies. Pretty much every kind of expensive way to cross dirt was on offer.
The owners knew Harry well, apparently. His horse had been saddled and ready upon their
arrival.
For Cynthia, it was a glimpse into how the other half lived — or, to be more accurate, the other
0.2%. Harry belonged to that lucky class of globe-striding professionals who, caught up in the
midst of China’s economic ascension, could earn dollars and spend renminbi. He drove an Audi
to work — or had somebody drive it for him. He lived in a new high-rise just a few blocks from
Cynthia’s for five times her rent. He had a maid who came twice a day, five times a week, to
prepare his meals, do his laundry, and clean house. And he owned a horse.
Cynthia absently wondered whether Harry’s maid had ever been horseback riding. Gross
systemic inequality was an ugly consequence of market economics that had been glossed over by
the Party reformers who ushered it in.
“What is it that Harry does for a living, exactly?” Nathan asked Cynthia then, seemingly reading
her thoughts as their horses trudged side by side in the pre-dawn dimness.
123
“His first career was in the Ministry of Justice,” Cynthia answered, also admiring the man’s
horsemanship. “Overseeing judges in Beijing.”
One of Nathan’s eyebrows shot up.
“I'm not quite sure what that means, either,” Cynthia admitted. “And I've never asked. It was a
pretty senior position, though. When I met him he had already moved on from it.”
“To?”
“Sales,” she shrugged, as if that much should have been obvious. “He buys and sells ad space —
that’s how we met. With all the publishers in his pocket, he does some agency work representing
authors, too. Travel books, mostly. Menu’s got a book contract with him, actually.” She raised
her voice to be heard at the head of their column. “Don’t you, Menu?”
“Eh?” the mandarin called back. “What was that?”
“I was telling Nathan that you’re writing a book for Harry.”
Menu shot a glare Cynthia’s way, then swung his horse around.
“What’s the book about?” Nathan asked curiously once Menu had rejoined the column at their
side.
Menu continued to glare. “You have to keep bringing it up, don’t you?” he snapped at Cynthia.
“Did I say something wrong?” Nathan asked, confused.
Cynthia laughed. “Let’s just say no one has seen any drafts yet, and probably never will.”
“I’m working on it!” Menu protested. “Things have just been a bit busy with work this past...”
he left it hanging.
“Year,” Cynthia finished. She could tell Nathan was hungry for details. “Last spring Menu
organized a men-only romp to Xiamen.”
Nathan knew Xiamen to be a port city south of Shanghai, but had never been there.
“It was a business trip,” Menu corrected. “I was putting together five-year estimates for
Beijing’s bus fleet and wanted to visit the bus manufacturers to get a better handle on
maintenance costs.”
“Right, and Harry and his friends went along as — what was it again?”
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“Research assistants,” Menu snapped.
“Oh, that’s right. Research assistants.” Cynthia nodded as if she always forgot that detail.
“Now — mysteriously, at exactly the same time, someone starts an anonymous blog about a
bureaucrat who goes down to Fujian with some guy friends and has a string of adventures, most
of them sexual and all of them at taxpayer expense. This blogger cleverly calls it ‘Deep South’
and by the time Menu and Harry get back to Beijing, it’s got a hundred thousand readers and
Menu is facing arrest on corruption charges.”
“I didn’t write it!” Menu protested to Nathan.
“So Harry was able to convince his friends in the prosecutor’s office,” Cynthia added. “The real
author of ‘Deep South’ never came forward, but seeing how popular it was, Harry convinced
Menu to write up the real-life version.”
Menu grimaced. “Honestly, our chief discovery on that trip was that men should never, ever go
on an extended vacation without bringing at least a few women along to keep things civilized.”
“It was that bad?” Nathan asked.
Menu shuddered. “On a ten-day trip, we rang up more in damages than we did in
accommodations. And the rental car was a complete write-off.”
“You wrecked a car!?” Nathan exclaimed.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Menu grumbled.
Nathan slipped his mobile phone out of his pocket and read a text from James, who likely had
just woken up:
< It’s about time. >
He smiled to himself. It felt good to be the one standing up his partner for a change. On more
than a few occasions in the past, Nathan had hauled himself out of bed early on a Saturday
morning only to receive a short note from James advising that ‘unforeseen events’ had forced
him to reschedule. Ordinarily, James put their work first. But there were some extraordinary
women in the city. He would undoubtedly demand a full report upon Nathan’s return.
“Perhaps you’re ready to begin your reeducation. Hmm, my young Pioneer?” Menu jested,
referring to the Party’s version of the boy scouts.
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“I think you’d find that process very, very painful,” Nathan cautioned, smiling. It probably had
been unwise to prolong his contact with the obviously clever mandarin — especially when two
of his policeman-friends had opted to come along. But curiosity had overruled caution, and now
Nathan worried that he might be in over his head.
Menu laughed. “To quote Mao: ‘Anyone who sees only the bright side but not the difficulties
cannot fight effectively for the accomplishment of the Party’s tasks.’”
“I think we’ll save each other a lot of time and frustration if we simply agree to disagree,”
Nathan suggested.
Menu pooh-poohed the thought. “You say he studied politics?” he asked Cynthia incredulously.
“I thought the whole point of a degree like that was to get into long conversations that yield no
answers.”
He was goading Nathan on, but Nathan didn’t take the bait.
“Please,” Menu pleaded. “Otherwise I’ll have to ride with Harry all morning and listen to him
drone on about his gym routine.”
“I heard that!” Harry grunted from up ahead.
“You were supposed to!” Menu called back. He turned back to Nathan and pushed his glasses up
his nose again. “Have you ever even been to Tibet?” he probed, trying a different tact.
Nathan shook his head no.
“You should go,” Menu suggested. He clucked at his horse reprovingly when it attempted to
nuzzle Nathan’s mare. “I think you’ll find that most Tibetans our age are happy with the way
their world has changed in the past thirty years. They’re catching up with the rest of us. They
have jobs, electricity, cars, telephones, television, health care, universities —”
“I am so tired of hearing that argument,” Nathan cut Menu off. He gave the smug mandarin a
grim look. “If we are going to have this debate, then let’s dispense with the bullshit, shall we?
You know as well as I do, this is not about cars and electricity. When the Japanese sacked
Nanjing, did you thank them afterwards for the new railroads they laid?”
In his burst of frustration, he may have taken the analogy too far. The Rape of Nanjing was
never invoked lightly. All mirth flew from Menu’s visage. “Alright,” he said coldly. “Then tell
me, Nathan, what is this debate about?”
“Freedom,” Nathan answered simply.
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“Freedom,” Menu repeated, and the mandarin’s eyes widened in disbelief. “And you’re telling
me to dispense with the bullshit?”
“I don’t expect you to understand,” Nathan said. He urged his horse into a faster walk.
But Menu’s kept pace. “Oh, I understand,” he disagreed. “Freedom is a very, very dangerous
word, Comrade. ‘All murderers are punished — unless they kill in large numbers and to the
sound of trumpets.’”
Nathan cocked his head and regarded the pudgy bureaucrat curiously. “What did you just say?”
Menu repeated the line. “You ought to know that one. It’s one of your guys who said it. I think
—”
“Voltaire,” Nathan prompted. “It was Voltaire.”
Menu nodded. “Freedom is the language of mass murder, Nathan. You Americans, you have a
love affair with the word, I know. But how many people have you killed under its banner, hmm?
How many peoples have you ravaged? The Sioux? The Vietnamese? Iraqis?”
Nathan chuckled and shook his head. “You're reaching. You can't excuse your own country’s
crimes simply by saying ‘It’s been done before.’ Does America have black marks on its history?
Okay, sure. Every country does. That doesn't make it right for you to repeat them. The fact still
remains that Tibetans had a legitimate government until you guys came along, sent it off, and
replaced it with one that rules by coercion and crushes any memory of a people who were once
free of it.”
They came to a patch of mud and led their horses carefully around it.
Menu was shaking his head. “You misunderstand me. I'm not trying to say that we’re right. I'm
just saying it's reality. It’s how the world works. Modern and traditional civilizations have
clashed for five thousand years. Guess who wins?”
Nathan gave Menu a pitying look. “When you have no ideals, you see through everything,” he
quoted. “That’s why totalitarianism turns people into cynics. You’re not allowed to put any
effort into political ideals, so of course you see them all as worthless. Just window-dressing for
the historically inevitable slaughter. They are worthless — unless people are given the chance to
express them, organize around them, and pour meaning into them through their actions.”
Menu screwed his face up as if he had just bitten into a sour lemon. “Are you going to return the
Dakotas to the Sioux, Nathan?” he demanded impatiently. “Because until you do, we can go
back and forth spouting self-righteousness all day. You can try to legitimize to me what your
‘land of the free’ did to Native Americans by talking up security and treaties and all that stuff. It
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doesn't change the fact that your civilization came, saw, and conquered, and theirs now lives on
whatever scraps you toss them. And I can lecture you all day about China's ancient ties to Tibet
— certainly we have a much stronger claim to that snow-choked plateau than either you or the
British ever did to the whole of North America. You greedy bastards.”
He poked his spectacles back into place and sighed. When he continued his voice was soft. “But
all we’d be doing is retelling the victors’ version of history. That’s fine for the kids in the
elementary schools, but come on, Nathan. You and I know better. Let’s not take solace in the
stories we write so the masses can sleep at night. Instead of brainwashing ourselves into
believing that it’s all for the greater good somehow, isn’t it more honest to just confront, soberly,
how bloody the task of carving out a country in this world of scarcity, fear and greed can be?
China has a hodge-podge of minorities that shuffle restlessly inside our borders. Tibet’s just the
one that gets all the international press -- them and Xinjiang. Myself, I’m actually encouraged
by how much of their culture we’ve managed to preserve.”
“When you preserve something it’s already dead,” Nathan disagreed. “Culture isn’t something
you can put in a museum. It must be free to grow. To evolve. To be lived by the people who
claim it as their own. But look at what you’re doing over there. Dictating education. Dictating
economics. Dictating immigration. Dictating publications. Now you tell me, Menu, where in
all that is there room left for culture?”
Menu raised his hands helplessly — and nearly lost his grip on the reins. “Let’s face it: Tibet is
a small, traditional nation of five million farmers and monks, stuck on the border between two
huge, rapidly developing civilizations of over a billion people each. One way or another, making
it through the 21st century is going to be a struggle. Yeah, they grumble about learning Chinese
and fighting with two hundred thousand Han immigrants for jobs. But if we weren’t there, the
Indians would be, and then the Tibetans would grumble about learning English. And yeah, they
worry about Beijing’s meddling in local affairs. So does every province, by the way. On the
other hand, they’re dirt poor, so Beijing funds nine-tenths of their budget and exempts Tibet from
all taxation. If we didn’t pump in the money to build their roads and schools and hospitals,
they’d have to beg for the money from somebody else. You think it wouldn’t come with its own
strings attached?”
“They should have been free to make those decisions for themselves,” Nathan protested.
His horse nickered in agreement — or perhaps exasperation. Cynthia had long since tuned out to
contemplate the sunrise over her right shoulder.
Menu shrugged his shoulders unapologetically. “Not every nation gets to choose independence.
You know that, Nathan. Tibet is too important strategically to be non-aligned. You Americans
have got oceans to defend your borders. We don't. Russians to the north. Japanese to the east.
Indians to the south and west. They all want a piece of us. And who knows whose side
Afghanistan and Kazakhstan are on. If Tibet is part of China, then our western border is the
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highest, most impassable mountain range in the world. If it’s not, then our western border is
somewhere in a flat sandy wasteland — impossible to police and control. Those are the facts.”
He eyed Nathan carefully, as if to judge the impact of his words. “And then somebody hangs a
banner in the heart of Beijing that screams ‘Free Tibet’. You Americans,” he sighed. “You
always think democracy is the solution. You focus so much noble energy on that magic bullet,
that you fail to see: it doesn’t solve the real problems. It just gives people a peculiar — and, I
might add, slow — procedure for approaching them. You can free people to vote, but you can’t
free them from the circumstances of their existence.”
The trail turned east, into the rising sun, and Nathan raised a hand to shade his bloodshot eyes
from the stinging morning rays. He realized that Cynthia had been right: the man would argue
his point of view forever. “So you’ve managed to justify the oppression of another people,” he
summarized. “Congratulations.”
Menu also winced under the sudden glare. He pulled out his flask and took a long pull, then
offered it to Nathan, who wisely declined. “Oppression is one of those words that appears in
every great country’s true history, Nathan,” he said, and stowed his flask. “But I will say this:
more of Tibet will see the dawn of the twenty-second century than will your Sioux. Because for
all the ugly stuff you say we’ve done, the fact is we’ve never taken the kind of total war
approach to our minorities that you guys did over there. We at least have the humanity to win
over the native population with economic modernization instead of rifles.”
The sun crept slowly above the horizon. The silence between them grew long. “You want me to
feel guilty?” Menu concluded finally. “Okay. I’ll make you a deal. I will feel guilty about my
country if you’ll agree to feel equally guilty about yours. Is it a deal?”
Nathan shook his head. “I can't do that. I just can’t accept the idea that our countries are moral
equals — not on any question.”
Menu nodded, a bit sadly. “I know you can't. But the world might be a safer place if you could.”
He touched his heels to his horse’s sides, and sped his horse into a trot that very quickly left
Nathan alone with his thoughts.
***
“This pig is amazing,” Harry groaned appreciatively. They sat around the kitchen table, a small,
roasted pig splayed out on a tray between them. The skin was as golden and crispy as the finest
Peking duck. They had picked it up from the rancher at the end of their ride; it had sat
smoldering fragrantly in the back of Harry’s car the whole way back to their lodge.
They were spending the evening in the home of an enterprising village couple, about a half hour
away from the ranch. The husband and wife had converted their simple courtyard dwelling into
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a guest cottage for riders. On one side of the courtyard was a dining room. On another, a small
stable for horses. On the third, where they sat, were the kitchen and sleeping rooms.
“We’ve got to do this more often,” Menu agreed, cutting off a chunk from the hindquarters.
“How often do you ride?” Nathan asked Harry.
“In the summer, every weekend,” Harry said. “This becomes my second home.”
A stooped, aging Sichuan woman shuffled into their midst with a steaming plate of stir-fried
greens. She had the leathery tan of a peasant who worked every day in the field, but her cooking
betrayed her frequent interaction with city-bred guests.
“Her mapo doufu is the best I’ve ever had,” Harry raved when she had left the room again.45
Menu looked up with interest. “Really? Then why aren’t we eating it?”
“I thought a whole pig was enough.”
Menu shook his head fervently. “Tofu,” he insisted.
Harry shook his head, defeated. “Ayi,” he called back into the kitchen. “A plate of mapo doufu
for my obese friend.”
“I prefer ‘fat’,” Menu corrected, and patted his paunch proudly.
Their gluttony continued well into the night. After the tofu they discover ayi’s gongbao
jiding,46and after that, her fuqi feipian. 47By the time she served up her hui guo rou,48the numbing
Sichuan spices had stolen all feeling from Cynthia’s tongue. Nathan was also having obvious
trouble digesting so much heat — his forehead was covered in sweat — and Cynthia suspected
that was part of why Harry kept calling for more. The white man made several trips to the toilet
— which consisted of little more than a hole in the ground next to the pig pen — as the evening
wore on.
mapo doufu (麻婆豆腐) - A powerfully spicy combination of tofu and minced meat in a bright red chili sauce,
from Sichuan Province.
gongbao jiding (宫保鸡丁) - Kung Pao chicken. A Sichuan dish comprising marinated diced chicken with stirfried peanuts and chillies.
fuqi feipian (夫妻肺片) - A cold dish of thinly sliced beef and cow lung, seasoned with Sichuan peppercorns.
hui guo rou (回鍋肉) - Twice-cooked pork. Boiled pork ribs, sliced and fried with cabbage and hot peppers.
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“What are you guys laughing about?” Nathan asked upon his return from one such trip. Harry
and Menu grinned wickedly.
Cynthia put a sympathetic arm on his shoulder. “Nothing. We were just talking about that
Zhejiang actress, the one who was blacklisted for making that war movie.”
Nathan was familiar with the gossip. The young woman had acted brilliantly in an awardwinning movie about a failed assassination plot by a Chinese resistance group during the SinoJapanese war. Tasked with seducing a Japanese agent, her character ultimately fell in love with
the target and betrayed her comrades, who were all summarily executed, rather than see him be
killed. Portraying a traitor to the resistance had earned her a complete media ban on the
mainland — a rather bizarre outcome considering the State Film Administration had previously
approved the film for Chinese distribution. And so another explanation had emerged in the clubs
and in the chat rooms, saying that she had turned down the sexual advances of a senior Party
member, who, to sate his bruised ego, had put out the word that any director who gave her work
would very quickly regret it.
“It’s true,” Menu asserted when Nathan summarized what he knew. “I won’t say who it is, but I
know some of the staffers who handled the media ban.
“He’s pathetic, whoever he is,” Cynthia said.
“What I can never understand,” Nathan began, “Is how come no director has the guts to break
ranks? Screw this guy and his ego. She's a good actress. She fits my film. I want her. Sign
her! And if you try to make trouble for me, I’ll tell all my friends in the press and expose you for
the castrated coward you are.”
Everyone rolled their eyes at his naivete — except Menu, who seemed to be considering
Nathan’s words very carefully. The bureaucrat shook his head as if dismissing an impossibility.
Harry dropped another cigarette butt onto the floor. “How long did you say you’ve been in
China?” he asked.
“Seven years,” Nathan reported.
“And what do you do here?” he probed.
“A little bit of everything,” Nathan answered vaguely. “Some consulting. Some writing. A little
bit of investment work with one of my friends.”
Harry harrumphed at the apparent instability in the man’s life. He pulled out his pack of
cigarettes, and found it empty. “And in seven years of doing all that, you've never heard of
guanxi?”
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It was Nathan’s turn to roll his eyes. “Of course. You do something for me, I do something for
you. There’s no great mystery. I just don't see why we can't act on principle instead every now
and then.”
“You understand nothing,” Harry observed. He tossed the empty packet aside and patted his
other pockets.
“So, teach me,” Nathan challenged. He was beginning to find Harry's superior tone annoying.
A look of consternation crossed the big man’s face.
“What's wrong?” Menu asked innocently.
“My other pack of Zhongnanhai Reds. It’s gone.”
“It must have fallen on the trail,” Cynthia guessed.
“It’s okay,” Menu assured him. He pulled out his own pack of cigarettes and shook one out for
Harry.
The big man shook his head emphatically.
“You’re kidding me, right?”
“I only smoke Zhongnanhai Reds,” he stated emphatically.
Nathan wordlessly produced a packet.
“You smoke Reds?” Harry asked with wonder, even as he slipped a cigarette from the pack.
“Only on special occasions,” Nathan smiled. Harry offered the pack back.
“Keep it,” Nathan declined. “You’d be asking for it all night, anyway.”
Harry grunted, a thank you in his own fashion, and Cynthia knew he was reluctantly revising a
few stereotypes at that moment. He settled onto a stool next to Nathan, and leaned close,
conspiratorially. “Let me tell you a story about guanxi,” he began, and released a thin jet of
smoke from his lips. “A friend of mine, he’s the general manager at a bus plant in Xiamen.”
“That’s why I brought Harry along on my business trip,” Menu interjected.
“Research assistant,” Cynthia nodded. “Sure, sure.”
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Harry just smiled. “One day one of his buyers asks him to hire a relative — as a favor: those
buyers, they’re always asking favors. And how you gonna say no, with ten other bus makers
lining up to win his business? So my friend hires this guy — his name’s Yang — and it turns out
he’s smart, competent, but arrogant as an American president.”
“As an American president?” Nathan raised one eyebrow.
Harry threw up a wall of smoke and waved away the complaint. “You know what I mean.
Anyway, there’s no way my friend can fire this guy’s ass — and Yang knows it — so he starts
throwing his weight around the factory. He moans about the working conditions, he moans
about my friend, he moans about his pay — everything.”
He tapped the ashes off his cigarette. “Then one day a small fire starts in the machine shop. And
while the other workers are running around trying to figure out what to do about it, this guy picks
up the phone and calls the fire department. Smart move, right?” Nathan began to nod, but Harry
shook his head. “Most employees don’t want any part of making bad news public. And trust
me: a fire is bad publicity. So they’re thinking: hey, it’s small. Maybe we don’t need the fire
department. Let’s find a manager, cover our asses, and then shut up and let him deal with it. But
this guy, he doesn’t think that way: he just makes the call. The fire department comes, the fire is
contained, and he’s proud that he — how did you put it — ‘acted on principle’.”
“Now here comes your lesson. The next day, my friend calls all his employees together onto the
factory floor. And in front of everyone he says: ‘Let’s all applaud and learn from Comrade
Yang’s example. His quick-thinking yesterday was exactly the kind of behavior we expect from
our employees...blah, blah, blah.’ And he awards him one hundred kuai, on the spot. Then he
says: ‘Everyone else, you all stood around and watched the fire burn when you should have been
doing something. You’re all lucky Comrade Yang was here, or there would have been a major
disaster.” And he announces that he’s docking one hundred kuai from everyone else’s pay that
month, as a punishment for their failure to take initiative.”
Menu chuckled. “That’s how you do it,” he applauded.
Nathan waited for Harry to continue, but the man took a long drag of his cigarette to indicate the
story was done. “I don’t get it,” he confessed finally.
“It’s genius,” Menu explained. “He can’t fire the man, so the only solution is to get him to leave
voluntarily. And how do you do that? You praise him in front of all his co-workers for standing
out, and then punish everyone else for not doing the same. Suddenly this man has no friends.”
“He resigned before the month was out,” Harry grinned. “And here’s the best part: my friend
saved about four thousand kuai in salaries that month.”
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Menu grinned. “If he ever gets bored of the private sector, let me know.” He picked up a deck
of cards from a side table and began shuffling. Cynthia stood up to help their hostess clear
dishes.
“That's just a story,” Nathan scoffed. He flashed Cynthia a smile as he passed her his plate.
“That happened last month,” Harry corrected. “And that's why no director is going to stand up
for that Zhejiang girl. Somebody’s always waiting to take you out. Show them once that you’re
not going to play by the same rules anymore, and then...” he dropped his borrowed cigarette to
the floor and ground it under his shoe. “That’s guanxi.”
Nathan nodded slowly, digesting the lesson. “And all this time I thought it was just about how
many times you’d gotten drunk together,” he observed dryly.
Harry grinned. “Ah. Well, that’s important, too.” He pulled a key out of his pocket and stepped
over to a squat cabinet that sat in one corner. He unlocked it and began pulling out bottles of
liquor. Vodka. Tequila. Rum. Whiskey. Gin. And baijiu.
Menu raised an eyebrow admiringly. “Your private stash?” he guessed.
“Yeah,” Harry nodded, and lined up his alcohols on the table. “I got tired of hauling them back
and forth every weekend, so now I just lock it all up in here.” Cynthia fetched a jug from the
kitchen, and a chunk of ice, and Harry began to mix together generous amounts of various
spirits. The brownish-black concoction looked lethal. He cut it with a modest quantity of CocaCola. Nathan definitely wanted that ice to melt before he took a sip.
Meanwhile Menu flipped one card to each of them around the table. “Truth or dare,” he
announced.
Nathan winced. He hadn’t slept in nearly forty hours, and his liver still ached from the previous
night’s KTV. “How do you play?” Nathan inquired, peeking at his card and eyeing Harry’s
concoction warily.
“We each get one card,” Cynthia, who had returned from the kitchen, explained. “There are two
Jokers. One King. Whoever has the King is boss. And the two Jokers have to choose: Truth or
Dare.”
“And if I choose ‘none of the above’?” Nathan dared to ask.
“Then you drink!” Harry grinned, and he went around the table filling everyone’s glass with his
wicked brew.
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Cynthia drew the King on the first round and sent Harry and Menu, two always-enthusiastic
Jokers, out into the night to yell ‘Zhongguo wan sui!’ at the top of their lungs.49They came back
inside laughing at their brash patriotism and shot down their drinks anyway.
On the second round Nathan held up the King of Spades and looked uncertainly at Harry and
Menu, his two Jokers.
“It's your turn,” Cynthia said.
“Dare,” Harry chose.
They waited while Nathan struggled to produce a sufficiently creative command.
“Ask them to sing a song in English,” Cynthia suggested, trying to be helpful. “Or kiss one of
the pigs in the stable.”
Harry gave Cynthia a flat, unfriendly stare.
“How about this?” Nathan began. “I want you to call somebody’s cell phone and ask if they’re
wearing any underwear.”
A beat.
The room exploded into laughter.
Menu was gasping for air. “Call Ting Ting!” he giggled.
“Ting Ting! Ting Ting!” they took up the chant.
“Where'd that come from?” Cynthia leaned into Nathan’s ear and whispered.
He grinned. “I was reviewing clothing vocabulary yesterday.”
Harry was already dialing on his phone.
“Put it on speaker!”
“Shhh!” Harry swatted them all into semi-silence. Ting Ting’s ringback tone filled the kitchen
with the best of Wang Fei.
“Hello?”
Zhongguo wan sui! (中国万岁！) - ‘Long Live China!’
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“Ting Ting?”
“Harry?” Their friend’s voice was hushed, almost a whisper. “What are you doing calling so
late?” She sounded irritated. Cynthia glanced at her own phone — 3:15. Wow. No wonder she
felt so tired.
“I need to ask you something,” Harry said, making it sound serious.
“Keep your voice down!” Ting Ting’s voice hissed through the kitchen. They wondered where
she was.
“I need to ask you,” Harry repeated in a whisper. Menu buried his face in his sleeve to muffle
his giggles. “Are you wearing any underwear?”
“What?!?” Her voice was no longer a whisper. “Harry, where are you?!?”
“Baby, who are you talking to?” Another voice, a man's voice, came over the line.
The kitchen lost control again. They clapped and hooted.
Harry hung up.
“I guess not,” Menu grinned.
It was not Nathan’s turn to drink, but Harry topped up his glass anyway and toasted the man’s
bawdy imagination.
“Nathan,” Menu toasted him next. He stood up and held his cup out formally, with both hands.
“You’re okay — for an unbeliever.” And the still-giggling mandarin forced another shot down
the man’s throat. Nathan swayed visibly as he quaffed the potion.
It was definitely time to draw the night to a close, Cynthia decided. But Menu was faster. He
dealt out the cards again before Cynthia could say the words.
“Who are my victims?” Menu asked, holding up his King and eyeing the room hungrily.
Nathan raised his Joker. Cynthia raised the other, and silently prayed for mercy.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth,” Cynthia said immediately, knowing she and Nathan had no dirt to dish out.
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“Dare,” slurred Nathan. Cynthia gave him the same withering look she had learned from her
horse that morning.
“Okay, Dare.” Menu tapped his forefinger against his chin, plotting. “I want you two to...go into
the next room and swap clothes,” he commanded finally.
Cynthia blinked. “No way!” she immediately snapped.
“In fact I double dare you!” Menu corrected.
“Triple dare!” Harry agreed, knowing Cynthia would never consent. It seemed to her they were
determined to drink Nathan into oblivion.
“What’s a triple dare?” Nathan asked Cynthia, stumbling over his tones.
“Three shots if you refuse,” Menu explained. And he made three generous pours into Nathan’s
glass, filling it nearly to the brim with Harry’s poison. “But three for us if you do it.”
Nathan sank his chin to the table and grimaced. It looked even worse from this angle. He was
quite certain he’d never make it to the end of that cup. “Then I’ll do it,” he agreed finally.
“No, you won’t!” Cynthia objected, blushing furiously. “Think of something else, Menu,” she
pleaded.
In answer the stubborn mandarin simply slid the glass of liquor closer to Nathan’s chin.
Nathan shuddered and leaned away. “Please!” he begged the woman. “I’ll close my eyes, I
promise! But this cup will hospitalize me.”
The world was going crazy. “You will keep your eyes shut,” she commanded firmly. Harry’s
jaw dropped.
Nathan nodded and bolted out of the room. Cynthia followed, to a small chorus of catcalls.
Menu caught her eye on her way out and winked.
The crafty devil.
“So, how do we do —?” She stepped into the next room and was shocked to see Nathan already
standing in his boxer shorts. His slight frame carried more muscle than she had expected.
“Don’t worry,” he grinned drunkenly. “I’ll turn around.” He set his bundle of clothes on the bed
and modestly faced a corner.
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“What's taking so long?” Menu called from the kitchen. More laughter. Cynthia slipped out of
her jeans and into his. She could smell the day’s sweat in the denim. It was not altogether
unpleasant.
“How do they fit?” Nathan asked the wall.
“See for yourself,” she replied.
He turned around and laughed. She had gathered up the waistband in one hand to keep his pants
from slipping down to her ankles.
But funnier was watching him try to squeeze into hers. They only came up half-way. He
shuffled toward her, holding her jeans up between his knees with one fist.
“It's hard to walk,” he complained.
She poked his belly button.
“Your shirt?” Nathan asked.
Blushing, Cynthia slipped off her t-shirt and hurriedly ducked her head into his. In the brief inbetween moment Nathan noticed the string of wooden beads hanging around her neck. “Was
that a — rosary?” Nathan squinted with eyes that refused to focus. He used the English word
because he didn’t know the Chinese one.
Cynthia gave Nathan a confused look and clutched the necklace under her — his — shirt. “You
mean this?” She pulled it out for inspection. “I bought it in Qingdao.”
Nathan peered close. “It's called a rosary,” he said, and struggled into her shirt.
“Ro-sa-ry.” She repeated the unfamiliar word slowly. The ‘r’ between the second and third
syllables was difficult.
“You’re Christian?” Nathan observed with some surprise. His head at last poked through the
neckline. Possibly the smallest size in mass manufacture outside of infant wear, Cynthia’s t-shirt
stretched taut across his chest and arms and left his midriff exposed.
Cynthia blushed. “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “Are you?”
“I guess so,” Nathan shrugged, and winced as he heard the tearing of fabric across his shoulders.
“At least, I was raised that way. I’ve been to church in Chaoyang — once or twice.”
“It sounds like fun.”
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Nathan laughed, and nearly stumbled. “I’ll take you some time,” he promised. “But where I
come from, we don’t usually think of church as fun. More like ‘dull’.”
Cynthia frowned. “So why do you go then?”
“So we feel less guilty about nights like this!” Nathan laughed again.
“We’re waiting!” Menu called again from outside.
They both shuffled hastily to the door and bumped each other awkwardly. Nathan caught her
with one strong hand and saved her from a bad stumble into the doorjamb. She leaned against
him heavily, her body groping for some sense of equilibrium. So very close. She could feel his
breath on her neck. It was warm. Sweet, like rum and Coca-Cola. She closed her eyes and
waited for the inevitable.
And waited.
“Come on, let's go,” Nathan said, and slipped past her.
***
Nathan shut his apartment door behind him and dropped his dusty knapsack to the floor. His
whole body ached. How many hours had he slept in the past two days? He tried to count but
couldn’t hold the question in his head long enough to calculate the answer. Were those bugs
crawling in his hair or was it merely the itch of an unwashed scalp? He stripped, and tossed his
clothes in the general vicinity of the washing machine. His ayi would deal with them.
He crawled into the shower and forced himself to stand under the cold water. Ever since the hot
water in their district had failed, Nathan had learned to wash hastily. But not tonight. He gritted
his teeth and let the cool, cool spray roll over him until the water numbed the throbbing in his
skull.
Awake once more, and shivering, he stumbled into the living room and slumped with a grunt
down upon his sofa to contemplate the day.
His butt hurt.
He idly recorded some memorable moments in his journal, then switched on the television. It
was seven o'clock, time for the evening news on CCTV One. He had over sixty channels to
choose from, and the range of news and reporting had become quite varied over the past several
years — his favorite station, Hunan TV, never ceased to invent new programming concepts —
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but CCTV One, and in particular their seven o’clock news broadcast, remained a true
mouthpiece of the Party.
Every news story served a policy goal. Every street-side interview seemed a bit too well
rehearsed, a bit too on-message, to have been unscripted. It was the surest way to know what the
Party was thinking — and who they were watching.
The current story was about a government-sponsored conference series called The Six Why’s.
This month’s why was “Why is a one-party system of government better for China than a
multiparty system?”
Nathan watched as Chinese high schoolers vied with one another to deliver speeches full of
official rhetoric. He wondered if Menu had ever competed in such a conference.
Menu. The pudgy bureaucrat had an impressive mind — the kind that could choose either side
of any debate and win it. Why had he chosen the wrong side in this one?
“Party continuity helps focus the government’s energies on long-term development goals instead
of short-sighted competition for popular favor,” a bright-eyed teenage girl trumpeted in front of
the news cameras.
Nathan nodded, and silently saluted the strength of the system. Westerners assumed the Party
held power by force and fear. The news coverage back home — focusing as it did on
Tiananmen, the suppression of dissidents, and minority unrest in Tibet and Xinjiang — gave that
impression. It was an absurd idea, really. No army on earth would be large enough to quell the
spirit of the Chinese masses, once roused. Mao had understood that. The Party still understood
that.
No, the Party's control was intellectual — far more intimate and insidious than a policeman’s
baton. From elementary school onward, children were introduced to the arguments that
established the Party’s legitimacy and effectiveness. And they weren't lies. They weren't partial
truths. They were well-formed logical arguments founded upon the assumption that social
stability — not personal liberty — was the highest good.
His long debate with Menu had really come down to that. Nathan believed that the latter was the
surest guarantor of the former. Menu didn’t.
But he still really liked the guy.
His phone began to ring. That had to be James.
“So, how was your impromptu vacation?”
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Nathan put his hand in his hair and slowly dragged it down his face. “Painful,” he admitted.
James laughed. “The first time riding a horse usually is. The secret is not to grip with your legs
too hard.”
“I think the secret is not to get on the horse in the first place,” Nathan disagreed, and shifted his
seat with a grimace. He yawned. “Especially not after spending the whole night singing and
drinking with Chairman Mao and his comrades.” He proceeded to sketch out his previous two
days with as much clarity he could remember.
“I think you should steer clear of this Menu guy,” James warned after Nathan had finished. “It
sounds like he's only a piece or two away from putting the whole puzzle together. That would be
bad.”
Nathan thought back to the KTV room full of police officers. He hadn't mentioned that last
detail. “You’re right. That would be bad.”
But privately he regretted the logical conclusion. He saw so much of himself in the intelligent
bureaucrat. That might have been him — had he been born Chinese and exercised less. A deep
part of him needed to know: did the two of them see the world so differently simply because of
birth, or had Menu genuinely missed a step in his logic? Or, more disturbing, had Nathan
himself?
He buried the troubling thoughts. He was too tired to sort through them now. “So what about
our Russian friends?” Nathan asked, steering their conversation to the meeting he had missed.
“They going to come through for us, or did we sell our souls for nothing?”
“Yeah. Just today. We've got a meeting with the guy tomorrow. Seven o'clock. His first name’s
Victor.”
“Victor. Sounds like a blacksmith.”
“A Russian blacksmith. That’s a scary thought. Could probably snap my neck with one hand.”
“Hopefully it doesn’t come to that.”
“I knew I should have stuck with my kung fu,” James mourned again. “Anyway, can you make
it?”
“I’ll be there. Where?”
“Baocheng hutong. Do you know it?”
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Nathan turned the name over in his head. There were a thousand hutongs in Beijing; in seven
years, Nathan had wandered through at best one-tenth of them. “I’ll ask around at the taxi
stand.” He grinned. “I was sort of hoping it would be back at Chocolate.”
“Yeah, me too,” James laughed.
Nathan yawned again. “What’s next?”
“Your artwork?” James prompted. “How are we coming along with that?”
Nathan glanced over at his dining table, where a seemingly innocuous piece of canvas lay
stretched over a thick wooden frame, and smiled. Nathan liked to paint. Sketching was one
thing, but painting was an entirely different creative process. It wasn’t about drawing figures so
much as allowing the eyes to construct them from the patterns of color on the canvas.
He hauled himself to his feet again and struggled over to the table. En route, he tripped over the
low cardboard box that held his art supplies. Brushes, tubes of oil paint, and canisters of the
kerosene he used to clean his brushes tumbled out. A great gout of cadmium blue had squirted
out from the tube under his foot. He threw out a few choice curses. More work for his ayi.
“What’s wrong?” James asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” Nathan sighed, and picked up the heavy canvas in both hands.
He had laid a few non-committal strokes already. One that might be the Monument to the
People's Heroes. Another that could be the flagpole. A still-shapeless blob that would eventually
become the Great Hall of the People. But most of the composition was still blank. Perhaps he
should stop right there. It already seemed to capture the essence of the Square: a great empty
space that yearned for more color.
“It’s looking good,” Nathan summarized finally. “But it’s a pain hauling this thing to the rostrum
and back every morning. And it’s slow work.”
The line went quiet, and Nathan knew that James was counting on his calendar. “We’ve still got
six weeks to go.”
Nathan nodded to himself. Six weeks would be enough, he judged. “Then we’re good over
here. It's going to be special. You just worry about your science project.”
“I should have the parts assembled in a couple weeks,” James reported.
Nathan nodded to himself. Everything seemed to be on track.
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“So, did you two...?” James left the obvious question unfinished.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “One-night stands are your department, not mine.”
“I was just asking,” James protested innocently. “There’s a first time for everything. And you
say you live in the same apartment building. You have to admit, it is convenient.”
Nathan sighed at his friend’s lewd implications. “You’re incorrigible,” he scolded. “But
anyway, she’s moving out, apparently, so I probably missed my chance.”
“That may be a good thing,” James observed, then elaborated. “You're one of the good guys,
Nathan. If a girl takes me home, she expects I’ll be gone when she wakes up in the morning.
Nice and simple — no strings attached. But not you. They expect you to hang around and make
breakfast. And you do.”
“Now is probably not the best time to get into a real relationship with a Chinese journalist? Is
that your point?” Nathan asked.
James laughed. “Well, we’re already sticking our necks out pretty far. Jesus, it’s hot enough
with Kirsten looking under every rock and tree for us. Add in this Cynthia girl, and her Party
cronies...it wouldn't take much bad luck for things to get really interesting, really fast.” He
paused. “So are you going to see her again?”
The manner of James’ voice was casual, but Nathan knew the question was a test. Their work
came first, and anything that put their work at risk was unacceptable. Nathan had known this
confrontation was coming, but he needed more time to think it through. James had forced his
hand early.
“No,” he lied. “Probably not.”
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Chapter Twelve
The address Dmitri supplied them with was in Chaoyang District, a rapidly developing part of
the city where the old face of Beijing was quickly being demolished and replaced by the new.
The boundaries between districts were rarely clear-cut, but you knew you were in Chaoyang
when you began to notice newly-fired bricks sitting everywhere in large stacks on the sidewalk,
waiting patiently to replace those already in the ground.
Fresh bricks were a sure sign of economic progress. Bricks, whose simple function was to keep
down the dust underneath, pretty much lasted forever. The only reason to pry them out of the
ground was to put prettier bricks in their place. The bricks in Chaoyang were no longer good
enough.
It was already dusk by the time they found the alleyway off of busy Chaoyang Road that led to
Baocheng hutong. The alley was walled on one side, and they followed it away from the main
street.
The street clamor faded mercifully into the background, and in its place they encountered
simpler sounds: the pop musical selection emanating from the neighborhood barbershop; the
clink and clatter of woks and chopsticks preparing the evening meal; a couple of kids, still
dressed in their primary school tracksuits, chatting and laughing as they kicked a badminton
shuttlecock back and forth in the air.
The wall was red brick. Red brick: it felt original. Here and there amidst the graffiti a large
character had been spray-painted in white paint and circled:
拆
Chai. Demolish. It was a common sight in the district. Wherever Victor lived, he wouldn’t be
there by this time next year. Not so far away, a complex of modern apartment buildings rose
twenty, thirty stories up above the alley. The residential development cast a long shadow over
the surrounding slum, as if marking out its inevitable encroachment.
For the present, the old brick wall still stood. The lane narrowed, and to the left and right stood
weathered wooden doorways, or sometimes even smaller paths leading deeper into the maze.
There was no grand design behind the seeming randomness. This was an organic village. It had
emerged, brick by brick, household by household, until eventually it had filled the available
space and recognized itself as a place worth naming.
144
They passed an open doorway. An old matron sat just inside, kneading dough into small cakes
for supper. Nathan poked his head inside.
“Excuse me,” he said politely. “We’re looking for a Russian man named Victor. We’re told he
lives nearby. Do you know of him?”
She looked up and wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead with a flour-stained hand.
“Russian?” she repeated slowly. She shook a finger vaguely in every direction. “That way.”
They kept walking. A random turn here, a blind alley there. It had been awhile since either one
of them had wandered through one of the city’s hutongs. It was smelly, and dirty, and neglected
— the residents knew they are being evicted. There were nicer hutongs in the city, with freshly
painted walls and main lanes bustling with shops and cafes and restaurants. Rickshaw drivers
trotted tourists through to sample traditional Beijing.
There were no tourists here.
By luck or fate their footsteps led them to a modest courtyard. On one side, in the last gasps of
evening twilight, two kids played ping-pong on a weathered outdoor table. Ping. Pong. Ping.
Pong. They whacked the ball back and forth over a net made of ordinary bricks, which, when
laid one atop another, sat at about the right height.
In the centre of the courtyard, an old man stood mopping the medieval flagstones.
No, not mopping. Writing. They stepped into the courtyard and saw that his hands held not a
mop, but a brush. It must have been four feet long. He dunked the giant brush into a bucket of
water, shaped its tip carefully on the rim and then wrote out a character on the stone.
His brushwork was smooth and steady. They stood an admiring distance away, careful not to
disturb his task but close enough to discern his strokes:
Heng. Perseverance. A difficult character to live by.
He plopped his brush back into his bucket.
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“Good evening, Shifu,”50James addressed the old man politely. “We’re looking for a Russian
man. His name is Victor. Do you know him?”
The man was frail-looking, with wispy grey hair and a face pulled too tightly across his
cheekbones. He pointed with one sinewy finger at the ping-pong table.
Nathan followed the old man’s line of sight incredulously to the kids playing ping-pong.
“Victor?” he called.
Just then the younger kid caught his older opponent too far from the table with a deft undercut
that barely dribbled over the net to score a point.
“Chyort! Voz’mi!” The older boy spat, and whacked his paddle against his own forehead. The
words were unfamiliar but the meaning was obvious.
“Let's take a break, Gua Gua,” he told his opponent, and raked his hand through his hair. It was
long and unkempt. “I’ll come by after dinner and we can take a look at your homework. Okay?”
The little kid bobbed his head up and down, then obediently sped away down one of the hutong’s
alleys.
“Good kid,” he spoke aloud, watching him go.
The boy turned his attention to the newcomers.
“You are the Americans?” he asked in accented English.
“Nathan,” Nathan introduced himself, and shook the proffered hand. “This is James.” He stuck
a thumb over his shoulder.
“Hi,” Victor said, not even attempting to hide the youthful squeak in his voice. The man who
had racked up a list of hacking achievements so long it had forced him to flee his home country
to avoid life imprisonment was apparently still going through puberty.
“Hi,” James said, and extended his hand in greeting. But doubt was plain on his face.
Victor shook it. “I've probably had sex with more women than both of you combined,” he
advised them, "So, let's just get past the age thing and see if we can do business.”
James raised an eyebrow. Nathan laughed.
Shifu (师傅) - Master.
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“You guys hungry?” he squeaked.
***
Victor set up his kitchen just outside one of the doorways that opened onto the courtyard. He
used a coal brick for fuel – a black cylinder about six inches high, with holes drilled through the
centre to let the air flow through it. The bricks were ubiquitous in older neighborhoods that had
neither electricity nor gas for cooking. James and Nathan had often seen boys on bicycles
towing cartloads of the fuel around residential side streets. They threw off tremendous heat, and
they were cheap. They were also very dirty.
Victor ground some coal dust onto a crumpled pile of newspaper and lit the tinder with a match.
After a while the brick burned a bright, earnest red, and Victor set his wok atop it. He retrieved a
small plastic bag from his room and dumped the contents — throw-together, take-away noodles
and vegetables and the odd stray cube of pork from one of the innumerable roadside carts that
haunted the old alleyways – into the smoking bowl. He tossed the mixture around with a pair of
chopsticks.
Nathan’s mouth watered as their dinner hissed and spat on the hot iron. He definitely smelled
pork.
“It’s not much,” he apologized. “Cooking’s not my thing.”
While Victor re-heated his take-away Nathan’s eyes peeked into Victor’s living space. It could
not properly be called a house. It was, rather, a room — just one room, for sleeping, eating, and
entertaining visiting anarchists. There was no bathroom because there was no plumbing. No
lights because there was no electricity. Just some clothes folded neatly in one corner and piles
and piles of books, newspapers and magazines on the floor.
Victor caught Nathan’s roaming eye. “Not what you expected,” he stated rather than asked.
Nathan nodded. “I thought you’d be living somewhere a bit more glamorous.”
“Any idiot can hunt down the one guy driving a Lamborghini,” Victor said as sagely as a 15year-old kid could muster. “It’s pretty dumb to hide where people expect to find you, you know?
Here, I’m totally free. And the best part? This whole neighborhood is going to be torn down in
three months. Gone. Paved over and turned into a shopping mall, or something. It's like the
state does the arson for me.”
“And then it’s on to the next hutong?” Nathan guessed.
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“Like Osama bin Laden,” Victor agreed. “It's perfect. No one asks questions. No one asks me
to register. I never need to show a passport or a bank account. I can just be, for as long as I
want.
“How do you...?” James wiggled his fingers in the air suggestively.
Victor reached one hand back through his doorway fished under a pile of magazines. “All I need
is this,” and he held up a piece of black cord. An electrical socket, obviously a homemade job,
dangled from the end. The other end disappeared through a gap between the wall and the
corrugated aluminum that formed his roof.
“Where’s your computer?”
“With the ping pong kid. I wrote a test program to help him with his math.”
“You don’t peg me as the stay-in-school type,” James observed bluntly.
Victor snorted. “School is a total waste of time. But you can’t even get through a grocery list
without math. I wanna teach him some programming once he’s got enough of the basics. That’ll
give him better options for life than any school he could get into. Speaking of which...”
He stirred his take-away noodles about the smoking wok.
“I’ll help you.”
“How much?” James asked directly.
“Fifty thousand. And I don't mean renminbi.”
James and Nathan shared a look. It was a bit more than what they had budgeted. About ten
times more.
Victor gauged their reaction. “There’s another option,” he conceded. “What you guys want to
do — it’s dangerous. Me, no way I take that risk. But if you pull it off...” his eyes wandered into
that intermediate space where dreams came into focus, “You’ll be vacuuming up data. Data that
would allow the right person to do some very, very cool things. If you’d be willing to share it
with me, then I’d do the work for a lot less. Say, ten thousand.”
Ten thousand. Nathan still had at least five thousand doubts he wanted to talk over with James.
“Agreed,” James said.
Nathan shot his partner an incredulous look. But James's eyes were hard and decided.
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“Agreed,” Nathan echoed, defeated.
“In advance,” Victor said. He disappeared into his room and returned with the torn-off page of a
notebook. “Here's the bank information.” He handed the scrap to James. “I'll start as soon as
the money’s there.”
“How long will you need?”
“About two weeks,” Victor guessed. “It’ll take some time to make it work over Chinese
networks and test it and stuff. Do you have the content bomb?”
“We're working on that,” James affirmed. “We'll get it to you soon.”
Victor nodded. “Chances are you’re gonna get caught. I hope you know that.”
James nodded.
“Good.” He dished the stir-fry into three bowls and set his wok aside. We’ll eat out here.” He
squatted on one side of the still cherry-red coal. “It’s kind of dark inside.” Nathan and James
squatted opposite him, and the three shoveled stir-fry into their mouths by coal light.
Out in the courtyard, the old man had put away his broom-brush and now stood in a wide, low
squat while his arms weaved patterns in the air.
“How can he do that?” James marveled after they had been watching him hold his squat for a
good ten minutes.
Victor smirked. “Zhang Shifu? That old guy’s a kung fu legend. He’s out there every morning
and every night, training. Mostly taiqi and stuff like that. I try to follow along sometimes. But
there’s just no way. He’s a machine.”
They continued to observe his movements. “Is he a Shaolin Monk or something?” Nathan asked.
“No way. Chang quan. Long fist. He was just awarded his Eighth degree a couple weeks ago.
There’s, like, less than fifty in the whole country. The only rank higher is Nine, and that’s the
lifetime achievement award for fat old retirees.”
James gauged the old man’s movements skeptically. “I think I could take him.”
“Yeah, but his students would kick your ass,” Victor promised. “To get his Eighth he’s gotta
have students who can win regional and national fights. Sometimes they come around and train
149
with the old man. Trust me, you don’t want them coming after you.” He poked at the coals with
a stick. “I keep begging him to teach me some stuff.”
“Does he?” James asked, his eagerness betraying that he had had the same thought.
Victor shook his head. “Forget it. He says I don’t have the right tools. That I’d just end up
hurting myself if I tried to do the stuff he teaches. But he did give me a set of his books. Over
there.”
Nathan followed Victor’s thumb and spied a stack of three books just inside the doorway. He
reached for the top one: A History of Northern Long Fist: Volume 1. He opened it to the first
page and found a chart – a geneology, he realized – documenting one hundred fifty years of the
school’s chief adherents and the branches they founded.
“That’s him, there,” Victor stabbed a name near the bottom of the chart. “The names below are
his students.”
Nathan fanned through the rest of the book. Page after page after page of text and sketches and
photographs blurred across his vision. The last page number he glimpsed clearly was two
hundred forty-seven.
He set it back atop the stack, impressed.
“Volume One,” Victor emphasized.
“I’ve done some kung fu,” James said, dubious. “How hard can his stuff be?”
At last the old man came out of his horse stance. “Zhang Shifu!” Victor called out into the
courtyard. The old man smiled and waved.
“Join us,” and he gestured for the old man to come over.
“Zhang Shifu, these are my guests, Nathan,”
“Zhang Shifu, nin hao.”
“And James.”
“Zhang Shifu, nin hao.”
“Ni hao,” the old man returned, and squatted next to them.
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“James is interested in your kung fu,” Victor explained by way of introduction. “I was telling
them about your book and Long Fist and your Eighth degree and all that stuff.”
The old man smiled again, seemingly pleased to meet people interested in his art. “Ah,” he said
simply.
“Congratulations,” Nathan offered.
The old man nodded.
“How many other Eighth degrees are there?” James wondered.
Zhang Shifu carefully brushed a few errant strands of wispy white hair out of his eyes. “Living
today?”
James nodded.
“Let me think.” He contemplated the darkened sky. Eventually they realized he was counting.
“Thirty-six, I think,” he concluded. “I can't be sure because some of them might be dead
already.”
“Dead?”
The old man sighed, his voice laden with regret. “That's the problem with kung fu these days.
There are too few who remember, and too few to pass it on to.”
“Why not take on more students?” James leaned forward a bit.
In answer Zhang Shifu reached out and placed one hand directly atop the red-hot coal. They all
jumped.
After a brief moment he lifted his hand away and showed them: it was unhurt. “People don’t
have time to train like they need to anymore. Now you have to go to university. Go out and get
a real job. No one needs guards for their caravans.”
“How did you do that?” James continued to stare where the old man’s hand had been. He pushed
his own hand to within a few inches of the coal, then hastily snatching it back.
The aged warrior offered his hand for closer inspection. James took it in his and was shocked at
its hardness. The webbing between the man’s thumb and forefinger was stiff leather. His palm
was warm marble. Even the flesh of his fingertips was rock-hard.
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“That’s incredible,” James said, amazed. He released the old warrior’s hand, then contemplated
his own. “I studied some Wing Chun back in New York,” he admitted. “I thought our shifu was
pretty impressive but...”
“Oh?” the old man’s eyes brightened a bit. “Show me your fist,” he instructed.
James did. Zhang Shifu took it in his hands and worked subtle adjustments, tightening the ball
and reshaping its point. Then he patted it encouragingly. “This is a good start. I could teach you
to do a lot with this fist, how to transfer strength from your legs and your hips into your hand, so
that your whole body crashes into your target with enough force to break bones.”
James grinned. He liked the sound of that.
Zhang Shifu released the fist. “But the impact would break your fingers.”
“Oh,” James‘ face fell. Victor sniggered.
“Technique is only the beginning. I can’t teach weapons you don’t have.” The old warrior
extended two fingers like a knife and poked apart the half-consumed coal with a few quick stabs.
The wider pile of embers cast a brighter glow.
And then Nathan understood: the old man feared his knowledge would die with him. “But now
you’ve preserved it, haven’t you?” he astutely replied to the unspoken thought, and picked up
Volume One again for emphasis.
“When you preserve something it is already dead,” Zhang Shifu disagreed quietly, and in that
moment his long years were plain upon his face. Suddenly Nathan wished Menu were there. “If
I photograph this hutong,” he waved his hand in a wide arc that encompassed the courtyard,
“Can you walk through it after it’s gone?”
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Chapter Thirteen
“...With the Father and the Son
he is worshipped and glorified.
He has spoken through the Prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come.”
“Amen,” Nathan said.
“Amen,” Cynthia repeated. She had stood and read the strange memorandum along with the
other people in the church, and felt guilty that she was the only one who had no idea what she
was professing to believe.
They sat back down again. So far, there had been a lot of standing up and sitting down involved.
Cynthia wondered if they were going to get a chance to move around at some point. Or maybe
dance. That would be great.
A young girl, certainly less than twenty, sat in the row in front of them. Cynthia leaned forward
in her bench. “Hello,” she greeted the girl softly. “I’m Li Fan.”
The girl twisted in her seat. “Shhhh!” she hissed. Her face was chubby and Cynthia would have
compared her to the cherubs painted on the walls if she were but ten years younger. The teenage
years were harsh.
Cynthia leaned back into her seat, offended into silence. Nathan poked her ribs with his elbow,
and winked.
So this was church. The building itself looked a lot like the church in Qingdao, albeit on a
bigger scale. There were the same alien columns standing on either side of a central aisle, the
same T-shaped layout with a soaring dome at the crosspoint. The same big block of stone at the
front.
The biggest difference was that this church was full of people: row after row of men, women,
and children, from every visible class of wealth and poverty.
Everybody looked grim. They stood up and sat down again, and Cynthia began to wish she had
heeded Nathan’s warning that going to church wasn’t really much fun. At least at the Buddhist
153
temple this afternoon they’d be able to set sticks of wood on fire and wander around looking at
scary-headed monsters.
But she did like the songs. They were simple melodies, the kind that allowed a listener to enjoy
each note separately before moving onto the next. Her karaoke-trained voice floated through
them effortlessly, although she was careful to modulate her volume to the reverent mumble that
seemed to be the norm here. Still, she received a few appreciative glances every time they put
down their books.
The music provided a brief respite to the droning monologue of the man standing at the podium.
Right now, the priest was talking about love. “And the greatest Commandment,” declared the
priest, “is this: Love one another, as I have loved you.”
Apparently, Jesus had been pretty big on the concept. According to the priest it went beyond
instinctive care for friends and family. It was about loving the ‘other’: prostitutes, beggars,
lepers, Romans — all the people his friends had grown up learning to fear or despise for the way
they looked, acted, or believed. “Jesus called upon his disciples to work toward a more
harmonious society,” the priest said, and Cynthia smiled at the subtle weaving together of
Christian theology and Party dogma. He went on to apply Jesus’s message to modern-day
tensions between visible minorities and the Han, rich versus poor, city versus countryside,
natural citizen versus alien.
“That’s me,” Nathan whispered, and nudged her side with his elbow again.
She certainly hoped some of what this priest was saying was getting into Nathan's head. In her
experience, most foreigners did not reach out to her world with the compassion Jesus had
preached. They came to China on crusades, as modern-day missionaries, to pass judgment over
sin and show the natives the one true path of righteousness.
As he had tried to do with Menu. Those two ought to be friends. She had suspected it at first,
and seeing them together had confirmed it. They both loved that world of ideas, of questions that
had no answers yet carried heavy consequences. Her own friends tolerated Menu’s political
musings so long as he kept the dosage low; yet this strange man could endure them — guzzle
them! — for hours on end.
Yet for all that, they had parted — if not as enemies, than surely as combatants — each wrestling
to prove the other side wrong, each denying the friendship he felt for fear of legitimizing ideas he
couldn’t accept.
And in between them stood Jesus — hanging out with the beggars and whores and lepers and tax
collectors and prodigal sons, telling them to put aside all these harsh judgments and love each
other as brothers.
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“No wonder he was crucified,” Cynthia mumbled to herself. It was a lot easier to kill for what
you believed in than to live beside those who disagreed.
***
The choir took up a new hymn, and there was some new movement at the front. The first few
rows stood and filed out into the center aisle.
“Now comes the free bread and wine,” Nathan whispered, obviously enjoying his role as God’s
tour guide. Cynthia’s stomach grumbled. Sitting so far back, they’d be waiting a while yet.
Hopefully there’d still be some left by the time they got there.
Finally, their turn did come. Together, they followed the slow-moving queue up the center aisle.
There were more than a few aliens in the crowd, Cynthia noticed. White skin and brown, black
and red. They were outnumbered, but they were here. God did expect them to work it out, she
realized. Somehow.
After they had collected their free snack, they returned to their seats. Nathan knelt down on one
of the strange cushions that folded out from the row in front, and he motioned for Cynthia to do
the same.
She did, and did her best to mimic the pious position of the other attendees. They all seemed to
be deep in prayer. Many, like Nathan, had their eyes closed. Cynthia quietly leaned in close to
her escort. “Are there any special words I’m supposed to use?” she whispered.
Nathan opened one eye curiously. “Haven’t you ever prayed before?” he hissed.
Cynthia frowned at the patronizing question. “Of course. It's just — never in a church. Never
like this. I want to do it right.”
“The words aren't really important,” Nathan advised. “Just say what’s in your heart.” He closed
his eye again.
She frowned at his vague response. “Well, how do you pray?” she probed.
Nathan shrugged. “I've never really thought about it,” he muttered under his breath. “I guess, I
begin with what I'm thankful for, and then just sort of go from there.”
She nodded and leaned away, but Nathan continued to watch Cynthia curiosity out of one eye.
Her own eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and her lips moved silently. She seemed to be
concentrating very hard on the task.
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A drop of wetness appeared on her eyelashes, and with a sudden flash of insight Nathan
understood. It wasn't affection for jewelry that had led her to don a rosary. It wasn't natural
curiosity that led her to join him at church, or ask him how to make a proper prayer.
She needed someone to answer it.
***
“Twenty-five kuai!?!” Nathan pointed, indignant, at the entrance price posted on the board.
“Isn't that a bit expensive for salvation?”
They stood in line to get their tickets anyway. Nowhere was free from the market economy, least
of all pretty temples from centuries past. Yonghe Gong, the Palace of Harmony and Peace, had
originally been built in 1694 as the residence for Prince Yong of the Qing Dynasty. When he
ascended the throne and became emperor, Prince Yong moved out of this palace and into the
Forbidden City. Twenty years later, the next emperor converted the underused Yonghe Gong into
a lamasery — a monastery for Buddhist lamas. Nathan knew all this because it was written on
the plaque affixed to the ticket office.
They collected their tickets and headed toward the main gate. Cynthia hadn’t read the plaque,
but even so she knew this to be an imperial residence. Three hundred years ago, anybody who
dared to paint jade phoenixes and golden dragons on their front door had better be somebody
important.
“Lead the way,” Nathan said, and followed her under the imposing archway.
Christ in the morning; Buddha in the afternoon. That was their agreement. Nathan would share
his religious tradition, and Cynthia would share hers — although in truth she had none. Neither
her mother nor her father had raised her into one. In their generation, either you believed
religion was a drug from which you needed to be freed, or you believed the gods had forsaken
you. Either way, passing it down to one’s children wasn't high on life’s list. All she really had
were stereotypes. Muslims were severe. Christians were sinners. Taoists were flaky. Buddhists
were boring. And she wasn’t allowed to be a Jew.
But she needed something more now, and not just because she had promised to guide Nathan
through Beijing’s biggest temple.
They passed the archway and came into a garden that led to the palace proper. Beijing fell away.
Denied steel, denied glass, the builders of four centuries past had crafted wonders in stone and
wood with a patience that very few builders could muster today. They walked down a flagstone
boulevard wide enough for five people abreast. The original bricks, neatly squared by hand, still
fit snugly. The trees to either side were slow-growing juniper, the kind favored by dynasties that
156
aspired to endure forever and by poets whose perfect day was to contemplate a pale-skinned
maiden as she reclined beneath its twisted, fragrant boughs.
“It’s really nice,” Nathan breathed.
Cynthia smiled. Perhaps his Chinese vocabulary did have limits, after all.
At the end of the boulevard they came to a second gate.
“Do you notice there are three archways?” Cynthia pointed out. Whereas the first gate they
entered had offered them a single archway, this one offered them three: a large one in the center,
and a smaller one on either side.
“Uh huh,” Nathan nodded, not sure why that fact was significant.
“And how many gargoyles sit on the eaves above each corner?”
Nathan looked up. “Three,” he reported, and shrugged, not understanding.
They entered via the center arch. After another stretch of garden they came, as Cynthia had
expected, to a third gate. Now the three arches had become five: one in the center and two on
either side.
“How many gargoyles?” she asked again.
There was a rich symbology to these imperial edifices that was lost on most people — foreigner
and Chinese.
“Five,” he reported. “Three, five...”
“The gate up ahead will have seven,” Cynthia predicted.
“What is it supposed to mean?”
And so she explained. This was how you showed prestige in Imperial China: with meticulous
attention to the cosmic significance of seemingly insignificant things — like numbers. There
were only nine digits in all creation: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9. The odd were male; the even,
female. It meant that in the palace of an imperial prince, like Yonghe Gong, odd numbers were
everywhere and even numbers nowhere. And as the buildings became more and more majestic,
as one passed from the outer gate to the inner sanctum, the numbers rose higher and higher,
intimidating all who approached with the proclaimed status of he who dared live underneath such
lofty roofs.
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“How do you know so much about this stuff?” Nathan wondered with an appreciative smile.
“My father,” Cynthia revealed. “Nanjing — that’s where I grew up — was the imperial capital
in several dynasties. There are towers and temples everywhere. Any time we passed one, my
dad would give us a history lesson.” She made a face. “It can get really boring after awhile.”
They continued to walk as they talked, and eventually they reached the heart of the temple, a
wide flagstone courtyard crowded with people burning incense and muttering prayers. To the
left and right stood minor houses and temple sideshows, but the main attraction stood in the
centre: a giant gabled palace of wood and stone, roofed in tiles of Imperial yellow, and so richly
painted over with mythical beasts and delicate flowers that the restoration crew had to work a
perpetual five-year cycle to keep the colors fresh.
“Nine,” Nathan, counting the ornaments on the corner of each roof, declared.
“And not just there,” Cynthia advised, and under her tutelage Nathan suddenly began to notice
nines everywhere: nine windows along the palace’s length; nine rows of golden knobs bolted
into the main doors — with nine knobs to each row. The edifice screamed power. What
commoner would dare even to look upon it?
“Have you ever been to the Forbidden City?” Cynthia asked.
Nathan tore his eyes away from his architectural studies. “Lots of times,” he said finally. “I’m
there most mornings, actually — I’m doing a painting of Tiananmen Square from atop the
rostrum.”
“You’re a painter, too?”
“Pretending to be,” Nathan answered honestly, though he was confident his double-meaning
would be safely lost on her.
“Next time you go, visit the Temple of Supreme Harmony at the center of the City, and count the
gargoyles on each corner.”
“Eleven?” Nathan guessed.
Cynthia shook her head. “Ten.”
“But ten isn’t an odd number,” Nathan protested.
“Nine, plus one!” she revealed with a superior grin. Only one person on earth had claim to such
majesty: the Son of Heaven.
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From everywhere in the crowded courtyard came the smell of incense burning. “Come on, let's
get started.” Cynthia grabbed Nathan’s sleeve and pulled him to the first station in the heart of
the square. It consisted of a large tin box, full to almost overflowing with smoldering incense
sticks. Before the box stood a double-row of kneelers. An improbable number of women and
men crammed onto them, each holding a trio of burning sticks to his or her forehead. Some
bowed. Some stared up at the temple. One woman had her eyes closed and pinched tight as if
trying to solve a Sudoku in her head. They joined the standing room only crowd behind them.
“Do you know what we’re supposed to do?” Nathan asked.
Cynthia shrugged, equally inexperienced with Buddhist ritual. “Just follow along.” She pulled
out a trio of sticks for each of them from the bundles she had bought outside the main gate.
Cynthia closed her eyes. There was only one thing for which she would dare to ask divine
intervention. Let everything else in my life be as You will it, she said into the darkness behind her
eyelids. Only please take away this one thing.
When her prayer was done she opened her eyes. The smoke stung. “Am I supposed to offer
something in return?” she worried.
“That's what the incense is for,” Nathan guessed.
They dropped their sticks into the brazier with the countless others.
They proceeded in a similar manner on a circuit, visiting every altar and statue and relic where
people were kneeling or praying or burning something. Their supply of incense steadily
dwindled, and as they reached the end of the circuit and pulled out the last three sticks from each
of their bundles, they realized that somebody had counted out and packaged the sticks with just
such a circuit in mind. It was both comforting and depressing.
The more sticks Cynthia burned, the more times she repeated her silent plea to nobody in
particular, the more skeptical she became of the whole experience. What did these scary-faced
sandalwood statues represent, anyway? Why was this one so fat? Who was that one trying to
frighten off? She looked left and right at the stick-burning, eye-squeezing crowd everywhere,
and doubted they had any idea what the story was either. They were just casting wishes, in the
hope that, maybe, some unseen power could be contacted in this way — a power that enjoyed the
smell of incense to the point of willful asphyxiation by hordes of Chinese, and who out of
gratitude for such unlooked-for generosity would reciprocate via a cosmic boon.
She gave a mental shrug and said her prayer again. Given the going rate for a bundle of incense,
it was a pretty cheap karmic insurance package. But still Cynthia worried that it felt more like a
shopping trip than the religious experience she sought – a pleasant distraction that solved none of
her problems.
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They came to a large relic, a twelve-foot iron lantern. The elaborately cast surface was engraved
with classical characters and strange symbols. A low fence, four feet high, encircled it. Three
identical signs, affixed to the fence at equidistant points for every direction to see, pled: ‘Please
do not throw incense or coins.’
Nathan pointed at the sign. “That sign doesn’t seem to work very well.”
Every flat surface of the lantern, and the flagstones around it, glistened brightly with coins.
Nathan leaned over the fence to inspect the lantern more closely and saw that, indeed, the
relentless plinks had smoothed over much of its surface; the script was barely legible. Why did
parishioners blatantly ignore the prohibition? He could only think of three reasons. One, they
were illiterate. That was a real possibility, although you’d think somebody would have just put
up a pictograph by now. Two, they disagreed — a bit like the motorists and pedestrians who saw
traffic lights as suggestions rather than hard rules to be followed. Or three, there was some
peculiar tenet of Buddhism at work here. Perhaps this was the ultimate letting go — an
enlightened appreciation that the slow, relentless destruction of beautiful things held deeper
meaning than their permanent preservation. Non-permanency was an idea especially well-suited
to China, Nathan thought. With 1.3 billion people bustling about, nothing could last for long.
Not even cast iron.
He was about to share his whimsical observations with Cynthia, but noticed that her attention
was focussed on the ring of small windows that wrapped around the top-most section of the
lantern. Ah, so that was the lure. Maybe the spirits would grant a special favor to anyone
dexterous enough to toss a ten-fen coin into one of those windows from fifteen feet away.
Nathan pulled a small coin from his pocket and handed it to her. “Make a wish.”
She gave him a faint smile, and took the coin from his offered hand. She closed her eyes tightly,
and repeated once more the prayer she had offered countless times that day.
She opened her eyes, and for a brief instant Nathan saw hope there. She aimed and threw. The
coin sailed in a tiny, shining arc — and hit the lantern’s surface a good foot below its target. It
clattered, lost among the heap of similar attempts.
She sighed and lowered her eyes. Not that it would have made any difference.
Nathan weighed it all carefully. “Who is it?” he asked gently.
She looked at him through eyes that were suddenly moist. She hadn’t realized how far she had
lowered her guard for this man. “My father,” Cynthia admitted after a long, silent moment.
“He’s sick.” She swallowed. “He’s very sick.”
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“Is he in the hospital?”
Cynthia shook her head and waited for the acidic burn in the back of her throat to pass. “No.
Not anymore.”
Wordlessly, Nathan retrieved a small packet of tissue from his backpack and handed it to her.
She pulled one out and dabbed at the tears that had begun to stream down her face.
“Can we keep moving?” Cynthia asked. Nathan nodded and led her back the way they had
come, back into the garden of junipers.
He guided her along quiet trails, steering clear of the crowds, giving her space to hear her own
thoughts and emotions. And they poured out of her in a rush, all the fears and stresses that she
had kept dammed up for over two months — because her family needed her to be strong, and
because she needed the escape afforded by her closest friends.
Nathan belonged to neither group, and so she told him everything: of the trips she had made
back home over the past several weeks, and the lies she had woven for friends and colleagues to
cover up their true purpose. She told him of that awful day three months prior when her sister
had called and delivered the news; of flying home the same day and finding her father in a
hospital bed, looking wan and weak and yellow from some unknown infection in his liver.
The hospital ward had been a confusion of men and women in white coats, patients in their
degrading pajamas, and family members scurrying, worrying around. Tubes and tanks and
pumps and lights, scattered on the floor and on the walls and hanging from the ceiling. It had
seemed like a machine shop for the dying on that first, frightening day.
She told Nathan of her family’s battle against a stubborn disease. Of the medicines and drugs
they pumped into her father’s body: first, those that were covered by public health insurance;
then, those that the family could afford; and finally, those that they couldn’t.
And she told him of her most recent trip, when her father had decided it was time to go home.
“You can't go home yet, dad,” Cynthia’s eldest sister, the rational one, had argued. “You
need to take your tests and your medicine and have someone to watch over you, and we
can't do all those things at home.”
He had shaken his head wearily side to side. “No more tests. No more medicine. It is
time for us to make our peace with this, and stop fighting a war we cannot win.”
He had meant a war they couldn't afford. He didn't want to be the burden that drained his family
of all future opportunity.
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Cynthia relived the pain of every moment as she related it — cried it out, and Nathan’s supply of
tissues steadily dwindled. But sorrow is not infinite, and when the last tear had been drained
from her pool of grief, she discovered at its bottom a pair of fathomless blue crystals. For the
first time that day, she felt the soft strength of grace lift some of the weight off her soul. Not in a
church. Not in a temple. But here, in his company.
***
Cynthia navigated the labyrinthine basement beneath Building Eight. Left, left, left, right, right,
left. Just put one foot in front of the other, she told herself. For the moment, it was all she could
manage. She had felt too much emotion for one day.
“Li Fan,” a voice ahead in the damp tunnel called. She jumped in fright, and looked up.
“Harry!” she exclaimed, shocked and embarrassed at his sudden appearance. “What are you
doing here?”
“What are you doing here?” he demanded right back. He tossed his cigarette into one debrisfilled corner of the poorly-lit hallway. “Sis’ — why the hell are you living in your building’s
basement?”
“How did you find me?” she sputtered, ignoring the question.
“No one sees or hears from you in days. You don’t return your phone calls or your texts — I
come to your apartment to see if you’re alright, and your neighbor says you don’t even live there
anymore! Then I go to the management office and they send me down here — to the basement!
Li Fan, what’s going on?”
She fumbled for the keys in her bag. “Harry, I just don't want to talk about it now, okay. It's not
a good time.”
“Are you moving in with that guy?”
Confusion shone through the hurt and anger on Cynthia’s face. “What guy? Nathan???” She
would have burst into laughter had she not been so tired and scared. “That’s absurd!” she
declared.
“You were with him today, weren’t you?” he pressed.
She gave him an angry glare. “If I was, it’s none of your business. Now please leave. I don’t
want to talk right now.” She unlocked her door. Her cellphone started to ring.
He sighed. “Sis’, I’m telling you: don’t get involved with this guy. It’s going to end badly.”
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She whirled in her open doorway and stared him down. “I’m not ‘involved’ with him,” she
clarified. “We went to the lama temple together.” She shook her head. Harry’s jealousy irritated
her, and she had no patience for it, not now. “I’m allowed to choose my friends.” She checked
to see who was calling. My sister.
“He doesn’t want to be your friend. He’s just using you to get what he wants.”
Is it now? Oh please, not now. I’m not ready.
“You don’t know that,” Cynthia whimpered.
“Yes, I do. There’s a difference between men and boys,” he lectured her. “Men want to build a
home for somebody. They want to start a family with somebody. They want to live with
responsibility. Boys don’t want responsibility to get in the way of having fun.” He put his hand
on her shoulder and softened his tone. “Any laowai who leaves behind family, and work, and
career —”
She brought her phone to her ear. The pounding in her own ears terrified her. My heart. My
heart. My heart. Her vision began to fade.
“— and comes all the way to China to do ‘a little bit of everything’ is a boy. You’re going to get
hurt, Li Fan.”
Li Fan? I hear my name, but I can’t see! Black. Why is everything so black?
“Don’t tell me about hurt!” she snapped, and blindly slapped his hand away.
Harry looked genuinely hurt.
“Li Fan —”
I hear my name, but I cannot answer. My breath is gone. Why can’t I breathe?
What is happening?
Is this what happens?
“Li Fan!”
I hear my name, but far away. I am falling. Falling. Falling, and there is no ground.
My heart. My heart. My heart.
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Chapter Fourteen
They set their rendez-vous with Victor in the Sanlitun bar district: a couple of dirty alleys given
over to cheap drinking holes, dance floors and street meat vendors who offered emergency
rations to all those who needed a break from their bingeing. At night the narrow roadway would
be packed with the overflow crowd of boisterous boys and giggly girls from the dives on either
side.
In the daytime it was deserted.
Ordinarily, James, Nathan and their friends stayed far away from Sanlitun’s bars. The drinking
holes were overrun by foreigners on short-stay tourist and student visas, all attracted to this tiny
slice of ‘old Beijing’ by the cheap beer, loose surveillance, and innumerable young Chinese girls
curious to experiment with white and black barbarians. Chinese men shunned the place — a sure
sign that the real party had moved elsewhere — and most long-term expatriates were wise to that
fact.
James and Nathan squatted on low stools in front of a small shop that sold bootleg DVDs,
drinking Tsingtao beer and soaking up the last rays of summer, confident that none of their
friends would stumble upon them here.
“Victor,” James greeted the boy when he appeared on the deserted street. He carried a backpack
slung over both shoulders.
“Want a beer?” Nathan offered the boy when he arrived at their table, and hoisted an unopened
bottle.
“No, thanks,” Victor shook his head. “I’m too young to drink.” He squatted on a free stool.
“But I’ll have a cigarette.”
James laughed and tossed him his pack. The kid lit up.
“So,” Nathan cut to the chase. “Have you got it?”
The kid grinned through a puff of smoke. “I already gave it to you.”
Almost in unison, their mobile phones squeaked with incoming message alerts.
“BJ-HEALTH wants to send you a file. Do you accept Y/N?” James read the alert aloud. He
looked up at Victor.
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“Just hit yes.”
“You faked a message from the public health bureau?” Nathan asked incredulously.
“I figured virus, health.” Victor shrugged. “Made sense. Besides, if you guys get caught,
pretending you’re the bureau of health is the last thing they’ll slam you with. ‘Subversion’ — is
that the right English word?”
Their phones squeaked again. James read:
“Hello! The Beijing Bureau of Public Health reminds you to wash your hands regularly
throughout the day. Frequent hand washing can lessen the spread of respiratory illness. If you
have been suffering from fever, headache, sore throat or persistent coughing, please limit your
movements in crowded places and contact the bureau of health if your symptoms persist.”
He looked up. “That’s good advice.”
Nathan looked up, too. “You’re right - subversion is worse.”
“It’s the decoy,” Victor explained what they had already guessed. “When people accept a file,
they expect something to happen. So you have to give them that something. Otherwise they get
curious. Might as well pass on useful information while you’re at it.”
Nathan’s phone wiggled again. He opened the message. “Your balance is low. Please recharge
your account to avoid suspension of service.” He looked up. “That can't be right. I topped up
with one hundred kuai just yesterday.”
Victor grinned. “But you just sent a text to every tenth person in your address book.”
Nathan frowned. “We’re going to piss off a lot of people with this,” he observed.
“It’ll be a bad day for people with large address books,” Victor admitted.
“We can hope so,” James agreed.
Nathan continued to frown. “Okay — so that’s how we get our message out. What about getting
the responses back?”
Victor reached into his backpack and pulled out another mobile phone, an old model Nokia.
“Every infected phone knows to forward any responses to this phone number.” He patted the
clunky device, and handed it over.
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“I could do bicep curls with this thing,” James observed dryly, and demonstrated.
Victor smiled. “Older phones are easier to hack,” he explained. “I expanded the phone’s
memory, but if you start getting lots of traffic, you’re gonna need to move the messages to a hard
drive.” He pulled out a CD. “Install this onto your computer, then link up the phone with this
cable.” He produced a USB cable. “It'll automatically scrub the messages from the phone and
compile the data.”
“That’s it?”
Victor pulled out a thin notebook and dropped it on the table. “The manual.”
James grinned. They really had contracted a software developer.
“You’ll never see me again. I promise you that. So any questions you have — ask now or check
the manual.”
Nathan flipped through it. He saw pages and pages of notes in a not-so-legible script. “Is there a
quick-start guide?” he asked wryly.
Victor paused to extinguish his cigarette. “Your phones are carriers now. The package is sent by
Bluetooth, which has a range of maybe 50 feet. It’ll scan for any phones with active Bluetooth in
that range. It's a fairly chunky file, so once somebody accepts, they have to stay in range for
about half a minute.”
“So, stalk people,” James summarized.
“The good news is, it makes you very hard to track,” Victor continued. “The virus spreads one
way; your texts spread another. So until big brother dedicates some serious effort to traffic
analysis, they won’t figure out where you are.”
“That’s comforting,” Nathan said acidly. “And the bad news?”
“Well, the big problem with a Bluetooth virus is that survivability is really low. Too many things
have to go right: it can only hit phones with Bluetooth, for one, and the function’s gotta be
switched on — that’s maybe ten percent of all phones. Then they’ve got to accept the file, and
then be in range for half a minute after they do. You’re lucky if that number’s ten percent. So at
best you’re hitting one percent of the phones you meet. At best. And as soon as word gets out
telling people ‘Don’t accept random Bluetooth files’, it’s game over. That’s why these things
never take off.” He took another puff. “That’s why 9b folded.”
“How much time do you think we have?”
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“You’re messing with telecom — the police are going to be all over this in a hurry. And these
guys make KGB look like kindergarten teachers. Trust me, I know.” He thought hard. “Two
days. Three, if you're lucky. You gotta have unprotected sex with as many other phones as you
can in that window.”
Nathan winced at the crude metaphor. “So it's a race against the clock.” He took a deep breath
and nodded to his partner. “It’s not the first time.”
“Anything else?” James asked.
“Keep your batteries charged. The thing is constantly pinging other phones looking for open
channels; you’ll be lucky to get two hours out of a charge.”
“So stock up on batteries. Got it.”
As if on cue, Nathan’s phone beeped with an incoming message. A moment later, the clunky
Nokia did, too.
Victor smiled. “Clock’s ticking.”
***
James took his seat next to Nathan on the subway. The latter was flipping through the notebook
Victor had given them. “What are you thinking?”
Nathan frowned. “I’m thinking I would have liked to have read the manual a bit sooner.”
“Ah, but then we might not have paid him,” James explained with a wry smile.
Nathan’s own smile was forced. “The risk in this operation just went up a hundredfold,” he
brooded.
Their train pulled into the next station and picked up several dozen more passengers before
continuing on its way.
Nathan’s voice dropped to a whisper as a teenage boy found a seat next to theirs. “It’s one thing
to sit at home and watch this thing take off,” he hissed. “Now were talking about running around
shopping malls, hugging people's pockets, and hoping blindly that no one pieces it together.”
“We just need the right spot,” James mused. “We need a big crowd of people standing still in
one tight spot with nothing better to do except read a public service announcement from their
phone.
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“No,” Nathan disagreed. “Remember what Victor said. A one percent chance? We need a
hundred spots like that.”
They heard a strange jingle. The teenager sitting next to Nathan pulled a phone out of his pocket
and hit a button. Nathan subtly leaned back and from over the kid’s shoulder glanced a familiar
headline.
He suddenly grinned James’ way. “I can think of one place that might work.”
James grinned, too. He nodded at the subway map posted on the opposite wall of the car. “I can
think of several.”
***
It would, Nathan was sure, go down as the longest day of his life. Eighteen hours spent
deliberately chasing crowds.
At eight o’clock in the morning the press of people at the Dong Dan interchange was awesome.
People didn't walk so much as ooze, like molasses. Getting on the train was in itself an act of
courage.
Nathan stood near the center of the teeming platform and pretended to study the map in his
hands. It was a strange place to loiter. He felt like the car that stalls on the freeway in rush hour.
But he tried as best he could to look like he belonged. He spent twenty minutes browsing the
newspapers sold by the woman under the steps. Ten minutes poring over the public notices
posted on the information boards. Five minutes retying his shoes.
He shifted his backpack from one shoulder to the other, and a dozen mobile phones rattled
against each other inside it. He looked at his watch. Eight-thirty. Another subway car pulled in,
and he stepped aboard. He pulled a little slip of paper from his pocket and crossed off Dong Dan
Station. Next up was Jian Guo Men. James should be moving on to Fu Xing Men about now, he
thought.
They had split up to cover more ground. Beijing was a big city. To the west were the financial
and student districts. On the east side were all the foreign enclaves, and the central business
area. They had started at the center and were moving out methodically along the main trunk line
in both directions.
Nathan glanced at the ceiling of the subway car and counted the number of cameras. You are
always on television in Beijing subways; the question was, were you being watched? He hoped
very much that the answer was no. Amidst the shoving and shouting that greeted their car at the
next interchange, he stuffed his blue Yankees cap into his bag and donned the White Sox.
168
Maybe they were being too careful. Maybe they were being reckless. The scary thing was,
Nathan really didn't know.
He spent the next half-hour at Jian Guo Men Station, and the one after that at Yong An Li. By
the time he reached Guo Mao, directly underneath the China World Trade Center, the morning
rush hour had dwindled to a steady trample. He already felt sweaty, stinky and bruised. He was
also fairly certain that two hundred fifty renminbi were missing from his front pocket.
< Where you off to next? > Nathan texted James.
< Beida. You? > came the reply. Beijing University. Fitting. It had been the spiritual nexus of
the 1989 Tiananmen movement. Perhaps its students would seize the day again. Unlikely. Ever
since that fateful June 4th, every university student in the country performed one month of
mandatory military training in the summer between their first and second years — to shore up
their loyalty to the current regime. So far it seemed to be working.
< Wang Fu Jing > Nathan sent back. Wangfujing was not Beijing's newest shopping mall, and
probably not its largest, but it was the first and most famous. The unending tour groups from
outlying provinces who passed through Beijing always put the landmark on their itinerary —
final proof, Nathan supposed, that Communism was dead. More importantly, it was a chance to
spread Victor’s virus to every corner of the country.
Over the lunch hour, James and Nathan separately installed themselves in busy basement
cafeterias. It gave them a chance to recharge their batteries, physical and electrical. Everybody
ate lunch, they figured, and those who didn't come down to the cafeteria themselves would be
exposed via those who did.
James found a high-traffic food court along Financial Street; Nathan sipped a bowl of noodles
under the Wangfujing shopping centre.
From time to time Nathan heard the telltale beep and saw people glance curiously at their
phones, but he couldn't tell how many actually accepted the package.
His own phone buzzed. It took a while to find it amidst all the others. < How many responses
you think we’ll get? > James’ text wondered.
Nathan thought about that. < Five thousand? > he replied back. < That sounds like a
significant number. You? >
< Ten thousand. I figure: 20 phones x 20 hours x 5 phones per hour = 2k phones. Let's say
every one of those phones hits four more = +8k. Those phones each hit one more = +8k again.
Total = 18,000 phones. Round up to 20k. Divide by 2 (to be safe) = 10k phones. Every phone
sends 20 messages, give or take. But only 5% yield replies. So, 10k x 20 x 5% = 10k again. >
169
Nathan rolled his eyes. As an investment professional James had a knack for making numbers
say whatever he believed they should. < Sounds right > he texted back. It was hard to argue
with fuzzy logic.
When the lunch crowd had dwindled, Nathan headed to the Olympic Bird’s Nest. It was a solid
hour’s journey on the subway, but worth it, he judged. He camped out at the south entrance gate,
where people lined up to buy tickets, and for two hours his backpack pounded away at the
tourists who had come to gawk at the latest manifestation of their country’s rise. From the
accents he could distinguish and those he could not, he judged that every province in China
walked through those turnstiles that afternoon. That gave him confidence. However he winced
an instinctive apology each time an obvious foreigner opened a text message and complained
loudly to his friends that it was all in Chinese. Nathan could almost see the dollar signs floating
out of their phones along with all those international texts. He hoped they had good global
roaming plans.
At five o’clock, fatigue finally made Nathan careless. James was camped out aboveground on
Jian Guo Men Avenue, the main east-west artery, where ten thousand cars would pass him by in
the next three hours. Nathan had drawn the short straw and once again went underground to
assault the evening rush hour.
The horde had not yet swelled into a multitude, and with his feet screaming for relief, he sat
against the platform vending machine staring at his map for about ten minutes longer than he
should have.
“Can I help you?” A young man dressed in the uniform of a public security guard walked up to
Nathan after another car left the station and Nathan failed, once again, to climb aboard.
“What?” Nathan looked up from the map he hadn’t been looking at. He rose to his feet,
grimacing through the cramp in his thigh. “No, no, that's okay. I was just wondering — what's
the best way to get to the Bird’s Nest? There are so many lines, I can’t quite figure it out.”
“Line Eight,” the guard said immediately. Your best option from here is to get on Line Five, take
that north to Line Ten, then take the Ten west to the Line Eight interchange. It is a bit
confusing,” he admitted. “Take the next northbound train.”
Nathan knew all that, but thanked him as if he didn’t.
“Hey, you're Chinese is terrific,” the guard commented politely.
“Not really,” Nathan shrugged, then privately cursed himself for forgetting. Today was supposed
to be English only. That was all he needed: to stand out more.
170
“No, really,” the young man enthused. “Your Beijing accent is great. Where are you from?”
“Canada,” Nathan decided. That country needed some excitement anyway. He hoped the man
didn't ask for his passport.
It didn't fit: a foreigner who spoke fluent Chinese with a polished Beijing accent but didn't know
how to get to the Olympic stadium. It was a conversation the guard would not soon forget,
Nathan was sure.
They both heard the man's cell phone beep. The security guard pulled it out, then frowned.
“Say no,” Nathan advised, guessing the message on the screen. The last thing he wanted was to
deliver their package face-to-face to a cop.
“How did you — ?”
“I got the same thing just a few minutes ago,” Nathan lied quickly. “They say it’s some Russian
phone virus. Burns up all your credit by sending random texts to people in your address book.
Really nasty.” Sometimes truth was the best cover.
The guard’s eyes widened momentarily. He clicked ‘No’ and put his phone away. “Thanks.”
Nathan waved his hand as if to say ‘forget it’. From down the south tunnel came the rumble of
an approaching train. It was definitely time to go.
“Is this my train?” Nathan asked.
“That’s right,” the guard nodded. “You’ll come to Line 10 in seven or eight stops.”
“Thank you.”
The train slid to a halt and Nathan disappeared on board. He waited until the train had safely left
the station before taking his seat.
He exhaled slowly. That was too close. He just hoped that the authorities wouldn't piece it
together. Plenty of closed-circuit cameras had him dead to rights. The guard had surely marked
him well. Once word of their heist got out, the police would start searching for suspects. What
if the guard decided that the well-informed Canadian with impeccable Chinese had been
involved somehow...
Nathan wondered if his mug shot would make the evening news.
171
Rush-hour traffic died down by eight o’clock, and they moved on to the major grocery centers.
Nathan camped out at the Carrefour next to his apartment, browsing dead eels and imported
cereals, queuing at the check out for ten minutes only to realize that he’d forgotten another item
on his imaginary shopping list, then repeating the charade until he had met every one of the
twenty-four cashiers on duty. James, meanwhile, sent Nathan hourly updates of the women
whose phone numbers he’d picked up while loitering at Wal-Mart.
At eleven o’clock sharp they rendezvoused at Gongren Tiyuguan — the Workers’ Stadium — the
largest and most popular night club district in the city. Two mega-clubs, Mix and Viks, stood
opposite each other at the stadium’s north entrance.
The pair shook hands in the parking lot.
“I’m dead,” James complained, and looked the part.
“Would you like me to deliver a speech on noble sacrifices?” Nathan offered.
James’ face soured. “Not particularly.”
Nathan shifted his backpack. “Anyway, I’m on my last set of batteries.”
“Me, too.” James hefted his briefcase. The contents rattled.
“We’ll have to check our bags at the entrance,” Nathan pointed out.
“That’s true, isn’t it?” James admitted. He snapped open his briefcase and began stuffing phones
into his pockets.
Nathan did likewise. “Try to keep your urges under control in there,” he advised. “We don’t
need some star-struck teenagers prowling around your apartment right now.”
“Don’t you trust me?” James asked with exaggerated innocence.
“I know you,” Nathan corrected.
They shared a laugh and split up. Nathan drew Mix. He paid his cover charge at the main gate
and went inside. Even on a Wednesday night the club was crowded. Blue-black, all smoke and
steel and gloom. Even if he could see the bar, the layout, the architecture — he wouldn’t pay
much attention. Beneath, it was always the same: concrete walls defining a space where alcohol
was worth ten times what it cost in the corner store.
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The decor didn’t matter. People came to Mix to drink and to dance. Waves of sound shattered
against the black-mirrored walls and crashed back into the patrons’ ears, erasing thought and
loosening wallets.
Nathan found a seat overlooking the heaving dance floor and let the electronics stuffed down his
pants go to work. He tried to be unpopular, but got pulled onto the dance floor a couple of
times. Sure enough, at least a few hands groped his pockets. He lost one phone somewhere in
the first hour, and two in the second, but he wasn't terribly concerned. So long as they stayed
switched on. It was as good a way as any to discard the evidence.
He drank beers to blend in, but the Irishmen sitting next to him always included him in their
rounds of shots, and after a while they added up. He hoped James was having as much fun
across the street.
One svelte body advanced upon him. Suddenly he thought of Cynthia.
“This garbage on my phone,” one of the Irishmen complained, and hit a button. Two minutes
later it was there again. “What gives?!” he screamed at his anonymous drinking buddy.
Nathan looked owlishly at his neighbor. “It's a public health announcement,” he said, trying to
sound serious through the slurring.
“A public health announcement?” the man repeated slowly. “Who from?”
“That is a good question,” Nathan said soberly — only he wasn't. “Maybe just say yes this
time.” Then he remembered the man was Irish. “Hey — you have a lot of long distance
numbers in that phone?”
“Yeah. Why?”
“Better say no,” Nathan corrected himself. He leaned in conspiratorially. “I mean, what if it’s a
virus? What if once you say ‘yes’, a file installs itself on your phone that sends out dozens and
dozens and dozens of text messages to everyone in your address book?” He took a long pull on
his beer bottle. “That would suck.”
“Yeah,” the Irishman agreed. “Hey — can that really happen?”
“Oh, yes,” Nathan nodded vigorously, blearily recalling his own experience when they first
picked up the virus from Victor. “Boom. Virus. Very expensive.”
Then, suddenly realizing he had perhaps said too much, he dramatically put one finger to his lips.
“Don't tell anyone I told you,” he whispered in a voice loud enough to be heard across the room.
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He patted the man on the back and stumbled away.
***
“— mobile phone virus.”
*groan*
Nathan opened one sleepy eye and cursed himself for leaving the television on last night — or
morning — or whenever. What time is it?
“The virus, identified yesterday, affects newer model mobile phones with Bluetooth capability.
Once installed, the virus sends malicious text messages to randomly chosen numbers from the
phone's address book. As many unfortunate people have discovered, the costs of the virus can be
horrendous.”
The transmission cut to a street-side interview with a middle-aged woman. Nathan forced his
other eye open and blinked until his bleary vision came into focus on his television set.
“I was taking the subway yesterday morning and received what I thought was a public health
message. Then in the evening, I tried to call my husband to pick me and the kids up after work,
and I was told I had no credit left on my phone. The damned virus used it up.”
The image cut back to the reporter. “The virus, which hit Beijing yesterday and has yet to be
reported in other cities, is transmitted via a wireless technology called Bluetooth. If your phone
has this function, the police request you to turn it off, and remind you not to accept messages
from sources you do not know. Areas of high infection risk include subway stations, shopping
centers, and other places where large crowds gather.
The police are actively investigating this crime.”
A police officer appeared on the segment. “The virus appears to have originated in Beijing
yesterday, and was likely the work of a terrorist group operating in the Beijing area. We've
received a number of leads from people related to this crime, and if you have any information,
you can contact the police at 110.”
“Early analysis of the virus by security experts suggests that it was developed internationally,”
the news anchor read. “While no accusations have yet been made, the Chinese government has
issued a statement reiterating its strong opposition to all forms of terrorism, domestic and
foreign, and promises to take whatever diplomatic action necessary if and when the perpetrators
of this crime are captured or revealed. In other news — ”
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Nathan shut off the TV. He pulled one of the several remaining phones out of his pants and
looked at the time. 12:07 p.m..
Well, that was fast, he thought, and dropped the now-useless device onto the floor.
He sat up. Slowly. His head throbbed, and he regretted with a grimace that he hadn’t forced
some water down his throat the night before.
His own phone was dead. He crawled across the room and groped until he found the right
charger — suddenly he had so many chargers lying around — and powered it up. It convulsed
with the announcement of fifty-four new text messages.
He ignored them, and called James.
“What?” James groaned. It had taken him twenty rings to drag himself out of bed and to his
telephone. He winced at the harsh glare pouring through his bedroom window.
“Long night?” Nathan asked rhetorically.
“Oh my god,” James voice grated across his own eardrums like sandpaper. He licked his lips.
So dry. “It’s been a long time since I've partied with teenagers. Those kids can really take it out
of you.”
Nathan had made it over to his desk. His laptop purred quietly next to the clunky telephone
hooked up to it. The phone blinked with unopened text messages. That was a good sign.
“What time did you get back?”
“I don't know. Seven? Eight? It was daylight, anyway. You?”
“Four,” Nathan said, and suddenly didn't feel so heroic.
“Four? What's the matter with you? Getting old?”
“Yeah. Hey, did you see the news?”
“I just woke up,” James reminded him. “Thanks to you. So, what? We’re busted already?” he
guessed.
“Yep,” Nathan said glumly. “Looks like Victor was right.”
James sighed. “Ten thousand bucks doesn’t buy you much fun in this city any more.”
175
With a guilty twitch, James’ joking remark sent Nathan's thoughts careening toward Cynthia, and
their last meeting. It had been a few days since she had awkwardly abandoned him at the temple.
He didn't begrudge her abrupt departure. In truth, it had been a relief.
It had been a gift — he had understood that immediately — to so completely receive another
person’s intimate feelings, but an unexpected one. It carried with it responsibilities as well, and
Nathan honestly didn't know whether he wanted to shoulder them. The next time they met, if
there were a next time, the memory of that moment would hang between them like a first kiss. It
was difficult to scramble back from the threshold of intimacy, once crossed.
Perhaps he didn't want to.
With all that had happened in the past few days, he hadn’t had time to sort through such
questions. He only knew he himself had many secrets he wasn’t ready to share.
“Nathan?”
“Sorry, what were you saying?” Nathan shook himself from his day-dreaming.
“I said: Was it a good segment at least?”
“Top of the hour,” Nathan reported proudly. “According to the Chinese Communist Party, the
FMA is now a terrorist organization.”
“If I were smarter I’d be able to make a good joke out of that,” James observed. “Hurray for us.
Do they have any leads?”
“Not that they’re saying.” Nathan paused. “I did have a couple close calls yesterday, though.”
“Yeah, me too,” James admitted. “Let’s hope they don’t put it together.”
“I don’t know,” Nathan disagreed dryly. “They say prison is good for one’s political career.”
“Only if you get out.”
Nathan laughed — a bit nervously.
“So how’d we do on the numbers?” James asked. “Did I win the pool?”
“I’m just looking now.” Nathan tapped the spacebar on his keyboard a few times and his screen
woke up. The compiler Victor had written displayed a message counter in the top-right corner.
“Ah...James, can you get over here?”
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***
“That can’t be right,” James refuted flatly, and stamped out his celebratory cigarette.
They were staring at Victor’s counter: 4,542,165. 166...167...168...
“It certainly explains how he made the 12 o'clock news,” Nathan pointed out. He sat down
heavily on his couch and stared at the counter like it were a doomsday clock.
“This is...” James struggled to find the words. He sat in stunned silence, scrolling through the
pages and pages of data. Some comments were people pissed off at the trash in their inbox. But
others wrote real opinion. Finally he laughed. “I think we just organized China's first
referendum.” His phone beeped. He pulled it out.
“Stop that,” he complained, and rejected the package.
“I can’t,” Nathan grimaced. “And it’s not in the manual, either.”
James’ face soured. “Well, now we know: always ask for the antidote.”
“Yeah, I’ll try to remember that next time we commission a virus from our Russian mafia
friends.” Nathan looked up. “Do we realize we just stole...” he did the math in his head, “half a
million renminbi? James, we’re felons.”
James waved the thought away, but chewed his nail furiously. “We didn’t steal it,” he argued
finally. “We gave it to China Mobile. Besides, it was only maybe two bucks per phone. Small
price to pay for democracy. Nathan, have you really looked at this? We have four million
unique answers to the question ‘If you could have chosen to be born anywhere, would you have
chosen China?’ In the right hands, this is explosive. It’s a bomb. We’ve built a bomb.”
Nathan took a deep, steadying breath. He had looked at it. It was absurd, the lengths they had
gone to, but now that it was done now, there was no question it had been worth it. He thought of
his last conversation with Menu, of the man’s cynical outlook on politics, and compared it to the
proof compiling rapidly on his computer screen. One little window of expression — and four
million people had leapt through it. In a single day.
It wasn't the answer they had hoped for. There was no landslide either way. And there was so
much sampling bias to the data that it was useless to a real statistician. But it did show
difference. No one could deny that. There was room — vast room — for debate, on the most
fundamental political question they had been able to think up.
“Alright,” Nathan agreed. “The next question is: what do we do with it?”
177
“I’m thinking a cover letter, plus an attachment of the raw data, sent to every major news
organization and blogger we can think of,” James shrugged.
Nathan paused at that. He thought about Victor and the clandestine lifestyle the boy had
adopted. “I think we need to give the other side more credit,” he suggested after a long moment
of contemplation. “We've been lucky up to now. But this,” he gestured at the ridiculous total on
his computer screen. “We’ve scared people. And that scares me. However we justify it —
we’re criminals now. They’re going to put real resources into tracking us down. Even back
home we’d be hunted for pulling something like this. I don’t think we can just email the output
to CNN.”
James considered that. “Alright. Then we do it anonymously from an internet cafe,” he
suggested.
Nathan shook his head. “We’d have to show our passports at the check-in. Plus there are
security cameras all over those places.”
“Well then we’ll just mail it,” James shrugged. “The firewalls can’t stop paper.”
“But who do we mail it to?” Nathan quizzed. “The New York Times? China Post will open that
letter for sure. Besides, no serious newspaper will publish the data if we don’t offer proof of its
source.”
“So what are you saying?” James got to the point. “We wait until we’re out of the country, and
blow our cover then?”
“Maybe,” Nathan said. “It‘s not like the data’s going to expire.”
“No,” James agreed. “But our window to get it out there will. This story is going to break
internationally — now.”
They both thought hard.
Then James looked up. “Oh my god, that's perfect.”
“What?”
“We’ve been building our very own news channel all along.”
Nathan’s eyes lit with understanding. “Kirsten,” he murmured.
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“Kirsten,” James nodded. “She’s all we need to put this story out there. We drop a CD stuffed
with data at her door, and the whole world will believe it came from the FMA. Plus she's been
reporting on the FMA for so long that no one’s going to accuse her of having had anything to do
with it.”
Nathan’s smile was beatific. “Is it possible we’re that smart?”
“It is,” James confirmed. He pulled out a blank CD and popped it into the disc drive.
A sudden thought occurred to Nathan. He held up Victor’s clunker. “Do you think they can
trace this phone?”
James looked up, and frowned. “Four million text messages to a single number. They’ll
probably at least figure out which neighborhood it’s in, yeah.
“I think I need to leave. Immediately.”
As if on cue, Victor’s phone suddenly quit flashing. Their response count stuck abruptly at
4,542,982.
James gave the screen a long look.
“I'll help you pack.”
179
Chapter Fifteen
They interred her father’s ashes at a hillside cemetery just outside Nanjing. Small graves lay in
tightly packed tiers that climbed step-like up the slope, with only narrow walk spaces between
them. They couldn’t afford a plot of land, especially not after the financial toll her dad's illness
had taken upon the family. So instead her family had bought two niches, side-by-side, in the
long, low granite wall at the hill’s base. Her mother had the peace of mind knowing that one day
she would rest eternally next to her husband.
It wasn’t her dad’s choice to be cremated, nor was it tradition. It was the law. Coffins were a
land-use luxury the country could not afford.
Cynthia hadn’t had a final chance to say goodbye. Death was not at all like in the movies, she
had learned, where by some miracle of coincidence and the nature of the injury, there was time
enough to rush in and hold his hand during the moment of passing, and receive from him the
parting words that would steel her for the lifetime of loss to follow.
No one held her father's hand. It had been late in the night. He died in his sleep.
Cynthia muffled a sniffle. She stood with her three older sisters and her mother and did her best
to be strong for them. Especially her mother. The older woman’s eyes were red, swollen; but
she did not cry. She simply stood in the midst of her children, and survived.
Her mother, Wang Ming, was a severe woman. Her hair clung to her head in tight curls. Her
glasses were thick, with frames that had been fashioned before glasses were fashionable — large
and squarish and serviceable.
It was a face that had never known luxury. The idea of spending beyond what was necessary in
order to acquire what was not implied a circumstance Wang Ming had never known. She had
been born in rural Yunnan in 1949, at the tail end of the civil war that had given birth to the
People’s Republic. She had been only a child in the Great Leap Forward, just a teenager through
the Cultural Revolution. She had lost her father to the first and her mother to the second.
Her dream was simply for her children to be secure. When a person grew up as she did, the
basics of life a struggle to obtain, the absence of struggle was ambition enough.
She grew up so much faster than me, and now already is a widow.
Her mother would miss dancing the most, Cynthia suspected. On weekends, her parents would
often go to the public square near their apartment and dance to the ballroom music being
180
broadcast over the public address system. It was a tradition that dated back to the days before
people could afford radios and stereos of their own. Her mother and father could always be
found there on a Saturday evening, waltzing their way gracefully through a hundred other
couples.
That was in the past, now.
Cynthia was holding a framed photograph of her father in her hands. Her mother glanced at it,
and in that glance her eyes did tighten and tears did well up.
But only for a moment. Then she turned to her daughters and in her thick Yunnan Province
accent announced simply: “It’s time to go.”
***
Her parents’ apartment - Cynthia’s home for the first eighteen years of life — was crammed.
Herself, her mother, her three sisters and their husbands and children, her two uncles and their
families: they sat on the sofas and kitchen chairs and extra stools borrowed from the neighbors
next door.
And they ate.
It was very awkward for family to come together without food. Otherwise, to sit around an
empty table with family, one had to discuss important matters. And Cynthia’s two uncles carried
too many words best left unspoken. The elder, Dashu, was a university professor: a refined,
respected man.51The eldest son, he was living up to the stiff expectations into which he had been
born. He and his wife wore their funeral best today. But her younger uncle and his wife didn’t
own special clothes for special occasions. Sanshu was short, even by Chinese standards, and he
had the sort of soft, floppy face that one automatically assumed fronted a floppy mind. Cynthia
didn't even know if he had a stable job.52
Food, on the other hand, required no explanation — and therefore no outcome. Dish after dish of
Jiangsu and Yunnan favorites appeared on every available surface. For Cynthia’s mother, it was
a way to keep busy. What had to be avoided at all costs was the stillness to reflect on the
magnitude of her own pain.
As the youngest sister, and childless, Cynthia was automatically drafted into the kitchen to help.
She didn’t mind. She needed to keep her mind busy, too.
Dashu (大叔) - Literally, ‘Big Uncle’. Nephews and nieces refer to their uncles by their order of birth rather than
by their proper names.
Sanshu (三叔) - Third Uncle.
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Every now and then one of them would take a break from their forgetting to step out onto the
balcony, set something on fire, and send it via smoke to greet Cynthia’s father when he arrived in
the afterlife. There were little shops that specialized in the manufacture of paper money and
possessions for these remembrance days. Mostly they burned money, lots and lots of money. Of
course it was not real money, just same-sized bundles of yellow paper slips that the spirit world
accepted as legal tender. Dashu burnt a house. It was large, fully two feet across and two feet
high. The back wall was missing, and inside they could see the living area, the kitchen, a
bedroom upstairs and even a little library where dad could read his books. It was a grander
house than any he had occupied in life. His brother thought that he deserved it now in death.
At some point Cynthia’s turn came. She stepped out onto the balcony, alone, and inhaled deeply.
It was a strangely cold day. The air was sharp, as if little needles of ice were pricking the insides
of her lungs. She welcomed the sensation of physical pain. It felt so ordinary, in comparison.
The sky was clearer here than in Beijing, more shades of blue than gray. In the distance she
could see the great Yangzi River Bridge. But she did not want to see far today, so instead she
watched a road crew at work in the street below. One half worked ahead, loosening and lifting
bricks out of the sidewalk. The other half came behind, replacing them with new ones. It was
slow work, and they had a long way to go. She needed a task like that right now: something
monotonous and repetitive and seemingly without end — a permanent distraction.
She unwrapped the gift she had purchased for her father. It was a majiang set — a small, papermade marvel with a table and four chairs, and one hundred forty-four tiles, each the size of her
pinky fingertip.53
Those were her dad’s happiest moments in life, sitting at the majiang table with his daughters —
the three women whose lives he had had a hand in fashioning — and playing deep into the night
until they were all exhausted or out of money.
As the paper caught flame, she thought back to their last game. He had sat up on the bed. His
voice had been just a whisper, but he could still snatch a coveted tile to complete his hand faster
than anyone.
She had won that game, their last game. “You’ve taken all my money,” he had wheezed. It was
the best laugh he could produce.
It only seemed fair; his illness had taken all of hers. She hadn't said that, of course. She hadn’t
felt it either. But she had seen the same thought in his eyes, and they had clouded over with the
shame of having left his family weaker, not stronger.
majiang (麻将) - Mahjong. A four-player game of skill and chance, the object of which is to complete a valid set
before the other players by picking and discarding tiles.
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As the last corner of the paper offering curled up into black ash, the balcony opened again and
Cynthia’s sister Sanjie stepped up beside her.
Whatever genes mapped for beauty in her parents’ DNA, Cynthia’s third sister expressed them
all. The two sisters had always been close, probably because at thirty-five Sanjie was the nearest
to Cynthia in age. Her son was already ten.
Sanjie gripped the handrail beside her younger sister. “It changes so fast,” she said after a while,
but whether she was referring to the Nanjing skyline or life, Cynthia wasn’t sure. The only thing
she was sure of was that her sister didn't mean the road crew in the street.
“Yeah,” Cynthia agreed, to all of the above.
“I have something for us.” Sanjie rummaged through some plastic bags stashed on the balcony
and pulled out a red wheel, almost two feet in diameter and wrapped in cellophane. Firecrackers.
She tore open the wrapping, and a long snake of the noisemakers, their fuses woven together,
uncoiled.
Cynthia’s eyes widened at the sight of so much gunpowder. “Here?” The ridiculous notion
shook her from her moodiness. “Now? I don't think we’re allowed to light firecrackers in the
district anymore.”
“Here. Now,” Sanjie replied. Her tone was adamant.
No one could resist a little giggle when setting off firecrackers. They tied one end of the coil to
the railing. Cynthia contemplated the length: 888 crackers. The neighbors below were not
going to appreciate this.
“Light it,” her sister commanded. Why was it that the pretty girls never got the blame for the
trouble they caused? It wasn’t fair. Cynthia pulled out her lighter. She made fire, and the fuse
began to hiss instantly.
Sanjie dropped the hissing end over the rail.
And the air ripped apart.
The explosions rang out like machine gun fire. The street was narrow, and the loud shocks of
sound clapped back and forth, back and forth between the buildings, magnifying tenfold before
escaping skyward. Cynthia gripped her sister's hand tightly and shared a foolish grin. With her
other hand, she tried to save half her hearing.
High up in the heavens, spirits were roused from their mid-afternoon naps and looked down to
see what all the fuss was about.
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Clear the way! Make ready!
Our father is coming.
***
Sanshu’s apartment was the guest accommodation of last resort within Cynthia’s family circle,
but as the youngest she had little choice in the matter. She knew her role. If she wanted to be
treated like an adult, she should act like one: get married and have a kid.
Nanjing was a fair-sized city of five million. There was an old majesty to the southern capital
that Beijing had misplaced in its frenzy to modernize. Much of Nanjing’s ancient city wall still
stood, and behind it whole neighborhoods rose in 14th century splendor.
Her uncle’s apartment block was not so majestic. There were no nearby parks or trees. It was a
functional, uninspired high-rise, surrounded by a fence and wedged between the river and a busy
overpass. The inner courtyard was bare concrete.
Cynthia had always liked Sanshu, even if — or maybe because — he was the misfit of the
family. He had no education. He had no reputable job. He'd been married before, and fathered
children before, although they weren’t a part of his life. He looked — and often acted — like a
jiugui.54
But Cynthia had had the opportunity to be a little kid for him, something none of her older sisters
had. It was to children that he revealed his true nature. Sanshu was a monkey. He could hop
around the room and make goofy faces and funny noises with all the finesse of the Monkey
King.
Cynthia climbed the six flights to her uncle’s apartment — there was no elevator in the building
— and found him in his TV/living/guest room, watching TV. It was a bit hard to label rooms by
function in the cramped unit. This one contained a bed, some chairs and a television. The TV
squeezed into the foot of the bed, so you had to climb over one or the other to get to the tiny
balcony on the other side where clothes dried on a rack and perishable foods chilled.
“Hi hi hi hi hi!” Her uncle got up from his chair, grinning. He climbed over the bed and gestured
Cynthia into an easy chair so worn by years it had to be soft. She sank deep into the
disintegrating cushions and rusty springs. “Drink cha?”55
jiugui (酒鬼) - ‘Alcohol devil’. A drunkard.
cha (茶) - Tea.
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Cynthia nodded and he disappeared into the next room. He was watching the evening news.
There have been some bad rainstorms this summer, and the army was out in force — with
buckets. Every season, some natural disaster obligingly kept them conditioned.
“Green tea okay?” Sanshu didn’t own a teapot. He dropped a generous pinch of tea leaves into a
small glass and did the same for himself. He added hot water from a tall plastic thermos.
Somewhere during its venerable life, the thermos’ cap had gone missing; now he kept it shut
with a simple cork stopper. “Here, lai, lai, lai.” He delivered the tea into Cynthia’s hands.
The water was slightly scummy, but Cynthia didn’t mind. She blew gently over the surface of
her tea, encouraging a few straggling leaves to settle down to the bottom of the glass. Sanshu
smiled and climbed back into his seat.
“What kind of dumplings do you want?” his wife’s head popped out of the kitchenette.
Dumplings were her specialty. Someone long ago had decided that a lump of pork wrapped
inside dough looked a lot like a tael, an Imperial unit of silver, and since then her countrymen
had been stuffing them down in the hope that doing so would bring the real thing.
Cynthia squeezed into the woman’s tiny kitchen and concluded that particular superstition to be
false. Their marriage had to be true love. She didn't know how else Sanshu’s wife could manage
to live with him. Her uncle hadn't provided her much in the way of modern conveniences. They
didn’t even own a microwave.
“Sit down sit down sit down,” the little woman protested when Cynthia tried to pick up a knife
and help chop vegetables. She and her husband had similar speech patterns. And like him, her
cheeks and her eyes were crinkled, after the fashion of those who smiled frequently.
***
Cynthia settled into the routine of their simple world. In the mornings she accompanied
Sanshu’s wife to the miniature market that formed each day in the shadow of the overpass, and
they picked up the basic ingredients for the day’s cooking — eggs, noodles, maybe a bit of beef.
The picking was meager. In the daytime they manufactured dumplings, or washed the floors.
She turned off her mobile phone, and let the world on the other end sort itself out for a while.
She learned to go to the bathroom as infrequently as possible. Theirs was a simple plumbing
closet, with bare concrete walls and floor, and a cracking, squat-style toilet. There was a little
bucket for used toilet paper; the toilet didn't flush very well. At first, she kept forgetting to bring
a few squares of paper into the bathroom with her. Sanshu and his wife left the roll on the
kitchen table, where it could conveniently serve multiple household uses. They used a bucket to
bathe. Fortunately, Cynthia was used to that.
Sometimes she and her aunt went for walks along the creek that ran past the back of the
apartment block. Strolling beside her diminutive aunt, Cynthia frequently lost herself in
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childhood memories. She used to swim in that creek with her sister Sanjie, although the water
was really dirty and the bottom wasn't very nice. It had been built for a time when waterways
were transportation routes. Now it was just a marketable topographic feature; the banks on both
sides having been cleaned up and laid over with brick. She was quite certain her uncle’s
apartment block would be demolished some year soon to make space for more profitable
developments.
In the evenings she and her aunt soaked their feet. She boiled water and mixed it with a bit of
cold in a shallow green tub. Cynthia gingerly slipped her toes...her feet...her ankles into the hot
bath. Her skin burned. Her face twisted in a grimace of ecstasy. And the day’s accumulated
ache seeped slowly from her bones.
Sometimes at night she headed out with her uncle to play cards with him and his cronies. The
latter were a bit shocked the first time Sanshu brought his niece along to play, but they quickly
learned to respect her prowess — and the fact that she could knock whiskey back straight. They
would stumble back home late at night, having either lost or tripled their money. Sometimes
Cynthia headed straight to bed. Other times she stayed up with her uncle, drinking tea or
watching TV. And sometimes they talked.
“This was 1976,” Sanshu handed her a faded photograph one night, its edges battered and worn.
Sanshu didn’t have a photo album. He kept his photos in a cupboard above the sink, tied
together with a bit of string.
Cynthia knew all the people in the photograph, but Sanshu pointed them out anyway. “Dashu,”
he pointed at her eldest uncle. Even then he had looked severe. “Your dad.” Her dad looked
happy. She didn’t think she’d ever seen a photo of him smiling before this one — it was too
childish for educated men. “Me.” Sanshu had been just a young man then. “And your mom.
And your sisters.” Cynthia hadn’t been born yet.
“The day that photo was taken was the first time in ten years I saw your father.” He shook his
head as if to shake away whatever thought was going to come next. He poured out two shots of
baijiu and tossed one back.
“Where were you?” Cynthia asked, sipping conservatively. Everyone had a story from that
decade, from the Wenhua Da Geming.56Few of them were happy ones.
He shook his head and rattled his hand, and poured himself another shot. Cynthia didn’t press
him further. Some things were better forgotten than forgiven.
He kept flipping through photographs, a tuneless whistle on his lips. Sometimes he waved his
hand vaguely. Cynthia imagined him sweeping away footprints from his memory.
Wenhua Da Geming (文化大革命) - The Cultural Revolution.
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“Here's your Dashu, at FuDan University. Big university. Our dad was proud.” He raised his
glass to toast a man in academic robes. “You haven't been to your uncle’s new home yet, have
you? It's beautiful. A real house, not an apartment. He has a garage for his car.”
I have a lock for my bike. He didn’t say it out loud, but Cynthia heard it from his gestures.
Sanshu handed Cynthia another photo. It was him and her dad, and Sanshu was holding a baby
in his arms.
“I went over to your parent’s house the day you came home from the hospital.” He served
himself yet another shot — or tried to. He missed his glass through much of the pour. When he
set the half-empty bottle down, Cynthia slid it out of reach.
“Always so smart, your dad. Read books. Top of his class, every year. Did everything right.
The golden boy. And then his job…he was going to go far. Everybody said so. He knew it, too.
So sure of himself.”
Cynthia had a hard time following her uncle’s thoughts.
“Your dad put you into my arms and —” Sanshu broke into giggles, but it seemed to Cynthia that
he meant to cry. The liquor in his blood confused him. “He said it was okay. He forgave me.”
From his thick slur she was confident her uncle had no idea what he was saying.
“I'm going to go to bed,” Cynthia announced quietly. She’d have enough to feel heartbroken
about in the morning without dwelling on her dad tonight.
Sanshu nodded.
She slipped away into the TV room, and slid into the bed. The soft, steady sound of her uncle’s
weeping lulled her to sleep.
***
She and her sisters went through their parents’ bedroom, boxing up those things whose presence
would only bring loneliness to their mother. The task wouldn’t take long. With limited living
space, sentimentality had been an emotion afforded to only the most precious relics.
“Oh, my heaven!” Erjie pulled a case out of a closet. It was about three feet long and one foot
wide. She carried it over to Cynthia, where she sat folding clothes on the bed.
“Do you remember this?” she asked her youngest sister.
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Cynthia considered it for a long moment, but couldn’t place it.
“Heaven!” Sanjie saw the case and started to laugh. “How can you possibly forget?”
Cynthia popped the latch and flipped open the cover. It was her turn to be astonished. Her
erhu.57She held it in her hands for the first time in two decades. She strung the neck and
threaded the bow between the strings.
“I'm not sure I remember...” Cynthia closed her eyes and let the muscles in her fingers take
control.
The shriek she produced was a fair imitation of a pig being slaughtered. The bloodcurdling
whine could only have come from an animal in its death throes, blood spurting from its mouth
and snout as the slaughter master shoved a sharpened hook deeper down its gullet.
“Aargh!” Erjie and Sanjie, who as Cynthia’s childhood roommates had been the primary victims
of her one-time interest in music, protested at the cruel resurrection of long-buried pain.
“Stop! Stop! Stop!”
Cynthia paused her sawing back and forth. Everyone uncovered their ears, their faces a mixture
of awe and fear.
“You’ve gotten much better —”
“— I didn't realize you still practice,” Erjie and Sanjie quipped together, grinning. The sisters all
shared a laugh, one that they needed in the midst of their grim task.
They wiped tears from their eyes.
Her father had hated her playing, too, but much to everyone’s horror had always encouraged it.
He had been like that. He wanted his children to play. Yes, like every kid Cynthia had to work
really hard. Not every kid would get to go to school. Certainly not a good school. There simply
weren’t enough desks. And so you had to prove that you should be one of the few. That meant
exams, and exams meant study: in school, after school, on the weekend. Not to impress. Not to
over-achieve. But to get in.
Her dad had understood that. Her dad had wanted that for her. But he had had a weakness:
Cynthia’s smile. She wanted to sing, so he bought her singing lessons. She wanted to dance, so
erhu (二胡) - Chinese violin. A two-stringed bowed musical instrument with a long, two-pegged neck and a small
soundbox.
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he bought her dancing lessons. Singing and dancing didn’t show up on the entrance exams. But
they made her smile, and so her father couldn’t resist.
Damn it, why did you have to die?
They continued like that for some time — cleaning, laughing, crying.
Cynthia found her father’s old box of calligraphy tools tucked under his side of the bed, and
immediately claimed it for her own. No one objected; they all know he would have wanted her
to have it. His set was of a far finer make than her own. The case resembled a fat briefcase,
constructed of fine hard wood with complex inlays and lacquered a deep red that had remained
unfaded through the decades.
She opened the latch and peeked inside. There lay her father's calligraphy instruments, on a
cushioned layer of red velvet. Three fine, long brushes of horse hair; an ink stone, more ornate
than her own, and carved over with flowers; and of course his inks.
She had never opened the case outside her father’s presence before. It had been the one piece of
privacy in his life, the one place he had forbidden her to go without his permission. And because
it was unique in that way, she had always obeyed. It was as if he had cast a forbidding spell
upon it.
But like all spells, this one had been broken by the caster’s death.
She sighed, and closed the case again.
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Chapter Sixteen
Tonight is black.
She pried the obsidian stick from its box and began to grind it against the rough surface of her
father’s ink stone. Round and round and round and round, she ground away confusion, and fear,
and worry. She ground the hardness into dust with the slow steady pressure of her palm.
She got out a small flask of water. Dribble. Dribble. Just a little bit. Just enough. There was a
time when she would measure. Now she just knew.
The water turned black instantly; sudden, like death. She worked the paste carefully until the
powder was fully dissolved and the ink smooth and consistent.
She loaded the brush that had been her father’s. It was the very first brush she had ever held in
her hands. Its shaft was longer and thicker than the one she regularly used now, more suited to a
man's hand than a little girl’s. At one time it had been lacquered black, but now it was a dark,
grainy brown varnished by the oil in her father’s fingers. The horse hair bristles were still fine
and straight and came together in a finely sculpted point. Her father had always cleaned his
brush meticulously.
She held it precisely the way he had taught me, and she could almost feel his hand closed over
hers again. It was bony. Her father never did have much flesh to spare, and every knuckle
imprinted itself into her skin. But he did not lack for grace. She would let her whole hand go
limp and watch with a child's open-mouthed delight as he guided the brush through fabulous
wheeling patterns that were more dance than literature.
She waited for the word to come. It couldn’t be forced. Poetry, if it is pure, must come from the
place before thought, where truth is instinctive.
She pushed hard into the paper with each stroke:
Yes, she agreed. That is the right character.58
山 (shan) - Mountain.
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There was beauty in the mountain, but also toil. Much struggle.
Ahead of her lay five mountains: Marriage. A family. Money. Work. And love. She stood at
the foot of each of those dreams, her palms and her heart wincing from the scrapes of recent
tumbles. She did not need to stand highest, only high enough to feel a warm breeze on her cheek
from time to time and watch wistfully as eagles circled freely on lifting currents.
How do I get up there, dad?
No answer came. Her fingers went limp, and she knew there would be no more calligraphy this
night. Perhaps not any night.
She sat back from her uncle’s small dining table and let the melancholy thoughts take over.
Her candle guttered in a ghostly gust of wind, and she cast her eyes about the room. Her meager
light could not reach into the corners, and she could feel the demons lurking there, wrapped in
cloaks of shadow, waiting with otherworldly patience for the tallow to burn low. She
acknowledged them with a grim smile. They had no power over her, not anymore. Their
weapon was fear, and her worst had already come to be.
Only resignation remained in her heart.
Mechanically, she rinsed her father’s brush and dried it carefully before returning it to its case,
beside his inks: red, black, green, yellow and that same unfathomable blue. Unlike hers, his
blue had seen frequent use. She traced it with idle fingertips. Had he lived a few more months,
he would have had to replace it again.
As she was closing the case Cynthia spied a small silk thread dangling from one corner of the
lining. She wrapped the stray string around one finger and pulled. But instead of snapping free,
a further length came free, and she heard a small click. A shallow drawer in the bottom of the
case — its seams masked perfectly by the ornate inlays — popped open.
What secret is this? She placed her trembling fingers on either side of the revealed drawer and
pulled. Inside sat a thin pile of papers, and an envelope. She examined the envelope first. It was
sealed, but seeing no reason not to, she carefully tore off one edge and peeked inside. Money.
She slipped out the thin sheaf of bills. Hundred-yuan notes, twenty of them.
Next she withdrew a folded page of parchment, and between the leaves something stiffer. She
opened the parchment. It was blank, but the stiffer paper was revealed to be a photograph.
The colors were all a soft reddish-brown, like museum photographs of the Party founders. In the
center stood a woman. She looked younger than Cynthia, maybe twenty or twenty-five, and she
stood in front of a rickety water wheel, twice as tall as she and fashioned crudely out of bamboo
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poles. In the background was a field — it looked like rice paddies — and some high, forested
hills.
She was dressed in peasant clothing to match the setting: a worker’s smock and a cone-shaped
hat to keep off the sun. Her face was not beautiful, but it was lovely — honest and plain. She
wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t seem severe, either. Just stoic.
Cynthia had never seen her before in her life.
She flipped it over. There was a date — 1967 — and a name: Yang Ping. Her name was Peace.
Cynthia glanced over at the cupboard where Sanshu kept his bundle of photographs and
wondered if he might recognize the person or the place. She resolved to ask him about it in the
morning, and set the photograph aside.
Across the very bottom of the drawer lay a piece of cloth. She pinched it and pulled it away and
found two neat rows of pressed blue ink, seven sticks to a row, each nestled tightly in its own
velvet niche. Fourteen altogether. Her fingers skimmed across them. Even in her melancholy
their fabulous pigment caused something deep inside her to spark again — faintly, stubbornly.
She had no explanation for why her father had stockpiled so many, nor why he had kept them so
carefully hidden. She had no idea whatsoever what they meant to him. She only knew: they
meant a lot.
“Someday I’ll show you,” he had promised her. But he had taken that secret to his grave.
Or had he?
She contemplated the mysterious woman in the photograph again, and wondered.
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Chapter Seventeen
She and Sanshu crossed the street. On the other side, a boy and a girl already stood waiting. He
looked maybe seven or eight; she, perhaps thirteen but she wanted the world to believe she was
three years older.
Everybody had a Mid-Autumn Festival tradition, a chosen way to mark the traditional end of
summer. Sanshu’s was to visit his children. They were the open secret in Cynthia’s family. She
didn’t know the full story, and she didn’t ask. But they hadn’t shown up at her dad’s funeral two
weeks ago, and that more than anything indicated how ugly the truth must be. She’d never even
met them before today.
Sanshu greeted them both and introduced Cynthia to his son, Aguang, and his daughter, Azi. He
ruffled his son’s hair a bit, awkwardly, as if he had spent a long time calculating the act before
performing it. The boy didn't respond in any particular way, but instead looked to his sister for
instruction. She simply looked bored — like all teenagers who were doing what they’d been told
instead of what they wanted. “You look good,” her uncle told his girl. She simply took her little
brother’s hand and started to lead him down the street.
Cynthia and her uncle fell in alongside.
“You have beautiful hair,” Cynthia told Azi, but the girl wouldn’t warm to her that easily. She
wore her hair big, in a frizzy ball. Cynthia resisted the urge to press her palm into its surface and
sample the spongy texture. Her face was very ordinary; like any teenage girl she was obviously
conscious of her appearance. Cynthia knew what it was like to be ordinary. She suddenly
wanted to be her friend.
Their destination was not far. In a few blocks they arrived at the front gates of the People’s
Amusement Park. To one side, a bored-looking woman sat in a dusty glass booth selling tickets
and guarding a dozen rusty turnstiles. Sanshu handed over some cash, and they entered.
Like many public works, this one had been built with exaggerated expectations. The amusement
park was a large, protected green space, complete with rides and games and a man-made lake for
water sports. But as they wandered through the grounds they discovered that most of the stations
were closed — either for repair or because there weren’t enough visitors to make opening them
worthwhile. It didn’t help that it was only three days until Zhongqiu Jie, one of the most
important holidays on the Chinese calendar. 59Most people had better things to do.
Zhongqiu Jie (中秋节) - Mid-Autumn Festival. The Mid-Autumn Festival falls on the 15th day of the eighth
month in the Chinese calendar -- usually between mid-September and early October in the Gregorian calendar.
Traditionally, it marks the end of the summer harvest season.
193
They came to a small shooting gallery that had decided to open for the day. It was a simple
setup: a large, flat box standing up on its side like a bookshelf, with a few rows of balloons
tacked inside.
Sanshu pointed to one of the toy rifles sitting at the firing line. “Do you want to play?” he asked
his son.
Aguang was too shy to answer, but Cynthia could tell it was a ‘yes’ from the anxious look he
shot his sister.
His father handed a few more notes to the young man manning the station, who handed the boy
one of the guns. As soon as Aguang’s hands grasped the mock weapon, the boy’s shyness flew
away. He knelt like a sharpshooter in the movies, one eye squeezed shut, and steadied the barrel
of the rifle in his left hand.
Bang. Pop. Bang. Pop. Bang. Pop. Three for three. Even his sister clapped, albeit weakly.
The prizes, like everything else about the park, were quaint, but the operator dutifully handed the
boy a small, stuffed panda. Aguang displayed it proudly. It was his first smile of the day, and
Cynthia’s uncle relaxed visibly.
They came to the lakeshore. A few motorized boats zigzagged slowly across the pond, in the
aimless way of people who weren’t trying to get anywhere. Aguang, more animated now,
pointed excitedly at the boats in the little marina. And for the first time even Azi showed signs of
life. But the rentals were a bit pricey and from his worried face Cynthia could tell that her uncle
wasn't too thrilled about spending the money.
Cynthia walked over to the ticket booth. “You guys want to come with your cousin Fan on a
boat ride?” she called behind her shoulder, and a duet of enthusiastic yeses told her she had
guessed correctly. She pulled a hundred-yuan note from her father’s envelope and laid down the
security deposit before her uncle could object.
A dockhand unlocked the chain anchoring one of the boats. They were small four-seaters, with a
steering wheel in the front and a plastic hard-top on four posts to provide shade from the sun or
rain. Sanshu stepped aboard first, then helped his son and daughter. Azi giggled nervously as
she made the tiny leap off the dock. “You drive,” Sanshu told his kids, and the pair squeezed
side by side behind the wheel of the craft.
They puttered away. Brother and sister bickered over direction and speed, while father pretended
to impart marine wisdom. Cynthia contented herself with sitting on the back seat and letting her
fingers skim along the water’s glassy surface.
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There was an island in the centre of the pond, and after a few minutes of heated debate and errant
uncertainty, daughter and son charted a course toward it.
They made landing at a small dock and disembarked. The island was a courtyard structure: four
walls, with a covered walkway on each side, all looking inward to a central pond of still,
protected water. A large rock formation protruded from the pond’s centre, and upon it rested a
white stone statue: a woman, larger-than-life and as perfect as a Tang figurine, contemplating the
water lilies floating all about her.
A few flat stones protruded above the pond’s surface, suggesting but not quite offering a path
toward the statue. Aguang and Azi both clapped, and Cynthia gasped, as Sanshu decided to test
it. A hop, and then another, and then a third had them all laughing and clapping and screaming
“Don’t do it!” “Don’t do it!”...for the fourth, which he did not quite clear. He lifted his left foot,
dripping, out of the pond water. Cynthia pulled out her camera and her uncle, warmed to his
audience now, turned around to face them and did his best imitation of the statue posing behind
him. Cynthia snapped while his children giggled.
It was a good backdrop for a family photograph, and when Sanshu returned to the walkway
Cynthia chided the trio past their shyness and grabbed a couple more shots before they all
clambered back into the boat.
By general consensus Cynthia sat at the controls this time; Aguang and Azi were too busy
reviewing the photos she’d just taken. They squeezed in the back seat on either side of their
father and giggled some more as they passed Cynthia’s camera back and forth between them.
She hoped they wouldn’t drop it in the water.
She aimed the boat back to shore. Young kids were willing to sit on an eight-foot boat for only
so long, she figured, and she didn’t want to be on it when that time elapsed.
“Anybody hungry?” she called to the crew behind her.
“Yes!” comes the unanimous reply. She dug into her bag and produced a pair of small
mooncakes, the . They immediately vanished into her cousins’ mouths.
“I want pizza!” Aguang added between crumb-spewing chews.
“Pizza okay with you, Azi?” Cynthia twisted in her chair. Still working to win her over, Cynthia
gave Aguang’s sister the veto.
She gave a cautious smile and nodded.
“Then it’s decided.” Cynthia turned the wheel hard and set a scenic course around a small islet.
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Then the engine stopped puttering.
“Uh oh,” Cynthia said.
“What’s wrong?” Sanshu crawled forward and joined his niece at the driver’s seat.
She pushed the starter button. Nothing happened. “I don’t know,” she said. “The engine just cut
out.”
Sanshu tried the button again.
“Why are we stopping?” Aguang demanded to know.
“We’re out of gas,” Cynthia deduced.
“Well, that’s great,” Sanshu’s daughter immediately reverted to her sulky script. She looked
sullenly around the pond as if it were a prison. “What are you going to do now?”
It was a good question. There weren’t any other boats in sight. “I’m sure another boat will come
along soon,” Cynthia offered. “I guess we’ll have to wait until then.” In the meantime, she
could tell Azi meant to make her suffer horribly for wasting her afternoon.
“Stupid boat ride,” the girl muttered.
Sanshu looked distraught.
Cynthia’s last turn under power had pointed the prow toward a small islet, and they were still
drifting toward it. The land mass was no more than ten meters on a side. In the centre rose a
small gazebo, with a red slate roof and archways cut into each wall, meant simply to look pretty
as one puttered past. It wasn’t much, but it might be more comfortable than waiting on the water.
Cynthia twisted around in her captain’s chair, thinking. Aguang was leaning over the left side of
the boat, both hands sunk deep into the water. He was trying very hard to snatch up one of the
minnows that had come to inspect their listing craft. “Guang-guang,” she called.
The boy looked up from his game.
“Do you think you can paddle us over to that island with your hands?” Cynthia challenged him,
and pointed to her destination.
His eyes widened. This was turning into a much more interesting day than he had expected. He
nodded determinedly. He sank his arms back into the water and pushed against the water’s
resistance.
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The boat gave a little lurch. “That’s it,” she said encouragingly.
Grinning, he redoubled his efforts. Sanshu lent a hand on the opposite side, and the boat lurched
a second time.
“More speed!” Cynthia commanded imperiously, and deftly turned the wheel to bring them
prow-first onto the islet’s shore. They scraped onto dry land. Cynthia and her uncle reached out
their hands to steady the boat, and the children piled out.
They caught up with Sanshu’s kids in the gazebo, and that’s when Cynthia realized her mistake.
The structure was empty, but graffiti on the walls exposed the children to language she hoped
neither of them understood yet. She looked around. The islet was the sort of neglected
destination that drew teenagers to have sex, smoke drugs and drink alcohol. There was ample
evidence of all three. Someone from the park really needed to come and clean up the place.
Preferably not the same person who fueled the boats.
“Look what I found!” Aguang announced. Cynthia rushed over just in time to see the boy lift a
used condom out of the grass.
“Yech!” Cynthia and Azi turned their heads away in disgust.
“Don’t touch that!” Sanshu snapped. Aguang, cowed, let it drop back to the ground.
“I want to go home,” Azi said, unhelpfully.
“Yeah, I’m still hungry,” her brother agreed.
“I’ll order the pizza,” Cynthia said quickly, and hoped she wouldn’t have a mutiny on her hands.
“I can have them deliver it to the park.” Maybe the delivery boy can tell the park staff where we
are, she thought.
“Let’s eat it here!” Aguang suggested.
“This place is a dump,” his sister declared.
“No, it’s sick!” he said, which Cynthia took to mean a good thing in his generation. “It can be
our castle!”
Cynthia surveyed the tiny trash heap and admired his powers of imagination. But it did give her
an idea.
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“You’re right,” she told him. “It can be a....sick...castle. We just need to give it a good cleanup.”
“Yeah!” Aguang quickly agreed, happy that someone could share his sense of possibility.
But Cynthia could see that his sister would not be so easily manipulated. “I’ll tell you what.”
She decided to play her trump card. She pulled out another of her father’s hundred-yuan notes
and held it up. “I’ll give this to whomever collects the bigger pile of trash.”
“Me! Me! Me!” They were both off instantly. Cynthia grinned at her uncle. But his answering
smile was a bit sad. He should have been the one handing out gifts on Zhongqiu Jie.
While the kids scurried about, Sanshu and Cynthia walked a circuit around the small island,
picking up beer bottles and scraps of paper and ignoring the more disgusting things. “Don’t
touch any of these!” Cynthia would say as she found each one, and held it up briefly for the kids
to see before letting it drop with a shudder.
They piled everything up against one wall of the gazebo, where at least the wind wouldn’t blow
it out onto the water.
Cynthia discovered a statue on the other side of the islet, standing alone at the water's edge, and
she realized it was a sister to the Tang figure they had visited earlier. Only this one was stained
gray. Her white gown was spoiled by vulgar characters. The grass at her feet was littered with
broken bottles.
Cynthia knelt and began to pick up the chunks of glass. She felt bad for what was happening to
her, but the statue appeared to bear it stoically.
There were some deep scuff marks on the stone pedestal on which the statue stood. It looked as
if it had been moved recently. Cynthia wrapped her arms around the woman and tried to twist
her. But she was as tall as Cynthia — and solid concrete.
“Sanshu” she called her uncle over and pointed to the marks at the base. “Do you think there’s
something under there?”
He bent to inspect what she’d found. “Might be drugs,” he concluded grimly.
It was a good guess.
“I can’t move it by myself. Come on, give me a hand.” They took positions around the statue.
“Ready....一，二，三。。。”
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They heaved. Even together, it was impossibly heavy. They managed to twist the statue just a
few inches off its base. But it was enough to reveal a hollow space underneath.
“That's enough,” Cynthia gasped. “I think I can get my hand inside now.”
She hoped it wasn’t drugs. She wanted it to be a letter, or maybe a wedding ring. There must
have been a time when this islet was yet unspoiled, and this statuesque woman stood in a
sanctuary that befit her grace. Cynthia could imagine a soldier bringing his bride-to-be here for
one final, tear-filled embrace before taking to the walls against the Japanese hordes. And when
the city’s last defenses had fallen, perhaps his love returned in order that she might recall one last
time the warmth of his arms, the softness of his lips, the tenderness in his eyes — and the
promise he made before he left.
The pedestal was empty.
Cynthia sat back in the overgrown grass, disappointed. Stupid dreams.
“Maybe somebody already found it,” Sanshu consoled.
He took a seat beside his niece at the statue’s base. His kids continued to play garbage collector,
and they watched.
The silence grew long before Cynthia broke it. “I might be moving back home,” she said.
Her uncle looked surprised. “What about your work?”
She shrugged as if to say ‘What about it?’ She tore up a small clump of yellowed grass and let
the dry blades fall through her fingers.
They fell silent again. It looked like Aguang was going to win, but she intended to give them
both ¥100 anyway.
“That'll be great,” he decided finally. “If it’s what you want.”
“I guess so,” Cynthia said, and tore up more grass.
“You don’t sound very sure,” Sanshu observed.
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “I’m the youngest. I had the best opportunities growing up — not
like Dajie and Erjie and Sanjie.” They had all grown up in rural Yunnan, far away from the
advantages of city living and prior to the free-market comforts of Deng Xiaoping’s economic
reforms. “But now, it’s like I’ve let everybody down. Mom’s worried that I don’t have a
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husband, let alone children. Maybe if I had postponed those things for my career, they could
deal with that.” Life was, after all, about making such trade-offs. “But I don’t have a career,
either. I’ve got no money in the bank. No house. No mortgage.” With all the work she had
skipped over the past few months, she wasn't even sure she still had a job.
She tore up more earth. “At least here I can take care of mom.” She swallowed. “Now that
dad’s gone.”
For a long time her uncle didn’t say anything. “You might be right,” he agreed at last. A sudden
squeal from Azi filled the little island with laughter, and he smiled slightly.
“But I will say one thing,” he added.
“What's that?”
His eyes stayed on his illegitimate offspring, the children he had sired but barely knew. “You
will never find happiness until you stop waiting for what might have been, and start living
instead with what is.”
Cynthia frowned at the unexpectedly deep thought coming from her ordinarily plain-spoken
uncle. “What does that mean?”
“Don't tell your mom I said this, but: you need to get far, far away from here. Get away from
the marriage that should’ve been and the children you should've had by now. Get away from all
the money you should have saved and the house you should have bought.”
“And go where?”
He shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. “To whomever or whatever already makes you
happy. And when you get there — that’s when you start making plans for what comes next.”
She could think of only one thing. That reminded her of something else. Cynthia produced the
mysterious photograph she had discovered the day before. “Do you know who this is?”
Her uncle took it. He frowned. “I don’t think so. Where did you find it?”
“In dad’s calligraphy case.”
Sanshu flipped it over. “1967...” he raised his head and stared at the sky thoughtfully.
“Where was dad in 1967?”
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A shadow passed briefly across Sanshu’s face, so quickly that it might have been Cynthia’s
imagination. “He was still in Yunnan Province, then.” In exile.
“Do you know where, exactly?” Cynthia pressed gently. She knew — although the details had
never been, would never be, spoken — that Sanshu had played a role in her father’s forced
relocation to the countryside.
“It was a small village outside of Guangnan, called...” he stopped and thought some more.
“Liban.” He handed the photo back. “That’s a very far way away,” he advised.
“Then I guess I’d better get started.”
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Chapter Eighteen
Cynthia stepped carefully through the crowded train car, navigating around colorful bags and a
crawling baby and old men and excited children and even a chicken in a cage —- she hoped the
latter stayed quiet at night —- until she came to alcove 54.
There were two classes of service on train K-155: hard sleepers and soft. Soft sleepers were
private compartments with four beds apiece. Hard sleepers were how she traveled. There was
no privacy here, but rather aisle after aisle of bunks, stacked three-high and facing each other in
alcoves of six.
Her alcove was empty, but that was only temporary. The Mid-Autumn Festival was a peak travel
period. They’d be picking up passengers and dropping others off all night in Huangshan and
Quanzhou and other places she couldn’t remember. K-155 had a long journey ahead — two
days, seven hours, and forty-six minutes according to her ticket — and she was one of the few
who would see it to the end.
There was considerable debate as to which bunks were the best: top or bottom. (No one
preferred the middle.) Cynthia liked the top bunk, because once she was up there she could sleep
undisturbed. No one would accidentally shine a light in her face or step on her hand during a
midnight run to the bathroom. But she could appreciate the virtue of the bottom bunk. The
bottom bunk was where life on the train passed. A small table folded down from the wall, and
cards got dealt, tea got poured, strangers met and friendships were formed to last...until you got
off the train.
For now, she was content to kick off her shoes, stuff her suitcase under 54-F — they could fight
about it later — and haul herself up the ladder to her bed. It was indeed hard. She closed her
eyes. Let her pulse slow. Felt her body settle into the mattress.
She felt secure up here. She was a little child again, tucked safely away in her niche. The
wheels ground against the tracks, the brakes squealed in protest as they released, and a little clap
went up amongst the children in the car. Cynthia could hear her own soul clapping along. This
trip, she made for her father.
This trip, she made for herself.
***
She had fallen asleep. The lights of the car were out; the world passing by was dark and starless.
But she did hear voices. She peered over the edge of her bunk. Two of her alcove-mates sat in
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their bottom bunks, talking by the blue light of a small battery-powered radio. The only sound it
produced was soft static. She squirmed around and somehow managed to climb down out of her
cramped sleeping space.
“She's awake,” announced a middle-aged man with big bushy eyebrows. He spoke in the hushed
manner people adopted after curfew.
“Maybe she knows how to get this stupid radio to work right,” the other man, significantly older
than the first, grouched. Even in the dim light his wispy white hair had a waxy, unwashed shine.
“Have a seat,” Bushy offered, and slid closer to the window to make room on his bunk. “Ai-yo!
Leave it!” he admonished White Hair. “We’re out of range.”
Cynthia sat on the foot of his bunk. “What are you trying to listen to?”
“Xiangsheng,” Bushy grumbled. 60
“They’re broadcasting the ‘Best of Ma Ji’ on 103.9,”61 White Hair explained, and continued to
fiddle with the dial.
“We’re out of range,” Bushy insisted again. “Forget it.” He turned back to Cynthia. “Want a
drink?”
The honest answer was ‘no’, but she was going to be sharing a very small space with these two
men for the next two days and at first glance she didn’t think they were going to find much other
common ground.
“No, thanks,” Cynthia began politely.
“Oh, come on. Just one drink.”
“Okay, okay,” she capitulated quickly.
Bushy handed her a small funnel. She gave him a strange look, then realized it was the sawedoff top of a plastic water bottle.
“We forgot to bring cups,” he explained, and topped her up.
xiangsheng (相声) - Cross-talk. Literally, ‘face and voice’. A traditional comedic performance, usually in the form
of a quick banter between two people, and rich in clever puns, political satire and social commentary.
Ma Ji (马季, 1934-2006) - A Beijing-born xiangsheng master who focused his skits on the absurd consequences of
China's rapid modernization.
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“Ganbei!” he toasted Cynthia and White Hair, and the three of them tapped rims. Cynthia
knocked the liquor back in one swift swallow, and both men cackled.
It burned her throat all the way down to her empty stomach. Baijiu again. This year had been
hard on her liver.
“Good girl,” said Bushy, and before Cynthia could object he filled her funnel again.
“So where are you headed?” he asked after they’d politely sipped for a while.
“Kunming.”
Bushy whistled. “Long ride. Settle in.”
White Hair frowned. “You don’t sound like you’re from around there.”
“My mom is,” she clarified. “But I grew up in Nanjing.”
“I had a girlfriend in Nanjing once,” Bushy reminisced.
“Is that the one who could stuff dumplings with her feet?” White Hair interjected.
Bushy looked up from his improvised cup. “Yeah. I told you this story?”
“Last time she was from Chongqing,” White Hair recalled.
“I had a girlfriend in Chongqing once, too.”
The two giggled quietly, as if this was very funny.
“Are you going all the way to Kunming, too?” Cynthia asked.
Bushy nodded. “My son’s starting university.”
Cynthia looked at White Hair. “What are you studying?” she asked jokingly.
White Hair scowled.
Bushy laughed. “Not him. I put my boy in a soft sleeper for this trip. It’s a special occasion.”
It didn’t surprise her. Parents would go to any lengths to support their kid’s education. “But he
went to high school in Nanjing?”
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Bushy nodded. “We moved up three years ago. Our hometown back in Yunnan is pretty small. I
figured he’d do better on the gao kao if he spent some time at a big city high school.”
The gao kao. Cynthia shuddered as she remembered her own university entrance exams. They
were the single most stressful event in a young person’s life. Score high, and every professional
dream was within your grasp. Score low, and it was best to be content if you got into university
at all.
“He must have scored well,” Cynthia observed.
“Yeah,” Bushy admitted modestly. “But his mother is Zhuang zu, so that boosted his grades a
bit.”62
Ah, okay. Students who could prove they belonged to one of the fifty-six recognized ethnic
minorities received bonus points on their exam results. It was a form of upfront compensation
for the various discriminations they’d suffer throughout life.
“To your son,” White Hair raised his funnel in an unsteady salute. “May he befuddle with his
brilliance.”
They all drank to that.
A female train attendant shone a flashlight into their private shadows.
“It’s lights out,” she said impatiently, and flicked her torch across the useless radio. Cynthia
would be impatient too if her job were to enforce curfew on a train loaded with five hundred
Chinese.
“Would you like to drink with us?” Bushy offered instead. He produced the sawed-off end of a
water bottle and held it out to her. Cynthia knew there had to be a fourth half somewhere.
The attendant smiled slightly, but only slightly. She was closer to their age range than Cynthia’s.
“Please turn the radio off,” she repeated.
“Okay,” he agreed, and switched it off. He waited until she had left the car before switching it
on again. “I wish we had something to eat,” he grumbled.
Zhuang zu (壮族) - One of the 56 recognized ethnic groups of China, and the largest minority group by population
(~18 million). The live mostly in southern China.
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“You've already eaten all my seeds,” complained White Hair. From the sheer number of
discarded husks littering their little floor space, it was evident that had been no mean feat. “Why
didn’t you buy more when the train stopped in Jixixian?”
“I bought the baijiu.” Bushy hoisted the half-empty liquor bottle for emphasis. “You were
supposed to buy the food.”
“I bought the battery for the radio.”
“Yeah. That worked well.”
“It’s not my fault there’s no signal anymore. Maybe there’s a storm coming.”
Bushy grunted. “It’s the season, alright.”
Cynthia scurried back up the ladder and rooted through her backpack.
“I wonder if they’ll stop the train,” White Hair speculated.
“If it’s a bad storm, probably,” Bushy agreed. “Only question is where and for how long.”
Cynthia climbed back down, a foil-wrapped duck tucked under one arm. “Anybody want to help
me eat this?” she asked, presenting the packet.
Their eyes opened wide. And their mouths.
“No no no no no no no no no no no,” Bushy began.
“Bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu bu,” White Hair repeated.
“You can’t eat that here,” Bushy protested.
“It’s a gift for somebody,” White Hair added.
It was a gift — for her cousin Xiao Ke, who had generously agreed to meet her at Kunming
Station. “I can buy another one just like it in Kunming,” Cynthia shrugged, and tore open the
foil. She wasn’t actually sure that was true. But she was sure her stomach couldn’t wait that
long to find out, and there was no hospitable way to eat it by herself.
They shook their heads right up until the first hunks of roasted duck disappeared into their
mouths, and then all hesitation vanished. They tore into the bird with their fingers. It had been
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smoked dry and tasted nothing like a proper Peking Duck should, but they washed it down with
more baijiu and all agreed it rated right up there with Quanjude.63
Train travel brought out the best in people, Cynthia decided when she had eaten her fill and sat
back, contented, to listen to their restless bantering. Live two days in a small space no bigger
than a closet with a handful of total strangers, and you had no choice but to make friends.
Otherwise it was just too awkward to climb over each other when you were trying to get to your
bunk.
She suddenly wondered if Nathan had every been on a train.
“I'm going to go back to bed,” Cynthia announced, deciding that that was a good thought to take
to sleep with her.
“Wait, wait!” Bushy raised his bottle again. “We’ve got to finish this off first.”
She tried to decline, but it was hopeless. He poured out a final round, and when that didn’t kill
the bottle, he poured out one more. She couldn’t remember whether or not there was a third.
She climbed unsteadily back into her bunk and fell fast asleep, rocked by the train and the hard
liquor.
***
She awoke to the screech of engine breaks as their train pulled into another stop along the long
road. She stretched languidly, or at least she tried to. Her feet and hands bumped against the
walls and ceilings before she could open up too far.
Somewhere nearby a mobile phone beeped. She couldn't remember the last time she had turned
hers on. One week? Two weeks? It was an artifact from another world, another lifetime, it
seemed. She dug it out of her bag and contemplated the device.
Reluctantly, she powered it up. Quest or no quest, she still had a few responsibilities, and would
focus better on the path ahead knowing she had attended to some of the loose ends behind.
While her phone warmed up, a long to-do list of correspondence — it felt very much like
homework — compiled in her head. Certainly, to notify Yun Hui. And probably her friends.
They had been patient with her silence, but she owed them an explanation, and she steeled
herself in advance for the torrent of condolences that would undoubtedly flow. They probably
had a great deal of news of their own. In her circle, a lot could happen in two weeks. Was Jenny
Quanjude (全剧德) - A famous chain of Peking duck restaurants, based in Beijing.
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pregnant yet? Had Ting Ting broken up with another boyfriend? She smiled. Not everything
she had left behind was a bad thing.
Even given her long hiatus from telephony, she was a bit taken aback by the torrent of texts that
poured into her inbox. It seemed that every number in her address book, and many that weren't,
had sent her a message in the past ten days.
The first one was from Menu:
< If you could have chosen to be born anywhere, would you have chosen China? Yes/No. >
She raised her eyebrows. Where had that question come from? And from Menu, no less? Was
he trying to confide some dark secret in her? Or had Harry, jealous Harry, put him up to it —
some oblique barb for spending too much time with foreigners? Either way, it was wildly out of
character, and whatever his purpose, she did not want to muster the brainpower to tackle it now.
She deleted it.
The next text was from Harry. She opened it up, thinking back to their last meeting and knowing
she had some work to do repairing their relationship.
< If you could have chosen to be born anywhere, would you have chosen China? Yes/No. >
Incredibly, it was the same message. What were those boys up to?
Her mind spun through the possibilities — even began to formulate some sharp replies — until
she opened up a third message and found the same question, yet again. This time it was from a
number she didn't recognize, from someone who wasn't even in her address book.
What’s going on?
She skimmed through her inbox and grew more and more bewildered as text after text after text
proved to be the same question, repeated over and over and over.
She turned in her cot and peered down at her cabin buddies. “Have either of you received a text
message like this in the last little while?” She stretched her arm down, phone first.
White Hair took the phone from her hand, then unfolded a pair of ancient bifocals and settled
them across his nose. He squinted, then nodded. “Oh, yeah. That one. It's a virus, or
something. Some Russian thing that set off in Beijing...about a week ago? You didn't know
about that? It was all over the news for days and days.”
Cynthia just shook her head. “I've been busy lately,” she explained vaguely.
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“It hit something like ten million phones.”
“It was one hundred thousand,” Bushy corrected. “Don’t exaggerate.”
“Did they catch the people behind it?” she asked.
“No, no I don't think so. Something about it being really hard to track. It's in so many people’s
phones that they can't seem to figure out where it started. Anyway, I voted China.” White Hair
ended proudly.
“You did not,” Bushy protested doubtfully.
“You mean you didn't?”
“Of course I didn't.”
“Well then, where did you say?”
Bushy weaved his fingers behind his head and leaned back against the partition. He closed his
eyes and seemed transported to another place and time. “Switzerland,” he sighed with conjured
contentment.
White hair snorted loudly. “You'd freeze your southern ass off.”
“Laugh, laugh. At least I’m being honest.”
“You think I'm not? Switzerland! Do you even know where that is? We were born into the
greatest country in history. We ruled the world for a thousand years! In a hundred more we will
again.”
“I've got more immediate problems,” Bushy objected. “I want my son to go to a good school. I
want to be able to afford to give him that schooling. Did you know that in Switzerland,
university is free?”
“It's not free! You pay for it with your taxes.”
Bushy shrugged away the distinction. “Who cares? As long as I'm making enough to pay them.
And even if I don't have a job, he’d still be able to go. And what about my mom, and my wife's
parents? Over there, the government takes care of their old age. None of this lifelong burden to
cover their hospital bills. I don't need to be a part of history. I just want to take good care of my
family.”
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“Bah!” White Hair shook his head. “You already got your son into university. And you'll get
him through it. He’ll get a good job, you know he will. Hell, there's people from all over the
world come to China looking for jobs because this is where the opportunities are now.
Opportunity! Your son doesn't need the government to give it to him. Just take it. He'll make it!
And make a lot more than he ever would in some tired old country in Europe.”
Cynthia listened to them hurtle arguments back and forth: security versus opportunity; present
versus future.
In the rising heat of their exchange, she found her own answer. It was a cruel question to begin
with, she decided. A false hope. You couldn't change what was. It was just like her uncle had
said: let go of what might have been, and start living with what is — that was the only way to be
free. And so her answer was no — definitively know. She wouldn't live one day trapped inside a
fantasy world.
She began to hate whoever had posed that question. It was a dangerous act, an irresponsible act.
At best it would be ignored. At worst it would sap people’s resolve to face the difficult tasks that
lay ahead in the real world.
With a sudden smile wished she could give Nathan an earful.
Nathan.
Yonghe Gong’s garden of junipers felt like a world away. Indeed it was a world away — her
father’s death had established that border. She didn't know what to make of him. Every month,
a new class of Nathans arrived in Beijing to fill the air with the buzz of pre-school Mandarin.
They were all alike — or so it had always seemed to her.
So why couldn’t she get this one out of her head? It was more than his command over her
language. Their first date, if indeed that was what it had been, had begun with them coloring
with crayons under a tree, and ended with them wearing each other's clothes. He had taken her
to church. She had taken him to temple. She had told him her darkest secret, at a time when she
had told no one else — yet she knew barely the first thing about him. Did he have a family?
Was he married? Why did he find her so interesting? She remembered her own smile, pulled
from her belly by his twinkling eyes and over-clever tongue. It had felt so good to smile, when
there was so much reason to frown.
“What are you grinning at?”
The voice stirred Cynthia from her contemplation. She blinked, and realized that the argument in
her alcove had died. Both Bushy and White Hair sat quietly upon their bunks, staring at her
suspiciously. Her cheeks ached from the smile that split her face.
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“I think I’ve fallen in love,” Cynthia marveled.
It was too soon. Too sudden. And she was too fragile. But none of that mattered compared to
how he made her feel. She tapped out a prayer, took a deep breath, and sent it.
***
Nathan found James working over a large, W-shaped contraption of wires and plastic plumbing.
One hose ran from each side of the ‘W’ to an inverted tank of water. James was attaching wires
from a heavy-looking car battery to fat metal screws protruding from the pipes at either end.
The sharp odor of ammonia pinched Nathan's nostrils. “You really should open a window,” he
advised, dropping his pack heavily at his friend’s door.
“What was that?” James looked up, and blinked, a mad scientist roused from his eureka moment.
The comparison was apt, Nathan decided. James's living room had indeed become a science lab.
Bottles and beakers stood in a glass pile on his dining room table amidst a variety of household
cleaning products. Little bits of tinfoil lay everywhere on the floor.
“You’ve been busy,” Nathan observed, gesturing to the mess.
James stood up. “You're just in time,” he announced proudly. He wrapped the end of wire in his
hand around the battery’s anode terminal. “And that...should...do it!”
The strange contraption just sat there.
“Impressive,” Nathan offered dryly.
“Just wait. Wait for it,” James raised a hand, his enthusiasm undeterred.
Then a small bubble floated from the bottom of each water tank, floated to the top and popped —
and the newly-formed gases displaced a tiny bit of water in each vessel. James snapped his
fingers and shot his friend a triumphant grin.
Nathan waited several long moments for the spectacle to repeat itself. And waited.
James’ hand fell. “I’ll keep working on it,” he promised soberly. Obviously science wasn’t his
strong suit.
Nathan nodded. “You do that.” He passed a weary hand across his face.
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James frowned. He looked more closely under his friend’s drooping brow. “You don't look very
good.”
“I haven't been sleeping well,” Nathan admitted. He hadn't. The sudden elevation to the rank of
wanted terrorist had taken its toll upon his sleep.
James scowled away his friend’s concerns. “It's all in your head, mate. It's been...what? Almost
three weeks since you moved house? If somebody knew something, they would have acted by
now. You’re just paying more attention to what’s always been there, that’s all.”
Nathan nodded slowly. His friend’s logic made sense. He had schooled himself with the same
words every night.
But in truth, it wasn’t the fear of capture that haunted his sleep. It was knowledge of the
consequences — most of them unintended — of their latest, boldest enterprise. Victor’s virus
had a life beyond their control now. It had been isolated, duplicated, and co-opted with
astonishing speed. Their clever efforts had already inspired copycat attacks in Western cities
with major subway networks: New York, London, Washington. And the costs were mounting.
Mobile phone makers had rushed to publish patches — both to inoculate the vast cellular
population and to halt the slide in their stock prices.
Not everything had gone awry. He took some solace in the international coverage their exploits
had generated, and the symbolic importance foreign media ascribed to the data they had
scavenged from under the Party’s nose. Sensational papers back home were calling it the death
knell of socialism — final proof that the theories of Marx had no home in people’s hearts.
Steadier editorial minds branded it a ‘significant experiment’, at least, and noted that any
government confronted with such startling statistics ought to do some serious soul searching.
But such ideas had failed to penetrate the public’s mind back here. The domestic media had, as
usual, worked their spin brilliantly, turning the crisis into further proof that the world was out to
get China. The data was obviously fraudulent. Those who published it lacked the integrity to
care. ‘Foreign-sponsored civic terrorism’ entered the newsspeak lexicon overnight, and an
endless parade of commentators, politicians, and personalities berated this latest attempt to
divide the Chinese people against themselves, every day at noon and seven o’clock. The best
defense was, of course, unity — behind the Party.
In essence, everyone heard what they wanted to hear, and Nathan doubted that all their efforts
had changed even one person’s mind. At best, the novelty of their question had stirred a few
debates. He hoped.
James knew the truth of Nathan’s restlessness, but he was better able to push the doubts away.
James was a soldier, used to bearing the sometimes ugly consequences of the investment
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decisions he executed. There were always unintended casualties on the road to mission success,
and he readily accepted that reality.
But not Nathan. He spent too much time worrying about the blood on his hands, and not enough
time feeling good about the ground they had gained.
“How would you feel if I left town for a few days?” Nathan asked suddenly.
James noticed the backpack leaning against his door for the first time. He nodded slowly — not
thrilled by the news but not wholly surprised by it either. “Where would you go?” he asked in
return, pretending that the question was still a hypothetical, but understanding that his partner
had already made his decision.
“Yunnan.”
“Yunnan?” After more than half a decade in the country, James wasn’t even sure he knew where
the province was. Somewhere far, far away to the south-west. “Well, that’s definitely out of
town. Maybe out of civilization. Why there?”
Nathan briefly considered subterfuge, but he just couldn’t come up with a plausible-sounding
story fast enough. So he opted for truth. “Cynthia is heading out there for a couple of days. She
invited me along.”
James’ eyes widened at that particular revelation. “Cynthia?” he repeated, his voice flat.
Nathan nodded.
James crouched before his car battery and fiddled with the wiring while he thought about how
best to respond. “Cynthia, the journalist who’s friends with the Party guy whose boss’s career
we destroyed? The one you said you wouldn’t see again? You mean that Cynthia?”
“I said probably wouldn’t see again,” Nathan corrected his partner, then hastily put up his hands
when James started to rise. To slug him, no doubt.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Nathan instinctively took a step back from the undoubtedly stronger man,
grinning. “I admit it. I lied. I promised to take her to see a church and I did. I didn’t tell you
about it, and I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “But it was only one time, and only her, and we
didn’t once talk about press conferences or tall buildings or Russian showgirls named Kristina.”
James grimaced, and failed to share his partner’s levity. He knew Nathan was a talented liar.
That particular skill had extricated them from more than one tight situation in the past, and James
was accustomed to it. No, what worried James was that Nathan had felt it necessary to lie to
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him. That didn’t make sense at all — not so long as they both remained fully committed to the
same goals.
“I know it's probably not the best idea,” Nathan rushed on. “But...She's been back home in
Nanjing the past few weeks, for her father’s funeral. He was exiled to Yunnan in the Sixties — I
guess she just felt like spending some more time with him before returning to the real world. I’m
flattered that she thought to invite me along, actually.”
James heard the details but wasn’t interested by them. They all seemed to miss the point.
“Where are you going with this, Nathan?”
The direct question caused Nathan to squirm uncomfortably. “Nowhere,” he evaded, and his
blue eyes seemed sincere. “I just want...I need to get away from here for a couple days.” He
passed his hand over his face again. “You’re not the one whose been setting up at Tiananmen
every morning for the past month, sweating every moment just waiting for one of them to walk
up and arrest you. James, the surveillance there is insane. We’re insane, to be planning this. I
just...I have to catch my breath before we go through with it.”
“You do look exhausted,” James admitted. “Maybe you should get some rest for a couple of
days. God knows we’re going to do a lot of running afterwards.” Then his face turned stern.
“But you and I both know that’s not what this is really about. Fine, so you lied to me about
seeing her again. I can deal with that. But don’t lie to me again now. You want to go? Then go
— you’ve already made that decision anyway — but I want you to tell me the truth.”
Nathan denied the man’s penetrating gaze for a long moment, but ultimately knew he would have
to flinch first. “Okay. Okay,” he conceded, and raised his hands in surrender. “I like her. There,
I said it.”
James nodded. “You’re making a mistake.”
His blunt assessment immediately put Nathan on the defensive. “Why? Because I’m getting
‘close’ to the enemy? You’ve been ‘getting close’ with Chinese girls for five years.” Nathan
scoffed away his partner’s imaginary fears.
“Yeah, at bars and on dance floors, and half-drunk afterwards! And everyone knows the bed will
be empty come morning. We're soldiers Nathan, not saints.” He paused, measuring his words
carefully. “Soldiers don’t marry until after the war is over. It confuses their loyalties.”
Nathan frowned at the implied accusation. “No one’s getting married, James. This isn’t a
serious relationship.”
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James nodded again, but continued to scrutinize his friend’s face. For the first time, he soberly
assessed just how heavy a toll the stress of the past few weeks had taken upon him. Good men
made bad choices under such strain. “Does she know that?”
Nathan looked away. “I haven’t seen her in weeks,” he half-answered lamely.
Nathan’s face clouded over, and James understood that he had led his partner to questions he
himself hadn’t had time to sort through yet — and wasn’t going to sort through now. He decided
not to push the man further. It was a decision he would regret many times in the months and
years ahead. “Alright,” he nodded. “Alright. I’ll say it again — you’re making a mistake — but
maybe it’s one you’ve got to make. So where does this leave us with your project?”
Nathan waved the dangling concern away. “No worries there. It’s done. Anything I add now is
just more fuel for the fire.”
“We’re only one week away,” James reminded him.
Nathan nodded. “I’ll be back in plenty of time for the final run-through.” He rapped James’
contraption with the knuckles of one hand. “Hopefully that’ll give you enough time to find a
grade four science textbook.”
James glowered.
Nathan grinned, and a bit of the usual sparkle returned to his blue eyes. Already he seemed more
relaxed.
James hoped that was a good sign.
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Chapter Nineteen
The train station in Kunming was far less grandiose than Nanjing’s. It was the end of a spoke,
not a hub, and it would be a few decades before the 21st century journeyed this far down the line.
A monument stood in the plaza outside Kunming Station, set atop a stone pedestal. It was a
Communist classic rendered in rusty red iron: a stocky, blocky man dressed in cap and overalls,
pumping a fist the size of a melon above his head. Cynthia could almost hear him shouting ‘Mao
Zhuxi wan sui!’64Per his text message, her cousin Xiao Ke stood atop the pedestal — one hand
hooked around the golem’s bicep, the other enthusiastically waving her over.
He jumped down at her approach.
“Cousin,” they greeted each other with the casual familiarity of family. Cynthia offered him the
handle of her suitcase and issued the same implicit command with which she would make him
carry her book bag twenty years prior.
Xiao Ke always reminded her of a rat. His nose was long and pointed, and his eyes were
permanently narrowed, as if unaccustomed to sunlight. Even his hair was rattish, somehow —
black and coarse, and pulled back flat against his scalp by a lifetime of wriggling through tight
holes. Fortunately for him, the rat was a star sign in the twelve-year Chinese zodiac, so at least
one-twelfth of the population considered her cousin’s appearance to be a good omen.
He peered into his cousin’s face. “You don't look very well.” Family were always brutally
honest with each other at reunions.
“I don't feel so good,” Cynthia realized, and reported. “I've got a bit of a headache, and my
tummy hurts.”
Xiao Ke sniffed, and the gesture caused the tip of his nose to wobble. “You'll feel better once
we’re on the open road. The air here in the city is pretty bad.”
Cynthia looked up at the pale blue sky above Kunming and wondered how he’d find Beijing.
He led her out of the plaza and toward the carpark.
Her cousin drove a four-door subcompact. It was an unfortunate yellow color that resembled
something more properly found in a toilet, but right now Cynthia’s stomach was too delicate to
Mao Zhuxi wan sui! (毛主席万岁) - Long live Chairman Mao! Literally, ‘May Chairman Mao live ten thousand
years.’
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voice the comparison. It was a minor miracle that they could fit four doors onto a car that small,
and as she squeezed into the front passenger seat she began to wish she had booked a flight
instead.
He guided his car out of the train station’s parking lot and onto one of Kunming’s many broad
avenues. “So, this American friend of yours we’re picking up at the airport. Are you two...” he
made a vague interlocking gesture with his two hands.
Cynthia blushed and shook her head vigorously. “Cousin!” she scolded him.
“What? I need to know how many beds to book for the night, don't I?”
“He's just a friend,” Cynthia said firmly.
“Who flies all the way from Beijing to Kunming so he can spend three days in a car with you on
the edge of civilization,” Xiao Ke added.
“He's just a friend,” Cynthia said firmly. “We’re not even dating.” She frowned. “I think.”
Xiao Ke raised an eyebrow at her little equivocation. “Then why did you invite him along?”
“He makes me smile.”
***
Nathan had visited many of China’s airports over his years on the mainland — enough to know
that very little distinguished one from the other. Most had been rebuilt within the previous
decade, and all claimed to now be first in some arbitrarily invented category: longest runway,
tallest control tower, most passenger traffic named Li. Kunming’s claim to fame was less
contrived: situated within striking distance of China’s south-western border, the airport had
served as the main base for the Flying Tigers, the famous American fighter squadron that had
helped defend China against Japanese invasion during World War II. Ordinarily Nathan, who
had read so many books on the Pacific War he could list out the major conflicts alphabetically,
would be excited by this opportunity to visit history first-hand. But his mind was fixed on
something else this time.
He stepped out of his arrival gate and was met immediately by Cynthia and a short, rat-faced
man he didn't know.
“Hey,” Nathan offered her a quiet smile, warm and soft. “It’s good to see you again.”
“You, too,” she said, and smiled back. “Thanks for coming.”
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“Thanks for inviting me. You have no idea how much I wanted to get out of Beijing just now.”
His grin faded, to be replaced by a more sombre mask. “I'm sorry about your father,” he offered
gently. “I was worried for you.”
“It’s okay,” Cynthia replied simply. She turned to the man beside her. “This is my mom’s
sister’s son — Xiao Ke,” she explained to Nathan. It was a peculiarity of the Chinese language
that there was no generic word for ‘cousin’. “This is my American friend, Nathan.”
The two shook hands.
“Are you hungry? You want to get something to eat?” Xiao Ke asked.
Nathan's stomach went through an unfamiliar sequence of turns. He put one hand to his belly.
“No thanks. Actually, my stomach feels a bit — I don’t know.”
Just then Cynthia’s phone gave off a strange warble.
She pulled it out and stared at the unfamiliar prompt on her screen. “The Beijing health bureau,”
she muttered, eyebrows lifted in surprise.
Nathan blushed. “Sorry, that's my phone. I haven't downloaded the patch yet. Just say no.”
“What is it?” Cynthia asked. She rejected the file.
Nathan rolled his eyes. “The latest FMA strike,” he explained. “It was all over the news about a
week ago. Some virus that infected thousand and thousands of phones and —”
“And sends out a question by text message?” Cynthia guessed.
“You heard about it?” Nathan asked, and seemed satisfied for some reason.
“My bunk mates on the train from Nanjing told me all about it,” Cynthia nodded. “It sounds like
it was a big deal back in Beijing.”
Nathan shrugged. “It impressed me, anyway. We all got it: me, James, Kirsten, Donato, Ting
Ting — everybody. For a week it seemed like the only thing anyone talked about was that
question. It was all over the news back home in the States, too. Whoever put it together had a
plan to make a big story out of it. But I never would've guessed it had made its way so far
south.” Again, that self-satisfied look splashed across his face. “Did you vote?”
Cynthia shook her head. “Although I got the question maybe a hundred times. I deleted them
all.” Her tone left little doubt about her opinion on the whole matter.
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“Oh,” Nathan's face fell.
“But I'm sure you did,” Cynthia guessed.
“Of course I said China,” he dropped matter-of-factly. “Can you imagine? It would’ve saved me
the pain of learning Mandarin as a second language.” He laughed. Cynthia laughed, too. How
she had missed that sound.
“We should get going,” Cynthia’s cousin interrupted. “We’ve got a long road ahead of us.” His
Yunnan accent was clipped and nasal. It took Nathan a while to translate the sounds into ones he
recognized.
“Just how long is the drive to Guangnan?” Nathan asked curiously.
“Four hours. Maybe eight, depending.”
Nathan raised his eyebrows. That was quite a range. “Depending on what?”
Xiao Ke shrugged his shoulders. “Everything.”
***
They drove through Kunming. The city of over three million was modernizing, but slowly, and
the past and present awkwardly coexisted in the same space. Shiny compact cars zipped down
dusty avenues built to accommodate military parades. City planners of the Communist era had
gotten over-zealous when it came to avenues, it seemed. With a flourish of their pencil they had
doubled every dimension on the off-chance that a victory march might one day pass through.
Now, the effect was simply unfortunate. Xiao Ke turned onto the main artery. Pillars of bright
yellow daisies, carved in steel, stood at regularly spaced intervals along the road, an immortal,
floral honor guard for the tanks that would never come. Rainbow arches of blinking colored
lights interspersed the flowers — garish runways for bees far too sensible to ever be lured near.
Flanking the avenue on either side were the big apartment blocks that had once been the ultimate
blueprint for urban life in China. One after the other, they rose in centrally planned regularity.
Whoever had drawn up their blueprints was, Cynthia surmised, also responsible for deciding to
face them with bathroom tiles — perhaps the most disastrous decision ever taken by the Party.
Paint would have been preferable. Or even bare concrete. Instead they had chosen tiles: narrow,
grayish-white plates separated by dark brown strips of mortar whose only virtue was that they
could be mass produced cheaply from available raw materials. If the bureaucrat in charge had
only asked his wife for her opinion, urban China might have been spared its greatest humiliation.
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Xiao Ke chauffeured them along. On the back of his seat hanged a green jacket cut from the sort
of rough material that army men wore. A patch stitched onto the shoulder read ‘highway
division’.
“Are you still in the Army?” Cynthia asked from the back seat. After high school, Xiao Ke had
enlisted. The military was a respectable option everywhere for people who wanted but could not
afford a university education, but it held a special prestige in Yunnan — a border province that in
the 1850’s had fought off British and French invasions from neighboring Burma and Vietnam,
and in World War II had fought off the Japanese. In the 1970’s and ’80’s, when the world had
been trying to sort out whether Indochina belonged to the Soviets or the Americans or nobody in
particular, Yunnan was where China had mobilized its preference for the third option. After
Soviet-backed Vietnam successfully conquered China-friendly Cambodia in 1979, Xiao Ke’s
father had been sent across the border into Vietnam with two hundred thousand comrades to do
some unpleasant things involving fire and guns.
Xiao Ke shook his head. “No. Highway Patrol. I left the Army when my term was up. They
told me I wasn’t officer material.”
There was bitterness behind the words, and it occurs to Cynthia that she wasn’t the only one with
mountains to climb. It couldn’t have been easy growing up in backwater rural Yunnan, where the
most tangible benefit of the wealth expansion underway at the country’s core might be the
appearance of Oreo cookies on store shelves. Cynthia had been born into much more
opportunity, and she regretted now some of the cruelties she had visited upon him those years
when he had lived with her family in Nanjing. Like taking his lunch money. Her parents would
give each of them two kuai to buy lunch from the streetside vendors outside the school. But
Cynthia would want to spend three, and so every day she would ask Xiao Ke for half his money.
She never shared what she bought, and he was too shy to complain.
As a girl she could get away with things like that.
“Did you guys grow up together?” Nathan asked, seemingly reading Cynthia’s thoughts. “What
I mean is — Yunnan is a long ways away from Nanjing.”
“When I was nine, my parents sent me to Nanjing to live with Cynthia’s parents,” Xiao Ke
explained. “The education system in Wenshan — that’s my home town — is not quite up to big
city standards.”
“Neither were your grades,” Cynthia recalled.
Xiao Ke made a face, and Cynthia laughed. It had been a good time. The same age, they had
fast become best friends. He had been what she imagined a brother would always be like: full of
a mix of good and stupid ideas, and too naive about city living to distinguish between the two.
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His grades had shot up — mostly because Cynthia was always ranked near the top of the class
and he hated losing to her.
“I made him carry my book bag to and from school every day,” Cynthia confided in Nathan.
“And always got me into trouble,” Xiao Ke recalled with mock bitterness. “Remember that New
Year’s when we blew up your mom’s flower bed?”
“You did what?!?” Nathan exclaimed.
“With fireworks,” Cynthia explained. “You were the one lighting the fuses,” she chastised her
cousin.
“It was your idea to tie them all together like that,” Xiao Ke reminded her.
Cynthia frowned — and then did remember. “Oh, yeah.” She grinned at the refreshed memory.
It was the nature of little kids to try to make their fun especially good. If rolling down a hill was
fun, then rolling down a steep hill should be especially fun. And if one firework made a loud
boom, then surely five taped together would make a bigger boom. Somewhere along the way
they had missed a logical step, called safety.
“That was fun,” they concluded together, and laughed.
“We were best friends then,” Cynthia said, and smiled wistfully. “Although it's been a long time
since we saw each other last, hey Xiao Ke? I guess it would have been...” her voice trailed off.
“Your wedding,” her cousin supplied.
Nathan nearly choked. “You’re married?” he spluttered incredulously.
Cynthia scowled in her cousin's direction. “Divorced,” she clarified.
Nathan abruptly rolled down his window and threw up noisily onto the road.
“Nathan!” Cynthia exclaimed, alarmed.
Xiao Ke patted him on the back with one hand and kept driving with the other. “It’s okay. I
think you might have altitude sickness,” he observed.
Nathan spit out the icky aftertaste of his sick and tried not to look at the cars in the next lane. He
collapsed back into his seat and rolled up the window. “How much higher are we?” he asked
weakly. His stomach felt better — for the moment.
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“Than Beijing? About two kilometers.”
He rolled down the window again.
***
Flat land did not exist here. All was mountains and hills and the valleys between them, arranged
like the roller coaster at Nanjing’s People’s Amusement Park. As they drove through the Yunnan
countryside Cynthia’s sight skimmed playfully just above the fields, zipping dangerously low to
the earth and then pulling up, up, up into a furious climb to avoid smashing into a hill. She
floated at the crest for an exhilarated moment before plunging down into the next valley.
Nathan had managed to get his stomach under control, but still let out a groan whenever the road
dropped too steeply.
“Zhuang zu,” Xiao Ke pointed up ahead. They were about to pass a clump of pedestrians
trudging along the side of the highway, mostly women and children, all dressed in blue and black
jackets and skirts, edged with lace and with elaborately beaded aprons tied around their waists.
“They weave all that stuff by hand in their villages. They even make their own dye.” He
suddenly snapped his fingers. “Hey, maybe we could start a business selling their clothes in
Beijing.”
Cynthia took a good look as they drove past. “I might buy one of their jackets,” she admitted
dubiously. “But when would I wear it? I don’t think there’s much of a market for national dress.
And what there is, is probably being served already by Yunnan expats.”
Next they overtook an ox, who had the unfortunate fate to be born in one of the few places where
oxen remained beasts of burden. It was pulling a wooden-wheeled cart laden high with tightlybound bushels of freshly harvested tea. The cart’s driver leaned back with the patient laziness of
one who knew that while the distance he needed to travel was really not that far in modern terms,
his transport was so slow as to make the journey seem decadent.
“What about tea?” Xiao Ke asked.
Cynthia shook her head again. “Too late. There’s a Yunnan tea shop not five minutes from my
apartment.”
At some point Xiao Ke pulled a pouch from under his seat. “Candy?” he offered his passengers.
Nathan peered green-faced into the bag of assorted hand-made sweets and had a sudden vision of
unwashed hands kneading flour and sugar together. “No thanks,” he shook his head
emphatically.
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“Xiao Fan?”
“Uh uh.”
“Suit yourself.” He popped a piece into his own mouth and casually tossed the wrapper out his
window.
“Hey!” Cynthia protested.
“What?!”
“You can't just throw trash on the road like that!” Cynthia scolded him.
He chuckled. “This is Yunnan. You’re not in the big city anymore.”
They came up to a set of toll booths and joined a small queue. There were two lanes and a halfdozen operators who sat in small boxes decorated only by a framed photograph of Chairman
Mao. They looked bored. I don’t blame them, Cynthia thought. Collect money. Push a button.
The gate opens. Collect money. Push a button. The gate opens. It wouldn’t excite her either.
“Maybe you can sell automatic toll booths,” Nathan speculated.
Xiao Ke laughed. “The problem here is not the cost of labor; it’s finding enough tasks to keep
everyone busy.”
They passed a field where tall grasses stood in stooks to dry. A trio sat together on a hilltop,
watching the cars buzz along the highway. There was something self-satisfied in the way they
gazed out over the crop they'd just harvested. It was only mid-afternoon but already their work
was done and they indulged in the ultimate rural luxury — doing nothing.
Nathan studied the trio as they drove by, and almost envied them. They traded hard questions for
hard labor. His life seemed so complex in comparison. It wasn't enough to do the task in front
of him. He also had to carve out time to make plans for what came next — for career, for
finances, for relationships. And with those plans came all the stress of wondering: Were his
choices correct? Would he live up to them? What if he failed?
It wouldn’t be so bad, he mused, to join a great socialist revolution in some other lifetime, and
spend a few years doing simple, honest labor that left the mind free to contemplate life —
without constantly worrying about how badly you were mismanaging it.
It was the land whispering such thoughts to him, he realized — this landscape of hills and valleys
that had been carved into cultivatable terraces by millennia of farmers. Even the highway
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embankment had been squared off and seeded. Socialism was the natural preference of people
whose lives moved at the pace with which grain grew. It was no wonder that Mao’s power had
been based in the fields — in provinces like this one — and feared in the cities, where everything
was bright lights and automobiles and aeroplanes.
Maybe Marx and Lenin had understood the human soul better than the modern world gave them
credit — understood that, while liberty made societies faster and wealthier and louder and
bigger, at a personal level it was really quite stressful. Creative destruction served the greater
good, but that was cold comfort when it was your job that got destroyed. Socialism offered a
different contract. Maybe a bit slower. Maybe less exciting. Not so many video games. But at
the individual level life could be a whole lot more peaceful.
Suddenly, it didn't seem stupid to try to organize society that way. It was a bold, brilliant vision.
It might even have succeeded except for the human tendency to bore easily.
Nathan sighed.
“Are we there yet?” he complained.
***
They were not.
They stopped for lunch at Yunnan’s version of a truckstop. The restaurant was a wide, one-room
rectangle of bare concrete and thatch. One long wall of dirty plexi-glass looked out onto the
highway; along the other side the kitchen’s available ingredients sat on display in baskets and
pans and tanks of water. A yellowed paper poster of the Great Helmsman kept a watchful eye
over the wriggling fish.
They browsed the selection. A serving girl approached them, pen and paper at the ready, and
Cynthia and her cousin pointed here and there, picking out the things they wanted to eat. A leafy
green thing. A chicken. There was no menu: the cook would figure something out from
whatever ingredients they selected.
Nathan left them to the task and peered curiously through an open doorway into the kitchen. The
stove was one long, wide bench of clay tile. Ferocious jets of yellow-blue fire spouted from
three evenly spaced holes in the countertop to scorch the oversized iron woks set atop them.
Each one sizzled with a work-in-progress.
“More bowls!” the cook called out.
Another doorway led off from the kitchen, and beyond it an old woman squatted in front of a
wide basin of water. A serving girl, one hand clutching a little forest of used chopsticks,
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dropped a load of dirty dishes into the water. One by one the old maid scooped them out,
scrubbed them, and stacked them on the floor at her side. It was lunchtime, and there were no
spare bowls. Every one was recruited into the cycle of serving and eating and washing. The
serving girl picked up a clean stack, still dripping with wash water, and carried them over to the
ceramic stove.
The cook lifted an iron grate off the front of his stove and the girl stuffed her handful of
chopsticks into its blazing mouth.
“What a waste!” Nathan muttered.
“What is?” Xiao Ke, haggling for a discount on a pair of roasted ducks, looked over at the
foreigner.
“They burn their dirty chopsticks.”
“So?”
“They should wash them.”
“Who wants to eat with used chopsticks?!”
“What if everyone burned their chopsticks?” Nathan sighed. “What if the whole of China burned
their chopsticks every night? In a year there’d be no trees left on earth.”
“You know how long it would take to wash chopsticks?” A bushel basket full of the utensils sat
by the kitchen doorway, and Xiao Ke grabbed a handful for emphasis. “They’ve got an endless
supply.”
Nathan looked to Cynthia for support, but she simply shrugged as if to say there was no use
talking to country folk about such stuff.
They found a table and settled in for the food to arrive. They didn't wait long, and soon Xiao Ke
and Cynthia were tearing into a plate of chopped chicken parts dripping in a fiery red sauce.
Nathan abstained, and instead occupied himself with examining the photograph Cynthia had told
them about.
Xiao Ke gauged the sun through the plexi-glass window. “We should try to get to Guangnan
before dark,” he advised them between mouthfuls. “The highway gets a little tricky without
daylight.”
Cynthia licked her fingers carefully and gave their driver a shrewd look. “What do you mean by
‘a little tricky’, exactly? You drive these roads for a living, right?”
225
Xiao Ke grinned. “Relax, Xiao Fan. There are a couple bad spots where boulders tend to fall
from the mountain into the road, that’s all. We’d be pretty unlucky to actually get hit by one of
them.”
Nathan looked up with a grimace, not entirely put at ease by that answer. “What happens when
we get to Guangnan?” he wanted to know.
A plate of steamed cabbage and mushrooms arrived. Cynthia selected a morsel and chewed.
“We’ll stop for the night, then keep on going in the morning. If we’re lucky we’ll get to dad’s
village by midday.”
“There are hundreds of villages in the area,” her cousin warned. “Do you even know which one
it is?”
Cynthia nodded firmly. “Liban. It’s supposed to be south of Guangnan. Maybe fifty
kilometers.”
“And that’s where you think we’ll find her?” Nathan guessed, and held up the photograph of the
mysterious woman in front of the water wheel.
Cynthia nodded.
Nathan examined the photograph carefully. The woman was plain, but beautiful. She reminded
him of Cynthia.
Xiao Ke leaned over his plate to peer at the photograph. “Are you sure that was taken in Liban?”
Cynthia shrugged. “The date on the back says 1967. As far as I know, that’s where dad lived at
that time. I don’t have anything else to go on.”
“How do we even know she’s still alive?” her cousin challenged.
“We don't,” Cynthia admitted. She confronted his doubting stare defiantly.
“So we’ve got a photograph of a woman you’ve never met — who might be dead — leading us
to a place you've never been. Are you really sure about this, cousin?” Xiao Ke dared to ask. “It
would be a long way to go for nothing.”
“If you don’t want to come along, you can wait here until we get back!” Cynthia snapped at the
rat-faced man, a bit coldly, and his expression turned from skepticism to hurt.
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“上山下乡,” Nathan mumbled. He looked up from the photo, struggling to recall the
significance of those four characters.
“What was that?” Cynthia asked, her tone still sharp.
“The ribbon she’s got pinned on her breast. It reads ‘shang shan xia xiang’.”
“What ribbon?” she snatched the photograph from his hands and peered at it carefully. She’d
spent so long staring at the woman’s face, she hadn’t even noticed her clothes. And there it was.
The characters were miniscule, but legible.
“The way up the mountain lies through the countryside,” Cynthia recited. Her eyes widened.
The slogan had been the philosophical essence of the Cultural Revolution, the guiding principle
that had tossed a whole generation of educated professionals out of the cities and exiled them to
some village, somewhere, to be indoctrinated in the ethics of honest labour.
Like her father. And like this woman? It seemed clear now that they were connected by her
father’s exile — somehow.
“My dad’s trusting me to do this,” she told her cousin, and now her tone was soft. “He set me on
this path. A long time ago. He's trusting me not to let his secret die with him.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow, and Xiao Ke looked skeptical. “What secret is that?” he pressed.
“I don't know yet,” she admitted.
***
They wound steadily up a mountain highway where speed was limited only by one's tolerance
for potholes and risk. A wall of solid rock rose on their left; on their right, the road fell away into
deep valleys stuffed thick with green trees.
Every hundred meters or so a large pile of boulders rested against the mountain wall, spilling
partially into the roadway.
“Our work unit maintains this road,” Xiao Ke explained, steering around another of the rock
piles.
Cynthia winced as they drove through a pothole on the other side. ‘Maintenance’ apparently
meant different things to different people.
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“Where do all the rocks come from?” Nathan asked.
Cynthia’s cousin looked at the man as if he were dense. “I told you: they fall.”
Given the number and size of the rock piles they passed, that must have happened with — for a
passenger in a slow-moving vehicle on the very same road — alarming frequency. Nathan
trained his eyes up the slope apprehensively and hoped their luck held.
The car jolted again and they heard the crunch of metal on stone.
“Sorry,” Xiao Ke apologized.
They continued to creep along. Cynthia and Nathan took turns pointing out features on the
landscape. Here and there an aqueduct would cross the valley floor — a narrow, stone-walled
stream that meandered its way over to a huddle of slate roofs fed by the snaking lifeline of rain
and runoff.
At least they’ll never turn the tap on in the morning and find their hot water has been
disconnected, Cynthia thought.
“Have you ever been here before?” Nathan asked Cynthia. He had his journal in his hands and
was idly sketching flashes of the surrounding scenery.
Cynthia shook her head. “The only real stories I have are from my sisters. They all grew up
here. My oldest sister was already sixteen when mom and dad were permitted to relocate back to
Nanjing.”
“What do you remember?”
Cynthia rolled down her window and pointed down into the valley. “Their village was a lot like
that.”
Nathan peered down into the valley and tried to imagine growing up in that cluster of isolated
dwellings. “What did they do for fun?” he wondered.
Cynthia laughed. “Once a month, there would be a movie night in the town square. Dajie would
make Erjie and Sanjie eat their rice quickly — if they couldn’t eat fast enough they’d have to
leave it behind — and then they’d run down to the square and grab the best spot. In the center,
near the back where the speaker was set up and you could hear the best.”
“What movies did they show?” Xiao Ke asked. The road wasn’t quite so precarious anymore,
and his attention strayed to the conversation in the back seat.
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“There were eight,” Cynthia began.
“Only eight?” Nathan exclaimed.
Cynthia nodded. “Every month there would be a different one.”
“What happened when they finished showing all eight?” Nathan asked.
“They would start again with number one,” Cynthia shrugged.
Nathan thought about that. “Wouldn’t that get a bit boring?”
Cynthia smiled wryly. “Somehow they didn’t seem to think so.” She struggled to resurrect the
stories she’d been told as a little girl. “I guess that's just what going to the movies meant back
then: seeing one of those eight films. They never had the idea that they were missing some
other thing that was out there — because there wasn't anything else.”
Nathan shook his head and struggled to imagine living that life. “What other sorts of games did
they play?” he wondered.
“Hopscotch,” Cynthia remembered. “Or they’d throw pebbles in the air and see who could catch
the most. A lot of it was like that: competition. Who could jump across the stream? Who could
throw a rock over the fence? Who could run fastest to the well and back? Who could touch the
bottom of the pond?”
“We did the same,” Xiao Ke noted.
Cynthia nodded.
“Who won?” Nathan asked with a grin.
“Xiao Fan,” Xiao Ke made a face. “Always Xiao Fan.”
“Is that your journal?” Cynthia asked curiously, peeking around the edge of his book. “What are
you writing?”
Nathan half-closed the hard-bound book protectively. “Just some stuff,” he replied vaguely.
“What sort of stuff?” Cynthia probed with a cautious smile.
“Stuff I’m thinking about,” he replied with a mischievous grin. He held it open to her and
fanned through the pages quickly, too quickly for her to read. There were some things inside this
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book he definitely didn't want her to see. It suddenly occurred to him that he should have left it
at home entirely.
“Uh oh,” Xiao Ke interrupted.
“What, uh oh?” Cynthia’s heart started to pound and she instinctively covered his head. Nathan
made use of the sudden distraction to stuff his journal deep into the bottom of his backpack.
Xiao Ke pulled over to the side of the highway and cut the engine. He flipped on his hazard
lights and jumped out of the car.
Nathan and Cynthia traded looks. They had no idea what was going on.
“Ni ma de!” her cousin shouted profanities from under the hood.
“What's wrong?” Nathan got out of the car and joined him in a crouch before the front bumper.
“Ni ma de!” Xiao Ke repeated, and pointed. A pool of brackish brown liquid stained the
pavement under the front chassis. From somewhere up in the bowels of the car a dark drop fell
into the pool. And then another.
“The oil filter’s busted,” Xiao Ke explained between swears. He reached his hand underneath
the car and wrenched something free: a small cylinder, one end crumpled and slick with oil. “It
must've happened when we hit that big pothole back there.”
“Can we still drive?”
Nathan could tell from the look in Xiao Ke’s eyes — that was another very dense question.
“Alright, so what do we do?”
“There’s a patrol barracks another ten kilometers up the road.” He got out his mobile phone. “If
somebody’s there they can give us a tow.”
Nathan stepped back to the passenger side while Xiao Ke made his call.
“What’s going on?” Cynthia demanded through the window.
He filled her in on the situation. This whole family was pretty good at swearing, he noticed.
“Okay, someone’s going to come give us a tow,” Xiao Ke announced. “We’ll just have to wait
for a bit.”
“Clarify ‘a bit’,” Cynthia challenged him.
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Xiao Ke tilted a hand back-and-forth in an approximating gesture. “Maybe an hour?” he offered
hopefully.
Cynthia collapsed back onto her seat with a loud groan.
One hour passed.
Then two.
“It’s a tough road,” Xiao Ke apologized for the hundredth time. “They’ll get here as soon as they
can.”
At last Cynthia grew tired of sitting around. “I'm going to go for a walk,” she announced.
“Where?” Xiao Ke asked, concerned.
“Over there,” she waved one hand out airily. “I won't be far. Honk when it’s time to go.” A dirt
trail snaked down into the valley. She set upon it and quickly lost sight of the highway.
“Coming, Nathan?” she called out, and kept trudging.
They followed the trail all the way to the valley floor, and then inland across the fields. The
man-made terraces of earth were more impressive up close — more impressive, Nathan thought,
than the Ming emperor’s Great Wall — which was, after all, just a wall that snaked from hill
crest to hill crest for a few thousand miles. But to carve the hills themselves? To break their
long, even slopes into wide steps for something as mundane as planting rice? Who had had the
greater vision?
Other civilizations had built such steps in order to reach the gods atop their hilltop temples. But
there were no places of worship atop the hills here — just more fields, more crops. For farmers,
religion was a pragmatic thing. They put their faith in the earth. They placed their hope in their
children. They gave thanks to their parents and ancestors.
The pair trudged between narrow rows of tea bushes until they came to a small stand of trees.
Several had been felled, their trunks stripped of branches and bark. It looked like recent work.
Maybe somebody was building a new house.
“So, you were married,” Nathan broke the awkward silence.
“Yeah.” Cynthia shrugged. “His name was Bai. I guess I haven't had time to tell you all my
secrets yet,” she added dryly. “It’s okay. You can ask. I don't mind.”
“Okay. So why did you break up?”
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“Because his mother hated me,” she answered matter-of-factly.
Nathan snorted. “All mothers hate the girl her son marries.”
“Yeah, but not all mothers push them to divorce.” She sighed. “My ex-husband came from a
privileged family,” she explained, taking a seat on one of the logs. “His dad was military; his
mom was a bureaucrat in the finance ministry. And his great-grandmother had been a Party
founder who had gone to France in the 1920s with Zhou Enlai and all the rest to study Marx and
Engels and Lenin.”
“I take it your family doesn’t have the same pedigree,” Nathan guessed, and took a seat beside
her.
Cynthia scowled. “Actually, my great-grandmother was Zhuang nobility. She had a courtyard
mansion in Guangnan, in the square right opposite the imperial palace.”
“Really? Can we go see it?”
Cynthia nodded. “Sure. It’s a restaurant now, I think mom said. The government took it away
after ’49, along with everything else.”
Nathan thought about that. 1949 had united the country, but it had also divided it — into those
who supported the Party, and those who had no other choice.
“My ex-husband’s mom had a very clear idea of what sort of woman her son should marry —
and I wasn’t it. I was this free spirit, studying law in university and running track with the boys
and thinking about all the places I was going to travel with the money I would make. And he
was this sheltered little Party kid who had never done a thing without his parents first telling him
he should. But we met and fell in love anyway.”
She chuckled. “I got him into so much trouble.” She leaned back on the log with a smile that
hinted at happier times.
“After graduation,” she continued, “he moved back to Beijing — his mom got him a job in the
finance ministry — and I moved, too, so we could keep seeing each other. And that’s when his
mother started to take steps.”
An animal snorted, and they both looked up. A middle-aged man stood behind an ox-drawn
plow in a nearby field. He was looking at Nathan. Another woman stood nearby amid the tea
bushes, a woven basket slung over her shoulders.
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“I'm sorry,” Cynthia called. It never occurred to her that they might be trespassing on
somebody’s land. She stood up, and Nathan did likewise. “We’re just passing through. Our car
broke down on the highway and we’re waiting for a tow.”
The man stared at them both, his face unreadable. His features were Han, but his skin was very
dark from long years under the open sky.
“!ེད་རང་ག་པར་ཕེབས་ཀས?”65Gibberish spouted out of his mouth. He waited for the reply they could
not give. After a fruitless moment he waved dismissively, swatted the rump of his ox, and
continued digging his furrow.
Cynthia hadn’t understand a word. Neither, she supposed, had he. They lived in the same
country, but not the same world.
The pair kept walking. Cynthia slipped her hand into Nathan’s — slowly, so that if he flinched
she could pretend the contact was accidental. But he didn’t flinch. His fingers opened slightly to
allow for the space of her palm, and then they closed around it in a grasp that was calm and sure.
“Where was I?” Cynthia wondered.
“Uh — his mother had just hired assassins to take you out.” Nathan grinned. Her hand felt nice.
Cynthia made a face. “I almost think that would have been less painful. My first job in Beijing
was as a journalist for the Beijing Financial Times — which, as I found out, was controlled by
the Ministry of Finance.”
“Uh oh.”
“Yeah. One day, the chief editor called me into his office. I had no idea what for. He started to
ask me if I’m enjoying my work, how I’m finding Beijing, stuff like that. Then he asked about
my boyfriend and I told him he worked in the finance ministry. And then he said something like:
“Ah. That’s difficult. Your boyfriend must be a very busy man, then. It must be hard for
the two of you to find time together.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. So then he said:
“An intelligent woman like you should find a husband who is less involved in his career
— someone who can spend more time with you.”
!ེད་རང་ག་པར་ཕེབས་ཀས (khyed rang ga par phebs kas) - A common Tibetan greeting. Literally, ‘Where are you
going?’
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Nathan frowned. “Why was your boss giving you relationship advice?”
“He was the head of my danwei — my work unit. It wasn’t unusual for them to meddle in your
private life, especially if you were from out-of-town. But later I figured out that it was Bai’s
mother who had put him up to that conversation.”
“How?”
“She told me herself. A couple weeks later, I arrived at the office and my boss came over and
told me that she was in the conference room, waiting to see me.”
“She confronted you at work?” Nathan was stunned.
Cynthia nodded. “And I was terrified. I wanted to run out the door right then. But it wasn’t that
easy. She had the power to end my job. I didn’t have a Beijing hukou; if i lost my job, I’d lose
my residency. It was like stepping inside an interrogation cell.”66
“I’ll bet.”
“She sat at the head of the table, and looked at me as if I were something less than human. She
told me to sit down, and then she just said it:”
“You and my son have no future together. You are not good enough for him.”
“I’ll never forget it. I expected her to say something like that, but it still scared me. I didn’t have
much hope then — but I loved Bai and I wasn’t going to just walk out the door. So I confronted
her:”
“Are you going to send me away from this newspaper?”
“If I must.”
“I will tell your son what you did.”
“He will understand my decision!”
“He will hate you for it.”
“And I knew I was right. I made Bai happy, happier than he had ever been living with her. I was
young; I thought that would be enough:”
hukou (户口) - The Chinese household registration record. A person’s hukou officially identifies his or her valid
place of residence, date of birth, the names of parents, marital status and so forth.
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“I know you want what’s best for your son. I do to. But I am going to let him decide
what that is. If he decides it’s me, then I am sorry — but I intend to fulfill his wishes.
Whether you like me or not.”
“It was the highpoint of my love for him,” Cynthia remembered. “And it won me a certain
grudging respect from his mother. After that, she didn’t stand in the way of our marriage. I think
she was too afraid that we would just run away together if she tried to force us apart.”
They reached the crest of a gentle hill. From this height they could see their path through the
fields of tea all the way back to the mountain road and Xiao Ke’s stranded car. A large truck was
parked in front of it. Apparently help had finally arrived. “I was too stupid to see it, but by
accepting our marriage she wasn’t accepting me — she was just moving the battlefield. She
refused to accept us living on our own, and no matter how hard I fought, Bai refused to go
against his mother’s wishes. So I had to move in with him, into his parents’ home. And right
away his mom sucked all the joy out of our lives. She was always there, one wall away, listening
in. Or telling me what to wear, what to say, what to do. She made sure her son had more and
more work to do, more and more business trips abroad. And while he was away she demanded.
Demanded I be a proper housewife. Demanded I give up my job at the newspaper — the one bit
of happiness left in my day — to take care of her and my husband. I started to work longer and
longer hours, because the office was better than going back to that awful woman. I’d argue with
Bai, more and more, and say I was unhappy, say I was dying inside. Every time he would just
apologize and say he was a good son and had to obey his parents’ wishes.”
She sighed. “So I moved out. And I told him: if he wanted to be with me, he could move in with
me. I wanted him to do it. I wanted him to let go of what he was becoming, and to create with
me the life we had dreamed about on all those summer afternoons in his dorm room.”
“He never did,” Nathan assumed.
Cynthia shook her head. “Of course he didn’t. The next time I saw him was at the marriage
office to get our divorce booklets.” She cocked her head curiously. “Did you know a divorce
booklet looks exactly like a marriage booklet? Only the cover is a deeper shade of red. They
used to be green, but apparently too many people found that depressing and committed suicide
when they returned home. So now they’re red, too, like a marriage certificate — to remind us
that love will find us again.”
She fell silent. That was it — her story. Cynthia had no more secrets to tell. She had
surrendered them to him, one by one, and made her feelings as clear as her heart dared. She
squeezed his hand. “What about you, Nathan?” she invited. “What dark secrets are you hiding
that you haven’t told me yet?”
His eyes went wide.
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Then a horn honked through the hills, echoing rudely everywhere.
It was time to go.
236
Chapter Twenty
One mile outside Guangnan, the broken highway widened into a freshly-laid cement boulevard.
A great stone edifice stood by itself at the edge of the new municipal boundary. According to the
red banner fluttering over the entrance it would be the new administrative centre for the town —
fast becoming a city. Right now it still looked lonely.
Nathan could only gawk.
Cynthia felt a quiet pride. New money and industry had found its way into every farthest corner
of the country. Extreme poverty was history; everyone had rice for their bowl. Now, the fight
was for the next rung up the ladder. Better education. Better health care. A pension. That was
subsistence living in the 21st century.
The truck towing Xiao Ke’s car pulled into a small army barracks on the town’s outskirts as
afternoon was fading into evening. They got out.
“I lived here for three years,” Xiao Ke said.
Cynthia’s eyes swept around the barracks. She was not impressed. The dusty grey courtyard
was enclosed by dusty grey buildings on three sides. How to pass those three years? There was
a basketball net. She imagined her free throws would rival Yao Ming’s by the time her tour of
duty was ended.67 In one corner, a heavy punching bag hung from a gibbet. She had once saw a
Korean war movie where the Chinese hero was captured and sewn up in a bag that looked just
like that, for the sport of his interrogators. She didn't imagine things ever got that exciting here.
A trio of Xiao Ke’s old army brothers piled out of the pick-up truck, and her cousin led them
through an inspection of his car. They all made a great fuss over the engine, and peered and
poked from every angle, but Cynthia suspected none of them had any clue how to fix it. Instead
they pestered him about the unfortunate color. She privately agreed with everything they said
but mostly just felt anxious to get back on the road. If not for their car trouble they could have
been in Liban this very night.
She felt obliged to point that out.
Yao Ming (姚明, 1980-
) - One of China’s best-known athletes, drafted first overall by the National Basketball
Association’s Houston Rockets in 2002.
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Xiao Ke raised his hands helplessly. “Tomorrow,” he reported. “Their mechanic has gone home
for today. Anyway, it’s getting dark and — well, now you know what the roads are like around
here.”
“So what do we do now?” Nathan asked.
Xiao Ke tugged on his nose. “Why don’t we pay a visit to your great aunt, Xiao Fan?”
Cynthia gave her cousin a confused look. “My great aunt?”
“Your mother's mother's eldest sister,” he clarified. “She lives here in Guangnan, with her
daughter. At least, I think she still does. I haven't seen her in a few of years. I used to go over to
her place for dinner when I was posted here.”
“I don’t remember her,” Cynthia confessed.
“How old is she?” Nathan wondered.
Xiao Ke shrugged. “I don’t know exactly. I doubt even she does. No one around here kept
close records back then. She can't see or hear very well. But her memory is still good — or, it
used to be. I’m sure she’d have some stories to tell about your father. And hopefully something
to eat.”
“How do we get there?” Cynthia asked acidly.
Nathan noticed the looks the soldier boys kept sending Cynthia’s way. “I’m pretty sure your
cousin’s friends will be happy to give us a lift,” he predicted.
***
Her great aunt lived at the end of a short alley that was lined on either side by an open sewer —
urban design from a time before plumbing. It was a modest courtyard home, with a humble gate
and a house that formed one side of a little walled square.
A leafy green garden filled two-thirds of the enclosed space. At some point in the past fifty years
flagstones had become an unaffordable luxury, and the bricks had been torn up to grow food in
the soil underneath.
In the remaining third of the courtyard, a low table was set to serve the evening meal. A squat
well sat in one corner, and a wispy, middle-aged woman knelt at the crank, raising water.
“Xiao Ke,” she exclaimed, surprise and affection both in her voice. “What are you doing here?”
She poured a bucket of water into a tin kettle and rushed over to greet them.
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“Auntie Yi,” Xiao Ke greeted the woman with equal warmth. “We were driving to Liban and ran
into some car trouble. This is my cousin, Li Fan, and this is her friend Nathan.” He introduced
them both.
“Wang Ming’s girl?” Yi’s mouth dropped in astonishment. “What in heaven’s name are you
doing in Yunnan?”
“Vacation,” Cynthia smiled.
“Did your mother come with you?” the older woman asked.
“No,” Cynthia replied evenly. “She’s back in Nanjing with my sisters.”
Yi nodded. “I heard about your father,” she said simply.
There was not much Cynthia could say to that, and a moment passed in uncomfortable
remembrance.
“How is your mother?” Xiao Ke asked his aunt instead.
Yi’s face stayed somber. “Not the best,” she admitted. “Usually when autumn comes around she
wants to sit outside all the time and watch the birds migrating north. This year she complains
they’re not as pretty as they used to be. All she wants is to sit beside her warm coals all day.”
“It has been pretty cold up here lately,” Xiao Ke pointed out. “The entire mountainside is
starting to frost up.”
“She still has to get out and get some air,” the dutiful daughter disagreed moodily. “Anyway,
come inside,” she beckoned. “Mother’s waiting for her tea.”
They stepped over the old-style lintel and into the main room of the great aunt’s house. It was
dark. The house had been built in a time before electricity, and electricity had not found it yet.
The most prominent piece of furniture was a large wooden cupboard directly opposite the main
entrance. It housed the household relics: poetic stanzas written on long red scrolls, crinkly
black-and-white photographs fixed inside dusty frames, and a portrait of the Great Helmsman —
whose adoration, Nathan noted, extended even here. The only appliance was a water cooler,
although it was not plugged in, obviously. A single door led off into what must have been the
bedroom.
In the centre of the room, a bed of coals glowed in a wide sand-filled pan. Yi set the kettle atop
the red embers. Her mother sat to one side in a broken-down easy chair — the only seat in the
house that had a back and armrests. She had moved past the age of squatting on stools, and now
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sat upon the elder throne. She had won it, not through combat or conquest, but rather the long
suffering of time. By the standards of her generation, she had cheated death for decades.
Cynthia instantly loved her. Her face was grandmotherly, lined not with wrinkles but crevasses.
Her eyes were small and dark, and cloudy, as if many years spent contemplating death’s arrival
had slowly turned her sight inward.
Nonetheless the old woman smiled at their approach. “What beautiful girls!”
Cynthia smiled. “Nali? Nali?” she demurred politely.
The matriarch shuffled slightly in her seat. “Please forgive me. I do not stand up. My back is
not so good.” Her voice had the gravelly whisper of one who must make the difficult choice
between breath and speech, because she couldn’t manage both at once.
“Ai-oh,” Cynthia chided gently. “Elders do not stand for children.”
“Please sit. Please sit,” her great-aunt cackled softly.
They settled onto a trio of low stools around the glowing brazier and warmed their hands. At this
altitude, the temperature dropped precipitously at twilight.
Her daughter balanced on one of the easy chair’s armrests and began to massage her mother’s
lower back with one hand. The old woman sighed happily.
“Such beautiful girls,” she wheezed again, and Cynthia wondered if she noticed that some of her
guests were male.
Her eyes meet Cynthia’s own, and in them Cynthia glimpsed the peace of someone who had
reached life's end and decided it had been good enough. Her gaze warmed Cynthia from the
inside, even as the pit of coals struggled to take the chill out of her hands.
“Where’s my cha?” the old woman pouted suddenly.
Her daughter paused the back rub long enough to pour some hot water from the kettle into a
ceramic cup and place it in her mother’s hands.
“You can’t live on tea,” the daughter chided her patient. “You should come outside and eat
something. Dinner is already set.”
“You go,” the old woman instructed them. “Do not fuss over me. I will sit here where it is
warm.”
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Her daughter gave her guests a plaintive look. Xiao Ke caught it first. “It’s no fuss,” he shook
his head.
“Join us,” Cynthia added.
“I will eat later. I'm not hungry,” she insisted.
“Please,” Cynthia begged.
The game played back and forth, hidden messages filling the air with the sanctity of family. It's
so nice to have you here to visit me / It's our honor to be here / It’s a blessing to be
surrounded by family in my old age / You have given us so much, now it is our turn.
Finally the matriarch relented. Xiao Ke and his aunt, one on either shoulder, helped the old
woman rise slowly to her feet. They guided her carefully, at whatever pace she chose, out into
the courtyard. Nathan picked up the armchair and carried it ahead of them out to the table.
After a time, the old woman arrived and she settled down into her chair again. Her daughter
handed her a small, tin-lined wicker basket. A few small coals sat inside to keep her hands
warm.
“Such beautiful girls,” she said yet again, her eyes on Xiao Ke this time. Cynthia and Yi
respectfully suppressed their giggles.
“Who are you?” the woman asked abruptly, her eyes suddenly alert. She was looking at Cynthia.
“They’re family,” her daughter explained gently.
“I’m your youngest sister’s daughter’s daughter,” Cynthia clarified, speaking slowly.
The old woman muttered to herself, struggling with the genealogy.
“Wang Ming is her mother,” Yi supplied helpfully.
“Wang Ming!” The old woman’s eyes lit up with recognition. “Such a beautiful girl. Such a
smart girl.” She leaned forward in her chair to study Cynthia more closely. “Li Jing?” she
guessed.
Cynthia laughed. “That’s my third sister. I’m her younger sister, Li Fan. I was born in Nanjing,
after our parents left Guangnan,” she explained.
The matriarch coughed quietly. Or it might have been a laugh. “Four girls! Your poor father. I
remember. I remember.” She nodded to herself, pleased with the discovery. “Your parents often
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came to visit with their three little flowers.” She paused while her mind dusted off the long-ago
memories. “Li Jing used to tug her older sisters’ braids,” she remembered.
Cynthia laughed. She hadn’t heard that story.
Her great aunt cackled, as if the suddenly vivid memories had taken her body back thirty years.
“They wanted to throw Li Jing down the well!”
Xiao Ke burst out laughing. “I know that feeling!”
Cynthia gave her cousin a hard stare. He meekly turned his attention back to his rice bowl.
“How are your mother and father?” the old woman asked Cynthia suddenly.
Cynthia kept her eyes on the rising steam and let all expression relax from her face. “My mother
is well. My father...died, a short time ago.”
The great woman — who had undoubtedly seen more than her fair share of death — nodded with
a familiar sympathy. “Ah,” she sighed simply. “Too soon. It is always too soon.”
She eased back in her throne, and her eyes clouded over with remembrance. “It was a good day
when your father took Wang Ming away from us. A sad day, but a good day. She was too smart
a girl to spend her whole life in that little village. Too good a background,” she grinned at the
immodest self-compliment. “And your father...so handsome. He spoke like a man from the city.
An educated man. Other people called him chou lao jiu, but I knew. I knew he would give your
mother the future she deserved.” Her voice trailed off.
Chou lao jiu. Stinky old nine. In the Cultural Revolution, everyone had been divided into nine
levels of increasing ideological purity. The highest rank, of course, had gone to the workers.
Then came soldiers, and so on down the list to the ninth. The intellectuals. The antirevolutionaries. The capitalist roaders.
Cynthia parsed her great aunt’s words in the context of a half-century ago. “Wait a moment. Are
you saying you’re the one who matched my mom and dad?”
The old woman nodded.
“How did it happen?” she asked, but the old woman broke into a fit of coughing. Her daughter
patted her back soothingly and waited with a worried frown for the storm to pass.
Cynthia put the tea cup back into the old woman’s bony hands. She took a trembling sip and
leaned her head back with a sigh. “Beautiful girl,” she whispered, and let her eyelids droop.
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“Do you want to lie down?” her daughter asked.
“No!” the old woman snapped. Her eyes popped back open. “What were we talking about?” she
wondered aloud.
“You were telling us how Wang Ming met my father,” Cynthia prompted gently.
She smiled again — a look of self-congratulation. “Of course it was my job as the eldest. When
your mother got to be about the right age, I started to ask around if anybody knew a good fit for
her.”
By ‘fit’, Cynthia assumed she meant standing on the same (losing) side of the Revolution.
“Word got to me that there was a well-spoken and respectable young man teaching elementary
school in the valley. I went to meet your father and knew right away that he was the one for
Wang Ming.”
It made sense. Respect for the scholarly ran deep in the countryside — Cultural Revolution or
no — and educated men must have been scarce in so remote a township. Fortunately for
Cynthia’s dad, even the most committed revolutionary needed some basic math and literacy.
“We’re going to go to Liban tomorrow to visit his village,” Xiao Ke told his great aunt. He
turned to Cynthia. “We should see if we can find his old school. They might have records that
will help.”
“His school wasn’t in Liban,” the matriarch corrected.
“It wasn’t?” Cynthia looked confused. “But I thought that’s where dad had been sent.”
“I helped get your father moved to Liban after his marriage was arranged,” the great aunt
explained. “But when I first met him he was posted to another village.”
Cynthia looked crestfallen. There were hundreds of villages in the area.
“Do you remember which one?” Xiao Ke asked intently.
The old woman hesitated.
“No,” she said, and shook her head slightly.
Cynthia was crestfallen.
Yi was passing out steaming bowls of rice. “Please, eat,” she encouraged them.
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Hotpot was the regional specialty in this part of Yunnan. Chunks of tofu and an unidentifiable
meat boiled in a communal broth of chopped potatoes, onions, leafy cabbage, noodles and
whatever else happened to be in the cupboard. A great cloud of steam rolled continuously off the
soupy surface and filled the air with a spicy fragrance. It also helped to keep the body warm at
high altitudes.
The old woman whispered into her daughter’s ear. The younger woman obediently fished a
square of tofu out of the steaming broth with a pair of chopsticks and brought it to her mother’s
lips.
The stew was delicious, but Cynthia hardly noticed. Too many thoughts tumbled through her
head. She feared that they had come this far in vain. She wondered why she had come here at
all. Most of all, she thought about the old woman's words: the details of her father's life she had
never known, and the thought that the old woman knew much more than she was willing to say.
What secrets was she planning to take to her grave?
***
After dinner, Nathan and Xiao Ke helped Yi put her mother to bed, and then it was time to go.
“Enjoy the rest of your time in Yunnan,” Yi wished them when they had gathered at the courtyard
gate. “Stop by on your way back to Kunming, if you have time.”
“We will,” Xiao Ke promised, and smiled warmly.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Nathan added politely. “That may have been the best hot pot
I've ever tasted.”
The woman smiled at the compliment. “You are a dear,” she said.
Cynthia barely noted the pleasantries. She felt her quest slipping through her fingertips. “Before
we go, may I say goodbye to your mother?”
Her aunt seemed about to object, but something in Cynthia's demeanor held her words in check.
She looked at Cynthia strangely, and nodded.
***
The old woman’s bedroom was strange. Not bare, but full of everything the old woman owned
and nothing remarkable. Her bed sat high off the ground so that she didn’t have to bend down to
get on or push up to get off. A curtain hung around it to keep out heavy drafts. In this old house
there were many of those.
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Cynthia approached the bed. The old woman’s breath rattled weakly behind closed eyes.
“Great aunt?” Cynthia called softly.
The woman stirred slightly.
“Great aunt,” she called again. It was almost a command.
The old woman opened one eye slowly, then the other. “Such a beautiful girl,” she breathed. It
was a slow breath, a savored breath. Death had already visited her and told her how many more
she would be granted before the end. Now one less.
“Goodbye,” Cynthia said simply.
“Leaving so soon?” Even at death’s doorstep, the matriarch could still play a proper hostess.
“Yes. We have to get up early tomorrow, for the trip to Liban.”
“Ah,” was all the woman said, though Cynthia suspected she could have said much more.
“I brought a photo with me. An old photo, of my father’s. I thought you would like to see it
before I go.” She pulled the yellowed card from her bag, and placed it in the hag’s withered
hand.
The old woman brought it to her face, curiosity bringing some life to her eyes. “My flashlight,”
she commanded softly.
Cynthia found the lamp on a bedside table and snapped it open. She shone the weak beam onto
Yang Ping’s sepia features and watched the old woman’s eyes as they struggled to focus on the
page — then widened with recognition.
She knew the girl.
Cynthia turned off the flashlight.
The old woman closed her eyes again. “Some things,” she wheezed, “are best left forgotten.”
The photograph fell from her limp grasp.
Cynthia watched it hit the floor. She bent slowly and picked it up. “My father didn’t seem to
think so,” she observed in a quiet voice.
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The old woman looked directly into Cynthia’s eyes, and held them for a long, long moment.
“No,” she whispered finally. “No, he did not.”
“Where is she?” Cynthia asked simply.
The question hung there for what seemed an eternity. Cynthia feared the woman would expire,
feared that she was waiting for death to free her from the obligation to speak. But death did not
comply.
“Ba Mei,” she surrendered.
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Chapter Twenty-One
The dirt trail that led from the highway to the village of Ba Mei was blocked by a toll gate.
Beside the gate was a booth, and a man and a woman, looking equally bored, sat inside.
“Forty kuai,” the man announced.
“Forty kuai?” Cynthia and Nathan shared a simultaneous gasp. Her father’s place of exile had
become a tourist destination.
“Each.”
“You must be joking,” Xiao Ke scoffed. “We’re just going to the village.”
The woman pointed to a large blue sign posted on the wall to the left of their window: ‘Tickets:
¥40’.
“I'm a reporter from Beijing,” Cynthia announced, and dug out the passport-like booklet that
contained her journalist’s credentials. She passed it through the window along with her identity
card. “That entitles me free access to all national parks and monuments,” she informed the
attendants.
The man took her identity papers and made some show of studying them. Cynthia could tell this
was a first for him. After a cursory examination he did what any good gatekeeper would: he
passed them to the next person.
The woman accepted Cynthia’s credentials from her colleague with a scowl. Now it was her
problem. “We can't accept this,” she decided after a quick look.
“Why not?” Cynthia protested. “It’s good everywhere else. Why not here?”
“Yunnan is an autonomous prefecture.” She handed Cynthia back her papers. “Your journalist’s
permit does not cover autonomous prefectures.” She played the ‘special exemption’ card with a
smirk.
Xiao Ke was reading the rest of the text on the posted sign. “It says here that tour groups get a
50% discount. How many people do you need to be a tourist group?”
“At least three,” the man said.
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Without skipping a beat, Xiao Ke declared, “We’re a tourist group. We’re taking this American
to see the village.”
Nathan smiled and waved.
“You are not a tourist group,” the woman disagreed.
“Why not?”
“You don't have a tourist guide with you.”
“Where do we get a tourist guide?” Cynthia asked.
“You can hire one for one hundred kuai,” she explained, smiling tightly.
Defeated, the trio handed over their entrance fees. The attendants didn’t even lift the gate for
them.
***
Beyond the toll gate, the dirt path became a narrow cobblestone road that wrapped around a low
hill and wound into the valley. Over to their right was a field of tall grasses. Beyond the field
was a stream, and beyond the river was a mountain.
A half-dozen donkey carts, each with covered benches for a half-dozen visitors, stood on the side
of the path, waiting in the drizzle.
“Xiao Jie, Xiao Jie,” the drivers called to Cynthia. “It's raining. Let us give you a ride.”68
“How far is it to Ba Mei Village?” Nathan asked.
“Far! Far!” They all agreed. “Fifteen or twenty minutes to walk. Five if you ride.”
Xiao Ke held up their entrance tickets. “Can we use these?”
The drivers all shook their heads. “No, no, no. This is an extra fee.”
“How much?”
“Two yuan per person.”
Xiao Jie (小姐) - Miss.
248
They piled aboard. Nathan noted the small Mao magnet stuck on the back of the driver’s bench.
The man was everywhere.
“I don’t think these were here in your dad’s time,” Nathan quipped as the driver shook the reins
and they jolted forward down the trail.
“Or the paving stones,” Xiao Ke added.
“Or the toll booth,” Cynthia smiled.
Nathan’s phone buzzed. He smiled at their easy, ongoing banter and sat back in the hard seat to
read:
< I got it working. Trial a success. Will start stocking fuel tomorrow. >
Nathan wisely deleted the text message. A part of him had hoped his partner would not traverse
that final bridge, that logistics would turn them from their purpose where common sense had not.
But fate, it seemed, had other plans. When had they sanctioned such violence? He couldn't even
remember the moment they had crossed that line. And that worried him. Had he followed his
own convictions too far? Or had he been led to this point by loyalty to his friend? They were the
sort of questions one contemplated in the long solitude of prison.
“Who was that from?” Cynthia wondered with a smile.
“James,” Nathan answered truthfully. “He's making plans for the Chinese national holiday and
wanted to let me know.”
“Of course! October 1. It's only...” She frowned. It had been awhile she’d looked at a calendar.
“Four days away,” Nathan answered immediately. And then everything would change. Is that
still what I want? He buried the troubling question.
The stream on their right crept steadily closer and closer as they rode the trail deeper into the
valley. At last it cut them off entirely, and they stopped at the base of a high cliff. A great crack
split the rock face, and out of the darkness rushed the valley’s stream. It had been partially
dammed here, forming a broad, flat pool at the mouth of the cave. The water spilled over the
dam in an endlessly laughing cascade.
They piled out of the cart.
“Which way to the village?” Cynthia asked their driver.
249
He pointed at the cave. “That way.”
Several shallow punting boats bumped up along the water’s edge. A young man, stripped bare to
the waist and tanned from a lifetime under the sun, lay in one of them.
Xiao Ke stepped carefully down to the water’s edge. “Can you take us to Ba Mei?” he asked the
boy.
He sat up in his boat. “Do you have tickets?” the boy asked.
Xiao Ke produced their passes.
The boy nodded. He climbed out of the punt and held it steady for them while they climbed in
one after the other. Then he picked up a long bamboo pole and pushed off into the cave.
The world turned to midnight black. Cynthia trailed her fingers in the water, and wondered
suddenly whether her uncle Sanshu had seen his children since that day at the amusement park.
“You can open the light,” their boatman called to Nathan, who sat in the front seat. His voice
echoed confusingly, near and far all at once.
There was a fumbling, and a click, and then a powerful beam of yellow light slashed apart the
darkness. The cave was huge. The roof was high overhead — in some places too high for the
flashlight to illuminate — and the walls were far enough apart for ten or maybe twenty boats like
theirs to float abreast. The rock was jagged, not smooth, as if the river has only recently found
its way inside the rock.
They passed a stalagmite wrapped in bright orange twinkle lights. Cynthia just shook her head.
Another boat poled past them, heading in the opposite direction. A large sack, perhaps stuffed
with some village exports, sat in the center of the boat. The young boy in the stern nodded
briefly to his fellow pilot as he passed.
And then they were through. The rock canopy parted, and cliffs soared a hundred feet on either
side of the stream. Trees and bushes clung with astonishing courage to improbable perches all
the way up the rock face. Cynthia leaned back in the boat and let her eyes wander skyward.
Their young boatman followed her gaze. “Used to be the monkeys would come down to play
with us.”
“Monkeys?”
250
He nodded. “Lots, all over the mountain. They used to come down. They’d grab your hat right
off your head if you weren’t careful and run away with it up the cliff.”
“What happened to them?” Nathan asked, also looking up.
“They eat our crops, and so we started to catch them. Now they don't come down anymore.”
Their boat bumped up against a rocky shore.
“We’re here,” their driver said simply.
I’m here, Cynthia said silently, and felt very nervous.
***
They stepped into paradise. There was no other word for the feast before their senses. The crops
and bamboo that filled the hidden mountain valley exulted green. Fields stretched across the
valley floor. They clawed up the mountain slopes. They filled the air with the scent of life and
sighed contentedly in the soft afternoon breeze.
A stream of crystal mountain runoff giggled its way amongst the crops, bending left and right for
no other reason than to be in harmony with the wind. It begged to be criss-crossed, or to convey
a flotilla of little toy boats, or to be sat beside and inspire new songs.
And the mist. The mist really did hang in the air, gathered perpetually within the mountains’
protective embrace as if to hide the valley from jealous heavenly spirits who might chance to
look down.
The three of them followed a path of dirt and gravel toward the village, their eyes wide and their
mouths open.
“Shoes! Fish!”
Before they could reach the first houses they blundered into a little line of residents camped out
beside the trail — the local tourist economy. Old women in richly embroidered jackets and
trousers proudly presented their wares beside their bored-looking granddaughters. Hand-sewn
slippers. Glutinous rice wrapped in bamboo leaf. Little toys and trinkets carved out of wood.
And lots of barbecued river fish.
Their fantasy was shattered. Reality could be rude.
“Sweet rice! Spinning tops! Fish!”
251
“Sweet rice!” Xiao Ke exclaimed. He smiled at his companions. “Do you remember sweet rice,
Xiao Fan?” He handed over a one-yuan note to a small woman with a toothy smile and accepted
a giant square of popped rice kernels, held together by dried honey and wrapped in clear plastic
film. He passed it around their little circle, then tore into the remainder with all the decorum of a
four-year old.
Nathan licked his fingers clean and pick up a carved wooden bowl. The craftsmanship was plain
but the pattern of paint was every bit as intricate as the women’s embroidery. Blue seemed to be
the artist’s favorite color; it peeked out everywhere between windows of black and red lacquer.
It was an unusually dark shade — a cobalt that seemed almost purple, like a twilight sky before a
thunderstorm.
“We’re looking for the xue xiao,” Xiao Ke was saying around a mouthful of his snack. “Can you
tell us where it is?”
The woman with too many teeth looked at the man like he was speaking a foreign language —
which, it suddenly occurred to Cynthia, he was. The woman was not Han Chinese. She was
Zhuang.
“School,” Cynthia repeated, and drew the characters in the air: 学校.
The woman just stared, perplexed at the finger-waggling.
“There is no...school anymore,” a young girl standing next to the woman said in slow, careful
Mandarin. In contrast to the old woman, she was dressed in modern t-shirt and jeans. “We go to
Fali Village now.”
Cynthia and Xiao Ke frowned at the news. “Where did it used to be?” Xiao Ke asked,
pronouncing each tone slowly and clearly.
The girl pointed in the direction of the village. “Above the big banyan tree. It’s a restaurant
now,” she added.
“Thanks,” Cynthia said.
“Shoes?” she reminded them hopefully, and held up a pair. Cynthia relented.
Nathan held out the wooden bowl. “Is this made in the village?”
The placated shoe seller nodded. “Yang Zhang does all the wood work.”
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“Yang Zhang?” Cynthia started at the name. She snatched the bowl from Nathan’s hand and
studied it carefully. “Is he related to Yang Ping?”
“Her son,” the girl confirmed. “But old Mrs Yang died a few years ago.”
Cynthia’s eyes clouded over with disappointment.
“Did you know her?” the girl asked, a bit skeptically.
“She was a friend of my father’s,” Cynthia explained, and wondered what to do. “Can you tell
me where I can find her son? I’d like to talk to him about maybe selling some of his stuff in
Beijing.” It wasn’t a lie exactly. He could probably do quite well with a Taobao site of his own.
The girl’s eyes widened at the mention of the capital. “Beyond the village. His house is next to
the water wheel.”
“Water wheel?” Cynthia repeated.
The girl nodded.
Nathan caught Cynthia’s eyes and gave her an encouraging smile. “End of the road,” he said.
***
They continued into the village. Most of the houses were raised on stilts, camouflaged here and
there amidst the trees and bamboo. The ground underneath was work space: they passed one
circle of women sewing shoes in a small, four-person assembly line, and another group spinning
cotton into yarn on hand-cranked wheels.
It was primitive living. There were no roads. No cars. No electricity that they could see. Those
who weren’t making crafts for sale to the village’s visitors were out in the valley, farming corn,
sugarcane, cotton and rice with tools that had remained unchanged for a thousand years.
Nathan picked a bit of plastic wrapper out of the gravel at his feet. Remote isolation had kept the
valley pure for millennia. Tourism would ruin it in ten more years, he predicted.
“Look at that!” Xiao Ke pointed. To one side of the path, a fierce-looking iron contraption sat
bolted onto a natural slab of granite, a pile of fair-sized boulders scattered around it. Cynthia’s
cousin hoisted one of the rocks into a hopper atop the device and started cranking a wheel on its
side with all his strength. The walls of the hopper slowly compressed, mechanical advantage
against stubborn stone — Xiao Ke’s face was full of sweat — until with a sudden, sharp
detonation, physics won out and a little shower of coarse gravel spilled out the bottom.
253
It was a genuine antique from the days of rural re-education. Cynthia wondered whether her dad
had ever taking a turn at this same wheel, crushing stone into dust.
Then she remembered: he was chou lao jiu. Of course he had.
The banyan tree was not hard to find. It sat perched on the side of a low hill, its crown reaching
half again as high as any trees nearby and its roots sprawling everywhere in a messy tangle.
Built into its wide branches was a treehouse of sorts. The building proper sat on the hilltop, but
an outdoor balcony reached into the leafy canopy with the help of long stilts.
They stepped into the small, one-room restaurant. The desks were still there, but now an
unopened bottle of Tsingtao beer sat on each one to tempt customers while they waited for their
food to arrive. A simple menu was scrawled in chalk on the blackboard at the front of the room.
It was empty.
“Nice school,” Nathan grinned, picking up a bottle of beer.
“Think of how hard it must have been to get students to pay attention in class,” Xiao Ke agreed,
his rat-like nose twitching with mirth. A large window was cut out of one of the walls to let in
sunlight, but it also freed the eyes to wander out over the blue sky and green valley.
Caught up in her imaginings, Cynthia didn’t laugh. She took a seat at one of the tables and saw
her father standing at the blackboard, leading the small class through the day’s lesson. Each
student stood in turn, and recited one line from their English reader:
“I am a worker.”
“We study English for the Revolution.”
“He is an old peasant.”
“She works hard.”
“Beijing is the capital of our...” a young woman in the front row with a plain, honest face
frowned at the difficult words.
“So-cial-ist mo-ther-land,” Cynthia’s father dictated patiently.
“Socialist mother...land,” Yang Ping repeated.
The man smiled his approval, and her face lit up as if there were no greater joy than to
please this handsome stranger from the eastern provinces.
254
***
Xiao Ke took it upon himself to photograph their pilgrimage. Cynthia posed in front of the
blackboard; at the window; at a desk. When they’d exhausted the indoor possibilities, he led his
cousin out onto the balcony and did his best to capture the postcard scenery around her.
Nathan leaned out over the rail and peered farther into the valley, trying to spot the water wheel.
He didn’t see it.
“Fuwu yuan?” Xiao Ke called out. A single low table surrounded by four low stools was set out
on the balcony. They took their seats and waited expectantly for serving staff to appear, but none
did.
“Service!” Nathan tried this time, louder. His voice echoed impressively against the valley
walls.
The treetop perch revived Cynthia’s sense of fantasy. They could be three pilgrims questing for
enlightenment like Tang Seng in ‘Xi Youji’. Or maybe they were sell-swords from a Jin Yong
novel, caravan-hopping across the country, leaving death and fresh legends in their wake. 6970 71
Or maybe they were tourists: hungry, a bit cold, and impatient for good service.
“They’re probably having lunch,” Nathan joked after a while.
Cynthia gave him a flat stare. “Why don’t you go down to the river and catch us some fish?”
“Actually, I think I will go down to the river,” Xiao Ke announced. “And see if I can find this
water wheel the girl mentioned.”
“We’ll come along,” Nathan offered, and half-rose from his stool.
“Don’t bother,” he said, then grinned. “Somebody might actually show up to take our order.”
And in moments he had disappeared down into the valley.
Xi Youji (西游记) - ‘Journey to the West’, one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature, originally
published in the 1590’s. It is a fictionalized account of Tang Seng’s pilgrimage to India.
Tang Seng (唐僧, 602-664) - A Chinese Buddhist monk who journeyed overland to India to resolve errors he found
in Chinese translations of Buddhist manuscripts.
Jin Yong (金庸, 1924-
) - The best-selling Chinese author alive, who wrote extensively in the heroic martial arts
genre before his official retirement from writing in 1972. His works have since been adapted into television, film,
radio, comic books and video games.
255
Cynthia fidgeted nervously on her stool.
“What’s wrong?” Nathan asked.
She took a deep breath, and tried to school herself to stillness — without success. She gave up
and started pacing around the table instead. “I don’t know what I came here to find,” she
confessed. It felt awful to admit that aloud. “Honestly, maybe it never really mattered. It was
enough just to have some plan to keep me moving.”
“And now that you’re here you’re afraid because you don’t know what to do next,” Nathan
guessed.
She nodded.
Nathan mimicked the gesture. “Trust me, I know that feeling,” he muttered.
“Go to what makes me happy. That’s what my uncle said,” she revealed. She leaned against the
railing and looked up into the branches of the banyan tree, reaching instinctively toward the sun,
and wished she possessed its sense of purpose. “Ever since my dad gave me my first set of
brushes, my first inks, I felt like it was this special thing that only we shared.” She sank back
into her stool, and her tone was wistful. “I can remember his first lesson like it was this morning.
He put his hand over top of mine, and showed me how to hold the brush. I had it all wrong, at
first,” she remembered. “Sometimes he would get so frustrated with me, and I would practice
that much harder. But it was the happiest part of my day, every day. Just the two of us, and the
ink and the brush and the paper. And his secret,” she added after a moment’s pause. “The one
ink that didn’t belong to the set. It was just a pretty color, but it felt like something more. I fell
in love with it. With the mystery. Why did he give it to me? What did it mean to him? And
why wouldn’t he tell me when I asked?”
“Maybe you weren’t ready for the answers,” Nathan offered.
“I still don’t know if I am,” Cynthia admitted quietly.
Their talk was interrupted by the sudden arrival of a family troupe. Two boys raced laughing to
the railing at the balcony’s edge. A woman followed along behind, her elegant summer skirt and
Burberry-print handbag more appropriate to a Shanghai streetscape than these rude surroundings.
She had the sort of face one expected to see on the cover of Cosmo: beautiful, haughty, and
heavily made-up.
A man brought up the rear. He looked to be in his thirties, and handsome enough to merit a
second glance from Cynthia. He carried a strange camera, with a body twice as wide as it was
long — for panoramic film, Cynthia knew. It looked expensive.
256
“This will make a good background,” the man announced, peering through his viewfinder at the
boys. Cynthia had been around enough photographers to see that he handled his equipment
professionally.
“Fine,” the woman agreed, sounding tired. Nathan pulled out a free stool and gestured for her to
take a seat at their table.
She cast him a grateful look. “Thanks,” she said, and squatted. Her skirt was a bit too short to
preserve her modesty on the low perch, and she crossed her legs awkwardly.
“Cute kids,” Cynthia offered. She wasn’t much older than herself, she decided.
Miss Cosmo smiled. “Try riding in a car with them for six hours a day.”
“Where are you from?” Nathan asked.
The man whom they took to be her husband returned to the woman’s side. “Ningbo,” he replied,
and set his snazzy camera on the table with a heavy thunk.
“You drove here all the way from Ningbo?” Cynthia exclaimed. It was a two thousand kilometer
journey. “In what?”
“A Hummer. We’re doing a trip around the country,” the man explained. “We want to make
Kunming by tomorrow night, and then drive up to Dali for a couple of weeks.”
“And then?” Cynthia asked. Living in Beijing, she was used to seeing lifestyles she could not
afford dangled in front of her.
“Canada,” the woman said.
“More vacation?” Nathan wondered.
“No,” her husband shook his head. “Emigrating. We applied last year for an investment visa,
but the quota was full until this October. So we decided to show the kids around the country for
a few months.”
Cynthia had heard enough to guess the rest. An investment visa carried a price tag of at least six
million yuan, so this man’s father was either a wealthy businessman or high-ranking government
official. He didn’t work for a living; he spent his father’s money. She looked again at the pair of
boys at play together in the tree branches — their parents could easily dance around the one child
policy — and hoped they would grow up appreciating how kind fate has been to them.
257
“Sounds tough,” Cynthia sympathized.
“It is,” the man admitted wearily, oblivious to the sarcasm in Cynthia’s voice. He crouched
down beside his wife. “Hey, is anybody here serving food?”
“Not that we can tell,” Nathan smiled wryly.
“Hmm. Oh well.” The man stood back up. “Come on, honey, let’s see if we can find another
restaurant farther along the valley.”
The woman rolled her eyes wearily, but stood up. “It was nice to meet you,” she said, and
obediently followed her more energetic husband.
They watched the family go.
“I guess we know how they voted,” Nathan quipped.
“They were never born here to begin with,” Cynthia shot back.
“What do you mean by that?”
“Killing time in a Hummer? Buying six million kuai plane tickets to Canada? You think that’s
the world I live in?”
“So you admit it,” Nathan mused aloud. “If you could have chosen, you would have been born
somewhere else.”
The arrogance behind his assumption cut her deeply. “That stupid text!” she spat. “You know
what I thought when I first saw it, Nathan? I thought: this is cruel. I thought: who does this?
Taunting me with false fantasies, tempting me to relive every sad choice I’ve ever made? I can't
change what is by wishing things were different. If I could do that, don’t you think my dad
would still be alive?” She spoke these last words in a whisper.
“You want my answer?” she spoke softly. “It’s no. No. I refuse to be a prisoner in some fantasy
world of hope and regret, wishing that I had money for a better house, a better vacation, better
schools...better medicine. No, thank you. No, I’m going to make my life right here, in the
present I’ve been given. And I’m going to make the best of it — because that’s the only real
choice I have.”
“You talk as if the question were just about money,” Nathan argued back, but gently. “But you
were born with the grace to do so much more. If all we’re doing is slaving away to make a
living, when do we start to live?”
258
He stood up, and walked to the railing where he could look out over the verdant valley. It
inspired joy — and sharpened his sense of what was tragic about this country. “I think the day
Mao came to power was the day that life in China became very ordinary,” he lamented. “All the
unruly colors of life were painted over gray, like the paving stones in Tiananmen Square. No
grass. No flowers. Just a vast expanse of uniform, obedient stone. Yes, okay, the Party has great
administrators. They're great technocrats. They're running you right into the 22nd century.
Ahead of schedule, even.”
He turned back to contemplate her. He wished he had a brush and canvas to capture the glory his
eyes beheld. “But how many times have you been inspired to write something, only to have your
boss scrub it away? How many times have you felt moved by injustice, but done nothing
because the right action was forbidden? How many times, Cynthia?”
She sat back and pondered his rhetoric. “Justice...” she echoed the word, and her tone bordered
on derision. “There you go with that word again. Do you really think injustice in this country
began with Mao? Tian! He wouldn't have gotten out of his own village with talk of revolution if
the people around him weren’t already miserable.”
“You Westerners hate Mao. I know. But really, you should praise him. Can you imagine how
frightening it would be if one billion people woke up tomorrow and said, ‘No, I'm not going to
take this anymore’? Why should I have to watch my father die — because I can’t pay for the
medicine he needs? What sick world is this, that money matters when life is at stake?” She
paused and waited for the emotions seething through her veins to dissipate. It took a long time.
“But we don't say those things,” she continued in a calmer voice. “Instead we get up in the
morning, and we see Mao’s face smiling down at us from our walls, and we think: I will follow
his example. With my heart and my sweat I will work today to make things better for myself and
my family and my country.”
“How can you defend the man?” Nathan demanded incredulously. “He's the one who put your
father in this place!”
“And if he hadn't, my father would never have met my mother and I never would have been
born. So you’ll understand if I have mixed feelings. Was he a bad man? I’m sure he was.
Nobody goes from peasant to Great Helmsman without doing a lot of bad things. There’s too
many people standing in the way who won't step aside politely. But I honestly don't care. It
doesn’t matter. What matters is what he stands for: the belief that we can endure, and overcome.
If not for that belief, the world would fly apart. I would fly apart.”
“But in a democracy —”
“Democracy can’t bring justice any closer to me,” Cynthia cut him off. “Menu’s right. It’s just a
different way to keep people content with the injustice in their lives.” She shook her head at his
stubbornness. “You just can’t accept that I don’t yearn for the world you live in.”
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She dipped her finger into her water bottle and laid three wet strokes on the wooden tabletop.
“Do you know this character?”
He leaned over her shoulder and studied the design. “Fan”, he said. “It’s your name.”
“And what does it mean?” she quizzed.
“It means —” he flipped through his mental dictionary. “It means — ordinary,” he realized. And
he frowned. “But you’re not ordinary. Not at all.”
Cynthia blushed briefly at his honeyed words, even if they were misplaced. He was still too
much a foreigner to understand. “Ordinary is more precious than you know, Nathan,” she gently
reproved. “It means that things happen within the bounds of what you’re prepared to deal with.
You don't see the value of that, because you've never lived without it.”
She turned from him and looked out over the valley that had once been her father’s labor camp.
“But my dad understood. In 1977, he was released from his exile here, and he went back to
Nanjing — with a pregnant wife and three daughters.” She turned back to Nathan. He was
listening closely. The fire of argument had faded from his eyes.
“I was born five months later. They hadn’t planned on having another child. I was an accident.
But dad would always say...” She paused, because her throat had swelled and for a while she
couldn’t form the words. She took a steadying breath. “Dad would always say that returning
home from the hospital with me in his arms was the happiest day of his life. So many confusing,
so many bitter years, and then — that one day had felt ordinary. That one day had felt 凡.”
Nathan stared unblinking at the wet strokes on the table. They transformed before his eyes.
“I’m sorry...” he began, and didn’t know what to say next. He sat heavily into his stool.
His wrestling thoughts were interrupted by a shout from the trail below the banyan tree. “I found
the water wheel!” Xiao Ke called, and waved with his hand for them to come down.
Nathan spotted the man, and waved his acknowledgement.
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Cynthia remained rooted to her stool. Her hands gripped the sides of the table tightly. Nathan
noticed that her knuckles had gone white.
“Come on,” he said softly. “It's time.”
She looked up at him nervously. Now that the moment had come, she didn’t know if she had the
strength to trade mystery for knowledge.
“Some things are better left forgotten,” she whispered, unconsciously echoing her great-aunt’s
warning.
Nathan placed one gentle hand upon her shoulder. “Your father didn't seem to think so,” he
tenderly reminded her.
Her eyes widened. She twisted and looked into his eyes — those twin, twinkling blue orbs.
They were clear. Sincere. The eyes of a true friend.
“Come with me,” he repeated, and held out his hand.
***
The water wheel was a rickety frame of bamboo that turned in the unhurried current of the
valley’s stream on the far edge of the village. Flop...flop...flop...flop...flop. It didn’t drive a
generator, nor turn a millstone. It didn’t bear any load. It simply picked up water, one bamboo
cup at a time, and raised it a few feet to the height of the rice paddies. Most of the water spilled
back into the stream on the wheel’s downward turn, but some splashed into an upturned length of
split bamboo. With a little help from gravity, the crude trough transported the water away from
the stream and into an extensive maze of overlapping bamboo pipes that spread out like fat green
snakes along the valley floor. It was an irrigation system as old as grass.
Cynthia got out Yang Ping’s photograph and studied it carefully: looked up, looked down,
looked up again. There was no doubt; it had been taken here. Xiao Ke pulled out his camera and
snapped a few fresh shots.
“Look,” Nathan pointed.
A little ways out, a young man crouched in the paddy field, resetting the troughs and redirecting
the water’s flow to the patches that needed it most. Although the autumn rice harvest was
already complete, here the farmers practiced irrigation year-round to keep the soil from drying
out in the forthcoming months of low rainfall.
“Hello?” Cynthia called out from the path. “Are you Yang Zhang?”
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The man looked up from his work. “Hello?” he called back, shading his eyes from the afternoon
sun with both hands. His Zhuang accent was strong.
“I say I’m looking for Yang Zhang,” Cynthia repeated.
“I’m Yang Zhang,” he replied. He set down his bamboo piping and navigated the paddy walls
back toward the water wheel.
As he drew closer, Cynthia revised her opinion of the man’s age. Long years under the sun had
weathered all youth from his face, and his body was thick, like a tree that had long ago ceased to
bend in the wind. He looked almost fifty.
He casually wiped the mud from his hands onto coarse cotton pants. “I’m Yang Zhang,” he
repeated, and took a good look at the trio. From his surprised face they gathered that not many
tourists wandered this deep into the valley.
Cynthia took a good look at him, too. There was something very familiar about the man —
something in the spacing of the eyes and the shape of the nose. “We saw your woodwork over in
the village,” she said by way of introduction. “The girl who sells it said that you have some
more in your workshop?”
He smiled shyly. It was an odd expression on so seasoned a face. “I have a few more pieces,
yes,” he admitted. He spoke his words with a leisurely tempo that precisely matched the water
wheel’s rotation. A lifetime at the river’s edge had imprinted its rhythm upon his thoughts.
“May we take a look?” Cynthia smiled back.
He dipped his head and led them a short distance away to a house, smaller than the ones they had
passed in the village but similarly built on stilts. The ground level appeared to be a carpenter’s
workshop. Various objects of turned or hollowed wood hung upon the walls: legs for tables and
chairs, and posts for fences and railings. Wood chips and shavings lay like a layer of sponge on
the dirt floor, and several cans of paint sat on a side table amidst a variety of brushes and rags.
In the centre of the room sat a pedal-powered lathe. A half-finished table leg was secured into its
vice. As if by force of habit, upon arrival Yang Zhang sat down and began to pedal. He picked
up a sharp-looking chisel and sent thin curls of wood into the air. Salesmanship did not appear to
be his strong suit.
A cabinet against one wall held several lacquered craft pieces like the ones for sale in the village.
Cynthia picked up and admired a fine jewelry box coated in indigo.
“Where do you buy your blue?” she asked him. It wasn’t quite the same as the blue from her
father, she saw now. It didn’t pull her in the same way. But it was strikingly close.
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“Do you like it?” he asked. The pride in his voice was soft, but deep.
“It’s beautiful,” Cynthia answered honestly.
He looked up from his work and repeated the same shy smile. “Do you paint?” he guessed.
“No,” Cynthia confessed. “But I can write with a brush.”
He smiled again. “That’s nice,” he said simply. “My mother would write with a brush, too. A
little bit. When she wasn’t busy weaving.”
“Really?” Cynthia was surprised by that. “I mean — the other women I’ve met in the village
don’t seem to know any characters at all.”
He switched to a finer chisel. “My father taught her to read and write,” Yang Zhang explained.
“He was from outside the village. From the eastern provinces.”
The three travelers all raised eyebrows at that information.
“Was?” Cynthia asked tentatively.
Yang Zhang nodded, and began to pedal again. “He died before I was born.”
“Oh,” Cynthia blushed. “That’s sad.”
He shrugged, not quite sure what to do with the sympathy of a poorly-informed stranger. “It’s
alright. Anyway, they’re together now. My mother passed away a few years ago.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Cynthia said carefully. “She sounds like...a very special woman. I
would have liked to have met her.”
Yang Zhang peered at her strangely, as if seeing something in Cynthia’s face for the first time.
But his eyes quickly returned to his work. “She taught me how to mix that blue,” he revealed.
Nathan’s ears perked up. “She taught you how to...? You mean you make it yourself?”
The weathered man looked up in surprise. “Your Chinese is really good,” he noted. “Yes, I
make it. Well, not on my own. The village weavers make the indigo dye. That’s the really hard
work — getting the pigment from the indigo leaves. They use it to color their cotton. For wood
I need a lacquer, so I figured out how to mix it with tree resin. But my mom would mix it with
pine soot and glue, and then dry it into ink cakes for her brush work.”
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Cynthia nearly dropped the jewelry box, then she set it back carefully on its shelf. Nathan
noticed that her hands were trembling. “You make ink, too?” she asked, her back still turned.
“Yes,” he said. “I watched my mother do it for so many years, I guess I picked it up. It’s hard
work — I have to collect pine smoke in pottery jars and then brush out the soot with chicken
feathers — so I only make a few cakes each year. The village agent sells them to a customer in
Nanjing, of all places. For years and years.” He frowned. “Although not this year, for some
reason.”
He stopped peddling. “Would you like to see?” he asked politely.
Cynthia nodded silently, not trusting herself to open her mouth.
He got up from his lathe and came over beside Cynthia. He opened a cabinet door near the top
of the shelf and pulled out a simple cardboard box tied shut with ribbon.
He set the box down on his paint table and opened it up.
Cynthia leaned forward. Three sticks of blue midnight sat nestled in a bed of rough cotton
scraps. He reverently picked up one of them and placed it into her hands.
Nathan peered at it curiously. It was rich, like a deep royal blue, but showed shades of purple
that should have been too dark for the eye to see: still there they were, like thunderclouds
gathering at the edge of the horizon. It was almost alive.
He tore his eyes away before he lost himself in its depths.
“It’s —” Cynthia breathed.
“It’s the soot from the pine trees that gives the blue that depth,” Zhang revealed, like a
connoisseur dissecting the bouquet of his favorite tea. He paused. “Would you like to buy one?”
he asked tentatively. “It’s a bit expensive, unfortunately.”
Cynthia tilted it back and forth and felt the flawless brick drawing on her soul. “It’s too
beautiful,” she said finally, her eyes wet. “I don’t think I could ever bring myself to use it.”
Zhang seemed to notice the moisture rimming her eyes. “The weavers here have a saying,” he
said slowly. “‘There’s no use sparing dye for tomorrow if today’s batch needs it, too.’”
Cynthia blinked.
“How much?” Nathan asked.
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Zhang shook his head, his gaze still on Cynthia’s astonished face. “No, it’s okay. Take it. I
don’t think I’ll find a buyer who can appreciate it as much.”
“But we have to pay you something,” Nathan protested. “You said yourself it’s expensive.”
The wood-worker pulled a clean strip of cotton from his pile of rags and, gently taking the ink
stick from Cynthia’s hands, wrapped it and handed it back. “You can buy one of my bowls on
your way back to the boats,” he compromised.
His touch broke Cynthia from her reverie. “No,” she said in a soft but firm voice. “I’ll buy
them. All of them.”
She produced her father's envelope. “And I’d like to buy next year’s batch as well. In advance.”
She laid the envelope in the startled man's hands. Minus the price of her train ticket, it was still a
lot of cash.
Xiao Ke looked wide-eyed at the sheaf of hundreds. Nathan did not know what to think.
Neither, by his surprised expression, did Zhang.
“Miss, I — I don't know what to say.”
Cynthia smiled. “I only hope you can make enough. I intend to use it often.”
The man wrapped up the other two pieces and handed them over wordlessly. It was obvious he
suspected there was more going on, and just as obvious that he did not understand what it might
be.
Cynthia accepted her purchased goods. “Goodbye,” she said simply.
Zhang nodded wordlessly.
They retraced their steps to the riverside path and began the long walk back to the village.
“Wait! Miss!” the man cried after her. “Where should I have the next batch delivered?”
Cynthia turned around and took one more look at her half-brother.
“The same place as before,” she called.
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Chapter Twenty-Two
“Where are we going?” Nathan whispered hoarsely.
Cynthia led him along a side street past complex shadows and soft noises they didn’t pause to
identify. It wasn’t the night that was scary. It was the brain's habit of transforming dark halfshapes and indistinct sounds into solid creatures with gruesome fangs and a taste for Chinese
blood.
A baby cried somewhere. It was hard to distinguish the source, and so it floated everywhere, like
a restless infant ghost.
They weren’t trespassing — not yet — but as the alley narrowed to little more than a footpath
between red brick walls, broken here and there solely by people’s front doors, it became clear
that only residents belonged in this quiet neighborhood at the heart of Old Beijing.
“This way,” she beckoned, and Nathan followed apprehensively. It had already been past
midnight by the time their plane landed in Beijing and they retrieved their bags. Now the night
was truly deep, and he wondered yet again why he had let himself be led on this side trip. He
had a meeting with James — a very important meeting — in the morning.
He heard footsteps approaching from up ahead: unnaturally slow, and accompanied by an eerie
tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. He could not see the assassin in his black velvet wrappings, but Nathan
sensed he was there, grimly counting out his victim’s final heartbeats against the brick wall.
A grandfatherly man appeared on the path ahead, walking with the aid of a cane. He paused after
each step to marshal strength for another.
They moved past, and Nathan swallowed his built-up tension.
“Is it much farther?” he asked.
For all Nathan’s maturity, Cynthia realized he wasn’t good in dark places. Neither was she, for
that matter. But there were few places she knew better than this.
“We’re here,” she replied, and put a warning finger to her lips. Cynthia pulled out her mobile
phone for a bit of light and examined the doorway in front of her carefully. The jamb was old,
and warped with age. She pulled a pen from her backpack and carefully wiggled it into the gap
between the door and its frame. She slid it up and down until she met resistance, then jerked
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suddenly upward. With a faint clatter the simple hook on the other side jumped free. The door
swung open.
“Follow me,” she breathed.
They snuck into the yard of a private residence. Cynthia led Nathan across the ground to the far
end, which was bounded by a high wall of gray brick surmounted by tiles. Built back against the
wall was a small shed. A ladder leaned against one side.
“We’ll leave our suitcases here,” she whispered, and stashed her luggage in the deep shadows
behind the shed before climbing carefully up the ladder.
“Come on,” she hissed, already straddling the top of the wall and seeing Nathan hesitate on the
ground below. The ladder squeaked in protest when he settled his weight upon it, but he
followed her up.
Getting down the other side was a bit harder. A large tree grew on the other side, and one of its
thick branches rested directly atop the wall a short distance away. Straddling the wall carefully,
Cynthia slid her butt along until she came to the branch. She cinched her backpack a bit more
securely around her shoulders, then carefully transferred her weight from the wall to the tree.
Hugging the branch carefully — it was a fifteen-foot drop to the ground — she inched herself
away from the wall and down the tree’s trunk. She breathed a sigh of relief when her feet
touched the ground once more.
Nathan took considerably longer to traverse the same route.
“It's this way,” she whispered when he at last dropped beside her. She led him through the thick
trees and grasses, being careful to stay off the wide brick boulevards where they were more
likely to encounter nighttime patrols.
Nathan knew she had led him into the vast taoist park due south of Tiananmen known as Tian
Tan, the Temple of Heaven. By day, it was heavily trafficked. A hundred million footsteps over
six hundred years had beaten paths of hard-packed earth almost everywhere in the grassy forest
floor. Beneath the canopy of ginkgo, junipers, cypresses and pines, a daily multitude walked,
trotted, twirled, sang, swung and played throughout Beijing’s grandest green space.
But he had never visited the park at night — indeed could not, as the gates closed by eight
o’clock every evening. In the dark the vast forest took on a mystical quality, as if the soft
moonlight had called forth guardian spirits from the trees. He could sense them, in the shadows
that seemed to move, in the leaves that seemed to whisper.
If Cynthia was afraid, she didn't show it. She moved confidently through the trees and along the
trails, her eyes fixed on a destination only she could see.
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They came finally to a small clearing hidden amongst a thick grove of aged cypress trees. In the
centre sat a large, flat stone.
“We’re here,” she announced.
It was not a perfect night — those only existed in storybooks — but the three-quarter moon
nevertheless shone valiantly through the break in the canopy above. The polished white marble
block mirrored the silver light, warming the trees from below with a glow so subtle that Nathan
perhaps only imagined it.
He glanced around, still uneasy. “What happens if someone finds us?” he asked.
She shooed away his concerns and settled in front of her altar, already reaching into her bag for
her father’s calligraphy tools.
Tonight is blue.
She pried the priceless ink stick from its box and began to grind it against the rough surface of
her father’s ink stone. Round and round and round and round, she ground away confusion, and
fear, and worry. She ground the hardness into dust with the slow steady pressure of her palm.
She got out a small flask of water. Dribble. Dribble. Just a little bit. Just enough. There was a
time when she would measure. Now she just knew.
The water turned blue instantly, like his eyes. It made her smile.
She worked the paste carefully until the powder was fully dissolved and the color smooth and
consistent.
She loaded her brush.
And she waited for the word to come.
At last she placed three strokes:
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and set her brush down carefully. The endpoints of each stroke shone wetly in the moonlight.
She looked at Nathan over her shoulder, her eyes testing.
“Nu,” he said immediately. Female. She nodded and laid the parchment in the grass to dry.
She laid out a second sheet of paper and raised her brush again:
This one? Nathan felt the question, even if she hadn’t spoken it.
“Nan,” he smiled. Male.
Cynthia smiled back. In the months and years to come, Nathan would often try to draw her as
she appeared to him in that moment, but fall far short. It was joy. Not a breathless, fleeting
excitement, but a calm contentment, with roots deeper than even the ancient trees that
surrounded them. And it was wistful, as if she had been waiting her whole life for the chance to
feel this way.
Again she set the sheet aside to dry and tore off a fresh page.
Nathan frowned. He didn't know. He felt he should, but the complex series of strokes defeated
him.
“Lan,” Cynthia offered finally. “Blue,” she recalled the English word.
Nathan remembered, and laughed. “How can something so simple be so difficult?” he
wondered.
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“Hao shi duo mo. That’s life,” Cynthia said, and nodded slowly to herself. She contemplated
the glistening cobalt character in the light of all that life had shown her in the past few months:
in her friends’ ups and downs; in her uncle’s broken family; in her father’s sickness and death,
and the revelation of the hard choices she had never known he faced; in the eyes of her halfbrother, and the eyes of the man sitting next to her in this moment. It was all reflected there, in a
thirteen-stroke resolution to accept struggle as life’s constant and to savor each unlooked-for odd
moment of bliss, rather than hold onto the wish that simpler dreams might come to pass with less
pain.
72
After a while she held out her brush to him. “Now you try.”
He was unprepared for the offer and took the brush from her hand a bit hesitantly. She set aside
her masterpiece and once again laid out a fresh canvas.
“Like this?” Nathan asked. He tried to hold the brush the way he had seen her do it.
She frowned and shook her head slightly. Her hands worked over his and adjusted his fingers
just so until she was satisfied that he was holding it correctly. More or less.
He glanced at the pages that lay drying in the grass and decided to start with nu. It looked simple
enough.
He was wrong.
Calligraphy was an art of subtle beauty. The faint upward slant of the horizontal strokes; delicate
tapers and smooth flourishes that demanded perfect control of point and pressure; an elusive
balance between ink and space that could only be the product of ten thousand failed attempts.
Nine thousand, nine hundred, ninety-nine to go.
Cynthia looked at the butchered character in disbelief. “I thought you said you were an artist!”
she blurted out in surprise, before she could formulate a more diplomatic appraisal.
“Amateur artist,” Nathan clarified defensively.
Cynthia laughed, and gazed at him fondly. His face was cast in deep shadow. The alien angles
of his nose and cheekbones were smooth, classic and strong. She became aware of a tingle in her
belly, of a very simple urge. She wanted to pour all her thoughts into it, and forget about the pain
that might follow.
hao shi duo mo (好事多磨) - ‘Good things are a hard grind.’ The path to happiness is difficult.
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“How about your name?” she suggested, and her voice was soft as she took back her brush and
dipped it into the small pool of indigo once more.
“‘Nathan’?”
“No,” she chided him. “Your Chinese name.”
“I don't have a Chinese name,” he said, puzzled.
“Then you’re lucky I’ve got one for you one, aren’t you?”
“You have?” He was suddenly afire with curiosity. “What is it?”
“There,” she said. Cynthia leaned back from her artwork and let him study the characters.
“Wugui,” he read aloud. He frowned. “Turtle? Why is my name ‘turtle’?”
She turned to face him. “Because,” she said, and leaned close so that only inches separated
them. “You are very, very slow.”
Nathan shifted uncomfortably under the intensity of her gaze. He had felt attraction many times,
had been in love many times, but this was something more. Something he didn't have a word for.
He wanted to lose himself in the feeling.
But he couldn't. She had given him so much of herself — freely, spontaneously — and in return
he had given her half-truths and outright lies. They clouded his vision now, they muffled his
beating heart, like fog that dulls the poetry of a full moon.
To be one with this person, or one with his purpose. It was his choice. Only he wasn’t ready to
make it. He looked for an escape, but the boughs of the cypress trees seemed to close in about
him, stopping wind and time.
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Cynthia, too, felt the world grow still. This was her sanctuary, and if need be she could summon
its magic.
“Kiss me,” she commanded.
***
It was late. Or early. In the small hours of the morning, both applied.
When the sky was dark — that's when Cynthia most liked to look out the window. By day,
Beijing was a monochrome city. The sky and the pavement blended into each other on the
horizon to form one even field of dirty, depressing gray. But at night, it wasn’t the absence of
color she noticed, but the presence of light — warm lights, orange and yellow beacons, glowing
here and there in the windows of tall apartment buildings stretching up everywhere as far as her
eye could travel.
Wan jia deng huo.73 Ten thousand homes, lit by life.
She lit a cigarette. She inhaled slowly, letting the sweet menthol drift down her throat, and then
exhaled the smoke into the night air with a long,
long,
long
sigh.
It calmed her, to see that the world was so much larger than her own story. One of the lights out
there was Ting Ting, tumbling in some fiery passion with the man she had just picked up — a
man who would forget her name by morning, if he even knew it at all. Another was Yun Hui,
poring over the plates that would go to print at first light, knowing he could lose his job if he
failed even once to weed out a coded classified ad mourning the victims of June 4th, 1989.
Another might have been Harry’s maid, except Cynthia doubted she had a window from which to
look out. No, Cynthia thought: She’s sleeping now: resting bones weary from labor, dreaming
of a life as good as mine.
Somewhere behind her, Nathan snored.
She dragged once more on the cigarette and tossed it out the window. She didn’t need it
anymore.
wan jia deng huo (万家灯活) - ‘Ten thousand homes, lit by life.’ A wistful longing for the glow that illuminates
other people’s homes.
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Chapter Twenty-Three
Where is he? James wondered for the thousandth time. Nathan was already three hours late for
their meeting. The dawn had long since passed, and the full light of mid-morning burst through
the seams in his drapery.
Everything was ready to go — except for the two of them. The target was prepared. The fuel
tanks were full. He took a quick visual inventory of their supply. Five tanks. Accounting for
wastage, it would be more than enough. He had their costumes. The lighter. The fuses. He
forced himself to think through the execution yet again, and challenged it: looking for flaws,
foreseeing obstacles, laying out contingencies so that he would not be caught thinking on the
spot.
A map of Tiananmen Square and the surrounding area hung across one wall. He was proud of
that map. It showed every surveillance camera they had found. Every guard post. And the path
and timing of every patrol. It was, he imagined to himself, possibly the best surveillance work
on the Square that had ever been completed.
He didn't know if that were true, but the idea gave him confidence, and that was the most
important thing. They would need confidence to pull this off — that, and a mammoth dose of
luck. They were heading into the proverbial lion's den. The heart of darkness. The eye of the
storm. Every metaphor felt apt.
And yet as always they had a plan. It sounded logical. It looked possible. It was devilishly
clever and dangerously feasible.
But could they pull it off?
By his watch, in precisely seventeen hours they would know the answer to that question — and
his partner was late for their meeting.
He should have pushed Nathan harder to break it off. To cut himself off from unacceptable
distractions. But he hadn't. He knew that Nathan was wound up by the surveillance they
couldn’t see, by the constant threat of getting caught. And he knew that Nathan wasn't a soldier.
He was a professor by nature. He spent too much time getting sidetracked by new questions, and
not enough time focussed on the answers they had already agreed they would live by.
He heard a knock at his door.
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“Thank God!” James smiled as he opened his door and found Nathan standing behind it. He
raised his right fist to his temple in playful imitation of the Party salute. “If you were another
half-hour late, I think I’d have put this in your face,” he shook the fist with mock menace, then
waved Nathan to follow him inside. “Come on. I've got to drill the latest timings into your head
and then I need your help with the —”
“I call abort,” Nathan said, cutting James off mid-sentence. He let the door swing closed behind
him.
James spun around. Then, misunderstanding the apologetic smile on Nathan’s face, he laughed
and put one hand to his chest theatrically. “Don't do that to me, mate. I am tighter than an
insurance company after a hurricane right now. Let's just get through our warm-up and then we
can —”
“I'm not kidding, James. I'm pulling the plug. It's over.” Nathan took a deep breath. His
shoulders collapsed. “I'm sorry.”
All mirth vanished from James’ face, and he stared at his friend in confusion. “You are kidding,
right? I mean: you understand that withdrawal is not an option at this point...right? Nathan?”
Nathan shook his head slowly. He couldn’t help but look around the room. All was in readiness.
The destructive potential they had harnessed was truly terrifying.
“What we have invested up to now — all the months of preparation, all the effort we put into
this...” James stammered. “It all leads up to this. And now, seventeen hours before we cap it all
off in a blaze of glory, you raise your hand now and say I want to stop?!? Are you mad?”
“James —” Nathan began.
“No,” James cut him off right there. All the heists they had pulled — each time testing their
execution skills, measuring their opponent’s strength, gaining confidence in themselves and each
other — flashed through his mind. All for what?!? He was suddenly furious. “No! I am not
going to listen to you give me some fucking yarn about how you went away on vacation with
your new girlfriend, had great sex, and suddenly woke up on the other fucking side of the
battlefield.” He swore long and loudly and started to pace back and forth.
“This was your idea!” he marveled, stopping momentarily to throw his hands in the air. “It was
all your idea! ‘Somebody has to swing the axe,’ you said. You said! And I swallowed it whole.
Christ! Look at this thing!” and he spread his arms wide to encompass his gorgeously detailed
map of Tiananmen. “This is our chance to spit right in the face of all those greasy-haired, selfabsorbed, nepotistic politburo kleptocrats. And hit them with the message: mess with people’s
freedom, and sooner or later you will burn. You will burn! It’s fucking brilliant.” He let his
hands fall to his sides and shook his head, as if trying to shake the anger from his thoughts.
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“What did she say to you?” he demanded finally in a low voice. “What did she say to you that
matters so much more than what we’ve done together? What we’re going to do?”
“This isn’t about Cynthia!” Nathan protested. “Jesus, James, you saw the survey data! Half the
city —”
“We’re fighting for the other half!” James screamed.
The violence in his voice shocked them both. James took a deep, steadying breath. “We’re
fighting for the other half,” he repeated in a more normal tone. “Or so I thought.”
Nathan sighed. “Look, I — I still believe in what we’ve done, James. I’m still fighting for the
same team. But tomorrow — it’s wrong, James. We’re wrong. Mao — he doesn’t even
represent the Party. Twenty, even ten years ago, maybe, but not anymore. What I now
understand is: he’s their symbol for freedom. From poverty. From class. From the things that
hold back progress. From arrogant pricks like us telling them how to run their country.”
He sat down heavily. “We’ve already made this city distrust anyone white. If we take him
down, if we attack their sacred symbol, I swear this whole country will waste the next ten years
being angry at the rest of the world.”
“If we don’t take him down,” James countered, “they’ll waste the next ten years thinking that the
only good ideas are the ones the Party sanctions. If their anger is the price, I’ll pay it. What
about you? Are you willing to lose their love, Nathan?”
Nathan shook his head. He didn't know the words to pass on the deeply felt experiences that he
had accumulated through his contact with Cynthia and her friends. Their enemy wasn't Mao. It
wasn't even the Party. It was fate: the peculiar conditions of economy and society in which
obedience, even cynicism, were not only welcome, but effective. He sensed it, but he didn't fully
understand it yet — certainly not well enough to participate in its dismemberment.
“I'm right, James,” he insisted, and wished he could explain why. “I'm begging you to trust me
on this one. We need to lay down arms — or this will blow up in our face.”
“I won’t stop,” James shook his head just as stubbornly. He and Nathan had never had cause to
explain their fundamental beliefs to each other. Now he found he lacked even the words to
articulate them. They were prior to words. They just were: self-evident truths, like freedom,
equality, and justice. Those words were his heritage, and Nathan’s, too. If Nathan had somehow
lost sight of their meaning, then he was truly lost. James knew not the words to guide him back
into the light.
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“Then at least let’s postpone for a while,” Nathan pleaded. “Let’s give ourselves a bit more time
to think this through, to get our heads straight. We don’t have to do this tomorrow; Tiananmen’s
not going anywhere.”
“I’ve done nothing but think this through for the last three months,” James pointed out. “The
only one who needs to get his head straight is you.” He shook his head again. “Every day we
delay, we give them another chance to stop us. No, it’s now or never. And I choose now.”
“I won't be a part of it,” Nathan declared, equally firm.
The staring contest went on for some time. The longer it did, the more hurt they each felt by the
other’s refusal to accept their way of thinking.
“Then get out,” James said at last, breaking the clench. He stepped over to his front door, and
pulled it open. “Please,” he insisted. “You're just getting in my way.”
The conversation was over.
So, too, Nathan realized, was their friendship.
***
“Nathan?”
Cynthia raised her arms above her in a long, luxuriant stretch. It felt like forever since she had
slept in a proper bed.
Her eyes still closed, her arm drifted to his side of the bed. But it was empty.
“Nathan?” she repeated and open her eyes. A folded piece of paper lay where his head should
have been. She opened it up.
I've got a quick meeting. Won't be long. Make yourself at home.
She thought of calling him, but schooled herself to be patient. On the first day of this new phase
in their relationship, she could give him the space he seemed to need.
There had been a time — her track and field days in high school — when she had begun every
morning with a quarter-hour of stretches on the bed. Today felt like a good day to resurrect some
of the better habits that had fallen by the wayside over the years, and so she did just that. She
found her breath. She spent some time noticing her body, her joints and her muscles — or lack
of them — and the warm tingling along the length of each muscle as she pulled and pushed the
joints. Today was going to be a good day.
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At last she rose out of bed and, too lazy to get dressed, wrapped the sheet around herself like a
robe. She padded bare-foot out of his bedroom. The floor was cold. Autumn had definitely
arrived.
She wandered through his living room, his kitchen, his bathroom. His apartment was nice, if a
bit spartan for Cynthia’s taste. It lacked the sort of whimsical clutter that she herself had
accumulated over many years of living in Beijing — Ronaldinho bobble-head dolls, Zhou En Lai
paperweights, and cigarette lighters that sang Chinese pop songs when you opened them.
Perhaps he was by nature a man of few possessions. Or perhaps he did not plan to rent the space
for long.
Either way, he somehow managed to keep it messy. Clearly, he was a man accustomed to having
somebody else do his cooking and cleaning. And clearly, he hadn't yet found a replacement ayi
at his new address.
There was also an unpleasant odor about the apartment that she hadn’t noticed the night before.
She followed it, sniffing, to an easel that stood in one corner, near the large bay windows that
formed one wall. Atop it was set a large painting. It was Tiananmen Square — that much she
could tell from the towering Monument to the People's Heroes and the flag that waved in the
foreground. But it was Tiananmen Square as she had never imagined before. The harsh angles
of squared white stone had been replaced with Impressionistic strokes of pink and whimsical
swirls of blue. Gone were the guard posts and the crowd-control barriers. Gone was the wide
avenue where tanks and platoons had paraded by on days of celebration and infamy. Instead the
square was full of children, and the sky was full of kites.
Almost reverently, she touched her fingers to the canvas. The paint was dry. So why did it still
have such a strong odor of oil — of gasoline? — about it?
She opened a window wide and let the morning air blow away her questions. With time, she
would train away his domestic faults. In the meantime, they presented her with a simple,
mindless task to pleasantly pass the hour or two until his return. She washed dishes and swept
the floors, then dug into their backpacks and threw all their dirty laundry into the washing
machine.
When that was done, she stepped into the shower.
The water came instantly, at whatever temperature she commanded. Heaven.
Some time later her stomach began to grumble. She opened his refrigerator. It was wellstocked, and she began to put a menu together in her head. A sweet and sour soup. Some tofu —
she could make a good tofu. And her specialty: hot spicy beef with green beans. Her secret was
to slice up the hot peppers and let them sit in a bag with the green beans for a half-day or so
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before tossing them into the wok. The result was a spicy heat that didn’t overwhelm the tongue
the way a fistful of hot peppers might, but rather burned slowly while you ate and lingered with a
soft, peppery aftertaste long after you'd swallowed.
She hummed contentedly. There was something blissful about planning a meal for a man. It was
the feeling of having a home. ‘I will take care of you,’ one said with every plate set out on the
table. And with every mouthful he would swallow, he promised to keep her safe, from poverty
and harm, and one day do the same for their child.
She laughed silently at her own runaway fantasizing. There was still a long road ahead, and she
didn't need her life to become a great romance novel. But she hoped — she prayed — that God
and Buddha had decided she had suffered enough misery, enough disappointment and
heartbreak, for now, and it was time for a season of happiness in Li Fan’s life.
Her cell phone rang in the bedroom. It lay somewhere in the heap of traveling gear that she had
piled onto the bed while pulling out their dirty laundry. She shoved aside a pile of Nathan's stuff,
and picked it up.
“Menu,” she greeted her friend’s call with a smile on her face.
“Cynthia! I — Are you back in Beijing?”
“I just got in last night.” She settled onto the bed, and moved around a few more things to make
herself comfortable.
“How do you feel?” Once again his voice was full of sisterly concern.
“I'm good,” she reported. “Much better now. It's good to be back in Beijing.” The words felt
true. “I'm sorry for —”
“Don't say it,” Menu interrupted. “We all get it. Really. I was just calling to ask: I don't know
if you feel up to it, but — we’re all going to Tiananmen tomorrow morning for the flag raising
ceremony. You want to come?”
Of course! Cynthia thought to herself. Tomorrow is October 1st. National Day. With all that
had happened, the holiday had crept up on her by surprise.
“Tiananmen?!” she gasped. “You're insane! Half the country will be there. We’ll be crushed in
the crowd!”
“Yeah,” he giggled. “Probably.”
“Can Nathan come along?”
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“The heathen? Of course! In fact, I insist. National Day is an important part of his reeducation.”
Cynthia laughed. “He just stepped out — I'll ask him about t as soon as he gets back.”
Immediately she cursed her choice of words, which plainly implied that they had spent the night
together. Ting Ting would tease her mercilessly once Menu had passed that particular piece of
gossip around.
“Okay,” Menu agreed. “Just let me know. Hey, and while you’re at it you can invite him to
come to my book launch at 798 next week.”
“Heaven! Really? When did that happen?”
“About two weeks ago,” Menu reported.
“Wow. That’s huge! Congratulations!”
“Well — it’s not a real book launch,” he admitted. “More like a sales event. I’ll have a stack of
advance copies on hand, and Harry’s invited a bunch of publishers. Hopefully we can sucker one
of them into giving us a deal.”
“I'll be there,” Cynthia promised.
“Great. And say hi to Nathan for me. I gotta give Ting Ting a quick call.” The last thing she
heard was his giggle.
Cynthia put the cell phone down and smiled. It seemed she wasn't the only one who was having
a good day. She sank back onto Nathan’s pillows with a sigh of contentment.
Something hard poked uncomfortably into her shoulder blades, and she wormed a hand
underneath her back to dig it out.
Her hand closed around a book — Nathan’s journal, she realized after she pulled it out from
under her. She held it above her head and examined the stiff cardboard cover curiously. She had
watched him scribble away on its pages many times over the past few days. She didn’t know if
she would be able to read it, but she could not deny that she wanted to try.
She sat up. It didn't feel all that wrong. After all, he had told her very little about himself. Yet
he had just been privy to three of the most intimate days of her life. He knew things about her
that few other people — not even her mother and sisters and closest friends — knew.
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Just a peek, she decided — but no more than that. It was, after all, his book. For all her
reasoning Cynthia knew she should ask his permission eventually.
She began on page one. “It is difficult to free...fools from the chains they revere.” The words
were written in large block letters across the inside cover. Trying to decipher the ugly script gave
Cynthia a headache, and she quickly gave up on the task.
Luckily, his book was full of sketches. The very next page was a portrait of a man. He looked
very funny, with frilly clothing and shoulder-length hair that she imagined might have been
fashionable in the West some thousand years in the past. It was labeled François-Marie Arouet.
Probably some hero from his culture, some role model beyond her experience. She didn't know
who that was or what he meant to Nathan, but she imagined with time she would.
She fell into each picture, absorbed by his talent and by this special window into his world, and
she quickly forgot the promise she had made to herself to make this solo visit brief. Page by
page, she simply appreciated his art. Here, a professorial man he may have studied under at one
time; there, a little Chinese kid talking on his iPhone.
Many of the early pages were filled with full-page pencil sketches of the people from his life:
his mother, his father, the sister he had mentioned while shopping for Chinese medicine at the
airport in Kunming. They looked like nice people. More to the point, they suddenly seemed
much more real, and it gave her comfort that this person she had entrusted with her secrets had
dimension beyond the narrow sliver that she herself had seen.
One picture in the latter half of the book stood out. Instead of a portrait, it was a building, the
China World Trade Center. The tall, tapering tower was instantly recognizable. He had drawn a
box around the top of the tower, and another around a block of text which read “Free Tibet” in
carefully drawn Chinese characters. The page was otherwise jammed with meaningless numbers
and notes. Of course she remembered the news story. It didn't surprise her that it had found its
way into his journal. He and his friends had probably talked a lot about it.
The very next page was a portrait of her. It was hasty, as if sketched from memory, but flattering,
with wider eyes and an easier smile than she herself saw in the mirror. The date on the page was
July 15. She thought about that. It must've been just after they had met, at Kirsten’s party. In
the margin he had written, ‘All the reasonings of men are not worth one sentiment of women.’
She smiled that she had at last appeared in his story.
She had fanned through several more pages before the wrongness of that page crept into her
conscious mind.
She flipped back to the sketch of herself. July 15th. Then she checked the date on the previous
page. July 13th. She tried hard to remember when the World Trade Center story had broken. It
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was after they’d met. She was positive, because the next day she had written the FMA briefing
note for Yun Hui and hadn’t said anything about the event — it hadn’t happened yet. So what
was Nathan doing writing about it in his journal — two weeks before it did?
She had an answer. And she sat, frozen, and waited for her brain to produce a different one.
And waited.
“What are you doing?”
The voice shocked her from her stupor like a bucket of ice water.
Nathan stood in the doorway of his bedroom, looking at her — and more importantly, at the open
page before her.
She slowly shut the book.
“Did you do it?” she asked simply.
He could tell she already knew the answer. “There are some things I need to tell you,” he began.
“Did you do it?” she snapped, impatient.
“Yes,” he admitted.
“I... you...” She looked at him hard, with piercing eyes, unable to accept how completely he had
deceived her.
“You’re a lie,” she said finally, her voice barely a whisper. She slowly drew her arms about
herself.
Nathan took a step into his bedroom, and searched furiously for words.
She shook her head, stopping him before he could speak.
“You’re a lie,” she repeated. Her own words were the only thing that felt real in that moment.
Piece after piece fell into place as she reshuffled the memories of the past few months according
to a whole new logic — and piece after piece of what she thought she had built with him
crumbled to dust.
“None of it was real,” she marveled. She was too astonished to be angry.
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“Cynthia,” he said, as calmly as he could. “Cynthia, it’s in the past now. I just went over to
James’ apartment and I ended it. It was him, and it was me. And now I’m out. I’m out,
Cynthia.” He took one step closer, and placed his hands on either of hers. “I want this to be
real.”
He could fix it. If only she could stop and see the truth inside his heart, he knew that he could
heal her pain.
“I hate you!” she screamed, and snatched her hands back. “You’re a bad man,” she accused. “I
trusted you. I let you into my life. I shared everything with you. All I wanted...all I wanted in
return was for you to be honest with me.”
“Cynthia —”
“But I’m not even a real person to you. I’m like a...a...” she searched around. She grabbed his
accursed journal. “This is all I am to you.” She shook it in his face. “A book! Something you
pick up and read when you’re bored! And now what? The story’s over? You’re going to shut
the cover and stick me up on the shelf with all your other books? You’re just like every other
foreigner who comes here. Only you’re worse...”
“It isn’t like that.”
“It is like that!” she screamed. She took his book in both hands and swung, connecting with his
cheek and snapping his head hard against the doorjamb. He staggered back.
Pages of his broken journal floated to the floor like feathers. He took two steps toward her.
Pain. Anguish. Disappointment all flashed across her face. And it was all his fault.
“I don't have time for false people.”
She wiped her tears angrily away with the back of her hand and then willed them to stop. She
would not waste any more emotion on him. Instead she went around the room, and gathered up
her things. She pulled her still-soaking garments from the washing machine, and tossed her
makeup and shampoo into a bag. She did it methodically, ignoring him — because he did not
exist anymore. Not to her.
“Cynthia, please,” was all he could say as he followed her around his apartment, because at this
stage there were no words. Just the simple truth: that she had trusted him, and he had lied to her.
And she was past listening. Harry had been right. He was just a boy, caught up in his boyish
games — without care for the people he hurt; without responsibility for the words he spoke.
Such a person could offer her none of the things she wanted.
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The last thing Cynthia picked up was the sketch of herself. The page had fallen free along with
many others. “This does not belong to you,” she said. Her voice was calm again. She stuffed it
into her bag.
And walked out the door. Out of his life.
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Chapter Twenty-Four
It was impossible to know when the dawn came.
The Beijing sky was a permanent, soft gray — more the absence of color than color — on that
October 1st. What did ‘the dawn’ mean when you could not see the sun? The darkness simply
lifted, lifted, lifted imperceptibly until there remained no more excuse to delay the day’s labors.
It was a matter of consensus rather than sight.
The gang of four — herself, Harry, Menu and Ting Ting — stumbled into Tiananmen Square an
unknowable number of minutes before that arbitrary moment. They arrived, all bedecked in red,
with ten times ten thousand of their comrades, to this square of historic and spacial immensity
for the anniversary moment. For the raising of the flag on their country’s birthday.
It was a peasant gathering, a thick mass of yellow faces and black hair that surged aimlessly,
restlessly. They had made the pilgrimage from Shanxi and Hebai, Liaoning and Shandong, all
seizing the chance offered by the statutory holiday to come here, to the one true heart of their
land, and bear witness to...they did not know what. It was enough to see the portrait of the
Immortal Chairman hanging from the Gate, to gawk at the immensity of the Great Hall of the
People, and to collect the images to prove that they, too, had been there. Cameras and cell
phones, unguided by an artistic eye, sprayed vaguely, blindly, every which way, on the offchance of catching something worth remembering.
Sensible Beijingers stayed home and slept.
“This is insanity,” Harry commented with typical understatement. Even smoking was impossible
amidst the stifling press of bodies.
“I can’t even see the flagpole,” Ting Ting complained.
Harry gauged the mob the way Lao Tzu might size up a mountain. “How close do you want to
be?” he asked Cynthia.
“I want to touch the flag,” she shouted.
“Alright.” He took her hand and led the way straight into the heart of chaos. Cynthia shared
only a brief parting smile with Ting Ting before they were swept from view.
“Excuse me. Excuse me. Excuse me.” Cynthia did her best to allay the swath of disgruntlement
in Harry’s wake. He was a human plough, manfully carving out a furrow for her to follow.
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The press got greater and greater, an unyielding wall of backs and shoulders impermeable to
anything larger than an insect.
“I can’t breathe!” she complained. Unwashed bodies with over-loud voices suffocated her body
and thoughts. Still, Harry dragged her on.
Suddenly, the crowd erupted into a cheer. Something was happening! The mob surged forward,
unexpectedly, and Harry’s hand was gone.
“Harry!” Cynthia’s voice sounded puny. “Harry!” Everywhere her view was blocked by toothy
grins and upraised arms.
“Cynthia!” She heard him, up ahead, somewhere.
“Harry! Where are you?”
“Cynthia!”
Then she saw it: Harry’s t-shirt, whipping in circles just a few meters away.
“Harry!” She did not have the strength to shove her way through, and so she pleaded and
petitioned and begged her way until she stood once more at his side.
“Climb onto my shoulders!” Harry, bare-chested and grinning at his open defiance of public
decorum, shouted above the cacophony. He put two hands on her waist and almost pulled off her
shirt in a failed attempt to hoist her up.
“Ni gan ma?!”74 Cynthia nearly screamed, and tried to keep her feet and her dignity at the same
time.
“Climb up!” he urged again. “Don't worry! If you fall, you’ll land on them.” He jutted his chin
at the masses.
Climbing up his back amidst the crowd wasn’t easy. She braced one foot on his waist and,
grabbing a fistful of his hair like the mane of a horse, pushed up and swung her other leg up over
his ducking shoulder. His powerful thighs straightened, and suddenly she was a giant among
children.
“Hey!”
Ni gan ma? (你敢吗？) - Literally, ‘What do you dare?’ Figuratively, ‘What do you think you’re doing?’
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“Get down!”
“We can't see!”
The protests from behind them were immediate and indignant. But they had already started a
new trend. All around Cynthia, girl after girl climbed up on some man’s shoulders. Soon they
were many — proud daughters of the revolution hoisted as living banners before the Great
Helmsman.
“Can you see? Can you see?” Harry rose on his tip-toes and strained to peer over the crowd.
Cynthia felt herself lifted a couple more inches.
The Tiananmen Gate was open, and two columns of soldiers — one hefting brass instruments —
marched double-file out the doors toward the flagpole at the north end of the Square. A
temporary security barrier had been erected on either side to keep the crowd out of the soldiers’
path, and they pressed against it, hooting and cheering and snapping photographs. Somebody
had brought red helium balloons to the party — probably to sell. They floated in a great clump
near the Gate, a dozen feet above the crowd’s head.
The soldiers took positions on either side of the flagpole, and a small contingent stepped forward
from the ranks bearing a large red banner.
“They're going to start raising the flag,” Cynthia reported, and rapped Harry’s pate excitedly.
***
Nathan couldn’t see the flag. He couldn't see anything in the press of bodies at the north end of
the Square. He only knew that time was running out. He heard trumpets blast out the anthem’s
opening notes. He had seconds. To find him. To stop him. But he couldn't get one step closer.
The mass of humanity was too great. Then, far ahead, he glimpsed a fat bundle of balloons,
floating near the Tiananmen Gate. Damn it. He’s already in place.
“James!” Nathan screamed, but his voice was lost in the rising roar of song. He climbed
desperately onto the wall of bodies.
“James!”
***
The loud shouts of the crowd irked her. It ought to have been a solemn moment, but the anthem
had begun and no one other than the smartly-dressed honor guard paid it any mind. What made
the moment worthy of attendance was forgotten in everyone’s urgent striving to be there.
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Or maybe it was safer that way. When a people were willing to respect and honor intangibles —
that was when they became capable of truly dangerous acts.
From far away she could see the flag begin a slow ascent. The great square of red was easy to
pick out. The sky above was flat and gray, the crowd before her a sea of uniform black. The
only splash of color in the whole world was that splash of red. It was as if she were inside a
black and white film, and some devoted artist had gone frame by frame, painting in the red flag
with a fine brush and a steady hand.
The noise of the crowd swelled higher and higher, and she imagined the scene some sixty years
prior. How many women had sat like her atop a man’s shoulders, in this very same Square, and
strained to get a glimpse of Chairman Mao Zedong75 as he stood triumphantly atop the rostrum of
Tiananmen Gate?
At last the Chairman stepped forward to the small forest of microphones at the front of
the balcony. Below him, the Square was packed with the victors of the Chinese civil war,
roaring with love and approval. The losers had stayed at home.
He wore the collar he had made famous, buttons closed up to the throat. It was not the
suit of a president or prime minister. It was the jacket of a revolutionary. The front
pockets were heavy patches, with flaps and buttons to keep objects from falling out on
long marches. It was a serviceable garment. She wondered if he carried a gun.
He produced a single sheet. The sound of paper crackling carried over the amplifiers
spaced throughout the great square.
The crowd hushed, for the moment had come.
He scanned once more the words he had chosen to immortalize this day in history, then
offered them to the world in a nasal, oratorical voice:
“Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo,
Zhongyang Renmin Zhengfu,
Jintian...chengli le!”76
Pandemonium. The crowd’s reply was thunder. She cried her throat hoarse without even
knowing what words she shouted. She didn’t need to know; she was riding the hurricane,
Mao Zedong (毛泽东, 1893-1976) - Victor over Generalissimo Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) in the Chinese Civil
War (1927-1950) and leader of the People’s Republic of China from its establishment in 1949 until his death twentyseven years later.
Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo, Zhongyang Renmin Zhengfu, jintian chengli le! (中华人民共和国中央人民政府今
天成立了！)
- ‘The People’s Republic of China, the Central People's Government, today is established!’
287
the emotional tempest, that had swept away all that was and cleared the way for what
now would be.
And beneath the historic joy, she felt something else: relief. Deep and cool, like water
drawn from a well on a dusty summer day. Relief that the war was over. That she could
stop worrying about how her life might change if either the Communists or the
Nationalists won. That someone was in charge again, and she could get on with the
business of living.
***
Harry was singing. No one joined in, but more than a few people quieted down to listen. His
loud voice, mostly off-key, boomed far over the crowd.
Arise! All who refuse to be slaves!
Let our flesh and blood become our new Great Wall!
As the Chinese nation faces its greatest peril,
All forcefully expend their last cries.
Arise! Arise! Arise!
The cluster of balloons beside the Gate abruptly jumped, and a strange figure appeared in the noman’s land inside the soldiers’ security barriers. It was a comical figure, a clown, dressed with a
bright, multicolored wig and a plastic mask fixed into a permanent grin. It grasped a bundle of
strings in one hand, and the forest of bright red balloons floated above its head.
Behind the mask with its immovable lips, another voice belted out the final chords of the
national anthem.
Our million hearts beat as one,
Brave the enemy's fire, March on!
The crowd of dignitaries atop the rostrum pointed and shouted and even laughed, not quite
knowing what to make of this patriotic breach of etiquette.
Brave the enemy's fire, March on!
Security guards sprinted from every direction. The clown stood, oblivious, directly beneath the
ever-smiling Mao, voice raised in song.
March on! March on! On!
Then the clown touched a wick of flame to the gasoline-soaked strings.
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***
It happened in a heartbeat. The flames streaked hungrily up the strings and licked the red
balloons. Tha-thump. Then they burst in one mighty pyrotechnic moment, and vanished in a
great ball of fire that hung for an elongated instant while pockets of pure hydrogen gas mixed
with the oxygen in the air.
Everyone screamed.
The shockwave slammed the dignitaries on the rostrum back three steps. A wall of heat washed
over the front rows of the crowd. People wailed in terror — and then the fireball winked out of
existence as abruptly as it had appeared. A million people stood still. Silent. Stunned.
Then someone screamed again, and pointed at the Gate.
Mao was burning.
It was impossible. A flash of fire so fast shouldn’t have ignited the heavy, treated wood — but
somehow it had. A small flame licked hungrily at the base of the portrait. In mere moments, it
had become a fifteen-foot wall of pure fire.
From Cynthia's vantage point, it was witchcraft. From one instant to the next, the calmly smiling
Helmsman was shrouded in a bright orange curtain.
Pandemonium again. Half the crowd along the security rails swarmed in; the other half fled.
They crashed against one other in their indecision, and people screamed in anger and confusion
and pain. Hundreds hurled water from their bottles and jackets from their backs up into the
roaring flames, to no avail.
The clown vanished somewhere in the pandemonium, or at least parts of it did. One man held up
a rainbow-colored wig and was pummeled to the ground by policemen and angry citizens. A
tourist holding up a video camera had it ripped from his hands and trampled into pieces on the
stones.
It was chaos. And Mao burned helplessly over it all.
“James!” Nathan screamed. “James!
***
He couldn't sleep. Whenever he closed his eyes, he heard shrieks and the crackling of flames.
Or he heard the hatred in her voice. Or he saw the betrayed look in the eyes of his former friend.
Eventually he threw off the covers and wandered out into the streets.
289
The night was deep. Above, the moon shone bright and full — a rarity in this city of four million
cars. He passed the still locked-up newspaper stand outside the Nine Dragons’ main gate, and
idly wondered whether James’ arson would make headlines in the morning papers.
Of course not.
He let his feet lead the way. They guided him down alleys and back streets, always choosing the
path least familiar, where nothing might remind him of the things he wanted to forget. In his
dark wandering he discovered little gems he hadn’t known about before: the magic shop that had
just opened next door to the 7-11; the break in the wall behind the Bai Huan Apartments that
offered a short-cut to the Jin Song subway station; the all-night convenience store that,
incredibly, showed American football on its television. He’d never seen that before.
It was all part of living in a city under development. Every month or two one needed to survey
the neighborhood anew, map out new routes and revise basic habits. It was constantly refreshing
for those who enjoyed change — or needed to put the past behind them.
But it carried a price. He passed by a recent demolition, where deeply tanned migrant laborers
from Guizhou Province were working through the night — tediously sorting salvageable bricks
out from the rubble and stacking them, layer upon layer, in the bed of a mule-drawn cart.
It took Nathan a few moments to realize that it was the site of Victor’s hutong — or what was
left of it. Where the Qing dynasty relic had once stood, there was now a giant hole —
underground parking, no doubt, for the apartment block that would eventually rise from the
wreckage.
If I photograph this hutong, can you walk through it after it’s gone?
The demolition had left no testament to what once had been. No future archaeologists would
find relics here of children playing ping pong or old men performing magic with their fists. The
backhoes had scraped history away, right down to the bedrock, in order to lay a new, more
scientific foundation.
Progress. It was relentless. And a far more effective ideology of mass control than any -ocracy,
West or East.
Nathan shook his head and kept walking.
At some point his feet betrayed him — or perhaps it was catharsis — but suddenly Tiananmen’s
broad boulevard loomed ahead and it seemed he could walk no other way. A pair of squad cars,
their lights glaring silently, sat in front of hastily erected barriers that stretched all the way across
290
Chaoyang Road’s umpteen lanes. A quartet of police officers stood between the cars, looking
unusually alert. One of them stepped forward to wave Nathan off as he approached.
“I’m just walking through,” Nathan explained, and kept moving forward.
“The road is closed,” the officer told him, and cut him off.
Nathan stopped at the traffic barrier and put both hands on the railing. For a brief instant he
thought about jumping it. “Why?”
“The road is closed,” the officer repeated.
Even from a distance Nathan could see that Mao’s famous portrait had already been replaced.
Black scorch marks on the surrounding brickwork formed a dark halo around the substitute
frame — the only evidence that the previous day’s fire had ever happened. That — and a
thousand amateur videos that would never be suppressed fully. Nathan managed half a smile.
They would cause anger and debate amongst those who cared — and indifference among the
majority who did not have time to.
Nathan pointed in the direction of the Gate. “It looks like there was a fire,” he observed, pushing
his luck about as far as he ever had. “Was there a fire?” he asked innocently.
The policeman scowled. Nathan knew that the man had to be hurting. Him, and the whole
security community. Someone had beaten them badly on their home turf.
It was a masterstroke. Over the years, plenty had tried and failed. Hitting Mao’s portrait was the
easy part: any prankster with enough courage and a good burst of speed could hurtle a Molotov
cocktail at the target. But all prior would-be arsonists had been disappointed to discover that
Mao did not burn easily.
Kerosene, however...
Their extensive reconnaissance had led them to only one conclusion about Tiananmen’s security:
anything that could be noticed, would be. The total count of cameras, policemen, and
plainclothes security personnel was staggering. They saw everything, three times over. The
secret, therefore, was to do something unremarkable.
Nathan couldn’t help but smile as he thought back to all those early mornings, dragging his
paints and brushes and that awkwardly fat frame up to the rostrum above Mao’s head. He had
given the guards about a week to get accustomed to his presence. By then few paid him any
attention, except to compliment the emerging Tiananmen tribute. No one complained that he
balanced the frame atop the railing — without an easel, there was simply no other way to hold
291
the canvas steady and still keep one hand free for his brush — and no one noted the small hole he
had drilled into it, nor the liquid that quietly dripped out.
It had been a slow, nervous assault. Over two months, he had dumped more than forty liters of
kerosene and ten liters of diesel fuel from the concealed bladder. Most of the kerosene had
evaporated, surely, but they had hoped at least some of it would absorb into the wood, or collect
in the tight space between the portrait and the wall, so that when the hydrogen-filled balloons
from James’ electrolysis experiment exploded, there’d still be enough left to ignite.
In a flash Nathan recalled the hundreds of people, many with tears in their eyes, hurtling water
and juice and pieces of clothing at their burning icon in a vain attempt to save it.
Obviously, there had been.
“Good thing you had a spare, eh?” Nathan jested with the guard.
How many copies lay in storage? And where? James and Nathan had asked those questions but
found no answers. Had they been able to strike those as well...but it was a futile line of thought.
How long did it take to paint a picture anyway? There were so many copies, so many films and
posters and books and wristwatches and professional actors that bore his likeness. Like Caesar,
his face would survive for millennia.
A masterstroke? All they had done was give people another excuse to hate.
Nathan sighed. It was time to start making amends.
“Do you smoke?” Nathan asked the guard abruptly.
The guard glared at the foreigner with suspicion. “What?”
“Do you smoke?” Nathan repeated his question.
The man in uniform shrugged — of course he did — then deftly caught Nathan’s sudden
underhand toss. His eyes widened when he identified the packet of expensive Zhongnanhai
Reds.
Nathan resolutely turned his back on Tiananmen, and started walking south.
***
Where should he go from here? he wondered. James was probably already on a flight back
home. That had been the plan, anyway. There were simply too many dangling threads now:
Constantine, who knew they had met some unusual people but didn't know why; Kirsten, who
292
had to wonder how the FMA had found her home address; the receptionist; the subway CCTV
footage; the seamstress; Menu; Cynthia.
It wasn't until Nathan turned down the quiet side alley and stood before the old wooden door that
he had his answer. He listened with his ear against the wood for a long moment, then slipped
inside. Up the shed. Over the wall. And along a now familiar path to the sacred grove of
ancient cypresses.
It was a perfect night. The white marble altar reflected the bright moonlight up underneath the
cypress boughs, creating a canopy of shimmering silver. There was no wind; no sound. Even
the cicadas were asleep at this hour.
All it was missing was her.
He stepped into the empty clearing, knelt reverently before the oddly-placed block of stone and
felt — cheated. He wanted his American style ending, where all love was ultimately fulfilled, all
ignorance and evil were forgiven, and the audience clapped.
But this was not America. She would not be coming back. He raised his eyes to the dark sky
and wished things could be different.
293
Chapter Twenty-Five
“Where will you go?” Aviva asked, peeking over the wall of Cynthia’s cubicle.
“I don't know,” Cynthia answered truthfully, and crammed a few more pens into her bag.
Journalism was a tough industry. Plenty of kids fresh out of university were willing to work for
free, just to get an attractive line on their resume. Publishers knew that, so the better the
publication, the lower the starting salary. And the probation period — anywhere from three
months to three years, depending on the boss’s whim — was a miserable, benefit-less existence
during which colleagues routinely stole credit for your stories and forced you to finish theirs for
them. No more sleeping in from Tuesday to Thursday.
Cynthia sighed, and stood up to leave. With Aviva at her side she slowly picked her way back to
the front reception, pausing here and there to say goodbye or filch a blank notebook. Across the
way Yun Hui stepped out from his office, and she met his apologetic gaze with a simple nod.
She felt no resentment toward him. She hadn’t been in the least surprised to return to her office
and find she no longer worked there. A newspaper was like a clock. It moved at a relentless,
frantic pace to keep up with the world around it. It could not stop, not for anyone, not even for a
moment — at peril to its very purpose. Nor could it change direction.
She was simply not suited to the task anymore.
She lingered on that thought right up until the elevator doors closed upon Aviva’s flawless face,
then let it go. It was time to move on.
By the time she stepped out of the building, she had decided that a sweet cake was definitely in
order. Unfortunately, in her absence the little bakery where she bought her Monday morning
pastries had shut down. In its place stood a hair salon. Cynthia paused for a moment where the
hole-in-the-wall used to be, swallowed the loss stoically, then kept walking. There would be
others.
At least the old man who repaired bicycles was still there, squatting on his corner and
hammering a dent out of someone’s rear-wheel fender. He looked up from his work when
Cynthia stepped onto his curb and offered her his customary smile.
A taxi pulled up and Cynthia climbed inside. “798,” she told the driver.
***
294
798 had been a military industrial factory — Factory #798 — built in the 1950’s under the
Party’s original Five-Year Plan to expand the country’s production of modern electronic
components.
There was a soulless efficiency in naming by number, but in fact 798 had been much more than a
factory. It had been a community of joint living and work. At its height, twenty thousand
workers had lived within the five hundred thousand acre mini-city. The 798 sports teams,
including athletics, soccer, volleyball, baseball, and martial arts, had regularly won
championships in inter-factory competitions. They had even had their own motorcycle brigade
and orchestra, library and literary circles, and one of the most modern hospitals in China,
completely kitted out with imported East German medical instruments and technology.
Now, many of the alleys between the factory buildings had been paved over, and most of the
interiors had been retrofitted with modern electrical and water utilities. But still, wandering
among the squat, functional buildings, Cynthia could sense the world that had been. Look, here
was a set of parallel bars — all that remained of an outdoor athletic gymnasium where kids must
have played while mom and dad were on the production line.
The economic reforms of 1978 had spelled the slow death of state-owned factory complexes
from competition with newer and more modern facilities. Sections of 798 had closed, workers
were laid off, and eventually the whole operation was shut down. Twenty years later, the
sprawling warehouse district in north-eastern Beijing was resurrected by artists in search of an
edgy urban studio and developers in search of profits. In a few short years it had become a top
venue for fashionable parties and product launches.
Menu’s book launch was taking place inside a defunct machine shop. It was a large space: at
one time a couple hundred people might have worked in that single, long hall. Now, just three
machines sat along the room’s central axis at widely spaced intervals, iron sentinels paying silent
tribute to tens of hundreds of thousands of millions of hours of human toil.
Along the north wall, in red man-high characters, was painted a tribute of another sort: ‘Long
live Chairman Mao, may he live forever’.
The space was full of well-heeled people Cynthia didn't know. They stood around tall tables
covered in white linen, drinking wine and beer and dining on the small morsels being passed
around by slender women in qipao dresses. More than a few times she saw one of them raise a
glass in salute to the stanza on the wall, or mutter in low tones about the ignorance of foreigners
and the many ways China would humble the world this century. One young man speculated that
someone should blow up the Lincoln Memorial, and the sycophants in his circle nodded at the
fair comparison.
In a couple short weeks and with typical skill, the Party had stoked people’s instinctive sense of
wrongness over the latest Tiananmen tragedy into a furious cry of injustice and a fervent
295
reaffirmation of love for their country's scorched hero. An entire cadre of country bumpkins had
been immortalized in the photos that had been published in every newspaper, showing them toss
water bottles or hurtle the clothing off their backs in a ridiculous effort to smother the raging
flames. Those people were heroes now, paraded before the population daily in a countless
stream of news reports and television interviews. Even her own paper, whose purview was
science and technology, had found angles on the story. Her father, exiled for his erudition, must
surely be laughing or crying among the clouds.
And if the guests at Menu’s book launch were any indication, a whole new generation of Maoist
adoration had been christened in that fire. They — who had been born into a world Mao had
long since departed; who had studied the man but had lived through neither the triumphs nor the
terrors of his leadership; who had judged the whole institution of Mao rather quaint, like kiteflying — now had a visceral connection to call their own.
Cynthia floated, bored and silent, among them, and left them to their idle gossiping. It was all a
silly game, one that politicians played, and she wanted no part of it. Even if she knew who had
done it.
The fools, she thought to herself, and included everyone in that sentiment.
There was a loft at one end, enclosed by glass and teeming with men in suits. Cynthia saw Harry
at the window — a factory foreman surveying his work unit. Except for their stylish clothing,
the other men might have been visiting Party leaders, here from headquarters to look upon the
progress of China's latest great leap.
She gave him a wave from her end of the room. He saw her and waved back.
“Cynthia!” It was Menu. He called to her from behind a desk, covered again in white linen and
laden with a stack of advance copies of his book.
Cynthia stepped over and picked one up. “Will you sign my book?” she pleaded, putting on her
best star-struck face.
He stuck out his tongue. But he did sign it.
“Just remember me when you’re a rich man,” Cynthia grinned. It was a joke, and they both
knew it. Menu was the last person in line to get rich off of his words — after his publisher
(Harry), the distributors and everybody else in that loft.
“Hao de kaishi, jiu shi chenggong de yiban,” he quoted philosophically, and poked his glasses
back into place. 77
Hao de kaishi, jiu shi chenggong de yiban (好的
始，就是成功的一半) - A good start is half of success.
296
“What’s the other half?” Cynthia teased.
“Sleep with my boss,” he answered with a grin, and stuck a thumb in the direction of the loft.
It was the closest she had ever heard him come to an admission of homosexuality. And probably
the closest he ever would come. His readers just wouldn’t understand. Unless he wrote a
homosexual blockbuster like Li Yin He’s famous ‘Tamen de Shijie’, he’d face a pragmatic choice
between openly living an alternative lifestyle and fulfilling his public ambitions. 7879
The creative third option was to marry a lesbian.
“Nathan didn’t come?” Menu half-inquired, half-stated. He seemed somewhat disappointed at
that.
Cynthia carefully composed a neutral expression and shook her head. “He’s out of the country,”
she lied smoothly, although for all she knew it might be the truth. “I’m not sure when he’ll be
back.”
Menu pushed his glasses up his nose again and scrutinized his friend’s impassive face. The
deadness in her eyes said much about the pain that lay behind them. He had a wild theory, halfbaked yet consistent with a dozen disturbing facts, and he felt a responsibility to test it out on her.
But now did not seem to be the appropriate time. His duties as a friend came first.
Harry chose that moment to take a break from his VIP schmoozing.
“Hey, boss,” Menu turned his attention to the big man when he walked over, omnipresent
cigarette in hand.
Cynthia giggled at the inside joke. “So who’s the zero and who’s the one?” she asked Harry.
One was male, zero was female — for obvious reasons.
“I’m sorry?” Harry blinked, confused.
“Never mind,” she smiled mysteriously. Harry looked nice — dressed in a dark blazer and a
white shirt open at the collar. They’d known each other a long time, but she’d rarely seen him in
a suit.
Li Yinhe (李银河, 1952- ) - A prominent sociologist, sexologist and active campaigner for greater tolerance of nonconventional sexual activities in China.
Tamen de Shijie (他们的生活) - ‘Their World’, published 1992, was the first academic work on male
homosexuality in China. The eventual best-seller introduced the public to the previously taboo subject and helped
begin an adjustment in attitudes toward it.
297
“Where’s Ting Ting?” Harry wondered.
In answer, Cynthia pointed across the room to a gaggle of young men. Ting Ting stood in their
center, almost buried by their attention, drinking red wine and laughing flirtatiously. She wore a
ridiculously short skirt that made sitting impossible. But Cynthia knew she would find a place to
lie down soon enough.
“How is the book going to do?” Cynthia asked, firmly moving the conversation to less
scandalous ground.
Harry glanced back at the dealmakers in the loft. “The market for travel novels is pretty hot right
now, with all the growth in tourism over the past couple years.” He nodded, a businessman
whose hunch had been proven true. “Deep South is going to get some good distribution.”
“Your next business trip should be out to the Wild West,” Cynthia advised Menu. “I can hook
you up with one of the editors at my old paper who did a bunch of work on Tibet not too long
ago.”
“That’s actually a pretty good idea,” Harry agreed, nodding. “There’s a lot of interest around
Xinjiang and Tibet these days. And terrific horseback riding,” he added with a grin.
“You could ride all day to your hearts’ content,” Cynthia enthused. “I’m sure that together you
two would be able to accumulate some quite penetrating experiences.”
“It’s a real possibility,” Harry said seriously, continuing to miss the joke. He could be adorably
dense sometimes.
She shared a glance with Menu, and winked. It was a simple gesture, over in an instant, but
enough to let him know that she knew, and that from now on he could, at least with her, be
himself. Menu reached over the table and gave her wrist a slight squeeze.
“Come on, Menu, it’s time to make some introductions.” Harry gestured toward his VIPs. “This
wine is costing a fortune and you need to earn it back for me.”
Menu got up. It occurred to Cynthia she wasn’t invited to this part.
“I’ll find you later,” Harry promised.
***
From the laughter upstairs, it quickly became obvious that neither of the men would be returning
to the floor anytime soon. And Ting Ting had already disappeared — gone, Cynthia was sure, to
298
a dark corner nearby. Minus them, the party held little interest for Cynthia. It was full of people
who wanted to be seen, and after a half-hour of mindless chatter, she’d seen enough.
She headed out the door to give her eyes and ears a rest.
It was evening. Aside from the sounds of the party the paths of the factory were quiet. She
wandered idly, both in mind and body, and soaked up the setting sun. It felt that her life had
come full circle, back to the time before her father fell ill, when her only concerns of
consequence were her work and her friends.
And yet she was not the same person as on the previous turn. Something had died inside her,
something without which she felt calmer. Older. Wiser. Ready, but for what — she did not yet
know.
The art galleries were locked up for the night, but other buildings in the midst of restoration had
nothing portable to protect, and she peered curiously behind steel doors and around machines
whose use she couldn’t fathom, and tried to imagine living in this vanished world.
How hard would it have been to be happy here? she wondered, and imagined a different life.
One where she knew her task. She knew her salary. She knew her lot in life. It was not
remarkable. She was not rich. And yet, what more did she want? She had a job. She worked
hard, and in exchange for her hard work she was fed, clothed and sheltered.
They were a community. Not just of labor, but of art and dance and sport. On lunch breaks, they
sat together in the vast dining hall and alternated between listening to the news on the campus
loudspeakers and swapping tales of the previous week's game or of their children’s latest
adventures.
After work she went to volleyball practice. They had a big match coming up next week against
417. It was a good factory on Beijing’s west side, and a good team. But they knew they could
beat them. They had heart. There was a spirit and pride at 798 that they carried with them onto
the court. They played to be champions, and practiced that way, too.
After practice, she headed over to the stadium showers. She stripped off her dirty uniform,
turned on the water and stepped under the cool, cool spray. It washed away the dirt, the sweat,
and even the ache in her shoulders that came from hunching over a bench built a little too short
for her.
She used a bar of soap. It was yellow, and faintly scented — the same soap she’d always used.
She wondered which factory made it. She wondered if over there the workers listened to the
radios that they made over here. Probably. She wondered.
299
But the idle questions washed away, just like the suds of soap, and she stepped out of the shower,
clean and quiet.
She dressed in a fresh worker’s smock, stepped out of the shower house and trudged back home.
There was a bed of flowers on the road between the stadium and the workers’ housing. Most
people didn’t know about it. You had to turn left at the library and then instead of taking the
obvious right at the first canteen, continue on to the second, a couple blocks farther down. It
meant doubling-back to get to the barracks, but it also meant passing by the officers’ mess where
Party members ate lunch and dinner. And they had a small flower garden out front.
She stopped and stooped. A wild patch grew just outside the garden’s brick perimeter. The soil
here was good, very good, and seeds — like the rain — were stubborn and fell where they
willed. They were purple flowers. Small, and a bit lopsided. But they had a delicate perfume
that whispered promises of a deep, dreamless sleep. She knelt and inhaled the fragile scent. She
picked one and carefully sat the little flower in her breast pocket. It almost matched her shirt.
She knew she probably shouldn't. But no one ever seemed to mind. In fact they sometimes
smiled. It was a little bit of her coming out, coming through, to greet her husband at the end of
another day.
***
Cynthia had wandered farther than she intended, and it took her a while to find her way back. In
mid-autumn night fell quickly, and in the dark it was hard to distinguish one alley from the next.
For a while she tried to navigate by logic, but like most factories from the Great Leap era this
one defied intelligent design. Finally it was the sound of car engines revving up that guided her
back to the site of the book launch.
By the time she returned, the hall was deserted. Empty, it felt very different. Cold. Ominous.
Not every worker here had found a secret flower garden, she suspected.
A light still burned up in the loft. It cast more shadow than light on the factory floor.
“Hello?” she called out softly.
“Cynthia?”
She shrieked. The voice was close. Behind her. Harry.
“You scared me to death!” she gasped, and clutched her chest to keep her lungs from bursting
through.
300
“Sorry,” he smiled. “I’m just packing up. Wait a minute.” He went up to the loft. The light
switched off, and she could hear his car keys dangling as he groped his way back. “I thought
you’d already left,” he said when he found her again.
“I got lost,” she admitted. She could not see him, but she could smell him. For once she whiffed
something other than tobacco about his clothing. “Were you wearing cologne tonight?” she
asked with mock astonishment.
Harry scowled. “Don’t tell anyone.”
They stepped outside. Harry’s Audi was parked next to a large garish sculpture of three
dinosaurs climbing a ladder. She was sure they’d visit her in a nightmare soon.
They pulled out of the factory and onto Beijing’s brightly-lit streets.
“So, how did it go?” Cynthia inquired.
“Good,” Harry reported. “People like to listen to Menu speak. He’ll be a ming zui one day.” It
was no surprise. A silver tongue was the prime pre-requisite for political success.
80
Cynthia batted down a sudden memory of Menu lecturing Nathan on their horseback riding trip.
Harry turned onto the East 4th Ring Road. “How was Yunnan?”
“Beautiful. I want to go back.” Especially to Ba Mei. “Which reminds me —” she reached into
her bag and pulled out a disc, about six inches across and one inch thick. She put it on his dash.
“Pu’er cha?” he glanced at the disc and chuckled. “I hate Pu’er cha.”81
“Really?” Cynthia shrugged. “Well, then you can use it as a doorstop. But how could I go to
Yunnan and not bring back Pu’er cha?” she asked rhetorically.
“You should have brought back a pack of Hongtashans,” Harry complained. He took a deep
breath, as if remembering his last drag of one of China’s premier tobacco sticks.
“You mean like this?” And she pulled out a pack of cigarettes printed with Hongtashan’s
unmistakeable red pagoda.
ming zui (名嘴 ) - ‘Famous mouth’. A person famous for their powers of speech and persuasion.
Pu’er cha (普
茶) - A variety of tea famous in Yunnan Province. It is typically sold as pressed discs, cakes or
bricks suitable for long aging periods, rather than loose leaves.
301
He gasped appreciatively, and Cynthia lit one for him. He stuck it between his lips and inhaled
slowly, savoring the sweet smoke and heavy nicotine kick.
“You're not having one?” he asked when Cynthia lay the pack on his dash beside his wheel of
tea.
“I quit,” she said.
Harry exited onto Tonghuihe Beilu. Why is he going this way? “How is Nathan?” he asked,
sounding casual. “No one’s seen him around for a while.”
“We’re no longer friends,” Cynthia answered. Harry waited for her to say more. “You were
right,” she acknowledged. And then she did light a cigarette. Some habits were harder to break
than others.
They drove on in silence for some time, and her thoughts drifted. It wasn't until Harry pulled
through the gates that she realized it wasn't her apartment complex. It was his.
The car rolled to a stop. Harry turned and stared at her quietly, as if looking for the right words.
Cynthia felt her palms go sweaty.
She had known this moment would come eventually. She had known it the moment she had met
Harry, and the moment he had started calling her his little sister. She had known it the moment
he had found out she was divorced, the moment she had introduced Jin, and the moment Ting
Ting had announced to their circle of friends that she had gone on a date with a foreigner.
She had known it, and feared it, because she knew she would have no practical reason to say no.
And because it would mark the end of a significant part of her life — the part where hope and
possibility remained open, and there was always a chance that tomorrow all her dreams would
come true. It marked the final passage from girl to woman — and now her turn had come.
I'm sorry, Harry. But I’m not ready yet.
The words rose unbidden to her lips. There was a time when she might have spoken them. Even
now they felt tantalizingly near, hovering anxiously on the other side of an exhaled breath. She
wet her lips expectantly.
But the breath did not come.
302
About the Author
Christopher Kutarna was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. He holds degrees from
Carleton University in Ottawa, and the University of Oxford, in the UK, where he is presently
doing doctoral studies on modern Chinese politics and society. He has published articles and
essays on China, online and in print, as well as appeared in radio interviews related to current
mainland events. In 2008, he drafted the China-related chapters for the best-selling non-fiction
book, Globality, which The Economist ranked as one of the top 10 books in business and
economics for 2008. Christopher has a wealth of management consulting, investment banking
and entrepreneurial experience in mainland China in a variety of industries, including energy,
natural resources, consumer goods, media and finance. He speaks fluent Mandarin — or likes to
pretend he does — and has made his home in Beijing since 2005.

Chapter Twenty

Transcription

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