Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Hey, you!” A man’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned to see a man who looked like a police official. He called to me in an arrogant tone. My heart froze. I’d come out with neither a residency permit nor any identification papers. The man was dressed in the kind of blue suit a government official would wear. His build was slight, but he walked with self-assured determination. Surely he was involved in some high-level position. The last thing I wanted to do was get nabbed for something, so I decided to act like a witless country bumpkin.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “I know. Just come with me for a minute.”

  The man took my arm and pointed to a black car parked beside one of the European buildings.

  “Get in.”

  I couldn’t get away. The man had me by the arm and was leading me to the car. It was a large Mercedes. The driver looked at me through his sunglasses and smirked. I was pushed into the backseat. The man in the suit got in the front passenger seat and turned around to look at me.

  “I have a job for you. But you have to agree not to talk about it. That’s the condition. If you can’t agree to my condition, I’ll let you out right now.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “You’ll see when we get there. If you aren’t up for it, get out now.”

  I was terrified, but I was also intrigued. What if this was just the break I’d been waiting for? I couldn’t get out. I’d had enough of life as a coolie, and I’d lost my beloved little sister. What else did I have to lose? I nodded in agreement.

  The Mercedes headed back to the White Swan. When I’d left the hotel earlier, I never imagined I’d ever go back. The car pulled around to the front and the doormen who had earlier menaced me dashed out to greet us, opening the car doors adroitly. When the doormen saw me get out of the car they were not able to conceal their surprise. My spirits suddenly soared. No matter what kind of fate may be in store for me, it would have been worth it just to have experienced that feeling.

  I entered the hotel for the first time, following the man in the suit. The lobby was crawling with wealthy people dressed in elegant clothes. I stopped in my tracks and stared, unable to help myself. The man grabbed my arm and tugged me roughly. He shoved me into the elevator and took me up to the top, the twenty-sixth floor. When the doors opened, I was assailed with anxiety and unable to move. If I step off the elevator now, I told myself, I can never go back to my old life.

  • 3 •

  “Hurry up and get out,” the man ordered impatiently. I stared at him in a daze.

  “I don’t think I can go through with this. I don’t have my papers with me. Please, let me go home.”

  Heedless of my wishes, the man grabbed me roughly by the arms, yanked me out of the elevator, and forced me to walk alongside him. He was strong; I had little choice but to follow. My legs trembled in fear. The man dragged me off to a dimly lit corridor and pulled me along deeper and deeper into the hotel. No one else was around.

  The hallway was covered with a thick beige carpet woven in an ornate design of water lilies and phoenixes. It was so luxurious I felt it wrong even to step on it. A dim lamp illuminated a far corner of the corridor, and from somewhere came the strains of elegant music. A marvelous scent wafted along the hallway. My fear gave way to a sense of gentle ease. I found the abruptness of the shift incredible. Had I never left the countryside, I would have died without ever even realizing such a wondrous place existed.

  The man knocked on the last door. A woman’s shrill voice called in answer and the door opened immediately. A young woman stood in front of us, dressed in a navy-blue suit and wearing bright red lipstick. “Come in,” she said, as if it were a command. I looked around nervously and then drew a sigh of relief. There were three other men in the room. They looked to be my age. I suppose they had also been picked up, as had I, and brought to this place. They were sitting nervously on a sofa watching television.

  I sat down gingerly on the edge of the sofa. The other men were migrants, just like me. I could tell at a glance from the clothes they wore. They were also nervous, having been dragged by a strange man and woman into a room more elegant than they could have ever imagined. They too were uncertain what would happen to them.

  “Wait here,” the man said, as he stepped into the adjoining room. He was gone for a long time. The woman with the bright red lipstick did not open her mouth once. She just sat there watching TV along with the rest of us. Her eyes were so cunning and sharp, I assumed she was either a police officer or a government agent. I’d been in the city now for three months, toiling as a migrant laborer; it didn’t take me long to sniff out one of their kind. They gave themselves away with their haughty manner and high-handedness.

  The television was tuned to a news story, covering some kind of riot. Young men were shouting with blood streaming down their faces; tanks were rolling in the streets, and people were running for cover. It looked like a civil war. Later I learned that this was the day following the killing in Tiananmen Square. I had not heard anything about the demonstrations, and had a hard time believing what I was seeing. The woman with the crafty face took up the remote control and turned off the television. The men, looking nervous, quickly averted their eyes, trying to avoid the woman’s gaze, and exchanged uneasy glances.

  The room we were in was massive. It looked like it could sleep up to twenty or thirty people. I suppose it was done in what you would call the rococco style. There was a lavish Western-style sofa set in the room and an enormous television set. In the corner of the room was a bar. The curtains across the large window were pulled back and I could see the rays of the afternoon sun glittering over the Pearl River. It may have been hot outside, but the air-conditioning was on in the room and it was cool and dry. In a word, refreshing.

  The woman pierced me with her keen gaze but, undeterred, I stood up and stared at the scene outside the window. Off to the right I could see makeshift shacks that a group of migrant workers had slapped together. What a filthy sight. They shouldn’t be allowed to build their shacks in such a beautiful place as this, I thought. Tiananmen Square seemed far away, like something completely unrelated to me.

  The door to the adjoining room opened softly, and the man who had brought me there poked his head in and pointed to me.

  “You, come here. The rest of you can leave.”

  The men who had been waiting looked relieved on the one hand and disappointed on the other, as if they’d missed an opportunity. They got to their feet and shuffled out. I headed for the next room, completely baffled as to what was to transpire. There I found an enormous bed in the center of the room. A woman was sitting in a chair by the bed, smoking a cigarette. She was short, and her body was firm and compact. Her hair was dyed a reddish brown and she was wearing large pink-rimmed glasses. A bright red gown was draped across her shoulders. She was garish and looked to be in her forties.

  “Come over here.”

  Her voice was surprisingly soft. She beckoned me to a small settee. When I sat down, I noticed that the man who had brought me had left the room. It was just me and the woman now, sitting face-to-face. The woman raised her eyes—which looked twice as large as they were due to the magnification of her glasses—and examined me carefully. What on earth is going on? I wondered, as I returned the woman’s gaze.

  “What do you think of me?” she asked.

  “That you’re scary,” I answered in all honesty, and the woman pulled her lips into a tight grimace.

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  She stood up and opened a small lockbox on a shelf next to the bed. She pulled out what looked to be a cupful of loose tea and poured some into a pot. Her hands were large. Then she poured hot water efficiently into the pot. She was making me a cup of tea.

  “This is delicious tea,” she said.

  I would have preferred Coca-Cola, I thought to myself. But not wanting to anger the woman, who clearly saw things differently, I kept nodding.

  She conti
nued, saying triumphantly, “This oolong tea is of the highest quality. It’s from fields that I own in Hunan. And every year we only produce a little tiny bit.”

  The woman made a circle with her hands the size of a soccer ball. I’d never been given a taste of such rare tea.

  “What’s your name?”

  The woman sipped the tea and stared at me as if she were appraising merchandise. Her gaze was soft but penetrating. I felt my heart tighten instinctively. I didn’t know what was going on, and I’d never been in a situation quite like this before: left alone with a woman whose purpose I did not understand.

  “Zhang Zhe-zhong.”

  “Such a common name. My name is Lou-zhen. I make my living as a songwriter.”

  I couldn’t imagine how one could make a living writing songs, but even a naïve country bumpkin like myself had had enough experience in the world to know that a woman who stayed in a luxurious hotel like this was not run-of-the-mill. Lou-zhen, a songwriter, had hired a man to go out and find men like me. Why? Was she involved in some kind of organized crime? I began to tremble at the thought, assailed by a fear I couldn’t even name. But Lou-zhen said, as if it irked her, “I want you as my lover.”

  “Your lover? What do you mean?”

  “It means you’ll sleep with me.”

  She stared right at me as she said this. I felt my cheeks burn red hot.

  “I couldn’t do that.”

  “Yes, you could,” she replied smoothly. “And in return I will give you a nice sum of cash. You want to make money, don’t you? That’s why you came to this city as a migrant laborer, isn’t it?”

  “Well, yes, but…I’ve been paid to work.”

  “I suppose you could say this will be work too!”

  The woman seemed to realize that what she’d just said was peculiar, because she gave an embarrassed laugh. I couldn’t tell if she was from a good family or not by the way she behaved.

  “How much money are we talking about?”

  “If you can satisfy me, I’ll give you all you want. What do you think? A pretty good deal, huh?”

  For a minute I couldn’t respond. My heart was torn. On the one hand I didn’t think I could ever possibly be a male prostitute, no matter what the compensation. On the other hand, I was sick and tired of working in construction, and the idea of making such easy money was extremely tempting. More than tempting, in fact. In the end the money won out. I slowly nodded my consent. Lou-zhen smiled and filled my cup with tea.

  In truth, it takes considerable courage to write about this. I hesitated to divulge all these details in the written report I submitted earlier to this court, Your Honor. But now I’ve been given an opportunity to reflect on my past life. I just pray that you will read what I have written here without prejudice or contempt.

  So that is how I allowed the wealthy middle-aged Lou-zhen to buy me. I knew she was only interested in my body, but still I wondered if perhaps she might love me. Because even though she always spoke to me in rough suggestive tones, she doted on me as if I were her favorite pet dog. The reason she had picked me from among the other men, she said, was because my face came closest to resembling that of her ideal. And she liked the fact that I stood off on my own looking out the window, instead of sitting with the others watching television. I didn’t realize it at the time, but there was a two-way mirror in the room where we had been asked to wait, and Lou-zhen had watched us from here.

  I was ordered to live in Lou-zhen’s suite. While there—in that magnificent hotel—I saw and heard things I had never before experienced: things like Western-style food and table manners, the decadence of breakfast in bed, a rooftop swimming pool. I’d been raised in the mountains and did not know how to swim. Reclining beside the pool, tanning myself, I would watch Lou-zhen swim laps, her strokes powerful and smooth. The pool was limited to club members, all of whom were either wealthy Chinese or foreigners. I was particularly taken with the stylish Western women and was ashamed to be seen there with the unattractive Lou-zhen.

  I began drinking: beer and whiskey or brandy and wine. Lou-zhen enjoyed watching videos of American movies. She very rarely watched news shows. I wanted to find out what had happened at Tiananmen Square and afterward, but since Lou-zhen didn’t get a newspaper I had no way to find out. Lou-zhen let it slip that once, when she was young, she had visited America. At that time the only people who ever went abroad were either government officials or exchange students, so it was a mystery to me how Lou-zhen got out. But I never asked her any questions. I played my role of the young lover to perfection. I did what I could to master the life I led in the penthouse of the White Swan Hotel, this room next to heaven itself.

  The room may have brushed heaven, but Lou-zhen was a disgusting person. If I gave voice to just the slightest opinion about anything, she flew into a rage. With haughty self-assurance she forbade me to express any of my own ideas. At those times I wanted to cut all ties with her and run away someplace where I could live my own life. But my whole sphere of existence was now confined to the penthouse and the pool on the twenty-sixth floor. I was not allowed to walk freely about the hotel or to leave it on my own. Within a week of agreeing to live with Lou-zhen, I began to regret my decision.

  About ten days after the incident at Tiananmen Square, something happened. The phone by the side of the bed rang, and when Lou-zhen answered it she turned strangely pale. Her voice was tense.

  “Well, then, what should I do? I suppose I should come back immediately.”

  She was still agitated after she hung up. She leaned over to me, and I made as if to embrace her from behind.

  “Something troublesome has happened in Beijing.”

  “Does it have anything to do with you?”

  Lou-zhen got up and put a cigarette in her mouth. She didn’t answer. “Deng Xiaoping’s gone and done it!” she mumbled. That was all, but it was enough to make me realize that the reason her background was mysterious was that she was probably the daughter of a high-level Communist Party member. After Tiananmen, her father undoubtedly was facing difficulties.

  Lou-zhen remained in a nasty mood for the rest of the day. She got more phone calls, which left her depressed, anxious, and angry. I sat watching a Hollywood movie until Lou-zhen told me, “I have to go back to Beijing for a bit, Zhe-zhong. You wait for me here.”

  “Can’t I go with you? I’ve never been to Beijing.”

  “No, that won’t do.” Lou-zhen shook her head abruptly, like a man.

  “Well, then, will it be okay if I wander around the hotel?”

  “I guess I don’t have much choice. But be sure you always have him with you.”

  Him was her bodyguard, the man who had brought me to Lou-zhen in the first place.

  “You can’t run off without telling me where you’re going, and you can’t fool around with other women. If you do pull that kind of trick on me, I’ll be sure to have you locked up.”

  With that threat, Lou-zhen set off for Beijing. She took Bai Jie, the crafty-faced woman, with her. Bai Jie was her secretary and lived on the same floor of the hotel. That woman must really have despised me, because whenever she came near me she would look away in disgust. The bodyguard and the limo driver were no better. They must have figured Lou-zhen would tire of me sooner or later, so whenever she wasn’t around they were rude to me.

  I wanted to get out somehow. On the day after Lou-zhen and her secretary left for Beijing, I set off to explore the hotel under the watchful eye of the bodyguard.

  “So, who’s Lou-zhen’s father?” I asked, as we rode the elevator. The first time I’d met the man, when he brought me here, I was afraid of him. But now my attitude had changed completely, which did not please the bodyguard. He said nothing and looked away.

  I put the screws to him: blackmail. “You know, when Lou-zhen gets back I’ll no problem telling her about the way you and her secretary pilfer her cigarettes and booze and sell them on the side.”

  The bodyguard went pale. “If you want
to know so bad I’ll tell you”—he scowled—“but an ignoramus like you isn’t going to recognize the name anyway.”

  “Try me.”

  “Li Tou-min.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears and nearly collapsed on the floor with shock. Li Tou-min was the number-two man in the Chinese Communist Party. Lou-zhen had threatened me with prison if I tried to escape, but I hadn’t realized how serious she was. I’d gotten tangled up with a really dangerous woman.

  “Are you kidding?”

  I grabbed the bodyguard’s shoulders but he shook free of my grip roughly.

  “She’s Li’s eldest daughter. Whether things go well for you or not depends on how you behave. All the ones before you were idiots. They got caught up in this life of luxury and forgot that we were the ones who yanked them out of the stinking mud of the countryside. That’s when Lou-zhen can really be vile. She makes sure they know just what they are.”

  “So you’re saying I’ll be okay as long as I watch my step?”

  The bodyguard didn’t answer. He just smiled. I braced myself, thinking I’d try to knock him out here in the elevator. But just when I was ready to attack, the car jolted as we reached the first floor, the doors opened, and I was confronted with an entirely new world.

  I forgot Lou-zhen completely. Families were milling about the lobby in T-shirts, businessmen rushed through at a brisk pace, and there were the doormen in their maroon livery. I’d been holed up in Lou-zhen’s suite so long, it had been at least two weeks since I was last out. A Western woman wearing a dress that was cut low in back sauntered past and smiled when she caught my eye. How big the world is! I was absolutely captivated by the different people I saw walking this way and that throughout the spacious lobby. These were people awash with luxury and the richness of peace. I wanted to become just like them. No, I was determined to be one of them. My heart, dominated by a desire for wealth and a longing for freedom, was filled with bitterness. I was seized with the desire to escape. As if reading my mind, the bodyguard whispered gruffly in my ear, “Remember, watch your step. Your clothes belong to Lou-zhen, your shoes, everything. If you even think of skipping off, she’ll have you brought up on charges of theft.”