“Bastard.”
“Hick.”
“It takes one to know one.”
“Not me. I’m from Beijing.”
While we exchanged murmured insults, we sauntered through the lobby, this way and that, without a flicker of nastiness on our faces.
Indeed, the white polo shirt, jeans, and shoes I was wearing had all been provided by Lou-zhen. The polo shirt was designed by Fred Perry of London. The jeans were Levi’s. And the shoes were Nike—black leather with white stripes. At that time you could probably count the number of Chinese people in the world who were able to afford to wear Nikes. When I first got the pair I had on, I was so happy I could hardly stand it. Every morning I’d take them up in my hands as if they were the most precious gift ever imagined. And precisely because I was dressed so impeccably, the people who saw me regarded me with respect.
Ah, he may be young, but you can be sure he’s rich. That’s what I assumed the doormen were thinking as I saw them look enviously at the Nikes on my feet. Up till then I had been overwhelmed by Lou-zhen. I sucked in the air of her wealth until I felt my lungs would explode. But wealth glitters all the brighter when it is accompanied by admiration. If no one is there to appreciate your wealth, it loses half its value. When I made this discovery, I realized that I had to get away from Lou-zhen. I had to break free of her grasp.
I took a seat on the sofa in the corner of the lobby, to enjoy more fully the way I looked in my expensive clothes. There was a window directly across from the couch, and in it I could see my reflection. When the bodyguard saw me admiring my clothes, he smirked with pleasure.
“The tailor makes the man! Those fine threads of yours looked just as good on the guy before you, you know.”
I was dismayed. The clothes were hand-me-downs? I had assumed they were new.
“What happened to him?”
“Well, let’s see. The little shit was from Heilongjiang Province. We caught him helping himself to Lou-zhen’s prize tea, and that was that. The asshole before him was from the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. He wore Lou-zhen’s ruby ring in the swimming pool and lost the stone. He said he wanted to see what a gem looked like underwater. Just the sort of thing to expect from a little hick like that! They’re both enjoying prison hospitality now.”
When I heard that I was assaulted by a new wave of fear. Was this the fate that awaited me? Only two weeks had passed since I moved in with Lou-zhen. I could tell she was taken with me, but I couldn’t stand her. From then on, all I could think about was getting away from her—and also helping myself to a few of her things.
You’ll have to forgive me, but I didn’t think that would be stealing. Why? Because I had not been adequately compensated for my hard work. At the outset Lou-zhen had promised me a salary, but she paid me no more than twenty yuan a day. I didn’t think this was fair; she’d promised more, after all. But when I asked her she said, “No, no. I am paying you one hundred yuan a day. But once I subtract the room and board, this is all that remains. Of course, I don’t charge for your cigarettes and drinks.”
The bodyguard jabbed my arm. “Time to go back.” With little choice I rose to my feet, feeling as miserable as a prisoner. A pathetic peasant boy kidnapped by the daughter of the ruling party.
“Look.” The bodyguard nudged me. “Look at the kid in the stroller.”
A white man and woman, presumably an American husband and wife, were making their way through the lobby with a baby stroller. They stopped to stand by the fountain. I stared at the couple in disbelief as they stood there smiling blissfully. How could anyone be so fortunate that they could go overseas on vacation with their family? The husband was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. The wife had on a matching T-shirt and blue jeans. They were a robust healthy-looking white couple. But the baby in the stroller—so small it looked like it could barely sit—was Asian. Had these charitable foreigners adopted this pathetic little Chinese orphan? I wondered.
“What’s going on?”
The bodyguard pointed discreetly around the lobby. There were white couples all over, just like this one, pushing baby strollers; in every case the babies in the strollers were Chinese, both boys and girls. And each was dressed in brand-new pure-white baby clothes.
“Adoption mediation.”
“Who?”
The bodyguard turned his eyes up to the ceiling.
“Lou-zhen’s involved in this? She said she was a songwriter.”
“That’s what she says. Tell me, have you heard any of her songs?”
When I shook my head, the bodyguard snorted.
“Adoption mediation is her real work. She runs a charitable organization.”
I doubted there was much charity involved. Lou-zhen liked luxury. She wouldn’t work if it didn’t pay handsomely. But I don’t know all the facts, so I won’t describe something that isn’t my business. What I want to write about is not the adoptions per se. Rather, it is this: when I looked at those babies in the strollers, I couldn’t help but feel jealous. They were so lucky to be able to go to America while they were still too little to know anything. How easy it would be for them to be raised as Americans.
I was born and raised in China. But never once, even though I lived there for a long time, did anyone ever do anything for me. If you’re born in the country, you’re expected to stay in the country. If you want to move to the city, you have to have a permit to do so. And forget about going overseas. Those of us who came to the city as migrant laborers had to live hand to mouth, constantly trying to avoid the snares of the law.
I was lost in these thoughts when suddenly the bodyguard pinched my elbow. “Hey! Wake up! And just so you know, my name’s Yu Wei. Sir to you, asshole. Don’t forget it.”
Later Yu Wei told me that Lou-zhen had had to rush back to Beijing because her younger brother had been badly injured in the riots that followed the Tiananmen Square protests. Apparently he’d broken his arm and been arrested. Lou-zhen had two stepbrothers, quite a bit younger than she. One was an artist, specializing in prints, who lived in Shanghai. The other lived in Beijing and had a rock band with some of his buddies; his band had given a number of performances in front of the tent in Tiananmen Square where the students were staging their sit-in.
Lou-zhen stayed in Beijing longer than she had expected. She wasn’t able to help her brother and had to keep extending her stay. If her father had flexed his political muscle they could have had the boy out in no time. But the boy’s performance had been televised, and shown on the news; it had captured the attention of the country—even the world—so it wasn’t a simple matter to get him released. There would have been an uproar if they’d let him go. If anything, Yu Wei insisted, the authorities ought to be even harsher on him.
Li Tou-min’s three children had each been sent to study in America, given lavish allowances, and encouraged to work in fancy Western-style businesses in the cities of their choosing. They’d been blessed beyond belief. As a high-ranking member of the Communist Party, Li was able to use his authority to line his own pockets.
When Yu told me this I was less angry than I was envious. There it was again: In China, a person’s fate is determined by where he is born. If I’d been born to a member of the Party’s inner cabinet, I would not have ended up committing this crime. I am torn with regret over my misfortune.
Two weeks passed and Lou-zhen still had not come back. She was too busy running around Beijing trying to secure her brother’s release. If it had been me, I am sure I wouldn’t have cared what became of one of my stepbrothers. But for someone like Lou-zhen, born into the lap of luxury, it was impossible, I suppose, to think only of herself while her family’s profits were threatened.
Lou-zhen called Yu Wei every day. While Yu Wei talked to her, he would wink knowingly at me and go out of his way to grimace and make faces. It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
I got to be good friends with Yu Wei while Lou-zhen was gone. We’d watch TV together, help ourselves to Lou-zhen�
��s liquor, and basically enjoy ourselves. Our favorite topic of conversation was the Tiananmen Square protests. Yu Wei called my attention to one of the young women activists on the news program we were watching. She was organizing the others around her. “That one’s trouble, Zhe-zhong,” Yu Wei said. “I can tell by her eyes. You get hooked up with a girl like her, and no good can come of it.”
Yu Wei was thirty-two. He said he was from Beijing, but he was really from a farming village on the outskirts of the city. His mother had been a maid for the Li family for years and had gotten Yu Wei his bodyguard job.
Yu Wei was also a bad influence. He brought in a bottle of cheap whiskey and mixed it with Lou-zhen’s good scotch. He rifled through the wastebaskets, picking out drafts of letters that Lou-zhen had thrown there. He said he was going to hold on to them as insurance, in case he ever needed to blackmail her. He also went through the drawers of her desk, looking for the key to her lockbox. I was worried that if by some chance he should be found out, I would be the one who took the blame, but he just laughed and said I was a chicken-shit.
On the day we got the news that Lou-zhen would return the following afternoon, Yu Wei and I went to the rooftop pool. For Yu Wei it was a forbidden pleasure.
“Some kind of fucking paradise this is!” Yu Wei scoffed. The water in the twenty-five-meter pool was clear, and the blue-painted bottom of the pool wavered in the rays of the sun. The breeze blowing over the roof was hot. The streets below may have been noisy, but no sound disturbed the stillness on the roof. There were fewer than ten people in the pool area, and no one was swimming. They sat with absolutely no interest in one another, just enjoying the rays of the sun baking their bodies.
There was a small bar in one corner of the patio. I don’t know when she’d arrived, but a young woman was sitting there, drinking a cocktail with an expectant look, as if she were waiting for someone. She had long hair that hung down her back, and she was wearing only a pair of stylish sunglasses and a little bikini. Respectable women never came to a pool alone, so I knew she must be a prostitute waiting to pick up a customer.
“Wonder if she’d take us on?”
When Yu Wei heard what I said, he showed me a roll of cash he had hidden under his towel. “With this she will!”
“Where’d you steal that from?”
It had to be Lou-zhen’s money. We could get away with diluting her scotch, but sneaking off with her money was going to be a problem. I turned pale.
“Shit! What if she thinks I did it?”
“Relax!” Yu Wei replied, annoyed. He lit a cigarette. “We’ll get it back from that woman when we’re done with her and return it before the night is over.”
“Well, let’s go, then.”
Yu Wei pulled a few of the bills off the roll and pressed them in my hand. The woman was chewing on her straw, looking in the other direction. She didn’t notice us approach. She really was attractive. Her limbs were long and slender, her face small and oval.
“Hello, there,” I called out.
The woman wheeled around and gasped as she removed her sunglasses. I gazed, stunned, into Mei-kun’s big eyes, watching as they filled with tears.
“Zhe-zhong!”
“What’s going on?” Yu Wei asked suspiciously.
“She’s my little sister!”
“You don’t say. Brother and sister? I can see the resemblance.”
It made me extremely angry to see the way the expression on Yu Wei’s face turned from surprise to scorn. No doubt he was telling himself that he’d come across a pair of brother-sister prostitutes.
The closer I was to Mei-kun, the more like a prostitute she looked. The makeup she wore was much too garish for a woman at a pool, and her hair was dyed a reddish brown just like a cheap streetwalker. I was happy to see her again, but I couldn’t let go of my feelings of bitterness. You dumped me at Guangzhou Station and slid into this despicable state? Just as I predicted! I couldn’t get past wanting to shout at her. My emotions were so jumbled, I hardly knew what to think. So I just stood there in shock until Mei-kun tapped Yu Wei on the shoulder and said, “Do you mind? We have a lot to talk about. A little privacy, please.”
Yu Wei shrugged his shoulders in disgust, bought a beer, went off to sit in a chair some way away, and spread out a newspaper.
“Oh, Zhe-zhong, I’m so glad to see you! Get me out of Guangzhou, okay? That Jin-long has a heart as black as a snake. He sends me off to snag customers and then takes all my money. If I complain he hits me. Right now he’s waiting for me down in the lobby. He sent me up here to find a customer. Let’s run away together.”
Mei-kun nervously surveyed the people around the pool. I was shocked to see her this way—Mei-kun, who had always been so self-confident, so quick to turn a situation to her advantage. But who was I to talk? As soon as Lou-zhen returned, I would go right back to being her little pet dog. What could have been more pathetic than a brother and sister ending up this way? I felt bitter, as if I were being overwhelmed by an existence much greater than my own, a being I was powerless to resist. Unless you’ve experienced this kind of helplessness, you cannot understand. I could not escape. But why was I so afraid of Lou-zhen?
“Easy to say we should run away. But where would we go?”
My question was feeble and unfocused. But Mei-kun’s response was quick and certain. “Let’s go to Shenzhen.”
And so Mei-kun determined, as she had earlier, the next location in my pilgrimage: Shenzhen. It was another of the designated Special Economic Zones, I’d heard others say. There are all sorts of jobs in Shenzhen, and the salaries are good. I’ve lived in Tokyo for many years now. Every time I take the train past Shinsen Station I think back to China. The pronunciation of the two place names are so very similar. Shinsen Station is next, the conductor will call over the loudspeaker, and for a minute I’m transported back to this very moment in time. It’s a strange sensation.
“Well, that’s a great idea, but how are we going to pull it off?”
I gazed hopelessly up at the sky. Once she learned I’d run off, Lou-zhen would hunt me down, taking full advantage of her influence and connections. I did not want to end up in prison; that was the bottom line. Mei-kun grabbed my arm tightly and planted her heels firmly on the ground.
“Look, you’ve got to come to some decision. We’re not going to get another chance like this.”
I turned to look back at Yu Wei. He was glaring at me. Did he suspect something?
“Zhe-zhong, do you want me to be a whore for the rest of my life?”
No. I shook my head, feeling as though I’d been slapped. I suppose it would be next to impossible for anyone else to really understand how I felt. I had grown up with Mei-kun and she was very dear to me, a very important presence. But ever since she abandoned me, a black hatred toward her had been born in my heart. Hatred is a terrifying thing. It filled me with a cruel desire, a hope that Mei-kun too would suffer a bitter fate. But even though I knew she was suffering, I still wasn’t happy. And that’s because the sight of Mei-kun in distress caused me to suffer as well. In the end, I decided to escape with Mei-kun for one reason. I couldn’t bear the idea of Mei-kun sleeping with other men. It made me jealous. I felt as though something I possessed—something of my own—had been damaged.
“But what am I supposed to do? Yu Wei keeps a close eye on me.”
As soon as I began to go over the details of my own situation, Mei-kun spoke up briskly. “No problem. Just tell him I want to sleep with him. We’ll put on a little performance, shall we?”
I took Mei-kun by the arm and led her to Yu Wei.
“Yu Wei, my sister tells me she’s interested in you.”
Yu Wei pushed his chair back and stood up. His face registered pride.
“Is that so? You put in a word on my behalf, did you?”
Yu Wei headed off, his steps full of swagger. We followed behind. The three of us returned to Lou-zhen’s penthouse. Mei-kun was amazed by the luxurious accommodations. She
looked up at me enviously.
“Zhe-zhong, do you live here? This is amazing. Just like a dream. You have AC, TV, and room service!”
Yu Wei fought to bite back a sardonic laugh. This made me angry and I turned on him.
“Yu Wei, my sister doesn’t come cheap. You’ll need to pay one thousand yuan. In advance.”
Without protest Yu Wei handed my sister the roll of money he had shown me at the pool. It was the money he had stolen from Lou-zhen’s lockbox. I was troubled and put the money on top of the desk. If Lou-zhen blamed me for the missing money I’d be in serious trouble. While Yu Wei stepped into Lou-zhen’s room to turn on the air conditioner, Mei-kun whispered, “We’ll slip out while he’s in the bath. Zhe-zhong. Get everything ready and wait.”
Mei-kun took Yu Wei by the hand and disappeared with him into Lou-zhen’s room. I could hear the sound of the shower. I was so nervous, I didn’t know what to do. I’d sit down and then the next minute I’d be up again, pacing. I couldn’t relax. Suddenly Mei-kun rushed out of the room.
“Zhe-zhong, come on.”
I took her hand and left Lou-zhen’s penthouse. While Mei-kun was racing down the corridor she started to laugh, “Ah, this feels great!” But I was too worried about what would happen to share her happiness.
Once we were in the elevator I suddenly remembered the pink T-shirt I had bought earlier to give to her. I had left it in the penthouse. Without thinking I let out a cry. But Mei-kun was only interested in the money.
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