by Xiaolu Guo
'At first she didn't give a shit, but eh, my thick skin is my best quality, you know? So in the end I managed to persuade her to come to my office and to take the job. And you know, in my life, I've always had luck with tall women. And this girl is one metre seventy. I can't remember her name, but I remember where she's from: Wen Zhou, the smartest town in Zhejiang province.
'Then yesterday night, you know what? I'm at home watching Palace of Desire on TV, and she calls me! She says, "Brother Jin, want to come over to my place?" Aiya, when I heard this, I tell you my blood started getting hot, you know what I mean, Huizi? Because I've struggled, let me tell you, I've had a shit life! But I'm definitely not stupid. I reminded myself to be careful with that kind of woman. Maybe it was a trap, maybe she had a whole bunch of men at her place, waiting to kidnap me and steal my money! So I called a taxi and we drove over to the address she'd given me, and when we got there, I gave my taxi driver an extra 50 yuan and told him to take a look at what was going on upstairs. And he came back and said everything looked pretty normal, and she looked a nice girl. So I go up there myself and, well, we spend the night together. A night of destiny, I tell you! The next morning, I hand the girl 2,000 yuan, and tell her, "Go ahead, treat yourself to some nice clothes, eh?" But this girl surprises me again! You know what she says? She says, "Brother Jin, I don't want your money. Why don't we start a business together instead." Aiya! I hear this and I'm impressed. This girl's got prospects. She doesn't want my 2,000 yuan. She's so smart, she reckons she can make 20,000 yuan instead! I put the money back in my pocket and I stop thinking that she might be a prostitute. What a brain! You know she is from Zhejiang province – that explains everything. People have sharp brains over there, and every cell in their body belongs to a business shark, not like us north-easterners with our slow pig brains... Aiya, what is she called, that girl? Really I can't remember.'
Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's mobile beeped again. He put down his teacup and answered. I didn't know which godforsaken corner of the north-east the call came from, but it went on and on and on. The extent of the conversation was Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's attempts to explain to the idiot at the other end how to make long-distance calls, but pay only local rates. I swear he explained it a hundred times, but the moron still couldn't get it.
Through all of this, Huizi and I sat still and bored to death on his sofa. It was like a punishment. I hated sitting and waiting, but I didn't want to walk around, either. The ridiculous office had four red-leather sofas with four plastic bamboo trees standing in each corner. I guessed four must be Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's lucky number.
Outside the window I could see the sky darkening already. A sand storm was coming. The strong smell of leather was making me nauseous. Huizi kept looking back and forth between me and Comrade Loaded-With-Gold. My outline lay neglected on the table.
Finally Comrade Loaded-With-Gold hung up and turned his attention back to the pair of us. Without much of a pause he resumed his life stories.
'You know, life is really something. I've been told that by the time I die, I'll have been in love four times. This girl from Zhejiang province, she must be one of the four. I could give you some ideas for scripts, Fenfang! Let me tell you about my first love. You're not going to forget this, eh. At middle school, I was in love with our class prefect. She was a giant, this girl, so tall! Aiya, it gave me goosebumps just to look at her. When our term finished I wrote her a note saying, "Hey, why don't you sit next to me in the back row next term?" I know I'm short and she was very tall, but I tell you, even then, I knew I had luck with tall girls. We were all out skating on a frozen lake, and I slipped this note into one of her red gloves, which she'd dropped on the ice. And then I stuck around, I didn't want to miss her reaction! And you know what happened next? She was coming back for her glove when she fell, and slammed right into the ice! Oh, I tell you I felt terrible! Finally she pulled herself up and used her red gloves to dust herself off, and there, out from the glove, flew my note! She picked it up and read it. I was watching intently, but no reaction. She just put the note in her pocket. And then you know what she said to me as she walked past? She said, "Gold, you have dirty, dirty thoughts. We're too young to think like that!" This was a harsh criticism, and from my very own adored giant of a class prefect!'
Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's mobile beeped loudly once again. He looked at the phone and got suddenly quite agitated.
'Aiya, I think it's that girl from Zhejiang. And I remember her name now too: Zhang something. But let's forget about Little Zhang... Let's talk about us now.'
It surprised me that he was ignoring the call. 'We should get some food, eh. There's a place downstairs called Friendly North East. They make the best pork intestines, just delicious...
'Yeah, so where was I? Oh, after the class prefect criticised me, we never spoke again. Forty years passed and then one day, I'm on a visit to my old home town, Ha Er Bin. I'm driving my BMW along a street when I spot this stall selling fresh pigs' trotters. "Those will be perfect with a bottle of beer for dinner," I think and, aiya, you'll never guess, even in your next life, who I see behind the stall! My old class prefect! But, I tell you, eh, what an awful sight she was. Fat, like a Buddha! With an annoying little kid beside her chopping pickles. She must have been twice as wide as me! But her name... her name, I remember it now: LiYaqin. LiYaqin grabbed my hands and started fawning all over me. "Aiya, Gold, it's you! How do you come to be here? All these years I've been searching for you! I have had such a difficult life. My father's been working in the mines and I've never had any money. Aiya, I so regret what happened, Gold."
'"What do you regret, LiYaqin, eh?" I asked, and she started to cry, just like that! Clutching at me and telling me that the happiest moment in her life was the day she fell on the ice and read the note I'd written her. "I was so happy!" she said. "And all these years I couldn't find you, but now here you are, with your big car at my food stall! But it's just too late, and my boy he's so big now." At that moment, I looked down at the pigs' trotters and you know what? They looked just like her hands – dark and fat and stained.
'Aiya, life... you know. Life is just like those stewed pigs' trotters. Sometimes you just have to eat what you're given.'
At this point Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's eyes started to mist over. Huizi and I looked at each other, and neither of us knew what to say. My outline was still on the table, completely abandoned by now.
Comrade Loaded-With-Gold suddenly raised his head from his sentimental past and looked at me.
'Fenfang,' he drawled. 'Tell me, do you find a man like me interesting?'
Huizi shot me a look.
'Sure, really interesting.' I cleared my throat. 'Yes, definitely. I find it really easy to relate to you, especially since you're about the same age as my father. It's not that difficult to understand you.'
I could feel Huizi relax.
'Aiya, you meet me for the first time and already you think I'm fascinating, eh. Well, that Wen Zhou girl, aiya, what's her name... you know?'
'Zhang?' I offered.
'Yes, yes, Miss Zhang. Right, well, I can't chat any more, you see, I should go and ring back Little Zhang.'
And with that, Comrade Loaded-With-Gold walked out of the red-leather office to make his call.
Huizi and I both stood up, perfectly synchronised. I picked up my outline from the desk and shoved it into my backpack. I didn't blame Huizi. We walked out of the office.
Another sand storm was starting, the wind flapped at my thin skirt. There was never any gentleness in a Beijing spring. Huizi and I walked and walked. There was silence between us. A woman passed us on her bicycle, she'd wrapped her scarf over her mouth to stop the sand. Men carrying their evening newspapers and briefcases hastily pushed past us. Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's northeastern accent still rang in my ears, as did those words... 'Dirty, dirty thoughts!' Sand whirled up into my eyes and I couldn't stop rubbing them. My head ached.
Huizi could sense I was a bit low.
>
'Right, Fenfang,' he said, 'I'm taking you to Jade Pond Park to see the cherry blossom.'
I just said, 'Okay.' Nothing more. Then I followed Huizi. I can't explain why, but I felt like I'd aged five years since walking into Comrade Gold's office. I actually felt lots of sympathy for the man. As I'd said to him: I understood him.
Jade Pond Park, with its famous cherry trees, was packed with tourists. You could hardly move. Parents with their children. Young people with their old parents. Visitors, officials, builders, guards. We climbed up a little hill to get a better view. The trees spread below us were like sculptures made of twisted wire, the pink blossoms were swinging in the sand-filled wind. There was hardly any scent.
I thought of Japan and how popular the cherry-blossom season is there. Then I remembered a sad story I read in the newspaper about a young Japanese girl who had committed suicide by jumping into a waterfall. In the note she left, she explained:
I don't want to lose the beauty of my youth. I don't want to see my body ageing. The cherry blossom chooses to die in one night. I want to do the same.
I looked again at the cherry-blossom trees beneath me and saw that the grass was already covered by a layer of fading petals.
'LIFE IS JUST LIKE those stewed pigs' trotters. Sometimes you just have to eat what you're given.'
Comrade Loaded-With-Gold's words stayed in my mind. He was probably right.
As for stewed pigs' trotters, I didn't even have those. I hadn't worked for two months. There were no frozen dumplings in the freezer, no rolls of toilet paper in my bathroom, no soy sauce or vinegar in my kitchen, no soap by the bath. I'd used everything up. Worse than that was the loneliness of it. I put the kettle on to boil. I could feel a headache starting again. This always happened when I hadn't had any coffee for a few days. I rummaged around and found a sachet of stale instant. My worst worry was what I'd find in the sugar bowl. I closed my eyes and opened the Taiko sugar tin. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, sure enough, there wasn't even any sugar in this place. Instead there at the empty bottom were two dead cockroaches, starved to death.
I sat at the table. For half an hour, I just sat and slowly drank the bitter coffee from my big cup. When I had finished, nothing had changed. But my headache was going away.
I started hunting through my clothes for money. I searched my pockets and even my winter coat from last year. The tiniest bit of loose change was enough – anything to get me through the day. Altogether, I managed to find 25 yuan.
I went downstairs and immediately tasted sand in my mouth. The air smelled dusty. I ran into the nearest store and bought one pack of frozen chive dumplings, two packs of instant noodles and a tin of sugar. Five yuan change. As I walked home, I prayed for rain to arrive to help this desert city. 'Please rain,' I murmured. 'Please rain, please rain, please rain.'
Back in the apartment, I wolfed down a bowl of instant noodles and drank another cup of coffee, with sugar this time. Then I sat at my table, contemplating my telephone. Something was bound to happen, someone had to come to save me, I could feel it. 'Please help me, please help me, please help me...' I whispered. Two minutes later, the phone rang.
Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, thank you! It was a call about money. A call from an Underground Director!
The Director introduced himself. It was such a long introduction that I almost fell asleep. He took me through the story of his struggle to be a cutting-edge artist from A to Z. In the beginning, he'd wanted to be mainstream, to be accepted by the state, maybe even get to Hollywood. But when he finished his first feature, for some reason it never got past the censors. So he changed his politics and decided to become an Underground Director. The more films he made, the more underground and angry he became.
Anyway, as I said, I was just about falling asleep when the Underground Director said he'd heard about this film called The Seven Reincarnations of Hao An. He said he thought Hao An sounded very underground and his seven reincarnations pretty intriguing. Could he read the script?
Could he read the script? Underground Director, you are my Bo Le and I am your horse. 1 am 1.2 million per cent happy to give the story of Hao An and his Bloody Mary Li Li to you.
The Underground Director was happy too.
'Great, great. All right, Fenfang. Come and meet me tonight. Nine o'clock. HuaiYang Cuisine on the second floor of the Jiang Su Hotel.'
More than fine! I hung up. The Heavenly Bastard in the Sky never seals off all the exits – there's always a way through. In this world there must be more than 300 different ways to die, but who cares. At least I wasn't going to die of hunger.
At 8 p.m. I set out for the Jiang Su Hotel, script in hand. I could feel a fever growing in my head. My throat was sore and my ears ached. The sand storm outside felt like it was taking me over. I could hear grains of sand hitting the windows of nearby buildings and I felt as if, at this moment, my whole future lay in my hands. I was so terrified, I needed to talk to someone to get a hold of myself. I took out my mobile and phonecard, and called Ben. Thank the Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, this time it wasn't the famous answering machine.
'Ben, Ben!'
'What is it, Fenfang. I'm just brushing my teeth and I've got to be in college in fifteen minutes.'
I could hear running water in the background. I suddenly started sneezing and coughing.
'Sounds like you've got a cold, Fentang. Did you go to the doctor?'
'What?' I sniffled down the line. 'Don't be ridiculous. Chinese people can't go to see the doctor every time we have a stupid cold.'
'Well, if you won't go see a doctor, then at least buy some cranberry juice, it's good for fevers and colds,' said Ben impatiently.
'Cranberry juice? Are you crazy? In all of Beijing, you can only buy weird stuff like that at the Jian Guo Men Friendship Store and the supermarket under the China World Trade Centre. There's no way I'd be able to afford it. Thirty yuan for a taxi there to buy a tiny bottle of some extravagant American juice that will cost about forty yuan!'
Ben got impatient again. 'Whatever, just take care of yourself, Fenfang.'
'Okay, okay, I will. I just wanted to say hello to you. There's a crazy wind out here today. Sorry, I have to go now, I'm in a hurry.'
'Me too,' said Ben. 'Speak soon.'
I put my phone back in my pocket. I suddenly realised the whole business with Ben just didn't make any sense. Why did we carry on talking on the phone? Didn't we realise there were 18,400 miles between us? Couldn't we admit that we knew nothing about each other's lives? I didn't even know how old Ben was, or what his family was like, or whether his parents were together or divorced. As for Ben, he had no idea where Ginger Hill Village was, or of how I had dreamt of a different future. I felt desperate.
With so little money in my pocket I couldn't get a taxi. I had no choice but to get the bus halfway across Beijing, through Ditan to the Jiang Su Hotel. My shoes were dusty from all the people stepping on my feet as they squeezed on to the bus. My long hair was full of knots. I'd forgotten to put on make-up and I was wearing an ugly coat to protect my body from the spitting sand. I had none of the charms a woman should have when she goes out to meet a man. But fuck all that fake stuff, what did it matter here anyway? I was going to meet an Underground Director. A real one. A seriously anti-mainstream guy.
I had to change buses twice. I could feel my temperature rising. It was already after nine o'clock, but still the buses were so packed the conductor couldn't get through to collect the tickets, and kept shouting. My head was throbbing, and the script in my hand was getting crumpled. When I finally managed to extract myself from the jammed bus, I moved like an old dog. I could see the Jiang Su Hotel towering ahead of me. I was cold and hungry. Be patient, be patient, I kept repeating to myself. Soon you'll get Hao An's story made into a film and you'll earn enough money to buy hot duck soup every day.
I hurried up to the second floor and found the Huai Yang Cuisine restaurant. But there were no men on their own. I looked around and around
. No sign of anything like an Underground Director. Had he left already? What if I wasn't going to get any money today? I bent over the bar, grabbed a phone and punched in the number he'd given me.
'Hey, it's me, Fenfang. I'm here! HuaiYang Cuisine on the second floor of the Jiang Su Hotel. Where are you, Underground Director?'
'I said the Jiang Su MOTEL, not Jiang Su Hotel!' he said. 'You need to take a bus a couple more stops.'
Who the fuck would put a Huai Yang Cuisine in the Jiang Su Motel and in the Jiang Su Hotel? Desperately, I hung up and ran back downstairs into the dark night.
As I hurried into the street, I felt my body temperature jump from 36.5°C to 37.2°C and then keep on going straight up to 39.5°C. I was having trouble breathing, it was like an asthma attack. Everything around me went blurred. I couldn't tell the difference between the Jiang Su Hotel behind me and the Jiang Su Motel ahead of me. The buildings looked the SAME, the characters on the signs looked the SAME too. The wind persevered in its howling and the moon had disappeared behind the sand swirling in the sky. It was the end of the world. I could still just about hear the latest news being broadcast via the loudspeaker hanging on the electricity pole:
Again, a violent storm has taken our city by surprise. According to the Beijing Meteorological Centre, at 4 p.m. today the concentration of sand in the city's air reached a peak of 1,012 milligrams per cubic metre. This evening a gale-force-eight north-westerly wind reached the Haidian area of the city. The storm originated in the Gobi Desert region of Inner Mongolia and will continue on its course into northern China, before making its way south...
The weatherman's last few sentences were drowned out by the sandy wind. This was Beijing. A city that never showed its gentle side. You'd die if you didn't fight with it, and there was no end to the fight. Beijing was a city for Sisyphus – you could push and push and push, but ultimately that stone was bound to roll back on you.