I Am China

by Xiaolu Guo

  Staring at her keyboard and the screen, Iona sits back and thinks. The screensaver takes over and photographs flash up in a random order. Home: the house she grew up in on the Isle of Mull, the tall lone pine tree standing guard over the house, her mother in the kitchen making an apricot pie, a sheep giving birth, her sister Nell playing with their cat on the bed, a deer moving up the hillside at the back of their house. A deer! Yes, she remembers that moment when the deer passed.

  In the north they say if you see a wild deer passing, it means your love has betrayed you. Iona’s mother once told her that “women will always be betrayed by their men, but you have to be light about it.” Now, looking at that blurred photograph of an escaping deer, she remembers a scene. She was probably about fourteen or fifteen, a pale-looking girl stuck on a Scottish island, unhappy at school and uninspired at home. One day she felt sick so she left school much earlier than usual. As she was passing her parents’ bedroom she heard two voices inside. One was her father’s, but the other was not her mother’s, nor her sister’s. Her mother had left on the morning ferry for town to see friends. Everyone knew she would only be back on the next morning’s ferry. Meanwhile, young Iona lay in bed listening to the loud lovemaking coming from her parents’ bedroom. Her father’s groans sounded disgusting to her. She never remembered her father making such noises when he had been with her mother. Shamefully, she left the house with the sound of her father’s groans sticking in her head. A feeling of nausea began to build in her as she walked up the hill and a paralysing vertigo gripped her head, causing the trees around her to swirl. Suddenly she found herself vomiting. She remembers looking indifferently at the warm slush from her stomach on the grass by her feet.

  At her age, sex was still very alien to her. Now she thought it like the muck before her on the ground. She felt terrible and awfully lonely on the hill. Then suddenly she saw this little deer, a skinny deer passing, scampering up their hill. She was beautiful and magical. Iona watched the deer until it disappeared. She forgot about her father’s groans, and the unknown woman in his bed. She wandered on over the hill, looking for that wild deer until the night soaked her into the darkness. The next morning when she woke, through her bedroom window with a view of the hill, she was astonished to see the deer passing in the distance, a silhouette on the brow of the hill. Moments later, she heard her mother turn the key in the lock and come through the front door. As she walked into the kitchen, her first words to Iona’s father were, “I wish I could have stayed away a bit longer.” Iona came out from her bedroom and looked straight at her father. It was a look of knowledge. He was shocked and turned his back on her, going out in silence to pull weeds in the back garden. Years later, the memory of her sickness and the beautiful little wild deer came back to her. “You have to be light about it,” her mother’s words often echo in Iona’s head. She understood that her mother knew very well that her father was having an affair—a long affair, it turned out. It carried on until only recently when his lover died of cancer. It seemed the whole island knew of the affair, and had been gossiping about it for years. It is strange to Iona that her parents never acknowledged that anything had happened, neither to each other, nor to her, even on the day the other woman died.

  11 LONDON, JUNE 2013

  Iona has been thinking about revolution. She has read a hundred pages of Grossman’s Life and Fate, but its weight, nine hundred pages of fine print, is intimidating. How much time can she invest in research for this translation project that is taking her over? Real lives, Mu’s and Jian’s, have replaced fictional ones for her right now: they have their own revolution. Iona has started reading about it in Mu’s diary.

  Beijing, 28 February 2011

  Nervous atmosphere above Beijing’s sky. It’s ridiculous! The press aren’t allowed to mention a word of what’s going on in the Arab world right now. It’s going mad in Tunisia and Egypt and we’re not supposed to know.

  It has been three days since I’ve seen Jian. Yesterday I went out looking for him all day and came back alone at night. Still he is not here. Today, the same. I’ve become desperate, pacing up and down in the flat waiting for news of him. He told me he might need to bed down somewhere else, wherever they ended up that first night, and might even go into the suburbs too as they “stroll” along. But still, I have the worst fear. The protest has been going on in Beijing for nearly a week now, in a quiet form—Strolling Revolution, as Jian and the other organisers called it. No banners or posters, but they do have slogans. Yesterday I saw the police begin to arrest the strollers—but they could not tell who were the protesters and who were normal people out walking, since the secret protesters have conducted their “strolling” in the park and on local streets. I don’t know how many people have been arrested but I fear for Jian. He has no sense of proportion, no second thoughts. He’s like a naive schoolboy sometimes, and it keeps him believing himself invincible. I know he just believes he is right: total conviction. The strolling was Jian’s idea, and it was supposed to be a clever idea. But has he ever thought about his own safety? Or mine? Didn’t Little Shu’s death teach him anything? Isn’t life fragile enough and family so easy to break apart?

  Iona hurriedly gets down the basics, fiddles with a few passages, and then flicks to the next photocopied page.

  Beijing, 1 March 2011

  I fell asleep in total exhaustion, then in the early morning I woke up in a panic. The bed is still empty. This is now the fourth day since I’ve seen Jian. The streets below are quiet as I stand on our balcony where we normally drink in the evening together, looking out. The rallying cry for protest seems to be posted everywhere online: “We want work, we want housing, we want justice and fairness, we want free press!” I’m amazed the cyber police haven’t shut it down yet. And then I read a blog Jian sometimes looks at which quoted a government source: “From today the government is banning the selling of jasmine flowers. All the window displays in hotels, restaurants and shops with jasmine flowers have been stripped bare. Most flower shops in Beijing will be closed indefinitely.” As I walked down to the streets, strangely nobody was “strolling,” just office workers hurrying to their work with nervous expressions on their faces, and then undercover policemen with telltale snake-like eyes. I pretended to be out food shopping, casually wandering along, looking in shops, and bought two buns from a street seller, then walked a U-turn to get to the crossroad flower shop while eating my buns. Far off in the distance I saw a troop of community policemen burning a sea of colourful flowers on the hard, black tarmac, right in front of the shop. There were not only jasmine flowers flaming, but also other plants—roses, bamboo, sunflowers, lilies … Damn, I couldn’t believe this! They used to burn books, now they’ve started burning flowers! What’s the next thing they’re going to burn? The owner, Xu Wei, from the same province as me, stood in front of her shop, blank-faced and dead-eyed, watching her flowers flaming in the fire …

  The bell rings and Iona runs down the stairs in bare feet. A delivery man stands on the pavement holding a huge bunch of white roses which obscure his face. All Iona can see are white flowers. A voice comes out of the bouquet:

  “So, hang on …” There’s a rustle and then, “I’m after Mrs. Nasreen Akin. Is that you?”

  Iona shakes her head, points next door and heads silently back upstairs.

  Beijing, 2 March 2011

  Thank you, Old Sky! Jian came back, totally worn out and covered in dirt but at least he is still alive and here with me! “Don’t be stupid, girl. I’m not going to die just like that. We walked for three days towards the suburbs. Slept a bit in the streets at night. Then we stayed in some local peasant’s house for the night at Changping County, moved on the next day and took a bus and strolled in Hebei Province. Now I’m sure that every peasant in Hebei Province knows exactly what the Jasmine Revolution is all about!” He hugged me warmly, but he was so dismissive of my worry. “We were fine. We were smart and discreet enough so the cops couldn’t follow us! It’s the strateg
y of guerrilla warfare, you know that!”

  I was still angry with him, but I lost all my fury as I watched him open the fridge and devour the leftover cold noodles like a ravenous dog. He seemed utterly indifferent to the consequences of his actions. Doesn’t he realise that no other woman would be able to stand a boyfriend like him? And no matter what he says, he hasn’t changed, even after our four years apart. I think he might have even got worse. He’s out of control like a lone wolf. He told me that the 1989 student revolution didn’t work. And he was right. But now it seems the excitement of the fight has got into his blood. This can go nowhere. But he won’t see that. Has he some kind of suicidal wish? Does he want to destroy us? It makes all those conversations about trying to get pregnant again absurd! I can’t bring another child into this mad life with Jian. Perhaps we are destined to be childless.

  Good Lord. Iona sighs. She researches China’s Jasmine Revolution in 2011. Then she finds a New York Times report that confirms everything she has just read—the rallying cry, the strolling, even the absurd burning of jasmine flowers. Then she comes to a quote from a government official, Li Chengde, Minister of State Security.

  … the probability of China having a Jasmine Revolution is absurd and unrealistic. I can give you every confidence that the government is combating these problems with extensive state measures. We are strong and have full public support. We will move forward successfully.

  All this politics is beyond Iona’s knowledge. Things are heating up; she wants to share her excitement with someone and get a second opinion. She has an urge to talk to Jonathan. She finds the number for Applegate Books and phones him straight away.

  12 LONDON, JUNE 2013

  When Iona arrives at the Hayward Gallery, she checks her watch and realises she is twenty minutes late. She spies Jonathan leaving a queue with what look like tickets in his hand. He smiles when he spots her.

  “Sorry, the bus took forever; I should have taken the Tube,” Iona apologises.

  “No worries. I had to queue for the tickets anyway. I didn’t expect there to be so many people wanting to see an exhibition on the Cultural Revolution!” Jonathan kisses her on the cheek.

  “Maybe they’re here for my professor.” Iona looks around, hoping to see Charles in the crowd. “He really is one of the most important historians on China, you know. I’m not exaggerating.”

  On the poster in front of the gallery a big banner reads, “The legacy of the Cultural Revolution—exhibition talk by Professor Charles Handfield, SOAS, University of London.”

  “I believe you, Iona! But I must confess I am more interested in the exhibition. Let’s go in, shall we?”

  They walk slowly round the exhibition together after Charles’s talk, occasionally pointing out pictures, mentioning something that seems to trigger a memory from Jian’s and Mu’s texts. Jonathan is deeply impressed by the wall of photographs from Chinese archives. Frenetic images of Red Guards marching through Beijing’s streets; Mao greeting adoring young supporters; intellectuals being punished on a stage. Iona learned about the Cultural Revolution when she was at university, but still, some of these photos shock her into silence. Her professor’s lecture perfectly complements the images in the exhibition, and Iona is struck by a wave of nostalgia for university. Perhaps she should have stayed longer and absorbed more from Charles’s encyclopedic mind.

  When the lecture ends, Charles is instantly surrounded by his audience. Iona waves at him from a distance, but he’s hidden by a growing crowd. She follows Jonathan out of the gallery and along the South Bank.

  She slows down. “Time for a drink? What about here?”

  “Yes, OK, a quick one.” He nods as he speaks.

  “By the way, did you manage to contact Mu? I wonder if she is still in China, or in the States, perhaps.”

  “No information whatsoever, I’m afraid. Her telephone number doesn’t seem to work. I’ve tried it many times.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want to be contacted—some political reason we don’t know about perhaps,” Iona speculates.

  “I hadn’t considered that … it’s an interesting thought.”

  They head towards a nearby bar. Before they’ve even made it through the door Iona hears his phone ring. He turns away from her as he answers it, his voice taking on a terse and clipped manner, piercing the noise of the crowd. He hangs up and turns to Iona apologising.

  “I am so sorry, Iona, it’s my wife …” He looks uneasy. “I’m afraid I don’t even have time for a quick drink. I’m going to have to head off right now.”

  She looks at him, slightly surprised.

  “I don’t want to be rude. It’s just … family issues. I need to get back home immediately.”

  You’re not explaining anything, Iona thinks, but she says, “Don’t worry. I hope it’s nothing serious. We can call or email tomorrow about plans for the translation. Thanks for coming along anyway.”

  As she wonders about what his wife might have said to him on the phone that was quite so urgent, he is already kissing her goodbye and striding quickly away.

  Alone, Iona walks along the South Bank, buffeted by the night wind. A certain desolation wraps itself around her. She feels very cold, a chill climbing up her spine and tickling the back of her head. Looking down at her shadow under the lamps on the pavement, at her hands and the slim shape of her arms, she feels dazed. She walks up to the railing along the river walkway and gazes down at the dark Thames. Below the concrete bank, driftwood is washed onto the narrow mudflats and she makes out a pink plastic shoe among the rubbish. A tourist barge passes, illuminated by the strings of fairy lights. The passengers leaning out wave at the people on the bank and on the bridges, as characters do in films—big smiles and nostalgic sentiments. Iona watches them with indifference and walks away.

  She turns and walks up onto the Millennium Bridge, heading in the direction of St. Paul’s Cathedral where she can catch her bus home. Halfway across, she finds herself pausing and leaning over the rail to watch the scene below. The water is dark under the pale moon, the tide subsiding now. She contemplates the waves, thinking how fast the tide runs out. Then, from nowhere, she hears a voice beside her speaking.

  “Old Thames, such an ancient bitch river, pouring herself into the old muddy Channel.”

  She turns her head, sees a figure, standing quite close to her, breathing roughly, leaning over and watching the same scene. It’s an old man, rough coat on to protect him from the keen chill in the air and the wind that spins up from the surface of the river; unshaven face with a multitude of protuberances and folds. When the man catches her eye, he continues.

  “I know you,” he says in a rusty, rasping voice projected from oily lungs.

  “Sorry? Sorry?” She’s a little startled.

  “You heard. I know you! Seen you here before. Seen you look into the river. You ain’t gonna jump, are you?” He gives a kind of laughing grunt.

  All Iona can do is stare, and retreat, stammering, “I’m sorry. No. I’m sorry.”

  “Nuffing to be sorry about, love. You ain’t gonna jump. Ain’t nuffing down there, my girl. Nuffing at all. Just shitty cold, it is. And worse, too. I got my eye on ya, you know!”

  The old man seems like an apparition from another world. Her throat dry, unable to speak clearly, all she can do is mumble, “Sorry, I have to go. Bye.”

  She hears the old man start humming to himself as she hurries over the bridge. Then suddenly she remembers the old Englishman in Milwaukee from Mu’s diary. Now his voice descends from the sky above the water: “If you ever visit England, then send my regards to that old hag of a town, London, though I’m sure she’s tarted up well enough now.”

  13 MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE, MAY 2012

  The show is over. It’s the day after the last performance and the band are having their longest lie-in of the entire trip—apart from Bruce, who is up early and on the phone, making calls and negotiating contracts with other musicians in God knows which country.

&nbs
p; At noon, Dongdong wakes up. After drinking a mouthful of chilled water from the fridge, he discovers that Lutao is not in his bed. At first he thinks the singer might be in the bathroom, a long morning discharge after that spicy Mexican food and all those beers last night; but fifteen minutes pass and no one comes out. He checks the bathroom, but there is nothing—no vomiting, no blood, no dead body. Then Dongdong realises something is missing from their room—the blue suitcase covered with star stickers which belonged to Lutao. Gone with his clothes and his newly bought leather shoes and Elvis Presley T-shirts!

  Dongdong knocks on Bruce’s door and their manager’s face drains of colour when he hears the news.

  “I should have taken everyone’s passports,” he says regretfully. And now it’s too late.

  After lunch, they hang about watching the comings and goings on the street outside in silence. Mu is still wearing her pyjamas, sitting on Lutao’s empty bed eating an apple, as if what has happened means very little to her. It is Monday, cars are flooding onto freeways, pedestrians are milling in the streets. Even in a city like Memphis, the Monday traffic is not light. The boys stare at the people passing by, vaguely hoping they might catch sight of a Chinese man with a blue suitcase crossing the street. But there are no Chinese men, no Japanese men, no Korean men in sight.