by Chongda Cai
After Jingyi left, I had the urge to call Hope and invite him out for drinks. Our two relationships provided an interesting contrast, but both of us had a fundamental misunderstanding of ourselves. He thought he was breaking all the rules while living according to every single one; I thought I was making my way forward with the utmost care, when all I really wanted was to break every single convention.
In the end, I decided not to call him. I wasn’t really sure why. Maybe nobody really knows why they do the things they do. I wasn’t sure what I was doing: Was it better to simply live happily or to keep pushing myself even if it meant that I had to grind unhappily through the rest of my life?
Meanwhile, Hope’s reputation at school had gone into free fall. I never would have predicted how precipitous his decline would be. By the start of our third year, Hope was no longer a campus celebrity. Those who had once gathered for the late-night sessions at our dormitory began to resent him. They muttered in private that he hadn’t amounted to much and tried to figure out why they had ever worshipped him. One of them even said, “He was our hero back then. I think it must have been that concert, but the songs weren’t even very good. They couldn’t even sing. Why did we ever fall for it?”
Wang Ziyi, more than even Hope himself, seemed unwilling to let things end so ignominiously. She pushed Hope to get the band together and practice even harder. She finagled some money from her father to invest in more professional instruments for them. The World reunited for a concert shortly before midterm exams.
The reunion was far more professional than the last performance. Rather than the cafeteria, they were set to play in the school auditorium. Wang Ziyi had secured the auditorium, and her reputation and guidance helped launch a comprehensive advertising campaign. The school’s TV and radio stations both talked nonstop about the upcoming concert. There were posters for the show on every bulletin board on campus, and members of the student union had been dispatched to put them up in nearby businesses.
The poster featured a picture of the band with Hope in the center and the other members arrayed on either side. “The World” was written in massive text across the top, and below it, “We live according to our ambitions. This is youth.” In the picture Hope was smiling, showing his canines, but perhaps because of the makeup he was wearing, his face seemed slightly blurry.
I ended up missing the concert. I had to work overtime at the newspaper. According to our classmates, the show was a disaster. The auditorium had a capacity of a thousand, but it wasn’t even half full, and many of those filling out the audience had been pressed to come by members of the student union.
The next day at school, I noticed that someone had drawn a big X over one of the posters. Below the X was written, “Funded by bureaucrats—who are you fooling?”
What Wang Ziyi didn’t understand was that a band like the World didn’t need professionalism. They weren’t selling music; they were selling a feeling of freedom. Maybe Hope didn’t realize it, either.
The only thing I could do for him was to live up to the commitment I had made on the day I left the dorm. Shortly after the concert, my newspaper published a long article on the World. I had pushed a more veteran reporter to interview Hope. I didn’t think I was up to the task. I wasn’t ready to ask Hope any hard questions.
In the interview quoted in the article, the reporter asked Hope how he chose the band’s name. Hope answered, “The World—well, the world is something that’s so big and complicated that it’s always beyond your wildest imagination. It’s chaotic and limitless.”
When the paper hit the newsstands, Hope regained some measure of celebrity. Wang Ziyi seemed to count it as a victory. She was seen in the days that followed conspicuously hanging out with Hope.
Shortly after that, I began to hear rumors that Hope and Wang Ziyi might be having problems. Wang Ziyi’s father was not impressed with his daughter’s recent behavior and went to the school to complain that Hope had led his daughter astray. The school had been started as an academy for training future teachers and still produced a number of graduates who went into teaching. It had always been a fairly conservative institution, so there already was an item in the rule book about “inappropriate courtship behavior.” On top of that, the school didn’t want to risk offending a member of the municipal bureaucracy. The school came down hard on Hope, ending his scholarship and preventing him from joining the party.
Wang Ziyi had lost patience with her boyfriend, too, it seemed, and she started to nitpick and nag at Hope. She started many sentences with “You should have . . .” For example, “You should have realized how this school is run. What are you so worried about, anyway?” Or “You should be immune to this kind of thing by now. It’s not like you’re going to starve to death because you lost a scholarship.”
I couldn’t do much to help him. I had planned to spend most of the final year of university doing an internship. Most of the internships lasted three or four months, then you might be offered a permanent job. But there was only so much time in the year, so I knew I only had three shots at landing a job. I also knew I’d have to watch my bank account to make sure I had enough to support myself while doing the unpaid internship.
I wanted to have enough time in my final year to focus on my internship, so I started writing my undergraduate dissertation in my junior year. The effort to get ahead on my work occupied most of my free time, but I occasionally went with Jingyi to get something to eat or go for a walk.
In the second semester of that year, Jingyi invited me to a concert. A pianist from Germany was putting on a recital. It had become a major event in the city. I agreed to accompany her, but Jingyi suggested we meet up beforehand to take a stroll. I wasn’t sure what she had in mind. When I asked, she told me, “I want to take you shopping for something to wear to the concert. Some of my older relatives are going to be at the concert. . . .”
I knew immediately the purpose of the concert date.
I thought very calmly and rationally about my future with Jingyi. I felt guilty about not evaluating her on her own merits but by the role she would play in the plan I had laid out for my life.
I agreed to go shopping with her, and I let her choose something appropriate to wear to the concert, but I insisted on paying for it. I knew that letting her pay would be crossing a symbolic line in our relationship.
I’ll never forget how Jingyi looked on the night of the concert. She was beautiful—stunning even—in a simple white gown and elegant black heels, with a blossom pinned at her temple. She was the picture of grace as she met me at the main doors to the theater. She played her role perfectly, keeping me by her side but never closer than would be appropriate for our relationship and the occasion. She introduced me to each of her relatives: there was a deputy commissioner at the Provincial Bureau of Public Works, the dean of an art school, the head of a government department in Beijing. . . . Everyone greeted me with soft-spoken politeness and the slightest gentle verbal push in the direction of Jingyi. Her family had an easygoing but sophisticated way about them.
When the performance ended, Jingyi walked me out. “Everyone was quite fond of you,” she said. “My uncle told me he could get you an internship with the Bureau of Public Works. He said he should be able to arrange a few more, too.” She blushed.
I thought I would be able to play it off with more ease. “It’s too early for me to make a decision,” I said abruptly, then wished her a good night.
On my way to catch the bus home from the theater, I was racked by anxiety. I walked toward the bus stop at the intersection pondering my future. I looked up to see someone ahead of me in a tuxedo and dress shoes but crying like a child. I realized it was Hope.
I caught up with him and said, “What’s wrong, Hope?”
He turned to look at me and started wailing, looking even more like a little boy. Just like me, Hope had been brought to the concert by a girl. Wang Ziyi had instructed Hope before they arrived on how to act to impress her father, who would als
o be in attendance. He waited in front of the theater, and when she arrived, she immediately said, “You look ridiculous in that suit. What did I ever see in you? Why did I even bother? Do you know what I put my father through, just because I wanted to be with you?” Wang Ziyi told Hope to leave. He realized that it was the end of their relationship.
I didn’t bother trying to comfort Hope. I saw the breakup as an inevitability. Wang Ziyi had already realized that her relationship with Hope did not, in fact, represent a revolt against her upbringing, and he was far from the free agent she had imagined him to be. Wang Ziyi was still in search of her rebellion.
When I went home over the break, I told my parents about Jingyi. They were excited, especially when they saw her picture.
I was still hesitant to commit, though.
I shut myself up in my room at home and pondered the choices I had to make. I knew the decisions I made during that time would determine what I became. I knew my choice of Jingyi would be a choice for life.
Two days before the semester was to begin and I was due back at school, I went to the bank and transferred my savings into a single account. Subtracting enough to pay the final year’s tuition, I had twelve thousand yuan left.
I figured that was enough for me to gamble. Deep down, I knew what I was thinking. . . .
I packed my bag and went back to school a day early. When I got there, I set up a date with Jingyi. I hadn’t come to a final decision yet, and I wanted to wait until I saw her.
Jingyi really was an intelligent young woman. She seemed to realize why I had called her. She had carefully arranged even this date. She told me to bring my bike over so we could ride out to the seaside park together and go for a stroll. She even brought some of my poems with her so she could read them while looking out on the ocean.
It was a beautiful day. There was a pleasant view. There was a pleasant breeze. She wanted everything to be perfect. She stopped and turned to me and asked, “So what did you want to tell me?”
I looked back at her, feeling a rising wave of disgust and guilt. All of that disgust and guilt was directed at myself. I hated myself for being so cold and calculating—and even still, I couldn’t manage to follow through on the plans I had made for myself. I knew that I was about to hurt an innocent girl.
Finally I couldn’t delay any longer.
I was impressed by her poise and intelligence again. She never stopped smiling. She turned her back on me, walked to her bike, and rode away. We never spoke again. Two weeks after that, when I had settled everything on campus, I went and bought a train ticket to Beijing.
The long period of apathy and fatigue that followed my breakup with Jingyi was, I later realized, what romance novels might call heartbreak. I never expected it to happen to me.
The day before I left for Beijing, I packed up all the stuff in my rented room and dropped it off at the dorm room I once shared with Hope. I wanted to say goodbye to him, and I wanted to know what had become of him.
Hope smiled, showing his canines. He had undertaken an unauthorized renovation of the dorm, taking apart my bed so he’d have more room to store instruments. As soon as I walked in, he wanted to play drums for me, then he told me he had a new song to show me on guitar.
It wasn’t long before he set down his guitar and sat down on the drum kit stool. He was trying to put on a brave face, but I could see depression creeping in.
He told me the band had broken up. He filled me in on what the former members were up to: one had gotten an internship through his parents’ connections, another was getting ready to do a master’s, then maybe get a job as a civil servant. . . . Being in the band had been a youthful indulgence for them, and they eventually cast it aside. They saw the future looming, and they took off on their own trajectories. They were consumed by something else: pursuing what it was they wanted out of life.
Hope became like the last person left at a party, cleaning up the mess.
“So, what’ve you got planned?” I asked him.
He glared at me for a moment, not speaking, then tried to affect a breezy air and told me, “I’ll look for new members. I’m going to keep playing. Don’t forget whom you’re talking to—I’m Hope!”
I could tell that he didn’t really mean it. He wasn’t fooling anyone, least of all me. I could see that his old resolve was gone.
I struggled for a while to come up with a response. Perhaps the thing to say at that moment would have been “You should be practical. You have your future to think about.” But I spared him. I said goodbye and left.
Why did I feel as if I had to go to Beijing? I wasn’t even sure myself. I thought it was the best place to make a complete break.
After I arrived, I realized that my judgment had been correct. Beijing is a place where everything is taken to its conclusion. I was forced to meet challenges head-on and try to translate my dreams into direct action. In Beijing, everything is done at a national level. When people in Beijing talk about changing the world, they really mean it. They don’t simply scatter their words to the wind. They act.
Beijing caused an almost hormonal response in me. I had the sense that the world truly was infinite—it felt like vertigo. In a city like Beijing, I had to be brave.
My chance to live in—or be swallowed by—Beijing came in the form of an offer to intern for a magazine.
At first, I felt like everyone in the city was like an ant: a head swollen with dreams being dragged along on a skinny body that was rushing every which way. I became one of those ants.
After I arrived in Beijing, I thought about Hope every now and then. I wasn’t sure whether it would be a good idea to encourage him to come to a place like Beijing. Superficially, Beijing was fueled by dreams, so it would seem to be a natural fit for someone like Hope, but I knew the way those dreams became reality in a place like Beijing was through fierce determination. You had to take that determination and rush forward, even if it entailed great sacrifice. I was worried that Hope, who spent most of his time in a fantasy world, wouldn’t be ready for the tedious requirements of turning his dreams into reality. I wondered if he would ever have the patience to really work for what he dreamed of, if he would be able to accept the sacrifices. It’s not enough to have a dream; you need persistence.
The December after I arrived in Beijing, I talked to Hope on the phone. He was still talking about recruiting new members for the band. “People need to hear our song,” he said, brimming with optimism. He changed the topic after that and asked me what my life in Beijing was like. “I’ve been trying to imagine,” he said, “what it’s like there.”
“Well,” I told him, “I don’t know what to tell you. . . . It’s just a lot of hard work, always trying to get to the next rung on the ladder, but it’s different here, because even if you’re only taking little steps forward, it feels like you’re working toward a clear goal.”
“You ever get the feeling like you’ve got the whole world in the palm of your hand?”
I didn’t know quite how to answer him. I knew anybody who would ask a question like that had absolutely no idea what was required to turn dreams into reality.
I knew what my answer to the question should be, but I refused to actually say it. “Hope, you could be here, too. All those dreams you have, you can accomplish them, too, but it takes more than simply having them or even throwing yourself into something. You have to be pragmatic. You have to be willing to lower yourself to another level sometimes, so that you feel so pathetic you can barely stand yourself.”
I finally decided to invite him to Beijing. I was worried that Hope had grown too big for a small city but might one day find it impossible to leave.
“Why don’t you come to Beijing? I’m renting a place here, and you can crash with me for a while.”
Without even pausing to consider, he said, “Sure!”
I started planning for his stay long before he arrived, as was my habit. When I got off work, I began preparing my rented apartment. I wanted both of us t
o have our own space. I went to a furniture store and got a mattress, then went to a secondhand store to pick up a bookshelf. I packed the bookshelf with books and put it between the two mattresses as a makeshift divider. I moved the apartment’s low dinner table into my space; I put a chair on his side, thinking he could use it if he wanted to play guitar.
But Hope never arrived. I called him, but he didn’t answer.
I eventually had to ask some other classmates what was going on with Hope. In the time since I had last spoken to him, his life had gone off the rails. He got into another brawl off campus, he had dated another string of women, and his professors were all sick of him. He was running headfirst down a slippery slope. He wanted to feel alive again. He regained his status as a campus celebrity at least. But his glory proved to be short-lived: he was suspended from school a few months before he was set to graduate.
I received that final detail from Wang Ziyi. Her real intention in texting me had been to ask about Beijing. She wanted to come to Beijing, too. I figured she wanted to get into a language school in preparation for going overseas, or maybe she still had some urge to rebel and wanted to go to Beijing to fool around. “My parents can decide for themselves what they want to do,” she told me in the text.
The news about Hope came like a casual postscript at the very end of the text: “Hope got suspended. Did you ever think that’d happen? He actually sneaked over here to see me. He wanted me to ask my father to talk to the school administrators. I know some people think he’s just so committed to his own values, but that’s not it at all. . . . He’s trying to fool himself into believing in himself, as much as he is trying to fool other people. What a hypocrite!”