I love you, I had said. And it was love. It wasn’t just sex. Whatever other people might have thought, whoever other people thought we were, I knew we were in love. When I think about it today, the bittersweet pain is almost too much to bear.
Eleven
From that fateful June day until the beginning of September, Lan Yu was on summer vacation and had very little to keep himself busy. He wouldn’t be working at the construction site again that summer, so he asked me to help him find a job—not, he said, for the money, but to gain more experience. Of course, I was willing to help, but I had one condition. I wanted him to learn to drive and get a driver’s license. He agreed and I found him a job doing design work at a friend’s architecture firm. Almost overnight his days were busier than mine.
The day he got his license I surprised him with a car, a white Lexus. When he saw the car parked in front of the house, he laughed and said, “Wow, cool!” and that was it.
The post-Tian’anmen political environment was hard on business. Everywhere you turned there were “sanctions” imposed by Western governments. It was a royal pain in the ass, but everyone else was in the same boat and, I knew, it would only be temporary. Unexpectedly, however, things went from bad to worse. One of my warehouses caught fire and more than ¥7 million in small household appliances was gone overnight. Blame lay squarely on the shoulders of Liu Zheng, who was supposed to have found an electrician to repair a badly damaged circuit. What could I do? I had no choice but to fire him.
“Is it really worth losing your friendship over?” Lan Yu asked, scrutinizing a design he had just finished. “You and Liu Zheng have been friends forever!”
“I know, Lan Yu, but this is more than I can take. He knows business is bad right now. He knows this is a crappy political environment. And yet he goes ahead and does the worst possible thing he could have done. Liu Zheng is becoming a major liability for me. One more fuckup and he’ll destroy everything I’ve built!”
“It wasn’t directly his fault,” Lan Yu said, ironing out the corners of his drawing with the palm of his hand. It was an architectural design he had drawn with pastel-colored fountain pens.
“He knew he was supposed to get that goddamn circuit fixed,” I fumed.
“Yes, but didn’t you say that his kid has been sick recently? He must have been so stressed out about it that he forgot.” Lan Yu wasn’t going to stop finding excuses for him.
“That’s his problem,” I said stubbornly. “Who’s going to compensate me for my losses? He’s lucky I’m not suing him!”
Lan Yu smiled with a kind of calm resignation. “You businessmen don’t know a thing about friendship.”
“Wake up, Lan Yu! Business isn’t about friendship, it’s about profits.”
“What if it’s someone from outside the business world? What if it’s a friend?”
For the first time in my life I didn’t have an answer. Lan Yu must have sensed this because he kept going.
“Listen, Handong. Firing him is not going to bring the money back. Liu Zheng is a good man. If you just show him a little mercy, think of how grateful he’ll be.” He waved his hand as he spoke, accidentally knocking over a bowl of paint. “Fuck! I fucked it up!” Lan Yu didn’t swear often.
I dropped the subject. I needed more time to decide what to do.
With each passing day, I realized more deeply the impact Lan Yu had on me. He, on the other hand, hadn’t changed a bit. Other than the fact that he was taller and more handsome now—not to mention considerably more skilled in bed—he was exactly the same as the day I’d met him.
The next day Liu Zheng knocked on my door and entered my office. It was the first time he’d ever knocked before entering. After a few moments of awkward silence he spoke.
“Handong, you don’t even have to say anything. I know it was my fault, and I just want to say that in the time that I’ve worked here I’ve saved up a pretty good bundle, about ¥3 million. It’s yours, take it for the company as compensation.” He paused for a moment. “There’s just one thing though, Handong. Please. Please don’t kick us out of the apartment, at least not yet. You know my younger brother is living at my parents’ house. We can’t go there.”
Liu Zheng and his family also lived at Ephemeros, in an apartment identical to mine. Both were under the company name. I watched him carefully as he struggled to get the words out. In all the years we’d known each other, this was the most difficult conversation we had ever had.
“Just wait until I find a new place,” he continued. “Otherwise, my wife and son—”
“Listen,” I interrupted him abruptly. “You know this is the most difficult period the company has ever gone through. Business has never been easy, but now with this fire it’s going to be even worse.” I was exaggerating somewhat, but I wanted to impress on him the severity of the situation.
“I just sent out a memo firing two of your coworkers. They were responsible for this as well. As for you, you’ll be working without pay for the next three months. I don’t want to make a big deal about it by telling everyone, so I’m just going to let the finance department know and they’ll take care of it. I want you to learn a lesson from this.”
Liu Zheng appeared to be trying to maintain a poker face, but he wasn’t doing a very good job. A look of surprised gratitude showed in his eyes. He had fully expected me to fire him.
“How’s Little Wu?” I asked.
Liu Zheng sighed. “His fever hasn’t gone down yet. It’s been almost two weeks.”
“Well, I had someone contact the medical director of the children’s hospital. You can transfer him there later today. The hospital he’s at is no good.”
Liu Zheng was more distressed than happy upon hearing this news. “My wife’s work unit has a contract with the hospital he’s at. They won’t pay for him to go anywhere else.”
“Listen, Zheng. It doesn’t matter. The company will pay for whatever costs are incurred at the children’s hospital. Just do it. If Little Wu’s fever gets worse and something happens, you’re going to regret it.”
Liu Zheng lowered his head.
“I know you’ve got a lot on your mind right now,” I continued. “You don’t have to work a full day’s shift. You can come in at eight and leave at two. When you’re here, just help me keep things in order, and when you’re not here I’ll do the rest. Everyone’s shaken up about the fire and everything else. You’re the only person I can trust to get things done.”
Liu Zheng kept his head lowered for some time, then finally raised it to look at me with eyes that were puffy and red. He couldn’t speak.
“Okay . . .,” he finally said. “Okay . . . I’m going now.” He left my office.
I guess you could say I earned a debt of gratitude that day. Showing this kind of compassion was something taught to me by Lan Yu. Little did I know that nearly five years down the road, Liu Zheng would do me a kindness so great, so huge, that the debt would be returned with more “interest” than I ever could have imagined.
Another winter had arrived, bringing a huge snowfall with it. One evening, Liu Zheng and his wife invited me to their home for Sichuan-style hot pot. Liu Zheng told me to bring Lan Yu with me. It was an extraordinary night. And not just because of the food.
I don’t know what it was, but Lan Yu had a way with kids. They loved him. Little Wu warmed up to Lan Yu the moment we arrived. He grabbed Lan Yu by the hand and led him into his bedroom to show him the red paper flower his teacher had given him for being a good student.
Liu Zheng and I watched as the two of them disappeared into Little Wu’s room. Then Liu Zheng turned to me. “God, Handong. If only Lan Yu were a girl. It would be so perfect!” I knew he meant well, so I couldn’t resent him for saying it, but it still hurt. I laughed it off.
“If Lan Yu were a girl, I wouldn’t want him,” I said, trying to sound lighthearted. “I think he’s pretty okay the way he is!”
“Well,” Liu Zheng replied, “I suppose it’s only normal for y
ou to feel like that. Stay with anyone long enough and you’ll feel that way—even with a dog or a cat!”
My heart sank. I knew Liu Zheng’s intentions were pure, but he would never be able to understand my feelings for Lan Yu or our relationship. And yet, there we were at his house, having dinner with him and his wife.
“Then again,” Liu Zheng added, “you always have been the sentimental type.”
Like her homemade hot pot, Liu Zheng’s wife, Shi Ling, was from Sichuan Province. She had been considered the prettiest girl in college, and her parents had hauled her over the coals more than once for “marrying down” to Liu Zheng, who had a pristine family background but wasn’t much to look at. Sometimes when I looked at the two of them, I was envious of that unique kind of love and affection between a husband and wife.
Ling had had a good upbringing. She was full of life and energy and was a decent person. I’m sure she knew about my relationship with Lan Yu, but she didn’t have that prying, meddlesome personality so many people are cursed with. She never treated us like an oddity, or as if we somehow needed her pity. Whatever she might have thought privately, she never treated Lan Yu as anything but a close friend of mine.
We finished dinner and nighttime fell. Little Wu had long since gone to bed, and the four grown-ups stayed up, sitting at the small dining room table, Lan Yu and I on one side, Liu Zheng and Ling on the other, chatting and drinking distilled sorghum spirits. The dishes had been cleared away, but the postdinner refuse clung to the table in drips and spots. Like everyone else, I was getting tipsy.
Liu Zheng and Lan Yu entered into a heated debate about the corruption plaguing China’s primary education system. Liu Zheng ranted and raved like a madman, but it was clear he knew a great deal about the subject, at least from a theoretical perspective. Lan Yu, meanwhile, illustrated the problem by raising issues he had experienced firsthand as a child at school. While this went on, Ling and I talked about national affairs. I struggled to hear Ling’s voice over the stentorian intonations of her husband, but was also trying to listen in on the other conversation taking place. My solution? Interrupt all three of them.
“Hey, Liu Zheng!” I called out. “The way you’re talking right now, you should have given your life to the cause of education.”
“What do you mean, given my life?” Liu Zheng hollered back. “Don’t jinx me! If I had given my life, my wife and kid would be going hungry right about now!”
“You see that?” I laughed, turning to Ling. “All he thinks about are his wife and kid. Truly a model husband!”
“Who, him?” she said with a smile. “He’s all talk!” Ling laughed, casting her husband a knowing look that made it clear her words were just a playful expression of spousal humility. This spirited gesture, however, passed unnoticed by Liu Zheng.
“Hey, wait a minute!” he protested, dropping the smile and riveting an offended look on his wife. “Tell the truth, now, Ling. You know everything I do is for the two of you!” Liu Zheng’s speech was slightly slurred and his face flushed red as he pouted in Ling’s direction. He had had a lot to drink and was unable to tell the difference between a joke and an insult. By way of a response, Ling ignored him. She grabbed the bottle in the middle of the table and stood up to pour Lan Yu and me another round of baijiu.
“So, how did Big Sister manage to get herself caught, anyway?” Lan Yu jumped in, looking at Ling with a smile. He was good at diffusing tense situations.
Ling recovered swiftly from the upset. “I was tricked, that’s how!” She laughed. “He said we looked like husband and wife and I believed him!” We all laughed, and she leaned back in her chair, gazing softly at Lan Yu and me across the table. She looked like she wanted to say something.
“But if you ask me,” she continued in a gentle voice, “it’s the two of you who look like a married couple.” She smiled.
Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that she—or anyone—would say something like that. I turned to look at Lan Yu, whose eyes were fixed on the empty metal pot at the center of the table. Was it happiness he was feeling, or awkwardness? Or, like me, a little bit of both?
Out of habit and without thinking, I grabbed Lan Yu’s hand from the table and moved it to my knee, where I held it tightly as the four of us continued to chat. Liu Zheng and Ling surely saw it, but acted as if they hadn’t even noticed. It was an incredible feeling of acceptance, something I had never experienced before. For the first time since Lan Yu and I met, we didn’t have to hide. Everything felt right, as natural as the snow falling outside.
It was May Day, which also happened to be the founding anniversary of Lan Yu’s university. He had an entire week of vacation; it was finally our chance to take the long-awaited trip to Southeast Asia. On the way back we stopped for a few days in Hong Kong. Lan Yu had always wanted to go there.
It was a fantastic trip. Everywhere we went we just blended into the crowd. No one knew us there and my constant worries about being spotted together dissolved. Southeast Asian culture is different from China’s, and for the first time since we had met, Lan Yu and I could actually express a little affection in public. Nothing major, just simple things like touching an arm or shoulder while walking down the street. Something so simple, yet so precious.
Before I knew Lan Yu, I always thought that one had to change partners periodically in order to keep from getting bored. I never knew having a stable partner could bring such happiness. Even the negative aspects of being in a relationship—jealousy, possessiveness—could be a turn-on. On the third day of our trip, we were in Singapore having dinner at an upscale restaurant on Orchard Road. I went to the restroom and when I returned to the table, I found Lan Yu checking out some cute Singaporean guy at another table. I marched right up behind him and whacked him on the back of the head. Sitting back down at the table, I told him I wouldn’t tolerate him liking anyone else. “One look at another guy and I’ll kill you!” I said. Lan Yu just looked at me sheepishly and didn’t say a word. For the rest of the night he kept trying to make up for it by being even more attentive than usual.
The truth was, Lan Yu was much more sensitive than I. He was certainly more fastidious, picky even—this was an aspect of his personality that intensified more and more each day. If I so much as spoke to an attractive young man or woman, he would become so sullen and quiet that I couldn’t help but tease him a little bit. Anytime I fooled around on the side, I was always cautious to make sure he didn’t find out.
Although Lan Yu and I entered into a new period of stability in our relationship, I didn’t completely stop sleeping with women. I went to bed with them not because of any physiological need, nor even because I liked them, but because of a need that was entirely psychological: I wanted to prove to myself that I was a normal man.
One night we went to a drag show in Bangkok. Lan Yu asked me to explain the difference between the performers and women. I told him that drag queens were men, and that while most of them had kept their male parts, some of them had cut them off. Lan Yu said he thought it was disgusting. When I asked him if he wanted to hook up with one of them, he gave me a shocked look. “Are you sick in the head?” he asked.
In many respects, Lan Yu was actually a very conservative and traditional person. What I didn’t know was whether or not he struggled with internal battles over his relationship with me. We never had a conversation about it, but my gut feeling was that he and I felt the same way: that what we were doing was ultimately abnormal.
China was much more closed off in those days, and its people were much less aware than they are today. On the one hand, we lacked the knowledge and information we needed to understand what we were feeling. And at the same time each of us was unconsciously doing his best not to understand.
Twelve
Soon after returning to Beijing from Southeast Asia, I was invited to accompany a government business delegation on a trip to the United States. We were supposed to go in August. At first I was adamant about not going—to Lan Yu
, at least, who patiently listened to my long list of objections to the impending trip. The biggest issue was that I had virtually no business ties with America, so my participation in the group was largely symbolic. But there was also the fact that I was exhausted from the trip to Southeast Asia—which had, incidentally, done little to dispel my fear of flying.
In late July, however, I unexpectedly picked up a new buyer, a major American importer, to whom I began exporting textiles. All at once I was eager to join the delegation. I was determined to win the American over and develop what promised to be a lucrative relationship. When the Yankee asked me about quotas at our meeting in Seattle, I told him I would more than meet his expectations.
“Quotas are the easy part, a side dish compared to the main course,” I said to the interpreter with confidence. “I’ll take care of it.”
I had only the most rudimentary English, but knew enough to laugh when the interpreter turned to the American and said, “Quotas are peanuts!”
When the business leg of the trip was over, I considered staying on a few days to visit Los Angeles and Las Vegas with the rest of the delegation for the fun part of the trip. But I decided not to, in part because I had already been to both of those places, but mainly because I missed Lan Yu. So I ended the trip and returned to China on my own.
Stepping out of the gate at Beijing Capital International Airport, I saw Lan Yu in the distance. As always, the summer sun had darkened his skin, but by that point in our relationship I thought he was even sexier that way. There he stood at the arrivals gate next to a grumpy-looking female quarantine officer in drab military garb. His face bubbled over with excitement and shone through the sea of dark heads bobbing in front of me. He wore dark blue shorts and a loose-fitting gray T-shirt with a short vertical slit at the neck. The slit was unbuttoned, forcing the flaps of cotton to fall open so that the golden glisten of his chest was revealed. A single glimpse of his radiant, smooth body, so healthy and full of youthful vitality, and my heart began pounding hot and violent in my chest. His hair was longer than usual, but it was the same haircut I always asked him to get. Parted in the middle, it fell against his forehead loose and disheveled. He hated it—he said it made him look Taiwanese—but with these sorts of things, he had always more or less done what I asked.
Beijing Comrades Page 13