by Sam Meekings
‘Don’t I even get a kiss? You’ve no idea how bored I’ve been with all the banquets I’ve had to attend this week. Entertaining my father’s friends, laughing at their jokes, making sure their glasses stay topped up. It’s absolutely exhausting, it really is. Pasting on the same rigid smile for Mr Three Factories and his wife Mrs Foreign Facelift, pretending to be interested while Mr Politburo rattles on about his youngest-ever-PLA-general son, and trying to stay polite while Mr I Marched With Mao asks me why I haven’t got married and started a family yet. Absolutely frightful. So come on, what are you waiting for?’
I moved closer. Our arms met, then our mouths. The last four days melted away as we kissed. I let my hands graze the softness of the silk gown, the warm arched curve of back beneath. His stubble brushed against my face, his tongue pushed insistently into my mouth. I pulled him closer, breathed him in. Our teeth bashed together.
He pulled away, his lips knit into a smile.
‘There’s no hurry, you know. We’ve got all night.’
He pulled himself away and sat down on the sofa. I didn’t want him to look desperate, so I stayed standing, running my eyes over the books on his bookshelf. He had a pile of musty hand-bound volumes that I hadn’t seen before. They looked as if they’d been picked up at the flea-market. A handful of the classics – A Dream of Red Mansions, Journey to the West, The Collected Poems of Bai Juyi, All Men Are Brothers – and a few old books I’d never heard of.
‘I didn’t have you down as a scholar,’ I joked.
‘Oh, you’d be surprised,’ he said. ‘There’s some good stuff in there. Everyone knows the ancients were way more liberal than all the stuffed old shirts around today.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Come on, surely even you’ve heard of people like Qu Yuan?’
‘He was a poet during the Warring States period, right? A minister in the Chu government, and a patriotic supporter of the Chu King.’
‘Ha! You think verses like “The Longing For Beauty” are about his patriotic feelings? Give me a break. All right, then: what about all the emperors of the Western Han Dynasty? They had some distinctly tall and muscular concubines, if you know what I mean.’
‘That’s probably why the dynasty fell. No wonder we needed a revolution. The ancients were barbarians.’
‘Oh, you’re a silly little thing, aren’t you? I’ve got a whole shelf full of classical works about male love. Some could even teach you a thing or two.’
‘I don’t believe you. All that stuff got destroyed in the Cultural Revolution.’
‘Something always survives – you just have to know where to find it. And there is some truly filthy stuff in those books. I’ve got the diaries of gigolos during the Ming Dynasty, accounts of the life of Long Yang, and all manner of epic verses depicting in detail the art of love. Some of them are quite cheeky, let me tell you.’
‘Quite cheeky? That kind of stuff isn’t a joke. The Party defines homosexuality as a major psychiatric disorder, you know? You shouldn’t have any of that stuff. It’s degenerate and dangerous.’
‘Of course I know! You think I haven’t seen people carted off to prisons, sent to labour camps, just because of their feelings? I’ve seen men beaten so badly they have to suck their food through a straw, so don’t you tell me about the Party and its morality.’
‘All right. Don’t have a fit.’
He sighed. ‘Let’s start again. Let me get you a drink.’
He wandered off to the kitchen, his silk robe trailing out behind him. I settled myself on the sofa and waited. When he returned he was carrying a dark bottle and two tall glasses.
‘Wine. A gift from one of the ambassadors my father knows. I thought we could share it.’
He pulled a strange metal contraption from his pocket. There was a round gyre with a sharp tip that he pushed into the top of the dark bottle; as he turned the handle of his odd machine, thin silver wings set on either side of the gyre began to rise up towards his hand. I decided to pretend I had seen that sort of thing a thousand times before.
He poured the thick red liquid into the tall glasses. They looked needlessly fiddly, like tiny goldfish bowls balanced upon the thinnest of necks. Most of the men I knew were happy to drink their baiju from a rice bowl, a cracked mug or even straight from the bottle if necessary. I took the glass from him and held it at arm’s length. The smell was overpowering and slightly sickening. Li Yang clinked his glass against mine. He was grinning.
‘In some countries people drink this and pretend it’s the blood of a god they murdered.’
I shook my head. ‘Piss off. I may not go to all the fancy Western parties you go to, but I’m not stupid. You won’t get me that easily.’
He tipped the glass back and sipped. I did the same. Li Yang was watching for my reaction, so I tried my best not to cough or splutter. It wasn’t easy. The stuff was thick and sweet and disgusting. I felt sorry for all the people stuck in those poor countries who only had this rancid stuff to drink.
‘So, did you miss me?’
‘Of course.’
‘Oh, I’m not sure I believe you. I think you’ve been visiting all those burly men down at the police station, and you haven’t had time to think of me sitting up here, enduring all these frightful soirées and waiting for you to call.’
He was still grinning. How did he know I’d been to the police station? Sure, it was only a few floors below mine. But still. He reclined back on the sofa, raising his legs and resting them on my lap. I was never sure when to take him seriously.
‘It’s been a shitty week,’ I said, trying to change the subject. ‘All I’ve been thinking about is seeing you.’
‘Seeing me? Is that all? Surely you want to do a little more than that, don’t you?’
Li Yang downed the rest of his wine and then reached for my glass. We sat in silence for a few minutes, his legs sprawled across me. There were so many things I’d imagined saying once we were together, and all of them had disappeared now I was here.
Li Yang was always saying we ought to go to some of the new restaurants, to the cinema that had just appeared on the other side of the river, or to the skating rink in the Great Dragon Hotel. But I could never see the point. We’d spend half the evening worrying about being seen, and where was the fun in that? All I wanted was to feel him close to me. I could spend an hour just listening to him breathing. I’d never felt like that with anyone else.
Before I’d met Li Yang, all my other encounters had been rushed, urgent. Ten sweaty, shameful minutes, silent apart from the panting and the grunting, and then off in different directions hoping no one had seen us. No names. Never give your name. Never the same man twice. But with Li Yang it was different. There was no urgency. Since we knew we would end up under his silk sheets eventually, we could put it off, delay the moment and savour the anticipation, the frisson in the air between us. I could fool myself into thinking, if only for a little while, that I was at home there, and that I would never go back to my wife, my job, my life.
‘Oh, I’ve got this fantastic machine from Japan. I have to show you. I guarantee you’ll love it.’
Li Yang leapt up and ran to the other room. Every time I saw him he had some new toy, some strange piece of foreign junk that was the latest or the most expensive or the most talked about. I certainly had no interest in seeing anything from Japan – it was common knowledge that they were just cosying up to America until they were strong enough to try to invade China once again. Everyone knew they would never give up their ambitions to enslave us. But I couldn’t say that to Li Yang. I didn’t want to risk sending him off into one of his tantrums.
He came back carrying a circular box with a fat lens at one end. It looked like some kind of futuristic weapon. He pulled one of the chairs out from under the dining table and balanced the machine on it. Then he left the room again.
I thought of some of the other odd contraptions he’d got excited about in the past. Like this cube painte
d with different coloured squares that you were supposed to twist around until the colours matched up. Or – one of his more enduring obsessions – gum. Short flat sticks that looked like torn-off strips of cardboard. You put one in your mouth and it went soft. Sometimes it tasted of mint so fierce it made your mouth numb, and sometimes it tasted of strawberry. I couldn’t decide which was more disgusting. And the worst thing was that you couldn’t swallow it. Ever. It made my jaw ache just chewing the damn thing. What was the use of a piece of food you couldn’t eat? I’d had to take mine out after a few minutes and hide it in my pocket so as not to offend him. I’d only remembered it when I got back home. By then it was binding the inside of my trousers together like some kind of ultra-strong glue. It had taken hours to wash it out.
Li Yang wandered back in with a shoebox, which he set down next to the chair.
‘You’re going to love this. I just know it.’
He knelt down on the floor beside the circular machine and his robe billowed across the floor like a shimmering puddle of light. While he tried to get it to work I went to the kitchen to look for something decent to drink. It took me a few minutes to find a bottle of baiju hidden behind the Scottish whisky and Russian vodka and a whole horde of other bottles with indecipherable labels. He had dozens of unopened bottles, relics of banquets and bribes, left to fester at the back of cupboards. I poured out a glass and took a sip. It was good. For a minute or two I pretended I was someone else.
By the time I had settled back on the sofa Li Yang had finished with the shoebox and had plugged the circular machine in. It made a sound like an old fridge. He rushed over to the windows and closed the curtains.
‘Does it have to be so dark? I’m really not in the mood for these silly games.’
‘Don’t be such a spoilsport. Now, just keep looking at the wall in front of you.’
I did as he said. I heard him fiddling about, and then a dull light spread a face across the wall. The white teeth blurred first larger, then smaller, before finally coming into focus. It was a huge snapshot of Li Yang, smiling out from what looked to be the lobby of a plush hotel. His head was at least four times bigger than in real life, his eyes huge tawny swirls.
‘It’s like having a cinema in your own home. Isn’t it fantastic? All I had to do was get my pictures reprinted on these little slides, and the light shoots them up onto the wall. Who wants to squint at faded photos when you can recreate the whole experience right in front of you? I’ve only got about twenty made so far, but don’t worry, I’m going to get hundreds more.’
He stood behind the sofa and clicked through the photos, talking me through each picture the machine whirred into focus before me. There was Li Yang at a local cadre’s inauguration, Li Yang with his father at a banquet for someone’s birthday, Li Yang toasting the happy couple at a wedding, Li Yang with his family at Spring Festival, Li Yang receiving an award from the local college. I sipped my drink and nodded along.
His words soon began to wash over me, and the images merged slowly together. I could guess what he was trying to do. He had worked his life into a neat story, one that I was supposed to collude in. I had no doubt that he believed the narrative he provided along with the photos was true – but it was a truth only he would have recognised. He wasn’t showing me the facts of his life. He was showing me the person he wanted me to see. With all the background details of his past, all the parts of his life he didn’t like, shifted out of focus or else left out entirely.
‘Where are your older pictures? Those were all the last two or three years. Pretty much just the time I’ve known you. What are you trying to hide?’
He tugged the plug from the wall and let out another little giggle, though I was pretty sure this one was of a different timbre.
‘I’d have to dig through another box to find all the older ones. And some of them haven’t kept too well. But they’ll be top of the pile when I get round to making some more. I just thought you’d like to see the ones you’re in.’
‘I wasn’t in any of them.’
‘Oh, but you were. You were in the glint of my eyes in most of them, in the thoughts behind my smile. You were in there somewhere.’
He threw open the curtains. I finished my drink.
‘But now I think about it,’ I continued, ‘you’ve never shown me a single picture of when you were young. You must have some round here somewhere. Why is that, Li Yang? Were you a fat child, a spotty teenager? Are those photos just too repulsive to be seen?’
‘You can be a real bitch, you know? No, I wasn’t fat or ugly. Maybe I just didn’t enjoy that time as much. Did you think about that?’
He slumped down beside me.
‘Now you’ve put me in a bad mood. I thought you’d like the slides. You might think I have it easy up here, with everything paid for by my father and all these dinners and connections, but it’s not like that. When I was a child, everyone told me how great my dad was. They didn’t need to add that I’d never measure up, because I could see it in their eyes. I’ve been called different, strange, odd, conceited, precocious, spoilt … you name it. Always behind my back though, of course. For as long as I can remember I’ve endured people being nice to me because of my family, even though they make it obvious that they think I’m a bad son, a bad citizen, a bad Chinese.’
‘Come on, don’t do this. I was only winding you up.’
‘I know, I know. But I’ve always had my father’s shadow towering over me. Even back during the Cultural Revolution – thanks to his influence, I did six months or so as a barefoot doctor near the end, but that was it. And, you know, I didn’t mind the teasing, all the crap you get from the bitter peasants in their shitty little villages. They thought everyone from the city was a bit odd, so to them I was just the same as all the others passing through. I kind of liked being somewhere where I wasn’t judged against my father and found wanting.’
‘I know the feeling.’
Li Yang looked at me and tilted his head. Then he smiled and leapt up again. He took my empty glass and darted off towards the kitchen, bringing it back close to overflowing. He knelt down and pressed it into my hand.
‘If you could wipe away all of the past and start again, would you do it?’
I shrugged. ‘If I could escape my own family, my time in Inner Mongolia, my marriage, some of the crappy bits of my work … well, I wouldn’t be me. I might be happier. I’d certainly be less messed up. But I’d be someone else. And if I was given someone else’s life, who’s to say I wouldn’t fuck that one up too?’
‘What if you could escape me?’
‘I’ve tried. I can’t.’
‘But if you could?’
His eyes flicked up into mine and, though his lips twitched towards a smile, I wasn’t sure whether he was teasing me or not.
‘I wouldn’t dare. I’d suddenly find gang members following me down dark alleys or squad cars pulling me over wherever I went. What with all your contacts, it wouldn’t be safe for me in Lanzhou anymore.’
Li Yang pulled me down to him and we kissed. He was urgent, insistent, and I tasted blood when he bit down on my bottom lip. Soon our hands were grasping, stroking, gripping, and it wasn’t long before we were stumbling towards the bedroom. Li Yang dropped his robe to the floor and grinned. I watched the slow heave of his shoulders as he breathed, the firmness of his belly, the proud curve of his cock. I pulled off my shirt and yanked down my trousers before moving to him, shoving him down across the bed. He yelped and shrieked in delight. Soon I was on top of him, pushing my weight down and crushing him and spreading him and squeezing him. I searched and found him, the tight knot of muscle gulping me in. The heat, the tug. I closed my eyes and began to move, drawing moans from the flailing body beneath me.
I’m not sure how long it lasted. Time stops save for the thumping of your heart, the duration of your gasping breaths. Afterwards we lay tangled in the clammy silk. I reached for my trousers and dug out the half-finished packet of Double Happiness. For on
ce they seemed strangely apt. I made my way back to the living room to find my lighter, leaving Li Yang sprawled on the bed, as proud of his naked skin as if he had won it in some dubious bet.
The last slide was still glowing on the wall, and as I passed my jaw almost hit the floor. It was a picture of some lavish dinner – everyone was holding up their glasses for the first toast. There was a fat man, sitting right next to Li Yang, holding his glass up and grinning a buck-toothed grin for the camera. I was certain I’d seen him before. Who the hell was he?
‘Hey, come here a minute,’ I called to Li Yang.
‘Why don’t you come back in here? Don’t think I’m finished with you yet!’
‘I’m serious. Come here.’
Li Yang wandered into the living room. ‘You called? How may I serve you, master?’
‘Very funny. This picture, where was it taken?’
‘Some nice restaurant on the riverbank. Three-storey place. I can’t remember the name. Why, have you worked up an appetite?’
‘No, it’s just I recognise this man, but I can’t work out why.’
‘My business partner? You’ve probably seen him in the paper or at some important function. His father is the Party representative for the whole damn province. Even my father kowtows to him. Most of my father’s colleagues are lining up to offer him their daughters for marriage. You should see them around him – simpering as if they’re eunuchs in an imperial palace. His dad spends so much time up in Beijing with the central government that he’s become his intermediary for petitions and pleas and all the rest of that wink-and-handshake crap. But I hope you’re not getting any naughty ideas – I ought to be more than enough for you. And trust me, he’s not your type.’
‘Don’t be an idiot. His face rings a bell, that’s all. I didn’t know you had a business partner.’
‘You don’t think I just sit round here all day, do you? No, no, I’m a businessman, darling! I guess you might call it Venture Capitalism and Speculation. It won’t be long before I’m way more important than my father. After all, Hong Youchen says —’