by John King
I get off my bed and go down to the basement, a four-bed room where two Poles have set up shop, experimenting with some free enterprise, selling tickets for the Trans-Siberian Express. They travel down to Budapest from their homes in Krakow, invest in a stack of tickets, go back up to Moscow and catch one of the trains east to Beijing. Here they sell the tickets on, adding a modest profit. These Poles aren’t greedy either, and I buy my ticket for ninety dollars. Fifty quid for a six-day ride to Moscow, plus two days to Berlin, passing through Poland. My seat from Beijing to Moscow has even been reserved, and they can offer options from Moscow, on services to Budapest, Helsinki and Berlin. I choose Berlin, the fastest route back to England, but have to book a seat in Moscow. If they’d been raised in the West they’d be feeding me a long line of bullshit and charging ten times the starting price, adding tax for the Vaseline, but they grew up with Lech Walesa and Solidarity instead of Ronnie RayGun and the Iron Lady, have a more classy approach to business. They’re almost embarrassed taking my cash, seem happy enough getting by, sitting on the pavement sipping tea in the daytime, drinking the cheap Chinese beer at night, spending long hours in their room listening to dodgy Bob Dylan bootlegs, playing cards and chess, waiting for a knock on the door, shifting their tickets at a steady rate. The ticket I buy is for the Russian train that goes via Manchuria, skirting Outer Mongolia. The Chinese service runs straight into Mongolia and passes through Ulan Bator, and is faster, but isn’t leaving for another few days. It also means an extra visa, supposed to be the hardest to get. I want to leave right away. I’ve had enough.
There’s two hundred dollars left after I buy the ticket, and I make sure the strap on my money belt is extra tight when I stuff my passport, notes and ticket down the front of my trousers. The Poles sell me roubles at six times the official exchange rate, making me a rich man. Gorbachev might be trying to ease things in the Soviet Union, but when I go to the consulate it takes three long hours arguing with an official before she finally gives me a transit visa. The Polish consulate is easier, and they stamp my passport without making me squirm. I was planning to go back to Hong Kong and do another six months in the bar I was working in before, but hearing about Gary changes everything. I get a bus back to the hotel, hanging on to the straps as it rolls across Beijing, squeezed in by bikes, arriving as night falls. There’s this picture stuck in my head of Gary jumping around in the air, kicking against the banister, splitting his shins and breaking a foot, tearing the nails from his toes, a video nasty stuck on replay.
Everything is moving fast now. I have to get home and see the others, square things, back where I belong. For the first time in three years I’m homesick, feel like a traitor, someone who bottled out and ran away, abandoned everything for the easy option of a bar job and no responsibilities. I ignore the other people in the dormitory, take my soap and towel and go for a shower, stand under the cold water for ages scrubbing at the sickness, the pores of my skin shut, putting up barriers, protection, leaning back and opening my mouth, the water covered in film, a colourless slime that fills my mouth. I turn the tap off and watch the dregs spinning across the concrete, the froth of dirty soap and the stain of a rusty plughole. The towel is thin and frayed, sweat worn into the threads, and I pull it across my skin, rubbing away dead cells. I dress and go back to the dormitory, dump my bag under the bed and leave the hotel, pass the small group of Westerners sitting around admiring their rucksacks, a bunch of tarts comparing passport stamps and shit stories.
It’s funny travelling, because you meet some good people, some real gems, but there’s a lot of idiots who’ve never done an honest day’s work in their lives. They’re bumming around for a year or two after university, living off mummy and daddy, patronising the locals and preaching to other travellers, show no real respect for the culture of the country they’re in, haggle over every penny with peasants struggling to afford a bowl of rice, swanning around playing at being down and out, more interested in drugs than the country they’re in, a bunch of stuck-up lowlife. These soap-dodgers do my head in. There’s no excuse, and the really dirty ones always have the poshest accents. When they get home they’ll settle into their cushy jobs and that will be that, living off this CV for the rest of their lives. Never trust a hippy. China’s not so bad, seeing as most of these people stick to easy places, Kathmandu and Bangkok for instance, but there’s a few here.
But I’m not bothered about that right now, start walking. Beijing is similar to the other Chinese cities I’ve been in, and the best time is in the evening, brilliant smells and sounds filling the streets, small fires shifting long silhouettes so it’s easy to see why shadow puppets are so popular in the East. There’s that Asian smell of burning wood and the Chinese scent of rice and noodles, thousands of pots of boiling water on the go, the sizzling of woks and quick snap of business. Down the back streets people smile, or at least when they see someone like me stroll past they smile, a foreigner, a novelty, and I look at these people, the old men and women who’ve been kicked back and forward all their lives, by the Japanese and Cheng Kai Sheck and Chairman Mao, and you’d think they’d be bitter and throwing rocks, but they’re not. They’re good people, the little people crushed and beaten by systems, dirt poor but with time to wave and say hello to a wanker like me, passing through, a rich man who can buy a bowl of food and drink ten bottles of beer if I want, then get on a bus and travel anywhere I want while they have to beg for papers to visit relatives in a different town.
I end up on one of the main streets and find a table, sit down and order a bottle of lager. Hundreds of tables line the sides of the street, heat coming off the fires as boys run around taking orders, filling up the chilli sauce and soy pots, adding to the heat coming off the road. Flip-flops click and a breeze blows. All these brand-new fridges are set back from the tables, engines purring softly, gleaming white machines packed with cold lager. And it’s good stuff, between ten and twenty pence a pint, goes down a treat. It’s hard to leave alone. Every night ends the same. Noodles and six or seven pints, all for around a pound. Sweat settles at the bottom of my spine, the breeze coming and going, and in my head Siberia is nothing but snowdrifts and blizzards, millions of slave labourers buried alive in Soviet gulags. I’ll be off soon and drink quickly, the beer making me hungry, the bottle freezing cold in my hand. A boy brings me a bowl of noodles with wooden chopsticks, and I layer it with chilli and soy, mushrooms and greens over the noodles, wedge the bowl under my chin, shovel the food home.
Some of the people on the table talk to me, but I don’t have a clue what they’re saying. One or two pull the hair on my arms. Finally a doctor who speaks English sits next to me and asks where I come from, what’s my name, the normal stuff. He works in a hospital. Tells me how much he earns and the state of medicine in his country, about the need to control the population. It’s a strange thing, because it makes sense, the policy of each couple having one child, but when you sit down and work it out, it means that one day nobody will have relatives apart from their parents and grandparents. There will be no brothers or sisters, and if there’s no brothers and sisters there’ll be no cousins, nephews or nieces. Maybe that’s part of the plan, to isolate people and get rid of family ties, make the party stronger than ever. These people have to watch themselves every second of every day. We talk for a while, and I think of the doctor at home telling Tony all these things about his brother, tell the man that my best mate has hung himself, rambling on about justice and fuck knows what else. I don’t think he understands, but looks worried when my voice sounds angry.
I’m talking to myself really, more bottles brought over. He shakes my hand and pays for his food, walks into the crowd, his place taken by an old woman who smiles at me and orders off the boy, runs her leathery fingers over my arm, pulls the hairs and speaks to the other people, who laugh. They keep dipping into their bowls, and she strokes my face till her food arrives, entertaining the crowd. She eats quickly and leaves, and that’s how the night goes, people sit d
own, have a laugh, eat quickly, then leg it. I keep going, soaking it all in, specially the beer, have nine bottles by the time things thin out and the boys start stacking tables.
I pay and leave, drunk and emotional, pictures flashing around in my head, tinted by the beer. I walk along empty streets, on my own as families settle down together, and I’ve been on my own a long time now, never really care, but tonight feels different, the letter hitting home. Drink can take you either way, and the alcohol lifts me up, makes me feel better as I pass under a row of trees. I smell the eucalyptus, then something more familiar, the strong flavour of home-brew, except it’s coming out of a battered brick building. I stop and look down the alley, walls pitted with holes. There’s an entrance without a door and windows without glass. Men sit outside, backs to the wall, pissed out of their skulls. I go over, look in the nearest window at a room packed with men in cotton shirts, no Mao uniforms in sight, a long counter selling beer in plastic containers. Fuck knows what it’s all about, but when one of the men by the wall offers me a swig from his jug I take it, pour the drink down my throat, a rough taste with a kick, as if they haven’t washed the petrol out first. He laughs and bangs his palm on the ground.
I sit against the wall and give one of the men some money to buy me a bottle. He goes inside and comes right back out. I sip the beer. It’s nothing near the quality of the stuff I’ve been drinking. It’s cheaper, and shows how poor the average Chinese is, when they have to drink this. I’m knackered and my head is all over the place. I can’t speak a word of the language and I’m leaving tomorrow. I see Smiles in my head and want to black it out. My mood’s swinging now and I know where I’m going to end up. There’s nothing that can stop it, and even though I know I should do the right thing, I can’t be bothered to stand up and walk away, the high turning into a low, racing downhill.
Tonight is going to end in tears, and there’s that dark anger that comes along every so often, when what you want is to push things further, take the risk, like you’ve got to pay a penalty for a crime that’s not even a crime really, just something you feel. I should’ve been smarter, realised what was happening, stayed in the canal and grabbed Smiles right away. Maybe I could’ve made a difference. I just don’t know.
Six or seven Chinese come outside, pissed and larey, and I can see it coming, don’t give a fuck to be honest. Looking forward to it in a way. They start asking questions, two of them sneering, one cocky fucker telling me to speak Chinese, speak Chinese, the only English he knows. He’s swollen up on drink and patriotism, loves the party and Chairman Mao. I’ve heard this enough times, the Han seeing themselves as some sort of master race, the thousands of years of isolation, the symbol for a foreigner that puts someone like me next to a dog, the lowest of the low in their eyes. I think about how they treat the Tibetans and the people of Xinjiang, the non-party peasants. I see the market in Canton, how I walked away. There was nothing I could do about that monkey with the big eyes and too-small chain eating into his arm, raw meat where the fur had rubbed away and the metal cut into the skin. The living dead.
And I think of Smiles and how I went to the other side of the world for a job. He’d gone mad, was stuck in a psychiatric ward for the duration, living under the influence, drugged up to the eyeballs, trained doctors trying to keep the lid on the sickness, Smiles on another planet, going on about conspiracy theories and all sorts. I was working part-time in a pub, going nowhere, did what I had to do. I shouldn’t have regrets, even Tony told me to grab the chance, but I still left Smiles to it, walked away, did what Norman Tebbit said and got on my bike. Did it big time. The last time I saw Smiles was three years ago and he was a shell of the boy I grew up with. When I told him I was going to Hong Kong he was glad, said he’d come over and see me. The border was tight and we’d be safe there from Hitler and Stalin, there was no love lost between them and Mao. And remembering him I see the monkey. There was no escape for Smiles.
So I feel guilty, and I’m pissed, and the fight just starts. Don’t know how it goes off, but I’m up on my feet trading punches with Speak Chinese Speak Chinese and his mates, and I don’t know if he’s a Communist Party member or a Hong Konger, he’s definitely a big shot, not your everyday peasant going along the ditches skewering frogs for tea, your factory worker burning his fingers on tank spares. Right now I don’t care if he’s the head of the secret police. Everyone’s drunk so don’t suppose they feel the punches too much, blood covering the end of his nose as I manage to connect. There’s real hate in his eyes, and I’ve seen this around China, the spite seething under the surface, a country ruled by big-face and heavy-party discipline. They steam into me, screaming their heads off, and I’m down on the ground getting kicked along the street, on my hands and knees, not feeling the blows but numb in my back and legs. They keep going, and then it stops and they’re gone. A couple of other men walk over and lift me up, dust me down.
Luckily this is a police state and nobody wants to hang around to answer questions. I’ve heard it’s a major crime hitting a Chinese if you’re a foreigner. I’m wobbly at first, but it’s probably the drink. I get going, walk to the hotel, feel as if something bad has been beaten out of me. At least for now anyway. It’s good I got done, otherwise I could’ve ended up in the cells. Those blokes had to come out winners. It must’ve been the same living under Hitler and Stalin. The uniforms had to win. Different level, of course, but the same idea. I think of the boys outside Guilin station on their way to prison and speed up, soon as I get back go in the shower room and wash the blood off my face, feel the bruises. I lie on my camp bed with the sweat and dead hair. Everyone is asleep, a man snoring at the other end of the room. I pull the pillow over my head.
I suppose I noticed Gary wasn’t right early on but never thought about it properly. Change happens slowly and before you know what’s happening there’s no way back. People forget, accept and adapt to new ways. Smiles was different after he came out of his coma, didn’t go around with the same grin on his face. He laughed at a joke, if something was funny, of course he did, he wasn’t a basket case, but he didn’t have that fixed smile any more. It was a few years after we were chucked in the canal that he really started turning, and a while after that when we stopped calling him Smiles. The name didn’t fit now, but it wasn’t like we sat down over a pint and made the decision. The establishment is obsessed with hierarchies, sees leaders and shit-stirrers lurking on street corners, outside agitators behind every riot and protest, but in everyday life things happen more naturally.
After Smiles came home from hospital life went on. Summer ended and we went back to school, wasted another year, and then suddenly we were leaving for ever, stuffing our books in a bin and setting fire to them. School did nothing for us. Punk was our education, the words reflecting our lives, tapping into the things we were seeing and thinking, the lyrics coming from people we respected, writing from the inside looking out instead of the usual outsider looking in. All we got at school was a worn-out needle stuck on battle dates and state politics, the heads of our lords and masters carefully drawn, their clothes brightly coloured, castle towers dwarfing the scum outside, grey peasants stuck in shacks outside the city wall, faceless serfs munching turnips. We knew where we were living, but that we had more colour and culture than the stuck-up twats poncing around inside. The fiction they gave us meant nothing, so boring and out of touch we actually believed the teachers who said we were thick because we couldn’t stay interested long enough to understand what they were on about. There was nothing for us there, so we stuck with music, walked out of school laughing our heads off.
On the last day we got drunk and piled down the bus station for the traditional end-of-term punch-up, went out that night really happy to be moving on, punk right in the frame now with a lot more records released and new bands coming through. It was right there in the blood, and we were dressed different, the boot boy look faded by now, ‘School’s Out’ getting the biggest cheer of the night. Next morning I woke up
and realised that for the next fifty years I was going to be working five days a week. If I was lucky. I remember it clear as day, a bad hangover and this weird sadness that I was never going back to school. Mental really. I always hated it. But things were suddenly different. It was like I’d gone back to the beginning, the youngest kid in the playground, except now the pressure was really on.