Beijing Comrades (17 page)

Eighteen

It took some mental preparation, but I eventually sat my mother down and told her about my new fiancée. At first, she took issue with Lin Ping's family background, saying it was too humble for a family like ours. She said she wanted me to find someone whose family was better matched in socioeconomic status, or perhaps someone from a family of intellectuals. When I heard this I clenched my fists and ground my teeth. If she really wanted me to find a mate from a family of intellectuals, Lan Yu would have more than fit the bill.

I was increasingly worried about my mother's ability to find endless fault with my choice of bride, but the moment Lin Ping stepped over the threshold and into the house, I knew everything was going to be fine. Her warm, charming demeanor and impeccable manners won my mother over instantly; even my sisters pulled me aside to whisper, “Wow, not bad!” Standing in the kitchen doorway, I peered into the living room where I saw my fiancée pour her future mother-in-law a cup of tea. Ma beamed with happiness. Nothing made me happier than seeing her smile.

In the early stages of my relationship with Lin Ping, I thought that Lan Yu and I would be able to go on just as peacefully and contentedly as before, at least for a while. But I was wrong. Arguments became the central feature of our daily life. Our fights weren't even over matters of principle or about substantive issues like my impending marriage or the future of our relationship. We fought over petty trifles: who came home at what hour, who had forgotten to do this or that household chore. We always patched things up quickly, though, and each time it was Lan Yu who initiated the ceasefire.

One afternoon as Lan Yu and I were in his white Lexus on our way to lunch, we made our way past the gates of Tianda University, where a long line of students had formed. “What are all these people waiting for?” I asked.

“They're registering for the TOEFL exam,” he replied. “They're trying to study abroad.”

“Wow,” I laughed. “That's dedication!”

“That's nothing!” he said, turning the car southward in the direction of Houhai Lake. “When I first started at Huada, I heard that an entire section of the biology department's graduating class of 86 left the country after graduation.”

“Is that what you want to do?” I asked.

“I can't,” he said wistfully. “If you want to go to the United States, you have to prove you have a relative who's a US citizen. Besides, it's tough with architecture. Even if you get into a program, you're not going to get funding unless you know someone who'll go to bat for you.”

“Well, if you really do want to go, I can help you arrange it. All we have to do is get you a business visa and you can go with a group. When you get there just switch to a student visa. Easy.”

I knew from his silence that I had said something wrong.
He was visibly upset, but instead of saying so, he just kept his eyes on the road ahead of him. I switched on the radio to act like nothing had happened, but the racket of the news announcer's voice was even more uncomfortable than silence. By the time Lan Yu parked in front of the restaurant we were headed to, the whole thing had become unbearable. He pulled the key out of the ignition and turned to me. “Are you really so eager to get rid of me?”

This time I fell silent. If the car had still been running, I would have kept fiddling with the dial on the radio.

“I don't want to go anywhere, okay?” he continued as he opened the car door. “I like it here, I like Beijing.”

I got out of the car, slipping on my sunglasses and feeling puzzled. Not long ago Lan Yu had clearly told me he wanted to go to the United States for graduate school. So why was he saying this now? Perhaps he was hinting he would want to stay in Beijing only if the two of us could be together. Whatever was going on inside his head, he didn't want to share it with me.

“Man!” I said as I shut the car door behind me. “Dr. Shi was right. You really are paranoid!”

Lan Yu cast a conciliatory smile in my direction. This was normal for him. When one of our discussions hit a zone of discomfort, he would extend an olive branch by laughing it off or by saying something pleasant. Not always, but most of the time.

After lunch, I went to the office for the rest of the day. When I came home that night, my ears were greeted by the gentle rhythm of Chinese pop music. I was surprised, since Lan Yu had never been a fan of contemporary pop. He was more attuned to traditional folk music, especially the Chinese fiddle.

“Hey! I'm home!” I yelled.

Lan Yu didn't hear me, so I opened a bottle of wine and sat on the living-room couch, where I listened quietly as a couple of songs, both unfamiliar to me, drifted from his studio. I don't remember many of the lyrics from the first one. Something about telling my darling not to say goodbye, about whether a wind should blow or a rain should fall. But the second song I remember clearly:

           
No one loves you more than me.

           
How can you bear to see my pain?

           
When I needed you the most,

           
You just silently walked away.

Listening to the two songs, I couldn't help but wonder whose feelings they better described, mine or Lan Yu's.

I started spending less and less time at Tivoli in the weeks that followed. I told Lan Yu that I was staying at my mother's house, but the truth was I was almost always at Ephemeros with Lin Ping. Pretty soon, however, I found out Lan Yu wasn't sleeping at Tivoli every night, either. Unless we made specific arrangements to spend the night together, he usually slept in his dormitory. Sometimes I wondered if there was anywhere else he was sleeping, too.

Although I had already asked Lin Ping to marry me, we hadn't set the date yet and I hadn't begun even the most basic preparations. Consciously or otherwise, I was stalling for time. I wanted to resolve things with Lan Yu before moving on.

One August evening, we went to a Korean restaurant called Arirang. Lan Yu had heard about it from a Korean architect friend and had been wanting to try it. I liked it fine, but didn't see what the big deal was since most of the food was pretty
similar to Chinese cuisine: rice, noodles, meat, and vegetables. As we were eating, I asked Lan Yu if he wanted to hang out with some of my friends later that night.

“Not really,” he replied offhandedly. In a period of great uncertainty in our relationship, one thing was for sure: Lan Yu was no longer the docile, compliant guy he had been when we first met.

I gave a shrewd smile. “Believe me,” I said, lowering my voice. “You'll have a good time. They're like us.”

He looked puzzled by this remark. “What do you mean,
like us
?”

“I mean, they mess around with this kind of stuff, too,” I said with a mischievous grin.

Lan Yu looked at me in confusion. The confusion quickly turned to anger.

“You have got to be kidding me!” he said, raising his voice. “So you've ‘messed around' long enough, huh? Is that it?” The group of Korean exchange students at the table next to us turned to look. I don't know whether they understood Chinese, but our voices were more than loud enough to catch their attention.

“You want to pawn me off to someone else before your wedding!” Lan Yu continued, fuming with anger. I had no idea what he was going on about.

“You want us to go hang out with Yonghong, don't you?” he continued. “You fucking piece of shit! Fuck you!” Lan Yu stood up from the table and stormed out. I ran out behind him, but was unable to stop him from getting in the car, which was parked on the street outside. All I could do was open the door on the driver's side and grab him with all my might.

“Don't touch me! Take a fucking cab!” he shouted.

“You can't drive like this!” I yelled. “You're going to crash!” Lan Yu didn't listen. He threw my hand off his arm, shut the door, and started the engine.

“Stop, Lan Yu, please!” I screamed, opening the door and grabbing his shoulder again. “You want to get yourself killed?”

Lan Yu stepped on the accelerator and the car lunged forward, taking me with it. “Okay! I'm a bastard!” My voice quivered and my eyes filled with tears. “I'm a no-good piece of shit, okay? Now stop the car! I'm not going to let you do something reckless!”

Lan Yu stepped on the brakes abruptly. The night air was silent and I heard the unsteady, almost violent sound of his breathing. He gripped the steering wheel in front of him and his head hung low. Soon, the uneven sound of his breath was replaced by soft, choking sobs. He was unable to hold back the tears. I squatted next to the open car door and rested my hand on his leg.

“That's not what I was trying to do, Lan Yu!” I said, looking at him in desperation. “I would never do that. I just wanted to introduce you to some people who—I mean, just some people who are a part of this circle. I just wanted to make you feel better . . .” I, too, was nearly sobbing at this point, but reached up to wipe away his tears. I was desperate to make him understand. Near the entrance to the Korean restaurant, two employees stood in silent amusement, watching the spectacle. I didn't care what they thought. Standing up, I gently nudged Lan Yu, signaling for him to move to the passenger side. When he did, I got in the driver seat and slowly drove us back to Tivoli.

Neither of us said a word on the way home. After I parked and we went inside, I sat on the couch. Lan Yu immediately headed toward the staircase—most likely, I thought, to go to his work studio, the only place in the house he wanted to be
lately. I wanted to talk before he vanished into the other room. I didn't want us going to bed without patching things up, at least to the extent possible under the circumstances.

“Lan Yu, hey,” I said. He stopped, midstep, and turned around to look at me from the staircase.

“Will you come sit with me for a while?”

He hesitated, but came back downstairs and sat on the sofa opposite me.

“Will you sit next to me?” I wanted him closer. He moved next to me and I put my arm around him. He didn't stop me, but the stiffness of his body told me he wasn't eager to be touched, either.

“Have you been assigned a job yet?” I asked. He had already graduated, but it had been ages since I'd asked him anything about what was going on in his life.

“I've been working for a few months now, Handong,” he said coldly.

“Oh, really?” I asked in surprise. “Why didn't you tell me? Which work unit is it?” I had been so preoccupied by my ambitions of becoming a mighty official—not to mention by my relationship with Lin Ping—that I had shown practically no interest in him for months.

“City Construction Number Nine,” he said mechanically. “City Nine. It's a construction company. Most of the workers are demobilized soldiers who've been transferred to civilian work.”

I knew he couldn't have been happy with this job. During most of his final year at Huada, he had been saying he hoped to be hired at the Institute of Design. He had also told me on a number of occasions that he hoped to attend graduate school in the United States, but anytime I myself raised the subject he became quiet and sullen.

“If you don't like City Nine, you should go work at a foreign
enterprise. A friend of mine manages the China division of a construction company. I can contact him.”

“I already signed a five-year contract.”

“So what? Give them a little cash and they'll let you go.”

He scoffed. “You really have a lot of faith in money, don't you?” I didn't want to talk about it, so I changed the subject.

“Hey, did you know there's a place in Beijing called One Two Three? A lot of people like us go there. You know, just
regular
people,” I said, intentionally stressing the word
regular.
One Two Three was one of the first gay venues to pop up in the capital.

Lan Yu looked at me in surprise when I told him about the bar. “Why haven't you ever mentioned it?” he asked.

“I don't know . . . I didn't think you'd like it,” I said, though this wasn't entirely true. I didn't want him to know the real reason I had never told him about it. The mere thought of him being surrounded by men he might find attractive was enough to make me feel as though my heart had been ripped from my chest.

“And here I've been thinking this whole time that you and I were the only two people in Beijing who were like this!” he managed a laugh.

“No, there's a lot,” I said, pulling him into my arms. “But you have to make an effort to find that world or else you would never know about it. I rarely go to those kinds of places. You get a lot of different kinds of people there, some decent guys, some garbage. You have to be careful.” Lan Yu lay in my arms, quietly listening.

“I also heard there's a park and some public restrooms where guys go to fool around,” I continued. “I've never been there, and don't you go either! It's really dangerous. I've heard
some people have even been arrested.” Lan Yu nested deeper into my arms.

Out of the blue I remembered something. “Right,” I said. “I've transferred ownership of the house and the Lexus. They're yours now. If you don't want the house, sell it. Use the money to start a business or something. Everyone else is going into business these days, so why not you?”

I was accustomed to Lan Yu's silence, but at that moment he was even more quiet than usual. I felt I needed to keep speaking, if for no other reason than to kill the silence.

“You need to drive more carefully,” I continued, for lack of anything better to say. “I mean, the state you were in tonight—don't ever drive like that! Life is too precious.”

Lan Yu stood up from the couch and looked down at me coldly. “You're very considerate when dumping your lovers,” he said bitterly. “Any other instructions?” Without waiting for me to reply, he turned around and went upstairs. “I'm taking a shower and going to bed,” he said, then disappeared at the top of the staircase.