Beijing Comrades (32 page)

Forty

No longer did I love autumn in Beijing. When I awoke on the floor of my office the morning after Lan Yu's death, the capital looked just as cold and bleak as if a mighty zephyr had come and blown the entire world away. I sat at the window for three hours. Only then did the whole thing become so cruelly real.

I went to Lan Yu's apartment, and it filled me with terror. Everything was just as it had been left. A glass of water he had been drinking sat half-full on the kitchen table. I didn't dare touch it. I couldn't even look at it.

I entered the bedroom, where the reminders of Lan Yu's life surrounded me in silent torment. All those things—why didn't their owner come back? I remembered telling Lan Yu not to bother making the bed, that there wasn't time. He just laughed and said he couldn't stand my sloppiness. Sure enough, there was the bed with the blanket pulled up neat and tight. At the foot of the bed was a neatly folded stack of clothes, the items he had been wearing the previous day. I picked up
his shirt and held it against my chest. The warmth of his body was gone, but his scent clung to it, just as real as if he had been in the room with me. I collapsed on the bed, burying my face in the shirt. That's when I heard a voice, a wailing sound unlike anything I had ever heard, not even when I was at the morgue. It was the sound of a man in grief, a soul torn apart by the agony of loss. It was my own voice. Absolute. Irreversible.

I fell apart in the weeks that followed. I couldn't bring myself to sleep in the bed that Lan Yu and I had once shared, but nor did I want to be at my mother's. Even less did I want to be at a hotel. So I slept at my office each night.

Three days after I stopped eating the hallucinations began. They were mostly auditory—again and again I heard Lan Yu calling my name—but there were visual ones, too. Believing he was in the room with me, I opened doors and pulled back curtains to find him. My mind was on the verge of collapse. I had entered the world of the living dead.

It was only a matter of time before my mother noticed that my visits had stopped. She called and insisted that I come over.

I parked the car outside and walked in through the front door, spitting out a cursory hello as I made my way to my room. I didn't want my mother to see the pathetic state I was in, and didn't feel like talking anyway. What would we have talked about?

I lay on my bed, half-asleep or perhaps half-dead, completely unaware of how much time had passed. I vaguely heard the sound of my mother pushing the door open and stepping inside, but only when she sat next to me on the bed did I fully realize that she was there. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to be asleep. She touched my arm like she did when I was a child,
and I heard her breathing: rapid and shallow. I opened one eye and saw her twist my shirtsleeve between her fingers as if she wanted to say something.

“Little Dong,” she said. “I know this is hard for you, but we can't bring back the dead.” She cried softly as she spoke. My eyes filled with tears.

“Little Zheng told me everything,” she continued. “I want you to know that if that boy hadn't died, I wouldn't try to stop you from being together.”

Heavy tears poured out of my eyes onto the pillow. It's too late, I thought angrily. Why didn't you say that when he was alive?

Two weeks later, Liu Zheng pointed out the obvious: that I needed to call Lan Yu's father to tell him that his son was dead. I dug around in my desk for a while before finding the number, which Lan Yu had given me before his trip back to Xinjiang. When I told the old man the news, the only thing I heard on the other end of the line was the deep howl of a father in pain.

A few days later, though, Lan Yu's dad called me back. I didn't even realize that he had my number.

“Did my son say anything before he died?” his voice creaked.

“No. It was so sudden. He never had a chance to say any final words.”

Lan Yu's father hesitated. “I mean, did he leave anything?”

“Some clothes, books, that sort of thing. If there's anything you want, I can mail it to you.” I thought maybe he wanted a keepsake to remember his son.

“What I mean is, well . . .” He wanted to say something.

In an instant I understood. He wanted money.

I knew Lan Yu still had the $380,000 from when he sold
the house, but I had never asked him where he put it. There was no trace of it in his apartment—no bank deposit slip, nothing. All I found was a savings account with a couple thousand yuan in it. I told the old man that his son hadn't left anything behind.

Later that day, I mentioned the phone call to Liu Zheng.

“Did you know that Lan Yu sold Tivoli?” I asked.

“Of course.”

“It's odd . . . I have no idea what he did with the money. His dad called asking about it. I mean, what a horrible father! A time like this, right after his son dies, and all he cares about is whether he can get some cash out of it! But anyway, it doesn't even matter because I don't know what Lan Yu did with the money.”

Liu Zheng looked at me in shock. “He didn't tell you?” he asked.

“Tell me what?”

“He used it to get you out of jail, Handong.”

“What?” I was stunned. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“He didn't want me to say anything. He said he wanted to tell you himself. Listen, Handong, that first week you were in jail, we thought you were going to be executed, and for all we knew you already were! Lan Yu called me every day to find out whether I had heard any news or found somebody with the right connections to get you out. Finally, our Ma was able to get in touch with some guy your dad knew, but the bastard said he wanted Â¥10 million to pull the strings to get you out. We managed to come up with it, but it wasn't easy!”

“Â¥10 million? You told me it was Â¥1 million!”

“Lan Yu told you it was a million, but it was ten. Between me and our Ma we had seven, but we were still three million short. Our Ma asked everyone she knew for a loan, but no one
would do it. Even your sisters said they didn't have anything. At first, Lin Ping said she wanted to help, but when push came to shove she started saying she couldn't come up with it.” Liu Zheng paused and appeared thoughtful. “Anyway, I guess I don't blame them. For all they knew, they'd never see the money again.” He looked at me as if waiting for a response. When he didn't get one, he continued.

“Lan Yu was desperate to come up with the money. He called me in tears, saying that never in his life had he thought money was so important. We talked for a long time, then he remembered the house. It was his idea, Handong. He knew it was in his name and that he was free to sell it, so he asked me to help. I sold it in a week. Everything—the furniture, even the car! We sold the entire lot for $380,000. When we converted it to yuan, it was exactly the Â¥3 million we needed. We sold that place way below market value, but under the circumstances we weren't exactly in a position to haggle. After we had the full Â¥10 million, we transferred it to your dad's contact, and that was it. You got out.” Liu Zheng sat next to me and gently touched my shoulder.

“Handong,” he continued. “It's no secret that I didn't like Lan Yu at first. You knew that. But after what he did for you, I really came to admire him. I mean, it's like he became a friend, you know? And if you and him had—I mean, if you and him had that kind of relationship—then he really stepped up and played the part, didn't he? If I had been in your shoes, I don't know if my own wife would have done that for me!” He gave a gentle laugh.

“Then why did he hide it from me?” I cried, tears streaming down my cheeks.

“He just said he wanted to surprise you with it one day. I thought he would have told you by now. Either him, or our Ma.”

“Ma knew?”

“Of course she knew! The day you got out of jail, when we went to her house and Lan Yu was waiting in the car, what do you think she was doing while you were in your bedroom? She was standing at the window, watching Lan Yu in the car outside.”

Forty-One

It's been three years since Lan Yu died. I live in Canada now, in West Vancouver, where I bought a house and live with my new wife and our daughter. My mother lives with us, too.

I never did find Lan Yu's courage. The courage I would have needed to face—really face—my gay identity. But even if I had, it wouldn't have mattered anyway since my heart died long ago. As for my young wife, I treat her well and do my best to take care of her, but I'll never be able to love her. Not like I loved Lan Yu.

My wife is a devout Christian and often tries to share the gospel with me. I just laugh it off. I've always been an atheist, and besides, I know God thinks homosexuals like me aren't worthy of his glory. But about six months ago, something happened that I'll never forget.

It was Christmas Eve and my wife dragged me off to church as usual. Standing there, surrounded by congregants and the solemn sound of hymns rising in the air, I suddenly felt that
there must be more to this life than the material world. For the first time it seemed to me that after we die, there must be a heaven and there must be a hell. I heard the pastor's long, tedious sermon, but had only one thing on my mind: Where is Lan Yu now?

He must be in heaven, I thought, because when he was in this world he never harmed a living soul. He was so good, so decent, so kind to everyone around him. His only crime was that he loved someone he wasn't supposed to. The world thought his love was ludicrous, sick, degenerate. But I knew it was pure, innocent, eternal.

And me? I won't make it to heaven. Not because I loved another man, but because of the suffering I caused him. Lan Yu is dead now. I can't change that. I can't undo what I've done. All I can do is spend the rest of my life wondering whether his death was a punishment for him, or for me.

All around me, the congregants lowered their heads in prayer as the pastor continued eulogizing the universal love of the heavenly Father. I couldn't hear him clearly, but it didn't matter anyway. I closed my eyes . . .

God, I ask only for one thing, and I beg you to grant it. Wherever you have sent Lan Yu, please let me go there when I leave this world. If he is in heaven, let us be there together, able at last to openly share the love we had for each other in this world. There, I will repay him all that I owe. I will reverse the sorrow that I caused him in this lifetime.

If he is in hell, let me go there, too. Let me stand behind him and place my hands firmly on his shoulders. There, we will suffer hell's torture and fiery torment together. I will have no regrets, and feel no resentment.

A melody rose from the pews, stirring me out of my reverie.
Amid the sound of singing churchgoers, my wife turned to look at me, her face frozen in stunned silence when she saw the tears streaming down my cheeks.

It's all warm blue sunshine here in Vancouver. In early autumn there's no trace of the chilly fall winds that howl through the streets of China's northern capital. Even the leaves stay green—just a few golden, dying ones that flutter through the air and land on the lawn outside.

I am sitting in the front yard, my back to the house, watching the horizon as the sun sets on another dying day, thinking with wonder how the end of the day here brings a new one to the other side of the world. I hear the happy, laughing sound of my mother, wife, and daughter behind me. I look at the sky, where the faint rouge of the setting sun lingers on the edge of space and time. Sweet, radiant, beautiful.

Postscript to the Revised

Tohan Taiwan Edition
^a
a

Bei Tong

Translated by Scott E. Myers

I shot my first roll of film in 1994 in the United States. When I finished the roll, I rushed uptown to a drugstore near Columbia University to have it developed, thinking about how I was going to send the pictures back to my family in China. They were anxiously awaiting my news, and I wanted to tell them that everything here was fine. I pulled the pictures out of the envelope and flipped through them one by one.

“Great shots!” a voice behind me creaked.

I turned my head and saw a person in their seventies speaking to me with a smile.

This is how I met Bob and his wife, Jan. They were the first
friends I made in America. Bob was a World War II veteran who had served in MacArthur's military command center and fought against the Japanese while stationed in the Philippines. He enjoyed befriending students from Asia, especially young people from mainland China, Taiwan, and South Korea. He didn't like Japanese people. He said the world was changing too quickly, that yesterday's enemies were today's friends, and that yesterday's friends were the adversaries of today.

Bob and Jan had long ago sold their big house in New Jersey and moved into an apartment in New York City's Upper West Side. They had two sons and two grandsons who, one could easily tell, were their greatest riches and source of pride.

For Bob's eightieth birthday, his sons planned a series of surprises. First, the older son arrived from Ohio with his family in tow. Then Bob's seventy-seven-year-old brother arrived from out of state for the party his nephews had planned.

A few months later the family celebrated Jan's eightieth birthday even more grandly than her husband's. The entire affair was organized single-handedly by their younger son, Christopher. Jan's eyes filled with tears as she described the details, and before long she became so choked up that she couldn't speak. I was surprised to discover that in a money-driven capitalist society there existed strong family sentiment after all.

Once when we were chatting, I casually mentioned to Bob and Jan that a friend of mine never went to the hospital, not even if they had a fever, because they couldn't afford health insurance. A few days later Bob and Jan mailed me a check for $300 with a note telling me to give it to my friend. In their letter they wrote that the money had come from an organization devoted to helping people in need.

By 1996 life was getting better and better. Bob and Jan called to convey their good wishes, then told me with great excitement that they had gotten a computer for their home. They also invited me to their place for dinner.

“Chris helped us get it and showed us how to use it!” Jan enthused. She was elated.

I knew their son Chris was a computer engineer and that he, too, lived in New York. Bob and Jan hadn't had him until they were in their forties. Each summer, Chris would take his parents to Acadia National Park to vacation and escape the summer heat.

“Jan's already a computer maniac!” Bob laughed.

After dinner, Bob and Jan grabbed a stack of photos and showed me pictures of their sons and grandsons. “This is David and his wife. They just moved to Louisiana. And this is their son Matthew. He studies at UC Berkeley. He's only seventeen and is so smart!”

“This is Chris, he visits us a lot. He's not married, he's gay.” Jan raised her head and smiled, and her face beamed with happiness and pride.

I looked at the picture and saw a mature, gentle-looking, handsome man in black.

After a period of good luck, the days of autumn 1998 were the grayest I'd had since coming to the United States. I had no idea where my life was headed. I had tried everything I could, and for the rest, resigned myself to fate. I immersed myself in the world of the Internet: playing chess, chatting online, surfing porn sites.

After reading all the pornographic stories that were out there, I cursed: FXXX! What the hell is this? I knew I could write something better.

And so I threw myself furiously into writing, then posted my writing online. Some readers said they liked it, so I wrote more, and gradually lost track of where I was. Had I created a story or stepped into one? Was this a dream or was it the real world? Was all of this taking place in the bone-chilling cold of early winter in Beijing, or in the late autumn rain of New York? The only thing that was clear to me was that I had profoundly learned the meaning of these five words: forgetting to eat and sleep.

There were people on the Internet who asked, “Is this a true story?” I told them I didn't know how to answer the question. When they pressed me for an answer, I said, “It's pure fiction.”

Some people said it was the most moving story they had read in recent years. Others said that the author was probably writing with one hand while masturbating with the other.

Having nearly drowned in the tidal wave of praise and vitriol that followed, I made a vow to myself: I would never write another novel.

It now seems to me that 1998 was the dark night before the sunrise. By the second half of 1999, my eyes had been greeted not only by the rising dawn but by a bright sunlight that shone on all things.

There are still people on the Internet who ask, “Are you Handong? Are you Lan Yu?” I tell them that I'm not Handong. Even less am I Lan Yu.

“Then why does your email address have the name
Lan Yu
in it?”

“Because I like this name, just like you do. Because the story is going to be published as a book with the title
Lan Yu
.”

Yesterday I called Bob and Jan to tell them that my novel is going to be published. They offered their congratulations.

“We can't read Chinese, but please send us a copy when it comes out!”

“Of course!” I replied.