Beijing Comrades (9 page)

Lan Yu peeled off his clothes and collapsed onto the bed, covered in dirt and sweat. A feeling of revulsion rose in me.

“Oh, come on!” I said. “Get up, Lan Yu. What are you, some kind of migrant worker? Go take a shower.” I pushed his shoulder a few times.

Dutifully, he got up and went to the bathroom, half-asleep and muttering something I couldn't make out. No more than five minutes later, he came out of the bathroom and plopped back down, head first, onto the bed. Beads of water clung to his forehead, but his hair was dry and clumped together with a white material that looked like plaster or maybe paint. Staring at the back of his head while he slept, I seethed with anger and my veins pulsed with a sadistic desire for revenge. That's when it happened.

“Lan Yu.” I poked his shoulder again, this time much harder. He woke up, startled and confused, evidently puzzled by my unwillingness to back off after his compliance with my request.

“This is getting old,” I said. “Let's just end it. You can focus on your studies and live a normal life. Go find a girlfriend at your school and . . . and that's it.”

He looked at me but showed no reaction. Everything about him was numb.

“If you need money, talk to Liu Zheng. He'll get you some.”

I wanted to provoke him, to piss him off as much as I could. And yet, what his expression revealed was not the devastation I'd hoped for, but perplexity. He sat up in bed, but didn't say a word.

“I told you a long time ago. When I mess around with this kind of stuff, it's usually for a year, max. You and I have been together long enough. I'm sick of this. Sick of you.”

How gratifying it would have been if he had responded like a woman, bursting into tears or arguing with me hysterically. But he was silent.

“I'm going out tonight. Tomorrow you can just get all your stuff out of here and don't come back. Just go to your dorm or whatever.” I had the weird feeling I was about to laugh. I couldn't even look at him.

By the time I finished my speech, I was already out of bed, fully dressed, standing at the foot of the bed with my back to him. I pushed open the door and walked out.

The muggy summer air felt good compared with the air-conditioned nightmare of my bedroom. I was enormously pleased with myself. All my resentment against Lan Yu—his tedious world of construction-site materials and extended work hours—had finally come out.

I got into my car and drove aimlessly. Turning onto Third Ring Road, I passed an international hotel I had been to on more than a few occasions. For some reason, I had never noticed that its rooftop was trimmed with long rows of bright,
shimmering lights, a riot of color and twinkling stars. On the other side of the street, a crew of street cleaners in dark, drab clothing traveled briskly in the opposite direction. Riding three-wheeled pedal carts that looked like miniature tractors, they paused periodically to collect trash from off the street. They talked and laughed as they worked, and for a brief moment I found solace in this simple, unaffected scene. But the longer I drove, the worse I felt.

The next morning, I asked Liu Zheng to stop by Lan Yu's construction site to find out whether or not Lan Yu had gone to work that day.

“Yep,” he reported when he returned to the office. “He's there at the construction site.”

“What the fuck?” I sulked. “He acts like nothing's happened!”

“Listen, Handong, I could understand you being upset if he were a woman, but he's not, okay? Don't waste your emotions on him.” I had never told Liu Zheng anything about my feelings for Lan Yu, but he was a smart guy. He could figure things out on his own.

“I'm not wasting anything,” I said, shifting into a light and cavalier tone. “It's just that I don't know what to do with him. He's not exactly prone to being controlled, you know!”

“You want to control him? First give him a car, then take him on a big vacation to the US. If that doesn't work, go hire a thug to knock him to the ground. Then you'll see how prone he is!” Liu Zheng laughed, greatly amused by his own pun.

With Lan Yu gone, I didn't want to stay at Ephemeros, nor was I especially keen to go to Country Brothers, so I decided to camp out at my parents' place for a few days. On my first night
there, my father went out drinking with his old army buddies and my youngest sister had a date. My other sister was married by then and lived with her husband and his parents. It was just my mother and I alone in the house.

I sat at the dining room table, munching on a plate of stir-fried cucumbers, my mother's specialty. She could tell there was something wrong.

“Little Dong, what made you want to come home right now?” she asked, pouring me a cup of tea.

“Nothing special. I guess I missed you and Dad,” I said facetiously.

Ever since reaching adulthood I had always joked around with my mother. I couldn't stand that formal way of speaking to parents typical of most Chinese children. My mother enjoyed my playful irreverence. It gave her a laugh.

“Did you break up with your girlfriend?” She sat down at the table and looked at me.

“Believe me, I'm trying, but she won't let me!”

She laughed again. She knew her handsome, well-heeled son had no trouble finding women.

“Little Zheng told me your girlfriend—oh, what's her name—Hao Ming? Anyway, he says she's real nice. When am I going to meet her?” “Little Zheng” was what my mother called Liu Zheng.

“Yeah, she's great, Ma. She's like a boa constrictor squeezing me to death. Anyway, I can't promise you'll meet her since I'm doing my best to dump her.”

“Well,” my mother said, standing up to inspect a dishcloth hanging on the clothesline, “if that is true, then I must inform you that your father's associate Xu Haihong came by again yesterday to ask about you. He still wants to introduce you to
his daughter. She seems real nice, Handong. And her father is getting a promotion this year—he's in foreign trade! I'm sure the Xu girl would just love it if you asked her out on a date. If you want, I can talk to her dad again and set it up for you.”

“Come on, Ma!” I pleaded. “Can we please just drop the subject? I'm not going to prostitute myself to a dog like her just because her daddy's getting a promotion. There are lots of other girls out there, you know.”

In a flash my mother went from cheerful to annoyed. She poured me another cup of tea with a petulant look on her face, then plunked the ceramic pot on the table, put her hand on her hip, and looked right at me.

“Well, at this point, anyone will do, Handong. Just don't put it off any longer. You need to focus on finding somebody and settling down.” Having gotten this out of her system, she went back to her normal, gentle voice. “Just look at Little Zheng. Isn't it wonderful how he has his own family? And a son!”

With that, my mother turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen to ask the maid to do something. I remained at the table, silently repeating the words she had just said.
Anyone will do.
If that “anyone” was Lan Yu, she'd be beside herself with anger.

For the rest of the night I sat in the bedroom my mother still kept for me at the family house, obsessing. Again and again, I considered the ways in which Lan Yu and I being together was absurd, abnormal, and ultimately impossible. I even thought of a ridiculous word:
love.

I put a cassette in the tape player, hoping to get my mind off of it. It was some Chinese rock group that had just put out a new recording. One of Lan Yu's classmates had told him
about it excitedly, so I'd picked it up in the university district, the only area of Beijing where one could find such things. The jarring guitar rhythms irritated me. I turned it off.

I am not, I reasoned, going to get sucked into this so deeply that I fall in love with a man! I knew I was normal. I just liked a good adventure, not to mention the fact that I was way too horny for my own good. Anyway, it didn't matter. I had already ended things with Lan Yu before they spiraled out of control. I had made sure it wasn't too late for either of us to return to a normal life. Breaking up was good for him, and it was good for me.

And yet, I couldn't stop thinking about him.

I threw the tape into the trash, then pulled it back out. Maybe Lan Yu would like it.

Eight

Predictably enough, my visit to my parents' became stifling after a few days, so I packed up my things and went back to Ephemeros. Just before getting in the car, my mother and I had yet another conflict about “the Xu girl.” I had made it more than clear that I wasn't interested, and yet she wouldn't leave it alone. The argument wasn't that big and we even managed to laugh about it as we said goodbye, but we both demonstrated how stubborn we could be.

The fight with Lan Yu, however, weighed heavily on my mind, and I found myself worrying about our relationship more and more with each passing day. Truth be told, though, even more vexing than this was the troublesome business affair I'd recently landed in. I had created a serious dilemma by screwing up a major deal involving a batch of imported Volkswagens. Due to some petty regulation I hadn't complied with, I had to rid myself of the cars before January, even if it meant selling them at a loss.

Late one Saturday afternoon as I was gathering my things to leave the office, Liu Zheng walked in. He told me Lan Yu's
foreman had called to report that Lan Yu hadn't been to work in eight days.

It had been almost two weeks since we had broken up. At first I had been outraged that he kept going to work, as if my sudden disappearance ought to have made him fall apart completely. I resented his apparent ability to recover so speedily from what should have been the earth-shattering disaster of losing me. But now, learning from Liu Zheng that he had suddenly stopped going to work a full two weeks later, I was confused. And worried.

When I got home that evening I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I finally broke down and called his dorm at Huada. Nearly all of the students were gone for summer vacation and the phone rang no less than fifty times before someone finally picked it up.

“Room 815, please.”

“Okay, wait a minute.”

Ten minutes later, he returned to the phone. He said no one was in 815 and everyone had gone home for the summer.

I had plans to meet with clients that evening—a couple of guys who were interested in purchasing the Volkswagens—but called them to reschedule. I had to go to Huada.

I hadn't been to Lan Yu's dormitory in nearly six months, since the previous January when he wanted to change out of his work clothes after I hunted him down at Fan Haiguo's computer shop. Parking in front of building number eight, I noticed how gutted and desolate everything appeared during the summer vacation. Everything looked exactly the same as six months earlier, apart from the snow. The memory of Lan Yu exiting the building flashed before my eyes. Bright winter sunshine bounced off his glistening hair and he wore the bluish-gray jacket with the brown lining.

I entered the building and my senses were hit by the heavy stench of urine. It was the smell of a men's dormitory restroom, something I hadn't been anywhere near since my own graduation. The Public Security station in the lobby was unmanned and a single lightbulb hung dimly from the ceiling—hardly enough to illuminate the hallways, which were enveloped in stygian darkness. I could barely read the numbers on the doors, and in some spots had to run a hand along the wall just to avoid bumping into it. Eventually, however, I managed to reach 815. I knocked a few times then waited. Nobody answered so I knocked again. This went on for some time until I finally accepted that Lan Yu wasn't there. Still, I couldn't bear the idea of giving up and walking away, so just as I was about to turn around and leave, I twisted the doorknob. It was unlocked.

Lan Yu's room was as silent as Mao's mausoleum, and if it hadn't been for the moonlight shining through the window I wouldn't have been able to see a thing. It was your typical dorm room. Eight twin beds distributed along four bunks, two bunks to the left, two to the right, with a long, narrow table in the middle. Diminutive study desks lined the walls, and chairs were scattered about the room. The deathlike silence was so engulfing that it was some time before I noticed what appeared to be a human body lying on the lower berth near the window. Panic gripped me. I was almost unable to move.

“Lan Yu!” I called out in a loud whisper. Though I didn't know if the person was him, I hoped he would respond. But my call was met with silence.

My heart pounded in terror. Was he dead? I stepped forward, my eyes drilling holes in the figure on the lower bunk. Only when I stood over the body was I able to make out the face. It was him! I squatted down and put my hand against
his forehead. Somehow, I had expected him to feel icy cold, but it was just the opposite: he was burning up. I grabbed his hand and checked for a pulse. Faint and rapid. I moved my ear closer to his face and heard him breathing. He was alive!

I wanted to carry him out on my shoulders, but he was heavier than I expected and I couldn't lift him. I darted into the hallway and called out to the darkness.

“Is anyone here? Somebody, help!”

Two guys popped their heads out of the room next door. “What is it?” they asked. They were the only other people on the floor.

“One of your classmates has to get to the hospital immediately. Please, come help me!”

The taller of the two helped me lift Lan Yu, and we carried him into the hallway. All I wanted was to get him into the car as quickly as possible, but the two guys started prattling on just as casually as if they'd been discussing their coursework.

“What department and year is he?” the shorter one asked.

“Architecture, 87. Name's Lan Yu. He didn't go home for the summer.”

“Oh, right! That guy who dresses like a Jap! I think he has relatives here in Beijing.”

“I don't know. He doesn't talk much. I've never had any contact with him.”

The tall guy turned to me, almost dropping Lan Yu in the process. “Are you a relative?” I fought back the urge to punch him in the face.

“I'm his big brother,” I replied icily.

We got outside and put Lan Yu in the passenger seat. I looked at my watch and turned the key in the ignition. It was nine o'clock. Lan Yu was seated next to me, breathing lightly
and leaning against the door with his eyes closed. I stepped on the accelerator.

I registered at the front desk of No.
3
Hospital then sat down with Lan Yu to wait. The emergency room was much more crowded than I had expected. A steady stream of nurses wearing surgical masks rolled patients here and there, while in the adjacent corridor a middle-aged woman made a scene at the prescription window. “It's his liver!” she screamed at the pharmacist, who stood on the other side of the counter staring at her skeptically. On the other side of the waiting room, a foreigner—a Russian, perhaps, though it was hard to tell—sat on a wooden bench, gazing into space, a heavy anxiety carved into the deep, dark pockets of his eyes.

Despite the bustle of activity, we didn't have to wait long, and soon enough a young, petite nursing intern wearing glasses brought Lan Yu to the inspection room.

“Why did you wait this long to bring him in?” she asked. She was soft spoken but stern. This long? She made it sound like there was no hope.

The young intern put Lan Yu into bed then popped a thermometer into his mouth and pulled the bedsheet up to the middle of his chest. I hovered over him, sweeping my eyes across his face and searching for signs of life. His eyes were sealed shut, lips parched and split. My stomach felt queasy. I desperately wanted to hold his hand, to find some way of showing him that I was there for him, but I was also frightened of what the medical staff would think. Finally, unable to control myself any longer, I grabbed his hand. My eyes welled up with tears.

The intern looked at me with a strange expression on her face, leaving me no choice but to fabricate an explanation.

“This is my little brother!” I told her in despair. “If he dies, how am I going to tell our parents?”

The intern nodded sympathetically then took me by the elbow and ushered me out of the room. In the hallway, she tenderly explained that a severe tonsil infection had caused Lan Yu to fall into a coma. She also said that he had a high temperature and was dangerously dehydrated. She gazed into the room as she spoke, her words pulsing with genuine concern for her feeble patient who lay in the hospital bed, his still-handsome face plagued by the thin, haggard air of sickness.

I remained at Lan Yu's side throughout the night, rubbing him down with alcohol to break the fever and bring his temperature down. For hours I watched the IV as it dripped, standing over him to study his expression in meticulous detail. By four in the morning, his breathing had changed. This alarmed me at first: it was so quick and uneven. But I also realized this could mean he was regaining consciousness.

The intern was a miracle worker. From the moment we arrived until five in the morning, she took Lan Yu's temperature every half hour until at last she removed the thermometer for the last time and announced with a smile that he was down to thirty-eight degrees Celsius. Lan Yu was going to be fine. The young nursing intern left the room and shut the door behind her, leaving me alone to bury my face in my hands, close to tears, breathing deeply, and wondering whether I was going to pass out from exhaustion.

It was a testament to Lan Yu's youthful resilience that on his second day of treatment, he sat up in his hospital bed, stretched his arms, and said he was hungry. A big smile broke out on my face when I heard this. That afternoon I took him home.

When we got back to Ephemeros, I turned down the air conditioner, poured a big glass of water, and quickly put him
under the covers. Propped up with a pillow, Lan Yu sat in bed, quietly observing me as I flitted about the apartment.

“You know, you are too much!” I called from the living room. “Here you are, almost eighteen years old and you still have no idea how to take care of yourself. You had a fever for a week and you didn't even go to the doctor!” My paternal instinct had been goading me to say this ever since Lan Yu had regained consciousness, but I had held off until now.

“What are you talking about?” Lan Yu retorted cheerfully. “I
did
go to the doctor—he gave me a huge pile of medicine. When I got back to campus I took almost all of it!”

“I thought you were going to die!” I said, returning to the bedroom. Lowering myself to one knee, I scanned his face for leftover signs of illness. Lan Yu closed his eyes and leaned back into the pillow with a pensive look. “What are you thinking about?” I asked with concern.

“Oh, it's just that—you know, when I was a kid, the one good thing about getting sick was you didn't have to go to school. My mom would sit with me all day. She always made my favorite dishes.” He smiled weakly.

“Look at you!” I laughed. “You probably weren't even really sick. Deceiving your poor old mom like that!” I kissed his forehead and ran my hand across the top of his head. Pulling the blanket up tightly under his chin, I instructed him to get some rest, reminding him that he could still have traces of fever. With his hand in mine, I sat in a chair beside the bed and began to leaf through a stack of paperwork that one of my assistants had dropped off. It was a preliminary agreement for the sale of the imported cars—the hard-earned product of the intense round of negotiations that had taken place the night before. I knew it was going to be a major battle, but hadn't participated because Lan Yu needed me.

After I put him to bed, Lan Yu lay quietly on his back for a
few minutes. Then he got into the fetal position, eyes poking out of the blanket to watch me as I read. Pretty soon he disappeared under the blankets completely. But no sooner had this happened when a hand popped out from the side and began squeezing my leg. I swatted at it lightly while doing my best to hide my smile, but before I could reprimand him for his bad behavior, he rolled onto his stomach and dangled his right leg off the bed. I looked down. A single black-socked foot loitered shamelessly near my calf.

“Don't do that! Go to sleep!” I said with feigned exasperation as I returned the offending limb to the bed.

Not only did he fail to stop, he stepped up the harassment by reaching for my crotch. I looked up from my document to find half a face peering out of the blankets. Lan Yu was trying—not very hard—to hide his smile.

“Excuse me, sir, but are you engaging in hooliganism?” I laughed.

By way of an answer, Lan Yu rubbed even more at the bulge in my trousers, which was now just as hard as the thermometer the girl intern had been poking into his mouth.

Fuck it! I thought, jumping on top of him and grabbing his wrists more roughly than I meant to. I raised his arms, pinning them one by one above his head. He was totally overpowered by me. In this position, I thought excitedly, it was almost like I was raping him.

“You're really asking for it.” I stared into his eyes menacingly. “You brought this on yourself, you know, so don't blame me if I get rough!” Lan Yu squirmed beneath me as if trying to escape, but his inviting smile told me he loved it. Before I could escalate the assault, however, he abruptly stopped moving around and looked up at me with an absurd tough-guy look on his face.

“So I brought this on myself, huh? What are you gonna do about it?” he sneered, trying to sound manly and threatening, as though he were picking a fight.

“I'm gonna fuck you is what I'm gonna do!” I replied, pinning his arms down harder and bending down to kiss him aggressively.

I wasn't really planning to fuck him, at least not at first. We were only playing and, besides, I thought he would still be too weak for sex. But the more I kissed him the more I wanted him. I hadn't seen Lan Yu in a couple of weeks. I missed him. I missed his lips, his body, his scent. He must have missed me, too, because when I finally released his hands he immediately moved them to my face, kissing my lips and wrapping his legs around me. He had never been particularly verbal during sex, but at that moment his silence carried a special kind of intensity. The quiet serenity emanating from his person was broken only by the sound of his breathing: short, frantic, rapid. Was it sexual arousal or was he not yet fully recovered?