Year of the Tiger (39 page)

The next day, I’m running around Mati Village, trying to co-ordinate with the truck driver Harrison’s hired to move Lao Zhang’s stuff, when my phone rings. I’m yelling at the driver, who’s overshot the loading dock at the Warehouse, so I kind of juggle the phone and answer it without seeing who’s calling me.

‘
Wei
?’

‘Ellie. It’s Trey.’

I stare at the phone, heart pounding.

‘Hi, Trey. Can you hang on a second?’ Then I yell at the truck driver, ‘Pull up here! Just back in! Wait a minute, I’ll be right over.’

‘Okay, okay!’ the driver shouts back.

‘Ellie?’ I hear Trey’s voice come over the cell.

‘Sorry. You got me in the middle of something.’

Naturally, he doesn’t ask what.

‘So …’ he says, and then there’s this silence. ‘So I heard you’re back in town.’

I’m thinking all kinds of things, but what comes out of my mouth is: ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m back.’

‘So … so everything’s okay?’

I hear this. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t. I’m struck dumb.

Then all at once the words rise up and tumble out.

‘Oh, yeah. I’m okay. I’m just fine. Everything’s great. What the fuck is wrong with you?’

‘Ellie, I just –’

‘What did your friends tell you, Trey? What did they tell you about what they did? Did they tell you how they picked me up? What they did to me? Did they talk about that?’

‘No!’ he says. ‘No. They just said …’ Something stops him. Like the words get tangled up in his throat.

‘I told you to not to mess with those guys,’ he finally says.

‘Right. You did. Because you knew what they’d do. And you just let them, right? You didn’t even
try
to help me.’

‘Ellie …’

He’s crying now. I can hear it. Deep, choking sobs. ‘I’m sorry,’ he manages. ‘I didn’t … I told them …’

He can’t finish.

‘Whatever, Trey,’ I say. ‘Look, I’ve got things to do. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’

I hang up on him. It feels good.

That was my revenge, I guess. But I wake up the next morning, and I think, how stupid is this – this mean, trivial payback?

Why not let him go?

So I do. We meet for drinks at a fancy bar in a five-star hotel, just me and him, and I sign the papers. We sit there across from each other at a little round table in a red-lit room while a jazz trio plays standards, the singer going on in her husky alto about love gone wrong, or whatever – isn’t that what all of those songs are about? Trey’s wearing a sports coat and an open-necked shirt, and he looks so handsome, and I feel it in my gut, everything all at once, how I thought I loved him, how – in spite of everything that had happened, in spite of everything that had gone wrong – I thought we could still have a life together, and then how he betrayed me, how he stabbed me through my soul, and I’m not even sure when that betrayal happened. Maybe the whole thing was spoiled from the beginning.

I’m staring at him, sipping my wine, and it’s like something shifts. Like something’s pulled away, some lens I’d been seeing him through, and all of a sudden, I see him clearly. He’s just this guy. He’s not going to save me. He’s not going to ruin my life either. That part’s pretty much up to me. Or maybe the Suits. But not Trey. He doesn’t have that kind of power any more.

‘I’m sorry, Ellie,’ he keeps saying. ‘I’m so sorry.’

I almost ask him, sorry about what? About what you did in the Admin Core? About how you treated me?

That’s when it hits me. We did those things together. What he did on his own, to the PUCs, what he let happen there, okay, that’s his burden. But the two of us? Our marriage, the life we had? The secrets we kept?

We were in it together all the way.

We have one last blowout at the Warehouse before they knock it down. The musician who lives on Lao Zhang’s courtyard spins his new tunes; we have food brought in from the
jiaozi
place, buckets of beer, all kinds of liquor, and hashish from the local Kazak dealer. Various people make attempts at live music, most of which suck, and I find out that Francesca Barrows plays the drums pretty well, and Fuzhen likes to sing pop songs. People get up in front of the mike and drunkenly recite poetry. Overseeing the whole thing, like some mute MC, is a cardboard cutout of Lao Zhang that somebody made and put up on the stage; and when one of the artists asks ‘Lao Zhang’ to say a few words and sticks the microphone up to the cutout’s face, waits a long minute, and then says, ‘These are our guiding principles!,’ I laugh so hard that I spit out my Yanjing.

Mostly, I stand toward the back and watch. But that’s okay. Because standing here, I feel surrounded by something, something good. I feel like I’m part of this. Not that I’m an artist, or anything like that. And I know Mati Village isn’t some utopia either. The people here gossip and screw each other and have their little dramas, just like everywhere else I’ve ever been.

But still, this place, these people, it means something. Even if I’m too plastered to figure out exactly what.

Later, I sit on the sprung couch, nursing a beer, wishing I hadn’t joined in the maotai toasts, because that stuff’s pretty foul, as befitting something that comes in what looks like a Drano bottle. Eventually I’m joined by Sloppy and Francesca.

‘Did you ever talk to Harrison Wang?’ Francesca asks.

‘Yeah.’

‘Did he have any ideas?’

I’m not sure what to say. I settle on: ‘Yeah. But it’s complicated.’

Francesca snorts. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘It’s not like that,’ I protest. ‘I mean … some stuff’s more important than buildings.’ I’m having trouble remembering exactly what.

Sloppy sits there, tears running down her face. ‘I’ll miss all of you,’ she says.

Oh, yeah. People. That’s it.

‘We can stay in touch,’ I say. ‘Hey, we could start a blog. You know? The Mati Village refugee blog.’

I don’t think Sloppy understands the word ‘refugee,’ but she still nods thoughtfully. ‘I think blog is a nice idea,’ she says.

So, I’m pretty sure Harrison’s the Monk of the Jade Forest. The Monk fits him. The way the Monk talks – well, types – he sounds like Harrison. Like Cinderfox sounded like Creepy John, when I stop and think about it.

And I think Harrison is Suit #2’s asset. Who else could it be? Harrison had access to the Suits’ business cards, the ones in my pocket, when I stayed at his place. I guess I should be grateful that he talked to Suit #2 – to Carter – and not Macias. Otherwise … otherwise, who knows what might have happened?

Harrison has connections. Has juice: the money and the power. He could horse-trade if anyone could.

But Harrison won’t come out and cop to it. Oh, he drops hints now and then, stuff about the nature of power, the tyranny of the State, of corporations when they’re essentially arms of the State – or is it the other way around? Fuck me if I can keep that straight.

Mostly he talks about the need for artists, the necessity for them to create freely, and I think that’s what really motivates him.

Or maybe it’s just a game. Something to play when he’s bored.

There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know and probably never will.

Here’s what I did figure out: it’s all insider trading. The powerful making deals with the strong. A bunch of us scrambling for our places, working to get our little piece. A whole lot of folks sliding off the end of the greased ladder.

I keep thinking that someday, something will rise up from that pit at the bottom. Something deep, strong, and full of rage, a tsunami sweeping everything away into a jumble of broken trees and twisted metal and trash and bloated bodies. Then the tide goes out, depositing the rubble where it doesn’t belong: boats on top of buildings. Fish in the forest. Up is down, and the underdogs stake their claims. Like what happened in China some sixty years ago.

The problem with revolutions is that eventually the whole fucking thing repeats itself. You know?

I’m having one of those nights. One where I don’t go to sleep like I should. I try, but I can’t stop thinking about things.

I think about the Uighur a lot. Hashim. I should call him by his name. That’s the least I can do, right? It’s not like I knew him, but he seemed like a nice guy. And nobody deserves what he probably got.

I don’t pray. I don’t believe in that any more. But I think about him.

Overall, I’m doing better. I’ve got this decent apartment in an older, five-story building in Tuanjiehu – a cute neighborhood close to Sanlitun and the Embassy district in Chaoyang. My apartment’s pretty cheap, owned by a pair of retired college teachers who moved to their condo in Miyun Resort Village, and though the building itself isn’t anything fancy, they did a nice job remodeling the place inside. I can’t complain. I like it, actually. I can go outside, watch the little kids playing at the elementary school down the block, stop in at my local market in the narrow tree-lined lane and buy Yanjing Beer for four yuan. There’s a great Xinjiang lamb place close by and one of the best Peking Duck restaurants in all of China just a ten-minute walk away. It’s nice here.

But I still have these nights, sometimes, when I think about things. When I try to figure out what happened and why.

The Great Community’s no help. Every once in a while, I log on. Type ‘Hail, the Great Community!’ No one answers. Maybe it’s not safe there any more.

I wonder about other people, who else might have been in the Game. Sloppy Song? Her friend Francesca Barrows?

Lucy Wu, I don’t think so. My best guess is, she really
is
just a Shanghai art dealer. At least she has this cool gallery near the French Concession, in a rebuilt
shikumen
– the traditional Shanghai apartment building. I’ve seen the gallery, and it looks pretty cool to me anyway.

I’m guessing that when Lucy found me in Lao Zhang’s place that morning, she figured I was the channel to get to his art. She’d met me at the
jiaozi
place, seen Lao Zhang and me together at the Warehouse – with him gone, I was the girlfriend, someone she could either work around or work with.

When I ask her about the keys she had to his place, she just giggles.

Oh well. I’m the one with the piece of paper from Lao Zhang, right?

The funny thing is, after all that, and in spite of the fact that she’s tiny and gorgeous, I’ve decided that Lucy Wu is pretty much okay.

We’re working together on Lao Zhang’s art, Lucy and me. There’s a lot of buzz, and the fact that he’s disappeared makes it even more intense. Lao Zhang’s like this underground figure who everyone’s heard of but hardly anyone’s seen, and people want to know: is this guy some kind of undiscovered genius? Do I need to get a piece?

We haven’t shown his work yet – as Lucy put it, ‘Maybe it’s too complicated right now.’ But we’ve sold a few paintings, to foreign and local collectors, and so far that’s been okay. Lucy takes a percentage. So do I. I’m not getting rich, but I’m making enough to live on. The rest of the profit goes into a trust, a foundation ‘to support the arts.’ We do charitable work to make it legitimate, art programs for poor migrants’ kids, stuff like that.

Harrison helped with that part, with drawing up the papers. ‘We’ll put in a back door for Jianli,’ he explained, ‘so that he can claim the majority of the profits, should he want to.’

And I’ve got my work visa, finally. Harrison set me up with that. I’m the director of the foundation, which is licensed through one of his businesses somehow. I’m not sure how I feel about that either, being in Harrison’s pocket, but here I am.

The Chinese government could still decide to boot me out, to not renew my visa, but they haven’t yet, and you know, there’s no guarantee of anything.

I study. Read articles. Go to galleries. Ask questions. A lot of the time I just shut the fuck up and listen. I’m in way over my head, but what else is new?

I do my best. Shit comes at you, you handle it. That’s what they taught me when I was a medic, and I was pretty good at that job.

A couple days ago, I went out for a walk around the neighborhood. It’s fall, the best time of year in Beijing. As ugly as they’ve made the city in general, there’s still something about the air in autumn, how crisp and clean it feels, about the light, the gray-and-red-washed walls against the blue sky, the lengthening shadows in the golden hour.

I was thinking: I wouldn’t mind a latte.

So I wandered over to the neighborhood Starbucks. I’d downloaded a new book onto my iPhone; I figured maybe I’d hang out, drink coffee, and read for a while.

I got my latte, sat by the window, and read my book, now and again glancing out at the cyclists passing by beneath the falling leaves.

The book was pretty stupid, so I switched over to a TV show I’d downloaded but hadn’t seen yet. It was okay, I guess. I watched for a while, until I finished my latte.

Then I powered down my phone, put it away in my little pack, and stretched out in the chair for a moment.

When I looked up, I saw John standing near the entrance.

This weird combination of feelings rushed over me. My gut hollowed out. My heart started pounding. I was scared all over again.