Year of the Tiger (40 page)

But I was glad too.

John approached my table, tentatively, with a hitch in his step, not a limp, more like a hesitation.

‘Can I join you?’ he asked.

‘Yeah. Sure.’

He sat.

I wouldn’t call him baby-faced any more. Now I could see what his bones looked like, how big his eyes were in their hollow sockets. There was a scar across his forehead, cutting into one brow.

But he was still wearing that same cheap leather jacket. Either that, or he has a closet full of them.

The T-shirt was different, though. Just a plain black crew-neck.

‘I’m glad you’re okay,’ I said awkwardly.

He nodded. ‘Yes. I was in the hospital for a while. But I feel better now.’

We sat there in silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ I finally said.

I’m not sure why I said it. I was sorry he got hurt, I guess. I was sorry I hadn’t tried to do anything. To find out where he was, or what had happened to him. I could have at least tried.

Except, of course, he still kind of scares me.

John managed that squinty-eyed look.

‘Ellie,’ he said, ‘I don’t remember what happened. I remember, we get off the train. I remember, we stayed in that place, and there were …’

He wrinkled his forehead, seeming to struggle for the word. ‘There were those people. Who were on the street. The, the protesters. And I remember, you and I, we find a car to drive us away.’

He smiled. ‘I don’t know what happens after that.’

‘Some men stopped us on the road. You don’t remember that?’

He shook his head.

Lucky John, I thought.

I wondered what I should tell him.

‘They beat you up,’ I said. ‘Some other guys chased them off. Those guys, they –’

‘What guys?’ he asked urgently. ‘Who were they?’

I remembered the white room. I saw it like the wall was right in front of me, the slightly uneven paint, the different subtle shades of white.

It wasn’t that bad, I told myself. I’m okay now.

‘American guys. They’d been after me. I guess they took you to the hospital.’

He nodded slowly. ‘And they let you go,’ he said, almost like it was an afterthought.

‘Yeah. They let me go.’

He stared at me with those eyes of his, so dark it’s hard to see the pupils. ‘What did you tell them, Yili?’

I stared back. ‘Nothing. I didn’t tell them anything.’

‘Then why did they let you go?’ he asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

‘They got what they needed from somebody else.’

There was a long silence between us.

‘They were looking for the Uighur, that’s all,’ I finally said. ‘When they found out where he was, they let me go.’

He frowned. Like he didn’t really believe me.

Well, fuck him if he doesn’t, I thought.

‘That story about your sister … that was bullshit, right?’

Because if he wanted to play Who’s the Big Liar, I was all in.

He drew back: surprised, I guess, that I’d call him on it. ‘No. It was the truth.’

‘And you don’t really work for a joint venture company, do you?’

He looked a little startled. ‘I do. Just like I tell you.’

‘Bullshit,’ I repeated. ‘For one thing, you don’t dress the part. Where’s your designer golf shirt? Where’s your man-purse?’

He looked truly confused at that. ‘My … man … ?’

‘Never mind.’

I let out a big sigh. I was so tired of this. People lying. Covering up. Not saying who they really are.

‘You’re some kind of cop. I know you are. What I don’t get is how come you haven’t started busting people yet. Or maybe you have, and I just don’t know about it.’

‘No.’

The way he said this, simple and strong, almost made me believe him.

‘These people, the Great Community, I believe what they believe. They are my friends,’ he said.

‘But you still don’t know who most of them are in real life, right? Is that why you kept playing?’

I remembered when John carried me into my apartment, when he told Mrs Hua to mind her own business, the cold quality of his anger. I caught a glimpse of that now, and then a flash of hurt, before his self-control returned.

‘Yili,’ he said, ‘things are not always so … so straightforward.’

‘Oh, yeah? Tell me about it.’

He ducked his head in that awkward, embarrassed way of his.

‘There was a guy, this big official, back before Jiang Zemin was Chairman,’ he finally said. ‘This official, he was called Qiao Shi. He had a lot of jobs, but he was head of Internal Security for a while, so he sees all kind of things. After that, he is in charge of National Peoples’ Congress. NPC at this time doesn’t really have very much power, it only approves what the central government tells it to. Qiao Shi wants to change this. He talks a lot about reform, about the rule of law. Because he saw before what happens when there is just the Party and no laws can control it.’

Then John shrugged. ‘This guy, this official, he lost, I guess you can say. Jiang Zemin doesn’t like him. When Jiang Zemin becomes Chairman, Qiao Shi must retire.’

I sat there for a minute. ‘So, what’s your point?’ I asked, though I had a pretty good idea what he was getting at.

‘Just that it is hard to change things. And most of us, we can only do some small thing.’

He looked up at me. There was something pleading in his look.

‘But maybe if enough of us try. If we can connect, all our small things together.’

He reached out his hand, like he was going to take mine, but he didn’t. He put his hand on the table. I could see the tendons and muscles tense, then relax.

‘This is what matters,’ he said. ‘That we can connect.’

He looked away. That was as much as he was going to give me.

Then it hit me, something that was beyond a thought; it was something I felt, like a blow.

Maybe I was wrong about Harrison. Maybe John was the guy who had something to trade. He could have seen the Suits’ business cards that night in my apartment. The Chinese government’s not crazy about Uighur activists, after all, and neither are a lot of Chinese people. Why not give Hashim to the Americans? Sure, China and America fight over all kinds of things in public, but who knows what kind of cooperation goes on behind closed doors? Who knows what they might be trading?

And John – wouldn’t he have picked me over Hashim?

I have a feeling he would have.

We sat there for a few more minutes, until it started to feel way too uncomfortable.

‘I should go,’ John said. ‘I have a meeting. For my company.’

He rose slowly. ‘Maybe I see you again, Ellie.’

I stood up too. ‘Maybe.’

I wouldn’t be surprised.

‘Hey,’ I said, as he started to turn away. ‘I’ll tell you what I do believe.’

He stopped.

‘The part about your fiancée. She really is a bitch. Right?’

He smiled. ‘Yes. She really is.’

I haven’t seen John since then, but it won’t exactly be a shock if he turns up again. Maybe it’s true what he said, about the
hong xian
, the red thread of fate that connects certain people together, that tangles but doesn’t break.

Or maybe he’s this creepy stalker guy, and you know how hard it is to get rid of people like that.

It’s a cold, rainy night, and I’m hanging out in my apartment, checking my e-mail and surfing the Web.

These days I use a VPN, a virtual private network, that lets me bypass the Great Firewall and surf anonymously. When I’m at a Net bar, I use a little flash drive with a similar program, like what Chuckie gave me before. I’ve learned a little since then. I don’t take any chances.

Nothing’s perfect, of course. The government comes up with new ways to spy and to censor, choke points along the Cisco routers; the privacy folks circumvent them.

I’m not sure who’s winning.

I read an e-mail from my mom, skimming the part comparing cell phones to Bibles –’We wouldn’t have to worry about being disconnected, because Jesus already paid the bill!’

‘Thank you for my new water heater!’ she writes. I sent her some money this month, for her birthday. I had a little extra, thanks to a painting we sold for a particularly good price. ‘Do you think you’ll be making a trip home soon? I miss you. Love, Mom.’

‘I’ll try,’ I write back. ‘I’ll let you know.’

It all depends. Assuming we can get some of Lao Zhang’s paintings out of China, Lucy knows a gallery in Los Angeles that wants to exhibit them. That could be good for Lao Zhang. Good for us.

I’m not sure how I feel about going home, on my own, without Trey. But if I do, at least I can tell myself I’m not a total fuckup. I’m doing something now. At least I’m trying to.

I’m not hurting anybody; I’m not helping anyone hurt anybody. I’m not participating in anything that does.

First, do no harm. I’ll start from there.

I visit the ‘Leaving Mati’ blog. Francesca and Sloppy set it up, after Sloppy’s studio got destroyed and she moved to a little town near Mutianyu Great Wall. The blog’s in English, because the government doesn’t watch English-language blogs as closely as Chinese ones, and, even if they did, there’s nothing subversive or political about it. It’s just a place where Mati Village artists can post about what they’re doing now, their art, their upcoming shows, their new lives.

This big company bought six of my paintings. I’ve gone back to Hubei. I have a new daughter. We’re having a party, please come!

It’s just people talking to each other, right? What could be subversive about that?

I start to read the latest posts, but I get distracted by a new batch of e-mail. One from Palaver and Madrid, who have a new baby, thanks to the help of a gay male friend. Another from my mom, about how chocolate is better than men (though she’s pretty happy with her new boyfriend).

One e-mail in particular catches my eye. From ‘Monastery Pig.’

I don’t know that handle, but my heart starts beating a little faster when I see it. In Chinese tradition, monks who live in monasteries are vegetarians, so a ‘monastery pig’ is a happy pig, a pig who’s found himself a safe haven.

And ‘pig’ is another way of saying ‘boar.’

The subject is: ‘Invitation to An Opening.’

Inside, it looks like spam for a stock offering. Typical stuff: ‘This is our Pick of the Year! We don’t see this slowing down! We know many of you like momentum! This is a must-watch! Buy aggressively!’

Right in the middle, there’s a hot link.

Maybe it’s spam. Maybe it’s just a weird coincidence about the handle.

I click on the link.

It takes a while to load. Maybe I’m being shuffled from proxy to proxy to get to it.

When it does load, it’s like I’m inside a painting. A seaside landscape, with rolling waves and sand blowing across the dunes that drift down to the water’s edge. I say it’s like a painting because, though I’ve seen a lot of fancy computer graphics and game environments, I’ve never seen one quite like this: soft around the edges, with brushstrokes here and there, but somehow more vivid than most. More real.

It’s peaceful. No stupid soundtrack. No shrieking demons or aggressive swordsmen.

No other players, not that I can see. Just a generic female avatar dressed in casual clothes.

That must be me.

I walk along the beach. Seagulls wheel above me. A dog dashes along the shore, splashing water from an incoming wave.

Here’s something funny: a giant Mao statue, bleached by the sun, half-buried in the sand.

A little further along, a faded pink Cadillac, planted fins-up.

I see a path that leads up a hill, toward the interior. I turn up it. There’s a little building up ahead of me. Plain. White tile. With red Chinese characters that say ‘Fanguan.’

‘Restaurant.’

I go inside.

It looks familiar. White plastic tables. Fading posters on the wall for the Beijing Great Olympics. A little shrine to Buddha. But it’s empty. No customers. No waitresses. Only me.

I sit. I wait a while.

A man walks in. Stocky. With a goatee and a beanie.

A text box appears.

‘Glad you made it.’

He sits down across from me.

‘Glad to be here,’ I type. I’m not sure what else to say. I’m not sure what’s safe. I’m not even sure if it’s him. How can I be? He’s an avatar on a computer. He could be anyone.

Except … this place … this landscape … it doesn’t just look like a painting. It looks like one of his
.

‘What do you like to eat?’ he asks. ‘Not much on the menu yet. Still building this place. But I have two things you like.’

I think for a moment.

‘Jiaozi,’ I type. ‘And Yanjing Beer.’

A smile icon appears in the text box above the avatar.

‘That’s what’s on the menu.’

Dumplings and beer appear on the table. We sit.

‘So,’ I type, and then I don’t know what to say.

‘The Game,’ I finally ask. ‘What was it for?’

‘To go on quests. Kill dragons.’ I imagine him chuckling in the pause that follows.

‘To help friends,’ he eventually continues.

‘Your friend.’ I won’t type his name, not now, not even here. ‘Your friend of a friend. He’s not okay.’

A longer pause. ‘I know.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘Not your fault.’

I’m not so sure about that. It seems like my fault, somehow.

‘Where are you?’ I ask. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I’m in a good place. Safe. But you?’

‘I’m good.’

‘I hear you had problems.’

I hesitate. ‘A few. But I’m okay now.’

Our avatars stare at each other across a white table heaped with virtual dumplings and beer.

‘I thought I was helping you,’ he says. ‘I thought you need something to do. I did not think you would have trouble with your own people. I hope you can forgive me.’

‘They’re not my people,’ I type, before I can really think about it.

But that’s not really true. I brought them to Mati Village, didn’t I? Like I was carrying some disease.

That’s what it feels like, anyway.

‘There’s things I never told you,’ I say. ‘Things I did before.’

The words appear over his head: ‘Not important. I know what you do now.’

I think about it. Had I balanced things, somehow? Was it enough?