Beautiful Country (26 page)

Even though he was alone, I could not find it within myself to
go over and speak to him. Three times I almost got myself to go over and talk to him, but each time I found some reason to turn back. I told myself that Bowen would not want me to see him laying bricks, that it would hurt his fierce pride. I told myself that even if I went over and spoke to him, that I could make no difference in his life—Bowen who had so desperately wanted to be a world-class tennis player. He and I both knew he could have been one of the best of our generation. I gave myself a thousand reasons not to go over and speak to him, but in the end it didn't matter. They were probably all wrong.

I knew that in many ways I was responsible for Bowen's fate. I was scared, I supposed. Scared of what he might say to me. Scared that he might not say anything at all. I thought about the letter my father had given me before I left for Beijing almost five years ago. “Courage is about always doing the right thing.” The definition was simple and clear—four words—
do the right thing
—but the difficulty was in the identification of what was right and what was wrong. By the simple definition I had done the right thing. I tried to help a friend who had lied to me, and I had refused a friend when he asked me to lie for him. I couldn't be faulted, but deep in my heart I knew what Tom would have done, and I knew in the same way that I had failed to
venture forth
—I had failed to find the courage to take a risk, to act when only one part of me was certain what was right and what was wrong. I've come to understand that each person has to work out their own personal algorithm of courage. No two are the same, and it's no use trying to borrow or copy anyone else's. Guided by his own algorithms of courage and determination, Bowen had made it as far as he was capable of on his own—and then he had turned to me for help, and I had failed him.

The children were now singing a slow, gentle song that had the rhythmic simplicity of a lullaby. After each verse, they repeated the refrain “
yue er ming, feng er jing
(the moon is bright, the wind is calm).” When they were finished, the teacher asked them to stand up and form a line. She led them—quiet and subdued—inside.

I took the 6:15 back to Beijing. I watched the countryside shudder past—flat, dry fields and small blockhouses scattered here and there, orange under the final light of the dying sun. Next to me a small child slept in her mother's lap while her mother sang to her. I recognized her song as one of those the children at the school had sung in the playground that afternoon.

As we pulled into the Beijing station I noticed that someone had scrawled graffiti across a door in the station wall. I looked at it more closely and recognized one of the quotations that Victoria's husband Z had on the ceiling of his restaurant.

我们将治愈我们的创伤，我们将继续战斗直到结束。

We will heal our wounds, and we will fight until we come to the end.

I owe a debt of gratitude to all the people who helped me along the way.

To the boys in Beijing who welcomed me as their teammate and whose work ethic and discipline have always inspired me to work harder.

To the family I lived with in Beijing, who gave me a home on the other side of the world.

To Karel Fromel, who taught me the meaning of hard work.

To Fritz Mark, Jean Yu, Manjula, and Stuart Solomon for the advice and support they gave from the very beginning.

To Ron Carlson, who read the earliest draft of this novel and told me to stick with it.

To my wonderful teachers Bret Anthony Johnston, Amy Hempel, and Mark Poirier, from whom I learned so much.

To the Office for the Arts at Harvard for supporting me.

To Andrew Wylie for believing in me.

To Jeff Alexander and Ann Patty for all their help and advice, without which I would not have made it to this point.

To my editor Maya Ziv for all her hard work and for taking a chance on me.

And to my mother and father for instilling in me a love of literature and for always encouraging me to pursue this path.

J. R. THORNTON
studied history, English, and Chinese at Harvard College, graduating in 2014. He lived in Beijing as a teenager and returned to undertake a fellowship as a writer-in-residence at the International Writer's Center at Beijing Normal University. He was an internationally ranked junior tennis player and a member of the 2012 Ivy League–winning Harvard men's tennis team. He has been the recipient of the LeBaron Russell Briggs Fiction Prize and Harvard's Artist Development Fellowship. He will return to China in the fall of 2016 as a member of the inaugural class of Schwarzman Scholars.
Beautiful Country
is his debut novel.

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“This unsettling book about the moral encounter between America and China is a study of privilege, innocence, and risk. It is a tragedy of manners and a portrait of Beijing—amplified and torqued and unmistakable.”

—Evan Osnos, winner of the National Book Award

  
“A coming-of-age story that vividly encapsulates the complexities of the modern encounter between China and America. Indeed, this is in many ways the quintessential ‘Chimerican' novel for the millennial generation. Disarming in its candor, addictively readable.”

—Niall Ferguson, author of
Kissinger: 1923–1968: The Idealist
and
Civilization

  
“Compelling and authentic . . . a story of China as told by an outsider. Through the perspective of a young American, we can see a different side to our country and ourselves—one that is unfamiliar, but real.”

—Yu Hua, winner of the James Joyce Award and the Grinzane Cavour Prize

BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY
.
Copyright © 2016 by J. R. Thornton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

FIRST EDITION

ISBN 978-0-06-241191-4 (pbk.)

EPub Edition April 2016 ISBN 9780062411921

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