Dragon Day (28 page)

Chapter Twenty Eight

★

We get to
Hefei. John leaves the Santana at a curb somewhere in the city. I don't know where. I've never been
here before. It's another big city that looks like it grew too fast, with constant jackhammers and construction trucks and cranes, half-completed high-rises covered with green netting, giant earthmovers and huge pipes and gaping holes in the ground. Then we take a taxi to the train station, the usual clusterfuck of cars, taxis, buses, and people swarming in and around a space that isn't big enough to hold them all. I'm still too nervous to fly. I'll give Sidney some time to do whatever it is he's going to do with Yang Junmin before I get on a plane.

We make our way to the ticket hall. The lines aren't too bad, a sort of halfhearted mob that gets funneled into lines by aluminum crowd-control rails up by the windows.

“We can go back to Beijing together,” John says. “Or someplace else for a few days. If you want.”

“I have to go to Shanghai.”

He elbows a guy who tries to cut in front of us. “I can come with you.”

I think about it, and I don't know whether I'm being stubborn or smart or if I just don't want to be around anybody.

“If you really want to help me
. . .
go to Beijing, John. Let me know if you think it's safe for me to go back.”

He's not happy about it. But at least he listens.

“Okay,” he says. “I can do that.”

I get a ticket
on the last train to Shanghai leaving at 8:00
p.m.
, a fast D train that will get me to Shanghai Hong­qiao station just after 11:00
p.m.
John's train for Beijing doesn't leave until right before 10:00, and it's a long ride, nine and a half hours. The high-speed line's not opening till next year.

I almost wish my ride was that long, so I could just sleep on the train and dodge the whole hotel passport-registration issue one more night. But I'm hoping Sidney's already done what he said he would, that he's gotten Uncle Yang off my back already. I'm betting either Tiantian or Dao Ming has talked to him, too. Maybe both of them.

Who knows what any of them said? How it might make Yang react.

“You should take some food and things on the train,” John says.

“What?”

We've gone inside the station proper, through the metal detectors, me with a daypack, John with a messenger bag.

“Here,” he says, pointing to a convenience store next to a fast-food noodle joint.

“I don't need anything.”

John rolls his eyes. “So just wait here.”

He goes inside the convenience store. It's your basic rectangle, like a gas station mini-mart, except the long side is an exposed wall of Plexiglas.

I watch him go inside and walk purposefully down the aisles, grabbing things here and there, his image slightly blued by the thick Plexi, and I feel like I'm on the other side of an aquarium wall. Or maybe I'm the one who's in it
.

He comes out with two plastic bags tied at the handles. “Here,” he says, handing me the smaller of the two.

“Thanks.”

“We can talk by the end of the day tomorrow.”

“All right. Sounds good.”

He stands there looking down and shifting back and forth, like he's trying to calm himself.

“Please take good care,” he says, meeting my eyes. “I think you need some time to rest.”

After I settle into my seat, I open up the bag. A giant cup of noodles. A bag of spicy peanuts. Some “biscuits,” which might be crackers or might be cookies. A big bottle of water. Two cans of Snow Beer.

Halfway through the ride, I call Lucy Wu. To warn her I'm coming.

“How about lunch? There's a soup-dumpling place near my apartment,” she says.

“Okay,” I say. I crack open the first of my Snow Beers. “If I don't make it
. . .
you know what to do with that thing I left you, right?”

A pause. “Yes. Right.”

I find a cheaper hotel downtown off Huaihai Road, a “business-class” place called the Celebrity Garden. It looks like a thousand other Chinese hotels I've stayed in: marbleized lobby, clocks on the wall set to Beijing, Moscow, London, and New York times, a room with a hard bed, a particleboard desk covered with plastic wood veneer, a desk chair, an electric teakettle.

I take the desk chair and wedge the top under the doorknob. Put the chain on the door. I don't know what difference it makes, really. A chair and a lock aren't going to stop Uncle Yang if he knows where I am, if he wants to bring me in.

I drink a bottle of beer. Watch TV. Doze off now and again. Think about what Marsh said.

You want it to be over. You know you do.

The dumpling place is in the bottom floor of a ramshackle two-story building draped with loose electrical wire and a painted wooden signboard for a menu, just around the corner from a glassy California Pizza Kitchen, a four-story art deco apartment, and something called “Privilege Banking,” advertised in glowing white letters against a blue-lit aluminum wall.

Lucy beats me there. When I arrive, she's sitting outside at a white plastic table, perched on a white plastic stool. There's room for only three tables inside.

Our dumplings arrive in blackened, water-stained bamboo steamers, along with soup and a side dish of sliced green garlic and strips of marinated pork. I catch a whiff of steam from the first set of dumplings, and I'm suddenly starving.

We don't talk too much until the food is nearly gone.

“Sidney Cao is probably going to contact you about the museum project,” I say.

Lucy wipes her lips with a square of tissue paper. “Oh?”

“Yeah.”

I don't tell her much about what happened in Xingfu Cun. Just the part where Sidney wants to spend his fortune on buying beautiful things to share with “the people.”

“My,” she says. “Well, of course I'd be interested in helping him spend his money.”

“You need to really think about it. Sidney's trying to separate himself from Yang Junmin, but
. . .
I don't know. If there really is some kind of big power struggle going on with the leadership transition coming up
. . .
you just don't want to get caught out on the wrong side of that.”

“I know,” she says. “But the idea of a project like this
. . .
The
things that could be created
. . .
” She stares at me across the table,
and I can see the light in her eyes, the excitement. “We'll have to be careful, but if we keep some separation between our
businesses
. . .
”

I shake my head. “I can't do it.”

“But
. . .
why? You're the one who created this opportunity.”

“I've been faking it this whole time. I don't know what I'm doing. And
. . .
I need a break.”

“But you're smart,” she insists. “You've already learned so much, in a short amount of time. Why not take advantage of chance like this?”

“I can't,” I repeat. “I just
. . .
”

I look at her. It's funny to see her like this, no makeup, wearing light cotton pants and a girlie-cut New York Yankees T-shirt, eating dumplings at a neighborhood dive. Completely at ease, in a way I'll never be.

“You can do bigger things,” I say. “I can't.”

John meets me the next morning at the Beijing South Railway Station, standing on the other side of the turnstiles that separate the arrival gates from the rest of the subterranean level of this massive complex.

“I came on subway,” he says. “Traffic is terrible.”

“Subway's fine.” I've only got my daypack, and we're right by the subway concourse anyway.

“Where do you want to go?” he asks.

“Just back to my place.”

We cram onto the Line 4 subway car, dodging gigantic wheeled suitcases and stuffed plastic grain bags, squeeze into the relative spaciousness of the vestibule connecting two cars, and I lean back against the wall and close my eyes until we get to Xizhimen Station, take the long jog to the Line 2, then just two stops to Gulou.

Finally we emerge from the long escalator into the smoggy daylight.

John walks with me through the tangle of jackhammers and piles of bricks, cars, and temporary walls and white construction dorms, until we reach the alley that leads to my apartment.

“What do you do now, Ellie?”

“Call my mom. Answer some email. Take a nap.” I shrug. “I don't know.”

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No. I just
. . .
I know you've got things you need to do, and I'm
. . .
I think I want to just get some things done, like I said.”

“If you're sure.” He stands there with that slightly awkward, hands-jammed-in-his-jeans-pockets posture that makes me think he's a different guy altogether, the guy I thought he was the first time we met: kind of cute, a little clueless, maybe even sort of shy.

“I think it's okay,” he says. “I don't think Beijing police or Yang Junmin will bother you now. But
. . .
I can't be certain.”

“I know.” I swing my daypack off my shoulders and zip open the main compartment. Reach in and get the envelope I'd given Lucy Wu, just in case.

“Maybe this is something you can use,” I say.

I did a lot of thinking on the train. An offshore company that Celine knew about, that involved somebody at Tiantian's party. I thought about what she was likely to know and how she could have learned about it. She hung out around Gugu, and she hung out around Marsh. Marsh palled around with Gugu, but he worked for Tiantian.

I fix things for Tiantian,
Marsh said.
Help him move money around.

And who really needs help moving money around, way more than the son of a Chinese billionaire?

A high-ranking CCP official who needs to do it all off the books.

I hold out the envelope to John. “I'm not sure, but I think this might help you get Tiantian. And Yang Junmin.”

He takes it. “Thank you.”

“I'm just going to ask you to promise me something. If you use it
. . .
keep Sidney and his other kids out of it, if you can. Sidney's going to be in business with people I know. Besides
. . .
”

I think about Sidney's art collection, and I wonder: Will he follow through with it? Will he build a museum for regular people to enjoy? Give away his ghost city and his estate? Bring some beauty to people's lives, like he said he wanted to?

“They're
. . .
” I let out a sigh. “I don't know. They're not all bad.”

John nods. “I promise.” He folds the envelope and tucks it in his pocket. “I call you tomorrow. Or if you change number, you call me.”

“Okay.”

It's funny. I suddenly want to hug him and not let go. But
I don't. Because now that he's finally seeing who I really am, I
don't think he wants me to.

Anyway I don't deserve it.

Chapter Twenty Nine

★

The apartment looks
just how I left it. Some mess in the kitchen from one of Mom's taco experiments that's starting to smell. I clean it up. Make myself a pot of coffee. Think I should call my mom.

But I don't know if I can face talking to her just yet. How am I going to tell her about what I did?

Easy, McEnroe, I tell myself. You don't. Just like you never told her about what happened in Iraq, before you got blown up.

She doesn't need to know that stuff about me. What I'm capable of. What I'm not able to do.

So I text.
hi, back home.

And then I strike “
home
.”

back in bj. everything's fine. probably a good idea if you stayed with andy's family a few more days. is that ok?

A minute later:
what happened?! u sure ur ok?

fine. just a misunderstanding. all fixed.

we'll be home asap.

no really. stay there a few days. i

Think about what to say.

need some time to

I stare at the screen. It's like I've finally run out of lies, but there's no truth to take their place.

work a few things out
, I finally type.

It's a minute or so before my mom replies. I imagine she's thinking about what to say. Or typing things and changing her mind.

ok. we can stay a few more days. love you.

love you too
, I type.

I check my email.

Shit, go away for
. . .
How many days was it? Whatever, there's a lot of email.

I delete the spam, the newsletters, the invitations to gallery openings, jokes sent to me by some friends in the US, also cute animal photos, even though I like to look at those. At least I'm not getting so many Jesus emails since my mom's actually living with me.

Here's one from my landlady in Wenzhou:

Just to remind you, rent rises in 1 month. If you want to continue lease, let me know.

“Thanks for writing,”
I type back without even thinking about it.
“I'll be leaving. Best, Ellie.”

It's suddenly clear. Just like that. I'll be leaving.

I keep going through my email. Just because . . . I don't know, I'd like to have an empty inbox. Leave things clean.

Here's a note from some buddies of mine from the Sandbox, Palaver and Madrid, with a new picture of their kid, who's over a year old now.
“So cute,”
I type.
“Thanks for sending.”

Huh, here's an email from Francesca Barrows. She's this British art critic I met a year ago, when the whole craziness happened with Lao Zhang disappearing and the Uighur. I think she might be a part of the Great Community, but I never found out for sure.

It's been a while. Tried to call, but your number's not working. Can you give me a ring when you get this? A project's come up I think you might be interested in.

Right. I delete the message.

Funny thing. Up next is an email from Sloppy Song. She's an artist I know from Mati Village, where I met Lao Zhang. I always figured she was in the Great Community, too. But it was kind of a “don't ask, don't tell” situation.

 

Hi Ellie, long time no see. Can you call me? Want to make sure you go to this new performance piece, I heard about it recently.

 

Okay. I'm starting to get that buzz, that tickling up and down my spine. Especially when, after scrolling through a few more newsletters and petition requests, I see an email from Harrison Wang.

 

Call me as soon as you can.

 

I don't have to go down too many more emails in my in-box before I see what prompted all this.

The email is from “Boar Returning from Mountain.”

It has to be Lao Zhang.

 

Join me to fly a kite. Meet north of Mao's last erection. Tomorrow, 12
p.m
.

I check the date of the email. “Tomorrow” is today.

Mao's last erection—that's what some expats I know call the Monument to the People's Heroes.
I told Lao Zhang that once.

The Monument to the People's Heroes, in Tiananmen Square.

I have an hour to get there.

You don't have to go, I tell myself. Whatever's going to happen, you can't stop it.

I'm done fighting.

I lean back in my desk chair. All I want to do is close up shop here. Go someplace peaceful. Just
be
for a while.

But I already know what I'm going to do.

“Just one more fucking time,” I mutter.

Tiananmen Square on
a
hot, smoggy Tuesday in May. A mega-mall parking-lot-size expanse of pavement. Chairman Mao's memorial hall behind me to the south. The National Museum and the Great Hall of the People to the east and west. The broad expanse of Chang'an Avenue and, across that, the entrance to the Forbidden City to the north.

In the middle the Monument to the People's Heroes.

They've chased the vendors out, the guys selling Mao singing lighters and Little Red Books; now they cluster as discreetly as they can by the entrances to the pedestrian tunnels that lead into the square. Tourists wander around, Chinese and foreign, snapping postcard shots and selfies. There are a lot of uniformed police and obvious plainclothes, too, single men with close-trimmed hair who don't seem to be doing anything besides watching other people.

Chinese have protested here for a long time, over a hundred years at least. Everything from mass demonstrations such as what happened in 1989 to individuals lighting themselves on fire. Seems like the government doesn't want to see anything like that ever happen here again.

Which is why, if I were already in deep shit and planning on doing some kind of political performance piece that was apt to get me in deeper, this would be one of the last places I'd think about staging it.

I get to the Monument to the People's Heroes at about ten minutes to noon. It's this giant
. . .
obelisk? I guess that's what you call it, on top of a platform of stairs, like a shorter, thicker Washington Monument sitting on a lopped-off Mayan temple. When the mass demonstrations happened in 1976 and 1989, this was the focal point, where people came to lay wreaths for Zhou Enlai and Hu Yaobang. They weren't just mourning those men, they were pissed as hell—about the rule of the Gang of Four, about corruption and their lack of say in how things were run—and tired of being silent about it.

They wanted different lives.

“Ellie.”

I turn. There's Harrison Wang. He's wearing a white silk T-shirt and lightweight black pants. I think this might be the first time that I've seen him actually sweat.

“Hey.”

“You got my email?”

I nod. “Crazy couple of days.”

“You'll have to tell me about that.”

He stares north, toward the Forbidden City.

I look around. I spot Sloppy and Francesca, on the west side of the monument. Francesca has a big camera, with a long lens. Nothing weird about that—this is a huge tourist attraction after all.

“We have other people with cameras and cell phones,” Harrison murmurs.

“What's he going to do?”

“I don't know. But I thought we should be prepared to document it.”

We stand there, waiting.

“Hey! Dude!”

There's only one person who calls me “dude.” That would be Liu Chaoke, Chuckie, my former roommate, the hacker and gamer who introduced me to Lao Zhang.

He's wearing an oversize Green Lantern T-shirt and baggy shorts, and he's still thin and knobby kneed, though he's switched his old heavy-framed glasses to some rimless models.

“Dude,” I say. I haven't seen him in over a year. And I can't help it—I give him a quick hug. He pats me on the back, as awkward as I am.

“How are you recently?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. Pretty good. You?”

“Same thing.”

“What have you been doing?”

“Hacking for PLA.”

This is kind of a surprise on the one hand, given Chuckie's problems with authority. On the other, I guess he's pretty good at hacking.

“Oh. So. How is that?”

He shrugs. “Boring. I quit.”

Which doesn't surprise me at all.

It's almost noon.

Now I see a man approaching from the east side of the square. He's wearing shorts and a plain T-shirt and a scarlet baseball cap like he's a Chinese tourist on a group tour. He's carrying something, some kind of long, bright bundle, tucked under one arm.

Lao Zhang.

For a minute or two, I just stand there while he takes up a position slightly to the north of the monument.

I shake myself, and I limp toward him.

“Hey,” I say.

He looks up. “Yili.”

We stare at each other. I haven't seen him in over a year. All this time, everything that's happened, it's like he's turned into a symbol of something rather than a man.

Now we're standing in front of each other, and I really
see
him. He's thinner than he was. His hair's retreated above
his temples, and he's shaved it close to his head, shaved off his
goatee, too.

Mostly he just looks tired.

“What are you doing?” I ask.

“A performance.” He indicates the bundle under his arm. “It's just a kite. I want to fly it for a while.”

“Don't do it,” I say. “Don't. You don't have to. You can still leave.”

“I don't want to.” He closes the distance between us. Rests his hands on my shoulders for a moment. “I never should have left you the way I did. It was selfish.”

I want to hug him, but I'm afraid to. I don't know who's watching.

Besides, I'm pissed off. He comes home just to get himself arrested?

To leave again?

I step back. “Okay. Maybe you shouldn't have. How's this going to help?”

“It's just time, that's all.” He starts to unroll the kite. “Time to step away from the computers. To act.”

“You and what army? This isn't 1989. You see anybody out here marching with you? They don't care. They're too busy trying to make down payments on their fucking Audis.”

“I care. Let me do this.” He unfolds the kite. It's a big kite, white with red trim, and I catch a glimpse of black characters and a fragment of English—
deleted
, it says.

“You really think doing some kind of art piece is going to change things? Jesus. Your ego's bigger than I thought.”

He pauses with his kite and smiles. “Maybe so.”

It's making me nervous just standing here next to him. I glance to my right. Those two guys over there, are they plainclothes? Are they watching us?

I glance around the square, and there are other people flying kites: kids and their parents mostly, and a few older men with fancy kites, like this is their big hobby. A unit of uniformed soldiers march by in cadence, and no one seems to notice. They're just part of the landscape.

“I'm going to move to the side a little,” Lao Zhang says. “Wind is better there.”

“Please don't do this.”

“Take good care of yourself,” he says. “I'm sorry for all the trouble I make for you.”

He turns and walks away, holding the big kite under his arm.

You can't go after him, I tell myself. You can't. It wouldn't do any good.

He'll do what he wants to do, and it's not up to me to stop him.

I let him go.

When I get back to where Harrison is standing, Chuckie's gone. “Your friend said he wanted a better view,” Harrison tells me.

I nod, throat too tight to let me speak.

Lao Zhang has taken a position about twenty yards in front of the Monument to the People's Heroes. I get what he's doing. You frame the shot right, you'll get him with the monument in the background. I'm guessing some of Harrison's videographers know that, too, and are positioned accordingly.

I stay where I am. I don't need the perfect shot. I don't even want to watch this.

But here I am.

Lao Zhang puts his kite on the ground. Squats down and fiddles with it—he's tying the line onto the crossbar, I think. Stands, holding the kite in one hand, a reel for the string in the other. Stretches.