Fragment Ten
EARLY EVENING. 7.10. The sun had just sunk below a heavy concrete tower. I switched off my laptop and started circling my carpet. Stay in and sleep?Venture out? Eat something? I looked at the phone. It stayed silent, like all my best roles. I found myself standing in the kitchen. There was the remains of a bottle of Great Wall Red Wine in the fridge. I poured the wine into a glass but there wasn't enough to fill it. I suddenly wanted more, much more. On the kitchen table were two more bottles: Thousand Happiness Dry Red and Dragon White. There was hardly any wine in them either. I poured what was left into a glass, mixing them up like a vegetable soup. I took a sip. And another. It tasted terrible, like out-of-date apple juice.
Huizi once told me that, when a young person started drinking, it was a sign they were getting old. It suddenly felt very true.
As I was thinking about how intelligent Huizi was, the phone rang. I picked it up. No shit, it was Huizi.
'Fenfang, hey, where've you been? You've been missed.'
'Have I?'
'Of course. What are you doing now?'
'Me? Nothing, I'm not doing anything. But I've just started drinking wine. Maybe it'll help me sleep. You know I haven't been able to sleep for days. I only manage to drop off when everyone else goes to work in the morning. I wish I had an internal clock like other people…'
'All right, Fenfang, stop drinking,' said Huizi. 'Listen, I've just finished the first draft of a TV script – twenty episodes. I've been told I can recommend some female leads to the Director. So I thought of you. I'm with the Director right now, having dinner. Get in a taxi and come here immediately. We're at Sun Yue Dumplings on Hospital Street in Haidan. Hurry! I'll pay the fare.'
I hung up with a hundred thanks. Now I was moving quickly. I changed into something decent and sharp. A Korean TB2 skirt. A tight-fitting Double Love T-shirt. A pair of high heels I never managed to walk in for more than 10 minutes. And I pulled my hair into a ponytail. I looked like a new-generation woman. This TV Director would believe at once I was the actress he needed. Minutes later I was in a taxi on the way to Sun Yue Dumplings. Using the rear-view mirror I brushed powder on to my cheeks, added colour to my lips and darkened my eyebrows. I looked like a juicy peach ready for picking.
When the taxi stopped at the dumpling restaurant, Huizi was sitting alone. Four huge plates of steaming dumplings filled the table in front of him. He was staring at the food like an idiot.
'Where's the Director? Didn't you say he wanted to choose actors with you?'
Huizi looked at me. 'He just left, literally a minute ago. I'm so sorry. He didn't even give me the payment he owed me for the script.'
What?' I couldn't believe my luck. I slumped into the empty seat across from Huizi. It was still warm.
'It's a complicated story,' said Huizi. We just ordered all these dumplings ten minutes ago. Then the Director's phone rang and it was his Producer. The Producer told him that their investor, some rich stock-market dude, got killed last night. Policemen said it was a murder. What happened was, the Producer went to collect the first instalment of money from this guy and found him dead on the floor. Blood everywhere. So now the Director has to go to the police station for questioning.'
Huizi lowered his head. 'It's probably a good thing. Now you won't waste your time with lousy people.'
I didn't know what to say. I leant over, picked up the clean chopsticks in front of me and reached out for a fennel dumpling. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, there was a bottle of Eight Dragons Soy Sauce on the table. I couldn't believe my eyes. What sort of Director had been sitting here? Deep down, I'd always suspected there was a link between the high salt content in Eight Dragons Soy Sauce and Xiaolin's temper. Anyway, what the hell. I poured some of the damn soy sauce on to my plate, dipped the dumpling in it and swallowed without chewing. I was starving, and apparently I'd just lost my one opportunity to play a leading role. At least I could eat, eat as much as I could, eat until the world didn't owe me one penny.
After about 10 dumplings, I stopped feeling low. At least Huizi and I had each other to share this bizarre moment. At least I wasn't alone. I was thankful for that, Heavenly Bastard in the Sky.
Huizi sat back, watching me eat. I finished the whole plate of fennel dumplings, and started on the pork and chive ones.
'Fenfang, maybe this is a sign,' he said. 'Maybe you need to try something other than acting. You like reading. You know about films. Why don't you try to write a script? Seriously, if you could just finish a first draft, I'm sure I could help you to show it to people.'
'A first draft?' I looked at him, my mouth full of dumplings.
'Yes. Have you ever heard this: "Don't maul, don't suffer, don't groan – till the first draft is finished"?'
'Who said that?'
' Tennessee Williams.'
The dumpling stuck in my throat. ' Tennessee Williams? Who's that?'
'He's this American playwright who came from Mississippi, where there are loads of tornadoes during the summer. You know tornadoes?' Huizi asked. 'They're like typhoons, lots of crazy wind and wild rain. Anyway, he wrote a famous play called A Streetcar Named Desire.'
Desire? That was a weird name for a car. I imagined that Tennessee Williams was from some shiny world swept by dramatic winds.
Tornadoes, desire… these words excited me. Even though I'd never heard of Tennessee Williams, I clung to everything Huizi told me. I polished off the pork and chive dumplings, and felt encouraged.
'Huizi,' I said, 'you've got to be my best friend in the whole world. If everyone else on the planet died, I wouldn't give a shit. Even my mother. But if you died, I'd howl.'
Fragment Eleven
EVERYTHING AROUND ME WAS CHANGING SO fast – my apartment block, the local shops, the alleys, the roads, the subway lines. Beijing was moving forwards like an express train, but my life was going nowhere. Okay, so I was getting lots of work, but it was all the same. Woman Waiting on the Platform, Lady in Waiting, Bored Waitress. I was only in my twenties, but I felt 70. I had to do something, ask my brain to start working, so I could match this fast-moving city.
Inspired by Huizi, I started to watch nameless men and women in the street. We were alike: none of us heroes, just ordinary people – extras – drifting through messy streets in a vast, messy Beijing. One morning, I went for a walk along the rubble-filled roads near my building. The area was being completely reconstructed. Three or four giant trucks had just arrived to start their demolition. Old buildings were going. Entire streets were going. In just one night all the food stalls had disappeared, along with the men from the countryside who used to run them.
A man came to my mind. An ordinary man who had once moved through these empty streets. He could have had any name. I decided that he was called Hao An.
Hao An was nothing special to look at. Just an average nobody, unmemorable. The moment I thought of him, I felt like I'd heard about him before. I was sure he'd been mentioned in the scraps of gossip I picked up as I wandered around the neighbourhood. I started to write.