Scene 16
The chestnut man has gone off to a classy hotel to eat lobster, steam in a sauna and generally pamper himself before the inevitable end arrives. Alone, Hao An watches the pedestrians rush past. He doesn't know a single one. But then he sees the Bloody Mary woman from the bar. She's wearing his tie-dyed shirt over her dress, like some kind of coat.
Hao An starts to run after her. He calls out and she turns around. At first she frowns, as though searching for his face in her memory-bank of male faces. But soon she seems to recognise him. Hao An slows down and points back to his hotpot stall. The woman smiles and follows him. They sit down and Hao An gives her a bowl of spicy tofu and pak choi. She tells him her name is Li Li.
'Such good food,' says Li Li. 'I haven't eaten for days.' Hao An is pleased. 'If you think so, you should come again.' He is strangely elated. What end of the world? What UFOs? Life is good. Spicy Ma La hotpot. Busy streets and hungry customers. Li Li in his tie-dyed shirt. He has all he needs.
Scene17
It is morning in Hao An's little room in Cat's Eye Alley. The room is empty. Hao An is at his stall. The door opens and in comes Li Li. She lies down on the bed and falls immediately asleep. She is clearly exhausted. We have the impression that she often comes here to sleep. Perhaps this is the only place she can truly rest. When she wakes, she collects her things, leaves the room and disappears down the alley.
Late that night, when Hao An returns home, he catches a faint scent of her in the sheets. On the floor by the bed he finds a gold earring with a single pearl dangling at its end. This could only belong to a beautiful creature from heaven. He holds it up to the light. His scruffy room – his home that isn't quite a home – feels completely transformed.
Scene 18
We've reached the critical moment in Hao An's story. He's serving customers at his stall when Li Li appears. She asks him for money. How can he refuse? She is a beautiful creature from heaven! He tells her she can have the money if she stays and helps him out. She stays, but does very little work. However, Hao An is happy just to know that she's there. He gives one of his rare smiles.
That night, as Hao An leans over in bed to switch off the light, Li Li arrives in his room. Silently, she takes off her clothes and lies down next to him. The warmth he feels is entirely new to Hao An. He wonders if this is Love. He repeats the word to himself, 'Love', and again his body floods with warmth from head to toe.
As Li Li sleeps, Hao An stares at her silky smooth back. He reaches out and places his finger on a purple bruise. He strokes it, gently, back and forth.
Scene 19
Li Li doesn't return to Hao An's stall. By day, he stares intently into the mass of people before him. By night, he stares intently at the lone earring in his hand. He tries to calculate how many hours are left before the end of the world.
Scene 20
Li Li rushes into Hao An's room and throws a stash of banknotes, rings and necklaces on to the bed.
'Hao An, you're a good man. I know you are. Help me look after this.'
Then she is gone, back out into the night.
Scene 21
Hao An's hotpot stall is being smashed up by the police because it isn't registered. Hao An walks home through the rain, dejected and wet. His abandoned hotpot smokes by the side of the road, gradually filling up with rain.
Scene 22
Hao An squats on the floor of his not-quite-home looking at the earring in his hand, gold with a single pearl dangling at the end. There is a knock at the door. A policeman. Does he know a woman called Li Li? If so, could he come with them to identify a corpse that has been found in a drain?
At the morgue, Hao An immediately spots the blue tie-dyed shirt. The policeman tells him her real name was Zhang Guilan. She was from He Bei province, Lai Yuen county, Fragrant Chives Mountain, Knotted Peach Tree Village.
Scene 23
Hao An studies a calendar. There are still a few days left before the end of the world. He puts some things in his holdall and takes a look around his bare room. Then he locks the door behind him and walks to the long-distance bus station.
Closing scene
With his holdall slung over his back, Hao An walks over barren hills, through thin forests of scraggly trees, across a bleak and desolate snow-capped land. As he nears Knotted Peach Tree Village on Fragrant Chives Mountain he can hear sheep bleating and sees a scattering of low huts in the distance. 'Maybe I've found it,' he thinks, 'maybe this is her home.' Zhang Guilan, the Li Li of his heart.
END
Fragment Twelve
ONCE YOU'VE SEEN A SHARK, you always take care when you walk into the sea. I was terrified Xiaolin would come round to my flat again, and that next time it might be my leg he broke, not just the light. Ever since the day I told him I was thinking of moving out, Xiaolin had been involved in a systematic process of destruction. First it was my work. He tore up scripts of films I was meant to appear in, and burnt my address book of contacts. Next were my tools. The contents of my pencil tin were repeatedly obliterated. Pencils. Rulers. Erasers crumbled. He crushed even the smallest things. I would come home to find mangled paper clips and staples strewn around the floor.
Not much escaped the shredding. Especially my photos. I loved taking pictures of Beijing. The rusty iron railings by the gates of the Forbidden City on a summer afternoon. A People's Liberation Army soldier, hunched over and shovelling snow in the winter. Beijing Canal clogged with so much rubbish it made me sad. Mao's portrait in Tiananmen Square framed by a sea of red fluttering flags. Old people playing ping pong, with their dogs fighting nearby… Each of these pictures was ripped to pieces by Xiaolin. I became a peasant again – living in a big city without any record of the past.
The teacher at my Modern American Literature evening class used to go on about Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. He said it was one of the most important books in the history of Western literature, and we should all read it. He would hold the book above his head and talk about the battle between the Sea and the Old Man, and how it symbolised that a man can be 'destroyed but not defeated'. Somehow, whenever I thought about Xiaolin, I thought about that book. In the battle between us, Xiaolin simply refused to be defeated.
I remember a conversation Ben and I had during the one trip we made out of Beijing. We'd only been together a few weeks when Ben told me he wanted to visit this city he was studying for his PhD. Did I want to come?
It was the first time I'd been in a plane. Thin wispy clouds drifted past the window. As I watched them, I wondered whether there really was only one universe, or if in fact there were multiverses. Would life have different dimensions in another universe? Perhaps being young wouldn't mean much there, or being in love… Ben put his arm round my shoulder and pulled me back to this universe. I realised I was truly away from Beijing. Xiaolin couldn't reach me here, not unless he'd learnt to fly. I was free of the constant sense of danger. The fear that he was going to leap out at me from behind some corner.