Nan called Danning Meng from a pay phone. On hearing of his arrival, Danning turned ecstatic and gave him directions to his home, insisting Nan stay with him. Nan agreed. He hailed a taxi and headed for Danning's place in the Hsidan area. There was so much traffic that bicycles seemed to move faster than automobiles. Now and then the cabdriver beeped his horn at the pedestrians who didn't step aside fast enough to make way for the car. At a red light a few vendors stepped over to hawk grapes, ice lollies, peaches, tomatoes.
To Nan 's amazement, Danning lived in a small traditional compound with a scarlet gate, which, topped with black ceramic tiles, was in the middle of a high brick wall. A leaf of the gate was ajar, so Nan went in unannounced. Inside was a small stone-flagged quadrangle, formed by four houses. He hadn't expected Danning to live in such a spacious home, which was old-fashioned, a rare find nowadays. Two crab apple trees stood beside the entrance to the main house, and several wooden pots planted with kumquats and bamboos sat alongside the wing houses. "Anybody home?" shouted Nan.
Danning Meng stepped out of his living room and hugged Nan so tightly that the guest almost let out a moan. "At last we're together again!" the host said with emotion. Though thicker and a bit gray now, he hadn't aged much.
" You live like the nouveau riche, such a nice place," Nan said, beaming.
"I paid thirty thousand dollars for this piece of property, but we may have to move soon." Danning couldn't stop looking at Nan, and his smiling eyes curved a little, their outside corners drooping. He took Nan into the living room furnished with antique carved furniture.
"Why give up this place? It's a luxurious home, better than any apartment," Nan said the moment he sat down on a sofa.
" A company wants to build a hotel in this area, so the entire neighborhood will be gone in a year or two."
"What a shame. This quadrangle is the real old Beijing."
Danning's daughter, Weiwei, stepped in, called Nan "Uncle Wu," and then told her father that she had dragged Nan 's suitcase into the guest room, which was in the east wing house and adjacent to Danning's study and their family room. The girl wore glasses and looked studious and undernourished. Though already fifteen, she was so thin that she seemed well under the age of puberty. Her father told her to prepare a basin of warm water so that Uncle Wu could freshen up.
As the two friends were talking, Nan felt an itch in his throat. Unconsciously he massaged the area below his Adam's apple with his thumb and forefinger. He didn't give more thought to this discomfort and just kept drinking the jasmine tea Danning poured him.
When Weiwei got the water ready, Nan went out to wash. On a stone bench under a crab apple tree sat a brass basin, beside which were a folded towel and a plastic case containing a bar of green soap. Nan soaked the towel in the water and rubbed his face and neck with it.
Quickly he went back into the house, eager to resume conversing with his friend. Although he felt refreshed after the washing, his throat still itched. His breathing went rough, but he tried to ignore it.
Over tea the two of them caught up with each other. Danning now worked at the Beijing Writers' Association and had been writing a script for a TV series. He disliked the show because the story was set in the Ming dynasty, six hundred years ago, but it paid well, much more than fiction. "Why write an ancient story?" Nan asked.
"It's safe to do that. Many, many writers are working on ancient stuff nowadays."
"Isn't it hard to make such work literary?" Nan said in earnest.
Danning slapped the top of his thigh and laughed. "If you lived here, Nan, you'd have to forget about literature. The higher-ups want us to write about dead people and ancient events because this is a way to make us less subversive and more inconsequential. It's their means of containing China 's creative energy and talents. The saddest part is that in this way we can produce only transient work."
"Isee, it's a trap."
Danning sighed and said he had been misusing his time for too long and must return to the real work soon. Nan didn't ask him what kind of writing he had in mind as "the real work" and instead expressed his admiration for the number of books (half a dozen) his friend had written. "None of them is any good," Danning insisted. "I've just been frittering away my life. Unlike in America, here I have no real struggle for livelihood. You see, I live comfortably. I just take up a project, finish it, and get paid." He looked languid, as if already an old man in spite of his relatively young looks. Nan noticed that his hairline had retreated quite a bit, giving him a larger forehead than before. Also, Danning had a double chin, but that was almost covered by his chin-strap beard. Despite his easy life, despite his spacious home, despite his success, Danning was definitely unhappy.
Nan drank more tea to soothe his throat; still he couldn't breathe easily, his windpipe tight. Danning called his wife at work to see if she'd like to join them for lunch at a cafe. She was delighted and said she would. Before they set out, Nan finally told his friend, "My throat feels dry and funny. Something is wrong."
"So you have trouble breathing, don't you?" Danning smiled quizzically.
"Yes, like having asthma."
"You know what? You must have an allergy."
"Really? An allergy to what?"
" To the air, the smog. When my wife came back from America she had the same problem. It took her a month to get used to the air here, to become a Chinese again." He tossed his head back and laughed. "Let me see if we still have some Benadryl." He went into a bedroom and came out with a brown bottle. "Here, take this." He shook out two caplets into Nan 's cupped palm.
Knowing the pills might make him drowsy, Nan swallowed them anyway. Then together they headed out. Weiwei, watching a movie on TV didn't come with them. She asked her father to bring back a meat pie for her.
7
FOREVER LOVE CAFE was a very small place. Its side windows looked onto a man-made lake, which, ringed with white sand, was more like a pond, without any trace of fish or waterfowl in it. Two teenage boys were swimming near the opposite shore, their red and white caps bobbing on the green water. Danning knew the owner of the restaurant, a handsome, lean-faced man, and introduced Nan to him as his friend from overseas. "Welcome back," the man said warmly, waving the cigarette held between his fingers.
They sat at a table beside a window. The room had a faintly vinegary smell, emanating from the cold dishes contained in the enamel basins in the glass display case. A waitress with squarish shoulders came and put a porcelain teapot and two cups between them. "Their specialities are braised pork tripe and beef tendons," Danning told Nan. "They also serve panfried noodles and rice for lunch. But their offerings may be far below the standard of your restaurant, so please bear with them."
"Come on, you think I'm rich and finicky about food?"
"You're a businessman now."
"I'm still struggling to survive there."
"Yet you're rich."
" Only by Chinese standards. "
"That's what I mean."
Sirong, Danning's wife, appeared, a petite woman smiling with a broad mouth and bulging eyes. She reminded Nan of a giant goldfish, though she looked good-natured and carefree. She held out her hand to him and said, "It's so nice to meet you finally. Danning often mentioned you. When did you arrive?"