ni hao, I type back.
His avatar hovers by the couch.
qing zuo, I say. Please sit.
He does.
It’s weird, you know? It’s like we’re sitting next to each other on a real couch and I’m watching the whole thing outside my own body. Staring at a screen. And I know that he’s somewhere-who knows where?-staring at a screen, too.
what’s going on here? I finally ask.
i’m coming to beijing. in a week or so.
why?
Truth is, I already know why. Or at least what he told me. He said he felt bad about the position he’d put me in.
it is just time.
you shouldn’t, I say. it’s not a good idea. anyway, i’m fine.
i need to, he says. time to finish the piece.
what piece?
the performance piece. the big one. made up from all the little pieces. the whole cycle.
what the fuck?! I type.
I mean, I know Lao Zhang used to do performance art. Painting himself red and strumming a ukulele on top of the Drum Tower, singing the chorus to Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” Steering a little boat through the Houhai lake with a statue of Chairman Mao in the prow. Whatever it meant. I wasn’t always sure.
This time I don’t have to know what the new piece is about to know that it scares me.
don’t do it, I type, pounding the keys. just don’t. it’s not worth it.
of course it is.
We sit there in silence for a minute.
what’s happening here? I type. where is everyone? why are things disappearing?
i told them they should go. if they build it, they should decide whether to delete it or leave it.
but why should they go?
because maybe this is not safe place anymore. or won’t be soon.
Like after you get yourself arrested for some dumb-ass performance art? I want to scream.
But I can’t scream. I can only type it with the caps lock on.
A series of laughing emoticons appears in Lao Zhang’s text bubble.
i promise it will not be dumb-ass, he says.
Finally I have to ask it. Even though I kind of hate myself for asking. Because what’s the point? I know it’s not going to end well.
can i see you? I type. before?
There’s a long silence. His avatar blinks on the couch.
maybe not a good idea.
why? I type. Though I think I already know.
because maybe they are watching you.
I snort with laughter.
Yeah, you think?
Chapter Seven
★
Fuck, fuck the fucking fuck.
I walk out of the coffee bar, and my head’s spinning.
Sure I’m being watched. By my very own personal spy.
Do I tell John about this?
I know Lao Zhang, I say to myself. Whatever it is he’s planning on doing-his final “piece,” I mean-he wouldn’t hurt anyone. He’s not going to try to blow something up or anything like that, right?
He wouldn’t. That’s not who he is.
Not who he was, anyway. I haven’t seen him in over a year. I don’t know what he’s been doing, what he’s been going through.
How well did I really know him before, for that matter?
Don’t go there.
If I can’t believe that Lao Zhang’s the man I thought he was, what has the last year of my life been about?
I pass the rows of little shops selling incense and Tibetan Buddhist tchotchkes: gilt statuettes, sandalwood beads, prayer flags, and cards. I bet at least a couple of them have postcards of the Dalai Lama behind the counter.
Whatever it is that Lao Zhang plans on doing, it’s got to be some big, stupid gesture that gets him into trouble. I mean, he’s already in trouble, right? By coming back, it’s like he’s giving up. He knows what’s going to happen. Maybe not the details, but that it’s nothing good.
I’m getting teary-eyed, which I really hate.
And for all he said it was about taking the pressure off me, well, I know one thing about so-called superpowers-they hate being embarrassed. There’s no way I’m not going be on the receiving end of some blowback from this.
By the time I’m on the escalator heading down to the Number 2 subway, I’m really pissed off.
All this time I’ve been doing what Lao Zhang wanted me to do. First, going on that crazy hunt through China last year, following clues he’d laid down for me, getting my ass kicked from one end of the country to the other. Then managing his art. I’m still not sure why he picked me for that.
Yeah, he told me he thought it was good for me. That I needed something to do. Which, okay, was true. I needed a mission. Something to take my mind off the Great Wall of Bullshit that had been my life to date.
But how is this going to help me? Being the front woman for a dissident artist determined to get himself in deeper shit than he already is.
So he thinks he’s going to make some big gesture and that it’s going to mean something. Like those Tibetans lighting themselves on fire to protest the regime. Does any of that help? Does it change anything?
And fuck it, I’m not Chinese. This isn’t my country. It’s not my business trying to change it.
And further, I’m sick of being a good soldier on someone else’s mission.
You know what I could really use? A guy who’s actually there for me when it counts. Not some flaky artist who-okay, I know he cares about me, at least I think he does, but I’m never going to be first. Or even close to it.
I swipe my card at the turnstile and take the escalator down to the platform. Stand there and feel a wash of stale air from the tunnel. It’s not too crowded at least. Middle-school kids in tracksuits, a couple of European tourists examining the map enclosed in Lucite that details the exits, a cluster of PLA soldiers in square-cut, baggy fatigues who don’t look much older than the middle-school kids. A subway worker, an older woman in a blue uniform with gaudy gold buttons, sweeps the tiles with a straw broom.
Too fucking late, I think. I already signed up for this.
I swear, if I make it through, this is the last time I go out on someone else’s mission. Next time I’m working my own.
Like I have a clue what kind of mission that might be.
I’m pretty sure that my mission of choice would not be meeting Cao Meimei for dinner at a pretentious restaurant on the top floor of a five-star hotel in the Central Business District.
The name of the restaurant is Estasi. Italian, maybe? I can’t tell from the decor. It’s just a lot of bullshit marble, fancy lighting, dark wooden alcoves with carvings of grapes and vines.
Just going into the hotel lobby made me want to run the other way. Marble everywhere, more gold trim than the Lama Temple, perfectly conditioned air, and the faint hum of Muzak. There’s an atrium that goes up a few stories with a giant fountain in the middle puking illuminated sprays of water. Rich people hanging out in the lobby, checking in, meeting for drinks in the downstairs bar, wearing well-cut suits and cute little dresses and hundred-dollar T-shirts, branding themselves with Gucci and Vuitton and Coach.
I’m hoping that Meimei beat me to Estasi. She has a reservation, and I’m supposed to join her. Otherwise I guess I’ll sit at the bar and nurse an overpriced glass of wine, because it’s not like this kind of place serves the local Yanjing Beer.
I approach the hostess station. A marble desk surrounded by a carved wooden screen depicting cherubs toting bunches of painted grapes.
“Ni hao,” I say to the hostess, your basic young, elegant, gorgeous Chinese woman. “I’m meeting a friend who has a reservation. Cao Meimei.”
It’s funny to watch. The hostess, already a paragon of good posture and polite attitude, still manages to straighten up, put a brighter smile on her perfect face.
“Welcome,” she says. “Please, follow me.”