‘It’s still here in my pocket. Do you want it?’
‘No.’
‘What is it?’
‘Don’t ask. I told you — you’re only to open it if I die.’
‘Must be a will then.’
‘Did Li Tao come round?’
‘No, but these letters came for you. I hid them.’ She pulls the letters from her quilted jacket.
At school, my art teacher told me paintings can be dangerous, especially paintings of people. He advised me to stick to landscapes. But even these can get you into trouble. I paint as the mood takes me — it is an emotional release. But in this society moods and images can incriminate you. Writing is much safer for me. I can hide myself behind a maze of words and the details of people’s lives.
There is no will in the envelope I gave my mother, just a message I wrote to Nannan when I was missing her. The first letter is from Lu Ping. She says she has been caught up in a stream of rehearsals these last couple of months and has had no time to come and see me. The second letter is from my sister. She tells me to take care. ‘If the fish bites the bait then they both die, if it swims away, they both live. .’
‘You have been here long enough, Mother. There is nothing to worry about any more. You should go back to Qingdao.’
‘You’re my flesh and blood, I can’t help worrying.’ My mother’s back is almost bent double.
Last Saturday, I lay tossing and turning in bed unable to sleep, so I got up and went for a stroll. My mother put on her coat and followed me out. She trailed behind me all the way from Chaowai Avenue to Tuanjie Lake, and from Red Flag Plastic Products Factory to Hujia Tower. I walked faster and faster. My mother caught up with me at last and said, ‘It’s the middle of the night, let’s go home.’ We turned back through a narrow lane. The dark walls pressed so tight it was hard to breathe, I felt as though I was sinking into a pothole. At the turning into Nanxiao Lane a street lamp glowed through the leaves of a tree. I stopped and looked up. The leaves were transparent in the light, the branches stretched into the black night like a silent dream. Back in my room, I started to paint it, and finished just as my mother was falling asleep. I dragged her out of bed and asked her to have a look. She said, ‘That’s the tree we stood under just now,’ so I gave it to her. Looking at it now perched on top of the heap, the greens seem too bright.
Beams of sunlight slant through the window, slicing the room to pieces. Coal dust puffs from the narrow vents of the stove. My mother opens the door, walks into the yard, and takes some charcoal briquettes from the sill. Through the window I see her white hair splayed in the sun. A pigeon perching on the roof behind ruffles its wings and takes flight.
Leaving Nanxiao Lane
"‘An autumn wind blows through a red pear tree/ And dries the dew from your skin/ You wake, dragging the night behind you (a strand of hair stuck to your chest)/ The plains empty: the pear tree has gone/ The sunlight trembles through the grass and whispers: Are you happy? Are you happy?. ." That’s enough for now, you can read the rest yourself.’
It was the first Sunday of October, the day before my self-criticism was due. I handed the draft to Lu Ping and poured another beer. My desk lamp shone on her long calves, smooth knees. I could see her thighs touch under her tight red skirt.
She leafed through the pages, then put them down and said, ‘Let’s have that fish before it gets cold.’
‘The fish, yes!’ I smiled and looked away. I was afraid to look into her eyes.
Lu Ping had been visiting me every Sunday since my thirtieth birthday. Sometimes she stayed over. I never touched her though — perhaps because she had a boyfriend, or because I was still not over Xi Ping, or because her graceful movements reminded me of Guoping.
Later that night she lay asleep on my bed. I stood beside her. Through the darkness I saw the curve of her breast, her stomach, the fingers resting on her thigh. Gradually I could see her feet too, pointing into the dark. Her still toes woke memories of her ballet shoes spinning across the stage. I sat on the bed for hours yearning to touch her and kiss her, but terrified of breaking the dream.
The next morning she leaned over the sofa and shook me from my sleep. ‘Wake up, Ma Jian! Someone could have murdered me last night and you would have slept right through it.’
I rolled over and saw her eyes, neck, the buttons that ran down her shirt. A strand of hair had fallen onto her chest. I stretched over and plucked it off.
After breakfast she sat down beside me and said, ‘If you do decide to give up your job and go travelling, let me know. When the police catch you, I will make dumplings and bring them to you in prison.’ Then she said goodbye and left. I rose from the sofa, looked out of the window and sat down at my desk. Suddenly she rushed back, flung her arms around me and rubbed her lips across my face. Then she ran away without a word, and never came to see me again.
I missed her for a while, but tried to push her to the back of my mind. Then, after my release from the Public Security Bureau two months ago, my life began to change. I took the lay Buddhist vows at Jushilin Temple and found spiritual comfort and a new perspective on life. The desires and fears that used to complicate my life seemed to drift away. The belief that there were other realms beyond the hell in which I was living gave me the strength to carry on. Guoping said I was a dangerous political criminal and refused to let me see Nannan again. She demanded I leave her family in peace and sever all contact with my child. I had nothing left and no one to hang on to. I started running circuits around Beijing every day, in a vague preparation for the journey I longed to make. Then last week I plucked up my courage and resigned from my job. I have bought a train ticket to Urumqi and am ready to set off into the wilds. I had planned to leave Beijing without telling Lu Ping. It is too easy to get caught. But when I phoned Chen Hong this morning to say goodbye, she told me Lu Ping was stabbed in the back last week and is lying in bed in hospital.
I decide to buy some flowers and pay her a visit.
I scour every crafts shop and art store in the district, but none of them sell flowers. There was an article in the newspaper about a florist opening in Beijing, but I cannot remember the address. Jianguomen Hotel has a flower shop for foreign guests, but as soon as I walk into the lobby the security guard notices I am Chinese and throws me out again.
I comb the shops outside Friendship Hospital hoping to buy some fruit, then remember she cannot eat solid food. A man broke into her room and knifed her in the back, the blade slipped between her heart and liver, she was unconscious by the time she reached the emergency ward. She woke from her coma yesterday, but her life is still hanging on a thread. I don’t want her to die. At least she can see. I must get her some flowers.
At the Temple of Heaven’s north gate I find a small nursery that is filled with rows of potted chrysanthemums. I buy two pots, snap the stems off in the doorway, buy a sheet of wrapping paper from a stationary shop across the road and run back to the hospital.
She has had two operations and is still in intensive care. ‘Her body was swimming in blood when she arrived, we couldn’t hold on to her. You can have a couple of minutes, no more. The police will be here soon, they are waiting for her to speak,’ the nurse says, pointing at the clock.
Lu Ping is bandaged from the shoulders down and suspended in a cage of appliances. She looks like a model aeroplane. Her ashen face is immobilised by the oxygen pipe fixed to her nose and the metal clamp around her head. I wave the white chrysanthemums in front of her eyes, and she moves her cracked lips.
‘I only found out this morning. Fortune is on your side, you will be up in no time. . I am going away for a while. When I get back we can eat some more fish together.’ She blinks her vacant eyes. I remember the expression on her face when I recited my poem to her. I had told her she was the inspiration, and she’d smiled and said, ‘Give me a copy when you are finished.’ No one would imagine this pale thin face belonged to the same girl.