‘You’re both wrong. My neighbour works for the State Security. The brothers are still on the run, but they’re not half as dangerous as everyone makes out.’
‘Those gangsters are no worse than the communists. Our factory’s Party secretary still can’t read. At the study sessions, he gets his assistant to recite Deng Xiaoping’s directives, then swings his bare feet onto the desk and starts picking at them with a penknife. It’s disgusting.’
‘That guy in glasses I saw in your room the other day — have you heard? He’s latched on to a foreign student from the Language Institute and is moving to America with her.’
‘Our finance department can send two people to Denmark this year. Everyone is fighting to go. Only Party members stand a chance, of course.’
‘Wang Chong’s girlfriend has left him. She’s run off with that Swedish guy, apparently. He’s old enough to be her grandfather, for God’s sake!’
‘It’s all right for the girls. They just cuddle up to a foreigner and the next thing you know, they’re married and living in America.’
‘Ma Jian! Stop pretending to be asleep. It’s your birthday. Have another drink!’
‘I’m listening. My head’s throbbing though. Turn the music down, Fan Cheng, or the night patrol will hear us.’
I know people need to huddle together to survive, but sometimes I long to run away and curl up on my own. I hate working for the Party, but how could I feed myself without this job? I wonder what Xi Ping did today. She is planning to denounce me to the police, apparently. Her father is helping her compile a report on me. So much for her undying love. Guoping collected Nannan yesterday for the summer holidays. She said my life is too precarious and insisted Nannan stay with her in Yanshan for the next school year.
‘Ma Jian. Last month at the reservoir you shouted, "Where have all the women gone?" Well, it seems you had quite a few to choose from tonight, you rascal.’
‘They’re just friends. Go to sleep now, it’s nearly morning.’
I try to remember the faces I have seen tonight. Mimi danced cheek to cheek with Da Xian, then stood in a corner on her own. Li Tao looked upset. Chen Hong arrived late in a white sun hat and heavy make-up. She had just completed the final exam of her medical degree. Fan Cheng shot her a disapproving look. I suspect he wants to break up with her. She stopped in the doorway and said, ‘I feel out of place,’ then went to the latrines to remove her make-up. After supper, Mimi announced she was thinking of moving to Shenzhen Special Economic Zone and Hu Sha accused her of being a capitalist roader. Then Lu Ping stood up and said, ‘Come on, everyone, a toast for our friend, Ma Jian!’
My head is pounding. Li Tao’s pig’s liver and spicy chicken wings tasted good, but when they reached the fish and alcohol in my stomach I began to feel ill. I am glad Lu Ping came. She is now the prima ballerina of the Central Ballet Company. I used to photograph her regularly for calendars and product catalogues, until the police interrogated her last year and told her not to work with me again. She looked prettier than ever today, but my experiences with Guoping and Xi Ping have frightened me off women who are surrounded by crowds of male admirers.
‘Who walked Lu Ping home tonight?’ pipes a voice after a brief silence.
‘Why are there so many damn mosquitoes in this room?’
‘I killed two a minute ago.’
‘I saw you in the corner, giving her your telephone number.’
‘Her arms are so thin. I think she should dance Lin Daiyu in A Dream of Red Mansions.
‘She has already. Gave three performances on 26 August at the Tianqiao Theatre. I went to them all.’
‘Why did she wear those tight red jeans tonight? She looked like an Overseas Chinese.’
‘She’s got no tits.’
‘Her second toe is too long.’
‘Hey, Ma Jian. How come you’re not chasing after her? She’s much nicer than Guoping or Xi Ping.’
‘You’re wasting your time. Lu Ping has a boyfriend.’ As the men discuss her, Lu Ping’s image smiles down from the black ceiling. I presume the others are gazing at it too.
I remember sitting in the dark theatre last year, watching her dance in A Dream of Red Mansions. The second act ended with her twirling despairingly through the falling blossom having heard her lover Bao Yu was engaged to his cousin. Bao Yu had in fact been tricked by his family into thinking he was betrothed to Lin Daiyu. After the wedding ceremony he discovered the true identity of his bride, and he left his red mansion in horror and rushed to his lover’s side. But it was too late. Lin Daiyu had died of heartbreak the very moment he was exchanging his vows. In a flash, Bao Yu saw through the red dust of illusion. He discarded his worldly ties and set off in search of enlightenment. Lu Ping is ideal for the part of Lin Daiyu. She has a frail, melancholy beauty.
‘You pronounce your oath to the sun/ Let wild geese fly to the horizon and proclaim your chastity/ I believe you now/ So much so that teardrops drip from my passion/ It does not surprise me/ But I nearly die of laughter when you say the word: for ever. .’
This is Hu Sha. He often interrupts conversations with a verse of poetry.
‘No one is clapping, Hu Sha. You recited that one at Yang Ke’s house last week.’
‘Well, tell me who wrote it then, if you’re so clever.’
‘Wen Yiduo, as if I didn’t know. Try me on the Tang poets, if you dare.’
‘They’re old hat. Let’s see how well you fare on contemporary writers.’
‘Shut up. It’s nearly light outside. Can’t you hear the muck carts driving down the lane?’ No one is smoking any more, so I cannot see any faces. When the men stop talking a musty heat rises and spreads through the room. Hu Sha starts to snore. He always snores, even on the bus. He can sleep anywhere now. His father was rectified so severely during the Cultural Revolution that the old man lost his mind. He used to stay up all night wandering about the house, scratching counter-revolutionary slogans on the wall with household objects and shouting, ‘Evil bastards, bloody communists!’ So Hu Sha learned to sleep standing up. His father passed away last year, and the following day Hu Sha had a black band on his left arm and a few more wrinkles on his face.
I start to nod off. In my daze the house transforms into a large empty cardboard box, as light as a feather, hovering below the tall red apartment blocks. What was it that Saul Bellow wrote in Humboldt’s Gift? Plump women with big breasts. No — fine breasts, big nipples. Damn, that can’t be right. Big nipples. . big breasts. .
Writing My Self-Criticism
In early September, I turn up for another day at work under the crowd’s watchful gaze. As I step into my office the secretary walks in and says, ‘Ma Jian, Deputy Qian would like a talk with you. You’re to wait for him in the conference room.’
There is a mountain of post on my desk. I am compiling a photography book entitled Spare Time Activities of Chinese Workers, and have written to trade unions around the country asking for submissions from their members. The book will be presented to foreign delegations as a souvenir of their trip to China. I have received thousands of photographs, but not one is fit for publication. I have pictures of everything from a mother bathing her child, to forty people huddled around a television set; from a family taking a group photograph in the park, to a man building a chicken coop in his backyard. None of these activities would meet with the leaders’ approval. And besides, most of the pictures are either out of focus or underexposed.
It would be quicker to establish exactly what the leaders want and then take the photographs myself. I know how things work now. I have learned the hard way. When I first joined the foreign propaganda department, I had to make two trips to the Wuhan Steel Works for just one photograph. In the first batch the pictures were too dark and the workers’ clothes were torn. Director Zhang, the department chief, was not pleased. On my second visit, I told the workers to change into clean uniforms and jab their pokers into the flaming furnace with beaming smiles on their faces. The factory chairman walked up to me and whispered, ‘If they do that any longer the pokers will melt.’