The Wounded Muse

by Robert F Delaney

  Qiang hasn’t seen daylight since the officers escorted him to the van outside of Zhou’s building. He’s not sure if it’s late afternoon, midnight or morning.

  “What are you doing here in Beijing, Sun Qiang?” the officer asks.

  “I’m filming a documentary about the changes taking place in Beijing in the run-up to the Olympics.”

  The officer smiles sarcastically, like a bit character in a bad crime film. This one must be lower-ranking, Qiang thinks.

  “I know about Zhao Xiaoyue’s history,” Qiang says. “That’s why I wanted to talk to him. To prove what I’m trying to point out in my project.”

  “What are you trying to point out in your project?”

  Too tired to mind his manners, Qiang snorts.“I don’t know how many times I’ve explained this to your colleagues already.”

  “Explain it again,” the officer spits back, his smile gone.

  “The Chinese people support redevelopment. We all know the world will be watching. We all know that thousands of foreigners will flood our streets and avenues. Most people don’t want to stand in the way of progress.” Qiang pauses. He knows he can get carried away and he doesn’t want to pontificate.

  “Someone like Zhao, who emerged as a critic of the government in many areas, is an interesting subject to discuss this, don’t you think?”

  The officer is expressionless. In the absence of any other cues, and with a surge of enthusiasm blinding him to the reality of his predicament, Qiang chooses to try to create a convert.

  “Someone who was with the Party from the earliest days, who was on the Long March, who’s been at the centre of every phase of the growth of this country. Even after all of that, and having been rejected for speaking out, he’s voicing his support for these changes.”

  The officer cocks his head, encouraging Qiang to continue.

  “But here’s what I’ve learned about those people speaking out about this. They’re supportive too. Almost all of them. They’re just asking for some kind of arrangement. We’re talking about loans given with favourable rates, just like all of the state-owned enterprises get so they can be part of the redevelopment, to buy into the new Beijing. Don’t you see? This solution addresses every problem we have. Rebalancing the economy away from bloated industries, developing the consumer sector, communities working with government. Don’t you see the slogan written everywhere in this city? “Harmonious Society.” None of us can walk ten metres without seeing it draped over a wall. Why don’t we do this, embrace harmony, for real in Beijing?”

  Silence ensues and Qiang wonders if his delivery was too hackneyed. He knows his zeal can sometimes overtake his ability to arrange thoughts clearly. Another officer walks into the room and sits next to his colleague. He may have been the one in the van’s front passenger seat. Qiang isn’t sure because he didn’t get a good look at the guy.

  “Here’s what you’re going to do in Beijing, Sun Qiang,” the new arrival says. Qiang surmises that he’s higher-ranking. “You’re going to stop this foolishness or else you’re going to find yourself in a lot more trouble.” He grabs Qiang’s wrist.

  “Zhao is a fool and so are you. I don’t care what message you’re trying to get across in this project you speak of. The fact is that you have no business exploring this. Clearly, you’ve been in the U.S. for too long. Let me tell you right now, you’re just slightly luckier than you are foolish because we’re letting you go now. Your so-called project is over and we better not catch you conducting any more interviews.”

  Qiang clenches his jaw to trap the insults he wants to spew back “Could you at least give me back my camera?”

  He knows this is a ridiculous question but he can’t hold it back. A detention without charges. A requisitioning without justification. Does nothing in this country ever change? And this was barely a provocation. They know nothing of the interview buried in the sole of his shoe, the one that he will mail to Kendra in Washington to complete her film commemorating the twentieth anniversary of the crackdown.

  “What camera?” the officer asks.

  9:00 p.m.

  Opening night at Destination and the drinks are half price until midnight. Gin and tonics in hand, Jake and Pierre stand together, backs to the bar, allowing them to survey the newly renovated décor. Floor and walls finished in polished grey concrete emit the clean scent of minerals. Laughing and taunting each other, the evening’s first wave of patrons stand around heavy, stainless steel high tables filling a corner of the bar area, their spiky, Japanese anime-inspired hair spotlighted by halogen lamps embedded in the ceiling. Jake is acquainted with some of them but not well enough to say hello or even acknowledge their presence.

  “This place could be New York or Paris,” Jake shouts to Pierre over the booming sound system. “They really invested. It’s not just a string of fairy lights and a sad mirror ball.”

  “They made the right decision,” Pierre replies, keeping his sight trained on the slow procession through the entrance. “A city of ten million? A flood of new expats? I’d invest in a place like this if I had the connections.”

  “Is it me or are the Mainlanders getting hotter? I mean, look around,” Jake says, pointing to the first bunch of guys congregating on the dance floor, swaying tentatively, with drinks in hand, to a Kylie Minogue mix. “They kind of get the rhythm now. They can’t all be from Tokyo or Hong Kong, right?”

  Pierre looks at Jake’s light blue t-shirt emblazoned with the words “porn star” in a colourful bubble font from the 1970s, the fabric just tight enough to show the pecs that Jake works to maintain. Pierre points at the words and chuckles.

  “You think that’s going to get you laid?”

  “I can’t be sure, Pierre, but there’s one thing I know for sure. It wouldn’t get you laid because it’s size small and you’d look lousy in it,” Jake says, poking a protruding belly that Pierre hides under an untucked, white Ermenegildo Zegna shirt with a black floral design that crawls from one shoulder and spreads across the back. Pierre smacks Jake’s hand away.

  Jake pulls out his phone to check the time, wondering whether Qiang will pull himself away from his editing long enough to join them. The odds are fifty-fifty, based on past pledges to come out, so Jake tries to re-focus. He scans the dance floor like a cat stalking prey and notices a white guy looking back at him with a smile. He has thinning, light-brown hair and a somewhat bulbous nose but a friendly expression so unlike the distant, the non-committal and vacant demeanours Jake usually needs to break through to start a conversation and get things on course for the evening’s eventual climax. Jake doesn’t recognize him. A newcomer, which raises the likelihood of success because they’re generally more open to new experiences.

  As Jake smiles back, he sees Qiang just a few feet away from the white guy, pushing through a group of people he recognizes, each ranked and categorized by profession, ethnic preference, social circle.

  “Sorry,” Qiang mouths with an apologetic look as he approaches them. “There’s a long queue out there. It’s mayhem.”

  Pierre hands Qiang a gin and tonic. “Drink up. It’s impossible to get an order in, so we got a couple of extras.”

  “Thanks. How much?”

  Pierre waves away the suggestion. “Let’s get out on the floor before there’s no room.”

  A remixed Leslie Cheung song trails off into a stripped-down house beat and, after a few measures, the opening chords of Madonna’s Hung Up bubble to the surface. Jake and Pierre look at each other, wide-eyed.

  “Madonnnnaaaaa!” they shout, grabbing Qiang. They weave their way through the bar area and squeeze to the centre of the dance floor, moving like amoebae through gyrating duos grinding crotch-to-crotch, legs interlocked. The air is infused with alcohol, evaporating up from drinks that have been sloshed and spilled. Sweaty backs push against each other to open up enough room to pull t-shirts off, rock back and forth and pump fists by the time Madonna belts out the first chorus.

  Pierre begins to
unbutton Qiang’s shirt, getting down far enough to reveal the small tattoo over his heart. 洋. Ocean. Qiang cups Pierre’s hands in his own and, with the smile of a good sport, pulls them away from his shirt. Ironic, Jake thinks, looking at the only ocean he can’t swim in.

  Barely halfway to the first chorus, Jake notices half of the patrons look toward an area somewhere near the entrance. The energy on the dance floor changes. Smiles and laughter turn to wary expressions. Some guys begin to put their shirts back on. Others move from the dance floor, slowly.

  Policemen, six of them, have filed into the bar. Two officers continue through to the back and disappear, presumably into the management’s quarters. The four others stay close to the entrance that everyone seems to know not to rush toward. Two guards on each side.

  Uniformed men in China have become abstractions for Jake because they’re everywhere, representing the power structures he rarely sees. He writes about economics and finance so reports of detentions, harassment and other extra-judicial abuses of power are as remote for him in Beijing as they are for someone reading about them in New York City or Rio de Janeiro.

  Qiang grabs Jake’s wrist and slowly leads him back into the crowd around the bar. Something about Qiang’s reaction to these officers sparks a pang of fear in Jake’s gut, or perhaps it’s just the reality of these officers up close in the refracted light. Madonna continues belting out her frustration about some sexual infatuation over a driving beat and flanging kaleidoscopic melodies which seem discordant against a backdrop of stone-faced police officers in olive drab uniforms and their wary prey.

  “They’ll be gone soon,” Jake whispers into Qiang’s ear. “They’re just making sure the owners know who’s in charge, right?”

  “Are they looking for bribes?” Pierre asks, leaning in.

  “They wouldn’t be this obvious,” Qiang says. “That’s already been taken care of in some form or another. That’s why I’m not so sure this is nothing.”

  “This place is heaving,” Jake says. “There’s too much opportunity for future bribes to scare anyone away, at least for the time being.”

  “Hung Up” fades into a Li Yuchun hit as the two officers emerge from the back. With a path cleared ahead of them, they walk straight toward the main entrance. They march through the doors and the other four follow in a precise, seemingly choreographed retreat.

  “See,” Jake says. “Sha ji jing hou, right?” Jake says. Kill the chicken to scare the monkey. Jake wonders if the proverb fits the scenario well enough. He doesn’t want to sound stupid.

  The music gets louder, helping to revive the energy. Pierre is now dancing with the couple he and Jake were eyeing before Qiang arrived. Pierre slides his hand down the back of the one with the red shirt and into the guy’s back pocket. Jake points at him and looks at Qiang.

  “How does he manage that?”

  “The French accent and the million or so bucks a year he makes helps,” Qiang says.

  Jake has no response. He just nods and smiles. He wants to kill the conversation and turn this into the moment he’s been trying to create since he first met Qiang a year earlier. Drawing on what must be the full capacity of the neighbourhood’s power grid, the music gets even louder. This moment is crucial. Jake’s heart pounds so powerfully that it rattles his ribs more than the seismic bass notes. He moves closer to Qiang, making his intention clear. But Qiang takes a step back and shakes his head slightly with a pained expression. The reaction suffocates Jake like a wrestler who’s suddenly subdued.

  “Let’s talk outside,” Qiang says as he puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder.

  The taxis slow down and honk as Jake and Qiang walk toward the curb. The muted thud of dance music vibrates up through the pavement and the treble rises each time the club’s door swings open to let in more patrons. Two of three police vehicles, beacons flashing, pull away from the curb and the cars coming up behind them veer towards the far curb.

  “Look,” Qiang says, “my life right now is nothing but this project.”

  Jake nods silently, looking at the taxis congregating and honking like geese expecting to be fed. Hammering from the new towers under construction next to the dance club adds another layer to the cacophony. Jake can’t speak. He wants to open a vein to let the humiliation and sorrow drain out and run down a gutter.

  “I’m just unavailable until I get this done,” Qiang says.

  Jake wonders whether that means there’s still a chance, sometime later on, months from now, perhaps, when Qiang’s accepting an award at a film festival. But he knows not to ask. Now that he’s been knocked off balance, Jake’s thoughts fire randomly. He wonders why this consumes him so much. He’s a journalist in the middle of one of the world’s most important stories. China is no longer just a quirky, post-communist wonderland. It’s no longer just any “developing market” beat. This is no place for someone distracted by heartache. He should be consumed by this work. Perhaps he’s been here too long.

  “Sorry, I don’t mean to make things complicated for you.”

  Jake feels something catch in his throat as he speaks, something that will turn into a loss of control, something that might drive Qiang further away. So he looks down and coughs, turning the emotion into a meaningless physical reflex. Then he shakes his head and laughs.

  “Where the hell is my head, anyway. We’re here at Destination, like, watching the birth of, something. I don’t know, like a gay renaissance in China. I should be documenting this for a story, right? One day someone needs to write a book about this. Let’s get back in there, you know? Back in the thick of it.”

  Qiang puts a hand on Jake’s shoulder. “Hey listen, I don’t want to leave you high and dry but I’m really under the gun at the moment,” Qiang says. “I need to get back to editing.”

  “Ok, anything I should know about? Anything I can help you with?”

  Jake knows the answer will be no and that this embarrassing scene will now come to an end provide some relief.

  “I need to work quickly now. Things got a bit dicey for me today.”

  The comment yanks Jake out of self-pity.

  “All right, now you’re scaring me. Things don’t just ‘get dicey,’ Qiang. I might not cover the political stuff here but I know enough to know that any trouble is big trouble.”

  “Jake, if I were in big trouble, I wouldn’t be here right now, would I?”

  “Well then, can you please tell me exactly what happened?”

  “I got a warning. It’s that simple.”

  “And?”

  “And they took my camera. So I need to borrow yours.”

  Jake looks at Qiang and then leans in closer.

  “You’ve been warned and yet you want to continue with your interviews? Are you fucking crazy?”

  “One interview. I have one left. You know I co-ordinate everything through an untraceable, pre-paid number.”

  “Well, if you’re so good at staying under the radar, how did you get a warning?”

  “I was at the wrong place. They didn’t trace me through any of my communication.”

  Qiang sighs and looks down. “Jake, look. I’ve worked… we’ve worked too hard on this to let it go.”

  “You know they’ve changed the rules on the pre-pays, right? You need to leave ID to get them now.”

  “I know. As I said, I have one interview left. My pre-pay has just enough credit to get this done.”

  Jake looks around. The last police car pulls out into the traffic, the officer firing the siren in short bursts to clear a wide berth. He lifts a hand, signaling to several oncoming taxis. Three of them veer towards the curb coming within millimeters of each other. Two stay at the curb, waving Jake and Qiang into their vehicles. The taxi furthest from them swerves and accelerates back into the traffic.

  “You’ve got me worried, my friend,” Jake says as he opens the door of the closest taxi.

  “Friend” sounds awkward because he’s never called Qiang that before. Jake has chosen the word c
onsciously, as a reassurance.

  “Don’t stay out too late. Sundays are better when you’re not nursing a hangover,” Qiang says as he shuts the car door.

  Jake watches the cab drive away. A minute later, the car turns east and it’s as if Qiang was never with him this evening, and Jake hadn’t so carelessly miscalculated. Standing amid the chaos of construction noise, flashing neon signs and club music next to a busy street filled with aggressive, honking drivers, it’s easier to bury a painful moment. Like throwing garbage into a raging river. The current will suck the trash under and no one needs to reflect on the offence.

  Jake allows the rambunctious, accelerated energy of Saturday night in Beijing to absorb what just happened so he doesn’t need to. It’s just that easy, he thinks, and it occurs to him that he might still be in China even if Qiang had never appeared on the scene. It’s not so much the glory of a scoop or the credibility accorded to “China hands” that keeps him there. It’s the nebulosity of everything.

  Looking at the bar entrance, Jake wonders if the white guy he was looking at earlier is still on the dance floor. Then he remembers Qiang’s warning about hungover Sundays and finds himself running through possible scenarios that will play out if he returns to the bar. All of them involve enough alcohol to keep awkward conversations intact through the distractions of dance music at 100 decibels and the beguiling majesty of new, handsome faces on those who turn out to be no different from everyone else in the bar. This pathos has never stopped Jake before. A drink in a crowded, noisy bar may at least lead to an encounter that allows him to tune out all other uncertainties about himself and the world. Jake’s been away from his family, from his hometown and from his adolescence long enough to know why he fled. Long enough to know that his invisibility growing up bred an unhealthy need for attention as an adult. So, he thinks, maybe turning his back on Saturday night at Destination could be his first step towards a stronger sort of self- confidence.