Wuhu, after the start of the reform and the opening up, and before email, was typical of hundreds of small cities whose residents had seen foreigners only in newspapers and television broadcasts. The place wasn’t what Jake expected while he was in Indiana waiting for his visa to study in China. No plum blossom groves. No limestone peaks poking through tufts of pure-white mist.
When Jake stepped off the train in Wuhu, he moved within a sea of chattering passengers through dim tunnels under the tracks leading to the main concourse. Coal was everywhere, stamped into round bricks piled up in the corners of the passageway and scattered about in crumbs crushed into black dirt underfoot. Wafts of sulphur mixed with cigarette smoke gave the air an acrid weight. The train station’s main hall was a bustling hive of simultaneous construction and demolition. Groups of people dressed in worn Mao-style suits sat on large bundles, camped out like refugees. The men smoked and the women peeled oranges.
Outside, dented minibuses struggled for traction along the unfinished station plaza while young men hung halfway out of the vehicles’ doors calling destinations. The stares from everyone around Jake made him feel like a gravitational force.
“Laowai,” he heard everywhere. Laowai this. Laowai that.
Jake walked slowly, hearing the rumble of a locomotive pulling a train out of the station, and wondered how he would get to his school.
He approached a man wearing an ill-fitting suit, no tie and his pant legs rolled up for no apparent reason. Jake used the only greeting he knew which was probably too formal. He then said the name of the school. Surprised and amused to see a foreigner, the man stopped and responded but Jake couldn’t understand.
Then Jake asked a woman wearing a Mao jacket and gray slacks and a frayed canvas sack slung over one shoulder and toddler in tow. She stood stunned at first and Jake repeated the name of his intended destination. Anhui Normal University, “an-hui shi-fan da-xue.”
“Ah,” she said, repeating the name in the abbreviated form which drops the second character of each word. “An shi da!”
“Dui!” Jake said. Yes!
The woman put a hand to her chin as her child, a girl wearing a dark blue jacket and pants made of the same material as her mother’s, giggled and imitated Jake.
“Dui! Dui!” the mother said.
A random group of people surrounded Jake and the woman. Some of them inspected the clips and zippers on his backpack, making comments that Jake didn’t understand apart from the word laowai. Another pointed first to Jake’s hair and then to a wisp of light-coloured chest hair poking up from his denim shirt. Another squatted by Jake’s side and unfastened the Velcro straps on his hiking boots.
The woman pointed to one of the buses while she rattled off some instructions. Again, too rapid and accented for Jake to understand any of it except that he’d have to change buses at some point. Jake sighed and began looking beyond the crowd. The buses churned in seemingly random directions through loose dirt as construction workers waved them around sections of freshly poured concrete.
One of the men on the edge of the crowd, older than the rest with deep wrinkles that radiated out from his eyes, pushed his way towards Jake and took him by the wrist as he addressed everyone present in a scolding tone. Jake pulled his arm back at first but the man held tightly while he continued barking at the crowd. The man then chatted with the mother. She nodded, pulled her daughter up into her arms and said something to Jake which he guessed from the warmth in her eyes to be a good luck wish.
The man shook two cigarettes from a crumpled pack, handed one to Jake and lit them.
“Lai,” he said. Come.
Jake choked after his first inhale but then the nicotine kicked in. He felt the chemicals calm him as they coursed through his bloodstream, eventually making their way to the tip of his fingers. Something about the slow gait of the old man and the reassurance of nicotine allowed Jake to relax for the first time since he lifted off from Chicago several days earlier.
On his first day of class at Anhui Normal, Jake told his teacher the story of the old man who spent half a day escorting him to the campus. When his teacher tried to think of a Chinese name for Jake, she asked what he had most recently wished for. Jake said he’d like to find the old man, to know if he had a grandchild or a relative who dreamed of studying in the U.S. Jake wanted to help the old man’s relative apply, to meet him or her on the ground in the U.S. and take them to their school, to make sure they found the right building.
And here stands a young man, perhaps just slightly older than Jake was when he arrived a decade earlier in Wuhu. Dawei’s stare triggers these memories and reminds Jake that he has never fulfilled his pledge. In recent years, he’s done the opposite: always trying to measure out and compartmentalize his relationships with anyone local, those who always ask whether he’s married. So he doesn’t want to provide any information and that requires distance. Jake has perfected the art of distance.
It occurs to Jake, while he’s conversing with this young guy named Dawei, how far he’s drifted from the language student who enjoyed splitting watermelon seeds between his teeth for hours with Chinese families who would adopt him, at least temporarily, as their train snaked through river valleys and dusty towns. Back when he used to listen and appreciate. Back when he didn’t need distance.
Jake exhales slowly. “So, do you deliver tickets in this area often?”
Dawei furrows his brow, looking around the space again.
“I’m not sure. This is just my first day.”
“You look a bit confused. You’re not very familiar with Beijing?”
“Um. I’m g… g… getting to know it.”
They chatted for a few more minutes. Dawei asked about Jake’s work. Whether he owned or rented his apartment.
“Rent. I don’t plan to live here long.”
How much does he get paid?
“Not enough for the trouble they give me.”
Shaking his head and laughing, Jake responds before Dawei finishes asking because he knows the question is coming. Jake sees that the laughter puts Dawei at ease, the stutter now undetectable. Jake asks whether he has any family in Beijing.
“No.” And with that answer, Dawei feels his satchel and looks into it. “I should get back to work.”
“Sure. I’m actually very late already to meet a friend for lunch.”
But Dawei stands still, scratching his forehead, and Jake doesn’t know how to interpret the body language. Jake wants to bid farewell but his pledge to repay the kindness of the old man in Wuhu becomes a force lording over him like a parent goading a child to say please and thank you.
“So, how about I give you my cell number? Give me a call if you’re in the neighbourhood again.”
Dawei looks down. “I don’t have a cell phone.”
Jake takes a name card out of his wallet and a pen out of his backpack. He scrawls his unit number on the Chinese side of the card and gives it to Dawei. “Stop by anytime then.”
TUESDAY, April 10, 2007
Jake recognizes his target as soon as he walks into to hotel lobby. The hair, parted on the side and perfectly styled with a slightly wet finish, gives him away. Republicans are nothing if not immaculately groomed. The representative’s top aide, a legislative director, wears a navy blue suit with a red paisley tie fastened with a clip against his white oxford shirt. Simultaneously amused and nauseated, Jake needs a moment to digest the symbolism as he wonders how such ideological dickheads take themselves seriously.
Jake is wearing a forest green corduroy blazer with brown suede patches on the elbows. Purchased from Banana Republic sometime in the late 90s, it’s one size too large. Underneath, he has on a light blue oxford shirt, without a tie. It’s evening, after all, but Jake wonders if he should run back to his room to put one on.
Ross Andrews, the legislative director, is clicking away on his Blackberry keyboard. As the top aide to a Representative of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs who’s just landed in enemy te
rritory, Andrews probably has dozens of emails to answer. Jake looks over at the bar. He’ll need a drink.
Jake is in Tianjin to cover two days of trade talks meant to address U.S. grievances over the yuan’s exchange rate and complaints from Beijing about congressional reviews of proposed takeovers of U.S. companies by Chinese state-owned firms. Both issues, each side charges, are politically motivated acts that impede market rationality. In recent months, they’ve boiled over into threats of retaliatory measures. Punitive tariffs are in the works, U.S. congressional committees say. Cooperation with the U.S. on many international issues will be difficult, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman says. And so it’s been since Jake began covering the trade relationship, an issue that sparks diplomatic rhetoric so repetitive the biggest challenge in writing about it lies in finding alternate words to explain the same boiling points. The only difference being the names of the latest U.S. politicians looking to score political points by piling on.
While Jake’s in Tianjin to cover recycled arguments about trade deficits, he has a much more urgent personal agenda. To fortify himself for the mission, he orders a gin and tonic. He’s learned to avoid the red wine served in fully state-owned hotels. It will taste like vinegar.
As he approaches the aide, Jake wonders whether to call him Ross or Mr. Andrews. He appears to be the same age as Jake. Someone of a similar rank in China must be addressed by putting his title together with the family name —director, chairman or some such manager. At the very least, an honorific. Separated from the U.S. for so long, Jake’s not sure about protocol in this case.
“Mr. Andrews, right?” he says, playing it safe.
Andrews looks up. “You must be Jake Bradley,” Andrews says before turning back to his device to finish his response.
“Yes, thanks for taking the time to meet with me. How are the preparations for the meeting going?”
Andrews offers Jake his hand and they shake. “Your associate in Washington, what’s her name again?”
“Kendra.”
“Yes, Kendra. She said you wouldn’t be asking me about the talks until after they wrap up.”
“Sorry. Just a habit. I’m here now to let you know about the filmmaker who’s disappeared.”
“Right. Kendra gave me the details and we’re interested in following this.”
Of course you are, Jake thinks. McKee needs an issue to make the public forget what he’s known for. Re-elected by the skin of his teeth in the mid-terms, he nearly lost to a Democrat in a Republican stronghold state. McKee had also been one of the most fervent supporters of the war in Iraq, which he’s silent about now. Jake has followed McKee’s ups and downs because the congressman has been one of the most outspoken critics of same-sex civil unions. He’s compared gay sex to bestiality, something Jake was used to hearing from drunken uncles and cousins in Kentucky.
Jake pulls copies that Diane prepared for him from his backpack, the same ones she submitted to the PSB.
“So, you know he has a Haas MBA with a green card and has lived in the U.S. for almost a decade?”
“Yes. Haas,” Andrews says. “That’s Berkeley, right?”
Yes, asshole. The left coast to you, Jake thinks.
“Yes, that’s Berkeley. Look, his sister doesn’t have a copy of his green card but I’m assuming your staff can get that information. And…” Jake pulls out a manila envelope. “inside is a letter from his sister Diane to the Secretary of State, asking her to bring the matter up with the Chinese Foreign Minister.”
Jake hesitates. This whole mission suddenly seems naïve. Think like an American, he tells himself. Make this a negotiation. Make Qiang’s predicament an asset to be traded.
“Mr. Andrews, I don’t mean to be mistrustful but can you let me know if Mr. McKee will take this issue up? I need to know whether I should be spreading this around to other congressmen.”
“I can’t guarantee anything but you know Mr. McKee’s position on China. He doesn’t take kindly to the illegal detention of people the U.S. has deemed worthy of a green card. Let’s put it this way, I’m pretty sure he’ll take this up. If not, I’ll let your friend Kendra know.”
Jake hands over the documents. He wonders if it makes sense to point out how much an issue like this could help his boss. How much it would deflect attention from positions that have weakened McKee’s standing among the good people of North Carolina. This is an even exchange of favours. McKee gets to own a unique issue; Jake gets Qiang back. But then again, they’ve thought of this already. Otherwise, Jake wouldn’t be having this conversation. He doesn’t want to overplay his hand.
“Thank you, Mr. Andrews, I appreciate it. And I’m sure your constituents will find the story interesting.”
Andrews looks at the documents.
“So, how do you know this guy, um, Kee-ang?”
There it is, Jake thinks. Andrews wants as much information as possible to compile the dossier he’ll deliver to McKee. He’s fishing for some details. He can’t know much about Jake beyond the basic facts: Originally from a reliably Republican, red neck jurisdiction; went to university in a liberal, Democratic stronghold; works for a news service that can’t be pegged as either; stories with his byline wouldn’t give any indication.
“Chee-ang. The Q is pronounced kind of like C-H.”
“Well, that’s silly. If they’re using English letters, why don’t they just use C-H instead of a Q?”
“The C-H is used to make the same sound it does in English. Q is for a more clipped version of the C-H sound.”
Andrews shakes his head.
“Crazy, just like their policies, right?” he says with a laugh.
Jake sees nothing crazy about it. Two sounds. Two different Romanizations. But he smiles anyway to keep the deal on track and to squelch the anger he feels towards this foot soldier in the war on decency and common sense.
“How do I know Qiang?” Jake says. “Well, we’re friends.”
THURSDAY, April 12, 2007
Sitting in a makeshift press room, Jake gives his story a final edit. He’s been running between this room and scrums with Chinese trade officials for 13 hours. At this point, the story makes complete sense and none at all. Hopefully the editors in Washington will iron out the rough spots. He sits next to Regine, who’s on the phone with her editors in London, clarifying a few final points. The reporters for Dow Jones, AP and Kyodo have left. Outside of the room, in the hotel’s lower concourse, a maze of function rooms where deep pile carpet deadens the sound and light from baroque lamps and wall sconces barely reaches the furthest corners, it could be any time of the day in any month in any year in any city.
“Are they letting you go now?” Jake asks Regine as she hangs up.
“Yes, and I’m knackered.”
“Nightcap somewhere?”
“I wish I had the energy, darling. I need to go to my room, call my boyfriend and collapse into the deepest sleep imaginable.”
“Sure, go ahead and abandon me.”
Jake curls his lower lip down into an exaggerated pout.
“Oh please. You need to check out the bars while you’re here and I’d be a liability.”
Regine closes her laptop and slides it into a shoulder bag. She gives Jake a pat on the shoulder. “You heading back to the Jing tomorrow morning or later in the day?”
“Depends on how late I’m out tonight.”
Jake pauses and looks around the room. The few remaining reporters are out of earshot.
“Hey Regine, remember you were asking me about my friend, Qiang?
“Yes.” Regine pulls out the seat next to Jake and sits.
“He’s still detained,” Jake says.
“Okay. What more can you tell me about this? Are you going to report what’s going on?”
“You know Toeler News. We’re all about business.”
“So, Jake, can you give me the details so I can get them out?”
Regine asks the question like a police officer trying to convince a cri
minal to hand over his gun and Jake pauses to think, to remember the strategy he’s worked out with Diane and Ben.
“No. We’re playing it safe for now.”
“Ok, so….”
“So, here’s a story that I think will make the authorities here squirm,” Jake says as he hands Regine the thumbnail drive. “It has nothing to do with Qiang, for now at least.”
“So, how does it…”
Jake puts his hand up and then leans toward Regine.
“Let’s make a deal. Don’t ask me questions about what’s going on with Qiang or the strategy we’re taking to resolve this and I promise to let you know about any new developments before anyone else.”
It’s close to 10:00 p.m. at one of a few discreet gay bars popping up around downtown Tianjin. After throwing back a double gin and tonic, Jake finds his target. A Chinese man in his early thirties sitting by himself at the bar, tapping out a text message. His shiny hair is trimmed short on the sides and left spiky up top. He wears glasses with dark maroon frames that match his striped maroon and orange shirt that he has tucked into a pair of jeans. Jake moves closer. The shoes look like Kenneth Cole or Ben Sherman. These brands aren’t in Beijing yet, let alone Tianjin, but Jake is sure the guy is from the Mainland. Guys from Tokyo or Seoul or Hong Kong in a gay bar on a Thursday night would be in t-shirts and running shoes. So the guy travels.
“Ni de yanjing hen shuai,” Jake says, leaning into the bar. Your glasses are very cool.
The guy looks up from his Nokia phone. “Thanks.”
The Wounded Muse Page 17
