20 Fragments of a Ravenous Youth

by Xiaolu Guo

  Scene 8

  The boozy streets of Sanlitun. The people around here are unlike anything Hao An has seen. White boys and white girls, black boys and black girls sit together in front of coffee shops looking bored. Westerners seem to have no purpose in their lives. But Hao An minds his own business. The customer is God. He peddles his clothes enthusiastically to the foreigners. One of them even gives him a green American bill – 50 dollars. His day has come.

  At some point during this successful shirt-selling exercise, Hao An meets a man interested in buying porn VCDs. The man looks trustworthy. Hao An thinks for a moment, then tells him to come back tomorrow.

  Scene 9

  Hao An waits for the trustworthy man, five VCDs in his bag, including the strange French film. He waits for so long in the burning sun that he feels he might pass out, so he walks into a dim bar. He's momentarily blinded by the darkness. As his sight returns, he can make out a heavily made-up woman in the corner. She is drinking something strange. It's the colour of blood, with a limp stalk of celery poking out of it. The wilted leaves of the celery droop down the side of the glass.

  Hao An asks the woman if she is interested in tie-dyed shirts from Guizhou. He opens his holdall in front of her. As he does so, he notices that her lips are the same colour as her drink.

  Scene 10

  Fifteen minutes later. Li Li has chosen a shirt but, not having enough money to pay for it, has offered Hao An a drink instead. It's been a long time since a woman has talked to him, let alone offered him a drink. Hao An accepts with gratitude. Now he sits with a can of 'tonic water' in front of him. Although he doesn't like the taste, he's content.

  Li Li doesn't say anything, just stirs her drink with the celery stick, and then stirs again. She looks like someone tired of speaking.

  Suddenly she says, 'Sounds good.' Hao An is confused. What sounds good? Li Li points to the speakers on a nearby shelf. Hao An nods. The music, of course. Sandy Lam is singing *I Love Someone Who Isn't Coming Home'. Li Li listens with her head tilted to one side. Her eyes sparkle. Eventually

  Sandy Lam's voice fades out and Li Li's eyes grow dim once more. Hao An studies his can of tonic water and can't think of anything to say.

  Silence... then two policemen come into the bar. They're walking towards Hao An. He panics and tries to hide the VCDs under his chair. But the policemen aren't interested in him, it's Li Li they want.

  Scene II

  Hao An looks around. The bar is empty. He turns to the window and sees there's no one sitting at the tables outside either. The clothes – sellers who have flocked to Beijing from Zhejiang province sit in the shade, listless and hot. Hao An looks at the strange drink on the table in front of him and thinks of the woman he's just met. There's a red mark on the rim of the glass, but he can't tell if it's from her lipstick or from the sticky blood-red stuff she was drinking.

  Scene 12

  Beijing Friendship Hotel. Here is Hao An in a smart red uniform, holding open the door to one of Beijing's finest five-star establishments. A Doorman. Or rather, his official title: Attendant to the Grand Lobby. His sixth job, found in the Classifieds section of a newspaper. Hao An's expression is still inscrutable, but occasionally his facial muscles tighten slightly. Not exactly a smile, but that must surely be what he's aiming at.

  Today, Hao An opens the door to an elegant man with fine, chiselled features. The man is courteous to Hao An and gives him a generous tip.

  Scene 13

  Ten o'clock in the evening, the same gentleman comes back to the hotel carrying a bag full of fruit – kiwis, tangerines, pears, mangoes. This surprises Hao An, since fruit is not the kind of thing meat-loving Chinese men usually buy. As Hao An holds the door open for him, the man stops and says in a low voice, 'Come to my room tonight after you finish your shift. Room 502.' Hao An is taken aback. Guests rarely even talk to him. 'Of course,' he murmurs politely, 'of course, of course.' The man smiles and strolls across the Grand Lobby to the lift, clutching his bag of fruit.

  Scene 14

  At midnight, Hao An, no longer in his uniform, stands outside Room 502. The elegant man opens the door in a silk robe. He is holding a bottle of Great Wall wine in one hand, a corkscrew in the other. 'Wonderful,' he says. 'You came. I wondered whether you would.'

  The man pours Hao An a glass of wine and invites him to sit down. Hao An perches on the edge of the plush sofa. He feels awkward. This luxury room costs 1,000 yuan a night. He doesn't belong there, and he finds the wine sour. He much prefers drinking Er Guo Tou, the cheap Beijing favourite.

  'Friend, I like you,' says the man. Hao An listens and nods. Why would the man have invited him to his room if he didn't like him?

  Later, Hao An lies contentedly under the covers of a comfortable single bed, with the man in the bed next to him. They are watching TV. Hao An has never seen so many channels: Phoenix satellite, pay-per-view movies, MTV, ESPN, CNN. And they all speak foreign languages. Suddenly the man comes over to Hao An's little bed. He lies down next to him and reaches for Hao An's hand. Hao An is confused. Is the man asking him to leave? The man smiles at him the way he has smiled all night and pulls back the sheets that cover Hao An. Hao An continues to be confused for four seconds. After five seconds, he finally understands what the man is doing and pushes him away. There is a scuffle. Hao An's push was gentle, but the man grabs at him, forcing Hao An to fend him off. As quick as he can, Hao An climbs out of the soft bed, scoops up his things and runs out of the room.

  In the lift, Hao An catches a reflection of himself in the metal doors. His cheeks are red. He can't remember blushing before. As soon as the doors open he rushes across the Grand Lobby, pushes open the heavy glass doors and flees into the night.

  If he hadn't been running, he would have noticed that, as he went out of the glass doors, the woman from the bar in Sanlitun, Li Li of the Bloody Mary, was coming in, accompanied by a man in a black suit. Hao An and Li Li's bodies are no more than 317 millimetres apart when they pass each other. Hays of fate bounce off both of them and die out unnoticed.

  Scene 15

  There is a saying that 'when an old century is ending and a new century is about to be born, people's tastes become more extreme'. Spicy Ma La hotpot was all the rage in late twentieth-century Beijing, and the hotpot restaurants were raking it in.

  Hao An can't afford to buy a restaurant, but he sees the potential. As his seventh job, he sets up a stall by the side of a busy main road, selling hotpot so full of red chillies, garlic and ginger that it blows the roof off your mouth. Come rain or shine, Hao An is there at his stall, as reliable as a lamp post. Next to Hao An is another street vendor – a man who sells roasted chestnuts. The chestnut man keeps Hao An entertained with elaborate stories of UFOs. He tells Hao An he's seen one in the town of Changping, 30 miles away from Beijing: a real UFO, 'round as the bowls you serve your Ma La hotpot in'. He's convinced it's a sign that the end of the world is near.

  Scene 16

  The chestnut man has gone off to a classy hotel to eat lobster, steam in a sauna and generally pamper himself before the inevitable end arrives. Alone, Hao An watches the pedestrians rush past. He doesn't know a single one. But then he sees the Bloody Mary woman from the bar. She's wearing his tie-dyed shirt over her dress, like some kind of coat.

  Hao An starts to run after her. He calls out and she turns around. At first she frowns, as though searching for his face in her memory-bank of male faces. But soon she seems to recognise him. Hao An slows down and points back to his hotpot stall. The woman smiles and follows him. They sit down and Hao An gives her a bowl of spicy tofu and pak choi. She tells him her name is Li Li.

  'Such good food,' says Li Li. 'I haven't eaten for days.' Hao An is pleased. 'If you think so, you should come again.' He is strangely elated. What end of the world? What UFOs? Life is good. Spicy Ma La hotpot. Busy streets and hungry customers. Li Li in his tie-dyed shirt. He has all he needs.

  Scene17

  It is morning in Hao An's little room in
Cat's Eye Alley. The room is empty. Hao An is at his stall. The door opens and in comes Li Li. She lies down on the bed and falls immediately asleep. She is clearly exhausted. We have the impression that she often comes here to sleep. Perhaps this is the only place she can truly rest. When she wakes, she collects her things, leaves the room and disappears down the alley.

  Late that night, when Hao An returns home, he catches a faint scent of her in the sheets. On the floor by the bed he finds a gold earring with a single pearl dangling at its end. This could only belong to a beautiful creature from heaven. He holds it up to the light. His scruffy room – his home that isn't quite a home – feels completely transformed.

  Scene 18

  We've reached the critical moment in Hao An's story. He's serving customers at his stall when Li Li appears. She asks him for money. How can he refuse? She is a beautiful creature from heaven! He tells her she can have the money if she stays and helps him out. She stays, but does very little work. However, Hao An is happy just to know that she's there. He gives one of his rare smiles.

  That night, as Hao An leans over in bed to switch off the light, Li Li arrives in his room. Silently, she takes off her clothes and lies down next to him. The warmth he feels is entirely new to Hao An. He wonders if this is Love. He repeats the word to himself, 'Love', and again his body floods with warmth from head to toe.

  As Li Li sleeps, Hao An stares at her silky smooth back. He reaches out and places his finger on a purple bruise. He strokes it, gently, back and forth.

  Scene 19

  Li Li doesn't return to Hao An's stall. By day, he stares intently into the mass of people before him. By night, he stares intently at the lone earring in his hand. He tries to calculate how many hours are left before the end of the world.

  Scene 20

  Li Li rushes into Hao An's room and throws a stash of banknotes, rings and necklaces on to the bed.

  'Hao An, you're a good man. I know you are. Help me look after this.'

  Then she is gone, back out into the night.

  Scene 21

  Hao An's hotpot stall is being smashed up by the police because it isn't registered. Hao An walks home through the rain, dejected and wet. His abandoned hotpot smokes by the side of the road, gradually filling up with rain.

  Scene 22

  Hao An squats on the floor of his not-quite-home looking at the earring in his hand, gold with a single pearl dangling at the end. There is a knock at the door. A policeman. Does he know a woman called Li Li? If so, could he come with them to identify a corpse that has been found in a drain?

  At the morgue, Hao An immediately spots the blue tie-dyed shirt. The policeman tells him her real name was Zhang Guilan. She was from He Bei province, Lai Yuen county, Fragrant Chives Mountain, Knotted Peach Tree Village.

  Scene 23

  Hao An studies a calendar. There are still a few days left before the end of the world. He puts some things in his holdall and takes a look around his bare room. Then he locks the door behind him and walks to the long-distance bus station.

  Closing scene

  With his holdall slung over his back, Hao An walks over barren hills, through thin forests of scraggly trees, across a bleak and desolate snow-capped land. As he nears Knotted Peach Tree Village on Fragrant Chives Mountain he can hear sheep bleating and sees a scattering of low huts in the distance. 'Maybe I've found it,' he thinks, 'maybe this is her home.' Zhang Guilan, the Li Li of his heart.

  END

  ONCE YOU'VE SEEN A SHARK, you always take care when you walk into the sea. I was terrified Xiaolin would come round to my flat again, and that next time it might be my leg he broke, not just the light. Ever since the day I told him I was thinking of moving out, Xiaolin had been involved in a systematic process of destruction. First it was my work. He tore up scripts of films I was meant to appear in, and burnt my address book of contacts. Next were my tools. The contents of my pencil tin were repeatedly obliterated. Pencils. Rulers. Erasers crumbled. He crushed even the smallest things. I would come home to find mangled paper clips and staples strewn around the floor.

  Not much escaped the shredding. Especially my photos. I loved taking pictures of Beijing. The rusty iron railings by the gates of the Forbidden City on a summer afternoon. A People's Liberation Army soldier, hunched over and shovelling snow in the winter. Beijing Canal clogged with so much rubbish it made me sad. Mao's portrait in Tiananmen Square framed by a sea of red fluttering flags. Old people playing ping pong, with their dogs fighting nearby... Each of these pictures was ripped to pieces by Xiaolin. I became a peasant again – living in a big city without any record of the past.

  The teacher at my Modern American Literature evening class used to go on about Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. He said it was one of the most important books in the history of Western literature, and we should all read it. He would hold the book above his head and talk about the battle between the Sea and the Old Man, and how it symbolised that a man can be 'destroyed but not defeated'. Somehow, whenever I thought about Xiaolin, I thought about that book. In the battle between us, Xiaolin simply refused to be defeated.

  I remember a conversation Ben and I had during the one trip we made out of Beijing. We'd only been together a few weeks when Ben told me he wanted to visit this city he was studying for his PhD. Did I want to come?

  It was the first time I'd been in a plane. Thin wispy clouds drifted past the window. As I watched them, I wondered whether there really was only one universe, or if in fact there were multiverses. Would life have different dimensions in another universe? Perhaps being young wouldn't mean much there, or being in love... Ben put his arm round my shoulder and pulled me back to this universe. I realised I was truly away from Beijing. Xiaolin couldn't reach me here, not unless he'd learnt to fly. I was free of the constant sense of danger. The fear that he was going to leap out at me from behind some corner.

  Ben must have been thinking the same because after a while he said, 'I wish that crazy boyfriend of yours would leave us alone.'

  I was quiet. Then I said, 'Maybe you can help me, Ben.'

  He took his arm away. 'Oh, Fenfang. You know I want to. But I don't know how much I could offer after a while.'

  What did that mean?

  'Maybe we should just run away,' I said, with hope. 'Why not? China is big. We could hide ourselves in any corner, we don't have to be in Beijing. Yes?'

  Ben didn't say anything.

  We travelled to Changchun, a city in the north-east, in old Manchuria. When we finally unbuckled our seat-belts and got off the plane, we entered a world of ice. It was a city of heavy industry, and it seemed like it hadn't changed since 1949, the year when China became communist. The snow was black on the ground from the muck pumping out of the chimneys.

  I reminded myself that this place had played such an important role in history. The Japanese had forced the last Emperor to create a fake state here in the 1930s. He'd lived in this city, surrounded by his concubines. Ben insisted we visit the Last Emperor's Palace. It was now a desolate museum. When we walked in, there was only one other visitor, a foreigner burdened by a huge backpack, squinting at obscure old photos. It's only foreigners who know about China's history, I thought. I know nothing. But still, in that half-hour in the rotten old palace, I learnt about Pu Yi. About how he'd been crowned Emperor at the age of three. How he'd married a girl the eunuchs selected for him when he was 16. How he'd been forced to flee from the Forbidden City in Beijing. How, during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, he tried to avoid marrying a Japanese woman imposed by the occupier. How he'd been imprisoned by Stalin in Russia. How, in 1962, Chairman Mao arranged for him to marry again, to a member of the communist party. Pu Yi. A man who had lived as a prisoner, as a citizen, as the last Emperor, and yet someone without any choice. The old man Pu Yi had obviously not defeated the sea.

  Ben and I walked down a street lined with shabby shops. We ate pickled cabbage and duck-blood soup served in bowls as deep as basins. People were very ge
nerous here. It felt like any city in China was better than Beijing. We watched local teenagers skating on the frozen river, each swathed in thick padded cotton jackets. We wandered along the city's perfectly straight roads. Xiaolin couldn't reach us here. If we were to die here, in this frozen icy north, he would never know.

  But the shark constantly swam back to the old man. My mobile started to ring. For some reason, I felt unable to switch the phone off. I couldn't reject Xiaolin's call. As a compromise, I turned the sound off and felt the little mobile vibrate silently. I could imagine Xiaolin, alone at home in Beijing, slamming the phone down so hard the walls shook.

  That night in the Banners and Flags Guesthouse, I woke in panic. My phone had lit up. Ben could hear it vibrating against the table edge. He opened his eyes, and we both stared at it as it twinkled menacingly in the dark.

  'Just leave it, Fenfang. He'll get fed up.'

  'You don't know him,' I said.

  Ben looked at me. 'Why can't you switch it off? I don't understand you.'

  He turned his body away, exhausted.

  People always say it's harder to heal a wounded heart than a wounded body. Bullshit. It's exactly the opposite – a wounded body takes much longer to heal. A wounded heart is nothing but ashes of memories. But the body is everything. The body is blood and veins and cells and nerves. A wounded body is when, after leaving a man you've lived with for three years, you curl up on your side of the bed as if there's still somebody beside you. That is a wounded body: a body that feels connected to someone who is no longer there.

  WHERE WAS I? I sat up in bed, trying to see stuff in the dark. There was a door to the left. A bathroom to the right. Shelves over here. Drawers there. A half-dead bamboo plant on the table, and a TV by the window. The window was directly in front of me. Okay. I knew where I was now. As soon as I found where the window was, I was all right.