Hour of the Rat

by Lisa Brackmann

  I want to laugh. “Frightens the big bad Party? Really? A bunch of artists doing performance pieces about … about stacking up bricks? Walking cabbages on a dog leash?”

  “Maybe it’s something that they don’t understand. And they are nervous.” John sighs. “Many things going on right now. The change in party leadership happens next year. They worry, too, about the economic situation. The prices of things, food and houses, the unemployment. The … the laobaixing, the common people, might get angry.”

  Food’s gone way up the last couple of years, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many houses they build, how many apartment blocks; there are entire empty cities of new houses that no one lives in and hardly anyone can afford to buy.

  Yeah, people might get angry.

  “Then …” And here John’s voice drops down a notch. “There are the Jasmine movements.”

  I’m not surprised to hear him mention them. Ever since people started taking to the streets in the Middle East and overthrowing governments and all, the government here’s been a little on edge. China’s not Egypt, everyone says, but they’re still nervous about it. Especially since someone or a bunch of someones started tweeting and posting, “We want food, we want jobs, we want houses!” And called for people to protest by “taking a stroll” on Sunday afternoons around places like the McDonald’s at Wangfujing. Don’t carry signs, don’t chant slogans, just smile and “take a stroll.” And maybe buy a burger.

  So the last couple of Sundays, the police have been out en masse, trying to shut down a protest, and then not knowing if one is actually happening, with a bunch of journalists and cameras documenting the whole thing. It’s kind of funny in a way: The government freaking out about protests that might not be protests. Chasing ghosts.

  A little like performance art, when I think about it.

  I feel a shiver, all the way down to my bones.

  “Okay, the government’s nervous. So you spied on Lao Zhang, and you spied on me. What did you tell your bosses? That we’re plotting to overthrow the party? That I’m some kind of spy?”

  “No,” John says quietly. “I tell them you just wanted to help your friend. That’s all.”

  By this point we’ve reached the little alley where my apartment complex is. Of course John doesn’t need to ask directions.

  “What happens now?” I ask.

  “Maybe nothing.”

  We turn into the hutong. Get about halfway to my place and have to stop because a guy with a bicycle cart full of bricks and scrap blocks the road. John hits the horn, a flash of the anger he usually hides coming to the surface.

  “Nothing?”

  “Maybe they believe you. And me.”

  “If they don’t?”

  “Maybe they want to talk to you again.”

  “Great.”

  The bicycle cart still hasn’t moved, its driver leaning against it, talking to another worker who’s loading a couple more bricks on the bed. John lays on the horn, rolls down the window. “Ni xia ya?” he yells. Are you blind?

  “Cao ni ma de bi,” the cart driver says. In other words, “Your mama.” He doesn’t move.

  “Look, you can drop me here,” I say, my hand already on the door handle.

  “I think I should come up to your apartment. Just to … to check things.”

  “Why? So you can tap my phone or something?”

  John punches the horn again. “Sha bi,” he mutters. Dumb fuck. Turns to me, eyes hard, jaw tight. “Yili, they look at a lot of people right now. Maybe they decide you aren’t so important. But if someone watches you for them, you should hope that it’s me.”

  I hesitate.

  And think, What difference does it make? If John’s going to do something, plant a bug or something like that, he’ll do it anyway.

  The guy hops on the bike, practically stands on the pedals to get it moving, pulls out of the way.

  “Okay. Fine.”

  We roll up to the gate, where the security guard sits in the box reading a paper and drinking tea and waves us through without a glance.

  John parks the car. He hesitates, letting the motor idle, his hand on the key. “Yili,” he says, “they maybe don’t even trust me. That’s why … it’s good how you answered them today. Because this is what I tell them also.”

  And I’m supposed to believe this?

  I don’t know if he’s playing a game or, if he is, what level we’re on.

  I BARELY GET MY key in the door before my mom opens it. I see the strain in her face turn to relief in an instant, and she reaches out and gathers me into her arms. “Oh, honey, I was so worried. What happened?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

  I don’t want to be hugged. Don’t want to feel how upset she is. I don’t want to feel anything right now.

  She glances up, peers over my shoulder. “Oh, who’s this?”

  “John,” I say, stepping out of her embrace. “John, this is Cindy. My mom.”

  “You are Yili’s mother?”

  I swear to God, he blushes, like this is high school and we’ve been on a date and are maybe getting back a little after curfew. “Very pleased to meet you.”

  He takes a hesitant step across the threshold.

  “Well, pleased to meet you, too, John.” My mom may be a flake when it comes to the Jesus stuff and the men in her life, but she’s not stupid, and the way she’s standing, shoulders tilted back, arms crossed, she’s suspicious. “How do you two know each other?”

  “We met last year, at a party.” He ducks his head, convincingly embarrassed, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was this nice, awkward guy wanting to make a good impression on his date’s mother. “We have traveled a little together.”

  “Oh, how nice.” She gives him a long, appraising look. “I don’t think Ellie’s told me about you.”

  “Kind of a crazy time,” I mutter.

  “Would you like some tea, John?” my mom asks.

  I snort. “He likes jasmine,” I say. “Excuse me.”

  I go into the bathroom. Splash some cold water on my face. Sit on the toilet, my head in my hands. My gut’s killing me, and my leg hurts like hell, and I wonder if I take a Percocet, is that going to make me puke?

  I decide I don’t care.

  I check my phone. There’s a text waiting for me that I missed somehow, probably while I was drinking tea.

  RETURNING TO BEIJING TOMORROW, it says. IF YOU CAN MEET, LET ME KNOW.

  TOMORROW IS FINE, I text back. THE TEA WAS INTERESTING.

  WHEN I COME OUT of the bathroom, John and my mom are sitting at the little table in my living room sipping tea. My mom’s smiling and stretching out her hand across the table, like she’s going to pat his. John sits in the chair, torso straight, his hands resting parallel to each other on either side of his teacup.

  “It was nice of you to bring her home all this way, John.”

  “Oh, it wasn’t so far,” John says, smiling and nodding.

  “I didn’t know that Yili was your Chinese name,” she says to me.

  “Guess it hasn’t come up.”

  Shit, I think. Are the three of us really going to sit here and drink tea? John, my mom, and me?

  Fuck the tea. I need a beer.

  I grab a cold Yanjing from the fridge, open it, and sit at the table.

  “Honey,” my mom says, “you’ve barely had a thing to eat today.” She turns to John. “I was going to make tacos. That’s Mexican food.”

  “Ah. I will let you have your dinner, then.” With that he rises. “Yili, may I call you this week? We can … go eat dumplings, if you would like.”

  How am I supposed to answer this?

  “Sure … if I’m in town,” I finally say. “I was thinking about taking a little trip. You know, a vacation. To someplace warm.”

  John’s eyes narrow. “I see,” he says. “Yes. Leaving Beijing this time of year can be a good idea. But call me. Maybe I can make some suggestions.”

/>   AFTER HE LEAVES, MY mom starts working on the tacos. “Are you really taking a vacation?” she asks as she rubs spices onto the beef.

  “I dunno,” I mumble. “Probably not. It was just something to say.”

  “Don’t you like him?”

  “He’s okay. It’s complicated.”

  She gives me a look. “Is he married?”

  “No. He had a fiancée, but they broke up.”

  This, I’m pretty sure, is actually true.

  “So how did the two of you meet?”

  “At a party, like he said.”

  “Huh.” She grabs the big knife and starts chopping, the blade hitting the cutting board with a thunk only slightly muffled by its passing through the meat. “He told me that the whole thing with the police was a misunderstanding.”

  I don’t want to lie to my mom. I’m also not sure if I want to play this game with John, the one where I’m supposed to trust him.

  But the last thing I want is my mom freaking out about shit—this tends to make my own freak-outs worse.

  “Yeah, it looks that way.”

  “Well, he seems like a nice young man.” Whack. A little smile. “And really cute.”

  My mom likes Creepy John.

  Meaning I should stay far, far away from him.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “THIS COULD GET COMPLICATED.”

  I sit across from Harrison Wang, distracted by his sweater. It’s this dense charcoal grey, has to be cashmere, and I just want to stroke it.

  The sweater, like Harrison, is way out of my price range.

  “You think?” I say.

  Harrison is a good-looking man. The way that something perfectly constructed out of the best-quality materials is good-looking. You know, like a Ferrari. I’ve never seen him with a woman—or a man, for that matter—but I’m pretty sure anyone on his arm would be the same kind of expensive: a supermodel built like a gazelle or some genius artist with tragic cheekbones.

  We’re meeting for dinner at a French-Vietnamese “bistro” in a restored courtyard building not too far from where I live—Harrison’s call (“The bo nhung dam is particularly good”). Though I’m more comfortable eating jiaozi in some dive dumpling house, I have to admit I’m liking this gourmet lifestyle way more than I should, considering that I don’t understand it and I can’t really afford it. This place is classy, with worn grey stone floors, antique furniture, and hand-woven tapestries on the walls, smoked paper lamps with yellow light hung on the thick ceiling beams.

  And Harrison’s right, the bo nhung dam is delicious.

  As long as he’s paying, I guess.

  “I’m assuming Zhang Jianli isn’t in China,” Harrison says. He gives me a look, like he thinks I might know, and he’s searching for a hint on my face.

  Here’s the situation: My friend Lao Zhang, got involved with someone he shouldn’t have and disappeared about a year ago. I got chased all over China because of it, and some bad shit happened. The outcome of all said shit being I ended as the manager of Lao Zhang’s art. I know he’s okay; we have a means of communicating. But I don’t know where he is. I don’t want to know. It’s better if I don’t. That way I can’t confess or let something slip to people like Pompadour Bureaucrat and Creepy John.

  “How come you think that?” I ask.

  “Well, if he’s in the country, he’s very well hidden.” Harrison lifts his hand to call the waitress. “I think the Château de Beaucastel,” he tells her.

  I shrug. “China’s a big country.”

  He turns to me. His hazel eyes catch the lantern light. “Do you know what the largest expenditure in China’s budget for the next five years is?”

  “Apartments and Buicks for officials’ mistresses?”

  Harrison doesn’t crack a smile. “Internal security. Ninety-five billion dollars this year alone, more than the budget for the People’s Liberation Army. And that’s only what was announced. All in the name of ‘stability protection.’ ”

  “Huh,” I say, wishing the wine would get here. My glass is empty, and this discussion is making me nervous.

  “If he were a murderer, even a serial killer, he’d be a provincial problem,” Harrison says. “Easy enough to disappear in another province, if one is careful. The local authorities don’t generally communicate with one another. But if the DSD decides to make Lao Zhang a priority and he’s still in China, odds are very good that they’ll find him.”

  I fidget with my glass. “Well, they haven’t found him yet.”

  The wine arrives. The waitress opens it, gives Harrison a taste. He does the swirl, sip, and nod. She pours. Thank God.

  “Perhaps they won’t.”

  Harrison lifts his glass. I raise mine as well. We clink. We don’t have to say the toast out loud.

  I sip the wine, feel the subtle flavors spread on my tongue and fill my mouth and slide down my throat.

  Sometimes I wish Harrison hadn’t introduced me to good wine.

  “The problem is, they don’t necessarily have to label Lao Zhang a subversive,” Harrison says. “They can decide to go after him from an economic angle instead.”

  “It’s not like Lao Zhang cares about money,” I say, but I’m already getting a bad feeling about this.

  “Yes, but they can charge him with an economic crime. It’s very easy to do, given the ambiguity of tax laws for artists.”

  “But I’m the one in control of his work,” I say.

  Harrison nods. “Which doesn’t necessarily protect Lao Zhang. They are not much constrained by what’s on paper when they want something.”

  Which means that even Harrison could have a problem. The way he structured the nonprofit I’m officially in charge of, he’s pretty insulated from the business of selling Lao Zhang’s art. But it still sits somewhere under the umbrella of his business dealings: the venture-capital fund, the real-estate investment company, the stuff he does that I don’t really understand.

  One thing I do understand: The person square in the crosshairs would be me.

  I gulp my wine. Which even trailer trash such as myself can tell is a sin.

  “But we’ve done everything legally, right?” I ask.

  Now Harrison does smile.

  I get it—that doesn’t matter.

  “I think for the time being it would be best if you don’t try to sell any more of Jianli’s work,” he says. “Let’s not compound the potential problem.”

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay.” I’m thinking, So much for the woman who emailed me about the guy claiming to be a billionaire art collector. That could have been some nice commission money if she isn’t full of shit.

  I’m running the numbers in my head. I have some money stashed, enough to pay for the apartment for the next month and a half, to keep myself in Yanjing beer and dumplings. I have my craptastic disability pension. I can manage without making any commission, for a while anyway.

  “What do you think I should do?” I ask.

  “Just try to relax. Go about your routine.”

  My routine … that would be what? Eating shrimp chips and drinking beer?

  “I was thinking about getting out of town,” I say.

  Harrison frowns. “I wouldn’t try to leave the country. In context it would look like an admission of guilt. They may let you go, but they might not let you back in.”

  For some reason this irritates me. “Oh, like if I’m getting picked up by the DSD on a regular basis, I’m gonna want to stay here?”

  “It’s up to you, of course,” he says mildly.

  What he doesn’t say is that I knew the risks when I agreed to take this gig on. But I’m pretty sure he’s thinking it.

  “I wasn’t planning on leaving the country,” I say, and I sound like a whiny teenager even to myself. “Just, you know, taking a vacation. In China. There’s places to take vacations here, right? Like, with air that isn’t trying to kill me?”

  “Certainly.” Harrison gets a little misty-eyed. “I’m partial to Guizhou.
Off the beaten path and really spectacular.”

  “I was thinking of Yangshuo.”

  “Oh. Well, tourism there is relatively developed. Which has its pluses and minuses. But yes, it’s quite beautiful.”

  He pours us both more wine. “I don’t think taking a trip within China would be a problem. The DSD can always find you, if they want to.”

  I DECIDE TO WALK home along Fangjia Hutong, one of the surviving alley streets that run east-west from Yonghegong to Andingmen. The scenic route. There are a couple of little bars here, and the Hot Cat Club, kind of a dive, but I like it. I like seeing the old, grey, stone buildings with some funky life in them. It’s cold, but I’ve had enough wine so that I’m not really feeling it, plus my leg’s aching, and sometimes walking helps.

  I cross Andingmen, a big street, dodge a bus and taxis and private cars, walk a ways until I come to Beiluoguxiang Hutong, make a right onto it, going south. Another old street, grey stone buildings trimmed in rotting wood and random electrical wires. I pass a ramshackle bar with chili-pepper Christmas lights draped around the door, jazz music drifting out from within. A sign in the window says YOUTUBE, TWITTER, FACEBOOK, ENJOY WHAT YOU WANT!

  All those sites are banned here, hard-blocked by the Great Firewall. That’s China for you.

  When the revolution comes, it will be fought over kitten videos.

  I head down Gulou Dongdajie, East Drum Tower Avenue, a main street that’s mostly rebuilt traditional Beijing grey stone buildings, two stories tops, with scalloped arched roofs, past the Mao Live House (a rock club), a string of guitar and music shops, coffeehouses, “Western” restaurants and chuanr stands—full as I am, the spicy mutton skewers roasting over charcoal still smell good.

  Then I pass the military complex that always creeps me out: huge granite structures, a giant crane hovering over new construction, with trucks trundling smashed bricks from old hutong buildings out the gate where a uniformed soldier stands guard. Sometimes I think it’s just going to keep growing, taking over the old neighborhood like some malignant tumor.

  When I told Creepy John that I was thinking about a vacation, I didn’t really mean it. I just wanted to say something, to throw his bullshit “dinner invitation” back in his face.