The Dissident

by Nell Freudenberger

  “I don’t know much about photography,” I said. “But I like this one. It reminds me of Leonardo da Vinci.” I was showing off, of course, but the photographer didn’t tease me.

  “Why Leonardo?”

  “The Vitruvian Man,” I said. Tianming didn’t understand the English title, but when I stretched my arms out, he smiled in recognition.

  “I didn’t think of that—but you’re right.” He held the photo up: “I like it, especially with that yishu in the background.” He stood up and taped the photograph to the wall with the others. “You shouldn’t be afraid to say what you think,” he said, his back to me. “Why’s your opinion worth less than anyone else’s?”

  I didn’t say anything, but I was filled with pride. I asked whether I could see some of his other photos.

  Tianming seemed to hesitate, and then handed me the black binder that had been sitting on his desk next to the camera. Inside were all of the photographs he’d taken in the East Village, from the moment he discovered other artists living there. There were pictures of Cash in his sunglasses, of Baoyu combing his hair in front of a mirror, and of my cousin—chained to the ceiling, locked in a metal box, and half-submerged in Lulu’s glamorous bathtub. There was a progression of intimacy in each set of pictures, as if Tianming were chipping away at his subject’s persona every time the shutter clicked.

  “Are these for a show?” I asked.

  “I wouldn’t mind having a show,” Tianming said. “Although we’d have to keep it pretty quiet. Mostly I’m hoping to have a book someday.”

  There was a knock on the door, and I was almost sorry to hear my cousin’s voice calling out to us. I was thrilled by the idea of a book about the East Village. The place had a magical quality; every time I left it, I was afraid it might somehow evaporate behind me, and not be there when I returned. A book of photographs seemed to me like a kind of insurance, a promise not only that our village was real, but that it was strong enough to last.

  “What would you call the book?” I asked Tianming, who had already taken back the binder, and was putting it away in a drawer.

  “Who knows?” he said lightly, but there was something in his voice that made me think he did have a title, and that it was private—the opposite of the communal projects that were starting to make our group famous. Tianming didn’t ask me to keep the idea of the book a secret. I seemed to know that without being told.

  “Hey,” X said, when I opened the door. “What’re you two up to in here?”

  My cousin seemed to have just gotten out of bed. His hair, normally slicked back in a ponytail, was loose and tangled, and his leather jacket was cracked with wear. Underneath the jacket he was wearing his characteristic black Mao suit. He looked terrible, in a cool sort of way.

  “You can come in, but you’re not going to like it,” Tianming joked. “I’ve been showing your cousin some pictures.”

  “I hope they’re not dirty. My aunt and uncle would kill me.” I could see that he would’ve kept teasing me, but the photograph Tianming had just taped to the wall stopped him. He stepped past us and examined it, adjusting the lamp to give himself more light.

  “You didn’t—?”

  “Nope,” Tianming said. “Sorry.”

  X stared at the photo, entranced: “Shit,” he said finally. “Is that really me?”

  The photographer laughed. “No—it’s a Leonardo.”

  “Well, my project was a failure,” said X, smiling. “Because this is definitely art. One of your best, I think.”

  “But the photo can be art even if the project wasn’t, right?” I said. “He could’ve ‘carved rotten wood’?” I was excited, and I used an old-fashioned expression of my father’s, which Idiomatic English might have translated as “making a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.” I didn’t mean to imply that my cousin’s project was rotten wood—or a pig’s ear—but suddenly I was afraid I’d said something wrong. There was a silence: my cousin stared at the photograph, and Tianming looked out the window at the alley, where someone had started hammering.

  I was about to apologize—explain what I’d meant to say—when my cousin turned to me. “Tianming is a genius,” he said. “Do you know that? He’s invented a completely new kind of photography.”

  “New in China, maybe,” Tianming said.

  “There’s only one problem,” my cousin continued, as if Tianming hadn’t spoken. “He needs the rest of us in order to do it.”

  Tianming finally turned from the window to look at X.

  “It’s like fucking.” My cousin smiled. “You can do it by yourself, but it isn’t really the same thing.”

  I hung out with X and Tianming for the rest of the day. When we’d finished looking at photographs, we sat in the courtyard, talking and playing cards, with the cat rubbing up against our legs. Over a couple of beers, we planned projects that would never happen: covering an East Village house in newspaper, making a giant ice cube in the middle of Tiananmen Square, or walking into the Wangfujing McDonald’s completely naked, with the Olympic rings painted on our asses. I might have to wait a little while but I decided I was moving to the East Village, no matter what. I thought this was the beginning for me; I didn’t know that what I was witnessing was more like the beginning of the end.

  48.

  THAT WINTER MEILING BOUGHT A SECONDHAND BICYCLE. SHE HADN’T grown up riding one, but almost immediately after she arrived at college, she’d enlisted a girlfriend to teach her. She would wrap herself up in layers of sweaters and scarves, and pedal determinedly to the eastern part of the city. In my foolishness I attributed that to her feelings for me, although she told me plainly that the East Village was an opportunity for her too. She had found a comrade in Lulu’s friend Ai Dan, the plain and quiet girl I had noticed that first afternoon in Cash’s courtyard. Ai Dan, who had once worked in a blouse factory, and who owned a large collection of foreign dress patterns, was teaching Meiling to sew. More important, perhaps, Lulu had seen their drawings and commissioned them to make her a coat. Some friends of hers from the Dance Academy were also interested. If Meiling and Ai Dan made enough clothing for those privileged girls—many of whom hoped to become film actresses—someone was bound to notice. It was their dream, Meiling told me, to open up a small high-fashion boutique together.

  We went to the East Village on weekends, and sometimes after school. Every Wednesday we went to the art lunch—held in my cousin’s apartment, now that the weather had turned really cold. Afterward Meiling would leave with Ai Dan, and I would stay to work on Lu Kou. When I was finished, I would go back to pick her up.

  At first I thought it was a coincidence that Ai Dan was often on her way out when I arrived. “I have an errand,” she would say innocently, or “I have to get something from Tianming,” and Meiling would ask me to come in while she got ready to go. I would sit on the rough brown and yellow couch watching her straighten the room, a fascinating activity, especially when she bent to pick things up. She would ask pointed questions about what I was doing at my cousin’s (she was skeptical of Lu Kou, and particularly of my cousin’s role as editor-in-chief).

  “Is any of the artwork going to be by people who aren’t his friends?” she asked. I told her that we were trying to make a community. I explained that the magazine was a kind of manifesto for our group, but Meiling was not convinced.

  “You should be spending time on your own art, instead of his magazine,” she told me one day. “I’d like to see more of those South American finches.” I had shown Meiling some of my bird drawings from childhood, after telling her about Wang Laoshi.

  “Those things?” I said scornfully. “Art isn’t just sitting around drawing birds.” But I was fiercely proud and, as soon as I got back to the dormitory, I took two of the drawings my teacher had praised (the rufous hummingbird and the California thrasher) and inscribed them, “For Meiling,” in the top right-hand corner. One very cold afternoon, when we had drawn the heater up next to the couch, Meiling allowed me to take off her
sweater. She was wearing a collared blouse over a long-sleeved woolen shirt with a brassiere underneath: the fact that I was only three layers away from actual skin was almost prohibitively exciting. I slid my hand under the fabric, and worked my fingers up to her bra. I was lying on top of Meiling, facing the door, and the right side of my body was burning hot, while the left side was covered with goosebumps. It must’ve been the same for her, only in reverse.

  “Why are you smiling?” Meiling said.

  “I was thinking we’re like an art project. Something That Is Not Art, remember?” But this comment seemed to displease her, and so I quickly changed the subject, asking whether she was warm enough. In response, Meiling took my hand and guided it away from her breasts, down to her belly. “Maybe I can make you warmer,” I joked, thinking she was pushing my hand away. Instead, I heard the sound of a snap. I thought it had happened by accident, until I saw that her eyes were closed and her head thrown back; her hand was down near the button of her jeans, working the zipper. In my imagination, I tease her a little, play with the curly hairs escaping the top of her underpants, and put my lips on her belly, running my tongue across that damp cotton and making her cry out, before I push the fabric aside to taste the delicious wetness underneath. What I did, of course, was rush my hand to feel that incredible place I’d been imagining for so long, and gasp, in a voice an octave above my own:

  “Won’t Ai Dan come back?”

  Meiling shook her head, with her eyes closed, as if I were interrupting some private bliss of hers. “I told her not for an hour,” she said. “I wanted to give us enough time.”

  The thought that Meiling had arranged this encounter was perhaps the most erotic thing I could have imagined; I fell on top of her, grinding my body into hers. Meiling laughed and opened her eyes.

  “Here,” she said, taking my hand and guiding it. “Like this.”

  After I had touched her, Meiling sat up, smoothed her hair, and said calmly: “Don’t you want to take off your jeans?” I shook my head. I was embarrassed to admit that watching her, I’d been unable to contain myself. Of course, when we stood up, she saw the stain on the front of my pants and understood; I was grateful to her for pretending not to notice.

  When Ai Dan did return, she wasn’t alone. Lulu came in behind her and shut the door. I was always uncomfortable around my cousin’s glamorous girlfriend, but in this instance I was especially eager to leave. Lulu was wearing her white fur-trimmed jacket, but her face looked strange, red and white in places, as if she’d been crying. She seemed unhappy to find us in her friend’s apartment.

  “Still here?” Ai Dan said. “Do you want to stay for some dinner? I think it’s only going to be cabbage and noodle soup.”

  “No thanks,” Meiling said. She was putting on her coat, and there was no sign that she’d been doing anything unusual, unless you count the particularly brilliant flush on her brown cheeks, and the clear light in her black eyes. Maybe Lulu was envious of that sheen, because she turned to Meiling and looked her up and down unkindly.

  “The two of you need to start making your own clothes if you can’t afford to buy fashionable ones. From now on you’re a kind of advertisement for your product.” People in the East Village were constantly describing the roles they would play, and the renown they would have, in some near and brilliant future, but Lulu’s comment was too barbed. I thought at the time that she and X must’ve had a fight, and that she was simply taking her anger out on me and Meiling.

  “Why dress up to come here?” Meiling said casually, but you could see she was angry.

  “That’s true,” Lulu said. “I never wear my best clothes here.” She took off the fur jacket and tossed it casually on the couch—the same one we’d gotten up from a few moments before. It drove me crazy to think of that couch one day being put out into the road for scavengers like the Fujianese bicycle-cart man, and I made a hasty plan to save it. I imagined it (re-covered and disguised) in a cozy apartment I would one day share with Meiling, surrounded by our fat and happy children.

  “What’s wrong with Xiao Pangzi?” Lulu said, breaking my domestic reverie. Even my cousin no longer called me by that name, and Lulu knew it.

  “Who?” said Meiling. I was ashamed that she could defend me better than I could myself.

  Lulu put on a surprised expression. “I’d think you two would like having little nicknames for each other. He’s your boyfriend, isn’t he?”

  “Why do you care if he is or he isn’t?”

  “Of course I am.” I was facing Lulu, but I meant it for Meiling, whom I’d been hoping to make my girlfriend almost since the day I’d met her. Wasn’t it indisputable, especially after today?

  “I just meant that you two have been spending some special time together,” Lulu said innocently. “That’s why Meiling looks so pretty.”

  “Lulu!” Ai Dan gasped, but I could tell she was trying not to laugh. Meiling glanced angrily at her friend, and then turned back to Lulu.

  “At least I don’t have to come begging for it in the middle of the night,” Meiling said. “At least my boyfriend wants me in his bed.”

  Lulu stared at Meiling, her face that funny mottled color, and for a moment I was frightened of what might happen. I wondered if I would have to jump in and pull them apart, before Lulu began to speak.

  “You stupid little country cunt. You ugly black bitch. You filthy slut…”

  “Come on,” Meiling said, “we’re leaving,” and I followed her like a child who has witnessed something shocking. As we closed the door, Lulu was still insulting Meiling but in a more controlled voice, as if it amused her:

  “Greasy whore,” and then, as if she were an old granny: “Broken shoe.”

  When Meiling and I got into the street, I could see that she was shaking, and not from the cold. I wasn’t sure she should ride back, and so I locked our bicycles together and put my arm through hers. We hardly spoke on the way to the bus stand, except for me to ask, “Are you OK?” and Meiling to answer impatiently, “Yes, yes.” The thing that bothered me most was not her rudeness to Lulu (who deserved it) or even her impatience with me. What disturbed me was her accusation, particularly the phrase “in the middle of the night.” Had Meiling heard something specific about my cousin and Lulu that I hadn’t? Of course X wouldn’t necessarily tell me if he was fighting with his girlfriend, whereas Ai Dan might easily have gossiped about it with Meiling; but the incident gave me the uncomfortable feeling that there was a whole East Village I still didn’t know, and that Meiling might be gaining access faster than I was.

  49.

  THE DAY BEFORE I WAS TO VISIT JUNE WANG’S GRANDMOTHER IN SILVERLAKE, I decided to cut my hair. It had been seven years since I’d first started growing it, and when I came out of the old-fashioned barbershop on Larchmont Avenue, where the Anselmites often went to drink iced coffee after school, my neck felt naked and exposed. I kept touching the soft fuzz at the back of my scalp, feeling as if I’d left something behind—my coat or a set of keys.

  June Wang lived in a narrow yellow house at least half an hour by taxi from the Traverses’. There was an American flag on the mailbox, and an oversized, misshapen pumpkin resting against the side of the porch in anticipation of the coming holiday. My taxi arrived fifteen minutes early, and I had thought I would walk around the block to clear my head, but June must’ve been waiting for me. She opened the door before I had finished paying the driver, and called out, “Yuan Laoshi, you’re early!”

  I’ll tell you, I felt cheerful, especially when I saw the grandmother scolding her for being rude, and even more when I stepped into the house and breathed a familiar smell. It was the combination of her grandmother’s cooking with something I couldn’t quite identify, a heavy sort of citrus perfume. It smelled like home.

  “You’re right on time,” June’s grandmother insisted in Chinese. “Please come in.” I guessed she was in her sixties, although her skin was remarkably unlined. She was wearing a long-sleeved blouse and matching a
nkle-length, pleated skirt, but these were of a striking orange and turquoise paisley fabric—brilliant colors that suggested Mrs. Wang had not quite given up her vanity. She kept her hair jet black and wore it short, with a permanent wave.

  “Thank you for having me,” I said. “June is a wonderful student.”

  “No, no,” Mrs. Wang said, deflecting the compliment and smiling with plea sure. “She’s lazy.”

  “Speak English!” June said. Although it was late October, the weather was still very warm, and June had exchanged her uniform for a summer dress. The dress was white, with green, yellow, and pink flowers embroidered around the hem. I thought June looked especially feminine and very pretty, if a little unlike herself. I guessed that her grandmother had chosen the dress, although I felt sure that the line of silver glitter above each eyelid was her own idea.

  “I thought you wanted us to speak Chinese,” I teased her.

  “My granddaughter doesn’t speak Mandarin,” Mrs. Wang said. “I tried to teach her, but even when she was a baby she would only speak English.” June’s grandmother said this with pride: she, a Chinese, had raised a little American.

  “I wish you’d tried harder,” June said sullenly. And then in adorable, nearly incomprehensible putonghua: “It’s too bad!”

  Mrs. Wang beamed. “See? You can’t understand her.”

  June’s grandmother had the practical habit of buying in bulk; Christmas ribbon, paper napkins, and instant soup were stacked neatly in cartons against the walls, overflow no doubt from a brimming basement. The fireplace was full of miniature potted trees. We were standing in the living room, making awkward conversation, when I happened to notice, hanging next to the television cabinet, a cheap Chinese painting of a mountain scene on silk. Mrs. Wang saw me looking at it:

  “The famous Tiantai Mountains,” she said. “Have you ever visited?”