‘What would?’ I ask.
‘Short of massive bribes … I can’t think of anything.’
I think about this. ‘What about Harrison?’
‘Harrison Wang?’ Francesca lifts an eyebrow. ‘I can’t say I’m on those sorts of terms with him.’
Can I say that I am?
‘I could let him know what’s going on,’ I offer. ‘Maybe he might have some ideas.’
‘I suppose it couldn’t hurt,’ Francesca says, but it’s clear from the way she says it that she doesn’t think there’s a chance in hell it’ll do any good.
Inside the Warehouse, people are packing up exhibits, gathered in small knots engaged in tense conversations.
I approach a group where I know a couple of people – Xiao Zhang and this photographer, Fuzhen. They’re sitting with a couple of guys I don’t recognize on a sprung couch next to a video installation, drinking tea and eating sunflower seeds.
‘Ni hao,’ I say uncertainly, because even though I hang out here, I’m not really a part of it, and what I’ll lose is only a small piece of their loss.
‘Yili, ni zenme yang?’ Xiao Zhang asks. He gestures at the couch.
‘Okay. Busy.’ I sit.
Fuzhen pours me some tea in a plastic cup. ‘Heard from Lao Zhang?’ she asks.
‘Not for a while. But he asked me to look after his art.’
We all sit in silence for a minute.
‘How long before they knock this down?’ I finally ask.
‘Not sure,’ Fuzhen says. ‘One official says he can delay it a few days. But we can’t be sure he’s in charge.’
That’s typical. You got one guy who tells you one thing and another who says the opposite, and it’s not necessarily that either one of them is lying; it’s just that it’s not clear who has the authority to decide.
‘What are you going to do?’ I ask.
‘Looking at a space in the Wine Factory,’ one of the men I don’t know replies.
‘Maybe Tongzhou. Maybe Caochangdi,’ Fuzhen says.
‘I don’t know,’ says Xiao Zhang.
At the back of the Warehouse are a bunch of storerooms. Inside the storage space belonging to Lao Zhang are more canvases, a couple of stacks of dusty boxes of CDs, DVDs, and VHS tapes, binders of photos and negatives, some odds and ends that might be sculpture or might be junk. There’s a lot of stuff here. I’ll need a truck to get it all out.
I spend a while trying to figure out what’s there, take some notes, try to determine how big a truck I’ll need and where I’m actually going to put all of this once I move it.
I debate about whether I should call Harrison or e-mail him, and settle on the electronic. Not because I’m paranoid that my phone is a global tracking device – who knows? Maybe it is. Maybe I’ve got a microchip in my butt, for all I know.
I decide on e-mail so I can think about what I want to say, so I can say it right.
I go to Comrade Lei Feng’s (how long will this place last if they tear down the Warehouse and start evicting artists?) and log in to my e-mail account.
‘Dear Harrison,’ I type. ‘I’m back in Mati Village. I found out that Lao Zhang wants me to handle his art while he’s away. It’s a lot of work, and I hope I can do a good job with it. Things are a little complicated here, though.’
I go on from there, explaining what the government is planning. And I finish with: ‘I’m wondering if you might have any ideas of any options we could pursue. This is a great place, and it would be really sad to see it destroyed. Best, Ellie.’
Then I go home. I mean, I go to Lao Zhang’s. It’s not really home. I don’t know how much longer it will even be here.
The next morning, I get up and make myself a double espresso and try to figure out what I should do first. Hire a truck, I guess, and move the stuff out of the Warehouse and bring it over here. Even if the plan is to tear down this block of studios, no one’s come and painted ‘chai’ on the wall yet. I probably have a little time.
But then what?
I’m thinking: Lucy Wu. She’s been all hot to arrange for an exhibit – unless, of course, that was all bullshit and she’s just another operative – but if she really does have some fancy art gallery, maybe I can work a deal with her for storage.
I’m thinking about all this when someone knocks on the door.
I almost drop my coffee cup. Okay, I think. Okay. Deep breaths. Public Security, the Suits, some random Beijing officials – I’m just hanging out. I don’t know anything, and I’m not doing anything wrong.
Not that it matters.
I open the door, and Harrison Wang stands there, dressed in a black silk shirt that seems to soak up the surrounding light and shimmer with it.
‘Harrison,’ I say stupidly. ‘Hi.’
‘I hope this isn’t a bad time.’
‘No, it’s – it’s fine …’ I smooth my hair with one hand and gesture awkwardly with the other. ‘Come in.’
I steer him toward the couch in the main room, grabbing a couple of empty beer bottles that have congregated on the coffee table. ‘Espresso?’
‘I’m fine, thanks.’
I go make him one anyway. Because that’s what you do, to be polite, and I’m trying to figure out how to act like a grown-up.
When I come back in with the espresso, Harrison sits on the couch, staring at the canvases stacked against the wall beneath the skylights.
‘This is impressive work,’ he says.
‘Yeah.’ I put the espresso cup on the coffee table in front of him, snatching up a couple of snack-food wrappers and a plate of sesame-seed shells. ‘I mean, I don’t know anything about art. But Lao Zhang’s stuff. I see it, and it … it makes me feel something.’
Right now, I feel myself blushing, because I sound like such an idiot.
‘Yes,’ Harrison agrees. ‘In an art form like painting, where seemingly everything has been done before, for the artist to move the viewer really means something.’ He squints, as though he’s trying to make out fine detail in one of the paintings. ‘Plus the theme and the execution are both very sophisticated. And powerful.’ He turns back toward me. ‘I can understand why you want to protect all of this.’
‘Yeah,’ I say, since I can’t come up with anything else. I sit down in the chair across from the couch.
Harrison sips his espresso. ‘I’d already heard about the situation here in Mati Village. Unfortunately, it’s complicated.’
‘Complicated?’
I hate that word.
‘The development project has the support of some powerful people in the government. There’s a lot of money involved.’
Not like that’s a huge shock. ‘But what about that Vice Mayor?’ I ask.
I can’t remember his name, but he’s always talking about how art is this engine for cultural and economic development. Look at 798 – it’s a tourist attraction.
‘Mati Village has its supporters, it’s true. I considered proposing an alternate development plan myself, with a consortium of investors.’
‘So maybe there’s a chance we could stop it?’ I ask.
‘It’s not clear to me that we should try.’
Now Harrison puts down his espresso and stares at me. ‘Which is more important, do you think? The community itself, or its members?’
Another thing I hate. Brain teasers. ‘Well, the community is made up of its members,’ I say. ‘So I don’t see how you can separate one from the other.’
‘True. But some members are more vital than others. Wouldn’t you agree?’
‘I guess.’
All of a sudden, I get it.
‘That was the trade-off,’ I say. ‘Lao Zhang for Mati Village.’
‘I don’t have that kind of power,’ Harrison says, with a sad shake of his head.
‘But you do have influence.’ Even though I don’t understand exactly what it is that Harrison does, one thing I know is that he’s got a lot of money. And influence is one thing that money can definitely bu
y.
‘So, how’d it go?’ I ask. ‘You come up with this competing plan, and then you offer to drop it if they leave Lao Zhang alone?’
Harrison says nothing. He stirs his espresso with the little spoon I gave him.
‘Where is he?’ I ask.
‘I have no idea.’
Something else occurs to me. ‘But the Uighur. You knew where the Uighur was.’
‘The Uighur? What are you talking about?’
Oh, he’s a good liar, I have to give it to him. But a little too smooth. No ragged edges around his denials.
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘The Uighur. Why was I worth more than the Uighur, Harrison?’
‘You don’t have a very high opinion of yourself, do you?’ Harrison says after a moment. He finishes his espresso. ‘I came to see if you needed some help moving Lao Zhang’s art. I have a truck I can send over and plenty of room in my storage units.’
A lot of stuff goes through my head all at once. Stuff like: who gets to decide what’s more important? what’s more valuable? who gets saved, and who doesn’t?
Who gets to decide? The person who has the power, that’s who.
Beyond that, it’s all chance. Or fate. Or God and karma. Who the fuck knows?
‘Thanks, Harrison,’ I say. ‘I could use your help.’
The next day, I’m running around Mati Village, trying to co-ordinate with the truck driver Harrison’s hired to move Lao Zhang’s stuff, when my phone rings. I’m yelling at the driver, who’s overshot the loading dock at the Warehouse, so I kind of juggle the phone and answer it without seeing who’s calling me.
‘Wei?’
‘Ellie. It’s Trey.’
I stare at the phone, heart pounding.
‘Hi, Trey. Can you hang on a second?’ Then I yell at the truck driver, ‘Pull up here! Just back in! Wait a minute, I’ll be right over.’
‘Okay, okay!’ the driver shouts back.
‘Ellie?’ I hear Trey’s voice come over the cell.
‘Sorry. You got me in the middle of something.’
Naturally, he doesn’t ask what.
‘So …’ he says, and then there’s this silence. ‘So I heard you’re back in town.’
I’m thinking all kinds of things, but what comes out of my mouth is: ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m back.’
‘So … so everything’s okay?’
I hear this. I open my mouth to say something, but I can’t. I’m struck dumb.
Then all at once the words rise up and tumble out.
‘Oh, yeah. I’m okay. I’m just fine. Everything’s great. What the fuck is wrong with you?’
‘Ellie, I just –’
‘What did your friends tell you, Trey? What did they tell you about what they did? Did they tell you how they picked me up? What they did to me? Did they talk about that?’
‘No!’ he says. ‘No. They just said …’ Something stops him. Like the words get tangled up in his throat.
‘I told you to not to mess with those guys,’ he finally says.
‘Right. You did. Because you knew what they’d do. And you just let them, right? You didn’t even try to help me.’
‘Ellie …’
He’s crying now. I can hear it. Deep, choking sobs. ‘I’m sorry,’ he manages. ‘I didn’t … I told them …’
He can’t finish.
‘Whatever, Trey,’ I say. ‘Look, I’ve got things to do. Why don’t you go fuck yourself?’
I hang up on him. It feels good.
That was my revenge, I guess. But I wake up the next morning, and I think, how stupid is this – this mean, trivial payback?
Why not let him go?
So I do. We meet for drinks at a fancy bar in a five-star hotel, just me and him, and I sign the papers. We sit there across from each other at a little round table in a red-lit room while a jazz trio plays standards, the singer going on in her husky alto about love gone wrong, or whatever – isn’t that what all of those songs are about? Trey’s wearing a sports coat and an open-necked shirt, and he looks so handsome, and I feel it in my gut, everything all at once, how I thought I loved him, how – in spite of everything that had happened, in spite of everything that had gone wrong – I thought we could still have a life together, and then how he betrayed me, how he stabbed me through my soul, and I’m not even sure when that betrayal happened. Maybe the whole thing was spoiled from the beginning.
I’m staring at him, sipping my wine, and it’s like something shifts. Like something’s pulled away, some lens I’d been seeing him through, and all of a sudden, I see him clearly. He’s just this guy. He’s not going to save me. He’s not going to ruin my life either. That part’s pretty much up to me. Or maybe the Suits. But not Trey. He doesn’t have that kind of power any more.
‘I’m sorry, Ellie,’ he keeps saying. ‘I’m so sorry.’
I almost ask him, sorry about what? About what you did in the Admin Core? About how you treated me?
That’s when it hits me. We did those things together. What he did on his own, to the PUCs, what he let happen there, okay, that’s his burden. But the two of us? Our marriage, the life we had? The secrets we kept?
We were in it together all the way.
We have one last blowout at the Warehouse before they knock it down. The musician who lives on Lao Zhang’s courtyard spins his new tunes; we have food brought in from the jiaozi place, buckets of beer, all kinds of liquor, and hashish from the local Kazak dealer. Various people make attempts at live music, most of which suck, and I find out that Francesca Barrows plays the drums pretty well, and Fuzhen likes to sing pop songs. People get up in front of the mike and drunkenly recite poetry. Overseeing the whole thing, like some mute MC, is a cardboard cutout of Lao Zhang that somebody made and put up on the stage; and when one of the artists asks ‘Lao Zhang’ to say a few words and sticks the microphone up to the cutout’s face, waits a long minute, and then says, ‘These are our guiding principles!,’ I laugh so hard that I spit out my Yanjing.
Mostly, I stand toward the back and watch. But that’s okay. Because standing here, I feel surrounded by something, something good. I feel like I’m part of this. Not that I’m an artist, or anything like that. And I know Mati Village isn’t some utopia either. The people here gossip and screw each other and have their little dramas, just like everywhere else I’ve ever been.
But still, this place, these people, it means something. Even if I’m too plastered to figure out exactly what.
Later, I sit on the sprung couch, nursing a beer, wishing I hadn’t joined in the maotai toasts, because that stuff’s pretty foul, as befitting something that comes in what looks like a Drano bottle. Eventually I’m joined by Sloppy and Francesca.
‘Did you ever talk to Harrison Wang?’ Francesca asks.
‘Yeah.’
‘Did he have any ideas?’
I’m not sure what to say. I settle on: ‘Yeah. But it’s complicated.’
Francesca snorts. ‘Why am I not surprised?’
‘It’s not like that,’ I protest. ‘I mean … some stuff’s more important than buildings.’ I’m having trouble remembering exactly what.
Sloppy sits there, tears running down her face. ‘I’ll miss all of you,’ she says.
Oh, yeah. People. That’s it.
‘We can stay in touch,’ I say. ‘Hey, we could start a blog. You know? The Mati Village refugee blog.’
I don’t think Sloppy understands the word ‘refugee,’ but she still nods thoughtfully. ‘I think blog is a nice idea,’ she says.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
So, I’m pretty sure Harrison’s the Monk of the Jade Forest. The Monk fits him. The way the Monk talks – well, types – he sounds like Harrison. Like Cinderfox sounded like Creepy John, when I stop and think about it.
And I think Harrison is Suit #2’s asset. Who else could it be? Harrison had access to the Suits’ business cards, the ones in my pocket, when I stayed at his place. I guess I should be grateful that he talked to Suit #2 – to
Carter – and not Macias. Otherwise … otherwise, who knows what might have happened?
Harrison has connections. Has juice: the money and the power. He could horse-trade if anyone could.
But Harrison won’t come out and cop to it. Oh, he drops hints now and then, stuff about the nature of power, the tyranny of the State, of corporations when they’re essentially arms of the State – or is it the other way around? Fuck me if I can keep that straight.
Mostly he talks about the need for artists, the necessity for them to create freely, and I think that’s what really motivates him.
Or maybe it’s just a game. Something to play when he’s bored.
There’s a lot of stuff I don’t know and probably never will.
Here’s what I did figure out: it’s all insider trading. The powerful making deals with the strong. A bunch of us scrambling for our places, working to get our little piece. A whole lot of folks sliding off the end of the greased ladder.
I keep thinking that someday, something will rise up from that pit at the bottom. Something deep, strong, and full of rage, a tsunami sweeping everything away into a jumble of broken trees and twisted metal and trash and bloated bodies. Then the tide goes out, depositing the rubble where it doesn’t belong: boats on top of buildings. Fish in the forest. Up is down, and the underdogs stake their claims. Like what happened in China some sixty years ago.
The problem with revolutions is that eventually the whole fucking thing repeats itself. You know?
I’m having one of those nights. One where I don’t go to sleep like I should. I try, but I can’t stop thinking about things.
I think about the Uighur a lot. Hashim. I should call him by his name. That’s the least I can do, right? It’s not like I knew him, but he seemed like a nice guy. And nobody deserves what he probably got.
I don’t pray. I don’t believe in that any more. But I think about him.
Overall, I’m doing better. I’ve got this decent apartment in an older, five-story building in Tuanjiehu – a cute neighborhood close to Sanlitun and the Embassy district in Chaoyang. My apartment’s pretty cheap, owned by a pair of retired college teachers who moved to their condo in Miyun Resort Village, and though the building itself isn’t anything fancy, they did a nice job remodeling the place inside. I can’t complain. I like it, actually. I can go outside, watch the little kids playing at the elementary school down the block, stop in at my local market in the narrow tree-lined lane and buy Yanjing Beer for four yuan. There’s a great Xinjiang lamb place close by and one of the best Peking Duck restaurants in all of China just a ten-minute walk away. It’s nice here.
Year of the Tiger Page 29
