‘I didn’t think …’ He grimaces, shakes his head. ‘I should have. I’m sorry.’
I don’t know what to say. I zip up my jacket and wonder where I’m going to find a taxi this time of night in Mati Village. Down by the bus station, I guess.
‘Yili …’ Lao Zhang reaches out his hand, rests it gently but urgently on my arm. ‘Don’t go home tonight. It’s better you go someplace else. Visit some friends or something. Just for tonight.’
That’s when everything shifts. I’m not mad any more.
‘What’s going on?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Are you in trouble?’
He hesitates. ‘You know how things are here,’ he says. ‘Anyway, it’s not the first time.’
‘Can I help?’
I don’t know why I say it. I’m not even sure that I mean it.
I still can’t see his face very well in the dark, but I think I see him smile.
‘Maybe later. If you want.’
CHAPTER TWO
There aren’t a lot of places I can think of to go in Beijing at one in the morning.
I tell the taxi driver to take me to Says Hu.
It’s eleven thirty now, and it’ll be dead by the time I get there in an hour and a half; I figure I can hang out, while British John closes up, and decide what to do next.
I forgot it was Karaoke Night.
People come out of the woodwork for this: expats from the Zhongguancun Electronics District, students and teachers from the Haidian universities, ready to get loaded and give us their best rendition of ‘You Light Up My Life’ or ‘Hotel California.’
When I walk through the door, the place is packed, and a rangy Chinese girl with dyed blonde hair is singing ‘My Heart Will Go On.’
I almost turn around and leave, but British John has already spotted me. He tops off a pitcher of Qingdao and comes out from behind the bar, beer belly leading his narrow shoulders, face permanently red from too much sun and alcohol.
‘Ellie! Good, you’re here. Rose didn’t show up. Boyfriend crisis. Stupid bint.’
‘I’m not here to work.’
‘When are you ever?’
‘Fuck you,’ I mutter. Maybe I’m late sometimes, but I do a good job for British John.
Some days it’s hard to leave the apartment, that’s all.
I pick up a rag and start wiping down tables.
Says Hu is an expat bar on the second floor of a corner mall next to an apartment complex, above a mobile phone store. It’s dark, furnished in cheap plastic-coated wood, with dartboards, British soccer posters, and jerseys on the walls. Old beer funk mixes with that bizarre cleaner they use here in China, the one that smells like acrid, perfumed kerosene.
I work here a few shifts a week. That’s plenty.
I don’t mean British John’s a bad guy. He’s not. He’s hinted about hiring me to run this place so he can start another business, making me legal and getting me a work visa, which god knows I need.
But doing this?
‘And my heart will go on and on!’
I duck behind the bar, pour myself a beer, and swallow a Percocet.
Between pouring drafts and mixing drinks, I think about what happened in Mati Village.
Lao Zhang has to be in some kind of trouble, but what? The central government doesn’t care much about what anybody does, as long as they don’t challenge the government’s authority. Lao Zhang’s not political, so far as I know. He doesn’t talk about overthrowing the CCP or democracy or freedom of speech. Nothing like that. He talks about living a creative life, about building communities to support that, places that encourage each individual’s expression and value their labors – the opposite of the factories and malls and McJobs that treat people like trash and throw them away whenever they feel like it.
Maybe that’s close enough to freedom of speech to get him in trouble.
But why am I in trouble?
You’re a foreigner, you cause problems, usually they just kick you out of China. Which, if I don’t get my act together, is going to happen anyway.
He told me not to go home tonight.
Maybe it’s not the government, I think. Maybe it’s gangsters. Or some local official Lao Zhang pissed off. A back-door deal gone wrong.
And then there’s Lucy Wu. Ex-girlfriend? Undercover Public Security Officer?
He should have told me what was going on.
My leg hurts like a motherfucker, even with the Percocet, so I start drinking Guinness, and I end up hanging out in the bar after we close, drinking more Guinness with British John, his Chinese wife Xiaowei, an Australian named Hank, and two Norwegian girls. One of them, the taller of the two who looks like a supermodel, is a bitch. She keeps going on about the evils of American imperialism. ‘It was American imperial aggression that created the desire for a Caliphate,’ and ‘The Taliban was a predictable response to American imperial aggression.’
British John keeps giving me looks, like he thinks I’m going to lose it.
‘Hey, we need more music,’ Xiaowei pipes up. ‘What should I play?’
‘You choose, luv,’ says British John. ‘As long as it’s none of that fucking awful Korean pop.’
Xiaowei pouts. She loves Korean pop, which as British John points out, really is fucking awful.
‘Reggae!’ shouts Hank the Australian.
‘It was America’s criminal invasion of Iraq,’ the Norwegian chick drones on. She’s kind of drunk by now, too. ‘Everyone involved is a criminal. You know, Falluja, Haditha, Abu Ghraib, these are war crimes …’
Hank and the other Norwegian girl, meanwhile, have gone over to the jukebox, draped over each other like partners in a three-legged race. ‘Redemption Song’ booms over the speakers.
‘These soldiers, they killed innocents, and you Americans call them heroes.’
‘Why don’t you just shut the fuck up?’ I finally say. I’m not mad. I’m just tired. ‘You Norwegians are sitting on top of all that North Sea oil or you’d be making deals and screwing people like everyone else. Plus, you kill whales.’
Supermodel straightens up. Actually, she looks more like a Viking. All she needs is a spear. ‘Norway contributes more percentage of its income to foreign aid than any other country. While you Americans –’
‘Oh, it’s wrong to kill whales,’ Xiaowei says, her eyes filling with tears. ‘And dolphins. They are so smart! I think they are smarter than we are.’
‘Darts, anyone?’ British John asks.
I end up crashing at British John and Xiaowei’s place, finally dragging myself off their couch the next day around noon to make my way home.
Of course, I run into Mrs Hua, who is hustling her kid into their apartment, him clutching an overstuffed, greasy bag of Mickey D’s.
‘Somebody looking for you,’ she hisses, her little raisin eyes glittering in triumph. ‘You in some kind of trouble!’
I roll my eyes.