Beijing Comrades (10 page)

Lan Yu opened his mouth and stuck his tongue out slightly to meet my lips as I pushed them against his. Our tongues met, entwined, teeth bumping together carelessly. I kissed his face, then his neck. He had a scar on his upper arm, a large circular dent from a childhood inoculation. I kissed the scar then lifted his arm to kiss his armpit, nipples, chest, stomach, navel. When I got to his waist, I buried my face in his pubic hair then kissed his cock. I didn't suck it, just gently kissed it while looking up at him. His eyes were shut but his mouth was open, and the glowing rays of sunlight cast by the setting sun created a halo around him. For a moment he looked unfamiliar, almost unreal, like a gold-plated mannequin shimmering in the sun.

I opened his legs roughly and buried my face between his thighs. He gasped loudly, gripping the back of my head and
tugging at my hair as if to pull me closer. I loved how that felt: pleasure and pain. When I moved back up to kiss him again, I ground my pelvis into him, cradling his lower back with one hand to pull him into me, while my other hand gently grabbed a fistful of hair and slowly pulled his head back, giving me full access to his neck, which I dove into with a series of bites and kisses while he clutched at my shoulders and gasped. I held him there, arms and legs wrapped around me, pinned to the bed as securely as if he had been handcuffed. Rays of light filtered through the window and into the bedroom, shedding a blanket of warmth across a bed set ablaze by the fire of two men making love.

Without any warning I sat up on my knees and made a twirling motion with my hand. This, he knew, meant I wanted him on his side, the only position he liked getting fucked in because, I figured, it was the only one that didn't hurt. When we first started having sex I didn't like that position, but grew to love it over time. It made his ass stick out lewdly, giving me an invitation to pull up beside him, lift his leg, and enter him.

I wrapped my arms around Lan Yu's chest. He grabbed my forearms with both hands, pulling me into him tighter. He ran his tongue against my skin. It crossed my mind that perhaps I shouldn't penetrate him while he was recuperating, but I couldn't control myself. Desire flooded out reason—and, besides, the way he pushed back into my hand while I played with his ass told me he wanted it. I spit into my hand, and slowly entered him. Before long, he was banging against each thrust with a moan. “Don't come,” I whispered in his ear. “You don't have the energy.”

“Oh . . .,” he moaned, then turned back to look at me. He placed an arm around the back of my head and pulled me closer until his pouting lips pressed against mine. I cupped my
hand around one of his pecs, so thick and hard now compared to when we first met, and fucked him hard and steady while our tongues became tangled in each other's mouths. The last moan to fall from his lips was the satisfying sound of him collapsing next to me. In the past I wanted only to take pleasure. Now I wanted to give it to him.

Between his body's struggle to heal and the sex we'd just had, Lan Yu was completely worn out. He lay on the bed beside me covered in blankets, breathing heavily and gazing at the ceiling with a look of contentment. Then he turned to give me a big, beautiful, happy smile. I got out of bed to draw him a bath and quickly jumped back into bed to cuddle with him while we listened to the water filling the tub. When his bath was ready, I put him in the tub and gently washed him. That's when we started talking about his stay at the hospital.

“Did you see the way the nurse was looking at you?” I teased. “She was totally into you.”

“No, she wasn't! She was so old,” he protested. He paused for a moment, then added, “You know, right before we left, she told me that when I was in the coma my big brother was so upset he almost started crying.” Lan Yu looked greatly satisfied as he told me this, but it wasn't smug satisfaction. It was, rather, the kind of excitement a child has when he tells you something he's proud of and can't wait to see your response.

I averted my eyes and gave a self-deprecating laugh. Lan Yu's words touched me, but they also provoked a vague feeling of guilt. He was so easy to satisfy, so easy to make happy. The reality was, he wanted very little from me. But the one thing I increasingly felt he wanted, that one precious yet utterly elusive thing . . . it was this that I was most afraid to give.

After Lan Yu's illness, our relationship entered a new stage. A
better stage. The summer came to an end, and he was going to be starting his second year of university in a little over a week. My situation with the Volkswagens wasn't improving—the potential buyer backed out at the last minute—but I always made an effort to spend as much time with Lan Yu as I could. In this respect, I had changed for the better.

He changed in some ways, too. For one thing, he finally stopped talking about paying me back. He even began accepting my money and my gifts much more willingly than before. Still, there was a part of me that wondered whether he was only doing these things to make me happy.

We never talked about the time I broke up with him and kicked him out of the house. It was a dark chapter in our history. I knew it left him with scars, but we never talked about it.

Six months later, I finally found a sucker—a vague acquaintance of mine—who swallowed the bait and bought the entire wretched lot of cars from me. I wasn't normally in the habit of taking advantage of personal acquaintances, but in the business world, I rationalized, you have to do what you have to do. One evening when Lan Yu and I were chatting in bed, I made the mistake of sharing this information with him. He came back with the simple, yet cutting reply: “Money can make people crazy.”

On February 5 Lan Yu and I spent New Year's Eve reveling in the joy of the bed we shared. When the clock struck midnight and the Year of the Snake arrived, I looked into his eyes and kissed his lips, promising myself that from this moment on, it was only going to be the two of us. Me and him, nobody else. But I wasn't able to keep that promise, at least not then.

Nineteen eighty-nine turned out to be an extraordinary year—for me, for us, and for the entire nation.

Nine

One morning in mid-February my youngest sister called. She still lived at home.

“Big brother!” her sobs crackled through the phone. “Come home! It's Dad—he's really bad!”

“What? What happened?” I stammered out. Just two days earlier I had endured a twenty-minute lecture from the old man, who felt the need to berate me about some expectation of his that I had apparently failed to live up to.

“He was fine last night!” Jingdong cried even more loudly, as if the sound of my voice had somehow exacerbated her grief. “But then at around two or three in the morning Ma woke up and saw there was something . . . I don't know . . . something was wrong with him . . .” Her voice trailed off, replaced by the sound of crying.

Forty-eight hours later my dad died of a brain hemorrhage. His departure left me, the legitimate son of his lawfully wedded wife, with no other choice but to dive without delay into arrangements.

There was no time to mourn. My father was a powerful man with a vast network of social and political connections. The phone calls, the telegrams, the endless condolences, and the visits from neighbors—one after another they poured in. Then there was the funeral itself with all the arrangements this entailed. In addition to contacting the local funeral committee, we had to procure the casket, the black armbands, the flowers, and all the other things used in the ceremony. The whole thing was exhausting, not just for me, but especially for my poor mother, who was twenty years younger than my father but who aged very quickly in just a few days. She had loved my dad very much, and the large banner with the words “Let Us Deeply Mourn Comrade Chen Fumao” hanging over his portrait in the mourning hall was devastating for her to see. There was nothing for me to do but go home and help her get through the difficult period.

On the second Saturday of my visit, Lan Yu called to find out when I'd be coming back to Ephemeros. I had been with my mother and sisters for twelve days at that point. Surely, I thought, that was enough time to fulfill my filial duty. By the time Lan Yu called, I was ready to say goodbye to the gloomy environment and get back to my normal life, so I told him I'd come back to Ephemeros that evening.

I didn't realize how happy I would be turning the key to my own front door. There was Lan Yu, curled up on the couch with a book. When he saw me enter, he jumped up and gave me a kiss. “Is our Ma doing better these last couple of days?” he asked with concern.

When Lan Yu first met my mother, he called her Auntie, but then I told him that in Beijing, guys always referred to each other's mothers as “our Ma.”

“She's getting by,” I said listlessly before suddenly brightening up. “Come on, let's go grab a bite to eat!”

“How about staying in?” he asked, gently brushing my hair back from my forehead. “I didn't think you'd feel like going out, so I picked up some takeout.”

I looked over Lan Yu's shoulder and peered into the kitchen, where a stack of paper bags was piled up high on the table. On the floor next to the table there was a case of Yanjing beer. It occurred to me how incredibly thoughtful this guy was.

“A case of beer on the floor!” I laughed, walking into the kitchen to grab a couple of bottles and two glasses. “That's how we did it in college.”

“Well,” he said with a laugh, “I guess tonight is like college, too!”

We moved into the living room and rapidly devoured the takeout meal he had picked up. He knew I loved Shanghai cuisine, and the mouthwatering assembly of drunken chicken, simmered fish halves, and stir-fried eel with chives was the best homecoming surprise I could have asked for.

When we were done eating, I scooped everything up from the living room table and threw it on the kitchen countertop. I collapsed back onto the couch and Lan Yu snuggled into my arms, which I wrapped tightly around his shoulders and chest. I thought back to eighteen months earlier, when I had first met him. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Before I had time to think too much about the strange fate Lan Yu and I shared, however, the alcohol kicked in and my mind turned to recent events. I just couldn't believe how sudden my dad's death had been.

“We were never close,” I sighed. “He was always angry
about something, and when I was younger I hated it when he was at home. But just now when I was there, the house felt so empty without him.” I held Lan Yu tighter as I spoke, but gazed straight ahead as if I'd been talking to myself.

“From the time I was little, I never liked him. He was always yelling at me, and he used to beat the crap out of me too. He did get better as I grew older. There even came a point when he would try to talk to me about things going on in my life or in his life, or about current affairs or hobbies or whatever. But by then I didn't even want to be close to him. I remember the year I got into Nanda, he was so happy that he got drunk and went door to door throughout the neighborhood. He wanted to tell everyone that, unlike all his friends' sons, his son got into university by passing the exams, not by relying on connections.” I took a big swig of beer. “You know, I always hated the way he treated me, but now that I think about it, the old man actually helped me quite a bit when my career was getting off the ground.”

I pushed my head forward and looked down at Lan Yu, who lay quietly against my chest. His eyes were open and he was listening carefully. He was always a good listener.

“Just before he died,” I continued, “he opened his eyes and looked around at everyone sitting in the room. He knew he was about to die, I could just tell. Then, right before he closed his eyes for the very last time, he looked me straight in the eye. I was the last person he saw in this lifetime. I could tell he wanted to say something, but he couldn't speak. I had the feeling he wanted to tell me that he really—that he really cared about me, you know? I thought maybe he wanted to tell me something, that he thought—that he thought I had turned out okay . . .”

My eyes filled with tears. I couldn't continue. A long period of silence passed before Lan Yu spoke.

“It seems like he was in a good place when he passed,” he said. “Our Ma was there, you were there, your two little sisters. You were all there, right by his side. I bet he felt really happy.” His voice got quieter. “My mom was alone when she died. Just her and a bottle of sleeping pills.”

In a year and a half, this was only the second time he had mentioned his mother's death. I had no idea she had killed herself. Now I knew why he never talked about it.

Lan Yu suddenly unlocked himself from my embrace and sat up on the couch. He turned to face me. The way he looked at me . . . I couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was. Sad, hurt, but there was also something cold and detached about the way his eyes burned into me. There was something he didn't want to share with me, or didn't know how to. “My family—” he started to say, then hesitated.

“Yeah?”

“Well, for as long as I can remember, we always lived in the northern part of Xinjiang, near Ürümqi, but even farther, near the border with the Soviet Union. But my parents weren't from there originally. My mom was born in the South, in Hangzhou, and my dad is from the Northeast, from Harbin.”

I looked at Lan Yu's thick hands and fingers, which he rubbed together anxiously as he spoke. Now I knew why he had the strong and sturdy physique of the North, but the delicate countenance of the South.

“My parents were both professors at the local polytechnic university,” he continued. “When I was a kid growing up, everything was perfect. I always had so much fun with my dad. He used to take me and my mom out all the time; he was
always trying to find fun things for me to do. I had this stamp collection he helped me with. He taught me how to play the Chinese fiddle and a few other instruments. He would help me with my math homework—everything. By the time I finished primary school I had an eighth grade education. It was all from him.

“My mom didn't talk much, but I remember she was so sweet and loving to everyone she met. She and my dad never fought. The only time I remember them ever getting in an argument was this one time when my mom accused him of being sexist because he wouldn't help with the housework. But even then she was laughing about it the whole time. I remember her walking out of my dad's study, yelling, ‘Fine! Don't help! But I'm not talking to you anymore!' She was annoyed, but she had this big smile on her face. And that was the end of the argument.” He gulped down a mouthful of beer.

“When economic reform started in the late seventies, my father was among the first group of intellectuals to dive into the business world. He did something with some kind of industrial ventilator—invented it or developed it or something—then got hired by a township enterprise to work on it. My mom continued teaching at the university, so we were still able to live in the campus apartment provided by the work unit, but my dad left campus every day to go to work. His job paid well and before long we were the most prosperous family on campus. We were the first to get a refrigerator, a color TV, stuff like that. I remember the neighbors coming over to look at my dad's electric typewriter. Everyone on campus admired us.”

I had the vague feeling I knew where Lan Yu's story was going. Fortunes were lost as quickly as they were made in those days.

“My father was never like
you
businessmen.” He looked at
me with sudden reproach and I realized how much he had drunk. “He wasn't the kind of guy who had lots of indiscriminate affairs, but it didn't matter. It only took one affair for him to decide he loved the other woman more than my mom, and when my mom died, he remarried almost immediately.” Lan Yu paused, twisting his shirttail between his fingers and staring into space.

“I had seen that woman before,” he continued. “People always talked about her like she was some kind of beauty queen. But to me she was the ugliest woman in the world. I was only a kid and didn't fully understand what was going on, but . . .” He interrupted his own sentence by pouring the contents of his glass down his throat and immediately poured himself another drink. “But it was the affair that caused my mom's stroke. She was so young! I remember the doctor saying it was a tragedy, that forty was far too young for something like that to happen. I remember going to the hospital every day after school to visit her. But my dad hardly went at all.”

I didn't want Lan Yu to get too drunk, but I didn't want to interrupt him. He had never told me this much about himself. It was a rare opportunity to find out more about this person who was such a big part of my life, but about whom I knew so little.

“Actually,” he continued, “she was fine when she got out of the hospital. Well, sort of fine. The stroke left her partially paralyzed, but at least she was alive.” He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. “Two days later she killed herself, in part because of the paralysis, but mainly because of the affair. Before she did it, she wrote a long letter to me and my dad. She said she hated money—that money can make people cold, selfish, unfeeling. She said the truly precious things in life weren't silver or gold, but passion, conviction. She was the kind of person
who would rather die in glory than live in dishonor. That's what she said at the end of the letter:
I'd rather be a shattered vessel of jade than an intact but worthless piece of clay
.”

Lan Yu buried his face in his hands and took a deep breath. I could see it was getting hard for him to tell the story. I was feeling it too; my own heart weighed heavily in my chest. I wanted to touch him, to find some way of comforting him, but he gave me no indication that he wanted me to, so I remained on my side of the couch, staring at him quietly and wondering what he was going to say next.

“She wanted me to study hard.” His speech was slurred at that point. “She wanted me to get out, to get away from that tiny campus and into a good university. She wanted me to stand on my own two feet. She wanted me to be an honorable man with”—he hit his knee with a clenched fist—“an honorable man with an invincible spirit. A man who would inspire awe in everyone he meets. That's what she wanted me to be!”

Lan Yu suddenly fell silent and looked up at me with eyes that were, by now, completely red and swollen. For a moment I thought I saw hatred in them.

“I can't do it!” he continued. “I can't be the man she wanted me to be!” He lowered his head and stared at the floor, seemingly dissociated from the conversation. He held his glass against his knee at an angle that caused beer to splash to the floor. With his other hand he fiddled with a bottle cap.

“She never would have guessed that less than a year after she died, my dad's entire arrangement with the township enterprise would collapse.” He sat up straight and looked at me again, but more lucidly this time, as if trying to sober up. “When he lost his job he lost everything, even his own savings. But by then he was already married again, and he and that woman had a daughter, so he had to make a living somehow.
He had no choice but to go back to teaching. Everywhere he went people laughed at him, saying first he drove his wife to the grave, then he became a pauper. I always felt they were laughing at me, too.

“That woman, his new wife, treated me decently for a while, but then she changed. When I was in my third year of high school, we had to do these simulated exams to prepare for the National College Entrance Examination. Each student was supposed to give the teacher a few yuan for the printing cost, but that woman argued with my father about it. She said they didn't have the money. It was three yuan! By the time I got into Huada the following year, she could barely stand the sight of me. She said the family was facing hardship and she and my dad's salaries were barely enough to put food on the table. My dad just stayed out of it. All he wanted to do was play chess.” Lan Yu paused and looked at me with eyes that were glazed over. “By the time I left he was an amateur level six.” He reached for the half-empty bottle at the foot of the couch.