Mengliu saw that the lanky man behind Jia Wan was growing impatient as he smoked his cigarette. Jia Wan looked around, then whispered, ‘It’s best not to go out at night.’
‘Why?’ Mengliu asked.
He answered mysteriously, ‘There’s no harm in staying home.’
‘They’re going to be cleared out?’
Jia Wan patted his shoulder. ‘Just listen to what I’m telling you and you’ll be all right.’
Mengliu pondered this as he walked home. Jia Wan had never been a close friend, so why believe him now? What was his motive?
He stopped at the entrance to the West Wing. Sadness, riding on a heart-piercing wind, stabbed at his chest. It was as if it had been lying in wait, and had attacked him with an iron bar. The pain almost doubled him over. He was breathing heavily, and tears escaped from his eyes. He was being ground into the earth. His heart cried out, Qizi! Oh Qizi! What am I going to do?
His legs felt like they were filled with lead, and his head with water, which swished as he walked with twisted steps, his shoulder rubbing against the wall. The slogans that had been painted there had already run, were no longer fresh.
‘I’m tired, so sleepy. Yes, sleepy, and thirsty, and hungry. I want to bathe. I want to have a restful sleep. I don’t want to think of anything. The birds, the wind, the shouting, the radio, love, democracy…just shut the hell up! Don’t talk to me about any of it anymore. I don’t want anyone to bother me. I just want to have a good night’s sleep.’
He had no idea how long he had slept when the door opened and woke him. He saw a girl standing in the doorway, the sun making her face blurry and her body luminous, like a white angel descended to earth. It took some effort for him to focus, and then he discovered that the girl was tall and well-built, and her head almost touched the top of the doorframe. It seemed as if she was stuck there. He did not know a girl as imposing as this one was.
She leant forward and entered the room. The halo dissipated, and the body ceased its glowing. Seeing more clearly now, Mengliu realised it was a man, Shunyu’s father.
The older man’s hair was a curly mess, his clothes dirty and in disarray. He wore a strange expression, staring at Mengliu but saying nothing. Two minutes passed like that then, with a ghastly pallor, he said, ‘This…you hold on to this first. The issue of the chuixun…wait until you come back and we can discuss it then.’ He carefully placed the lady-charming xun on the table, then turned and gave an extraordinarily grave, secretive command. ‘You must leave Beiping immediately.’
‘Why?’ Mengliu asked, frightened. ‘Why should I leave Beiping?’
‘They opened fire…’ Shunyu’s father’s voice trembled, and there were tears in his eyes. ‘Last night, they opened fire. They brought tanks in and started shooting indiscriminately. There’s blood everywhere. Shunyu…she, she caught a stray bullet…She’s dead.’
Mengliu felt a bomb exploding in his head. ‘She’s…dead?’
‘Here is a train ticket, and here’s money to use on the road. It should be enough. It should be safe in the countryside. Lie low. Go, and wait for word from me.’ Shunyu’s father was suddenly overcome with emotion.
Mengliu didn’t hear him. He rushed out, dishevelled, and Shunyu’s father grabbed after him. ‘Don’t go back there. They’ve declared martial law.’
‘But no matter what, I need to go and see…there’s still Qizi. God, Qizi! Where are they?’
‘They were the first names on the wanted list,’ said Shunyu’s father heavily.
‘It can’t be. I’ve got to go look for them.’
‘The list is growing, and if your name is on it, it will be too late.’ The old man was filled with anger now. ‘Do you want your father… to bear the pain of losing a son too?’
Mengliu’s heart sustained another heavy blow.
No, it couldn’t be true. It was a dream. He stared at Shunyu’s father, waiting for him to break into a rosy smile. The man couldn’t be angry if he had been playing a cruel joke on him.
But Shunyu’s father stood helpless and sad, his eyes knotted with a scarlet web of blood vessels. He clenched his fist tightly, then quickly went away.
Mengliu was left in a foolish daze, not quite able to come back to reality. In his trance, he saw a touch of red on the rose bush at the window. He rushed over and inspected it. A shy, fiery-red bud peeped at him, like the eye of a sleeping baby. It was the answer to the question he and Qizi had bet on. They had used their bodies as stakes in the wager. She chose red roses, and he white. She said if he won, she would give her body to him, but if she won, he had to give his body to her, with one added condition — he had to remain committed to poetry, no matter what the situation, and never give up writing. At the time he had laughed at her condition, feeling it bore no weight. He was a poet, and it was instinctive for him to write poetry, it was the very meaning of his existence. He looked at the delicate bud and almost laughed. But now the bud looked like it had been dipped in blood, and the colour was spreading. His mind suddenly became exceptionally clear.
He had to find her.
Part Two
1
They had a good breakfast of preserved meats, pickled vegetables, fried eggs and rice porridge. Mengliu washed the bowls, cups, plates, cutlery and pans, and put everything away. He couldn’t see any change in Juli. The sky outside the window was as blue as before and the birds in the garden still sang as happily. It was only Mengliu’s heart that seemed to be missing a piece, like a hole where the roof tile has broken, allowing the cold wind to enter. He took the diamonds out from under the edge of his bed and held them toward the light, trying to draw some warmth from their glow. He bathed and dried himself, then pressed the green button on the wall and received a spray of perfumed toner. After he had put on a silky white dressing gown, he turned one of the golden taps and filled a glass with beer. With his mouth still full of the taste of malt, he went to the living area and spread himself out on the sofa, his feelings for Juli overflowing. He heard music, and at first thought that he had imagined it. Then he suddenly remembered the cavity in the wall which housed the alarm and realised the music had come from there. The Swanese people listened to the same song all the time. He did not know what else was behind the hole in wall. Listening devices? Monitors? A pair of eyes? The melody was like an eraser, wiping the image of Juli from his mind, turning the vivid thick water colour painting of her into a grey filmy form. Qizi and many other women swirled in his mind, and before long they disappeared too, as if sinking into deep water. Now he was sucked into the moving green waves. Distracted, he lay on the sofa like the man of the house and rested a moment. Then he put on his robe and shoes and went out the door.
On the road, he encountered a funeral procession, The deceased, covered by a white cloth and laid upon a board, was carried by four men in white clothing. There was a musical troupe, priests and a group of sympathetic citizens, and they all sang in a soft chorus a poetic narrative of the life of the deceased. It was a calm, serene song, untouched by sadness. Mengliu watched as the funeral procession started to ascend the hill. He could no longer hear the band playing when they stopped and formed a circle, like a wreath worn on top of the hill. They seemed to be holding some sort of ceremony. The blue sky extended beyond his line of vision.