‘It’s all my husband’s fault. My parents are intellectuals. I graduated from Shaanxi Normal University, but I have always loved singing and dancing, even as a child. When the artists’ salon opened in Xian, I went there to sing ‘Count Your Empty Glasses’ and ‘When Tears Fall From My Eyes’. Men would always come up to the stage and shower me with flowers. He was one of them. He hired taxis for me around the clock, took me to the best restaurants, bought me expensive jewellery. I had just taken over my mother’s job at the local nursery school, and was on a salary of fifty-three yuan a month. He gave me bunches of flowers that cost double that. How could I resist him?
‘I spent my days hanging around his clothes shop, and met his low-life friends from outside town. It wasn’t till he was arrested that I discovered he was the head of a criminal gang, and had already spent five years in prison. I had a terrible stomach ache the day the police caught him. His friends were lying in the shop, smoking opium. They told me to take a puff, said it would ease the pain. And it did. I took to smoking it every day, and told myself it was a luxury I could afford now. But before I knew it I had smoked through all my savings. When my husband was sentenced I sold the shop and smoked through that money too. .
‘I had tried giving up before they caught me last year. I was in a taxi at the time, on my way to do some business in Lingtong. I had just had a smoke and was half-asleep when the police stopped the car. They searched me and found some powder. I had forgotten I was carrying it. I said it was for my private use but they didn’t believe me. They said, "Why carry such a big bag if it is just for you?" They didn’t have handcuffs, so they pulled off my belt and tied my hands with that instead. When we arrived at the Public Security Bureau, I knew I was in trouble. There was a crackdown that night and the place was full. A policeman walked by and I asked him to untie my hands, but he kicked me to the floor, grabbed a rope from the counter and started thrashing me with it. I screamed, "He’s killing me, he’s killing me!" But no one came to my help.’
‘Fang Li! Stop exaggerating. Now, tell Comrade Ma about the wonderful treatment you have received here.’ The director looks angry.
‘Of course, I deserved to be punished. The police were just doing their job. But first let me tell you. .’
‘Would you smoke again if you had the money?’ Suddenly I notice I have adopted the same tone as the policeman who interrogated me in Beijing.
‘My family have nothing left now. We used to be quite well off, we had an imported cassette player, colour television, electric fridge. When I have given up the opium, I’ll go to Shenzhen and try to make some money. Money means freedom.’
She glances at the director, my tape recorder, notebook, then wipes her dripping nose.
‘Where did you buy the drugs?’ I look into her vacant eyes.
‘It’s easy if you know the right people. I used to smoke three times a day when I had the money. Even when I was hard up I managed one fix a day. But I always ate fresh fruit afterwards — not like those layabouts. They wouldn’t even stretch to a bottle of orange pop. I would like to give up but. .’
There is a busy crossroads outside. Noises of car horns and voices merge into one sound. A bright beam of sunlight pierces through the open window.
I come out of the centre and stride through the streets relishing my freedom of movement. As the sun sinks below the clock tower, the sea of blue pedestrians drifts into the grey dusk. Perhaps an opium smoker is hidden in their midst, waiting to be caught by the police and thrown under the filthy quilts. I always associated drugs with the Opium War, imperial decadence and foreign exploitation. What place do they have in today’s society? Perhaps when people have no ideals, money can only buy oblivion, not freedom.
Society’s values have changed a lot in the short time since I left Beijing. Fang Li believes that eating fruit after smoking opium puts her a cut above the layabouts. I want to write a story about the people who live above ground and the souls who writhe below. I sit down at a Muslim restaurant and pull out the notes I copied from Fang Li’s records. ‘Son: 6. Mother: 52, senile. Father: 55, history professor at Northwest University. .’ I must talk to her again when she is released.
A beggar approaches, shaking an empty cap. I push the leftovers of my mutton soup towards him and leave the restaurant.
When the crowds and buses have disappeared, the weight of the night falls on the empty streets. The city walls look worn and defeated. The ground is so heavy I feel as though I am walking into my grave.
The next morning I am woken by the noise of footsteps thudding along the corridor outside. Yao Lu gets up and goes to fetch a thermos of hot water while I fold our camp beds and sweep the floor. When the canteen bell rings for breakfast, I go down and return to the office with half a jin of dumplings and a copy of the Xian Daily. Yao Lu hands me a cup of green tea and starts reading the newspaper. ‘Says here a man put an advert in the Beijing papers announcing he was opening a modelling agency. He offered the girls a salary of forty yuan a month, and received 170 applications. He had permission from the Department of Culture. This is incredible. The first fashion models in the history of communist China!’
‘Last year I was arrested for sketching a model in a life class. It is amazing what a free economy can do to society.’ I arrange my pens and prepare to draw my twentieth illustration.
Yao Lu disappears for a few minutes and returns with a smile on his face. ‘The leaders have approved your first ten illustrations. Looks like you have some more travelling money.’
‘We must go for a drink tonight,’ I smile. ‘I read the book of legends you lent me. I like the one about tombstones. It has given me an idea for a story.’
‘Don’t start writing historical novels, please!’
‘No. Or imitating Marquez!’
‘Reality is just a loop in a greater chain.’ He opens a drawer. ‘Look at these manuscripts I get sent. The stories are shallow, they have no context. . By the way, I gave your film to a friend who runs a photo lab. It should be ready in a couple of days.’
Just as we finish for the day, the telephone rings. It’s Yang Qing. ‘How were the addicts? Did they provide you with any literary inspiration?’
‘I didn’t realise there would be so many.’
‘I have some news for you. The protracted battle against reactionary forces has finally reached completion.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The Campaign Against Spiritual Pollution is over. You can go back to Beijing!’
‘No, I don’t think I will risk it. As soon as the Campaign Against Bourgeois Liberalisation finished this one followed hot on its heels.’
‘It’s up to you. Anyway, we’ve seen the figures.’
‘How many arrests?’
‘Over a million, and twenty-four thousand executions. Don’t tell anyone though until you see it in the papers.’
I put the phone down and repeat what I have heard to Yao Lu. ‘If I had stayed in Beijing I might be in my grave by now. We really must go drinking tonight, Yao Lu. It won’t be long before they let you off the hook too.’
‘I will take you to Old Sun the Daoist. He will read your fortune and give you an amulet to protect you on your travels.’
‘Don’t worry about me, Yao Lu. I never come to harm. I just hate to think of you spending the rest of your life marooned in this dead city.’
Lost in the Wastes
A cold wind sweeps through the village of Xinjie. I escape into a small restaurant and order a bowl of Mongolian milk tea and three steamed rolls. Three young men are huddled by the stove, smoking hemp rolled in newspaper. The smells of coal smoke and burnt ink sting my eyes.