Dunhuang said he’d stay downstairs, he was afraid he’d have to listen to Bony Beauty’s caterwauling. He sat down on a low wall in the garden outside the building, put his head on his knees, and was asleep in two minutes, his body a rigid triangle. When he woke it was one in the morning and Qibao was standing in front of him, reeking of booze. “What are you doing here?”
Dunhuang stood, his bones creaking. He felt a nameless indignation gathering in his gut. “Where else should I be?”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were coming. I went out with friends.”
“What the hell kind of friends don’t need to sleep at night?”
“Just drinking buddies okay? Here, help me upstairs.” Qibao made to take his arm. Dunhuang shook it off, saying, “I’m not fucking going anywhere!”
“Keep your voice down.”
“Why should I keep my voice down!?” Dunhuang was shouting, a little hysterically, “What the fuck is everybody sleeping for? Wake the hell up!”
Lights came on in several windows, and heads poked out: “Who’s yelling? Let us sleep, you asshole!”
Dunhuang pointed at them and shouted: “You’re the fucking assholes!”
“What’s wrong with you!” said Qibao. “Come upstairs!”
“I’m not fucking going,” said Dunhuang, then turned and started walking off. Qibao called after him but he ignored her, lengthening his stride. Qibao followed him out of the compound onto the street, saying: “Dunhuang, if you don’t stop this instant I’ll kill you so help me God!”
Dunhuang stopped. “Go ahead then. Kill me now.”
Qibao walked around in front of him and saw that he was crying. She softened, handing him a tissue to wipe his face. “I know you’re upset about Bao Ding,” she said. “I really did go have dinner with friends tonight, and my phone battery died this afternoon. Cross my heart.”
Dunhuang lit a cigarette, his heart choked with weeds. “Go back home,” he said to her, then started walking. He didn’t know what Bao Ding would have done if it was he who’d been let out, and Dunhuang was still inside. He smoked one cigarette after another, tossing the butts aside. Qibao followed behind him, picking up each butt he tossed, and in that way they eventually arrived at Suzhou Bridge. More than an hour of walking — she hadn’t walked so much in all her years in Beijing. Her feet were aching; she felt she couldn’t take another step. She flagged a taxi on the night shift, and pulled up alongside Dunhuang.
“Get in,” she said, showing him her handful of cigarette butts. “If you want to keep up this stupid act, you can forget about seeing me again.”
Dunhuang looked at the cigarette butts in her hand — thirty in all. He opened the cab door and got in.
16
May brought another sandstorm. The weather forecast called it a historical anomaly. But it came all the same. A day and night of roaring gales, sending sands into the sky. Women wore high-necked sweaters to keep the dust out of their cleavage; men turned their collars up and perched sunglasses on their noses. Rarely was May in Beijing so grave and humorless. Then the winds ceased, like a hundred-meter sprinter halting in his tracks, too sudden for the Meteorology Bureau to keep up. The fine sand hung in the air, turning heaven and earth a dusky yellow, and the pollution indicators went through the roof. The news instructed everyone to stay indoors, and to good effect — Dunhuang worked every day, but even in the sheltered corners sold no more than a couple of DVDs. Sales this poor were unusual, but then again maybe not unlikely — once again there was word of a clampdown, and this time it seemed real. Dunhuang wandered past the police station and saw none of the usual banners—“Protect Intellectual Copyright,” “Crush Piracy,” “Rectify the Audio-Visual Market”—but he was nevertheless circumspect, and for a few days posted no advertisements. Two days prior, he’d been selling DVDs when a young guy with a backpack had come running past, and when he saw Dunhuang he shouted, Run! They’re making arrests! Dunhuang knew him, a good guy, whenever they met they’d have a chat. Dunhuang believed him, and within five seconds had his DVDs in his bag and his bag on his back. He overtook the other guy, and when he looked back after 800 meters or so saw neither him nor the police. Dunhuang wondered whether he’d been played for a fool, but he never ran into the guy after that.
The DVDs sold grudgingly, he hadn’t restocked for a week. The floating dust was eventually brought down with iodide-induced artificial rain, and the sky was once again high and blue. Dunhuang counted his movies, and decided it was time to pay Cosmic a visit.
From across the street, Cosmic looked the same as before, except for two crossed strips of tape over the door. The date on the notice was from two days prior. Dunhuang stood in front of the door, empty pack on his back, weighing his cellphone in his hand. Xiaorong, Kuang Shan. . he thought about who to call, and settled on Kuang Shan. Kuang Shan sounded like an anxious old man on the phone, though he relaxed when he realized it was Dunhuang.
“Brother, I’m fucked.”
Kuang Shan said he’d only just gotten out of the detention center that morning — Xiaorong had needed all the money in the house to get him out. Who would have thought that the police would show up in the middle of the day and push their way past the curtain into the rear storage room. All the pirated DVDs were there, tied in bundles and stacked on the shelves. It was fully stocked — if it hadn’t been for the sandstorm they would have been nearly sold out. Every last DVD was confiscated, they’d arrived with a small van. The van had already been partially filled — clearly Cosmic had not been their first stop of the day. The beeline they made for the curtained back room indicated their familiarity with DVD shops. Given the shocking price of authorized movies, no shop could survive without pirated stock. Luckily, most of the pornography was still under the bed at his house or he never would have gotten out so easily. Kuang Shan and Boss Zhou had been taken together. Both were out now, thanks to payments from family members, of course.
“So what now?” asked Dunhuang.
“Got to catch our breath first,” said Kuang Shan. “Want to stop by for a drink?”
“Sure. How’s Xiaorong?”
“She took it better than me. Women just make no sense. She used to go on and on about earning enough to go back home, but now that we’re broke she isn’t saying a thing, like it was someone else’s money to begin with. I have to say I feel bad for putting her through all this. . You must be ready to restock?”
“Yeah, I’m about out.”
“Talk to a guy named Boss Feng, tell him I sent you. Don’t tell anyone what happened, okay?”
Dunhuang followed his directions to a little restaurant called The Great Swan, and a bearded man met him at the door, saying Kuang Shan had called ahead. He said Boss Feng was out of town and had sent him instead. The DVDs were a few minutes away, in a sort of underground parking garage. Dunhuang followed the beard downstairs and through at least eight winding turns before they arrived at Boss Feng’s “shop.” It was essentially one big trash dump, with DVDs everywhere. The floor was entirely covered in the garish colors of packages and the silver glints of unpackaged discs; everyone inside simply walked over them. It was more DVDs than Dunhuang had ever seen in his life — a space of probably one hundred square meters filled with mountains of DVDs. It was practically a DVD factory. Seeing Dunhuang’s open mouth, the beard casually remarked that this was one of their smaller shops and the selection was limited, he should just pick out what he could use.