“He won’t be coming by,” she answered sternly. Silently elated, he crawled into bed and pulled back the covers to find she was crying. She stopped, but even after they started having sex she made no other sound. In the middle of it, wanting to hear her voice, Dunhuang asked through his panting, “Do you sell porn? I couldn’t find any.”
She replied, with difficulty, “They’re under the bed.”
4
When Dunhuang awoke the next morning he heard the sound of dishes in the kitchen. The thought that it was supposed to be someone named Kuang waking in his place made him sweat. Xiaorong had said his name was Kuang Shan, which meant “spacious mountain.” Dunhuang’s first reaction was that whoever had named him had been as lazy and empty-headed as Dunhuang’s own father. They’d picked the lowest of the low-hanging fruit — but the results were kind of interesting. Xiaorong emerged from the kitchen and Dunhuang asked, “So, uh. . he really isn’t coming back, is he?”
“Scared?”
“My ass. Worst comes to worst I’m willing to go back to jail.”
“So don’t ask, then. He’s dead to me.”
Dunhuang bounced up from under the covers. “Okay, then he’s dead to me, too!”
After breakfast, neither of them asked the other’s plans. They left the house together, Xiaorong carrying a backpack full of DVDs,Dunhuang carrying all his earthly possessions. They parted in front of the Haidian gymnasium, saying nothing more than “bye.”
Dunhuang spent another day wandering aimlessly, without seeing a single familiar face. Again he made it to evening on two biscuits and a bottle of water, then took the bus back to Furongli. Xiaorong opened the door for him nonchalantly, then headed to the kitchen to make noodles again. Last night there’d been one egg, tonight there were two. The dust had finally settled. Dunhuang took a quick shower, then dove underneath the bed — there really were baskets under there. He grabbed two movies with naked people on their covers.
Over the next three days, Dunhuang ate six biscuits and drank three bottles of water. Riding the public buses he traversed the city seven or eight times, and threaded through thirty or more alleyways, but he finally despaired. He couldn’t find his people, no possible comeback presented itself. He carried his pack back to Furongli, and when Xiaorong opened the door she said, “You’re back. Why don’t you take a break tomorrow — if you want to, you can come sell DVDs with me.”
The next morning they left the house together; Xiaorong was empty-handed, Dunhuang had a pack full of movies. Dunhuang was in excellent spirits as they passed the east gate of Peking University, and said to Xiaorong, “Here I am, a vocational school graduate, reduced to selling DVDs. If I hadn’t been so lazy, not even Qinghua or Peking University could have denied me.”
“So why don’t you stop selling DVDs,” she countered. “The doors of PU are still open.”
“Nope, can’t give it up,” said Dunhuang. “A man’s got to eat.”
“But I thought you could get by just fine as ‘vocational school graduate,’” said Xiaorong.
“If that were the case,”he answered,“I’d have been getting by just fine for years.”
That morning, they set up on a street in Xiyuan. They laid a few dozen movies out by the entrance of a busy supermarket. Xiaorong’s bag was multipurpose; unzipped and laid flat it was an ideal display case. Xiaorong knew her DVDs backwards and forwards, and when anyone mentioned a title she knew, she fished it out of the pile immediately. But if they made special requests, she was at a loss. She could elaborate at length on the ones she’d seen, but past that she was helpless. If anyone happened to ask for Hong Kong action or martial arts flicks Dunhuang stepped in. In middle school and high school he’d spent all his spare time in a run-down film shop, where, in his boredom, he’d seen practically everything Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Steven Chow had made. He also knew how to chat up customers better than Xiaorong. And no wonder — his old job selling fake IDs had relied almost entirely on banter.
In the afternoon, they went to the gate of the Agricultural University. He often came here selling IDs, and knew the area well; students needed fake IDs just like the rest of society. When it came time for the job hunt, in particular, they showed up in droves wanting fake transcripts and certificates of honor, the gutsy ones even asking for fake diplomas or degrees: polytech students wanting to be BAs, BAs wanting to be MAs, MAs wanting to be PhDs. It went the other way, too: older doctoral students wanting undergraduate student IDs for the half-price tickets to public parks. The students were enthusiastic consumers of movies, too. Xiaorong said they were all film buffs, going straight for the art-house and classics — the older the film the better it sold. It was something Dunhuang didn’t get. Just watching a black and white movie made him dizzy. That stuff was beyond him.
That day, at any rate, Dunhuang talked up a hurricane with the customers, and they did well. Xiaorong said she never would have guessed. Dunhuang said selling fake IDs was all talk, just a matter of convincing people that fakes were better than the real thing. It was just like fortune telling.
“All right then,” she replied, “I’ll hire you as my Secretary of DVD Sales.”
“No problem,” he said, “I’ll serve you faithfully, even in bed.” Xiaorong’s face darkened and Dunhuang knew he’d gone too far. He acted like a contrite elementary school student, but thought, Isn’t that what this is? I serve you, and you serve me?
All in all, though, Dunhuang made an excellent secretary. He counted the cash, drummed up business, shilled in the crowd, and served as bodyguard and footman. Most importantly, he was able — under normal circumstances — to turn Xiaorong’s bad moods into good moods, and make her good moods even better. “Abnormal circumstances” were those that involved Kuang Shan. If her attention happened to wander as they spoke, Dunhuang looked around for lovers holding hands, or new parents out for a stroll with their babies. It’s better this way, thought Dunhuang. It keeps me from getting in too deep. But it also made him want to smoke. As he drew deep lungfuls and coughed, he’d tell himself again: it’s better this way.
* * *
To perfect his sales tactics, Dunhuang began watching art-house cinema in quantity — he needed to cram. He often fell asleep as he watched, however, and in his dreams the films became blockbusters, romances, action, horror, and, of course, porn. He couldn’t understand why Xiaorong never sold the porn under her bed. She told him Kuang Shan used to sell those, she didn’t like talking about them, and didn’t like selling them.
“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Dunhuang said, as they ate noodles in her apartment. “The working classes need it.”
“What do you know about the working classes? It’s you who needs it.”
“I do, and so do the working classes. ‘We must emerge from the masses, and return to the masses.’ Look how well the older ladies do. Even with kids on their backs they keep class sentiment in mind, always asking everyone, ‘Hey there comrade, want a DVD? They’re stimulating!’”
His impression set her to giggling, but then she got annoyed again. “I see, so to you I’m just some ‘older lady’? Prowling around with a kid on my back?”
“No!” he said. “You’ve got those old ladies beat. Our Comrade Xia Xiaorong boasts both youth and beauty, and has sworn to sell only art films.”
She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m old, I know it, and I never even graduated from high school. I can’t compare to you, a voc-tech student who turns his nose up at Peking University.”