‘But won’t it be dark?’ he asked.
‘The darkness down there is no worse than the darkness up here’ was Shuxiang’s reply.
Perhaps Shuxiang was right, Wang thinks. Perhaps the city above the ground is as dark as the one below. He remembers some of the stories he read that day in the Beijing Evening News left by a passenger in his cab. Twenty underage prostitutes arrested in a Shunyi karaoke bar. A cooking-oil-manufacturing company fined for selling ‘gutter oil’ recycled from kitchen drains. A clinically depressed man leaps from the thirtieth floor of a tower block in Fengtai district. A jilted girl breaks into her ex-boyfriend’s home, douses herself in gasoline and sets herself alight. There were photos of a mangled car wreck on page three, with a sheet-covered corpse on the tarmac and a crowd taking pictures with their phones.
East of Tiananmen Square, a gigantic digital clock counts down the days, hours and minutes to the Olympic Games. Civilized Olympics. Harmonious Olympics. One World, One Dream. The corporate-sponsor logos and slogans are everywhere. Over the past week a patrol of Olympic Security Volunteers has sprung up in Maizidian, to monitor the community and report any suspicious activity to the Public Security Bureau. That morning, Wang had seen Granny Ping on a low stool by the bicycle shed, vigilantly watching the comings and goings of the housing compound, with a red Olympic Security Volunteer armband strapped over her sleeve. Wang had thought there was something defiant about her squatting posture and ageing body; her sagging breasts and her flaccid upper arms and varicose-veined legs, uncaringly exposed. The widow of a Ministry of Agriculture official, Granny Ping can afford tasteful clothes, but prefers to go to the supermarket in cheap polyester nighties, her perm straggly and uncombed.
‘Tell me, Wang Jun,’ she had called out to him, ‘are any of Ma Yida’s folk visiting from Anhui?’
Wang shook his head. ‘There’s just the three of us, and Echo’s two pet turtles.’
Granny Ping frowned at him. ‘What?’
‘The Olympic Security Volunteers came last Tuesday,’ Wang said, loud and slow. ‘They checked our hukou and looked around. There are no illegals in Apartment 404.’
‘There’s no reason to take my questions personally,’ Granny Ping sniffed. ‘No one is above suspicion when our national security is at stake. Not even the Olympic Security Volunteers themselves.’
Wang decided to humour her. ‘Have you found any threats to national security yet?’ he asked.
Granny Ping hesitated, looking Wang up and down. ‘There are some Uighurs in Building 8 who work in Yabao Market,’ she said, hushed and low. ‘Muslims. They have residence cards, but they come and go at strange hours. . And there are two laowai in Building 14 who have Tibetan prayer flags on their walls.’
Wang laughed. ‘Since when were Tibetan prayer flags a crime?’
‘Laowai worship the Dalai Lama!’ Granny Ping cried. ‘Who knows what they are plotting? They’ll wait until the Olympics to strike, though. They’ll wait until the eyes of the world are on Beijing and then make a scene.’
Wang thinks of Granny Ping’s warning as he walks by Tiananmen Square, closed to the public at night and empty of the camera-clicking tourists following the tour guides with loudspeakers. Wang can’t imagine the westerners who ride in his taxi risking arrest and deportation to stage a protest for the Dalai Lama. They are too lazy and content, stuffing themselves with hotpot on Gui Street and chasing Chinese girls in Sanlitun. Any dissent would come from petitioners from out of town, or Beijing residents like him. Ordinary citizens with grievances against the City Administration to vent.
When he reaches Qianmen, Wang has had enough of walking. He can’t put off confronting Zeng Yan for any longer. He goes to the bus stand to catch a bus headed east.
Outside the Xinjiang restaurant strings of lights blink on and off above the men drinking, smoking and swearing at the folding tables. Smoke billows from the hole-in-the-wall grill. A cook shakes spices over skewers of lamb and a wok of oil over flames suffuses the air with grease. The cook is watching a portable TV, showing the new National Stadium from various angles. ‘The steel rods of the lattice are designed like a bird’s nest. .’ the voiceover says. ‘Modern avant-garde architecture with Chinese characteristics. .’ An old man taps cigarette ash in the drain and scoffs, ‘About as much Chinese characteristics as a donkey turd.’ Behind the glass of the Heavenly Massage parlour, girls made alluring by the sheen of lipstick and glittering sequinned tops drift to and fro in the shadows. No one notices Wang.
The spiralling pole of red, white and blue spins by the barber’s door, open during the peak hours of night. Wang lights a Flying Horse cigarette tapped out of a carton left by a fare and stares into the low-rent shop. Zeng Yan, in a white vest and low-slung jeans, leans on the counter and talks with two men. The faded ink of his dragon tattoo bulges slightly on his arm and his hair is swept over one eye. Wu Fei stands over a man whose jaw is slathered with shaving foam and glides a cut-throat razor over his stubble with confident, steady-handed expertise. The customer is relaxed as the steel blade moves up his neck, though Wu Fei could kill him with a flick of his wrist. Zeng’s crow’s feet deepen as he laughs at one of his friends. Wang grinds his half-smoked cigarette out with his heel.
Though the night is chilly, Wang is perspiring. The canister of lighter fluid sloshes in his pocket and, out of nowhere, a proverb taught to him in elementary school comes back to him: ‘Control oneself in a moment of anger, avoid a thousand days of sorrow.’ Wang pulls Zeng’s letter out of his jacket and tosses the pages on the ground. He uncaps the lighter fluid and pours it out. Wang had read the tale of Emperor Jiajing and his concubines when he was a student, in an anthology of Ming Dynasty literature. He is convinced of it. The story had resonated so strongly in his memory. Zeng had stolen the plot and reproduced some of the passages word for word. A plagiarist, through and through.
Wang shakes out the last drops of lighter fluid, then drops the tin. Sniffing the fumes, the men drinking beer outside the Xinjiang restaurant look over at him. ‘What’s he up to?’ one of them asks. Wang scrolls through his phone, hits dial and watches as Zeng reaches into his jeans. The phone is brought to his ear.
‘Wei?’
‘I’m outside,’ Wang says, and hangs up.
Zeng squints at the window, but sees only the light and reflections in the glass. He strides to the door and looks out.
‘Wang Jun? What are you doing here? Are you okay?’
Wang bends over, strikes a match and holds it to the flammable letter. The paper ignites and flames rush up. Zeng widens his eyes in the doorway.
‘Wang? What are you doing?’
They both stare at the flames consuming the letter, the paper curling at the edges and disintegrating to ash. The canister then catches fire and Wang is forced to take a step back by the rising heat and noxious fumes. He coughs, his eyes reddening.
The fire, though small, has attracted the attention of the hustlers in the alley. Vendors of fake booze and pirated DVDs peer out from where they work. ‘Madman,’ mutters the cook at the Xinjiang grill. But the alley is not a place of order and propriety. No one shouts at Wang to stamp the fire out. No one has any of the community spirit or civic virtue the government posters encourage. Wang’s fire is a distraction from the monotony of the night. They watch him cough the smoke out of his lungs. They watch to see what happens next.