‘Too bad for him. He should’ve looked where he was going.’ Then, ignoring Wang and staring through the windscreen, he slams down on the horn again. Hooonnnnkk. The girlfriend swats his arm and giggles at him to stop. Wang is sick of these Little Emperors, with their bulging wallets and expensive cars Daddy bought them.
‘You’re a piece of shit,’ he says, when the honking stops. ‘You know you’re a shit, deep down. That’s why you act the way you do.’
The teenager laughs.
‘You know nothing about me,’ he says, pressing a button so his window rolls up.
Wang stoops and stares through the rising barrier of glass. When the window is nearly sealed, he hears the teenager mutter, ‘Loser.’ Blood rushes in Wang’s ears, and he slams his fist into the tinted, shuddering glass. ‘Oh my God!’ squeals the girl, jolting in her seat. The boy sparks the ignition and the BMW lurches forwards a metre or so. The roaring in Wang’s head subsides and he stands there, his knuckles throbbing.
Workers Stadium Road is moving again, and the police are directing traffic around the cordoned-off area. The white van behind Wang’s taxi is beeping and shouting at him to move, and Wang goes back to his car, confused by the driver’s anger. He had confronted the teenager on behalf of everyone there. Why is the van driver acting like he’s in the wrong?
Baldy Zhang hunches over noodles in broth with chopped-up sheep’s intestines, feeding before the long and solitary night shift ahead. Besides the bowl of noodles are Baldy Zhang’s garlic cloves and a half-smoked pack of Dongfanghong, the favourite brand of his hero, Mao Zedong (‘I know millions died because of Mao and his policies. But he’s still the greatest leader China’s ever had!’). The night is sibilant with whirring insect wings. The bug-zapper crackles, electrocuting those lured by its fluorescence to charred carcasses.
‘Your mood’s as foul as a woman with the curse,’ Baldy Zhang remarks through a mouthful of offal. ‘What’s up?’
A Sichuan kitchen girl, hugely pregnant, waddles over with a plate of scallion pancakes. She dumps the plate in front of Wang then arches her lower back, pushing her bump out and sighing before waddling away. Baldy Zhang takes one of Wang’s pancakes with his chopsticks. Tears into it with his teeth and chews.
‘I need somewhere to stay,’ Wang says.
‘Why’s that?’
‘Yida has kicked me out.’
Baldy Zhang guffaws, spraying the table. ‘What’ve you done? You been screwing around?’
‘No.’
‘She cheated on you?’
Has she? Wang is not sure. Baldy Zhang sighs and shakes his head.
‘Here’s my advice, Wang Jun. Knock her about, then shaft her till she’s bleeding and senseless. She’ll respect you for it. Society had it right back in the days of foot-binding and concubines. I don’t know why they had to go changing the laws. Back then, women behaved. .’
‘You ever been married?’ Wang asks.
‘Never,’ Baldy Zhang says. ‘“Marriage is the grave of love,” as they say. Mind you, I’ve never been in love either. Women are more trouble than they’re worth. A bachelor’s life is the life for me. .’
Baldy Zhang furrows his heavy ledge of brow and slaps at a mosquito biting his scalp. ‘Bastard,’ he spits at the smear of blood and dead insect in his palm. Wang nods politely, thinking ‘bachelor’s life’ captures none of the bleakness of Baldy Zhang’s existence.
‘Can I stay at your place for a night or two?’ he asks.
‘Well. .’ Baldy Zhang digs his little finger into his ear, wiggles it about. ‘. . You can’t stay for free. There’s the cost of overheads. . Electricity for the light and fan. Water for the shower. Gas for the stove. It adds up. . ’ He pulls out the long fingernail and inspects the contents. ‘Twenty kuai per night sound reasonable to you? I’m giving you a discount, by the way, on account of the rough time your wife is giving you.’
‘That sounds very reasonable,’ says Wang, pulling two ten-RMB notes out of his wallet.
‘There’s three bottles of Red Star erguotuo in the kitchen,’ says Baldy Zhang, pocketing the notes. ‘I’ll know if one goes missing.’
‘I won’t go near them,’ promises Wang.
Old men stroll about the Maizidian compound, vests rolled up over Buddha bellies they slap proudly in the summer heat. The security guard naps in his booth, his cap on the desk beside his drowsing head. Air-conditioning units weep down the side of Building 16, dripping on Wang’s shoulder as he goes inside.
In the stairwell, Wang sees the stuffed rubbish bags dumped outside Apartment 404. He can imagine Yida storming about the bedroom, emptying drawers of socks and underwear into the black bin liners, breaking into a sweat in her determination to be rid of him. Wang can imagine her grim satisfaction as she knotted the bags and slung them out like trash.
Audience laughter roars behind the door. Yida wants him to stay out. She wants him to take the bags and slink away like a dog with its tail between its legs. Well, too bad. He wants to say goodbye to Echo. But, as he slides the key in the lock, Wang can’t shake off the feeling he is trespassing.
‘Yida,’ Wang says.
Though the windows are open and the blades of the fan spinning, the living room is muggy and hot. Yida hugs her knees, her heels on the seat, her legs bare in denim cut-offs. The TV screen illuminates her hostility as she stares at the variety-show host in his spangly suit.
‘Yida?’ Wang says again.
Her slender neck is vaulted by tendons under her chin. Her head is still, her eyes refusing to look at him. Wang is exasperated. But he aches with tenderness for her too. For that same stubborn, headstrong spirit he fell in love with.
Echo does not join her mother in the pretence Wang isn’t there. She bounds out of the bedroom in her school uniform and frayed Young Pioneer’s scarf.
‘Ba, you’re back!’
She smiles, pleased to see him, but the nervous twitch of her lip betrays her anxiety. They stand by the table, messy with Echo’s comics and bubblegum wrappers, until Wang scrapes out a chair and they both sit. Wang sees Echo’s bleeding hangnails, the shredded skin peeled back with her teeth, and winces.
‘You must stop doing that,’ he says.
Echo curls her bloodied fingers into her palms and looks at her mother, her back turned against them. The fan breezes the curls back from Yida’s temples, as acrobats on trapezes perform for her on the TV stage. Echo looks back at her father, her young face wrought.
‘Ba,’ she says, ‘are you going away?’
‘I’m going to stay at Uncle Zhang’s for a few days.’
‘When will you come back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Tomorrow?’
‘Not tomorrow.’
‘Next week?’
‘I don’t know.’
Yida points the remote at the TV, tapping the volume up. Echo tugs at the frayed end of her Young Pioneer’s scarf.
‘When then?’
She bites her lower lip with her rabbit’s teeth as she waits for his answer. Wang can’t say when and is heartsick to be letting Echo down.
‘Don’t worry, Echo,’ he says. ‘I’ll see you often. Every day if you like.’
‘But it won’t be the same!’
‘You’ll get used to it.’
‘Why? Are you going to get divorced?’
Echo’s chin wobbles and tears prick her eyes. Where Yida comes from, a divorced woman is a failed and dissolute woman, and Wang doesn’t think she’ll divorce him. But what happens instead of divorce, he has no idea. Wang shakes his head. He reaches and squeezes Echo’s small hand on the table, hoping to reassure her.