Beijing Comrades (11 page)

“Hey you,” I said tenderly. “Slow down with the drinking.”

Lan Yu ignored me. “So when I got accepted to Huada, I borrowed a hundred yuan from one of my uncles in Hangzhou. Then I came to Beijing and met Liu Zheng. Then I met you.”

Lan Yu looked up at me with an abject smile. It didn't last long. “Fuck!” he shouted, slamming his glass on the table. “Why do I have such fucking bad luck all the time?” The explosion came out of nowhere. I couldn't help but wonder whether the bad luck he was referring to was his relationship with his father or with me.

“Stop drinking. You're going to get drunk.” I took the glass away from him.

“I'm fine. I'm not drunk,” he said, standing up and stumbling
to the bathroom. He leaned against the wall for support as he walked.

A few minutes later he came out of the bathroom and collapsed back onto the couch. He yawned loudly while reaching down to the floor to pick up his glass. He must have forgotten he was looking for it, though, because he immediately sunk back into the couch empty-handed and gazed at me with a dreamy look. “Wanna fool around?” he asked.

I shook my head. “I'm not in the mood.”

He closed his eyes as if he hadn't heard what I said. “No one's ever been this good to me since my mom died,” he muttered.

If someone had told me just a few months earlier how deeply those words would impact me, I wouldn't have believed them. He was talking about me!

Bright morning sunshine penetrated the window curtain and shot into the bedroom. It was well past eleven the following morning. We'd just woken up.

“My head . . .,” Lan Yu groaned, clutching his skull. “I drank so much last night.”

“You seemed okay to me,” I lied.

“I picked up all that beer for you, but I was the one who drank it all,” he said sheepishly, still rubbing his head. On the nightstand a steamed bun filled with red-bean paste sat, half-eaten, on a plate of crumbs. I had bought a dozen or so at the bakery in my mother's neighborhood. Lan Yu loved the way they made them. He had wanted one before bed, but passed out before finishing it.

I turned onto my side and looked at him, examining every inch of his face. His thick, dark eyebrows; his deep, pitch-black eyes; his long, sexy eyelashes. A speck of sleep was
caked in the corner of one eye. I pretended it was a crumb from the steamed bun.

Lan Yu didn't fail to notice the sweet and loving look I was giving him. He turned onto his side to face me and our fingers intertwined in the narrow space between us. “What?” he asked, kissing my hand.

“Nothing. Just looking at you.” I smiled.

“You're nuts!” he laughed, sounding like a true Beijinger.

“Yes, I'm nuts. I am truly nuts!” I pulled him close to me and kissed him gently on the lips. He smiled and pushed his nose against mine.

If there was one thing about Lan Yu, it's that he never failed to surprise me. Just as I was about to scoop him up and bombard his neck with kisses, he pulled away from me, shimmied down my body, and, without any warning whatsoever, took my flaccid dick in his mouth. It didn't take me long to get hard. Looking down, I took him in with my eyes, stroking his face and enjoying the dizzying feeling of his tongue rolling around under my foreskin. Unexpectedly, he pulled me out of his mouth and looked up at me with a peculiar expression.

“Handong . . .,” he said quietly.

I didn't realize it at the time, but Lan Yu had seen something strange in my eyes.

“Keep going, baby,” I said nonchalantly, as I sunk the back of my head deeper into the pillow. I closed my eyes and a battle raged inside. I wanted to show him what I felt, but I myself wasn't sure what it was.

It was rare for me to orally pleasure Lan Yu. But at that moment I wanted to, needed to. Perhaps it was the only way I knew how to express my feelings at the time. Perhaps it was because of the way he had exposed so much of himself the night before. Whatever the reason, I pulled him upward until
his waist hovered above me, then I guided him into my mouth. I pulled him out just before he came and his cum splashed across my lips.

After he came, Lan Yu began traveling back down to the lower half of my body. He wanted to suck me again, but I stopped him, pulling him back up to kiss my cum-covered lips. I looked into his eyes and saw a vague air of guilt, probably because I hadn't climaxed yet. He changed positions once more, this time getting on his knees. He was trying to tell me I could fuck him.

“I don't have to come,” I whispered into his ear. “I just want to hold you.”

It was rare for me not to feel like having sex. But I couldn't stop thinking about everything he'd told me the night before. Not just the stuff about his family. He also said he was afraid he was turning into a degenerate. That he couldn't change. He said he was terrified that his professors and classmates would be able to see who or what he really was, that it was only with me that he could truly be himself. He said there was nothing that could save him now, nothing that could make him return to his old life.

Lan Yu couldn't blame me for what was happening. If it was I who had dragged him into the water to begin with, now it was he who was pulling me in deeper. I looked down at his angelic face as he fell asleep in my arms. Pull me in! I thought. I'm the one who started this; this is what I get.

But then I thought about my dead father and grieving mother. How could I be their son and be with Lan Yu at the same time?

Ten

By May that year, social tensions were escalating. The democracy movement swept through universities and surrounding neighborhoods like wildfire, not only in Beijing, but in hundreds of cities across China. At the height of the protests, students and workers were erecting barricades to hold back People's Liberation Army troops. The army circled the city to beat back demonstrators, who had come together to express their dissatisfaction with the slow pace of reform and quickly numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

On April 27 Lan Yu abruptly announced that he and his classmates were planning a student walkout. On May 13 he informed me that there was going to be a hunger strike. He bubbled over with excitement as he spoke.

“Are you guys out of your fucking minds?” I asked, turning a corner near Xuanwumen Station. We were in the car on the way to dinner. “Just not happy with things being okay the way they are, huh?” I looked to my right and saw Lan Yu in the passenger seat, scowling at me like a kid who'd just been scolded by his dad.

“You used to be a student, Handong. You of all people should appreciate the urgency of this!”

I couldn't believe his naïveté. “Listen,” I said, suppressing my laughter. “If students are as concerned about the nation as they say they are, they should just keep studying. And us businessmen? We should just keep doing business.” I meant this and he knew it, but I deliberately adopted a blithe tone because I didn't feel like getting into an argument.

Lan Yu raised his hands in exasperation. “People like you are parasites of the nation!” he shouted. He meant this, too, but there was also the faintest hint of irony in his voice, as if he knew he was parodying an outdated revolutionary language. Like me, he was adept at saying what he meant while softening the delivery. That's how we avoided fights.

“Well, fortunately for me,” I replied, “this isn't the Cultural Revolution. If we were back in those days, you'd probably ferret me out and parade me through the streets for a public denunciation. Sorry, mister, this is 1989, not 69!” I laughed.

He smiled and kissed my right hand, which he'd been holding in his lap since the beginning of the conversation. My eyes were glued to the road in front of me, but I could feel his gaze on my face.

“Listen,” he continued, suddenly sounding serious, “if this movement continues to grow, could it have a negative impact on you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, it could,” I clowned, unwilling to dignify his sober question with a sober answer. “If my company collapses because of this, I could end up a street beggar. I don't have any other skills!”

“Don't worry,” he said, grinning from ear to ear. “If anything happens to you, I'll take care of you!” The idea of taking care of me seemed to please him immensely.

“Hell no,” I said. “I'd
rather
be a beggar!”

Up until that point, Lan Yu had been a good sport and had readily gone along with my playful banter. But now he stared out the window, a worried look on his face.

“Hey,” I said, dispensing with my silliness once and for all. “Just don't get sucked in too deep, okay? Something bad could happen. I mean, really, look at the Cultural Revolution. What good came of that?”

“I know,” he said, pulling his gaze from the window and looking at me again. “I won't, I promise. I'm not even participating in the hunger strike. I'm just a sympathizer.” He lifted my hand and pressed it against his cheek.

And so it was that all across Beijing students were “making revolution.” According to Lan Yu, however, some students were less interested in making revolution than in taking advantage of other people's revolution so they could skip class and do their own thing. He told me there were three distinct “parties” on campus that benefited from the student walkout.

The first were the “Trotskyites.” They weren't really Trotskyites. They were just called that because, in Chinese, “Trotsky Party” sounded like “TOEFL Party.” Those were the TOEFL maniacs, the students who spent all their free time studying for the Test of English as a Foreign Language, usually to get into a good study-abroad or graduate program. Relieved of their class duties, members of the Trotsky Party were free to spend the duration of the student walkout studying for their impending English exams.

The second group of opportunists was the “Mahjong Party”—the students who, if given the chance, would be happy to do nothing but play mahjong all day. So when the revolution came, that was what they did.

And finally there was the “Butterfly and Mandarin Duck
Party.” Those were the couples, the students in love, who were not likely to complain about having additional time to gaze into each other's eyes.

I tried to make Lan Yu confess he was part of the Butterfly and Mandarin Duck Party, but he insisted he wasn't. That party, he told me, was strictly for “serious” couples. I didn't say anything, but it wasn't lost on me that he obviously felt that what we had was nothing more than an illicit affair, a secret pleasure stolen in the night.

The truth was that what we called ourselves—what we called this thing we had—didn't matter anymore. The only thing that mattered was that we were together nearly every day at this point. Classes at universities across Beijing were effectively suspended, and Lan Yu had a great deal of free time on his hands. When we weren't in bed, most of our time was spent dining in restaurants. I was cautious about this latter activity, though, frequently changing locations so we wouldn't be seen together often.

I knew a few gay spots, but never took him to any. There were no real gay bars in Beijing in those days, just private parties and a few hotels whose bars were known to be gay meeting points. None of the bars openly called themselves gay, nor could they, but it was common knowledge that many of the patrons were. In some cases management knew this, but turned a blind eye as long as things stayed discreet. It didn't matter anyway, because taking Lan Yu to these places was out of the question. To me he was like a perfect piece of jade: flawless, absolutely unblemished. Taking him out to enjoy Beijing's incipient gay nightlife would have been tantamount to inviting other guys to go after him.

Although I never took Lan Yu to gay places, I took him to plenty of straight ones. One night we went to a karaoke
bar where the working girls provided the “three accompaniments.” The first accompaniment referred to chatting, the second to singing, and the third to drinking or fucking, depending on the girl's character and which bar you happened to be at. I deliberately chose a young and very innocent looking girl to accompany Lan Yu, and she spent the evening chatting, singing, and drinking with him. She was a nice girl and I thought we were having a great time, but Lan Yu looked uncomfortable the whole night. When we stepped out of the bar and into the street, I smiled and poked him in the ribcage.

“What's the matter? Did she scare you?”

“No, I just wasn't into her.”

“You need to practice being with girls!” I said with a laugh, placing emphasis on the word
girls
as if this would somehow make him see the patent obviousness of what I was saying. “Otherwise, how are you going to find a wife?”

Lan Yu shoved his hands in his pockets and pinned his gaze to the sidewalk before us. I knew him well enough to know what silence meant. He was upset.

“Look,” I continued, “you're young now, but pretty soon you're going to have to start thinking about these things.”

This only aggravated him further. Abruptly, he halted on the sidewalk and gripped my shoulder to make me slow down. “Why do we have to get married?” he asked in a fraught voice. “Aren't things fine the way they are now? What's wrong with what we have?”

I gave him a conciliatory smile but didn't say anything in response. It wasn't that I didn't know the answer to his question. I did. I knew exactly what was wrong with what we had. But I didn't tell him because I didn't want to fight about it, especially not in public.

Lan Yu continued brooding about it as we walked toward
the car. Ahead of us a young Uyghur was selling lamb kebabs at a grill parked on the sidewalk. The rich smell of mutton and spice after so much beer was too great a temptation to pass up, so we stopped and bought thirty wooden sticks. The Uyghur's Mandarin wasn't great, but he was friendly and chatted with us as we stood eating under the stars. Lan Yu didn't feel like small talk, though. The instant we left he asked me in a deep whisper, as if afraid the street vendor might overhear, “Do you want to get married?”

“Of course I do!” I laughed. “Maybe I'll go out and find me a nice little lady this weekend!” He was visibly hurt by my flippant comment, which I'd made for no reason but to avoid the subject. But I just didn't feel like getting into it with him. It was my fault for having brought up marriage to begin with.

It was past midnight when we got to the car, which I'd parked in an open lot on the roof of a building. It was dark and quiet, and our footsteps knocked loudly on the concrete rooftop, which was empty except for a handful of lonely cars waiting patiently for their owners. Aside from the moonlight, the only visible light was a flickering glow emanating from the window of a tiny Public Security booth perched near the top of the staircase. Inside, a guard sat fast asleep in front of a small black-and-white TV. A comedic performance was playing, and soft peals of audience laughter erupted periodically and floated into the night sky. Apart from the three of us, there wasn't a soul around.

I couldn't see Lan Yu's face clearly in the dark, but I could sense that there was something wrong. He stopped abruptly and turned to face me.

“Handong,” he said after taking a deep breath. “I'm not getting married. There's no turning back for me.”

He stood close to me, so close that I could smell the familiar scent of his breath when he spoke. I felt the tension rise in my chest as I fought the urge to throw myself into his arms. I never would have thought I could have done this in public, but in one rapid motion I grabbed him and held him tight. The words raced through my mind—There's no turning back for me either!—though I couldn't bring myself to say them. I knew in my heart Lan Yu was becoming my world.

I pulled him closer and pressed my lips against his, and I suddenly realized that this was the first time we had ever kissed in public. I remember thinking we should have been on a tropical beach, on the highest mountaintop, or in a beautiful clearing of trees. We should have been surrounded by a halo of sunshine. But there was only darkness.

On the morning of June 3 I had barely stepped into my office and had my first sip of tea when I received a call from Cai Ming, a professor friend who informed me in intonations befitting a radio crime drama that tonight was the night the students were going to act. I asked him how he knew for sure.

“Believe me,” he said. “It's 99 percent accurate.”

The announcement didn't come as a surprise. Given the way tensions had been brewing the past couple of days, I was actually shocked the students hadn't acted sooner.

A few hours later, my mother called to tell me that under no circumstances was I to go outside that night. She was distressed about activities taking place in the streets, so I tried playing it down by assuring her that nothing was going to happen.

“Besides,” I said, “what would I go out for? I'm not interested in stirring up any trouble.”

I hung up the phone and immediately called Ephemeros.
When Lan Yu picked up the phone I told him he was not to even think about going outside. We argued about it for a while before he finally agreed. But two hours later, at around 5:30 p.m., he called to say something big was happening. He and a classmate were heading to Tian'anmen Square.

I lost my temper when I heard this. “You are not going out tonight!” I shouted, stretching the phone cord so I could close my office door for privacy.

“We're just going to check it out! I'll be home later tonight.”

“No! I'm telling you, Lan Yu, something bad is going to happen!”

“How do you know?”

“Believe me. It's 100 percent accurate,” I said, deliberately inflating Cai Ming's initial assessment.

“Well, I'm going.”

“What's gotten into you, Lan Yu?” I was angry. But I was also worried.

“I'll be back before ten, Handong! I'll be careful, I promise.” He had clearly made up his mind. Why was he suddenly being so goddamn stubborn? I hung up the phone and rushed out of the office, telling my secretary to cancel my six o'clock.

There were very few people outside and most of the shops had closed earlier than usual. An eerie silence hung in the air as I soared past one of the many clusters of apartment buildings that had popped up in recent years. An old man in a beige cardigan stood on a balcony. With a cigarette in his mouth and a wire clothesline above him, he tended to a potted flower while a girl stood at his side watching attentively. It was a vision of normalcy in a city on the verge of chaos.

I was home in fifteen minutes, but it was too late. Lan Yu was gone. This, I thought angrily, is the so-called “benefit” of being with a guy. They just do whatever they want!

With Lan Yu nowhere in sight, I had no choice but to return to the streets and look for him there. I drove aimlessly at first, passing large groups of people one moment and empty streets the next, hoping that by the grace of some miracle I would see him. The mood outside was tense. After what felt like an eternity, I finally parked the car and sat down, exhausted, near the main gate of Tianda University, which was kilometers from Tian'anmen but not one bit lacking in demonstrators. Rubbing my temples, I told myself that I had been stupid to imagine I would just magically stumble across Lan Yu in a city of this size. I glanced at my watch. A quarter past eleven. I'd been driving for five hours.