Hour of the Rat

CHAPTER FOUR

THIS IS SO MESSED up.

I’ve had almost a year of things being pretty good. Okay, better than pretty good. This last year’s been the best year I’ve had… well, in a long time. It’s just that even when things are going great, I’m half expecting something to get FUBAR, so it’s hard for me to realize that things are great until they aren’t again.

I walk down the cracked sidewalk outside the hotel, scanning the street for a taxi. There don’t seem to be many here in Bumfuck South Beijing. So I just keep putting one foot in front of the other, following the trail of yellow pavers with the raised vertical ribs. Almost every sidewalk in every Chinese city I’ve ever been in has these things. Somebody told me they’re for the blind. I’m like, Are there really that many blind people in China? But what else would they be for?

“Yili…”

“Fuck off, John.”

He’s pulled alongside me in a silver car, a new Toyota. “Yili, let me give you a ride home.”

I shake my head and keep walking. I’m so pissed off I don’t trust myself to speak.

“Please,” he says. “I need to talk to you.”

I halt in my tracks. Throw up my hands. “Okay.”

Because I guess I should hear what he has to say. It’s probably all bullshit, but I’m better off knowing whatever lie he’s going to tell me this time around.

We drive for a while in silence. I stare out the window, at the trucks heaped with vegetables trundling down the road to the big gate.

“They go to Xinfadi Agricultural Products Wholesale Market,” he says. “This one market has seventy percent of vegetables for Beijing. Eighty percent of fruit.”

“Thanks for sharing.”

“Yili, you know I couldn’t tell you the truth before.”

“What I know is that you lied to me. You pretended to be my friend, you pretended to be Lao Zhang’s friend. And the whole time you’re just some… some fucking nark, with your fake tragic-dissident sister and your lies about giving a shit and wanting to change things.”

He gives me his squinty-eyed, puzzled look, which I have seen many times, only a few of which when he was actually confused. “Nark?”

“Spy. You’re a spy. For a bunch of… of…”

I let my head fall against the seat back. What’s the point of even caring? It’s not like this is some big surprise.

“It’s not so simple,” he mumbles.

“Oh, really? You spied on me for the DSD. How fucking complicated is that?”

His hands grip the steering wheel until the knuckles whiten, then relax.

“I don’t tell them everything.”

You know, I’d like to believe him. I really would. He saved my ass on the road that time-tried to anyway-and got the shit kicked out of him for his trouble. That means something, right?

I wish I knew what.

By now we’re approaching the Second Ring Road. Funny, where they took me wasn’t as far away as I’d thought. It was just the traffic that made it seem like another city.

“So let’s hear it,” I finally say. “Your story, whatever you’re going to tell me.”

He slowly nods.

“They worried about Zhang Jianli and Mati Village. That maybe this place can form the basis of some opposition. Cause some troubles. So, they have people watching them, for a long time. Then, you. They know you spend time with Zhang Jianli. They know about your husband, about the people he works for. They think, maybe the US government helps Zhang Jianli, to do things against China.”

“But none of that’s true!” I protest. “Lao Zhang’s not involved with the American government. And he isn’t political.”

“Doesn’t matter,” John says quietly. “He thinks political thoughts, maybe he expresses them in his work, and he brings people together with different kinds of ideas. Maybe this frightens them.”

I want to laugh. “Frightens the big bad Party? Really? A bunch of artists doing performance pieces about… about stacking up bricks? Walking cabbages on a dog leash?”

“Maybe it’s something that they don’t understand. And they are nervous.” John sighs. “Many things going on right now. The change in party leadership happens next year. They worry, too, about the economic situation. The prices of things, food and houses, the unemployment. The… the laobaixing, the common people, might get angry.”

Food’s gone way up the last couple of years, and it doesn’t seem to matter how many houses they build, how many apartment blocks; there are entire empty cities of new houses that no one lives in and hardly anyone can afford to buy.

Yeah, people might get angry.

“Then…” And here John’s voice drops down a notch. “There are the Jasmine movements.”

I’m not surprised to hear him mention them. Ever since people started taking to the streets in the Middle East and overthrowing governments and all, the government here’s been a little on edge. China’s not Egypt, everyone says, but they’re still nervous about it. Especially since someone or a bunch of someones started tweeting and posting, “We want food, we want jobs, we want houses!” And called for people to protest by “taking a stroll” on Sunday afternoons around places like the McDonald’s at Wangfujing. Don’t carry signs, don’t chant slogans, just smile and “take a stroll.” And maybe buy a burger.

So the last couple of Sundays, the police have been out en masse, trying to shut down a protest, and then not knowing if one is actually happening, with a bunch of journalists and cameras documenting the whole thing. It’s kind of funny in a way: The government freaking out about protests that might not be protests. Chasing ghosts.

A little like performance art, when I think about it.

I feel a shiver, all the way down to my bones.

“Okay, the government’s nervous. So you spied on Lao Zhang, and you spied on me. What did you tell your bosses? That we’re plotting to overthrow the party? That I’m some kind of spy?”

“No,” John says quietly. “I tell them you just wanted to help your friend. That’s all.”

By this point we’ve reached the little alley where my apartment complex is. Of course John doesn’t need to ask directions.

“What happens now?” I ask.

“Maybe nothing.”

We turn into the hutong. Get about halfway to my place and have to stop because a guy with a bicycle cart full of bricks and scrap blocks the road. John hits the horn, a flash of the anger he usually hides coming to the surface.

“Nothing?”

“Maybe they believe you. And me.”

“If they don’t?”

“Maybe they want to talk to you again.”

“Great.”

The bicycle cart still hasn’t moved, its driver leaning against it, talking to another worker who’s loading a couple more bricks on the bed. John lays on the horn, rolls down the window. “Ni xia ya?” he yells. Are you blind?

“Cao ni ma de bi,” the cart driver says. In other words, “Your mama.” He doesn’t move.

“Look, you can drop me here,” I say, my hand already on the door handle.

“I think I should come up to your apartment. Just to… to check things.”

“Why? So you can tap my phone or something?”

John punches the horn again. “Sha bi,” he mutters. Dumb fuck. Turns to me, eyes hard, jaw tight. “Yili, they look at a lot of people right now. Maybe they decide you aren’t so important. But if someone watches you for them, you should hope that it’s me.”

I hesitate.

And think, What difference does it make? If John’s going to do something, plant a bug or something like that, he’ll do it anyway.

The guy hops on the bike, practically stands on the pedals to get it moving, pulls out of the way.

“Okay. Fine.”

We roll up to the gate, where the security guard sits in the box reading a paper and drinking tea and waves us through without a glance.

John parks the car. He hesitates, letting the motor idle, his hand on the key. “Yili,” he says, “they maybe don’t even trust me. That’s why… it’s good how you answered them today. Because this is what I tell them also.”

And I’m supposed to believe this?

I don’t know if he’s playing a game or, if he is, what level we’re on.

I BARELY GET MY key in the door before my mom opens it. I see the strain in her face turn to relief in an instant, and she reaches out and gathers me into her arms. “Oh, honey, I was so worried. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I say. “It wasn’t a big deal.”

I don’t want to be hugged. Don’t want to feel how upset she is. I don’t want to feel anything right now.

She glances up, peers over my shoulder. “Oh, who’s this?”

“John,” I say, stepping out of her embrace. “John, this is Cindy. My mom.”

“You are Yili’s mother?”

I swear to God, he blushes, like this is high school and we’ve been on a date and are maybe getting back a little after curfew. “Very pleased to meet you.”

He takes a hesitant step across the threshold.

“Well, pleased to meet you, too, John.” My mom may be a flake when it comes to the Jesus stuff and the men in her life, but she’s not stupid, and the way she’s standing, shoulders tilted back, arms crossed, she’s suspicious. “How do you two know each other?”

“We met last year, at a party.” He ducks his head, convincingly embarrassed, and if I didn’t know better, I’d swear he was this nice, awkward guy wanting to make a good impression on his date’s mother. “We have traveled a little together.”

“Oh, how nice.” She gives him a long, appraising look. “I don’t think Ellie’s told me about you.”

“Kind of a crazy time,” I mutter.

“Would you like some tea, John?” my mom asks.

I snort. “He likes jasmine,” I say. “Excuse me.”

I go into the bathroom. Splash some cold water on my face. Sit on the toilet, my head in my hands. My gut’s killing me, and my leg hurts like hell, and I wonder if I take a Percocet, is that going to make me puke?

I decide I don’t care.

I check my phone. There’s a text waiting for me that I missed somehow, probably while I was drinking tea.

RETURNING TO BEIJING TOMORROW, it says. IF YOU CAN MEET, LET ME KNOW.

TOMORROW IS FINE, I text back. THE TEA WAS INTERESTING.

WHEN I COME OUT of the bathroom, John and my mom are sitting at the little table in my living room sipping tea. My mom’s smiling and stretching out her hand across the table, like she’s going to pat his. John sits in the chair, torso straight, his hands resting parallel to each other on either side of his teacup.

“It was nice of you to bring her home all this way, John.”

“Oh, it wasn’t so far,” John says, smiling and nodding.

“I didn’t know that Yili was your Chinese name,” she says to me.

“Guess it hasn’t come up.”

Shit, I think. Are the three of us really going to sit here and drink tea? John, my mom, and me?

Fuck the tea. I need a beer.

I grab a cold Yanjing from the fridge, open it, and sit at the table.

“Honey,” my mom says, “you’ve barely had a thing to eat today.” She turns to John. “I was going to make tacos. That’s Mexican food.”

“Ah. I will let you have your dinner, then.” With that he rises. “Yili, may I call you this week? We can… go eat dumplings, if you would like.”

How am I supposed to answer this?

“Sure… if I’m in town,” I finally say. “I was thinking about taking a little trip. You know, a vacation. To someplace warm.”

John’s eyes narrow. “I see,” he says. “Yes. Leaving Beijing this time of year can be a good idea. But call me. Maybe I can make some suggestions.”

AFTER HE LEAVES, MY mom starts working on the tacos. “Are you really taking a vacation?” she asks as she rubs spices onto the beef.

“I dunno,” I mumble. “Probably not. It was just something to say.”

“Don’t you like him?”

“He’s okay. It’s complicated.”

She gives me a look. “Is he married?”

“No. He had a fiancée, but they broke up.”

This, I’m pretty sure, is actually true.

“So how did the two of you meet?”

“At a party, like he said.”

“Huh.” She grabs the big knife and starts chopping, the blade hitting the cutting board with a thunk only slightly muffled by its passing through the meat. “He told me that the whole thing with the police was a misunderstanding.”

I don’t want to lie to my mom. I’m also not sure if I want to play this game with John, the one where I’m supposed to trust him.

But the last thing I want is my mom freaking out about shit-this tends to make my own freak-outs worse.

“Yeah, it looks that way.”

“Well, he seems like a nice young man.” Whack. A little smile. “And really cute.”

My mom likes Creepy John.

Meaning I should stay far, far away from him.