Beijing Comrades (16 page)

When I asked him what it felt like to be in treatment, his reply was always the same: “Nothing.” He had become empty, hollow.

One Monday morning, I went to Dr. Shi's office to inquire about Lan Yu's progress. Reclining in his black leather swivel chair, the psychiatrist asked me if he could be frank. I told him he could, and with great calmness and patience he gave me his assessment. Not only, he said, was Lan Yu perverted in his psychosexual orientation, but he also suffered from paranoia and severe depression. Most alarming of all, he added, was that the patient was not cooperating with therapy.

“The outcome of the first stage of therapy has been less than ideal. My recommendation moving forward is that we try hormonal injections. This will help him
blah blah blah
,” Dr. Shi went on glibly.

“Hormonal injections?” I exclaimed when he finally finished what he had to say. The words came out as a shout. “No, we can't do that.” I couldn't accept the idea of injecting hormones into someone who was basically healthy, at least physically.

“Well,” the doctor said, crossing his legs authoritatively,
“there
are
other options. For example, we could have him look at images of nude men—perhaps even a picture of you—while applying a . . . um . . . a sort of stimulus. The idea, of course, would be to create a conditioned reflex of pain that would be associated with the image.”

“What kind of stimulus?” I asked.

“Well, we would start with a mild electroshock therapy.”

“No!” I said resolutely. “Absolutely not!”

I'll never know if it was Dr. Shi's convictions about the dangers posed to society by homosexuality, or simply because he felt guilty about the exorbitant fees he charged me, but he continued to give me other suggestions. One by one, I dismissed them all.

In the days that followed, I puzzled endlessly over Dr. Shi's explanations of Lan Yu's condition. I recalled what the doctor had asked me the first time we met: “Are you in love with him or are you just looking for a little fun?” My reply was full of hems and haws, but I ultimately told him I was only looking for a little fun.

“Then there's nothing to worry about!” he said cheerfully. “You're obviously not a homosexual. You just don't have a serious outlook on life.”

On the surface of things, Dr. Shi's words made sense. But then I kept thinking. By his logic, anytime I messed around with a girl without falling in love, it would just be me “not having a serious outlook on life.” It would only be if I fell in love with a girl that one could say I was truly heterosexual. But I had never been in love with a woman. So what did this make me?

I also thought about what the doctor said about Lan Yu: that he saw himself as a girl. Without doubt, in some ways Lan Yu's longing for me was like a woman's love. He had always
been very sensitive, delicate, loving. But he was also a person with deep self-respect, who always stood on his own two feet, who was strong and tenacious and brave. Those are qualities both men and women can have.

After spending most of the day at the office thinking about Dr. Shi and the therapy, I decided to give Lan Yu a call. I asked him to come to my office so we could go play pool when I got off work. More importantly, I wanted to talk to him about something, though I didn't mention it on the phone. At first he said he was busy and couldn't leave the house. Then he said he felt sick and wanted to go to bed early. When these excuses didn't work, he agreed to come see me.

“Where are we going?” he asked as he walked into my office and plunked down on the couch.

“Where do you want to go?” I asked.

“Wherever.” His voice was languid and he eyed me suspiciously from the couch.

“Are you going to see Dr. Shi tomorrow?”

“Day after tomorrow.”

“Well, don't go, okay?” I said, mindlessly moving some paperwork around on my desk.

“Why not?”

“Just because. Don't go anymore from now on, either. It's putting you through too much.”

A great big smile stretched across Lan Yu's face. He jumped up from the couch and pounced on me, hugging and kissing me with every ounce of energy he had.

“Are you out of your mind?” I said with a laugh as I pushed him off of me. “I'm at work!”

My absurd attempt at curing Lan Yu of his homosexuality died right there in my office. Before long, his original spirit was restored and I finally saw that smile—sweet, radiant, beautiful
—that I had come to know and love. He also started eating again. Having weathered this storm, his attachment to me felt even deeper than before. And yet, this was exactly what worried me.

Seventeen

One weekend, business called and I had to head south for a trip. First Hong Kong, then Hainan Island. Lin Ping insisted on seeing me off at the airport.

“You have to be careful in Hong Kong,” she exhorted as we said goodbye at the boarding gate. “Anytime you go outside or drive or do anything, just be really careful!”

“I'll be fine,” I assured her with a squeeze of the hand. “I go to Hong Kong all the time!”

“I know,” she said with an air of resignation. She pulled her hand away from mine and reached into the pocket of her jeans to produce a delicate box made of heavy, decorated paper. “This is jade,” she said solemnly. “My grandma gave it to me—my mom's mom. She told me an eminent monk had touched it and that it can ward off evil. Here, take it.” Lin Ping placed the box in the palm of my hand.

I opened the box. Inside sat a rectangular, emerald-green stone with a splash of red in the center. It looked like a baby heart gently throbbing in a sea of green. On the back was engraved a single character:
Lin.

“Thank you,” I said, looking into Lin Ping's misty eyes then giving her a big hug. I had no idea whether the piece of jade could chase away evil, but I couldn't deny that I was moved by the gesture.

In Hong Kong I went to a jeweler in Chungking Mansions and had Lin Ping's gift put on a gold chain. On a whim, I also had it appraised: the mild-mannered Cantonese jeweler pulled out a magnifying loupe and after just a few moments told me in heavily accented Mandarin that the jade was of the highest quality. A rush of guilt came over me. I hadn't given a single thing of real value to Lin Ping, and here she was gifting me an exquisite gemstone. Stepping into a bar in Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong District, I recalled what Liu Zheng had said about her: she was the kind of woman no man could resist.

Ten days later, I called Lan Yu to tell him I would be returning to Beijing in a week. The truth was, I was coming back from Hainan that very day. Arriving at the airport, I descended the plane to the tarmac. Looking up at the terminal building in front of me, I saw Lin Ping's hazy figure hovering in the window above. She waved and smiled. I opened my shirt collar and held up the jade pendant for her to see.

Inside the building I greeted her with a big hug. She wore a tight white T-shirt with a scandalously low neckline and a pair of jean shorts. All tits and legs. She looked great.

“Let me take you to dinner!” I said once we were settled in the car. “I know a great place.”

“Don't you ever go anywhere other than restaurants?” she asked in baffled amazement. It was true that at this point in our relationship, nearly all our time together had been spent in hotels and restaurants. We decided to go to Ephemeros.

Lan Yu and I had long since moved our belongings out of
Ephemeros and into Tivoli. Apart from furniture and a couple of kitchen appliances, the old apartment was basically empty. When Lin Ping and I got there, we were only inside for a few moments before I started to feel uneasy. It was strange for me to be with her in that space.

“All right, you've seen it. Let's go eat!” I said playfully, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her back outside toward the car.

“Hey, not so fast,” she protested. “Why don't we just pick up a few things and cook here? We'll have a nicer meal that way—tastier, too!” When I reluctantly agreed, she gave me a shopping list, and I went downstairs to the little vegetable market on the east side of the residential compound. When I came back, she whipped up two dishes and a soup in thirty minutes flat.

She couldn't help but laugh when she saw my uncouth table manners. “How's my cooking?” she asked.

“Nectar for the gods!” I sputtered, chomping on a plate of stir-fried prawns. Her cooking was, in fact, very good—much better than anything one would find at a restaurant.

“Did your mom cook much at home?” she asked.

“The maid did most of the cooking when I was growing up,” I replied. “Ma only made a couple of special dishes. Her Beijing-style shredded pork was fantastic. And her stir-fried cucumbers—oh my god, so good!”

“Really?” Lin Ping cooed across the table. “If she has time, I hope the dear old lady will teach me to make stir-fried cucumbers just like she does.”

I knew that if I were to take Lin Ping home, the “dear old lady” would leap with joy. Lin Ping was a paragon of womanly virtue. As a son, this would be the greatest happiness I could give my mother.

This woman! I thought, gazing at her from across the table.
Lin Ping: poised and graceful, great in bed, and overflowing with all the virtues a woman should have in the home. Without question, I was going marry her. It was time for Lan Yu and me to have a talk.

A week after returning to Beijing, I removed Lin Ping's necklace and went back to Tivoli. Instead of giving me a hello kiss, Lan Yu grumbled that I hadn't called first.

On the third day of my return, I finally built up enough courage to have the talk I'd been waiting for. Lan Yu was busy at work in the bedroom we had converted into his work studio. When I tiptoed through the door, he briefly turned around to glance at me, then went back to his drawing.

“What's up?” he asked with his back to me. “You scared me.”

“Lan Yu, I'd like to talk with you about something.”

When I first stepped into Lan Yu's studio, his voice had been neutral, indifferent. But now he turned around in his chair and looked at me attentively. Judging from the earnestness in his eyes, I could tell he knew it was something big. “What is it?” he asked.

I took a deep breath and resolved to be blunt. “Lan Yu, I'm getting married. And I've found the right girl.”

Lan Yu stared at me in silence. It was a look I knew all too well, the same one he had given me over two years earlier when I had cruelly told him I was sick of him and didn't want to see him anymore. Fear, despair, hopelessness. These were the emotions written on his face.

I was as hard hit by Lan Yu's reaction as he'd been by the news I'd given him. It was hard for me to see him so immersed in anguish. I myself couldn't believe it, but I suddenly felt I was going to cry.

“You knew this day was coming sooner or later, Lan Yu,” I
said, looking down at the floor. He remained silent. I couldn't bear his silence.

“Lan Yu!” I continued. “Things can stay exactly as they are! The only difference will be that I'll have a wife!” I looked up from the floor with a pleading look on my face. This was my promise to him. And it was something that I truly believed could work.

Lan Yu looked at me with eyes full of tears and lips that trembled. He quickly tore his eyes away from me, however, shifting his gaze to the ceiling as he pushed a knuckle under a puffy eyelid to hold back the tears. He had never been the kind of guy who cried easily.

After what seemed like an eternity he looked at me again, this time with firm resolution in his eyes. There was also a trace of bitterness.

“When you made me go into therapy I knew this was the reason,” he said, forcing out a laugh to conceal his tears. I couldn't bear seeing him this way, so I took his hand and lifted him out of the chair. I held him close to me.

“I don't like it either, Lan Yu,” I said, kissing him with lips that were, by now, as trembling and dripping with tears as his. “But I have no choice!”

Lan Yu gripped the back of my head and pressed his cheek firmly against mine. His tongue touched my face softly, catching tears as they rolled down my cheeks.

We stood this way for a while, holding each other and periodically peppering each other's faces with soft kisses. Unexpectedly, Lan Yu pulled away from me and turned around to grab the box of tissues resting on the mahogany drafting table behind him. With comic incongruity, he blew his nose loudly, then handed me a tissue of my own. I blew my nose too, and
we laughed and stood there in his studio, laughing and crying at the same time. A good deal of time passed, and he leaned into me with a kiss.

We stripped off our shirts, slowly, gently, without any sense of urgency. Lan Yu clasped his hands against my shoulders and pushed me downward. Together we descended to the carpeted floor of his studio, where we lay as he gently kissed my neck, my chest, my nipples. I gasped in pleasure, but when he went down farther, there was nothing I could do: my dick hung lifelessly between my legs. Eager to excite me, Lan Yu played with my cock for a while, but no matter what he did the idea of sex just wouldn't move from thought to action. Thinking a new strategy might work, I went down on him, but he was just as limp as I was. Just as I was about to abandon the idea of sex altogether, he suddenly motioned for me to stop. With a look of discomfort, he twisted his arm around and pulled out an eraser that was wedged between his back and the floor. We looked at each other and laughed.

We didn't need to have sex. At least I didn't. All I needed was to know that he was mine, to have the peace of mind of knowing we were going to be together. But peace of mind was nowhere to be found. How could it be, when everything was about to change?

In the middle of the night, we awoke to the sound of the wind blowing outside. Shadows of leaves fluttered through the windows and danced on the curtains like ghosts. In the darkness we started to make love all over again. This time it was beautiful, powerful. We shared something no words could express, but we intimately understood. Our future was uncertain, and our lovemaking was filled with hopelessness and despair.

After we had both climaxed, Lan Yu sat up in bed. I rested my head in his lap, gazing up at him, lazing dreamily in the serenity of the postorgasmic afterglow.

“Well, I guess everything turned out better than I thought it would,” Lan Yu said suddenly with a gentle smile.

“What did?”

“I was sure you were going to end things between us.”

I looked up at his fluttering black eyelashes and lush red lips. “I could never do that,” I said. And yet, we both knew it was far from settled what would happen after I got married. However nice my words might have sounded, even I wasn't convinced.