Dragon Day (30 page)

“How did you find me?”

“Your friend Harrison tells me you go to Guilin today. He didn't think you take the early train, and this is the other fast one. If not, the other two are later. So I just could wait.”

It's a nice gesture, but I feel like I'm missing part of the story.

“When did you get out?” I ask.

“A few days ago.” He sips his coffee and makes a face. Lao Zhang always did like good coffee, which this isn't.

I'm starting to feel something now. It might be anger. “Why didn't you call me?”

He shakes his head. He won't look at me. He takes another sip of coffee.

“I didn't feel good,” he says.

I study him. If anything, he's thinner than he was at Tiananmen. The flesh around his eyes looks bruised with fatigue.

We got him out, but who knows what happened to him while he was inside?

“I'm sorry,” I say. “Are you
. . .
?”

I don't even know what to ask.

“
Hai keyi.
I'm okay.” He fiddles with packet of sugar. Taps some into his coffee. “You just feel very small, when they take you.”

I shake my head. I don't get it. “You knew what would happen if you came back,” I say. “Why? Why did you do it?”

“I don't know.” He shrugs and laughs a little. “I thought this system, it is completely corrupt. The Party is brutal, and cruel, and it only cares about its own interests, not about the
laobaixing
. The common people. If I believe what I believe, then I have to confront this.”

And then he does look at me. He smiles. His eyes seem lost in their dark-circled beds. “Now I think maybe you are right. It is just
. . .
ego. Wanting to be a big man. Artists all think what we do is so important. But maybe it's only important to ourselves.”

“No,” I say. “No.” And for once I'm sure of what I'm saying. “It
is
important. What you're doing
. . .
You're calling out the bullshit. Bringing it into the light. Helping people get together, because maybe they think it's bullshit, too, but they aren't going to be the first people to stand up and say it. Or they're not really sure what it is, but they see what you do and they go, ‘Yeah. This isn't right.'”

He laughs again. “I don't think so.”

“Look, if it wasn't important, they wouldn't have gone after you the way they did.”

He sits there sipping his coffee. Thinking it over.

“I hope you are right,” he finally says. “Sometimes I think they just don't want to take any chances. Easier to consider that everything is a threat. ”

“You can't make people believe things forever, not when they see that every day they're being told lies.” I'm thinking of John when I say this.

He nods, like his head's too heavy to hold up.

“Where are you going now, Yili?” he asks.

“Yangshuo for a couple of days. After that
. . .
I'm not sure.”

He nods again. Sips his coffee. He looks so lost. He was the place that used to feel like home to me, if only for a little while. He's not that guy anymore.

But I'm not the same person either.

Now I do feel something. It's like I've been frozen and the blood's starting to circulate again. It hurts, in a way. But it's something.

“Come with me,” I say. “We can just
. . .
go some places. Be together.”

He smiles slowly, looking at me the way he used to, with the kind of warmth that made me seek him out on a cold day.

“I want to. But I can't.” He tilts his head to the right. “You see that guy? At the table by the door?”

I glance over. Sitting there is a young guy with a shaved head, a compact build, some muscle underneath a tight T-shirt with a Nike swoop across the chest. Watching us.

“They tell me I can't leave Beijing for now,” Lao Zhang says.

I feel the tears building up behind my eyes, and I can't stop them from falling.

“I could just stay,” I blurt out.

“No. Don't stay for me.” There's an urgency to his voice that's been missing till now. “Go and have a rest for a while. It's better if you're not in Beijing right now anyway. This”—his eyes flick toward the plainclothes guy in the Nike T-shirt—“won't last long if I don't cause problems.”

“It's not fair,” I manage, grabbing a paper napkin off the table to blow my nose. It's a stupid thing to say. Why do I even expect fairness anymore?

“I know.” He looks at me, and I can see the old Lao Zhang there all of a sudden, like lit coals that were hiding under ash: the guy who's thinking about his next painting, his next performance. Maybe even about me.

“When you come back, I'll be here,” he says.

★ ★ ★

I sit on the lower berth of the soft-sleeper compartment. I have an upper bunk, but so far there are only two other people in the compartment, a stout older woman wearing a quilted black blouse embroidered with gold thread and a chubby kid in a Superman T-shirt who I'm guessing is about ten years old. Grandma and grandson maybe.

I'm drinking a Yanjing Beer, staring out the window, watching the familiar landscape roll by: half-built high-rises shrouded in green safety netting and smog, occasional fields, green struggling to break through yellow dirt, endless power lines. I'm trying not to think about anything. Just finishing my beer, and maybe another one, killing the time before I can fall asleep.

Grandma reads a magazine, grandson plays games on some little handheld thing, the two occasionally snacking on some sticky rice rolls with red bean paste and a can of Pringles.

Finally Grandma puts her magazine down. Yawns loudly, stretches. Turns her attention to me.

“Ni shi naguo ren?”
What country are you from?

I almost laugh. This is going to be one of those rides, I bet. Next she'll ask me how long I've been in China, if I'm married, do I have any kids, and if not, why? It happens almost every time I take the train somewhere.

Oh, well, why not? It's an eleven-hour ride to Guilin. You have to pass the time somehow, right?

“Wo shi Meiguoren,”
I say.

I'm an American.

Acknowledgments

Writing novels may
be a solitary activity, but they never find their way into readers' hands without the work and help of a great many people.

My thanks to all the incredibly hardworking and dedicated folks at Soho Press and Soho Crime, a true independent voice for quality fiction. Publisher Bronwen Hruska, Associate Publisher Juliet Grames, Marketing Maven Paul Oliver, editor Mark Doten, Meredith Barnes, Rachel Kowal, Janine Agro, Amara Hoshiro, Abby Koski, Rudy Martinez: my appreciation and gratitude for your continued dedication to doing such great work.

A big thank you to copyeditor extraordinaire, Maureen Sugden, who goes above and beyond in her attention to detail both grammatical and story. Also many thanks to proofer Katie Herman (was there a better choice to proof this book? I don't think so).

Web designer Ryan McLaughlin, as always, a pleasure working with you.

I am truly fortunate to have an amazing circle of author friends, whose support and camaraderie make the bad times easier and the good times better: Purgatory, Fiction Author's Co-op, the Writing Wombats, you are all awesome. Special thanks to Dana Fredsti for the beta read! Also, to Tim Hallinan, for being one of the most generous and supportive writers I know. I want to be like you when I grow up.

I want to thank Nathan Bransford and the fine folks at CNET, past and present, who have helped me keep body and soul together over the last two years. Special thanks go out to Jennifer Guevin, Emily Dreyfuss, and Christine “Killer” Cain.

China friends and experts who have helped me get the details right and who have generously opened their homes to me: Richard Burger, Fuzhen Si, Tim Smith, Dave Lyons, Brendan O'Kane, Allison Corser, Karl Gerth, Peter Braden, and Dongmei Cao. I'm often asked why I keep going back to China. It's largely because of people like you.

I am about to do the most California thing ever: Thank personal trainers Tim Ehhalt, Kyle Hannon, and Nick Gombold. In all seriousness, I doubt very much this book would have been completed without these guys teaching me old-school weight training and keeping me moving. For all that we're told that writing comes from keeping our butts in our chairs, the best thing I have done for my writing work has been getting out of that chair and doing some serious sweating.

My mother gets a special shout-out in the dedication, but I have to thank my parents, Bill and Carol Galante, here too. Especially for all that Costco sushi. You know how to keep a writer going.

I'd like to express my gratitude to all the great folks at Curtis Brown, in particular Kerry D'Agostino, Stuart Waterman, Holly Frederick, Kerry Cullen, and most especially, my agent Katherine Fausset, who has been a rock when I've been in a hard place.

Finally, I want to thank all of the readers who have accompanied Ellie on her journeys. I hope you found entertainment, emotion, and some food for thought.