Ha Jin - A Map of Betrayal - A Novel

Juli’s concert was to take place in a small theater near the city’s stadium the next evening, and I was looking forward to it. During my teens I’d been fascinated by Woodstock — the star performers, the crazed audience, the camping tents, the VW buses, the drugs, the sex, the freedom, the harmony, but I was too young to go to the festival by myself. (Although there was a coterie of budding hippies in my prep school, they were so full of themselves that I couldn’t get close to them.) Neither of my parents liked that kind of wild music. I always wondered if my mother was tone-deaf — she hardly enjoyed any song. My dad had never outgrown his attachment to Hank Williams. He often said that all the other singers were too mannered and self-conscious, without the spontaneous magic of Williams’s voice, which came out of him as naturally as breathing. The only other singer Gary was fond of was Frank Sinatra. During my grad school years, I’d attended some open-air concerts in New England and enjoyed them immensely. Now I was looking forward to Juli’s performance.

The event was much smaller than I had expected. It wasn’t Juli’s concert exactly. She and her band were to play for only fifteen minutes, and the rest of the show would feature other groups of artists. The theater was like a lecture hall that could seat four hundred people, but it was only half filled. As I was walking down the aisle, the walls seemed to be quavering and thumping with music that sounded familiar — earthy, tumbling, raucous, and forceful. It was rock, probably American, but I couldn’t place it.

Juli came over the moment I sat down in the second row. She told me that the song was called “Summertime,” performed by a Ukrainian band named the Mad Heads.

The lights dimmed and the audience was quieting down. A pudgy emcee in a pin-striped suit and a crimson tie sashayed to the lip of the stage and called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please!” He clapped his hands and repeated the request. When the hall hushed, he began to describe the program, which was titled “Mad in Love,” saying this was going to be an unforgettable night for everyone. He promised that the show would be nothing shy of bona fide dramatic art and asked the audience to silence their cell phones. As the stage turned dark he faded away.

The first group to perform was a heavy metal trio. The music was too loud, virtually thundering from start to finish. The audience seemed puzzled and hardly responded; perhaps many of them had no clue what to make of this cacophony. Next, Juli’s band went onstage. She was sporting a scarlet hip-hugging miniskirt and fishnet stockings and began strumming an electric guitar. On her right arm, near the shoulder, was a tattooed butterfly. She started singing, “All the years I’ve been looking for you / In my dream and in my memory / You are so close by, yet beyond reach …” She looked jittery, and her voice was a bit harsh, halting now and again. But little by little she got more confident. The music, somewhat like rock, wasn’t impressive, but the lyrics were pretty good, full of pathos. Her voice was becoming more guttural as she belted out, “Till then I won’t say good-bye / And I won’t say good-bye.” The audience was moved, especially the young people, and started clapping their hands. Some got to their feet, swaying with the music and waving their arms while colored bars of lights ricocheted above their heads. By now Juli and her fellow musicians were playing and singing with total abandon. I was impressed — onstage my niece appeared more daring than in life. She was in a way like her grandfather, demure in appearance but bold at heart.

Two other local groups took the stage after Juli’s band, but neither was as good. A pair of young men did a break-dance routine, but they were out of sync with the music and didn’t move in unison either. When one was done and stood up, the other was still spinning on the floor like a top. Following them was a kind of strip show — four girls, all wearing sooty eye shadow, spike heels, and canary two-piece swimsuits with frills, strutted, wiggled their hips, and frolicked around. Every one of them seemed to be a bundle of nerves. Their fists were drawing tiny circles in front of them as if they were boxing with someone invisible. Now and again they kicked their feet high, revealing the pale undersides of their legs. Someone in the audience gave a shout of laughter. “Take it off!” a male voice boomed from the right front corner of the hall. I noticed that no matter how erotic the girls’ movements were, their faces remained wooden, slightly worried, as if they’d been alert to someone, their director or boss, observing them from the side. The performance felt robotic, though loud catcalls rose from the back.

Then the emcee stepped onstage again and announced, “Dear friends, brothers and sisters, let me remind you that tonight’s show is called ‘Mad in Love,’ so our finale is going to be enacted by two performance artists who will demonstrate our theme to the max.”

The stage went dark while the room kept buzzing. When the lights came on again, a couple, both sporting red underwear, the man in his mid-twenties and the woman a few years older, were making out on a large mattress on the stage. The audience was too transfixed to let out a peep. When both performers seemed aroused, they got into a sitting sex position. The woman, straddling the man’s lap with her back to his face, peeled off her cherry-red bra and dropped it to the floor. She went on to bump and grind her fleshy backside while they both faked orgasmic cries. Some in the audience grew disgruntled, swearing under their breath. A few snickered and hooted.

Then the two performers changed positions — the woman got on all fours, swaying her hips a little, ready to take the man. As they were slowly stripping off their underwear with exaggerated gestures, a team of police arrived. They rushed onstage, pulled the couple to their feet, and shoved them. The male actor swerved to escape, but a cop tripped him. At once another two pounced on him and pulled him up. One slapped his face while the other punched him in the gut. “Ow!” The man doubled over, holding his sides with both hands.

The two performers had sheets wrapped around them but were still barefoot. The police handcuffed them to each other, led them offstage, and proceeded toward the side exit. Though shaken, the couple kept shouting, “Long live artistic freedom! Wipe out oppression!”

Juli was close to tears, muttering that she too was in hot water now. I wrapped my arm around her shoulders and tried to calm her. Wuping was frantic and hurried up to the emcee to demand an explanation. Why hadn’t they informed him of such a harebrained finale beforehand? Why had they invited that pair of freaks to enact sex publicly? Who was supposed to take responsibility for this show now? Several others also surrounded the chubby emcee, who apparently hadn’t breathed a word about the finale to them either. I took Juli out of the theater and hailed a cab.

We went to Stacy’s apartment, afraid that the police might be after Juli. My friend was out with her students, so I sat Juli down at the dining table and put the kettle on the stove. She was still in a daze and kept saying, “They’ll haul me in tomorrow for sure. Aunt, I’m in big trouble.” She shielded a part of her face with her narrow hand, which had callused fingertips and square nails.

After a few mouthfuls of pomegranate tea, she calmed down some. She asked me whether what the performance artists had done was art. “Certainly not,” I said. “Millions of people are doing the same thing every day in this province alone. How in God’s name can they justify the crude sex act as art? At best it’s part of life, an experience but not art.”