Xiaolu Guo - 20 Fragments Of A Ravenous Youth

The policemen had separated us with rickety tables and chairs. There was nothing else in the room – no calendar, no evening newspapers, nothing to distract us from our fate. All we could see was the office across the hallway. A policeman sat facing in our direction and watching the news. We couldn't see the TV, we could only hear its vague, tinny sound. Another policeman went in to pour himself some tea. An hour passed. And another. If these guys were so powerful, why couldn't they just fucking get on with it?

It was ten o'clock at night and still no interrogation. So I started my own self-examination. But the crimes I remembered didn't seem that bad. There was that one time in a term exam at middle school when I'd used a crib sheet. There was that time at the cinema when I'd found a gold ring under a seat, which, I admit, I kept. I kept the English dictionary too, but didn't feel that really counted since I perpetrated this deed in order to reeducate myself. And then there was the mobile phone I'd found. I'd definitely handed that to the boss, I was sure. And yes, I had boyfriends, but it wasn't like I was breaking up marriages. So what other mistakes had I made, I wondered, what other sins had I committed? Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, how the fuck had I ended up in a police station?

Our endless and seemingly hopeless wait dragged on. By now, the bleached-blond man from Guangdong without a Beijing permit had lost patience. It was obvious the owner of the hair salon where he worked wasn't going to turn up and bail him out. He started murmuring that he would just go back home – 'home' being 'home town' for peasant people. He meant he would give up Beijing and go back to planting rice in the fields after getting out of here. The fat woman had stopped screaming and passed out in the most uncomfortable-looking position. She was like a beached whale, her wild hair spread around her like a fishing net. The dog without legitimate ID had been put into a cage. He whined and scratched at the bars, yapping helplessly. The woman had begged and pleaded the policeman to let it out. But to no effect.

It was around midnight when a policeman called me. He wrote down all my certification numbers and asked sternly how many boyfriends I had. Didn't I know that behaving like I did before marriage was immoral? He filled me in on what my neighbours had been saying, about how I'd been bringing a foreign man to my residence. He ordered me to move out of my place immediately, the very next day. If I didn't, the state could not be held responsible for anything that might happen to me. It was this last sentence that really did it for me. The true power of Justice in Beijing.

It was only as I was leaving that I finally understood what it had all been about. On the steps outside, I overheard one policeman saying to another, 'So, she didn't have anything to do with the supermarket murder then.' The other policeman leant towards him conspiratorially. 'Don't worry, she deserved it anyway. She's no good, that girl. Much too individualistic.'

From inside the building came the sound of police dogs barking. I turned my back on that place of Morality and Power and Guidance.

Because I was the first of our unfortunate gang of criminals to be released, I felt compelled to do something for my companions. I had agreed to make some calls, once outside. They gave me telephone numbers and scribbled hasty messages on torn-off pieces of a cigarette packet. The message from the woman with the dog was for her mother and said:

Call Dr Wang the veterinarian.

The Cantonese boy with blond hair and no temporary resident's permit wrote:

Mr Zhang, Please come quickly.

I didn't take a note for the fat woman with wolfish hair. By the time I left the station, the police had moved her somewhere else. I wondered how many months she would get in jail.

With my shoes and coat back on, and the fear of the Law on my shoulders, I returned home. I opened my door. The room looked the same. Nothing was any different from when I'd been escorted out, except for a note from Ben:

Fenfang, Are you OK?? Call me! I need to talk to you about the future. I've decided I've gotta go home otherwise I'll never finish my fucking PhD. I'm flying back to Massachusetts the day after tomorrow.

I didn't call, though. What would have been the point? Instead I sat down on my dirty carpet and watched Betty Blue – 37 02 le matin. It was a very sad film. I couldn't talk for a day afterwards.

IT HAD JUST GONE 8 A.M. and I was suddenly awake. I'd wanted to sleep in, until 10 or even 11. I could if I wanted. It's not like I was contributing much to society. But it wasn't to be. In my half-awake state, I realised my eardrums were being attacked by something loud and persistent coming from the tower block opposite.

In case you're picturing flowers, I should mention that this isn't the Chinese Rose Garden Estate I'm talking about. After the thing with Ben, I had moved to the Commercial Success Condominium near Chao Yang Park. A whole new tower block with a whole new Neighbourhood Committee. Plus these old men opposite who got up early to practise Beijing opera, sheet music in hand. Yiyiyabloodyyayaya. It was never-ending – a shrill alarm hurrying me towards consciousness. Fuck off!

I turned my sleepy eyes towards the window. There wasn't the slightest indication the sky was blue or the sun was shining. Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, why the hell would I want to get out of bed in a Beijing winter anyway? There was a part of me that thought I should embrace the day, but a bigger part of me just wanted to crawl back into the dark night.

The phone rang. And rang. I lay in bed huddled under the covers and tried to figure out who, at this time, on this morning, could possibly be calling. Not Ben. Ben always called my mobile and, anyway, I knew he'd be watching the Boston Red Sox in the World Series. His recent emails and phone calls had been about nothing but the Boston Red Sox and their baseballing achievements. He didn't seem to realise how remote the Red Sox and the World Series were to me. It wasn't just that they were 18,000 miles away. It was that I didn't even know what a baseball looked like. Was it the size of a ping-pong ball or a volleyball? I had no idea. The Red Sox reminded me of the chasm between Ben and me, between our experiences. The Red Sox made me depressed.

The ring of the phone was unforgiving. It couldn't be my far-away Ben, and it was too early in the morning for Xiaolin to be harassing me. Xiaolin had got hold of the phone number at my flat and would sometimes relieve his lonely evenings by dialling it incessantly. It was as though he was intent only on bringing the phone on my floor to life. But I couldn't think about Xiaolin first thing in the morning. It was stupid to wake up so early just to be pissed off.

The phone went silent for about a minute, then started ringing again.

It occurred to me that maybe it was Huizi. After Ben left, his flatmate Patton and my friend Huizi became the only people I could talk to. Strangely they were both scriptwriters, although that was about all they had in common. Huizi wrote these brilliant films that could never get past the censors, so to make money he wrote TV scripts. This was how we'd met. He'd written some episodes for this show called The Kindest Cop in Town, and had admired the way I threw myself to the ground in my role as 'Scared girl in police chase'. Huizi had great opinions on extras and minor roles. He believed it was the supporting characters that made stories what they are, that gave them their soul and substance. I loved hearing him say that. What Huizi and I didn't agree about was old people. He adored listening to them nattering away in the street. He said he stole the best parts of their conversations and typed them straight into his scripts. I didn't tell Huizi how much I hated those old hens and old cocks. Huizi might steal their conversations, but I felt those old people stole my life. For me, it was old people who were responsible for all the shit things that had happened in China.