Xu Zechen: Running Through Beijing

“So now you’re worried about your reputation?” Dunhuang said. “Who was it who said we should just do our thing, that it wasn’t any business of yours? We were just renters!”

“Who knew you’d have the Public Security Bureau on me,” she said, her tone weakening. Dunhuang heard her mutter something like, “How’d he get out so soon. .”

He’d meant to just come and have a look to see if any of his stuff was left, thinking he might even rent here again. He changed his mind. “Never mind the stuff you sold, you’ve got to return the last month’s rent. Eight hundred.” Someone else had already occupied the rooms.

“Eight hundred? Where am I going to get eight hundred?” The landlady practically jumped. “I’m unemployed, my mother’s ill, I’ve got a pile of debt. . where am I going to get eight hundred?”

“Get a loan from the bank. It’s not my problem.”

“But I really don’t have anything,” she said. Suddenly, she pulled her cellphone from her pocket and started saying “Hello?” into it. She paced back and forth like Lenin, saying, “What’s that? The emergency room? That serious? Okay, I’ll be right there. I’ll be right there!” She lowered the phone, her face sour with worry. “You see, my boy, things go bad at the drop of a hat. My mother’s not well, I need to go to the hospital. I’ve really got nothing — why don’t I give you this hundred, it’s all I’ve got.” She actually pulled an Old Man out of her pocket. “I’d be really grateful. .”

Furious, Dunhuang snatched the money, it was better than nothing. The landlady turned and ran off down the alley. He watched her large ass waddling away and began to regret having taken her money. If she really was going to the emergency room, she would need everything she could get. He considered returning the money, but at the last moment remembered that she’d once told him that her parents were gone and her children grown: she had no real burdens, and the rent — well, whatever they could pay would be fine, as long as she didn’t starve. Dunhuang got angry again, then realized that her cellphone hadn’t seemed to ring at all, not even vibrate — that damned woman! He grabbed his bag and gave chase, but when he emerged from the alley she was nowhere in sight. He came straight back, picking up broken bricks from the base of the wall, and when he reached her place he started heaving them up onto the tiles of her roof, mumbling as he did, “one hundred, two hundred, three hundred. .” As he threw the last one he yelled, “Seven hundred, and fuck you!”

After that, he went looking for a few of his old fake-ID friends. Every one of them had either moved or been caught. No surprise, the whole pack of them had been swept up at the same time. When Bao Ding had gone to jail he’d said someone had to have tipped off the police, otherwise how had they all been caught at once? He wasn’t sure who it was, there were plenty of fake-ID sellers in Beijing, each with their own backers and their own territory. Those who’d been caught were beyond Dunhuang’s reach, and those few who’d escaped had learned their lesson and moved their base of operations somewhere else. But Dunhuang kept up the search. He had to — he needed to get back into the game. Over the course of a whole day, he didn’t see one familiar face, much less Qibao, whom he wouldn’t recognize except for her back and ass: he wouldn’t even know her if she introduced herself.

By nine thirty that night, Dunhuang had had only two biscuits and a bottle of water. He got off the bus at Guigumen, but he knew the minute his feet hit the pavement that he had nowhere to go. He wandered into Furongli, and saw that Xiaorong’s light was on. He knocked. She cracked the door, but didn’t open it. He pushed his way in.

“It’s you,” she said.

“I came to return your money.”

She looked at him, he was covered in dust as though he’d just come from a construction site. “You struck it rich quick. Were you picking pockets or did you rob a bank?”

“I was counterfeiting money,” he said, reaching into his bag. At first, he couldn’t find it. He looked again, still with no success. He frowned — where was his money? “I had it right here, where could it have gone?”

“Spare me the act. Are you saying another thief got you?”

He flushed — she’d seen through him. “Last night. . you knew all along?”

“Do you think I’m an idiot?” she asked. “When I called your number it wasn’t off, it was out of service.”

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly, continuing to rummage in his bag. He found a long slash cut in the fabric and knew it was hopeless. This time he’d been robbed for real. There was no way to explain. He pulled the money Xiaorong had given him from his shirt pocket and put it on the table. “Thanks,” he said, then picked up his bag and left.

When he got out of the building he suddenly felt exhausted, and sat on the steps to smoke a cigarette. The sound-activated light in the doorway eventually went out, and he sat in darkness, feeling alone and abandoned. The lights were lit in nearly every apartment above him, and the heat would still be on — they didn’t know how cold the wind felt as it crept up his pant leg. They were home. He was beginning to see Xiaorong’s point of view, all she wanted was a home, a husband, a child. . what was wrong with that? Before he even finished the cigarette he was thinking about how someone ought to teach that bastard Kuang a lesson.

Footsteps came down the stairs behind him and Dunhuang stood up to make way. He stepped on his cigarette and headed out into the courtyard. A voice behind him said, “Stop.” He looked back and Xiaorong was standing under the light in her pajamas. “Come on up.”

Dunhuang felt for another cigarette.

“We’ll just say the money was stolen, all right?”

“I’m not just saying it — it really was stolen.”

“All right, it really was. Come on up.”

Obediently, he went upstairs. As she led him up she said, “You’re just as stubborn as my brother.”

“How am I stubborn?” he asked.

“Stubborn’s not so bad,” she said, “as long as you turn out better than him.” They were back in her apartment. Xiaorong went into the kitchen to make some noodles and Dunhuang told her about breaking the landlady’s tiles. She giggled and said he was worse than her brother. After they finished the noodles, Dunhuang took a hot shower and changed into clean clothes. By the time he came out, she’d shut off the TV and gotten into bed.

Dunhuang asked timidly, “So did Kuang. . come by?”

“He won’t be coming by,” she answered sternly. Silently elated, he crawled into bed and pulled back the covers to find she was crying. She stopped, but even after they started having sex she made no other sound. In the middle of it, wanting to hear her voice, Dunhuang asked through his panting, “Do you sell porn? I couldn’t find any.”

She replied, with difficulty, “They’re under the bed.”

When Dunhuang awoke the next morning he heard the sound of dishes in the kitchen. The thought that it was supposed to be someone named Kuang waking in his place made him sweat. Xiaorong had said his name was Kuang Shan, which meant “spacious mountain.” Dunhuang’s first reaction was that whoever had named him had been as lazy and empty-headed as Dunhuang’s own father. They’d picked the lowest of the low-hanging fruit — but the results were kind of interesting. Xiaorong emerged from the kitchen and Dunhuang asked, “So, uh. . he really isn’t coming back, is he?”

“Scared?”

“My ass. Worst comes to worst I’m willing to go back to jail.”

“So don’t ask, then. He’s dead to me.”