Xu Zechen - Running Through Beijing

Dunhuang bounced up from under the covers. “Okay, then he’s dead to me, too!”

After breakfast, neither of them asked the other’s plans. They left the house together, Xiaorong carrying a backpack full of DVDs,Dunhuang carrying all his earthly possessions. They parted in front of the Haidian gymnasium, saying nothing more than “bye.”

Dunhuang spent another day wandering aimlessly, without seeing a single familiar face. Again he made it to evening on two biscuits and a bottle of water, then took the bus back to Furongli. Xiaorong opened the door for him nonchalantly, then headed to the kitchen to make noodles again. Last night there’d been one egg, tonight there were two. The dust had finally settled. Dunhuang took a quick shower, then dove underneath the bed — there really were baskets under there. He grabbed two movies with naked people on their covers.

Over the next three days, Dunhuang ate six biscuits and drank three bottles of water. Riding the public buses he traversed the city seven or eight times, and threaded through thirty or more alleyways, but he finally despaired. He couldn’t find his people, no possible comeback presented itself. He carried his pack back to Furongli, and when Xiaorong opened the door she said, “You’re back. Why don’t you take a break tomorrow — if you want to, you can come sell DVDs with me.”

The next morning they left the house together; Xiaorong was empty-handed, Dunhuang had a pack full of movies. Dunhuang was in excellent spirits as they passed the east gate of Peking University, and said to Xiaorong, “Here I am, a vocational school graduate, reduced to selling DVDs. If I hadn’t been so lazy, not even Qinghua or Peking University could have denied me.”

“So why don’t you stop selling DVDs,” she countered. “The doors of PU are still open.”

“Nope, can’t give it up,” said Dunhuang. “A man’s got to eat.”

“But I thought you could get by just fine as ‘vocational school graduate,’” said Xiaorong.

“If that were the case,”he answered,“I’d have been getting by just fine for years.”

That morning, they set up on a street in Xiyuan. They laid a few dozen movies out by the entrance of a busy supermarket. Xiaorong’s bag was multipurpose; unzipped and laid flat it was an ideal display case. Xiaorong knew her DVDs backwards and forwards, and when anyone mentioned a title she knew, she fished it out of the pile immediately. But if they made special requests, she was at a loss. She could elaborate at length on the ones she’d seen, but past that she was helpless. If anyone happened to ask for Hong Kong action or martial arts flicks Dunhuang stepped in. In middle school and high school he’d spent all his spare time in a run-down film shop, where, in his boredom, he’d seen practically everything Jackie Chan, Chow Yun-Fat, and Steven Chow had made. He also knew how to chat up customers better than Xiaorong. And no wonder — his old job selling fake IDs had relied almost entirely on banter.

In the afternoon, they went to the gate of the Agricultural University. He often came here selling IDs, and knew the area well; students needed fake IDs just like the rest of society. When it came time for the job hunt, in particular, they showed up in droves wanting fake transcripts and certificates of honor, the gutsy ones even asking for fake diplomas or degrees: polytech students wanting to be BAs, BAs wanting to be MAs, MAs wanting to be PhDs. It went the other way, too: older doctoral students wanting undergraduate student IDs for the half-price tickets to public parks. The students were enthusiastic consumers of movies, too. Xiaorong said they were all film buffs, going straight for the art-house and classics — the older the film the better it sold. It was something Dunhuang didn’t get. Just watching a black and white movie made him dizzy. That stuff was beyond him.

That day, at any rate, Dunhuang talked up a hurricane with the customers, and they did well. Xiaorong said she never would have guessed. Dunhuang said selling fake IDs was all talk, just a matter of convincing people that fakes were better than the real thing. It was just like fortune telling.

“All right then,” she replied, “I’ll hire you as my Secretary of DVD Sales.”

“No problem,” he said, “I’ll serve you faithfully, even in bed.” Xiaorong’s face darkened and Dunhuang knew he’d gone too far. He acted like a contrite elementary school student, but thought, Isn’t that what this is? I serve you, and you serve me?

All in all, though, Dunhuang made an excellent secretary. He counted the cash, drummed up business, shilled in the crowd, and served as bodyguard and footman. Most importantly, he was able — under normal circumstances — to turn Xiaorong’s bad moods into good moods, and make her good moods even better. “Abnormal circumstances” were those that involved Kuang Shan. If her attention happened to wander as they spoke, Dunhuang looked around for lovers holding hands, or new parents out for a stroll with their babies. It’s better this way, thought Dunhuang. It keeps me from getting in too deep. But it also made him want to smoke. As he drew deep lungfuls and coughed, he’d tell himself again: it’s better this way.

* * *

To perfect his sales tactics, Dunhuang began watching art-house cinema in quantity — he needed to cram. He often fell asleep as he watched, however, and in his dreams the films became blockbusters, romances, action, horror, and, of course, porn. He couldn’t understand why Xiaorong never sold the porn under her bed. She told him Kuang Shan used to sell those, she didn’t like talking about them, and didn’t like selling them.

“There’s nothing wrong with them,” Dunhuang said, as they ate noodles in her apartment. “The working classes need it.”

“What do you know about the working classes? It’s you who needs it.”

“I do, and so do the working classes. ‘We must emerge from the masses, and return to the masses.’ Look how well the older ladies do. Even with kids on their backs they keep class sentiment in mind, always asking everyone, ‘Hey there comrade, want a DVD? They’re stimulating!’”

His impression set her to giggling, but then she got annoyed again. “I see, so to you I’m just some ‘older lady’? Prowling around with a kid on my back?”

“No!” he said. “You’ve got those old ladies beat. Our Comrade Xia Xiaorong boasts both youth and beauty, and has sworn to sell only art films.”

She rolled her eyes at him. “I’m old, I know it, and I never even graduated from high school. I can’t compare to you, a voc-tech student who turns his nose up at Peking University.”

“See?” he said, laughing. “Art-film lovers can’t stand to hear the truth. What’s wrong with me saying you’re young, beautiful, graceful, and refined?”

“A whole bowl of noodles can’t shut you up,” she said. “Do the dishes!”

He went to wash the dishes, but at the sink his mind wandered back to the porn. It was harder to sell than the usual movies, because you couldn’t just lay it out in the open, but the price was almost twice as high, and that was pure profit. His empty wallet was making him nervous, he wanted to make money, he couldn’t keep living out of someone else’s pocket. He hadn’t come to Beijing just to be a burden. He’d had a realization a few days ago, as he was passing Haidian bridge and thinking of Bao Ding in jail.

Bao Ding was five years older than him, and had been in Beijing for five years. He was big and powerful, built to lead a gang, so Dunhuang had thrown in with him. Back home, Dunhuang had heard about the low cost and high profit of making fake IDs — you just talked the talk, then waited for people to hand over cash. And it was more or less true. After following Bao Ding around for a couple of weeks he had grasped the basics. Bao Ding and Dunhuang were at the lowest level of the operation — bringing in the business. If they saw someone looking around expectantly they sidled over and asked, “Need an ID? We’ve got everything, even a passport’s no problem.” Then they discussed price, took an advance, and found someone to make what the customer needed. They weren’t involved in the actual making of the documents, they just negotiated the price and exchanged the cash and goods. They got a share of the proceeds strictly according to the work they brought in; the more deals they closed, the more they made. If, in the course of things, they ran across a big spender, then it was like Christmas, and the good life seemed nearly within reach. There was another similarity between selling IDs and selling DVDs, besides the fact that they were all fake — you needed to know your product. You had to know what a bachelor degree diploma looked like, all the different kinds of parking permits, what was usually in a personal document folder, and so on. You needed to be able to stand by your work, and that took experience, trustworthiness, and clear standards. None of that was a problem for Dunhuang, who soon knew the profession inside and out. The real problem was the unexpected, which usually meant the police. When you saw the police you needed to make a quick decision whether you were going to keep your head down or make a break for it; whether you’d hide the IDs on your person or toss them. If caught, different actions led to different degrees of punishment. All that took experience.