Ma Jian - Red Dust

Wang Ping puts the manuscript down and says, ‘Your writing is too coarse. Whenever I look at the ocean again, I will see a mass of white corpses. Disgusting!’ She often drops a few words of English into her speech, knowing perfectly well I don’t understand them.

When I mention that Lingling has asked me to help with an exhibition on the minority ethnic groups of Yunnan Province, she says, ‘Who wants to go to an exhibition like that? Yunnan is such a dirty, backward place. Do you know that most American families own two cars these days?’

I look at her clean, white ears and say, ‘Yunnan has the most diverse population in China. Each minority has its own unique language and culture, and the lives they lead are much more interesting than the American lives you dream about. There is more to China than communism and the Han Chinese. If you don’t understand your own country, you will feel lost when you go abroad.’

She tells me about an exhibition on American domestic appliances that she reviewed last month in the Hangzhou Daily. She rhapsodises about the miraculous technical advances, but her descriptions of electric kettles and formica worktops leave me cold.

One afternoon, when the people next door are quarrelling, and babies’ screams mingle with smells of powdered milk, Wang Ping’s mother leaves us alone and goes to buy some meat at the market. The sea breeze in the yard tastes salty and sour. When I step into the room my eyes meet Wang Ping’s gaze. She has washed her hair and has a towel wrapped around her head. Time condenses. I move towards her and take her in my arms. And suddenly, for some reason, my mind flashes back to when I was fourteen and was touched by a man with big, rough hands. I had gone to visit my brother in the countryside, but he was away the day I arrived, so I stayed with his neighbour, and that night the bastard slipped under my quilt and rubbed me until I went soft.

When Wang Ping walks me to the Zhenhai train station, a soft rains starts to fall. It reminds me of the time I walked Xi Ping to the station before she left for the shoot in Guangxi. Sometimes memories can make life seem very sad.

‘Promise to send me a letter when you reach a city.’ Wang Ping’s hair and shoulders are damp. Her white ears look empty.

‘Guangzhou in June is as hot as a burning wok. The people who live inside it either fry to a pulp or jump for their lives. No one looks at you in the streets. No one even looks at the sky. All eyes are fixed straight ahead. Everyone rushes about, shouting Hurry, hurry! as if it were the last day of their lives.’

Lingling frowns when I finish speaking. ‘You northerners are too slow. If everyone in China was as lazy as you the country would be finished. China’s success springs from Guangzhou’s hard work. This city is the dragon head of reform, China’s gateway to Hong Kong.’

‘The only thing this city has produced is a mountain of consumer goods. Where are the thinkers? The artists? Guangzhou people know only how to make money, spend it and die. What is the glory in that? I saw a big banner on the streets today that said TIME IS MONEY, EFFICIENCY IS LIFE.’

‘Shut up, you northern twit.’ Lingling is angry. We are sitting in the shade of a hut that doubles as my bedroom and the exhibition headquarters. During the last month we have built a small Yunnan village in a corner of Guangzhou’s main park. The site has a food alley, two exhibition rooms, four straw huts, and is surrounded by a tall bamboo fence. Now that the electricity and water is finally installed, we are practically self-sufficient.

In the evening, I sit on my camp bed and deal with my post. Yao Lu’s letter upsets me. He says the friend who was developing my films has been arrested and his shop ransacked. The pictures I took in the north-west are lost for ever.

I whisk the mosquitoes from my face and open a letter from Fan Cheng. He has just returned to Beijing after nine months in Xinjiang. He says he is fed up with his job at the tax office and has sent an application to the Shenzhen government for the post of resident writer. I write back, urging him to make up with Chen Hong.

She is a fine woman, and still loves you very much. . I seem to be entangled myself, with a girl from Hangzhou. I would like to stay close to her, but in my restless state it is impossible to form a stable relationship. . After Hangzhou, I spent a month in Shaolin Temple, climbed Mount Huang, then followed the coast down here to Guangzhou. . Now that you have finished exploring the deserts of Xinjiang, come and visit the cultural desert here. The south is another country. You will like it. Hong Kong seems just a stone’s throw away.

Da Xian has been with us for a week. I invited him down from Beijing to paint our ornamental gateposts. His girlfriend Chun Mei studies English three hours away at Shenzhen University, so they see quite a lot of each other.

Li Tao’s letter is a week old.

I know just how you felt when you found out about Xi Ping. I popped round to Da Xian’s house yesterday and saw Mimi’s bike outside his door. I had no idea she was in Beijing. I knocked but no one answered. Then I smashed the window and Mimi came running out. . This is too much. I can’t take it. I knew Mimi was unhappy, but I would never have guessed she could betray me like this. I want to kill someone. Make sure Da Xian has left Guangzhou by the time I arrive. You better tell Chun Mei about this too, she has a right to know. Fan Cheng says we have opened our door too widely, and should rid our gang of scum like him. Mimi weeps outside my door every day, begging me to take her back. She looks like a drowning woman grabbing for branches. But my heart is numb. . I will arrive in Guangzhou next week. Shenzhen University has offered me a teaching post in the economics department.

Da Xian is coiling a piece of wire in the sun. I remember Qiuzi and Xi Ping and I want to strangle him. He turns round, sees my face and realises his secret is out.

‘And what’s it to you, then?’ he snorts. His nose is always blocked.

‘When Chun Mei comes tonight I will tell her the truth and she can make up her own mind. It was Li Tao who suggested I invite you here, and all the while you were sleeping with his girlfriend. You dog.’

‘It’s not as simple as that, Ma Jian.’

‘I don’t want any explanations. You must leave in three days. If your work isn’t finished by then, you won’t get paid.’

Chun Mei arrives at dusk. She always smiles before she speaks. Her red lips and white teeth show she is in the prime of youth. She hands me a cassette and says, ‘I recorded this for you, Ma Jian. I hope you like it.’ She gives Da Xian an affectionate smile. I remember her lying in his arms last week. She was wearing white shorts. Her curved knees reminded me of Xi Ping’s.

‘Sit down, Chun Mei.’ I glance at her bare legs. She sits on the camp bed and strokes Da Xian’s hand. ‘I have something to tell you. Da Xian has been sleeping with Mimi in Beijing. I got a letter from Li Tao today. He wanted you to know. Well, I’ve told you now. I’ll let you sort out the rest yourselves.’ As I walk to the door I see a tear drop from Chun Mei’s smiling eyes.

Outside the park gates, I turn right and head for the banks of the Pearl River. Both ends of the distant Huaizhu Bridge sparkle with lights. Small ferry boats chug back and forth. Lingling’s husband Wang Shu said that visitors from the north always assume the opposite bank is Hong Kong. At the dead of night they swim to the other side, crawl up the beach, and have just enough time to shout ‘I’m free at last!’ before the police pounce and put them in handcuffs.

At this time of night the lights in Beijing have already sunk behind the courtyard walls, and anyone walking the streets is liable to be arrested. In the north, even the air is hard. But in the south people live in the open and the air is soft and warm. No wonder everyone wants to live here.