北京麻雀 (Sparrows of Beijing)

南 Shanghai, 2004 - 6

6

On the Train Back to Shanghai

2004

Progress back was slow. First, they went to Wuxi and rode down the long gondola from a high peak to the ground – swinging their feet with delight and breaking through the features a bit of sunlight enshrouded their faces. Then caught the next train. It would be quite a ride, more than an hour. For much of this time, they were silent – and reserved. It was the ripping out of their innermost selves and then piecing them back together in quietude. They had expunged their innermost - and now we're trying to take it back. The long quiet had made them realize there was something about the other that no other could match.

Each one would deny that there was anything different – but of course, that was easily discerned as a lie. In reality, they were together now, because they could not imagine being separated from each other. Each one knew the secret of the other – not in detail, though they would elliptically talk about it – enough to know the true egress of it. The boundaries were only mapped out, not truly discovered. He realized that no one had ever known what he was like inside – especially not the details of his transgressions. And she knew that no one had grasped that inside she was a little girl, even though everyone looked at her as a woman – and as a large Chinese woman. But this was not her doing – that was pushed on her by her parents. Then they died. And for the rest of her life, she had fought the weight that compelled her. Tear down the walls.¹

Low tones: they had a brief discussion about what they were to do about the men who were clearly from one branch or another of the government. It is not easy to determine which branch of government – or even whether it was Central Government or one of the myriad interlocking levels. Because there is rivalry between every level of government, even though Central Government was, supposedly, in charge. It was obvious to her that she would have reached out to one of her friends – and pointed out that as a foreign-employed person, she was uniquely established to deal with this. This would at least tell her whether it was Central Government – which would be bad – or merely one of the localized governments. She bet with the provincial government, not the city or the Central Government. This would mean that there were steps to be taken, and while they might be difficult, once things were in the proper channel, they could be resolved. That is the plan, anyway. But it might be that there is some personal wish. And that would be difficult because there would be a stone wall. And no one else would know of it.

Not for the first time, wondering how she was able to grasp these details. And grasp them with confidence. He watched her face, and on it was a look of confidence – as if here is where shifting in her mind, each one being tried out and either selected for review or discarded. She was examining the possibilities and discerning which ones would be examined more carefully. Then she would look up, and with a look of triumph, she settled her chin in two hands – and looked at him with delight. This was her field, whether getting money or fending off suggestions. It was all the same to her. He could not help but smile, while he had observed this, this was the top-level echelon. Not to put too fine a point on it, it was his life that they were playing with. I wanna feel sunlight.²

Then they stopped, and it was not at a station. Instantly both of them wondered if they were going to be called out, and what they would do. Stopping a train was a very serious offense, and not planned for in their calculations. She looked outside the compartment, and for several minutes they did not see anything at all. Then, from further down, uniformed police officers could be seen. The police officers were checking every seat and examining every piece of paper. They looked at each other, wondering if they should do something. But she motioned with her hands to not do anything, and so they waited. Eventually, the two officers got to their doorway and demanded to see their tickets. They were both very thin as if they had only a little bit of sustenance – and only a very small portion would be meat. Uniforms were green with gold trim, and only very little gold. It was clear that they were both of low rank, though one of them was not quite as low as the other.

Each one of them showed the stub. And then they waited, with two officers talking in Mandarin, for getting a job with a real private firm was beyond the capacity. Even in communist party China, there was discrimination, in both directions. The higher-ranking man gave them back their tickets, and, in Mandarin, explained the situation. The police officers were not interested in them, but instead, we were looking for two men who had been seen boarding the train. They described two men who were not supposed to be on this train, and if they saw anything suspicious, please report to them immediately. Then bobbing their way back – because this was an older train, unlike the modern high-speed rail – they stopped at the next compartment, graceful as the mother of God's Son, in the last stanza of Paradiso.³

They waited, moments breathless as a nation decided to plunge into the second wave of war, having begun so long ago on the 4th of June. The cloud is moving nearer still.⁴

1 U2, “Where The Streets Have No Name”

2 U2, “Where The Streets Have No Name”

3 In the fine script, Ardelle Li

Baldwin

Underwent summer a prolonged

Religious crisis

Arbitrary God

Who I discover and who discover me

Afraid - afraid - afraid of the evil

Around me in Harlem.

Personal menace

Whores and pimps and Trumpakeeters

Spilling lies with gay abandon.

Smoke by same circumstance

On the sexualite careers with my comrades

Singing the Internationale unites the human race.

Holy parents’ incredible metamorphosis

bouldering aspect there incredible rounding on the Avenue

fantastically present

abrupt discomfort aroused

terrified relapses, grim guilty tormented.

Terrifying single-mindedness soothing implacable

4 whiskey soothes the white man

all up and down the nigger Fifth Avenue

and sets frisking comic speculations of the library.

Around the ghetto just before the 2nd world war

indestructible in its agonizing death

beside the taxi drivers' generous outlet frustration.

Alone on this brief passage planet,

a Negro problem that will not exist,

and yet exist evermore.

Overwhelming in its proof that standard services smuggled

assuaged dim guilty testimony on the intrinsic parity of the people.

4 A Flock of Seagulls, “I Ran (So Far Away)