北京麻雀 (Sparrows of Beijing)
北 Beijing 2008 - 3
3
Beijing coming away from the Airport
2008
Creeping in all night, on one February weekend along the northern tip of Beijing a mist rolled upwards. The natives had a long time saying in art, about the weeks of winter: there were three kinds, each one different from the others. The first kind was mild, then the cold came in, and then finally the frost broke, and though it was still winter of a kind, one could see the edges of spring on the border.1 He looked outside the glass all the taxicab and saw that it was still mild and graceful: it had not strained at all with the touching grudge of winter. It then amused him to think about the last time he saw her, and how he had sworn that he would never see her again even if high and steep. There was a confusion in his mind, that could not be resolved with her in the picture. And for a year or so, that was the dominant picture in his mind. He even got letters from China, begging and pleading him to come back; or at least answer her letters. But none of this did anything to him, at first. One could almost say that he was stone cold, but little by little his heart softened, and he thought about all of the good times: he recalled the time under the canopy most all. These were seen in retrospect; the times in her apartment; the times when she took him to two of the high towers and with a wave of her hand showed him the view of Shanghai. The towers rise from the ground. There were this and many more views; each one of them looking down on the city, or up where the glance at the low buildings was totally different from the tall buildings just a few streets over. She had taken him out to eat almost every day, to different establishments where he could taste food from all over China; and even select food from outside of China, so he did not get bored. Hello darkness, my old friend.2 They played Chinese Chess though it took time for him to get any good.
What he remembered the most was something unique: all the world of people wrapped around them were indistinct, but she was clear as if she was to shoot. At the time, this both enraptured and repelled him: she was at once the witch who would entice him, and the purest service goddess of Guan-yin, or if one preferred the old spelling: Kuan Yin. That tender goddess which he often dreamed about in anxiety, and the longer he had her idea the more the more it fused with her face, hands, and flesh in the remembrance. This would be the downfall of his relationship with the real woman: no one could be like a goddess, and no one could be as pure as one's mind wanted them to be. So, he pushed her away, even though while she was not like a goddess; she was extremely close to one. Amidst all of the dirty trappings of Shanghai, she cleaned more brightly than could be possible. A brightness that turned her gaze and revealed himself the real problem: he was not good enough for her. And in the deep dark of his mind, he knew that it was not her that once the problem, but him. So, it was not a bodhisattva, by him, whose fragile winglike existence – like the tail of the butterfly or the sleeve of a dress of a gown – it was the heartless soul at the bottom of the problem in a wet bag. Hard on the heels of something more.3 To discuss, to escape, to disperse like the breathing of pigs. It was a skill of painstaking effort for the friendship of a chameleon.
This then worked on his inner emotions: the frontier was not her, but him. Even though he would tell his government employers that he was leaving, which they warned him was not a good idea to interrupt. Their early attacks upon the resistant problem quite closely.4 But he did not listen to them and instead walked with a briefcase and blue pinstripe suit out the door of a very famous building in DC, which anyone who studies such things would know. He did not even glance back, or mind that his time on his resume was composed of seemingly odd jobs which they could verify, and did not even mention what his real work had been. The capital city had ways. Fear is gone. The ultimate adventure, when all barriers and ogres have been overcome with 20 teals of weight.5
Real work? Rancid. Even now he did not want to admit what it was. Even now, it was a secret too deep and dark to contemplate. But still, he contemplated the formless mass on a remount station. And remain in his ears were jingles in several languages all competing to advertise, though half of the things were not available even to a man with the eyes of a hawk. It seems to take no time at all.6 Only black with a swallow.
1 Oh, if Ozu had been there to film it.
2 Simon & Garfunkel, The Sound of Silence.
3 T’Pau, “Heart and Soul”
4 Reference to Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
5 Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces II.2
6 Pink Floyd, “One Slip”