Chapter 30 (1/2)

Thirty

All joy lacks smiles

All sorrow lacks tears

All language is repet.i.tion

All contact is a first encounter

–Bei Dao, All

“Urgent announcement from the Chinese People’s Liberation Army: the army, local police force and armed police force have liberty to enforce martial law through any means necessary. Protest organizers and rioters are solely responsible for all consequences…”

Xu Ping stood in front of the television, reading the rolling notice in silence.

His brother was not in the living room. Xu Zheng had shut himself in his room for the whole evening, ignoring even knocks on his door.

The clock ticked until eleven-thirty on that night of unrest and insomnia.

Brrrrrring-brrrrrring! The phone began ringing.

“h.e.l.lo?” Xu Ping picked up.

No response came for some time.

“h.e.l.lo? Is that you, Dad?”

Nothing.

“h.e.l.loooo?”

f.u.c.king pranksters! He was just about to hang up when he heard a feeble voice.

“Xu Ping.”

“Huang Fan?”

Xu Ping pressed the receiver back against his ear and tried for a long time to find something to say.

He heard a series of cracks and bangs from the other end like fireworks or firecrackers. “Where are you?”

The man did not reply.

“The martial law notice has been playing on TV this whole time. Are you still at the square?” He cupped a hand around the receiver and pressed his voice low. “They say it’s very dangerous out there. Don’t hang around any longer. Hurry home!”

All he heard was heavy breathing from the other end.

“What’s that over there? Why are you guys playing with firecrackers now of all times?!”

Huang Fan started chuckling softly for a while. “Yeah, we just wanted to have some fun while we still could. We’ll be done soon.”

Xu Ping didn’t reply. Something in Huang Fan’s voice made him very uneasy, but he could not figure it out in the moment.

“How are you, Xu Ping?”

“I’m all right.”

“…not going to ask about me?”

After a pause, Xu Ping asked, “How are you, Huang Fan?”

“I’m good.”

It was such a normal conversation, yet Xu Ping felt the tiny hairs on his body bristling.

“Xu Ping.”

“Yeah?”

But the man didn’t say anything for a very long time.

“What the h.e.l.l is going on, Huang Fan?”

Huang Fan laughed. “Nothing, just wanted to call you for some reason.”

“Call me, now out of all times?! Do you not know the city is under martial law?!”

Huang Fan stayed quiet for some time before asking abruptly, “I always wanted to ask you if you had any dreams you wanted to make come true.”

Xu Ping faltered. “No, I don’t. I’m not a very ambitious person. I just want to live a normal life with my family.”

“You have nothing you really, really want?”

“I do. I want my brother to become normal, but that doesn’t seem very feasible, so I don’t think about it much.”

“That’s great.” Huang paused. “Growing up, I thought I was like a rat living in the gutters. The other kids were all nice and clean while I was the only one who was dirty and stinky. Nothing could rid me of the smells I had. So the biggest dream I had was to be able to not lie in the gutters one day, but sadly this hasn’t come true yet.”

“Why are you telling me this? Where in the world are you, Huang Fan?”

“Xu Ping, if you didn’t have your brother, would you want to be with me?”