We all felt a little awkward. “We met twenty years ago,” I said.
A wealthy Taiwanese named Shui Xinghua-meaning “prosperous China”-had set up a foundation that held four Xinghua, or Prosperous China, conferences in the early 1990s. The idea was to invite a dozen or so promising young people from China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong to get together and exchange ideas and experiences. In Macao in 1992, He Dongsheng was a mainland delegate and I was a Taiwanese delegate. He Dongsheng was just a young scholar at that time and didn’t give us the impression that he was particularly outstanding, but then later he became a high-ranking official in the Communist Party.
We all raised our glasses to each other, and after that we watched the film. Nobody said a word throughout the entire thing except once when Jian Lin commented, “The woman playing the mother-in-law of the counterrevolutionary was really very young at the time. You can still see her quite often these days on TV.”
During the screening, I took a look at He Dongsheng. He seemed to have fallen asleep. Jian Lin was very conscientiously watching the film-he really did love those old Red Classics.
“Pretty good,” I said, “interesting, but when young people see it now they probably won’t understand it. They’ll need someone to interpret it for them.”
Suddenly He Dongsheng spoke up. “It’s easy to make them work for eight hours, but it’s hard to control them after those eight hours. Old Mao never solved that problem.”
I was rather surprised that He Dongsheng would come right out and call Mao Zedong “Old Mao.”
“Did you know, after Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Reform and Openness’ started,” he continued, “there was a magazine in Tianjin called
“After they work eight hours, let capitalism take care of them,” Jian Lin quipped.
“Yes, definitely,” He Dongsheng continued-the alcohol had loosened him up. “Your Old Mao cannot ask people to grasp revolution and increase production twenty-four hours a day. You have to let people go home and have something tasty to eat, buy some nice clothes, and indulge in some petit bourgeois fun. The people want all this and you can’t deny them it. If you don’t let them enjoy themselves, who’s going to work for you? Just having a good life is not too much to ask.”
Most officials, when they open their mouths, seem to come out only with conventional bureaucratic patter, but what He Dongsheng was saying sounded quite normal.
He began to grow on me.
After expressing his opinions, he gloomily sipped his wine.
“This is very good wine, very good wine,” Jian Lin said again after a while. “It’s better now than it was before. The flavor has completely opened out. We’ve been mixing white and red, and it still tastes great.”
We all fell silent again. I thought He Dongsheng would leave after the film ended, but he just sat there with us. He didn’t speak anymore and he didn’t touch the huge assortment of snacks that Jian served with the wine. He just kept on slowly sipping his wine. Jian brought out some big cigars, but we didn’t want any, so he was too embarrassed to smoke alone.
After the bottles and our glasses were all empty, Jian served up some famous Wuyi Dahongpao tea. He Dongsheng didn’t touch it. He didn’t seem to need even any water. It was just about midnight when He Dongsheng stood up and went to the toilet.
“He suffers from insomnia,” Jian Lin whispered. “He doesn’t need any sleep, and I was afraid he’d stay here forever. I can’t stay up all night; these days I go to bed early and get up early.”
“I go to bed early, too-I hate staying up all night.” I recalled that He Dongsheng had dozed off during the film.
“How about I give you a ride home?” said He Dongsheng when he got back.
“There’s no need,” I replied, “I live nearby. I’ll walk home.” Then, without thinking, I asked, “Is your driver still here?” Of course, as a high official, his driver would always be there.
I never imagined he would respond the way he did. “At night, I drive myself, I like to drive. Sometimes I drive around until morning; if I’m tired, I take a nap in the car.” He seemed to think that he had said too much, muttered, “I’m going,” and then left.
I sort of regretted not letting He Dongsheng drive me home. I really didn’t live that close. In the daytime, I would have walked it, but so late at night, I had to take a cab. It was Jian Lin who really lived close, on the top floor of a building in the same neighborhood.
“We hadn’t seen each other for a long time,” Jian Lin explained, “when I saw him recently at a memorial service for my aunt, and so I thought I’d invite him over.”
“You’re cousins on your father’s side,” I said, “but your last name is Jian and his is He. Why is that?”
“My father had two younger brothers who both joined the Revolution and changed their last names. Dongsheng’s last name was originally Jian.”
Apparently, it was quite common for second cousins in old revolutionary families to have different surnames.
“What about your other uncle?” I asked.
“I don’t have much contact with that side of the family,” Jian Lin answered.
I was uncomfortable delving any further into Jian’s family, so I said, “I never imagined that you and He Dongsheng were related. How high up is he now?”
“How high?” exclaimed Jian Lin. “Right now he is a member of the Politburo-a veteran of three Party Congresses. That’s no mean achievement.”
“Does that make him a national leader?” I asked.
“Strictly speaking, they should be called ‘Party and national leaders,’ ” Jian Lin said. “On the Party side, everyone from the secretaries in the Party Secretariat on up should be regarded as Party and national leaders. That would, of course, include members of the Politburo.”
Most national leaders I had seen had well-groomed black pompadours and ruddy complexions, and they were always in high spirits. I’d never imagined I would run into a pale, balding, insomniac national leader.
A titillating spring night
Standing on the pavement waiting for a cab on that early-spring morning after watching an old film and drinking so much wine, I had lost all desire for sleep. I phoned a friend of mine and went over to her place. I’d first met her over ten years ago when she was still working at the Paradise Club-a popular Beijing nightclub and disco famous for its beautiful and cultured escorts. I am a man of modest appetites, but sometimes I have my desires, and so I looked her up. I figured it was over two years since I’d last seen her, and I hadn’t even thought of her, not until that morning…
When I returned home from my visit, I still couldn’t get to sleep. I had only one question on my mind: should I send an e-mail to Little Xi?
Big Sister Song had said Little Xi often changed her e-mail address. So there was no point writing one-her address had probably already changed. And if I did write, I might be inviting trouble. She’d always been the type of woman I like. When she was running the restaurant, I was strongly attracted to her, but there were always too many customers after her. Although we’d known each other for twenty years and could be considered old friends, there’d never been anything sexual between us, not even flirting. She was always surrounded by a circle of men-
