Читать книгу The Jade Butterfly - Jeffrey Round - Страница 11

Doing the Dannie

Toronto’s Danforth Avenue is to Greeks what Santa’s Village is to elves, with the scent of grilled calamari, the tangy kiss of tzatziki, and the crackling burst of saganaki flames to astonish the uninitiated before the ritual dousing in lemon juice. Then too there are the waiters, centaur-like with their crisp linens and protuberant buttocks, who smile and crinkle winsomely, but always leave you wanting more. Not everyone needs a stage to break a heart.

Ren was seated near the back, dressed in a suit and tie. Armani, and not the cheap kind. At Dan’s arrival, he stood and gave a vigorous nod, his smile broadening. The greeting seemed oddly reverential. No matter, Dan liked eagerness in his dates, whether business or pleasure. He studied Ren’s face in the daylight: the flat cheekbones, silky skin, and pouting mouth. Late thirties, he decided, though he could pass for younger. Maybe because of the desire he saw etched there.

They shook hands with a show of formality. Had it been two North Americans who’d slept together the night before they would have embraced, brothers at arms, revelling in the instant familiarity gays accord one another, no matter how disparate their backgrounds. Once you slept with a man, you were connected with him in some ineffable way that non-sexual comrades never could be.

“It is a distinct pleasure to see you again so soon,” Ren said.

“Thanks. Good to see you, too,” Dan replied.

He would allow Ren his awkward formality for now. If he steered toward the weather and last night’s baseball scores as topics of conversation, Dan might rethink his strategy, but a bit of stiffness was fine for the moment. How straight men tolerated the nonsense they bonded over was beyond him, though maybe it was just a shallow connection they were seeking and not true intimacy. But one look at that angelic face atop a satyr’s body promised to be worth any amount of small talk he might endure.

“I had a good time last night,” Dan ventured, trying to push things in a more palpable direction. “I hope you did, too.”

Ren actually blushed. Dan was charmed.

“Yes, I enjoyed myself very much,” he said, his voice lowered and eyes darting, as though worried they might be overheard.

It’s Toronto in the twenty-first century, Dan wanted to say. We don’t need to hide it here. But he wouldn’t risk Ren’s discomfort. He had no idea of his social conditioning, the boundaries he needed to observe to keep on an even keel, especially if he was a married man stepping out on the sly.

A waiter approached. Ren looked at Dan.

“Please, will you order for both?” He caught Dan’s surprised look. “I am open to many things.”

Dan resisted a smile, nodded, and turned to the menu. He rattled off a few dishes, hoping they would offer a range of appeal. The waiter gathered up the menus and left.

“Thank you,” Ren said. “Your hospitality is most appreciated.”

“So was yours last night. I’m just returning the favour.”

This time there was no blushing.

“That was also my pleasure,” Ren told him.

“We didn’t get much chance to talk,” Dan said. “I don’t even know where you’re from.”

“I am from mainland China,” Ren replied. “But I am abroad a great deal.”

Visions of the Taiwanese businessman slipped away and were replaced by countless questions on Dan’s part.

“I am here as a representative for my country,” Ren explained, as if anticipating his thoughts. “I am a cultural ambassador. I meet with members of your government and business community for trade and tourism purposes.”

“That sounds impressive.”

He smiled his disarming smile. “It is not really very interesting, I am afraid.”

“I’m also impressed by your English. Did you learn it in school?”

Ren shook his head. “Not as a child. Later, I went to a school for international trade relations. There I had an English teacher from Canada. She was extremely effective. This is one of the reasons I am allowed to come here. My government considers me to be a much-valued asset.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “Of course, many people wish to leave China and come to the West.”

“Do you?”

A smile flickered and died. Ren held Dan’s gaze. “There are many things I would like.”

“Such as?”

“I would like to change certain things. For instance, there is almost no homosexual life in China. What is there is purposely hidden. For many years, I did not even know such things existed. No one spoke about it. Chinese say it is a Western disease.”

Dan nodded. “I believe Mao claimed that homosexuality was the result of a corrupt capitalist society.”

China’s great leader, Dan knew, was just one in a long line of politicians who had used scare tactics to intimidate people, equating the inferred slur of homosexuality with corrupt political practices. Ironically, both sides in the communist-capitalist debate fostered the same kind of fear, with gays caught in the middle, as usual. The infamous red-baiter, Senator Joseph McCarthy, went so far as to defend his beliefs by saying that anyone who stood against them was “either a communist or a cocksucker,” neither of which most Americans wanted to be called at the time. On the other hand, a committed communist named Harry Hay, founder of one of the first gay liberation groups in the U.S., was subsequently kicked out of the Communist party for being a homosexual. In an almost-farcical turnaround, he was expelled from his own Mattachine Society for being a communist. For queers, there was just no middle ground.

Dan smiled. “You can blame anything on money, I guess.”

Ren nodded shyly. “This may be true, but I did not grow up rich. My family came from Chengdu in Sichuan province. Although my father was in the military, we were still very poor.”

“Well, there you go,” Dan said. “You were gay and poor. So neither assertion is correct.”

“Yes.”

Ren’s face grew solemn.

“Thank you for coming today,” he said, as though addressing a will reading. “I would like to discuss a matter with you for professional reasons.”

He pulled an envelope from his pocket. A single black-and-white image slid onto the table. Dan picked up the photograph. A massive sculpture of a lion filled the background, while two teenagers stood in the foreground. Ren’s nascent beauty was already palpable; the girl beside him seemed ghostly, pensive.

“This is me with my sister, Ling. She died in Tiananmen.”

“My condolences.”

“Thank you. I would like to hire you to find her.”

Dan shook his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand. You want me to find a dead woman?”

Ren shook his head vigorously. “Excuse me, please. Perhaps she is not dead now. I have found her on the Internet. I believe she lives here, possibly under a false name.”

Dan’s expression must have been comical, because Ren suddenly began to laugh.

“Yes, it is a mystery!”

Dan flashed on the envelope that had showed up at breakfast two days earlier, the one filled with clippings on the Tiananmen massacre.

“You sent me photocopies of articles on Tiananmen.”

Ren smiled shyly. “Yes, I did this. It is true.”

“Why?”

Ren’s face was all seriousness now. “I did not know if you would be acquainted with the history of my country and the student revolts.”

“Tiananmen was famous. Everybody remembers it. Everybody who was alive then.”

Ren shook his head. “In my country, it is already being forgotten. It is buried along with the past.”

Dan’s mind was backtracking as he studied Ren’s face. “Then you already knew who I was when we met.”

“You will please forgive me. I tracked you down, as they say in the West.”

“Is that why you slept with me?”

Ren looked chagrined. “No. Please do not believe this was to take advantage. I was pleasantly … surprised to find myself attracted to you. Only because of this did I sleep with you, I promise.”

“Sorry, that was rude of me.” Dan glanced down at the photograph. “You had better explain what this all has to do with your sister.”

“When I learned my government was sending me to Canada, I investigated the Internet to learn about Toronto. To my surprise, I found a Chinatown with many Chinese people.”

“More than one,” Dan said, thinking of the second Chinatown in Riverdale close to his own neighbourhood, as well as several established Asian neighbourhoods in the city at large.

“I believe I have found a picture of my sister at the Kowloon Bakery.”

The name sounded familiar. Dan thought he recalled such an establishment from his student days. “I think I know it,” he said.

“In the picture, my sister is sitting at a table eating with other customers.”

“Are you sure it’s her?”

Ren nodded. “I am very sure it is her.”

“When did you last see her?”

“At Tiananmen Square on the night the fighting started.”

“Tell me what happened.”

“It was my eighteenth birthday. We were at a restaurant called Red Dragon. Ling, myself, and two friends from school. On the way home, we heard the noise of many people gathered in the square near the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong. We already knew there was unrest and anti-government protests, but not the fighting. I said to my friends, ‘Let us go and see what is happening.’ We all went. Then the tanks arrived. When the fighting started, we tried to escape. I was shot.”

“You were shot?”

Ren gripped his thigh. “Here.”

Dan remembered the scar he’d seen on Ren’s leg, the worm at the heart of the perfect rose.

“I fell down. Others were screaming and yelling. My friends ran away. When I got up, Ling was gone. I never saw her again.”

His expression was subdued.

“I loved my sister very much,” he said softly.

“What happened after that?”

“I hid until the fighting was over. Some people took me in. I could not go home for two weeks. There was no telephone. My mother was very scared, but my father was angry. He beat me when I came back without Ling.”

“And your leg?”

“It healed eventually. It still hurts sometimes.”

“I’m not surprised,” Dan said.

The waiter returned with drinks. Dan waited till he left again before continuing.

“Tell me about your sister. What was she like?”

“Ling was a well-behaved girl and always obedient to our parents. She obtained very high marks in school. My sister was very smart and exquisitely beautiful.”

“Older or younger than you?”

“One year older. Ling was extremely intelligent and liked to read. In fact, we were both good readers. When we were children, our father brought us books from the military library. We would read each one together. When we had finished all the books in the library, he went on his bicycle to another town to get more books. Especially English authors.”

Dan looked at him in surprise. “I thought they would have been banned by your government.”

“Not all. Only propaganda. If something criticized the Western world and the exploitation of workers, such books were allowed. Charles Dickens, for instance.”

Dan smiled to think that Pip and Oliver Twist were Chinese heroes.

“How did you find the picture of your sister at the Kowloon Bakery?”

“When we were children, there was a calendar in our home. It was from the Kowloon Café in Hong Kong. Ling and I said that one day we would go there together. When I saw the advertisement for the Kowloon Bakery in Toronto, I clicked on it from simple curiosity.”

“It sounds like your sister decided to go there without you. Did you print a copy of the picture?”

Ren shook his head. “No, this was not possible. Authority figures would be curious why I should want such a thing. But I was so surprised to see her, I cried out loud.”

Dan studied Ren’s face. “What makes you sure the woman is your sister?”

“It has to be. If I think how she might change in twenty years, then this is precisely what she would look like today.”

Dan’s experience told him that was not always the case, but he was willing to hear the full story before making a judgment.

“Would you be able to find the site again?”

Ren nodded slowly. “Yes. I am sure I can find it.”

The waiter returned. Dan and Ren sat in silence while he placed a basket of bread before them, plates piled with salad on either side. The boy stepped away from the table with a brisk nod. Dan almost expected him to click his heels and pivot.

He nodded to Ren to begin then picked up his fork and dug in. Fresh oregano, olive oil, and vinegar clanged against his taste buds.

“Supposing I find her? What then? What if she doesn’t want to see you?”

Ren looked surprised.

“You have to be prepared,” Dan cautioned. “These are the difficulties I always advise my clients to be ready to face. Tiananmen was what — twenty years ago? If your sister has lived in Toronto all this time without trying to contact you, there may be a reason for that.”

A tremor passed over Ren’s face. Hurt, possibly. Or disbelief. Perhaps it hadn’t occurred to him that his sister was fleeing something, or else she simply had no desire to see her family again. The logic was sometimes beyond comprehension. There was often a valid reason, if only in the mind of the person who had gone missing. Unspoken resentments, unexpressed fears. Intolerable secrets. It was impossible to say. There didn’t even have to be a reason, just a lack of desire to be in touch with the family again. You couldn’t make anyone go home again, not if they didn’t want to. Sometimes it just took one thing — an accident, a revolt — and you realized the moment had come to make a choice: go through that brief window in time or wait for a second chance that might never come.

“She will wish to see me,” Ren insisted.

“I hope she does, but I can’t make her,” Dan told him. “You have to understand that would be between the two of you. Assuming I can find her after twenty years. I just want you to be prepared, no matter what.”

“I am a rich man. I can pay.”

“I gathered.”

A Chinese national with money to burn was a rare thing, Dan knew. Once an impoverished nation that could barely feed its population, the economic reforms China implemented over the past three decades had given it the second-largest economy in the world. While the average citizen remained below parity, an energetic private sector had created a small pool of millionaires whose status ranked alongside political officials. Ren’s lodgings alone said he was special in that regard. If he was well set up with his government, there was no telling what he had at his disposal.

Dan pushed his salad plate away. A late lunch crowd arrived, filling the tables around them. The noise grew.

“I have to admit, I’m intrigued.”

“And what of the other?” Ren asked softly. “Will you still want that from me?”

Dan smiled. You don’t find a diamond every day, he reminded himself. For Ren, he was prepared to break a few professional rules, maybe even a few personal ones. While he didn’t believe in love at first sight, he had no doubt about the powerful attraction between them, remembering how fully alive he’d felt the night before. That didn’t happen every day, either.

“Maybe we need to check out what kind of fruit is in your hotel this evening.”

Ren gave him a curious look. “Please?”

Their food had just arrived, mountains of it.

“I’ll explain later. Let’s eat.”