As Sabotage Sister and the band leave Wisconsin, heading for Minnesota, on the other side of the Atlantic, Jian is writing to his lost lover.
Dearest Mu,
I received your letter finally—the one about you going to America! America! Old Hell! I don’t know how it made it to me, across seas and continents, but somehow it did. But that was two months ago, so who knows where you are now. I’m going to try this Boston address, but I don’t hold out much hope—on tour means on the road, surely. What a surreal concept; my world is in stasis. I don’t know what it is to explore any longer. I am quarrying inside myself; that’s all there is left.
I am still in an in-between state. I’m waiting for my asylum application to be granted. That is all. No news, no change—or at least that’s how I feel after days in this grey box. I can’t see what there is beyond this right now, I can’t even see you here with me, or us together in Beijing any more. Even my memories of our flat are hazy and dissolving. I hope you’re having a good time, wherever you are. And I hope you can lead the life you’ve always wanted to live. America must be better than China, whatever I think of it.
You should start a new life, a brand-new life without me.
Good luck, Mu.
Jian
Iona is reading the letter in the fifth-floor cafe of Tate Modern. She repeats the line: You should start a new life, a brand-new life without me. As she repeats the phrase in Chinese she rises, then leaves the cafe and briefly visits the current exhibition, a retrospective of the American artist Roy Lichtenstein. Standing in front of a comic strip called Drowning Girl, Iona thinks of Mu; somehow the drowning girl becomes Mu’s face. Mu, an individual, struggles for her voice in the sea of multiple American voices. Iona decides to go out for some fresh air.
She is on the Millennium Bridge, swaying in the faintly fetid wind above the grey currents of the Thames. The steel floor vibrates and echoes with hundreds of footsteps. She stops at the central point, sees the city crouching on both sides of the great gash of river whose waves spread wide the legs of the capital. The tide is strong. She imagines people drowning in the stench-coloured water, the opaque liquid ready to consume any living thing. She remembers she heard on the radio the other day that each year there are about forty-five people drowned in the Thames. She can almost see their drowning limbs struggling, grey mud painting out the humanity of their faces before they sink forever. And in the distance the buildings of empire are indifferent to it all. Iona is shaken out of her vision by the feel of a hand touching her left arm. She turns. It’s an old tramp, stump-like limb outstretched, she assumes for money, mouth gurgling something. Automatically, Iona draws out a few coins from her pocket and drops them in the open palm. But she does not linger to confront the eyes upon her.
Proceeding along the bridge she again feels a tug. On the brink of annoyance, Iona turns her head and automatically speaks:
“Yes, what now?”
At first all Iona notices is a traditional full-sized umbrella with a wooden handle hanging in the crook of a man’s arm. Then she notices the familiar big brown coat the man wears. Iona looks up; it is her old professor from the Chinese department at SOAS.
“God, Charles!”
“God indeed.” He laughs. “I thought to myself: who is this slim creature lingering on the bridge, with that devilishly stylish black hair, très Louise Brooks, wandering alone? It could only be Iona Kirkpatrick!”
“Oh, Charles!” Iona almost laughs. “You look exactly the same. I recognised your umbrella first!”
“Oh yes, my gentleman’s umbrella! It ensures my hair is just so in even the worst London downpour.” The professor gestures to his hair—he is completely bald, and has always been, apparently. But his boyish, bright-eyed face is still there, smooth and almost unlined.
“My star pupil. What are you doing nowadays, Iona?”
Professor Handfield’s eyes are full of humorous affection for her. Charles, a well-known sinologist in his mid-sixties, is still bursting with vigorous energy. She knows that she was one of his favourite students, and she got the highest marks on her final dissertation. He had hoped she might continue studying, do a Ph.D. on Chinese history, or work for some important cross-governmental organisation. But she didn’t. Instead she disappeared from the academic scene.
“Well, I’m still freelance, working on translations.” Iona feels a bit embarrassed. “Most of the jobs are not very interesting, to be honest …” Her voice peters out as the professor looks at her intently. “But there is a job I’ve been working on recently which is getting me really fired up …”
“Oh really? What is it? Do tell me. I’m intrigued! Landscape poets from the Ming dynasty? The travel writings of Bai Juyi?” He shifts his umbrella onto his other arm and walks with her over the bridge.
“Actually, something more contemporary. A publisher sent me a pile of Chinese letters and diaries in April, asking me to translate them. All a bit of a mystery, as they didn’t really know what they were or whether they were even publishable. But I’m uncovering more and more as I go. So far I know that the letter writer is a banned punk musician who used to live in Beijing, but is now in exile in the West.”
“Excellent. I knew you would do something interesting. But this musician—would I know his songs?” Her professor speaks with what can only be a glint of sarcasm, though with Charles it’s always difficult to tell if he is being serious or not. “You know, I’m not as much of a fuddy-duddy as I look. I’m quite partial to second-generation Beijing punk. Do you know Cold Blooded Animal—Leng Xue Dong Wu?”
“No, Charles, I don’t. And I’m not entirely sure you do, either.” They laugh together. “My musician’s name is Kublai Jian. It’s probably his stage name, though I can’t find anything about him online. I think the most famous album was called Yuan vs. Dollars—Renminbi Huan Mei Yuan. And that wasn’t all that long ago. Only a couple of years. I can’t find his music online at all. I think everything’s probably been cleaned away by Chinese cyber police.”
“Hmm, that title sounds suspiciously euphemistic, don’t you think? Well, the cyber police in China are the best in the world. If this musician is banned, he’s probably someone who’s done something important, said something dangerous, incited crowds to rebel—the list is endless! We know all about Ai Weiwei, and the familiar list of dissident writers. They are not nobodies. Often they’re connected to the elite. That’s why they’re watched even more closely.”
Iona nods vigorously. “Yes, exactly. I’ve been thinking that, too. But I have to get further with the translation, delve further into the letters. I still have mountains to get through.”
“Well, Iona, you know where to find me if you ever need an expert opinion. I realise I’m more at home with the Boxer Rebellion on the whole, but contemporary resistance has also started to interest me intensely.” Here Charles’s hypnotic brown eyes, with their laser-like lustre, momentarily arrest her. “You know, we really miss you at SOAS,” Charles says with a great show of sincerity. “If you ever reconsider academia, do let me know …” He checks his watch quickly. “I must rush—meeting a friend at the South Bank. We’re seeing Khachaturian’s Spartacus. Lots of nude muscular young men under the Roman lash.” He raises his eyebrows suggestively. “Remember, do come and find me any time in July. I’ll be in Nangking until the end of next month. Zaijian!”
Charles and Iona hug and move on. As they walk in opposite directions over the bridge, Iona’s university days come vividly to life. She studied language mainly with Charles—prerevolutionary Chinese idiom in particular. But she also dipped a toe in history. She did a course with Charles on Chinese secret societies like the Boxers at the end of the nineteenth century. What would he make of her mysterious punk musician? she wondered. He might translate him better than her, since didn’t he teach her all she knows about translating? She feels cheered by his presence. As she crosses the street, the roar of the city returns to her: traffic, church bells, buses, gulls, sirens. The weak spring sun momentarily flashes and she suddenly feels a rush: she is alive! Yes, she is still young—I have hardly begun my life! And, she tells herself, feeling she has declared something solemn and serious, I will not live a trivial life.