China Dream by Ma Jian

Author:Ma Jian
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

Dreaming your life away in a drunken haze

Director Ma walks into the reception hall of the Red Guard Nightclub. Pink and red lanterns cast a rosy glow over Maoist propaganda boards and Red Guard flags. Young hostesses wearing the green military uniforms and red armbands of the Cultural Revolution line up in front of him. His pulse quickens; he feels sixteen again. He removes his sunglasses, goes over to Number 8 and nods. After she has informed him that her measurements are 80, 60, 75, he takes her hand, says: ‘I’ll have you tonight,’ and leads her to Chairman Mao’s private compartment. He spotted the name of this club on a list of establishments targeted in a recent campaign against pornography, and decided to try it out himself tonight instead of sleeping with one of his many mistresses.

‘What’s the hurry, Chief? Sit down and have a drink with me. I’ll open this bottle of French claret to welcome you to our club.’ Number 8 squeezes Director Ma’s hand, half cajoling him, half pushing him away. This room is a mock-up of an official train compartment used by Mao Zedong. There is a desk with pencils, a fountain pen and an ashtray; a hanging scroll inscribed with a line of Mao’s poetry: A CAVE CREATED FOR IMMORTALS, / FROM THE PEAKS THE VIEW IS SUBLIME; a sofa, an armchair, a pair of slippers and a silk dressing gown. It even has a replica carriage window that looks out onto a large coloured poster of the green terraced rice fields of Mao’s model village, Dazhai.

‘Tonight, young lady, you will play the part of my first love. Let me look at you. Ah, hands as slender as blades of grass, skin as yielding as congealed fat, neck white as a maggot, eyebrows delicate as the wings of a black moth …’ With great delight, Director Ma removes the hostess’s red-starred military cap, sinks into the armchair and fills two glasses with claret.

‘I’m like moths and maggots?’ Number 8 says indignantly. She watches Ma Daode swig back his drink, then downs hers in one as well.

‘I’m quoting a poem from the Book of Odes,’ Ma Daode answers, gazing up at the ceiling light. ‘It’s a eulogy of a beautiful woman. You should read more widely.’

‘But moths and maggots – that’s a bit disgusting, isn’t it?’ Number 8 wrinkles her nose and tucks her hair behind her ears. Under the glow of the red lamp her face looks plastic.

‘With decoration like this, I expect they’ll charge me two thousand five hundred yuan for the room, two thousand to sleep with you, and another thousand if I don’t use a condom,’ Ma Daode says. Then raising his eyebrows suggestively he whispers: ‘The sluttier you behave the larger your tip!’ He strokes her hair, then puts a lock of it in his mouth and sucks. ‘Mm. You’ve just washed it, haven’t you? Delicious!’ Then he unbuttons her green army jacket and snaps open her bra. ‘Ah, so round and ample.

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