Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [61]
It seemed Fang Caodi had finally realized that Lao Chen was not joking. “Lao Chen, you mean you really don’t remember? But just now I actually thought you really were one of us.”
Fang Caodi, Zhang Dou, Little Xi, and Little Dong—they are probably all members of that club, thought Lao Chen.
“Well then, I’m sorry to have bothered you,” said Fang disappointedly.
“No, no, no,” Lao Chen countered, “I’m definitely not one of you, but listen … It’s like this: you’re aliens from outer space who have accidentally landed on earth and can’t go home, and I’m an earthling who’s able to communicate with you. I’m your friend on this earth. Do you understand what I’m getting at?”
“I get it,” Fang said. “You’re a traitor among earth people.”
Lao Chen didn’t feel like arguing any further. “I know some people, more than one, who might be members of your club.”
“That’s terrific,” said Fang. “Where are they?”
“I don’t know where they are. I’m looking for one of them right now.”
“Really? I’ll help you. We can search together.”
Lao Chen looked at Fang Caodi, trying to decide whether to let him tag along, and whether if he did it would cause him any trouble.
“I’m a specialist,” Fang said. “For the past couple of years I’ve been working on this, looking for that lost month, looking for people like me, for evidence. Let me help you, Lao Chen.”
“I’ll think about it, Old Fang.”
Fang Caodi fell silent for a while, but just as they were reaching the Sanlian Bookstore he said, “Lao Chen, there’s nothing worth reading in the bookstores these days. I’ve been all over the country, and it’s the same everywhere; all they have are officially doctored books. Don’t imagine you are going to find anything about the true state of things. If you don’t believe me, take a look yourself. Not only are there no books that mention that lost month, there are definitely no books about the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre. There aren’t even any decent books about the Anti-Rightist Campaign or the Cultural Revolution. They’re all a pack of lies.”
Lao Chen didn’t respond. Fang Caodi was beginning to irritate the hell out of him. Do I need him to give me directions on how to browse in a bookstore? he thought. The Sanlian has thousands of books. Has Fang Caodi read them all? Even the memoirs of famous living people would fill up several rows of shelves. I used to come here every week, and have come here every couple of months for the past two years. Am I not a lot better than him at finding books? I’m the expert here. Old Fang has always been such a pain in the ass.
When Lao Chen leapt out of the car as if to make his escape, Fang Caodi immediately dialed his number. Lao Chen answered his ringing phone.
“Now you’ve got my cell number. Ring me anytime, twenty-four seven. I’ll be expecting your call.” And just before driving off, Fang leaned his head out the window. “Lao Chen, I’ll bet you they don’t even sell books by someone as famous as Yang Jiang in there, and especially not her Cultural Revolution memoir.”
With that he drove off. Lao Chen carried on ruminating. Besides those banned books published only in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and books printed illegally on the mainland by underground presses, many controversial books that were once legally published in China are definitely unavailable now, he thought to himself. Books like Little Shu’s collection of CCP members’ writings from 1941 to 1946, Harbingers of History, and Zhang Yihe’s celebrated memoir of the Anti-Rightist Campaign, The Past Is Not a Fog. Yang Xianhui’s 2003 report on the death by starvation of about three thousand Rightists in Gansu, What Happened at Jiabiangou, and Wu Si’s Unwritten Rules, an exposé of official corruption, might or might not be available … But bestsellers like Yang Jiang’s The Shower, Six Chapters from My Life “Downunder,” and Reaching the Border of Human Life surely must be available. The Three of Us is even published by the Sanlian. How could they possibly