Fat Years - Chan Koonchung [62]
As soon as Lao Chen entered the bookstore, he asked the sales assistant to look up Yang Jiang’s works on the computer. Searching the screen, the assistant said, “There aren’t any.”
The young people of today really aren’t very familiar with books, thought Lao Chen. “Are they out of stock?”
“There are no references here, it looks like we’ve never had them in.”
“Maybe you had them in a while ago?”
“There’s no record of our ever having them.”
“But Baptism is a Sanlian publication!”
“I don’t know about that, but there’s certainly no record on the computer.”
“Where’s the manager?”
“Try the coffee shop on the second floor.”
Lao Chen was a fairly analytical person, and so he began to reflect on the fact that in the last two years he hadn’t read any eyewitness accounts of the history of the Chinese Communist Party, or of the People’s Republic. He hadn’t even touched any memoirs of the Anti-Rightist Campaign or the Cultural Revolution. He’d read only the classic Chinese novels, celebrated works in Chinese classical studies. For a while now, he’d been paying no attention to what nonfiction books and memoirs the Sanlian had on its shelves. He decided to go downstairs and take a good look.
The basement had been redesigned. The section right by the stairs that had once held the Sanlian’s own publications had been replaced by the fiction section, and next to it were sections on Chinese classical studies, religion, entertainment, and popular media. Today there were still plenty of customers in these areas, but their numbers didn’t compare to the customers for bestsellers and business, self-improvement, and travel books on the ground floor. Around the corner of the L-shaped basement, the customers thinned out even further. This was the philosophy, history, and politics section where Lao Chen had felt so suffocated after the New Year reception. Now his head ached like it was going to explode. So he quickly gave up his task and raced back up the stairs, where the pounding gradually let up. He was looking for somewhere to sit down and hurried up to the second-floor coffee shop.
Lao Chen was thinking only of finding a nice secluded seat deep inside the coffee shop, when he was surprised to hear someone call out, “Little Chen!” He turned his head and saw Zhuang Zizhong, the venerable founder of the Reading Journal, sitting there with the Sanlian manager, a couple of vaguely familiar members of the cultural set, and a young woman. At the Reading reception, Lao Chen hadn’t greeted Zhuang Zizhong because of the number of people around him, but this time he couldn’t escape. He felt particularly guilty as he shook Zhuang’s hand enthusiastically and said, “Master Zhuang! I’m so happy to see you here.”
Zhuang Zizhong pointed to the young woman. “This is my wife—my present leadership,” he said jokingly. “You’ve probably not met before.”
“Mrs. Zhuang.” Lao Chen gently shook her hand. “Call me Little Chen.”
“Do you all know each other?” Zhuang Zizhong asked his other companions, to which they all nodded.
“I still have the clipping,” Zhuang went on, “of when Little Chen interviewed me for Mingbao. That was a quarter of a century ago.”
Everyone seemed pretty impressed.
“Sit down, Little Chen,” said Zhuang. “I have something I want to ask you. How did Mingbao report this time on the Central Party leader’s visit to my home?”
The Mingbao Web site was blocked on the mainland, and Lao Chen had not seen the report, but he said anyway, “Oh, about the same as the report in the Beijing News, quite a big spread.”
Master Zhuang beamed.
Lao Chen could not help asking a question that had been playing on his mind. “Master Zhuang, is it true that intellectuals today are genuinely willing to be reconciled with the Communist Party?”
He immediately felt he’d been too frank.
“What do you mean,” Zhuang said, showing no adverse reaction to the question, “are intellectuals willing to be reconciled with the Communist Party? The question should be, is the Party willing to be reconciled with the intellectuals?”
Just then someone else came