aren't you answering the phone are you going out with other men are you sleeping together I don't care if it's over I still love you and I am not going to let you have a new life you will not be happy I'm not happy so you won't be happy we'll be destroyed together.'
After a while, I had to say something.
'Heavenly Bastard in the Sky, Xiaolin, I wanted to put an end to all this. You have to see someone, you stupid man, a doctor or a psychologist, you have to. You can't build your life on top of my flesh. You aren't the only one who's hurting, you know. It hurts whenever people end things. You're not more unlucky than other people and I'm not more cruel than anyone else. I was just the one to break things first...'
Xiaolin got even more irritated. His eyes made a survey of my room. I could tell he needed to do something with his body. His eyes stopped at my green canvas chair. A director's chair, as film crews call them, foldable and handy on set. I thought it would suit my life too, foldable and handy whenever I needed to move.
Suddenly the director's chair was a blur of green canvas, flying through the air straight for me. Its path was blocked by the light fixture hanging from the ceiling. The room flashed and pieces of glass danced magnificently in the air. Then the broken chair was lying on the ground. It was over in seconds. All that was left was a mess of glinting fragments on my bed, my desk, my books, my carpet. Xiaolin stood back and admired his masterpiece.
'This is the price you have to pay for leaving me,' he said. Then he walked out. Oh, I wanted him to die.
I spent the next two days crawling over my carpet, shaking out my duvet and wiping the surfaces of my shabby furniture as I cleaned up leftovers from the magnificent glass party I kept finding blood on the bottoms of my feet. For every shard of glass I pulled from my skin, another would find its way in.
It was on one of these days, as I was extracting a piece of glass from the arch of my left foot, that Ben called.
'Hey, Fenfang, how are you doing? It's eleven o'clock here in Boston. I'm getting ready for bed. What are you up to?'
I was holding the phone and staring at the piece of glass that I'd just removed from my foot. It glowed in the light from my mobile. 'Ben,' I said, 'I've been tidying my apartment. I was just cleaning the carpet when you called.'
His voice came back. 'Fenfang. I miss you.'
I turned off the phone, and sat still and quiet in my room, my feet resting on glass splinters stuck in the carpet. I had this great urge to cry, but I didn't want to cry alone. For a really good cry, I needed a man's shoulder.
I'VE NEVER BEEN TO THE SAHARA DESERT, but I don't think it can be that different to a Beijing summer. It was two o'clock in the afternoon and the air in my apartment was hot and stifling. Any moisture in the flat had evaporated weeks ago. I lay on my bed. My body felt dead, my eyes would hardly open. I was vaguely aware of sunlight filtering through the orange curtains and a book in my hand. I lifted my arm and saw a rumpled copy of Kafka's biography.
Through the tightly shut window, the sounds of the city were still audible. I could pick out details. A woman shouting. Street sellers hustling. A baby crying unbearably loudly. Some kids playing video games. The sounds were exhausting. I couldn't face the day. I didn't have the energy. Whenever I went out into the street, I would find others living positively and happily. They firmly believed in their lives, while I was always drifting and believed in nothing. I often thought about Huizi's favourite poem, 'Facing the Ocean, the Warmth of Spring is Blossoming'. Its second verse went like this:
From tomorrow, I will write to my family
Tell them I am settled, I am calm
A warmth will radiate through my life
It will radiate to everyone in this world.
From tomorrow, each river and each mountain
Will be given a new and tender name.
Facing the ocean, the warmth of spring will blossom, but only from tomorrow. Tomorrow, tomorrow, it would all happen tomorrow. And what about