Yue's evening classes sometimes progressed into the early hours of the morning, and from her home I went straight to the hotel. On the way to the hotel, or even in the middle of the lesson, or on waking up, or instead of sleeping, I often wondered what Valentina was doing at that hour in New York. I knew that she is a woman to wake up early for excursions, to make friends, to film statues, to have lunch standing, to queue, to climb stairs, when we were traveling together it was normal to only meet at dinner time. I couldn't criticize her; I've seen so many cities myself that I am now able to confuse them all.
I found it hard to learn that to get to know a city, rather than traveling on a double-decker bus the best is to shut yourself up in a room inside it. It is not easy, and I knew that entering Shanghai would not be easy. At the airport, I had to resist the facilities offered to a newcomer, the girls from the travel agencies, the taxis that awaited me with open doors: sir, signore, monsieur, mister. I entrusted the suitcase to a more discreet professional and we remained silent for a minute in the car.
"Hotel Plaza", I took the chance. That's what occurred to me, because in any city in the world there is a hotel with that name.
"Yo yo", the driver said, and guided me through foggy suburbs, their posts sparse with mercury-vapor lamps.
I was quite tired, my eyes burned, I dozed off, and suddenly we were traveling in a city so lit up that the facades, the corners, the spaces, but only the lights, could not be seen. One of these signs was from Hotel Plaza, which, like most Plaza hotels, was not in any square, but on a slope.
"Sorry, désolé..." they did not find my reservation but I acted out of agreement, I kept drumming on the counter, and ended up settling in a room with a balcony. I went out on the street, and it was a hill full of typical restaurants and theaters: buona sera, bienvenue, the real goulash, the crazy czardas, if habla espafiol etc. I walked up the street, where it took on the air of a residential, wooded, quiet neighborhood, with nineteenth-century stonework. I had already gone up seven blocks when I heard moaning, like the groans of a hoarse woman and an injured man, and I had the impression of seeing a couple curled up behind an aspen. I stopped, thought it convenient to get back to the hotel, but a blonde girl stood out from the tree and asked me. She seemed to be asking me for something, maybe a cigarette, and being approached in Chinese made me stupid, really honored.
I had no cigarettes, I had stopped smoking a year ago, but without thinking I replied:
"yo yo".
The blonde turned her body, making her petticoat flutter, and with great excitement said something to the tree, from where a young man with strong arms, shirtless, with a khaki vest full of pockets, like a photographer, came out. With an armful, he headed the air, they waved me over to the left. I followed them a little fearfully because I could lose my reference, leaving the hotel street.
But our destination was a hundred meters ahead, a small house with a hand-drawn purple neon.
The Asshole.
English named bar, with English pub decoration, speakers playing English rock'n'roll, I soon imagined that The Asshole was frequented exclusively by Chinese. But in its semi-darkness the young clientele did not discriminate against me, neither because of an outsider nor because I was in my late thirties and thinning my hair. We occupied a tiny round table, me, the blonde in a pink petticoat who looked underage and her photographer boyfriend, at the age of thirty at the most.
A waitress appeared without being asked, exchanged three kisses with each of them and served three glasses of brandy. She landed standing next to me swinging a bag of coins, her bare thigh with cellulite pressed against the edge of the table, and then I realized that I had been asked to finance a night at the bar. I gladly disbursed my renminbis, paying for this and ten or twelve more rounds of brandy that I couldn't identify, because it was too cold and smelled like pure alcohol.
There were also some cans of beer, which the blonde drank dancing between tables, bumping into tables, falling into people's laps. Not satisfied, she started to twerk in front of me, while her boyfriend was smoking a cigar looking at the ceiling, and everyone was shouting comments because of the volume of the music. The abused blonde girl, she would laugh at me and shout at the photographer:
"It is good to know that I am going to bed with this guy...", or "with me, this guy will know what is to be good in bed...", or "know that is with this guy that I will go to bed with...", or whatever.
I already considered myself about to master the Chinese language, when spoken loud and clear.
"This guy in bed could be her stepfather", that's what I understood the photographer say to her, after twisting his mouth and pointing at me with his chin.
Then he trod the cigar, stood up, stood in front of her and he was twice as long, he could take her apart with a soft slap. He grabbed her by the hips, threw her high, caught her with one arm, spun her around the room, her red panties showing, then jumped up on the table, braided his legs and opened them wide in the air in line horizontal. He was an elastic type, his boot goes close to the waitress' ponytail and the bar in weight marked the rhythm of rock and roll with his palms. The blonde tried to copy it ungraciously, the people thought it was funny, and I thought it was time to leave. I made a false step when I got up and hurriedly reached the door, because my torso was faster than my legs.
I inhaled the early morning air, left on the right, hesitated, returned, and there the couple was again, signaling to me in front of The Asshole.
They offered to teach me the way back.
"Yo yo", I really lacked guidance.
They walked in front of me, she was like a child hanging in his arm, and I felt tenderness seeing that scene, it reminded me of a movie I forgot. They stopped by a tree, it was the poplar where I had found them, and I said goodbye with a discreet wave, thinking they wanted to make up again.
But they paired me downhill with unnecessary courtesy, as I already knew I was seven blocks from the hotel. They entered the hotel behind me, dodged the lobby while I took the key, and caught up with me in the elevator. As soon as I opened the room, the photographer settled on my bed and lit a thin pipe. And the blonde led me to the balcony, from where Shanghai could be seen from end to end. It was a cloudy day and the city was gray; funny that I imagined Shanghai yellow, but it was all gray, the buildings, the parks, even the Yellow that cut it in the shape of an epsilon, forking at the top. The blonde took my hand, studied it, sighed, scratched my palm with her fingernail and sighed.
Then she took me to her chest to make me feel her pounding heart. And by the hand she directed me back to the room, where I saw the photographer with his head down, sitting on the end of the bed, shaking his wrist. I found it unpleasant for him to masturbate on my bed, but no, it was the barrel of a revolver that he rolled between his legs. He pointed to a chair in front of him, while the blonde sat on the floor on her legs. There were five bullets on the bedside table, which he kept in a vest pocket, counting from one to five with detailed diction:
"Yī, èr, sān, sì, wŭ".
He looked up at the ceiling, whistled a tune, suddenly raised the gun to his left ear, as if answering an urgent call. He grimaced, she shrugged, he pulled the trigger, a click was heard. He cleared his throat, laid the gun on the floor, and there was a long silence; there were no birds in Shanghai, nor a cock in the distance, a dog, I decided to laugh but the laughter came out metallic. The blonde held the stock, she was also left-handed, and with the right hand she made the sign of the cross. She stuck the barrel into her ear, the gun was huge in her hand, I thought her index finger wouldn't even reach the trigger, she did. She still poked her ear with the barrel, as if looking for the deepest fit, the shortest path to the bullet, fired, and nothing, click. She looked at me between the eyes, a little squint, put the revolver in my hand, it was the first time that I held a firearm. I opened my mouth, the blonde winked at me, glued the barrel to the roof of my mouth.
I wasn't afraid.