“Does anyone in this city know how to walk?” I almost screamed, suddenly remembering why I stayed away from this city for three years. A few people turned their half-interested faces toward me in surprise as if to say, “shenme? Ta weishenme shuo Yingwen?” but nobody answered. I didn't expect them to. Nobody in this city spoke a word of English, and I certainly didn't know how to ask that in Chinese. Not with the right level of sarcasm, anyway. The subway was packed, as usual, with an unending tide of people. That was what made Beijing, well... Beijing. Ren shan, ren hai, as the saying went.
Of course it occurred to me, that saying, which compares the people to an ocean, wasn't exactly accurate. You see, a sea actually moves! Beijing subway dwellers on the other hand, were known to shamble along like half-frozen zombies, always walking in that agonizingly slow way, as if every time they move one foot they are not sure what to do with the other. Left foot... um... right foot... uh, now what?... Oh, oh, I got it! Left foot again... um... what's next?
Somehow, after weaving through the endless Human herd for so much time that a small star could have gone from nebula to supernova, I finally emerged from the subway exit and found myself at the entrance of Wanda Plaza at Tongzhou Beiyuan. Standing aside to avoid being run over by crowds -funny how they suddenly learned to move quickly when they were no longer in the subway- I took my phone out of my pocket and looked again at the WeChat message containing directions.
“Building B, 29th floor,” I read aloud. “Blue Lagoon Bar.” With another glance upward at the twin towers that held the shopping mall, I shook my head. An office complex seemed like a strange place to find a bar and God-only-knew where the nearest lagoon actually was, but I didn't argue.
The entrance to building B wasn't difficult to find, compared to some other places in Beijing, and the elevator was virtually unused at this time of night (though the Bao'an at the entrance did look at me a bit strangely as I walked in; it seemed not many white guys hung out in office complexes in the Beijing suburbs at 9:45 PM on a Thursday), so it didn't take me long to get to the 29th floor. I wasn't that surprised when I stepped off the elevator into a labyrinth of construction work, and was equally unsurprised when the workers (who were still hammering and drilling even at that ludicrous hour) didn't know how to answer the question “jiu ba 'Blue Lagoon,' zai na r?” With a shake of my head and a mutter of “yeah, it's Beijing alright,” I resigned myself to the reality that I'd have to find the place myself.
Fortunately, there weren't many neon signs on the 29th floor, so the big green one saying “Blue Lagoon Bar” somewhat stood out. The door was open, and the music inside was so low that I still didn't hear it until I was almost inside. The change of setting was stark as I crossed the doorway from the fluorescent lighting of the hallway into the dimly-lit bar with its faint green ambience, which I found a little incongruous for a place with 'blue' in its name. The entire wall opposite the door was a plate-glass window facing toward the city center, and though I had never really liked this city, I had to admit that the view of the ocean of lights leading off toward the shimmering spires of Guomao at night was almost gorgeous enough make me forget what a nightmare it had been to live here... almost. The music was an unusual choice for Beijing; something slow and sultry in... was that Spanish? I guessed that it was. Martini glasses that looked like James Bond should be sipping from them hung from a rack above the bar, where a bored-looking bartender looked up at me as I entered. Other than the bartender and me though, the place was empty.
No, not quite empty.
Had it not been for the rattle of ice in a glass I would never have noticed a lone figure sitting about 10 meters away at a chair next to the window facing out toward the skyline. His button-down shirt and jeans were dark enough that, sitting nearly motionless as he was, he looked less like a customer and more like part of the décor. With no other customers, the bartender didn't need to look up to know who was asking, or for what, when the quasi-statue held up his now empty glass and called out “duo yige, laoban.”
As the bartender chuckled at Pat's 'fresh-off-the-plane' Mandarin, I walked over and sat down next to him, taking a sniff of the air to try and guess the drink. “Gin and tonic?” I answered without bothering with a greeting.
His back was still turned, but he showed no surprise (or any reaction at all) at my entrance. “Malibu and Sprite,” he corrected me.
I nodded. “Not exactly your usual, Pat.”
The sigh Pat gave could have dragged down the Edmund Fitzgerald. “Well it's not a usual kind of night,” came his non-answer as the bartender brought another bottle of rum and another of Sprite, opting to save money in classic Beijing style by pouring the customer's next round in the same glass instead of bringing another.
I rapped my knuckles against the wooden railing next to the window a few times, considering how to proceed. Finally I decided to just get to the point. “So, what kind of night is it, exactly? Eh, Pat? I mean, we're only here for two weeks. What's got you all the way out here on the outer rim of the city in an empty bar the size of a closet?
Pat stared out the window for so long I wondered if he was going to answer or not. Finally, and still without turning away from the window, he said, “I'm no different from any other ghost, Ray. I haunt the room where I died.” Hearing this, I began to wonder if alcohol was the only thing my friend was putting into his system that night. When he finally turned to look at me he must have registered my concern because his reddened eyes lost the haunted expression I'd seen in them for an instant and he shot me a glare of pure annoyance. “It's a metaphor, dumbass,” he spat.
The truth is I hadn't exactly been sure of that before he said it, but I shrugged and gave a chuckle as if he was joking. “Gotta say, there's worse views to die looking at. Though if I had to listen to this Latin-pop garbage, I'd probably die too. Where'd a bar in suburban Beijing get this playlist anyway?”
“Not their playlist,” Pat corrected me again, holding up his phone. “It's mine. Slipped the bartender a little extra to hook my phone up to the sound-system. Since no one else is here spending any money, he kinda couldn't say no.” The display on Pat's phone showed a playlist labeled “reminiscing.”
I furrowed my brow. “I didn't know you listened to this crap.”
Pat chuckled mirthlessly as he turned his eyes back to the window. “I usually don't. Someone...” he seemed like he wasn't going to finish, then went on. “Someone else did.” By this time I was getting tired of the way Pat kept dropping hints without really saying anything. I opened my mouth to ask a question, but he beat me to it. “It was here, Ray.” Pat drained half of his glass and spoke as if he was forcing himself to hurry and say what he wanted to say while he was still able to say it. “It was right here. This bar... Hell, it was even this same table.” He took one more sip, smaller this time, and went on. “It was right here, the night before I got on the plane back to Texas, where we talked about our future. A future together, in the States. It was right here where she smiled, looking like Venus herself, and said 'see you in Houston, Pat.' It was right here when she said 'if there's an opportunity, I can come there to Houston, to you, and that will be our new life.'“ He swished his drink around in its glass for a bit before finishing ironically, “and that was the last time I saw her.”
Finally, I put two-and-two together. Tongzhou... rum and Sprite... her. I gave myself a quick mental kick for not having anticipated this as soon as I put Pat on that plane here three days before. The most annoying thing is I knew Pat well enough to know I was about to hear the whole sorry story. I'd never heard it all. Not quite. But I'd heard enough snippets of it, and had heard him giving a synopsis of it to enough other people, always ending with the part where he found photos on instagram of her wedding to some guy from some South American country, that I'd managed to put the pieces together. “I'd better order a drink of my own for this,” I said snarkily.
Pat raised an eyebrow. “This?”
I shrugged. “Yes, this. As in, the part where you pretend you don't want to talk about it when the truth is you DO want to talk about it even though I don't want to hear it, but I still have to coax and cajole you into talking about what I don't want to hear. Because don't play stupid, Pat. This is about Katya. I can tell you 'that was 2020.' Doesn't matter. I can tell you 'that was five years, two wars and a pandemic ago.' Doesn't matter. It's still about Katya. In your head, everything is about her, somehow. And like I already said, Pat, I frankly don't feel like listening, but I know you need it. You need someone to listen to the whole sorry tale one last time before you can finally lay this 'ghost' to rest and move, the Hell, on!”
Thanks for reading, ladies and gents. This was, I will freely admit, semi-autobiographical. Pat and Ray (the narrator) are both "me" at different points, with Ray representing me about a year ago and Pat representing where I've tried to get to (even though it's set in 2025 and I wrote it late in 2021). I hope it has been at least entertaining.