The Noodle Maker(21)

Inside the club, people could gain a taste of what it feels like to travel abroad. They would swagger through the corridors, exchanging looks of smug satisfaction. The shops below the spectators’ seats had American cigarettes and bars of soap whose wrappers were printed with pictures of foreign women in their underwear. The soap wasn’t for sale, it was merely displayed to bring in the customers. Young men would enter the shop pretending to want to buy something, just so they could lean over the glass counter and stare at the smooth shoulders of the lady with golden hair, then with palpitating hearts, lower their gaze to her ample breasts and the flesh-coloured bra that covered them. With each new campaign against ‘Bourgeois Liberalisation’, the soap wrapper was assessed by censors from the Information Bureau and Propaganda Bureau, but always managed to pass the test. You could say that the wrapper lay on the boundary between the pornographic and the healthy.

In the club’s video rooms and coffee bars, members swapped Foreign Exchange Certificates and ration coupons. The club became the centre of the town’s black market trade. One could find coupons for peanut oil, as well as the diesel coupons and national treasury bonds that were introduced after the launch of the Open Door Policy. Two tickets for the monthly screening of films marked ‘Internal Viewing Only’ (which only a select group of cadres were allowed to ‘Watch and Criticise’) could be acquired in exchange for a permit to buy goods at the Friendship Store, which was generally reserved for foreign visitors. If one had recently embarked on a new love affair, two of these tickets would guarantee a night of passion. These films had not yet been vetted by the Central Committee, so it is easy to imagine the kind of scenes they contained. In the coffee bar, one could also exchange lithium batteries for Marlboro cigarettes, a bottle of foreign wine for a bicycle, a copy of Lady Chatterley’s Lover for the second volume of the erotic classic, Jin Ping Mei, a hundred treasury bonds for a jar of Nescafe, and top grade rice coupons for an advertisement bearing the picture of a blonde woman in a swimsuit. One could also procure photocopies of the application forms and correspondence addresses of every large university in America, as well as a list of the names and telephone numbers of the staff of Beijing’s American Embassy. These of course had to be paid for in Foreign Exchange Certificates, as indeed did anything with remotely ‘foreign’ associations. With a wad of FECs and a couple of purchasing permits, you could wander into the Friendship Store without being stopped by the guards. If you were lucky, you might even be able to rub shoulders with a foreigner inside the store, and catch a whiff of their intoxicating bourgeois fragrance.

Su Yun knew that the painter often visited the Open Door Club to watch the various talent and beauty contests that were held inside.

She made an appointment with the club’s manager and turned up at his office at the time agreed. He was the son of a commanding officer of the old Red Army. Although he was in his forties and had a small, monkey-like chin, the continuously changing lines on his brow suggested he was at the forefront of the reform process. During the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to prison because his father had been a lackey of the treacherous marshal, Peng Dehuai. His wrists were left crippled by the handcuffs, and since his aunt was living abroad at the time, he was accused of being an undercover agent, and subjected to further torture. However, after the Open Door Policy was launched, foreign connections and pockets stuffed with FECs gave him the freedom to saunter in and out of the Friendship Store whenever he pleased. After the posthumous rehabilitation of his father, he used the compensation money to set up the club, and threw himself into his new career with enormous enthusiasm.

‘I want to take part in your “Everyone is Happy” show,’ Su Yun told him, lowering herself into her seat. ‘I will perform the most innovative act this town has ever seen.’

‘You’re from the Jiefang District art centre, am I right?’ the manager asked.

‘The newspapers have reported that this act is very popular in Japan.’

The manager’s affection for all things foreign had turned the hairs of his beard blond; his small blue-black eyes were a harmonious fusion of East and West. These eyes were now clearly drawn to Su Yun’s larger-than-average breasts.

‘My act will achieve record-breaking ticket sales for your club,’ she stated calmly.

‘I’ve seen you on stage,’ the manager said, suddenly remembering her performance of the patriotic shepherdess.

‘I don’t expect any share of your profits. All I want is one free ticket.’