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2002-04-08 - 4:31 p.m. Beijing On Tiananmen Square, that image of the man who stood his ground in front of a tank drifted back to me. Indulging in the pathos of the moment did not last long as H wisecracked that 'Back Gate of Heavenly Peace' was some Emperor's term for recreation with young palace eunuchs. As a troop of package tourists swarmed our way, with sun visors and cameras, I stubbed out the last cigarette and said, 'Let's go. We haven't got a chance against this army.' Johannesburg After a long pause H told me his name. A blond Afrikaner whose father owned a few diamond mines. H explained that it was ‘a drunken impulse’, swore it would never happen again. I asked H if I still mattered and spotted the careful pause before the answer. H, if coal miners waited millions of years they could actually shovel diamonds, but I don’t have that kind of time. All I have is this lifetime and even then I’d already given half of it to you. Kuala Lumpur We peer outside at half-completed flyovers, imagining train tracks ending perilously at a platform of sky. The cab driver has another passenger in his front seat, and from their conversation we find out that they are husband and wife. Will they guess anything about us, glowering, taciturn, how H and I will have furious make-up sex an hour later, how I will learn that my sulky wish to be a full-speed kamikaze train was a desire not for annihilation, but bliss? Los Angeles Valley girls in heart-shaped sunglasses, gigolos in cut-off jeans, palm trees with cardboard silhouettes against airbrushed sunsets. When people ask for the time they really mean fifteen minutes of fame. The lesson here: reality is not vulgar; fantasy is. So when H said 'I love you' I answered in a nervous, barely perceptible whisper, as if any moment some director will yell 'cut', bellow for a retake: 'once more, with feeling!'
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