Excerpt from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"I want to go live with mom," CK announced.

His father didn't pause. "It's been decided," he said. "You'll live with me."

 

The first song CK learned on the accordion was Caoyuan Gechang Mao Zhuxi, or "The Grasslands Sing for Chairman Mao." CK obediently mastered the song, playing the refrain over and over like a machine under the stern watch of his father, who was always ready to strike the boy at any hint of attitude. Between lessons, his father would complain. "Your mother is no good," his father told him, "how could she leave us?"

At school, it seemed everyone had learned about his parents' separation. His classmates asked questions, wondering what it was like to have parents who lived apart. His teachers used the news to embarrass him in front of other students when he wasn't paying attention in class. CK began to feel anxious.  He yearned to isolate himself from his classmates and his family –to become chouli – detached. "The only quiet time to myself that I had was my walk between home and school. I was basically walking from one source of pressure to the other."

CK lay awake that autumn evening of his 11th year, staring at the ceiling, far from chouli as nai nai's breathing grew deeper. He felt the weight of the folded straightedge razor pressing lightly on his thigh through his pajamas pocket. When he was certain nai nai was asleep, he sat up in bed and withdrew the razor from his pocket. He unfolded it. He took a breath. Holding the handle firmly in his right hand, he pressed the blade to the inside of his left wrist.

He penetrated skin, cutting into flesh. He watched as blood rose to the surface. He began making swift cutting motions, pressing left to right again and again. He was bleeding, but there was no gushing blood. He switched hands and tried the other wrist. The family matriarch continued to doze peacefully beside him. His blood seeped into his pajamas, but the wounds kept clotting. It wasn't the geyser he'd expected. He couldn't find a vein. And his wrists began to hurt. "I continued to cut, but it was useless. I couldn't see well, and my wrists were so thick," CK told me.

CK slowly folded up the razor and returned it to the pocket of his bloodstained pajamas. This is just too difficult, he thought to himself before falling asleep.

The bellows of the accordion expanded and compressed like the lungs of a runner in mid-sprint. The fingers of CK's right hand frantically raced up and down the keyboard, staccato bursts of treble notes trickling over a shifting landscape of bass controlled with a swift mechanical reflex of his left fingers, the two sides chasing each other. CK's eyes were still closed in concentration. A freezing wind blew down the Street of Eternal Happiness, sending the branches outside clattering against the windows of the shop. All appeared to be in harmony, but then CK hit a wrong note. Then two. He opened his eyes, looked at me, and laughed, giving up.

"Wow. What was that?" I asked him.

"Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy," he said, still laughing.

The song was a revolutionary epic that opened one of eight Beijing operas allowed during Mao's Cultural Revolution. It borrowed heavily from Water Margin, a 14th century Chinese novel known as one of the four classics of Chinese literature. Party leaders turned the novel's tales into musical propaganda – a portrayal of a proletariat hero to rouse the masses in support of the system.

CK shook his head, embarrassed he had forgotten how to play a song he had spent his childhood practicing.

"I used to play traditional Chinese songs, but I later discovered I didn't like to play them," CK told me, wiping sweat off his forehead to reveal two bright, oval brown eyes that seemed larger than they were because of his thin face. "I preferred something different. It took me a while to realize I can play my own songs."

Excerpted from Street of Eternal Happiness by Rob Schmitz. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.