by Don Winslow
Even Peng was pleased with Neal’s performance, nodding and even smiling at Neal’s questions, then nodding vigorously at Zhu’s answers and listening intently to Wu’s translation. He apparently thought the whole dog-and-pony show was so wonderful that he passed cigarettes out to everybody. The three Chinese men smoked solemnly while Neal sucked on some hard candy.
Neal also thought that the show was pretty good, especially Mr. Zhu’s eloquent soliloquies on agriculture. The guy seemed to care passionately about farming in general and this farm in particular. His eyes shone with pleasure when he discussed gains in food production, and went dull and sad when he spoke about the lack of modern equipment and fertilizers. Neal figured that Zhu was either a terrific actor—sort of an Oriental Mr. Greenjeans—or that he wasn’t in on the whole “Mr. Frazier” scam.
Why should he be? Neal wondered. I’m not in on the whole “Mr. Frazier” scam, and I’m “Mr. Frazier.”
“I really want to see those fishponds!” Neal said before the boys could light up another round.
He saw the fishponds, which were actually huge, square, sunken concrete tanks with plank catwalks. He saw the rice paddies and learned how rice was planted, harvested, chaffed, packaged, and transported. He saw fields of wheat, sorghum, and sunflowers, and received instruction in the fine art of chewing sunflower seeds and spitting out the hulls. He saw chicken coops, duck ponds, and hog pens, and learned that pork was a major part of the Chinese diet. He saw water buffalo, petted water buffalo, and reluctantly rode on a buffalo while its little girl owner sobbed in anxiety for her pet. He saw a twenty-acre square of uncultivated land—woods and brush—and learned that it was set aside to encourage the rabbits that were a major game crop. He saw a party of hunters, armed with ancient, muzzle-loading, curve-stocked rifles, go into the wood and emerge with several rabbits. He saw the complicated, integrated, and enormous effort it took for the people of this area to feed themselves and try to get ahead a little bit at the end of the year. He saw the tranquil beauty of the countryside.
He saw a maintenance shop where mechanics cannibalized the older trucks and tractors for the benefit of the newer trucks and tractors. He saw a clinic where a “barefoot doctor”—a woman paraprofessional—dispensed a combination of acupuncture, traditional herbs, and rare Western pharmaceuticals. He saw a school where male and female teachers handled enormous groups of uniformed children without apparent strain. He saw the presentation that the elementary kids had cooked up for him, a charming montage of song, dance, and parade that left him laughing and touched at the same time.
He saw Li Lan.
She was in a classroom, bent over a little girl, guiding the girl’s hand and paintbrush over a sheet of white paper. She wore a plain, loose-fitting white blouse over blue “Mao” pants and rubber sandals. She wore no makeup, and her hair was tied into two braids with red ribbons. She looked up, saw Neal, and shook her head almost imperceptibly.
Neal moved on to the next classroom.
Because then he understood it. Not all of it, but enough. He sleepwalked his way through the rest of the tour, putting the whole thing together in his head. He didn’t know where everybody fit in, but at least he knew now what he had to do.
Nothing.
Nothing, he told himself. Do nothing and just shut up.
Which was something he had never done before.
Neal finally figured out how to work the kerosene lantern and then fell into bed. What did they call it? A kang. A straw mattress on a low platform covered with a cotton quilt and remarkably comfortable. Zhu had offered to put him up in the little recreational club the cadres used, but Neal opted to stay in a typical peasant house. So the boys drove him into the middle of the commune somewhere and left him with a nice family, whose house had an interior courtyard full of chickens and pigs, a big charcoal-burning stove, and about a dozen kids who played with him until the simple dinner was served and they went to bed. He had walked about a million miles over the commune, and his body wanted to drop right into the arms of Morpheus, but his mind still wanted to pace around.
So Li Lan had made it home, he thought. Home was in Sichuan, where she had learned to cook, not surprisingly, Sichuanese food. Home was on a farm, and that was why she’d taken Pendleton. Doctor Bob didn’t make herbicides, idiot. Simms’s story was a cover, which Pendleton mimicked perfectly. Neal thought back to his drunken evening at the Kendalls’, to Olivia’s request for Pendleton to kill the weeds. That’s not my line, he’d said. I only know how to make stuff grow. Like rice, maybe? Like three crops a year, maybe? No more growling stomachs in China. The same old Sichuan dream.
But why have they brought me here? Why go to all that trouble and then bring me here where I can see her? And where is Doctor Bob? Why did Li Lan shake me off this afternoon? Was I supposed to see her and not see her? How do I resolve that contradiction? What the hell do they want?
Make up your mind, guys, he thought.
No, not “mind” … minds.
Yeah.
He picked up Random and worked on it for an hour before crashing into sleep.
Peng squeezed the trigger. The pellet smacked into the paper target with a satisfying thwack. Along with the fishing pool, the BB gun range was his favorite part of visiting Dwaizhou. He had gotten the key from Zhu, opened up the big room, and liberated some beer and cigarettes from the locker. There were, after all, privileges that came with his high position and heavy responsibilities. He shot again, and the pellet hit the silhouette target right in the forehead.
“Good shot,” the American said.
“If only you had shot as well,” Peng observed.
The American shrugged.
Peng couldn’t help rubbing it in. He didn’t like the American, and the American had been drinking heavily.
“You missed,” Peng said. “You shot at the wrong man, and then you missed.”
“It could happen to anybody.”
“But it didn’t. It happened to you.”
The American took a long pull on the bottle of beer.
“It won’t happen again,” he said. He raised the pellet gun to his hip and casually pulled the trigger. The pellet hit the target between the eyes. So did the next four shots.
“Let us hope you get the opportunity,” Peng said.
“That’s your job.”
And a good thing, Peng thought. The plan was working beautifully. Carey had spotted China Doll and had not so much as blinked. The same could not be said for her; her eyes had widened and her breath had caught. She could not have been more obvious, and Peng would have arrested her on the spot if he hadn’t had bigger plans.
She will run, now that she has seen Carey. Run like a rabbit, right to the burrow, to hide from the Carey dog. Well, you may have seen the dog, but you missed the fox. And you will lead me right to your lover, the great scientist, the great expert.
Xao will go, too, of course. The great romantic will not be able to resist. Then I will bag you all. Rightists, capitalists … traitors.
He squeezed off another shot.
Xao Xiyang put out his cigarette in the overflowing ashtray and answered the phone.
“Yes?” he said. It was his driver.
“Your foreign guest had a good day.”
“Did he have any complaints?”
“If he did, he didn’t say a word.”
“Perhaps you can take him to see the Buddha tomorrow.” There was a silence, a hesitation. Xao lit another cigarette.
“So you do not wish to change Mr. Frazier’s itinerary?”
“Not at all.”
“As you wish, sir.” The driver hung up.
It is not as I wish, Xao thought. It is what I must do.
The smoke tasted bitter in his mouth.
17
Neal Carey looked up at Buddha.
Buddha didn’t look back. Buddha just sat there and gazed serenely across the water and ignored Neal entirely. Buddha was 231 feet tall and made of stone. Buddha was car
ved from a red rock cliff that rose straight up from the broad Min River.
Neal was standing on Buddha’s big toe. So were Wu, Peng, and a couple of PLA soldiers. There was plenty of room.
“Pretty big Buddha,” Neal said stupidly.
“It is the biggest sitting Buddha in the world,” Wu said.
“A relic of the superstitious past,” Peng said.
“Where’s Mao’s statue?” Neal asked. “Upriver? Next to the Gang of Four montage?”
Neal was back on his Piss Off Peng Program. Peng had whipped him out of Dwaizhou like they were trying to stiff the bill. They had driven about an hour before coming to the industrial town of Leshan, a squat gray battlement on the green floodplain, and boarded a ferryboat across the river. The ferry had dropped them off at Buddha’s right foot.
“There are no statues to the Gang of Four,” Peng said. “They betrayed Chairman Mao.”
“Yeah, by carrying out his orders.”
Neal turned around to look at the river, which was dotted with fishing boats. Fishermen, balanced precariously on the back ends of their small boats, maneuvered in the swirling currents with large poles that were both oar and rudder. Larger boats had crews of oarsmen to struggle with the fast-moving water. The Min River was deceptive. From a distance it had looked lazy and muddy. Up close it looked dangerous, almost evil, and it was small wonder that the local people had built a large Buddha to watch over them on a large river.
“Would you like to see Buddha’s head?” Wu asked.
They climbed up a white wooden staircase beside Buddha’s right arm. A wide railed landing wrapped around Buddha’s head, and Neal stood about twenty feet away from Buddha’s left eye, which was about the size of a small boat, and contemplated Buddha’s face. It was certainly serene, he had to admit. Of course, anything that big, made of rock, and almost one thousand years old had pretty good reasons for being serene. And Buddha had a nice view. The wide river and its valley stretched out directly below, and if Buddha shifted his eyes to the right or left, he’d be treated to the sight of dramatic red cliffs topped with lush green vegetation.
The scenery hadn’t changed much for Buddha over the millennium, except for the big smokestacks that poked up from Leshan’s gray walls and the smaller smokestacks on the few power boats that plied the river.
Buddha had seen a lot change in China in a thousand years, but he’d seen a lot stay the same, too.
“It’s beautiful!” Wu said.
“Haven’t you been here before?” Neal asked.
Wu whispered, “I’d never been out of Chengdu until yesterday.”
It was funny, Neal thought, standing around a gigantic head, gazing at the huge, unblinking eyes. Sort of ludicrous and awesome at the same time. He wondered about the depth of faith it would take to carve something this large on a dangerous cliff above a dangerous river.
“How did this Buddha make out during the Cultural Revolution?” Neal asked. He saw Peng’s jaw get tight.
“The Buddha itself was not damaged. But the temple and the monastery behind us,” Peng said, pointing into a manicured forest, “suffered significant damage, which is still being repaired.”
“Why didn’t the Red Guard vandalize the Buddha?”
“Afraid to,” Wu said.
I’d sure as hell be afraid to, Neal thought. One look from those stone eyes would stop me in my tracks. Not to mention the thought of hurtling two hundred feet down into those currents. Old Buddha didn’t last here a thousand years by being an easy mark.
“So they didn’t have the balls to put a dunce cap on old Buddha here, huh?”
Peng’s glare cut short Wu’s nervous laughter.
“We should get you settled in your room,” Peng said. “The driver took the car there directly.”
“I’m staying in a garage?”
“You are staying in the monastery’s guesthouse. It is back behind the temple, through those trees.”
“Where are you boys staying?”
“The guesthouse is for foreign guests, but Mr. Wu will stay there to serve as your translator. I will stay at a Party facility nearby.” “I’ll miss you.”
Peng smiled. “It is only for the night. This afternoon we will escort you on a walk, and take you to dinner.”
Swell.
“Then tomorrow you may start your journey home.”
Well, you slipped that little tidbit in, didn’t you? Well, well, well … you’ve found out whatever it was you wanted to find out. Now what could that be? I saw Li Lan, and I kept my mouth shut, and I didn’t start screaming about her or Dr. Robert Pendleton … and that’s what you needed to know. That I’m beat… that I don’t want any more trouble … that I’m going to be a good boy … that you could snatch Pendleton and get away with it and that Tar Baby here ain’t saying nothing.
And that’s why Lan warned me off. She knew that if I opened my mouth I’d be here forever. Well, thank you, Li Lan.
Thank you Li Lan?! What the fuck are you talking about?! She’s the one who dumped you in the shit in the first place, and now you’re eaten up with gratitude because she’s rescued you?! And what’s her story? What had Olivia Kendall said about Lan’s paintings? Some artsy-fartsy babble about “the duality of the mirror images reflecting both conflict and harmony”?No shit. The woman is a schiz, that’s all. No wonder Pendleton is so pussy-whipped—he has himself a one-woman harem.
Well, he can have her. I’m getting out of here.
But first, the monastery.
He followed his guide-guards around the back of Buddha’s head, where the cliff flattened out to a wooded plateau. An enormous temple, made entirely of dark wood, blended into the forest like a shadow. On the other side of the temple was a large garden with twisting paths, and Neal could only orient himself by looking over his shoulder at the back of Buddha’s head. Bamboo, ferns, and creeping vines competed for space under a canopy of fir trees, and the garden was dark even at midday. The path eventually led past two smaller temples and another wooden building that looked like a barracks. There were a bunch of brown-robed monks doing chores around these buildings, so Neal quickly put it together that this was the monastery. The path ended at a circular gateway.
Neal expected something grim, but the monastery’s guesthouse was actually cheerful. He stood in a square, open courtyard defined by four three-story wooden buildings. Every floor had a balcony running the length of the building and was sheltered beneath a sharply pitched black tile roof. There were about eight rooms on each floor.
A pond dominated the center of the courtyard. Stepping-stones and arched bridges wended through tall ferns and stone statues of frogs and dragons. Golden carp hid under the bridges or swirled lazily underneath huge lily pads.
Small pavilions, resembling neat caves, interspersed the ground-floor rooms. Tall covered jars served as stools around circular tables, and Neal figured that these shelters were built for alfresco tea parties during what had to be frequent rains.
The whole effect was lush, hospitable, mystical, and decadent.
Neal’s room was on the top floor. It was small, but clean and comfortable. A mosquito net covered the kang. For washing, there was a basin, with pitchers of hot and cold water. A thermos of hot water, a lidded teacup, and a jar of green tea had been set on a side table. There was a single chair and a small desk. One window looked out on the courtyard. Another, on the other side of the room, gave a view of the forest and the roofs of the temple. The room had no bathroom, but a lavatory was four doors down. It had a room of toilets and another room with large cedar tubs.
Neal washed up and then joined Wu and Peng for a quick lunch of fish, rice, and vegetables. After lunch they worked their way back through the garden maze to Buddha’s head, and then followed a cliffside path along the river. They were headed for another large monastery, about three miles up the river. Neal could see its tiled roof, shining golden in the sun, peeping through trees on a knoll ahead.
I wonder what they want me t
o see up there, Neal asked himself. Maybe Mao is alive and living as a monk, and they want to see if I’ll keep my mouth shut again.
Mao wasn’t there. Or if he was, Neal didn’t see him. Neal did get a tremendous view of the Min River Valley from a pavilion on top of the knoll, and the temple housed the usual array of Buddhist saints, but none of them was Mao, and Neal was impatient to get going.
He posed for the cliché tourist photos: at the pavilion, at the temple, on the trail back to the Buddha, standing on Buddha’s toenail, standing by Buddha’s head. He perfected the wooden tourist smile, the self-conscious “Here I Am at—” stance, and the classic Staring Off into the Distant Horizon profile. It felt strange to him. After all, he had spent a lifetime trying to stay out of photographs, and here he was posing for them. But he knew they would need them for his Frazier cover, so he stood, smiled, and stared.
Finally the sun dropped behind Buddha’s head, putting a halt to the photo opportunities, and after an austere dinner at the monastery Peng took his camera and left. Neal and Wu repaired to one of the courtyard pavilions and shared a cup of tea and a little Twain chatter, and then Neal pleaded fatigue and said good night.
He lit the kerosene lamps in his room, poured himself a cup of tea, and settled into Random for an hour or so. He had a hard time concentrating. Is this thing really over? he wondered. Do I really start the trip home tomorrow? And what then? What will Friends say? I’ve fucked up the gig completely, and it’s unlikely they’ll reward me with a ticket to grad school. No, that’s out. Well, I still have some money in the bank, maybe I can go somewhere else. Yeah, right, with a whole file of “incompletes.”
And what will Graham say? He’s probably been worrying himself sick, rubbing a hollow into his real hand with his artificial one. He’ll be glad to see me, but royally pissed off. Maybe I can make it up to him.
So I’ll get out of here, fly to Vancouver, call Dad, and see what’s what. Probably the best thing is to keep going, go back to the cottage in the moors for a few weeks and try to sort things out.