Fish Heads and Duck Skin

by Lindsey Salatka

  “What? No, it wasn’t.”

  “Yes, yes it was.” I paused, then blurted, “I’m suddenly feeling like this whole thing might be a horrible mistake.”

  “What do you mean? The flight’s been rough, but we’re going to—”

  “Not just the flight, I mean this whole quit-our-life-and-move-to-China thing. We have absolutely no idea what we’re in for, and I’ve just ended my career and signed up for full-time parenting! Me!” I laughed and shook my head. “I suck at parenting!”

  “How would you know if you suck at parenting? You’ve never been with the kids by yourself for extended periods.” He squeezed my hand. “You’ll be fine! I’m sure of it.”

  “No, I won’t. I’m a mediocre mother—I don’t have innate talent there. Maybe it’s genetic, I don’t know, but I lack a strong maternal compass.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  “I’m too selfish to be a good mom! To improve anyone besides myself.”

  “You don’t have to improve them, Tina, they’re children! You just have to love them.”

  “Of course I have to improve them—I can’t just stand by and watch them destroy each other! I mean, let’s be honest—Piper’s life was ruined the second her sibling was born. She knows it, I know it, this entire airplane knows it. She signed up to be an only child, and now she has to share. She’ll spend her entire life thinking of ways to make her baby sister, a.k.a. her competition, vanish.” I laughed and cried simultaneously. “And to think—we wanted three kids!”

  “Tina, please. You’re freaking yourself out.”

  “I won’t know what to do with myself in China, Daniel! It’s illegal for me to work.”

  “Which is fine because you need a break, you said so yourself.”

  “But what else does a workaholic control-freak do? Who will I be? I don’t cook, and I don’t play dolls. I don’t speak Chinese, and I won’t know a soul.”

  “You’ll meet other people in the same situation. There are 100,000 expats in Shanghai, Tina.”

  I shook my head and squeaked, “I’m scared.”

  “And that’s fine,” he said. “You’re facing a lot of big changes; we both are. It’s normal to be scared.”

  I looked at him and cocked my head. “Are you scared?”

  He shook his head. “Not really. I’m excited.”

  “Ugh,” I said.

  “What?”

  “That’s either insane or brilliant.”

  He smiled. “Can we get back to me being amazing and how we narrowly escaped needing to placate a barf-covered woman?”

  “Yes,” I said. I smiled, kissed him, and put my head back on his chest. But inside, I was still petrified of all the unknowns that lie ahead and unsure if I could handle them.

  10.

  Fourteen hours and 6,500 miles later, I found myself in an alternate universe, one where I was floating in a Jello-like substance, unable to complete a thought or move without Herculean effort. I could hear everything—the incessant horn-honking, the taxi driver screaming incomprehensible words into my face, the harsh, repeated whistles of the dozens of surrounding traffic attendants. I definitely could see everything—the spit bubbles accumulating in the corners of the mouth of the ruffled driver. His ill-fitting, faded black blazer and short white gloves. The rust surrounding the wheel well of his white Volkswagen Jetta taxi idling in front of us. Daniel attempting to cram our tower of luggage into its trunk. My eyeballs burned like they’d been plucked out and rolled in margarita salt. I couldn’t identify the smell, but it registered as revolting. I had so much to say, but I couldn’t move the messages from my brain to my mouth.

  The girls were crashed out in the double stroller, observing none of these things. It was 6 p.m. at the Shanghai Pudong airport, 3 a.m. at home.

  “There are no seat belts,” I croaked.

  “What?” Daniel lifted his head from the trunk and wiped his wet, red face on his forearm.

  “I can’t attach the car seats. No seat belts.”

  “Oh. Well, it’s probably a short drive. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”

  I blinked painfully in assent.

  “I’ll have to put the pack-n-play and stroller in the front seat,” he said.

  “He won’t like that,” I said, jabbing my thumb in the direction of Mr. Grumpy Gloves, who waited for his meter to commence ticking, fists on hips, muttering, foot tapping.

  Daniel shrugged. “Something tells me that’s not much of a departure for him.”

  We plunked ourselves in the back seat of the Jetta—Daniel and I pressed against the doors; kids arranged in a slumbering pile between us. Our driver slammed his door and glared at us.

  “What does he want?” I asked, the words coming several beats after the thought, like thunder after distant lightning.

  “This,” he said, pushing a full-sized sheet of paper through the slit in the plastic shield between us and the driver. He looked at me, pleased with himself. “Directions to the hotel. In Mandarin. I also got enough currency at the mall to pay the fare.”

  “Oh. Why are the directions printed so large?”

  “My guidebook said to print them as large as possible since the taxi drivers can’t see.”

  I looked out the window at the mirrored glass walls of the massive terminal and the congo line of luggage trolleys that stretched from one end to the other. The whistle-happy traffic attendants wore heavy, hot-looking gray rompers and matching uniform hats. I noticed they wore white gloves, too.

  “Can’t see or can’t read?” I said, finally identifying what had bothered me about his last statement.

  He looked at me and shrugged. “Hopefully read.”

  The driver gunned it. Our heads snapped back, hitting the white slip-covered seats.

  “Holy crap,” I said.

  “Holy shit,” Daniel said at the same time.

  I thought, we might die today, but didn’t feel the fear that would normally accompany such a thought. Daniel put his arm across the girls and grabbed my hand, squeezing it. Several seconds later I squeezed back.

  A few more things stood out from that first taxi ride: I remember wondering what was in the jar of clear liquid that the driver slurped loudly from besides floating leaves, grass, and twigs. I remember trying to breathe shallowly when he lit his first of several cigarettes. I remember wondering how to ask him to roll down the window and then almost laughing as I realized I wasn’t even sure how to say hello correctly—I’d been too busy exiting our old life to properly prepare for the new one. I remember thinking I’d never seen a brown sky before, and that it almost looked like a poorly painted backdrop.

  I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember waking up about an hour later with the awareness that we were still driving and the Sahara Desert had somehow relocated to my tongue. I longed for a sip of his liquified garden-clippings.

  Our hotel was a twenty-five-story Pepto Bismol–pink cuboid, one of many identical structures on the same block. Light blue twinkle lights framed every filthy window. Bright-orange neon lights were fashioned in a rainbow shape over the rusty, revolving door marking the entrance.

  Daniel stood next to me. “This was the best hotel in my budget that was sort of close to my new office.”

  I nodded and shrugged, looking up at it again, pushing the stroller up and back a few times, too overwhelmed and exhausted to cast judgment.

  “Pancakes!” Piper hollered while yanking on my thumb. It was 1:30 a.m. She jumped on the mattress between Daniel and me. “Mattress” is a generous term for what felt like a sheet of plywood covered in burlap. Lila’s pack-n-play was wedged in between the corner of the room and the corner of the bed. She lay in it, making happy noises.

  “Mm. Daniel? Do they do pancakes here?” I pushed on his shoulder gingerly with my pinky. Every piece of me hurt.

  “Where’s the remote?” he asked, his head still under the pillow. He patted his hand around the tiny bedside table blindly until he located it. “Here, Piper. Go.
”

  Chinese language channels flicked onto the small screen. News. A variety show. A rom-com. No cartoons.

  I sat up. “If they don’t have pancakes, we can probably find eggs. Chickens are everywhere, right? Hey, is there a Bible in here?” I blabbered. I was suddenly fully alert and starving even though my vision was blurred at the edges. My mouth had an unfortunate metallic taste, and the one water bottle that came in the room was long empty. I clicked on the light.

  “Since when do you read the Bible?” Daniel asked the mattress.

  “I don’t read it, Daniel, but this is an anthropological moment. We’re in China.” I sprung out of bed and started ripping open the drawers. “And what do you know—no Bible. First time in a non-Christian country, kids. Take note.”

  “First time the girls have left the US,” Daniel reminded me.

  “Right,” I said. “I’m famished. Do they do coffee here? I don’t see a pot.”

  I pulled open the drapes. They resembled aluminum foil but felt like plastic. Like a marathon blanket. Or a cheap, reflective shower curtain. We were on the tenth floor. Beyond the outline of blue Christmas lights stretched a blackish-brown night—the color of the warm drink I was craving. I could see nothing else.

  “It’s too early to walk around. Let’s try to sleep a little longer, or we’ll feel awful by 3 p.m.,” Daniel said.

  Lila squealed in response and then giggled. Ten minutes later, we waited as Piper pushed the down button on the elevator.

  “There has to be a twenty-four-hour convenience store, don’t you think?” I asked when the door clanked open on the ground floor.

  “I don’t know, and we can’t ask.” A man stared at us from behind his computer station at the front desk. “That’s the same guy who checked us in; he doesn’t speak a lick of English.”

  We filed silently past the collection of brown velour couches and through the emergency door since the revolving door was blockaded by oversized cones that matched the neon lights buzzing loudly above them.

  “Did the guidebook say it’s safe here?” I blinked and yawned, pushing the double stroller in Daniel’s wake down the dark street.

  “Yep. No weapons, no violent crime. Some petty theft but punishments are harsh.”

  “Harsh? As in what?”

  “I’m not sure, the details were vague.” He continued, stepping over a large hole. “No predatory behavior, unless you’re a Chinese woman, because, you know, they’re in short supply.”

  The stroller wheels jammed on a sidewalk crack as I maneuvered the hole. “Dammit, I can already tell I brought the wrong stroller.”

  “Did you ship the jogger?”

  “No, I sold it.”

  “Oh, too bad.”

  “Do you know where we’re going?” I asked, looking up. The shop windows were closed, blocked with metal grates. Streetlights cast a dull glow on the sidewalk. From what I could tell, everything was gray … the worn-down, two-story buildings lining the sidewalk, the lamp poles, even the occasional tree poking out of holes between the gray cement sidewalk squares had a gray trunk and grayish leaves. Many of the squares were missing or broken. A few older men walked by in the gutter, staring at us. When I looked back at them, they didn’t look away.

  “We’re walking around the block, taking a tour of the neighborhood while looking for a convenience store.”

  “Oh. Good idea,” I said, suddenly feeling itchy everywhere. I stopped to scratch my elbows. I considered pushing the stroller to the gutter, where the men were walking—the path looked smoother there. Then a military vehicle banged loudly by us, trailing a black cloud of exhaust. Never mind.

  “Lots of cars out. Plus trucks. Big trucks.”

  “Big twucks,” Piper said.

  “Gah!” Lila hollered, throwing a cracker, one of the last of our travel stash, onto the ground.

  Daniel said nothing as we started our march again. “They sure like their horns here,” I said.

  “Beep beep!” yelled Piper.

  “Nothing on this block, let’s try the next one,” Daniel said thirty minutes later as we dragged our feet up to the corner nearest our hotel.

  “Yeah, okay.” We turned to cross the street. Waves of fatigue crested on my brain, followed by waves of alert, jittery energy, puffs of nausea, and tremendous thirst. The smell of raw sewage wafted in and out. I stepped over several piles of what looked and smelled like feces, but I saw no dogs. I didn’t ask.

  “Let’s try this direction,” Daniel said as he pressed the crosswalk button on a street called Huai Hai Lu. It was only 4 a.m. but it already felt like we’d traversed the entire city. The street in front of us was six lanes wide and busy with both car and bike traffic. The road rules weren’t clear. As men and women of all ages rolled into the intersection on ancient-looking bikes, they sped up, seemingly unafraid of the cars that barreled toward them with no sign of braking, regardless of whether the light was green or red. At the last second, the cars screeched to a halt and blasted their horns as the bikes continued. No one seemed fazed by this.

  “I’m not sure I want to cross here,” I said. “The cars don’t seem to care that this is a red light.”

  “If they don’t care here, they won’t care somewhere else.”

  I looked at him. “That might be true, but I don’t want to die.”

  “The bikers don’t want to die either, Tina, and the system works for them. Come on, you’re going to have to cross the street at some point while we’re living here.” He grabbed the stroller from me and pushed it into the road, standing next to it. He held up his hand in what I hoped was the international signal for STOP.

  “I can’t walk into that road, Daniel; I’m really scared,” I said to the back of his head.

  “Yes, you can, follow me,” he said, plowing ahead. A car stopped abruptly next to him. “See? It works.”

  “Okay, I’m coming,” I called, suddenly more scared to be by myself on the corner than in front of oncoming traffic. I hustled up next to him, grabbed his arm with both of my hands, and closed my eyes. “Tell me when to step up,” I said.

  “I see one!” Daniel said an hour later, pointing to a street corner in the distance. A red and blue neon sign glowed in front of it.

  “I can’t read the sign,” I said, squinting at the characters.

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s clearly a convenience store,” he said. “Finally!” He pulled the doorknob. Locked. “Damnit!” We peered through the window. Magazines. Kleenex. Bike tires.

  We turned around, feeling sunk. On the street in front of us, we saw a rickshaw, pedaled by a man who looked twelve, packed with a twenty foot tall mountain of Styrofoam, held together by ropes and random pieces of string. The rickshaw inched slowly forward, but it looked like the smallest gust of wind would convert the collection of Styrofoam into a sail that could pull the rickshaw rapidly backward, or even sideways.

  “There’s another one,” Daniel said, sounding less enthused. This was our fourth convenience store spotting in several hours. The first two were closed, the third was open, but the cashier had hollered and waved us away when we walked in.

  “It’s open!” I screeched, pulling the door open and lunging inside. “And it has AC!” I said, shivering in delight as I felt the dampness of my shirt sticking under my arms and down the center of my back.

  “Do they have coffee?” Daniel asked.

  “I don’t know what they have,” I said looking at the counter by the cashier as he walked toward the cold case. “I see a large pot of brown water, but it doesn’t look like a vessel for coffee, and I think there are eggs floating in it.”

  “I see Coke!” he said.

  “And muffins!” Piper called.

  “And water!” Daniel said. “Um, the Coke is warm, do you care?”

  “No, I don’t even drink Coke, but it’s caffeinated so bring it here.” This moment felt like our first victory, bringing us a step closer to finding our way and moving forward in our new life.


  We carried two Cokes, four waters and eight muffins to the counter. The cashier grumbled something and shook his head. He started to scan and place our early morning breakfast into a thin white plastic bag. As he picked up the second Coke, a cockroach, half the size of my palm, ran across the counter. It scurried from behind the cash register toward the vat of brown water.

  I screamed.

  “What is it?” Daniel asked.

  I pointed while backing away.

  The cashier noticed it too. Thwack! He smacked the roach with the bottle of Coke and swept its remains onto the floor with his other hand. Without stopping, he waved the same Coke in front of the scanner. Beep! He dropped it into the bag, on top of the muffins, and began scanning the waters.

  “Wait a, whoa, whoa, whoa there, guy.” I stepped in front of the stroller, both hands raised. “Stop!” I said.

  The cashier did not slow down.

  “NO,” I said, “I won’t buy this.” I put my hands over the top of the plastic bag. “Stop. I said no.” I made eye contact with him and shook my head.

  He threw his hands up in the air and started yelling, gesturing first at the bag, then at the cash register, then at me, then at Daniel. Then he started the cycle again, this time louder than before.

  My ears rang, and my knees felt wobbly. I thought my brain might explode. I wondered if the man would brush the contents of my skull onto the ground the same way he’d brushed off the dead cockroach. Would he wash his hands after? Would he take a moment to contemplate the incident, or would he get right back to cashiering? I felt woozy; my vision started to blacken at the sides. “I can’t do this right now. I need to go outside.” I walked to the door and pulled it. It screeched against the dingy white tile floor in protest.

  “What do you mean you can’t do this?” Daniel followed me, irritated. “Come back here, Tina. You have to do this. My job starts in two days; I’ll be traveling to visit factories every week. You need to be able to operate here, by yourself, with our children. This was our decision, and I know you can—”