“What is it?” Mrs. Song asked.
“Too little jing in the kidney meridian. I’ll fix you just the right combination to boost your energy.”
“And throw in some herbs to build up my strength. I had a terribly nasty flu.”
Dr. Liang walked over to the herbal repository, a collection of drawers, each the size of a lunchbox, that extended across the length of the counter and up to the ceiling. He laid out six pieces of butcher paper, and opened several drawers in quick succession, doling out portions of the requisite herbs. The little mounds contained chalky slabs of astragalus, gnarled roots, seeds and kernels and ground-up bones. Dr. Liang topped the batches with the empty carapaces of a large cricket-like insect.
“What’s that?” Mrs. Song’s eyes bulged, following the flutter of the insect shells as they descended, light as rice husks, on each pile.
“It’s a secret. Cleans out your system. Now here’s some licorice to sweeten the mix. I had a foreigner come in once, for gout. He said the Chinese medicine tastes like coffee grounds.”
“I’d drink tar if it would give me my old self back,” said Mrs. Song. She paid Dr. Liang, and hung the bag containing her prescription inside the cart, where Rose batted at the white bundles as if they were crib toys.
As Mrs. Song stepped out to the square, squeezing past the throngs of vendors and passersby, she noticed a scarf falling off the side of a kiosk. And then, before Mrs. Song could blink, it all happened in a flash—the vendor stooping to the ground, a hooded figure brandishing a knife, a large black case flying through the air, a gloved hand arresting its flight, a scuffle of legs tearing through the crowd.
“Stop, THIEF!” cried the vendor, whose strident pursuit was no match for the speed of his assailants.
Mrs. Song sprawled herself over the cart to protect Rose, who was jumping up and down amidst the commotion. Harsh words flew all around them like crooked arrows never finding their mark. “Where’d he go? Where are those bastards?” Fingers flailed about, pointing in all directions. “He went that-away. No—there—I saw him!”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” Mrs. Song moaned. She felt for her purse. It was gone. She looked around frantically, then turned to the stunned bystanders. “Have you seen my purse?” Heads shook.
Mrs. Song was too distraught to notice that her foot was aching again. The shouts, the odor of fried garlic and cigarettes and bus fumes, the hubbub of the curious throng, suffocated her. She pressed her way through the crowd, and when she reached a quiet street beyond the square, she found a wallet in her coat pocket. Someone had stolen her purse and stuck in that wallet. Mrs. Song shook her head in confusion over the phantom purse. Still, she was relieved she had money, and decided to catch a taxi home.
Meanwhile, Rose continued soaking in the excitement of the mob in the square, safely suspended inside Mrs. Song’s shopping cart, with a bag of herbs to keep her entertained.
THE PRISONERS FILLED THEIR EMPTY HOURS WITH JOKES AND stories from the old days, but when the cracks of idle time turned into wide chasms, each inmate fell into a silent stupor in which the minutes seemed like hours, and the hours like days. Liu had not had a cigarette for days; his head throbbed and his restless fingers played with the tattered corners of his shirt.
He worried about Rose. He had told Mrs. Song that he would be gone two or three days, but now he had no idea how long they would be detained. He pushed down the gnawing dread that he might be stuck in this dreary prison indefinitely. Liu admonished himself that he should pay more attention to Rose when he returned. Oh, how he had neglected her, spending long days working at Tai’s, planting her in front of the television in the evenings when he was tired, or when she cried too long or too loud. He would take her out for more strolls. Why, he would even take her to the restaurant one of these days.
He would try to understand the language of infancy better; surely, there was more to Rose’s cries than hunger, fatigue, or soiled diapers. Perhaps she felt in her bones a longing for her old family, a life lived amidst the ebb and flow of the great river.
As the days wore on, visions of Fei Fei haunted Liu. Like unseen fairies, they played visual tricks on him, turning the exposed calf of a neighbor into the flesh of his beloved, the bare yellow bulbs on the ceiling into her soft breasts, the flicker of a lit match into the spark in her eyes. Late at night, Liu stared at the ceiling where the feeble light had been snuffed out, and sobbed quietly. Although the men around him were asleep, he felt embarrassed and wiped the tears away with a rough hand. He had been selfish in his grief. He had neglected to pay tribute to Fei Fei the past two years on Tomb Sweeping Day, when family members honored their dead. He had moved to old Wushan the month after she died, and moved again. No, that was no excuse. Liu decided that he owed it to Fei Fei to provide her comfort in the afterlife, so that her soul would not wander back and forth like the uprooted peasants of the Yangtze. Perhaps she wanted him to be happy, too, to feel warmed by the hearth of family, to carry on with his life bravely and nobly.
A week into his prison stay, Liu thought of Mei Ling. In his mind’s eye, her lustrous hair swayed like windblown reeds by the river’s edge. Her lips puckered when she sang, and spread wide like morning glory blossoms when she laughed, as she often did. That evening, as Liu cradled his cold metal bowl of porridge, he remembered how she had delivered bowls of steaming beef noodle soup to his table. Her delicate fingers, tipped with cherry polish, as bright as those wicked hot peppers. Those capable hands, how easily they rested on her hips; perhaps those same hands could cradle an infant with tenderness.
Liu awoke the next morning in a sweat, as if he had ridden a wild steed through the night. He would return home one of these days, and he would ask Mei Ling to marry him. A silly grin crept over his face throughout the day, but the other prisoners barely noticed as they rocked their stiff bodies and brooded over their fate.
That evening, the guards released Liu and most of the other prisoners, detaining a few they deemed to be the leading troublemakers. Catching a boat ride with a crew of demolition workers, Liu turned his face into the wind howling down the mighty Yangtze.
A STEADY STREAM OF PEOPLE PASSED THROUGH THE SQUARE IN Wushan that afternoon—uniformed police, shopkeepers, babbling witnesses, and a string of suspects, none of whom fit the description of the robbers. At last, the waning light and cool of evening quelled the crowd. The shopping cart, with its forgotten cargo, lay in the shadows.
The autumn chill had seeped through Rose’s cotton garment and thin socks. Her cries had gone unheard in the bustle of the crowd, and when she had worn herself out, she sank her head against the wire mesh, and fell asleep. It was a middle-aged woman with a shopping cart of her own, full of recycled bottles and cans, who found Rose in Mrs. Song’s cart and turned her in to the herbalist’s shop nearby.
When the phone rang in Mrs. Song’s apartment, she was soaking her sore arch in a small tub, rummaging through the wallet that appeared, after all that fuss, to be hers.
“Mrs. Song, you left your baby behind,” said the herbalist. “I’m afraid she’s quite distraught, must be hungry or something.” Loud wails filled the herbal shop, as if the dust of ground tiger bone and dried reptile organs had come to life.
“Oh dear, when did I do that?”
“Well, you were getting some herbs earlier this afternoon.”
“Getting some herbs. . . .” Mrs. Song wracked her brain. She remembered the herbalist’s voice; she had heard it recently. He had handed her some crickets. No, it was an herbal prescription. She leapt to her feet, uttering a feeble cry. “Oh my, had I left the child behind? Goodness me. Must be the cold weather settling into these old bones. Dulls the mind. Weakens the chi, you know.”
Dr. Liang’s assistant showed up before too long with Rose tucked among the bags of herbs in her shopping cart. Mrs. Song stretched out her arms and brought the sobbing infant to her bosom. Her ancient eyes glistened with tears. “Dear little girl, did I leave you? How long has it been? Too long,
I’m afraid. Granny will make it up to you.”
Rose’s limbs felt stiff and cold. Mrs. Song rubbed her little hands until they began to thaw out.
Mrs. Song happily spent the next three days cooking Rose’s favorite foods and cleaning up her apartment. She worked diligently to remove a smear on the prized silk scroll that had been painted by her husband. She tried an iron, an old toothbrush, a rolling pin coated with flour, but each attempt sank the scroll into further decay.
One evening, a quiet knock sounded at the door. A strange man with bloodshot eyes and a scraggly beard appeared before her. His drawstring pants hung loosely at his waist, the tattered cloth about to blow away in the slightest breeze. Mrs. Song recoiled, muffling a scream with her hands.
“Hello, Mrs. Song,” said the apparition.
“Who...? How do you know my name?”
“It’s Liu, do you recognize me? Well, I guess I must not be very recognizable.”
The man chuckled, stroking the beard as if he were relieving an itch.
“Liu. . . . Do I know a man named Liu?”
“Why, I’m your neighbor, and that’s my little girl you’ve been taking care of.”
Mrs. Song stared at him with a blank expression, wondering where she had seen him before. “My neighbor.... How do I know you?”
“Let’s see, I fixed your sewing machine once, brought you a sack of sweet potatoes from the market last month . . . uh . . . made a mess of egg custard in my apartment, and you cleaned it up. You’ve been a big help, Mrs. Song.”
Perhaps it was that incident in Liu’s apartment that jogged Mrs. Song’s memory. Or perhaps it was Rose’s response that affirmed the man as her Ba Ba. He stretched out his arms across the room, as if to tickle her, and she erupted in a fit of giggles. He sank down on his hands and knees, and patted the saddle of his back. She bounced so hard on her rump that she nearly fell backwards.
A glimmer of recognition appeared in Mrs. Song’s eyes. “Why, yes, Liu. My neighbor. When was the last time I saw you? Rose has been a good little girl, dear little girl. Treat her like my own.” She fetched Rose from her crib, and gave her over to Liu.
“Little monkey,” he cried, swinging her in wide arcs. Liu brought her close, his bristly face brushing against hers. “There, there, your Ba Ba’s back. I won’t leave you again, I promise.”
The reunion between man and child brought a quiver to Mrs. Song’s lips. Liu smiled sheepishly, thanking her once again. “Not at all,” she replied, feeling a twinge of guilt. She had been terribly forgetful. She slipped into the kitchen, rummaged through her collection of salvaged containers, and presented Liu with a freshly made batch of custard.
“Warm it up on a low flame. Now don’t you set your kitchen on fire again,” Mrs. Song said. In a moment of lucidity, she added, “And don’t leave your brood for too long. A man’s always good as his promises.” He nodded, clutching the baby to his breast. She watched as their figures receded down the hallway, beneath the canopy of cobwebs that fluttered in the waning light.
15
LONG AFTER MEI LING HAD FALLEN ASLEEP, HER ROOMMATE Pei stayed up, knitting by the light of the feeble lamp. A stitch broke, and as she tried to hook it back onto the knitting needle, her fingers dropped a few more stitches. She too felt troubled, and Mei Ling’s concerns only compounded the problem.
The day before, Pei had run into their neighbor in the hallway as she was returning to their apartment. The woman threw a conspiratorial glance her way and rushed over, her thin arms flying about. Pei had neither the time nor the patience for the latest gossip, but Ah Fan had an uncanny way of hooking unwary neighbors with a fast line, although the bait was often stale.
“Pei, you won’t believe it, but our apartment building is condemned. We are all going to be evicted.”
“You must be kidding,” Pei said flatly. But she had to admit that if there was someone in the know, it was her neighbor.
“These buildings are only a few years old. I heard that some shady deals took place when the apartments were built. Sure, it all looks brand new, but see how thin these walls are?” Ah Fan struck the plaster with her skinny knuckles.
“Can’t they spend some money to fix up the building?”
“I don’t think it’s that simple.” Ah Fan leaned in closer and lowered her voice, although nobody else was around. “I’m told it’s not just shoddy construction. The ground beneath us is not steady; we’re on a steep hill, and if we ever have a landslide, there goes our home.”
“How could it be? The government put a lot of money into this new city.”
“What do you think? We’re like ants on a log. If the government shakes us out of our home, for whatever reason, if a business interest crushes us with a giant hand, what can we do?” Ah Fan sighed. “I was glad to leave that stinking old town, but it looks like we’ll have to move again.”
“Maybe we can appeal to the government bureau, you know, those folks in charge of resettlement.”
“Oh, Pei, you’re such an idealist! Don’t the officials line their own pockets every time a hotel or high-rise goes up? They’re as rotten as peaches in a vat of worms.”
“You’re such a cynic. We’ll wait and see, I suppose. One of our roommates is getting married, and I don’t know how Mei Ling and I can afford a new place with just the two of us.”
Finishing the last row of knitting for the evening, Pei felt an edge of anxiety in her stomach. She cringed at the thought of moving again. The lamp flickered, its golden light illuminating the textured wooden grain of the desk, which was rather homely looking by day. The shadows stretched long tendrils to the edge of the bed where Mei Ling was sleeping.
Their roommate Lan worked the graveyard shift at Jinfu Hotel. She was engaged to a foreigner, a stern-looking fellow from Germany who had stayed there. What would their children look like, Pei thought. She could not imagine marrying a foreigner. In fact, she could not see why a smart young woman would get married at all if she could make her own way.
Outside, the chirping crickets on the hillside sang their night songs with the verve of old women who laughed over the stories they told once and again. Pei opened the desk drawer to put away her knitting. She thought about the neighbor’s news. It was probably the gossip of idle women. No need to tell Mei Ling any time soon; she had other worries at the moment.
FANG SHUPING ENJOYED THE MORNINGS WHEN THE LIGHT flooded his sitting room through the east window. He took a pinch of tobacco and stuffed it lovingly into his pipe. His fingers glided over the ornate label. House of Craven, London. Fine pipe tobacco since 1863.
Fang grabbed the newspaper and settled into the sofa. He had picked it out of a catalog of imported goods. The Victorian legs and the blue-and-rose floral design seemed a bit gaudy for his taste, but it reminded him of the loveseats that had adorned his father’s quarters, where he would sit as a child, waiting for an audience with the elder Fang.
At last, Fang Shuping was living up to his father’s name. Having concentrated his dealings on real estate, Fang had made a sizable profit over the past few months brokering developments in local towns. Fang was tired of selling babies to orphanages and trinkets to pawn shops. The botched trip with Liu. His arrangements for the hare-lipped boy. None of it had been worth the hassle. He had grander visions, bigger pearls to fill up his chest. He relished the thrill of tinkering behind the scenes and then witnessing the fruits of his work spring up around town and beyond. He could truly claim to be the son of Fang Dashong, who had made his fortune as a shipping tycoon.
The doorbell rang, and Fang got up reluctantly to answer it. Most of his transactions nowadays took place on the phone, and he promptly picked up, as he never let a good business opportunity slip by. Visitors were another story; these house calls came from locals like Mrs. Lung or petty traders and scavengers like Liu.
An impatient voice rang out from the other side of the door. “Fang, open up. It’s Duo Ruyi.”
A skinny fellow, whose body tapered like o
ne of Fang’s pipes, appeared in the doorway. He sported a watch chain on his lapel. Duo Ruyi shared Fang’s taste for expensive British items, but his look seemed to be a throwback to a different era and a bygone empire.
“Fang, I’ve had my mind on building a four-star hotel in Wushan, but it’s gotten harder to lay a claim on real estate now that the town’s established. So, big brother, I need you to pull some strings, help me find a good tract of land.”
“Ol’ Duo, are you up to your schemes again? First it was the gambling casino in Shanghai. And then the brothel down the street from the joint. When the authorities busted you, they got two eggs and one cluck. Have you wised up?”
“Hey old man, I’m just doing business. What’s wrong with rigging some of the roulette tables? Life’s a game of roulette anyway. Russian roulette for the hard-nosed Communists among us.” Duo Ruyi chortled, sending forth a spray of saliva. The man’s lower lip glistened. His cheeks were bright crimson and his breath smelled of brandy.
“All right, what’s your idea?”
“Ol’ Fang, haven’t I always said that information is gold? Well, I hit a gold mine. I learned that a block of buildings in east Wushan is going to be condemned. They say half the town has been built on an old landslide. Matter of fact, do you remember hearing about that slide a year and a half ago? The bureaucrats hustled to shore up their own buildings—the courthouse, police station, port authority. Should have let ’em tumble to hell.” Duo Ruyi’s arms flailed about as if he were a child destroying a tower of wooden blocks.
Fang jabbed the excited fellow in the ribs. “What do you want to do? Build an amusement park? With a brothel nearby?”
“No, don’t be silly. Here’s my chance, you see, to land my hotel on some prime real estate. After the residents are evicted, of course. Don’t want them loitering around like waifs once I open the doors.” Duo Ruyi paced up and down Fang’s sitting room, his eyes rolling about wildly. “Now what you can do for me, my friend, is to rouse one of those snoozing bureaucrats from the Urban Development Bureau and wave a 10,000-yuan note in front of his face. Say I’ll be the first buyer after the old buildings are cleared out.” Duo Ruyi paused and grabbed Fang’s arm. “Ol’ Fang, can you do it? It’s the deal of a lifetime.”
In the Lap of the Gods Page 12