Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

by Susan Jane Gilman

  From the kitchen, the women brought out one plate after another and set them on the table: enormous prawns cooked in salt, sautéed greens, steamed crabs, a whole fish buried in scallions, a huge tureen of soup, platters of root vegetables and noodles, a cortege of delicacies. The children danced around, almost insane with anticipation and glee. This was clearly a momentous occasion.

  “Please,” Jonnie said. Claire and I alone were handed bowls and chopsticks. The family pressed in, staring at us expectantly. It became clear that no one else would touch the food until we did. I looked at all of the plates spread before us. There must have been at least fourteen. The abundance was embarrassing. Where were we supposed to start? I reached for the only dish that looked vaguely recognizable—the huge prawns encrusted in rock salt, glistening like crystal.

  “Ah,” Jonnie’s mother exclaimed, nodding appreciatively. A murmur of approval went around the table. I supposed I’d demonstrated good taste. They continued watching me. Picking the prawn up with the chopsticks was a challenge, and their stares made me infinitely more self-conscious and inept.

  “Sorry.” I grinned apologetically. “I’m not very good at this.”

  I glanced over at Claire. She was clutching her stomach and leaning forward in her chair, her chopsticks untouched on the empty bowl before her. I motioned for her to eat something.

  She glared at me desperately and shook her head. “It’s all seafood,” she whispered.

  Seeing her empty bowl, Jonnie’s mother reached over and held out a dish to her, a jellied mass of what looked like fish eyes and pea pods. Staring at it, Claire gave a little cry and jumped up, knocking over her chair.

  “Crair,” said Jonnie, alarmed, making his way around the table toward her. “Are you okay?”

  Claire looked at him, flustered. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she stammered. Jonnie said something to the little girl across the table. Dutifully she got up and led Claire behind the curtain into the bedroom.

  I got a terrible feeling just then: During the tour of the house, I’d noticed the chamber pot. I sensed what was coming. As quickly as I could, I began reaching for the various dishes, shoveling delicacies onto my plate and offering them around, urging the others to please begin feasting with me. I began eating everything as fast as I could—something eggy, something with fish, the prawns still in their shells, bitter greens that I could barely swallow, something slimy and something with crunch. “Oh, my God,” I said in my exaggerated, imbecile tourist’s voice, “is this ever delicious. Jonnie, please tell your family that this is delicious.”

  A moment later, just as I’d anticipated, Claire hurried out from behind the curtain. She grabbed her silver Windbreaker off the back of her chair and yanked it over her shoulders. “I’m sorry,” she announced, lifting the strap of her leather saddlebag over her head, “but we have to go back to the hotel. Now.”

  Jonnie looked stricken.

  “I’m not feeling well,” she declared. “I’m sorry, but we have to leave.”

  I couldn’t help it: I glared at her. I suppose I was a terrible friend. But though her face was flushed, I simply didn’t believe her. It was too patently convenient. I’d seen Claire when she was sick, and I’d seen her when she was being extravagantly theatrical. I was still confident that I could tell the difference.

  “Can’t you wait just a little?” I pleaded under my breath.

  She looked at me, furious. “Susie, I’m not feeling well. Goddamn it, what don’t you understand about that?” There was a prick of hysteria in her voice.

  “Please, look at this,” I whispered, gesturing to the feast. Clearly the family had been working for hours to prepare it; clearly, they’d spent everything they had on it, perhaps a month’s savings. From what I’d read in our guidebook, the Chinese lived in mortal fear of losing face—of appearing in any way unworthy, inhospitable, flustered, deficient. Preventing loss of face required tacit cooperation among all concerned; causing someone else to lose face was just as bad as losing it yourself. Rejecting Jonnie’s family’s hospitality would be humiliating for them and a terrible affront on our part.

  His family looked bewildered from Claire to me to Claire again as if watching a Ping-Pong match. “They’ve gone to all this trouble,” I begged. “Can’t you just hold out for fifteen minutes?”

  “Jonnie.” Claire turned to him abruptly. “Jonnie, I feel horrible. I think my fever is coming back. Please give your family my apologies, but you and your brother are going to have to take me back to the hotel.” She bowed, then hurried out of the house.

  The family looked after her, then at me, then down at the abandoned feast.

  “No,” I announced, “Claire isn’t going anywhere until we’re finished, Jonnie. What she means is that she’ll wait outside until you can go. So sit down. We’re all going to eat for a few minutes.”

  He looked at me uneasily. “Sit,” I said.

  For the next five minutes we all ate mechanically, in quiet misery. Outside, the sun was low in the sky, and I knew Claire would be pacing by the van. But suddenly I didn’t really care. Let her wait, I thought. All day long people had been doing their best to take care of her. It was time she gave a little and let this poor family enjoy the biggest meal they’d probably had all year. But it was ruined and we all knew it. Finally Jonnie set down his chopsticks.

  “I think we go now, Sushi,” he said quietly, standing. “Crair has been sick all day. I do not want her to have to go back to the hospital.”

  On the ride back, Claire stared out the window at the sherbet-colored sunset and hummed. When we reinstalled her in the hotel room, she poured herself three cups of now-tepid tea and swallowed them in rapid succession. As Jonnie and I looked on, she ripped open a second package of the yellow cake and devoured it.

  “Oh, God,” she sighed, rubbing her stomach in exaggerated circles, “that feels so much better.” She waved aside the mosquito netting and jounced down on the bed. “My insides are just a mess,” she said almost happily. “Jonnie, I don’t suppose there’s any place I can get some soup around here? Just something very simple like broth with maybe some dumplings or noodles?”

  At that moment, I remember thinking that if Jonnie turned on his heels and slammed the door on us both, I’d applaud him. And then I remember feeling guilty for thinking this. For weeks, Claire had indulged my anxieties and pulled me along when I was too homesick and freaked out to function properly. Now, when our roles were reversed, I was hard-nosed and resentful. But I somehow just couldn’t believe that she was still sick; something rang false. But why should it? Just a few hours before, she’d been taken to the hospital, yet I was second-guessing her. I was not only a coward, but a bitch.

  “I’ll go with you, Jonnie,” I said guiltily.

  It was dark when we set out on foot through the narrow cobblestone streets. The low stone houses lining the alleys had barred windows and no electricity. I would’ve thought they were deserted except for the occasional fragments of voices and cooking sounds wafting from them as we passed. Without a flashlight, it became increasingly hard to see, but Jonnie seemed to know exactly where to go. We turned a corner and reached a small clearing strung with bare lightbulbs. A generator growled behind a lean-to of corrugated tin, in which a man and his family had set up a little restaurant. Jonnie bought us each a pink ticket at a side window, then handed it to the proprietor. He and his family began cooking soup and dumplings for us on a hot plate. We helped ourselves to bowls, spoons, and chopsticks from a pile on top of the counter. All of them were filthy, with stuck-on food left over from the previous diner, but I’d given up caring. I figured if it hadn’t killed Jonnie, it wouldn’t kill me.

  When the food was ready, Jonnie and I served ourselves, then carried our bowls to a rickety wooden table covered with a plastic cloth that felt like contact paper. Both of us were ravenous. We slurped in silence.

  “It is good, yes? You like the food?”

  I nodded vigorously. It really did seem
to be some of the best soup and dumplings I’d ever eaten. The proprietors waved over at me proudly. When Jonnie got up to buy us a second round of tickets, they refused our money. On the shelves behind them were displayed a few paltry bottles of Chinese wine, beer, “fruit tonic,” and dusty canned goods, and in the glass counter were bags of hard candies, nuts, and packages of biscuits. To show my gratitude, I shopped extravagantly, buying as many packages of nuts and biscuits and bottles of fruit tonic as I could carry. Meanwhile, Jonnie arranged for the restaurant to lend him an enamel pot full of soup and dumplings for Claire.

  Yet by the time we returned with our bounty, she was already asleep.

  ———

  The next morning, when Jonnie bicycled back to the hotel to check up on us, Claire was still sleeping. I longed to buy him breakfast but realized I’d used up all my Chinese money the night before. I didn’t even have enough for our ferry tickets back to Shanghai.

  Jonnie appeared unfazed.

  “No problem,” he said cheerily. “I take you to the bank.”

  There was a little metal pallet on the back of his bicycle. I perched on it backward, straddling the fender with my knees bent, while Jonnie pedaled. I was amazed how fast we went, bouncing over asphalt, gliding down dusty roads. Jonnie insisted on bringing his tape recorder with him, and as we tore along the streets of downtown Dinghai, I held it on my lap, the volume dialed up to 10, and we both sang along to Stevie Wonder with gleeful abandon. As we passed, people pointed at us smiling and waving.

  “Nee how!” I shouted, grinning and waving back. I felt ridiculous and exultant. “Nee how!”

  We rode alongside bicycle carts, tractors, army buses. We rode past fields, construction sites, and open fruit stands on the roadside. We became one with a sea of other cyclists, everyone pumping away in unison, waving and nodding in a community of labor and recognition. By the time we’d gone to the bank and returned to the hotel, I was completely disheveled, breathless, and covered with dust. “Oh, Jonnie,” I cried, reluctant to get off and return to the privileged sterility of our room. “That was amazing.”

  Jonnie laughed with genuine pleasure. “Last night you eat in a local restaurant, and today you ride a bicycle many miles, ” he beamed. “You are a real Chinese now.”

  Chapter 7

  Beijing

  WE ARE HIS friends now, truly his friends. We have traveled the high seas with him. We have warbled songs in harmony and peppered him with fantastical stories about America. We have kissed his mother’s papery cheek. When Claire insisted on cutting short our stay in Dinghai, he took leave of his own family in order to return to Shanghai with us on the ferry. For three weeks he has been our guide, our guardian, our companion.

  So when we abandon Jonnie on the platform of the Shanghai Terminus, when we leave him to his fate by dashing abruptly onto the last night train for Beijing while shouting at him, “Jonnie, the train is leaving! Hurry up! Where’s your ticket?” knowing full well he doesn’t have a ticket—he’s been under the impression that we’d bought one for him—he looks stricken. His eternal smile collapses. He can’t help it. His face becomes a landslide of confusion and panic. “Sushi, Crair!” he cries, running after us. The train grinds and chugs forward, accumulating velocity. He cannot keep up with it. We are standing in the vestibule, breathless and shaking. Our faces slide past him. Does he know that we’ve betrayed him? Or does he believe what we hope he’ll believe—that it was simply a terrible misunderstanding, that we hadn’t actually intended to leave him behind?

  From the doorway of the train, I watch his little cardboard suitcase tumble onto the concrete. I watch his hands go up to his face. I watch his bereft figure grow smaller and smaller on the edge of the platform, until it is just a pinpoint absorbed into the violent glare of the station, and then the train rounds a corner, and there is just blackness, and he is gone.

  It’s over. We have amputated him from ourselves entirely. Just like that. And for the first time in my life, I feel like I’ve committed murder. He has been nothing but generous and kind to us. And look what we’ve done. We’ve not only rejected but humiliated him. We’ve caused him to lose face. Hundreds of his countrymen have witnessed his desperation and unraveling in public.

  Grimly we stumble through the corridor with our backpacks, moving in counterpoint to the slonging of the train. It has taken us five days to obtain tickets for the hard sleeper, an open compartment in second class with six bunks. The train ride to Beijing is fourteen hours. Even Lonely Planet advises not to attempt this journey in third class, ominously called hard seat.

  People lean out of their compartments to stare at us. Their faces emerge in sequence, like a silk fan, opening.

  “Look, we did him a favor,” Claire says unconvincingly, slinging down her backpack. Our reserved bunks are on the bottom and in the middle in the last compartment, by the acrid toilet.

  “Even if by some miracle we helped him defect, do you think we’d be allowed to just waltz back out onto the streets afterward and continue traveling?” She unrolls her sleeping bag and shakes it out over her sleeper. “Our own lives might have been put at risk.”

  I glance at her bitterly. Claire had told Jonnie “Meet us at the train station. We’ll have the tickets,” but had then deliberately given him the wrong departure time.

  I tell myself that betraying Jonnie had been her idea, her problem, her responsibility, not mine; after all, wasn’t she the one who’d insisted we go with him to Dinghai in the first place? Hadn’t she promised me that she’d be the one to deal with him? But I know better. I feel dirty and monstrous, and rightfully so. I have been complicit. I am the Vampirella of the backpacking circuit. Claire and I should’ve been willing to forfeit our own adventures to help a friend break free of an oppressive regime. That’s what the heroes in great books did, after all.

  “Look,” Claire said flatly, “Jonnie had an agenda. Okay, he smiled, and he introduced us to his family and blah blah blah. But c’mon, Suze. How do we know he wasn’t a spy?” She pulled a Wash’n’Dry out of her purse, tore it open, and ran the towelette briskly over her hands.

  “A spy? What kind of a spy sings Stevie Wonder songs and takes you home to meet his mother?”

  “Please. Don’t be so naive,” she said tightly. “That’s exactly how those people operate, you know. Befriend you, then exploit you.” She dropped the used Wash’n’Dry into the bag she used for garbage, then tossed it on top of her purse.

  “You think everyone’s a spy, Claire,” I said meanly.

  “So okay, then. How did he know English so well, huh? And how did he get to live in Ghana? You saw where he grew up. How does someone from Dinghai get to travel halfway around the world when most Chinese can’t leave their village without permission?”

  Dropping to her haunches, she riffled agitatedly through her purse, pulling out books and slapping them down on the padded bunk.

  “Besides, spy or no spy, you know he wouldn’t take no for an answer. He just would not stop pushing.”

  Stiffly, miserably, I hoisted myself up onto my sleeper. Even with my sleeping bag spread across it, the bunk felt like an ironing board against my spine. I shifted about, struggling to get comfortable as an old woman in the berth directly across from mine stared at me unremittingly. Above her, another woman chewed sunflower seeds and spit their shells on the floor. She, too, stared at me. Their gaze felt like an indictment.

  I rolled over onto my stomach. Beneath me, Claire sat in her berth with her journal spread open across her knees.

  “Oh, Claire,” I said over the ledge, “it was just so heartbreaking, seeing him standing alone like that—”

  Slowly she set down her pen. “Yeah. I know.” She sighed. “He just—he just didn’t know what he was playing with, Suze, you know? And I don’t want to spend the next, like, seven years in a Chinese prison. Do you?”

  Beneath us, the muddy, felt-covered floor of our compartment was littered with sunflower shells. Already the air was growin
g milky and bluish from cigarette smoke. A sharp chemical smell emanated from the toilet, and the emergency bulbs overhead bathed everything in a nicotine-tinted light. The train jiggled. Slowly I shook my head.

  “Here. Take some.” She held up a cellophane package of peanuts. “It’s all we’ve got. We’ll toast. To Jonnie.”

  She strained upward toward me, proffering the bag, and I stretched down to meet her and scoop up a handful of nuts. “To Jonnie, ” we said solemnly, knocking our fists together. The Chinese looked on, perplexed.

  After that, Claire and I sat somberly in our berths, quietly eating our peanuts.

  And that was it.

  For the first time since our arrival in China, we were truly on our own.

  ———

  Throughout the night, the dim lights remained burning while our bunkmates bantered, spit, smoked, peeled oranges, offered around bags of boiled sweets, laughed uproariously, and coughed deep, labored coughs. Intermittently, broadcasts blared over the loudspeakers in long-winded monologues. Public announcements were so ubiquitous and relentless in China that they’d become white noise to us. The train squealed and stalled, jerking along from station to station in the darkness. Occasionally a man came down the corridor with a rattling metal trolley, and our Chinese bunkmates clamored out of their bunks with tin cups and enamel thermoses, which he filled with boiling water before rattling on. The air smelled of axle grease and a pungent, mushroomy soup. By now both Claire and I knew better than to try to sleep. Using our flashlights, we sat up reading—me Tess of the d’Urbervilles, she The Fountainhead—and listening to our Walkmans while the train slowly chewed up the miles beneath us.

  The relentless rocking of the car became numbing, then peculiarly erotic. I found myself returning to licentious thoughts of Trevor. My precarious time in Dinghai had revived my desire to see him. Travel, I realized, made me lonely, and loneliness made me horny. Hot, crazy Trevor. I began reminiscing about our fling, investing it with far more emotion and significance than I’d ever originally accorded it: perhaps traveling does this to all people, but at age twenty-one, this was pretty much my standard operating procedure anyway.