Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

by Susan Jane Gilman

  “So are you, Lisa,” said Claire. “I’m serious. You’re the nicest person we’ve met in all of China. I mean it. You are our friend.”

  “You know, back home in America,” I confessed, “I’m a waitress, too. Just like you.”

  Lisa frowned. “You are waitress in America?”

  I nodded proudly.

  It was hard to tell whether she was impressed by this or disappointed.

  “Lisa, please,” Claire said, redirecting her attention. “Tell me. What are you doing here? How did you know to communicate with us? How do you speak English so well?”

  Lisa gathered us in closely in a conspiracy of girls. “Do you know who Yao are?”

  We shook our heads.

  “Yao are Chinese minority. We come from west. But I marry foreigner. I come here to work for him. My family not like this. So I know what it is like for travelers. I know what it is like to feel alone, no family, no friends.

  “My husband, he know a little English. He teach me. When we open café, I learn more English from travelers. I say, ‘I know you very far from home. What you miss most?’ And they all say, ‘Cooking like Mom makes.’ So I say, ‘You teach me, and then I can cook like Mom.’ And so the Germans teach me pancakes. Pancakes with bananas. Pancakes with apples. A boy from England teach me beef stew. Lady from Belgium teach me waffles. The first Americans I meet, Americans like you, they teach me hamburgers and milk shakes. The more I cook like Mom, the more people come here to Lisa’s café, and the more cooking they teach me, the more I learn English.”

  When she finished, she sat back with a mournful look in her eyes.

  Slowly Claire and I each reached across the table and grasped one of her hands in ours. The three of us sat there, blinking into the candlelight amid the din. For a moment we really did feel like sisters.

  ———

  Eckehardt buys tickets for a ten p.m. fishing excursion. When he joins us at Lisa’s, he slides in beside me and clasps my hand in full view of Claire. It’s official now, and I feel a jolt of anticipation. Claire is speaking intently to Lisa, and I find myself secretly hoping that she’ll decline to come along with us. But when the time to depart rolls around, she stands up and says, “So are we ready to go?”

  At night, the area surrounding the two streets of Yangshuo is completely unlit. If a sliver of moon hadn’t been out, there would have been no light at all except for the stars. The blackness is disorienting. Eckehardt thoughtfully retrieves all of our flashlights from the guesthouse, and we make our way single file through the dark toward the river, poking our beams out ahead of us. Claire takes the lead. Eckehardt comes up beside me and puts his arm around my waist and we walk together, nuzzling. I want him so badly I feel drunk. The stars overhead are massive; the sky is a stadium. When Eckehardt and I stop and try to spot the constellations, everything’s skewed. We’re further south than I’ve ever been in my life, just above the Tropic of Cancer. Nothing is located where I’ve been taught it is.

  The fishing boat is little more than a canoe with a thatched roof cresting over it. Lurching against the dock, it seems eminently capable of capsizing. The fisherman holds up a single small lantern and ushers us on board with a grunt. The bulb sputters; it casts weak greenish-gold beams across the water for a few feet before dissipating into the blackness. There are only three other tourists on board, and all of them look worried. Certainly there are no life jackets or life preservers. The fisherman shouts harshly at his assistant, who balances precariously on the bow and casts the boat away from the shore using a long bamboo pole. The hull rocks violently. Instantly, the shore vanishes.

  Moments later, we hear a furious flapping. As the boat sways, half a dozen cormorants are led out from cages into the water. Until this very moment, I haven’t really been clear about what, exactly, cormorant fishing is. Now I see that cormorants are long-necked birds that look like hybrids between storks and pelicans. When cormorants spy a fish, they swoop down into the water and scoop it up in their gullets. The fishermen, however, have screwed brass rings around their throats to cut off their esophagus; when the birds catch fish, they’re prevented from swallowing, and the fishermen yank open their mouths to retrieve the catch. The birds, in effect, have become living nets and harpoons.

  The cormorants dive-bombing into the lake, the fishermen wrestling them back onto the boat, then prying the fish out their gullets as the birds thrash and bleat in strangled protest—it’s a brutal, otherworldly spectacle. Each time a fish is caught, I have to look away; I grip Eckehardt tightly and bury my face in his chest. Rationally I know this fishing method is not a matter of sadism but survival, a necessity born of poverty and hunger in the world’s most populous country. Only recently has it even begun to double as a small, lucrative tourist attraction. The people in the hillsides around Yangshuo, Lisa has told us, often go hungry. But watching their night fishing is unbearable. I glance over at Claire. She is standing a little bit away from us, hunched over the hull of the boat with her head in her fists. Each time she hears the sounds of the birds, she flinches. Wordlessly Eckehardt extends his arm, touches her lightly on the back, and draws her toward us.

  “Get away from me,” she hisses.

  When the boat docks, she scrambles off before we do. We come upon her five minutes later, sitting on the ground in the middle of the footpath. Her legs are splayed out in front of her like a doll’s and she’s emptied her purse out in the dirt, her passport, traveler’s checks, lip gloss, and Kleenex all heaped in the dust.

  “How could you possibly show me those birds?” she sobs. “Why on earth did you have me watch that? What’s wrong with you people?”

  She leaps up, gathers up the contents of her purse, stuffs it all back into her bag, then tears off through the darkness in the direction of Lisa’s.

  Eckehardt looks after her. “Uh-oh,” he says with dismay. “I think the fishing was not very much fun for her.”

  “Augh,” I say with exasperation. “Nothing is very much fun for her anymore. And frankly, I’ve just about had it with her soap operas.”

  I turn in to him and wrap my arms around his waist. My heart is beating wildly, and I can feel the rise and fall of his breathing through his rib cage.

  “She is your friend,” Eckehardt says, running his hand gently over the nape of my neck. “She seems pretty upset. Are you sure you don’t want to go after her?”

  I shake my head. It seems like ages since I’ve been held. Traveling lately has felt like solitary confinement; having been sick and feverish among the crowds, I’ve felt almost invisible, dissociated from myself and even my body. When Eckehardt runs his hands down along my spine, it’s like fire to parchment, a whole philharmonic orchestra tuning up and coming to life, a flag being raised. I refuse to give this up. I can’t bear to walk away for yet another one of Claire’s little melodramas. Please, I think, just let mekeep feeling thisa few minutes longer.

  “She’s being manipulative,” I say. “She’s jealous. She’s staged this tantrum precisely so that I’ll go after her instead of being here with you.”

  “Are you sure?”

  I nod. “I’m going to be traveling with her an entire year. She’s going to have to get used to the fact that if, say, I ever meet this totally hot guy, say, just standing there in the woods in the middle of Southwest China—”

  Before I can finish, he kisses me.

  He kisses me, and I go up in flames.

  There are no trees nearby, no thick grasses, no bench. So we just stand there on the pebbled path by the embankment kissing as the stars shift position in the sky overhead.

  Finally Eckehardt says, “What should we do?”

  I sigh. “We’re sharing a room with her. I just don’t feel right about that. That would be totally uncool.”

  He nods. “Okay. Then. I guess this is it. We should probably head back to the guesthouse.”

  Reluctantly we make our way through the empty streets of Yangshuo, our flashlights jiggling over the muddy cobble
stones. By now the Green Lotus Peak Inn is shut for the night and the lone street lamp has been switched off. When we aim the beam at Eckehardt’s digital watch, we’re shocked to see it’s almost two o’clock in the morning. Outside in the courtyard of the Garden Guesthouse, only Simon and Gustav are still awake, sitting in a stupor around a barrel top crowded with empty bottles and a half-finished chess game. They can barely raise their heads to acknowledge us as we slink past; Gustav grunts incoherently.

  When we reach our hut, Room 5, Eckehardt tries the door and finds it’s already unlocked. Before he opens it, though, he steps back into the courtyard and kisses me one long, last time. “Good night,” he whispers. “Sleep well. And thank you for the very beautiful evening.”

  We’ve agreed that I’ll return to the room a few minutes ahead of him to diffuse some of the awkwardness. As I slip inside, I feel a click of panic.

  Claire’s body is silhouetted peacefully beneath her tent of mosquito netting. When I lean in close, I see, to my great relief, that her eyes are shut and fluttering rapidly beneath their luminous lids. Her breathing is deep and regular; it sounds like the tide scraping back and forth over the sand.

  “Eckehardt,” I whisper when he pads in a few minutes later, his shoes in his hands for good measure. “She’s totally asleep.”

  Even though it is nearly pitch-dark, I can see him smiling faintly. I can see him beckoning me toward him. I can see him gently lift up the mosquito net draped over his bed like an expectant groom lifting the veil from the face of his bride.

  Chapter 9

  Yangshuo

  CLAIRE IS ALREADY awake and showered and pulling on her hiking boots when I stir. I roll over into a mosaic of sunlight and watch her through the mosquito net. In the bed adjacent to mine, Eckehardt is still asleep, his chest heaving, his forearm flung over his eyes. Claire moves perfunctorily about the room, tossing her possessions haphazardly into her backpack. Her wet hair drips on the floor. Her face has a raw, beaten look, as though she’s been crying.

  When she notices I’m awake, she says coldly, “I’m going to Lisa’s café for breakfast. I want to see Lisa.”

  “I’ll come with you,” I groan, rolling over again. “Just give me a minute to shower.”

  She grabs her purse and loops it over her head. “I’m going now.”

  Then, agitated, she removes it. “Christ,” she swears, “I’m so fucking sick of lugging all of this shit around with me all the time.”

  She empties the contents out into her backpack, snatches up a few items she deems useful, stuffs them back into her purse, and storms out.

  I sit up slowly, stretching. I feel a nagging sense of obligation to patch things up with her and behave contritely, though all I really feel is resentment. So what if for one single night of our trip, I made out with a guy instead of indulging her?

  Climbing down from my bed is difficult. My back and shoulders are sore from harvesting rice the day before. My lips feel deliciously bruised. I tiptoe back to Eckehardt’s bed. The sun casts a shadow of lace over his blankets. Though he’s shifted position, he’s still asleep. I watch him for a moment, his solemn lips, his long eyelashes, the square of his chin with its gentle cleft, his torso shuddering slightly as he breathes. I reach through the mosquito net to touch him. He groans, looks up at me sleepily, and smiles.

  “Nee how,” he says softly.

  “Nee how.”

  “Claire’s gone to Lisa’s for breakfast,” I tell him. “I think I should probably join her.”

  “Yah. I think that is a good idea,” he yawns.

  While he lies watching me, I undress, wrap myself in a towel, and gather up my toiletry bag.

  “Of course you are entitled to join me in the shower if you want,” I tease. “Otherwise, wait for me later, so that we can say a proper goodbye?”

  He rolls onto his side and looks at me with bemusement, his sandy hair flopping into his eyes. “Yah. Okay.” He rubs his forehead groggily. “I think I can do that.”

  Across the courtyard, the showers are little stalls with saloon doors and the usual pipe jutting out of the wall. I stand in the muddy corridor in my towel and flip-flops, listening to the sparrows as I wait for the water to turn from glacial to simply freezing. Finally I relinquish my towel, give a yelp, and begin soaping myself up as quickly as possible.

  A moment later, as I’m covered head-to-toe in peppermint lather, I hear a door swing open and footsteps slapping across the concrete.

  “Susie?” a man calls.

  “Ecke?” I shout. “I’m in the last stall. The one on the end.”

  But it isn’t Eckehardt at all. It’s Gustav, the chess player from the day before. He arrives in front of my stall breathlessly, as if he’s just run a great distance.

  “I am sorry, but you better come quickly,” he pants. “Your friend, she is really going crazy. She is in Lisa’s café, screaming. She is yelling at people and knocking over furniture.”

  “What?”

  “Lisa says you should come right away.”

  “Oh, Jesus, okay, I’m coming. Tell her I’ll be there as fast as I can.”

  Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck, I say aloud, rinsing myself in the ice water. Claire, what the hell are you pulling? Yanking my towel around me, I dash across the courtyard, my flip-flops in my hands and soap suds trailing behind me. In the hut, Eckehardt is already dressed and rapidly lacing his sneakers.

  “Claire’s making a scene,” I say.

  “Yah, I know. That guy told me.” He snatches up his Windbreaker as I wriggle into my clothing as quickly as possible: Traveling with a limited wardrobe has its benefits. We hurry outside and down the lane while I’m still stuffing my feet into my Reeboks, past the pizza bar, the travel agent, the funky jewelry booth. When we arrive at the Green Lotus Peak Inn, I notice a few travelers clustered outside whispering.

  Inside, the café is chillingly empty. Several chairs have been knocked over and there is an abandoned half-eaten breakfast on one of the tables. As soon as Lisa sees us, she hurries over.

  “Lisa, what happened?”

  “I so sorry,” she says. “Something very bad happen.”

  “Where’s Claire?”

  “I don’t know. She was here. She very, very upset. She crying to me. She telling me she in very big trouble. When other travelers come in, she yell at them. I try to make her calm. I tell that man to go find you. But then someone come in for breakfast and she get very upset.” With her chin, Lisa gestures toward a skinny backpacker with a Vandyke beard who’s hunkered down at the corner table.

  “Hey, man. I’m sorry,” he says, holding up his fork defensively. “I just wanted some waffles.”

  “Your friend, she see this man, she start screaming all over again,” Lisa says. “Then she stand up, knock over chairs, and run outside.”

  “Oh, Christ,” I say, dropping my head in my hands. “She’s gone too far this time.”

  “Do you know which direction she went?” Eckehardt asks.

  Lisa points.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I say, righting the overturned chairs. “Please, Lisa, if Claire comes back, tell her to wait here, okay?”

  Eckehardt and I hurry down the lane—he scans the left side of the street while I scan the right, in case Claire’s ducked inside somewhere. We don’t see her. We turn onto the other main thoroughfare. Yangshuo consists of just two streets, a single axis with a few small lanes deviating off of it.

  The second street is wider, longer, and dustier. It’s lined with bulky concrete buildings and no tourist spots. This is where the locals do business. There’s a post office, a machinist’s, a squalid grocery selling a few canned goods. The street dips down, then curves around a bend. Moving through it, I feel my heart banging away in my rib cage. I’ve had it with Claire and her tantrums, her desperate bids for attention.

  Midway down the block, Chinese pedestrians appear to be fleeing in our direction. They hurry past us, glancing back nervously and clutching their possessions to th
eir chests. “Uh-oh,” says Eckehardt. “There she is.”

  In the middle of the road stands Claire. She is flailing her arms and thrashing at the air as if she’s caught in the middle of a giant cobweb, as if she’s fending off an attack. “GET AWAY FROM ME!” she screams.

  Her face is wild-eyed, ablaze. “WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT, HUH?” she shouts belligerently at two backpackers. They sidestep her quickly, averting their eyes. She glowers at a Chinese woman and recoils. “I TOLD YOU TO STAY AWAY FROM ME.” Sweat is soaking visibly through the armpits of her white alligator shirt. “I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE UP TO. YOU THINK THIS IS FUNNY?”

  “Oh, my God,” I whisper. This is so above and beyond anything I’ve ever seen her do. Her face is hot pink, her lips shiny with spittle. Her hair is so disheveled, it looks electrified. She is like a bomb about to detonate. An old Chinese man shuffles by with a basket of lettuce lashed to his back. “DON’T YOU DARE TOUCH ME,” she shrieks.

  Eckehardt and I run up to her, and she jerks around. “Claire, it’s me,” I say. I wrap my arms around her tightly, trying to contain her. “Please, Claire, calm down.”

  “Oh, Susie,” she cries, collapsing into me. “They’re watching me. They’re after us.”

  She wipes her eyes with her wrists. “I don’t know what it is,” she says emphatically, “but it’s big. And it’s international. And it’s out to get us. It includes the CIA and the Mossad and probably the FBI. They’re trying to kill us, Susie. You and me both. We’re in terrible, terrible danger.”

  “Ssh, ssh, it’s okay,” I whisper—even though as I embrace her, I exchange horrified glances with Eckehardt. Is she kidding? I’m surprised by how bony she feels. Her ribs and her spine jut through her shirt. Since arriving in China, she’s lost an unnerving amount of weight.

  “Oh, Susie,” she sobs. “We’re in way over our heads!”

  “Okay, listen. We’re going to get you out of here, Claire,” I say softly. “We’re going to pack up and go back to Guilin today on the bus, okay? And then tomorrow we’re going to fly to Guangzhou. We’ve got those plane tickets, remember? And then from Guangzhou we’re going straight to Hong Kong. And from there we’re going to take you back home to Connecticut, where it’s safe. Everything’s okay, you understand?”