Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

by Susan Jane Gilman

  We have no option but to split up. Logically, as a fellow American, I should be the one to escort Claire to the American consulate. But Claire’s relationship to Sandy has become positively umbilical. She clings to Sandy and becomes agitated whenever Sandy disengages herself to do so much as tie her shoe or use the ladies’ room. “Sandy, where are you going?” she cries, groping like a blind person.

  “Oh, Sandy,” she coos, “don’t leave, okay?” Me, on the other hand, she snubs outright. When she overhears us discussing the logistics, she yanks off her headphones and says anxiously, “I only want to go with Sandy.”

  And so Sandy, the great Canadian, ends up taking Claire to the American consulate while I get dropped off at the Chinese foreign visa office to get a jump on the paperwork.

  The visa office is housed in an ornate beaux arts town house with flaking wrought-iron gates left over from French colonial times. A line of grungy backpackers extends from the emergency visa counter through the musty reception hall to the entrance foyer. Standing there, I worry that I won’t even reach the front of the line before closing time. People inch up glacially. Only one bureaucrat is manning the entire operation—an elderly Chinese man in a gray muslin uniform who moves so slowly, he might as well be practicing tai chi. Each time someone finally arrives at the counter, he hands them a series of forms, which they fill out at a side table or while sitting cross-legged on the parquet floor. He then reviews their paperwork as if attempting to memorize it. Eventually he stamps it with a satisfying thwomp! that echoes throughout the hall. The backpackers flee clutching their passports like prizes that might at any moment be revoked, their faces shiny with relief.

  It is 3:24 when I arrive. Then it is 3:27, 3:34, 3:41, 3:52. Checking the time becomes an insatiable itch. I tap my foot, bite my nails, pull my split ends apart, and glance miserably around the high-ceilinged waiting area, which smells of wet clay. I find myself despising Claire, then feeling guilty for resenting somebody who is helpless and mentally ill and so clearly suffering; I am a heinous person. I think longingly of Eckehardt. Just imagining the journey ahead gives me vertigo. How on earth am I going to get Claire all the way back to New York by myself in the state that she’s in?

  As closing time nears, the man behind the counter gets eager to finish. Thwomp, thwomp, thwomp! There are only six people ahead of me, then five. When it is finally my turn, there is still no sign of Sandy and Claire. I take the forms and fill them out in the corner, leaving blank the sections that require her new passport number. I am the only one left in the office. The administrator waves me over impatiently. It is 5:02 p.m. Claire and Sandy are still not back from the American consulate. Shafts of dusty sunlight are receding across the parquet floor.

  “Ni shou ying wen ma?” I ask. This is Mandarin, not Cantonese, I realize but the man seems to understand. He shakes his head. His benign, plump face is tea-colored, grandfatherly. Holding out his small crepe-skinned palm, he motions for me to turn in my application.

  When I refuse, he points again to the clock overhead. It’s closing time. Now or never.

  I fumble through my day pack for the Cantonese phrase book, locate the characters for friend and ten minutes, and point to them.

  The administrator sighs. Pulling a metal box from beneath the counter, he puts his rubber stamp away and locks it with resignation.

  “No, please!” I cry.

  He walks over to the bank of large windows and systematically begins closing the blinds with a tug and a thwip! As he proceeds from one window to the next, I hurry after him, pleading in some sort of demented hybrid of English and Mandarin and tapping at my watch. After regarding me pitifully for a moment, he disappears into a little doorway beside the counter. For a moment I think that perhaps he has opted to help me after all. But he reemerges with a broom and begins sliding it across the floor. He glances at me once sympathetically as if to say, I am so sorry I cannot help you, but I do not understand what you want.

  In a few more minutes, he will begin switching off the lights. He will insist that I leave and lock the door behind me. Then what? I survey the office frantically for something to seize upon, for some instrument to help me. There is nothing. In my frustration, my eyes fill up with tears.

  I step in front of his broom. “Please.” I clasp my hands together. “You don’t speak any English?” For the life of me, I don’t know how else to communicate. “Parlez-vous français?” I say stupidly.

  The man stops. Reaching up beneath his cap, he runs his hand over his pate in amazement. “Mais oui, mademoiselle. Je parle français,” he says. “Et vous aussi?”

  ———

  Twenty minutes later, when Claire and Sandy finally arrive at the foreign visa office, Mr. Chiang and I are hunkered over my 913-page volume of Linda Goodman’s Love Signs and I am explaining to him in French that as a Sagittarius in Western astrology (“le sagittaire, un cheval”) he is most naturally compatible with Leo and Aries (“le lion et le bélier”) while Chiang is explaining to me in turn—also in French—that since I was born in the Year of the Dragon (“le dragon”), I should have absolutely no problem getting along with my brother, who was born in the Year of the Monkey (“le singe”), but that I should always watch out for the pig and the rat. The fact that he’s a Sagittarius tickles him immensely, he says, because in Chinese astrology, he was born in the Year of the Horse. “C’est parfait, non?” we cheer in unison. “Cheval et cheval!En deux cultures différents, la même signe!”

  Sandy stands there looking at me as if I, too, have now lost my mind.

  “Claire, Sandy!” I cry, leaping up. “Monsieur Chiang,” I say magnanimously, “je vous present mes deux amies, Claire et Sandy.”

  Beaming, Mr. Chiang escorts them over to the counter. He has already heard my truncated version of our saga. Pulling out his metal box, he removes his rubber stamp and embosses Claire’s passport with a flourish. An emergency visa is only good for twenty-four hours, he says apologetically, but at least Claire will no longer be illegal. We now have exactly one full day to get her out of China.

  There is a maritime travel office by the wharf, Mr. Chiang says, where we can purchase hydrofoil tickets to Hong Kong. He’s not certain, but he thinks it’s open until six o’clock.

  “Bon voyage!” He waves as he locks the wrought-iron gates. “Et bon courage!”

  ———

  “I can’t fucking believe it,” I say as our taxi jounces toward the waterfront. “The guy spoke fluent French. Said he learned it during colonial times before World War Two, working on the docks. What’re the chances of that?”

  “Sounds like you had an easier time than I did,” Sandy grumbles. Reaching over, she checks to make sure that Claire’s Walkman is still on high, then tells me that the staffers at the U.S. consulate behaved like a couple of frat boys.

  “They were calling each other Scooter and Biff and punching each other on the arm and tossing this Nerf football back and forth as if we weren’t even there. When I finally got their attention and told them what had happened, that Claire had a breakdown and needed a new passport and so forth, they just looked at me like, So. What do you expect us to do?

  “And I said, ‘Look, I’m Canadian. I found her in a lot of trouble, so I brought her here. I’m just trying to help.’ So then they asked to see my passport. And when they saw I was Canadian, they said, ‘Well, how do we know that your friend here isn’t Canadian too, and that you’re not just scheming to get her an American passport so you can live in the U.S.?’

  “Well, Lordy, Suze, I just about lost it then. ‘Look,’ I said. ‘This girl is an American. If you don’t want to help me help her, fine. I’m out of here. She’s your problem now.’ And Claire is sitting there on a bench humming to herself, her eyes practically rolling back into her head, and your purple dress hiked up over her knees, and she’s swatting at the air and starting to yell at people, getting all paranoid because the Valium’s wearing off. ‘There she is.’ I pointed. ‘Have fun.’ And I walked o
ut.

  “And they took one look at Claire, and suddenly the consulate guy comes running out after me, shouting, ‘Ma’am, I’m sorry. Please. Come back, ma’am. We’ll get your friend a new passport. Please. I’ll even make you coffee.’ And back inside they’re leafing through the consulate handbook trying to figure out what to do, and calling their boss, and finally, tah-dah. They give her a passport. And the coffee they made me was really good, too. But Lordy, Lordy, Lordy. I am telling you, lady. You Americans, you’re worse than the Communists.”

  ———

  That evening, with three hydrofoil tickets finally in hand, we check into one of the fanciest hotels in Guangzhou, a modern high-rise with its name spelled across the top in cherry-red neon characters. We’re required to hand over all three of our passports, which makes Sandy and me very leery. We can’t imagine that the authorities in Guangxi aren’t out looking for Claire, methodically connecting the dots.

  Ironically, Claire herself seems unfazed. Our deluxe double room costs seventy-five dollars a night and smells of pineapple air freshener. Although it is scarcely more luxurious than the Osmanthus, it has two queen-size beds with brocaded coverlets and an immaculate Western bathroom. An air conditioner purrs reliably in the corner. Claire sighs contentedly and sinks into a club chair by the window. She is like a candle melting. Then she turns to me, scratches her neck compulsively, and says the only thing that she will say directly to me that entire day. Pointing at the foil-wrapped chocolates glinting on each pillow, she murmurs, “Mints.”

  Since it is the only place where Sandy and I can talk out of earshot of Claire, the bathroom becomes our command center. Both of us are nervous that the authorities will track us down and detain us before we can cross the border the next morning. We are also worried that Claire will have another delusional episode. Perching on the edge of the tub, Sandy sorts through her medications. “I have exactly seven Valium left. If you give her one every twelve hours, you can keep her sedated through Friday.” Then she steps outside, helps Claire into her pajamas, and tucks her into bed. Although it is barely seven p.m., it feels as though it’s midnight. Even in bed, Claire is still wearing her Walkman.

  “Go. Get yourself some dinner downstairs,” Sandy instructs as she strokes Claire’s hair. “Once she’s asleep, I’ll join you if I can.”

  I sit alone at a banquette in the hotel’s peculiar faux-Polynesian-themed restaurant, keeping my eye out for military police. Every waitress, every busboy makes me flinch. Between forkfuls of sweet-and-sour chicken, I glance around uneasily and cough. I have now become the fearful, suspicious paranoiac. The irony of this is not lost on me. My nerves make it difficult to eat, but I force myself. It’s been twenty-four hours since my last meal. That celebratory wine-soaked dinner with Eckehardt seems surreal and very faraway now, the back end of a telescope.

  Halfway through my meal, Sandy slides into the padded seat across from me. “Jeez Louise,” she groans, spreading her arms across the tabletop and dropping her head between them. “I need a drink.” Summoning the waiter, she orders two mai tais and another plate of sweet-and-sour chicken. “You Americans are exhausting.”

  I wait until she has had something to eat and we’re chewing on the orange rinds from our second round of cocktails. Then I move my decimated plate aside and lean toward her. “Okay, please tell me.”

  Sandy sighs and runs her index finger around the sticky red rim of her glass. “Well, she believed people were after her. Assassins, ” she begins.

  “CIA, Mossad, FBI. Special agents. She said she’d been picking up signals. But once she got on board the bus to Guilin, she said, and you and Eckehardt were there outside, she suddenly felt calm and safe again, like maybe she’d thrown them off her track and that she’d be okay if she could just get to Guilin.

  “But then, after about fifteen minutes riding the bus, she said her panic started to return. She felt increasingly endangered, constricted, like she couldn’t breathe, and this pressure was building up behind her eyes. She claims voices were telling her they could pinpoint her using their special satellite, and there was all this noise from the Chinese on the bus, too, and the engine roaring, and people were staring and pointing at her and laughing at her and spitting, and it was building to a crescendo. She thought her head was going to explode from all the chatter, and that the CIA agents were monitoring the bus until it reached a predesignated point where they could climb on board and abduct her. She said she had to get off immediately. And so she started screaming and grabbing at the driver’s arm, ordering him to open the doors. And he did. He stopped short on the side of the road and let her off. All she remembers is that it was in a wooded area with a stream below.”

  As Sandy recounts Claire’s story, I try to imagine it. The bus pulls away, disappearing beneath a veil of trees, and Claire is suddenly alone in the whispery stillness. From overhead comes the mournful caw of a bird. The trees rustle in the wind. But Claire knows this tranquility is an illusion. Above her, the karsts appear to be melting. It’s disintegrating—the landscape is poisoned, she decides. It’s all part of the plot. She knows. She knows too much, in fact—which is partly why the CIA is trying to kill her.

  The way an animal can sense a predator stalking it, she feels her assassins closing in. She has got to keep moving. If she descends the embankment, she can reach the stream. Water. It can throw hunters off your scent.

  On either side are dense tropical forests. The slope is steeper than she anticipated. Losing her footing, she slips and skids down a ways on her backside, ripping her left pants leg on a knob of roots protruding from the earth. As she picks herself up and brushes herself off, she feels an increasing sense of urgency. There’s no time left. They’re coming! Hurrying down to the stream, she begins following it. At one point she pulls a fistful of what she thinks are spearmint leaves off a bush and rubs them all over her palms and her neck, hoping this will help to throw the assassins off her trail. But then she hears a voice behind her saying We’ve got a lock on you and she breaks into a run, half stumbling through the bushes, leaping over rocky outcroppings alongside the stream. She dashes through the woods until it is just a blur of green and brown and all she’s aware of is the bass beat of her own frenzied heart and her blood pounding relentlessly in her ears, and the slap of wet leaves underfoot, and the voices somewhere intoning, All systems on red alert. We’re closing in.

  Suddenly she runs through a clearing and finds herself at the edge of a river. The water is fast-moving. It sounds like rain, and this sound obliterates anything sinister. When the sunlight hits the current, it turns to quicksilver, dancing and sparkling—like jewels on her mother’s throat. She is momentarily overcome by a memory: her mother dressed to go out to a Christmas party, leaning over to kiss her good night. As she bends over Claire’s bed, her breasts swell in their emerald-green bodice, and her necklace dangles above Claire like a pendulum. Claire remembers the glossy crescents of her mother’s neckline, the waxy scent of her cranberry-colored lipstick, her perfume, Ma Griffe—and she remembers reaching up to grasp the tantalizing necklace—she couldn’t have been more than three years old—and her mother laughing and wrapping her hand tenderly over Claire’s tiny fist, saying, “Uh-uh, darling. Don’t touch.”

  Her mother. Oh, Mom, she cries aloud. Please, where are you? Suddenly she misses her mother so furiously, she aches. Then, staring into the river, she sees her. Not her mother exactly, but the distilled essence of her. The “oversoul,” Emerson called it, and here it is, infused with her mother’s spirit, diaphanous in the water. And she can hear it now, too, calling to her, beckoning, urging: Come to me.I will protect you. Here the assassins will not be able to get you. She sees the water opening its arms.

  The rocks at the edge are slippery, but Claire squats down on them and manages to lower herself in one leg at a time. She hadn’t imagined the river to be so cold. Nor had she expected it to be quite so deep. Straightening up and fumbling for her footing, she finds she is already subm
erged up to her waist, and the current is strong. That’s it. You brave and beautiful girl.Come to me. She manages to take a few steps away from the shore, but it is a struggle. Her Timberlands have filled with water; they might as well be cement, and her goddamn bag is weighing her down, too. She’s got to get rid of it. Lifting it over her head, she swings the bag by its strap and releases it toward the shore. But it falls short of its mark and lands in the water with a thwuck! where because of the weight of the leather, it quickly fills and begins to sink. Yet Claire feels only relief. The bag was just an albatross, something the CIA could use to identify her. Quickly, she rips off her thin gold necklace and bracelets and flings them across the water, too. They’re chains, after all. She has to be free of them! No ID! She craves weightlessness. Perhaps if she relieves herself of enough belongings, she will finally be able to alleviate this terrible pressure in her head.

  With difficulty, she bends over in the rushing water and undoes one of her shoes, then the other. At one point she loses her balance and falls face forward into the river. Water goes up her nose, and with the current tearing at her limbs, it is hard to regain her balance, but she does, coughing and sputtering. Her hair and all her clothes are now soaked, though without her shoes, it’s so much better! She can almost swim! But her clothes are waterlogged, weighing her down. Take them off, the river whispers. Liberate yourself. Come to me. She can’t get them off quickly enough. She wriggles out of her shirt and lets the river carry it off, and for a moment she feels a wash of joy, but then she is suddenly aware of her sopping wet bra binding her ribs, and so she yanks that off too. As soon as she dispenses with that—watching the Lycra twist and unfurl dervishly in the water as it’s carried away downstream—she realizes that it’s her canvas pants that are really holding her hostage. They’re an encasement, an iron cast. Get rid of them, the river commands. And I will wrap you in my protection.