Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

by Susan Jane Gilman

  And so Claire performs a sort of trancelike striptease until she is naked in the center of the river, with the water rising up to her armpits, churning furiously around her, cleansing her, rebirthing her, until for one shining moment she really does believe that she is at one with the river, that the river is her mother’s arms, that she is cradled in a liquid, perfect love. And she both feels herself unleashed and electrically alive inside her own glistening skin, and sees herself too, from above, as if she is hovering in the air over the river looking down at her gleaming white body, an axis in the center of a swirling of water that radiates out from her in shards of dazzling light, like a galaxy of mirrors.

  But you can’t stand naked and ecstatic in a river for long. As the first vestiges of hypothermia began to numb and needle her skin, Claire’s anxiety begins to return. What if the CIA has radar? The FBI and the Mossad could be hiding in the foliage lining the shore, targeting her in the crosshairs of their assault weapons. She can hear their voices again, intermittently fading in and out as if filtered through the static of a shortwave radio. We’ve got you now. We know the coordinates. They’re back! The sun slides behind a cloud, casting the river into shadow, turning the surface of the water slate-colored and impenetrable. Her teeth are chattering so hard she accidently bites her lower lip. Viscous, salty liquid begins filling her mouth. The rocks on the riverbed scrape the soles of her feet and batter her toes. She is in terrible danger. She realizes she has done nothing at all to escape. She has got to get out of here immediately!

  Yet her muscles have atrophied from the cold, and she’s losing the feeling in her feet. Moving through the water now is like slogging through quicksand. She struggles, windmilling her arms through the current. It’s exhausting, and the river is tugging her steadily downstream. As it accumulates speed, she finds herself fighting to remain standing and in control. Her shoulders feel as if they’ll be yanked from their sockets. It would be so easy, she thinks suddenly, just to let go. Surrender. I feel like I have been carrying so much for so long. Why. Not. Just. Let. Go?

  And the river whispers to her sinuously: Yes. That’s right. Come to me, and I will carry you.

  She spreads her arms wide and leans back, lifting her legs off the riverbed with a flutter, and the water seems to rise up to meet her, buoyantly, and then it whisks her off, pinwheeling her in the current, churning, washing over her, flooding her ears and her nose, faster and faster, more and more relentlessly, until she can’t breathe and she can’t lift up her head, and for a terrifying moment she thinks, This is it. I’m going to drown. But then she hears a hideous crunching and the sound of wood splintering, and a burning slap hits her violently across the side of her face and all the way down along the left side of her torso, and she stops. It is a tree felled by a storm, extending halfway across the river. She has slammed right into it; its branches have caught her like a giant outstretched hand. As she grips it, and slowly struggles to stand up, she suddenly sees two figures watching her from the riverbank. But they are not CIA agents or Mossad sharpshooters at all. They are two small, astonished Chinese children in ragged pants and straw hats, clutching a dented pail.

  ———

  This time the collect call goes through to my parents immediately. In the privacy of the bathroom, I explain to them exactly what has happened. Sandy sits beside me on the edge of the tub listening.

  If the phone is tapped, so be it. I find myself speaking with reckless abandon. I’m simply too exhausted to keep my words in check anymore. This must be how totalitarian governments wear people down; the citizens acquiesce simply because they run out of steam to resist.

  My mother jots down the number of our hotel. Ten minutes later, the Van Houtens call from Hilton Head. Claire’s father is on one extension, her stepmom on the other. Prior to our departure, I met them only twice. Their disembodied voices sound strange to me; they don’t correlate with how I remember them. Mrs. Van Houten’s voice is girlish and tentative; Claire’s father’s is trembling with emotion. Over and over they tell me how grateful they are. I have saved their daughter’s life. Nobody hurt her, did they? And am I okay? Of course they’ll cover any expenses I incur whatsoever. “Don’t you worry about the money,” Mr. Van Houten says. “Just bring my little girl home. Your mother says you’re with a Canadian nurse. Do you have an exit strategy?”

  I tell them that I’ve arranged for Sandy to accompany us to Hong Kong on a hydrofoil leaving the next morning. From there, I suppose, we’ll check into a fancy hotel until I can book a direct flight for Claire and me back to New York.

  “Well, what about this nurse?” Mr. Van Houten says. “Can’t she come with you?”

  “Oh, I don’t think she can come with us all the way to New York City.” I tug at Sandy’s arm and point at the phone incredulously. “She didn’t even plan to come this far. She left her boyfriend and all her stuff back in Guilin.”

  “Tell her I’ll pay her whatever she wants. Better yet, put her on the phone.”

  I hand the receiver to Sandy.

  “Hey there,” she says cheerily, “are you Claire’s dad?” I listen as she gives the Van Houtens a complete medical report and answers questions about Claire’s fever, appetite, and weight. I watch her nod and say, “Uh-huh… Uh-huh. I see. Jeez Louise. Well, that’s certainly generous of you. Well, I have to think about it, if you don’t mind… Yes, I certainly understand …”

  When she hangs up, she giggles. “Wow. He’s begging me to come with you all the way back to New York. Can you imagine?”

  I have to struggle to rein in my enthusiasm, my galloping, voluptuous hope. Having Sandy escort us all the way home would be a godsend; it is simply too fabulous to contemplate. “Well, you did say you needed a vacation.” I try to sound nonchalant. “Have you ever seen the Statue of Liberty? Walked across the Brooklyn Bridge? If you come to New York, you know, I can show you around. Give you a real insider’s tour.”

  She sighs. “Yeah. But it’s what? A twenty-four-hour plane ride?”

  “True. But how many times in your life will you get to be a savior and get an all-expenses-paid trip to New York?”

  She laughs. “Lordy, I tell Kyle I’m going to the airport for a couple of hours, then next thing you know, I’m halfway around the world? Wow, it is tempting,” she admits. “But I have to think about it. I mean, all I have with me is a toothbrush and three pairs of underwear.”

  “Of course.” Suddenly I feel foolish. “Look, I’m sorry. Already, you’ve done more than enough. You’ve really saved us. I mean, if you hadn’t come with me today—” My eyes start to tear up.

  “Oh, shush. It’s what I do,” Sandy says. “If someone’s in trouble, I help them. But as far as New York’s concerned, let’s just see how things are tomorrow morning, okay?”

  A moment later, Claire wakes up, wailing like a baby. “Where is everybody?” she cries hoarsely.

  “We’re in the bathroom.”

  “I have to use it. Is it a real bathroom? Are there bugs?” She sobs. “I have to go. Please help me.”

  When we arrive at her bedside, she pushes me away violently. “Only Sandy!” she screams.

  From across the bed Sandy shoots me a look of concession.

  And that’s how we decide.

  Chapter 12

  Hong Kong

  AFTER SIX WEEKS in the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong is the New Jerusalem. It is Nirvana, Mecca, and Xanadu all rolled into one. Look, we squeal, pointing out the window of our air-conditioned taxi. A Hilton Hotel! McDonald’s! A doughnut shop! Everything once anathema is now thrilling. The malls, the gargantuan neon billboards, the jewelry stores, the touristy dim sum restaurants with English menus displayed on the sidewalk. The hawkers ambushing pedestrians with armloads of fake Rolexes. All those jubilant colors! Those name brands! The skyline!

  “Oh, a Ponderosa steak house,” Sandy sighs. “What do you say we all get a big, juicy sirloin steak and a baked potato for lunch?”

  “Mm,” Claire m
urmurs as she sits huddled between us with her Walkman still playing. “Potato.”

  Even Hong Kong’s stultifying humidity now seems charmingly atmospheric. Ditto for the oily bay bobbing with fishing junks and tankers, its waterfront hemmed by advertisements. It’s like a tropical New York City, I think, exuberant with commercialism. The air smells of crab and overripe fruit. I am amazed what a relief it is to return, to alight from the hydrofoil and hear the declarative fwok! of a rubber stamp hitting my passport. Visitor permitted to remain for ninety days from date of entry as shown below.

  As soon as the cab drops us off in front of the Kowloon Holiday Inn, I hurry ahead to the reception desk.

  “Please,” I say breathlessly to the young Chinese clerk dressed in a silk Nehru jacket. On the counter is a gold vase full of orchids and a bowl of peppermints wrapped in cellophane. A bellhop stands by with a luggage trolley that looks like an oversize birdcage.

  “Do you speak English? And if so, can you tell me, your deluxe rooms, do they have hot water and Western toilets? And is there toilet paper, or do we have to supply our own?”

  The clerk smiles at me bemusedly. Leaning over the polished countertop, he grips my hands in his white-gloved palms. “Yes, we have everything. Welcome to Hong Kong, Miss. You’re not in China anymore.”

  ———

  Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom is playing in endless loops on the pay-per-view channel. Sandy and I park Claire in front of the TV, locate the yellow pages, and get to work. I’m coughing so much at this point, I can barely complete a sentence; I sound like a truck engine idling. It’s Sandy who telephones the airlines. My job is to walk over to the marvel that is the Ponderosa Steak House.

  By the time I return with three lunches, Sandy has some news. Seats are in fact available on the next flight from Hong Kong to New York via Japan. The problem is that they’re $7,000 apiece. “They expect you to book in advance,” she frowns. “Anything last minute and one way is a fortune.”

  Even though the Van Houtens have insisted that money is no object, neither of us can fathom spending so much. In 1986, $21, 00 is roughly the average American’s annual salary. For all I know too, it’s the entire GNP of Dinghai. Plus, none of us have that high a limit on our credit cards.

  “Our only other option is to wait,” Sandy sighs. “The student discounters say that Korean Air has a flight to New York via Seoul that’s only $2,000 one- way. But it’s not available till Saturday.”

  It is currently Wednesday. Sandy and I look at each other.

  “How much Valium do we have left?” I ask.

  ———

  Claire is now mostly restive. Every so often, a look of agitation darts across her face. But she begins going to the bathroom unassisted and eating—voraciously, in fact. She eats her steak with her hands, dunks chunks of baked potato directly into the sour cream, and licks her fingers before polishing off three white dinner rolls, a small Caesar side salad, and a large, gelatinous slice of apple pie. At the end of the meal, she sits back on the bed and says contentedly to no one in particular, “Thanks. That was good.”

  Then she dozes off, the bluish glare from the television flickering over her profile.

  While I watch over Claire, Sandy heads over to the student discount travel agency. An hour later, she has three tickets in hand, the itinerary painstakingly written out on each one in shaky block letters:

  SATURDAY, NOV. 7

  dep. HK 7:10 a.m., arr. Seoul 11:25 a.m.

  dep. Seoul 12:45 p.m., arr. JFK 12:55 a.m. Nov. 8

  There it is. Seats 14A, B, and C in the no smoking section. We are finally going home.

  ———

  We sprawl across the two queen-size beds in a torpor. Even though it is daytime, we keep the curtains drawn like a convalescence ward. We watch television for hours, thumb listlessly through the tourist magazines on the nightstand, and when we’re really feeling energetic, play card games of cribbage. Whenever Claire dozes off, Sandy urges me to go out.

  “Explore Hong Kong, lady. Have some fun. You’ve earned it.”

  But the truth is, I have no interest in sightseeing. My lungs ache terribly. Every time I inhale, it feels like a truss tightening. For a few minutes one afternoon, I do wander down Nathan Road in a daze. I stare at the store windows crammed with skeins of pink and bauxite-colored pearls. I glance at the roast ducks and racks of spareribs hanging like mobiles in the windows of the restaurants. But after a few minutes, I head back to the hotel coughing.

  Sandy doesn’t feel much like playing tourist, either. Although she insists she’s saving her energy for New York, she’s clearly far happier just to sit inside the air-conditioned splendor of the Holiday Inn, ordering French fries and club sandwiches slathered in mayonnaise from room service and watching television, which she hasn’t seen in almost a year. Outside it is the first week of November, but all three of us are oblivious to the world. We all seem to be in a state of shock.

  While Claire naps, Sandy and I engage in the classically female ritual of pouring our hearts out to one another over bags of M&M’s from the vending machine.

  Kyle, I learn quickly, is not Sandy’s boyfriend, but simply a staffer at the hospital where she worked back in Calgary.

  “He worked the night shift,” she laughs. “I barely knew him. But one day in Shanghai I sent a postcard back to my unit at the hospital, saying, ‘Hey, everyone, China is neat. Wish you were here.’ That sort of thing. The next thing I know, I get this letter from Kyle saying he’s coming to visit.

  “And by the time I get it, of course, it’s like the day before he’s supposed to arrive. He’s never been outside of Canada before. When he gets off the train in Shanghai, the guy doesn’t even know how to fold a map. So right away I read him the riot act. I tell him that we’re no longer in the hospital, so I am off duty. If we’re going to travel together, he’s got to learn how to stand on his own two feet.

  “So every day when I go to teach, I kick him out of my flat. ‘Kyle, you’re not coming back here until you learn five words in Mandarin,’ or ‘Today, you’re going by yourself to book us train tickets to Suzhou.’ And that’s how it’s been now for almost two months. Leaving him alone in Guilin will be the best thing that’s ever happened to him. He’s a sweet guy, but Lordy, does he ever need to grow a backbone. And boy, do I need a break from Asia.”

  Yet her journey, I discover, is not without its romantic underpinnings. Hovering over her is the specter of a man. She pulls out a snapshot. Xavier. He is a dashing Mexican doctor with cheekbones like scalpels. In 1984, Xavier did a year’s residency in Calgary. During that time, he wooed Sandy away from a pharmacist she’d been dating. The week before he left, he proposed. “Come with me to Mexico,” he said, holding out his hand like a quivering flower. “We’ll open a clinic on the beach and make babies and grow old together in the sun.”

  Love-struck, Sandy spent the next six months hammering out their wedding plans. “I had the white dress. I had the white sandals encrusted with crystals,” she says. “I was ready.”

  Three days before she was supposed to leave, Xavier broke it off. “No explanation, nothing,” Sandy says. “I cried for a month.”

  And then just as she was moving on, a year to the date from when she was supposed to have gotten married, Xavier reappeared on her doorstep.

  “He told me, ‘My love, I have made a terrible mistake. I’ve been a fool to let you go.’ Then he got down on one knee and proposed to me all over again.”

  Sandy crumples up the empty M&M bag and lobs it triumphantly into the garbage can. “Believe you me, it was like something out of a movie. I’d been dreaming of a scene like that from the moment he’d called off our wedding.

  “But once Xavier was actually right there in front of me, a really funny thing happened.” She raises an eyebrow. “Instead of feeling angry or relieved, I just felt this strange wave of calm. For the first time in my life, I felt like my destiny was my own.

  “I realized that before I pl
edged my life to anyone, I needed to live some of it myself first. I’d always wanted to do something wild and daring. I suddenly wasn’t sure if I’d actually wanted to marry Xavier because I loved him, or because I just loved the idea of being whisked off to Mexico.

  “And so, when I saw an ad in a newspaper for English teachers in China, I knew I had to go. I sent in my application, bought myself a backpack, and told Xavier Hasta luego. See you in a year.”

  “Wow.” I sit back against the bed and look at her. I am enormously impressed. I have always been smitten with the idea of women walking away from a man on a bended knee, forsaking marriage for adventure. Yet I have never met anyone who has actually done this.

  “So?” I can’t help asking, “Do you know if you want to marry him yet?”

  “The problem is, there’s just so much more to see.” Sandy stretches dreamily. “Thailand. India. Nepal. I feel like I’m only just getting started.” She tilts her head. “What do you say we go to Bali first once we get back? Christmas on Kuta Beach?”

  I stare at her blankly. For a moment I have no idea what she’s talking about. Then it dawns on me: Sandy is still under the impression that I’ll be returning to Asia with her once we deposit Claire back home. I never did get around to telling her at the Osmanthus that I wouldn’t be continuing on with her and Kyle. Now she assumes it’s a done deal.

  Looking at her, I’m loath to tell her that I’m secretly ticking off the hours until we land at JFK, that I can’t imagine ever wanting to come back here again. That I am perhaps far more like Claire at this moment than she knows: sick, exhausted, freaked out—a liability who just wants to be helped home.

  So instead I simply nod and say, “Bali? Sure. Great. Cool.” Then I look away, feeling fraudulent and craven.

  When Claire is awake, she continues to monopolize Sandy, whispering and fawning, “Oh, Sandy. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.” Whenever I speak, however, she looks at me as if I’m an irritant she can barely tolerate. I begin to feel as though I’m back in elementary school, being frozen out of the popular clique by girls in the schoolyard.