by Temple Drake
Zhang parted the wooden blinds on the window. On the pavement below, Johnny glanced left and right, like someone trying to decide what to do next. In the yellow neon light his bronze-colored suit looked charred. I playfully sniff and finger the plum blossom…Shaking his head, Zhang finished his drink and walked up to the bar.
The girl smiled at him. “Would you like another?”
“No. Just the check.”
“I already told you what my life is like,” she said. “Maybe one day you’ll tell me a little about yours.”
“Maybe,” he said.
* * *
—
Back in his apartment, Zhang couldn’t seem to settle. He poured himself a tumbler of bourbon and took his twelve-string acoustic guitar out of its case. Sitting on the sofa, facing out into the night, he began to play a basic instrumental blues. Gradually, words came to him. It was dusk, and he was in the country. The smell of mud and leaves. Then he heard a soft roaring sound, like a gust of wind, but the air was still and the trees weren’t moving. He turned around. A woman stood behind him, on the path. She was the woman he loved. He scarcely recognized her, though, since all her hair was gone and her teeth and fingernails were black. He used the line the small man in the pale blue suit had used: Fear rushed through me. In less than half an hour, the song was done. He called Mad Dog and played it to him on the speakerphone. When he finished, there was silence. He could hear a child crying in the background. Ling Ling’s daughter.
He asked Mad Dog what he thought.
“What I told you at lunchtime the other day seems to have had quite an effect on you,” Mad Dog said.
“It’s not just about that,” Zhang said. “I’m drawing on all sorts of things.”
Mad Dog let out a small, derisory chuckle. “In any case, you’re probably right to be afraid.”
“You think the song’s about Naemi?”
“Don’t you?”
Zhang played a minor chord, but didn’t speak.
“That night at Yu Yin Tang,” Mad Dog went on, “when I sat with her on the terrace, I wasn’t imagining things.”
Putting his guitar aside, Zhang picked up the phone and moved out onto the terrace. The night was humid and musty. He had the uncanny feeling, suddenly, that the city that lay before him was a huge, dark lake in which all kinds of mysterious objects were floating. “What are you saying?”
“She’s a ghost.”
Zhang’s laughter was brief, incredulous. “You can’t expect me to believe that.”
“Believe what you like.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know what you’re thinking,” Mad Dog said. “She seems as real as you or me. And she’s beautiful, of course. You’re probably besotted with her. That’s all entirely predictable—”
Zhang tried to interrupt, but his friend talked over him.
“In the Chinese imagination, ghosts have always been closely associated with sex, and that’s particularly true of female ghosts. When they appear, they tend to appear in an erotic context. They’re seductive. Irresistible. They lure you in. What you see is what you want to see. But it’s not the truth. It’s an illusion.”
“You’re the one with the illusion,” Zhang said. “You’re basing this whole hypothesis on something you thought you saw when you were drunk.”
“Ghosts are devious,” Mad Dog continued, quite undeterred by Zhang’s objections. “They don’t tend to reveal much. They can’t afford to. They know that if they’re recognized they could be destroyed.” He paused. “If you were honest with yourself,” he went on, “if you were seeing clearly, you’d be able to supply me with evidence that would support my argument. I know you would. You’re in denial, though.”
Zhang shook his head, but inside he felt a certain agitation or disquiet, the sense of something coming loose. He was thinking of Naemi’s restlessness at night, the way she never appeared to sleep, and how she seemed much older than her years. He thought of her impenetrability. Was he in denial, as Mad Dog claimed?
“How do you know all this?” he said finally.
“I told you. I wrote a book. Don’t you ever listen?”
“You seem a bit obsessed.”
“Obsessions are what make people exceptional.” There was a quick, scratchy noise from Mad Dog’s lighter as he lit a cigarette. “My knowledge hasn’t come in especially useful, though—at least, not until now.”
“So what would you advise?” Zhang said. “I should stop seeing her?”
“Yes.”
“And if I can’t—or won’t?”
Mad Dog fell quiet for a few moments.
“Be careful,” he said at last. “And tell me if anything happens that seems out of the ordinary.”
Zhang was aware that he was keeping things from Mad Dog, but he couldn’t bear to provide him with any ammunition.
“By the way,” Mad Dog said, “that song of yours. It’s not so bad.”
Zhang smiled faintly. “We’ll work on it next time we meet.”
“Saturday?”
“Yes. See you then.”
Only seconds after Zhang ended the call, his phone started to ring. He pressed Accept.
“Naemi?” he said.
“How did you know it was me?” She sounded warm and slightly blurred, as if she had been drinking.
“I don’t know. I just did.”
They listened to each other breathe.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “I want to see you.”
“I want to see you too.”
“Can you come over?” The words were out of his mouth before he knew it, despite everything Mad Dog had said.
“I wish I could. I’m in Hong Kong.”
He thought about throwing a few things in a bag and taking a taxi to the airport—Shanghai to Hong Kong was only a two-hour flight—but it would be four in the morning by the time he reached her, and he had a midday meeting with Jun Wei.
“When are you back?” he asked.
“Tomorrow. I have to be at work in the afternoon.”
“What about tomorrow evening?”
An awkward silence fell.
“I can’t,” she said eventually. “I have plans.”
They agreed to see each other the day after, at lunchtime.
Once the phone call was over, he showered, then went to bed. Lying in the dark, though, he found he couldn’t sleep. Perhaps it was because he had been thinking of flying to Hong Kong to see her. Or perhaps it was her influence: just speaking to her had unsettled him. Usually, when he felt restless, he would take a taxi to Wing Mei’s apartment in the French Concession. When he arrived, she would remove his clothes and wash him with fragrant soaps and oils. Afterwards, they would make love on an opium bed that had belonged to her great-grandfather. Once he was inside her, she would hum a tune, and he would know she was approaching orgasm because she would look away, into the corner of the room, and she would bite her bottom lip, as if nervous or apprehensive. Later, she would cook for him. Something delicate, delicious. He could predict almost every aspect of an evening with Wing Mei, and there were times when that familiarity would excite or comfort him. But things were different now…
Turning onto his side, he saw himself arriving at the Embankment Building on Suzhou North Road. He had been there once before, for drinks with a French economist, and he remembered how shabby and run-down the lobby was, with a rudimentary Art Deco floor and a wall crowded with hundreds of small, dark green mailboxes. At the rear of the building was a flight of stairs, the dull brown wood furred with dust. Cobwebs hung high up on the pale walls. He remembered thinking it would make a good location for a horror film. If Johnny was to be believed, Naemi lived in apartment 710. He took a lift up to the seventh floor and stepped out into a corridor that stretched away in both directions. As in a nightmare, t
hough, he couldn’t find a door with 710 on it.
Outside again, he stood on the promenade that followed the curve of the creek. Was it here that Naemi had confronted Johnny in his porkpie hat and his green suit? He found the idea that they had met unlikely—they were such very different characters—though he knew Johnny well enough to know that he wouldn’t have given anything away, despite having been caught red-handed.
Leaning against the railing, with the creek at his back, he looked up at the building’s intricate brown facade. The place was vast—it occupied an entire block—and yet it managed to be secretive. Ambiguous.
Like her…
At last he felt himself sinking into sleep.
* * *
—
After his lunchtime meeting with Jun Wei and Sebastian in north Shanghai, Zhang would normally have returned to the office. Instead, he asked Chun Tao to drive him to 50 Moganshan Road. It was five o’clock when they stopped outside. The cluster of old industrial buildings backing onto Suzhou Creek had been converted into galleries and artists’ studios that were now famous the world over. Zhang told Chun Tao to pull into the residential car park opposite. It was probably illegal to wait there—Zhang wasn’t a resident—but if they parked on the road Naemi might recognize the car. He kept his eyes trained on the main entrance. When she told him she couldn’t see him that evening because she had plans, he had noticed a shift in her voice, a kind of wariness or caution, as if she had said more than she meant to. He wondered if he was about to learn something he would rather not know. Hopefully not. Hopefully, it would turn out to be something innocuous—a doctor’s appointment, dinner with an old friend.
A security guard stood near the entrance, beneath a dark red parasol. He seemed to be asleep on his feet, like a horse. Ten meters to his left, in front of a gallery called Fish Studio, a parking attendant sat slumped on a plastic chair. Dressed in a pale blue uniform and black sandals, she was staring at an iPad. A bag of plums hung from the arm of the chair. Farther along, towards the main road, was a street vendor who was probably there for the foreign tourists. His wooden handcart was cluttered with bric-a-brac. Old teakettles. Pieces of mud-colored jade.
The minutes passed.
Five forty. Five fifty-five. Six o’clock.
Every now and then, a taxi pulled up, and someone would get in or out. Otherwise, the street was quiet.
He hoped he hadn’t missed her.
When the clock in the car was showing 6:19, the security guard suddenly turned his head. Naemi had appeared. She was conservatively dressed, in a black blouse, a gray skirt, and a fawn raincoat with a belt, and she was pulling the small overnight case she must have taken to Hong Kong with her. It was dusk by now, and there were no taxis. She exchanged a few words with the guard, who smiled and nodded, then she set off towards the junction with Changhua Road. Zhang told Chun Tao to start the engine. He should leave the headlights off, though.
The street vendor gestured at Naemi as she passed by. She shook her head and kept walking.
She didn’t even glance in their direction.
When she was out of sight, Zhang told Chun Tao to turn the lights on and drive slowly towards the main road. He should park fifty meters short of the junction. Under no circumstances, he said, could they allow themselves to be spotted.
As they edged out into Moganshan Road, he could see Naemi ahead of them, her blonde hair and pale coat showing up clearly in the dark. On reaching the junction, she stood still, facing to the right, then she lifted a hand. She was hailing a taxi, as he had thought she would.
“Follow her,” Zhang said, “but stay well back.”
Chun Tao eased the Jaguar into the heavy rush-hour traffic on Changhua Road. The mass of brake- and taillights in the windscreen filled with car’s interior with an incandescent scarlet glow. Afraid they might lose her, Zhang leaned forwards and gave Chun Tao the taxi’s number plate, but Chun Tao said he had already made a note of it.
They drove south, then east. Where was she going? Zhang couldn’t even begin to guess.
After half an hour, Naemi’s taxi pulled over and she got out. They were at a crossroads, not far from the Westin Bund hotel. Chun Tao parked nearby. Through the rear window, Zhang watched Naemi vanish into a huge gray-and-brown building that occupied the southeast corner of the crossroads. The naturalness with which she approached the building suggested that this was not the first time she had visited. The sign above the entrance said MEDICAL SUPPLIES.
She was inside for about five minutes, and when she emerged she didn’t appear to be carrying anything she hadn’t been carrying before. She stood on the curb with her suitcase, looking away from him, into the oncoming traffic. A taxi stopped for her, and she climbed in.
“Should I follow?” Chun Tao asked as the taxi cruised past.
“Stay where you are.” Zhang opened the car door. “I’ll be right back.”
He crossed the pavement and entered the building. Inside, it reminded him of a showroom, with glass cabinets containing everything from the clamps and scalpels used in surgery to uniforms for doctors, nurses, and paramedics. This was a wholesale outlet, he realized. Apart from the middle-aged man behind the counter and two young saleswomen on the shop floor, he was the only person in the place.
He approached the counter. “There was a blonde woman in here just now,” he said. “A foreigner.”
The man looked at him and blinked.
Zhang put a folded 100 RMB note on the glass counter and covered it with his hand. “I need to know why she was here.”
“Are you the police?”
“If I was the police, would I be paying you?”
“I don’t know.” The man looked at the two salesgirls. One of them was giggling at what the other had just said. They hadn’t noticed anything. “Is she in trouble?”
“No.”
Zhang produced a second note.
The man studied Zhang’s hand, which was flat on the counter, then he looked at Zhang again. Though his expression had not altered, something was different underneath. A decision had been reached. There was a feeling of compliance.
“What did she come here for?” Zhang asked, pushing the two notes across the counter. “What did she buy?”
The man’s shoulders sagged. He glanced at the two young women again, then swiftly pocketed the money. “Okay,” he said. “She bought a multipack of syringes and a cannula.”
“A what?”
“A cannula. It’s used in hospitals, for a drip.”
“Show me.”
The man led him to a display case and pointed.
“Did she take them with her?” Zhang asked.
The man shook his head. “This is the place where you pay. You have to go to another building to pick up your order.”
“Where’s the other building?”
“Hongkou district.”
Zhang remembered what Johnny had said when he mentioned the scarring on Naemi’s arm. What are you telling me? She’s a junkie?
“What would she do with the items she bought,” he asked, “if you had to make an educated guess?”
The man shrugged. “I suppose she works with sick people.”
“Have you ever seen a nurse who looks like her?”
The man poked a finger into his ear and wiggled it around. He didn’t seem to know how to answer the question.
Zhang tried a different angle. “How often does she come here?”
“I don’t know. About every six months.”
“Does she talk to you?”
“Sometimes she asks me how I am.”
“Nothing about herself?”
“Only the usual things. How busy she is—” He stopped to think. “Her Chinese is very good—for a foreigner.”
“Next time she appears,” Zhang said, “don’t mention me. I was never here.”
>
“Okay.” The man gritted his teeth, as if determined, or in pain.
One of the young saleswomen came and stood beside him. All her fingernails were painted green except for the little one, which was yellow.
“Why is one of your nails yellow?” Zhang asked.
She giggled. “I don’t know.”
Outside, he stood on the pavement, thinking. Syringes, a cannula—the scar tissue on the inside of her elbow…All the evidence seemed to support Johnny’s suggestion that Naemi was some sort of addict. But she didn’t look like any addict that he had ever seen.
What should he do? Confront her?
Or keep quiet and observe?
* * *
—
At half past ten that evening, as Zhang was preparing for bed, the concierge called from downstairs. Someone by the name of Gong Shen was in the lobby, asking to see him. Zhang told the concierge to pass Gong Shen the phone.
“Are you alone?” Mad Dog asked.
“Yes,” Zhang said. “What do you want?”
“We need to talk.”
“Can’t it wait? I was about to go to bed.”
“If it could wait, I wouldn’t be here.”
Zhang sighed.
“Come downstairs,” Mad Dog said. “I think we should go for a walk.”
Five minutes later, when Zhang stepped out of the lift, Mad Dog took him by the arm and steered him out of the main entrance and into the grounds. Mad Dog’s hair hung in greasy strands, and his jacket was loose on him, as if it had been borrowed from a much larger man. He had been drinking—Zhang could smell the alcohol on him—but he wasn’t drunk.
“I’ve been doing some reading,” Mad Dog said. “Some thinking too.”
It was a warm night, and the sky was an oily brown, sticky too somehow, like the inside of an oven that hadn’t been cleaned in years. The two men followed a curving path that led past the outdoor swimming pool and on through a modest forest of bamboo. Mad Dog was talking about female ghosts, and how they appear in all manner of forms and guises. He gave examples. As Zhang listened, he felt he was beginning to see the teacher his friend must once have been.