by Wendy Lee
“That was almost ten years ago. He probably forgot about it.”
“But you haven’t.”
“Doesn’t make any difference. Maybe it wouldn’t have if I’d reminded him while he was around. He would never have admitted that what he said was wrong.”
“But it was wrong.”
Michael shrugged. “Not in his mind it wasn’t. I’m sure he’s said a lot worse. Done a lot worse, too, but that’s beside the point.”
“Do you think you’ll ever tell your mom and sister?”
“Which part of it?”
“All of it.”
He sighed. “Not right now. They have too much to deal with.”
After a pause, Amy said, “I’m seeing someone. Don’t judge. He’s one of my teachers and—don’t judge—he says I have a lot of talent. What do you think?”
“I think,” Michael said, “that you’re still going after the wrong men.”
“That’s probably true.”
“I’m seeing someone too. His name is David. He pays for everything.”
Amy arched a brow. “So you feel like a kept woman?”
“I don’t know how I feel about it. Sometimes I think things are going well, and I don’t know how I lucked out, and other times I feel like something bad is going to happen. Like this.”
Amy said softly, “Your father didn’t die because you were enjoying yourself with a man.”
Michael considered this for a moment. Amy spoke so plainly, with such conviction, yet he couldn’t quite disassociate what Emily had told him over the phone a few days ago with the feeling of David’s skin, the salty essence of him.
“I think I’m going to break up with David when I get back,” he said.
“You do that,” Amy replied. “Maybe I’ll break up with my guy too.”
They looked at each other, as if daring the other to look away first, and then started laughing. Both of them knew that this was easier said than done.
Michael left Amy on the porch and went upstairs to use the bathroom. He was passing his sister’s bedroom door, which was slightly open, when he saw something inside that made him pause: Emily and Julian, going at it like horny teenagers. He stepped away, and then chuckled to himself. So Emily wasn’t that perfectly behaved after all.
After he got back to the city, he did break up with David. Then he couldn’t stay away, and they got back together. This pattern repeated itself over the following year, with little variation. When they were apart, Michael didn’t call for days, went out with other friends. During this time, he imagined David sitting in his tasteful apartment, sipping his mineral water, alone. David gave Michael expensive presents for his birthday and the holidays. Michael gave David nothing, unless you counted grief.
It was pretty childish behavior, he had to admit. It was as if by not committing to David, he didn’t have to tell his mother and sister he was dating anyone, or that he was gay. He wasn’t even sure if it mattered now. The person in his family who would have been most upset by it would have been his father, who was gone; and besides, his father already knew he was gay, had known for years, even if he didn’t care to acknowledge it. But Michael had spent so long acting this way, it was as if he didn’t know how else to be. If he cared to admit more, there were things he resented about David, the least being that everything seemed to have come so easily to him, especially when it came to his identity. Well, there had been that incident with his high-school girlfriend, Laurel, but the fact that she had invited David to her wedding said something about how easy it was to forgive him. He was on good terms with his parents and his younger brother, and he doted on his twin three-year-old nephews. He had been in several long-term relationships, all which had ended amicably, and he had never been desperate enough to pick someone off the street, before Michael. And even then, with his luck, Michael had gone right along with him.
David didn’t make things easy, though. Passive aggressive, Michael thought. At the same time as David allowed Michael his space, he also insisted Michael give him a key to his apartment, in case Michael were locked out or something happened to him (yeah, right). Michael finally made him a spare key in order to shut him up, but refused to accept one to David’s apartment. He was afraid of how easy it would be to stay there when David was away, and what that would lead to.
David’s suggestion that they move in together came about quite innocently. It was on one of those late-summer evenings that had cooled down enough that they’d dared to open the windows, and sounds from the street below drifted in on the balmy air: murmurings from the bar next door, the distant wail of a siren. David lived in a neighborhood that seemed designed for young professionals with too little time to spend in their apartments and too much money to spend on food and drink. Although only a few dozen blocks away from where Michael lived, it might as well be in a different city. But, Michael reflected, this was the kind of life someone his age, or a little older, was supposed to live. And with someone like David.
He turned away from the window to see David holding out a glittering object in the palm of his hand.
“I made you a key,” David said.
“I don’t want a key. I don’t want to be coming in and out all the time. Your doorman gives me enough suspicious looks as it is, like I’m a stranger.”
“But you wouldn’t be. Not if you lived here.”
“Who says I want to live here?”
David laughed. “Come on. That place you live in is a dump. You need a tetanus shot to use the shower. Besides, didn’t you say that your lease was up soon and your landlord was going to raise the rent? You can’t afford that.”
“How do you know what I can afford?”
“You know what I mean. You could live here for free. That is, until you find a new job.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? So that I’d be completely dependent on you for everything?”
David paused. “I wasn’t aware you depended on me for anything.”
“Well, I don’t want anything from you,” Michael told him. “Not your charity, and not your money, and definitely not your key.”
It was almost as if he were watching himself get up, walk past David and his still-outstretched hand, and out the door. Instead of waiting for the elevator, he took the stairs, and each step jolted him back into his own body, so that by the time he got to the lobby, he was aware of how theatrical he was being. He walked past the doorman, who always seemed to have a smirk in the corner of his mouth when he saw Michael and David together, and managed to exit the building before his cell phone rang for the first time.
Outside, people spilled out from the bar and onto the sidewalk, young men with their collars unbuttoned, young women barely able to stand erect after a day in heels. Still, no one wanted to go home, because that would mean being alone. Looking at these beautiful young people, Michael felt a sense of relief—comfort, even—in the knowledge that life was proceeding as it should; unattached, free.
There were three messages from David on his phone by the time Michael got back home, as well as a hang up from his mother. Briefly, he wondered what she wanted to talk to him about, but concluded that whatever it was, it couldn’t be that serious. He hadn’t spoken to his mother since he had lost his job a month earlier, afraid that she’d ask questions, offer to send him money, or even worse, suggest that he move home. Plus, he didn’t want to have to relive that morning when his boss called him into his office to tell him that he’d been laid off. Although he’d been expecting it for weeks, and never cared very much for his work or the people he worked with, he had still felt an inexplicable void. Now he understood why people called both losing a job and a death in the family life-altering events. Maybe the trip he was about to take would be life altering as well.
So, ignoring the calls from both David and his mother, Michael put some things in a backpack. There wasn’t much—some clothes and toiletries, and, of course, Liao Weishu’s letter and its translation. He had an early morning flight to Beijing t
o catch. In a fit of conscience, he wrote a hasty note and left it on the table. He figured that after not hearing from him for a while, David would come over and use his key to get into his apartment, and he didn’t want David to think the worst about him. Michael was already doing a good job of that himself.
The train finally pulls into the station in Xining, Qinghai Province, the morning of Michael’s third day in China, to the strain of schmaltzy elevator music that comes on overhead at every stop. Michael slings his backpack over his shoulder and disembarks, whereupon he is beset by a dozen or so hotel touts, shouting things at him in Chinese. When that doesn’t work, they switch to Japanese.
“Hotel?” Michael says in English.
“Hotel!” one of the men replies, and Michael goes with him.
He gets into a red taxi while the driver continues to chatter at him in English, some of which makes sense. Michael gathers that the man is telling him about the tourist attractions in the city and its environs, including something that sounds like a big lake. At least he remembers seeing a lake on one of the travel websites, which advised him that it isn’t worth visiting.
The taxi stops in front of what must be the grandest hotel in town, a concrete square with an automatic glass door. Behind the front desk is a row of clocks and their corresponding times in international cities, in an imitation of a more cosmopolitan place, except Losangeles and Saopaulo are single words. The clerk stammers when Michael speaks to him in English. Michael obtains a hotel room for the equivalent of twenty US dollars. He paid the taxi driver two dollars.
“Should I put my passport in your safe?” he asks the hotel clerk, remembering something he read on a travel website.
“No need,” the clerk says. “No minorities here.”
“Excuse me?” Michael wonders if he has heard correctly, or if something has been missed in the translation.
“No Uighur people here.”
Michael has no idea what kind of people that means, but goes along with it.
His room is decent enough, with a Western-style toilet and a washcloth the size and texture of a paper towel. Michael lies down on the scratchy orange coverlet on the bed. It’s marginally softer than the hard seat of the train, but, for the first time since he’s left Beijing, he is totally, blessedly, alone. He closes his eyes, and when he opens them again, several hours have passed and it is already afternoon.
Downstairs, he finds the clerk who speaks English and asks, “Can you tell me how to get to the normal university?”
If the clerk is surprised that Michael wants to go there rather than one of the usual tourist attractions, he doesn’t show it. He marks the location on a map, and since it looks like a straight shot north, Michael decides to walk there and see if his first impression of the city will be changed any. It isn’t. The heat has dissipated somewhat, but there is still a haze over everything. Even the leaves on the trees appear to be covered with a light film of dust. Rising in the background, barely visible through the pollution, are the outlines of mountains.
He walks by buildings that look like they have been recently constructed, or at least in the last fifty years: gray Soviet-style apartment blocks, stores fronted by blue glass, buildings covered in white tile, as if the entire outdoors were a bathroom. At the same time, amid the trucks and motorcycles, donkeys pull carts down the street. Michael spies a group of men waiting at a bus stop, looking unlike anyone he’s seen in China until now. They’re wearing robes peeled down over their torsos, with the sleeves tied around their waists, their faces flat and chiseled, the color of beef jerky. He realizes they must be Tibetans. He’s definitely not in the China he’d imagined, a land of rice paddies, where everyone is either a farmer or a Communist cadre, or both.
As the sun appears to be poised directly overhead, Michael realizes he hasn’t eaten that day. Not wanting to stop, and not feeling confident enough to enter one of the stores, he buys an ice cream bar from a cart. The shrewd vendor gives him one look and charges him as much as his taxi ride, but Michael doesn’t have the language or the inclination to argue. He figures that two dollars are what he’d pay for a bad ice cream back in the States. Then he looks around and realizes something else that has given him away as a foreigner: The only people eating ice cream at this time of day are children. They are also, he thinks, looking down at his own bare legs, the only ones who are wearing shorts. Being in China so far has made him feel like a large baby, unable to express himself, eating the wrong foods, wearing inappropriate clothes.
Uncannily, Michael feels someone staring at him. Standing in front of him is a dirty-faced, bare-footed child, tattered clothes hanging off a skinny frame that indicates he’s probably older than he looks. The child points at the ice cream and then at his mouth. Michael isn’t used to beggars like this—panhandlers on New York streets, sure, but there is something about this boy that strikes him as more depressing. He hesitates, but then decides this isn’t his country, or his problem. He shakes his head and turns his attention back to his ice cream, but before he can take a bite, the child shoots out a hand and plunges two grimy fingers into the ice cream bar so that it crumples into a sticky mess before he runs away.
Michael stares at the smashed ice cream, not quite sure what has just happened. Did that kid decide that if Michael wasn’t going to give him his ice cream, then no one was going to have it? Was he even capable of such a devious thought? Shaking his head in disgust, though he isn’t sure whether it is at himself or the child, Michael throws the dirty ice cream into the gutter. He isn’t sure what kind of welcome this is, but he forces himself to move past it.
Thankfully, the farther he progresses down the street, the more pleasant it becomes, bordered by trees that are still spindly and stunted and dusty, but there are more of them, so they create some shade. Finally, on his right, are two open gates, signaling an institution of some kind. Just beyond, surrounded by a scraggly flower bed, is a statue of Mao with his right hand held up, as if in a benediction. Unlike other statues of Mao that Michael has seen in history books—where they’re located in squares and parks—this version is only one and a half times the size of a regular person, and not as intimidating.
Michael checks the lettering over the gate against the characters the hotel clerk thoughtfully wrote down for him, and after confirming that this is indeed the normal university, walks in under Mao’s watchful eye. Since he can’t read any of the signs, he asks two female students where the English department is. One of them giggles and hides behind her textbook, but the other, bolder one, who appears to understand some English, points out a building to the left. Fortunately, it is not a large campus.
The severe-looking woman sitting behind the desk in the concrete-floored office gives a single nod when Michael asks her if she speaks English.
“Professor Liao does not teach here anymore,” she responds to his query.
“But I have this letter. . . .” Michael holds it out to her as if in proof.
She coolly turns it over in her hands and taps the postmark. “It is an old letter. Sent over a year ago.”
“Does he have a forwarding address?” Michael asks, desperate.
The woman shrugs. “I am sorry.”
She looks at a spot in the distance behind his head, and Michael guesses that he has taken up enough of her time, although no one else appears to be in need of her attention. There’s nothing else he can do but turn around and leave the building.
He sits down on a stone bench, still holding the letter, wondering what his next step should be. He can’t believe that his journey might end here. There has to be someone on campus who knows where Liao Weishu has gone, but the odds of Michael finding that person, especially without knowing the language, is slim. Maybe the clerk back at the hotel can help him. Is there some kind of Chinese White Pages?
He’s just about to stand when a soft voice calls out to him, “Hello!”
He looks up to see a girl in a blue-and-white gym uniform. She appears to be about twelve ye
ars old, although he guesses she must be a college student.
“You are looking for Professor Liao?” she asks. “I hear you talking to Miss Wang in the office.”
“Yes, she said he doesn’t work here anymore?”
“He is—retired.” The girl looks proud for remembering how to say that word in English.
Michael leans forward so eagerly that she takes an involuntary step back. “Do you know where he is?”
She nods. “He lives on campus.”
“Can you take me there?” Her startled look makes him think he’s said something inappropriate, so he quickly amends, “I mean, can you deliver a message to him from me?”
The girl looks much more comfortable with that idea. Michael hastily scribbles a note with the name of his hotel. “It’s okay,” he assures her. “I’m an old friend.” Or at least my father was. After he hands over the note, he grins. “I guess Miss Wang thinks I look dangerous.”
She responds with a small smile. “Miss Wang does not like outsiders.”
Michael thanks the girl and watches as she walks across the campus and disappears behind a row of buildings, resisting the urge to follow her. He’s never considered that Liao Weishu might not be pleased he’s come all the way from America to find him, that perhaps the man might not even want to be found. But Michael has done everything possible; all he can do now is to wait for Liao Weishu to get in touch with him, to come to him of his own accord. He just hopes that Liao will do so in the next two days, before he has to return to Beijing.
Back at the hotel, Michael orders overpriced and tasteless fried rice from the establishment’s rundown dining room, the only familiar item on a badly translated menu of sweat-and-sour pork balls and drunken hen in its own sauce. He passes the evening in his room flipping through several state-run channels on the television and catches snippets of a news program on the growth of China’s economy, a theatrical extravaganza of women dressed in shiny costumes, an old English-language Western dubbed in Chinese. The telephone rings, and he leaps for it, thinking it might be Liao Weishu.