Her rate at a hostel is 20元 more than mine at my inn, so when she steps away I invite her to check it out. “It’s out in the countryside,” I explain. “The place used to be the summer home of the Head Lama. The Chinese rebuilt it as a hotel after the Cultural Revolution. It’s gorgeous.” She hesitates. I hail a motor-tricycle. “There are pretty paintings, and the river will lull you to sleep.” She finally climbs in, saying she might as well have a look, and I’m caught up in delight and fascination and anxiety. My mind races around, and there’s Lu Lan, and there’s Lauren, and farther back, there’s my college girlfriend, Danielle, and there’s a sharpness there, a splinter stuck somewhere inside my chest.
Three children race their bicycles alongside us in the cold night. “Lăowaì!” they call out.
I unlock my room. Stepping in, I sit hesitantly on my bed. She sits beside me as we continue what we were doing—comparing Mandarin study techniques. We use a dictionary to quiz each other on vocabulary, and she beats me easily at this game. We open the LP to get tips on the places she’s going, and when she leans over to look at the pictures as I translate the English for her, her round cheek comes close to mine. There’s a fragrance of honey when she sweeps her hair from her face. Our eyes meet.
“I’ll get a room here,” she says. “Tomorrow…”
My arm goes to her shoulder, and she looks up at me. Her lips part slightly. I lean down, and we gently touch noses, then lips.
Electricity buzzes through me sweetly, and she turns to me like a magnet. I trace my fingertips along her cheek, slowly, feeling every millimeter, from her chin down to the place where her jaw softly flows into her neck. My other palm holds the small of her back, and our eyes are waiting, watching, speaking again, and she leans into me, answering. I pull her all the way onto the bed, beside me, and we sink into it together, just touching. She lies on her back and we kiss playfully, her lips curving into smiles. We kiss longer, and she licks my upper front teeth. I duck below her mouth and run my lips along her chin and the softness underneath. I inhale her fragrance again and smile at the thrill, unworried. I pull off my new blue sweater. Neither of us wants to stop, and it seems to take forever as we remove shoes, socks, almost everything, and extinguish the light. Finally, her pale skin in the faint light rises to my lips. Her bra looks whiter than snow, her neck tastes salty. She removes the whiteness and there’s nothing left. I see with my fingertips—tracing down her ribs, her navel, her thighs. She sighs. “Wŏ zāng” (I’m dirty), she says, the first words in forever, but it’s only the word meaning dirt, earth, dust. I whisper to her. “Méi guānxì.” It’s OK. She relaxes. We kiss more deeply still. She holds my penis a moment and her legs spread and I launch into a different world, one we create wholly, a new landscape of clouds, sunlight, mountains, and rivers.
A shaft of light parts the darkness. It’s Shaun opening the door, awakening us. He gets into his bed, settles, and stops moving, asleep perhaps. Michiko and I curl into each other again, touching toe to toe and nose to nose, and I massage her thighs, the hook of her hips, the outside of her vagina, dipping a finger inside her. She inhales and arches her back languidly. My body climbs up hers again and the union and the friction set us quickly ablaze.
I drift off, thinking I’ve never been this one—the one returning home with a woman and keeping his roommate awake. The thought brings neither pride nor shame, just a strange letting go.
Chapter 27
The Brief Tibetan Sunshine
Of course Goldmund had only too often been one of them, had felt happy among them, had pursued their girls, had gaily eaten baked fish from his plate without being horrified. But sooner or later, as though by magic, joy and calm would suddenly desert him; all fat plump illusions, all his self-satisfaction and self-importance and idle peace of mind fell away. Something plunged him into solitude and brooding, made him contemplate suffering and death, the vanity of all undertaking.
—Herman Hesse,
Narcissus & Goldmund
Freezing water runs down my body, yanking my senses into a thorny paradise. Joy fills my lungs as I improvise a deep, chest-buzzing anthem and sing it loud enough to remain under the cold shower, lather up, and rinse.
On the railing outside our room I dry off and hang my towel. The fiery sun has returned, and I linger awhile in its rays, knowing that the high peaks crop its path here and that, well, you enjoy the heat while it lasts.
Shaun leaves, bidding me goodbye. Michiko left at first breath of dawn to check on bus fares, and we agreed to meet at the Brilliant Café at eleven. I take out my journal, and it feels like eons have passed since I last wrote. Making love—what can I write? My second lover, but it felt like my first time all over again. It was wine when all I knew was water. I wooed her in Chinese. I laugh as I scratch the pen across the paper, feeling both uncomfortable and delighted at writing with bravado. Is she a typical Japanese girl? Or are those stereotypes more myths? She does seem submissive, ready to go along with what I put forward. I catch myself imagining her body as I write everything, pouring out my thoughts: trust and openness and this strange wonderful way the world is unfolding everywhere. I can choose—we all choose—to live trusting others and the world, or to live fearing others and fearing everything. When I choose trust, the very essence of trust blooms within me, and in countless manifestations around me, and I trust more my own deeper self, my instincts, my intuition. I followed my intuition to leave Lanzhou for Linxia, to leave Linxia for Xiahe, to trust Qiu, to climb the hillside. My mind drifts over yesterday. I feel free now, so free, more free than I ever have.
A man in a yellow polo shirt emerges into the courtyard, approaches, and commences the standard litany. But his English is good, and after I compliment him he actually thanks me, demonstrating an uncommon grasp of the language. He’s a businessman with a joint-venture export company. Chinese businesses, I’ve learned, are fond of joint-ventures, which allow them to utilize foreign brand names, to gain foreign expertise, while still taking the dragon’s share of the profits. Most joint-ventures are with Japanese firms, and I’ve never figured out precisely why. “Do you like Japanese people better?” I ask.
He shakes his head and tells me more than I want to know right now. It’s the opposite: Ever since the Japanese invaded China in 1931, the Chinese have held a special, unrivaled hatred for the Japanese. But today the Japanese do business better, he says. They wine and dine, buy gifts, even grease palms when necessary. Americans are too proud and too righteous, too concerned about doing anything illegal. What’s legal here is whatever the local officials want.
I ask him about war, and he gives the awkward smile that means he’s returning a favor. He’s talking about something he doesn’t want to talk about in return for me talking to him at all. “The Chinese realize that America wants to rule the world,” he explains. “But more and more, when Americans expect their voice to be the only one, there’s another voice: the Chinese voice.”
“But would you say the Chinese people are generally peaceful?”
“We’re the most peaceful people in the world, but China will not be pushed around any longer. And of course we’re not afraid of America. We’ve already beaten America twice. We know how scared Americans are to die. If a few Americans die, your government will stop fighting. You might not know, but in Korea, it was the Chinese fighting the Americans—the Koreans weren’t really doing much—and thousands of Chinese bravely gave their lives. We won. It was the same thing in Vietnam. People don’t know, but most of the Vietnamese soldiers were actually Chinese in disguise, and that’s why we won.”
“Yes, I am scared of war. I think it’s awful.” More than ever, this very morning, the thought of so many people needlessly dying horrifies me and saddens me.
He’s a pacifist himself, he reveals. “But it will be difficult for China and America to become friends. First, America wants to rule the world, and China will accept only equal friendship. Second, America loves Japan and Taiwan—two problems for China
.”
“Why not forgive Japan, trust the Japanese, as neighbors?” I ask, unable to help smiling at the word Japanese.
“That’s impossible now. Taiwan must return to China soon, without America’s interference.”
“If the Taiwanese don’t want to return to China, Americans will feel compelled to protect Taiwan—we support democracies.”
“No you don’t!” He smiles at me awkwardly. “Chile? What about Greece? Indonesia?”
And like yesterday at the restaurant, I defend America: We are not trying to run Asia from overseas; we are not trying to take over the world.
I return to town along the river. The morning air is bracing and pellucid. America is not perfect, but our interests are human rights and democracy throughout the world, and as a democratic state subject to the will of its people, America seeks, perhaps clumsily, what is right in the eyes of Americans. I’ll have to learn about Chile and Greece, as every American should. Every American should see his or her country from abroad. So many people are mired in mistrust. I pass a woman crouching by the river to wash a dozen bowls. “Zăo ān” (good morning), I say to her, smiling. She smiles back. I continue, wandering into town, thinking that if the Chinese covet an opportunity to prove their might, to reclaim international honor, there will be war. What is, is. Taiwan could be the spark.
“Yup-pee!” two smiling, ragged-clothed children cry at me. “Yippee?” inquires another. I ask if they want money, but they shake their heads. One boy writes on his palm with his finger, and I ask if they want my address, but they shake their heads again. Michiko would know what they’re saying. An old man pushes a huge cart of ripe melons, and I put my shoulder beside his and help him roll it into town. We smile at each other as we push, and I enjoy feeling useful. I stop at the Brilliant Café, and Michiko walks up a moment later in blue jeans and an orange T-shirt, and now I don’t think she’s pretty. She’s too small, with glassy skin, a kind of awkward nose that looks too tiny under big glasses, and her mouth is too narrow, or her cheeks are too round. Something inside of me closes. My throat tightens for a moment and I can’t talk. My mind races back again, and the splinter in my chest explodes into a wall shoving my lungs into my heart. Chinese, I remember. I touch her arm. “Zăo ān.” We don’t kiss. She returns the greeting with just a smile. We relax and start talking, and suddenly I like her again, how she walks, how she speaks to me. I’ve never let anything through this wall. She leads me down a side street to another place, a travelers’ café called the Heavenly Kitchen, and seated there we share pancakes dripping with honey. They taste so divine that we decide that they really have come from heaven. I smile at the simple delight she takes in swallowing a spoonful of yogurt. And there we are, Michiko and Tony, looking into each other’s eyes.
“Have you done the long hike around the monastery?” she asks, referring to the two-mile-long outer circuit around Labrang Monastery. I haven’t, and she hasn’t, and it seems to us both like the perfect way to start the day. So we hike around the monastery, spinning the sacred wheels, sharing our physical contentment, sending it out to all creation. We stop for a rest beside the river, under the ornate rafters of a temple, and kiss once, twice, discreetly, until a trio of exuberant young monks pass by, chanting mantras, palming each green and blue prayer wheel solemnly. A disheveled old woman comes next, barely touching the wheels. Then two villagers come by, and they stop near us to rest in the shade of a bridge. Michiko wanders over to talk with them, and I watch her, admiring her. Connecting with her is awakening something new in me, planting some seed, grounding me in this unfamiliar place.
A woman from Shanghai and her teenage son stop beside me, and they chat with me about Xiahe, Tibetan Buddhism, and the Yellow Hat. They know a lot about Tibetans, but to me they seem racist, and it makes me think of America in a different way, as conquerors of native peoples. Uncle Sam is not trying to take over the planet, but we did this too. We talked this way about “the Indians” not long ago—as savages with childish ideas, primitive religions, and bizarre, animal-like customs. I ask them how much Tibetans have to teach the Chinese, and they look at me with utter confusion.
A German man passes by next, and when Michiko rejoins me we ask him to take our picture for us. He kindly obliges, and as two children approach us he tells us about a German couple who visited Xiahe two years ago with boxes of pens. The couple had heard that Xiahe’s children had fine teachers and textbooks, but lacked writing implements, so they brought hundreds of pens and handed them out to children. Now every child greets foreigners by begging for a yóubĭ (ink pen). He reaches into his shoulder bag and hands each child a pen.
Alone again, she and I continue all the way around, once, twice, three times, before finally stopping when the sun vanishes and the temperature begins its plummet into another Himalayan night. We return to town and share a dinner of flatbread and Tibetan dumplings called momos. After eating, we get her things and move her to the Labrang Guesthouse—into the dormitory, a stone’s throw from my room. I don’t ask her to move in with me. Sitting on her bed, we play some translation games and talk about our morning plans. We decide to ride north, up into the grasslands. Her eyes stop inside of mine. We shift, closer, and a pressure grabs in my chest again, commanding me to retreat. But there’s nowhere to go. My brain shouts. Don’t do this again, don’t be stupid, don’t give in, don’t wait for skin to touch skin. Resist this, for both of us. She admitted, I think, to two previous lovers, and there’s also God, pregnancy, and diseases warning me. The idea of condoms drifts in from far away, but we don’t have any. She looks confused, but I can’t bring myself to say anything. I stand up, and we embrace at the door, holding each other, feeling each other’s warmth. I leave, and leave myself alone outside in the cold.
The mountain valley unfurls another sweet morning. The innkeeper pulls two ancient, heavy bicycles from a shed. Michiko and I are heading to a village called Sangke, and he tells us that in the grasslands nearby there will be a festival in two days, and that Tibetans will come from the surrounding mountains for horse races and parades.
“We’ll be back before that,” she assures him with a smile.
We set out on the paved road, pedaling up and down the slopes, beside each other. We leave the town and its people, buildings, and markets behind, and soon the entire Daxia River valley seems to be our own. At one point a stream cascades down the green hills and washes the road away; we remove our shoes and step barefoot in the icy water, walking our bikes across. The pavement resumes for another mile, then turns to gravel, making the hills pull harder on the weight of our bicycles. We climb further uphill as the sun soars higher and higher, lashing our necks with hot rays. We pause to apply sunscreen and strip down to T-shirts and shorts. Onward, we pedal, up a long hill, and finally we discover a cluster of adobe homes. But it looks too small to be Sangke, or even to have a name. Just to be sure, we roll down the dirt road through the village. There’s not a soul in sight. The road dead-ends at the river, but there, finally, at a distance, we spot humans: A hundred yards upstream men in cowboy hats are holding plates and eating while their horses nibble the moist earth. Two hundred yards downstream men are erecting a large white tent. These are the grasslands—miles and miles of ankle-high emerald grass—and they stretch all around us. Right before us the river overflows its banks and blazes new channels on the lush meadow grasses. We drop our bikes and remove our shoes on the swollen banks. Laughing in delight, we wade into the gelid water that was probably snow an hour ago. We dunk our heads happily. Shivering, we lie back on the bank beside each other and relax our wet, refreshed bodies. First her hand is on my shoulder, then we’re holding hands, then my head is in her lap and I’m staring into the sky. She tells me about playing in a river near her grandparents’ home, where she caught qīngwā—frogs, I guess, as she hops her fingers around on my chest. She let each one go so she could try to catch it again the next day. Her breasts are two soft planets in the sky above me, and I feel drunk with contentme
nt, being so close to her, being so far from everything else.
Our ponderous bicycles carry us another hour up the dirt road to an arid little village with a handful of people out on a single street. We’ve arrived, we decide. This must be Sangke. We park in front of a dark restaurant featuring saloon-style doors. Inside, the shadows are thick and the shelves hold warm cans of Pepsi and Pabst Blue Ribbon. There’s no electricity and nothing cold, not even water, so we settle for hot tea. A man in a cowboy hat, a white coat, and brown boots agrees to rent us two horses, and he takes us to musty stone stables. A thin red scarf and silver beads decorate this Tibetan cowboy’s hair—and the hair of many men around us in the street. He leads two steeds out into the sun: a chestnut brown and a dappled gray. After helping me onto the brown horse’s hard saddle, he helps Michiko onto the smaller gray steed. The horse’s mane feels coarse between my fingers, its body sturdy and muscular, and I try to relax, realizing I haven’t ridden since I was twelve. I squeeze with my ankles.
With a jolt, I’m walking, then trotting, and then galloping out into the grassy landscape. Gusts of mountain air massage my cheeks. At ease, giddy from the thrill of speed, I gallop toward the river. Michiko begins galloping too, and she rides past me, climbing a knobby hill at a bend in the river. A village of white and blue tents with red flags comes into view. She looks at me, and I look at her, and I consider staying, to see this festival, to see what’s next. Both of us know that both of us plan to leave the Xiahe region tomorrow, in opposite directions. For now, the future is further away than the sea, and we race back and forth across the grass. Out to the tents and back, we chase each other, pass each other, slap each other’s horse, reach out to each other, and finally hold hands for several moments. We let go of each other’s fingers, and in that instant I feel something travel up my arm and between my shoulders, and a relaxation opens up behind my lungs. Deep breaths of the mountain air taste like honey. My tan cap clings to my head. Her hair streams behind her.
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