A Certain Smile

by Judith Michael

  And he might be waiting. He might be the man who was watching her, waiting for her to come out.

  She was shaken. Maybe we should get out of here, she thought. Leave the back way, go to the airport, return to Beijing.

  This sounds like a James Bond movie.

  Well, it was beginning to feel like one, and she didn't much like it.

  It was ten minutes before the time Li had set for meeting in the bar, but she did not want to be alone, imagining vague possibilities; it would be better to be with people. Carrying her jacket, she locked the door behind her and took the elevator to the lobby.

  Meiyun's shop was closed, but the high-ceilinged lobby was alive with people: groups waiting in line at the large, chandeliered dining room; men in business suits standing in clusters that looked identical to the ones Miranda had passed that morning; tourists lined up at the registration desk; men and women cramming the bar and spilling out through the doorway. We'll never find a place to sit, Miranda thought, but made her way there, to wait at the entrance.

  "Miranda." Li was standing at the side of the doorway. His eyebrows shot up when he saw her, and a slow smile filled his face. "How wonderful you look. You must tell me.... Come, we have a table." He took her hand and led her inside.

  It was like entering a dark cavern and hitting a wall of loud voices and swirling smoke. Miranda shrank from it, but Li was moving forward, and she followed him to a small table at the far wall, with a hand-lettered Reserved sign propped in the center. "They do it for special people," he said, "which means anyone who offers a significant tip. I'm afraid I can't offer you wine; they have none worth drinking. Would you like beer?"

  "Yes, thank you." She coughed. "I'm sorry; the smoke ..."

  "I know. It's bad but one can't escape it. Museums, of course, but we can't spend our lives there. The government is just beginning to urge people not to smoke, but, as you know, governments move slowly."

  "But they could just order it."

  He chuckled and Miranda flushed deeply. "Why is that amusing?" she asked. "It's a dictatorship; they can order whatever they want. Even how many children people can have. One to a family. That is their policy; everyone knows it."

  "Yes, but it is broken all the time." His voice was stiff. "Why do you always try to simplify China, to paint it in black and white? You'd be angry, rightfully so, if I did that about America. We do have a policy of fining people who have more than one child, because we were growing too fast to feed everyone, much less give them better lives. But people

  are making more money now, so if they want another child they simply pay the fine."

  "But the idea of a government ordering ..." She gestured in frustration. "It's just so wrong. And they control prices, too. So if they really thought people shouldn't smoke, they could just make the price of cigarettes so high no one could afford them."

  "The market controls the price, just as in America, unless the government subsidizes tobacco farmers ... which, I understand, your government does. One moment; I'll get our beer." He vanished into the dark-suited phalanx that surrounded their table: men—mostly men— drinking, gesturing, talking rapidly in high-pitched voices that never seemed to pause for a period or a new paragraph. "I know it seems overwhelming," Li said, materializing beside the table with glasses and two bottles of dark beer. "Another new experience."

  His voice was as casual as if they had had no disagreement, and Miranda, too, let it go. "American bars are as loud as this. And I'll bet they're talking about the same things Americans talk about: families, jobs, sports. Oh, and new cars."

  "Money," Li said. "These days Chinese people talk only about money." He filled their glasses with beer. "The dress is wonderful; perfect for you."

  "Thank you. I bought it here. At the shop in the lobby."

  "Meiyun's shop. Yes, it looks like hers."

  "Oh. Of course, you'd know that, wouldn't you? Have you talked to her?"

  "I stopped in for a while after you left. We're old friends, you know."

  "She told me."

  "And I was glad to hear that you had found her. She does excellent work and she needs customers."

  "But I thought... isn't she successful?"

  "Very successful. More than most. But she has two no-good children who always have their hands outstretched."

  "She talked about them. She said her daughter is weak in business and can't weather bad times, and her son ... something about travel... she said her son likes to travel but doesn't have the skills to earn the money for it."

  "She told you all that?"

  "We talked about a lot of things."

  "And did Meiyun select the dress?"

  "She suggested it. This jacket was her idea, too, and a blouse. I

  seem to have made a substantial contribution to her taking care of her daughter's problems and her son's goofing off."

  " 'Goofing off?' "

  "Playing when he should be working. They shouldn't take advantage of her. She works hard."

  "Mothers often let that happen. Soft-headed."

  "I think you mean soft-hearted. Fathers probably do, too."

  "Yes, too often."

  Miranda watched him refill their glasses. "I saw a man from my room. Watching my window."

  He looked up sharply. "How do you know?"

  "Well, I don't, not absolutely. He seemed to be looking at my window, and he seemed ... sinister."

  "Because we have talked of this."

  "Oh, I know that; I know I wouldn't have thought twice about someone just standing outside the hotel, if we hadn't talked about it. But someone is following me, following us. And it could have been that man. Or another one. We know it's happening."

  "But we did not think about it all day."

  "I did. Now and then."

  "And tomorrow you will think of it less often. I promise you, that is the way it happens."

  There was a pause. "It may happen that way tomorrow," Miranda said at last, "but that isn't how I feel tonight. And I really don't want to go out there."

  "No one will hurt us. No one will even come close to us."

  "It's just so unpleasant. And I'm not used to it."

  "I understand that. And you are serious that you would rather eat here than go out?"

  "Yes. Unless it's important to you; then I'd go with you."

  "No restaurant is important enough to make you uncomfortable. We will eat here, in the hotel restaurant. The food is good. In about half an hour?"

  "Yes. Thank you, Li."

  "Well, then, we will have another beer, and I would like to know how you felt about Meiyun."

  "I liked her very much. She said you and she are good fiiends, and that you were close to her husband before he died,"

  "Before he committed suicide. They were the people I loved best in the world. Does Meiyun remind you of your mother? In many ways she is like mine."

  "I don't think she's at all like my mother. How is she like yours?"

  "She keeps her husband's memory fresh, she loves deeply without talking about it, she sets high standards for herself before expecting them from others, she is fiercely critical and just as fiercely protective."

  "Your mother criticized you?"

  "Frequently."

  "And protected you."

  "Always."

  "From what?"

  "From those who believed, when I was growing up, that I could not be a good Chinese because I had an American father."

  "You mean at school. They made fun of you for having an American father. But you said you had friends."

  "A few, but we do not need many in life, you know. Two or three is a miracle. So is love, even once." He tilted his glass, contemplating the thin layer of foam. "You have not had many friends, either."

  Miranda's eyebrows rose. "I never told you that."

  "When we talked about this before, I believe you said you had as many as you need. I take that to mean very few."

  "Why?"

  "Because you have not
been adventurous."

  Miranda stared at him. Then she looked away, at her glass, at the polished surface of the table with overlapping rings from the cold bottles of beer, and then the rest of the room. For the first time she became aware that the customers were leaving for dinner. She saw how they skirted the table where she and Li sat; she saw the glancing looks that slid over their faces, like a stream washing over boulders, and she felt their isolation, as if their table were a little island in the midst of a river rushing to the sea.

  This is how he felt as a child, when they made fun of him for having an American father. This is how I felt as a child when my parents first made me afraid.

  "When I was very young," she said, turning back to him, "I had asthma. It never was life-threatening, but my parents were terrified that I was going to die. They thought life was a quicksand of dangers, anyway, and my illness confirmed that. They truly believed my only safety was in staying close to home and close to the ground. My classmates climbed trees and crossed logs over streams; they bicycled in the mountains and scaled cliffs and explored caves and learned to ski... but if I tried anything like that my parents locked me in the house.

  "I stayed home, and read and wrote stories and designed clothes, and I was the top student in my school, but none of that was enough to

  give me the kind of self-confidence that kids have when their body is as responsive as their mind. When I was thirteen, my asthma disappeared—no one knew why, and it's never come back—but by then I was as timid and terrified as my family, and when I married, I married a timid, terrified man."

  "And Adam and Lisa?" Li asked. "Are they terrified, too?"

  "No. But I had to fight with Jeff, and myself, to let them try everything."

  "How could you do that, if you were so frightened?"

  "I don't know. I just knew I had to. When Lisa and Adam were little, I'd see their faces when Jeff forbade them to do things, and as they grew up I'd hear their friends make fun of them for holding back, so I forced myself to tell them to go ahead and climb or run or whatever it was, and I'd look the other way because I was sick with fear. One day Jeff and I had a fight about it and I said that it would be better for them to have a broken arm than to have a broken spirit. I think ..." There was a long silence. "I think, if Jeff hadn't died, I might have found the courage to leave him. Or maybe not. You're right. I've never been courageous."

  "I said adventurous," Li said quietly. "I think you've been wonderfully courageous all your life." They were alone now; they could hear the clinking of glasses as the bartender cleaned up. "Frightened and alone, with your parents' warnings roaring in your ears, yet you never quit; you made a full life, with work and love—"

  "Most people do that, one way or another. That isn't courageous."

  "It can be, depending on what you struggle against. And now you're in China, being adventurous and courageous both. Looking so different fi^om when I first saw you, sitting straighter, your head higher, wearing this most wonderful dress. How did you do that? Did Meiyun convince you, or were you determined?"

  "I did it for you," she said.

  Stunned, he gazed at her. Their eyes held, and suddenly Miranda felt hght and buoyant, as if the weight of her childhood, and all that she had carried forward ft^om it, had lifted with each moment she had talked about it, until it was gone. Li was so close to her that his skin and features and hair were the only things she saw, and he was China and adventure and all the world that had been beyond her vision for so long, a world she knew now that she hungered for, and always had.

  And she knew that not often in a lifetime was a new world held out for the taking: a universe of sights and sounds and feelings, waiting to be seized. This was her chance. And she would not let it escape.

  She took a deep breath. "I'd rather not eat in the hotel restaurant; it's so huge and glaring and noisy. I think ... I think we should have dinner sent up to my room. Unless you truly want to ..."

  "No." His face was somber, but his eyes smiled at her. "I think that is a most excellent idea."

  Chapter

  7

  Li went to the window as Miranda closed the door behind them. Without glancing at the gardens below, he unfastened the cord looping the drapery to one side and with a soft whoosh the heavy silk fell straight, covering the window. Instantly the room felt cave-like, muffled, the light softer and more golden. He saw Miranda gazing fixedly at the draperies. "Yes, someone is there," he said. "There is nothing we can do about it. This room is ours and what we do here is between us, and what is beyond the window does not matter."

  "For now."

  "Now is all that is important."

  "It's like a ghost, hovering. Invisible but always there." She laughed slightly, embarrassed by dramatics.

  But Li nodded. "That is exactly how it feels." He had felt it before: it was familiar. But this time it had a different cast. This time, it brought him and Miranda closer. Alone together, with enemies outside. Now I am the one being dramatic, he thought. "But we will not let it poison this night. This is our night; we will make it ours."

  He waited a long moment, so aware of their closeness in this small muffled space that he did not know how she could withstand it. And then, at last, she turned her gaze from the window and looked at him. "Yes," she said.

  He stood between her and the closed draperies, waiting another moment, letting the world slide away. "I have wanted to touch you, but the time was never right. You knew that."

  "No one in China ..." she began, trying for lightness, but her voice caught.

  "Not in public." He held her face between his hands. Her skin was

  pale ivory, faintly flushed, and in the shadows her eyes were green and still. But, as they met his, he could almost see her thoughts come and go as her eyes grew wide and bright with alarm, then quickly changed again, darkening, and her shoulders straightened: determined, fixed in their resolve.

  He stepped back. "Dear Miranda, this is not a test. I'll do whatever you want, whenever you want it. In fact"—he perched casually on the arm of a chair—"if you would like to order dinner, the restaurant has a few specialties you might like."

  Miranda burst out laughing. She pulled him to his feet, and put her arms around him. "I don't want dinner, and neither do you. We've both been waiting for this."

  He felt the same quick surprise, pleasurable and unsettling, that he had felt when she said she had bought her new dress for him. Chinese women were usually warier, less innocent; he was accustomed to things unsaid. But tonight he and Miranda were both moving in new directions, and he held her, and when they kissed it was not clear who had moved first. Their lips clung, their mouths opened. And then, just as he had seen her eyes widen with alarm, Li felt a sharp withdrawal in her body arching backward, an instinctive apprehension in the defensive curve of her tongue away from his, but again it was so brief he barely registered it before once again she pressed against him, almost burrowing into him, and his arms tightened around her, his head bending to hers, their mouths locked together, tongues exploring, until finally they broke apart, gasping and laughing a little, as if they needed to find a way to counter their fierceness.

  Miranda's face was deeply flushed. "It's been so long ... I haven't. . ."

  He touched her lips and noted, almost abstractedly, that his fingers were trembling. "When something is good, we should not try to explain it; we should rejoice."

  "Oh." She smiled. "I feel like rejoicing."

  "And you will. We will." Hand in hand, they walked to the wide bed with its flower-embroidered blue spread. Li was so aware of her body moving in step with his that everything else receded into darkness, as if they were framed in a narrow spotlight with room for nothing else. The hotel room, China, the world past and present, were compressed into the woman beside him and the small, bright space they shared.

  He unfastened Miranda's silver belt and bent to put his mouth at the deep V of the demure-seeming-but-quite-wicked collar that had been distracting him all ev
ening. Her skin was warm, flushed, trembling,

  and he slid his hands around her to open her dress and let it fall to the floor.

  Swiftly they undressed each other and then embraced, skin melting into skin, and Li felt a shock that made him feel like the boy of eighteen he had been when he discovered for the first time the pulsing life of a woman's body against his. Desire almost transformed him: he wanted all of Miranda, all at once, and he moved his hands roughly over her, molding, probing, learning the sharpness of her shoulder blades, the distinct ribs, the yielding hollows at her waist, the small, round buttocks. She was so slim beside his leanness that an image came to him of two blades of grass in a field threatened by storms and assailants—

  And why do I think of that when I am so filled with joy?

  —but the image vanished as Miranda's lips moved beneath his and she murmured, "If I don't lie down I'll collapse," and they laughed and lay together on the bed.

  Lying beside her, Li looked at her body against the dark blue spread, her skin pale and smooth, with shadows of a summer tan on her arms and legs. She lay in an embroidered garden: pink, yellow, white flowers in profusion across the bed, their petals half-opened or wide and pouting, glistening with tiny drops of dew, their long, narrow leaves tangling in green embrace. Among them, Miranda was slim-hipped, with long thighs and small breasts; her close-cut hair a blond halo framing the delicate bones of her face. In all ways, she seemed smaller and more vulnerable than when she walked beside him on city streets or dined at restaurants, and Li felt obscurely ashamed, as if, somehow, he were taking advantage of her. He tensed, as if poised to move away. It was almost imperceptible but Miranda must have felt it, and even understood, because she reached up and brought him down to her.

  Her breasts were flattened beneath his chest, his legs stretched along hers. Her arms held him with a strength he had not guessed at; her body moved powerfully beneath his. She did not seem small now; had he been able to put anything into words at that moment, he would have said that he and she were the same, driven by the same urgencies, and if one were vulnerable, so, equally, was the other.