Anyway, no sooner was I down from Zhonghe Peak and freshly showered than a gaggle of Bai women was trotting beside me along Foreigner Street flashing laminated pix of saddled horses and penile temples and glass-bottomed boats, and finally someone uttered my favorite Sanskrit word.
“Ganja?”
Minutes later, that woman and I stood before a wooden door whose knob rattled as it turned. A dark eye appeared in the crack. Words were whispered, and the door closed once more. My accomplice, a hefty Bai woman in blue homesewns, said, “Wait,” and wait we did. Finally the door opened wide and we entered an airless space incongruously brimming with shelves of brightly painted native handicrafts. A slender woman in a towering headdress triple-bolted the door behind us and dragged two wooden stools to a spot between twin beds. I watched her take a seat on one stool and gesture toward the other. As quickly as I seated myself, a cardboard box appeared from beneath the bed. “Ganja,” said the woman, untying a black garbage bag. “Very good.” Placing a sprig of marijuana between her palms, she rubbed her hands together vigorously and thrust the crushed leaves beneath my nose. I sniffed and shrugged. Crap weed. Seeds galore. But there is a thing called supply and demand, and in the end the lady in the headdress had some twenty bucks of my money and I had a quarter ounce of crap marijuana plus a rough biscuit of hashish that looked like it had come off the underside of a lawnmower. There was also a dark sticky nugget of opium that looked somewhat promising.
Field research.
At that point, the woman in the headdress leaned closer and said, “Peeee-nis. You want?”
“Peeeee-nis,” cooed the other woman, handing me a length of bamboo covered with Kama Sutra engravings. Her long fingernail indicated a man and woman copulating with disinterested expressions.
“Okay?” asked headdress woman. “You want?”
I glanced from pair of eyes to pair of eyes, wondering exactly what I was being offered by whom.
“You are an utter addict,” my sister enjoys telling me from time to time. “Alcohol, gambling, sex, hard drugs, soft drugs—is there anything you aren’t hooked on?”
Phonics.
Again, knocking. No answer comes from the couple in the next room. Apparently they’re dozing.
Actually, I occasionally have my moments, such as yesterday when I pulled the brim of my cap a little tighter and told the two Bai women, “No, thank you,” and rose to leave.
I should have left it at that.
I remember returning to the Marigold Suite as dark clouds abruptly gathered. I remember barely making it back before the sky broke open in a fragrant thundershower. Beyond that, I can’t say. If I could get to that water bottle, my mind might clear. I just recall seeing, through the barred window, tourists giddily running toward shelter and vendors hurrying to unfold patched canvas tarps. After that, I think I must have poured myself a maotai and cleared the wooden table. There was a quarter ounce of grass to clean. Then there was the question of rolling papers. You can’t find them in this country. And then—
And then I remembered Mao’s little red book.
Examining Quotations with new eyes, I noted that its pages were admirably thin. I chose the page that read “Workers of the World Unite!” in revolutionary red, carefully worked it free of the binding, and creased it along the center. Then I applied a generous amount of freshly cleaned buds, sprinkling in a few crumbs of lawnmower gleanings for good measure. Before sealing my work, I decided a pinch or two of opium probably wouldn’t hurt anything. I remember the dull taste of the paper as I licked and sealed a joint shaped more or less like Chairman After Banquet. The revolutionary slogan was displayed in bright red along the side. Pleased with myself, I placed the joint in my mouth and patted myself down in search of a lighter bearing the image of Quan Yin, Goddess of Mercy and Inflammable Petroleum Byproducts.
The knock comes again, and I lift my head to see the silhouettes of four feet beneath the door of the Marigold Suite. Two people. Double the reason to pretend I’m not here. Which arguably I’m not, though I do seem to be leaving a recognizable number-two graphite trail along the pages of my journal. I fear that trail may be leading me ever closer to a recollection I’d prefer not to have. I’m likely better off with random shards and stray shrapnel bursts.
Again I look up from my bed. The silhouettes have vanished from beneath the door. Good.
I’m sure I promptly smoked Unite!. Then it doubtless seemed a good idea to burn the World. At that point, I probably celebrated with another maotai and attempted to produce a couple more joints. Problem was, there was only a single decent page remaining. Minutes later, I was admiring a slightly bent doobie that read, “Our Glorious Chairman Mao Zedong” along one side. But now what? I certainly wasn’t smoking Chairman in Bathrobe. I seem to remember rummaging through the nightstand drawer, looking for any description of blank paper, when—what should fall into my hands but the Mona Lisa smile?
It’s all coming back to me now.
Again the knocking, this time more insistent. The four silhouettes re-materialize beneath my door. Now comes a man’s voice, chillingly authoritative as he mispronounces both my name and the word “police.”
Shit.
Setting the journal aside, I place one bare foot then the other on the cold plank floor. Rising unsteadily, I tilt my weight forward and shuffle past the backpack and its full water bottle, limping a bit from an unexpected aching in my ass. I open the deadbolt with my good left hand and peer into the sober gazes of two police officers. Some part of me recognizes the face on the left and a bolt of fear crashes through me. I have to struggle to not pee myself. The other officer taps his wristwatch and says, “Bus.”
Chapter Seven
A few crumpled bills secure me a seat on the next minibus to Lijiang, three hours and a gutful of dust away along a lane-and-a-half road. Surrendering myself to a wooden bench to wait in partial shade, I clamp the water bottle between my knees and try pitifully to unscrew the cap. On my third try, the cap finally submits with a dry crack and I drain the warm contents, losing more than a little down my chin. Now, panting, I look up to discover the same two policemen staring at me through the windshield of their patrol car. I must have made quite the impression last night.
Closing my eyes, I consider the probability of Lijiang’s having both a competent Western-trained doctor and an X-ray machine that doesn’t also make noodles. At the thought, a bright visual image of an X-ray machine appears in my mind and shimmers there for a few seconds, the little steel rivets along its edges standing out in perfect relief. We seem to be packing some serious alkaloids.
If I just hadn’t opened that nightstand drawer. A little hot apple pie and ice cream at the tree-house café, a little Aussie wine to wash it down, and a pleasant leaden sleep. I’d have awakened to a chill mountain morning bearing in its hands every bright possibility for clear-headed research beneath a cobalt sky. But no. My fingers lifted the Polaroid, and my eyes collected all they could of the warm Venusian swell beneath the scrap of pink polyester. I studied the perilous fall between the two golden legs, and I was undone, stuffing things into pockets, pulling shoes onto the wrong foot, every cell, each sentient circuit aswim with detailed schematics of pelvic morfi, obturator internus, iliac crest. I was hurrying through the tilted gate of Dali Guesthouse Number Four to stumble along unlit cobblestones, past weathered woodwork and tousled roof shingles, beneath moon-scatting clouds and unwavering stars, few people out, it being Hungry Ghost Month when the door to the other world is slightly ajar. I was drawing closer to something. So close that I was practically on its farther side.
I’m seeing it all now, in no particular order. The haggard face of another Bai woman. An damp unlit alley. A flight of cold steel stairs. A sorrow of stale cigarette smoke. Red velvet chairs with cigarette burns. Nearby, two dapper men smoke cigarettes, their thin legs crossed. They’re studying me. A woman in her thirties paces with an antenna-ed telephone at her ear. Somewhere, a smoke detector beeps.
&n
bsp; “Three girls. You pick.”
A door opens. I’m gazing at a nondescript Han woman with chopped hair and a light blue dress. Her spike heels are loud on the wooden floor. Her eyes are turned away. As she stands there, the door opens again and a second woman appears, this one in black. Otherwise she is indistinguishable from the first. I feel nothing. The two stand there unsmiling, looking at no one. The smoke detector beeps again. I struggle to summon that moment of exquisitely focused sexual greed that had fetched me to such an awful place. I can’t find it.
In China, age of consent is fourteen, prostitution laws are unenforced, condoms are eschewed, and life expectancy for sex workers is rather less than that of a Shi Tzu. Did I think about that? I doubt it.
Suddenly the pacing woman puts away her phone and stalks into the adjacent room. Shouting. The two dapper men and I exchange a look. A moment later the woman re-emerges, holding the door open. And—
Striding barefoot into the room, her long raven hair sailing behind her, is a wisp of a young girl in Bai homesewns and a broad embarrassed smile. I watch her choose a spot between the two Han women but farther back, evidently hoping not to be noticed.
She is noticed.
My eyes lick every inch of the svelte teenager whose fine-textured skin is of a single chestnut tone. Her long hair is clean and carefully parted. Her features are fine and precise. Gone is every troubling thought.
Here. Is the flower of Dali.
I approach the barefoot girl, who steps back, eyes darting. The two Han women stalk away, throwing poisonous glares at homesewn girl, slamming the door behind them. Someone yanks a stack of bills from my palm. I am alone with the wisp of a chestnut girl who turns now and motions for me to follow.
Spellbound, I trail the whisperings of bare footfalls along a dim corridor of creaking boards, past endless identical doorways, each opening upon a raw single-bunk room beneath an uncovered red bulb. The chestnut girl’s steps are irregular and playful. At one point, she even turns to share a conspiratorial grin, as though an old friend’s daughter were taking me to the kitchen for lemonade. Finally she stops and points into a room indistinguishable from the others. Bunk. Nightstand. Red bulb. I step inside.
“What’s your name?”
No reply. Her long, dark hair hanging forward, homesewn girl is pouring tea into two cellophane cups. No steam. I watch her feel the side of the teapot then open the lid to peer inside.
“Name?” I ask. “Mingza?”
She looks up.
I point to her. “Mingza?”
“Wa,” she answers quietly.
I watch Wa set down the teapot, return the cold tea to it and squat to look beneath the nightstand. Hooking her hair behind her ears, she opens a jar of petroleum jelly, finding it almost empty. In a flash, she has taken jar and teapot and vanished. I hear her bare feet running along the dark hallway.
Somewhat pensively, I take a seat on the edge of the bed, remove my watch cap and set it beside me. Now I take off my shoes and place my socks inside them. I pull off my sweater and shirt, fold them neatly and set them beside the cap. The smoke detector beeps, nearer this time.
So. Here it is.
The minibus has arrived. I’m one of four people handing tickets to the driver and crawling over baggage piled hip-deep in the aisle. Struggling to protect my swollen hand, I tumble into a seat on the shady side of the bus and, panting with exhaustion, wedge out a small space in the aisle for my knees. Minibus now in motion, I turn to see the patrol car pull out to escort us to the city limit.
I have made quite the impression.
Across the aisle from me, two Mao-capped old men stare at my face in unguarded fascination, as behind them a teenage boy munches sunflower seeds from a brown paper bag, his right hand delivering each with the regularity of a piston, mouth jettisoning each empty hull onto the floor just as the new one arrives.
I fall back against the vinyl seat as Zhonghe Peak, rough-swirled with rain-bearing clouds, tumbles in through the open windows. Sparkling mountain air rushes into my nostrils as the bus driver finds another gear. Along each side of the highway twelve-inch stands of rice nod their graceful farewells. The patrol car slows and turns around.
I’ve escaped.
Panting with relief, I sag in my seat and close my eyes. Again, the tiny ocher room. The stale air. I watch a barefoot Wa bound in through the open doorway, a careless smile on her face. In her hands are an unopened jar of petroleum jelly and a steaming teapot.
As though I’ve never seen it done before, I watch her pour tea into two cellophane cups, the vapor framing her profile in wavering red. I can’t take my eyes off her. Who could? Wa is what every woman longs to be. Young, elegant, gathered. Animated by a country sweetness that lifts even this vile dungeon. Lifts even my own poisoned marrow. No longer pensive, I am possessed. I want the trailing raven hair. I want the tiny waist. The pert bottom. I want to feel all of her warmth against my skin. What that might cost and who must pay—matters not at all.
Suddenly rising full height, Wa gives me an uneasy glance, slings the door closed behind her and throws her hair behind her shoulders. She draws a deep breath and I see the small breasts rise and fall beneath the homesewns. With a brusque gesture, Wa orders me to lie down. Quickly she undresses me and rolls my clothes into a bundle that she places beneath my head. Now she steps back from the bed and her facial features seem to disappear. In one motion, she lifts the tunic over her head. Even in the dim ocher light, I see the deep lines of Wa’s collarbones. I see the twin swells of her ribcage, the vanishing v of her waist. Now the bra is gone. Two small, dark nipples appear and then are gone. Wa has wrapped herself in her own embrace. I hear what sounds like a shudder. She is cold.
The wisp of a chestnut girl dives into my arms, warming me as she finds warmth. Suddenly I am holding my daughter. I am comforting a stranger. I am enclosing my lover. I am accepting acceptance. I am doing all, and none, of these things. It’s a moment that belongs nowhere yet creates a place for itself. Part of me notices a commotion in the hallway, but now Wa is moving her small hips against mine, describing ever larger circles. Hungrily, my hands search for the tie at her waist.
There is a story about a woman named Wa and a very bad historical moment when the sky was in need of repair and no one quite knew what to do about it. The story is called “Wa Mends the Sky” because it was this woman Wa who solved the problem by making a fire, melting together stones of five different colors, and using the iridescent magma to fill all the gaps. It worked beautifully, Wa’s solution, and everyone said very nice things about her.
My hands find the tie.
The historical Wa, we’re told, travels these days on a thunder chariot drawn by a double-winged dragon and two hornless dragons. With auspicious objects in her hands, she sails among golden clouds with a white dragon leading the way and a flying snake following behind. Which is definitely the way to go if you can’t get a cabin next to the dining car.
Loosening the cotton ribbon of Wa’s homesewn pants, I slide my long cold hands inside. I feel her muscles tighten. I’m definitely drawing closer to something. Burying my nose in the nape of Wa’s neck, I find her skin to smell faintly of almonds. My hands want to reach a little farther beneath the homesewn pants, and I begin to lift one shoulder. Instantly Wa throws her weight against the shoulder as would a wrestler, pinning me. She now spreads her legs to hold my hips in place, and my fingers take full advantage, describing the warm divide of her bottom. Again, noises in the hallway, but Wa’s hips are describing circles once more. The chestnut girl is ever warmer the farther my fingertips stretch. I sense that I’m drawing very close to something now, close enough to feel the vague beginnings of a glow in my thighs when—
When I realize I’m being watched.
My eyes open upon a most unexpected sight. A ghostly and fiery-eyed Shatrina Carter is hovering like a flaming zeppelin at the ceiling of the room. Her mouth opens, and I hear Truman whisper, “This is mahhhch bigger than you and
me, Julian. It’s about the chuuul-run.”
With each word, the glowing coals of Tree’s eyes glow brighter. “It’s about the destiny of the wooooild.”
“Uh, could we talk about this later?” I murmur.
Wa’s hips cease to circle.
“You get your chap-tuh,” whispers Truman. “In return, the wooooild gets your help.”
Wa lifts her head. Maybe she, too, hears noises in the hall.
“Fine,” I tell Tree’s hovering image. “I like the world. I like it a lot. But just now—”
“Beware the sheen,” says Truman, Tree’s fiery eyes beginning to fade, “of the blue and the greeeen.”
As the image of Tree Carter fades overhead, the door crashes open and into the room spill several people, some of them wearing uniforms. Two shrieking women point at Wa, who scrambles off the bed into a corner. They are the two Han sex workers I’d just spurned. One of the uniformed men lurches to the corner where Wa cowers and seizes her by the hair. I watch him drag her from the room. Another policeman points to the roll of clothes beneath my head. The smoke detector beeps.
The two Han women disappear. I put my pants on backwards and the uniformed men laugh. Outside are two patrol cars. As I lower myself into one, the other drives away, its red light strobing. I wonder if Wa is inside.
At the police station, I am shut inside a white room empty but for two chairs and a small desk. Glass-encased on one wall is the blood-red flag of the People’s Republic of China. The walls have recently been painted. There is no air in the room. I’m horribly thirsty. My hands keep feeling for my wallet and journal, both of them gone.
Later, perhaps hours later, a grey-haired man with Han features enters the room, his uniform immaculate. In his hand is a large ziplock bag. I watch the man, obviously an officer, take a seat behind the small desk, unzip the bag and remove from it a thin white object. He shows it to me. Along one side are the words “Our Glorious Chairman Mao Zedong.”
The Year of the Hydra Page 8