by Grace, A. E.
It made her reflect on her own fairly well-off upbringing. Growing up in the same small townhouse just outside London, she’d never before even seen a proper vegetable farm, let alone a child worker. With no relatives in the country, Terry and her family were oddly provincial, in their own little suburban way. She hadn’t even really left the city, except for school field trips to the potteries and things like that. Her family had been pretty good earners, too. It was a two car household, and her and her brothers had all gone to quite good schools.
When people talked about culture shock, they often mentioned food, religion, and in some cases, hygiene. But this was something that Terry had been unprepared for. The reality that she had it so much better off than so much of the world, and that, for most of her life – heck, even all of it – she had taken it for granted, was a little crushing. And it didn’t help that the smell of animal shit seemed to envelop the entire train carriage!
“Ugh,” she griped, pulling her head back inside the window. She climbed down as gracefully as she could – she was climbing down backward – off the bench, picked up her backpack, mildly grunting with exertion as she did so, and began to push her way through the throng of people toward the door at the end of the carriage. She figured there would be somewhere to stand outside where the two carriages were joined, and she could at least be out of the crap-current.
“Excuse me,” she said, remembering then that probably nobody understood her. “Mei guan xi, mei guan xi.” She pushed her arms in between bodies and pried them apart so that she could get through. It was sort of amusing at first, until she realized that she was going to have to get through about thirty people, standing so close they could all probably smell each other’s breath. Terry couldn’t help but laugh. And she thought the tube was bad!
“Sorry.”
“Excuse me.”
“Mei guan xi.”
Eventually she made it to the door, exhaling with relief. She twisted the handle, pulled the door, and heard a dull metal thud. Shit.
“No, you’ve got to be joking,” Terry said, twisting the handle again and rattling the door in its frame. “Why would they lock it?” She could feel the frustration welling inside her, and in a momentary outburst of irritation, shook the door again. This time it slid open, and she looked to her side to see that somebody standing nearby had pulled a latch which had unlocked the door.
“Thank you,” she said, blood rushing to her face. “Xie xie.” She hoped she had said it right in Mandarin, and quickly slid the door shut behind her. All of the people looking at her were blocked out of sight, and she felt immeasurably better.
“Thank God,” she muttered. She reluctantly conceded that her ultimate getaway, her great escape, wasn’t going as fantastically as she had planned. But it was only the beginning.
In front of her, across a small bridge with no handrails, was the door to the next compartment. Though it had no window in it, she was fairly certain that the carriage was just as crowded as hers had been, and probably contained just as many animals, too. Instead, she moved toward the side, along the small ledge that protruded, as though the carriage was sticking its tongue out, and where there was a railing. Moving toward the edge, she poked her head out from in between the two carriages, felt the sudden rush of wind against her face, the roar of it drowning out even the sounds of her own breathing.
Fantastic, she thought. She couldn’t smell the manure here anymore. Happy with that simple pleasure, she leaned against the railing, watching the countryside whisk by, a blur of dark green, brown, and the gray-blue of the sky. The sight was framed by the edge of the carriages that she was in between, making it seem brighter than it really was.
Again, another one of those thoughts snuck past her mental barricades. This time, though, it was a doubt: What are you doing?
What are you doing?
The sound of the door to the adjoining carriage sliding open made Terry jump. She assumed it was a guard, walking up and down the train, possibly even checking tickets. Though how he would squeeze through all the people, she didn’t know.
Looking over her shoulder, she saw someone obviously very tall, well over six feet. He had his back toward her as he closed the door to the carriage behind him. The v-shape of his back was pronounced, and his well-fitting dark-blue jeans and white t-shirt informed her that, beneath them, was the olive-colored body of a swimmer.
This was definitely not a guard.
“Hey,” she said, for a moment forgetting that she was in a foreign country, and that it was extremely unlikely this person would know English.
The man barely turned, but Terry instantly knew that he was a looker, despite managing to only see the side profile of his face. It was also immediately evident that he was a traveler, too, and that he might very well speak English.
Her eyes and his locked for the briefest of moments, and it felt like she had passed a finger through a candle’s flame.
He nodded at her without speaking, turning to face her now, his tawny eyes hard and icy, as though they had never expressed any sort of emotion before. He clenched his jaw, sharp as an axe, and then seemed to will himself to speak. “Hi.” It was a quiet voice, deep and disinterested.
Terry tried to find his eyes again. She wanted to feel that jolt of electricity again, that charge of static. It was a rush, and she wasn’t sure if it was a fluke or not. But even though he looked at her, she felt that he was not looking into her eyes. When gaze traveled up and down her body, slowly and with precision, the temptation to be indignant about it was overwhelming. But she realized that she’d done the same to him.
She opened her mouth to speak but couldn’t think of what to say, and so she smiled instead. His tussled dark brown hair looked as though it had been punished by the wind, blown back like he’d had his head out of the carriage window. She saw a hairline oddly straight, like his give-or-take thirty years of age wasn’t doing what it had supposed to by now.
When he didn’t smile back, and instead walked across the small bridge between the two cars, an unexplainable readiness in his stride, his strong and stringy arm outstretched to open the door to the carriage she had been in, Terry spoke, unwilling yet to let the striking man go. If anything, he was something of interest on a train ride where she found little else interesting.
“You don’t want to go in there,” she told him, pointing at the door.
“Why not?” he asked, turning his head to the side to look at her. His words were accented, but like nothing she’d ever heard before. The emphasis he put on the ‘h’ sound was a little strange, and there was a hint of something approaching an Australian accent, or a Kiwi one. Terry certainly couldn’t tell the difference.
Their eyes met again, and while Terry felt the same quickening of her heart, he didn’t seem to feel anything at all. He looked solemn and serious, and even weary, though not in a stand-out way. Almost like the tiredness was buried in his bones. He immediately gave off the impression of a man weighed down by something, and Terry’s imagination took off on its own, so much so that she had to blink and bite it back, reign it in.
“Um,” she said, unable to stop herself from grinning. It struck her that this was actually pretty damn lucky. Here she was on what she would politely describe as a train lacking in any kind of comfort, speeding through rural southern China, and just in the neighboring carriage to hers there was not just another person who she could communicate with, but one who was also a total fucking stunner.
She swallowed, and jerked her head at the carriage she had been in. “There’s animals in there.”
“What?” he asked, his eyes growing impossibly harder for a moment, like windows to a terrible temper that might flare.
“Uh, animals? You know, like livestock. Sheep, and I think a buffalo? Maybe there were goats. Or was it pigs? Maybe there was a dog, too. I’m not sure.” She became aware that the words were just spilling out of her mouth, and so she clamped her teeth together.
“In there?” he asked,
pointing with his thumb toward the carriage door.
“Uh huh. Yes.”
“In there, too.” He jerked his thumb the other way, and his lips curled into the tiniest of smiles.
“Oh yeah?” Terry said, wishing she would stop smiling like an idiot, but she was completely unable to. She knew she must look like a buffoon. She felt like she was a schoolgirl again, and she had just locked eyes with the hottest guy in school. She couldn’t shift her gaze even if she wanted to. “I think this train was originally meant for animals only.”
“Except for the benches,” he replied, leaning his shoulder against the door and looking at her. He seemed to be studying her, and so Terry took that as a license to study him back. She’d already taken in his face, handsomeness that teetered on the edge of prettiness but was saved from that boy-band look by hard angles, and now that she had an opportunity to pay more attention, a collection of scars. So instead she studied his body, broad rounded shoulders, tapering to a narrow waist, almost as though he belonged in a magazine. His collar bones jutted out, and beneath his dark and brooding eyes, they reminded her of a pirate’s skull and cross-bones.
His long body, not stretched, seemed locked in a state of flex, as though ever ready to pounce or sprint. He didn’t look uncomfortable, but he looked as though he held his body to a high standard of efficiency, right down to his movements. She noticed that, while she wiggled her foot, clenched her toes, and bit on loose strands of skin from her cuticles, he had no wasted movements, and as a result, made her feel uneasy.
“I’m Terry,” she said, extending a hand. She pushed it quickly out at him, thumb pointing toward the sky.
“Liam,” he answered, without taking it.
“You’re pretty terrible at introductions, Liam.” She looked at him, her head titled to the side. As though it were the hardest thing on earth, he extended his own arm and took her hand, shaking it. “There we go,” Terry said, her hand swallowed up in his. “Was that so hard? Wow, you, uh, have really big hands.”
“Your hands are just small.” He let go of hers and she looked at it, fingers extended.
“No, I think it’s yours that are big. Mine look pretty normal.”
“Yeah,” he said, giving her a slow nod. “Okay.”
“So what are you doing out here?”
“Where?”
“Um,” Terry said, wondering if she should ask what he was doing in China, on the train, or outside the train in between two carriages. She shrugged, and pointed down at the ledge they were both standing on.
“Smells like shit in my carriage.” He did his best impression of a smile again. The corner of his lips moved about a millimeter, and yet there was a charm to it. She wondered what he would be like if he really did let loose, break out a full smile or laugh. It would be disarming.
“Yeah, in mine as well,” Terry said, nodding. “So, why are you on this train?”
“It’s going to Pingxiang.”
She blinked, unsure if it was a question or not. “Yeah?”
“So am I.”
“I see.” Terry couldn’t help but laugh. What the hell was wrong with this guy? It was like he had never had a conversation in his life. “Are you going to Pingxiang for any particular reason?”
“Walking over the border into Vietnam.”
“Really? So am I!” Things were going pretty well already, she thought. “Well, we could walk across together.”
“Why?”
“Why?” Terry echoed, leaning her head forward, her brow furrowed. “I guess because we’re both going that way, and so we can, I don’t know, keep each other company.”
He nodded at her backpack. “You a backpacker.”
“Not professionally, no.”
“So what are you doing out here?”
“Smells like crap in there,” Terry said, jerking her head to the side.
“In there, too,” he replied, and this time he actually did smile. It was just a quick flash, as though momentarily a happy emotion had broken past his otherwise dour demeanor.
“So, why Vietnam?” Terry asked, leaning on the railing beside her. He leaned back against the door, and folded his arms across his chest. He wasn’t beefy, but he was definitely big, a lean strength to him. Even at an angle, feet out and upper back against the door, he was still far taller than her. The man was simply huge.
“I’ve been before, and I liked it. So I’m going back.”
“Yeah? You liked it?”
Liam shrugged. “Yeah, I did. It’s a nice country.
She nodded. “That’s why I chose it.”
“Chose it?”
“Yeah. Like, when I was picking a place to go. I wanted to see Asia-”
“Asia,” Liam interrupted. “That’s a pretty general want.”
“It is, isn’t it? So I had to narrow it down,” Terry said, nodding at him. “So I asked around, looked on the internet, read a few books, and chose Vietnam.”
“Why?”
“Well, I guess because they say that the people are nice. Food’s supposed to be great. I mean, the baguettes in Hanoi are said to be amazing. Isn’t that weird, that they do French bread?”
“No,” Liam replied, his tone matter-of-fact. “They were occupied by the French before.”
“But it’s still weird, right? You just don’t expect to find a baguette in a country where the main dish is rice noodles.” Terry shrugged at him.
“It’s not really that weird to me.”
The impression that he was doing his best to kill their conversation was nearly impossible to ignore. “When was the last time you went?” she asked.
“During the,” Liam began, before stopping.
“During the?”
“It was a while ago.”
Terry wondered what he had meant to say. During the what? Was there a festival or something he had went to? Perhaps the lunar new year? “A long time ago?”
“You could say that. But to me, it doesn’t feel that long ago.” He looked up at the sky, and beneath the shadow that darkened his lower face and neck, she saw a thick vein, and tendons.
“Yeah? How old are you?”
“Sorry?”
“I’m not being rude, am I? Come on, you’re a guy. You can tell me your age.”
“How old do you think I am?” Liam asked.
“Hmm, late twenties or early thirties, probably.”
“Bingo.”
“How old do you think I am, Liam?”
“Hmm,” he sounded, before pausing. “You must only be nineteen.” His eyes smiled, but his lips did not.
Terry grinned. There was a flash of character! “Ha! I wish. I’m twenty eight.”
“So,” he said, gesturing at her. “What brings you out here?”
“I took an impromptu holiday.”
“Why?”
“Argh, why,” Terry repeated, running her hand through her hair. “Lots of reasons. Bad job, bad boss, crazy family, and I just couldn’t take it. That’s the short version, want to hear the long one?”
“Not really,” Liam said. He shrugged at her, but it didn’t seem like he’d said it to be cruel.
She compromised. “Good, because I don’t want to tell it. But basically, I was being overworked, and asked to do things that were dubious with regard to their legality, and so I quit.”
“I thought you didn’t want to tell it.”
“I don’t,” Terry said. “But, come on, I was being asked to possibly break the law. I had to quit.”
“Where was this?”
“London.”
“I’ve been,” he said, nodding. “A long time ago.”
“Somewhere else you’ve been a long time ago,” Terry mused. “You must have done a lot of traveling in your youth.”
“Yes,” he said.
“So,” Terry said. It was becoming quite clear that she was going to have to handle brunt of the conversation. “When were you there?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Liam murmured. “Anyway.�
�� He didn’t finish the sentence. Instead, he straightened up, turned, and began to slide open the door to the carriage she had come from.
“No, wait,” Terry blurted. “I’m serious, it smells terrible in there, and it’s so full of people you won’t even get in.”
“Well you got out, right?”
“I only barely got out,” Terry said. “And that seat is most likely gone.” She put her hands up in an exaggerated shrug.
“You had a seat?”
“Yeah.”
“Better than I managed.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be,” Terry said.
Liam stopped opening the door then, and he let go of it, letting it slide back shut of its own accord. He folded his arms again, looked at her, a very slight expression of curiosity in his features.
Eventually, he spoke. “What do you want?” It was accusing without sounding harsh.
“Nothing,” Terry said. She felt like she was having a confrontation with him, only the emotion on his side was vacant.
“So you just want to go across the border together?”
Terry grew frustrated. “You know,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t really care.” She turned, and looked back at the scenery sweeping past her. More muddy green fading into a blurred line which turned into bright blue. She peeked over her shoulder a few minutes later, just to see what Liam was up to, if he was even still there. He was sat down on the ledge, his legs hanging off the side of the train, staring out toward the horizon.
And Terry smiled.
“It’s hot today,” Terry chirped, and Liam looked at the girl he’d just met. There was a quality to her that both attracted him, and irritated him, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on why that was. She was striking, that was undeniable. With curious sea-green eyes, and a seemingly infinite repertoire of expressions, he found himself watching her face more than anything else. She was a bigger girl, curvy and sumptuous. It was just the sort of body he liked, but that was a pleasure he could no longer allow himself. Even though time had cooled his furnace, and loss had quietened his urges, he found himself entertaining thoughts that hadn’t surfaced in his mind for a very long while. And it worried him in a distant sort of way, like he were on a ship at sea in a thicket of fog, with a shadowy, uncertain mass looming ahead.