I laugh. “At home, I knew what was going on, and if I had something to talk about, I called somebody and talked to them. Here,” it is my turn to shrug, “I am not quite sure what will happen, what things mean, and I don’t have anyone to talk to about it.” I glance at him, to see how he takes it.
He looks thoughtful.
It’s time to leave, I stand. “I am sure you are tired,” I say politely.
“Oh, no,” he says, equally as polite.
We go through the ritual of leaving. I realize I am taller than he is, although not by much. This is important to me in some secret way.
“Saturday,” he says, “perhaps you would like some extra tutoring? Not suggesting that you aren’t picking it up fast,” he adds, smiling.
“I’d like that,” I say.
“Of course, the class is most important,” he says, “but it never hurts to have a little left-handed help.”
Left-handed. My heart starts to hammer. It is all code, he is testing me. Or perhaps it’s an accident, he just used the phrase, unaware that it can have any other meaning. Back home, straights are right-handed, we are left. Not really, of course, just slang.
“Thanks,” I say, “I’m grateful, and I always appreciate a little left-handed help.”
“Oh,” he says, politely delighted, “I wasn’t sure you would.”
“More than you know,” I say. “It’s very lonely here for a huaqiao.”
“I think a huaqiao like yourself should make very many friends quickly. You do not really have to go yet, do you?”
I am filled with terror and joy. “Well, perhaps if you are not too busy,” I say. I am all desire, and I see he is, as well. My knees are loosened, I feel as if I am seventeen again, waiting in the dark on Coney Island beach for someone to come along, while the smell of ash rolls off the burning harbor.
“Wait,” he says, and does something swiftly with the room. The lights darken towards rose and then the sunset is inside the room, and the world is dark outside. Nanjing is lights that go on up the Yangtze River to the horizon; the river is marked by a curving road of lightlessness.
“I cannot believe this,” I whisper.
“What can’t you believe?” he asks, laughing softly.
“That you are here,” I say, cliche, I know, but things become cliche because they express truths. And I cannot believe he is here.
We are waiting for something, I don’t know what but we wait. I am shaking and aroused, he doesn’t know what it is like to be alone in a foreign country. He doesn’t know. And if he knew how badly I want him, would he want me at all?
“Lai, lai,” he says, ‘Come here.’
So for a few hours I can pretend that I’m not alone.
If to come is the petit mort, the little death-and it seems to me it is because everything is burned away for that brief, explosive time-then waking up in someone’s bed is resurrection. It’s only a little death and a correspondingly sordid resurrection. It is not life that falls on me so much as obligation. I have engineering at 9:00 a.m. and I am in Haibao’s bed. At the hour before dawn I’m rarely in love.
I sit up, Haibao stirs and opens his eyes. His hair is a mess and he is naked and ordinary, as am I.
“I must go,” I tell him.
“Weishemma”? ‘Why?’
“I have engineering and I have to study.”
He sits up, “Wait,” he says, “I’ll make tea.”
Rituals, the same here as at home. You never let the coney go without making him breakfast, even though by that time you often can’t stand the sight of each other. “Bei-keqi,” I murmur, ‘Do not be polite.’
He protests a little, but I dress and apologize for my rudeness in leaving so abruptly and asking him to understand. “I’ll see you Saturday,” I promise, not particularly wanting to at this moment, but knowing that by tonight I’ll be thinking about nothing else. I press him gently back to the bed, and leave him going to sleep.
My eyes are thick, I’m slow. The hall is silent and dark and the lift opens with a sigh. I cross the empty arcade and stop to watch the sunrise. A sunrise is a special thing, I’ve lived north of the Arctic circle, where night lasts for months. Then up to the suite where I shower and make coffee, and sit down to study my engineering.
Engineering is better that morning. I am beginning to follow what is going on, and I find I study better in the morning than I do at night. But once engineering is over, I think of Haibao. Will he want to see me again? I think of how many people I have wanted only once, maybe it was only the unexpectedness of the moment, the always incestuous discovery of our particular brotherhood, that interested him.
I’m so tired of being a colony of one.
Xiao Chen says, “Last night, out late.”
I answer in Mandarin, “I was with my tutor.”
“Studying?”
I shake my head and smile. “No. I’m not that good a student.”
A couple of Xiao Chen’s friends come over and we watch a vid. I work on my mathematics homework. I get a letter from Peter which begins, “You’re in love? I’m so jealous I can’t stand it. Tell me all about her, is she beautiful?” You never know when a transmission will be monitored. I write back extolling the charms of Haibao who I rename Hai-ming, Sea-jade.
Empty afternoon, empty evening. I am waiting, suspended, until Saturday evening.
I dress in my new clothes; calf-high boots, black jacket with swallow tails over red, and brushed gray tights like Haibao wore. Am I doing it wrong, I wonder? Have I chosen well? I could disappear on the street in a thousand similar outfits. Will he approve?
When he opens the door he is preoccupied. “Lai, lai,” he says absently, ‘Come in, come in.’ And he is not alone.
I despair at not having him to myself. I wonder if I have not been good enough. I am angry at him for doing this to us. I am curious about this other-one of us? And I am elated at the thought of meeting people.
“Hello,” says the man on the couch, “You are Haibao’s huaqiao.”
“Hello, I’m called Zhang,” I say, and we scrutinize each other. Haibao is not particularly handsome, in the face he is rather plain, but he has good hair and a good build and is so polished that the net effect is dazzling. This man is casually, even badly dressed. His hair is cut as if someone has dropped a bowl on his head and cut whatever showed and he hasn’t bothered to comb it. But he has a handsome face; something easy to miss. In my experience, no one is truly handsome or beautiful without working at it.
“I’m Liu Wen,” he says, “have a seat. Haibao is suffering and we should not interrupt a master.”
“Irony is the escape of the intellectual,” Haibao murmurs.
“Escape is escape. And if I must be a bad element, I might as well allow myself the luxury of indulging as many categories as possible.”
Bad elements. There used to be five categories of black elements; landlords, criminals, counter-revolutionaries, capitalists, and one other which I don’t remember. We studied it in middle school in Political Theory, that was a long time ago for me. Capitalists have been rehabilitated. I don’t remember where intellectuals originally came in, perhaps counter-revolutionaries, but bent as we are, we are criminals. That has not changed in all the years since the revolution.
“Let’s do something,” Liu Wen says.
“It’s early,” Haibao answers, still pre-occupied with the view out the window.
“Then lets go get something to eat.”
Haibao shrugs. And so we go out into the evening and catch a bus. Liu Wen is in charge and Haibao doesn’t ask where we are going. So I don’t either. I notice at an intersection that we’re on Jiankang Lu but I couldn’t retrace my steps. Liu Wen gets up and we swing off the bus and saunter into a restaurant. It’s beautifully finished. My first restaurant in Nanjing. The floors are inlaid wood and one entire wall looks like red lacquer, finished in so many coats that it seems as if you could put your hand into it like water.
Liu Wen orders du
ck and four other dishes and beer. I apologize and explain that I can’t drink beer. They bring tea, and eventually duck with creamy white skin and red tender flesh. “It’s a specialty,” Liu Wen says. It is tasty. I chase it with my chopsticks, and wash down monkeybrain mushrooms with my tea.
Liu Wen turns his attention on me, ‘How do I like China?’ ‘What is it like in New York?’ ‘How did I get here?’ He is fascinated when he learns that I worked north of the Arctic circle, on Baffin Island. He worked in Australia for awhile, he explains, in Melbourne. “Australia will be the next major economic power,” he says, “now that they have the technology to use the Outback.” He says ‘Outa-baka.’
It is a strange meal. The food is good, but it is disturbing to watch Liu Wen animated while Haibao sits and broods, playing with his duck. I don’t know the rules here.
Liu Wen pays, they give him the debit statement and he doesn’t even glance at it. Out on the street it is night. “Still too early to do anything,” he says. At home I would suggest we go watch the kite races but here I don’t know what anyone does. Liu Wen is attractive, fascinating, but he seems interested in me only as conversation. That is all right, it is better than being alone. I think. I’m uneasy and uncertain. Wait, let things happen, I tell myself, live in this moment, there is nothing but enjoyment in this moment.
We take a bus across town to Linggu Park and walk. “They used to close the park,” Liu Wen says, “but now everything is monitored.”
It is a tacit way to say ‘be careful’. Liu Wen seems to catch Haibao’s silence. The evening is cool. We walk up a road until we come to a building surrounded by a moat crossed by three bridges. We stop and I try to figure out the reason we are here. The building is small, square, white, with a graceful blue tile roof with upcurving ends in the tradition of Chinese architecture. It’s a nice little building, but what is the point?
“The tomb of your honorable namesake,” Liu Wen says to me, grinning.
“Zhong Shan?” I ask, stupidly. He nods. Sun Yat-sen is buried here. Well imagine.
I glance at Liu Wen, he has a funny smile on his face. Haibao leans on the balustrade at the edge of the moat and looks down at the sluggish orange carp motionless near the light set under the bridge.
I don’t know what to say so I say nothing. I am not even sure if they are making fun of me.
“Well,” Liu Wen says to no one in particular, “let’s go play.”
Haibao straightens up and shoves his hands in his sleeves. We walk back and catch a bus.
We ride all the way back across town, out of the dark park into wide streets, then through the bright heart of Nanjing, back out into the dark edge of the city. The bus is only three segments when we get on, goes down to two, picks up two more in the center of town, loses them (people transfer from segment to segment but we just sit) and finally goes down to one segment before we get off. The air smells different down here. All of China smells different, I noticed a dusty, old clothes smell when I got here, but I don’t smell that anymore. Here is a damp smell. Liu Wen remarks we are close to the river.
Around us are godowns. We walk past loading docks and parked flat-skids for moving goods off trucks. I can’t imagine why we would be here. Liu Wen stops at a metal door and hisses at me, “Don’t give your real name,” and opens the door on a badly lit stairwell. Up we go as I try to understand what he meant. At the top of the stairs another door, waiting behind Haibao I can’t see what it’s like when Liu Wen opens the door, only hear sudden music, people murmuring. I can’t hear what he’s saying, only that he is talking to someone at the door.
“Don’t worry,” Haibao whispers, “he is a member.” Then he follows Liu Wen to the door and this time I hear the doorman say, “Shi shei?” Who are you?
“Li,” he says, the most common surname in China.
“Shemma Li?” Which Li?
“Li Haibao.”
I smile, ‘Haibao’ means ‘seal’. I have seen seals with their cat’s heads and sad eyes in the waters off of Baffin Island, and Haibao, in his sleek way, has picked a name that flatters him.
“Shi shei?” the doorman asks me, he is wearing a white mask with holes for eyes and a slit for a mouth.
“Ma,” I answer.
“Shemma Ma?”
“Guai-zi,” I answer. ‘Ghost’ or ‘Demon.’
Haibao glances over his shoulder at me and smiles. I smile back. We are inside.
The place is big, after all, this is a godown, even if it’s not being used for storage. The light comes from floor level or just above our heads and the ceiling disappears in darkness. Looking up I almost think I see stars, which is of course an illusion. The lighting is all gold, our faces and hands are gold. There is a bar and some small tables, and then there are larger, square tables, with people standing around them. Gold light comes up from the tables.
“Want a drink?” Liu Wen asks.
I shake my head.
“Are you buying?” Haibao asks. “Mao-tai then.”
Liu Wen shakes his head and laughs. I remember my mother buying mao-tai for her future boss when she was giving gifts to change jobs. A bottle cost more than she made in two weeks, and that was twenty years ago.
In China, a secretary makes more in a week than I make in almost a month at home as a construction tech.
I wonder if I am dressed right. Looking around I see a few people dressed as I am, and a few dressed in long formals, tails almost sweeping the floor at their heels as they stand at the tables. Some dressed like Liu Wen, with complete disregard for appropriateness. What is this place, a gambling hall?
There are no women. I look around, surprised. There are no women. Haibao is watching me, smiling a little.
“In New York, do you have places like this?”
“I don’t know,” I say, “I don’t know what this place is.”
“Jiaqiu,” he says.
I don’t understand. In Chinese, one word can have many different meanings, ‘jia’ can mean ‘family’ or ‘home’ or it can mean ‘beautiful’ or ‘welcome.“Qiu’ can mean ‘prisoner’ or ‘ball’. I try sorting through meanings and nothing makes sense. Mandarin is a hell of a language in a lot of ways.
“Which ‘jia’?” I ask and he sketches the character on his hand.
“Jiagong de jia,” he explains, which doesn’t translate into English. ‘Jiagong’ means to be caught in a surprise attack by one’s enemies and closed in, almost squished between.
“The jia of jiazi?” I ask. ‘Jiazi’ means clothespin, which in Chinese is called a ‘press-pin’.
“Dui,” he says. Right.
“Janqiu de qiu?” I ask. ‘Qiu’ meaning ‘ball’ as in basketball? ‘Press-ball’ or ‘Squeeze-ball’? What the hell is ‘Squeeze-ball’?
He nods.
“I don’t think we have that,” I say.
“You’ll like it,” he assures me.
I am not so certain. But Haibao brightens up, he actually looks at Liu Wen when Liu Wen hands him a tiny glass containing mao-tai.
“Let’s play,” Liu Wen says.
We find a table with only three men around it. They don’t glance up. The tabletop is featureless, a golden glow illuminating our faces like heat from a fire. Liu Wen picks up a contact and grins at me with gold teeth before jacking in. The three men shift slightly as if someone had stepped up beside them. Liu Wen seems engrossed in the glow. Haibao jacks in and the four-Liu Wen included-absently shift again.
I study the glow for clues.
Whatever is happening, it’s not visible. I jack in.
The table is still there, but I have an overlay, I am in a circle with five others. It’s a little like contact when making a call, that instant before sound cuts in; I don’t see them but they are there. I try to see them and I can-five men around a glowing table-but then I almost lose the sense of contact.
I am a boundary, I am part of the golden glow. And there are balls in the glow; a golden ball (almost invisible), two silver balls, a
black lacquer ball and a red lacquer ball. I find the red lacquer ball attractive. I reach out to touch it, it is not so different from working power tools, and it gently squiggles away from my touch.
I sense a slight hiss of disgust from my right, and I am shocked into actually seeing the man. He is tall, dressed in a high-collared cutaway coat and he has hair that brushes his collar (hair almost as long as mine, is he huaqiao?) He is staring into the table, oblivious to me.
Liu Wen stirs, “It is his first time,” he says.
I am sliding back into the field and so I feel the acquiescence.
I watch this time.
Haibao is after one of the silver balls. He attempts to cup around it, so that equally repulsed it will have no place to go and be held, but one of the strangers (not the long hair) hits it with a touch and it shoots towards my end of the table.
Haibao makes a start to stop it, a wild unfocused motion that suggests that I shouldn’t want it too close, so I hit it rather like hitting a ping pong ball, back towards Liu Wen who deflects it, pool cue style, right into the stranger beside him.
We are suddenly dropped out of contact and Liu Wen says, “My point,” and the stranger, “my loss.”
Liu Wen smiles at me, “Good ball.” Which in English is more like saying, ‘good save.’
We fall back into the golden ocean and the balls are distributed in the center. Silver are top and bottom, red and black revolving slowly around the golden in the center.
Liu Wen taps the red ball toward the silver and both rebound towards where no one is sitting. Haibao reaches out and slings the red towards himself and although the long haired man and Liu Wen try to tap the ball it touches Haibao and we drop out of contact again.
“My point,” Haibao says, smiling. No one takes a loss.
“Excuse me,” I say politely, “but the silver should not touch one, the red should?”
The long haired man nods. “The gold, the black and the red are friendly, the silver are not. Anyone who causes an opponent to take a silver gets a point, and the opponent loses a point.”
“You can never start the gold in motion on the first play,” Haibao adds, “and you can’t touch the golden ball until it is already moving, although you can hit it with another ball.”
China Mountain Zhang Page 15