The Walled City

by Ryan Graudin

  I shook my head.

  “I was a pilot. Not the fighter kind, mostly dropped supplies to the men on the ground.” He paused. Both hands gripped the cane, all his weight falling on that single piece of wood. “I was on a mission when my plane got shot down. I survived, but I was torn up pretty bad. Got a whole piece of metal stuck under my kneecap. I never could walk right after that.”

  It never made sense to my young mind, how a hurt from so long ago could keep a man from walking right. Stay with him the rest of his life.

  But now that I’m older, now that I’ve fought my own wars and fired my own guns, I understand. There’s a hurt in my heart as I walk away from Mei Yee’s window, like the flare of an old war wound. An ache I can’t really explain. An ache that won’t let me forget.

  I thought I spent these two years erasing. Getting rid of my pain, pushing it back to a place only nightmares could touch. But it was really just a deep freeze: hurt suspended in time.

  I walk the old paths. Past factories and mills of exhausted humans working tireless machines. By the corner where a toothless old man huddles in a moth-gnawed blanket, hands cupped out like a bowl of flesh and knobby-boned joints. Past the prostitutes slouched in their doorways, shoulders bare to the winter. Children dash by, barefoot. I wonder who they’re running to. Or what they’re running from. If they’re playing or fleeing.

  I used to walk this track without feeling a thing. On and on and away. I looked at these faces—wrinkled, painted, deadpan, scared, hollow—and felt nothing. Not even a pinprick. Now my heart feels ready to explode with hurt. Hurt for Jin Ling and Bon and Lee and Kuen and Chma and all the starving things on these streets.

  But it’s not just hurt that’s waking. The ache goes even deeper, sears like lava in my bones. An anguish that makes me feel unbearably awake, alive. The agony of her, wedged inside my heart. Shrapnel that will never, ever leave.

  I’m not very hungry, but when I pass Mr. Kung’s glowing oven of cha siu bao, I buy a bagful. Their heat bakes through the paper, lighting up my fingers and palms. I think of Jin Ling. I should tell her—find a phone and call Emiyo.

  Or maybe I shouldn’t. She’s supposed to be on bed rest—a rule she’d break in a heartbeat if she found out. And if my plan doesn’t work, if we don’t get the ledger… it would be better for Jin Ling to never know in the first place.

  A long, low howl erupts at my feet. Loud enough to make me stop and hope that I heard right. All through my walks, I’ve been scanning the streets. Looking, looking, looking for a feline sans tail.

  I look down. At first all I see are puddles swallowing the electric lights of shops and spreading them like gold at my feet.

  Brrrrooow?

  I look to the side, by my right boot. Chma’s yellow eyes glare back at mine. He slides over my leg, brushing my jeans with long, matted fur. The stuff of sneezes. It’s speckled with dried clumps of blood. I see the stump Kuen’s knife made. I’ve come across worse, but my stomach doesn’t act like it.

  “What are you on now? Your fifth life?” I ask, and kneel down in the middle of the street. Chma’s dusky-pink nose pushes into the bag of stuffed buns. His whine grows longer, louder. I reach into the bag and pinch apart one of the buns. Chma swallows it all: dough, juice, and meat. It’s gone in seconds. He noses the ground and then blinks at me.

  More. It’s not so much a question as a demand. Voiced with about as much authority as a tailless cat can muster.

  “You pompous little—”

  Chma! Chma! My term of affection is cut short by the animal’s sneeze. He even manages to look dignified with a glaze of snot on his nose. Chma!

  Seems Jin Ling was right. Cat sneezes do sound different.

  I pull out more cha siu bao and wish again Jin Ling could be here. To see all that she’s lost found again.

  2 DAYS

  JIN LING

  I’ve never slept this long. Nights in the Walled City are short. Dreamless. But here—swallowed in feathers, sheets, and tubes—I can’t tell what’s dream and what’s reality. So many faces pass. Some visit and talk: Dai, my mother, Mei Yee. Others—the nurse and Dai’s father—just stare and fill the room with their footsteps. Sometimes I feel Chma curled against me, warmth and purrs. Other times my father looms over the bed. When he disappears, I wake up soaked in sweat and shivering.

  Then the waking truly hits. My eyes open and my head is clear. Fogless. I look up and see that the bags of medicine are finally gone. No more drugged sleep. I sit up, stretching my muscles slowly. There’s still pain just under my shoulder. Hot and harsh, but bearable. My tendons and joints are stiff. Like rope left too long in the sun. Bones grind and pop all over my body.

  How long have I been asleep?

  “Hello?” My voice cracks. It must be days since I spoke aloud. Maybe longer.

  My call echoes against the bare wood floors. It’s weird to be in a place so quiet after years of city song. Even at the farm there was always wind blowing or the bubble of water boiling for tea.

  This place is as silent as a grave.

  “Hello!” I try again, this time louder.

  A woman steps into the room. She’s not old, but she isn’t young, either. She looks the same age as my mother—just less worn. Untouched by sun and a drunken husband. I look for traces of Dai in her face. There aren’t any.

  She bows when she reaches my bed, and I decide she’s the family maid. “What can I get for you?”

  “Is… is Dai here?”

  The maid frowns. “He left some time ago. I can get Mrs. Sun if you would like. She’s here preparing for the New Year’s party.”

  My stomach gives a sick, empty lurch. At first I’m not sure why. But then the memory leaks back. New Year’s: the day everything will change. The day Dai has to get the ledger. The ledger I promised to help him steal.

  Dai saying good-bye. Leaving without me.

  “When… how long is it until New Year’s?” I start clawing at the tape. My teeth grit as it tears back, tugging out hairs, jerking the needle under my skin.

  “Two days.” The maid’s eyes widen.

  I freeze. Half-peeled tape hangs from my hand. A brownish bruise peeks from under it. Two days until New Year’s? That can’t be right. I’m dreaming again.…

  “You’ve been here for eight days,” the maid says, eyeing the torn tape.

  I stare at the old hurt on my hand. Try to understand what she’s saying. Eight days. How did I lose an entire week?

  “Are you feeling all right? Should I call in the nurse?”

  My fingers tear the tape. This time it pulls all the way off. I tug the tube next. The needle slides out. I ignore the burn in my hand and the worse pain in my shoulder. Climb out of bed.

  “What—what are you doing?” The maid puts her hands up. Tries to block me. Not that she needs to. My head spins, makes it hard to stay on my feet. I shut my eyes, wait for the spell to pass.

  “I have to go back to the Walled City. Now.”

  The maid’s face falls apart with panic. Her arms start flapping, like a bird dancing over a pile of gutted fish. “You can’t go back. You’re supposed to rest. The doctor wants you here another four weeks. He has to take out your stitches.”

  The world feels steadier when I open my eyes. I look down and realize I’m not wearing much—just a thin, cottony shift. Rest. I should rest. That’s what Dai told me to do. My body still feels like chicken meat beaten tender with a mallet. But the window of time to find my sister is slipping… slipping away. And Dai might think he can steal the ledger alone, but I’ve been inside Longwai’s den. I’ve seen how impossible it is.

  “No!” I force out the word as loud as I can. I can’t fail Dai now. My body might be hurt and aching, but I can’t lose this last chance to find my sister. I’ll rest when she’s safe. “Where are my clothes?”

  The maid frowns, moves between me and the door. “You’re in no condition to be going back to that place.”

  My first instinct is to run. I con
sider dodging her. But the long, low burn in my side tells me not to. Plus I have no idea where we are. We could be miles, maybe even provinces, from the Walled City. Without my orange envelope and my boots, I’m as good as chained here.

  The only weapon I have left is the truth. “I have to go help Dai. He has things to do before New Year’s. Very important things.” I swallow. My throat feels ground to its nerves. Raw from talking so fast. “If I’m not there to help him… it could end very badly for him.”

  The maid’s weight shifts. Foot to foot. The floor groans under her. She’s eyeing me like I’m a mangy dog. I wait for her to say no. To run for the nurse.

  But she keeps shifting. It’s as if the wood is talking to us in its own tortured language. Back and forth. Back and forth. Until finally, “I couldn’t get all the blood out of your garments. I had to dispose of them.”

  I feel the thin shift under my fingers. I wouldn’t survive ten minutes in this. “Is there anything else I can wear?”

  “Hiro was about your size when he left for school. They’re boys’ clothes.…”

  “They’ll do.” I can’t imagine going back to the Walled City in a dress. Not after all this. “What about my boots? The envelope and the knife?”

  “There was no knife.” Her look changes. Instead of a dirty mutt, I’m a wolf with bared yellow teeth. “The rest of your things are on that chair.”

  She’s right. My boots sit on shiny wood—two beaten leather soldiers. The envelope is wedged between them. Still orange. Still fat. And behind that, the star book Dai gave me.

  “I’ll bring you some clothes. Then I’ll see about getting you a car.” The maid bows her way out the door.

  I walk to the chair. My steps are slower than I’d like. Every breath reminds me of the fight. A flashback to the empty, gaping awfulness of Kuen’s face. Of course my knife isn’t here. It’s back in some alley. Buried deep in his muscle and bone. Rotting away with everything else.

  City blurs past the windows of the Suns’ car. There’s so much sky and sun. The only clouds above are the tiny scars left by airplanes, notching white numerals. Everything seems clean. Women walk around in pointy heels and nice dresses. Tiny white dogs pull on jeweled leashes. Men clutch their briefcases, steering through sidewalks of food stands and electronics hawkers. Buses and taxis weave and merge across smooth asphalt. Lanes come together and part like zippers.

  All around are signs of my lost time. Shops are covered with scarlet lanterns and elaborate paper cutouts of snakes. Vendors walk around with carts full of mandarin oranges and incense. In two days the streets will be bursting with red, cakes, and drumbeats. Fireworks will explode. Lions and dragons will dance over pavement—men in costumes warding off evil spirits.

  The Walled City isn’t hard to miss. Apartments stack high like shabby bricks. All of them are covered in bars. Cages on top of cages. After the Suns’ mansion, the place looks uglier. I can’t imagine how Dai felt, coming here after a lifetime on the hill.

  The driver stays seated after he pulls up to the Old South Gate. I open the door, let myself out. Trash, mildew, and waste flood my nose all at once. They smell horrible. But they smell like home.

  It takes a long time to reach the doorway to Dai’s apartment. Every five steps or so I have to stop, catch my breath. The fire in my side grows. Burns my back and ribs. The air shimmers cool, but my face still shines with sweat.

  The front gate is locked tight when I reach it. I slouch on the step, almost relieved. There’s no way I could’ve made it up all those stairs. My head is swimming again. Blue and yellow bursts paint my vision.

  There’s a seafood restaurant next door. Full of sea salt, sliced fish, and smoking patrons. I watch the customers talk to one another over blue plastic tables. They pick at steamed snapper and garlic-covered eel with their chopsticks. Shove them thoughtlessly into their mouths. Like every other meal they’ve ever eaten.

  Will this really be over in just two days? It’s hard to believe. Sitting here, I wonder, if these people knew about the ordinance, what would they be doing instead? Would they search for new jobs and homes? Or would they carry on until change forced them elsewhere?

  Both searching and carrying on seem too much for me—here on the step. I suck in the pain of my side and ignore the stars in my eyes. I can’t run. I can’t fight. I can’t look for my sister.

  All I can do is sit and wait.

  DAI

  Two lines.

  I stare at them, legs crossed, fingers twitching. They stare back, thin and black. Like a pair of burnt, limbless trees or the pupils of a cat.

  I’m god-awful at waiting. Four days is a long time to second-guess a plan (or in my case third-, fourth-, fifth-, sixth-guess it). For four days I’ve sat, looping through our plan on repeat, playing out every possibility in my head. One hundred times I’ve ducked into the brothel, made away with the book. Taken Mei Yee’s hand in mine and run. A hundred more times I’ve been caught, gutted on the end of Fung’s knife while Longwai smiled on.

  It could go either way, really. So much is on the wire. One wrong move and I’m done. We’re done.

  I make a noise at the marks. Chma lifts his head at the sound, ears pricked and paws edged straight in front of him. He’s been more than a little skittish these past few days. But I guess I’d be jumpy, too, if someone carved a chunk out of me with a blade.

  I expected the cat to vanish into the next alleyway once he finished my bag of buns. But, like any self-respecting feline, he did the contrary—stuck close, claimed every inch of my apartment as his own. His fur wreaks hell on my allergies, but I don’t have the heart to send him away. We’ll all be out of here soon enough.

  Chma stands, does an impossibly arched stretch that makes me want to move, too. A purr rattles the far reaches of his chest as he slinks over.

  “Hungry?” My eyes stray over to the last meal we shared—a container of chicken drizzled in sticky, sweet sauce. One of Mrs. Pak’s creations. It was finished off hours ago. “Guess it is about that time.”

  I haven’t been hungry for days. There’s so much worry in my stomach that there’s no room for anything else. I buy food for Chma’s sake, eat a little for the ritual.

  “Downstairs then.” Chma is already at the door. Eyes alert and expectant as I pull out my keys.

  We trot the stairs together, twelve whole flights, before Chma breaks formation. I look down and he’s gone, a silver flash. It’s the first time he’s left my side in days. My sinuses rejoice, but my eyebrows furrow. Something’s off.

  I can think of only one thing, one person who’d make him move like that. This thought makes me move faster down the final flight, so that I’m not really descending the steps but leaping them.

  Chma’s paws splay against the bottom door, claws making invisible needle marks in the water-worn wood. When I open it and unlock the gate, he pulls away, darts like a rat into the street.

  No. Not into the street. Into Jin Ling’s lap.

  I don’t recognize her at first. She’s wearing Hiro’s old clothes. They’re a bit big on her—the jeans bulge out like parachutes and the jacket swallows her altogether. From the back—with all that baggy fabric and mussed hair—she looks just like him.

  But then she turns. The illusion vanishes like that last question mark breath.

  Not Hiro. Jin Ling. The one I saved.

  Now that I know, I can’t unsee her girlness. The turned curve of her nose, the slant of her cheeks. How her eyelashes curl up just so. It would be a mistake to think that any of these things mean she’s fragile. The very fact that she’s sitting here, eight days after being stabbed, is testament to that.

  “Jin?”

  Her fingers are running through Chma’s sterling fur. She looks up at me. There’s a smile on her face. “You found him.”

  “Yeah, I’m about one day away from becoming a crazy cat hermit. What are you doing here?” I look to her side—the one that was slashed like a victimized tire. There’s no sign of hurt
under the vinyl of Hiro’s old winter jacket. But just because you can’t see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there.

  “I promised I’d help you get the…” Her eyes dart to the chewing mouths of the seafood diners and the noodle-makers covered in flour. “The thing you need to get.”

  “You should be resting,” I tell her. Even sitting on this step she looks exhausted. An extra shade of white. “How’d you even get here?”

  She ignores the question, squints up at me. “Is this because I’m a girl?”

  “No. It’s because you were stabbed with a knife. Only a week ago.”

  Her fingers are lost deep in Chma’s fur. I can hear his purr from here. “I’m here. And I’m going to help you. I gave you my word.”

  “I never asked you to promise that. I’m handling it. You need to rest before your stitches tear open.”

  Hurt colors her face, stabbing me. Chma looks at me, too, with narrowed, too-bright eyes. They glare like spoiled sunshine, like I didn’t just spend the past four days feeding him and trying to pour hydrogen peroxide on his tail stub while acquiring about twenty new scratches and two fresh bites.

  Too stubborn to heal. Like cat, like girl.

  “If you think I’m going to sit back and lose this one chance to find my sister…”

  Jin Ling’s last word pushes me to an edge. To tell or stay silent. I feel like a child standing on the center of a seesaw, trying impossibly to make it stay straight. I want to give her hope. But if it’s false—if the Mei Yee behind the window isn’t who I think she is, or worse, if she is and I can’t free her—I don’t know if I could take it.

  “What?” Jin Ling straightens. She must see the tension playing through my face. I’m not as good at hiding this stuff as I used to be.

  It’s the secrets I can’t take anymore.

  “Your sister. Mei Yee?”

  She looks at me like she’s dangling over the rooftops, clutching only a rope and I’m holding the other end. My lungs freeze, like I’m being pushed deep into ice-cold river water. I’m barely able to get the words out.