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For a moment, I can’t think of anything at all. I stare at the ceiling. The peeling paint curls and uncurls.
‘Maybe he is okay guy like you say,’ John continues. ‘But maybe now he is mixed up in something that is bad.’
I turn my head to look at him. John stares at me intently, his eyes shining.
And it doesn’t matter how fucked up I am, how much bad shit I’m seeing in my head, and how scared I was before. I know exactly what this is about. He can’t hide it from me any more.
‘This is about the Uighur guy, right? You know what, John? You’re an asshole. You could’ve just asked me. You didn’t have to do all this. You didn’t have to …’
I can’t finish. I’m feeling this sob coming up from my gut, choking me. I want to scream; I want to hit something; I want to run and run and never stop. But I still can’t move. I lie there crying like a fucking five-year-old, and I hate myself for it.
John’s eyes widen, look away then look back, like he isn’t sure what to do now. ‘Yili, I –’
‘Shut the fuck up. I don’t care any more. I really don’t.’
I manage to lift my hand up to wipe my face. ‘You could have just asked me,’ I repeat. ‘And I would have told you. I don’t know anything. Nothing.’
Silently, John takes the damp dishcloth that held the ice and dabs my face with it, cleans off the tears and the snot.
‘Lao Zhang’s an artist. He’s got a lot of friends. People crash with him all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.’
I can’t keep my eyes open any more. I feel like everything’s dissolving into foam. ‘Just leave me alone,’ I mumble.
‘Okay, Yili,’ I hear John say from far away. ‘I let you sleep now. You’ll feel better when you wake up.’
Right, I think. Right. I’ll feel better.
CHAPTER SIX
What I remember most, from that first day in the sandbox, is how fucking hot it was, and how I was so thirsty because there wasn’t enough bottled water, and the donkey.
I was looking out the window of the Humvee, trying to make out the landscape through three inches of dirty glass, and it was almost like being under water. I saw desert: flat, endless scrub, different shades of dirt, an occasional clump of cinderblock buildings that blended into the gray dust.
We ground to a stop at the outskirts of some little town – just a crossroads and a couple of telephone poles stuck between mud-brick houses and a few painted cement storefronts. A truck was broken down in front of us.
Across from me, tied to one of those poles, was a donkey hooked up to a cart. Flanks crisscrossed by whip scars, ribs sticking out, head hanging down, like it’d had a lifetime of getting the shit kicked out of it.
‘Heard Hajji’s rigging donkey carts with explosives,’ the soldier next to me said.
I must have looked scared. I was scared. I’d joined the National Guard, not the fucking Marines. I was nineteen years old. I’d enlisted in the Guard after high school and trained as a medic. I thought I’d learn a skill, get some money for college. I didn’t think I’d be doing this.
‘Hey, it’s just a rumor.’ He gave me an awkward pat and stared out the window. A little gaggle of kids hung out by the block wall surrounding one of the houses, laughing, shoving, daring each other to approach us. A couple of them waved. Behind them I saw two women, dressed head to toe in black abayas, looking like some kind of flightless crows.
‘Most of these people are glad we’re here,’ the soldier told me. ‘You’ll see.’
I start to wake up, and I don’t know where I am. Behind my eyes, everything’s bright and yellow, and I’m filled with dread, because I don’t want to be there again, in that place.
Except … except … I miss it too.
I open my eyes. I can’t get oriented. The direction of my bed doesn’t make any sense, the wall is on the wrong side of the room, my head’s facing the wrong way, like I’m sleeping in the Bizarro universe. Then everything shifts into position, to where it belongs. I’m not over there. I’m lying on my futon in my little room in Chuckie’s apartment off Wudaokou Dajie.
I lie there for a minute, rubbing my face, which feels kind of numb. My eyes feel swollen. I close them. Start sinking back into sleep.
I feel my heart thudding too fast in my chest before I actually remember what happened last night.
Was it really last night? Did that really happen? I have this sudden flash of myself lying in bed, John taking off my bra. I shudder. I think I’m going to throw up.
I struggle to stand up, rising first to my knees, grasping the back of the chair. My limbs feel like they’re filled with sand.
As I brace myself against the chair and stagger to my feet, I see my jeans folded neatly on the seat, my shirt resting on top of that, my bra draped across the shirt like it’s some kind of post-modern window display.
The bra was on the chair back, I think dimly. That’s where John put it last night. He must have moved it.
I stumble into the bathroom, thinking I’m going to puke. But I don’t. Instead, I splash some water on my face. Stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes look huge. Everything still glows around the edges.
What the fuck did he give me?
Okay, I think, okay. Whatever that was all about, he’s gone, I’m here, and I’m okay now.
As I come out of the bathroom, I hear a lot of noise coming from Chuckie’s bedroom.
For a minute I just stand there, my heart pounding in my throat. I’m thinking, what if John’s still here?
But then I hear a crash that sounds like falling books, and Chuckie curses.
Okay.
I go back to my room and put on my pants – not the ones on the chair: I don’t want to touch that pile of clothes just yet. I wander out into the kitchen. Slanting yellow light comes in through the window. It’s past two in the afternoon.
I pour myself some water from the fridge. And notice something weird: all the dirty dishes have been washed and are sitting neatly in the dish rack.
Not Chuckie, I think. In general, Chuckie doesn’t do dishes. He lives on takeout. So do I. That’s about two week’s worth of dishes from both of us in that rack.
I shudder again and leave the kitchen.
Here’s Chuckie coming out of his room, carrying an armload of clothes and a duffel bag.
He sees me and jerks back like he’s stuck his finger in a light socket. Then he looks away.
‘What’s up?’ I ask.
‘Going home to see the family,’ he mutters.
‘Oh, yeah?’
Chuckie can’t stand his family. At least that’s what he always says to me. ‘They are just idiots,’ he complains. ‘Hopeless.’ And they live in Bumfuck Shanxi – nowhere Chuckie wants to hang.
‘For a little while. My mother says she wants me to come.’
I see his face. Pale. Scared.
‘You okay?’ I ask.
His eyes dart around like he’s being buzzed by gnats and can’t figure out where they’re coming from. He shakes his head, fractionally.
‘You wanna go downstairs, get a cup of coffee?’
He nods.
There’s this DVD store/coffeehouse in the collection of shops that make up the ground floor of the buildings facing Wudaokou Dajie. The coffee isn’t great, but it doesn’t totally suck either. I go there sometimes when there are no beans in the house.
Chuckie and I grab our coffees at the orange countertop and sit at a little round table by the window with a scenic view of the parking lot and the lovely four-lane thoroughfare that is Wudaokou. Taxis and private cars whiz by while knots of pedestrians make their way across the street like avatars in some Nintendo game, risking all to gain the treasure on the other side.
Chuckie rips open two packs of sugar and dumps them in his coffee.
‘So, what happened?’ I finally ask. ‘You get busted at the Matrix, or what?’
‘Or what,’ Chuckie says eventually.
I’m confused by this until I realize that he’s attempting to play with the language. ‘You got busted by somebody else?’
Chuckie doesn’t exactly nod. He stirs his coffee, catching sugar grit between the spoon and the side of the ceramic cup.
‘I am going to go home for a while,’ he says, not looking at me. ‘You should not stay here.’
It’s not his fault; I know it isn’t, but I’m still so angry it’s hard for me to speak. ‘Is this about Lao Zhang, Chuckie? Is it? ’Cause I haven’t done anything wrong. You know that.’
‘Meiguanxi.’ Doesn’t matter.
Neither of us says anything for a while. I stare out the window. Amid the taxis and cars and buses, a donkey cart piled high with bricks makes its way down the street, pausing for a minute so the donkey can crap in the gutter. The guy driving it, a peasant in patched clothes and a battered Mao cap, talks on his cell phone.
Huh. I thought Beijing outlawed donkey carts.
‘They want me to tell them everything about you,’ Chuckie says rapidly. ‘They want to know who your friends are, what you do, where you go. I tell them you, me, we just, we just …’ He trails off. His hands are shaking. ‘We just living, that’s all. Just living.’
Them.
‘Foreigners, in suits?’
‘Foreigners? Why should I worry about foreigners?’ he asks, regaining some of his typical bravado. ‘What can foreigners do to me?’
‘Nothing, I guess,’ I say, hoping this isn’t going to lead into one of Chuckie’s rants about China’s Hundred Years of Humiliation at the hands of foreign imperialists.
If it wasn’t the Suits, who was it?
‘This is China. Chinese people have stood up!’
‘So they were Chinese?’
‘Of course they were Chinese!’
Just like that, he deflates. When it comes down to it, Chuckie’s too much of a fuckup free spirit to make a good foaming-at-the-mouth fenqing.
‘Police, they say,’ he whispers. ‘But no IDs.’
He gets out a couple wrinkled ten-yuan notes and tosses them on the table. ‘My train leaves from West Train station in a couple hours. I better go.’ He looks away. ‘You should be careful, Ellie,’ he says. ‘You should not stay here.’
And that’s our big good-bye. I sit. Drink my coffee. Watch the passing scene outside the window. Wonder what the fuck I’m going to do now.
There’s a surveillance camera in the ceiling above the DVDs, one of those domed things that you see everywhere you go these days. Not just in China, in the U.S. too. For security, right?
I stare at the thing, at its unblinking black eye. Wonder who’s at the other end staring back.
They’re making tapes, I tell myself, to catch shoplifters. It’s not like there’s somebody watching me right now. Is there?
I pay for the coffee and head back upstairs.
Chuckie hasn’t taken a lot with him. The guitar amp, computer parts, books, and Yao Ming stand-up still clutter the living room.
I go into my little room. Stare at my narrow futon. Think I don’t ever want to sleep there again. Like I ever could sleep there without thinking of John, of lying there waiting for him to do whatever he wanted to do.
All of a sudden, I really want to pack up my stuff and get out of here.
I think about the logistics of this. I’ve got some clothes. A couple cheap pieces of furniture. My laptop. I mean, what the fuck do I have, anyway?
I open up the little cupboard by my bed. That’s where I keep my souvenirs. Things I thought I cared about.
Here’s a little Beanie Baby. A neon orange-and-red squid. I always loved that stupid squid. It’s just so funny. It makes me smile when I look at it. I throw it onto a pile of clothes to pack.
There’s a little jewelry box from Trey. I don’t have to open it; I know what’s inside: a gold cross necklace studded with tiny diamonds. He gave it to me a long time ago, right after we were married. I don’t wear it any more. I wonder why I’ve kept it.
I take the rest of the stuff out of the cupboard and dump it on the bed. A funny figurine Lao Zhang gave me, Mao as Buddha. A pennant from some soccer – oh, excuse me – football club called Arsenal from British John.
And here is that flat, hard box covered with dark blue flocking, about the size of a thin paperback. My service ribbons. My Purple Heart. I think: why did I bring this with me all the way to China? I don’t even want to open it. Why does it mean anything at all?
I throw it on top of the clothes. Because I still can’t bring myself to leave it behind.
I walk out of Chuckie’s place with a duffel bag and a backpack. That’s it.
By now, it’s close to five o’clock. I’m supposed to start work at Says Hu in an hour. I stand at the curb for a while, watching the cars and the buses and the people passing by me in this blur of noise – shouting in Chinese, horns going off, phones with their stupid ringtones, a loudspeaker blasting bad Hong Kong pop – and I think: I just want to be someplace quiet for once.
But for now? I might as well go to work.
I spring for a cab to take me the couple of miles to Says Hu, thinking I’ll get there early and have a beer.
The minute I walk inside, I can see that’s not how things are going to go.
British John is trying to pick a table up off the ground. It’s tilted on its side, one leg buckled under like it took a cheap cut block. A broken chair leans against the wall, beneath a dartboard.
