Year of the Tiger (15 page)

‘You okay?’ he asked.

‘Sure. Fine.’

My hand was shaking a little, though, and I had that hollowed-out feeling, like I’d been stretched tight and thin, and there wasn’t enough of a wall between me and the world.

I hadn’t had to treat anything really serious before, not like that. The patrol a couple weeks ago that got nailed by the IED, the two badly wounded soldiers were coptered out. I just had some minor shrapnel and burns to deal with. The heart attack, okay, that was serious, but it wasn’t messy. The guy who blew his brains out was messy, but dead.

Sure, I’d been trained; I’d done well in my training, but I hadn’t had all that much practice.

I stubbed out the cigarette and lit another. ‘So, that guy, they really whaled on him.’

‘Things got a little out of control,’ Trey said uncomfortably. ‘But you know, there’s a lot of emotion, adrenaline gets going … He put up a fight, Ellie. That’s what happens to bad guys out here when they don’t do what they’re told.’

I didn’t reply. I was trying to imagine the fight that would produce those kinds of injuries, particularly the shin contusions, and I couldn’t quite picture it. Repeated kicks, maybe? Blows with a rifle butt?

And why was he wearing Army fatigues?

‘You did great in there, Ellie,’ Trey said, giving me that look of his, like he’s taking me in, like he sees everything about me. ‘I know it wasn’t easy.’

I shrugged. ‘I just did my job.’

Trey put his arm around me, gave my shoulder a little squeeze, and all I wanted to do was melt into him, let go of all my doubts and fears, and trust him absolutely.

Who cares about Mr Ali Baba, anyway? I thought.

It was just that I kept seeing his purpling legs, how swollen they were in places.

So the next afternoon, after I woke up – I was still working night shifts then – I made myself a mocha and sat on my bunk in our hooch and regarded Greif, sitting on the bunk next to me, drinking a cup of green tea and tapping away on her laptop. She was working nights too. Pulagang worked a normal day shift, making sure everyone got their clothes back from the Iraqi contractors.

‘Hey, Greif,’ I said hesitantly, because Greif never had gotten friendly with any of us. ‘So, you work with the PUCs, right?’

She gave me one of her blank stares. ‘I’m an Arabic interpreter.’

Meaning ‘What the fuck else would I be doing, and why are you asking me such a dumb-ass question?’

‘Yeah … I was just wondering …’ I studied my mocha. I wasn’t even sure what I wanted to ask. ‘Well, there was this hajji that came in to the aid station last night, and he was pretty messed up. This OGA, Kyle, said he was high value.’

Maybe it was my imagination, but Greif suddenly seemed more alert. ‘Sometimes the PUCs resist capture,’ she said, staring at me through her wire-framed specs.

‘Yeah, I know, but this guy … I mean, he was really fucked up.’

Greif shrugged, like she had no idea what I was talking about and she didn’t really care.

‘Stuff happens.’

She turned back to her laptop, but I got the feeling she was still watching me, somehow.

‘Yili,’ John says. ‘I think you are feeling better now?’

I have two equally strong reactions: I want to run like hell away from this freak, and I want to claw his eyes out, punch him in the jaw, kick him in the nuts. Which isn’t really realistic. But neither is running, because I don’t run that well, and this section of the Great Wall is so steep I’d probably break my neck trying.

So I don’t do anything. I just stand there.

‘You look much better now,’ John continues. ‘I was worried about you that night.’

I have to give the guy credit for his brass balls, because he’s wearing his most innocent expression, and I’m sure if I accuse him of anything, he’ll do that squinty-eyed, puzzled look he has down to a Kabuki act.

‘Hello, John,’ I say. ‘What brings you to the Great Wall?’

He smiles broadly. ‘I am afraid maybe you are still mad at me,’ he says. ‘Because you were not in your right head that night.’

‘So you came up here … to see if I was okay?’

That prompts the squinty look. ‘Oh, Yili. I do not know that you will be here tonight. This is just … some kind of coincidence.’

‘Right. A coincidence.’

John takes one step toward me, his hands half-raised to show how friendly he is.

‘You know, in China we have this idea,
hong xian
. Have you heard of this?’

Hong xian
means ‘red thread.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘It is about fate,’ John continues, seeming to warm to the subject. ‘It is the red thread that tangles but does not break. It is the thing that connects some people to each other. Because they are meant to be connected.’ He takes a step closer. ‘I think, maybe, you and I have this red thread between us, Yili. Don’t you think so?’

I take a deep breath. ‘Actually, John, I think I’m just gonna turn around and go back to the party. Okay? Because you really make me nervous.’

As John takes another step in my direction, I say: ‘And seriously, if you come any closer, I’m gonna scream.’

‘Okay, Yili,’ John says, surprisingly calm about the whole thing. ‘But I just want you to know something. If you have some trouble, some problem, you can call me.’ He stares at me, and there’s just enough illumination from the spots they put up for the party that I can see his dark eyes, staring at me. But his eyes, there’s no light in them now; they’re some dense, black metal, and they suck up all the light, and suddenly I’m really scared again.

‘I’m going now,’ I say. ‘Please don’t follow me.’

It feels like I’m fighting gravity, like the air has turned to syrup, and I can hardly move. I walk as fast as I can down the Wall, drenched in sweat, thinking: I can’t turn around; I’ll turn into salt; I just have to keep walking and not look back.

‘Yili, wait –’

I run.

Half the party’s moved up here. Knots of people; couples laughing, drinking, making out; they surround me. The beat of the music thrums in my ears. I stumble a little, bump somebody with my elbow. ‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘
Duibuqi
.’ A bottle shatters, and I keep walking down the Wall. The lights strobe on and off, and John is following me, I know he is, and I’ve got to get out of here.

Then I hear gunfire. Full auto, in rapid staccato. I almost drop and roll. No, I tell myself. Don’t be stupid. This is China.

It’s firecrackers, dumbshit.

I hear drums. Like it’s a Peking Opera, or that crazy Olympics opening show. The techno music stops. The drums get louder, and there’s chanting. ‘Hah hah HAH hah HAH!’

The crowd around me parts, and a girl standing next to me giggles and points. I look down the Wall.

Marching in tight formation are ranks of … what? Soldiers? They’re Chinese, wearing uniforms, but the colors are wrong: they’re wearing red vests and striped shirts, black ballcaps. Some of them carry drums, the drums that beat out the marching cadence. The others have … buckets. Paper buckets.

Around me, the crowd erupts in laughter, and then I get why: it’s an army of KFC workers.

The KFC Army stops in unison. The drums pound. They chant and raise their buckets high.

Great, just what I need right now. Fucking performance art.

Okay, I think. Okay. I can squeeze past them on the right. They’re doing their piece, whatever it means; they’re not going to care about me.

I make my move.

And see a rival army climbing up the Wall.

McDonald’s workers.

All at once, the KFC Army changes formation. The drummers fall back, still beating out their cadence. The personnel carrying the buckets surge forward to meet the encroaching cadres from Mickey D’s.

What happens next is, the KFC people reach into their buckets and start throwing shit at the McDonald’s people. Something wings me in the ear.

A drumstick. The KFC Army’s packing drumsticks.

The McDonald’s invaders drop to their knees, like good infantry. The front line pulls out slingshots loaded with something. McNuggets, I figure out when one lands by my foot.

‘Hah hah HAH hah HAH!’

KFC versus McDonald’s? On the Great Wall? Whatever. I push past the first line of Mickey D workers.

‘Yili. Yili, wait –’

Something – someone – catches my sleeve, tugs it close, grabs my wrist. I try to pull away, but I can’t.

‘Yili –’

I turn. It’s John, of course.

He doesn’t look so scary now. He looks like the guy I met at the party: cute and kind of clueless.

I know that last part’s a lie.

I don’t fight him. Like I’m hypnotized.

‘I just want to give you my … my
card
,’ John says, with that peculiar stress on the last word. ‘So if you have any problems, you can call me.’

In his free hand, in fact, is a business card.

I hesitate. I take the card and put it in my jeans pocket.

‘Thanks, John,’ I say.

I swing up my good leg, hinged at the knee like it’s been held back by a coiled spring, and kick him in the balls.

He collapses like a deflated balloon, and I run like hell down the Wall.

I stumble through the ranks of McDonald’s invaders, bumping shoulders with a cluster of art tourists dressed in groovy tees taking photos and videos of the performance. ‘KFC is by far the most popular fast-food chain in China,’ one of them says. ‘McDonald’s market penetration doesn’t even come close.’

Good to know.

Ahead of me is a watchtower. I enter it. Here is the Chinese couple, watching bad sitcoms on their battery-operated TV, just like they were doing when I left them.

‘Miss,’ the woman says, in desultory fashion, hardly looking up from her little screen, ‘you want postcards? Great Wall book?’

‘No!’ I practically shout. And then I get an idea. ‘No,’ I repeat, somewhat more calmly. ‘But I’ll tell you what. I’d like to see your village. No, really. Because I want to better understand the life of the common Chinese people.’

The woman stares at me. I repeat the whole thing in Chinese. ‘I want very much to see your village,’ I say again. ‘Tonight. And I am happy to pay you for it.’

The woman turns to her husband, whispers something behind her hand. The husband looks up at me. Frowns. Because maybe this is trouble, and nobody can afford that.

‘You pay how much?’ the woman asks.

I end up in an enclosed cart pulled by a motorcycle that looks like it’s vintage PLA, sitting next to the postcard lady. Her husband drives. My feet rest on top of a case of beer, my elbow’s leaning on a stack of Great Wall books, we’re careening along this crazy winding road, hurtling through the dark, and I’m pretty sure we’re all going to die, but that prospect isn’t bothering me much at the moment, for some reason. Maybe because of the Percocet I took.

‘Are you married?’ the lady asks. ‘Do you have children?’

I take a chance and turn on my iPhone for a minute – John found me even with the phone off, so who knows if it makes any difference? – and text Sloppy, telling her I found a ride and I’ll catch up with her later.

Finally we get to their village.

This is the weird thing about China: you can be in a city like Beijing, with every modern convenience, with skyscrapers and Starbucks and bizarre underground performance spaces, and then you can go a couple hours away and end up in some village that’s a throwback to the Qing Dynasty, except with satellite dishes and Internet connections and white-tile disease.

Tongren Village is a pretty shabby old place overall, tucked away a few valleys over from the Simatai Great Wall. God knows what they do up here, aside from selling postcards to tourists, because the land looks hard, barren, like scratching out millet and winter cabbage would exhaust whatever life is left in it.

My hosts, Mr and Mrs Liang, put me up in their tiny house, in their kid’s bedroom, which is sort of an alcove off the kitchen, and I guess their kid really is away at school, because she’s not around, and the parents are using the space as a storeroom for their books and beers and bottled water. One bare bulb lights the smudged, whitewashed room, which is decorated with a poster for some Korean pop star and an out-of-date calendar. The bed is a
kang
, but there’s no coal burning underneath to heat it up, so I sleep in the T-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants Postcard Lady rounds up for me to wear, with every available quilt piled on top because it’s still cold up here in the late spring.

For a couple of postcard hawkers, my hosts are hospitable folks. In the morning, they serve me tea and congee and a bag of shrimp chips for breakfast.

I sit and eat, and Postcard Lady sits across from me and watches.

‘So, you aren’t married?’ she asks.

I can’t even get irritated, for some reason.

‘I’m getting a divorce,’ I say.

Postcard Lady shakes her head. ‘This modern life, it’s not well suited for family. So hard, to keep family together. Don’t you think so?’

I stare across the little table at Mrs Liang, at her weathered face and her stained-tooth smile and her counterfeit UCLA sweatshirt, and think about her kid, off at some boarding school, in pursuit of a life that doesn’t involve selling shit to tourists at the Great Wall.