Year of the Tiger (23 page)

‘You just let us know if you need anything,’ Trey’s dad told me. He was an executive in an insurance company.

‘We just want to welcome you to our family,’ Trey’s mom told me. She sold real estate at the time.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Thanks very much.’

Trey’s mom clasped my hand. ‘Such a brave girl,’ she said.

The night before Trey had to report, he brought dinner for me. Mexican food. I’d been saying how much I wanted some decent Mexican food, because nothing at the hospital tasted good, and I never felt like eating. I needed to eat. I’d lost too much weight, and I needed to eat, everyone kept telling me, to get my strength back.

If I could only have some Mexican food, I was sure I’d feel like eating.

So Trey went out and got all these dishes from a local restaurant – enchiladas and burritos and chile rellenos – and served them to me on the plastic tray that swung over my bed.

I pretended it was great, but it wasn’t. Soupy red sauce, too much sour cream, and guacamole that only vaguely tasted like avocado.

‘If you need anything, just call my folks,’ Trey was saying. ‘They really want to help, so don’t feel shy about it.’

‘I won’t,’ I said.

I was having a hard time swallowing. The enchilada seemed to stick in my throat. I had the idea, suddenly, that the food was getting stuck on all the words down there, the words I wouldn’t say, and that was why I couldn’t eat.

I was pretty high from the morphine at the time.

‘That stuff,’ I said. ‘The stuff we did. Are we going to get in trouble?’

Trey’s fork froze halfway to his mouth.

He took the bite. Chewed. Swallowed. ‘We didn’t do anything wrong,’ he said quietly.

‘We didn’t?’

‘Things look different from here,’ he finally said.

He put his hand on mine. ‘Look, most people aren’t going to understand. They weren’t there.’

‘I don’t know, Trey.’

My eyes teared up. That happened a lot. I couldn’t control it. Sometimes I didn’t even think I felt sad.

‘Ellie. You can’t talk about it. This is about OpSec. You violate that, you’re putting the mission at risk. You don’t want to do that. Right?’

He spoke so soothingly. Like I was a child. And I was. Helpless. Needing to be fed. Tuck me in, Daddy.

‘No.’

‘Good.’ He leaned over and gently kissed me. ‘Just get better, Ellie. That’s all you need to think about right now.’

I saw a shrink a couple of times. That was standard operating procedure. They had this rhetoric about how the sooner you start treatment, the less likely you are to develop major psychological problems. But this was more of an evaluation. A cover-your-ass move. I got the usual questions: ‘How are you feeling?’ ‘Are you experiencing any intrusive thoughts?’ ‘Any nightmares?’ ‘Anything you’d like to talk about?’

‘Fine,’ I’d say, which of course was a big fucking lie, considering how much pain I was in. But the pain drove out most intrusive thoughts (as did the narcotics), and I wasn’t having nightmares. Not then. Those started later.

The only question I’d get stuck on was that last one: Anything you’d like to talk about? ‘No,’ I’d say. ‘I’m okay.’ But I knew what was hovering at the edge of my thoughts, wanting to push its way in, and every once in a while I’d get this flash, this vision, like a snapshot, of Sneezy chained to the floor of the Admin Core, of Greif flashing her tit. Of me and Trey fucking in that horrible little room.

I guess those were intrusive thoughts.

I’d push them all away. I could do that then. Sometimes I could hardly remember anything about those times. I’d had this strange interlude on the other side of the planet, but it was over, I was home now, and I could forget about it.

I just had to get better, that’s all.

The shrink, this middle-aged major – looking back, he wasn’t a bad guy. Maybe I should have talked to him. I wonder, would I have gotten better if I had?

But I couldn’t talk about it, could I? Not about what happened in the Admin Core. I’d get in trouble. I’d get Trey in trouble. They wouldn’t understand.

The third and last time Major Shrink saw me, after I told him I wasn’t having any intrusive thoughts, no nightmares, I was okay, he leaned back in his chair and pushed his glasses onto his forehead.

‘I’m glad to hear that you’re feeling good, Ellie,’ he said. ‘You’ve been through a really rough time. Just because you weren’t in combat doesn’t mean you didn’t experience a significant amount of stress. Now, you’re a medic, so I think you’ll understand what I’m going to say. These kinds of symptoms can take a while to develop. Three, four months; it’s not unusual.’ He closed his eyes for a moment and tapped his pen on the edge of the desk a few times. ‘I’m glad to hear you’re feeling good,’ he repeated. ‘Just keep in mind, if you have any problems, there are resources available that can help you.’

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Appreciate it.’

I wonder now, how did he know? Could he see it in my face? In my eyes? Was it something he understood because he’d been there? Or was this just his standard-operating-procedure CYA line of bullshit? ‘Patient was informed of treatment availability. Patient reported no significant symptoms and declined further treatment.’

I’m sitting on a hard seat, drifting in and out of sleep.

It’s a ten-hour train ride to Taiyuan, arriving at 11:00
P.M.
Hard sleepers are sold out, and I don’t want to pay for a soft sleeper when I’m not traveling overnight.

The open compartment is packed, as is usual for hard seats, with everybody and their
xiao didi
along with this crazy assortment of bags and boxes and suitcases crowding the aisles. People stand, squat, perch on the little tables, sit on their luggage. I’m lucky to score a seat by the window. Before long the compartment smells like cigarettes and stale sweat and shit from the squat toilet two rows away.

A middle-aged woman who’s traveling with a little kid sits across from me. Auntie obviously thinks this kid is the most adorable, talented ankle-biter ever, and okay, she’s pretty cute: red-cheeked, hair as black and shiny as obsidian, dressed in a pink jumper with little cartoon mice appliquéd on it.

It’s my fault for playing peek-a-boo with the kid. After that, Auntie offers me some of her sweet and spicy peanuts, and little Meihua climbs up on my lap, unafraid of close contact with the foreign devil.

‘Meihua, don’t bother the foreign miss,’ scolds Auntie.

‘It’s not a problem,’ I say, though to be honest, having her there is making my fucking leg hurt and I end up taking one of my last Percocets with a swallow of Auntie’s lukewarm tea. After that I hardly notice Meihua. I just doze, drifting in a warm, waveless sea.

We roll into Taiyuan as scheduled – one thing about China, the trains are nearly always on time. My leg buckles when I try to stand up; the muscles wake up like they’ve been lit on fire.

‘You’re not well? Let me help.’

Auntie takes me by the arm and guides me down the train compartment’s steps, even though I’m only carrying my little backpack and she’s got a rolling suitcase, a giant shopping bag, and a shoulder duffel.

Since Auntie has her hands full, I take Meihua’s hand, and the three of us exit the train station.

Taiyuan smells like coal dust and is bathed in yellow light from the low-sodium street lamps. Taxis wait in line by the curb, the drivers mostly napping in their seats, a few smoking cigarettes and drinking tea in glass jars where it’s probably been steeping since this morning.

It’s not too late for the touts, though, and a bunch of them swarm me, not quite touching me but coming close, saying things like ‘Miss! Miss! Need good hotel? Nice price!’

‘Stop bothering her!’ Auntie snaps. She turns to me. ‘Where are you staying tonight?’

I make a noncommittal response. I’ll figure out something.

Auntie whips out her phone and starts rattling away in the local dialect.

‘Okay,’ she says when she gets off. ‘I have a nice room for you. Very good price. My friend is the driver. He comes in a minute.’

‘You are very kind,’ I say, ‘but –’

She pats my hand. ‘Don’t worry.’

This guy in a black VW Santana shows up, Auntie’s friend: middle-aged, skinny, face seamed by lines blackened by the coal dust, like he’s some kind of comic-book drawing.

‘Please, get in,’ Auntie says, gesturing toward the back seat, with its white seat covers. ‘We’ll take you to the hotel.’

I’ve had things like this happen to me before in China, but I only used to worry about stuff like, am I supposed to pay the driver? Am I going to end up in a hotel I can’t afford?

Now I’m thinking, what if they’re working for someone? The PSB or Creepy John?

She’s an auntie traveling with a little girl, I tell myself. They were already in the train compartment when I got there. Weren’t they?

Auntie gestures again toward the back seat.

I climb in. Auntie gets in front, riding shotgun.

Sitting in the back seat of the Santana, Meihua snoozing on my thigh, I stare out the window at the broad, anonymous streets of a city I’ve never seen. Auntie and the driver chat in the local dialect, and I can’t quite figure out what they’re talking about. ‘Foreigner,’ I hear, and ‘money.’

Auntie turns toward me. She smiles, revealing a gold front tooth. Her eyes look like black stones behind her glasses.

Mouth dry, I keep my hand on the door handle.

After maybe a fifteen-minute drive, we turn down a narrow lane and stop in front of an entrance wedged between an office building and a clothing store.

A signboard in gold letters says ‘The Good Fortune Guest House.’

Inside, there’s a modest front desk that looks like it doubles as a bar, with stand-up ads for beer and Nescafé. Auntie negotiates with the clerk behind the counter, in spite of my protests that I can take care of it myself. ‘You know, some Chinese people try to cheat foreigners,’ she whispers darkly. ‘They think all foreigners have money.’

A couple of minutes later, negotiations concluded, I show my passport to the clerk and am given a keycard to a room on the second floor. ‘Nice room, quiet,’ Auntie says. ‘You won’t have any troubles here.’ Then she reaches into her purse and extracts a card case. ‘You have any problem, you call me,’ she says, pulling out a business card.

I take it from her in the polite manner, with both hands. I’m so embarrassed, I don’t know what to say.

‘Thank you,’ I manage.

Auntie smiles. ‘Welcome you to Taiyuan,’ she says, beaming.

I make my way upstairs to my little room. Brown and tan walls, a hard, single bed, a window draped with blackout curtains, no fridge, just an electric kettle and a teacup.

But it’s mine, my own small, private space. At least for the night.

I brush my teeth with the hotel toothbrush and overly sweetened toothpaste from the miniature tube, spit out a few shed bristles. Then I take off my shoes, jeans, and bra and crawl into bed.

I probably shouldn’t feel so comfortable here, I think. After all, I gave the clerk my passport number. Assuming China’s got some central foreigner-tracking system, who’s to say that Creepy John won’t be knocking on my door tomorrow?

I have this sudden vision of him sitting on the edge of my bed in his faded Beijing Olympics T-shirt and cheap leather jacket, smiling at me.

It takes me a while to fall asleep after that.

In the morning, I limp downstairs and order up a double Nescafé, which should tide me over till I find some real coffee. Chuckie was always bitching about what a backwater Taiyuan is, but three million people live here – there’s got to be a Starbucks somewhere, or some Chinese rip-off version, Star Cup or Moonbucks or something.

Fueled by Nescafé, I smile at the desk clerk and go outside.

Pollution in Beijing is pretty bad, but Taiyuan puts it to shame. Everything is covered with a layer of sticky black dust; the sun struggles to shine through a greenish sky, and the air smells like chemical soup. A few years ago, Taiyuan was the world’s most polluted city. Now they don’t even have that distinction going for them; it’s maybe the fourth worst. What’s the point of that? No one cares about Number Four. You’re out of medal contention.

I find a coffeehouse, have a decent cup of coffee and a limp bagel, and then sit there for a while in a little booth by the window, watching people pass by on the grimy sidewalk, nurse a second cup of coffee, and try to figure out what I’m going to do.

I decide to call Chuckie. I step outside and find a public phone, duck into the egg-shaped booth, and punch in Chuckie’s number.

‘
Wei
?’

‘Chuckie?
Shi nide lao tongwu.
’

Your old roommate.

There’s a long pause. ‘Hey,’ he says.

‘Look, I need a favor.’

‘Ahhh …’ A longer pause. ‘Maybe not convenient now.’

‘You owe me,’ I snap. Truthfully, he doesn’t owe me shit, but it sounds good. ‘It’s nothing that’s gonna cause you any problems.’

Of course, I have no way of knowing if that’s true.

‘Okay,’ he finally says.

Chuckie and I arrange to meet at a karaoke bar on the fringes of Taiyuan. Karaoke bars usually have a lot more than just karaoke going on. Prostitution, drugs, bribery – they’re the Amazon.com of vice. A lot of the time karaoke places are hole-in-the-wall joints, attached to hotels, next to restaurants and discos, set apart by the letters ktv outlined in neon.