Year of the Tiger (31 page)

The monk lays the envelope on the desk. ‘But still, this can be a little dangerous for you, I think. People maybe can ask you, where is Upright Boar? Of course, you don’t know. But you are still in charge of his art and his money. So maybe they will bother you about this.’

‘Can’t they just freeze the funds?’ I ask. ‘If Upright Boar is some kind of criminal?’

‘Not a criminal. No one says that he is charged with anything. But, maybe. We don’t know.’ The monk shrugs. ‘Maybe it is not safe for you.’

A chuckle escapes my throat. I haven’t been safe for so long that I’ve forgotten what it feels like.

‘I don’t know anything about managing art,’ I say. ‘What am I supposed to do?’

‘I am just a monk. This is nothing I can tell you. I think, just take care of the art and make money.’

I try to take this in, what it means. Do I say ‘yes’ and get even more tangled up in the Game, or turn around and leave? Just walk out of here and go … somewhere.

Maybe my being a foreigner protects me a little from the Chinese government, but it’s not going to protect me from the Suits.

And then I could hit myself, because I’d almost forgotten about the most important thing.

‘The Uighur. The one who stayed the night at Lao Zhang’s place.’

The monk shakes his head with a placid smile. ‘I don’t know who you mean.’

‘Are you sure?’ I insist. ‘Because I’m in some serious shit because of this guy. He’s supposed to be a terrorist or something. That’s why they’re after us. And, I mean …’

Now the thoughts are scrabbling around inside my head again, trying to get out. ‘It’s not like I wish this guy any harm,’ I say. ‘But if you want me to help … I gotta get these spooks off my back.’

‘Spooks?’ the monk asks, with a puzzled frown. ‘Those are … ghosts?’

‘Shit,’ I mutter under my breath. ‘Secret officials,’ I say in Chinese, because I don’t know the word for spies. ‘They want the Uighur. And … if he’s really a terrorist, maybe it’s not worth my life or Upright Boar’s to protect him.’

The monk’s expression is sympathetic. Maybe even sad. ‘I am sorry, Little Tiger,’ he says. ‘But this is nothing I know about.’

‘You don’t know?’

I cannot fucking believe this.

‘I come all the way to Sichuan to get some answers, and I almost forgot to ask the fucking question. And you’re telling me you don’t know? Why should I believe you?’

‘Each one of us only knows what we must,’ the monk says gently.

‘Oh, great. That’s just great.’

Like I need this Zen crap right now.

What I need is something –
anything
– that’s going to get the Suits off my ass. I don’t care what it is any more. Just give me a reason not to give up.

To keep playing.

‘Look. I have to talk to Lao – to Upright Boar.’

The monk shakes his head. ‘He is not online.’

‘But I need – I need some help.’

I try to keep the edge of desperation from my voice, and fail.

‘I can’t help you,’ the monk says.

He sounds so kind, and the wrinkles on his face look like a map of compassion. For all the good that does me.

‘I am so fucked,’ I mumble.

He gestures at the envelope. ‘Maybe, then, this is something you don’t want.’

I stand there, staring at the envelope. The monk picks it up, holds it out to me with both hands.

‘Do you want it?’ he asks.

I don’t have a clue what I want. Instead of too many thoughts racing around my head, my mind suddenly feels empty.

Ren fa di, di fa tian, tian fa dao, dao fa ziran
.

I shrug. ‘Okay.’ I take the envelope.

It’s probably a bad idea. But, you know, whatever.

The monk walks me toward the door, then clasps his hands together. ‘Ah. I forget your fortune.’

‘Don’t bother,’ I say, because some corny Chinese fortune is the last thing I care about right now, but the monk has already turned away. He goes to a bookcase that is divided into little cubbyholes filled with scrolls the size of fat cigarettes. He retrieves a scroll tied, like all the others, with a long length of red silk string.

‘Number forty-eight,’ he says, handing it to me. ‘The, the
zhegu
changes into a
luan
.’

‘The what?’

‘
Zhegu
… this is … a small bird. A plain bird. Brown,’ he adds helpfully. ‘The
luan
, this is … very big.’ He stretches his arms wide above his head. ‘Not real … it is a bird like … like a
fenghuang
, but even bigger.’

Like a phoenix. ‘Okay, so the
zhegu
turns into a
luan
,’ I say. ‘Then what?’

‘The
luan
flies higher and higher, above the clouds,’ the monk explains. ‘More free than any other bird can be.’

I think about this. ‘So, that’s a good thing, right?’

The monk gives me his I’m-so-spiritual smile again. ‘The meaning is, big changes. Sometimes good, sometimes bad. Depends on your actions.’

Given my track record, this isn’t very comforting.

Sitting on my bed at the backpacker’s hotel, I study Lao Zhang’s letter.

The paper is very thin, like the envelope. Just one page. I can understand a few words here and there – Lao Zhang’s name, my name, ‘American,’ ‘art.’ With enough time and a decent dictionary, I could probably work out what it says. For now, I figure it means trouble. Proof that I’ve been in contact with Lao Zhang.

Now that I’ve got it, all I want to do is hide it. Bury it, like a cat covering up a turd in the litter-box.

I’m coming up on Carter’s deadline, and I’ve got nothing. Nothing but a piece of paper that’s going to get me in worse shit than I already am.

Here I go again, I think. Some guy I’m sleeping with asks me to do something, and I’m so pathetic, I just go along with it, no questions asked. Help Upright Boar! He
needs
you!

When’s Upright Boar going to help
me
?

Fuck you, Lao Zhang, I think. It’s all a game, and I’m just a piece in it. More important than a pawn, I guess, but still one that gets sacrificed along the way. A knight, maybe, or what’s the one that looks like a tower?

But he trusts you, another part of me insists. He trusts you with something important. His art. His work. He chose you out of everyone he knows to take care of it.

Big deal, I snap back. It’s still all about him. What
he
needs. Not about me.

Maybe he doesn’t know, the
nice
girl pleads. He’s been on the run, in hiding. He could be in Bumfuck Guizhou or Gansu or out of China altogether; he might not know anything about what’s going on, with the Suits, with the Game. He could be on fucking
dial-up
for all you know.

And he did help you. All those times you went over to his place. The times he came over to yours. He didn’t judge. Didn’t demand. Didn’t treat you like a victim. Like a loser.

I sit cross-legged on the pressboard mattress, staring at the letter, and my butt’s falling asleep because it’s like sitting on Monk of the Jade Forest’s meditation stone.

I think, if I fold the letter in half lengthwise and then in half again, it’s about the same width as my Taoist fortune scroll.

So I fold it. Make a sharp crease with my thumbnail. I unroll the Taoist fortune scroll and I line up Lao Zhang’s letter against that. Then I roll up the whole thing, with Lao Zhang’s letter inside, and tie it up with the scroll’s red silk thread.

After that, I think about where to put it. I take everything out of my little daypack in search of a good hiding place.

Here’s my faithful Beanie Squid.

I stare at the silly thing, at its floppy Day-Glo orange legs, its shiny black eyes.

I take the red silk thread and tie the scroll around my Beanie Squid’s neck.

That’s when I realize I’ve made a decision.

It comes down to this: I like Lao Zhang. And I’m not sure what we are to each other, except that he thinks I’m better than I am, and I’d rather be his version of me than the one living in my own head.

I don’t know exactly what he’s up to, but I know he’s created things. Helped people. Maybe what he’s doing, what he’s done, is more important than what I’m doing. Than what I’ve done.

What have I ever done that meant anything?

Then I think, what I did at Camp Falafel,
that
meant something all right.

Okay. I’ll be a part of something good this time. I’ll help Lao Zhang. Help him build his post-modern communities, or whatever they are – places where people can live decent lives. Even people like me.

Hey, maybe I’ll even make some money. Didn’t Lucy Wu say we could all profit?

That is, if I don’t get arrested. Or thrown out of the country. Or …

My mind stops there. I don’t know what they’ll do, and I can’t think about it now.

What I do know is that I have to go back to Beijing.

Sure, I could try to run. Chengdu has an international airport. I could go to Singapore or Amsterdam or Bangkok. But what would be the point? They’d find me eventually, and I’d look even guiltier than I already do.

And where would I end up? How would I live? What kind of life would that be, always running from place to place? Until I get caught.

It doesn’t matter where I go. There’s nothing I’m going to learn that will rescue me. No one who can help. I’m not going to find the Uighur, which is just as well, because do I want that guy’s life on my conscience?

No. I’ve had enough of that. I’m not playing that game any more. I’ll tell the Suits I’m done, and what happens happens.

Lao Zhang’s art is in Beijing. If I’m going to take care of it, that’s where I have to go.

I don’t have enough cash for a plane ticket, and I don’t want to risk using an ATM or a credit card. There’s an express train leaving tomorrow morning, but I don’t want to wait that long. Now that I’ve decided, I want to get back. To go home.

So that’s how I end up on a slow train from Chengdu to Beijing. A thirty-two-hour ride, leaving Chengdu tonight.

This way, I’ll arrive in Beijing early Wednesday evening, ahead of Suit #2’s Friday deadline.

I’ll call him and tell him I’m back. I don’t have a clue what I’m going to tell him after that. A piece of the truth, I guess. That I tried. That I couldn’t find out what they wanted to know. That I’m not going to cause anybody any trouble. What else can I say? I’ll just have to bluff it out.

Maybe it will help that I’m willing to face him. Maybe it won’t.

I have a soft sleeper, at least, which will make the next thirty-two hours or so a little more comfortable.

Even better, as the train pulls out of Chengdu, I have the compartment to myself.

Okay, I think. Okay. I’m going to my doom; I might as well enjoy the ride.

After the conductor comes and checks my ticket, I go down to the dining car and buy myself two large bottles of Blue Sword Premium Beer. Then I retreat to my quiet compartment, sit on the slightly dingy white seat covers on the bottom bunk, sip my beer, and stare out the window into the dark. There’s something comforting about the noise and the rhythm of the train, the wheels on the tracks, the occasional deep hoot of the horn. When I get bored with that, I climb up to the upper bunk. I finish my beer, feeling the exhaustion seeping into me like rainwater staining discarded paper.

I pull the quilt over myself and fall asleep, rocked by the rhythm of the rails.

I’m dreaming about something; I’m not sure what, but there’s clouds everywhere, and I’m still on the train, like it’s open to the sky, when I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder, hear a soft voice in my ear:

‘Ellie. Ellie. You should wake up now.’

So I do.

A hand covers my mouth. Gently. And when I open my eyes, I see John’s face, John’s eyes, staring at me.

‘Please don’t be upset,’ John says quietly. ‘I hope you can not make a fuss. I’ll take my hand away if you promise to be calm.’

I nod in agreement.

John takes his hand away.

And I open up my mouth and scream ‘Help!’

John slaps his hand over my mouth again. He’s straddling me, so I can’t kick him; I try clawing at his face, but he does something, presses his fingers into a spot at the base of my neck, and it’s so painful that I’m practically paralyzed, and all the while, John is saying ‘Ellie, Ellie, stop. I don’t want to hurt you. Stop. Be calm. Just listen.’

I stop. I stare at his face. His lip is bleeding, and there are red marks raked across his cheek.

John slowly lifts his hand.

‘Okay,’ I say. ‘I’m listening.’

‘You need to get off the train,’ he says. ‘People are coming for you.’

I almost laugh. ‘And you’re, like, what? Here on a friendly visit?’

‘I am your friend,’ he insists. ‘We will stop in a few minutes at this town. We can get off there.’

‘Who’s after me?’ I demand. ‘I mean, how do you know –?’

‘I hear a guy ask about who is in this compartment. This guy, he is a bad-looking guy,’ John says, sounding very sincere. ‘He and some other guys, they are in the soft sleeper car next to this one. Maybe they are State Security, but undercover. Maybe somebody has paid them.’

I shake my head, like that’s somehow going to clear it. But I’m pretty sure that this is one significant ration of bullshit.