Year of the Tiger (33 page)

There’s not a lot to see in Treasure Chicken Village – and, since it’s after midnight, what there is to see is mostly closed: a market, a restaurant, a car-repair place. The main street has a fresh asphalt glaze; my sneakers stick on the blacktop, and the air smells like oil. There’s what looks to be a karaoke bar that’s open; a neon sign glows outside of it, at least.

‘I think maybe I can go there,’ John says. ‘Find someone with a car. Those guys, maybe they can figure out we got off the train here. We should not stay.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘But, I mean, if some guys are chasing us, if they’re State Security …’

I look around at the little town, at the dark hills rising up around it. I don’t know where we are, other than someplace between Chengdu and Beijing, but it’s cold in these hills.

‘… where are we going to go? Where’s safe?’

John hesitates. ‘Maybe, since you’re an American, we can go to your embassy.’

I think about the Suits and shiver in my light jacket. ‘I dunno, John. That might not be the best place.’

Which reminds me of something.

‘What do you know about the Uighur? Hashim … somebody.’

‘The Uighur?’ John gets that confused look again. ‘What Uighur?’

‘Never mind.’

I gesture in the general direction of the karaoke place. ‘So, let’s go check out Treasure Chicken’s nightlife.’

‘Maybe this is not a good idea, Ellie. That kind of place … maybe it’s not a nice place for you to go.’

Coming from a guy who drugged me and who’s seen my tits, I find this concern for my delicate sensibilities a tad annoying.

‘What am I supposed to do, just hang around outside? What if those guys show up? Wouldn’t I be safer inside with you?’

John frowns, thinking it over, and then he nods. ‘Okay. I think so.’

I’ll admit, when we walk into the karaoke bar, I do have a few second thoughts.

This place is about as low-rent as they come – cheap plastic tables, Christmas lights for decoration, some tattered posters of Korean pop singers and, of course, the Beijing Olympics. A drunk guy yells into the microphone over a cheesy synthesized karaoke track, following the words on a video shown on a flat-screen TV sitting crookedly on top of a table. Most of the couple dozen people in the bar are men, and if the few women who
are
here aren’t hookers, they must play them on television.

We go up to the bar, which is really just a counter with some bottles displayed on a couple of wall shelves behind it.

Everyone in the bar stares at us.

It’s way more common to see Western men with Chinese women than the other way around. When it’s a Chinese guy with a white girl, a lot of times you get the feeling the guys are going to high-five behind your back. Everyone knows about those insatiable white chicks. Way to go, dude!

People don’t seem hostile. It’s more like we’re Martians, because how many times has a mixed-race couple walked through the door of this dive in Treasure Chicken Village in the middle of the night?

Great, I think. Like we’re not going to stand out here. Like we wouldn’t have been better off staying on the train till we got to someplace larger, more anonymous.

I’m feeling like this whole thing might be some weird number of John’s and I fell for it.

I look at the people staring at us: the young drunk guys gathered around the karaoke mike, the railway workers, faces seamed and tanned from endless days working outside, the chicken girls in their sequined baby T’s, and I think any one of them could be working for somebody. For the PSB or State Security. For whoever John is really working for.

‘Two beers,’ John tells the woman working behind the counter, which on the one hand is annoying, because he didn’t ask me what I wanted, but on the other hand, he does know I like beer, and I could sure use one right about now.

Undrugged, preferably.

He gets the beers and pays, and we find an empty table behind the karaoke speaker where it’s not quite so loud.

‘Okay, Ellie,’ John says, after a few sips of beer. ‘I try to find us a car now.’

He goes back to the counter and starts talking to the barwoman.

Meanwhile, one of the chicken girls sidles up to my table.

‘Hello,’ she says brightly.

‘Hello.’

‘Is that your husband?’ she asks.

I shudder. ‘No, he’s not.’ Then I think, that sounded a little harsh. ‘Good friend.’

‘Not too many foreigners come to Treasure Chicken Village.’

‘Right,’ I reply. ‘We’re … sightseeing. And we heard … the temple near here is really beautiful.’

There’s always a temple around someplace.

A puzzled frown creases the girl’s powdered forehead. ‘Temple … Oh! You mean Moon Hill Monastery!’

I nod vigorously. ‘Yes. That’s what I mean.’

‘But you should stay in Yilin Village, not here. Much closer.’

‘Oh, is that right? I guess we didn’t read the guidebook carefully enough.’

The girl pulls out one of the plastic chairs and sits.

‘There’s really nothing interesting around here,’ she confides.

‘So, if we wanted to get a ride to Yilin Village, is that possible?’

‘Bus goes three times a day.’

‘What about now?’

‘Oh, it’s too late for the bus now.’

‘Do you know anyone who has a car, or …’

‘Long drive. Maybe two hours. Maybe no one wants to go there so late at night.’

‘We can pay,’ I said. ‘It’s just that … we don’t have a place to stay tonight. And Treasure Chicken Village looks … very small.’

She giggles. ‘Oh,
Upper
Treasure Chicken Village isn’t very interesting, but
Lower
Treasure Chicken Village is more fun. More things to do. Bus runs from here to there all night, and I think you can find a place to stay.’

Right about then, John returns to our table.

‘John,’ I say brightly. ‘We should have gone to Yilin Village. It’s much closer to Moon Hill Monastery.’

I give John some credit. He closes his eyes for a couple of seconds, but it’s more like he’s suffering from allergies than, say, he doesn’t have a clue what the fuck I’m talking about.

‘Oh, really?’ John says.

‘Yes. And it’s too late to get there tonight, but we can go to Lower Treasure Chicken Village and find a place to stay.’

‘Ah.’ John sits down in the vacant plastic chair. ‘Yes. That’s what the bartender told me as well.’

This is what we learned: that Upper Treasure Chicken Village is essentially a railroad stop, that there’s nothing much up here that isn’t connected with the train, that the patrons at this karaoke bar are mostly railway workers, and as for the girls, they commute from Lower Treasure Chicken Village, which apparently is where the action is.

So, we drink a couple of beers to be polite, and after that, we catch the 2:15
A.M.
bus to Lower Treasure Chicken Village with our new friend Madonna.

I can’t really say what sort of expectations I have about Lower Treasure Chicken Village, because honestly, I’m not thinking much. I’m stressed out, I’m sleep-deprived, and luckily I’m a little drunk, which makes the being-in-fear-for-my-life thing seem kind of laughable. But what I’m not expecting – and I should know better, given how long I’ve been in China – is that as our bus trundles down the mountain road, me feeling every bounce and pothole thanks to the non-existent suspension, I look out the window, and spread out below us in the valley is Lower Treasure Chicken Village, and it’s not some little Podunk town. It’s this fucking
city
in the middle of Bumfuck China. A million people, maybe? Who knows? Who’s ever heard of Lower Treasure Chicken Village? Is it in my
Lonely Planet Guidebook
? Hah! Why would it be? What’s here? Why would anybody in his right mind come and visit this place? It’s just another anonymous white-tile-infested Chinese city in denial, pretending it’s a village. There’s nothing charming about it. No sights to see. Why would anyone ever go to this pimple on China’s backside of beyond?

And yet here we are.

The lights twinkle and wink and seem to ripple as swaths of the city suddenly go dark.

‘Oh,’ says Madonna, ‘another blackout.’

I stare out the mottled Plexiglas bus window, etched with graffiti that I can’t read. Outside, the lights stutter, like an engine misfiring and then suddenly catching hold.

‘Okay,’ Madonna says, resting her manicured nails on my unkempt hand, ‘I have a recommendation where you can stay.’

I turn to John. He’s hunched over, hugging himself, looking almost sullen.

‘What do you think?’ I ask him in English.

He shrugs silently.

We get off the bus three stops into Lower Treasure Chicken Village. I have no idea where we are, what part of town this is, what any of it means.

‘This is a friend of mine’s place,’ Madonna babbles. ‘You can stay here. Very private.’

We enter through a storefront that I think is a beauty salon or something like that – there are mirrors and chairs and plastic tubs that look like foot-baths, anyway.

We walk up a staircase to the faint sound of Taiwanese pop.

Here’s a narrow dark hall with doors on either side. I’m not sure what I’m hearing – a TV, maybe. Somebody laughs.

‘No one’s using this room,’ Madonna says, jiggling a doorknob. ‘You can stay here.’

A dark little room with a window overlooking the street. A hard mattress on the floor. It’s stuffy. I go to the window, which is covered by a dust-coated shade, brittle and yellowed from sun and age.

‘How much do we owe your friend?’ I hear John ask.

Madonna murmurs a figure. ‘Ah,’ John exclaims, ‘are you trying to cut me? Come on. Be reasonable.’

I open the window. The streetlights are out, but there’s a big neon sign for a karaoke place across the way that casts a dim green light. I hear it buzz and crackle.

After Madonna leaves, I kick off my shoes and sit down on the narrow mattress. John does the same. ‘I think her friend will demand more money from us tomorrow,’ he mutters, disgusted.

‘I’ve got some money.’

‘People have no morals. They just care about making money.’

I shrug. ‘Yeah.’

‘There is no trust. That is the biggest problem in China today.’

‘Right.’

We sit there in the dark, side by side, for a long, silent moment. ‘We should get some sleep,’ I finally say. ‘And get out of here as soon as we can in the morning.’

‘Yes.’

‘Okay.’

I lie down and roll over to face the wall. John lies down too. I think he’s facing away from me, but I don’t look. I’m going to sleep in a bed with Creepy John, and I’m thinking some weird things. Like, if John is just some young businessman with a tragic dissident sister, where did he pick up this weird skill set he has, knowing how to drug people and interrogate them and press his fingers into your neck so it hurts so bad that you can’t move?

I stare at the wall, which is tinged green from the neon across the street. I hear John breathing behind me.

He’s Cinderfox, I tell myself. And even if I don’t really know what that means, he’s a friend of Lao Zhang’s.

I think.

I reach into my daypack and feel around for my Beanie squid. Here it is. I feel its familiar weight in my hand, the little pellets it’s stuffed with beneath the neon orange-and-red plush. Here, around its neck, is the Taoist scroll. And Lao Zhang’s letter, naming me manager of his art.

Okay, I think. Okay.

I press Beanie to my chest. I curl in on myself. I will make myself small. I will hide. And I will be safe.

I do sleep – for a while, anyway. Not well. I’m having these dreams about things blowing up.
I’m
not getting blown up; I’m standing back a ways, watching the explosions on the horizon, thinking: I wonder how close this is going to get to me? And there’s this plane, like a passenger jet, that’s all lit up and on fire, plummeting toward the earth, and I think: should I run? When it hits, is the wreckage going to take me out too? Then there’s all this shouting, and I think: I’d better run, right now.

I wake up.

It’s still dark, but rectangles of dim light tilt through the window, into the room. The shouting is real. I bolt out of bed and hobble to the window, where John already stands.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask.

‘Something. Some protest.’

I look out the window. People pour down the street, carrying signs and flashlights. Some have pots and pans that they’re banging together. Others have clubs.

‘Shit.’

John checks his watch. ‘Not even six
A.M.
This must be big.’

There are lots of protests in China. Eighty, ninety thousand of them last year at least, over things like illegal land seizures, pollution, unemployment. Farmers get thrown off their land and don’t get shit for compensation; a factory complex pollutes so badly that crops die and people get sick and babies are born with deformities – these things happen all the time, even though the central government makes laws that are supposed to prevent it. There are just too many people, too many places like this too far from Beijing where the local authorities do whatever the fuck they want, like a bunch of modern-day warlords.