Year of the Tiger (6 page)

I know how those guys work.

How did the Suits find out about Lao Zhang?

I’m slick with sweat, like a fever’s breaking. They’ve been watching me, no matter what they said. They followed me to Mati. To Lao Zhang.

How long have they been watching?

Finally, I spot the familiar green-and-white Starbucks logo.

Inside, the air is perfectly conditioned, and they’re playing their latest retro Brazilian compilation; the baristas are smiling, the espresso machine hisses, and it smells like roasted coffee. They’re advertising Fair Trade beans and selling Starbucks Beijing coffee mugs. There’s a couple of tourists, a student or two, and a few local businessmen with pocket PCs and laptops.

I feel better already.

‘Yi bei benride kafei. Zhong.’

‘Room for cream?’ asks the barista. They all know the English for coffee words.

They give me my coffee of the day, size medium. I put the cup down on an empty table and go into the restroom to wash my face. Under the fluorescent light above the mirror, I can see where my tears have cut through the dust and soot of a Beijing spring day.

I look like shit.

I used to be cute. It wasn’t so weird that Trey wanted me, back in the day. I used to be fresh-faced and smooth and round. Nice tits. Good hair. Standard American Attractiveness Template.

Now? I have circles under my eyes, black ones, as dark as the Uighur’s. Crow’s-feet. Lines running down from my nose to my mouth, deep as slashes. Blemishes and brown spots on my face from the sun. I’m seven years older. And I’m not sure I’m any wiser than I was.

Fucking Trey. It’s his fault my life’s turned out this way. I was young and dumb, and I would’ve done anything he wanted me to. And he knew that. He knew that, and he crooked his finger at me, and I followed him.

Then I think: but you went. You didn’t have to. You should’ve known better.

But there’s nothing I can do about any of that now.

I wash my hands, my face. Go out and sit at my table. Sip my coffee and try to think.

They watch Mati Village, Suit #1 said. Who’s watching? Someone I know? One of the artists? A waitress at the
jiaozi
place?

I should call Lao Zhang, let him know these guys are looking for him. I get out my phone, and then I hesitate. The Suits never asked me for his phone number. I sip my coffee and think, they must have it already. And I think: how is that? I stare at my phone and wonder. They probably know my number. Fucking Trey probably gave it to them. Can they tap these things?

How did they find me earlier at Matrix Arcade? They didn’t follow me from Chuckie’s apartment, did they? So how did they find me?

Cell phones all have GPS built in. You can find people with GPS – that’s what it’s for, right?

I switch off my phone. This is crazy. They can’t just do that, can they?

I laugh in spite of myself. Yeah, right. They can do whatever they want to do.

Besides, this is China.

I stare at the iPhone. It was a gift from Trey two years ago: top of the line then, out of date now. He bought it in Hong Kong, unlocked, which is technically illegal, but everyone does it here because you couldn’t get iPhones legally in China until last year, and the legal ones cost a fortune.

How does this stuff work? If my phone is off, does that mean they can’t find me?

I almost get up and throw my iPhone in the trash. I want to hurl it across the room. It’s hard for me to stop myself, but the phone was expensive, and it’s got all my numbers and photos and tunes on it.

I think: it’s off. They can’t find me if it’s off.

Right about then a couple of students come in, two guys, Americans or Europeans. I can tell they’re students by the backpacks, the counterfeit North Face jackets, the perfectly broken-in T-shirts, the vaguely ethnic bead necklaces.

I think for a minute while they get in line. Then I stand up and say,
‘Duibuqi.’
Excuse me.

The two guys look at me. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘Do you speak English?’

‘Sure,’ one of them says. He’s wearing a Bob Marley shirt and a crocheted cap.

‘Great,’ I say quickly, ‘because I’m kind of in a bind. I really need to make a call and my phone died.’ I hold up my switched-off iPhone, which I figure looks pretty convincingly dead. ‘Do either of you have a phone? I’ll buy your coffee if I can make a quick call.’

‘You can use mine, no big,’ says the second guy, the one in the Bruce Lee shirt. ‘So long as you aren’t calling Mongolia or something.’

‘Nah, just Kazakhstan,’ I joke back.

The kid hands me his phone (a new iPhone, way cooler than mine). I quickly punch in Lao Zhang’s number.

‘
Wei, ni hao.
’ I talk in a low voice, as fast as I can. I’m hoping these guys are beginning Chinese students and won’t be able to understand me if I Beijing it up. ‘It’s me, Yili. I met two foreigners today,’ I continue in Chinese. ‘Americans. They asked a lot of questions about you.’

Then I’m not sure what to say.

‘Take care,’ I finally add. ‘Be careful.’

I hit the red button and hand the phone back.

‘Your accent is really good,’ Bob Marley T-shirt guy says.

They’re students, like I thought, just finishing their first semester at Beijing Language and Culture University. Mark and Jayson. ‘How long you been here?’ they want to know. ‘Where did you study Chinese?’ Before I know it, they’ve invited me to their dorm for a party tonight. What the hell, I think. Maybe I’ll go. It’s close to home, and I don’t know what else I’m going to do with myself.

We say our ‘nice meeting you’s’ and ‘later, dude’s,’ and I exit onto Jianguomen Road, heading toward the subway station. Maybe I’ll go to the Ancient Observatory. Climb up to the flat roof, pretend I can’t see the gaudy high-rises and ugly apart-ment blocks, and try to imagine what it was like when the Ancient Observatory was the tallest building around, looking out over a sea of peaked gray tile roofs. When you’d hear donkey bells and peddlers’ cries instead of car horns and screeching brakes.

I try to imagine it, but I can’t.

Jayson and Bob Marley T-Shirt guy’s party is pretty standard for a party in a foreign students’ dorm: loud music, tubs of Yanjing beer, people spilling out of one room into the hall and flowing into another. I catch the scent of hash, no doubt supplied by the local Kazak dealers, and over the din of the music make out English, Korean, German, and attempts at Chinese. I see a few people here close to my age, grad-student types, and I tell myself I don’t look that out of place.

I’m bored the moment I arrive.

I grab a beer, open it, find a clear space along the wall, and lean against it, wondering if I could find some of that hash I’m smelling. Kids bump past me, laughing, stumbling. I don’t even see Jayson or Marley T-shirt guy.

This is stupid, I think. Why did I come? No one’s going to talk to me, and I don’t feel like talking to anyone. It’s like there are these black waves rolling out from me, warning everybody off. Stay away. Don’t fucking talk to me.

‘Hello!’

I look up. Standing in front of me is a Chinese guy, thirtyish, wearing a cheap leather jacket and a faded Beijing Olympics T-shirt, the one with the slogan ‘One World, One Dream.’

‘So sorry to bother,’ he continues. ‘You are American, right?’

‘No. I’m Icelandic.’

‘Ice … ?’ he stammers.

For whatever reason, I suddenly feel sorry for the guy. He’s not bad-looking; he’s got that near-babyfaced handsomeness like Chow Yun Fat did when he was young, but he also has a slight stutter and this sort of clueless vibe, like he doesn’t know what to make of me messing with him.

‘Yes, I’m an American,’ I allow. ‘And you’re … Chinese, maybe?’

He grins broadly, revealing slightly crooked but very clean teeth. ‘Why do you say that?’ he replies, joking back. Maybe he’s not so clueless.

‘Just guessing.’

‘Yes,’ he says. ‘Yes, Chinese. I am even a Beijing native.’

I snort. Everyone claims to be a native Beijinger. ‘Right. And you were probably born just next to the Temple of Heaven.’

He gives me his squinty-eyed, puzzled look again. ‘No. Close to Da Zhong Si. You know Da Zhong Si? That Great Bell Temple?’

‘Heard of it,’ I say noncommittally. I’ve been there before, actually. It’s no longer an active temple, but instead a bell museum, with bells from all around China and the entire world. Cool place, if you’re into bells.

‘That Great Bell was once biggest in the world,’ the guy says, seeming enthused about playing Beijing tour guide. ‘But now no longer. Now is Zhonghua Shiji Tan. Century Altar.’ He speaks English carefully, laying peculiar stress on the first syllables of the words. ‘Made in 1999, for the, the … the new …’

‘Millennium?’ I guess.

‘Yes,’ he says eagerly. ‘Yes, millennium.’

He extends his hand. ‘I am John.’

I can feel the tendons and muscles as his hand lightly closes around mine. He gives my hand a quick, awkward shake and lets go.

‘Yili,’ I reply.

John beams. ‘Oh, I think you speak Chinese. Am I right? Are you a student here, Yili?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘This is my, my …
alma mater
. I still come back at times. I enjoy to meet foreign students. So that I can practice. My English.’

‘Your English is very good,’ I say, because it’s what you’re supposed to say, and I’m sure his English is better than my Chinese.

‘No, no, my English is very poor.’ He stares at me for a moment. There’s not a lot of light in the hall, and it’s hard for me to make out his expression.

Then he blinks and ducks his head. ‘Yili, can I fetch you another beer?’

I should say no. I should leave, go back to the apartment. Spend some time thinking about what I’m going to do with my life after Trey divorces me and leaves the country and my visa runs out.

I should think about going home.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

Like I want to think about any of that.

In no time at all, John has returned with two cold Yanjings. He hands one to me with a small flourish, then holds up his bottle.

‘
Ganbei
,’ he says with a grin. Drink it dry.

We clink bottles and drink.

‘So, Yili, are you married? Do you have children?’

I try not to roll my eyes. Just about every Chinese person I meet asks me these questions.

‘Aren’t you gonna ask how old I am?’ I reply, as this is the inevitable third question in the ‘Way Too Personal’ trifecta.

John waves a hand. ‘Oh, no. I can see you are still very young. Maybe … not thirty?’

Actually, I’m twenty-six. ‘Just about.’

‘But no husband or children?’

‘No kids. Yes on the husband. But we’re separated.’

John shakes his head sadly. ‘This is the nature of the modern times, I think. The family life always suffers.’

‘Are you married, John?’

‘Me?’ For a moment, John looks uncomfortable. ‘No.’

‘Are your parents upset?’

Because if there’s one thing a Chinese son is supposed to do, it’s get married and have kids.

‘I just tell them to have patience,’ John says dismissively. ‘I am still the young man. I have … I have …
benchmarks
.’

‘Benchmarks?’

‘Of accomplishment. Before I am to have children. I have not achieved these yet, but I achieve them soon, I think.’

‘Oh,’ I say, and wipe my forehead. I’m already feeling a little buzzed. Not surprising, considering all I’ve had to eat today is a couple bites of spaghetti.

‘You see, it is hard if you are a young man in China and you are not rich,’ John continues, warming to his topic. ‘Because the Chinese women, they want a successful man. And they can choose who they want, because we have more men than women.’

He leans in closer to me. ‘Some Chinese women, they have second husband. Do you understand my meaning?’

‘Ummm …’ I think about it. Take another swallow of beer. ‘More than one?’

‘Not real husband,’ John confides. ‘More like … boyfriend. But these women, they have money. So they take care of boyfriend. Like concubine. You know that word?’

‘Sure,’ I say, finishing my beer. ‘My husband has one of those.’

‘Oh.’ I can see comprehension slowly dawning. ‘Your husband … he has …’ And here John ducks his head and sneaks a little grin. ‘The yellow fever, perhaps.’

‘Yeah, he’s fucking a Chinese girl,’ I snap, my knuckles whitening around the beer bottle, ‘if that’s what you want to know.’

John flushes red. ‘I am sorry. I just … I just made a bad joke. Please forgive me.’

His face is so open, so kind, that for a moment I’m flooded with guilt. And something else. Warmth, I guess. Just from having somebody be nice to me.

How pathetic is that?

I let out a big sigh. I feel like I’ve been holding my breath.

‘That’s okay.’

The weird thing is, suddenly it
is
okay. It’s been over between me and Trey for a long time. And considering what it is that held us together, the thing we
really
shared, maybe I should start being glad that it’s over.

Starting right now.

‘I’m sorry too, John. It’s just that I’ve had a rough –’ A giggle starts bubbling up from my throat. ‘A rough six years or so,’ I manage.

I want to laugh, and keep laughing, and never stop.

John grins back. ‘Yili, would you like another beer?’

Maybe I shouldn’t, because I pounded this one, and I’m already kind of loaded. But it feels good. I feel lighter somehow.

‘Sure,’ I say. ‘Thanks.’

I lean against the wall and close my eyes. What would it be like, really being free from Trey? Just not caring about him any more. Not ever seeing him again or having anything to do with him, and not having that feel like some hole in the place where my soul is supposed to be, like the part of me that’s able to care about somebody else has gone missing.

Not ever thinking about those times again.

You’ll always think about those times, I tell myself. Always. But maybe, maybe you can think about those times and, from now on, they won’t hurt you so much. Those times, they’ll just be things that happened in the past, and that’s all.

‘Yili?’