There were moments of danger, openings of danger; maws into which any passing man might fall, Bai thought: This was one. It had claimed another man today, not him. An omen. Two hands on the wheel, two eyes on the road. There ahead was his exit lane. He steered, and then he was sailing up and over, across a long steel bridge above the Pearl River.
On the opposite shore he entered groves of lichi, with their fluttering almond-shaped leaves, and then tunneled through the township of Dongguan. Another exit, a turn, and he was entering the demarcation zone that separated Shenzhen, a Special Administrative Region, from the rest of south China. Shenzhen had different tax and banking structures, different accords with foreigners and different industries. Nevertheless, the flood of people and goods in and out of Shenzhen was heavy and unrelenting. Only a simple pass was required to get into Shenzhen, and this pass had been an easy thing for Bai to get. It was getting out of Shenzhen, and into Hong Kong, that was going to be hard.
He pulled into the truck lane and slowed to a stop, to wait for this first checkpoint. He was high, up so high in this seat. He could be calm. This was easy. All he had to do was show the pass. It was a real one, acquired with good money and favors. They had no reason to question him. He’d show the pass, get into Shenzhen. One thing at a time.
His turn at the gate. He nosed the rig forward, and when he stopped, the engine heaved up a big deflating sigh.
“Papers,” the man said.
Bai reached in the compartment easily, casually, took out the folded document and handed it down. He watched as the man opened up the triplicate form, flipped through it. Then he tore off the bottom sheet, the blue sheet, and handed the top two sheets back up to Bai.
Bai took them in a daze and set them on the seat next to him. He realized the guard was waving him out. Waving him into Shenzhen. He was in. Quickly he put the truck back in gear and eased out, onto the road, into the hall of mirrors, the crowded neighborhoods, the free-for-all of China’s number-one special economic zone.
This part had been easy; it was only the beginning. He followed a long, dreary suburbia through the fertile Pearl River delta to the actual town of Shenzhen, which sat by the border. A generation ago it had been farms; now the road wound through patches of smoking industry, cut with blocks of apartment buildings, windows hung with flapping laundry. He crossed the town quickly, heading for the Border Administration Area.
Here the hills beside the road looked dug out. There were piles of rock and rubble everywhere. It was as if this edge of the city had been forcibly scooped out of rock and planted. And then the road curved around the hip of a green cliff, and there, below Bai and spreading out forever, was the South China Sea, turquoise, brilliant.
And further away, just there down the coast, he could see the hills of Hong Kong-green, carpeted with the white spires of success. His soul rose up in joy. He followed the signs for Huangang, the Immigration and Customs point for vehicles.
Finally he came to the checkpoint. The uniformed man stepped up to the truck, and Bai handed down the packet of papers that he had assembled and for which he had paid so well. His mien was disaffected. It verged on boredom. He was careful not to overplay. He barely glanced at the uniformed man.
But he felt the advancement of every second, every tick, every breath, as if they were random rising knife points. The guard rifled through the papers, checked that the overall package was in order, stopped here and there to study a page, pull his bushy brows down, scrutinize it… Bai felt like he was turning to liquid. He noticed his knees were not holding still. He pretended to fiddle with the radio.
“Destination?” the guard said.
“Hong Kong.”
“Cargo?”
“Chickens.” Bai set the station, turned the volume all the way down, and finally, unbearably, gave the guard his full attention.
“Pull into bay number twelve,” the guard said.
Bai nodded. Did his face show anything? No. Calm, a brief nod. But inside him every fiber was screaming.
They were stopping him. They were going to search him.
He threw the truck into gear and lurched forward. As he pulled away from the booth he saw the guard take out his cell phone and speak into it. Please. He sent a personal prayer to the god of fire and wind. He thought of the Long Zu Temple back home, all the incense he had lit there, all the fruits and fang gu he had left there at the altar. For almost a thousand years the god had protected men who lived for porcelain. Please. Slowly he rolled his sighing, huffing truck into bay number twelve.
They lay back to front, him behind her, his arms around her and one of his legs between hers. She squeezed gently and he moved in answer. The only sound in the room was their breathing.
She picked up his hand. There in his palm was the human ideogram. He needed love. It was easy to see. It was all over him, in the way he had moved his body, in the protective circle of his arms, in his mouth and the way he had buried himself in her.
What should she keep from today? What to memorize? Already all the things they’d done were blurring. Maybe she could retain the smallest part of his hand, the mound below the thumb. There she saw the lines and creases, his spirit of life, his vitality. The glory that was in him when he chose to let it out.
She would give him a memory room, of course, and a symbol to guard his door. The symbol would have to be a thing she really loved. None less than Thomas Aquinas had written: It is necessary that a man dwell with solicitude on, and cleave with affection to, the things which he wishes to remember, because what is strongly impressed upon the soul slips less easily away from it.
Solicitude, affection; it should be something from art, or a line of poetry. She thought about what the Hanlin scholar had written after being sent south to Jingdezhen: Who knows about me? Yes, that would do, that could be Michael Doyle’s signpost. She pressed her back against the front of him. If only she could just stay here with him forever.
He stirred, his fingers came around her face, and she twisted over like a snake. His broad-boned face was lax with happiness.
“You okay?” she said.
“More than. You?”
“Yes.” She smiled. So intimate a while ago, and now so polite.
“Did you?” he asked. She knew he was talking about coming. She could answer yes. She had learned that a lot of men couldn’t tell.
“Because I didn’t see it,” he said.
She pressed to him, her cheek against the reassuring terrain of his chest. It wasn’t easy for her, but it was a hard thing to talk about, especially with someone like him, whom she might never see again. Still, he had his arms in such a safe net around her. “It’s okay,” she said. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Don’t tell me not to worry about it.”
“I just don’t always.”
He pulled her up until her lips were on his, and kissed her with the confident promise of a man who has already been inside. Then he moved to her ear and said, “What makes it easier?”
She touched her hearing aids. “Taking these out.”
“And what happens then?”
Instead of answering, she moved against him.
“Really.” He was fascinated by her. “That’s what you like?” He parted her legs. “Take them out, then.”
“If I do I can’t hear you. We can’t talk.”
“Take them out.”
Lia lifted them out and put them aside, felt the inflating bliss of belonging. She let herself fall open, looking at him up over her on one elbow, his chest and shoulders, straight falling hair, the rhythm of his arm, the calm acceptance in his eyes. He bent to kiss her ears, in the tender part where her little amplifiers sat. Here, he seemed to say with his mouth, what else can I love about you?