18
At the border, Bai waited in the number-twelve inspection bay. He was dying inside. He would not show it.
Three men walked over out of the gatehouse. “Xia che,” one of them barked, Get out. Bai complied. He snapped open the big shiny door, lighted on the ground, and held out his paperwork.
The head man took it, read through it. He was studying every word. Time fell away from them, grinding seconds that felt like hours to Bai.
“Destination?” the man said at length, even though there was only one possible destination from this checkpoint.
“Hong Kong.”
“Cargo?”
“Chickens.”
The man folded the paperwork and secreted it in a pocket instead of giving it back to Bai.
Oh, that is not good, Bai thought in misery. That is very not good. You should not be keeping my paperwork.
The man turned to the other two. “Kan kan yixia,” he instructed sharply, Take a look. He turned to Bai. “You, rest over there a moment.”
Bai felt his whole body tingling with fear as he stepped back. Rest, right. But he obeyed and went to stand under the lit-up roof of the guardhouse.
From here he watched the men gather behind the truck. If they found it, would they kill him? He calculated how much money he had stitched into the hem of his shirt. Not enough, maybe, for all of them. Better if he could get the head man alone.
And then if that didn’t work…
Anguish choked up in him as he watched the men yank open the truck’s great rear doors. Dry clouds of smoke billowed from the freezer.
Here was Bai’s genius, come to life: two thousand pounds of cleaned, raw, frozen chickens, skins nubbly and rock-hard. He could see the men standing around looking at them, halfheartedly moving a few icy birds to one side or the other. The chicken feet were death talons, extended in clawlike despair, thousands of them. Their heads and sightless eyes were all frozen in mid-scream. Who would want to touch them? The men were talking back and forth. He could hear the elastic pinging of their Cantonese.
Things had changed so much. Just ten years before, most goods were still being moved by sea. China’s porous coastline, and the near-infinite range of beaching possibilities in Hong Kong’s archipelago, had long made this the main modus of discreet shippers. But then there were the pirates to be dealt with. They were a nest of poison vipers on the sea. They murdered any who crossed them. And one had to pay them outrageously, no matter what.
Modernization had altered the smuggling patterns. Now there were busy roads, and convoys of trucks bearing all manner of goods roaring back and forth, and a big, efficient machine for processing goods and people across this densely populated, heavily traversed border. Bai stood smoking, using his cigarette to control the tremblings in his hand-good, good, now they were arguing with each other. They seemed to be only moving the top layer of chickens around. They had no gloves. It was a job that became uncomfortable quickly, as he knew. As he had calculated.
He drew on his cigarette. Now the voices of the two men had turned sharp. They were arguing. The third man walked back over. For a while he had just been listening. Bai was able to follow Cantonese only sketchily, but it sounded as if the odds were in his favor. He smiled, a small smile but a real smile that came up from inside him. His biggest test, his greatest portal. This took the ultimate in face and wits. To say nothing of power of mind.
The third man opened the packet of papers he’d been holding and read through them again, scanning, checking. Bai held his cigarette tight. In time the third man finished reading and spoke peremptorily. He had a higher rank. Bai strained to follow them.
Finally the man turned. He handed Bai the papers. “You can go,” he said in Mandarin. The men were locking the rear freezer doors.
“Good.” Bai accepted the papers and folded them into his pocket, as if the matter were casual, insignificant. Silently, he was screaming in jubilation and gratitude. He would make so many offerings and spend many hours on his knees when he got back home.
He waited a few minutes in the entrance lane and then finally pulled onto the expressway, winding down through the new territories. It was suddenly greener, more rural, its grass-and-shrub-covered crags dotted with electric towers. His numb happiness was giving way to excitement. The pointed, emerald hills, the blue sea and dome of sky, all of it fairly pulsated with money. His now, success.
He sailed through a tunnel, a dark hurtling cocoon around his white truck, and then exploded out again into the light. The brilliant light of day. The road unrolled before him. He flew over a massive white suspension bridge with the sea far below. Container ships streamed silent on the blue horizon. Bai felt a part of life at last, here, in Hong Kong. He was at the center of the world.
Lia lay completely at rest. He slept next to her. She felt she was floating outside time and memory, no different than the light on the tile roofs, the lacy pattern of the leaves. She wanted to remember this feeling.
Because soon she would have to get up and go to the airport.
He stirred, opened his eyes, lit up at the sight of her. His hands came down and scooped her up from below, squeezed her. “I feel so good,” she said, and wrapped her body around his, hard and tight. He curved around her in return, and they lay, and slept, and woke and talked again.
Finally they got up and climbed in the shower. They were quiet. They washed each other, then stood together under the hot jets of water. Her hair was loose, streaming down. She wanted to stand there forever.
But finally she stepped back from him and moved him under the water until his back was comfortable against the shower wall. She took him in her right hand. He protested, but she touched the middle finger of her other hand to his lips. “Just my hand,” she said, taking the soap. “Let me watch you.”
She held his gaze the whole time. With a flash of shame she saw herself claiming him, just to show him she could, just to take him-there, she thought, watching his eyes lose their focus under the hot water, that’s it. But when he overflowed, her excitement was hot-crossed with the raw wound of her leaving, so that when he doubled over against her she burst into tears-hot, indecently vulnerable tears. And it was he, still gasping, who had to hold her and comfort her as she cried. “It’s all right.” He wrapped himself around her.
“I don’t want to go.”
“I know.”
She leaned against him, she let herself go, all her weight, and he stood still as a tree and held her until she’d quieted. Then he turned her under the water and rinsed her face of tears.
They went out and dressed and she put her suitcase by the door. The sun was setting. “Lia?” he said. He walked over to her and touched her ears, to see if her hearing aids were in, to see if she’d heard him. They weren’t. She hadn’t.
He knows me already, she thought. She caught his hand and kissed it and pointed to the little plastic buttons, which still lay on the table. He brought them and pressed them in. “Is that right?”
“Not quite.” She twisted them into place. “But thank you.”
He smoothed back her damp-braided hair. She smiled at him, but there was something resolute in her now. She was leaving.
They found a cab on Jiaodaokou. “We’re early now,” Michael said. “We have time. Let’s stop at the place on Houhai Lake. You’ll see, your pots are gone. You’ll feel better.” His fingers were twined through hers.
“Thanks,” she said softly, and gave directions to the driver. When they pulled into the outer court, the sight of them brought the guard to his feet, crackling down the pages of his newspaper.