We stare at each other. I focus on the white scar that cuts across his eyebrow.
I want to say something awful, something nasty, something so mean that he’ll fuck off and out of my life forever.
But I can’t.
“I don’t know,” I say.
AFTER BREAKFAST WE TAKE a walk: me, John, and the dog. We walk on the brick path that runs along the lake-a promenade, I guess you’d call it. There’s one of those grey stone “traditional” fences to keep you from falling in, like you see everywhere in China: square posts with flowers carved at the top, a rail and a slab below, with geometric cutouts. It’s beautiful, and quiet, and we don’t fill the silence by trying to talk. What’s there to say?
But finally I have to say something. I guess I owe him, given that he got me off of the Dali’s Most Wanted Foreigners list.
Unless he was the one who set me up…
But no. I don’t really think that. I don’t know how I feel about John, exactly. But I don’t think he’d do that to me.
“I’m just doing a favor for a friend, that’s all. I didn’t think it was going to get complicated.”
He frowns. “Complicated how?”
“I’m still not sure. But it’s not like… I mean, it’s just a bunch of foreigners, mostly. Nobody’s doing anything against China.”
Of course, neither were my artist friends, last year. But they were Chinese, and it’s not the same.
“Why don’t you want me to help you, Ellie?”
The question drops in the air like a stone.
“Just… It’s something I should do myself, that’s all.”
“Why?” He sounds more frustrated than angry. “Why you have to do everything by yourself?”
I stop walking. I don’t know why. I lean against the stone railing and look at the lake. Wonder if the white bird is out there somewhere.
“I guess because I can’t find anyone to do it with me. No one I can trust anyway.”
I have to give him credit. He doesn’t say some stupid bullshit like, “But you can trust me.” He doesn’t say anything at all.
The dog whimpers a little and settles on my feet. I scratch behind her ears. I’m not really sure what dogs like, but she likes that.
Eventually the three of us start walking again.
“If you want to stay in this room some more time, you can,” he tells me.
“Thanks.”
We stand inside the hotel room: me, John, and the dog. The room’s been cleaned. The bed made. Fresh sheets.
“I go back to Beijing, then,” John says. He hesitates. “I think you are just on vacation. If anyone asks me.”
I look at him standing there, head tilted down, hands hooked in the pockets of his jeans like a sheepish kid.
“There’s something you could do for me,” I say. “I mean, you don’t have to. Just if you want. And if you don’t want to, if it’s too much trouble…”
“Tell me,” he says.
I don’t want to say it. Because it’s like I’m attached and I don’t want to give her up.
“The dog. Can you take her back to Beijing? Make sure she gets her medicine? You can take her to my apartment, to my mom. Just let my mom know what she needs to do. To take care of her.”
I swear it’s like the fucking dog is psychic. She looks up at me. Her eyes are big and gold. She thumps her tail.
“Sure,” John says. “Sure. I can do that.”
“And you won’t… you won’t sell her for hotpot in Guangzhou. Right?”
John draws back. He looks offended. “Of course not.” He holds his hand out, so the dog can sniff it. “The tradition of eating dogs is old-fashioned and uncivilized. China needs to abandon this, as part of modernization.”
“And cats?”
“Certainly we should not eat cats. They do not even taste good.”
THE DOG CLIMBS INTO John’s silver Toyota without much fuss and curls up on the backseat.
“Be good, dog,” I tell her, even though I’m pretty sure she doesn’t understand English. “I’ll see you soon, okay?”
She nuzzles my hand, thumps her tail.
John stands by the open door of the driver’s side, hands clasped in front of him, like he doesn’t know what do with them. “Don’t worry. I will take good care of her.”
“Thanks.”
“If you have any troubles, call me.”
“I will.”
We stand there for a moment. Then he nods, gets into the car, and starts the engine.
Who is this guy? I still can’t figure him out.
I watch the car pull away, hear the dog whine and bark once, twice. Then the car turns down a narrow lane, and I can’t see it anymore.
Now what?
I GO BACK INSIDE the hotel room and look around. It’s a nice room. Nicer than the places I usually stay. Maybe I’ll take John up on his offer. Stay here a few days longer.
And do what?
I made a big deal to John about how I had this thing I needed to do, something I had to do by myself, without him. How I had to help a friend.
But what can I actually do about it?
I make a mental list.
I can go back to the Dali Perfect Inn, see if they have any contact info for Jason/David/Langhai. I can search the Web to see if he’s uploaded any new videos. And I can go to New Dali and check out the Modern Scientific Seed Company.
I fall back on the bed with a sigh. I really don’t feel like doing any of this, except for maybe the Internet search, because I don’t have to go anywhere to do that. But after getting on my high horse and telling John I was on this big fucking mission…
I guess I have to try.
I make myself a cup of Starbucks VIA and boot up my battered laptop. Go to Langhai’s stream on Youku.
And fuck me if there isn’t a new video.
I settle back in my chair, heart thumping, fingers twitching, and I grin, because I’ve been hunting this guy and here’s a trail of bread crumbs. I click on the video.
Another field of grain, manipulated so the sky is dark and the grain glowing yellow, outlined in black.
“The Truth About Eos in China,” the title says. In English.
“This is what you need to know,” a man says. American. He sounds young. Ragged, on the edge of exhaustion.
Jason?
“Eos has a joint venture with Hongxing Agricultural Products. They’re working on developing GMOs for the Chinese market. Especially rice.”
There’s a shot of a bag of New Century Hero Rice. The farmer smiling, raising his hoe like a rifle.
“They’re putting this stuff on the market illegally. Without permission. Hiding what they’re doing in places like Guiyu, where no one would think of looking.”
Shots of Guiyu. Of tainted fields surrounded by smoking electronic scrap. Of the New Century Seeds storefront, the electronics workshop where I ran into Mr. Piggy, who subsequently arranged to have my ass kicked, I’m pretty sure.
“In Yunnan, one of China’s breadbaskets.”
I think I recognize the landscape, the green fields and hills around Dali. Then a shot of another storefront, in the middle of a typical Chinese city street. The camera lingers on it long enough for me to take in a cartoon graphic on the window-a dancing tomato tangoing with an ear of corn. The supered title reads: “Modern Scientific Seed Company. Dali, Yunnan.”
“Eos has its people working in the US government, in the Department of Agriculture, in the FDA, making sure their products get approved with minimal oversight.” A slide of names and positions. Most of them I don’t recognize-I mean, who knows the names of deputy directors of the FDA and US Trade Policy Committee members?-but isn’t that one a Supreme Court judge? “It works the other way, too-Eos employs former congressional and White House staffers as lobbyists-they’ve spent hundreds of millions of dollars on lobbying and campaign contributions.”