The old man narrowed his eyes and fired a single glance at the photo. "No!" He walked away.
10
The second-to-last night in Yinchuan they ate dinner at the Number One. Alice noticed that when the plate was turned in Lin’s direction he selected a charred, wrinkled chili pepper with his chopsticks and bit into it, eyes closed. With his other hand he dragged his teacup to his mouth, forehead squeezed in pain and gratitude.
"I don’t think you’re supposed to eat it," she ventured.
He swallowed. "I like it." He gasped. "I want it. It’s just that I can’t bear it." He turned his gaze to her, letting all the weight of it fall on her. Eh, he thought, seeing her strain toward him and aware of the same stirring within himself, something’s between us. Shi bu shi? But they were in public. He dared do no more than look at her a certain way.
Of course, he could touch her now. He only had to move his leg a few inches under the table. Then he would know, and she would know, and it would be done. But what if he was wrong? Such a misstep would be disastrous. She was an outsider.
He picked up another hot pepper with his chopsticks, and placed it on her plate. "You know," he said to her softly, "it’s like life." Then he paused, and turned away to his left, where Dr. Kong was speaking to him.
Lin stepped out into the street, Meiyan’s photo in his pocket. He had left the hotel quietly when the group broke up after dinner. He was sure none of the others noticed. He paused for a moment, feeling the vast reassurance of a city around him, the swell of people, the tide of ongoing life. Pedestrians passed him, unconcerned. Animals, carts, children.
He opened his city map and thought through the places he’d covered. The new town-the industrial section on the other side of the train station. The old Chinese quarter. The old downtown. Tonight he would walk the Muslim quarter. He wondered what it would be like. The Muslims, the huimin, they were not like other Chinese. This was what he had always heard. An idea that had hardened in his mind. What was the word Interpreter Mo had used? Prejudice.
As he walked he thought about Mo Ai-li. The PLA had picked her up, then released her. That meant certainly they were watching him too. Should he change his plan? Stop looking for his wife?
No. All of the last twenty-two years had led him to this point. He had to find Meiyan. Besides, what could they do to him? He’d already lost everything.
Everything of then. This is now. Again he thought of Mo Ai-li. No. To Meiyan he’d made vows, he’d made promises. This was the least he could do for her now. He’d follow it to the end.
He touched his long fingers lightly to the photograph in his pocket and kept walking.
Master Tang arrived at Alice’s room at the appointed hour. The seven-day interval was finished and she had completed the rituals as he’d instructed her. Now from a small velvet cloth he unwrapped the wooden ling-pai, the spirit tablet.
She read the characters carved into it:
Meng Shaowen
Passed over July 14
Beloved by her descendant, the host of this house.
"It’s completed?" Alice asked.
"Eh," Master Tang reproved her, "obviously you are not highly literate! I suspected you might not be. Did you not notice that the dot is missing on the character zhu, host?"
"Oh, yes, of course." She felt herself flush. "I cannot face you. "
"It doesn’t matter," he grumped. "Anyway, this is what the cheng-zhu ritual is all about, do you understand me or not? The tablet does not come to life until we paint the eye on the dragon. The dot on the character zhu must be completed. Now. Usually to do this we choose the most literary member of the family. This person is the dian-zhu, the Inscriber of the tablet. But in this case-"
"You do it, Master Tang," she said swiftly.
"It will not do." He sighed. "The yin-yang master as the dian-zhu-oh no, it is unlucky. You must be the one to do it, Interpreter Mo."
"I’m not worthy."
He did not disagree. "Anyway, you must. In ink or in blood. You choose."
"In blood."
He bowed his head, removed a ceremonial pin from a silk box in his inner sleeve, and handed it to her.
He intoned a prayer while she stabbed her index finger. "Oh, shit," she breathed, as too much blood bubbled out.
"Just complete the character," he said softly.
Thank God I know where the dot goes, she thought, bending over the tablet, it would be so humiliating to have to ask him. The blood was dripping now. Quick. Right above the top horizontal stroke-there-she stood up. It was messy, but in the right place.
"Thus we send the spirit on its journey," Tang said softly. "The ling-pai is its earthly home. Now: the ritual of an-zhu, in which we place the ling-pai on the altar and reincorporate it into the family. Now you will become part of Madam Meng’s line. See that you serve her ghost well. In return she will always guide you."
Alice waited.
"Koutou, " he said, Kowtow.
"What?"
"Koutou!" More sharply.
Alice fell to her knees in front of the altar and knocked her forehead against the grimy carpet. Each time, she felt jolted a little farther off the track she’d been trapped on for so long. Could she really change ancestors so easily? Could she drop the scaffolding of Horace-or at least relax it?
When he was gone it would all change. She shivered with fear: this thought again, this possibility, Horace dying. Yet it might happen soon. She pictured herself in a world without him, a world where she had only her own heart and mind to follow. A world open and blank with possibility; terrifying, almost. She thumped her forehead on the carpet. All of you in the land of the dead, she prayed, help me. Let me become myself. And, Horace. When you go I want your love, I want to keep it to remember. But please go on and leave me in peace.
She paused in midreverence, half shocked at herself. She could feel Master Tang watching her. She looked up at him.
"You may rise now," he said. "You are the daughter of Meng Shaowen."
And Lucile, she added in her mind. And Horace. Then she thought: This is crazy. Even Chinese don’t do this anymore. Not educated Chinese. To them this was like the earth being flat. Like curing illness with leeches.
The discomfort billowed up inside her and she wanted to get the whole thing over with. Quickly she counted out the sum to which they had agreed.
He pocketed the money. "Good health. Long life."
"Bici, " she whispered, The same to you.
Guo Wenxiang slipped into an unmarked doorway in a back alley of the Chinese quarter, and knocked softly. He’d walked here casually, making many unnecessary turns, twisting and changing his route, entering buildings where he knew no one and standing in dark hallways, then leaving again quietly by other doors.
He was sure there was no one behind him. But in China there almost always was. He knew this well.
So as Guo knocked now, he glanced nervously around. The man who lived in this apartment had been a guard years ago at Camp Fourteen, the women’s camp on the other side of the mountains. Camp Fourteen had been a cluster of ocher huts on the flat, silty plain that spread out below the purple wall of the Helan Shan. By all accounts evil attended it. There were women who died of illness and malnourishment. Other women lost their health, and whatever remained of their humanity. It was said of this man, this former guard, that he had seen everything, and knew everything, but that it angered him when people asked him about it. Hua you shuo huilai, it was also said that after a few cups of wine his mouth loosened and his memories flowed. Guo held a bottle of Red Crane sorghum spirits tightly against his chest, waiting.