Hour of the Rat (12 page)

I lift my hands. “Okay. Whatever.” I scramble up to the road. “Because, unlike you, I’m not a crazy psycho, I’ll let someone know you’re here.”

I pedal back to the Ancient Village Artist Retreat.

When I get there, I turn in the bike to the same Chinese guy who kitted it out for me. “
Hao wan?
” he asks with a grin. Good time?

“
Hen hao wanr.
” Yeah, dude, it was really fun. If you have a weird definition of fun.

I limp into the reception area. I seriously need a beer.

Sitting at the desk is a Chinese woman who looks even younger than Heather. Slight and short, with big eyes and straight hair that cups her chin. She looks like a freakin’ elf. Or an anime character. She puts an English textbook facedown on the counter as I approach.

“
Ni hao
. Are you Alice?” I ask.

She nods. “Yes, Alice.”

“So I was visiting the art space, and this guy, I think his name is Russell? Do you know him?”

“Yes, Russell.” The way she says his name, I can’t tell what she thinks about him.

“Well, he had an accident on the road back there.”

“Accident?”

“Yeah. He … ran into a cow. I mean, he’s not hurt badly or anything, he just can’t walk very well. So I told him I’d let someone know.”

“Okay. Okay, thank you. Thank you very much.” She manages a polite smile before she picks up a cell phone.

“When you’re done, can I talk to you?” I point toward one of the wooden tables they have set up for indoor dining. “I’ll just be over there having a beer.”

By the time she comes over, I’ve drunk half my Liquan and am already thinking about the next one. It goes down like water. Delicious, beer-flavored water.

There’s a couple of guests sitting at the tables, checking email on their laptops, drinking coffee. I’ve found a seat in the corner, away from the others, so it’s relatively private. No sign of my mom or Andy. I figure they must be done with tai chi by now. Maybe they’ve moved on to brush painting.

“Hello,” Alice says, standing with her hands clasped next to the empty chair. “Thank you for telling me about Russell. I call the art space. They send someone to go and help him.”

“Great.” I indicate the chair. “Do you have a few minutes?”

She hesitates. Glances back at the reception desk. No one is waiting there. The few guests in the dining area have their drinks and dumplings and pizzas.

Finally she sits.

“So Russell …” I say. “Is he, uh … I don’t know, a little nervous, maybe?”

“Nervous?”

“Well, he acted like he thought I was trying to hurt him or something.”

“Oh.” Her eyes get anime big. “He is maybe, how do you say … just a little strange.”

“
You yidianr duoxin?
” I ask. A little paranoid?

She giggles. “Oh, you speak Mandarin. Yes, he maybe
you yidian duoxin
. Very good with building things, though.”

“Okay.” So maybe Russell is just a nut and I haven’t stepped in some big pile of shit. And if Jason is off his meds, who knows what kind of joint delusion they could have cooked up between them?

“I don’t know Russell,” I say. “But I heard he’s a friend of David’s. I’m a friend of David’s family. He worked here for a while, right?”

She nods, a small, smooth movement, like her neck’s been oiled.

“Do you know where he is?”

She tilts her head to the side. A hitch. Shakes it no.

There’s something she’s not saying, I’m pretty sure.

“Look, like I’ve told everyone else, I’m a friend of his brother. I can show you pictures. We just want to make sure he’s okay.”

“I really don’t know,” she says, and that part I believe.

“What about Daisy?”

“Daisy?”

“Your friend,” I say, and I’m starting to get a little pissed off at this innocent-pixie routine. “She’s David’s girlfriend, right? They left together?”

She tilts her head the other way. Actually puts a finger on her chin. “I think so, maybe.”

“Come on,” I say. “You know if they left together or not.”

“Okay. They left together.”

“How long ago?”

“Maybe … almost two months?”

“Are they together now?”

“Maybe not.”

“Would she know where he is?”

She gives a fractional shrug. “Don’t know.”

“Do you know where
she
is?”

Alice takes a moment to toy with the Hello Kitty charm dangling from her cell phone.

“I don’t know why I should tell you,” she finally says.

Well, shit, how am I supposed to answer that? “Because … it won’t hurt anything? Because David’s brother isn’t healthy, and knowing that David’s okay would make him happy?”

At that point a couple of Westerners come in and take seats close by—a man and a woman, my age, except all healthy and glowing, wearing yoga pants and groovy eco-spiritual T-shirts.

I switch to Mandarin. “I won’t cause Daisy a problem.”

“It’s not so simple,” she mutters.

“Okay, so the complicated part, what is it?”

“Who told you about David and Daisy?” she asks abruptly.

Now it’s my turn to hesitate. “Some people in Yangshuo.”

“Was it Kobe?” she demands in a rush. “Did he talk to you?”

And that’s when I put it together.

“You really like Kobe,” I say.

She blushes. “We’re friends.”

“But he thinks Daisy is a better friend.”

“Daisy is foolish. She’s not the right girl for him.”

“And you think
you
are.”

She looks up at me, her dark eyes flashing. “We want the same things. To build something, here, in China. We could
have our own guesthouse, our own bar, but he is so stupid about Daisy. He can’t please her. She wants a car, a house, he can’t give her those things. So she runs off with David. And Kobe still wants her back.”

I’m thinking, I hate to burst everyone’s bubble here, but there’s no way David … Jason … can give her those things either.

“And if she stays away, maybe you have a chance with Kobe,” I say.

All this is making me think, after years of obsessing over a guy who didn’t want me anymore, that it’s a fucking huge relief to be single and not give a shit.

“You say you’re her friend, but you don’t want her to come back. I think you’re not a very good friend.”

Now her eyes brim with tears. “Daisy is my friend,” she says quietly. “I want her to be happy.”

“
Wo mingbai
,” I say. I get it. “But if she wants to come back, she comes back. I talk to her, I don’t talk to her, it doesn’t matter.”

She bats around the Hello Kitty charm some more.

“If you really are her friend, you want the best for her, right?” I ask. Twisting the Hello Kitty, as it were.

She lets out a sigh, and then she tells me.

T
HERE
’
S NO WAY
I’
M
going to be able to sell Mom and Andy on a vacation where I need to go next.

We’re having dinner at a rooftop Italian restaurant in a prosperous village in the shadow of Yueliangshan—Moon Mountain—about a half hour by taxi from the Ancient Village Artist Retreat. I’m burned out on beer fish, so I figure why not ravioli and red wine for a change?

This was one of the first villages in the area to start farmers’ restaurants and take advantage of the tourist trade. Now a lot of the farmers have made some money, which they show off by adding upper stories to their skinny cement homes, a third and then a fourth or fifth that no one actually lives in.

Andy sips the wine. Wrinkles his forehead.

“Do you like it?” my mom asks him, a little anxiously.

“I …” He turns to me. “
Ni zenme shuo, ‘wo buxiguan’?
” How do you say …?

“You’re not used to it,” I tell him.

“Yes. I am not used to it.” He takes another sip. “But I think I can learn to like.”

He and my mom smile at each other. He lifts his wineglass. My mom blushes and raises hers. They clink.

This all makes what I need to say next so much easier.

“I’ve got some bad news. I have to leave Yangshuo. For business.”

“Oh, no!” my mom exclaims. “Really? Can’t it wait?”

“I wish … but … it’s kind of time-sensitive. So …”

“Where must you go?” Andy asks.

“Um … near Shantou.”

“Shantou.” Andy frowns. “But that is … factory area. Not very much art.”

“True,” I say. “But there’s this … emerging artist working there who’s doing some really cool stuff. With … recycled electronics. And stuff. And …”

I really should have thought of a cover story before I started drinking wine.

“If I go there now, I have a chance to represent him. If I wait, someone else might sign him. And I hear that he’s really good.”

My mom sighs. “I know that you need to take care of your business. But …”

“I can try to catch up with you later,” I say. “I don’t know how much time you have, Andy. Before you have to go back to Beijing.”

Andy takes in a deep breath as he appears to consider. “Maybe three days.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” my mom says.

Truth is, I can’t tell whether she’s upset or relieved. She
sounds
upset, but maybe she’d just as soon have Andy to herself for a few days, without me in the way.

Well, fine, Mom, I think. Here’s your chance. Have a blast with Anal Andy. Go ahead, do what you’re gonna do.

She always does.

I push that out of my mind. I have a mission, you know? I’ve got something to do. I’m going to find Jason because I told Dog
I’d try, and any problems I have when compared to Dog’s seem pretty fucking trivial.

Even if he does have a wife who loves him. And kids he adores. I mean, so what if I don’t have any of that?

I can walk. I’ve got two arms and two legs. I can talk without having to fight my own brain to come up with the words. I can work, and I have a good job. I get to represent Lao Zhang’s art, which, even though I still don’t know that much about art, I know it’s good art, and important, and means something.

Except of course that I can’t sell it and the DSD is on my ass waiting for me to fuck something up. To lead them to Lao Zhang. To arrest me if they want to prove their point. That they have the power and I’m nothing.

Okay, so let’s not think about that right now. Let’s think about the mission. Operation Find Jason.

“Honey, you okay?” my mom asks.

“Sure. Fine.” I raise my arm to call the waitress. “
Fuwuyuan! Zai lai yi ping hong putaojiu.
” I’ll have some more wine.

Forget about all this shit until tomorrow. What else can I do?

I
WAKE UP THE
next morning, and I’m kind of hungover, but I try to pretend like I’m not. Especially when Mom comes in after her early-morning tai chi session with Andy, all rosy-cheeked and serene, and I’m still lying in bed clutching my pillow and wondering if I have the energy to get up and make a cup of Starbucks instant coffee.

“Do you want to get some breakfast?” she asks.

“Yeah. Sure. Maybe.”

Mom sits down in the chair by my bed. “I’m just wondering … Do you want me to go with you?”

“No!” I blurt, and then realize that probably sounded harsh.
“It’s not a nice place, seriously. You should hang out here and have some fun.”

“I just don’t want you to go running off because Andy came along,” she blurts back. “I guess I shouldn’t have told him about the trip. I should have said no when he wanted to come. It’s not … it’s not really fair to you. The whole idea was for you and me to spend some time together and have some fun, and it hasn’t worked out that way at all, and I feel really bad about that.”

Hah. If she only knew. I don’t have a fucking clue what I was thinking when I asked her to come along in the first place. I mean, that was a stupid idea, right?

It’s totally better if I do this on my own.

“That’s not it at all,” I say. “I just have to take care of business, and I won’t have time to hang out, and this is a way nicer place for you to be. I mean … I wish I didn’t have to leave.”

This is, actually, mostly true. I haven’t even gone down a river on a real bamboo raft yet.

My mom sits there, eyes downcast.

“I was just wondering …” she says. “Does it bother you that … well, I like having sex?”

So totally not what I need to hear when I’m hungover and undercaffeinated.

Or maybe ever.

“I, uh … no.”

“Because that’s what’s led me to make some pretty bad choices,” she continues earnestly. “I just … you know, I really enjoy it. Always have. It’s not about needing a man to pay the bills, because God knows the men I chose mostly sucked at that. That always fell on me, and you know I always tried my best, don’t you, honey?”

“I … yeah … you worked hard,” I manage.

“I wanted to make a good life for us.” Now she’s getting
teary. “I really did. And I didn’t do a very good job. And I’m really sorry.”

I clutch my pillow, because this is seriously freaking me out.

“Andy seems like a nice guy,” I finally say. “If you like him … you know, that’s cool.”

She gives me an odd look. Shakes her head. “Well, I’m glad you think he’s nice anyway.”