Hour of the Rat (32 page)

“Are you a Taoist?” I ask.

He grins. “I practice.”

A
T ONE POINT THE
dog starts whining and comes over to the bed. “It’s okay, dog,” I tell her, but she keeps whining. Maybe she only understands Chinese. “Uh,
dou hao. Xiuxi! Shuijiao!
” Finally she settles down again. Which is good, because John does not seem to be settling down anytime soon.

He gets my yin once, twice, and it’s not until we’re trying something called “Mating Cicadas” (it’s a lot better than it sounds) and a third dose of my yin that John’s jade stalk gives it up inside my red pearl.

“Wow,” I finally say.

“I can do better,” he tells me.

I
MANAGE TO GET
out of bed, clean myself up, put my pj’s back on, because even though John’s seen pretty much all there is to see of me, I still don’t like being seen. The dog’s lying on a rug near the bathroom. When she sees me approach, she looks up and thumps her tail. “Good dog,” I whisper. “
Hao gou.
” I hold out my hand, and her wet nose nuzzles my palm.

By the time I get back to bed, John is sound asleep. I settle in next to him.

I lie there, exhausted, but not quite ready to sleep.

I just had the best sex of my life, with Creepy John.

And he doesn’t even snore.

I
WAKE UP BECAUSE
the dog barks.

I lift my head, and I see John and the dog by the door. He has the dog on the leash, and the dog is doing this excited hopping and circling, from her back to her front legs. She barks again. A happy bark.

“Sorry!” John says in a low voice. “I just take her outside. For walk. I already give her antibiotic,” he adds.

“Thanks.”

After he closes the door, I fall back on the bed. I’m so sore I feel like I’ve been to fucking Taoist boot camp. Or Taoist fucking boot camp. Ha-ha.

I lie there for a while, but I can’t sleep. I think, John will come back soon. Do I want to be lying here in bed when he does? For another round of yin exchange?

I haul my ass out of bed and into the shower.

As I stand under the water, I think of all the reasons why sex with Creepy John was a truly bad idea.

Okay, I’m not completely irresponsible. I know I have this tendency to occasionally hook up with guys I don’t know very well. So I’m on the pill. And I also insist on condoms.

Well, most of the time. Last night being an exception.

I’ve had the hepatitis B vaccination series, so that’s good. There’s a lot of hep B in China. HIV, though … and there’s a lot of HIV here, too.

He’s with the DSD. He’s not going to have HIV. I don’t think.

And, he’s with the DSD. Which I am pretty sure is one for the “truly bad idea” category.

On the other hand, it’s slightly less creepy than if he were just some crazed stalker dude. Right?

How can you be so fucking stupid? I ask myself.

By the time I come out of the shower, pressure bandage rewrapped, dressed in my jeans and a fresh T-shirt, John has returned with the dog.

“Breakfast,” he announces.

Croissants and coffee. On a tray. Un-fucking-believable. “They have all this at the hotel,” he explains, setting it up on the little table. “From European bakery. And very good coffee.”

“You like coffee?”

“Before, not very much. But lately I like more and more.” He smiles at me.

The dog, meanwhile, nuzzles my legs and then sits on my feet.

“She is very affectionate,” John says.

“Yeah.”

“Please, sit. Have coffee.”

I feel this sudden rush of … maybe not anger, but irritation. I don’t want to do anything that John tells me to do.

Except I really want some coffee. And maybe a Percocet.

Is it too early for beer?

I lower myself onto the chair and pick up the cup of coffee. I read somewhere that a study in Japan showed that rats get happier just from smelling coffee. I take a deep breath before I sip.

John sits across from me, holding his coffee cup in his hands. He looks younger somehow. Boyish. A bounce in his step like the dog’s.

Maybe it was all that yin he got last night.

“So where do you want to go now, Yili?”

I shrug. I don’t really know, and I don’t feel like talking about it.

John tears off a piece of his croissant. Hesitates.

“If you tell me a little more, maybe I can help.”

“Look, just fucking lay off me, all right?”

He sits back in his chair. I’m not sure how to read the expression on his face. Is he pissed off? Is he hurt? I can’t tell.

“Okay, last night? You satisfied your curiosity,” I say. “Fine. So did I. But you think that means we’re suddenly all friends and I’m going to trust you? How stupid do you think I am?”

Now he’s angry, and I can tell. He slams his mug on the table, coffee splashing over the sides. “What do you think this is, Ellie? What do you think?”

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.

A
FTER 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.”

T
HE 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.”