Year of the Tiger

CHAPTER SIX

What I remember most, from that first day in the sandbox, is how fucking hot it was, and how I was so thirsty because there wasn’t enough bottled water, and the donkey.

I was looking out the window of the Humvee, trying to make out the landscape through three inches of dirty glass, and it was almost like being under water. I saw desert: flat, endless scrub, different shades of dirt, an occasional clump of cinderblock buildings that blended into the gray dust.

We ground to a stop at the outskirts of some little town – just a crossroads and a couple of telephone poles stuck between mud-brick houses and a few painted cement storefronts. A truck was broken down in front of us.

Across from me, tied to one of those poles, was a donkey hooked up to a cart. Flanks crisscrossed by whip scars, ribs sticking out, head hanging down, like it’d had a lifetime of getting the shit kicked out of it.

‘Heard Hajji’s rigging donkey carts with explosives,’ the soldier next to me said.

I must have looked scared. I was scared. I’d joined the National Guard, not the fucking Marines. I was nineteen years old. I’d enlisted in the Guard after high school and trained as a medic. I thought I’d learn a skill, get some money for college. I didn’t think I’d be doing this.

‘Hey, it’s just a rumor.’ He gave me an awkward pat and stared out the window. A little gaggle of kids hung out by the block wall surrounding one of the houses, laughing, shoving, daring each other to approach us. A couple of them waved. Behind them I saw two women, dressed head to toe in black abayas, looking like some kind of flightless crows.

‘Most of these people are glad we’re here,’ the soldier told me. ‘You’ll see.’

I start to wake up, and I don’t know where I am. Behind my eyes, everything’s bright and yellow, and I’m filled with dread, because I don’t want to be there again, in that place.

Except … except … I miss it too.

I open my eyes. I can’t get oriented. The direction of my bed doesn’t make any sense, the wall is on the wrong side of the room, my head’s facing the wrong way, like I’m sleeping in the Bizarro universe. Then everything shifts into position, to where it belongs. I’m not over there. I’m lying on my futon in my little room in Chuckie’s apartment off Wudaokou Dajie.

I lie there for a minute, rubbing my face, which feels kind of numb. My eyes feel swollen. I close them. Start sinking back into sleep.

I feel my heart thudding too fast in my chest before I actually remember what happened last night.

Was it really last night? Did that really happen? I have this sudden flash of myself lying in bed, John taking off my bra. I shudder. I think I’m going to throw up.

I struggle to stand up, rising first to my knees, grasping the back of the chair. My limbs feel like they’re filled with sand.

As I brace myself against the chair and stagger to my feet, I see my jeans folded neatly on the seat, my shirt resting on top of that, my bra draped across the shirt like it’s some kind of post-modern window display.

The bra was on the chair back, I think dimly. That’s where John put it last night. He must have moved it.

I stumble into the bathroom, thinking I’m going to puke. But I don’t. Instead, I splash some water on my face. Stare at myself in the mirror. My eyes look huge. Everything still glows around the edges.

What the fuck did he give me?

Okay, I think, okay. Whatever that was all about, he’s gone, I’m here, and I’m okay now.

As I come out of the bathroom, I hear a lot of noise coming from Chuckie’s bedroom.

For a minute I just stand there, my heart pounding in my throat. I’m thinking, what if John’s still here?

But then I hear a crash that sounds like falling books, and Chuckie curses.

Okay.

I go back to my room and put on my pants – not the ones on the chair: I don’t want to touch that pile of clothes just yet. I wander out into the kitchen. Slanting yellow light comes in through the window. It’s past two in the afternoon.

I pour myself some water from the fridge. And notice something weird: all the dirty dishes have been washed and are sitting neatly in the dish rack.

Not Chuckie, I think. In general, Chuckie doesn’t do dishes. He lives on takeout. So do I. That’s about two week’s worth of dishes from both of us in that rack.

I shudder again and leave the kitchen.

Here’s Chuckie coming out of his room, carrying an armload of clothes and a duffel bag.

He sees me and jerks back like he’s stuck his finger in a light socket. Then he looks away.

‘What’s up?’ I ask.

‘Going home to see the family,’ he mutters.

‘Oh, yeah?’

Chuckie can’t stand his family. At least that’s what he always says to me. ‘They are just idiots,’ he complains. ‘Hopeless.’ And they live in Bumfuck Shanxi – nowhere Chuckie wants to hang.

‘For a little while. My mother says she wants me to come.’

I see his face. Pale. Scared.

‘You okay?’ I ask.

His eyes dart around like he’s being buzzed by gnats and can’t figure out where they’re coming from. He shakes his head, fractionally.

‘You wanna go downstairs, get a cup of coffee?’

He nods.

There’s this DVD store/coffeehouse in the collection of shops that make up the ground floor of the buildings facing Wudaokou Dajie. The coffee isn’t great, but it doesn’t totally suck either. I go there sometimes when there are no beans in the house.

Chuckie and I grab our coffees at the orange countertop and sit at a little round table by the window with a scenic view of the parking lot and the lovely four-lane thoroughfare that is Wudaokou. Taxis and private cars whiz by while knots of pedestrians make their way across the street like avatars in some Nintendo game, risking all to gain the treasure on the other side.

Chuckie rips open two packs of sugar and dumps them in his coffee.

‘So, what happened?’ I finally ask. ‘You get busted at the Matrix, or what?’

‘Or what,’ Chuckie says eventually.

I’m confused by this until I realize that he’s attempting to play with the language. ‘You got busted by somebody else?’

Chuckie doesn’t exactly nod. He stirs his coffee, catching sugar grit between the spoon and the side of the ceramic cup.

‘I am going to go home for a while,’ he says, not looking at me. ‘You should not stay here.’

It’s not his fault; I know it isn’t, but I’m still so angry it’s hard for me to speak. ‘Is this about Lao Zhang, Chuckie? Is it? ’Cause I haven’t done anything wrong. You know that.’

‘Meiguanxi.’ Doesn’t matter.

Neither of us says anything for a while. I stare out the window. Amid the taxis and cars and buses, a donkey cart piled high with bricks makes its way down the street, pausing for a minute so the donkey can crap in the gutter. The guy driving it, a peasant in patched clothes and a battered Mao cap, talks on his cell phone.

Huh. I thought Beijing outlawed donkey carts.

‘They want me to tell them everything about you,’ Chuckie says rapidly. ‘They want to know who your friends are, what you do, where you go. I tell them you, me, we just, we just …’ He trails off. His hands are shaking. ‘We just living, that’s all. Just living.’

Them.

‘Foreigners, in suits?’

‘Foreigners? Why should I worry about foreigners?’ he asks, regaining some of his typical bravado. ‘What can foreigners do to me?’

‘Nothing, I guess,’ I say, hoping this isn’t going to lead into one of Chuckie’s rants about China’s Hundred Years of Humiliation at the hands of foreign imperialists.

If it wasn’t the Suits, who was it?

‘This is China. Chinese people have stood up!’

‘So they were Chinese?’

‘Of course they were Chinese!’

Just like that, he deflates. When it comes down to it, Chuckie’s too much of a fuckup free spirit to make a good foaming-at-the-mouth fenqing.

‘Police, they say,’ he whispers. ‘But no IDs.’

He gets out a couple wrinkled ten-yuan notes and tosses them on the table. ‘My train leaves from West Train station in a couple hours. I better go.’ He looks away. ‘You should be careful, Ellie,’ he says. ‘You should not stay here.’

And that’s our big good-bye. I sit. Drink my coffee. Watch the passing scene outside the window. Wonder what the fuck I’m going to do now.

There’s a surveillance camera in the ceiling above the DVDs, one of those domed things that you see everywhere you go these days. Not just in China, in the U.S. too. For security, right?

I stare at the thing, at its unblinking black eye. Wonder who’s at the other end staring back.

They’re making tapes, I tell myself, to catch shoplifters. It’s not like there’s somebody watching me right now. Is there?

I pay for the coffee and head back upstairs.

Chuckie hasn’t taken a lot with him. The guitar amp, computer parts, books, and Yao Ming stand-up still clutter the living room.

I go into my little room. Stare at my narrow futon. Think I don’t ever want to sleep there again. Like I ever could sleep there without thinking of John, of lying there waiting for him to do whatever he wanted to do.

All of a sudden, I really want to pack up my stuff and get out of here.

I think about the logistics of this. I’ve got some clothes. A couple cheap pieces of furniture. My laptop. I mean, what the fuck do I have, anyway?

I open up the little cupboard by my bed. That’s where I keep my souvenirs. Things I thought I cared about.

Here’s a little Beanie Baby. A neon orange-and-red squid. I always loved that stupid squid. It’s just so funny. It makes me smile when I look at it. I throw it onto a pile of clothes to pack.

There’s a little jewelry box from Trey. I don’t have to open it; I know what’s inside: a gold cross necklace studded with tiny diamonds. He gave it to me a long time ago, right after we were married. I don’t wear it any more. I wonder why I’ve kept it.

I take the rest of the stuff out of the cupboard and dump it on the bed. A funny figurine Lao Zhang gave me, Mao as Buddha. A pennant from some soccer – oh, excuse me – football club called Arsenal from British John.

And here is that flat, hard box covered with dark blue flocking, about the size of a thin paperback. My service ribbons. My Purple Heart. I think: why did I bring this with me all the way to China? I don’t even want to open it. Why does it mean anything at all?

I throw it on top of the clothes. Because I still can’t bring myself to leave it behind.

I walk out of Chuckie’s place with a duffel bag and a backpack. That’s it.

By now, it’s close to five o’clock. I’m supposed to start work at Says Hu in an hour. I stand at the curb for a while, watching the cars and the buses and the people passing by me in this blur of noise – shouting in Chinese, horns going off, phones with their stupid ringtones, a loudspeaker blasting bad Hong Kong pop – and I think: I just want to be someplace quiet for once.

But for now? I might as well go to work.

I spring for a cab to take me the couple of miles to Says Hu, thinking I’ll get there early and have a beer.

The minute I walk inside, I can see that’s not how things are going to go.

British John is trying to pick a table up off the ground. It’s tilted on its side, one leg buckled under like it took a cheap cut block. A broken chair leans against the wall, beneath a dartboard.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Crazy night?’

‘Ellie.’

He crosses quickly to the door and locks it.

I stand there feeling the weight of the duffel bag on my shoulder.

‘Let’s have a drink,’ British John says quickly, grabbing a bottle from the bar.

‘Might as well.’

I pull up a barstool and throw the duffel on the floor and the backpack on top of that. British John pours us both shots of Jack and lifts his in a toast.

I don’t even like Jack Daniels.

‘What are we toasting?’ I ask.

British John shrugs. We clink shot glasses in silence. And drink.

‘So,’ I finally say, ‘you firing me, or what?’

British John shakes his head. ‘Ellie, it’s not like that.’

‘So what’s it like, then? Who came and talked to you? What did they tell you?’

I guess I’m pretty pissed off, because by the time I finish, I’m practically shaking.

‘First I thought they were Chengguan. Just the usual shakedown.’

Urban Management officials. A police force found in every Chinese city, mostly demobbed soldiers and thugs, officially in charge of keeping order on the streets, cracking down on illegal vendors and the like. They like beating on migrants and extorting whatever ‘fines’ they can extract to supplement their crappy salaries.

British John pounds his shot and then pours himself another. I can see the tremor in his hand, and it’s not from the booze. ‘I don’t know who they were. They asked a lot of questions. Gave me a number and told me to call them when you showed up. Told me I’d lose the business if I didn’t cooperate.’

‘I didn’t do anything.’ I hear myself saying it, and I have to admit, I sound like a sullen five-year-old.

‘It has to be something.’ British John sounds really frustrated. ‘Look, I want to help, but you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.’

I shrug helplessly. ‘I don’t know. I really don’t. It’s got something to do with Lao Zhang and some Uighur friend of his. But that’s all I know.’

British John tops off our shot glasses. ‘You can’t keep on working here,’ he finally says.

I toss down my drink. ‘Okay. Fine. Whatever.’

‘Ellie.’

I stand up. ‘What?’

British John reaches into the cash register and pulls out a wad of bills. ‘Here,’ he says awkwardly, holding it out.

‘I don’t want it.’

‘Don’t be a fucking stupid cunt.’ He slaps the money on the bar. ‘Take it.’

He has a point. I pick up the cash and shove it in my pocket. ‘Thanks,’ I mumble.

‘Look,’ he finally says, ‘just take it easy for a while. When this all settles down, you can come back.’

At that, I snort. ‘Yeah, right. Like I want to come back to this shitty-ass job.’

I shoulder my backpack and my duffel. British John comes out from behind the bar, wraps his arms around my waist, and hugs me close. ‘Try not to go to extremes,’ he says. ‘’Cause you have a tendency to do that, you know.’

I hug him back. ‘I’ll see you,’ I mutter into his shoulder. And then I turn and leave.

I start walking down the street, past a string of stores selling phones and MP3 players and cameras. I don’t have a clue what to do. I’ve got two sets of spooks on my ass, no job, no place to live, no husband, no boyfriend, and this stupid fucking duffel bag is cutting into my shoulder and making my goddamn leg ache, and I’ve only got nine Percocets left.

Maybe I should just book myself a flight to the States. What’s left for me here in China? Absolutely nothing.

But what do I have back there? My mom, and it’s not like I don’t miss her sometimes. She’d take me in, but how long would that work? Her life’s still bound up in the church. In Sunrise. And that’s pretty much the last place I want to be.

Sunrise, with its fake adobe buildings that make it look like an Indian casino minus the neon, which I guess works for Arizona, where I grew up. The auditorium, where the services are held with coffee and donuts and giant plasma TVs. At the bookstore you can get the latest Christian rock and hip-hop CDs, ‘WWJD?’ bracelets, T-shirts that say ‘Stoned Like Paul’ and ‘Yes, I am a Princess – My Father is the King of Kings!’ You can drop your kids off at the daycare center if you want while you go to an aerobics class. The minister, Reverend Jim, wears Hawaiian shirts and talks about joy and living in Christ and how to reach your professional goals, in a Christ-like way. Reverend Jim is big on reaching your professional goals.

There wasn’t much else to do where I lived, so I went.

Mom started going too, when she wasn’t working. She needed something – something that wasn’t work and wasn’t taking care of me in our shitty little townhouse down the street from the KFC. Christian parenting, Christian singles – all of a sudden she had this whole network supporting her. It was like she’d been falling and falling and had suddenly landed on this big, soft comforter held up by all these new friends, a place where she was finally safe.

How safe would I be in the U.S.? If the Suits are watching me … Would they really leave me alone if I went home?

Sometimes I miss having a weapon. Not my M16. What I want right now is a little M9. A nice reliable pistol. Because really, what’s the point? My life’s been a disaster ever since those times, and nothing’s getting any better. It’s just getting worse.

My steps have slowed down to a near shuffle.

Don’t cry, you stupid bitch, I tell myself. Nobody cares, and it’s not going to do you any good.

About the time I’m ready to stop walking, I find myself in front of a wangba, an Internet bar.

I guess I could check my e-mail before I go kill myself.

The girl behind the counter asks for my passport and then doesn’t want to look at it, telling me to write the information down myself. So I say I’m ‘Faith McConnell’ (my sworn enemy from middle school) and claim to be living in ‘Orange County,’ this suburban development that’s out by the Capital Airport, not the one in California. Being a foreigner, no one’s going to question me about that.

This wangba's okay, not too crazy with smoke and noise – it’s just a long room with rows of computers, a counter up front where you sign in and buy drinks and snacks from a glass-front refrigerator if you want. The décor is mainly beige, with the obligatory ‘New Beijing, Great Olympics’ poster that no one’s bothered to take down and a couple sad-looking potted plants here and there. Chinese and Korean students play games involving swords, explosions, and girls with big tits dressed in chain-mail bikinis; a middle-aged Westerner reads what he can access of The New York Times through the Great Firewall. Lately getting on news sites hasn’t been too much of a problem, but things like Facebook and Twitter and Blogger are blocked.

Like Lao Zhang said, the government doesn’t like it when too many people get together.

When I log in to my Web mail account, I’ve got over two hundred unread e-mails. Most of them are junk. Plus there’s my mom’s obligatory ‘Send this message to Five Angels you know’ e-mail and a couple of dirty jokes from her Christian friends. This is one of those things I’ve never understood. Why are Christians sending me dirty jokes about cowboys and nuns?

I delete all that, and I don’t forward my mom’s e-mail to five angels I know, because I don’t know any, and I’m probably going to hell anyway.

Halfway down the page is an e-mail from Trey.

‘Ellie, please turn on your phone. Call me. I know you’re pissed off, and I get that, but let me know you’re okay. Those are some heavy-duty guys – if you help them, they can help you. But don’t fuck with them. Okay?’

Like he really cares if I’m okay.

My finger hovers over the keyboard. Reply or delete?

I do neither. I go back to my inbox.

Now, here’s something weird.

‘An Invitation To Tea.’ The e-mail is heavy on the HTML, with graphics that look familiar.

‘The Sword of Ill Repute,’ it says on a banner at the top.

I scroll down, past a Flash animation of warriors swinging swords, pectorals bulging or breasts heaving depending on their gender.

‘Cinderfox, the Humble Servant of the Lord of the Boundless, requests the Swordswoman Little Mountain Tiger join him on a quest. We begin with a cup of tea at the Tears of Heaven’s Pass Teahouse. I will be there after four o’clock. I await your response.’

It’s Lao Zhang’s game, the one he’s so addicted to. Chuckie too. I’m Little Mountain Tiger. This is an invite for me to come and play.

I sit there for a moment. I haven’t played this game in ages. In fact, I’ve hardly played it at all. Chuckie and Lao Zhang, they’re serious players, high-level, not likely to pursue a lowly newbie with no points, no spells, no magic sword, and who doesn’t give a shit about it. None of their friends would either.

Lao Zhang’s screen name is Upright Boar of the Western Forest. Chuckie’s is Eloquent Evergreen Monkey.

So who is Cinderfox? And why did he send me this invitation?

Here’s the link to play, outlined in blue. I hesitate.

It’s Lao Zhang’s game.

I click on the link.

CHAPTER SEVEN

My first duty assignment was at one of the biggest forward operating bases in the Triangle. Life on the FOB was okay, in comparison to the alternatives. We had a PX, where you could buy toothpaste and iPods and tampons, a dining hall with a salad bar and a taco station, a little gym, air-conditioning some of the time, Internet connections. I could get a mochaccino in the morning if I wanted, before going out on patrol. That part sucked, though, and there was no getting around it. I was a medic, not some fobbit who never left the base. It was my job to ride along, in case somebody got shot or blown up.