Читать книгу Year of the Tiger - Lisa Brackman - Страница 8

I picture the finger-shaped bruises John’s hand is making on my ribcage as he guides me toward the silver car. There’s a guy leaning against it, smoking a cigarette. John gestures angrily at him. ‘Off my car!’ he snaps.

‘Fuck your mother,’ the guy mutters. But he lifts himself off the car, takes one last drag on his cigarette, and flicks it into the gutter before ambling away.

‘Hey,’ I say. ‘Wait.’

‘Now, Ellie, you don’t want to talk to that guy,’ John chides me. ‘He is just some rascal.’

‘It’s all a show,’ I say, ‘isn’t it? That guy drove the car here.’

John does his best puzzled squint, but I’m not buying it any more. ‘Of course not. He is just some local rascal.’

‘But there’s no parking here,’ I say, and I’m feeling like this is maybe the most brilliant thing I’ve ever said.

John laughs as he opens the passenger door. ‘Oh, Yili! You are very funny. Now, get into the car.’

I don’t want to get in. I plant my feet, but I’m really messed up, and my leg isn’t that stable anyway, and John somehow knocks me off balance, and I fall across the seats, hitting my cheek against the gear-shift, and John swings my legs into the car and slams the door.

The car has an open moonroof. I stare up, trying to see through the haze to the stars.

The driver’s door opens, and John gets in, putting the keys in the ignition before his butt hits the seat. My head’s touching his thigh as the car pulls away from the curb.

‘Where’re we going?’ I mumble. My mouth feels like it’s full of stones.

‘I told you, Yili. To your home.’

I can’t even sit up. I just lie there, head pressed against John’s thigh, feeling his muscles bunch and relax as he brakes and accelerates. Streetlights pass over us.

I don’t know how long we drive.

Finally, it seems, we get somewhere. John rolls down his window, mutters something to another teenage security guard in a gray polyester jacket, I don’t hear what. I stare up through the moonroof. I can see the tops of tall buildings, satellite dishes, a square of sky. But no stars.

‘Here we are, Yili.’

He gets out and opens the passenger door. I lie there. I don’t think I can move. John’s face looms over me. ‘Oh, Yili,’ he says. ‘I think maybe you are very sick.’

‘I … I …’

‘Here. Take my hand.’

I try, feebly grasping at it like my fingers have gone boneless; they’re just these white worms, jellyfish fingers, waving around in a black sea.

John scoops me up, hands placed beneath my shoulder blades and butt, lifting me out of the car. My feet touch the ground but don’t want to stay there.

‘Here,’ John says. ‘I carry you.’

And he does. My arms circle around his neck, because they don’t know what else to do.

I rest my cheek against John’s leather jacket and close my eyes, lost in the rock and sway of his steps as he carries me along like I’m some little kid in her daddy’s arms. I catch his scent beneath the smell of cheap, tanned leather: sweat mixed with some bad cologne. I like the sweat better.

‘Yili,’ John says, his breath warm in my ear. ‘What is your apartment number?’

‘What?’

‘Your apartment number. What is it?’

I open my eyes, and it’s the weirdest thing: my apartment building looms above us.

Wait, I think. Wait. He doesn’t know my apartment number, but he knows where I live. That doesn’t make sense. How does he know where I live?

‘You told me this, Yili. At the party. Don’t you remember?’

Did I just say that out loud? I guess I did.

‘Twenty-one oh-five,’ I slur.

I just want to lie down.

I just want to go home.

We take the elevator upstairs. It’s empty, the tall stool where the fuwuyuan sits when she’s on duty unoccupied. I stare at it, the empty stool surrounded by mirror tile, fake wood paneling and fluorescent light, and try to conjure up some meaning to it, but I can’t.

Here we are in the foyer.

As John fumbles at my door (Does he have my keys? Did I give them to him?), I see a sharp beam of white light, and fucking Mrs Hua pokes her head out from her apartment.

‘What sort of things are going on now?’ she hisses. ‘This is really more than anyone should bear!’

John turns his head in her direction. ‘Your business ends at your eaves, old Auntie.’ The way he says it, so cold and matter-of-fact, would scare me – that is, if I could feel afraid right now.

Mrs Hua can. She pulls back behind her door. ‘Show some respect,’ she mutters as she slams it shut and locks it with both chain and bar.

John carries me inside.

He steps carefully through the maze of computer parts, the cardboard Yao Ming, the piles of clothes and books in the near-dark, the only light in the room what’s leaking in through the windows from a Beijing sky that’s never really dark any more.

‘Which room, Yili?’

Now, suddenly, I do get scared. ‘Chuckie?’ I say. But my voice is weak, weak like in a dream where you can’t cry out, where you can’t make anyone hear you. ‘Chuckie?’ I try again.

‘No one is here,’ John tells me. ‘Besides, you shouldn’t worry.’

He takes me into my room and lays me down on my futon. He doesn’t turn on the light, but the nightlight by the door has come on.

For a moment, he stands over me. His face is in shadow, but he’s staring at me, I can tell.

‘I am going to make you more comfortable,’ he says softly.

He kneels down by the futon. First he takes off my sneakers and socks, balling up the socks and putting them in the shoes, placing the shoes in the closet, lined up neatly.

Then he hesitates before reaching for the top button of my jeans.

‘Don’t,’ I say. ‘Don’t.’

‘Now, Yili, you cannot be comfortable in these.’

I can’t stop him. I can barely move. He unbuttons my jeans, lifts me up, and slides them over my butt and then off. He folds them up, looks around, and then puts the jeans on the room’s one chair.

He kneels down next to me again. His eyes fall on my bad leg, and he reaches out and lightly touches a place where two long scars cross, then the hollow from the chunk of missing muscle. ‘Oh,’ he says, in a curious voice. ‘You were badly hurt, I think.’

I bite my lip and nod. Tears stream from my eyes, and I can’t control that either.

He gives my leg a final, gentle pat. Then he reaches under my back, beneath my shirt, and unhooks my bra. He rocks back on his heels. ‘Yili, I have to take this off too,’ he says, with a trace of apology. Then he peels my shirt up and over my head. For a moment, the shirt catches on my chin, collapses on my face like a death-mask, and as I breathe in, the cotton sealing my nostrils, I think maybe it will suffocate me, and that’s what John wants to do to me. But no. He frees the shirt from my head. Turns it right side out, folds it, and lays it neatly on top of my jeans on the chair.

He turns back to me, smiling awkwardly. He pulls one bra strap down along my arm until it clears my hand. Then the other. He holds my bra in his hand, and for a moment he stares at my tits. Then he looks away and drapes the bra over the back of the chair.

I’m lying there naked except for my panties. I’m shaking. The room seems to vibrate.

John’s back is to me. He’s rummaging through the little dresser next to my closet. ‘Ah,’ he says, satisfied. ‘This is good.’

He has in his hands a large T-shirt. ‘I think maybe this will be comfortable for you.’

He puts it over my head, lifts me up a little, and I can feel the dry heat radiating from his hand pressed flat between my shoulder-blades.

After he gets the T-shirt on me, he finds the light blanket I use most warm spring nights and covers me with it.

‘Just a minute,’ he says, and leaves.

I lie there. The room is still vibrating, but not so quickly.

When John returns, he carries a glass of water and something wrapped in a dishcloth. He sits cross-legged by my head. ‘Here, Yili,’ he says. ‘Have some water.’

‘I don’t … You put something in it.’

‘Don’t be silly. You are sick. You need some water.’

He tilts up my head so I won’t choke and pours a little water between my lips. I swallow. He pours some more. It tastes good. Like nectar. Like something I need.

‘There. You see?’

When I finish, he smoothes the hair from my forehead. ‘I have some ice,’ he says, holding up the dishcloth. ‘Your face, it’s bruised. I think maybe when I help you in the car, I’m too careless.’ He puts the dishcloth against my cheek. ‘I’m sorry about this, Yili.’

I feel the cold seep through the cloth to my cheek, soaking into my skull and spreading through my head. Everything slows down.

‘That’s okay,’ I say.

John sits there quietly, holding the ice against my cheek.

‘Why you come to China, Yili?’ he finally asks.

I chuckle. ‘Trey. He got a job. I came with him.’

‘What kind of work does he do?’

‘Security consultant. For a big corporation.’ I laugh again. ‘Kind of like a really well-paid bodyguard.’

‘Really?’

‘Kind of.’ Of course, it’s more than that, really. Trey assesses threats. Looks for holes. Keeps people safe.

‘I see.’

I must have spoken out loud again, without meaning to.

‘And this pays well?’

‘It pays okay.’

John brushes a stray hunk of my hair off my face.

‘So, Trey, he does not work for American government.’

‘Big corporation.’ I laugh. ‘What’s the difference?’

John nods sagely. ‘You know, here in China, PLA, Peoples’ Liberation Army, owns many businesses. They hide this better now than before, but still it is this way. So maybe this is somewhat the same as America.’

This irritates me, and I’m not sure why. ‘It’s the other way around in America,’ I tell him. ‘Companies own the Army. They send us where they want us to go. To do their shit for them. So they can get rich.’

‘Ah. I see. So you are in the Army, Yili?’

‘I don’t wanna talk about it.’

‘Why not? It can be good to talk, I think.’

‘No. It’s not.’

But I can see it. That’s the thing. I can fucking see it. I don’t want to. I don’t want to see this shit any more. ‘Oh god,’ I say. ‘Oh, Jesus. Where the fuck were you? You fucking liar.’

John strokes my face, my hair. ‘Yili, I am sorry. I don’t want to upset you.’

I’m crying again. ‘Fuck you,’ I say. ‘You’re just another liar.’

He says nothing.

After a while, he gets up and leaves the room, closing the door behind him.

I lie there. I’m floating. I’m swaddled in clouds. I can’t move.

‘John?’ I call out. ‘John?’

He doesn’t come. I’m alone.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whisper, ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean to. I hate myself. I want to die.’

‘Yili, why do you talk like that?’

‘John?’

Where did he come from? He crouches down next to me. Takes my hand. ‘Have some water.’

I drink. I drink like it’s somehow going to save my life. Like it will replenish everything I’ve lost.

I’m pretty fucked up right now.

John sighs. ‘This boyfriend of yours. I don’t understand. Why doesn’t he take better care of you?’

‘He’s busy.’

‘But this is not right,’ John states. ‘If you are together with him, he should take care of you. This is only proper.’

I stare up at the ceiling. Kaleidoscope patterns fold and unfold on the peeling beige paint. Like flowers in one of those sped-up nature movies.

‘I guess he’s not really my boyfriend,’ I say after a while. ‘I guess we’re just friends, that’s all.’

‘But friends take care of each other too,’ John says gravely. ‘Maybe this fellow, maybe he isn’t really your friend.’

‘He is,’ I insist. ‘He is.’

‘But he left you.’

‘He had to.’

‘Why?’

‘Because …’ I squeeze my eyes shut. Then I open them, because little armies keep marching across my eyelids, and I don’t want them there. ‘Because he had to.’

John sighs. ‘Yili, why are you so sure that this man is good guy? What do you really know about him?’

For a moment, I can’t think of anything at all. I stare at the ceiling. The peeling paint curls and uncurls.

‘Maybe he is okay guy like you say,’ John continues. ‘But maybe now he is mixed up in something that is bad.’

I turn my head to look at him. John stares at me intently, his eyes shining.

And it doesn’t matter how fucked up I am, how much bad shit I’m seeing in my head, and how scared I was before. I know exactly what this is about. He can’t hide it from me any more.

‘This is about the Uighur guy, right? You know what, John? You’re an asshole. You could’ve just asked me. You didn’t have to do all this. You didn’t have to …’

I can’t finish. I’m feeling this sob coming up from my gut, choking me. I want to scream; I want to hit something; I want to run and run and never stop. But I still can’t move. I lie there crying like a fucking five-year-old, and I hate myself for it.

John’s eyes widen, look away then look back, like he isn’t sure what to do now. ‘Yili, I –’

‘Shut the fuck up. I don’t care any more. I really don’t.’

I manage to lift my hand up to wipe my face. ‘You could have just asked me,’ I repeat. ‘And I would have told you. I don’t know anything. Nothing.’

Silently, John takes the damp dishcloth that held the ice and dabs my face with it, cleans off the tears and the snot.

‘Lao Zhang’s an artist. He’s got a lot of friends. People crash with him all the time. It doesn’t mean anything.’

I can’t keep my eyes open any more. I feel like everything’s dissolving into foam. ‘Just leave me alone,’ I mumble.

‘Okay, Yili,’ I hear John say from far away. ‘I let you sleep now. You’ll feel better when you wake up.’

Right, I think. Right. I’ll feel better.