Read China Mountain Zhang Online
Authors: Maureen F. McHugh
China Mountain Zhang (21 page)
I am a boundary, I am part of the golden glow. And there are balls in the glow; a golden ball (almost invisible), two silver balls, a black lacquer ball and a red lacquer ball. I find the red lacquer ball attractive. I reach out to touch it, it is not so different from working power tools, and it gently squiggles away from my touch.
I sense a slight hiss of disgust from my right, and I am shocked into actually seeing the man. He is tall, dressed in a high-collared cutaway coat and he has hair that brushes his collar (hair almost as long as mine, is he
huaqiao?).
He is staring into the table, oblivious to me.
huaqiao?).
He is staring into the table, oblivious to me.
Liu Wen stirs. “It is his first time,” he says.
I am sliding back into the field and so I feel the acquiescence.
I watch this time.
Haitao is after one of the silver balls. He attempts to cup around it, so that equally repulsed it will have no place to go and be held, but one of the strangers (not the long hair) hits it with a touch and it shoots towards my end of the table.
Haitao makes a start to stop it, a wild unfocused motion that suggests that I shouldn’t want it too close, so I hit it rather like hitting a ping pong ball, back towards Liu Wen who deflects it, pool cue style, right into the stranger beside him.
We are suddenly dropped out of contact and Liu Wen says, “M) point,” and the stranger, “my loss.”
Liu Wen smiles at me, “Good ball.” Which in English is more like saying, “Good save.”
We fall back into the golden ocean and the balls are distributed in the center. Silver are top and bottom, red and black revolving slowly around the golden in the center.
Liu Wen taps the red ball toward the silver and both rebound towards where no one is sitting. Haitao reaches out and slings the red towards himself and although the long-haired man and Liu Wen try to tap the ball it touches Haitao and we drop out of contact again.
“My point,” Haitao says, smiling. No one takes a loss.
“Excuse me,” I say politely, “but the silver should not touch one, the red should?”
The long-haired man nods. “The gold, the black and the red are friendly, the silver are not. Anyone who causes an opponent to take a silver gets a point, and the opponent loses a point.”
“You can never start the gold in motion on the first play,” Haitao adds, “and you can’t touch the golden ball until it is already moving, although you can hit it with another ball.”
I nod.
We are back in the gold. Haitao clicks the black into the silver and we play them around the table. I play cautiously, trying only to deflect, never attempting to catch, and trying always to send the silver to the center, particularly after someone sends the silver at Liu Wen and before it has even begun to cross the space between them he reverses it right back into them.
Finally by accident I send the silver into the golden ball. It has been in play a few times before but I have never even touched it. The long-hair reaches for it and one of the other strangers taps it away. Someone else jacks into our table as the golden ball is gliding past me and I feel everybody shift. It startles me and without thinking I reach out like a jai lai player and sling the ball my way.
When it hits there is an explosion of feeling. For a moment I
am the golden ball and the golden ball is me and I am jolted with pleasure. It is orgasmic and threatens to unlock my knees but before I can even react it washes through me and we drop out of contact. I blink and everybody grins at me. I look at them.
am the golden ball and the golden ball is me and I am jolted with pleasure. It is orgasmic and threatens to unlock my knees but before I can even react it washes through me and we drop out of contact. I blink and everybody grins at me. I look at them.
Then I remember. “My point.”
“Five points for a gold,” Liu Wen says.
Back into the light, where I find my sensitivity is heightened. Now when the red or black balls come near I feel a tickle of sensation, with the golden ball it is even more definite. The silver balls seem colder. I become more aggressive in my play and catch the red ball twice. The explosion is less dramatic than the golden ball, and I remember to say, “My point,” each time.
Only once am I hit with the silver ball, and it drains me, takes away the sensitivity, and I have the sense that what I have lost has gone into my opponent. Hungrily I play harder until I almost take the silver ball again, managing by sheer luck to deflect it into one of the strangers. He has been playing a long time, and I am jolted again by the power of what drains off of him.
“My point,” I say.
“My loss,” he says. Our eyes meet and he looks hungrily at me, and we drop into the light.
I am more careful, made aware by my near miss, and manage to catch the black lacquer ball once. It is like the red lacquer. I catch the red lacquer.
We drop out of contact.
“My point,” I say.
“Time is up,” Liu Wen says. “Nine points, you almost made it.”
Time is up? “How long have we been playing?” I ask.
“Two hours,” Liu Wen says. “That’s how much we paid for. If I had realized you had nine points I’d have fed you the tenth, just so you could see what it was like.”
“Like the golden ball?” I ask, staring into the gold of the table.
He shakes his head. “Different.”
Better, I think.
I look up from the gold. Already the others are back in contact, only Haitao, Liu Wen and I are out. Somehow I keep expecting to drop back in, but instead, they take off their contacts and I take off mine. My bare wrist feels cold in the air.
I look at them, Haitao looks tense. Liu Wen looks like he always does. I am aware of perspiration on my neck, under my hair. I am even more aware of my aching testicles, and that I am tight against the seam of my pants. I feel as if I have been cock-teased for a couple of hours, which is precisely what has happened. But it doesn’t seem as if we have been playing for two hours.
I lick my lips.
“He did pretty well,” Haitao says.
“Beginner’s luck,” Liu Wen says.
I realize that Liu Wen paid for me. “Thank you for the game,” I say.
“I love the way you talk,” Haitao says softly.
“How do I talk?” I ask.
“Your accent, the formal way you say things.”
“Do I have much accent?” I ask.
“It’s charming, exotic, and yet you sound so refined.”
I thought my Mandarin was pretty good. I resolve to work on my accent.
Liu Wen shakes his head, smiling. “I’ll see you two later,” he says and heads back towards another table. I follow him with wistful eyes, wishing to be back in the golden glow, although I ache.
“He’s handsome,” Haitao says.
“He could be,” I answer, “if he would bother.”
“Come with me?” Haitao asks.
Lai gen wo ma?
Lai gen wo ma?
Of course I will go with him. We walk through the godown to the back, where there is a narrow iron stair, and up above the lights he opens a door on a room like a coffin, a little more than
a meter high, the same wide. It is only then that I realize why he has taken me here, that there is not another game at the end, or at least, only the old game.
a meter high, the same wide. It is only then that I realize why he has taken me here, that there is not another game at the end, or at least, only the old game.
I laugh, although I am so aroused there will be damn little joy.
He stoops and enters, and sitting on the mat says, softly,
“Lai lai lai.
” Come, come, come. I stoop and follow him, kneeling in front of him, aware of my boots on the mat. I lean awkwardly forward, resting my hand on the mat next to his thigh, and we kiss. I tug gently at his pants and he raises his hips for me to slide them down. If there is a way to do this without a sense of interruption I have never found it. But then I kneel reverently and pay homage.
“Lai lai lai.
” Come, come, come. I stoop and follow him, kneeling in front of him, aware of my boots on the mat. I lean awkwardly forward, resting my hand on the mat next to his thigh, and we kiss. I tug gently at his pants and he raises his hips for me to slide them down. If there is a way to do this without a sense of interruption I have never found it. But then I kneel reverently and pay homage.
And later, once, he asks me, “Why ‘ghost’?”
“Waiguai,
” I say, foreign-devil or foreign-ghost. It’s the old slang term for a foreigner. Not very flattering. Like westerners say Slope-head.
” I say, foreign-devil or foreign-ghost. It’s the old slang term for a foreigner. Not very flattering. Like westerners say Slope-head.
“You aren’t a
waiguai,”
he says, “you’re
hauqiao.
Not a foreign ghost, but an overseas Chinese.
waiguai,”
he says, “you’re
hauqiao.
Not a foreign ghost, but an overseas Chinese.
That is what it says on my identification. I was certain my IDEX would be
waiguoren
but it says
huaqiao.
The flimsie they gave me indicated that my genetic mother may have been Philippine Chinese (the combination of my mother’s Hispanic genes and my father’s Chinese, I suppose). Haitao doesn’t know that my mother is Hispanic-American. I do not mention it.
waiguoren
but it says
huaqiao.
The flimsie they gave me indicated that my genetic mother may have been Philippine Chinese (the combination of my mother’s Hispanic genes and my father’s Chinese, I suppose). Haitao doesn’t know that my mother is Hispanic-American. I do not mention it.
“You look tired,” the doctor says in Mandarin.
I am, I did not get much sleep the night before. It is Monday and I met Haitao for dinner last night—late because he had something he had to do before he saw me. I was jealous but did not ask.
I am here for an examination, just to make sure that my new kidneys are working.
“You are the first patient I have ever had who is the result of
cosmetic gene-splicing,” she says. “It’s illegal here except for authorized disorders.”
cosmetic gene-splicing,” she says. “It’s illegal here except for authorized disorders.”
It is now at home as well. Except for things like Taysachs, Downs, Herodata’s Schizophrenia. She has accessed my deep records, I wonder if she will change my IDEX, but she doesn’t seem to think of it. I am jittery and nervous.
The doctor is astonishing. Gone is the perfect, concerned woman I remember from when I was sick. She says the correct things, like “You look tired,” but she says them with an air of detachment. I don’t answer her and it doesn’t seem to matter. She explains things, tells me how my kidneys grew, how the old ones are beginning to atrophy. She holds me off with her words. “If you experience any depression or anxiety these days you are welcome to come and talk with a counselor.”
I nod unhappily. She is jacked in to my medical records. What does she find in my medical records that makes her think that I need counseling? Something from Baffin Island? Or perhaps my constructed genetic make-up is flawed and I am prone to system imbalances? She certainly does not want to counsel me. Why did I think her so wonderful?
“Are you eating right?” she asks, and does not wait for an answer. “Still avoid things like beer and alcohol and not too much protein yet.” She stands. I stand.
“Thank you Dr. Cui,” I say.
It must be the unit that they used to keep me quiet. It must have encouraged me to trust my doctor, to assume that everything was all right.
All my life, or at least since I was five and got my jacks implanted, I have jacked in; in school, at work, to call a friend, to find out how much credit was on my account. But those are operations where the system is passive, where I draw on the information. In the West, active systems, systems that feed back into the human nervous system, are illegal. There are exceptions; the big kites that the pros fly, for example; they feed flight information
back to the flier, but those are licensed. I’ve never been to the doctor and been jacked into an active system.
back to the flier, but those are licensed. I’ve never been to the doctor and been jacked into an active system.
Jianqiu,
pressball, is an active system, too. I know it is illegal, that’s why one doesn’t use one’s real name, although if the system records a trace they can identify our individual nervous system patterns. Still, that takes a lot of work, I suppose they’d almost have to know who we were first.
pressball, is an active system, too. I know it is illegal, that’s why one doesn’t use one’s real name, although if the system records a trace they can identify our individual nervous system patterns. Still, that takes a lot of work, I suppose they’d almost have to know who we were first.
Active systems are illegal, as everyone knows, because they can cause injury. And because they are addicting. I wonder if
Jianqiu
causes any sort of degeneration of my already taxed nervous system. There are certainly ways in which it is taxing. But I have no idea if I will ever play again. I’d certainly like to.
Jianqiu
causes any sort of degeneration of my already taxed nervous system. There are certainly ways in which it is taxing. But I have no idea if I will ever play again. I’d certainly like to.
Is that the definition of addicting? If so, duck is addicting because I’d also like to try Nanjing duck again.
On Tuesday I have my engineering tutorial again. I cross the busy arcade and take the lift. I don’t know if we are going to bother with engineering.
“Lai, lai,”
Haitao says absently, opening the door. He is not looking at me, and the flat is rose. He gestures and the lights come up. So I suppose we are going to work. We sit down and he sighs, sits for a moment as if too listless to bother before leaning forward to look through the book.
Haitao says absently, opening the door. He is not looking at me, and the flat is rose. He gestures and the lights come up. So I suppose we are going to work. We sit down and he sighs, sits for a moment as if too listless to bother before leaning forward to look through the book.
It is quite a performance. But I’m not Liu Wen to make fun of it.
“We don’t have to work this evening,” I say, “I can go back, we can work another time.”
“No,” he says, “it doesn’t matter.” He pages through my book.
“No, truly,” I say. “I’m doing better. It makes more sense these days.” This is the truth, although I have some questions I’d like to ask.
He smiles. “You are always so polite,” he says, “are all American
huaqiao
so polite as you?”
huaqiao
so polite as you?”
“Old-fashioned, maybe,” I say, and begin to get up.
He puts his hand on my arm. “Don’t pay any attention to me, Liu Wen doesn’t.”
“Liu Wen knows you better than I do,” I say.
To my astonishment his eyes fill with tears and he looks away. Then he stands up and walks to the window. He stands with his back to me and I wait, confused and alarmed. What did I say?
He doesn’t say anything for awhile and I have time to feel uncomfortable. What should I do? I don’t know what to do so I sit and look at my engineering book, and then back at Haitao. I don’t hear any crying. His shirt is as bright as yellow lacquer and the nape of his neck is pale between his hair and the collar.
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