The Year of the Hydra Read online

  Chen composes himself before continuing. “According to this document, published in September of 2000, America will dominate the world by attacking every country strong enough to become a potential threat.”

  “Attacking?” I say.

  “Yes, with subversion and if necessary with the military.”

  I look at him. “You say ‘every country.’ What about our allies?”

  Chen shakes his head. “America will have no more allies. Your leaders believe that you are strong enough to no longer need them.”

  “Perhaps I should read this book,” I say without conviction.

  “It is not a book but a position paper written by some conservatives of your country. Several of those men are now in your White House. One is your secretary of state. Another is your vice-president.”

  We exchange an uncertain gaze and I say, “This seems to concern you, Mr. Chen.”

  He smiles softly. “China is a very powerful country. This can only mean that the United States will attack us very soon. We can only ask ourselves how it will come.”

  A shout from the restaurant door.

  “Your food is ready,” says Chen.

  We duck once more beneath the eight cooing young women, their enthusiasm finally beginning to wane. Inside, Chen loads me down with plastic bags containing white boxes of something/anything, and I follow him back out through the doors and a final crimson chorus of farewells.

  “In China,” says Chen, shaking my hand in the brown-out gloom, “we have a saying. ‘A wise rabbit has three openings to its den.’ May you always be this wise rabbit.”

  I study the broad, impenetrable grin for a moment before muttering my thanks and turning toward the West Gate. I am hurried along by mingled scents of rice and veggies, shrimp and chicken, pork and bean sprouts. All that’s missing are fortune cookies, which the Chinese have never heard of. Just as well, I think. One more Chinese proverb would be exactly two too many.

  Chapter Two

  If I admitted it, our mother wasn’t too bad with numbers. During her peak years anyway. She lectured at Memphis State Teachers’ College and did everyone’s taxes in April. Her colleagues probably saw her as somewhat heroic. Unwed mother for science or something of the kind. It was she who introduced me to Zeno’s Motion Paradox—out of malice, I believe, as I was a hideously overgrown and under-cooked eleven-year-old in need of some means of believing in himself. By the time I solved Zeno, I was a hollow-eyed twelve point five, but solve it I did. When I handed the solution to my mother, she gave it a disinterested glance and announced that the problem had been solved quite satisfactorily a century earlier. I began wetting the bed shortly thereafter. But only on nights that were primes.

  Just so you’ll know, Zeno’s Motion Paradox has been around for over two thousand years, and my solution, conceived when I was twelve point five years old, is among the most elegant ever proposed. I didn’t say that. A reviewer said that of the article my mother wrote presenting my solution under her name. I’ve never been troubled by the Oedipus complex. What I have is the Menendez Brothers complex.

  I am standing on a street corner awaiting Ralpho, a fellow I met late last night in an Irish pub on Third Ring Road. Why we chose this corner to reconvene eludes me, as its one claim to charm seems to be the smelly one-legged and one-armed burn victim who lies twitching and contorting across the sidewalk so that passersby have to step over or around him. His begging bowl is as filthy as his clothes, not that Mongo is paying much mind to either just now, as he seems to be in some kind of open-mouthed drug-induced stupor. Which in general terms I greatly admire in a man. Still, I’m keeping one eye on this fellow, as I imagine he could really cover some ground should he take a mind to, differently abled though he is.

  Ralpho and I didn’t set this up very precisely. I don’t know whether he’s to appear in a taxi or on foot, or even whether I’m awaiting him on the proper street corner, Ralpho not having said anything at all about Mongo, and I’d certainly have. I’m pretty sure we established four-thirty as the meeting time, and here it is nearly five and I’m beginning to worry.

  When I met Ralpho last night, he was half-eating half-wearing a plate of wet ribs, for which he admits a keen fondness. Thus Ralpho’s belly precedes him by about a minute and a half. He has a habit of chewing his reddish-orange beard— conveniently the same color as barbeque sauce—when excited, which appears to be frequently. You can see where he’s bitten parts of it off. Ralpho speaks with the restrained swagger of an East Texan who is confident that he knows considerably more than you but sees no reason to rub it in. On balance, he smells a good deal better than Mongo and has offered to introduce me to a Triad-operated steam-bath brothel that offers happy hour from five to six.

  It’s two minutes till five.

  The lips of a donkey, the Chinese are fond of pointing out, do not fit on the mouth of a horse. Based on that same general logic, I began this day by stuffing my long, lustrous mane into a stocking cap to minimize the visual impact of appearing in public with both my sister, ponytailed and wearing grey sweats, and Tree, in sunglasses. We exited the girls’ hotel at separate moments to meet at a nearby corner where their fellow teacher, Arnie, was quite punctually waiting. The idea was to spend a morning viewing the sights of Beijing as inconspicuously as could be arranged.

  Arnie flagged two taxis for us but before we could arrange ourselves in either, a crowd had formed and photos were being snapped. Tree, being Tree, became ebullient and gave the masses a few bars of “I Loves You, Porgy” to delighted cheers. Meanwhile I spotted a video surveillance camera above our heads—they’re everywhere in this town—and deduced that the edge-recognition software had most likely kicked in and the black panel trucks were headed our way. I back-loaded Tree, still singing, into the rear of one of the taxis, and we booked out of there.

  We saw Wax Mao in his Mao-soleum. You couldn’t really tell much. They don’t let you poke him or sniff him or anything. At least Tree Carter didn’t break out into “Oh Danny Boy.” Our next stop was the overcrowded and heat-oppressed Temple of Heaven Park, which I found interesting in a highly statistical kind of way. The Circular Mound Altar in particular turns out to be some kind of algorithm cut from white marble, every tiny detail elaborated in multiples of nine, Nine being symbolic among the Chinese of completion and heaven, not to mention the soup course.

  The airless heat finally got to Tree, who is at all moments dehydrated, if she admitted it. She refuses to take on water outside the hotel, due I’m quite sure to squat-toilet issues. I was afraid the others of us were going to have to bear her to a taxi. Back at the hotel, she insisted she’d been overcome by the energy of that place, which bore unusual and spiteful signatures. “One more minute,” Tree told us, “and I would’ve passed dead out.” And we would’ve been faced with discovering the Mandarin word for U-Haul.

  I now have independent confirmation of the singing condom machine. I thought you’d want to know. I even have a translation of the jingle. “Always remember because it’s your duty and keeps your wife and parents smiling. Also smells good.”

  And pleases Wax Mao.

  I check my watch again. It’s five-oh-four. Fifty-six minutes of happy remaining. This sidewalk is so hot meanwhile, a wind is rising off it. I’ve been warned that summer in Beijing can be hallucinatory. Its vast stretches of concrete absorb more solar radiation than the dense atmosphere can begin to disperse. You can use Beijing air as a building material. You want to gnaw on the number-two German-made pencil in your shirt pocket just for the oxygen content.

  Finally deciding that I can’t remain here a moment longer, I turn and begin planning my negotiation around a whimpering Mongo when a very small taxi screeches to a stop, in the passenger seat, his belly crowding the dashboard, Ralpho. His nose is pressed against the side window. His lips seem to be saying, “Get in.”

  I do my level best, crawling headfirst into the rear and pulling the door closed with one of my feet. “Is this a means of transpor
t,” I ask, “or of preserving foodstuffs?” At least it’s air-conditioned.

  “We’re headed for Nanshan District,” says Ralpho, trying to turn in the seat. “You wanna help me out with the cab fare? Shouldn’t be more than a hundred yuan altogether. We’re paying extra for air.”

  Ralpho is short for Ralph O’Malley, ex-military. Army and Navy. Evidently the Air Force wouldn’t have him. Ralpho now teaches English wherever he can score a contract, this year Taipei, next year Singapore. His main reason for being in Beijing just now, he has confided, has less to do with gainful employment than with hard research for his blog on China’s secret moon bases.

  “Yeah, sure I know about the bases,” he told me last night, his pale blue eyes reaching for casual understatement. “In the military they’re a known fact to everyone above pay grade three, and I was way above that.” Ralpho’s tongue was beginning to toy with his beard. Before the evening was over, I’d learned of an extraterrestrial plot to annex the world by covertly funding anti-gun legislation and vegetarianism. “When we no longer have guns,” said Ralpho, cold-eyed, “or eat meat, what’s the difference between us and a cow?”

  The spots?

  The mini-taxi stops on a quiet side street, and I labor to open the rear door with my foot. Ralpho, meanwhile, initiates an argument with the driver in hopelessly bad Mandarin—even I can tell—before reporting, “We’re gonna have to overpay this asshole. It’s less hassle than calling the transit cops. He says it’s a hundred eighty. Can you do the hundred? I can do the eighty.”

  Now on the superheated sidewalk, Ralpho pushes open an unmarked steel door and we scale two narrow flights of concrete steps, at the top of which is another unmarked steel door. Leaning on the buzzer, Ralpho tells me over his shoulder, “I’ll take care of everything. They know me here.” The door pops opens and we encounter a burly green-eyed Chinese man in a gold silk suit. Another argument. It seems that, yes they know Ralpho here, but they don’t particularly like him. After ten minutes of hand-waving and finger-pointing and a two-hundred-yuan payoff from my pocket, we get past the portal guardian.

  “Fucking jerk,” mutters Ralpho, now leading me along another corridor. “Said I owe a tab. Usual Chinese bullshit. Fucking highway robbery every step of the way. You see those green contacts, man? You fucking see that?”

  Once, in Queens, New York, I heard a man generate the following sentence: Fuck that fucking fuck up the fucking fuckhole. Interestingly the man was not at all upset at the time but actually appeared to be in good spirits.

  The corridor takes us back down to street level and around a corner before ascending once more to a second-floor landing where a well-dressed woman smiles behind a large teak desk that displays nothing but her own folded hands. After a brief discussion, Ralpho and I place six hundred yuan at the center of the desk. The two hands sweep the bills away in favor of a pair of keys, two white bath towels, matching white terry robes and four hopelessly small blue plastic sandals.

  I follow Ralpho into a dressing room where a sound system oozes Montivani. Several men are toweling off and donning street clothes. All of them are Chinese and all have pubic hair. One question answered. I scan their expressions for evidence of happy but find only inscrutable.

  Following Ralpho’s lead, I use my key to open an empty locker and place my clothes and shoes inside. My terry robe turns out to approximate the size of a handkerchief. I manage to get my shoulders inside and tie it around my sternum. Ralpho frowns at me through his glasses and tries to pull the robe down a little. “Perfect,” he says. “You just need a little sun.”

  We pass through a swinging wooden door into what appears to be the golden age of Pompeii. I pause for a moment, letting my eyes adjust to the dim light. Half concealed by a drifting, herb-scented veil of vapor are various pools of emerald water. Vague human forms seem to cavort there, doing things I can’t quite make out but would really like to.

  “Come on,” calls Ralpho, walking ahead. “I’ll show you around.”

  Toes squenched up in my blue sandals, I follow Ralpho past a long line of wooden doors. “Saunas,” he informs me. “The ones on the right are, like, Japanese only. Same with the herbal baths. Stay to the left.”

  Ralpho opens an anonymous door and I recoil from a blast of hot, dry air. “Sauna with company,” says Ralpho. As the door auto-closes, I catch sight of two dripping young women tucked into a corner, wrapped in red towels.

  Pressing on, Ralpho says, “Don’t get carried away. Everything here goes on a tab and nothing’s cheap.”

  “But it’s Happy Hour, right?”

  Shrugging, Ralpho pushes through a massive swinging door. We enter a large humidity-controlled room filled with billiards and ping-pong tables. Along one wall, several white-robed men smoke cigarettes and study a row of computer monitors. Everything is spotless.

  “It’s early,” says Ralpho. “Nobody’s here yet. C’mon, I’ll show you the library.”

  I glance at my watch. Thirty-seven minutes of happy remaining, and Ralpho wants to show me the library. I follow him through a massive Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, and English library and three adjoining television rooms. There’s also a tea room with its own bamboo garden, plus various massage rooms, reflexology tables, and other spaces I don’t fully comprehend. Some of the male clients, I notice, are accompanied by demure young women in robes of flaming red.

  Asian women wear red so well.

  Now we’re touring a fern bar heavy with oak. At one side, a carpeted staircase leads to rooms that Ralpho assures me we cannot afford.

  “Didn’t you tell me Happy Hour is from—”

  Before I can finish, Ralpho gives me a two-handed shove and I stumble through a massive wooden door.

  I find myself enclosed by a wall of vapor so shockingly hot that I’m momentarily blinded. Before I find my bearings, I feel several small hands pulling at my robe. As my eyes clear, I find that I’m one of several naked humans in a Fellini-esque landscape of coy giggles, towering statuary and slowly swirling steam. The first thing I make out with any certainty is the sight of two slender women wrapped around a man, one of them sucking intently on his face, the other similarly employed somewhat farther south. Watching with interest are two silver-haired men seated on contoured wooden benches, their yellow shoulders kneaded by a pair of full-lipped young women who now offer me a single stare. Looming eerily above the scene is an enormous golden Buddha perhaps two stories tall, his pudgy features set in a deliberate Elvis-like sneer. On either side of the statue, massive Roman columns seem to rise forever amid upward-spiraling clouds of pure devilment.

  I turn to look for Ralpho. Instead I discover three wispy Asian women who approach tentatively as though never having seen a body at once so large and so white. Apparently they’re getting used to it. Opening my arms, I allow all three to press their superheated bodies against mine.

  Ah. Happy.

  Bending to sniff the wet hair of each golden child, I find their skin generously oiled, allowing my hands to glide along each warm curve as on a raceway. I bend a little farther to investigate the subtle differences in the muscle tone of each little bum—when a gruff voice calls, “Bie!”

  Instantly the three girls grab red towels and exit through the swinging wooden door, followed by all the others, lastly the two silver-haired men, their escorts helping them into white robes as they jog past.

  Considerably less happy now, I turn and peer into the steam, wondering whose voice I’d heard and why it couldn’t have waited a bit longer. As I watch, an unclothed, short, and pudgy Chinese man emerges from between the golden legs of the Buddha, a damp unlit cigarette hanging from his lips. Stopping directly before me, feet widely set, he gazes up at my face then unhurriedly down to my toes and back again.

  “Big,” he says at last and chuckles.

  I watch the man remove the unlit cigarette from his lips as though to dust an ash. “You like steam?” he asks roughly.

  I’ve no idea how to reply.

&nb
sp; After a moment, the naked man nods and returns the cigarette to his mouth. “Don’t like to talk? Good. Don’t need to talk. Don’t need to talk nobody. You okay? Talk nobody? You understand?”

  The man gazes at me for a long moment before stepping aside and pointing to the steam-swirling gap between the Buddha’s legs. I walk mechanically in that direction, glancing up to note the very enlightened hard-on lifting the awakened one’s tunic. Ducking beneath the prodigious set of golden balls, I enter a shadowed space of redwood benches where, by slow degrees, I make out the form of a seated Westerner wearing the tormented expression of a newly condemned man and a hopelessly wet British-cut three-piece suit. In the man’s lap is an overstuffed briefcase, its papers wilting.

  “Mr. Mancer? Are you Julian Mancer?” the man says eagerly. “Mr. Mancer, forgive me for not getting up but I fear that I have lost the strength of my limbs. Please be assured that this meeting place is not, I repeat, not of my choosing. In point of fact, I had to practically fight to retain my clothes, which I am sorry to see you were unable to do. Won’t you please have a seat?”

  Too bewildered to respond, I watch the stranger, sweat dripping from his nose, fumble in the soggy briefcase. For a moment I fully expect him to propose the merits of a variable universal life insurance policy with critical illness.

  “I am fully aware,” says the man, still fumbling, “that the gentlemen here are mocking me, but as I told them repeatedly and tell you now, I am a devoted lifetime Latter Day Saint—most people say Mormon because of The Book of Mormon—and would no sooner take off my clothes among these—well—”

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  He sits taller. “My name is Jerry Scribner. I represent various international companies in East Asia, among them Hydrangea Laboratories of Chicago, Illinois. It would appear they are very interested in contacting you, as they have overnighted me here to deliver this message, which I cannot do quickly enough if you would—”