Quarreling is like cutting water with a sword.
So now we are three again. A new three. Group dynamics have changed. The Gang of Two rules the suite.
The only way a truce can work is for Larry and me to give each other as wide a berth as possible. Immediately we set up some house rules. The door between our two rooms is to remain closed. He seals his and Mary’s room so it can stay tropically heated; I allow mine to cool at night by keeping my windows open. When we need to initiate communication, we’ll use the phone. Or at the very least knock. Larry accepts the conditions, but not happily.
“You make me sound like a manipulator even to myself, Dan, as though I planned this arrangement. Did I ask for Mary and you and me to end up in the same cell block? Go home if you want. Leave me to my own devices. I don’t care. I’m a big boy. I can take care of myself.”
The preceding was for rhetorical purposes only; we both understand the situation. Luckily, there are still reserves of goodwill that we can draw upon, and the door clicks cordially between us. All that can be heard is the sound of the lullaby piped in overhead through the soft-speakers. Three blind mice, three blind mice…
No, actually that’s not the only sound that can be heard. The passage of hours, then days, brings further intimacies, as I discover to my chagrin that I can’t avoid overhearing the housekeeping between them.
“I’ll brush my hair myself, Mary… Because I like brushing my hair, that’s why…”
See how they run, see how they run…
Mealtimes are always interesting. The din from Chez Larry-Mary usually begins with the popping open of a Coke can, punctuated by celestial screeches from Mary when she gets ambushed each time by a burst of fizz in her face. Then even happier sounds as she drops two or three artificial sweeteners into her brew and savors the result. “Goooooooooood…” Then domestic tranquillity, for a while, as they settle into their meal and work out mutual misunderstandings in their own way.
Mary: “What is?”
Larry: “McFish of some sort, except the KFC variety. Can you hand me my Blistex…no, not my reading glasses…thank you…”
Silence. Contrapuntal chewing.
“Mary, can you open another Coke for me?…I would happily do it myself, Mary, if I were strong enough… Thank you, Mary… On the subject of fish, can you ask the nurse what kind of fish this medicine comes from? I can see from the illustration on the box it’s supposed to swim in water, but-”
“Fish.”
“I know that, but what sort of fish?”
Mary goes into a hubbub with the nurse, while the refrigerator squawks, coughs, and recovers-to come up with this answer:
“Fish-fish.”
When I go to the bathroom, I tiptoe through their tropical room and glimpse them like any normal couple: he hunched in hospital robe and Businessman’s Running Shoes, going through his closet, she sprawled in fur coat and hairnet, devotedly cracking pistachio nuts for him. Overheard in passing, a disquisition on his wardrobe, snatched midstreak:
Bought this jacket at a Hadassah thrift store sale in Hallandale, Florida. Fifty cents. It’s thirty dollars in the catalog. Keeps the rain off, more or less. Now this clip-on bow tie I found at a Cub Scout bake sale in-
Sometimes they bicker, but usually they both show an impressive amount of patience for each other, watching the Chinese weather channel for hours in harmonious silence. After which conversation resumes in respectful tones.
“Storm predicted.”
“Ummm, storm!”
“You like your food?”
“Hot.”
“I know it’s hot, Mary. Hot wings means hot. I like it, too.”
And so forth. I don’t know how he’s pulled it off. Right here in the middle of the East Asian landmass, a configuration of lofty mountain ranges and vast areas of inhospitable terrain, Larry’s managed to recreate the dinner-table conversations between Sam and Rivie in Lynn, Massachusetts, circa 1962.
Meanwhile we seem to be getting the runaround from Cherry. Two weeks come and go like nothing, and still there’s no sign of a kidney. I decide against hounding Dr. X but think there should be some sort of progress report. “You sure the dead horse is coming to the live horse?” I ask Cherry.
“I am sure. Maybe off by just one-two weeks, because first week of October is national holiday, or some screwup possible, quite minor.”
“And it’s not going to leak out to the authorities?”
“Chill, Daniel. Do not ransack yourself.”
Agreed: I should not ransack myself. It’s high time to get the silence and space I need. Fortunately, to this end, the elevator goes both up and down.
“Hello, Saudi Arabia,” I say to my friends in long robes, whom I haven’t seen in weeks.
“Hello, America,” they say to me. “Bush still suck, eh?”
“Big time.”
“Beeg time, beeg time.” They parse my words.
As usual, the women of the second floor are invisible-the Pakistani wives in blue shawls, the Egyptian mothers in head scarves and beads, the Yemenite sisters with wide belts and swaying hips. It’s the men who speak loudly, gesture broadly, pop their pecs before serving the birdie. But you get the feeling it’s the women behind the scenes who are conducting life, quietly making it all happen.
Abu, my Pakistani friend, has apparently been celebrating his birthday for three days. “Twenty-six years of age!” he boasts, accepting a soup bowl of cake that his mother offers with lowered eyes. “New cake every day!”
After receiving a short scolding from her son about too much frosting, the mother mutely sidles off to resume prayers on her little mat.
“Tomorrow we cut the cake again, four days!” he promises me.
“I’ll be here,” I say.
“So now I show you better exercise?” Abu asks me.
“Depends what you have in mind,” I say.
“You are familiar with the Vespa motor phenomenon?”
“Minimally.”
“Come with me.”
And for the next three hours, he rides me around on the back of his Vespa motor phenomenon, showing me a city I didn’t know existed. Muslim restaurants. Breweries and textile factories. Massage parlors conducted by blind men, who’re alleged to have more sensitive fingertips. Massage parlors that specialize in foot rubs with flaming glass cups placed against the soles to stimulate circulation. Massage parlors that-
“Why does your hat not fly off?” Abu calls to me from the front.
“It’s well trained. It knows it won’t get dessert tonight if it misbehaves,” I call back.
Laughing, Abu guns it. Last stop is an antique skyscraper hotel with a crenellated castle roof, glimpsed between cloud banks of smog. Abu instructs me to walk through the lobby as though we own the place, straight to the elevator, up to the top floor where there’s a stuffy old gym, 1920s vintage. A small swimming pool whose green water looks like it hasn’t been rippled since talkies were invented. A wooden contraption with rollers to wring the water from bathing suits. A machine you stand in that’s supposed to cook the pounds off, probably banned in the United States a century ago. And a stationary bike that feels like you’re riding a manual typewriter. But it works. The whole place is like an aboveground dungeon, with tiny windows of leaded glass through which I can see the city operating below like a toy-train village with thousands of whirring parts, all its flywheels and cogs clicking in sync. When the windows are cranked shut, it’s as if a mute button has been pushed. Blessed silence reigns: no more raucously melodious street cries, no more unstoppable firecrackers. Best of all, no more Larry-Mary noise. The only sound is Abu expertly penetrating the green water as he practices his half gainers from the diving board, slick and quiet as a coin entering a pay phone. It’s enough to bring me back the next afternoon, and the next. Every silent hour I spend up here, daydreaming to my heart’s content, is one I don’t spend with the non-silent hyphenate next door.
Then one night a phone call I wasn’t expecting.
“Huwwo?”
“Huwwo.”
“Huwwo?”
“Yes, is this Larry?”
“Yes, Dan, what do you need?”
“I don’t need anything. You just called me.”
“No, you just called me.”
Beat, garbled.
“Oh, I’m sorry, Dan, Mary is telling me that she called you. She just woke me up and handed the phone to me.”
“Well, why did Mary call?”
“I’ll ask her. Mary, why did you call Dan and hand the phone to me?…Not yes, Mary. That’s not an answer to why did you call…”
“Larry-”
“Not sure, Mary. Not uh-huh, Mary. Why. Did. You. Call. Dan.”
“Larry, does Mary need something from me?”
“I know he’s my cousin, Mary. Mary, stop! I don’t want a pedicure! [Garbled] Because I don’t care for a pedicure, Mary, it’s as simple as that.”
“Larry, listen, why don’t you call me back when you get this straightened-”
“I am being patient, Mary. Do you hear me raising my voice, Mary? Do you see me raising my fist?”
“Larry, it’s four in the morning. Can we maybe resume this another-”
“DAN!? DAN!?”
“Yes, Mary,” I say as Mary takes the phone, “there’s no need to shout.”
“DAN!? LARRY NOT MARRY ME!”
“He’s not marrying you, Mary?”
“NOT MARRY ME AT ALL!”
“Okay, Mary, let’s talk about this in the morn-”
[Click.]
Knock-knock. In the morning I go to Larry’s room, and we do talk about it-a powwow between distant allies who have no particular warmth to pool but do have business to conduct. Then again, Larry’s room has a lot of warmth to pool.
“So the bridesmaids’ dresses are on hold?” I ask, fanning myself with both hands, kicking pistachio shells out of the way as I sit on the molded-plastic school chair.
“Don’t get me wrong. Compatibility remains high,” Larry says in a monotone that’s more mono than usual. “As a matter of fact, I believe I may be falling for her, somewhat violently. Just look at her preparing my pistachios. She lines up the piles so all I have to do is delve. I’d like nuffing better than to do right by her, marriage-wise. It’s only the trust issue I’m continuing to monitor.”
“Anything in particular bothering you?”
“Not to the best of my knowledge,” he says, squirting back a blast of nasal spray and blinking at me blankly.
“But I mean, you wanted to talk-”
“Oh, I see,” he says, his concentration coming back. “Yes, in that case, one thing. As you may or may not know, Mary is very diligently studying the English workbooks I got her. But the other day I offered to buy her English-language CDs that she could play on her computer at home, and she told me she didn’t have a computer.”
“I fail to see the signifi-”
“Dan, don’t you remember? I sent her three hundred and fifty dollars to buy a used laptop a year ago. It was one of the first transactions between us, and she was most appreciative.”
“Oh,” I say, my heart sinking. “I see. So you’re saying-”
“That she pocketed my money.”
Why do I feel my heart aching? Not because I like Mary so much, but because Larry was so happy with her for a time. I could count the missing teeth in his smile! Wouldn’t it have been great if she and Larry could wander off into the sunset together, arm in arm? The Larry-Mary military-industrial complex forever?
“I’d like to work things out between us, but only if I conclude she’s not using me to ride my passport to the promised land. And for my part, I want to make sure I’m falling for her for the right reasons, not only for the way she tends to my laundry needs, though she continues to do that like nobody’s business, including my most intimate apparel.”
“But if she does your knickers while taking you to the cleaners, that doesn’t seem to be a very good trade, Larry.”
“But I’m impaired! I’m not sure I can trust my judgment. Am I genuinely fond of her, or am I only rescuing her to assuage the guilt I feel for letting Judy slip away?”
I don’t know: The whole Judy question is a difficult one for me. As is the question of how comfortable Mary has become with me-comfortable enough to sit there wearing pantyhose with no skirt so I can’t help seeing that her panties are valentine red. A new tune warbles forth from the softspeakers: Jack and Jill went up the hill to fetch a pail of water…
“Is she still giving your credit card a good workout?” I ask.
“I don’t mind her using my credit card. In fact, I encourage it.”
“Because it’ll atrophy if it isn’t exercised daily?”
“Ha ha, good one,” he says without smiling.
I look at Mary dividing the pistachios into various piles for Larry to enjoy. “Larry, I have to tell you, all you’re saying sends up red flags to me. Did it ever occur to you that she might have stolen your passport that first week, sold it to the black market, or worse?”
“What, identity theft? No, I have to admit that never occurred to me, but it’s not that far-fetch-”
He interrupts himself. “Mary, that’s more than enough piles, thank you. Could you call the nurses’ station and ask them to send us a fan? I want to make Dan as comfortable as I can. A fan, a fan?” He makes whirring motions with both arms until Mary grasps what he means and tentatively picks up the phone.
“Another thing,” Larry says to me. “For the first time, she appealed to me directly for money, sixty-six dollars U.S. That rounds out to five hundred RMB.”
“Did she ask for sixty-six dollars or five hundred RMB?” I ask.
“Sixty-six dollars. Sounds smaller that way,” Larry says. “Clever girl.”
Meanwhile clever girl is talking to the nurses’ station. “Call…fan. Call…fan,” she’s saying into the receiver. With her other hand, she undoes the top of her fur coat to let a little air in.
“What’s with the crucifix, by the way?” I ask Larry, seeing it glinting there in the opening. “It’s more chic than an air freshener, I’ll give you that, but did she become Catholic all of a sudden?”
“As far as I can make out, it’s more a good-luck token than a fashion statement,” Larry explains unhelpfully. Mary gives up on the phone and sets herself to new, non-pistachio-related business.
“So how’d you respond to her appeal?” I ask him.
“I gave her half. I gave her sixty-six dollars,” Larry says with satisfaction. “Two can play this game.”
“Larry,” I say, “that’s whole. Sixty-six is whole.”
Larry thinks about this. I expect him to say, “Oh, sorry, my head.” Which would worry me enough. But instead he says something that worries me more. He says, “Look how she’s going after my blackheads now. Bofe shoulders. Try getting an American girl to do that.”
“Larry,” I say, gripping him on his soft arm, “I need you to know this. My jury’s really out on this person. Starting with the fact that she’s not who she said she was.”
“Few of us are.”
“But think about it. Maybe all we need to know about her is that she claimed she was five foot two?”
“Or maybe that she keeps taking a ten-hour train ride to save me airfare?”
“Or maybe that she said she was fluent in English?”
“But she bought me bananas the other day,” Larry counters. “Not that I could stomach them, but still it was a nice gesture, I felt.”
“Hmmm,” I say, holding up my hands as if weighing two sides of a difficult equation. “Bananas, fraud; fraud, bananas.”
“Her language is improving,” Larry says.
“I’ll take your word for it,” I say.
“She’s sacrificed a lot for me, being here so many days.”
“And been well compensated for it.”
“She’s willing to look after me all my life.”
“Which you hopefully won’t need, since getting you back on your feet was the idea for coming here. Larry, her name’s not even Mary, maybe that’s the long and short of it.”
Mary doesn’t even look up at the sound of the familiar syllables. I feel like we’re conducting a test for a deaf person in an old movie.
“Do you think maybe she’s retarded?” Larry asks me then. “Maybe that’s where I got the erroneous idea that her son was retarded, because I’m pretty sure the word ‘retarded’ was in there somewhere in our early negotiations.”
I reflect on the acrylic sweater that Mary recently bought me with Larry’s credit card, of questionable use in this stifling heat. “It’s an attractive supposition, but I don’t think-”
“Fan!” Mary announces with sudden impatience. “I get now me!”
The second she’s out the door, Larry begins pointing to the corner behind the dresser. “The stash is over there,” he says with no emotion.
“Stash? Oh, come on, Larry, we’re not in enough danger without you deal-”
“Not that kind of stash,” he says. “Mary’s stash. Look.”
I’ve seen animal stashes before, where squirrels stockpile parts of nuts along with stray twigs and bottle caps, and that’s what this shopping bag of hospital throwaways resembles. Gauze pads. Rubber bands. Shower-curtain rings.
“I don’t know what to think,” Larry says with some embarrassment, as if the quality control is far below his standards. “It’s like we’re on the same page about so many things, but then I see her hoarding these things away.”
“Could she possibly be hoarding them for you?”
“Except I’m not in the habit of using Tampax,” he points out. “Plus, there’s the issue of the phone bill…” Larry hands me a receipt that totals four hundred dollars for the past two weeks.
“Just from the phone in our suite?” I say, pocketing the bill in disbelief.
Suddenly Larry seems to sag, jellying down in defeat. “I’ve had it with this country,” he says. “I’m so sick of the pillows, they’re like beanbags full of I don’t know what, kidney beans maybe, that crackle under my ear.”
“Really? I kinda like ’em.”
“I have no doubt you do. I don’t. You have the security of the upper middle caste, so temporary squalor may not bother you, but it does bother me. I just want to go home. Everyone sounds like Desi Arnaz. When I want something, they say uh-huh, uh-huh, and nuffing happens. I try to tell myself it’s not so different here, but then I see something like hospital administrators in a conference room Dancercising with Chinese fans, and it throws me. I don’t want to sound ungrateful, Dan, it’s just that I come from America, the toilet-paper capital of the world, and here I have to mime to wipe my ass-”
“I brought us some new rolls this morning,” I remind him.
“Gee, just when I was getting used to using the paper money,” he says. “But seriously, the M &M’s don’t taste the same, nuffing’s the same, everything tastes like China. And you know why everyone squats in this country, Dan, instead of sitting? I finally figured out why. It’s because every single spot has been peed on. Think about it: For thousands of years, millions of people have finally managed to hit every inch. And have you noticed how everyone keeps saying, ‘nigga nigga nigga-’”
“That’s just a filler-type word, Larry. It’s the equivalent of our ‘mmhmm.’”
“I’m not judging, Dan. I’m just saying it offends me. I’m doing my best not to say ‘Chink,’ and this is how they repay me, by getting to say that?”
“Okay,” I say, “but to be fair, none of this is Mary’s fault.”
“It’s all part of my horrible China experience,” Larry says. “Plus which, I can’t get a word out of Mary about her family. I don’t know if they’re a bunch of opium addicts or what. And her health is iffy. Apparently she’s had swelling of the ankles for two years, but she won’t let me get anyone in the hospital to look at them. So what it all boils down to, I can’t trust my database of emotions anymore. You’re supposed to be my sous-chef or whatever the term is-what do you think?”
A pause while I get to watch Larry clean the inside of his ears with a piece of hardworking tissue paper before depositing it in the orangey remains of his McFish chowder. Motorcycles pass by on the street nine stories below, sounding like a parade of broken lawn mowers.
What I think is, Mary’s come back with a fan. Against all odds, she’s not carrying a vacuum cleaner trailing a river of lint, or a stovepipe ripped out of some peasant’s hut, or a diseased dachshund she’s planning to cook. She’s bringing in a real live fan, and she’s plugging it into a real live socket. That goes in the credit column. But what I also think is that there’s this thing Mary does with her mouth that’s not pretty, like she’s getting ready to spit pig’s knuckles out on a tablecloth. I also think that every time we’ve shared a taxi, she makes Larry slide across the backseat, instead of letting him sit where it’s easiest for him and going around herself to the opposite door. I also think that from the beginning she’s always gotten us lost in this, her country; that she smells like she’s been sneaking into Larry’s Aqua Velva aftershave; that she talks on the phone to people in low tones, and when, to be conversational, I ask what she’s talking about she says, “Talking bout.”
And she looks like she’s lying.
“Well?” Larry says.
Okay, what I really think is twofold. Number one, I think I ought to investigate candeyblossoms.com myself. Because in case Mary isn’t going to pan out, I could better advise Larry if I have a sense of the field out there.
Larry agrees. “Take it out for a spin. Try running Shi and see what you come up with. Just make sure you limit your search to ages twenty-five to thirty, or you’ll be completely overrun. Oh, and be advised that in their profiles read ‘mistakes’ as ‘kids.’ If they say they’ve made three mistakes in life: three kids.”
I log on. I’m not going to lead any of the women on or set up a date; that would be worse than viewing time-sharing solicitations solely to collect the free gifts. It’s unethical to waste people’s time. But there’s nothing wrong with swapping a little screen info for educational purposes, is there?
Then, with a click of the mouse, there they are-like when my childhood pet hamster produced babies-a sudden rush of vulnerable bodies: so many candey blossoms that they threaten to litter my hard drive. Is that what they are, these Third World brides, just so much helpless brood? Or are they sophisticated young ladies availing themselves of modern technology? It’s an exploitative situation to be sure, but don’t both parties get something out of the deal?
Enough so that it’s worth a try, I guess…
“Hi, Zhang,” I type. “Can you tell me a little more about yourself? Would you say you’re a giving person? Are you kind to those less fortunate than yourself? Have you ever had nursing experience? Hope to hear from you soon!”
I can’t bear to stay on longer than a few minutes but leave the Web site open on my laptop, like leaving a fishing line dangling in the water.
The other thing I think, number two, is that I should ask Jade about the trust issue. This is something I won’t tell Larry about-it would only launch us into a proxy war, Larry and I sparring through our women: Mary versus Jade in a mud-wrestling pit. So I say nothing, wait till I’m alone that evening, and make the call from the second floor, where the Badminton Boys are going at it with macho brilliance.
“So what’s your opinion of Mary’s employment history?” I ask Jade. I’ve reached her on her cell at a girlfriend’s harmonica recital, and she’s speaking in a hushed voice, as I am.
“I cannot say, really,” Jade says.
“I know, but do you think she’s capable of holding down any sort of school job at all?”
“Yes, a little unbelievable, I think. And to take so many days away to be with Larry? I have a bad feeling about that.”
“Me, too.”
“Good chance she is lying,” Jade says, becoming more direct. “Some Chinese ladies want to cheat money from foreign, it’s torrible. As women Chinese citizens, we lose our Chinese face. I want to say sorry for that.”
“Ah, well, it’s not your fault-”
“So I think I can spy for you,” she says quietly.
“Spy for me? You mean like bang, bang, your fantasy career?”
“I can try,” Jade says. “Be private eye, find out what I can about Mary. I will call her school and say I am poor student, looking to speak Mary to ask job.”
“You cauliflower!” I cry. “You’d do that for us? And what do you think about the phone bill she’s run up?”
“This you not tell me about yet.”
“Four hundred dollars from our suite, just for the past two weeks.”
I hear Jade suck back her teeth bubbles with a sharp intake of breath. “How big the bill is!” she exclaims. “She must be call at least two hour each day, maybe when Larry is snoring. Who she can call for? May be another man?”
Whoa, really? A plastic birdie ricochets off the wall onto my head. Handing it back to Abu with a wink gives me time to assess this suggestion. “Another man?”
“Such a bill is too big if you call your relative. Only to lover we say so many words. But this is only my guess, not a fact. We can ask hospital for detail of the bill, see which phone numbers?”
“Got it right here,” I say, scanning the bill quickly. “There’s one main number that keeps popping up, to 04317137130. Do you want to call the number and see-”
“-if she lying wholesale,” Jade completes my thought.
“Bang, bang!” I say. I’m thrilled to have my own personal spy but am held back by one qualm.
“Before we jump the gun, though, are we sure we want to intrude?” I ask. “I mean, maybe Mary will turn out to be okay even if she does have ulterior motives. People are complex! So what if she met him only to make a better life for herself? Isn’t that a legitimate thing to want to do, as long as she genuinely cares for my cousin, which she seems to do?”
“No,” Jade declares. “The large heart of Larry, she will hurt it, definitely I think.”
It couldn’t be any plainer. Maybe it’s time I stop giving everyone the benefit of the doubt and just accept that life is sometimes as clear-cut as a badminton game: The birdie lands either fair or foul.
“Well, anyway, your pronouns are coming along nicely,” I tell her.
“I am learning the difference between man and woman,” she says with a catch in her voice.
“Uh-huh,” I say.
And that’s all I say.
Later that night, just as I’m crawling onto my couch to sleep, there are three loud knocks. I open the door to Larry’s room. But the Larry-Mary conglomerate is fast asleep. I’m back on the couch twenty seconds later when there are another three knocks. It’s my laptop, receiving nibbles from the Web site I forgot I left open: instant chat invitations. Barbi is thirty, from the suburbs, drinks occasionally, smokes not at all. But huwwo, what’s this? Is that a whip she’s holding? No, a microphone cord. Sure enough, one of her passions is karaoke-not as piquant as S &M, perhaps, but I’m not privy to Larry’s requirements. KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK: My, my, now here’s ShiJen, a nimble little typist. Her messages come racing in one after the other. Insistent, too. “U there? U want talk? U busy chatting? U find someone else?” Then KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK: Messages from more women come tumbling in un-summoned, one on top of the last, no waiting in line but cutting in front of one another to pound the door down. KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK: It’s “Hiedi,” snuggling with about thirteen teddy bears. I decide not to care that she misspells her own name. KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK: It’s Kate with an eye patch, no stated religion. Her bio is rather touching in its brevity: “Well… jst simple lady hoping for love…jst ask me what u want to know…” KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-
Ah, the world’s needs. When do they not threaten to drown us all?