You can only go halfway into the darkest forest; then you are coming out the other side.
Larry is dead. I bolt awake after three hours’ sleep, wearing box-turtle shades, and am convinced of it. Larry didn’t survive. He was too feeble to withstand the anesthesia. His heart gave out. Because of the tonsils that were mangled when he was a kid, he started hiccupping and choked on the breathing tube. He gagged on his own vomit. Even in the depths of his anesthesia, he fought the surgeons tooth and nail, mindless brutal flailing that threw them off their game. Larry is dead.
Then the phone rings.
“Operation a winner,” Cherry says.
I rip off the shades I must have put on in the middle of the night. “Cherry, don’t be messing with me-really? A complete success?”
“Complete.”
“No ‘sad effects’?”
“None.”
“I can’t believe it. He’s not rejecting it? No complications at all?”
“At all,” she says. “We keep an eye on him the next week, but maybe kidney last another thirty year of life. The rest of Larry may fall down, but that kidney take a licking and keep on ticking.”
I locate Mary, who’s been in the Crush Room worriedly studying English all night. She tried to sleep but couldn’t. “Larry, Larry, sleep…Larry, Larry, sleep,” she explains. I give her the news. We’re jumping up and down. “Long live Larry!” we shout to each other.
A few hours later, Cherry, Mary, and I don surgical masks and shuffle into the ICU with plastic Baggies over our shoes. Larry’s unconscious. Looking down on his slumbering face, I view him as a mother would-as his dear, gentle Rivie must have seen her baby boy. And here’s a ridiculous thing: He does look handsome, he is handsomer than he looks. Minged up, to be sure, older than when he got here, but also younger and less scrappy somehow. Part of the reason is that he has a kidney that’s working; it’s given him a glow of health. But there’s something else, and I don’t know what it is. Why do human beings do that to one another? Just when you think you’ve got everyone squared away in his or her little pigeonhole-this one’s pug-nosed, that one’s square-assed-they jump out and turn beautiful on you. Why’d it take me so long to see it?
Slowly he stirs, opens his eyes, gestures me over. He can barely croak out the words. “How’s China Life Insurance?”
Forty-eight hours later, Larry is sitting up in bed, partaking of a celebration cake Mary has brought, complete with sparkly candles and a side of Chinese eggplant. His face is less puffy than before, with a flush of baby pink in the cheeks. The kidney is doing what it’s supposed to do-cleaning his blood. So simple, so primitive, and so life-changing.
“My feet are back to size nine after being twelve for two years,” he says.
“Also his brain back to itself,” Cherry confirms. “Very good kidney, very good match. But must taking it slow,” she reminds him.
“It’s like breaking in a new transmission, I get it,” he says. “You have to let it get used to the rest of the vehicle.”
“Perfect,” Cherry says.
“Do I feel perfect? No,” Larry says, chomping down what look like tiny pork balls from the top of the cake, using chopsticks. “I woke up this morning and still wondered what I should get Judy for a souvenir. But I’m ahead of the game. I’m free of the dialysis machine, which is a minor miracle in itself. I’ve got my life back.”
“So we think next week you go home,” Cherry says.
“Yippie yi yo,” he says. “You mean after almost two months of captivity, I’ll be able to resume a normal existence?”
“Was it normal before?” Cherry counters.
“I take your point,” Larry says. “Bottom line, I may die of general decrepitude, or I may decide to off myself, but odds are good I’m not going to die of kiddie failure. Say, any way I can get the recipe for this eggplant? It’s ever so much better than at home.”
It’s a joyful scene, with Cherry looking on fondly and Mary looking lovely, all decked out with pink sweater and blue plastic necklace she bought herself in celebration, nothing too expensive on Larry’s dime, resting her head on Larry’s shoulder and saying, “I very like Larry. I tell my son, every day he nice to me. Every day.” There’s even a birthday party tune from the softspeakers: How old are you now, how old are you now…?
But something odd’s going on with me. As warmed as I am by all that’s happening, too much is at stake here for me to surrender to fuzzy feelings. Instead of getting all throat-lumpy at the proceedings, I find myself clearing my throat. I have work to do-now.
“So by the way, Larry,” I say almost airily, “if you do elect to ‘off’ yourself after all this?”
“Yes?”
“You’ll be doing what Judy did after you cured her of epilepsy and her newfound health was too much for her to handle. It’ll be a similar thing.”
“Not identical.”
“But similar enough for me to kill you a second time, Larry-so don’t even think about it,” I say. “Don’t drink the warm Coke, Larry. For once in your damn existence, reach for a cold one, keep it, enjoy it, don’t fucking blow it.”
He looks startled, not sure if I’m joking or if there’s an actual edge of anger to my voice.
“I’ll try,” he says.
“Don’t try,” I say. “Whatever you do, don’t you dare do that. Trying gets you in more fucking trouble than I’ve ever seen in my life. Just fuck-all do it, plain and simple, do it.”
Mary and Cherry may not know these are swearwords, but my tone makes them drop their eyes and fidget self-consciously.
“Dan, I’ve never heard you swear so much in a single sentence-”
“Shut up, Larry,” I say. “I’m trying to wax self-righteous here for a minute, if I may.”
Larry sweeps his arm out before him. “The floor is yours.”
As if on cue, Cherry pushes a knob on the side of the TV. At once the softspeakers fall silent. For the first time, we have no background music. Why wasn’t I able to locate that knob two months ago? What a relief.
“Listen up,” I say, abruptly pushing Mary’s chair, with Mary in it, so it faces the center of the room. “It’s time to speak hard balls to both of you.”
“As you wish, Dan,” Larry says, giving me a vacant look.
Cherry excuses herself, correctly, and leaves the room. In the fresh silence, I fix Mary with a look that tells her I mean business. Carbonation may not have come to her village near North Korea, but straight talk apparently has. She takes hold of Larry’s hand and looks at me as though I’m going to pronounce them man and wife.
“Mary,” I begin. “Larry is a good man.”
She is nodding.
“A good man and a true man.” I’ve never spoken so slowly in my life, never enunciated so carefully. It’s like I’m willing my words into that brain of hers, whether it’s an honest brain or a dishonest brain, whether it’s a product of forty-below temperatures where she was forced to steal or whatever. I want my words in there.
“And he needs you to be true as well.”
“True? B-a-”
“No. True. T-”
“Oh, true! T-r-”
“Yes.”
“T-r-u-e.”
“Yes, Larry will be true to you, if you become true to him.”
Mary’s face changes. Her eyes become…what I can only call…true. “I become true to him,” she says. “I be really, really true.”
I look down at my hands. I see age spots. Where’d they come from? I’ve gotten three age spots since I came here two months ago. This is how we age, I understand. This is how we age.
“Mary, maybe Larry is a sucker. Do you know what that means? Maybe he keeps wanting to believe you are true, even when we all know you already lied: about your job, and your size, and your age…”
Mary squeezes Larry’s hand harder. “I lied, yes.”
“But he needs to believe in you, Mary. He needs it for his life to get better. And he can make your life so much better, Mary. You have no idea how much better your life can become. But he just needs to believe that you’ll be true to him, too. Never lie to him, never, ever lie to him.”
“No, no, never, I sorry.” Mary is crying, and Larry’s a little choked up, too. No, he’s crying. Those are wet, hot tears skittering down my cousin’s cheeks. They won’t let go of each other’s hand.
“Human beings are complicated,” I say. “We lie sometimes, because we feel we have to, and because we feel it will help us. But if we are true, it is better.”
“Is better, is better.” They are both crying.
“You know, he got the kidney to save his life. We called it Princess. But now he needs someone to make his life worth living. If you turn out to be his real Princess…”
A cannon sounds from somewhere, like the one from last night. It reminds me not to take up too much time; there are other concerns in the world, most more pressing than ours.
“Sermon’s over,” I say.
“I’m going to do you a big favor,” Larry says, “and not tell you who you just sounded like.”
“My father?”
“I was going to say Yoda, but sure, knock yourself out.” No time knock anything, however, the job’s not done This sermon of mine turns out to be a twofer, and the target of part two is Larry, himself.
“Larry,” I say.
Again he’s taken aback by something businesslike in my voice. He looks up at me.
“You trust me, right, Larry? Of all the people in the world who’ve double-crossed you and fucked you over, I never have, right?”
“We’ve had our disagreements, but right,” Larry says.
“And it looks like we’ve saved your life, right?”
“I wouldn’t say ‘we,’ Dan. All I did was lie here while you harassed the poor citizens of this country.”
“We’ve always been straight with each other?”
“Within reason.”
“And these two months I haven’t asked you for anything, right?”
“Right.”
“Because I’m going to ask you for something right now,” I say.
“Anything you want. You know I have connections. Name it and it’s yours.”
“For real?”
“It wasn’t like I had a list of other people who’d come to China and help me with this thing, Dan.”
“How many would have?”
“I can’t think of one.”
“And it turned out to be your cousin.”
“I don’t hold it against you.”
I’m still impressed by how he does that: the tough-guy bravado, the unsentimentality that is itself a form of sentimentality.
“So name it,” he says. “Your wish is my command. Deluxe cruise to Bermuda, remote-control microwave, pinball machine with bump-and-nudge-proof U-Shock Board, you name it.”
“All right if I have five wishes? I’d like to press my advantage.”
“Go for it: I certainly would.”
“Okay, Wish Number Five. You know those sagas you’re always telling? I might want to tell a couple myself, about our little adventure here. And if I do, I want you to let me tell them the way I want, no interference.”
“By all means, Dan, why would I care? My sagas are mine, yours are yours-tell anything you want.”
“Just confirming.”
“Okay, that’s a fair answer to what I think was a fair question. So moving along, Wish Number Four?”
“Number Four,” I begin.
“But wait, before you hit me with Number Four, let me just put in a request that in any sagas you tell, don’t make me out to be lovable, okay? I mean, I know you’re not a sappy guy, but please don’t suggest that I’m cuddly in any way, because what the hell do you know? Don’t have your listener fall in love with my complexity, or my human contradictions, or any of that crap. I don’t need a larger fan base.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Matter fact, feel free to maximize my dark side, I’d appreciate that. Demonize me to your heart’s content.”
“Mais oui,” I say with some exasperation. “Can we get to Number Four?”
“Number Four, sure. Oh, but one last thing before we leave Number Five? You may have noticed I try to include a moral in most of my sagas. Something the listener can take away with him. But often I’m guilty of leaving it too implicit, and that’s a failing I don’t want you to make. Give ’em a nice clear moral, something-”
“All right, I’m skipping to Number Three, because you’re wearing me down here.”
“I’m a professional negotiator, what do you think I’m doing-”
“Number Three. Never use the word ‘Chink’ ever again. ‘Chink, rice-picker, zipperhead’-none of those: The Chinese have been absolutely unstinting on your behalf. So banish those words from your vocabulary.”
“Done. That was easy. Next.”
“Number Two. Stop the rest of my hair from falling out.”
“Beyond my power.”
“Then just leave me the little I have left?”
“No can do.”
“Okay, in that case I’m going to load everything onto Wish Number One, the only one I really care about, the hardest one, maybe the hardest you’ve ever had, for big boys only. You up for it?”
“I hope so.”
“Ready?”
Larry sucks in his breath like a heavyweight before the opening bell. His brain is buzzing: Am I going to ask him to reimburse me for the past two months? I can see him calculating costs, adding figures. At last he nods.
“Ready,” he says.
“Release Burton,” I say.
My request catches him sideways, like a roundhouse punch to the jaw after some playful poking. This is even huger than he expected. I see it in his impassive face.
“I’m not saying you have to forgive him,” I elaborate. “Just let him go. Release him.”
“You bastard,” he says.
“Tough, huh? That’s my only request. Can you do it?”
“Oh, you would have to choose that one. That was the sweetest revenge I was ever going to take.”
“You’re using the past tense. Does that mean it’s over?”
Larry closes his eyes. He does not sigh. He doesn’t breathe at all for a minute. He looks like a zombie. But then he often looks like a zombie: waxy, inert.
Then: “Yes, Dan.”
“I have your word, right? No reaching out to underworld connections…?”
He extends his hand to offer me a weak handshake. “Of course, Dan. Now leave me be. I’m exhausted suddenly. I’m drained.”
I stand up to take my leave. “Thank you, cuz,” I say.
“Thank you.” He says this impersonally, like a guy thanking a bartender for extra olives. But I know he doesn’t mean it impersonally.
That’s how I wanted our conversation to go, but call it wishful thinking, because reality doesn’t always follow the script you’d like it to. Rewinding the tape a bit, here’s how the conversation actually goes:
“Release Burton,” I say.
“Absolutely not,” he says. His head has pulled back, the neck muscles coiling. He watches me warily, with great slowness, like a snapping turtle readying itself to spring. “Not on your life,” he says. “It’s set in stone.”
“Larry-”
“Look, don’t get me wrong, I think it’s a magnificent idea, aesthetically. It has a certain artistic merit that even a cretin like me can appreciate. You come here to save one cousin and end up saving two. But no, I can’t do it, I won’t do it, and in fact I’m deeply offended that you would ask such a thing.” He holds up a hand to keep me from interrupting. “It makes me think you’re on Burton ’s side, that you’re a backstabber after all, that maybe you’ve been in collusion with Burton this whole time, and I ought to put a fatwa on you, too-”
“Slow down there, pardner,” I say, taking a deep breath. “You’re going to blow an artery. I’m asking this for your sake as much as for Burton ’s. You’ve got a brand-new kidney inside you, but if you subject it to all the revenge that’s in your system, you’re going to poison it faster than a-”
“It’s a strong kidney,” he reminds me. “It’s the kidney of a killer.”
“Oh, that fact has not escaped me,” I say. “But believe me, it’ll shrivel up and die against all the bitterness and self-pity you’ve accrued. You’ll have wasted it. You’ll prove yourself unworthy of it. I’m asking this for the sake of your life as much as for Burton ’s. You’re both my cousins. I want what’s best for both of you.”
“I’m sorry, Dan.”
“Larry, don’t you see that you’re trying to do to Burton exactly what was done to you, by Uncle Auguste? You want to screw him just as you yourself were-”
“I don’t see. I don’t care.”
“You have to see! You have to care! In the context of all the good that Burton has done, you have to let go of one or two bad things-”
“Never. He has to pay the price.”
“Larr-”
“The answer is no, Dan. He almost got a huge gift from you that he doesn’t deserve. But no. It will happen on my death. You can quote me.”
“Goddamn it, Larry-”
“Here’s what you don’t get,” Larry says, shading his eyes. His face has darkened. The baby pink flush has withdrawn itself into little pinpricks of rage through a thunderhead of gray. “What you don’t get is that it would be shameful for me not to do it. That I haven’t done it yet is shameful to me, and it will remain shameful until the day the deed is done. I’m doing it for my mutha, who was crying on her deathbed-”
“But on her deathbed, or wherever she is now, Larry-”
“Watch where you’re going with this, Dan-”
“-she would not have wanted you to avenge her death.”
A tear rolls down his cheek. “That’s strike two. You’ve been warned, Dan.”
“I don’t want to feel like I’m being threatened here, Larry. Haven’t I earned the right to say what I have to say?”
“Say it.”
“Here it is: I think you’re fixating on Burton instead of the real issue. Burton may have tried to screw your mother, or he may not have, I have no way of knowing, but what I do know is that you’re spending all your energy plotting revenge against him rather than doing the work you have to do.”
“What work?”
“The grief work. It’s too easy this way, Larry. You have to do a difficult thing, and that’s to accept that families die: yours, mine, everyones’s. They just die, that’s all. It’s life, Larry, and life’s a bitch. But the fact is that Burton ’s not responsible for their deaths, and obsessing about him is keeping you from feeling the rage-”
“What rage?”
“About everything! About the lousy cards you were dealt in life! About not having a father who taught you how to hit a baseball and about having a sister who killed herself without letting you use her kidney and about all the bad that’s ever been done to you, from your childhood on.”
Larry’s looking down at his hands.
“Hate Burton all you want, but keep that hate in a separate box, is all I’m saying. You know that’s what your mother would want you to do. She wouldn’t want you to injure Burton.”
He lifts his head to gaze at the scroll across the room. “Poor goldfish,” he says, “not enough room to turn around…”
I know my words have sunk in, but I need to nail this down. I pick up the cell phone and start tapping numbers.
“Who you calling?”
“ Burton, for you to tell him it’s over.”
But this is going too far. I’ve lost him. Larry gets up on one elbow, the neck vein throbbing. “One last time,” he says distinctly. “The answer is no.”
“All right,” I say, putting down the phone. “I’m going for broke here. Larry, not to be blunt, but don’t you think you owe me the one and only thing I truly want, after taking out two months to get you a kidney?”
“You know how I see it, Dan?”
“Tell me.”
“I see it that we’re even.”
“How you figure?”
“You got me a kidney. I got you a nice adventure to tell your kids. You can go home with a great saga for your friends, bragging rights from here to-”
“Jesus Christ, Feldman, you think I give a damn about-?”
“We’re even-steven. And notice I’m not even asking you for a cut, if you make this into a movie or something, though it would be nice if you could get Clint Eastwood to play me-”
“He’s like ninety years old, Larry.”
“Oh, yeah, I must still be a little misoriented. But don’t ask me for anything extra, that’s pushing it. And by the way, not that I’m not grateful for all you’ve done, because I am, but just in case you feel like doing something extra for me?”
“Yeah?”
“If you ever find yourself walking with Burton and a car is out of control coming toward you? Push Burton out of its path. Make sure he’s not hurt. Because I want it to happen to him my way.”
Neither of us knows what to say for a moment.
“In the good-news department, though, lying here with all this free time, I’ve come up with a killer invention: Autumn Foliage Sunglasses, the lenses flecked with paint for stay-at-home leaf peepers…”
Subjects are closed, all of them, as effectively as if he’s withdrawn his head into its shell and snapped it shut. If that’s how he sees things, I’ve banked no obligation. I’ve accumulated no leverage. Mary raises her eyebrows to me in sympathy, for the sucker punch that’s just laid me out cold.
Over the next few days, I prepare both of us for departure. Larry doesn’t really need me anymore while he recuperates. I book our flights-me to my family at home, after a good-bye to Jade in Beijing; Larry directly to Florida from Shi a few days afterward. I crate up his belongings, six boxes in all, and cab them to the post office so he’ll have nothing but a shoulder bag to tote home. The cost is fifty dollars per box, and it may take them a couple of months to get to Florida, but it would be four times that amount to do air. I figure he can make do with the delay.
My thrift is canceled out, though, by the overly lavish gifts Larry directs me to disburse. I take his MasterCard to the ATM time after time to get generous wads of cash for everyone. (“Every time I hear myself say ten thousand,” Larry says about the gift to Cherry “my heart jumps. I know it’s only about twelve hundred dollars American, but I have a hard time giving away ten thousand anything. Even pennies. Especially pennies. What can I tell you-the habits of an old penny collector.”) Also, I buy an ostentatiously expensive scotch for Dr. X that, naked of its velvet wrapping, fits in well with the parrots on his shelves. Word comes down that Dr. X is offering his personal Bentley and driver to take Larry to the regional airport three days after I leave. The generosity (and the self-interest) of the Chinese people goes on and on.
Luckily, just in case I’m getting overly fond of the place, the smog’s returned. We’re back to breathing Frappuccinos, even tastier than before. The sun’s a white token in the milky sky, like a zinc slug Larry once gave me to get into the subway free. But at least the smog’s dissipating somewhat from Larry’s brain. “800-555-1212,” he says. “Hey, look what I know. I didn’t know those numbers last week. Toll-free information. Now I can call the airlines and wrangle a disability upgrade.”
At the appointed time early one morning, checking out of the Super 2, I find my den mother the housekeeper and tell her I’m leaving.
“Not just for a walk this time,” I say. “For good and all.”
She stamps her feet and sticks her tongue out at me! What’s that about? Then, what a hug she gives me! A full frontal, complete with burrowing her nose in my neck and roughly inhaling me.
Getting to the hospital to make my good-byes, I find Cherry, who loads me up with hospital papers and last-minute instructions to tell Larry’s Florida doctors about his ongoing care. I press her two hands to my heart: “Good hands,” I say as she nods, smiling. For the first time, it is not a promise or a plea. It is a statement of fact.
I go to the second floor to see Abu but can’t locate him. From his bed his dusky-skinned father says, “How is the Professor doing?”
“He’s pink!” I say, then realize that’s not necessarily a color that would speak to him. Besides, Abu’s father is not faring as well. He’s still awaiting a transplant, with no word on when it may arrive; an associate from Yemen has had two surgeries so far, and both have been problematic.
Leaving Abu’s father’s room to resume my good-bye rounds, I’m ambushed by someone throwing his arms around me. “Take me wiz you!” cries Artie the KFC deliveryman, near tears despite his helpless smile of double-harpsichord teeth. “I fatten you up!” I gently disentangle myself and give him the fake watch from my wrist. What the hell, I give him the fake one from my other wrist, too. With Artie on the case, maybe it’ll catch on in China as a power fad.
“Dan, ah, I think he be sweet at you,” says Mary, who has shown up unexpectedly, no doubt lost.
New mysteries all the time…
I accompany Mary to the ninth floor, where she tells me that a surprise is waiting. Sure enough, in our suite is a tall, weedy young man she introduces as her son. “Captain of college team-ah basketball.”
It’s a full-court press-a final-quarter tactic as the clock ticks down-to get Larry to seal the deal, but I don’t mind feeling manipulated, because I like Ling; he’s an upstanding young man, despite his loose-knuckled handshake. He even brought a gift of a personal plastic fan, which Larry’s placed on the table beside him, its gift ribbons blowing in the breeze. Ling is shy and also a bit rehearsed, with a lot of big words that could come from nowhere but a thesaurus. “My mother is a diligence and docile woman, also hygienic and plausible,” he tells me artlessly.
“You yourself are also diligent, I see. And I’m touched by your loyalty to her,” I tell him. “But it’s Larry’s decision, to make when he sees fit.”
“I see, I see. In that situation I give you two time alone to make farewell,” the son says. He squires his mother toward the hallway. But Mary is not ready to go yet. She balks at the door in her fur coat, looking as glamorous as a movie star. How’d that happen again? Whether or not they stay together, I’m glad she has my grandmother’s baby sister’s coat.
She speaks. “I need you understand me. We all together long long time, not just Larry-Mary: Larry-Mary-Dan. When you go home, I’m no happy.”
She starts dabbing at her eyes.
I still can’t tell if I see tears or not. But you know what? It’s not my business any longer.
“I hope you be happy every day,” I tell her. “And I hope I see you in Florida, if that’s what’s in the cards.”
Her son translates. “Oh, yes,” she says, lighting up. “In cards! Hope yes!”
I busy myself with last-minute packing while they make their way down the hall. When they’re out of earshot, I put it to Larry.
“So what’s the verdict? Marry Mary?”
Larry’s more chipper than I’ve seen him this whole trip, almost sunny. I have the feeling it’s not just because he’s relishing his newfound health; it’s also because he’s vanquished me. He won. He didn’t give me what I wanted. His victory gives him strength.
“My muscles feel lazy as a Kobe cow,” he tells me. “Ever have one of those steaks? They’re hand-massaged for twelve hours a day and given a steady diet of beer. Nuffing like good old-fashioned American beef. I look forward to getting some of those when I get home.”
“They’re Asian,” I point out.
“Are they?” he asks, merrily stretching his back muscles.
I’m feeling the tension, even if he isn’t. I regard his uncharacteristic vivacity with a certain detachment. “You look well rested,” I say.
“Do I?” he says. “Because I’m not. Mary and I finally found something better to do last night than sleep.”
I ignore his leer. It’s Mona Lisa in the clubhouse with her cronies after a satisfying round of golf.
“Congratulations,” I say.
“So what I figure is this,” he says. “No matter how it plays out from here, I still got the better part of the deal.”
“Tell me.”
“I came here for two things. To see if it would work out with Mary. And to see if I could get a kidney. Even if Mary doesn’t work out, I’m still batting.500. And just between you and me, the better.500 of the two, at an eighty-five-percent discount, fifteen cents on the dollar. That’s not bad for my rookie visit to China.”
“You say ‘rookie’ as though there might be more.”
“You never know, Dan. I may just decide to come back and run out the clock here. My pennies will last a lot longer here than at home…”
“Not a bad plan,” I say.
“And my blood pressure’s still coming down, so I just may not stroke out after all. Plus, I’m gonna ride in a Bentley.”
He pauses while he treats me to the sound of his diseased teeth triumphantly cracking the hard candies he’s nicked from various nurses’ stations. I place my toiletries in my bag, leaving out the black and gold yarmulke for Larry to keep. I’m aware that these are the final moments I’ll be breathing a certain loamy scent. Everything’s ready except for my laptop, but just as I reach to turn if off-KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK-it’s the brood from candeyblossoms.com. Yet they’ll have to go unanswered, by me, forever. I shut it down and zip my bag closed.
“And Mary?” I ask.
“I’ve talked to her in depth about her deceptions. That’s what I called them, no beating around the bush. I’m being very tough with her.”
“Good.”
“I told her there will have to be changes from now on. Because I continue to catch her lying about things, big and little. It’s an ingrained habit, makes me wary.”
“As well it might.”
“I put it to her in no uncertain terms that if I’m willing to go ahead and finance her education-”
“Larry-”
“-that I’m going to insist on a prenup.”
“Now you’re talking.”
“So she won’t get her half of my estate until a year passes-”
“Larry, make it five years! Ten years! This is supposed to be a long-term relationship.”
“I’m cutting her a little slack.”
“I swear, Larry, in your own way you’re a lot more forgiving than I am.”
“I’m just not ready to close the door. Maybe she has her reasons for doing what she does.”
“People always do.”
“Yes they do! And who knows, under my tutelage she may just turn into an honest woman after all. In which case I’m fully prepared to marry her and make her my wife. But if I decide she’s playing me for the village idiot, she’s dead in the water.”
“You don’t mean literally.”
“Probably not. But I’ll cut my losses and move on.”
“That’s what I like to hear.”
“You can beat a dead horse for only so long before it starts to decay.”
“Glad to hear those words, Larry, even if they do sound Chinese.”
“You want Chinese? ‘Be virtuous, but without being consciously so; and wherever you go, you will be loved.’”
“What, you’re quoting Confucius now?”
“Hey, I keep my ear to the ground. Bottom line, who are we to judge if she’s the real McCoy or not? The only thing I know for sure is that she’s spending a lot of effort to please me, and if she keeps that up, I’ll end up fat and happy. Does that make sense to you?”
“It makes Larry sense to me.”
“Thank you, I think,” he says. “It’s like what my futha used to say: ‘What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.’”
“Larry!” I say as the fridge squawks, dying yet another death. “Did you hear what you just did? You just quoted your father.”
“I know. I’m speechless.”
But not for long. He picks up the portable fan from the table and holds the grille against his lips. “You made my day, Dan.” He puts it down.
“You’re welcome. So can I set you up with a wheelchair at the airport?”
“Right. Like I’m gonna accept a wheelchair. Dan, think about the stories you have to tell when you get home: How good a character would I be if I did everything you asked? Who’d want to hear about me if I was the type to take a wheelchair?”
“So really you’re doing it for me, as you have been all along.”
“An argument could be made, yes. Just don’t act like you didn’t get something out of this, too, don’t forget.”
“And that would be what?” I ask.
“You didn’t get smoke rings puffed in your face by Chinese soldiers this time.”
We exchange a small smile. But that’s the most we’re going to get or give.
“Want an update on my latest lawsuit, nuffing to do with caviar?”
“No thanks.”
“Didn’t think so.”
So long. So long. We shake hands. No question of a hug; I’ve had plenty with the others.
“Get that goldfish a bigger bowl, will you please?” I say.
“Right. And you check both ways before crossing the street.”
I’m out the door, down the elevator, crossing the silent lobby where the usual patients shuffle sadly about in their dingy Yankee uniforms. I’m going to miss this Giant Mushroom of Hope and Dread, with its glittering marble floors and carpets of broken calligraphy. I leave the hospital for the last time, followed by a maid who polishes off my footsteps so there’s no trace of me left. No sooner am I down the steps to the sidewalk than Abu putters up on his motor scooter, wearing childlike woolen mittens, badminton rackets in a pouch over his shoulder like a quiver of arrows. He’s unhappy because his father’s in such dire straits, but he insists on taking me to the train station, my suitcase on my lap, so I can make my way back to Beijing.
“Come visit me in America,” I say when he drops me off at the station. “We’ll play badminton in my backyard.”
“Or come to Pakistan,” he says, “for an excellent holiday.”
Well, that’s maybe not the first place I’d go for an excellent holiday just now, but who knows? We shake hands good-bye. After I walk into the station, it occurs to me that he still had his mittens on when we shook. With that single gesture, that lack of skin contact, I receive the information that we are not deeply befriended. Larry got the kidney before Abu’s dad did, and besides, there are political differences. If America were to find itself in a war with Pakistan, Abu would hesitate only long enough to say a prayer before slitting my throat. Sunny-side-up dude I may still be, after all that’s happened here these past two months, but a dumb one I am not.
Or am I ever.