by Paul Auster
Angela was always horsing around like that, and after three years of diligent practice, we’d worked out a fairly polished routine. Trying to keep up my end of the game, I gave her the answer she was looking for. ‘Nothing’s forever,’ I said. ‘Just hang in there, angelic one, and sooner or later I’m bound to be free.’
There was no point in returning to Brooklyn right away, so I decided to take my afternoon walk in the Village, then round off the excursion with a bite to eat somewhere before taking the subway home. I headed west from Fifth Avenue, strolling along 12th Street with its pretty brownstones and small, neatly tended trees, and by the time I’d passed the New School and was approaching Sixth Avenue, I was already lost in thought. Bowen was still trapped in the room, and with the unsettling contents of Grace’s dream still echoing in my head, several new ideas had occurred to me about the story. I lost track of where I was after that, and for the next thirty or forty minutes I wandered around the streets like a blind man, more in that underground room in Kansas City than in Manhattan, taking only the scantest notice of the things around me. It wasn’t until I found myself on Hudson Street, gliding past the front window of the White Horse Tavern, that my feet finally stopped moving. I had built up an appetite, I discovered, and once I became aware of that fact, the focus of my attention shifted from my head to my stomach. I was ready to sit down and eat lunch.10
I had been to the White Horse many times in the past, but not for several years now, and the instant I opened the door, I was happy to see that nothing had changed. It was the same woody, smoke-filled watering hole it had always been, with the same scarred tables and wobbly chairs, the same sawdust on the floor, the same big clock on the northern wall. All the tables were occupied, but there were a couple of spots open at the bar. I slid onto one of the stools and ordered a hamburger and a glass of beer. I rarely drank during the day, but being in the White Horse had put me in a nostalgic mood (remembering all the hours I’d spent there in my late teens and early twenties), and I decided to have one for old times’ sake. It was only after I’d settled this business with the bartender that I looked over at the man sitting to my right. I had seen him from behind when I’d entered the tavern, a thin fellow in a brown sweater hunched over a drink, and something about his posture had set off a little signal in my head. Concerning what I didn’t know. Recognition, perhaps. Or perhaps something more obscure: a memory of another man in a brown sweater who’d been sitting in that same position years earlier, a lilliputian fragment from the ancient past. This man had his head down and was looking into his glass, which was half filled with Scotch or bourbon. I could only see his profile, which was partially blocked by his left wrist and hand, but there was no question that the face belonged to a person I’d thought I would never see again. M. R. Chang.
‘Mr. Chang,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
Chang turned at the mention of his name, looking downcast and perhaps a little drunk. At first, he didn’t seem to remember who I was, but then his face gradually brightened. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘Mr. Sidney. Mr. Sidney O. Nice fellow.’
‘I went back to your store yesterday,’ I said, ‘but everything was gone. What happened?’
‘Big trouble,’ Chang replied, shaking his head and taking a sip of his drink, apparently on the verge of tears. ‘Landlord raise rent on me. I tell him I have lease, but he laugh and say he seize goods with city marshal if cash not in his fist Monday morning. So I pack up my store Saturday night and leave. All Mafia men in that neighborhood. They shoot you dead if you don’t play ball.’
‘You should hire a lawyer and take him to court.’
‘No lawyer. Too much money. I look for new place tomorrow. Maybe Queens or Manhattan. No more Brooklyn. Paper Palace a flop. Big American dream a flop.’
I shouldn’t have let myself succumb to pity, but when Chang offered to buy me a drink, I didn’t have the heart to turn him down. Ingesting Scotch at one-thirty in the afternoon was not on my list of prescribed medical therapies. Even worse, now that Chang and I had become friends and were deep in conversation, I felt compelled to return the favor and order a second round. That made one glass of beer and two double Scotches in approximately an hour. Not enough to achieve full intoxication, but I was swimming pleasantly by then, and with my usual reserve growing progressively weaker as time wore on, I asked Chang a number of personal questions about his life in China and how he had come to America – something I never would have done if I hadn’t been drinking. Much of what he said confused me. His ability to express himself in English slowly deteriorated as his intake of alcohol increased, but in the flow of stories I heard about his childhood in Beijing, the Cultural Revolution, and his perilous escape from the country by way of Hong Kong, one stood out in particular, no doubt because he told it early in the conversation.
‘My father was math teacher,’ he said, ‘employed by Beijing Number Eleven Middle School. When the Cultural Revolution comes, they call him member of the Black Gang, reactionary bourgeois person. One day the Red Guard students order the Black Gang to take all books out from library not written by Chairman Mao. They hit them with belts to make them do this. These are bad books, they say. They spread capitalism and revisionist ideas, and they must be burned. My father and the other Black Gang teachers carry books out to the sports ground. The Red Guards shout at them and beat them to make them do this. They carry heavy load after heavy load, and then they have a big mountain of books. The Red Guards set them on fire, and my father begins to weep. They hit him with their belts because of this. Then the fire gets big and hot, and the Red Guards push the Black Gang right to the edge of the fire. They make them lower their heads and bend forward. They say they are being tried by the flames of the Great Cultural Revolution. It is a hot day in August, terrible sun. My father has blisters on his face and arms, cuts and bruises all over his back. At home, my mother cries when she sees him. My father cries. We all cry, Mr. Sidney. The next week, my father is arrested, and we are all sent to the countryside to work as farmers. That is when I learn to hate my country, my China. From that day, I begin to dream of America. I get my big American dream in China, but there is no dream in America. This country is bad too. Everywhere the same. All people bad and rotten. All countries bad and rotten.’11
After I finished my second Cutty Sark, I shook Chang’s hand and told him it was time for me to go. It was two-thirty, I said, and I had to get back to Cobble Hill to do some pre-dinner shopping. Chang looked disappointed. I didn’t know what he was expecting from me, but perhaps he thought I was prepared to accompany him on an all-day bender.
‘No problem,’ he finally said. ‘I drive you home.’
‘You have a car?’
‘Of course. Everyone have car. Not you?’
‘No. You don’t really need one in New York.’
‘Come, Mr. Sid. You cheer me up and make me happy again. Now I drive you home.’
‘No thanks. A man in your condition shouldn’t drive. You’re too potted.’
‘Potted?’
‘You’ve had too much to drink.’
‘Nonsense. M. R. Chang sober as a judge.’
I smiled when I heard that old American phrase, and seeing that I was amused, Chang suddenly burst out laughing. It was the same staccato eruption I’d heard in his store on Saturday. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. Ha-ha-ha. It was a disconcerting sort of gaiety, I found, dry and soulless somehow, without the vibrant, lilting quality one usually hears when people laugh. To prove his point, Chang hopped off the bar stool and began striding back and forth across the room, demonstrating his ability to keep his balance and walk a straight line. In all fairness, I had to admit that he passed the test. His movements were steady and unforced, and he seemed to be in complete control of himself. Understanding that there was no stopping this man, that his determination to drive me home had become a passionate, single-minded cause, I reluctantly gave in and accepted his offer.
The car was parked around the corner on Perry Street, a spanking-new
red Pontiac with whitewall tires and a retractable sun roof. I told Chang I thought it looked like a fresh Jersey tomato, but I didn’t ask how a self-proclaimed American flop had managed to acquire such a costly machine. With evident pride, he unlocked my door first and ushered me into the passenger’s seat. Then, patting the hood as he walked around the front of the car, he stepped up onto the curb and unlocked the other door. Once he’d settled in behind the wheel, he turned to me and grinned. ‘Solid merchandise,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I replied. ‘Very impressive.’
‘Make yourself comfortable, Mr. Sid. Reclining seats. Go all the way back.’ He leaned over and showed me where to push the button, and sure enough, the seat began propelling itself backward, coming to rest at a forty-five-degree angle. ‘Like that,’ Chang said. ‘Always better to ride in comfort.’
I couldn’t disagree with him, and in my slightly tipsy state I found it pleasant to be in something other than a vertical position. Chang started up the engine of the car, and I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to imagine what Grace would want for dinner that evening and what food I should buy when I got back to Brooklyn. That turned out to be a mistake. Instead of opening my eyes again to see where Chang was going, I promptly fell asleep – just like any other drunk on a midday binge.
I didn’t wake up until the car stopped and Chang turned off the engine. Assuming I was back in Cobble Hill, I was about to thank him for the lift and open the door when I realized I was somewhere else: a crowded commercial street in an unfamiliar neighborhood, no doubt far from where I lived. When I sat up to have a better look, I saw that most of the signs were in Chinese.
‘Where are we?’ I asked.
‘Flushing,’ Chang said. ‘Chinatown Number Two.’
‘Why did you bring me here?’
‘Driving in car, I have better idea. Nice little club on next block, good place to relax. You look tired out, Mr. Sid. I take you there, you feel better.’
‘What are you talking about? It’s quarter past three, and I have to get home.’
‘Just half an hour. Do you a world of good, I promise. Then I drive you home. Okay?’
‘I’d rather not. Just point me to the nearest subway, and I’ll go home myself.’
‘Please. This very important to me. Maybe a business opportunity, and I need advice from a smart man. You very smart, Mr. Sid. I can trust you.’
‘I have no idea what you’re talking about. First you want me to relax. Then you want me to give you advice. Which is it?’
‘Both things. All things together. You see place, you relax, and then you tell me what you think. Very simple.’
‘Half an hour?’
‘No skin off nose. Everything on me, free of charge. Then I drive you to Cobble Hill, Brooklyn. Deal?’
The afternoon was turning stranger by the minute, but I allowed myself to be talked into going with him. I can’t really explain why. Curiosity, maybe, but it also could have been just the opposite – a feeling of total indifference. Chang had begun to get on my nerves, and I couldn’t take his incessant pleading anymore, especially not while cooped up in that ridiculous car of his. If another half hour of my time would satisfy him, I figured it was worth it to play along. So I climbed out of the Pontiac and followed him down the densely thronged avenue, breathing in the pungent fumes and acrid smells of the fish stores and vegetable stands that lined the block. At the first corner, we turned left, walked for about a hundred feet, and then turned left again, entering a narrow alley with a small cinder-block structure at the end of it, a tiny one-story house with no windows and a flat roof. It was a classic setup for a mugging, but I didn’t feel the least bit threatened. Chang was in too jolly a mood, and with his usual intensity of purpose, he seemed hell-bent on reaching our destination.
When we came to the yellow cinder-block house, Chang pressed his finger against the doorbell. A few seconds later, the door opened a crack and a Chinese man in his sixties poked out his head. He nodded in recognition when he saw Chang, they exchanged a few sentences in Mandarin, and then he let us in. The so-called club of relaxation turned out to be a small sweatshop. Twenty Chinese women sat at tables with sewing machines, stitching together brightly colored dresses made of cheap, synthetic materials. Not one of them looked up at us when we entered, and Chang rushed past them as quickly as he could, acting as if they weren’t there. We kept on walking, threading our way around the tables until we came to a door at the back of the room. The old man opened it for us, and Chang and I stepped into a space that was so black, so dark in comparison to the fluorescent-lit workshop behind us, that at first I couldn’t see a thing.
Once my eyes had adjusted a little, I noticed some dim low-wattage lamps glowing in various places around the room. Each one had been fitted with a bulb of a different color – red, yellow, purple, blue – and for a moment I thought about the Portuguese notebooks in Chang’s bankrupt store. I wondered if the ones I’d seen on Saturday were still available and, if they were, whether he’d be willing to sell them to me. I made a mental note to ask him about it before we left.
By and by, he led me to a tall chair or stool, something made of leather or imitation leather that swiveled on its base and had a nice cushiony feel to it. I sat down, and he sat down next to me, and I realized that we were at some kind of bar – a lacquered, oval-shaped bar that occupied the center of the room. Things were becoming clearer to me now. I could make out several people sitting across from us, a couple of men in suits and ties, an Asian man in what looked like a Hawaiian shirt, and two or three women, none of whom seemed to be wearing any clothes. Ah, I said to myself, so that’s what this place is. A sex club. Oddly enough, it was only then that I noticed the music playing in the background – a soft, rumbling piece that wafted in from some invisible sound system. I strained to pick out the song, but I couldn’t identify it. Some Musak version of an old rock-and-roll number – maybe the Beatles, I thought, but maybe not.
‘Well, Mr. Sid,’ Chang said, ‘what do you think?’
Before I could answer him, a bartender appeared in front of us and asked for our orders. It might have been the old man who had opened the door earlier, but I wasn’t certain. It could have been his brother, or perhaps some other relative with a stake in the enterprise. Chang leaned over and whispered in my ear. ‘No alcohol,’ he said. ‘Fake beer, 7-Up, Coke. Too risky to sell booze in place like this. No liquor license.’ Now that I’d been informed of the possibilities, I opted for a Coke. Chang did the same.
‘Brand-new place,’ the ex-stationer continued. ‘Just open on Saturday. They still iron out the kinks, but I see large potential here. They ask if I want to invest as minority partner.’
‘It’s a brothel,’ I said. ‘Are you sure you want to get mixed up in an illegal business?’
‘Not brothel. Relaxation club with naked women. Help the workingman feel better.’
‘I’m not going to split hairs with you. If you’re so keen on it, go ahead. But I thought you were broke.’
‘Money never a problem. I borrow. If profit from investment stay ahead of interest on loan, everything okay.’
‘If.’
‘Very little if. They find gorgeous girls to work here. Miss Universe, Marilyn Monroe, Playmate of Month. Only the hottest, most sexy women. No man can resist. Look, I show you.’
‘No thanks. I’m a married man. I have everything I need at home.’
‘Every man say that. But the dick always win out over duty. I prove it to you now.’
Before I could stop him, Chang wheeled around in his chair and made a beckoning gesture with his hand. I looked over in that direction myself and saw five or six cocktail booths lining the wall, something I had managed to miss when I first entered the room. Naked women sat at three of them, apparently waiting for customers, but the others had been curtained off, presumably because the women who occupied those spots were busy at work. One of the women rose from her seat and came walking toward us. ‘This one the best,’ Chan
g said, ‘the most beautiful of all. They call her the African Princess.’
A tall black woman emerged from the darkness. She was wearing a pearl-and-rhinestone choker, knee-high white boots, and a white G-string. Her hair was done up in elaborate cornrow braids, ornamented with bangles at the ends that tinkled like wind chimes when she moved. Her walk was graceful, languorous, erect – a regal sort of bearing that no doubt explained why she was called the Princess. By the time she was within six feet of the bar, I understood that Chang had not been exaggerating. She was a stunningly beautiful woman – perhaps the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. And all of twenty, perhaps twenty-two years old. Her skin looked so smooth and inviting, I found it almost impossible to resist touching it.
‘Say hello to my friend,’ Chang instructed her. ‘I settle up with you later.’
She turned to me and smiled, exposing a set of astonishing white teeth. ‘Bonjour, chéri,’ she said. ‘Tu parles français?’
‘No, I’m sorry. I only speak English.’
‘My name is Martine,’ she said, with a heavy Creole accent.
‘I’m Sidney,’ I answered, and then, trying to make a stab at conversation, I asked her which country in Africa she came from.
She laughed. ‘Pas d’Afrique! Haiti.’ She pronounced the last word in three syllables, Ha-ee-tee. ‘A bad place,’ she said. ‘Duvalier is very méchant. It is nicer here.’
