The Wounded Muse

by Robert F Delaney

  “I don’t know,” Jake replied. “My company pays for it.”

  This is a lie Jake tells to avoid further discussion of money.

  “Your company pays your rent?”

  “Correct.”

  And the seduction died there.

  Jake was fully clothed when Dawei visited a second time, on a rainy Sunday evening, carrying his satchel full of delivery receipts. Jake had spent much of that day in bed with someone he had picked up at Destination the night before so he didn’t bother trying to engineer a move to the bedroom. The two settled in on the couch, Dawei sitting stiffly as he looked around the room and Jake looking directly at Dawei with his feet up, arms wrapped around his legs and chin resting on his knee.

  “Do you go back to the Northeast often?” Jake asked.

  “It’s difficult for me to get there,” Dawei said.

  Not really, Jake thought. There are scores of flights now to anywhere from anywhere in China. Trains too, some with seats that cost less than 100 kuai from Beijing.

  “Do you at least get back there for the Lunar New Year?”

  Dawei shook his head and then focused on the Singapore Airlines amenity kit sitting on Jake’s coffee table.

  “It’s what they give you on long-haul flights,” Jake said as he reached for the kit. He turned a small metal notch on the front to open it only to find half of its contents gone. The travel-sized toothpaste was on his bathroom counter, a stop-gap to get him through to the next shopping trip. The earplugs were sitting on Jake’s bedside table, caked with wax. The only items that remained in the kit were a pair of fuzzy socks, a small tin of breath mints and a stick of lip balm which Jake pulled out.

  “This keeps your lips…umm…” Jake didn’t know the words for “moist” or “balm.” These are words that separate language mastery from mere proficiency.

  “You put this on your lips when the air is dry. It makes your lips not too dry,” Jake said in slightly mangled Mandarin.

  Jake took the lid off the lip balm and reached over to apply some on Dawei’s lower lip. Dawei drew back.

  “Sorry,” Jake said. “It won’t hurt you.”

  He then handed the tube to Dawei.

  “Is it like lipstick?”

  Jake laughed. “There’s no colour in it. It’s only meant to protect your lips from the dry air,” Jake moved his hand around his lips to show Dawei how to apply the balm.

  Looking at Jake, Dawei dabbed his lower lip tentatively with the end of the stick and then handed it back. Jake put the cap on, dropped the balm back in the bag and refastened the clip. He then got up and trotted into his bedroom.

  “Just a second and I’ll get you one with all of the contents,” he said as he disappeared into the darkness of the room. “I have a lot of these,” he said as he re-emerged and handed another kit to Dawei.

  Dawei drew back. “Oh no. I can’t accept that.”

  “Don’t be so polite,” Jake said. “I have so many of these, they usually end up in the garbage. Just take it. It’s really nothing.”

  “I was just curious. I d…d…don’t want it. You’re too generous. I really can’t take that.”

  Jake sighed. This tiresome test of manners, trying enough for the culturally indoctrinated, could have gone on endlessly.

  “Just take it, Dawei. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  Dawei was good enough to thank Jake and let the issue lay. They made more small talk before the conversation trailed off into details so small that Jake had to stretch and yawn and then explain apologetically that he needed to call his editors in New York.

  That was a few days ago. Or maybe weeks. And here Dawei is again, showing up for a third time, even though the previous two visits had never established any kind of rapport that would explain the need for more. Jake dwells on this. There must be something that keeps Dawei coming back. For Jake, the unspoken meaning behind their meetings hangs over them both, enveloping them in a suffocating and deafening silence. Perhaps Dawei feels this also. The hash-induced rush of sexual desire pushes aside the possibility that Dawei’s visits might be about something other than sexual gratification. But Dawei is hot and Jake wants to bust through the wall of culture and etiquette that separates them. One of them needs to do something to bring air back into the room. Dawei is the guest so Jake must make the move. This will require alcohol. Not wine this time. Tequila shots.

  Seated next to Dawei on his couch, Jake is leaning over his coffee table slicing into a lime that sits on a wooden cutting board. First in half, then quarters, then eighths. As Jake pours the tequila into two shot glasses, Dawei is rummaging through his delivery bag. He pulls out a well-scuffed plastic file folder containing some documents and photos.

  “Could I ask a favour of you?” Dawei says.

  His tone is more serious, inappropriate for an onslaught of depravity, and suddenly the chances that Jake’s plan will work out seem to evaporate.

  “Sure,” Jake says as he holds up the two shot glasses full of amber liquid. He says it with an eye roll and a note of sarcasm that he knows Dawei won’t recognize.

  Here it comes, Jake thinks. Dawei wants an introduction to someone in his company or English lessons every weekend in a language exchange. Perhaps he has a sister who’s applying to college in the U.S. anad needs help with the application. In his head, Jake begins lining up the excuses and defenses, the little exaggerations and outright lies about this and that which will limit the extent to which he’s able to help with whatever Dawei is about to ask for.

  Dawei rips open the Velcro fastener on the folder and pulls out a thick document with sparse text and hand-drawn figures enveloped in streams of numbers and poetry. Characters in Tang-era costumes mingle with what appear to be Chinese zodiac animals.

  “What’s this?” Jake asks.

  “It’s a s…s…screenplay. A gift from a friend who works in the m…m…movie industry.”

  Jake starts laughing. This one will be easy to swat away, he thinks.

  “You might be mistaken about my job. I work in the news business, not film,” he says. “I don’t know anyone who could look at this and get it produced.”

  Dawei looks confused for a moment.

  “No, I just want to keep this here. The places I stay aren’t very safe and this is important to me. Once I’m settled in a better place, I’ll pick this up again.”

  With the hallucinogens still coursing through his system, Jake stares at the drawings, transfixed by the characters’ expressions. He can see the dramatic interplay between characters from an earlier age confronted by those wearing modern dress.

  “Jie-ke?”

  Jake shakes his head and looks up at Dawei.

  “Um, sure,” Jake says, confused about how to follow up.

  Something about the division between these characters of different eras makes Jake think about the difference between himself and Dawei. They exist on separate planes and were brought together because of some wrinkle in the fabric of space-time. He sees more clearly how mistaken he was to expect a sleazy, carefree hookup.

  Acting on its own will, Jake’s mind begins to surface ideas about cultural divisions and time travel. He sees the difference between himself now and the person he was a decade earlier, before the amount of his salary wasn’t as thrilling as the fact that he had a salary at all. The separation allows Jake to see the Jake who took long-distance train rides through China’s hinterland, enjoying the company of fellow travellers and drifting to sleep in the top bunk of a hard sleeper car, in clear focus as a character distinct from who he is now. The Jake who used to drop a few kuai into the baskets of elderly beggars, the ones with dirt ground into their sunburned and leathery faces, wasting away on the streets of Beijing. They’re no longer as visible since the government cracked down on anything that sullied the image of the city. It is just as well because the Jake that used to drop money doesn’t exist anymore either.

  Jake had read somewhere that every cell in a human body is replaced over the c
ourse of seven years. Not only had every cell from a decade ago turned to methane but every experience since then had changed his outlook. But if all of this is true, why does this being that looks out from Jake’s eyes feel just as alienated, just as detached from everyone else, as he ever had? The question makes Jake dizzy. He shakes his head to make these thoughts go away.

  Dawei reaches into the folder as Jake mulls over the dilemma and pulls out a laminated sheet encasing a maple leaf and a pressed lotus flower against a white page with the word Friends in English, French and Chinese. It’s clear to Jake that the item is some piece of diplomatic propaganda produced for some Sino-Canadian function.

  “I know that maple leaves are a symbol of North America. I want you to have this because you’ve been a good friend,” Dawei says. “It sort of represents our friendship. The maple leaf represents America and the lotus flower represents China.”

  Jake smiles, as much for the thoughtfulness of Dawei’s gesture as he does for the fact that Dawei feels the need to explain the representation. The mood no longer bodes well for a seduction. Dawei’s circumstances are tougher than what Jake had imagined. Any sex to be had, were that to happen, would be two completely different experiences and Jake would never know for sure if Dawei wasn’t giving himself up out of desperation. Sex can feel empty enough once the orgasmic shudders subside. Knowing that someone’s putting out for anything other than physical pleasure makes the aftermath twice as wretched. What’s worse, Jake would feel more obliged to help this character who’s just looking for a safe place to sleep.

  FRIDAY, April 13, 2007

  “This was recorded on the morning of Monday, March 25, at 9:43 a.m.,” the young PSB officer tells the others before she hits play. “I have a transcript with a translation.”

  She hands the set of papers to her division head.

  “I’m just torn up about this, Qiang,” says a woman speaking American accented English, her S’s clipped by a poor phone connection degraded further by the recording.

  “So, what are the chances that interview will show up sooner than you planned?”

  “I don’t know, Qiang, if I had known Zhao was going to reveal anything that explosive, I wouldn’t have given the network access to it. I can trust most of them. I just don’t know all of them. And as I said before, I don’t know that his story is accurate. But whatever happens, I can assure you this guy wants the message out. He sought out the ones I’m working with, specifically to tell this story.”

  “But, you know, I promised him that none of this would be seen until the twenty-year anniversary of June 4th. He’s expecting to be dead and buried by then.”

  “I know,” the woman says, “And what’s got me worried just as much is that you’re still there. How much longer will you be doing interviews for your film?”

  “I’m going to my last one now. Once I get this guy, I’ll have enough to assemble a rough cut.”

  The American woman sighs. “I may have let you both down.”

  “We don’t know that yet,” he says.

  “Just hurry up with your project, Qiang, so you’re not there if the interview gets leaked,” the American woman says. “In the meantime, I’ll do my best to make sure those who have the footage understand that lives are at stake and to keep it under wraps until the documentary runs.”

  The division head scans the transcript as the file plays.

  “How,” he begins. “How did we get this recording?”

  “It was triggered when one of the subjects said ‘June 4th’. It’s a new voice recognition technology that the mobile providers have started using. The transcript was turned over to us and a team over in Division 53 crossed referenced the name and the date with the files on your case.”

  May, 2005

  Dawei counts the signed receipts as he waits for the travel agency manager to arrive and open the shop. He’s not sure if she’s the owner or part-owner. She doesn’t speak to him much, leaving all of the details of the ticket deliveries to her assistant. At least she seems like an assistant.

  Dawei will get eight kuai for each receipt, bringing the total to 120. If he keeps up this pace, he’ll be able to get a dorm bed or some kind of accommodation, even if it’s somewhere outside of the Fifth Ring. There are so many new subway lines under construction that it will be easy to get around town even from the fringes.

  Something has changed now that Dawei has a friend in Beijing. The American, Jie-ke, who lives in the nice apartment just outside of the Third Ring. It was very strange to talk to him after they got out of the elevator that day a couple of weeks ago and it still feels strange every time he sees him.

  They never talk about anything that leads anywhere. Not like the conversations with Zhihong which went on for hours. But his relationship with Zhihong isn’t normal. Maybe, Dawei thinks, maybe his conversations with Jie-ke feel strange because he’s never had any normal friends. He moved from Yongfu Village to Harbin, where the other teenagers saw him as a hayseed. Then he shuffled from place to place until arriving in Macau. All the while, Dawei realizes, he never had a real friend. How strange to go from having so few friends to having a foreign friend. What else could he consider Jie-ke to be? He’s not a blood relative or a co-worker or a boss. Friends can be as important as family, Dawei thinks. That must be what’s giving him this feeling of confidence about starting a new life in Beijing.

  New friends and a new job mean a new life. He takes a breath, pulling fresh air in so deeply he feels it in his hands and feet, as though the oxygen is clearing the bad luck from the deepest recesses of his body.

  Refreshed and feeling lighter, Dawei rehearses in his head how he will ask for more work. How many couriers in Beijing can handle fifteen deliveries in one day? He’s familiar enough now with the city’s layout to maximize the efficiency of his routes. Maybe the manager and her assistant would be willing to bring him on as a regular employee. They seem to have enough business. They have more ringing phones than they can answer. He’s been in the office, waiting for his pay, while some phones just ring non-stop. If they’d allow him to answer the phones and show him what to do on the computer to print out tickets, he’d strive to excel as well as he does delivering tickets. Dawei recognizes the characters for most cities and, of course, numbers are easy. He watched his father calculate payments for the wheat and soybeans they’d deliver to the markets.

  As he watches Beijing’s morning rush hour traffic build, Dawei sees that he won’t need to return to Macau where the little bit he’s able to save seems to disappear every time he wants to treat himself to a magazine or two.

  The manager approaches, wearing a colourful jacket, dark slacks and shiny high heels. She’s talking on her phone about the price of a kitchen countertop, too involved in haggling as she unlocks the travel agency’s door to acknowledge Dawei. She walks inside and Dawei follows her.

  “Not good enough,” she snaps and closes her clamshell phone.

  She looks at Dawei as though this is the first time she’s seen him.

  “I’m here with the receipts from yesterday,” Dawei says, digging in his bag for a bunch of papers held together with a paperclip which he removes and drops back into the bag. “F…f… fifteen of them all together.”

  He hands them over. The manager takes the papers and begins flipping through them.

  “Oh God, I don’t know why she quoted such low prices on these,” she says, talking to herself. Then she looks up at Dawei.

  “You see! This is why I fired her.”

  Dawei doesn’t see. He stands, frozen. The manager’s anger seems directed at him, which makes no sense. Shifting uncomfortably, he looks around for the other employee, the one who sent him out with 15 tickets to deliver the day before. She’s probably the one who’s been fired.

  “I d…d…don’t know anything about the prices,” he says.

  “I should have fired her long ago,” the manager says, walking behind the counter and taking her seat. She clips receipts together, opens the
drawer closest to her, drops the papers in and shuts the drawer. She then pulls out a key and locks the drawer and 120 kuai disappears with the click of a latch.

  “But I’m supposed to get eight kuai for each one of those receipts,” Dawei says.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I never authorized these sales, so there’s no commission, for her or for you.”

  The manager switches on her computer and the fan on her desk, which sends some of the papers fluttering to the ground. Muttering under her breath, she bends down to gather them.

  The game can’t be over that fast, Dawei thinks, not before he’s even had a chance to play. Not just this exchange of words between himself and a woman who’s swindled him out of 120 kuai but the whole idea he had in his head about living independently, sleeping in his own bed every night and, maybe eventually, saving enough to open a small restaurant in Beijing. Why didn’t he hold onto the receipts until she gave him the cash? He must think of some other way to keep this game going because he’s not going to walk out of the travel agency empty handed. The woman will expect him to storm out or threaten to contact the PSB, knowing that the police would never consider his complaint. He needs a smarter strategy. Perhaps he could sympathize with her.

  “I’m sorry that your colleague tricked you like that,” Dawei says, keeping his anger hidden. “You j…j…just can’t trust anyone these days,” he says.

  The manager only lets out a guttural laugh while she taps on her keyboard. She doesn’t make eye contact. She wants him to leave but he won’t. The more he thinks about her trick, the more determined he is to stay.

  “Anyway,” Dawei continues. “I value this job and your decency in giving it to me so I don’t mind just getting on with today’s deliveries.”

  “There’s no more deliveries, or at least not enough to keep you around,” she says.

  “What?”

  The manager shakes her head, obviously annoyed by the continued distraction of Dawei’s presence. Every time he tries to get ahead of the revelations the manager lobs at him like grenades, he falls further behind, as though this woman understands his strategy.