Shattered self, shattered illusions, scattered thoughts, and little more than the memory of a storm—how vital he had felt then—on a ship to keep him intact. He wandered, his collected shards tinkling in rhyme with his steps, not knowing whether he could stop this time. One dusk, looking down at the sea beyond a former fishing village that speculators with their concrete-edifice raising machinery had started to reclaim, with the last light shining in his eyes, he suddenly remembered Mei Xing’s Hangzhou Bay property. He had every hope that it had slipped through an asset purge to which he had been subjected when he had lost his freedom.
[ 65 ]
Xinchun kuaile—Happy new spring! Xinxiang shi cheng—And may all your wishes come true. Nostalgia-tinged bonhomie. A young woman laughed in the crowded room, which already smelled of illicit smoke. A heady sense of simply being swirled within her, in time to the music. Everything had acquired extra depth. Life throbbed with such an intensity of possibility that an enchanted Ayaana had laid aside her ordinary caution. Someone replaced the same teeny voices, same song, same melody of ubiquitous Korean pop with the convoluted sitar riffs of an unknown male singer. Three wall-mounted television screens flickered. The creatures they portrayed gestured and gasped like drowning shadows. Nobody was attending to the broadcast. Scattered around the room lay the debris from an indifferent party with food specially prepared for Chun Jie, the New Year’s celebration: dumplings filled with every type of meat, spring rolls, and niangao; tangyuan for family harmony and fish to increase prosperity. Ayaana had avoided the noodles. There were also fizzy drinks and juices, and smuggled-in alcohol, evident in the slurring conversations and familiar limb draping around unresponsive bodies. Round and golden citruses, red-and-gold-themed room décor. Voices and words in Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, and English. The room was full of the refugees of the spring break—the outsiders who had no family nearby to retreat to.
* * *
—
A young woman swayed slightly as she watched the dancers, not knowing yet that she would become beguiled by an enigma. Koray Terzioğlu watched her. They were the only two who had not joined the general fray. The international students had clumped together to mark, not the occasion, but their homesickness. Surveying the room, Koray rubbed his cheekbone and nose with the nub of his brass ring. He leaned back on the fat purple cushion to contemplate the now laughing woman through his bangs. The students were performing a serpentine Bhangra conga, to music that, for him, was a sustained hyperventilation. The woman by the window seemed to know the lyrics; she was mouthing them. Koray had never paid attention to the contemporary music of India before, and he would try never to do so again.
* * *
—
One of the oldest students, Koray was muscled, hooded-eyed, and full-lipped. His thick, black, glossy, curly hair had its own Twitter hashtag. An earring dangled from the tip of his right earlobe—an experiment he would give up that night. Koray, something of an idol on campus, was one of the very few students who could afford to live in luxurious sea-view apartments. His English was proper; his family had paid for an English tutor. He was a catch, and he knew it. Captain of the basketball team, he had also created the institution’s first sommelier club. He held the record for the best calculus grades, to the chagrin of his Chinese peers, until a young woman from an obscure African spot materialized and took the shine off him. He would learn that she was some sort of Chinese symbol. Curiosity piqued, he had sought her out and had become dry-mouthed when a slender being wafting some ineffable fragrance had glided past without seeing him. She had earphones on, and her eyes were cast low. She never saw him following her. This rankled the most. Koray decided to study her as he would a territory he intended to dominate.
A new song interrupted his thoughts. Hearing it, Koray seized his head. Was this not perhaps the same song he had heard a second ago, by the same croaker, who should never have been near a microphone in the first place? He watched Ayaana’s mouth. Sure enough, it moved as it mouthed words to what was probably a song about a fat wading waterbird hunting for frogs with extraordinary success. Koray leaned forward to straighten the cuffs of his shirt. He retied the laces of his bespoke sneakers. He rose in one languid move. The action attracted the attention of some of his inebriated followers. “Koray, Koray!” They were inviting him to the dance floor. He ignored them. He sauntered over to a table laden with drinks. His eyes settled on a jug of cheap sake.
* * *
—
Koray had already downed a plastic mug half filled with the drink, and was topping up, when the hint of rose made him turn.
Ayaana was diluting a juice cocktail with ice water.
Koray greeted her. “Gong Xi Fa Cai!” His accent was flat. Ayaana turned. “Nonalcoholic?” He stepped into her space so she was forced to move back. Ayaana glanced up. Fathomless, scrutinizing gaze. She had to step away again from this presence. Of all the students on campus, he oozed a certain careless air, as if it did not matter to him whether he passed or failed. His eyes caressed Ayaana. “Your drink”—she looked at the pale orange liquid—“is diseased.” She giggled.
“Good. I wanted you to laugh for me,” he said. She tilted her head. “Tell me, from where did you acquire the words to these maledictions?”
Ayaana frowned. Koray gestured at the speakers. “I suspect you believe this to be ‘music’?”
Ayaana’s laugh exploded. “ ‘Dilbara,’ from Dhoom.”
Koray raised a quizzical brow. “Why would an African know that?”
“Uh…Bollywood!” Ayaana suddenly felt awkward. How to explain the feeling that her world had became larger, more colorful, and musical because of her dips, with Muhidin, into Bollywood? She was turning away when he said, “I have wanted to meet you for a long time, Miss Ayaana.”
Ayaana pivoted. Koray reached for her arm, mistaking the shine in her large, slanted eyes for interest. He enunciated his words. “We have much in common. China, classes, faith, history, the seas…destiny?” Half joking, he wagged a finger at her nose. “Don’t ignore me.” He stared her down.
She remembered to pull her arm from his hold.
Koray flushed. “Your calculus marks are unassailable. I am struggling to crush them. You irk me.” He stooped to whisper into her ear, “I have never learned how to lose.”
A challenge, a warning. Her confusion clashed with a most unexpected frisson. It was the combination of Koray’s touch on her skin and his cologne, a blend of sea spray and metal. He had the girth and height that women often confuse with a guarantee of protective strength. She now blinked at Koray as a cat might.
“Koray,” he said.
Ayaana gestured.
“My name, canim. Koray Terzioğlu.”
She shrugged.
She was heading for the opposite end of the room when he called, “Miss Ayaana!” She turned. “I intend to seize and keep your heart for myself.”
Her eyes widened. And then she laughed at him. And what a laugh it was: low, infectious, and uncontained. Those who heard it laughed, too. Koray also laughed, as the first of the interminable fireworks display began. He laughed for a different reason. His boredom had dissolved. He was in pursuit of quality game. He watched the other students drift over to the balcony to stare at the display.
Ayaana stared at the ephemeral beauty of the lit-up night, hearing again the daring intent of an odd man. She was tired of her inability to resolve her restlessness. She made a face. Something about the frivolous fireworks invited recklessness. She straightened her spine and looked back at Koray. She had seen him in one of her classes. His expectation of being worshipped had reminded her of Suleiman, her kitten’s murderer, so she had ignored him. Now, there was Koray, with his clutch of adoring females and awed males. There he was, deflecting unabashed come-ons with meaningless phrases offered in bad Mandarin: “And you are flightless, my bird beak.”
Ayaana smiled.
Koray caught Ayaana’s look. He pointed upward, a vow. She turned away to see a Catherine wheel burn itself out.
* * *
—
“Excuse me.” Ayaana squeezed past the female closest to Koray. Soft-voiced to Koray, “Good night.” She glided out of the room, heading for her hostel.
Hurrying footsteps. Koray’s voice: “I will escort you to your door.”
Ayaana slipped her hands into her pockets. “I can find it on my own.”
Koray said, “You are pretty.”
“As you are,” Ayaana returned.
“Sarcasm, Miss Africa, right?” Ayaana looked at the sky, saying nothing. Blue pin, and yellow Ferris-wheel fireworks. Koray added, “Far from home.”
She sighed, “As you are.”
Koray suggested, “Fireworks; splendid colors. Shall we talk? Why waste the night?”
“No,” said, Ayaana. She hurried past other sky-watching clumps of people. Koray protested. “Slow down, girl.” He caught up with her. “I live in Istanbul. Have you heard of Turkey?” She rolled her eyes. “You are studying navigation,” he persisted.
She hastened her pace, now regretting her gamble. In the background, above the din of foghorns from the nearby seaport, the smell of phosphorus mingled with the usual scents of Xiamen. Ayaana breathed these in. Night clouds hovered just beyond the thousands of red lanterns hanging across the streets. From the south, a refreshing cold wind approached. Koray said, “Where did you learn your English?” Ayaana ground her teeth. Koray added, “You know we have Africans in Turkey. They come on boats to escape war and poverty. We are a sanctuary.” His tone was solemn. “There are some whose families have been there for centuries. Who were their ancestors? Slaves?”
Ayaana suddenly halted. “How many countries are there in Africa?”
Koray waved his hands in casual dismissal.
Ever since she had landed in Xiamen, she had been subject to great obtuseness about her continent of birth. By virtue of her existence here, she was also expected to be the “Africa interpreter.” She was obliged to research the continent to prepare for the inevitable idiot question. Questions brewed out of malice, she had at first assumed, until she understood that ignorance did have unfathomable dimensions, that the word “Africa” did trigger the release of some stupidity hormone, that when a physics professor wondered aloud to her why Africans ate Africans while there were lions around—why couldn’t Africans eat lions?—he was interested, not insane. Ayaana had at first tried to counsel the foolishness, discovering a new voice within herself. But she had neared saturation point.
Slowly, as Mama Suleiman might, she noted the blobby earring on his earlobe. Her eyes narrowed. “Koray”—Ayaana’s tone was cold and dry—“use your time here to get educated about the world. Right now you sound thicker than a baobab trunk.” She looked up at a circular building with lights in scattered windows. “My hostel.” She walked a few steps forward before looking over her shoulder. “Is that a bull’s nose ring attached to your ear? Why would a human being do that to himself?”
Koray, gape-jawed, watched Ayaana vanish through a door. Had she just associated him with livestock? He touched his earring. Thicker than a baobab trunk? He started to walk away in slow steps, enraged. He rubbed his head and then allowed himself a cool chuckle.
I only wish to face the sea, with spring flowers blossoming.
—Hai Zi
[ 66 ]
Weaving clay. Tugging at the tides and drawing time inward. Feeling, touching, watering, molding new life, the vessels. There was age in the dust; there were memories, and ashes from the press of earth on souls. When he touched the clay, it was as prayer, and he knew the prayer was for life. It was either this or die. Weaving clay, sewing up the holes in his life. Kaolin stains on a man’s overalls, his fingers wrapped around a roundish, moist gray lump of clay pressed to a rotating wheel head. His dampened hands slapped the clay, creating evenness. Squeeze, pull, cradle, shape. He moved his thumb, feeling his way into a center, pressing the lump down and inward. His right hand pressed the clay down. He dampened his hand. He was getting better and better at communing with the clay, knowing when to stretch it, smooth it, add water, and soothe it. He worked it up as the wheel turned and the hole widened. Right hand, fingers, both hands cradled the lump, giving it a form. His hands thinned the sides of the clay. The vessel had started to emerge, inside the neglected shelter he had reclaimed. Now he smoothed the mouth. He was starting with the basics, remembering the terse dreams of a silent mother. Like her then, he too had lost himself. Now, a repossession of meaning, memory by memory, while trimming the vessel he had created with a scalpel. Removing the extraneous things. He would be using a firing mound. This was his thirty-fifth attempt. If he were to be grateful for just one thing from his unfair prison sojourn, it was that the hand-roughening, soul-crushing labor on fields and roads had offered him a reacquaintance with soils.
[ 67 ]
Ayaana was hurrying from the small-town mosque, her head covered with a neon-pink scarf, and dissatisfaction marring her face. The overwhelming smell of street cooking made her retch. She covered her nose. She did not dare lower her veil. It hid the disastrous outcome of her first visit to a hairdresser who had at first gawked at her in terror, as if her hair might bite him. He had then permitted her to lean back over a basin, where he proceeded to scrub her hair for fifty minutes, muttering about its hardness in a ceaseless whine. Whatever he was incanting attracted a salon crowd that gathered around her head with dragon-slaying looks on their faces and exclamations in their voices. A few rubbed her skin, as if expecting her gold-brown to rub off.
She had endured it all. What she had ached for was to feel the warmth of human hands on her face and hair. She had wanted to be pampered and tended to and pummeled and kneaded until she would emerge streamlined and beautiful.
It was not to be.
In spite of the triumph of the hairdresser, who was confident he had achieved a look that approximated those of the Supremes, Ayaana wanted to chop off her head at the neck, not just her hair. She had stumbled into the light, and desperately sought a clothing shop. In a shop that sold faux-silk scarves in colors hitherto unseen on the earth, she bought one that seemed to be pink, without haggling. She immediately wrapped her head.
Weighted down by unnameable despair, she had ventured into the mosque she had not intended to go to. There a red-bearded imam explored sacred texts and spoke in elegant Mandarin, most of which she did not understand. But other people’s prayers washed over her. She told herself that she needed to be grateful. She needed to feel lucky. She was enjoying her lessons. She was talking to her mother more. Her hair was a tangled shrub with the texture of steel wool.
* * *
—
She was scurrying out of the mosque when a voice called, “Good evening, Miss Ayaana.”
Koray. He had been waiting for her. He said, “Thought it was you.”
He looked at her with a brow tilted and a smile on his lips. “Observance is very attractive in a beautiful woman.”
Ayaana did not want to talk to anybody.
She tightened her veil.
“Ex Africa semper aliquid novi,” Koray quoted. She turned. “ ‘Always something new out of Africa.’ ” He walked beside her.
Ayaana looked around the street. Its scents were less oppressive now. She wrinkled her nose. Other days, she reveled in the smells and mapped new journeys by the variety of aromas alone.
Koray leaned toward her. “Fifty-four sovereign states, two de facto with limited recognition, and ten alienated territories, including Réunion, Mayotte, and Lampedusa. Sixty-six states in total.”
Ayaana sighed, “What?”
“Countries in Africa. I’ve also been researching Kenya.” “Kinya,” he pronounced it. “Your country.” He sounded pleased with himself. “I am
preparing myself to win all my arguments with you.” The lunchtime crowd squashed them against the walls of a building. Koray was in full flow. “Amir Ali Bey…a Turk. Stayed in your islands, fought on your people’s side against marauding Europeans.” He grinned. “What connections we have, Descendant.”
Ayaana looked dejected, her mouth turned down at the edges.
Koray’s voice was soft as he looked at her. “However, we shall not argue today.” She looked up at him. “No,” he said, and his eyes sparkled. He murmured, “I intend to charm you.” He touched her shoulder. “I think you need a laugh, and perhaps, if I may hope, a friend?”
A salty lump grew in her throat.
Koray gestured. “I get it.”
She glanced up at him.
He stroked her cheek. “I know what it is to feel lost in someone else’s vast dream. You are supposed to call China home, aren’t you? You think you should belong. Yet this land guards its soul with a coldhearted dragon that won’t let you in. And for you, who look a little like them, watching from outside the gates is not enough.”
Tears pebbled Ayaana’s eyes. Then she tried to smile.
Encouraged, Koray tucked his arms into hers. “So what really upset you, canim?”
She looked at him from beneath her veil, and knotted her scarf, saying nothing. They walked a short distance before Koray asked, “Tell me, can two not-such-strangers who share a history at least break bread together?”
Touch, warmth, banter, and she realized she was hungry.
“Yes?” urged Koray.
Ayaana nodded.
Koray laughed and squeezed her arm. “Then, if you allow me…may I show you a little place where they serve qingzhen cai, chicken and noodles? And, Miss Ayaana, they also have halwa.”
The Dragonfly Sea Page 32
