The Foreigner

by Francie Lin

  One of the bills fluttered to the ground. As I bent over, something else, half-hidden by the slew of papers and junk, caught my eye. A length of what appeared to be hair, human hair, was caught on the edge of the linoleum. I pushed aside the newspapers and touched it. Small clots of dried blood clung to the ends.

  "A pack of Marlboros too, if they have them," Little P was saying.

  "What?" I straightened up.

  "Cigarettes. I’m almost out of smokes. If you’re going downstairs." He was speaking with difficulty through the distraction of pain, it seemed, for his lips were white, and his face had a dull veneer of sweat. He found a bottle at the back of the drawer and shook out a couple of pills, holding his head under the tap to wash them down.

  "Are you sure you’re okay?"

  "Look, you want something or not?" he snapped. He wiped his mouth on his shoulder and indicated the money.

  "Not thirsty."

  "Fine," he said, and pocketed the bills again, though taking the money back seemed to piss him off. He was not used to offering anyone anything, I saw, and even less accustomed to having his offers refused. He found a cigarette in his pocket, leaned against the kitchenette counter. A silence fell.

  "So you came just to tell me," he said.

  "No, I came to see how—"

  His cell phone rang. He answered; a short muttered conversation in Chinese followed, punctuated by some curses, some seeming threats. I could pick out only a few broken words: bring, tomorrow, evening, late, tomorrow, no no no no. He spoke fluidly, impatiently, switching from Chinese to Hokkien without effort. A tiny jealousy warmed my blood. If Little P had been present in the hospital, perhaps he would have understood the bits of Chinese that dropped from my mother’s lips as she traveled further and further away from me.

  "I came to see you," I said, when he had hung up. He put out his smoke and began moving urgently around the apartment, gathering his knife, a bag, some clothes. "It’s been almost ten years. Little P?"

  No response. He riffled through some papers. His pain was lifting, apparently; his thoughts were elsewhere.

  "Little P?"

  "Listen. Emerson." He paused, motioned at his cigarettes. I passed the pack to him. "Sufficient unto the day, okay? I’m glad to see you. Sorry under such lousy conditions. But don’t get too soft and psychotherapy on me. I got my thing; you got yours. I’ll send you a card at Christmas." He checked his watch. "Right now I gotta go."

  "Now? But Little P…"

  "Sorry, brother. Maybe if I’d known you were coming."

  "I’m in town for a couple more days," I said. "Have dinner with me, at least."

  "Can’t, brother. Sorry." He blew smoke out through his teeth. "I gotta work. Deadlines."

  "’Deadlines’?"

  He worked for our mother’s brother, who ran some kind of business. I tried to remember: a restaurant. No, a nightclub—a karaoke den. "What, like a… karaoke deadline?"

  He raised his uninjured eyebrow. "You got your message to me, all right? My condolences. Hey, for both of us. But she’s gone. She’s gone. I’m not gonna tear my sleeve for her."

  The edge of his knife gleamed on the countertop.

  But as he pulled on a raincoat, I said, "Cancer."

  "What?"

  "She died of cancer." I was not lying to Little P, only telling him what he needed to know. "She never went to the doctor. By the time she collapsed, it was too late. They didn’t know where to begin. They couldn’t even say what kind of cancer it was, it spread so far."

  He’d been jerking at the stuck zipper on his raincoat without result.

  "Fucking piece of shit." He tore the thing off and threw it to the ground. The tic had returned, a quick spasm at the sides of his mouth.

  "I gotta go," he said doggedly. He motioned me toward the door and took out his keys. "Sorry, brother."

  He locked the door behind us, stood back, fingered the ash off his fag onto the floor. His trousers were perfectly knife-creased. His starched black shirt and suit seemed suddenly odd, given the shabby surroundings. A pause.

  "You need money for a cab?" he asked.

  I shook my head.

  "Okay then." A kind of bleakness in the silence between us. "Sorry about Mother." He hoisted his bag on his shoulder. "You keep in touch."

  "Wait!" I cried, as he started down the stairs. He didn’t turn around. I wanted to keep him here, for a few last minutes, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. Then—"What about the will?"

  His step slowed. "What about it?"

  "Mother," I said. "The Remada. She left it to you."

  I couldn’t see his face, but the air around him suddenly pricked. Outside, dark shadows of rain moved behind the frosted glass.

  "The motel," he said at last. "Mine?"

  "I know. Maybe she thought it would bring you home again," I said, but the rebuke didn’t take; he was too preoccupied with this new idea. He stopped dead in the stairwell. I approached him tentatively.

  At length he looked up at me.

  "How much," he said, in an odd, hungry voice. "How much do you think it would sell for? A hundred thousand? Two hundred?"

  I gripped him by the arm. "For God’s sake. Mother’s dead, Little P."

  Immediately he backed off. "You’re right, you’re right. Sorry. Inappropriate." He looked away. "Just a shock, you know."

  "The inheritance?"

  "The death," he said. "Of course Mother’s death. Son of a cunt, Emerson, what do you think I am?"

  I didn’t answer. In the small silence, his cell phone rang again. He switched it off irritably.

  "Okay," he said at last. "Okay. You’re right. I know you’re right. It’s been, what? Five years?"

  "Almost ten."

  "Almost ten years. Dinner. I can move a few things around." He managed a tight smile. "How about tomorrow? You free tomorrow?"

  "What about your deadline?"

  "Fuck the deadline. That Eight Treasures cocklover never broke his back for me. I’ll work it out. So—tomorrow?"

  "Here?"

  "At Uncle’s house. Seven o’clock." He wrote down the address. I took it, feeling oddly guilty. I could have handed over the Remada right then and there, for the legal papers were tucked into my jacket pocket. But I kept this fact to myself.

  CHAPTER 5

  THE NEXT NIGHT I ARRIVED at Uncle’s apartment building with the ashes as well as a bottle of plum wine and two catties of mangosteens. A fluorescent tube hummed above me as the elevator doors slid open. I found Uncle’s apartment: Number 5R, a dented steel door with a faded banner above it, a remnant of the long-gone new year.

  At first there was no response to my knock. Then, after some time, the door opened reluctantly, and a suspicious, wizened old face peeped at me in the greenish light of the entryway. It made a hoarse, creaking noise like a hinge. I consulted the address.

  "Xiao P zai ma?" I asked faintly. There was more creaking. "Um. Bu dong. Wo tingbudong."

  Finally, with a grunt and an exasperated motion, the old woman let me in. More creaking; she seemed to be berating me. Then abruptly she left, shuffling off into a shadowy back hall.

  I knew that Uncle had once been prosperous; the apartment had a quality of both stateliness and neglect, the floor not tile but a battered mahogany, the furniture a mix of magnificent old carved cabinets, junky sofas, a massage chair. Someone had cleared the coffee table and sideboard, pushing the ashtrays and betel nut–stained paper scraps aside to make room for what looked like a kind of party. Little bowls of wasabi peas had been laid out; rice crackers; dried fruit; a six-pack of Taiwan beer. In the background, a huge flat-screen TV flickered soundlessly. A bird in a wooden cage hung in the window, spilling seed with a soft flutter of wings.

  The bird screamed and knocked against its perch. I spun around as Little P came in from the entryway.

  "Who left the dead bolt off?" he said by way of greeting.

  "I don’t know. The old woman."

  "Fuck me. I’ve tol
d her again and again." He closed the door behind him and bolted it, looking out the peephole briefly before he turned to me.

  "You want something to drink?" He put down the 7-Eleven bag and unpacked it: some beef jerky, sake, Oreos, fruit.

  "What’s all this?"

  "I figured, you know. Might be a while before I see you again. Why not make it a party. The cousins are coming." He fetched a plastic bowl and shook the Oreos into it haphazardly. "Drink? We got beer, wine."

  "Anything harder?"

  He looked irritated. "I just bought this." He checked himself. "But yeah, we got some whiskey."

  "Okay."

  "Homemade stuff. Pure poison."

  "Fine."

  He found two dirty-looking tumblers in the sideboard, wiping one with his finger before pouring out a large shot. His black eye was starting to turn a sickly shade, and his stitches rose up in a welt, an angry red worm.

  "Listen." I fingered my glass timidly. The liquor was as bad as he had said, sharp and toxic, like rubbing alcohol. "I want to talk to you."

  Instantly his guard was up; I could see it in the way he poured himself another shot, though he kept his voice light.

  "About?"

  "About the motel."

  He downed his drink, silent.

  "Don’t sell it, Little P. And don’t pretend that’s not your plan. I heard you yesterday."

  "More?" He got up, found another bottle in the sideboard.

  "I’m not saying you shouldn’t sell at all. But don’t put it on the market. Sell it to me."

  "To you?" He turned around, incredulous. "What kind of money do you have?"

  "Not much." I looked down into my glass. "I can give you four thousand as a down payment, and fifteen hundred a month from then on." Even I thought it sounded meager. "And you’ll have some rental income after expenses. Maybe I can take out a loan. But it’s all I have right now."

  He emptied the packet of beef jerky onto a tray and put it on the sideboard, not speaking.

  "I just need some time," I said. "If not for me, then do it for her."

  I tapped the box of ash softly.

  "What’s that?" asked Little P, looking suddenly wary.

  "This—?" I remembered: I hadn’t told him about the ashes yet. "It’s… She asked to be interred in Taiwan. It was part of her will. I thought you could help."

  "She’s in there?"

  I nodded.

  "Son of a double golden cunt." He retreated to the opposite side of the room and regarded me with dark distrust, almost panic. "What the hell’s wrong with you?"

  "With me?"

  "You should have told me. There’s no excuse, meat lover." He was white, his breath shallow.

  I put my mother aside. "Just calm down. Settle down."

  "Okay." He gasped. "Everything’s okay."

  "We’ll put her in another room for the evening, all right? Is there another room?"

  He gestured to a little closet. I put the ashes inside, covered them carefully with my jacket, closed the door.

  Little P, reaching for his cigarettes, fumbled them.

  "Here." I handed the pack to him.

  He lit a smoke, the tip trembling perceptibly in his mouth.

  I waited.

  "So you’ll at least consider my offer?"

  "What?"

  "For Mother’s sake. The motel was her home. Her life’s work."

  "Yeah," said Little P. "Her life’s work." His voice was returning to its normal tenor, his pale face touched with color again. He picked up a blunt knife for the fruit. "That cunt-ass motel with the pedophiles and scumbags dealing coke behind the Dumpster. And the prosties. And the junkies. While she sat there with her plastic flowers and Princess Di photos, preaching morality and pretending everything was beneath her. Instead of just getting out."

  "Diana, Princess of Wales," I corrected him, shocked. "I don’t know what you’re talking about."

  "Yeah? And I bet you thought putting fresh flowers and mints in the bathrooms wasn’t some fucking delusion, either. Just Mother practicing her good business sense, huh?" He was cutting the fruit clumsily on the sideboard, chunking the uneven pieces into a plastic colander. I thought of his knife on the stairs the day before, the keen blue steel against my throat. "That place never gave her shit for her trouble. She was a slave to scum. I shouldn’t sell it, I should burn it down," he said. "Burn the whole thing down."

  He nicked his finger. "Fuck." He put the tool down and drew a forced breath.

  "Look," he said, lightness with a darkened edge. "This is supposed to be a party. I want you to enjoy yourself. We’ll talk later. Have an Oreo." He pushed the bowl at me. "Have a beer."

  A thump came from the head of the narrow stairs off the living room, a low, thick cough.

  Little P wiped his brow. "Gai si le," he muttered. "Sit tight. Try that guava."

  He put down the colander and disappeared upstairs. More scuffling and thumping ensued, some muffled Chinese.

  "Lai, lai, lai."

  A heavy, uneven tread sounded on the stairs, and Little P reappeared, supporting the weight of a ponderously fat old man in a tracksuit and house slippers.

  Slowly they descended, halting, labored, the old man clutching at the banister with a clumsy hand that jerked and felt its way along.

  "Emerson, Uncle. Uncle, jiushi Emerson."

  The man turned his half-lidded eyes to me, thick brows drawn, seeming not to register. One side of his face was slightly paralyzed—body too, which accounted for the shuffling. His little pinkish mouth opened in a yawn, showing darkened gums. He groaned.

  "Is he… what’s wrong?" I asked.

  "Stroke," said Little P. He settled Uncle on the sofa and pulled a blanket up over his knees. "Treat him like normal. You don’t know him. He was a real hellion before all this happened." He clucked solicitously at Uncle. "Lai, he cha ba." He went to the kitchen to make Uncle some tea.

  Uncle and I regarded each other silently. He did not look much like my mother, though there was something eerily reminiscent of her in his face—a ghost of her about the mouth. His eyes seemed to brood, hooded and sunken, and his flat hands picked at the coverlet. I hoped my distaste didn’t show. It wasn’t his illness that put me off; it was something else that hung about him.

  The bird screamed and spilled its feed again as the door opened and a couple of other men came in. They were in the midst of some kind of argument, one high, complaining voice and a corresponding bass, but they stopped abruptly when they saw me and Uncle sitting together on the plastic sofa. Little P, coming in from the kitchen, nodded in my direction without a word; clearly they had discussed me.

  The skinnier of the two pushed forward, wet eyes shining with peculiar intensity. I had an impression of hunger there, some kind of envy or hatred.

  "H-hello," I said, forgetting my Chinese in bewilderment.

  "Am Poison," he said, a small ratlike man with a deep baritone. "English name. I study two year, two year," with a kind of taunt in his voice. He wore plastic flip-flops and a T-shirt that said CENTURY 21 DORITOS, and was chewing a wad of betel nut, which he shifted around rapidly as he spoke. His close-set eyes took me in with sly, darting glances as he gestured toward his soft, fat companion. "My brother, Da Yi. English say Big… One. We are the cousin to you. Son of Uncle."

  Big One shook my hand damply, his silk shirt with flamboyant dragons printed down the placket billowing about his thighs.

  "Hui jiang guoyu ma?" he asked. Do you speak Chinese?

  I blushed. "Yi… yi dian-dian."

  He grinned unpleasantly, top lip curling away from a row of tiny teeth. " ’Yi dian-dian,’ " he repeated. "Shuo ’yi dian-dian,’ da jia dou tingdechulai ni zhen bushi Zhongguoren."

  Poison punched him. Big One looked hurt.

  "Do you understan’?" Poison asked curiously.

  "Understand what?"

  "What he say."

  "Something about… Chinese people?"

  "Ah." Poison laughed. After a mo
ment, Big One laughed also, and the two of them herded me toward the sideboard of snacks and offered me one of Little P’s beers.

  Meanwhile, other people had trickled in, about five or six men. They seemed to know one another already, and fanned out across the sofa and chairs unceremoniously, eating the fruit and jerky and turning up the volume on the TV so that the news blared. They did not speak to or even look at me, and I was aware therefore that they must somehow know who I was. One of them yawned, spreading his bare, ashy knees, and scratched. An air of reluctance seemed to hang over them, like workers at an office party. Maybe Uncle had demanded their attendance.

  I studied the old man again from across the room. Little P hovered over him, wiping his mouth as he dribbled tea down his chin. He was not capable of feeding himself, it seemed, let alone ordering a group of men around. Why, then, did I distrust him? My mind circled, closing in on some elusive detail, but Poison kept distracting me with a long, broken story about cars and New York, how he had gone there once and thought it was nothing, a lot of noise and money.

  "Chi fan ba." Little P, having seated Uncle at the long makeshift folding table, began bringing out take-out containers from the kitchen: pig knuckle, tomato scrambled with egg, cabbage and ham, soup boiled with ginger and tiny clams that Little P dipped out of a plastic bag. A huge tureen of rice was handed around, tea was poured, and the men ate, raising their bowls to their mouths and shoveling rice in, still watching the television.

  Poison, seated next to me, seized the fabric of my suit between his thumb and forefinger. "This very nice, very nice," he said. "Armani, no? Dolce and Gab’na?" He rubbed my sleeve between his fingers like paper bills. "I know. I have the expensive eye. Very expensive, very nice."

  I shrugged away. Actually, it was a Perry Ellis suit my mother had bought me on clearance at Dillard’s, but I could not convince him, for the other men were scruffy in their undershirts and shorts and flip-flops. Under the stark fluorescence, I surveyed the table discreetly, looking longer at my cousins and my brother, my family, a floating panorama of gestures and faces in whom the units of genetic material should have clicked and yearned toward each other, like little magnetic filings, binding us.