by Ann Mah
She laughs. “The Uighur separatists would love you, Iz. Did you know that even though Xinjiang is technically three time zones away from Beijing, they still have to operate on official government time? When I visited Kashgar, we ate dinner at ten P.M., except it was actually seven.”
I slurp up a fat noodle and try to imagine a place where the sun rises at eight o’clock in the morning. “Instead of ‘one country, two systems,’ they should call it ‘one country, one time zone.’ The great unifier of China.”
Our laughter drowns out the loud voices around us, making us oblivious to the stares.
In the cab home, a tiny fender bender on the Third Ring Road radiates traffic like an open wound seeping blood. I crank open the window and lean back against the seat, contemplating tonight’s conversation. Geraldine is right, of course. She and I, Ed, Claire, Gab, Charlie—all of us came to China for different reasons—study, work, Sinophilia, the chance to start over—but it’s the opportunities that have kept us here. Beijing is our new frontier, offering us freedom, privilege, and possibility—the chance to leave our mark on uncharted territory.
Before I left New York, my old boss, Nina, sent me an e-mail. “Good luck in your new adventure,” she wrote. “How wonderful that you will have the chance to discover your roots.” It only took a second to delete the message from my in-box. After all, my roots were in Manhattan.
Living in Beijing hasn’t changed that, of course. But I’ve still spent the past months looking for perfect Chinese moments, experiences that prove I wasn’t crazy to move here. Because I love food, it’s not surprising that I’ve found most of them at the dining table, in that first scalding bite of a xiaolongbao, or in the numbing, burning thrill of anything Sichuanese.
But there are other moments. Like the night I sang an entire Mando-pop song at karaoke, and didn’t flub one word. Or the first time a thirty minute cab ride didn’t involve the question, “Where are you from?” Or the day my article was published in the New York Tribune. Or every morning, actually, that I walk into the newsroom, ready to begin another day of writing about food, fashion, and culture—all the things that I love most.
Maybe I could have been a journalist in New York, but there were enough talented, witty, and accomplished writers to intimidate and stop me. Here in Beijing, however, I’ve flourished in the small pond, the growing international interest in stories about China, finally giving me the confidence to try.
In the end, perhaps this is the gift China has given me: not the chance to discover my roots, but the opportunity to realize a dream.
The white floors of the Green T. House Living are shiny enough to reflect the bright colors of the silk and satin cocktail dresses swirling above. Claire and I are at the gala celebration for the Year of Italy in China, and while the free-flowing Prosecco and wheels of Parmagiano-Reggiano cheese mean it’s not quite like every other Beijing social event, it certainly has the major characteristics: lots of air kissing, flashy jewelry, and smiles as stiff as the hairstyles above them.
“I’m so glad we came, darling.” Claire sips from a flute of Prosecco, carefully holding the stem between her long fingers. Almost two weeks have passed since she dropped her bombshell news, yet she still hasn’t made a decision about whether she’s going to keep the baby. Whenever I’ve tried to broach the topic, she sidesteps it, as if she’d rather pretend the situation doesn’t exist. I think that’s why she’s drinking Prosecco tonight, though her sips are tiny enough to be inconsequential. Outwardly, she’s the same Claire, a blur of busyness keeping her unapproachable, though I suspect she’s been hiding out at her office in an attempt to dodge the Beijing social scene. And, late at night, I’m pretty sure I’ve heard muffled sobs from behind her closed door.
She surprised me this afternoon, asking if I would attend the party with her. Of course I was inclined to say no, but as I watched her fingering the gilt-edged invitation with a wistful expression, I found myself agreeing to go. An hour later she’d buried all traces of unhappiness beneath a silver sheath in wild silk, its severe cut revealing her still thin figure. In the car, I was so busy navigating the Airport Expressway and narrow back roads of Shunyi while she drove (her driver is away) that I didn’t have a chance to ask her any questions.
A waiter brushes past and I snag a glass of Prosecco as well as a chunk of Parmagiano-Reggiano from the enormous, hollowed wheel of cheese. Claire holds out her glass for a refill. Should she really be drinking so much? I’m trying to think up a way to ask her diplomatically when I hear a voice trill behind me.
“Ooh! Do I see the Lee sisters?” My heart sinks when I see a tall blonde striding confidently toward us. Kristin from the American embassy.
“Hel-woah,” I manage from beyond my mouthful of cheese. I hastily swallow and manage a tight-lipped smile.
“Great to see you, mwah, mwah.” Her perfume, lingering and musky, washes over me. “Eileen, have you lost weight?” she exclaims, eyeing my dress, black brocade with a flattering fitted bodice.
“It’s Isabelle,” I say through clenched teeth.
“Oops, sorry sweetie. And Claire! Gorgeous dress, darling. How are you? You look tired.”
Claire opens her eyes wide. “I’m fine!” she says with a breezy laugh. She fingers her double strand of dove gray Tahitian pearls.
“How are you holding up?” Kristin cocks her head to one side. “Enjoying life as a single gal again?”
“Absolutely,” Claire says with a confident smile. “Never been better.” She crosses her arms on her chest and looks Kristin in the eye with a cool gaze. Suddenly, I realize why Claire wanted to come tonight. She needed to make an appearance, to show people that she hasn’t collapsed in a heartbroken heap of misery. She may be pregnant (though no one knows) and dumped by Wang Wei, but she’s holding her head high.
Kristin turns away from Claire with a disappointed air and regards me. “Have you seen Charlie lately?”
“No, not lately. Not since Shanghai.” I shrug like I don’t care, though my skin prickles at the mention of his name.
“Isn’t he here tonight?” Claire moves forward slightly. “I thought for sure he’d give his support to the Italian year.” To my surprise, she seems disappointed. She clenches her jaw, a look I recognize from our childhood when she couldn’t get her away.
“So you haven’t heard the news?” Kristin babbles on, oblivious. “Charlie’s moving to Paris! Isn’t that amazing?”
My heart swoops into a nosedive. “Wow, he’s going to be the, um, ambassador to France?”
“Of course not! No!” Kristin bats at my arm with white-tipped fingernails. “You really don’t know anything about U.S. foreign affairs, do you? The ambassador to France is always a political appointee. No, Charlie’s taking a sabbatical to teach at See Ahnse Po.”
See Ahnse Po? I nod knowingly, though I haven’t the foggiest idea what she’s talking about.
“Is he teaching a course on contemporary American politics?” Claire breaks in. “What a great opportunity for him.” She turns to me. “Didn’t our cousin Michael spend a year there?”
Oh, she must mean that French political institute, Sciences Politiques, or something like that. Trust Kristin to be pretentious and use the French nickname. “Yes he did!” I shoot Claire a grateful look.
“Will Charlie be leaving Beijing soon?” asks Claire as a waiter refills her glass again. Suddenly, I find myself hanging on Kristin’s every word.
“In time for the fall semester, I think,” she says vaguely, her eyes scanning the room. “Ooh, is that Mimi Zhou over there? I must say hello. Wonderful to see you both. Let’s catch up over dinner. Byeee!” With a click of her heels, she is gone.
“What a shame about Charlie, darling,” Claire remarks casually, though her dark eyes scan my face a little too closely. “We should invite him over for dinner sometime before he goes.”
I swallow hard against the lump that’s suddenly appeared in my throat. “That would…be nice,” I finally manage.
My sister reaches out to squeeze my arm with a hand that is surprisingly gentle.
I want to slump in the corner, but it’s occupied by a troupe of white-faced mimes mutely acting out a scene from Dante’s Inferno. Instead I take the last sip from my glass and go in search of the bar. But when I find it, the white-clad bartender informs me they’re out of Prosecco and so I settle for San Pellegrino, gloomily slugging the sparkling water directly from the glass bottle. Charlie is leaving Beijing? A dull ache in my stomach reveals a disappointment I wish I could ignore. I’m always looking for him, in the lobby, in the elevator, always hoping to run into him. What will it be like after he leaves? I know it seemed far-fetched that something could happen between us. But some small part of me thought that maybe he perceived me, the real me, and liked what he saw. Now that he’s leaving, I’ll never have a chance to find out.
At dinner, I’m seated between two impeccably preserved women with deep tans who smile and nod politely and then proceed to lean over me to chatter in Italian. I concentrate on the food, plates of cured meats, followed by penne dressed in a drizzle of sharp green extra-extra-extra virgin olive oil. Over the main course (veal chop) I watch Claire across the table laughing with her handsome neighbor, a suave Italian whose picture could be in the dictionary next to the word “gigolo.” He adjusts his shirtsleeves, crisp with European polish, and gazes at her, a small smile on his lips. Claire tosses her hair, cheeks flushed, eyes dark and flashing, and I realize with a start that she is drunk. Not mildly tipsy, but flat-out, sorority-style wasted. Why is she doing this? Doesn’t she know she could hurt the baby? I catch her eye in a stern glare but she ignores me. It’s as if she’s trying to freeze all her problems through alcohol.
I push back my chair and stalk over to her side of the table. “Claire,” I whisper urgently. “I’m going to powder my nose.” I glance meaningfully toward the bathrooms.
“That’s nice, Izzy.” She turns to the man beside her. “Marco, this is my ba-by sistah, Isabelle. Isabelle has to pee and is going to the bathroom.” She smiles at me and gives me a slight push.
“Come with me,” I urge.
“I’m fine here, just enjoying my wine.” She takes another slug from a glass of Chianti.
I grab her hand and pull her out of her chair. “What are you doing?” I demand in the fluorescent chill of the bathroom.
“Havin’ a good time. Whaddha you doin’?” She staggers toward the sink, leaning into the mirror to examine her eye makeup.
“Watch out!” I exclaim as she loses her balance and clutches the counter to steady herself. “Claire, I think we should go home. You’re…you’ve had too much to drink. And you have other people relying on you.” I look pointedly at her belly.
“Oh, please. Don’t get all saintly on me now.” She rolls her eyes. “I’m enjoying myself. I haven’t felt this normal in weeks. Marco is cute and I think he’s about to ask me for my number.”
“He’s about to ask you for more than that,” I snort.
“Just one more drink,” she pleads. “I haven’t been out in ages. And then we can go.”
“Okay,” I concede. “But make it coffee. You need to sober up or I don’t know how we’re going to get home.”
But either she ignores me or doesn’t hear. As we exit back into the dark swirl of the party, her eyes are frozen on someone in the distance. Standing by the stage, directing a flock of masked acrobats on stilts, is the one person guaranteed to send Claire home: Wang Wei.
She whirls around, snatching my arm. “We have to go now. I was positive he wouldn’t be here tonight. I can’t believe the bastard…How could he do this to me…” Muttering under her breath, she strides toward the door, glancing back only to make sure I’m following her. “Hurry up!” she snaps, tossing me her beaded evening bag. “You’re going to have to drive.”
Outside in the dry night air, I stop walking. “What did you just say?”
“Let’s go. You’re driving.”
“What?”
“Obviously I can’t, and you’ve been sipping sparkling water all night. Come on.” Her fingers shaking, she opens the bag and extracts the keys.
“Are you kidding me? There’s no way in hell I’m getting behind the wheel in Beijing. Have you seen the way people drive in this city? Let’s just call a cab. We’ll get the car tomorrow.”
“We’re in the fucking sticks. There aren’t any cabs.” Her voice grows anguished. “Please, Iz, you have to do this for me. I can’t bear seeing him. Please, please, please.”
Despite myself, her desperation makes me climb behind the wheel, thanking my lucky stars that Ed forced me to get a Beijing driver’s license for a story. The steering wheel feels slippery beneath my sweaty palms, and I pull onto the dark narrow road slowly, flashing the high beams.
“Just relax,” says Claire. “Driving here is easy.”
“Okay,” I say, my voice pitched high.
I follow signs back to the main highway, my hands gripping the steering wheel at ten and two o’clock, foot hovering over the brake. I’ve been driving since I turned sixteen, but nothing could prepare me for Beijing’s pothole-riddled streets, the cars that zoom out of nowhere, wafting in and out of my lane, drivers who never contemplate a glance to their blind spot. By the time we reach the Third Ring Road, my limbs feel shaky. Almost there, I think. Almost home. I press my foot against the accelerator to overtake a giant dump truck as it lumbers along the center of the highway.
Later, what I will remember most is how quickly everything happened. The dump truck veering sharply into my lane, the crunch of metal on impact, the way the brakes feel like air as I ineffectively pump them, the reckless skid of the car as it spins across traffic. Our shouts, not screams, but bellows that come from somewhere deep inside.
It seems like the car won’t stop, but when it finally does, the headlights of the dump truck shine through the gaping hole of the driver’s side window. Broken glass covers my lap, gleaming sharply on my black skirt, the seat, the floor.
“Are you okay?” My voice quivers as I turn to look at my sister.
“Oh my God, Iz, you’re bleeding!” She reaches out to touch my collarbone, her hands shaking as she removes a tiny shard of glass.
“It’s just a scratch. I’m fine,” I tell her. “Are you?”
“I think so.” We climb out of the car—my door is crunched shut, so I clamber out her side—and slowly make our way to the side of the road. The driver of the dump truck approaches us; he is plump, his shirt unbuttoned to reveal a solid belly. I can’t even look him in the eye when he apologizes.
We stand there on the side of the road, staring at the wreck of crushed metal that is Claire’s car, the cab of the orange truck hovering above as if victorious. Later, the dump truck driver will file a police report accepting all blame, Claire and I will tell the story to our friends and agree to hide it from our family, we will say how lucky we were to escape with just a scratch. But now, as we wait in the dry night air, I can only clutch at each breath of air, filling my lungs as I’ve done instinctively from the moment I emerged into the world.
A gust of wind blows the hair off my forehead, and Claire crosses her arms and shivers. “Do you want to go to the hospital,” I ask, “just to make sure everything is okay?”
She moves her head almost imperceptibly, but when she finally speaks her voice is clear. “Yes,” she says.
A smog-streaked sunset tints the kitchen pink as I pour myself a glass of wine and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. In the foyer, I hear the thump of the front door as it opens and closes, and a few seconds later Claire wanders in.
“Are you making dinner? I’m starving!” She looks hopefully at the counter, where I’ve assembled my ingredients: spaghettini, butter, parmesan cheese.
“Just a little pasta. Want me to throw some in for you?”
“Ooh, yes please. I’m famished!” She grabs a bottle of water from the fridge. In the two weeks since our accident, Claire has be
en to the doctor four times, but all seems to be well with the baby, despite her momentary lapse in judgment. She’s less nauseous now and her cheeks have regained some color, though a permanent look of worry hovers in her eyes. I think it’s the expression of motherhood.
A hiss from the stove indicates the water is boiling, and I stir in the noodles, Claire watching me from across the counter. “Oh, so you wait until the water boils and then you put the spaghetti in,” she says.
“You’re joking, right?”
“Hey, maybe you can teach me how to make food that the Little Pea will eat. Ooh, like those smoked salmon scrambled eggs…or maybe caviar and buckwheat blini…”
“I see the Little Pea will share its mother’s expensive tastes.”
“Mais oui,” she giggles.
“Actually,” I grab the hunk of cheese and start grating, “you know who you should ask for recipes? Mom.”
There’s a beat of silence that lasts so long it grows uncomfortable. “I’ve been thinking a lot about Mom and Dad,” Claire says finally. “I didn’t want to say anything until I’d made a decision, but I’m thinking about going home.”
“Back to New York?” I look at her with surprise.
“Yeah.” She twists a lock of hair between her fingers. “It’s not going to be easy doing this on my own, and frankly, I could really use the support.”
“I think that makes a lot of sense,” I tell her.
“Really?” Relief floods her face. “You’re not mad? You’ll have to look for a place to live…”
“Or, maybe I’ll go back too.” I shrug. “I’ve gotten some good experience here, had some good bylines. Maybe I could get some sort of assistant job at a magazine, working for Condé Nast, or something. And I could babysit.”
“That’s really sweet of you, but do you really want to be an assistant again?” She pulls a face. “Making coffee and copies, fetching and carrying, answering phones…”
“It’s really not that bad.”
“Huh,” she snorts. “I’ve seen The Devil Wears Prada.”
