Hour of the Rat

by Lisa Brackmann

  “That bird, he really likes you,” Han Rong says, with a nervous giggle.

  “Don’t change the subject. What were you doing with my stuff?”

  That’s when Sparrow and Kang Li come stumbling into the room, her wearing an oversize T-shirt, him wearing boxer shorts, both with major cases of bed head.

  Couple, I decide.

  “What’s going on?” Kang Li barks.

  “I caught your friend here going through my backpack.”

  “What?” Kang Li wheels around in Han Rong’s direction. “Are you some kind of thief?” he yells in Chinese.

  “No, I … I can explain.”

  “Yeah, that’s what you keep saying,” I snap.

  At that point Sparrow steps forward, reluctantly. Runs her fingers through her hair. “He can,” she says with a sigh. “Maybe I should make some tea.”

  WE ALL HAVE OUR tea, which is to say Sparrow and Han Rong. Kang Li and I split a beer. I’m jittery. An adrenaline rush will do that. We sit there, me on the couch, with my best friend Boba standing sentinel, Han Rong, Sparrow, and Kang Li on two folding chairs and one secondhand armchair that looks like it was salvaged from a dumpster, pulled into a semicircle across from me.

  “Okay, so explain,” I say.

  Sparrow and Han Rong exchange significant looks. Kang Li, meanwhile, looks almost as frustrated as I feel. “Xiaoma, what’s going on?” he asks.

  “We don’t know who she works for,” Sparrow tells him. She turns to me. “We don’t know if we can trust you.”

  “Look, you want to search my bag, search my bag,” I say. “You’re not going to find anything one way or another. It’s like I told you, like I keep telling all of you—I’m just trying to find David so I can tell his family he’s okay. Maybe get him to come home to see his brother. That’s it. The rest of this, it isn’t my business. I’m not going to go running to the authorities because you’re rescuing cats. I’m just a laowai with a little business representing artists.”

  “Artists?” Sparrow asks. “What kind of artists?”

  “Chinese artists. You heard of Zhang Jianli?”

  Kang Li and Han Rong shake their heads. I didn’t really expect them to know who Lao Zhang is—it’s not like I could have named a contemporary Chinese artist before I got involved with him.

  Sparrow’s forehead wrinkles.

  “You know who he is?” I ask, surprised.

  “I heard of him.”

  I shiver a little in the cold of the farmhouse. Coincidences make me nervous. Nonetheless, I get out my wallet and extract a business card and hand it to her in proper two-handed fashion. “I can show you the Web site if you want,” I say.

  Sparrow studies the card. Looks at me. “Why don’t you tell her, Han Rong?” she says.

  “I work for Chinese biotech company,” Han Rong says, clutching his teacup, for warmth maybe. It’s chilly in the farmhouse, and both Kang Li and Sparrow have put on sweats. “I take leave from my job recently. I … have some problems with the work we do.” He stares into his cup. A good imitation of contrite.

  “Like what?” I ask.

  “Just … you know, the safety, it is not so clear from results. We need more time to test. But there is a big rush to get this new rice into market.”

  “Rice?” I fish through my backpack and grab the New Century Hero rice bag. “Like this one?” I toss it at him.

  He puts down the teacup. Picks up the sack. Unfolds it. Studies the label.

  “Yes, I think so. You see this?” He rises, comes over to where I sit on the couch, points to a string of letters and numbers in smallish print on the back of the sack. “With the ‘XE’? Stands for Hongxing and Eos.”

  Hongxing = Red Star. And Eos … that’s the American company Jason has a bug up his ass about.

  “So this rice … this is made by an American company?”

  “In part. It is … a partnership. A joint venture. Hongxing is Chinese side, Hongxing Nongye Chanpin.” Han Rong bows his head. “This is company I work for.”

  I try to figure it out. I wish I were smarter, or faster, or at least more awake. But I’m none of those things, so I just ask the stupid question:

  “So how is David connected? Or am I wasting my time out here?”

  Han Rong hesitates. “I come here, to Yangshuo, to get away from stressful situation. Enjoy time in nature. I meet Sparrow and David at the Gecko. We begin to talk, about problems in the environment. You know, China’s environmental problems are relatively serious,” he adds earnestly.

  No shit, I think. “Yeah, so I hear.”

  “I start to talk to David, about my work, about the concerns I have,” he continues. “David is very knowledgeable on this subject. Especially about our American partner, Eos. He tell me he is involved before in criticizing their activities. He tell me also they are very dangerous. They have spies who work for them, who can cause trouble for people. That’s why … that’s why I look in your things.”

  “ ’Cause you thought I might be a spy for Eos?” I laugh. “Right. Like if I were a spy, I’d leave the evidence in my bag for you to find.”

  Kang Li slams his beer bottle down on the desk. “Why didn’t you tell me about any of this?” he says to Sparrow in Mandarin, and he sounds pretty pissed off.

  “Because you like to talk too much,” she snaps back. “You go on Weibo, go on Youku, you say whatever you think, you don’t care if you get in trouble—”

  “I’m not going to get in trouble—”

  “You don’t know that! Besides, sometimes you can accomplish more by saying less.”

  “I’m not criticizing the government! I’m talking about protecting the natural environment!”

  “Sometimes I also think you are completely naïve.”

  “No one can say anything,” Han Rong announces in English, sounding anxious. “Not yet. Not until we have proof.”

  “Proof of what?” I ask.

  “Many GMOs not approved for use in China,” Sparrow explains. “Han Rong thinks Hongxing and Eos selling them anyway. This Hero Rice.”

  “This company, this New Century Seeds, it’s not a legal company. Not registered,” Han Rong says. “Hongxing and Eos set this up to sell seeds, get them in the marketplace.”

  “Why?” I ask.

  “Because once GMO rice in the environment, easier to get official approval. It is like … how do you say?” Han Rong smiles. “Easier to beg forgiveness than ask permission.”

  “They can say, ‘Look, this product is being used, there are no problems,’ ” Sparrow tells me. “Even though we can’t say for certain if there are long-term bad effects or not.”

  “And if there is contamination, if farmers grow this rice by mistake, then Hongxing and Eos can say, ‘We own these seeds,’ ” Han Rong adds. “ ‘This … product.’ ”

  I think about this. “Wait a second. You work for these guys. And you don’t have proof?”

  Han Rong’s eyes do this little shifty thing, just for an instant, but I catch it.

  “I don’t have it,” he says.

  “And you can’t get it?”

  “I can’t be involved,” he says frantically. “You know how things are in China. My company has government connections. They can cause a lot of trouble for me. Besides,” he adds in a low voice, like a cartoon conspirator, “is much easier to pressure the foreign partner.”

  Eos.

  I’m starting to get it.

  “So you told David about the project. You gave him the information about the fake companies.”

  He smiles, a big beaming one, and nods. “Because David is foreigner. He says he can talk to foreign media. Help put pressure on Eos.”

  “Jesus Christ,” I mutter. Of all the things Jason could and should be doing, going after his old nemesis, in China, is pretty much the opposite of a good idea.

  The kid is obsessed. Completely out of his mind. And this guy Han Rong took advantage of it.

  For some kind of noble goal?

&nbs
p; I don’t know. Color me suspicious.

  “Where’s David now?”

  Han Rong shakes his head. “Don’t know. Last I hear, he go to Guiyu. Since then nothing.”

  I glance over at Kang Li and Sparrow. She sits there, eyes downcast, seeming to stare at her hands clasped in her lap.

  “You should have told me,” Kang Li tells her in Chinese, glowering. He stands, pounds down the last slug of his beer, and stalks out.

  Sparrow sighs. “Maybe,” she mumbles.

  SO AFTER THAT I sleep. I mean, might as well. If I’m being played by Han Rong, I figure he’s already made his move. “Good night,” he said after Kang Li flounced off, trailed by Sparrow a few minutes later.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him.

  Han Rong smiled at me, bobbed his head. “Just taking a rest. Helping with the birds.”

  Right.

  WAY, WAY TOO EARLY, Boba sticks his beak in my ear. Makes little chuckling noises. Kind of like a giant white chicken rooting for seeds. Or bugs.

  “Shit, bird,” I mutter.

  Not that it really matters, because a few minutes after that, Sparrow creeps in. Okay, “creeps” isn’t fair. She’s not being sneaky, I don’t think—she’s just light on her feet, someone whose footsteps don’t echo.

  “Zao hao. You want tea? Nescafé?”

  “Nescafé. Thanks.”

  By the time Sparrow brings me a chipped mug full of caffeine, sugar, and non-dairy creamer, Kang Li has shuffled in, scratching and yawning.

  “Zao hao,” he mumbles, taking a seat in the decaying armchair. The fabric used to be some sort of gold brocade, blackened now and worn out in places, with hints of stuffing peeking through the frayed threads.

  I look for hints about what happened between them after their fight last night, and I can’t really tell.

  “Good morning,” I repeat.

  I sip my Nescafé, they have their tea, and none of us says anything for a while.

  “Can we give you a ride anywhere?” Sparrow finally asks.

  I think about this. “Thank you,” I say. “Maybe back to my hotel. If you don’t mind.”

  KANG LI VOLUNTEERS TO drive me. But first he needs to see to the cats and do a few other chores. “No problem,” I tell him. It would be nice if we could make it to Yangshuo before noon so I can save myself another day’s charge at Maggie’s, but it’s not going to break me if we don’t.

  Sparrow, meanwhile, checks on the birds needing special treatment in the main farmhouse.

  I follow along behind her.

  She crouches down at the cage with the injured cormorant, the fishing bird with the infected neck. “How is he doing?” I ask.

  She sighs and shakes her head. “Maybe not so good.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  I watch as she reaches in and grasps the bird at the base of its skull, applies some kind of ointment to its oozing neck, squirts something—water? medicine?—down its gullet with a plastic syringe, coaxes it to eat what smells like mashed-up fish. The bird lowers its head, like it’s embarrassed, not willing to eat.

  “Chi yidian,” Sparrow whispers to the bird. Eat a little.

  “Do you trust Han Rong?” I ask.

  “Not really,” she says.

  KANG LI DRIVES ME into town in his vintage PLA Jeep. He drives like he does a lot of things—with swagger, one hand on the wheel, other arm draped casually across the seat back.

  “Han Rong, he’s okay, I guess,” Kang Li says. “He comes to sanctuary a few days a week, works a little. Best thing he does? Gives money. I think this is really why Sparrow has sympathy for him.”

  “Ah.” Well, that explains a lot. You got a guy who pitches in, says all the right things, and, most important, helps pay for the birdseed and kibble. Maybe you’re not inclined to look too closely at his story.

  And who knows? Maybe it’s even true.

  Kang Li shrugs. “Hard to keep the place going. Always short of money. Sparrow worries.”

  I nod, distracted. We’re just pulling in to Yangshuo, and I’m more than a little nervous about going back to my hotel. I’ve got stuff there, and if I don’t check out, God knows how many days of charges I’ll pile up before they give up on me. But who’s to say that those two rent-a-thugs, Mr. US Polo Team and his plain-wrap pal, don’t still have the place staked out?

  I glance over at Kang Li. He’s got his aviator shades on, his careless, confident vibe, and I think I understand what kind of guy he is: the kind who gets off on a little action.

  “I have a small problem,” I say.

  “SURE, I CAN WAIT.” Kang Li grins. I told him about my mystery stalkers, and, just like I figured, he’s into it.

  I direct him around the back of the hostel. It’s on an alley, with an overflowing dumpster and a rack of cruiser bikes and a minuscule parking lot, two of the three cars there double-parked. “Ten minutes,” I say. All I’m going to do is run up to my room, get my duffel bag, and check out.

  The back entrance to the hostel is unlocked. I head up the sagging wooden stairs to the second floor. Swipe my key card. The Do Not Disturb sign is hanging on the doorknob where I left it.

  Inside, it’s dark, the blackout curtains drawn, the lights turned off. I never really unpacked, so all I have to do is grab my duffel from the chair by the desk and TV where I left it. So I do that. Head downstairs. Approach the battered front desk, where a girl with dyed blue hair sits and stares at her monitor.

  “Hey, ni hao. Wo xihuan jiezhang.”

  I push my receipt for the deposit across the counter. She nods, picks up a walkie-talkie, calls for a fuwuyuan to check out my room and make sure that I didn’t leave anything and/or steal the television.

  While she’s doing all this and toting up the figures, I stand there anxiously, the nerves in my back and shoulders twitching like whiskers on a mouse.

  I owe less than the deposit I’d left. She hands me a night’s worth of yuan, a hundred fifty and change.

  “Okay, thank you very much, please come visit us again!”

  “I will, thanks,” I say, jamming the money into my jeans pocket. “Very nice hotel!”

  And I am out of there. I walk as fast as I can, which is not very—daypack on my back, duffel on my shoulder, Yangshuo walking stick helping me balance—open the back door to the tiny parking lot, and I notice two things: First, Kang Li and his Jeep aren’t there. Second, a new black Buick is, and leaning against the driver’s door reading a manga is US Polo Team.

  I close the door. Fumble for the dead bolt. Lock it. Scramble as fast as I can back into the minimal lobby. Blue-haired girl looks up and smiles.

  “Sorry!” I say. “Wrong way!”

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Did he see me? And Kang Li—fuck. I thought I’d read him right. Guess not. What the fuck do I do now?

  Out the front. Look for a taxi. Ditch the duffel if I have to.

  I shouldn’t have gone back. So what if they have my passport number? My visa? So I get into trouble and pay them a bribe later. Like I’m not in worse trouble now?

  I push open the Plexiglas door. Step outside. Look toward Xi Jie. And see Plain-Wrap Windbreaker, stationed by the lamppost.

  He lunges toward me. I stumble back.

  “Hey!” I hear behind me. I half turn. And there’s Kang Li.

  Who takes two steps up, balls his hand into a fist, swings, and connects with the guy’s jaw.

  Windbreaker staggers, Kang Li kicks him in the side of his knee, and he goes down, hard.

  “Come on!” Kang Li yells. “Lai, lai!”

  He gestures over his shoulder, and there’s the Jeep, parked way illegally, two wheels on the sidewalk.

  I throw the duffel into the back and scramble into the passenger seat as Kang Li vaults into the driver’s seat, just like in the movies, and jams the key into the ignition.

  “Where to?” he asks as we bounce off the curb, brakes squealing.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  “I WAIT FOR YOU, and I
see the Buick. The guy in the jacket. Just like you told me. So I move the Jeep to the front. Hope you find me.”

  “Good plan,” I manage. We’re weaving through traffic on the main road out of Yangshuo, and I seriously don’t know how he missed the middle-aged couple on the tandem cruiser bike and the kid on the skateboard.

  “Who are these guys?” Kang Li asks. “What you do to piss them off?”

  “Wish I knew.”

  We swerve around a bicycle cart loaded with a mountain of Styrofoam packing, and now we’re on the highway heading back to Guilin.

  “You think it has something to do with this … with these seeds? The thing that Han Rong and David—Sha bi!” He waves his fist as we screech around a tractor that crawled onto the road and barely chugs into gear. “Some people should not be driving,” he mutters.

  “Heh. Yeah.”

  “So where you want to go?”

  I think about this. “Guilin, I guess. If that’s not too much trouble.”

  “No trouble. We can be there in half an hour.”

  The way he drives, probably so.

  Kang Li glances at his rearview mirror. His face scrunches up in a frown. “That the same car?” He points a thumb over his shoulder.

  I look behind me. The Jeep has a roll-bar frame with a battered canvas roof, a scratched plastic “window” in the back, and it’s hard to see through it. I check the side mirror. And see a new black Buick, moving out from behind a bus, trying to pass it.

  “Same kind of car,” I say. But I can’t be sure. Buicks, for whatever reason, are prestige cars in China. There are a lot of them here.

  The Buick nestles in between the bus and a taxi, which is the car right behind us.

  “Huh,” Kang Li says. “Let’s find out.”

  He glances to his left and suddenly spins the steering wheel hard in that direction, and we cut across the oncoming lane, right in front of a military truck, and barrel onto a small road that leads into a little town, but I have my eyes closed and am not sure of that part for a moment.

  “Holy shit,” I gasp.

  We’re flying down that road, and now I open my eyes and can see the town, built mostly of that yellow brick they use around here, interspersed with white tile and concrete, and as we pass, a couple of panicked chickens flutter into the air and a mom yanks her kid back away from the street, and we careen around a corner, barely avoiding a guy selling yams off a cart.