Dragon Day

by Lisa Brackmann

  Well, okay, it’s a Chinese palace. Of course it is. Not a huge one, just your basic Chinese minor-prince kind of size. Behind the gate is an entry hall open at the back. I jog left then right, toward the main gate that faces north. Limp up the two granite steps that lead to the entrance to the courtyard I know is on the other side and step over the red wood that cuts across the bottom of the double doors. There’s a huge black-lacquered screen with gold calligraphy on it that’s almost as wide as the entrance and as tall as the ceiling. You have to go around the screen; you can’t just walk right into the place. I think it’s maybe supposed to stop bad spirits, because they can only move in a straight line.

  I walk around the screen. Before I even turn the corner, there are young women in qipaos, and not cheap restaurant polyester ones either. These are beautiful, form-fitting dresses, red with silk embroidery. One of the women holds a lacquer tray bearing tiny crystal flutes. The other makes a polite little bow and hands me one.

  Moutai. Of course.

  I smile and nod and hold it up to my mouth, because it would be rude not to, and I’m actually almost getting a taste for Moutai, you know, if I drink it quick enough.

  On the other side of the entry hall is a courtyard with three more halls in a U shape around it—your classic Beijing siheyuan built for a wealthy owner. In the center of the courtyard, there’s a big granite boulder, all jagged and knobby, a dozen or so feet high. I’ve heard these things called “strange stones.” Usually there’s some calligraphy on them, some proverb about wisdom or changing seasons or whatever. Spaced around that are small twisted pines in marble planters, party guests, and more serving girls in qipaos. All the girls are pretty, I notice. That’s not surprising either. China has a lot of pretty girls, and guys like Tiantian can afford to pay for them.

  There are halls left, right, and center, single-or two-story at most, grey stone and red wood and glazed curved roof tiles. I spot the source of the erhu music, now mingling with a pipa, a yanqin, and the occasional slap of percussion: a quartet set up on the other side of the strange stone. While it’s true that your basic subway erhu player often sounds like he’s strangling a cat, a badass player can shred with that bow and two strings. I’ve also heard some amazing stuff on a pipa, which is sort of like a medieval guitar—a lute or whatever. These guys sounds pretty good, if you like that traditional stuff. I swear I’ve seen the erhu player jamming with a punk-rock band at Mao Live House. Maybe the pipa player, too.

  “Oh, so you came.”

  I jump a little. Marsh.

  He’s wearing all black: slouchy black jacket, black jeans, black boots, and a designer black T-shirt. It goes well with his designer stubble.

  “Yeah,” I say. “I was invited.”

  “I’ll bet.” He sips his drink. Whatever it is, it’s not Moutai. Something amber, in a tumbler.

  I shrug. “You know, it’s this museum project.”

  One of the waitresses approaches with a platter of appetizers. Tiny designer jiaozi nestled in paper cups.

  “Dumpling?” she offers. “Pork and black truffle juicy?”

  “Sure,” I say. Whatever. I take one and bite into it. This intense, almost buttery mushroom-and-pork-fat flavor explodes in my mouth. I manage not to drip the juice on my shirt. Barely. Only because I don’t want to waste it.

  I look up, and I see that Marsh is watching me.

  “Xiaojie.” He halts the waitress with a light hand on her elbow and grabs a dumpling off the tray. “Have another,” he says, extending his open palm out to me, the dumpling perched on his fingers.

  I so want another one of those dumplings.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “You should try it.”

  He smiles and shrugs. Pops it into his mouth and chews with a satisfied smirk. Flicks a glance to his right. “Interesting crowd.”

  “I guess.”

  I mean, I guess it is, actually. A weird mix. There are a lot of thirty-, forty-something people dressed in expensive designer gear, the conservative kind, like they came from an after-work function or an awards banquet. Some of them are wearing interpretations of traditional Chinese clothes: silk mandarin-collar jackets, sleek versions of qipaos. Tiantian’s posse maybe.

  Then there’s Gugu’s group: giggly younger women in sequined T-shirts and denim short-shorts and fuck-me stilettos, guys with wispy goatees, fedoras or sideways ball caps, and visible tattoos.

  I’m not sure which Meimei’s crowd is. If she even has one. Maybe the athletic twenty-somethings hanging around the edges or the ones wearing high-fashion labels, all that Gucci Pucci crap that looks like money.

  Funny thing is, I realize that Marsh and I are dressed almost exactly alike.

  “You enjoying yourself?” he asks.

  “It’s okay.” I shrug. “I’m not that into parties.”

  “But if they have good drinks and nice food and rich people who might throw a few crumbs your way … you’ll drag yourself here. Right?”

  He’s got his tumbler in one hand, and he lifts it in a sketch of a toast before he brings it to his reddened lips and tosses the rest down.

  “Like I said. It’s this museum project.”

  He snorts. “Right.” Raises his empty glass. “Xiaojie,” he calls out, a little louder this time, so he can get his drink quickly. Then he leans toward me.

  “Don’t tell me you don’t like it,” he says. “I recognize those labels you’re wearing. Don’t tell me you don’t like nice things.”

  I stare back. Lock my gaze on his hooded, bloodshot eyes, and I don’t look away.

  “Yeah, well, it’s a recent development.” I toss my head in the direction of the main hall. “Excuse me,” I say. “I need to find the head.”

  Motherfucker.

  Okay, I’m pretty sure this guy is bad news, and I’m not just saying that because he’s right about my recently liking nice things.

  What do I tell Sidney?

  First do no harm. That’s been my mantra since I got any leftover gung-ho bullshit blown out of me in the Sandbox.

  If I tell Sidney what I think about Marsh, what kinds of consequences am I willing to shoulder?

  On the other hand, there’s my ass to think about. I have to tell Sidney something.

  I head toward the hall on my left. Not the main hall, if I remember how places like this are laid out—that would be the one perpendicular, the northern house, and the grounds here look big enough to have additional buildings behind that.

  This one’s shutter-style wooden doors are flung open, welcoming you inside. Even with the open doors, they’re running some kind of air conditioner that feels more like a cool breeze blowing from inside.

  A few guests have drifted in here. A big rectangular room with high ceilings, framed in wood and a lot of black and red and lacquer. Worn stone floors dotted with old, expensive-looking woven rugs. Chinese brush paintings and scrolls hang on the walls. Expensive ones, from what I know, not that I’m an expert. Sometimes you can just tell. One of those green-and-yellow Tang-dynasty horse statuettes, which I’m guessing is a real one, sits on a fancy inlaid cabinet. Some classic Chinese furniture and some modern interpretations of it, because you know those Chinese chairs and benches look cool, but they aren’t all that comfortable. Hardwood chairs grouped around small square tables and this giant carved wooden bed thing with a little table on top of it. A couple of hipster types lounge on the bed thing, smoking something in long-stemmed pipes, their drinks on the little table. They’re not wearing shoes, and I wonder if I should take mine off, too.

  I approach one of the servers, who’s rearranging the glasses on her tray.

  “Xiaojie.”

  She starts a bit, rattling the little crystal glasses. Turns toward me, the friendly smile mask already in place. Another pretty one. Big brown eyes and plump painted lips.

  “Nimende xishoujian zai nar?” I continue. Like I told Marsh, I’m looking for a bathroom.

  “That way, miss.” She points toward the north end o
f the hall. “Go out.”

  At the back corner of the room, there’s a screen, this carved, lacquered thing with white birds painted on it—cranes? I spent some time at a bird sanctuary not very long ago, but I still suck at identifying them.

  Behind that a hallway.

  I go out.

  I’m guessing it was added on, even with the aged grey on the outside wall. Plenty of places that got knocked down in these neighborhoods to salvage it from. Little lights in the ceiling cast yellowish circles on the worn stones. There’s a door made of wood and frosted glass at the end.

  Just as I get there, the door’s flung open. I jump. Out comes a woman, one of the thirty-, forty-somethings, in a black sheath dress and fancy heels. Louboutins, which I know only because of Lucy Wu. Polished more than pretty, with a designer bobbed haircut. Her face is redder than the soles of her shoes. I can’t tell if she’s been crying, is furious, or has been slapped.

  “Duibuqi,” I say. Excuse me.

  She looks at me like, What the fuck are you doing here?

  Good question.

  With barely a nod, she storms down the hall, her heels clicking on the stone like taps from a hammer.

  I go into the bathroom—fancy, of course, more stone and rustic wood, with a shower off to one side. Do my business. There’s another door on the other side, and I decide to go out that way, just because. I’m thinking about a Percocet. I’m thinking about a beer. I’m thinking, What do I have to do here before I can leave?

  Find Tiantian, I guess. He wasn’t in the first hall, so maybe he’s in this one up ahead: the north hall, the main house. I mean, that’s where the lord of the manor is likely to hang out, right?

  The second door opens onto the side courtyard, a narrow rectangle between the west house and the north house. The smaller wing of the north house is closed up, though I can see lights inside. I’ll have to go over to the main entrance if I want to go in and check it out.

  “Hello!”

  I flinch a little, but everything has me jumpy tonight. A young woman with pigtails, wearing a sort of designer baby-doll outfit. She looks familiar, but I can’t quite place her.

  “From Gugu’s party,” she supplies. “I am Celine.”

  “Right. You have a website.” The one she said I should read to learn something about modern Chinese culture. I think she was giving me shit, but I’d actually meant to check it out.

  “Yes. And I hear some things about you.” She gives me a look. I think she’s amused, but I’m not sure why. Just ’cause I’m funny, I guess. “I hear you work with artists,” she says. “Some interesting ones.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Are you interested in art?”

  “Recently I become more and more interested. I even work in a gallery sometimes. Artists say fascinating things about society. Don’t you think?”

  “I do,” I say. I have to admit, not what I expected from a twenty-something club kid. Is she talking about Lao Zhang?

  I try to think of something to say, something to ask about what artists she finds particularly fascinating, but she beats me to the next question.

  “Do you like this house?” she asks.

  “Sure. It’s pretty. I mean, it’s traditional Chinese, right?”

  “Yes. Tiantian likes such styles. He always says China culture is over five thousand years old—what does rest of the world have to compare?” She giggles. “But he likes some modern things, too.”

  Am I supposed to ask? Ever since I started hanging out around the younger Caos, I feel like everyone’s speaking in some kind of code all the time and I’m not really deciphering it.

  “Like what?” I ask. “Fancy cars? New plumbing?”

  She leans forward. “Modern girls,” she says, peering at me through her eyelashes. “Did you see Mrs. Cao just now?”

  “Tiantian’s wife?” I think about it. The only person I’ve seen just now was the angry and/or crying woman in the bathroom. “Maybe.”

  “She is unhappy with Tiantian, because he has this modern taste,” she says, fumbling a cigarette pack out of her tiny purse. “And she is hong er dai, so it is better if she is happy.”

  Hong er dai. Second-generation red. The sons and daughters of the revolution, born into privilege.

  She taps out a cigarette. “Smoke?”

  I shake my head. I haven’t smoked since the Sandbox. Though I still get the itch sometimes.

  “They are Panda.” She shows me the pack. Two pandas on a sea-foam green background. “Deng Xiaoping’s favorite.”

  “Is that why you smoke them?”

  “No. It’s because I like pandas. Zhen ke ai.” She flicks her lighter and inhales, then blows out a dainty cloud. “Very cute.”

  I don’t really want to make small talk with this girl, but it’s not clear to me what else I should be doing, other than organizing a museum or something.

  “You’re here with Gugu?” I ask.

  She lifts one shoulder. “He is here, and I am here.”

  “Oh. I haven’t seen him yet.”

  “So is Betty. My friend you meet before.”

  Rhinestone baseball cap. “Right.”

  Then it occurs to me that I could actually do something productive. “And Marsh is here.”

  She chuckles, a little belly laugh bottled up behind her closed lips. “Yes. I saw you talk to him.”

  “Yeah. He’s … I don’t know. Interesting.”

  “Yes. Interesting.” She takes a draw on her cigarette. “Sexy, I think. Don’t you?”

  “Not really my type.” Which is true and not true. He’s nobody I want to get anywhere near, but he’s got that kind of creepy charisma that some bad boys have, in part because you don’t know what they’ll do. It’s the kind of thrill you get in your gut going up a roller coaster that might actually be nausea.

  “He likes to think he is dangerous,” Celine says suddenly.

  “Oh, yeah?”

  Come up with something smart to say, dipshit, I tell myself.

  “So is he?” I manage.

  She blows a few smoke rings into the dark. “I think he is just acting. But maybe he forgets this sometimes.”

  Okay, I tell myself. You need to go meet Tiantian. Pitch the museum or whatever and then get out. No reason to waste a lot of time. Because it’s not actually going to happen, right?—the kids all getting together to support Dad’s ego monument.

  I’m here to evaluate Marsh, download to Sidney, and di di mao the fuck out. I tell myself this as I limp up the shallow, broad steps that lead to the entrance of the main house.

  Two qipao-wearing serving girls stand by the entrance with trays holding glasses of wine. I take a red. One Moutai, one glass of wine. Doing okay, I tell myself. Even though my leg’s throbbing, this pulsing nerve in the middle of my thigh that feels like an electrical fire, and I really want a Percocet.

  After I meet Tiantian, I tell myself.

  It’s going to suck when I run out of Percocet.

  Another lacquer screen. I walk around it and through the little entry and then into the main room.

  There’s this low, almost yellow light. More carved Chinese furniture, antique urns and scrolls, black lacquer chests, red silk hangings, chunks of pale green jade. It kind of looks like Crouching Tiger exploded.

  I pick my way through the Chinascape. Knots of guests watch me pass, or maybe it’s my imagination. But there aren’t a lot of foreigners here. There’s Marsh, and there’s me.

  “So you came.”

  I turn and see Meimei, lounging on one of those carved wooden bed things with the little table, smoking a Chinese brass water pipe, the kind with the chamber that fits in your hand and a long curved stem. She’s wearing a take on a men’s silk jacket with a mandarin collar, her hair slicked back like last time, and a pair of antique-looking round gold-framed spectacles with the lenses flipped up. China steampunk.

  She extends the hand with the pipe. “Care to try?”

  “What is it?” I ask.

 
“I don’t know, maybe just some tobacco.”

  “No thanks.”

  “You can always have something else if you’d like.”

  I don’t know what she means, but man, am I tempted to ask.

  Don’t be stupid, I tell myself. “I’m good,” I say. “Got my wine here.”

  “Have you met Tiantian yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  She swings her legs off the side of the bed and hops to her feet in one nimble move. “I will introduce you.”

  I limp after her.

  We walk to the back of the main hall. There’s an exit that leads to a narrow courtyard and, like I thought, a two-story hall behind that. As we step up the three stairs that lead to the entrance, this random factoid flashes into my head, that the back house was where the unmarried daughters used to live. I don’t know if that’s true or something I’m just making up.

  Whatever the truth is, this doesn’t look like a home for cloistered daughters. It’s more like an upscale man cave. Leather, glass, and chrome furniture. The biggest TV I’ve ever seen embedded in one wall. A living room, I guess. There are a bunch of men sitting around, some obvious rich guys but also a few who remind me of Pompadour Bureaucrat, wearing polo shirts and ugly designer belts, others dressed in subdued black suits. The women who are here are mostly younger than the men. Of course they’re cute. Of course they’re wearing expensive outfits with short skirts and high heels and carrying rhinestone-studded designer purses. They perch on the arms of the couches, hanging around the edges.

  “Hello!” Meimei calls out in English.

  Everyone turns and stares. It’s like one of those scenes in an old western, where the gunfighter walks into the saloon. The music doesn’t stop playing, though. Too bad, as it’s this cheesy Mandopop, and I have a low tolerance for that shit.

  One of the men stands abruptly. The girl hovering next to him has to step aside, and she totters on her candy-red heels, and for a moment I think she’s going to fall back on her ass. But she grabs the arm of the couch and steadies herself.

  The guy has to be Tiantian. In his thirties, a little heavy through the hips and gut. He’s wearing a black jacket, a grey shirt, and black slacks, and even from across the room I can tell that the clothes are expensive, but for some reason they still don’t fit him quite right, like his sort of dumpy build defies all the custom tailoring.