Song of the Silk Road

by Mingmei Yip

  A good sign.

  After I left the museum, as I was wondering what to do next, I spotted a small eatery across the street. I headed straight there, sat down, and ordered peanuts, buns, dumplings, and tea, which I couldn’t possibly finish but just so that I could stay longer. While eating, I studied the museum but didn’t see anyone going in or anything unusual. A few hours later, when I was sipping my tea and picking at my leftover food, the two “scholars” came out, followed by the receptionist and the guard.

  I had come up with a plan and would be back tomorrow.

  The next day, I put on a T-shirt, blue jeans, and a thin jacket, then pulled my long hair up into a chignon and wore a baseball hat, trying to look as unremarkable as possible. This time I arrived about an hour before closing time. Today more people, about eight or ten, milled around, watched by the same male guard as yesterday. I walked around looking for places to hide while consciously staying outside the guard’s vision. About fifteen minutes before closing time, I sneaked inside the storage room and hid myself inside a closet. The room was a mess with piled-up boxes everywhere, so I didn’t think anyone would find me.

  Half an hour later, once all was quiet, I cautiously opened the closet door. But then, just as I was stretching my stiffened arms and legs, I heard footsteps in the distance. Instantly I moved back inside the closet, closed the door, and pressed my ear on the door to listen. A man and a woman had come into the storage room, talking and giggling. Who were they and what were they doing in the museum after closing time? My heartbeat accelerated as the noise came closer so that they seemed to be right outside my hiding place.

  A man’s voice said, “See? This is the best place. I guarantee no one will find us.”

  Then the woman’s harsh voice floated in the air. “You’re bad, so bad.”

  It was the receptionist! What the hell was she doing here?

  The man teased. “You’re bad, too, following me like a puppy.”

  Both laughed nervously, then mumbled something I couldn’t hear.

  Soon I could hear clothes dropping on the floor, followed by groaning and moaning.

  The man declared in a heated whisper. “Oh, heavens, how come you have such huge, soft fucking breasts like pillows!”

  This was followed by the woman’s laughter and her sky-rocket-shooting scream. “Harder, please, harder! Oh, yes! Don’t you dare stop, or I will tear off your turtle head!”

  The receptionist looked so prim and sloppy. Who would’ve imagined she could fuck with such abandon?

  Listening to this couple’s coupling, I thought of my lovemaking with Alex and felt an unspeakable sadness. What was he doing now? Was he thinking of me?

  Then the moaning and groaning stopped, followed by the man’s urgent voice. “Quick, let’s get out of here before any mishaps. I don’t want to lose my easy job just watching a few assholes pace around!”

  Then the receptionist’s, “What time is it? Damn, I have to go home to cook for my husband and son!” followed by the sounds of pulling on clothes, then footsteps hurrying away.

  The guard, the bored receptionist—a married woman with husband and child—a rendezvous in the museum’s filthy storage room. I couldn’t believe it.

  I waited fifteen minutes, making sure no sounds came from anywhere in the museum before I sneaked out of the closet and headed straight to the exhibition room.

  I again inserted my Swiss Army knife’s screwdriver into the keyhole. This time I twisted it with more force, but the lock refused to budge. Frustrated, I thought of breaking the glass but soon dismissed the idea as stupid. Then I put on my gloves and used my whole force to turn the knife. Bit by bit the lock yielded, painfully, like a pretend virgin.

  Quickly I took out both the fake Gold Buddha and the Diamond Sutra and put them inside my backpack, then, with utmost care and respect, replaced them with the two authentic ones. After that, I closed the case, muttered a short prayer to the authentic Enlightened One now sitting in his rightful place, then left the room.

  Of course the main door was locked, and this time no matter how I abused the Swiss knife, the door adamantly refused to succumb. My heart beat fast as different scenarios flashed across my mind: spending the night here and sneaking out tomorrow, getting caught, suffocating from the heat and turning into a mummy….

  Then a lightbulb went off in my head, and I hurried to the toilet. Inside, human excretion filled every trough to the brim, looking like hot chocolate mousse but not smelling like it. I had to use all my willpower to ignore the stench so I could concentrate.

  Yesterday when passing by the bathroom, I remembered seeing sunlight filtered through windows. Yes, here they were! I reached to open the nearest one, and to my delight, it was not locked. Swiftly I climbed up to the ledge and jumped down to soft sand. It seemed too good to be true. But it was, like the Chinese say: “When water arrives, the trough forms naturally.” Ha!

  Outside it was already dark and there were no cars around. The restaurant was still open but with only one customer, and I didn’t feel comfortable eating there, lest the owner recognize me. Even if I did, what would I do next?

  The only way seemed to be to walk the five or six miles to the nearest station and see if I could catch a train back to Urumqi—although it was unlikely there was more than one train per day. Fortunately both the reproduction Buddha and the fake manuscript were light, so my back was not strained or my neck crushed. Nonetheless, my mind was weighed down almost to the ground.

  Three hours later, my legs wobbly from the long march, the train station happily came into view.

  18

  The Marketplace

  Finally back in Urumqi after a long, fitful train ride, I checked into the Xinjiang Hotel. Once again in this now-familiar city, a sense of comfort and security returned. After all the nerve-racking events of the past months, I felt I desperately needed a respite before continuing my journey. My next move would be to visit the blind fortune-teller—they are assumed to be able to “see” the future, though no one has ever explained how. Still ahead of me was the crossing of the Taklamakan Desert to search for a treasure buried under a wall. My final destiny—assuming I was still alive and in one piece—would be to meet my aunt and her lawyer, Mr. Lo, then collect the three million dollars. I needed a break but did not want to delay receiving my fortune.

  During the next few days in Urumqi, all I did was sleep, eat, and take walks. For meals, I did not bother to find restaurants but just ordered room service. Even though I was not staying at the Welcome Guest Hotel this time, just being in Urumqi brought back bittersweet memories of Alex. I could not help wondering how he was. Was he sorry about our quarrel? Were his parents bad-mouthing me?

  Then, as I was drifting off to sleep one night, a thought emerged. What I really needed was a more complete break—I could go back to New York to see Alex, and maybe even Chris. But this idea brought new worries: What if Alex had already forgotten about me and was dating someone his age—or even younger? As for Chris, I was sure he’d be happy to see me, at least for the free bed-warming—if he hadn’t yet seduced another student. Appealing as the thought of returning to New York to relax, eat some good food, and see a few good movies was, I decided I should visit the blind fortune-teller first, then return to China to finish whatever I was destined to finish.

  My last day in Urumqi, I set out for the city’s famous bazaar to shop, take pictures, and enjoy myself. The weather was pleasant, with a slight breeze to dissipate the heat and a clear sky to clear my befuddled mind. The market was crowded as usual with Chinese, European tourists, Uyghurs, Turks, Mongols, and Tibetans. Many of the “foreign” men possessed robust physiques, brown skin, deep-set eyes, and high-bridged noses. I found myself gawking at these exotic faces like a teenage girl transfixed by pictures of her favorite male movie stars.

  Some men stared back at me with expressionless faces, others smiled, yet others cast me curious glances and muttered in languages I didn’t understand. The non-Chinese w
omen, also with big eyes, high noses, and honey-colored complexions, mostly ignored me and went on with their business of haggling with vendors or scolding their overactive sons and whining daughters. By the roadside, groups of children in colorful outfits played their own invented games with plastic toys—cars, soldiers, animals, dinosaurs.

  I was delighted to see vendors everywhere selling crafts and food. Bright-colored hand-sewn carpets and bolts of silk had been laid on the ground for people to haggle over. Pottery and porcelain wares of varied sizes and shapes kept beckoning me to caress their silk-smooth glaze and take them back to a cozy home. A tall, dark orange vase with bold streaks of turquoise suggested to me a dark-skinned woman with sensuous, elongated fingers picking berries under the turquoise sky.

  The owner lifted up the vase and yelled to me, “Ten, ten. Take home!”

  Though I was tempted to adopt the vase, I knew I couldn’t possibly carry such a weighty and fragile object in my backpack and then in my luggage back to the U.S.

  Hurrying away, I inhaled the delicious smell of food—seven-ingredient soup, grilled meat, kebabs, huge flat nang bread, fresh fruits. I stopped to appreciate green and mauve grapes hugging each other in huge clusters, like blossoms napping in spring. Metal basins overflowed with a huge variety of nuts and dried fruits—walnuts, almonds, raisins, currants, bananas, plums—all piled up high like camels’ humps.

  I wandered aimlessly, bumping into people and listening to strange syllables emitting from their maroon, sensuous lips.

  One little girl dressed in red pulled my jeans and said in disjointed English, “Come, come, buy nang! nang!” while pointing to a huge, round, crusty pancake—the size of a twelve-slice pizza—on a table in front of a young woman, no doubt her mother.

  I had learned that nang, like rice for the Chinese, is a staple for the Uyghur people, especially during long-distance travel, since the bread can stay edible for months.

  “How much?”

  She lifted three of her dirty fingers. “Tree.”

  I took one nang from the young woman and handed the little girl “tree” bills.

  Then I stooped down so my face was at the same level as hers. “Little friend, how did you learn English?”

  She giggled. “Ghosts, white.”

  “You like white ghosts?”

  She nodded her pretty head, then stuck out her tongue and rolled her eyes, imitating a ghost, I supposed. After that, she giggled uncontrollably while dashing to hide behind the young woman.

  I waved to them and walked away, strolling and munching on my Uyghur “pizza.” A harsh-looking male vendor pushed a piece of meat almost into my mouth with his blackened, calloused hand.

  I pointed to my huge nang, gave him a dismissive wave, then continued to walk. Unlike the little girl, he was far from being cute as could be imagined and so failed to get my business.

  A small, boisterous gathering caught my attention, so I squeezed through to the front of the little throng where a man in a deep blue apron was performing gymnastics with noodles as long as the Great Wall and as tangled as the plot of a soap opera. To my amazement, like a circus animal trainer, he made the noodles execute a complex ballet in the air. But I didn’t get any noodle soup from him. Though he was cute, his portion was not little, and I reminded myself that my “pizza” was huge.

  I left the loud applause behind and resumed walking. Amidst the hustle and bustle of the market, I imagined myself traveling through time to this same place centuries ago. Under the scorching sun, caravans loaded with silk, embroidery, tea leaves, jade, gold jewelry, porcelain, lacquer, bronze, and peacocks lumbered forward, their owners salivating over the soon-to-be-made fortunes. Bells fastened around the camels’ ankles emitted crisp, tinkling sounds, breaking the eerie silence of the empty desert. Back from the West, richly attired merchants squatted on the humped beasts, happily surveying their exchanged goods—glass, gems, medicines, spices, wine, rugs, fragrant woods, rich fabrics, ostriches, even heavenly horses tethered behind the camels.

  In my reverie, I was the richest merchant’s beautiful daughter who, while riding from east to west and then back, would meet and fall dangerously in love with one of the tall, exotic, dark-skinned men. Except for my eyes, my face was veiled—from the wind, heat, dust, and especially the eyes of these handsome strangers. But the veil’s job was only half done. Bewitched by my eyes—big, long-lashed, greenish brown, haunting—they would project amorous messages straight back to my soul’s windows.

  “Alas!” my richly dressed, elegantly mannered father would exclaim, “although my daughter’s face is veiled from the world, secrets keep spilling from her loquacious eyes!”

  Then, one day, a prince saw my fleeting, half-veiled visage from the reflection of a brass bell decorating my father’s luxurious carriage. Instantly he was transfixed as if struck by lightning. Like a longing from a past life, my half-veiled, half-revealed face became an unattainable dream. Until one day our caravan was stopped by a bandit, and the prince, leading his cavalrymen on horseback, dashed to my rescue. He chopped off the bandit’s head, caught me as I fell from the bandit’s dying arms, then wrapped me tightly in his manly ones. All this happened on one sultry night when the wind wailed like a rootless ghost, the horses neighed like tortured souls in hell, and the sand spun like a Sufi’s whirling robe….

  In the midst of these wild imaginings, Alex’s face suddenly emerged, followed by a great sadness rising inside me. As I waved my hand in front of my eyes to sweep away this alluring yet disturbing image, I spotted a young meat vendor smiling sweetly at me. He looked to be in his early twenties, the same age as Alex. I sighed. If Alex were here, together we could be shopping for silly little things, snacking on the pungent, grimy meat, telling jokes and laughing together….

  I continued to stroll, trying to pick up the threads of my earlier daydream. But the story refused to move forward. Did the prince and I undergo a stormy, passionate love affair before settling down to an erotic happy-ever-after, surrounded by delightfully shrieking little princes and princesses? I tried and tried but nothing came, so I gave up. Maybe after all I was not a rich man’s beautiful daughter in any of my past lives nor was there any handsome prince coming to my rescue.

  Still savoring the impossible fairy tale, I spotted several men squatting on the ground surrounding a jade vendor. Attracted by the brightly colored stones and the powerful, concentric qi emitted by the men, I went up to the group and squatted down just like them, a pose I’d never adopt back in the States or in Hong Kong. The men turned to cast me curious glances.

  The vendor, a brown-faced, fortyish Uyghur man wearing a Muslim cap and a white-turned-gray shirt, smiled at my intrusion, then asked in Mandarin, “You want buy jade for friends, relatives?”

  I was wrong to have imagined that I’d started to blend in—first the little girl talked to me in English, and now this jade seller in Mandarin.

  I smiled back. “Sorry, I don’t have any people to give to.”

  He looked surprised. “No family?”

  I shook my head.

  “Oh, an orphan.” He turned to translate to the others.

  Now all the men took on sympathetic expressions, collectively shaking their heads.

  Suddenly a worry rose in my mind: Knowing I was here by myself, would they try to take advantage of me?

  But the vendor leaned toward me. “Then buy one for yourself, for blessing and protection.” He spread and rearranged the jades on the carpet with his brown hands tipped with stained nails. Staring at his workman’s hands, I thought of Lop Nor digging for herbs and blinked back tears.

  Oblivious of the emotions inside me, the vendor spoke. “Miss, these are Khotan jade, worn only by emperors.”

  I squeezed a smile. “Then how did they end up on the street?”

  “Ah, many years ago kingdom lost, no more jewelry, no cash, no good food, no pretty wives, not even one.” He made a sweeping gesture to sculpt in the air the outline of a voluptuous woman.

/>   All the other men laughed; one emitted meaningful clucking sounds.

  I ignored them while sifting through the stones to distract myself. Maybe thinking that I was a serious buyer, soon the others stood up to leave, one after another.

  After they all left, the vendor looked around and said in a whisper, as if trying to share with me a slice of heaven’s secret, “Miss, if you’re looking for something special, take a look at my most valuable piece.”

  My curiosity was pricked. “What is it?”

  He slipped his hand inside his shirt, pulled out an object, then put it in my hand.

  An ivory bracelet the color of antique white jade—just like Lop Nor’s white jade pendant. The piece was unusually wide and thick, its entire surface adorned by a streak the color of aged red wine, or Chinese Pu’er tea. Its antique silver clasp was an intertwined dragon and phoenix.

  I bounced my hand a little to feel the solid, sensuous weight of the ivory in my palm. A unique piece, an unexpected find in this remote place. As I rubbed the smooth ivory against my wrist, it suddenly occurred to me that this would be a perfect match with Lop Nor’s pendant, now hanging from my neck.

  I looked up to the vendor. “I really like it. But… I don’t think I could afford a treasure like this.”

  He lifted my wrist. “Miss, only a small piece like this will suit your small wrist. If it’s bigger, even if you want it it’s no use. I’d say this piece has been waiting for you to claim it.”

  I thought for a while. “All right, then, how much?”

  “One thousand. I give you big bargain, so no bargain.”

  This was someone’s whole year salary in China!

  I caressed the off-white, luminous texture, smooth like silk and soothing as a massaging hand. “Why is there a red streak in the middle?”

  “From tomb. It absorbed some of the dead person’s blood.”

  Now the red seemed to undulate slightly before my eyes. Although I doubted it was real blood, the idea intrigued me. Maybe one day I could open my yin eye to communicate with the owner during one of his or her many incarnations centuries ago under a full, blue moon.