Song of the Silk Road

by Mingmei Yip

  “Do you want to see me just for the sex?”

  “No, I want to see you. And, yes, I also want to make love to you.”

  “How do you know I’m not with someone else tonight?”

  “Someone else?” His tone suddenly turned angry and hurt. “Is he the same one you were expecting the night before you left?”

  “No, I told you there was no man that night.” Although my tone also came out angry, I was enjoying Chris’s jealousy.

  “Then what about tonight?”

  “It’s for me to know and for you to find out.” It’s as unbearably pleasurable to tease a man who finds you so desirable as it is to finally realize he’s in fact dispensable.

  “Then I’ll come. And please don’t torture me while I’m with you.”

  “But wait, Chris, who’s torturing whom?”

  “Please. I’ll try my best to solve our problem, just give me time.”

  “Take your sweet time then.” I grunted and hung up.

  I realized the reason I came back to the States was not that Chris was on my mind but Alex, even though we’d had the big fight before his departure and I still felt hopeless about our future. Since I considered myself adventurous and a risk taker, then why should I be bugged by our age difference? Because when I had my first sexual experience, Alex would have been nine years old, a fourth grader. When I’d turn forty and over the hill, he’d be thirty-two, waltzing at his prime.

  In my opinion, men, young or old, handsome or plain, rich or poor, all have Alzheimer’s disease—not the disease of their brains, but their penises. Even a snake will always slide back to the same hole. But a penis’s karma is to wander and forget which hole—especially the most familiar one—it is supposed to return to.

  Chris brought food and a bottle of red wine. As expected, the food was my favorite Chinese takeout, a gesture I always appreciated. To me, a man who brings hot, tasty, nutritious food to feed the woman he cares about is simply heaven-sent. So, although Chris was a man with many faults, he was also graced with this endearingly redeeming trait.

  As I watched my blockbuster-novelist lover set down on my table the long-missed dishes—kung pao chicken, beef broccoli, shrimp dumplings, hot and sour soup, scallion pancakes, and fried banana—my heart was filled with a fleeting happiness. Chinese call this abundance youyu, which means “there is so much that there will be something left over”—money, food, good fortune, blessings, healthy children.

  In the small studio, we ate and drank with relish, savoring the salty and saucy beef and chicken, the lip-greasing scallion pancakes and dumplings, as well as each other’s long-missed presence and energy. From time to time, Chris would put food on my plate, refill my glass with wine, and peck my cheek. However, amid the pleasant clicking of chopsticks, smacking of lips, and slurping of soup, we didn’t engage in a lot of talking as in the past. I was thinking of Alex and how to find him. Chris, I guessed, was wondering, What was she doing in China all by herself, and why won’t she tell me the reason for her travel? Does she have a boyfriend there? Will she have sex with me tonight?

  Chris tilted his head toward me; his golden hair undulated like silk under the yellowish light. “Lily, you OK?”

  I stopped chewing. “I’m fine, why?”

  “You’re just not your usual lively self. Problems during your trip?”

  “Nope.”

  “You want to tell me about it?”

  “About what?”

  “Why did you go to the Silk Road and what were you doing in the desert?”

  “Not now, but later.”

  “Not later. I want to know now.”

  I dropped my chopsticks, which hit the table with a sharp thud. “Then will you divorce your Jenny now and marry me later?” Actually, I never really wanted to get married, at least not now, but I said that just to annoy him.

  “Lily, you know it’s a very difficult situation for me, but I’ll think about it seriously, I promise.”

  “All right, then, why don’t we push this serious matter back till later and enjoy our greasy Chinese food now.”

  He gave me a surprised, upset look. Then we resumed our eerily silent concentration picking at the many dishes and gulping down the endlessly flowing wine, red like roses, blood, or Chinese good luck paper.

  Moments passed before I asked, changing the subject, “How’s your new novel going?”

  “Not well. I’m stuck; writer’s block.”

  I put down my bowl to pat his hand. “I’m sorry. Can you start a different one?”

  “I thought of that but no new ideas came. Anyway, don’t worry, I’m sure I’ll think of something else. Now let’s finish our food,” he said, his chopsticks noisily hitting his bowl while scraping up rice.

  The unspoken lines were “then we can fuck our brains out as soon as we are done eating.”

  So after we devoured the food, in our drunken state we started to devour each other’s bodies. That made me think of two very popular Chinese sayings:

  “Eating and coupling are people’s innate nature.”

  “A warm, full stomach leads to lasciviousness.”

  Sex was excellent, as usual. It felt so wonderful to have Chris’s muscular arm around me, his thick torso pressing on mine, his burning lips sending zealous greetings to various parts of my body, and his sex playing hide-and-seek inside my valley like a naughty, poisonous snake as he muttered, “Let me devour you, my juicy little dim sum, please” and “Oh, God, how come you’re so fuckingly sexy and your nipples so impossibly hard?” Although I didn’t like profanities, I accepted his compliments with painfully pleasurable moans….

  I was still attracted to Chris, but I knew now that I didn’t feel real love for him, as I had once thought. After sex, to my surprise, what came right into my mind was Alex. If Chris could be compared to a mug of scalding, bitter black coffee, then Alex was a cup of steaming, fragrant green tea. The coffee might scorch my throat and keep me high, but the tea soothed my high-strung nerves and warmed my soul. Chris’s hands were like a gourmet chef’s cooking high-fat dishes, while Alex’s were like those of a conductor conjuring pleasing melodies.

  Tears coursed down my cheeks.

  Chris put his arm around my shoulder. “Something wrong?”

  I couldn’t possibly tell him that Alex was on my mind, or that I was now determined to find him, hoping that he still loved me and that there’d be a second chance.

  “Nothing. Just a headache, probably because of all the wine.”

  “You want me to get you some aspirin?”

  “No,” I said, feeling unbearably sad.

  Chris wanted to see me—read: fuck—several more times before I went back to China, but I decided to stop providing any more entertainment, sexual or otherwise. In the ten days I had left I desperately needed to be left alone to think about where my life was headed. Also, I felt my desire for him and his hold on me fading fast. Yet my urge to find Alex refused to subside as Master Soaring Crane’s words kept spinning in my head:

  Maybe it’s flattering and pleasurable to have all these men chasing you. But ultimately you better stay with one. Passion and lust will vanish like smoke and dust. Only true love lasts.

  The next two days I tried Alex’s home number but to no avail, so I left a short message on his machine. According to my experiences with men, acting desperate was the worst thing to do.

  On the fourth day, the phone was finally picked up after the eighth ring. But instead of feeling elated, my heart sank. It was Donna Adler’s cold, impersonal voice.

  “Hi, Mrs. Adler, I’m Lily Lin, Alex’s friend. We met at the Welcome Guest Hotel in Urumqi.”

  “I remember you.”

  “Is Alex there? May I speak to him?”

  “He’s not here. I just stopped by to check on things.”

  “Oh….”

  “He went back to China.” Her voice from the other end of the line sounded like she was now thinking of strangling me with her hundred-dollar-manicured hands
.

  “China?” My heart sank.

  “Yes, to find you. Since he’s never heard any news from you…. Nothing.”

  “Oh, my… I’m sorry… so sorry.”

  “Don’t be. I’m the one who should feel sorry for my son.” Her tone was getting increasingly antagonistic. “It’s dangerous in China, especially where you were. But he won’t listen. Now he’s in China looking for you and you’re here. What kind of games are you playing with a twenty-one-year-old kid? I’m not at all happy about this.”

  “I’m sorry. You know that we quarreled before he came back here. So I think maybe he doesn’t want to see me again….”

  “Well, then you think wrong, smart as you think you are. I tried to stop him from leaving, but he won’t listen to me! So thoughtless of him, and now you’re here.”

  Losing Alex was bad enough, so I tried my best not to lose my temper, or my dignity. “I’m so sorry, Mrs. Adler, but Alex is an adult and he’s free to go wherever and do whatever he wants.”

  Before I could add, “And with whomever he loves” plus “whomever he wants to find including his biological mother,” the line was already dead.

  “Bitch.” I let the beast jump off my lips.

  Overwhelmed by the unpleasant conversation, I collapsed on the bed and let my tears make their long-postponed escape.

  Oh, God, how could we have missed each other like that?

  I decided to return to China immediately. I called the airline and changed the ticket, paying a penalty, which fortunately I could now afford. The power of money. Things can actually change. Something I was getting used to.

  So, after I did some shopping and errands, I braced myself for my second twenty-hour trans-Pacific flight in less than five days.

  When I told Chris of my early departure, he asked why, and my answer was an evasive, “Something happened, but I can’t tell you now, only later.”

  Knowing that it was futile to further probe, he begged to come to my studio one last time, presumably for a quickie. I lied that my “great aunt” had just announced her monthly visit. I’d spit on myself if I’d again let another man crawl into my bed except Alex, who had been sitting right in the center of my heart all along. Guilt was engulfing me as I remembered how I’d yielded to Chris on our reunion five days ago. So I racked my brain for excuses: I did it for old times’ sake; I owed him emotionally and financially; it was compensation for not telling him why I had gone to China and left him for four months; after all, he was my professor, mentor, and body reader; and finally, we were both dead drunk.

  All right, I was weak in the flesh and the heart, plain and simple. Fuck!

  Then Alex’s sweet, pained face emerged in my mind’s eye as I remembered his sexual poetry. Now I didn’t want any other men, only Alex. I dried my tears, ran a hot bath, then soaked in the tub to soothe my nerves, imagining Alex’s caresses as I slid into the sloshing, scalding water.

  I moaned and squirmed as my hand feverishly explored the area burning between my legs.

  23

  Visit from the Desert Lover

  After the long plane ride to Beijing, a shorter flight to Urumqi, an overnight hotel stay, a car ride, and finally a bumpy few miles by donkey cart to my desert village, I felt oddly at home. I was beginning to wonder which was more real: my life in Manhattan or in this remote part of China where even ghosts refused to visit.

  As I was walking toward my cottage, Mito and a bigger girl whom I’d seen a few times were playing in the open area. Once they saw me, they both ran up to greet me.

  The girl looked up at me, struggling to tell me something. “Sister.” She pointed to her nose, then made a lifting gesture. “Ghost, ghost.”

  A foreigner with high nose. My heart skipped a beat.

  Now she pointed to the patch of brown in her dress, then tousled her own hair. Yes, she was telling me that this foreign devil’s, or ghost’s, hair was brown.

  Alex.

  The girl took something out from her pocket. It was a bag of candies.

  She said, smiling happily, “From ghost.”

  Now Mito stuck out his tongue to show his share of the sweets.

  I was pleased that although Alex came back for me, he didn’t forget the children.

  I asked the girl, “What does he look like?” Of course it was a redundant question.

  Just then Keku materialized and offered details. “Tall and thin, big eyes, sweet smile, chestnut hair. Very good looking.” After that, she covered her face and giggled as uncontrollably as a little girl being tickled by her uncle. “Wah, that’s why come back so quick!”

  “Did you talk to him? Did he ask you about me?”

  She shook her head, blushing. “No, I hid in cottage and watched. Too scary talk to ghost.” Seemingly trying hard to suppress another burst of giggles, she added, “Also, don’t speak ghost language. But he looked like worried ghost.”

  “When did he come?”

  “Four times already.”

  “Thank you, Keku,” I said, and started to turn away.

  “Wait!” she shouted at my back.

  I turned back. “Yes?”

  She placed her hand on her chest and said empathically, “He in here!”

  “How do you know?”

  She burst out laughing. “Ha! Ha! Ha! On your face, written on your face!”

  After I took the luggage and let myself inside the cottage, two notes on the floor stared anxiously at me. I snatched them up, slapped shut the door, dropped my butt on the tire, and started to read.

  Dear Lily,

  I couldn’t find you, although I came here four times so far, hoping to see your face. Where are you? I hope you still live here, or are only away for one of your many mysterious journeys which you never invite me to join.

  I can’t help but worry about you. You’re strong in spirit but vulnerable in body and heart. You tried to act tough but are in fact soft like water, and living all alone in this remote part of China.

  If you’re back and get these letters, please call me. I’m staying at the Welcome Guest Hotel in Urumqi. But I’ll come again soon. If you call and I’m not there, please leave a message.

  The idea of not being able to see you again is unbearable.

  I love you. Sorry about that horrible fight. I have bitterly regretted it ever since.

  I hope someday you will be my wife. Don’t discriminate against me because of my age. I can’t help it.

  There is always a room in my heart reserved for you.

  Alex

  The second letter had only three lines:

  Please call me the minute you’re back. I worry about you. If it is my sad destiny not to see you again, I’ll go back to the States soon.

  Alex

  I put the two letters on the table, then covered my face with a pillow and cried my heart out. I felt sad, and also frightened. I hoped our love was not a dream or our encounter an illusion. No one had ever been so patient with me, understood me so well, and loved me so completely. If I was not 100 percent sure I could return Alex the same kind of love, it might be better to end it now, lest I someday hurt him deeply and irretrievably, the last thing I wanted to do.

  My love, so unexpectedly dropped into my life, both pleased and scared me. Would I have any future with this man sharing my desert bed, even if we were willing to wait for each other? Me for him to mature and make some money, and he for me to make up my mind to accept him completely—including our eight-year age difference?

  * * *

  The next day, early in the morning, too impatient to wait for a donkey cart, I walked two miles to the post office to make the call to the Welcome Guest Hotel.

  Seconds later I was connected to Alex’s room.

  “Alex?”

  “Lily, where have you been? I’ve been looking for you for days!”

  “I just came back from New York. Your mother told me you were in China, so here I am.”

  “I’ll come over right now. Please wait for me.”


  Then the phone went dead.

  He was that impatient to see me.

  The hours crawled by, then suddenly there was Alex, at my doorstep, then inside my cottage holding me tightly, like a child gripping a fluttering bird, fearing it might slip from his hands and fly away.

  While suppressing my boiling emotions, I reached to wipe the tears coursing down his hollowed cheeks. “Don’t be sad, Alex. Everything will be all right.”

  “I can’t bear to lose you, Lily.”

  I searched his sparkling eyes tinged with sorrow. “You’ve not been eating well.”

  “Not until I could see you, so now I will.”

  I remained silent.

  Alex cupped my face, then pressed his warm, trembling, tearwet lips onto mine. His kiss lingered deliciously like a pleasant dream, making my heart flutter like a dragonfly.

  When he finally released me, he tilted my chin and looked deeply into my eyes.

  “Lily.”

  “Yes.”

  “Marry me.”

  Silence.

  “Alex, you’re so young. Don’t you have any second thoughts? I just don’t want you to regret it later….”

  “Lily, please don’t mention again how young I am.”

  I lowered my head, not knowing what to say. This man was so young, yet he came all this way to find me. He wanted me, an older woman, to be his wife. What did he know about life, or love, let alone marriage? But, for that matter, what did I know?

  He reached to touch my cheek, very gently, once again like a child with his wounded bird. But in fact he was the one who was wounded—by me, the bird who’d always dreamed of flying high and free.

  “You are so beautiful, mysterious, kind, and brave. Like you, I want to travel the world, so we can go everywhere together. Maybe we can be ambassadors, or some sort of cultural attachés. Lily, we’re perfect for each other. I promise that I’ll love you, adore you, respect you, and protect you like no other man would.”

  Did “no other man” refer to Chris? Yes, compared to Alex, Chris was a jerk—taking advantage of my then dire situation to make me his mistress, claiming his great love for me but somehow never quite initiating a divorce from his wife. Always excuses—alimony too high, Preston too small, doesn’t want to hurt Jenny even though he doesn’t love her anymore… blah, blah, blah.