“It’s very nice to meet you, Professor,” I say, offering my hand.
With difficulty, he frees his right hand for a handshake. His face blanches when he feels the phone against his palm.
“You can use it one day only,” I whisper, “then you must destroy it and get rid of all the pieces. Do you understand?”
After an uncertain moment, he closes his hand around the phone. The face vanishes from the window.
I stare straight ahead for a moment, inexplicably shaken. I’m no longer quite sure who I am. “Okay,” I tell Phoebe. “That’s enough.”
“These men so lonely,” says Phoebe as three dozen men try to climb through the window glass.
“Phoebe. That’s enough.”
The truck down-shifts at the base of a steep hill, and we snake our way up a heavily forested mountain. A rain shower appears from nowhere. The men outside shout happily in the momentary downpour, which leaves the air intoxicatingly rich.
“The driver tell me we need get out now, walk to Xuan Cheng,” Phoebe reports when we reach the crest of the hill. Moments later, the truck is laboring away and all four of us are extending double peace signs. Every convict replies in kind, arms fully extended. When the truck shifts to second, a few of them almost tumble off the back of the truck.
“Damn,” I say as the truck disappears, “that was almost cool.”
“So hungry,” Phoebe complains, walking away along the highway.
As we try to keep up with Phoebe, Number One Grandson speaks to her at length.
“He want find somebody come fix the truck now,” Phoebe translates, “or somebody just steal it.”
I reply, “Wish him the best of luck. We’re looking for Taxi 117.”
“Go Beijing in taxi so expensive?”
“Phoebe—” I begin.
“No talk about this now. My head hurt so bad.”
No need to talk. Between the two of us we’ve enough colorful Chinese cash to ride in separate taxis, and we’re spending it. Separate taxis could be exactly the ticket, now that I think about it.
As our group rounds the first curve, a large tile-roofed structure rolls into view. Perhaps this would be our mythical museum. No sign of Taxi 117. We come upon a sizeable parking lot, quite empty. At its entrance, Number One Grandson and Phoebe pause to talk things over. Ling says something into her mirror. I look about once more for Taxi 117. Somehow I’ve got to get at least one of us inside a northbound vehicle before night falls. Number One Grandson begins to walk away along the highway.
“He go find the town,” says Phoebe, “find somebody fix the truck.” Shading her eyes to survey the area, she says, “I think we get some food that place.”
Phoebe begins striding across an overgrown meadow beyond which a couple of picnic tables are strewn near a dilapidated house. I take Ling’s hand, and we follow a vague footpath among tiny blue wildflowers and throbbing insect song. The brief shower has awakened a plethora of scents, each bearing urgent messages that Ling, her head canted, seems to be browsing. Ahead of us, Phoebe approaches the dilapidated house and shouts for service. As we join her, an old woman comes jogging out of the house, tying on an apron. After a brief exchange, she hurries back inside.
“She make us some food and tea,” says Phoebe listlessly, seating herself on a rough wooden bench. “I don’t think taxi come here. This place just closed like everything else.”
“What kind of museum is it?” I ask, gazing once more at the tile roof among the willows.
“Some famous history I think. We go Beijing tomorrow bus.”
“We go Beijing now taxi,” I reply.
“Ju, why you so hurry? Your sister is stay in good Beijing hospital. Chinese always take so good care Americans, everybody know this.”
Our waitress returns, bearing tea. Ling complains that she wants a cola. When Phoebe disagrees, Ling collapses on the ground in a tantrum.
“My head almost blow up,” cries Phoebe, gathering her exhausted daughter into her arms and rocking her.
By the time we’re served a thin fish soup with green onions, Ling is asleep. Phoebe places her daughter down on a shaded spot of ground and returns to the table. “I feed her after nap. You see how tired everybody? Go Beijing tomorrow, don’t tell me nothing.”
I ignore her, eating on my feet, alert for any sign of a cruising taxi. Actually Phoebe could be right. That convict may have been locked up for twenty years. His brother could be working for Citibank by now. And with much of the country shut down by SARS, who knows?
The waitress reappears bearing foam plates of greasy fried rice and tough bits of pork. I manage to down half of it before tossing the plate onto the picnic table. “I’m taking a walk,” I say, heading toward the overgrown meadow.
“Then we find hotel,” Phoebe shouts after me.
I’m curiously curious about the museum beyond the meadow. The building is surrounded by willows that may enclose a garden at the rear. I walk in that direction and soon make out a lush garden among the willows, its centerpiece a finger of white granite pointing to the sky.
As I draw nearer the museum grounds, the finger of granite gradually takes the form of a man. At his feet is a thriving lily pond, its water circulated by a fountain. The wind seems to have caught the folds of the man’s granite robe, which billows behind him like a sail as he gazes skyward. Arriving at the water garden, I find that the two granite hands are clasped behind the figure. He is deep in thought. The white chest is arched forward and the chin lifted high, as though something in the heavens enchants the man. As I gaze at the upturned face, the noble tragic features, the thin mustache, I’m quite certain whose chiseled image awaits the next appearance of the moon.
“‘Amidst these flowers,’” I whisper, “‘a jug of wine. I pour myself the cup of aloneness…’”
How well I know this cup.
Engraved in the pink granite at the poet’s feet is a stanza of verse, and I follow the strokes of each character with my eyes, imagining that I taste their meanings. For some reason, I don’t startle when I hear the eruption of a rough Midwest voice behind me.
“You’re late.”
Without turning, I say, “What is completion?”
“It’s what you’re living for,” answers Timothy Dobbins. “How’s the kidney?”
“The left one’s fine, thanks. What exactly is it I’m living for?”
“No ribs broken?” asks the leathery voice.
I turn to face the wrinkled man half hidden in the foliage. Tim Dobbins is seated on a camping stool. One long leg is crossed over the other. He’s wearing the same safari hat as before; ditto the desert boots with checkered laces. A bulging daypack lies at Dobbins’s feet. In his lap are three cell phones and a liter bottle of drinking water, half gone.
“How did you know I was coming here?” I ask.
“I know a few things.”
“I didn’t know I was coming here.”
Dobbins smiles. “Good. You’re finally starting to get it.” He gathers up the three phones. “There’s a car waiting less than a kilometer from here. We have to walk.”
“I know about the Temple of Heaven,” I say.
Dobbins stops gathering. He sits back in the chair, his eyes fixed on mine.
“I knew the moment I walked into that place,” I tell him. “It’s just taken a while to sink in. There’s a built-in trip wire that senses the position of the sun. It was set to activate last March third. You’re using the Circular Mound Altar to hack into the Fibonacci sequence.”
“Am I?”
“You’re using the nines to hack in between the Eight and the Thirteen.”
I step closer to peer into the cold green eyes. “And I know about the others. The other little Dobbinses now headed this way. You trip-wired us, too, didn’t you? Installed something in us that activates at that same moment? Only the Mancer twins came a bit early and got tangled up in your little depopulation program.”
“Not my depopulation program,” sa
ys Dobbins. “Forget all that now. SARS has run its course. The mutations have weakened it. Did you and Lillian show up earlier than I’d planned? Yes, and you imperiled a great deal beyond yourselves. The problem now,” he says, checking his watch, “is that you’re no longer early. You’re very late.”
“But why?” I say. “Why screw with Fibonacci? Why interrupt the pattern of evolution that has governed this planet for—”
“Misgoverned,” interrupts Dobbins. “The whole ecosystem here is about to go right over the edge, Julian, taking you and Lillian with it, along with every other bio-form worth having a conversation with, and you well know it. I can either let that happen, or I can do something about it. Look, once we’re in the car, I’ll explain everything. There’s only one thing you need to understand right now.”
Dobbins’s face softens into something like a smile. “All of this is for you. Every single thing I’ve done has been for you and Lillian. And the others, of course. Here’s my proposition. Take a ride with me, and I’ll answer every question you ask. A plane is waiting in Shanghai. Once you’ve heard what I have to say, you can either get on that plane and begin your true work, or you can go your own way. But first, don’t you owe it to yourself, to all of us, to listen?”
“Where is my sister?”
“I’m working on that. I’m working very hard on that.”
“Where is she?”
“You know quite well where she is,” says Dobbins. “She’s in that medical menagerie north of Beijing, and every minute I waste sitting here could be better used getting her out.”
Dobbins places both long feet on the earth and leans forward. “Julian, you’ve spent your whole life drifting without purpose, no real family, no match whatsoever between your gifts and the world around you. I know it’s been hard. I’ve helped you as much as I dared. But all that is about to change. I’m going to introduce you to your true family, your true purpose. A brilliant destiny awaits you, one absolutely perfectly matched to your gifts, a role that no one could possibly fulfill as well as you, Julian. This is the day you’ve been waiting for your whole life. All you have to do is ride and listen. Will you do that?”
Dobbins goes silent, sincerity pouring from his eyes. Either that or high thread-count cunning.
“And if I refuse?”
He shrugs. “You and your sister have been a rich surprise to me. Quite frankly, you bring qualities to the table that I never anticipated. But either you make it in, or you don’t.”
“In?” I say.
“Listen to me very carefully. In less than twenty-four hours, matters at hand will reach a crisis point beyond which there are absolutely no precedents. Things will either go very well or very, very wrong. Either way, you’ll need to be beneath my protective wing. Unless you’d rather be one more dazed refugee picking through the rubble. Clear?”
“Why does the word diabolical keep occurring to me?”
Dobbins sighs. “We long ago passed the point of mild measures, Julian. I’m trying to change the trajectory of this planet in a way that enhances life, advanced forms of life, far more promising human life-forms than”—he sneers at the statue above us—”the current model.”
With a groan, Dobbins rises. “Can you manage my bag with that sore kidney of yours?”
“First,” I say, “help me get one thing straight.”
“Make it quick.”
I gaze into the serpentine eyes. “You designed me, right? In every detail? Wouldn’t that mean you know me better than I know myself?”
Dobbins smiles resignedly. “It’s true, Julian.”
“Then how do you explain this?” I say, turning and walking away.
“Julian,” says Dobbins. “Julian! You’re wasting time that we don’t have. There is a part of you that will fight to survive, against you if need be.”
“Don’t try following me,” I say over my shoulder.
As I exit the garden, I hear ironic laughter behind me. “Why would I follow you?” shouts Dobbins. “I know exactly where you’re going.”
Chapter Fifty-Two
The driver’s cruising speed is ninety, and that’s not kilometers. Taxi 117 is a metallic-green Peugeot with electric seats and a not-bad sound system. The driver, Ma Tian Xi, looks quite regal at the controls, his dark hands on the leather-wrapped steering wheel. For the better part of the night, Ma has entertained us with stories of his life and that of his family, Phoebe serving as translator.
When he’s not piloting Taxi 117, Ma is busy in his family’s plum, fig, and apricot orchards on the small farmstead where six generations of Mas have cultivated the land. Since the economic reforms of 1989, there’s been a steady income from the orchards, enough for Ma Tian Xi to afford the Peugeot and a taxi license. Not that he really required an additional income stream, but Ma had found himself with a little time on his hands. He now relishes every opportunity to ferry locals to nearby Lu’an and, farther down the road, metropolitan Heifei. He is even willing, we learn, to make the occasional all-night drive to Beijing.
Ma’s younger brother, he has told us, is a scant year into a twenty-year sentence for murder. The brother, Ma Tan Shou, had been a carefree bachelor who operated a successful Korean barbeque restaurant in Xuan Cheng, providing hearty lunch portions for all who came, and many did. Tan Shou always closed shop at five sharp to wash up and spend his evening at a bordello outside of town. As often happens in such cases, Tan Shou developed a special affection for one of the ladies there, and it came to be understood that she was to be his companion whenever he called. Tan Shou was also a lover of cards, unfortunately, and one night he made the mistake of winning a lot of money from a particularly bad-tempered local bureaucrat. That man took his revenge by buying the aforementioned woman’s services for an evening and beating her rather badly.
Everyone in town heard about this atrocity and wondered what Tan Shou’s response would be. Wisely, Tan Shou controlled his rage. After a few weeks had passed without retaliation, the bureaucrat decided that he was untouchable. He presented himself at Tan Shou’s restaurant to gloat, ordering Tan Shou around like a house servant. That, our driver told us, shaking his head, was a mistake. His brother, like all men, has a limit. Tan Shou poisoned that man. The bureaucrat died a horrible death in front of everyone, crawling out into the middle of the street to expire in grotesque convulsions. Everyone in the town had hated that awful man and completely loved the restaurateur, so he received the lightest sentence possible.
If Tan Shou can manage to survive nineteen more years of labor, the driver told us, he can return home at the age of sixty-three and spend his final years in peace. With this, Ma went silent. A bit stunned, Phoebe asked whether the brother’s girlfriend was waiting for him, and Ma sucked his teeth.
That’s a very sad part of the story, he said. The day after Tan Shou went to prison, she took down her clothesline and hanged herself. They found her with clothes pins all around her pretty face. Everyone in town contributed money for the funeral. It was the nicest funeral anyone could remember, said our driver, nodding.
Such terrible news, said Phoebe, to find out in prison. Oh, said the driver, no one has told him. We don’t want him to lose hope. Every time Ma visits the prison, his brother asks about her, and every time Ma says she is well and waiting for him.
Ma sucked his teeth again and said, if his brother does survive his prison sentence, he, Ma, will certainly never eat at his restaurant again. Too risky. And that’s a real pity, he concluded, turning to give us a sincere gaze, because no one does Korean barbeque better than his brother.
After that story, Phoebe lost interest in translating. She passed most of the night curled up in the back with Ling. Undeterred, Ma continued to regale me with stories—quite interesting ones, I imagine—knowing quite well that I didn’t understand a word. For many men, driving and talking are one and the same. If we could get them to admit it, they talk when driving alone. Finally, the car was silent.
The final hours of night pas
s in a soft blur. I lose track of time and space. I actually doze off for a minute and awake with a start. I just had a dream in which a wide-eyed Lillian lay strapped to a gurney, a nurse looming over her with a huge syringe.
My heart pounding, I demand of Ma how soon we’ll be in Beijing.
He points through the windshield and says, “Beijing.”
“Beijing?”
I gaze through the windshield but see only traces of traffic along an anonymous four-lane. Grayish light is gathering at the edge of the sky, but there’s nothing to illuminate but the occasional unlit gas station. Phoebe stirs in the back seat and struggles to sit up. Stiffly I turn to her and say, “We’re there.”
“Bathroom,” she replies blearily.
“Did you hear me? We’re in Beijing.”
At length, Ma finds us a gas station that’s open. He fills the tank and we all drink colas to open our eyes.
“Tell Ma he’s dropping us at Peking University,” I tell Phoebe when we’re back in the taxi. “I’ll find a hotel room for you and Ling near the East Gate. I have to go take care of a couple of things.”
“Why we go university?” she asks.
“It’s the only part of town I know.”
When our taxi penetrates Fifth Ring Road, I begin to understand why reporters are describing this city as a ghost town. At dawn, the merest scattering of cars and delivery trucks dart along broad thoroughfares. Even inside Fourth Ring Road, streets are dead and buildings plastered with notices. It certainly appears that most, if not all, Beijing hotels are closed. Finally, near the East Gate of Beijing U., we find an open hotel, its lobby brimming with frustrated businessmen in need of a room. In their green surgical masks, the desk clerks are unyielding.
Phoebe tells me, “They say everybody go to hospital for examination, maybe four five hours, get certificate of health. Nobody want do this. I no want do this too.”
I pull her toward the exit. If there’s anything likely to kill you outright right now, it’s spending half a day at an overrun Beijing hospital.
The Year of the Hydra Page 49
