The Foreigner (10 page)

He popped a Life Saver in his mouth and crunched it slowly, circling the game table. Big One looked on, impatient, wishing, I supposed, that he had paid more attention during his English classes. Cherry-flavored breath filled the room.

Poison circled once, twice, then stopped and leaned in close.

"If Xiao P go," he said softly, "is too bad,
shibushi
?"

"Go where? Where would he go?"

Poison shrugged. "Taipei very expensive city. He need at least eight-oh-oh-oh you-ess dollar, I think. Cost of living very expensive. Cost of—how do you call it?
Baoxian
. Insurity."

"Insurance."

"Henh."
He inclined his head in mock gravity. "Taipei look safe,
shibushi
? But it not safe. You trust my word,
didi
. Accident happen. Man disappear. You find him later, maybe. In the river, on the shore. You maybe not know him at first, he is so—
zenma shuo?
—change. Water no good for the beauty. Make the skin rot. Make it peel away. Finger"—he seized my wrist—"and toe."

Softly, ever so softly, he bent my forefinger back. I tried to yank out of his grip, but he held on, his stringy little hand like iron wire around mine.

"Yige yige de,"
he murmured, tracing an imagined cut across my first knuckle, second, third. "One by one. Before the karaoke, I work at market, do you know?
Zai shichang
—
shichang,
you know this word? Kill the chicken, kill the pig. I know where to cut the finger, how to skin." He let go of my wrist and smiled, gray rat teeth like fangs over his underlip. "Xiao P no more better than pig," he said. "More easier, may-be. Less noise."

A cold hand closed around my heart.

"But I am the nice guy," Poison continued. "I give two week. Two week, you come here. You bring the dollar." He motioned his cronies toward the door with his head. Everyone got up, began filing out; the air seemed to leak out of the room along with them. Lazily, Poison turned to go.

"You won’t see a single cent," I said, voice high and shaking. "This is a travesty. You’re my own cousin. A travesty."

Poison turned and slugged me solidly in the jaw. I sprawled back against the card table.

Black spots slowly tinged my vision. Through them, I could sense Poison standing over me, small, shabby, murderous.

"I study English two year," he said. "Needs no American to come say they better."

I FOUND
Little P asleep with his head on the desk in the chilly back room. He did not wake up when I came in. I stood before him for some minutes, silently, looking around. No lights were on except the small one on the desk, which pooled in a dim, irregular puddle over Little P’s head, like water, or blood. A half-empty can of shandy stood among the piles of trash and crushed-out butts. I picked it up and drank some of it, feeling parched. It was lukewarm and flat, but the taste haunted me. I used to buy canned shandy for the motel minibar. Little P and I had spent one fine afternoon with a purloined six-pack when our mother was away, sitting behind the Dumpsters among the dry poppies and sunshine, shouting as the interstate traffic roared along the horizon. That had been a good day; there were not many I could remember on which the horizon had been so bright and dusty and wide. Little P had been only eight, excited by the stealing. Every once in a while he’d held my hand. The thin face under the lamplight seemed to revert back to that little boy, innocent, vulnerable, the veins at his temple palely visible.

Now I had mortgaged his life. A cockroach skittered across the desktop, near Little P’s half-open mouth, and he awoke with a small sigh.

"I’m sorry, Little P," I said softly.

He rubbed his eyes. "Sorry for what?" He was still only partly awake and blinked at me without registering any surprise or rancor—only tiredness and a half-dazed quiet.

"I should have come to see you sooner," I said. "Years ago. Mother and I both, we let you run too far, too long."

Little P blew out a breath and reached for his cigarettes, squinting and shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

"If I’d been more responsible, maybe you wouldn’t be in this situation right now. I would’ve dragged you home. I would’ve found you a job. We’d all be home," I said, "watching
Cosby
or something."

"Cosby!"
He coughed and spat into an empty take-out container. "If I was back in the States right now, I wouldn’t be watching fucking
Cosby
. Tony Soprano, maybe. Bad-ass Jack Bauer. Even if he is some government flunky." His eyes narrowed, sharp, incisive. "Why’re you still here?"

"For you," I said.

" ’For you,’ " he repeated. He spat again and rubbed his mouth. "Meaning?"

"I mean I want you to come back with me."

He made a tsking sound, the show of patience of these last few days wearing thin. "Emerson. Fucking A." His pack of cigarettes was empty; from the desk he took a stale-looking cigarillo. "What, you think you can just bust in here and order me home? Like I’m some kind of juvie? We’re not kids anymore."

"All the more reason."

"Don’t patronize me, brother."

"Then be straight with me," I said. "What happened to your face?"

"I told you." Becoming agitated. His lighter wouldn’t work; he rasped the flint angrily, tossed it aside. "Nothing. A little run-in at a bar."

"Little P…" If the threat hanging over his head hadn’t been so present, I would have pressed him, but Poison’s voice lingered like a specter, draining me of any rights to honesty. If Xiao P go, is too bad, shibushi?

I put my hand on my breast pocket, feeling for Pierre Carcinet’s papers. To hand them over would be a truce of sorts, a show of trust; perhaps, in exchange for property, I might get the truth of his life.

But as I started to take the papers out, something caught my eye. Smashed in on a high shelf among some empty boxes and a crate of rice wine: my mother, tilted drunkenly on her side.

"What the
hell
?" I slammed my hand down on the desk.

Little P looked, quickly stabbed out his smoke. "I’m taking care of it."

"I ask you to look after her, and you put her with the garbage?"

"Take it easy."

"Fuck you."

Little P blocked me as I tried to drag a chair over to the shelves and retrieve her. A feint to the right, to the left, but he was too quick, suddenly snarling in my face like a dog, jaw set. Blindly I swung at him. Memories of my mother shuffling up and down the plastic runners in her office at night, face drawn, sleepless over this piece of trash, my brother; the care packages she’d sent; the inheritance.

My fist hit its mark with a blunt crack. I felt a shock of pain like a firecracker in my jaw—but that was his only attempt at defense; otherwise passive, he submitted like a rag doll. A blow to his face, to his face, to his face again.

At last Little P dodged me, grabbed my arm, wrenching it painfully around my back.

"You worthless son of a bitch," I gasped.

He let go. I hobbled away from him, holding my jaw, and lowered myself onto a vinyl banquette.

Little P walked back to his desk and leaned on it, not facing me.

"Bet that felt good," he said presently. "You got some balls after all." He wiped his face with a tissue. His hands were trembling a bit. "Hard to tell under that prissy little front. Tell me, do the ladies really like that ironed polyester suit look? Does that pocket handkerchief make them swoon on the streets?" He paused, wiped his face again. "Who irons those things for you now that Mother’s gone, anyway?"

"I suppose you iron your own suits," I said, feeling my jaw.

I guess it hadn’t occurred to him until then that we were both wearing suits: mine gray, his black, but both neat, tucked, spotless except for the bits of blood on my cuff, on his shirt lapels. His mouth twitched, tightened.

"It’s the
reason
for things that matters," he said fiercely. "Not the appearance. Not the outcome. Maybe we look the same from the outside, big brother, but we are
not
fucking the same."

He smoothed his jacket. "This is invention. This is will. This is self-determination. That"—he flicked a finger at my sleeve—"is fear. Habit. Castration." He brushed his cuffs. He was trembling all over now.

"All right. All right, you made your point. Calm down."

The corner of my mouth bled a little. I dabbed at it with the tip of my finger. Despite everything, I felt suddenly tired and at peace, as if all that was poison had been purged from me. As I sat looking at my brother, pity and guilt twinged lightly in my chest.

"Okay," I said. "Forget it. Let’s just forget this. If you won’t come home with me, then I’ll stay in Taipei. We could, I don’t know, start over again. Maybe I can help you."

He turned bleakly. "Help how?"

"I don’t know. With the Palace. With Uncle." He twisted his lip. "At the very least we could get to know each other again. Mother’s gone, Little P. You are the only one left."

"If you want to help me, you’ll get me the will."

Silence. Red and blue lights from a patrol car flashed in through a narrow window, soundlessly.

Little P dragged the chair over to the shelf and brought the box of ashes down. He carried it to the desk and stood indecisively, fingering it for a moment.

"If you stay here, you’ll still call the lawyer?" he asked.

"Monday."

"How long, you think?"

"A few weeks. I don’t know. It depends on him."

His hands were gripping the ashes firmly, and his eyes met mine, searching. For a long minute, a war of inscrutability was waged, Little P’s face as thick and smooth as wax. A tiny filament of resolve took iron root in my heart: he would never undersell the Remada for a quick buck. Not while I had a say in things.

He pushed the box imperceptibly toward me.

"Start over, you say. You say you want to get to know me." He laughed, and for the first time I heard something sort of wild and lonely in him, like a hint of autumn before a long, cold winter. "You don’t want to know."

"Why not?"

He sat down in his chair again and swiveled away from me. His disembodied voice came gruffly from behind the chair back.

"You take her."

I picked up the ashes, put them down, picked them up.

"Little P…"

"I want the will, Emerson."

"I heard you. It’ll just… take a little time."

OUT IN
the lobby, I collided with Big One, who was trolling the grounds with ponderous aplomb. He poked a finger at the box.

"What means?" he demanded.

"None of your business." I jerked away, drawing my mother protectively to my side. His little, sunken eyes sank further. I should have played it differently—laughed, cringed, flipped the box casually in the air, anything—for he had seen a sign of weakness, of love and need. I could feel Poison watching me from behind the reception desk as I left.

A
FEW DAYS LATER,
in a dismal little Internet place near Shi Da, I received an e-mail from my boss at Hastie and Associates:

From:
James Tillock
To:
Emerson X. Chang
Cc:
Emerson Chang
Date:
August 20, 2004 6:14 P.M.
Subject:
your request and leave
Dear Mr Chang:
We were of course very sorry to hear of your loss Death is the great equalizer and reminds us to cherish each and every moment spent with loved ones.
Regarding your request for extended leave, we are happy to grant it. In fact your situation dovetails nicely with a situation of our own, namely the retrenchment of our biotech teams in the wake of some recent events (litchfield & Johnson, Lunentech, etc. If asked, please refrain from offering any comments on the situation until it has resolved without further rancors. You know what I mean) We have no desire to offend or betray a loyal employee of almost twenty years. Instead, we have put you on official FREE AGENT status until such time as our biotech operations might resume. You are a model team member, Mr. Charng, and we believe you deserve some time for yourself. Consider it a much deserved vacation (though of course indefinite and unpaid).
If therne is anything else we can do for you in your time of grief, please do not hesitate to ask
Warmest regards,
James E. Tillock

I had to read this over several times before I grasped the actual implications behind the cheery-leery tone. A fly buzzed laconically on my arm. All around me, the world continued, oblivious, pimple-faced boys smoking, playing EverQuest, or napping, heads down on their sticky console keyboards while the only remaining anchor of my former life dissolved in a weak platitude about death, some veiled threats, an empty offer of assistance. I looked around for help as I drowned, quietly, in waters of shame and rage. Work had always been a refuge from the failures of my life. Hastie had been dull, perhaps, but I’d taken pride in the neat marshaling of reports; the formulas applied to recalcitrant numbers; even the clean, efficient desktop in my office, wiped down at the end of the day, pens color-coded and arrayed like soldiers in formation—it had all given me a sense of completion, even transcendence. Now, somehow, I had failed, been ejected from that dry, beloved Eden. Without warning, without even the decency to say it straight out. I put a hand to my chest, suffocating in the smoky little room, and went blindly out into the sunshine.

Pride was only the more painful half of it. Without the job, there was no hope of buying Little P out. Some dim aural memory flickered in my ear: Pierre Carcinet and his mention of my inheritance, the property in Taipei. Perhaps the sale of it would offset a down payment on the Remada? But that property—it was my mother’s childhood home. Could you sell one ancestral home to pay for the other? Gold for silver, blood for tears. A bank loan was possible—but my mother, in her lifetime, had paid off the Remada in its entirety. The thought of paying interest on it now was a bitter pill. There had to be another way.