The Season of the Stranger (7 page)

“Have you a sewing box?”

“Listen,” he said. “Forget it. Sit down. I have a proposition for you.” She sat beside him and waited. “Play some records, or read for a while. Or examine carefully the Japanese pictures. Just until six o'clock. Wake me then. I will take you into the City and buy you a meal.”

“How will we get back?”

“We will not,” he said. “I will take you home, and I will go myself to the student center. You can come back out tomorrow.”

She was thoughtful. Then she said, “Where will we eat?”

“You will know later,” he said. “Is it all right?”

“Yes,” she said. “Go to bed.”

He smiled at her and stroked her head once. “You are good to me.”

“Yes,” she said. He went to the bedroom door and turned and smiled again and went to bed.

5

They got off the old bus at the last stop and walked in darkness to the corner. When they turned onto the wide straight main road the lights were bright and flickering, lining both curbs and disappearing far downtown in a confused gleam. They walked toward the restaurant, passing the tea and cake booths, the bicycle repair booths still open (they would remain open as long as there was a ricksha or threewheeler working), passing the toy stands and the jugglers and the dart throwers, the stalls, their naked electric bulbs strung along the curb and glowing, bouncing on invisible wires with each light puff of wind; an old man within a circle of wood and on the wood were cigarettes, loose and in packages, fifty brands the sign said, and he sat on a stool in the middle. When they passed he twirled the wooden circle and the colored packages spun rainbowlike in the orange light of the old man's fire; behind the stalls in a small clear space a woman naked to the waist in the cold still carrying, dumping, mixing coaldust and earth and water, working in dirt and darkness, sweat dripping from her elbows and chin and the points of her breasts; and on the road itself the rickshas and threewheelers, drivers bundled in heavy gowns and their shoes wrapped in thick rags, the inadequate but required oil lantern swinging weakly beneath the customer seat like an old firefly under a hammock; and noise, the children screaming at one another in the gutters, collecting pieces of coal and clods of manure and running with shouts to their parents, the children squatting near the curb and pulling tightly open their crotchslit bulky trousers; a bulb burning out or a child breaking it; and in the last narrow alley they heard swearing and low heavy breathing and the sound of something on flesh; before they reached the opposite curb a wet and bloody face loomed out of the alley and ten steps into the alley there was a woman sitting back to the wall and wailing while a man stood panting and rubbing his knuckles on his leg. They left them behind and started across the square and a truck rumbled by, rounding the rotary and scattering the rickshas and threewheelers and disappearing into a dark side street.

They crossed the square and walked farther on the large road. They turned off into an alley with a single bobbing lantern at the far end. Li-ling held his arm tightly on the loose cobbled pavement and they stepped carefully around the frozen puddles. “That is it,” he said, pointing to the lantern. His foot hit a rock. The ankle twisted and he fell, neither sitting nor kneeling, his thigh against the rock.

He stood up and examined the gown. It was not torn. He looked down at the rock and saw in it dully glowing wet eyes. He looked closely and saw the rest of the body and put his hand on the neck. The man was alive and as Girard felt the beat of his blood he moved, twisting his head and whining: “Old grandfather, old grandfather. I have not eaten for three days.”

“Can you still walk?”

“Old grandfather. For three days I have not eaten.”

“Could you walk if I gave you money?”

“Give me money, old grandfather,” he whispered. Girard found his hand and put a hundred thousand dollars of the new money into it. The fingers curled over it.

Li-ling touched Girard's shoulder. “How much did you give him?”

“A hundred thousand dollars.”

“It was too much,” she said. “He will probably die tonight.”

“He may not die tonight,” he said. “And if he does not, it will have been enough.” He stood up. “Let's go.”

A threewheeler clattered near. The driver asked if they wanted a ride. “No,” Girard said. “We go to eat here.” He opened the door under the lantern and they stepped inside.

A short very fat man asked how many they were and when Girard said two he led them upstairs to a room with a curtain over the door. The curtain was faded yellow under the streaked brown grease-stains of a thousand reaching waiters. Girard put his hat on a chair in the corner of the room and sat at the table across from Li-ling. “We will have the firepot and the seven sauces,” he said, “but bring first some tea. We will not eat so soon.” The waiter left. On one wall of the small room was a painting. A cat was chasing a butterfly. He had both hindpaws off the ground and was about to come down on one forepaw. The butterfly was gone, having fluttered to the other side of the painting. The cat was orange with black stripes and the butterfly was black.

“What is there wrong?” Li-ling asked.

“I can never accustom myself to it. I have seen people die in the streets, but not of neglect.”

She shrugged and looked over her shoulder at the painting. Then she smiled and put her hand over his on the table. “I like this place,” she said. “I am happy that we have come here.”

When she heard the waiter's soft shoes outside the curtain she put her hands in her lap. He came in and left the tea. Girard's arm shook as he poured. When the cups were empty he poured again. He drank his quickly and said, “Come with me.”

They left the room and walked down the badly lighted meat-smelling corridor and turned the corner at the end. Girard knocked at a heavy wooden door and a man called, “Come in.” They walked in. Girard closed the door. It was a high room and smoky and without the licking barbecue fire it would have been completely dark. The man was sitting near the fire watching the crank-handle. When they came closer to him he stood and said, “How are you,” and put his hands together and bowed. Girard put his hands together and bowed.

“How are you,” he said. He nodded toward Li-ling and said, “This is a friend. May we sit near the fire?”

“Yes,” the man said. “Get the chairs in the corner and bring them here.”

Girard got the chairs and they sat looking at the man and at the fire. The man was wearing a tunic of burlap which had holes for the arms and head and draped loosely from the neck to the knees with no belt. His hair was black and long and wavy and he was as tall as Girard.

The man reached out and pulled lightly on the crank-handle. The lamb turned tremblingly over the fire. Below the lamb on either side there were trays which caught some of the drippings from the flanks of the lamb. The fire came up directly between the trays and cooked only a small part of the lamb at a time. The drippings in the trays were boiling.

They sat quietly, with the fire throwing the shadow of the lamb to the walls and ceiling, and smelled the deep oily odor of the hot drippings. The man turned the crank-handle twice again and when the lamb was suspended with its stomach up the man went to the corner and came back with a pair of heavy tongs. He lifted the drip pans with the coated bronze tongs and leaned toward the steaming meat (steaming calmly in bubbles of vapor which opened popping cleanly and frothed until the smoke was gone) and cautiously poured the drippings into the slit in the stomach of the lamb. He went around the fire and did the same with the other pan. Then he put the tongs away and turned the lamb again.

Girard stood up and took Li-ling's hand and they stepped to the far end of the spit where the head was. The mouth was open and there was a curl of vapor drifting away from it. Where the eyes had been there were two holes in the meat. Simmering juices ran around the edges of the holes. Girard went back and sat down and nodded at the man. “A good job,” Girard said.

“There is a banquet tonight,” the man said. “Some generals from the northwest.” Girard nodded. Li-ling came back and sat down.

“How much time is required?” she asked.

“For this one a whole day over a small fire. These are special people. Friends of the proprietor. He too is from the northwest.”

“And you have been sitting here the whole day?”

“Yes,” he said. “I am from the northwest.”

“It makes me hungry,” Li-ling said.

“It should,” the man said. He smiled. “I would offer you the eyes if it were not for the banquet. We have cooked only one lamb and we have had to find eight eyes. It has spoiled three lambs for anything but the firepot.”

Girard stood and bowed. “We must eat now,” he aid. “I have liked this. I will see you again.”

The man bowed. “I will see you again.”

Li-ling dipped her head toward him. “I will see you again.” They left him turning the crank-handle and went to their room.

The waiter brought the heavy redbronze firepot and set it on the low circular platform in the middle of the table. The hollow chimney of the firepot was set through the deep wide cup and there was burning charcoal in the chimney. The water in the cup around it was almost boiling. Below the chimney in the grate at the bottom of the firepot there was a piece of dead charcoal. The waiter put two fresh pieces in the chimney and put the sauce tray in front of Li-ling.

They mixed the sauces while the waiter was gone. Li-ling used half the peanut oil and twice the liquid pepper that Girard did. When the two bowls were full she added spices. “Not too much for me,” he said. She pushed the bowl toward him and they sat stirring the spices into the brown sauce.

“I am glad that we are not eating lambs' eyes,” she said. “Although that one is a handsome boy.”

“He is,” Girard said.

“Why is the eye the dish of honor?”

“The vision of the guest is supposed to be improved.”

“No,” she said. “Lambs cannot see well.”

“It was probably the eyes of enemy warriors that started the custom,” he said. “And then the Mongols conquered the civilized and cultured people of north China and learned to substitute the eyes of the lamb.” The waiter came in with meat and buns. He gave them sticks. The water was boiling and they cleaned the sticks in it. “Bring yellow wine,” Girard told him.

They put strips of beef and lamb in the boiling water and opened some of the buns with the sticks. He smiled at her, and as she started to speak the room became dark.

“Ya,” she said. “The meat will burn.”

“The waiter will bring a lamp. This probably happens every night.”

“Ask him for some pork when he comes,” she said.

“Is this a joke? I am from the northwest,” he said.

“What does that mean?”

“It means that the restaurant is Mohammedan. You will get the wings of the emperor's pheasants if you have the money, but you will not get pork.”

“I forgot,” she said.

“There is something else, though. He has forgotten the garlic hearts.”

The waiter came in then with the lamp and the wine. Girard asked him to bring garlic. The waiter apologized and left. The lamp was small with a red base and printed on the base were the words “Standard Oil” and then the four characters which mean “Standard Oil” to China.

“Perhaps you have the leg of the lamb,” she said. “It will make you more active. You will not sleep in the afternoon.”

The waiter put a plate of garlic hearts on the table. They pulled the cooked meat from the boiling water and dropped it into the sauce bowls. They put more lamb in the water and ate the sauced meat.

“Good,” she said. He nodded with his mouth full. When the first strips were gone the second group was ready. He put a garlic heart into one of the buns and stuffed the meat after it. The sauce soaked quickly through the white of the bun and stopped at the crust.

The waiter brought meat when it was needed and at the end there were five empty platters on the dirty cloth. He brought cabbage and noodles then and they slid them into the bubbling soup and put the cover over the cup. Girard smoked waiting for the soup. The smeared lymph ran from his fingers through the cigarette paper. Li-ling sat with her eyes closed until she had belched.

She ladled the soup with a porcelain spoon and they drank it hot, with loud inhalations, from the bowls. The fatty coating washed away from Girard's mouth and the heat burned away the heavy clotted dullness in his stomach. He released a long warm breath. “I think I will buy one of these pots for the house,” he said, pouring tea.

“You will have me with you always,” she said, and looked away quickly. Girard lowered the teapot carefully, smoothing the wrinkled tablecloth, and saw the cat and the butterfly still poised and unmoving as he brought his eyes to her face. Her mouth was just open and the end of her tongue lay on the lower lip. She looked as though she would cry. He reached across the table and took her hand. She closed her mouth and eyes. When the waiter came in neither of them moved. The waiter dropped the towels on the table and turned and left.

Girard unfolded the hot towel and rubbed his face and hands. “Your napkin will become cold,” he said. He went to the window and opened it from the bottom. The air dried and cooled his face. When he turned she was rubbing her thumb with the other napkin. She came to the window and stood beside him. “Let's go outside,” she said. “I want to be cool.”

The waiter brought the bill and counted the money as they left. They were on the stairs when he shouted the totals; the answering chorus came from the curtained doorways above them and the men lounging and smoking in the foyer below them. When they reached the bottom of the staircase three of the men came forward and bowed and hoped that the gentleman and lady had enjoyed everything. Girard bowed in return and told them that everything had been perfect and that this was a superior establishment. The fat one assured them that all Mohammedan places were superior establishments. He put his hands together and bowed deeply, and as he brought his head up the door opened and another head looked in and said very loudly: “The fighting is at a distance of four hundred fifty li.”