Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven Read online

  “Please,” said Victor with a graceful sweep of his arm, “allow me now, if you will, to escort you back to your hotel.”

  Parked at the end of the dusty driveway by the gate, surrounded by the ubiquitous chickens, sat a voluptuous white 1940s limousine with a running board and toile de Jouy curtains in the windows. It appeared to have been modeled on a Rolls-Royce. Gallantly, Victor opened the back door and ushered us inside.

  As soon as we slid into its cool, generous interior, Claire gave a moan of relief, then fell asleep almost immediately. An austere-looking man sat behind the wheel dressed in full military regalia. Oddly, I assumed he was a chauffeur.

  “I fear that you may have found the standards of this hospital are not what Westerners are used to,” Victor said apologetically as the driver eased the car over the ruts in the road. “I am sorry if the best intentions of our medical staff have in any way caused you and your friend distress.”

  There was something about his voice, the Shakespearean tenor and delicacy of it, that made me inexplicably sad and ashamed. We had so much, we Americans, yet we demanded and expected so much, too. The Chinese had done the best they could with what they had. They were so fearful of making a mistake. They were determined to the point of mania to give us the best of the meager medical care that they had. The bullying at the hospital: Even then I understood that it had stemmed from a code of hospitality, a peculiar generosity. It was flawed and likely dangerous. But when had we in the United States ever been so obstinate about caring for strangers?

  “No, it’s our fault,” I said diplomatically—and suddenly I meant it, too. Surely we should have known better. Surely we had to learn to be more patient and understanding.

  “We’re just not used to Chinese medicine,” I said. “We shouldn’t have put everybody to so much trouble.”

  I exhaled and sat back. The sun filtering through the ruched curtains, the leathery smell of the upholstery, the sense of being in someone’s care—all of it came as a balm, an enormous wash of relief.

  ———

  Back at the hotel, Victor saw us to our room while the driver stood out front like a sentry. Claire hobbled across the lobby, then propped herself up against the corner of the elevator. “Oh, I feel so tired,” she said, pressing her cheek to the elevator paneling. Back in our room, she sank down into the lone metal chair by the window and let her head loll against her chest for a moment. She appeared to be breathing heavily. When I touched her forehead, however, it was smooth and cool.

  “Please,” Victor said. “Does your friend require anything else? Is there anything in particular that I can arrange for you?”

  I thought for a moment. “I think she’s pretty dehydrated. And she hasn’t had much to eat, either. She’s not really big into fish. Is there any way you can maybe get her some bottled water and some plain white rice? And crackers or bread, if you have any?”

  Victor smiled faintly with a tinge of what was either amusement or pity. “Certainly,” he said with a slight bow. “I will see that it is arranged and brought to your room.”

  “Wow,” I said. “Thank you so much. Shay shay nee. Really.”

  At that moment, it seemed to me that living in a Communist country was not actually half bad. If you had a problem: poof! Officials were at the ready to arrive like the cavalry to rescue you, to disentangle you, to provide you with the appropriate paperwork, and even, it seemed, to arrange for hotel room service. Was that really so horrible?

  I thought of my grandmother back in New York.

  She had been born with a deformed leg in Bialystok, Poland, during a wave of pogroms in which lynch mobs thundered through the streets with torches, shrieking, “Kill the Jews!” She was less than a year old when her family fled to America. They had arrived with nothing, of course: a few suitcases bound together with rags. As an immigrant, she had not exactly begun life auspiciously.

  Given all the meanness around her, I could never for the life of me understand why she flirted with communism the way she did.

  For a while I’d wondered if maybe, perversely and unconsciously and steeped in self-hatred, she secretly craved its cruelty and conformity, the punishment and absolution of a totalitarian regime. Perhaps she longed to be absorbed into the great proletarian masses until there was nothing left of her individuality at all, until every trace of anything that set her apart from other people had been bled away—a twisted wish for assimilation and camouflage. Communists always liked to purport that their societies were thoroughly egalitarian. Well, what could be more appealing to someone so outcast?

  But standing there in Eastern China, I realized that this was not it at all. Although she was only four-foot-eleven, my grandmother was a force of nature: cultured, opinionated, bellicose with intelligence and passion. If she longed for a totalitarian regime, it was because on some level, she assumed she’d be running it. In her Communist utopia, legions of Hispanic cleaning women, Yiddish waiters from Barney Greengrass (“The Sturgeon King!”), Asian dry cleaners, Irish parking garage attendants, black store clerks, teenage cashiers, and everyone else in the service industry whom she routinely bossed around and abused would now legally be required to abide by her wishes. Her Marxist utopia was not economic or even political. It was simply the dream of an entire nation functioning as her own personalized maid service. Here’s your medical care, Mrs. Gilman. Here’s a lovely dacha for you to live in. Here’s your laundry. You don’t have to lift a finger anymore. Workers of the world have united: for you.

  Now, a dapper and attentive man named Victor from the Foreign Affairs Department had just intervened on my behalf at a rural Chinese hospital. My grandmother, I knew, would’ve loved this. In the end, I suppose, she just wanted someone to take care of her.

  “Very good, then,” Victor said, gesturing around our hotel room. “If everything is in order, then shall I leave you to rest?”

  “Sure,” I said. “Again. I can’t thank you enough. Really, Victor, you’ve saved our lives.” I stepped forward to hug him. Victor looked at my outstretched arms with horror. The best I could do then was to try and pretend that I was merely demonstrating the size and volume of my appreciation. I took a step back, my hands frozen awkwardly in midair. None of the multicultural workshops back at Brown had prepared me for this. I’d never understood before how communication went so far beyond language.

  “You’ve done so much for us,” I said inanely.

  “No, please.” Victor smiled, but I could sense his displeasure and embarrassment. “It is no trouble at all. I am merely a friend.”

  He touched the brim of his bowler hat and stepped into the hallway. As I watched him hurry to the elevator, something else occurred to me.

  “Victor,” I called from the doorway.

  He stopped.

  “There is one other thing you could do, actually, that would really help Claire and me. Do you think you could find us a map of some sort—it doesn’t have to be anything fancy—just a little tourist map or a diagram or something to give us a sense of where we are?”

  Victor glanced back at me, his face arranged in an insistent smile. He jammed the elevator button. “The countryside here in Dinghai,” he said, “is considered one of the most beautiful landscapes in all of China. I find it is particularly beautiful at this time of year. I do hope that when your friend improves, you might be able to admire it.”

  The elevator doors slid open, consumed him, and he was gone.

  ———

  A porter arrived carrying a tray with two bowls of white rice, four dusty glass bottles of orange soda, and a cellophane package of bright yellow sponge cakes. The waitress from the restaurant stood behind him bearing a thermos of tea and two small, scuffed cups. They set everything down wordlessly, then fled.

  Claire stirred, moaned. She sat up and ate a bit of the rice and the tasteless, oversweet cakes. I ate, too. Both of us were drained. Slowly the color returned to Claire’s face. She stood up gingerly and unpeeled the blankets we’d draped ar
ound her. Her hair was still sodden and her clothes smelled stale and oniony, but there was a feeling in the room of a storm having passed. I looked at her with affection. It was good to have her back.

  “Well,” she smiled wanly, glancing out the window, “that’s one for the history books, I guess. Let’s hope my father never hears about this one.”

  Walking around the room stiffly, she gathered up her toiletry bag. “Okay.” She exhaled. “Time for a shower.”

  A moment later, I heard the squeak of the faucet followed by “Fuck, that’s cold! Fuckity fuck fuck!” When she emerged, dressed in her same dusty khakis and polo shirt, towel-drying her hair, she looked miserable. She sank back into the chair, uncapped one of the bottles of orange soda, and downed it in one prolonged swallow.

  “The water is freezing and the soda is hot,” she panted. “Go figure.”

  There was a pounding on the door.

  “You know, for a place that’s deserted, it feels an awful lot like Grand Central Station in here,” I said.

  Jonnie rushed in, accompanied by his brother, who stood warily on the threshold in his worn blue Mao uniform.

  “Sushi? Crair? Are you all right? They tell me you are sick,” Jonnie said with distress. “They say you have gone to hospital. They say you have very bad fever.”

  Claire glanced at Jonnie wearily, then set her empty soda bottle down on the windowsill and shrugged. “Nah,” she said. “I’m okay now.”

  “You are okay? You are not sick? They tell me you very sick.” Jonnie bent over her chair, his face mapped with worry and concern. I could tell already he was irritating her. “You need medicine? You want me to find doctor?”

  “She had a fever and some stomach problems,” I said. “But they seem to have passed. Right now she just needs to eat.”

  “So you are okay now?” Jonnie pressed.

  Claire nodded.

  “Oh, that is wonderful,” Jonnie clasped his hands together rapturously. “Because I have very big surprise for you. My mother, she has prepared the big feast for you today. And my brother, he has gotten the car again from his company. So we can go to my house after all.”

  Claire blinked at him. “Today?” she said. “Right now?”

  Jonnie nodded proudly. “You say this morning, you do not like to wait to meet my family. And I am thinking, you are right. You come all this way. You come very far. Making you wait is not hospitable. So my family and I, we go to the market. We prepare big feast in your honor. We prepare many special dishes, best food in Dinghai. My brother, everyone comes. So you come now, yes?”

  ———

  I have no recollection of how we managed to rally. All I remember is the oppressive sense that the visit to Jonnie’s house was mandatory and inescapable, that declining his invitation was not an option. Both Claire and I felt bloated with dread and exhaustion, but somehow we combed our hair and put on lip gloss and squeezed ourselves back into Jonnie’s brother’s company van, because I vaguely remember it pulling us back through the tumbleweed city, then up into the luscious hillside.

  I have a memory of stopping somewhere along the way, of Claire, Jonnie, and me standing on a ridge in the golden late-afternoon sun overlooking a valley stitched with fields, of seeing a pool of platinum water shining on a plateau in the distance and thinking, Oh, that must be part of the hydroelectric facility. I remember rippling foothills giving way to mountains on the horizon, mountains as final and declarative as punctuation. And I remember that a rainbow appeared, transforming the whole vista into a postcard. For one moment I felt elation, all the previous crises of the day evaporating. Then we were somehow back in the humid, spluttering van, on a dirt road snaking up the mountainside, and the farmland gave way to forest and Jonnie’s family’s little house, nestled in a remote wooded glen at the very end of a pockmarked road, smoke chugging out of its chimney in puffs.

  There was a little boy, a couple of young girls. In all, I recorded later in my journal, a dozen people lived in Jonnie’s family’s little stone house—though I have no memory of them and no further notes. The magnitude of the day, the weirdness and adrenaline of it all, left me in a fog. No one truly registered with me beyond Jonnie’s mother, who seemed to be flanked by an entourage of relatives. When Jonnie introduced me and Claire, she smiled toothlessly, touched a leaf-trembling hand to our cheeks. No one except Jonnie, of course, spoke even a word of English, yet somehow people were parroting “America, America” over and over, and I had a sense that we were all talking at once.

  Children pulled us inside. Someone gave us a tour. The small stone house was bisected into four rooms. Only the front two had electricity. In the brightly lit sitting room, there was a concrete floor, a modern couch, and a state-of-the-art boom box that sat by the window like a shrine. In the adjacent dining room, the uneven whitewashed walls were grimy with age. The enormous white refrigerator that Jonnie had brought back from Hong Kong stood in the center. The family seemed to be using it as a storage chest. It stood in the middle of the room, unplugged, its doors gaping open. Dozens of stiff, dried whole fish were stacked up in the freezer, one on top of the other like firewood, their heads and tails jutting out.

  Stepping into the two rooms behind these was to step back in time several centuries. The filthy cavelike kitchen was medieval—a lean-to, really, with dirt floors and chickens hopping around inside beside piles of blackened pots, pans, wooden crates, a rusted oil drum. Through a curtain was a darkened bedroom with a mud floor and a chamber pot between its two beds.

  To straddle the threshold between any two rooms in this house was to stand between the past and the future, tradition and modernity, poverty and promise. Looking back on it now, I realize the house was emblematic of the entire condition of the People’s Republic of China at that precise moment in time, though of course I didn’t know this and I didn’t have wisdom yet to even sense the metaphor. At the time, I was simply shocked and captivated by the fact that there were actually live chickens in the kitchen.

  “Wow,” I whispered to Claire. “This place is wild. Twelve people live here?”

  Claire shook her head in amazement. “Okay, not to be an asshole or anything,” she whispered slyly, “but this house is smaller than my parents’ Jacuzzi.”

  It has long been a tradition in the West to mythologize peasants as being happier and purer than those of us corrupted by materialism and ambition. Having grown up in a rough neighborhood in New York City, where my brother and I were routinely mugged and harassed by kids from the surrounding housing projects—and where our parents themselves were often strapped for cash—I never for a moment harbored any illusions about the nobility or innocence of the lower classes. The poor kids I knew were tough. They would kick your ass, break your nose, wreck your bicycle, and steal your lunch money without another thought. What’s more, they were far savvier, tougher, and more cynical than any of my milquetoast, middle-class friends.

  I hate the idea of the poignant peasants, with all its implicit judgment, condescension, paternalism. And so I hesitate to write that Jonnie’s family was unlike any other I had ever encountered. But they were. They seemed otherwordly—physically radiant, as if Titian had painted light emanating from their bodies. The children, the parents, the aunts and the uncles: They positively beamed at one another, addressing each other with such tenderness and adoration that, even without understanding their language, we could see the profound respect and joy among them.

  Spend fifteen minutes with my own extended family over dinner and you were inevitably treated to a parade of pathology: whining, hyperactive children; furious, beleaguered-looking mothers; drunken uncles; husbands making inappropriate jokes about their wives in front of their wives; sullen, seething teenagers (okay: me); and a dictatorial grandmother badgering her dithering husband with a soup ladle. You heard doors slamming and caught vicious, fleeting looks. At Claire’s, it really wasn’t that different. Despite the maid and the swimming pool and the marble entranceway and the hushed tones f
loating over the garden parties, it didn’t take long to sense a cat’s cradle of tension and resentment strung between her and her stepmother, her stepmother and her father, her father and his three stepsons. To me, any group of people who shared a household, DNA, or both was by definition a hotbed of misery and conflict.

  But Jonnie’s family? They were all truly and utterly in love with each other.

  To this very day, I don’t know what to attribute it to. Perhaps it was the agrarian simplicity of their lives. Perhaps it was cultural. Or perhaps it was just endemic to Jonnie’s family itself. But whatever the reason, when I saw Jonnie among them, patting his niece on the back of her head, lovingly assisting his mother as she maneuvered the steps, laughing with his brother, I understood: He was not a supplicant at all. He had not brought us to Dinghai as bribery so that we would feel indebted to him or sorry enough for him that as quid pro quo we’d take him to the American embassy afterward. Nor had he brought us to Dinghai to show us off to his family like two trophies: Look at my two shiny new American friends. On the contrary, Jonnie had brought us to Dinghai to show his family off to us. Though he looked young, he was a man. He had traveled and experienced far more than Claire or I ever had, and he had provided for twelve people by working halfway around the world from them. Furthermore, he was wise enough to know how truly extraordinary they were.

  We were not the prizes on display in Dinghai at all, I realized. What hubris! What presumption! No, Jonnie had wanted Claire and me to see what he had.

  “Please,” he said generously, “come and eat.” He ushered Claire and me to the only two chairs at the table. Only after we were seated did the others take places around us on rough-hewn stools and benches.