Mulberry and Peach (26 page)

‘And then what?'

Teng laughs. ‘Mulberry, you don't need to ask what happened next. Then, well, you know. Really coarse skin. Just to have somebody to do it with. She even started to cry in bed, saying she'd never been so happy.' Teng steps on the gas as he says ‘happy'.

Ninety miles an hour.

‘Good!' I look at the headlights in front of us, like two eyes staring at us. Behind us are two more eyes staring at us. I'm not afraid of bright lights anymore.

‘Help! My car had a breakdown. Could you please help me?' A head suddenly pokes out of a car at the side of the road, looks at us desperately and yells.

We zoom by. The car behind us catches up and is about to cross the yellow line. Teng steps on the gas again: one hundred miles an hour.

The two cars race side by side down the highway.

‘You crossed the yellow line!' Teng sticks his head out the window and yells.

‘You're speeding!'

‘So are you!'

‘You didn't stop to help!'

‘You didn't either!'

‘I couldn't stop!'

‘I couldn't either!'

‘You're crazy!'

‘You're the one who's crazy!'

‘No, you're the one who's crazy!'

‘I'll kill you!' Teng picks up the paperweight, and is about to throw it at that car. Suddenly he withdraws his hand. ‘Mother-fuckers, it's not worth it to throw the Great Wall at those white devils!'

The paperweight rolls on the seat.

The snow floats in the paperweight.

The other car falls back, about to turn at the intersection. Teng pulls a sailor's knife out of his pocket, snaps the blade in position, points it at the people in that car and yells:

‘Good luck!'

Teng folds the knife and puts it back in his pocket, his two hands firmly holding the steering wheel, his eyes blankly staring at the road ahead, his short chunky body sitting up tall.

‘Teng, you've suddenly become a man!'

‘You've suddenly become a young girl!'

‘You thought I was too old before!' I eye him and laugh, as I light up a cigarette.

‘I didn't mean that. I only meant, you're so radiant today, and seem suddenly younger!'

I blow smoke in his face.

‘You smoke?'

‘Uh.'

‘Since when?'

‘Today.' I blow more smoke in his face.

‘You're making me itch all over, Mulberry! Damn! We've gone the wrong way!' He looks at the sign at the side of the road, slows the car down. ‘Highway 5! I've never heard of a Highway 5! I'm muddled because of that smoke!'

‘Just keep on going down the highway, we're sure to come across the right road.'

‘That's true. Let's just keep going.'

The car follows the curving highway awhile. Highway 7. Highway 12. No more highway. No more road signs. The car races along the gravel road. Speeds through a little town with no sign.

‘This is just like a labyrinth!' Before Teng even finishes speaking, the car makes a strange whine, and suddenly stops.

Out of gas.

We are stopped by an auto graveyard. Junked Fords, Dodges, Chevrolets, and Pontiacs are piled in the yard. Most are twisted, empty shells, smashed up in wrecks. Beyond the graveyard is a street lined with grey houses with black windows. An empty gas station on the corner. No sign of anyone. It's a ghost town. It was once a booming town, then the young people left to make their way in the world and the old people all died off.

‘What'll we do?'

‘Wait.'

‘For what?'

‘Wait till someone drives through and we can ask for some gas.'

‘Who'd come to this creepy place?'

‘What else can we do except wait? It's too quiet! Let's have a little noise!' Teng turns around and switches on the tape recorder in the back seat.

I laugh. ‘We're stranded here in this ghost town listening to Chinese debate how to take action.'

‘OK, here's concrete action! Listen to a recording of hog butchering in a packinghouse. “Killing” should be a course of action!' Teng turns around and presses a button on the tape recorder in the back seat, adjusts the tape, then presses the button again. He turns around, picks up the little glass paperweight and shakes it.

The snow floats up in the paperweight. All around is pitch black. The snow on the Great Wall is white.

The sound of machines, people - deafening clatter from the tape recorder.

The clatter stops.

The sound of machines, people - deafening clatter.

The clatter stops.

The sound of machines, people - deafening clatter.

The clatter stops.

The sound of machines, people - deafening clatter.

The clatter stops.

The sound of machines, people - deafening clatter.

The clatter stops.

‘Now, the hog is hanging high in the air. The blood gushes down on the steel-ribbed, cement floor. The blood's bright red; it's very beautiful. That man standing on the high counter, wearing rubber boots, uses that thing in his hand, it looks like a broom, to sweep the blood into a gutter. He stands in the blood all day long doing that. He's been doing it for twenty-six years. When the blood flows out the gutter, it coagulates. Man can use coagulated blood to make all kinds of food products. The Scots like to eat pudding made from hog's blood. The Chinese eat bean curd simmered with hog's blood.'
The sound of machines and people combine into a deafening din, as if it will never stop . . .

‘Look! Teng!' I point to the fields in front of us. After our car stops, the headlights have remained on, shining into the field. ‘There are many dots of light like lanterns in the distance. Do you see them? There, over there, they're moving! They're coming toward us! One, two, three, four, five, six, more than ten! There, there're some more!'

We get out of the car and run toward the moving lights. They disperse, scatter in all directions.

‘Deer! The light's from their eyes!' I call out.

The deer race back into the trees on the hillside.

Teng and I walk into the graveyard. A statue of a black angel, wings outstretched, bends over protecting a grave. Teng strikes a match to light up the inscription on the tombstone:

‘Nicholai Vandefield 1805-1861'

The grass on the grave is tall, a little red flower has been placed on the grave.

The black silhouette of a barn looms on the horizon.

Teng and I lie down on the grass of the grave. I undress him.

 

 

 

 

One instrument that establishes contact between people is the body, another is the telephone. My Friday night pastime is making telephone calls.

351-7789. ‘Hello!'

‘Helen!'

‘How did you know it was Helen?'

‘You have a foreign accent.'

‘I haven't used the name Helen for a long time.'

‘I'm sorry. I can't pronounce foreign names. I can't even pronounce my own husband's name, I-po. I call him
Bill
. What does Mulberry mean in Chinese?'

‘Mulberry is a holy tree, Chinese people consider it the chief of the tree family, it can feed silkworms, silkworms can produce silk, silk can be woven into silk and satin material. The mulberry tree is green, the colour of spring . . .'

‘Helen, don't stop, go on talking, go on, it's coming, that magical feeling is coming, crawling all over my body! Crawling all over my eyes! Crawling into my brain! I can see the silk worms, silver, twisting, curling, spitting out silk, wrapping it all around their bodies, the multi-coloured silk, delicate and luminous, wrapped around the bodies of the silk worms, their heads emerging from the strands of silk, no they're human heads . . .'