| |
She sent the students away.
“Now it’s just the two of us?” he said.
“Yeah, whatever.”
* * *
Tooth Temple. Built in 1965. Renovated shortly before Fei Guo’s death. It had cost the Pulaui government over 150 million dollars. Yet it was worth it. Here the lower right canine of the Buddha was buried. Tang dynasty architecture. Brick masonry replacing lumber. Doors badged with graphics of General Yuchi, the fierce soldier holding his long ax. Five stories high. Glaring red.
She told him about her daddy.
“He really converted to Christianity when he met my mom. But not really. He was Buddhist to the end. He loved my mom, and me, and he wouldn’t let us live the life he’d had. He was very bitter about his past. All first-generation immigrants are like that, have you noticed that? They escape. That’s what they are. Escapists. Professionals in avoiding pain. So Daddy never liked me reading about China or the Cultural Revolution or any of that. Did I tell you he had a PhD? Yeah, right? Can you imagine? He was a well-educated man. In Canada he was just a landlord. He was lucky, you know.” She wrapped her arms around his neck, pushing him against the yard’s wall. “I used to work with a guy at Tim Horton’s who was a general in the Pakistani army. Can you imagine that? Yeah. He was a general, giving orders to people, and then he was just a baker. And a bad baker. That’s why I liked you, baby. You kinda reminded me of this guy. He was so tough and awkward. Yeah, you were. I know men. You thought you ought to have me because you were, like, the perfect spy or something. But girls don’t care about that. They want a man, that’s it. Not a psycho. But you’re very likable when you’re crazy, you know? It’s crazy.”
In the prayer hall dozens of monks in saffron robes chanted for the Buddha with a devout congregation. A leading monk paced back and forth before a dozen crouching monks or so with their backs to the altar. And this altar was a congress of the Buddha Maitreya—the future Buddha—flanked by two Bodhisattvas: the strivers for nibbana.
Two women took photos of the congregation. Everybody—even Hector—recited the panegyrics off the prayer booklets.
“Buddha is the awakened one,” Yubi said, massaging Hector’s back. “Samsara is reincarnation. And we must end it. We can’t live forever. It’s scary, right? Time-wasting and so scary. It’s like the Buddha said after his birth, ‘I’m the best of the world. This is my last birth and I will never be born again.’ See? It’s all dukkha. We suffer. And if the Buddha achieved nibbana, you and me can do it too.”
Hector caught up with her in the foyer. He pushed her against a glass-locked god and sucked her scarred ear. “I’ll reach nibbana with you right here and now.”
She coughed, she was sweating, she was horny but devious. “But I wanna see the temple.”
“Look at me.”
She did, and she gave him a long, warm, hungry kiss. Her lips were sweat-salty, her tongue bitter with the mask-fit spray. She breathed fire from her nostrils. Her jet-black eyes reflected the votive candles burning for the Buddhas. It was their first kiss in fourteen months.
Hector took her hand and tugged her to the foyer. “Tell me about your God.”
“Which one?”
“These statues. I wanna know you better.”
Okay. So this one is the Buddha Acala, the black-faced, angry god with fangs and the sword and baton. And in the other hand he holds the noose of judgment. Acala burned away both sins and barriers. And this one is Manjushri, the oldest Bodhisattva. He holds a flaming sword in one hand, a lotus in the other.
“It’s all wisdom,” she said. “It’s like when things become really clear. When the truth blossoms.”
“I love you,” Hector said.
“Are you sure you’re okay? Maybe we should go see a doctor. It looks like a concussion.”
“Did I tell you how I got my first girlfriend, in high school?”
She shook her head, giggling.
“I banged my head at a football match. She was the cheerleader who took me to see the medic.”
She kissed him again. They went out of the temple.
* * *
The sun was high, the haze thinner.
“It never goes down,” Yubi said. “Even when it’s down, the sun is like hiding. Because of the smoke, it feels like it’s always here.”
They bought ice cream. Walnut-macadamia and straight chocolate in biscuit cones, thank you.
“Did we eat?” Yubi asked
“Uh-hmm,” Hector voiced. “Breakfast.”
“I’m starving.”
“Little India is around the corner. They’re always eating there.”
The Hindu temple was a pyramid of gods with big wooing eyes. No sign of the deity Hector was most familiar with: the dancing Shiva, haloed by his eternal ring of fire, bugged by Konstantin Bronzit’s fly. No, this temple belonged to a mightier deity: the sexy, lethal Kali—Shiva’s wife.
The goddess glowered at Hector and Yubi—this foreign, interracial couple—with protruding bloodshot eyes, her tongue serpentine, her fangs long and sharp.
“She’s so scary,” Yubi said.
“Not scarier than your Acala.”
“Maybe because he’s a guy.”
He held her tight. “Do I scare you?”
She laughed coyly. “You’re so cute when you’re edgy like that.”
In the outside hall a half-naked man was dancing with a crown of flowers and leaves, a jasmine garland jiggling from his neck. The hall was madly crowded. The chants, the drums, the cheers were earsplitting.
They raced out of the temple and soon lost themselves in laughter.
“You’re bad,” Yubi said, slugging his shoulder. “They’ll hate us for it.”
“You’re so bad and crazy,” he said.
She sniffed his lips then said, “What is happening to us?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care.”
And they kissed again.
* * *
Their restaurant stood kitty-corner to the temple, its buzz visible through the glass. It was nearly full and the music was as tasty as the food: sad shehnai weaving into lively sitar jigs.
“Nasi biryani,” the waitress provided the name of the spicy rice dish. (Yubi jotted this down into her phone notes.) “Murtabak,” was the garlicky stuffed pancake. All was greasy, sizzling, delicious, redolent of a thousand definitions of spice.
“I thought you don’t like Indian food,” Yubi said.
“I don’t.”
She didn’t argue. “I like Indian people,” she said as if in redress. “They’re so full of life, of bravado. Hey—what do you think?”
Hector shrugged. This close-bodied, extended-family ambiance was not appealing to him for some reason. “Don’t you have an Indian girlfriend or something?”
“Yes, Padmal. At Loyalist College. But she cheated on her boyfriend with mine. But then, she came to work at Sick Kids. So we patched things up. She sent me a teapot for our wedding. Remember? It was so beautiful.”
“I can never understand how women can get along after stealing each other’s men,” Hector said.
“Take it easy, okay?” She’d sensed the surliness in his voice. She opened her purse, dropped her phone, then pulled out a pack of wet wipes. “I’m so hungry,” she said.
* * *
Fish Spa Aquarium
Leap back in time
Get back the skin of your 20s without botox or lotion
Meet our Doctor Fish for $15 only!!!
––––––––
Yubi prevailed, and in a jiffy they were dangling their feet from an emerald-green velvet sofa into the empty glass aquarium. Shadows of elephants, giraffes, deer, and donkeys spun around them from the rotating lampshade.
“You hold her close.” The aquarium owner, capped by a Super Mario hat, instructed him. “They freak out.”
“Not my girl,” said Hector.
The man guffawed. “They all say that.”
“What’s that about anyway?” Yubi asked worriedly.
“Relax, sweetie. It’s an adventure.”
At Yubi’s side a Malay boy stood behind what looked like a rusty railroad-crossing switch. With a loud, grating sound, the aquarium began to bubble. Yubi shrieked and wiggled her feet, digging her nails into Hector’s shirt. Hector laughed. He tickled the soles of her feet with his toes just as hundreds of tiny fish swarmed the aquarium and began eating away the dead skin on their feet.
* * *
“You like dogs?” he asked.
“I guess.”
“My grandfather had a dog. And I really hated it. He liked his dog more than me. We didn’t get along anyway. Guss, that was the dog’s name. A black labradoodle. As in a Labrador sleeping with a poodle.”
“Ugly match.”
He agreed. “That was in Cayuga, ever heard of it?”
“Uh-unh.”
“My Toron’o gal. ’Course you haven’t. Who has? It’s a podunk town across the Grand River. For me, it was just ‘the River Town.’ Seven years I biked over that river, looking at the railway bridge on the other side, and dreaming of the day I got out.”
“And you did.” She pecked his chin.
“I went back to sell that house when I was a bummer in New York. My grandfather had passed away. I didn’t even know, we weren’t in touch. All I knew was that I had a little farm to sell to some Chinese guy who called me out of the blue. He said he would pay me two hundred K for that dumpster, and I said, ‘Gimme a couple o’ days.’ So this hippie Brooklyn dude, so full of himself, well-fed on big city crap, in his slim-fit fancy pants and fedora, goes back to the bush to sell the family farm. And what does he see? First he sees wind turbines and solar panels on the way. (Over there in Cayuga, Ontario!) On Highway Three, I almost crashed my Enterprise Micra into a Lamborghini. The bridge I used to bike on every day and dream of my escape had been rebuilt. Lots of new shops and pretty chicks. (Where were they when I was around!) I didn’t recognize my hometown, I didn’t recognize my farm. My grandfather had painted the house in a weird metallic shade of gray, and there were a couple of tractors rusting away in the barn. So I park my Micra, and step out. And guess who comes out to greet me? Right! That bloody dog! I thought he’d died, but there he was, coming at me, barking and growling and wagging his tail. And then he moaned and licked my hand. A woman came out of the house and said she was my grandfather’s girlfriend or something. And I was sorta embarrassed. She made me ginger tea and told me stories about my grandfather. Silly small-town stories, but they made me feel as if I’d never known the man. It was all... so nice, I guess. So I couldn’t sell that place. It would’ve been like selling my history.”
She was listening to his heartbeats. “My whole history is here,” she said, eyes fixed on the bazaars in the distance. “I feel I’m stuck in endless samsara that begins and ends with this island. You know, the years we’ve been together kind of don’t count here.” She was silent a long while. “Will you take me to see your grandfather’s farm?”
“Sure, when we get back.”
“Will we?”
* * *
The haze was so thin it was invisible. All things were starkly visible a hundred feet off. Chinatown got busier and busier. And the alleyways and the marketplace buzzed, bustled, and exuded tropical heat.
They walked into a bazaar.
“So, you wasted your time getting fixed for a new mask, when the haze is slipping away,” he said.
She’d taken off her bolero and was walking in her scoop-neck, tie-dyed shirt. Hector leaned over her nape to kiss it, but she laughingly pushed him away.
“How much?” Hector asked the bazaar attendant.
“Which mug?” The attendant was a racially ambiguous girl with wide hazelnut eyes and smooth skin, who couldn’t be over sixteen.
“Not the mugs. This thing. This frog.”
“Oh, this one.” The girl removed a bronze statuette of a fat toad crouching on a pile of coins. Its eyes were red, and it looked as if it’d vomited its bed of coins: There was a coin dangling from its fat lips. “Jin Chan. We call it ‘the lucky frog.’ He brings luck, and love, and karma. Do you want it? This heavy statue is... hmm... fifty dollars.”
Yubi shook her head. “How about this elephant god?” she asked.
“Lord Ganesha.” The girl’s voice wimpled. “Lord of success and wisdom.”
“They don’t go hand in hand,” Hector muttered.
“It is a good statue. You take it. I give it to you for fifty-five dollars.”
“But that’s even more expensive than the first one,” Yubi said.
“You take two for a hundred. Three for hundred and thirty. Final discount. We close soon.”
It was then Hector found his Shiva. “I’ll take that one,” he said.
The girl picked the dancing god’s statuette and proffered it to her client in awe, head bowed. “Nataraja, our Lord of the Dance. Our creator and preserver. Also our destroyer. God of birth and rebirth. He will set you free, as the truth will.”
* * *
Her lips tasted of sparkling wine, her breaths were warmer than the tropical wind. Their cruise had taken off at Peel Quay, civilization shimmering on either shore of the artificial river. City lights replaced the haze in invading the sky.
An Italian waiter, who seemed too proud of his paunch, laid down the hors d’oeuvre: fried seaweed drenched in coconut milk, topped with cumin.
“Umm... I think I’ll stick to the pasta,” Yubi said, giving up on the heavy plywood menu.
“But which type of pasta, signorina? We have maybe forty types of pasta.” The waiter replenished her glass with Martini sparkling wine, his left palm bracing the paunch under his black vest.
“She’s spent too many years in Cairo, Egypt.” Hector winked to the waiter, a mild headache clenching his right temple. “She’s lost her fine taste.”
“I worked in Dubai for nine years,” said the waiter. “Rich people. Very large appetites.”
“Not us.” Yubi moved her forefinger back and forth, pointing to her husband and herself. “Our pockets aren’t that deep.”
“Oh, that is silly, signorina. I’ll make sure you don’t pay me a penny. I want you to enjoy the food. Enjoy the romance. And the nice weather. I love you both. I just want you to be happy.”
Hector placed the orders. Two fettuccine Alfredos: one with shrimp, for Yubi, and the other with chicken. That should be it, thank you. We’ll talk dessert later.
“He’s so good, eh?” Hector said.
“He’s charming,” Yubi confessed.
A jazz band was playing on the open deck. The ship was now slipping out of the river’s estuary, the South China Sea dark and intimidating ahead. The ship turned southward to pace alongside the curving coast of the island. Hector took his wife to dance.
“Wow, what is it?” Yubi yelled, triple-stepping forward, then retreating, mirroring him. And they were mirroring dozens of other dancers on the deck.
“You’re killing me,” he responded, grabbing her wrist, touching the balls of his feet then twisting with her, switching spots. “Night in Tunisia. Miles Davis. Ray Brown. Ella Fitzgerald. Where did you grow up? Spadina?”
She burst out laughing, walking in place, shoulders swaying, elbows flexed, fingers slapping to the rhythm. She shouted something.
“I know,” he cried, his headache growing.
“I feel I’m in New York.” She giggled, and they touched hands and jerked opposite legs. They touched hands again, and they jerked legs.
The saxophone guy got down to show off. A few dancers backed up and clapped to the performance, bouncing on balls and tiptoeing. Hector and Yubi were still swinging away.
“What do you know about New York?” he taunted. “You’re from the T-Dot, New York’s bad copy.” His headache got worse and he closed his eyes.
Mercifully, the band switched to sad Sinatra then. And Yubi, nestled in his embrace, put up with him stepping on her toes once in a while.
“You’re tired,” she said.
“Uh-unh.”
“Your head?”
“It’s fine.”
“I have some Tylenol in my bag.”
“I’m good,” he said, thinking of the tramadol in his pocket. He would pop two as soon as possible.
Sinatra was calling out to Stormy Weather to keep rainin’ all the time.
They slow-danced for the rain, when Yubi’s eyes flitted askance. “Holy, look who’s here!”
She had her arms around his neck, and she was swaying against his hip. Her cheek was against his. His eyes were closed. “What?”
“Look! Baby, look!”
He looked. “This Sinatra impersonator? Good Lord, he’s our concierge. Ha ha ha ha.”
“His voice is so calming.” She rested her head on his shoulder, and they swayed to the concierge’s charming baritone. Hector’s headache was getting crueler. He scowled and ground his teeth.
Before long she nudged him again. “Hey, look. Look!”
“What now?”
Everyone was crowding to the taffrail, magnified. The ship was cruising by the island’s southernmost landmark, a heavyweight contender for the new seven world wonders.
Across from the Indonesian island of Batam, a lighthouse in the image of the mermaid goddess rose to over 400 feet. Our Lady the Mermaid—as the lighthouse was known—smiled a Buddhist, serene smile, her teeth platinum, her wavy hair sunbeams of silver, her scales shining gold, her cleavage deep between two colossal breasts of white marble.
And from Our Lady’s eyes, two shafts of light landed on the strait, setting the water aflame.
* * *
A ponytailed blonde, with a nose so straight, so delicate, cheeks like blossomed begonias, and a pair of sinister, transfixing chestnut eyes—she was decked out in a crimson double-breasted jacket, a frilled white collar exploding into a ruff around her beautiful neck—grinned at Hector. “Welcome to the George Bay Sands,” she said. “How can I help you today?”
European. Probably not Dutch. Mostly Danish. He knew some words but decided not to ruffle her feathers. The transaction must be smooth and low-toned.
She was standing behind a heavy black granite front desk. Behind her was a typical portrait of George IV in his fancy tight breeches and Garter robe, His Highness’s face too juvenile for the disgrace to come.
Hector said, “Mademoiselle, parlez vous français?”
She did. Un peu. She could call for the Senegalese bellhop, who spoke excellent French, if Hector was willing to wait for just a few minutes.
“No, thank you. That is not necessary. Your French is good enough,” he said.
His disguised head—a Tommy Wiseau wig headbanded by a pair of Thug Life pixel sunglasses—momentarily turned and winked at his wife. Save for a straw hat with a blue ribbon, Yubi was not disguised. Acting so blasé about it—Just another crazy rich Asian checking into one of the most expensive hotels on the planet—she busied herself acting drunk: dancing... giggling... and binging on the gateau laid down for guests in the lobby. She’d left her shopping bags and purse on her chair. Hector had her passport. Not without a token of coyness, his wife—prey to too much sparkling wine, too elaborate a romance, fine food, and music—had acquiesced to his risqué, pricey fantasy fully.
Hector leaned over the cool granite and spoke in an undertone to the receptionist. “Mademoiselle, my belle companion there lost herself to le vin. I met her on a cruise only an heure ago. She was tellement charmante and delicious. I don’t know. She said she is booked here.” He slid Yubi’s blue passport, the Royal Arms half-effaced by use. “Can you, perhaps, ascertain?”
The girl looked inside the passport and saw Yubi’s last name. She squinted at the Asian girl called Kane—now tickling the plants in the pots, guests stopping on their way to smile at or take shots of her kissing the flowers—and typed on her keyboard. “Does she have her keycard?” the receptionist asked.
“Je sais pas.” His tone buckled. His heart trotted to a race. Here he was, in the British namesake of the king conqueror, the hotel where his wife had—allegedly?—slept with the other man last night... this student of his... this friend of his... this boy who seduced her with his crisp foolishness. Had Hector really believed that the moment of truth—he will set you free, as the truth will—would not come?
“Does she have a booking, then?” he asked. “I thought she was a little bit”—he circled his fingers beside his bruised, wig-covered temple—“folle, if you know what I mean.”
“She can keep the passport, Mr...?”
“Randy,” he answered without thought. “Guillaume Randy. I’m from Québec.”
Neither his name, nor Yubi’s, added up. Yet the receptionist was helpful all the same. “Our bellhop will take you up to her suite.”
She lingered there, rouged lips parting, one eyebrow rising. She’d been in the hotel business long enough, mon ami, and had seen it all before. She could smell the sizzling desire, feel the flame of the moment.
“I’ll issue her a new keycard,” she said. “Would you be so kind as to let her come over to sign up for it?”
* * *
“Wow.” Yubi wrenched his arm. “Kill me now. I wanna die with this picture in my head.”
The bellhop chortled. He was carrying a day’s worth of shopping bags, his crimson cap tilted, his feet fidgeting on the rising pellucid floor. “Some of our guests take the elevator up and down, up and down, nonstop. We can do that, if you want, madame.”
The madame’s prize for the night—this sexy Frenchman, whom she squeezed impatiently in the elevator—said they had better things to do. “Vrai, bébé?”
“Ouiiii!” Yubi ate him alive with her eyes.
Chortles from the Senegalese bellhop again.
Why’s the atmosphere so blithe, so sensual? thought Hector. And the answer struck him as very pedestrian. Money. It bought everything. Laughs. Comfort. Other men’s wives.
The George Bay Sands had a very innovative, monstrous design. Rising to almost a thousand feet, it looked like a great octopus. Five tentacles of floors were never short of high-paying guests. Hector did not know how much his wife’s lover had paid for the suite exactly, but he estimated the price to be between $200k-250k a night. You’re expensive, Yubi, he thought, biting a kiss of her gateau-tasting lower lip. You’re a delicacy. I’m so proud of my taste.
A glimmering spectacle of Pulau’s hard-earned civilization unrolled below them. As the glass elevator went up, and up, and up—slow and seemingly nonstop—the city glimmered under their feet. Little India. Chinatown. Orchard Road (where they had shopped after the cruise). Mermaid City never slept. Hector also saw the domes of the Royal Botanic Gardens, the destination they would seek tomorrow (if there would be a tomorrow). And up north, Mount Victoria lay murky under a canopy of verdure, like a homeless giant covered by a green blanket. Nature, with all its health and glory, didn’t measure up to a man-made monstrosity such as the George Bay Sands.
The elevator ascended... and ascended.
At long last, the door slid open. The bellhop stepped on a black carpet. Hector and Yubi followed. A couple of maids in black smock uniforms and white aprons bowed right and left, as these two elite guests walked down the aisle. It was a short corridor, and it smelled of sandalwood with a spike of orange. Oil paintings and gold lanterns, shaped like human hands carrying torches, hung on the walls. And there was only one door at the end: dark oak, painted over with a gilded image of a sultan smoking shisha, the smoke whirling around and around and making the figure of a fanged Chinese dragon.
“Oh, my God.” Yubi froze. She nudged her husband’s shoulder. “Hey, did you check the price? It looks too much! How’re we gonna pay for all that?”
Sprinkling generous grins on the two maids, the lucky Frenchman held his rich horny Asian closer to him. “I got a raise,” he whispered to her.
“This chief deputy thing you told me about? Even that—”
“Shshsh.” He kissed her.
She looked at him and, reluctantly, smiled.
You’re good, Hector thought. Worth every petro-penny!
* * *
$250k a night was the most conservative estimate for this paradise. The hall was furnished with a golden grand piano. There was a golden dragon statue with ruby eyes. And there was an original Turner on the wall, a painting that Hector knew of only through hearsay during his New York years: The Congreve Miracle, a harrowing depiction of two frigates, British versus Napoleonic, firing at each other at close range. The waves were frothy, the clouds smoky, the feel ominous.
A single plush arabesque carpet centered the hall. The flooring otherwise was seamless, a frozen pond of honey. A warm breeze came in from the French window.
Yubi dropped her jaw and let out a choked curse.
Hector gave the bellhop six hundred dollars—which he figured was below the tip average for this hotel—and hugged his wife’s back.
“Hector, this is insane.”
He turned her around and kissed her passionately, almost roughly.
She felt his aggression and broke loose. “Hey, what’s wrong with you?” She contained him with her eyes. Then she yanked his stupid wig off and looked at him again. “That’s better.”
This time, she was the aggressor.
* * *
They opened a bottle of Veuve Clicquot and sipped quietly, locking eyes but not talking. Hector wanted this rich ambiance, this romantic trap, to weigh down on her, to suffocate her. But so far she looked more solid than the diamond candelabra overhead.
It was in the octopus’s mantle, its vacant forehead, that this suite nested. Beneath the terrace was a lower deck, reached by a bifurcating staircase, where a T-shaped pool unfurled over the edge. They undressed and swam awhile. The water was warm, and Hector was quickly aroused. She laughed and swam away.
So they came back in and raided the fridge for snacks. Royal Belgian caviar was the choicest delicacy, yet Yubi declined. She sipped a bit more of the champagne.
“They’re sleeping together,” she said.
“Who?”
“Fifi and Kero. They argue a lot, but they love each other.”
“Is that why you were late yesterday?”
She nodded.
“What happened?”
“They were having a fight. He wanted to make it up to her. So I told him to go and take her out.”
“And why doesn’t he want me to know?”
“It’s not that, baby. He just can’t tell you directly. He thinks very highly of you.”
“Yeah, yeah. He thinks I can read a whole novel in just one day.”
She giggled. “What novel? Oh—I remember now. It’s that English memoir he’s been working on. He doesn’t want anyone to see it. He says he’ll try to get it published in New York.”
“New York?” Hector simpered incredulously. Then he changed the tone of the conversation. “So what are the lovers gonna do now?”
Yubi was silent. She landed her champagne flute on the marble table, then ran to the bedroom.
Hector ran after her.
He tried to kiss her there, but she desisted. “Take a shower first, baby.”
In fifteen minutes, he was out, lightheaded with tramadol and lust, redolent of a Clive Christian aftershave, dressed in honey pajamas he found inside.
Yubi looked at him and giggled.
He pounced towards her, but she deftly dodged him. She went into the washroom and closed the door. “I won’t take long. Don’t fall asleep!” she said.
* * *
She wore the lilac-blue lingerie he’d picked for her at Victoria’s Secret, and over that a skimpy bloodred robe, one of the hotel’s endless gifts. She let the robe hang open.
Hector leaned back on the bed and whistled. “I never had that on my first honeymoon.”
Yubi clapped her hands and the lights dimmed to an ember glow. (The bellhop had given them just this serviceable tip: Six hundred dollars bought only so much.) “Don’t be sad, pretty boy. After tonight, you won’t remember your old honeymoon.”
She cat-walked to him in a straight line: too long a line. Fireworks and other city lights penetrating the floor-to-ceiling window painted her impeccable profile. She dropped with a heave in his lap. She kissed him very slowly, nose to nose, teeth to teeth. Her breaths were watermelon, her hair spicy clove, her neck a garden of tobacco leaves and vanilla.