ON GLORY CITY GATE BOULEVARD, Mei began to feel sick. The dead man’s tortured face kept coming up to her. She saw again the blood, the scar, and his stiff body. She pulled over to a side street and vomited. Droves of high school kids in white tracksuits with red piping were on their way home for lunch. They frowned at Mei. There was a small vending hut at the street corner. Mei went over to it. A cardboard sign at the end of the counter read: TELEPHONE, THREE YUAN PER MINUTE. Two girls in tracksuits stopped to buy sweets. They carried on their conversation with an air of self-importance, rolling their eyes, laughing, and locking arms as though they would be friends for life. Mei bought a bottle of Coca-Cola and downed it in one go. The drink helped to settle her nausea. After a few minutes, she was able to get back in the car and drive on.
She walked down the narrow alley of Wutan Hutong. In daylight, it was overcrowded with life. Grandmothers chatted with each other while hanging up washing. Their conversations stopped when Mei passed by in her high heels. A woman who looked about a hundred years old sat on a wooden stool by the wall, alone and smiling. Two old men were locked in a battle of go by the gate of a courtyard house. Three toddlers in open-bottomed pants played with dirt and ants that lived under the dried-up trees, paying Mei no attention. Wild red flowers bloomed unnoticed atop decaying tile roofs.
Number 6 was made up of three low-beamed houses surrounding a courtyard, forming the shape of a U. Once this would have been a single-family dwelling. Now three families lived here. The middle house, facing the entrance, was the biggest and, traditionally, would have been the main reception room. The west and east houses were smaller; they would have been bedrooms.
In the middle of the courtyard stood an old brown tree. A family of magpies had made a nest among its bare branches. Under the tree, a middle-aged man with black-rimmed glasses sat on a tiny wooden stool with a basin of water. Next to the washing basin was a beat-up bicycle standing on its seat with the wheels in the air. The man held a pink tube under the water and searched for the puncture.
“Who are you looking for?” he questioned Mei.
“Liu Lili.”
For almost a minute, the man stared at Mei. At last, he pointed at the west house and spat.
Mei thanked him and went up to the door. She knocked on it a few times, rattling it in the narrow wooden frame. After about two minutes, a soft voice rose from the inside. “Who are you?”
Mei heard footsteps stopping at the door. “My name is Wang Mei. I’d like to talk to you.”
There was no reply. She tried again: “It’s very important. It’s about Zhang Hong.”
At the window, a floral curtain parted about an inch. A pair of eyes appeared. Mei smiled. Twenty seconds later, the door opened.
The first thing Mei noticed was the smell, unmistakably bitter and with enough kick to upset the neighborhood. It was a smell that Mei was familiar with, perhaps even fond of. It reminded her of the dark winter days of childhood. As a child, Mei had been rather sickly, and her mother frequently took her to see Chinese herbalists.
“Are you sick?” asked Mei.
Lili sat down next to a square dining table covered with a white embroidered tablecloth. She wore a man’s wool vest over a skimpy little black dress. She had a permed bob with thick bangs above her round eyes. With her puffy cheeks and pouting lips, she had the look of a child, though Mei couldn’t tell her exact age.
Lili glanced at the clay pot brewing on the stove. “A minor illness,” she said.
Black smoke billowed from the stove, drifting along the wall and out through a hole cut in the boarded-up window.
“I know a very good doctor at the Chinese Medicine Research Institute, if you need another opinion,” said Mei. Chinese herbalists were notorious for rarely agreeing.
The lights in Lili’s eyes were soft, as was her voice. “Please sit down. Did Zhang Hong tell you about me?” She was neither nervous nor eager. She combed her hair with her fingers.
“No. He didn’t tell me anything. Are you in love with him?”
Lili burst out laughing. “Don’t you know that he’s the same age as my father?”
“But you like him.”
“I don’t know. He’s a gambler, as bad as they come. But he treats me well—I mean, with respect.” She crossed one leg over the other, dangling a plastic slipper from her toes.
“How did you two meet?”
“Who are you, anyway?” Lili tilted her head, slipping her pink fingers through her hair again.
Mei passed her a card, which Lili read two or three times. “What is an information consultant?”
“People pay a fee for me to look for something or someone. For example, I was hired by a collector to look for an antique that Zhang Hong might have known about. No, it is not the Han Dynasty ceremonial bowl.”
“What did he say?”
“I didn’t have a chance to ask him.”
Lili played with the card and smiled. “He lost all the money he got from the Han bowl. Can you believe it?”
“He did what?” Mei was shocked.
“Oh, we went to play big stakes at an entertainment center in West City District. He just had the most terrible luck. But not to worry, he told me yesterday that he’ll soon be rich again.” Lili toyed with the plastic flowers in a vase on the table. “When he was at Luck Come Together, he actually won sometimes. When he did, we’d go eat at expensive restaurants, and then he’d take me shopping.”
The talk of gambling must have reminded her of something. She got up suddenly. “Excuse me,” she said. She vanished through a blue curtain into what Mei guessed was her bedroom.
When Lili came back, she had a pack of cigarettes and a lighter in her hands. She stopped by the stove and lifted the clay pot down with a poker. With the same poker, she picked up a heavy iron lid and covered the stove. She poked and shifted the lid until it sat tightly on the stove’s mouth. She then put the clay pot back on top. “Can we go outside? I’m dying for a smoke,” she said. “My parents won’t let me smoke inside the house.”
Outside, she leaned against the door frame and surrounded herself with smoke rings. “Do you know what the medicine is for?” she asked.
Mei looked at Lili’s face and wondered how old she was.
“It’s for women’s illness. I get terrible cramps when I have my period, so bad that I sometimes wish I were dead. It’s a torture that never ends. This is why I am always off work for four, five days a month. No one bothers about it anymore.”
“Does the medicine work?”
“I hope so. This is my fifth dose. I think the pain is getting better, but I can’t be sure. It nauseates me sometimes. The herbalist says it’s to be expected.” She looked over to the brown tree. “See that man over there? He’s been unemployed for a while. All day long he hangs around and spies on me.” She shot the man a hostile look, and he quickly turned away. “What are you looking at, you dirty old man!” she shouted at him. “He thinks I am a slut,” she explained to Mei. She shouted at him again: “At least I am not eating my wife’s meal!
“It’s the money I am after, of course,” she said to Mei. “Look at it here: no gas, no running water or central heating, no privacy. The house is full of worthless junk. I swore I’d never live like my parents. I go out with clients from Luck Come Together. We go to high-class restaurants and nightclubs.” She puffed brutally and exhaled through her perfectly formed rings of smoke. “My parents think I’m a slut. The other hostesses at Luck Come Together think I’m a slut. As if they are any better. What’s the difference between them and me? They let men buy them drinks and touch them.” Her eyes were wide open. She spoke with the conviction of a teenager who had just discovered the meaning of love. “Why should I make money for the management?” Her childish voice lingered like those smoke rings, sending ripples through the air.
Mei let the question hang, waiting for the girl to go on. When she didn’t, Mei said, “You mentioned that Zhang Hong talked about becoming rich again. Did he tell you where the money was to come from?” The questions did not fit with the mood, but Mei needed some answers.
“What money?” Lili lowered her eyes. She had been gazing at the nest at the top of the tree. “Are you spying on me?” She stared at Mei as if she had never seen her before.
Mei took a step back. She saw something murky and sinister behind Lily’s eyes, something that did not quite belong to that rosy-cheeked face of childlike innocence.
“Don’t you worry, he’ll be rich, and he will share his money with me.” Lili leaned into Mei’s face. “The eye of jade,” she whispered. She sniffed loudly and began to sway. She twisted her index finger into her permed hair like a drill. Her round eyes clouded. She giggled.
Mei wondered what the medicine was really for. Something wasn’t quite right with the girl.
The bike man was now heating glue on a burner. A sharp odor rose from streaks of thin black smoke.
Quietly, Mei walked out of the courtyard and into the normality of noisy alleys and laundry lines.