The Season of the Stranger Read online

  “Terrible,” the old man said. “Terrible. Everyone gives me the old out-of-date money.”

  “Ya,” the waiter said. “Stay a while and be warm.”

  “Thank you, old grandfather,” the beggar said.

  “Never mind, old flower,” the boy said. He left and the old man sat sniffling into the tea.

  They finished the meat and the second bowl of rice and the next time Girard saw the boy he asked him for the soup. When that was gone he had to shout into the kitchen for him. The waiter came to the table and stacked the plates, muttering his addition in rapid almost unintelligible calculation. When he had it he added the tea money and said, “Four million five hundred thousand dollars.”

  Girard looked at Li-ling. “Pay him,” he said. “I have no money.”

  She started to say something and then dug into the interior pocket of her heavy gown. She counted out five million dollars and put the bills on the table. They stood up. The boy took the money and counted it and looked around and said, “Good.” Then he shouted very loudly, “Four million five hundred thousand dollars paid, five hundred thousand dollars wine money.” The others in the restaurant stopped talking to listen and when they heard they yelled enthusiastically, “Ya-ah, ya-ah.” The waiter shouted again: “The lady paid.” The customers roared, “Ya-ah,” and beat on the tables. The beggar beat on the floor with the flat of his hand. Then they stopped and the two went out.

  “Where to?”

  “Back to the park,” she said. “There is too much sun to go indoors.”

  On the hill, on the same bench, they sat together and let the sun warm their faces. He slumped back against the snow and closed his eyes and she leaned back against him. After a few minutes she said, “Will you really stay if the war comes?”

  “Yes. Will you?”

  “I suppose I will. I have no friends in any other part of the country.”

  “You would not be afraid?”

  “I might be. But no more than the others. It is different with you.”

  “I know,” he said. He put his arm around her and they sat without moving.

  “Andrew,” she said, “let’s go back. There are clouds and I am cold.”

  “All right,” he said. “What time is it?”

  “After four.”

  He looked at his watch. “I must have slept.”

  “You did.”

  “Are you angry?”

  She smiled. “You were pretty. Once you opened your mouth.”

  “Did I make noise?”

  “No. Help me down the hill.” He stood and shook the gown and rubbed his eyes with snow.

  “All right,” he said. “Come on.”

  At the bottom of the hill she said, “You are still asleep.”

  “I was tired,” he said.

  “My child,” she said. “Chase me home.” She turned and ran with her short light steps across the dike that cut the pond in half. He started to walk slowly after her and then changed his mind and ran. At the end of the dike he dug in to jump to the wide path and the dike crumbled. He slid back and dropped on one knee, going through the ice into the shallow water at the edge of the pond. He picked himself up and took two steps to the bank and followed her.

  When he got to the house Wen-li was putting coal on the fire. “There is a letter for you,” he said.

  Girard took it from the bookcase. It was on university stationery. He tore off the end of the long brown envelope and unfolded the letter. It was a request to see Dean Chou at his earliest convenience. He put it back in the envelope and put the envelope in the one volume Shakespeare. “Anything important?” she asked. Wen-li paused at the door.

  “No,” Girard said. “It concerns the syllabus.” Wen-li went out.

  “Your feet,” she said. “Did you fall in?”

  “Yes.”

  She went to the door and called after Wen-li. “Bring some hot water in a basin.”

  Girard went into the bedroom and hung his gown in the closet. He put on a flannel shirt and a sweater. He took off the shoes and socks and the soggy padded trousers and wrapped his thin spring gown around him. “Bring me a sweater,” she called. He took from the closet a red sweater he had never worn and went into the living room with it. She had thrown her gown on the large chair and was standing near the stove holding her hands out. “Here,” he said. “Put it on.”

  Wen-li came in with the water. “Right here,” she said, “near the sofa.” He crossed the room and put the basin on the floor. “Come and sit,” she said to Girard. He sat on the sofa and pulled the gown up over his knees. She went into the bathroom and came out with a washrag and a towel. She relaxed on the floor and put his feet into the basin.

  “Very hot,” he said.

  “Of course,” she said. She rubbed his feet and ankles with the warm cloth. After his feet had been in the water a few minutes he was too comfortable and his eyes began to close again. She stopped that by taking one foot from the water and rubbing it with the towel. When it was dry she picked up the other foot and someone knocked at the door.

  “Come in,” Girard called.

  “Andrew, don’t,” she said, and then she stood up quickly. Doctor Liao was in the doorway. He stared at the basin and then nodded at her.

  “How are you,” he said.

  “How are you,” she said. She bowed with her head and said, “Excuse me. I will wash my hands.” She went into the bathroom. The doctor looked at Girard.

  “Very domestic,” he said.

  “Yes,” Girard said. “I fell in a ricepond.”

  The doctor looked at Girard’s legs “Oh. And she always takes care of you?”

  “She does not live here, if you mean that.”

  “I would not dream of suggesting it,” the doctor said.

  Girard stood up. The gown fell to his ankles. “Listen, Hsü-mo,” he said. “Today we are speaking your language. When a man wants to lie he uses his mother tongue. I tell you there is nothing of that.” He walked around the doctor and into the bedroom. When he came out with a pair of socks and dry shoes the doctor was standing in the same place. “Don’t be a fool,” Girard said. “Sit down.”

  The doctor took the large chair. Before he sat down he took Li-ling’s gown from the arm of the chair and put it carefully on the sofa. “I apologize,” he said. “I believe you.” He looked at the closed bathroom door. “I want to see you. But not with her, and not when either of us has been angry. Will you come to my home tomorrow morning?”

  “Yes,” Girard said. “Is it something of importance?”

  “Important enough,” the doctor said. “Don’t see the dean until afterward, will you?”

  Girard looked at him, trying to see something in his eyes. “You know that a letter came for me?”

  The doctor shrugged. “If you had not already received it you would have tonight.”

  “How bad is it?”

  The doctor shook his head. “Not bad at all. Just confusing. But see me first.” He stood. Girard stood with him and shook his hand. “After I’ve gone let her know that I like her,” the doctor said.

  “I will. And thank you. I will come to your home in the morning.”

  “Good,” the doctor said. He went to the door. “See you again.”

  “See you again,” Girard said. The doctor went out.

  When Li-ling heard the front door swing to she came out of the bathroom. “Did you hear everything?” Girard asked her.

  “Yes. He is very nice.”

  “He is.”

  “What does he want to see you about?”

  “I do not know,” he said. “Maybe about this syllabus thing.”

  “You should speak English with him,” she said. “He likes it.”

  “I know. But he feels the same way you do. He knows what is necessary and what is luxurious.”

  “Andrew, put your shoes and socks on,” she said.

  “You don’t listen when I talk.”

  “Yes, I do. Put them on.” He sat on the
edge of the sofa and put the socks on. One was ripped open at the big toe. “You have a hole in your sock,” she said.

  “I see it,” he said. “Don’t hang over me.”

  “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.”