Grotesque Read online

  “Hey, you!” A man’s voice interrupted my thoughts. I turned to see a man who looked like a police official. He called to me in an arrogant tone. My heart froze. I’d come out with neither a residency permit nor any identification papers. The man was dressed in the kind of blue suit a government official would wear. His build was slight, but he walked with self-assured determination. Surely he was involved in some high-level position. The last thing I wanted to do was get nabbed for something, so I decided to act like a witless country bumpkin.

  “I’m not doing anything wrong.”

  “I know. Just come with me for a minute.”

  The man took my arm and pointed to a black car parked beside one of the European buildings.

  “Get in.”

  I couldn’t get away. The man had me by the arm and was leading me to the car. It was a large Mercedes. The driver looked at me through his sunglasses and smirked. I was pushed into the backseat. The man in the suit got in the front passenger seat and turned around to look at me.

  “I have a job for you. But you have to agree not to talk about it. That’s the condition. If you can’t agree to my condition, I’ll let you out right now.”

  “What kind of job?”

  “You’ll see when we get there. If you aren’t up for it, get out now.”

  I was terrified, but I was also intrigued. What if this was just the break I’d been waiting for? I couldn’t get out. I’d had enough of life as a coolie, and I’d lost my beloved little sister. What else did I have to lose? I nodded in agreement.

  The Mercedes headed back to the White Swan. When I’d left the hotel earlier, I never imagined I’d ever go back. The car pulled around to the front and the doormen who had earlier menaced me dashed out to greet us, opening the car doors adroitly. When the doormen saw me get out of the car they were not able to conceal their surprise. My spirits suddenly soared. No matter what kind of fate may be in store for me, it would have been worth it just to have experienced that feeling.

  I entered the hotel for the first time, following the man in the suit. The lobby was crawling with wealthy people dressed in elegant clothes. I stopped in my tracks and stared, unable to help myself. The man grabbed my arm and tugged me roughly. He shoved me into the elevator and took me up to the top, the twenty-sixth floor. When the doors opened, I was assailed with anxiety and unable to move. If I step off the elevator now, I told myself, I can never go back to my old life.

  • 3 •

  “Hurry up and get out,” the man ordered impatiently. I stared at him in a daze.

  “I don’t think I can go through with this. I don’t have my papers with me. Please, let me go home.”

  Heedless of my wishes, the man grabbed me roughly by the arms, yanked me out of the elevator, and forced me to walk alongside him. He was strong; I had little choice but to follow. My legs trembled in fear. The man dragged me off to a dimly lit corridor and pulled me along deeper and deeper into the hotel. No one else was around.

  The hallway was covered with a thick beige carpet woven in an ornate design of water lilies and phoenixes. It was so luxurious I felt it wrong even to step on it. A dim lamp illuminated a far corner of the corridor, and from somewhere came the strains of elegant music. A marvelous scent wafted along the hallway. My fear gave way to a sense of gentle ease. I found the abruptness of the shift incredible. Had I never left the countryside, I would have died without ever even realizing such a wondrous place existed.

  The man knocked on the last door. A woman’s shrill voice called in answer and the door opened immediately. A young woman stood in front of us, dressed in a navy-blue suit and wearing bright red lipstick. “Come in,” she said, as if it were a command. I looked around nervously and then drew a sigh of relief. There were three other men in the room. They looked to be my age. I suppose they had also been picked up, as had I, and brought to this place. They were sitting nervously on a sofa watching television.

  I sat down gingerly on the edge of the sofa. The other men were migrants, just like me. I could tell at a glance from the clothes they wore. They were also nervous, having been dragged by a strange man and woman into a room more elegant than they could have ever imagined. They too were uncertain what would happen to them.

  “Wait here,” the man said, as he stepped into the adjoining room. He was gone for a long time. The woman with the bright red lipstick did not open her mouth once. She just sat there watching TV along with the rest of us. Her eyes were so cunning and sharp, I assumed she was either a police officer or a government agent. I’d been in the city now for three months, toiling as a migrant laborer; it didn’t take me long to sniff out one of their kind. They gave themselves away with their haughty manner and high-handedness.

  The television was tuned to a news story, covering some kind of riot. Young men were shouting with blood streaming down their faces; tanks were rolling in the streets, and people were running for cover. It looked like a civil war. Later I learned that this was the day following the killing in Tiananmen Square. I had not heard anything about the demonstrations, and had a hard time believing what I was seeing. The woman with the crafty face took up the remote control and turned off the television. The men, looking nervous, quickly averted their eyes, trying to avoid the woman’s gaze, and exchanged uneasy glances.

  The room we were in was massive. It looked like it could sleep up to twenty or thirty people. I suppose it was done in what you would call the rococco style. There was a lavish Western-style sofa set in the room and an enormous television set. In the corner of the room was a bar. The curtains across the large window were pulled back and I could see the rays of the afternoon sun glittering over the Pearl River. It may have been hot outside, but the air-conditioning was on in the room and it was cool and dry. In a word, refreshing.

  The woman pierced me with her keen gaze but, undeterred, I stood up and stared at the scene outside the window. Off to the right I could see makeshift shacks that a group of migrant workers had slapped together. What a filthy sight. They shouldn’t be allowed to build their shacks in such a beautiful place as this, I thought. Tiananmen Square seemed far away, like something completely unrelated to me.

  The door to the adjoining room opened softly, and the man who had brought me there poked his head in and pointed to me.

  “You, come here. The rest of you can leave.”

  The men who had been waiting looked relieved on the one hand and disappointed on the other, as if they’d missed an opportunity. They got to their feet and shuffled out. I headed for the next room, completely baffled as to what was to transpire. There I found an enormous bed in the center of the room. A woman was sitting in a chair by the bed, smoking a cigarette. She was short, and her body was firm and compact. Her hair was dyed a reddish brown and she was wearing large pink-rimmed glasses. A bright red gown was draped across her shoulders. She was garish and looked to be in her forties.

  “Come over here.”

  Her voice was surprisingly soft. She beckoned me to a small settee. When I sat down, I noticed that the man who had brought me had left the room. It was just me and the woman now, sitting face-to-face. The woman raised her eyes—which looked twice as large as they were due to the magnification of her glasses—and examined me carefully. What on earth is going on? I wondered, as I returned the woman’s gaze.

  “What do you think of me?” she asked.

  “That you’re scary,” I answered in all honesty, and the woman pulled her lips into a tight grimace.

  “That’s what everyone says.”

  She stood up and opened a small lockbox on a shelf next to the bed. She pulled out what looked to be a cupful of loose tea and poured some into a pot. Her hands were large. Then she poured hot water efficiently into the pot. She was making me a cup of tea.

  “This is delicious tea,” she said.

  I would have preferred Coca-Cola, I thought to myself. But not wanting to anger the woman, who clearly saw things differently, I kept nodding.

  She conti