Colored Clouds Over Beijing

The Meeting

[Winter of 1996 Not unpleasantly, yet with dull glazing eyes, to show an unspoken image, a warning to comehe had given her a sway of attention on The Great Wall of China, earlier-on, during the morning tourist trip that is: with the raw coolness in the air, she ran past him, with her slim-lined running suite on.

Heavens! Exclaimed this lean, model formed woman.

Cant you go any faster? she said.

Obviously he couldnt but she didnt know whynow she was standing by him in the hotel barroom, watching him drinking a coke at a small table by himself, listening to karaka music. She turned round facing his table somewhat embracing hers; reaching out to him for a dance as he held onto his coke bottle, his glass next to it, she spoke to him as she moved her chair to his, carefully and with obvious chosen words and direction,

Well, she said [a pause, with a smile and a nod to indicate she wanted to dance.

No! he commented [almost sc ornfully.

Why? she said.

Said he, with an air of reluctance:

Well, you made fun of me on The Great Wall today, evidently for not moving fast enough, and Ive just had heart surgery!

She looked carefully at him, as if she was examining him.

Her short ash-blond hair was combed back; her rose colored checks looked fresh and vibrant, as did her slim fine frame: she was several years younger than he. Her eyes, a dull blue, almost faded.

Something tells me were going to like one another; incidentally, Im 90% blind, I can catch images from my peripheral vision though. Im sorry if I didnt recognize your ailment, I was flirting you know, thats all.

She could here the music playing, her body swayed with it as she talked. The breath of the inquisitive female blew warm with panic waves through his body, yet she was becoming comfortable to be with: she seemed to be scornfully hot. And then a voice came from the karaka apparatus about fifteen-fee t away, on a small platform. Seemingly the music seemed to kidnap them both as they started to dance the evening away, soon after some bursts of laughter came from their faces.

You are a charming dancer, she demurred.

Charming, hawthats a different way of putting it, but fine, my name is Antaean.

I know who you are, she acknowledged, I asked the tour guide; Ive been watching you, what I could see of you that is, mostly foggy images.

٭

Mary Ros looked at me, it was too ghostly for words, she claimed she didnt like the rest of the group, that being about four-bus-loads of persons, amounting to about 120-individuals, several being of some gang from New York, or so I had heard. She explained she had seen me at a few different stops, harmless, I guess she was right. How modest I thought for a blind beauty, she must have been about thirty-four, or so I guessed. For myself, I was a fickle indifferent male I suppose, to classify myself. Actually I was hurt so much by women; they scared the hell out of me. In any case, she was growing on me, and at forty-two, single, with a little business, she also looked safe.

Youre nervous? she said, with a gloating smile.

No, I dont think I was, but I suppose am I? I said, knowing I was a bit uneasy.

I disagreed with her basically on principle, not facts; I think she was more right than wrong. Suddenly I stopped dancing, remotely conscious of this, looking for some kind of an expression on her, but couldnt find one. Seizing the opportunity, I grabbed a nearby chair; I quickly sat down, put both my hands on the table, and commenced to drink my coke, after trying to catch my breath.

Inquiringly, she looked at me; she explained I was welcome to go to her room. Not sure why, but I sat deeply in thought, my mind had gone back to the long stay in the hospital, the divorce I went through; my ex-wife leaving me for another man who wasnt as ill as I was. Yet t his lovely lady was interesting.

To your room, I burped out automatically.

Its was just a suggestion, not a demand, if youd like to dance, that is fine with me also. We didnt dance, but we both went up to the microphone, and sang a few songs together, I guess that made me more comfortable with her. Then shortly after that, we sat down, and I somehow convinced myself and Mary Ros the music had gotten worse, she smiled, agreeing. And there I was a moment later in bed with this lovely creature, with golden bronze skin, here in Beijing, on a cold winters eve, naked as a jaybird. It was a warm and wondrous night; and we got to know each other as friends and intimately, and then fell to sleep.

Her thin thighs rose up with the sun, as she headed for the shower, and I for my cloths, and quietly disappeared.

As I walked about Beijing her voice came to me a number of times: hauntingly, and then it faded, somewhat magical it seemed. She was more than a good d istraction, and I was lonely, not feeling alone per se, just a bit lonely, or so I felt (yet prior to her appearance this never occurred to me ((now there was emptiness for the moment anyway)).

Her eyes seemed to have been photographic, they never moved much, just studied my face as I studied hers, then after a moment she knew better than I, my contours that is, and these were my thoughts going like cockroaches racing across my mind.

I sat down at a small sea-food caf, Mary Ros continued to swim in my thoughts, feelings in my stomach, and lower: my judgment was: yes she was now part of my judgment (verdict, sentence), of if my day would be good, or great: should I find her and share it, or leave it alone; statement-questions filled my brain waves. Her slender shoulders appeared in my brain: a young Chinese girl came over by me with a glass of water, she set it down, gave me a menu in Chinese, my eyes opened up wide as if to say: what, I couldnt read it. I po inted over to what the lady in front of me was eating, and said: me, she understood, and went back to prepare it, then started laughing with her sisteruncontrollable, and I joined the laughter, not sure why but it felt good; I was the only American, or white person in this small restaurant.

The sun had come out, and it was forenoon, and the streets were filled with the masses of Beijing people. As I waited for my food I thought about the man with no arms and legs lying on a rug on the sidewalk on my way to this caf, begging for money. There seemed to be more life in this city than most I had ever been to. No dark sea of hatred, although women across from me by the window kept staring without a smile at me, perhaps she was a left over from the Mai years, I presupposed. Nonetheless, I liked the coolness of the air, the colored clouds in the sky overhead, with their shades of white and pale blues and tints of inky black laced within them; here and there, yellowish rays with red showed the powerful sun at work in the chilled city, as it shoved its way through everything: clouds, sky right down to me.

Here comes my food, looks good, bits and pieces of cooked fish, with a light patter on the skin, some rice, and some other things I dare not try to guess what they are.

The Terror

He watched the television set as he sat eating the bits and pieces of fish and rice laid on top of one anothercarefully watching a story unfold, keeping his panic inside his stomach as though the programming of the news event would change to be a fictional story; he picked up his tea, keeping his eyes on the TV event, following every word, knowing he could not understand it, but could figure it out later, something was familiar, an instinct, premonition, intuition, something.

He hadnt even blinked for the longest while watching the news, then he did, rubbing his eyes, a tear came, the two laughing girls were not laughing anymore. ((The older woman across from him remained indifferent)).

He said to himself: I saw those walls before.

As he looked to the right within the corner of the television screen he noticed Mary Ross thin blue windbreaker [coat, or so it looked like hers, dangling on a wooden coat rack, the same one he saw at her apartment. Why was she in the news he pondered.

Coincidences, one too many he thought. Finally he stood up to get a better look at the screen, he walked slower to it, almost shoulder to shoulder with it: the language coming from the news program still Chinese but the body language was international: the faces, the hands, the slow walking, and he could understand it only too well. An American at a hotel, his hotel, that was all she was to the newscast; then out of curiosity, the others in the small damp caf stood up to get a better look, some in back, a few in front of him. The woman with the unfriendly smile had a smirk on her face as if to say: yaw, them noisy mi schievous Americans again, nothing but trouble (and shed be partly right). But it was worse than that.

Now flanked by bodies, Antaean shifted his shoulder to a forty-five-degrees angle, to get a better point of view, and made his way back to the table and sat back looking at his watch. Then all of a sudden a picture appearedit was just becoming visible as the camera person moved aboutthat is, in relation to a body on the floor by a bed, her bed. He look closer, wanting to believe it was not her, then the person moved the camera a little to the west side of the room, the side her bed was on, the side the wall of the bed was against, and across to the south, was the window. Its her apartment, he said out loud, he had said it a hundred times inside his mind.

Almost in shock, he was to discover Mary Rosunsettling, all shadows disappeared, surrounding her dead body, naked dead bodywhite, pure white teeth, and eyes, Antaean was like he was dead himself: emptiness sc ratched his now shell of a body, numb body. Outside the window where the birds used to sing, there was no chirping, no sounds for the moment, perhaps he thought, they could read his mind, or better yet, they and instincts that warned them of moods, and grief, this was one of them.

Although activity was going on in the cameramans film, it seemed that his brain was silent, his fact was flat, without emotion; his heart started swirling as if it was a galaxy in motionyou could tell, a tear in the corner of his eye, as another camera caught a glimpse of him trying to gain his composure. The full frame of the picture was now filled with her body. The cameraman shifted the camera to and fro to show heaps of evidence the culprits left behind. Beer bottles, cigarettes, everything imaginable that a party would have.

Spellbind, he wiped his eyes dry, dry uneasily with a napkin. She evidently had invited one of the several young men on the tour-bus [s to her apartment, an d throughout the night, the ordeal took place, several of gang members slowly raped her.

She really hadnt seen any of this coming, he had learned, they were just drunk, and took advantage of the blind girls passion for company. Then out of nowhere one of the guys got high, too high and broke a table with glasses and a whisky bottle on it, and the glass had shifted all over the bed and table, and floor. After forcing her to make love again, her wounds became many, and in fear the boys ran back to their rooms, as if they would not be identified, all six or seven of them, all between sixteen and nineteen years old.

For a moment the images of the television left his mind, he couldnt return to that room again, to return, and gain back the gravity of his whole being; hed have to avoid that whole floor.

Written 2003, revised, reedited: 1/9/2006

See Dennis' web site: http://dennissiluk.tripod.com See Dennis' new books: Poems out of Minnesota and Images out of Perue, at http://www.bn.com or http://www.amazon.com

Author:: Dennis Siluk
Keywords:: Short Story
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