Saving Fish From Drowning

“‘Jingle Bells’?” Esmé piped up.

The boom swung toward Esmé. “‘Jingo Bell,’” the woman repeated. “Yes! This is wonderful ballad. From Stone Bell to Jingo Bell. Please. Begin!”

“Come on, Mom,” Esmé said. Marlena was horrified at what her daughter had wrought. Of all times for Esmé to choose to be cooperative. Harry strode off, laughing and yelling back in encouragement, “Yes, sing! It’ll be wonderful!”

The cameras rolled. The rain continued to play in the background, and Esmé’s voice soared over her mother’s squeaky one. Esmé loved to sing. She had a friend with a karaoke machine, and she sang better than all her friends. Just recently she had learned that you didn’t have to sing the standard notes; you could do loops around them and land on the tune where and when you wanted. And if you felt the music deep in your gut, a natural vibrato came up. She knew how to do it as no one else she knew could. The pride she felt put a tickle in her throat until she had to sing to soothe it.

Marlena’s and Esmé’s singing grew fainter as Harry strode away. He took a path that led up, and he was soon in front of what he guessed was one of the famed grottoes with its life-sized figures. It reminded him of a nativity scene. The carved faces showed obvious signs of repair, and given the dim light, most of the finer features were difficult to see. Like many holy artifacts, these had been maimed during the Cultural Revolution, their noses and hands lopped off. Harry wondered what the Red Guards might have done to defile the Grotto of Female Genitalia. Where the devil was it, anyway? All those damn signs were in Chinese. What should he be looking for? In trying to imagine it, he pictured the luscious genitalia of Marlena, as she lay splayed on a secret hillside spot. A quickening surged in his groin, but it was not passion.

Bugger. He had to piss. He’d never make it back to that miserable loo. He looked back and could see Marlena and Esmé still performing their musical recital in the courtyard. The old woman had joined the small audience. She was holding the baby, making her clap her little hands in rhythm to another stanza of “Jingle Bells.” Harry chuckled and continued walking along the path until he was out of view. In fact, he discovered he was at the end of the path. And there—how handy indeed—was a public urinal. This one was recessed in rock, about twenty inches wide, two feet in height, with a receptacle brimming with what looked like urine and cigarette ashes. (What that was actually was rainwater that had washed over joss-stick offerings.) The walls were wavy and smooth, leading Harry to think it had been worn down by centuries of men seeking the same relief. (Not so. That stone had been carved to resemble a vulva.) And portions of the loo, he noted, had been etched with graffiti. (The Chinese characters were in reality an engraving attributed to the Goddess of Female Genitalia, the progenitor of all life, the bearer of glad tidings to formerly barren women. “Open wide my convenient door,” was how it translated into English, “so that I may receive good karma from everywhere.”) Harry deposited his karma in one long, hissing stream. At last, his prostate was cooperating, what relief!

Off in the distance, the interviewer decided that it was best to get some shots of the Caucasian man so that she might reinforce the point that tourists came from everywhere. The TV crew walked up the path. From about fifty feet away, the cameraman trained his zoom lens on Harry, who was grinning ecstatically as he issued forth. The cameraman in turn let go with a stream of invectives. He informed the others what he had just witnessed. “Arrogant devils!” Together with the sound man and the male singer, he ran off in the direction of their holiest and now defiled shrine, shouting angrily. Marlena and Esmé followed, baffled and scared.

Harry was surprised to hear the commotion advancing his way. He peered about to see if the temple had caught fire. Were they about to wash away in a flash flood? What were the men so excited about? He walked toward the brouhaha. And then, to his astonishment, they had him circled: three men spitting, lunging, their faces twisted in rage. You didn’t have to know Chinese to realize they were swearing a blue streak. Even the woman in the pink suit, while not as rabid as the men, wore a hostile expression. “Shame you! Shame you!” she cried.

Harry ducked the swing of the boom and hurried to Marlena. “What the devil did you and Esmé do?” The words fell out wrong, but that is what happens when you feel you are about to be massacred.

“What the hell did you do?” Marlena spat back. “They keep yelling something about urine. Did you pee on some shrine?”

He huffed. “Of course not. I used an outdoor urinal—” And just as he said that, he realized the probable and awful truth. “Oh, shit.” He watched as the woman in ancient costume whipped out a mobile phone to tell the Bai minority chieftain what had just happened. How utterly amazing, Harry marveled, they get mobile phone reception way out here in the middle of hell.

The remainder of that momentous afternoon was a frantic attempt to herd the travelers into the bus so they could escape. Bai park rangers found Wendy and Wyatt half disrobed in another grotto. Rupert had to be rescued from a crumbling perch, and in the effort, damage was done to sensitive plant areas and the feet of a carved god. To keep dry, Dwight had kicked in the padlocked door of what he took to be an abandoned shed, and he, Roxanne, and Heidi entered and huddled inside. When park rangers discovered them in this off-limits temple, they shouted at them to get out. Hearing these unintelligible threats, Dwight and Roxanne picked up sticks and swung wildly, thinking the men were rogue thieves. Heidi screamed, certain she was about to be abducted and sold as a sex slave.

The old man at the tollbooth turned out to be the Bai chieftain. He shouted at Miss Rong and demanded a huge fine for all these unspeakable crimes. When he realized she didn’t understand a whit of what he was saying, he switched to Mandarin and ranted at her until she began to cry, letting everyone see she had completely lost face. In the end, he said, each of the “American hooligans” had to pay “a severe price—one hundred renminbi, yes, you heard me right, one hundred!”

What a relief, Bennie thought, when Miss Rong told him. That was cheaper than a San Francisco parking ticket. Everyone was glad to fork over the money and be on the way. When the pile was handed over, the chieftain gesticulated and yelled again at Miss Rong. He held up the money and slapped it, pointed to the back of the bus, at the puzzled faces turned around looking at him, and slapped the money again. With each slap, Miss Rong jerked but kept her mouth pressed closed, her eyes tilted down. “Jeesh,” Wendy said.

When Miss Rong finally got on the bus, her glasses looked steamed. She sat in the front seat, visibly trembling. She did not count heads or speak into the microphone to explain what they would be doing next.

On the bus ride back to the hotel, most of my friends were quiet, the only sound that of fingernails scratching skin. They had stopped at a roadside spot for the customary bathroom break, and a cloud of mosquitoes had descended on them, as if it were the Bai army chasing them away. Heidi passed out hydrocortisone cream. It was too late for the DEET.

Bennie was exhausted. His shoulders sagged. Was this an omen of things to come? Did they think it was all his fault for picking the tour guide? He was trying so hard to be perfect, doing things they were not even aware of! And look, there were no thanks, just complaints and blame and anger.

Dwight broke the silence. He remarked that Stone Bell Temple should have provided signs in other languages. How was he supposed to know it was a temple and not a chicken coop? Vera glared at him. “You still shouldn’t assume you can break into places.” She was angry with all the men except Bennie. They had exhibited the stupid male prerogative of ignoring the rules. Harry was beating himself up, feeling the fool, certain Marlena had a similar judgment of him. He had shouted at her, had accused her, when he had been the idiot who sent those TV folks into a tizzy. He sat at the back of the bus, having banished himself there. Marlena was also mulling over what Harry had said to her. She hated being yelled at by authority figures. Her father had done that, and it didn’t make her feel cowed anymore, just livid.

Wendy was unabashed by what had happened. She leaned against Wyatt, giggling as she thought about being caught in flagrante. It was exciting, in a weird way. She told him so in a naughty voice. He nodded, keeping his eyes closed. What they had done was not cool in his mind. He had been on ecotours where he was the one who had to reel in tourists who stepped on native plants, or tried to sneak home a lizard to keep as a souvenir or to sell. It irked him when people didn’t give a shit about the rules. He hated being guilty of the same.

Esmé sat with her mother, happily humming “Jingle Bells.” She hoped those Bai people would still use the part with her singing.

When the bus arrived at the hotel, Miss Rong muttered a few terse words to the driver, who then went off, leaving her standing alone at the front of the passengers. She kept her eyes turned down. Slowly, haltingly, she told her charges she would not be with them tomorrow. The Bai chieftain had said he was going to report the trouble to the authorities at the head office of China Travel Services. Her local boss had already called her and said to report to him immediately. She would be fired, that was certain. But they should not feel sorry for her, no. This was her fault. She should have kept them together as a group, explained to them what they were allowed to see. That was her responsibility, her job. She was very sorry she did not understand how to work more effectively with such an “individualistic group with many opinions, all not agreeing.” Since they were “so disagreeable,” she should have made stronger decisions to prevent them from committing the “danger of broken rule.” Her glasses were now spattered with tears, but she did not wipe them. She held her body rigid to keep from weeping aloud.

Though Miss Rong was incompetent, my friends were sad to think she might lose her job. That would be terrible. They looked at one another out of the corners of their eyes, unsure of what to say.

Before they could decide, Miss Rong took a deep, quavering breath to steady herself, picked up her plastic briefcase, and stepped off the bus.

My friends burst into talk.

“What a mess,” Moff said.

“We ought to give her a nice farewell tip,” Harry suggested. “Why don’t we collect some money now?”

“How much?” Roxanne asked. “Two hundred renminbi?”

“Four,” said Vera.

Harry raised his brows. “Four hundred? That’s almost five thousand for all of us. Maybe it’s too much. She’ll think we’re pitying her.”

“But we do pity her,” Vera said. “God knows they don’t give people unemployment in China when they’ve been fired.”

“I’ll give more,” Bennie said.

Everyone protested that offer.

Bennie added humbly, “Well, it was my fault for picking her.”

And no one made any noises in denying that, he noticed, and then felt humiliated and rejected, which launched him into anxiety.

“If she’s fired, why don’t we sign a petition of protest?” Wendy said.

Dwight sniffed. “Come on, this isn’t Berkeley. Besides, she really is a pretty bad tour guide.…”

All of a sudden, Miss Rong was again standing before them. My friends hoped she had not heard their exchange. “I forgot tell you one more thing,” she began.

Her former charges listened politely.

“One extra thing Bai minority chief tell me. Important I tell you.”

Oh, shit. The chief probably wanted more money, Bennie thought. Twenty dollars each was too good to be true. They were going to be shaken down for thousands.

This time Miss Rong did not look down. Her hair now looked wild, a statically charged crown. She kept her gaze straight ahead, as if she could see the future through the back window of the bus. “Chief, he telling other tourist authorities don’t letting you in … no cable car ride to Yak Meadow, no ancient music concert, no tourist traps. Because therefore you cannot enjoying no more beautiful things in Lijiang or in all Yunnan Province and China.…” Bennie had a sinking feeling. He saw the tour schedule crumbling, total chaos.

“He say for you bringing shame to Grotto of Female Things, everybody here you never have no more babies, no descendants, no future.…”

Dwight glanced at the mother-to-be of his children-to-be. Roxanne stared back.

Miss Rong’s voice rose higher and sang out louder: “He say even you pay one million dollar, still not enough keep trouble away.… He say he tell all gods give these foreigners bad curse, bad karma, following them forever this life and next, this country, that country, never can stop.”

Heidi’s anxiety bells were ringing.

Miss Rong took a deep breath, and right before she left the bus, she said in a voice that sounded clearly victorious. “This I thought you must know.”

At that moment, all twelve of my friends saw in their minds the water buffalo, knee deep in mud.

4 HOW HAPPINESS FOUND THEM (#ulink_dc376ddb-1c31-5217-893c-24f0f94f596b)

At dinner, my twelve friends walked a few blocks into the old historic part of town, to Bountiful Valley Restaurant, which they had rejected only that morning. Now they were resigned to the menu I had called “A Taste of Winter Delicacies.” No one was in the mood to search for alternatives that were either more “spontaneous” or more “authentic.” They were just glad that their ill-omened trip to Stone Bell Temple had not yet infiltrated the word-of-mouth network of Lijiang. Not only did the restaurant send a message to the hotel that they could enjoy the same menu that evening, the owner had offered a bonus, “free surprises,” he called them.

The first surprise was the restaurant itself. It was enchanting, not touristy at all. I knew this all along, of course. That was why I had chosen it. The building was charmingly cramped, a former dwelling whose outer courtyard had been converted into dining rooms facing the narrow canal, one of a watery lacework that ran through the streets of Lijiang. If you were to sit on the sill, you could have dipped your toes in the tranquil flow. The tables and chairs were old, marked with character in the way that has become popular with antiques in America nowadays, nothing refinished, no scratches or cigarette marks buffed out, the century-old bits of food now serving as grout in the cracks.