Colin Harrison - Afterburn

"I take you very good medicine," the driver said.

Maybe it's worth it, Charlie thought. I have to be in good form the next few days. A bad back is going to shut me down. He waved his hand. "Let's go."

Ten minutes later they had entered old Shanghai proper, the driver threading the crowded streets, coming so close to the passing waves of bicyclists that Charlie could have reached out a hand and rung the bell on their handlebars with no difficulty. The riders wore bright Western clothes, but some of the older men pedaled by in vintage Mao jackets, as if unconvinced that the political and economic liberalizations of the last decade were permanent. The driver pulled up before a Chinese pharmacy with a male acupuncture mannequin in the window, tiny Chinese characters scattered across it asymmetrically, not a few of them clustered meaningfully around the mannequin's discreetly molded organ of reproduction. Charlie didn't feel hopeful. A few Chinese on the street noted his arrival with interest. The driver helped him inside, past rows of manufactured Chinese medicines, to a counter where an old woman stood mashing something with a mortar and pestle.

The driver addressed her, and she looked at Charlie and asked some questions. The driver turned to Charlie.

"She say how long your back hurt?"

He sighed in discouragement. "A long time."

The driver repeated this to the woman. They spoke. The driver nodded. "How long in days and weeks?"

The woman watched him expectantly, perhaps never having treated a white man before.

"Twenty-seven years," said Charlie. He glanced around the shop. A few Chinese were staring, then they smiled. They came closer.

"Years? You write number."

This he did and the slip of paper ended up in the old woman's gnarled hands. She checked again with the driver.

He nodded as they spoke. "She say do you pass waste easily?"

"Yes."

They spoke. "Do you have pain in heart?"

"No."

The woman nodded. "Do you have clean lungs?"

"Yes."

"Do you have bad dreams?"

"Yes."

"Do you have pain in legs?"

"Yes. But because they were hurt."

"Do you eat fungus?"

"No." I'll ask the hotel for a doctor, he thought. Now four or five Chinese people stood watching, commenting among themselves.

"Do you take any Chinese medicine?"

"No."

"Do you have strong manhood?"

Charlie grimaced. "You mean-do I-"

The driver smiled. "Yes. Is strong or not so strong?"

"Not strong," Charlie said. "Weak."

The answer was repeated. The crowd nodded and hummed privately. The woman did not remove her gaze from Charlie's face. She spoke.

"Is your back ever sing or always cry?"

"Always cry," Charlie said.

"She must see your hands."

The woman held Charlie's hands, rubbing the knuckles, pulling on the fingers. She stared into his eyes and pushed a gray fingernail behind his ear. She looked at his tongue and pressed it with a spoon. This action drew approval from the onlookers, who now numbered at least a dozen, the small children in front. Then she put a piece of paper on her counter and visited many small drawers in her apothecary, dropping in what appeared to be pieces of bark, desiccated sea horses, herbs, dried flowers, pieces of bone or horn, and a number of red and yellow and brown powders. She changed her mind once or twice and returned substances to their containers. She muttered something to the driver.

"She say she must smell."

"Okay."

The woman came around the side of the counter and pressed her nose to Charlie's back.

"She say please let her touch back."

He took off his coat and pulled out his shirt. The gathered people laughed nervously; this was better than their soap operas on television. The old woman lifted up Charlie's shirt without hesitation, and when she saw his scars, she chattered angrily at the driver. She held his shirt up and the crowd talked excitedly.

"What? What?"

"She very mad." The driver grinned in embarrassment. "She say no make very good medicine for you if she never see these bad skins."

The old woman traced the scars with her rough fingers. Then she spoke again.

"She say let down pants, she needs to see."

This was ridiculous. "No," Charlie said in misery.

But she understood his reticence and stared at him, jabbering in Chinese, her face so close he could see her teeth were ground down to brown stumps.

"She say you not honest with her, she want to help you! She say you not like her, you not think she make good medicine, you very insult."

"Let's go to the hotel, for God's sake."

The old woman understood and came up to Charlie, barely reaching his chest, chattering so angrily that he took a step back. She shook her fist as she talked, staring at him fiercely, as if she didn't believe he didn't understand her.

"She say she need to see."

"Right." He glanced at the people in the shop, who now crowded all the way back to the door. They smiled and nodded helpfully. "Can you tell them to go?" he asked the driver.

The driver hollered something in Chinese. No one moved.

"This is pretty embarrassing," said Charlie.

The driver hollered again, but without conviction. More people came into the shop. What could he do? His back throbbed in every position. He could barely stand. He turned his back toward the crowd and provisionally loosened his pants. The old woman came around behind him and without warning yanked them down so that they dropped around his knees. He clutched the elastic of his underwear. "What is she-!"

She pulled his shirttail up and his underwear down and inspected his pale, scarred buttocks, which now hung out sadly for all to see. The crowd murmured loudly. She poked the largest scar and proclaimed something in Chinese at the driver, then yanked up Charlie's underwear.

"She say she make you very good medicine."

He hurriedly pulled up his pants, and the driver helped him with his jacket. The old woman returned to her concoction and subtracted and added several items, looking up at Charlie repeatedly like a quick-draw street portraitist. Then she mashed up the items into a rough powder, picked out a few extraneous bits of matter, blew softly on the pile, funneled the paper into a square envelope, sealed it, scrawled some Chinese characters on it, and handed it to Charlie. The crowd hummed its approval.

"This is a tea. You drink morning and night. Five days," the driver said.

"I pour a little into hot water?"

"Drink water, drink medicine, drink every bit."

He sniffed the envelope. It was foul. Probably poison. "What's this called?"

The driver asked the woman. She answered without looking up as she cleaned her counter.

"Spring bamboo," said the driver.

The Peace Hotel, a gloomy Art Deco pile, sat on the other side of the river. Outside the hotel, cabs and bicyclists streamed along Zhongshan Road, and money changers clustered furtively on the corners. Women selling postcards badgered anyone who looked foreign. A half dozen of the city's million-odd construction workers slumped together in an alleyway, sleeping off their night shift, peasant boys from the far provinces who owned not much more than their tools, boys already hardened by labor and impossibly outclassed by the desirous young Shanghai girls with their American makeup and Japanese cell phones. The cab driver carried his bags inside the hotel.

In his room, he ordered hot water to be delivered, and when it came, he spooned some of the old woman's powder into a cup, poured in the hot water, stirred it, dumped in some sugar, drank it off in three horrid gulps, then lay down on the bed with the phone. It was 6:00 p.m. in Shanghai, 6:00 a.m. in New York. Too early for Towers, the investigator, to be in his office. He dialed anyway.

The call was answered. "Towers? Charlie Ravich. I was going to leave a message."