Герман Садулаев - The Maya Pill

Qingdao, translated from Chinese, means “green island.” Indeed, this part of the city, viewed from the ocean side, looks like one big park, with German-style mansions scattered about. In 1898 China sold Qingdao to Germany, along with the right to build a railroad and develop mineral deposits within a fifteen-kilometer zone on both sides of the tracks. Coal-mining activity and the port spurred development, and the town grew and flourished. The Europeans introduced electricity and founded a university—the one where Ni Guan got his degree.

After the Germans left, history hurled Qingdao into chaos: The Japanese occupied the city, then Chinese revolutionaries took over, then the Japanese occupied it again, and then China again, the Kuomintang, and again Chinese revolutionaries.

With the Chinese industrial boom, Qingdao became the major shipping port of the eastern province of Shandun, with an annual turnover of over two hundred million tons. Skyscrapers rose and filled with businesses. In the free economic zone of Qingdao, capitalism began to develop at a fantastic pace, under sensitive supervision by communist warships with large-caliber weaponry: The port of Qingdao is the home base for the People’s Republic of China’s North Sea Fleet.

The German colonists were gone, but they left behind those red-tile-roofed mansions and the best beer in all of China: Qingdao (Tsingtao). Ni was giving this beer some serious consideration.

They got off the bus and went into a small establishment that served German food—that is to say, Bavarian sausages and Chinese beer. Ni and Tsin sat down and gave their order to a deferential young waiter, then lit up a couple of Great Wall cigarettes—made in China from Chinese tobacco at a factory licensed by a multinational corporation. Ni smoked the strong kind; Tsin’s were light, thin, menthol cigarettes, made for ladies.

The restaurant’s radio played gently in the background, Chinese pop. The song was about a girl’s love for her fiancé, a sailor who was heading out to sea. Despite the melancholy lyrics, the melody and rhythm were fairly upbeat, as though the girl had no real intention of pacing the shore in solitude while her betrothed plowed the briny depths.

Ni sat silently; only after he’d finished off a couple of sausages and a half liter of cold Qingdao did he finally speak:

“Tsin, for a long time now I have been wanting to tell you what a wonderful girl you are, and how much I like you, but…”

“But what? Is there someone else?”

Tsin hadn’t touched her sausages and had just been staring at Ni the whole time, which made it a little awkward for him to eat.

“No, I don’t have anyone else.”

“So, what, you’re gay?”

Ni nearly spit out his mouthful of beer. His face flushed bright red.

“Comrade Tsin! What are you talking about?”

“Don’t call me comrade, here. Here I’m just a girl who wants to find her way into your bed. So the question, given the circumstances, is perfectly normal.”

Her candor shocked Eddie. Though he himself had been wanting to have this conversation, in a sense.

“No, that’s not it. That is, it’s not that I’m gay… it’s something else… I’m not gay… shit !”

Cindy brightened and slapped Eddie gently on the arm.

“Right, boss, I get it. You’re not gay. So wouldn’t this be a good time for us to drink out of the same glass like they do in Europe, so we can officially be friends?”

Without waiting for an answer, Tsin took her glass and entwined her arm with Ni’s. They drank and Tsin leaned across the table for a kiss.

“No!”

Ni put his empty glass down on the table, leaned away, and looked around to see if there was anyone nearby who might know him.

“You see, Tsin,” he said, “there are certain things that I just can’t tell you about. It’s about my family. I couldn’t get married just now.”

“What did you say?”

“I’m not free. For the next few years I can’t allow myself to marry and have children, I mean, a child. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.

Ni’s confession made no impression on Tsin.

“So?”

“What do you mean, ‘so’?”

“What do you mean, ‘what do I mean’?”

Eddie was confused. He would have thought it would all be obvious to Cindy, who was, after all, a clever young lady.

“I can’t marry you, so we can’t date, or be together.”

“Who told you that?”

Ni was utterly and sincerely baffled at this. Then Tsin’s shoulders began to quiver. She covered her mouth with her hand and laughed silently.

When she recovered, she bent her head over the table and said, a little too loudly:

“Eddie, I don’t want to marry you. I don’t want to marry anyone right now, if you must know. I just want someone to sleep with. That’s all, get it? Tingi-tingi , chpok-chpok , like in the movies. You watch porn, don’t you? Of course you do, everyone does. Or even better, like in Japanese anime. I want you to lay me out on your bed, spread my legs out wide, and fuck me hard. I want you to lean me up against the windowsill and screw me there. I want you to screw me on the floor, pressing my head into the tatami. I want you to flatten me up against the wall and lift up my left leg. I want…”

“Enough!”

With trembling hands, Ni got out his wallet, counted out some bills, tossed them on the table, and stood up. But Tsin took his hand and stared into his eyes.

Ni Guan felt his resolve weaken. He was going to have to give in.

“I live alone.” Cindy raised her hand. The waiter appeared.

“Call us a cab, please.”

The Qingdao weather report came on the radio: 23.5 degrees Celsius, overcast, a north wind, four meters per second, humidity 94.1%. When Eddie and Cindy left the café, a light rain was falling. The cab arrived. Cindy tipped the waiter, who had accompanied them out, and gave the driver her address.

They rode the whole way without a word. Cindy pressed up against Eddie but refrained from any improper touching. She sat demurely with her hip pressed against his, holding his hand. Ni’s eyes clouded over. The mere touch of the girl’s narrow, warm palm filled him with desire.

The taxi took its time, driving through the entertainment district and the residential area of the city with its blocks of nondescript, identical high-rise apartment buildings. The driver honked apathetically, steering through the thick crowd of cars, motorcycles, bikes, and pedestrians.

At the entrance to Cindy’s building a gray-haired woman stared mutely at them as they walked in. “From the apartment executive committee, no doubt,” thought Ni. “She’ll file a report. To hell with her!”

Tsin unlocked her door and they tumbled into a tiny room. The only furnishings were a small sofa bed, a nightstand, and a wooden bookshelf nailed into the wall.

Ni picked up a book at random. Lyrics by Wang Wei, a Chinese poet from the Tang dynasty period.

Ni opened the book and read aloud:

Tsin continued, reciting from memory: