He asked the driver to wait while he got out. His back! He staggered out of the car in his wrinkled suit and hobbled toward the fenced construction driveway.
'I help you,' said the driver, running up to him.
He leaned on the man's arm until they reached the fence. 'Thank you,' Charlie said. 'I appreciate that.'
'Very bad back, I think so much,' said the driver, pointing.
'Yes,' he breathed between spasms. 'Will you take me to the friendship store?' Charlie remembered that the department store for foreigners usually had Western over-the-counter remedies for sale. 'We can go there and then to the hotel.'
'Friendship store closed now,' said the driver. 'I take you better.'
'I'll go to the hotel's doctor.'
The driver laughed.
'What's funny?'
'Hotel doctor, many people die.'
'I don't believe it.'
'Hotel doctor good, traditional Chinese medicine very, very good. Number one.'
'You sure?'
'Very, very good, I promise. Medicine very good.'
'Okay.' He clutched the fence in misery. 'I'll try anything.'
The driver pulled out his phone and began to chatter in Chinese. Charlie turned to look at his factory, his dream. The building-five windowless stories, thirty thousand square feet on each floor-had progressed minimally since he'd seen it last. Stacks of copper piping and pallets of bricks stood in the same places they had before. No scaffolding. He could see a load of steel, edges starting to rust. Loose trash blew across the site, catching on the locked gate. He gripped its bars, imprisoned from without. But he could see enough to know the trouble he was in; the subcontractors were gone-no electricians, no climate-control people, no plumbers. He'd have to lie to Mr. Ming, fudging the factory's progress reports in order to get the next installment of financing released. Such a fraudulent statement was grounds for termination of the loan. The thing was sinking him. Every day the plant was late getting on-line was a day less of revenue in the second quarter of the next year-a disastrous deficit, what with revenue streams from other products tapering down as they became obsolete or as Manila Telecom stole market share, chewing his feet off. If Marvin Noff knew how behind they were, he'd stick a knife in Teknetrix's stock-urgent sell. I'm getting killed here, Charlie thought, killed big.
'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
