China Mountain Zhang

two, picks up two more in the center of town, loses them (people transfer from segment to segment but we just sit) and finally goes down to one segment before we get off. The air smells different down here. All of China smells different, I noticed a dusty, old clothes smell when I got here, but I don't smell that anymore. Here is a damp smell. Liu Wen remarks we are close to the river.

Around us are godowns. We walk past loading docks and parked flat-skids for moving goods off trucks. I can't imagine why we would be here. Liu Wen stops at a metal door and hisses at me, 'Don't give your real name,' and opens the door on a badly lit stairwell. Up we go as I try to understand what he meant. At the top of the stairs another door, waiting behind Haibao I can't see what it's like when Liu Wen opens the door, only hear sudden music, people murmuring. I can't hear what he's saying, only that he is talking to someone at the door.

'Don't worry,' Haibao whispers, 'he is a member.' Then he follows Liu Wen to the door and this time I hear the doorman say, 'Shi shei?' Who are you?

'Li,' he says, the most common surname in China.

'Shemma Li?' Which Li?

'Li Haibao.'

I smile, 'Haibao' means 'seal'. I have seen seals with their cat's heads and sad eyes in the waters off of Baffin Island, and Haibao, in his sleek way, has picked a name that flatters him.

'Shi shei?' the doorman asks me, he is wearing a white mask with holes for eyes and a slit for a mouth.

'Ma,' I answer.

'Shemma Ma?'

'Guai-zi,' I answer. 'Ghost' or 'Demon.'

Haibao glances over his shoulder at me and smiles. I smile back. We are inside.

The place is big, after all, this is a godown, even if it's not being used for storage. The light comes from floor level or just above our heads and the ceiling disappears in darkness. Looking up I almost think I see stars, which is of course an illusion. The lighting is all gold, our faces and hands are gold. There is a bar and some small tables, and then there are larger, square tables, with people standing around them. Gold light comes up from the tables.

'Want a drink?' Liu Wen asks.

I shake my head.

'Are you buying?' Haibao asks. 'Mao-tai then.'

Liu Wen shakes his head and laughs. I remember my mother buying mao-tai for her future boss when she was giving gifts to change jobs. A bottle cost more than she made in two weeks, and that was twenty years ago.

In China, a secretary makes more in a week than I make in almost a month at home as a construction tech.

I wonder if I am dressed right. Looking around I see a few people dressed as I am, and a few dressed in long formals, tails almost sweeping the floor at their heels as they stand at the tables. Some dressed like Liu Wen, with complete disregard for appropriateness. What is this place, a gambling hall?

There are no women. I look around, surprised. There are no women. Haibao is watching me, smiling a little.

'In New York, do you have places like this?'

'I don't know,' I say, 'I don't know what this place is.'

'Jiaqiu,' he says.

I don't understand. In Chinese, one word can have many different meanings, 'jia' can mean 'family' or 'home' or it can mean 'beautiful' or 'welcome.'Qiu' can mean 'prisoner' or 'ball'. I try sorting through meanings and nothing makes sense. Mandarin is a hell of a language in a lot of ways.

'Which 'jia'?' I ask and he sketches the character on his hand.

'Jiagong de jia,' he explains, which doesn't translate into English. 'Jiagong' means to be caught in a surprise attack by one's enemies and closed in, almost squished between.

'The jia of jiazi?' I ask. 'Jiazi' means clothespin, which in Chinese is called a 'press-pin'.

'Dui,' he says. Right.

'Janqiu de qiu?' I ask. 'Qiu' meaning 'ball' as in basketball? 'Press-ball' or 'Squeeze- ball'? What the hell is 'Squeeze-ball'?

He nods.

'I don't think we have that,' I say.

'You'll like it,' he assures me.

I am not so certain. But Haibao brightens up, he actually looks at Liu Wen when Liu Wen hands him a tiny glass containing mao-tai.

'Let's play,' Liu Wen says.

We find a table with only three men around it. They don't glance up. The tabletop is featureless, a golden glow illuminating our faces like heat from a fire. Liu Wen picks up a contact and grins at me with gold teeth before jacking in. The three men shift slightly as if someone had stepped up beside them. Liu Wen seems engrossed in the glow. Haibao jacks in and the four-Liu Wen included-absently shift again.

I study the glow for clues.

Whatever is happening, it's not visible. I jack in.

The table is still there, but I have an overlay, I am in a circle with five others. It's a little like contact when making a call, that instant before sound cuts in; I don't see them but they are there. I try to see them and I can- five men around a glowing table-but then I almost lose the sense of contact.

I am a boundary, I am part of the golden glow. And there are balls in the glow; a golden ball (almost invisible), two silver balls, a black lacquer ball and a red lacquer ball. I find the red lacquer ball attractive. I reach out to touch it, it is not so different from working power tools, and it gently squiggles away from my touch.

I sense a slight hiss of disgust from my right, and I am shocked into actually seeing the man. He is tall, dressed in a high-collared cutaway coat and he has hair that brushes his collar (hair almost as long as mine, is he huaqiao?) He is staring into the table, oblivious to me.

Liu Wen stirs, 'It is his first time,' he says.

I am sliding back into the field and so I feel the acquiescence.

I watch this time.

Haibao is after one of the silver balls. He attempts to cup around it, so that equally repulsed it will have no place to go and be held, but one of the strangers (not the long hair) hits it with a touch and it shoots towards my end of the table.

Haibao makes a start to stop it, a wild unfocused motion that suggests that I shouldn't want it too close, so I hit it rather like hitting a ping pong ball, back towards Liu Wen who deflects it, pool cue style, right into the stranger beside him.

We are suddenly dropped out of contact and Liu Wen says, 'My point,' and the stranger, 'my loss.'

Liu Wen smiles at me, 'Good ball.' Which in English is more like saying, 'good save.'

We fall back into the golden ocean and the balls are distributed in the center. Silver are top and bottom, red and black revolving slowly around the golden in the center.

Liu Wen taps the red ball toward the silver and both rebound towards where no one is sitting. Haibao reaches out and slings the red towards himself and although the long haired man and Liu Wen try to tap the ball it touches Haibao and we drop out of contact again.

'My point,' Haibao says, smiling. No one takes a loss.

'Excuse me,' I say politely, 'but the silver should not touch one, the red should?'

The long haired man nods. 'The gold, the black and the red are friendly, the silver are not. Anyone who causes an opponent to take a silver gets a point, and the opponent loses a point.'

'You can never start the gold in motion on the first play,' Haibao adds, 'and you can't touch the golden ball until it is already moving, although you can hit it with another ball.'

I nod.

We are back in the gold. Haibao clicks the black into the silver and we play them around the table. I play cautiously, trying only to deflect, never attempting to catch, and trying always to send the silver to the center,