Uneasy about Caprisi’s generosity, and uncomfortable with the tailor’s brusqueness, Field couldn’t wait to get out. He stood in the alley as the American continued to talk to the old man.
“Ready in two days,” Caprisi said when he emerged.
“Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“No really, it was—”
“One good deed deserves another.”
Field looked blank.
“I like having a partner who knows how to fight.”
Field smiled.
“There’s a teahouse around the corner,” Caprisi said. They stepped over a prostrate beggar and walked up to a building with a low entrance and dark wooden panels along its hall.
The tearoom overlooked a small but pretty oriental garden, the delicate sound of its fountain still audible above the hubbub. They were shown to a table and Caprisi ordered.
“You’ve been here before,” Field said when the waiter disappeared.
“A few times.”
“You have Chinese friends here. In the city, I mean.”
“Some.” Caprisi looked at him. “You’ll get there, Field. It’s not just about language.” The American touched his forehead. “You have to want to understand the people, and most foreigners don’t.”
Field lit a cigarette and leaned back in his chair. “Doesn’t the poverty bother you?”
“Of course.”
“I worry that it doesn’t bother me enough.”
“There’s poverty everywhere.”
“Yes, but it’s so extreme here.” Field leaned forward again. “And yet, it doesn’t put me off the city. It doesn’t stop me being excited about being here. It doesn’t repel me. I feel guilty about that.”
“You’ll get over it.”
Field looked at the American. “So why do you stay?”
Caprisi sucked on his cigarette. “It feels like home now.”
“I’m not sure what that means anymore.”
The American didn’t answer.
“You won’t go back to Chicago?”
Caprisi shook his head.
“Never?”
“Probably not.”
“You don’t have family there?”
Caprisi’s jaw tightened.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .”
“It’s all right. I don’t much like talking about the past, that’s all.”
Field nodded and the American’s face softened again. “I understand.” After a few moments Field added, “I feel the same.”
The waiter returned with a tray. He placed a red and gold china teapot in the center of the table and a cup and saucer grudgingly in front of each of them.
“You see?” Caprisi said as he moved away. “We’re foreigners. We’ll always be foreigners.”
Field watched him pour the tea. “It seems to me sometimes,” he said, “that everyone here is escaping, in one way or another.”
“Except for the ones who can’t.”
Field frowned.
“Look at the Russians. The girl I saw you mooning at.” Caprisi smiled as Field’s face reddened. “It’s a gilded cage, but that doesn’t stop it being a cage.”
“I suppose . . .”
“Where can they go? No visas. No passport. They don’t belong anywhere anymore, and yet they once inhabited a world they had every reason to believe would last forever.” Caprisi fell silent. “You say you feel the same, polar bear, but I don’t think we can begin to understand.”
Fifteen
