Fox Spirit 57 – Love Prevents, Love Sustains
Sara moved to intercept Storm’s stride, blocked his circular route with her body and breaking the rising rhythm of his anger.
“Stop.” She moved against him, running her hands along his arms, then down his ribs toward his waist. He stepped aside, tried to go around her, but Sara moved with him, touching him as boldly as she could.
“What are you doing? This is no time for play, while my friend is who-knows-where, suffering who-knows-what. I’ve heard stories. There’s no time to waste. I only came to tell you…” Her hand was on his mouth, the other moved slowly down to his belly and lower between his legs.
“Hush.” She was nearly as tall as he and nearly matched his weight; he couldn’t escape from her. Her voice was low and intense. “What will you do with all this anger, this frustration? You’re like a sparking torch. You will burn and destroy and then crumble to ash, with nothing to show but black destruction.”
“So!” he hissed. “You would keep me here, until my anger is gone. And then what?”
“Exactly!” She snapped the word out like a whiplash. “When your anger is gone, then your mind will be clear.”
He grunted impatiently and tried to move past her, but again she blocked him.
“What will you do? Pound on a door? Shout from a window? Even throw a rock at an official car? And then what? You may find Liu, in the cell next to yours! What will you get from that?”
Her hands were still busy, touching, stroking, pulling at his shirt. There was no hint of play in their lovemaking this time. Sara felt her body was her only weapon against the anger that could destroy him – she set herself to take it in, take in his energy, his frustration, his frenzy, until there would be nothing left to drive him into danger. This night she used all she had learned about what pleased him, what triggered his desire, making sure there was nothing left. Her triumph was in his return to calm, to reason, to thought. He lay in her bed semi-conscious, barely moving, his fingers tangled in her hair, every muscle limp, relaxed, exhausted. She waited until her own heart calmed, withdrew her hands from his body and let him sleep.
Two nights later, Storm, Sara, Trueheart Zhang and Jade Wang arrived separately at the Jiu Jin Shan Wine Bar and sat together silent in their corner booth. Beer arrived. The television blared soccer. Behind them the crowd groaned as the Chinese goalie let a third goal score. No one in the booth spoke. It seemed as though months, not weeks had passed since the National Day celebration.
Jade’s eyes were red-rimmed. Sara reached for Jade’s hand and then pulled back, remembering the Chinese reluctance to touch in public. She didn’t know what to do with herself – her hands and feet and hair all seemed to be in the way. The three others also seemed strained, struggling to remain controlled. The empty space where Bright Liu should be was sucking them all in, a vacuum which absorbed all their thoughts and speech. Sara couldn’t bear the empty space. She had to ask: “I’ve not heard. Is there any news?”
Storm’s eyes were tired. “There is no news from me. There is only rumor. It’s fortunate for Liu that his father is in the Party. Also that he has no previous record of causing trouble.”
Jade stirred. “I have news, perhaps.” The other two moved uneasily. Her red-rimmed eyes didn’t augur well.
“Liu’s mother has called me. She knows that we are duixiang, engaged. She wanted me to know.” Her voice trailed off.
“What, then?” Storm prodded.
“She has heard from Liu. Actually, it’s his father who has heard, through the Party. Liu has been struggled with. He has agreed it was not right for Falun Gong to challenge the Party. He is being sent down for re-education. They don’t know where, or for how long. His family is waiting for more news, but it’s difficult.”
Sara reached out again without thinking; Jade took the offered hand without looking at Sara. She gripped Sara’s hand with a spasmodic strength, as though all the fear and love and anxiety in Jade’s heart had been re-routed in her grip. The cold rain of mid-October drizzled down the smoke-dulled panes.
Storm reached for Sara as soon as they entered her apartment. “Let’s forget, just for awhile, about Bright Liu, can we? My brain is tired from thinking in circles, with no plan.” Without a word Sara led him to her bed. Later, as they were twined together on her bed, she snuggled closer to Storm and stroked his cheek.
She said, “I love you.” Those English words again. They kept coming to her lips, even though they might not mean as much to Storm.
His response was unexpected: “Why is that?”
“Why do I love you?” Sara struggled to find words to match Storm’s serious look. “Different reasons. Changing reasons.”
Then she warmed to her subject. “First, I loved you because you move with the grace of a cat. And because your hair falls across your forehead, black and shining like a crow’s wing. And because your hooded eyes hide secrets.
“Then I loved you because of your elegant hands, fingers so long, touch so gentle and yet so strong. And because of your body: slender, wiry and smooth to touch.
“And now I love you also because I’ve seen your eyes flash with passion. And now I am one of the secrets hidden in your eyes.”
She waited for him to respond. Finally he stirred. “You want me to say something back?”
“Yes.”
“Something about what you have said?”
Sara shook her head. Why was this so hard? She tried to make it easier for him. “Or something about what you feel.”
“Ah.” He paused again, then spoke slowly, as if feeling his way. “This ’I love you’, in Chinese I think there isn’t a word that means quite the same. Maybe ’jiang ai’ but I’m not sure.”
“Try,” Sara ordered.
Storm pulled back from her embrace and studied her seriously. “I loved you first, if it was love; maybe fascination, because of the way the sun strikes your hair and sets it on fire, and because your pale skin shows every flush of feeling, and because you stand so straight. I wanted to look you in the eye, but didn’t dare, so I was always debating with myself: what color are your eyes?
“Then I loved you because of your certainty. Once you had decided to love me, there was no hiding, no pretense, no hesitation, no coyness. You welcomed me. That was all, and all in all.
“Now I love you because you’re a part of me. I can’t imagine being separate from you.” Storm was silent again, thinking, then resumed in a lighter tone.
“Still, in Chinese, there is no word for ‘love’. No single word that takes in all that we’ve said. Maybe I have caught this feeling from you, like some strange disease from the West.”
“Not a disease!” Sara protested, laughing.
“No? When you drain me of energy until I can barely stand? When I can’t concentrate on work or serious matters for thoughts of you that invade my mind? You are huli jing, I shouldn’t forget. You will take all my Chinese manhood and leave me a basket of Western notions with no place to use them. “
Sara began to respond sharply and then realized that Storm was laughing at her again. She made a fist and punched him lightly; he seized her hand and suddenly they were wrestling. Then Sara was laughing helplessly as he pinned her beneath him and tried without success to stop her laughter with kisses. Breathless, she went limp and Storm drew back. Sara reached up and stroked his face again.
“I don’t think I will take all your Chinese manhood. Your mother wouldn’t forgive me if I robbed her of a grandson.”
Storm captured her hand again and pulled her arm around him, lying close as he murmured, “Ah, be careful! A grandson isn’t to be spoken of lightly!” Sara nodded and allowed her body to respond to his insistent hands. But a corner of her mind was thinking of Richie’s picture, face down in her drawer, and wondering what a son of Storm’s would be like.
Chinese Puzzle Box 