The Walled City

JIN LING

The rice cake is sweet. Honey drips over its sides, makes my teeth ache when I sink them in. Mei Yee sits behind me. Her fingers run through my thick, tangled hair. Soft, gentle, never hurting. She pulls it apart into three sections. Starts to weave them into one.

“The braid is always stronger than the strand.” Her melodic proverb floats over my shoulder.

I should tell her that my hair is too short. There’s nothing left to braid. But honey sticks in my mouth. Catches all my words. I try to turn, try to see her. But the dark is closing in. Dream’s end.

The sweet of honey on my teeth, my long hair, my sister’s voice. All of it’s gone.

The dark in front of me shifts. It’s Dai. Getting up. Creeping toward the door. Like a ribbon through the air: silent, graceful. The way some people move when they don’t want to be followed.

I don’t move until the door clicks shut, the stairwell’s light swallowed back into pitch dark. Dai’s footsteps sound like raindrops. Fading fast.

He’s leaving. But why?

I pause at the door. Each step grows fainter. Slipping away. If I wait too long, I won’t be able to track him. Part of me wants to go back to sleep. Forget this ever happened. It’s the same part that wants to trust Dai. That wants to believe he’s worth trusting.

But trust hasn’t brought me through two years of knife fights and hunger. Dai’s hiding something… This might be my only chance to find out what.

I don’t bother knotting my bootlaces before I rush out. Stairs whip under my feet. Two, three at a time. Threaded through with my silver cat stalker. Soon I’m out in the streets shadow-hopping and alley-weaving. An awkward rush to catch up to Dai.

It’s so late even the restaurants are empty. Tanks of fresh fish and eels bubble like electric crickets. No cigarettes burn in doorways. No old men crouch on steps sipping cheap liquor. Even the vagrants are asleep.

Dai moves ahead of me. He walks fast, hands shoved in his pockets.

I follow. Keep my distance. He moves to the end of the street, where the line of hanging pipes stops and the buildings’ soggy concrete walls fold open to air. The outside, star-studded night. I look for Cassiopeia, but the angle isn’t right. All I see are a truck’s taillights — red and shouting — like dragon’s eyes. A wind knifes through the gap, cool and careless and dark. This is the end of Longwai’s kingdom. The entrance to City Beyond.

But Dai doesn’t step over. He leans against the wall. Arms crossed. One knee up. Minutes pass. I crouch in a shallow doorway. Watch the older boy as he watches City Beyond. Waiting.

Then he stands straight again. His shoulders go rigid. A man-shaped shadow appears. Fills the empty space next to Dai. The hood of his jacket drapes far over his face. I can’t see anything past the bridge of his nose.

I hear him, though. Every word. His voice is brassy. Not loud, but strong. Like a temple gong. “Are you staying out of trouble?”

Dai nods. The action looks more like a bow.

The man-shadow pulls a tightly bound wad from his pocket. He offers the package to Dai. It hovers between them.

“Take it,” the man says. “You know how she worries.”

“I’m doing well enough on my own.” Dai frowns.

“You mean risking your neck?” The man pushes the parcel into Dai’s chest. His voice drops low. “You’ve been doing work for the Security Branch, haven’t you?”

Dai stares at the man, his mouth grim.

His visitor sighs. “Look, I know — I know they’ve made promises, but you have no obligation there. You need to stay safe. That’s your biggest priority until we can get you out of here.”

“And when will that be?”

“We’re getting closer…”

“It’s been two years!” Dai’s yell isn’t very loud, but it sets me on edge. He’s always so calm and even-keeled. Like a paper boat set in a shallow puddle. Something about this man is wrecking him. “Two years! If you could’ve pulled me out, you would’ve by now. I’m running out of time. I can’t just sit and do nothing!”

“Nothing,” the man continues, unshaken, “is exactly what you must do. Stay here. Stay alive. If Longwai finds out who you are…”

Dai looks away from the hooded man and the package pressed against his chest. His eyes bore back into the streets. This dark maze of silent doors. His stare slides past my stoop. My heart turns to lead.

“Where’s your jacket? Are you even staying in the apartment?”

Dai shrugs, but he still isn’t looking at his visitor. He’s staring at the ground. At the shards of liquor bottles, layers of mortar and filth. And my stare is on him. Trying to answer the monsoon questions rumbling in my head.

Who is this man? Who is the “she” he talks about? Who is Dai?

“She worries about you. I worry about you. We already lost—"

“Don’t!” Dai’s head snaps up. Jaw set. Chin sharp. “Don’t talk about him.”

Some agreement I can’t hear or see passes between them. Dai’s arm closes across his chest, tucks the bundle like a sleeping child. The same way I hold Chma.

“We won’t lose you, too. This will end,” the man says. “I promise.”

“Why do you even bother?”

“You know why,” the man says.

Dai isn’t smiling or frowning. His face is flat when he turns away.

I shrink back, but Dai isn’t looking at the hidden corners he passes. His walk is full of energy. Purpose. He stares straight ahead, as if he wants nothing more than to get away. The man-shadow stands on the edge of City Beyond, watching Dai’s every step.

Then they’re both gone. Wind howls through the gap they left, a lonely, wailing sound. It cuts into my bones. Punches a hole through my chest. My fist clenches tight. Remembers the hurt under the bandage.

The wad the man-shadow pressed into Dai’s chest had to be money. How else could he hold keys to an apartment or wedge a gun into his untorn jeans? But why would the man-shadow give him money? And if Dai has money, why work for Longwai? If the man-shadow wants him to stay hidden, why is he sitting right under the Brotherhood’s nose? What is the Security Branch? How is Dai working for them?

And the biggest question of all: Why can’t he leave?

It seems Dai has more secrets than scars. Secrets that involve Longwai and Dai’s risking his neck. Which means, all this time, he’s been risking mine.

Kuen and his knives, I can handle. Dodge, duck, hide. That’s all it takes. But Dai… he’s a different kind of danger. Made of sweet and sleep and safe. The kind that creeps up while you’re dreaming. Stabs you in the back.

I never should’ve broken the second rule. Never should’ve let myself get closed in by his four walls. A place with no room to run. What good is a locked door when the threat might be inside?

I’ve survived two whole years on these streets. I don’t need anyone to save me.

MEI YEE

Every day the walls shrink smaller, smaller, smaller. Even staring out into the alley doesn’t hold them back. The nautilus shell sits, a marker of the boy and his promise. A reminder that it’s out there and I’m in here.

The painted stars above me are stale, old. I soak them in anyway. I’ve picked out all the blemishes, every point where the painter’s hand trembled. I shut my eyes, try to imagine how she stood with the brush tucked between her fingers like a chopstick. I decided long ago that the creator of this mural was a girl. The master and his men would never create something so desperate and beautiful.

As I stare, I wonder about the girl. What was her name? Where did she come from? What was she thinking about when she sketched the stars onto the tiles? Was she still brave, still hopeful enough to place a wish on each one?

There are dozens of them, flecked over my bed. But there are still more wishes in my soul than there are stars.

I wish I could hold Jin Ling’s hand in mine.

I wish Sing never tried to run.

I wish the boy didn’t make my chest burn, make my thoughts soar like a phoenix.

I wish every girl in this brothel could be one of the lucky ones.

I wish, like the boy, I was somewhere else. Someone else.

And on and on and on.

The time the window-boy gave me is half vanished when the ambassador comes for a visit. Two days lost to staring, wondering, and worrying at my bedroom door. When it finally opens, my heart paces inside my chest like a tiger trapped in a bamboo cage. It drips with the ache of so many wishes — heavy and bloated. The ache the boy started. The ache so deep not even the ambassador’s flowers can distract me. Their petals are a yellow and orange so bright that I can’t look at them for long. Colors so exaggerated they seem fake.

His coat is heavier today, and his skin feels like marble against mine, an unyielding cold. He notices, too, but in a different way. “You’re warm.”

The ambassador draws into the heat my body offers. His hands tug on my dress, my hair, but all I can feel is the window at my back. The thin veil of the curtain and the nautilus behind it. Taunting and tempting with promises of something more.

And then it comes to me. I know how to make Mama-san unlock my door, if I’m willing to take the risk.

The ambassador is my key. His money is more powerful than Mama-san’s anger or the master’s apathy.

“You’re very cold,” I say once he’s finished and rolled over onto the silky, rippled sheets. Once his arm drapes across me like a sash.

“I’m sorry.” His honey-drip murmur fills my ear. Slows with encroaching sleep.

I shift and turn so that his hand slides off me and we’re face-to-face.

I don’t know if the scarlet slant of my lanterns’ light is just right or if it’s just the haunting youth of the window-boy’s face. But today I notice how the ambassador wears his years in so many places: the fine fan of lines spreading from the corners of his lids, age spots the color of fire-singed bread, veins on the backs of his thighs that writhe and bulge like eels. I’ve always known he was old, but something about it today makes me uneasy.

Pace, pace, goes my heart. Back and forth. Back and forth. A restless beast.

I can’t stay here anymore.

“Mama-san has been locking our doors.”

“What?” His jowls tighten, snarl like a moon-crested black bear. Everything about him is sharp now, shot through with anger and business. This is the side of him that makes my fingertips tremble. “Why would she do that?”

“She told me not to tell. I’ll get in trouble.” I swallow. My mouth is edged with salt and bile. “Please don’t tell her I told you.”

He does not answer my plea. “She’s kept you locked in this room? For how long?”

“I don’t know. All I want is to talk to the other girls. I get so lonely in here and there’s nothing to do!” Except stare at stars and a shell, talk to a mysterious boy.

The ambassador sits up. He looks around the room, his eyes mirroring every inch, every corner of my cage. I think this is the first time he’s really looked at it. Noticed the chip in my flower vase, the small snag in the edge of the wall tapestry. Every muscle in my body cinches when his gaze slides past the window.

“Mei Yee — I’ve been thinking. About the day I gave you the chocolates.”

The day I first saw the boy. Don’t—I catch myself—don’t think about him. Not now.

The ambassador looks at me down the slant of his nose, from a great height. “What if I took you away from here?”

For some reason his accent sounds extra foreign at this question. I can’t quite believe what I’m hearing. “Away?”

“You’ve been exclusive to me for over a year now. I don’t think it would be unreasonable for me to make a deal with Longwai.”

“W-where?” I stammer.

“An apartment. In Seng Ngoi. Close to where I work. There’s a pool. And a garden on the rooftop. There’s a gourmet food service. Guards at the door. Everything you could possibly want.”

From where I’m lying, the ambassador could be a god. He looms, stretched out like a temple idol. Golden skin, stomach round against the sheets, pushing into mine.

A pool. A garden. Gourmet food. The words feel like blessings misting my head, promises of heaven. A Utopia far from this place of syringes and slaps. The thing Sing bled for — a way out — is being offered to me on a silver platter. I should snatch it, seize it before it disappears.

A week ago I would have said yes. But a week ago there wasn’t a nautilus balanced on my window ledge. There wasn’t a boy staring in, making me feel naked when I was fully clothed, promising his own way out.

Is escape enough? Is it even the thing I want most?

I don’t know.

Yes. It’s such a small, fleeting word. So easy to say. Even a nod would do.

I open my mouth. Crimson-bright drapes flare in the corner of my vision. No words come out.

“Mei Yee?” A fledgling frown hatches on the ambassador’s lips. He reaches out, strokes my arm. The touch, this barest graze of fingers, startles me out of my whirlwind head. His hand trails down, comes to rest on the curve of my hip.

I should say it. I should, but I can’t.

“I… I have to think about it,” I tell him.

The frown deepens, storm clouds roll up behind his face. Gray. “I thought you would say yes.”

I thought I would, too. But it seems that out and away are two different words.

There’s a darkness behind his eyes, his face. A flash of something that makes me shiver. His hand is heavy on my hip; fingers pressing, pressing, pressing.

“There’s someone else, isn’t there?” His accusation is a lightning bolt — sudden and splitting. “Is Longwai forcing you to take other clients?”

Those fingertips, the ones on my hip, suddenly become crush and bruise. A whimper leaves me — half surprise, half pain. He’s never touched me like this before, never hurt me.

The ambassador jerks his hand away at the sound. He stares first at his palm, then at me. “Sorry. I’m sorry. It’s just that you’ve seemed different lately. And I thought…”

“There’s no one else.” This feels like a lie when I say it. Because of the boy. Because of Sing and Wen Kei and Nuo and Yin Yu. So many faces I’ll never see again if I agree. If I take the safe route. “I just need time to think. It would be hard to leave my friends…”

The storm cloud has vanished, yet his eyes are all haze and confusion. He pulls away, and cold air ribbons over my skin, calling out gooseflesh. The ambassador dresses slowly, carefully. He buttons up his dress shirt and twists in the cufflinks. His fingers are so steady as he works these small items into place. There’s not a trace of emotion on his face as he shoulders his dinner jacket and retrieves his topcoat.

“I’ll get Longwai to unlock your door.”

He’s gone, through the door without even a good-bye.

The doors open, just as the ambassador promised. Mama-san doesn’t linger. She continues down the darkened hall, undoing locks with iron twists of her key ring. I hover at the threshold and watch her. I look for her bruise, but it’s gone. Healed or hidden. I’m not sure which.

The skin on my hip is splotchy — blood that can’t be freed — pooling in shapes and shades that remind me of an exotic flower. The same flowers that freckle the other girls’ bodies. The same flowers that used to circle my mother’s wrists whenever my father gripped her too tightly.

I had them, too, my first few months in the brothel, when there was no limit on who came to my bed. Before the ambassador arrived and rescued me from all that. Or so I thought.

It was a mistake, I tell myself. He didn’t mean to.

My hip throbs with every heartbeat, reminding me that those are the same words my mother said every morning after. She wouldn’t even look at Jin Ling’s bandages or her own battered limbs. She slouched over the cooking fire, waiting for the water to hiss like a dragon caught in a pot.

“He didn’t mean to do it. He already told me he was sorry.”

But the bruises kept blooming — yellow, green, bright pink, purple, blue — a whole garden of marks to undo my father’s words.

“Why doesn’t Mother leave?” Jin Ling asked me one night when I was cleaning out a terrible split over her left eye. “We could go and start another farm. Or move to the city.”

My sister made it sound so easy: leaving. As if we could just load up the oxcart and go. And I could never find a way to explain it to her, why our mother stayed. It was just something I knew in my heart. Father was the familiar, the known. It didn’t matter that his breath stung like pine needles every night, or that his knuckles battered our flesh. We expected that.

She would never leave him. Not for the world. Not even for us.

My mother was not a person made of risk and run. Not like Jin Ling. Not like Sing.

And me… I don’t know what kind of person I am.

The girls come, one by one. Crowding my doorway like sparrows jostling for spare crumbs. I know it hasn’t been so long since we last glimpsed one another, but their faces could almost belong to strangers. Even tiny Wen Kei, the youngest, has a weight in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

“I didn’t think they’d let us out so soon,” Nuo says once we’re all in the room. “I wonder why.”

I wonder, too, what the ambassador said to sway the master’s decision to unlock not just one but an entire score of doors. Whatever it was, it worked. I have no doubt he could talk me out of this brothel altogether.

My thoughts are still a raging typhoon — speeding around and around — so loud I can barely hear the other girls as they talk about their time behind the doors.

“And then he tried to make me…”

A pool. A garden. Gourmet food. Heaven on a platter.

“…I had to yell for Mama-san.”

Yes. Why didn’t I say yes? Any one of them would. In a heartbeat. Yes. Yes. Yes. A heartbeat.

“…haven’t slept for days… I keep hearing her scream—"

Sing. Would she have said yes? I’m not so sure. She was all fire, all risk. Her heart might as well be my seashell. Sitting on the other side of my window. Unhindered by bars. Just out of reach.

“Wen Kei?” I speak out.

The other girls stare at me.

“Have you ever seen a nautilus?” I still stumble over the word, uncertain.

The girl’s eyes brighten. A twinkle that waltzes with the weight. “Oh yes. My father used to catch them sometimes. He sold the shells to tourists in the market. If you split the shell open, you can see how it’s grown. Whenever it gets too big to fit in its old space, it seals it off. Over and over again. Until it’s all curled up.”

The last image makes Nuo sigh. “Like a fern? My grandmother used to grow ferns in her garden. And radishes, and carrots, and—"

“We shouldn’t talk about home,” Yin Yu interrupts. Her voice is itchy and distracted. Hotter than usual. It makes me notice the stain of wine on her serving dress. Still wet and dark, like a wound. “All we’re doing is hurting ourselves. Nothing good can come of it. This is what got Sing into trouble in the first place… talking about home. It got in her head.”

No. It didn’t get into Sing’s head. It sabotaged her heart, fed it so it grew and grew and grew. Until she was forced to seal everything off — try for a wider, better life.

I wonder if the boy knows about what’s inside the nautilus. If those moon-clear eyes can see how my own shell is squeezing tight. How soon it will be more than I can bear.

It’s not so simple as a yes or a no. It’s not even a matter of escape. It’s a question of what I want more. The ambassador’s penthouse or whatever lies past the bars of that window. The familiar or the risk.

I’m not like my sister. I never was. Jin Ling always ran faster, fought harder. Whenever she was around, I didn’t even bother.

But I don’t want to be like my mother, either. Waking up every morning and watching the sun rise on fresh wounds, wondering in the secret chambers of her heart if there was something more. Through the rice fields and over the mountains.

And this is my race. My risk. Jin Ling’s not here to take it for me.

Maybe I’m a faster runner than I realize.

I don’t know why I thought getting the names would be easy once I found a way out of the room. As if I could just walk up to the master’s henchmen and shake their hands. The only way for me to get the names, to wander freely around the brothel without suspicion, is to ask the master for a job. A job that will get me the closest to the Brotherhood’s secret meetings. A job serving plum wine and lighting pipes.

Yin Yu’s job.

There are leaping frogs in my stomach as I get closer to the unsettled smoke of the master’s den. I’ve thought of how to ask him, so the request will sound innocent. But the master is smarter than his drooping lids suggest. How else would someone become law in a lawless place?

The lounge is almost empty. There are no clients stretched out on the couches, no long pipes spewing smoke into glazed faces. Nuo is not in the corner; the silence of her zither is deafening. I hear every one of my footsteps, creaking and sliding against weathered wood.

Master sits alone. His legs are crossed, tucked with a flexibility I’m surprised he still possesses. There’s a pipe in his hands, but it stays down.

“Mama-san says you requested to see me. Normally, I wouldn’t bother, but after my most recent discussion with your client, my curiosity is piqued.”

He tilts his head at the last word. All I can look at, all I can see, is that awful purple hook of a scar. I turn my stare down to the floor. All ten toes are curling beneath the silk of my slippers, like worms stabbed, sacrificed to find fish.

He knows. He’s smart. My fears whir; cautious, docile Mei Yee is scrambling, trying her hardest to stop me. Don’t ask. Just go back. Sit. Wait. Say yes.

I wet my lips, gather up all my scattered fragments of courage. They’re sharp, spinning, and newborn, enough to push out the words. “I was wondering if, maybe, you might let me take up some duties. I’d like to learn how to serve wine.”

“You want me to give you chores?” His eyes slit, like a cat half asleep but still watching. My neck feels akin to a chicken’s, stretched tight, waiting for a blade. I wonder, not for the first time, why I’m standing here. Why I didn’t just say yes.

I stare into the lusty gold links of his necklace. “The other girls have tasks. I don’t like feeling as if I’m not earning my keep.”

From the way his mouth is set, all crumpled and caved into the side of his face, I wait for his no. Instead, he nods slowly.

“Very well. You have fortunate timing — Yin Yu was foolish enough to spill wine on a client just this morning. Have her show you the trays and the lighting procedures. You can take her place this evening.”

He says this, and I remember the heat in Yin Yu’s voice. The stain on her dress. I wonder at how I could be so fortunate, to ask on the same day Yin Yu’s perfect service failed.

Then again, I am the lucky one.

I leave with a long, low bow, with a hope beyond hope that my luck will hold.