“I don’t know much about Christian mythology.”
“St. Erasmus was the protector of sailors, definitely a minor saint. But the phenomenon named after him is truly remarkable. We call it just ‘fire.’ It’s a kind of static electricity that travels along the ridges at night and gathers at the hilltops, creating a spectacular display. On a windy night, it’s an awe-inspiring sight.”
Magic fire. What a strange place she had tumbled into. Perhaps her situation was not as dire as it seemed. Her chips were, for now, safe, the world was magical and her guide was—interesting.
For the last two days they had fished at West Cove where the plastic sloped down to the level of the waves. They both had tethered themselves to substantial mounds in case an accident should send one of them falling into the slurry.
It was difficult, close to a “beach,” to tell if a smooth patch of ground were solid or “quicksand,” as they referred to it. Adam’s method was to use these quicksand patches to push a baited hook on the end of a long plastic pipe into the water below the debris. It was like ice fishing, he had said, except one stuck the pole into the water.
The late afternoon stillness inside Adam’s boat was a welcome relief from the blustering wind that had raked West Cove. Roomier than Liyang had expected, the interior space had been enlarged by removing the walls so that one large room stretched from port to starboard. She had anticipated small staterooms of the sort that triggered her claustrophobia. However, like Crab’s boat, Adam’s small trawler was completely trapped in plastic. The keel no longer even touched water, he said.
Much floor space was taken up with Adam’s collections, bits and pieces he had found in the plastic. His biggest collection was heads: dolls’ heads, dummies’ heads, even a large plastic face of an Egyptian Pharaoh. These he mounted on the wall. With a tube of Super Glue he managed to cover most of a bulkhead. The faces, protruding from the walls in the dim light of the oil lamp, made Liyang feel queasy.
“You might as well talk, my dear.” Adam’s face reflected the golden light of the lamp as it flickered on a low table between them. “You are looking decidedly contemplative, and there’s nothing else to do. My library is quite limited, and I’m afraid the bookmobile hasn’t been by for years.”
Liyang looked puzzled. “A truck that carries books?”
“A library on wheels,” he answered.
Her bed was across the room from his. He had made it clear that she was quite safe. “I would like us to get along,” was the only thing he had offered in the way of explanation.
She had been relieved that she was not expected to enter into a relationship. But now . . . “My head’s a jumble.” She folded the pillow behind her and leaned back.
“What was your plan, arriving here in a cabin cruiser? Surely not poaching salmon,” he said with a chuckle.”
“You said, yourself, such questions are impolite on Poly Island.”
“Ah, but not between intimates.”
“We are not intimate, and why should I trust you?” She immediately regretted the words. Her voice sounded harsh, and she wondered if Adam would take offense.
“Because, Liyang, I can help you.”
It was the first time he had addressed her by her name, and she found that it pleased her. “I’d planned to hide among the mountains of plastic I’d heard about, and then, when they quit looking for me, to continue across the Pacific to the Baja Peninsula, south of California.”
“I’m afraid there aren’t many marinas between here and southern California. Even with an alpha engine, it’s unlikely you could have carried enough fuel.”
“I brought a sail and some rigging.”
Adam laughed, though good-naturedly. “It’s hard for even real sailboats to do what you were planning. Probably a good thing that you ended up here.”
“I didn’t have a lot of time to plan. It was . . . urgent that I get out of Hong Kong.”
“That wasn’t the harbor patrol pursuing you. I assume one of the cartels?”
“The old Buddha tongs.”
He nodded his head. “I don’t think we have any representatives from that group.”
“I don’t know what to do now.” She meant to sound objective, detached, but she heard the edge of fear that crept into her voice.
“I believe your best choice is to stay here.”
“I thought you said you’d help me.”
“I meant only for now. You see, the Poly Islands are moving in the Pacific gyre. In a month or two, we’ll be near Japan, and after that, Hawaii, and after that, at least closer to Baja. If you could manage to scare up a boat in those intervening months . . .”
“I see what you mean.”
“Did you steal the chips?”
The directness of the question caught her off guard. “No. Yes. I mean, they aren’t the reason I was running.”
“What did you do?”
“I was just a bookkeeper,” she said with bitterness that surprised her. “I grew up in the Buddha neighborhood in Hong Kong. I never did anything important. It didn’t even feel like I was working drugs. But one day I came across a large payment that wasn’t accounted for.”
“Aha, are you rich, now?”
“That’s the stupid part. I gave most of it away, assigned it to an untraceable account. There was a woman I was very close to, an older woman, a prostitute. She wasn’t able to work much longer, and there is a place in Hong Kong, a rather nice place, actually, that takes care of older women—of her sort.”
“But they’ll trace the transfer.”
“No. That’s why they spent such effort looking for me. Not only my life, but hers, would be forfeit if they caught me.”
“You are a faithful friend. But why Baja?”
“My family left Hong Kong for two years when I was a girl; we lived in Baja. I loved the place. I see it in my dreams. It comforts me when I am lonely, like now.”
Adam watched her with a strange look of innocence as she rose and went to his bed.
Liyang.”
She turned to see Lu Ping approaching on the other path. She had noticed him at Crab’s weekly meetings, and, although they hadn’t spoken of it, he was the one who had subtly offered her a seat at her first meeting. His round cheerful face and bushy black hair had stood out amongst the somber men of Woo’s retinue.
“What have you got?” she asked. He carried an oversized spool, a pole with a hook on it and what appeared to be a wind-up mechanism.
“I’m going fishing in West Cove. We’ve been having terrible luck around Madam Woo’s Barge of Heavenly Bounty.” He fell in beside her, and they continued toward Adam’s boat.
“I’ve only used a long plastic pipe to fish with. I caught a saury, and some others I didn’t know what they were.”
“You cannot catch the big ones that way. Tuna dive deep under the plastic.”
He spoke Cantonese like her mother’s family, and she easily fell into its tones. “Aren’t you afraid to hook something that size? If you got pulled in . . .”
“That’s what the rigging is for. I drive some cables into the plastic in case I get a big one. I can show you. Why don’t you come with me? I could use some help with the gaff.”
“I’m working with Adam on the salt water filter. Sorry. I was just picking up some electrical tape at Crab’s.”
They rounded one of the higher mounds, one that Adam had christened Poly Peak.
“You know, you shouldn’t keep yourself away from the other Chinese. We’re your people.”
“I appreciate what you say, but Madam Woo’s designs on my chips have made me cautious.”
“You are direct for a Chinese. I like that.”
“Did Woo set you up to speak to me?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. “I volunteered.” He laughed nervously.
They came t
o the fork in the trail, one way which led to the West Cove. Lu Ping looked into her face. “Adam is a good man. I like him. Are you . . . fond of him?”
“Yes. We seem well suited to one another.”
“You are lucky,” Lu Ping said. “But you do have other options, even among the Chinese.”
“What do you mean?”
“Madam Woo leads only the Kumas.” He paused to let that sink in. “I am Shen.”
Of course. She should have realized that gang structure would persist, even in this remote place. “I’ve never heard of those tongs.”
“They’re not mainland. It’s why I invited you to sit with me. There are fewer Shen. We need members.”
“You were recruiting?”
“There were other reasons. You are a beautiful woman, Liyang.”
She grunted.
“You have a classic Chinese face, like you stepped out of a painting by Qi Baishi.”
“Nice try. Qi Baishi didn’t paint people. He painted frogs and shrimp.”
Lu Ping lifted his hands and laughed. “Well, if he had painted people . . .”
Liyang laughed, too. “Thanks, anyway, Lu Ping. I must go. You can report back to Madam Woo that I like you.”
He grinned. “It would be better if you went fishing with me.”
“I hope you catch something.”
He inclined his head and turned down the path to West Cove.
Two weeks later, Liyang stood with Adam on the deck of Crab’s boat along with twenty-seven inhabitants of the Poly Islands. The body of an American—they had known him as Stephen—was wrapped in cloth and tied securely. It lay on a gurney that was harnessed to a winch. An anchor rested at his feet.
Almost no light penetrated the mass of plastic above them, so the ceremony was conducted by the glow of little oil lamps that rested in niches carved into the plastic walls. Someone, Liyang saw, had carefully lined the niches with something, apparently nonflammable, so that the plastic would not ignite. The golden orbs of illumination gave the setting the appearance of a Buddhist grotto, like one she had occasionally gone to in Hong Kong. Liyang took Adam’s hand.
More Chinese had recently appeared, and they now outnumbered all other groups two to one. Liyiang noticed that the division among the Chinese was more obvious. Madam Woo’s Kuma tong, the largest, stood together with arms folded defensively. A smaller group of Shen clustered around Lu Ping. The remainder, Indonesians, Caucasians and two blacks, stood deferentially near Crab.
A man named Saurington, who had been a friend of Stephen’s, operated the winch which lifted the gurney and moved it over the rail. The sides of the plastic cavern in which the boat was entombed pressed so close that a large niche had been hacked out in order for the body to be hauled over the side.
“We have before us the body of Stephen which we commit to the sea.” At a nod from Crab, one end of the gurney dropped and Stephen’s body—led by the anchor—fell into the slurry at the side of the boat. Crab spoke again with resignation. “We shall retire and reflect on this man, Stephen, that his life not yet disappear from the world.”
Crab’s words were curious. Liyang had assumed him to be an Indian guru of some kind, perhaps fallen from an ashram, but his words reflected no Hindu theology she knew of. Was he making this up?
They filed down into the familiar meeting room where everyone, including Liyang, stripped off their P-suits and sat in their appointed places. At Crab’s request, they ate in silence. She had spoken a few times to the man Stephen. He had seemed particularly close to Crab.
By the end of the meal, a tension permeated the room. People seemed to be watching one another, perhaps calculating. Sweat ran down Liyang’s back, and the odor of the fish was not appetizing.
At last Crab spoke. “The voices of the plastic have changed. I hear in them a new sound, one that speaks of a different fracture likely to cross this part of the island. We must begin scouting, now, for new locations to the east where it is more stable.”
“We venerate honorable Crab,” broke in Madam Woo in English. “But we see his interests diverge from our own.” The faces of the Chinese remained expressionless, but the others stared in surprise. There it was, thought Liyang, the challenge. No one had ever interrupted, much less contradicted Crab.
Madam Woo sat in a huge overstuffed chair that her men had brought in for her. Her hair bunched on her head in the traditional Han style. Her thong, her only article of clothing, was almost subsumed in rolls of flesh. She resembled statues of Neolithic goddesses Liyang had seen in the Hong Kong Museum. In contrast to the others—who were, for the most part, skin and bones—her bulk was overwhelming.
“One may hear sounds of plastic in different ways, not always warning of disaster. My men tell me plastic is too thick in this part of island to break. It is my decision,” Madam Woo said, using the same expression that Crab often used, “that the Chinese not waste time finding new places to live. We stay here; we conserve energy for more fruitful pursuit.”
Crab showed neither surprise nor anger but merely nodded and said nothing else. Eventually, everyone filed from the room in silence.
Liyang followed Adam back to his boat on the now-familiar path, but even so, the plastic could be treacherous at night. Shadows hid holes and weak spots, and twilight impeded depth perception. Yet, despite the dangers, it was Liyang’s favorite time to be on the surface. The stars, even without the moon, cast enough light to turn the world’s garbage heap into a landscape of fantasy and imagination.
Abruptly, Adam stopped. “I’ve got something in my foot.”
“What do you think’s going to happen?” Liyang said as he found a smooth outcropping on which to sit. “Madam Woo’s tong outnumbers the rest of us, and we aren’t united. With poor Stephen gone, we’re even fewer.”
She squatted in front of him and batted his hand away and then unzipped his foot cover herself.
“Adam, did I ever tell you that you had good feet?”
“Why, no, my dear, we haven’t discussed my extremities—any of them.”
She laughed and then lifted out the piece of plastic she found in his foot cover.
“I smell trouble,” she said.
“Not my feet?”
“Do you think Crab understands the tong system?”
“I don’t think I understand it, but Crab isn’t a fool.”
“Do you think the island’s really going to fracture?”
“It has in the past. Madam Woo knows that, and it surprises me that she’s ignoring his warning.”
“It’s about power,” Liyang said.
“Ah, you’re back on the tongs again.”
“I think she sees herself as Queen of the Poly Islands.”
Adam laughed. “I think you’re right. It reminds me of her boat, The Barge of Heavenly Bounty. I almost laughed aloud when I heard that one.”
“As much as I want to reach dry land, I wouldn’t want to be there under her.” She zipped his foot cover closed.
“I don’t think you have to worry. Even with an alpha motor, I can’t imagine she’s got the fuel to make it all the way to the Marshalls.”
“Adam, it’s time we left.”
“Shall I call a taxi?” he said, getting up.
“Why couldn’t you have found a boat that wasn’t entombed in this . . . this crap?”
“Ah, I can always tell when you are really upset. You resort to colorful language.” A moan of gusting wind made him look up. “But now we need to get below.”
“Adam.” She put her arms around his waist and pressed her pelvis to his. “Let’s sleep out here.”
He shook his head and laughed. “These are the highest winds we’ve had.”
“I’m serious. Let’s bring the tarp out.”
“In this wind?”
“Don’t you want to feel the breeze
—in every crevice of your body?”
“If there’s a shift . . .”
“We can watch the fires tonight. They’ll be strong. The plastic’s moving.”
Liyang brought out the tarp and their only blanket rolled up in her backpack. The wind had risen, and she could feel the gentle undulations of the island as it rode the giant swells beneath them. By the time they lay naked next to one another, the wind whistled off the higher mounds, scooping into their little valley to lift strands of Liyang’s straight black hair. She sat up to feel the wind caressing her skin, and it sensitized her to Adam’s touch.
Never had she experienced so vividly the space beneath the stars, the feeling that her body belonged to the universe, and that as she partook of that universe, they merged into one being. Adam trembled, and it was then she saw the blue fire, glowing, dancing on the heights of the mounds. The rising wind swept over them, stronger, and the blue fire danced. It traversed the rills and sparkled on the highest mounds, encircling their world.
Amidst the groans of the plastic and the gasps of Adam, she raised her arms again, and the fire was upon her. She saw Adam’s chest covered in blue light. She thrust her hands higher and the fire of St. Elmo leaped into the sky, ejecting itself into the wild wind as if to reach for the stars themselves.
Strangely, the fire ebbed with their passion spent. Their perspiration, sucked away by the wind, left them cold, and they sank into one another’s arms for warmth.
Crab, I want my chips back.”
The old man sat in the full lotus, his eyes closed. His brown skin looked leathery and seemed to sag on his bones. The creases in his face were deep. She wasn’t sure he heard her.
“If you don’t give them to me, I’ll take them.” She had walked into his chamber without the usual obeisance, sat in front of him and made her demand. She did not believe in gurus and pushed aside the feeling of disrespect that she, nevertheless, could not help.
His eyes opened, and he stared at her. “What will you do with them here?”
“That doesn’t matter. The point is they’re mine.”
“The point is that I am keeping them, not from you, but from others.”