“I’ll give more,” Bennie said.
Everyone protested that offer.
Bennie added humbly, “Well, it was my fault for picking her.”
And no one made any noises in denying that, he noticed, and then felt humiliated and rejected, which launched him into anxiety.
“If she’s fired, why don’t we sign a petition of protest?” Wendy said.
Dwight sniffed. “Come on, this isn’t Berkeley. Besides, she really is a pretty bad tour guide.…”
All of a sudden, Miss Rong was again standing before them. My friends hoped she had not heard their exchange. “I forgot tell you one more thing,” she began.
Her former charges listened politely.
“One extra thing Bai minority chief tell me. Important I tell you.”
Oh, shit. The chief probably wanted more money, Bennie thought. Twenty dollars each was too good to be true. They were going to be shaken down for thousands.
This time Miss Rong did not look down. Her hair now looked wild, a statically charged crown. She kept her gaze straight ahead, as if she could see the future through the back window of the bus. “Chief, he telling other tourist authorities don’t letting you in … no cable car ride to Yak Meadow, no ancient music concert, no tourist traps. Because therefore you cannot enjoying no more beautiful things in Lijiang or in all Yunnan Province and China.…” Bennie had a sinking feeling. He saw the tour schedule crumbling, total chaos.
“He say for you bringing shame to Grotto of Female Things, everybody here you never have no more babies, no descendants, no future.…”
Dwight glanced at the mother-to-be of his children-to-be. Roxanne stared back.
Miss Rong’s voice rose higher and sang out louder: “He say even you pay one million dollar, still not enough keep trouble away.… He say he tell all gods give these foreigners bad curse, bad karma, following them forever this life and next, this country, that country, never can stop.”
Heidi’s anxiety bells were ringing.
Miss Rong took a deep breath, and right before she left the bus, she said in a voice that sounded clearly victorious. “This I thought you must know.”
At that moment, all twelve of my friends saw in their minds the water buffalo, knee deep in mud.
At dinner, my twelve friends walked a few blocks into the old historic part of town, to Bountiful Valley Restaurant, which they had rejected only that morning. Now they were resigned to the menu I had called “A Taste of Winter Delicacies.” No one was in the mood to search for alternatives that were either more “spontaneous” or more “authentic.” They were just glad that their ill-omened trip to Stone Bell Temple had not yet infiltrated the word-of-mouth network of Lijiang. Not only did the restaurant send a message to the hotel that they could enjoy the same menu that evening, the owner had offered a bonus, “free surprises,” he called them.
The first surprise was the restaurant itself. It was enchanting, not touristy at all. I knew this all along, of course. That was why I had chosen it. The building was charmingly cramped, a former dwelling whose outer courtyard had been converted into dining rooms facing the narrow canal, one of a watery lacework that ran through the streets of Lijiang. If you were to sit on the sill, you could have dipped your toes in the tranquil flow. The tables and chairs were old, marked with character in the way that has become popular with antiques in America nowadays, nothing refinished, no scratches or cigarette marks buffed out, the century-old bits of food now serving as grout in the cracks.
The beers arrived, somber toasts were called out:
“To better times ahead.”
“Much better.”
Dwight immediately suggested they vote in democratic fashion whether to leave Lijiang the next day so they might get an earlier start on Burma. When he called for the yea votes, the only holdouts were Bennie, Vera, and Esmé.
Bennie was understandably concerned about an early departure. If they left early, he would be the one scrambling to patch in a new itinerary. A day in the border town of Ruili and then three extra days in Burma—what would they do? But he said nothing in casting his nay, not wishing to come across as inadequate. He should have realized that the democratic process has no place on travel tours. Once you are a tour leader, absolute rule is the only way to go.
Vera tried to exercise her executive veto. She was used to working in an organization in which she was the top boss. As a born leader, she demanded consensus, and through her unilateral decisions, and her famous eye-locking gaze, she attained it. But here in China she was one of the masses. When the votes were called for, she appealed to the group’s rationality. “Fiddle-dee-dee. I don’t believe for a second that the chief has the clout to bar us from other places. Think about it. Is he able to get on the Internet and e-mail his cronies in a hundred places? Of course not.”
“He had a cell phone,” Moff reminded her.
“I doubt he’s going to waste his precious cell phone minutes to complain about us. He was just spouting off—not that he didn’t have every right to be infuriated.” She cocked one eye and looked toward Harry, Dwight, Moff, and Rupert.
She then switched to sentimentality. “As you all recall, this tour was lovingly designed by my dear friend Bibi Chen, carefully put together as an educational and inspirational journey. If we leave now like scared little mice, we will miss out on some of the greatest adventures of our lives. We wouldn’t get to feel the spray of the magnificent waterfalls at the bottom of Tiger Leaping Gorge.…”
Esmé’s mouth rounded. They were supposed to go there?
“We would be forgoing a ride on a horse with Tibetan nationals in Yak Meadow.…”
That caught Roxanne’s and Heidi’s attention; they had each owned a pony when they were little girls.
Vera went on: “When in this lifetime will you have another chance to see an alpine meadow at seventeen thousand feet? Extremely rare.” She nodded solemnly in agreement with herself. “As are those murals of Guan Yin in the sixteenth-century temple …”
Poor Vera, she almost had them convinced, until she mentioned the murals. Goddesses may have been Vera’s niche in art history, but the mention of Guan Yin made others twitch with anxiety. Another temple? No, no more temples, please. Vera poked at the schedule, which she held up as if it were the Declaration of Independence. “This is what I signed up for. This is what I paid for. This is what I intend to do. I vote nay and I urge the rest of you to reconsider.” She sat down.
Esmé also voted nay, with a slightly lifted hand.
Vera gestured to Esmé to get everybody’s attention. “Another nay.”
When asked to explain her vote, Esmé shrugged. She couldn’t say. The truth was, she had fallen tragically in love. The Shih Tzu puppy had grown weak. When it tried to walk, it stumbled and fell. It would not eat the offerings of Chinese food given by the beauties. Esmé had also noted a lump protruding from its belly. The pup’s caretakers seemed unconcerned by its worsening condition. The lump, they said, was nothing, and one of them pointed to her own chin to suggest that the problem was no more serious than a pimple. “No worries,” they assured Esmé, thinking she was bargaining them down. “You pay less money. One hundred kwai okay.”
“You don’t understand. I can’t take the puppy. I’m traveling.”
“Take, take,” they countered. “Eighty kwai.”
Now,