The Artificial Mirage (3 page)

Reservations at X Voyage @7

What could she want? Had she been arrested too? The isolation from people and the destruction of Chi was disorienting. He couldn’t afford X Voyage. Tonya could pay. It was the least she could do.

3

I
t wasn’t the first weekend Harold had spent in Paris, but it was the first time he had come expressly for the anonymous clinic. After walking out of the white lobby, he stood just outside the entrance in the rain for more than an hour. Nothing had changed. It had merely been a confirmation of what he had already known in his heart. Going anywhere seemed pointless. The experience of rain on a weekend trip outside of Saudi Arabia would have normally been cause for excitement, but he was hardly even aware of it until he was soaked and it had tapered off to a drizzle. It was as if he had been rendered incapable of feeling or expressing emotion. The second HIV test had confirmed the results.

After the rain stopped, he began walking. He felt like he couldn’t stop. It was twilight when he noticed his body was shivering and his clothes were wet. He blew up the lab test results to the size of a car shaped like a balloon and watched them drift along as he walked past the opera house before slashing through them in a violent deletion gesture that made passersby turn and look up at a nonexistent danger. It was done. It didn’t exist. He had less than six months on his work visa in Saudi Arabia, but nothing would change in that time. He would be blacklisted from any police jobs back in China, so going back was out of the question—unless he had the money to do something else.

He passed cafés with tables full of people laughing. He got in a taxi to Pigalle and got off at the first burlesque place he saw. The doorman demanded a tip, and he reached in his pocket and handed him some paper currency without looking at it or saying a word. Inside, all five available tables were full, and the warm air circulated around a pasty-white, pregnant blonde on stage. He watched her dance lethargically. The silver tassels dangling from her nipples lay limply on her protruding belly. A group of French boys who looked to be about thirteen sat at a table in the back, blowing AR smoke from AR shisha pipes.

He walked out and kept walking until a horse bearing the logo of his favorite brand of bai jiu appeared before him with flames coming out of its nostrils and jumped into the entrance to the bar up the stairs on his left. He opened the door and walked in, surrounded by dark-wood paneling and the dreary voice of a female lounge singer from another era. Seeing all of the booths were full, he sat at the bar, which looked to be made of real wood. He noticed his clothes had finally dried. He searched behind the bar for his favorite brand of bai jiu but couldn’t find it. A pale woman with red hair who had been sitting in one of the booths emerged and stood next to him at the bar.

“A vodka Collins and a pint of Guinness for the gentleman.” The bartender, a man of more than fifty with a bushy gray mustache that twirled upward, raised an eyebrow at her and didn’t move. With her otherworldly red hair and white skin, she appeared to Harold as a nymph prepared to summon magical powers.

“Here,” she said as she looked at her phone and flicked the bartender some AR seashells symbolizing her payment and walked back to her booth.

“Here you are, sir,” the bartender said to him in an almost-exaggerated French accent as he placed the beer in front of him.

Harold grabbed the beer and walked over to the woman’s booth and sat down across from her.

“Are you lonely?” she said without looking at him.

“No,” he said.

“Good,” she said as she looked at her phone and smiled. “Which hotel are you staying at?”

“Hyatt.”

Her eyes widened with delight without looking up from her phone. She used her pinky to write her price in pink AR lipstick.

He nodded and led her outside to one of the waiting taxis. She looked at the Moroccan driver and then at Harold as she wrapped her legs around his left thigh and let her red velvet dress ride up to reveal her white skin above her black stocking.

As soon as she was in his hotel room and the door was closed, her demeanor became more sullen. After undressing, she seemed angry as she flexed her vaginal muscles and attempted to subdue his attempts to withhold his orgasm. When she finally succeeded in overcoming him, she turned over in the bed and lay motionless. He leaned over to make sure she was
still breathing. He lay back and flicked through some gambling sites before settling on a blackjack table without any other players. The clock flashed midnight as the last hand of blackjack was dealt by a Chinese woman in a black gown who stood at the foot of the bed. The redheaded nymph had been overwhelmed by the luxury of a five-star hotel and had fallen asleep in his arms. She had been eager to talk about her love of Paris and the cosmetics she used back at the bar. She had grown up in Dhahran because her father had been an engineer with an old oil company that existed before the Sino Saudi Oil Company (SSOC) was formed. The coincidence of it was disturbing, but he kept silent about that and everything else because she never asked him anything about himself. She awoke briefly with a gasp as he lost the last of the credit limit he had set for himself that evening. Blackjack was a rare indulgence he allowed himself when he was outside of Saudi Arabia and away from the religious police’s meticulous blocking of sites perceived to be morally reprehensible. But now it didn’t feel like an indulgence; it was just a meditation to calm his mind.

Still drunk with sexual satiation, he brushed the French girl’s hair with his fingers and smelled the perfume in it. Her skin was the color of milk, and from a certain perspective, she could almost be mistaken for Chinese. But the Western facial features and red hair made her irresistibly exotic. The paisley silk sheets prevented him from scratching his toe because they were too soft, so he got out of bed to scratch it on the carpet. From the window, he watched her exhale with a hint of exasperation directed at something in her dream. He hadn’t invited her to stay the night, and he realized she would probably want more money. He would bargain with her over breakfast. White women were sought after because of their scarcity, but their price in Paris where they were so plentiful was only a fraction of what it was in Bahrain. He watched her sleep, blissfully unaware of her value. Looking beyond her through the sound-proofed window, the streets of red-and-white car lights ran parallel to the pedestrians with phone projectors. The sidewalk was covered in a moving mosaic of animations and news reports and the latest football matches. The projectors also served as flashlights, since most of the streetlights had been smashed out during various protests. He turned over and listened to the vent move the cool, filtered air back and forth. His panic had given way to a resolve to do what was necessary to continue living. It occurred to him that the progression of his life had broken free from any connection to the past
and all the people in it. And anything that had happened in the past was no longer relevant. It was dead, but he wasn’t.

He awoke with the sunlight of dawn burning into his eyes. It was useless to try and sleep any later. He lay watching the ceiling fan sift through the projected image of a French news announcer named Claude. After slipping on his AR glasses, he adjusted the translation setting to French-Mandarin and handed them to the French girl as he woke her with a gentle push. “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered. He paused for a moment and waited for her to put on the glasses to see the words scroll up like a chat session. Then he grabbed his old standard-issue SSOC pair, which handled translation apps better than most standard consumer models. Not using AR eyewear was fashionable among the French, but he was tired of the cumbersome exchange of translated words across the small screen of her phone. She kept them on without protest. Outside, the air was moist and crisp; it felt more like early spring than summer. They slouched into opposing couches at a café in the middle of the wide sidewalk. The table umbrellas were not covered in solar cells blasting frigid outdoor AC down on the table in steamy swirls because it simply wasn’t necessary. Natural comfort. Pure luxury. Drinking the espresso, he savored the distinction between its heat and the naturally chilled ambient air brimming with ionic activity. Everything was dead in the desert, but there every molecule was allowed to flourish. He took in every person’s passing: what they were wearing, how they smelled, the colors and cuts and hairstyles so differentiated from a world of flowing white and black gowns that obscured everything. He wondered to himself where they were going; there were places to go that inspired all of the senses. But the smells, more than anything, brought back memories of a life that didn’t involve the protection of oil-processing plants in the desert. He could pick up traces of the damp, electrically infused stench that emanated from the subway and contrasted with the heavy, sweet aroma from the bakery. And there were the lingering smells of foods like pâté and ham being served freely and legally.

“I never want to leave this place,” he said to her as he followed a passing bus with his eyes. She was busy with her stylus comparing the brands and prices of the clothing passing women were wearing.

“Then you should stay,” she said as she continued her fashion searches.

“I can’t.”

“Why not? There are many Chinese staying here.”

“I have visa problems.”

“Oh?”

“And money…”

“You’re planning to pay me, right?”

“You want your money now?”

“I stayed the night.”

“Yes, you did. And now I’m buying you breakfast,” he said, pointing to the croissant on her plate.

“You know that’s not enough.”

“How much is enough? What do you think you’re worth?”

“More than a croissant.”

“Here,” he said, handing her a neat stack of currency. “And you can keep the soap you stole from my hotel room.”

“OK,” she said as she casually placed the money into her purse without counting it. As she stood up, she handed him his AR glasses and stuffed the last corner of her croissant into her mouth. He watched her walk away and waited for her to look back. She didn’t. They never did.

4

C
harlie arrived in front of the smoky glass and brushed steel lobby on the back of a taxi scooter. He was wearing a black poncho that the driver had handed him when it had started raining. He remembered the place. The last time he had been here was with Tonya and some brokers from Chi. They’d bought several rounds of vintage Grand Marnier for everyone at the bar and run up a tab far greater than his current net worth. He took off the glossy black poncho and handed it to the driver along with some bills to cover the fare and walked into the lobby without making eye contact with anyone. There was an elevator to the right of the others with
Chemical X
projected on the doors. When he got to the roof, the downpour had ended. He spotted Tonya sitting at a table under a large umbrella at the edge of the roof. The clear glass barrier at its edge was only knee-high.

“Nice view,” Charlie said as he sat down.

“Yup. Sure is,” Tonya said.

“Interesting choice of place…a little pricey for me these days…so, Chemical X…they mean opium, right?”

“The largest refinery in town used to stand here, but that was a long time ago. Anyway, I’m paying. Relax. It’s OK. I already ordered mango fois gras. I know how you love the fusion stuff.”

“That’s funny. You’re funny. Really.”

“You know Lauren went to work for Keith, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“They’re together, Charlie.”

“No, I didn’t know that.” Charlie felt the barometric pressure change.

“Funny how he pulled it off. Kept his book of clients and got on the next plane. Don’t know if he’s making his clients money.”

“What about you, Tonya? How’d you come out of this all happy and unscathed?”

“That’s simple. I’m Vietnamese.”

“You’re American.”

“Well, that too. But you know how things work here.”

Charlie looked out at the setting sun, which produced vivid shades of purple, red, and orange the way only a polluted city sky could. “You’re a good lawyer.”

“As good as they let me be. How much money do you have?”

“Nothing.”

“Hmm. I heard about your dong-dollar position. It was going well for you.”

“It was.”

“Have you tried looking for a job?”

“Where? Here? Who’s going to hire me? You?”

“Look, Charlie. I probably shouldn’t tell you this…”

“Right. What?”

“I have some friends who seem to think they want to pin this whole thing on you.”

“I’m innocent. I wasn’t involved with any of that stuff.”

“You’re not that naïve. You’ve just never been in this situation. You’re a white guy in Asia, Charlie. A lot of people have lost a lot of money.”

“Yeah, they have. But not because of me.”

“That’s kind of neither here nor there.”

“And you call yourself a lawyer.”

“You know, Charlie. I know people in…well, less-reputable brokerage houses that would be willing to employ you. You could work off the books… pick up a percentage and get yourself a decent lawyer for your defense.”

“The token white guy? I’d say that’s what got me into this mess in the first place.”

“Suit yourself. I don’t know what else I can tell you. I’m not cheap.”

“I never said you were.”

Tonya laughed as she looked through the smog at her private AR session displaying a flock of colorful parrots as the waiter silently placed their plates on the table. She waited for the waiter to leave before she spoke. “The point is—I’ve offered you a way to get things back on track.”

“And I appreciate that. I really do. We’ve known each other long enough. I didn’t know what was going on—you know that.”

“I know, Charlie. But that’s history now. So, what’s it going to be? What are we going to do?”

Charlie inhaled deeply through his nostrils as he stabbed a sliver of mango with his fork and held it up at eye level. “You know…I like mango fois gras. Sweet. Succulent. I missed it.”