The Foreigner by Francie Lin Page A

him. When he saw me, he stopped dead.
    "Hello," I said.
    "You!" He pointed. "You hear about the game? Come back to take it in the balls,
shibushi?
A little risky-risky?"
    "I need to talk to Little P," I said.
    "Oh?" A glance over his shoulder, vaguely, as if Little P might be standing there. Then he crooked his finger at me. "You come."
    I followed him into the room. There had been a methodical sound of clacking up and down the corridor, like stones or marbles being rolled around, and I saw now that Big One was presiding over a session of mah-jongg, pushing the carved tiles to the center of an open table as a crowd looked on. The clacking stopped when I came in.
    "The Xiao P, he busy," said Poison. He was wearing a poker visor, which made his sallow face look even thinner and more rodent-like.
    "Busy with what? It’s Friday night."
    He shrugged and sat down at the table.
    "Xiao P have big plan," he said scornfully. "Too big for tell us. You ask Shu-Shu"—meaning his father, Uncle—"he tell you what Xiao P do. Xiao P tell Shu-Shu every-ting,
shibushi, Da Yi
? Like little baby." He laughed and slapped the table in front of Big One, who merely grunted and adjusted his wall of tiles minutely, not looking at me. Poison tapped his cigarette into a cut-glass dish. He had a slim silver case for his smokes, a fine affectation, and his black linen shirt showed expensive stitching on the pocket and hems. If he resented Little P’s closeness with Uncle, he also seemed to live high off the proceeds of my brother’s labor. His little rat nose twitched. I hated his skinny swagger, and the way he spoke of my brother as if Little P were nothing—Uncle’s lapdog.
    "You now want play?" Poison inclined his head toward the table.
    "Fine," I said. I took off my jacket. "I’m in."
    There was a half-beat of silence in the room as Poison looked up, surprised. Then he grinned unpleasantly and jerked his chin at the man sitting across from him. The man got up and moved to the sidelines. Poison placed four tiles in the center of the table, and we drew: East Wind, North Wind, South, West. Some reshuffling of the seats, a throw of the dice, and then the game began.
    Thick, stale cigarette smoke hung over the table like a storm front, tempering the white light with a dirty yellow cast. My hand was scattered: a mixing of winds and dragons, with a head of bamboo ones and a few copper tiles, several shy of a short straight. I wasn’t a novice; my mother had taught me how to play so that I could fill in on afternoons when she and her two friends from the local commerce association had their game. In the past, my strategy had always been to play my hand purely, as if in isolation, without too much attention to what the others were doing. It had been easy enough to guess the old ladies’ hands from the way they licked their lips when they were nervous, and anyway, we played for Luden’s honey lemon cough drops. This was not the same. No talk, no pleasantry, only a hard, diamondlike concentration broken at intervals by a tense
"Peng!"
Tiles were thrown down recklessly, no time to think or plot: nine of bamboo, North Wind, a run of coppers broken and mismatched on the green baize. White Dragon, green. Big One discarded a South Wind.
    "Kong."
I snatched his tile and displayed my set. Poison scowled, deprived of his turn. A lucky draw gave me a three of coppers; Big One threw out an eight of coppers.
    "Chi!"
I knocked back my straight.
    Gradually I felt the attention in the room turn toward me, and a sweet, heady fire filled my veins. A ready hand, wanting only a two of coppers, a White or Red Dragon. I put down a South Wind.
    "Peng,"
called Poison, grabbing it. Big One was studying his tiles without interest, his heavy eyes dull and unblinking like those of a limp, bloated fish, but I caught him exchanging a look with Poison, a bright, enigmatic look almost of joy. Red Dragon on the green baize.
    "Peng!"
I shouted, reaching for it, but I didn’t have the