The Foreigner by Francie Lin Page B

pair anymore, I’d broken it up and not remembered the play: penalty.
    Afterward, I could never remember at what point the reality of my position dawned upon me. It might have been after Poison’s third
peng
off my discards; or when I looked over at Big One and saw sweat shining on his beetled brow. A pair of eight bamboo, double birds, mixed straights. Big One took the first round. Dice were thrown; the game began again. Time shrouded itself in a feverish haze. Each time I looked up at Poison, he seemed to be getting farther and farther away. And then suddenly he would loom up in my sight, his gray-capped teeth bared, jeering. The others pressed up like phantoms around us, soundless and intent.
    "Mah-jongg!"
Tiles were knocked back on the felt: three
pengs
of North, South, West; a head of East, a trio of birds in stark simplicity.
    "I thank you," said Poison, gloating. The thin metallic taste of blood glazed my lip. I looked at his hand wonderingly as the others murmured, low and distorted, stretching and lighting their cigarettes: he had won off a tile I had discarded. There would be penalties against me for that play. Poison’s face shone as Big One totted up the score, and in it I saw naked appetite.
    "Eight-oh-oh-oh," said Poison comfortably. He and Big One whooped wildly.
    "Eight-oh-oh-oh what?" I felt suddenly cold and bewildered. "What does that mean?"
    "You-ess dollar," said Big One, his English suddenly very loud and clear.
    "I don’t have it," I said. My cousins only laughed. Big One stretched luxuriously as he got up, the smile of a fat, satisfied cat widening his face. They had not understood.
    "Zhende, zhende,"
I said. Truly, truly.
"Wo bu neng fuqian."
    They stopped laughing rather quickly.
    "Shenma yisi?"
asked Poison—rhetorically, I hoped.
    "I mean I don’t have that money. No one explained…" I trailed off; it was plain that no one understood.
    Poison took a step forward. "What mean? You have money," he stated, as if it were a fact. "Of course you have."
    "I don’t."
    He straightened his visor. The air in the room had changed. The others surveyed us with great attention.
    "You
have,
" repeated Poison.
    "I just said I don’t.
Wo meiyou
."
    "Means, you not have money
here
."
    The others gathered closer, forming a tight enclave, and I suddenly understood that they were not disinterested parties.
    "You not have money here," repeated Poison. He rubbed his sharp, ferretlike chin and smiled disingenuously. "It okay." He patted me on the shoulder. "We wait for you to bring."
    "And if I don’t?"
    A shadow passed briefly by the open door: Little P, who did not look in but continued down the corridor to the main office. Poison’s glance followed mine.
    "Your
didi,
he… to my father, very important," said Poison. "Like son. Better than son. He think."
    He popped a Life Saver in his mouth and crunched it slowly, circling the game table. Big One looked on, impatient, wishing, I supposed, that he had paid more attention during his English classes. Cherry-flavored breath filled the room.
    Poison circled once, twice, then stopped and leaned in close.
    "If Xiao P go," he said softly, "is too bad,
shibushi
?"
    "Go where? Where would he go?"
    Poison shrugged. "Taipei very expensive city. He need at least eight-oh-oh-oh you-ess dollar, I think. Cost of living very expensive. Cost of—how do you call it?
Baoxian
. Insurity."
    "Insurance."
    "Henh."
He inclined his head in mock gravity. "Taipei look safe,
shibushi
? But it not safe. You trust my word,
didi
. Accident happen. Man disappear. You find him later, maybe. In the river, on the shore. You maybe not know him at first, he is so—
zenma shuo?
—change. Water no good for the beauty. Make the skin rot. Make it peel away. Finger"—he seized my wrist—"and toe."
    Softly, ever so softly, he bent my forefinger back. I tried to yank out of his grip, but he held on, his stringy little hand like iron wire around mine.
    "Yige yige de,"
he murmured, tracing an imagined