I let the possibility enter her mind that our relationship would extend beyond China, and I hoped it would. With half an hour to wait, the following morning we leaned against the nearby shaft of the subway: the train tracks below us, the subway roof above us, people around us, looking at us, our different structured and color faces, different compared to theirs: we were gringo like (colored hair, blue eyes), they of course, Chinese. She had brave eyes this morning, a bit sad, but brave nonetheless. Her dress was bright today (I was surprised she elected to wear a dress at all), and she had long socks on her legs I noticed. She helped herself to one of her cigarettes peering at the diagram on the subway wall, it was a map of the destinations the subway went and stopped at; it actually seemed to go around the city somewhat. Straight-ahead came the train, we were the only ones out of 125-folks at the hotel, our full tour group, that was brave enough to take the subway. A few of the folks talked to us about it, but at the last minute chickened out in fear they'd get lost. But I assured them, being a seasoned traveler: there was no way one could get lost: how can one get lost with the name of the hotel in their pockets, and a subway system that went all around the city, taxies, rickshaws, and buses all over the city. I mean, if you got five dollars in your pocket, you could go take a taxi back across the whole city if need be; or ride the subway all day long and accidentally pump into your hotel. But I left it at that, and Sandy and I went alone. We had even asked Frank and Gloria, but they had other things to do, shopping I expect. Up and into the archway of the train-car we went, and within twenty minutes we got off the subway train (after looking at the map on the car wall we decided to get off before we ended up in Tibet); for the most part, we were lost in some other unknown part of the city. It was stimulating, not sure if Sandy thought so, I can't remember, she seemed to have little concentration to spare all of a sudden. While on the train, I was turning the pages of an English version of the local Chinese periodical, and to be blunt, it had nothing to say good about America. It kind of baffled me. I mean here we were, their guests, and they were slamming us on every page. "Are you sure we're safe," Sandy comment to me as we walked down a busy street. I was pleased with the ride, and I didn't want to exaggerate, and I said, "We are completely lost," but that is part of the fun, let's see what we can find, and I'll get us back to the Hotel." "I love you," she said aloud (in my mind I said: now how did that happen?) and I left it where it lay. We walked for about another ten-minutes, saw an old woman cooking some eggs with peppers, and a horde of other things, on a street stove (vender type) of some kind, it looked good, and we stopped, and I asked her to make us each one, and we ate, and there was gaiety in the old woman's eyes, her simple task had obviously caught our attention, we took a picture of her nonetheless. And we ate heartily. Sandy was at this point, literally hanging onto me for dear life, "Taxi," I yelled as one went by, it stopped, and it took us back to our hotel. She released a long sigh as she walked through the hotel doors, and onto dinner we went, and back to her room thereafter. Actually, it was seemingly odd to stay in one room only, there was no sense in having two rooms, so we spent all the time together trading off rooms, and so we traded off rooms each day to stay in and sleep, make love. And Sandy was more than ready each time we got into our apartments. |
