At the Heart of the Universe by Samuel Shem

straight ahead as if she’s blind, one hand out, palm up, begging. The palm is the same color as the rest of her skin, a dirty dark tan. It moves back and forth like a broken-down metronome, pleading. Before her, and tied to her other wrist by a bit of worn twine, is a skinny child, a toddler, still a little wobbly on his feet. The boy walks unsteadily back and forth to the limit of the twine. His face and hands and bare feet are filthy, the same yellow-tan dirt color as the old woman’s. He totters toward Clio and holds out a hand to her—even the palm is filthy. The fingers are thin as pencils, the arm hardly as thick as a broomstick. The old woman, alerted by the sharp tug on the twine, smiles—her teeth are stained almost black by a lifetime of betel chew—and starts talking to them.
    Wanting to remove himself from this scene, Pep looks away.
    As he stares at the entrance to the courtyard, he sees a woman walk in from around the corner and come toward them. She is tall and slender—“willowy” is the word that comes to mind—and young, maybe in her thirties. Unlike many of the women they’ve seen in Changsha, she wears a white silk dress slit up the side and covered with pink lotus blossoms, the silk flowing down to just above her ankles, revealing tan feet in blood-red sandals. A matching red parasol protects her from the heat. As she gets closer, his breath catches in his chest—she is beautiful. Beautiful and sensual. A long oval face with high cheekbones and large, dark eyes and shoulder-length black hair—which, in the bright sun, glints with an almost imaginary touch of red—like Katie’s. Thin and graceful like Katie, too. And unlike most of the Chinese women he’s seen, she looks straight into his eyes and holds his gaze. Her smile seems to him, somehow, not casual, but deep, even elegant —also unusual, here in rural China. He smiles back. She turns and walks across the yard and goes up onto the veranda and into an office of the police station. He can still see her standing in line, waiting her turn.
    â€œPep,” Clio whispers to him, clutching his arm, “did you see that woman?”
    â€œBeautiful—incredibly beautiful.”
    â€œNo, no—I mean she looks just like Katie.”
    â€œYeah, I thought that too—”
    â€œ Just like! Of all the thousands of Chinese faces we’ve seen, she’s the only one who looks just like Katie.”
    â€œYes, she does, but—”
    â€œThe same face, eyes, hair—the same build?”
    They stare at her, standing in line in the doorway.
    â€œWhat’s up, doc?” says Rhett, badly mimicking a Bugs Bunny accent. He too is staring at the woman in the doorway. Clearly he has overheard their conversation.
    Clio feels a tug on her sleeve, and reflexively pulls away.
    The beggar woman is standing up, pulling at her insistently, roughly. Rhett speaks harshly to her, but she doesn’t let go. He tries to pry her fingers off Clio’s sleeve. It takes him a while to do so, and meanwhile the twine has come loose from her wrist and the little boy is wandering across the courtyard, straight into the traffic of bicycles and motorbikes and cars.
    â€œRhett! Pep!” Clio cries out, afraid for the child. “Hold her—I’ll get him.”
    She rushes off toward the boy, who is disappearing down into another doorway in the rabbit warren of the police station.
    Rhett takes hold of the woman, but she struggles free. Pep, repelled by the smell and dirt, helps Rhett walk the woman back to the wall. Wailing, gesturing toward them for money and then to where the boy has disappeared, she squats down again. Pep looks over to Clio, who has the boy by the hand. The child is resisting her grip, but feebly.
    Pep turns away again, and sees the woman in the white silk dress and red sandals come back out of the doorway. She glances at him once more and smiles, then puts up