At the Heart of the Universe by Samuel Shem Page A

her red parasol against the sun and turns and walks away, disappearing again around the concrete gateway into the alley.
    He thinks to tell Clio, but she is in the far corner of the courtyard, trying to get the boy to move. About fifteen Chinese men and women have gathered around them and are talking loudly. Rhett and Pep leave the old woman and help Clio bring the boy back. Rhett shoos away the Chinese, and ties the twine around the old woman’s wrist.
    â€œPep, let’s give her something.”
    â€œFine,” he says, taking out a five-yuan bill—nothing for them, a lot for the beggar. Clio puts it in the boy’s hand. The boy immediately gives it to the old woman, who smiles her black smile and bows her head up and down in thanks, and reaches out to try to grasp Clio’s hand. Clio smiles and nods at her, but backs away.
    They walk to the bus. Clio looks in. Katie is still asleep on the seat. “Thank God Katie didn’t see that!”
    â€œNo fooling,” Pep says, taking out his packet of sterile Handi Wipes. “But you did good. Want one?”
    She wipes her hands, looking toward the alcove where they saw the woman with Katie’s face.
    â€œShe left,” Pep says.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI saw her walk out.”
    â€œAnd you didn’t tell me? I wanted to, you know, well, talk to her.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause she...” She stops herself. “Hurry, come on, get in the bus.” She pushes Pep and Rhett inside. “Rhett, tell the driver to try to find her. Go back down that road. Shit! Hurry up!”
    Rhett blinks, and stares at her for a long moment, as if calculating something mysterious or, Pep thinks, profitable. “Sure. No problem. Let’s go. Saddle up!”
    With what seems to Clio like excruciating slowness, the driver backs up, out, and into the narrow alley they came in on. The woman is gone.
    â€œGo to the end,” Clio says, “try the other roads. Pep, you look out that side, I’ll do this—Rhett, please—faster?”
    â€œOkay, okay.” He leans over the driver’s shoulder and whips him on with a few harsh exhortations. The bus jumps, reaches the end of the alley, turns onto a larger road. Nothing. They drive up and down, staring into every doorway and alley. Nothing.
    The bus bangs through the fractious traffic. They drive here and there, up and down the nearby streets where she might have walked. No luck.
    â€œWho are you looking for?” Katie asks, sleepily.
    Back at the hotel there is a new banner in the lobby:
    WELCOME TO SEE YOU AGAIN
    They hire Rhett for some sightseeing the next afternoon.
    Up in their room, Katie grabs her bathing suit and bolts for the pool. They try to keep up, calling out to her to wait in the lobby. Her long legs seem to glide down the grand marble staircase. She has always been athletic, like Clio. When they go for runs together Katie seems to float, as if she’s imitating one of her beloved animals, a fawn, or a foal.
    Soon they are sitting beside the pool, watching her play in the water.
    â€œClio, listen,” Pep says. He feels the chilly fizz of his first Tsingtao since lunch flow down into his body. “It’s impossible.”
    â€œYes,” she says. “Yes, of course. Impossible.”
    6
    That evening they decide on nostalgia—a birthday bash for Katie at the Jiangjiang Hotel, where they stayed when they came to Changsha to adopt her. Rhett has gone for the day, but the Grand Sun concierge arranges for a taxi to take them, wait, and bring them back—writing the instructions in Chinese on a hotel card. As they drive across Changsha in a taxi, they recognize almost nothing of the city. In a decade it has grown from three million to six. It used to be a quaint jumble of small streets and two-lane roads lined with one-story shacks where people sold their wares; now the roads have been widened, the small buildings destroyed. Blunt