I'll tell you what creeps me out about Chinatown at night. There are no people and there are no streetlights. Even the store signs are unlit. You have no idea where you are. You could be anywhere. The entire neighborhood is shut up in utter gloom. As soon as we got there, I understood why Zelda would want to hide in this dump, being blind. Not that she was blind, but she pretended to be blind, and what better place to pretend to be blind than in utter gloom? She was in love with gloom, my sister, not the word but the meaning of the word. My sister never cared for words. She could go for days without uttering a single one. She'd go around pretending to be deaf and dumb, on top of blind. Then she'd stop pretending for an hour or a day and in a burst of prolixity she would explain to you how language perverted and distorted communication, and how, if we only did what animals did, meow or bray or grunt or what have you, or if we just limited ourselves to three or four essential words such as "humph" or "yum" or "oh," we would understand each other much better, and we wouldn't lie to each other all the time as we do now with our excessive vocabulary. Anyway, we were in the utter gloom of Chinatown, Hannah and I, and she was saying this was the place. I didn't see any place. We were outside a building with no entrance that I could see. This much I could see: two shops with the roller shutters down, above them a fire escape and no light coming from any of the building's windows. It was obvious nobody lived here. Then I saw a third shop. Funny I saw it last, since we were standing right in front of it. It was also closed. The roller shutters were up, but the lights were all out. She said that was the one; it was a coffee shop. I said it was closed, couldn't she see? She said it wasn't. I pressed against the glass panes of the door. I could see nothing at all. She said I should try the door; it should be open. I did, and it opened. We entered gingerly. We couldn't see a thing. I whispered, "Do you have a flashlight, a match?" She told me to shut up; people were sleeping. I said I thought she said it was a coffee shop and it was open. She shushed me again; people were sleeping. There was a soft gurgling sound, water flowing, a fountain. Or was it the sound of people sleeping? We stood there, trying to adjust to the utter gloom. I wonder why I won't stop saying "utter gloom"? I suppose it's because I find the combination pleasant, musically. I'm especially fond of the word "gloom," not to the point of pretending to be blind, as my sister does, but yes, there's something appealing about that word. It rhymes with "bloom" but also with "tomb." And "room." And "whom." And "boom." And "doom." It's a pretty word, what can I say? Just say it. Gloom. Gloooooooooooom. See? It's a beautiful word. It's also visually pleasant, with those two O's before the M and after the L. What I am not that fond of, curiously, is the meaning. I'm not the gloomy type. On the contrary, I'm always bright and cheerful. It would be much nicer if "gloom" meant "light" or "happiness" or even "ice cream" instead of the other way around, don't you agree? That's one thing I've never managed to figure out: why don't words mean what they sound? For example, the word "succulent." It's an ugly word; it doesn't sound succulent. Why not have ugly words sound ugly and beautiful words sound beautiful? "Ugly" is not an ugly word. So why the hell should it mean "ugly"? What I'd do if I were a linguist or a lexicographer, I'd invent a language where all the words meant what they sounded. "Ugly" would be "lcucrowcx," or something equally unpronounceable, and "beautiful" would be something as pleasant-sounding as "plasmadora" or "lullallee" or "gloomy." Anyway, as I was saying, we were in the coffee shop, in utter gloom, I mean Hannah and I. We were standing there, afraid to advance, because we couldn't see a thing. And then, as we were trying to adjust to the gloom, something utterly surprising happened. She slipped her hand into mine, and she squeezed, she squeezed hard. My hand went limp from sheer excitement, bewilderment, outrage, love. It was the strangest, warmest hand-squeeze. It felt as if some little animal was being delivered, being squeezed out of that birthing hand onto mine. I could see her face, Hannah's face, in my mind's eye, in the utter gloom, how lcucrowcx she was but at the same time so plasmadora. And then I felt her lips on my ear, and she whispered very, very, very softly, "Let's get out of here, let's find a hotel." I was ready to explode. I was ready to burst out of that coffee shop and dash to the nearest, trashiest hotel. But by then our eyes were getting used to the utter gloom and it wasn't as utterly gloomy as all that. It was beginning to dawn and we were getting some light from the outside. I noticed for example the tables, all around us, with all the chairs on top. I saw the counter. I even noticed the pictures on the wall, though I couldn't see what they were, just that they were pictures, framed, hanging on the wall. I extricated my hand from Hannah's and tiptoed toward the rear of the room. That's when I noticed we were not alone. There was a woman sitting in the corner, on a tall, wide stool, with her eyes shut and her legs crossed and her feet on her thighs and her hands resting on her legs, palms facing up, thumbs touching forefingers. I advanced toward this sleeping sitting lady, who was separated from us by a little stream or canal whose source was a fountain in the opposite corner of the room. There was a bamboo bridge over the stream, and as I set foot on this bridge, to cross it, a bamboo shoot snapped in two. What a loud snap! The lady's eyes popped open. I said I was sorry. She saw me and she grinned, and I was close enough now, and though it was still gloomy, I could see she was missing a tooth. It was my sister. I cried, "Zelda! Zelda! It's you!" What happened next I don't quite remember. Someone thumped me on the nape. Was it Hannah? It must have been. In any case, I passed out, and I was out for some time. I had the wildest dream; it was a sequel to that dream I'd dreamed in Jeff's apartment when the nude psychoanalyst drugged me. Again I dreamed of those vagina fish in Stonehenge and that jungle full of vipers. The Jew was slurping from a plastic dish some gooey Chinese soup, while eagle snipers circling above were shitting marmalade. I cried, "Let's get the hell away from here! That shit is poison, man!" "Don't be afraid," he said. "The only thing to fear is fear. Now shut your mouth and shut your eyes and see: your sister's over there, behind that bush." I shut my eyes, but saw an apple tree and said, "That's not a bush." The Jew said, "Hush! You'll never taste the tang of Zelda's blight until you find her teeth and feel her bite."
When I came to, it was late in the morning. The light was stinging me and it was a while before I could open my eyes. I was in another room, on a rug on the floor. My head hurt. There was a huge aquarium full of big fat fish in bright colors covering an entire wall and illuminated from below with jarring beams of white light. Then I saw someone I recognized. He was sitting on the floor, Japanese-style, with his ass on his heels, and he was grinning at me. It was that Chinaman that had poisoned me with ginger tea.
I said, "Where am I? What did you do with my sister? Who the hell are you?"
"You sista she fine!" he said. "I go fix you medici tea ginga and dong quai! You have tea, you feel betta!"
"No," I said. "I don't want your tea. Where's my sister?"
"Zelda she gone," he said.
"Where?" I said.
"Old lady you saw not Zelda," he said.
"Huh?" I said.
"You saw old Russia lady clean my house," he said.
"Who?" I said. "A Russian lady? No, that was my sister, with the missing--"
"Not you sista," he said. "You stupid? Old Russia lady clean my house you saw. Zelda she no trust Nazi hipsta pull out her tees. She come to me she say, Hell me, Han, Nazi hipsta wanna alla tees, Nazi hipsta they come steal alla tees. So I bring old Russia lady clean my house. I give her hundra dolla to sit Buddha. She old Russia lady widda toos missing, Nazi hipsta see missing toos say she Zelda. Nazi hipsta canna tell, Nazi hipsta stupid."
"So," I said. I wasn't sure I understood him. "Are you saying that wasn't my sister?"
"Not you sista! Russia lady clean my house! You stupid! You Nazi hipsta too?" he said, and he laughed his ass off. He must have laughed for three whole minutes, a real case of the giggles, his shoulders bobbing up and down and his arms swinging in every direction.
"Well?" I said. "Where did she go?"
"I fix you tea," he said, "you feel betta."
"No!" I said. "Tell me where Zelda went."
He got up. "You sista she gone."
"Gone where?" I said.
"She go Russia Tees Room," he said.
"Huh?" I said.
"Russia Tees Room," he said.
"The Russian Tea Room?" I said. "You mean the one on 57th Street?"
"No," he said. "Russia Tees Room."
"The Russian Teeth Room?" I said. "What the hell is that?"
He was gone. He reappeared five minutes later with a bamboo tray carrying an ornate teapot and two little china bowls, very dainty and fragile but lined with some sort of furry material. He sat down Japanese style and poured us each some tea. I figured: if he's having some too, it's probably not poison, but on the other hand he might be immune, and I'd already had a pretty awful experience with his teas. So I said I wasn't thirsty, but he insisted, shoving the dainty furry thing in my face, saying it was good for me and I would feel much better and all that, and eventually, as he was shoving the stupid tea cup in my face, I parried his thrust. I didn't mean to but it happened that way, and the cup went flying with the liquid splashing all over the place, and it hit the glass of aquarium with a pretty serious bang for such a dainty cup. Fortunately nothing happened. Both aquarium and cup remained intact. I was glad. I was getting tired of smashing things all the time.
