RAFAEL (Zhang)

"I'm sorry, the only housing we have available is in upstate Pennsylvania." The clerk looks over my yellow tunic and gray tights, my Chinese boots. "Where are you staying now, comrade?"

"I am staying with a friend in the city," I say.

"Well," the young man leans forward and lowers his voice, "if I were you that's where I'd stay. We've been getting a lot of complaints about the buildings."

I nod. "Put them up too fast?"

"Overextended the water table. The water pressure is so low that only the first five stories get water."

"How many stories are there?"

He pulls out a brochure, white buildings off in the middle distance, trees. "Nine," he says, showing me the brochure.

"What do you do for water if you're on the ninth floor?"

"There are taps in the yard. You take a bucket downstairs and fill it up." He shakes his head. "It's crazy."

"Ah," I say, nodding. "Can I have this?"

"Sure," he says, handing me the brochure.

Back in New York. All I wanted was to get home and here I am, standing in line in the housing office so I can be offered a flat without running water. I turned down job offers in Wuxi for this. This is my second office this morning, I've already waited an hour and fifteen minutes to see an Employment Counselor at the Bureau of Employment, only to be told that since I was specialized labor I needed to make an appointment with the Office of Occupational Resources. And now I've waited in line for twenty-five minutes to be told the only thing available is a frigging flat in Pennsylvania without running water. I wonder if the architect that designed this office designed Pennsylvania housing. It's institutional green and needs painting. The floor is concrete, once painted green. Behind the counter hangs a fly strip, curled into a helix by age.

There had to be flies in China, I think, climbing a narrow stairway surfaced in black, industrial no-slip material, I just never noticed them. (Right, flies in the Wuxi Complex. A fly in Wuxi would have realized it hubris and died of embarrassment.) Every public stairwell in New York seems to be surfaced in that squishy no-slip stuff. I don't use it when I design because disposing of it cleanly is difficult and besides, it's ugly. New York has gotten around the disposal problem by never disposing of it. It's nearly indestructible, but going into the subway it's worn to holes. The holes provide slippery spots and heel catches, which contradicts the only reason for using it, that is, to provide a non-slip surface.

New York, in fact, the States seemed to suffer from a serious lack of follow through. I understand that maintenance is expensive, but what about the apartments out in Pennsylvania? When they found there was insufficient water pressure, why did they keep building? (Because where else are they going to put people.)

The subway station smells, a familiar, reassuring stink. Home again, home again. People talk all around me, their voices rise and fall, get to the end of the sentence and sing a bit, falling to say this is the end, rising to ask a question. Not like Mandarin, the staccato clatter of tones. I lean against the door, under the sign that says 'Do not lean against doors' in English, Spanish and Chinese. Like the warnings in Chinese stations not to push, some things are meant to be ignored.

A woman sits under one of the signs that tell you where to call for information about resettlement on Mars, she is reading a textbook on med tech. She's very serious. She wears a waitress uniform, all day she flash heats cheap food. I imagine her on fire in her class, going into work the next day and watching the elaborate physics of the bodies around her, the balancing act of a woman leaning down to get something off a shelf, her whole body flexing and relaxing in symphony. The waitress amazed, her whole world expanding outward, suddenly complex and fascinating.

I know she's studying to be a med tech, a job not really different from flash heating food in terms of intellectual stimulation. She's doing it so she can get her certificate and get out of her free market job, get real benefits. The train stops at De Kalb, she gets out and crosses the platform to wait for the M train. The Mystery train we used to call it when we were kids, because we didn't know anything about the places it went.

I get out too, and upstairs to cross to the Atlantic station, connected by tunnel to De Kalb. At Atlantic Avenue someone says, "Zhong Shan?"

It's a young woman I don't recognize, an ABC, I think. Short hair in the style that all the girls in New York seem to be wearing, shaved high at the temples and glossily varnished everywhere else.

"You don't know me, do you," she says. "It's San-xiang. Qian San-xiang."

For a moment I can't place her, the face doesn't go with anyone and then I remember San-xiang. Ugly little San-xiang. She has had her face fixed. She looks normal.

"San-xiang," I say, "you're very pretty! How are you?"

"Okay," she says. "How are you?"

"All right. What are you doing, still working at Cuo?" I remember the place where she worked, that's good.

She nods, "For now. I'll be leaving in March."

"Transferring?" I ask.

"No," she says, "I'm going to Mars. I'm going to join a commune called Jingshen." She says it flatly, without excitement, watching my reaction.

"Shentong de shen?" I ask. Which meaning of jingshen? It can mean 'essence' or 'profound' or a host of other things.

"Vigor," she says, which sounds like a Cleansing Winds name.

"I remember you were always interested in communes," I say lamely, wondering why anyone would go to Mars, wondering if she has any idea what it will be like. Of course, she has moved before, when she was a girl and her family came from China, but surely she doesn't realize how wrenching it will be to exile herself from home.

"You look like you are doing well," she says.

"I've been studying in China, I've only been back a week."

She asks the usual questions, where in China, what did I study. She's changed, she seems older. She is older, it's been four years since I saw San-xiang, she must be, what, twenty-six?

"Let's go get coffee," I suggest.

She hesitates a moment then shrugs. "All right."

We find a place to get coffee on the concourse between the Atlantic and Pacific stops. It's a depressing little place that, like most places in the subway, never sees sunlight. We sit down at metal tables with pressed simulated wood grain. "How is your father?" I ask.

She smiles. "About the same. Still believes he has the right to run everybody's life."

We don't talk about the last time we saw each other, when her father came to collect her at my apartment, but we do talk a little about kite racing. The conversation lags.

"Why are you going to Mars?" I ask.

"I've been corresponding with someone there for years," she says. I admire the philosophy of the commune, it is a good compromise between the ideal and the practical. I think it would be a good thing to start over in a place where people pay attention to what is important."

It's a set speech, she must say this a lot. "So you'll go alone?"

"Yes," she says, a little defiantly, "they'll be my community."

"What does your family think?" I am sure Foreman Qian has not taken this quietly.

"They're adjusting to the idea," she says, evasively.

The conversation sputters again, we both sip our drinks. We were strangers when we met, strangers when we parted, we are strangers now.

"What are you doing," she asks, "now that you are back from China?"

"I don't know. Waiting until I get my life in order. I have to go to the Office of Occupational Resources and see about getting a job."