Read Online A Cup of Light by Nicole Mones - Free Book Online
Authors: Nicole Mones
Tags: Fiction
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shaped by nature, stood up punctuating the grass. Four rooms looked inward. Three of them had windows that were jammed: blue-and-white porcelain, severed stone Buddha heads, cups with fanned arrangements of brushes, knockoff ceramic
san-cai
camels and horses after the manner of the Tang Dynasty.
She saw at once that foreigners lived here, long-term residents. They used arty fakes to evince their personas, to specify and declare themselves. She did the same; she knew she did. She liked to think she did it with greater deliberation.
At home, in New York, the rooms of her apartment overflowed. In this she was like her mother, who had similarly packed the little Virginia place in which sheâd grown up. She remembered easily the ripe tang of humidity on a day twenty-five years before, as they stood in the summer flea market together, rifling a bin of old buttons. Those were the times she remembered her mother happy, walking home, laden with finds, eyes alight with new things; she remembered herself basking in this reflection.
Though Liaâs apartment was full, her objects were fakesâgreat fakes. She had phony Russian icons and da Vinci drawings, a heaped-up altar of Buddhist statuary, and a Fabergé egg. And she had her pots, of course, the few copies sheâd found that were good enough to live with. She was very demanding when it came to the pots in her home. And then her books; she kept her best, most transporting porcelain books stacked in squat columns, around the floor. She knew where everything was. The place mirrored her mind. She could put her hands on a book, on an image, in an instant. Now,
her
apartment was interesting, she thought with a vain thrill as she cast an appraising eye around the lit-up windows.
She saw a movement on the path and stopped. A thin cat with butterscotch stripes and high, skulking hindquarters walked in front of her.
She called to it. It froze.
She sank close to the ground, called it again. The animal lifted its amber eyes and looked at her, tail straight up and cocking steadily.
âBe that way,â she said to it. Then she stood and looked at the room at the end of the court. Vermilion support columns framed the door; its glass panel was etched in a repeating wood-scroll pattern. But the windows were empty. They were hung with plain white cloth at half-height, for privacy. Nothing else.
Just then a light flipped on in the room. She stepped out of the pool of brightness. A fair-haired man with a boxy chest walked across. He was carrying something. A CD player. He was changing the disc, and he spun the new one as he dropped it in; it caught the light. She held her breath. But he wore headphones. He couldnât hear her.
He could hear music, though; she could tell by the rhythm in his step as he passed out of view. American, she thought. Though she couldnât say why. It might have been carriage, or maybe attitude, or a way of wearing clothes. But she could tell.
She backed up. Then she was in the shadows and she slipped back out under the irregular rock gate, into the circle of lamplight, past the geysering fountain and the driveway, through the main gate, to the street.
Lia made her way to one of the theme restaurants currently popular in Beijing. She liked them. Some were based on gimmicks. There was a place called Fatty's, for instance, with a big triple-beam scale right inside the door. Anybody who weighed over one hundred kilos got thirty percent off for their whole table.
Other places were based on historical eras. Those were Liaâs favorites. There were the Maoist places, the Cultural Revolution places, the imperial places. The restaurant she walked into now was a faux-world of 1920s Beijing. The staff sported frog-button tunics, while old-fashioned acrobats, singers, and storytellers entertained from the stage. The food ran to pickled radishes and cabbage in mustard seed dressing and earthy braised soybeans mixed with the chopped leaves of the
san-cai
camels and horses after the manner of the Tang Dynasty.
She saw at once that foreigners lived here, long-term residents. They used arty fakes to evince their personas, to specify and declare themselves. She did the same; she knew she did. She liked to think she did it with greater deliberation.
At home, in New York, the rooms of her apartment overflowed. In this she was like her mother, who had similarly packed the little Virginia place in which sheâd grown up. She remembered easily the ripe tang of humidity on a day twenty-five years before, as they stood in the summer flea market together, rifling a bin of old buttons. Those were the times she remembered her mother happy, walking home, laden with finds, eyes alight with new things; she remembered herself basking in this reflection.
Though Liaâs apartment was full, her objects were fakesâgreat fakes. She had phony Russian icons and da Vinci drawings, a heaped-up altar of Buddhist statuary, and a Fabergé egg. And she had her pots, of course, the few copies sheâd found that were good enough to live with. She was very demanding when it came to the pots in her home. And then her books; she kept her best, most transporting porcelain books stacked in squat columns, around the floor. She knew where everything was. The place mirrored her mind. She could put her hands on a book, on an image, in an instant. Now,
her
apartment was interesting, she thought with a vain thrill as she cast an appraising eye around the lit-up windows.
She saw a movement on the path and stopped. A thin cat with butterscotch stripes and high, skulking hindquarters walked in front of her.
She called to it. It froze.
She sank close to the ground, called it again. The animal lifted its amber eyes and looked at her, tail straight up and cocking steadily.
âBe that way,â she said to it. Then she stood and looked at the room at the end of the court. Vermilion support columns framed the door; its glass panel was etched in a repeating wood-scroll pattern. But the windows were empty. They were hung with plain white cloth at half-height, for privacy. Nothing else.
Just then a light flipped on in the room. She stepped out of the pool of brightness. A fair-haired man with a boxy chest walked across. He was carrying something. A CD player. He was changing the disc, and he spun the new one as he dropped it in; it caught the light. She held her breath. But he wore headphones. He couldnât hear her.
He could hear music, though; she could tell by the rhythm in his step as he passed out of view. American, she thought. Though she couldnât say why. It might have been carriage, or maybe attitude, or a way of wearing clothes. But she could tell.
She backed up. Then she was in the shadows and she slipped back out under the irregular rock gate, into the circle of lamplight, past the geysering fountain and the driveway, through the main gate, to the street.
Lia made her way to one of the theme restaurants currently popular in Beijing. She liked them. Some were based on gimmicks. There was a place called Fatty's, for instance, with a big triple-beam scale right inside the door. Anybody who weighed over one hundred kilos got thirty percent off for their whole table.
Other places were based on historical eras. Those were Liaâs favorites. There were the Maoist places, the Cultural Revolution places, the imperial places. The restaurant she walked into now was a faux-world of 1920s Beijing. The staff sported frog-button tunics, while old-fashioned acrobats, singers, and storytellers entertained from the stage. The food ran to pickled radishes and cabbage in mustard seed dressing and earthy braised soybeans mixed with the chopped leaves of the
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