Chapter 24
K
reeger tried not to hit his head as he got out of the taxi and again mangled the local words of gratitude. The driver was busy filling his wallet—a double fare—what did he care. Kreeger looked up at the tall building and dropped the now-worn piece of paper into his jacket pocket. After showing it to the driver, he had folded and refolded it for most of the mad dash across the city, hoping this taxi driver had been to school and had learnt to read. Presumably he had: the broken line of parked scooters told him he was at the right place—each had a blue and red light attached to its back rack.‘Docta Kreega,’ came a familiar voice from behind him.
Kreeger turned and saw Jon Lee stepping out from the shadow of a tree. Whatever he had been eating he quickly bagged and dropped into his jacket pocket. He brushed away the crumbs.
‘Docta Kreega,’ Lee said trying to clear his mouth, ‘this is Offica Mao,’
Kreeger had already noticed the man at Lee’s shoulder and was trying to hold back a grin. If Lee seemed a little incongruous, way out here in this wilderness, with his fake designer clothes and slicked-back hair, then this man looked almost ridiculous. He was Lee’s caricature, a bad copy of an already faulty product. Everything Lee aimed at and just about hit, this man missed entirely. It was all overdone or unfinished: too much oil in his salon-cut hair, not enough polish on his fake-Italian shoes. Lee’s jacket might have been an imitation, but at least it fitted the man well; Mao’s jacket hung like a rice-sack folded over the back of a chair. His trousers could not make it all the way down to his shoes and were creased and pleated in the wrong places. And to bring the comedy to a head, he’d left the brand-name label of his pirated sunglasses stuck to the left lens. The sought-after panache, the prized charm, the cool, the hipness—all he’d left with their Western owners, between the covers of the glossy magazines, in the television shows and movies. He’d borrowed not even a scent of it. Kreeger clucked to himself; he probably does dupe the locals, though, he thought.
Mao should have been shorter to fill out his part as servile protégé; but he stood a good half a head above his superior. Kreeger remembered not to offer his hand for a shake. A smile and a nod sufficed. Mao responded with a slight bow and a word of welcome, which told Kreeger that his American accent was just as bad as Lee’s.
‘Today we take Offica Mao’s car up the mountain. Unfortunately he cannot come with us. Too busy. I drive.’ Lee smiled, adjusting the sunglasses on his nose. ‘How’s you headache, Docta?’
‘Gone, thanks. The tea worked. But I could not manage any of their food—it looked like fish-head congee. My stomach isn’t feeling so great this morning.’ He grimaced and held his belly as a pregnant woman might. ‘I really need to eat something; something not so . . . eh . . . something more solid.’
‘You wait a moment please.’ Lee said. He then spoke rapidly to Mao, spitting out a mouthful of burred syllables. ‘He go to find something for you to eat.’
Mao turned and Kreeger watched him scramble off along the busy street, taking away his air of fakery. He finally disappeared into the flow of pedestrians.
‘Come, lets wait in the shade. Unless you need to use the telephone?’ Lee motioned towards the building behind them.
‘No, never mind. I’ll be back in the capital in a day or two; it will be easier to call from there.’
As they walked into the shade, Lee said, ‘You in a hurry to leave us, Docta?
Kreeger was sure that if he had been able to see through the mirrored covering, he would have seen a gleam in Lee’s eye. ‘Maybe,’ was all he said, regretting that he had mentioned his haste.
Against the trunk of the tree sat a toothless cobbler, who bent over and scrutinized the doctor’s leather footwear. Lee scared him off with a fierce word or two—a snarl that surprised the doctor more than the unfortunate cobbler. After a few minutes’ of hot silence, Mao reappeared with a bag of food, which he handed to Kreeger. Kreeger peered inside, before carefully extracting his breakfast. His mouth at once began to salivate as he looked down on two slices of barely-toasted white bread between which had been slotted a fried egg. The other unidentifiable goo didn’t bother him too much—he was too hungry.
‘No MSG,’ laughed Lee.
Kreeger devoured the sandwich in seconds, licked the goo from his fingers, and started to feel better. He even wished Mao had brought two.