At the Heart of the Universe by Samuel Shem

“All twenty of ’em.”
    â€œWhat kind of pets?” Katie asks.
    â€œCrickets. Fighting crickets, each in its own little bitty cage.”
    â€œYou’re like kidding me, right?”
    â€œNo way, little José! I’ll bring my best fighter—Goliath—tomorrow.”
    On the footbridge that runs across the river to the north, there is a horse pulling a heavily laden wagon, and then another, and another—a horse caravan. Katie’s eyes are glued to the bus window. The traffic jam is fierce. She gets a good look. Rhett points out, in mid-river, Juzi (Orange) Island. “Mao was born near here, and as a teacher he often met with students on the tip of that island, and composed the poem ‘Changsha—To the Tune of Quin—’” His cell phone rings. With a slick movement he flips it open, barks, waits, shouts a torrent of what seems extremely harsh Chinese, flips it closed.
    They drive through a pleached arbor of plane trees on the campus of Hunan University—Rhett’s alma mater—past a forty-foot-tall statue of Mao in alabaster, and then past the Yuelu Academy of Classical Learning, founded in 976 during the Song Dynasty. Rhett recites the slogan on the stone tablet entombed there, “‘Loyalty, Filial Piety, Honesty, and Chastity’—in that order—haha!”
    â€œSo, Little Britches,” Rhett says to Katie now—she recognizes the term from Disney’s Jungle Book —“what music you dig?” Katie, shy, shrugs. “Rock? Country? Reggae?”
    â€œMom loves Bob Marley.”
    â€œGet out !” Clio laughs, and nods. “Momma, you are bad ! How ’bout you, Katie?”
    She hesitates a moment, then risks it. “Britney.”
    â€œBritney?! No way! I love Britney!” He sings the first few bars of “Oops!... I Did It Again” in a brassy Britney falsetto. “C’mon, c’mon, I need you with me, girl!” Katie joins in, at first softly, then louder, as the bus climbs the winding road up Mount Yuelu.
    At the summit they get out for the view. It’s as if they’ve entered a blast furnace. Rhett takes Katie off for an ice cream. Clio and Pep climb the pagoda, and at the top they wade through a wind-scattered deck of playing cards to the railing. To the east, shrouded in urban smog, they see the glittering skyscrapers of Changsha, surrounded by a gleam of sprawl, threaded by superhighways. To the west is a range of green mountains piled up as if by a big hand pushing earth, the far western peaks blending with haze and obscuring the horizon. Ribbons of rivers feeding the distant Yangtze curl through dark-green valleys that rise to terraced rice paddies, sparkling like shards of glass in the afternoon sun. There are rare shrouded clumps of small towns and villages.
    As Clio stands there, the aura of the woman in the police station seems to coalesce—a concrete image of the dream woman she has lived with for ten years.
    â€œOut there, honey,” Pep says, pointing toward the river valleys, “is probably where she came from.”
    Clio is startled. She strokes his back. He smiles, and takes her hand—in the special way he always does, one finger interlaced between two of hers, the rest clasped. Sensual, yes, like before. Their eyes hold. His innocent, curious look reminds her of the moment they met.
    Now, a gust of wind from the distant mountains catches the playing cards. They float and flicker like chanced-upon butterflies, down from the pavilion, away.
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    â€œStop! Rhett, please tell him to stop!” Clio is up out of her seat. Rhett gets off the phone, shouts something at the driver. The minibus stops.
    â€œHey, this isn’t the aviary,” Katie says. “What’s going on?”
    â€œIt’s on the way, hon, it’s the Lushan Temple. We came here the day we met you—just after. I just want a quick look in.