Rental

On Taiwan, the Cold War never ended.
China's gunboats cruise just over the horizon.

But here, high on a mountain, this village dozes through a balmy
summer night.

In the marketplace, with its stalls overflowing with vegetables and
fish and fruit, there are naked bulbs to see by and beer to drink and a
puppet show complete with a makeshift orchestra that clangs cymbals and
plucks weird stringed boxes.

Gradually the town's lights surrender to the night. My footsteps clack
on cobblestones and echo up narrow alleys and into the peculiar walled
compounds where people live and dream and die with stoicism.

A moist wind surges between the mountains, fingering the trees.

An old woman is closing up shop. I walk in, wading through her glare
-- who knows what a foreigner is up to? -- and ask in Mandarin for a
bottle of wine. She rummages amid dusty boxes and brings out a jug of
plum brandy, cheap but potent.

I pay her and leave. She watches with relief as I go, her shutters
slamming, her bolts sliding home.

Up against the sky the mountains wear necklaces of yellow light from
the hotels and spas that dot the landscape around Taipei. In those
resorts the weary but wealthy nibble Peking duck and flirt with
companions furnished by their hosts.

Toward a similar end I round a bend and stop before a pair of latticed
door. A snuffle: The giant German shepherd house dog has his nose
against the keyhole.

I don't know his name, but he recognizes me, snorts and scratches the
door. My impatient rapping boomerangs off nearby stone walls.

Finally a light winks on and someone shuffles toward me and locks
click open. The door squeaks and I am beckoned inside.

The proprietor, a woman of indeterminate age and temperament, is
irritated at having been awakened so rudely.

Where is Mei, I ask.

Yawning, she nods toward a back room. In there somewhere. I shed my
shoes and creep sock-footed across polished wood and tatami into a
little cavern with mounds of humanity along the walls. Deep breathing
and light snores.

Bending over, I examine the smooth faces until the one I'm looking for
smiles up at me. Her almond eyes glitter in the darkness. She sits up,
quickly slipping into a dress that seems impossibly thin and
flimsy.

Waiting, I uncork the bottle and slide around the room, catching the
view through dusty windows (vistas of slate tiles in moonlight),
careful of flopped arms and legs.

We tiptoe out past the now-snoring dog into the cool street. With her
arm around me, we scoot into alleys and fade into shadows like a pair
of moles scurrying to their burrow.

Soon we arrive at my rented home. I slide open the heavy gate, the
house watching silently amid barking frogs and rustling fronds.

The heavy air stirs into a freshening breeze. Dawn is only an hour
away.