Pages Torn From a Travel Journal by Edward Lee Read Free Book Online Page A

I understand that in calamitous economic times, we must all engage in activities we otherwise wouldn’t.”
    Her whisper continued to flow against my ear. “Many men come to me because, well, I have no teeth. It makes me . . . do certain things better. I was . . . born without them.” I sensed that my being here for her to talk to gave her a much-needed comfort. “And then . . . my feet, too. I’d show you, but you’d be repulsed.”
    “Nothing relative to you, Bliss, could ever leave me repulsed.”
    She moved away in hesitation, stared off a moment, then lifted an attractive leg, displaying the white sock that seemed to sheath a fist. All I could say was, “Congenital anomalies, such as an absence of dentation, and developmental maladaptations of extremities are more common than you may think.”
    She looked at the fisted foot, began to reach forward. “They bill me at my show as having hands instead of feet but that’s really not true.” Then she removed the sock.
    It was not a “fist” at the end of her svelte leg; in fact, it didn’t appear to be a hand at all, but instead an aberrantly developed foot, smaller as if proper growth had been subverted, & rolled inward. “My father saw to it,” she said dismally. “He’d been sent to fight the Boxers, in China, a long time ago, & he learned about ‘foot-binding–’”
    Immediately I winced at the outrage. I knew too well of this savage, subjugating procedure by which the feet of infant females were bound up to thwart proper growth; I’d seen sketches in several texts. It was a way to keep the female immobile & hence ultimately subservient. “In other words, your father inflicted you with this, after having seen evidence of its technique during his dispatch with the Army to rescue American diplomats and missionaries held by the Quing Dynasty in the first years of the century.”
    In utter dejection, Bliss nodded.
    My rage rose. A father who would deliberately bind her feet, & a husband who would sexually exploit her via her abnormalities? What kind of a world was this to allow such devilish things?
    She put the sock back on, having apparently vented all she needed. At once, she was calm again, & continued to hold my hand. In phantasy, though, I pictured the most excruciating tortures for both her wretched father & beastly husband. “Oh, but we were going to the candy apple stand!” she remembered, & up she went, effortlessly on her crutches. Unable now to hold her hand, I kept it instead opened over the small of her back, an unconscious initiative for I felt desperate to sustain some modicum of physical contact. The effort seemed to please her as we plunged again into the beating human flux called the midway.
    The apple vendor was soon discovered; subconsciously, I was about to order 2 but then winced when I remembered Bliss’s absence of teeth. Next, we continued on our way, chatting innocuously; all the while, I forced myself to not contemplate the ordeal she would face later, via her “johns” & her “show.” Toward the end of the midway’s course there came a make-shift manner of cul-de-sac, featuring a trio of strongmen hoisting barbells of staggering size; & a “dunk-the-fool” game. But betwixt the last pair of stands, I glimpsed a personal trailer more exotic than any other & sitting higher. For a moment, a fancily carven door opened from which the trailer’s occupant peered into the crowd. It was a gaunt, sallow-skinned older man in coattails, string tie, & blazing white vest. The thin, whiskery face looked incised, with heavily hooded eyes, & an overall mirthless countenance whose cast bespoke contented greed & measured callousness. I would guess the man to be in vicinity of 60.
    “Oh, no,” Bliss murmured. “Let’s turn here, quick—”
    I followed her lead, dismayed, noticing then that the coattailed man’s subtly hateful gaze had fallen on us. “Bliss,” I began, “that man in the exorbitant trailer seems to