Kuan by his side, Morrison leaned on the rail of the little steamer and watched T’ang-ku recede into the distance. The noise of the engine and the ship’s vibrations under his palms and feet compounded his headache and the sickness behind his eyes; he hid behind his sunglasses from the thin, milky sunlight. As the wave of nausea passed, Morrison relished the sensation of being on open water. Breathing in, he let the viscid spray numb his face and hands. Tientsin had begun to feel claustrophobic. His world had shrunk to the size of his hotel room or, more precisely, his hotel bed, and that had suddenly seemed absurdly overpopulated. Mae’s attentions made him feel simultaneously cherished and diminished; despite all the virile evidence to the contrary, he had to admit he felt unmanned by her, a eunuch in her court. As much as he detested this image, he rolled it over and over in his mind like a child with a stick and hoop. He had confronted her, rather pathetically it had to be admitted, in the aftermath of his nosebleed, declaring that if he was but one face in a crowd to her, then he would not linger.
