I’d been invited to sing an aria from The Snow Maiden. Rimsky-Korsakov. Very Russian in its sense of tragedy. The maiden in question seeks human companionship, a communion of souls, despite being unable to actually feel affection. Then, when she does find love — having begged her enchanted mother to grant her the capacity — it kills her. Some versions of the myth have it that she, a girl made out of ice, tries to impress her beloved by jumping over a fire. Some just say that her ardor brings forth the spring. Either way, she melts.
Standing there, freezing in my winter clothes, I felt for the first time that she made the right decision: anything for a touch of warmth.
Zhenjin ushered me into a car that smelled like diesel on the outside but was reasonably clean within and did not stutter when he turned the key. I held my mittened hand over the nearest radiator vent and then retracted it sharply — the air blasting from the vent was arctic.
“Have to wait for the engine to warm up,” Zhenjin said, and then took my hand, peeled off the mitten, and cupped it in his own. He blew onto my skin. All this in a quite businesslike manner and with no hint of hesitation.
We sat that way for a minute or two, him occasionally switching my hands between his soft grip and my pockets. Finally the car heater coughed, and I felt warm air spill out over my wrist.
“Now,” my companion said, “we are ready.”
Ulaanbaatar is not a soft place. On the drive to the hotel, Zhenjin warned me not to walk around alone, especially at night, since many of the streets were still without proper lighting, and an unaccompanied white woman would be a target for muggings. Out the window I saw street merchants hawking yak-wool socks and camel-skin gloves, wearing what looked like felt booties over their shoes to insulate against the layer of ice on the sidewalk. Many muggers carry knives, Zhenjin said, but they will use anything they have at hand: some throw bricks or, in the time-honored tradition of men, just use the weight of their bodies to throw you against a wall.
We pulled up to a curb.
“Okay,” Zhenjin said.
The hotel’s exterior appeared to have been wrought by a civilization long extinct. If anything’s going to be dangerous to me, I thought, it’s this. Stucco crumbled from the façade; bare patches of brick were visible where the siding had calved off slabs large enough to kill a man in falling. I looked at Zhenjin. Over the course of our twenty-minute car ride he’d become important to me, arbiter of street chaos and purveyor of furs. He smiled. “You’ll like it,” he said. “Inside.” He climbed out of the car and held a hand out to me, and we ascended the three steps to the door while the wind did its best to freeze off my ears.
With a cracking sound — icy rubber separating from icy rubber — the doors opened up and I let out a gasp. The interior of the hotel was a sea of marble, a pristine palace. I couldn’t have been more surprised if it was made entirely of cut gems. There were no windows, just a cavernous well of veined columns, and without sunlight the brass bell on the reception desk shone only beneath incandescent lamps. But the room was so grand I could imagine candles, could almost see the bulb light lick and flutter like a flame. The bell was polished to a high gleam and seemed to be waiting there for someone to ring it and magically summon back the hospitality of nineteenth-century travel — diplomatic cocktails and colonial balls.
I shook my head, feeling out of place in my animal hide. Disoriented and savage. A dark corner of my mind turned to lineage: Greta, Ada, Sara, me; beasts into ballrooms. Something always lost along the way. I tucked my hand into Zhenjin’s elbow, and this alone seemed to keep me from losing my grip on time and place. First I’d stepped off a heated airplane onto the dusty snow of tundra, and then into a car that whipped through streets blooming with apocalyptic decay. And now this.
At the door to my room I waited for a moment, half expecting Zhenjin to enter ahead of me and clear it of any obstacles or danger. He could do that, it seemed. Keep me safe. Like a girl keeps safe her dolls, needlessly brushing their hair and caressing their cold porcelain cheeks. Brushing away an errant eyelash and saying, Look, make a wish. But he didn’t walk in and undress me, fold my clothes in neat stacks on a chair. He didn’t wash me with a soft, drenched sponge. Instead he bowed and walked away, his black hair wafting slowly against the back of his neck. His brisk steps those of a man acquitted of his duty.
I was surprised to feel a twinge of annoyance. How dare he, I thought. But then: how dare he what?
Once I’d showered I felt better for a while. More myself. At home I take two baths a day, and if I go swimming in the magnificent pool at the gym I might take three. As I stripped off layer upon layer of clothing, I began to feel giddy, unwrapping the gift of my actual form, scrubbing off even the thin film of grit and sweat. But when I was pink and dry, I made the mistake of tunneling into my bed to read through the libretto and then the score of the role I would be singing. I’m very susceptible to the instinct of hibernation when I’m touring. Things started well enough — I marked emotional shifts in purple, suggested breaths in blue, and used red to let myself know that a troubling passage was upcoming. The blanket weighed down on me, melting over my shoulders and breathing hot air onto my back.
But the thought of getting up brought dread, increasingly. Especially the thought of Zhenjin, his low bow at the door, his antiseptic eagerness to please. What are you doing, I asked myself. What do you want from him? Not his embrace, his mouth on mine. I just felt that he was holding something back from me — that beneath his crisp shell beat a heart I could not reach. And that was a problem. At home I could count on John to feed me his intimate secrets and stories. But here, I would get out of bed and things would spiral out of my control. Instinct would take over, pushing me to show my good side for photographs, smiling with teeth as sleek as sculpted ice.
Zhenjin had warmed my hands in the car, held them very gently. But he also walked away instead of being asked to go. What if, then, I walked onstage and found myself without the strength to sing? Wouldn’t it be better to stay here, where I needed nothing? To jump up just briefly and lock myself in with the duvet curled around my neck? I could remain in the bed until the fire squad — if such a thing existed in Ulaanbaatar — came and axed my door to smithereens, dragged me to the airport. I could walk into the hall and discover I’d been transported home, that John was in the kitchen cooking risotto.
A knock stirred me.
“Yes, hello?” It was Zhenjin’s voice, polite and inquiring. “Am I disturbing you?”
“One minute,” I called. Look at yourself. I ran a hand over my face. You’re just jet-lagged. Put on a sweater. Put on pants. Slowly I pieced my outer shell back together and recovered my gown from the closet, where it had been transported from the car by unseen hands, still zipped inside the whispering black garment bag. I inquired at the mirror — I was more or less composed — and threw open the door, nodding to Zhenjin.
“Good,” I said. “You can keep me honest.” I tossed the garment bag over his shoulder and buttoned my coat. “Let’s walk to the opera house.”
“We have a car.”
“No, I need the walk.” I tugged on my mittens. “It’ll bring me back.” I paused. “I mean, wake me up.” Zhenjin looked at me, stern, and I thought, No, your job is to give me what I want. I took his hand and pulled him down the hall, feeling the soft catch as his shoulder extended. Zhenjin made no move to resist, or hold tighter.