Death of a Perm Sec

by Wong Souk Yee

  While he is in the shower, she stands by the window and looks out to the crimson sky. She clamps her jaws like a vice, sharpening her already angular chin.

  TWENTY-ONE

  THE DAY AFTER a phone call from Hong Kong, Yang borrows 2,000 dollars from his mother, saying that he would like to take a holiday in India. In a transient position of power, she says that at his age, he should be looking for a good girl to marry rather than going away to countries like India where you get poisoned drinking the tap water. Even rinsing your mouth with it will give you severe diarrhoea. She says she doesn’t want to pressure him, but his father would find solace six feet under if Yang met someone who cared for him, who would give him company in his old age. That night, he sits on the stone bench among the hibiscus bushes and watches the leaves breathe in carbon dioxide. His mother, sister and Mary-Joan have gone to bed and he is enjoying the solitude of the garden without the harsh glare of the sun. The tepid moisture in the air wraps around him like a cocoon and with a glass of wine in his hand, he feels safe. He did not go down to the Barnhouse since he has to catch an early morning flight. What could she possibly want from him? They are each aware of their intrusions into the other’s life, but their paths have never crossed. So far. Would she ask for money?

  *

  The plane descends on Kai Tak International Airport. The October sun in the Tropic of Cancer is mild and Yang welcomes the change of scene. As he waits in the taxi queue, he rationalises that he has not totally lied to his mother, for he badly needs a holiday, anywhere. He psyches himself up to be a tourist and gawk at every piece of kitsch, to justify spending his family’s dwindling funds. On his way to the hotel, he sees people on the streets who look and dress like him. They speak to him in Cantonese, thinking he is local, not unlike people in China who address each other as “comrade”. He feels at once strange and at home. He seems to be accepted in Hong Kong on his first day, whereas in England, where he had lived for over 10 years, he had been looked upon as an inscrutable yellow workhorse at best and a genetic oddity at worst. But he doesn’t know where to put Singapore on the scale of things. He cannot be sure if the country of his birth has been kind or cruel to him. Perhaps because he is indifferent, just as he has been indifferent to the events that have enveloped his family recently: his father’s death, Ming’s losing his practising certificate, the breakdown of Hoong’s marriage. For himself, he cares not a whit whether he is afflicted or not—he has no money, career, reputation or lover to lose. He is as sorry about Ming’s and Hoong’s sufferings as he is for every person who loses everything they own and has a sad personal life. The gulf between them widens with each passing year.

  The taxi is held up in a cross-tunnel traffic pile-up and the meter has clocked a sizeable fare by the time they reach the sleazy motel in Wan Chai. Yang pays readily, though he should have taken the bus or the MTR since he is carrying only a backpack. He finds a pay phone along the corridor outside the small but clean room.

  That night, he traipses the concrete jungle paths. His Cantonese does not grate on the ears of the fast-talking, fast-walking Hong Kongers, who are therefore more patient in giving him directions. Yang dodges collision with people rushing in all directions, ducking dripping air conditioners and bypassing construction scaffoldings, for which he has a phobia. He arrives at the crowded Yung Kee restaurant next to the mahjong parlour. With half his waking hours spent in pubs and bars, he is not disconcerted by the noise reverberating around the restaurant. Without assistance from the manager, he gravitates towards a table where a woman in a Thai silk pantsuit is waiting. From his careless observation of his sister’s dress sense, he gathers that strong women of the 1980s generally wear pantsuits, and the woman he is going to meet is one of them.

  “Hi, are you Miss Law?”

  The woman tilts her powdered chin up and smiles. “Mr Chow?”

  He flops down on a chair across the table from her. “So this is the woman herself.”

  She gives him a genial smile and hands him the menu.

  Yang is annoyed with himself for being so ill-bred even if he is suspicious of her. “I’m sorry. What I’m trying—”

  “Why don’t you order something to eat?” she says.

  Yang opens the menu, and then hands it back to her. “You know this place better. Why don’t you do the honours?” He smiles, embarrassed by his semi-illiteracy in written Chinese.

  “Oh, they gave me the Chinese menu. Sorry, I’ll get the English one.”

  “No, it’s all right. I’d really like you to order, if you don’t mind.”

  Bloody hell, she must feel superior to him already. Yang smirks at the thought of his Qing Dynasty ancestor turning in his grave to see his descendant ignorant of four thousand years of Chinese culture and language.

  “But I can speak Cantonese,” he assures her.

  She smiles again. “What would you like to eat?”

  “Umm…nothing too fancy.”

  “This one is on me. You haven’t got a job.”

  He immediately feels as if he is sitting naked in front of this stranger. After she calls the waiter and efficiently orders the restaurant’s signature dish, roast goose, and Lo Han mixed vegetables, she picks up the teapot and fills Yang’s cup then hers. Yang thanks her and waits for the bargaining to begin.

  “I’m sure you know about your father and me. Your father had bought some properties in Hong Kong under my name, for you and your family. He had foreseen such a day, so he put them in my name to prevent them from being confiscated.”

  Yang takes a large gulp of his tea and promptly scalds his full lips. He had anticipated all sorts of demands, but not this. He licks his throbbing lips and says nothing.

  “So, what do you want me to do with the properties?” she asks.

  “Umm…dunno. Maybe it’s better to leave them in your name.”

  “They are earning some rent. I can send you the money.”

  “Any money coming into our bank accounts will be investigated by the CPIB.”

  “Since you’ve not been working, you can’t have a lot of money in your account to worry them.”

  “You do know quite a bit about me.”

  “Your father talked a lot about you.”

  That’s always the trouble, he curses under his breath. Parents talk too much about their children.

  “I can give you cash if you want to be careful.”

  “Erm, okay,” he says absently, looking at every corner of the restaurant, everywhere except her eyes, in case she sees how ungenerous he has been in his estimation of her. To add to his quandary, he finds her attractive. When the food arrives, he picks up a different thread of conversation.

  “You’re not many years older than me. How did you get to know my father?”

  “You mean a man so many years older than me? A man and a woman could come together for many reasons other than love.”

  “Sure. There’re many living examples in my family.”

  “You may not have told your father about your life in London, but he knew you were not as happy as you should be. So he did the only thing he knew how to make life a little easier for you.”

  “A nice flat and money in the bank are poor compensation for a lack of friends.”

  “Better than no money and no friends.”

  “My father was fortunate to have a friend like you, and unfortunate to have a son like me.”

  “It’s not too late to be a good son to him.”

  Yang forces a smile and sees her 40-something freshness contrast with his 36 years as the dust in the filter of a belching air conditioner. “What can I do that will be considered good?”

  “If you lead a useful and happy life, your father will rest in peace.”

  “So, according to you, my present life is not very useful or happy.” Before she can respond, he continues, “Maybe you’re right. My life in London was a waste of time. All I ever got from there is this stupid accent—a cocktail of Singlish, BBC English and cockney.”
r />   She falls silent.

  “Maybe…I would have been much happier if I had known you earlier. And I don’t mean the money.” It has been a long time since he was this flirtatious. It makes him feel as if he has downed a double scotch.

  “Maybe you would be much happier if you have a job. Your father said you have never done any decent work after university.”

  “I know that’s unthinkable in Hong Kong.”

  “It’s not very good anywhere in the world, unless you want to remain a child forever.”

  “You’re pretty direct considering this is the first time we are meeting.”

  “I’ve known you for a long time. I treat you like my son.”

  “‘Scuse me!” He laughs, with his whole being, something he has not done for a long time. “So, will you show me the best milk bar in town?”

  “Most happy to.”

  The fat of the goose is beginning to congeal but neither of them minds. It is the tastiest meal he has had in ages.

  *

  The next day they meet at Star Ferry Terminal and take the ferry to Lantau Island, the biggest island in the territory, with no private cars and only a few roads. Because it’s Tuesday, the mountainous land is even more desolate—another planet from Central and Wan Chai. Without the buildings and billboards, he sees so much more of the nurturing sky and its clouds. He raises his hand and between his fingers he sees an aureole glowing round the muted sun. He can believe the myth that the fireball was captured by a legendary Chinese archer, whose name he can’t remember.

  A few rice and noodle stalls line the pier at Silvermine Bay. A stall owner swats at the flies around the stoves and his kitchen hand, maybe his daughter, wipes the empty tables overlooking the bay. At the bus terminal next to the pier, the driver of the number two bus starts the engine, rattling the peace of the island. Yvonne Law grabs Yang’s elbow to hurry him. The bus, carrying only a few passengers, labours up a steep and winding road. As it takes a sharp corner, Yang’s body inclines towards Miss Law, his thigh pressing against hers. She does not move away. The bus rises above a reservoir and swirling hills and valleys cradled in the sleepy South China Sea. After nearly an hour of impossibly stunning vistas, it pulls up in front of the gates of the Po Lin Monastery, sitting on a plateau of the mountain range.

  As they stroll through temples and pagodas, gardens and pavilions, Yang is convinced he is tracing the footsteps of his ancestors a few hundred years ago. For the first time, he remembers his great-great-grandfather as a living and breathing Qing Dynasty minister and not just a ghostly face in the family album. They trek to a lookout point at a pavilion, and he points out the hazy horizon to Miss Law. “That’s where my great-great-grandfather was born.”

  “What? In Macau?”

  “Guangdong.”

  “Don’t think we can see Guangdong from here.”

  “I can see it in my mind.”

  “I’ve heard your father talk about him too. Have you been to China?”

  “No. Have you?”

  “I was born there. I came to Hong Kong when I was six.”

  “Do you know your great-great-grandmother?”

  She laughs. “She died many many years ago. They were from Suzhou. Very poor labourers.”

  They walk up a long flight of steps to the main hall, the abode of three statues of the Buddha. He watches her light three joss sticks, kneel in front of the statues and bow her head. A small but endless moment of submission of herself to the flow of life. The image is etched forever in his mind. He feels himself shrinking into a mote of dust rising with the smoke of the glowing joss sticks in her hands, with no memories of the past or cognisance of the future, into a galaxy of stars light years away. She gets up and places the joss sticks in a huge bowl of ashes on the altar. Going to the donation box, she contributes some money for the temple.

  “You’re a Buddhist?” Yang asks, standing close to her.

  “No, but doesn’t hurt to make peace with the gods.”

  He breathes in a gush of fresh air blowing from the hills, as sweet as the fragrance his guide is wearing. A million knotted nerves in his body are being released. He walks towards the altar, lights three joss sticks, then kneels in front of the statues and bows his head. As he closes his eyes, his lips move imperceptibly. He rises slowly, sticks the joss sticks in the bowl and stuffs some crumpled notes into the donation box.

  They walk out through the main gate, up a path to a tea garden that actually produces tea leaves. That there is roller skating and horse riding for the tourists does not prevent Yang from dreaming of his ancestors. They sit at the café that is obligatory in every tea garden and sip Lantau Island’s own tea.

  “If you still have the energy, you can take the path here and walk up to the peak where you can watch sunrise. On a clear day, you can see Macau.”

  “I’d rather sit here and talk to you.”

  “Okay. Let’s talk.” She pauses. “So why were you so unhappy in England?”

  “I was not that miserable in England. Has anyone been really very happy in their lives? Have you?”

  “I think so, quite often. Or you may call it contentment.” She brings the cup to her mouth and leaves a rose-coloured lip print on the brim.

  “Good on you. I think the last time I was really happy was when I was a boy, stuffing around.”

  “Isn’t that what you are still doing?”

  “Are you always so brutally frank?”

  “What do you want most to do now?”

  “Who knows? That’s a big question!”

  “I think it’s a simple question.”

  “Okay, I’m all fucked up, excuse the French.”

  “You look all right to me. You still have those bright eyes and a strong back.”

  “I know I’m a hopeless, idle bum in your eyes.”

  “Then try and prove me wrong.” She smiles tenderly at him and he bursts out laughing, truly happy, even if only for a split second.

  *

  On his last day in Hong Kong, he tidies his room, shaves and showers. Yvonne Law arrives at the appointed time, in a tight-fitting pastel blue dress that sets off her slender figure, making her look several years younger.

  “I’ve bought some biscuits for you.” She wears the same rose-coloured lipstick and azure blue eye shadow, which have come to symbolise the Goddess of the River for him. She places her handbag and a cake box on the desk next to the bed, then sits on the chair in front of the desk and crosses her legs. She opens the box with a dragon and phoenix printed on it.

  “What are these?” he asks, standing a hair’s breadth from her, feeling the warmth of her body.

  “Old wife’s biscuit. They are famous here.”

  He takes a bite and puts it down on the desk, the crumbs flaking off. “Do you want a drink?”

  “You haven’t got anything here.”

  “I’ve beer. Or I can call room service.”

  “They have room service here?”

  “Dunno. I’ll check.”

  “It’s all right. I’m not thirsty.”

  He looks under the bed and pulls out a can of Foster’s for himself. He sits on the bed facing her, takes another bite of the biscuit and lays the remainder on the desk. She reaches for her handbag and unzips the inner side pocket. She draws out a manila envelope containing a bundle of US 100 dollar bills.

  “Be careful. Hong Kong is full of robbers. Keep it inside your trousers or inside your shoes. When you go back, open a safe deposit box and put it there.”

  Yang stares at the money on his lap, then at her.

  She talks to him like a nurse to a recalcitrant patient. “As you yourself said, money can’t make you happy. Get a job and don’t drink so much.”

  He picks up what’s left of the biscuit, sweeps the crumbs into his cupped hand and puts them into his mouth. And chews for a long time. He takes a swig from the can, then another. For some absurd reason, scenes of Katherine and himself in that filthy London flat, her friends and himself i
n the pub, Katherine making out with her new lover in the park flash through his mind in black and white. He is seeing them as remote antiquities. And like the black and white movies, they pass on.

  He refocuses on Yvonne Law. “Just curious. You could’ve kept the properties to yourself. Nobody would know.”

  “Maybe you don’t understand my relationship with your father.” She stands to go. “You probably need to pack or do some last-minute shopping.”

  As she walks towards the door, he rises. “Miss Law.”

  She turns, her dark irises so clear against their whites.

  “Thank you,” he says softly.

  She smiles and leaves the fragrance of the hills in her wake.

  *

  That night, he lies in his hotel bed and thinks about how his alcohol-driven enthusiasm for the world had fermented into vinegar. But the temple and the immensity of the Lantau mountains have momentarily neutralised his acidic worldview. Them and Miss Law. That enigmatic, faithful, generous soul. He begins to look at the animal in himself and in others with kindness. The faithless lovers, serial monogamists, self-professed nihilists, anarchists, racists, fascists… He begins to accept humans as a flawed species, with himself as a fine specimen. And then there is Miss Law to redeem them.

  His father, his mother, their fathers and mothers, that Qing court minister with the long beard who scared him shitless when he was a child. He did not seem too frightening to me when I saw him in Po Lin Monastery, Yang thinks. In fact, he seemed to belong there, and me too. We are just part of that continuum of life, not to fulfil any purpose but to make the best of it. Life does not end with death but with a return to our ancestral shrine. It is only in his vinegar-pickled brain that this mortal coil overshadows everything else. Then it becomes clear. He thinks he knows why his father had been so haunted.

  TWENTY-TWO