by Kevin Kwan
SINGAPORE
Eleanor was just sitting down to her usual breakfast of toasted seven-grain bread, low-fat butter, and low-sugar marmalade when the phone rang. Whenever the phone rang this early in the morning, she knew it had to be one of her siblings in America. This was probably her brother in Seattle, begging for another loan. When Consuelo entered the breakfast room with the phone, Eleanor shook her head and mouthed silently, “Tell him I’m still asleep.”
“No, no, ma’am, not Seattle brother. It’s Mrs. Foo.”
“Oh,” Eleanor said, grabbing the phone as she took a bite of her toast. “Daisy, what are you doing up so early? Did you have indigestion too after that awful wedding banquet?”
“No, no, Elle, I have breaking news!” Daisy said excitedly.
“What, what?” Eleanor asked in anticipation. She said a quick prayer and hoped Daisy was going to report on the tragic breakup of Nicky and Rachel. Francesca had winked at her during the fireworks last night and whispered two words—It’s done—and Eleanor noticed during the ferry ride home that Rachel looked like she had been hit in the face with a durian.
“Guess who just woke up from a coma?” Daisy announced.
“Oh. Who?” Eleanor asked, a little crestfallen.
“Just guess, lah!”
“I don’t know … that von Bülow woman?”
“Aiyah, no lah! Sir Ronald Shaw woke up! Nadine’s father-in-law!”
“Alamak!” Eleanor almost spat out her toast. “I thought he was a living vegetable.”
“Well, somehow the vegetable woke up, and he’s even talking! The cousin of my maid’s daughter-in-law is the night nurse at Mount E, and apparently she got the shock of her life when Patient Shaw woke up at four this morning and started demanding his Kopi-O.”*
“How long has he been in a coma?” Eleanor asked, looking up and noticing Nick stroll into the kitchen. Oh my. Nick was over bright and early. Something must have happened!
“Six years now. Nadine, Ronnie, Francesca, the whole family have rushed to his bedside, and the news crews are just arriving.”
“Huh. Do you think we should go down too?” Eleanor asked.
“I think let’s wait. Let’s see. You know, I hear that sometimes these coma victims wake up right before they die.”
“If he’s asking for Kopi-O, something tells me he’s not going to kick the bucket anytime soon,” Eleanor surmised. She said goodbye to Daisy and focused her attention on Nick.
“Francesca’s grandfather woke up from his coma this morning,” Eleanor relayed, buttering another piece of toast.
“I didn’t even realize he was still alive,” Nick said disinterestedly.
“What are you doing here so early? Do you want some breakfast? Some kaya toast?”
“No, no, I already ate.”
“Where’s Rachel this morning?” Eleanor asked a little too eagerly. Was the girl tossed out in the middle of the night like garbage?
“Rachel’s still asleep. I got up early to talk to you and Dad. Is he up yet?”
“Alamak, your father sleeps till ten, at the earliest.”
“Well then, I’ll tell you first. I’m going away with Rachel for a few days, and if all goes according to plan, I intend to propose to her while we’re away,” Nick declared.
Eleanor put down her toast and gave him a look of unconcealed horror. “Nicky, you can’t be serious!”
“I’m totally serious,” Nick said, taking a seat at the table. “I know you don’t know her very well yet, but that’s been my fault entirely—I haven’t given you or Dad the chance to meet her until now. But I can assure you that you’ll soon discover what an amazing human being she is. She is going to be a fantastic daughter-in-law to you, Mum.”
“Why are you rushing into this?”
“I’m not rushing into anything. We’ve dated for nearly two years. We’ve practically been living together for the past year. I was planning to propose on our two-year anniversary this October, but some stuff happened, and I need to show Rachel how important she is to me, right now.”
“What stuff?”
Nick sighed. “It’s a long story, but Rachel’s been treated badly by a few people since arriving—Francesca especially.”
“What did Francesca do?” Eleanor asked innocently.
“It doesn’t matter what she did. What matters is that I have to put things right.”
Eleanor’s mind raced in circles. What the hell happened last night? That stupid Francesca! Alamak, her plan must have backfired. “You don’t have to marry her just to put things right, Nicky. Don’t let this girl pressure you,” Eleanor urged.
“I’m not being pressured. The truth is, I have been thinking about marrying Rachel almost since the day I met her. And now, more than ever, I know she is the one for me. She is so smart, Mum, and such a good person.”
Eleanor was seething inside, but she tried to speak in a measured voice. “I’m sure Rachel is a nice girl, but she can never be your wife.”
“And why is that?” Nick leaned back in his chair, amused by the absurdity of his mother’s words.
“She is just not suitable for you, Nicky. She does not come from the right background.”
“Nobody is ever going to come from ‘the right background’ in your eyes,” Nick scoffed.
“I’m only telling you what everyone is already thinking, Nick. You haven’t heard the horrible things I’ve heard. Do you know her family comes from Mainland China?”
“Stop it, Mum. I’m so fed up with this ridiculous snobbery you and your friends have toward the Mainland Chinese. We are all Chinese. Just because some people actually work for their money doesn’t mean they are beneath you.”
Eleanor shook her head and continued in a graver tone, “Nicky, you don’t understand. She will never be accepted. And I’m not talking about your dad and me—I’m talking about your dear Ah Ma and the rest of the family. Take it from me—even though I have been married to your father for thirty-four years, I am still considered an outsider. I am a Sung—I came from a respectable family, a rich family, but in their eyes I was never good enough. Do you want to see Rachel suffer like that? Look at how they have frozen out that Kitty Pong girl!”
“How can you even compare Rachel to Kitty? Rachel isn’t a soap-opera star who runs around in skimpy clothes—she’s an economist with a PhD. And everyone in the family has been perfectly nice to her.”
“It is one thing to be polite to your guest, but I can assure you that if they really thought she had any chance of being your wife, they would not be so nice.”
“That’s nonsense.”
“No, Nicky, that is a fact,” Eleanor snapped. “Ah Ma will never allow you to marry Rachel, no matter how accomplished she is. Come on, Nicky, you know this! It’s been told to you a thousand times since you were a little boy. You are a Young.”
Nick shook his head and laughed. “This is all so unbelievably archaic. We’re living in the twenty-first century, and Singapore is one of the most progressive countries on the planet. I can assure you Ah Ma doesn’t feel the way she did thirty years ago.”
“Alamak, I’ve known your grandmother a lot longer than you have. You don’t know how important bloodlines are to her.”
Nick rolled his eyes. “To her, or to you? I haven’t researched Rachel’s genealogy, but if necessary I’m sure I can find some dead Ming emperor somewhere in her bloodline. Besides, she comes from a very respectable family. One of her cousins is even a famous film director.”
“Nicky, there are things about Rachel’s family that you don’t realize.”
“And how would you know this? Did Cassandra invent some story about Rachel’s family or something?”
Eleanor kept silent on that score. She simply warned, “Save yourself and Rachel the heartache, Nicky. You have to give her up now, before things go any further.”
“She’s not som
ething I can just give up, Mum. I love her, and I’m going to marry her. I don’t need anyone’s approval,” Nick said forcefully, rising from the table.
“Stupid boy! Ah Ma will disinherit you!”
“Like I care.”
“Nicky, listen to me. I haven’t sacrificed my whole life for you just to see you waste everything on that girl,” Eleanor said anxiously.
“Sacrificed your whole life? I’m not sure what you mean, when you’re sitting here at the chef’s table of your twenty-million-dollar apartment,” Nick huffed.
“You have no idea! If you marry Rachel you will be ruining all our lives. Make her your mistress if you need to, but for heaven’s sake, don’t throw away your entire future by marrying her,” Eleanor pleaded.
Nick snorted in disgust and stood up, kicking away the chair behind him as he stormed out of the breakfast alcove. Eleanor winced as the chrome chair legs cut across the Calacatta marble floor. She stared at the perfectly aligned rows of Astier de Villatte porcelain that lined the exposed stainless-steel shelves of her kitchen, reflecting on the heated exchange she had just endured. Every effort she had made to prevent her son from careening into this disastrous situation had failed, and now there was but one option left. Eleanor sat absolutely still for a few long moments, summoning the courage for the conversation she had been trying to avoid for so long.
“Consuelo!” she shouted. “Tell Ahmad to get the car ready. I need to go to Tyersall Park in fifteen minutes.”
* * *
* A traditional black coffee served with sugar only.
12
Wuthering Towers
HONG KONG
Astrid awoke to a shaft of sunlight on her face. What time was it? She looked at the clock on the side table and noticed it was after ten. She stretched into a yawn, crawled out of bed, and went to splash some water on her face. When she padded into the living room, she saw Charlie’s elderly Chinese nanny sitting on one of the chrome-and-calfskin Le Corbusier lounge chairs frantically focused on a game on her iPad. Ah Chee pressed the screen furiously, muttering in Cantonese, “Cursed birds!” When she noticed Astrid passing by, she broke into a toothy grin. “Hiyah Astrid, did you sleep well? There’s breakfast waiting for you,” she said, her eyes never leaving the glowing screen.
A young maid rushed up to Astrid and said, “Ma’am, please, breakfast,” gesturing toward the dining room. There she found a rather excessive spread laid out for her on the round glass table: pitchers of coffee, tea, and orange juice were accompanied by poached eggs and thick-cut bacon on a warming plate, scrambled eggs with Cumberland sausages, toasted English muffins, French toast, sliced mango with Greek yogurt, three types of breakfast cereals, silver-dollar pancakes with strawberries and Chantilly cream, fried crullers with fish congee. Another maid stood at attention behind Astrid, waiting to pounce forward and serve. Ah Chee came into the dining room and said, “We didn’t know what you would want for breakfast, so the cook made a few options. Eat, eat. And then the car is waiting to take you to Charlieboy’s office down the hill.”
Astrid grabbed the bowl of yogurt and said, “This is all I need,” much to Ah Chee’s dismay. She went back to the bedroom and put on an ink-blue Rick Owens top over a pair of white jeans. After brushing her hair quickly, she decided to wear it in a low ponytail—something she never did—and rummaging through Charlie’s bathroom drawers, she found a pair of Cutler and Gross horn sunglasses that fit her. This was as incognito as she was going to get. As she left the bedroom, one of the maids sprinted to the entrance foyer and summoned the elevator, while another held it open until Astrid was ready to enter. Astrid was mildly amused by how even an act as simple as exiting the flat was handled with such military urgency by these skittish girls. It was so different from the gracious, easygoing servants she had grown up with.
In the lobby, a chauffeur in a crisp black uniform with gold buttons bowed at Astrid. “Where’s Mr. Wu’s office?” Astrid asked.
“Wuthering Towers, on Chater Road.” He gestured toward the forest-green Bentley parked outside, but Astrid said, “Thanks, but I think I’ll walk,” remembering the building well. It was the same place Charlie always had to go to pick up envelopes stuffed with cash from his father’s secretary whenever they came to Hong Kong on weekend shopping binges. Before the chauffeur could protest, Astrid walked across the plaza to the Mid-Levels’ escalator, strolling purposefully along the moving platform as it snaked its way down the hilly urban terrain.
At the base of the escalator on Queen Street, Astrid took a deep breath and plunged into the fast-moving river of pedestrians. There was something about Hong Kong’s central district during the day, a special frenetic energy from the hustling and bustling crowd that always gave Astrid an intoxicating rush. Bankers in smart pinstripes walked shoulder to shoulder with dusty day laborers and teenagers in school uniforms, while chicly outfitted corporate women in don’t-mess-with-me heels melded seamlessly with wizened old amahs and half-clothed street beggars.
Astrid turned left onto Pedder Street and entered the Landmark shopping mall. The first thing she saw was a long line of people. What was happening? Oh, it was just the usual queue of Mainland Chinese shoppers outside the Gucci store, anxiously awaiting their turn to go inside and get their fix. Astrid expertly negotiated her way through the network of pedestrian bridges and passageways that connected the Landmark to neighboring buildings—up the escalator to the mezzanine level of the Mandarin Oriental, through the shopping arcade at Alexandra House, down the short flight of steps by Cova Caffé, and here she was in the gleaming lobby of Wuthering Towers.
The reception counter appeared to have been sculpted from one massive block of malachite, and as Astrid approached, a man with an earpiece in a dark suit intercepted her and said discreetly, “Mrs. Teo, I’m with Mr. Wu. Please come with me.” He waved her through the security checkpoint and into an express elevator that zipped straight up to the fifty-fifth floor. The elevator doors opened onto a serene, windowless room with alabaster-white walls inlaid with hairline circular patterns and a silvery blue sofa. The man ushered Astrid wordlessly past the three executive secretaries who sat at adjoining tables and through a pair of imposing etched-bronze doors.
Astrid found herself in Charlie’s atrium-like office, which had a soaring pyramid-shaped glass ceiling and a bank of flat-screen televisions along one entire wall that silently flickered financial news channels from New York, London, Shanghai, and Dubai. A very tan Chinese man in a black suit and wire-frame glasses was seated on a nearby sofa.
“You almost gave my driver a panic attack,” Charlie said, getting up from his desk.
Astrid smiled. “You need to cut your staff some slack, Charlie. They live in complete terror of you.”
“Actually, they live in complete terror of my wife,” Charlie responded with a grin. He gestured to the man seated on the black sofa. “This is Mr. Lui, who has already managed to find your husband by using the cell number you gave me last night.”
Mr. Lui nodded at Astrid and began speaking in that distinctive, clipped, British-accented English that was so common in Hong Kong. “Every iPhone has a GPS locator, which makes it possible for us to track the owner very easily,” Mr. Lui explained. “Your husband has been at an apartment in Mong Kok since last night.”
Mr. Lui presented Astrid with his thin laptop computer, where a sequence of images awaited: Michael exiting the flat, Michael exiting the elevator, Michael clutching a bundle of plastic bags on the street. The last picture, taken from a high angle, showed a woman opening the door of the flat to let Michael in. Astrid’s stomach tightened into a knot. Here was the other woman. She scrutinized the picture for a long while, staring at the barefooted woman dressed in denim shorts and a skimpy tank top.
“Can we enlarge the picture?” Astrid asked. As Mr. Lui zoomed in on the blurry, pixilated face, Astrid suddenly sat back on the sofa. “There’s something very familiar about that wom
an,” she said, her pulse quickening.
“Who is she?” Charlie asked.
“I’m not sure, but I know I’ve seen her somewhere before,” Astrid said, closing her eyes and pressing her fingers to her forehead. Then it hit her. Her throat seemed to close up, and she couldn’t speak.
“Are you okay?” Charlie asked, seeing the look on Astrid’s face.
“I’m okay, I think. I believe this girl was at my wedding. I think there’s a picture of her in a group photo from one of my albums.”
“Your wedding?” Charlie said in shock. Turning to Mr. Lui, he demanded, “What do you have on her?”
“Nothing on her yet. The flat’s registered owner is Mr. Thomas Ng,” the private investigator replied.
“Doesn’t ring any bells,” Astrid said numbly.
“We’re still assembling a dossier,” Mr. Lui said. An instant message flashed on his phone, and he reported, “The woman just left the flat with a young boy, approximately four years old.”
Astrid’s heart sank. “Have you been able to find out anything about the boy?”
“We have not. We did not know there was a boy inside the flat with them until this moment.”
“So the woman has left with the boy and my husband is alone now?”
“Yes. We don’t think anyone else is in the apartment.”
“You don’t think? Can you be sure there isn’t someone else in there? Can’t you use some sort of thermal sensor?” Charlie asked.
Mr. Lui gave a little snort. “Hiyah, this isn’t the CIA. Of course, we can always escalate and bring in specialists if you wish, but for domestics such as these, we don’t usually—”
“I want to see my husband,” Astrid said matter-of-factly. “Can you take me to him now?”
“Ms. Teo, in these situations, we really don’t advise—” the man delicately began.
“I don’t care. I need to see him face-to-face,” Astrid insisted.
A few minutes later, Astrid sat quietly in the back of the Mercedes with tinted windows while Mr. Lui rode in the front passenger seat, frantically barking orders in Cantonese to the team assembled around 64 Pak Tin Street. Charlie wanted to come along, but Astrid had insisted on going alone. “Don’t worry, Charlie—nothing’s going to happen. I’m just going to have a talk with Michael.” Now her mind was reeling, and she was getting more and more antsy as the car inched through lunchtime traffic in Tsim Sha Tsui.