by Kevin Kwan
“What’s all this?” Nick asked. The bellboy smiled and handed over an envelope. Scrawled on a plush creamy note card was: “Welcome to Shanghai! Thought you could use some essentials. Cheers, C.”
“It’s from Carlton!” Rachel exclaimed in surprise. She opened the first box and found four different jams nestled against the packing hay: Seville Orange Marmalade, Redcurrant Jelly, Nectarine Compote, Lemon and Ginger Curd. Stamped on the minimalist glass jars in elegant white type were the words DAYLESFORD ORGANIC.
“Oh! Daylesford is an organic farm in Gloucestershire owned by my friends the Bamfords. They make the most glorious foods. Are all the boxes from them?” Nick asked, duly impressed.
Rachel opened another carton and found it full of bottles of Sparkling Apple and Bilberry Juice. “Who’s even heard of bilberries?” she remarked. As the two of them dove into the boxes, they discovered that Carlton had for all intents and purposes supplied them with Daylesford’s entire product line. There were crackers with sea salt, shortbreads, and biscuits of dizzying variety to go along with the fine cheeses, farmed Shetland Isles Smoked Salmon, and exotic chutneys. And there were sparkling wines, cabernet francs, and bottles of whole milk to wash it all down.
Rachel stood amid the open boxes in astonishment. “Can you believe all this? There’s enough stuff here to last us for a year.”
“Whatever we can’t eat we’ll save for the zombie apocalypse. I must say Carlton seems to be a rather generous fellow.”
“That’s putting it mildly! What a sweet welcome gift—I can’t wait to meet him!” Rachel said excitedly.
“Judging by his taste, I think I’m going to like him. Now, what should we try first? The white-chocolate-dipped lemon biscuits or the chocolate-dipped ginger biscuits?”
BAO RESIDENCE, SHANGHAI
EARLIER THAT MORNING
Gaoliang was on his way upstairs to shower after his morning jog when he encountered two maids coming down with several pieces of black-and-tan Tramontano luggage.
“Whose bags are those?” he asked one of the maids.
“Mrs. Bao’s, sir,” the girl replied, not daring to make eye contact with him.
“Where are you taking them?”
“Just out to the car, sir. They are for Mrs. Bao’s trip.”
Gaoliang headed into his bedroom, where he found his wife seated at her dressing table putting on a pair of opal-and-diamond earrings.
“Where are you off to?” he asked.
“Hong Kong.”
“I didn’t know you had a trip planned today.”
“It’s a last-minute thing—there are some problems at the Tsuen Wan factories I need to sort out,” Shaoyen replied.
“But Rachel and her husband are arriving today.”
“Oh, was that today?” Shaoyen said.
“Yes. We have a private room booked at the Whampoa Club tonight.”
“I’m sure dinner will be very good. Be sure to order the drunken chicken.”
“You won’t be back in time?” Gaoliang said, a little surprised.
“I’m afraid not.”
Gaoliang sat down on the chaise lounge beside his wife, knowing full well why she was making this sudden trip. “I thought you said you were okay with all this.”
“For a while, I thought I was…” Shaoyen said slowly, letting her voice trail off as she methodically wiped one of the earring posts with a cotton ball soaked in disinfectant. “But now that it’s really happening I’ve realized I’m not comfortable with any of it.”
Gaoliang sighed. Since his reunion with Kerry and Rachel back in March, he had spent many a long night trying to placate his wife. Shaoyen had been shocked, of course, by the bombshell he had dropped after returning from California, but over the past two months, he thought he had succeeded in reassuring her. Kerry Chu was a woman he had loved, ever so briefly, when he was only eighteen. He was a boy. It was a lifetime ago. When he brought up the idea of inviting Rachel to visit, thinking it would actually help her see that everything would be fine, Shaoyen raised no objections. He should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.
“I know how difficult this must be for you,” Gaoliang ventured to say.
“Do you? I’m not so certain you do,” Shaoyen said, spritzing her neck with Lumière Noire.
“Surely you can imagine that this isn’t easy for Rachel either…” Gaoliang began.
Shaoyen glared into her husband’s eyes in the mirror for a few seconds, and then she smashed the perfume bottle against the table. Gaoliang jumped out of his seat in shock.
“Rachel, Rachel, all you’ve talked about for weeks is Rachel! But you haven’t really listened to a word I’ve said! You haven’t thought about my feelings,” Shaoyen screamed.
“All I have been trying to do is be considerate of your feelings,” he said, trying to remain calm.
Shaoyen glowered at her husband. “Huh! If you were truly being considerate, you wouldn’t expect me to sit there and smile through dinner while you parade your bastard daughter around to a room full of our family and friends. You give me no face!”
Gaoliang winced at her words, but he tried to defend himself. “I’ve only invited our closest relatives—people who need to know about her.”
“Still, for her to meet our family—your parents, Uncle Koo, your sister and her husband and his big mouth—the word will get out in no time and you will have no more face in Beijing. You can kiss any hope of becoming the vice-premier goodbye.”
“It’s precisely to avoid any scandal that I wanted to be open about all this from the very beginning. I didn’t want to have any secrets. You’re the one who’s stopped me from telling anyone. Don’t you think people will see that I’m only doing the right thing, the honorable thing, for my daughter?”
“If you think that’s what people will see, you’re more naïve than I thought. Enjoy your dinner. I’m going to Hong Kong, and Carlton is coming with me.”
“What? But Carlton’s been looking forward to meeting his sister!”
“He’s only been saying that to keep you happy. You have no idea the hell he’s been going through—his mood swings, his despair. You only see what you want to see.”
“I see a great deal more than you think!” Gaoliang said, raising his voice for the first time. “Carlton’s depression has more to do with his reckless ways that led to almost being killed in a car wreck. Please don’t drag him into the middle of your issues with Rachel.”
“Don’t you see? He is in the very middle of this whether you like it or not! By accepting your illegitimate daughter, you bring nothing but shame upon him! You do what you want to ruin your own future, but I’m not going to let you ruin our son’s!”
“You realize that Rachel and Nick are going to be staying with us for two months? I don’t know what you think you’ll accomplish by avoiding them now.”
Shaoyen said through gritted teeth, “I’ve decided that I cannot—will not—sleep under the same roof as Rachel Chu or Nicholas Young.”
“Now what could you possibly have against Nicholas Young?”
“He is the son of that two-faced schemer who wormed her way into our lives.”
“Come on, Eleanor Young was such a great help to us when Carlton was in the hospital.”
“That’s only because she knew who he was from the very beginning.”
Gaoliang shook his head in frustration. “I’m not going to continue arguing with you when you are being this unreasonable.”
“I’m done arguing too. I have a plane to catch. But mark my words: I will not allow Rachel or Nicholas into this house, or any of my houses.”
“Stop being unreasonable!” Gaoliang exploded. “Where are they supposed to stay?”
“There are a thousand hotels in this city.”
“You’re insane. They are landing in a few hours! How can I sud
denly tell my daughter she isn’t welcome in my house after she’s just spent twenty hours on a plane?”
“You figure it out. But this is my house too, and either you choose them, or you choose your wife and son!” Shaoyen stormed out, leaving her husband alone in a room that reeked of spiced rose and narcissus.
3
ASTRID
VENICE, ITALY
“Ludivine, I’m not sure if you can hear me, but you’re breaking up. I’m on a gondola in the middle of a canal right now, and the connection is very weak. Please text me and I’ll call you back as soon as I get off this boat.” Astrid put her phone away and smiled apologetically at her friend, Contessa Domiella Finzi-Contini. She was there for the Venice Biennale, and they were being rowed to the Palazzo Brandolini for a dinner party honoring Anish Kapoor.
“This is Venezia—there is never a signal anywhere, much less in the middle of Canal Grande.” Domiella laughed as she tried to stop her pashmina from flapping away in the evening breeze. “Now, finish telling me the story of your amazing find.”
“Well, I always thought Fortuny only worked with heavier silks and velvets, so when I came across this voile dress in an antique shop in Jakarta, of all places, I didn’t know what to think. I thought at first it was some kind of Peranakan wedding gown from the 1920s, but the distinctive pleating caught my eye. And the pattern—”
“It’s his classic Delphos pattern, of course, but this fabric—my God, so light!” Domiella said as she fondled the hem of Astrid’s long diaphanous skirt. “And the color—I’ve never seen this shade of violet before. Obviously hand-painted, probably by Fortuny himself or his wife, Henriette. How is it that you are always finding these remarkable treasures?”
“Domiella, I swear to God, they just find me. I paid about three hundred thousand rupiahs for it—that’s about twenty-five U.S. dollars.”
“Cazzo! I am going to vomit with jealousy! I’m sure any museum would love to have it. Be careful, Dodie will probably want to buy it off your body the minute she sees you tonight!”
The grand entrance of the Palazzo Brandolini was jammed oar to oar with guests arriving in gondolas, launches, and vaporettos, allowing Astrid to check her phone again. This time, there was an e-mail that read:
Madame,
I write to you with grave concerns about recent actions taken in regards to Cassian while you are away. I arrived home after my day off and found that Cassian was locked up in the upstairs hall closet, and Padma was sitting on a stool outside looking at her iPad. I asked her what was happening, and she said, “Sir told me not to let Cassian out.” I asked her how long Cassian had been inside the closet and she said four hours. Your husband was out at a business dinner. When I let Cassian out, the boy was very distressed.
Apparently Michael was punishing Cassian for his latest infraction—the boy was playing with his lightsaber this afternoon and accidentally made a small scratch on the door of the vintage Porsche 550 Spyder in the great hall. Two nights ago, Michael sent Cassian to bed without any supper because the boy used a Chinese swear term. Apparently it is the bad word of the week at Far Eastern Kindergarten, and every boy has been using it, even though they have no idea what they are saying. Ah Lian explained to me what it meant. I assure you a five-year-old cannot even begin to comprehend such an act between a father and a daughter.
In my view, such disciplinary measures toward Cassian are counterproductive. They do not address the underlying issues and will only cause him to develop new phobias and resentment toward his father. It is past 1:00 a.m. now and Cassian still cannot sleep. For the first time since he was three, he is afraid of the dark again.
Ludivine
Astrid read the e-mail with increasing frustration and sadness. She sent a quick text message to her husband, and then allowed herself to be helped out of the gondola after the contessa. They entered the front hall of the palazzo, which was dominated by an enormous metallic-gold concave sculpture suspended from the ceiling.
“Bellissima! I wonder, is it one of Anish’s new installations?” Domiella turned to gauge Astrid’s reaction, and found that she hadn’t even noticed the sculpture hovering above her. “Is everything okay?”
Astrid sighed. “Every time I go away, there seems to be a new problem with Cassian.”
“He misses his mama.”
“No, that’s not it. I mean, I’m sure he misses me, but I intentionally make these short trips so that Cassian might bond with his father. He’s too much of a mama’s boy, and I’m trying to change that—I see what that’s done to my brother. But every time I go away, there’s always a problem. Michael and he just seem to always be at loggerheads.”
“What is loggerheads?”
“They fight. Michael doesn’t have any tolerance for anything other than perfect behavior from his son. He treats him as if he were in the military. Tell me, when Luchino and Pier Paolo were Cassian’s age, if they broke something valuable, what would you do to them?”
“My God, my sons tore up everything in the house! Furniture, rugs, everything! They put an elbow through a Bronzino one day when they were fighting with each other. Thankfully, it was a portrait of a very ugly woman. Some inbred ancestor of my husband’s.”
“And what did you do? Did you punish them?”
“For what? They are boys.”
“Exactly!” Astrid sighed.
“Oh dear, here comes that odious art dealer who keeps trying to sell me a Gursky. I keep telling him that if I had to look at a huge photo of Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport all day, I’d hang myself. Let’s go upstairs.”
Despite their best efforts, the dealer caught up to them in the Grand Ballroom on the second floor. “Contessa—how good to see you,” he said in an extremely affected accent, attempting to give her a double-cheek kiss. She only allowed one cheek. “How are your parents these days?”
“Still alive,” Domiella said wistfully.
The man paused for a split second, before letting out a guffaw. “Oh, har har!”
“This is my friend Astrid Leong Teo.”
“Howdoyoudo,” he said, pushing up his obnoxiously thick hornrimmed spectacles. He had memorized dossiers on every high-net-worth Asian collector who might attend the Biennale this year, but as he did not recognize Astrid, he continued to zero in on the contessa. “Contessa, I do hope you will give me a chance to walk you through the German Pavilion sometime.”
“Excuse me, I have to make a brief phone call,” Astrid said, as she moved toward the outdoor balcony.
Domiella looked at the art dealer and shook her head pitifully. “You just missed the chance of a lifetime. Do you know who my friend was? Her family are the Medicis of Asia, and she’s on a buying binge for a museum in Singapore.”
“I assumed she was just some model,” the dealer sputtered.
“Oh look—Larry’s talking to her. He’s obviously done his homework. Too late for you now,” Domiella tut-tutted.
• • •
After assuring the art dealer who cornered her on the terrace that she truly had no interest in seeing his big shiny Koons, Astrid placed a call to her husband.
Michael picked up his cell phone after four rings, sounding sleepy. “Hey. Is everything okay?”
“Yes.”
“You know it’s one thirty in the morning here, right?”
“I do. But I think you’re the only one in the house who’s able to sleep. Ludivine just texted me that Cassian is still up. He’s terrified of the dark now. Locking him in the closet…really?”
Michael let out a sigh of frustration. “You don’t understand. He’s been a little pest all week. Whenever I come home, he goes berserk.”
“He’s acting out to get your attention. He wants to play.”
“The great hall is not a playroom. My cars are not toys. He has to learn to control himself—at his age, I was not jumpi
ng around like an orangutan all day.”
“He is an active, high-spirited kid. Like his father was.”
“Hnnh!” Michael snorted. “If I had acted the way he does, I would have been whipped by my pa. Ten strokes on my ass with his rotan.”*
“Well, thank God you’re not your father then.”
“Cassian is a wild child, and this is the time for him to learn some discipline.”
“He is disciplined. Do you see how much calmer he is when I am there? I think you would get much farther if you would give him more of your attention. And I don’t mean sitting by the pool with your laptop while he plays. Take him to the zoo, take him to Gardens by the Bay. He just wants to be with his father.”
“So now you’re trying to make me feel guilty.”
“Darling, I’m not trying to make you feel anything. But don’t you see? My being away is a special opportunity for you to spend more quality time with him. He’ll be in Primary One next year, and then the whole academic race begins. He’s growing up so fast—this is a time in his life you’ll never get back.”
“Okay, lah, okay lah, you win. I’m a bad father.”
Astrid balled up some of the fabric of her skirt in frustration. “This is not about winning, and you’re not a bad father. It’s just—” Astrid began, before Michael interrupted her.
“I’ll try to do better tomorrow while you’re having fun in Venice. Have a Bellini on me.”
“You’re not being fair. You know I promised to take this trip for the museum. We are trying to make some important things happen here for the good of Singapore. I spend most of my waking hours with Cassian all year and you are the one who travels eighty percent of the year.”
“Excuse me for working my ass off to ensure a future for my family. While you’re working ‘for the good of Singapore,’ everything I’m doing is for Cassian and you!”
“Michael, we’re not going to go hungry anytime soon, and you know that.”