I sat erectly, trying to give a good impression to this admirable man, not wanting to give away the fact that I’d been mentally blaspheming him and his daughter and mentally matchmaking myself to new clients.
Mustering every ounce of feigned enthusiasm in my body, I cried, “Fantastic! The show of the century!”
He stroked the goose’s head with his index finger and said, “Exhausting.”
I cocked my head.
“You know, son,” he said, and I’ll have you know I nearly wet myself right then and there—a living legend, the richest and most brilliant man in China, using a term of endearment on me! He continued. “I’ve spent the past three months preparing for this night. And sure, it was fantastic. But ultimately, what was the point? Waste a bunch of money on some damn party to make everyone feel good about themselves for a short time. They’ll wake up tomorrow with a bad case of the shits and a splitting headache. No one leaves a place like this feeling any less empty than when they came in.”
To that odd outburst, I had no response. There was a long silence, during which I caught a side-eyed glimpse of Kelly in the corner, glaring one of her trademark psychic holes through us. The goose, its eyes now gazing in Kelly’s direction, emitted a low growl.
“It’s all a distraction,” Papa Hui said, stroking between the goose’s eyes. “An important technique, to be sure. Actually, I was rather disappointed you didn’t include anything on distraction in the ‘Advice to Future Entrepreneurs’ section of your book.”
I couldn’t breathe. I squeaked out a “You read it?” and I hoped there was another ambulance waiting outside because I truly thought I was having a stroke.
Papa Hui murmured a “Yes, indeed.” He continued: “Ay, it reminded me of my own early years. You’re a good man with a good head. I just have a feeling about you, a feeling that you can see through all the bullshit.”
I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I must’ve looked it.
“You know, there’s no real point to any of this.” He rubbed his eyes, ever so slightly crinkled at their corners.
“To any of what?”
“You’ll understand one day,” he said, and he left it at that. He looked down, stroking the goose, bringing it to purr, to rest its beady little eyes. Comforted by these loving movements, I finally caught my breath. There were a million questions I wanted to ask, was going to ask, but then a tall, slim man, the founder of an Internet-based furniture company, plopped down on the other side of Papa Hui and began chattering his ear off about a new start-up, something about using the power of the world wide web to harness…
I half listened, my eyes scanning the room for someone I knew, when my phone buzzed in my pocket. I slipped it out. A new message from Lulu. I looked up. In all of this feasting, in all of this talk, I’d forgotten all about her, hadn’t noticed that she was no longer beside me. I looked around—she was nowhere to be seen. When had she slipped out? Where was she? How had I forgotten about my most valuable asset? My heart skipped a beat as I read and reread the message.
Just: “I’m sorry. I can’t.”
But can’t what?
My first thought was that she’d decided she couldn’t sit at this banquet any longer when she had a harvest in the morning. Understandable, as I too was growing worried about the environment—some people in their rowdiness had begun to smoke marijuana, crack, meth, all sorts (I know I shouldn’t be writing this on the Internet, but I swore to tell the whole truth here, netizens, and I’m not naming names, and nothing can be done after the fact anyway, can it?), and we wouldn’t want those scents tainting her hair or my hair either. But if this were the case, why hadn’t she said something? I would’ve happily left with her.
I alternated looking at my phone’s screen with looking out at the banquet hall, searching, scanning for her. A woman performed yoga atop one of the tables, downward-facing dog, and an old man with lascivious eyes stared at her ass and hacked a terrible cough, spit his phlegm into a platinum goblet. And then I thought, Oh god, maybe Lulu didn’t go home to protect her harvest, maybe she’s fallen ill and that brief message was the only one she, in her fragility, could manage to send; maybe she was suicidal and this was a cry for help. I panicked. I called and called her phone, but she didn’t pick up. A man stood at the edge of the shark pool, tossing sea cucumbers at the gnashing shark. Or maybe she’d meant something else entirely. Mama Hui jumped up on her chair, raising her fist into the air and shouting, “I beat the level!” I rose from my own chair, phone still pressed to my ear, and covertly combed the room. I peeked under tablecloths, but all I found there was a load of people older than my parents, crouching and performing lewd sexual acts on each other. I searched both bathrooms—golden toilets, by the way, but the sinks were mere silver. I called Lulu’s phone again and again, but nothing. I cursed my luck—the week before, I’d nearly been talked into having GPS tracking systems implanted in each of my Heads, but at the time I’d thought that both an unnecessary expenditure and a violation of trust, of privacy. Regret, with its strong fingers—oh, how it strangled me! Choking, at a loss, I slipped out of the banquet hall and raced into the warm summer night.
I dove into the backseat of the waiting Audi. My mind twisted, turned, lurched. This was a large sum of money we’re talking about here. I’m not at liberty to disclose how much, but trust me. Not that it was about the money. It was so much more than that. Lulu Qi represented an ideal: the ideal head of hair, the ideal woman, the yin to my yang. She represented my company, my hopes, and my dreams, and if she was missing then where was I?
We approached Shanghai from the outskirts, and soon everything was a blur of lights and I was hearing voices—voices I’d never heard outside of the comfort of my bedroom. They shouted numbers: the numbers in my bank accounts, in my stock portfolios, in my retirement funds. Loud, louder, I covered my ears with my hands, trying to muffle the cries. I writhed in the backseat, but up front, the driver didn’t react, didn’t appear to hear anything. He steered and accelerated and braked obliviously, his eyes fixed on the road. This driver, who had never once called me by my name, who called me “sir” and “mister” and the polite form of “you.” I gazed at the back of his head in disbelief. I wondered: Is he just pretending not to hear the voices? Was ignorance such an important factor in professionalism? Couldn’t he just act human for once? And then I thought: But what if he really wasn’t hearing the voices? If I said something about the voices, would he think I’d gone loony? Would he bypass the headquarters exit and drive me straight to some nut hospital? Would he then sell his firsthand account of a “schizophrenic mogul” to a tabloid? Or would he just feign ignorance all over again?
Finally, I arrived. Everyone at headquarters was alerted as to Lulu’s disappearance, and we searched the building high and low. I read and reread her message, recited the contents over and over again in my head, and I became convinced that it was indeed a cry for help, that she had been kidnapped against her will. I called the local police, I bribed them a great deal of money to care—to hell with principles!—and a clandestine citywide search soon took place. I accompanied the officers through the darkness, to every corner of Shanghai, and then at dawn, dejected and exhausted, I returned to headquarters with tired eyes, with empty hands, with ravenous hope that maybe Lulu had been returned.
But no.
I rode the private elevator up to my penthouse, flooded with morning sunshine, and pulled shut all the curtains and curled up in bed. I turned over, and in the dull darkness, I stared up at the ceiling for a very long time, and there I listened to all manner of voices, telling me that I hadn’t done a good enough job of protecting my assets, that I’d made a critical mistake, that I’d never been good enough. I thought of what Papa Hui said about the importance of distraction, and I realized that I’d indeed been distracted, if not impressed, by all the glitter and gold and hoopla. And what was the difference, really, when both result in the same effect?
You’re a failure, you’
re a failure, you’re a failure. I squeezed shut my eyes and prayed for the voices to stop, for a moment of silence, for a second of peace.
And then there was silence, but no peace. There was a knock at the door. I stumbled over and opened it to find Stefan, an on-staff stylist from the south of China who’d studied cosmetology in Australia, and who still went by his English name, and who both harvested crops and traveled around the province outfitting clients with extensions. He was one of the best hairdressers in the country, I’ll admit—that’s why I hired him—but he also annoyed the hell out of me. Big googly eyeballs, smiling all the time, always speaking in a whisper. He peered at me with eyes as red as mine felt and said he had something to tell me. We sat on my sofa and in that stupid murmur he said, “Lulu wasn’t kidnapped.”
Now I know what you might be thinking: I had a crush on him. There was something between us. I’m acting like a schoolboy, teasing and taunting when I want to be loving.
But you’re wrong. Aside from the fact that I could never be attracted to someone with a smile that gummy, here’s why: there is something I disdain about people who choose to work for someone else. There, I said it. Wrote it. Whatever. And what does it matter now what I say or write? I’m a man in chains!
Look, since I know you are all going to dissect my meaning and try to decode it, I’ll save you the trouble. All I mean is that there is so much opportunity out there in the world, so much uncharted territory, and to me it seems foolish not to explore and exploit it. That’s not to say I don’t see the necessity of employees, and it’s not to say I don’t treat my employees well. I do. Their salaries are quite high, their Spring Festival bonuses are generous, and they have on-site housing, or if they choose to live elsewhere, I have drivers deliver them to and from work. But I don’t give them my respect, not truly, not wholeheartedly; they don’t deserve it. And Stefan irritated me beyond my normal irritation. He didn’t just seem happy with his job, with what I provided, but with something beyond that, something out of my reach. Happy to his very depths. Way to set your sights low. To me, such people aren’t merely irritating; they’re dangerous. These are the types of people who fill the future generation’s heads with ideas that complacency is okay, that you don’t need to attend after-school lessons or start a business or strive to buy your own iPhone, that China will be just fine without innovators and executives and tycoons. These are the types of people who are satisfied with the status quo, satisfied with second place; the type who give runaways a safe place to hide…
Let me be clear again: no, I don’t mean to say that all salarymen moonlight as fugitive aiders. I know better than that, and I therefore cannot speak in such absolute terms. But in this specific case, my statement holds true.
I ordered him to take me to her, and when we reached his apartment—you know, the one Hair Inc.’s housing allowance provided him, the traitor!—I pounded on the door, my fist possessed, but Stefan grabbed my hand and gently dropped it by my side. “Patience,” he whispered. “Think this through. You don’t want to scare her.”
We stood there for a very long time, and the motion-detector light kept turning off, and I kept stamping my feet to get it to turn back on, and I was left alone in that alternating light and dark with Stefan, with his mouth-breathing, his musky cologne, his shiny leather shoes, until at last I heard some movement coming from the other side of the door. The sound of a lock turning. The door creaking open slightly.
A small gap from which a familiar eye peeked out.
“Hi, sweetie,” Stefan whispered. “Are you okay?”
“Lulu,” I said. I could hear that my voice was frantic, manic, crazed. Still, I spoke on. “Let us in. Please, let us in.”
Upon hearing my voice, she shut the door.
An hour later, we managed to coax our way inside, and I took a good look around Stefan’s apartment. It was a startlingly normal place. I don’t know why this struck me as so unsettling, but I guess it’s because if I’d had to imagine it—not that I spent my valuable time daydreaming about his life or anything—I’d have imagined something more flamboyant. Zebra skins and feathers and sequins everywhere, you know. But his furniture was your standard IKEA fare: plywood, cheap metal. It reminded me of my parents’ home. TV set. Short bookshelf filled with some not particularly interesting looking software manuals and a few classic novels, standard concubines and swordsmen fare. A couple of fashion magazines on the coffee table.
And then there was Lulu, sitting on the sofa. Also normal, hardly the goddess I’d in the past twelve hours built her up to be. Her face was pale. She’d been crying. She sat with her feet on the sofa and her arms and head resting on her knees. I sat beside her. She didn’t move or even look at me. She had changed clothes, was wearing a T-shirt, jeans. I reached out and took a lock of her hair into my hands and then released, letting it fall. Oh, the swing, the body! This was the finest hair ever grown, no doubt about that. My lungs surged with pride. I exhaled, releasing a tiny bit of air, and I stroked her bony back, and I looked at her, my best friend, my most valuable asset, and I tried Stefan’s whispering trick on for size. “Lulu, you don’t want to do this.”
She turned her head, still resting on her arms, and peered at me from the corners of her eyes.
“Or maybe you do. I don’t know. But let’s just harvest this crop, and then afterward we can discuss the future.”
There was no change in her expression. Her pupils did not sparkle; they were blank. Her whole face was utterly unreadable.
I took a deep breath and continued stroking, whispering. “I want you to be happy, you know that. Your happiness is the most important thing.”
I know, I know what you’re thinking, netizens: this girl wanted to keep her hair so badly that she fled the most decadent banquet in our country’s history, hid from me, hid from the Shanghai police, sought refuge in a colleague’s apartment, and yet I still tried to convince her that doing it would make her happy, that I cared about her happiness.
Yes, I know.
And well, she caved. She finally nodded in agreement, and I gave Stefan, who had been politely waiting in the bathroom, the agreed-upon signal, which was a particular Morse code—inspired flash of light from my Audemars Piguet watch. Scissors in hand, he emerged from the bathroom doorway. He took a step and then another and another, and then he tripped over his own pink-socked foot. He caught his balance before he fell, but his facial expression, icy before, gave way to an embarrassed grin. To say this guy was clumsy would be like saying that the Gang of Four caused a teensy-weensy bit of damage to our country’s morale, which is to say that it’d be a gross understatement. Luckily though, he was nothing but graceful when it came to cutting hair.
Lulu sat, her head bowed, at Stefan’s cheap kitchen chair with a leopard-print towel—see, I wasn’t totally off base regarding his taste—draped across her shoulders.
“All off,” I ordered. A familiar adrenaline coursed through me. I lived for this feeling, which I always got just before a big harvest. “Tell him, Lulu. Tell him that’s what you want.”
She took a deep breath, that leopard-print towel rising to graze her earlobes, and then looked up, directly at me. Through me, even.
“No,” she said. Her voice was firm.
My hands trembled—I thought it was adrenaline at the time, but now I think maybe it was pure fear. “No what?”
“I’m not cutting it off.”
My eyes widened. My mouth fell open. But hadn’t she just agreed? Hadn’t she nodded? Hadn’t she sat down? Hadn’t she let me drape that towel on her back? What game was she playing? These were the questions that pounded in my heart.
“Like hell you’re not, you traitor!” I spat. “It’s my hair.”
Eyes soft, she gazed straight ahead, unblinking—was she meditating? Stefan stood a few steps away, frozen, scissors poised.
I wasn’t finished. I was a man possessed. “Well, what are you going to do with it still attached to your head?”
“Go t
o Beijing and become an actress,” she murmured. “Or, I don’t know—”
“Oh, please,” I said. “Your only talent is looking pleasant.”
“Then I’ll become a model.” Her voice had picked up strength. Om, she chanted under her breath.
“Models these days need to be more than pleasant. They need to have an edge.”
It went on like this for quite some time, and as we argued, Stefan unfroze, his head whipping back and forth, his googly eyes darting like those of a cartoon character watching a Ping-Pong match. On it went until Lulu jumped up, tore off the towel and threw it to the floor. “I’m not cutting my hair and that’s the end of it!”
Something swept over me then—that same something that famously made me grab the scissors from the stylist all those years before, the same longing that had launched my career—I fucking wanted it, that’s why!—and I reached for her hair. But I wasn’t as strong as I’d been in my youth, wasn’t as cunning. Stefan, that weakling, that sissy, that klutz, somehow positioned himself between us, blocking me, and shouted at Lulu to run.
Oh, poor little rich boy, I heard a voice whisper, who’s on your side now?
Stefan tackled me to the floor, pinned me down, but he couldn’t keep me there forever. I struggled and fought with all my might until at last I broke free and fled out the door, down flights and flights of stairs, through the building’s lobby, and outside. The enormity of the city weighed down on me as I spun around and around on the sidewalk. Here there wasn’t a skyline, but a skycircle. Buildings in every direction, people in all of them. Buses, cars, airports, train stations. A million roads that had made the maps, and a million more that hadn’t yet. I realized, fully realized then, that she, this traitor, could be anywhere. Dizzy, I was, losing all balance, and then there was a steadying hand on my shoulder. I turned my head and looked straight into Stefan’s bulging eyes.
“Let it go,” he spoke in that whisper of his.
Year of the Goose Page 14