Five Star Billionaire

by Tash Aw

  “I’m sorry,” she said.

  He looked at her for a while, holding her gaze until she felt uncomfortable and looked away. “Don’t be,” he said. “Life doesn’t treat all of us equally, does it?”

  At Yinghui’s suggestion, they decided to have another glass of champagne instead of dessert—she needed a way to cheer up for the remainder of the night—and when they finished, they decided to go for a stroll, skirting across the vast perimeter of Tiananmen Square and aiming vaguely for the outer waterways of the Forbidden City. The air was much drier here than in Shanghai, and Yinghui’s skin began to feel cracked and brittle. The pavement was crunchy underfoot with a layer of gritty dust, and when a breath of wind occasionally swept along the avenues, it carried an imprint of warmth, even though it was late at night. The cheery banter they had fabricated over dinner had crumbled away now, and it felt once more as if they were trying to bridge a void between them.

  As they walked along the silent stretch of water under the feathery reaches of the overhanging willow trees, Yinghui moved close to Walter, hoping that their physical proximity would make it easier for him to reach out and and take her hand. It was a gesture of desperation, she knew, trying to establish physical closeness in order to replace a widening emotional gap, but it would reassure them nonetheless, she thought. The water appeared black and utterly still in the dark, but on the surface there were flecks of dust and froth that glimmered in the night light. There were old men sitting passively with their fishing rods poised over the water, motionless as statues. Even though it was nearly midnight, there were small groups of people playing xiangqi, sliding the chess pieces across grid-patterned paper laid out on the paving stones. Young lovers wandered slowly in the dusky moonlight, pausing now and then to peer into the water—just as Yinghui and Walter were now doing.

  Yinghui felt Walter’s hand brush hers as they walked; his pace had slowed to a stroll, as if he wanted to speak and did not wish to be hurried. They came across a small stone bench and paused to sit down. He looked her in the eye. She thought maybe he was going to kiss her now. But instead he said, “Is it true that your father was murdered?” His voice was clear and insistent; the question seemed to hang in the air, refusing to budge until it was met with an answer.

  “I guess it’s not the sort of thing one can keep secret forever.”

  “Yes, someone told me,” he said calmly—too calmly, she thought, as if he had been waiting for an opportunity to bring up the topic. “There was a scandal. I remembered the incident—it was all over the papers at the time. There were photos of you and your mother too.”

  “Yup, that was my dad. That was us.” She felt a numbness settling over her, the urge to answer in grunting monosyllables until he changed the subject. It had been so many years since she had thought about it; she didn’t even know what to say now. “I hate the way people say it was a scandal, as if he had anything to do with it.”

  “Mmm,” Walter said, waiting for her to go on.

  She felt the weight of his expectation for answers growing with each second, a sense of shame replacing the numbness. But what was she ashamed of? She had done nothing wrong. And yet she could not shake the rising humiliation she was experiencing.

  “I suppose you don’t want to do business with me now—and I guess that’s why you were hesitant about taking the plunge. You thought there might be something wrong with me. Don’t worry, you won’t be the first to do so. Funny how people don’t like trouble even when it’s long gone. You get into trouble and everyone avoids you forever, even though you’ve done nothing wrong. It must be an Asian thing. Shame, loss of face, that sort of shit. Someone fucks your life up and somehow the shame becomes yours.”

  Walter put his arm briefly around her shoulders before withdrawing again. “The business side of things is fine, don’t worry. I’m just interested to hear about your past, that’s all.”

  The closeness of his body—the unexpected weight of his arm, the slight sour notes in his breath—made her breath quicken; the warm, witty responses she might have come up with in a similar situation suddenly felt choked in her throat. She closed her eyes, and the first image that came into her mind was of Shanghai, of driving home at night along the Bund section of Zhongshan Lu after a long day’s work, tired but glowing with satisfaction. The lights of the skyscrapers in Pudong would be off now, but there would still be light coming off the river, and a breeze too, which would ruffle the surface of the water and make it choppy; in the summer months, when she drove along with the windows down, alone, the wind that eddied and swirled in the car would be soft and reassuring, with whispers of the tropics. She wished she were back in Shanghai, back in her comforting routine; she did not want to be in this arid northern city anymore.

  “I just wanted you to feel comfortable with me,” he continued. “You do trust me, don’t you?”

  She nodded again, allowing herself to rest more heavily against him. They remained this way for a while, awkwardly poised against each other, their elbows, shoulders, and hands seeming to get in the way, their bodies never able to gain greater proximity, no matter how hard she tried to maneuver herself.

  “So,” he said after a time, “what happened?”

  What happened—Yinghui thought for a moment. It was so long ago, maybe she had forgotten. It was so long ago, she had traveled so far, changed so much, changed completely; maybe she no longer remembered what happened. But, no—it was all still there, playing in a never-ending loop in the background of her life every day, like an insidious TV ad that gets into your head and refuses to go away. It had accompanied her every second of her day and night, she realized now, and though in the bright light of her office she had been able to banish it to the shadows, it had remained there, ready to announce itself at any moment.

  Of course she could remember what happened. Of course she could remember arriving at her parents’ that Sunday evening, after a day tidying up and taking stock at Angie’s. It had been a quiet day at the café—Sundays always were, but that day was even more so because her friends had begun to distance themselves from her following her father’s court case, as if the shadows of suspicion that continued to hover over her family might somehow infect them like a virus if they continued to hang out with her. She had had an argument with C.S.; they’d been having quite a few of those of late, disputes that seemed more profound and troubling than their usual squabbles. They’d always been a tempestuous couple, and fierce debates were part of the way they expressed their passion for each other; it was their way of showing commitment to their relationship.

  They had not argued this time about Milosz or the illusion of free democracy—that kind of argument felt as if it belonged to a much distant past—but about something much more bourgeois. It was so petty, Yinghui had thought at the time, but she couldn’t help herself; it had seemed so important. They had gotten engaged on a trip to India the previous month—bought each other rings in Udaipur and exchanged them on the banks of Lake Pichola. They had treated themselves and spent an extravagant night at the Lake Palace hotel, marooned on an island in the midst of a teeming city—it was as if they would always be alone in their couple-dom, and they loved that feeling. But now he was dragging his heels, refusing to tell anyone about the engagement—hiding it, in fact, by making jokes to their friends about being engaged. “Ya, look at me, I never notice pretty girls now, because I’m pretty much engaged, aren’t I? Ha-ha.” She couldn’t say, in front of all their friends, Yes, you are engaged. And then, just that day, he’d said to his brother and some friends, “Marriage is a disgraceful institution; it forces people into an unthinking and unquestioning social arrangement. I’d never do it.” She’d laughed along at the time, made it seem as though it were one of his witty jokes. But afterward, when they were on their own, she asked him if he’d meant what he said. To which he’d replied:

  “Don’t ask me such dumb questions.”

  “What do you mean by that?” she retorted.

  “I
mean don’t be so damn boring. Marriage, marriage, marriage—that’s all you talk about these days. You’re turning into one of those boring women you’ve always hated.”

  The argument got worse: She accused him of a lack of commitment, of being ashamed of her. He accused her of being a pre-feminist woman, which enraged her. He left her in the stockroom, holding her clipboard in front of a stack of organic kidney beans. After he left she stood there for a while, listening out for the front door in case he came back, but all she could hear was the low murmuring of the chiller cabinets.

  When she arrived at her parents’ house, she was almost grateful for the routine that lay ahead of her—the disjointed conversation around the dinner table, with her mother fussing over the price of food or the lack of time she’d had to prepare dinner that day, and her father nodding in agreement like an automaton. Sometimes he would refer to his life in the past tense, as if resigning from his job had meant the end of time for him. I was quite a sporty fellow. I liked Penang a lot, nice atmosphere. But Yinghui did not mind; it would allow her to do the same, to rest in her own thoughts and be present without actually participating. Her parents wouldn’t notice the absent look on her face, nor would they see the obvious signs of fatigue—the dark puffy circles around her eyes, the pinched smile, the worn fingernails that she had been nibbling constantly.

  Her mother was just dishing out some lotus-stem soup (“The stems are so small nowadays; remember when they were so fat and cheap?”) when the doorbell rang. The neighbor’s dog started to bark, a monotonous oof-oof-oof that betrayed little interest—the same call it made when the postman came around on his scooter every morning. It was a fat, pampered German shepherd that ate boiled chicken and long beans for lunch—it wasn’t there to guard against anything. It barked for a few seconds as the doorbell rang again, but then the dog fell silent. Yinghui didn’t stir from her thoughts—she’d grown so accustomed over the years to her father having late-night meetings on governmental matters, men calling late at night for a friendly drink to discuss the week’s developments at work, her father keeping unsociable hours. At that precise moment, she was thinking: What if she broke off her engagement with C.S.? What if she broke up with him altogether? That would take him by surprise.

  “Who’s that?” her mother said, looking up at her father. She dipped the ladle into the soup; Yinghui watched the thin circles of oil separate into little greasy pearls on the surface of the cloudy broth. “So late at night. On Sunday, to boot.”

  Her father looked in the direction of the door. He did not seem surprised. “I don’t know.”

  Yes, Yinghui thought, she would break up with C.S. He would not be expecting that at all.

  “Darling, don’t go out,” her mother said.

  “Aiya, don’t worry,” her father said, laughing.

  “Darling, be careful.”

  Yinghui thought: What if she just suddenly announced to her parents, there and then, that she was going to break up with C.S.? Would they be pleased? They had never been very keen on him. But how would they feel about a daughter who, approaching marriageable age, split up with a boy she’d practically lived with for nearly six years?

  Her mother was looking out the window, soup ladle still in her hand. “So dark outside,” she said. “Can’t see anything.” She returned to the table and continued to dish out the soup.

  The thought of breaking up with C.S. had given Yinghui a few moments’ exhilaration, but it evaporated as soon as it had appeared, and suddenly she was alone with her doubts again. She could not break up with him, could not imagine a life in KL without him. If ever it happened, she would have to move a million miles away, retrain as an astronaut so that she’d never have to inhabit the same planet as C.S. Tomorrow she would patch things up with him. She would go to the café as usual, and he would appear, just before opening time, with a bouquet of flowers, which is what he always did after a fight. Once, he’d appeared bearing a bunch of roses and a first edition of Lolita, with a note saying, If I had a nymphet, it would be you.

  The first noise they heard was strange and unrecognizable, as if disconnected from time and space: firecrackers at this time of the year? No way: not the usual rapid chatter but a single sound that punctured the silence of the night with the violence of a whip on flesh, the shattering of a sound barrier by a jet in the sky. The dog barking. And then—one, two, three seconds later?—another noise, and this time they knew. She had never heard a gunshot before, but somehow Yinghui recognized it. The dog was barking furiously now—not its low, lazy calls but a hysterical high-pitched yelp, as if choking, over and over, as if it would never stop. Yinghui ran out the door into the front yard, across the small stretch of lawn—the last bit of the garden that hadn’t been built over—and onto the driveway. She could hear her mother behind her, screaming, “Be careful, come back, be careful.” Her father lay on the concrete, facedown, hands bunched together near his face, as if searching for some microscopic object in the earth. In the darkness, the pool of blood that was seeping out under him appeared black and inky against the paleness of the concrete. She looked around, but she knew that she would see no one, knew that she was not in danger, knew that this was the full stop in the messy story that had spanned the whole of the last year, the one everyone referred to as “the scandal.” She crouched down next to her father, thinking that maybe she might hear gurgled, frothy breaths. She could feel the blood—tepid and moist on her hands and ear. She could feel the warm presence of her father’s body, as if he were still alive. But she could hear nothing. Just the dog barking, crazed and strangulated; her mother standing at the door to the house, shouting, “Come back, be careful,” over and over again. The word “careful” was stretched by her low cries; it rang out in the night, carefuuuuul, carefuuuuuuuuul. And then her mother was sobbing, a deep moaning sob.

  And Yinghui thought: It was better this way. It felt like a relief. She remained crouched by her father’s side for a long time, knowing he was dead, comforted by the certainty of it. She did not shout out, “Call for an ambulance,” the way people did in films; she just stayed there, bunched up next to her dead father, listening to her mother’s animal wail settling into a rhythm. And the fat German shepherd barking its hysterical bark, its owners unable to calm it.

  Why did they do it? Her mother would ask that question over and over again in the days that followed. He was already ruined; his life was over. They didn’t have to kill him twice. What had he done that was so wrong? He had never hurt anyone; he never hurt anyone in his whole life.

  The newspapers adopted the same tone: He was a good, hardworking man who left behind a grieving wife and daughter. There were photos of Yinghui holding her mother’s arm after the funeral, her mother’s face collapsed in anguish; in her pain, she was oblivious to the cameras. It was always like this with Asian people, thought Yinghui: When a man is alive, he is vilified; when he is dead, he is honored. And yet, every time there was an article about his death, there was a little line right at the end of the piece, a footnote to his life: In the last year of his life, he was involved in a lengthy court case arising from accusations of corruption, but was acquitted of all the main charges. It was a case of footnotes being more important than the book itself, and Yinghui could not ignore the barb in these throw-away comments, as if every article about him was designed to rob him of all the respect he had wanted, all the respect he had accumulated throughout his life.

  “I honestly can’t remember all the details,” Yinghui said, feeling the warmth of Walter’s body; his shirt was getting damp with sweat, for even though it was late, the night was still warm. “It was all so long ago.”

  FURTHER NOTES ON HOW

  TO BE CHARITABLE

  Some months ago I had a very interesting meeting with a highly principled young woman who works in the planning department of Shanghai Municipal Council. She is a bright, educated person in her early forties who, in a few years’ time, might easily be the mayor of this great metropolis. But
for now she is not yet even the head of the department; she is only one of the deputy heads, with a particular responsibility for preservation and heritage—a thankless task if ever there was one: Look at all the relentless development going on across the city! Nonetheless, she does her job admirably, for she is good with details and vigorous in her approach. She is a touch unimaginative, I might add, unwilling to take risks beyond the strict confines of her job. But, still, those are qualities that make her admired in her post, and I daresay she will be head of her division within the next year.

  I got her name from local contacts of mine who thought I would find her interesting, given my record of involvement with conservation and my present interest in sustainable development. So I invited her for a business lunch at a quiet restaurant, and I must say, I left the meeting feeling more than satisfied.

  She has a daughter who is seventeen and brilliant in her studies, she explained to me over lunch. This young girl has been top of her class every year since the age of ten and dreams of going to Stanford, where she has already won a place. Congratulations! I cried; you must be very happy. But why do you seem sad and worried?

  Well, the woman replied, it is because I can’t afford to send her there; tuition fees in the United States are just too expensive.

  It turns out that this noble woman is married to a rather feckless petty businessman, who was pampered by his parents and has a tendency to gamble away his earnings in Macau. He recently went to the newly opened casino in Singapore and lost RMB 40,000 of their savings. Even with her respectable salary, there is no way they can afford to send their daughter to the States.

  I sighed. This sort of situation is so common in China these days—a woman battling the odds while accommodating a deadweight of a husband.

  “Maybe I could help,” I said.

  She looked at me, at once confused and hopeful.