by Tash Aw
What bothered him was the lack of activity. He wasn’t used to having time on his hands. Now that he was rested and feeling better again, he could not stand the hours spent watching DVDs or surfing the Internet. He tried strumming tunes on his guitar or tinkling on the piano, but the apartment was too dark and oppressive, and he could feel no enthusiasm for music. He began to spend too much time on the Internet, on websites he shouldn’t have been looking at. In fact, it was during this period of imprisonment that he discovered sexually explicit sites. At first he hated himself for trawling endlessly through them, but he was surprised at how his initial feelings of wariness and guilt soon gave way to an unthinking numbness, and he would spend hours sitting in the semidarkness, staring at images that were at first shocking but soon became dull. He would fall asleep at odd hours because he could not stop sifting through the pages for new images, even though he felt nothing when he looked at photos of graphic sexual acts. He went to bed feeling empty and full of anger at his fans outside, for they were the ones who had forced him into this position.
Finally his management company called a press conference at which Gary appeared happy and smiling, saying that he had taken time off to return to Malaysia to spend time with friends and family following a “sad occurrence,” which he would rather not discuss in public. Relieved to learn that he was alive and in good health, his fans did not press him any further, assuming that his temporary disappearance was somehow linked to the fact that he was an orphan, raised by distant relatives with whom he had enjoyed no closeness. His troubled youth following the death of his mother was well documented—it was something that made him appear human and vulnerable to his fans. As his manager once told him, his childhood tragedies were a great selling point. But though he was grateful for his fans’ loyalty and adoration, when he looked at the mass of jubilant teenage faces at his next concert, he found their joy so empty and unquestioning that it unnerved him, and he could not get rid of the feeling that had entered his soul during the ten days of confinement in his night-dark apartment. It was unmistakable. He had started to hate them.
That three-week period of internment and difficult public relations upset his tightly packed schedule and cost him in many ways. Not only was the canceled concert an expensive write-off; the negative publicity surrounding his sudden and mysterious disappearance caused several projects to be suspended, and one or two sponsors even doubted whether they should continue to support him. His calendar became compressed to the point where he could not fulfill his obligations, and his scheduled participation in the Beijing Olympics song and music video was canceled, depriving him of a chance to be seen widely by the biggest audience of them all.
Now he had to work twice as hard to penetrate the Mainland market, his management team said. Everything they did over the coming year would be geared toward establishing him in China—every song he recorded, every TV show he appeared on, every commercial he shot, every hour he slept, every meal he ate. He had everything it took to be a superstar in China, but it would be hard work. He had to be ready to sacrifice everything. Gary thought about life’s great sacrifices—friends, a social life, family commitments, love, relationships. And he was not at all frightened by what he was about to embark on, because he had none of the things that people normally hold dear. He had nothing to sacrifice.
THE GIANT BILLBOARDS THAT stood along the elevated highway bore the poster announcing Gary’s groundbreaking concert in Shanghai. MUSIC ANGEL HAS ARRIVED! THE ANGEL OF MUSIC IS HERE TO SAVE US.… His image was spread across each billboard—his newly gym-toned torso showing through a shirt that had been strategically slashed to display his abdominal muscles, which were the result of eight months’ work with a personal trainer. His head was bowed to show off his thick black hair, which looked slick with sweat, and computer trickery had provided him with a giant pair of angel wings that gave the impression that he was landing gently on earth after a celestial journey. It was impossible to miss these posters. As his car drove him along the busy highway, he reckoned that his concert poster appeared every two kilometers, each time positioned in the middle of a cluster of three billboards. On one side of him was a young woman dressed only in underwear, her index finger to her lips, which were pursed in a hushing shape; on the other side there were washing machines and refrigerators.
He had performed a sold-out concert in Wuhan last night, which had been widely covered in the local press and gained enormous publicity for his principal sponsor, a soft-drink company. To coincide with his tour, they had shot a special TV commercial, a big-budget production involving sophisticated computer graphics, in which the Angel Gary flies over a devastated landscape, defeating gruesome monsters by shining a light that emanates from his heart. As Gary flutters softly to earth, the desert around him turns lush and green. “The power to turn darkness to light,” he whispers, looking at the camera with his trademark sideways glance before taking a sip of soda.
It was remarked within the industry and by the public alike that Gary was looking great. After many months of limited public appearances, during which he was rarely photographed, he had unveiled his new image—muscular and with a streak of danger. He was still boyish and innocent-looking, but his presence now carried a faint physical threat, as if he had a dark side to him. His stylists and costume designers were showered with praise, as were the people at the record company who had devised the new marketing strategy.
“Thank goodness we invested so much in your gym work,” his agent said as they drove past the fifth billboard along the highway. “Your physical condition is crucial. We can’t afford to have a repeat of Taipei last year.”
Gary did not answer. As usual, the previous night’s concert had left him both exhausted and unable to sleep. It was always like this. The adrenaline of the performance would rush through his veins, and he would feel the deep pounding of the bass notes reverberating in his chest and rib cage hours after the concert had ended, when he was lying in bed trying to sleep. Every tiny light in the room—the green numbers showing the time on the DVD player, the red dot on the TV set—seemed noon-bright and blinding, even when his eyes were closed. Often, he would sit in front of the TV with the remote control in his hand, staring at the black screen. He could not even summon enough enthusiasm to turn on the TV. Sometimes he would eventually fall asleep at around three or four o’clock, but often he would just count the hours until dawn, which would come as a relief, because daylight brought with it activity, and he would not have to sit alone with only his thoughts for company.
In Wuhan the night before, he had tried to surf the Internet for the porn sites he had recently become addicted to, but had failed. This was the problem with China—he could not access any of his usual sites. It had become a late-night ritual for him: turning on his laptop and idly searching for new, more-dangerous sites each time. He did this after work or a concert, when he was alone in his apartment or hotel room and the night ahead of him seemed very long. He was not even excited by looking at these sites anymore; they had simply become something like a calming reassurance after a long day. The moment he arrived on the Mainland, however, he was deprived of this source of comfort. He had spent several frustrating hours after the concert searching for the kind of hard-core images he was used to, but the best he could find were immodestly dressed women who wore more than the models he was now seeing on billboards in Shanghai. And so he had opened the minibar and drunk all the vodka in it, and when he finished he rang to order some more.
Drinking was a recent thing. It helped him sleep, that was all.
He had now been on the road for sixteen days, and in that time he had played fourteen concerts.
“But, little brother,” his agent continued, “you need to sleep. I don’t know what you are doing at night—probably chasing girls, I suppose—but we need to do a lot of public appearances, and you can’t wear your sunglasses all the time. The photo shoots—they’re okay, because we can always adjust the photos later, but in public … That’s
different. You know what these Shanghainese are like. They will scrutinize your appearance to the very last detail! Please remember what a huge investment we have made for this album—who else gets concerts like the one you’ve just had? Don’t waste this opportunity.”
Gary adjusted his sunglasses. They were becoming his trademark—oversize black plastic shades that gave him a mysterious, futuristic appearance.
“We can’t say no to the press conferences and guests appearances at malls. You have to look good, little brother. To be honest, at the moment even our makeup artists are saying it’s hard to disguise the shadows under your eyes. If we send you out wearing too much makeup, these Shanghainese will laugh out loud. They’re haughty and not easily impressed like provincial Chinese, you know. Hey, little brother, are you paying attention? Shanghai is at your feet. You can be one of the biggest stars in China—you’re almost there! We have two weeks to charm them before your concert.”
As his agent spoke, Gary knew that sleep would be impossible. He tried to remember when he last slept through the entire night and woke up feeling refreshed and free of worries. It did not seem as if there had ever been a time. He could fall asleep easily on planes and in cars and have uncomfortable fifteen-minute naps, but night sleep was unattainable.
That evening, when he had finished the last round of press obligations, Gary went back to his hotel. He promised his agent that he would have a bath and a massage and go straight to bed, but of course he turned on his laptop instead and began to search idly for sites that did not load properly. He did not feel like drinking on his own while continuing with his frustrating search for Internet porn, so he took a cab to the Bund, where he knew the high-end Western bars were located. Going out in public, unaccompanied, just before a concert, was contrary to all the advice he had ever received, but he thought that if he went to a place frequented by only Westerners he would not easily be recognized. His guess proved to be correct. He found a place with a view of the wide sweep of the river and the skyscrapers of Pudong. Although the music was loud and there were plenty of people in the bar, it was large enough to have plenty of darkened nooks and comfortable chairs where Gary could sit on his own and watch the crowd of foreigners, some of whom were dancing in the spaces between the tables. They were heavy-footed and big-thighed, their buttocks clattering into chairs and occasionally upsetting the drinks of passersby. He ordered several unfamiliar cocktails that turned out to be too sweet and then began to order vodka. Throughout this time, he kept his baseball hat on, having decided that the sunglasses would be too ostentatious. It was a relief for him to be away from his hotel room, to hear music that he did not have to perform. He spent at least two hours in a spot near the windows, quietly sipping his drinks. He felt his cheeks flush with the alcohol and his temples started to throb, but it did not matter, for he was not alone.
His discomfort began when he noticed a few of the Chinese waiters huddling together and whispering. They were trying not to look openly at him, but their curiosity was such that they could not resist glancing at him. He did not want to leave the bar. It was not yet one o’clock, and there were too many hours of darkness left ahead of him. And then the pleasant Australian couple sitting near him—who had just been holding hands and kissing—left, and their place was taken by a sweaty Western man, who tried to engage Gary in conversation. The man was drunk, but Gary did not feel like moving from his spot. Soon the man would grow tired and leave him alone.
“What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? Don’t feel like speaking, eh? Jeez, you Chinese are so goddamn unfriendly. Hey, look at me when I talk to you.”
Gary looked around. The bar was full and there was nowhere to move to.
“Hey, I’m talking to you.”
Gary turned and said, “Fuck off.”
The reports that appeared the following morning were full of inaccuracies, as usual, and there were conflicting accounts from bystanders as to who had provoked the ensuing argument, what the altercation had been about, who had taken the first swing. What was in no doubt was that Gary had swiftly lost control and knocked the other man off his feet, even though the man was heftily built. The Internet was full of photos taken with camera phones—grainy and badly lit but clearly showing Gary standing over the man with his fist raised. The now-infamous video—again captured on a mobile phone and freely available on YouTube the next day—shows Gary swaying and unsteady on his feet, then bouncing up and down like a boxer ready for a fight, before stumbling toward the man on the ground and aiming a casual kick to his midriff, as if toe-poking a football. When the man shouts out an inarticulate insult, Gary attempts to pick up a bar stool, presumably to attack him with it. But the bar stool is fixed and doesn’t budge, so Gary turns his attention to a signboard that says WOW! and he rips it off the wall, using it to attack the man. When some of the waiters attempt to restrain him, he fights them off and shouts, “Don’t touch me, do you know who I am? Do you know who I am?” The camera wobbles and cuts out, and when it starts to play again, Gary is seen surrounded by a group of consoling friends. The rest of the bar is emptying and the music has stopped. His head is in his hands, and his shoulders are heaving up and down as he sobs. In the gray-pink half-light of the video, he is briefly shown in profile, silhouetted against what seems to be a curtain made from shimmering glass beads that look almost electric in the way they sparkle. Although it is dark and his face is not properly lit, Gary’s features are unmistakable—the perfect straight nose that ends in a delicate point, the soft angle of the jaw, the hair that falls over his brow. His head is bowed, his shoulders hunched and defeated. It is this image that graces the cover of all the tabloid newspapers the following evening.
4.
FORGET THE PAST, LOOK ONLY TO THE FUTURE
THAT MORNING’S EMAILS BORE NO SHOCKS, ONLY POSITIVE DEVELOPMENTS. These days, there were no longer any brutish demands by creditors or feeble excuses from nonpaying clients, and the daily ritual of beginning with emails had become a pleasurable affair for Yinghui, to be carried out at an almost leisurely pace over a cappuccino. There were, among other upbeat messages, an invitation to the opening of a new hotel on the river in Shiliupu and an interesting proposition from someone wanting to build a carbon-neutral cultural center in the middle of town. New contacts and possibilities revealed themselves nowadays without her even having to seek them out. What a change, she thought, as she finished her coffee.
Business was going well for Yinghui. The two upmarket lingerie stores she’d established were flourishing, and in little more than a year she had broken even and was now watching the profits accumulate, week by week, the spreadsheets filling out with handsome-looking figures bursting with promise. Occasionally, when she glanced at the documents her breathless accountant showed her, she ceased to take note of the substantial numbers, for their trajectory was so steep that she had difficulty imagining where they would take her twelve months hence. And yet she was not a person with a modest imagination—quite the opposite.
Her ad campaigns had been striking and wildly successful. She had used only Chinese models, never mixed-race ones, and they never flaunted their bodies in an overtly sexual way. Although they did display a good deal of bare skin, the models were styled beautifully, and the overall aesthetic was classy rather than trashy. The catchy taglines were mysterious and playful, like the images themselves.
Elegant Outside, Passionate Inside
Secret Exciting
Amazing Beautiful You
Although she had originally thought that the shop would cater mainly to the wives of high-ranking Party officials and low-profile billionaires who wanted a discreet custom service, Yinghui soon found a huge demand among ordinary professional women who were willing to spend upwards of four hundred yuan for the simplest bra. The low l
ighting and shadowy spaces of the stores, together with the women-only entry policy and touches of luxury such as the Venetian chandeliers, created an ambience that proved incredibly popular, with many clients lingering on the plush sofas and leafing through the glossy magazines and catalogs as they chatted and decided what else to purchase. Before long, Yinghui had taken over the adjoining shops and added a coffee bar in one store and a wine bar in the other, extending the opening hours and turning both venues into destinations in their own right. The lingerie was all but removed from the store itself and transferred into specially designed semiprivate “modeling rooms,” and the newly vacated space was now filled with stylish mannequins, artwork, and giant floral displays.
The income and publicity generated by the two stores made it possible for Yinghui to seek business partners for new ventures on a much larger scale, and her financial projections were such that banks were suddenly willing to listen to her requests for loans. Her plans for expansion included a chain of small shops in metro stations, which would sell the basic Amazing Beautiful You range; twelve shops selling clothes for teenage girls, called FILGirl (Fly in Love Girl); an Internet-based cosmetics brand called Shhh, aimed at women over the age of forty; and a luxury spa modeled on a northern Thai village, the construction of which was nearing completion.
These exciting ventures made people in the retail industry take notice of Yinghui, and the expatriate community was especially interested to learn that a foreigner was able to negotiate the complex world of Chinese retail. She began to give talks to the various foreign chambers of commerce, speaking to budding entrepreneurs about the pressures of being a foreigner and a woman in a male-dominated world. As she became more visible, she did an interview with the Shanghai Daily—a small article, nothing more—in which she was asked to reveal the key to her success at a time when many small businesses were experiencing difficulties due to the global recession.