by Tash Aw
She emailed back, accepting a date for the following Sunday evening.
Yanyan helped her choose her outfit. Together, they laid out the various combinations of clothing on the bed and contemplated them while sipping tea. It was just like looking at the sea, Yanyan said.
“The sea?” Phoebe asked.
“Yes. When I was small, my parents took me to the coast on holiday. I thought we were going to play and have fun, but all we did was look at the sea. It was so boring at first, but then I found it very beautiful. Nothing ever changed with the sea. There were waves, it moved, but it didn’t change. I liked it.”
Phoebe looked at Yanyan. They had been sharing a tiny room for so many months now, but still Yanyan would sometimes say things that Phoebe could not understand, things that made her think that she would never be able to understand the life that Yanyan had lived before they met. She simply smiled and nodded.
They consulted several of Phoebe’s books for advice on how to approach such a date, paying special attention to a chapter called “Dress for Sex-cess,” which recommended showing off as much of her feminine attributes as possible. Men care about only one thing, and we all know what that is.… In the end, they decided that Phoebe should wear a long-sleeved shirt buttoned close to her neck for a demure look, balanced by a short skirt to suggest sexual availability. “Anyway,” said Yanyan, reading from another book, “your beauty comes from your inner confidence; it does not matter what you wear.”
As the first warm winds of spring began to sweep through Shanghai and the light shone brighter, chasing away the gray of winter, the memory of snow began to melt away. People hurried through the streets, busy but calm, the excitement of Spring Festival now forgotten. The red lanterns that hung in the trees had finally been removed, replaced by colorful globes of blue and green and white, and now the branches were full of buds too, green flecks already bursting into leaf here and there. Phoebe got off the subway one stop early. She liked this part of town, the wide clean streets lined with modern buildings and expensive shops whose windows glowed jewellike even at night. Outside a parade of luxury stores, on a street corner where the pavement was smooth and broad and flat, there was a man with a cart selling homemade CDs of romantic songs. He played Spanish-sounding music through the single loudspeaker mounted on the back of his motorbike, the singer’s voice filling the air with a sound that was soft and melancholic and sensual. The rhythms of the song were delicious, Phoebe thought; they made her feel so beautiful and elegant, even though she could tell it was a sad song. She felt strong; she enjoyed being able to recognize sadness without being crushed by it.
As she entered the sudden darkness of Jing’an Park, excitement began to creep into her heart. Her neck felt warm, her hands were cool. She allowed herself a moment of doubt, a few seconds to wonder whether she was making a big mistake. Maybe the man would be so ugly that she would not even be able to look at him; maybe he had physical deformities, and that’s why he did not want to send a photo of himself. But then she thought: She had wasted so much time with men in Shanghai already, one more meeting would not matter. She had to press on until she could find someone who would make her life easier. It had long ago ceased to be about love; it was about usefulness.
Trapped between a stretch of elevated highway and the shiny high-rise buildings, the park offered a respite from the light and noise. It was small but shadowy, and Phoebe could not see the faces of the couples walking arm in arm until they were close to her. She followed the snaking paths that led her to a pond fringed by tall reeds. The surface of the water was still and black and flat, glinting here and there with the reflection of oil lamps that lit a large wooden deck on the far side of the pond. A small bridge led from the deck to a timber house that rose to two levels, the eaves of its roof decorated with wooden carvings. Phoebe could feel her breath quicken. She blinked, smiling. She could hardly believe she was in Shanghai. It was a scene so familiar to her, from so long ago. As she made her way to the house, she could see waitresses dressed in sarongs made from batik and tunics of dark-colored lace. A woman wearing a frangipani flower behind her ear greeted Phoebe at the door, then led her out to the wooden deck, where, at the farthest table, a man was sitting. His head was turned away from the entrance, toward the pond. He did not look happy to be waiting for a beautiful date—to tell the truth, he looked as if he was thinking about something else altogether. Phoebe thought that this man had more important things to do in his life than spend an evening with her. The fortune-teller must have been wrong. This guy did not look like a soul mate.
“Hi,” said Phoebe as she settled into her chair.
“Oh, hi, sorry,” said the man. “I was just daydreaming.”
“But it’s nighttime,” Phoebe said. By habit and training, she placed her handbag on the table, before realizing that she no longer had her super-A-grade fake bag, just a cheap one that she’d had for a long time. She didn’t dare carry an expensive-looking bag now, after what had happened to her.
The man laughed. “True. In that case I was night-dreaming, with my eyes open.”
He was not young but not yet an old man. Phoebe guessed that he was about twenty years older than she was. His face was not easy to read—his features were boyish, almost babyish, with ears that stuck out like bat wings, but his skin was tanned and leathery, with lines around his eyes and mouth and a deep groove forming between his eyes. Sometimes he appeared young, sometimes ancient. She studied him carefully without letting him know that she was doing so; she was very skilled at doing this—no one could get the better of her. His clothes were expensive and quite stylish, even though they were a little plain: blue shirt, light-gray jacket, nothing too flashy. His mobile phone lay on the table; it was an expensive model with a slide-out keyboard and other functions frequently used by businessmen. There were car keys too, but Phoebe did not recognize the make of car—it wasn’t BMW or Mercedes; she had seen those before.
She thought, No, her soul mate was around the corner. This guy, he was just someone she could use.
“So, Mr. Chao, what do you do in Shanghai?”
He laughed. “Wow, straight to the point. Do you want to know how much I earn too?”
“Only if you want to tell me, but most guys lie about salaries.”
“First of all, could you call me Walter? And I will call you Phoebe. This isn’t a business meeting, is it?”
“Okay, Walter,” Phoebe said, pouring herself some San Pellegrino water. “What do you do in Shanghai? You seem evasive.”
He opened the menu and looked down at it. “I’m one of those people known to the rest of society as ‘an entrepreneur.’ Whenever anyone says it, it seems like a dirty word. No one’s sure what entrepreneurs do, except make money. Have you had a chance to look at the menu? I don’t know if you like this kind of food. It’s supposed to be Balinese, but it’s not really—just generic Indonesian and Malaysian food. There’s good curry, but Chinese people usually don’t like curry. I should have asked. I thought, though, the setting is so nice that even if we didn’t eat anything, we could enjoy the little lake, the plants, the sound of frogs in the middle of the city. It’s quite romantic, I think. Don’t you?”
Phoebe looked at the pond. The surface of the water was calm and still, the flames of the oil lamps reflected like the uncertain glimmer of stars in the night sky. She remembered the lake on the outskirts of the small town deep in the heart of the countryside where she had grown up, thousands of miles from here. The lake was deep and dark, and in the rainy season its waters rose and flooded the fields and scrubland around it. Many of the bushes would be half submerged, so you would see only clumps of vegetation here and there, as if it were floating in the water. When Phoebe and her friends walked to school through the fields that bounded the overflowing shores of the lake, they would let the floodwaters wash through their rubber slippers, warm and silty between their toes, stained with the color of red earth.
“If you are an entrepreneur, that means y
ou are rich,” Phoebe said, laughing in the way she had often rehearsed, teasingly, flirtatiously. She knew that men liked that.
“Everyone is rich compared to someone else.”
“Are you married?”
“No.”
“Fiancée? Girlfriend?”
“I am single. I told you in my message—I just want … a companion.” He lowered the menu for an instant to look at her, then raised it, and Phoebe could not see the expression on his face.
Phoebe laughed again, but not in a sexual manner—not yet. “I’m teasing, having some fun.”
“What are you going to have? The curried river prawns are very good. Or the grilled lobster, if you like lobster.”
“I don’t know anything about Malaysian or Indonesian food—it’s all just curry, curry, curry,” she said, repeating what she heard Mainlanders say all the time. She was pleased with herself—it sounded natural, as if she really believed it.
He closed the menu and smiled. “Fine, I’ll order for us both.” He raised his hand to beckon the waitress over. She was Indonesian, dark-skinned, pretty. She began to speak in Chinese, her accent heavy, the words stumbling off her tongue. But then Walter Chao spoke to her in her own language, and her face became open, smiling. They shared jokes, the sound of their southern tongue filling the air with warmth.
“I’ll make the food not too spicy, in case the lady doesn’t like chili,” the waitress said in Malay, looking at Walter.
“It’s okay,” Phoebe said. “I like spicy food.”
Walter raised his eyebrows. “You understand what we’re saying?”
“Oh, no, I was just guessing. I had a Malaysian boyfriend once, you see. When I was much younger.”
Phoebe liked the fact that her dinner companion had ordered wine. Everyone knew that if a man knew enough about wine to study the wine list with attention, it was a sign not only of new wealth but also of education—and a foreign education. “So, Walter, I take it you are Malaysian. Tell me how a Malaysian guy like you ended up working in Shanghai.”
“The same way a girl from Guangdong like you came here. Tell me about yourself. Is business going well? Owning a whole chain of beauty spas must be tough work—where do you find time to socialize? You studied economics at university, right? There are so many questions I want to ask you.”
When men ask you questions, it is a seduction technique, Phoebe remembered from one of her books. They are not truly interested in listening.
Phoebe shrugged. “My life isn’t so special, you know.” But still, she began to talk. About the harshness of life in the city, about the aloofness of the Shanghainese, about the loneliness, about being far from home. She had made up a whole story about herself when they began to exchange emails, the usual story of coming from Guangdong province, about being a university graduate and a manager of a chain of luxury health spas in which she also owned shares. She had even said it was partly her business; she had set it up with a rich friend. She was so rehearsed in this that she did not have to pretend anymore; this history felt as if it truly belonged to her. But now, sitting by the edge of a lake under the eaves of a teak house, she found herself speaking also of how hard it was to make friends in this city, how hard it was to find someone special, someone to love. She could so easily have said, I am lonely because I am just like you; I am a foreigner. But unlike you I cannot go home, I must stay here: I am an illegal worker. She could have told him where she was really from, could have told him that only recently she was sitting in bars waiting to pick up men like him who might give her money for sex, that until one week ago the high point in her employment career had been as a receptionist in a spa.
But she did not say this. She said, “Life in Shanghai is so tiring. I think I will go to Hainan Island next weekend to get away from it all.”
When she finished speaking, she noticed that Walter’s gaze was still fixed on her; he had been listening attentively to every word she said. He was smiling but the corners of his eyes were pinched, and she could not tell if he was happy or just squinting in the dark. “I know how you feel,” he said. “Shanghai is a beautiful place, but it is also a harsh place. Life here is not really life, it is a competition.”
Phoebe nodded, trying to keep her poise by maintaining her perfectly straight shoulders, which she knew he would admire. But all of a sudden she felt so tired, as if speaking about being fatigued actually made it happen. Walter had shifted his position in his chair slightly, sitting low with his elbows hanging over the edge of the armrests, the way he might have done when relaxing at home.
“Yes, I think I will go away for the weekend,” Phoebe repeated, imagining the white-sand beaches and marble-floored hotels she knew she would never be able to afford. “Just to enjoy some sunshine and the nice hotels down there. It’s very luxurious in Hainan these days—I take many holidays there, all the time.”
Walter laughed. “You’re funny.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing.” He shrugged, looking at her. He was definitely smiling this time. “I’m laughing because you are a total stranger yet you make me feel very comfortable. I usually don’t trust people much.”
“Weirdo,” Phoebe said, adjusting the top button of her shirt; the closed collar was a bit tight and was making her feel hot and uncomfortable, adding to her sense of weariness.
“If you need someone to travel with you to Hainan, let me know,” he said. He glanced away, out across the darkness of the pond once more, as if embarrassed to meet her gaze. “I’ve been feeling a bit lonely recently, so I could do with some company.”
The food arrived. The waitress found that the table was too small and reached for Phoebe’s handbag, asking politely if she could move it. Walter stood up and hung the bag on Phoebe’s chair. He looked at it briefly and said, “Might be time for you to get a new bag. The zipper’s broken on this one.”
It was true; Phoebe had not thought of it. The zipper had broken months ago, and Phoebe had stuck a safety pin through it so that she could open and close the bag.
“I’ve been too busy to replace it.” When she heard her voice, she thought she sounded sad and depressed, which was not at all how she wanted to sound. She’d intended to be bright and seductive—she did not know how she had let herself be in this mood, so sullen and crushed by life.
“You work too hard,” Walter said, folding his napkin on his lap as he sat down. “Let’s just enjoy our dinner and not think about anything else for a couple of hours.”
Phoebe nodded. The smell of the food on the table made her feel hungry in the way she remembered her childhood hunger, boundless, as if it could never be sated. She lowered her head and began to eat. She did not care that she had lost all her elegant bearing; she was too tired to remember all the tips she had read in the chapter “Seduction at the Dinner Table.” Her head and shoulders slumped over the table; her hair fell forward and shrouded her face. She was looking like a real mess, she was sure. All she wanted to do was eat.
“Don’t eat so quickly,” Walter said in a soft voice. “You are guzzling your food, like all the poor village girls where I grew up! You don’t have to rush; you have all evening.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she could see the reflection of the oil lamps dancing on the surface of the black, black water.
EVEN THOUGH PHOEBE TRIED to hide it, all the girls at work could tell that she had a new boyfriend and, what’s more, that he was rich.
“You really have the look of a settled-down woman. When is he going to marry you? This guy has serious money. Wah, a wallet too? It matches your new LV bag! He must be so considerate.”
They asked all sorts of questions: How much did he earn; what car did he drive; was he, um … had they, um … how was he when performing intimate relations? Phoebe did not know how to answer. She accepted all his gifts, enjoyed going out to dinner with him, but she did not yet know how much she liked him. He was definitely not the soul mate the fortune-teller had said she would meet. That mu
st have been a mistake—the fortune-teller had clearly said, your soul mate will be a sensitive and romantic soul. She’d written it down, so Phoebe had proof of what she said. Phoebe even considered ringing the fortune-teller and asking for her money back.
When the other girls forced her into revealing a photo of Walter, she let them see the one she’d taken on her mobile phone, which showed him dressed in a light-gray jacket and open-necked shirt, an outfit that made him appear rich. He was standing in front of his car, and although you could see only part of it, you could clearly make out that it was a large black 4×4 with smoky windows. She chose that one because she knew it would impress the other girls, that they would notice only the clothes and car and not his average looks, and that would be enough to make them say, Wah, handsome brother! They would not notice the lines around his mouth and his narrowed eyes as he tried to smile. He was the only person Phoebe had ever met who looked in pain when he attempted to express joy. Sometimes when they were in the car, driving in silence—they always drove in silence, because it seemed he had very little to say to her, and she was fed up with trying to start a fascinating conversation—she would look at him and wonder if he had ever experienced joy. And she decided that most probably he had not, because he did not make her feel joyous.
And, what’s more, they hadn’t even done it yet. After four weeks, all they had done was hold hands, and on two occasions he had put his arm around her shoulders—once after their very first date, when they were standing on the Bund, looking across at the skyscrapers in Pudong. There was a cool breeze coming off the river, and the smaller boats on the water were rocking from side to side on the waves. Maybe it was cold and he needed her body for warmth. He rested his arm heavily on her shoulders without moving it for a very long time, and, frankly, it felt very uncomfortable after a few seconds. The other time was when they were on top of the Financial Tower at night, looking at the city spreading out below them until it disappeared from view in the distance, the roads fanning out in every direction, leading to points neither of them could see. He had put his arm around her and begun to draw her toward him. She thought he was going to kiss her, on the cheek at least, or whisper something suggestive in her ear, but all he said was: