by Tash Aw
I know it’s not cool to say this but … I have to confess …
What?
I used to loooove Gary.
A quick shooting sensation—of excitement, pain, danger, joy—ran through his temples.
Phoebe continued, Yes, when I was working in Guangzhou, I used to have a picture of him stuck up next to my bed—you remember his powdered-milk ad? I tore it out of a magazine so I could look at him every evening. People say he is a pervert, but I think he is a good person. You could say he kept me company all night, ha-ha!
Ha-ha.
Ever since that exchange, Gary has realized that he will soon have to tell her who he really is. And that is one of the reasons he is so excited and optimistic about the future—he is looking forward not just to his new musical life but also to revealing himself to Phoebe, to sharing everything with her. The idea of opening himself up to someone else is thrilling. Already, he has begun to plan how and when he will do this—soon, he thinks. He will send her a photo of himself, an image that will prove to her that he is who he says—not some easy-to-get photo from a milk ad, but something deeply personal.
Imagining this delicious moment of revelation and intimacy makes him so excited that sometimes he can’t sleep. He anticipates how she will react—almost certainly she will be her customary effusive self (she always shows her emotions easily) and be overcome with happiness that he has chosen to share such intimacy with her. But then she will be practical and sensible as always. She will remind him that, even though he has had an extraordinary life, he must concentrate on his new work, the songs he is writing. And his newly revealed identity will change nothing between them. It is he, not she, who will suggest a meeting in real life. She will resist, not because she is coy or intimidated but because she does not want to appear too eager or interested in what little celebrity he has. She will not judge him, but she will not rush to meet him either. She is a person of great integrity. Finally, when they do meet up, it will be as if they have known each other forever. They will end up selling his homemade CDs at a stand on a street corner somewhere. They will be happy.
Today’s performance is at the Max Mall in Meilong Town, just outside Amanda KTV, which offers karaoke services to women. Gary’s agent thought it would be a good idea to connect with his core fan base, as it has always been adolescent girls and young women who have supported his career. But Gary can sense their boredom, and maybe if he looked at them closely he would see the pity they feel for him. Not so long ago—in the old days—it was he who pitied and despised them, but now it is the other way around. There are so many younger, cuter boys flooding the music scene, like all those insect-thin kids with crazy hairstyles on the talent shows. Young women are no longer interested in Gary; they have swiftly moved on. This is the way things work in China, he knows this now: If you stop for one moment, you fall, you disappear. No one remembers you.
He sings the same tunes he always sings at shopping-mall gigs—the catchy, sun-filled melodies he sang when he was first starting out. Last night he told Phoebe that he hated his present job, that it made him feel dirty and old. She said, We all have to do things that sully us while we wait for our real lives to happen.
This is what he keeps in mind as he goes through the dance routine that accompanies the chorus: two steps to the front, quick twirl, two steps back, forearms swiveling like a penguin’s. Every time he performed this move at his old concerts, the entire audience would burst into song and dance along. Now he is the only one dancing—a twenty-six-year-old man doing a child’s dance routine, singing, “I want to hold your ha-a-and.” It embarrasses him to think that he has spent nearly ten years of his life performing this kind of song in public; he is ashamed that he has not moved on.
At least he will be able to go home and tell Phoebe about this humiliating experience. She will laugh and make jokes about it, and he will feel better. He finds that he loves sharing experiences with her; she makes it easy for him to talk about things that have happened in his life. Recently they have been exchanging stories of places they’ve visited, drawing up lists of all the countries they would like to see in the future. He has told her the truth—that he’s been to many cities in China and Asia but that he never gets to see anything, because his work schedule is too heavy. Last night, just before signing off, she talked about going to Europe. I shall go to sleep dreaming of Paris, she said. And he felt like telling her about the only time he had ever traveled anywhere on his own and how exciting it had been. Yes, he will tell her later this evening about that experience, how he had been shooting a music video in London and polishing up some songs at a studio there. On the day he was due to fly back to Taipei he bought a cheap ticket to Ibiza instead, because he had read an article in the in-flight magazine on the way over. He was there for only two days and a night—one long night, during which he went to a vast open-air club by the beach and was surrounded by hundreds of beautiful young men and women from all over the world. The music was so loud that it erased everything inside him: The deep rhythmic pounding of the bass line filled his head and rib cage, and the tinny notes of the keyboard were like a pulse in his brain. The notes and melody repeated and repeated and repeated, mesmeric in their constancy, replacing his heartbeat, replacing every thought in his head; he did not have to think or feel anything. He danced without being aware of what his body was doing, without caring how he looked. He was just like everyone around him—he could feel the sticky warmth of their bodies, the brush of downy arms on his skin now and then. No one knew who he was, no one cared. At daybreak, when the shirtless boys and girls wearing sunglasses and cowboy hats had finally gone to bed, Gary sat on the rocks by the water’s edge, watching the waves wash delicately onto the pebbles. He wondered if he would ever experience such freedom again, but even as he asked himself this, he knew that as long as he continued with his career, he would never feel such liberation. He held his phone at arm’s length, slightly aloft, and took a picture of himself, the sky behind him stained with the deep amber of dawn.
This is the photo he will show Phoebe tonight, when he finally reveals his true identity to her.
AT HOME AFTER THE appearance at Amanda KTV, he takes a long shower to make himself clean again—yes, he really feels dirty even after a short performance of five songs—and prepares himself for the evening’s chat with Phoebe. He tidies up the empty instant-noodle and takeaway cartons that lie scattered across the living room and wipes down the slightly grimy surfaces of the tables. He has a quick glance at his laptop—10:00 P.M. She should be online sometime soon. He checks his appearance in the mirror, making sure his hair is combed neatly. And he thinks: This is crazy; she is not even going to see me. But somehow it matters that everything is perfect for tonight’s chat.
10:15: She is still not online. He begins to strum a tune on his guitar, something he has written recently. He hums the tune—his mind can’t settle; he is thinking too much about what he is going to tell Phoebe tonight, all the good news he has. He needs to work up to revealing his identity; he can’t do it straightaway. He has decided to start by telling her about a great new musical opportunity that has come his way, which might change his life entirely. Remember that concert at Red Rooster Hot Pot, when the speakers failed and he had to sing unaccompanied? There was a young man in the audience, a guy who owned an underground jazz and folk club who just happened to be passing by (he was taking his grandmother on an outing); he heard Gary’s voice and thought, There is a very moving quality to this voice, a certain sadness. So he spoke to Gary afterward and, after a few phone conversations, offered Gary a chance to perform at his club, a tiny place in Hongkou that seats only thirty people—a completely low-key, acoustic performance for an audience of students, artists, and writers. Nothing fancy at all. Gary is very excited, for it will be a perfect opportunity for him to try out these new folk songs he has been writing with Phoebe’s encouragement.
10:40: She is still not online. Work has been really busy for her recently; she must have
been held up at the spa.
He puts down the guitar and looks at the lyrics he has written for the song. He deletes a word or two here and there and tries to think of something more suitable. It is a song based on a traditional Chinese melody that Phoebe said she liked; it is also a song that his mother used to sing to him, and, although he never particularly loved it, he was moved by this coincidental link with his past, which he took as a sign of something important—a good omen that signaled a happy future for him, which is why he wanted to reinterpret it. Soon, when they graduate to speaking on Skype or MSN video chat, he will strum her the tune without singing the words and see how long it takes her to recognize it. The opening of the song is really unexpected, slower and more modern than the traditional version, and he’s sure that it will be a while before she realizes what song he is playing, and then she will be amazed.
Now it’s 11:30 P.M.—she is still not online. She’s probably gone out with friends after work; she probably mentioned it but he just forgot.
He looks out the window. Most of the apartments are dark, but there are still a few rooms lit by stark overhead lights, and one or two are illuminated only by the ghostly glow of the TV screen. There is no movement; the children have long since gone to bed, and the adults have stopped their karaoke and magazine-reading and are dozing in front of the TV. Gary begins to feel very tired all of a sudden. He is not as he was before, when he would stay awake all night after a big concert, unable to sleep, still buzzing from the evening’s performance, constantly thinking of ways to amuse and distract himself in the early hours of the morning. Nowadays all he wants to do is come home and chat with Phoebe in the comfort of his home. Because she is not there, he suddenly feels deflated and empty. There is nothing to do but sleep.
When he wakes up on his faux-leather sofa, it is just before 6:00 A.M. The sky is lightening with the dusky dawn, and he can feel that the city is preparing to burst into life. He looks at his laptop and sees that Phoebe is still not online. He wonders if she has been online at all during the night.
It is the same story that night and the night after. He waits all night, but she does not come online.
20.
ANTICIPATE DANGER IN TIMES OF PEACE
THE MEETING DID NOT LAST AS LONG AS YINGHUI HAD EXPECTED. The banker was Singaporean, a woman a couple of years younger than Yinghui who, it turned out, had been at university at the same time as she (they vaguely remembered each other from the Malaysian and Singaporean Students’ Association’s monthly meeting). She had moved back to Singapore after graduation and worked there for a few years for a local bank before being transferred to Shanghai recently—about a year ago.
“That’s a long time for Shanghai,” Yinghui remarked. “Some people don’t last more than a couple of months. How are you finding it?”
“Um, okay,” she replied. “Not bad. A bit stressful.” The corners of her mouth and eyes were pinched, sleep-deprived, despite the veneer of a professional smile and discreet makeup. Yinghui recognized a restlessness in the banker’s face, a mixture of excitement and apprehension that people exhibited when still new in Shanghai, in search of something, even though they could not articulate what that something was. Maybe it was money, or status, or—God forbid—even love, but whatever it was, Shanghai was not about to give it to them. The city held its promises just out of your reach, waiting to see how far you were willing to go to get what you wanted, how long you were prepared to wait. And until you determined the parameters of your pursuit, you would be on edge, for despite the restaurants and shops and art galleries and sense of unbridled potential, you would always feel that Shanghai was accelerating a couple of steps ahead of you, no matter how hard you worked or played. The crowds, the traffic, the impenetrable dialect, the muddy rains that carried the remnants of the Gobi Desert sandstorms and stained your clothes every March: The city was teasing you, testing your limits, using you. You arrived thinking you were going to use Shanghai to get what you wanted, and it would be some time before you realized that it was using you, that it had already moved on and you were playing catch-up.
“Don’t worry,” Yinghui said. “You’ll get used to it eventually.”
The banker had diligently gone through the file and met with her colleagues to double-check some details. Yinghui began to deliver parts of the speech she had rehearsed, but the banker nodded absently as she spoke, turning the pages of the file as if everything Yinghui said merely confirmed what they both already knew: that hers was a tightly run business with crystal-clear accounts and no sloppy gray areas.
“Could you explain a little more about the reasons for wanting a loan? We were all expecting an expansion of your existing business model, or something along similar lines, but the project you’ve detailed seems to be … quite different in flavor.” She leafed through the pages of the file that Walter had given Yinghui.
“It’s a very exciting opportunity,” Yinghui began, “a truly fascinating and groundbreaking project. Maybe even a first for China.” She proceeded to repeat the contents of the folder, describing the history of the impressive address right in the middle of the city, its potential, et cetera.
“Who are your business partners for this project?” the banker interrupted.
Yinghui stared at her—perhaps somewhat rudely, she thought, but she could not help herself. Of all the tricky questions she had expected to be asked, this was not one of them. “It’s all there, in that document you’re holding.” She had spent a good two weeks putting the loan papers together; the information contained within them was thorough and perfectly clear—she wondered if the banker was being deliberately obtuse.
The banker continued to look at her, awaiting a response.
“Well, as you can see,” Yinghui said, trying her best not to sound patronizing, “it is an idea developed by the entrepreneur Walter Chao. He’s … a friend of mine. There will be other parties, of course, but they will come on board later, once we have decided on how we are going to proceed with the venture.”
“We? Oh, so you have a personal relationship with this guy, then.”
“Walter Chao?” Yinghui raised her eyebrows slightly. She was beginning to get annoyed by the lack of diligence the banker was displaying. “Of course I do. I’m surprised you haven’t heard of him.”
“No, I haven’t,” the banker replied flatly, unapologetically. “Do you have evidence of his track record?”
Yinghui tried not to sigh. She needed a loan from these people, she reminded herself, and until the deal was done, she had to be as charming as possible. “I’ve included a sheet on him in the file. It’s right there, yes, that page there.”
“But this is a Wikipedia page. From the Internet.”
“I thought I’d just give you an introduction.”
The banker turned the pages of the file briskly but carefully, as if checking for something she might have missed. “Sorry, but we’re bankers; we like certainty. We normally like to see official company reports, annual accounts, that sort of thing. We can’t base our opinion on anyone based on Google searches. The Internet is, well, not very reliable.”
Yinghui continued to smile. “Of course. Reputation goes beyond the Internet.” She hoped she did not come across as being too superior or condescending.
“But that’s the thing: None of my colleagues has ever come across Walter Chao personally. We are very experienced in the region, but we have no record of having dealt with this guy. We keep extensive files and are very thorough in our research.”
Yinghui began to doubt whether she wanted a loan from these people. The banker suddenly seemed studious but amateurish, narrow-minded, and unimaginative. Yes, she remembered this girl from university now: a dull, bespectacled girl who had nothing of any note to say, who confined herself to her room, where she read the books required for her studies (economics? management?) and nothing else. “Maybe he’s not yet well known in China,” Yinghui said.
The banker closed the file. “Anyway, it doesn’
t matter. We were just wondering about his track record when considering the totality of the deal. Your loan application is based on your existing business, not on future projects, so for us, it was only a question of whether we believed in you as an entrepreneur and what you have achieved thus far.”
The totality of the deal, Yinghui thought. What kind of human being spoke like that? She waited for the banker to continue; she didn’t think she could keep smiling for much longer.
“Ms. Leong, I have to say, I’m full of admiration for what you have accomplished since coming to China. For a sole proprietor to have built up a business as you have is really impressive. And, let’s face it, things are still tough for women. Even in a bank like this … Let’s just say I know how hard it must have been for you. You have an excellent reputation, and that must have taken a lot of sacrifice.”
Yinghui did not say anything; she found that she was holding her breath—actually holding her breath—while she waited for the banker to say what she was hoping to hear.
“The loan you are seeking is a considerable amount, but as you seem comfortable proceeding on the basis of a loan secured on the value of your business assets—and since we have the utmost confidence in your business—we are happy to grant you the loan on these terms.”
Yinghui nodded. “Great. Thank you.”
“I have a lot of respect for what you’ve done. And for you personally. Really.”