by Ang Li
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?” she said in a gentle voice with a hint of reproach.
The man in the shadows looked up; it was Masao. A peachlike carving in the wall shaded his face; even in the dark she sensed that he had nearly drunk himself senseless.
“Masao,” Yinghong called out his name in precise Japanese, with a tender edge to her voice. “Go back inside. You’ve had too much to drink.”
The crisp but gentle voice calling out his name seemed to stir memories, for he stared at her woodenly, as tears began to slide down his face.
“It’s all right. Seriously, it’s all right,” she continued in Japanese, made uneasy by tears from a man who, in his fifties, had always maintained the demeanor of a somber Japanese man. She reached into her purse, took out some tissues, and walked up to him.
He reached out, as if to take the tissues, but instead he did something completely unexpected; he pulled her into his arms. As her face came in contact with his flabby chest, foul-smelling from sweat and alcohol, she instinctively tried to fend him off.
“It’s me,” she cried out, “Zhu Yinghong.”
He paused briefly, as if undergoing a confused battle with himself, and then he mumbled:
“Of course it’s you. How could I not know it’s you? You’re Zhu Yinghong and you slept with Lin Xigeng. You let him fuck you. You’re his mistress, the concubine, so why can’t I, why can’t I …”
She continued to struggle, but the hulking drunk was surprisingly strong. A rash of ideas flashed through her head. She could scream for someone to come out and rescue her, but with all the employees around, that would cause irreparable damage. Masao was Lin’s irreplaceable right-hand man; his steady manner and composure served as a counterpoint to Lin’s arrogance and conceit, his willingness to stay behind the scene the sole reason why the two men could work so well together.
With thoughts flashing through her mind, she stopped struggling because she knew she could not fight him off. She did not make a sound, choosing to bide her time, waiting for the right moment for escape. To her surprise, he stopped and, with his arms around her, stammered over and over:
“To be his concubine. Aren’t you all the same, the same?”
When he let down his guard, she ducked out of his arms, and as she took off toward the house, she sensed that he was not giving chase, so she changed direction and headed for the parking lot.
She did not go to the office the next day, and she decided to tell Lin about the incident.
She knew that he was the jealous type, just as she’d known about his conceit and arrogance; he wanted to claim sole ownership of whatever belonged to him. To be sure, he would grow tired of something, but relinquishing had to be the result of his loss of interest, not someone else’s. By revealing Masao’s behavior, she hoped to make him jealous, especially since the violation had come from his preeminent business partner. If nothing else, he had to save face by declaring that Zhu Yinghong belonged to him.
This could be what solidified their relationship.
Of course, she thought about how her action would damage Lin’s relationship with Masao, yet she was convinced that, knowing the indispensible role Masao played in his business empire, Lin might not bring it up with the man, but would need to give some sort of signal to her and to Masao. And that would be marriage.
The possibility of driving a wedge between the two men did not concern her. It was too early to feel the existence of the baby inside her, but clearly it was growing day by day, like a persistent nightmare, and it would not take long for it to become a burden by changing her outward appearance. Carrying the child to term without marriage was out of the question for Yinghong, who must consider the reputation of her immediate family and the Zhu clan.
To her surprise, Lin did not fly into a rage; instead, he listened quietly, carefully ferreting out every little detail to determine whether Masao had gotten his way with her. On her part, Yinghong intentionally minimized Masao’s insult while stressing his affection for her. She repeatedly assured him that Masao hadn’t even touched her lips. Then Lin fell silent.
She stopped going into the office for the time being, and Lin never brought up the incident again; but a few days later rumors began to spread in real estate circles that Masao would soon be leaving Lin’s company.
Yinghong heard nothing from Lin. Was he waiting till everything cleared up to tell her? She shook her head. For a major event like this, Lin’s personality and style would require that he boast about it beforehand; he was someone who would not stop until he made sure the person receiving his favor knew every detail.
Feeling anxious, she found an excuse to go into the office one afternoon, under the pretense that she needed to turn over some documents right away. She had known, before arriving, that Lin was away at a meeting, but that Masao would be around.
She had her own people in the company, but only those personally involved would understand such delicate and subtle interactions. As expected, she “ran into” Masao in the office, whom she greeted in her usual manner. Masao, in contrast, was so startled by the encounter that his face reddened; the big, brawny man, who paraded his role as the head of the family in his usual Japanese way, gave her a flustered nod before slinking back to his office.
Instinct told her that Masao had been so drunk that night on the beach that he probably did not remember exactly what he had done. Personal consideration for face-saving made it impossible for Lin to lay it all out, which could only lead to speculation that Masao would likely think he had done something much worse.
One thing was clear to Yinghong: with the sense of dignity stemming from a Japanese upbringing that instilled a code of masculinity closely tied to the traditional culture of hara-kiri, Masao would never think of fighting back, and his self-esteem would not allow him to defend himself.
Hence, she knew that in the end Lin Xigeng would have the final say and make all the necessary decisions once she eliminated the possibility of counterattack from Masao, which was what worried her most, and the interference and possible variables that could have resulted from his actions.
She should have been happy now that Masao’s sense of shame had prevented him from fighting back, but Yinghong was even more apprehensive; all she could do was wait patiently in her distressed state.
The rumor was confirmed; the explanation offered by consensus was that an error in decision making on Masao’s part had cost Lin several billions in revenue.
People in the realty business were critical of Lin. To be sure, it was a large sum of money, but Lin came out looking unforgiving for abandoning a business partner who had been with him for twenty years over money. It simply was not an action suitable for a major player.
Yinghong heard all these comments, including the news of Masao’s departure, from various sources, but not from Lin. She knew by then that she’d lost him.
It never occurred to her that Lin would make such a decision because of her. It was entirely possible that he had not been completely happy with Masao and had wanted to fire him, but no matter how she looked at it, she was the cause. Lin could have chosen an easier path by promising marriage, yet he opted for a drastic decision. She was caught by surprise and, moreover, she now realized that she would not get what she had hoped to have after all this time.
Finally Yinghong was thinking about leaving.
Lin continued to call and visit her, but he never asked her to return to work. Furthermore, shortly after Masao’s departure, the government initiated a policy to control the overheated real estate market. First, the mortgage interest rate was raised several times, and then reliable sources indicated that more steps, such as limiting construction on empty lots, would be taken, all of which were omens of a declining market to the perceptive real estate business owners.
As soon as housing prices began to drop, the market would be dominated by buyers, highlighting the importance of the flow of capital. The media and experts went into a frenzy predicting inevitable bankrupt
cy for unsound construction companies with too great an investment in land, because they would face a financial crisis once the banks began to tighten their money flow.
Rumors began to fly; people were talking about which construction company would be the first to fall. They talked glibly with jealous overtones about Lin Xigeng, who they believed would easily ride the storm due to the money he’d made from a large quantity of construction projects that Masao had sold.
Yet, for a few billions that he had thought were lost, Lin had gotten rid of someone with foresight who had made him rich. People in the business criticized Lin with contempt.
Yinghong knew, even before it happened, that the incident with Masao would cause irreparable damage to her relationship with Lin, but she was powerless to do anything about it.
Following the government’s measures to rein in the real estate market, housing prices began to drop, even with the immediate worries that the train-engine industry would no longer stimulate and create new prospects, which would result in a general economic downturn. However, the island nation, in the way it has always weathered the assault of typhoons and earthquakes, was equally resilient in terms of its economy, similarly adaptable to the soaring trend and the spiral downturn.
Some experts began to argue that no other country could go through such drastic fluctuations in housing prices without suffering major damage to its economy. In other words, the island that had seen overnight wealth from exports not only created an economic miracle but also extended the miracle into its ability to withstand a recession.
While the real estate business alternated between sudden highs and lows, the newly planted roadside golden shower trees steadfastly followed seasonable changes and burst into bloom with clusters of golden flowers. The new heights gained over the previous year sent the flowers higher into the sky, above and around the space below them. When the rains came, the assault of water and wind showered the ground with a blanket of golden flower petals.
True to his expansive nature, Lin suddenly stopped calling or coming to see her.
She waited in despair.
Winter arrived, bringing nonstop rain to Taipei again; gloomy rain clouds hung around northern Taiwan seemingly for an eternity. It rained for nearly three weeks with no sign of letting up. The sky appeared to have a hole in it, as rain continued to fall, never a downpour, but a lingering, unending drizzle that wove into a tight net that enshrouded the city in a basin that tended to retain moisture. The leaden sky pressed down on city streets submerged in grayish rain.
Yinghong was sitting on the second floor, looking through the French door at vivacious wild grass that bowed under the weight of the never-ending rain and collapsed into the water, where it began to rot. The long, thin blades were yellow with mud, emitting a faint, putrid odor. It had been nearly a week since she last left the house, but this time she did not stay inside waiting for the phone to ring. Instead, she spent most of her days sitting there, facing the yard, where the vegetation rotted in the rain.
In a state where everything seemed to have stopped, I waited, day and night, for something that was unknown even to me.
I felt no acute pain or sorrow; gone was the piercing heartache I’d experienced when Lin Xigeng broke up with me after we’d just met. I’d thought I’d have the same nightmare again, that I’d have the strange bodily pain, but that did not happen; I did not feel the unbearable ache from his departure that I’d felt upon wakening back then.
In the daytime I busied myself with minor household chores, emptying out a closet and discovering, to my surprise, many items I didn’t recall buying. Then I lost interest; I lacked the will to put them back and merely left them strewn around the room, waiting for a grumbling Mudan to tidy up.
Most of the time I sat alone, with no thought of listening to music. Occasionally, I’d open a book, but I got nothing out of it even though I understood every single line of text. My gaze flitted over page after page, until I realized that I had no idea what I’d been reading. My shock and fear would then prompt me to fling the book down.
I was in a stagnant state of nonaction, feeling no pain but strangely devoid of thought. When night fell, I’d turn on the TV as usual, and it took me several nights to see how TV news programs seemed to leave the least impression on me. There were no connections between the ever-changing, fast-paced segments, making it hard for me to follow, and then I’d be completely lost. I’d look but not really see the images, be they continuing battles in faraway places or pile-ups on local highways; when the sound was muted, what was left before my eyes was a series of flickering shadows rolling over one another, mystifying and unreal.
It turned out that TV drama was easier to follow, particularly the prime-time serials at eight, which tended to drag on forever; I could make the connections in the story line even if I caught only a few minutes of the plot development.
And so I became a couch potato. I’d watch every night till there was nothing on, when I’d be so exhausted I could not only finally get the sleep I so badly needed, but I could sleep through the night. I devoted a lot of time to sleeping. In addition to nine or more hours each night, I took afternoon naps, not because I was tired but because I needed it. I simply longed to sleep, to enter oblivion.
After sleeping away more days than I could count, I began to feel a hint of dizziness and nausea. It could have been a result of too much sleep, but it could also have been a terrifying sign that a life really was growing inside me. I didn’t bother to find out. I was constantly reminded, though in a dizzying, delayed fashion, that keeping the life inside meant that I’d naturally have an unbroken connection with Lin. He was not irresponsible; put differently, he would consider taking care of a child a simple enough task that he could not possibly refuse.
So what I needed was to wait, to wait for the child to be born. In fact I didn’t even have to wait that long. It would only take a while before the growth of the baby became visible and he’d come forward to claim responsibility. A set amount of child support was without question; he might even lend his last name to the child.
In my hazy state, in which everything seemed to progress with dull slowness, I was actually thinking that I finally understood why women desire or believe that a child can keep a relationship together. Maybe that is the last assurance we women can have. But even when I was most addled and confused, I could sense hidden somewhere in a secret corner a different, clearheaded self declaring unequivocally in a determined voice that:
This is absolutely not what I have in mind.
A week passed before Zhu Yinghong picked up the phone; through the operator and a personal assistant, she reached a clearly apprehensive Teddy Chang and told him succinctly that she wanted to see him.
They met at their usual place around noon, a small coffee shop in an alley, which was not a trendy place for fashionable Taipei residents. Devoid of taste and special character, it was more a community haunt selling simple set meals and sandwiches. She had spotted the place when Teddy took her to a nearby hotel in the past, and had been in the habit of arriving early and sitting down for a cup of coffee. The shop hence became a midway station on her way to a tryst with Teddy, a node between her office and the hotel, like a turning point, where she switched from one need to another.
Teddy was slightly late when he saw her smoking in a corner. She looked visibly thinner and her deep-set eyes seemed gloomier, darker and more shadowy, as if her unease could send her fleeing at any moment. He asked her how she was doing and why she wanted to see him. Her eyes turned misty, but he wasn’t sure whether that was caused by the smoke from the infrequent cigarette in her hands or from tears.
He suggested that they go to the hotel, as if to stop her from shedding tears in public. She got to her feet without giving it much thought, following him out the way she had in the past.
They walked into the alley and entered the motel, unlike before, when they had arrived separately and registered under false names. While getting the key and waiting
for the elevator, she saw couples leaving after their trysts, but made no effort to avoid them.
Teddy began taking off her clothes the moment they got into the room, and she did not try to stop him; nor did she respond. He touched her with a triumphant air, obviously playing with her body. Not worried that someone might be watching or filming them in secret, he turned on all the lights, examining her naked body with a mocking look.
Then he thrust himself into her, unconcerned whether she was ready, and began to move. Within a minute or two he finished and withdrew.
“I told you you’d come back to me one day.”
He got up and looked down at her with a smug sneer.
“A woman like you is insatiable; you open your legs wide and let a man, any man, mount you. See, didn’t you come back to ask me to fuck you?” He spoke so forcefully that the corners of his mouth curled. “But who do you take me for? Your sex tool? No way! Let’s get this straight. I’ve been the one screwing you, not you screwing me.”
He dressed at lightning speed, as if afraid she’d talk back, though he continued to mock her cruelly.
“Didn’t I just screw you?”
He picked up his jacket and walked to the door, where he turned and said:
“Let me tell you this, don’t call me again. Go find someone else if you need to be fucked. I won’t be back.”
A reflexive reaction to the extreme humiliation made her sit up, but before she could get to her feet, she felt a sticky substance oozing down the insides of her thighs, followed by a nauseating odor.
Yinghong thought about how the semen must have squirted deep into her uterus, where it soiled Lin Xigeng’s baby. She thought she ought to be tearing up, but no tears came when she raised her hand to dry her eyes.