Tales of Accidental Genius
Page 13
But after an hour’s search, no child was found.
The train staff promised to keep an eye out, and to alert police
when they arrived in Beijing. Cherry wondered if perhaps her
daughter had changed her mind, and was back home in bed—
or even if her late husband’s ghost was up to no good.
When they returned to the car,
a gang of police was waiting for them.
“Why did you leave your car running in a bus lane with a child
by herself?” one of them said accusingly, stepping aside to
reveal Shirley in the backseat breakfasting on a Bunny Pop.
Another policeman shook his head in reproach. “You are rich
but must learn what it means to be good parents.”
Then Cherry got into the backseat
and kissed her daughter all over.
“Please tell me you’re not a ghost,” she said.
“How did you find the car?” Weng asked as they drove away.
Shirley said a kind old farmer had asked for help
to find his train to Guanshan,
but instead had guided her through the crowds until
she was next to the big car she knew so well.
“Did he say anything else?” Weng said.
“Yes,” Shirley said. “He asked me if I like pigs then
said his son is not in New England after all.
I just smiled. Old people get so confused.”
十三
When the three of them got back to Beijing the next day,
Weng drove over to Mr. Yi’s office.
The secretary did not give much information,
and did not recognize Weng, so he told her
that he knew Mr. Yi was in Beijing,
and had orders to deliver his car.
The secretary looked out the window
at the black Rolls-Royce below.
“Okay,” she said. “Here’s the address where he is.”
It took a long time through Beijing traffic
to reach Mr. Yi’s apartment.
Weng buzzed several times before a sad, small voice
filled the security system.
The elevator went straight up and opened on his apartment.
Mr. Yi was in a bathrobe drinking Scotch. He seemed angry.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was worried about you, Mr. Yi.”
“About me? Well, it’s not the best time. . . .”
“May I come in?” Weng said.
“No.”
“Please?”
“What do you want to come in for?”
“To talk about Golden Helper.”
“Is everything okay?”
“Yes, I just want to come in.”
“Bad timing.”
“Well, at least let me come in and make you some tea.”
“Maybe tomorrow, Fun Weng,
we can meet at the hotel on Goldfish Lane.”
“I’d like to come in now, if that’s okay.”
“I’m busy!” Mr. Yi snapped. “Why now?”
Weng glanced down at Mr. Yi’s velvet slippers. “Because the
ghost of your father appeared in the backseat of my car and
begged that I come over and save you from a childless life of
loneliness and depression.”
Mr. Yi just stared at him.
“Do you believe in ghosts, Mr. Yi?”
After dinner, Weng tried to suggest some changes for Mr. Yi,
maybe a move to somewhere more peaceful near his mother, or
ballroom lessons in the park,
or some new business venture. . . .
“That’s the last thing I need,” Mr. Yi said. “More business!”
“But I thought you loved it,” Weng said, “And you’re so good at
making money.”
“You are mistaken,” Mr. Yi said. “I love putting things together.
Making things work. Seeing things come into the world from
nothing—money is just a result of this.”
“Like with Golden Helper II?”
“Exactly,” Mr. Yi said. “Good old blind Mr. Fun.”
“What else can you do, then?” Weng asked, thinking aloud.
“What excited you most as a boy?”
Mr. Yi considered the question carefully.
“When my father used to give me old radios or tractor parts to
take apart, back on the pig farm. I used to love getting my hands
oily and discovering how things worked. But I’m
older now, Fun Weng, and such a long way
from the happiness of childhood.”
After putting Mr. Yi to bed, Weng texted Cherry to say that
everything was all right then tidied the apartment,
bagging empty bottles,
and putting leftover food in the trash.
Before going home, he scribbled out a note
and left it on the table.
亲爱的易先生:
明天我会给您的秘书打电话，告诉您我们见面的时间和地
点。请穿旧衣服，就像农村养猪的农民穿的那种军装。
你的朋友
翁
Dear Mr. Yi,
Tomorrow I’m going to call your secretary with a date and an
address of somewhere I want you to meet me. Dress in something
old, like the army clothes pig farmers wear in the countryside.
Your friend
Weng
The next morning, Weng called Cherry’s old boss at the factory,
then got in touch with the Beijing School for Blind Children
that his son attended.
The principal of the school listened to Fun Weng’s proposal,
then suggested they meet that afternoon in person at her office.
After a tour of the facilities, Weng reiterated his willingness
to make a donation, but humbly requested that a gifted
engineer he knows
be allowed to visit the school and give
elementary lessons in mechanics.
“Of course!” Said the principal, “We always welcome
skilled volunteers, as we do donations of any sort.
Did you have a figure in mind, Mr. Fun?”
“Yes,” Weng said, “but there isn’t enough space on the
check for all the zeros, so I’ll be sending cash if that’s okay.”
The principal was silent for a moment, then burst out laughing.
“For a moment there, Mr. Fun, I thought you were serious.”
The next morning, three hundred Golden Helper mechanisms,
three hundred basic tool sets, thirty thousand Bunny Pops,
and a convoy of armored cars were dispatched
to the Beijing School for Blind Children.
A year later, Weng and Mr. Yi bought an additional
eight Rolls-Royce Phantoms to use as school buses,
and Uncle Ping joined the faculty as professor of karaoke.
It was also agreed that continuing profits from Golden Helper II
would be funneled directly into the building
and staffing of schools for disabled children across the globe,
which is exactly the sort of thing blind Mr. Fun had in mind
as he folded pieces of newspaper in a special way
at the kitchen table one night,
his wife and son asleep in the next room,
rolling around in dreams
on the old spring bed.
Author’s Note
A version of “The Menace of Mile End” appeared on Booktrack (Soundtracks for Books) in 2013.
A version of “The Muse” was commissioned by the Waldorf Astoria in 2013, and appears on its website and was printed in Waldorf Astoria Magazine.
A version of “Private Life of a Famous Chinese Film Director” appeared in
Issue 27 of AnOther Magazine.
Acknowledgments
The author wishes to acknowledge the following people:
Amy Baker; Betty; Joshua Bodwell; Bryan Le Boeuf; my dear brother, Darren Booy, and his wife, Raha; Joan and Stephen Booy; Catrin Brace and the Welsh Assembly Government; Ken Browar; Laura Brown; David Bruson; Jonathan Burnham; Cherry; Li Chow; Denise and James Connelly; Rejean Daigneault; Trent Duffy; Cynthia and Justin Ellis; Wolfgang Egger; Dr. Shilpi Epstein; Laurie Fink; Foxy; Dani Gill; Dr. Bruce Gelb; Primal Groudon; Jen Hart; Dolores Henry; Gregory Henry; Nancy Horner; Mr. Howard; Prof. Huang; Jig; Zach Johnson; Jermyn St. Journal; Carlos Juarbe; David Kaplan; Jamie Kerner; Hilary Knight; Sam Levinson; Dorit Matthews; Megatronus; Mr. & Mrs. Samuel Morris III; Michael Morrison; Lukas Ortiz; Deborah Ory; Wendy and Jon Paton; Peninsula Hotel, Beijing; Peng Lun; Qu Zhongru; Jonathan D. Rabinowitz; Ashwin Rattan; Tamara Rawitt; Rob; Rolls-Royce Motor Cars, China; Marcell Rosenblatt; Lori and Ted Schultz; Lisa Sharkey; Ivan Shaw and Lisa Von Weise Shaw; Dmitri Shostakovich; Oriana Siska, Tuesday; Violet; Virginia Stanley; Jeremy Strong; the Vilcek Foundation; Waldorf Astoria Hotels; Mojo Wang; Sherry Wasserman; Sylvia Beach Whitman at Shakespeare & Company; and Georgi Zhikharev.
These amazing individuals at Conville & Walsh:
Jake Smith-Bosanquet; Alexander Cochran; Alexandra McNicoll.
Extra special thanks for the emotional support, close friendship, and editorial feedback of Lucas Hunt, Carrie Kania, and Cal Morgan; and of course my wonderful wife, Christina Daigneault, and our brilliant daughter, Madeleine.
P.S.Insights, Interviews & More . . .*
About the author
* * *
Meet Simon Van Booy
About the book
* * *
The Stories Behind the Stories
Behind the Scenes: “The Muse”
Behind the Scenes: “Golden Helper II”
Read on
* * *
Excerpt from Father’s Day
About the author
Meet Simon Van Booy
SIMON VAN BOOY is the author of six books, including The Secret Lives of People in Love; Love Begins in Winter, winner of the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award; and The Illusion of Separateness, a national bestseller. He is the editor of three philosophy books and has written for the New York Times, Financial Times, ELLE Men (China), NPR, and the BBC. His fiction has been translated into seventeen languages. He lives in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with his wife and daughter.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
About the book
The Stories Behind the Stories
I’VE BEEN LOOKING FORWARD to writing this P.S. Section, as it gives me a chance to thank you for reading my latest collection. If this is our first book together (reading is a collaboration with the author after all), then welcome—if not, then welcome back; in these stories are all the things that have happened to me since we last met.
As you now know, this collection is about how people accidentally commit acts of what I shall call genius. This term is usually reserved for those who invent something or cure a disease or perhaps discover things about the universe using imagination, numbers, and a piece of chalk, the way Albert Einstein did during a lecture at Oxford in 1931 when he drew a model on a blackboard to illustrate his theory about how the universe was expanding and how old (or young) it might be. The blackboard is now part of the collection at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford. I took my daughter to see it in 2009, but all we could think about was the ice-cream truck outside.
The stories in this book, however, are concerned with the manifestation of genius through acts of kindness and feelings of compassion for others, and the characters in these stories serve but are not subservient. Through a change in perspective, their generosity has freed them from the narrow, limiting idea of a “self,” and consequently the fear of death attached to the illusion of a fixed identity. This truly special way of seeing the world is perhaps what T. S. Eliot was considering when he wrote, “The only wisdom we can hope to acquire is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.” And of course, so much of T. S. Eliot’s wisdom in Four Quartets is drawn from Asia, where the last story in the collection just happens to be set.
One of my favorite ideas on the subject of wholeheartedness comes from Jiddu Krishnamurti, who suggested that one doesn’t find love—one simply removes everything from one’s life that isn’t love. This idea has much in common with Lao Tzu’s “Wu Wei,” which again offers a subtle, tacit exploration of wholeheartedness. (I suggest reading the Stephen Mitchell translation.)
I have a feeling that these stories were also indirectly influenced by Immanuel Kant’s idea of universalizability, from his “categorical imperative.” Writing around 1785, Kant said, “Act only according to that maxim by which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.”
In other words, learn to observe your daily behavior. Then ask yourself: if everyone behaved the way I am now under similar circumstances—would this be a world I want to live in?
Although I was not consciously thinking about these concepts or quotes when I wrote the stories in this collection, the ideas in this book have too much in common with them for there not to be some kind of relationship. That’s why I agree with other writers who’ve said that an author is only as good as the work he or she is reading.
You may have also picked up on the theme of friendship between young people and the elderly. This book is dedicated to my writing mentor and friend, Barbara Wersba, who was born in Chicago in 1932. She was the first person to publish my fiction and poetry in book form—a limited print run of two hundred copies, which are now lost. Barbara also taught me how to line-edit, and continued to offer advice as I developed as an author, encountering new problems with each book.
Once, I telephoned Barbara in the evening to say how I had spent an entire day rewriting a single paragraph. “You’re not special,” she told me. “Sometimes I spend months on a single sentence.”
She was also the first to share with me the idea that “authors don’t finish books—they abandon them.”
Barbara introduced me to the life and work of Janet Frame, who I quickly came to revere:
“In authorship, the author is not the tree scattering his books like leaves; the books are the tree; the author is shed, blown away, dies to make compost for other leaves and the other trees. . . .”
From Janet Frame’s posthumously published In the Memorial Room
Most of Barbara’s books are currently out of print, so when I offered to help get some back into bookstores, she politely refused, admitting, “I’m no longer the person who wrote those books, and so they’re not mine anymore.”
Last year, as I was helping Barbara pack up her things following the reluctant but necessary sale of her house in Sag Harbor, she said that a box recently discovered in the attic containing newspaper reviews of her books had over the years turned to dust. “Our lives are like smoke,” she went on to say over lunch. “They briefly have a form, and then . . . poof! Nothing.”
Credit for inspiring “The Goldfish” must also go to Barbara. Over another long lunch, this time at her beloved American Hotel, I was telling her about the deaths of Tinks and Tinkerbell (our pet fish), and describing how I had lifted them out of the tank with a soupspoon, as my wife changed into something black and our daughter prepared death shrouds (squares of Kleenex). After lunch, Barbara ordered me to immediately go home and write a story about an old man whose only friend in the world happens to be a goldfish. Barbara currently lives at the Lilian Booth Actors Home in Englewood, New Jersey, as she is not only a writer but also worked as an actress and playwright.
To tell you a little more about “The Goldfish”: I spent my early teenage years in a small Northamptonshire town called Brackley, where I used to wake up at 5:30 A.M. six days a week to deliver newspapers. One of my
stops was an independent living community called Godwin Court. The halls reeked of pipe smoke and mothballs, and as I put the newspapers into the letterboxes, I could often hear the residents behind the doors, awake and waiting for me to bring their morning news. Sometimes, around Christmas, the residents would open the door at my approach and offer some tea or a bar of chocolate. One man I was friendly with in particular had flown a Spitfire during World War II and still wore the long moustache pilots became known for at that time. He was always immaculate in his dress, with a starched button-down shirt, cravat, cardigan, slacks, and heavy brogues.
This past summer, twenty-five years later, I returned to that town and walked my old paper route, stopping at Godwin Court. As I was marveling at how it hadn’t changed in appearance, an elderly resident came out to say hello, along with her cat. I told her my story, and explained that I was visiting from my home now in New York City. Then she told me hers.
As far as I can remember, she was born in 1928, a few miles outside the town. In 1960, she met an American airman, from the nearby American Air Force base (where I later worked for several years), and fell in love with him. She said that it was a surprise because she thought that her chance to marry had passed. When her beloved was called back to the United States in the mid-1960s, she accompanied him, and they lived in New Hampshire from about 1966 to 2013. I was surprised to learn that most of her life had been spent in the United States. When I asked why she returned to the United Kingdom (I presumed her husband had passed away), she told me that she wanted to be buried beside her parents in the town where she was born. She said she missed New Hampshire so much, and all her friends and her house, but felt she had only a short time to live, and wanted to be in a place that remembered her. I didn’t ask, but I did wonder what was going to happen to the cat.
Behind the Scenes: “The Muse”