“You know Japanese Father pays everything for Rui. His apartment, his food, his tuition. But one day Japanese Father went to Rui’s apartment and knocked on his door. Rui had just showered and was still in his towel. He opened the door and yelled at Japanese Father for no reason. It’s very bad now and Japanese Father’s heart is broken.”
What? This seemed like something that would happen between kindergartners. “Rui is not the type to scream at someone for no reason,” I said. “He wouldn’t do that.” Rui was the most soft-spoken of all Cai’s friends.
“No, it’s true. Rui was very rude. Japanese Father can’t forgive him after he’s done so much for Rui.”
Was I missing something? If Rui had raised his voice because he wasn’t dressed yet, it still didn’t make sense for Yoshimoto to stop speaking to him—and to pull all his financial support. “Is Rui still in Japan?”
“Yes, but he’s on his own. Now he has to work and earn his rent and tuition fees himself. It’s very bad.”
Even that didn’t make sense. If Rui wanted to stay in Japan, why would he blow up at Yoshimoto for knocking on his door before he had a chance to get dressed? Or maybe there was another reason. I caught my breath. For Rui to scream like that and forfeit his financial backing, Yoshimoto must have propositioned him or done something else unwanted. Cai probably didn’t know the real story since he’d only heard it from Yoshimoto and had immediately taken his side. Before I could think of a diplomatic way of suggesting that Yoshimoto might have made advances toward Rui, Cai changed the subject.
“Japanese Father wants to see you tomorrow, so let’s meet for dim sum at the staff canteen. At nine?”
“What about my mom and Budgie?” Surely he hadn’t forgotten they’d arrived today.
“Bring them, too. He knows them.” Cai disappeared in the bathroom for a minute. When he returned a moment later, he carried his toothbrush and a small bottle of cologne he used in place of deodorant during the warmer months.
Cai zipped his backpack. “I forgot to tell you something. Japanese Father is going to give me a lot of money.”
“What do you mean?” I pictured a thousand U.S. dollars as a belated wedding gift.
“He got it from his university and doesn’t need it. He wants me to have it for my research.”
“How much?”
“Ten million yen.”
“Ten million?”
Cai shrugged. “He says he already has enough to retire.”
“How many yen to the dollar?”
“I think about a hundred.” Cai’s smile was enormous.
“That’s—”
“A lot of money.”
Whatever doubts I had regarding Yoshimoto’s intentions now skyrocketed like fireworks set off at Chinese New Year. I could feel my legs shake under the covers. The whole thing was too bizarre! Would Cai have to return some unthinkable favor in return? Was that already happening? When Rui refused Yoshimoto’s advances, had the professor turned his attentions toward Cai?
But then I remembered Cai’s angst at my parents’ gay neighbors’ New Year’s Eve party. I didn’t stop to think that many people who act homophobic are in fact afraid that they themselves are gay. Even if this money came with no strings attached, I didn’t want Cai to accept it. He and I could earn our own money. But all I could manage to say was, “That’s too much money to give to you for no reason.”
“You don’t understand. Japanese Father says I’m like a son to him. I guess his daughter has enough money. See you tomorrow at dim sum.”
As he left, my chest throbbed at the thought of his new sleeping arrangements, whether or not they involved some kind of kinky condition. I wanted to call Janice, but then I’d have to admit that my marriage had problems. She was now living with an Argentine boyfriend in a fancy Wan Chai high-rise with a stunning view of Victoria Harbor and the back of the Hong Kong skyline.
When we were able to catch each other on the phone, I filtered any negative talk of Cai to prove that I had a happy marriage. And for the most part, I was happy, as long as we were in Hong Kong and Yoshimoto wasn’t visiting. I was afraid that if I told Janice about my concerns about the professor, she would say she’d told me so.
• • •
The next morning, the staff canteen hummed with students, staff, and faculty. When my mom, Budgie, and I found Cai and Yoshimoto at a corner table, they were reaching for dumplings in round bamboo steamers. Spotting us, Cai placed his chopsticks on his plate and rose from his chair as we sat down. Yoshimoto looked up demurely but remained seated. He took a dainty bite of his pork dumpling.
Cai was quick to fill our teacups and flag down a waitress, calling out a long list of dumplings, stuffed rice rolls, curried squid, and beef balls. He inquired about my mom and Budgie’s flights from Chicago and asked how they found Hong Kong at this time of year. Yoshimoto hardly lifted his head to acknowledge us. He sometimes raised his mouth so it was within earshot of Cai’s face, chirping a question or statement, like a baby bird to its mother.
As I stabbed a shrimp dumpling in a bamboo steamer and the insides plopped out of the doughy translucent wrapper, I tried to summon mental images of them composing chapters late at night in the bare-boned guesthouse room. I managed to pick up the ball of shrimp filling with my chopsticks and shove it into my mouth. Next I maneuvered the dumpling wrapper to the safety of my small rice bowl.
Although I felt embarrassed for dropping the dumpling, probably offending Yoshimoto with my clumsy use of chopsticks, he didn’t flinch. Yet he seemed as antisocial now as he had in China the previous summer. When Cai received letters from Yoshimoto and relayed his warm greetings to me, I wondered if a different person composed them because he seemed so unfriendly in person.
“Professor Yoshimoto is very tired,” Cai said, full of cheer. “We woke at five to work on our book, so he’d like to go back and take a rest. Susan, can you take Mom and Uncle sightseeing?”
I didn’t answer. I wished I’d spoken up when Yoshimoto hijacked Cai’s time in China over the summer, or just the night before when I learned Yoshimoto planned to give Cai his massive retirement award. Or when Yoshimoto asked Cai to sleep in his guesthouse room. Now as Yoshimoto followed Cai out the front door, I knew things had gotten completely out of control and I had no idea how to speak to Cai about it. I couldn’t bear for him to lash out at me or give me the silent treatment as he’d done in China over the summer. I looked at my mom and uncle leaning back in their chairs, sipping tea and reaching for another morsel of siu mai, or pork dumpling. I should be able to enjoy myself, too, and not let Yoshimoto get to me.
My mom and Budgie joked about Yoshimoto on our little jaunts around Hong Kong for the rest of the week. We didn’t see the professor again except for a quick farewell in the guesthouse lobby the day he flew back to Kyoto. Japanese Father screeched a high-pitched good-bye as he and Cai headed off to the train station.
Chapter 20
At Home in Hong Kong
Shortly after my mom and Budgie flew back to Chicago—and Yoshimoto to Japan—Cai returned to our dorm room one afternoon and announced that Dr. Tsang had offered him a yearlong, postdoctoral fellowship.
I couldn’t believe our luck.
Cai would be able to renew his student visa and stay in Hong Kong a year longer than we’d originally thought possible. It seemed like Cai changed his mind every month as to where he wanted to move when he finished his PhD—mostly alternating between Wuhan and Beijing—which meant that we still hadn’t decided where we’d settle after graduation. For his postdoc, he’d only be required to go to his campus office half a day, five days a week. At that point there could be no better news than this chance to stay on in Hong Kong for another year.
The next day I delved into my own job search. But as I soon learned, it wasn’t easy to find an employer who would sponsor my work visa. With Britain’s handover of Hong Kon
g to China just a year away, many companies had stopped hiring entry-level expats. I found a classified ad for an English editor at a new university in Kowloon, so I applied and was granted an interview and editing test.
I’d never thought about going into publishing, but this job would provide me with both a familiar environment and a challenge to learn a new skill set. A couple weeks after I interviewed, a human resources representative phoned and offered me the position.
No longer students, we rented an apartment on the twenty-fifth floor of a new high-rise development named Sunshine City. In an area called Ma On Shan, the apartment was one of many that rose from reclaimed land in front of a green mountain range across the Tolo Harbour from the Chinese University. Besides the private residential apartments, Ma On Shan was home to a few vertical shopping malls and clusters of government housing blocks with fresh produce and meat markets. I never thought 420 square feet would feel so luxurious, with its two bedrooms, living room, a galley kitchen, and minute bathroom. I looked forward to living off campus, just the two of us, in a place of our own.
Almost as soon as we moved into our apartment, we settled into a comfortable routine. I left home just after dawn to travel ninety minutes to my new office in Kowloon. On most days I found a seat on the top level of a double-decker bus that slowly traveled through the New Territories, passing a monkey forest near the Lion Rock Tunnel.
Once we emerged on the other side of the tunnel, people started disembarking from the bus at various points in Kowloon. We drove by schools and churches, stately colonial mansions, and Sikh-guarded love motels that rented rooms by the hour. Once I made it to my stop, I still had a twenty-minute walk through the narrow streets where Filipina housekeepers waited for grocery stores to open their doors.
Cai left for work after I arrived at my office. His quick bus ride across Tolo Harbour and short walk to his department took just a fraction of the time of my commute. But I didn’t complain; I relished my mornings and saw them as a time to enjoy Hong Kong on my own. Since Cai only worked half days, he would stop at the produce market in the basement of our building to buy ingredients for dinner each day. He timed it so that by the time I returned from work, he had dinner on the table, the dishes still hot.
Toward the end of the summer, a couple weeks after we’d settled into our new apartment, Cai put down his chopsticks midway during dinner. “I have some bad news,” he said nonchalantly.
“What’s wrong?”
“My student visa and passport expire next month. They were only good until the end of my PhD studies, but now that I’m staying for another year, I need to renew both.”
I shrugged. “What’s so bad about that?” During my graduate student years, I’d renewed my one-year student visa by spending a day at the immigration tower in Wan Chai, leaving just before closing time with a new stamp in my passport for another year. And six months before my passport expired, I headed to the American Consulate to apply for a new one.
“I have to return to China,” Cai said.
“You do? Can’t you get a new visa and passport here?”
“No. I have to go back.”
“For how long?”
“Three or four months,” he replied, again matter-of-factly.
“Three or four months?” Had he switched the English word “week” for “month” by mistake?
“Máfan.” But when he playfully used the Cantonese word for trouble and chuckled, I knew he hadn’t misspoken.
“And you have to stay in China that whole time?”
“I’ll go at the end of this month to apply for the visa, then I can come back here for your birthday next month and stay for a week. But when I return to China to apply for the new passport, I’ll have to remain there until it’s ready. I’ll stay with my parents and spend a little time in Wuhan to visit friends at the Conservatory. I should be back by Christmas.”
I didn’t celebrate Christmas, so that wasn’t an issue for me. But I wished he didn’t have to leave. We were finally living like a normal married couple. I wasn’t ready for a four-month separation. Luckily I earned enough to pay our rent and utilities. We also had Yoshimoto’s money to fall back on if need be, although I felt squeamish when I thought about that. I never mustered the courage to ask Cai to refuse the money. Now I quickly wracked my brain for a solution to our more pressing issue: when I’d next see Cai.
“I can take a week in November and visit you for your birthday,” I said.
“That’d be great.” Cai reached his hands across the small table and took my hands in his. “Thanks for understanding. Remember, this is China.”
When Cai left Hong Kong to apply for his visa, I didn’t feel overly sad. He’d be back in a week and we’d go out for my twenty-sixth birthday. Those seven days passed quickly. Upon his return, we dined at an elegant Thai restaurant in the Sha Tin mall on the night of my birthday. We shared a small candlelit table and enjoyed minced chicken with basil, beef curry, and a cellophane noodle salad. Cai served me extra helpings of these dishes when he saw I’d eaten most of the food on my plate.
After dinner he led me to Chow Sang Sang—a branch of the same gold store where we bought my wedding ring—so I could pick out a gift. I walked out of the store wearing the yellow gold chain-link bracelet I’d chosen, but my happiness at that moment couldn’t blot out Cai’s imminent departure the following day. He would be flying back to Wuhan for almost four months. I tried to stay positive and think ahead to when I’d visit him for a week in mid-November.
To make our time apart pass quickly, I met Janice for Indian food one Saturday before she and her Argentine boyfriend left for a week in Cambodia. The next Saturday I sailed by ferry to a barbecue at my British coworker Zara’s flat on Lamma Island, a two-hour journey south from my apartment up near the China border.
A couple days after Zara’s party, I felt a stinging sensation when I went to the bathroom. I thought nothing of it and figured it would go away on its own.
Within twenty-four hours, I developed an itchy discharge. I almost never sat on toilet seats other than at home, fearful of catching an infection. Perhaps I’d forgotten my golden rule, made contact with Zara’s toilet seat, and picked up something from one of her many guests. Or perhaps I’d come down with a yeast infection or urinary tract infection. Even though it had never happened to me before, these things were bound to occur in the heat and humidity of the subtropics.
By Thursday, however, nausea had overwhelmed my appetite and the itchiness intensified. My hopes of it going away on its own had vanished. I thought about over-the-counter creams or pills I could take, but I had no idea what could help. I hadn’t seen a doctor since I had arrived in Hong Kong two years earlier. It was now time to find one.
Zara and I went out for teatime every day at work to break up the long days of copyediting English language textbooks. The topics covered a wide range of subjects, including business law, Hong Kong history, environmental science, and nursing. That afternoon, after we ordered red bean ice drinks and found a table in a café, I asked her for a recommendation.
“My doctor is brilliant, but she’s out on Lamma.”
“That’s too far.”
Zara sat in silence for a moment. “I could ask a friend who lives near you. She must have a good doctor.”
“Could you?” I already felt the itching subside, if for just a moment.
Back in the office, Zara gave me the name of Sally Levy, an internist who practiced in Tsim Sha Tsui, on the tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. I made the next available appointment for two days later.
By the time my appointment came around, I could barely stand without feeling like the itchiness would get worse. Sitting down only provided a temporary respite. And trying to get any work done was proving to be futile. As I sat at my desk, all I could concentrate on was relieving the itching when I thought no one was looking. Everything would be all right as so
on as I received some medication.
Dr. Levy appeared to be around fifty years old, her tight salt-and-pepper curls hovering sophisticatedly above her shoulders.
“What can I help you with today?” she asked in a posh British accent.
“I’ve had this itchy discharge for almost a week. A couple of days ago I started to feel nauseated. It’s hard for me to even think about food.”
“Let’s have a look.” She gestured for me to lie back on the examining table.
“Is everything okay?” I asked while she probed me with her gloved fingers.
“Probably just a mild infection, but I’m going to take a culture anyway, which will feel like a Pap test. Before you leave, my nurse will bring in some topical cream to relieve the itching.” She took a couple of swabs and then patted my knee. “I’ll call you in a few days with the results.”
After a day, the itchiness lessened, but the nausea and discharge continued. To feel more comfortable, I went into the bathroom every hour to wipe. While at work several days later, I received a call from Dr. Levy’s office.
“The doctor wants you to make another appointment at your earliest convenience,” the receptionist said.
“Is everything okay?” I didn’t expect to return to her office and figured she could prescribe a medication or tell me to go to Watsons to buy it over the counter.
“It’s nothing serious. The doctor just wants to see you.”
“Can you tell me what’s wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I can’t say.” She paused. “When can you come in?”
I made another morning appointment for Saturday, three days later. On my way home from work, I sat in my usual seat at the front of the double-decker bus’s top level. The bus wound through the narrow streets of northern Kowloon, almost hitting the sides of crumbling pawnshops and grannies ambling across the streets. As we left the densest parts of Kowloon, I suddenly realized why I’d developed these unusual symptoms all at once.
Good Chinese Wife Page 14