by Graeme Hall
Four women sat at a table beneath a large action photograph of Michael Jordan. Kwok-wah looked at the picture, trying to work out when it was taken. He couldn’t tell who the Bulls were playing; was it the Phoenix Suns? If so it might have been from the 1993 Finals. Or was it Portland from 1992? While he tried to decide, Kwok-wah realised one of the women at the table was looking straight at him. Slim, long hair in a ponytail, she smiled at Kwok-wah, who immediately looked away, embarrassed that she might have thought he was staring at her.
‘Here, let me help.’ Li Lao appeared on Kwok-wah’s shoulder as the barman set down the last of the glasses. ‘I’ll take these.’
***
Fourier Transforms in Frequency Division Multiplexing Systems read the title of the book Kwok-wah had out from the university library on a semi-permanent loan. Scraps of paper were placed between pages to help him find his way back to interesting sections and he had to resist the temptation to scribble notes in the margin. It was his bible. He told himself that when he was next back in Hong Kong he would try and get hold of his own copy. Here in China buying new textbooks printed overseas was less straightforward. Not always possible and expensive when it was.
He was reading a chapter on Laplace transforms while sitting at his desk in the department. The December weather had come as a surprise to Kwok-wah; the one or two slightly chilly days in a Hong Kong winter were no preparation for the genuinely cold weather here. There was frost on the inside of the window and the heating was struggling to cope with the cold snap. Kwok-wah pulled his collar up and breathed on his cupped hands to try and get some warmth in them. Granny Sun had given him a flask of herbal tea she assured him would keep his blood hot during the winter months. Kwok-wah wasn’t convinced it was working, and it tasted foul. Immersed in his reading, he didn’t hear Professor Ye enter.
‘Mr Yang?’
Kwok-wah, surprised, jumped slightly. ‘Professor … sorry … I …’
‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to alarm you. I just wanted to tell you I need to cancel our meeting this afternoon.’
‘Oh.’ Kwok-wah didn’t want to show it, but he was disappointed. He was supposed to have regular meetings with Professor Ye, his supervisor, but the previous two had been cancelled as well. It seemed to be becoming a habit.
‘I have a visitor that I must see. Speak with my secretary and we’ll try and reschedule for next week.’ Professor Ye left before Kwok-wah could even think of commenting that he had said the same thing last time but nothing had come of it. Not that he would have dared say any such thing.
***
As he became more confident in the months since his arrival, more comfortable in his new home, Kwok-wah started to explore Shanghai. He knew some of the city’s history from his school days and from the reading he’d done before coming, but he learnt even more when he walked the streets. He learnt how the trade with the outside world that had brought Shanghai its riches had been a double-edged sword and had also brought different people with different ways. They’d built churches and houses, tennis clubs and dance halls. They raced horses and played croquet on the lawn; no locals or dogs allowed.
Kwok-wah walked the broad avenues of the old concession districts, roads lined with faguo wutong – French plane trees that had seen so much change in Shanghai. Rulers and revolutions came and went while the trees continued unconcerned. He investigated the older Chinese areas around Xiaodongmen; telephone lines crossing the streets in a giant cat’s cradle, hawkers selling street food from carts, and prematurely aged men on bicycles pulling large loads on trailers. It was obvious many of these districts would soon disappear under various redevelopment schemes. Some had gone already, others were clearly not going to be still standing in a year’s time. Perhaps even the plane trees were not safe.
He walked along the Bund with what were once banks and trading houses, mostly now repurposed, along the curved bank of the river. Neoclassical vying with Beaux Arts, Gothic revival with Art Deco. The other side of the Huangpu River, the Flash Gordon skyscrapers of the rapidly growing Pudong district faced down the grey-stone monoliths of the past. Two different eras, almost two different worlds, staring at each other across the water. In the mornings he took to jogging in a park near the university, passing young and old enjoying tai chi or ballroom dancing, music playing from speakers hanging in the trees like some futuristic fruit.
It was on one of these explorations of the city, when he was near the Yuyuan Garden, that he saw the woman from the bar. She was standing on a zigzag bridge that led across a lake to the Huxinting Teahouse, leaning forward, arms resting on the wall, while she peered down into the water. Even with his limited interest in fashion he couldn’t fail to notice she was better dressed than most other women he’d seen in Shanghai. Tight jeans that showed off her long legs, and a blue woollen jacket with a fine scarf wrapped round her neck. A pair of black leather gloves complemented her ankle boots.
Kwok-wah was still a little embarrassed by what had happened in the bar, the way it must have looked as if he’d been staring at her – his mother would have scolded him for bad manners – but in spite of that memory he took the opportunity to observe her from a distance. He was considering how he might find a reason to talk to her, perhaps explain what had happened that night in the bar, when she left the bridge and started towards the entrance to the gardens themselves. He had already been in there once that day, but his interest was piqued. He bought another ticket and followed her in. His curiosity in who she was overcame any concerns that he was stalking her.
But soon, in trying too hard to keep his distance, he found he had lost sight of her completely. Even in December the gardens were full of couples and families; the noise and crowds creating an atmosphere that was a far cry from the peace and calm intended by the sixteenth-century designers. He wandered through the gardens, not paying any attention to the pavilions and ponds he had admired only a couple of hours ago. Instead he concentrated on looking for the woman. He saw her. Her profile framed like a portrait within a circular opening in one of the dragon walls. Had she glanced at him? For a moment it was as though she had seen him, but then she was gone. Kwok-wah spent another fruitless hour in the gardens with no success.
Only later, back in his dorm, did Kwok-wah realise he’d seen her before that night in the bar. She’d been one of a bunch of students watching them play basketball: slim, taller than the rest, long hair in a ponytail.
***
The Friday morning departmental seminar on the Cooley-Tukey algorithm would normally have absorbed Kwok-wah’s full attention. But not today. When the lecturer came to the end of his presentation Kwok-wah realised that he had scarcely taken in one word. He hadn’t seen the woman since the Yuyuan Garden, but now that he had started to think about her he found her very absence was distracting him. He didn’t have the faintest idea why. He’d seen her twice, no, three times, and only from a distance. He hadn’t spoken a single word to her and he had no idea who she was.
So he was more than a little surprised when he saw her in the cafeteria at lunchtime.
‘Here, Hongkonger, I got you a banana,’ said Zhao Zhanyuan as he sat down at their table, tossing the fruit in Kwok-wah’s direction.
‘Very funny,’ said Kwok-wah in a flat tone that made it clear he didn’t think it was funny at all. It was an old joke – yellow on the outside, white on the inside – that Kwok-wah was tiring of. He didn’t even think it applied to him at all. Back in Hong Kong he knew many people who fitted the description far more than he did. But he guessed it was all relative, and to Zhao Zhanyuan perhaps he did seem less Chinese. It was still tiresome though.
‘What on earth does that mean?’ asked Kwok-wah, looking to change the conversation.
‘What?’
‘Your T-shirt.” Zhanyuan was wearing a T-shirt with the words ‘SCENE: IT’S AMERICAN ANSWER’ emblazoned on it. Zhanyuan looked down at his chest for a moment.
‘Dunno.’ He shrugged.
Kwok-wah picked at
the remains of his lunch. He wondered if there was any meat at all on his chicken or if it was all bone and gristle. He gave up on what was left and was starting to tidy his tray with a view to leaving when he saw the woman at the food counter. There was no mistaking her; she was at least eight inches taller than the friend she was with.
‘You see that woman in the queue?’ he said to Zhanyuan. ‘Tall. Jeans, long hair, talking to the girl in the red tracksuit top … just being served. Do you know who she is?’
Zhao Zhanyuan turned to have a look.
‘No, I don’t think so. Why? Somebody you fancy?’ Zhanyuan raised an eyebrow. ‘I can understand why. Wait a minute … didn’t she watch us play basketball once? I remember – she was the looker … Yeah, now I know why you’re interested. But you’re wasting your time, she’s way out of your league.’
Kwok-wah felt his face blush and kicked himself for mentioning her to Zhanyuan. There were times when he wondered if Zhanyuan wasn’t taking too much of an interest in what he was up to. Almost as if he had been given the job of keeping an eye on him. ‘I’ve just seen her around a couple of places since then. No matter. I have to be getting back to the lab.’ Kwok-wah carried his tray back to the counter. As he did so he passed the woman, and this time there was no doubt that she smiled at him.
***
Kwok-wah was pleased to have some relatively mindless work ahead of him that afternoon. Using a program he had written himself, he had been allocated time on one of the department’s mainframes to run multiple simulations of different algorithms. Kwok-wah sat at a terminal and watched the flickering ever-changing display on the monitor that showed the progress of the software. He found it restful and strangely beautiful to watch as the ephemeral letters and digits passed in and out of existence. It was soothing and allowed his mind the freedom to wander. Who was she? Was she really interested in him or was it just wishful thinking on his part? He’d had girlfriends before, but not many, and he would be the first to admit he was useless at trying to read people’s body language; useless at telling the difference between a friendly smile and something more significant.
He told himself he was being ridiculous. He was cross with himself for being so stupid. How could he imagine she was interested in him? He hadn’t even spoken to her. Surely she must have a boyfriend? If not here then back at home, wherever it was she came from. He had no illusions about his appearance and didn’t think he was particularly good looking. His teenage acne had only recently become less of an issue and there was no doubt that Zhanyuan was right; she was out of his league, unless she had some special interest in Fourier transforms. Which he doubted. The printer clattered into action. The results of the first simulation were in and Kwok-wah stood over the machine guiding the paper as it spooled out so that it didn’t get tangled or jam, as often happened.
While he was occupied with the printer, he saw Professor Ye enter the lab. These days it was unusual enough to see him in the lab at all – Kwok-wah had been surprised and a little disappointed at how little time Professor Ye spent there, he seemed to prefer meetings with the great and the good – but what caught Kwok-wah’s attention most of all was that the professor was accompanied by a military uniform, a man not much older than Professor Ye himself, early forties perhaps, with thinning hair. Kwok-wah knew nothing about military uniforms – he couldn’t even have said whether it was army, navy or air force – and had no idea of the man’s rank, except that judging from the smartness of the uniform and the high density of badges and insignia, it was apparent he must be reasonably senior.
Kwok-wah kept a low profile and concentrated on folding the printer output. Professor Ye was showing his guest the equipment they had.
‘We’ve got three mainframes. This is the most powerful. But they’re all several years old now. We’ve tried to update them as best we can, to upgrade their processing speed, but there’s no getting away from the fact that they are not up to the job any more. Things move so fast in our field.’ Kwok-wah wasn’t eavesdropping as such but he couldn’t avoid hearing what was being said. His Putonghua still wasn’t perfect but he got the gist of things.
‘When the new building is ready we’ll be in a position to increase our capability, but we’ll need a substantial amount of money if we are to maximise our potential and give you what you want. The mainframes will all need replacing with the latest models, and I want to replace the PCs as well. It’s going to be expensive.’ The uniform didn’t reply; he was looking around at the machines. ‘Our normal departmental budget won’t even come close to covering the costs. We need to look at the special projects money but even that is going to need a boost.’
‘Can you prepare a proposal?’ They had moved to the other side of a large computer cabinet. Kwok-wah couldn’t believe they didn’t know he was there, unless they simply weren’t bothered about being overheard.
‘Of course. I’ll put together a report with the things we need. The other thing to remember is the lead time. We can’t waste time if you want to get this project moving. We’ll need to start planning exactly what we want at least two years before we move to the new building. For the large mainframes, I’d like to get things underway as soon as possible. Especially for anything the US won’t sell us directly.’
‘There are ways and means round that. Let me have something in writing and I’ll pass it on to my brother. And your staff? Are they onside with this?’
‘They don’t know. They don’t need to know. I simply point them towards certain research areas that are useful to us. They don’t need to know anything about the final product.’
With that, Professor Ye and his guest left the lab, and Kwok-wah suddenly realised that he’d stopped breathing.
***
‘Hi,’ said the woman.
Kwok-wah was clearing his thoughts while shooting a few baskets when he heard the voice of a woman, speaking in English with an American accent. The surprise of hearing English, the first time he’d heard it spoken since arriving in Shanghai, along with the gender of the speaker, caught him off-guard and he missed his shot badly. He turned to see her standing at the edge of the basketball court; slim, tall, long hair in a ponytail. The woman who had been occupying his thoughts.
‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I didn’t mean to put you off your shot.’
‘It was just a bad shot.’
‘I’ve been watching you for a while. You’re good.’ Kwok-wah felt himself blush. He went to retrieve the basketball to hide the fact. ‘My dad’s a big Warriors fan,’ she continued. ‘He takes us to see them sometimes. I’m Susan, by the way, Susan Khoo. I think I’ve seen you around? I thought I’d come and say hello.’
‘Yeung Kwok-wah. Or Yang, as I’m known around here. Your English is very good. Better than mine, if I’m honest.’
Susan laughed. ‘I’m American. From California. Oakland, to be precise.’
Kwok-wah blushed again. ‘Now I feel stupid.’
‘No need. You’re from Hong Kong, right? Didn’t you want to go back home for Christmas?’
‘I didn’t think I did but I’m not so sure now.’ His mother was a churchgoer and when he’d called to say he wasn’t coming home for the holidays, Kwok-wah could tell she was upset. ‘But it’s too late now. How about you?’
‘Too expensive to go back to the States again. I was back for Thanksgiving not that long ago.’ Susan sat down on a bench by the side of the basketball court. She was wearing a tracksuit and trainers as if she had been out for a run. ‘So what are you doing here? In Shanghai, that is. What are you studying, I mean?’
Kwok-wah hesitated before deciding to sit down next to her on the bench. Having been intrigued by this woman, now that he was in her company he was unsure of himself.
‘I’m doing a PhD in computer science,’ he said.
‘Would I regret it if I asked what it was about?’
‘Do you know what Fourier transforms are? Sorry, if it turns out you’re studying maths that’s going to sound like a stupid ques
tion. You’re not, are you? Studying maths?’
‘No,’ she laughed, a light laugh that made Kwok-wah smile without knowing why. ‘I’m doing building sciences. There’s some maths, of course, but nothing particularly advanced.’
‘Building sciences? What does that involve?’
‘It’s a kinda multidisciplinary thing. A bit of architecture, some civil engineering, materials and so on. Y’know, anything that might go in to the construction of new buildings.’
She was sitting turned towards Kwok-wah and he noticed the gold stud earrings she was wearing.
‘So what brought you to Shanghai when there are so many good schools in the US? It’s pretty unusual, isn’t it? For an American to come and study in China?’
‘Look around the place,’ Susan said. ‘Shanghai, I mean. You must have seen just how much building is going on. This is where it’s all at. There are so many new developments using new techniques and new technologies. People here are more interested in trying new ideas and new ways of building. They have to be just to try and keep up with the demand. There’s such a pressure to build quickly. Back home everything is more traditional. But what about you? You were going to tell me about your … what are they called again? Something transformers?’
‘Fourier transforms. It’s hard to explain in detail if you don’t have a maths background, but basically I’m doing research into a number of mathematical techniques that can be used in data transmission. Mobile phones, computers and so on.’
‘Phones?’ Susan frowned.