Five Star Billionaire. Tash Aw
time? Still flogging panties to rich women?’
Yinghui could not hide her annoyance, but nonetheless she allowed herself to be persuaded to go on a couple of blind dates – friends of friends of friends. The first was in a Mexican restaurant near Tianzifang, the next in a Xinjiang restaurant at the far end of Hengshan Lu. On both occasions the men were polite, professionally successful, and bland. Towards the end of the second date, Yinghui decided that it would be her last. As she watched the man (Michael? Mark? A nice American lawyer) pull the leathery pieces of lamb off the skewer, she realised that she wasn’t able to summon any energy to be witty or flirtatious, to behave as she knew she should on a first date with a perfectly OK man. It wasn’t, as her friends claimed, that she was out of practice: she doubted she had ever known how to do so. The small talk left her feeling bewildered and exhausted, and she was constantly afraid that the conversation would turn towards more personal things, towards the past: how and why she had first come to Shanghai – the normal things foreigners asked each other. She tried to seize control of the conversation, filling it with lengthy explanations of how each dish was prepared, what bizarre Xinjiang ingredients they contained. The man listened politely and asked questions with the requisite level of cultural awareness, which made the transaction less painful for Yinghui. At one point, as she felt the evening slipping dangerously into ‘Tell me about your family’ territory, she changed the subject abruptly by turning to the waitress who had fortuitously arrived with more tea. She began to engage her in idle chat, hoping to glean insights on her exotic homeland, which she would then translate as conversation fillers, making it impossible for Michael/Mark to ask more personal questions. The waitress’s name badge read ‘Aliya’ – such a beautiful Xinjiang name, Yinghui remarked; tell us about where you are from. The waitress giggled and shrugged – she was actually from way down south, Fujian province; she wasn’t an exotic Muslim at all. Mercifully, the lights suddenly dimmed for the entrance of the Uighur dancers. Yinghui was pleased that the music was loud and that the dancers yelped and shrieked all the way through their performance, for it meant that no further conversation was necessary. She smiled at Michael/Mark, and he smiled back.
She really did not need a man to be successful.
One afternoon Yinghui left work early to get dressed for an evening function. It had not been a particularly stressful day, but she was fidgety and distracted. Hours before the event, she had begun to feel anxious; even thinking about what dress to wear and how to style her still-too-short hair made her nervous, which in turn filled her with self-loathing for having allowed such trivial concerns to enter her life.
She had been nominated for the Businesswoman of the Year awards, in the ‘Breakthrough’ category, in which she was the oldest person. The ceremony was held in the ballroom of a hotel in Jing’an, decorated with huge bouquets of pink flowers and banners bearing quotes from Sunzi’s Art of War: ‘Opportunities Multiply as They are Seized’; ‘A Leader Leads by Example, Not Force’. The other nominees all looked the same to Yinghui – pretty, sylphlike, twenty-something local women, their hair effortlessly long, curling featherlike towards their collarbones. Yinghui wished she had been nominated for the ‘Lifetime Achievement’ award that was made up almost exclusively of older Western women; she might have looked more delicate and feminine lined up next to them when the group photographs were taken. Instead, surrounded by women at least ten years younger than herself, she looked square-cut and boxy. She did not win the award (which went to a girl of twenty-four who sold recycled toilet paper to Europe), but her work gained considerable publicity.
Among the guests were a few people she knew well, including one or two she considered friends, some business associates, and many others who were mere acquaintances. A man caught her eye but she couldn’t figure out which category he belonged to. He had a familiar gait – stiff at the joints, the way a marionette might walk, like an arthritic soldier. He was about her age, well-groomed, impeccably dressed, deliberate in his movements: the way he shook hands, firmly, or held chairs back for women, or leant forward to kiss them on both cheeks in a courteous but professional manner – every gesture seemed elegant yet practised. He carried an air of privilege, but he was certainly not Shanghainese. He was well packaged, Yinghui thought, the right age too. The right age: she hated how she had come to assess men this way, the way they assessed her – it was a way of seeing people that had seeped into her thinking unconsciously, as if by osmosis. Right age. Good match. A real woman. Style issues. That was what happened when you lived in Shanghai. She couldn’t escape it now.
She circled him from a distance, trying to work out whether she really knew him. He was wearing a light-grey suit made of a fabric with a faint herringbone pattern, a pale-blue shirt and a dark tie. His jawline was just turning from sleek to heavy. She eased her way through the throng, dodging precariously held champagne flutes, keeping him on the edge of her field of vision all the time. He was on his own now, reading a brochure, wandering away from the crowd, slowly circling the room. She moved closer, making sure he could not see her. Then, when the time was right, she turned and caught his eye. She felt a tightness in her throat, a quickening knot that threatened to turn swiftly into panic.
‘Sorry – Chee Keong? Justin?’
‘Yes. Leong Yinghui!’ He made a movement towards her, his head leaning forwards; but then he corrected himself and extended his hand. ‘Hi. My God, it’s been years. I’d never have thought I’d meet you at a business event.’
‘Justin Lim Chee Keong. What a surprise.’ She shook his hand as firmly as she could, with a brisk up-and-down movement. She wondered if her voice sounded artificially confident, over-bright. ‘How long has it been – ten years? More, perhaps.’
‘I’d say at least fifteen years. Though at my age I try not to keep count. You haven’t changed at all – I mean, not one bit.’
‘You too,’ Yinghui lied. Up close, she could see the lines drawing down on either side of his mouth, the dark circles that shadowed his slightly bloodshot eyes. His skin seemed dry and brittle. When he smiled she saw vestiges of the person she had known – a young, physical man with a full, open face. The same features were now touched with a certain hollowness, a glimpse of what he might look like as an old man. ‘So what brings you to Shanghai – don’t tell me, family business?’
‘What else is there in my life?’ His laugh was rehearsed, mechanical, and it made him seem tired, not happy. He looked at her with a neutral expression; she searched for traces of shock or surprise in his reddened eyes, but could discern nothing. ‘It’s a real surprise seeing you here. I was just looking at the list of nominees for the awards, and when I saw your name I thought, “No way, that can’t be the same person I knew.” A businesswoman? I never thought that was possible. Amazing.’ Yinghui thought he was going to follow up with questions about her life – how she had arrived in Shanghai, the nature of her business – but he merely continued to stare at her in a blank, awkward manner, exactly the way she remembered from all those years ago.
‘Stranger things happen in life,’ she said, filling in the silence at last. ‘It’s not exactly the Virgin Birth, you know. Anyway, how is, um, how is your brother?’ she asked. ‘I read about CS’s wedding about five, six years ago – it looked very luxurious. I knew the bride at school. She was in the year above me. And your parents, still glamorous as ever?’
‘I believe all is well with them.’
‘I read about your family’s business in the papers – not that I was looking out for it or anything, I just read an article by chance. Things must be tough.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s a global crisis, isn’t it? It’s tough for everyone – though you seem to be doing pretty well.’
A young woman appeared at his side and slid her hand around his waist, inviting him to do the same; but she was looking away from him, towards something behind Yinghui’s back. There was a sudden burst of camera flashes around them, two or three photographers taking pictures of the couple. Yinghui stepped back and watched them strike poses as they faced the cameras – he stiffly, his new companion