Tash Aw - Map of the Invisible World

No one gives you anything in this town, Johan said. He held up his hand and made a twiddling motion with his thumb and forefinger. Everything has a price.

Johan has friends everywhere, Bob said. Especially in Bangkok, don’t you, Johan?

The brotherhood of Asian nations, that’s what it is, Johan said. There’s a new world order. Freedom to trade, it’s our right. But this, this excellent product, this comes all the way from the U. S. of A. He laughed and made that twiddling motion with his fingers again. Farah’s face was lit by the moon but somehow blurred. Johan blinked but could not make out the details of her features. Her skin looked powdery, almost white, clearer, brighter than ever. This light, he said, it looks like frost. He reached out to touch her chin. He needed to make sure he was not imagining it.

Get lost, she said, and swatted his hand away. You wouldn’t know what frost looks like, you’ve never seen it.

There was frost in England when we went last year.

Not where we were there wasn’t. Oh god, look at you. Your eyes. I hate it when this happens to your eyes. I feel as if I’m staring into a big, black, empty well.

I’m okay. I’m okay.

Leave him alone, Sis. Bob lay sprawled out on the backseat. He’s fine. Everything’s just fine.

Johan, you’re in no shape to drive. What the hell is Daddy going to say if he finds out? Give me the keys.

What are you going to do? You don’t know how to drive. Johan started up the car as he spoke and reversed slowly until they were on the main road. Don’t worry, your daddy isn’t going to find out.

He’s your father too. And you know Mummy always wakes up early. She’ll kill you if she sees you like this. Please drive slowly, Johan. Let’s go home.

No. We’re going to the movies. I promised you.

They sped toward the city, streaming along the smooth roads that led sinuously into the heart of this bright new town. They glided past construction sites for the new housing estates on the outskirts, fields of mud and concrete ringed by chain-link fences. In the purple moonlight they looked like an ocean, an ocean troubled by small jagged waves carrying all manner of flotsam. Quickly, then, they were in the city. The buildings flowed past them, blurred and glittering, casting their lights upward into the sky. Sometimes, Johan thought, sometimes it doesn’t feel as if I am in the city, the city is in me .

Outside the Rialto a throng of people was basking in the golden glare of the ten thousand bulbs that lit the theater and the neon bill boards spread across the theater’s facade of angular pigeonholes. Next to a sign saying NO PARKING there was a thick rope strung across two iron posts. There were some boys and girls laughing cold, hard laughs. They watched the Mercedes as it crawled to a halt.

Don’t look back at them, Johan, Farah said. Just don’t provoke anyone.

Johan honked, pressing long and hard until the crowd dispersed. An old Chinese man emerged, bent over, hurrying, and uncoiled the rope from the posts. It hung from his hands like a dead python. He waved the car into a space just outside the steps to the theater.

Hello, Tuan, hello, Miss Farah, he said as they walked up the stairs. Coming for the midnight show?

Hello, Seng, Farah replied. How’s your grandson? Must be big now. (Johan, Bob, she whispered, for god’s sake try and behave normally, walk faster.)

Miss Farah, if you want, tonight midnight show is The Love Eterne , otherwise just started there is Story of the Sword and the Sabre , part one, or Three Dolls of Hong Kong .

Oh, I thought From Russia with Love was still showing.

James Bond finished yesterday. So sorry, Miss Farah.

Johan said, It’s Imperialist Western nonsense anyway.

Next month we are going to have Contempt . Don’t know what it’s about, but sounds good. That French woman on the poster looks so beautiful.

That’s fine, Seng, three tickets for the midnight show then, please. What was it again?

The Love Eterne . This way please, for you — no need to pay.

Of course must pay.

Please don’t mention it anymore, Miss Farah.

Johan settled in his chair in the musty darkness of the theater. Over the wild symphony of the music there was the steady crack-cracking of people eating pumpkin seeds, splitting the shells between their teeth before dropping them onto the floor. It sounded to him like drops of rain falling heavily on sand, the start of a storm at the seaside. He remembered his first holiday with his new family in Port Dickson. He had wanted to see the sea, to find out if he was still frightened by it. So he had gone into the water late in the afternoon, when it was raining, when he was not supposed to go swimming. The rain drops were heavy and cold on his head, the sea warm, so warm, and when he put his head under water the sound of the rain falling on the surface of the sea was just like the sound of the rain on the zinc roof at the orphanage, only softer. He had closed his eyes. Brilliant colored cloudbursts filled his head. He could feel the pulse in his temples, quick and insistent. His cheeks were hot but he felt a thin chill at the back of his neck.

It’s so bloody hot in here, Bob said. I’m sweating like a dog. Is there even air-conditioning in here? This place is rubbish, you wouldn’t get this in Singapore.

Shh.

The Technicolor screen swirled with vivid hues. Johan tried to follow the story, but he could not make sense of it. All he could see was the wash of color. Blue hills. Streams of gold cloth. Fluorescent green fields. Rivers of pure cobalt. A violet sky. There was a girl pretending to be a boy, falling in love with a boy. She loved him, but he did not love her. Or maybe he loved him, but he did not love him.

Johan, stop laughing. Are you okay?

Fine. Everything’s perfect.

He loves him but he goes away from him. She goes away, far away. He realizes that he loves him and she loves him and he loves her. He feels sad. She feels sad. They both feel sad.

Why?

Why what? Johan, please stop mumbling.

There is plenty of wind. It is cold in here. They both die. There is a storm. White powder fills the world. Rainstorm on sand.

Johan. Farah put her hand on his arm. Her fingers are not cold, not warm, just perfect and unmoving and strong. I’m worried about you. Johan, look at me. She touched his face gently. Look at me .

The white shower was over and the light was dim on her face, dancing faintly across her small nose and wide-open eyes. Don’t worry, I’m happy now, Farah.

She gripped his arm tightly. No you’re not. I am. I can’t remember anything.

Breathe deeply, slowly.

I wish it could be like this all the time. I wish I could forget everything. I don’t want to remember anything, Farah. Nothing at all.

Will you two shut up over there? Bob said.

Farah? I’m here.

Later, when they were back in the car and the world seemed less brilliant, Johan looked again at Farah. Her hair was messed up by the wind blowing hard through the windows as they sliced along the darkened streets. He said, What kind of dreams do you have?

Don’t know. Mostly nice ones. Sometimes scary. I guess just normal ones. You?

I can’t sleep at night.

I know. I can hear you fidgeting and coughing. Sometimes you sigh and cry out. Are your dreams so bad?

If I fall asleep it all comes back to me and I wake up again.

Farah turned around to check that Bob was asleep. What comes back to you?

The orphanage. The boys. The rain dripping through the roof, the sound it made, like a ticking of a huge clock that would never stop. The dorm was long and thin and there were rows of cots, just sheets of canvas between pieces of wood, not even real beds, and the rows were so close together there was barely any space to walk between them. You could hear the breathing of the other boys when they were asleep and every night there would be someone crying in his sleep. And my brother—