Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

We came to an office that occupied the corner space of the floor. A man was sitting behind a desk, talking loudly on the phone, laughing heartily. He glanced at us and then began drawing something on a piece of paper in front of him.

“ Ya ya ya , ha-ha-ha.” He wore spectacles and his hair was styled with brilliantine, slicked back in the manner of a fifties’ rock ’n’ roller. He was plump and jolly-looking, not at all what I expected of the big boss of a huge company. As he laughed, I almost believed that he was a long-forgotten comrade from my father’s village and that he would leap up and embrace my father with the warmth of a brother.

There was a teenager sitting in an armchair in the corner of the room, playing on a handheld video game. He did not look up at us at all. He was about my age, maybe a year or two younger, but his height and broad shoulders made him look much older than me, more powerful. Even seated, he looked tall and athletic. He wore colorful ankle-high basketball shoes and blue jeans; his skin and hair had a luster of health, a protective sheen that looked as if it warded off all illness and bad fortune. But in spite of his large frame, there was something childlike in the way he slumped in his chair and sometimes grimaced when he pressed the buttons of his game. I noticed his hands — clean and long, with fingers that manipulated his electronic toy with a deftness that mine would never have. My own hands suddenly felt thick and rough with calluses, disfigured by the healed-over cuts and flesh wounds I had endured during those years working on my aunt’s pineapple farm as a child. I felt like lifting my fingers to my mouth and biting off all the dead skin and scar tissue I had accumulated over the years, but I managed, somehow, to keep my hands in my pockets, where the shame of their ugliness would not be seen.

The man ended his conversation and said, “So you are the guy Nik was talking about.”

My father nodded. But now, suddenly, he was looking down at his feet, as if incapable of holding the man’s gaze.

“Ya,” the man continued, “Nik told me there might be someone coming to make trouble.”

“No, sir, I don’t want to make trouble at all.”

“Then what is it you want?”

I looked at the two empty chairs in front of us and wondered if the man was going to ask us to sit down, for my feet had begun to ache. We had walked a long way to find this place, and I felt a cramp starting to seize the little toe of my right foot. I tried to keep still but was aware that I was fidgeting.

“We just want to keep our house,” my father said.

“We just want to keep our house,” the man repeated, mocking my father’s heavy rural Chinese accent. “This guy is really something.” He laughed, shaking his head. “Do you understand what is happening to the whole damn area around your house? It is being redeveloped.”

“Yes,” my father replied, “that is why I came to talk to you. To ask you to make an exception for us.”

“You are going to be paid for your property, you know — it’s not some illegal land grab. You’re being compensated, so what more do you want?”

“The money is too little,” my father said, a note of anger creeping into his voice. “Everyone is unhappy.”

“Oh, I see. Like that, ah ?” the man said, leaning back in his chair and casually tossing the pen he was holding onto the desk. “First it’s ‘please let me keep my house,’ but now we see the truth. It’s all about money. Okay, so how much do you want?”

My father shook his head. “I want to keep my house, I don’t want money. Many people are angry. If you don’t change your plans, I can organize a protest.”

“Wa-seh!” the man exclaimed, laughing. “Justin, did you hear that? Ei , Justin, turn that stupid game off and come and sit here.” He beckoned the boy over to an empty chair next to the desk.

“Yes, Sixth Uncle.” The teenager sat facing us now, his face blank, eyes staring at us with a mixture of boredom and irritation.

“Justin, these guys have come here to threaten us over a normal, legitimate job we are doing. What shall we do under these circumstances?”

Justin stared at us without answering.

“You think we should give in to their demands or tell them to fuck off?”

“We should not be intimidated by anyone under any circumstances,” the boy answered robotically.

“Good, you’ve remembered what I’ve told you.”

All this time, my father remained motionless, his back stiff and unyielding. I could tell, even at this point, that he was still expecting a favorable outcome. He turned back briefly to look at me, and I could discern the glint of optimism in his eye, the look of a man on the brink of great triumph. I wanted to say: No, stop — we should just go now, Father. We are being kept here for another man’s amusement; we will never get what we came for. But the silence that had settled between us seemed too great a barrier to surmount, and I said nothing.

“We are just the damn developers, you know,” the man said, continuing to lean back in his chair. It rocked gently, giving him the appearance of someone relaxing in a hammock. “That whole shitty rural area has been earmarked for development, so if you want to protest, go and talk to the minister for housing. Ha, ya , see what Minister Leong will say.”

“You cannot expect us to move out of our homes. The money is … so little. I can tell the newspapers.”

The man looked at his nephew and then pulled his chair closer to the desk, leaving his forearms on the green leather surface. “Listen, old man,” he said calmly. “You are being paid peanuts because your house is worth peanuts. I would explain to you how much the development project is worth, but the figures would be too great for your simple little head. You can try to organize your stupid protests — go on, be my guest! — but if you do, I will make sure that your life will be hell. You think the newspapers care about people like you? Friend, no one cares. I make one call to Minister Leong right now and no paper will ever print what you say. You really make me laugh.”

“I can pay you,” my father said; he was breathing quickly now. “I can borrow money and pay you the right price. Then maybe you can let my house remain.”

“Borrow money, huh. Check that out, Justin. He wants to borrow money to pay us off. He’s going to have to borrow fucking Fort Knox.”

The young man was looking out the window — our plight was too minor for him; he barely noticed that we were present. He sat shaking his legs and only smiled when his uncle repeated the joke.

The door behind us opened. “Minister Leong on the phone,” the secretary said.

“Speak of the devil,” the man said, picking up the phone and cupping the receiver. He began to scribble a few notes on a piece of paper without looking at us. We stood there for a few moments, but it was clear that we had already disappeared from his world. We had scarcely existed for him, and I knew that in a couple of days he would not be able to recall our faces — our bland, rustic features. In a couple of weeks, he would not even remember that we had ever come to his office.

As we left the office, I could hear his voice, jovial once again as he spoke on the telephone. I heard the electronic beeping of the teenager’s game, and I caught one last glimpse of his bored face and colorful shoes.

We took the bus back up north that same day, and when we were in Kota Bharu it was suddenly my turn to be optimistic. I remembered those surprising things my father had said, about organizing protests and journalists — and kept expecting him to spring into action. I even said, “Let’s get some people together and organize a protest outside the land office.” But it was one of those things that, as soon as they are articulated, dissolve into thin air, like nighttime dreams vanishing into the clarity of day. Neither he nor I ever organized anything, of course. He began gambling to pay off his debts — first on four-digit numbers, then at mah-jongg, then cards. I went back down south to continue my studies, and occasionally I would get a letter, optimistic as usual, about plans to develop the birds’-nest business. It was as if he had deliberately ignored the fact that the building would soon be destroyed and he would be left with nothing but a small amount of cash that would pay off only a fraction of his debts. The more cheerful and optimistic his letters were, the worse I knew the gambling had become, and after a while I stopped opening the letters.