Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

“I totally, totally agree!” She laughed. “You know, I never thought I’d meet anyone else who hated it as much as I do.”

They went for a walk along the banks of West Lake, tracing its shoreline without bothering to plan an itinerary. It seemed immaterial where they were headed or where they might end up. They continued to talk about shared experiences and, as they progressed, shared desires: places they’d like to visit, things they’d like to achieve. None of these was related to money or career advancement.

“Hey,” she said, giggling as they stood at the top of an arcing stone bridge. “Shouldn’t we be talking about work?”

It had begun to drizzle — the faintest of droplets filling the air, barely more than a mist. Along the water’s edge, the branches of the willow trees drooped and touched the surface of the lake.

“This is work,” he said. “Sort of.”

She looked at him as he leaned with his elbows on the stone parapet. He was smiling, but a faint frown had settled on his brow and his gaze was distant. She wondered if something she had said had made him recall a past event — a moving or maybe even troubling chapter in his life. They had spoken so much about themselves, so suddenly, that they had not bothered to filter anything they’d said. She felt guilty at having interrupted their flowing conversation with a suggestion as crass as work . What had she become? On a pretty spot in one of the most scenic places in Eastern China, with a man who might be interested in her, all she could do was to think of work.

A group of tourists walked past, chattering noisily in a southern dialect Yinghui could not understand; they carried yellow umbrellas emblazoned with the name of a travel agency in red letters. The violent splash of color cut through the muted gray-green hues of the lakeside landscape, and even when they had crossed another bridge and reached the far bank, Yinghui could still spot them in the mist-shrouded distance.

“It’s good that we’ve had this opportunity to talk, find out about each other,” Walter said, as they began to walk vaguely in the direction of the hotel. “You’re going to be a key person in this deal, the one coordinating day-to-day matters. It’s such a sensitive job that I think it’s important that we get to know each other well — especially since we will be working so closely together.”

Yinghui nodded in agreement. “Absolutely. But there is one thing I need to discuss with you before we go any further.”

“Oh, dear, this sounds ominous. Are you going to pull out?”

Yinghui did not look at him at they continued walking along a snaking path that led them under some elm trees. “The capital that I’d have to put into the joint-venture company — well, you know that I don’t have such funds readily available. I’d need a bank loan to make that happen. Several bank loans, in fact. Several very big ones.”

“I thought that might be the case,” Walter said calmly, his voice carrying a hint of a question, as if mildly surprised by her statement.

“And I don’t know if I’ll be able to get those loans. I’ll be honest with you: I just don’t have enough capital otherwise. Even if I sold everything I owned, it wouldn’t be enough to cover the amount I’d need to put in. So you see, getting those loans is sort of, well, essential if I’m to go ahead.”

They stood shaded from the drizzle for a few moments by the canopy of leaves. The paths that wound their way through the parks by the lakeside were empty now; people were in the teahouses and restaurants, sheltering from the rain.

“You’ve been worrying about this, haven’t you?” Walter said, turning to face her. “You shouldn’t. You’ll get those loans — easily, I’d say. Look at your recent track record; you’re someone so clearly on the up. That’s why I chose you out of all the people I could have chosen in Shanghai. Banks will be falling over themselves to lend you money. This is China. They know that people like you can make things happen.”

Yinghui nodded.

“You’re so daring and original in your thinking that I’m almost tempted to say, You know what? Forget the capital; you don’t need to put in any money, just come and work with me. But I don’t think you’d feel right about that — I don’t think it would be right for you to be a mere employee drawing a salary. I want this to be your project too. You need to feel as if you own it, right from the outset. I want you to be my partner. People like you are rare — trust me, I know.”

“So you think there’ll be no problem with getting the loans?”

He smiled and touched her on her forearm. “Remember what we spoke about at our first dinner. Business is about respect. And banks loans — they’re simply the modern world’s way of showing how much it values you. They’re like credit notes in respect. You deserve respect — it’s yours. You’ll get everything you want.”

“And if I don’t?”

“If you don’t, we will both shrug our shoulders and walk away from each other. Before long I’ll find another person to replace you. Maybe that new relationship will turn out to be as smooth as ours seems to be, maybe it won’t. You’ll move on too and find success and respect elsewhere.” He paused and looked at her briefly. “That’s the life of businesspeople like us. I will regret never having really known you, but that’s just how it is — you miss opportunities, you have to live with regret.”

The drizzle was turning to rain, falling heavily on the leaves overhead. Yinghui thought for a second that Walter might kiss her, but he did not. He merely looked up at the trees, his palms turned upward to gauge the rain. They walked to the road and hailed a taxi back to their hotel. Once in her room, she ran a very hot bath and lay in the vast cedarwood tub, looking out the window across the rain-washed landscape, thinking about what Walter had said — about regret. She did not want to live with regret; she would never do so. An image of Walter sitting at a table discussing business plans with another woman — someone sleek and well groomed, who didn’t suffer from style issues —flashed into her mind; the clarity of that possibility made her feel anxious and slightly panicked.

She closed her eyes and thought: She had to get those loans. All the respect that was due to her, accumulating over the years — she was going to cash it in, very shortly now.

My father had a friend in the land-registry office, someone he’d known in primary school. He’d been to see this friend who, at the time, was a lowly clerk, but his humble administrative post gave him valuable information: He knew which parcels of land were being sold on the cheap, which areas were going to be redeveloped, which houses were soon to be auctioned. (As an aside, I noticed this man’s name in the newspapers just after the financial crisis in 1997—he’d been sentenced to a length of time in prison after having embezzled twenty million ringgit from state funds. The poor idiot: He’d allowed himself to get caught. For this reason, I will have to change his name and call him “Nik K.”)

If my father’s ever-growing fantasies of quick riches were turning into addiction, Nik K. was his drug dealer. He told my father about the Tokyo Hotel and the small piece of land that accompanied it: nothing to look at now, he said, overgrown and marshy as it was, but all my father had to do was cut down the trees and drain the earth — a simple procedure — and lay a mixture of concrete and hardcore on top of it; then it would be ready to be finished with tarmac, which would create a fine parking lot for the hotel. The building was, frankly, in a bad state, but imagine what might be achieved with a bit of investment: A solid three-story building with a parking lot was virtually impossible to find at this price these days, and, what’s more, Nik K. had heard from friends of his in other government departments that more offshore oil fields had been discovered and would be operational in only a few years’ time. When that happened, just think of the number of people coming up to work in all the support industries, all the seasonal workers from KL and beyond. Nik K. himself had bought a few run-down buildings in the area, for next to nothing — including the Tokyo Hotel, which he would let my father have for the same price he had paid.