Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

“Yes, I’m now trading in domestic consumables — business is great! Excuse me, but I have a meeting now. Is there anything I can do for you?” He stood up and gathered a few pieces of paper and a hardcover book that resembled an old-fashioned ledger.

Justin shook his head. Outside, the skyscrapers of Pudong were clad in a cobalt-blue glass that reflected the sky, warping the shapes of the clouds so that they looked like streaks of oil on tarmac, brilliant and purple; when they shifted in the wind, the sun burst through, blinding Justin for an instant.

“Your personal items are in that box over there, I think. No, that one over there. The girls cleared everything away before they left. Okay, I’ve got to go now. Goodbye.”

A translucent blue plastic crate sat on the leather sofa, surrounded by samples of health-food supplements with bizarre names that Justin had never heard of — cat’s claw, dong quai, fo-ti, horny goat weed. He lifted the lid on the crate and looked at its contents — his desk diary and three silver-framed photographs lay inside, together with his personal organizer and the two mobile phones he used when in Malaysia and Hong Kong: the sum total of his life, barely able to fill a single packing crate. Another person might have had a painting or two, or colorful crayon drawings by their children, he thought, or else postcards sent by friends from sunny places, maybe a flag from their hometown or souvenirs of travel to foreign countries. He looked at his possessions: hard-edged, cold, functional; black and silver, plastic and metal. Even the photographs of his family were posed studio images. He looked at them for a while, wondering if he should take them. Eventually he slipped them into his briefcase, leaving everything else behind.

Back at his apartment, he ran through his contacts list, briefly considering each name — how well he knew the person, whether he could ring them after so long, how awkward it would be. He felt a sense of urgency as he scrolled down each page, a feeling he could almost describe as strength, which he had not felt for many months. But as he worked through the list of names, the sense of fortitude began to turn to panic, and he realized that it was not in fact strength but desperation that drove his actions. Each time his eyes alighted upon a name that seemed hopeful, there was always a reason not to ring that person — an unbridgeable distance. The truth was, he now knew, he had no friends.

He found one business contact, someone who had never been a proper friend but whom he had known since school days, a fellow Malaysian who owned a number of factories in Wenzhou that made the tiny clips on bra straps—60 percent of the world’s supply of bra-strap clips, he had once claimed; local businessmen admiringly called him “Bra Button King.” Justin had lent him 1,000 ringgit when they were both nineteen years old, when he was starting his first business buying and selling used office furniture.

“ Justin . Hey, man. I didn’t know you were still in Shanghai. I thought, all that stuff going on at home, surely you’d be back in KL. Must be tough there, huh? Ei, sorry, man, I’m quite busy at the moment. Can I call you back? Still the same number, right? Let’s have lunch soon, ya? Of course, I promise. Call you soon.”

He rang two or three other people, but it was the same every time: They’d heard the news, were sorry to hear about his family, and, yes, they’d of course love to meet up but things were so busy in China these days, you know what things are like, just nonstop. They promised to call, but their voices were full of a fake cheeriness that signaled to him that they would not, of course, call back. He had done the same so many times in the past; he never thought he’d be on the receiving end of it.

This was what life was like in China, he thought: Stand still for a moment and the river of life rushes past you. He had spent three months confined to his apartment, and in that time Shanghai seemed to have changed completely, the points of reference in his world permanently rearranged and repositioned in ways he could not recognize. Just as he had lost his car and driver, he was also navigating his way through life without a map — as if the GPS in his brain had been disconnected, leaving him floundering. Everyone in this city was living life at a hundred miles an hour, speeding ever forward; he had fallen behind, out of step with the rest of Shanghai.

He was arriving at the end of the Rolodex, the cards flipping over hopelessly toward the “X, Y, Z”s without a sign of anyone who might help him. He was speeding through the “Y”s when he stopped, reaching for the card printed with a feminine, scrolling typeface: Leong Yinghui . It was not filed under her surname, but he knew that it had not been an error; he had done so by pure instinct, for he could not think of her in any other way than simply Yinghui . It was familiarity and habit that misplaced the card, not carelessness.

He thought he had lost her card, and maybe a part of him had even wanted to do so, uncertain and possibly afraid of what a reunion with her would involve. Throughout his winter solitude, when his thoughts had been blank and his body numb, he sometimes wondered what he had done with her card. Images of her came to mind, but even the prospect of getting in touch with her again was not enough to get him out of bed to search for it. All the yearning and regret that might once have stirred him into action was now gone; he couldn’t feel anything for her. That was when he had known that he was really ill, that it was not some passing cold-weather virus but something darker, something he would not be able to shake off easily.

He had met her in what he now recognizes as the first stages of his breakdown, when he was already in a state of permanent distraction, his mind always cloudy, his vision and thoughts unfocused. He had been dragged to an event by Zhou X., the actress whom he had met at the charity auction at the start of his time in Shanghai. “I need someone to accompany me to an awards ceremony tomorrow evening,” she had said brightly on the phone. “Some female-business-award thing. No one wants to go with me; everyone says it’s too boring! I don’t want to go either, but my agent says it’ll make me appear serious and hardworking. Please come.”

On the way to the event, Zhou X. spoke constantly; she had recently returned from Europe, where she had been filming in Berlin and Paris and sound-editing in London. She had opinions on everything: European food is awful, meat, meat, meat, always in huge burned lumps, often not even cooked. She went to a Chinese restaurant in Paris; the rice was like little plastic pellets. German people are fat. Dutch people are tall. French people are elegant but rude. English people dress very messily. London is dirty but they have nice parks. The hotels are old. People are lazy and always on strike. But she bought a nice handbag in Paris — limited edition, not available in China. Europe is good for luxury items, not so good for life.

As soon as they arrived at the ballroom of the five-star hotel, she drifted away from him, shepherded by her manager toward the crowd of photographers hovering by the entrance. She beckoned Justin over for a few photographs, hanging on to his arm while she posed for the cameras. He stood rigidly, trying not to blink before the brilliance of the flashbulbs. He felt like a tourist monument — a statue beside which she was striking amusing poses, the photos soon to be posted on her Facebook page or sent home to friends and family. Before long, thankfully, she began to drift away again, seeking brighter, more-useful people than Justin.

Left alone, Justin wandered among the tables, looking at decorations and place names. The chatter in the ballroom, the glittering smiles, the crowds milling aimlessly, the camera flashes, the banners, the music — all this made him feel anxious and claustrophobic, and he withdrew toward the edge of the room. Memories of teenage awkwardness came back to him with startling clarity — endless parties at which he had spoken to no one and merely lurked in the shadows on his own, much as he was doing now.