Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

She also started learning French, on her journey in to work and during lunch breaks. She’d bought a book and accompanying CDs some months ago from a stall on the pavement near Tiantong Lu, where she often bought useful, life-improving manuals that lay stacked in a pile at the foot of her bed in her apartment. Now that she was more established in her job and had more time to spend refining herself, she decided to consult the volumes that would help her become more sophisticated. The book had a colorful cover of a smiling Chinese woman wearing a beret and a striped shirt. It was called: C’est fou! Crazy Méthode: Speak French in Three Weeks .

She did not understand anything, but, as the book said, this did not matter one bit. All she had to do was to master the beautiful sounds of the French language, and the rest would quickly follow. So she put on her headphones and patiently repeated after the elegant-sounding voice:

Qu’est-ce que c’est? C’est un arbre?

Non, c’est un camion .

Non, c’est un camion .

She could feel her life changing; she could feel herself becoming the person she’d always wanted to be.

She insisted that Walter take her to Western restaurants; they were so much more sophisticated than Chinese restaurants, which she was beginning to find too noisy and overcrowded for her tastes. Even if you made a booking you were not sure of getting your table; often they would give it away if you arrived ten minutes late. Walter would sometimes say, “I’ve heard of this great little ramen place in Xuhui, near the indoor stadium. Maybe we should try to find it on Sunday, hang out together for the afternoon, chat a bit?” She would flatly refuse. It was so annoying of him to suggest traveling long distances just to eat in the kind of low-class place she had been frequenting all her life.

Soon he began to understand that she much preferred the upscale European restaurants around Huaihai Lu or on the Bund or on top of hotels in Pudong, with views of the cityscape, the kind of places with subtle lighting and well-dressed waiters. On their first few outings, Phoebe consulted her books and made lists of things to remember — how to use the cutlery, what to do with the little baskets of bread that arrived before the meal, how to deal with olives — but she quickly mastered these problems, and soon she did not even need to look in her handbag for the piece of paper on which she had written: 1. soup (+ bread). 2. Fish (flat knife). 3. Meat. 4. Cheese. 5. Dessert. 6. Coffee . She even understood, without having read any books, that the tiny glasses filled with a semiliquid puree that resembled baby food was meant to replace the nibbles served before the meal. (If this happened, it was a sure sign of a superior stylish restaurant.)

During these meals, Walter would often attempt to ask her questions about her life.

“What kind of food did you eat when you were growing up in Guangdong?” he would ask.

“Guangdong food.”

“What is your favorite food nowadays?”

“Hamburger.”

“Did your mother cook a lot?”

“No.”

“Did you spend much time with her when you were small, or did she have to work? Didn’t you say that she was a single mother?”

“Can you stop asking me so many stupid questions please? I can’t enjoy my food with you talking so much.”

“Sorry, it’s just that I want to know everything about you, get to understand you properly. I just … I just need to feel closer to you.”

Phoebe found his questions annoying. It was hard enough remembering that she should not hold her knife like a pencil, or that she had to dab her mouth with the corner of her napkin frequently but discreetly, and that she should put her nose in the wineglass and sniff it before sipping. Of course, she knew from reading her books that dinners in Western restaurants were a perfect opportunity for intimate conversation, but she did not want to talk about the things he asked her; she did not want to remember all that.

Often, over dinner, Walter would also talk about himself — incidents from his work, how he had been feeling that day, often quite emotional responses that Phoebe tried to blank out because they made her feel uncomfortable. For example, he would talk about how his father had died and he had not even known, because he was too busy with work, and recently his father had begun to appear in his dreams, haunting him. Once he mentioned that he never knew his mother and that he dreamed of being held tightly by someone who would look after him. Phoebe did not know why he was telling her such intimate stories, did not understand how she was supposed to respond. None of her books had advised her about how to deal with men’s emotional neediness; they taught her only that men were simplistic and straightforward and that she could easily manipulate them. Thankfully, Walter’s moments of solemnity never lasted long, and his mood would swiftly become jovial again. “I love talking to you,” he would say. “I really feel you understand me.” And then he would go back to talking about voyages to exotic European countries, telling her about the restaurants and museums and shops to be found there. She preferred hearing about such things — she could learn from them.

After dinner, they would often go to karaoke. Her favorite KTV spot was in Wulumuqi Lu — she liked the places with a wide selection of Western songs, and also ones that did not have too many cheap-looking girls hanging around. She had nothing against them, even though they wore too much Lycra and exposed too much flesh, but she did not want to be reminded that she had been one of those girls once, not so long ago, hanging around waiting for Friday and Saturday night, when there would be more customers, singing songs for them and bringing them drinks. Anyway, it did not matter now: She did not have to see them, because Walter always booked the most expensive private room, for just the two of them.

The first time they went, she found herself next to him on the sofa. It was made of real leather; she could smell its rich luxurious scent and feel the smooth grainy texture under her fingers. The room was so well insulated that she could hear only the faintest of noise coming from the other rooms, unlike the KTV places she was used to, where you could hear the off-key singing from next door. Walter sat looking at her. The blue light from the blank screen made his eyes look watery, but in the dark she could not see the lines around his eyes and mouth so clearly, so for once his smile seemed happy instead of happy-sad. She thought, This is the moment he is finally going to kiss me. But he did not, he only looked at her without saying anything, until she got fed up and said, “Who’s going to sing first? Or shall we sing a duet?”

“Let’s try to find something nice,” he said, scrolling through the list of songs. “Why don’t you sing something first? One of these, maybe. You mentioned that you used to sing such songs with your mother when you were small. I love hearing them.”

Phoebe looked at the song titles—“Just Like Your Tenderness,” “Moonlight Serenade,” “Neverending Love,” “I Have Known a Love.” They were all traditional, old-fashioned melodies.

“You must be joking. No way.”

“Why not?” Walter said. He was still pointing the remote control at the screen, the arrow hovering over “Green Island Night Song.”

“Tooo boring! Let’s try a Western song. Hey, how about a French one?”

“You speak French?”

“Bien sûr.” She had not told him about her self-taught lessons — she wanted to surprise and impress him. She also did not tell him that, since it was karaoke, she did not have to understand any French, she just had to follow the words on the screen. The song started, a famous tune that conjured up visions of elegant women strolling along tree-lined boulevards a long time ago, when life was gentler, when things were not cheap and lousy. Walter watched Phoebe as she sat up straight. As she began to sing, the words felt like sweet drops of honey on her tongue. Even though she did not understand a single word of what she was singing, she understood the feeling — the sad beauty of a sensitive soul. She caught a glimpse of Walter, who was for once truly smiling, and knew that he was moved and impressed. He would not know that she was just following the words on the screen.