Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

“No one is supposed to know,” Justin said quietly, looking around them to see if anyone was listening. “How did you find out?”

“Luckily not every member of your family is as heartless as you.” As she said this, she reached across and held C.S.’s forearm; her hand rested on his skin, her grip light but firm. With his free arm, C.S. continued to eat, looking intently at his food without meeting Justin’s gaze. “Justin,” Yinghui continued, “you can’t let this happen. Don’t you have any sense of responsibility at all? To your friends? To your history? To … us?”

“But my father … my family — that’s what they want. You know it’s my duty. They need me.”

Yinghui paused for a moment. Her gaze rose slightly toward the ceiling, as if contemplating the infinite replies floating in the ether. She said calmly, “When will you ever be your own man, with your own life?”

As she and C.S. left the restaurant, their food unfinished, neither of them looked at Justin. He stared down at his barely eaten plate of food. Two flies had landed on the piece of sambal chicken next to the pile of rice; they lay unmoving, clinging to the piece of meat and blending in with the bits of charred skin. Yinghui’s words remained in his head, her question seeming increasingly rhetorical the longer he contemplated it. When will you ever be your own man, with your own life? When will you be free? He tried to eat but had lost all appetite. He asked for the food to be packed up in a takeaway bag, but as he walked to his car he thought of the curry seeping into the rice, making it mushy and unpleasant. It would quickly turn rancid in the heat, he thought, so, without thinking, he flung it into the monsoon drain before driving away.

The following scene takes place outside the Bottega Veneta store at the Golden Eagle shopping mall on Shanxi Bei Lu. I shall describe the situation and leave it up to you to decide how best to resolve it — a small test to see how much you have learned and observed thus far:

Two people, a man and a woman, have just met up for the evening and are idly wandering around the shops, killing time before going to dinner. From a distance, they look typical of a sort of couple that you see quite frequently in certain moneyed venues in Shanghai. He is older than she and obviously wealthy, dressed in a golf shirt, comfortable slacks, and leather loafers with tassels on the front, possibly a foreigner; she is in her twenties, slender, giggly. Sometimes she appears to behave much younger than her age, almost like a teenager; other times she seems harsh. Her eyes can look either watery and soft or firm and cold, like an old auntie who has been through a lot.

They pause in front of the shopwindow, looking at the women’s bags on display — a patchwork of colorful leather. He does not know what to do with his hands; at one point it seems as though he is about to reach out to her, but he does not. Instead, he clasps his hands behind his back; then he puts them in his pockets. He is a touch nervous, it would seem. Maybe they are not yet actually a couple. There is something not quite right about this pair of supposed friends. What exactly is the nature of their human transaction?

The air-conditioning is very strong; it feels cool against the skin and gives her goose pimples on her bare arms. She draws a fine shawl around her shoulders. It is a deep red color that matches her shoes and goes well with her complexion. She makes a joke and laughs coquettishly, looking at him and touching him lightly on the shoulder. Is this an invitation for more intimate contact? Still, his hands remain tucked in his pockets. She laughs once more; it is a sweet, earthy laugh, richer than her delicate looks suggest, even a touch coarse. He nods and now, at last, he puts his hand lightly on her back, resting it on the shawl. She holds the shawl tight, protectively, as if it is very cold. From a distance it might even look as if she were afraid of something. The shawl she is wearing — look carefully. It glistens in the harsh lighting; it is artificially shiny. Perhaps she is afraid that he will guess it is made not from pure pashmina but from a synthetic mixture of nylon and other flammable textiles — the kind of fashion you can buy for 20 kuai on the steps leading down to most subway stations.

She points at a handbag in the window. It is scarlet in color and sits next to other accessories of a similar hue and design. Red is obviously her favorite color. She looks at her companion; he smiles and shakes his head, as if she has just told him something amusing.

Should she:

(a) Drape herself against him and whisper tender words and pout in a seductively adolescent manner— fa dia , as Shanghai lovers would say — before leading him into the store so that he can buy her the handbag? (Everything in China these days involves straightforward bartering, including personal relations, so he should be used to it.)

(b) Wait for him to suggest that he buy her something from the store, to insist that he treat her to something luxurious — but then steadfastly refuse to accept his generosity on the grounds that she is a principled, successful woman and does not need to be spoiled with gifts as if she were yet another of these pretty young concubines in search of a rich man to support her?

(c) Walk away from the store and out into the street, where, even in this part of town, there are provincial street merchants, men from Xinjiang and other remote parts of China, selling cherries spread out on pushcarts, hoping that the change of scenery will encourage him to show her some affection, for he has not yet done so and she is beginning to yearn for physical comfort?

Should he:

(a) Continue to stare impassively at the window displays, glad that their dazzle and artistry provide a talking point and distraction to his reticence, all the time wondering: What does she want from him; does she genuinely like him?

(b) Be warm but maintain a distance from her, confining his physical contact with her to the odd friendly pat on the shoulder or hand gestures that may be interpreted as platonic — until such time that he can be sure she is with him not only for the luxury lifestyle he can offer her?

(c) Accept that she is a high-maintenance woman who needs to be entertained in a particular way and just go along with her wishes, even if he is being taken for a ride, for she is strangely charming and amusing, while he is a man who has lost his youth and been lonely for a very long time? Yes, he has been on his own for too long. After all, everyone says that women in Shanghai are complicated and difficult to please: Everyone knows they are zuo .

“WOOOHOOOO!” GARY SHOUTS INTO THE MICROPHONE. “YOU are so great today; thank you for comiiiing!” This kind of high-voltage showmanship comes so easily to him, he can turn it on whenever he wishes; it is almost as it was in the old days.

The old days. He talks about a period of his life just seven months ago as “the old days,” as if it were such a long time ago; but in a life such as his, time passes quickly, and China has a way of accelerating time for him, speeding up the aging process. Whenever he looks at himself in the mirror these days, he notices how much he has aged in the last few months. It is not simply the harsh Shanghai pollution or the late-night chats on the Internet or the diet of instant noodles that make him look haggard; it is that he is actually growing old very quickly. After years of being indifferent to the passage of time, he now finds he has so much to do in life and so little time to accomplish it. Every second he spends onstage is wasted time, he thinks.