Tash Aw - Five Star Billionaire

THE VENUE IS DARK AND SMOKY AND SMALL ENOUGH FOR GARY TO see the imperfections in the unpainted walls — the way some bricks are chipped and cracked, the way the mortar has fallen away in other places, leaving a few bricks protruding precariously, as if they are about to fall. It is just before 10:00 P.M. and the room is full of men and women predominantly in their thirties, though he can make out some trendily dressed youngsters and a couple of people in their fifties who look like aging hippies. He has never performed to such a mature audience before — at every one of his concerts in the past, he looked out at a sea of teenage girls, unwavering in their screeching devotion to him. By contrast, everyone before him now is seated and patient. There is a low buzz of conversation and — maybe he is imagining it — a faint tremor of anticipation. They are scrutinizing him as if he were a fascinating zoological example of a little-known species that has never before been on public display; they are impatient to see what he will deliver.

As he sits on the low, cramped stage, waiting patiently for the café owner and his friends to remove the superfluous drum kit to make a bit more room for him, he catches sight of the clock: The hands sit at exactly ten o’clock. Usually, at this precise moment, he is at home, waiting for his Internet friend Phoebe to come online so that he could tell her about his day and catch up on all the crazy things that she had been up to at work. This is the first time in three months that he has not been waiting patiently in front of the computer at the appointed hour, but he knows that he is, in all probability, not missing anything. She has not been online for more than two weeks now. Even though he sometimes waits all night, constantly keeping an eye on the MSN chat window, he sees no trace of her.

Although he still keeps a vigil for her — more out of habit than hope — he knows that it is unlikely he will ever see her again. He has seen enough of the world to know that there will be no fairy-tale ending to the friendship he had begun to enjoy with Phoebe Chen Aiping. He knows what life is really like: The moment you fall, you are left behind, especially in a place like China. People rush ahead of you; they have no time to look back. Unlike the songs he used to sing, the story he shared with Phoebe will not erupt in a sugary, joyous chorus. All those new, strange experiences he had hoped to enjoy with her — simple things such as just going for bubble milk tea, as she once suggested — will now remain unexplored.

Every evening for the last two weeks, while waiting in vain for her to appear, he has assembled the story of his life in photos, putting together a sequence of images, interspersed with Internet news articles, all of which would prove to her who he is. He has been doing this diligently, filling up the dead hours between 10:00 P.M. and daybreak, even though he realizes that it will ultimately be futile. The fragments that make up his history are pitiful, he realizes, and anyone looking at them will think: What a sad, empty life this boy has had; he has hardly lived at all. But for Phoebe, that paltry montage would have been enough — enough to show her that he has changed, that he has survived. Now that she will no longer see the evidence of his life, he wonders why he bothered doing it. Maybe it was not so much to convince her that he was a wonderful person; maybe it was, in fact, to convince himself that he has had a life.

There is no explanation for her sudden disappearance, and he does not seek one either. He is not stupid enough to want an answer, and even if he were, in all probability, she would not be able to explain her departure herself. To her, abandoning her friendship with him most likely involved no thought at all. That is what people are like in the world today. Friendship, love, even family — all can be forgotten in an instant. Phoebe Chen Aiping. He wonders if that is even her real name.

He adjusts the microphone on the stand before him. The clock hands are moving past 10:00 P.M. and the audience is settling down, hushed now as the room darkens and the spotlight falls harshly on him. He coughs to clear his throat and hears the rawness of his breath in the microphone. The lights are trained at an angle that makes him squint. The people in the audience are fascinated, tense — he can feel their anxiety, as if they are worried for him. The ad on the door that evening, handwritten in heavy ink marker, had anounced simply: Surprise Artist — Gary Gao . There had been no advance publicity for the event, no hype; the people who came to this café-bar were accustomed to hearing earnest young folk or jazz musicians perform a set or two at the end of the evening. But tonight they are confused — the name on the signboard sounds vaguely familiar, carrying echoes of not just celebrity but frothiness. Wasn’t he a pop star? No, it must be a different person — someone like that would never perform in a place like this.

Now that Gary is finally onstage, the audience sees a young man dressed in a loose-fitting yellow T-shirt and black jeans that fall over dirty Converse sneakers. His head has been shaved and his skin looks sallow, as if he has not exercised at all recently. In fact, his entire body looks thin and unhealthy, just like many other young folksingers they have seen here before. But there is something in the way he holds his head toward the microphone that makes the audience feel that he is different — the way he reaches forward to grasp the microphone stand, the manner in which he occupies the stage, as if he is in charge of the space around him, unapproachable and distant — as if nothing else apart from the stage exists in his consciousness at this moment.

He looks troubled. Maybe he is on drugs. But his voice is calm, almost subdued. He smiles and says, “This song is not mine. I mean, it’s not original. I took the original and counterfeited it.”

A warm tremble of laughter runs through the audience. Someone coughs.

“Like everything in life these days, I suppose you could say it’s a copycat — a fake.”

When Gary speaks, his voice is deeper than his slight physique would suggest. But there is a delicate quality to it, which hints at a softness at odds with his somewhat coarse physical appearance. He begins to strum his guitar — the notes are simple, and there is a stillness to the song that is unsettling. The tune is familiar; it is an old-fashioned Chinese love song, the kind your mother might sing. Only it is slower than you remembered it — much slower. Maybe it is not even the same song. Yes, it is. It is called “I Knew a Love.”

Gary begins to sing. His singing voice is lighter than his speaking voice, a clear, feathery tenor. There are no rough edges to the voice, and every note is precise, clean, and sustained and carries the quality of refracted light. Suddenly you can see every color clearly: the color of joy, the color of optimism, the color of failed hope. The perfect pitch of his voice makes you feel sad; its clarity reminds you of a state of innocence, something you once owned but have since lost. It reminds you how your life has, over the years, become complicated, muddy.

When he finishes — as quietly as he began — the audience remains silent for a few moments, as if they do not quite know how to react. It is as if they feel chastised, though they are not sure what they have done wrong. And somehow it feels wrong to break the stillness that Gary has cast over the room. But the owner of the café cries out in encouragement — a strong, sharp “yeah”—and the room breaks into noisy applause. It is the same Gary who was a pop star, you know. My God, look how he has changed — I didn’t even recognize him. I didn’t even know he could sing so well!

Gary’s set consists of eight songs plus two encores — a mixture of traditional love songs, which he has reinterpreted in his own fashion, and new songs he has written himself. He performs each one on either an acoustic guitar or piano keyboard — the simplicity of the instrumentation shows off his musical sensitivity and his beautiful vocals, and the audience is completely won over by the unaffected charm of his music. By the end of the evening they feel moved and uplifted, as if they have been returned to a simpler, more innocent state.