Li Ang - The Lost Garden

Two weeks went by, and then three. He didn’t call. She abandoned the low, seductive voice, for the urgency in her heart made her tense. Now her “hello” sounded short and terse, with a hint of withering anxiety. She would immediately turn cold and unresponsive the moment she knew it wasn’t him, afraid that the caller would keep the line tied up too long.

Naturally, she’d thought of calling him, but feelings of hurt and defeat were so powerful they overtook all her thought processes and left a permanent ache in her heart. In her confused state, she simply could not muster the physical and mental energy to do anything.

It would take a month and seventeen days, during which time she had seen him on several occasions, before the sense of permanent separation and suffocating pain subsided somewhat, and only then did she realize that he would eventually come back to her. He was not without feelings for her; moreover, given his conceited nature, he would come back to observe the outcome, particularly after what he’d done when they broke up.

Besides, if he really did not want to get back together, it would be pointless for her to look him up, since all she would get in return would be humiliation and more hurt.

He had been the one to break up, so he would always have the upper hand if she were to seek him out first. He could always say:

“We agreed to break up. You’re the one who changed your mind first.”

He could even be downright cruel:

“I didn’t come to you; you presented yourself to me.”

Yinghong knew she would never let herself sink so low, no matter how much she loved him.

Finally, four weeks later, she was awakened by the phone late one night. It was a quarter past two in the morning, and she knew it was him.

He was in the habit of calling late at night. In the past, he’d sometimes call just to say a few words to her. He’d even defend his inconsiderate action by saying it was for her own good, since she must be longing to hear his voice, just as he wanted to hear hers.

After a prolonged wait, she felt nothing special now that he had actually phoned her. It was her uncle’s voice on the phone; she could tell he was drunk when he told her that someone had asked him to make the call.

“Let me talk to him.”

She could hear her uncle call out urgently:

Lin — Xi — geng.

She didn’t realize until then that the hand holding the phone was shaking.

Her uncle sent his car to pick her up. The driver had been working for the family for over twenty years, and knew the proper behavior of not ringing the doorbell or sounding his horn late at night. Instead, he waited at the door. When she came out and saw that he had just about fallen asleep at the wheel, it dawned on her that she had made him wait a long time. She had been dressing in front of her mirror, trying on nearly all the clothes in her closet. In the end, she came out in a rather plain dress, under a light silk jacket, as it was late and drizzly.

Her uncle had called from a restaurant specializing in late-night snacks, in the basement of a building across from a police station. There was no sign at the entrance, but it looked like a restaurant nonetheless. She was well aware of the ins and outs of places like this; an illegal business staying open (facing a police station) until three or four in the morning for diners and girls leaving drinking establishments (who else would be snacking at such an hour?) had to have connections.

Bouncers were guarding the entrance. When she approached, they looked her over to make sure she wasn’t a troublemaker before opening the door. She walked in and was immediately hit by an arctic blast of cold air mixed with the smell of cigarettes. Walking down a staircase carpeted in red, she heard her uncle call to her before she found her bearings in the dark.

It was a small room — no more than a hundred square feet — with a round table encircled by a large group of men and women. Since she was standing, the angle and her intuition quickly led her gaze over to Lin Xigeng, who was sitting between two girls. He knew she was there, but didn’t look up, although he wore an awkward, even bashful smile.

He was clearly feeling uneasy, but that went undetected by the girls at his side, who continued toasting him and carrying food to his mouth. Though she was aware of the girls’ profession, Yinghong still felt hurt, because it should have been her, not them, who was sitting next to him.

The girls were dressed in casual clothes, the sort they normally wore to go out with clients after drinking. That was an unwritten rule. Be they barmaids who wore qipao with long slits up the side, or waitresses from hostess bars who dressed in evening gowns, they always changed out of their work clothes before going out with clients. Replacing their “uniforms” with casual clothes sent a message that whatever occurred afterward was a private matter between the girl and the client, the significance of which was obviously important to both.

Any one of the dozen or so girls in a banquet room, where two dozen or so girls came and went all night, would consider herself lucky to be there, though of course the client had yet to decide whether to take her out for a “short chat” or to “spend the night.” The two girls by Lin’s side were apparently working hard to make something happen in the hope that they would earn the extra money.

At first she thought that Lin’s embarrassment stemmed from the two girls’ intimate gestures in front of her, but almost immediately she realized that was not the case. He was simply unsure how to greet her, so he continued to smile awkwardly, pretending to listen to a man who appeared to be in his mid fifties. The man looked flushed, after a long night of drinking and fooling around. It was late and he was tired, which was why a patina of steel gray lay across his red face; the corners of his eyes drooped. Even so, a gloomy sense of resolve shone in his eyes. He must have been quite tall, since even seated he towered over the other men. He filled his chair with his large body, a perfect illustration of the Taiwanese phrase, “fully in and fully out.”

Sitting among men in suit and tie, he had a rustic air, particularly because of the contrast of the white folded sleeves against his dark-red, black-accented Taiwanese-style shirt, common attire among members of the underworld.

The demeanor of the tall, beefy middle-aged man caught Yinghong’s attention, even as her heart was racing upon seeing Lin after so long. Years of attending social occasions like this had fostered in her an intuitive ability to judge people, and that ability told her that the man’s eloquence, sounding as if he were talking to himself, was an effort to help Lin out. He obviously felt Lin’s discomfort.

“Chairman Lin is very discerning,” the man said. But he wasn’t talking to Lin Xigeng; rather, he looked at the people around the table. His eyes skipped the girls but gave her a quick glance before looking away, as a way to show her that he knew she was different from the other girls.

“He was the real estate magnate who came up with the idea of preselling units.”

Yinghong noticed that her uncle looked up at the man with great interest.

“Back at Taipei Construction, Chairman Lin here, with Zhenhui and Qidong, the three of them, proposed the idea of presale and created a real estate boom. Real estate is an engine of industry; without it, Taiwan would not have such a thriving economy.”

“What presale was proposed by Chairman Lin?”

The question came from the girl to Lin’s right; she waited openmouthed for the answer. Now that midnight had passed and her lipstick had gone, what had been a coquettish, seductive mouth gave her a somewhat dimwitted look.