Leave Me Alone (17 page)

Back at the table I defiantly downed another bottle, then stood up and declared that I wanted to go and see Zhao Yue. Bighead Wang pushed me down into the chair. He said: ‘Fuck you, have a little sense, OK.’

My lips trembled and the alcohol rushed to my head again. I felt humiliated. Li Liang was just as drunk as I was. He sat there with a stupid smile on his face, but then seeing the expression on mine he laughed so much that he fell to the floor. His alluring companion made an effort to help him up, but he pushed her away.

‘Go, go with my older brother,’ he said. ‘He’s in your care.’

The girl looked hurt and Li Liang grinned. Then he came out with something even more poisonous.

‘Don’t play the innocent. If I gave you 10,000, are you saying you wouldn’t do it?’

The music that night at Zero Point was loud, the lights blinding. On the second floor, one man was crying — Chen
Zhong. Another laughed — his rival in love, his friend. Outside, Chengdu was like a crematorium: once in a while there were flickers of starlight, the phosphorescence of those smiling and crying people slowly moving towards the vault of death, like ants on their way to the grave.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

The big boss of our company fancied himself as a poet. Every year on 8 July they held a Company Day Festival, and a few idiots stood on the podium reading his doggerel with great emotion. All that ‘Ah! Great River: ah! Yellow River’ shit — enough to make people cringe. When I saw the volume of
Festival Poems
that Head Office circulated each year, I couldn’t help laughing. Former General Manager Sun took me to task for this: ‘Chen Zhong you should watch your attitude. After all, when all is said and done he pays your bills. How about showing a little more respect?’

I’d adopted an expression of deep solemnity, as if I was at a funeral.

This particular boss was widely regarded as brilliant. Company managers at all levels professed admiration for him. One edition of the
Festival Poems
included a photo of
the guy. He seemed about the same age as me, with piercing eyes. Some calligraphy hung in his office:
Raising a person is like raising an eagle.
This meant that a boss must keep staff at the right level of hunger. If an eagle was too well fed, then it would fly away. If starved, then it might bite its owner. I didn’t know how other colleagues felt about our company’s HR policy, but I was certainly disappointed to read this.

On Monday afternoon I received a call from the big boss’s secretary at Head Office. She said the big boss was coming to Chengdu on Wednesday and had scheduled one hour to talk to me. I was to go to the Holiday Inn to pay my respects. When I heard this, I was excited; it seemed I hadn’t written that report on my work for nothing.

As soon as I’d finished talking to the big boss’s secretary, Boss Liu from the HR department called my mobile. He advised me to watch details such as wearing a tie, and not eating onion, garlic or smelly tofu beforehand. I thanked him for his kindness and couldn’t help feel that my luck had changed; it was as if the immortals were protecting me.

Boss Liu revealed that after the big boss had finished reading my work report, he’d written the following comment:
A person of ability is hard to come by, we should strengthen his wings.
Apparently this legendary boss wasn’t so dumb after all.

During my conversation with Boss Liu, Fatty Dong was eavesdropping outside my door. When I looked through the glazed door panel and saw his fat sillhouette wriggling
around, I bared my teeth: ‘Die, Fatty. The time for your reckoning will soon be here.’

Boss Liu from HR was a legend in our company, a survivor who’d been promoted and demoted several times. Once he’d been demoted from director of sales to a clerk with a monthly basic salary of just 90 yuan, but he survived it. Trial by adversity was our company culture: knock someone down, then see what they were made of. If they could bounce back, they were talented, but if they sank quickly, they were a waste of space.

Fatty Dong was still being watched closely by his ugly wife. She would check up on him a couple of times a day, then after work he apparently had to report home at a given hour; he was forbidden to take part in any business entertainment.

A few days before, Old Lai, a client from Chongqing, had come to Chengdu on a business trip. Old Lai was one of our biggest clients and his business was worth more than 10 million a year. Although he said his visit to Chengdu was a business trip, it was actually just an excuse for a pleasure cruise of eating, drinking, women and music. As he put it, he wanted to ‘experience some local culture’. I gave him the use of a company car, arranged for him to stay at the Jinjiang Hotel and escorted him twice to eat at the Gingko and Peony Pavilion. Each time cost more than 3,000 yuan, but it could all be claimed back on expenses.

On the final night, Old Lai returned the hospitality and
said that I should invite Boss Dong as well. When I gave Fatty a call, he wheezed that his wife wouldn’t let him, This amused the client and he said Fatty Dong was a potato head. I wasn’t quite sure what he meant by that.

Fatty Dong was very likely still suffering physical retribution for his misdemeanours. The previous few days had been unbearably hot, but he continued to wear long-sleeved shirts and he moved very gingerly. I quipped to Zhou Weidong: ‘Behind every fat face is a bloody arse.’ He laughed so much his false tooth almost fell out.

On the first of June, Children’s Day, the company arranged for all the workers in the company to go to One Hundred Flowers Park to play mahjong. Zhou Weidong and I sat at the same table. We’d just started playing when I got a full flush. In the moment of relative hush which followed my exultant cheer, I heard Fatty Dong’s voice at the next table: ‘Damn it, reporting me to the police and telling my wife. That’s too poisonous.’

I looked across and saw both him and Liu Three staring at me murderously.

Once things had quietened down after the prostitute incident, Fatty Dong started to look for opportunities to take a shot at me. The previous Friday, just before clock-off time, the accountant furtively slipped me a report. She said that Fatty Dong had made her write it, and they’d already faxed it to Head Office’s finance department.

I looked at the report and started sweating. Bloody Fatty Dong had astutely found the most sensitive spot to stick in the knife: the subject of the report was ‘Concerning Chen
Zhong’s Excessive Debt Problem Settlement Method’. One of its headings was:
Legal Recourse.
I roundly cursed all his family members, young and old. Suddenly there were stormclouds overhead again and my insides were burning.

The big boss looked rather coquettish in a checked open-necked shirt. He wore slippers as he paced the room, his hands held behind his back. There was a faint scent of perfume on this guy and I suspected he might have recently broken some of the People’s Republic of China’s laws.

The boss quizzed me about the current market situation, the company’s management problems and Fatty Dong’s leadership qualities. Having prepared thoroughly for this, I talked non-stop for over an hour. The boss listened and occasionally interjected a few comments. At the end of the interview, he asked me: ‘Are you willing to work at Head Office?’

I realised that if I went to Head Office, that might be the final end for Zhao Yue and me.

The 15th of July was the one-month anniversary of our divorce. I hurried straight back to the apartment after work and opened the door with the key that I’d secretly kept. I crept in furtively: Zhao Yue wasn’t back from work yet, but the room was full of familiar things. The gleaming tiles illuminated my sallow face. Her underwear was drying on the
balcony; when I held it up to my nose and sniffed, it had a faint but familiar fragrance. There was a half-eaten fish in the fridge. I used my fingers to pick off a piece but found it slightly bland. Whenever I ate Zhao Yue’s food, I had to add some sauce or vinegar, and I’d often lectured her with the cautionary tale of the white feather girl. ‘If you don’t eat enough salt your pubes will turn white,’ I’d tell her, and then she’d hit me.

I sat on the sofa and browsed a photo album. All the pictures with me in them had been removed; there were just a few left of Zhao Yue by herself. My hands trembled with a strange reverence as I hugged the pillow I’d once slept on. By half seven, Zhao Yue still hadn’t returned. I called and reminded her that today was the anniversary of our divorce.

‘I’ll treat you to dinner,’ I said.

She said she was eating right now. ‘Join me,’ she said. ‘I’ll introduce you to a friend.’

‘Is it your boyfriend?’ I asked.

She laughed, but wouldn’t deny it.

My temper flared, and I said, ‘Where are you? I’ll come at once.’

They were at that newly opened Chongqing Hotpot Restaurant at Nijia Bridge; there was a hubbub of voices inside, and the heat and fumes were overwhelming. Two guys at the next table had their sleeves rolled up exposing fatty flesh like a pig’s arse.

Zhao Yue did the introductions: ‘Yang Tao, Chen Zhong.’

Her friend had a slightly superior expression. I gave the
guy a sly look; on such a hot day he was still wearing a tie. Frowning, I said to Zhao Yue, ‘Why did you choose a lousy place like this? It’s stifling.’

The guy’s neck stiffened.

Zhao Yue poured me a glass of wine. ‘Mind your own business,’ she said. ‘This was my choice.’

Feeling depressed, I took a swig from my glass. After a while, I said to Yang Tao, ‘Do you have a business card?’

I was thinking that if he turned out to be the guy on the telephone, I would have to kill him.

He acted all prickly, saying that he never used business cards. ‘If you want to remember someone’s name, you don’t need a card. If you don’t want to remember, then it doesn’t make any difference.’

I said to Zhao Yue, ‘Don’t you think the food here is a bit peppery?’ And then I spat on the floor.

Yang Tao’s face froze.

He pulled out a Red Pagoda cigarette and I produced a Marlboro. He wore a domestic Peng brand shirt, I wore Hugo Boss. His phone was the Motorola 7689, mine was the V8088+. At his side was a darkish canvas bag. Mine was a genuine Dunhill, which even discounted had cost more than 3,000 yuan. From where I sat, the top of his head was just on my line of sight, so I estimated he must be at least three inches shorter than me. After I’d finished analysing him, my anger became even more intense.

I presented Zhao Yue with a caring expression and asked her how she’d been recently.

She said, ‘The same as always, how else?’

I bragged that I was about to be promoted to CEO. ‘You won’t need to ride a bicycle,’ I told her. ‘I’ll pick you up every day in my Honda Accord.’

Zhao Yue seemed very happy. ‘I just knew you’d be a success,’ she said.

‘Come on. Cheers.’

She leaned over and we clinked glasses. Meanwhile Yang Tao appeared to be fixated on the goose intestines in the hotpot. The chopsticks in his hand trembled violently.

Zhao Yue said that Yang Tao was the CEO of some obscure company or other. A ‘small boss’.

I said, ‘I’ve met many bosses, but never such a “small boss” before.’ She gave me a hard look. ‘That’s a funny way to talk.’

I quickly apologised.