The Train to Lo Wu (11 page)

When I told Lin about it, at first she refused. You’re missing the point, she said. I told you already. If you pay for this, you might as well pay for everything. I won’t belong to anyone, don’t you see?

I’m not paying anyone anything, I said. Someone’s doing me a favor. There’s no money involved.

But it’s
yours
. It’s your friend. It’s your power to say yes or no.

Then you decide, I said. I’ll be there on Saturday. You can come or not.

That was how I came to stay at the apartment on Nanhai Lu. It was in a new building, painted white, at the end of a little strip of land that jutted into Shenzhen Bay. The rest of the strip was taken up by a hotel development that had been abandoned, leaving only concrete foundations and rusted metal prongs jutting into the sky. The apartment was on the fourth floor, and the bedroom windows faced the water; there were times when I woke up there and gazed out across the bay, forgetting where I was.

Sometimes Lin came on Saturday afternoons, left in the evening for work, and didn’t return; but most weekends she came briefly on Saturday and all day Sunday. I took things as slowly as I knew how: we watched movies on the VCD player, played guess-fingers and Go, and listened to our favorite CDs, Chopin and Faye Wong and Kenny G. She taught me how to steam a whole fish with sweet wine sauce; I made her macaroni with ham and milk tea.

It sounds ridiculous to say so—especially now—but I think of those days as some of the happiest of my life. When the door closed, Lin became a different person. She took long showers, filling the apartment with steam, and came out of the bathroom barefoot, wearing a Polo sweatsuit I had bought for her at the border. The apartment had a set of two plastic-covered couches in the living room; she liked to lie back on one and prop her legs up on the other with her eyes closed. This reminds me of home, she said. Room to stretch out. No one watching you all the time.

Take off the plastic, I told her once. The landlord won’t mind. It’s supposed to come off.

Plastic is fine. She slapped the cushion for emphasis. It’s
clean.
It doesn’t get wet. It doesn’t mildew.

But it’s uncomfortable. Your legs stick to it.

Don’t worry, she said softly, almost whispering. She was drifting off, as she often did; some Sundays she would nap for two hours in the middle of the morning. You know, Harvey, she said, her voice wavering with sleepiness, you’re too kind. You’re too good a person for this world. You should be more sensible.

I’m not so kind to everyone, I said. Only to you.

That’s what I mean. I’m not such a wonderful person. I don’t deserve it.

I don’t believe that.

Do you know how I got to Shenzhen? She sat up, wiping her mouth on her sleeve, and curled her legs under her. Have I ever told you this story?

No.

I bribed a transit commissioner in Zhengzhou, she said. To get a residence permit. He wanted two cases of Marlboros and a bottle of Suntory whiskey. I got fake cigarettes from a guy I knew in my college. The whiskey was the hard part. I had to save up for six months to get one small bottle.

It’s an unfair system. Why should you feel bad about that?

Not about that, she said. He was a huge, fat man—you know, so fat he could hardly fit behind his desk. His head looked like a balloon; it was perfectly round. And he had a mustache that grew black only on one side. When I gave him the cigarettes he opened the carton and started smoking one after another, at the same time he was filling out my form. He left these oily fingerprints all over it. And then, two weeks later, I heard he had a heart attack. Just fell over at his desk. And when I heard about it, I just started to laugh. I could see it so clearly. He was sucking those cigarettes so hard I thought he might keel over when I was there.

She giggled a little, and covered her mouth, but not so much that I couldn’t see her broad smile. You see? she said. Do I deserve your kindness, Harvey? A man dies and all I can do is laugh.

Lin, I said, I don’t blame you. If I were in your place I would have felt the same way.

But you weren’t, she said. You’ve never had to do anything like that. Why should you have to sympathize with me? I’ve never been able to understand that. I’m not so special. Why do you have to go to all this trouble?

Maybe because you don’t want me to, I said. I had meant it to be playful, but as soon as the words came out of my mouth I realized it was the truth. You’ve had so much unhappiness in your life, I said. I don’t blame you for doubting me. But I
want
to understand. Doesn’t that count for something?

She shook her head. You can’t, she said. It’s pointless to try. It’s masochistic. You know that, don’t you?

Tell me to leave if you want, I said. I felt suddenly angry; all the warmth had drained out of her face in an instant, as if she had willed it to. We’re not as different as you think, I said. My parents are gone. I know what it’s like to wake up and not know whether I’d rather be dead or alive. Don’t tell me that just because I have money I’ve never suffered.

Stay, she said. She reached up and motioned for me to come to her. I sat down on the couch, and she leaned over and rested her head carefully on my shoulder. Let’s not talk, she said. Talking just reminds me that I have to leave.

But otherwise we’ll just be strangers.

We’re strangers anyway,
I expected her to say. She put her hand on my elbow, as if to keep me there. In a few minutes I heard her slow, steady breathing, and realized she was asleep.

Each time she came we kissed only once, just before she left, and over the weeks the kisses became longer and longer, until she dropped her bag of work clothes and stood in the doorway with her arms around my shoulders, tears starting in her eyes.

You don’t have to go, I said. Tell them you were sick.

I’m supposed to be saving money, she said. Instead I’m spending it. If I don’t show up they’ll fire me then and there. In Shenzhen you don’t get second chances.

You can find something better, I said. You’re spending everything you make on taxis. It doesn’t make any sense, Lin.

I told you. I warned you that it wouldn’t work.

Let me help you, then.

She pressed a finger to my lips.

My life is so little to you, she whispered. A snap of the fingers. I’m the dust you shake off your shoes.

Do you think that’s what I meant?

She shook her head. You don’t have to mean it, she said. It just
is.

It was June. In the evenings after she left I went for walks along the concrete seawall that overlooked the bay, watching the sun melt through layers of haze. The water there was clotted with sewage and the shiny bellies of fish; without wanting to, I imagined myself paddling through it on top of my sailboard, and felt a shiver of nausea and disgust.
That isn’t fair,
I thought.
There’s
always garbage on the beach at Shek O. I turned to the east and looked up at the skyline, or what little of it I could see through the smog: a jumble of tall spires and cylinders and shining glass tower blocks, some of them copies of buildings in Hong Kong, others probably copied from buildings elsewhere in the world.
Why is it that Shenzhen doesn’t look quite right,
I wondered.
Why
does it seem like such a mirage, as if I might come back next week
and find it gone?

We slept together for the first time on the night of July 1, the first anniversary of the handover, of Hong Kong returning to China. From Nanhai Lu we could see the fireworks over downtown Shenzhen and over the Tsing Ma Bridge in Hong Kong, and on satellite TV we watched the small crowds gathered in Statue Square, waving the new Hong Kong flag—the one with the purple flower, the bauhinia. The joke is, I told her, that it’s a hybrid flower, and it’s sterile. Produces no offspring. But she didn’t laugh. In the flickering light of the screen her face was inert, unmoved; nothing I did made her smile.

I’m sorry, she said. I’m just tired.

You need to look for another job. A day job. This work isn’t right for you.

I don’t see what they’re celebrating, she said, nodding at the screen. Hasn’t it been a terrible year? What about the stock market crash?

They’re celebrating the future, then. Things will get better.

The future, she said. What a luxury.

I turned off the TV and we sat slumped on the couch in the dark.

I’m sorry. She touched my knee. I feel like I’ve poisoned you.

We have to forget all this, I said. Can’t we just be
us,
just once?

She reached for my hand and squeezed it, hard. I want to, she said. Try to make me forget.

When it was over she folded herself against me, limp, like a body washed in by the tide.

I have an idea, I said the next morning, bringing her a cup of tea in bed. I want you to hear me out. Will you listen?

She nodded, brushing hair out of her eyes.

I’ve been reading some articles about immigration, I said. We both know there’s no way to move you forward on the list for Hong Kong. And I can’t legally change my residence to the main-land, even if you wanted me to. But there’s nothing to stop us from simultaneously emigrating to a third country.

But—

I raised my hand. There are two options for us, I said. Canada and Australia. Both are expensive. I would have to sell my parents’ investments. And we would probably have to wait two or three years for you to get a visa. But that’s it—three years at the most. You could start a Chinese kindergarten in Toronto or Vancouver or Sydney. It wouldn’t be so hard—I could help you.

You would do that? Leave Hong Kong for good?

Not necessarily for good. Once you’re naturalized in another country we can move back to Hong Kong if we want to. We’ll keep my apartment and rent it out.

She drank her tea in one gulp and set the cup down. You’ve figured everything out, she said. Haven’t you.

It’s not so difficult. People do it all the time.

Of course, she said. People buy wives all the time.

Her eyes were bloodshot, and there was a streak of rouge smeared across her nose. And I felt I couldn’t tolerate her stubbornness for a moment longer. It seemed perverse, almost artificial, and I felt myself getting angry, a rim of hot sweat around my lips.

The rest of the world isn’t Shenzhen, I said. You don’t have to see it that way.
We
don’t have to see it that way. Once you’ve left China everything will be different.

She gave a small cry, like a cat when you step on its paw, and reached over and slapped me across the face. Don’t tell me about the rest of the world! she shouted. Don’t tell me what you can do for me. Is that what love is? She moved to the other side of the bed and stood up, winding the sheet around her. No more, she said. I’m almost out of money. I have to move out of my room.

You didn’t tell me that.

I’m getting rid of my mobile, she said. I’m leaving my job.

What will you do?

Don’t ask me that question.

Lin, I said, don’t I deserve an answer?

She turned to the window, covering her face with her hands, the sheet sagging around her ankles. You should forget about me, she said hoarsely, her voice muffled in her palms. I warned you. You should never have expected anything from me.

I don’t believe you, I said. I know what you want. You only have to be brave and want it
enough.

She took a corner of the sheet and wrapped it again around her chest, and blew her nose with her fingers, the way farmers do. It isn’t a question of bravery, she said. You still don’t understand.

I blinked my eyes once, twice; the room seemed to bend around me, like a reflection in one of those funny mirrors at Ocean Park. Lin, I said, it doesn’t matter who has the money and who doesn’t. If I were in your position—

If I lived in Hong Kong, you would never have noticed me, she said, turning from the window. You wouldn’t have looked at me twice. Isn’t that true?

No, I said, but I felt a sagging weight in my chest, as if I had swallowed a stone. Of course it was true. I saw myself again in the dark back corner of Club Nikko, handing her a packet of tissues, a business card—when would I have done that, in my normal life, with a stranger?
It isn’t important,
I wanted to say.
How
can it be so important?
But the words wouldn’t form on my tongue. I saw my face as she must have seen it: my eyebrows tilted in concern, my mouth slowly forming the syllables, as if I were talking to a child. I hadn’t meant to sound that way, I thought. But how else could she have heard it?

Pity isn’t love, she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. It doesn’t turn into love. Maybe I thought it could, but I was wrong. I’m sorry if I deceived you.

This can’t be the end, I said weakly. I sat down on the edge of the bed, steadying myself with my hands; the floor seemed to fall away from me, curving into the trough of a wave. For a moment I thought I would be sick.
You are making a terrible mistake,
I wanted to shout.
You’ll always regret this.
But I knew how she would respond.
I made that mistake already.

I think you’re lying to me, I shouted at her suddenly. I wasn’t even aware of what I was saying; I only felt my shoulders clenched together, as if I was expecting the ceiling to fall. You’re not really out of a job, are you? You’re just sick of me and you want someone else. It’s a convenient excuse, isn’t it?

She turned and stared at me, and a shiver of recognition ran down her body: as if I had confirmed something she had always known. I’m going home, she said. Back to Anhui. Maybe I’ll get a job. Probably not. I don’t care if I have to eat rice out of a hole in the ground. At least I won’t be one of those women who sits in a villa and waits for a man, like a wind-up toy. I may go crazy, but not that way.

We took a taxi together from Nanhai Lu into the city, and at a street corner, just blocks away from the border, she told the driver to stop and got out quickly, without saying a word. Hey! the driver shouted. Pay your fare!

It’s all right, I said. I’m paying for both of us.