Whispering Shadows (3 page)

III

He hated the sound of a ringing telephone. It didn't matter which ring tone he chose; it always disturbed his peace most unpleasantly. Paul sat on the terrace in the garden, finished the rest of his morning tea, and let it ring. He was not the kind of person who jumped up as soon as someone called him. His mobile phone was in the kitchen. Only very few people had his number; it was probably Christine, but he did not feel the slightest desire to speak to her or to anyone else, and he hoped that she would give up soon. There was silence for a few moments then the phone started ringing again, without pause. He stood up and fetched it.

Paul did not recognize her voice or her name.

“Owen,” she repeated slowly. “Elizabeth Owen. You helped me yesterday on the Peak. Don't you remember?”

“I'm sorry. I didn't catch your name the first time. Of course I remember. Are you feeling better?”

Silence. He heard noises from the street and her breathing, but not her voice. “Hello?” he said to her. “Is everything all right?”

“I need your help,” she said. “Can we meet?”

“Meet?” he repeated, not sure whether he had understood her correctly.

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“Oh God, that's not at all convenient, I . . .”

“It's extremely urgent,” she interrupted. “Please, Mr. Leibovitz.”

He heard her voice cracking and suddenly its trembling sound seemed as familiar to him as her face had been yesterday.

“Where are you now?”

“In front of the police station in . . .”

Paul heard the roar of traffic in the background and a man's voice saying, “In Admiralty, honey.”

“I'll be at your hotel in two hours.”

———

Elizabeth was waiting for him in the lobby. She was even paler than Paul had remembered from yesterday. Her skin seemed almost transparent: Blue veins were prominent on her temples and her chin. Her eyes were red rimmed and her hair straggled over her face. She took him by both hands and pressed them firmly. “Thank you so much for coming so quickly.” She gestured toward the man by her side. “This is my husband, Richard.”

Richard Owen stretched his hand out in greeting. He was a bear of a man, and his age was as difficult to guess as his wife's. His hair was flecked with gray but thick, and his face was tanned and taut, as though the passing of the years were nothing to him. He was at least six feet two inches tall, with broad shoulders and a solid torso, though not portly, and had bushy eyebrows and very long arms. His handshake and his deep, insistent voice made Paul wince.

The Owens led him to a ready-laid table in the lobby. On the other side of the window, which climbed over three floors from floor to ceiling, was a picture-postcard view of the Hong Kong skyline. They ordered coffee for all three of them and a whiskey as well for Mr. Owen.

“Mr. Leibovitz,” Elizabeth Owen said in a quiet voice. “We'd like to ask you to help us.” Paul could see that she was making an effort not to lose her composure. She swallowed a few times and her eyes filled with tears.

“How can I help you?”

“We . . . We're looking for our son. He's disappeared.”

Paul felt the blood drain away from his face and he felt dizzy for a moment.

“Your son?” he heard himself say.

“Michael. Michael Owen,” she said in a way that implied that he must know him.

“What do you mean when you say he disappeared?”

“He traveled to Shenzhen two days ago and was meant to be back that evening. We've heard nothing more from him since.”

“What did he want to go to China for?”

“We have a factory just on the other side of the border, in Guangdong Province,” her husband explained quietly, when he realized that his wife's voice was gradually giving out on her. “He had a lunch appointment with our business partner Mr. Tang, Victor Tang. But he never turned up to that appointment.”

Paul had no idea what he ought to say. He could feel his heart racing and his breathing growing shallow. He wanted to comfort the woman. He wanted to say to her that she mustn't worry, that surely nothing had happened, that everything would be cleared up in a few hours. That everything would be fine. He was unable to speak.
I'm sorry to have to tell you . . .

“We talked to the Hong Kong police this morning, but they weren't very helpful. You're the only Western person I know in this city and you said yesterday that you've lived here a long time, so I thought . . .” She did not finish her sentence.

Paul nodded mutely.

She turned to him and gave him a pleading look of desperation that moved him in a way that he found almost unbearable.

“I'm afraid. I'm so afraid. Can you understand that?” she whispered, and started crying.

Richard Owen sat by her side on the couch and shifted from side to side, uneasily. He was clearly uncomfortable with his wife's tears. He went to put an arm around her shoulders, but she shook herself briefly and he withdrew his arm. He cast Paul a look as if to draw
him into a male complicity. Paul looked away.

“I think you're worrying too much, honey.”

Paul had not heard so much helplessness in someone's voice in a long time.

“Michael is thirty years old. He's a grown man. I'm sure he'll call us in the next few hours and explain everything.”

That didn't sound very convincing, Paul thought, and he wondered how he could help. He had no contacts in the Hong Kong police force any longer. The two British police inspectors he used to know had more or less voluntarily taken early retirement and gone back to England when the colony was returned to China. That left only Detective Superintendent Zhang Lin at the homicide division in Shenzhen. If something had happened to a foreigner there he would know about it.

“I have a friend who's in the police force in Shenzhen. I'll give him a call and get in touch with you this afternoon or tomorrow morning,” Paul said. “I can't do much more for you right now.”

Elizabeth nodded thankfully, and her husband drained his whiskey glass in one gulp. They sat silently for a moment before they took their leave. The Owens walked slowly to the elevators with their heads bowed. Paul had the impression that Richard Owen's left leg dragged a little and for an instant this big man seemed very small to him.

———

“Paul?” Christine must have recognized his number on her phone. The surprise and pleasure in her voice were unmistakable.

“Yes, it's me. Is it a bad time? Should I call back later?” What stupid questions, he immediately thought. He knew from what she told him that her travel agency, World Wide Travel, consisted of a tiny office that she shared with two employees, and that their phones rang from morning to night. He heard a few female voices in the
background, punctuated by phones ringing almost nonstop.

“It's no problem. Can you wait a minute, please?” She asked the customer on the other line for his number and promised to call him back in a few minutes.

“Where are you? On Lamma? It's noisy where you are.”

“No. I'm standing in front of the InterContinental.”

“What are you doing there? I thought you wanted to be on your own.”

Christine had asked him out to dinner that night. She thought distraction was good for him. Paul disagreed, and thought her invitation was a sign of her lack of sensitivity. He did not want to be distracted; that was the whole point. He did not want to be occupied so that time would pass more quickly. The more quickly time passed, the more destructive it was to memory. Time faded memories.

“Shall we meet?” Christine offered, instead. “I have time for a coffee.”

“Where?”

“Here in Wan Chai. I'll meet you at the MTR so you don't get lost in the crowds.”

“I don't know.” The more they talked, the worse he felt. It was always the same. She couldn't help him. Why had he called her in the first place?

“Or we could meet later and . . .”

“No,” he interrupted her. “I think I'd better go back to Lamma.”

She didn't say anything for a moment. The sound of phones ringing, women's voices, someone calling her name. “I could come to Lamma this evening, and we could have dinner at Sampan on the harbor.”

“No,” he repeated, “absolutely not,” as if there was a risk that she might come secretly, against his wishes.

“Paul, you don't make it easy for me sometimes.”

“I know, Christine. I'm sorry. I'll be in touch later.”

He did not want a girlfriend. He was no longer capable of loving. He did not want to disappoint and be disappointed any longer. He
wanted to be alone.

IV

They had met in winter on a cold, rainy Sunday morning on Lamma while he was on his daily walk and she was looking for Sok Kwu Wan village and the ferry back to Hong Kong. It had started raining heavily. He had been taking shelter in a viewing pavilion, looking over the lead-gray sea with its curling crests of white foam. He startled when she spoke from behind him.

“Excuse me.”

Like her, he was wearing waterproof hiking shoes and a dark-green rain hood that hung low over his forehead. His face was wet and a drop of water dangled from the tip of his nose; a couple of gray strands of hair were pasted to his brow.

The rain pattered on their backs, and she took a step closer to this strange man, who insisted on standing right in the middle of the shelter on the only totally dry spot, and was staring at her with such surprise that it seemed he thought he was alone in the world.

“Excuse me,” she repeated. “I didn't mean to startle you.”

He still said nothing. She had the feeling that he might shatter any moment, like a car windshield cracking into thousands of little pieces. She had never seen such a vulnerable expression on anyone's face before. She would have liked to take him by the hand, lead him to a bench, sit down next to him, and look out at the sea until he was able to speak again. But there was no bench, it was cold, and the ferry was leaving in forty minutes.

“Could you tell me how to get to Sok Kwu Wan, perhaps?”

He said nothing but looked at her and, finally, nodded, as if he had thought something over long and hard.

She tried again. “I'm looking for Sok Kwu Wan. Am I going the right way?”

“Why are you going there?”

Did he not understand her English or was he just not listening properly? Why was this man not able to give a simple answer to a simple question?

“To take the ferry to Hong Kong,” she replied.

He nodded again. “Continue along this path. You'll see it behind the second hilltop you pass.”

“How long will it take to get there?”

He looked out into the rain, which was drumming down onto the roof more and more heavily, and wrinkled his brow. “In this weather? A long time, I'm afraid,” he suddenly said in Cantonese.

She smiled briefly, without knowing exactly why. Was it his soft, quiet voice with its strange singsong manner, which was completely unsuited to the harsh, brusque sound of her language, or the roundabout way in which they were conversing?

They waited until the rain let up. He wanted to know why she had come to Lamma in such dreadful weather, and she had replied that she was asking herself exactly the same thing. A friend had recommended a walk on this island, but she must have come in the fall. She talked about her Sunday walks on Lantau and in the New Territories and how beautiful the Sai Kung Peninsula and the beaches on it were, and how hardly anyone knew how much green space Hong Kong had, really, or how many nature reserves there were. He listened to her so attentively and patiently, which no one had done for a long time, and gazed at her so earnestly with his deep-blue eyes, as if she really had something important to say, that she just kept on talking and talking. She talked about how much these outings meant to her, how she sat for six days a week from 9:00
AM
to 7:00
PM
in an open-plan office with two employees and one intern. She told him about her twelve-year-old son, Josh, who had absolutely
refused to continue coming on these walks with her a year ago and spent the time with friends instead, wasting his time on Game Boys and video games. She had given up trying to persuade him to come with her or to change his mind with treats or threats. As a single mother she had to choose her battles. She talked so much that she only realized too late how cold she was and how the ever-growing wind had blown the rain under her jacket and through her pants. She shivered. He invited her to warm herself up at his house.

Even though it was still raining, they set off with him leading the way and her in close step after him, trying to shelter herself behind his back. She followed him as he turned right in Yung Shue Wan some distance from the ferry terminal, crossed a small valley, and climbed yet another hill. She followed him, still without uttering a word, onto a path that grew narrower and darker until they stepped through a garden gate and stood before a house that could hardly be seen from the path, as it was hidden behind a wall of trees and bushes.

She followed him into the house, up to the first floor, took off her wet clothes, had a hot shower as he had advised her to, and, as the water gradually warmed her body and the steam filled the bathroom, she felt desire rise in her in a way she had not experienced for a long time. She knew that she would not get dressed after this, that she would follow him to his bedroom and slide into his bed, that he would not need to practice any great arts of seduction for her to give herself to him. He would only have to say a word, make a gesture, give a hint, however subtle, and it would be enough.

Instead, she heard him clattering away in the kitchen.

He had laid out a white bathrobe for her along with a long-sleeved man's silk undershirt, a sweater, a pair of old sweatpants, and thick woolen socks, all much too big for her but dry and warm. She walked quietly down the stairs to the ground floor, which clearly only consisted of the hall, the stairs to the first floor, and two big rectangular rooms. In one of the rooms was a rectangular Chinese table of reddish-brown rosewood and eight matching chairs; at the
far end of the room were two couches and a low antique table. The floor was tiled with deep-red square tiles and the walls were painted white; Chinese calligraphy scrolls hung between the windows. In each corner was a palm tree in a giant blue and yellow Chinese urn. The house seemed remarkably tidy to her. There was no clutter, no newspapers lying around, no paperwork, no DVDs. The floor seemed to be freshly mopped and the table just dusted. He must have a hardworking Filipino cleaner.

She entered the room where the clatter of crockery was coming from. Apart from an antique wooden lounger in front of the window to the garden and an old red Southern Chinese wedding chest with a big circular brass fitting, the room was empty. It adjoined the small eat-in kitchen with a wooden counter that was set with two placemats. Steam rose from the teacups; they smelled of lemongrass and ginger. She had never been in a home that presented so many puzzles. This man clearly had money and liked Chinese antiques, but why did he live on Lamma and not in the Mid-Levels or Repulse Bay, like most of the well-off foreigners? Or was the house just a weekend home? His Cantonese was excellent, but she could see no sign of a Chinese wife or girlfriend. Who had he learned it from? Did he live alone? She had noticed a child's coat and rain boots in the closet and markings and dates on a door frame recording the growth of a child.

His voice roused her from her thoughts. “I've made tea and some hot soup. Would you like some?”

“Yes, please. Very much.”

When he noticed how the sweater, with its sleeves rolled up several times, and sweatpants hung loosely from her, a brief smile passed over his face.

She felt her heart pound. A gesture, a hint would suffice.

The soup was delicious. A vegetable and pork belly broth that her grandmother had made for her when she was a child.

“This tastes wonderful.”

“Thank you.”

“Did you make it yourself?”

“Yes,” he said. “Yesterday. I just warmed it up.”

“Do you cook often?”

“Every day.”

She wondered if any of her women friends still cooked for themselves. Everyone she could think of had a Filipina maid who cooked for them, and on Sundays they all ate in restaurants. Her husband, like all Hong Kong men she knew, really, had never even been able to prepare a decent congee.

“I suspect a Filipina maid cooks for you. And on Sundays, when she's off, you go out to eat.”

She suppressed a grin.

“And your husband . . .”

She interrupted him. “I've divorced.”

“And your ex-husband couldn't even prepare a decent congee for you?”

When had a man last made her laugh?

“You know Hong Kong well, and you speak very good Cantonese.”

“You mean, very good for a
gweilo
.”

“No. I mean very good.”

“Thank you.”

“Where did you learn it?”

“In Hong Kong.”

She looked at him, how he bent over his bowl spooning his soup into his mouth and slurping as though he were Chinese.

“You were born here, right?”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because . . . Because . . .”

“Because I slurp my soup, can cook Chinese food, and speak Cantonese?” he retorted. “That should actually prove the opposite. Or have you ever met a foreigner who was born here or grew up here because his father was in Her Majesty's Service or worked for a company here who spoke Cantonese or Mandarin or had even the slightest interest in the culture and history of Hong Kong?” He
poured more tea for her and for himself before continuing. “No. I was born in Germany. My mother is German and my father is American. I first came to Hong Kong in 1975 via Vietnam and Bangkok. I've lived here ever since.”

“On Lamma?” she asked, astounded.

“No, in the city. I moved to Lamma only two years ago. Shortly after my divorce.”

“Don't you feel it gets too lonely here?”

He shook his head gently.

“Do you live here on your own?”

He looked her straight in the eye. There was that expression again, that she had felt so intensely before: vulnerable, open, and raw, a kind of nakedness that was unfamiliar to her.

“Some days, yes. Some days, no.”

She remembered the child's shoes in the hall. She wanted to ask a question, but his look told her that it would be better to stay silent.

“And you?” he asked her, after a long pause.

It was an invitation that she could not refuse. He was the first person in a long time who was paying attention to her without wanting anything in return. Without demanding a cheaper flight, an upgrade, a pay raise, a day off, or money for a new computer game. The first person for whom she did not have to slip into a particular role: not be the mother, the ex-wife, the boss, or the daughter. He simply sat across from her listening, leaning his head to one side then the other, sipping his tea and asking her questions. She told him about the Catholic school she had attended in Hong Kong and about getting her degree in tourism in Vancouver. About how difficult it was to earn money from a small travel agency in the age of the Internet and to bring up a child at the same time. About the evenings she fell asleep, exhausted, in front of the television, and Josh or Tita woke her at night in front of the flickering screen. About the Sunday dinners with her mother, a burdensome duty that she, like most Hong
Kongers, could not escape. She talked about the failure of her marriage. About her husband, who had had a Chinese mistress and child on the other side of the border for years and not told her a thing. Who had supported this woman and their child throughout his marriage to her. That was the real reason why they had never had enough money, why they had to sell the small rental apartment in Kowloon Tong and, later on, even their car, though the business at World Wide Travel had still been going well. She had never really thought about it, or, looking back on it, perhaps she had not wanted to. She had trusted her husband and there had always been good reasons for his many business trips to China. So he claimed, at least, and she had not wanted to doubt him, not even when the first rumors of his infidelity had reached her. She had defended him: to her friends, to her mother. She had believed him, she had wanted to believe him, but he had deceived her, cheated on her, and betrayed her. He had gone behind her back and lied to her. She said all this without self-pity. That was the risk that human beings took when they trusted other people; that was the price they paid. Later, her relations had whispered among themselves that she had brought this on herself; she had been so naïve, so trusting. She had had no contact with her family for months because of their opinions. She would not have done any differently today. Believing and hoping. Over and over again.

As if trusting was only for fools. As if we had a choice.

Darkness had started to fall by the time Christine's torrent of words slowed to a trickle. In the twilight she could make out Paul's shadowy outline; he sat opposite her, motionless. The flickering of the candle, which he had lighted, fell on his face. He looked exhausted, as if he was the one who had been talking the whole time. They sat in silence for a long time; it was not an ominous silence, though, but one that lifted their spirits.

A gesture, a mere hint, and . . .

———

He walked her down to the ferry terminal. It had stopped raining
and the light from the streetlamps was reflected in the puddles. The restaurants in Yung Shue Wan were brightly lit and full of big families who didn't mind the cold wind; their laughter and chatter sounded through the village and over the hills around it. A couple of fishing boats were bobbing up and down in the harbor.