Kowloon Tong (19 page)

"What's missing?"

"Everything of Ah Fu."

It was gone, every trace of Ah Fu, all she had owned.

"My poor darling," he said.

He embraced Mei-ping, and it took most of his self-control to be gentle and not to squeeze the life out of her. Yet she did not resist. She accepted his hands. He felt her skeleton in his fingers. He was aroused, excited, panting with anticipation, his blood throbbing against his eyes. He wanted to kiss her. That she did resist.

"I must go away from here," she said. "I am afraid."

T
O CALM HER,
to calm himself, Bunt—who had never been so rash—took a chance and said, "Let's go to Macao."

Saying it, he gagged a little, because it seemed such a risky plunge into the unknown.

Mei-ping said "Okay," and he almost suffocated. Then he told himself that she wanted to be with him and that it was Friday, and he began to breathe in more regular gulps.

What he had felt had no name he could think of, yet the obscure lowness of spirit reminded him of his mood after a dismal day in Kowloon Tong when he knew his mother was waiting for him on the Peak. He needed to be consoled against a woman's breasts.

Mei-ping no longer seemed like a strange Chinese woman with a Chinese problem. She was like him, she resembled him, her hunger was his hunger and her answer to that hunger was his too. She was part of him, the rest of him. He looked at her and saw himself—not his face but one of his limbs. He wondered if he might be in love, but it was a word he never used, like "cancer" or "joy," so he could only make a stab at its meaning.

The fugitive gleam in Mei-ping's eyes gave her a pained, yearning gaze. She seemed to be staring at something so private, so distant, he could not see it. He knew that she felt insecure, that she was taking a gamble too, that she was fearful, perhaps desperate.

"Maybe Ah Fu came back and picked up her stuff."

"No," Mei-ping said, still staring. And again, "No."

Every other possibility was ominous, and if it was Mr. Hung who had done it, what next?

Bunt tried to hold Mei-ping's hand, but it was so hard for him to grip its limpness, to press reassurance into something that was so yielding and passive. Her hand was a small blind boneless creature he needed to protect.

He told himself that she was stunned at the moment but that when she got over it she would realize that he was rescuing her and would be grateful. He was aroused by her, he loved having her so near him in the ordinariness of a crowd of somber pedestrians, but he also knew that what he wanted from her now would not be satisfied by an hour in a blue hotel.

Sex was somewhat related to this feeling, but sex was simpler, sex had an end, a sudden finish, a squirt and then a stumble, leaving him with a damp amnesia that puzzled him and made him stupid. He always lay there afterward as slack as a fish on a slab, feeling sticky, his body reeking of fish. And after sex you got out of bed and went home. But this was different. He wanted more. He could not imagine being free of the feeling.

"Have you ever been in love?" he asked.

"I don't know."

"You must have loved someone."

"I love Ah Fu," she said.

She began to cry in her suffering way, reluctantly sobbing, stony-faced, trying to stop herself as the tears ran down her cheeks.

He could not reply: in his love for Mei-ping he had almost forgotten Ah Fu.

Silent in the taxi, silent in the Star Ferry and in the short walk to the terminal stairway, silent in the embarkation line, silent in the jetfoil to Macao.

The last time he had been this way was with Baby on a Saturday night two years before, goatishly snorting with anticipation on the run over. He had bought her a new dress and red shoes for the occasion. She sat with her knees together, smoothing the dress, as he pinched her like a monkey. She encouraged him by giggling and telling him insincerely to stop it. Heading for a hotel called the Pagoda, they passed a photo studio and she said she wanted a photograph taken showing them together. It was developed while they waited, and Bunt felt they looked such a ridiculous couple that his ardor ebbed.

But the room at the Pagoda was so viciously dirty and so dimly lit that he was aroused again. Baby knew it. She got down on her hands and knees and said "Woof! Woof!" and laughed as he mounted her, clutching her smooth waist. But when it was over, minutes later, he wanted to go back to Hong Kong. He felt bruised and miserable, and he lay like a fish, inventing excuses. He canceled the rest of the stay, the overnight. Baby did not seem to mind, and he was relieved to have her permission to go back to his mother, thankful to Baby for releasing him. When she said, "I need some money," he gladly handed it over. And there was the disastrous night with Rosa Rabbit, the hairy Coelho woman.

This was different, this was headlong and desperate. A man sitting next to Mei-ping in the jetfoil was wolfing down a paper cup of soupy noodles. Bunt could see nothing through the portholes except the rusty hulls of ships in the Hong Kong harbor roads and, in the channel, the dim shadows of coasts—Lantau must have been one, Cheung Chau another. Far off, the ambiguous stripe formed by the gray sea meeting the gray sky might have been China. But what did it matter? In the monotony of all this Bunt felt such joy in being with Mei-ping that he imagined that this was how gamblers must feel when they wagered their whole fortune on a single number on the turn of a card and won.

This is what winning is like,
he thought. The jetfoil was full of gamblers—it had to be on a Friday night. He was delighted to be one of them. The jackpot was already his. He was going to Macao not to gamble but to collect his winnings.

Night fell as the growling vessel lost power and settled into the water and moved slowly towards the pier at Macao. The lights of the city dotting the slopes of a hill lay reflected in bright misshapen puddles in the harbor. Mei-ping had not spoken; she did not speak now; she was anxious and moved stiffly, as though thinking of something else.

She did not respond when Bunt touched her, and so he left her alone but stayed near her, like a houseboy or a husband—or like a son, for that was how he handled his mother, keeping out of her way but remaining alert. He liked the role of helper, and though Mei-ping did not understand what he was doing now, she would eventually realize how useful he was, that he might be indispensable.

For part of the way in the jetfoil, Bunt had imagined arriving in London with Mei-ping: having her on his arm, buying her meals, showing her the sights. So engrossed was he that he could not see himself in London without her. Loving her, having her, meant that he would be able to go back. In the country house that somewhat resembled the country house of his and Corkill's fantasy he stood at the window with Mei-ping, and perhaps she was wearing a diaphanous dress and high heels, and cows were grazing in a nearby meadow. "Holsteins," he heard himself saying. "And that is the bull—watch what he does."

There were long lines at Macao immigration, and the signs in Portuguese made him think of Europe in a way that English signs in Hong Kong never did. The passengers shuffled between stanchions and fences towards the desks of immigration officials. Bunt and Mei-ping were divided by the signs
HONG KONG CITIZENS
and
OTHER COUNTRIES
. They met on the far side of the barrier, still saying nothing, and then were in another taxi.

What Bunt could see of Macao from the taxi window was the same hill he had seen from the pier, and another escarpment of winking lights, casinos on cliffs, casinos on boulevards, casinos bulking all over the promenade. That was the twilit city, yet night had already cast its shadow over the distant hills, and that shadow was Chinese.

They had no luggage. Bunt considered this: no clothes, no sponge bags, no cases. But that act of sudden flight, dropping everything and catching the jetfoil, pleased him. He had never taken such a gamble. He had never won so much. Speeding on the smooth road around the harbor's curve, the taxi tipped Mei-ping's slender body against him with such pressure he could sense the heat through her dress.

"The Bela Vista," he said to the driver.

"Yes, yes."

He repeated the name, because surely the man spoke Portuguese and little English, and Bunt wanted to be sure. It was the only good hotel he knew. He did not want to go near the Pagoda, with its memories of "Woof! Woof!" and the red shoes and "I need some money."

It was not hard for him to imagine Baby being just as happy with another man, for she seemed to see men as interchangeable. But Bunt could not picture himself with anyone except Mei-ping, for there was no one like her and, when he was with her, there was no one like him.

"First time in Macao?" the driver asked.

"Who wants to know?" Bunt said.

Mei-ping was sitting at an unrestful angle on the car seat, still tipped against him.

"After Bela Vista you want to visit casino?"

Bunt said, "We'll see," and out the window saw a brilliant floodlit fortress wall and several pedestals.

"They take the statues, they send them to Portugal so they don't get broken by the Chinese people," the driver said. Then he spoke in Cantonese to Mei-ping, probably saying the same thing, but she did not reply.

The story that the statues, the treasures, and the church relics had been famously bundled up and sent away was told all over Hong Kong as an example of the way in which the Portuguese colony was lying down and letting China have its wicked way with her—and that takeover was a few years off yet. Hong Kong sneered at Macao, but Hong Kong had surrendered without a fight. Now, on the verge of leaving, Bunt wondered why the Hong Kong statues had not been sent back—Queen Victoria, Sir Thomas Jackson, Napier, and all the rest, including the Noon-Day Gun.

They went up a steep street, took a series of sharp turns, now on cobblestones, passing garden walls and painted mansions with a view of the harbor and a narrow bridge. It was as though they had traveled from a Chinese port to a suburb of Lisbon.

The hotel was a large white villa at the edge of a cliff, and it was brightly lit, with gleaming floors and paintings in gilt frames, but it was empty. A woman in a dark jacket approached them.

"Checking in?"

"Two for dinner," Bunt said, and stole a look at the embroidered badge on her jacket, hoping that it was one from Imperial Stitching. He could not tell.

"This way, please."

Mei-ping followed flat-footed like a captive, looking fearful again. Perhaps it was the strange surroundings—there was no hotel like this in Hong Kong; perhaps the wooden floors looked unsafe to her.

Bunt ordered roast beef and vegetables and a bottle of claret from the large menu with dangling tassels. Mei-ping did not even glance at the menu.

"And madam?"

"Soup," she said.

When the waiter had gone, Bunt said, "That badge," and tapped his chest. "Is it ours?"

"Number seven. Special order. Four color, with gold highlight," Mei-ping said in a funereal voice, reminded again of the factory and Ah Fu.

The wine was uncorked and poured. Bunt toasted, "To us." But Mei-ping still looked sad.

Bunt said, "I will look after you."

"How he got into my room?" Mei-ping said.

"Never mind," Bunt said.

He drank and was happy. He knew that he had the means to protect her. Mei-ping sat round-shouldered, with the soft face of a sad kitten, poking her spoon into her soup. Bunt could tell that this was not her idea of soup. That dense stew of dumplings and sodden greens and fish balls at the Golden Dragon, served up by Hung—that was her idea of soup, and she had paid for it. Bunt tore his meat apart and watched its watery blood run out when he cut it, and he chewed it and swallowed the beef-colored wine and wiped his lips.

"Please don't worry," Bunt said.

They had their coffee on the verandah, sheltered from the wind by the shutters. Macao lay below and beyond—the harbor, the casinos, the clubs; small bright lights and the shadows of rooftops, the outlines of slopes. It seemed a place that had already been abandoned by the Portuguese colonialists and had not yet been occupied by the Chinese.

"I am sorry," Mei-ping said at last.

It was what Bunt wanted to hear. She recognized that she was a problem, that she had a dilemma, and he was looking after her, he had the answer.

Still holding the last of a glass of wine he would not waste, he said, "You can trust me. I will always look after you."

His sincerity seemed to win her confidence—and why not? He had never said such a thing to any woman. The beauty of being with bar girls was that you never told them the truth, because they did not care what you said. Yet it surprised him to think that he was happy saying the truth to her, that he took pleasure in this. He desired her, but he could be patient. There was no hurry. What mattered most was that she felt safe with him, and it did seem that she was more relaxed right now.

Another swig of wine: in that mouthful he could taste the word "love" on his tongue. He swallowed it and sipped again and the word was in his mouth again. He wanted to tell her this good news. It was an appropriate moment, the lights playing on the creamy columns of the hotel verandah, all of Macao spread out in the distance, the palm fronds rattling just beneath them. The air was mild and delicately perfumed by some flowers he could not see.

Macao was poor and submissive and strange and spare, quieter than Hong Kong, with a sadness about it. That was welcome now. This hotel was where they belonged. Bunt had always believed that Hong Kong was his home, but no: he was a visitor and so was Mei-ping, and it was time to leave. And the truth was—he saw it tonight—if you loved someone you could live anywhere, because that person was your life, no matter where you were.

Bunt said, "I want to get a room here. Please don't worry."

Mei-ping simply stared at him, her hands in her lap, her straight black hair framing her pale face. Once she had told him, "When my hair is too short I look like man." She was wrong. When she cut it she looked like a boy, and that made Bunt even more amorous.