Chapter Sixteen
First Kowtow, May We Meet Again (1)
She unwrapped one piece of candy after another, some soft, some hard, until her teeth ached all the way down to their roots.
The year she left Macau, she had done the same thing on the plane, opening a bag of candy she had bought at the airport and eating it piece by piece as she crossed from one time zone into another. The time difference here was almost the complete opposite of Macau’s. During her first month back, she could never adjust to it, sleeping during the day and waking at night, never going out...
After all this time, there was one image in her mind that remained the clearest. Her first arrival at Hong Kong Airport, and that one glance back at him when he caught hold of the handle of her luggage trolley.
Zhaozhao gathered the candy wrappers in her fist and threw them into the trash.
Her phone vibrated again. It was still her mother.
She had no way of refusing the call. She had no excuse. Back then, everything between them had been kept secret, hidden away from the light. She stared at the phone for a long while before finally answering.
“Why didn’t you talk to your brother a little longer?”
“It’s been so long since we last saw each other.” Zhaozhao propped her forehead up with one hand and spoke softly. “We don’t have anything in common to talk about anymore.”
Half an hour had passed since the call was disconnected, yet he had only just returned the phone.
“Your brother just got home. He wanted to talk to you a little longer. He also wanted to congratulate you. Be a little more understanding.”
Her mother had never forced her to do anything. But strangely enough, this time, she seemed to really want Zhaozhao to talk to Shen Ce a little more.
When the phone was handed back to him, there was still silence on the other end. She pressed the heel of her hand against her eyes.
“I’m getting married.” This time, she was the one who spoke first. “Ge, you must already know, right?”
A spark leaped from the firewood.
This was hardly news. They had been discussing it for a long time. Back then, she had even entertained the fantasy that perhaps Shen Ce would regret it when he heard the news. She had not expected him to come looking for her, but at the very least, she had thought he might call and ask about it, with that half-sincere, half-insincere attitude of his. She had even rehearsed the conversation in her head, preparing a very good explanation.
But he had never called.
“Zhaozhao.” He tried to stop her from going on.
“Is this what you wanted to congratulate me on? Mom said you wanted to congratulate me.” She asked softly, with a laugh.
“I only just found out.” There were children laughing on the other end. Presumably, he had taken the phone aside to avoid them once, but could not do so a second time, and had no choice but to speak in an open space. “I only found out today.”
How could he have only just learned about something that had been made public? It was nothing more than an indirect way of telling her that he had never cared about her private affairs.
He was emphasizing that those two weeks had been nothing but an uncontrollable youthful passion on his part, an emotional interlude after returning from Britain upon graduation, and a little consensual affair between him and his own younger sister.
A little secret.
There was a child laughing on the other end. The phone was snatched away.
“Little Great-Auntie!”
The little boy's voice had not yet broken. It rang out bright and clear. “We’re coming over soon, me and Mom and Dad. Dad said you told me back then that when I grew up, I should go to Montreal to visit you.”
Zhaozhao knew she was still emotionally unsteady. Afraid that her voice might come out too harshly and hurt the child's enthusiasm, she steadied herself and asked in a gentler tone, “When?”
Shen Yan took the phone back and explained with a laugh that the child had overheard the adults talking and blurted it out before anyone could stop him. Shen Yan also felt that the invitation had been rather abrupt. It happened to be the child's birthday, and he had been making a fuss about wanting to visit his Little Great-Auntie Zhaozhao, who lived far away and had once sent him toys. Shen Yan asked whether their visit would be a disturbance.
“No,” she said with a smile. “You took such good care of me back in Macau. I was happiest whenever you came to visit.”
After that, the phone never returned to Shen Ce's hands.
When the call ended, she held her phone in her hand, her face illuminated by the fire in the fireplace. Her gaze remained unfocused. She was looking neither at the flames nor at the logs glowing red with heat.
A sudden headache came over her, the kind of reaction that followed an intense emotional shock. Her teeth hurt, too, because she had been biting down so hard on the candy.
She tried not to dwell too deeply on Shen Yan's intentions. Even if they had something to do with him, they had nothing to do with her.
***
The next day, Zhaozhao began making arrangements to host the guests.
When her mother was away, a Chinese auntie was the only one who looked after her on a regular basis. Everyone else was hired by the hour, and for any additional arrangements, she would contact her mother's secretary. She called the secretary and arranged for two more young women to come and look after the guests. She also arranged cars and private guides, and booked the entire itinerary in advance. That way, she could accompany them whenever she was free without interfering with their vacation when she wasn't.
On the day their flight arrived, she was held up by other matters and rushed to the airport in a state of mounting anxiety.
Shen Yan called to tell her that they were already outside the airport. She still had not arrived, so she directed him over the phone to take his wife and child to the roadside pickup area and wait there. Cars lined up and drove past one after another. There happened to be a large crowd of arriving passengers, too. She got out of her car and walked even faster than it could go.
She walked ahead, searching for them all the way.
After dark, the light spilling out from the airport stood out vividly. She looked at the figures moving past behind the airport's glass facade across the road. Suddenly, someone called her.
The instant Zhaozhao turned around, a hand caught hold of her and pulled her aside to avoid someone approaching with a suitcase.
The noise of cars, the noise of pedestrians talking loudly, the noise of suitcase wheels rolling over the pavement, all of it filled her ears, magnified beyond measure. In the bitter, freezing cold, even her gaze seemed to have frozen in place...
It was still him. His eye sockets were deeper, his nose bridge higher, the changes perhaps brought on by the passing years and maturity. Even his appearance and bearing had been worn into something more somber by time, but some habits had never changed.
Whenever he looked at her, he always liked to press his lips together slightly, as though he had something to say but would not say it.
Zhaozhao wanted to pull her arm away. Instinctively, she pushed him with her hand, right against his chest. He wore a short coat over a casual suit, with a shirt underneath the suit. In short, there were many layers of fabric between them. Yet she could still feel his heartbeat striking her hand.
It was an illusion. She knew that perfectly well. It was her own body remembering him.
“Little Uncle really does have sharp eyes,” Shen Yan said from a distance.
“Little Great-Auntie.” A pair of little arms wrapped around her.
The child's nose had turned red from the cold. Behind him, Shen Yan was pushing a luggage cart. Beside him stood a woman wearing glasses, her hair tied high in a ponytail. She had a stern, unsmiling expression. It was Shen Yan's wife, Liang Jinshan, whom Zhaozhao had met once at the wedding banquet.
“It really is cold here,” Shen Yan said with a smile.
“Yeah, you picked a bad time to come.” She focused all her attention on Shen Yan and his family, without sparing him another glance. “You should have come in autumn. You could have seen the maple leaves and gone out to sea to watch the whales. But never mind. You can come again next time.”
While everyone else was busy unloading the luggage, Zhaozhao got into the front passenger seat first. Distracted and unsettled, she told the driver in French that they were no longer going to the residential neighborhood where they had originally planned to stay. They were going to a hotel instead. Change it to a hotel.
There was no way she could let Shen Ce stay in her house. Absolutely not.
The driver asked in confusion which place they should go to instead.
Zhaozhao told him to take them to the Ritz-Carlton. Her mother had a long-term arrangement with the hotel for hosting business partners. It wasn't peak season, and this wasn't a city that tourists often visited, so there were bound to be rooms available.
At some point, Shen Ce had gotten into the car and taken a seat in the second row, behind the driver. From where they sat, they could see each other perfectly well.
As Zhaozhao spoke, she found herself wondering several times whether he understood French.
“Where are we staying?” Shen Yan asked with a smile. “Your mother said your house is beautifully decorated, and every room has its own character. She said you designed each room yourself, one by one.”
She made an excuse, saying that a water pipe at home had burst, leaving the first floor in a terrible mess, and apologized for having to put them up in a hotel. Liang Jinshan was actually quite pleased with the arrangement. They could come and go as they pleased without disturbing Zhaozhao too much. The private tour guide who was driving them was tactful enough not to say much, simply taking them wherever they were told to go.
Throughout the drive, Zhaozhao kept looking out the window. In the reflection, she could see the entire front half of the car's interior, and he was in that half. She didn't look at him, but she could feel that his gaze had never left her.
She was inexplicably irritated with herself for caring.
As soon as they arrived at the hotel, the child fell asleep the moment he hit the bed. The couple both said they didn't feel like going out and would come downstairs to eat if they got hungry, telling Zhaozhao to go home first. She considered whether she should get a room of her own, but the thought of Shen Ce being right next door immediately put an end to that idea.
Shen Yan answered a phone call. After listening for a couple of moments, he hung up and said with a smile, “Little Uncle says he's waiting for you in the hallway.”
Zhaozhao knew there was no avoiding him. The moment she stepped out of the room, she saw him at the far end of the corridor. The hotel had few guests, and at this hour, no staff were around cleaning. The path between her and him was completely unobstructed. No one would interrupt them.
Under the lights, she walked toward him. The journey felt as though it had taken hours.
“Still refusing to talk to me?” he asked.
His tone made it sound as though they had only parted ways last night.
Zhaozhao raised her eyes and stared at him.
Seeing her like this, he actually smiled. “It's all right. This is fine.”
The elevator doors opened. The hotel manager emerged with a children's bathrobe in one hand and a complimentary toy in the other, evidently on his way to deliver them to Shen Yan's room. The man had been all smiles, but the moment he stepped out and sensed the atmosphere between the two of them, he froze. Maintaining a polite smile, he gave a slight nod and hurried away, careful not to disturb the guests having an argument.
Zhaozhao entered the elevator, intending to say goodbye.
He stepped in behind her. “Let's have dinner together.”
“There isn't much open around here at night,” Zhaozhao said. “At this hour, you might as well eat at the hotel.”
“There'll be somewhere,” he said.
She didn't want to show too much resistance and end up revealing how much she cared. Instead, she adopted an indifferent attitude, as though it made no difference to her either way.
He asked the manager at the front desk, who recommended a Japanese barbecue restaurant within a five-minute walk. In the depths of winter, with thick snow on the ground, the restaurant's dark red sign bearing the name Dongyang (东洋) was easy to spot against the night.
It was late, and only a few businesspeople were dining inside.
The two of them took a large table. Oil was poured over the grill, and flames suddenly burst up between them with a whoosh.
Normally, a girl would have let out a delighted laugh at a moment like this and instinctively leaned away. But the girl sitting in front of the chef showed no reaction, no matter how spectacularly the flames leaped up. She could only sit there, forced again and again to see the old scar slanting down the bridge of his nose in the firelight, until the chef finally extinguished the fiery performance.
He flipped through the menu, wishing he could order everything for her to try. The woman in a kimono dropped one hint after another, making it clear that they had ordered enough, that was enough. Yet he still thought it wasn't enough. Nothing seemed to be enough.
Throughout the entire meal, she didn't touch her chopsticks once.
Shen Ce didn't eat anything either. He wanted to talk to her a little, but was afraid of upsetting her, so he held his tongue. Instead, he drank beside her. At first, she thought he was doing it deliberately to provoke her, but gradually, she realized something was wrong. She had only ever seen this kind of drinking in people with severe alcohol problems. He drank as though he had no fear of alcohol poisoning, as though he had no intention of finding out whether he would live to see the sun rise the next day.
She was angry with him, but not so angry that she wanted to watch him drink himself to death...
Taking advantage of a trip to the restroom, she called Shen Yan over.
As soon as Shen Yan heard that she wanted him to intervene and stop the drinking, he immediately understood what was going on and came over as quickly as he could.
The moment he entered, he grabbed the wineglass from Shen Ce's hand and said to Zhaozhao, “Pay the bill. I'll get him back to his room first.”
The two of them managed to get Shen Ce back to his room, where Liang Jinshan was waiting as well.
It was obvious from their actions that they had dealt with this before. One prepared medication to help him sober up, while the other half-carried him to the bathtub to induce vomiting. Zhaozhao didn't dare leave either. She stood outside the bathroom, her heart in knots as she listened to the sounds coming from inside.
Partway through, Shen Yan came out, his eyes completely bloodshot. He glanced at Zhaozhao. He had wanted to ask her why she had noticed that something was wrong with Shen Ce but hadn't stopped him outright.
“Don't blame Zhaozhao,” Liang Jinshan explained on her behalf. “We didn't tell her anything beforehand. They hadn't seen each other in years, and they were probably so happy to be talking again that they thought he was drinking a little more because he was in a good mood.”
“What was there to tell me beforehand?” Zhaozhao felt something swell painfully inside her chest.
Liang Jinshan said, “He hasn't been seen for the past few years. His mother kept saying he was busy. At first, she said there was work to do in the laboratory, and later she came up with other excuses. He's the youngest in the eldest branch of the family, and the elders all dote on him the most. He used to come home every Lunar New Year, without fail. But he hasn't shown up in more than three years. Everyone found it strange, but no one thought to question what his mother said.”
“He finally came back a few days ago, after all that time, but he hasn't been sober once. He's been drinking heavily and taking sedatives. His father got desperate and went to confront his mother. She even said that this was already the best things had been, that at least he was alive again...” Liang Jinshan had been warned before coming that family matters should not be discussed outside the family, so she was reluctant to say more. “He only just came back, too. It was the day he called you. We're all still in a panic.”
“He said he wanted to come see his younger sister, and we thought it might do him good to get out for a while and clear his head.” Liang Jinshan had grown up with Shen Yan, and she had been friends with Shen Ce for many years. As she spoke, her eyes reddened, too. “Ever since he was born... why is it so difficult for him to have even a couple of good days? Surely it's his turn for things to get better now, isn't it? It feels like there's no end to any of this.”
No comments:
Post a Comment