The Language of Solitude, Page 5

  Now he was back. My dear Mei-mei . . .

  She had only to open the door to him. But at what cost?

  Christine had sworn to herself never to travel to the People’s Republic of China. Not as long as the same party that had destroyed her family was still in power. The party that had turned a strong man into a boy whose frightened father had leaped from a window. That had taken her brother away. And her mother’s laugh.

  His attempts to change her mind had annoyed her. The Cultural Revolution was more than thirty years ago, he said. Even if what happened then still cast long shadows, she needn’t be afraid. Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers crossed the border every day, to do business, as tourists, or to visit relatives, and they returned safe and sound.

  What was she afraid of?

  Christine didn’t quite know, herself. She could not really explain it, but she had the feeling that a visit to China would be a step too far for her. That was then, this is now.

  She had told Paul that she was not afraid, but that as long as the portrait of the Great Chairman hung above the entrance to the Forbidden City, as long the embalmed body of that murderer lay in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square, as long as people waited in line to pay him their respects, she would not trust the Communist Party of China. Only when a huge memorial to the victims of the Communist Party stood there and the leaders of the party fell to their knees before it and asked for the people’s forgiveness for the mistakes and errors the party had made and the millions of lives that these mistakes and errors had cost, only then would she be prepared to trust in this party, this leadership. She would wait patiently for that day. She had time—at least, she thought she did. But time had run out. Ge-ge needed help, urgently.

  She felt a sense of duty and responsibility more than any sisterly love. The only trace her brother had left in her life was his absence.

  Christine would go to him, but certainly not on her own.

  Paul was the only person she wanted to go with her, but also the last person she wanted to ask. Not if the fortune-teller warned against it. Unlike Paul, she was convinced that Wong Kah Wei knew things that they had no idea about.

  It was just after half-past eight; if she hurried, she could get the nine thirty ferry to Yung Shue Wan and come back on the last boat.

  * * *

  Paul was glad to hear her voice. Of course he had time to see her.

  He was waiting at the pier, leaning against the railing in his white T-shirt, black flip-flops, and the light-colored knee-length shorts that she had given him not long before. The wind ruffled his curly gray hair. She was struck anew how hard it was for people to guess his age. The deep lines around his eyes and mouth and the gray hair indicated that this was someone who had passed his fiftieth year, but his trim and muscular frame with no hint of a belly was that of a younger man, and his laugh could have been a child’s. She loved him for that too.

  He waited until she was in front of him. A tender look from his melancholy deep-blue eyes. “Good evening, Miss Wu. What a nice surprise to be able to greet you here.”

  She noticed the red strip of fabric around his wrist immediately.

  He stepped back from the railing, took her hand, and led her off the pier without saying anything more. The slapping sound of his flip-flops with every step. They turned off immediately after the pier and passed a small bookshop and a couple of tumbledown wooden shacks before walking up a hill. The path narrowed, and there were fewer and fewer streetlamps until there were none at all. But Paul had a flashlight with him and lit the way for her. They walked up the dirt track close together in single file. Twigs scratched Christine’s calves, and she stumbled over tree roots several times. There was a rustling sound in the bushes, and she was afraid she might step on a snake. He led her to an outcrop of land where there was an octagonal viewing pavilion with a curved, Chinese-style roof. They sat down on a bench. Paul put his arm around her and switched the flashlight off. The night sky was dark and cloudless, full of stars. They were sitting directly above the sea. Under them, little waves crashed against the rocks, and it smelled of salt and fish. In the distance, they could hear the dull drone of engines from the cargo ships that were lying at anchor near the island. He stroked her hair. They sat in silence next to each other; his right leg jiggled up and down constantly. She was familiar with that. A nervous habit of his when he was tense.

  “Now tell me, what did you absolutely have to tell me that made you come to Lamma late in the evening on a whim?” His voice sounded strained. He was not a good actor.

  “I got a letter. From my brother.”

  She showed him the letter. The beam of the flashlight traveled across the paper. He sighed heavily and gave the envelope back to her. She waited, wondering how he would react. Instead of saying anything, he took her in his arms. She resisted at first. She wanted to talk. She wanted to hear his opinion. She wanted to be free of all the thoughts that had crowded her mind in the previous few hours. Then she felt her body relaxing, her head sliding from his shoulder to his lap. The way her body grew limp and gave up all resistance. The tears in her eyes. The essence of grief. Old unshed tears. Fat and ugly. Bitter to the taste, like cold tea left for too long. They swelled out of her like thick pus from an old wound. That was then. This is now. How much strength it took to keep them apart. Then and now. Like two colors that were trying hard to blend. As soon as her strength ebbed, they managed it: Then is now. Now is then.

  She felt his hand in her hair, and she heard his voice whispering something she didn’t understand. It didn’t matter. The support in those words was enough for her. She had led a nonlife. Mama and Mei-mei. Not heard. Not comforted. Not caressed.

  She buried her head deeper in his lap. She wanted to stay there until he got up, picked her up in his arms, and carried her to his house like a sleeping child. Laid her in bed. Put the blanket over her. Turned off the light.

  Young tears followed the bitter old ones. They tasted different. Lighter, fresher, like saltwater.

  Then even they ran dry. Christine lay quietly, listening to her breath.

  He leaned over her and switched on his flashlight for a moment.

  “I thought you had fallen asleep.”

  “Almost,” she said, sitting up.

  “Have you phoned his daughter already?”

  Christine shook her head. “I don’t know what I should do.”

  “Why are you finding it so difficult to make a decision? Haven’t you made your calculations?” His voice held a hint of a smile that she could not see in the darkness.

  “Don’t be that way,” she replied, poking him in the stomach to show that she had understood his joke.

  Making decisions, or rather the speed with which she and Paul made decisions, was one of the things they often argued about. In her eyes, Paul was someone who hesitated and dithered. A person who thought things through, swung from one option to the other, struggled with himself, and constantly tried to see a matter from all sides. He himself said he was someone who “weighed things up with a passion.” We are the sum of our decisions, he said; that was why he was suspicious of people who always immediately knew what they wanted. Who instantly had an opinion on everything.

  She was one of those people. But she did not regard indecisiveness as a strength. Once she had gone shopping with him in a big supermarket in Hong Kong, and had nearly gone crazy. Yogurt from Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Germany. With four different levels of fat content. Six different kinds of Camembert from three different countries, and regular mineral water from four continents. Hell for Paul Leibovitz. The range was so great that they had left the store after half an hour and picked up their groceries later on Lamma instead. Life was easier for him there: yogurt from Hong Kong. Two flavors, the same fat content.

  She had tried several times to persuade him that most of these everyday decisions were not important, so it didn’t make sense to spend too much time on them. For important things, Christine took a piece of paper and
made a list of pros and cons. What was in favor, what was against? Advantages and disadvantages. All written down in two columns; at the end a line would be drawn and they would be added up. The question was always: What is this going to cost me? Credits and debits, a simple calculation. As soon as she had worked out the answer, the decision made itself.

  Paul thought that was idiotic. The really important things in life could not be categorized as pluses or minuses. They were always a plus and a minus, and could not be definitively put in one column or the other.

  She did not agree. Of course, lots of things had many advantages and disadvantages, but you had only to think things through consistently and honestly before you eventually knew what belonged where. To love a person or not. To be able to pay the interest on a home loan or not. Dead or alive.

  He envied her, Paul had replied, and she had not known what he had meant by that.

  Christine thought about her brother. “No,” she said in a tired voice, “I haven’t made my calculations.”

  “Then let me help you. On the ‘pro’ list, let’s enter: ‘Seeing a long-missed brother’; ‘More family because of his wife and children.’ But we’ll have to put that in brackets because we don’t know if they are nice people. They could appear on the list of minuses later.” He said nothing for a moment. “I can’t think of anything else right now. Let’s move to the minus side. There we have: ‘Costs money’; ‘Takes time’; ‘Takes energy’; ‘Taking a risk,’ because I don’t know how much money, time, and energy it will take; ‘Taking another risk,’ because I don’t know what he wants from me; ‘Taking a third risk,’ because I don’t know how things will go for me in China. Christine, you don’t need a mathematician to work that out. You’re not going.”

  “Are you serious?” He was often able to confuse her; at times like this, she was not sure whether he meant what he was saying or not.

  “I was just using your method. It really is quick. Impressive.”

  “But I can’t just ignore his request. What do you think?”

  “Why not? Did I forget something on the plus side? Shall we add it up again?”

  “No, but—”

  He interrupted her. “That’s what I’m always trying to explain to you: the heart doesn’t recognize credits or debits.” After a pause, he added, “Or at least, it doesn’t decide based on those criteria. It has its own.”

  Unfortunately, Christine thought. She did not think that the heart gave good advice. Her experiences of it had been bad. It was fickle and unreliable, easily swayed. Ignoring the results of the credit and debit tally had led her into making mistakes. Yet with Paul her heart had not been mistaken. From the very first moment she had been sure that there would be a balance of give and take. Her heart had not been put off even when her head had told her in the first few months that this unusual loner would disappoint her, that he was no longer capable of loving. The heart had known better, and it had been right.

  His voice tore her back from her thoughts. “Of course you’ll go to Shanghai. I’ll even go with you.”

  “You know I won’t allow that.”

  “And if I tell you that it won’t be dangerous for me at all?”

  “We’re not having this discussion again.”

  Paul fell silent and took several deep breaths. She saw his outline in the darkness, his chest rising and sinking as though he were out of breath. She had the feeling that many unsaid things were piling up between them.

  He picked up the flashlight and shined it in his own face. “Look at me. I too have something to tell you.”

  She knew him well enough to realize that he was trying to sound cheerful and relaxed, but the strain and tension he was feeling were unmistakable.

  “I’m listening,” she said, curious and cautious at the same time.

  “I went to see Master Wong.”

  “I don’t believe it. When?”

  “Yesterday evening. After we talked,” he said, switching off the light once more.

  “How did you get an appointment so quickly?”

  “It was all down to the fee.”

  “What did he say?”

  “That the tiger will eat the dog. And that the owl will soon fall from the tree.”

  “Stop it!” she said angrily. “The Chinese don’t have an owl in their zodiac. And neither one of us is a tiger or a dog.”

  “Alas. You found me out. He told me that I had nothing to worry about. The year of the pig won’t be a bad year for me.”

  She took the flashlight, switched it on, and shined it on his face, looking closely at him. His eyes seemed bluer than usual. They blinked in the beam of the light. He gazed past her into the darkness. Were his lips trembling, or was she imagining it? “You’re making that up.”

  “No.”

  “I thought you didn’t believe in astrology.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Why did you go to see him then?”

  “For your peace of mind. And mine. I couldn’t bear the thought of not seeing you for nine months.”

  She had hoped to find an answer in his eyes, in the lines around his mouth. She did not believe him, though she couldn’t say why. “Do you have the recording? I want to hear exactly what he said.”

  “Christine. Since when have you started interrogating me? He said quite clearly that I’m not in danger, no matter who I spend the next few months with. Isn’t that enough?”

  She thought for a moment. “What did he tell you about your past?”

  “That I had been married and divorced. That my parents were no longer alive. That I had had a son.”

  His voice sounded hoarse and exhausted. He swallowed a few times and cleared his throat. His long nose seemed more pointed than usual.

  “I don’t know if I should believe you.”

  “Call him.”

  “He wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  “As if trusting was only for fools. Who said that?”

  “Paul! I’m being serious.”

  “So am I.”

  She had no choice but to trust him, she knew that. Trust and hope. There was no alternative. Nevertheless, something in her resisted.

  “Why are you wearing that red strip of cloth around your wrist?”

  “It was Master Wong’s idea. Always wear something red to bring me more luck this year. I thought it couldn’t hurt.”

  “Any other advice?”

  “He recommended that I avoid water, which is difficult since I live on an island. Jade will help me. Red protects me. Three is a threat. I won’t become rich in the year of the pig. More is my lucky number.”

  “More?”

  “More. Like many. Often. Not enough. Never enough.”

  He made her laugh more than all the men before him together had. She loved him for that too.

  His right leg jiggled up and down violently, as if it were transmitting a Morse code message.

  “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, why?”

  “Your leg.”

  He laid a hand on his knee and held it still. “Better like that?”

  They saw the last ferry from Hong Kong appear at the end of the island.

  “If we hurry you’ll still catch it,” he said, standing up.

  “I thought you never ran to catch ferries or buses.”

  “I’ll make an exception today for you.”

  She sat listening to the whispering of the sea. “I want to stay with you.”

  IV

  * * *

  They had arranged to meet at six at the departure gate. It was tight timing—the gate would close ten minutes after that—but Christine had said that it was impossible for her to leave the office earlier. She had booked the China Southern flight at half-past six and reserved seats; she would come to the airport directly from town.

  Nine minutes after the hour he was the second-to-last passenger to board the plane. The airline staff cast a questioning glance at him just as Christine hurried down the corridor. She apolog
ized, and he could see the shadows under her eyes through her makeup, which she was sweating through.

  Row nine, a good number, he thought. There was no more space in the overhead compartment for her hand luggage.

  His seat was confining. The pocket in the seat in front of his had a deep tear in it. One of the reading lights in the row in front of his was not working. Small things like this that no one else probably cared about indicated to Paul the level of the plane’s maintenance. Not good signs. He looked out the window, uneasy.

  They approached the runway. Christine fetched a small case from her bag and gave it to him. Inside was a deep-red jade amulet in the shape of a small dragon, his zodiac animal. It hung from a reddish-brown leather strap, but was barely larger than his thumbnail, and was so finely carved and so thin that it seemed almost transparent when he held it up to the light. Although he did not know much about jade, he knew immediately that it was old and probably quite precious.

  “Red and made of jade. Like Master Wong recommended,” she said. “You know what the dragon means to us: it has protective powers and it’s a symbol of luck. It can make itself invisible and lives in the sky, the sea, the rivers, and the rain; it’s even in the mist. He will look after you.”

  “It’s so beautiful. Thank you so much.” He gave her a kiss. “Where did you get it?”

  “From my mother. She gave it to me many years ago. It was my father’s.”

  Paul started. “Your father? It didn’t bring him any luck.”

  “He didn’t wear it. My father rejected Chinese astrology, which he thought was stupid and superstitious. He got this from his father, who believed strongly in the influence of the stars and was a dragon like you.”

  “Did it help him?”

  “I think so. He lived to an old age.”

  “How old?”

  “He died at eighty-four in an attempt to swim across a river that was too wide. His body was never found.”