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Chapter 75 1/2
He woke up with a fever. He had caught a cold. He was weak and feeble. Vivian would come to him the day after tomorrow, but now he was sick! And from experience it would take at least seven days for him to get well.
Hah, this was embarrassing.
But he had to try. He must drink a lot of water to assist his immune system to fight the virus.
So during the day he boiled many kettles of water, and stayed many hours in bed. He applied his mental power, focusing his mind to kill the virus, and the effect had been amazing. By the next morning his fever was gone.
Hah, how happy was he.
Of course for the rest of the day he ought to be cautious, with utmost discretion not to offend the sky, the rain, the garden, the building, anything that appeared more powerful than him. And after promising himself he would walk slowly to save his energy, he decided to pay a visit to the bund.
Just coming out of the subway station, there was a beggar in the way. His face was mature, but his legs, crippled, were unnaturally thin and short. He crawled on the ground, one hand gripping a bowl. Bing, not prepared to give him any money, decided to steer clear of him. But for a moment the man looked up at him, with a pair of angry eyes as if he were somehow confronted. Bing was shocked, shuddered and briskly walked away.
On the bund, tourists were excited, with mobiles or cameras becoming their third hands. The clock on the tower of a building struck the time, together with a song of Oriental Redness – ‘Oriental redness, where the sun rises; out of China Mao Ze Dong emerges…’
He sat on a bench. The breeze was cool. He lay on his back, pondering the greyish sky. A security guard came and said he was not allowed to lie on the bench. So Bing sat up, he was humble. He didn’t like any uniform, unless it was worn by his sister, or stewardesses.
Indeed the legs of the Oriental Pearl Tower looked unsymmetrical, at least viewed from certain standpoints. Well, there must have been a reason, he thought, as he left the bund and began to stroll along Nanjing Pedestrians Road, where the people walked in leisure, like the lazy water in a river. Then he heard music from a saxophone, played by a man dressed in suit and tie, standing on the balcony of a grand building. It was a waltz; some strollers began to dance, on the neat and grand marble surface. Their faces were festively happy; the women’s waists were touched by the men’s gentle hands.
Needless to say, the onlookers, to whom Bing belonged, outnumbered the dancers. And due to the crowd, the dancers could only take little steps, round and round on the same spot, so that Bing was able to hear an Asian man and a Caucasian woman speaking in English.
‘Where are you from?’ the man asked.
‘The US,’ said the lady, about sixty.
The man, in sunglasses and with a stiff white collar, said, ‘Oh, I am from Shanghai,’ and made a comment, ‘the music is very good.’
‘Yes, indeed,’ she smiled, who had to push up her handbag as frequently as it slipped from her shoulder. ‘Does this happen very often?’
‘Pardon?’The man lowered his head.
‘I mean do the music and dance often take place here?’
‘Oh, I see,’ the man said, missing the point, and asked, ‘do you come here to visit Shanghai?’
‘Yes, Shanghai is my first stop.’
‘Oh, that is very good.’
The music was at its last note, but the man seemed reluctant in releasing her. ‘Thank you very much, enjoy your stay in Shanghai.’
‘Thank you, thank you,’ the lady said cheerfully.
She was leaving, when the next song began and she was asked by another man, ‘Madam, can we dance?’
The lady hesitated, but she smiled.
‘Come, come, enjoy life,’ the man said, widely spreading his hands. ‘Good music, let’s enjoy life.’
So the lady shifted her bag to her shoulder again and accepted his invitation.
‘The music is very good,’ said the man. ‘Where are you from?’
‘The US.’
‘Do you often visit China?’
‘Not really, this is my first time,’ the lady said amiably, ‘I have been busy looking after my kids.’
‘Pardon?’
‘I mean I have three children.’
‘Oh, that is too many. We have just one in China.’
‘Yes, they have kept me very busy.’
‘Yes,’ said the man, straightening his back. ‘Where is your husband? Has he come with you?’
‘My husband? He died last year.’
‘Oh…’
From then on till the end of the music, the man said no more. The lady left; her tall figure lost in the stream of neon lights and people.
Next morning he stayed in the hotel waiting for Vivian. The flight he had booked for her would arrive at 11:20am. He had also offered to pick her up at the airport, but she said she wasn’t a child and would go directly by herself to his hotel.
So he was on the bed, allowing his sexual drive come and go in cycles. He took a shower and ate breakfast, expecting Vivian would be in his arms about 12pm.
Then he thought he heard a knock at the door. He bounced off the bed, opened the door and found only a room attendant smiling at him. ‘Sorry to disturb, I thought you were out,’ she said, ‘I will clean your room later.’
‘Thank you, but I may stay inside the room for the rest of the day, maybe leave it until tomorrow?’
‘Okay, thank you,’ she said, pushing the cart away.
Not long afterwards there was another knock on the door that opened and closed again. He pulled her in. She dropped her luggage onto the floor. Her lips and her breasts were soft. His hands trembled under her clothes.
‘Let me take a shower first,’ she panted, now on the bed. ‘I feel sticky.’
‘I want to shower with you,’ he said.
‘Haven’t you already done that?’
‘Yes, but I want to shower with you.’
‘Haha.’
So with his hands he brushed the shower gel on her, and with his body he mopped hers, and with his tongue he licked her clitoris. And it didn’t take a while before she lost control of her voice, to groan, and sigh and even scream.
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘but, no, no, don’t,’ she pull away his penis, ‘I am having my period.’
‘What?’
‘It just came the other day,’ she said, stroking it. ‘Don’t know why this month came earlier.’
‘Because you have missed me so much,’ he said, thrusting his tongue into her mouth, where it twisted a while. ‘Because you have missed so much a peasant lad?’
‘Yes, a conceited lad, an Australian village lad.’
‘So what could I do with it?’
She whispered, ‘This is the price you have to pay, for not informing me in advance of your trip.’
But he didn’t mind her words. He pressed her shoulder, pushed her head down.
She fingered it, before she took it.
This was unimaginable.
Combing her hair and ears, he asked, ‘Vivian, can we live like this forever?’
But her mouth, fully engaged, couldn’t reply. Her nose was sharper, and her eyes became slanted because of the job.
‘Take a rest,’ he said, gently pushing her head away. She got up; he looked into her eyes. ‘Vivian, I love you,’ he said in a tone that was suddenly turned serious
‘I love you too, Bing,’ she whispered, leaning her face on his chest, her breasts soothing his ribs. He remembered she had once comforted him like this before, on the day when his friend Kang departed from him.
They were quiet. She understood him; she understood his humbleness, his vanity, and his impulses. So when he began to sob, she was not surprised. She kissed him, cupped his cheeks, until his emotion flooded back to his loins.
He dried her, then dried himself. He led her out of the bathroom, onto the bed, where he loved her, entered her. He knew she wanted him, and couldn’t refuse him.
‘Vivian,’ he said.
‘Eh?’
‘Can we live like this forever?’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you sure you won’t be tired with me,’ she said. ‘Never?’
‘Yes.’
Then suddenly her body began to wriggle. ‘Bing, I feel strange,’ she said, ‘so strange.’
‘Strange?’
‘Yes…’ She quivered. ‘Ah, Bing, please, please love me.’
On the sheet there were some streaks of blood, that represented her virginity.
They had lunch at the Red House Western-Style Restaurant. Its exterior was common, not like its gracious interior.
They ordered a lamb, a steak, a fruit salad, a French-snail, and a goose-liver, and a bottle of red wine.
‘Did you say Zhang Ai Ling used to dine here?’ he asked, while pouring two glasses of wine.
‘Yes, her favourite was the steak with mustard sauce.’
‘Hah, is that the reason you ordered the steak?’
‘Well, kind of,’ she began to cut the beef, ‘but I am not a great fan of hers.’
‘I just heard about her.’
‘What? Haven’t you read her books?’
‘No, I know a little about her book Red Rose and White Rose, something about mosquito blood and rice grain that sticks to a man’s clothes.’
‘Haha, is that all?’
‘Yes.’ He lifted the glass for a contact. ‘She must be very famous. She was a Shanghainese, wasn’t she?’
‘Yes,’ she sipped the wine. ‘You don’t read books?’
‘I read some, back in the university.’
‘I began reading her books at my middle school.’
‘Really?’ The lamb was very tender. ‘I reckon her readers are mostly women?’
‘Well, maybe, but anybody can read it.’
‘So how good is it?’
‘Well, how can I say.’ Vivian cut a small piece of goose liver and ate. ‘She was sharp, sensitive, and pessimistic. She told truth, though in a cruel way. Well, you had better read it yourself.’
‘I may.’
The small amount of meat in the snail was not much to taste. He still preferred the Australian clam with blood and flesh. And the goose liver tasted a bit strange. He couldn’t describe it properly. But the wine and lamb were beautiful.
‘What do you do after work?’ Vivian opened the topic unexpectedly.
‘Me? Some TV, internet forum.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Well, I have just divorced,’ he said, chewing. ‘A new lifestyle is yet to form.’
‘Many people say Australia is like a village.’
‘Well, you have been there twice, you know what it is like,’ he said. ‘It is of course different from China.’
‘I just can’t envision what one is supposed to do after work.’
‘What do you do here after work?’
‘A lot of things.’
‘For example?’
‘Dinner, bar, concert, movie, book reading, travelling, camping, hairdressing, facial masking, feet-washing.’
‘Then you can do those in Australia as well, except feet-washing, I think,’ He said, though conscious of the fact that Qiuyan, and many others he knew, had scarcely done these activities as pastimes. ‘Of course, an average family with children and a mortgage may not be able to afford both time and money to lead such a life.’
‘How about your work?’
‘Just a job.’
‘You don’t like it? Don’t have some kind of ambitions like people here usually have?’
‘You mean, to make more money?’
‘Sort of, but not just money. Success. Achievement.’
‘I know what you mean.’ He chewed, thoughtfully. ‘I don’t feel a passion, a drive for something like that.’
‘For me, I don’t dislike what I am doing. I have many friends, we do many things together.’
‘I know.’
‘Have you considered coming back to China?’
‘Sometimes. If anything, the reason might be more for my mum’s sake.’
‘Is your mum not well?’
‘Yes, she is fine, with my sister.’ He sipped. ‘She is lonely, not as happy as she used to be.’
After lunch, Vivian led him to Colourful Café, the place she said was just under the building where Zhang Ai Ling used to live.
‘Do you often come here?’ he asked.
‘Not now, quite often in my younger years though.’
Bing went to the book display. ‘Maybe I need to buy one or two of her books?’
‘No need, I have plenty at my home.’
Bing was delighted at her mentioning her home. ‘Please lend me your favourite,’ he said, then noticing a photo on the wall, he added, ‘so this is her? Strange, I felt you resemble her not a little.’
‘What? You are kidding.’
‘I don’t mean your face, which is of course more beautiful than hers,’ he said. ‘Deportment? Disposition? Temperament? Or the eyes? Or her dress?’
‘How can you know? From just a photo?’ Vivian chuckled. ‘You need to read her book to understand her.’
Now the music was on, being played by an old-fashioned gramophone. With its enormous flare bell casting upwards, the instrument was the first of its kind Bing had ever seen. ‘What a thing, is that something belonging to old Shanghai.’
‘Interesting, isn’t it?’
They came back to their seats. More customers were around; among them, he noticed two or three western visitors.
‘Why are there foreigners here?’
‘Well, Eileen is not just famous in China.’
‘Eileen?’
‘That is her English name,’ Vivian said, ‘It actually came from the English ‘ailing’, but her original name was not even Ai Ling.’
‘Really? Ailing? As weak as Lin Dai Yu characterised in the book of Dream of Red Chamber?’ Bing threw another glance at the photo, but he didn’t see the sort of weakness like that of the heroine in the famous Chinese classic novel.
The waitress came over, handing over two cups of coffee, and left.
‘The coffee here is not too bad,’ Vivian commented.
Bing sipped the coffee, ‘I can’t tell any difference.’
‘You don’t drink coffee?’
‘Rarely.’
‘Tea?’ she stirred the coffee with the spoon, ‘or just beer?’
‘Just beer,’ he laughed.
‘Then, tonight let’s go to a bar.’
He was glad. ‘Thank you, you are so kind.’
‘Haha, you sound like you’re an alcoholic.’
The music was soft and languid, with an effect of luring one to sleep.
She said, ‘I used to stay here for whole afternoons, reading a book.’
‘Did you? I didn’t realize you could be so sentimental.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean you impressed me more with your vitality and flaming charm, but not so much with your sentimentality.’
‘Well, how much do you know about me?’ she smiled ruefully.
Slightly abashed, he didn’t answer. Yes, indeed, what kind of person is she? He doesn’t even know what books she likes, what things she likes to do, and for what reasons she had married her first husband. And how much in his remembrance of her has been real, how much imaginary? And why every time he was making love with her, he was assured in himself he loved her? Then as soon as he rolled off her body, as soon as she resumed the frame of her personality, she grew distant to him?
Of course, they had not lived together for any meaningful period of time. But if they did, what picture was it going to be? What things and qualities in him really made her admire him? Before it might have been his guitar skills, but today he had nothing, and she was a woman with fastidious tastes and elegance and greed that had been nurtured and stewed for hundreds of years in a kind of cultural container, stuffed with a multitude of sweet and stale substances belonging particularly to this city, massed up by – oh, what a number! – more than twenty million people.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked, obviously having detected his silence and the turn of his mood.
He lifted his eyelids, and said calmly, ‘I am thinking of marrying you.’
Under his gaze, her eyes and cheeks went through a palpable wave of joyful surprise. ‘Hehe, are you proposing?’
‘Yes.’
‘If we marry, do you want me to live in Australia? Or you come back to China?’
‘Is that an issue?’ his voice was tinged with an involuntary indignation.
Apparently she had detected his resentment in his voice. She smiled gently, and with a melting feminine tenderness, she pacified him, ‘Hehe, then you come back to China, will you?’
‘Me?’ he drank the coffer, which was already cold and bitter. ‘What can I do in China?’
‘See, you are not so much an impractical person,’ she said.
‘But why?’ he was not pacified, ‘Why do we make it impossible? It is not that I can’t go back China, I can. If I can’t survive in this city, I can go anywhere to teach English, or to be a farmer, so long as I can live with you. Is there anything in this world that has to screw up an obvious matter like this?’
She didn’t respond.
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