Kowloon Tong (11 page)

"Why not ask my mother?" he said. "She likes a party."

"This is between men," Mr. Hung said.

That meant he already had her signature.

And it also meant that instead of befriending his mother, who was grateful and would have enjoyed a chance to tell him
stories, Hung had attached himself to Bunt, who resented him. It was as though, having proven Bunt to be weak, Hung now wanted to insinuate himself further, to exploit him more, to exhibit ownership, to toy with him, to savor the foreign devil's humiliation.

Without using the word—maybe he didn't know the word—Hung seemed to want to subject Bunt to a binge. "Must celebrate properly" was all he said, but Bunt knew what he meant: a bust, a blowout, a knees-up, more. That was very English in some ways, Bunt felt, but it was Chinese too.

Something about feasting revealed a background of poverty and deprivation where there was never abundance, where binging was infrequent and longed for, a fantasy of pleasure that was a kind of greedy madness, like drunks who sang themselves hoarse and stuffed their faces every Christmas until they puked all over their shoes. Many of the English people in Hong Kong behaved like that. Bunt suspected his mother to be that way until she said, "People who do that sort of thing are common," and then he was convinced of her passion for it, because, almost without exception, what she most yearned for she condemned.

"It's just so pig-ignorant to talk about money the way people here do," she had been fond of saying before Mr. Hung came along with his nine million Hong Kong dollars, each Honkers and Shankers bank note showing a lantern-jawed lion.

The repeated invitation to celebrate—"tie one on" was the way Bunt interpreted it—would have indicated to any sensible person that Mr. Hung was from a peasant family that had never known a good harvest. Mr. Hung was from China. China was
deprived. They were all like that, well spoken but threadbare, polite but ruthless. They were civilized cannibals, who used napkins and had decent table manners but nevertheless flourished by sinking their teeth into you. Bunt would have been worried otherwise, for Mr. Hung's good English did not hint at sophistication. He was simply better educated than the stiffs in Hong Kong, which was no distinction—the colony's schools were appalling.

Mr. Hung kept at it, calling him at work.

Bunt soon reached the point—which seemed inevitable given his browbeaten nature, especially when the other person was persistent—of knowing that eventually he would have to agree to some sort of party. Nagging succeeded with him where reason failed: it was his mother's doing. The only question was, what sort of party?

"If it's a banquet you're thinking of," said Bunt, who was used to Hong Kong banquets—the tedium, the indistinguishable dishes, the waste, the transparent disguises of food, the fish heads, the pigs' feet, the spongy tripe, the tendons, fifteen courses of this glop were not unusual—"any sort of banquet, you're wasting your time. Chinese food gives me a splitting headache."

"Not a banquet, just we two," Mr. Hung said.

But that was as bad as a banquet. Bunt, feeling weak, feared being near the man who had broken him. And Hung was so eager—that also made Bunt reluctant.

"Just a drink then," Bunt said.

"More than one!" Mr. Hung cried out.

A binge, in other words. When a Chinese person, any Chinese person, had two drinks, he turned red and gasped and looked stricken and paralytic, with bloodshot puffy eyes and an expression of agony. The Chinese did not get drunk, they got sick—their livers couldn't process the alcohol—and it was not a pretty sight when they were laid low, struggling to ventilate, striking the belly-clutching postures of poison victims.

"I suppose I could meet you for a drink," Bunt said, intrigued by his reverie of Hong Kong drunks.

If the drink was strong enough it would mean an early night, and when Mr. Hung agreed, Bunt began to relish the sight of him lying on his side next to the bar, with a red swollen face, vomity froth on his lips, a blue tongue, and steam shooting out of his ears.

"By the way," Bunt said, "my mum is getting a bit anxious about the deal."

"I will bring you up to speed when we meet."

When a person in Hong Kong used jargon correctly, especially American jargon, it was a sign that you had to proceed with caution.

E
AGER TO GET
it over with, murmuring
Never again,
Bunt arrived at the Regent early and stared across the busy harbor at the top of the Upper Peak tram station, his way of locating the Peak fire station roof and tracing the treetops to Albion Cottage. The sight of home calmed him. He was glad that he had gotten here first because of the chance it gave him to observe Mr. Hung, moon-faced and confused, entering the lobby bar. In this glimpse, Bunt learned a little more about the man, his awkwardness and impatience, his unfriendly way with the waiters. Hung had a soldier's way of walking and an officer's arrogance, as though he expected people to step aside. But they didn't, and it made him stumble and bat his hands. What was he holding?

"There you are," he said, seeing Bunt. Attempting to smile, Mr. Hung merely assumed an expression of greed.

Standing at attention, nodding slightly, he kept his hungry look and tapped a cigarette on the case of his cellular phone. His suit was the one he had worn at Fatty's Chophouse, the label still on the sleeve. His new shirt was creased where it had been folded in the box, and his tie was badly knotted. His shoes were brilliant black.

"Here I am," Bunt said, looking at Hung closely. His father had stood stiffly that way, and he had seen men in clubs with that posture. Hong Kong was a business center but it was also a garrison—so many men had a military background. Bunt studied the way Hung carried himself and wondered, Had Hung ever mentioned the army?

"So good to see you again," Hung said.

With his teeth clamped shut, Hung poked the buttons on his phone in a hard, destructive way, as though putting out its eyes.

"I'm glad you started without me," he said.

The Chinese man had mastered the insincere formalities of English, but what did it matter? He still looked like a snake and he spoke with menacing friendliness.

And in this new setting, aspects of the man were revealed that Bunt had not noticed before. It was obvious here that Hung was a country mouse. So many of them were, the ones from China, and it showed in a comic way when they came to Hong Kong, especially in the bar of a luxury hotel. The man who was just a face in the crowd at Tsim Sha Tsui was lost here. No sooner had he tapped his cigarette on the cellular phone and started to light it than the phone peep-peeped and he lost the call, juggling the instrument and dropping his cigarette. The waiter whisked it back into his hands, which made Mr. Hung look more incompetent, because the waiter had acted with the sort of arrogant poise that looks deferential.

"I'm sorry, smoking's not allowed in this area," the waiter said, looking pleased as Mr. Hung frowned and stubbed the thing out.

"Brandy," Mr. Hung said.

Bunt was glad, alcohol was always toxic to the Chinese system, and he wanted the pleasure of seeing Hung stiffen and turn red and finally croak. Brandy! At six in the evening!

"Do you have a preference, sir?"

"The best," Hung said, and that gave it away, the posturing, for only the most ignorant drinker would say that. "The best" was a bumpkin's boast.

Bunt smiled, feeling superior at last, as Mr. Hung shoved his cuff away from his watch. Just a plastic watch, the sort of economy a Hong Kong Chinese would never make. Unwittingly drawing attention to its cheapness—it was little more than a toy, the sort of thing his mother called a pup—Hung kept looking at it.

The waiter brought his brandy in a snifter on a tray. Hung seized it and said, "Cheers."

As though impelled by a sudden thirst, he drained the glass and was almost immediately rendered glassy-eyed. He squinted, his speech slowed, and so, within minutes of arriving at the Regent he was simplified and blunted.

But the brandy also gave Hung a nastier face, and once again he looked to Bunt like a soldier, no longer an officer but now an enlisted man. Muttering numbers in Chinese, he stabbed at the buttons on his cellular phone and got a busy signal. He cursed and looked around.

"Are you expecting someone?" Bunt asked.

Bunt had never seen him look so confused, but of course Hung was out of his element and that made a person impatient and restless. The waiter attempted to speak to him in Cantonese, which Mr. Hung did not understand, then he spoke to him in English, which Mr. Hung misheard, and it made the waiter smile and stare at him as though he were a dog attempting a trick. Mr. Hung would have fared better in a more pretentious place, where, in return for tips, the waiters were more forgiving and eager to please. But like the others who came from China, Mr. Hung had not learned that to get on in Hong Kong you had to hand out generous tips. Left to himself, among hostile or unhelpful waiters, Mr. Hung seemed especially awkward, and in his innocence he did not seem to understand that he was failing.

"I suggest that we drink up and then go," Bunt said. "I'd like to have an early night."

Hearing a petitioning tone in his voice, he was annoyed with himself and also uncomfortably aware of his mind rushing forward to his mother in the badly lit lounge in the bungalow, reading tripe and waiting for him in her dressing gown and fuzzy slippers.
I was seeing your friend Mr, Hung, thanks very much, Mum.

Bunt smiled angrily, completely in the dark as to why he was being kept waiting. So Mr. Hung was asserting himself again, or was this just the random behavior of reckless boozing?

"They'll be here shortly, I expect," Mr. Hung said.

He spoke slowly because he was drunk, but his drunkenness gave his manner of speaking even more precision. One of the most irritating Hong Kong experiences to Bunt was hearing someone he knew to be a complete bastard—someone he disliked, especially a Chinese businessman—speaking English correctly. He knew that proper English intimidated Americans in Hong Kong, but he had too much pride to attempt a posh accent.

Bunt had wanted the brandy to turn Mr. Hung into an oik, but it merely made him more pompous and tyrannical. Bunt refused to say anything more—why should he help Mr. Hung hold a conversation? He tried to make himself drunk enough to ignore the situation and tried to think of excuses to leave.

"Oh, there they are. Jolly good," Mr. Hung said.

Bunt looked up and saw a waiter guiding Mei-ping and Ah Fu through the lounge.

"You know each other?" Bunt asked.

Mei-ping bowed her head shyly. At such times she could look like a kitten: she had a feline face and soft skin, large eyes, no chin. Ah Fu smiled in apprehension. Bunt ruefully shared their nervousness, but for a different reason. His fears had been justified. Mr. Hung was advertising another of his secrets, an important one, making him weaker and Mr. Hung stronger.

"We just happened to meet by chance," Mr. Hung said.

"At the factory," Ah Fu said. "Kowloon Tong."

Ah Fu was pretty in a duck-like way, gabbled like a duck too, with a sort of Cantonese quack in her voice, and she looked around the lounge with her whole head turning on her long neck.

"Pure coincidence actually," Mr. Hung said.

Plonker,
Bunt said to himself.

"He say you are his friend," Mei-ping said.

What was odd and touching was the way in which Hung's fluent English allowed him to lie, while the women's plainer struggle with the language was so truthful.

"That you his partner," Ah Fu said.

"In actual fact it's absolutely true, isn't it, Neville?"

It was the first time Hung had used his name, and it was so cruel the way he trotted it out, as though daring Bunt to deny it. Mei-ping, his lover with whom he had been naked, had never dared utter his name.

"Could be," Bunt said, angry with Hung for everything now: the deal, the drink, the two women; subverting his mother, setting up his lover. Bunt was baffled by how Hung could possibly have known about Mei-ping. Hung had given her the blue sweater. The business in Jack's Place—
Your friend paid—
was easy to explain, since Bunt was a fairly regular customer. But Bunt had been careful to keep his relationship with Mei-ping hidden. Yet Hung had found out. So Bunt was cautioned. Inviting Mei-ping and Ah Fu was Hung's way of intimidating him and boasting of his knowledge. How much more did he know?

"I'll have to be going soon," Bunt said.

It was an ineffectual excuse. He wanted to escape. He wanted to hide. Yet he could not leave the two unsuspecting women with this man who had already insinuated himself in his life.

"After we eat," Hung said.

It was what Bunt had feared most—Hung realizing his power and asserting himself.

"That's what I mean," Bunt said, because there was nothing else he could say, and he sulked in the taxi all the way to the restaurant, jammed next to Mei-ping. He was aroused by her small, nervous bird bones quivering against his body.

A Chinese restaurant—and the name Golden Dragon was familiar—yet he had told Mr. Hung more than once that he hated Chinese food, didn't eat it, hadn't touched it for years, because it gave him headaches and kept him awake. So why were they sitting in the Golden Dragon sipping tea while a waitress used tongs to offer them cold towels rolled and cased in plastic like sausages?

Hung meant to defy him. It was not subtle—they never were, anyway. This was the place Hung had wanted to go when his mother had insisted on Fatty's. And yes, in his ridiculously furnished flat, with its white shag carpets and its silly glass cabinet and absurd clock, Bunt had seen an ashtray labeled
Golden Dragon,
like the one here on this table. How appropriate that the Chinese businessman had stolen it.

Mei-ping and Ah Fu sat together, meekly whispering, while Hung held a menu and ordered the food. Bunt resented them now. How could he feel sorry for them? Their showing up was conspiratorial. Here were his trusted employees from Imperial Stitching—one of them his lover, sex partner anyway—helping Hung bully him.