The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [28]
It’ll take two hours, Little Brother told us one Friday night, in the back room of the Sha Tin Bar. Cross the border, change some money, take a taxi, pick up some boxes, and go back home. What could be easier than that?
We looked at him skeptically. Little Brother is the youngest of five friends I’ve had since primary school—the Five Brothers, we call ourselves—and like a real little brother, he’s the wild one: he dyed his hair blond and started racing motorcycles in Form Three, when he was only fourteen. Now he owns his own repair shop in Mong Kok and takes his grandmother to play mah-jongg every Sunday.
What’s in the boxes? Siu Wong asked him.
Parts. Honda parts.
Are they stolen?
How should I know? All I heard is that they’re there. Half the price I pay for them to come from Japan.
Why do you need all five of us? I asked.
You never know what’s going to happen, he said. It’s Shenzhen, isn’t it? And I thought we might explore a little bit, since we’re there. You know, Hong Kong people live like kings in China. The best of everything. He winked.
I hesitated: it wasn’t my idea of a good way to spend a Sunday afternoon in April. But if he wanted my help, how could I refuse? It sounded so easy—all I had to do was bring my passport.
None of the five of us is married. I should have mentioned that.
When you step out of the border-crossing into Shenzhen, at first it seems that the air is full of dust, but actually it’s the pollution that gives the light a milky quality, even on the clearest of days. Everything seems oversized: wide, empty sidewalks and six-lane avenues, a train station that stretches across four city blocks, skyscrapers whose tops disappear in the haze. Even the policemen’s uniforms are baggy and loose, as if they were children playing dress-up in their parents’ clothes. All around you are things for sale—Nikes, North Face jackets, Tissot watches, new movies on VCD—and only when you move closer can you see the badly photocopied labels peeling off, the zippers hanging loose, the image blurred on the package. If you stop anywhere for too long somebody will push you from behind and snap a few harsh syllables you recognize, but only barely. I studied Mandarin in school, and speak it passably, but still I always remember what my mother used to say, that she could never trust anyone whose voice reminded her of a squeaking rodent, a rat caught in a trap.
All through that first taxi ride I kept my face close to the window, ignoring the conversation, trying to absorb everything I saw. Buildings made of white tile, the kind used for bathrooms, with windows of blue-tinted glass; a woman in a soldier’s jacket riding a bicycle, her daughter balanced precariously on the crossbar; a man in an ill-fitting suit and loafers, shoveling coal into a wicker basket. Little Brother standing on a sidewalk, smoking cigarette after cigarette and arguing with the shop owner in fractured Cantonese. It did no good: the parts had already been sold. I remember looking at my watch and realizing that four hours had already gone by, and thinking that when we arrived back at the border it would feel as if no time had passed at all.
I tell you what, Little Brother said at some point. Let’s not make this trip a total failure. I’ll take you guys to Club Nikko. It’s in the Radisson—we can walk to the border from there.
There’s a Radisson here?
Of course, he said impatiently. This is Shenzhen. They have everything.
Later I used to tease Lin about how she looked the first time we met: dressed in a white and baby-blue miniskirt, knee-high boots, and a Löwenbräu hat, a living commercial. She was a bar girl, who swooped down on tables before the waitress arrived, gave out free lighters and coasters, and offered Löwenbräu at a “special price,” and she was terrible at it. Her voice was high-pitched and squeaked with nervousness,