The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [36]
Her eyes were bloodshot, and there was a streak of rouge smeared across her nose. And I felt I couldn’t tolerate her stubbornness for a moment longer. It seemed perverse, almost artificial, and I felt myself getting angry, a rim of hot sweat around my lips.
The rest of the world isn’t Shenzhen, I said. You don’t have to see it that way. We don’t have to see it that way. Once you’ve left China everything will be different.
She gave a small cry, like a cat when you step on its paw, and reached over and slapped me across the face. Don’t tell me about the rest of the world! she shouted. Don’t tell me what you can do for me. Is that what love is? She moved to the other side of the bed and stood up, winding the sheet around her. No more, she said. I’m almost out of money. I have to move out of my room.
You didn’t tell me that.
I’m getting rid of my mobile, she said. I’m leaving my job.
What will you do?
Don’t ask me that question.
Lin, I said, don’t I deserve an answer?
She turned to the window, covering her face with her hands, the sheet sagging around her ankles. You should forget about me, she said hoarsely, her voice muffled in her palms. I warned you. You should never have expected anything from me.
I don’t believe you, I said. I know what you want. You only have to be brave and want it enough.
She took a corner of the sheet and wrapped it again around her chest, and blew her nose with her fingers, the way farmers do. It isn’t a question of bravery, she said. You still don’t understand.
I blinked my eyes once, twice; the room seemed to bend around me, like a reflection in one of those funny mirrors at Ocean Park. Lin, I said, it doesn’t matter who has the money and who doesn’t. If I were in your position—
If I lived in Hong Kong, you would never have noticed me, she said, turning from the window. You wouldn’t have looked at me twice. Isn’t that true?
No, I said, but I felt a sagging weight in my chest, as if I had swallowed a stone. Of course it was true. I saw myself again in the dark back corner of Club Nikko, handing her a packet of tissues, a business card—when would I have done that, in my normal life, with a stranger? It isn’t important, I wanted to say. How can it be so important? But the words wouldn’t form on my tongue. I saw my face as she must have seen it: my eyebrows tilted in concern, my mouth slowly forming the syllables, as if I were talking to a child. I hadn’t meant to sound that way, I thought. But how else could she have heard it?
Pity isn’t love, she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. It doesn’t turn into love. Maybe I thought it could, but I was wrong. I’m sorry if I deceived you.
This can’t be the end, I said weakly. I sat down on the edge of the bed, steadying myself with my hands; the floor seemed to fall away from me, curving into the trough of a wave. For a moment I thought I would be sick. You are making a terrible mistake, I wanted to shout. You’ll always regret this. But I knew how she would respond. I made that mistake already.
I think you’re lying to me, I shouted at her suddenly. I wasn’t even aware of what I was saying; I only felt my shoulders clenched together, as if I was expecting the ceiling to fall. You’re not really out of a job, are you? You’re just sick of me and you want someone else. It’s a convenient excuse, isn’t it?
She turned and stared at me, and a shiver of recognition ran down her body: as if I had confirmed something she had always known. I’m going home, she said. Back to Anhui. Maybe I’ll get a job. Probably not. I don’t care if I have to eat rice out of a hole in the ground. At least I won’t be one of those women who sits in a villa and waits for a man, like a wind-up toy. I may go crazy, but not that way.
We took a taxi together from Nanhai Lu into the city, and at a street corner, just blocks away from the border, she told the driver to stop and got out quickly, without saying a word. Hey! the driver shouted. Pay your fare!
It’s all right, I said. I’m paying for both of us.
As I walked to the border terminal the clouds were