The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [4]
Then what’s the point?
She strode across the room to the window and leaned out, placing her hands on the sill and bending at the waist. Come here, she said; look. I stood up and walked over to her. She ducked her head down, like a gymnast on a bar, and tilted forward, her feet lifting off the floor.
Alice!
I grabbed her shoulder and jerked her upright. She stumbled, falling back; I caught her wrist and she pulled it away, steadying herself. We stood there a moment staring at each other, breathing in short huffs that echoed in the hallway.
Maybe I hear something and forget, she said. You catch me then. OK?
28 January
It is like photo negative, all the colors are the opposite. Black sky, white trees, this way. But they are still shapes—I can see them.
I read standing at the window, in a last sliver of sunlight. Alice stands on my desk, already well in shadow, turning around slowly as if trying to dizzy herself for a party game. Her winter uniform cardigan is three sizes too large; unbuttoned, it falls behind her like a cape.
This is beautiful.
Quiet, she hisses, eyebrows bunched together above her headband. One second. There—there.
What is it?
A man on the stairs.
I go out into the hallway and stand at the top of the stairwell, listening. Five floors below, very faintly, I hear sandals skidding on the concrete, keys jangling on the janitor’s ring.
You heard him open the gate, I say. That’s cheating.
She shakes her head. I hear heartbeat.
The next Monday Principal Ho comes to see me during the lunch hour. He stands at the opposite end of the classroom, as always: a tall, slightly chubby man, in a tailored shirt, gold-rimmed glasses, and Italian shoes, who blinks as he reads the ESL posters I’ve tacked up on the wall. When he asks how my classes are, and I tell him that the girls are unmotivated, disengaged, he nods quickly, as if to save me the embarrassment. How lucky he was, he tells me, to go to boarding school in Australia, and then pronounces it with a flattened A, Austrahlia, so I have to laugh.
Principal Ho, I ask, do you know Alice Leung?
He turns his head toward me and blinks more rapidly. Leung Ka Yee, he says. Of course. You have problem with her?
No sir. I need something to hold; my hands dart across the desk behind me and find my red marking pen.
How does she perform?
She’s very gifted. One of the best students in the class. Very creative.
He nods, scratches his nose, and turns away.
She likes to work alone, I say. The other girls don’t pay much attention to her. I don’t think she has many friends.
It is very difficult for her, he says slowly, measuring every word. Her mother is—her mother was a suicide.
In the courtyard, five stories down, someone drops a basketball and lets it bounce against the pavement; little pings that trill and fade into the infinite.
At Wo Che estate, Ho says. He makes a little gliding motion with his hand. Nowadays this is not so uncommon in Hong Kong. But still there are superstitions.
What kind of superstitions?
He frowns and shakes his head. Difficult to say in English. Maybe just that she is unlucky girl. Chinese people, you understand—some are still afraid of ghosts.
She isn’t a ghost.
He gives a high-pitched, nervous laugh. No, no, he says. Not her. He puts his hands into his pockets, searching for something. Difficult to explain. I’m sorry.
Is there someone she can talk to?
He raises his eyebrows. A counselor, I am about to say, and explain what it means, when my hand relaxes, and I realize I have been crushing the pen in my palm. For a moment I am waterskiing again at Lake Patchogue: releasing the handle, settling against the surface, enfolded in water. When I look up Ho glances at his watch.
If you have any problem you can talk to me.
It’s nothing, I say. Just curious, that’s all.
She wears the headband all the time now, I’ve noticed: pulling it over her eyes whenever possible, in the halls between classes, in the courtyard at lunchtime, sitting by herself. No one shoves her or calls her names; she passes through the crowds unseen. If possible,