The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [42]
All right, he says, and sits down, just to get them to leave. But they linger, watching him, and so he has to lift his legs and stretch out his long frame, his feet sticking out over the edge. Wah, the old man says. Hou cheung ah! Good, he thinks, I’m learning Chinese now. He closes his eyes, and hears the door creak and slam shut. Hell, he thinks, as long as I’m here, why not? He puts his hands behind his head and takes a deep breath.
This wasn’t my choice, he repeats to himself, imagining Ford’s face, those enormous, red-rimmed eyes. I’m delivering a message. I’m sorry I have to be the one. And then, in the moment before he falls asleep, his father’s face appears in front of him. They are standing at the bus station, the day he left for Williams, waiting to load his duffel bag and new suitcase into the luggage compartment, and suddenly his father turns to him, his mouth twitching, as if to say, don’t do anything I’d be ashamed of, or words to that effect. But the words never come. After a moment, his father looks away, picks up the enormous duffel with one hand, as if it were a paper bag, and tosses it across the sidewalk into the bus driver’s hands.
He wakes when the throbbing of the engine stops, and hears feet thumping on the deck below, voices calling from the pier. The old man and the girl are gone. He stands up stiffly and sees a concrete jetty, and the low white buildings of a small village stretching along the edge of a long, curving bay.
When he steps off the gangplank, he hears someone calling his name in a high voice. Mr. Thomas? Mr. Thomas? A tall, dark-skinned woman, in a white blouse and turquoise skirt, carrying a basket of vegetables under her arm. I am Vinh, she says. I work for Mr. Ford. May I carry your bag?
No thanks, he says. I’ll carry it. There’s something about her face he can’t quite grasp. She has high cheekbones and a long, tapering chin, and her eyes are oval: perhaps Thai, or Filipino? Or Indian? She turns, flinging a long black braid over her shoulder, and he has to hurry to keep up with her pace. They pass a row of seafood restaurants with open terraces, and stores with their wares stacked on the sidewalk: plastic tubs, straw hats, brooms, crates of oil and oyster sauce. Vinh turns left, and they climb up a sloping street, narrowly avoiding a cluster of children running at full tilt, their flip-flops slapping the ground.
Is the house far from here? Marcel asks. He never imagined Ford living in any place like this: so remote, so—Third World, he thinks. For lack of a better word.
A little farther, she says, waving a hand in front of them. The alley widens and levels out; now the houses are set back from the road, and spread farther apart. Here, Vinh says, and stops in front of an old iron gate spotted with flakes of red paint.
When Marcel steps inside he lets out a low whistle under his breath. The house is surrounded by an elaborate tropical garden: massive ferns, dwarf palm trees, hibiscus, oleander, birds of paradise, orchids, flowers he can’t name. Ford stands on a stone pathway leading to the front door, holding a watering can, in loose cotton pants and a collarless tunic, barefoot, and Marcel suddenly is aware of the thickness of his oxford-cloth shirt, his feet sweating in tasseled loafers. The door closes, and he realizes that Vinh has disappeared into the house without a word.
Thought it would be you, Ford says, extending his hand. Excuse the informality.
Quite a place you’ve got here.
Oh, it’s Vinh, Ford says. I just do what she tells me. A garden, you know, is a work of art. Like a painting. You can only have one painter.
My mother is just the same way, Marcel says with a tentative laugh. Ford opens the door and gestures for him to enter. Only with her it’s daffodils and rhododendrons, he says, stepping inside. Not the same, I guess.
No, Ford says. Not exactly the same.
The roof of the house is a glass atrium, with windows tilted open along the sides. They sit at the end of a long dining table, underneath the branches of an