The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [6]
Thank you, I say. The same to you.
She laughs. Already happened. Jade bangles clink together as she holds up her fingers. Thirteen grandchildren! she says. Six boys. All fat and good-looking. You should say live long life to me.
I’m sorry. My Chinese is terrible.
No, it’s very good, she says. You were born in Hong Kong?
Outside night is just falling, and Nathan Road has become a canyon of light: blazing neon signs, brilliant shop windows, decorations blinking across the fronts of half-finished tower blocks. I stare at myself a moment in the reflection, three red characters passing across my forehead, and look away. No, I say. In America. I’ve lived here only since August.
Ah. Then what is America like?
Forgive me, aunt, I say. I forget.
Prosperous Garden no. 4. Tung Kun Street. Yau Ma Tei.
A scribble of Chinese characters.
Show this to doorman he let you in
The building is on the far edge of Kowloon, next to the reclamation; a low concrete barrier separates it from an elevated highway that thunders continuously as cars pass. Four identical towers around a courtyard, long poles draped with laundry jutting from every window, like spears hung with old rotted flags.
Gong hei fat choi, I say to the doorman through the gate, and he smiles with crooked teeth, but when I pass the note to him all expression leaves his face; he presses the buzzer and turns away quickly. Twenty-three A-ah, he calls out to the opposite wall. You understand?
Thank you.
When I step out into the hallway I breathe in boiled chicken, oyster sauce, frying oil, the acrid steam of medicine, dried fish, Dettol. Two young boys are crouched at the far end, sending a radio-controlled car zipping past me; someone is arguing loudly over the telephone; a stereo plays loud Canto-pop from a balcony somewhere below. All the apartment doors are open, I notice as I walk by, and only the heavy sliding gates in front of them are closed. Like a honeycomb, I can’t help thinking, or an ant farm. But when I reach 23A the door behind the gate is shut, and no sound comes from behind it. The bell sounds several times before the locks begin to snap open.
You are early, Alice says, rubbing her eyes, as if she’s been sleeping. Behind her the apartment is dark; there is only a faint blue glow, as if from a TV screen.
I’m sorry. You didn’t say when to come. I look at my watch: eight thirty. I can come back, I say, another time, maybe another night—
She shakes her head and opens the gate.
When she turns on the light I draw a deep breath, involuntarily, and hide it with a cough. The walls are covered with stacks of yellowed paper, file boxes, brown envelopes, and ragged books; on opposite sides of the room are two desks, each holding a computer with a flickering screen. I peer at the one closest to the door. At the top of the screen there is a rotating globe, and below it, a ribbon of letters and numbers, always changing. The other, I see, is just the same: a head staring at its twin.
Come, Alice says. She had disappeared for a moment and reemerged dressed in a long dress, silver running shoes, a hooded sweatshirt.
Are these computers yours?
No. My father’s.
Why does he need two? They’re just the same.
Nysee, she says, impatiently, pointing. Footsie. New York Stock Exchange. London Stock Exchange.
Sau Yee, a hoarse voice calls from another room. Who is it?
It’s my English teacher, she says loudly. Giving me a homework assignment.
Gwailo a?
Yes, she says. The white one.
Then call a taxi for him. He appears in the kitchen doorway: a stooped old man, perhaps five feet tall, in a dirty white T-shirt, shorts, and sandals. His face is covered with liver spots; his eyes shrunken into their sockets. I sorry-ah, he says to me. No speakee English.
It’s all right, I say. There is a numbness