The Train to Lo Wu - Jess Row [7]
See later-ah.
Alice pulls the hood over her head and opens the door.
She leads me to the top of a dark stairwell, in front of a rusting door with light pouring through its cracks. Tin paang, she says, reading the characters stenciled on it in white. Roof. She hands me a black headband, identical to her own.
Hold on, I say, gripping the railing with both hands. The numbness behind my eyes is still there, and I feel my knees growing weak, as if there were no building below me, only a framework of girders and air. Can you answer me a question?
Maybe one.
Has he always been like that?
What like?
With the computers, I say. Does he do that all the time?
Always. Never turn them off.
In the darkness I can barely see her face: only the eyes, shining, daring me to speak. If I were in your place, I say to myself, and the phrase dissolves, weightless.
Listen, I say. I’m not sure I’m ready.
She laughs. When you be sure?
Her fingers fall across my face, and I feel the elastic brushing over my hair, and then the world is black. I open my eyes and close them: no difference.
We just go for a little walk, she says. You don’t worry. Only listen.
I never realized, before, the weight of the air: at every step I feel the great mass of it pressing against my face, saddled on my shoulders. I am breathing huge quantities, as if my lungs were a giant recirculation machine, and sweat is running down from my forehead and soaking the edge of the headband. Alice takes normal-size steps, and grips my hand fiercely, so I can’t let go. Don’t be afraid, she shouts. We still in the middle. Not near the edge.
What am I supposed to do?
Nothing, she says. Only wait. Maybe you see something.
I stare, fiercely, into blackness, into my own eyelids. There is the afterglow of the hallway light, and the computer screens, very faint; or am I imagining it? What is there on a roof, I wonder, and try to picture it: television antennas, heating ducts, clotheslines. Are there guardrails? I’ve never seen any on a Hong Kong building. She turns, and I brush something metal with my hand. Do you know where you’re going? I shout.
Here, she says, and stops. I stumble into her, and she catches my shoulder. Careful, she says. We wait here.
Wait for what?
Just listen, she says. I tell to you. Look to left side: there’s a big building there. Very tall white building, higher than us. Small windows.
All right. I can see that.
Right side is highway. Very bright. Many cars and trucks passing.
If I strain to listen I can hear a steady whooshing sound, and then the high whine of a motorcycle, like a mosquito passing my ear. OK, I say. Got that.
In the middle is very dark. Small buildings. Only few lights on.
Not enough, I say.
One window close to us, she says. Two little children there. You see them?
No.
Lift your arm, she says, and I do. Put your hand up. See? They wave to you.
My god, I say. How do you do that?
She squeezes my hand.
You promise me something.
Of course. What is it?
You don’t take it off, she says. No matter nothing. You promise me?
I do. I promise.
She lets go of my hand, and I hear running steps, soles skidding on concrete.
Alice! I shout, rooted to the spot; I crouch down, and balance myself with my hands. Alice! You don’t—
Mama, she screams, ten feet away, and the sound carries, echoes; I can see it slanting with the wind, bright as daylight, as if a roman candle had exploded in my face. Mama mama mama mama mama mama mama, she sings, and I am crawling toward her on hands and knees, feeling in front of me for the edge.
She is there, Alice shouts. You see? She is in the air.
I see her. Stay where you are.
You watch, she says. I follow her.
She doesn’t want you, I shout. She doesn’t want you there. Let her go.
There is a long silence, and I stay where I am, the damp concrete soaking through to my knees. My ears are ringing, and the numbness has blossomed through my head; I feel faintly