When they had finished eating, Liuyuan raised his glass and drained the remaining tea, then lifted the glass high and stared at it.
"If there's something worth seeing, let me look too," Liusu said.
"Hold it up to the light," said Liuyuan. "The scene inside reminds me of the forests of Malaya."
When the glass was tilted, a hatching of green tea leaves stuck to one side; held up to the light, they became a waving plantain tree, while the tangled swirl of tea leaves clumped at the bottom looked like knee-high grass and undergrowth. Liusu peered up at the glass, and Liuyuan leaned over, pointing all this out. Through the dusky green glass, Liusu suddenly saw him watching her with eyes that seemed to laugh, yet didn't. She put the glass down and smiled.
"I'll take you to Malaya," Liuyuan said.
"What for?"
"To go back 10 nature." He thought for a moment. "But there's just one problem-I can't imagine you running through the forest in a cheongsam. But neither can I imagine you not wearing a cheongsam."
Liusu's face stiffened. "Stop talking nonsense."
"But I'm serious. The first time I saw you, you were wearing one of those trendy tunics, and I thought you shouldn't bare your arms like that. But Western-style clothes aren't right for you either. A Manchu-style cheongsam might suit you better, if its lines weren't so severe."
"In the end, if a person is ugly, then no matter how she dresses it still won't look right!"
Liuyuan laughed. "You keep twisting my words! What I mean is that you're like someone from another world. You have all these little gestures, and a romantic aura, very much like a Peking opera singer."
Liusu raised her eyebrows. An opera singer-indeed!" she said sarcastically. "But of course it takes more than one to put on a show, and I've been forced into it. A person acts clever with me, and if I don't do the same, he takes me for a fool and insults me!"
When Liuyuan heard this, he was rather crestfallen. He raised the empty glass, tried to drink from it, then put it down again and sighed. "Right," he said. "My fault. I'm used to throwing out lines because everyone throws lines at me. But to you I have said a few sincere things, and you can't tell the dif­ference."
"I'm not the worm in your innards—I can't read your mind."
"Right. My fault. But 1 really have thought up a great many schemes because of you. When I first met you in Shanghai, I thought that if you could get away from your family, maybe you could be more natural. So I waited and waited till you came to Hong Kong ... and now, I want to take you to Malaya, to the forest with its primitive peoples ..." He laughed at him­self, his voice hoarse and dry, and called for the check. By the time they had paid, he had already recovered his good spirits; he resumed his excessively courteous, unflappably chivalrous manner.
Every day he took her out, and they did everything there was to do ... movies, Cantonese opera, casinos, the Gloucester Hotel, the Cecil Hotel, the Bluebird Coffee Bar, Indian fabric shops, Szechuan food in Kowloon ... and they often went for walks, even very late at night. She could hardly believe it, but he rarely so much as touched her hand. She was continually on edge, fearing that he would suddenly drop the pretense and launch a surprise attack. But day after day he remained a gen­tleman; it was like facing a great enemy who stood perfectly still. At first this threw her entirely off balance, like missing a step when going down a flight of stairs; her heart pulsated, throbbing irregularly. After a while, though, she got used to it.
Then something happened out on the beach. By this time Liusu knew Liuyuan a little better; she didn't think a beach outing would be a problem. So they whiled away a whole morning there. They even sat together on the sand, tbough facing opposite directions. Suddenly Liusu squealed: mosquito bite, she said.
"It's not a mosquito," said Liuyuan. "It's a little insect called a sand fly. Its bite leaves a red mark, just like a mole on your skin."
"There's too much sun," Liusu complained again.
"Let's sit out a bit longer, and then we can go into one of those cabanas. I've already got one rented."
The thirsty sun sucked in the seawater, gargling and spitting in steady rhythm. It lapped up all the moisture in their bodies, so that they grew light and empty, like dry, golden leaves. Liusu started to feel that strange, light-headed happiness, but then she had to cry, "Ouch! Mosquito!" She twisted around and slapped her own bare back.
"That's the hard way," said Liuyuan. "Here, I'll slap for you, and you slap for me."
And Liusu did watch over his back, slapping at the sand flies whenever she saw one. "Aiiya, he got away!" And Liuyuan watched her back for her. They hit and slapped at each other, then broke into laughter. Suddenly Liusu took offense, stood up, and walked back toward the hotel. This time Liuyuan didn't follow her. When she had reached the trees and the stone path that ran between two rush-mat cabanas, Liusu stopped, shook the sand out of her little skirt, and looked back. Liuyuan was still there, stretched out with his arms folded under his head, a man daydreaming in the sun, turning into a golden leaf again. Liusu went into the hotel, got some binoculars, and looked from her window. Now a woman reclined next to him, a big braid coiled on top of her head. Saheiyini could be burned to ashes, and Liusu would still know her.
From that day on, Liuyuan spent all his time with Saheiyini; apparently he had decided to let Liusu cool her heels for a while. Liusu had been going out every day; now, with nothing to do and no good explanation to make to Mrs. Xu, she thought it best to come down with a cold and keep to her room for a few days. Fortunately, the gods were very considerate; they sent a nice, kind rain. That was one more excuse, leaving her free not to go out.
One afternoon, Liusu came back to the hotel with her um­brella, having gone for a walk in the hotel garden. It was get­ting dark, and she guessed that Mr. and. Mrs. Xu would soon return from house hunting, so she sat on the veranda waiting for them. She opened her shiny oil-paper umbrella and set it out on the railing, blocking her face from view. The umbrella was pink and painted with malachite-green lotus leaves, and the raindrops slipped along its ribs. It was raining hard. Car tires scuffed by in the rain, and then a laughing group of men and women scrambled up to the hotel, led by Fan Liuyuan. Saheiyini was leaning on his arm, but she was a mess, her bare legs flecked with mud. She took off her big straw hat, splashing water on the ground. Catching sight of Liusu's umbrella, Liuyuan said a few words to Saheiyini at the foot of the stairs, and Saheiyini went on up by herself. Liuyuan came over, and pulled out a handkerchief to wipe the rain from his face and clothes. Liusu was forced to offer a brief greeting. Liuyuan sat down. "I heard you haven't been feeling well."
"Just a summer cold."
"This weather is so muggy. We've just gone out on that Eng­lishman's yacht to have a picnic, sailed out to Tsing Yi Island."
So Liusu asked him about the scenery on Tsing Yi Island. Just then, Saheiyini returned in an Indian outfit, with a gosling-yellow wrap that hung down to the ground and was embossed all over with two-inch-wide silver flowers. She too sat down by the railing, at a table far away, one arm draped casually over the back of her chair, silver polish glinting on her fingernails.
"Why don't you go over?" Liusu said to Liuyuan with a smile.
"There's someone with a controlling interest."
"How can that Englishman tell her what to do?"
"He can't control her, but you can control me."
Liusu puckered her lips. "Oooh! I could be the governor of Hong Kong or the local city god, with everyone here under me, and still you wouldn't be under my control!"
Liuyuan shook his head. "A woman who doesn't get jealous is not quite right in the head."
Liusu let out a laugh. There was a short silence. "Why are you watching me?" she asked.
"I'm trying to see if you'll be nice to me from now on." "Whether I'm nice to you or not, what difference could it make to you?"
Liuyuan clapped his hands together. "Ah! That's more like it! Now there's just a bit of venom in her voice!"
Liusu had to laugh. "I've never seen anyone like you, so in­tent on making people jealous!"