Chapter 4
Early next morning, when the pale dawn began seeping through the draperies into his room, he awoke from an almost sleepless night. He felt weary and worn, but his mind was rather active.
He grabbed his mobile, browsed the message history between himself and Serena, reviewing the dialogue from beginning to end. He found that it was only to his last messages she hadn’t replied, and he was sure she must have seen them. Didn’t she know he would be upset if he received no response from her? But why hadn’t she sent something back, even just another ‘Good Night’, or ‘See You’, or ‘Bye Bye’, to end an evening that had stirred him so much into a near infatuation?
But she didn’t. What does this mean? Well, very likely she was not interested in him, and her unresponsiveness was just a silent hint of her attitude. Then why had she replied to his first message at all? Well, that must be just a courtesy, a politeness she could afford to end a fruitless dating adventure.
In his dating history, he couldn’t remember any other cases so hard to comprehend. Most of the Chinese girls were in their late twenties, or even thirties; they were anxious if not desperate, under tremendous pressure from all directions of human society, to find a man in order to enter into matrimony, to end the unbearable loneliness in their disaster-like form of living. Literally, they were starving, they shouldn’t be as fussy as they must have been in their prime flowering years. And, moreover, most of them had already had some experience of love, from which they must have grasped the difference between a feeling of love and a man’s commitment of lifetime responsibility.
Therefore, as his thinking ran its course, the girls would most likely welcome at least one more chance to date a candidate whenever the prospect was not overly poor in their first impression. In Sydney, or in larger parts of Australia, male Chinese candidates were hard to come across. Men in their early thirties would usually seek younger girls probably under twenty five, and also, back in China, vast female resources seemed awaiting them to bring them out of the ‘overly stuffed’ country. While, men in their late thirties, if still single and never married, were probably belonging to the fussiest group, and if they were divorced, other implications and complications might prevail. In Australia, Chinese spinsters, if so labelled in Chinese context, didn’t usually intend to find a hu*****and in China and bring him over to Australia. An imported hu*****and would have to start everything from scratch, deemed as a disadvantage to the comparatively established ladies, who could hardly favour the notion that their male partner should be weaker in economic terms.
On the web site, he was 36, and Serena was seven years his junior at 29. He had never thought himself as a handsome person, but he was, by no standard, someone below average; he was 173cm, matching okay for her 171cm. And wasn’t his career, revealed honestly on the site was IT, ‘better’ than her job as a Bank Teller, which in China only taken by those at lower end of social ranks?
Therefore, at any consideration, she didn’t have any reason she could drop him immediately after a single meeting.
Maybe she was just too tired? Maybe that was her way of SMS communication? Maybe she had never thought the politeness and courtesy necessary in the form of electronic communication?
What could he do? Lying in his single bed, he wondered in despondency.
Though he was reasonably certain that he had failed to impress her in more positive way, he didn’t think he wouldn’t have a chance. Further, what if she had enough interest in him, but intended to play a sort of game, showing a negative sign while her true intent was otherwise? Women, as he understood, did have many tricks in dealing with their passionate pursuers.
He pondered on this man-battling-woman dilemma for a long time until the alarm broke the state of his pensiveness. But, he lingered, habitually, for ten more minutes, before getting up to do the common things on the morning, which, in theory, could be classified into three classes: one about coverage of his body on social terms involving cloths and shoes, one about sanitary matters involving toilet and bathroom, one about the food essential to support his life system. All of three were performed rather efficiently in his bachelor way of life. His breakfast was rather simple, two slices of bread sandwiched with peanut butter, plus a banana and/or an apple, to be wrapped with one or two brown-coloured paper bags. He would then consume it leisurely in his car which had to be trapped in slow morning traffic, like what his life had been going its course thus far.
The sandwich, with peanuts, was not too bad, and chewing it, he was making up his mind to halt all the communication with Serena, at least for one day. Would she then wonder about him also, with a similar meditation to his? Well, he didn’t know, but it was possible. He should think positively, with a hope. And, perhaps tomorrow, he would do something to further impress her, to keep up the affair.
After all, oh, her long nose and long legs…!
So, like a predator who had to exercise patience and endurance while in ambush for its prey, he passed a day and then an evening, refraining himself from contacting her, even if his mind had been all tied up with her.
Late in the night, a sudden idea lurched against his nerve. Why didn’t he go directly to Ashfield, to the bank where she worked, and talk to her, and even make a second appointment with her? Indeed, people were these days too much addicted and obsessed with mobiles and internet correspondence. If he went straight to her in an old-fashioned style of courting, giving her a good surprise, wasn’t it more romantic, more appealing?
Thrilled at his idea, he jumped out of bed, his blood running wildly in his veins. Restlessly he paced and paced in his little den, allowing his mind to paint a vivid event.
Wait… there was a problem. In Australian banks, there was usually a queue to be called by the next available teller. How could he be sure she would be the one to call him? Could he go directly to her? No, no, in a busy Australian bank, she would be likely engaged all the time; if he did so, he could be regarded by other people as being rude and harsh, or even suspected of rushing for a robbery. The last thing he wanted to do, in the bank’s highly secured and camera-surveillance environment, was cause any unnecessary alerts around. All in all, he must do this discreetly and without any drama.
After plotting a number of scenarios, the only safe and inconspicuous manner would be like this: he joins the queue, and at his turn, if the teller is not her, he will let the customer behind him proceed. He could always explain if necessary that he wants to talk to a particular teller about a particular bank service, such as a loan advice or other matters of money. And, yes, he could go there during lunchtime, which was supposed to be a busy period for bank, and she must be there.
Well, he could design the plot more artfully tomorrow. Now it was already past midnight, he must sleep, for tomorrow, or more precisely today, a fresh skirmish that would definitely demand his good energy was coming.
The next morning, he put on what he thought best, a yellow shirt and black pants, stiff and clean, and went to work. It was Thursday. His lunch time was one hour, but there was no fixed start and end time, permitting a flexible room for a nice stretch. After all, there was no single worker in the whole wide world, who would spend every minute of his payable hours on the actual work that solely benefited his employer. Even the president of USA was paid for his toilet or coffee time, the length of which needless to say varying from person to person. It was not unimaginable for one to lock oneself up long in a toilet, doing some sort of activities to relieve the irritation and frustration caused by the nasty co-workers, especially the bosses, or some fussy and peevish customers.
All concerns and workplace moral issues cleared, he decided to set off at 11:30am, taking forty minutes to Ashfield, and reaching there just after 12pm. If he was lucky and his plan ran to time, he would be back by 1:30pm, which was still in the lunchtime of most people in the company.
Restless and highly agitated as he had been the whole morning, he went to the luncheon room a number of times to get a drink of water, and twice went to the Man’s room checking his appearance in his pathetic manner. Not that he had to feel guilty for his extensive use of the company’s facilities. After all, it was a special day. At normal times, he didn’t waste as much as his other western colleagues did with their coffee time, who would sit or stand at considerable length exchanging their non-stop gossip about sport, about Rugby, about Parramatta Eels, the sort of things and bets in which he had never, ever possessed an interest. To him, Australian football was very much like a group of furious overly muscled people, who merely grappled and sticked to each other with pure flesh and odour, with no brainwork, no art, and no meaning. Every time he happened to see it on a TV screen, such as in a hotel, or in a TAB house, these strong and beefy players would run into a dead-end blockage within a second or two if not immediately after they had just started the game. And to think they would repeat exactly the same act again, again, again, and forever, or not forever, until the game was all over. Alas, as a Chinese, he had never understood, since he landed Australia ten years back, that this type of sport could drag the whole country to its feet, and to think again that they all went gambling about it! What a weird addiction, what a queer way of seeking human being’s pleasure! Maybe one day, he would really integrate himself into the bull-culture and become one of its fans as well, and be adopted as a true ‘Australian’, rather than a mere Chinese immigrant bearing a papered citizenship, who, from each angle of his face, could hardly be viewed as a ‘genuine’ product of this country.
Now, where was her bank in Ashfield? He had no idea, but that wouldn’t bother him. He googled it by the name she had told him, and found it somewhere in the middle of the main street.
In due course, he was driving, listening to the music that would always inspire him into higher spirit under such circumstance. He admitted that, in most conventional eyes, he was too sentimental and sensitive for a man over forty. Again, it didn’t concern him; he was he, they were they; a living business was just a random instance, suggesting no difference from a bird or a worm or a crawling ant except for the length of existence. It was not as if he had to care much about how other humans regarded him, or disregarded him. After all, he was divorced; he was single, and he thought he was in need of a woman with whom he could sleep, even if he had not believed so much so in his first year after divorce.
However, the daytime parking could be too big an issue; the place near the railway station where he had used to park in the evenings would be definitely without hope. So, following a sign, he slid to the underground park of the shopping mall. And there, instead driving impatiently round and round and up and up and down and down to find a vacant space like what he usually did in the shopping centres swarmed by the large quantity of people unbelievable to his Chinese-origin but now Australia-conditioned eyes, this time, for the sake of love he was making patient manoeuvres, diligently rotating his eyeballs to observe any walking creatures who looked like heading back to a parked car, and lucky, he was within a minute given such a chance to trace and stalk a middle-aged woman whose shoulders were severely lopsided with the number of bags on her arms.
The parking limit was two hours free, sufficient for his great mission.
He stepped out of the car, closed the door, and, as he had never forgotten, locked his car. He pressed to check his three essentials in his shirt and pants, to make sure all of them were lodged safely as the material representation of his meagre existence on the earth. And while taking the escalator, he accidentally ran into an opportunity of peeping at a young couple who stood on the conveyor ahead of him kissing without the world, with their hands holding tightly at each other’s vigorous waists.
Immediately, he felt a quick envy issued from the core of his heart. Why, in his life-time that had passed, was there no such kissing experience on a rumbling escalator?! This was unfair…
As soon as he stepped out onto the main street, he saw the sign of her bank on his left, and was guided by it into a shopping mall. Outside the bank, he paid a sneaky glance through its glass wall, and surprisingly, he spotted her all at once. Yes, indeed, she was the only Asian face in the tellers’ panel, very outstanding.
He passed over the bank and came back again, at slower pace, managing to half-shade himself by the posters in the wall glass to watch her. She was then talking to a fleshy and sizable woman; without a smile, she appeared very professional, which effected in him a sort of sober, uniform-inspired admiration for her.
So she was working there as a teller. And strange enough, he seemed to be very fond of the ‘teller’ as a job title. The word was very clear and simple; a moment of fancy though was that a teller in a bank was formal with a precision, never missing a cent of accuracy, while a teller in other situations such as a fortune telling, was referring to a prophet who claimed to know a lot of things about a life’s life, but all that being said and told were nothing but inference and tricks and insinuations, anything but fundamental facts involved in a banking business. Well, in his opinion.
In his idle-appearing yet purposeful behaviour, he walked to and fro outside the bank, at least three more turns, until he thought he should press upon his gut to strike. However, at the time he decided to enter, he noticed there was no queue inside the lobby. There were only a couple of customers being served. If he entered now, he would be noticed at once by her, for no other customers were available to provide a shield for him. This was not what he had imagined beforehand.
So he withdrew from his first attempt in near flight, and continued safely pacing about the footpath. What would he do now? For a moment, he thought he should give all this up; it was just an impulsive thought, however romantic he had presumed it to be. Yes, no, no, it wouldn’t work out, it required too much of his gut-energy, more than he suspected he had ever possessed. Oh, no, no, he was not a good-looking person, not attractive enough to justify such a colourful performance that seemed more like a hot dream than a cool reality.
Still pacing about outside, he was troubling his self, persuading and questioning his ego as if his left was against his right, the stronger part of his mind against the weaker. His heart was pounding, he was pitying himself, even before any bit of action was ever taken.
But well, no, he shouldn’t retreat like a coward. He had been plotting this too carefully; he had consumed too much emotions and energy to flee at the last moment. What was the worst? What could happen if he was seen by her the moment he stepped in? He was not a burglar trying to rob the bank. He was just a middle-aged man contriving a bit of old ardour for romance. What was wrong with that? Should he feel ashamed of it? He was a man, but his heart could still be that of a child, nothing should daunt his adventurous experiment.
The self-talk, as a matter of consequence, was remarkably effective in boosting the level of his adrenaline, which he had oftentimes taken prior to his guitar performance in those old years. And in a little time, he was able to assume himself to be an actor, an performer, just do it, just beat it, as such boasted by Michael Jackson. For a flash of memory, he also reflected the similar courage he had plucked up by his micro self-talk in looking for his first dish-washing job many years back in Melbourne.
He stepped in, stubbornly, with full composure and sternness, fighting himself, and hushing his weak and nervous cry. Then without looking at the teller-windows, he went straight to the desk with stacks of withdrawal and deposit slips. He took one withdrawal, grabbed the ball pen, and started to think what to write.
In the field of customer, he wrote ‘Wang Bing from Tianjin, China’, in the field beside the $100 note, he filled ‘1B’; in the field beside $50, he put offhandedly, ‘or my soul’, which could be interpreted as that he wanted to withdraw from her 1 billion dollars, and if she didn’t have that sort of money, she would have to return his soul to him. That finished, he secretly grinned over it, enjoying a sense of private humour, reading it a couple of times, thinking it as a kind of clever and creative artwork.
Then a more practical matter made him to think further. What did he expect to get out from this? Just present it to her, and walk away? Why didn’t he take the chance to make an appointment?
So, he took another withdrawal slip, and wrote on the slip, ‘23rd of Jan, 6:30pm, Service Station’, three pieces of information all in a blank space. She would understand it, he thought, anyone with a brain, no matter how little, would understand what it was meaning.
With the two slips, he walked towards the counter. No queue, no customers waiting. There was a nice and soft ottoman in the centre, which was very different from other banks he had ever visited. Here customers could sit and wait comfortably until called. He slumped on an ottoman, and took a quick look in her direction, and noticed Serena was not engaged with customer, her eyes sagging upon some paperwork.
Oh, what a worldly relief she hadn’t seen him thus far!
But then in a second or two, her eyebrows were raised, her eyes going sideways before landing firmly on him. He caught a flicker of her stunned, astonished look, beholding the very moment of her instant, subtle change of expression.
‘You?’ she uttered.
Bing stood up, and went straight to her window.
She was evidently flushed, colour glowing on her oval face. She said, ‘Why do you come here?’ she stared at him in consternation. ‘You don’t have to work today?’
‘I work today, but I slipped out.’
‘Well, do you have any banking to do?’ she said, instantly changing to a composed, respectful manner. Then, not expecting a positive answer from him, she added, with the typical hardness and solemnity of the money business, ‘Sorry, I am at work.’
At this moment, Bing fumbled the crumpled slips from his pocket, took them out and put them on the counter, then hastily unfolding them, pushing into her. His wish was to behave, by all means available to his working faculty, as a genuine customer, to avoid the perception of oddity. Then without any words, no bye no nothing, he turned and sought the exit with a tight control of his treading steps. His mind was blank; his earthly desire was to flee, to leave this place all at once. Oh, if only there was something like a hole, where he could just dive and vanish from the dreadful surface.
From the bank, he walked blindly and aimlessly for what seemed to him an eternity. He must have been like a leaf, drifting in the wind, without a method or purpose of its own journey. True he had already escaped from her place, where her fellow tellers or curious customers might have checked him, but the torrent, the tide in his veins was crying for the time to settle down, to recoil, to pant, to ebb.
Before his brain started working sensibly again, at least half an hour must have slipped by. Overall, it was not too bad, the mission was complete, the intelligence delivered, and the most important, was that he had retreated from there safely, without trapped in a kind of security enquiry. At least, to his weak knowledge, there was no unwanted drama like her manager or other unrelated people involved in the incident.
His mouth and lips were dry, and he was feeling suddenly very hungry. Now on the other side of street, and without knowing how and when he had crossed it over, he walked down to a restaurant called Old Shanghai Shop. His mouth and stomach and spirit seemed all competing for an immediate nourishment.
Air-conditioned, the inside of the restaurant was cool and comfortable. Most of the seats were occupied. He was led by a blank-faced girl to a two-people seat against the wall. And in no time he was provided with a menu. He studied the menu, and soon enough made up his mind for Little Dumplings. He waved to the girl, who came over to scribble swiftly on a pad of paper, before returning to the counter.
He sat there, feeling his face taut and stressed, his eyes looking straight ahead, but not seeing anything. He thought of a drink, at first denying the temptation of a beer at lunch, and then excused himself for it. It was a special day. Shouldn’t his audacity, in spite of its imperfect performance, deserve a little reward? In one’s life, such a brave act did not frequently happen! Had he done a similar before? Had he done it to his ex-wife? To his ex-lover in Melbourne? Or to his first lover in the university in Shanghai? The answers were all negative, because no such trace of memory was coming back to him. Of course he had had a lot of romantic moments with them, but none seemed to have been fed with a passion of such gravity.
Yes, indeed, it was a special day. He could ask for leave for the whole afternoon, and expend it in the famous Little Shanghai. After all, he had never spent a full afternoon of his lifetime in this place.
He lifted his hand for the girl, who came to him still wearing no expression. ‘Do you have Qingdao beer?’ ‘Yes’ ‘Can I have one?’ ‘Yes.’ She didn’t write; she walked briskly away to the counter, a pen and a pad thrust in the back-pouch of her tight blue jeans, wiggling nicely with sections of her body. Then she came back, a bottle in one hand, a glass in another. She laid them onto the table, then as if forgetting something, she went back to the counter, and brought forth an opener, and with a quick and nice flick with it, she opened the beer for him.
Bing poured almost half of the bottle into the glass and began to drink.
A nice little restaurant, actually. The wall was of bare rough bricks, to which one, and two, and three grey frames as he counted with his eyes, were attached. Wooden, laced and old-fashioned, the frames were like the meshed windows of an ancient Chinese house. Were they Shanghai style or just overall characteristic of China? They looked more like his childhood memory of the window-mat in a mud-house, in his hometown of Mianyang, Sichuan province.
As the beer went through him, he was relaxing; his power of thinking and observing were gradually restored.
A few seats away from him, a man, obviously Chinese, at his thirties, sat with a boy. He had an impressive face, very strong, big and stout. A pair of thin-framed glasses, plain and inexpensive-looking, covered his big eyes, failing in their effort to soften the enormity of his features. His hair was crew cut short, his forehead narrow yet very wide, and his prominent cheekbones were immodestly stretched out.
He was swallowing a huge bowl of noodles. But the way he drank the soup was different from others, well, no that he made a louder noise than his neighbour Chinese, but that he seemed to allow the soup stay in his mouth for too long, as if he had to wash and rinse his mouth with it before he wished to let go the delicious thing down to his throat. The manner, quite indecent actually, was partially like when one brushes his teeth, instead of spitting the water out, he drinks all that in, and even enjoys the flow with a noticeable satisfaction.
Nevertheless he was very happy, and, from the way he affectionately looked at the boy, or his son he must be, he appeared to be a good father.
But, well, where was his wife?
Withdrawing his curiosity from them, Bing took his own sip of beer. But then he heard the man talking to someone else, merrily and loudly in Shanghainese. Bing followed the voice to a lady of fifty something, who sat with another little boy at another table not far away. As soon as he saw her sizable face, he was amazed at its remarkable resemblance to the man’s. If walking together in the street, they would definitely pass as a mother and a son. Yet evidently they were not, they were just acquaintances, otherwise they would just gather at same table. The kid with her must be her grandson, who only stirred the noodles a little with his chopsticks, not eating, not showing any appetite. After her cheerful greeting with the man, the lady spoke indulgently to the child, apparently persuading him to eat. But she hardly touched her own bowl.
A happy lady, from Shanghai, and a loving grandma as well.
But, well, where was her hu*****and?
From there, his eyes travelled to another table, at the far end against the wall, and right under the window frame, where a young couple sat together on one side, an elderly lady with a toddler in a pram on another. It was a common family dining scene in Chinese context, reminding him of his old days when he and his ex-wife and his daughter, and his mother or his mother-law who had come to Australia with one-year visiting visa with a real purpose to help look after the child, had a chance dining out. But, ah, so amazing, that young woman of the couple was so beautiful! With a long and sleek hair, and a pale smooth complexion, and a thin and delicate nose and thin and pink lips, she was displaying the type of grace and features that many Chinese women or men, if they all had the similar aesthetic eyes as his, were supposed to desire for. Beside her, the man, or her hu*****and he must be, had a plump face, a pair of stylish glasses clinging to his eyebrows. His cheeks were full of flesh, making him appear childish and younger than whatever age he seemed to be. At the time, he was nibbling a morsel of something, his eyes bent on the hands of the young woman or his wife she must be, who was studiously peeling the orange-coloured prawns and put them one after one onto his plate.
Oh, what a lucky young man! How happy and complacent he must be! And by what method and means had he won such a nice and considerate and beautiful wife? Was he one of the so called ‘Rich Second Generation,’ whose parents were excessively wealthy and powerful, and more likely than not excessively corrupt as well with a lot of sordid Guanxi and backdoors and swindles in China?
Well, whatever Chinese background he might have enjoyed, the fact that he had such a dainty starry wife who was really caring about him, and that he was here in Australia, eating this country’s quality prawns together with her, was more than enough to arouse an acute feeling of jealousy in Bing’s current state of mind.
The beer in the little bottle was emptying fast, and at the end of it, Bing called the hip-swaying young waitress again, ordered her to get another bottle for him. She fetched one and, in the exactly expressionless, carefree manner, flicked it open for him, then hopping away.
In a little while, the little dumplings came. There were ten of them in a basket, steaming hot and saliva-enticing. For the next few minutes he was fairly absorbed with the dumplings. He must be careful not to rush for them, for each dumpling had a hot and scalding heart that would burn his lips and tongue should he be impatient. So, with a chopstick, he pricked a slit on the white and wrinkled skin, and slowly nudged it to encourage the hot and dangerous soup to flow out. Then he ate the skin, savoured the content, feeling the satisfaction voiced by his stomach, allowing the warmth to penetrate his consciousness.
He then, involuntarily or voluntarily, threw another glance at the beautiful woman, who appeared so contented, not the least as if she could be seduced by any other men for the rest of her life. Poor and pathetic as he was, and had been, and would be, for this moment, Bing had a vague and strange sense of lost opportunity.
Then the happy family rose and shuffled and began to leave. He watched the young beautiful woman move snugly and slowly but determinedly, disappearing forever from him, from the heavy glass door.
He felt suddenly alone, as if he had not been alone a few minutes before, as if he had not been alone for last three years.
He checked the time, 1:10pm, at which time Serena, as a person, came back to his mind. Ah, what happened an hour ago! Such a challenge to a man over forty! He did it, like a stupid blundering youth.
Now that the beautiful woman had left, he began to miss Serena, so much, so true, so honest that he desired her for his wife, sitting here together with him, probably also eating those Australian quality prawns. Indeed, she had a graceful nose, firm and confident, and she as well was bestowed with a good pair of legs. Well, eyes were not that important, and it was not as if she had to be compared to anybody else.
He wanted her.
He took his mobile, sent a message to her,
‘Have you had lunch?’
Then added, ‘I am in the Old Shanghai facing the shopping mall.’
No response.
The bottle had only a spoonful of beer remaining; he took one last sip; the bottle was then entirely empty, as empty as his soul.
No response.
He’d better go, he so decided after he had checked the time again. No point wasting half a day of his annual leave for nothing! And his parking had a two hour limit, it was due very soon. If over the limit, and he might fetch a penalty, and the pain of fine would be …
He rose to his feet, grabbing his essentials, and moved to the counter. The cashier, another female of the world, was pounding the register’s keys; her mouth was opening, and closing, and opening again, then her eyes looking into his eyes, but her mouth said, ‘Nineteen dollars.’ He produced a note of twenty, the plastic, indestructible Elizabeth money, giving it to her. She shoved out the drawer, fiddling swiftly, and placed a one-dollar coin directly into a little tray on the counter, instead into his fetching or begging palm.
From the little tray he picked up the coin; no way he was tricked by her into giving his tip. Why should he reward their unsmiling service? A dollar, at the latest exchange rate he could remember, equalled more than a US dollar, about 6.3 RMB, enough to buy a basket of dumplings in China - well, maybe, probably…
Striding out of the shop, he returned directly to his car.
In a few more minutes, he was driving. He didn’t think he was drink-driving. Only two little Qingdao beers! It was nothing! How much could he drink? Back in China, he could drink nine big ones at one session of either dinner or lunch, which was about eighteen of such little ones commonly sold in Australia.
Half way back to work, his mobile was beeping, a text message was arriving! A pang of excitement touched his heart. It must be from Serena! He thought immediately of checking the mobile while driving, then behaving, and in a need of concentrating, he pulled the car aside. Then another beep came, ah, the sound sounded so sweet.
Here were the messages from her, ‘sorry jus have luuch I brngg my lunch’ and, ‘sorry we don t bring mobile when woking’
Her spelling was hopeless, but the two ‘Sorrys’ strangely buoyed his spirit. Overseas Chinese should not say sorry to others too often, as instructed in some travelling guides. He rarely heard native English speakers say the word. They used ‘Excuse me’ a lot, only sorry in extreme guilty circumstances. It was as if you had already committed and admitted a misconduct as soon as you said sorry.
He replied, ‘I am on way to my work…hehe… two hours parking limit…’ He pressed ‘Send’, and, ‘Hope I did not cause much interruption to ur duty.’ He pressed ‘Send’ again, and, ‘then see u tomorrow at 6:30pm at the service station.. we go city opera house for dinner.’ He pressed ‘Send’, and, ‘If u need to work on Sat.. Make it Sat nit.. or Sunday.. Let me know .. OK?’
No response.
After five minutes without a reply, he drove on. It was only after he had arrived at his company and stepped into the office that he received more from her.
‘My apology. Perhaps I cant make it ths week. I m engaged with my coleague.’
Among all his misspellings, she used two good words, ‘apology’ and ‘perhaps’. The denial was not dead-end, and reading carefully, although she was not available this week, it did suggest a possible appointment some time after that.
But Bing, in his eagerness and anxiety, was taking her negative answer as an absolute rebuff from her. How could she not be moved and touched by his honesty and enthusiasm and romanticism? How could she ignore and disregard the two slips that had cost all his reserve of cleverness and guts for their delivery?
His ego was smarting. He read again her reply, sensed the weak hopefulness between the words, and began to convince himself that she was just into a bit of the love game and more efforts were needed to drive the battle. So, he sent a series of texts to her:
‘Then someday starting next Monday;
Can you set Sat of next week for me… in case u r booked again;
A long time towards then, but I have to endure;
Anyway… may also seek a chance anytime next week before Saturday;
Don’t be surprised as much by today;
Just notice u said, probably not ok this week, so can u find at least one night? I still wish it for tomorrow;
This week, can u? Please;
Considering we are both from Tianjin, can you postpone the appointment with your colleague? After all, you are with your colleague all day long.. unlike me, have to spend a long journey.’
Then the last one was rather imploring, ‘Just tomorrow, OK?’
The reply from her only came two hours later, which was, apparently, after she had finished her work. It said, ‘Don’t push me like that... I will think about it later.’
Severely battered, he replied, ‘ok’, and expected no more from her until an indefinite future.
Yet, as a lift to his dejection, immediately afterwards, he received the message from her, ‘May I ask when your birthday is?’
‘20 July.’
He knew she was checking the stars, and may have started speculating on a match with him. With a mind not very rational but never superstitious, he had resisted all his life from believing this sort of prophecy. To him, it couldn’t be more than superstition, all of which was merely for some after-meal entertainment, and should never be taken seriously. For in today’s world, a star would associate with millions if not billions of people, a sensible man wouldn’t imagine they had to share anything much in common, or anything much uncommon from other star groups. But invariably the girls he had met, especially born after 1980, were inclined to play excessively hard on its merits. Indeed, with no other belief at hand, and in mind, and in heart, the Zodiac rhetoric seemed to have become the last resort for today’s electronic-people to seek a suitable living partner.
‘So you are Cancer,’ she sent.
Bing didn’t like the name of Cancer, it is a horrible word, reminding him of the death of his father, although he knew it meant Crab.
‘Do you believe in astrology?’ he asked.
‘Haha, only occasionally, at leisure time.’
‘Are you at home now?’ He tried to change the topic.
‘Yes.’
‘I hope I didn’t scare you too much today.’
‘Not really.’
‘I was very nervous, and nearly lost my words. You may have laughed at me.’
‘But I didn’t see you nervous.’
‘Really? I circled your bank three or four times before I entered. You know, my heart was like a thunderstorm.’
‘Haha, how could you be so shy at your age? It must be due to the hot weather.’
‘It may be, but you were so calm.’
‘Me? I have seen too many men, too many ways of pursuing and courting, hahaha.’
‘But I did see your face turning red, despite your calm speech.’
‘My manager was behind me. You are a Dragon?’
Now she was after his Chinese Zodiac. She must have been checking the internet for it during all the while.
‘Yeah,’ he replied, ‘I felt so stupid when leaving your bank.’ He stuck to the event, in order to uncover the effect of his adventure. ‘Where are the two slips?’
‘I threw them away. Do you think I ought to keep them as a reminiscence, like the heroine usually does in the romantic novel?’
‘No, I am just afraid your manager, or others may see them, and make you embarrassed,’ he sent, but his real intention was to discover how she regarded his zealous approach, and how much she cared about him.
‘Hehe, this is Australia, no one needs to be shy.’
‘Then strange, why did I feel so?’
‘As I said earlier, the weather was too hot, you got a fever.’
‘Probably, my heart was in fever.’
Some minutes passed without her answer. He sent more, in a frank confiding manner, ‘I resisted contacting you during the whole of yesterday, and thought you wouldn’t care for me any more. But then I thought, even if for the sake of a country-fellow friendship, we can see each other. So I took my courage in my hands. But it had been such a tormenting effort.’
No more response for next twenty minutes.
The SMS chain was broken and curtailed, bluntly and unilaterally by her, without the civilised courtesy of a proper ending.
He considered her as a rude and impudent person. How could he tolerate someone, who had been in conversation with him a minute before, suddenly walked away without saying any departing words? Either in SMS, or in any online chat, the courtesy required in a personal conversation should not be violated.
Maybe he was too serious. But he earnestly believed that a level of respect should be taken as a basis for cultivating any further love or friendship.
Of course, he could choose not to contact her. Yet, the ruder and more impertinent she seemed to be, the harder and more confounded his mind was stuck with her.
What was this? There didn’t seem much of the element that he could admit as a feeling of love. Even if it was love, or a good first impression, it must have definitely been embedded with a portion of hatred, as well as an irritable desire to win, to conquer, to avenge the slight she had so far dealt him. In one sense, he only wanted to find out if Serena had also the kind of feelings towards him. It was as simple as that. But she managed to evade his intention in every possible way, and put him into a labyrinth of unknowns.
In the evening, he sent her a message, ‘What are you doing?’ A desperate indignation seemed to affect his temper.
No response.
And two hours later, he sent another one, ‘I couldn’t continue reading my book.’, and then ‘…..’
Then suddenly she replied him back, ‘Do you have QQ, I am 8888833463.’
He sprang to his laptop, company-owned, seldom used after hours for the last three years since QQ had brought him the trouble that had eventually dissolved his marriage. QQ was supposed to be the largest messaging program in the world in terms of users, predominately used by Chinese.
He added her number, and started immediately to alleviate his stress.
‘Hi. You should have told me of your QQ earlier,’ he sent, ‘I have been stifled for hours.’
‘Please do not say such frightful things. We are only friends.’ She played it down. ‘And you didn’t ask me for my QQ.’
‘My apology, I may just be too hasty and impatient,’ and, ‘I didn’t think you have the time for QQ.’
‘Never mind, I may also be too direct with my opinion,’ and, ‘what else am I supposed to do without going QQ? Reading a book? Or seeing more men?’
‘I appreciate your frankness. The most troubling and dreadful thing is I don’t know how you are thinking about me and what step I am expected to take,’ and, ‘I won’t settle down until I get an idea from you.’
‘But isn’t guessing, speculating the most charming part of courting?’
‘Well, maybe I can’t cope with the sort of courting methodology, it would drive me mad.’
‘Haha...’ she seemed never to take things seriously. And then she added, with long-awaited words, ‘Well, I am just afraid that, if I go out with you again, and you may develop more and more feelings for me, against which I am not able to match, which will then press me and make me feel guilty. You know, I don’t want us enter into a difficult situation.’
‘Thank you for your openness.’ Although unhappy with her answer, he at least got a general idea of the position of his enemy. ‘But honestly, you don’t have to feel pressured. We can at least be friends, can’t we?’
‘You seem to me quite blank and innocent in your loving history. How much loving experience of your girl friend would you accept?’
She raised the issue again; perhaps his direct call at her bank today had enhanced further her belief in his poverty in the domain of love. He then typed a series of texts:
‘I don’t know how many is too many, but I cherish frankness and openness in a relationship. I don’t think one-sided love is a real love.
‘Love without feedback and active interaction is incomplete, or put another way, disabled. It might not be called love at all. It is more like a unilateral want and ownership.
‘Some guessing and speculating in the process is okay, but too much is tormenting and unhelpful and even destructive in a otherwise healthily developing relationship.
‘Love game is like spicy chilli, if overplaying, it would subdue your sensors, losing the original taste of food.
‘Love itself has its genuine value of pleasure, if you infill it with a lot of other ingredients like pride, snobbishness, material-driven matching, winning, or losing, its real beauty will be smothered and deadened with the excessive killing sauces.
‘Doing it slightly will increase your appetite, but don’t numb your taste buds.’
After this length of his vehemence, she replied, ‘You are such a love philosopher, full mouth of theory. You might have read too many love books, which are useless and impractical and misleading, you know.’
‘Well, it depends on what kind of books. While many may be trashy and too fanciful, others can help one draw much of life wisdom.’
‘Are you the type of person who is exceedingly romantic?’
‘Well. I have a heart for romance, but the reality is cold.’
‘Haha,’ her mirth seemed to be genuine.
He checked the time; it is nearly 11pm. He asked, ‘Do you need to work tomorrow? Are you sure you can stay up so late?’
‘So you don’t want to chat with me any more?’ she replied.
‘Oh, I do, I can’t want more of it.’
‘You are much a candid person.’
‘Shall I take it as a compliment? Hehe.. By the way, how could you be so calm and emotionless today? You were talking to me like a teacher lecturing a student.’
‘Well, when I have my uniform on, I am then as if with an evil spirit. Hope I didn’t make you upset.’
‘It is okay. At least you are flushed a bit in front of me, which made me feel better.’
Bing was so interested in digging out her true feelings about him that the thread of his messages would come back again and again to the allusion that might likely entice her into a confession. But Serena was obviously too clever to run into his snare.
‘Well, I am just a mindless, silly girl.’ She evaded his purposeful lead of conversation. ‘My colleague actually asked me about you.’
‘What? Do they already know?’ her intelligence surprised him. ‘Didn’t I look just like a common customer? ’
‘They realised immediately. A customer has to be called by ticket. But you came directly to me’ she sent, ‘my supervisor is an ABC – Australian Born Chinese.’
‘So you are affected, aren’t you?’
‘No, they were joking about this, for this type of incident has actually happened to me before.’ She continued, ‘Haha, am I sounding too pompous?’
‘Well, I thought a special customer might want to talk to only you. Not necessarily attracting others’ attention.’
‘So you think you have high IQ?’
‘I thought so, but apparently not,’ he sent, ‘I imagined there would be a queue, and I could wait my chance only for you, while letting others go first to other tellers. But the reality was out of step with my imagination. No queue, I was naked, and utterly exposed in the eyes of you tellers.’
‘Haha.’
‘Well, I didn’t retreat like a coward, after all. I should congratulate myself, if you don’t.’
‘Hehe.. just thought it was the type of act for a much younger person than you.’
‘I don’t think it should fit exclusively into a certain age group,’ he sent, ‘a mature person is the one who can express himself freely and naturally.’
‘Are you?’
‘Well, I better leave it for you to answer.’
‘Well, bed time. Good night.’
‘Good night, thank you for chatting with me.’
That night Bing slept soundly. What he managed to get from her was not encouraging. She was apparently not on the same level of impression as he had felt for her. His romantic behaviour was regarded by her to be childish and naïve, and she only treated him as a friend at most. But nonetheless, the conversation had at least gone to such a depth that washing off the source of his disquiet was rendered possible.
-- End of Chapter 4 --Chapter 5
选择“Disable on www.wenxuecity.com”
选择“don't run on pages on this domain”
