Ryu was in an irritable mood because of the cancellation. But he had enough sense to realize that if his wife was putting on a show it was important for her, and, indeed, for them. Miserable and hokey as it was, he had to go along with it.
They got tipsy from the first drink — a particularly strong version of a Mai Tai which she mixed poorly — and got dressed in the vast master bedroom in a state of antagonistic confusion. She lay down for a while and asked him to go into her closet and pick out a pair of stockings for her, ones that would match her red Pucci dress.
“And don’t fuck it up and bring back something green.”
He went to the walk-in closet and fumbled around with the drawers in a slightly drunken annoyance. Why could she not organize her drawers at least? He had to open several of them, and as he did so he came across the folded sheet of paper which she had placed there weeks before and which she had since forgotten about. He opened it and saw the character, which he recognized at once. And yet, it seemed impossible.
A cold panic swept through him as he stood staring down at the crudely drawn characters, which looked as if they had been made by a child. Immediately he understood that Natsuo must have had him followed and the massage girls investigated. So she had been lying and fooling him all along. She was not as oblivious or rigidly naïve as he had believed. After his momentary astonishment, he felt a new and quite fierce respect for her. Admirably done, he thought grimly, and peered back into the room to make sure she was still lying on the bed. She was probably only pretending to be drunk, watching and observing him when he was off his guard.
That clever bitch, he thought, smiling in spite of himself and refolding the paper and putting it back exactly where he had found it. She’s been one step ahead of me the whole time!
He came back into the room with the wrong stockings; she smiled indulgently and he stroked her face.
“I’m glad we’re going to dinner,” he said. “It’s been awhile — what an inspiration on your part to book us at Tong Le. I’ve missed the old place.”
They went to Tong Le and drank a bottle of Argentinian wine. Natsuo had revived, and he found that she looked savagely appealing in her mismatched stockings and heirloom earrings that had once belonged to her grandmother, a glamorous consul’s wife in Pusan. It was something unheralded. He reached over and took her hand, which was now soft, sly, cunning, sexualized once again. He was secretly bemused and amused. His wife had never scared him before, but now that she had done so, he was intrigued. He wondered how she had done it.
She must have “read” his body language, with a feral intuition, and it seemed not unlikely that she had prepared a vengeance that would be equally surprising.
On the spur of the moment, then, he made a resolution to call off his secret rendezvous in Geylang. He would tell Cheryl by means of a written message that he would send by courier and he would say it in a gentlemanly way. She would understand without hesitation, as such girls were bound to do, since it was, presumably, a cruel aspect of their metier.
He wondered whether Natsuo knew he had seen the sheet of paper. If she did, it was a marvelously elegant and disciplined way of restoring her marriage and chastizing her ridiculous husband.
Yes, he thought, a man in captivity is always a fool ten times over. He doesn’t see anything.
Across the bay, dark with clouds and rain, they saw the flickers of lightning faintly green against the horizon. They divided a salted century egg and laughed about their parents. In his mind, he formulated the letter he would write to Cheryl, and as he did so he became forlorn. This was alleviated only by the thought of the sex he would enjoy with his wife later that night, and for the first time in four months. He thought about the tattoo itself, and the meaning which had never been divulged to him. It must indeed have been a spell, he reflected, and this explained the girl’s reluctance to tell him what it was. Inoue was right after all — it was a culture he didn’t understand, and which he secretly despised.
He saw the ghostly reflection of his own face in the wet glass, and sensed the restaurant rotating slowly, one complete revolution every two hours, as they advertised. They drank quite heavily and a violet violence slowly came into her eyes; his hand began to shake and he felt himself beginning to suffocate behind his collar and tie. So it is, he thought, secrets always lead to other secrets.
Far away in Geylang, the girl was leading another man into the back room, opening the window so that the scent of rain and grass could enter the boudoir and give it some natural life and charm.
Like Ryu, he would notice the tattoo and wonder what it was. Afterward, he would ask her what it meant, and she would shake her head. She would smile in genuine denial and then tell him that she didn’t know, only that it was a spell of some kind, a spell which someone had given her long ago and which she had accepted as some kind of supernatural truth but which ever since had served her well.
Part III
Gods & Demons
Mei Kwei, I Love You
by Suchen Christine Lim
Potong Pasir
1
Two hours past midnight, Cha-li was sitting inside her gray Toyota, watching the corner house in Sennett Estate. There were nights when she wanted to call it quits, but she didn’t because she’d given her word. Keeping her word was essential in her business. It was what drew women to her. The scarred, the abused, the cheated, the exploited, the rejects, and the victims. Single or married, they came to her at the temple. They knew by word of mouth that her specialty was adultery and infidelity. Not for her — the commercial investigations or surveillance of employees or insurance fraud or missing persons. A specialist in unfaithfulness, that’s what you are, a client had told her. Cha-li liked the phrase. It made her feel she was more than a private eye. She was the PI who peered into hearts seething with dark secrets and contradictions. But she was cautious about making any claims. A private investigator deals with hard facts — the what, the when, and the where — not the speculative whys and wherefores. That was what she told Robina Lee, who’d come to see her two weeks ago.
Where is Charlie Wong? Robina had asked in a peremptory voice.
I am Cha-li Wong, she answered as confusion clouded the young woman’s eyes. Cha-li was used to such reactions. Before meeting her in person, many people thought her Mandarin name, Cha-li (Beautiful Guard), was Charlie, because they’d expected the investigator to be a guy. Just like they’d expected a guy to take over as the medium of Lord Sun Wukong’s temple. Ah well, such things no longer bothered her.
Robina Lee, the woman introduced herself. Not my married name, she added, and sat down across from Cha-li, who reckoned her age to be thirty or so. Robina was tanned, slim, and looked tense. Her lips were rouged a deep pink, and her eyes had dark rings around them. Cha-li noted the smart black stilettos and expensive black leather handbag, and wondered if Robina was one of those high-flying execs from the towering offices in Shenton Way. The look that Robina gave her seemed haughty at first. Seated with legs crossed and hands clenched tightly around the arms of the chair, she said in pitch-perfect Mandarin, My husband is seeing another woman. I would like to engage your services to find out who the woman is. What hold she has on him. What black magic, and here Robina switched to the Hokkien dialect and said emphatically, what kong tau the vixen used to ensnare him. I need a private investigator and a medium. I’m told you’re both. I will pay you well above market rates if you agree to handle the case.