The men drank and played the finger-guessing game. At first the game was played among the men only, but then the losers asked their assigned girls to play for them. As the girls joined in, the men picked up the speed of their drinking, to a point that they didn’t even wait for the girls to pour. They did it themselves, half a glass for a finger-guessing round, one glass for three rounds or maybe four. Sometimes the losers were made to down the liquor in one drink.
Why haven’t we seen you here recently?
Hey, fill up your glass. Look at mine, it’s full.
Go on, play this round for me.
Here, give me a hug. It’s been a long time since I last held you in my arms.
Hey, you can’t do that. A rain check on your turn to drink? When will you really drink it?
More and more XO Brandy was brought out and poured into a decanter with ice. The amber liquid was diluted after the ice melted, turning into a lusterless light brown and then an even lighter brown, with a tinge of lifeless white. Brandy that would normally overflow without dripping down the side of the glass could not withstand the added water; the liquid now oozed over the rims of the glasses.
They drained glasses of XO Brandy, dumping tumblers of the stuff into their open mouths. The brandy also figured in the guessing game, and it took little time for them to empty a case of twenty bottles.
The dinner, like all banquets in Taipei’s business circles, was held in a small private restaurant room. A few dozen square meters in size, the room had only one door, which was tightly shut. The walls were decorated with red silk and satin on top and metal wainscoting. Spray painted in purple, the ceilings were sprinkled with gold dust. More than a dozen small lightbulbs shone from artistically designed lamps, their shiny metal shades inlaid with stained glass. These details were considered to represent grandeur and luxury, which was why they were all used here.
Their din echoed in the room, bouncing off the wainscoting up to the ceiling before careening back down to be absorbed by the silk fabric, giving off a muffled sound like someone chewing and gnawing on bones with the mouth closed.
Lin Xigeng sat there, the picture of idle ease, holding a cigarette in one hand. He looked at the men and women in front of him, playing games, drinking, and flirting, a barely perceptible smile on his face, as if he were outside what was a common scene for him.
On that early spring evening, sitting across the enormous round table from him, I thought I saw a weary look on the face of Lin Xigeng, a host who was remiss in getting his guests to eat.
He seemed to have seen it all, an impression that was particularly noticeable when he was not talking. As he looked down, the frames of his glasses masked the expression in his eyes and gave his face a glum look. His dark suit coat made him appear quite understated.
I’ll never forget what he wore that night, for it was too casual for a banquet host. The tailoring was so-so, the color too dark; he was tieless and his suit was wrinkled. He must have been wearing the same clothes during the day and came over to entertain right after work.
It was on that early spring evening that I first met Lin Xigeng and the dinner guests around the table. His guests weren’t necessarily unimportant figures, but he didn’t make an effort to offer them drinks or supply topics for conversation. Instead, he just sat there, as if he were hiding most of himself somewhere inside. As a result, the glum understatement so typical of him left something undecided about a real estate tycoon who was rumored to be worth billions of dollars and who’d had love affairs with many women in the entertainment industry; he had an air about him that was unrelated to his business, an inclination akin to a need and desire for something else.
At that moment I had a profound sense that the successful man before me was quite different from other successful entrepreneurs I’d met. To be sure, he was accomplished, but he was brimming with a sense of imperfection, an uncertainty of which even he himself was likely unaware. It was precisely that deeply touching sense of uncertainty and dissatisfaction that convinced me that there was a place for a woman in this man’s life.
Like most of the business dinners in Taipei, a nagashi team came in some time during the evening, a typical band with a man and a woman. The modish young man had shoulder-length hair and the woman, who was barely twenty, went without makeup. Dressed in common jeans and a blouse, she was obviously telling the audience that she was different from the other women of the trade.
The nagashi band brought their own electronic keyboard and a drum set, which, when turned all the way up, submerged the room in roaring, deafening music, making it impossible to talk to someone even across the table. The finger-guessing games came to a stop, and the men now slid into the girls’ arms, holding them or resting their heads on their chests.
The nagashi woman began with a fast-tempo Mandarin song, after which she asked, microphone in hand, if any of the guests would like to sing. The men all fell into an act of feigned modesty and politeness, and in the end none of them went up. One of the girls then got up and sang a Taiwanese song, “Lingering Old Feelings.” When she returned to her seat, one of Lin Xigeng’s employees offered her a red, five-hundred-NT bill in front of everyone. It was a reward, which she accepted with ease; except for a “thank-you,” she said nothing, did not even smile.
The girls now took turns singing, each song earning a reward of five hundred NT. One after another they went up, in an impressively orderly fashion. Most of their songs were sad, sentimental love songs; the singers were absorbed in their songs, in either Taiwanese or Mandarin, about being abandoned by heartless lovers. Accompanied by very loud music, their voices, amplified by the microphone, did not sound entirely human, resembling a collective effect created by a machine; it seemed that anyone who opened her mouth could be a singer, but it was impossible to tell just who was singing.
With the steadily loud music increasing the effects of alcohol, the men began to take off their ties and unbuttoned their shirts to reveal flabby chests and bellies. Their hands also got frisky, worming their way under the girls’ clothes to reach for their breasts or under their skirts. Yinghong grabbed the purse on her knees, fighting the urge to get up and leave.
She wondered why her uncle had brought her to this dinner. Normally he wouldn’t let her come if these girls were around. Was it because he was unaware this time or because he couldn’t find someone else to accompany him? Or was it all involved with the land he was planning to sell to Lin? In any case, she couldn’t leave. If she did, she would offend the host, for which her uncle would bear the consequences.
As she hesitated, the music paused, since no one went up to sing. One of the girls knocked over a chopstick when she tried to evade a man’s face that had come too close to hers.
“My chopstick,” she said with a flirty pout. “You have to get me another one.”
“Do you really need to find another one? You can have mine. I promise it’ll be big enough to fill you up and make you happy,” the man said.
Laughter erupted in the room. Yinghong stood up with her purse, but her exit route was blocked by a tall figure. It was Lin Xigeng, who said calmly:
“Let’s dance.”
“Here?” She was unsure.
Before she could protest, he put his arm around her shoulder, forcefully moving her away from her seat into the area between the band and the tables.
At first she felt that the carpet under her feet was making it hard to move, as if her shoes were caught in the pile. Fortunately, Lin was barely moving his feet; they seemed to simply sway from side to side. Then she was relaxed enough to notice the music, a slow waltz.