Now, she said finally, after the dessert dishes were cleared, Kelly, we have to talk about the predicament you’re in.
I stared at her and put down my fork.
What predicament is that?
I think you’re in the wrong business. She drummed her fingers on the tablecloth. The problem isn’t the work, she said. Not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s you. You’re a little too insistent, dear. A little too vehement. You can’t expect China to be something it’s not. You can’t expect the world to be something it’s not.
I stammered something in protest. Whatever it was, I’ve now forgotten it. And it doesn’t matter.
I’m not telling you what to write, she said. Or what to have written, at this point. I just don’t think anyone will hire you. You’re expected to show a little more fealty. If you were Chinese, you might stake this kind of claim. I hate to put it so crudely, but there it is. There’s only so much one can prove in chasing down eccentrics. It’s like digging up some obscure neo-Platonist and trying to prove that Pauline Christianity really is a misreading of the pre-Socratics. Or that Jesus was actually a Buddhist. You know these people who do this kind of thing. Of course, you can find popular success that way. But I don’t recommend it. There’s no stability in success. Just ask Joan Crawford. Or the Khmer Rouge.
I was beginning to feel the tremors again, for the first time in two years. I felt my eyes wanting to close. The world tilted sideways, slightly, to the right, then the left.
On the wall directly over Pearl’s shoulder hung an enormous Art Nouveau poster of a woman bicycling down a gravel path beneath a canopy of trees, her long skirts tucked under her. Probably in the Bois de Boulogne, I thought. The legend underneath: Cyclos Le Monde. What does it mean, I thought, to hate yourself, not for what you are but for what you aren’t? To hate yourself as a kind of double negative, a self-canceling equation? I had the urge to steal something. I felt myself retiring from ambition. Enough, I thought, to simply live. To cultivate your own garden. You’re asking the world to be something it’s not. Was this the end of my dreamtime?
I feel like none of this is really happening, I said. Like Zhuangzi and the butterfly.
Her face clouded for a moment. Oh, yes, she said, brightening. The famous parable. Zhuangzi awoke from dreaming that he was a butterfly.
And didn’t know whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi.
We all can’t have it so easy, she said. Some of us are constantly reminded we’re not dreaming. But perhaps having it easy in that way isn’t so easy, either. Is that what you’re saying?
I don’t know what I’m saying. Other than I’m out of prospects.
You’ll land on your feet, she said. People like you always do. You’re well prepared. You’re — what’s the word? Wholesome.
How can you judge a thing like that?
It appeared she hadn’t heard me. When I look into your face, you know what I see? she asked. It’s that you’ve been so carefully and thoughtfully raised. With such good intentions. Like one of those cows from Japan everyone goes on about these days. It makes one wonder if you children these days have any inner resources at all. That’s what I mean when I say you’ll land on your feet. Not because you deserve anything at all, but because, I mean, you’re like little mascots, all of you. Little fetishes. Your whole generation. We’ve been propping you up. For God’s sake, we’ve been propping your parents up, too, in some cases. I mean, the world has to go on, doesn’t it, even if a little more feebly than we would have liked? Even by halfway measures? So someone will give you a job. Something that involves using a computer and writing reports and making forms for the rest of us to fill in. One of those jobs with a title that doesn’t actually mean anything. Vice President of Assessment Priorities! Do you know that one of my former students came here and took me to lunch last month, and that’s what was on his card! God forbid, of course, that there might be, say, a global financial collapse. I mean a real one. Bread lines and all. But I’m getting off track here. Listen, Kelly. Your self-loathing is just a little mental vacation. It’s as if you look at this other world and you can’t quite accept that you’re not in. You want to push your way in. I belong there! you insist. But you don’t. Good heavens me, you just don’t. You’re like one of those missionaries who insisted on staying on after the Boxer Rebellion. Some people can’t take the hint, I suppose. Decapitation’s not a strong enough warning. Want more of the Chablis?
I waved off the bottle and wiped my mouth. I’ll be going, I said.
My love to Wendy, Pearl said. And that darling baby.
Reaching for the bill, rummaging in her purse, she looked as if she might start humming a tune.
7
Outside Martin’s room, at the top of the stairs, a large framed print leans against a marigold-yellow wall, like an unwanted party guest, too fusty, too uncool, to be allowed past the velvet rope. Ioan. Picvs Mirandvla, reads the painted legend at the top. Galleria degli Uffizi Firenze. A profile portrait, with Pico facing left, luxuriant red bangs covering all but a sliver of his face. Puffy cheeks, a bubble chin, a long haughty nose. Lose the felt cap, I’m thinking, add a little acne, and he could be in an Iron Maiden cover band.
Oh, that, Martin says, when he opens the door and sees me staring at it. Silpa gave it to me. Of course. Pico della Mirandola, our patron saint. Couldn’t figure out where to put it. Doesn’t exactly go with the decor.
Whose patron saint?
Orchid’s, of course. The whole enterprise. Didn’t you know we had a motto? It’s up on the website somewhere. Sculpt your own statue. It comes from the — what is it? “Oration on the Dignity of Man.” Of course, Silpa knows it in Latin. Not my thing, exactly. I mean, what are we, an Episcopal day school? But every company has to have a genius loci. There, I’m doing it again. He gets to me, the guy does. Anyway, how are you feeling? Phran told me you’re back to eating regular food.
I’m fine, I say. Actually, since Julie-nah left at dawn, I’ve been better than fine; I had two brioche, a mango, and an avocado shake for breakfast, read the Bangkok Post, checked my email — nothing but entreaties to rejoin, resubscribe, renew, redonate — and read the real estate listings at Shanghai Ribao. It’s been a while since I’ve looked at a Chinese newspaper; I’m not up on all the slang.
Can I come in? I ask him.
If you don’t mind the mess. Should I get him to bring us some coffee?
As he opens the door the morning sun catches me full in the face; the eaves are cut through with rows of long skylights, like mercilessly bright, oversized lamps. Squinting, I see a self-contained apartment, a white leather couch in the sitting area, a kitchenette with two barstools, a long, scarred, mahogany table at the far end, an open bathroom with a glass-fronted shower. At the table a young Thai woman — a teenager, I’m guessing, no older than eighteen — is hunched over a magazine in a pink dressing gown, drinking from a can of Diet Coke and eating chunks of papaya from a bowl.
Martin follows my eyes — how can he not? I’ve never learned suavity, not in these situations.