Oliver's Story

 

I don't remember much about Hong Kong. Except it was the last time I saw Marcie Binnendale.

We departed Tuesday morning from New York, and stopped just once — in Fairbanks — to refuel. I was anxious to try Baked Alaska on the scene. Marcie wanted to go out and have a snowball fight. Before we could decide, they called us back on board.

We slept as best as possible across three seats. In our festive mood, we joined what swingers call the Mile- High Club. Which means we furtively made love while other passengers enjoyed Clint Eastwood gunning down innumerable baddies for a fistful of dollars.

It was early Wednesday (!) evening when we touched down in Tokyo. We had four hours to change planes. I was so zonked from twenty hours of assorted flying that I not-too-ceremoniously crashed right on a couch in Pan Am's Clipper Lounge. Meanwhile Marcie, ever effervescent, had a conference with some guys who'd come to meet her from the city. (This was in our deal; she'd have four days of duties, then we would take two weeks of screw- the-world vacation.) By the time she woke me for the final leg, she'd worked out all details for exchanging chic boutiques with Takashimaya, the Japanese purveyors of consumer elegance.

I slept no further. I was too excited, looking forward to the lights of Hong Kong Harbor. At last they sparkled into view as we descended just about the midnight hour. It was even better than the pictures I had seen.

John Alexander Hsiang was there to meet us. Clearly he is Number One for Marcie's matters in the Colony. He was late thirtyish, his outfit British and his accent U.S.A. ('I went to B-School in the States,' he said.) He punctuated everything with 'A-okay'. Which did indeed describe all the arrangements he had made.

For, less than twenty minutes after we had landed, we were crossing Hong Kong Harbor from the airport to Victoria, where we'd be staying. The conveyance was a helicopter. And the view spectacular. The city was a diamond in the darkened China Sea.

'Local proverb,' John Hsiang said.' 'A million lights shall glow.' '

'How come they're up so late?' I asked.

'Our New Year festival.'

You asshole, Barrett! You forgot why you were coming! You even knew it was the Year of the Dog!

'What time will everybody go to bed?'

'Oh, maybe two, three days.' Mr Hsiang smiled.

'I could last about another fifteen seconds,' Marcie sighed.

'You mean you're tired?' I remarked, amazed that Wonder Woman would confess such things.

'Enough to cancel tennis in the morning,' she replied. And kissed my ear.

I couldn't see the outside of the villa in the dark. But it was lush as Hollywood within. The place was halfway up the Peak. Which meant almost a mile above the harbor (higher than our 'copter flew), and so the backyard vista was incredible.

'Too bad it's winter. Just a bit too cold for swimming,' John remarked. I hadn't even noticed that the garden had a pool.

'My head is swimming, John,' I said.

'Why don't they have the fashion show in summer?' Marcie asked. We were simply chatting while the staff (an amah and two houseboys) brought in our stuff, unpacked and hung it up.

'Hong Kong summers aren't very pleasant,' John replied. 'Humidity is quite uncomfortable.'

'Yeah, over eighty-five percent,' said Barrett, who had done his homework. And was now awake: enough to quote from it.

'Yes,' said Mr Hsiang. 'Like August in New York.'

Evidently John was loath to grant that anything in Hong Kong wasn't' A-okay'.

'Good night. I hope you will enjoy our city.'

'Oh, no question,' I replied with grand diplomacy. 'It is a many-splendored thing.'

He left. No doubt enthusiastic: at my literary reference.

Marce and I just sat, too far beyond fatigue to go to bed. Houseboy Number One provided wine and orange juice.

'Who owns this pleasure dome?' I asked.

'A landlord. We just rent it by the year. We've got a lot of people coming in and out. It's more convenient if we keep a place.'

'What do we do tomorrow?' I inquired.

'Well, in just about five hours, a car will come to take me to our offices. Then scintillating luncheon with the Moguls of Finance. You could join us … '

'Thanks. I'll pass.'

'John will be at your disposal. You can see the sights with him. The Tiger Gardens, markets.

Maybe you could spend the afternoon out on an island.'

'Just with John?'

She smiled. 'I'd like to have him show you Shatin,'

'Yes, the monastery of ten thousand Buddhas. Right?'

'Right,' she said. 'But you and I will go to the Lan Tao Island by ourselves and spend the night there in the Polin monastery.'

'Hey. You really know this place.'

'I've been here many times,' she said.

'Solo?' I inquired, unable to disguise my jealousy. I wanted this entire trip to be our special property.

'Not just by myself,' she answered, 'desperately alone. The sunsets do that to you.'

Good. She was a neophyte to sharing sunsets. I would teach her that.

Tomorrow.

Naturally, I bought a camera.

John transported me next morning to Kowloon and in the massive Ocean Terminal I got loads of photographic apparatus at a steal.

'How do they do it, John?' I asked. 'The Japanese equipment is cheaper than in Japan. The French perfume is cheaper than in Paris!' (I was buying Marcie some.)

'That is the secret of Hong Kong.' He smiled. 'This is a magic city.'

First I had to see the flower markets in their New Year glory. Choy Hung Chuen, exploding with chrysanthemums and fruits and golden paper images. A Technicolor banquet for my newly purchased lens. (And I bought a big bouquet for Marcie.) Then back to Victoria. The ladder streets. A narrow San Francisco and a spiderlike bazaar. We went to Cat Street, where the vendors in the red-draped booths hawked everything — the wildest potpourri imaginable.

I ate a hundred-year-old egg. (I chewed and swallowed trying to avoid a taste.) John did explain that actually these eggs take only weeks to make.

'They treat them with arsenic and they cover them with mud.' (This after I had swallowed!) We passed the herbalists. But I could not be tempted by the seeds or fungi or the dried sea horses.

Then the wineshops selling … pickled snakes.

'No, John,' I said, 'not pickled snakes.'

'Oh, it is very useful,' he replied, enjoying my dismay at the exotic. 'Venom mixed with wine is very popular. It works wonders.'

'For example …?'

'Good for rheumatism. Also as an aphrodisiac'