'Where are you thinking of investing?' you can't help asking.
'Australia,' he says. 'Seeing your play made me even more certain.'
You say that your play doesn't really have a China background, it's about ordinary relationships between people.
He says he knows that. Anyway, he needs somewhere to go, just in case.
'But won't Australia have an aversion for Chinese if masses of Hong Kong people flood there?' you say.
'That's what I want to talk to you about.'
'I don't know how it is in Australia, I live in Paris,' you say.
'Then how is it in France?' he asks, looking right at you.
'There's racism everywhere, and naturally it occurs also in France,' you say.
'It's hard for Chinese in the West…' He picks up his half glass of orange juice, then puts it down again.
You feel some sympathy for him. He says he has a small family, born and bred in Hong Kong, and his business would be able to keep operating. Of course, there's no harm preparing for a way out.
He says he is honored that you agreed to have this very ordinary meal with him, and that, like you as a person, your writing is very frank.
You say, it is he who is frank. All Chinese live behind masks and it's quite hard to take off the masks.
'It's probably when there's no profit or loss for either party that people can become friends.'
He says this incisively; he has clearly been through many ups and downs in his dealings with people.
A journalist is to interview you at three o'clock, and you have arranged to meet at a coffee shop in Wanchai. He says he can take you, but you say he is a busy man and there is no need for him to do this. He says should you come back to Hong Kong to feel free to look him up. You thank him for his kindness, say this is probably the last time you will put on a play in Hong Kong, but that in future you are sure to meet again, though, hopefully, not until he is in Australia.
He quickly says no, no, if he goes to Paris he will certainly look you up. You leave him your address and telephone number, and he immediately writes his mobile phone number on his business card and gives it to you. He says to give a call if you need any help and that he hopes there will be an opportunity to meet again.
The journalist is a young woman wearing glasses. She gets up from a seat by the window overlooking the water as soon as you enter and waves to you. She takes off her glasses and says, 'I normally don't wear glasses, but I've only seen your photographs in the papers and was afraid I wouldn't recognize you.'
She puts her glasses into her handbag, takes out a tape recorder and asks, 'Is it all right to use a tape recorder?'
You say that it doesn't bother you.
'When I interview, I insist on the accuracy of what I quote,' she says. 'Many journalists in Hong Kong will write anything. Sometimes Mainland writers get so angry that they demand corrections.
Of course, I understand their situation. Anyway, I know that you're different, even if you do come from the Mainland.'
'I don't have any superiors,' you say with a smile.
She says her editor in chief is very good and generally doesn't touch what she writes, and whatever she writes is published. She can't stand restrictions; after 1997-there's that 1997 again-if she can't take it, she'll just leave.
'Where will you go, if you don't mind my asking?'
She says she holds a British passport for Hong Kong residents, so she can't get residence in England. She doesn't like England anyway. She's thinking of going to America but would prefer to go to Spain.
'Why Spain and not America?'
She bites her lip, smiles, and says she had a Spanish boyfriend. She met him when she went to Spain but they have broken off. Her present boyfriend is from Hong Kong. He's an architect and he doesn't want to leave.
'It's hard getting work elsewhere,' she says. 'Of course, I like Hong Kong best.' She says she has been to many countries and that it's fun traveling, but it would be hard living in those places. Not so in Hong Kong, she and her parents were born in Hong Kong, she is a one-hundred-percent Hong Kong person. She has also done special research on Hong Kong history, literature, and changes in cultural practices. She's thinking of writing a book.
'What would you do if you went to America?' you ask.
'Further studies. I've already corresponded with a university.'
'To study for a Ph.D.?'
'To study and maybe also to look for some work.'
'What about your boyfriend?'
'I might get married before leaving, or… Actually, I don't know what to do.' She doesn't seem to be nearsighted but her eyes have a faraway look. 'Am I interviewing you or are you interviewing me?'
She pulls herself together and puts on the tape recorder. 'All fight, now please say something about your views on cultural policies after Hong Kong reverts to the Mainland, will plays in Hong Kong be affected? Such issues preoccupy the Hong Kong cultural world. You are from the Mainland, could you give your views about this?'
After the interview, you again take the ferry back to Kowloon to give instructions to the performers at the Cultural Centre Playhouse. When the play begins, you can return to the hotel to have a leisurely meal with Margarethe.
The sun is shining at an angle through the clouds onto the sea, and glistening waves lace the blue water, the cool breeze is better than the air-conditioning indoors. On Hong Kong Island on the other side of the water, the lush green mountains are densely crowded with tall buildings. As the sounds of the bustling city recede, a rhythmic clanging on the water becomes distinct. You turn and notice that the sound is coming from the construction site of the auditorium being built for the handover ceremony between Britain and China in 1997. The banging of pneumatic hammers reminds you that, at this very moment, Hong Kong is by the minute and second unstoppably becoming China. The glare of the sun on the waves makes you squint and you feel drowsy, the China that you thought you had left continues to perplex you, you must make a clean break with it. You want to go with Margarethe to that very European little street in Lan Kwai Fong, to find a bar with some jazz where you can get drunk.
7
Boom! Boom! Pneumatic hammers again and again, unhurried, spaced at three- or four-second intervals. The great, glorious, correct Party! More correct, more glorious, greater than God! Forever correct! Forever glorious! Forever great!
'Comrades, I'm here representing Chairman Mao and the Party Center!'
The senior cadre had a medium build and a broad ruddy face. He spoke with a Sichuan accent, looked to be in good health, and his speech and movements indicated that he'd led troops and fought battles. The Cultural Revolution had just begun and the senior cadres still in power-from Mao's wife Jiang Qing to Premier Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong himself-all wore military uniforms. The senior cadre, accompanied by the workplace Party secretary, sat erect on the dais that was covered with red tablecloths in the auditorium.
He noted the soldiers and political cadres guarding the side doors and the back door to the meeting.
It was almost midnight. The whole workplace with its more than a thousand staff, group after group, assembled in the auditorium.
No empty seats were left, and gradually even the aisles had filled with people sitting in them. A soldier- turned-political-cadre, also wearing an old army uniform, conducted the singing. 'Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman' was sung daily by the troops in the ranks, but these literary people and administrative cadres couldn't sing the straining high notes of this paean. 'The East Is Red' was set to a folk song everyone knew, but even that was a shambles when it was sung.
'I support my comrades in opening fire on the black gang opposing the Party, Socialism, and Mao Zedong Thought!'
The meeting instantly erupted into the shouting of slogans. He couldn't tell who started the shouting and was
