A foreign teacher arrives in China and falls in love with a local, but the path of true love is anything but smooth.
Stone Lion, Taiyuan, China (Photo: M. Griffiths)
Read Love at First Flight (Part 1) - Broken English here.
Read Love at First Flight (Part 2) - Life is A Roller coaster here.
Love at First Flight
(Part 4 of 5)
Freeze Frame
“My mother asked to me to meet a boy
tonight.” Julia twirled the straw in her iced tea.
Malcolm’s eyebrows shot up.
“He is an assistant professor at
university in Canada now. My mother thinks he would be very good husband.”
“What about us, I thought we were…?”
He tried to stop the rising panic in his voice. “Can’t you say no?”
She shook her head. “I have to go. My mother
knows his mother. They arrange us to meet every time he comes back. He is very
smart. He has a good life in Canada.”
He stared down at the cracked Formica
table of the small snack bar. “Where will you go with him?”
“He will take me to Golden Dragon restaurant.
Very expensive.”
He stood in a doorway thirty metres
from the Golden Dragon. For an hour he had watched a steady stream of people
going into the restaurant. Finally she saw her get out of a car with a man. He
was slim, medium height, hair in need of a cut, receding a little in front. He
watched them go to the reception desk and then a waitress showed them to a table
near the front windows. He stood in the darkened doorway watching them for a
while. He saw Julia laugh and shake out her hair. She wore it down tonight. She
looked beautiful. He left quickly before he saw any more.
The next morning Malcolm slowly rode his bike
back from the supermarket, reluctant to move faster in the summer heat. A car
was parked in the middle of the bike lane, hazard lights flashing. He stopped
behind a crowd of bikes, shrugged and waited. Only in China.
He looked at the imposing hotel that stood on
his right, two lions staring out proudly on each side of the front steps. A
skinny guy and chubby woman were walked up the steps to the revolving door
holding hands. He looked away and then spun his head around again. Something familiar…
The man stopped and let the woman enter the
revolving door first. He glanced out at the street before he followed her
inside. When he saw his face Malcolm knew.
The guy
from Canada. But who was the woman?
The driver of the illegally parked car came
out of the hotel and started it up. The bikes in front of him moved off but Malcolm
got off his bike and crossed over to small restaurant on the other side of the
road. He pulled the shopping bag from the basket on the front of the bike and
took it inside. He ordered a cheap meal for lunch and waited.
An hour later the man and the woman came out,
holding hands again.
Watching the tree to catch a hare. It’s an
old Chinese story about a boy asked by his master to catch a hare. The boy goes
to the woods and is looking around when a hare runs up and bangs its head
against the tree trunk. The boy takes the hare home to his master. He then
spends the rest of life waiting behind the tree in the hope that more hares
would do the same thing. The story was supposed to mean that things won’t be
the same when you go back again.
In this case though, Malcolm hoped that his
chances were a bit better than the old story. He sat in the same restaurant across
the road from the hotel and waited for two hours. Nothing. He sucked the last
dregs of his drink with the straw, walked out and went home.
The next day he returned and waited again.
His eyes became blurry with fatigue,
straining to see every face that walked near the hotel. Finally he saw the man
arrive again. Soon the woman arrived, the same one he was sure, short hair, a bit
overweight. She smiled when she saw the man and they went into the hotel
together again. An hour or so later they came out, as before.
Two days later he saw them again this time he
followed them into the hotel. He wore a big sun hat and a face mask which
between them covered almost all of his hair and face. He wore gloves to hide
his pale hands. He got into the lift and stood behind them looking down at the
floor. When they got out he quietly watched them walk along the corridor until
they let themselves into a room without a backward glance.
He looked around; the only thing in the
hallway was a trolley with cleaning bottles and clean sheets and towels. Then
he saw something else. Hanging off a corner of the trolley was a card. He
looked around. There was no one in sight. He pulled the trolley over to the
nearest open door. The room was empty and just cleaned. He shut the door and
tried the card. A green light flashed, the lock clicked, and when he turned the
handle and pushed the door it swung open. He quickly returned the trolley to
where he found it and pushed the elevator button. He felt his pulse race as an
idea began to form in his mind.
He took several deep breaths. This was it. A week of planning and preparation, and now it
was time. He timed his entry to the hotel just as they finished checking in. He
joined them in the lift. He wore the same hat, face mask, and gloves. He let
them get out of the lift first and watched them walk to their room, eyeing the
distance. When they shut the door he located the cleaner’s trolley, checked
that the key card was there, and then retreated into the stairwell opposite the
elevators to wait.
He checked his watch, every thirty seconds. He
jumped at every voice, every footstep, every clunk of the elevator doors. He
wore a dark jacket inside out, showing the coloured lining, and sweated
underneath the hat.
Finally he stood up straight and peered
through the small window in the stairwell door. They’d had 15 minutes, long
enough to get started. It was time. He walked down the hallway and cut the card
from the trolley, took it in his left hand and walked to the room. He held the
camera in his other hand and fired up the external flash that he had bought
specially and attached to the top. When it beeped, he brushed the card over the
door lock and heard the click. He put the card in his pocket then pushed the
door open. He saw the couple on the bed, man on top, woman underneath. Big guy,
skinny woman. He pressed the shutter button. The flash went off, and then again,
and again.
The man said “What the..??!!” and the woman
screamed.
Malcolm froze and then his brain flashed. The
guy should be skinny and the woman chubby. “Shit. Sorry.” he said and turned
and raced out the door. He dropped the key card on the trolley, then walked
quickly to the stairs, keeping his head down. It was all he could do to stop himself
sprinting.
In the stairwell he pulled off the coloured
rainproof cover disguising his bag, stuffed that and the camera into the bag,
changed his hat to a different colour. His pulse raced and his temples throbbed
as if something was about to explode in his head. He stopped halfway down the
stairs, listened for anyone following, changed his shoes and turned his jacket
right side out zipping it up to hide the lining. Then he walked quickly out the
back door to the old second hand bike he’d bought a few days before. He fumbled
with the bike key, his hands trembled and sweat dripped into his eyes. It
finally got it unlocked and hopped on, head down, mask pulled up, biked down
the alley beside to the hotel and turned right. He joined the bike lane in the
street and pedalled as fast as he could. His legs felt like rubber and his arms
struggled to keep the bike straight. He almost crashed into another bike. “Dui bu qi.” Sorry.
He biked straight ahead for two blocks.
Suddenly a siren screamed. His eyes blinked in terror. Police? He looked up to see an ambulance spped out of the hospital
across the street, and head back the way he had come. He tried to breathe but
the air was stuck somewhere in his throat. He biked two more blocks then turned
right. Soon after he crossed the road and turned up an alley leading to several
apartment buildings. The alley went straight through the middle of the block and
had a gate in the middle to stop cars using it as short cut. He hopped off and
pushed his bike through the narrow opening and jumped on again. He looked back
quickly to see if anyone was following but could only seethe usual gramdas
chatting, school kids going home for lunch, people carrying shopping bags. His
pulse still raced.
He ducked down another alley, followed the
dogleg path between old red brick apartment blocks and then emerged on another
main street near the university. He stuffed the mask in his pocket.
Time to
look normal again in case someone I know sees me.
He arrived at the university and locked the
old bike to a railing. He would sell it to another roadside bike repair guy
next week maybe.
I’m not
doing this again.
He stuffed the mask and hat from his bag into
a rubbish bin, then removed the gloves from his hands. He’d scoped the bin and
believed it wasn’t covered by the campus security cameras. He walked quickly
through the campus to the gym. In the changing room he stripped to his exercise
clothes and pretended to use some of the machines. Somehow his body wouldn’t
obey his commands and his limbs had no strength. He wandered around saying
hello to a couple of people he recognised. Got
to establish my alibi.
Then he returned to the changing room, opened
his locker. Making sure no-one was watching he pulled out the camera and turned
it on. He deleted the photos and reformatted the memory card. Then he removed
the card and opened another locker, slipped it into the sole of some smelly old
running shoes he‘d placed there. The locker clanged loudly in his ears as he
shut it. He put another memory card in the camera and stuffed it back in his
bag and made his way slowly back to the apartment. At least the tricky printing
job was not necessary now. That would have been another terrifying ten minutes
in the office after hours.
He went home, had a shower and
collapsed on his bed, fists clenched.
The wrong room. How?
Total, utter, failure.
Total, utter, failure.
For days after Malcolm’s nerves jangled with
every phone call or sound of footsteps on the stairs.
Finally, he texted Julia and asked to meet
her for lunch at the small restaurant opposite the hotel. She rang and asked
why there. He said he had something important to discuss. She sounded surprised
but agreed to come.
They sat in the restaurant, near the
window. Malcolm looked at his watch and tried to make small talk. Julia seemed
distracted. She mumbled something about her mother.
Malcolm said “That’s what I want to talk
about. That guy from Canada, he’s not right for you. You will never be happy if
you agree to him.”
“He is well off. He lives in overseas.
My parents think it will be very good.”
“I know you want to go overseas. You
can do that yourself. Your English will be good enough to pass the test soon.
You have money saved. You don’t need to find a guy to help you.”
He scanned the street and sat upright. “There
is something I want you to see.”
He pointed across the street. “Look there.
It’s him with some girl. He comes to this hotel with her three times a week,
for one hour.”
She stared out the window. “I don’t
believe you. Maybe she works there. Maybe his cousin.”
“You can ask him. See what he says.
I saw him here by chance two weeks ago, after he took you out to dinner, and I
watched for him every day. He keeps coming back with the same girl.”
She watched the man and the woman walk into
the hotel holding hands. Then she got up and walked toward the door.
He got up to follow.
She turned and stopped him with her hand.
“Stay away from me. Everything is going wrong.” Her mascara began to run as she
rushed out and waved to a taxi.
********
To find out more about the hotel mix up read:
Arrested Development - A development consultant in China finds life getting out of control. [Rated R]
The
story about watching a tree to catch a hare is an old Chinese fable. I read in
a book by Adeline Yen Mah: Watching the Tree. An interesting information to Chinese
philosophy and traditions.
********
Read Love at First Flight (Part 1) - Broken English here.
Read Love at First Flight (Part 2) - Life is A Roller coaster here.
Read Love at First Flight (Part 5) – Dancing in the Street, (Finale) here.
********
There are plenty more stories on this site:
Beijing Private Eyes - Drama, Romance, Karaoke, Kidnap! A foreign teacher in Beijing meets an attractive stranger and offers to help, then things get complicated. (A long story in 8 parts)
Tell him he's dreaming - An engineer has an environmental epiphany but things don't work out as planned.
Trial by Fire - When a woman in Tibet self-immolates two witnesses face a dangerous dilemma. (4 parts)
Arrested Development - A development consultant in China finds life getting out of control. [Rated R]
Entries in the post-industrial / peak oil short story competition:
NEWSFLASH - My story 'Promised Land' has been selected for the forthcoming anthology "After Oil 2: The Years of Crisis". You can read the other entries here.
A previous set of stories was published in 2012 in a book entitled After Oil: SF Visions of a Post-Petroleum World, available from Amazon (Amazon) or in Australia from Fishpond (Fishpond).
Stories set in China:
Winds of Change – In 2022 a migrant worker struggles to realise his dreams and fulfil his family obligations.
Outside In – It's 2050, the country and economy have changed. A recycler studies for an exam to improve his prospects, and an indentured servant plans her escape.
Seeds of Time – (Sequel to Outside In). In 2055 rural China prospers again after a period of dramatic changes, then things are complicated by a strange visitor and a hidden object.
Stories set in Australia: A North Queensland Trilogy
Robots on Mars – 2025. A space-mad city boy adjusts to life in the country and tries to solve a mystery. (Note: no actual robots or Martians involved)
Promised Land – (Sequel to Robots on Mars). It’s 2050 and development threatens the rural district. Is it what they really need and if not, how can they stop it?
Heart of Glass - (Sequel to Promised Land). The year is 2099, high school graduates prepare to step into adulthood and the community prepares to celebrate the turn of a new century.
Tell me what you think. Constructive comments welcome.
If you like the story share with it with your friends.
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