Homesick for Another World(5)

Mr. Wu dared not visit the local prostitutes. He took a bus into the city and spent the extra money for that bit of privacy. Besides, he thought, it’s better not to know where these girls come from, who else they are working on, and so forth. He was bashful about sex and insisted on getting underneath the sheets to take off his clothes. During the act he kept his hands placed lightly on the girl’s shoulders and averted his eyes but did not close them. He had learned somewhere that closing your eyes meant that you were in love. He imagined closing his eyes with the woman from the arcade. He wondered if she had the same kind of body as these prostitutes: soft, scentless, and wan. He thought it was quite standard to hate himself a little after visiting a prostitute, so he was never startled when the thought came to him: I am disgusting. On the bus home, he ate an ice cream and looked out the window and thought of his woman at the arcade and of what she might be doing at just that moment, and his heart hurt.

He lived alone in the tallest house in the neighborhood. The downstairs neighbors were a young couple with a big, fat baby and a pet sow. The husband made a living collecting bribes for a local councilman. The woman had one flaccid hand that reminded Mr. Wu of a large prawn. He shuddered and gagged whenever he saw it. He felt sorry for the child, held and fed by that twisted, thin, limp, and red-skinned tentacle. The woman from the arcade had small, gentle, bronze-colored hands. Strong and muscled, not bony and not fat. Just right, he thought. Perfect hands. He went to the arcade at least once a day and stayed for three to four hours at a time, usually in the late evenings. Sometimes he went in the mornings, too, when it was free of children. Days he did not go, he felt sick to his stomach, and his heart growled like a trapped animal, brooding and useless. So he went as often as he could.

The arcade was not really an arcade. It was a room full of computers with games loaded onto them and access to the Internet. He bought a daily pass from the woman. He handed her a large bill so that she would have to make change and he could stand there longer, watching her count the money, feeling her near to him across the counter.

“How are you today, Mr. Wu?” she said. She said this every day.

He mumbled something unintelligible. He never knew what to say around her. Everything he wanted to say was “You are beautiful” and “I’m in love with you.” There was, in his mind, nothing else for him to say.

“Thank you,” he said instead, taking his change and the little card with his log-in information on it.

“Enjoy,” said the woman.

He walked to the computer with the best view of her. He peered out from over the monitor all evening, watching her greet the teenage boys, take their money, hand them their cards. When there were no customers, she played games on her cell phone. She likes games, he thought. That’s wonderful, so light of heart, so free. He loved the stiff, thick shiftiness of her hair, which she most often wore down and boxy at her shoulders. Her face was tan and shiny, with big cheeks and a small, round nose. Her eyes were small and clear and bright. She wore lipstick and blue eye shadow. Every day she was more beautiful, he thought. He watched her look in her compact. He wondered what she thought when she looked in the mirror, if she knew her own beauty.

? ? ?

One day he got an idea. He would ask for her phone number so that they could be texting pals. He got the idea from a conversation he’d overheard at his lunch spot. Two men were talking about an article they’d read about technology and dating. He thought it was a risk to ask for her number and knew that asking straight out would give him away. He did not want her to know that he was in love with her. He wanted to divulge that information slowly, in increments, step by step as he wooed her into his arms. Or better yet, he would keep his love for her a secret their entire lives and allow her to think it was she who had seduced him. She the one hopelessly in love, so lucky to have him. He imagined himself across from her at the dinner table, years later. She gazes at him with almost nauseating devotion. He eats his rice straight backed, unconcerned, secretly enraged with happiness.

He decided he could not do it. Asking for the woman’s cell-phone number was like asking for her hand in marriage. He knew he would be rejected. He went to the arcade and stood in line and paid for his time and smelled her hair and watched her count the money and his heart ached. Her phone was lying on the counter. If only he could snatch it for a moment, he thought. But there was no chance. He took his seat behind the computer and pined. He watched her work. He watched her use her phone. On his way out he saw what he couldn’t believe he had missed before. The arcade had a flyer with a coupon for one free hour of playtime between midnight and six a.m. on weekdays. The arcade phone number was on it. He took a flyer. He would call the number later. If the woman didn’t answer, he’d know it wasn’t her cell-phone number. But he could pretend to be a policeman, or some higher-up statesperson demanding to speak to the arcade manager. He could say she was in violation of a code, and that he’d need to speak to her immediately. He could call when he knew she wasn’t there. He had a plan. He practiced over and over again what to say.

“This is Lieutenant Liu. Give me the manager.”

“Give me the manager’s direct number.”

But the next morning he went to the arcade and stood in line and paid for his time and watched her fiddle with her earring and make change and his heart nearly broke in half. He was impatient. He went and sat behind a computer in the far corner and called the number on the flyer.