![]() It had a fat angel holding a lyre as a base. An ornate lamp - the same lamp that had illuminated her every night - now Hu Tien was finally able to see it in entirety. Her living room was boxy in the slanting afternoon light, the wall paper yellowish and faded. "You said I could come, do you remember?" Hu Tien shifted his weight from one foot to another. Scratched his shin with the toes of the other foot. "They called me a prodigy."Ī few days later he borrowed five quid from his flat-mate for a bunch of tulips. "I also used to play at concert level," Hu Tien said. It sounded at once like a query for reassurance and an invitation. The violet eyes told him she had heard and understood every word. "I am your neighbour." She gazed at him steadily. "I listen to you play." It emerged as a squeak, but she heard it. She had these violet eyes, and they spoke of turbulence, tunnels, the seduction of amnesia, a desire to escape borders. She became aware of the sound of his footsteps and halted, turning slightly. He didn't mean to accost, merely to get close. ![]() But her face - Hu Tien gasped at its grace, its architectural remoteness, its pathetic beauty. Her eyes swept pedestrian traffic, then slid down to the pavement. She walked slowly, almost dragging her feet. She was wearing a shapeless denim smock which came down past her knees and emphasised her scrawny ankles. A quickening, received like an electrical jolt, travelled up his oesophagus. He recognised her by her lace mantilla shawl. Tall and gaunt, her shoulders stooping, her wispy blond hair tied back in a ponytail. *His gaze tracked a woman coming out of Waitrose, a bag of shopping dangling from her wrist. Her silhouette was stark against the pall of yellow light from her lamp, her lace-covered shoulders rising and falling, and the muscles in his twitch in response. Her notes were played as the light dance steps of lovers, subtle, yet with controlled savagery. 5? Or was it 11? Once, he'd have pinpointed immediately. He lifted the slat of the blinds, a hot flush pollarding his cheeks. They felt surreal, from another life which he couldn't equate with this one. His particular favourite - the writer Lu Xun's short stories. He had brought Dreams of the Red Chamber, other Chinese classics, surveys of Chinese ink painters like Pan Tianshou and Wu Guanzhong. His other books - books from his past - gathered dust in bulky blocks. That night, Hu Tien tried to read his flat-mate's engineering books. ![]() Mayflower turned him down for a waiter's job. He'd grown up with Chinese literati traditions - calligraphy, Chinese poetry, ink painting, but when it came to music, his father only wanted him to learn dead white men's music. Once, he too had played the piano in a vortex of delirium. ![]() He didn't switch on the lights even as dusk faded into night. Another illegal immigrant was willing to work for less. She must've played Chopin before this, but he only noticed the night the proprietress of Hunan Garden, a Chinese woman with a perennial toothpick in her mouth, had fired him without ceremony. A feathery feeling blossomed in his throat, like a cough wanting to be released. ![]() She looked so utterly European, foreign and inaccessible. Hu Tien could see the downward arch of a nose, the trace outline of lips, the swaying of her shoulders. There's a woman on a bench, her hair and face obscured by a black lace mantilla shawl. One of Chopin's most physically demanding pieces. Five nights consecutively, Hu Tien listened to the piano playing across the street. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |