And instead of going inside the house to get a snack, or play games with his brothers and sisters or the neighbourhood kids (there are no neighbourhood kids because there is no neighbourhood), he walks around the house and straight into the ramshackle hut at the back – which is also where he sleeps, on account of there being eight kids in total and there not being enough room for him inside the two-bedroom, single-storey house.
He lights a candle because there’s no electricity (there’s no plumbing, either), and sits down. He flips open a textbook he’d managed to borrow from a kid who lives miles down the dirt track, a kid who is now studying economics at National Taipei University – a regular miracle for round these parts.
And young Charles, he moves the candle closer to the pages, and he gets to studying mathematics.
Because the Hus are broke. A drought messed up the farm that’s been in the family for generations, and his father’s now working for shit-all money in construction, building the country’s first ever motorway.
Because the only way he’s going to help his folks out is to study, graduate at the top of his class, get a scholarship to university and get rich.
Charles’s daddy, he’s always talking about his boss, looks up to him something crazy.
How distinguished he is in his Savile Row suits, tailor-made on visits to London.
How he only smokes imported Nat Sherman cigarettes with gold filter tips.
How civilized he is with his good manners and easy charm.
How he says the west is the future – America is investing heavily in the country, and one day, well one day Taiwan will be a major, global player. Just like America.
And young Charles, just like his daddy, well he thinks this all sounds magical.
He’d love to go to America. And so he studies.
One night, at around midnight, young Charles’s mother and father walk into the hut.
Charles, he looks up, and he sees their faces. Worried-looking.
And his father, he says to Charles, Son, we’ve got some bad news.
He says, We went to the hospital in Chiayi earlier. The coughing and the breathlessness… it’s because I’ve got lung cancer.
Lung cancer, thinks Charles. This is what his aku died of a few years ago.
His father, he says, Don’t worry, they caught it early.
And young Charles, he closes his textbook.
He listens to the roar of the cicadas outside.
He’s freaking out, because what is he going to do without his dad?
The man who taught him how to fish, how to swim. The man who would take him to the market, just the two of them, and secretly buy him a big plate of sweet xueha bing loaded with mango and condensed milk.
He fights back the water in his eyes. And quiet and calm, Charles says, What can we do?
Charles’s father, he sits down next to his son, his face lit up by the flickering candle. He says, There’s treatment I can have, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, maybe even surgery.
And young Charles, he says, Where are we going to get the money from?
His daddy puts his arm around him, draws him in close.
His daddy says, I work hard. My boss can help, don’t you worry about it.
His daddy squeezes him, and he says, Okay?
T
WENTY
-S
IX
Charles stops talking, and the dishes on the table are all empty, on account of me having eaten everything off them while he was telling me his story.
He gets up from his seat, starts stacking the plates and the cutlery and the glasses.
And I say, Hold up. You can’t just start clearing dishes. Did your dad’s boss give him the money for his treatment or no?
At the sink, Charles is rinsing the plates off, one by one, before placing them carefully in the dishwasher.
He’s got his back to me, but between the hunched shoulders and the hanging head, it’s pretty obvious the story for young Charles doesn’t end well, just like the story for young Sean.
He tells me that even though his dad was the hardest-working man on the crew (he worked extra shifts to help out, never slacked once), his boss – the rich man who flaunted his wealth and adoration for all things west – refused to help him with his treatment.
Because if he helped Charles’s daddy out, he would be setting a precedent, and would have to help all his workers out – even though doing that would have been a cinch.
Because he had his own wife and kid to look after, and what with keeping her in the newest designer dresses, overseas private school fees, piano and tennis lessons for the boy, as well as staff for the house and the pool and the gardens and the stables, annual ski holidays in Courchevel plus maintenance and upkeep of his new super yacht, it was already killing him as it was.
