He says, Taiwanese pianists, you see, they have more discipline, more focus, more technique. You can hear it in the recordings, if you listen closely enough.
This guy’s fingers must be moving at insane speeds up and down those piano keys. The image in my head: those fingers dancing around, little wisps of smoke starting up until the keys catch fire. The way this guy is playing, you’d think only a machine was capable of that.
I think about how my parents made me do extra study time after school and at weekends for hours and hours, hours and hours. When all I wanted to do was draw Superman and Flash comics.
I bet this Chia Chen didn’t even know who Superman was as a kid. I bet his entire world was eighty-eight black and white keys.
I did get As though. You never saw my parents’ eyes light up the way they did when there were As all round. Ding ding ding.
And that feeling when their smiles spread and words of pride came out of their mouths (mostly to their friends), and they were beaming and I was getting blasted (indirectly) by those rays…
Fuzzy.
I say to Charles, You could say the same about Chinese pianists, too, I suppose.
I don’t know what I’ve just said though, because Charles’s face turns.
He says, They are nowhere near the same.
But when you think about it, we’re pretty much Chinese, right?
I don’t know what I’ve just said, because Charles’s face has gone atomic.
He turns to me and he says, My family has been in Taiwan for centuries. Akemi and me, we have aborigine blood flowing in our veins.
He says, China? China is a power-mad maniac obsessed with control. It uses its might to lean on nations and organizations. It will do anything to ensure that our independence is not acknowledged.
It insists we are one of its states, he scoffs.
Chinese Taipei? he says. Disgusting.
This is just about as worked up as I’ve seen Charles get. Except for when he first told me about his dad’s boss.
He says, Have you heard of the 228 incident?
I shake my head.
Of course you haven’t. He shakes his head, blows out a sigh. Did your parents teach you nothing?
I say, Not really, no.
He says, I suggest you look it up.
I tell him I’ll do that.
And I look out at that pretty neon again, and the piano music washes over me and out the window.
F
ORTY
-T
HREE
Akemi’s mouth makes the shape of an O when she does the thing. She’s swaying and she’s got her head tilted back and her eyes are closed and yeah, she is for sure feeling it.
I watch her performing this song that she wrote on the piano – kind of Lauryn Hill, kind of The xx – and I think how funny it is that this is exactly the same pained–ecstatic look she had on just a bit ago when we were having sex on the sofa I’m on right now: me struggling to get my trousers and socks off, so I just sack the socks off completely, sitting down so she can ease herself onto my cock while I also minimize the chance of being exposed as less than adequate in bed (I bet you a million pounds Other Me doesn’t have this problem), and as we settle into an irregular rhythm, her ragged breath in my ear, the sexual frenzy descends, I start losing myself – but not before I marvel at the fact I haven’t prematurely ejaculated or lost my erection – so much so that I think I might say something I don’t actually mean, because let’s face it, this girl has been the closest thing I’ve had to real intimacy, this girl whose body is taut and angular and warm, and she knows, somehow she knows, so she claps her hand over my mouth as the fucking turns desperate, eye contact that messes me up something crazy, her teeth on my lips and that’s it, I’m done, and she’s done, and we crumple onto the sofa, just lying there while we listen to the blood in our ears.
After a couple minutes, I ask her whether we should really be fucking in her father’s house, on her father’s sofa. Whether we should maybe go to her place in future.
On account of it being, you know, disrespectful.
She turns to me and scoffs. Since she refused to be what he wanted her to be, she tells me, her dad doesn’t care what she does.
The last chord from the piano floats out into the corners of the penthouse’s living room, before disappearing into nothingness.
I say, I didn’t know you were a musician. I thought you just worked at the reception in the hotel and that was it.
She swivels around to face me and says, Not everyone walks around flaunting their talent around their neck.
Well, you’re really good, I say. Like, record deal, playing-in-front-of-big-audiences good.
She laughs and she says, I guess that’s the plan. A bit crazy when you think about it.
I think about my own photographic fantasies – cover shoots, gallery shows – and I say, No. There’s nothing silly about that at all.
She says, It’s amazing how differently you see your dreams when people around you take them seriously.
