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I glanced up quickly. April inhaled sharply, her eyes very wide.
‘You say that about Emma’s man? You insult Emma too? What a horrible thing to say!’
‘What?’ Louise said, not understanding. ‘What did I say?’
April leaned across the table towards Louise. ‘You said he’s a turtle,’ she hissed.
‘That’s a shocking insult, Louise,’ I said.
‘Is it? No wonder the Tiger says it all the time.’ Louise grinned. ‘What does it mean?’
‘Man who cannot satisfy wife,’ April said, very softly. ‘Wife turns to other men.’
‘Cuckold,’ I said.
‘Whoa.’ Louise’s eyes widened with delight. ‘Cool. Good one.’
‘Same thing as wearing a green hat,’ April said.
‘Why turtle?’ Louise said. ‘Why is that particular animal the insult?’
I didn’t want to discuss it. ‘I have no idea.’
‘I don’t know either,’ April said. ‘Just turtle is very offensive animal. Lot of insults attached to it.’
I studied them. April: living in dreamland, believing she had a family when she only saw her man every few weeks. Louise: willing to share a man with more than a hundred others. And me.
I was probably the most pathetic of us all.
‘Will I still be able to see you, Louise?’ I said.
‘Since you know all about it, you might be able to talk to me occasionally,’ Louise said, still obviously happy. ‘Don’t count on anything; usually when we go there we’re gone for good. Never seen again.’
‘What?’ April said. ‘You don’t mean that, do you? I don’t understand.’
‘Your poor family,’ I whispered.
‘Thoroughly worth it.’ Louise glanced down at the dishes. ‘Is this what we ordered?’
I looked at the dishes as well and sagged. ‘Nope.’
‘The economic downturn hasn’t affected this place at all,’ Louise said as she tried to catch the waiter’s eye. ‘They still act as if they’re doing us a favour by letting us eat here.’
‘I’m glad everything turned out for all of us,’ April said. ‘We’ll all be happy married women.’
I really did feel the need to bang my head on the table.
I tapped on John’s office door and opened it a crack. ‘Free to talk?’
‘Just let me save this file,’ he said, studying the computer, then turned and leaned his elbows on the pile of papers on his desk. ‘What?’
‘It’s May fifth. The festival’s started. And you haven’t done anything.’
‘Aiya,’ he said, and I giggled. ‘What?’
‘That’s an extremely Cantonese sound coming from you,’ I said, still smiling.
‘I’ve heard you say it too. You can pick people who have lived in Hong Kong for any length of time, even expats. They all say it.’
‘Cheung Chau,’ I said, bringing him back to the point.
‘Aiya,’ he said again. ‘It’s already started?’
‘The buns are up, John. The three effigies have already been built.’
‘When’s the big day?’
‘Three days from now. May eighth.’ I sighed with exasperation. ‘Why don’t you ever look in your diary?’
‘I have a secretary and I have you,’ he said. ‘I don’t need to.’
‘You forgot your own birthday, Pak Tai.’
‘You know it’s not my birthday,’ he said impatiently. ‘It’s the Buddha’s birthday. They just lumped me into the holiday because it was convenient.’
‘Did you know him?’
‘Who?’
‘The Sakyamuni Buddha.’
He hesitated, watching me, then, ‘No.’
‘What about the teachings?’
‘What about them?’
‘Are they true? The Buddhist Precepts?’
He sighed. ‘You know better than to ask me that, Emma. You know you have to find your own way.’
I shrugged it off, it was worth a try. ‘Okay, so when’s your birthday?’
‘You know I have no idea,’ he said. ‘After four and a half thousand years I’d challenge anybody to have an idea. I doubt if I was ever actually born, anyway. I just am.’
‘Well then, Eighth Day of the Fourth Moon it is. May eighth this year. Three days from now. Thursday.’
He leaned back and retied his hair. ‘Aiya.’
‘I’ve already cancelled all your classes, and booked the boat to take us over. We leave at ten in the morning. Okay?’
He grinned broadly. ‘You already arranged it?’
‘Of course I did. You don’t think I’d leave it to you, do you?’
Cheung Chau was a dumbbell-shaped island about an hour’s boat ride from Central Pier. The island was only three hundred metres wide at its narrowest point and hardly any height above sea level. The two ‘weights’ on the dumbbell stretched to either side, and were slightly higher.
The island was completely packed with people for the festival. John carried Simone so that she wouldn’t be crushed.
The air was full of the noise of shouting, drums and gongs, and the smells of food and sweat. A thick pall of incense smoke hung over the entire island.
We stopped for lunch at one of the small restaurants near the pier before we went anywhere. The restaurants usually specialised in live seafood, held in tanks next to the kitchen. Diners could select exactly which fish and shellfish they wanted, how they wanted them served, and the restaurant would oblige. But for the week of the Bun Festival the entire island of Cheung Chau went vegetarian in Pak Tai’s honour. The butcher shops closed for the holidays.
After lunch we wandered through the packed streets to the Pak Tai temple. The bun towers stood proudly outside the temple, enormous ten-metre-high bamboo cones held by a bamboo scaffold. The buns were strung around the outside of the cones.
The tradition was that at the end of the festival, after midnight on the final day, young men would climb the towers to retrieve the buns for the crowd; a good-luck race. But in 1978, one of the towers had collapsed and some of the bun racers had been killed. Since then the buns had been distributed to the island’s residents by the clergy of the temple.
John wouldn’t talk about what had happened in ’78. Apparently he hadn’t been present that year; normally he would have been there to make sure that nobody was injured. But in ’78 he hadn’t been able to make it, and wouldn’t say why. It may have had something to do with him losing the Serpent about that time, but with a creature as strange as him it was impossible to tell.
Three enormous effigies had been constructed out of bamboo and brightly coloured paper, about five metres tall. They were of a black-skinned demonic-looking deity with horns; a benign elderly scholar with a flowing white beard and traditional robes; and another demonic-looking red-skinned figure. They were Dei Ching Wong, Ruler of the Underworld; Do Dei Gang, the Kitchen God; and Shang Shan, the God of Earth and Mountains.
There was no effigy of Pak Tai; he was far too awesome to be shown like that. But he would have his chance later.
After we’d lit some incense at the temple and John had bought Simone a brightly coloured good-luck pinwheel, we wandered back to John’s house on the island. No motorised vehicles were permitted on Cheung Chau, so the streets could be very narrow.
We stopped at a plain concrete three-storey village-style house on the main thoroughfare. John pushed the door open.
The lower floor of the house was paved with pale green tiles and had bare concrete walls. The living room was minimally furnished with old-fashioned rosewood furniture and a stained coffee table, with a folding mah jong table. A set of rusting metal bunk beds with faded silk quilts folded at the feet stood against the wall on one side. It appeared to be a typical island village house, like many rented out for holiday weekends. John led us up the stairs to the second floor.
The second floor was plushly decorated with smooth cream Italian floor tiles and textured wallpaper. A comfortable leather lounge and a wide-screen television stood to one side and a rosewood six-seater dining table to the other. A well-fitted kitchen was at the back of the house, and Monica was already busy in there.
John opened the French doors onto the balcony. The balcony overlooked the main street of Cheung Chau, a perfect location for watching the parade. John gestured for me to sit at the outdoor table there, on one of the comfortable plastic chairs. Simone climbed into John’s lap and leaned on the railing. Monica brought us iced lemon tea; the day was already very warm and humid.
A lion dance led the procession, with three lions: one gold, one black and one red. The drummer did his best to bring down the houses, banging for all he was worth. A martial arts troupe followed, performing acrobatics as they passed us on the street.
‘Any of them ours?’ I said.
John shook his head.
A small altar followed, carried by four proud young men. I peered down to see inside; it held an effigy of a god seated on a throne with his hands on his knees, his black robes flowing around him and his long hair over his shoulder. His face was square and dark, and his bare feet perched on a snake and a turtle.
John squeezed Simone. She whispered in his ear and he nodded. She leaned back to stare at him, incredulous, and he nodded again. She collapsed over his lap laughing.
John and I shared a smile.
About twenty people followed, all holding lanterns with good-luck characters on them.
The next altar contained a serene goddess sitting on a lotus flower, wearing flowing white robes and holding a small bottle in her hand.
‘Aunty Kwan!’ Simone yelled, pointing.
‘That’s right,’ John said.
The next altar contained a goddess with colourful flowing robes and a benign smile. She wore a hat with a square brim with beads that hung in front of her face.
‘Tin Hau?’ Simone said, naming the Goddess of the Sea.
John nodded.
‘Do you know her?’ she said more softly, barely audible over the noise of the drums and gongs.
John nodded again.
Simone turned back to the parade and jiggled with excitement in John’s lap.
The final altar contained Guan Di, the red-faced God of Justice, holding a huge halberd and glaring fiercely.
‘He’s actually a very nice man,’ John said into Simone’s ear. ‘But he doesn’t come for this. This is mostly for me.’
‘Why you, Daddy?’
‘A long time ago, a vicious band of pirates was attacking this island. The peaceful fishing folk here had no defence against them. The pirates attacked again and again. So I came down and had a small chat to them about their behaviour. They went away, and the people of the island built the temple for me, and hold the festival every year.’
‘I heard you cured a plague,’ I said.
‘That too,’ John said, smiling. ‘I’m not sure if any of us remembers the exact origin of the festival. There were a few things. But the talk with the pirates is the one that sticks in my mind the most.’ He gestured over the balcony railing. ‘Here come the Floating Children.’
‘Floating Children?’ Simone squealed, standing to see better.
The five- or six-year-old children wore elaborate costumes and make-up. They were poised on the end of long steel poles, making their feet level with the heads of the crowd. But the poles were invisible, camouflaged by complicated accessories that matched the children’s costumes. The children appeared to be standing, but it was obvious that they sat on chairs inside the costumes.
The costumes depicted traditional mythical characters as well as modern celebrities and politicians. One little boy dressed as a fireman sprayed water into the crowd from his miniature fire hose, making the audience scream with delight. Many of the girls were dressed as fairies and spirits in flowing robes.
‘Uncle Sun!’ Simone yelled, pointing to a little boy who was dressed as the Monkey King.
It was dusk by the time the procession ended. Simone yawned furiously. We moved inside and Monica presented us with a vegetarian meal that we ate at the dining table next to the upstairs living room.
Later, as we shared a pot of tea and discussed the parade, a chorus of thumps echoed on the door downstairs. John nodded to Monica, who went to open it.
John rose and stood to one side, his face fierce. He gestured for me to stand next to him, and I did.
Monica led a Taoist priest up the stairs. He wore the full regalia of a senior practitioner: vividly coloured robes with yin-yang symbols on them, and a high, square black hat. The face under the hat was mid-forties, with a kind, jolly expression, and I liked him immediately.
When he reached the top of the stairs he took two steps into the room and then fell to his knees and touched his forehead to the floor. ‘Man shui, man shui, man man shui.’
‘Hei sun,’ John said, his voice clipped.
The priest rose, then bowed slightly from the waist, very serious. ‘Celestial Highness. Welcome.’
