Adam lifted his head, the window leaving a print of warmth on his skin. He examined the face of the woman who had spoken his name. Chinese, about his own age, and beautiful in a stiff Northern way. The face exuded harmony from beneath an anxious expression. He recognised her, knew he should be able to recall her name, but it would not form inside his mouth, which held instead a memory of sweetness.
‘Hey,’ he said. Her skin was bright and smooth in the light from the café. The impression of anxiety was fading.
‘We’re just having a coffee,’ she said. He felt his face become puzzled, then forced it into a smile. Her voice was warm, familiar. She glanced inside for a moment, then looked back quickly. ‘Are you okay? I know you’ve been . . . unwell.’ One of her hands still clutched the door.
Adam felt his heart hopping inside his chest, his breath thinning. The woman’s distance irritated him. He wasn’t sick. He peered through the glass. Well-groomed people perched on stools. Dates sat opposed, looking at phones. A row of young men in the window, their faces gaunt in shadow. Paper Halloween bunting grinned down from above them, and Adam flushed, embarrassed. He was awake now, that was the important thing. He was strong enough to walk through glass.
‘I feel amazing,’ he said.
‘Actually we’ve been trying to reach you,’ she said, her face angled towards someone inside. ‘Come in out of the cold.’
Was it cold? He hadn’t noticed. There was someone else with her. She glanced at his shoulder, looking at his jacket. He touched the collar, felt the texture with pleasure, then followed her inside to where a handsome man perched at a high table released his lovely smile. Adam allowed himself to be enveloped in a hug, inhaled deeply. The scent of the man was clean and strong and wholesome. He let it calm him. There was no-one he would rather be near. He reached for a stool and tried to pull it towards him, but it refused to move, and his fingers slipped numbly from its surface.
‘Hey, man. We’ve been meaning to contact you,’ he said. He frowned. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Adam. ‘I’m great. Just – you know, the air – it’s getting worse,’ he said hopefully. He patted the stool, remained standing. Manu, it was Manu and Eliza, of course. He wanted to say their names now, but it was too late. His skin tickled in the air conditioning. He considered the idea that maybe he had taken something, that the man on the train had slipped him something. The light in here was much too bright.
‘So we have some exciting news,’ Manu said, grinning. ‘I did try calling.’
‘My phone died,’ said Adam. He touched his pocket to check it was still there, looked at the floor, and decided to sit down. The stool was bolted to the ground. That’s why he hadn’t been able to move it.
‘We’re having a baby,’ Manu said. Adam lifted his gaze, set it carefully on the small target of Manu’s teeth. He put a hand against his own stomach. Yes, that was what it was. He could feel the warmth of life inside him, tender and protected.
‘That’s wonderful,’ he said. He was very hungry and looked for a waiter.
Eliza was grinning too, irresistibly. It made her bones show. ‘So we’ve decided to go back to Vancouver.’
Adam stared. The teeth were clean and orderly. Good genes, effectively corrected.
‘Just for a year, anyway. It means making a few changes over here.’ Manu was speaking slowly and clearly, his dark eyes kind, making sure that he heard each word. Adam nodded, looked at the table as though lost in thought. Something good would come of this, a promotion, an opportunity. He imagined himself sitting between them on the plane, all three with laptops open, glasses on, each wearing something fine and pale. Of course, he did not wear glasses. On the table in front of him there was a cloth napkin, the rim a pale mustard yellow. He wanted to feel the texture of it. He picked it up and folded it in half, then in half again. He could not remember how to make the folds his sister taught him. He straightened. Eliza was blinking.
‘Have you eaten? Do you want something to drink? I’m only allowed tea,’ she laughed. ‘I feel so Chinese ordering it. I’m sure Charlie is disappointed in me.’
‘That or decaf,’ Manu said. ‘Heaven forbid.’
Adam unfolded the napkin, started again. They could grow up together, in a new country.
‘Are you sure you’re okay?’ Manu was looking at him oddly.
He nodded, pushed the napkin away. ‘Charlie,’ he said, vacantly.
‘The barista here is a friend of ours,’ said Eliza. She waved towards the counter. A sign pointed behind a screen to a door marked by two little figures, a boy and a girl divided by one clear line.
‘I need to use the bathroom,’ Adam said.
The warmth of the café floated around him, its studiedly perfect interior. Not a blade of hair out of place. Every seat full. Voices gentle, accents plentiful. Now that he was used to the light, it was beautiful. He longed for this happy atmosphere, even though he was already inside it. He pushed the door, found the light switch. Washed his face over the round bowl, looked into the mirror. He seemed shabby – not just his clothing and unshaven face but his skin, his outline. All his edges were blurred. Something wrong with his eyes, he thought. He stared into them and saw fine flecks of white in his brown irises. He’d never noticed them before.
He looked at his hands, which were more coherent. Pressed his fingertips, cool from the water, into his palms, which were warm. These two parts of his hand seemed to belong to two different bodies. He pressed two fingers against his wrist until he was certain there was a pulse there. A little fast, but he was just excited. He had never been to Canada.
No-one had died, least of all him. The people in the café were alive, real people, not images, or dreams. He wanted a fresh start. He tried to picture Canada, how he would find it living there. He imagined there was often snow. He might need glasses after all. He imagined he would learn to adjust.
‘You’re good?’
‘Awesome,’ he said. ‘And hey, congratulations again, you guys.’ He was proud of his steady, casual voice. The stool moved for him this time, and he sank onto it gratefully. ‘It’s great news.’ He pulled himself closer with the edge of the table, and helped himself to water. He was light-headed, but wouldn’t eat until after this conversation was over. It would be a way to celebrate, preferably alone. Everything was about to change.
Manu frowned, put one hand on his wife’s back. ‘Yes, we’re very happy,’ he said. ‘It’s come at a great time for us. It does mean that we’ll have to scale things back over here. I know this is not the best time to talk about work, but actually, I’ve been trying to reach you for a few days.’
‘My phone died,’ said Adam.
Manu frowned again. ‘Yeah, so you said. Well, I am sorry to spring this on you, but we’ll have to put the brakes on our Beijing outfit for a while. We’ve decided to shut it all down.’
Adam had stopped drinking, but the glass was still at his lip. He held it there a moment longer, and looked at the lower half of the world, distorted inside it. Their bodies blurred, the table mere geometry. Finally he put it down, wiped his mouth with one coherent hand.
‘I think you understand the situation is becoming . . . less encouraging,’ Eliza said.
‘Yeah,’ said Adam. He did not lift his head. There was no trace of hurt in his voice.
‘It’s getting harder to do business now. All the crackdowns. The atmosphere is shifting.’ Manu was doing something with his hands under the table.
Adam looked up. Looked him in the eye. ‘I’ve been thinking of a change, actually,’ he said, with unexpected confidence. ‘I’ve been thinking of going home.’ He was startled to hear the words come out of his mouth. He had not thought anything of the sort, and was surprised by how empty the word was of feeling, even meaning. Of course he could not go back. All that was gone now, erased to make way.
‘That’s great,’ said Manu, and shot a look of relief at Eliza.
Adam was fine. Perhaps later he would feel disappointed, but right now there was only relief; it was good to sever connections with people. All this was simply happening on the surface, and beneath it he was becoming someone new. He thought of the canal, the fish that lay together in its water, looking up through a reflected city at the dull sky. He felt good. Maybe he had passed through to some other, weightless side.
‘Wonderful,’ said Eliza, drawing him back.
Manu was grinning. ‘I knew you’d be cool,’ he said. Eliza looked pleasantly contrite. Adam had the disloyal thought that he might decide to dislike these people, if he could muster the energy. He wasn’t sure that they would actually notice.
Too late, a waiter appeared, a man who could be no more than twenty with a slightly panicked expression. Eliza spoke to him in Chinese and his face relaxed. He placed a coffee on the table in front of Adam, and backed away.
He did not remember ordering anything. Manu must have done it for him. Yes, his princely face was poised in that eager way he had, ready to receive Adam’s gratitude. He reached for the glass. It was iced cold brew, which Adam had tried to enjoy in front of him before. The coffee was bitter, but excellent, and he drank it as slowly as he could, allowing the silence to take hold between them. Nobody was trying to make conversation. Eliza was doing something on her phone. He had been fired in the most polite and charming fashion possible, and now they wanted him to leave. The thick dark liquid of shame poured over Adam’s head and spilled to the floor. He put the drink down.
‘Don’t worry, we’ll take good care of you,’ Manu said. ‘Come along tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow,’ Adam said. He could not think what day it was today, or what he had agreed to. The last invitation he remembered clearly was the gallery. He saw again the naked back of a man in a cage, the pulse beneath the skin. There was a message waiting, if he could decode it.
‘The industry showcase. I sent you the link. The day itself will be boring, but you should come to the networking thing after.’ He named a venue, some new bar in Sanlitun that Adam thought he’d read about on one of the expat blogs.
‘It’s at five,’ Manu said, ‘I’ll send you the invite again – oh, you lost your phone.’ He was looking at Adam with a strange expectancy. Adam patted his pocket and smiled dimly, still not wanting to appear incompetent in front of Manu, who was being so kind.
‘Not lost. Dead,’ he said. The distinction was important.
Manu looked confused. Their eyes met over the table. Adam saw that the warmth in his friend’s eyes was still there, but it had packed itself down somehow, boxed and ready to be shipped. Adam wanted to climb into the box and seal it over him. The moment went on until he thought he should speak, but could think of nothing to say that would help. He wished he hadn’t mentioned going home.
‘I guess I could email it to you?’
Manu pursed his lips. Adam thought he saw his eyes drift sideways, but it might have been his own vision blurring. They had that close couples’ habit of conferring privately with glances. It didn’t mean there was anything wrong with him, but he felt that he was being judged.
‘That would be great,’ he said.
‘A lot of people will be there. We’ll totally hook you up with something.’ Manu smiled, not unsympathetically, and reached across to pat Adam on the upper arm. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, man? You’re not still sick? There’s something nasty going around, I heard.’
‘I feel great,’ said Adam.
He felt bloodless. Cleansed.
‘Okay, but listen, the air in the office is still not fixed, so take a break anyway. I mean. It’s a really good time to not come in.’ His teeth flashed in the downlights.
‘Okay,’ said Adam. ‘I can do that.’
‘Cool, cool. Take care of yourself, bro,’ he said, beginning to stand. ‘Don’t come tomorrow unless you’re feeling a hundred per cent. A hundred and ten per cent. You have to be ready to put yourself out there.’
‘Of course,’ Adam said.
‘We’ll make sure you’re taken care of,’ he said.
He saw the man’s hand move instinctively to Eliza’s leg. One of her hands responded, curled against it. The other still thumbed its screen. She was holding herself very stiffly, he thought, but perhaps it was the pregnancy. His knees were so close to hers, he could have reached his own hand across to join theirs. Manu had such beautiful hands, veined with strength but still delicate. It was his own he wasn’t sure of. There was a tingling in his left hand, and as he looked at it the veins on the back seemed to be trembling. These hands were damaged, he thought, though there was no pain in them. They wanted something from him that he could not provide or even name. The knowledge thundered somewhere below him like a subway train, then disappeared, leaving a dim impression of a hollow beneath the surface.
Manu was not getting up to go, just making it clear he should leave. He stood up in a hurry, backed away from them. ‘Actually I do feel a bit off still,’ he said, hoping it would stop them from following him to the door. He took a step back. ‘I shouldn’t really be out,’ he muttered. ‘Not in this air,’ he added, and covered his mouth theatrically with one hand.
There was no warm paw on the shoulder, no pressure to stay. Manu didn’t move to accompany Adam to the door, or herd him from the café. Eliza remained seated, rummaging in her bag for something. When he turned, she was clutching a tiny spray bottle. She gave him a small, stiff wave.
It was cold in the street, much colder than it had been an hour ago, and the air was clear. The mild wind had come from the north-west, blown the smog away, and brought a wave of winter in behind it. Adam smelled something delicious and raised his face to see a lone sweet-potato seller, dressed in an army greatcoat and scarf, his cargo bike rigged with a converted oil-drum stove. The season had changed.
Adam inhaled deeply; it smelled like a sugar refinery. He was too jumpy to be hungry, too bothered to speak. The cold brew had made his mouth feel stale, his hands a little shaky. He wanted the warmth in his hand, but not enough to do something about it. The man watched Adam with something like suspicion, but returned his smile generously. Adam, unable to release himself, walked backwards until he had to look away.
He was free. He would go home, shave, shower, change, drag out the winter coat, get his shit together. Clean the apartment, organise himself. Call Natasha, tell her he was sorry, he had never meant to cross a line. It was not too late to return to the life he had been living. These days could be a distant memory, something embarrassing that had happened to him as a child, something he didn’t have to mention. He began to walk home along the lane and under the ring road. Partygoers in fancy dress were heading in the opposite direction. That life seemed brittle, flimsy. When he crossed over the canal, he paused a moment to look down. The water was murky. He could not see his reflection at first, but then the image resolved, and there he was: a silhouette against the lit sky of the city above. Ice gathered white at the water’s edge. The willows were losing their leaves. There were no fish. He changed his mind about walking.
He returned to the subway entrance he favoured, hidden away behind a wall. In the light of a convenience store, he saw a couple of drunk foreigners rummaging through their bags, a worn-out woman studying her reflection in her phone, one hand arranging her hair, a group of young men jostling wholesomely. No-one he knew. He descended the stairs, careful not to make any unexpected movements, the body clumsy. It was a short trip back to his apartment, only one change of line. Fifteen minutes, twenty. It was such an ordinary thing to do. But going down felt like a commitment, the choice of a much more permanent path. The train pulled in just as he reached the platform, an invitation he was glad to accept.