Hummingbirds Fly Backwards Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2008 Amy Cheung

  Translation copyright © 2016 Bonnie Huie

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Previously published as (Three Women with A-Cup) in 2008 by Beijing October Arts & Literature Publishing House and (You Are Everything to Me) in 2014 by Hunan Literature & Art Publishing House in Mainland China. Translated from Chinese by Bonnie Huie.

  Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and AmazonCrossing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503935976

  ISBN-10: 1503935973

  Cover design by David Drummond

  CONTENTS

  1 Women and Their Bras

  2 Skies over Cherbourg

  3 Flying Backwards

  4 Grade A in a Lover’s Eyes

  5 Do You Still Love Me?

  6 I’ll Wait Forever for You

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  1

  Women and Their Bras

  Hong Kong, 1995

  I’ve always wanted to write a story whose protagonist was a bra. The bra could narrate the more than century-long history of its own evolution. In the old days, Chinese women wore a full-frontal undergarment called a dudou. Bras, however, are a product derived from the West. In the nineteenth century, young women from wealthy families wore corsets made from canvas, whalebone, wire, and lace. The corsets were designed to shape a woman’s body into an hourglass figure, but over time they damaged the internal organs of the women who wore them. In 1889, a corset maker in Paris by the name of Herminie Cadolle invented the world’s first brassiere: an article of clothing that could be fastened across the chest and yet wouldn’t constrict the diaphragm’s movements.

  Though it didn’t necessarily confine the abdomen, a bra was a complete monstrosity. In 1913, a debutante named Caresse Crosby asked her personal maid to sew two handkerchiefs together to make a simple bra, using pink silk ribbons for the shoulder straps. In 1935, the undergarment maker Warner’s invented the bra cup, whose sizes ranged from an A to a D. The 1960s saw a bra-burning revolution. In the ’90s, fashion designers made bras that could be worn as outer garments, and bras were back in vogue again. Breast enlargements soon became the second most popular type of cosmetic surgery. Women and their bras.

  My first bra wasn’t my own. It was my mother’s. One day, my mother said, “Chow Jeoi, it’s time you started wearing a bra.” Since I didn’t have the courage to buy my own, I secretly wore my mother’s. That bra was beige, with a daisy between the cups. I bought my first bra from a street vendor who was pushing a handcart heaped with dozens of bras through the city center. It was truly a sight to behold.

  Today I work as the manager of an intimate apparel boutique that specializes in luxury brands of French and Italian lingerie. If my recent experiences have taught me anything, it’s that, for women, love and intimate apparel are inseparable.

  The boutique is on the second floor of a shopping center, amid a veritable gold mine of upscale shops in the heart of Central, which is Hong Kong’s financial district. The shop has two other employees: Anna, who’s twenty-six, and Jenny, who’s thirty-eight. Anna is one seriously hardworking young woman, but she’s always getting sick. She gets bad menstrual cramps, and her complexion is pale year-round. Jenny, a mother of two, is a brilliant PR-type who really knows how to connect with customers. She’s tough as nails, and she and Anna make a great team. Anna weighs about 90 pounds and Jenny well over 130, so there’s no way that our typical customer would ever compare herself and feel bad.

  There’s one main guiding principle when it comes to luxury bras: the less it covers, the more expensive it is. Lack of coverage equals sexy, and achieving sexiness without vulgarity is an art form. If a woman can make a man think she’s sexy without finding her vulgar, then the bra did its job.

  Smart women understand that sexiness is an investment. That’s why we have no shortage of customers—even with the hefty price tags.

  Our customers consist primarily of high-income career women. Rich housewives aren’t willing to spend that kind of money. I saw the bra of a rich housewife once. It was worn to tatters, and the underwire was even sticking out. When a woman gets married, it’s all too easy for her to assume that everything is perfectly settled, so there’s no need to worry about lingerie anymore. The biggest enemy of the lingerie business isn’t the economic climate—it’s marriage. What is good for business, though, are extramarital affairs.

  One day, we were just about to close when my friend Chui Yuk popped in. I saw several men give her the once-over as they passed by the store. She was a fetching 36B.

  “Chow Jeoi, do you have a pencil?” Chui Yuk asked me.

  “How about a pen?” I said as I handed her one.

  “No, I need a pencil.”

  As I dug a pencil out of a drawer, I asked, “What are you writing?”

  “I just wrapped up a swimsuit shoot. The director told me I should put a pencil under one of my breasts. If the pencil stays put, that means it’s sagging.”

  I’d met Chui Yuk by chance three years earlier. I was working in a design department at the time, and Chui Yuk had responded to a call for fitting models. I noticed her right away. She has an amazing figure—five foot eight and 36-24-36—with a pale complexion and long, slender legs, which made her absolutely picture-perfect for lingerie. From the moment we met, we were practically inseparable, and we’ve been the best of friends ever since. Once, there were some bras that I’d put my heart and soul into designing. I’d pitched the concepts to my boss in France, in the hopes that he would recommend them to the higher-ups. He wasn’t interested. When Chui Yuk heard about it, she invited my boss out to dinner and did everything in her power to put in a good word for me. In the end, he said he’d send my work on to the head office in France. Unfortunately, I never heard back from the head office.

  “How’s it going? Are you sagging?” I asked.

  “Fortunately not,” she said, sounding satisfied.

  “Being well-endowed isn’t necessarily a good thing,” I warned her. “Heavy ones start sagging sooner.”

  “I don’t think weight is what causes breasts to sag. And it’s not gravity, either,” Chui Yuk said.

  “So what is it, then?”

  “Men’s hands,” she said, giggling. “It’s their hands. They just don’t know how to be a little gentler.” Chui handed the pencil back to me. “I want to buy a new bra.”

  “Didn’t you just buy a new one last week?” I asked her.

  “Don’t remind me. A few days ago, I wasn’t careful when I hung it out to dry, and it fell onto the awning below. Today I saw a bird using it to build a nest.”

  “That has to be the world’s most expensive bird’s nest,” I said.

  “That bird probably never expected to enjoy the luxury of a French-made lace nest right here in Hong Kong,” said Chui Yuk with a wry laugh.

  It was ten minutes past closing time. I told Jenny and Anna they could go home.

  “Are you looking for something elegant?” I asked Chui Yuk.

  “I’m looking for something that’ll make a man’s heart race,” she said, sticking her chest out.

  “Why not just get something that’ll give him a heart attack!” I
picked out a handmade white viscose and lace three-quarter-cup bra and gave it to her. Three-quarter cups were sexier than full cups, since they revealed more cleavage. The unusual feature of the one I chose was a colorful Mickey Mouse between the cups, for a touch of innocence within the sexiness.

  “It’s so cute,” Chui Yuk remarked as she headed to the dressing room, and I went to lock up.

  “Come look. It doesn’t seem like it fits,” Chui Yuk called, craning her head from inside the dressing room.

  “Let’s see.” I took a peek.

  She was staring into the mirror dejectedly.

  “I look fat. That’s what I learned at the swimsuit shoot.”

  The bra looked flawless. Her breasts were practically suffocating the Mickey Mouse between them.

  “Lean over,” I said.

  As she leaned over, I helped her adjust herself so that her breasts filled the cups to the brim.

  “That’s how you put it on. It’s not that it doesn’t fit—you just need to get it in place.”

  “Is this how you always help people?” she asked.

  “It’s my job.”

  “I’m so glad you’re not gay.”

  “Don’t be silly! Just because someone’s gay doesn’t mean she’s into your body type.”

  “I’ll take this one, please, ma’am!”

  “Got it.”

  “Oh my God,” she suddenly squealed, “I forgot to buy the magazine!”

  “What magazine?”

  “National Geographic.”

  “You read National Geographic?”

  “It’s for Yu Mogwo. He needs it for a novel he’s working on. But all the bookstores must be closed by now.” Yu Mogwo was Chui Yuk’s boyfriend. By day, he was an editor at a newspaper. By night, he was a budding science-fiction writer. Yu Mogwo was his pen name. His real name had a Yu in it, but I couldn’t remember the rest of it.

  Chui Yuk liked calling him Yu Mogwo around other people. She took pride in saying those three characters—yu mo gwo—and was firmly convinced that their meaning—“It was written in the stars”—would come to pass in the not-so-distant future. I thought Yu Mogwo was a pretty clever pen name. Similarly, my motto was “If the bra fits, wear it.”

  “Come with me to find a copy,” she said, sounding anxious.

  “Where are we going to find one this late? The bookstores and newsstands in Central are all closed by now.”

  “Maybe there’s one that’s still open. Let’s go see.”

  “I have to lock up the shop. You go on ahead. There’s a newsstand across from the New World Tower. Maybe someone’s still there.”

  Chui Yuk darted outside in her three-inch heels.

  When I walked up to the newsstand twenty minutes later, I found her sitting on a flight of stone steps, looking annoyed.

  “It’s closed.” She pointed to the newsstand. All the magazines were locked up inside two giant wooden boxes.

  “You can buy it tomorrow.”

  “The new issue came out today. I promised I’d bring it to him tonight.”

  “It’s not like he’s going to kill you for not bringing him a magazine.”

  Chui Yuk looked up, then shot me a meaningful glance. “Do you think there’s a copy inside that wooden box?”

  “You want to steal it?”

  “It’s not stealing.” She crouched down to examine the crude locks on the box.

  “I’ll take the magazine and leave the money inside the box. I’m buying it fair and square!” Chui Yuk dumped out the contents of her handbag and rifled through them until she found a nail file. She started to pry open the lock on the box.

  “Don’t!”

  “Shh!” she said, signaling for me to keep watch for her.

  My heart was pounding wildly. I wasn’t ready to get locked up in jail for stealing a copy of National Geographic. Chui Yuk was taking an awfully long time. I was sweating like crazy as she fiddled around.

  “Let me try,” I said, glancing over at her.

  “What are you two doing?” a man wearing a security-guard uniform shouted from the top of the steps.

  Chui Yuk scrambled to gather her belongings and took off running, pulling me behind her. We ran all the way to Statue Square. When the coast was finally clear, we stopped.

  “So, you’d actually commit a crime for him. Is there anything you wouldn’t do for him?”

  “I’d do anything for him. I’d die for him,” she said, gazing into the distance.

  I burst out laughing.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “I’ve never heard anyone say that in real life. Seriously, though, it’s touching,” I told her earnestly.

  “Would you die for your man?”

  “I don’t know if he’d die for me.”

  “I have a feeling that Yu Mogwo is the last man I’m ever going to be with.”

  “You say that with every guy.”

  “This time it’s different. Yu Mogwo and I have been together for two years now. This is the longest I’ve ever been in love. I truly admire him, and he’s taught me so much. He’s like an alien who’s been catapulted into my world to show me what love and the meaning of life are.”

  “An alien? That sounds like something straight out of a science-fiction novel.”

  “I don’t know. Yu Mogwo has a powerful imagination. It’s nice to be with a man like that.”

  “With all this gushing, who needs imagination? How are you going to explain why you didn’t buy him a copy of National Geographic today?”

  “I got a bra.”

  “Will the bra make up for the National Geographic?”

  “Of course not.”

  “So what difference does it make?”

  “But . . .” She pulled the bra out of its bag, made a seductive face, and said, “All I need is to put on this bra. It’s sure to drive him wild, and he’ll forget all about this magazine business for tonight.”

  I’d met Yu Mogwo a few times. He was slim and quite handsome, and he liked to wear dress shirts and jeans with white socks and sneakers. He was in his thirties and not the least bit athletic. There’s something a little rebellious about men who wear white socks and sneakers. It’s like they just don’t want to grow up. Although Yu Mogwo wasn’t even close to tall, he was clearly a man of great stature in Chui Yuk’s heart. Whenever Yu Mogwo spoke, Chui Yuk listened attentively. Yu Mogwo could be rather arrogant when he was around her. It made me realize that a man’s arrogance stems from the adoration of the women around him.

  Yu Mogwo and Chui Yuk had known each other for a month before they moved in together. Most science-fiction writers are generally assumed to be science or computer geeks, but Yu Mogwo was no science geek and hadn’t a clue about computers. He was really going out on a limb.

  Yu Mogwo had published a novel, but I didn’t care much for science fiction and hadn’t read it. It hadn’t sold well, which Chui Yuk blamed on the publisher being too small, the publicity being inadequate, and the printing quality being subpar.

  “Do you feel like going to a movie?”

  “We’ve already watched all the X-rated movies that came out recently. Is there anything else worth seeing?”

  “There’s still one we haven’t seen.”

  Watching X-rated movies had become a shared pastime ever since we’d gone to one the year before. X-rated movies were the ultimate form of comic entertainment; no bona fide comedy even came close. Those tough, muscular men and seductively silhouetted women didn’t need a reason to strip naked and jump into bed. Chui Yuk and I always erupted into sidesplitting laughter in the theater.

  The sight of two women going to see an X-rated movie together always drew puzzled stares from other people, but that was precisely what made it so much fun. It’s an arena where men are expected to come parading in, looking for a little sensory stimulus. But for women, the atmosphere is more like that of a haunted house—a cheap thrill, and nothing more.

  There were only a handful of people in the theate
r. Chui Yuk and I kicked back and put our feet up on the seats in front of us. We munched on handfuls of popcorn as we judged the bodies of the male and female leads.

  “That guy’s got some killer pecs,” Chui Yuk said.

  I snuggled up against Chui Yuk without saying a word.

  “Did you two have another fight?’ Chui Yuk asked.

  “He won’t fight with me,” I said.

  After exiting the theater, Chui Yuk and I parted ways. I went back to my place. I lived alone in a 650-square-foot apartment on the second floor of a six-story walk-up amid the bustling nightlife of the Lan Kwai Fong district. Below me, on the ground floor, was a specialty cake shop owned by a Chinese-Indonesian woman named Kwok. She was in her fifties and a little on the plump side. Born and raised in Indonesia, she spoke fluent Cantonese. She had a rather distinctive way of making cakes, namely in that she used frosting.

  “Cakes with frosting are the most delicious kind,” she had told me proudly.

  The cakes she made were gorgeous. I once saw one that was turquoise. It was the most beautiful cake I’d ever seen in my life.

  Her cake shop was never advertised. Her business largely came from custom orders. Word of mouth was good, and the customers kept trickling in. Every cake was personally made by Ms. Kwok. I inhaled the scent of those cakes when I woke up every morning. It was the added bonus of living in that apartment.

  The cake shop normally closed at eight, but when I got home that night, I noticed Ms. Kwok was still there.

  “Ms. Kwok, what are you doing here?”

  “I’m waiting for a customer to pick up an order,” she said.

  “There are people who need cake at this hour?”

  Just then, a middle-aged man walked into the shop.

  Ms. Kwok handed the cake to him, and they left the shop together. Was it her husband? It couldn’t be. She’d just said that it was a customer. Was it possible that the cake was merely a pretext to conceal the fact that she was having an illicit affair? The man was pretty good looking. Though Ms. Kwok was middle-aged, she had an ample bosom. I estimated she was a 36B.

  I went up to my apartment, took off my shirt and pants, and turned on the faucet. Then I removed my bra. I didn’t normally wash my undergarments as soon as I got home, but it was a particularly hot night, and Chui Yuk and I had sprinted a few hundred yards to get away from the guard. It was important to me to get my bra clean again since it was my very favorite. It was a pink memory-foam bra that molded itself to your figure if you wore it regularly, and it retained its shape even after several washings. I don’t know if the idea came from those cars with driver recognition systems—where the seat automatically returns to its last position when the driver gets in and turns the key—but I think a memory-foam bra is much more practical.