Hummingbirds Fly Backwards Read online

  The memory feature wasn’t the main reason I loved this bra. I’d worn it during my first rendezvous with Tong Man Sam, and he’d gone so far as to compliment it. It made me feel like a woman whenever I wore it.

  It was unlikely that Sam would call me that night.

  I slept restlessly, right up to the moment when I woke to the scent of cake from downstairs. The sky was overcast, and it was drizzling. The bra I’d washed the night before wasn’t completely dry, so I put on a white bra and a white dress. It wasn’t ideal weather for wearing white, but I couldn’t find any other dresses in my closet that weren’t wrinkled.

  As I headed out, I said good morning to Ms. Kwok as usual. She was in a chipper mood. She didn’t seem the least bit affected by the bad weather—maybe she’d had a good time last night.

  Sam was waiting for me outside. He wore a navy-blue suit and a white shirt. His collar was unbuttoned, and I saw that his tie was in his bag. He’d worked overnight.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked him, deliberately trying to maintain my composure.

  “I wanted to see you. Can we have breakfast?”

  “Aren’t you tired?”

  “I’m used to it.”

  Seeing how haggard he looked after his shift, I didn’t have the heart to refuse.

  “I have some food at home.”

  Sam and I went upstairs to my place, and I called Jenny to tell her I’d be late.

  I set down my handbag, put on an apron, and started making a ham sandwich in the kitchen.

  Sam came into the kitchen and wrapped his arms around my waist.

  “Do you know where I was last night?” I asked him.

  He pressed his face into my hair.

  “You never know where I was the night before.” I choked back a sob.

  “I trust you,” Sam said.

  “If I had died last night, you wouldn’t have found out until this morning. If I had been with another man last night, you wouldn’t have any idea.”

  “You would do that?”

  “I hope I do,” I said.

  If I weren’t so madly in love with this man, I’d probably be a little happier. Love is a kind of burden. Sam worked as a foreign exchange trader at a bank. We’d been together for four years, and I didn’t know that he was already married when I first met him. But I kept seeing him all the same.

  Four years ago, on the night he had taken me out to celebrate my twenty-fifth birthday, I finally asked him, “Are you married?”

  He had gazed back at me with a pained expression, and I knew it meant he belonged to another woman.

  Being caught in a love triangle, I had no choice but to believe in love more strongly than any other woman. If there were no such thing as love, I’d be nothing but a home-wrecker.

  After finishing his ham sandwich, Sam splayed out on the sofa.

  “Are you tired?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  I made him put his head on my lap and started massaging him. Then he clasped my hand and asked, “You don’t hate me, do you?”

  I remained silent. I’d never hated him. But he could only see me twice a week and never on Sundays. When I was still living with my family, I’d go meet him at a bar every week. After two years of doing that, I asked him one day, “Why don’t we rent a place together? I don’t want to meet up at a bar anymore. Doing it like this makes me feel like I’m a bad woman.”

  So Sam and I found the apartment I live in now. He paid my rent. I felt like he and I had finally settled down together, though in actuality, it wasn’t our shared home. I painstakingly decorated the apartment, hoping that he’d move in.

  Sam once told me that he had to leave me. “How often does a woman get to be twenty-five?” he’d asked. He didn’t want me to squander my youth, and he clearly had no plans to marry me. But he’d come back to me not long after that. We had a huge fight about once a month. I couldn’t accept the fact that he’d have sex with me, then get dressed and go back home. The thought of him sleeping next to another woman drove me mad. A couple of days earlier, we’d gotten into an argument because I wanted him to stay the night. Though I knew it was out of the question, I just couldn’t help ask.

  “Feel any better?”

  He nodded.

  “How is it that men can love two different women at the same time?”

  “Maybe they’re afraid of dying,” Sam said.

  I fondled his ears.

  “You need to get to work. You’re the manager, you know.”

  “Who can muster the energy to go to work in this kind of weather?” I sprawled out on the sofa.

  Sam pulled me up.

  “I’ll take you to work.”

  “If you loved me, you’d indulge me,” I said brazenly.

  “That’s no way to love you.” He started dragging me out the door.

  “I know there’ll be a day when I’m alone, since you won’t say when you’re going to leave me.”

  “I’m never going to leave you,” Sam said, taking my hand.

  That’s what he always said, but I never believed him. I figured we’d break up eventually.

  Business was lousy that day, so I let Anna and Jenny go to lunch together. While they were out, a woman in her twenties came into the store. Judging by the way she was dressed and made up, I figured she probably worked in the neighborhood. She was incredibly curvaceous—a 34C, I guessed.

  She picked out a black lace bra and girdle.

  “Are you a 34C?” I asked her.

  Looking surprised, she nodded. “How did you know?”

  “Just a professional hunch,” I said, smiling.

  She was in the fitting room for a long time.

  “How’s that working out for you?” I called out to her.

  “I’m not sure how to put on this girdle.”

  “Let me help you.”

  When I stepped into the fitting room, I discovered that the woman had four breasts. In addition to the usual two, she had two more breasts underneath. The extra breasts were only slight bulges—so small that they’d only need a double-A cup.

  I practically shrank back in fear. But to avoid causing any embarrassment, I carried on as if nothing were out of the ordinary and helped her with the girdle.

  “You have to take a deep breath when you put this on. Also, you have to fasten the front first, and then turn it around and do the back.”

  As I was helping her with it, my hand accidentally brushed against one of the smaller breasts.

  “Do you think they’re weird?” she suddenly asked me.

  “Hmm?” I didn’t know what to say.

  “Don’t be alarmed. They’re natural. Science says that throughout the course of the human anatomy’s evolution, there have been aberrations. I guess I haven’t finished evolving.”

  “Are they a nuisance?” I asked her awkwardly.

  “I’m used to them, so they’re not much of a nuisance. My husband doesn’t mind, either.”

  It hadn’t occurred to me that this woman might be married. I would’ve guessed that having four breasts would be an obstacle to dating. I guess I was wrong—maybe four breasts meant double the pleasure. To wish for two breasts and get four instead might be like getting an added bonus.

  “There is a downside,” she said. “The risk of getting breast cancer is higher than average.”

  I would’ve thought she would be embarrassed about having four breasts—not treat it as a privilege. But she seemed perfectly happy to tell me all about them.

  “Fortunately, these two don’t hurt when I get my period,” she said, cupping the two lower breasts.

  I nodded and listened in amazement.

  If a man had a wife with four breasts, would he still want a mistress? When a man loves more than one woman, is it because he wants four breasts?

  Sam called before I left work, and I told him that I’d met a woman with four breasts.

  “Did that really happen?”

  “Would you ever want a woman with four brea
sts?”

  “Doesn’t sound so bad.”

  “Did you go in search of another woman because you wanted four breasts?”

  “Hey, I already have two of my own. Including yours, that’s four,” he said. “I don’t need to go out and get more.”

  “Since when do you have breasts? You only have nipples, silly,” I said, laughing.

  “Do you have class today?”

  “I’m headed there now.”

  I had enrolled in a fashion design program, which was taught by a designer named Chen Dingleung. I’d read interviews with him in the paper, but I hadn’t met him until I arrived at class.

  He wore a simple navy-blue shirt and stonewashed jeans with loafers.

  He wrote his full birthdate out on the blackboard. As it turned out, we had the same birthday.

  “I’m a Scorpio—oozing with mystery, sex appeal, and passion. I also represent death. When this day comes, don’t forget to give me a birthday present,” Chen Dingleung said.

  It was the first time I’d ever met a man who shared my birthday. I was delighted.

  After class, I went to a bakery in a nearby department store. On the way, I passed a toy store that had a jigsaw puzzle that intrigued me. It showed a scene at a little restaurant in rural France. The restaurant was in a two-story building with an antiquated facade. The paint was peeling off the walls, and a cloud of cigarette smoke lingered near the ceiling. A couple who I imagined to be the restaurant’s owners sat at one of the outdoor dining tables, leisurely drinking red wine. Sam liked to drink red wine and eat well, and I’d told him that if he could ever escape that job of his—which was slowly draining him of his youth—we should open a restaurant together. He’d be in charge of the wine and the kitchen, and I’d tend to the guests. Lonely customers would come by to drink and chat. Every time I mentioned this dream of mine, Sam would laugh and nod. I knew that it would never become a reality. But just longing for that distant image of perfection—in which it was just the two of us—made me a little happier.

  I never imagined I’d find an exact replica of that restaurant. The only thing that was different was the location. Just as I was paying for the puzzle, a man hurried past me with a baguette tucked under his arm. It was Chen Dingleung. He paused when he saw me.

  “Are you a fan of jigsaw puzzles?”

  “It’s the first time I’ve ever bought one.”

  “Are you a Scorpio? You seem a lot like me,” he said.

  “Really? Maybe so. My job’s all about sex appeal. I work at a lingerie shop.”

  “What made you choose this one?” He pointed at the puzzle with the baguette.

  “The restaurant is just so charming,” I said.

  “I’ve been there,” he said.

  “Really? Where is it?”

  “It’s in Cherbourg, France.”

  “Cherbourg?”

  “It’s a beautiful place. There’s a French film called The Umbrellas of Cherbourg that was shot there. Do you know the song ‘I Will Wait for You’? That’s the theme.”

  Chen Dingleung started to rap the baguette on the counter to the beat of the music.

  “You’re probably too young to have seen the movie,” he said.

  “You seem pretty nostalgic about it,” I said.

  “Nostalgia is one of the dangers of middle age.”

  “Is this couple supposed to be the owners?”

  Chen Dingleung studied the man and the woman in the puzzle.

  “I don’t know. I was in Cherbourg ten years ago. Was this puzzle expensive?”

  “Very.” I had paid more than two hundred Hong Kong dollars for it.

  “Puzzles with people and scenery can be rather tricky, you know!”

  “Good for killing time.” I pointed to his baguette. “Is that your dinner?”

  Chen Dingleung nodded. It was like he was waving a baton. We went our separate ways at the toy store, and I headed to the bakery, where I bought a baguette of my own.

  As I exited the department store, it started pouring. With my baguette in hand, I was suddenly stuck. Chen Dingleung appeared again.

  “Are you heading across the harbor?” he asked.

  I nodded slightly.

  “I’ll give you a ride. Catching a cab can be a challenge in this weather.”

  “Is it hard to find that song, ‘I Will Wait for You’?”

  “It’s such an old song that I don’t know where you’d find it. Let me look into it. Lots of people have covered it.”

  “Thanks. What’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg about?”

  “It’s basically about a pair of young lovers who are destined to meet but not to stay together. They meet again at a gas station years later, when they’re each married with kids.”

  Chen Dingleung pulled up to a gas station.

  “Sorry. Just have to fill up the tank.”

  “You must have a really good memory if you can still remember it.”

  “When I saw it, it moved me. That’s why I’ve remembered it all this time.”

  “Is it out on video?”

  “It’s such an old film that I don’t think it’d be released on video. Good things should be left in your memory. If you see it again, you’ll be in a different frame of mind and you might not like it anymore.”

  “Some things are timeless, though.”

  Chen Dingleung chuckled. “Like ill-fated love?”

  “Yes.”

  I missed Sam.

  Chen Dingleung pulled up to the entrance of my building.

  “See you later,” I told him.

  As soon as I walked in I cleared off the dining-room table. I took out the box containing the jigsaw puzzle. I dumped out its contents and started sorting the pieces by color. I couldn’t wait to put together the restaurant in the dream that Sam and I shared. The puzzle would be my birthday present to him.

  The puzzle wasn’t as easy to assemble as I’d imagined. It took me all night just to finish one edge.

  In the morning, I was startled awake by the sound of the phone ringing. It was Sam. I’d fallen asleep slouched over the dining-room table.

  “I found the restaurant we talked about!” I told him.

  “Where is it?” Sam asked me.

  “It’s right in front of me. It’s on a jigsaw puzzle. Do you want to see it?”

  “I’ll join you for lunch.”

  I was in a good mood when I arrived at the lingerie shop. Chui Yuk called to see if I wanted to have lunch.

  “I can’t today.”

  “Are you meeting Sam?”

  “Uh-huh. What about Yu Mogwo?”

  “He’s busy working on his novel. He’s already half done and trying to pick up the pace. I’m worried that I’ll distract him if I hang out at the house. Besides, there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  “What happened?”

  “My bras have been disappearing recently.”

  “Are more crows using them to build nests?”

  “I’ve been making sure that the clothespins are super, super secure. I don’t think a crow could make off with one. I can’t imagine that someone has been stealing my bras.”

  “Unless that person is a pervert.”

  “That’s one possibility.”

  “You’d better be careful!” I teased her.

  At lunchtime, I went home and continued working on my puzzle until Sam arrived with takeout.

  “Doesn’t it look just like our restaurant?” I asked him.

  “It’s a dead ringer. I can’t believe it actually exists,” he said.

  “Have you ever seen the movie The Umbrellas of Cherbourg?”

  Sam shook his head.

  “Have you ever heard the song ‘I Will Wait for You’?”

  “I seem to have some vague recollection of a song by that name.”

  Sam picked up a piece of the puzzle.

  “Don’t work on my puzzle!”

  “I used to be able to finish a puzzle a week, though I don’t think I’ve
ever put together such an elaborate one.”

  “You were into puzzles? You never told me that before.” I sat down in Sam’s lap.

  “It was back in college, when I had more free time. I put together dozens of them.”

  “Where are they now? You should give them to me.”

  “I have no idea what I did with them. Are you going to put this one together all on your own?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You have the patience?” He looked at me, his eyes brimming with doubt.

  “Free time is something I have loads of. I spend most of my time waiting for you.”

  “You know what the secret to solving puzzles is?”

  “What’s the secret?”

  “Buy the easiest ones possible. This one is too complicated.”

  “I’m completely confident that I can finish this one. You just wait and see.”

  “What a wonderful smell! They must be baking cakes downstairs.” Sam inhaled deeply.

  “Do you want one? I’ll go buy one.” I stood up.

  “No. I have to go to work. I’ll take you back.”

  I ran my fingers through Sam’s hair. “You’re starting to go gray.”

  “Because I have to deal with you.”

  “Don’t blame me. It’s your super stressful job. Can’t you cut back on your hours?”

  “In a few years, no one’s even going to want to hire me.”

  “You’re not even forty yet.” Suddenly, it dawned on me how childlike he was.

  As Sam walked me back to the shop, I took his hand, but he quickly pulled it free. “Why don’t you go the rest of the way? I’ll talk to you later,” he said and hurried off in the opposite direction. It wasn’t the first time he’d ditched me out of the blue. He must’ve seen someone that he knew. I stared ahead at the faces in the crowd. Could his wife be among them?