I am standing in the meagre shade of a tree in the burning afternoon when I first see her. I recognise her instantly even though we have never met.
She walks just as I imagined she would, with an easy, languid gait. A thin veil of a cotton summer dress, flat soled sandals, coral painted toe nails.
She drapes her arms around my shoulders in a warm greeting. For a second my eyes and nose are in her neck, taking in her intoxicating scent. Her skin is the colour of light Demerara sugar and in that fleeting moment of physical contact I see the microscopic golden hairs that form a gossamer sheen across her body. She is as light as a feather, delicate and fine, but she carries herself with confidence. I don’t doubt she has force. It’s there in her eyes and her face when seen in profile.
The first thing she says is, “Your energy is so much younger than in your photos. Lighter. You look dark and intense in the photos”
“I was trying to be cool”
“So, you’re not a murderer then?”, throwing me a dry smile.
“No, Anna, you’ll be pleased to hear that I am not, in fact, a murderer”
Top marks to Anna. With the most forthright opening line of all time out of the way we drift into the cool shade of a nearby gallery to see the work of a great Japanese artist who worked on the Final Fantasy games series. His work straddles the mythologies of both East and West like a latter day Erté supercharged into the world of Anime and Manga. Dark supernatural panthers flood out of the canvases, ridden by asexual deities, neither demonic nor divine but somehow both. Bold expressionistic brush strokes overlaid with intricate spider-like details in pen and ink, gold and silver. It makes me want to draw.
We sit in giddy silence for a while then take a cab to the French Quarter. This is where everyone lives. A sprawling network of low-rise streets lined with acacias and brimming with everything you want. Bookshops, cafes, galleries, delicatessens. This is where you find your own kind. This is her territory and you wouldn’t find her anywhere else. She is not just Shanghai, she is pure French Quarter. Despite her origins in Russia and the endless horizons of Uzbekistan, she couldn’t be anywhere else. She could only be here.
She is the most cat-like human I have ever encountered. She exudes the appealing warmth of a black feline asleep in a patch of sunlight.
Her eyes are a mixture of green and gold and hazel, almost Asian. When she smiles her mouth tangles as if she is savouring the taste of a joke known only to her. She has a nose that storms out of her face in a way that makes me sigh inwardly and a bold jawline that would dignify the daughter of a Fatimid Caliph. Her Mother and Father came from Uzbekistan to Russia and she was brought up Muslim. In photos she could pass as a femme fatale but in reality she is kind and gentle. She has an easy way about her and a lazy walk. She is all lithe limbs and velvet edges.
We settle down outside her favourite restaurant and watch the Saturday afternoon swarm by. As we had moved towards our table by the sidewalk my attention was momentarily taken by another white man sitting a few tables away. He sat alone, his countenance grim, balding on top, five o’ clock shadow. Heavy presence. My body instinctively turned away from him like a rower evading a whirlpool. I didn’t think, I just knew not to engage. What’s the story there?
Sure enough, sometime later, after a glass of wine and some pizza, she lit the latest in a succession of brightly coloured cigarettes and leant forward with a slight nod of her head and whispered to me in collusion “That guy” she uses the term disparagingly, “he tried to get with me many times but I rejected him, he sits here all day and drinks two bottles of red wine”
Ah, that explains the vibe I had momentarily picked up. How dare I, a new white face, take the spoils that are rightfully his? I am intruding on long established but wholly imagined territories, intricate webs of overlapping stories. Tread carefully Finlay, you do not know the rules here. You cannot play the game when you don’t know the rules.
The afternoon succumbs to night and we bid an affectionate farewell.
With an hour to kill before I leave to catch the train I can take the time to reflect.
That guy, the whirlpool. I wonder again what his story is? A trail of broken marriages? A career in corporate that has left him rinsed? Failed in the West, headed East? In Hong Kong they have an acronym for it; Failed In London, Tried Hong Kong: Filth.
Am I one of these people? Do I fall into that category? The ones who escape to reinvent themselves and rewrite their pasts, giving themselves the status they believe they always deserved but never achieved.
Pondering his possible story becomes the jumping off point for my own. I’m looking hard at myself. It’s possible. I could be him, with less alcohol. But no, I didn’t choose this. I didn’t commit. I’m here as long as it lasts.
I’m just passing through.
But then, we are all just passing through, aren’t we?
Share this post