shanghai — hotel story, difference of couples [3]

[They spent a week longer in Shanghai than they originally planned to, together, stuck in a hotel because of the volcanos, unable to go out much, during the days they were trapped there they invented things to do. The empire of things changed around them as they lived in Shanghai. They started the week speaking formally as they always had in their everyday lives, it was a weak master/servant dialectic that they had lived with since the trip to London and Europe three or four months ago. Afterwards they both thought that really it had begun in London and that they just hadn’t been self aware enough to notice. On the first day they were still being formal going to a final meeting which resulted in substantial investments in the hotel chain, and a long discussion on the affects of the Asian accelerationism on the hotel business, even on that day the formality scarcely obscured the fact that she liked travelling with him. On the second day as they walked around the hotel gardens, spending a lot of time sitting on benches beneath mulberry trees their language had become perceptibly casual and informal. Speaking about their personal histories as they ate ramen noodles beside a corrugated metal Citroen van in the hotel roof garden, surrounded by shiny aluminium tables and chairs. There were photographs of the van being helicoptered onto the roof, swinging high above the skyline of Shanghai, others of women besides rooftop pools waving at the air crew. They spoke about their misery and loneliness, beginning to admit that they were both less lonely now than they had been for a decade. They spoke about missing the other bodyguard who they usually traveled with. (He was stuck in Tokyo enjoying being with his children.) The implications of this change of behavior completely escaped both of them. (Melodramas are an inherently bourgeois form and this, which might be considered one, is no different.) By the time they went to bed on the third day she was enjoying herself almost as much as he was. They had spent the day swimming in the hotel pool and gym, playing GO and reading additional books hastily bought in the hotel bookshop. Perhaps it was the uncertainty and the desire to stroke her perfect left arm, that communicated itself to her, she spent the day taking secret glances at him as he fell asleep on the sofa in the hotel cafe, the book he was reading open on his chest. The hotel staff were amused, as they always were by the way desiring relationships became public in the hotel, in this specific case by the way they glanced at one another, by the initial gestural touching over the GO board. Bets were being taken. They both suffered from insomnia on the fourth night and she opened the doors between the adjoining suites, she made them white tea and they ended up in bed together mostly talking and eventually sleeping though they tried and failed to not have sex. As the days, months and eventually years passed they both understood that their actual relationship was founded on their speaking rather than the sexuality that rapidly stabilized into normality. That day they began to exchange less heavily edited stories of their lives, exploring what they knew and didn’t know about each other. Stories were exchanged of relationships, the violence and the dead that haunted and followed them, of work and of their families. For the remaining three or four days the doors between their suites were left open. The cleaning woman collected her winnings from the other staff, she had bet on sex and the doors between the suites. The cleaner stood in the lift with them and was amused by how (occasionally) they could be seen touching one another in the lifts, corridors and restaurants. It wasn’t deliberate, just familiar, unavoidable. On the fifth day they had some impromptu meetings with a Chinese software developer who was seeking some investment, went over the business plans, discussed the implications of the global political uncertainty and its potential impacts. On the sixth day they went back to the offices and told them the nature of the constraints they operated under and that if they were interested in accepting investments what was possible And what additional help they could offer them, especially in breaking into the European market. The contract will look like this, Seo told them. They went for an early evening meal with them, the CEO and development director returned from the bar to find her, slightly drunk, leaning against him, her eyes half closed. Sik looked at their uncertain faces, he found himself stroking her face. It’s because we have been alone in Shanghai, we have lost our ability to be formal. Forgive us and once you have considered your options contact her, us. Thank you for the meal, I’m sorry we can’t join you for further drinks but I should take her back to the hotel… On the 7th day they stayed in the hotel reading documents and talking about traveling back to Tokyo the next day. A certain amount of uncertainty crept into their being. Would people notice a change in their behaviour or would they ignore it. Eventually whilst still damp from the swimming pool, sitting in robes beside the Citroen van drinking coffee and eating sushi and namchu chocolate flavored rice balls they relaxed and decided to exist in the flow. Let’s just go with the flow and see what happens, perhaps we will become miserable together, unable to bear being in the same room or building let us just try, perhaps you will have an affair with a beautiful gangster (gangstress surely? He interjected, looking at her arched disapproving eyebrows ) and I will descend into utter jealousy, and will weep and cry clinging onto you… or we will become indifferent, uncaring for one another or even the world… Can we have two vanilla namchu balls please…. I don’t know, perhaps we might be happy, perhaps nobody will mind, perhaps we can only touch one another overseas, perhaps they need to let us be. Her robe fell open revealing her Lycra bikini top. She smiled happily, I don’t think I have ever had that affect on a person before, she thought or said. Later she will wonder if she said it aloud. Language and thoughts are equally unreliable, I never knew I liked Shanghai, she said to the air, coincidentally as the waiter brought more coffee. Have you been here before the waiter who was a police informant asked. Yes, always on business, endless meetings with business people and government officials, this is the first time I have really liked being here. I know its his, our fault but still …

The empire of things]