Dan's Conundrum - 13. Chapter 13

When tears have dried enough and my eyes began to hurt in the bitter cold, I just stared into space. Wanting to make myself useful I travelled to the other side of the street and held the door open for people coming in and out of the shopping centre. They hurried past as though a second longer I’d be asking for donations. No thank-yous, no eye-contacts. After ten minutes I went back and cried some more.

‘Mr Lam said I should check on you,’ spoke a familiar voice. ‘He was worried.’

I looked behind me to see Dad coming up the stairs. I turned away to conceal my reddened eyes. He sighed before sitting next to me.

‘Anything wrong?’ He waited.

Everything was wrong.

I closed my eyes before saying, ‘I shouldn’t have come back.’

This was not supposed to elicit a response. So he waited for me to continue.

‘This was a mistake. I should have stayed home.’

Pause.

He frowned. ‘You don’t want to see your grans?’

‘No.’ All I was reminded of was pain.

I did not actually see a stab of hurt cross my father’s face, but I could imagine it well enough during the following silence.

‘They’ve missed us, you know,’ he told me calmly.

‘They’ve missed you. They’ve never missed me. They wouldn’t have.’

‘What makes you think that?’

I didn’t want to tell him, so I changed topic. ‘What would Mr Lam say if he knew I didn’t go to church anymore?’

Dad shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘Really? I don’t think so,’ I said bitterly. ‘I bet he won’t be so happy to see me.’

‘Why wouldn’t he?’

‘He is nice and friendly because he thinks I still go to church,’ I told him, unable to control myself. ‘All these – warm smiles, kind words – are provisional. I don’t deserve any of it.’

‘That’s not true,’ Dad replied. ‘Isn’t it possible to be friends even if we believe in different things?’

Silence.

That was…hypothetically possible.

Dad moved closer, his tone softened. ‘Tse-Ho, we both want you to have a great time this Christmas.’

‘I’m trying to.’ I sighed, closing my eyes. ‘Maybe I’m just a bit homesick.’

Dad thought for a moment. Homesick? Isn’t Hong Kong your home?

‘You tried ringing up your old friends yet?’ he asked. I was stumped. It hadn’t occurred to me to get in touch with them again.

‘No, not really.’

‘You should.’ He turned to the front again.

To my horror a desperate cry for help sent me shivering. A man in his fifties was shoved against a wall not thirty yards away with brute force by a much younger man. With one hand the young man held the older man’s throat and the other land blow after blow in his stomach with inhuman savagery. The older man buckled in pain but no mercy came. The purpose of this bewildered me. It wasn’t until the young man take from the limp hands of his victim a brown wallet that I realised I was witnessing a robbery, a crime in the daylight.

The young man was now running before he could be recognised; he got what he wanted and needed to get out fast. I turned to my dad only to find an empty space – he was already heading to intercept. Frightened and unsure how I could be of use I stood, watching the events unfold. Too late to call him back now and Dad would never listen to me. Did he expect me to join him? Run for help? Call the police?

Dad now stood in the young man’s path who was still running at full speed. Perhaps he expected Dad to move but that was increasingly unlikely. They looked to collide. Dad faced him, his expression cold with anger.

The young man tried to get past but faster than I could see, Dad struck him with a fist and sent him backwards for a few feet before landing arse first on the ground. Dad remained standing, flexing his muscles, rotating his head and cracking a few bones. This was enough for the young man to know he was not getting past without a fight.

Humiliated, partly due to a growing crowd and that he’d never lost a fight with a random guy on the street, the young man stood up and again threw himself forward. He punched and kicked. They were fast and ferocious but Dad was happy to defend. The glint in his eyes was gleeful. Why wasn’t Dad striking back? Finding yet another gap between his attacks (or at least that’s what I thought), Dad shoved the young man back squarely on the chest.

Frustrated, the young man from his trouser pocket drew a silver blade. Dad’s expression darkened. The young man lunged forward – he no longer seemed to care even as members of the crowd were calling on their mobile phones. Now he wanted to see blood.

Dad grabbed the knife hand by the wrist and made a quick turn, swiftly breaking the young man’s nose with his free elbow. The sickening pop was followed by a cry of agony as Dad twisted his knife arm, forcing him to release the knife which Dad then kicked to the side. There were cheers amongst the crowd but no one came forward. As a finishing move – like Dad had always told me in the fights of his day – he hooked his foot around the young man’s neck and brought him down. With all his strength the young man could not remain on his feet. He was humbled, humiliated. Yet he lunged again, for what I didn’t know. But Dad kicked him swiftly in the face and for the second time the young man lay on the ground, this time his face bloodied, his eyes fearful. He didn’t try to get up again.

A minute later, the police arrived on the scene and called in the ambulance. Witnesses were questioned just as Mum came out of the church and I relayed the events to her, surprised by the tremor in my own voice. She walked over, tearing as she told him he’d broken his promise to her that he would never hit anyone again.

* * * * *

Within a week, the incident only lingered in the back of our minds like it was just a bad dream. We didn’t speak more of it, but I reckoned it was because no one wanted to and not because we had all forgotten what happened. Just as well, since Christmas was just around the corner and reminding us of it would have dampened the mood. If anything, that incident at least showed me my dad wasn’t lying about his past.

But such festivity in Hong Kong on the week leading up to Christmas! Christmas lights were everywhere, on cars, lamppost and bridges. Even in the MTR station. Practically all Chinese restaurants were fully booked in the evenings, and so eating out on Christmas day wouldn’t be an option. We did some Christmas shopping too. The Toys R US I used to go was now flooded with people, almost impossible to enter. And when I went into supermarkets I couldn’t find any Brussels sprouts. They simply don’t sell them here. Mum also made me take a picture with a man in Santa costumes and I reluctantly agreed. I wondered who was in it.

On Christmas day we went to Ka-Fie’s apartment along with my grandparents and celebrated a reunion after six long years. Wasn’t that the true spirit of Christmas, bringing back together the people you used to know? I only realised that just now. Christmas used to mean very little when it was just three of us sitting at a table in a foreign country.

We helped Ka-Fie’s family make their first Christmas pudding. They never had anything of the sort and they loved it. You know, the kind of excitement you get from learning to make a foreign dish. We also had roasted chicken and potatoes, stir-fried green beans and carrots, and a steamed fish at granddad’s insistence – he argued there must be fish. We watched DvDs, played video games and had fun like we haven’t had in a long time.

After some persuasion by Ka-Fie I finally signed up to Facebook that evening. I knew the risks but in truth I missed my friends in the UK too. I wondered how they were doing. It didn’t take me long to find David and Chris and I added them as friends. David was online and accepted my request.

David: Arrgh! Cousin’s driving me mad!

I had so much fun with Ka-Fie. How bad could it be on the other side of the world?

Dan: Haha, what did he do?

David was quiet for a minute so I waited like an idiot.

David: He found my secret stash =[

Whoa, what?

Dan: On Christmas Day?

David: Yup =[

Dan: Lol! :D

It must have been so cool, going through David’s stack of goodies. I wondered what was in it. Though actually a secret stash could be anything from a collection of action figures or a pile of games, so I might be over-thinking a little.

David: Gtg. Cousin’s at it again!

I chuckled. Chris was online soon after. I was beginning to like Facebook.

Chris: Hey Dan, how’s Christmas?

Dan: Great. How was your Christmas?

Chris: It’s still middle of the day here…

Dan: Oh sorry. Forgot! Just signed up to Facebook hehe.

Chris: I know. Now show us some pics :P

Facebook was kinda cool, huh? Suddenly my friends didn’t seem so far away. I could be myself again. They knew about me. I felt freer, freer than I had been in the last few torturous weeks. If only I could be that free in front of the rest of my family. Here, sometimes I just couldn’t breathe.

Life was better with David and Chris. Life was better when I had friends I could trust, friends who knew me. Life was not meant to be lived alone – but shared, if you have someone to share it with.

I also had friends like that in Hong Kong once. Now I thought about them even more. I wondered how they were doing. Have they grown as much as I have? Experienced the same pains as I had, growing up? It would be good to see them again, for old time’s sake. I thought more about what Dad said, ringing them up. They might have forgotten about me – after all it had been six years. But then they might not. Life was better with friends. Now I just need the courage to call up.