Five Star Billionaire: A Novel by Tash Aw

fifties, she was soon laid off and had no work other than to tend to our farm and we were therefore forced to be inventive in the way we made our living. Nowadays I hear liberal, educated people refer sympathetically to such ways of life as “hard,” or even “desperate,” but I prefer to think of it as
creative
. I had just turned thirteen and thought that if we had more money I would be able to return home.
    I began to sell pineapples on a disused wooden stand by the side of the road that led to the coast, hoping to ensnare day-trippers from Singapore on their way to Desaru. Knowing that our pineapples were sour, I sold them cheaply, and in the first few weeks I managed to make a little money. But even this began to trickle away as people realized the low quality of my wares. So one day I bought a supersweet pineapple in the market and cut it up in pieces, offering it as proof of my own fruit’s tenderness. A number ofpeople fell for it, and only one couple complained on their way back from the coast. I feigned innocence—I couldn’t guarantee that every pineapple would be sweet. They showed me a pineapple cut in half, and I recognized its dry pale flesh as one of mine. They insisted I give them five pineapples for free, and when I refused, the woman called me names and her companion ended up hurling the pineapple at my head. I ducked, but it caught me on my ear, making my ear swell like a mushroom. Soon afterward, I abandoned the stall and got a job waiting tables at a local coffee shop.
    I did not see my father for nearly four years. I received news from him occasionally, when a letter would arrive via my great-aunt. He would talk about the Kelantan River bursting its banks in the monsoon season, the kiteflying contests that year, the secondhand scooter he had bought, things he had eaten in the market—uninteresting news of daily life. Once he told me he had bought me a large spinning top, which awaited my return, but when I finally went home there was no further mention of it.
    There was never any news of jobs or money—the very reason we had to move away from home. There was no indication of how he was planning our future, no sense that he was aware of the passage of time. I had never been aware of this myself, but now, hundreds of miles from home, I could almost hear the seconds of an invisible clock ticking away in my head. I had gone to live with my great-aunt thinking that it was a temporary event and that I would soon be back home—just until my father “got settled.” That is what he told me. After a year I realized that my residence in the dull flatlands of the south was not going to be as fleeting as I had hoped. One learns quickly at that age. Like all children, I had never before appreciated what
time
meant—the years stretched infinitely beyond me, waiting, impossibly, to be filled. But all of a sudden I began to feel the urgency of each day. I counted them down, saddened by how much I could have been doing with every sunrise and sunset, if only I had been at home.
    I waited for my father to think of a plan that would reunite us in our village, but, incapable of understanding that time was not on his side, he left me waiting.
    You must appreciate that time is always against you. It is never kind or encouraging. It gnaws away invisibly at all good things. Therefore, if you have any desire to accomplish anything, even the simplest task, do it swiftly and with great purpose, or time will drag it away from you.
    Four years. They passed so quickly.

5.
REINVENT YOURSELF

    T HE FIRST RULE OF SUCCESS IS, YOU MUST LOOK BEAUTIFUL. NO ONE had taught Phoebe this secret, but she could tell by simple observation that successful people always looked good. Just by looking at the women hurrying along Henan Lu, running for buses or reading their magazines in the metro at rush hour, she could spot the few who were on life’s upward curve. At first she did not really think about the connection between appearance