Tales of Accidental Genius

Tales of Accidental Genius by Simon van Booy

Book: Tales of Accidental Genius by Simon van Booy Read Free Book Online
Authors: Simon van Booy
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whole spicy fish at the Golden Chicken
    they returned to Tiantan Park to hear karaoke
and admire the ballroomers.

One Sunday Uncle Ping sat with them, sharing out sweets.
    â€œMy niece and I were wondering if you would ballroom with
    us next Sunday?”
    Cherry touched Weng’s sleeve.
“I think you would be successful if you tried.”
    Uncle Ping said, “We’re not getting any younger.”
    Then he gave Weng another sweet.
    â€œC’mon,” Cherry said. “You may as well try.”
    But Weng just stared at the sweet in his hand.
    â€œBashful?” Uncle Ping said. “Nothing wrong with that.”

It took two weeks for Uncle Ping and Cherry
to persuade Weng to try ballrooming.
    â€œSome people even dance without partners . . . ,”
Cherry kept saying as she showed him basic steps:
    quick-quick, slow, quick-quick, slow . . .
    â€œ. . . but the important thing is they’re dancing.”

Fairly soon, Weng was doing something he had never imagined,
    with a large chattering group who descended en masse
    to dance and sometimes try out their voices.
    It was an unspoken law that the older a person was,
    the earlier he or she had to arrive at Tiantan Park.
    Apartments that skirted the boundaries
were getting harder to rent,
    as karaoke machines were in full swing by first light.
    Sometimes Weng and Cherry got to Tiantan early.
    Listened to songs they had never heard,
    then drank coffee-flavored tea in little bakeries,
watching the steam
    roll from boiling pots.
    Weng even bought a cell phone so Cherry could send him texts
to encourage his steps,
    or just friendly symbols like this:
    â˜ºâ˜ºâ˜º

For Cherry’s thirtieth birthday Weng gave her a silk scarf.
    They celebrated in a small restaurant where three roads meet.
    When Weng asked if she liked her present
    Cherry told him she was married.
    â€œI also have a daughter named Shirley,” she said.
    All the uneaten dishes of food on the table
made Weng feel foolish.
    He put some money down and went outside.
    Cherry appeared a few moments later.
    â€œYou should have told me before I gave you
one of my mother’s scarves,” he said.

Cherry fingered the silk knot around her neck.
    Her hands were dry and callused from long shifts
in the factory where she worked.
    â€œWhere is your husband?” Weng asked. “With Shirley
in your hometown of Ningbo?”
    â€œIt’s a long story.”
    â€œWhy don’t they live here with you? I don’t understand.”
    â€œSomeday I’ll explain the situation,” she said.
“But it’s shameful, I warn you.”
    â€œWhy did you come to Beijing alone? Isn’t there plenty
of work in Ningbo?”
    â€œUncle Ping got me a better job here as I also
support my parents.”
    When it was almost dark they parted at the edge of her district.
    â€œAll this time,” Weng said, “I thought your
uncle was a matchmaker.”
    Cherry untied the silk scarf and held it out.
    â€œKeep it,” he said. “Even though you’re married,
today is still your birthday.”

六
    For the next month, Weng didn’t iron his white shirt
    nor his mouse-gray trousers, nor clip on his tie
or the sock garters from Hong Kong.
    And each evening, as he packed up his vegetables,
the mannequins of Chanel
    were transformed by twilight into a window of Cherrys.
    One evening, Uncle Ping came to see him,
said he’d heard from Cherry what happened,
    and felt responsible for not telling Weng sooner
about his niece’s situation.
    They sat very still before cooling cups of tea.
    Weng turned off the television to be polite.
    At last Uncle Ping spoke. “Did Cherry tell you
that I was once almost married?”
    Weng shook his head.
    â€œShe was so beautiful I couldn’t look at her.”

“It was hard in China then, with Mao and the Red Guards,
    your parents probably told you. But after a few months of
dating, the thought of

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