words, China is where the action is. And it’s gonna be that way for a long time.”
“Not for me,” Zhang Heng replied. “Not for me...Now, I must be getting home.”
“You sure.” He made an audible sigh, feigning great disappointment.
“I’m sure. I have a lot to do tomorrow.”
“Let me catch you a cab.” Heng, who was used to riding buses in Shanghai, was not about to turn down a free taxi ride. Rosenthal waved down a cab. He opened the door for her. After she got in the back seat, he asked. “Can we do this again?”
“You mean dinner?”
“Of course, I mean dinner. What else could I mean?” Levinson smiled. “Dinner. Just the two of us.”
Biting down on her lower lip, she said, “I suppose so.”
“I’ve had a very pleasant evening,” he said, bending over and kissing her on the cheek. The touch of his lips was not all that unappealing.
“Me, too.” She smiled off into the distance, giving her address to the cab driver.
Handing the cab driver two twenty RMB notes, he said, “This ought to get you home.” As the cab pulled away, she glanced back at Rosenthal. Tugging on his shirtsleeve, a panhandler was begging for money. Rosenthal shook the beggar’s hand away abruptly and waved to her in the departing taxi.
In the taxi, on the way home, she reflected upon the evening. Joshua Rosenthal was an unusual, perhaps even peculiar, man. Still, she had enjoyed his company, despite his almost adolescent demeanor. He was kind; he was considerate; and, he was generous. These were things that her two previous Chinese boyfriends had lacked.
Age, she told herself, was something relative. Besides, she was soon to be twenty-nine and that was practically middle age for a Chinese woman. Finally, she wondered if Joshua Rosenthal could possibly open doors for her to get out of China. She suspected he could. She hoped he could.
As soon as she reached her apartment, she kicked off her high heels and picked up her mobile phone. She dialed her sister, Hui, in Beijing. It was just after ten and Hui would still be up after putting her daughter to bed. Hui answered on the third ring.
“How are you?” inquired Heng. Just fine, her sister told her. Then she asked about her husband and her young daughter. Her daughter was named Heng after her. They exchanged further pleasantries about their mother, work, and life. Then, Heng came out and asked her, “What do you think of older men?”
“What do I think of older men?”
“Yeah, what do you think of older men?”
“It depends. How old?”
“Old...Old as dad.”
“It all depends. Is he nice? Does he have any money?” Hui’s husband had been unemployed as an accountant for three months and even before that they had lived from paycheck to paycheck. For Hui, money was important in a relationship.
“I think so.”
“A lot.”
“Enough. Besides he’s nice.”
Heng could hear her sister sigh on the other end of the line. “Money can erase a lot of problems,” she said. “Of course, dad would never have approved. You can be certain that mom won’t approve.”
“I don’t need her permission anymore.”
“I guess not.” They talked for a few more minutes. Heng told Hui how she had met Rosenthal and what he did for a living. For a few more minutes, they just talked about life again, and how each of them was getting along. That night, when she went to bed, she wondered what it would be like to be rich. What it would be like to be rich and living somewhere outside China.
Fall that year in Shanghai was blessedly languid and warm. Gone were the thundershowers of the summer. The sun each day traced its arc in a cloudless sky. Zhang Heng began seeing Joshua Rosenthal each weekend for dinner, each restaurant different, each restaurant more than a little out of her means. Soon, it was a few nights a week. If Rosenthal begrudged Heng’s expensive taste in restaurants, he never complained. As date followed date, as he began knowing Heng better, he started holding her hand as they stepped into the restaurants and when they sauntered down the sidewalks. Soon, she began letting him wrap his arm around her as they walked. Then came the night, she allowed him to kiss her on the mouth. Kissing her on the mouth was not nearly as repulsive as she thought it might be given Levinson’s age. No, it had not been repulsive at all. Despite the irrepressible grin, the sometime irritating laugh, she found herself growing more fond of Rosenthal. Joshua Rosenthal was a much more serious man than she had first given him credit for. He was indeed clever. Though he was generous, she could tell he was good with money. She suspected he was very rich by Chinese standards. Furthermore, she was pleased that she was seeing someone again, even if it was a man as old as Levinson. Doling out more and more money on her, she began spending the night in his upscale apartment in the heart of the city. In bed, for his age, he wasn’t without undue endurance as a lover.
One winter’s night, as the rain poured in Shanghai, they lay in bed, amongst the ruffled sheets of their love-making. Heng could hear the rain beating on the panes of the bedroom windows of Rosenthal’s apartment. In the dark silence, she wondered whether she really loved Rosenthal. She wondered whether it truly mattered. She was happy, she was content with the ways things were. At least for the moment. She wondered just what sort of commitment she was willing to make to him; she wondered what sort of commitment he was willing to make for her. “Are you ever going back to
Canada?” she asked him.
“Not in the winter. Not if I can help it,” he replied. She turned towards him in bed. He began running his hand up and down her naked flank, lingering over her hip.
“Take me with you.”
“You mean take you to Canada?”
“Yes, take me to Canada. I’ve always wanted to see it. I’m so weary of China. I’m so weary of Shanghai. I’ve got to get out of this place.”
“Well, I have no problems taking you to Toronto next time I go, but for God’s sake let it be anytime but winter. You have no idea how cold it gets there in the winter.” He laughed.
“You promise you’ll take me.”
“I’ll take you,” he said, kissing her gently on the forehead.
“Take me there and don’t bring me back.”
In the darkness, Rosenthal laughed again. “Well, that might be a different matter. Yes, sir, that might just be a different matter.
Disheartened, but not yet defeated, she dropped the matter.
That winter, Joshua Rosenthal began walking Zhang Heng to work. He would walk her to the vast complex that the International Medical Centre was in; he would take the elevator with her to the third floor; he would get off the elevator and, at the front door of the clinic, he would kiss her good-bye. With each week, she arrived in more and more revealing designer clothes that Levinson would buy her at exclusive boutiques in Shanghai. One day, she appeared in a sheer dress at the clinic before she changed into her nurses’s uniform.
