Free Kowloon Tong by Paul Theroux

and fuddled she could not think, and she sat in an enigmatic or truculent silence, as though Bunt were to blame for her bewilderment. He was tired. When he was alone with his mother she sucked out his vitality.
    And so another evening ended: chin-wag, Milo, bathroom, airing cupboard, bed.

    The following day, a Saturday, Mr. Hung invited Betty and Bunt to his apartment in central Kowloon. He had something to give them, he said. "It's on the way to your building."
    Bunt refused, but his mother insisted. "It's on the way to the factory." Anyway, Bunt was stopping by Imperial to pick up the mail. "And when someone offers you something, you don't fling it back in his face."
    "I'll go alone," Bunt said. He felt that his mother had already been too compliant. He wanted to show Mr. Hung that he was not impressed with the proposition to buy Imperial Stitching.
    Bunt could not remember a time when he had been invited to a Chinese apartment in the colony. Hong Kong people met in restaurants; they were secretive about their houses. Was it because a house and its furnishings told too much about you? Or was it the disorder, everyone in pajamas, shuffling in sandals, howling at each other, the noise of the neighbors, the squalor?
    Whatever, Bunt had also agreed to go out of curiosity and for the novelty of the invitation. And Mr. Hung was right, the apartment was on the way, a ten-minute walk from Imperial.
    Mr. Hung welcomed him in his designer suit with the maker's label stitched to the sleeve. The apartment was on the eighth floor of a building near Argyle Street. Out one window Bunt could see Hong Kong and the ridge above the Peak tramway where Albion Cottage stood sheltered among some trees; out the opposite window Imperial Stitching stood like an old monument on the Kai Tak flight path.
    "Tea?"
    "Thanks, no. I've got to run. You mentioned you had something for my mum?"
    "And you."
    Bunt was glad when Mr. Hung left the room, because he wanted to take a good look at its furnishings. When someone came to Imperial to take out an order, Bunt often sent Mr. Woo down to the parking lot to have a look at the man's car—what make, what year, what condition? You could get a pretty good idea of the person's character, Chinese or British, from the car.
    The white shag carpets in Mr. Hung's apartment were puzzling, and so was the glass-fronted cabinet in the parlor, with its shelves of blue china bowls and the sort of porcelain soup spoons that looked like shoehorns. When Bunt walked towards the cabinet on the uneven floor all the china rattled. The clock on the altar-like Chinese sideboard was ridiculous—fake French, standing on claw feet of fake gilt, fake wooden case,
absurd ticking. On the glass-topped coffee table sat an ashtray. Beside it was a matchbook cover:
Fatty's Chophouse.
The base of the ashtray read
Golden Dragon.
That was elegant: Hung had pinched an ashtray from a Kowloon restaurant.
    To needle Mr. Hung, Bunt said, "Mr. Chuck used to eat there."
    "I'm glad you are aware of that," Mr. Hung said. He was not in the least put off by Bunt's needling. Indeed, he actually seemed glad that Bunt had pointed this out.
    The pilfered items only made the place seem more shoddy and impersonal, but it was like a glimpse into Mr. Hung's head, and in order to see more he said, "May I use the facilities?"
    A white shag carpet in there, too. And the lid was down on the toilet bowl. One of Mr. Mo's
feng shut
instructions was: Keep the W.C. covered with its seat flap or the
ch'i
will leave the building by rushing down the hole.
    When he returned to the parlor he saw that Mr. Hung had set out the presents. These cheap little gifts did not impose a burden of indebtedness, they were merely symbols of generosity in a Chinese ritual of gift-giving.
    A basket of fruit, including longans, lychees and mangos—very nice, but Bunt was thinking he could have bought them at the market. Candied plums. "And what's this?" Bunt wondered. Mr. Hung said,