It was the Leaning Tower of Pisa, which they had seen during a previous holiday, but made entirely of snow. Elsewhere there was a life-size pyramid and a faithful reproduction of the Kinkaku-ji in Kyoto; there were fearsome ogres and cuddly polar bears and a herd of long-necked dinosaurs; Mount Rushmore with different, unrecognizable heads; Eskimos and penguins; a tropical landscape of palm trees and a beach with sun loungers all glowing with the pale white-blue of snow and ice. They threw snowballs at each other, as people who are not used to snow always do, and if they tripped and fell they just lay on the snow, feeling its strange powdery-crusty texture beneath them. Justin no longer noticed the cold; his fingers were swollen and numb but impervious to the biting frost, and he felt a growing strength in his legs as he ran along the edge of a perfectly flat snow-canal that led to a Dutch windmill.
Little bastard, youve got a lot of energy, Sixth Uncle wheezed as he caught up. Your grandmother keeps telling me I need to lose weight, but thank God Im a bit fat, because it protects me from this damn cold.
They found a small restaurant, a dimly lit place hidden down a nondescript alley a tip from a local acquaintance, Sixth Uncle said, guaranteed to be the best food in the area. The warmth of the room felt delicious, the air humid and wood-scented. They ordered too much food, as was the custom of their family, and Sixth Uncle had a bottle of sake that seemed too big for one person.
What a great holiday this is, Sixth Uncle said as he refilled the tiny cup; he misjudged the size of it, and the sake spilled onto the smooth lacquered surface of the table. Thank goodness youre around, though; otherwise it would just be your shit-boring parents.
Justin smiled; Sixth Uncle was the only person he knew who spoke of his parents in this way irreverently, whatever respect he had for Justins father well hidden under layers of coarse humor.
How on earth did such boring parents bring up a happy, strong boy like you? If you were a couple of years older I would let you drink some sake while no ones looking. Hey, maybe I could slip it into your teacup? No, no, that would be too bad of me. Not even I would do that to my favorite nephew though youve always been very grown up for your age, so I wouldnt give a shit about getting you drunk. Only thing Id worry about is your dragon-tongued mother. Oh, my God, speaking of getting drunk, I think Im already pretty wasted.
Justin toyed with a piece of lamb that was drying out on the helmet-shaped griddle in front of him, slowly sizzling to a crisp alongside a charred piece of corn. Sixth Uncle had told him that the dish was called Genghis Khan because the grill was modeled on the exact form of an ancient Mongol armored helmet, but Justin had not believed him Sixth Uncle was full of amazing, unbelievable stories. Often Justin had thought that these stories were Sixth Uncles way of enlivening the heavy atmosphere at the dinner table, for he was the only one who would say anything amusing (and Justin would be the only one to laugh), but recently Justin had begun to realize that Sixths Uncles anecdotes were aimed at him. He had sensed a growing connivance, Sixth Uncle reaching out to him tentatively, for reasons he was not able to fathom. He was glad of the jovial company but troubled by the lack of clarity; in spite of Sixth Uncles almost comic façade, he, too, operated within the familys unspoken language, in which one was somehow expected to understand all that was not articulated.
Do you know what Im going to do when I retire? Sixth Uncle continued. Im going to buy a stinking huge farm in Tasmania and never come back. People tell me property is dirt cheap over there. I can get a massive ranch with sheep and cows and live happily ever after.
But, Sixth Uncle, you dont know anything about sheep or cows.
How difficult can it be? Sixth Uncle poured another overfilled cup of sake and looked at the clear beads of liquid on the table. Must be easier than dealing in property.
There followed a silence that made Justin anxious: one of those moments just before someone said something important. In his familys unsaid-said ways, he understood that this was a preparation for an announcement of some kind, the delivery of news that would mark a turning point perhaps something relatively minor, but a shift nonetheless.
Do you know what people in the business call me? The Fixer. Sometimes they call me The Enforcer, but I dont really like to hear that. The Fixer sounds better. Even the family calls me that sometimes.
Justin nodded. He had heard his father refer to Sixth Uncles pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to problem solving, the way he could always untangle a sticky situation.
In every generation of our family, there needs to be a fixer. Before me there was Third Uncle, whom you never knew. Without him, the family business would have gone bust several times over your grandfather was a clever man, but he wasnt streetwise at all. The family needed someone to look after the more practical side of things so that the glamorous stuff could happen. The small details are important too, thats what Third Uncle told me. I learned everything from him. And after me itll be your turn.
The small window next to their table offered a view of the narrow alley; above the doorways of the alley, lamps had come on. Justin could not see the sky, but he guessed that the snow had made the evening draw in. A flag sign fluttered above an entranceway; amid the Japanese characters, he recognized the Chinese name for Hokkaido: North Sea Island, a place marooned in the cold north.
Your father says its not normal for the eldest son to do the work I do. He wants you to sit in a fancy office, the way he does, or look after the money in Singapore. What a shit-boring job that is! But what choice do we have? Look at your brother hes a sweet kid, but already you can see that hes too weak, spoiled rotten; hell never have what it takes to look after the harsher things in life. At his age you were already much more mature, you were different. Remember a few years ago? When you fractured your ankle or leg or whatever and for a few days you were hobbling around? Your father got mad because he thought you were pretending. And then you forced yourself to walk normally and no one knew anything for months, until the doctor said, My God, I think hes fractured his leg. I thought, Wow, this kid is tough! No one said so, but everyone was impressed by your bravery. And I guess its because of okay, lets just say it your background.
Do you know what people in the business call me? The Fixer. Sometimes they call me The Enforcer, but I dont really like to hear that. The Fixer sounds better. Even the family calls me that sometimes.
Justin nodded. He had heard his father refer to Sixth Uncles pragmatic, no-nonsense approach to problem solving, the way he could always untangle a sticky situation.
In every generation of our family, there needs to be a fixer. Before me there was Third Uncle, whom you never knew. Without him, the family business would have gone bust several times over your grandfather was a clever man, but he wasnt streetwise at all. The family needed someone to look after the more practical side of things so that the glamorous stuff could happen. The small details are important too, thats what Third Uncle told me. I learned everything from him. And after me itll be your turn.
The small window next to their table offered a view of the narrow alley; above the doorways of the alley, lamps had come on. Justin could not see the sky, but he guessed that the snow had made the evening draw in. A flag sign fluttered above an entranceway; amid the Japanese characters, he recognized the Chinese name for Hokkaido: North Sea Island, a place marooned in the cold north.
Your father says its not normal for the eldest son to do the work I do. He wants you to sit in a fancy office, the way he does, or look after the money in Singapore. What a shit-boring job that is! But what choice do we have? Look at your brother hes a sweet kid, but already you can see that hes too weak, spoiled rotten; hell never have what it takes to look after the harsher things in life. At his age you were already much more mature, you were different. Remember a few years ago? When you fractured your ankle or leg or whatever and for a few days you were hobbling around? Your father got mad because he thought you were pretending. And then you forced yourself to walk normally and no one knew anything for months, until the doctor said, My God, I think hes fractured his leg. I thought, Wow, this kid is tough! No one said so, but everyone was impressed by your bravery. And I guess its because of okay, lets just say it your background.
Justin nodded. He tried to read the signs above the doorways in the alleyway outside; some of them were written in traditional Chinese script, and it was fun trying to make out the names. WHITE BIRCH MOUNTAIN VILLAGE. BRILLIANT PLUM TEAHOUSE.
But, you know, you have been raised as the eldest son, youve never been treated as anything other than the number-one brother, so whose blood you are exactly is not important. Were not so old-fashioned that we care about these things. Its only like I said, it explains why you are different from your brother. And better than him, frankly. Yes, we should just say it! Hes going to become a lawyer or accountant; maybe he will look after some small part of the business, like the tea or rubber plantations. Or maybe hell do what your dad does now sit in the office and watch the money coming in and sometimes play with the accounts before going off for golf. Thats for pussies. You are different. Youre stronger. Thats why you will have to carry more responsibility.
That he was different was undeniable, as was the fact that he was the eldest son. At times he wondered how someone who was not born of the family could also be treated to its privileges and now its responsibilities but his family did not question it and neither, therefore, did he. They had been clear about the situation from the start, had not lied or sought to protect him from the truth: They had taken him in, the infant son of a distant relative, a poor girl from the provinces who had been abandoned by her husband and could not cope with a baby. It was someone so distantly related that she might not even have been a relative, though in the old Chinese way she was referred to as cousin, and in todays terms, in a family more modern than his, the process by which he came to live in his new home would be called adoption rather than just taking in. His birth mother had emigrated to Canada and, had he wanted to, Justin could easily have asked about her, perhaps even asked to see her. But he felt no filial curiosity; his bloodline offered no lure. His family had raised him as their own, and not only as their own but as the highest of the male cousins the eldest son of the eldest son a position not usurped even when his younger brother came along. His place within the family had always been indisputable, despite his provenance. And for this he would always be grateful. He would always obey the family and fight for them and never fail them; he did not need Sixth Uncle to tell him so.