The Shanghai Union of Industrial Mystics Read Online Free PDF Page B

people who knew them. The girl had been excessively needy from birth (most of her friends, being childless, did not realise that all children were excessively needy from birth), and Linyao was not cut out to be a mother, as she and her friends knew long before she had a child of her own. She had never developed the ability to build a rapport with small children that other females seemed to acquire in their teens or twenties.
    As a result, Linyao’s daughter Jia Lin (Julie to her mother’s ex-husband and English-speaking friends) was always angry with her mother for one reason or another—the biggest sin, of course, being to have gotten herself divorced. Surrounded by rich friends in an English–Mandarin private school in the north of Shanghai, it was only natural that Jia Lin wouldn’t be able to understand why she had to do without a father or a high income, while most of her friends had both and seemed to live charmed lives filled with extra ballet classes, chauffeurs, electronic toys and age-inappropriate videos.
    Linyao’s velocity decreased, her lower limbs seemed to go into slow motion, and then she came to a complete halt, like a steam train reaching a station. Should she skip this assignment? Should she turn back? Here was an opportunity to win some much-needed brownie points with her sullen and angry daughter. She had managed to leave her job as a government veterinarian early, and yet was going to spend some rare free time doing a task that was strictly voluntary. Although she was chair of the Café Society, she could easily leave it to her deputies, Joyce and Philip. All she would have to do is give them a quick call on her mobile.
    Yes. She’d turn around. They could do the assignment tonight. Be good for them to have the extra responsibility. Instead, she could go to Jia Lin’s school—actually, her after-school tutorial club—and meet her at the gates. On rare occasions when she had done so in the past, Jia Lin had never said anything, but Linyao knew the girl found the extra attention significant.
    She was almost ready to spin on her heels when another thought struck her. The catering job tonight—to make a sumptuous vegan dinner for an important group of eleven visitors staying temporarily in Shanghai—was no ordinary booking. The visitors were a much talked-about group of international animal rights activists called the Children of Vega. The visit of this group was the most discussed event in recent memory, as far as vegetarian circles in this city were concerned. The charismatic boss of the group was said to be extremely sensitive about his food. Woe betide anyone who served him an ill-conceived meal, or one with anti-ideological ingredients. This thought made her feel uncomfortable. Perhaps it was too risky to leave it to the youngsters.
    To ponder over intractable dilemmas is like doing the cha-cha-cha. Two steps north, one step south. Pause. Turn around. Two steps south, one step north. Pause. Turn around. Linyao was performing this complex manoeuvre in her head, and her feet were starting to do the same thing as she twisted her body one way and then the other. Then she made up her mind.
    She started walking forward again. No; she couldn’t skip it. On this occasion, she had better oversee the catering job herself, and leave the job of collecting her daughter to her domestic helper, who did it automatically unless informed otherwise. Can’t risk the Children of Vega being upset. A link with Vega could put their café on the map as far as vegetarianism in China went—perhaps even internationally. She’d pick Jia Lin up from school tomorrow, or another day.
    And so, with a few seconds’ thought, we make quick decisions we are to bitterly regret over long hours ahead. For perhaps this is the biggest dilemma of creatures who live temporal lives. Trapped in mono-directional time, we have no ability to step outside and see our lives from more useful angles. Linyao is an over-busy woman eleven