Mr Wong Goes West

Mr Wong Goes West Read Free

Book: Mr Wong Goes West Read Free
Author: Nury Vittachi
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the doorbell.
    Wong stood, bowed, and raced for the door. Moments later, Daswani surged onto the balcony, his robes flapping around him damply. He was a large man given to wearing sheikh-like robes, into which he had had numerous pockets tailored.
    ‘Sorry-sorry-sorry to keep you waiting. Comfortable you are, is it?’
    The newcomer flopped down into his chair so heavily that the rattan gave a moan and sank several centimetres lower, itslegs spreading. He grabbed Wong’s glass of coconut juice and swallowed it in a single draught.
    ‘Wah! Never been so thirsty in all my life. Now, how are we, Miss Crum-bly?’
    ‘That’s Crumley. You can call me Cecily. It’s actually Cecily-Mary—good Catholic girl, you know.’
    ‘Ah, interesting,’ said Daswani. ‘I am Sindhi.’
    ‘Cindy?’
    ‘Yes.’ He looked at the surprised expression on her face and added: ‘Do you know many Sindhis?’
    ‘No. You don’t look like a…Cindy.’
    ‘Really,’ said Daswani in a tone of surprise. ‘What do Sindhis normally look like?’
    ‘I don’t know. I just…I used to have a Cindy doll when I was a child. Small blond thing, skinny as a twig.’
    Although Wong thought he could speak English, the logic of conversations in that language regularly foxed him. Where on earth had Ms Crumley encountered Sindhis who were small, blond and skinny as twigs? There were none in Asia, that was certain. Would Arun Daswani be insulted at this? He’d better say something, to set things right.
    ‘In this part of the world, Sindhis are big fat men, not many blonds,’ he said. ‘Like Mr Daswani. Very fat.’
    ‘This fat is all muscle,’ Daswani said, patting his pot belly. ‘From all the digesting.’
    Crumley chuckled at this, a tinkly, well-rehearsed laugh. But neither of the others did, so she stopped abruptly.
    ‘Come,’ said the Sindhi businessman. ‘Let’s get down to business, shall we?’
    Wong swallowed hard. This was it. He suddenly felt hot, despite the cool breeze. This was a key moment in his life; this was the deal that was going to launch him on a new career.The fifty-seven-year-old geomancer, chief staff member of CF Wong and Associates, a feng shui consultancy, had set up a side business called Harmoney, the idea being to parlay his skill in creating harmonious places, with all elements in a positive balance, to setting up harmonious business deals. This was his first venture.
    Ms Crumley was the buyer for a major European office supplies company. The group she represented, OffBox, was graduating from product distribution to own-label manufacturing. It had come to Singapore because the city–state boasted that it could produce goods with Western standards of quality at Asian prices. OffBox was launching a line of desk goods, starting with highlighters that looked like small fruit.
    She glanced behind Daswani, as if to see if he was somehow trailing the promised goods behind him. ‘Where are the…er?’
    He gave her an unctuous grin. ‘The consignment is downstairs, on the dockside, in a truck, parked nearby. It will be shipped to the provided address as soon as the final part of the required paperwork is done.’
    Wong gulped again and a tremor of excitement raced through his body. He knew that ‘paperwork’ in this instance referred to the climactic part of the business jigsaw: payment.
    ‘Cheque should be made out to Harmoney Private Limited,’ the feng shui master put in. ‘Harmoney with a “e”. Like “Har” and “money”.’
    ‘Of course. Have you got samples? I need to check the quality one last time. Just a formality, of course, at this stage.’
    ‘Of course,’ said Daswani, producing a box from one of the folds of his robes. ‘You can check as many times as you like.’
    He placed on the table a white cardboard box emblazoned with the words: ‘Highlighters: Banana’; and deftly tore it open. Lifting out a small plastic banana, he brandished it elegantly.‘This box contains twelve pieces of

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