Vacationing in the Morning Light of the South Pacific Ocean

Su Jin checked in from her study in Boston.

The Charles River outside the window had thawed, and several sailboats sped across the water, their white sails swollen with wind.

She sat at her desk, a paper on the reduction atmosphere for copper-red glaze spread open before her. She had reached page seventeen.

Her phone vibrated. She picked it up and saw a system message.

[Host, it is time to check in.]

She leaned back in her chair and looked at the river outside.

The sailboats had traveled into the distance, becoming tiny white specks, like grains of rice someone had casually tossed onto the water.

[Ten, nine, eight, seven...]

She closed her eyes.

[Three, two, one-ding. Congratulations, host, on completing your check-in for the 193rd day. Today's check-in reward: a 5.2 percent stake in Wanda Film Co., Ltd., valued at approximately 1.13 billion US dollars.

The host becomes Wanda Film's third-largest shareholder and gains a seat on the board of directors. Wanda Film owns more than 700 cinemas and more than 6,000 screens in China, ranking first nationwide in annual box-office market share.

The "cinema line partnership" privilege has also been unlocked: films produced by the host's film production company can receive priority screening schedules and publicity and distribution resources through Wanda Cinema Line.]

Su Jin opened her eyes. 1.13 billion US dollars. More than 700 cinemas. More than 6,000 screens.

She remembered when "Winter Harbor" had been released in China. It had received only 3 percent of screening slots, and many viewers had needed to ride the subway for an hour to find a cinema showing it.

Back then, Zhao Mingyuan had said that once her film won an award, its share of screenings would go up.

Later, "Winter Harbor" had won best picture at Cannes, and its share of screenings had risen from 3 percent to 12 percent. Twelve percent.

Sitting at her desk, she closed the paper and put it back on the bookshelf. The sailboats were no longer visible outside the window. All that remained on the river were patches of sunlight shattered into gold.

She picked up her phone and sent Zhao Mingyuan a message: "I have shares in Wanda Film. Help me arrange for someone to join the board." Zhao Mingyuan replied instantly with three words: "Understood."

She went to Tetiaroa.

That island-the one where Marlon Brando had lived.

French Polynesia, in the South Pacific Ocean, more than eight hours by plane from Los Angeles.

Su Heng's private plane took off from Los Angeles. Su Jin sat by the window, watching the Pacific Ocean change from deep blue to pale blue, then from pale blue to a green she couldn't name, like shattered glass.

When the plane landed, the runway was white-not the white of concrete, but the white of coral.

Coconut palms lined both sides of the runway, tall trees with enormous leaves that the sea breeze blew like green flags that never stopped waving.

She descended the aircraft stairs into a rush of hot wind, carrying the salty, damp scent of the sea and the sweet fragrance of gardenias drifting from somewhere in the distance.

Fang Ying followed behind, carrying a Goyard tote bag.

Zhou Ye walked ahead, already coordinating security arrangements with the island's butler.

The butler was a Tahitian man in his fifties, with dark brown skin and curly, graying hair. He wore a white linen shirt and sandals on his bare feet.

He stood at the end of the runway, pressed his palms together, bowed slightly, and said something in Tahitian.

Su Jin didn't understand him, but she knew it meant welcome.

The butler parked the car outside the main villa.

Su Jin pushed open the car door, and hot wind rushed into her face, carrying the sweet fragrance of gardenias and the salty scent of the sea.

She stood on the gravel path and looked at the house before her. Built when Brando was still around, it was Polynesian in style, made of wood and stone, with a thick roof woven from palm leaves. Its uneven edges looked like the tousled hair of someone who hadn't quite woken up.

The front of the house had no wall, only a few thick wooden pillars densely carved with Tahitian motifs: fish, birds, waves, and women's faces.

Wind passed between the pillars, making a black-and-white photograph of Brando in the living room sway slightly.

In the photograph, the young man sat on a beach holding a coconut, grinning broadly and showing a mouthful of white teeth.

The sea was behind him, the sky above him, and he sat there like a man who needed nothing.

Su Jin stood at the entrance and looked at the photograph for a while, then turned and walked into the villa.

Fang Ying followed, set the suitcase outside the bedroom, then withdrew and closed the door.

Su Jin stood alone in the empty living room, slipped off her Common Projects, and stepped barefoot onto the cool stone floor. The locally sourced stone was dark gray and had been ground flat, but its surface wasn't smooth. It had a fine texture like orange peel that kept it from being slippery underfoot. She walked to the window and pushed it open. The sea was just below, close enough for her to see the coral on the seabed, clusters of brown, purple, and green, like a garden someone had planted underwater. A yellow fish with black stripes emerged from the coral and swam slowly, flicking its tail, pausing, flicking it again, pausing again. It was in no hurry to get anywhere.

She went into the bedroom, opened her suitcase, folded her Khaite linen shirt and Mother jeans, and put them in the wardrobe.

The wardrobe was empty except for a few wooden hangers, each carved with a different word: "sea," "wind," "star," "moon," "sand."

She took the hanger marked "sea" and hung the shirt on it. She stood before the wardrobe, looking at the rest of her clothes, which Fang Ying had packed for her before the trip, neatly folded and stacked in the suitcase.

She rummaged through them and took out a dress, a top, a pair of sandals, a hat, and a few pieces of jewelry.

She chose slowly, picking up each piece to look at it and hold it up against herself, then putting it back and taking out another.

At last, she laid the pieces she had chosen on the bed, unfolding and smoothing them out one by one.

First she put on a long Zimmermann linen dress. It was the color of the inside of a seashell that had spent a long time in the sun-not white, not beige, but that indefinable warm shade between the two, with the faintest touch of pink.

The fabric was extremely fine linen, light as a layer of mist and almost imperceptible against her body, yet not see-through. It was the kind of sheer that let you see the color of her skin without seeing the skin itself.

The neckline was square and wide, revealing her collarbones and a little skin at her shoulders. Two slender cord straps passed over her shoulders and crossed at her back, leaving her shoulder blades fully exposed.

The skirt was A-line, flaring out from the waist and falling to her ankles. It swayed gently when she walked, like a windblown sail that never stopped moving.

The hem was raw and unfinished, with threads unraveling from the fabric like a thin golden mist in the sunlight.

She picked up a silk scarf, not to tie around her neck, but around her waist.

The Hermès scarf was dark blue, printed with white waves. The pattern wasn't regular: the waves looked as though they had been tossed about by the wind, some swift, some slow, some breaking against rocks into white foam.

She folded the scarf in half, then in half again, making a wide sash, and tied it loosely around her waist in a bow. The loops hung against her skirt, dark blue meeting shell pink like a pink mist rising over the sea.

She put on her sandals. They were neither leather nor satin, but a pair of woven Ancient Greek sandals, with brown leather soles and fine brown leather cords running from her toes to her ankles. The cords wrapped twice around each ankle and were tied in a small knot, their ends hanging down and swaying gently in the wind.

The leather cords were woven by hand, not in the regular, uniform-sized squares of machine weaving. Each opening had a different tension: some areas were dense, others loose. The dense parts lay against her skin, while the loose parts revealed strips of skin on the tops of her feet, like sunlight falling through blinds onto a white wall.

She put on her hat.

It was a wide-brimmed Paris Aristocratic Family straw hat, the brim broad enough to shade her entire face.

It wasn't the finely woven kind of straw hat, with every strand lying obediently in place. It was coarsely woven, the stalks visible one by one, some thick and some thin, some dark and some light. Where the weaving ended at the edge, the stalks hadn't been trimmed even. Their ends stuck up at different lengths, like hair that hadn't been tidied after a cut, messy but beautiful.

She settled the hat on her head and pressed the brim down, shading her eyebrows and half her forehead.

She put on her jewelry.

Not Chopard, not Bulgari, not Cartier. It was a local shell necklace the butler had left on the table, saying it had been strung by the girls on the island themselves.

The shells were tiny, each one different. Some were white, some pink, some purple, and some had rings spiraling around them like miniature whirlpools.

The shells had been worn down by seawater and sand over many years. Their surfaces were matte, without a shine, smooth and cool to the touch, like little ice cubes frozen in time that would never melt.

She put the necklace around her neck. The shells hung below her collarbones, gently tapping together when the wind blew, making a delicate sound like wind chimes.

Last, she put on a ring. It wasn't a diamond or an emerald, just a plain silver band, so thin it was almost invisible unless you looked closely.

Su Heng had given her the ring, saying, "Mom left this. You wear it."

She wore it on the ring finger of her right hand. The silver band rested against her skin, and once warmed by her body heat, it seemed to become one with her finger. To the touch, it didn't feel like an extra object, only as though that patch of skin were a little cooler and smoother than the rest, like a tiny piece of ice that would never melt resting against it.

She stood before the mirror, looking at the person in it. The shell-pink dress fell to her ankles, the dark blue silk scarf was tied around her waist, its bow loops hanging against the skirt, and brown leather cords wound from her toes to her ankles. The wide-brimmed straw hat shaded half her face, and the shell necklace hung below her collarbones. When the wind blew, the shells gently tapped together: ding, ding, ding.

Her face was beneath the shadow of the brim, only her chin and lips visible. Her lips wore nothing, their natural rose color a little redder than usual after the South Pacific sun, like a strawberry that hadn't quite ripened but had already been picked.

There was the faintest curve at the corner of her mouth, not a smile, but something quieter than one.

She smiled at herself in the mirror.

Then she turned, pushed open the door, and walked into the sunlight of the South Pacific Ocean.

By the time Su Jin stood up from her chair again, it was completely dark.

The sea was invisible, and all she could hear was the sound of waves, again and again, like someone beating a great drum far away.

She walked back to the car and put her straw hat on again, pulling the brim low. The color of her shell-pink skirt was lost in the darkness, and all she could see was its hem lifting in the wind, once, twice, and again.

The butler started the car, and the headlights came on, illuminating the road ahead, paved with coral fragments.

Su Jin sat in the back seat and took off her straw hat, placing it on her lap. Her hair had been blown into a mess by the wind all afternoon, and a few loose strands clung to the corners of her mouth. She brushed them away with her fingers, which carried the scent of sea salt.

She looked down at the straw hat. A small patch of the brim had been dampened by seawater and was darker than the rest, like the trace of a tear that had dried after someone cried but could still be seen.

She touched the damp mark with her fingers and said nothing.

When they returned to the main villa, Fang Ying had already laid out dinner, not in the dining room, but on the terrace by the entrance.

There was a low wooden table and two rattan chairs. A dark blue tablecloth covered the table, printed with white waves much like the pattern on the Hermès scarf.

On the table was a coarse pottery platter holding a large grilled fish. Its skin had been roasted crisp, and when turned over, its white flesh came apart in steaming flakes.

Beside it was a bowl of coconut rice, white grains mixed with shredded coconut. The coconut was crisp, making a faint crunch when bitten, like footsteps on dry leaves.

There was also a serving of fruit-papaya, mango, and pineapple, cut into chunks and piled in a wooden bowl. A local artisan had hollowed the bowl out of a single piece of wood and carved fish and waves into its sides.

Beside it stood a ceramic pitcher of iced water infused with lemon leaves. The green leaves had curled in the cold water, like tiny boats that would never sink.

Fang Ying said the butler had asked the islanders to make it.

Su Jin sat down in a rattan chair, picked up her chopsticks, and took a piece of fish. It was so tender that it fell apart under the chopsticks, so she scooped it up with a spoon and put it in her mouth. The skin was crisp, the flesh sweet, with no fishy taste, only a faint mingling of charcoal and seawater.

The sea was invisible, and all she could see were stars crowding the sky. The stars of the Southern Hemisphere were different from those of the Northern Hemisphere, where they were scattered, each shining on its own. In the Southern Hemisphere, they crowded together in clusters, like a handful of diamond chips someone had casually scattered across black cloth. Some places were dense, others sparse; the dense places shone white, the sparse ones were dark and gray.

She watched for a long time, long enough for Fang Ying to clear away the plates, long enough for the candle on the table to burn halfway down, its wax dripping onto the tablecloth and hardening into little white flowers. She said nothing.

The next morning, Su Jin rose early.

The sky wasn't fully light yet. The sea was gray, the sky pink, and the clouds orange, the three colors crowded together, none willing to yield to the others.

She stood on the terrace in a white linen nightrobe, her hair loose and her bare feet on the stone floor. She still wore the shell necklace, having forgotten to take it off the day before.

The butler was waiting for her downstairs, holding a stack of papers clipped to a wooden board. The board was old, its edges frayed from soaking in seawater.

When he saw her, he bowed slightly and said something in Tahitian, then handed her the board.

Su Jin took it and leafed through the papers. The first page was a map, drawn by hand in pencil. The lines weren't very straight, but numbers were marked beside every one: distances, areas, depths, heights.

The island was shaped like a pear with a bite taken out of it. The notch was on the west side, the beach where Brando had watched the sunset. On the east side was a long, curved beach where Brando had swum.

To the north was a stretch of reef, with a lagoon behind it. The lagoon was shallow, only knee-deep, and the sand beneath the water was white. When sunlight fell on it, the whole lagoon looked like a mirror ground to pieces that would never break.

To the south was a coconut grove, and behind it was Brando's unfinished film studio. It was now a meadow, the grass tall and waving in the wind like a green flag that never stopped moving.

The second page was a table listing the island's facilities: twelve villas, with the floor area, number of bedrooms, number of bathrooms, year built, and most recent renovation date for each.

One staff residence with twenty rooms, housing the island's managers, cleaners, gardeners, cooks, and boatmen.

A seawater desalination system, how many liters of water it could purify each day, how many people it could supply, and for how many years. A solar power station, its installed capacity, annual power generation, and how many villas it could supply. A dock, the size of boats it could accommodate and its number of berths. A runway, its length, width, load capacity, and the aircraft models that could take off and land there.

Su Jin read the list, then closed the board and handed it back to the butler.

She said, "This won't be a hotel." The butler looked at her.

The corners of Su Jin's mouth rose.

"Not a hotel. A resort."

The butler stood there with his hands at his sides and said nothing.

Su Jin turned and looked at the distant sea. A small part of the sun had appeared above the horizon, red and easy on the eyes, like a juicy blood orange cut in half.