The Secret Talker

by Geling Yan

Genres: Literary Fiction; Women's Fiction; Psychological Thrillers; Mystery

Synopsis

"The Secret Talker is a profound meditation on love, the difficulties of communication and the agonizing joy and brutality of commitment." -- THE NEW YORK TIMES

A NEW YORK TIMES BEST THRILLER OF 2021 AND "GLOBETROTTING" PICK!

A woman reclaims her own story in this taut and wholly original literary tale from one of China’s literary superstars.

Hongmei is the perfect Chinese wife: beautiful, diligent, passive. Glen is the perfect American husband: intelligent, caring, well-off. From the outside, Hongmei and Glen's life in the San Francisco Bay Area seems perfect. But at home, their marriage is falling apart. Post-its left on the fridge are their primary form of communication.  

When Hongmei receives a beguiling email from a secret admirer, naturally she’s intrigued. But what starts out as harmless flirting with an internet stranger quickly turns into an all-consuming emotional affair. As Hongmei spills more and more about her dark past as a military intelligence officer-in-training in China, she falls deeper and deeper into a tense cat-and-mouse game. Desperate and self-destructive, she embarks on an investigation into her emailer’s secret history…one that may tear her life and marriage apart forever.

A psychological story at its core, The Secret Talker elegantly examines how repressed desire and simmering silence can upend even the most idyllic marriage. As Hongmei pursues her stalker, her identity and agency come into question, and the chase curveballs into a captivating journey of self-actualization. Yan Geling pierces the human psyche to reveal devastating and emotional truths – and an ending that will leave readers speechless.

Translated from the Chinese by Jeremy Tiang

Release date: May 1, 2021

Publisher: HarperVia

Print pages: 160

Sample

This stranger on the internet was asking Qiao Hongmei if she remembered him. He said he had watched her walk into the restaurant with a tall American man. She’d stood there with her arms loosely folded, weight on one leg, the picture of indifference. She’d been face-to-face with him for half a minute, waiting for the hostess. In those thirty seconds, he’d smirked at her. His seat had faced the door, and he’d reckoned she shouldn’t be deprived of his smile. He’d been holding an open menu, ready to order, when he heard her say in her foreign accent, “Thank God it’s not too crowded.”

He’d looked up, and there she was, Qiao Hongmei. And so he’d shot her an admiring grin. Very few people could resist his smile. Men or women, friends or strangers, all fell prey to his high-wattage, unerring smile. Well, that’s what he told her.

Hongmei had to stop reading for a moment. This stranger evidently had taken note of her every move and gesture the night before. His tone was a little presumptuous, but she liked his writing style, almost like a blend of Neil Gaiman and Emily Brontë.

He said that as Hongmei had followed her husband to a table by the windows, he had smelled the floral aroma wafting off her long hair. Her eyes had dropped demurely as she passed each table, perhaps checking out the food, perhaps the diners’ faces, before she’d turned around and looked straight at him. He reckoned staring too hard at someone made them sense danger, particularly a perceptive woman like her. He said she looked twenty-eight, thirty at most, though he knew she was older. Hongmei had glanced around, her eyes alighting momentarily on his face. At least he thought they had, this internet Romeo.

He’d watched as her husband had helped her take off her coat, stroking her cheek as he did so. She’d flinched a little, and he’d noticed that too. That was great, he said. It showed her skin wasn’t numb yet; she was still capable of rejecting a meaningless caress. He asked if she had designed her own outfit—long trousers in a soft, wrinkled hemp fabric and alarmingly sexy beaded sandals that left her feet almost naked, light dancing through the nearly colorless crystals.

She shuddered, goose bumps rising. She looked around her study, then down at her feet beneath the desk. Were they that revealing? Could feet be seductive too? It seemed so. The crystals on the thin straps of her sandals glistened like dew, like sweat. Her husband had never asked how those beads had gone from the bedroom curtains to her feet, where their hints of sensuality were now there for anyone who could detect them. She pretended not to have any views on this, but he’d seen right through her.

Then there was her blouse. He thought that had been excellent too, its threads changing color with the light. Your handiwork? he asked, so rude, so imaginative.

Next he wanted to discuss her husband. A clever-looking man, he said, and full of energy. A little old, certainly, but not bad on the whole, very suited to her. On the whole, in everyone’s eyes. Apart from him—he could see past the whole.

Here we go, she thought. Sowing dissent.

But none of that mattered, right? he went on. His tone was a little dictatorial but also a little poetic, even affectionate. What woman would put up with this, sentiment hidden beneath a layer of meanness?

The important thing, he said, was that Hongmei was completely closed off from her husband—sorry, this was where he had to talk about her “soul.” He wanted her forgiveness for

using such a corny term, and he assured her he wasn’t the sort of guy who tossed around words like that. It wasn’t just her husband she was closed off from; her soul was also shut off from its surroundings.

I’m not trying to make trouble between you, he added, definitely not.

That’s exactly what you’re doing, she thought.

Her husband was a man who liked to joke—you could tell that at a glance—but he wrongly believed that as long as he could make his wife laugh, everything was all right. When her husband had delivered a punch line, this man had watched as Hongmei threw back her head and guffawed, but he could tell she had been distracted. The husband had chortled so hard his face had turned bright red, but as for her, she had shot an accusatory sideways look at him, to show she’d been mildly offended by his harmless dirty joke, just like every middle-class wife of the intelligentsia, just like every helpless woman from a good American family, deriving a flash of pleasure from the heavy-handed, inescapable smuttiness of men while pretending to admonish them.

He knew she had been faking. He said he’d never met a woman so good at pretending as Hongmei. As far as her husband was concerned, she was a secret talker, every breath, bite, and laugh part of the enigma. That’s why this man was

so fascinated by her. Then he abruptly changed the subject, as though he was suddenly aware of how strange, how creepy Hongmei might find him, assuring her that it was both coincidence and inevitability that had led him to her email address, and she shouldn’t be alarmed.

Hongmei started clacking away at the keyboard, to say she wasn’t alarmed, though she felt there were too many people playing this game, and she wasn’t interested. It wasn’t hard to guess how he’d gotten her email address. Between her school and the library, her many friends and acquaintances, he could have found it without too much trouble. She got spam trying to sell her plane tickets, phone cards, CDs, books, secondhand stuff—and she’d never asked how they got her email, whether by fair means or foul. She told him that when she opened her inbox each day, nine out of ten messages were from glib strangers like him, hawking high-interest loans or tax loopholes, offering debt evasion or cut-price jewelry, skin creams, X-rated entertainment, male escorts, or hookers. Why should she be alarmed?

She hid her slight attraction to this mysterious man beneath a layer of banter. Then she thanked him for his flattery.

He replied right away, saying it was strange she’d taken his words for flattery. He hadn’t praised her beauty, and actually didn’t even think she was pretty. In English, “fascinated” just meant

a single-minded curiosity—that was all. He felt the same thing for death-row convicts and clownish politicians.

Hongmei was surprised. Many people said she was pretty. How dare this person insult her! Her eyes sought out the words “alarmingly sexy,” which had made her heartbeat quicken, but now his tone seemed indifferent, objective, even dismissive. She thought about how his casual humiliation of her abruptly shortened the distance between them. All of a sudden he was believable, solidly present. How cheap she was, wanting to talk to him just because he’d pricked her vanity.

Her fingers started drumming again. Thank you for your frankness, she wrote. Unfortunately, I’m not in the habit of discussing myself with a stranger. She read it over and deleted the second sentence. Better. Cool and composed. He’d read these words and see how she’d turned the tables on him, with the understatement of an old hand. The message was clear: Come on, then. Let’s see who gets under whose skin first.

The stranger’s response was swift, claiming he didn’t regard frankness as a virtue.

You’re not frank at all, you riddle of a woman.

A challenge. She stood up, trying to suppress the excitement she felt in that moment. So she had a combative streak in her. By calling her a riddle, he became one himself. As far as Hongmei was

concerned, he was the true secret talker, messaging her from the shadows and keeping his identity hidden while he judged her, exposed her.

She picked up her mug, only to find herself gulping air. It was empty. She had to calm down. This man who knew nothing about her had managed to reach her, climbing along the vine of the internet cable. He’d bypassed her husband, Glen, and barged straight into the 150 square feet of her study.

Qiao Hongmei stood before the mirror, posing the way he’d described her, with her weight on one leg. She tried desperately to remember who’d been in the restaurant the night before, but not a single face remained in her mind. Yet he existed. A stranger’s existence, gradually taking on form and substance, a hint of bodily warmth, in their sixteenth-floor apartment with her unwitting husband in the next room.

Hongmei walked out of her study and into the kitchen, clutching her empty mug. She looked up suddenly to see Glen in a tracksuit. He was going for a jog, he said, and they could have breakfast together when he got back.

“All right,” she said. “Enjoy your run.”

His dark brown eyes lingered on her face.

“What is it?” she asked.

He said, “It’s good. You look very well.”

“You too,” she said.

Just as she was about to go back into her study, the door opened again and Glen thrust a FedEx package through the crack. She took the parcel, which felt like a couple of books. The best thing about Glen being a professor was his book purchases were tax-deductible; he got an order every couple of days. She tossed the package across the coffee table onto the couch, but it landed on the floor. Ignoring it, she went back into her study, then felt that wasn’t very nice of her, returned, and picked up the package. Her water sloshed onto Glen’s beloved Native American rug, its red dye apparently made from crushed bugs.

* * *

Back at her computer, she sipped her ice water. Twenty minutes later, his reply arrived. He said Hongmei probably wanted to know what he was like. He was five foot nine (not particularly tall), 185 pounds (just the way she liked it), with black hair and eyes. About himself: majored in English at Yale, got his master’s at Harvard, then dropped out after one year of working toward a PhD. The money his father left him was doing well in the hands of an investment broker. He and Hongmei were the same; they both found it hard to be faithful to a single person or profession. The

instant he had set eyes on her, he had sighed that fidelity of the flesh was the easiest kind, and therefore the least important.

Qiao Hongmei read line after line of this revealing introduction and felt like this man was filming himself in close-up. Not his face, but his breath. She grew more captivated, even as she remained eighty percent skeptical about the existence of the wealthy father and impressive academic record. Are you suggesting that I’m unfaithful? she said.

He replied: I’m not suggesting anything; I’m pointing out your infidelity. I think you’re an intelligent woman who understands that we don’t need to worry about the word “faithful.” Your soul has never been faithful, not for a single minute. Then he apologized again, for using a specious word like “soul.”

She said: Fine, anything you say; I can be unfaithful. She leaned back in her chair, unwilling to explain further.

The man changed the subject, saying, Don’t be like that. That’s how you are with everyone else; don’t be like that with me. We need to have a good beginning.

He’d gone too far now. Hongmei was turned off by this sudden intimacy. He sensed this right away, writing: Don’t misunderstand; I’ll give you plenty of time to get used to me, before we have any sort of beginning. A few minutes passed.

Without being aware of it, she’d started gnawing at her nails. He sent another couple of lines, asking her to relax, not to be so scared, or he’d abandon this date right away. He actually used the word “date.” Hongmei contemplated it. He said he just wanted to understand her. Since she wouldn’t have chewed her nails into such an awful state unless there was a reason.

Hongmei reflexively clenched her hands into fists. He had even noticed her bitten nails! Or had she been chewing them in the restaurant? No, she generally didn’t in public places. Besides, before leaving the house with Glen, she’d stuck on some rather convincing fake nails. That’s what she usually did when going to a swanky place. The fakes weren’t too long, looked healthy and clean, not the gaudy ones sported by receptionists or the Taylor Street hookers. Yet he had said she must’ve had a reason to chew her nails like that.

She tapped away with one hand, deleting and rewriting, asking how long he’d been following her—she didn’t believe last night was the first time he’d seen her. He declined to answer.

Even though she was excited, Hongmei felt her hair stand on end. She said biting her nails was a bad habit left over from childhood.

He said he’d soon find out the real cause.

Don’t you try that—one glance at me and you think you can magically see into me, she thought. On the computer, she asked him how many

women he was sending these messages to. He didn’t deny it, didn’t claim he spoke to only her in this way. He said at the moment there were no other suitable candidates for him to chat with. She asked what he meant by “suitable candidates.” He said a woman like her, extremely reserved and extremely discontented.

Hongmei thought “discontented” was about right.

He said yesterday, at the restaurant, he’d been studying her all along. To her right had been a stainless-steel radiator that had reflected her profile. He had been able to see what her hand was doing on that side, pushing the hair back from her face, gently rubbing her temples, fiddling with her clear crystal earring, stirring her drink with her straw. She had looked impatient, bored, but other people would have read this as elegance and refinement. He even described her expression, calling her eyes inviting.

Inviting people’s attention?

Not just that. He said her eyes had been asking to be caressed, truly caressed. They wanted others to look back at them, to feel. Maybe they even wanted to be invaded, to be conquered and possessed. He’d never encountered such an ambivalent woman. He believed it was in this moment that she’d captured him.

A knock at the door. Before she could react, Glen thrust his face in, flushed and sweaty. She asked if he’d had a good run.

“Unbelievably good,” he said. “Now let’s have breakfast.”

She said, “I’ll be there in a minute.”

Glen said, “Wow. You look stunning this morning. Your eyes are ablaze.” With that, his lanky body leaned over the desk, his lips pursed. This was the obligatory morning kiss, and God help her if she tried to get out of it.

Hongmei pressed her lips to his right away and stood up. The only way to get him out of here at once was to go have breakfast. Her diversionary tactic worked, and Glen didn’t so much as glance at the words on the screen. With his arm around her waist, they headed for the kitchen. Beneath his palm, his errant Asian wife, she imagined, felt young and demure, absolutely perfect.

And behind them was the evidence of her flirtation with a strange man.

* * *

The man showed up in her inbox again three days later. Giving her enough time to miss him. He said sorry for not being around; his only daughter had come for a surprise visit, and those three days had

been all hers. He hadn’t seen her in twelve years, and every one of the birthday cards he’d mailed her had been returned.

Hongmei deduced that this meant he was at least forty-five. Men these days became fathers around the age of thirty. She asked why his daughter had returned his birthday presents, and he said, She kept the gifts; it was just the cards she sent back. The presents were repackaged and passed off as being from someone else. A gift is still a gift. His tone was dispassionate, not overblown, but she could sense how hurt he was. For a moment, he lost a great deal of his anonymity. There was nothing vague about being hurt—these wounds could cause two people to identify with each other, no matter how different they were. Being in contact with this thoroughly unreliable man, his injury suddenly made him seem dependable.

She asked if his daughter looked like him. He said her hair was like her mother’s, but otherwise she was exactly like him. She said she must be little and delicate, perhaps she was mixed-race.

He saw the trap and said he hated mixed-race girls.

Hongmei felt surprised by the vehemence in his words, at odds with his all-knowing aloofness. She had finally struck a chord.

No point trying to guess my ethnicity or learn anything about me, he said. We’re fated never to meet.

Fated?

Fated.