Toward the North

by Hua Laura Wu

  “What about her?” Xue asks out of habit.

  “I have talked to her. As a matter of fact, she knew all along that I loved you. She has given up on me, and we are getting a divorce. I am waiting for you, Xue. I love you, Xue!”

  Xue clutches the phone but does not say anything for a long time. Tears run down her face. She does not hang up but walks out of the booth as if in a trance. Yihai’s words drift away with the breeze.

  Xue decides to go and visit Zhengjun at the address he has given her. She cannot afford to wait another minute. She knows that when a man enters a woman’s body, he does not necessarily pledge himself, just as a woman is not giving the man any promise when she gives herself to him. Sexual intimacy is not an unbreakable link that ties a man and a woman together, not in Canada or elsewhere.

  She begins to sense that her survival may be in jeopardy. After that night, she found herself a place and settled down, but her money is running out. Now she is fully aware that the money she entrusted to Zhengjun was not just pennies. She also found out that the place he works at is not a computer company but a factory that manufactures car seats. She becomes increasingly frightened by these ominous developments.

  Zhengjun’s address leads Xue to a three-storey detached house. She stands in front of the building, sizing it up for a long while. She doesn’t have the courage to face the possibility that the address he has given her may turn out to be a lie, too. Now she knows that many independent immigrants are cannier and more skilled liars than she could ever be.

  A middle-aged Chinese man answers the door. Even before she finishes explaining why she is here, he points at a side door. There is no doorbell on the side door. She knocks timidly; no one answers. She pushes open the door and finds a flight of stairs leading to the basement. She goes down the stairs, calling out Zhengjun’s name.

  A woman, heavy with pregnancy, appears, and a boy of eight or nine trails after her. “You are here to see Zhengjun. Please wait. He is in the kitchen.”

  The boy runs away to fetch his father while Xue steals a few glances at the woman. She is thirty-something, withered and weary-looking, in a very loose outfit, but apparently extremely content. Xue feels hot and blushes. Fortunately, the light is dim so that she can hide her embarrassment. Another married man with children! Xue feels sorry for herself, once again rushing into a relationship so heedlessly. What a mess she has gotten herself into!

  Zhengjun comes out and seems composed when he sees Xue. He doesn’t find fault with her but leads her to a maple tree outside the building where he begins to tell her what he has lived through. George Zhang found him and came to ask about her. He even followed Zhengjun, warning him not to get involved and threatening that if he did, he might endanger himself and everyone else concerned. Zhengjun tells Xue that George Zhang has lost his mind and urges her to use extra caution.

  Then he gives her back all her money. He has not put it into his account. His wife takes care of their money, and she knows he couldn’t get hold of so much money all of a sudden. With such a big amount of money in his care, he is extremely worried. Even when he goes to work, he is afraid something awful may happen. Xue nods and doesn’t even count the money because she knows that Zhengjun dare not embezzle it. She smiles, her elegant but stiff neck turning a tiny bit. Then she turns, walking away in the direction from which she came. Zhengjun fixes his eyes on her disappearing figure, feeling self-pity and relief all at once.

  That day at dusk, a robbery and killing takes place on a lawn not far from the York University campus. A Chinese woman is stabbed to death and robbed of all the money she has on her. The case shocks the local Chinese community. Some of the media speculate that it is a racially motived hate crime. The police plead with the public for eyewitnesses and information. But the case grows cold, and the killer is still out there. The victim’s name, as you have probably guessed, is Yang Xue.

  Translated by H. Laura Wu and Cory Davies.

  “An Elegant but Stiff Neck” originally appeared in The Sojourners: Stories by Chinese-Canadian Writers in 2004.

  1Immigrants to Canada generally fall into three groups: 1)Investors, entrepreneurs, and self-employed people; 2) Skilled workers and professionals, often referred to by the Chinese as independent immigrants; 3) Family members and relatives sponsored by Canadian citizens or immigrants. Most new immigrants from China are young professionals in the technology sector. They are referred to, by the Chinese, as “jishu yimin” or “immigrants in the technical category.”

  2An ear-pick is a small gadget that the Chinese use to pick ear wax.

  The Kilt and Clover

  XIAOWEN ZENG

  IT BEGAN AS A SOFT, gentle mist, as if someone had carelessly scattered a handful of droplets from the sky. Soon, however, rain moved in, quietly covering my face with what felt like a cold, wet layer of loneliness and despair.

  Yet, I knew, water also brings life. The Welland Canal crosses St. Catharines, drawing water from Lake Erie on the south and emptying into Lake Ontario on the north. Day and night, its traffic brings life to the small city.

  I watched as a huge steel vessel prepared to set sail on the canal. Its hull was reddish brown and its cabin snowy white. A Canadian flag flew on the mast, a red maple leaf in bold relief against the white background. On the deck, several sailors in bright orange raincoats were busy doing their chores. Seeing the colours in the grey misty rain comforted me, and I almost felt cheerful.

  In the two years since I had landed in Toronto, I had failed to find a stable job. I had taught psychology back in China, but I could not work as a psychologist in Canada because my spoken English was not good enough. So I worked in a food-processing factory earning a measly eight dollars an hour. My mother would often email me, telling me that they were in urgent need of money and I should not sit idly by while they were struggling. While she never studied psychology, my mom certainly knew my soft spot and was always ready to poke at it.

  For months, I had been searching high and low for a better paying job. One day I found an online ad that said a newly opened retirement home in St. Catharines was hiring cleaning staff. It paid fifteen dollars an hour, nearly twice my current wage. A week after I applied, I went for an interview and they hired me on the spot.

  Before I left Toronto, fellow workers at the factory told me, “You will die of loneliness in St. Catharines!”

  Can loneliness really kill? Perhaps it could get to some, but not me. I have never been in the limelight. Maybe social butterflies cannot stand being left alone, but I have been alone ever since I came into this world. When I weigh loneliness against survival, survival always wins.

  I watched the vessel sailing away on the canal, heading for Lake Erie. This was just another day in its life. Some came ashore, while others boarded and sailed away; it didn’t matter whether it was foggy and raining or if it was fine and sunny.

  I moved into an old apartment building in downtown St. Catharines. The building was as plain as a matchbox. Not even the fog and rain could cover up its shabbiness. The corridors were dim and gloomy. There were announcements on the wall about fumigating for cockroaches.

  My apartment was small and empty. Before I was able to buy a bed, I had to put my bedding on the carpet. Lying down, I felt an icy stiffness. Light from the street poured unhindered through the window, throwing some strange images on the pallid walls. I earnestly wished for tomorrow to arrive.

  The next day I reported to work at the retirement home. In the corridor, I ran across a teenage girl, a blonde with clear blue eyes. She wore a pink tank top and a pink mini skirt. She also had two pink pompoms. A walking Barbie doll dressed as a cheerleader. Just like in a film, the surroundings seemed to fade into a pale background as if to set off her dazzling beauty.

  “Do you happen to know where the housekeeping office is?” I asked.

  “The last room at the south end, on the first floor.” The girl sm
iled, revealing a mouthful of neat white teeth, enviably perfect.

  “Thank you!”

  “Buyong xie (You are welcome)!” Unexpectedly, she answered in Chinese.

  I was pleasantly surprised. “You can speak Chinese?!”

  The girl giggled and switched to English. “I learned a couple of phrases from my Chinese classmates. Are you new here?”

  I nodded. “I moved to St. Catharines yesterday.”

  “I hope you’ll love St. Catharines.” Her voice was so sweet that it made St. Catharines sound like some holiday destination on a Caribbean island, a paradise on earth.

  “Do you work here, too?”

  “No, I’m a volunteer. I read newspapers to the residents. I’m Angela,” she smiled and extended her hand. “If you have any questions later on, just ask me. Right now I have to leave for my cheerleader practice at school.”

  Angela waved goodbye and headed out the door. I stared at her retreating back and thought that the phrase “Miss Sunshine” was most likely invented for a girl like her.

  The housekeeping manager, a heavyset middle-aged woman of African descent, gave me a uniform, a set of cleaning tools, and detergents. Fully equipped, I began to work.

  I met Angela in the staff lounge often, and I gradually got to know her. She was on a diet and usually had only a yogurt and an apple for lunch. She wanted to become a model so gaining weight would mean the end of her chosen career.

  “You do volunteer work here. That’s very noble,” I told her.

  “Not really, lots of my classmates volunteer. And helping others is very rewarding, too.”

  “The old people here must love you.”

  Angela nodded in agreement and giggled. “They say I have a superstar’s voice.” Then she asked about my work here.

  “It’s not bad. But I can only work five days a week, and I make just enough to get by. My family needs money, so I would like to find some odd jobs on the side.”

  “You can’t babysit because you don’t have the experience. But you can clean, can’t you?”

  “Of course!”

  “My cousin Sean is looking for a cleaning lady, I think. I’ll ask him,” Angela said.

  A week later, Angela, quite excited, told me, “My cousin wants you to do some cleaning at his place. A bit of lawn mowing and gardening, too.”

  “Great! Thank you so much.”

  Angela shrugged, saying, “Don’t be too excited! You should know my cousin is a bit weird. He’s over forty and single. But you won’t see him that often. He is a sailor on The Miller. When he’s on the ship, he’ll be away for months at a time.”

  A sailor steering a ship on the clear water, under the blue sky. The image set me dreaming. I recalled the huge vessel in red and white on the canal, and the sailors in their bright orange raincoats. Does Sean have an orange raincoat, too? I wondered.

  The early summer sun had passionate lips. All the grasses and leaves it kissed grew fat and green, no matter how dull and wilted they had been.

  At ten o’clock sharp on a Saturday morning, the time Angela had arranged for me, I was at Sean’s door in Port Dalhousie. His was a three-storey house of grey brick. The front garden had two trees: a red maple and a white lilac. There were flowers and plants under the trees, but the garden was not properly cared for.

  Sean was far from the image of a sailor that I had been imagining. He was not tall and slim, with blue eyes and blond hair. Rather, he had brown hair and brown eyes. The arms sticking out of his blue-grey T-shirt were not really sinewy. His skin was not tanned a radiant bronze; it was just dark because of his olive complexion. For whatever reason, he avoided looking squarely into my eyes. His expression was hard to read, a mixture of humility and shyness.

  Right away I smelled the loneliness inside him. Perhaps loneliness transcended borders and cultures.

  “What’s your name?” he asked

  “Grace.”

  “Your Chinese name, please.”

  “Lei.”

  “Lei…” Sean tried hard to imitate my pronunciation.

  “It’s not easy to say, so I don’t mind you using my English name.”

  “I’ll learn to say it properly.” Sean became quite serious. “When you’re here, you’re trying your best to adapt. We Canadians should do the same; at least we should learn how to say your name.”

  Sean showed me the house: a living room, a study, a kitchen, a powder room, and a laundry room on the first floor. And right there, hanging on the laundry room door, was indeed an orange raincoat! I wondered if this was a sign that Sean might bring some colour to the dull routine of my life,

  There were three tall bookshelves in the study, all reaching the ceiling, and all laden with books. On the second floor I noticed a guest room and a bathroom. Sean pointed at the door of a third room. “That’s my bedroom,” he said. “You don’t need to clean it. I’ll lock it up when I’m away.”

  I nodded. He is the boss, and I’m the hired help. I just follow orders.

  The third floor, the attic, was also full of books. Sean explained, “Wherever I go, I’ll buy a book or two, so my place has become something like a second-hand bookstore.”

  Sean and I agreed that I’d come every Saturday to clean the house, mow the lawn, and take care of the garden. He’d pay me eighty dollars a week. He would leave a key underneath the mat outside the front door so that I could unlock the door.

  “Is it safe?” I was a bit worried.

  Sean shrugged it off. “There hasn’t been a single case of breaking and entering in Port Dalhousie for over ten years. Anyway, who reads books in this age of the internet?”

  “I enjoy holding an actual book in my hand,” I said. “Somehow, it puts me at ease.”

  Sean looked directly at me for the first time and said, “There aren’t that many people like you around.”

  In a mere two weeks, I transformed Sean’s front yard into a real garden. The newly planted forget-me-nots, morning glories, impatiens, and daisies swung gracefully and charmingly, as if they believed the summer sun were their lover.

  One day a blonde woman passed by as I tended the garden. She pointed at the golden daisies. “Such lovely flowers!” The praise sounded exaggerated, disingenuous.

  The woman reminded me of Angela, even though she was at least twenty years older. She wore a bright red silk top that barely covered her breasts, which stuck out straight and upright, , as if they were not affected by gravity. Implants, undoubtedly. Her fingers and toes were painted a gaudy scarlet.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  “I haven’t seen you before. You must have moved in recently.”

  I nodded.

  “Sean should’ve had a woman a long time ago.”

  “I am not Sean’s woman,” I immediately told her.

  Her blue eyes swept over me daringly, then she shook her head and said, “No, you aren’t his type.”

  I lowered my head and continued weeding. I was very much accustomed to the arrogant and condescending air put on by beautiful women. Silence always seemed the best way to deal with them. The woman sighed pityingly and left. I was very much accustomed to pity, too. But I never paid any heed to it.

  The following Saturday, when I arrived at Sean’s place, he was sitting in a wicker chair in the front garden, waiting for me. At his feet was a brand new lawn mower. “I just bought a new mower. Doing the lawn will be easier for you.” For a brief moment our eyes locked.

  “The old one still has some life left.”

  “I’ve been promoted to first mate on The Miller!” he said.

  “Congratulations! Your family must be pride of you!”

  He smiled and corrected me: “It’s ‘proud,’ not ‘pride.’”

  I was embarrassed and said in a very low voice, “My English is really poor.”

  “No, n
o.” Sean seemed genuinely dismayed to have hurt my feelings and hurriedly added, “Your English is not bad. If you keep practising, you’ll improve. If I spoke Chinese, I am afraid I’d bite off my own tongue.”

  I gave him a quick glance, grateful for his comforting words.

  “I’d like to give you a raise, to one hundred dollars a week,” Sean continued.

  “But I am doing the same work.”

  “You’re doing a terrific job. My neighbours have started complimenting me on my beautiful garden. Before they’d just complain about how unkempt it was, saying it was dragging down the property values in the entire neighbourhood.”

  “You’re away most of the time; of course you don’t have the time to take care of your garden.”

  “Thank you for your kindness.” And then he pointed at a plant in the garden bed, full of joy. “Look what I found. There are quite a few clovers. I love clovers, always have!”

  Clover is a darker green than the other leaves and grasses. There are deep green patterns on the leaves. The flowers are purple and small, usually the size of a fingernail. They look reserved and timid to me.

  “I found a poem about the clover online. Let me print it out for you.” Sean rushed back to his study. A few minutes later, he handed me a piece of paper with the poem on it. It was called “Four-Leaf Clovers: