Grotesque

by Natsuo Kirino

  “Looks like your little sister is making friends with the gangster.”

  “No, that’s not it. She just doesn’t want to spend money on the toilet, so she’s trying to manipulate him.”

  “She seems very adept at the game. Look, she’s giving him a beating!”

  My sister was patting the yakuza on the arm and laughing. For his part, he was pretending that it hurt and flinching from her touch with exaggerated gestures.

  “Let it go.”

  Dong Zhen realized I was angry and started to tease me. “My God, you two act more like lovers than siblings!”

  He’d struck a nerve. I flushed red with embarrassment. Yes, I was ashamed to admit it, but I was very fond of my sister. When I worked at the straw hat factory, there were ten female employees in addition to the men. They were all teenagers. They’d call out to me and follow me around, but they didn’t interest me in the slightest. Not one of them could hold a candle to Mei-kun.

  “At the rate she’s going, your little sister’s going to be heading off with that gangster.”

  “Mei-kun wouldn’t do something so stupid.”

  It never occurred to me that Dong Zhen’s words would turn out to be true, but when the train finally pulled into the station at Guangzhou, my sister leaped to the platform with an animated expression and said to me excitedly, “Zhe-zhong, do you mind if we say good-bye here?”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. “Are you sure?” I asked her again and again.

  “Yes, I’ve already found a job,” she said, with great pride.

  “What kind of job?”

  “Working in a first-class hotel.”

  Exhausted after traveling for two days and nights with nothing to eat, I stumbled to the platform.

  “Those fellows said they’d help me find a job, so I’m going to go with them.” My sister pointed to the yakuza and his two friends. I walked over toward them. Pointing to the man who’d handed me the stick at Chongqing, I demanded angrily, “What the hell do you want with my sister?”

  “You must be Zhe-zhong. My name’s Jin-long. Your sister here says she’s looking for a job, so I’m going to introduce her to someone I know. She can work at the White Swan Hotel. Everyone wants a job there. Must be your lucky day.” Jin-long adjusted his white scarf at his throat as he responded.

  “Where is this White Swan Hotel?”

  “It’s a first-class hotel built in the former concession on Shamian Island.”

  “Shamian?”

  Jin-long looked back at my sister and me and burst into raucous laughter. “Man, you really are a hick!” Mei-kun joined him in laughing at me. That’s when I realized my sister was angry at me: for getting on the train without knowing what I was doing, for spending four hundred yuan.

  I grabbed her shoulder angrily. “You have no idea what kind of trouble you can get into, do you? He’s a gangster. Don’t you get it? That first-class hotel is all a big lie. It’s just a ruse to get you into prostitution.”

  My sister looked troubled by what I’d said. But Jin-long just scratched the side of his nose and answered, as if annoyed, “I’m not lying. I’m friends with the hotel cook so I’ve got influence. If you’re worried about it, come by the hotel yourself.”

  When my sister heard what he said, she held her hand out to me.

  “Give me half of what’s left of the money.”

  I had no choice but to do as she asked. I counted out half of the one hundred yuan and handed it to her. As soon as she tucked it away in her pocket, she looked up at me happily. “Come by and see me, Zhe-zhong!”

  I watched my sister walk across the station platform with Jin-long and his gang, the bag with all her worldly possessions dangling from her hand. And then she disappeared through the gate. I was supposed to protect my little sister, yet wasn’t I the one who had depended on her? Suddenly I felt as if one of my arms had been ripped from my body. I was petrified. Hordes of weary travelers pushed past me, racing to get to the gates of the station.

  “Well, that was a shock! Your sister’s not one to wait around, is she?”

  It was Dong Zhen.

  “I messed up.”

  When he heard my weak reply, Dong Zhen looked at me sympathetically. “Well, that’s the way it goes. I was all alone from the very beginning. Better go buy a shovel,” Dong Zhen advised, and disappeared into the crowds, pushing his way through with his bony shoulders. When I came to my senses, I realized that I was soaked with sweat. It was only the beginning of February, but Guangzhou was farther south than Sichuan and much warmer.

  I walked off with my back to Guangzhou Station. The men and women who passed me by were stylish and walked with confidence and pride. Tall buildings, so big they might have been palaces, loomed overhead; the sun, reflected off the window glass, shone in my eyes. I had no idea how to cross the broad road buzzing with traffic. An old woman looked at me in disgust, as I stood confused on the side of the road, and pointed to a pedestrian overpass. Great swarms of people were on the bridge crossing over the street. I too climbed the stairs and crossed but I was so tired and so hungry that I could not stop my knees from trembling. I have to say that I began to feel an intense hatred for my sister. She had betrayed me.

  Just at that moment a policeman appeared in front of me, blocking my way. Remembering the incident at Chongqing Station, I immediately handed the man five yuan and asked him to direct me to the day laborers’ pickup site. He pocketed the money without batting an eye and told me something. But I couldn’t understand a word he said. He spoke Cantonese. I was flustered. This was China, but somehow I’d forgotten that the dialect spoken here would be different. Day laborer! Day laborer! I shouted my question countless times and finally in desperation began to imitate digging with a shovel. The policeman just pointed to the square in front of the station.

  Finally it dawned on me. The station was the pickup site. With so many people to compete with, it would be next to a miracle if I managed to get a job. And while I waited to be picked, I’d run through all the money I had left and then would have no choice but to beg. I’m the kind of person who has to always be moving ahead. I can’t just sit quietly and wait.

  The farm folk who’d come to town searching for jobs had little choice but to live on the streets, and I was not unlike them. The figure we cut here wasn’t much different from life back in the village, praying for rain. We entrusted ourselves to the whims of nature and depended entirely on the heavens for our survival. I was determined to be different. I was going to search for work on my own. That’s what I said to encourage myself, at any rate. I was not going to end up just another member of the crowd in front of the station. I had to get away from them. I walked with determination down the road alongside the cars and motorcycles.

  Finally I reached a section where the traffic wasn’t so heavy. I was on an avenue lined with plantain trees that stretched as far as the eye could see. On both sides of the avenue were old houses with peeling paint. The frontage of each house was narrow, and wooden shutters bordered the second-floor windows. The houses were built in the bright and airy South China style that I had not had an opportunity to see in my village. While I walked along the avenue, I thought I could imagine how Guangzhou natives must feel. The winters are warm, the greenery luxuriant—what a refreshing place to live.

  I had always been insanely jealous of the people who lived such wealthy lives in port cities. As I rambled down the avenue, I could feel my heart growing lighter and brighter the farther I walked. Gradually I could feel my courage return. I was young. I was strong. I was neither bad-looking nor unintelligent. I could easily see myself finding success in this city and living in a house like one of these. If someone would just give me a chance, I could do anything.

  I came to a fashionable street. There were girls with long hair eating ice cream as they strolled by. Young men wore snug-fitting jeans. I stopped in front of a shop window lined with glittering gold necklaces. In a restaurant I saw a fish tank lined with fat fish and l
arge shrimp. The people inside the restaurant were happily dining on stir-fried meat and fish. How delicious it all looked!

  The sun was setting. I was exhausted by the energy of the city and sat down alongside the road. I was thirsty and famished, but I didn’t want to spend my money unwisely. All I had was a meager fifty yuan, and out of that I’d already squandered five. A child rode past on a bicycle and tossed a soda bottle on the side of the road. I hurried to pick it up and drained the liquid that remained in the bottom. It was Coca-Cola. Only a small bit was left, but I will never forget how delicious it was on my tongue—just like sweet medicine. I put tap water in the bottle and drank until I had exhausted the lingering sweet taste.

  I’d have to earn money. I wanted to drink this beverage every day of the week until I’d had my fill. I’d go to the restaurant that I’d passed to buy more. And I’d eat their delicious food and live in one of those fine old houses. I started to walk again, my mind made up.

  Eventually, I came to a construction site. I wondered if perhaps it was past quitting time. A group of men in the filthy clothes that immediately identified them as day laborers were sitting in a circle sharing stories and laughing. I asked the men if they knew where I could go to pick up a construction job. One of the men pointed a dirty finger and said, “Go back to Zhongshan Avenue and head east. You’ll come to Zhu Jiang—it’s a big river. There’s a pickup site just along the riverbank.”

  I thanked the man. When he returned to his circle of friends, I grabbed a shovel and ran off.

  It didn’t take me long to find the laborer pickup site. There was a concrete retaining wall alongside the road, and just beyond it I could see the brown water of the Pearl River. Twenty to thirty men were already there. Off to the sides were shacks made of scrap lumber and old cement sacks: makeshift barracks for the laborers. There was even a roadside food stall. With little to do, the men either sat in a circle talking in loud voices or squatted exhausted on their haunches. I asked a young man, “Is this where you pick up work?”

  “Yeah,” he answered abruptly. He eyed my shovel enviously. I gripped it tightly, prepared to fight if he tried to take it from me. I wanted to be sure I was in the right place, so I continued to question him.

  “Can I line up here too?”

  “You gotta get here early to get picked, but if you want to line up no one’ll mind. Besides, there won’t be any jobs left by the time they get to us.”

  So that was how it worked. This fellow had been too far back in line to get picked today, but he would be at the head of the line tomorrow. If you missed the pick one day, you got it the next. But conversely, when you did get picked, you’d miss it the next day. The only way to get a job, it seemed, was to push to the front of the line.

  “What time do they start hiring tomorrow?”

  “There’s no particular time. They send a truck around, fill it up with workers, and then off they go. If you’re not on the truck, you don’t get work. You can’t afford to goof around.”

  I took up my position right behind the man. Maybe it was the exhaustion of the journey finally catching up to me, but I fell asleep right where I was with my arms wrapped around the shovel.

  I was awakened by the cold and the sound of people talking. Day was dawning, the blue sky spread directly in front of my eyes. I was surprised to find that I had slept straight through the night on the cold hard surface of the retaining wall. I staggered to my feet and found that several hundred men were milling anxiously around as if the work crew selection would begin any minute. I rubbed my eyes and took a drink of water from the bottle. Just then a truck came barreling toward us at top speed.

  “Carpenters and coolies for bridge construction!” the man standing on the bed of the truck called out in a loud voice. “Fifty men.”

  As soon as they heard him, men began to run in his direction waving their hands. Using a long pole to keep them at bay, the man continued, “Only men with shovels or pickaxes.”

  I ran to the front of the crowd. The man took one look at my size and the shovel in my hand and nodded. Then he motioned me aboard the truck with his chin. Once he did all the men surrounding the truck started to clamber onto the bed, pushing and shoving, each determined to secure a place for himself. There was little the man could do to control them. The truck bed shuddered and shook. A number of men fell, or were pushed, and tumbled to the ground. It was just like the train. The truck bed was packed with people, and when no one else could squeeze on, the truck took off. A number of the men fell off when the truck pitched and swerved, but no one seemed to care. I clutched the shovel to my chest, careful so no one else would make off with it. The cool morning breeze off the river stung my cheeks.

  I did construction work for three months. It was simple work but physically demanding. I’d work from seven in the morning until five at night. I’d mix concrete on-site or else help carry iron girders. I worked with every ounce of strength I possessed and made seventeen yuan a day. I didn’t think that was enough, so as soon as I finished for the night, I’d head to town and get part-time jobs cleaning or picking up trash. I was satisfied with the way things were going because I was earning seventeen times what I’d made at the straw hat factory. There was just no way to compare the opportunities I had in the city with what I’d had back home, and I was delirious with joy.

  In order to save money I’d picked up scrap lumber and plastic on the job sites and used the materials to make my own little shack back at the laborers’ pickup place. I would stay there all night so when the truck came in the morning I was able to run out and line up. The other men who lived on the grounds were kind. If they made a stew of pig entrails, they’d give some to me. Or they’d call me over when they were sharing a bottle of cheap wine. But only the men from Sichuan Province did this. That’s because we only trusted those from our own region, those who spoke the same language.

  When I’d saved up one thousand yuan, I decided to quit working construction. I’d had enough of life in the barracks. Moreover, whenever I went to town for some entertainment, I’d see other men my age out with girls, and they seemed much happier than I was. I wanted to find a job in the city—something that would be easier and more attractive. But the kind of work a day laborer could do was just about limited to what they now call the Three Ds: anything that was dangerous, dirty, and difficult. This was true of work in the cities as well. In this respect, China is no different from Japan. In order to get advice about finding a job, I decided to try to find my sister. I hadn’t done so until then because I was still angry about the way she had abandoned me.

  I went to Zhongshan Avenue and bought a new T-shirt and a new pair of jeans. I didn’t want to embarrass her by showing up in my tattered work clothes. Because I’d been working in construction, my skin was tanned and my body had grown muscular. I imagined that when my sister saw me looking masculine and urbane, she would be impressed. I was itching to confront Jin-long, as I was still angry with him for taking my sister away from me. I hadn’t forgotten for one second how strong he had looked, how in control.

  It was a hot day in early June. I carried a bag with a pink T-shirt in it, a gift for my sister, and headed down Huangsha Avenue alongside the Pearl River toward the White Swan Hotel. The hotel towered over the Pearl River side of Shamian Island. It was massive, at least thirty stories high. As I gazed up to the top of the chalk-colored building, I felt myself flush with pride to think that my younger sister, Mei-kun, was working in such elegant surroundings. But I felt so uncomfortable when confronted with all the foreign tourists walking in and out of the hotel and strolling around the grounds that I found it hard to step through the magnificent front doors. Four stocky doormen were standing alongside the driveway in front of the hotel, each dressed in matching maroon uniforms. They glared at me suspiciously. The doormen skillfully greeted guests arriving by taxi and guided them inside. And when foreign guests returned to the hotel on foot, the doormen spoke to them in fluent English. These doormen didn’t look as i
f they would welcome an inquiry from me, so I approached a man who was tending a patch of garden to the side of the entry doors. From his appearance and attitude, I could tell he was a migrant.

  “Zhang Mei-kun is working here, and I was hoping you could tell me how I might find her.”

  “Shall I ask for you?” the man replied in the northeastern accents of Beijing. He put his rake down and went off. I waited and waited but he did not return. I gazed at the rays of the sun glittering off the Pearl River and grew more and more apprehensive. At last I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the gardener. He spoke to me sympathetically. “There doesn’t seem to be a Zhang Mei-kun working here. I asked one of the personnel staff to look the name up, and she’s not listed anywhere. I’m sorry.”

  I was shocked, but in fact I had suspected as much. No one is that lucky. I had come to feel more and more certain that my sister had been tricked by Jin-long, but what could I do? Realizing I would never see Mei-kun again, tears began to roll down my cheeks.

  “Well, what about a guy named Jin-long? He’s a big guy who looks like a gangster. He said he had a friend who worked in the kitchen here.”

  “What’s his family name? Do you know which restaurant he works in?”

  I had no idea. I just shook my head from side to side.

  “The cooks here all make good wages. It’s not likely they’d run around with gangsters.”

  The man shrugged his shoulders as if to laugh at my ignorance and returned to his work. I was crestfallen. I followed the sidewalk around the hotel and walked off in the direction of Shamian, a natural island at a fork in the Pearl River. I’d heard that before the Revolution it had been a foreign settlement, and no Chinese were even allowed to set foot on the island. Now it was public land and anyone could enter.

  This was my first trip to Shamian. A wide avenue spread out alongside rows upon rows of European buildings. Down the center of the avenue was a green median bursting with the bright red blooms of salvia and hibiscus. The houses lining the streets were even more beautiful than the tidy little houses I was so fond of in Guangzhou, one of which I intended someday to make my own. I sat on a bench and gazed along the avenue. Each day, it seemed, I discovered something that was even better than what I’d seen the day before. My thoughts returned to Mei-kun. Why hadn’t I stopped her from leaving me?