Tiger's Heart

by Aisling Juanjuan Shen

  “You studied English?” He put his elbows on the table heavily and interlaced his fingers. His voice was a little hoarse. His thick eyebrows were raised, and he looked extremely irritated.

  I put my sweaty palms in my lap and nodded.

  “A teacher before?”

  “Yes.”

  He threw his arms onto the table. “I’ll give you a threemonth tryout period at nine hundred yuan a month. Go work for Manager Huang first.”

  Then he stood up and walked toward the door, taking vigorous strides, leaving his black leather chair swiveling. I watched him leave the office. With both arms bent and swinging, he resembled a crab.

  I sat there perplexed. Had I gotten the job?

  After waiting a few minutes with no sign of Director Yip’s returning, I decided to get up and go to the lobby. I saw Manager Huang sitting in one of the sliding chairs there. He sprang to his feet.

  “You got the job! Congratulations!” he said in his horrible Mandarin. “Come on. Let me show you where you’re going to live.”

  On the way, we stopped at his office, a real estate salesroom where I would work for three months before being considered for the position of Director Yip’s secretary. In addition to being the head of Human Resources, Huang was also the sales manager of LongJiang’s real estate company, which meant I would be working with him every day. I was pleased to hear this.

  We climbed the cement stairs of a building that was one of the real estate company’s projects but was temporarily being used to accommodate the employees. “I’ll show you your room,” he told me.

  We stopped in front of a white-painted fiberboard door on the sixth floor. He fished a key out of his leather bag and unlocked it. Inside the room I saw a bed, a desk, a television, a table, a few chairs, and some clothes. Apparently someone was already living here. I stood at the door, confused.

  He threw his leather bag onto the bed. “Sit,” he ordered.

  I looked at him, bewildered. He smiled mysteriously and then he sat down on the bed. He took out some pliers from one of the desk drawers and turned the television around and started to fix a broken wire.

  “I thought you were going to show me my place,” I worked up the nerve to say. He tilted his head sideways and looked at me again. I started to hate that smile on his face. He was a cat and I was a mouse. He was playing with me and enjoying it.

  “This is where I live,” he said.

  “Oh.” I chuckled nervously.

  “You’re going to live here too,” he added in an assertive tone.

  My forehead started to sweat. Was he serious or just testing me? What should I do? Should I tell him to go to hell and throw away the job I’d just gotten?

  I laughed dryly, spread my palms, and chirped, “Sure, sounds nice, maybe in the future, but I don’t think that’s appropriate now.”

  He burst out laughing, still playing with the wire in his hands. When he was done fixing it, he picked up his bag from the bed, unzipped it, took out a key, and tossed it to me. “Your room is upstairs on the seventh floor. I was just joking with you.”

  What a bizarre experience, I thought to myself on the way back to Gao Ming. Everything I had seen so far in LongJiang was out of the ordinary. But hey, it didn’t matter: I had gotten the job.

  Upon hearing my news, Wang Hui was grouchy and unresponsive. That night he made love to me wordlessly and passionately, as if he wanted to get the most out of me before I left. I tried my best to cater to him. We would see each other on the weekends, I consoled him, and finally he seemed to consent to this arrangement.

  The next day, I reported to Manager Huang. He put me at a desk adjacent to his in the real estate sales office. Then he brought me a bunch of real estate brochures and told me to get familiar with the real estate market and sales techniques. “Also, go buy a book and start learning Cantonese.”

  Manager Huang was so busy that I rarely saw him. Every morning he would show up in the office for a little while and then leave for all sorts of gatherings. He didn’t appear to be paying special attention to me, but when he yelled at the other two salesgirls in the office for not wearing lipstick and then turned around and spoke to me like a gentle brother would, I felt pleased. I was still a little scared of him, but he fascinated me. Why did he seem so happy that I had gotten the job? Why was he so nice to me? As time passed, I felt thrilled whenever his tall figure appeared outside the heavy glass door. It became the highlight of my day.

  Occasionally he took me to the evening dinner party, where all the important people in the company clinked liquor bottles and buried their faces in delicacies of every kind. Southerners rarely cooked at home and loved to drink and eat in restaurants. At the table, he introduced me to everyone as Director Yip’s secretary-to-be and told them to treat me like a little sister. He would whisper in my ear when important people showed up at the table: “That’s the assistant director, a bookworm. Talk to him honestly. That’s Director Zhang, an easygoing big guy. Show some charm to him and he will be your slave. That’s Director Jia, a slimy son of a bitch who uses the company’s Mercedes 600 as his own. Be careful when talking to him.”

  He was always right. Director Jia’s eyes remained on my face for only a second. He must be wondering why Manager Huang picked such an ordinary-looking girl to be the big boss’s secretary, I thought. In the South, the most important prerequisite for becoming a secretary was to be beautiful. She primarily functioned like a decorative flower vase that her boss liked to show clients. “If you want to be Director Yip’s secretary, you have to speak Cantonese. I give you three months,” Jia said to me.

  His tiny eyes paused on mine and then flicked away quickly behind his gilt-framed glasses. He was the type of person who could make you feel so uncomfortable that you wanted to punch him in the face.

  I straightened my back and answered him calmly. “Thank you, Director Jia. I think I’ll only need two months.”

  I started learning Cantonese. I couldn’t afford a tape recorder, so every day I begged the two girls who worked in the same office to keep talking to me in Cantonese. I wanted to prove to Director Jia that Manager Huang hadn’t made a mistake in recruiting me.

  Manager Huang and I became closer as time went by. One night, after having a lot to drink, we walked together back to his room, and he told me about his personal life for the first time. “Long Jiang is my home town, you know, but I don’t want to be here. My family is in Shenzhen.” Shenzhen was the newest and most modern city in the South.

  He leaned against his chair. “Director Yip and I grew up together, but he’s the big boss now. He’s the emperor, and it’s almost like serving a tiger, working for him. If it wasn’t for the money, I wouldn’t be here.” He sighed wistfully. “Life is so tough. I only have a high school degree, and it’s hard to find a good job in Shenzhen.”

  “Do you miss your wife?” I asked cautiously. The girls in the office had told me that Manager Huang had been married for many years.

  He shook his head. “No, I don’t miss her. I wouldn’t miss her no matter where I was. But I miss my son terribly.” He sighed and mourned to himself, “Son, dad is so sorry. Dad cannot be with you.”

  I saw tears at the corners of his eyes, and my heart ached for him. I would never have thought that a seemingly high-spirited man like him could carry such a secret anguish. I wanted to hold him and wipe away his tears.

  My heart was betraying Wang Hui. I felt guilty, but I wasn’t going to stop it. In contrast to Wang’s cowardice and incompetence, Huang was mature and masterful socially, yet he was also tender and complicated on the inside. More importantly, he looked after me at every occasion and protected me from the harshness of the South like a big umbrella.

  Three weeks after I had started my new job, Wang Hui came to Long Jiang to see me. As I stood on the main road watching him get off the bus, I sadly realized that his once familiar and intimate face was no longer able to stir me. Still, I walked up to him and put my hands in his.

 
On the same day as Wang’s visit, a girl my age came to our office. She had thick black rings around her eyes; pale, loose skin; and a distressed look. She walked around the office freely, as if she belonged, and everyone tolerated her, behaving as if nothing odd was happening. She took a tape out of her purse and put it into the VCR next to Manager Huang’s desk. She said that she was working for a TV station in Guangzhou and this was a documentary she had made for our company, which, she emphasized, would really give us excellent publicity. The VCR squeaked as she pressed the buttons of the remote control impatiently. She grew frustrated.

  “Take it easy. Let it go.” Huang spoke to her in a soothing tone and took away the remote. I sat on the big leather couch at the window and watched this scene curiously. Was Manager Huang involved with her? I felt a little jealous.

  Abruptly, the glass doors swung open and Director Yip stormed into the room. The two salesgirls lowered their heads, pretending they had been working hard all day. I saw fear in everyone’s eyes. I stayed still on the couch, having no idea how to greet the big boss properly. There was only one person in the room who seemed not to mind the presence of Director Yip. It was that girl. She was sitting with her back to him.

  At the sight of her, he paused and then turned around and sat heavily on the couch. I scooted a few inches away from him. Huang came up to him right away.

  “Why is she here?” Director Yip asked him in a low angry voice.

  “Ah, you know. She can’t forget. She made this documentary tape for us,” Huang explained, sounding like a parent trying to calm a child.

  “Hmm. She was just a fucking secretary,” Director Yip snorted. “Why did she want to be so ambitious and greedy, wanting to be a manager? It’s a good thing that she’s gone.”

  “Well, she is a girl, and the abortion wasn’t easy,” Huang said patiently.

  “Damn her for threatening to call my wife. Who the hell does she think she is?” Director Yip stared at the girl’s back furiously. “Give her ten thousand and tell her never to show up here again,” he ordered, then heaved his big body off the couch and left.

  Huang sighed. He turned to the girl. “Now you should feel better,” he said.

  She sat with a bent back and didn’t budge.

  I was astounded by what I had just seen. So this odd girl was Yip’s former secretary, and he’d gotten her pregnant and was now trying to get rid of her with ten thousand yuan. Was Huang Director Yip’s personal disposer? I frowned. Was he planning to get rid of me in a similar way one day?

  Seeing my displeasure, Huang shook his head. He moved close and told me quietly, “Now you see why I brought you to my room on the interview day. I was testing you. She was Director Yip’s Number 6 secretary, and she slept with him.”

  The girl turned her face to me. I couldn’t bear to see the sadness and jealousy in her eyes. Was she thinking that I wanted to be like her, the mistress of the big boss? I would rather have died than sleep with the monstrous Director Yip and get money in such a pathetic way. I felt sympathy for this girl, but I knew it was stupid and self-destructive of her to have taken this path.

  “She is staying with you tonight, Ah-Juan,” Huang said.

  “What? But my boyfriend just got here,” I objected.

  “Oh, please. He can have a break,” he insisted, throwing his arm up dismissively.

  He must be doing this on purpose, I thought. She could easily have stayed with another female employee. I opened my mouth, wanting to object more, but no words came. Strangely, I felt a little relieved. I knew Wang Hui had come to see me for sex. I had never refused him before, but that night I had no desire to be intimate with him.

  I took the girl to my room. Wang Hui was sitting on the mattress on the cement floor, the only thing in the room besides the desk, reading a magazine. He looked up curiously as we entered. With a sad and solemn face, the girl went straight to the desk, sat down, took out a cassette player, and started to listen to music as if there was nobody else in the room.

  I sat down on the mattress next to Wang Hui and told him that he would have to stay with one of the male employees for the night, since the sixth secretary was staying with me.

  Looking angry, Wang Hui fell back on the mattress and stared at the ceiling with his hands behind his head.

  “Why is it like this? I traveled an hour and a half on the bus to see you, and this is how you greet me?”

  His response infuriated me. I had hoped he would be tolerant and understanding. Perhaps we could salvage our relationship at the last minute, I had thought. But finally I saw the truth—all he cared about was sex. That was what he had wanted from me all along; not love, not the promise of a life together.

  I stood up. “Is this all you want from me? Sex?” I screamed with tears in my eyes. He didn’t answer; instead, he punched the mattress. I left the room and went outside to walk off my anger.

  When I came back, it was clear that Wang regretted having reacted in such a way. His face was relaxed, and we didn’t argue any more that night. Together with two male employees of LongJiang, we had dinner at a small Cantonese restaurant in the local market downstairs. I looked at Wang Hui across the table and realized regretfully that we couldn’t go forward any more. I knew that sooner or later I would tell him this, but I just couldn’t bring it up right then. After all, I had feelings for him, had dreamed of a future with him. My feelings were changing, though, and every day my thoughts turned more and more to Huang. Wang had never been perfect, but he had been good enough in dinky little Ba Jin. Yet, like a grinding machine, the South had quickly crushed my old dreams and changed my feelings.

  The next morning, Wang Hui went back to Gao Ming upset, like a debt collector who had just made an unsuccessful trip.

  The following weekend, I returned to Gao Ming. That night, with the moon shining through the window, we sat against the wall on the cement floor of the house we had rented together. Facing each other, we both knew it was coming to an end.

  “So you come here, stay for two months, and now you’re just going to dump me?” He remained outwardly calm, but his voice shook. His eyes glittered in the moonlight.

  There was nothing I could say. I was at fault in this relationship because I liked another man.

  Wang Hui gritted his teeth. “Do you really think you were the only person I liked before?” he snorted. “When I was teaching math, a girl wrote a love letter to me and put it in her homework.”

  “Please, please. Don’t ruin everything we had,” I begged him.

  He laughed exaltedly and ignored me. “So I opened the letter and I saw a heart made of red paper. And then there was another girl. . . .”

  He spoke faster and louder as he told me these victory stories. I covered my ears as tightly as I could. I wanted to scream to him: Why? Why do you want to ruin the few good memories we had together?

  The next day, with dried tears on my face and my duffel bag in my arms, I left everything behind—Wang Hui, the home we had once had, all the furniture I had bought with my savings, and Gao Ming, my first stop in the South—forever.

  13

  I LAY SLEEPLESS on the bare mattress in my room. Wang Hui, the man who I had followed here, whom I had planned to build a castle of a life with, was gone. I was alone in the tumultuous South, like a canoe in the roaring Pacific Ocean.

  The heavy cloth curtains kept out the light and noise from the streets. I got out of bed and went to a window in the hall. I looked out. The lights of a moving airplane blinked in the bed of stars. Motorcycles zoomed by on the street. I tiptoed down the stairs and stopped at Huang’s door.

  I leaned against the washed-out white door. I imagined Huang lying underneath his thin cotton quilt. His blue suit must have been hanging on the back of his tall wooden chair and his leather shoes probably had been kicked onto the tiled floor. The smell of his room—linen mixed with dust—seemed to seep out into the hall like an aromatic poison, drawing me to it.

  I knocked on the door shyly. I heard the so
und of footsteps in slippers. The door creaked opened. Huang’s tall figure appeared. He gave me a sleepy look and then went back inside and clambered onto the bed, as if I wasn’t even there.

  I followed him and stood at the end of his bed uneasily, my hands clenching the bottom of my pajama top.

  His impatient voice came from the bed. “What are you doing here?”

  “Can I stay with you?” I mumbled. “I can’t get to sleep.”

  “Go, go, go,” he shouted brutally.

  I bit my lower lip, feeling hurt. I didn’t understand how this man who took care of me like a big brother could be so cruel.

  I heard him sighing. He patted the edge of the bed and beckoned softly, “Come here.”

  I walked to the side of the bed and crawled in under the quilt next to him like the meekest lamb. I shrank myself down to the smallest volume I could so that I wouldn’t disturb him during the night by taking up too much space. It grew cold, and I shivered. As I pulled the corner of the quilt gingerly, he turned, and his arm fell across my chest heavily. I didn’t move and lay still for the entire night with a smile on my face, feeling like I had discovered a big diamond.

  “Go. Leave right now,” he ordered as soon as he woke up the next morning.

  I jumped out of the bed.

  “What did you come here for?” he kept yelling. “Why are you so foolish? Do you think you can become Director Yip’s secretary if someone sees you coming out of my room in pajamas early in the morning?”

  Under his bellows, I scurried out of his room like a rabbit on the run.

  Two months after joining LongJiang Enterprise Group, I had learned to understand and speak Cantonese fluently, as I had promised Director Jia. By that time, Manager Huang and I had slept in the same bed for a month. We cuddled together innocently like two schoolkids. We just held each other; there was nothing more to it than that.

  I lived for these nights, as if sleeping next to him was my only chance of waking up the next morning. Every day, I longed for the sky to turn dark; every evening, I waited for the people in his room to leave. When he and his friends played mah-jongg until dawn, I sat to the side, half-dozing, and waited patiently. When he was in a bad mood and yelled at me to leave, I took it quietly, waiting for the next minute, when he would talk to me as gently as an angel. When he kept his distance from me on the bed or turned his back to me, as if I was filthy, I told myself that he had just had a bad day. I wanted nothing more than to be in his arms, touching his skin. Sometimes I wished I could feel his hands under my pajamas, but, as time went by, all my wishes were filtered down to just one—for life to go on just like it was, to be in his arms and feel safe and protected. For the first time since I had been with Chi, sex wasn’t the only string that tied me to a man. I felt warmth, gratitude, adoration, and much more for him.