Tiger's Heart

by Aisling Juanjuan Shen

  One Sunday evening when Huang had gone to visit his family for the weekend, I was sitting in my room, flipping through a magazine, when I heard a loud noise coming from downstairs:

  “Manager Huang, open the fucking door!” Someone was pounding on Huang’s door. I ran downstairs and saw it was a mah-jongg friend of his.

  “Has he come back from Shenzhen?” I asked. I wasn’t expecting him until the next day.

  “He should’ve. Before he left, he told us that he would come back and play mah-jongg with us tonight.” He kept pounding the door for a couple of minutes. “Manager Huang, I know you are inside. Open the fucking door!” No one answered. “I guess he’s not back yet.” Disappointed, he left.

  Why had Huang told his mah-jongg friends he would return Sunday night but told me Monday morning? I ran up a few stairs and looked at Huang’s windows. The curtains were all drawn, and I couldn’t see inside. They had been up on Friday morning when he left. He was in there. I could feel it.

  I knocked on the door. No answer.

  I stood outside, feeling my knees getting weaker. Why was he hiding? Was he with another girl? I couldn’t think any further.

  The next morning, I went to work early. Around ten o’clock, I called Huang’s office. “Ah-Xia, is Manager Huang in the office yet?” I asked the salesgirl who answered the phone. “Director Yip might want to see him today.”

  “Yeah, he just came in ten minutes ago,” she said.

  I put down the phone and slipped out of the office. I ran all the way from the headquarters building to the dorm and then up the stairs to Huang’s room.

  I knocked on the door and waited. My nervous heart was twisting inside me. A minute later, the door opened, and a girl appeared, a small girl in a blue daisy-patterned dress with delicate skin and slanted eyes like two crescents.

  “Are you Ah-Min?” I asked, lifting my chin.

  “Yes. Who are you?” she answered in perfect Cantonese with a small, piercing voice.

  So Ah-Min was his girlfriend, not just his former coworker.

  I walked past her into the room. She followed and sat on the bed. I took the chair across from her. We faced one another, reading the fear and pain in each other’s eyes.

  I cleared my throat and introduced myself. “My name is Ah-Juan. I’m his girlfriend.” I stared at her provocatively.

  Her shoulders were trembling, and her pale face was rigid. She looked so small and delicate, like a gust of wind would just blow her away. Jealousy spread through my heart. I felt as though someone had grabbed me by the waist and was breaking me in two.

  “Has he been seeing you all this time when he goes back to Shenzhen?” No answer. I continued: “You know, our relationship isn’t ordinary. We have deep feelings for each other.” After a short pause, I told her coldly, “I had an abortion for him.”

  I started toward the door. I realized that I had just lied without flinching. The white clothes I was wearing suddenly felt dusty and heavy. The four lime walls were shrinking, closing in, trapping me. I turned and I saw tears flowing down her cheeks. Good, I had hurt her, just like he had hurt me.

  I raised my head and left the room with a straight back.

  When I went back to Huang’s room that evening, he was sitting on the bed, sighing. I looked around. Ah-Min was gone.

  The fire of jealousy that burned inside me earlier had died down a little. I waited for his explosion. “Why did you lie to her?” I wanted him to yell at me. But he just looked gloomy.

  “Why did you do that?” He sighed. “It’s meaningless.”

  “I thought I was your only girlfriend.” I sat next to him gingerly. He was not as angry as I’d thought he’d be.

  “But you’ve seen her. She isn’t like you. She’s not the kind of girl you can easily leave behind in a strange city. After I left Shenzhen, she called me all the time and cried on the phone. She’s fragile and needs someone to take care of her,” he explained patiently.

  So because I was strong, I was doomed to be hurt?

  “She cried and cried, wanted to follow me here. What could I do?” Then he smiled. “Ah-Juan, you’re like a fierce tiger. I do like that.”

  I wanted to tell him that I too was fragile and soft, that I wanted love more desperately than anyone else in the world, but I was silent. As long as he didn’t tell me to get lost, I could sacrifice my pride and hold back my tears.

  He took me in his arms. We lay in bed silently and never mentioned Ah-Min again, but her desolate face and slender figure had permanently cast a shadow on our relationship. It shook my love for this man, who I had thought was my warrior but who turned out to belong to more than one young girl in need of love.

  Why was love in the South so flimsy and easily changed? I realized that my affection for Huang was a tree that would never blossom.

  It had been three months since I’d become Director Yip’s secretary when, one day, two girls, both of them tall and pretty, followed Huang into the office.

  Huang introduced them to me. “This is Mei, and this is Chen. They are Director Yip’s new secretaries. They just came from Harbin.” I remembered that Director Jia recently had gone up north and had hired seven pretty girls to become secretaries for the directors in the company. This was one of the tricks of the business world, to decorate the façade of the company, the deputy director had claimed.

  I stood up and shook their hands. They were so tall that my head only reached to their shoulders. I arranged for them to sit next to me. Now I would have help with mopping and waxing the floor and perhaps people to talk to during these boring days, I thought happily.

  “What? Wax the floor? I’m a college graduate. I didn’t come all the way here to wax his damn floor,” Mei snorted as soon as I told them that this was part of the job. Then she took out a cosmetic bag from her purse and started to pluck her eyebrows, holding up a tiny mirror in her hand. The other girl, Chen, shrugged and walked away.

  Shocked, I looked at their powdered faces and pursed red lips and wished I had the strength to stand up to them. “You were here first, so you should tell them what to do,” Huang had counseled me earlier, but I realized that there was no way I could order these two city girls around. They were ten times better looking than me and as proud as two peacocks with their tails spread.

  Chen eventually agreed to help me sweep the floor and take care of the tea service for Director Yip and his guests. But Mei, who completely detested the place, spent most of her time putting stuff on her face and then taking it off and complaining that the company had lied to them at recruiting. She fiddled with her cosmetic tools constantly, plucking, shaving, or smoothing, and at the end of the day her face always looked like a shelled whole egg just rolled out of an oily pan.

  After she’d been there a couple of days, I couldn’t restrain my curiosity any longer and asked her how she got her face to be so smooth. She held her mirror up higher and told me contemptuously, “You shave it!” She then turned her head and looked at it sideways in the mirror. “My sister brought this shaver for me from Japan, the best ever made.”

  I was embarrassed by my ignorance and rustic background. I had only one red lipstick and no relatives in Japan who could bring me goodies like a shaver. No wonder Director Yip always smiled at them but never at me.

  Mei abruptly tossed her mirror on her desk and grumbled, “What a lousy job.” She turned toward my desk, which was behind hers. “One of my friends who came to the South earlier goes to the Garden Hotel in Guangzhou and meets foreigners there, and do you know how much she makes every night?”

  I shook my head.

  “Five hundred American dollars! That’s four thousand yuan, five times my salary!” she exclaimed. She dropped her elbows on her desk and whined, “What the hell am I doing here?”

  I had a feeling that she wouldn’t last long. Sure enough, a couple of mornings later she didn’t show up. Just one week after the company had flown her all the way from the North to the South, she had vanished.

>   That left only Chen and me on the eighth floor, and we didn’t talk much. Sometimes I sat at my desk, scribbling bits of poems or popular songs on a pad, and wondered how Mei was doing now. Was she working the lobby of the Garden Hotel and making five hundred dollars a night? Was she happy now?

  I couldn’t help but wonder: Were those girls out there who slept with men for money just being realistic? Did I, who was stuck with a monstrous boss, a low-paying job, and a married boyfriend, belong to the group of stupid and stubborn girls? I started to doubt whether it was worth it, whether some day Director Yip would ever tell me to stop mopping his floor or whether Huang would ever be able to give me a home.

  During the dull days on the eighth floor, I contemplated my future. My life wasn’t going forward, and I felt lost. Was my mother right that only businessmen and whores came to the South? Couldn’t an educated woman succeed without sleeping around?

  I remembered the story of a successful businesswoman I had heard from a friendly young man I had met on the bus from Gao Ming to Guangzhou.

  “You have the courage to pursue your own dreams. Don’t get discouraged by setbacks in life,” the young man had encouraged me after hearing about my jobless situation at the time. “You know, I have a friend just like you. She studied a foreign language in college and was assigned to a travel agency after graduation, but she didn’t like the job, so she resigned, and she’s doing business on her own now. I’ll introduce you to her if you come to Guangzhou again.”

  So once more I visited Guangzhou to try to change my life. When I got into the city, I picked up the public phone at a newspaper stand on the sidewalk and dialed the young man’s pager number. The lady at the page station asked for my name and number. I shouted the information to her over the noise of the dense traffic and then I waited nervously. I wasn’t sure he would remember me. He had looked urbane, affluent, and out of my league.

  He called back right away. “Of course I remember you. Who could forget such a pretty girl?”

  His solid, pleasant voice was like a ray of sunshine penetrating through the thick layer of gray air above the city. Southerners liked to tell every girl that she was pretty, but such a word from him, a sophisticated and good-looking man, stirred me like a pebble thrown into a river.

  Half an hour later, a Harley-Davidson, the newest model, shiny as a mirror and wide as a canoe, stopped in front of the newsstand. The rider took off his helmet and I saw his lean, dark face. I had never believed in stories of knights on white horses, but seeing a city man on a Harley-Davidson smiling at me with white teeth made me think they might be true after all.

  “Call me Brother Yong,” he said. As the bike maneuvered in the traffic, he shouted, “Hold my waist!”

  I did as I was told. “Do you remember the girl I told you about on the train, the one who left her governmental job?” he asked in the wind.

  “Yes, of course,” I shouted back to him. “She’s my role model.”

  “Do you want to meet her? She’s giving a speech tonight.”

  After making a big half-circle through the city, we came to an old cement building. I followed him to the second floor, and we stopped at a closed door. He gestured for me to be quiet and then pushed the door open a crack. A blast of warm air mixed with sweat escaped. I peered in and saw that the room was packed. People stood pressed up against the door with hunched shoulders and flattened stomachs.

  Brother Yong carefully squeezed into the crowd, found a free spot, and waved to me. I sneaked in and stood a few inches from him. I looked through the gaps between the shoulders surrounding me. Everybody was gazing at the front of the room with their heads raised, listening with rapt attention, men and women, old and young.

  A forceful, cadent female voice came to my ears. “Brothers and sisters, this is a golden opportunity you are offering to your friends and family, because you’re saving them from many misfortunes and you’re giving them the chance of a lifetime.”

  She was in her late twenties; she stood in front of a blackboard, clutching the microphone with both her hands and speaking to her audience with wholehearted sincerity. She wore a dark green wool skirt-suit and high heels, with a small colorful silk scarf around her neck.

  “Ouch!” the man next to me cried out in a low voice.

  I realized that I had just stepped on his foot.

  “Sorry, sorry,” I apologized hastily. To my surprise, instead of glowering or cursing, he smiled and said it was no problem. What kind of people were these, and why were they so nice?

  I turned and caught Brother Yong’s eye. His high-cheekboned face smiled at me gently. I wondered if he had been watching me the whole time.

  He moved closer to me. “The woman speaking is the one I told you about,” he whispered. “Her name is Grace, and we all call her Sister Grace. Listen to her carefully. She’s incredible.”

  His warm breath tickled my neck. Why was handsome Brother Yong so nice to me? After the speech, would he take me somewhere quiet to sit and talk, like a café or a teahouse, like how normal young city people got together: like . . . a date?

  I didn’t hear much of what Sister Grace was saying with such utter sincerity. I only woke up from my own fantasies when she said, “Now it’s time for self-reflection.”

  Everyone quickly and efficiently pulled chairs into circles, as if this were a military training camp. Before I even found out what the circles were for, someone had seated me on a square stool next to Brother Yong in a circle with a dozen strangers, all of whom seemed extraordinarily friendly.

  “My name is Bo. I met Brother Yong eight months ago, and I have been following him ever since. I was so moved by Sister Grace’s speech tonight. She was so determined to become successful, and now she is, and I know I want to be like her,” a young man declared passionately. The others followed his lead, all smiling and making similar statements.

  It seemed that everyone had to speak. Having no idea what to say, I glanced at Brother Yong anxiously. Wholly absorbed by everyone’s individual speeches, he didn’t notice me.

  Then everyone’s eyes fell on me.

  “Hi, my name is Juanjuan,” I said softly. My mind drew a blank. I was too nervous to go on.

  “Who did you come here with?” a middle-aged woman asked me with a smile.

  “I came with Brother Yong.” I turned to Brother Yong, who smiled at me with encouraging eyes.

  “Hey, I wonder why Brother Yong always meets pretty girls,” Bo quipped, and everyone laughed.

  “You know, Brother Yong has obtained Diamond rank, and he’s one of the hottest bachelors in the city, so we call him the Diamond Bachelor. You’re lucky he brought you here,” the middle-aged woman said, and everyone nodded and looked at me admiringly. I did feel lucky to have met Brother Yong, who seemed to like me and had introduced me to these friendly people.

  “I like being here, and I want to learn from everybody,” I said bashfully, stealing another glance at Brother Yong, who was still smiling at me.

  People’s focus moved on to the person next to me. I listened to the rest of the group carefully, and gradually I felt like I was becoming one of them.

  After the meeting, Brother Yong drove me to the bus station. I hopped on the last bus to Long Jiang in a hurry, and when I got home it was already past midnight. I went to my own room and fell asleep, thinking happily of Brother Yong and his friends.

  A few days later, Brother Yong called to tell me that a very successful man was giving a motivational speech that night and that I should attend. So I went after work. Once again, I was in the same room with Brother Yong and all the friendly people.

  The speaker, a tall man in a fine suit with a tidy haircut, was Sister Grace’s husband. As he was delivering his passionate and stirring speech, Brother Yong said to me, “He’s the boss of a major bank in Guangzhou, but he believes in Amway so much that he devotes part of his time to it. He is very highly ranked in the Amway system. He and his wife are quite well off now.”

  It was
the first time I had heard the word “Amway.”

  “What’s Amway?” I asked.

  “Amway is an American company that manufactures home cleaning goods, such as soap, shampoo, and detergent. Their stuff is just amazing, but the best thing about Amway is its pyramid sales system. You can start your own Amway business very easily and then build your own network. Doing Amway, you don’t just sell detergent; you build a career for yourself,” Brother Yong explained in a low but excited voice.

  “Have you ever dreamed of having a meaningful life, becoming a millionaire, and at the same time helping your friends and family become millionaires?” Grace’s husband was saying. “Well, if you ever have, ‘do’ Amway, because you only need 721 yuan to start this career. Because Amway teaches you and supports you along the way. Because you will find so many friends in Amway. Amway is for ordinary people, for everybody who wants to succeed!”

  His enthusiasm was infectious. Applause rocked the room as the crowd went crazy.

  “Let’s all hold hands and sing the ‘Song of Success’!” the speaker cried out.

  Everyone quickly grasped each other’s hands as catchy music filled the room. As the speaker clapped his hands rhythmically, the crowd rocked slightly from side to side to the rhythm and started to sing:

  I once had a dream in my heart, I wanted to become a real hero in my dream. Never give up! Never say I failed. . . .

  The room resounded with impassioned, lusty singing. Everyone beamed. I even saw some tears. With one hand in Brother Yong’s, I gazed at him with glistening eyes. I was such a lucky girl to have met him, the Diamond Bachelor, and to have been brought into the promising and exciting world of Amway, I told myself.

  From then on, five times a week, I took a two-hour bus ride to Guangzhou right after work. I would rush to the Amway gathering place, listen to the speech, and then, as soon as the gathering was over, I would hop on the bus back to Long Jiang and fall asleep around midnight. Rain or shine, I never missed a speech Brother Yong wanted me to go to. The eighth floor of LongJiang Group became even duller. Brother Yong—and the success I was sure he was leading me to—was the new brightest star in my sky.