Dry Milk

by Huo Yan

  Jiang Xiaoyu didn’t get up until nine, by which time he had re-heated the congee twice, carefully scooping off the skin that formed on its surface.

  He looked behind him and found her, just out of bed, standing dressed in a pink skirt, over which she had put on a black open-necked cardigan. Her feet were bare and he could see her calves. He was attracted to their round shapeliness; he disliked thin women.

  Jiang Xiaoyu covered her mouth with her hand as she stifled a yawn. ‘Morning, Uncle.’

  ‘Quick. Take a seat and have some breakfast. I wasn’t sure if you preferred Western or Chinese breakfasts, so I’ve made both.’

  Jiang Xiaoyu sat opposite him. She wriggled her thighs, slapping her knees together with a soft thud. She chose a piece of bread and some bacon, and with practiced action started to use her knife and fork. ‘Any butter, Uncle?’

  John Lee went to the fridge and searched around inside. He could only find a small piece of butter, and he had no idea how long it had been in the fridge. He and the woman never used that sort of stuff. He shook his head, his regret showing on his face.

  ‘Oh. No matter,’ Jiang Xiaoyu said, as she lowered her eyes and continued eating in silence.

  He felt thrown off balance. Something that every New Zealand fridge should hold was missing from his.

  John Lee rubbed the seams of his trousers with his fingers, unsure of how to start the conversation. Breaking a promise, he believed, was a very rude thing to do. ‘I’m really sorry, Xiaoyu,’ he said, heaving a sigh. ‘I’d promised to take you out today for some fun, but I’ve just found out that I need to attend a meeting. I was only told about it last night. It’s an annual meeting. But we’ll have lots of chances to go out together.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, hanging her head again. ‘Yes, let’s think about it later. Your business is important to you.’

  John Lee knew she was cross. This silent treatment was clearly how she expressed her displeasure at him for having gone back on his word. Perhaps she appeared so late this morning because she had been deciding on what she would wear to go out with him. He had disappointed her.

  John Lee followed the direction of her disappointed stare and looked out the window. Such a fine day. He could see the white rooftops of the houses that lined the shore. The clouds in the sky changed shape endlessly and little boats shuttled back and forth across the harbour. Everything seemed so alive, so vital.

  As he came in the door he was handed a piece of paper by the usher with his name written on it. Quickly but absent-mindedly, he took his seat. He had left Jiang Xiaoyu at home with the woman, having first removed all evidence that he and she were husband and wife. Even so, he was anxious that something might have escaped his notice.

  He held his mobile phone tightly, his palms sweaty. The phone, which had been given to him by his mobile provider, did nothing but make and receive calls. He had no need for other functions. There was nobody here he wished to be in touch with. But now he sat in fear that the phone would ring and that it would be Jiang Xiaoyu, calling to interrogate him about why he was lying to her. Even worse was the prospect that she might find his deceit so distasteful that she would ignore it altogether.

  Uncle Wang sat in the front row. Ye Xiaosheng wasn’t there. His flight home had left yesterday. Before he left he had called once more, but John Lee still hadn’t come to a decision about the business proposition.

  Once the chairman had called the meeting to order, he looked over at John Lee and nodded slightly.

  Embarrassed, John Lee forced a smile in return, though the two of them had never exchanged more than five sentences.

  In his Taiwanese accent, the chairman recounted the activities of the association over the past year. John Lee had participated in few of them. Only when a lecture topic aroused some specific interest in him would he come along to listen. His mind wandered off, and he thought that once he had helped set up the internet for Jiang Xiaoyu, he might write an email to the Chinese Studies professor, raising various points that had occurred to him in his recent reading of The Book of Master Zhuang.

  At the end of the chairman’s speech John Lee clapped half-heartedly along with everyone else, all the while fixated on the possibility that Jiang Xiaoyu might uncover his deception. Perhaps he should never have tried to deceive her?

  All of a sudden he heard his name out loud.

  ‘John Lee.’

  He froze.

  The person sitting next to him nudged him lightly with his elbow. ‘They’re speaking to you.’

  John Lee stood up, not understanding what was going on. He looked blankly at the chairman; everyone was looking at him.

  ‘John, many congratulations. You have been nominated as an executive officer of the Chinese Community Hope Association.’

  A stunned look crossed his face.

  One after another, the members of the audience started clapping, beaming in his direction. He was the only new office holder to be nominated at this year’s meeting.

  ‘What has been happening?’ he turned to the person sitting beside him to ask.

  ‘Didn’t they let you know beforehand? You’ve been nominated for executive office.’

  ‘No,’ he stammered out, ‘this is a complete surprise.’

  Once the voting was over, the chairman invited a visiting official from the People’s Republic of China to address the meeting. This man spoke about China’s rapid economic progress, inviting the audience to consider investing in its development. Listed first by the official among items in short supply in China were dairy products. Chinese mothers, he said, are so desperate to get hold of top-quality milk powder that they are quite prepared to smuggle themselves into Hong Kong. The tone of disbelief and disapproval in his voice as he spoke was obvious.

  John Lee thought again about Ye Xiaosheng’s business proposal.

  On account of his new status as an office holder, he decided to stay on for dinner. Everyone who stayed was required to pay five dollars for the meal. As he filled his bowl with rice, the chairman came over to him and patted him on the shoulder. ‘John, enjoy the role. Professor Liang made a point of recommending you to me after he spoke to us at our last meeting. He told me of your strong interest in traditional Chinese culture. I hope that you can play a greater part in our meetings, and lend some help to the association.’

  John Lee nodded his head, and answered through clenched teeth: ‘How come you select new executive officers without first letting them know?’

  ‘I’d asked Mr Wang to let you know. Didn’t he tell you?’ In the supermarket John Lee chose the most expensive brand of butter. Having remembered hearing Jiang Xiaoyu say she enjoyed eating seafood, he also bought a fresh fillet of salmon.

  Jiang Xiaoyu and the woman were watching television when John Lee arrived home. She was sitting there with one leg stretched out as she painted her toenails a new colour. When she saw him come in the door, she called out: ‘Uncle Lee,’ and began to fan her foot with her hand so the polish would dry more quickly.

  John Lee sniffed the atmosphere to check for any sign of danger. Jiang Xiaoyu seemed intent on the television. She appeared not to have discovered anything.

  He sighed with relief, saying as casually as he could: ‘At the meeting they insisted on electing me to the executive. I couldn’t get out of it.’

  Jiang Xiaoyu made a small noise in response.

  ‘They said that I had been recommended by a professor from China. Not someone I know at all well. I have no idea why he suggested me.’

  ‘He probably thinks you’re an outstanding person,’ Jiang Xiaoyu said, turning her head away to avoid eye contact with him. ‘Only someone outstanding is worth recommending.’

  ‘Another thing,’ he said. ‘Do you remember Uncle Wang? That wedding banquet we both went to was his daughter’s. The chairman told me that he had asked him to give me notice of my nomination, but I didn’t get anything at all from him.’ As he said this, he spread out his hands.

  ‘He was probab
ly jealous of you and didn’t want you to know.’

  He nodded slightly.

  Jiang Xiaoyu cast a glance at him and then looked down again, concentrating on the message she was composing. The waves of her black hair fell over the screen so that he couldn’t see the name of the recipient.

  John Lee found out the exact time of Ye Xiaosheng’s return to Auckland from Jiang Xiaoyu.

  He drove to the airport and waited at the arrivals gate. A stream of Chinese faces came through the gate, and for a moment he almost forgot where he was. Thirty years ago, he thought, it was a rare thing to see another yellow face in New Zealand.

  He saw Ye Xiaosheng coming out, and hurried to greet him.

  ‘Xiaosheng, I’m here to pick you up. I knew you didn’t have your car here and that it would be difficult for you to get home.’

  At the car, Ye Xiaosheng crouched down and stuffed himself in through the door. Tapping on the window with his knuckles he said: ‘You really should get yourself a new car. They don’t even make this model anymore.’

  ‘Yes, yes. I’ll get a new one when I have the money. How was it this time back in Beijing?’

  ‘Wonderful. Timing and government policy both seem in our favour,’ Ye Xiaosheng said, placing much emphasis on the word ‘our’ as he cast John Lee a glance. ‘A lot of people sought me out to discuss the possibility of working together. And I met several officials responsible for commerce. Now’s the time to be setting up in business. Government policy could change before we know it. You should make up your mind as soon as possible.’

  John Lee could feel Ye Xiaosheng trying to force him to make a decision. He had intended to tell him that he would go into business with him but, with the words on his lips, he hesitated. He swallowed a mouthful of saliva. ‘Let me think a bit more about it.’

  Once Jiang Xiaoyu had gone off to class, John Lee went into the woman’s room.

  He felt that he had been remiss with her in recent days. He hugged her by the shoulders, pressing down on the top of her head with his jaw. He noticed that the grey roots on her head were slowly beginning to take over.

  He took her arm and began to scratch it with his fingertips. She loved it when he did this and her eyes narrowed with pleasure, the shallow dimples in her cheeks appeared, and she began to croon softly.

  ‘The last few days have been hard on you,’ John Lee said apologetically, although it seemed as if he was apologising to himself.

  He was no longer capable of much physical contact with the woman, no longer able to look directly at the wrinkles on her neck or the phlegm around her lips. Nowadays, there was always a damp spot between her thighs and he suspected that she was no longer fully in control of her bodily functions.

  Looking as if he had completed his task, John Lee pushed her away. Flecks of white had peeled off where John Lee had been scratching her arm. Her skin was always dry, like a shell that had been scorched by the coastal sun.

  He closed the curtain and hurried her into bed, giving her a glass of water into which he had dissolved sleeping medicine.

  He held the key in his hand. John Lee hesitated at the door, then opened Jiang Xiaoyu’s bedroom.

  The wardrobe door was wide open. It was stuffed with her clothes. He had no idea how she had managed to bring all these clothes with her from China. Clothes in all sorts of colours. As he went over to them, he caught a whiff of Jiang Xiaoyu’s sickly sweet perfume. She loved to wear revealing clothes, as if she were trying to seduce the world.

  Trembling, he pulled open a drawer. It was full of her underwear, shoved in without any particular order. He couldn’t figure out what her style was; half of the pieces had pink flower patterns, the other half were black and lacy and gave off a risqué air. He picked up a pair and held them to his chest. It seemed to him as if the thin material still held the heat of her body and was about to sear his hand.

  He felt tired, and sat down on her swivel chair and looked around the room. The bed was unmade, and he could see the traces of her having slept there, the outline of her small body imprinted faintly on the sheets. He wanted to smooth the sheets down but didn’t dare, his hands suspended in the air, his fingers tingling as if they could feel what he wanted to touch.

  Then he saw the wastepaper bin under her table, and squatted down, like a man searching for a treasure, and carefully went through its contents: several white balls of tissue, some moist cotton make-up pads, a torn receipt. A broken blush compact turned his fingers pink.

  He remembered the first days after he had arrived in New Zealand. He had been just as careful then as he was being now, always observing his surroundings. He was afraid of Westerners who came up to him to shake his hand, unsure whether he could trust them.

  He was cross with himself for having become too close to Uncle Wang. Plainly he had been made a fool of. He should have made a better show of things than he had at the meeting. He had been unable to say a word, and stood grinning at everybody in embarrassment.

  He agreed with Jiang Xiaoyu’s using the word ‘jealous’ to describe Uncle Wang’s attitude to him. To his mind, the wedding had been a farce; the groom’s parents hadn’t shown up, and thus avoided the torment of seeing their Western son paraded through Chinese wedding customs: short, divorced, all dressed up in a red wedding robe, he had been made to stand on tiptoe to try and catch the apple suspended from a white cord above his head, his nose bumping his bride’s again and again until it turned as red as an old drunk’s. They had demanded that he drink a toast with Chinese spirits at all ten tables. By the time he had reached the tenth and final table, the Westerner was completely drunk and had begun to vomit. He spewed all over a little girl dressed in pink, and the girl’s mother had sworn at him in Chinese. He hadn’t understood a word of what was said, of course, and continued to dance around until finally he collapsed on the floor.

  But for the fact that he needed to give Uncle Wang some face, he would have burst into laughter. The bride, tall and dressed as always in fishnet stockings and leather hotpants, took hold of her husband and dragged him to a sofa. There, his face was slapped and tea was poured down his throat in the vain hope of reviving him.

  Jiang Xiaoyu had sat beside him and laughed her head off like a child.

  Jiang Xiaoyu would return home very late each day, always catching the last bus to the stop at the foot of the hill before climbing the slope. Whenever he offered to pick her up she would refuse with a wave of her hand, saying that she didn’t want to be a bother to anyone. John Lee admired her sense of independence. They were alike in not wanting to trouble others.

  He sat in the darkness waiting for her to return, illuminated dimly by the streetlight shining in through the window.

  He heard the front door open, and moistened his lips with his tongue.

  ‘Xiaoyu, you’re home?’

  He had startled her, and he could hear her heart pounding.

  ‘Uncle Lee, what are you doing sitting here? It’s late. Why aren’t you in bed?’

  He could see her full lips. ‘There was something that I wanted to discuss with you.’

  ‘Okay. What is it?’ Jiang Xiaoyu said softly, turning on the light and taking a seat.

  ‘No hurry. Why don’t you have a cup of water first?’ He poured her a cup of hot water and pulled his own chair over beside hers. ‘I’ve been thinking of going into business with Ye Xiaosheng. What do you think?’

  John Lee made the story as simple as he could. He had some savings with the woman. The issue was, should he expand his current business, or should he look for new opportunities? Ye Xiaosheng had come up with one, he told her, and wanted him to invest his money back in China. But it had been so long since he was last there and he had no idea of the situation there anymore. He needed her help. ‘Xiaoyu, tell me, what are things like in China nowadays?’

  Jiang Xiaoyu lowered her voice and waved her phone at him. ‘My sister-in-law just rang me, asking me to send her some milk powder. She doesn’t trust the quality in China.’r />
  John Lee experienced a sudden flash of understanding.

  ‘The quality of food in New Zealand is world famous. If you can get into the industry, I’m sure the milk powder you export to China will sell well.’

  ‘Mm.’ John Lee nodded.

  ‘Rather than buying stuff here for them in a piecemeal way, it’s better to export the best products from here to China. All my friends pay a lot of attention to their health nowadays, but if you can’t be sure about what you’re eating then what’s good in theory won’t amount to anything.’ She stole a glance at him, in case she had said something wrong. ‘As long as it doesn’t affect your everyday life, then I think an investment like this is a good idea.’

  He mulled over what she had said.

  ‘Uncle Lee. I’ve been talking nonsense, I’m sure. What would a girl like me know? If that’s all, I’d better get to bed. I have classes early tomorrow.’

  He watched her leave the kitchen, and her words flowed in his mind. He felt a surge of excitement at the encouragement she had given him, and about the strange new enterprise on which he was about to embark.

  He looked at the clock on the oven. Eleven p.m. Most people in Auckland would be asleep by now. He dialled Ye Xiaosheng’s number.

  John Lee set off early in the morning to withdraw the money. If he combined two of his accounts, he could put together a six-figure sum.

  He tapped on the marble counter with his knuckles. ‘I’ll withdraw the total amount. I don’t want to leave anything in either account.’

  Jiang Xiaoyu words had proved decisive. She seemed trustworthy, always willing to think about the interests of others.

  Ye Xiaosheng was waiting for him at the entrance behind the wheel of a BMW. John Lee squeezed into the car, unconsciously crouching down before realising that this car, unlike his own, was more than large enough for him to sit up in.

  He straightened, waiting for the car to start up. Ye Xiaosheng’s breath smelt of whiskey. ‘Uncle Lee, we’ve got this. Trust me.’