by Sheng Keyi
She squinted to protect her eyes as the wind kicked up another round of dust. When she opened them, all she saw was a puff of smoke from the back end of the bus as it puttered away. She stomped her foot and cursed, her chest heaving.
‘Xiaohong! Xiaohong!’ The female voice calling her name was coming from the end of a long shadow. Xiaohong spied a fluffy head of hair like a spruced-up bird’s nest, great bobbing silver earrings and scarlet lips spread in a wide smile.
‘Yang Chunhua!’ she shouted. Chunhua, the girl who had shared a desk with Xiaohong at school, stood before her, dressed like a whore without being the least bit sexy.
‘What you been doing?’ Chunhua asked, eyes aimed straight at Xiaohong’s chest.
‘Just working at the county guesthouse.’
‘Making good money?’
‘One-fifty.’
‘Working for peanuts! You ought to find a job at my friend’s company.’ With that, Chunhua clucked her tongue and led Xiaohong off by the hand.
They walked a short distance to an area with lots of restaurants and entertainment – not exactly prosperous, but lively enough. The narrow uneven streets were lined by posters bearing patriotic slogans, dust-covered leaves dangled from branch ends, and betel nuts were being chomped between the teeth of passersby. Everywhere you looked life bubbled, like a pot of water at full boil. As the girls made their way along the streets, Chunhua clung tightly to Xiaohong’s hand as if afraid she’d fly away.
Walking through a wide shuttered gate and past a row of counters to reach the office, the girls saw several men chatting on a black sofa, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. A girl at a desk pecked away at the keys of a calculator. Chunhua called, ‘Hi boss. This is my old classmate. Whaddya think?’ Xiaohong was startled by the falsetto of Chunhua’s voice.
The boss, a man named Mr Tan, stood up. He was forty-ish, balding, not too tall, and a little too broad. Sweeping his eyes over Xiaohong’s most prominent features, he smiled and waved to her with the hand holding his cigarette.
‘What’s your name?’ he asked.
‘Oh, she’s Qian, as in the character for money; Xiao, as in small; Hong, as in red,’ Chunhua replied for her, moving to sit next to a young man who quickly wrapped an arm around her waist. Xiaohong offered Mr Tan a bright smile.
‘Good. You can start tomorrow.’ He didn’t waste any time on the formalities.
That evening, Mr Tan got a private room at the Springtime Restaurant and hosted a business dinner. Guests of honour were the Red Flag Chemical Plant manager, Mr Liu, a department store manager, Mr Zhang, and the import-export company representative, Mr Li. Xiaohong toasted them all on behalf of Mr Tan. Mr Liu, face as flushed as a suckling pig served at a New Year’s feast, kept his eyes glued to the curve of Xiaohong’s bust, much to her irritation. Xiaohong, not schooled in the art of refusing a drink, swallowed glass after glass without spilling a drop. She had never drunk alcohol before and she soon began to feel light-headed, as if she had been sitting in a classroom on a hot summer afternoon with the chirp of cicadas lulling her into a state of numbness. She felt drowsy. The men, all with bloodshot eyes by now, each took it in turn to toast Mr Tan. Xiaohong, knowing the dinner was far from over, made her way to the washroom, first clearing her bowels, then vomiting, before heading back to the table to start all over again. Cup after cup they drank, moving from 120-proof white spirit to sorghum spirit, from sorghum spirit to red wine, and from red wine to draft beer. She felt like her stomach was a gutter. When the guests were at their jolliest, Xiaohong accepted one final grand toast in honour of Mr Tan. Chunhua sat looking on the whole while in astonishment.
The next day Mr Tan, bald head even shinier, said, ‘After grinding away for so long, we’ve finally broken through. And the money is going to be good! Red Flag is a big enterprise, and getting in with them is no small matter. We oughta be able to make do for a year or so now. Come here. There’s something I want to show you.’
When he opened the warehouse, Xiaohong saw a heap of scrap metal.
‘Valves. The copper in each one is worth hundreds of yuan,’ Mr Tan said.
It was as if Mr Tan had brought her into a treasure trove, making her feel in equal measures flattered and overwhelmed. She hardly knew what to do with herself. What contribution had she made to the company that Mr Tan should hold her in such high regard?
‘Drinking always brings out a person’s true character. I can tell you’re a straight, trustworthy girl. And I’m always a good judge of people,’ Mr Tan said, as if he’d read her mind.
After a moment, he added, ‘Tomorrow, I want you to start sleeping in the warehouse. There’s a small room there with a bed, blanket and television.’
‘You’re the boss!’ It was the first time Xiaohong had ever sucked up to anyone.
‘You catch on fast,’ he said, pleased.
Within a few days, Xiaohong had figured out that Chunhua was virtually a concubine. Her lover was Mr Tan’s counterpart, also engaged in the scrap metal business. His name was Ma Xun, but everyone in his office called him ‘Boss’. In fact, Xiaohong noticed that everyone around here loved to be called ‘Boss’. Even if a man ran nothing more than a small betel nut stall, his customers would shout, ‘Hey, Boss!’ in greeting, much to his pleasure – and theirs, since it usually resulted in discounted betel nuts. Mr Tan told her that he and Mr Ma were bound as tightly as brothers. Chunhua had originally worked for him, and had made a good impression at business dinners, but when Mr Ma wanted to pry her from his grasp, Mr Tan had given her up with an open-handed generosity. ‘Wasn’t it better like that?’, he asked through yellowy smoke-stained teeth.
Just after she received her first month’s salary of 400 yuan, she was invited over to Chunhua’s for a round of mah-jong. The two girls planned to relax together and renew their old friendship. They only played for small stakes, not more than a couple of mao a game. Luck was with Xiaohong and she picked up twenty or thirty yuan during the course of the evening. Mr Ma sat across from Chunhua, and chatted to Xiaohong about her work. He was as content losing a hand as winning. Xiaohong spoke candidly of her gratitude to Chunhua, saying she had earned 400 yuan this first month. Mr Ma nodded and said, ‘Not bad. Keep it up.’
Chunhua glanced at Mr Ma and he winked at her. Xiaohong noticed and wondered what they were up to. Figuring that the pair didn’t want to talk about it in front of others, she pretended she hadn’t noticed. After a moment, she felt something tap against her under the table.
‘Something on your mind, Chunhua?’ she finally asked, unable to stand it anymore.
Chunhua, with a conspiratorial smile, said, ‘There’s a simple way we can make a lot of money, but I don’t know if you’re up for it.’
‘What would I have to do?’
‘You’ve got a key to Mr Tan’s warehouse, right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, you know how much the stuff in there is worth?’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘Mr Tan’s got a great big inventory and he wouldn’t notice if it was down by just a little each month. I know where you can get a lot of money for that scrap on the streets. You bring it to us and we’ll help you sell it. We’ll split the money sixty-forty, or seventy-thirty, or whatever. After a few months, we leave town. Whaddya think?’
Lost for words, Xiaohong thought to herself, So that’s how ‘tightly bound’ Mr Ma is to Mr Tan, huh? Aloud, she only said in a sedate tone, ‘Let me think it over.’
Actually, she had already considered the possibility before, going so far as to attempt to smuggle out a few metal pipes worth 500 yuan or so. Having walked a short distance with them hidden under her blouse, she felt the metal suddenly get very hot. The streets had been empty that night, willow branches swaying along the side of the road, their rhythm driving her own heartbeat to an even higher tempo. She felt like a thief.
Xiaohong, are you so greedy for a few extra yuan? she berated herself, her curses stirring her to such an extent that she
felt she was hovering above the street. Thus, she had turned around and walked back to the warehouse, putting everything back where it belonged.
She didn’t discuss the plan further with Chunhua. She felt caught between two loyalties. On the one hand, she had a boss who trusted her, and on the other she had a friend who had served as her benefactor. If she didn’t go along with the plan, Chunhua would suspect she had told on them. But if she did go along with it, not only would she be letting Mr Tan down, but if things didn’t go right, they could get caught. It seemed Chunhua thought of her as a mouse and had purposely released her into Mr Tan’s granary. But, Xiaohong thought, While I might have stolen glances and a few hearts, I never stole anything for money! Moved by her own decency, she thought, I’m actually kind of virtuous.
Later that night, Xiaohong lay on her bed in the guard room, staring all night at the glimmer of the white walls. She finally came to a lamentable resolution: she would resign. She remembered seeing a restaurant near the bus stop that was hiring and thought it worth having a look.
The next day, she went to Mr Tan and told him of her decision. He sat, as always, with a cigarette clasped between his fingers.
‘Xiaohong,’ he said, ‘if you’re unhappy with something, feel free to tell me. Don’t leave in a temper.’
Waving her hands, she quickly said, ‘No, no, it’s nothing like that. You’ve been very good to me, Boss. The work is good. How could I be unhappy with anything?’ She was embarrassed and a little breathless. One of the buttons popped off the front of her blouse and dropped to the floor, rolling under Mr Tan’s desk. Her blouse was obviously too tight, or her breasts too unwilling to be bound by the conventions of the world around her. Xiaohong didn’t even notice.
As she turned to leave, Mr Tan tried another tactic, hoping to change her mind. ‘I’ll give you another 300 yuan.’
Xiaohong wasn’t interested. ‘Why would you offer me money?’
‘Consider it a bonus,’ he replied.
‘I don’t want it. I didn’t do anything to deserve it.’
‘What is it you want, then? Do you think the 300 yuan will be some sort of black mark against you? Or that refusing it will make you noble?’
‘I just don’t deserve it. Mr Tan, don’t you ever worry about back-stabbers?’
‘Sure. It’s a big jungle, so it’s no surprise if you meet all sorts of beasts.’ Mr Tan didn’t even bother to try to hide his own experience in this area.
‘You’ve been around a lot longer than I have. I’m sure you know much more than I do about the way such betrayals go.’ Xiaohong was trying her best to at least drop him a hint.
‘You don’t need to worry about me. Trust me, Xiaohong,’ he said, beginning to chuckle, ‘I know all about it.’
‘You know? What the hell do you mean you know?’
‘Let me tell you something, Xiaohong. That whole scheme with Chunhua was all my idea. Let me formally apologise to you. I have no reservations about your loyalty now.’
So that’s how it was. As the offense of it began to sink in, Xiaohong said evenly, ‘But Mr Tan, the problem is, I don’t trust you anymore. Best of luck to you.’
IV
‘You’re hiring, right?’
Xiaohong had stormed out of Mr Tan’s place and hoofed her way over to the Contentment House Diner. The manager, a woman in her thirties, glanced up, displaying a face plastered with makeup – liner-blackened eyes, mascara-curled lashes, lips painted pig-blood red – and earrings dangling almost to her shoulders with hoops as big as the hand-grips on a bus. Xiaohong felt that all it would take was a smile on that face and the whole façade would crumble, tumbling to the ground in a dusty heap.
The manager inspected Xiaohong, eyes running a couple of times up and down her length. She smiled faintly as her gaze came to rest on the girl’s breasts and asked, ‘Why don’t ya come and tell me about your experience?’
‘What experience?’ The testy tone of the question caught Xiaohong off guard.
‘I mean your work background, of course. You didn’t think I was asking about experience in the bedroom, did ya?’ The woman reached over and turned up the radio by her side.
Xiaohong knew all about what went on in bed, and even knew that the correct terminology for it was ‘lovemaking’. She didn’t get what the hell all that had to do with her getting a job. Obviously, this woman was just toying with her.
Just then an unkempt man emerged from a back room, mumbling, ‘You an applicant?’
‘Yeah,’ she answered huffily, ‘and I got plenty of experience at work, and in the bedroom, too!’
‘Girl, you’ve got spirit,’ he said, a little stunned. ‘How old’re you?’
‘Who cares?’ the manager butted in, with a pronounced roll of the eyes. ‘I say she’s not cut out for work here.’
‘I’m sixteen, and I’ve got plenty of fucking experience,’ Xiaohong retorted. She could tell the older woman felt threatened by her. Young as she was, she’d learned a thing or two about the female psyche, and she could see clearly enough how other women felt about her.
‘Sixteen, hm? Well, you’re no child, are ya? You done restaurant work before?’ He was obviously attracted to her.
‘Shut up and get out!’ The manager put on a stern face and started shooing the man out, as if he were a stray chicken that had wandered in from out the back.
Xiaohong was puzzled by the man’s comment. Things that attracted men didn’t seem to go down so well with women, she thought. Male tastes were forever at odds with what women liked.
The man slouched, his trousers slithering lower over his scrawny backside as he turned to shuffle out from under the manager’s on-slaught. Lost in thought, Xiaohong nearly gave herself a black eye when she ran into the diner’s glass door as she made her own way out.
Back on the sunlit streets, with every step, her foot landed right on the head of her shadow, shortened in the midday glare. Dazed, she nearly stepped into the gutter, barely managing to avoid a lump of rotten watermelon. Its mushy red pulp was spotted with a smattering of black flies that she at first mistook for its seeds. They buzzed about, scattering away from the squishy mound as she stepped over it, only to fly in a circle before settling back down to their putrid meal once again. She averted her eyes, looking up into branches too withered to offer any relief from the heat. Her stomach churned. I’m so bloody thirsty, she thought.
She dug out a coin and bought a banana-flavoured ice lolly. Sucking on it, she began to take note of the posters plastered on the wall beside her, promising miracle cures for sexually transmitted diseases, prostate problems, syphilis symptoms and the like. Nothing that seemed to indicate a demand for her services.
‘Hey!’ Was that someone calling her, or was she hallucinating in the heat?
‘Hey!’ he called again, this time beckoning her to come over. The man with not enough backside to hold up his trousers had followed her, now slouching so much that he almost looked like a hunchback.
‘Why don’t ya see if my friend has work at his place?’ he said, in a suggestive tone that let her know what he hoped the night had in store.
Xiaohong took one more merciless drag on the ice lolly, leaving only a tiny sliver of ice, which she withdrew just long enough to say, ‘Lead the way.’
She continued to relish the remnants of the ice lolly in the way she’d done since childhood, sometimes sucking on it vigorously, sometimes slowly licking its length. The man looked straight ahead, his Adam’s apple bobbing frantically up and down.
‘You thirsty?’ she asked. ‘I’ll get you an ice lolly.’
‘No thanks. Let’s just get to my friend’s place and I’ll get some tea,’ he said. ‘And, uh, when we get there, just say you’re my niece, alright?’
She stole a glance at him, nibbled at the wooden lolly stick and gave a sly giggle.
‘Look. We’re here.’ He pointed. ‘The City Hair Salon.’
She was taken aback. She’d expected to see a restaurant. The en
trance was pretty large and there were shadows of people moving about behind the shop’s frosted glass face. Red letters on the door proclaimed:
Help Wanted — Shampoo Girl — 16–20 yrs old — No experience necessary
‘Let me see your hands.’
Xiaohong obediently spread out her fingers.
‘Very sensual. Clip your nails,’ the boss said upon examining her hands. ‘You’ll need a day of training.’
He was a twenty-something, long-haired androgynous sort: from the front he looked neither male nor female, from the back he could pass for either. Xiaohong secretly wondered what lay behind that image.
Including herself, there were four shampoo girls and a man to train them. Xiaohong began the third stage of her career with a sense of pride. Within an hour, the girls had all warmed to each other. Within a fortnight, the male customers had all warmed to Xiaohong, each dragging out his visit, waiting his turn until she was free.
She was a natural shampoo girl. A customer would settle into her chair, keeping his head at just the right angle, aligned perfectly against her ample bosom. He would sit, scalp covered in bubbles, chatting to her. After a rinse would come a fifteen-minute massage, throughout which he would lean back, cushioning his head upon her chest. Seeing the customers comfortable pleased the boss, who would quietly reward Xiaohong, reaffirming her sense of self-worth and confidence in her ability.
Xiaohong got along especially well with her bunkmate Li Sijiang, a simple, honest girl. She was as pure and beautiful as a mountain spring, with an unspoiled sweetness. Sijiang was a year younger than Xiaohong and had a face as fresh as apple pie.
One night, Sijiang said, ‘You don’t have to sell yourself like some porn queen.’
‘Oh, come on! It’s not like I sleep with people for money.’ Xiaohong smiled, ‘You still a virgin?’
Sijiang didn’t respond. Xiaohong got out of bed, turned off the light, and climbed into the younger girl’s bunk.