Northern Girls: Life Goes On

by Sheng Keyi

  ‘I’d rather not say. But I can tell you, I was not at the Qianshan Hotel.’

  ‘If you don’t tell us, we’ll have to take you back to the police station for a more careful interrogation.’

  ‘I… I went with my friend to his villa.’

  ‘Who is your friend?’

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You have to say, and you’d better tell the truth. It’s for your own good.’

  ‘Jimmy Chan.’

  ‘Oh, him. What were you doing with a gangster?’

  ‘Ah Sir, this doesn’t seem to be relevant to the case,’ Liao interjected.

  ‘Are there signs for recognising gangsters? I couldn’t tell.’

  ‘What were the two of you doing?

  ‘I’d rather not say.’

  ‘You have to tell me and I want every detail. I only want to hear the truth so that we can establish your credibility.’

  ‘Well, OK then. Listen carefully. As soon as we went into the house, he kissed me frantically. His mouth tasted of alcohol because he’d been at Pan An’s wedding and had several glasses of strong spirit there. We kissed for about twenty minutes, then he told me to shower. He’s very handsome and, y’know, I was reluctant to part from him, so we kissed for another five minutes before I went into the bathroom. I stood in front of the mirror while taking my clothes off because, y’know, I like to see my own body. He has this mirror running along one whole wall in the bathroom and I stood looking at my reflection and vainly admired myself for quite a while, but I don’t remember exactly how long. Maybe seven or eight minutes. I discovered that my breasts had shrunk a little, probably because it had been a while since they’d been touched by a man. I sat there feeling sad for about a minute then turned on the water heater. The water was really hot. I asked him to come in and help me adjust the water temperature… Do you want me to continue the story like this?’

  No one spoke.

  ‘Am I supposed to go on like this?’ she asked again.

  The men were all lost in their own reveries. Though there were no outward signs of change, doubtless they were each engaged in fantasies of Xiaohong’s naked form standing before the long mirror.

  ‘Yes, carry on,’ Officer Bao said hoarsely.

  ‘Have you recorded it all?’ Xiaohong asked the secretary. She was determined to make these good-for-nothings suffer a little longer. She smiled at Liao, as if he were an undercover operative working for her. He gave her a light-hearted, longing look.

  ‘He came in and helped me adjust the water temperature, then pecked at me all over my body. He was very rough, as if he wanted to crumble me into little pieces. When the bathtub was full, he put me on the floor of the tub and climbed in. The water overflowed badly. He did not enter me right away, but spent some time kissing my breasts. It was even longer than he’d spent kissing my mouth, probably fifteen minutes or so. My chest practically went numb from all the nibbling he did. Afterwards, he applied bathing foam to my body, his fingers rubbing every inch of me. I asked him to do it in the bathtub, but he said he liked the bed, preferring the feel of being under the covers. After about forty minutes, he wrapped me in a towel and threw me onto the bed, thrusting himself against me over and over. He was in no hurry to enter me. He lay there half naked and lit a cigarette, with me rubbing and playing with him the whole time. He likes this sort of prolonged foreplay. We’re alike in that way. About thirty minutes later, he and I really became one. It took about twenty minutes and then we were done. Or, to be more accurate, he was done. I still had a way to go. After we’d rested for fifteen minutes, we went at it vigorously one more time. This time, we did it for a long time and he really took me to the top. We rested for another half hour or so then he drove me home. He said he never spends the night with a woman. The rest, you already know. Now are you clear on everything I did? You can go and find Jimmy Chan, if you need a witness. I don’t have his phone number.’

  The secretary turned to Officer Bao. ‘Ah Sir, I’ve calculated. There are twenty extra minutes.’

  ‘Well, that’s basically what happened. Maybe we didn’t make love for quite as long as I thought. This is just an estimate, so there’s bound to be a little difference here or there,’ Xiaohong said, imitating the officers’ tone.

  Officer Bao exhaled heavily and asked, ‘When was the last time you saw Zhang Weimei?’

  ‘Last night at midnight.’

  ‘Before that, what did you two talk about?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten. Yesterday, there was a big wedding banquet. I think we talked about marriage and things like that.’

  ‘Uh-huh. If you hear any news of her, contact us immediately. This is the phone number of the police station. You can go. Thank you for your assistance,’ Officer Bao said, offering Xiaohong a business card. He started to stand up but then, thinking better of it, handed the card to Liao to pass to her.

  And so the interview ended. It was nothing more than a group of guys passing the time playing soldiers. When she got to the dorm, Xiaohong walked around Weimei’s bed. Underneath it was only a pair of broken slippers. The poster had disappeared. As for the twenty thousand, without conclusive evidence, no one could really be certain what had happened. Weimei was nothing more than a suspect. If she really had done it, Xiaohong could only admire her. If she could use the twenty thousand to get married and get her green card, Xiaohong wished her all the best. If the money really had belonged to one of Pan An’s Hong Kong connections, how could she have any sympathy for him? If it could be used to set up a home for one little family, giving a couple happiness and stability, it could be considered an anonymous donation to help others, an accumulation of good karma. Those staying at the Qianshan Hotel had too much money entirely, so much so that they were willing to stand there burning it right before your eyes.

  Breakfast was plain porridge with a custard-filled bun. Ah Xing had ordered on Xiaohong’s behalf.

  ‘Thanks, Ah Xing. I’m starving. Hey, do you know when Weimei left?’ Xiaohong lifted the bun and bit half of it off, her cheek bulging.

  ‘I guess I was sound asleep. I don’t know if she came back at all. She stays over at her boyfriend’s pretty often.’ Ah Xing took a small sip of her porridge. ‘Hey, you little floozy, who were you with last night?’

  ‘Ah Xing, what do you think? Did she do it?’ Xiaohong asked, avoiding the sensitive topic.

  ‘If not her, then who? She’s run off now. That’s as good as admitting guilt. If she comes back, it’s a sure thing the triad thugs will take care of her. Messing with Pan An’s associates is suicide! You know, at first, I thought it was you, since you hadn’t come back in the middle of the night. I guess now everyone in the hotel knows you spent the night with Jimmy Chan. Well, Xiaohong, from now on, nobody will dare to bother you. Jimmy Chan is a known commodity around here.’

  XII

  After her convalescence, Li Sijiang looked no different from her earlier self. There was no trace of what she had been through on her bearing. Experienced women need only look at a girl’s hips to know whether or not she’s been around. What their eyes cannot see is the after-effects of an abortion. So, after a week, Sijiang was once again, in effect, simply a young girl in the pink of health. Of course, the chicken soup and hearty meals Xiaohong bought her each day were not unrelated to her quick recovery. Xiaohong took care of these expenses from her own pocket, the five hundred from Bud having long since been exhausted to settle the hospital fees. Sijiang had a little money but she was not at all willing to spend it on herself, thanks to the thrifty nature she had inherited from her upbringing on the farm. Xiaohong believed that money was there to be used for times of real need and so spending it should not be considered a waste – as if one’s self were some worthless thing.

  Xiaohong suggested Sijiang leave the factory and work in the hotel, since conditions of the staff quarters there were good. Sijiang was hesitant, still secretly holding out hope that Bud might reappear. Whenever she saw Sijiang like this, Xiaohong coul
d hardly breathe and her blood would begin to boil. ‘Sijiang, you can give up thinking that Bud will show up. You need to get a grip and forget all about him. After what you’ve been through, you can see how insincere he is. Just think of him as a pile of crap. You’ve passed him through your system and now you’ve got to wipe yourself clean, pull up your trousers, do up your belt and get on with your life. Move on.’

  So, Sijiang, tears streaming down her face, began to pack up her few miserable belongings – some wrinkled, worn clothes, a pair of old-fashioned, dusty shoes, a toothbrush and towel, a washbasin and a cup. She crammed it all into the rough grey canvas bag she had brought with her when they first came to Shenzhen.

  She was in bad shape when she finally left the flat, joining forces with Xiaohong at the Qianshan Hotel.

  XIII

  On the eve of the Spring Festival, Sijiang put on the hotel uniform and began shuffling plates in the café.

  The receptionist at the Western-style café was a pretty girl with plaited hair. Her black plaits were long, inspiring envy in many a girl. The plaits hanging down the length of her tall back gave one the impression she was hopelessly conservative. There was a young fellow from the north called Li Xuewen who worked at the Qianshan Town Cinema, and he was the only one who could put a happy, albeit shy, smile on Plait’s face. She would become very flexible when he was around, turning back at the most confusing angles to exchange glances with him. Li Xuewen would come to sit at the café several times a week, either with friends or alone, but always when Plaits was on duty.

  We must take a moment for a description of Li Xuewen, since he will soon become entangled in the complex affairs of the women in this tale. Actually, Wu Ying, Ah Xing and the other staff at the Qianshan Hotel knew him quite well. Other than the fact that none of them had seen him naked, he really had nothing else that he could call secret. He was 1.8 metres tall. Hailing from Changchun, he was a graduate of the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts. The 28-year-old was a Cancer, he wore glasses and had no distinguishing marks. There was nothing particularly striking or surprising about him. He was quite handsome. When he walked, he was not a very impressive figure, his feet shuffling along as if to polish the floorboards. He looked a bit like an old professor, or a man who’d dropped something and was looking for it on the ground. All the same, he seemed like a solid figure – the kind to give one a sense of security.

  It was said that Li Xuewen set up a number of IPOs for the Qianshan area, helping local leaders and distinguished dignitaries get in while it was hot. This alone set him apart from the average worker so, in relative terms, Li Xuewen was in a much more advantageous situation. He was a piece of pie worth having. And while this piece of pie might walk with his head bent looking at the ground, he never missed an opportunity to pursue beauty when he saw it in the girls around him.

  Wu Ying had been with the hotel longer than anyone and she knew all about the competitiveness that had existed between the two beauties, Ah Xing and Plaits, from the beginning. Before the two girls had met, each went about with head held high. On meeting, they came together like two aggressive cobras, each seeing herself reflected in the other. If either felt her territory invaded, she was sure to lash out at the other. Then Li Xuewen dropped between them. And so his relationship with Plaits developed at a snail’s pace – largely due to Ah Xing.

  The strange thing was that Plaits and Sijiang hit it off right away, getting on very well. Perhaps beautiful girls liked having someone like Sijiang around – a leaf to act as background to their flower’s bloom. Sijiang actually played the role of leaf quite happily. But her loyalty was pledged to Xiaohong and she always fully reported any news connected to Plaits to her. Xiaohong was on good terms with Ah Xing and would naturally pass the reports on to her. So, when Plaits got squeezed, Sijiang was an unwitting accomplice.

  Ah Xing had a soft, gentle look. Though her viciousness never showed on the surface, her actions proved that a schemer lay beneath this veneer of innocence. She was bold and confident. Although Li Xuewen would hold her hand whenever they saw a movie together, sometimes kissing her ear, nothing ever really came of it. Ah Xing was defensive, attributing it to shyness. She was just waiting for him to make his next move. But it was obvious that the attacks Plaits had launched against Ah Xing were a major factor influencing Li Xuewen. Xiaohong felt it was a fair fight, each having an equal shot at happiness. After all, everyone has a right to love and be loved. She encouraged Ah Xing to take the initiative saying that if Plaits and Li Xuewen went to bed together, it would complicate things.

  Under Xiaohong’s instructions, Sijiang would pay careful attention when Li Xuewen was in the café, taking note of every word and every look that passed between him and Plaits. The girl’s plaits seemed to grow darker and shinier every day. One day, Sijiang noticed that their expressions were strange. They seemed distracted, as if they were deliberately avoiding one another, exchanging only furtive glances. But their eyes were continually drawn back to each other.

  ‘Reminds me of that sweet potato dish they eat in the northeast. They say it is so sweet and sticky that it never leaves you. It’s too sticky to break off and, even though it’s sweet, you never get sick of it.’ The description brought the image to Ah Xing’s mind, and she took it like a punch in the stomach.

  Ah Xing came up with a perfect plan, keeping even Wu Ying and Xiaohong in the dark. She made a sudden announcement that it was her twentieth birthday. She invited Wu Ying, Xiaohong and Sijiang to a small restaurant, where she booked a private room. Of course, she also invited Li Xuewen to join them. Being the only man at the party, he was the star. They sang karaoke before and after dinner, and Ah Xing had had a little too much to drink by then. Tipsy, she suddenly started to cry – the first time she’d ever shed a tear in front of the others. Everyone, including Li Xuewen, was stunned. She was obviously sad about something. ‘Time…’ she said. ‘Three years have passed in the blink of an eye since I finished secondary school. These three years have just been frittered away. If it’s not family trouble, then it’s money trouble. If it wasn’t for all that, I’d be graduating from university now. And my work, my life, my love life… it would all be so different. Why am I fated to be like this? Why?’

  Ah Xing gave her little speech without pretension. Although she had set out to put on a show for Li Xuewen, actually it had turned into an exposure of her true self.

  Sijiang’s narrow eyes had turned red. She said, ‘Ah Xing, everyone has their ups and downs. I’m worse off than you. I didn’t even go to secondary school. On top of that, you’re gorgeous! It’s only now that I realise that those of us without an education are just here to be trampled on by everyone else.’

  ‘Well, Sijiang, maybe that’s not the way to look at it,’ Xiaohong said. ‘Whether other people trample on you or not has got nothing to do with how educated you are.’ Xiaohong was also a little tipsy by now and the presence of a man in the room caused her to take on a sexy, sultry tone. She didn’t mean to burst Sijiang’s bubble in this way, but she objected to the place she found assigned to her in that line of thinking.

  Ah Xing’s mood seemed to inspire some sympathy in Li Xuewen, like an almond blossom brings rain. He showed himself to be a gentleman, quietly settling the bill when no one was paying attention. It was impossible to tell whether it was his heart or his body that was stirred but all the same, he took Ah Xing’s arm and said, ‘That’s enough for tonight.’

  It was likewise impossible to tell whether Li Xuewen took it upon himself to take Ah Xing back to his dorm, or whether she pushed her way in, but either way, they went to bed together. Afterwards, Ah Xing said without shame that in Li Xuewen’s room, she’d got the best birthday present ever. Her first love, first kiss and first time with a man had all come into her life together on that night. Once he takes a girl’s virginity, a man with even just a little conscience is tied down. In order to give Ah Xing some confidence, Li Xuewen had plunged into the whirlpool of her life. He would not find it easy to d
rift away now.

  According to Sijiang’s reliable reports, Plaits had passed the daylight hours in an uneasy state over the past several days, constantly driven to distraction until her eyes glazed over. At night, as she slept on the lower bunk, Sijiang felt the bed trembling all night long. In the morning, there was always a stack of used tissue beside the bed. Plaits cried silently night after night. Sijiang felt guilty, as if she’d been an accomplice to a crime and felt miserable for days for what she had done to Plaits.

  ‘Sijiang, you know what Li Xuewen said?’ asked Plaits. ‘He said she was a virgin, so he should behave responsibly towards her. But who’s being responsible towards me? Surely it doesn’t mean our love should be sacrificed on the altar of her hymen!’

  ‘You two were in love?’ Surprised, Sijiang could not quite believe that Plaits and Li Xuewen had been together countless times.

  ‘In love? You need to ask? You think I’d go to bed with a guy I didn’t love? I rejected a rich guy’s advances, choosing instead to be with him, even though he’s like a pauper. Sijiang, I need to get out of here.’ A cold look settled into the girl’s eyes. Sijiang felt a sudden surge of sympathy for Plaits and a sort of natural contempt for Li Xuewen.

  ‘Don’t leave. Get him back. You’re prettier than Ah Xing and you two were already together before she came along.’ Sijiang was unwilling to lose Plaits, who was her only friend besides Xiaohong. She had to find a way to help the girl.

  Plaits shook her head determinedly. ‘No way. Even if he comes back to me, I couldn’t forgive him. I want to completely disappear from his world. When he thinks of me, I want him to be unable to find a trace of me.’

  Plaits really did leave, and she left with tragic flair. After she had gone, her fragrance lingered in the bedroom for several days. Sijiang stood in front of the empty bed, dazed. Plaits left her pager number for Sijiang but when she tried to call it three days later, it had been disconnected.