by Keyi Sheng
From the beginning, Shui Qin had possessed an entrepreneurial style. Now she had even more confidence. She said that if they were satisfied with this year’s cooperation, the whole school would have its uniforms done by her next year, including their design. Good things were waiting to happen. When she spoke of the principal, Ms Wu, the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes were full of good will and her descriptions of that 50-odd-year-old woman made her seem like Kuanyin, the Goddess of Mercy.
Ms Wu had been through a lot of hardships, and she had seen her dreams shattered. When she was sent to work in the countryside, she almost died, thinking she would stay there forever. But, she went back to the city and sat the college entrance exam, taking it twice before she finally passed. Her life had been complicated, so she could understand Shui Qin. In short, Shui Qin felt she had met her fairy godmother. She set aside all the money she made so she could send Xianxian overseas for university. Her immediate plan was to buy a house, and to buy a resident’s permit for the city. She wanted to change her identity as quickly as possible, to no longer be the sort of country girl people always discriminated against.
Faced with Shui Qin’s grand ideas, a pointy, shy smile appeared on my brother’s face, and he just listened. After he was released from prison, he stopped fantasising about the future. It was like he was standing on a cliff and did not have the courage to look down as his legs quivered. Shui Qin was demonstrative. Other people’s reactions did not matter. She would continue to spread out the scroll of her life, presenting each wonderful inch in its turn. But even when my brother had seen the whole painting, he did not utter a word in praise of it. He just continued to sit there with that shy, sharp smile on his face. It could be taken as a smile of encouragement, tolerance, trust, support, or just about anything. Shui Qin could understand this well enough, so she did not ask for his views. Instead, she just rolled her scroll up again and tied the string securely around it, storing the secret away in the drawers. She suddenly thought of something important. When my brother was well, she wanted him to take the test to get a driver’s license in case it was needed. Everything was planned, so they would not be caught in a rush.
My brother nodded, as if this sort of arrangement could not be more properly made.
When my brother had spent half a month more recuperating at home, Shui Qin gave someone a message, asking him to go quickly into the city. She was working herself to death, and Xianxian often had to go with her when she was out, eating fast food, which didn’t agree with her stomach. My brother took a bag and started packing to go into the city. My grandfather shouted at him, stuffing prescriptions of Chinese medicine for improving blood levels and kidney health into his hands, saying they had been handed down since the days of Emperor Qianlong. Shunqiu was the only person who would talk to my grandfather, so my grandfather took him as a confidant. Since he had had Shunqiu as an ally, he had dared tweak his nose in front of my father. My father’s interest in bickering with him had waned. He was now ageing and growing lonely, like my grandfather, and was likewise starting to look like him.
Shunqiu threw the prescriptions away while he was on the road. He did not want to continue doing anything that would cost money.
Because it was on the way, he went to wait for Xianxian so they could go home together. Shunqiu stood against a phone booth, looking at the entrance to the school from time to time. He was afraid the place he stood was too conspicuous, so he retreated to a spot behind the phone booth. The students exited the building and dispersed in many directions. Xianxian was walking his way with several of her classmates. She did not look happy, as if she were quarrelling with someone.
‘If you were capable, you could get the top score in the exam too!’ Xianxian said.
‘What’s the big deal about a top score? Top score or not, you’re still a village girl,’ one girl said in an obstinate tone.
Another girl chimed in, ‘Yeah, and not only a village girl, but a village girl whose father is a reformed prisoner!’
Xianxian froze, then suddenly rushed at the girl who had chimed in. Unprepared, that girl fell to the ground the moment Xianxian pushed her. Xianxian did not give up, but pressed her knee against the girl and started swinging her school bag at the fallen figure. The girl on the ground covered her head with her arms and cried.
My brother hid there, not moving. He watched Xianxian walk quite a distance away, then followed slowly.
Later, he went to the tailor shop. He could hear nothing but the machine-gun-fast sewing machines. Chuntian sat on the first row. When she looked up and saw Shunqiu, she got up to speak with him, reminding him to take good care of himself. My brother smiled sharply, asked after Zhima, then added, ‘The education in the village is no good. I hope Yicao will study hard and do well enough on her exams to get into a junior college in the city.’
Chuntian said, ‘I don’t know if she’ll do well enough or not. Every person’s fate will come about naturally.’
Shunqiu said, ‘Is Yihua still working in the fishing net factory?’
‘She’s gone to Guangzhou,’ my sister said. ‘I guess she went to look up her aunt. She’s clever and mischievous. There is no place in heaven or hell that girl doesn’t dare go.’
My brother nodded his approval. ‘She’s brave. She’s not afraid of anything. Yicao is also very sensible, but she should still study hard.’
Shunqiu said this as he was turning to walk away. He spoke softly, as if talking to himself, and his voice was lost in the excitement of the sewing machines running at the same machine gun pace. Chuntian did not hear the last half of what he said, but assumed it was irrelevant. She smiled and sat down again, then went back to sewing.
Shui Qin rushed out when she saw my brother and asked, ‘What happened to Xianxian? She was crying when she got back. Did the other students bully her?’
Shunqiu said, ‘I went to her school, but didn’t pick her up. . . She’s very ambitious. . . Is she down because she didn’t do well on her exams?’
‘When has she ever done poorly on exams?’
Shunqiu nodded, agreeing. He had long ago quit smoking, but he wanted a cigarette now. He searched his pockets, as had long been his habit, patting his thighs. Then he remembered he had quit. He turned to look at Shui Qin, offering a pointy, embarrassed smile, and said, ‘I’ll go cook dinner.’
When my sister had been in the city for several months making clothes, her coarse skin turned into that of a city worker, with rosiness to her cheeks. Shui Qin cut her two sets of skirts and two blouses, one set navy blue and the other beige. My sister worked overtime so she could sew and iron them, then hung them up, but she could not bear to wear them. One day, Shui Qin finally forced her to try them on. She did it unwillingly, but when she stood in front of the mirror, she was surprised. She did not know that she, now nearly forty years old, could look like this. She filled out the skirts and blouses fully, and they fit her nicely at the waist. She was fascinated by this strange, Western-style woman in the mirror. She alternated between these two outfits for a while, then asked Shui Qin to cut her some more new styles, gradually discarding those she brought from the village. She permed her hair wavy. She put it up when she worked, but left it down otherwise. She complained of being too fat, so she dieted, starving herself until she dropped ten pounds. Her face and body were reduced by one size; only her chicken-arse-shaped mouth grew thicker. She started talking more like people from the city, reducing her volume and paying attention to the way her sentences tailed off. She even started talking logically, with ‘I feel . . . ’ entering as a part of her regular speech pattern. Her legs were no longer as sloppy when she walked, but clamped, her steps closer together, and very light-footed.
When my sister was young, she loved to dress up, but her bell bottoms had been cut to shreds. She had never recovered the love of beauty that my father had killed inside her. Later, she had had children and worked on the farm, treating herself as nothing more than livestock.
Zhima stopped by a
couple of times. The first time, he came to take money from her, saying someone was getting married, and he was invited to the wedding banquet. The next, he came to tell my sister to go home, saying Yicao had brought a boy from school home and slept with him in their house. Zhima had given her a good beating.
Chuntian said, ‘You’ve taught her, then, haven’t you? What do you want me to do, go back and give her another beating? Can’t you just leave me in peace and let me make a little money?’
The third time Zhima went into the city, he got a room in a small hotel and asked my sister to stay with him there. Chuntian suddenly felt great despair. She felt a great physical repulsion, not even wanting to undress. Finally, out of habit, she stripped herself naked, then lay spread out on the bed, waiting for Zhima to finish all that he had in mind, as she asked how things were at home.
Zhima said, ‘You’re thin, and your body has hardened. Your waist isn’t soft anymore.’ As he was doing her, he tried to persuade my sister to go home, saying he was bored at home alone. Without his woman at home, it was cold and he couldn’t sleep.
My sister said, ‘If I go back, it’s to the card table. I don’t want to live like that anymore.’
Zhima replied, ‘You’ve got a lot of new clothes. You’ve become fashionable.’
She said, ‘People who work in a salon cut their own hair. People who sew for a living make their own clothes. Isn’t it just a matter of convenience?’
As Zhima continued to work on my sister, he said, ‘Chuntian, you don’t have anyone else, do you?’
‘Who wants a sallow-faced woman like me?’ she said.
Zhima replied, ‘I think that pale-skinned chap is interested in you.’
She thought for a moment. That day, the lawyer, Sun Xiangxi, had come to have clothes made. While she was taking his measurements, he had told her a few jokes. She had laughed loudly. When she raised her head, she saw Zhima at the window staring.
Since Chuntian did not answer, Zhima stopped and asked, ‘Do you have a lover?’
Hearing this, she was annoyed. She pushed him away and sat up. ‘You motherfucker, what did you say? I haven’t worn such nice clothes in decades, and now that I wear it to please myself, why is it such a big deal?’
Zhima was like a bottle of wine, suddenly uncorked. With a bang, he stood up, naked and angry. He said, ‘Filth,’ and picked up the dress my sister had taken off to rip it, like it was the culprit.
An attack on my sister’s beloved dress was like an attack on her life. Her breasts jiggling, she flew across the room, snatched the clothes from him, and clasped them to her chest. She said, ‘Liu Zhima, you’ve bullied me for too many years. That’s it. I’m going to divorce you.’
Chuntian even scared herself with these words.
Zhima stared, eyes growing round. He was growing more convinced that my sister had someone else.
Chuntian got dressed to go back to the workers’ dorm. Zhima stopped her, his teeth flashing white against his dark face in the dim light of the room. He wanted her to tell him who it was. Face hard, my sister said, ‘There’s no one.’
Zhima could not hold back the ruffian side of himself. He said, ‘You still want to lie to me? You bitch!’ He pushed her down on the bed and blocked the door, shouting, ‘Tell me and I’ll let you go! This won’t end until you tell me!’
She said, ‘You can’t force me.’
Zhima let out a strange sound. Chuntian’s hair stood up and she lowered her voice. It came out solid and hard as she said, ‘Zhima, you motherfucker, I love myself. And it’s none of your business! You messed around outside plenty of times yourself, and even got extorted. You think I’m as filthy as you. I didn’t even say anything about it, and you turn around and make a fuss about me? What man could possibly be as lazy as you?’
Zhima suddenly felt he had been punctured. Waving his arms like a drowning man, he stammered, ‘What big mouth has been spreading rumours? Fuck him, and his mother too! I hope he dies . . . Chuntian, I know you don’t have anyone else. I just saw you dressed like that, and felt that the cheeky fellows’ eyes were on you, and I was uncomfortable. I’m your husband. I’m jealous. Do you understand that?’
My sister had always been more responsive to a soft approach. She grew calmer. She didn’t want to go back to the dorm in the middle of the night; she’d be a laughingstock. She undressed once more and went back to bed. Zhima put his arms around her contentedly and set about the business he had left unfinished.
The next morning, after the couple ate rice noodles, Zhima looked back three times for each step he walked before he finally left. He still hoped Chuntian would go back with him. He said everyone in the village was laughing at him, saying his woman had left him and he was guarding a vacant room. Zhima was easily stirred up by others, and once he was stirred up, he took a big gulp of mannish pride and set angrily about to settle scores. He had boasted, saying he would bring his woman home and teach her a lesson; instead, he had to back down.
Chuntian promised that, if Yicao did well enough on her exams the following month to get into a school in town, she would rent a flat there and they would open a fruit stall in the city. They could contract their field in the village to others. When Zhima returned home, he started to take Yicao firmly in hand, but it was Liu Yihua who motivated her to work hard.
Yihua wrote to her constantly, saying that it would not be easy to go out into the world if she did not study, because people would always look down on her. If she saw a chance for a good job, without a diploma, she would not even be given the opportunity to try. She could only rely on her looks working as a hostess. She even sent a stack of test questions to Yicao.
Yicao eventually did well enough to enter the Number Five Secondary School, which was located on the outskirts of Lanxi Town, not far from our home. My mother was thrilled, because she now had a new occupation – cooking for Yicao.
Zhima became a commander without a post. There was only an old cat left at home, so he went to look for my sister regularly, intending to bring her home. At first, he acted pitiful, hanging around outside the door. Later he tried arguing, getting more vigorous when there were spectators, making it difficult for the tailor shop to conduct business normally. In the end, he even found fault with Shui Qin, saying that his own woman had been perfectly content staying at home, but then Shui Qin just had to lure Chuntian out, destroying his family.
Being that they were relatives, Shui Qin did not pull a long face. Rather, she smiled and said, ‘Zhima, you need to understand something. Chuntian is a person. She’s not a belt you put on and take off as you please. She has her own ideas. You wait for her to get off work, then the two of you have a good talk. Isn’t it humiliating to stand on the street quarrelling?’
Confronted with this soft rebuke, Zhima was drained of offensive energy. He sat on the pavement across the street from the shop, looking like he would not give up unless Chuntian went back with him. But he did not hang around until the workday finished. It cost money to stay in a hotel. He would rush home and sleep in his own bed.
A week later, Zhima showed up again. He went to have a look in the tailor shop. A stranger was sitting in my sister’s place. He went in, but no one entertained him. Shui Qin was busy cutting fabric. The scissors were long and sharp. The glint of the scissors and the ka-cha, ka-cha rhythm as she cut the cloth made Zhima feel a little frightened.
‘Where’s Li Chuntian?’ His voice followed the scissors, coldly tearing the fabric apart.
Still, no one answered.
‘Shui Qin, where’s my wife?’ he asked politely.
‘Oh, Chuntian? She resigned a few days ago,’ Shui Qin replied.
‘Then where did she go? She didn’t come home!’
Zhima felt he had fallen into an icy cave.
‘I don’t know. She didn’t say,’ Shui Qin said, not even looking at him.
Dumbfounded, Zhima stood there for a few moments. Then, he turned and walked slowly along the pavement.
My
sister burrowed out from behind a pile of cloth. The women laughed, collapsing in a heap. When the hilarity finally died down, they went back to work. Chuntian resumed her old seat and continued making clothes. To her surprise, Zhima wheeled around and struck back, catching them red-handed. Because he had been the butt of a bunch of women’s joke, he was especially brazen. The fire held inside him exploded on Chuntian. He pulled her off the sewing machine, ordering her to go home with him immediately.
This time, those who had interfered earlier were too embarrassed to help, so they left the couple to tear each other apart on the street. The pair fought as they walked, finally fading into the distance until they could not be seen anymore.
The restaurant in the Bingsheng Hotel was old and famous in Guangzhou, and business was good. Reservations had to be made for a table one day in advance, and three days in advance for a private dining room. Those who had not made reservations had to queue up and wait. Yihua wore a red silk qipao embroidered with gold flowers. With her hair pulled to the back and the required light makeup, with black eyeshadow and red-painted lips, she had suddenly turned into a real beauty. She ushered the guests into the main hall or private rooms, serving drinks and melon seeds to those waiting in line, sometimes alleviating their anxieties.
Usually, Yihua was not particular about her clothing. This was the first time she was so neatly coordinated and dressed with such care. She felt very restricted. When you added the wobbly high heels she wore, which made her afraid she’d fall, she walked like an old woman with bound feet. But she learned quickly, and was soon able to move to a steady rhythm. She mastered a method to do so, pretending she was angry, standing with a straight back, puffed out chest, and lips protruding. If she could keep her hands and legs from awkward movements, it really made her look quite dignified. Occasionally some offensive man, seeing her flat breasts and buttocks and guessing that she was a virgin, would tease her. She was not intimidated, but just spoke her mind. When she was bored, she would look at the passing cars, recognising the BMWs, Mercedes, Land Rovers, Maseratis, and Cadillacs. She was most interested in the people who got out of those cars. She did not like domestic cars, nor was she interested in the people who got out of them.