by Keyi Sheng
The contractor changed his attitude. ‘You don’t fucking know how to appreciate kindness, choosing the hard way instead,’ he said, then kicked Zhima out.
When the workers came to Zhima for an update, he said the contractor was looking for a solution, but that if they did not get their money that day, then they would ransack the contractor’s place. His words just came out, and everyone immediately responded, wanting to beat the contractor to a pulp. It seemed Zhima really had become the leader of the group.
Just as things were getting riled up and everyone was determined to carry out their threat, two black cars pulled up and slammed on the brakes with a screech. In the cloud of dust kicked up by the vehicles, five or six young men got out. The hooligans had their hands behind their backs as they walked quickly towards Zhima and the group. In the blink of an eye, Zhima had been hit with a brick. His face was covered with blood. The workers recovered and started to pick up various objects with which to fight back. But in the end, they lost to the evil thugs, suffering injuries.
Badly wounded, Zhima had to be hospitalised. He had two broken ribs and needed ten stitches on his head.
It was only when I worked as a reporter that I came to know how chaotic society was, and only when I went to the hospital that I came to realise how many sick people there were. As soon as I took up the job, I was like a donkey at the grinding wheel, immersing myself totally in the insane, endless turning of the wheel. I had no time for a love life. There was a private joke among the staff, saying that the newspaper office treated women as if they were men, and treated men as if they were beasts. It was purely out of willingness on both sides, everyone acting according to a virtuous competitive mechanism. It was not complaining, but self-mockery. So our newspaper office obtained the lofty name of ‘the Whampoa Military Academy of the Newspaper World.’ University graduates sharpened their brains to squeeze in, got gold-plated, and when they went out, they were worth double what they were before. In fact, this was a place that could even straighten the hump out of a camel’s back, righting all wrongs. A journalist with healthy penmanship and good stamina could write to death and earn over 10 000 yuan. I did not relax under the high pressure, but instead sacrificed sensual pleasure and girlish crushes in order to fight my way toward becoming a famous journalist.
I put a spring on myself, and with nerves taut, I conducted interviews about the driver of a BMW that ran someone over, carcinogenic ageing grain flowing into the market, a girl from the music school quitting education to become a dance hostess, and even investigated a serial robber-cum-murderer and a university student who had stabbed his girlfriend thirty-eight times with a knife.
I was a bit addicted to such reports, and often kept my ears open to capture any unusual stirrings. I rushed to the scene like I had been given a blood transfusion, sometimes interviewing witnesses and onlookers. When they recounted what they saw, they were usually quite excitable, not the least bit shy, and I let their original passionate expressions play out to the fullest.
The first time I went to a crime scene, I saw the person who had been run over by the car’s wheels. The body had been turned to mincemeat, but the face was still intact. I ran away, retching, thinking Xiazhi must have looked like this when he died. At night I had a nightmare in which I was pursued by the victim who was crushed. Later, after much practice, I learned to observe the bloody bodies of the deceased closely, as calm as a surgeon. Yu Shuzhong said I had ‘a clever angle on the story, and the writing was quite outstanding.’ Readers especially loved to see my detailed, bloody descriptions of the scene of an accident, finding my questioning in the article ‘sharp and penetrating.’ It was refreshing.
I had a cot in the office. Sometimes I wrote all night, or until three or four in the morning, and was too lazy to go home when I had finished, so I just opened my simple bed, fell down and slept.
It went on like this until no one else was willing to fight me for interviews when there was a major event. I was the number one reporter. Some people thought it was because of my relationship with Yu, when in fact, because of how dangerous the interviews were, Yu had tried to stop me. But I said, ‘I’m a reporter, not a woman.’
Once, I was held hostage by a murderer. After twenty-four hours, he let me go and gave himself up. I knew all the ins and outs of the situation. He was not cruel. He was a good man, but the reality of his situation had forced him to become a murderer. I wrote an in-depth article, ‘Twenty-Four Hours with a Murderer,’ and I heard his sentencing was a little lighter because of my report.
The paper sold out quickly that day, but Yu criticised me fiercely. He said he did not appreciate journalists who did not care about their own safety. I heard from others that he praised me behind my back, and even told others to learn from me. A colleague from my village told me that, during that twenty-four hours, ‘Chief Yu was so anxious his comb turned black.’
I immediately thought of Yu’s head sprouting a cockscomb, and thought it was funny.
My colleague said to me secretively, ‘Yu likes you.’
I told her to stop talking nonsense.
Yu rarely joked with me. He was eight or nine years older, and he maintained a senior’s demeanour with me, never talking to me of any private matters. But when my colleague threw those words out, it made waves in me. Bystanders had a clearer view, and I was not ignorant either. Yu had a family, and he would not walk over my second brother’s corpse to treat me without proper respect. I had no taboos when it came to love. I was always elegant and solemn in front of Yu, partly for my brother’s sake, but had our background been different, I would have done it with Yu long ago.
I had met Yu’s wife, and there was nothing special about her. If anything, she was too ordinary. She had a bob, and she dressed conservatively. She had a follower’s attitude toward life. But she was always proper in speech and action, not rash, and I gradually came to feel her charm. She was above girls who exposed their cleavage and twisted their waists, but it was these girls who were always in line with a gaming man’s appetites, and many boats had capsized in the depths of those cleavages.
Yu was always cautious, and his power of self-control was very strong. I found this quite provocative. I always thought that I would sleep with him, and I thought he always felt he would sleep with me, but neither of us knew when it would happen. The matter was like a huge stone submerged in the middle of the lake in our hearts, keeping the water level high. It might freeze, but as soon as spring came, the thaw and the spring rains would make the water overflow, and that flood would be like a beast rushing towards the wilderness. Years earlier, it was Tang Linlu that pierced my girlish heart at just one glance. First love was hidden away like a disease in the body. Now, my heart was filled with live fish, wanting to jump out, constantly beating against its confines. This was the mental game going on between Yu and me.
People say relationships are like springs. The more tightly they are pressed, the stronger the recoil. At night, I would feel a weight, and the provocation of the spring. It made me feel a little dizzy. Because of this, sometimes the night was beautiful and sometimes sultry. The moon was like a drop of water, shrouded in mist. I wanted to write a poem and dedicate it to someone, but the impulse was like a shudder. I shivered, and it was gone.
When Yihua woke up, it had just got light outside. She got up and washed, then put on light makeup and a low-cut dress. Liuzi liked for her to be made up. Even though she had not yet let him touch her or screw her, he had been satisfied because he was closer to her than anyone else. Liuzi had once said to her, ‘Even if you want to test me my whole life, I’ll just keep waiting for you.’
Yihua had almost decided to give in to him.
But then she had decided to wait until his birthday and surprise him. He was born in May, and that was when the japonica was most fragrant in the village. She could smell it everywhere that time of year. Then Liuzi had said the wrong thing, enraging her so much she moved out. Her heart was still with him, but she had wan
ted to make him reflect a little, and to suffer.
She had recalculated now. It was still a while until Liuzi’s birthday. She didn’t want to wait. After she bailed him out today, she would take care of things in the bedroom. She would not make him suffer anymore.
She remembered that one night she had turned over in her sleep and inadvertently brushed against Liuzi. He had been hard down there, like a pestle standing straight up.
Yihua said, ‘You’re taking advantage of me.’
Liuzi replied, ‘It’s that, not me.’
‘You’re in it together,’ she said.
‘I swear we’re irreconcilable. You take care of it; I won’t help.’
Yihua thought, then said, ‘Let me look at it.’
‘If you want to see, it’s at your own risk,’ he warned.
She asked, ‘What will the consequences be?’
‘It’s enraged right now,’ answered Liuzi.
Yihua turned on the light. Liuzi pushed down his underwear and let the creature out. Yihua was scared half to death and jerked away. ‘Don’t turn it my way next time you sleep,’ she said.
Liuzi turned over obediently. Without her permission, he would not violate the rules. It was Yihua who kept secretly thinking about that hard object.
As Yihua thought about these things, she packed merrily and quickly. It was still early, and there was no one on the street. She ate a box of steamed buns and drank a bowl of soya milk, then bought some to take to Liuzi and got into a taxi.
The driver was unfamiliar with the route, so he kept pulling over to ask directions. By the time she reached her destination, it was 9:30 in the morning. The security guard at the gate stopped her and checked her ID. When she walked into the building, she was lost for a long while in its confusing structure, and she did not know where to go to find Liuzi. She walked boldly into an office, and found herself facing a man and a woman in a dishevelled state. The woman’s painted lips were all messed up. The pair took some time to get over this surprise.
Yihua said, ‘I’m sorry to disturb you. I’m here to bail someone out. His name is Ma Liujia. He was sent here last night . . . ’
Because they were caught doing something on the sly, the pair was especially polite to Yihua. The woman took out some material and flipped quickly to the second page. Running her finger over the paper, she stopped and said, ‘Ma Liujia was sent to the treatment station this morning.’
Yihua was shocked. ‘Treatment station? He’s sick?’
The man looked younger than the woman. He said, ‘We don’t know, but the person who transferred him here said he could not be trusted and kept reminding us to keep an eye on him. Last night, just after he was sent here, he kept demanding to make a phone call. After that, he did not make a sound.’
Wanting to please, the woman nodded and said, ‘He was strong. Even with two people, they couldn’t hold him down.’
Yihua thought, He was an important person back home. She was proud of him, but also worried about his current condition. She asked for the address of the treatment station, then hoofed it over there as quickly as she could. She threw the steamed buns away along the journey. She thought, This will be an eye-opener for Liuzi. In two days, he’s visited the police station, the shelter, and the treatment station. Those three places should provide him with plenty of entertainment, along with free food and drink. It will give him material to brag about for a good, long time.
Liuzi loved to eat hot peppers fried with meat. She figured he had not had any to eat in a while, or if he had, it had not been authentic. She decided to buy pork tomorrow and fry a big bowl for him.
*
Yihua could not believe there was still such a shabby place in Guangzhou. The street was dirty and chaotic, with rubbish and sewage everywhere. A blood-red sign hung from an odd-shaped two-storey building with the words Detention Treatment Centre written on it. The whole place looked like a bunker with the machine gun holes plugged up. Yihua searched everywhere, stopping at the only entrance – a tightly shut iron gate with a little hole at the door. She looked through the hole, but did not see a living thing. It was lifeless. Even the sun seemed bored, shining onto the sand-covered courtyard. Yihua’s body was sticky, sweat streaming down along her cleavage. She stuck her index finger between her breasts a few times to scratch, then flung her hand a couple of times. There was nowhere to rest at the entrance. No one either came out or went in. She thought she must have gone to the wrong place, so she carefully read the words Detention Treatment Centre again, just to be sure there was no mistake. Just as she was getting desperate, she glimpsed a shadow of white clothing inside, like that of a doctor. Yihua shouted to him, but she only heard her own echo, making her a little embarrassed. Because her tongue could not curl itself sufficiently for standard Mandarin, when she called, ‘Doctor,’ it came out sounding more like the word for monk. ‘I’m looking for someone’ was transformed into, I want you now.
She knocked hard on the door to attract more attention, soiling her hand with rust. In this empty world, there was no response. She panicked and cried Liuzi’s name loudly in the Yiyang dialect,‘Liuzi! Ma Liujia!’
Even his name would sound wrong to someone more used to Mandarin.
She felt that her voice sounded like a temple bell, penetrating all barriers as it rolled across the lakes and over the mountains, spreading all the way to Yiyang and floating through all the streets she and Liuzi had ever walked, echoing across all the waterways they’d crossed. The current surged on the river, the sound of boats rumbling along, mingling with the horn blared from a ship . . .
Yihua walked from east to west, then back again, to and fro, forming a megaphone with her hands and shouting as loudly as she could. In the hot, humid weather, the sweat made a muddy mess of her makeup. Her mouth quickly became dry and her throat mute.
Then, the metal gate banged open. A man with blond hair and camouflage clothing walked out and the iron gate boomed shut. He walked east toward the car park. Yihua started to shout, ‘Doctor,’ but how could this be a doctor, with his camouflage uniform? He looked more like a commando, but this was a detention centre, not a special forces training ground. Yihua couldn’t make up her mind about him. Then she thought, Who cares who he is? At least he came out from the building where Liuzi is being held. Maybe sucking up to him can do something for Liuzi.
Yihua wanted to use an honorific title to capture part of his spirit, but before she’d gotten ‘commando’ out, a series of titles flashed through her mind. She suddenly remembered the title that always pleased the men who frequented the nightclub so much, so she shouted after the commando, ‘Hey, boss!’
She was too loud. She startled the commando, knocking his hat off.
‘Sorry, boss . . . I’m here to bail someone out . . . ’
‘What’re you being so noisy for? If you keep it up, I’ll throw you inside.’
The commando picked up his hat, spitting out these words. He walked to an iron shed nearby, straddled a motorcycle, and started the engine. Her only hope would soon be carried away by this motorcycle. Yihua suddenly rushed over and stood in front of the bike.
‘Brother . . . Uncle . . . No . . . Ah, Sir . . . ’ All those titles that had been crossed out in her mind came flowing out all at once. Like forgetting her PIN for her bank account, she tried all the various standard passwords she could think of, but none were quite right. The commando’s face did not reveal any login instructions. Yihua was so nervous her cleavage kept sweating, but she didn’t care to wipe it dry. She remembered how Mingliang had taught her to make the patrons who were depressed happy. She pressed down her anxieties and worries and turned herself instantly into a different person. Her posture and tone softened and she exhaled bitterly, putting on a sincere front, at the same time flattering the commando with a few chosen words, such ‘dignified,’ ‘righteous,’ ‘friend,’ and ‘handsome.’
The commando finally killed the engine. He pulled out the bike’s key, stood back up next to it, and
looked with great interest at Yihua and the groove between her breasts.
‘Well, if I help you get someone out, how will you thank me?’ the commando asked bluntly.
Yihua wanted to say she would not be a noble person if she didn’t repay him, following Mingliang’s mantra. But apparently, this was not a time to talk of noble folk and villains. Yihua emptied her pockets, laying out all she had before the commando’s eyes. ‘This is 600 yuan. If it’s not enough, I’ll bring . . . ’
‘Six hundred yuan?’ The commando laughed contemptuously.
‘How much do you want?’ she asked.
‘I want you to sleep with me.’
My sister had already made her travel documents and was preparing to go to Hong Kong with Sun Xiangxi. As she packed her suitcase, she hummed ‘Green Island Serenade’. Sun’s hair was dyed raven-black and his face was rosy, like a monkey in heat. He took turns touching my sister’s buttocks and pinching her waist, and said, ‘What a waste, you sleeping with Liu Zhima all those years. Consider yourself lucky, now that you’ve met a man like me who understands a thing or two about women.’
Chuntian laughed at everything he said. Her heart was already in Hong Kong. Before she got married, she had a calendar that had pictures of Hong Kong’s skyscrapers and yachts at the bay. She tore each page from the calendar and hung it on the wall. People always said Hong Kong was paradise. Today, she would go to paradise and have a look around. Her heart was so full of vanity, it nearly burst.
‘Isn’t Hong Kong part of China?’ she asked.
‘Of course,’ Sun replied.
‘If it’s part of China, why can’t we just travel with our ID cards?’