by Xinran
It was one thing to help Three escape from the village, but quite another to know what to do with her. Uncle Two had racked his brains until he remembered his friend, Gousheng, who came from Nanjing. Gousheng was one of the migrant workers who worked with him on the building sites and Uncle Two often spent the night at his home in Nanjing in order to break the long journey between Anhui and Zhuhai. He had a warm-hearted, capable wife who sold tofu from a tiny shop, and would be just the person to give Three advice.
What Uncle Two didn’t know – and which would prove to be very useful – was that Gousheng’s wife was one of the best-known traders in her area, and that her shop was situated not far from the old willow. Everyone in the neighbourhood called her the Tofu Lady and used to joke that her personality was hotter than the chilli oil she served, and her voice bigger than her minuscule shop.
Fortunately for Three, the Tofu Lady had also refused to marry the man her parents had chosen for her. In the early nineties, she had been living in Shanxi, a poor, dry province in northen China, and had eloped with her childhood sweetheart, Gousheng, rather than marry the son of a neighbouring family in exchange for a wife for her older brother. She and Gousheng had taken the bus to Xuzhou, the furthest destination their local bus station had been able to offer. But even there, they felt worried that their parents might find them, so they gritted their teeth and paid tens of yuan for train tickets as far south as they could go: all the way to Nanjing. In Nanjing they were forced to recognise that dreams must give way to reality. They had just enough money for three nights in the city’s cheapest guesthouse; after that they were penniless. On the fourth day, Gousheng had joined a labour gang that was going to work down south, while the Tofu Lady found a menial job in a small takeaway restaurant selling stinky tofu fritters: a great Nanjing speciality not unlike deep-fried blue cheese.
From then on, life was hard. Gousheng came back to Nanjing only for the Spring Festival holiday, when many of the migrant workers returned home for a month. But, even then, the couple had to be secretive about their relationship. With no authorisation from their village they could not obtain a marriage certificate, and cohabitation was still against the law. If anyone asked, they said they had lost their certificate and were getting a new one, while all the time secretly searching for someone who would make them a fake. A few years passed, and they managed to save some money. It was just enough for the Tofu Lady to bribe the Nanjing police to authorise their marriage, and to obtain the necessary permission to set up her own little tofu shop.
In fact this so-called shop was really no more than a hole in the wall. It had a front open to the elements and a few rickety wooden tables set out on the road. Inside, the entire establishment consisted of a wok of oil for deep-frying, a stove made from an oil drum, an old school desk she had picked up somewhere, etched all over with mathematical equations and sums, and a bench that could seat one person comfortably but was cramped for two. There was a bottle of soy sauce, a small jar of chilli oil and a few cheap disposable bowls and chopsticks.
Although the locals made jokes about the Tofu Lady, they also acknowledged that her heart was warmer than her wok of boiling oil. She never took money from children who wanted a snack and she couldn’t abide seeing girls from poor families picked on. If a country girl in search of a job stopped at the shop to ask her way to the big willow, the Tofu Lady would force her to sit down and eat several bamboo skewers of stinky tofu before she went on her way – without pausing to enquire whether or not the girl was partial to this particular delicacy. Rumour has it that, if a country girl had experienced this once, the next time she came to visit she would bring along a steamed bun or a pancake so as to avoid having to accept any tofu, the strong smell of which hung like a cloud over the whole area.
Three and Uncle Two, however, relished the tofu they ate when they eventually found their way to the Tofu Lady’s shop on that February morning. They had got up before dawn to catch the long-distance bus, and were so hungry that they wolfed down several skewers of it. They had barely finished when the Tofu Lady banked up her fire, asked the owner of the breakfast stall next door to keep an eye on things, and, without taking off her apron, marched Three and her uncle over to the big willow to see if any of the chess players there had connections that could set the frightened country girl on the right track.
They arrived in the middle of an argument. A group of chess fanatics were engaged in a heated, red-faced debate about whether one of them should have moved his knight, while four old ladies who were sorting vegetables a little distance away looked on in amusement.
‘Hey,’ shouted the Tofu Lady, her loud voice easily making itself heard above the shouting, ‘haven’t you lot had enough of bickering about your games? Why not do a good turn for once and give this girl a helping hand?’
The men all turned round at once.
‘So, Tofu Lady,’ one of them shouted, ‘who’s your maiden in distress today? At this rate, you might as well turn that tiny snack bar of yours into a job centre. You could call it the “International Centre for Village and City Integration”.’
‘Yeah,’ said another, ‘the government may tell us that our businesses should be “International”, but we’re already ahead of the game here. In six months, your pokey little lane will be covered in signs for Foreign/Chinese Joint-Funded Companies and Global Ventures. You’ll have everything but the United Nations!’
The people under the tree burst into loud laughter, but their teasing didn’t bother the Tofu Lady. It was her philosophy that if you didn’t have the money to amuse yourself, you needed a bit of idle chatter to spice up your life, otherwise you’d go mad from boredom. She turned to a man who was standing slightly apart from the others.
‘Mr Guan Buyu, I heard that girl you helped the other day has gone on to great things in the department store. You may rather watch chess than play it, but when it comes to people, they’re pawns in your hands. So, hurry up and think of something for our Three here. Aren’t you the one who’s always saying, “You should seize the moment when a life’s at stake, for gratitude is eternal”?’
The man standing next to Guan Buyu nudged him and chuckled. ‘Who’d have thought the Tofu Lady was so quick off the mark? These days as soon as she opens her mouth, logic and philosophy come pouring out!’
‘If I am, it’s all thanks to your training,’ said the Tofu Lady, smiling. ‘This big tree seems to have become a kind of school for philosophers, like the ancients had. But come on, let’s hear your ideas. Country girls are like plants trying to grow through cracks in stone: they need a bit of nurturing.’
‘Yes, do stop trying to be clever all of you,’ shouted someone. ‘If you know of something for the girl, let’s hear it. The sooner we get rid of the Tofu Lady, the sooner we can get back to the chess match. What’s the fun of a game half played?’
At this, the suggestions came thick and fast.
‘I’ve heard that Ma Dahao has opened an International Interior Decorating Materials Centre. Perhaps they’re in need of workers there?’
‘Think before you speak! It takes brute strength to move that kind of gear about. She might be strong for a girl, but she only comes up to my shoulder. How could she work alongside male porters?’
‘Then how about the Good Luck Dumpling Restaurant? Uncle Wang, you’re their neighbour. Sound them out for her.’
‘Can’t be done. You’ve only to look at this girl to know she’s from a poor village where they eat only sweet-potato flour and rice. How will she know how to stuff dumplings? The boss of the Good Luck is looking for people who can make thirty dumplings a minute. I can’t pass a pawn off as a knight!’
It was at this point that Guan Buyu stepped forward.
‘Little sister,’ he said to Three in an avuncular manner, ‘why don’t you tell us what you have an aptitude for and then we might be able to think of something for you.’
Three, who had been standing there, stunned by the incomprehensible conversation that
was flying about her ears, was thrown into confusion. She had no idea what the man meant by ‘aptitude’ but made a guess.
‘I love to eat eels when I can get them. My mother always says that eels the size of a pen are the best: longer and they’re too old, shorter and there’s nothing to eat on them …’
Yet another gale of laughter followed. The Tofu Lady put her arm round Three’s shoulders, and whispered, ‘Aptitude is not the same as appetite. It’s an educated person’s word for the thing that you’re good at. Tell them what it is you do well.’
Three blushed a deep red. She thought of all the warnings about language Uncle Two had given her as they travelled through the night. ‘City people never use crude language,’ he had said, but he hadn’t explained what kind of language they did use. She took a deep breath.
‘Mother says that, when I arrange vegetables in the baskets for her to take to the market, they look very pretty and catch people’s eyes so she gets a good price. And I can look after children. I took care of my three younger sisters …’
‘You’ve got three more, younger, sisters?’ someone broke in.
‘Yes, and two older ones. My father is very unhappy that my mother gave birth to six chopsticks one after another …’
The red-faced man who had protested at the idea of Three working at the Interior Decorating Centre looked at her in surprise.
‘That’s the first I’ve heard of people giving birth to chopsticks. What on earth do you mean?’
Three blushed an even deeper red and looked over at her uncle as she whispered her reply, terrified of saying something wrong.
‘In my village, girls are called “chopsticks” and boys “roof-beams”. They all say that girls are no good because a chopstick can’t support a roof.’
But hardly anyone was listening to her answer because they were all debating the fact that she belonged to a family of six children.
‘How is it there’s no one in charge of the Birth-control Policy where you come from?’
‘I … I don’t know.’
‘Doesn’t your Production Brigade keep an eye on you?’
‘I s’pose … I’m not sure …’
‘We’ve heard that, in the countryside, they tear down houses and smash the furniture to punish families who have a second child. How come your Production Brigade hasn’t done anything about your family?’
‘I don’t know. Two of my father’s younger brothers are the Production Brigade Heads, and I’ve never seen them breaking up anyone’s stuff or pulling down anyone’s house …’
‘Oh, so that’s it! You’ve got an influential family. Well, if they’re so important, why have you left to look for work?’
‘I …’
Three was lost for words.
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake,’ broke in the Tofu Lady, ‘leave the poor girl alone. It’s bad enough that she’s had to leave her home without you lot giving her the third degree. Her uncle’s just told me her story. Listen, then you’ll change your tune. It’s like this. Those two powerful uncles of hers have got everyone eating out of the palms of their hands. They’ve already turned a blind eye to the Birth-control Policy, and now they’re trying to curry favour with the Head of their area by organising a marriage between Three here and his crippled son. Her eldest sister was married at seventeen to the regional Head’s widowed uncle – fifty, if he was a day … It makes me speechless with rage that these young girls’ lives should be in the hands of such bastards, just because they have money or power …’
The Tofu Lady’s outburst was followed by silence as everyone stood and looked at Three in pity.
As for Three, she was utterly bemused. No one in her village would ever dare to talk about local Heads, or even ordinary men like that. And certainly no man would listen to a woman in the way that the chess players here were listening to the Tofu Lady. Uncle Two had been right: city women really did have the nerve to talk to men as if they were their equals.
At this moment, one of the women who was sorting her vegetables a little way off stepped forward with a basket of spring greens.
‘Girl, you said you could arrange vegetables, didn’t you? Come and arrange this lot for me. Show us city-folk what you can do!’
Three glanced nervously over at the Tofu Lady, then, receiving a nod of encouragement, squatted down and began arranging the leaves. They were the first growth of early spring and varied in size and colour because of the difference in temperature between the cold nights and strong daytime sun. Everyone watched as Three swiftly picked out the yellow or withered leaves and made little piles according to size. In less than two minutes a basket of jumbled green leaves had been transformed. Some had been gathered into little cabbage-like clusters, others made to form open flowers with green petals around a white centre. There were fans and feathers, but, best of all was a cunning little tree-shape, like a bonsai. The crowd of onlookers was struck dumb with astonishment.
Then, as if she had been holding her breath till that moment, the Tofu Lady gave a great shout of glee.
‘Well I’m blowed, the girl’s an artist! A phoenix raised in a hencoop! What a shame my tofu only comes on bamboo sticks, otherwise I’d get this girl in to create displays for my shop. She’d make me rich.’
‘You know, that’s a good idea,’ said the man called Guan Buyu. ‘Why doesn’t she go and work in the restaurant my brother’s just setting up? He needs help attracting customers. Miss Three here might be perfect for him.’
‘Well, Mr Guan,’ said the Tofu Lady in admiration, ‘I think you’ve found the solution. Didn’t I say that you were a master strategist when it came to people? All the same – let’s get the bad stuff out of the way – if you let anyone pick on this clever girl, I’ll fry you in my wok!’
‘Don’t worry, Tofu Lady,’ laughed Guan Buyu, ‘my younger brother’s wife will look after her. She’s forever leaping to the defence of country girls. They’ll get along fine.’
And so it was that Three went to work at ‘The Happy Fool’, a fast-food restaurant that had been started that year by Mr Guan Buyu’s younger brother, Guan Buyan and his wife, Wang Tong. On her days off, she often went back to the big willow by the old city wall to visit the kind people who had shown her the sunlit road now stretching ahead of her. And sometimes she even gave advice to a country girl who had come, like her, to ask for help. She remembered her mother’s words: ‘If someone saves your life with a mouthful of water, digging a well will not be enough to repay their goodness.’
But, despite all her good fortune, she couldn’t feel entirely happy while she was separated from her mother and her little village in Anhui. Her first year of work in the city passed quickly and, as Spring Festival approached, Three spent many sleepless nights trying to decide whether she should return to her village for the holiday, and thinking of ways to avoid the beating she was sure her father had in store for her. In the end, it was Wang Tong, the proprietress of the Happy Fool, who suggested a solution. Why not ask the chess-players and vegetable-ladies under the willow tree to pose for photographs with her? Then Uncle Two could go back to the village first, taking the pictures with him, and tell everyone that the people in the photos were high-up officials (far more important than the regional Head) who had offered Three their support.
The plan worked like a dream. When Three arrived home, all the villagers rushed out of their houses shouting, ‘Three’s back, the girl who was in the photos with all those high-up officials’, ‘Look how pale and clear her complexion is – just like a pretty girl in a picture’ and ‘What soft hands! She must be living the good life down there in Nanjing …’
Her mother who, for a year, had imagined the most terrible fate for her daughter, stood there with tears rolling down her face. Beside her was Three’s father, his face set in a frown. But he didn’t say anything. And when, later, he saw the bundle of hundred-yuan notes that she had managed to save in the course of the year, his eyes moistened and his mouth turned up at the corners: this was mor
e than the whole family could save from two years of working in the fields.
In the days that followed, Three’s mother was beside herself with happiness, bustling about her daughters and chatting to the village girls who dropped by to hear Three’s stories of city life. Three’s younger sisters, Four, Five and Six, were so entranced that they did their housework in a dream and, almost without noticing, tidied the storeroom, which hadn’t been cleaned for years, until every pot was in its place and the oldest, rustiest tool was gleaming. Four, who was deaf and dumb and relied entirely on the family’s gestures to understand them, could sense the excitement and did everything she could to follow what the girls were saying. Five and Six were delighted with their sister’s happiness. Although they worried that she still showed no interest in marriage and was in danger of living up to her reputation for having a heart of stone, they saw that city life suited her. It seemed to them that she was a seed that had grown into a cauliflower, a silkworm who had become a butterfly.
2
A New Year and a New Life
Li Zhongguo, known in the village as Li Brother One, was a man who never smiled. Although he was the eldest of the Li brothers, the fact that he had six daughters meant that he could never hold up his head like a true man, but instead had to bow to his younger brothers and accept a lower status in the family. In the village, too, anyone could easily silence him by calling him ‘chopstick man’. His six daughters were a great burden to him and he worried all the time about finding them husbands. Who, after all, would dare to marry the daughters of a man who could not ‘plant eggs’? Everyone thought that the Li girls carried within them their father’s bad fate. This was why no matchmaker crossed the threshold of his house until Li Brother Three who was high up in the village Production Brigade, arranged for the eldest daughter, One, to be married to the widowed uncle of the regional Head, a man a good decade older than her father, who lived in the local town. Finally, Li Zhongguo could look his fellow villagers in the eye and know that none of them would dare to make fun of him any more now that he had such powerful relations. Nevertheless, five unmarried daughters remained and, once again, he was obliged to call upon the help of his influential younger brothers. It was his youngest brother who acted as matchmaker for his second daughter. Li Brother Four was just starting to make a name for himself and he arranged for Two to be married to the son of the regional Head. The groom was high-ranking but paralysed from the waist down, having suffered an accident in childhood.