by Xinran
For her part, Three was amused to see how city people clustered around wild plants that grew all over the place like weeds where she came from in order to debate their special properties. However, when she heard some of them discuss how it was good to find mud on vegetables because it showed they were fresh, or that insect holes were a sign that harmful pesticides hadn’t been used, she felt sad. She thought of how carefully her mother prepared vegetables for market, always pinching off any damaged leaves and washing away the mud. She would say that, in this way, every fen people paid would go into their mouths.
As she began her third year in Nanjing, Three felt that, finally, she was beginning to understand the ways of the city. With only two years of schooling under her belt, she had struggled in the beginning. She had needed all her concentration to follow what Guan Buyan and his wife were saying, and customers often laughed at her. Determined to avoid this humiliation, she made a point of observing and copying other people’s behaviour, but there was so much to learn. The men who worked in the south and returned to the village at Spring Festival had never mentioned that there were so many forms of address in the city! Chairman, Inspector, Officer … the list seemed endless. A journalist friend of Guan Buyan’s had once told her that it would be better to claim that pigs could fly than to get an official’s title wrong. Trivial cases were fined, but more serious ones could result in you losing your job. Three was so scared when she heard this that she would quail whenever she saw a man with a protruding gut walk into the restaurant, afraid that if she used a lower form of address than his actual status it would cause trouble for the business.
Although Guan Buyan and Wang Tong, with their city education, had little idea of quite how terrifying everything was to Three, they did their best to help her settle in. Guan Buyan would try to explain everything very slowly, and would warn her endlessly about potential problems, no matter how small; Wang Tong was more easy-going than her husband, treating Three more like a little sister who needed help, and never mocking her for asking foolish questions or making mistakes. True, the couple’s tolerance had been tested the first time Three came to their house. The only toilets Three had ever known were holes in the ground, so she had been bemused by the porcelain in her employers’ bathroom. After spending several minutes pondering what to do, desperation overcame her and she jumped up on to the seat and squatted down. Not knowing where the flush was either, she simply closed the bathroom door and hoped for the best. That night when the Guans arrived back at their small apartment after the evening shift, they were struck by the bad smell. Opening the bathroom door, they discovered two dirty footprints on the toilet seat and a large turd in the bowl. Guan Buyan’s reaction was one of anger. How could Wang Tong not have shown the girl how to use a toilet? But Wang Tong was more forgiving. She simply gave the toilet a good clean and, the next time Three came to her home, showed her how to sit on the seat. It was only then that Three realised how much she had embarrassed herself on her first visit.
4
The Water Dragon
Five’s new employers were great talkers. They didn’t stop chatting from the moment they left the job centre to the moment they got off the bus that had taken them into the heart of Nanjing. This put Five at her ease. She realised that city women gossiped just as much as country women. However, it didn’t make her any the wiser about her new job because she couldn’t understand a word they were saying. When they first got on the bus, she listened carefully to their conversation, but realising it wasn’t going to help her, she gave up. Instead she stood on tiptoe and craned her neck so that she could look out over the heads of the other passengers at the city streets.
Many of the buildings reminded her of the tall houses she had seen in Uncle Three’s photographs of the local town. They were covered in porcelain tiles on the front, but the brick on the side walls was left bare. These Nanjing buildings looked newer though, and were cleaner and prettier. Even the best brick building in her village would look shabby next to them. There were lots of people hurrying about on the streets and Five spotted many women. They were all carrying bags of different shapes and sizes, and their faces were thickly daubed with paint like the actresses from the opera group who sometimes came from the town to perform in the village. Uncle Two had told her how city women had soft and delicate skin, but Five could hardly see a single face that had been left without paint. The old ladies were an exception to this but they shocked Five still further with their figure-hugging clothes. Aunt Two said that dressing like that in middle age was disgusting. In fact, Aunt Two never had a good word to say about city people. She had made one trip to visit Uncle Two in Zhuhai and had come back full of criticism. Uncle Two, on the other hand, never said anything against the city: it was as if they had both been to different places.
Five was surprised not to see any children playing on the streets. In her village there were always runny-nosed little children dashing around. In summer, the smaller children were outside from dawn to dusk while the older boys and girls helped the adults in the fields. When the colder days of late autumn and winter came, and there was not so much work in the fields, the older boys would join in the noisy games, played with sticks and clods of earth; of course, winter was the season when peasant women did needlework, and the girls had to stay in and learn from their mothers how to keep house and practise handicrafts. This was why Five had almost no memory of playing.
As the bus made its way through the crowded streets, Five was puzzled by the large glass doors – or were they windows? – with very thin men and women behind them, standing absolutely still. What were they doing? And why were so many people standing about watching them? Perhaps she, too, would be able to go and watch when she had the time …
When they got off the bus, the fat woman led Five down the street while the thin woman bustled off in another direction after speaking more incomprehensible words.
‘Now tell me,’ said the fat woman, ‘why did you give your name as Five when you were registering just now? Why didn’t your village issue you with papers in your official name?’
‘Official name?’ Five began to panic, thinking the woman might be about to take the job away.
‘The name you use for work and study. Didn’t you say you’d been to school?’
‘No.’
The woman looked surprised so Five tried to explain.
‘The teacher told my dad I was too stupid, and he should take me home to work. He said that trying to teach me would be a waste of money.’
‘So you must have been at school for a little bit …’
‘A week and a half.’
‘Only a week and a half? Really?’
‘Really, I’m not having you on, honestly. Ask my sister if you don’t believe me …’
‘Don’t worry, I believe you. So you can’t read …’ Five didn’t understand why the fat woman looked so thoughtful.
‘Is Five a bad name?’ she asked.
‘No, no … Five’s fine as a name, but …’ The fat woman seemed confused about how to explain things. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘let’s say that Five’s your name for when you are at home, but here you’re going to need another name, if that’s all right with you. Don’t worry, I daresay that in a minute when we register, Manager Shui or one of his people will give you a work-name.’
‘What’s a work-name?’ Poor Five could not believe that one person could have so many names. Nobody in the village had ever so much as mentioned official names and work-names …
‘A work-name is a name for you to use while you’re working at the Dragon Water-Culture Centre. Well, Five, here we are. This side door is for us, the employees. The customers go through that big door in the dragon’s mouth …’
Five let out a ‘Wa!’ of surprise as her gaze followed the fat lady’s pointing finger. There was a beautiful dragon crouched by the side of the road, its scales all the colours of the rainbow and a big pearl in its mouth. It was several metres long, and inside the pearl was a door big
enough for five people to walk through side by side. But, before she could take in any more, the fat lady ushered her through the iron side door and into a blast of hot air.
Five raised her hands to her face in alarm. She was standing in a place full of steam, with a great roaring sound all around her, and the strange smell of herbs. The fat lady took Five’s arm kindly and led her through a maze of hot, noisy corridors, uttering strange words like ‘pump room’ and ‘medicine preparation’ and telling her that it would soon become quieter. Sure enough, once they had gone a little further and walked through a metal door, the roaring disappeared and all Five could hear was the sound of water running through the pipes that were fixed to the walls and ceiling.
‘It’s like the Water Dragon’s Palace, don’t you think?’ said the fat lady.
Five looked around her in bemusement. She had heard old people tell stories about the Water Dragon’s Palace, but they had talked about shrimp soldiers, crab generals and an army of water creatures doing battle in the waves. They had never mentioned anything about pipes, pumps or medicine. Never in all her life had she thought she might end up in a city people’s Water Dragon Palace and she wanted to tell the fat lady that she couldn’t swim. What if she drowned here? Her mother always said that people who couldn’t swim (and that was most of the girls in the village) shouldn’t go near the local pond because the water ghosts had eaten all the soggy drowned bodies they wanted and were always eager for a taste of a little dry duckling who had never gone near water. She remembered a childhood friend, Hehua, who had slipped into the pond while washing clothes.
But before she had time to tell the fat lady she couldn’t swim, a shout made Five jump.
‘Back so soon, Banyue? Did you have any luck today? I remember how last week you froze for a whole day without finding anyone. So this is the new assistant. Hello there!’ A middle-aged lady wearing a white uniform with green bars at the collar and sleeves greeted them hurriedly.
‘Her name’s Five. Five, this is Ping from the Pool of Mental Cultivation – she’s very nice. Yes, that’s right, Ping. Manager Shui keeps telling me to find assistants who will stay, but these days it’s as if decent girls have oil under their feet they leave so quickly. Vocational school certificates and a smattering of English are all very well, but as soon as one arrives, another goes off to be a “personal secretary”. We’ve virtually become a headhunting company! It seems like education and practicality are fire and water – they can’t be mixed. Anyway, see you later, Ping …’
The first thing that struck Five when she was introduced to Manager Shui was the size of his stomach. It was so enormous it seemed to Five that you could keep a piglet inside it. What made a man’s belly grow so big? She thought about the fattest man in her village. They called him Bao Daye, meaning ‘Old Mister Treasure’, not because it was his real name, but because of his great learning. He was the most widely travelled man in the whole village and had even been to the far north-east of China where the trees were tall, people were giants and the horses were strong. It was said that, up there, even their pancakes were like the lid of a barrel. Five had always believed that Bao Daye kept all his learning in his fat tummy, and that was why he was always able to answer questions and tell stories. Clearly Manager Shui must have a belly full of learning too and deserved her utmost respect. She felt her shoulders start to hunch forward in an involuntary bow, though she really wanted to stand up straight.
‘Pleased to meet you, Miss Five,’ said Manager Shui in a jolly voice. ‘I’m not a great one for “Manager this” and “Manager that” all the time, but since my staff all call me Manager Shui, you’d better go along with them. Now, Five, tell me a bit about yourself. I don’t believe this form holds the story of your life! What do you say? Will five minutes be enough, I … Hold on, sorry … Hello …’
Manager Shui pulled a beeping thing out of his pocket and walked into an inner room with it, squeezing his stomach through the narrow doorframe. Five could hear him laughing behind the closed door and guessed that he must be talking on the telephone even though she hadn’t seen him holding a receiver like the one in the village Production Brigade office. Three had told her that city people all had phones they could carry about so that they could talk to family and friends wherever they went, or even read jokes on it or use it as a clock. She felt proud of herself for working out what was going on.
Manager Shui stayed talking in the inner room for a long time, so Five took the opportunity to look around the huge office. It was much bigger than the Production Brigade office with several tables, two hard seats and three chairs of different sizes wrapped in red cloth. On the largest table, which gleamed with polish, were a telephone – the kind her uncles used – and something that Five had never seen before: a glass window in a plastic frame with little fish swimming across it. She felt rather nervous of this so she turned to look at the smaller tables, on which stood some brightly coloured statues that were far more familiar to her. There were the Eight Immortals Crossing the Sea, Lao Shou Xing, God of Longevity, carved in yellow wood with a long floating beard, twinkling eyes and a branch of heavenly peaches, and Five’s favourite goddess, Guanyin, the great Bodhisattva of Mercy. How clever Guanyin must be to have men kneeling at her feet! Five remembered how, after a few bowls of spirits, her father would curse her mother for being a hen who couldn’t lay eggs and brought shame on the Li family’s firstborn son. At those times, her mother would always kneel before the family’s statue of Guanyin and burn a stick of incense. By the time the stick was half gone, her father would have stopped shouting and walked off with a sigh. Once, Five had returned home to pick up some farming tools and found her father praying for sons in front of Guanyin. She often thought that, if not for Guanyin, the house would be so full of quarrels that no one would get a moment’s peace, not even the dogs and chickens.
Another of Manager Shui’s small tables held a terracotta figure that Five guessed must be Chairman Mao because it had a face like the pictures hanging in the village houses. The old people said that apart from Guanyin, Chairman Mao was kindest to the people in the countryside. Her grandfather had talked about how Chairman Mao had made the revolutionaries in the village burn all the IOUs that the peasants had given to the big landlord. If it weren’t for him, her family would have had to sell their house to pay back all the money they owed the landlords, and would have starved. But was Manager Shui’s statue really Chairman Mao? The face was right, but the figure was wearing the grass sandals of a peasant and holding a straw hat in his hands, and she had never seen Chairman Mao looking like that.
Five jumped when the telephone on the polished desk started ringing. Manager Shui came out of the inner room, still talking into his portable phone.
‘Uh-huh … you’re right, but you know how people are these days. They grab power and then abuse it. I don’t think … Wait a moment, someone’s on the other line …’
Manager Shui picked up the big phone in his other hand. ‘Hello, Miss Lin, who’s calling? … Tell him I won’t be in till after eight. If he wants me he can come to the Foot Massage room, I’ll be there.’
He put down the big phone and was just about to carry on talking into the moving phone when he noticed that Five was still waiting for him.
‘Look, my friend,’ he said to the person on the other end of the line, ‘come here for a bathe. It’ll be much nicer to talk with our jackets off … What, you think I’m abusing my power to push my friends around? … OK, OK, just let me know when you’re on your way and I’ll make sure there’s a quiet room for you. That’s settled then. I’ll be waiting!’
Manager Shui put the phone back into his pocket and brought his train of thought back to the office with visible effort.
‘Sorry, sorry, remind me who you are … It’s Five, isn’t it? That’s right, the new assistant! Well now, Five, is that what your family call you? Is there something else you’d prefer to be called? No? Never mind, I like calling you Five.’
Wi
thout giving Five time to reply, Manager Shui pressed a small bell on the desk, and a thin girl came in like the ones Five had seen standing behind the big glass windows. She was dressed entirely in green, and her clothes were extremely eye-catching. Five’s heart began to beat faster just looking at her and she didn’t even dare to lift her head to look this green person in the eye.
‘Miss Lin, this is Five, who’s just come to join us. Will you take her to see Engineer Wu in the pump room, please. Also, it’s my reading hour next, but if Director Chen from the City Political Bureau calls, please put him through.’
‘Certainly, Manager Shui. No calls between one and two, unless it’s the City Government Director. Come on now, Five, let’s go and see Engineer Wu.’
Five followed the green girl out of the office, keeping her head lowered. Then, to her distress, instead of leading her silently down the corridor, the green girl started asking her questions. Five was terrified she would give a stupid answer and kept her eyes glued to the floor.
‘Five, where are you from?’ asked the green girl kindly.
‘Chuzhou Prefecture, Anhui Province,’ Five said in a voice as faint as a mosquito.
‘Have you ever been to Nanjing before?’
‘No,’ she whispered.
The green girl tried again.