Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

Zhao went over and opened Huixian’s desk drawer, which was overflowing with seed husks, some of which fell on to his shoes. Smoke seemed to shoot from his eyes and ears. With an angry stamp of his foot, he yanked the drawer out and flung its contents to the floor. ‘The sight of this desk infuriates me!’ he barked at the typist. ‘Have someone from Logistics come up here and take it downstairs. Get it out of here!’

First stop, the third-floor offices of the Women’s Federation. But Director Leng would not let them move it in. ‘Aren’t I supposed to be mentoring her? Well, then, wait till she’s Director of the Women’s Federation, and she can have her desk in here.’

So the movers were standing out in the hall, not knowing what to do with the desk, when Huixian walked upstairs with a fresh bag of melon seeds, to find her way blocked by the desk. She cast an icy glare at the two removal men. Making room for them, she said, ‘What are you standing around for? Go ahead, move it downstairs. I have no quarrel with you two.’ Neither wanting to argue with the removal men nor daring to go upstairs to face Zhao Chuntang, she found an outlet for her anger when Leng Qiuyun stuck her head out of the door to see what was going on. ‘What are you peeking at?’ she said. ‘Chairman Mao tells us to be open and above board and not to plot and scheme!’ Leng pretended she hadn’t heard the comment, calculating the damage that would be done to her reputation by arguing with a young girl, and slammed the door shut. With a look of contempt, Huixian turned to the removal men. ‘She must think that federation of hers is something special, but she doesn’t do anything important. Disgusting! Who wants to be in that office anyway? I have to share a room in the dorm with her, but if I had to be in the same office too, she’d drive me mad. I wouldn’t work in there if she begged me to. Go ahead, move it downstairs, some place where there’s always something going on, like your rooms on the second floor.’

So Huixian’s desk wound up in the Logistics department, the messiest, least dignified spot in the building. People were always coming and going in an office where things were strewn all over the place. The so-called officials ran errands day in and day out, which is why there was a carefree attitude throughout the section. Most of the time was spent playing chess or cards or having long conversations about everything under the sun.

Now that her desk had been relocated, Huixian finally began to use it. It was hard to tell if she’d come to her senses or not, but there was no question that she found that the Logistics department was the place for her. In no time, she began acting as if she was in charge. She fell in love with the game of cards, though she never got good at it. The players tried to help her, telling her to stand behind them and watch and learn, but that wasn’t for her. Taking a seat and grabbing the deck, she was relentless, forcing them to coach her in the rules of the game. They had not taken her self-absorption into consideration, and she rebuffed all their good intentions, showing neither gratitude nor the slightest bit of humility. If she played the wrong card, she became hostile, blaming everyone but herself. At first they let her have her way, but over time their patience began to wear thin. No longer Little Tiemei, she had been demoted from the fourth floor to the second, so what reason did anyone have to spoil or protect her? Now, when she came up to the table, they nudged her away. ‘Get out of here,’ they said with a wave of the hand. ‘Go away. You don’t know the first thing about cards. Anyone who plays with you is in for a bad time. You’re working in the Logistics department now, so go and get us some tea!’

Huixian was smart enough to discern how some people in the department felt towards her and she knew that petulance and hell-raising would do her no good. Getting tea for them was out of the question, so she chose to walk away and play cards by herself. She could be sensible, but they wouldn’t appreciate that. After a while, someone — it wasn’t clear who — intentionally or not, placed a carton of light bulbs on her desk, where it stayed for several days. She asked for someone to take it away, but when no one responded, she finally picked it up and angrily dropped it on the floor, where a series of crisp explosions brought the others running. They yelled at her, all at the same time. ‘You wild little tramp, how dare you smash a caseful of light bulbs! This will cost you plenty!’

One of them said, ‘Trying to mentor this girl is a waste of time. She was born for the unruly life on a boat. She can’t change, she’s absolutely undisciplined.’

One of the others pointed at her and said, ‘You think you’re still Little Tiemei, don’t you? Well, you’re not. There’s no place in this building for your hell-raising!’

Under such a withering attack, she just stood there, stunned. She was outnumbered, and she knew it, so she ran upstairs to get Zhao Chuntang to come to her aid. But Zhao, who had already been informed of the light-bulb incident, drove her out of his office. ‘Where do you get the nerve to come looking for me?’ he demanded. ‘Go to your room and write a self-criticism, a detailed, heartfelt criticism, and bring it to me tomorrow!’

Huixian sat down on the fourth-floor landing and bawled, but she was wasting her time. So she wrote a self-criticism and handed it over. It was pasted up on the reception-room wall, where she passed it every day, keeping her head low. Growing increasingly afraid of the General Affairs Building, and hot one minute and cold the next, Huixian holed up in her dormitory room all day long. Now, she thought, was a good time to turn to her studies. So she dug out an armful of books and stacked them by her bed. But when she found it impossible to read any of them, from On Practice to The Art of Embroidery , she put them aside and spent her time at the window, gazing out at the scenery and, though she tried to stop, nibbling melon seeds. But the minute she heard someone at her door she ran to her bed and picked up a book. No one was fooled. The pile of seed husks on the windowsill was irrefutable evidence that she was frittering away her time.

Huixian was clear that being Leng Qiuyun’s enemy was not in her best interest. So she made an attempt to mend the relationship. First she placed pumpkin seeds on Leng’s desk, then she put a tin of biscuits on her bed and laid a pair of Kapulong socks beside her pillow. A good try, but too late. Leng sneered at the sight of the gifts and said, ‘Trying to buy me off, is that it? What for? I’m not your Gramps Liu, nor your Uncle Zhao.’ She picked up the pumpkin seeds and biscuits and threw them out of the window, just as Gimpy Gu was walking by. Both falling objects hit him. He picked up the pumpkin seeds and threw them in the rubbish, then picked up the tin of biscuits and took it home with him.

Milltown occupied a large area, but to Huixian it seemed small and confining. There were many places she dared not go, and many others she wouldn’t deign to go. Sometimes she went out, only to be met by whispers, and she returned home wishing she hadn’t gone out. One day she went to the embankment, nibbling on melon seeds along the way. She saw that the eleven barges of the Sunnyside Fleet were tied up at the piers to unload their cargo of oilseed. On an impulse, she hopped on to the gangplank of barge number one, a packet of melon seeds in her hand, and was immediately spotted by Sun Ximing’s wife. ‘Hey, it’s Huixian, you found your way back!’

The surprised and happy shout, coarse and loud, scared Huixian, who dropped her packet of melon seeds into the river. People ran out of their cabins to see her bending over, watching the river take her seeds away. Everyone was shouting: ‘Huixian, come to our place! Huixian, come over to our barge!’