Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

On barge number one, Xiaofu, afraid that the others would snatch her away, jumped on to the gangplank and reached out to take her hand. ‘Come on over, Sis, hurry!’

But the movement of the gangplank drew a shriek from Huixian, who wobbled and looked up, her face ghostly white. Instead of taking the boy’s hand, she pointed to her own forehead and forced a smile for his benefit. ‘I feel dizzy, I don’t think I can manage the gangplank. I’ll come back another time.’ She turned and waved to Sun Ximing and his family, spun around and ran off.

Huixian’s trip home had ended before it really began, to the disappointment of the Sunnyside Fleet families. She didn’t miss them, it seemed, but they missed her. She didn’t care about them, but they were always asking people how she was doing and what the future held for her. Why not, that wasn’t confidential information, was it? Inevitably, they learned that she had lost her benefactor and protector at the General Affairs Building, which drew a cloud over her future. No one would have predicted anything like that, and they were anxious to learn what would happen next. When they asked Sun Ximing, he sighed and said, ‘I don’t know what the future holds for her either, but I hear she’s been “hung out” by Zhao Chuntang.’

They knew what that meant. Hearing the words ‘hung out’ had them thinking back to the girl’s unusual background, and many of them could hardly believe their ears. Talk swirled in the air. ‘Impossible,’ they said. ‘Who would dare hang her out these days? She’s not a little girl any more. Huixian’s grown so pretty, and she has a patron. For the sake of argument, let’s say that Zhao Chuntang wants to bring his mentoring project to an end. The people above him won’t let that happen.’

Sun Ximing was sick of hearing the chatter of his ill-informed neighbours. ‘You people don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he said. ‘Don’t you listen to news broadcasts? You know what “circumstances” means, don’t you? Well, circumstances have changed. They’ve changed at the top and they’ve changed in Milltown. And with a change in circumstances, Huixian’s prospects have changed as well. When all is said and done, her fate has been “hung out”. As a little girl she was hung out on the barges, where we could raise and look after her. But now she’s hung out on the shore, beyond our reach. What happens from now on depends on her fate.’

HUIXIAN BEGAN spending every day at the People’s Barbershop just north of the General Affairs Building.

The barbershop was Milltown’s style centre. It was where the faddish young men and chic young women, or those who aspired to that status, went to exchange the latest news on fashion and hair-styles. They not only accepted Huixian into their circle, but welcomed her. Needless to say, she thrived in the lively atmosphere, enjoying a cordial relationship with barbers like Old Cui. Speaking the same language, they were a perfect match. In the barbershop she was in her element; it was a place where she found contentment.

Surrounded by mirrors and fashionable women, she gazed at her reflection and watched as hair-stylists worked on clients, possibly seeing the light of freedom in the styles they chose. One day, without warning, she stood up from her chair and removed all her hair clips to let her hair down. She walked up to Old Cui, holding on to her braid, and said, ‘Cut this off, Old Cui, I’m sick of it. No more braid for me.’

He wouldn’t dare. Since he refused to do what she asked, she picked up a pair of scissors, turned to the mirror and was about to do it herself. ‘Don’t do that!’ an alarmed Old Cui said. ‘It’s Li Tiemei’s braid. How could you think of losing it? Use those scissors, and you’ll stop being Li Tiemei.’

Defiantly, she held the scissors in one hand and her braid in the other. ‘I’m sick of being Li Tiemei!’ she cried out shrilly, staring at Old Cui with a destructive look in her eyes.

To him it sounded like a threat. ‘Your braid is public property,’ he said. ‘The only way I’ll cut it off is with Zhao Chuntang’s permission.’

‘Whose braid is it?’ she said. ‘Mine or his? I can cut it off if I want to. Go and ask him, I don’t care. I’ll cut it off myself.’

In the end, Old Cui agreed to do it for her. After discussing several styles that were popular in the big cities, they decided to start a new trend by copying the style seen on Ke Xiang, the heroine of the model opera Azalea Mountain . Owing to the pressure he was under, Old Cui’s hand shook when he tried to cut off the braid, and he had to stop and call over Little Chen to do it for him. Chen, young and somewhat scatterbrained, made a clicking sound with his tongue as he grabbed the braid and dug in. Huixian’s thick, black braid fell to the floor with a dull thud. She shrieked, scaring Old Cui, who thought that Chen had snipped off part of her ear. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Huixian, whose eyes filled with tears.

‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I feel a little light-headed, that’s all, something I’m not used to. Now it’s your turn. Go ahead and start cutting. There’s no going back now.’

For Old Cui, this was an experiment, since he’d never done this style for anyone else. He snipped a bit, then stopped and studied the photo of Ke Xiang in the magazine before continuing. All talk had stopped in the shop, everyone’s eyes were glued to Huixian as she sat in the barber’s chair. It was a replay of the surprised encounter with a beauty they’d experienced years before at the sight of the girl with the red lantern on the festooned truck. Their mouths hung slack from curiosity at the sight, except this time they were witness not to her glory, but to the risk she was taking.

Huixian covered her face with a newspaper, lacking the courage to watch Old Cui as he plied the scissors. ‘Go ahead,’ she said to encourage him. ‘Do what you have to do. I can live with however it turns out. I won’t blame you even if it’s terrible.’

People gathered around to get a closer look. They watched and watched until suddenly they started clapping. ‘It’s lovely!’ they shouted. ‘Terrific! She’d look great with any hair-do. Goodbye Li Tiemei, hello Ke Xiang!’

Still holding the newspaper over her face, Huixian sneered, ‘What do you mean, Ke Xiang? I’m not that old.’ When it was finished, she lowered the newspaper and looked at herself in the mirror. ‘Not bad,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Maybe a little old for me, but so what?’ She got out of the chair, walked over and kicked the braid, which rolled across the slick tiled floor until it finally came to rest. There was a smile on her face, but tears glistening in her eyes. Refusing to embarrass herself by crying, she covered her mouth with her hand and said, ‘Did you see how that braid crawled across the floor? Looked like a snake, didn’t it?’

The atmosphere became strained; no one knew what to say as they gaped at the braid on the floor, somewhat stunned. Deep down they felt that Old Cui’s scissors had shortened more than Huixian’s hair, maybe even her destiny, and they didn’t know what to do to console her. The grain-distribution-centre bookkeeper had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Pick that up, Huixian. You can sell it at the purchasing station. A fine braid like that will fetch a good price.’

Without giving it so much as a second look, Huixian said, ‘Who’d want it? Nothing you can sell at the purchasing station is worth anything.’

* * *

Huixian was ‘hung out’ for half a year or more, during which she spent all her time at the barbershop, which was fine with her, until she was assigned a job by the General Affairs Building. She went out early in the morning and returned to the dormitory after nightfall, almost as if she worked in the barbershop. Then one day Leng Qiuyun changed the lock on their door, and Huixian had to force it open, leading to a violent argument. The confrontation worsened the next day, when Huixian found her chest and bedding out in the hall. Her tin lantern rested atop the chest. She raised the roof outside the room, but Leng Qiuyun had gone off somewhere after hanging a sign on the door, indicating they’d fight another day. Occupants of nearby rooms rushed into the hallway to calm Huixian down, telling her that Leng’s husband was coming to visit, and that Huixian’s presence in the room would make it awkward for the couple. ‘Awkward for her,’ Huixian insisted. ‘What about me? We share the room, half each, and unless I agree, her husband can go somewhere else!’