Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

That comment from Old Cui caused the last bit of Huixian’s reserve, which she had been struggling to maintain, to crumble. She burst into tears and placed her foot on the chest on the floor. ‘Future?’ she sobbed as she dried her tears. ‘Future, you say? I’ve got no future! Gramps Liu is dead, he has been reassigned, and Zhao Chuntang is mad at me. There’s no one left. I have no one to rely on.’

Unable to talk Huixian out of staying with him, Old Cui made space for her in the tiny boiler room at the back of the shop, which would have the added advantage of keeping her warm in cold weather. He told the young barber Little Chen to move two benches into the room and put them together to make a bed. ‘It’s only for the time being,’ he whispered to Chen. ‘She can stay here a few days, and then we’ll improvise. She’s Zhao Chuntang’s protégée, after all, and he won’t give up on her.’

Huixian walked into the boiler room as they were getting it ready for her. The first thing she did was hang a couple of white smocks over the window. ‘What are we going to use as smocks tomorrow if you use those as curtains?’ Old Cui remarked.

She turned and glared at him. ‘How can you be so selfish? Do you expect me to sleep in here without curtains? The situation in town is complicated, as you very well know. There are people who put up a good front but are capable of doing bad things, like peeping at me through the window.’

For Old Cui, the arrangement was makeshift and temporary, at least at first. Everyone in town had heard about the unusual life the girl had led; to them she was a mysterious package, constantly being hung out here and there. For now, she’d been hung out at the barbershop. But a few days passed, and though she went out from time to time, no one from the General Affairs Building had a plan for her, and Old Cui knew that this was bad news. Things had changed, and her future had been revealed, which made the situation suddenly grim; Milltown’s celebrity was living in a barbershop!

Four days later, Zhao Chuntang came to the People’s Barbershop. When he walked in, everyone, including Huixian, stood up. They wondered if he’d come for a haircut or to rescue Huixian. He sat in the barber’s chair. ‘I’ve let my hair get long,’ he said. ‘How about a trim, Master Cui?’

With a quick glance at Huixian, Old Cui picked up his comb and scissors and walked up to the chair with a strange feeling of trepidation. ‘Has the Secretary come on official business?’ he asked Zhao.

‘Official and personal, I need to attend to both.’

So, with great care, Old Cui cut Zhao’s hair, urging Huixian out of the corner of his eye to make amends with Zhao. She merely turned her head, with a look that said ‘I’d rather keep a piece of broken jade than an undamaged tile,’ and began filing her nails. Old Cui laid down his comb and picked up a razor. ‘How about a shave, Secretary Zhao?’

Zhao made no response, but Huixian, audacious as ever, made another of her unseemly comments. ‘Hah!’ she said. ‘Zhao Chuntang doesn’t have a beard, so there’s nothing to shave.’

Zhao tensed, and Old Cui felt it. Slightly unnerved, he barely stopped himself from holding Zhao down in the chair. But all Zhao did was turn and say, ‘Could I ask you all to give Old Cui and me a few minutes to speak in private? It’s work-related.’

A few of the other customers, haircuts still in progress, demurred momentarily, but then followed the barbers, towels still draped around their necks, and stood outside the door. One of them, unaware of what was going on, wondered aloud, ‘What work-related issue could Zhao Chuntang have with Old Cui?’ One of the others, equally in the dark but wanting to give the impression of being well informed, said, ‘Work-related? That’s just an excuse. Huixian’s living in the barbershop these days, and I wouldn’t be surprised if something’s going on between her and Old Cui.’ Little Chen reacted to that comment by cursing, ‘If anything’s going on, it’s between Old Cui and your mother! You must have sperm swimming around your brain the way you see everything through your crotch! You really don’t get it, do you? Huixian is taking refuge here for the time being.’

As promised, a few minutes later Old Cui opened the door to let Zhao Chuntang, whose hair reeked of Phoenix hair tonic, leave. He looked relaxed but sort of sad. The customers poured back into the shop, where they saw a red-faced Huixian with a comb in one hand and a pair of clippers in the other, banging the two together over and over and shouting, ‘Who wants their hair cut? Come on, don’t try to shame me. I’ll shave your heads, all of you!’

Anyone could see that she was hysterical, but no one had any idea what had caused it. It was left to Old Cui to rush up, snatch the tools out of Huixian’s hands and force her into the boiler room. ‘Settle down, Huixian,’ he said loudly, before shutting the door and locking it from the outside.

The shop customers peppered Old Cui with questions. ‘What’s wrong with her?’

Ignoring their questions, Old Cui muttered, ‘Me, mentor her? I’m a barber, how am I supposed to do that? Orders from the organization, he says. All we do in the barbershop is cut and wash and shave and blow-dry, what kind of mentoring is that? So she can go to Zhongnanhai to shave the heads of the Central Committee?’

Little Chen would have gone in to console Huixian if he’d known how, but all he could do was cast a perplexed look at Old Cui, who covertly gestured in the direction of the boiler room. ‘Zhao Chuntang was here to hang out Huixian,’ he said softly. ‘Starting tomorrow, the barbershop is where she’ll hang out officially. Zhao’s idea is to bring people of a kind together, so from tomorrow, we three are officially comrades-in-arms.’

Little Chen could hardly believe his ears. ‘You’re joking, right? No matter how far she’s fallen, she can’t come here to be a barber, can she?’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ Old Cui said. ‘What makes you think I’d joke about something as important as this? I didn’t believe it myself at first. Who’d have thought that the grand Little Tiemei would wind up working with us?’

News of Huixian’s downfall spread faster than a racehorse. The crews of the Sunnyside Fleet had all heard by the next day that Huixian had been hung out by Zhao Chuntang. People disregard Fate at their peril. Over the course of several years, Huixian had not been able to escape her fate. The boat people’s expectations regarding the direction her life would take had run the gamut from county to district, even to the provincial capital; as for her workplace, a broadcasting station or propaganda team had been mentioned, as had the possibility of her becoming a member of the Women’s Federation or County Committee. Not a negative thought had ever emerged, and since they had seen her heading in only one direction — up — who could have guessed that she’d wind up in the People’s Barbershop? Huixian, Huixian, the pride of the Sunnyside Fleet; her proud figure would from now on be seen only through the glass of the People’s Barbershop window, continuously under the critical gaze of men and women of all ages. Her proud hands would repay the residents of Milltown and the nurturing people of the Sunnyside Fleet. Huixian, Huixian, from now on, she would serve the people by shaving their beards and cutting their hair.

That year Huixian turned eighteen.

IN MY eleven years aboard the barge I never posted a letter of my own. But I stopped by the post office every time I went ashore to post letters for my father. I was his postman.