Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

Huixian had been getting angry, but she had to laugh at this last comment. ‘You certainly do know how to say stupid things,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen my share of high-ranking officials, with their cooks, their bodyguards and their secretaries. But I’ve never heard of one having his own barber.’

Another snort from Wintersweet. ‘Don’t get it into your head that you’re a woman of the world. You’re still a novice, and I’m telling you that a woman who survives by working with her hands is fated to live on gruel, but a woman who gets by thanks to her good looks or who has a powerful backer will eat and drink well.’

‘Now you’re making sense,’ Huixian said. ‘I’m not good-looking and I don’t have a backer, which is why I’m serving you.’

Making clicking sounds with her tongue, Wintersweet thought for a moment before replying, ‘That’s strange, I heard you had lots of backers. There’s Zhao Chuntang in town, Secretary He at the county level, and Bureau Chief Liu in the district government. Don’t tell me they’ve all suddenly stopped backing you.’

Clearly annoyed, Huixian said with a sneer, ‘Are you here to have your hair done or to cook up stories? Front or back, I’ve got nobody, not even a mother and father. Where would I get a backer? People like you may yearn for a backer, but not me.’

That rebuff silenced Wintersweet, but her mind kept racing. In the end, she was incapable of controlling her tongue. ‘I know why you’re here, Little Tiemei. You’ve been hung out at the grass-roots level. For how long? Six months? A year or two? I advise you to ask the leadership for a timescale. Listen to me when I say that even a young girl grows old one day, like a pearl that turns yellow, and there’s no future for anyone who’s old and ugly.’

Huixian’s tolerance ended at that moment. I saw anger and loathing in her eyes. She dug her fingers into Wintersweet’s scalp, snatched a towel off the rack and jammed it down on the woman’s head. ‘I’ll hang out as long as it takes — until the day I die if necessary. Don’t you worry about me. I’ve been hung out all my life, I’m used to it by now.’

I don’t know why, but I couldn’t hide my head any longer. I lowered the newspaper and cast a ferocious glare Wintersweet’s way. ‘If you can’t hold your tongue, you cunt, I hope you choke to death!’ I spoke so softly the target of my curse could not possibly have heard me as she followed Huixian back to the chair, her hair dripping wet.

‘Why get mad at me, Little Tiemei?’ she said. ‘I’m just giving you advice. It’s for your own good.’

But Little Chen had heard what I’d said. He turned and glared at me. ‘Who are you calling a cunt? And who’s supposed to choke to death? What’s a big boy like you doing sounding off just because a couple of women are bickering?’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ I said. ‘I’m reading the paper.’

‘What are you here for?’ he said. ‘Why squeeze your way into a busy shop just to read the paper? This is a barbershop, not a reading room.’

‘I’m waiting for a haircut, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Are you sure you didn’t come to read the paper? I’ll bet you’re not interested in reading the paper or getting a haircut. You’re sneaking around like a US Chiang Kai-shek agent. Who are you and where are you from?’

Now the people took notice of me, and I saw Huixian glance my way. She hadn’t got over her anger, not completely; it was a lazy, casual glance. But then her eyes lit up. She recognized me, I could tell. Pointing her comb at me, she said, ‘It’s you, you’re that … something Liang.’

She smiled, and I saw in her smile that she was pleasantly surprised, if somewhat puzzled, racking her brains to come up with a name. How depressing. How could she have forgotten my name? Ku Dongliang would have worked, or Elder Brother Dongliang, or even my nickname, Kongpi. She pointed at me, then dropped her hand and said with obvious embarrassment, ‘What a rotten memory I’ve got. It’s on the tip of my tongue, but it won’t come out. It’s something Liang. You’re from one of the barges of the Sunnyside Fleet, aren’t you? Now I remember — there’s a sofa on yours.’

That was the sum total of her memories, the sofa on our boat, and I was reminded of how Yingtao had tried to stir up trouble between Huixian and me after they’d had an argument. Yingtao had come looking for me and said, ‘Go on, be her lackey if that makes you feel good. But I’m telling you, Huixian doesn’t like you, she likes your sofa and the treats your mother sends. She’s bourgeois through and through, a girl who wants the good life.’

‘Don’t look at me like that,’ she said. ‘I’ve forgotten your name, but only for the moment.’ Seeing how disappointed I was, she cast a guilty smile my way before turning to the people in the shop. ‘What’s his name? Remind me, someone. All I need is one word to jog my memory.’

A young man in a checked sports shirt, a crane operator, knew me. He was standing there with a peculiar smile. In a pinched voice he said, ‘Kong. You know, Empty.’

‘What do you mean, Kong? Stop playing around. Empty isn’t a family name,’ Huixian said. ‘Who are you, Mr Full?’

‘I thought you said all you needed was one word. I know his nickname, it’s Kongpi.’

Aha! Now she had it. Either she was embarrassed or she was oversensitive, but I saw a change come over her. Her cheeks reddened as she rolled up her client’s smock and hit me on the shoulder with it. Then she covered her face and giggled. ‘Me and my rotten memory! You’re Ku Dongliang, aren’t you? I pretty much survived on the snacks you gave me when we were kids.’

What could I say? I heard a whispering sound as a gentle breeze redolent with the smell of Glory soap swept past my ear. She was shaking the barber’s smock in my direction. ‘Ku Dongliang,’ she said in a pretend commanding voice, ‘come on, I’ll cut your hair.’

Quickly putting my hands on top of my head, I said, ‘It’s not long enough to cut today. Besides, I have to get back to the barge.’

‘You’ll have to get it cut some time, if not today.’ She inspected my hair. ‘What do you use on it, a comb or a broom? That’s not a head of hair, it’s a bird’s nest. Are you waiting for a bird to lay an egg in that?’ Putting her smock to work flicking loose hair off the chair, she said, ‘What are you waiting for? Quit stalling and sit down.’

Now what? I couldn’t make up my mind. Huixian nudged the chair with her foot, swivelling it around towards me and creating a gust of wind that made the hem of her smock flutter enough to let me see that she was wearing a blue knee-length skirt underneath. It too was caught by the gust of wind, revealing her knees, her knees, those knees, two lovable little bun-like mounds, two alluring, fruit-fresh knees. The scene had a dream-like quality. Be careful, I heard a voice whisper sternly, be very careful. It sounded like my father, but could have been my own voice. I didn’t move and didn’t know which way to look. A person’s gaze can be dangerous, it can give away your secrets. Whenever I sensed this danger in the air, I reminded myself: Above the neck and below the knees. But I didn’t have the nerve to look at her neck or her knees, so I kept my eyes on the floor, where there were clumps of dark hair, some long, some short, like an archipelago of dark islands. Huixian was standing on one of those dirty islands with her white half-heeled shoes and flesh-coloured nylons, on which a tuft of hair — man’s or woman’s, no way to tell — hung precariously.

‘What’s wrong with you? You look like a frightened criminal.’ She studied me, as doubt crept into her eyes. ‘Ku Dongliang,’ she said playfully, ‘you haven’t changed. You’re as peculiar as ever. Why did you come to a barbershop if you don’t want a haircut?’