Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

‘I say no.’ She shook her head, showing she meant what she said. ‘I’m not afraid to step outside, but I’m not a girl who shares sweet nothings with just anybody.’

The men around the table exchanged knowing looks. With a grin, Little Chen smacked his chopsticks against his lunch box. ‘You heard her. She doesn’t go for that kind of talk. If you’ve brought a love letter along, read it for us. We’d love to hear it.’

Wang Xiaogai hadn’t taken his eyes off me. I was his enemy, and he was ready for anything. But then he sneered and pointed to the mirror. ‘If you’ve written a love letter, go and take a look at yourself and see if you’re fit to read it.’

I sneered back. ‘That’s enough of that talk, Xiaogai,’ I said. ‘I may not be fit to read a love letter, but you’re not even fit to write one. You’re not educated enough to write one even if you wanted to.’

Being put down in front of his friends infuriated him. He threw his spoon at me. ‘Kongpi,’ he snarled, ‘maybe you can write love letters, but you’re still a kongpi . I may be dumb, but I’m a hell of a lot better than you!’ He stood up and pointed to me threateningly, his eyes blazing. ‘I told you to take a look in the mirror, but since you won’t, I’ll tell you what you look like: you look like a parasite. Who’ve you come here to feast upon, that’s what I want to know. Who is Huixian to you? And what does she owe you? Do you think you own her just because she had a few meals on your boat? What do you want to talk to her about? Everybody knows what’s on your mind. You’re like the toad that wants to feast on a swan.’

I responded to the thrown spoon by picking up a pair of clippers and throwing them at him, hitting him on the leg. ‘My new clippers!’ Old Cui shouted. ‘You’ll buy a new pair if you’ve broken them. Now get out, all of you! I’m not going to have you two fighting over a woman in my shop!’

The veil of motives was broken by that shout. No one in the shop spoke. Boiling with rage, I glared at Xiaogai. My anger stemmed in part from his aggressive behaviour, but also because the words had hit home. I glanced at Huixian, hoping she’d come to my aid, but she bent over to pick up the clippers, her expression giving away nothing of what she felt. The hint of a vacant smile appeared on her lips. She tested the clippers. ‘Do me a favour,’ she said. ‘I don’t want you fighting over me here. If word got out, people would be thrilled to place the blame squarely on me.’ She walked over to the washbasin, then turned and beckoned me over. ‘Come on, Ku Dongliang, I’ll wash your hair for you. Since you don’t want them to hear what you say, come here and let me wash your hair, and they won’t hear a word.’

I hesitated as I saw Huixian turn on the water and test the temperature on the back of her hand. ‘Sit down,’ she said. ‘You said there’s something you want to talk about. Well, everything’s open and above board here. You can talk while I run the water, then stop and leave after I’ve turned it off.’

As they say, riding a tiger is easy, getting off is hard. So, under the mocking gazes of Xiaogai and the others, I stumbled nervously over to the washbasin. ‘Put your bag down,’ she said. I didn’t. Instead, I laid it on my knees after I’d sat down on the stool. ‘What do you have in there, gold ingots? No one’s going to steal your stuff.’ She took it from me and laid it to one side.

Warm water flowed from the hose, and I was encircled by an unfamiliar but rich fragrance, one I couldn’t begin to describe. It came not only from Huixian’s jasmine face powder, but drifted over from somewhere else as well, and I wondered if it might be her natural smell, the faint aroma of sunflowers. I know it sounds far-fetched, but her body gave off the aroma of sunflowers. ‘My dad … my dad, he …’ I couldn’t say what I wanted to say and felt as if I were suffocating.

‘What about your dad?’ she said. ‘Is that what you want to talk about, your dad?’

‘I mean, you helped my dad …’ I felt her fingers moving between my scalp and the tap and swallowed the rest of the words. ‘I mean, my dad … he’s actually a good man, someone who’s suffered a lot.’

‘That’s something you should talk to the authorities about. Why tell me?’ She kept massaging my scalp. ‘What’s wrong with your head, why’s it so stiff? Lower it for me.’

I did, and I felt her push it down further, her fingers gently massaging. Then she put one finger into each of my ears and made two full circles. My memory is clear on that, two full circles, and my old problem returned: I forgot what it was I wanted to talk to her about as a mysterious current shot down from the top of my head through my body, all the way to my crotch, where an erection sprang up. Now the feeling of suffocation intensified. Danger! Danger! My brain was sending a warning, stronger and stronger. The tap was turned off and no more water ran through the hose. The sound was replaced by my father’s raspy shout: ‘Leave, get out of there, come back to the boat!’

I jumped down off the stool, flustered, picked up my bag and held it in front of me to hide the bulge in my trousers. I fled from the People’s Barbershop before anyone knew what was happening. ‘What got into him?’ someone shouted. ‘Did he say something?’

I looked behind me. Huixian had run to the door. I’d really offended her this time. Her face was flushed. She raised her fist; she was still holding the bar of soap. ‘Ku Dongliang!’ she shouted. ‘You’re crazy. People kept telling me you were, but I didn’t believe them. Now I do! And you said you wanted to talk! I tell you, go to Horsebridge, that’s where the lunatic asylum is!’

I ran like an escaped convict, all the way to the public toilet on People’s Avenue. I’d shamed myself, and every time I did that on the shore, that’s where I went. I was a sick young man, and this was my remedy. But, just my luck, the toilet offered no aid this time, had no place for me. A skinny monkey of a man was standing in front of the only cubicle, impatiently trying to undo a knot in his trouser sash. I couldn’t get him to hurry, and was forced to stand there and wait. And as I watched him getting ready to urinate, I found myself envying him. What a good life people like him had, with a home to return to when the need to vent his desire came upon him, able to relieve himself in the toilet, pull up his pants, and leave without a care, unlike me, who had a different need for a public toilet. The stink inside got stronger, so I edged closer to the urinals. But the smell was strong there too, forcing me to hold my nose.

Outside, either a gust of wind or a passer-by kicked up the sand on the ground and called out to me. ‘Danger, Dongliang, danger!’ It sounded so familiar. It was my mother’s voice. I went out and looked around, but there was not a trace of Qiao Limin, who had been gone from Milltown for years. I was puzzled. What special talents did she have? After all this time, being so far away, how and why had she returned now to interfere with my private life? I was in control of my own body, and yet her voice could come on the wind to remind me that I was twenty-six years old and ought to have a sense of shame and propriety, that I must keep up the struggle against erections and must not continually seek that remedy; I must stop acting rashly and find a new solution. A determination to mend my ways arose as I headed back inside and stood in front of the urinals, head down. I could sense Qiao Limin’s shadow floating in the air outside, forcing me to develop a new remedy, but nothing suggested itself. And so I shouted my nickname to myself — ‘Kongpi, Kongpi, Kongpi’ — seven or eight times, and a small miracle occurred: my erection finally listened to me and subsided. With some difficulty, I pissed into the urinal, feeling a great sense of accomplishment, and then, like all the local residents, strode guiltlessly out of the toilet.