Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

‘It’s been eight or nine days, I guess.’

‘Bad timing. Didn’t that pig at least ask?’

‘No. What’s so bad about the timing?’ Sijiang was getting anxious, her red eyes opening wide.

‘Think about how pigs breed. Once the sow’s in season, next thing you know her belly’s full of little piglets.’

‘Huh?’ Sijiang straightened up, her hand searching her torso, feeling first her liver, then her stomach, as if afraid she had a litter of piglets inside her.

‘Don’t worry. That old fellow’s probably shooting blanks anyway. Don’t fret. What’s done is done.’

‘Yeah,’ Sijiang answered, though her mind was obviously weighed down by it all. ‘Here, let me return this to you. He gave me three thousand yuan .’ Sijiang opened the inner pocket of her jacket and pulled out a wad of notes. Peeling off a couple, she handed them to Xiaohong.

‘I’ve got money. You hang onto that,’ Xiaohong said, pushing it away.

‘What the hell, Xiaohong? You think it’s dirty?’

‘Dirty? No, that’s got to be the tidiest money I’ve ever seen.’

‘Then why won’t you take it?’

‘I told you. I have money. If I run out, then I’ll ask you for it.’

‘Alright. Honghong, I want to make some money, learn hairdressing and open my own salon. I don’t want to be a shampoo girl. Or, how about we go in together? We could open the grandest salon in the city!’ Sijiang tucked the money back into her pocket.

‘Sounds great! Then we’d be our own bosses. We could hire a few shampoo girls. And no matter what we did, no one would dare mess with us then!’

They talked on, giggling, their heads leaning close together. Li Mazi came into the room, water in hand, and looked blankly at the scene. Sijiang clammed up as soon as he entered, casting a glance in his direction. Xiaohong got up and, grabbing another pail, put on her slippers and went down the corridor.

VIII

It was afternoon, and Xiaohong was alone in the shack poring over Li Mazi’s frayed magazine, a cheap pirated copy, the cover of which displayed a seductive woman. Li Mazi was nearly thirty. If he needed to rely on these things for consolation, who was she to stop him? Actually, he was to be pitied. Whenever he went back to his hometown, he seemed to be such a big shot, everyone envying his success, but who knew whether his life was really all that comfortable? Perhaps if he had stayed put, he’d have a wife and kids and wouldn’t have to depend on these cover girls for company. As Xiaohong was pondering this, Mr Zhuang came in.

‘Ah Hong, what you doing here all alone?’

Xiaohong, her mind spinning with the effort of deciphering his heavily-accented speech, said, ‘Mr Zhuang! Have a seat.’ He plopped his posterior onto the bed, right up against her.

‘Li Mazi and Sijiang popped out to buy a few things. They should be back any minute.’ She just wanted to prevent him from trying to get too friendly. In fact, the pair had just stepped out.

‘Are you settling in OK, Ah Hong? Anything I can do? So young and so far away from home, it can’t be easy,’ he said mildly.

‘I’m very appreciative, Mr Zhuang. We’ve troubled you for several days already. We’ll leave as soon as we can,’ she said, sparks flying in her mind like a freshly struck match.

‘You misunderstand me, Ah Hong. I didn’t mean that at all,’ he said with a wink and an air of deception. He bumped his hip against her, a gesture loaded with obvious meaning.

She understood well enough, thinking, This forty- or fifty-year-old man is here trying to trick a little girl. If he knew I could see right through him, he’d be humiliated. But Li Mazi still works here and, after all, when we needed a place to stay, he did help us. Pretending not to know what Mr Zhuang was up to and making no attempt to avoid him, she said, ‘Mr Zhuang, you really are a good man.’

He beamed and moved a bit closer. He stretched out his right hand and put it on her right shoulder. With his left hand, he held out two fifty yuan notes. ‘Ah Hong, take this and use it. If you have any problems, come and find me.’

Xiaohong cursed to herself, This guy is even more disgusting than the mayor. And he expects me to sleep with him? I’m not going to end up hooked on his bait.

‘This… Mr Zhuang…’ Xiaohong said, deliberately seeming a little tempted.

‘Ah Hong, take it.’ He tried to press it into her hand. He was not a big man and his arms were too short. With his right arm wrapped around her, he had hoped to pull her into an embrace, but he could not reach all the way around her. Pretending not to understand his intentions, she hesitatingly took the two notes from him. She said a few nice words to him, and deliberately stood up to put the money into her wallet, trying desperately to find a way out of this entanglement.

Suddenly, she gasped, ‘Mr Zhuang! I’ve got diarrhoea. You sit, I’ll be right back.’

He looked at her askance. Ignoring his stare, she unwound a long length of toilet paper and ran off to the washroom.

By the time she returned from the fetid toilet, he was gone. Li Mazi was there smoking, and Sijiang was washing an apple. Xiaohong sat on the bed, pulled the blanket up over her mouth and laughed. The other two looked at each other in confusion.

‘What a pain! Without anything in the bowels, I can’t believe I spent so long squatting over the toilet.’ She told them what had happened, offering a few choice insights in conclusion.

‘Honghong, you really have a way of seeing right through people,’ Sijiang said, handing her the apple.

‘Hey Sijiang, pack your things. We’re leaving in the morning.’ And with a loud crunch, she took a big bite out of the apple.

‘What? Tomorrow?’

‘Yep. If we don’t get out of here, Mr Zhuang is going to start docking Li Mazi’s wages.’

I

‘Hey, Sijiang, look! Dorm beds, ten yuan a night.’ After craning her neck and looking in all directions, Xiaohong finally came across some cheap accommodation.

‘Where? Where?’ Sijiang’s small eyes were locked in a sort of tunnel vision.

‘There, the Spring Hotel,’ Xiaohong pointed toward a humble sign, under which was a forked path. On the sign, carefully drawn in red ink, was an arced line that pointed straight ahead, topped with a tiny arrow. It was a sleek, slippery marking of the path, standing erect like a living thing.

‘Sijiang, what does that remind you of?’ Xiaohong said, bursting into laughter.

Sijiang looked at the arrow, scratched her chest and pondered a moment, ‘It just looks like an arrow. What you laughing at?’

Xiaohong tweaked her friend’s nose and, not wanting to make her feel bad, decided not to say, Doesn’t it remind you of the mayor’s thingy?

‘You two ladies looking for a room? Come on. Follow me,’ a woman, looking young and pretty, said to them with a smile. At a second glance, they thought she seemed a little wilted, her age indiscernible. She wore dark red lipstick and her eyes had been outlined with two thin black marks. It took a moment for Xiaohong to realise that the eyeliner had been tattooed on.

‘It is ten yuan a night?’

‘Yeah, definitely. Not a penny more.’

‘Alright, we’ll have a look.’ Holding hands, the two girls followed the woman’s large rump around a few bends to a very quiet back street, through a dark, narrow passage, and clacked their way up a wooden staircase to the second floor.

‘It’s like our old place, with bunk beds and everything. How many people per room?’

‘Five. Two per room costs thirty a night. Which one you wanna stay in?’

‘Five to a room,’ Sijiang rushed to put her bag on one of the beds, as if afraid someone was competing with her for a place.