Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

She ranted on, then lit a cigarette. Opening her handbag, she took out a wallet. She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Not enough. We need another six hundred. We’ll wait till morning and see if Liu comes back. If not, we’ll have to go to try and bail her out.’

IV

‘Xiaohong, how about going back home? This place is so chaotic.’ The bed squeaked, shaking under Sijiang’s weight as she crawled onto Xiaohong’s bunk, seeking some solace. Her voice quivered. With the noise from the nearby factories, the nights were restless and uncanny. The five girls staying in the room, with the exception of Li, had all had a difficult night. Unfazed, Li simply continued filling the ashtray with more butts, and the room with more smoke.

‘What a shitty night!’ Xiaohong stretched her arms, then put her right hand over her genitals again, saying, ‘Oh, that hurts! Go back home, hm?’

‘Yeah. I plan to.’

‘Plan? You plan to go back now. It’s like letting that guy do you for nothing. You think you’re going to take your three thousand yuan back home and open up your dream shop? You really want to use the three thousand you’ve made over these few days for that?’ Xiaohong said in irritation, trying to keep her voice down. Lu was tossing and turning on her bed. Li napped a while, then got up again to light another cigarette. She took a long drag, exhaled, paused a moment, then took another drag and exhaled again. With Li smoking like that, Sijiang kept choking. Hardly able to speak, she gazed through the mosquito net at the red tip of the cigarette. Someone kept sniffing, as if she had a cold, but they couldn’t tell if it was Li or Lu. Whoever it was, she stealthily unwound a length of toilet paper, as if trying not to let anyone know.

‘Well then, what do you have in mind?’

‘Tomorrow, let’s go to the hair salons around here and see if anyone’s hiring. We keep expectations low — we just need to earn enough to fill our bellies so we don’t starve. Things will turn around for us,’ Xiaohong said through clenched teeth. Sijiang sighed softly and put her hand on her belly.

‘Honghong, if I’ve… you know, got one in the oven now, you think I should go through with it or not?’

‘If you have it, it’d be a little pig. That freak!’ she said, taking another dig at the mayor.

‘You’re right. OK, I can’t have it.’

‘Then just go to the hospital and get rid of it.’

‘An abortion? Won’t it hurt?’

‘It hurts like hell. Once, my brother-in-law took me for an abortion. It hurt so bad I broke out in a sweat and fainted. The doctor gave me a shot in the arm and then I didn’t know a thing. God, they let an intern practise on me! It took forever. I can still see those stainless steel scissors and forceps in my mind. It’s enough to scare anyone.’

‘How’d they do it? They cut the stomach?’

‘Nah. They go in from down there, then cut out that little piece of meat, slice by slice.’

‘Ugh!’ Sijiang clicked her tongue against her teeth, then let out a long, frightened wail.

‘So Sijiang, that’s why you’ve got to use a condom. And always calculate your cycle and make sure it’s safe.’

The pillow shook a couple of times as Sijiang silently shook her head.

‘You get what I mean, don’t you?’

The pillow shook again. ‘I don’t get it.’

So, Xiaohong taught her a formula, even though she couldn’t remember where she’d learned it herself. When Sijiang couldn’t follow the explanation, Xiaohong pinched her. ‘You’ve got to remember. A week before and a week after your period comes, you’re safe.’

‘Oh,’ Sijiang said. ‘How come you know all these things?’

‘If I want to understand, I just understand.’ There was a note of frustration in her voice. ‘I’m tired. Let’s get some sleep.’

Sijiang felt Xiaohong’s well-endowed chest turn toward her and press against her side, warm and soft like the hot water bottle she’d always slept with during the winter back home. Giving in to the urge, she put her hand to her own breasts. They no longer seemed like oranges, but more like dry, empty orange peels. Without knowing why, she slipped her hand into Xiaohong’s shirt. When she’d done it before, back in their hometown, it was Xiaohong who had grabbed her hand. Why she wanted to do it this time, she didn’t really understand. She just knew it was something she wanted very much. Xiaohong shifted her position slightly, allowing Sijiang easier access. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell if her friend had purposely twisted to cooperate with her act, or if it was a sleeper’s random movement. The mound of flesh she held was smooth and sagging in its idle state, both strong and pliant. Xiaohong turned drowsily, rolling the other breast onto Sijiang’s hand. Sijiang squeezed the melon-sized breast. In her sleep, Xiaohong moved her hand to her injured genitals, softly moaning in pain.

V

In the industrial area on the outskirts of Shenzhen, people went to and from work each day like a column of ants, no one giving much thought to how they all fit together. There were billiards halls everywhere, where games cost two mao . The pavement outside the shops was filled with plastic chairs and tables, and piled with empty cola and soya milk bottles, peanut shells and food scraps. Colourful barber’s poles rotated outside a salon, with numerous towels drying in the sun — the very picture of a thriving enterprise.

‘Hey Sijiang, look, The 007 Salon’s recruiting shampoo girls.’ Just after ten in the morning, the pair had set out to scour the streets, not letting anything slip past their attention. It had not been easy to locate this red flyer.

‘Boss, we’ve come to apply,’ Xiaohong said, with a bright smile, looking the manager right in the eye.

‘Where are you from, young lady?’ asked the short-haired, middle-aged woman, intrigued.

‘We’re from Hunan. We worked in a salon there.’ Xiaohong thought the boss looked pretty straightforward and honest.

‘Do you know how to wash faces?’ The woman’s gold earrings flashed. Her lips pursed and then relaxed, as if she were trying to keep hold of all the teeth in her mouth. It made her look like a gorilla.

Thinking this might be another one of those weird code words they used here, Xiaohong answered reluctantly, ‘We wash our faces every day.’

The woman grinned broadly, exposing both teeth and gums in a way that was even more unsightly than a face in mourning. She said, ‘I meant facials. You wash the customer’s face for ten minutes or so, using cleanser, like this, and like this.’ She used her hands to demonstrate on her own face.

‘That’s easy,’ Xiaohong said. ‘I’ll wash her face and she can wash mine. Then we’ll know how to do it.’

‘You’ll start work at nine in the morning and finish at two in the morning. Four hundred kuai a month, with room and board.’ The woman closed her lips over her teeth. It seemed she was stifling a laugh. Xiaohong and Sijiang glanced at one another, trying hard to hide their pleasure. Eyes opened wide in delight, they practically flew back to the Spring Hotel.

When they arrived, they found that Liu had been bailed out. It seemed like everything was back to normal and that their mishap was over. There was still plenty of laughter, though perhaps mixed with more pointed barbs than before. Xiaohong and Sijiang expressed their thanks and bade farewell to Li, Lu and Liu. Dragging their worn-out luggage, they made their way straight to The 007 Salon.

I

Privately, Xiaohong and Sijiang called their new boss the Ape. Her husband was called Zhan Shibang and the salon took its name from him, since Zhan Shibang sounded a bit like James Bond. Husband and wife, both of Hakka descent, were relatively easygoing. They had a daughter at secondary school about the same age as Xiaohong and Sijiang. They also had a five-year-old son, doubtless the result of a casual night’s whimsy.