Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

She went into the washroom and freshened up, enjoying the cool of the water as it splashed against her skin. When she had finished, she still felt a bit uncertain about going any further with the northern man. In the end, persuaded by her own body, she went at it with gusto. Gasping, the man showed equal enthusiasm, flipping her body first one way, then the other, like a fish twitching back and forth at the end of a line.

When they were done, he asked, ‘How much?’

Dumbfounded, she replied, ‘Huh? How much what?’

The guy froze for a second, his surprise seemingly even greater than her own. ‘Why … money.’

‘For what?’ she asked.

‘For hooking!’ he answered.

III

Cars passed back and forth, kicking up billows of dust, interrupted by long buses crunching their way along the gravelly road. Xiaohong wore a blue tank top and short skirt, exposing nearly as much flesh as an innocent nappy-clad infant. She stood beneath the sign at the bus stop cracking sunflower seeds, utterly bored as she watched the flow of traffic. Many things passed through her mind — like the first time she’d been with a boy and the whole mess with her brother-in-law. Standing there, it was as if all her random musings were being crushed beneath the passing tyres, drifting away on clouds of dust.

Xiaohong’s cleavage was a deep gulley, forming an axis down the length of her body, a straight line flowing downward from the tip of her nose to the space where her thighs branched out to either side. It was to that critical spot that the imagination flowed, as all rivers flow to the sea, their natural destination. Everyone at the bus stop, both men and women, took note of her bust line, and it set their minds wandering. The women, filled with a mixture of reluctant admiration and envy, stuck their noses in the air indignantly. The men felt their bodies begin to stir, their minds coming to life to entertain all sorts of obscene fantasies.

The bus rambled in like an old drunkard. As it pulled over, the eyes of all the passengers fell onto the bus stop through the window — or, to put it more accurately, onto Xiaohong’s cleavage. In a place this small, it took guts to show off so much skin. The men waiting for the bus, cursing their luck at its arrival, took one last long look at the girl, and then one by one climbed aboard. Xiaohong hummed the lyrics of a popular tune, her feet casually tapping the ground as she sauntered over to the bus queue.

She squinted to protect her eyes as the wind kicked up another round of dust. When she opened them, all she saw was a puff of smoke from the back end of the bus as it puttered away. She stomped her foot and cursed, her chest heaving.

‘Xiaohong! Xiaohong!’ The female voice calling her name was coming from the end of a long shadow. Xiaohong spied a fluffy head of hair like a spruced-up bird’s nest, great bobbing silver earrings and scarlet lips spread in a wide smile.

‘Yang Chunhua!’ she shouted. Chunhua, the girl who had shared a desk with Xiaohong at school, stood before her, dressed like a whore without being the least bit sexy.

‘What you been doing?’ Chunhua asked, eyes aimed straight at Xiaohong’s chest.

‘Just working at the county guesthouse.’

‘Making good money?’

‘One-fifty.’

‘Working for peanuts! You ought to find a job at my friend’s company.’ With that, Chunhua clucked her tongue and led Xiaohong off by the hand.

They walked a short distance to an area with lots of restaurants and entertainment — not exactly prosperous, but lively enough. The narrow uneven streets were lined by posters bearing patriotic slogans, dust-covered leaves dangled from branch ends, and betel nuts were being chomped between the teeth of passersby. Everywhere you looked life bubbled, like a pot of water at full boil. As the girls made their way along the streets, Chunhua clung tightly to Xiaohong’s hand as if afraid she’d fly away.

Walking through a wide shuttered gate and past a row of counters to reach the office, the girls saw several men chatting on a black sofa, engulfed in a cloud of cigarette smoke. A girl at a desk pecked away at the keys of a calculator. Chunhua called, ‘Hi boss. This is my old classmate. Whaddya think?’ Xiaohong was startled by the falsetto of Chunhua’s voice.

The boss, a man named Mr Tan, stood up. He was forty-ish, balding, not too tall, and a little too broad. Sweeping his eyes over Xiaohong’s most prominent features, he smiled and waved to her with the hand holding his cigarette.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked.

‘Oh, she’s Qian , as in the character for money; Xiao , as in small; Hong , as in red,’ Chunhua replied for her, moving to sit next to a young man who quickly wrapped an arm around her waist. Xiaohong offered Mr Tan a bright smile.

‘Good. You can start tomorrow.’ He didn’t waste any time on the formalities.

That evening, Mr Tan got a private room at the Springtime Restaurant and hosted a business dinner. Guests of honour were the Red Flag Chemical Plant manager, Mr Liu, a department store manager, Mr Zhang, and the import-export company representative, Mr Li. Xiaohong toasted them all on behalf of Mr Tan. Mr Liu, face as flushed as a suckling pig served at a New Year’s feast, kept his eyes glued to the curve of Xiaohong’s bust, much to her irritation. Xiaohong, not schooled in the art of refusing a drink, swallowed glass after glass without spilling a drop. She had never drunk alcohol before and she soon began to feel light-headed, as if she had been sitting in a classroom on a hot summer afternoon with the chirp of cicadas lulling her into a state of numbness. She felt drowsy. The men, all with bloodshot eyes by now, each took it in turn to toast Mr Tan. Xiaohong, knowing the dinner was far from over, made her way to the washroom, first clearing her bowels, then vomiting, before heading back to the table to start all over again. Cup after cup they drank, moving from 120-proof white spirit to sorghum spirit, from sorghum spirit to red wine, and from red wine to draft beer. She felt like her stomach was a gutter. When the guests were at their jolliest, Xiaohong accepted one final grand toast in honour of Mr Tan. Chunhua sat looking on the whole while in astonishment.

The next day Mr Tan, bald head even shinier, said, ‘After grinding away for so long, we’ve finally broken through. And the money is going to be good! Red Flag is a big enterprise, and getting in with them is no small matter. We oughta be able to make do for a year or so now. Come here. There’s something I want to show you.’

When he opened the warehouse, Xiaohong saw a heap of scrap metal.

‘Valves. The copper in each one is worth hundreds of yuan ,’ Mr Tan said.

It was as if Mr Tan had brought her into a treasure trove, making her feel in equal measures flattered and overwhelmed. She hardly knew what to do with herself. What contribution had she made to the company that Mr Tan should hold her in such high regard?

‘Drinking always brings out a person’s true character. I can tell you’re a straight, trustworthy girl. And I’m always a good judge of people,’ Mr Tan said, as if he’d read her mind.

After a moment, he added, ‘Tomorrow, I want you to start sleeping in the warehouse. There’s a small room there with a bed, blanket and television.’

‘You’re the boss!’ It was the first time Xiaohong had ever sucked up to anyone.

‘You catch on fast,’ he said, pleased.

Within a few days, Xiaohong had figured out that Chunhua was virtually a concubine. Her lover was Mr Tan’s counterpart, also engaged in the scrap metal business. His name was Ma Xun, but everyone in his office called him ‘Boss’. In fact, Xiaohong noticed that everyone around here loved to be called ‘Boss’. Even if a man ran nothing more than a small betel nut stall, his customers would shout, ‘Hey, Boss!’ in greeting, much to his pleasure — and theirs, since it usually resulted in discounted betel nuts. Mr Tan told her that he and Mr Ma were bound as tightly as brothers. Chunhua had originally worked for him, and had made a good impression at business dinners, but when Mr Ma wanted to pry her from his grasp, Mr Tan had given her up with an open-handed generosity. ‘Wasn’t it better like that?’, he asked through yellowy smoke-stained teeth.