Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

She made her way up the stairs.

‘Xiaohong is a flirt. She is such a bloody flirt.’

‘Don’t make wild guesses and don’t just go around talking about people for no good reason, OK?’

‘When did I ever talk about anyone for nothing? You’re with her in the office all day long. I can’t believe she hasn’t seduced you yet. I’m telling you, when I saw her puking that day in the washroom, I immediately thought of you. Did she do it with you?’

‘I… Youqing, you are still talking nonsense. You see someone puking, you can’t assume they are pregnant. You’re a girl too. Please don’t just go around saying such things.’

‘I think you smell of her. You still say you don’t like her?’

‘How could I like her? Will you stop going on about it? Now that you’ve got Xiao Yuan into the hospital, what do the two of you plan to do?’

The wind carried the voices from the roof into the stairwell. Xiaohong, nauseous, walked away. Spitting, she began to consider her options. One, tell Xia she was pregnant with his baby. Second, tell Liao she was pregnant with his baby. Third, just quietly pretend nothing had happened and go to the People’s Hospital for an abortion. Plans one and two might be explosive and the outcome less than ideal. The third was the quietest, like swallowing your front teeth when they have been knocked out. After all, she had to live and being single and pregnant was never going to yield a happy outcome. Forget it then! Next week, she would take time off, go to the People’s Hospital and get this matter cleared up.

The next few days, Xiaohong’s mouth was preoccupied, silently chomping on sour plums. She had takeaway meals and ate in her room, holding her nose as she took a few mouthfuls, then running again to the toilet to wash it all away. She wracked her brain, asking herself what she could possibly eat. Then, suddenly, she would have a terrible craving and for as long as she had this voracious appetite, she was extremely comfortable. Once she got what she wanted and finished it, she could survive the day.

VIII

During her recovery period, Xiaohong was conflicted. Restless, her mind began to wander.

On the one hand, she wished for a little comfort from Liao, but she feared he would want to sleep with her. After she had taken it upon herself to settle the matter of the little worm, she suddenly began to regret it. She felt she should have talked to him, since he played the leading role in her sex life. Even though she had been with Xia that one time, it was Liao who should take primary responsibility for this. But the matter had passed just like that, leaving her more or less in good health. No one knew the secret thing Xiaohong’s body had experienced. That time Youqing had seen her in the washroom vomiting had become nothing more than an illusion.

Her mind drifted to Youqing. Why would she want to bring a time bomb into the hospital, putting Xiao Yuan where he would cross paths with her and Xia? Perhaps she had some sick obsession with seeing men fight over her. Xiao Yuan was from the northeast and was something of a pet project for the little southern girl. And his friendliness toward Xiaohong seemed to raise a heartfelt jealousy in Youqing.

It was November now. The weather was finally cool enough for a light sweater this late in the year. At this time, Xiaohong’s body was particularly vulnerable to fatigue and sometimes she experienced a sensation of vertigo. For a girl so young, this was a little strange, she thought. Xiaohong started wondering if it was anaemia, but then found no problem when she had it checked. She could not think of when the seed of this problem had been planted. Was it cancer or was she suffering from AIDS? Was she dying? These random thoughts troubled her and she suddenly became quite pessimistic. It finally produced in her a wave of self pity that was quite unprecedented.

Autumn had passed and winter seemed to be hiding inside her body, though it had not yet begun its full assault.

On her day off, Xiaohong’s forehead began to sweat and her breathing became uneven but it only lasted a moment before it all went back to normal. She went to a little fruit market and bought a bag of apples. Not bothering to peel it, she washed one of them and bit into it. When she had taken the bite, her eyes drifted to the stain on the ceiling. She recalled the day Liao had said, ‘I love you’.

The teeth marks on her apple had a slight bloodstain.

Her appetite left her. She threw the rest of the apple away.

It dawned on her that she had not seen Sijiang in a long time. The last time was when Specs had come with her to the hospital. Since then, they had only talked on the phone once. Specs seemed an honest, loyal sort. A shy, quiet echo of Sijiang. There should be no trouble between those two.

She didn’t know what that pair of dear old sows Wu Ying and Ah Xing were up to either. Wu Ying had found another job and Li Xuewen had opened a small bookstore for Ah Xing. They had all left the reception desk where they used to sell their smiles, and were in contact less frequently, naturally falling out of touch with one another.

She thought of going to Qianshan Town, since it wasn’t far. She could get there in half an hour on the bus. But she couldn’t get up. Lying there groggily, she dozed off. She slept, feeling she had found her way to the big comfortable bed back at home, smelling the fragrance of the rape fields, listening to the buzz of the bees’ song.

When she awoke, she found herself lying on a narrow bed in a foreign place, greeted only by empty walls and a simple wardrobe that sagged to one side.

I

Spring came like the evening tide, quietly and quickly, a patch-up job to repair the decay of winter. For those who were not particularly sensitive, the change of the seasons in this city was vague and they were completely oblivious to the arrival of spring. Most people lived in this distracted way, the change of seasons having nothing to do with them. There were only two sorts of people who felt strongly about the changing seasons. One was the lonely woman who was excessively tied to a luxurious lifestyle and the seasonal changes in fashion. The other was the rootless vagrant whose only concern was the business of survival. These two types of people had very different feelings. The sensitivity of the former was only skin deep, while the latter’s was from the soul. In the former, the change of seasons led to sentimentality but in the latter, it shaped the basic tenor of life.

Spring, a time of growth, the crazy mating season, was also the time for the annual peak of public education activity at the hospital. Those who exceeded the bounds of family planning policies and found themselves pregnant again had to have abortions. After the second child, it was time to talk permanent solutions. Each couple needed to make arrangements for husband or wife to have a procedure. Either would do. Normally, the woman would have a tubal ligation, hysterectomy or some other method of sterilisation. If the woman was really not able to do so, the man would have to pay the price and go under the knife. Although the campaign had been an aggressive one, there were still many people hiding out, waiting to have a third — or even a fourth — child. Often they persevered until they had a son, after which they would be happy enough to go and see the doctor and his scalpel.

The little cock. It was forever the ideal, the pride of life, a sustained revolution. When it was grown, it would bring both ecstasy and catastrophe to women. It would bear and bring forth all sorts of worries, excitement and joy.