Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

There were six beds in Sijiang’s ward. The room was bright and clean. Even the flies were too ashamed to stay, wandering in only to make a single circuit before flying back out of the window. Having seen the place they had passed through, the mixed ward with dozens of patients, Xiaohong and Specs could tell this place was a level higher. Sijiang was enjoying superior treatment. No doubt about it, this was a clear sign that someone was trying to cover up a guilty conscience.

The faces of the nearby women who had also gone under the knife were all full of sympathy. They were able to take a little comfort from Sijiang’s situation, feeling that at least their own surgeries were ‘justified’. And, furthermore, the prospects for their own sex lives after this ordeal still looked bright. As they ate apples, they politely offered some to Sijiang. Xiaohong, feeling that this friendliness vaguely implied complicity, politely refused.

Lying in the second bed was a woman of about thirty, seemingly the wife of a wealthy local farmer. She lay casually, and when her child needed to be breast-fed, unable to sit up, she simply laid it across her body in a chaotic arc. Several people attended her, coming in and out in a constant stream.

‘First let your wounds heal. Don’t develop any other complications. As soon as you recuperate, you should sue them for compensation, at least a hundred thousand yuan or so,’ the breast-feeding woman said.

‘Yeah, you definitely gotta get some money. You can’t have kids. Who’s gonna marry you? Who’s gonna take care of you when you’re old?’ The breast-feeding woman’s mother-in-law looked on with a worried expression, hitting right at the heart of the matter with those few words. When she had finished, she clucked her tongue and shook her head, then she took up the nursing child in her arms, turned it towards her and kissed it twice before continuing to play with it.

What the old lady had said hit a tender spot with Sijiang, renewing her grief. Tears gushed violently from her.

‘I’ll marry you, Sijiang. Don’t cry. Crying is going to make the wound worse. I want to marry you!’ Specs clumsily wiped Sijiang’s tears, his movements heavy, as if scrubbing at a particularly stubborn stain.

His calm tone shocked Xiaohong. She suddenly felt this humble-looking guy was such a beautiful, shining light. Xiaohong became more emotional and the second round of tears fell more heavily than the first. Wiping her eyes, she turned to Specs and said, ‘Let’s go. I’ll take you to the head of the hospital.’

IV

Dr Lei was not easy to find at all. He was right in the middle of the peak season’s increased activity. The fourth time they knocked on his office door, he finally heard and that mouth that couldn’t grow whiskers of any length called out a deep, ‘Come in!’ On his head was a white cap, and a surgical mask dangled from his ear. He drank water from the cup of his stainless steel thermos. When he saw Xiaohong and Specs, he was a little caught off guard. His face was too pale, and that surprised expression was all too clearly seen, like a shadow passing across it.

‘You two… have a seat. What can I do for you?’

Xiaohong glanced at Specs, indicating that he should speak up.

‘You all… sterilised her… we aren’t even married yet… you all… have gone too far!’ Specs had too much to say and not enough breath to say it.

The chairman looked very confused.

‘Dr Lei, you got the wrong person. His girlfriend, her name’s Li Sijiang. She’s not married yet, and the hospital sterilised her!’

‘I heard about that, but it’s nothing to do with the hospital.’ Dr Lei was quick to shift the blame.

‘But sir, this happened at our hospital. It’s our hospital that did the surgery!’ Seeing Dr Lei’s flippant manner, a fury began to well up in Xiaohong, smouldering inside.

‘I can tell you this. Li Sijiang’s name was swapped for a local farmer’s wife who has four daughters. She was trying to hide, wanting to escape the family planning regulations. No one thought they would stoop to such trickery. It’s very wicked. But don’t worry, they’ll find out exactly who is responsible. The authorities will investigate carefully. The hospital merely performs the procedure. If the surgery goes wrong or there are complications, that’s the hospital’s responsibility.’

‘I want to know, who performed Li Sijiang’s operation?’

‘Yeah, who did it?’ Specs echoed, as if just striking upon the crux of the matter.

‘Whoever did it, it’s all the same. There’s no personal liability. When something like this happens — and this is the first time — we give it careful attention.’ Dr Lei didn’t think this pair of common wage earners was worth a second thought.

‘Why won’t you admit that it was you who did it? I went and checked with Xiao Yuan. You were on duty. You did the surgery. That day you performed eighty-eight operations in all. You broke the previous record for the most operations in a day, didn’t you?’ Xiaohong laid her cards on the table. In one day, eighty-eight women underwent the sterilisation procedure and yet only one person walked carefree out of that operating room, and that was Chairman Lei Yigang.

Dr Lei was surprised Xiaohong could remember the figures from the report.

‘Is it possible you didn’t hear her screaming? She’s just a girl! Why didn’t you hear? Are you all deaf? You didn’t see her struggling? And just like that, you ruined her, without even the least bit of pity! Even veterinarians wouldn’t behave like that!’ Specs stood up furiously. He thought of the four butchers heaving Sijiang to the operating table and this animal surgeon taking his knife so nonchalantly to her. He began to tremble in his anger. But he just stood there with his arms spread wide, uncertain what to do with his two huge hands.

‘When they come in on the gurney, they cry and they shout. They all do. After you give them the anaesthetic, they quieten down.’ Dr Lei had obviously received a shock. He leaned his head back several centimetres. He looked at Specs and seeing no further action from that quarter, the colour returned to his face. He went on to say, ‘Let me add, I really do sympathise with your situation. The hospital won’t charge you any fees for the surgery, medication or hospitalisation. Just relax and recuperate.’

V

During the peak season at the hospital, those who were busy were extremely busy and those who were not were bored to tears. The busy ones went madly about their work updating statistics, recording the number of those being sterilised. How many were sterilised in the morning, in the afternoon, at night. Whether there were complications. Whether there were side-effects. All over the hospital, the talk was about nothing else but sterilisation, reproductive organs and women’s issues, and there was unprecedented attention to the way of going about it all.

Xia was suddenly occupied with important matters, which came as something of a surprise to Youqing. It was the administrative offices and labs that were the most leisurely. For the time being, no one bothered about Youqing’s menstrual problem or her fiancé’s work assignments. She was idle and lonely. At first, she wavered between Xia and Xiao Yuan, considering the advantages she liked so much in each of the two men and mulling over their shortcomings. She hated that she could not bundle the two up into one, making the perfect man, just for her.

In the morning, Xiaohong was in the kitchen washing vegetables when she felt something wrong. Her period had come. She wiped her hands and hastily went to her dorm to sort herself out. She had just climbed halfway up the second flight of stairs, when she saw Youqing’s door on the third floor open, and a man’s heel came into view, followed by another, then by the legs, back and finally the head. Obviously the couple was still completing their goodbyes.