Sheng Keyi - Northern Girls - Life Goes On

‘Here, have a little more,’ Mr Zhuang said to Sijiang as they were finishing their supper, having showered his most gallant attentions on her throughout the meal.

‘I’ve already had plenty to eat, and don’t think I could hold another drink,’ said Xiaohong, answering for her friend before turning to the mayor. ‘How about we sing a duet?’ He nodded and they left the table to sit on the sofa. The waitress turned on the speakers, which emitted a deafening sound as the TV screen displayed a bikini-clad girl running across a sandy beach. Mr Zhuang shifted in his chair, his thigh pressing up against Sijiang. In a panic, she tried desperately to respond appropriately to his attentions, as she looked for a way to wriggle away from his looming form.

‘Mr Zhuang, why don’t you two join us over here?’ Xiaohong called out, offering her friend an escape route.

‘You sing first. Go ahead.’ Mr Zhuang turned towards her, his face as red as the Taoist deity Lord Guan’s.

The mayor was some singer. Throughout his soul-stirring rendition of a classic pop song, he strained breathlessly as his voice cracked trying to reach the high notes. His off-key tune was a perfect match for his lack of rhythm. He belted out the whole song practically all in one breath, except for the notes he missed out, which was about one out of every five.

‘That was touching,’ Xiaohong said, applauding. She poured him some tea and lit a cigarette for him. After a moment, Mr Zhuang and Sijiang came over to sit with them on the sofa. Xiaohong felt that the way had been paved, and the time was ripe for her to approach the mayor. When Mr Zhuang started to sing an old favourite, she made her move.

‘Wow! Mr Zhuang is a good singer. Mr Mayor, you two must practise singing all the time.’ She bawled into the mayor’s ear loud enough to be heard over the music’s blare.

The mayor nodded and said, ‘The boss does sing well.’

Xiaohong thought, Well, at least he doesn’t have any delusions about his own abilities. She continued to blindly heap praise on the two men, buying a little more time.

The mayor then pointed at Xiaohong and said, ‘Big waves.’

Confused, she asked, ‘What waves?’

‘These. Your boobs,’ he said, rubbing his hands along his own chest. ‘Anyone ever surf those waves?’

In the Hunan dialect, waving meant kissing, but what was kissing to a letch like the mayor? Hoping to learn something from the man, she put on a coquettish smile and said, ‘I wouldn’t know anything about that.’

‘Well, your waves are big, so I’m sure someone’s surfed them,’ he said, sounding like a farmer discussing something as innocuous as his crops.

It crossed Xiaohong’s mind that this was a whole new style of discourse for her. She hadn’t been careful, and things had gotten out of hand before she even had a chance to bring up her own business. Once the talk turned toward her bust, it was hard to do an about face. Anxiously, she said, ‘Mr Mayor, I just arrived here and I’ve got a little problem. I wonder if you might be able to help.’

‘People come every day, and every day people leave. It’s a very mobile population,’ he said, his speech a little slurred. He wore an expression as enigmatic as Buddha’s.

‘I heard they check papers here?’

‘Sometimes they check, sometimes they don’t.’

‘Mr Mayor, can you help us get temporary residence cards?’

‘Are you a virgin?’

‘Who? Me?’ Xiaohong gasped in astonishment.

‘I only help virgins.’

V

Li Mazi lounged, legs splayed and eyes roving over his magazine. His briefs swayed in the breeze from the window where he had hung them up to dry, drawing the eye to a large hole in the crotch. Seeing Sijiang enter the room, he sat up hastily.

‘Ah, your cheeks are all rosy. You have a good time?’

Looking like she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar, she kept her gaze turned toward his legs.

‘I thought you’d be back late,’ Li Mazi smiled sheepishly.

‘So, everything arranged, Xiaohong?’ he asked, turning away from Sijiang.

‘Arranged my arse. That fat fucking pig,’ she said in a choked tone.

‘Hey, not so loud. What did the boss have to say?’

‘I spoke to the mayor directly.’

‘Now you’ve done it. Look, I know Mr Zhuang is a randy old guy, but he’s not all bad.’ Li Mazi flung the magazine away from him, feeling a twinge of pity for the two girls.

‘A stream’s twists and turns all eventually lead to the sea, and Mr Zhuang is just one twist in the stream,’ said Xiaohong. ‘I thought we could take a shortcut and get right to the ocean. How was I to know the bloody mayor only cared about popping a girl’s cherry? Even if I were a virgin, I would never take this route to get what I want. And to think, I wasted some of my best moves on him tonight.’

‘But, Xiaohong, if the mayor said he won’t help you, there’s no point going to Mr Zhuang now,’ Li Mazi said, shaking his head.

Sijiang’s face was flushed and her eyes glassy with the after-effects of alcohol. She had been fidgeting ever since she came through the door. She stood, she sat, she stood, and then she sat again.

‘Relax. Why don’t we sleep on it and we’ll figure something out in the morning,’ Li Mazi said.

Sijiang had caught the term ‘slammer’ earlier in the day and was worried that they were in real trouble. She couldn’t have been more startled if she’d heard the word ‘brothel’.

‘Something on your mind, Sijiang?’ Xiaohong asked.

‘I… I,’ stammered Sijiang, her watery eyes shot back and forth between Xiaohong and Li Mazi. She grew even redder.

‘Never mind. Don’t worry,’ said Xiaohong. ‘You stay here for a couple more days, and I’ll go out and see what I can do. If I don’t come back, then you’ll know something’s happened. We didn’t travel all this way just to run into a dead end now. If we find that we really have reached the end of the line here, then I guess we’ll just say we’ve had our fun, and it’s run its course.’ Xiaohong was determined to finish what she had begun.

‘But Xiaohong, you don’t understand. That Mr Zhuang, he kept grabbing my hand. I barely managed to fend him off.’

‘OK, so let him feel you up, then. Who knows, maybe if he gets off on it, he’ll help us with our problem after all. It’s not like you’re a virgin. Surely your hand’s seen worse action than that.’

‘Xiaohong, I… I am a virgin.’

‘What the hell? That night, didn’t you say…?’

‘I lied. I was afraid you’d laugh at me, being so green at this age.’

Xiaohong replied, ‘Sijiang, that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.’

‘Honghong, I’m thinking I’ll get the mayor’s help with our temporary residence cards,’ Sijiang finally blurted out the idea she’d been mulling over.

‘Huh? You? Do it with that fat pig? You might as well do Li Mazi!’

Li Mazi spluttered, surprised and a little hurt. Impulsively, he said, ‘Xiaohong, why don’t you play the hooker then? I’m sure you could bring in a whole truckload of such ‘fat pigs’!’

The argument continued heatedly, but no resolution was found. Xiaohong had spoken thoughtlessly and didn’t realise she had hit a nerve with the other two. Li Mazi’s kindness towards Li Sijiang had planted a seed of affection inside her, and she’d quietly nurtured it ever since.

‘There’s no bridge that can’t be crossed.’ And with that, Xiaohong flopped onto the bed, bum out and face to the wall, and fell straight to sleep. Sijiang looked at Li Mazi. Li Mazi looked at Sijiang. Then they both looked at the empty half of the bed beside them. Sijiang’s apple-shaped face turned pink from ear to ear, and then proceeded to run through all the shades of red. The thoughts that raced through her mind were evident in the change from one hue to another. Li Mazi could see that she was touched by his attentions, but he felt things were moving a little too fast. He didn’t grab her hand and pull her to the bed, feeling such a crass act would be incompatible with the fondness shared between them. Li Mazi had originally brought the two girls with him in order to please Mr Zhuang, thinking that if one of them became his boss’s little secret, his own position would be secure, at least for a time. He had a further plan, which involved him starting at Mr Zhuang’s toy factory, where he would become the manager of a couple of hundred female employees. He’d be perfect for the job, he thought, keeping tabs on all those beautiful girls. He’d be the envy of everyone he knew. He had hand-picked Xiaohong upon seeing her coquettish charms, never suspecting she had such a hot-blooded, independent streak in her. She was quite a handful, and Sijiang was clearly under her thumb. He was sure the loss of Sijiang’s virginity would have to get Xiaohong’s stamp of approval before it could get her own thumbs up.