Bird Talk and Other Stories by Xu Xu

by Xu Xu

  When Ah Heung first showed up in Gousing Road, Daksing and Zyunfuk were immediately taken in by her beautiful face and her long braids. Old Gam told them that she was the servant girl of the Si family from across the street. From then on, Old Gam noticed that Daksing paid close attention to Ah Heung. Old Gam sometimes would even joke with him about it, yet none of them ever had an opportunity to talk to her.

  But then one day, Ah Heung came to Daksing’s stall to have a key cut. Daksing and Zyunfuk were playing chess at the time, and Daksing asked her to come back after a few hours to pick up the key, but Ah Heung said she wanted to wait.

  “I have lost my key to the main gate. This one is the key of the lady of the house.” She had borrowed the key to make a copy, but she did not want her mistress to know. That’s why she wanted to take it right back. Daksing reluctantly had to interrupt his game of chess. He got up and, working his file, began to duplicate the key. Ah Heung waited by the side and started to chat with Zyunfuk.

  “Isn’t your mistress the young lady who drives a car by herself?” Zyunfuk asked.

  “Yes, that’s her,” Ah Heung replied. “She is good-looking, isn’t she?”

  “Mr. Si is quite a bit older than her,” Old Gam threw in.

  “Mr. Si is in his fifties and she is his second wife. She used to be a dancing girl in Taiwan.”

  “That’s what I guessed,” Old Gam said. “When they moved here last year, I already could tell.”

  “Don’t they have kids?” Zyunfuk asked.

  “He has two kids with his first wife, but when Mr. Si married our mistress, his first wife was furious. She took the children and went to live in America.”

  “Do they have a lot of money?” Zyunfuk kept asking.

  “Of course! How else could two people afford to live in such a big house?” Old Gam said.

  “Zyunfuk, when you strike it rich someday, you should take a cue from Mr. Si,” Daksing said as he was treading on the wheel that powered his file.

  “Seeing them live like that, they must be worth at least a few hundred thousand,” Zyunfuk said. “That’s not bad.”

  “A few hundred thousand? Gotta be more than that!” Ah Heung exclaimed. “Our mistress’s jewelry alone is worth more than that. That diamond ring on her hand is worth at least eighteen grand.”

  Daksing was done with the duplicate. Ah Heung took the two keys, paid, and quickly left.

  From then on, whenever he saw Ah Heung leave the house, Zyunfuk would deliberately step into the street and wait for her. Pretending that he had run into her by chance, he would walk with her a little. Once, when she went to Central, he accompanied her and on their way back, the two had some tea and snacks. Gradually, he and Ah Heung got to know each other better.

  II

  Zyunfuk had come to Hong Kong from Canton two years earlier. He had a distant relative in Hong Kong, a cousin of his father’s. This relative owned a small nursery in Shau Kei Wan where he grew flowers and cultivated miniature trees that he then sold. Zyunfuk lived with his father’s cousin, but he did not know a thing about cultivating flowers. Moreover, he was not interested. In Canton, he had been an apprentice to an electrician and had worked at an appliances store for a while after he came to Hong Kong. But he had not gotten along with his boss and had soon left. He had long wanted to run a small shop for electrical supplies on his own, selling light bulbs and fixing faulty wiring, but he had always lacked the initial capital and so the opportunity had never presented itself.

  Because he was friends with Daksing and often met up with him, he eventually got some potted flowers and miniature trees from his uncle and set up a small stall on Gousing Road. He had a good profit margin, and even though business was not exactly great, he still could make enough money to get by. Other than playing chess together, Zyunfuk and Daksing also cooperated in placing high-stakes bets on dogs and horses at betting shops. Seeing that they often won, even Old Gam would sometimes chip in and try his luck. They lived simple lives, and even though they did not have much, they were at ease with themselves and quite happy. But all that began to change after Ah Heung showed up on Gousing Road.

  From that day on, it seemed that all their conversation invariably focused on Ah Heung. After Zyunfuk had become acquainted with her, he told Daksing and Old Gam everything that happened between them. Daksing and Old Gam would then offer their opinion. The way Old Gam saw it, Ah Heung had at least four or five thousand Hong Kong dollars in savings. If Zyunfuk could marry her, then they would easily be able to open an electrical supplies stall. That was what Zyunfuk had often talked about and what he really wanted to do. Selling things like light bulbs and sockets, small table lamps and lampshades, and fixing lights or installing appliances in the neighborhood certainly would be good business. Old Gam began to closely observe Ah Heung’s comings and goings. When he saw her leave or enter Gousing Road, he would tell Zyunfuk. Zyunfuk often asked Daksing to look after his stall so that he could accompany Ah Heung shopping and carry her groceries for her. Ah Heung also frequently came over to chat with them. At times, she also asked them for help with some small matters.

  The days passed, and even though Zyunfuk often went to the movies with Ah Heung or had a late-night snack with her, he just never found the right moment to tell her how he felt about her. What was more, Ah Heung was very generous, and when they grabbed a bite in the evening, she usually snatched up the bill. Ah Heung was a straightforward and cheerful girl. She rarely talked about herself but liked to talk about her mistress. She liked her mistress a lot, and her mistress seemed to like her a lot. Her mistress was from Shanghai, but in 1949 she and her family had left for Taiwan. She later became a dancing girl and met up with a lot of wealthy and powerful men. All this she shared with Ah Heung, who listened with great interest. Ah Heung then told these stories to Zyunfuk, who in turn told them to Daksing and Old Gam.

  Old Gam was a man with good judgment and he soon realized that Zyunfuk was not an ideal match for Ah Heung. Zyunfuk himself, however, did not. He was convinced that he had fallen head over heels in love. Every day, he yearned to see Ah Heung. He would ask her out to see a local opera or have a snack in the evening, but when he was together with Ah Heung, he did not really have anything to say to her. Ah Heung, on the other hand, in a natural and unaffected manner, chatted about her mistress or her master. She was happy to be friends with Zyunfuk, but it seemed she was oblivious to his feelings toward her.

  When Zyunfuk recounted all that had happened the previous evenings to Daksing and Old Gam, Old Gam remarked, “The way I see it, Ah Heung is a very smart girl. I am sure she’s been influenced by that mistress of hers from Shanghai. She’s probably quite cocky, and I guess she won’t get married for the time being. And when she does get married, she’ll want to marry someone rich.”

  Hearing Old Gam talk like this, Daksing felt pity for Zyunfuk and said, “But you have to at least tell her how you feel. I mean, if she didn’t like you, she wouldn’t go out with you. Have you maybe … held her hand or put your arm around her waist or kissed her on the cheek?”

  “I have often held her hand, and she is fine with that, but when I try to put my arm around her waist, she pushes me away,” Zyunfuk replied. “Once when I asked her to go for a walk, she told me that what she hated most was seeing all those secretive couples hiding out in the narrow alleyways. I never tried that again afterward.”

  “I think you might as well put your cards on the table,” Daksing said. “Why don’t you propose to her and see what she says?”

  “Right, tomorrow I am going to.… I’ll see what she says.…If she turns me down, I’ll just forget the whole thing and won’t ask her out anymore.”

  It seemed that he had made up his mind.

  III

  And thus, seated in a small booth inside a café, Zyunfuk opened his heart to Ah Heung. He began by telling her that he loved her, and then went on to tell her how he imagined their life together. He told her that he was an aspiring electrician, and that he
wanted to open an electrical supplies store and establish a family. Finally, he said he hoped that he and Ah Heung would spend the rest of their lives together.

  After he had said everything he had wanted to say, he expected Ah Heung to be moved by his words. Ah Heung, however, patted his hand in the way an adult does to a child and began to laugh out loud.

  “What’s the matter?” Zyunfuk asked.

  “You want to get married? Well, then you should find yourself a rich girl. You are poor, I am poor, what’s the use of us getting married? Hasn’t any of that crossed your mind? You might be older than me, but clearly not any wiser.”

  “You want to get married to someone rich?”

  “I don’t want to get married at all yet,” Ah Heung said laughing. “But when I do get married, I naturally want to marry someone with money. I was born into a poor family. I have never once worn a pretty dress or lived in a nice house. For a woman, getting married is like being born a second time. Would I want to be born into a pauper’s house again? You really are something! Look at my mistress, Ms. Si. She married a man with wealth, and she is now living the good life.”

  “That Ms. Si of yours is the concubine of an old geezer; what’s so great about that?”

  “She can do or have whatever she wants. If she wants to sleep she can sleep, if she wants to have fun she can have fun. I think she is the happiest person in the world!”

  “But I love you!” Zyunfuk exclaimed.

  “I like you too, and it’s because I like you that I don’t want you to be led astray. Quite frankly, you won’t be able to support me. As for me, I am still young. I have so many dreams and so many things that I want, but for any of that I first of all need money.”

  “Ah Heung, I really didn’t expect …,” but Zyunfuk was cut short by Ah Heung.

  “I don’t care if you think I am shallow or that I don’t understand love. What I do know is this: We are poor folks, and poor folks can’t afford to fall in love. Poor folks shouldn’t talk morals either. Us poor folks first need to have money, because only then do we stop being beggars.”

  “Are you done, Ah Heung?” Zyunfuk had never heard anything like this before. He suddenly looked at Ah Heung with different eyes. “Ah Heung, you might be younger,” he said in surprise, “but you sure are much savvier than me.”

  “Now that you know, we can still be friends,” Ah Heung said. “To tell you the truth, I have learned all this from my mistress. She’s very good to me, and she explained all these things to me. I was engaged to a cousin of mine. He left his home in Guangdong province and came to Hong Kong to get married with me. I discussed the whole matter with my mistress. She told me to give him some money and break off the engagement. I followed her advice and that’s why I am free now. My fiancé later married a different girl who gave birth to two children. They live in Hung Hom and they both work their asses off. Wouldn’t you say that I was lucky that I didn’t fall into that trap?”

  “Maybe you should become a dancing girl then,” Zyunfuk said with a sneer. “That way you can get to know a bunch of rich guys.”

  “I actually thought about that, but my mistress said that once a woman is a dancing girl, she will always be treated like one. She said she’ll introduce me to someone wealthy when the time comes,” Ah Heung proudly said, laughing.

  Zyunfuk felt that there wasn’t anything left for him to say. He felt rather crestfallen. But then Ah Heung said, “Don’t be sad because of this. If you want, we can still be good friends. We are all poor and we should all help each other. You are also still young; why do you want to get married now? If you really want to inflict suffering on others and yourself, wait until you have at least eighty or a hundred thousand Hong Kong dollars. By then, it will still be early enough to find yourself a wife.”

  Ah Heung took a sip of tea and said, “But now I really have to get back home.”

  IV

  The next day, when Zyunfuk told Daksing and Old Gam about his hapless marriage proposal, they were equally surprised about Ah Heung. None of the three had thought that their little girl had such grand ambitions. Daksing concluded that Ah Heung’s behavior betrayed her upbringing in mainland China, which is why she knew all that talk about poor people having to free themselves. Old Gam, on the other hand, felt that she had been molded by her mistress, which is why she knew all about how to get rich.

  From then on, Daksing’s and Old Gam’s attitude toward Ah Heung was no longer the same. Not only did they no longer encourage Zyunfuk to pursue her, they also no longer teased him about her. They talked about her as if she was part of the family and never again used frivolous language. When Ah Heung happened to come by to say hello, they also acted differently from before. They talked more, but also feared her a little. Zyunfuk, however, no longer asked her out and was even afraid of running into her. When he saw her coming over, he would find an excuse and clear off. Ah Heung, on the contrary, visited them more frequently, and whenever she did, she chatted and laughed with Daksing and Old Gam.

  About two weeks later, Old Gam suddenly got sick and did not show up for work. Old Gam lived alone with his wife, who came by to let Daksing know. Daksing went to see Old Gam right away. Old Gam had already taken some herbal medicine and said that he only had a slight fever. He would be back at work again tomorrow, he said.

  But the next day, Old Gam still did not show up for work. Just when Daksing was thinking that he’d go to see him again in the afternoon, Ah Heung happened to come by. When she heard that Old Gam was sick, she said that her mistress often went to see a doctor by the name of Joeng who was really good. She quickly ran home and came back with the address. She handed it to Daksing and insisted that he had to take Old Gam there in the afternoon. She then took out a hundred-dollar bill from her leather purse and gave it to Daksing. It was meant to cover Old Gam’s medical expenses.

  Daksing was moved. When he went to see Old Gam in the afternoon, he told him that Ah Heung had insisted he take him to see Dr. Joeng and that she had given him a hundred dollars. Old Gam absolutely did not want to go.

  He said he’d be fine if he rested for a couple of days. Daksing, however, didn’t want Old Gam to be ungrateful to Ah Heung. There’d be plenty of opportunities to return the favor, and he could worry about that after he had gotten better. And so, Daksing accompanied Old Gam to see the doctor, who gave him an injection and prescribed him some medicine. The visit and the medicine cost them thirty dollars, and Dr. Joeng asked Old Gam to come back again after two days. When they left the doctor’s office, Old Gam wanted Daksing to return the remaining seventy dollars to Ah Heung. He said he’d be fine on his own and that he did not need to see the doctor again.

  The next day, Ah Heung stopped by to see Daksing and asked about Old Gam’s condition. Daksing told her what the doctor had said and that Old Gam didn’t want to go back again. He told her how grateful Old Gam was and tried to return the seventy dollars, but Ah Heung wouldn’t accept them. Instead, she insisted that Daksing take Old Gam once more to see the doctor. Dasking had no choice but to do as Ah Heung told him and accompanied Old Gam to the doctor for a second time. Old Gam got another injection, had some more medicine prescribed, and paid another thirty dollars.

  Soon, Old Gam recovered. He cobbled together a hundred dollars by borrowing some from Daksing and Zyunfuk. He planned to return the money to Ah Heung when she came over. Ah Heung, however, did not accept it. She said she wanted Old Gam to use the money to buy some supplements. When Old Gam saw how sincere she was, he did not insist. But one day, he casually asked for her shoe size and in secret began to make a pair of leather shoes for her that he planned to give her as soon as they were finished.

  As a result of this episode, Ah Heung was held even dearer by Old Gam, Daksing, and Zyunfuk. She was often on their minds, and when they did not see her for a couple of days, they’d miss her. When Ah Heung came over, there was always a lot to talk about. Later on, Ah Heung also joined in when Daksing and Zyunfuk bet on dogs and horses. What’s
more, she placed much larger bets than the two of them. Whenever she won, she treated everyone to tea and snacks. Sometimes Zyunfuk lost his entire stake, and Ah Heung would put up some more money for him. If he won, she would only take back the initial sum; but if he did not win, Ah Heung would not mention it anymore. Zyunfuk would of course be embarrassed, and a few days later when he had some money he naturally would want to return it, but by then Ah Heung herself would no longer remember. Sometimes she would even say he had already returned it to her and had gotten mixed up. Even though Ah Heung was determined to marry someone rich, she was never condescending toward her poor friends. The three of them marveled at her. Zyunfuk likened her to a fairy, Daksing compared her to a cool breeze on a hot day, and Old Gam who had watched Disney’s Snow White said she was his Snow White.

  A few months went by like this. Then, one day, Ah Heung brought over a letter, which she asked Zyunfuk to deliver to a hotel in Kowloon. She gave him ten dollars, which he did not want to accept, but Ah Heung said that the money came from her mistress and that there was no reason not to accept it. Zyunfuk went to deliver the letter. The recipient was an overseas Chinese from the Philippines. He asked Zyunfuk to wait for a while and wrote a reply, which he then passed to Zyunfuk. He also gave him another ten dollars. Zyunfuk brought back the letter and Ah Heung came to pick it up. The following day, she asked Zyunfuk to deliver another letter, and once more he came back with a reply.