by Justin Hill
Liu Bei walked all the way across town, pushing her way through the exhausting chaos and panic of the crowd. She walked till her feet were sore and she had to limp with her left foot to stop her patent shoes from rubbing. She came to the factory gate and looked up: there was the bent sapling clinging to the brickwork and the once-bright paintwork was peeling and faded. The old signs had been taken down, the brickwork was a richer red where they had once been. The remains of the signs lay at the side of the road in a mouldering pile. The Four Modernisations, one fragment said, Space Rocket Factory said another. There was a new banner slung across the gateway: ‘Embrace Reform–Accept the Challenges of the 21st Century’ the words said, as the banner hung limp in the bright sunlight.
Liu Bei stopped and looked at the stripped factory gate. Stepping through it was like stepping into her past. Her mother had been one of the prostitutes who’d stayed on after re-education. Stayed on, got married and tried to live a normal life. Liu Bei had been born here, grown up here as well, before her mother moved away. It was here that she’d found her hope for the future; and lost it as well. She looked down at herself, her clothes now looking tired and worn after the pulling and scrunching of the crowd. Before she’d left home she’d put on her best clothes and her best shoes, and she’d painted a gaudy red smile on her lips just in case.
Liu Bei walked to the side of the road and sat down where the taxi drivers sat while they waited for customers. She took off her shoes and massaged her feet, anticipation making her fingers shake. She sat with her chin in her palm staring into the world but seeing nothing.
You’re an idiot, Liu Bei told herself. Forget it all. It was a long time ago. We were young and naive. We were fools, she laughed to herself. We were all fools. A car passed in front of her and she looked to see if Da Shan was inside–just on the off chance–but it was a middle-aged woman in a black dress with short hair combed back in a bun. She took a long deep breath and shook her head. Liu Bei–you’re the biggest fool of all.
Liu Bei remembered how enthusiastic she and Da Shan had been when they’d volunteered to organise the pro-student demonstrations in Shaoyang. The Party had supported them at first. Revolution is no crime, Rebellion is justified. They were following the example of the students in the past who had demonstrated against foreign imperialism. The May 4th Movement come back to life. They were on the local radio and in the newspapers, their calls for reforms were aired on Hunan TV; and then the Party changed its mind. To rebel is to show a lack of filial piety, they’d been cautioned and people stopped supporting them then. One Chinese is like a dragon, ten Chinese are like worms. The worms had crawled back into their holes.
Liu Bei massaged her temples, tried to soothe the thoughts inside. Is it just me who remembers these things? she wondered.
The guests murmured in appreciation as Madam Fan brought the first few dishes out and laid them on the table in front of them: Sweet and Sour Cucumber, Five Spice Beef and Shredded Coriander sprinkled with MSG.
‘Wine for our guests,’ she said to her husband, nudging him with the bottle. ‘Open Your Mouth and Smile Wine,’ she announced as her husband unscrewed the top, then crushed it in his hand. ‘Shaoyang’s most famous wine!’
Old Zhu’s wife turned her cup upside-down.
Madam Fan’s husband brandished the bottle. ‘Have some!’ he ordered.
‘I don’t drink,’ Old Zhu’s wife stated.
‘Go on!’
‘No.’
Madam Fan laughed nervously. ‘I’d better go and cook.’ She clasped her fingers together and smiled at Peach, then Da Shan; then hurried back to kitchen. As she heated more oil in the wok, the guests drank a toast to Long Life and Prosperity! Madam Fan’s husband re-filled all the men’s cups, and looked at his daughter’s glass: she had drunk half her cup. ‘Look! My daughter can drink,’ he announced. ‘In fact that’s all she does do–eat and drink! You know the old saying about daughters,’ he chuckled, ‘I’d have made more money raising pigs!’
Old Zhu’s wife scowled at him, but it didn’t stop him laughing. He announced another toast, Long Live Friendship!; refilled the glasses, raised his glass again. To Returned Sons! he announced and they drank the third cup, then Madam Fan’s husband picked up his chopsticks and waved them in the air. ‘Begin!’ he declared, and helped himself to a chicken’s foot that he dropped into his bowl. ‘Begin!’
As he chewed on a slice of cucumber Da Shan watched Peach. She must have been a schoolgirl when he’d gone away. Her black hair and eyes, jade-white skin. He had a feeling that he’d met her outside the factory, but he couldn’t place the time or place.
He was still watching her when Madam Fan came sailing out with Red Star Fish. ‘Who is more beautiful,’ she called, ‘me or my daughter?’ Da Shan’s face went red, and Peach coughed. ‘I know, I know,’ Madam Fan said with practised modesty, ‘she’s much prettier than me, isn’t she?’
Old Zhu’s wife coughed as loudly and sternly as she possibly could. Madam Fan patted her back. ‘You’re getting sick! Eat more!’ she urged. ‘Don’t be so polite!’
Da Shan and Old Zhu responded to the exhortations to eat by shovelling in the food and giving contented grunts from time to time. Madam Fan’s husband kept their glasses filled with wine, made sure they didn’t stop eating. ‘Mmm, thanks,’ Da Shan said when his cup was topped up again, the wine running over the side of the glass. ‘You didn’t go to university?’ he asked Madam Fan’s daughter.
‘I failed Maths,’ she said.
Old Zhu looked up from his bowl in surprise. ‘And they wouldn’t let you in?’
Peach shook her head.
‘It’s very difficult to get into college these days,’ Madam Fan shouted from the kitchen, ‘even very intelligent students get turned down.’
Old Zhu’s wife clenched her teeth. She should never have agreed to this. The sooner it was over the better. Madam Fan’s husband shook the bottle to see how much was left. It sounded nearly empty. He poured more for Da Shan and Old Zhu, then topped up his own glass till the wine ran freely down the side of the cup. ‘The problem with my daughter,’ he declared, ‘is that she’s lazy.’
Da Shan picked some coriander and put it into his bowl. ‘I never liked Maths either.’
‘What did you like?’
‘I liked everything but Maths,’ Da Shan said. ‘But I guess I liked History best. I was in the History and Politics Department at Changsha University.’
‘You went to Changsha University?’ Peach began but her father cut her off.
‘Eat!’ he ordered, nudging his daughter and gesturing wildly across the table at Da Shan with his chopsticks. ‘Eat! Or it’ll all go cold!’
Madam Fan kept coming with more dishes and each time she came she said or did something that made Old Zhu’s wife scowl even harder. ‘Twice Cooked Pork Trotter! Good for the lonely heart,’ she announced, then disappeared and came back with another dish: ‘Ma Pu Dofu! Nice and spicy!’–she winked at Da Shan–‘just like Hunan girls!’ In the end Old Zhu’s wife took her hand and tried to pull her into a seat. ‘One more dish,’ Madam Fan said, escaping her grasp. ‘One more dish!’
As Da Shan drank more wine he found his gaze kept returning to Peach’s face, and her black eyes. There was something about her. The way she caught his eye, half smiled and half looked away. He shook his head, sat back in his chair.
‘I’m sure we’ve met,’ he said at last. ‘Before today I mean.’
‘Yes,’ Peach said. ‘We did. On the hill.’
‘That’s it–by the temple,’ Da Shan said. ‘You were flying a kite!’
‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I couldn’t get it to fly and …’
‘Unbelievable!’ Madam Fan’s husband snorted. ‘My daughter can’t even fly a kite without finding someone to do it for her!’
‘There wasn’t much wind.’
‘Pa!’ Madam Fan’s husband reached for the bottle and began to refill their cups. ‘Eat!’ he shoute
d. ‘Drink!’
‘Do you want me to take you some place?’ the man said, tapping Liu Bei on the shoulder. She looked up and stammered. ‘No. No,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Are you OK?’ he asked. ‘I have a taxi. I can take you somewhere. No charge.’
‘No. Really. I’m going to visit a friend. He lives here,’ she said.
The taxi driver stood a little way off and watched her stand up and walk into the factory.
As she passed under the gateway, Liu Bei instinctively looked up the road towards the little garden where the wisteria used to grow. Years ago she had sat there with Da Shan to enjoy the spring. Nothing particularly special had happened that day, but she’d been happy. Just remembering it made her smile.
Of course the garden was no longer there. The whole area had been cleared away, and was now buried under a row of restaurants where no one came to eat any more, now that the factory had closed. That’s how life is, Liu Bei thought as she kicked a stone and watched it scuttle away like a crab.
She pushed the hair back from her face and turned up towards Number 6 block of flats. At the entrance she stopped. The porch was cool and dark, sharp lines of sunlight and shadow drawn across the floor. She ran a hand through her hair and ran the tension out and took a deep breath.
Liu Bei took the stairs two at a time. In front of the right-hand door on the second floor she stopped. The doorway didn’t appear to have changed. For an instant Liu Bei felt the exhilaration she had when she waited on the doorstep before: knowing she’d see Da Shan. It was sudden and sharp and Liu Bei squeezed her eyes shut to escape it, then knocked. There was no response.
She waited, and knocked again.
Empty silence.
Liu Bei knocked a third time and a little girl peeked her face out of the neighbour’s doorway. ‘They’re out,’ she said in a child’s lilting voice. ‘They’ve gone out.’
‘Oh,’ Liu Bei said. ‘Do you know when they’ll be back?’
The little girl shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said carefully, and diligently shut the door.
Liu Bei stood on the landing, feeling stupid and not knowing why. She started down the stairs, her heels clipping the concrete steps. At the bottom she stood on the porch and looked out into the hot afternoon’s sunshine. She looked out and felt alien: as if she’d come to the wrong place, at the wrong time. She laughed at herself and started back down towards the gate. She’d got the day off. She’d go to her mother. Pick up Little Dragon. Take him to the park.
Liu Bei thought of the Drink and Dream Teahouse and changed her mind. She was doing this for Little Dragon as well. She ran her hand through her hair again, and paused at the gate, squinting in the sunlight.
When everyone had finished eating Peach helped her mother clear away the food. Old Zhu’s wife got up to join in as well and there was a tussle as Madam Fan tried to force her back into her seat, to keep her out of the kitchen. While the two women struggled noisily in the kitchen doorway Madam Fan’s husband handed cigarettes out to Da Shan and Old Zhu. They sat and smoked in silence, then Old Zhu cleared his throat. ‘I think,’ he announced, ‘it’s time for my afternoon sleep.’
‘Me too,’ said Da Shan. When Old Zhu’s wife heard this she let out a sigh of relief and said she had to go as well. Madam Fan was horrified: Da Shan couldn’t go so soon. She hadn’t even begun to work on him. Not yet.
She rushed through to detain him, but her husband had got in there already. ‘You can’t go so soon,’ Madam Fan’s husband insisted, taking hold of Da Shan’s arm and keeping him down. ‘Have another drink!’
Da Shan paused. He could see Peach glance at him as she piled up the dirty bowls. Could see Madam Fan’s concerned face. ‘Please don’t go,’ she was saying, ‘Peach was going to sing to you remember!’
Old Zhu’s wife saw her son hesitate. ‘Da Shan, don’t you think you’ve had enough to drink?’ she asked.
‘OK,’ he announced with a smile, ‘I will stay a little longer.’
Madam Fan’s husband poured out two more glasses of wine and smirked at Da Shan. Half the second bottle was gone already, and they were drunk enough not to care. Peach sat with them, avoiding her mother’s eye. Her mother was trying to get Peach to go and dress up in the opera costume. She was making frantic gestures, Peach could see out of the corner of her eye, but she kept her head down, pretended not to notice. Peach didn’t like opera at the best of time, and certainly not now.
‘Well,’ Madam Fan’s husband said, ‘you’ve done well for yourself, haven’t you! You know, getting all this money.’
Da Shan shrugged.
‘Heh–come on! Don’t be so modest. You know what they say–even your shit is worth something!’
‘I wish my parents had known,’ Da Shan said, and Peach kept her head down and sniggered.
‘So what did you do to make so much money?’ her father asked, face serious.
‘Work.’
‘What work?’
‘I worked in a factory.’
‘Making what?’
‘Clothes.’
‘What type of clothes?’
‘Expensive clothes.’
‘How much did they pay you?’
‘Four thousand a month.’
‘For making clothes?’
‘I was a manager.’
‘Hmm!’ Madam Fan’s husband sat back and drew on his cigarette till the end glowed bright, and he inhaled it all, and let it come back out in a long plume. ‘How come you got so much money then?’
‘I got lucky,’ Da Shan said.
‘Tell me all.’
‘Investments,’ he said. ‘Shares. Property. Whatever. If you had the right contacts you could do well.’
Madam Fan’s husband took another long drag. ‘I suppose you made a lot of good connections there?’
‘Quiteafew.’
‘Could you get me a job?’
‘What can you do?’
‘Anything.’
‘OK,’ Da Shan nodded. ‘You’d have to start at the bottom,’ he said.
‘How much do you get at the bottom?’
‘Not much.’
‘But if you talk to your friends then they could get me something better, no?’
‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘How does it work?’
‘It’s not like here.’
‘I see,’ Madam Fan’s husband laughed. ‘It’s all clear to me now,’ he said, stubbing his cigarette out. ‘What’s the saying about the man who climbs to the top of the tree?’
Da Shan didn’t answer.
‘You know what I’m wondering,’ Madam Fan’s husband said, refilling the glasses, ‘is why you ever came back here, to Shaoyang?’
‘It was time to move out.’
‘Oh yes, of course.’
‘Money’s only money,’ Da Shan said. ‘It’s just something for monkeys to play with.’
‘Well, yes, we’re all still monkeys here,’ Madam Fan’s husband smiled, then they both tipped their cups back and drained them. ‘If only we’d realised. Thank you, now I understand. So clever. So successful.’ Da Shan had stopped listening. His eyes flickered across to Peach. ‘Of course,’ Madam Fan’s husband was saying, ‘with all your friends and connections, you had to work so hard.’ Da Shan let out a long sigh. He was bored of this conversation. He squeezed his eyes shut as Madam Fan’s husband’s voice kept on in his ears. ‘I know how you worked, if you couldn’t get what you wanted through the back door, your father would make himself a back window.’
Da Shan opened his eyes and put his hands down flat on the table. He was drunk, all Madam Fan’s husband’s comments annoyed him. ‘I’m going home.’
Madam Fan’s husband threw his arms up in innocence. ‘Heh! Come on! I’m learning so much. It’s changing my life. Let’s just finish this bottle.’ He poured the last of the wine out, raised his cup. ‘Da Shan,’ he said, ‘you have honoured my house by coming to eat here today. You have ente
rtained us all, and even taught me the secret of eternal happiness. Who’d have thought it–I mean you told us all you were bringing in the fifth modernisation–and look what happened–you got yourself in prison!’ Peach looked across to Da Shan in alarm as her father lifted up his cup and announced the last toast: ‘To 1989,and the suppression of the Counter Revolutionary Movement!’
Da Shan held his cup up in the air for a moment, but instead of drinking he threw the wine into the other man’s face, and dropped his empty cup onto the floor. It clinked! as it hit the tiles, scuttled off under the table as Madam Fan’s husband rubbed wine from his eyes. ‘I’m not going to drink to that,’ Da Shan said.
‘Aren’t you!?’ Madam Fan’s husband blustered, knocking over his chair as he struggled to get up. ‘Aren’t you indeed?’
Madam Fan heard the raised voices. She came running from the kitchen. Da Shan and her husband were shouting and pushing each other. ‘Stop!’ she screeched and Peach screamed. Madam Fan kicked her husband. ‘Get off him!’ she screeched but the two men were shouting and pushing. ‘Peach,’ she shrieked, ‘get a pan!’
Peach ran to the kitchen. In the panic of the moment the words bounced in her head, devoid of meaning. She could barely remember what a pan was, or where they were. ‘Pan–pan–where’s the pan?’ There was the deep roar of a man’s voice, and her mother screaming again.
‘Peach!’
Peach grabbed a teapot and came running back. Madam Fan snatched it from her hands and jiggled it to get a good grip.
‘Get off him!’ she shouted, giving him no chance to respond before she brought the teapot down to smash against her husband’s head. It didn’t have any visible effect. She started crying, kicked her husband again. ‘Drunken–drunken–shitty–shit!’ she sobbed, punctuating each word with another kick as Peach pulled Da Shan away. She helped him up and he swayed drunkenly. Madam Fan was panting, breathless.
‘Peach, get him out of here. Go!’
The sunlight outside was sharp and hot. The cicadas were screaming in the trees. In the distance Peach could hear her mother’s shouts. She pulled Da Shan along, in her hurry she tripped him up, almost fell over herself.
