by Xiaolu Guo
‘But I know nothing about driving a boat, let alone how to maintain one.’ I started to panic. ‘I don’t even know where the engine is, or which direction is the front or back!’
‘You’ll learn. If you can write an 80,000-word PhD thesis, then you can learn to drive a boat!’
Really? I knew some professors who could write multiple volumes of history but didn’t know how to use a rice cooker, or fix a bike. Before I could express my doubt, you opened your laptop and began to search boat-renting websites.
I thought of my favourite place. The mournful but peaceful spot by the canal. The lock-keeper’s cottage. That would be somewhere I would like to live, if I had to choose between a boat and a house. I was not sure how I would feel, if the ground beneath my feet swayed a little every day.
Mooring
– Aren’t you worried about having to change mooring all the time?
– Not really, you are my mooring.
During the next few weeks we spent time looking for a boat to rent or buy. We even took a train to the north of England to see two boats for sale. They were not expensive but the question was how we could bring one back to London. It would take weeks, crossing towns and different waterways. What if we got stuck somewhere? Then we found another boat. It was in Essex. We went down there. The boat owner said he would give us a good deal if we could bring it to London by ourselves. We hesitated. What about your work and my time? We would need a two-week holiday for this job. We were pathetic! We could not even manage two weeks – unless we waited till Christmas and the New Year break.
Eventually, we found a small boat for sale in Berkshire. It was a black semi-trad, and the price was affordable. We instantly decided to put all our money together to buy it. It was scary. I kept looking into your eyes after we made the decision. And I asked myself again and again, are you sure? This was the biggest decision I had made since coming to Britain. Perhaps no decision in the end is right or wrong. All decisions are just decisions. They are just taking one more step in the garden of forking paths – they lead to the same place in the end.
The boat was moored in Purley on Thames, an old and dispiriting spot near Reading. And we had to bring it back to wherever we wanted to live. Well, we didn’t know where we could moor it yet, but at least we could bring it back to London, somewhere on the Regent’s Canal.
How difficult would it be to get the mooring licence for living boats in London? And would it be safe? Before signing the contract, I researched a bit online and these things worried me. You were about to send the money to the boatman. I stopped you and asked:
‘Aren’t you worried about having to change the mooring all the time?’
And here was your answer: ‘Not really, you are my mooring.’
I laughed and you smirked. Then I thought. My vanity of wanting a so-called ‘romantic’ life repelled all the practical concerns. So we signed the contract. After that we received two rusty keys. Too late now – we’d bought the shabby little boat with a broken ceiling and crooked deck.
‘I’ll fix it once we get back to London,’ you promised me confidently. And you wanted to make love right away, in our hotel, somewhere by the Thames near Reading.
She
– She is lovely.
– Why do you call a boat a she and not a he? For me, a boat is male. It drifts. What else could it be?
The boat had a name, painted on the side: Old Mary. A sad name to my ears. So we gave it a new name – Misty. Even though to sail through a mist was not a good idea for a boat. And it would take us a few more weeks to put a new coat of paint on it and a new name plaque on the side. From the moment our feet landed on Misty, we occupied ourselves with physical work. And we were stuck in Purley on Thames for a week before the boat could be moved through the water.
You had this visible joyfulness as soon as you got on board. You touched every single piece of wood or metal on the boat as if they were part of your body, your skin. As for me, I didn’t really know how to describe my feelings. Because on the one hand, living on a boat was like not having a home any more. No roots, no land. I was deserting the solid earth, because of you, and launching myself onto an unstable surface. On the other hand I knew that I had started a different life here, with you, away from my Chinese roots, away from a formulated city life. But a feeling of panic got hold of me. I felt I was neglecting my PhD studies because of this boat. Our days were completely taken up with Misty now. You never walked around without a tool in your hand: hammer, nail, screwdriver, boards, ladder. And every day I wrote a long to-do list. These were the daily tasks I had to achieve in my new life:
1. Throw away my high heels and wear only practical boots or trainers.
2. Empty a pump-out toilet system regularly, moving the dirty water tank under the plastic ‘bathroom’.
3. Always keep an eye on the sink and toilet to avoid the moment that the boat becomes a poo-floating space.
4. Manage a temperamental heavy fuel stove and live with running out of gas at midnight.
5. Wonder what that strange noise from the engine or the bilges might be, and worry about security on the towpath and whether your bike is still on the roof . . .
This was the new mode of my life now. I rose early. And I no longer spent time looking at myself in the mirror or showering in the mornings. There was no mirror on the boat, and the shower was broken. Everything was about the practicalities, like getting my fingers dirty and my thumbs oily. If my parents were still alive, I wondered how they would react to my life in Britain. And if they would come all the way to ‘rescue’ me from this insanity as they would have viewed it. There must be some positive aspects to one’s parents passing away. Now I was free to be insane, or stupid. And I had to see my current life as one of the positive things I had gained from losing my former Chinese life.
When Misty finally had a new coat of paint, the boat looked very shiny, almost grand and pompous. You jumped onto the pavement by the canal and inspected it from the distance. You said:
‘She is lovely.’
I thought you were talking about a woman who was passing by. When I realised you meant the boat, I was annoyed.
‘Why do you call a boat a she and not a he?’ I protested. ‘For me, a boat is male. It drifts. What else could it be?’
You shrugged your shoulders. ‘Women drift too, don’t you think?’
I didn’t know what to say about that. I would find out, I thought, when I grew a bit older.
Spüren – Feel
– Now I can feel life. In German feel is spüren. I prefer spüren, somehow.
– Spüren sounds much heavier than feel.
We spent much less time on our computers now. I had put aside my writing and film research, and was now concerned only with our life afloat. This canal was two hundred years old. It was not that old compared with the Grand Canal in China, which was built 2,400 years ago. But I felt this one had a much older texture than the one in my country. I could not explain why – perhaps the whole atmosphere? The decayed banks, the moss-entangled water, and the views of relics and wrecks along the waterway. What was the purpose of our adventure, though? No great purpose, no kings or queens or new lands awaited us. To live on the boat itself was the purpose, as you said.
‘Now I can feel life,’ you announced, with a heavy accent on feel. ‘In German feel is spüren. I prefer spüren, somehow.’
‘Spüren sounds much heavier than feel,’ I responded. ‘It’s like you prefer black rye bread to the soft dough.’
My life was much more physical than it used to be. I felt (Ich spürte) I was some nameless peasant wife again. But why again? I asked myself. I had never been a wife before, but I did feel being a wife was a very familiar role. As if I had played that role many times and I knew exactly what I was supposed to do. Instead of reading and writing, or thinking about my project, all the time I worried about basi
c things – filling up the water container, checking the gas bottles. I would never just take a walk for the pleasure of it. I would carry either rubbish bags or a huge water bottle for ten minutes until a public bin or a fountain appeared, or endlessly charge batteries for various electrical equipment on the boat.
The weather was still decent enough for us to eat outside. Occasionally it was cold at night, especially when it rained. But it was still lovely – a word used often in England when talking about something that is nice. You didn’t use this word, I noticed, you used this other word: comfortable.
You didn’t work this week. You said you were taking a few days off so you could repair the boat. You climbed up, nailing the last piece of wooden board onto the new roof. From now on, with the new roof, at least we would not get rained on. Now you were adding a layer of felt. But this felt was not spürte. It was a waterproof material made from wool which would protect our little roof under the wet sky.
西厢 Xixiang – Western Chamber
– Now I feel I’m one of those young ladies in ancient Chinese literature, who live in a Xixiang, and look out of the west window for the views of willows and sparrows, waiting for their man to return.
– Except that your man has nowhere to return from. He doesn’t want to be anywhere but here!
The head of the boat faced east, the tail west. The main room was just the central part of Misty, with the door opening to the eastern sun. I called this part that served as lounge and kitchen the Eastern Chamber. Our bedroom was built in the tail. I called it Western Chamber, as it faced the setting sun. In my Western Chamber, I read on my bed and slept, with the views of willow branches dipping into the canal water. Now I realised that I was indeed living in a Xixiang – the Western Chamber – which had been the symbolic position of Chinese girls’ lives in our ancient romantic tales. And you, the man, stayed in Dongxiang – the Eastern Chamber – fixing things and making a noise.
‘Have you heard of the Chinese classic called Xixiang Ji – Romance of the Western Chamber?’
The boat was small enough that we could talk to each other from either side.
‘It was written seven hundred years ago, during the Yuan Dynasty. Our equivalent of Romeo and Juliet. It’s about a young woman’s secret love affair with a man. She lives in a Xixiang – a Western Chamber – and the man has to read poems and sing every day discreetly under her window, so her parents won’t find out.’
You smiled, and asked: ‘Do they manage to be together in the end? Or do the parents find out and separate them?’
‘Ah, depends which version of the play you read, or watch. There are many different versions. But the most popular one has a happy ending.’
You nodded. Then you moved between the Eastern Chamber and Western Chamber, with an electric drill in your hand.
‘Now I feel I’m one of those young ladies in ancient Chinese literature who live in a Xixiang, and look out of the west window for the views of willows and sparrows, waiting for their man to return.’
‘Except that your man had nowhere to return from. He doesn’t want to be anywhere but here!’
Your voice was muffled by the drilling noise. You had designed a mini kitchen a few days ago, with an unusual curve to fit the shape of the boat. And now you wanted to install an asymmetrical cupboard. I was looking forward to it. Once we had a mini kitchen then I could at least avoid stacking our plates and cooking pots on the floor of the Eastern Chamber.
Later on, rain started to fall. The canal water became dark, with millions of small ripples dancing about. The ripples were everywhere outside my west window. I thought of a poem by a Tang Dynasty poet, Li Shangyin. It was entitled ‘Ye Yu Ji Bei’ – ‘Night Rains, Greet the North’. The lines went:
You ask when I’ll be back but there is no when
Night rains are flooding autumn ponds in the mountain
Indeed when will we sit together again and trim the wicks in the west window,
And talk about Ba Mountain and night rains?
It’s about leaving, and not returning. But why did I keep thinking about leaving? Was it the fear that you would leave me one day? Or was it the despondent feeling of my having left China for the West? Through my west window, I could see the rain was receding. The canal was illuminated by the lamps lit here and there along the bank.
家 jiā – Home
– Why is it that the character for home is a pig in a house rather than a person in a house?
– Because in the old days, pigs were counted as people in the household registration.
Now we had a home for ourselves. A little roof under the sky. Misty. It belonged to you and me. A home, a jiā. I thought of a pig under the roof. The Chinese character 家 (jiā) consists of two radicals. One is 豕 – a symbol for pig. The other is 宀 – a symbol for roof.
‘Why is it that the character for home is a pig in a house rather than a person in a house?’ you asked.
‘Because in the old days, pigs were counted as people in the household registration,’ I explained. ‘A house with people in it doesn’t mean it is resourceful. But a house with a pig in it suggests that a family is self-sufficient and wealthy.’
You thought about what I said. Not entirely convinced, you asked: ‘But I often see they hang a pig’s head in Chinese restaurants or in a kitchen. It’s not the prettiest of pictures with flies all over its skin. Is that a symbol of a good kitchen?’
‘Why not? I don’t see the contradiction in this. It’s about how we can feed ourselves.’ Then I added: ‘Maybe your family never needed to worry about feeding itself?’
You looked at me, in silence. You began to prepare supper. You told me you would make a German dish tonight – Kartoffelsalat. Even though I told you I hated eating cold food, and I did not like stuffing myself with potatoes. But you didn’t care. Kartoffelsalat, that’s what you decided to make. Potato and black bread – a sorrowful view in a Chinese kitchen. My tongue would need some stimulation to get through a night of boiled potatoes.
更 – Geng
– We should make a geng-clock, instead of having an hour-clock. Counting hours is not useful on the boat.
– I like this geng-clock idea.
Time felt different living on the water.
In Chinese tradition, a geng is about two and a half hours, which is exactly how my sleep cycle was on the boat. I woke up almost every geng. In the beginning, if I woke up in the dark, I couldn’t immediately work out where I was. It would take a while to realise that I was not sleeping in a flat – in a bedroom with four walls. Then I became fully awake and would visualise the shape of the boat, and the orientation of the windows. There was only a tiny window by the bed, and it was high up to avoid water. The bed was not rectangular but had an elongated and round-cornered structure. And you were beside me, warm and sleeping soundly. You didn’t have the habit of waking up at the third geng.
Then I thought that it was more appropriate for boat life to be measured by gengs instead of by hours. And after listening to the sound of water, I fell asleep again with the gentle swing of the boat – if there was a wind.
In the morning after you woke up, I half joked:
‘We should make a geng-clock, instead of having an hour-clock. Counting hours is not useful on a boat.’
‘I like the geng-clock idea. Maybe I can make this machine, and sell it to the world and we’ll be very rich.’
I smiled. But who would buy them? A hippy community? Certainly not people who do banking and financing – they would need a minute-clock not a slow geng-clock.
Horny
– You look like you want to say something to me.
– Well, yes . . . I was feeling very horny this morning.
Today after a cold sandwich lunch (another cold lunch!) on the deck, I decided to plant some coriander and chives. I had collected a few abandoned wooden boxes, but
I needed soil. When I got back from the park with bags of soil, you were eating the last packet of oatcakes.
‘Caught you!’ I yelled. ‘Go and buy some more! I am not going to the shop again today!’
The supermarket was far from our mooring location. It was you who insisted on mooring the boat in such an isolated area, because of its ‘peace and quiet’. I resented that. All I wanted for my foreigner’s life was to live in the most central area where I could see life and action right in front of me.
Apologetically, you paced up and down in our cramped Eastern Chamber, wondering whether to make another cup of coffee. I said:
‘Let’s go to a cafe, so we don’t waste gas.’
‘Six pounds for two coffees. With that money we could buy a small bottle of gas.’
I nodded, watching you making coffee. Then you moved around swiftly with some tools in your hands, checking here and there. Wearing only a pair of shorts, you looked healthy and sexy. This floating life suited you perfectly.
Then I remembered something I was going to tell you that morning, but I hadn’t found the right time to say it.
‘You look like you want to say something to me.’
‘Well, yes . . . I was feeling very horny this morning.’
‘Really? When?’
‘When I was still asleep, and you were sleeping. It was early. I was in a loop of sexual dreams, or maybe a lucid dream of wanting to have sex.’
‘Hmm.’ You listened with interest and poured some coffee into my cup. ‘Why didn’t you wake me up?’
‘I was too sleepy. But as soon as I got up, the practicalities took over, and I forgot about it.’
‘Then why don’t we do it now?’ You drank your coffee, and put down the cup.
‘Now?’ I looked at you, amused. ‘But we are busy, no time.’
‘Come here. It’s warmer . . .’
Once we got onto the bed, I no longer felt horny. The bed was cold, the duvet heavy. I was distracted by a patch of bird poo, dried on the bedside window. But we made love.
Barthesian Love Discourse 1
