by Su Tong
But Fatcat patted Bao Qing on the shoulder, ‘We won’t necessarily drink the whole crate, but it’s my habit to do this for my guests. Don’t get flustered; you’re an intellectual, so my policy allows an exemption. If you’ve had enough, then fine – don’t drink if you don’t want to.’
Bao Qing said forthrightly, ‘I have had enough to drink. I’m setting off tomorrow. I’ll have to change buses and connect to a train, so I need to go home early tonight and get some rest.’
Fatcat said, ‘What’s that supposed to mean? Are you worried you won’t get back to Beijing? If you miss your bus because you’ve been drinking with me, I’ll have them take you there direct, in an Audi.’
Bao Qing smiled but shook his head, gritted his teeth, stood up and said, ‘I’m afraid I can’t stay. I’ll have to bid you farewell.’ He watched as Fatcat’s expression turned sombre. This time, Fatcat didn’t try to stop him, but the others at the table looked at Bao Qing with expressions that were almost fearful.
Renzheng looked at Fatcat, then suddenly took a big stride towards the door to block it. He spoke quietly, ‘Bao Qing, don’t make us lose face. You can’t go now.’ Bao Qing saw that Renzheng’s expression was one of desperate entreaty, and at such close quarters he noticed the crow’s feet at the corners of his bloodshot eyes; his half-bald pate, too, seemed to tell a tale full of misery. The two men confronted each other at the doorway.
Shaohong staggered over to them, hooked her arms around Bao Qing’s neck and pulled him towards the chair. She said, ‘I have to say, the great professor is really fastidious. I said the wrong thing. OK, so I had to drink three big cups to make up for it, and you’re still not satisfied. Maybe you want me to do a striptease?’
Before Bao Qing could refuse, Fatcat chuckled and clapped his hands, ‘Good idea! Her forfeit will be a striptease.’
The liquor had obviously made Shaohong speak lightly, but now that she was expected to perform, she sobered up and became mulish. ‘You know Ms Zhong is still an unsullied maiden. How could I possibly dance in front of her?’
‘Don’t make excuses. We’ll have Ms Zhong go outside for a moment,’ Fatcat said. Ms Zhong turned bright red, stood up and made to leave, but Shaohong held her back, ‘You’re really going to pretend an old woman like me is an innocent girl? Pah! You think I’ll let you see a free strip? What about money? Where’s the money?’
Fatcat turned in his chair, grabbed a briefcase from a small table and said, ‘The money’s right here. What’s your price for tickets plus tip?’
Bao Qing saw the joke was reaching the point of no return, so he took Fatcat by the hand and said, ‘That’s enough nonsense. It’s all my fault; I’ve made everybody unhappy. Why don’t I drink a forfeit, too?’
Bao Qing sensed that he needed to make a sacrifice, so he took a drink. As soon as he did, the atmosphere at the table warmed up substantially. Bao Qing had intended to go as soon as the atmosphere returned to normal, but Fatcat made his driver fetch a damask box, declaring that he wanted to show Bao Qing something. He opened the box and Bao Qing saw a coloured porcelain vase lying inside. Fatcat said, ‘You’re the expert. Make an estimate. How much is this vase worth?’
Bao Qing said, ‘I’m in geology, not art appraisal,’ but Fatcat responded, ‘Don’t be so modest. In any case, you know more about it than any of us.’
Renzheng came over and carefully removed the vase for Bao Qing to have a look at. Bao Qing glimpsed an inscription in the floral design which said Tang Yin,8 but his expression was suspicious. ‘This was painted by Tang Bohu?’
A little nervously, Fatcat answered his question with another, ‘Why, aren’t Tang Bohu vases valuable?’
Bao Qing said, ‘That’s not what I meant. I think there might be a problem with the vase.’ Bao Qing took the vase and looked it carefully up and down; finally he could not suppress his laughter. ‘You’ve been cheated. I’m not an art expert, but they’ve written Jiaqing reign9 on this vase. By that time, Tang Bohu had been dust for years; so how come he was still painting vases?’
Fatcat blanched, ‘Take another look, carefully.’
Bao Qing, ‘No need. You’ve definitely bought a fake. It might even be that the vase itself is counterfeit as well as the attribution. How much did you pay for it?’ Bao Qing didn’t hear what Fatcat said in response. He raised his head and saw that everyone was staring at him with wide-open eyes, as if they were waiting for him to retract his comments. Fatcat’s expression was exceedingly strange: part of it was embarrassment, but a greater portion was rage.
He gave an oblique, squinting look at Renzheng, whose face had already paled, ‘I’ll go to Shanghai tomorrow and find Sanzi. He’s the one who vouched for it – he guaranteed it was real.’
Fatcat snorted and said, ‘How much was your kickback?’
Renzheng, panicking, shouted, ‘If I got one single penny, may lightning strike me dead; may the first passing car run me down.’
Fatcat sat down, staring sternly at Renzheng, who had dropped his head while looking up with an expression of pure innocence. Fatcat dropped the matter for the moment and rocked back on his chair, looking around the gathering, ‘Oh, stop all looking like your daddy just died. I’m the one who’s lost money – what the hell is it to you?’ He waved his hands dismissively and said, ‘Never mind. It’s only two hundred thousand yuan. I’ve been in business for long enough; it’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been cheated. I get cheated out of two hundred thousand, fine; but I’ll earn back two million.’
Everyone sat in silence; only the dishes on the table still sent off their warm fragrances. Bao Qing realized that he was at the root of all the unpleasantness and it filled him with regret. Bao Qing stood up and offered Renzheng a toast. He had been wearing a frozen, funereal expression, but now he bounded up as if there had been some pleasant surprise.
‘I’ll drink a forfeit! A forfeit!’ Bao Qing felt that, indirectly, he had also harmed Shaohong, and so he offered her a toast as well.
Shaohong, said ‘Now this’s more like it. You’re not even red in the face; you can keep drinking.’ Bao Qing noticed that Ms Zhong’s gaze seemed to linger on him. It wouldn’t be right to ignore Ms Zhong, so he offered her a toast, once again with reference to her father, his teacher, saying that he had always remembered his kindness, but that when he went home it was always so busy with his family that he had never got around to visiting him.
Ms Zhong said nothing, so Shaohong put in her tuppence worth, ‘You can still go and see him now. Go and check out his grave.’ He knew Shaohong was taunting him, but still he explained earnestly to Ms Zhong, ‘I won’t have time this visit. I’ll go next time.’
Bao Qing returned to his seat, labouring under a misconception that he had now done his best to carry out his obligations. He took up his soup spoon, intending to take a sip of chicken soup, but a liquor glass was suddenly extended to him from the side, bumping against his soup bowl.
It was Fatcat. ‘Bao Qing, we haven’t drunk yet. Why don’t you have soup and I’ll have wine? We’ll have a little drink, OK?’
Bao Qing put his bowl down and picked up his wineglass, saying, ‘If I have any more I’ll fall down.’
Fatcat said, ‘And if you fall over I’ll get a car to send you home. You’re drinking in Maqiao and you still worry about getting home?’
The liquor was stronger than Bao Qing. In his forty years, it was the first time he had drunk so wildly and he began to throw up. He remembered Renzheng taking him to the bathroom where he threw up out of the bathroom window and saw that the rain outside had stopped. The night was bluish, and you could vaguely hear the sound of firecrackers coming from the town. Bao Qing remembered he was about to go home: ‘I want to go home. My mum must be worried out of her mind.’
Renzheng said, ‘You’ll go when Fatcat lets you go. Have another drink with him and ask him to let you go.’ He was half pushing and half carrying Bao Qing. Renzheng remembered an autumn day when they had pushed him in the riv
er. He hadn’t been able to climb the bank by himself, and in the end it was Renzheng who had felt sorry for him and hauled him out of the water and onto the bridge.
Suddenly, Bao Qing said to Renzheng, ‘Renzheng, I know you’re a good guy.’ But this displeased Renzheng and he spat out curses fuelled by alcohol, ‘What f***ing use is it being a good guy? If you don’t have money, a good guy turns into a bad guy soon enough.’
When he returned from the bathroom, Bao Qing kept Renzheng’s advice in mind: have one more drink with Fatcat and go. Taking the initiative, he proposed a toast, but Fatcat said, ‘Farewell toasts have to be three cups.’ Bao Qing vaguely knew that he was being toyed with, but he didn’t know whether it was because Fatcat had had too much to drink or because he was annoyed with him. But clearly he was being toyed with. ‘Never mind’, he thought. ‘I’m not afraid of you now. I don’t depend on you for my livelihood. I’ll put up with it for a while and then go.’ But things did not turn out as he’d anticipated. His body was acting unreasonably and impatiently. It was soft and intractable. The gravity of the earth was exerting an extraordinary force on him, and Bao Qing suddenly slipped off his chair and fell to the floor. He sat by Fatcat’s feet and drank the last cup of wine. What Bao Qing saw were Fatcat’s black leather shoes and piercingly white cotton socks. The shoes had a little streak of mud on them that made Bao Qing feel uncomfortable. Sometimes, the so-called corridor of memory can be bridged in a single step. The past had stealthily crept up on him and now Bao Qing heard a crude, familiar voice. The voice carried violence and threats in its commands. ‘Wipe the mud off! Wipe it off! Wipe it off!’ It was Fatcat’s voice when he was young: ‘Faster! Wipe the mud off!’ Bao Qing obediently took a napkin, just as he had been forced to do many years ago, spat lightly on the shoes and said, ‘I’m wiping. I’m wiping.’
Bao Qing heard the ebb and flow of their laughter, but he had no time to look up, for he was too absorbed in the task of shining Fatcat’s shoes. He saw that they had become glistening and new, and were now emitting a luxurious sheen. Then he heard a crisp bang and felt a slap on his face; Fatcat had struck him. The abruptness and unexpectedness of the blow ensured the slap was powerfully felt. Bao Qing had to put his hand out not to keel over. At the same time, he heard Fatcat snarl irritably, ‘Why have you only shined the left shoe? What about the right shoe? Hurry up! Shine the right shoe!’
Professor Bao Qing returned to Beijing on the third day of the new year. Everyone in Maqiao knew that his New Year’s visits were brief and hurried. Once again, it was his sister and her husband who accompanied him to the station, and once again they encountered Renzheng there. Bao Qing turned his back to him and blatantly ignored him, but Renzheng ran over and squeezed a big paper bag into his hands saying, ‘It’s wine, a present from Fatcat. The Wuliangye brand.’
Bao Qing was determined to fight off Renzheng’s hands and said, ‘I don’t drink. Take it back to him. He already made enough a fool of me last night.’ Renzheng held the wine up, carefully selecting his words.
‘He had a drop too much last night, but he asks you not to take it to heart. This is high-quality wine, a token of goodwill for you to take back to Beijing.’
Spitefully, Bao Qing responded, ‘I don’t drink. If I take it back to Beijing, I won’t drink it. Why can’t you guys get that through your thick skulls no matter how often I tell you?’
Renzheng winked and said, ‘That’s true. You intellectuals don’t drink all that much.’ He took a look at Bao’s sister and smoothly slipped the wine into her hands. He said, ‘Well then we’ll just let your brother-in-law take it home. In any case, I can’t take it back to Fatcat. He’d have my head.’
Frostily, ignoring Renzheng, Bao Qing took out his cell phone and phoned his wife from the station waiting room. Renzheng took the hint, but just as he was about to leave, Bao Qing’s hand restrained him, pulling him all the way down the steps. ‘Renzheng, you’re a good guy. When I was making such a fool of myself yesterday, why did you just stand by and watch? Tell me the truth: did I shine Fatcat’s shoes? Did he actually slap me?’
Renzheng’s eyes were sparkling, but what he said was, ‘No, no. Nothing like that.’
Bao Qing watched Renzheng’s expression nervously, ‘Don’t play dumb with me. Why didn’t you stop me when I was shining his shoes? He used the drink as an excuse to go crazy and you just watched as he slapped me!’
Renzheng waved his hand and said, ‘Hey, nothing like that happened. You shined his shoes, you say? You think he slapped you? We’re all grown-ups now – Fatcat would never have made you shine his shoes, let alone slap you. Besides, he would never dare to bully you any more.’
Bao Qing instinctively rubbed his cheek, thinking, Well, it doesn’t hurt, but I wasn’t in a very clear state of mind at the time. He looked at Renzheng suspiciously, ‘It seems drunken people all make fools of themselves, and there isn’t any stopping them. Or am I perhaps remembering things wrongly? Did you shine his shoes? Were you the one he hit?’
Bao Qing watched Renzheng lift up his head, and on his face was a remarkable expression; a mixture of wiliness and pride that was hard to describe. ‘No, I didn’t shine them, sure as I’m my mother’s son. Ever since we were kids, I haven’t shined his shoes for him, not even once. And he’s never slapped me, either.’ Suddenly he laughed and poked Bao Qing in the stomach. ‘Don’t let it stick in your throat. You can’t make a fuss over what people do when they get drunk. Forgive him this once. A great spirit forgives the trespasses of his inferiors.’ Without knowing why, Bao Qing suddenly covered his face with his hands. Then he heard Renzheng sigh: ‘You can never tell what changes time may bring. You’ve both made good. Out of all of our friends and classmates, you’re the only one who can stand up to him. If he hadn’t been drunk, he would never have dared to slap you.’
As they were speaking, the long-distance bus emerged from the depot. A crashing noise gave Bao Qing a fright, until he realized it was the sound of the doors opening automatically. The holiday was over and everyone glowed with health. Even the bus had celebrated the New Year, for it seemed that the doors had been fixed.
Goddess Peak
The steamship pier was far dirtier and more crowded than a village market; people loitered around, some squatting, some standing, some lying with their limbs splayed wherever space would allow, their mouths wide open, breathing in the filthy air and snoring indulgently. The piercing whistle of the steamboat didn’t bother them; it was quite obvious they weren’t passengers.
Miaoyue and Li Yong were almost the last two passengers aboard. Li Yong was pulling Miaoyue along firmly by one hand. With the other hand, she held up her long black skirt as she was dragged like a puppet towards the ticket-taker. She seemed to know what sort of a figure she cut, judging by the mortified expression frozen on her face. Reaching the ticket examiner she bumped into someone who looked like a farmer, and instead of apologizing to the man, her reaction was to shrug off Li Yong’s hand. ‘What’s the bloody rush? The boat hasn’t even left. There’s no need to hurry.’
Li Yong turned back to cast a fleeting glance at his girlfriend; he was carrying a travel bag slung over each arm and shoulder and Miaoyue’s purse hung around his neck. Li Yong realized she was angry, but he remained calm. He stood on his tiptoes to look up to the deck of the steamboat and called out loudly, ‘My bro! There’s my bro!’ He waved to a man on the deck, at the same time pulling Miaoyue towards him in an embrace. ‘Do you see my bro? He’s waving at us right now.’
Miaoyue could see a man wearing a collared blue-and-white striped shirt. A cigarette was dangling from his lips and he was leaning on the railing, one hand raised high in a salute. It was a quick, casual wave, much like that of a VIP. Miaoyue’s automatic reaction was to look behind her, but of course there was no one there; in fact, she had realized immediately that he was waving at her, but she deliberately looked away. Actually, even without Li Yong pointing him out, she would have known that he was Mr Cui.
As they boarded the ship, she continued to look steadily in front of her; but then she said, ‘Your bro? Hmph! Is that your bro?’
Miaoyue was quick to make remarks, often resulting in comments she didn’t even know the meaning of herself. She was a girl who liked to take men down a peg. With regard to Mr Cui, the truth of the matter was that when she had seen him on the deck she had found him taller and better built than she’d imagined, and also a little younger and a little more handsome than she had expected.
* * *
The three of them had reserved a second-class cabin. The room was not particularly big, but quite clean. It was Miaoyue’s first time on a boat and her face lit up with pleasure despite herself; her eyes strayed over the room, then she felt the bedclothes with her fingers, ‘Pretty comfy, huh?’ As soon as she spoke she regretted it, for she saw the look Cui cast towards her. It was only a brief glance, but it made her desperately want to take her words back.
Smiling, Cui said, ‘Is it your first time on a boat?’
‘Maybe. So what if it is?’ Miaoyue said. ‘Is it such a big deal to take a little steamboat? It’s not like we’re on an aircraft carrier or something.’
For a moment Cui was taken aback, then he looked at Li Yong and remarked, ‘Pretty tough.’
‘She talks tough,’ Li Yong said, ‘but she has a good heart.’
‘Who says I have a good heart?’ Miaoyue said. ‘You don’t even know me.’
Li Yong laughed awkwardly and changed the subject. ‘Fuck, man. It’s just the three of us, nobody else. This is gonna be nice. That was really smart, bro, to book the cabin.’
‘Oh, he’s got the money. When you’ve got it, flaunt it.’ Miaoyue had retrieved a cosmetic case from her bag and was delicately retouching her make-up. Addressing herself to the little mirror, she said, ‘Well, at least I know I wish there was someone else here; someone a little more fun, otherwise I’ll probably die of boredom.’
