The Year of the Woman

by Jonathan Gash

  “Jo san, HC. Good morning.”

  “Morning, KwayFay. I want you for a minute.”

  “If it’s about the American Denver-Blorkence prospects, they’re done. I only need to format them out.”

  She had finished them on her laptop. Her one perk was charging her battery in the office, though only when HC was at his noonday grope in the store cupboard with MaiLing or some other girl wanting a favour. Otherwise he would make her pay for the electricity, HC being a right pirana. She lied that she bribed the local Mount Davis Triad’s fixer for one light bulb and a yard of flex in her shack. In the way of some lies (but only some) it wasn’t altogether true, though it stopped him charging her a dollar a minute like he had fined KT Man, a Hong Kong University economics graduate too mean to buy new shoe laces. Instead, KT inked office string and tied his shoes like that.

  “Good, right.”

  HC’s spectacles were bottle thick, his balding head shining with sweaty anxiety, damp spreading from armpits into his waistcoat. She followed him to his office, embarrassed by her plastic shopping bag. Shame never lacked fame; she was so obviously a clerk from the squatter areas, the plastic shopping bags her hallmark.

  He sat wringing his hands, looking out into Des Voeux Road and Statue Square. He seemed desperate for help. She chose to make him sweat all the more.

  “If it’s about centralising those South-East Asian Tracker Funds, HC, I kept the data.”

  “KwayFay. That personality profile. Remember?”

  “A while back? Yes, See-Tau.”

  “That clothing shambles in Sheung Wan?”

  KwayFay nodded. She hadn’t been invited to seat herself, even though she suddenly knew this would be a big moment. She stared at this liquidising oaf and felt a glow. With a fortune in cosmetics and clothes she’d conquer the world, the whole globe being for ever western. Why else did those unspeakable Japanese girls, always on TV, pay surgeons to do away with their eye folds so they’d look American, at a cost of four thousand US dollars for the two eyes? They took advantage, and were to be despised, spending money like water. She refused to feel that twinge of envy.

  “A!” she said, suddenly remembering. “I apologise, HC. How is he getting on?”

  She was conscious of two other clerks walking past at a slow stroll. She could see them through the door glass, working out what HC had her in for. Promotion and sacking was always in the air. HC had twelve employees in the company, making fourteen to be paid from the trickle of money that came from selling guesses about investments. Firms ought to know better than buy HC’s blunders. He was driven by his wife Linda’s need to gamble in Causeway Bay, a right do-toh, gambler. She would gamble her last catty of rice.

  “It’s been a disaster, KwayFay.”

  HC crumpled. KwayFay watched him sag.

  “No!” she gasped, as if overcome by the fool’s plight, whatever it might be.

  “True.” He swivelled in his chair. He spent all his time staring wistfully at great motors that stormed eastwards to Wanchai and Causeway Bay. She knew why, as did Tai-Tai Linda with her gimlet eyes and pinched gambler’s mouth. “I have to pay money because of it, KwayFay.”

  This was serious, she thought with a thrill. HC never paid money. Risk made her pleasure exquisite, except it was the risk of losing her job. Sex was nothing to the excitement of seeing her boss in anguish. At least, not the sex she’d had so far, which wasn’t much.

  “Remember the profile you did for me?”

  “I remember.” She had mostly forgotten, but who could admit such a thing? She remained standing, her plastic bag now a definite weight. Her fingers would make a slow start today. They often got cramp after an hour’s clicking and tapping. It wouldn’t happen if she could afford better food. “I should have done better, HC,” she said in pretended shame, her way of goading him to more revelations.

  “No, KwayFay.” Tears shone in his eyes at the thought of lost money. “I should have listened to you.”

  She decided on more self-abasement, show him what he’d missed by not taking her advice. “I ought to have made a better summary.”

  HC swivelled some more. He couldn’t even make up his mind which way to do that, right or left, and him the See-Tau. She watched him with contempt, on her face a sorrowing smile. Showing compassion was woman’s work, ge!

  “Remember what I said when you told me?”

  “You are so kind, HC.” She wondered whether to make her eyes go all misty, like that favoured English actress did in that desert film with such superb effect, the ugly conniving bitch. Or would it be over the top?

  “You said he was a scoundrel. I should have listened.”

  “I hope I did not presume,” she said meekly. She’d recently read a Jane Austen book, interminable dull phrases stodging up endless pages, where they never cut to the chase but waffled on with hardly a mention of money in the entire book. One or two of the yawnsome authoress’s catch-phrases actually caught. KwayFay always found herself trying them out.

  “No, KwayFay. I am frankly impressed.”

  She murmured, eyes downcast but still tempted by misty, “Yao sam.” You have heart. That was a laugh. Praise idiots, listen to the wise, as ghosts always said. Good Cantonese advice.

  “You saw my dilemma, KwayFay.”

  Now she remembered. She had power! She thought it over.

  The problem that odd day had been a datum default, something KwayFay took personally because data records were her province. She had shrieked down the phone at the Philippines office, causing much laughter among colleagues who had overheard with their bat ears. As humble keeper-of-information clerk, KwayFay still smarted over it.

  “All very well laughing like fools,” she’d told her friend Alice Seng bitterly when it was all over, “but they criticise me when the share prices go crazy and there’s no projection on a stock.”

  “Sorry.” Alice was still laughing over their heung pin tea. “Your face! You looked like you could kill her!”

  “I could, easily,” KwayFay said bitterly. The fuss died down.

  She did not mind talking of death as much as other Cantonese. She never told people she talked to Ghost Grandmother. They would think her mad. She’d get sacked, and have to go back to scavenging along Hong Kong’s waterfronts and thieving, as she’d done ever since being a little no-family girl running wild.

  She now knew over thirty rituals, thanks to Ghost Grandmother, each painstakingly learned by heart over restless nights. The more she learned the less scared she became, which was truly odd because as a little girl she’d been timidity itself, the butt of all the other Cockroach Children’s ribald jeering.

  That day was when HC had entered her pod, polishing his spectacles and sweating, asking for KwayFay to come to the reserve office. It was a place for storing records, old computer systems and notes about employees. It was also a place for HC’s clumsy fondles, given half a chance.

  In there, though, on that strange day there had been no funny business, just a frightened bleat for her advice. It had astonished KwayFay.

  “You clerk all our data, KwayFay. You store systems.”

  “Yes, HC.” What else would a lowly data storage clerk do? She did not know many men who were also cretins, for all men did something vigorously weird, that being the way of the male gender. She gazed at HC almost with admiration for being a world-record fool.

  “Even when the others throw data out?”

  This was the office joke. “Yes, HC. I store all.”

  Had she done wrong? More importantly, were English tax officials in Government breathing down his neck? Was he hoping past data was crumbled, and no facts left for Government accountants to pick over?

  “Keeping records is good!”

  She bridled. If he was about to start joking like the others…

  “Is it some American system, the one you use?”

  She went guarded, in case she’d inadvertently blamed some shifty friend of his or, worse, some gambling lady friend w
ho went to Happy Valley Races with his sow of a wife.

  “I have those also. And Chinese.” She laughed apologetically, as most locals did at things ancestral, so hopelessly dud in this modern world, putting her hand over her mouth to cover her teeth. “Old Chinese systems. Ho gau.”

  He cleared his throat. Puzzled, she watched him for clues.

  “Do your records say what decisions to make?”

  “Yes, HC,” KwayFay said firmly, sealing her fate. What else could she say? “Some are extremely reliable,” she added, hedging a little in case he doubted her value.

  “Are they!” His gleaming head nodded eagerly. She felt a new strength, giving him the answers he wanted. “Old Chinese give definite yes or no?”

  “Indeed, HC!”

  “What sort of questions, KwayFay?”

  “Put in a definite question, it answers.”

  “Good, good.” Still he remained abstracted. “KwayFay, this person I’m thinking of. Some people say employ him. Others say don’t.”

  “Is it important?”

  “Of course it’s important, stupid girl!” he’d shrilled, then collected himself and tried to smile. It was a gruesome gern. “Yes. Very.”

  “Shall I ask one of the modern data systems, HC?”

  She rattled off the three names of the American personal selection programmes, then gave him South African and two English. At each, HC grimaced and explained. He’d used those. Each was dazzlingly efficient but only left you with the guesswork you started with.

  “There is only one other,” KwayFay said, getting the drift at last. “Ancient Chinese. It takes,” she added in a fit of inventiveness, “twice as long as modern western ones. I installed it at my own expense on my laptop computer.”

  “It’s in your computer?”

  KwayFay did the embarrassed laugh she was good at. “Encrypted, of course.” Would HC offer to pay extra?

  “Could you use it, test this person for me?”

  “Yes.” She readied herself. “Please do not tell me his name or anything personal about him. Old Chinese system requires no guesses, just describe. Nothing else.”

  In the crummy store room, he spoke about some relative. She listened as haltingly he’d described a young man.

  She asked about the possible candidate’s forehead, breadth of skull, his eyes, shape of his mouth, ears, anything at all, much of it invented nonsense, until her head was spinning. Drying up, she coined desperate questions she hoped would sound mystical, like was his face sometimes very different depending on his moods? Did he prefer different colours? She asked if this mysterious applicant had a lucky number, and other suchlike drivel. She lost track and found herself asking questions she’d already put. The young man was maybe in his close family. Nothing could be worse than next-of-kin trouble. She’d heard that, though secretly she longed for kin of her own. Such trouble must be wonderful. Why did people not know their plights were lovely?

  An hour later she was allowed to work in solitude. Even urgent work was cleared away.

  The office respected her for it. Clearly HC was on some investment fiddle. Maybe, the entire office thought hopefully, some new tax dodge would bring in a bonus for all! Her friends admired her. Alice thought KwayFay was going to get a salary rise.

  At the console on that odd day, KwayFay dozed. Ghost Grandmother had come into her head out of the blue and told her how to learn to trust people.

  “The Water Mirror is very ancient. Of course Cantonese, for all other provinces of China are second-rate. Canton Water Mirror is best.”

  “Yes, Grandmother,” KwayFay had muttered inwardly on that fateful afternoon.

  “Ancient Water Mirror teaches,” Ghost went on, her shrill voice making KwayFay’s head ring, “fourteen types of human beings exist. Therefore it is true. You learned how to use water mirror, lazy girl?”

  “Yes, Grandmother. Fill bronze Kwantung bowl with water to knuckles. Rub wet fingers round rim. Water piles up in a great cone in centre, like a candle. Ask question of the balancing water. Look in water mirror, see answer.”

  “Good. Some people are obvious: Ox, Deer, Crane, Dragon, Tiger, all those people are easy. It is in the person’s features. I’ve always liked the Chi Lin, because he borrows strength both from Crane and Dragon, and becomes at least Deputy Assistant Provincial Governor, with many banners.”

  “Which is worst, Ah Poh?” KwayFay murmured in her office doze.

  “You have three,” Ghost Grandmother said, pleased at being asked. “Snake persons are untrustworthy. The Eagle also; has ferocious temper. Lu Ssu, the bird person, even worse, for it has feminine features and walks too lightly for a man. Who can trust such a person? Only another Lu Ssu!”

  “I’m unsure, Grandmother, never having divined a person before for my bosi.”

  “Bad girl,” Grandmother whispered, because other workers were trying to walk near KwayFay, inquisitive to know what she was up to, dozing and mumbling when she ought to be slogging to save the firm income tax they could divide up among themselves. Her screen was covered with meaningless numbers. KwayFay always made them up, as a precaution whenever she felt a drowse coming on. “No borrowed English words when speaking to Grandmother. Say See-Tau or Louhbaan, proprietor, as Chinese speaker should.”

  “Sorry, Grandmother. Which shall I tell him?”

  “Snake,” said Ghost with a cackle.

  Snake! Untrustworthy snake, for a promotion?

  At the end of the hour, HC fetched her into his office, closing the door on everybody.

  “Well, KwayFay? Do I employ him?”

  “I have answer,” KwayFay said carefully, searching his face. “I consulted ancient Chinese system. It says he is untrustworthy. Do not employ him.”

  HC wrung his hands.

  And now he came saying it had all gone wrong. KwayFay’s heart sang.

  “You see, KwayFay,” HC said, swivelling helplessly in his chair, “the man is my wife’s cousin.”

  “I understand, HC,” KwayFay said, merciless with her warm convivial smile.

  “My wife’s elder brother wanted him to be a buyer above Sheung Wan. You know Ladder Street?”

  The Mologai, KwayFay thought with apprehension. “You mean by the Man Mo Temple?”

  HC actually winced. “He made mistakes. I incur payment.”

  “I am sorry, HC.” She wasn’t. He’d gone against her advice.

  “I didn’t heed what you said, KwayFay.” He looked up at her with sheep’s eyes. “I should have listened to you. You were right. The carpet emporium is bankrupt. I must pay.”

  Fear chilled her. She was afraid to ask the only question that now mattered. He spoke on in a low moan.

  “My backers made me confess I had had the right advice but disregarded it.”

  Wiping his forehead with a handkerchief, he stared out at the traffic lights, moving his head every time they changed.

  “They want your advice, KwayFay.”

  “Who?” she asked blankly. Advice for what?

  “I explained how correct you were, and how you arrived at the correct answer.”

  “Who?” She was now badly frightened.

  “Who knows how to use an ancient Chinese system nowadays, with things as they are in Hong Kong? Nobody, except phoney necromancers and tourist hackers in the Lantern Market by the Macao ferry.”

  “I can’t,” she wailed. It was true. The People’s Republic of China was going to send armies to govern Hong Kong. The Handover would take place when Great Britain’s Treaty ended. Ghosts, spirits, Chinese traditions, were so much mumbo-jumbo. That was China’s decree. You would get the death penalty, or ridiculed into starvation.

  “You can, KwayFay.” He’d gone quite pale. “Or the firm goes down. I haven’t enough to repay them. They were the backers of all my wife’s elder brother’s textile firms.”

  “Tai-Tai Ho’s firms?” KwayFay said blankly. “Just for cloth?”

  “It’s more than —” He stopped shouting and forced out,
quieter, “It’s much more. And it’s not cloth. Don’t you understand?”

  “No, HC.”

  “Think,” he commanded harshly, checking his watch. He was always doing that because his motor was parked in a time zone in Ice House Street. He kept getting fined, every morning the same policeman. That’s what came of pretending he was a high-flying stock broker in Ice House Street’s stock exchange, when any idiot could follow the Hang Seng Index. Why not use the City Hall and pay the legit parking fee? Because he was a chiseller, that’s why.

  “To repay your debts, HC?” she asked, putting it as it was. Evasion was a rat in the rice.

  “To keep our jobs, KwayFay,” he said harshly. “I had to tell them you can prophesy.”

  “Me? Who?”

  “Stop saying that!”

  “O!” she said, meaning that she suddenly saw clearly, though she was shaking.

  “Yes.” He felt in his pockets for another handkerchief but finally had to use his sleeve, his nape and face running with sweat. It was disgusting. Even squatter children never did that. She had only resorted to wiping herself in that way when a Cockroach Child. Even Christian nuns in their impossible thick garb only ever used a folded handkerchief to dab at their upper lip. “Yes, KwayFay. They want you to advise.”

  “I can’t, HC!”

  “You have to, KwayFay. It is like from an Emperor.” He faced her, would have cried real tears if he’d any body fluids left in him after so much melting into his crumpled stained suit, great Business Head that he was. “Guide them right. Understand?”

  She nodded, throat too dry for speech.

  “If you tell them wrong,” he went on, “they will think I’ve taken some bribe. Or they’ll assume I’m being vengeful, wanting them to make the wrong decision. They would…they would come for me. And for you!” He added the last with a kind of pathetic hope, we’re in this together, the way she imagined, so wistfully, that children spoke to each other when teachers brought them to the front of the playground for punishment. She used to watch the English children, her face pressed to the wire mesh, at the school playground in Glenealy Infant School, wishing she was one.