Northern Girls: Life Goes On

by Sheng Keyi

  ‘Just cooperate, you fucking bitch, and you won’t get hurt,’ the tall guy forced Xiaohong up against the back of the vehicle.

  ‘Don’t! I’ll scream!’ she said, struggling against him.

  ‘Scream your fucking heart out. It won’t do any good.’

  She looked around. There was no light anywhere.

  ‘Please,’ her voice cracked, ‘just let us go. We don’t want any tips.’

  She struggled to get away, but he was strong. He pressed himself more violently against her, kneeing her hard in the groin.

  ‘Bitch! Don’t try and tell me you’re not a hooker!’

  He pinned her to the vehicle, his knee pressed firmly between her legs. He dug his fingers into the flesh under her arms. She couldn’t move. He freed one hand to yank her pants down, renewing in her the will to fight back.

  ‘Keep struggling and I’ll stab you.’ Her resistance seemed only to serve as further stimulation. It was like he had lost all reason, roaring at her viciously. The two were at a stalemate against the van when it shuddered with a few random shocks before settling into a steady rhythmic rocking – up and down, up and down. The movement invigorated him further, and he rammed himself as hard as he could against her. She lost the power to resist, or even to cry out. Dizzy, she fell limp. The tall guy let her go, ready to proceed now that he had her where he wanted her.

  Her mind sprang back to life. She shook her head at the thought of being raped and, maybe, killed. If only she could find a shred of humanity in this guy, maybe she would still get out of this alive. So, shaking and crying, she started to beg.

  ‘Please, mister, let me go. I’m begging you.’ She fell to her knees in front of him.

  ‘Yeah, let her go!’ Suddenly, the van door flew open, ‘Take me instead!’ She saw a flash of white from Sijiang’s jacket, and heard an inhuman cry escape from her throat.

  III

  The tail lights of the weaving van stood out blood red against the black night as it drove away. Faced with the kneeling figure of Xiaohong, her tormentor had finally come to his senses. He backed towards the vehicle with an awkward crab-like gait, climbed aboard, and tossed Sijiang out into the dark wasteland. Xiaohong collapsed, feeling a sharp pain where she had been kneed, as if her genitals had been sliced open with a blade. Sijiang stood silently looking on, then fell to the ground and crawled over to her friend.

  ‘Sijiang, you… you alright?’

  ‘I, I, I didn’t want to… he had a knife. He made me take my clothes off. He… held the knife while he did it and held it when he was finished.’

  So, the shocks Xiaohong had felt from the van were Sijiang’s initial resistance. The rhythm that followed was Shorty going at her.

  ‘Same here, Sijiang. I had no strength. My legs were weak. I was so afraid he was going to kill me.’

  ‘Honghong, let’s go back. Look at those lights. I think it’s the hotel,’ Sijiang said, as she wiped the tears from her face.

  ‘Yeah. Let’s go.’ Xiaohong stood up and shook her arms. ‘It’s so near. How come I couldn’t see it just now? I was scared, so scared I couldn’t even scream. Damn, that bastard’s fingers hurt! Fuck him! You know that ticklish spot under the arm? Is that an acupuncture point or something? He dug his fingers in there with so much force I thought I’d pass out. How can a person grip hard enough to make it feel like that?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Hey Sijiang. After he did it, did he pay you?’

  ‘Yeah. He gave me a note. I don’t know how much it is.’

  ‘At least you got something.’

  ‘Honghong, look. What’s that black shape?’

  ‘Where? Don’t scare me. Let’s just hurry. It looks like we’ve hit the main road.’

  ‘Let’s not be so trusting in the future, OK? We barely got out with our lives tonight.’ They grasped each other’s hands a little more tightly. Their voices trembled.

  ‘What’s this? You two go back to a guest’s room or what? It’s three a.m.,’ a pyjama-clad, makeup-less Li hissed at the pale image reflected in the mirror in front of her when the two girls finally walked into the room.

  ‘Where are the others?’ Xiaohong asked.

  ‘Not back yet. They went to spend the night with customers. What the hell you two been up to?’

  ‘Fucking nearly raped, and just about killed too.’

  Xiaohong sat on the edge of the bed. She suddenly realised just how sore her crotch was, right in the spot the tall guy had pinned her with his knee.

  ‘Then you got lucky. A few days ago, a couple of women were found in the woods, raped and murdered,’ Li said casually, flicking the ash from the end of her cigarette on top of the pile of butts already filling the ashtray. ‘I forgot to tell you, you need to use the rooms at the night club for your customers. Didn’t figure you’d need one on your first night. Where’d you go? Both with the same guy? Did you get a bull?’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about? We thought we were going for dim sum and tea, but instead we were manhandled to some godforsaken place. They said we were hookers. I said I wasn’t a hooker, and I just wanted my tips for singing. And so the bastard forced himself on me. He just about poked his knee right through me,’ Xiaohong said heatedly, chest heaving.

  ‘You two aren’t in this line of work? Then what do you expect to do here?’ Li shook her head in disgust, stabbing out her cigarette. ‘You’d better get out of here now, then. The longer you go on, the harder it is to turn back.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that. I just know there was a woman who offered us a place to stay, and it was cheap, so we thought we’d give it a try.’

  ‘That fat-arsed woman? She’s the Madame. She drags you into this line, and whatever money you make, she gets a cut.’

  ‘If you don’t stay on here, what else can you do?’ Sijiang, trying to unravel the knot, stared at Li in consternation.

  ‘If you don’t go through her, you’ll never have work. The guests here are considered pretty generous. Sing with them a while, let them feel you up, and you make a few hundred or so. Every now and then, you’ll catch a bull.’

  ‘What in the world’s a bull?’ Xiaohong couldn’t contain the question any longer.

  ‘A thousand Hong Kong dollar note. But they only come along once in a while. Only if you find a really rich, really generous customer that really likes you.’

  ‘A thousand?’ Sijiang took out the note Shorty had tossed her and found it was red and unfamiliar. She waved it at Li. ‘So what’s this?’

  ‘Hong Kong note. Hundred bucks,’ she answered with barely a glance.

  ‘What use is Hong Kong money?’ Sijiang looked puzzled.

  ‘Hong Kong money gets a good exchange rate. So hooking up with a Hongkie is a good thing.’

  ‘You could make a few thousand a month like that?’

  ‘Roughly.’

  ‘Wow.’ Sijiang was like a student, with the light beginning to dawn.

  ‘But going on like that, won’t you get spoiled with use… you know, down there?’ Xiaohong asked.

  ‘Of course you can’t do it every day. Three, four times a week or so. And always with a rubber. There was this one girl, she wanted to make money to send back home for a sick relative to get some medical treatment. She’d do two or three guys a night. It only took two months and she was wasted, her body ruined and riddled with disease. She left to get it treated, but never came back. I have no idea what happened to her.’ Li sighed, suddenly seeming like an old woman.

  ‘You’re so pretty. Why do you hoo— work in this line?’ Xiaohong stopped herself just in time. She was trying to learn the lingo – substituting ‘this line’ instead of ‘hook’ – afraid of saying something taboo. ‘This line’ made it sound like a legitimate profession.

  ‘You wouldn’t understand.’ Li cast a glance at Xiaohong, letting the girl know she didn’t care for anyone’s understanding.

  A moment later they heard the clacking of high heels running
. Lu burst into the room, clothes hanging open, underclothes in disarray, hair in a wild mess and wheezing like an asthmatic.

  ‘Fuck! Raided! So damn dangerous! So sudden. The hotel manager didn’t even have any warning.’ She reached for a plastic cup and gulped down the contents.

  Li gave a sharp laugh. ‘A raid? Then looks like you getting away has cost the cops another two grand. Fuck them! As soon as they’re out of uniform they’re some of our best customers. Then when they’re not here looking for company, they trap us. How are we supposed to get by if they keep making our guests antsy? I haven’t seen Liu yet. She must have been hauled in.’

  Lu’s face fell in dismay. Li rallied and continued, ‘Fuck! Fucking bastards! Is everything just about money? Arrested and fined, fines paid and then arrested again. Two grand a pop! It’s a fucking cash cow. Did you see the john get picked up? Those damned cops, if they’re not going to let us do our job, they might as well cut the balls off all the men in town!’

  She ranted on, then lit a cigarette. Opening her handbag, she took out a wallet. She was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Not enough. We need another six hundred. We’ll wait till morning and see if Liu comes back. If not, we’ll have to go to try and bail her out.’

  IV

  ‘Xiaohong, how about going back home? This place is so chaotic.’ The bed squeaked, shaking under Sijiang’s weight as she crawled onto Xiaohong’s bunk, seeking some solace. Her voice quivered. With the noise from the nearby factories, the nights were restless and uncanny. The five girls staying in the room, with the exception of Li, had all had a difficult night. Unfazed, Li simply continued filling the ashtray with more butts, and the room with more smoke.

  ‘What a shitty night!’ Xiaohong stretched her arms, then put her right hand over her genitals again, saying, ‘Oh, that hurts! Go back home, hm?’

  ‘Yeah. I plan to.’

  ‘Plan? You plan to go back now. It’s like letting that guy do you for nothing. You think you’re going to take your three thousand yuan back home and open up your dream shop? You really want to use the three thousand you’ve made over these few days for that?’ Xiaohong said in irritation, trying to keep her voice down. Lu was tossing and turning on her bed. Li napped a while, then got up again to light another cigarette. She took a long drag, exhaled, paused a moment, then took another drag and exhaled again. With Li smoking like that, Sijiang kept choking. Hardly able to speak, she gazed through the mosquito net at the red tip of the cigarette. Someone kept sniffing, as if she had a cold, but they couldn’t tell if it was Li or Lu. Whoever it was, she stealthily unwound a length of toilet paper, as if trying not to let anyone know.

  ‘Well then, what do you have in mind?’

  ‘Tomorrow, let’s go to the hair salons around here and see if anyone’s hiring. We keep expectations low – we just need to earn enough to fill our bellies so we don’t starve. Things will turn around for us,’ Xiaohong said through clenched teeth. Sijiang sighed softly and put her hand on her belly.

  ‘Honghong, if I’ve… you know, got one in the oven now, you think I should go through with it or not?’

  ‘If you have it, it’d be a little pig. That freak!’ she said, taking another dig at the mayor.

  ‘You’re right. OK, I can’t have it.’

  ‘Then just go to the hospital and get rid of it.’

  ‘An abortion? Won’t it hurt?’

  ‘It hurts like hell. Once, my brother-in-law took me for an abortion. It hurt so bad I broke out in a sweat and fainted. The doctor gave me a shot in the arm and then I didn’t know a thing. God, they let an intern practise on me! It took forever. I can still see those stainless steel scissors and forceps in my mind. It’s enough to scare anyone.’

  ‘How’d they do it? They cut the stomach?’

  ‘Nah. They go in from down there, then cut out that little piece of meat, slice by slice.’

  ‘Ugh!’ Sijiang clicked her tongue against her teeth, then let out a long, frightened wail.

  ‘So Sijiang, that’s why you’ve got to use a condom. And always calculate your cycle and make sure it’s safe.’

  The pillow shook a couple of times as Sijiang silently shook her head.

  ‘You get what I mean, don’t you?’

  The pillow shook again. ‘I don’t get it.’

  So, Xiaohong taught her a formula, even though she couldn’t remember where she’d learned it herself. When Sijiang couldn’t follow the explanation, Xiaohong pinched her. ‘You’ve got to remember. A week before and a week after your period comes, you’re safe.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sijiang said. ‘How come you know all these things?’

  ‘If I want to understand, I just understand.’ There was a note of frustration in her voice. ‘I’m tired. Let’s get some sleep.’

  Sijiang felt Xiaohong’s well-endowed chest turn toward her and press against her side, warm and soft like the hot water bottle she’d always slept with during the winter back home. Giving in to the urge, she put her hand to her own breasts. They no longer seemed like oranges, but more like dry, empty orange peels. Without knowing why, she slipped her hand into Xiaohong’s shirt. When she’d done it before, back in their hometown, it was Xiaohong who had grabbed her hand. Why she wanted to do it this time, she didn’t really understand. She just knew it was something she wanted very much. Xiaohong shifted her position slightly, allowing Sijiang easier access. In the darkness, she couldn’t tell if her friend had purposely twisted to cooperate with her act, or if it was a sleeper’s random movement. The mound of flesh she held was smooth and sagging in its idle state, both strong and pliant. Xiaohong turned drowsily, rolling the other breast onto Sijiang’s hand. Sijiang squeezed the melon-sized breast. In her sleep, Xiaohong moved her hand to her injured genitals, softly moaning in pain.

  V

  In the industrial area on the outskirts of Shenzhen, people went to and from work each day like a column of ants, no one giving much thought to how they all fit together. There were billiards halls everywhere, where games cost two mao. The pavement outside the shops was filled with plastic chairs and tables, and piled with empty cola and soya milk bottles, peanut shells and food scraps. Colourful barber’s poles rotated outside a salon, with numerous towels drying in the sun – the very picture of a thriving enterprise.

  ‘Hey Sijiang, look, The 007 Salon’s recruiting shampoo girls.’ Just after ten in the morning, the pair had set out to scour the streets, not letting anything slip past their attention. It had not been easy to locate this red flyer.

  ‘Boss, we’ve come to apply,’ Xiaohong said, with a bright smile, looking the manager right in the eye.

  ‘Where are you from, young lady?’ asked the short-haired, middle-aged woman, intrigued.

  ‘We’re from Hunan. We worked in a salon there.’ Xiaohong thought the boss looked pretty straightforward and honest.

  ‘Do you know how to wash faces?’ The woman’s gold earrings flashed. Her lips pursed and then relaxed, as if she were trying to keep hold of all the teeth in her mouth. It made her look like a gorilla.

  Thinking this might be another one of those weird code words they used here, Xiaohong answered reluctantly, ‘We wash our faces every day.’

  The woman grinned broadly, exposing both teeth and gums in a way that was even more unsightly than a face in mourning. She said, ‘I meant facials. You wash the customer’s face for ten minutes or so, using cleanser, like this, and like this.’ She used her hands to demonstrate on her own face.

  ‘That’s easy,’ Xiaohong said. ‘I’ll wash her face and she can wash mine. Then we’ll know how to do it.’

  ‘You’ll start work at nine in the morning and finish at two in the morning. Four hundred kuai a month, with room and board.’ The woman closed her lips over her teeth. It seemed she was stifling a laugh. Xiaohong and Sijiang glanced at one another, trying hard to hide their pleasure. Eyes opened wide in delight, they practically flew back to the Spring Hotel.

  When they arrived, they found that Liu
had been bailed out. It seemed like everything was back to normal and that their mishap was over. There was still plenty of laughter, though perhaps mixed with more pointed barbs than before. Xiaohong and Sijiang expressed their thanks and bade farewell to Li, Lu and Liu. Dragging their worn-out luggage, they made their way straight to The 007 Salon.

  Four

  I

  Privately, Xiaohong and Sijiang called their new boss the Ape. Her husband was called Zhan Shibang and the salon took its name from him, since Zhan Shibang sounded a bit like James Bond. Husband and wife, both of Hakka descent, were relatively easygoing. They had a daughter at secondary school about the same age as Xiaohong and Sijiang. They also had a five-year-old son, doubtless the result of a casual night’s whimsy.

  ‘Ah Qing, Ah Ling, here are a couple of new girls. I want you all to get on with each other, OK?’ The Ape waved her simian arms. When she had finished her introduction, she picked up a shopping basket in her two large, working-class hands and headed to the market.

  ‘The boss is a good person,’ said Ah Qing, a girl from Guangdong with a fair-skinned face covered in acne. She spoke with a long, lazy drawl. Ah Ling was twenty-two or twenty-three and a real beauty. Since she knew how to cut hair, her salary was much higher than that of a shampoo girl and she thought of herself as in a whole different league from them. Her smile was always a little strained. She had a regular customer, an older Taiwanese man, who often came to see her. Every salon had a massage room and The 007 Salon was no different. The man did not care who washed his hair, but he only wanted Ah Ling to do the massage. When the time came, the pair would slip off into the massage room, not emerging until much later.

  ‘That Taiwanese guy is loaded. He wants Ah Ling to be at his beck and call, but doesn’t want to keep her on a retainer, if you know what I mean. What an old miser! Working in Taiwanese factories never has as good benefits as getting in with a Hong Kong company,’ Ah Qing said, her pimples dancing all over her face as she spoke. It was her dream to one day find a sugar daddy of her own.