Crimson China

by Betsy Tobin

  Her face is flushed and her hair slick with wet. She wears the blue dressing gown, hastily closed so that he can see a broad slice of moist cleavage. She takes a deep breath and sways ever so slightly.

  “Yes?”

  “Puh-lees. Eat.” He motions to the table where the food waits. She looks at the food, then back at him.

  “Blimey. You weren’t kidding.” She crosses to the table and sits down, and after a moment’s hesitation, he joins her. She picks up the fork and takes a bite of the chicken.

  “Not bad,” she says. “Much better than I could do.” She turns to him and leans in close. “Good,” she enunciates heavily, nodding.

  He gets a brief whiff of whisky mixed with soy and onion.

  “Thank you,” he says.

  “No, sank you,” she replies, a slow smile spreading to her lips.

  They continue eating, and when she has finished, she lays down her fork, leans back in her chair and crosses her arms.

  “So what now? We get married?” She throws back her head and laughs.

  Wen smiles uncertainly. She is drunk. And she has clearly made a joke. But he has not understood it. Still, he should humour her. She stops laughing and looks at him, leaning forward.

  “What. Are. We. Going. To. Do.” She pauses in between each word. “With you,” she adds, pointing at him.

  He takes a deep breath. This time he has understood. Maybe not the words, but the meaning. He lowers his eyes to the empty plate in front of him. He knows that he should offer to leave, but he has no idea where he would go. He does not even know where he is. He raises his gaze to hers: she is frowning at him. They regard each other for a moment.

  “I think,” she says slowly. “That you should stay. Here,” she adds. “With me.”

  Wen looks at her. He has understood three words: stay, here and me. He does not know precisely what she is offering, but it seems worth the gamble. And he does not really have an alternative. Even if he was prepared to contend with the police, the thought of returning to ill-paid jobs and sleeping eight to a room now seems impossible.

  “Okay,” he says.

  She nods. “Okay,” she repeats.

  He does not know where he is going, but for the moment, his journey has brought him here.

  •

  The next morning after she leaves for work, he writes a letter to his sister. It is the only letter he has written since leaving China, and he dates it three days previously. He cannot risk telling her the truth: the letter might be intercepted by the authorities en route. When she receives it, she will think it was written the day before he died. He is not certain what the outcome of his present situation will be, but he wishes to set down his life to date. He owes that much to his sister, particularly if he is going to disappear off the face of the earth.

  It takes him most of the day to write the letter, and in the end it runs to several pages. He describes his experiences in England, leaving aside a few key details. His affair with Jin he does not share with her. His sister has always been conservative in such matters; for all he knows she has never slept with a man. And Jin is not the sort of woman she would have chosen for him – he knows this even without asking. Though the two were room mates at university, they were very different in their characters. But he was drawn to Jin from the moment he first met her. He admired her strength and her independence, though he sensed that she was cold-hearted. When they eventually became lovers, he was surprised by the contradictions in her nature. Jin was fiercely self-reliant, but over time, became increasingly demanding of him. He could see, after a few months, that she was falling in love with him. This, more than anything, accounted for his decision to leave London.

  He finishes the letter with a cryptic message, urging his sister not to lose heart over his absence. It was painful to leave you, he writes. But after a moment’s hesitation, he promises they will meet again soon. In the absence of truth, he wishes to furnish her with a small degree of hope. For now, it is the most that he can do.

  September 2004

  Lili does not speak to Jin of the photos or the note. She hardly wants to disclose that she has been through Jin’s things. But the atmosphere between them the next morning is strained. Lili is due to start work at the language school, so she catches the No. 43 bus with Jin. On the way, Jin explains that the school’s owner, a Hong Kong Chinese woman called Fay, is keen to open branches in other parts of London. For now, the school is located in the lower ground floor of a terraced house ten minutes’ walk from Sheep Pen.

  The house is owned by Fay and her English husband Robert, who live upstairs. Robert, says Jin, is a balding accountant who brays like a donkey when he laughs. Last year, he drank too much at the school’s Christmas party and made a pass at her in the hallway outside the bathroom. Jin shrugs when she relates this tale, as if such behaviour from middle-aged English men is to be expected. But Lili is secretly appalled.

  Fay herself is a plump fifty-year-old who speaks Mandarin with a southern accent. She is short and wide and wears a tight-fitting charcoal mini-skirt with a black silk shirt. She takes Lili to her office, a tiny room on the first floor with a paper-strewn desk and one small window. She asks her to fill out some forms, then hands across a folder of class lists and lesson plans. While Lili looks over the latter, Fay lights a cigarette and sits back in her chair.

  “Jin told me you were good with children,” she remarks.

  Lili does not recall ever discussing children with Jin. What’s more, she knows little about them. Her only job since leaving university has been teaching adults.

  “I like children,” she says tentatively.

  “Do you have experience teaching younger ones?” Fay asks.

  For an instant Lili considers lying. But that would be too much like Jin. “No,” she replies. “I’m afraid I don’t.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” says Fay, waving smoke away. “You’ll learn quickly. Don’t expect too much from them. The parents will be happy if they can say please and thank you by the end of term. It’s often just a form of babysitting.”

  “Oh.” Lili frowns.

  “The important thing is that the kids leave here with a smile. So their parents sign them up again.”

  At this Fay throws back her head and laughs. Lili sees a dark pocket of silver fillings. Fay reaches down to the bottom of her desk and pulls out a jar of brightly coloured sweets.

  “I always give them one of these at the end of class,” she says holding up the jar. “But you’ll find your own way. Just keep them happy.”

  “I’ll try,” says Lili.

  Fay eyes her for a moment. “Where did you say you were from?”

  “Hebei. Near Tangshan.”

  Fay narrows her eyes. “Tangshan,” she murmurs. “Why do I know it?”

  “The earthquake,” says Lili. “Nineteen seventy-six.”

  “Yes, of course. I’d forgotten. Before your time, I expect.”

  Lili swallows. No, she thinks. We were there, Wen and I. But Tangshan and Sheep Pen seem a million miles apart.

  “Yes,” she answers.

  Fay takes one last puff, then stubs the cigarette out in a jade ashtray, before exhaling. “Jin said you’d be perfect for this job,” she says, standing up.

  “Thank you,” Lili replies uncertainly. She realises that she no longer trusts Jin or her motives; she feels as if she has stepped from sunlight into darkness.

  She will teach two afternoons a week at the school, as well as Saturday mornings. And on Thursdays she will teach at a private school in Notting Hill that has introduced an after-school Mandarin club. Fay gives her a map showing the school’s location. This will be her first class, as she is due to start there the following afternoon.

  “Get bus 31 from here,” says Fay. “You’d best go there now and find it, so you don’t get lost tomorrow.”

  “Yes, of course,” says Lili. She has never been to Notting Hill, but she has seen the film. She imagines it is full of charming bookshops and caf
és. That evening, when she tells Jin about the school in Notting Hill, her friend looks at her askance.

  “Notting Mountain?” she says in Mandarin. “Full of rich people. I thought Fay gave up that school.”

  “Why?” asks Lili.

  Jin shakes her head dismissively. “Too much trouble.”

  “It sounds okay,” ventures Lili.

  “Spoilt kids. Rich parents. You’ll see. No one wants to teach there.”

  “Oh,” says Lili, dismayed.

  “But who knows?” says Jin. “Maybe you’ll find a rich husband.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  Jin shrugs. “There are worse things.”

  The next day, Lili arrives twenty minutes early at the school. She walks around the area for ten minutes, then returns to the school’s entrance and presses the intercom. For a moment no one answers. Lili surveys the building: an imposing three-storey red-brick mansion, secured behind heavy black iron gates. At the top of the front stairs, a video camera points directly at her. The buzzer sounds and she pushes open the iron gate. At the door she is met by a carefully groomed woman with silver hair, who introduces herself as Mrs. Russell, the deputy head. The woman motions her to follow and they begin a winding journey down a series of twisted corridors. Lili hurries to keep up: from behind, the woman’s hair looks like a helmet. She wears a pale blue wool suit and cream-coloured tights, and as she walks her thighs brush against each other audibly. The school is decorated in bright colours and the walls are filled with artwork and posters for upcoming events. Behind the closed classroom doors, Lili can see children in yellow and green uniforms seated around small tables. Their faces are flushed with tiredness and they sprawl in their seats, like limp flowers.

  Mrs. Russell comes to an abrupt stop at the door of an empty classroom. “This is where you’ll be each week. I hope you have a good memory, because after today you’ll have to find your way here on your own.”

  “Yes,” says Lili. She looks for a number on the classroom door, but sees none.

  “I don’t know if they told you, but you’re the third teacher we’ve had. I told the language school that if you don’t work out, we’re going to cut the Mandarin Club and do karate instead.” She pauses and frowns. “Karate is Chinese, isn’t it?” She asks. Lili feels the colour rise in her cheeks. The woman gives a brisk shake of her head. “Anyway, as long as you understand the position.” She pauses again and scrutinises Lili. “You do speak English, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” says Lili. “I have advanced qualification in English,” she adds hastily.

  The older woman sighs. “The last teacher didn’t, I can tell you. You can’t handle these children if you can’t communicate with them, I promise you that. Now today you’ve only got four. Normally you’ll have seven, but two are ill and one is away. So that’s lucky for you. The youngest is only nine. We originally set a minimum age of ten, but her father is especially keen. You’ll see. It’s a complicated situation. I’m sure he’ll explain in due course. Any questions?” She stares expectantly at Lili.

  “No,” says Lili quickly.

  “Good. ’Cause I’ve got to run. The children will be here in a few minutes. Bring them down to the front entrance afterwards, and they’ll be collected by their parents or carers. Make sure they all go with someone they recognise.”

  “Yes, of course,” says Lili.

  She watches from the doorway as the silver-haired woman strides off down the hallway, the noise of her tights becoming more and more faint. Lili returns to the classroom and unpacks her teaching materials. Her heart is racing. Apart from the immigration officer at Heathrow, the silver-haired woman is the first English person she has spoken to here. With relief, she realises she understood most of what the woman said. After a minute, she hears a general stirring in the hallway, and soon the corridors are filled with chattering children fumbling with coats and bags. Lili positions herself so as to see them better. There are one or two darker-skinned children, but the vast majority are white. To her, they look like movie children: clear-eyed, fresh-faced, each with perfect teeth and skin. Rich white children, she thinks, remembering Jin’s words. Who lack for nothing.

  After a few minutes, a young heavy-set teacher with long curly hair and shiny skin comes marching down the hallway with a small clutch of children in tow. She pauses at the doorway, smiling brightly, and ushers the children inside.

  “Here they are,” she says to Lili, by way of introduction. There are three girls and a chubby boy, who is hurriedly stuffing the remains of a chocolate muffin into his mouth as he approaches. Two of the girls are tall and blonde and confident-looking. They carry matching Hello Kitty backpacks, and as they draw near, one of them whispers something to the other and the latter smirks. The youngest child stands behind the others. Lili sees with surprise that she is Chinese, and extremely small for her age. Her shiny black hair has been cut in a blunt fringe that nearly overhangs her eyes, and her green and yellow uniform seems to swamp her tiny frame.

  “Hello,” says Lili. The four children stare at her mutely.

  “Good heavens! She won’t bite! Go on then, say hello,” says the teacher in a thick Scottish accent.

  “Hello,” say the two older girls in unison.

  “I’ll leave them with you, if that’s all right,” says the teacher with a smile. Without waiting for an answer she turns and goes, leaving Lili alone with the children. She nods to them.

  “Ni hao,” she enunciates carefully in Mandarin.

  Once again the children stare at her. The boy frowns.

  “We don’t understand,” he says. Lili smiles at him.

  “I thought you had a Mandarin teacher already,” she says.

  “She was useless,” says the boy.

  The class does not go well. The two blonde girls chatter ceaselessly, the boy nearly falls asleep, his head draped across the desk, and the little Chinese girl refuses to utter a word. Lili tries without success to engage them in a series of word games, but the hour drags. Towards the end, she suddenly remembers that she purchased a pack of biscuits on the way here. She stops mid-sentence and fishes them out of her bag, and the children immediately lean forward with interest. She opens the pack and offers it round.

  “Can I have two?” says one of the blonde girls.

  “Yes, of course,” says Lili.

  The boy stretches out a pudgy hand and grabs a second biscuit. When the pack reaches the Chinese girl, she takes one.

  “Would you like two?” asks Lili. The child shakes her head.

  “No thank you,” she says.

  Lili turns to the class.

  “Do you know how to say thank you in Chinese?” she asks.

  “We never learned that,” says one of the blonde girls defensively.

  “Then I will teach you,” says Lili. “Xie xie ni,” she says slowly. The children stare at her. She repeats the phrase again. After a moment, the Chinese girl speaks.

  “Xie xie ni,” she says.

  Lili smiles at her. “Your pronunciation is very good,” she says encouragingly.

  “Figures,” says one of the blonde girls. She rolls her eyes at her friend.

  Lili looks at the Chinese girl, who seems to shrink under her gaze. She turns to the other children.

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “Soon you will all be speaking Chinese.”

  “Are we done?” asks the boy abruptly. A small crumb of chocolate has lodged in the corner of his mouth.

  “I’m sorry?” says Lili. She glances at the clock on the wall. The class is due to end in five minutes.

  “The hour’s up,” he says, rising halfway to his feet. “My mum’ll be waiting outside.”

  “Oh,” says Lili uncertainly. “Yes, of course.”

  At once the other children stand up and begin to stuff their things into their satchels. Lili leads them out of the classroom, but once in the corridor she pauses, unsure of her bearings.

  “It’s this way,” says one of the blonde gir
ls, striding ahead down the corridor.

  When they reach the main door, a couple of parents are waiting just outside. The two blonde girls skip to the side of a well-dressed woman in her forties who nods quickly to Lili.

  “I’m taking both of them,” she says efficiently, turning away.

  The boy walks over to a short young woman with badly dyed red hair and wearing low-slung combat trousers. Lili sees a tiny silver stud in her nostril.

  “I thought Mum was coming,” he says with a trace of accusation.

  “Do I look like your mum?” says the young woman in a thick accent.

  The boy shrugs and walks down the steps. The young woman raises her eyebrows at Lili and turns to follow him. Lili wonders where she is from: Poland perhaps? Or Hungary? London is bursting with Eastern Europeans, according to Jin. She also insists that white immigrants are first in line for all the best casual jobs. But watching the young woman follow the sullen boy down the street, Lili does not envy her.

  She turns back to the Chinese girl and smiles.

  “My dad’s late,” says the girl apologetically.

  “No problem.”

  “He’s always late.” The girl pulls an exasperated face.

  “That’s okay.” They stand there for a moment, eyeing each other, and Lili realises with dismay that she has forgotten to ask the children their names.

  “What is your name?”

  “May,” replies the girl. Lili smiles.

  “That’s a lovely Chinese name.”

  “It’s the name of a month. In spring.”

  “You are right. It is that too. But in Mandarin, it means beautiful.”

  “Yeah, I know.” May kicks at the ground with her shoe. Lili glances up the street. There is no sign of the child’s father.

  “My mother named me after her favourite time of year,” says May after a moment. “But then she died,” she adds.

  “Oh,” says Lili. “I’m sorry.”