February Flowers

by Fan Wu

  “How do you know Miao Yan?” I asked.

  “She used to be a sales representative here, promoting foreign cigarettes. Part -time, of course. Fifty yuan an hour. Quite a good deal, isn’t it? Some rich clients even give generous tips. It’s much easier to make money this way than going to someone’s house to teach their stupid kids English or selling instant noodles to first-years. But Miao Yan was fired after a few months. I don’t know what the real deal was, but I think she’d got into an argument with a client.” She paused, staring at me for a few seconds. “Why did she bring you to such a place?” she said.

  “Why can’t I come here?”

  “It’s not a place for you good girls.” After a big yawn, she began to smoke.

  “Give me a cigarette,” I demanded.

  “Are you sure?”

  I nodded hard.

  Though it was the first time I had smoked, I inhaled and exhaled like a chain smoker—maybe because I had seen Miao Yan smoke so many times. I even managed to exhale toward the girl’s face. As I registered her amazed expression and thought about my “bad girl” pose, to my surprise I felt proud of myself.

  “How do you know that Miao Yan and I came here together? Did you see us walk in?” I asked.

  “Who doesn’t know the two of you? You’re the only girl that Miao Yan hangs out with.” She giggled in a voice that made my skin crawl. “She likes you.”

  “Don’t talk like that. She and I are good friends. Her boyfriend is in Shenzhen and his name is Du Sheng.” After a short pause, I added, “I have a boyfriend as well. He’s in my hometown.”

  “You don’t need to explain. I don’t care how many boyfriends you have. Miao Yan has a lot of lovers. She wouldn’t blink if she needed to go to bed with a guy she barely knew. All these months she’s been looking for a local to marry her so she can stay here. She’s from Yunnan, you know. Too bad that you’re not a local, or a guy, otherwise she could have married you.” She laughed, the powder on her face white and patchy.

  I wanted to explain further about Miao Yan and me being just friends, but a more important question arose. “Why does she have to marry someone to stay here? If she finds a job, she can stay, right?” I remembered Miao Yan once told me that she admired me because I was not from Yunnan.

  She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter if she can find a job here or not. She has to go back anyway unless she finds somebody to marry her. She’s tried to look for a job but I don’t think she’ll get anything. This year’s assignment policy is that all students from Yunnan must go back. After they go back, the local Personnel Bureau will arrange their jobs locally. Students from other remote and backward provinces must also go back to where they came from. Actually, for Miao Yan, since she’s also a minority and got into university because of her ethnic background, she would have to return to Yunnan even if this year’s policy was different. She knew that the day she was admitted. Everybody wants to stay here. For sure a smart girl like her wouldn’t just go back.”

  “Why did Miao Yan never tell me this?”

  “Who are you? What can you do to help her? Her only bet is to marry a guy with permanent residence in Guangdong. The guy you just mentioned, Du something, should be okay. I met him once. He ’s handsome and has money. I wish he was my boyfriend.” The girl giggled, the silver eye shadow on her eyelids flashing like fish scales. What an ugly face!

  “If Du Sheng marries her, she can stay?” I asked.

  “I think so.”

  “Any other options?”

  “Well, connections help. But her hometown is one of the poorest places in Yunnan and she’s a minority. I don’t think her family can help her much. She has made some money and may have tried to bribe the guy who’s in charge of job arrangement in her department. But she needs a lot of money, you know. Her father is permanently paralyzed because of a stroke and her mother doesn’t have a good job. She also needs to support her brothers in school.”

  “How do you know so much?”

  “I just know.” She stood up, crushing her cigarette butt in the ashtray. “I have to go now.”

  “Are you also from Yunnan? Are you graduating next year? You must have found somebody to marry you,” I said suddenly.

  “None of your business! I only wanted to say that Miao Yan is manipulative. She’ll dump you if she doesn’t need you. I know she was looking for somebody to write her dissertation. I guess she found you, you poor thing. Look, I can’t chat any longer. If my boss saw me chatting, I ’d be fired. Say hi to Miao Yan. See you later.” She took out a pack of cigarettes and threw it on my table. “On me.” She turned and walked away.

  “Wait a second. What ’s your name? Which department are you in?” I yelled at her retreating back. Either because the music was too loud or because she pretended not to hear, she didn’t turn around. She quickly reached the other side of the dance hall, her hips swinging, her ponytail swaying from side to side. In no time she was gone.

  The music was rap now. Fragmented humming-like talking and deafening drumming made me feel squeamish. The dry ice machines, installed on the ceiling and at the four corners of the hall, began to emit clouds of white mist that looked like ever-changing masks in the light. The music was getting louder, the crowd getting crazier.

  Then I saw Miao Yan. She was dancing inside a circle formed by seven or eight men. She was wearing tight, low -cut black jeans and a half-transparent black tank top—so short and tight that her waist and her navel were exposed at each dramatic movement. Inside, in the disco light, her white bra became glittering purple. The men surrounding her clapped, laughing and shouting hysterically. One had Miao Yan’s jacket on his head. When he danced, the jacket’s two drooping arms waved like two broken wings.

  It suddenly became clear to me that she was indeed pregnant and would be expelled from the university. The fear resulting from this realization was so strong that I became breathless and sweaty. I stood up, staring at Miao Yan. How I wished she would stop dancing. How I wished we were somewhere else—sipping coffee in a quiet bar, chatting, and laughing. How I wished she would tell me everything about her family and her life, say that she always counted on me for support. But the next moment I doubted I had ever met her on the rooftop or spent much time with her. With only shouting distance between us in this overcrowded and smoky disco bar, she seemed unreal. I was trying to conjure pictures in my mind of her hometown, her paralyzed father, her timid mother, and her brothers in school. I was trying to connect my past and present with hers. But my brain was foggy. I couldn’t think clearly. I was filled with anger, disappointment, frustration, compassion, and other unspeakable emotions. I subconsciously walked forward a few steps, exposing myself to the light.

  She must have seen me—she misstepped, facing me. But she didn’t raise her head or stop dancing. With a swift toss of her hair, she swirled away, toward the farthest corner of the hall, followed by all the men surrounding her. The rest of the crowd quickly filled the space they left behind. She was out of my sight in a few seconds.

  By the time I had run out of the ballroom and jumped into a taxi, I had decided to go to Shenzhen to visit Du Sheng the following day. I had got an entry permit from the Student Management Bureau one week earlier because I thought it would come in handy if I needed to go to Shenzhen to look for Miao Yan. I had a few classes on Monday but I didn’t care. The sooner I saw Du Sheng the earlier I could save Miao Yan from those vicious men. I wouldn’t let her abandon herself like a prostitute. Du Sheng seemed a nice guy. Maybe Miao Yan was pregnant by him. Maybe he was compassionate and responsible and would marry her, though he no longer loved her. Maybe Miao Yan wouldn’t be forced to leave the university. Maybe she wouldn’t need to go back to Yunnan.

  All my earlier frustration and bewilderment about my intimacy toward Miao Yan was now replaced by an urgent need to save her. In the face of this urgency, everything else became trivial.

  The whole night I tossed and turned and had fragmented dreams. When I got up around seven o
’clock I couldn’t remember any of my dreams. I had expected that Miao Yan would knock on my door to apologize for leaving me alone at the disco or at least leave a note of apology. But neither of these things happened.

  It hadn’t rained for a few days and the temperature was rising steadily. Before stepping onto Bus 25 for the train station, I took out the business card Du Sheng had given me the night we had hotpot—his office address was 701 East Lake Road.

  The timing was perfect. When I arrived at the station, the eight o’clock train to Shenzhen was about to leave. An attendant in a blue uniform greeted me at the door of my compartment and waved me in after checking my ticket, entry permit, and student identity card.

  There were many empty seats. A young mother and her son sat across from me. The boy had a girlish face with pink cheeks and long eyelashes. He wore a matching blue flannel jacket and pants, and a cap with a duck embroidered in gold thread. He couldn’t sit still. One second he was on top of a seat pretending he was riding a horse, the next second he jumped down and ran the length of the compartment or took up his toy gun, shooting at imagined enemies. His mother got up often to apologize to other passengers for her son’s naughtiness. I watched the little boy with admiration. Not growing up is indeed a good thing, I thought.

  I turned to look out the window, trying to cheer up. The train stopped at a few stations to let passengers on and off. The empty seats filled up quickly. Two hours later the train pulled into Shenzhen station.

  I waited in line to go through the border control. Some people were complaining about the difficulty of getting an entry permit. “It’s like getting a visa to the United States. Why must Shenzhen be so special? Aren’t people here Chinese like us?” I heard someone say. Ahead of me in line, some people were denied entry for lack of proper documentation. When they were trying to argue with the uniformed officers, security guards pulled them away. A young woman with a big suitcase sat on a bench against the wall, crying. “My husband is in Shenzhen. Why won’t you let me in? He’s rich now and wants to get rid of me. When he was in graduate school I saved every penny for him. I have to see him.” She didn’t leave until a female security guard talked with her for a while.

  I passed through without any trouble. I ran out of the station, up to the viaduct in front of the Shangri-La Hotel, eager to look at this first special economic zone, transformed from a fishing village a mere ten years ago. Miao Yan had told me that it was an immigrant city, where most people spoke Mandarin. She had also told me that the first McDonald’s in China had opened here two years earlier.

  Everything looked glistening white. Within sight, the Shangri-La Hotel was the only building that could be called “unique”; the other high-rises all looked like square boxes, devoid of character. A big crowd sat on the stairs outside the station, baggy luggage beside them—obviously new immigrants looking for opportunities to make money in the wealthiest city in the country.

  I was depressed, partly because of the dreary view, partly because of the sad wife at the border control. I began to feel that my decision to visit Du Sheng was too hasty—I had only met him once and didn’t even know if he was in Shenzhen right now. But it was too late to change my plan.

  After asking for directions, I got on a bus. The view improved when the bus drove away from the train station—as in most other cities, the train station was located in the worst part of town. The wide streets were clean and beautifully landscaped and, unlike Guangzhou, there were no traffic jams and endless honking from cars. Near and far, clusters of skyscrapers and half-built residential high-rises gleamed in different colors against the sky. On the way the bus passed by a huge billboard overlooking a luxuriant park; on the billboard Chairman Deng, surrounded by flowers, was waving with a broad smile on his face.

  Half an hour later I stood before the sliding glass door of Du Sheng’s company. “Director Du? He is in a meeting right now. May I ask who wants to see him?” The receptionist was friendly. After I told her who I was she ushered me into a waiting room near the lobby. I sat down on a long brown leather sofa, one of a set of seven along the walls. In the middle of the room was a mahogany table with a big china vase in the center holding dozens of plastic flowers pointing in all directions. From one of the flowers drooped a golden ribbon with “prosperous business” written on it in black ink. In each corner of the room was a vase the same size but with a different pattern. A floral oriental rug extended from under the table to the sofas.

  After drinking the water the receptionist poured for me, I got up to look at the company photographs on the walls. I spotted Du Sheng here and there. He was wearing a suit in every picture, smiling the same smile as everybody else in the pictures. For some reason I began to question the favorable impression I had of him. I knew almost nothing about him.

  I walked back to the sofa and sat down, hoping I wouldn’t need to wait too long.

  “Ming? What brings you here?” Du Sheng hurried in at that moment. In a well-tailored black suit with a blue striped tie, he looked handsome and dignified.

  “One of my relatives lives nearby, so I thought I’d stop by to say hello.” I had conjured up this reason when I was on the train.

  “Did you come with Miao Yan?” He scanned the room.

  “She didn’t have time. I came by myself.”

  “Isn’t today Monday? Don’t you have classes?”

  “The professor of ancient literature is sick and no substitute is available.”

  He loosened his tie and sat on one arm of the sofa. “Is she okay?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “Well, there must be something wrong but I guess you don’t want to tell me right now. We can talk about that later. It’s lunchtime. Want to try Japanese food?”

  I hadn’t eaten breakfast and my stomach was growling, so I agreed.

  We went to a restaurant a block away. There was a long queue but we were immediately seated at the sushi counter, thanks to Du Sheng’s acquaintance with the owner.

  Du Sheng selected a few dishes from the passing parade and put them in front of me. He also tore open the paper wrap of my chopsticks and poured tea for me.

  “I can do it myself.” I frowned.

  “You’re my guest today.” He smiled and helped himself to a salmon roll. “If you have time, I can take you to Splendid China or Folk Culture Villages this afternoon. Whenever I have guests I always take them there. I’m an excellent tour guide and you don’t even need to tip me.”

  “I’ll go there with my relative.”

  “Which relative?”

  “My uncle, my father’s youngest brother.” I did have a distant uncle in Shenzhen but I had never seen him nor did I know his name or address.

  “Which part of the city does he live in? I could drive you there after lunch.”

  “Don’t bother. I can take a taxi.” I knew I sounded rude but I couldn’t help myself.

  “When did you become such a big spender, like Miao Yan? When I was in college I never took a taxi. Taxis aren’t cheap in Shenzhen. You must be from a wealthy family.”

  I didn’t reply. I used my chopsticks to push around the sushi and wasabi on my plate, wondering how to ask him to marry Miao Yan.

  “Did Miao Yan send you here?” He mixed wasabi with soy sauce on his plate, not looking at me. “Is she in Shenzhen? You don’t seem to be yourself today. You wouldn’t visit me if it wasn’t for her.”

  “I told you, I came alone. She ’d never ask me to see you for help,” I said, my eyes watering a bit.

  Du Sheng handed me his napkin, looking concerned. “Something is wrong. You ’d better tell me.”

  “It’s because of the wasabi,” I said, covering my eyes with my own napkin, but soon my anger overwhelmed me. I put the napkin down and looked into his face. “Frankly, I know everything that’s happened between you and Miao Yan. I hope you take responsibility for it.”

  “What responsibility?” He raised his eyebrows.

  “Why do you pretend to know nothing?
I thought you were a responsible man.” My face was warm with anger.

  “What happened?”

  “She’s pregnant by you!”

  “Wait a second, she is…what?”

  “Don’t tell me you’re innocent!”

  “Damn it!” he said, his fists clenched, head buried in his folded arms on the table. “Why did she do that? What a fool!” His voice was low but pounding in my ears.

  “You didn’t—”

  He raised his head and tore his chopstick wrapper to pieces. “Waiter, bill please.”

  “Everything will be okay if you marry her,” I said, confused by his reaction. “You know she loves you.”

  Du Sheng stared at me, looking stunned and disgusted, as if I was asking him to kill someone. At last he said, “Let’s go.”

  He paid the bill and strode out. I followed, one step behind him.

  We walked a few blocks and arrived at a community park. He stopped at a wooden bench near a fountain. I stopped, too. He took out a cell phone from his pants pocket. “Tell Director Wang I have some personal things to deal with this afternoon and won’t go back to work afterward. You can reschedule this afternoon’s meetings to tomorrow.”

  After speaking on the phone, he turned to face me, hands behind his back. “I know Miao Yan is your best friend and you won’t believe me no matter what I tell you, but I must tell you that the baby isn’t mine. Also, I can’t marry her so that she can stay here. We did have sex but the last time was eight months ago. We tried to get back together but it didn’t work out. Each time she came to see me in Shenzhen, we always ended up arguing. We agreed that we should just be friends, not a couple. For some reason she asked me to pretend we were still a couple when we three met for the hotpot. I think she didn’t want you to worry about her. She often told me how much you care about her and how much she’s afraid of hurting you.”

  He was lying, I told myself. If he and Miao Yan had sex, the baby could be his. Didn’t Pingping say that having sex would make a woman pregnant? He was trying to fool me!