Land of Big Numbers

by Te-Ping Chen

  He looked at her again, longer this time, and his brow furrowed slightly. “I do,” he said, and handed her some bills. “Do you?” This, of course, was sheer politesse; she was wearing a smock, it was unlikely a worker like her could afford it, and she could see this same embarrassed realization cross his face as she shook her head and tried to think of what else to say. “A little farther out,” she said. He nodded absently, checked his watch.

  Desperation surged inside her; she’d already demanded more of him in two minutes than she had in two months. In another moment he’d be gone, would disappear for another week. She counted out his change more deliberately than usual, willing him to ask her a question, any question. He didn’t. She paused. “Well, take care,” she said, unable to keep the regret from her voice.

  He smiled and picked up the bundle of flowers and inhaled. “Thank you,” he said, and “See you.”

  After he left, she started sweeping the green scraps off the table with a wedge of newspaper, flushed around the cheeks, angry with herself. He’d thought her odd, surely, to be asking such questions. Maybe he wouldn’t even come back. Asking about Triumph Mansion must have sounded to him so aggressive and strange; she’d been greedy, should have left that question for another week, spaced out all the things she wanted to know, but then that would take months, years, and she didn’t want to be at this job that long.

  Later on, while helping another customer, she noticed a pen that had been left on the counter. It was black and thick-waisted with a narrow band of silver around its middle and a matching silver clip, a jagged white line on it depicting a mountain. She uncapped it and drew a long stroke against the back of a receipt—​its ink was black and dense and flowed under her touch like a thin, controlled river. It must have been his, she thought to herself automatically, and dropped it into her pocket, where it landed with surprising weight.

  For another hour between the last two customers (no purchases), she filled out bouquets with the last salvageable flowers; they might sell more quickly that way the next day. As the cars thinned outside, she mixed bleach and water and was on her knees scrubbing out buckets on the sidewalk when she saw a woman stride past her into the store. After a moment, Xiaolei followed her, patting her hands dry on her smock.

  Her first impression: big sunglasses with crystal-studded hinges resting on her head, and below that a makeup-free face, so flawless that Xiaolei couldn’t stop staring, trying to seek out any imperfection. She had on a pair of snug sweatpants and a pink purse that swung from a strap of golden chains. A soon-to-be bride, she thought, though surprising that she’d come alone and so late. A wife asking where else flowers had been sent, perhaps; it had happened once before.

  “My husband left his pen here,” the woman said, upon seeing her. “Have you seen it?”

  A confusion of emotions flitted across Xiaolei’s face like quick-moving clouds. She didn’t know what she’d expected the man’s wife to look like, somehow not like this, but mentally she paid the woman tribute; she was beautiful, what he deserved, though frankly (Xiaolei thought to herself) there was something off-putting in her face. She looked like the sort of woman who would feed a pet expensive dog food and dock her servants’ pay.

  An interval passed before Xiaolei realized the silence had gone on too long. “We have some pens,” she said slowly, feeling heavy and shapeless in her smock. She went to the cash drawer and brought out a handful of ballpoint pens and laid them on the counter with ceremony.

  The woman shook her head, frustrated. “No, I’m talking about a nice pen,” she said. “Black, thick,” she said, and then she named the brand, which Xiaolei had never heard of. “You must have seen it.”

  She raised her eyes to Xiaolei’s and held them. It was like being trapped in a cobra’s gaze: after a minute, just to put an end to it, Xiaolei drew the pen unwillingly from her pocket.

  The woman’s face struggled between relief and annoyance that it had taken her so long. Relief won out. “Yes, that’s the one,” she said, and reached to take the pen. “Thank you. It’s worth a lot.”

  Panic seized Xiaolei, irrational and strong, and she pulled the pen back, just as quickly. She put on her best functionary’s voice, a mixture of boredom and witlessness. “I’m sorry. I can’t let you take it. I can only give it back to the pen’s owner.”

  “I’m his wife,” the woman said, face now suspicious.

  “Do you have ID?” Xiaolei said.

  “Does that pen have ID?” the woman said. “What kind of question is that?”

  Xiaolei shrugged.

  “Look, it was an expensive pen, a gift from his boss. You wouldn’t want to get him into trouble, would you?” the woman said. “If I come back without it, he’ll be unhappy, and I’ll be unhappy.”

  Xiaolei stiffened. Then the woman smiled again, such a confident look, and that sealed it. She would not give the woman this pen, no indeed. There was no protocol for expensive lost pens, but if there was, Xiaolei was certain she was in the right; surely one should only return the lost item to its owner. She sat down deliberately at her stool behind the counter, as though to cement her position.

  The woman stared at her. “Are you deaf? Give me the pen!”

  A couple was passing by outside, an elderly pair of retirees walking in that slow, stooped way of older couples. She knew them by sight; the man used to walk a songbird in a cage by the shop in the mornings until one day he was alone, and she wondered what had become of the bird. On hearing the woman’s raised voice, they stopped and looked quizzically at the scene.

  The woman made as though to go behind the counter. “Give it to me!”

  “No, and you need to stay in front of the counter!” Xiaolei’s reflexes were honed after years of living in the city; her right leg shot out and quickly blocked her.

  “Thief! Thief!” the woman shouted. “I’ll report you to the police!”

  Xiaolei was full of indignant fire now; she had what she needed to keep fighting all day. “Go ahead! I’m not going to violate protocol! We have rules,” she said proudly.

  Seeing the retirees hesitating at the doorway, Xiaolei quickly recruited them. “She wants me to just give it to her, but I can’t—​there are policies.” The elderly woman seemed confused, but after hearing Xiaolei’s explanation the man turned to the woman inside and spoke gently. “These policies are for your own protection,” he said. “Who would want their lost things to be given away so casually? Tell your husband, tell your husband to come back to the store and get it himself.”

  At this the woman turned tail and spit on the floor. “You’ll be sorry,” she said to Xiaolei, and walked out.

  Years later, lying awake in bed at night, Xiaolei sometimes thought of all the things she could have done differently. She could have handed back the pen, submitted to the woman, seen her husband the week following and pretended nothing had happened, continued to sell him flowers for weeks and months, an avalanche of roses, an eternity of lilies. She could have held on to the pen and returned it to the husband the following week, or the following day; probably he would have come back in person if it had been truly necessary. She could have kept it in her pocket and never returned to the store, perhaps pawned the pen. Used the money to start her own business.

  Instead, after the woman left, Xiaolei closed up the shop in a hurry; she didn’t want to risk her returning with the police. She took the pen with her, tucked inside her purse, and rode two buses to a night market, where she sat on a stool amid other workers finished with their shifts and ate a bowl of especially good noodle soup with pickled vegetables, then walked back in the direction of her rented room.

  That night she slept poorly, dreaming of the man who had died above her. In her dream, they were riding the same bus in the dark, the brightly lit buildings of Shanghai flashing by in a blur. He was seated a row behind her and leaning forward, his voice a steady, urgent murmur in her ear, the sound of it not unpleasant. He held a bundle of daisies, with petals that tickled her ne
ck. Afterward, the scene shifted, and they were whirling together on a dance floor lit up in an enormous, multicolored grid.

  The next day was Xiaolei’s day off. Usually she might lie in bed reading dime novels, or occasionally she’d go to the Bund, an hour’s bus ride away and one of the few destinations she knew. She liked to gaze across the water at the gleaming pink orbs of the Pearl Tower, and the colored jets of light that illuminated the skyline. Sometimes she sat there for hours, long enough to see the skyscraper lights wink off, just before midnight. Her first year in Shanghai she went frequently, until she overheard a beautifully clad woman telling a friend it was where all the “country bumpkins went to stare.” After that, she didn’t go so often.

  Xiaolei remained in bed awhile, trying to go back to sleep, until at last she rose, feeling restless. She put on a white hooded sweatshirt edged in gold trim that read SUPERSTAR, which she seldom wore for fear of getting it dirty. She donned a matching baseball cap as well, and her nicest pair of jeans. Under her bed she located a tube of bright-red lipstick, which she’d bought shortly after moving to the city. She’d worn it only once before wiping it off, ashamed and startled at the change in her appearance. Today she carefully smeared it across her lips. She shouldered her purse and walked toward the bus, humming softly.

  When she’d first arrived in Shanghai, the girls at the bottling plant said there were two ways to make it: get rich or get married. But here she was, still working for a pittance, and the only man to make a pass at her had been her boss at the plant, who was married and three times her age. One day after she’d been there two years, he’d called her in to give her that week’s pay. As she bent over his desk to sign the receipt, he leaned against her and squeezed her chest, as though testing the firmness of fruit at a market. “Do you like this?” he’d said, breath hot against her ear. Xiaolei had wrenched herself away and quit not long after, but occasionally found herself wondering whether life would have been better if she hadn’t refused him.

  She got off the bus not far from Triumph Mansion. As she approached its thick shrubs, she walked more slowly, heart jumping. Its big black gate was locked, but she loitered until she saw another resident leaving, and quickly slipped inside. It was easier than she’d imagined.

  Inside it was an oasis, with shrubs clipped into spheres and a marble lobby that contained a golden statue of a trident-bearing angel. The air was perfumed, and from somewhere overhead, a melody was playing, pianissimo. A somnolent guard sat at a front desk, but his head snapped up on seeing Xiaolei.

  “Sign in,” he grunted.

  “I’m just waiting for a friend,” Xiaolei said, and ran one hand carelessly through her hair, a gesture borrowed from the man’s wife. The guard looked at her hard but didn’t say anything.

  There was a big mirror on one side of the lobby, and a white leather bench opposite, which Xiaolei sank gratefully into. She took out the pen and gazed at it briefly before slipping it self-­consciously back in her bag. The man would thank her for returning the precious item. He would offer her cookies made from paper-thin crepes baked in tight scrolls, and tea served in fragile glassware. Back in the village, when she was not yet a teenager, she had watched a popular television show that depicted the lives of two women living in a big-city apartment upholstered entirely in white—​white leather couch, white tufted rug, white lilies—​and she pictured his apartment like that, too. They would sit beside each other on the couch. He would press against her like her boss from the bottling plant, only this time, she would not resist.

  Hours passed. The air was cool and conditioned, and carried its own kind of quiet hush. A few men in suits and nannies with their beautifully dressed charges came and went. The security guard left and another took his place. Every now and then, Xiaolei pretended to be on the phone, but mostly she just sat and watched the scene. She felt perfectly content there, a thousand miles from the dusty village where she’d been raised, as comfortable as if she belonged. She liked observing the residents’ faces, so intelligent and refined, no doubt full of more clever things to say than just going to rain; guess so; have you eaten yet; yes, hot out today.

  She thought back to her grandfather’s eightieth birthday celebration, the year before he died. A big crowd of villagers had assembled for roast fowl, and after a long string of toasts, he’d told them how glad he was that he’d lived all his life among them. He meant it with pride, the fact that he’d never left, but the thought had filled a teenage Xiaolei with horror, and she’d vowed to get away.

  A ding from the elevator interrupted her reverie. When she looked up, her favorite customer was disappearing into the elevator, briefcase tucked neatly under one arm. She rose to follow, trying to look casual, but the elevator doors had already slid shut. The gold numbered panel overhead showed him getting off at the fourth floor. Up front, the guard was busy chatting with another resident. In a flash she was hurrying up the stairs in pursuit.

  She arrived just as he’d reached an apartment at the end of the hall and shut the door behind him. The floors here were carpeted in dark blue, with faux crystal lamps above. She walked slowly. It was very quiet. There was a mirror by the elevator, and she inspected her face carefully. She removed the baseball cap and wet her lips and smoothed her hair. You’ve come this far, she told herself. Don’t be afraid.

  A few minutes later she was knocking at his door, but there was no answer. After a long while she knocked again, more loudly this time, and heard footsteps. When the door opened, he was standing there in an undershirt and shorts, as though he’d just been changing. “Yes?” he said impatiently. “Who are you?”

  Xiaolei tried to find her voice amid her surprise. “I’m—”

  “What do you want?” he said. No flicker of recognition registered in his eyes.

  Xiaolei heard a woman’s voice from somewhere deeper in the apartment. “I don’t know,” he called over his shoulder. He looked at Xiaolei again, more quizzically this time. “We’re not interested.”

  Inside, she could see a polished mahogany coffee table and a miniature fountain built into one wall that bubbled over a polished black orb. At the sight of Xiaolei, a white poodle curled on the couch stood and barked. The man still didn’t appear to recognize her.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, disappointment crashing over her in heavy waves. She began backing away.

  The man eyed her strangely. “That’s okay,” he said, and shut the door with a click.

  Somehow, Xiaolei found her way out of the apartment building, cheeks burning, looking neither left nor right as she hurried down the stairs. Outside, the cool air was a relief. She was sweating profusely, and remembered just in time to strip off her white sweatshirt to keep it from getting stained. It was foolish of her to have gone. It was foolish of her to expect anything of him, to think someone like her might have made an impression on him in any way. She pinched herself hard as punishment, leaving ugly red marks on her arm. She rode the bus and walked home in a daze; once back, she crawled immediately under the covers and lay there, a pit in her stomach and shame in her chest, until she fell asleep.

  It was only the next day, after four hours’ trundling through the wholesale market in streets slicked with water and dawn half-light, after arriving back at the store to find Yongjie waiting there with an ominous expression, that she’d looked inside her purse and realized the pen was gone. She didn’t know if it had been stolen or perhaps slipped out. Anyway, it didn’t matter. The wife had found her boss early the previous morning. By the time Xiaolei returned to the shop the following day, arms sopping with bundles of flowers, Yongjie had made up her mind; she was fired. There were plenty of other young girls who could do the job, and probably better, besides.

  When Xiaolei heard the amount of money the woman claimed the pen was worth, it astounded her; it was nearly twenty times her monthly salary.

  “She must be lying,” she said desperately. “What pen costs that much?”

  Yongjie hadn’t heard of such a pen b
efore, either, Xiaolei was nearly sure of it, but she affected an instant sense of knowingness that came down like a shield. It was a famous European brand, she said.

  “Well, then it was probably fake,” Xiaolei said, feeling only briefly disloyal. “Who carries a pen like that around?”

  Yongjie didn’t disagree, but she also refused to pay any of the two weeks’ back wages Xiaolei was owed. “You’ve caused me that much trouble—​count yourself lucky it isn’t worse,” she said. “Word will get around. Triumph Mansion is our key clientele, and now no one will want to come here.”

  Xiaolei didn’t bother to argue; Yongjie probably had a point. At the very least, she’d lost them one of their steadiest weekly customers. “I really did lose it,” she said, meaning the pen, but her boss wasn’t moved.

  “You know it doesn’t make a difference,” Yongjie said. She was poking white chrysanthemums into a stand of green foam, as if Xiaolei had already disappeared.

  In the months to come, as she looked for another job, Xiaolei found herself stopping into the city’s small stationery stores seeking out its likeness, wondering if such an expensive pen could possibly exist, and if so, where to find it. She saw thin-stemmed ballpoints and some with outlandish pink and green inks; all kinds of imports were coming in now from South Korea, transparent ones and gel-tips and retractables. She’d hold them in her hands, evaluating them, weighing their worth.

  Her only regret was that she hadn’t spent more time with the man’s pen, cradling it, uncapping it, testing it out for herself, and that she hadn’t been able to keep it. She’d gone back to retrace her steps, of course, even interrogated some vendors at the wholesale market, gone back to check the perimeter of Triumph Mansion, but found nothing.

  Even when she got another job, this time selling shampoo and conditioner door-to-door, the pen still haunted her. She’d bought a bicycle by then and would ride it up and down the length of the city, leaping off occasionally at stationery stores to check their racks in different seasons. It was a benign quest that gave her some control over a city that otherwise threatened to wear her down.