Authors: Victoria Delderfield
A gang of students cycled straight in front of the taxi as we entered the Donghu district. Our driver sprang his head out of the window and shouted,
“You got a death warrant Confucius?” His voice faded in the melee of traffic noise.
I paid the extortionate taxi fare to impress the girls, then we ditched the taxi and followed the throngs heading towards the river Gan, stopping often for Ren to catch up and Fei Fei to window shop.
“Hey, Mai Ling, have you ever seen such racy knickers?” She pressed her nose to the glass of a lingerie shop.
“What idiot would pay six hundred yuan for those?” said Ren.
“Imagine how sexy you’d feel beneath your overalls.” Fei Fei giggled.
“What do you think, Sky Eyes? You’ve got the cash to buy it now you’ve flavour of the month with management?” said Ren.
“I’d never wear knickers like that. They’re vulgar and expensive and made half way across the world.”
But the skin on my chest flushed with excitement at the thought of Manager He peeling back the red lace.
At the market, I gave Fei Fei twenty yuan to buy a new denim jacket. Ren hung back, saying her wages were all accounted for. She was cagey when I asked about her family situation.
I knew she hid money inside her mattress, ready for moving on. Sometimes I heard her practise reading and writing before the breakfast alarm. She kept a notepad under the loose floorboard by the door. I stole it once. One of the pages said
GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT.
Glued to the page was an advert, cut from a newspaper, for a secretarial job. Judging by the faded newsprint, she’d been guarding it for some time, maybe years.
The restaurants were heaving. People of all ages spilled in and out. Lanterns lined the streets. Along the river, street vendors cooked spit-roasted skewers of fish over oil drums. We rested on a derelict wall overlooking the Gan, and wolfed down the fish. I felt intoxicated by the Canton pop songs thudding out from the funfair and the excited banter of people out to have a good time.
“It’s so good to get away,” said Fei Fei dreamily. “I’m not sure I can go back after tonight. Look at my hands, they’re so dry from bleach and machinery oil.”
“It’s the same in any factory. Whether its handbags or 4x4s, we’ll always be slaves to the klaxon. A
dagongmei
‘s body is never her own. Isn’t that right, Sky Eyes?”
“Let’s not talk about it tonight, Ren. I just want to have fun.”
A sudden explosion of fireworks burst across the night sky, their reflection jumped like frogs along the river. A couple of fishermen in a sampan looked up terrified, as if the penny moon had landed in their boat. I jumped off the wall and idled along the sandy riverbank where a skinny young guy approached me.
“Mai Ling?”
It was Yifan. I had not bothered to call him since our last meeting in the Suseng Teahouse and now he was alone, separated from his friends in the great maw of the city.
Fei Fei hurried over and introduced herself, “I work in the same factory as Mai Ling.”
“Another engineer?”
Fei Fei giggled, perceiving irony where none was intended.
“Will you come with us to the ferris wheel?” she asked.
Yifan glanced towards me, “If that’s alright?”
“Sure,” I said.
Yifan dropped in step beside me and we chatted about his studies, but Fei Fei kept interrupting. It was so embarrassingly obvious she fancied him.
He told us stories about his work, “Once,” he said, “there was a patient who kicked up a real fuss. He needed urgent treatment for chest pain, but had no cash or insurance paperwork, although he insisted he was a millionaire and promised to make a donation to the hospital if we agreed to treat him. The senior doctors relented because of the plans to build a new wing.”
“Did he cough up?” said Fei Fei.
“Yes. Unfortunately, the man’s donation was a body organ and not money. He died of a heart attack during his operation and we were left with a clogged aorta!”
Ren laughed; a beautiful, unfamiliar sound that lifted my spirits.
Yifan was nothing like the serious student I remembered from the Suseng Teahouse. We joked about the people around us, made up stories about where they’d come from and what they were doing in Nanchang.
“Look at those love birds,” said Fei Fei, “kissing in the street.”
“And the couple glued with their hands inside each others’ back pockets,” I laughed.
“What about her on the bench?” Ren pointed to a solitary young woman cradling a baby inside her coat.
“Looks like she’s waiting for someone.”
“My guess is that in a few hours that baby will never see its mother again. She’ll leave it on the steps over there.” Ren inclined her head towards a white-washed, monolithic building on the opposite side of the road.
“Welfare institute,” she added.
“Is that what happens when a mother doesn’t want her child?” I asked.
“Sometimes,” said Yifan, suddenly serious, “If the child’s lucky.”
I was about to ask him what he meant when Ren pulled me aside, her voice urgent in my ear.
“Don’t get in any deeper with the manager, Sky Eyes, or that could be you.”
I laughed.
Fei Fei called for us to hurry. We rejoined the excitable crowds, but I couldn’t help glance over my shoulder, unnerved by the sight of the young woman, all alone and rocking her child.
As we neared the ferris wheel, narrow alleyways gave way to broad avenues of neon light. I could hear screams as people reached the highest point of the wheel. It was spectacularly grand and the sight of it stopped us in our tracks.
Yifan paid for our tickets. He spent an embarrassingly long time counting out loose change from his grubby cloth wallet. I felt that not losing face cost him his last yuan.
On the ferris wheel, I bagged a seat by the window and watched the people below begin to shrink, their mouths gaped in wonder. I gripped the handrail, feeling dizzy.
“Don’t look down, look up,” Yifan said.
I stared up at the wheel’s creaking iron structure and hoped the workers who made it were better fed and rested than us.
“The city’s beautiful from up here,” said Yifan. “Look! You can see the university and there’s the Tengwang Pavilion. The river looks so wide!”
I felt a hand brush mine. At first I thought it belonged to the young boy at my knee, who stood on tiptoes, his nose pressed to the glass. Then Yifan squeezed my little finger gently, discreetly. Ren and Fei Fei were too busy admiring the view to even notice. I sat, frozen, Yifan’s hand laced around mine as the wheel completed its revolution.
When we reached the bottom, I expected Ren to say it was a waste of money or complain about something.
Instead, she beamed. “We were so high! I could have flown away.”
“Like a bird,” I said, stepping down.
“Free,” added Fei Fei, bustling to my side. “Free at last.”
“We shouldn’t lose this moment,” I said.
I spent twelve yuan on a disposable camera from one of the funfair stalls and Yifan snapped photos of us in front of the wheel, where a large sign said,
Welcome to Nanchang!
We took the camera to a processing booth on the corner and huddled around the machine as they popped out one by one.
“I can’t believe how scrawny I am,” said Fei Fei, crestfallen. “I look like I’ve been fighting the Japanese. Am I really that pale?”
“It’s the flashlight,” said Yifan generously.
Ren buried a few of the photographs in her jacket. “Come on, Mai Ling, it’s getting late. Let’s go back before the guard changes shift,” she tugged on my sleeve. “We’re never free.”
We left the store and headed in the direction of Bayi Square for a taxi.
“Are you sure I can’t buy you a drink?” said Yifan.
“Perhaps another time,” I said, suddenly weary.
“Mai Ling – there’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you all evening.”
“I must get back. Work starts very early. I’m under a lot of pressure. I can’t begin to explain.”
He grappled for my hand. “Then say you’ll meet me again.”
I shook it away.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“You haven’t, I’m tired.”
“Take my number again. Call me this time.” He fished in his satchel for a pen and some paper. “My exams will soon be over. I need to see you again.”
I nodded and shoved his number in my pocket just as Fei Fei and Ren rounded the corner.
Back at the factory, Fei Fei said she needed to sit a while before she could sleep. The excitement had made her head spin. Ren and I left her in the courtyard.
We paused on the landing to our dorm and caught our breath. I looked out over the courtyard expecting to see Fei Fei, but in the few moments it had taken us to climb the stairs, she had disappeared.
“Strange, she’s never in the places you think she’s going to be,” I muttered.
“You need to watch her,” said Ren, “She’s not who she says she is.”
I laughed. This was such a typical Ren-statement. “What makes you say that? Fei Fei is hopeless at keeping secrets.”
We stared at the empty courtyard.
“Ren, not everyone in this factory is out to get us the way they got Du. Some people would actually be your friend if you let them.”
Her face flashed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“The managers here aren’t all …”
“You think you can silence me with a ‘reward’ trip?”
“I thought you might enjoy coming.”
“Can’t you see what’s in front of you, Sky Eyes?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I’m faithful to you without bribery. I’ll never tell anyone about you and him, but you should end it. Stop seeing the manager before it’s too late, I mean it.” She let go of my arm and hurried away, leaving me adrift on the landing.
So that was all the thanks I got for treating her to a night out. Perhaps I should have had Manager He cut her precious wages.
I waited until my resentment subsided. Waited and watched for signs of Fei Fei, whose gossiping mouth and solidarity I was going to need more than ever.
Something moved behind the mei trees - a bird, perhaps? But when I looked again there were two pairs of legs. It was definitely Fei Fei, I recognised her trousers. Something swished again. Someone else paced back and forth behind the tree. A voice inside told me to keep watching, even though I didn’t want to. Just then a figure stepped out of the gloom and marched purposefully across the courtyard in his dressing gown. The figure, I realised, my legs suddenly leaden, was Manager He.
Ren gave me the silent treatment for two whole days after our exchange. She was touchy and her moods drained my
qi.
Energy that could be “better spent leading others in the way of productivity,” as Manager He would say.
Unable to meet in his bureau, we had agreed to see each other in the basement at lunchtime whilst workers ate or napped at their work stations. We were kissing by the bins, when I broke off to ask him about his encounter with Fei Fei in the courtyard. What had he been doing in the early hours of the morning, talking to a nobody like her?
His eyes closed at the mention of her name.
“I was taking a stroll to clear my head. Why do you ask? And why were you snooping on me? You should be sleeping when not on the line, otherwise how can you expect to do a decent day’s work?”
“But I saw you talking to her.”
“Yes, yes, I did bump into Fei Fei. Nothing wrong with that.” He pulled away. “If you must know, I issued her a warning.”
“For what?”
“Stealing is rife. Workers like Fei Fei think they can take a few bits of metal here, a few tools there, not to mention all the titbits stolen from the canteen.”
“Fei Fei? Are you sure?”
She wasn’t a bad worker, immature perhaps, but not a thief. She desired beauty and glamour, and for that she needed cash. She needed to stay in line.
“It’s unacceptable, 2204, and must stop before Schnelleck arrives. Imagine if he caught her at it.”
The mention of his name was sobering. I was barely meeting my own targets, let alone inspiring others to amazing feats of productivity.
“Did Schnelleck say which department he wanted to see first?” I asked, hoping it wouldn’t be ours.
“I got a fax this morning from his secretary; he wants to see it all, starting in bodywork – but I think I can engineer it for him to come to circuitry and bypass those idiots altogether. Ha ha! Engineer it … Ha! Sometimes I don’t know my own wit. Schnelleck will be eating out of my hand this time next week.”
He kissed my forehead as though it was a lotto ticket.
“When the Chief Executive hears I’ve secured foreign business, he’s sure to put me in charge of overseas accounts. And you know what the West represents?”
I wasn’t sure if he expected me to answer when he was in full flow. To me the West was Wrigley’s, Americans with money to burn in bars and fat white fingers that strayed too far up my leg; then there was white beauty, sexy knickers and French perfume, a language I’d never master beyond the odd word on the circuit boards and, of course, The Colonel – although I didn’t think any of this was the answer Manager He wanted.
“A potential goldmine, that’s what! I’m going to be so rich, I’ll have enough yuan to fill my bureau, floor to ceiling.”
I buried my head into his chest. His heart went
tic-a-tac-tic-a-tac
like a wind-up toy.
He guided me to the front of his trousers. I touched him until his mouth slackened and his eyelids screwed up with a pleasure that looked almost painful. He slumped back and the bin took his weight, cushioned by a heap of overflowing trash – thinking of his productivity figures, no doubt. There was nothing for me in return. I was left wanting, burning – the fire dragon who stirred whenever he was around.
Manager He straightened and pushed some of the rubbish back into the bin.
“It’s such a mess, Mai Ling,” he muttered.
I stared at the bags that surrounded us.
“I need Fei Fei to shift this crap – can you tell her? There’s far too much rubbish everywhere. Bags and boxes and bubble wrap and buckets of scrap metal, old worn out hand tools, I can’t have Schnelleck thinking we’re slap dash.”