Authors: Sally Grindley
Spilled Water (7 page)
Have to Kiss it Better
Sunday arrived with the wake-up bell at five-thirty. Though the sun had yet to rise, I could see that the mist and smog were
lying in wait for me, blotting out the river and its hint of hope. I dragged myself into my uniform, exhausted before a day
that promised me no rest had even begun. I looked in the mirror and wondered anew at who the girl standing there was. The
air of resignation had now overwhelmed her. You’re here to stay, the girl in the mirror seemed to say. There’s no point in
fighting it.
I was grateful to discover that Xiong Fei had chopped up some of the vegetables in advance and left them in the refrigerator,
as well as preparing the plates of preserved meats and pickles. I struggled to remember what he had said about oven temperatures,
how much oil to use, which spices belonged with which dish. I set the table in the dining room while trying to sort things
out in my mind, then returned to the kitchen to measure out noodles and rice and carve up the chicken and beef. How well these
people eat, I reflected, compared to my family and friends back home. But how well are they going to eat today? I couldn’t
help smiling wryly. I flattened a chicken breast, picked up a cleaver, and sliced through the top of my finger.
Droplets of blood fell to the floor as I dashed for the cold tap. I held my finger under the running water, desperate to curb
the spill of red but, though it wasn’t too serious a cut, the blood kept flowing. I grabbed the teacloth and wrapped it round
my hand. A deep red stain spread relentlessly through the material as I ransacked the drawers for something to bind the cut.
All I could think of was that time was passing and I hadn’t even started cooking. I found some plastic film, tore off a strip
and wound it round and round the top of my finger, hoping to contain the bleeding for long enough to enable me to cook and
serve the meal.
I could hear voices. My time was nearly up. I plunged the rice into a pan of boiling water, heated the oil in two woks, tipped
in some chopped onion, garlic and ginger, finished carving the chicken and beef, separated them into the two woks, tossed
them about in the oil, added various sauces, herbs and spices, and prayed that I had got it right. I carried the cold dishes
through to the dining room, placed them round the edges of the revolving tray in the middle of the table, and returned to
the kitchen to find Mrs Chen standing there.
‘There is blood on the floor, Lu Si-yan.’ She pointed to the teacloth. ‘There is blood on this teacloth, Lu Si-yan. Do you
have any idea how unhygienic that is? Do you have any idea what a health risk that is?’
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chen. I cut my finger and –’
‘I don’t care if you cut your throat. I will not have my kitchen contaminated by you. How do I know that you haven’t infected
our food with your blood?’
‘I was very careful to –’
‘Careful you are not, Lu Si-yan. Careful people do not drop plates, do not spill food, do not take slices out of their fingers.
You will throw this teacloth away, you will clean up your blood with disinfectant, and I shall expect you to serve us in ten
minutes.’
Behind her, the saucepan of rice bubbled angrily, came to the boil, and hissing water spilled all over the top of the oven.
Mrs Chen turned to look, then stormed out of the room, leaving me to fume at the injustice of her attack. I hurled the soiled
cloth into the bin. I mopped savagely at the blood-spotted floor. I felt like screaming obscenities for the whole world to
hear. I was doing my best. Why was my best never good enough?
I stamped over to the oven and was sickened to find that one of the sauces over the meat had reduced to almost nothing, while
the other was thick and glutinous. The meat itself was sticking to the bottoms of the woks. I poured some boiling water from
the rice into the woks and stirred frenziedly, trying at the same time to free the meat and thin the sauces, some of which
spattered down the front of my uniform. The clock on the wall told me I had two minutes left before I had to present myself
in the dining room. I drained the rice and tipped it into a bowl.
I stood outside the dining room with the bowl of rice. This was the moment I had been dreading.
I saw Mrs Hong first, who smiled kindly. Seated next to her, Mr Chen simply nodded. By his side, the finely dressed young
man stared at me and his cheeks flushed pink. He was so handsome that I must have gawped, because Mrs Chen said sharply, ‘Don’t
play the peasant, please, Lu Si-yan.’
I placed the bowl in the centre of the table, stood back and waited for instructions. There was silence, then Mrs Chen said,
‘Where are the hot towels, Lu Si-yan?’
My stomach plunged. Nobody had said anything about providing hot towels at breakfast time. It was first thing in the morning.
Surely hot towels weren’t needed when everyone had so recently washed.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Chen, I didn’t realise –’
‘We always have hot towels, before every meal. I’m sure I told you. Too late now. We’ll have to do without.’
‘No hot towels, Grandma.’ Yimou leant conspiratorially across the table to whisper loudly to Mrs Hong.
‘No, dear, not today. Never mind, though. It won’t harm us.’
‘What are you waiting for now, Lu Si-yan? Dish out some rice and hand round the cold meats.’
Mrs Chen tried to make herself appear agreeable, a smile on her lips after she spoke, while her husband sat patiently waiting,
showing no sign of involvement with anything that was going on around him. I carefully put a spoonful of rice into Mrs Hong’s
bowl, for which she thanked me, served Mrs Chen and Mr Chen, then bent over Yimou to reach his bowl. He beamed up at me, a
face of pure innocence, turned towards his father and said, ‘Pretty girl.’
Mr Chen gave a brief nod. Mrs Chen told him sweetly not to embarrass me. When I passed round the preserved meats, he beamed
at me again, then leant across the table to whisper to Mrs Hong, ‘Pretty girl, Grandma.’
‘Eat your food, Yimou,’ Mr Chen said sternly.
I disappeared back to the kitchen to fetch the hot dishes. The pieces of beef were stuck together in their glue-like sauce,
the chicken was blackened in places where it had burnt at the bottom of the wok. I tried to disguise the worst with carefully
positioned vegetables, but I knew that such subterfuge would not escape Mrs Chen’s eagle eye. At least I had managed not to
overcook the pakchoi. I carried the dishes through and waited for the inevitable smile-disguised tongue-lashing.
‘You may serve us with more rice, then return to the kitchen to begin washing-up,’ Mrs Chen ordered.
I filled one bowl after the other as before. When I reached Yimou, he suddenly pointed at my hand and said very solemnly,
‘Nasty cut? Have to kiss it better.’
With that, he took hold of my wrist and was about to kiss my finger, when Mr Chen pulled him away and said firmly, ‘No, Yimou,
you don’t touch.’
I was sent back to the kitchen then, while Yimou leaned across to Mrs Hong and whispered, ‘Nasty cut, Grandma.’
I was in turmoil as I scrubbed away at the dirty pans. It wasn’t that Mrs Chen would come in soon to demolish me over the
dreadful meal. It was Yimou. It seemed I was destined to marry a boy who was as handsome as any girl could wish, but who acted
like a very young child, though he looked about eighteen.
I didn’t have time to think about it for too long. Mrs Chen strode in and the expected castigation took place. The food wasn’t
fit for a peasant. Mr Chen had been assured by my uncle that I was a good cook, so I had better not be there under false pretences.
There was plenty left, which I was welcome to. Lunch had better be much improved. I was to make a start on it as soon as I
had eaten and finished clearing up.
‘One last thing, Lu Si-yan,’ Mrs Chen said quietly. ‘He is harmless, you will always have a roof over your head, and you will
never want for money. I think you can count yourself lucky, don’t you?’
I wanted to knock the sickly smile off her face and scream, No, no, no! I am not lucky. I am the unluckiest girl in the whole
of China. But I wasn’t expected to reply. Mrs Chen had already gone.
I fetched the bowls of discarded food from the dining room and sat down to eat, but I had lost my appetite. I didn’t care
about having a roof over my head – after all, Mother and I had managed without one once upon a time. I didn’t care about money.
We had never had money – not much, anyway. I remembered one of my father’s favourite sayings: ‘If you realise that you have
enough, you are truly rich.’ The Chens had more than enough money, but were they truly rich, Mr Chen with his empty eyes,
Mrs Chen with her heart of stone?
I could see it all now. I was being trained to look after Yimou, to take over from Mrs Chen, and, as his wife, it would be
much more difficult for me to leave him than if I were simply a paid servant.
I was in trouble again at lunchtime. I forgot the soup. The scolding missed its target this time though. I was too busy wondering
if Yimou knew that I was to marry him. I caught him gazing at me adoringly, as small children sometimes do, and wished that
I could just be friends with him.
By the evening, I was so tired that I could hardly keep my eyes open. Disaster struck when I managed to ladle soup into Mrs
Hong’s lap. Yimou burst out laughing, then clamped his hand over his mouth when he saw his father’s face. Mrs Chen leapt to
her feet, called me a stupid, clumsy child, and said that perhaps she was mistaken in thinking she could turn a sow’s ear
into a silk purse. Mrs Hong patted me on the back and told me not to worry, that it had been a long day.
‘The poor child’s exhausted,’ she declared to Mr Chen. ‘Let her have a bowl of food, then send her to her room. We can sort
ourselves out here for once.’
Mr Chen nodded, but I knew from the look on Mrs Chen’s face that she was furious again with her mother-in-law for interfering.
‘The poor child’s exhausted,’ I heard Yimou repeat as I left the room.
‘The poor child is being spoiled,’ I heard Mrs Chen retort.
You Have Made Your
Own Bed
The following week, Xiong Fei was dismissed. It was my fault. I told him nothing at first about what had happened on Sunday,
except that my cooking had failed the test and that I had missed Mrs Hong’s bowl and put her soup in her lap instead, which
amused him greatly.
‘Pity it wasn’t Mrs Chen’s lap,’ he grinned. ‘You need to improve your aim, Lu Si-yan.’
‘If it had been Mrs Chen’s lap, I might not have survived to tell the story. At least Mrs Hong was nice about it.’
‘So what was the husband-to-be like?’ Xiong Fei gazed at me searchingly.
‘Very handsome,’ I managed, after a pause, refusing to meet his eye.
‘Very handsome, but –?’
‘Beautifully dressed.’
‘Beautifully dressed, but –? Come on, Lu Si-yan, tell me. I’m your friend. All you’ve told me so far is that he’s nicely packaged.’
I couldn’t tell him. I feared that if I did, he would confront Mrs Chen. I didn’t want that to happen. It was my problem,
not Xiong Fei’s.
‘I can’t really say,’ I answered finally. ‘I didn’t see much of him. He didn’t speak very much. He seemed – harmless enough.’
At the end of the week, though, I couldn’t help blurting out how I felt. I had been woken very early that morning by my door
opening and a figure standing there. It was Yimou, I could see from the spill of light from the hall. I heard him whispering,
‘The poor child’s exhausted. Kiss it better. Have to kiss it better.’ I was petrified that he was going to come in and kiss
my hand. I lay still, not daring to move in case it encouraged him to enter. Mr Chen came to my rescue again. As soon as Yimou
heard his voice, he closed the door and went away.
Mrs Chen was particularly demanding that day. In the evening, Xiong Fei arrived to find me close to tears. When he asked me
what was wrong, I told him of my fears that Yimou would come into my room. He was horrified.
‘You said he was harmless, Lu Si-yan. How can you be so sure? He might be dangerous, for all you know.’
I tried to explain. ‘He seems harmless because he’s like a small child. He’s never grown up, Xiong Fei. I think his brain
is not quite right. He’s harmless, but I’m frightened of him because I don’t understand him.’
‘How can you stay here and marry him then, Lu Si-yan?’ Xiong Fei could see I was about to cry, and put his arms round me,
just as Mrs Chen came into the kitchen. He let go of me instantly to plant himself in between Mrs Chen and me.
‘What’s going on?’ demanded Mrs Chen. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m protecting Lu Si-yan from you, Mrs Chen,’ Xiong Fei replied fiercely. ‘Why do you treat her like a slave? Why are you
forcing her to marry your son? What sort of people are you?’
Mrs Chen gaped in astonishment. In the silence that followed Xiong Fei’s outburst, time seemed to stand still. At last she
found her voice, chilling in its wrath.
‘How dare you! How dare you, a mere student, a mere nothing, criticise those of us who labour to feed and clothe you? You
will finish making our meal, then you will leave, for good.’
‘No, Mrs Chen,’ Xiong Fei retorted, ‘I will not finish making your meal. I am leaving now. I will not work for people who
mercilessly exploit young children. I only hope that Lu Si-yan will find a way to escape your clutches. She deserves better.’
‘Then you will leave without pay,’ snarled Mrs Chen.
As he headed for the door, Xiong Fei turned and said, ‘I’m sorry, Lu Si-yan. I will try to find help for you.’ But even as
he said it, I realised that there was nothing he could do. Mr and Mrs Chen were powerful people. They would know how to deal
with anyone who questioned my status within their household.
Things deteriorated even more from that time onwards. Mrs Chen was incensed by what she considered the treachery of her pet
chef and my role in his departure. She quickly replaced Xiong Fei with a much older man, who was under strict instructions
to keep me in my place and only to talk to me, if necessary, to tell me what to do. Mr Tian, as I was to call him, clearly
thought himself far too important anyway to speak to the likes of me, though he was not beyond pinching my bottom when the
mood took him. When he arrived in the evenings, he often smelled of alcohol, and left mess all over the kitchen which he expected
me to clean up.
Mrs Chen made me work harder than ever.
‘You have made your own bed, Lu Si-yan – now you must lie in it. I have tried to treat you well, but you betrayed my goodwill.
It is for you to prove to me that I can trust you again and that you can achieve the standards I expect of my future daughter-in-law.’
And so the weeks went by. I was allowed out of the apartment once a month to have my hair cut. The summer turned to autumn,
then winter, but my only experience of the changing seasons was through the apartment windows. The river came and went, shrouded
most of the time in dense smog, and screened too by heavy cloud or driving rain. I struggled to hang on to the idea that it
might one day take me home.
No task was too menial. I disinfected toilets, scrubbed floors, cleaned windows, laundered underwear, ironed sheets, on top
of my original kitchen and light housework duties. I learned to get on with my work, to avoid any confrontation that might
aggravate Mrs Chen still further.
I stopped looking in my bedroom mirror. The alien being who stood there was nobody I knew.
Sundays were the worst. The meals I cooked always failed to live up to Mrs Chen’s high expectations, and Mr Tian made no effort
to help me. On top of that, I didn’t know how to deal with Yimou. He would gaze at me with fascination, as though I were some
kind of rare species. He never spoke directly to me, but often talked about me in my presence. One day, he asked Mrs Chen
if I could stay with them for ever and ever. Mrs Chen replied that that would be my decision, and glared at me tight-mouthed
in case I should dare to contradict her.
Another day Yimou looked at me all glassy-eyed, then leant across the table to Mrs Hong and whispered, ‘Don’t tell anyone,
Grandma, but I love Lu Si-yan. She is so beautiful. One day I will marry her and then she’ll never, never, never go away.’
‘Behave yourself, Yimou,’ jumped in Mr Chen, while Mrs Chen gasped, and I stood there horrorstruck. Did Yimou know? Did he
know what was being planned for him?
‘I think you have a fan there, Lu Si-yan,’ smiled Mrs Hong. ‘He has very good taste, I must say.’
‘He has very good taste, hasn’t he, Grandma?’ Yimou nodded.
‘That’s enough,’ thundered Mrs Chen. ‘Stop encouraging him, Mother. He doesn’t know what he’s saying.’
‘He doesn’t know what he’s saying,’ repeated Yimou.
I disappeared back to the kitchen and sobbed.
Mrs Hong saw what was happening to me. Occasionally, at meal times, I would catch her look of consternation as she glanced
in my direction.
‘Are you sure you’re not overworking this child?’ she asked from time to time. Or, ‘Lu Si-yan is looking very pale and thin.
Perhaps she needs a few days’ break.’
But, on seeing his wife’s pursed lips, Mr Chen would reply, ‘I’m sure my wife knows what she is doing, Mother. Please don’t
interfere.’
Mrs Chen rarely left me alone in the apartment with her mother-in-law. She would arrange for a carer to come in and look after
Mrs Hong’s needs whenever she went out. In that way, any contact with my sole sympathiser was kept to a minimum.
One day, though, Mrs Chen had to go into town unexpectedly and left the two of us alone.
Mrs Hong came to find me. She pressed some money into my hand.
‘Take it, child. I know you’re in training, but I think you should be paid something for all that you do, even if we feed
and house you.’
I was astonished. I could feel tears pricking the backs of my eyes.
‘Thank you, Mrs Hong. That’s very kind of you.’ Then, without thinking, I said, ‘I shall send it to my mother.’
It was Mrs Hong’s turn to be astonished.
‘But your mother’s dead, dear.’
I didn’t know what to say then. I muttered something about being confused, and hoped Mrs Hong would go away. But instead she
said, ‘You’re very unhappy here, aren’t you, Lu Si-yan?’
She looked at me piercingly and continued, ‘She can be a little hard, my daughter-in-law. She was devastated when she discovered
that her one and only child was brain-damaged at birth. She has never come to terms with it, wants someone to blame, and is
desperate for Yimou to be normal. Of course he won’t ever be, but he’s such a sweetheart. The trouble is, my daughter-in-law
simply can’t cope with the burden of him.’
She stopped herself then and tutted. ‘You are only a child, and I am speaking out of turn like old women do sometimes, but
I hope that by understanding her pain you will judge her less harshly.’
‘I miss my home,’ I said.
‘Come, I will make you tea and you shall tell me about your home.’
Mrs Hong sent me to sit down in her room. I didn’t protest, I needed so much just to do nothing for a few minutes. I hadn’t
the energy to worry about Mrs Chen’s reaction were she to find out.
‘Where does Yimou go during the day?’ I asked, when Mrs Hong returned with a tray full of tea and cakes.
‘He works for his father. Simple jobs that keep him busy and make him feel important.’
I nodded, wondering again if this was the moment to let Mrs Hong know of the plans being made for me.
‘You are full of unspoken thoughts, Lu Si-yan. Tell me about your family.’
So I told her. About Father and his love of life, the way he sang as he worked, about the carp we caught, about how I taught
him to read, and how he was taken from us in a road accident. I told her about Li-hu with his rosy cheeks and how, when Father
died, I helped to look after him and he helped to collect the eggs from our ducks and hens. I told her about Uncle, and how
I didn’t think he really approved of us, but he had had a difficult time when he was young because he had had to bring up
my father. I told her about my mother, and how hard it had been for her when Father died, but how we had become an inseparable
team and had managed really well, until she became ill and there was a terrible drought and everything went wrong.
Tears rolled down my face as all the memories came flooding back. I wanted my mother. I wanted Li-hu. I no longer blamed him
for my plight. How could I? He was just a baby. He didn’t ask for this to happen. Mrs Hong looked at me pityingly.
‘What happened to your little brother, Lu Si-yan?’ she asked, patting me on the hand. ‘Is your uncle looking after him?’
‘I don’t know,’ I sobbed. ‘But one day I will go home and find him.’
‘Would you like me to write to your uncle?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t want to be a burden to my family. I will go home when I am able to support them myself.’
‘That will be soon, Lu Si-yan, I promise. You are learning fast, and your resilience will see you through.’