The Boat to Redemption (22 page)

So Huixian’s desk wound up in the Logistics department, the messiest, least dignified spot in the building. People were always
coming and going in an office where things were strewn all over the place. The so-called officials ran errands day in and
day out, which is why there was a carefree attitude throughout the section. Most of the time was spent playing chess or cards
or having long conversations about everything under the sun.

Now that her desk had been relocated, Huixian finally began
to use it. It was hard to tell if she’d come to her senses or not, but there was no question that she found that the Logistics
department was the place for her. In no time, she began acting as if she was in charge. She fell in love with the game of
cards, though she never got good at it. The players tried to help her, telling her to stand behind them and watch and learn,
but that wasn’t for her. Taking a seat and grabbing the deck, she was relentless, forcing them to coach her in the rules of
the game. They had not taken her self-absorption into consideration, and she rebuffed all their good intentions, showing neither
gratitude nor the slightest bit of humility. If she played the wrong card, she became hostile, blaming everyone but herself.
At first they let her have her way, but over time their patience began to wear thin. No longer Little Tiemei, she had been
demoted from the fourth floor to the second, so what reason did anyone have to spoil or protect her? Now, when she came up
to the table, they nudged her away. ‘Get out of here,’ they said with a wave of the hand. ‘Go away. You don’t know the first
thing about cards. Anyone who plays with you is in for a bad time. You’re working in the Logistics department now, so go and
get us some tea!’

Huixian was smart enough to discern how some people in the department felt towards her and she knew that petulance and hell-raising
would do her no good. Getting tea for them was out of the question, so she chose to walk away and play cards by herself. She
could be sensible, but they wouldn’t appreciate that. After a while, someone – it wasn’t clear who – intentionally or not,
placed a carton of light bulbs on her desk, where it stayed for several days. She asked for someone to take it away, but when
no one responded, she finally picked it up and angrily dropped it on the floor, where a series of crisp explosions brought
the others running. They yelled at her, all at the same time. ‘You wild little tramp, how dare you smash a caseful of light
bulbs! This will cost you plenty!’

One of them said, ‘Trying to mentor this girl is a waste of time. She was born for the unruly life on a boat. She can’t change,
she’s absolutely undisciplined.’

One of the others pointed at her and said, ‘You think you’re still Little Tiemei, don’t you? Well, you’re not. There’s no
place in this building for your hell-raising!’

Under such a withering attack, she just stood there, stunned. She was outnumbered, and she knew it, so she ran upstairs to
get Zhao Chuntang to come to her aid. But Zhao, who had already been informed of the light-bulb incident, drove her out of
his office. ‘Where do you get the nerve to come looking for me?’ he demanded. ‘Go to your room and write a self-criticism,
a detailed, heartfelt criticism, and bring it to me tomorrow!’

Huixian sat down on the fourth-floor landing and bawled, but she was wasting her time. So she wrote a self-criticism and handed
it over. It was pasted up on the reception-room wall, where she passed it every day, keeping her head low. Growing increasingly
afraid of the General Affairs Building, and hot one minute and cold the next, Huixian holed up in her dormitory room all day
long. Now, she thought, was a good time to turn to her studies. So she dug out an armful of books and stacked them by her
bed. But when she found it impossible to read any of them, from
On Practice
to
The Art of Embroidery
, she put them aside and spent her time at the window, gazing out at the scenery and, though she tried to stop, nibbling melon
seeds. But the minute she heard someone at her door she ran to her bed and picked up a book. No one was fooled. The pile of
seed husks on the windowsill was irrefutable evidence that she was frittering away her time.

Huixian was clear that being Leng Qiuyun’s enemy was not in her best interest. So she made an attempt to mend the relationship.
First she placed pumpkin seeds on Leng’s desk, then she put a tin of biscuits on her bed and laid a pair of Kapulong socks
beside her pillow. A good try, but too late. Leng sneered at the
sight of the gifts and said, ‘Trying to buy me off, is that it? What for? I’m not your Gramps Liu, nor your Uncle Zhao.’ She
picked up the pumpkin seeds and biscuits and threw them out of the window, just as Gimpy Gu was walking by. Both falling objects
hit him. He picked up the pumpkin seeds and threw them in the rubbish, then picked up the tin of biscuits and took it home
with him.

Milltown occupied a large area, but to Huixian it seemed small and confining. There were many places she dared not go, and
many others she wouldn’t deign to go. Sometimes she went out, only to be met by whispers, and she returned home wishing she
hadn’t gone out. One day she went to the embankment, nibbling on melon seeds along the way. She saw that the eleven barges
of the Sunnyside Fleet were tied up at the piers to unload their cargo of oilseed. On an impulse, she hopped on to the gangplank
of barge number one, a packet of melon seeds in her hand, and was immediately spotted by Sun Ximing’s wife. ‘Hey, it’s Huixian,
you found your way back!’

The surprised and happy shout, coarse and loud, scared Huixian, who dropped her packet of melon seeds into the river. People
ran out of their cabins to see her bending over, watching the river take her seeds away. Everyone was shouting: ‘Huixian,
come to our place! Huixian, come over to our barge!’

On barge number one, Xiaofu, afraid that the others would snatch her away, jumped on to the gangplank and reached out to take
her hand. ‘Come on over, Sis, hurry!’

But the movement of the gangplank drew a shriek from Huixian, who wobbled and looked up, her face ghostly white. Instead of
taking the boy’s hand, she pointed to her own forehead and forced a smile for his benefit. ‘I feel dizzy, I don’t think I
can manage the gangplank. I’ll come back another time.’ She turned and waved to Sun Ximing and his family, spun around and
ran off.

Huixian’s trip home had ended before it really began, to the
disappointment of the Sunnyside Fleet families. She didn’t miss them, it seemed, but they missed her. She didn’t care about
them, but they were always asking people how she was doing and what the future held for her. Why not, that wasn’t confidential
information, was it? Inevitably, they learned that she had lost her benefactor and protector at the General Affairs Building,
which drew a cloud over her future. No one would have predicted anything like that, and they were anxious to learn what would
happen next. When they asked Sun Ximing, he sighed and said, ‘I don’t know what the future holds for her either, but I hear
she’s been “hung out” by Zhao Chuntang.’

They knew what that meant. Hearing the words ‘hung out’ had them thinking back to the girl’s unusual background, and many
of them could hardly believe their ears. Talk swirled in the air. ‘Impossible,’ they said. ‘Who would dare hang her out these
days? She’s not a little girl any more. Huixian’s grown so pretty, and she has a patron. For the sake of argument, let’s say
that Zhao Chuntang wants to bring his mentoring project to an end. The people above him won’t let that happen.’

Sun Ximing was sick of hearing the chatter of his ill-informed neighbours. ‘You people don’t know what you’re talking about,’
he said. ‘Don’t you listen to news broadcasts? You know what “circumstances” means, don’t you? Well, circumstances have changed.
They’ve changed at the top and they’ve changed in Milltown. And with a change in circumstances, Huixian’s prospects have changed
as well. When all is said and done, her fate has been “hung out”. As a little girl she was hung out on the barges, where we
could raise and look after her. But now she’s hung out on the shore, beyond our reach. What happens from now on depends on
her fate.’

H
UIXIAN BEGAN
spending every day at the People’s Barbershop just north of the General Affairs Building.

The barbershop was Milltown’s style centre. It was where the faddish young men and chic young women, or those who aspired
to that status, went to exchange the latest news on fashion and hair-styles. They not only accepted Huixian into their circle,
but welcomed her. Needless to say, she thrived in the lively atmosphere, enjoying a cordial relationship with barbers like
Old Cui. Speaking the same language, they were a perfect match. In the barbershop she was in her element; it was a place where
she found contentment.

Surrounded by mirrors and fashionable women, she gazed at her reflection and watched as hair-stylists worked on clients, possibly
seeing the light of freedom in the styles they chose. One day, without warning, she stood up from her chair and removed all
her hair clips to let her hair down. She walked up to Old Cui, holding on to her braid, and said, ‘Cut this off, Old Cui,
I’m sick of it. No more braid for me.’

He wouldn’t dare. Since he refused to do what she asked, she picked up a pair of scissors, turned to the mirror and was about
to do it herself. ‘Don’t do that!’ an alarmed Old Cui said. ‘It’s
Li Tiemei’s braid. How could you think of losing it? Use those scissors, and you’ll stop being Li Tiemei.’

Defiantly, she held the scissors in one hand and her braid in the other. ‘I’m sick of being Li Tiemei!’ she cried out shrilly,
staring at Old Cui with a destructive look in her eyes.

To him it sounded like a threat. ‘Your braid is public property,’ he said. ‘The only way I’ll cut it off is with Zhao Chuntang’s
permission.’

‘Whose braid is it?’ she said. ‘Mine or his? I can cut it off if I want to. Go and ask him, I don’t care. I’ll cut it off
myself.’

In the end, Old Cui agreed to do it for her. After discussing several styles that were popular in the big cities, they decided
to start a new trend by copying the style seen on Ke Xiang, the heroine of the model opera
Azalea Mountain
. Owing to the pressure he was under, Old Cui’s hand shook when he tried to cut off the braid, and he had to stop and call
over Little Chen to do it for him. Chen, young and somewhat scatterbrained, made a clicking sound with his tongue as he grabbed
the braid and dug in. Huixian’s thick, black braid fell to the floor with a dull thud. She shrieked, scaring Old Cui, who
thought that Chen had snipped off part of her ear. ‘What’s wrong?’ he asked Huixian, whose eyes filled with tears.

‘Nothing,’ she said, shaking her head. ‘I feel a little light-headed, that’s all, something I’m not used to. Now it’s your
turn. Go ahead and start cutting. There’s no going back now.’

For Old Cui, this was an experiment, since he’d never done this style for anyone else. He snipped a bit, then stopped and
studied the photo of Ke Xiang in the magazine before continuing. All talk had stopped in the shop, everyone’s eyes were glued
to Huixian as she sat in the barber’s chair. It was a replay of the surprised encounter with a beauty they’d experienced years
before at the sight of the girl with the red lantern on the festooned truck. Their mouths hung slack from curiosity at the
sight, except this
time they were witness not to her glory, but to the risk she was taking.

Huixian covered her face with a newspaper, lacking the courage to watch Old Cui as he plied the scissors. ‘Go ahead,’ she
said to encourage him. ‘Do what you have to do. I can live with however it turns out. I won’t blame you even if it’s terrible.’

People gathered around to get a closer look. They watched and watched until suddenly they started clapping. ‘It’s lovely!’
they shouted. ‘Terrific! She’d look great with any hair-do. Goodbye Li Tiemei, hello Ke Xiang!’

Still holding the newspaper over her face, Huixian sneered, ‘What do you mean, Ke Xiang? I’m not that old.’ When it was finished,
she lowered the newspaper and looked at herself in the mirror. ‘Not bad,’ she said after a long pause. ‘Maybe a little old
for me, but so what?’ She got out of the chair, walked over and kicked the braid, which rolled across the slick tiled floor
until it finally came to rest. There was a smile on her face, but tears glistening in her eyes. Refusing to embarrass herself
by crying, she covered her mouth with her hand and said, ‘Did you see how that braid crawled across the floor? Looked like
a snake, didn’t it?’

The atmosphere became strained; no one knew what to say as they gaped at the braid on the floor, somewhat stunned. Deep down
they felt that Old Cui’s scissors had shortened more than Huixian’s hair, maybe even her destiny, and they didn’t know what
to do to console her. The grain-distribution-centre bookkeeper had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘Pick that up, Huixian.
You can sell it at the purchasing station. A fine braid like that will fetch a good price.’

Without giving it so much as a second look, Huixian said, ‘Who’d want it? Nothing you can sell at the purchasing station is
worth anything.’

* * *

Huixian was ‘hung out’ for half a year or more, during which she spent all her time at the barbershop, which was fine with
her, until she was assigned a job by the General Affairs Building. She went out early in the morning and returned to the dormitory
after nightfall, almost as if she worked in the barbershop. Then one day Leng Qiuyun changed the lock on their door, and Huixian
had to force it open, leading to a violent argument. The confrontation worsened the next day, when Huixian found her chest
and bedding out in the hall. Her tin lantern rested atop the chest. She raised the roof outside the room, but Leng Qiuyun
had gone off somewhere after hanging a sign on the door, indicating they’d fight another day. Occupants of nearby rooms rushed
into the hallway to calm Huixian down, telling her that Leng’s husband was coming to visit, and that Huixian’s presence in
the room would make it awkward for the couple. ‘Awkward for her,’ Huixian insisted. ‘What about me? We share the room, half
each, and unless I agree, her husband can go somewhere else!’

‘It doesn’t matter if you agree or not,’ they said. ‘The Party Secretary has given the OK, so you have to give up the room
for now. Leng Qiuyun talked to Zhao Chuntang, who said you can sleep in the third-floor conference room.’

‘What does he take me for?’ Huixian shouted. ‘Tables and chairs live in the conference room, and I’m neither. I won’t sleep
there!’

Her face was white with rage as she looked through her things, one item at a time, getting angrier by the minute. She stamped
her foot and uttered every dirty epithet she could think of: ‘Leng Qiuyun, you rotten cunt, I’ll thump you, thump you to death,
just see if I don’t thump that cunt of yours!’

The officials standing nearby all knew exactly what she meant. These were all swear words used by the boat people. Struck
dumb at first, they quickly gathered their wits about them and launched
an angry attack from all sides: ‘Go to hell, Little Tiemei! The organization wasted its time trying to educate you, mentored
you for nothing! How could you fall so low so easily? When there are disputes between comrades, you don’t settle them with
filthy low-class language you learned on the boats.’

Huixian knew she’d caused a public outrage, but she said, ‘Why are you all taking her side? She had it coming. If people left
me alone I’d leave them alone, but if they won’t, I won’t stand by and take it. Chairman Mao said that!’

She could see people looking at her in disgust as a result of her using one of Chairman Mao’s sayings to defend herself. One
of them sneered and said sarcastically, ‘See that? Who said she neglects her studies? She’s learned the art of distortion.’

Lantern in hand, Huixian went up to the fourth floor to see Zhao Chuntang, who was well aware that she and Leng Qiuyun were
at loggerheads. In the past, Huixian had started most of the arguments, but as her protector, he’d backed her up. This time,
while there was no denying that Leng had tossed Huixian’s things out into the hall, he placed the blame squarely on Huixian.
Before she even stepped into his office, she heard him bellow, ‘What are you, a spoiled mistress of the bourgeois class? You’ve
got a nerve, coming here to lodge a complaint! A husband and wife belong together, so what’s wrong with sleeping in the conference
room for a few nights?’

Unaware of the current situation, Huixian stood in the doorway with her lantern and railed at Zhao, ‘You’re not being fair!
Why can’t they sleep in the conference room?’

‘He’s a soldier, and she’s a soldier’s wife. It’s policy to give them special treatment. Who do you think you are, anyway?
Don’t you think I’ve treated you well enough?’ Zhao glanced down at the red lantern. ‘What are you trying to prove by holding
on to that? Just look at you. Do you really think you’re qualified to raise a red lantern? Wearing your hair like a disgusting
mass of noodles. Go
and take a look at yourself in a mirror and tell me if you see even a trace of Li Tiemei!’

The withering criticism rendered Huixian speechless. She raised the lantern and took a look at it, then let her hand drop,
causing the lantern to bump against her leg. ‘Why do I have to look like Li Tiemei?’ she mumbled. ‘I’m not her, and that’s
not my fault. Do I have to be Li Tiemei to bed down in the dormitory?’

‘When you’re not Li Tiemei,’ Zhao said, ‘you’re nothing. Now stand aside, treat a soldier’s dependant the way she deserves
and take your things up to the conference room.’

‘I’ll stand aside, all right, but I won’t treat her the way you say. I’m supposed to go to the conference room just because
she says so, is that right? Well, I’m not going to do it. She tossed my chest out, so tomorrow I’m going to toss her blanket
out!’

‘You do that and I’ll toss you out, all the way back to the Sunnyside Fleet. Think I won’t?’ Zhao banged his hand on the table
and glared at her. ‘Do you want to go back to the fleet? Well, do you? No? Then do as I say, and bed down in the conference
room.’

‘Why does it have to be the conference room? I could stay somewhere else, like Li Ling’s dorm or Little Yao’s.’

‘You could, but they don’t want you. You think you’ve won over the masses, don’t you? You’re not the Little Tiemei you once
were. Who do you think your friends are now? Not one person in all four dormitories wants you as a room mate.’

‘So what? I don’t care if they don’t like me. I don’t care if I never see them again. But I’m not going to sleep in the conference
room. It’s not safe for a girl to be alone, and it’s inconvenient too.’

‘What do you mean, safe? And inconvenient? You’re haughty, you’re wilful, and you’re more trouble than you’re worth.’ His
patience exhausted, Zhao turned and gazed out of the window. Suddenly, a look of steely determination filled his eyes. ‘Why
don’t you move out of the General Affairs Building altogether and
take up residence in the People’s Barbershop. You spend every day there anyway, learning what you can about how the bourgeoisie
live, so move in. You’ll be safe there, and it couldn’t be more convenient.’

Huixian was dumbfounded. Zhao’s suggestion caught her completely by surprise. At first it took her breath away, but shock
quickly turned to anger. Her lips quivered. Flinging her red lantern to the floor, she said, ‘Then that’s where I’ll go. But
I’m going to write a letter to the district authorities and tell them how you people have been treating me. Don’t be surprised
when Bureau Chief Liu comes asking about me.’

Zhao laughed. ‘So, the girl has learned how to play politics. You think you can put pressure on me with Chief Liu, do you?
Come here, I want to show you something.’ He took a newspaper out of his drawer and opened it up to show Huixian. ‘You never
read the paper and you won’t study, so you’re clueless. Your Gramps Liu suffered a heart attack and went up to report to Karl
Marx.’

Huixian saw the obituary. The familiar, white-haired old man who had once looked kindly at her across a banqueting table and
had watched over her behind the scenes had been reduced to a tiny black-and-white photograph, looking up at her from the pages
of a newspaper. Only the kindness and admiration in his gaze remained.

‘Gramps Liu, you can’t die! None of you care about me,’ she shouted. ‘What am I going to do?’ With that, she crouched down,
covered her face with both hands, and wept.

That same day she carried her chest and her red lantern over to the People’s Barbershop. Her face was still tear-stained when
she walked in and hung the ‘closed’ sign on the glass door as if she ran the place. Fortunately, the work day had nearly ended
and all the clients had gone, so there were no witnesses to her shabby entrance. Old Cui noticed she’d been crying, but was
shocked to see that she’d brought her things along. ‘No!’ he said, waving her
back with both hands. ‘You can’t do that! We don’t dare stick our noses into your arguments with the officials. You can’t
move into a barbershop, not Little Tiemei. What would that look like?’

‘Little Tiemei, you say? I count for nothing now, only good for living in a barbershop.’

‘You have to control your temper, Huixian. Put your things anywhere you want, but you mustn’t move out of the General Affairs
Building. If you can’t get along with Leng Qiuyun, move in with someone else. Don’t tell me they can’t find a room for you
in that great big building.’

‘Who cares about the General Affairs Building? I don’t like anybody who lives there. They’re all terrible people. No, this
is the best place for me. Don’t you want me here, Old Cui?’

Suddenly apprehensive, Old Cui picked up Huixian’s things to take them outside. ‘People say you have an intelligent face but
a foolish mind. I don’t believe that. I just think you’ve been spoiled. Everybody gets mad at people sometimes. With all your
contacts, you have a bright future, but you mustn’t be wilful. Don’t throw away your future, like smashing a pot just because
it’s cracked.’

That comment from Old Cui caused the last bit of Huixian’s reserve, which she had been struggling to maintain, to crumble.
She burst into tears and placed her foot on the chest on the floor. ‘Future?’ she sobbed as she dried her tears. ‘Future,
you say? I’ve got no future! Gramps Liu is dead, he has been reassigned, and Zhao Chuntang is mad at me. There’s no one left.
I have no one to rely on.’