Under the Hawthorn Tree (17 page)

‘Daxiu's mother died a few years ago, and as her father didn't do his work in the fields the production team put him in charge of the cows. But he still got drunk regularly and he let the cows out to eat the crops, so the production team deducted his work points. The worst of it was that as soon as he had a few pence in his pocket he would spend it on drink. When Daxiu reached fourteen or fifteen her father tried to marry her off so he could spend the money on booze.

‘Daxiu didn't have a dowry, and with a father like that, no one in the village would have her. Her father promised her to Lao Meng's second son who has epilepsy. His fits frighten you half to death, his mouth froths, and he loses consciousness and falls to the ground wherever he happens to be. Everyone thought he was sure to die young. Daxiu refused to marry him and her father almost beat her to death, saying he'd raised her all these years for nothing. “Daughters are supposed to be wine jugs for their fathers, how did I produce a shit-and-piss pot like you?”'

‘So Old Third agreed to marry her,' Jingqiu guessed, ‘to save her life.'

‘It wasn't like that. Old Third gave her father money for alcohol, and told him not to force his daughter into prostitution. Daxiu's father was only interested in booze, he didn't care who his daughter married, but in the end he didn't make her marry the boy with epilepsy. But Old Third couldn't escape some measure of responsibility now, so whenever Daxiu's father ran out of booze he would go find Old Third saying, “It's all your fault, if you hadn't got in the way my daughter would be married to a good person who would bring me money for my drink.” Old Third was afraid he'd hit Daxiu, so he handed over the cash. Daxiu's father tried to force Old Third to marry his daughter, that way he wouldn't have to worry about getting money for booze any more.

‘In fact, Daxiu was hoping for the same outcome. Who wouldn't want to marry someone with state rations and an official for a father? Not to mention Old Third's good looks and good temper. Daxiu often went to find Old Third at his camp, offering to wash his quilt and help him with things, but Old Third wouldn't let her, nor would he let my sister. My sister had to steal his bedding to take it home to wash.

‘She asked Yumin to talk to him about it, but Old Third said no because he already had a fiancée. My sister cried a few times, and made a promise never to marry. But then she got together with Zhao Jinhai, and obviously didn't stick to her vow – she spends her days all in a fluster about getting married to him now.'

‘So when you cut up that photo you were helping out your sister?'

Fang looked embarrassed and laughed. ‘How long ago was it that my sister liked him? Let's just say I cut up the picture quite a while afterwards.'

Jingqiu's heart started hammering; maybe Fang read my mind, and did it for me. ‘So who did you do it for?'

‘There's no point doing it for anyone else, it had to be for myself,' Fang said frankly. ‘But it didn't do me much good, I could only cut them apart, not glue us together. Apparently Old Third has known his fiancée since they were young and their fathers are both officials, what are we in comparison? So, if you ask me, him lending you money is just to help you, it doesn't mean anything else. Take my advice, take the money because if you don't someone else will, and why should someone like “Three-slugs-a-day Cao” get it just to spend on alcohol?'

Jingqiu was forlorn, and the more Fang pleaded Old Third's innocence the worse she felt. She believed Old Third had helped her because he liked her, and although her pride had made her refuse him, she had been genuinely touched. But Daxiu's story had turned her insides cold.

Old Third must have hugged Daxiu. He had no qualms about hugging me after such a short time, and he's known Daxiu much longer, so he must have hugged her, surely? She had been sullied by Old Third. When they hugged there had been a layer of clothing between them, and she had washed them and herself since, so it must be washed off by now? But his tongue had reached in between her lips and teeth. Just thinking of it made her feel nauseous, and she wanted to hawk and spit it out, but instead sat there, ashen-faced, without saying a word.

Fang tried to squeeze the money back into Jingqiu's hand. ‘Take it, you said you would, you must stick to your word.'

Jingqiu jumped up as if she had been scalded, and the money dropped on to the floor. She refused to pick it up, and still standing, replied in a distant voice, ‘I agreed to take your money, not his filthy cash. Take it back with you. Don't make me go to West Village tomorrow specially and risk losing my job.'

The tone of her voice and colour of her cheeks must have been terrible, as Fang returned her gaze, terror-stricken. ‘What do you mean, filthy cash?'

Jingqiu couldn't bear to tell Fang about how Old Third had embraced her, so instead she replied, ‘If you can't work it out, don't ask.'

Fang knelt down to pick up the money and faltered. ‘Now what? I've used up the money he gave me for the bus and I've failed. What will I say to him? Take the money, for my sake.'

Jingqiu didn't want to get Fang in trouble. ‘Don't worry, go back and tell him that I'm working at the cardboard factory gluing boxes. The money's good and the work's not hard, so I don't need his money, nor his concern. If you say that, he won't blame you.'

Fang mulled over the excuse and agreed. ‘I'll say it, but you have to help me with the details, otherwise I won't do it. I'm not good at lying, my heart pounds and it only takes a few questions before I'm found out. See? Old Third told me over and over not to say whose money it was, and yet it didn't take much for you to get it out of me.'

Jingqiu helped Fang to flesh out the details of the lie, including the address of the cardboard factory, the direction in which the main gate faced, that they had met at the factory and that Jingqiu would be working there all holiday.

‘So don't do any dangerous work in real life, because if something happens Old Third will know I lied,' Fang pleaded.

After having sent Fang off Jingqiu decided not to spend even more money on another bus ticket so walked back, her head filled with images of Cao Daxiu. She had never seen her, but a clear picture floated in front of her eyes; despite her worn clothes she was an attractive young woman. Then came an image of Old Third hugging Daxiu on a mountain top. Old Third was kind to her, so whatever he wanted she must have given him; Old Third had reached his tongue into her mouth and Daxiu had done nothing to stop him.

She returned home with a headache, and without eating went to lie down. Her mother was alarmed, thinking the day had been too hot for work. She asked Jingqiu a few questions, but after receiving Jingqiu's clipped replies she decided not to persist.

Jingqiu slept for a while until Wang arrived to say that the boss wanted everyone to work overtime that evening. ‘If the boat stays an extra day tomorrow the factory will have to pay an extra day's wages. If we work from six until nine tonight we'll get paid half a day's wages, for only three hours' work.'

As soon as Jingqiu heard this her head was too excited to hurt and she forgot to be angry any more. If she applied the Marxist theory she had learned at school to the situation, you could say it would be better to concentrate on her economic base first. She thanked Wang, gulped down two bowls of rice, grabbed her bamboo basket and shoulder pole, and rushed off to work. All the temporary workers were gathered at the river, and some had even brought family members. Who wouldn't do three hours' work for half a day's wages?

That evening they worked more than three hours, however, heaving the sand down from the boat, and so the boss offered to pay a full day's wages for their trouble. But now the work was finished, they weren't required the next day. If any more work came up he would call on them.

The thrill of hitting it big time was diluted in an instant by the news of their impending unemployment, and Jingqiu felt dejected. Tomorrow I have to go back to Director Li and who knows if there'll be a job. She had started to trudge with heavy steps back towards home when the boss came running up to her, offering her a few painting jobs if she was interested. She could start tomorrow at the factory repairs unit.

Jingqiu couldn't believe her ears.

‘Will you do it? You're hard-working, and I trust you. Also, painting requires attention to detail, it's better for a woman to do it.'

Jingqiu was wild with joy. So this is what they mean by ‘luck the doors can't keep out'! The next day she would go to the repair unit to paint. People said that the paint was poisonous, but the work was easy, and you got ten cents more per day. Who cared if it was poisonous or not?

That whole summer luck was on her side. To her surprise her lie to Old Third came true and she really did work at the cardboard factory for two weeks, gluing boxes. You were supposed to be struck by lightning for lying, and yet she had come out not only unscathed, but with an actual job at the factory'.

This time she would work at the machines with the regular workers. They gave her a white hat, and told her to tie her hair back with a leather belt from the workshop, in case her long hair caught in the machine. The regular workers were given white aprons which made them look like they worked in a textile factory, but the casual workers worked without, so it was obvious who had a permanent job and who was only temporary.

Jingqiu really wanted to sneak herself an apron and try it on: it felt truly wonderful to be employed. The work was simple, all she had to do was put two flat pieces of cardboard and one corrugated piece into a machine, and then it would swipe glue on them and press the three pieces together into one sheet. These could then be used to make boxes. The only technique she had to learn was to line up the corners when she put the cardboard into the machine, otherwise it would come out crooked and would have to be thrown away.

Jingqiu was a meticulous person, always striving to do her best, as well as a fast learner. The other workers on her machine liked her because she was quick and reliable, and never slacked off. A few of them let Jingqiu take care of everything while they slipped out the back door to browse in the nearby shop. Every day they finished their quota early and once the inspector had checked their work they were free go to the common room to rest until they were allowed to go home.

Once, the factory distributed pears, one and a half kilos to the regular workers and just one kilo to the temporary workers. At the end of the day, she carried the pears back home and presented them to her family as if she were a magician that had conjured them into existence. She told her sister to eat. Her sister was overjoyed; grabbing three pears she went to wash them so they could have one each. Jingqiu declined, saying she had already eaten some at the factory. ‘That's the thing about pears, if you eat too many you get sick of them.'

Jingqiu watched her sister read while nibbling at a pear. After half an hour she still hadn't finished. Jingqiu's heart ached, and quietly she made a promise to herself: when I earn some money I will buy a big basket of pears so my sister can eat as many as she pleases, so many that she will never want to eat another pear again.

Unfortunately her job at the cardboard factory lasted barely two weeks. It was only when someone told her that she needn't come the next day that she really understood that she was just a temporary worker. She was reminded of a sentence in one of the classical poetry books Old Third had lent her: ‘In dreams I know not that I am a guest, / a moment of stolen happiness.'

So she returned to Director Li's house to wait for a job, and the fear that went along with waiting. She was back to the exhaustion of it all. Old Third was but a remote concern compared to her nervousness and exhaustion.

In the days after starting back at school in the autumn Jingqiu was very busy, not with studying but with a confusion of other things. That term, apart from continuing on the girls' volleyball team, she was also training with the ping-pong team for a forthcoming competition. Normally the sports teams had an agreement that each student could only play for one team so that they could concentrate properly on one sport. But Jingqiu's circumstances were special; the two coaches, Mr Wang for ping-pong and Mr Quan for volleyball, had negotiated to let her play both.

Mr Wang thought Jingqiu a vital part of his team, not only because she was the best girl in the whole of No. 8 Middle School, but for another important, what you might call historical, reason.

Jingqiu had started on the ping-pong team at junior high. One year, there had been a city-wide competition in which Jingqiu had come in the top four. In the semi-finals she had met another student from her team, Liu Shiqiao, with whom she was often paired during practice. Jingqiu held her bat upright, in an attacking grip, whereas Shiqiao held hers in a horizontal, defensive grip. The coach knew that Shiqiao met the ball securely, but lacked ferociousness in her attacks, the killer instinct you might say, unlike Jingqiu who lashed and served the ball as if killing was in her blood. So the coach had taught Shiqiao to wear her opponent down through a process of attrition, slowly weakening her adversary rather than looking for the fatal shot. Then, when her opponent finally lost patience, it would be her own mistakes that finished her off. As they were both on the same team Jingqiu naturally knew Shiqiao's strengths and weaknesses, not to mention the coach's tactics, so she had perfected her own way of dealing with her. Usually during practice it was Jingqiu who came out on top.

They were playing instant knock-out. In the second round Jingqiu had been drawn against a player from the city sports academy. It was like a small theatrical troupe up against an operatic company, so Mr Wang told her he had no great hopes but that she should just ‘Go for it, and try not to get skinned alive'. Her opponent must not take the glory in all three games. Mr Wang didn't even stay to watch the match on the grounds that it would be pointless to waste his energy over it. Even the umpire was not bothered to watch properly.