Chenxi and the Foreigner (10 page)

He looked up at her, then continued to rustle around among the dirty tissues. Anna tried to think of the words in Chinese, but all she managed was, ‘No! No good!'

Undeterred, the man took his hand out of her left pocket and slipped his arm around her waist to try his luck in the other one. Anna almost laughed. She didn't really want to get him in trouble, but she wondered if he was going to work his way down her trousers to where her money was really stashed. So she hissed to Chenxi, who was a little way down the bus, ‘Hey, Chenxi, how do you say in Chinese, Stop thief!'

He looked at her puzzled.

‘There's a man who keeps putting his hand in my pockets!'

Chenxi shouted something in Chinese and suddenly there was an uproar. The bus screeched to a halt in the middle of the road and a pack of squealing housewives threw the young thief off the bus, clucking in disapproval and shaking their heads as the doors closed again. The bus started up and as Anna watched him slink off down the footpath, she felt sorry for the simple young man.

The crowd on the bus thinned out and Anna slipped into a seat by the window. She was hot and sticky, but she kept her jacket on for fear of losing it to another pair of nifty hands.

Out the window she watched as a larger bus, even more dilapidated than theirs, rumbled by with dozens of squawking and flapping chickens strapped to the roof. A peasant squatted in the shade of his doorway, which was hung with bright cobs of drying corn. Women trotted by, balancing heavy baskets hung on springy bamboo poles over their shoulders. Everyone who noticed Anna's fair face peering from the bus window stopped and stared.

Chenxi slid in next to Anna and said, ‘It is very far place.'

Anna watched the flat patchwork countryside spinning by outside the open window. Within minutes she had dozed off, her head on Chenxi's shoulder.

Chenxi didn't move for the remainder of the forty minute ride.

A tall woman was waiting at the only bus stop in Shendong, with a skinny young boy in thongs twisting around her legs. She smiled when Anna stepped off the bus and took both her hands in her own. She had Chenxi's smile, but her eyes smiled too, wrinkling at the edges. Anna suspected she was older than she looked.

It was impossible to read the age of Chinese people: an old man had once approached Anna in the street and asked her in perfect English to guess his age. Anna said fifty, guessing sixty, and was astounded to discover he was eighty-seven! He had ridden off, chortling in satisfaction.

‘Your sister?' Anna asked.

‘The small sister of my mother. I have no brother or sister.'

‘She's called your aunt, then.'

Chenxi introduced them rapidly: the woman's name was Yang Wen and the gawky boy, in his last year of primary school, was Zhou Jin. As they began to walk, Chenxi explained to Anna that Chinese women kept their maiden names which was why his aunt's family name Yang was different from her son's. The children automatically took their father's name.

The four of them had only gone a little way down the street before Yang Wen stopped in front of a photo processing shop and muttered something shyly to Chenxi. Chenxi sighed and said, ‘My sister want to show you some people.'

‘Aunt,' Anna corrected. ‘Of course.'

They filed into the small shop and a smirking fat man with greasy hair came from behind the counter to meet them.

‘Oh!' he said, nodding and smiling at Anna. ‘Australia, Australia.' Obviously he had been expecting her.

‘Yes,' said Anna.

‘Very good! Very good!' The man put both his thumbs up.

He found a few stools for them and they sat down to talk, looking over at Anna as if to include her. Chenxi was standing by the wall, studying a calendar, so Anna didn't ask him to translate.

Twenty minutes later they stood up to leave, and bade the man farewell. Out in the street, only a short distance on, Chenxi's aunt made the same request, except this time it was to meet the owner of the grocery store.

Nearly two hours later, having been presented to every shop owner and postal clerk in the town of Shendong, the four of them reached Yang Wen's home. Anna was exhausted after being poked and prodded like a prize pony. But, just when she thought the parade was over, waiting for them in the family's little room was the other half of the town!

The round rosewood table was littered with peanut shells and mandarin skins; people perched on stools and on the edge of the big bed, smoking and chatting. They had clearly been there for some time.

‘Aah!' they cried in delight as Anna walked in. They busied about, finding her a stool, and passing her tea and nuts and fruit. Anna tried to catch Chenxi's eye, but he was concentrating on peeling a mandarin.

One by one the visitors left, and Chenxi introduced Anna to the remainder of his aunt's family. Yang Wen's husband was tall with a wide nose and thick glasses. His name was Zhou Yi and he too gave Anna a warm welcome. Their eldest son, who was fifteen, had his father's nose and bad vision. He introduced himself to Anna in faltering English as Zhou Lai, and everybody laughed good-naturedly. He went on to say that he was studying English at school and happy to have someone to practise with. Lastly, the ancient lady with the golden rings in her long, dark earlobes was his uncle's mother. But Anna could call her
Nai nai
, which meant grandmother. This made everybody laugh again.

Anna handed Chenxi's aunt the box of chocolates she had brought. The aunt smiled and thanked Anna, then placed them in a cupboard next to two other boxes of unopened chocolates.

Chenxi's uncle slapped his thigh and rummaged around in his vinyl satchel to pull out a camera. They took turns in taking photos and sitting next to Anna. Then Chenxi's aunt dashed out to call a neighbour to take a photo of the whole family. They cheered as the flash went off, then sat the neighbour down with Anna and took a last photo of the two of them. Anna's cheeks ached from smiling.

Soon it was time to eat. Chenxi helped his grandmother and aunt cook in a wok on a coal burner just outside the doorway. Anna offered to help, but Chenxi's aunt looked offended. Chenxi explained that his aunt was perfectly able to cook by herself and didn't require any help from a guest, thank you very much! So Anna sat and waited to be fed, embarrassed to have assumed the manners she had been brought up with would be relevant in China.

Zhou Jin and his father brought in the dishes as they were cooked and set them in front of Anna with great ceremony. Zhou Lai sat next to her on the bed and tried to explain in English what was in them.

‘Beans. Fish. Pig. That one is...how you say...
doufu
?'

‘Tofu.'

‘
Doufu
in hot sauce. That one is,'—he flicked through a dictionary—‘tongue from duck.'

‘Duck?'

‘Quack? Quack?'

‘Yes, it's duck.'

The tongues were longer than Anna had expected, but she had never really thought much about that part of the bird's anatomy.

She was surprised at how delicious the food was. She tasted everything except the duck tongues. This omission seemed to disappoint the family: it was clear they had ordered the delicacy especially for her.

Instead of eating over a bowl of rice, as was the custom in Shanghai, they picked the food directly from the dishes with their chopsticks and ate over a steamed rice-flour bun, called a
mantou
, which also served as a plate. Any dish that Anna showed a liking for was pushed in front of her, while Chenxi's nephew laughed as he translated, ‘You like? You eat all!'

Chenxi didn't speak much, except to correct Zhou Lai's translations, but he appeared relaxed with his family. At the end of the meal, he shared cigarettes at the table with his uncle, and the two boys joked with Anna while their mother and grandmother washed up. Night had fallen and, when Anna yawned, Chenxi's uncle jumped up and called to his wife who rushed in wiping her hands on her apron.

Yang Wen linked Anna's arm in hers and took her across to the grey dormitory opposite the room where they had been eating. She called for Chenxi to follow with Anna's bag. They walked up a dimly lit stairwell to the second floor, and along a corridor smelling of fish and steamed rice. Anna heard the clicking of chopsticks in ceramic bowls as other families chatted or ate. At the end of the corridor, Yang Wen pulled a key out of her pocket and unlocked a door onto a small bedroom with a clean cement floor. Yang Wen turned on the lights, then the television, and all the family came up to sit with Anna. They cracked pumpkin seeds with their teeth and watched the news together.

Anna looked around the little room bathed in fluorescent light and thought how simple and uncluttered it was. Everything was neatly arranged. She recalled the rambling old house she lived in with her mother and sisters in the affluent eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and the things they had accumulated over the years. Every time they moved to a bigger house, it was only to fill it with more mess.

When the news finished, Yang Wen shooed the men out of the room, and Chenxi explained to Anna that she would sleep with his aunt. His uncle, his nephews and he would share the room opposite. His grandmother would sleep as she always did, in the room where they had eaten.

Anna undressed as Yang Wen swept the floor, which was now littered with cigarette butts and pumpkin seed husks. Then Yang Wen unrolled a padded silk quilt embroidered with peonies and tucked it around Anna like a sleeping bag. As she chatted to Anna in Chinese, she slipped off her clothes, down to her underwear and slid into another quilt beside Anna.

Anna moved her head around to make a dent in the crunchy pillow that seemed to be filled with sand or chaff. But it stayed solid and her squirming only served to unwrap the quilt. So she wriggled off the pillow down into the bed, and fell asleep.

14

When Anna woke, she was alone. Judging by the pale light slanting in at the window it could not have been very late, but the other half of the bed was already made up, the thick quilt rolled at the end. She considered turning over and going back to sleep, but remembered she was a guest and slunk out of bed.

Though sunny, it was surprisingly cool. She put on her jacket over the long T-shirt she had slept in and rummaged in her bag for a pair of leggings. When she was dressed she walked over to the window to find her bearings.

The glass was covered with a thin film of dust. Even if you did have an
aiyi
come three times a week, as her father did, dust was something impossible to remove in China. Everything was covered in it. She swung the window open and looked down onto the room where they had dined the night before. Anna watched Yang Wen and her mother-in-law squatting outside, talking as they scraped vegetables. Chenxi stood at the cement trough, in his cargo pants and a singlet, his shirt tied around his waist. He was brushing his teeth. In the morning light his skin gleamed golden over the muscles in his back.

Chenxi's eldest nephew, Zhou Lai, was the first to spot Anna spying from above. ‘Good morning!' he called out, pleased to be the first to speak with her.

The family looked up at Anna. She tried her faltering Chinese for the attentive audience, ‘
Ni hao!'

They all roared in appreciation.

‘Come down, sleepy mouse!' Chenxi smiled up at her. ‘Your breakfast is soon cold.'

They fed Anna rice porridge with sugar, and fried dough sticks. When she had eaten her fill, she asked, ‘Where is the shower?' and watched Chenxi's face fall. He whispered to his aunt who shook her head before replying. Chenxi translated, ‘My aunt take you now.'

Yang Wen disappeared and came back with a towel and a pair of plastic thongs for Anna, soap in a plastic container and a bottle of shampoo. The shower must be communal, Anna guessed. That's what they were worried about! But she didn't mind at all.

Anna was obliged to guess again when Yang Wen beckoned her out the front gate and down the street. They walked for a few minutes, waving at everyone Yang Wen knew, until they came to a shabby hotel.

In the foyer, Yang Wen paid a few coins to a bored woman at reception and received a couple of plastic tokens. They made their way out the back through another door and down the side of the hotel. Here, the passageway opened into a small courtyard and another woman behind a desk took the plastic tokens. When she spied Anna behind Yang Wen, she called out. A woman appeared from behind steamy glass doors to stare at the foreigner. Anna looked at Yang Wen to see what was expected of her now.

Five minutes later Anna found herself wearing only her plastic thongs and standing among a dozen other naked women. They all stared at her. She turned the tap and a jet of lukewarm water cascaded out from a nozzle in the wall. There was only one temperature. Anna closed her eyes into the torrent listening to the murmur of ‘
Wai guo ren
!
Wai guo ren
!'

When she opened her eyes, she found a woman right up close, staring at her, mouth agape. Anna nodded an awkward smile. This seemed to break the trance and one by one the women went back to scrubbing each other's backs, only glancing at Anna occasionally.

She scrubbed herself for what she thought would be at least three days' worth and dressed quickly to find Yang Wen who was waiting outside.

The days Anna spent in the town of Shendong passed quickly. In the mornings, she added to her journal or wandered around the streets. After an early lunch, she and Chenxi hopped on bikes and rode out into the countryside to draw from nature. Sometimes they spent a whole afternoon studying the changing light on a haystack; other afternoons they sat and sketched a busy marketplace. When they were on their own Chenxi began to relax, and a couple of times—to her delight and his dismay—she caught him making sketches of her. But he always refused to let her see them.

Sometimes he studied a drawing she was working on, or asked advice about composition. It wasn't that she was necessarily the better artist, Anna reflected modestly, but she had a freedom and a fluidity that she could see Chenxi envied. He was amazed, once, to watch her, when she was in an experimental mood, elongate the already long chin of an old man snoozing. On its own it would have seemed ridiculous, but in the context it seemed to describe the sleepy feel of the old man better than Chenxi's perfectly proportioned portrait.