Chenxi and the Foreigner (13 page)

Anna sipped her tea. Inside her an enormous gulf opened and the tea rolled into it like a red-hot boulder. She couldn't breathe.

Riding home through Shanghai in the twilight, Anna tried to make sense of the unpleasant conversation with Laurent. He seemed to know a lot about China and some of it she just couldn't believe. But what she couldn't shake from her mind was his claim about Chenxi.

Anna couldn't accept that, it was just too cruel. But hadn't her father been hinting at it in the beginning? Is that what he meant by his warning? The more she tried not to think about the possibility of being used by Chenxi, the more likely it became. She had always felt as if his niceness had been so obliging. Even during the week they had spent in Shendong with his family.

The clouds rumbled overhead and the air grew thick and sticky, but Anna's face was wet before the sky broke.

April 25th, 1989
Chenxi—is that all I am to you? A ticket out of China? A
source of F.E.C? Are you only with me out of duty to the
school? I feel like a fool. The worst thing, the ultimate
humiliation, is that I made it so obvious that I am crazy
about you. You didn't even have to make an effort to lure
me; I was mesmerised from the first moment. Like a helpless
insect, blindly twirling…

17

The next day it rained without stopping and Anna didn't have the heart to go in to the college. Instead she caught a taxi to and from the consulate and borrowed half a dozen American movies, soppy love stories to make her cry. She spent that day and the next in her dressing gown in the grey light of the apartment, with her feet up in front of the television. For the first time since arriving, she neglected her journal. In a rush of bitter self-pity she considered burning the book, which had become a love letter to Chenxi. But she couldn't bring herself to do it. She tossed it into the corner of her room.

When the
aiyi
came, she sat down to watch
Casablanca
with Anna, and Anna tried to explain the storyline as best she could. The
aiyi
taught Anna a few words of Chinese and made her promise to come to eat at her house one day. After she had seen the young woman to the door, Anna realised the
aiyi
had been distracted by the movies and forgotten to do her job. Anna washed the breakfast dishes herself.

Then, at the end of her third miserable, self-pitying day, the
aiyi
brought her a letter from her mother. Anna looked at the battered envelope. The top was almost completely torn away. Her father had warned her that the mail service was unreliable but this letter had clearly been opened before it had reached her. She wondered who could possibly want to read her letters. What interest was there in the life of an eighteen-year-old girl?

She eased out the floral paper and smiled to see her mother's familiar handwriting. She considered calling her to talk about Chenxi but then reminded herself that what would start as conversation about Anna would invariably end with her mother's own problems. She didn't feel strong enough right now to deflect her mother's loneliness. It was better this way. Anna took a deep breath.

17
th
April, 1989
Darling Anna,

I suppose you must be getting along well, as I haven't
heard from you. I rang last week when you were away and
your father explained that letters take a long time to reach
Australia from China. I suppose that's why we haven't got
a letter from you yet. You did tell me you would write often
with all your news. We miss you!

Did you have a good time on your class trip? What an
adventure! I don't know if I'd be up to travelling around
China on my own! Where did you stay?

Are you getting along with your father? He sounded
tense on the phone. Are you spending lots of time together?
Father and daughter? I hope so. He told me you're enjoying
your painting classes. He doesn't think much of painting, or
any of the arts, really, but don't let him put you off. You
know I had to give up my acting career when I married him.
It's my greatest regret. I was going to be somebody. Now
I'm just a leftover.

Don't forget darling, you have a real talent in your art.
I am sure that if you follow your heart and your goals, you
will win your father over in the end…

That's when Anna remembered her real reason for being in China. She wasn't going to give up her art for a man and become an empty shell of regret like her mother! She put her paintbrushes in her backpack and set her alarm for early the next morning.

As if in approval of her plans, the rain cleared overnight. Even though it wasn't sunny, the early morning light seemed strangely fluorescent and the streets glittered in the dawn air. Anna rode fast, imagining Chenxi on his bike, and enjoying the swishing of her tyres in the wet streets as she smiled to the old people walking their birds in bamboo cages.

She overtook a street-cleaning machine and laughed at the warning tune it played: ‘Happy Birthday'. The tune cranked out like a broken car horn. When the machine slowed to round a corner, the music sounded like a record played at the wrong speed.

Anna sped through the empty market street where early morning risers sipped on bowls of steaming tofu and sleepier ones lay by their carts, huddled under plastic. They rubbed their eyes, baffled, as she rode by.

At the college gate, she had the sinking feeling that she was too early. But she spied with relief the surly gatekeeper arriving with a rinsed tin bowl in his hand. He glared at Anna as he opened the gate. She nodded her thanks and wheeled her bike into the quiet grounds.

Two steps at a time, Anna ran up the stairwell and opened the classroom door. She was determined to finish her work on silk. The last thing she expected when she reached her desk was that the landscape painting would be gone.

Alone in the classroom Anna roared in indignant rage, sweeping papers off the desks around her. Her discovery was the culmination of a lamentable week and now she blamed Chenxi for everything. She blamed him for coveting and stealing her work, and she blamed him for her personal unhappiness. When she had finished blaming him for all her misery, she tidied the papers back onto the desks and took out a fresh piece of silk to start again.

This time her first brushstrokes were deft and accurate. Her lines were strong and dense where they should be and then round and expressive in other places. The colours mixed well and blended into each other without a trace. She painted furiously.

One by one her classmates trickled in. Curious, they circled Anna and stood over her desk, breathing heavily, watching the mountains and misty valleys of Anna's miniature landscape come to life. Then they too settled at their desks and began to work. Dai Laoshi wandered in halfway through the morning and did the rounds of the classroom. Satisfied that all his students were hard at work, he left to drink tea and smoke cigarettes with the other teachers. Chenxi didn't turn up. Anna was relieved because she hadn't worked out what to say to him yet.

She was finishing the ragged mountain peaks when, as if automated by an interior clock, the students pushed back from their desks. Laughing and shouting, they rushed off for lunch. Lao Li lingered. Anna looked up at him and smiled. ‘Shall we go and get some lunch?'

Lao Li stared at her.

She mimed a bowl near her mouth and shovelled in imaginary food. Lao Li laughed and said, ‘
Hao! Hao!
' Thanks to the
aiyi
's basic lessons, she knew he meant Good!

Laurent was at the noodle shop. He had just finished eating and was lighting a cigarette at one of the tables outside in the sun. He smiled at Anna and beckoned her over. She noticed how the soup had left a greasy smear on his chin. He wiped it off on the back of his hand and Anna wondered if she had been staring. She had allowed herself to stare while living in China. She would have to drop the habit when she got back to Melbourne.

‘How are you?' He spoke to Anna, but looked over her shoulder at Lao Li.

‘This is Lao Li,' Anna said.

Laurent said a few words to Lao Li in Chinese and, much to Anna's annoyance, Lao Li pulled up a stool beside Laurent and the two men proceeded to chat like old friends.

Anna also sat and held up one finger to the manager of the stall, the way she had asked for a bowl of noodle soup in the past. But Laurent laughed and ordered for her in Chinese. Although she hated his smugness, she hated her own inability to speak Chinese even more.

‘So, Lao Li tells me he's a classmate of yours,' Laurent said, as the bowls were set in front of them. He had ordered another bowl for himself to keep Anna and Lao Li company and now he twisted his chopsticks expertly into the mass, slurping the noodles up to his lips. Lao Li drank soup from the bowl.

‘Mmm,' Anna answered, not looking up. The soup burnt her mouth. She tried to look as though she were concentrating on her chopsticks.

‘I just asked him about Chenxi, you know, to find out about him for you,' Laurent added, looking over his bowl at Anna for her reaction.

‘Laurent!' Anna spluttered. She glanced at Lao Li to see if he had understood. Lao Li was shovelling noodles into his mouth. His glasses had fogged up with steam.

‘Lao Li tells me Chenxi is always in trouble. He says it's in his blood—his father was the same. Except his father was killed for it. Everybody knows.'

‘Shut up!' Anna looked across at Lao Li, but she was desperate to hear more.

Laurent took his time finishing his mouthful.

He swallowed and continued. ‘Lao Li says Chenxi's in everybody's bad books. He's a stirrer. One false move and the authorities will jump. Good reason for him to try to get a visa out of the country, isn't it?' Laurent laughed.

‘I'm going back to class,' Anna said, standing up. She left her bowl of noodles unfinished. She had heard enough.

‘No, seriously,' Laurent said, grabbing her by the arm. ‘I might be wrong about the visa bit; maybe he does only want to be your friend. But the way Lao Li talks, Chenxi already causes enough trouble for himself. Stay away from him. You don't need to make it worse. They will look for any excuse...'

‘They, they, they!' Anna shouted, pushing his arm away. ‘Stay out of my fucking business! You know what you are, Laurent? You're just a fucking paranoid drug addict!'

Laurent blanched. As Anna spun around, she noticed that all the people in the shop had fallen quiet and were staring at her. She hadn't even begun to walk away before she regretted what she had said. She stomped on through the marketplace, shoving past the staring peasants. ‘What's his problem?' she fumed. ‘Why is he so suspicious of everyone? Has living in China made him so cynical?'

Her steps echoed in the empty corridor as she stormed up through the college building. She reached the second floor out of breath and paused at the door of the classroom. Somebody was already in there. She peered through the dirty glass. Chenxi was sitting on a desk staring at his painting pinned to the wall, the painting she had helped him complete. Anna could only see his back, but his shoulders were hunched. He got up and walked to her desk and looked at her painting on silk. He picked it up and held it close to his face, examining it before laying it flat again.

Deep down Anna had known all along that it wasn't Chenxi who had taken her work. It could have been any of the college students who filtered in and out of the unlocked classroom. Looking at him through the classroom window, so diminished in front of the masterpiece he had created, she was filled with a familiar falling sensation. She watched him stare at his work. She watched him reverently unpin it from the wall and roll it tight. She watched him slip it under his desk. What anguish was he hiding from her behind his habitual blank expression? As if he felt her thoughts, Chenxi turned around. Seeing Anna's face at the window, he composed himself.

Anna walked into the room and perched on the edge of her desk. ‘I had to do a new painting,' she said. ‘Someone stole my other one.'

‘I heard,' Chenxi said, smiling. ‘You get too good.'

Anna blushed. She pointed to Chenxi's painting under his desk. ‘Why don't you show the work to anyone here?' she pleaded.

Chenxi shrugged and looked away. ‘You do not understand,' he mumbled.

‘How can I understand anything if you never explain anything to me?' she blurted. ‘Why do you always treat me like a stupid foreigner? I've been in China nearly four weeks now. I am leaving in just a few days. I have spent so much time with you. And it seems every day I spend with you, the less I know you! I want to understand! What are you afraid of? What are you trying to protect me from?'

Anna bit her lip. All she could hope now was that the little crack she had opened wouldn't close again. She turned away.

Chenxi was watching Anna.

‘I'm sorry,' Anna whispered. ‘It's none of my business, I know.'

A smile flickered at the corner of Chenxi's lips. ‘I take you somewhere, now,' he said. ‘Then you understand.'

‘What did you say?'

‘Come with me,' said Chenxi, holding out his hand. ‘You see there is one person he understand my art!'

18

The sunlight cut the worn parquet floor into geometrical shapes. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, and ceramic teacups littered the floor. Some of them contained the dried black remains of tea leaves, others the crystallised splinters of evaporated rice wine. In the darkest corner a bearded man lay smoking in a bed.

Outside his door two voices murmured. The man rose and slid his feet into a pair of threadbare slippers. He shuffled to a chair over which his shirt lay and checked his watch before answering the door.

‘We cannot come see him before two o'clock,' Chenxi whispered to Anna in front of the peeling wooden door. They were standing in a leafy courtyard where the sound of the traffic could be heard only as a distant hum. ‘He likes sleep until late.'