Chenxi and the Foreigner (2 page)

Anna watched, fascinated, as Chenxi commanded another handful of bigger brushes from the bored salesman and went through the same procedure. Then again and again, until ten minutes later she had six perfect brushes of various sizes lying neatly as a pan flute.

‘Number two treasure is paper,' Chenxi said.

The salesman slid off his stool and shuffled over to the wide shelves of stacked and folded rice paper. He pushed his glasses up onto his forehead and massaged the bridge of his nose as he stood waiting for Chenxi's order. Choosing the second treasure seemed an easier task. Chenxi gave instructions to the salesman, who heaved a roll of paper off the shelf and brought it to the counter.

‘For start student
xuan zhi
is OK,' Chenxi said.

He picked up a corner of the paper and pressed his tongue against it. When he pulled it away the damp paper was transparent. Chenxi nodded and helped the salesman peel off five metre-long sheets.

‘Third and fourth treasure…Ink stone and ink stick.'

Anna raised her eyebrows. Chenxi rummaged through a worn cardboard box on the counter. He chose a cellophane-wrapped ink stick and passed it to Anna. She looked at the long black block of ink in her palm. It wasn't as intricately decorated as some of those on display—Chenxi was economising—but with its twisted gold and red dragons, silver-embossed clouds and etched calligraphy, still looked too pretty to use. While Anna was wondering how ink was made from this solid block, Chenxi crossed the room.

On another counter a surly woman had placed four identical ink stones, all of them smooth and as dark as coaldust. On each was a flat circular stone lid, which Chenxi tested for an exact fit. He held his ear to the hollow scraping noise as he twisted the lids and rejected all four of them. The woman let out an exasperated grunt and fossicked under the counter.

‘Oh, that one looks fine to me!' Anna protested, trying to please, but Chenxi glared at her.

As if to prove Anna's ignorance, Chenxi rejected the next three stones, and the saleswoman searched under the counter again. Groaning, she laid out in turn the last five she had in stock, and stood back, arms crossed, lips pressed. Anna tried to exchange a sympathetic smile with her, but the woman looked away.

The last stone passed the test and Chenxi carried the fourth treasure to yet another counter where the first three had been wrapped in bundles of brown paper and string. Chenxi pulled out a clump of grubby notes from his pocket, counting them to a saleslady sitting in a booth. That's odd, Anna thought, didn't my father give him new bank notes?

The woman checked the money. After writing in a large receipt book, she tore off yellow, white and pink pages and used a large bulldog clip to attach them to the notes. She fastened this to a pulley and string, which began in the booth at desk height and stretched right across the shop.

Anna watched the money and the receipts jiggle up along the string, over her head, until they disappeared into a small hole near the ceiling on the other side of the room. A few minutes later, the bundle jiggled back down, minus the notes and the pink sheet of paper, but with the addition of a small plastic coin bag.

The saleslady unclipped the two remaining sheets of paper, now adorned with a sticky red stamp, and handed the white copy to Chenxi. The yellow copy she put into a drawer, then tossed a few plastic coins from the small bag across the counter to him. He pocketed the coins and handed the receipt to Anna, who was struggling with all the brown paper packages, and then sauntered out of the shop.

In the street after the cool darkness of the art shop, Anna wondered how much time had passed. She had only been in Shanghai a day and it was easy to lose track of where she was amid the damp grey heat, the unfamiliar smells of fish and rancid beancurd, and the constant ebb and flow of the crowds. It was late April, the middle of spring in China, but the heat was so different from the dry sunny spring days she was familiar with. Besides, when she had left Melbourne, the weather was already cooling into autumn and the contrast made it difficult for Anna to acclimatise. She hoped she would get used to the heat soon as she only had four weeks in Shanghai to study at the art college and, now that she had met Chenxi, Anna knew they would go quickly.

Chenxi hailed a taxi. As they slipped into the airconditioning, Anna felt light-headed. Was it the heat outside or the proximity of Chenxi's smooth arm to her mottled pink one?

From the back seat it was impossible to see through the crowds of bicycles. The driver, one hand on the wheel, one on the horn, inched forward, the sea of cyclists opening to let him pass, then closing behind him. Occasionally Anna felt a bicycle bump off the car body. The smiling face of Mao swung in a red tassled frame from the rear-vision mirror. ‘Why would he have a photo of a dead leader in his taxi?' Anna laughed.

‘To protect him,' Chenxi smiled. ‘Some years ago, two taxi drivers have a bad accident and only one driver not killed. He have portrait of Mao in his taxi and he tell everyone that is why he not die in this terrible accident. Now many taxi drivers have Mao in their taxis. To keep them safe. Old China very superstitious country.'

He winked at Anna and her heart skipped a beat. Feeling her cheeks flush under Chenxi's gaze, she turned back to look out the window on her side. From the radio came the whining and cymbal clashing of Beijing Opera. A large Nescafé jar of what looked like warm pond-weed sloshed between the driver's thighs. Now and then he picked it up and, expertly unlidding it with one hand, slurped from its contents.

Chenxi chatted with the driver, who glanced into the mirror to get a better look at Anna. He seemed captivated by her blond unruly hair, which frizzed disobediently in the humid Shanghai weather. She sat with the parcels on her lap and stared out the window. Her cooling sweat, along with the fine down on Chenxi's arm, pricked her skin into goosebumps. She wished she could think of something to say to him, but felt girlish and shy. Now was the opportunity, she scolded herself, running through her repertoire of opening lines.

At a red traffic light, just as Anna had the phrase she was searching for, Chenxi sat upright. He wound down his window and shouted at someone. Anna strained to see who he was calling, but a hundred identical faces stared in at her.

Chenxi turned to her, smiling. ‘He my school friend. You OK I leave you go home? Him driver know where you home. I go with my friend?'

He touched Anna on the knee.

‘Of course…' And he was gone, whistling and yelping into the crowd. A light fingerprint tingled the skin on her knee. She looked up and the driver's narrow eyes stared at her. Anna turned back to the window.

The crowded street emptied into a lane where children scattered, and washing hung from bamboo poles overhead. In darkened doorways walnut-faced old ladies squatted over plucked feathers and vegetable peelings. Anna knew at once that this wasn't the way she had come with Chenxi. She bit the inside of her cheek.

The driver slowed to a halt.

Anna leant forward, alarmed. ‘Yandang Apartments!' she cried, waving the scrap of paper her father had given her. ‘Yandang Lu!'

‘OK, OK, OK!' The driver shooed away her hand. He opened his door and sidled out of the cab, which steamed and ticked in the heat. Instantly, snub noses pressed against the windows. Everyone had come to inspect her. The roar of the traffic sounded far away. Anna sat back, her heart flipping like a fish, and stared ahead. On the radio, the Opera was building in tempo—cats wailing and saucepans crashing. Chairman Mao beamed malevolently down at her.

The driver returned with an old woman on one arm and a huge watermelon in the other. Around him, his family stared in at the pale sweating foreigner and called, ‘Hellooo! Hellooo!' The old woman, with staring yellow eyes and a gummy smile, reached in from the driver's open door and touched Anna's head, nodding and cooing as her fingers fondled the hair.

Finally, when his family had all enjoyed a look, the driver got back in the taxi, set the watermelon on the seat beside him, and started the engine. From the lane, the car eased back into familiar traffic. Anna's face burned in anger and humiliation at having been treated like a circus freak by the taxi driver, and because Chenxi had deserted her. She swore she would never allow herself to be so easily taken advantage of again. Chenxi was being paid good money to look after her! Next time she wouldn't allow herself to fall for his charms.

3

Day dissolved into evening. The colours of the sunset tinged the smoggy grey sky. Restaurants opened. Men in suits with fake designer labels sewn on the cuffs squatted in the doorways, smoking. A noodle seller packed up his stall to make way for the competition. The people who ate this late wouldn't be interested in a bowl of noodles. Night dining was for foreigners, for making deals, for exchanging cigarettes and handshakes. Spending money to make money. All beyond this old man. He earned enough to get by with his noodle soup and ration tickets. Making money was for young people. For them it was about getting rich to go to America. He considered himself fortunate just to have survived the terrors of the past.

He swept the concrete pavement in front of his stall. Noodles, spit and cockroaches swirled into the gutter. Night fell and a breeze lifted the damp heat of the day. The old man wiped his hand across his smeary brow. ‘Come on, you two,' he said to the youths in the back corner. ‘I want to go home.'

The two young men looked up from their conversation, surprised to find that darkness had crept in around them. Chenxi dragged on the butt of his cigarette, the orange glow lighting his face, then flicked it out into the street. ‘Sorry, Gramps. We're going, we're going.'

His friend, Lao Li, unwound his gangling legs from beneath the grimy laminex table and stood up, ducking to miss the swinging light bulb as he headed for the door.

‘Here, Gramps,' Chenxi said, draping his arm around the old man's shoulder. He winked and slipped a note into the withered hand. ‘For your trip to America!'

The two young men guffawed as they vaulted onto the rusty bikes that leant against the shop.

The old man looked into his palm at the brand new F.E.C. shining there. He watched the youths wheel off down the deserted street and shook his head. What trouble were they up to now?

‘Hey, let's go to a bar!' Chenxi said, his cheeks flushed and his spirit daring from the rice wine he had shared with his friend. He rode ahead and looped a figure eight until Lao Li caught up. ‘What do you say? The fancy one on Huai Hai Lu?'

Lao Li grinned, his speech slurred. ‘You can't go there! It's for foreigners!'

Chenxi patted the wad of F.E.C. in his pocket. ‘I'm Japanese and you're from Taiwan!'

Lao Li laughed. ‘They'll never believe us!'

‘Come on, man. Money talks. Foreign money talks the loudest of all!'

Lao Li shook his head. But he knew he would follow his crazy friend. He always did.

Giggling and snorting, Chenxi and Lao Li hid their bikes in the shrubbery near the entrance to the bar. Chenxi did his shirt up to the neck to hide his tattered singlet and Lao Li slicked back the floppy shanks of his fringe. They looked at each other, pulling serious faces before bursting into laughter again.

A heavily made up local girl with a short skirt and high heels tripped by, supported on the arm of a well dressed foreigner. She glanced towards Chenxi's handsome face as she passed. The foreign man held open the heavy glass door and they slipped into the smoke and sultry music.

‘OK,' whispered Chenxi. ‘Let's go.'

At the door a stone-faced Chinese man in a dinner suit stood with his arms crossed. As Chenxi and Lao Li approached, the man frowned and his head sank back into his neck.

‘Hi!' Chenxi said in English. ‘We here meet some friends.'

The man continued to stare into the bushes.

Chenxi tried another tactic. Slipping into Mandarin, he pleaded, ‘Come on, man, my friend's hurt. We've got to get him inside. He needs something to drink!'

Lao Li grabbed his throat on cue, gasping and nodding. No response.

‘Here,' Chenxi said, resorting to Shanghainese. ‘A little something for your trouble.' He pulled out the wad of F.E.C. and fanned himself with it. The man stared straight ahead. Chenxi picked out one of the notes and slipped it into the man's top pocket, the way he had seen them do in American movies. The man didn't blink. Chenxi reached for the door. Out slid the man's fat hand and held Chenxi's wrist in a firm grip. This time he looked straight into Chenxi's eyes. They stood locked like that for many heartbeats until Lao Li put his hand on his friend's shoulder.

‘Come on, Chenxi. Let's go.'

‘No way!' Chenxi muttered, still staring into the unblinking face. ‘I'm going in.'

The heavy glass door swung open. A small Chinese man with a hairy mole on his cheek stepped out of the smoke and the music. He finished his conversation with someone inside before turning and smiling at Chenxi.

‘Now, what seems to be the problem?' he said to Chenxi in Shanghainese.

Chenxi tried to remember who had said he looked Japanese. He wasn't fooling anyone.

‘No problem,' Chenxi smiled back. ‘Just want to go in for a drink.'

‘You know that's not possible,' the man said, shaking a long fingernail at Chenxi. Two big Chinese men appeared on either side of him. Both of them were dressed in stylish grey suits and leered ominously.

‘Come on, Chenxi,' Lao Li whispered.

‘I have F.E.C.' Chenxi said. He emphasised the acronym as if it was the secret code to his entry. The code that would open all doors.

‘That's nice,' said the man pleasantly. ‘You can spend it in America then!' And he turned towards the door.

Chenxi stepped forwards. The two big men in suits stepped in front of him, blocking the entrance to the bar. One of them sneered, daring him to attempt to push past them. Chenxi raised his hand—a feeble gesture of peace— but a fist seemed to shoot out from nowhere catching him on the shoulder. He found himself reeling over the stairs. A slow second passed. His skull hit the pavement with a thud.