Miss Chopsticks (14 page)

The rice ball in Five's hand hovered at her mouth as she tried to describe Manager Shui's good qualities.

‘Are people cold to you?' Three asked Five in concern. She was used to city people being rude to her in the restaurant, but she didn't like to think of her vulnerable younger sister being treated in such a way.

‘How else would they be?' said Five. ‘Everyone in the
village treats me that way. Why would city people be different?'

‘Can't you do something about it?' asked Six, who had also stopped eating.

‘Do what? Put up with it, that's what. Doesn't our mum say that the fewer things in life you have to worry about the better? You just have to keep going and things will turn out all right in the end if you're tough about it.'

‘Well, what work do you do?' asked Six, biting off a second tofu fritter.

‘I'm called an “assistant”. It's a bit like what Four does at home: passing Mum and Dad things when they need them and generally lending a hand. So, what's your job like?'

‘I asked you about yours first … Why's it called a “Water-
Culture
Centre”? What's water got to do with culture?'

Five was flabbergasted that her educated sister didn't know this and she did.

‘How come you've never read about it in books?'

‘I've not read every book there is!' Six said grumpily. ‘Well? Explain to us …'

‘Engineer Wu says that knowing how to put herbal medicines into pools to make people well is an art, and is part of what's called “Culture”.'

‘But how does the business make money?' Six asked, finishing off the last morsel of tofu.

‘People pay to come and bathe in the water …'

‘Bathe? What, you mean with no clothes on?' Both Three and Six gaped at their sister, open-mouthed.

‘I know. I was shocked too. The first time I saw a customer wearing nothing but a little pair of pants I nearly died of fright. I hid in the office, and I was too scared to come out for ages.'

‘Then, later on you were all right?' Three was filled with anxiety. She had heard about how some country girls were
dragged into dirty behaviour when they came to the city. Perhaps, because of her, Five would be lost for ever …

‘It's not like that,' said Five. ‘At first I thought it was, but then the head of my department, who we all call Auntie Wang, showed me a book about it with pictures. There were lots of proper doctors in that book …'

Six was amazed. She had never imagined that her stupid sister could cope with such a situation, let alone explain it with clarity. She found herself looking at Five with new eyes. ‘So, if there are doctors, why do the people bathe?' she asked.

‘If you two interrupt me again I won't say,' said Five crossly. ‘The clients soak in different types of medicine for an hour, then they wash away the medicine with fresh water, and then they go to something called a “treatment room” to have a massage. Some of the masseurs work on their bodies, others on their feet. My friend Mei Mei's the best foot masseur and she told me all about it. She says you can make all of a person feel better through their foot. She showed me a picture of how the soles of our left and right feet are connected to our whole body – stomach and everything. She's a miracle worker. She can tell what's wrong with someone just by placing her hands on their feet, and she can cure them too. Engineer Wu says she gets it right twenty times out of twenty.' Five stuffed a rice ball into her mouth.

‘Do they give you enough to eat?' asked Six.

‘Oh yes, there's food at every meal, you can come back for seconds too. At first I was really packing it away, but after a bit I stopped because I saw that nobody else was asking for more. In fact, some people were even leaving food. I didn't want people to laugh at me for being a greedy pig.'

‘
Aiya
, but you must get hungry!' cried Three who had never had a moment's hunger at the Happy Fool and was worried about her sister.

‘Of course I get hungry! I got stars in my eyes at first,
and my legs were like cotton wool, but after a while I got used to it. My country girl's stomach must be as small as a city girl's by now.'

Three and Six burst out laughing at their foolish sister's belief that she could become like a city girl just by eating less.

‘Don't laugh! Why are you always laughing at me? If any of the clients laugh at me, Auntie Wang or Engineer Wu speaks up for me.'

‘Who are the clients?' asked Six.

Five looked at her sister in wonder. Her question seemed very stupid. ‘I said just now. The clients are the ones who come to spend money on bathing and massage.'

Three still wasn't convinced that Five's workplace was completely above board and tried to find out more.

‘You're sure it's not one of those places where men and women do it together in little rooms?' she asked.

‘Well there aren't any little rooms,' said Five, not understanding the question. ‘The smallest one is big enough for two beds …'

‘Two beds!' exclaimed Six. ‘Five, you're not doing anything dirty, are you? My boss has talked to me about city people who make dirty money out of country girls.'

‘
Aiya
, what are you saying? It's not a dirty job at all. The Green Girl says there are books about this “nurturing of the body and mind” that are three thousand years old. Long ago it was only for the emperor but, recently some clever people have remembered about it.'

‘Who's the Green Girl?' asked Three, feeling more reassured.

At the mention of Ms Lin, Five became very animated: ‘Three, she's even more beautiful than those girls in your film-star pictures!'

‘What do you mean by beautiful?' asked Three, amused.

‘How beautiful? I can't explain it. Her waist, her face, the way she walks … Oh, if only you could meet her. Then
you'd believe me! She's just impossibly pretty! Not like some of the women clients. Oh, those women are face-changers. You should see them! When they come in, their faces are as pretty as a peach-blossom, but get them in the water and there's no colour to them at all … Even their snow-white arses are prettier!'

‘What about the men?' Three and Six asked simultaneously.

‘Well, city men are quite nice looking …' Five didn't have time to finish before her sisters butted in.

‘How do you know? Have you been spying on them?'; ‘How many city men have you seen?'

‘What are you saying? I don't spy. But sometimes I do see things. When men and women come to the centre, they pay at the reception desk and get a set of these things called “tokens”. Tokens are bits of bamboo that come in different sizes depending on how much money you spend. You have to hand over a token whenever you go to a pool or treatment room. When they've bought their tokens, the men and women go to separate rooms to take their clothes off. The men put on a pair of pants and the women change into these really tight clothes that remind me of that magic headband in the story of the Monkey King, which squeezes his temples to punish him if he disobeys his master. Once Auntie Wang took me to the women's shower room to check there were enough towels, and there was this woman having a wash. She hadn't drawn the curtain, and I swear she had absolutely no hair on her hidden parts …'

Three gasped. ‘You mean you saw a White Tiger?' Three asked fearfully.

‘I did … I did …' Five said excitedly. ‘Later on I saw that woman bathing next to a really handsome man in the Pool of Tranquillity. They were getting ever so close. I was dead worried the woman was going to suck out all his vital essences and kill him.'

Six thought about what her mother had said about White Tigers. In the past, before any marriage could take place in the village, the matchmaker would perform an inspection of the bride-to-be. She would check that she wasn't broken already, that she had no moles anywhere on her face, and that she wasn't a ‘White Tiger' – a woman without body hair. It was believed that such women would destroy a man. Her mother had told them how, during the Cultural Revolution, these inspections had been forbidden and therefore many men had married bad wives without knowing it, and suffered a terrible fate.

‘
Aiya
, have you eaten the whole bag of crispy turnips?' shouted Five, interrupting Six's thoughts. ‘I knew it! You're asking me all these questions so you can scoff all the nice food while my mouth's busy …' Five stuck out her bottom lip.

‘Don't panic, I've saved some for you here,' said Three, waving a bulging paper bag in front of Five's face. Six, meanwhile, realising for the first time that Five could teach her something she didn't know, asked what the names of the other pools were at the Dragon Water-Culture Centre. Five listed them proudly.

‘Apart from the Pool of Tranquillity, there's the Pool of Mental Cultivation, the Pool of Beauty, the Pool of Yin and Yang and the Pool of Strong Bones. They're all heated differently and I go round with Auntie Wang to check that they are exactly the right temperature. Auntie Wang says that city people don't do hard labour, but they tire their brains out every day, so lots and lots of people get sore heads. That's why they need the Pool of Mental Cultivation. It has waterfalls that wash over their heads and neck muscles. The Pool of Beauty is to cure skin problems and make you more beautiful, but I've never seen anyone in there with scabies like people have in our village, and not many ugly people bathe there either …'

Once again, Three and Six could not restrain their laughter at their sister's ignorance of city life.

‘
Now
what are you laughing at? … The Pool of Yin and Yang is the one I don't really understand. Auntie Wang says it's to help men and women to have kids, but having kids is a woman's business, so what's the use of men going in? Still, perhaps if Mum could've gone in there, she would've had a son. But then we wouldn't be here … Anyway, the Pool of Strong Bones is only for men. It's half hot and half cold and it helps them grow big muscles. As well as the medicine, it's got these waves. I nearly got knocked over by one when I was helping Engineer Wu fix something in there. It scared me half to death. Still, it's the most popular pool with young city men – they really like that pool. Auntie Wang says they're trying to get some meat on their bones. How ridiculous! Why don't they just go and work in the fields? The way I see it, because city men already have enough to eat and everything else they want, they think they need to go looking for something else. All the same, the men in that pool are worth a look. They don't mumble to themselves like the potbellied men in the Pool of Mental Cultivation. Instead they fool around in the water. It gives that pool a special atmosphere. Very male …'

Five's last few sentences had Three and Six staring at her in astonishment.

‘Look at you two, gawping like idiots!' cried Five. ‘Don't worry. If you want come and have a look at some big muscles yourselves, I can ask Engineer Wu. Perhaps you could get a job in the Pool of Strong Bones …'

Three jumped up and thumped Five on the back. ‘How can you talk like that, Five! You've only been in the city three weeks and already you're trying to lead your sisters astray!'

‘
Aiya
, I'm only teasing. There are male assistants to look after the men and their changing rooms are miles away from the women's … Maybe your heart isn't made of
stone after all, Three. I can see images of men in your eyes! Six, what do you think?'

‘I'm wondering how someone like you can get all this straight in your mind,' said Six, feeling guilty immediately for implying that Five was stupid. However, Five did not take it to heart.

‘It took me a week of running errands with Auntie Wang before I could find my own way back to the “foot massage room” where I sleep, and in the beginning I thought everything was magic. Some strange things happen, that's for sure. You should see the clients when they walk in. They're all limp and listless, like wheat sprouts after a dry spell. But when they go out the door they've got rosy cheeks and a spring in their step, like plants after a good watering … Oh, and another thing, what sort of lamps d'you think they have?' Five asked mysteriously.

‘Electric of course,' Three and Six answered together.

‘That's what I thought they'd be,' said Five grandly, ‘but now I know that they have these things called “Kongming lanterns”. Bet you don't know what they are!' Three and Six shook their heads.

‘They're these paper lanterns that rise up to the ceiling when they are lit because of the hot air. There are lots of them floating about in the steam above the pools. They look really beautiful. Auntie Wang says they are sometimes called “sky lamps”, and she told me the stories people tell about how they came to be. Some people say that a clever man from the time of the Three Kingdoms invented them to send signals to his armies. Others that they were used in south China to worship the gods. And there's another story about how, during the Qing dynasty, the people of Fujian Province brought them back from foreign countries, and used them to give the all-clear when villagers were hiding from bandits in the mountains. Auntie Wang says that in some places, they still release sky lamps during Lantern Festival.'

Six was extremely impressed by her sister's short lesson and told her so. ‘It seems as if you're really learning a lot, Five,' she said, congratulating her sister.

‘Well, I'm lucky. Mei Mei is in charge of my dormitory, and she takes really good care of me. She even lets me use her things …'

Three was troubled by this. ‘What are you doing, using other people's things?' she asked. ‘We can't let city people think we won't pay our own way …'

‘Don't worry, I know. I asked Engineer Wu to help me buy her a bottle of shampoo …'