Miss Chopsticks (27 page)

This thought cheered Five. ‘That's right,' she said. ‘Uncle Two could have frozen to death otherwise!' But Three was not so easily consoled. ‘He'll hardly be comfortable at the police station either!' she cried. ‘Bao Daye from our village used to say that, if you spend a day in the cells, you lose a layer of flesh …'

‘Now don't worry,' said Manager Shui, getting to his feet. ‘I'm going to sort things out … What kind of friend do you think I am, Five, not to tell me that you had sisters working in the city? I only found out when young Three appeared in my office. Apparently, your Uncle Two told the police he knew Mr Guan Buyu. Well, when Mr Guan found out what had happened, he sent a message to Three telling her to come and find me. He knows I've got good contacts with the police. You're my best worker, Five, I'm not going to let your uncle languish in prison, am I? I've made a phone call already. They've told me to come to the police station around midday to pick him up. Since it's already almost half-past eleven, I suggest that you two come along with me to sort this out. I have to be at a government Cultural Businesses Meeting this afternoon.' As Manager Shui was speaking he shut down his computer – by now Five knew that the glass window with fishes swimming behind it was a clever
electric brain that could solve all sorts of problems.

‘But I've not got my money yet,' exclaimed Five, leaping out of her seat to race back to the dormitory for her savings.

‘Five,' said Manager Shui, gesturing to her to stay put, ‘all your money put together wouldn't come close to footing the police's bill! Now listen. You serve important people every day when they come to bathe here at the Dragon Water-Culture Centre, and they'll help us out when we need them. That means a lot to me. Let me help you this time. You just carry on working well and we'll be quits.'

‘But how many years will it take me to pay you back?' Five asked anxiously.

Manager Shui burst out laughing at her earnest honesty. ‘Oh, little girl … Just work until you don't want to work any more …'

Ten minutes later, Three and Five were sitting in the back of Manager Shui's black Mercedes on their way to the police cells. Five spent most of the journey with her eyes squeezed shut. She had only ever been on a bus before, and the car made her feel dangerously close to the road. Three, on the other hand, had been in Big Ma's delivery van a couple of times, and was therefore more calm. It was she who spotted her uncle as the Mercedes drove into the forecourt of the police station. He was standing just inside the building, flanked by two men who were gesturing in gratitude to the policemen inside. As the Mercedes edged nearer, caught up in a queue of cars waiting to park, Uncle Two was led out through the door, and Three saw that the two men were Guan Buyu and the boss of the teahouse, Shu Tian. Six was also with them. Without seeing the black Mercedes, they all squeezed into Shu Tian's old red Xiali and were about to set off when Manager Shui drew up beside them, wound down his window and asked, ‘All settled, then?'

‘You took your time, good sir!' said Shu Tian, opening his car door. ‘But, as it happens, we had a big stroke of
luck today, and there was no need to wait for your chariot to arrive. My broken-down Xiali sufficed.'

‘Great stuff!' said Manager Shui. ‘You must tell me all about it. How about coming to my place? We can have a talk and give the three sisters and their uncle a chance to get over the shock.'

‘That sounds good,' shouted Guan Buyu over the revving of the Xiali's engine, ‘provided I get to a meeting in a hour.'

‘I've got a meeting with the City Government,' said Manager Shui, ‘but I can manage a brief break …'

Three and Five were hardly listening. Instead they were smiling in relief at Six and Uncle Two who were sitting in the back seat of the other car.

Shu Tian agreed with Manager Shui that he would follow him back to his house. On the journey there, Guan Buyu chatted away to Six in an attempt to put Uncle Two at his ease.

‘I feel guilty,' he said to her. ‘I ought to have given you and your sisters a telephone number so that you could reach me if you needed me. And I should have made sure that the Tofu Lady told Uncle Two how to contact me. I'm so sorry you and your uncle had to go through such a terrifying experience. But it would be just the same for us Nanjingers if we came to the countryside. When we leave the city we're completely lost! It only takes a cow or a sheep to walk up to us and we're frightened out of our wits. What good are all our city skills if we can't even take a crap in your privies without running screaming from the pig, our trousers round our ankles? We end up cutting short our days out in the country because we're desperate for the toilet. It's the same when we go abroad, as I have done a few times. We're so scared by the different language and customs that we find ourselves jumping out of our skin if the guy next to us so much as farts. No, when all's said and done, at home we're master of everything, but as soon
as we arrive at a place we don't know, we turn into cowering wretches …'

Guan Buyu's crude words shocked Six, who couldn't equate them with the polite, cultured man she knew. However, their meaning rang all too true to Uncle Two, who rubbed his unshaven cheeks as he listened. He had been crying so hard that his face was covered in snot and tears. Yes, indeed, he had been a cowering wretch …

It had all come about because of something the Tofu Lady had said. All the workers were leaving Zhuhai for Spring Festival, and he and her husband had travelled back together on the train. Gousheng had offered to put him up for the night so that he could meet up with his nieces before going on to Anhui and, in the morning, Uncle Two had stopped by the Tofu Lady's shop to eat some stinky-tofu fritters. While she was serving him, they had discussed his nieces, and the Tofu Lady had mentioned that it was a while since she had seen Three. Her absence had been a matter of some debate amongst the regulars at the big willow. Some people said that she was ill, others that she'd run off with a man, but no one knew for sure. Even Mr Guan Buyu, who was always so well up on the latest news, was wondering what had become of her. They had lost track of the other two sisters as well, because they only ever came to the willow tree when Three did.

Uncle Two was so anxious when he heard this that he decided he should try to find the girls immediately. Although the Tofu Lady tried to dissuade him, assuring him that the girls were probably on their way to find him, and warning him that Nanjing was bigger than he thought, he was adamant. But when he reached the main road with its streams of heavy traffic, Uncle Two was afraid. He only knew the roads between the train station, the Tofu Lady's shop and the bus station. Now he was confronted with millions of people and hundreds and thousands of streets. Where was a peasant like him supposed to find his
relatives? He got out the willow whistle Three had made him, and blew it as hard as he could, but it was now too dried out and cracked to make a noise. Uncle Two's heart was filled with foreboding, and he tried desperately to think what to do. Suddenly he remembered Mr Guan. He knew where the girls were! The big willow wasn't far from the Tofu Lady's place, so it shouldn't be too hard to find.

To his relief, Uncle Two found the tree without difficulty but again his luck failed him. Mr Guan's office was closed for the day. A passer-by said that people who had urgent business often waited for Mr Guan because he was known to come to the office in the evening to read. Uncle Two decided to bed down in the doorway. He opened one of his bags of luggage, got out the second-hand overcoat he had bought for his wife and wrapped himself in it. Then, covering his knees with the tattered padded jacket that had kept the cold night-wind off on the building site, he propped himself up in the lee of a few wooden boxes using his other bag as a pillow. As he lay there, the exhaustion of forty-eight hours on the train overcame him, and he began to snore.

He awoke with a start to a stern voice and a dazzlingly white light.

‘What are you doing? ID! Letter of introduction! Get up, get up, I'm talking to you, hurry up!'

Still half asleep, Uncle Two had no idea what was going on, but he saw the peaked cap and police uniform and his instinctive reaction was to search for his papers, hidden deep in his clothes. Yet, try as he might, he couldn't extract the bulging envelope from its hiding place and the more he panicked, the more his hands shook and the harder it became to get the thing out. The policeman was becoming increasingly impatient.‘Get a move on!' he shouted. ‘Stop messing around and show me your papers!'

‘I … that is, I have documents,' stammered Uncle Two. ‘I've got them all: ID card, work permit, letter of introduction … Bloody hell, I can't get them out …'

‘No bad language! This is a civilised city, not like your crude, dirty countryside. Huh, are these all your documents? Is that you? You don't look like the big tough guy in the photograph with your old man's beard! And where's that woman's coat from?'

‘Woman's coat?' Uncle Two was completely scared out of his wits, ‘What woman's coat?'

‘I'm asking the questions! So that thing draped over your shoulders isn't a woman's coat? It's been such a short time since you stole it, you haven't had a chance to look at it properly, eh?'

‘This … this … I mean to say … it's coming back to me now. I bought it for my wife.'

‘Now it comes back to you? If you'd bought it yourself, would you need to think about it? Get your things together and come with me. You country people should be planting your fields, but no: you're too busy thinking of coming to the city to make a fat profit. And when you're here, you still reckon you're not earning enough, so you pocket a bit here and a bit there to take home for Spring Festival. Aren't I right? Hey, get that woman's coat out of your bag! How dare you pack it away when you still haven't proved it's yours. Fingers still itching to nick something else, are they?'

Without waiting for an answer the policeman pulled out a strange black machine and shouted, ‘03, 03, this is 26, over … I've caught someone red-handed here. Get a move on, I'm cold, over … Two bags of luggage, over … What do you mean wait for the next van? How many have you brought in? Over … Well, I don't care if you have to squeeze him in. Just get here soon, it's bloody freezing today, over!'

The policeman put his machine back inside his jacket and turned to Uncle Two.

‘Why are you shivering? If you're cold, put on that woman's coat of yours. We can deal with that issue when
we get to the station. We policemen don't have hearts of stone, you know. It's not as if I've handcuffed you. Handcuffs on a bitterly cold day like this would freeze you to the marrow.'

‘I'm … I'm not cold, I'm …' Uncle Two could scarcely get the words out.

‘Not cold? Then why are you shaking? Don't tell me you're scared! If you're brave enough to commit a crime, you should have the guts to take the consequences. Don't go about thieving if you're going to get scared afterwards. If there's one thing I can't stand it's a wimp.'

‘I haven't stolen anything!' shouted Uncle Two, finally finding the courage to speak up for himself.

The policeman was momentarily taken aback.‘Then what are you shaking for? An honest man doesn't jump at shadows. If you haven't stolen anything there's nothing to worry about. Just explain it all when we get to the station …'

‘But why should I go to the police station if I haven't stolen anything?' asked Uncle Two, his brain suddenly lucid.

‘Well …' This time it was the policeman's turn to be confused. He thought for a moment and then said, ‘Prove you haven't stolen anything!'

‘Prove it? But how can I do that? I just haven't, that's all,' said Uncle Two, stumped by the policeman's logic.

By this time, the policeman was overcome by impatience. ‘Look, whether you've stolen anything or not, you're coming with me! Let's worry about the reasons why later, eh? Do you want to go home for Spring Festival or don't you? Trying to argue the toss with a policeman indeed!'

Uncle Two bent his head to bow and then, thinking better of it, stood up straight, a look of utter bewilderment on his face. The policeman heaved a sigh.

‘Bear up,' he said, in a kinder voice. ‘And remember: don't try to chop logic at the police station. So long as your
crime isn't serious, the punishment will be light, but if you go looking for trouble, things could get worse. Believe me, you'd do well to listen to my advice. You country people have no idea how things work in the city. Here's the thing: every work unit has an end-of-year quota and the police are no exception. If I hadn't caught you, some other policeman would have pulled you in. You were throwing yourself at the barrel of a gun sleeping in full view of everyone like that! All you have to do is explain that you didn't understand the city rules. So, come on, it's not that bad …'

The policeman talked on but Uncle Two's overheated brain was so tired and confused that he drifted off into a reverie in which he was assailed by the voices of his fellow labourers roaring in his ears:

‘Haven't you heard? The cops might put up signs saying “Confession leads to leniency, resistance will be met with severity”, but they really mean “Confession leads to severity, resistance will be met with even more severity”. Keep your head, give 'em a present and you'll be home for Spring Festival … Otherwise, guilty or not, you'll end up inside being duffed up by the old lags as a “welcome present”. If you're lucky you'll get off with a few scars; unlucky and they'll break your arms and legs. Prison has to be bad otherwise it wouldn't deter criminals from breaking the law again.

‘And don't try to protest. Whatever you say, you'll be wrong-footed. Wrongly accused? It was your own ignorance that brought it upon you, and how will you learn the rules and regulations without a dose of punishment? Cops too brutal? You're lucky to be living in the “modern democracy”. At the time of the emperors, your whole family would have been executed alongside you, and probably a few friends as well …