The Yellow Papers (31 page)

‘You know, Ma'am, this sort of weather always makes me hungry. I sure could do with something hot – soup maybe. Yeah, a nice big bowl of soup … Or maybe a glass of whisky; that would warm me up for sure. But maybe not just now. I don't suppose you'd drink whisky right now, would you Ma'am?… Ma'am? I don't suppose you know where a man could get a bowl of soup?'

‘There are food stalls everywhere.'

‘Well yes Ma'am, that's true enough. But this is my first time here in Hong Kong. So I was kinda hoping you could tell me where the best place to eat was. Maybe even come with me. It gets kinda lonely eating by yourself …'

Ming Li shook her head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the incongruity of it all. Here she was, considering ending it all, and this boy – for surely he was at least half her age – was trying to pick her up.

‘Ma'am? What do you say? I sure'd be honoured if you'd join me for a bowl of soup.'

What did it matter? Would having a bowl of soup change anything? No. But how long had it been since she'd eaten soup? How long since she'd felt full? She couldn't even remember what it felt like. Dying with a full stomach appealed to her.

‘All right,' she said at last, ‘I'll come.'

She wasn't good company. Barely spoke except to mention that in Shanghai, thin soups were usually drunk at the end of a meal, and were not something you ordered on their own. And when that fresh-faced boy then insisted on ordering a full meal, the rich odours of the food made her feel nauseated. So she watched him eat, and only sipped a couple of spoonfuls of broth from the pork and prawn ball soup he'd ordered, before feeling she could eat no more. But her silence didn't seem to bother him. He talked of home, of the navy and the people he'd met, and the war that was supposed to be over but still kept them from home. She pretended to listen, knowing he wasn't interested in her, and that all he wanted was a body – a face – to talk to.

She went with him to the markets after their meal because he wanted to buy souvenirs for ‘the folks back home', and when she saw that he was being overcharged still she kept quiet because she knew the value of every coin to people like her. He bought her a thin gold bangle and at first she refused it, but he insisted and she didn't have the energy to argue, so she accepted it, intending to give it to the old woman who had brought her news of MeiMei.

Later in the afternoon, when the storm clouds that had been gathering finally burst, he took her to a hotel that only rented rooms ‘short-times'. Ming Li was not surprised. She knew nothing ever came free.

Oblivious to the sailor's body hammering into her, Ming Li stared at the bare light globe above the bed. Its weak light cast a jaundiced glow on their skin, and turned the paper blocking the window from the street sulphur-yellow. She'd felt a moment of shame, at first, with her body – with the burn scar, with the lack of total cleanliness that resulted from living on the streets, and she'd had a fleeting memory of the long hot baths she used to take with Edward – those sensual preludes to their lovemaking. But this man was not concerned with such matters, and she forced herself not to think of other times, not to compare this act with the familiarity, the deep-felt comfort of Xueliang's lovemaking, or the thrill and excitement of Edward's passion.

Outside, rain beat a tattoo on the roof. His mouth devoured her breast, hurting her, and though barely begun she knew she couldn't endure much more. She had to make him come. She moaned as if in passion and grasped the cheeks of his buttocks, and he pounded harder. From the radio in the room next door the Andrews Sisters sang ‘I wanna be loved', and she squeezed and released her muscles and squeezed again, and the weeks at sea helped her make him come, quickly and violently, and he groaned and shook his head and collapsed on top of her.

When his breathing slowed and she thought him asleep she eased her body from beneath him. He mumbled something and turned over. She knew she should leave but for a while she wanted to feel a proper bed beneath her, sheets and blankets and the safety of four walls keeping out the rain and the cold. She closed her eyes and pretended, just for a moment, that she was back in her house in Shanghai, that the body beside hers was Xueliang's and that MeiMei was asleep in the room next door, and in the kitchen Cook was just returning from the market, her baskets overflowing. On the radio in the next room the Andrews Sisters finished their song and Eddie Fisher crooned ‘I wish you were here'.

She woke to the sound of the hotel room door closing. The radio next door was silent, the rain had stopped, the sailor gone – probably heading for the neon-lit streets of the Wan Chai district where the girls were sure to be better company.

Curled foetal-like at the edge of the bed, she stared at the wall. She felt numb, listless, as if whatever spark that had allowed her to take a breath, to put one foot in front of the other, was gone. Sucked out of her by this boy – he hadn't even told her his name – leaving nothing but an empty cocoon.

‘Time finish. You go now!' The concierge hammered on the door of her room. ‘Go! Now!'

‘All right, I'm going,' she answered, anxious he not come into the room. ‘Let me get dressed.'

‘You go now!'

‘Yes, yes, I go. Just one minute …'

The banging on the door ceased and she heard his footsteps retreating. She sat on the edge of the bed, picked up her clothes from the floor and put them on, shivering. Slipped on her shoes. A mouse scurried across the floor, disappearing beneath the bed. Her coat was on the only chair in the room, above which hung a small mirror, its foil oxidised.

She saw them then, on top of her coat – a handful of American dollars. What little colour she had left drained from her face and the shivering grew to tremors. So now she knew. Now she could no longer kid herself that this boy had seen her as a companion, albeit a temporary one. Someone to share a bowl of soup with, someone with whom to seek a little company when far away from home. The notes thrown so casually on top of her coat allowed no illusion.

‘Minute gone. You go now!' The hammering on the door resumed. She rose, forced herself to pick up the money. Put on her coat. Open the door. The concierge on the other side pushed into the room and began remaking the bed, not bothering to change the sheets. She climbed down the stairs and walked out into the night.

She trudged the alleyways of the Walled City, this black hole that neither China nor Britain dare enter, heading automatically for her nail-space. From open doorways weak light bulbs burnt electricity stolen from the mains outside the city, allowing whole families to work into the night painting lacquer boxes for exportation, or assembling toys no child from this city would ever play with. Since the UN embargoed trade with China, it seemed every family in Hong Kong had become a minute manufacturing centre.

The air was rancid with the smell of wood smoke, hot oil, joss sticks and urine. The clack of mah-jong tiles drowned the cry of an infant, and on the pavement a rickshaw driver lay on a bamboo mat, his head resting on a wooden headrest, and as he slept the sleep of utter exhaustion his feet still ran, dodging the traffic of his dreams.

Near her nail-space the old woman and her family had set up a brazier, and coals glowed within it, providing a semblance of warmth. The old woman was already asleep on a mat on the pavement, covered with a cotton quilt. Above her their few possessions hung on a nail in the wall. The old man, his son, and a girl maybe five years old huddled around the brazier, the old man sitting on a low stool. They saw Ming Li and made room for her, and she nodded her thanks but didn't join them. She sat on the wet ground instead, her back to the wall, her hands deep in the pockets of her coat where one fist still clutched the American dollars.

‘You'll be warmer with us,' the son said, squatting beside her.

She shook her head, wishing him to leave. ‘I'm all right.'

He nodded, picked at his teeth with a match then spat into the street.

‘We have rice. You can have a little, if you're hungry.'

His offer shamed her and she knew she should at least accept the warmth of the brazier, if only for a while.

‘I've eaten already,' she said, standing up. ‘But you're right, I'll be warmer there.'

They stood around the brazier staring at the glowing coals. No one spoke. On the pavements of these streets, so narrow you could stretch your arms and touch buildings either side, other families sat on tiny stools or huddled around other braziers, waiting for the hours to pass. Somewhere a dog whimpered.

In the glowing coals Ming Li recognised the face of Zhù Róng, the God of Fire, and for a moment wondered if this omen foretold of conflagrations to come to the Walled City. But a breeze caused all three of Zhù Róng's eyes to flare and when the flame died down the coal now looked like a tortoise. Ming Li knew then that these were not omens, for how could strength and endurance ever again be hers?

Still she stared at the fire, mesmerised by the changing patterns that glowed and darkened in response to the movement of the air. She saw Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, holding an infant on her lap, and the vision reminded her of MeiMei but she did not want to think of MeiMei, for the wound was too raw. Then Kuan Yin darkened and was replaced by Mo-Li Hung, the Lord of Growth and Guardian of the South. Above his red face he held the Umbrella of Chaos, causing universal darkness, and in this, at least, the omen was correct.

A clatter of firecrackers snapped Ming Li from her musings, and she automatically looked up to the sky, but the only things above her were buildings leaning precariously towards each other.

The old man left the brazier, unrolled a small mat next to the old woman and lay down beside her. The girl joined them, snuggling between the two old people where it was warmest, and the old man adjusted the quilt to cover them all.

‘I'm sorry about your daughter,' the son said at last. ‘My mother said you'd asked about her.'