Excerpt:  My Half of the Sky

Excerpt from uncorrected proof

Chapter Five
The Fly with a Morsel

I felt the eyes of the strange Man in Blue watching me, even though the bus had long since disappeared in a cloud of black exhaust.  He had crossed the boundaries of etiquette and stared into my eyes.  His voice had been so deep, so bold when he had called to the bus driver that I wanted to get down.  I remembered the small dents in his cheeks, his smile so broad it had felt like a hug.  No problem, I repeated as I walked towards the pink castle.  I felt my hips sway from side to side.

Perhaps Guo Qiang looked like that man.  I stopped and stared down the road.  What if that had been Guo Qiang home for a visit?  He was headed for the other side of the village.  He certainly behaved like an outsider--helping that strange old woman with her peas.  Amazing.

Amazing.  Ayah.  I was the amazing one.  Perhaps all those days in the park had melted a few of my piano strings.  Guo Qiang was a distinguished professor in Singapore.  That kind and unconventional man on the bus looked to be no more than a day laborer.  How could I think the two of them were one?

I turned away from the road, shaking my head.  I wanted to shake off the image of those dark eyes, those high cheekbones, those muscular arms.  But the picture was singed in my heart. 

I passed the perfect pink castle, perfect except that the only one inside was an old man.  Sometimes I'd see him in front of his house practicing taiqi or drying soybeans.  His wife had passed to the other side of the River of Sleep.  His son was overseas making big money.  Perhaps I'd be overseas soon as well, doing the same. 

I passed the path that led out to Millionaire Huang’s swimming pool.  He owned three gas stations in town and had a big piece of land with not only a six-story house but a huge swimming pool.  The first year he had built the pool, people had laughed.  Why waste good land to make a pool?  The ocean was only a mile away, with reservoirs and ponds in between.  Besides no one knew how to swim anyway.  Now, his idea was so popular he charged admission--six yuan a person.  Not everyone had to venture overseas to make big money. 

I hurried by the middle school.  Sometimes I'd stop to share a cigarette with Second Cousin and his friends who played basketball in their Magic Johnson t-shirts.  Not tonight.  Other things were more important.  A letter might be waiting.

I skipped past the shell of a house Sixth Cousin had built.  He'd managed to finish the outside walls, then ran out of money.  The windows twinkled in the late afternoon light, laughing at me.  My clothes looked worn.  My shoes had scuff marks, worn heels. Still the Man in Blue had smiled.  Why had that strange man, that undistinguished day laborer, made such an impression on me?  Why couldn't I rid my thoughts of him?

No problem. 

I'd have to write Mei Ling about him.  She would be pleased that I was finding so much joy and adventure at home, despite being unemployed.  Then, again, perhaps she'd worry.  Here I was daydreaming about a stranger on a bus.    

I slowed in front of the cemetery engravers.  Engraving tools whined as men from Sichuan province sat on the ground and carved into the smooth rock surfaces of cemetery markers.  This business Third Uncle had set up after getting out of prison.  Father often used Third Uncle as an example.  Third Uncle had succeeded despite his excesses.  Any day our luck might change, too.  That's what Father believed.

A pain shot down my back.  My monthly would arrive soon.  I stopped to sit on a big piece of rock.  Workers would shave smooth and engrave this stone with the name of a person who'd moved to the other side of the River of Sleep.  Would one of these workers make a headstone for me one day?  Or would I be buried in Singapore?

The neighborhood loudspeaker crackled.  Something about electricity bills being due.  I didn't catch all of the words, as the community leader didn't like talking into the microphone, and his words sounded as if his mouth were full of rice.  Something about a new theater in the planning.  A need for contributions.  Money.  Money.  Money.

One of Third Uncle's employees approached, a cigarette dangling from his mouth.  “Little sister, what are you doing?" He wore a dusty shirt and pants.  His accent was just as dusty.

"I just needed a rest."  I smiled and pulled a thread from the sleeve of my blouse.  Had that stupid chicken on the bus pecked the thread loose?  Would I have even noticed the strange Man in Blue if that chicken hadn't pecked a hole in the old woman's bag?  I lifted the hair off the back of my neck to let in a breeze.  I beat my lower back with my fist.  That wonderful chicken.

“This isn't a park," the employee grumbled, moving closer, tossing his cigarette in front of me.  "You can't just sit down where you please.”   

"Li Hui--is that you?"  A woman's voice called.  Zi Mei.

What was she doing so far behind me?  She had been first off the bus.  Zi Mei stopped, her short hair pasted with sweat to the sides of her head.  And why had she hurried to catch up?

"Have you eaten?"  She asked.

"Yes, yes," I responded to the ritual greeting.  "And you?"

"Yes."  She cocked her head to one side and looked at me.  Her eyes twinkled with more than the light of the setting sun.  She leaned on one foot and then the next, like a child who must do xi-xi.  Or a gossip who has news to tell.

"Young sisters, this isn't a gathering spot," Grumble coughed, waving us away  with his arm.  We ignored his noise, as though he were just a mosquito whirring by.

"I just got back from town," I said, as if I hadn't noticed her on the bus.  She may have had news.  But for once I wanted information.  "We had an unbelievable ride.  This man on the bus jumped off to help an old woman.  Then he caught up with the bus and jumped back on." 

"I saw that," Zi Mei said. 

I leaned forward.  The echo in my heart beat louder just thinking about the Man in Blue's stretched t-shirt, the bangs falling in his face. 

"Young sisters--" Grumble started.

"Fool," Zi Mei said.

Her brow furrowed into a thousand lines.  Her dark eyes looked harder than the stone on which I rested.  Grumble and I both stiffened.  He walked away, like a dog who'd been hit on the nose with a cane.

"Fool held up the entire bus," Zi Mei said.  "What nerve."

"Yes," I said without much conviction. 

Despite his appearance to the contrary, I realized I'd still held a rice grain of hope that the Man in Blue was Guo Qiang visiting from Singapore.  What else explained his unconventional behavior?  The way he'd jumped off the bus to care for an old woman?  The way he helped me call out for the bus to stop?  The way he stared into my eyes?

"What?"  I asked.

"I said, 'Have you ever been in Drink Happiness Teashop?'  Across from the bus depot?"

"No," I said.  "Well, once." 

"What do you think?"  Zi Mei asked.

Was this her news?  Why did I expect her to linger over the incident on the bus? Perhaps because I wanted to.

"Well?"  Zi Mei probed.

The manager of that tea shop had been so rude.  She'd hardly been able to take her eyes from Fashion Fortune long enough to give me a sampling of tea.  I'd never gone back.

"Certainly they have lots of tea," I said.  "Lots of fashion magazines."

She cocked her head and stared at me with her twinkling eyes.  "That's a good family.  They've been through many troubles."

A loud noise erupted nearby.  A cloud of dust shot up around me.  Grumble had  turned on his stone smoother.

Over the whine of the motor, he yelled, "There's a club in town where you can sit and--"

"I know there's a club in town," Zi Mei barked.  "Because my money helped build it."

Zi Mei had no patience with workers from outside provinces, never mind that many of them had lived here longer than some of us had been alive. 

"Don't get excited," Grumble said.  "Just move off my boss' stones." 

I barely got off the stone before he dropped the whirring blade on top of it.

"Are you sure you're alright?"  Zi Mei brushed the back of my pants, looking again for a tear, some evidence that the migrant worker had almost sliced my legs off. 

"I'm fine, really," I said.  If I hadn't been so quick to jump up, surely the man would have stopped before he hit me.  Surely.  Perhaps he had a schedule to keep.  Perhaps he was paid by the stone.

"The insolence of that man."  Zi Mei looked to where the stone engraver worked, her lips pursed.  "After all Third Uncle has done for him.  After all we've done for him."

I looked over.  I hadn't done anything for the man.  I'd talked to him for the first time today.

"I mean, we welcome him into our village," she said when I didn't murmur an appropriate noise of support.  "We allow him to live and work here.  And what does he do?  He almost shaves off your legs.  Are you sure you're not hurt?"  She stopped, grabbed my waist and turned to look at the back of my pants.  "What's that?  Is that a tear down there?"

I twisted around to look where she pointed with her thin shaking finger.  An old mud stain.

"No, no," I said.  "I'm fine, really."

"I tell you, I will not let the sun set without talking to Third Uncle," she said.  "He will hear about this and do something about it."

"That's too much trouble for you," I said.  Whatever news Zi Mei had about Drink Happiness Teashop, she had forgotten in her zeal to punish this outsider.  "After all, we were putting a stop to the man's work-"

"Nonsense."  She waved my words away.  "We were resting after a harrowing bus ride where a foolish man had stopped the bus and held us captive."

Was Man in Blue really a fool?  My calves itched.  I was eager to get home and see what the afternoon mail had brought.

"My legs get so stiff sitting on that bus ride," Zi Mei said.  "I'm getting old." 

She stopped to rest in front of the fields.  Fourth Uncle's cow chewed dry grass a few feet away, chomping and snorting and shifting the weight on her legs, as if she too wanted to be moving.

"No, you're still very capable," I assured her, patting her on the arm, looking up the road. 

Zi Mei's store was at the end of the block.  Our house stood just a hop up the steps from there.  Both places seemed so far away.  I took a deep breath.  Waipo often said,  "When you're impatient, breathe.  In.  Out.  Look around.  Enjoy the moment."

Nearby the neighbor on this main road scooped well water from her bucket and bathed withering plants.  Her plants were smaller, not as green--even when there was rain. She was one of the few who didn't use a chemical sprayer.  The neighborhood kids called her Prehistoric Lady for refusing to adopt the latest farming innovation.  But she could walk through her fields in bare feet, without concern of holes burning through her skin from chemicals.

"Her daughter-in-law has happiness," Zi Mei said.

"How nice," I said.  How did Zi Mei know this?  Why didn't she have more information about Man in Blue?

"Again," Zi Mei whispered.  "She already has two daughters."  Zi Mei held onto my arm.  "Why do people think they can get away with such things?  That their lives are more important than the rest of the world?"  She squeezed my arm so tight, her short nails dug into my flesh.  "So, she doesn't have a son.  Neither did your father.  And look at you.  You're so, so-- intelligent." 

"No, no," I said.  Now my scalp itched.  I couldn't even find a job.

"So, they call her husband a eunuch.  Does that mean she can fill up the world with more bodies until she delivers a boy?"  

Whoever this brave woman was, she wasn't the first in our village to try for three.  The last I remember was Madame Butcher.  She had been so determined to have one more child that, during her third pregnancy, she went from relative to relative, friend to friend, never spending more than one night in one place.  Except for one night.

That one night Madame Butcher stayed at a friend's place too long.  The Birth Control Unit leader found her and took her to the nearby clinic.  They removed the baby from her body right there.  People say the baby would have been a boy. 

"What is that foolish girl thinking?"  Zi Mei went on.  "Did she tell you?"

"Me?"  I asked.  I barely knew Prehistoric Lady, much less her daughter-in-law.

"You sat  next to her on the bus," Zi Mei said.  "Didn't you used to be classmates?"

A chill covered my skin with goose flesh.  No wonder Cheng Min had on such a thick jacket.  Would her third baby be a boy?  Would she deliver him safely?  Get to keep him?  I needed to pay Cheng Min a visit and warn her that her secret now danced on Zi Mei's tongue.

We continued on.  Slowly.  So slowly.  I took another deep breath.

"Your father used to have that job," Zi Mei nodded towards Prehistoric Lady.

I nodded.  What had triggered this memory?  Zi Mei jumped from topic to topic, never concentrating on any one too long, like a fly rubbing her legs together over a juicy piece of meat and then flitting off to find another morsel. 

"Everyone worked side by side, back then."  Zi Mei watched Prehistoric Lady pick off dead leaves, making everything appear green again.

Father's job back then had been called Well Digger.  He filled up everyone's buckets with water from the well.  That was back in the days of the commune when Chairman Mao gave everyone a job, made everyone equal.  Father was still known by that nickname, although these days the joke was that every night Father's cards dug him deeper and deeper into a well.

"Those were good days."  Zi Mei sighed.

Mother had never referred to the commune days as good.  Everyone was tired. Angry.  Hungry. 

"People aren't equal."  She'd whispered into her lap, as if fearful of an outsider hearing.  "The ones who worked hard were pulled down by the lazy ones.  There was never enough food to distribute at the end of the month because someone in the commune had miscalculated the amount of seeds to plant, forgotten to water the seedlings, or pulled up the plants too early."

I looked over at Zi Mei, her eyes marveling at the history she'd re-created, having pulled away all the unpleasant truths, leaving only the lovely green ones.  Crickets chirped.  The sound of a tractor putt-putted down the road.  Sweat drooled down the back of my knees.

I thought of a car which could seat four.  Plush seats that cushioned my sore back.  Windows rolled down to let in the afternoon breeze.  I hoped there'd be a letter waiting for me today.

I left Zi Mei at her shop, went up the stairs and walked past New Neighbor's.  Since the last encounter with New Neighbor, we hadn't been having any unhappiness.  In fact, New Neighbor no longer turned and walked in the opposite direction when he saw me coming.  He even nodded and offered customary greetings.

I entered our house.  Mother was not in sight.  Father sat in his chair, a cigarette hanging from his mouth.  What was he doing home?  Why wasn't he out playing his nightly game?  He glanced up.

"You're back," he said, talking with the cigarette between his lips, as if it were just a toothpick.  The ashtray on the table overflowed with butts.  The table also held a tea cup and a bowl of apples.  But no letter.

"Some tea?"  Father offered.  He seemed in a rare good mood.  Had he already won a game and called it quits for the night?  That wasn't his style.

I hated not to share the moment with him.  Not to find out more.  However, I just wanted to drop off my purse and tutor sign.  Then I'd go visit Cheng Min and warn her to start moving.  I wouldn't offer our house.  We were too close to Zi Mei to be of any safety. 

"No, thanks," I said.

"We have new tea," he said, holding up a canister.

I took the canister.  What was this?  Had a relative dropped by with this gift?

I opened the foil and breathed in the sweet smell of the green buds. 

"Smells good."

"The best," Father said, taking a long drag off his cigarette, leaning forward. "That's ten-yuan-a-kilo tea from Drink Happiness Tea Shop."

The same teashop Zi Mei had just mentioned right before the stone engraver had "sliced off" my legs.  Why had she brought up the teashop in the first place?  Had she forgotten to finish her story?

"A gift from your new boss," Father said.

My new boss?  I sat down.  Was Father speaking metaphorically?  People always said that you never married a man.  You married your mother-in-law.  She was the boss. Was Madame Liang in town?  My heart beat fast.  Perhaps that man had been Guo Qiang dressed in labor clothes for the day, helping some old friend.

"Yes." Father took a drag from his cigarette.  He examined the short burning stub like he did when he was about to make some big statement.  He exhaled a cloud of smoke.  "Old man Chen.  Remember my Mahjong partner?  He needs your help managing his tea store."

So this wasn't about Guo Qiang.  Oh, Father.  I fingered the tea canister.  The foil that held the leaves felt sharp.  The small green buds inside looked as large as water wheels.  Hadn't Old Man Chen been one of the ones to boast how well his daughter had done the past four years while I'd wasted time? 

"His daughter--"  Father cleared his throat.  "Well, it turns out she's been losing lots of money."
"That's a shame." I put the tea down on the table.  What would I do in a tea shop?  Besides I still wanted to teach.  Even if it were free lessons in the park with just Madame Paper Cutter.

"I told Old Chen."  Father stood up.  "That you'd make the place grow." 

He stood firm, placing his hand on my shoulder.  He hadn't been drinking.  He was serious.

"But, Father--"

"He's agreed to take you on a trial basis."  He pushed his cigarette down into the pile of butts, igniting the remains. 

"But, Father, I don't know anything about business."  Acrid smoke drifted up my nose.  "I studied teaching."

"If you can learn to teach."  He walked toward the door and then turned.  "You can learn to do business." 

He rapped his hand on the side of the house and left.  I stared at the box of tea.  We never had money for such a luxury as this high grade tea.  But me?  A tea seller?  What an idea.

No problem.  Man in Blue's voice came to me again.  I felt his presence as if he stood tall before me, sliding my purse on my arm.  His dark eyes searched mine. 

Perhaps Father was right.  I'm intelligent enough to listen and understand.  It would be just like taking a new class.  Besides, this was a job.

 

© 2006 Jana McBurney-Lin, All Rights Reserved

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