Peach Blossom Pavilion. Mingmei Yip

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СКАЧАТЬ she said this, it seemed now that all eyes were riveted on me. Feeling dazed and dreamy, I licked hard at the ice cream, savouring its fast-melting sweetness, while assuring myself that all this good luck did not merely exist in a dream. I touched my Guan Yin pendant and secretly prayed that this day would go on forever.

      Just when I was relishing the tender softness on my tongue, suddenly I felt my arm being bumped. Before I knew what had happened, commotion stirred around me like oil hissing on a hot wok.

      Mama’s voice clanged like a broken gong, shaking the air around her. ‘Catch the little thief!’

      It was then that I realised my ice cream had gone. It was now tightly held in the filthy hand of a bony, ten-year-old boy. He was desperately licking it while trying to dash across the street infested with swishing cars.

      ‘Watch out!’ I screamed to him.

      Mama smacked my star-studded sky while casting me a murderous glance. ‘Are you out of your mind? Don’t you think this brat deserves to be hit?’

      When a gap appeared in the heavy traffic, the boy sprinted, followed by a cacophony of screeching, honking, shouting, and cursing.

      ‘Oh my heaven! He’s going to get killed!’ I yelled again.

      Mama, after glaring at me with another killer look, hurried with the three of us to see what had happened.

      To my great relief, the little boy was not killed – he was not even hit. But his feet seemed rooted to the ground, and his face was so pale that he looked like someone who had just emerged from the yin world, with ghosts still clinging to his legs to try to pull him back. The ice cream had spilled on the ground and was draining down the gutter like blood scared white.

      The driver jumped out from the car and spat. ‘Fuck your mother’s cunt, you dog-fucked little bastard! Next time watch before you cross!’ With that, he shoved the dazed-looking boy back onto the pavement. Before the driver got back into the car, he again hollered, ‘Get out of the way! I’m driving to pick up the president of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce!’ Then he slammed the door and sped away. After that, traffic immediately resumed.

      Spring Moon clapped. ‘Mama, he’s fine!’

      Now it was her head that was jolted by Mama’s slap. ‘Why do you feel so happy about this little piece of dirt? He should be smashed like ground beef!’

      Then, to my surprise, she flung her big torso toward the boy and grabbed him. Mama was as strong as a bull. The boy, thrashing bony arms and legs, screamed like a chicken being slaughtered. Almost in no time, a few hooligans began to gather around us, cheering and hollering.

      ‘Yes, strangle that little beggar!’

      ‘Wah! A woman beating a man to death!’

      ‘Hey, come and watch Peking opera, free!’

      Just when they were fanning up the fire of this street drama, a fortyish man with blonde hair and a white suit appeared from nowhere. He stepped toward the two blurs of jostling flesh and, with a move of his sinewy arms, disentangled them.

      Silence instantly fell among the watching crowd. Everyone’s eyes were glued to the foreigner, waiting to see what direction the drama would take. To my surprise, instead of losing her temper and cursing this yanggui zi – foreign ghost – Mama squeezed a big grin and spoke in accented English. ‘Sorli, sorli, mister. Miss understanding, miss understanding.’

      Still more to my surprise, the ‘barbarian’ spoke, in perfect Mandarin. ‘What happened?’

      Mama replied in Mandarin, her grin stretching bigger and bigger, until it almost reached outside her face. ‘Meishi, meishi.’ No­thing, nothing.

      ‘Nothing?’

      Right then Jade Vase chimed in, pointing to the little boy. ‘He tried to rob my sister Xiang Xiang’s ice cream.’

      The man turned to scrutinise me. His eyes were two blue beads, strangely cool yet soothing – like my vanished ice cream. Just when I felt colour rising to my cheeks, he turned to look at the boy, who was shivering in his rags under the hot sun. ‘Are you very hungry?’

      The boy nodded until his head almost dislocated from his neck. ‘My mother is sick and we haven’t had food for three days.’

      To everybody’s surprise, the foreign devil took out his leather purse, pulled out several copper coins, and gave them to the boy. ‘Now buy some food for the family and go home.’

      The boy snatched the money, plopped down on the ground and kowtowed, then scurried like a mouse across the busy boulevard.

      Abruptly Jade Vase went up to the foreigner and grinned. ‘Mister, thank you for your kindness, please come and visit us in the pavilion.’

      He frowned, scanning the three of us. ‘What pavilion?’

      Mama, now looking very excited, piped up, ‘The Peach Blossom Pavilion in Si Malu.’

      Instead of answering Mama, the foreign devil turned to look at me for long moments, his eyes sparkling with kindness, then, without saying another word, walked away. The onlookers ejected a few disappointed curses before they quickly dispersed.

      To be sure to keep our new hairstyles in good condition, Mama hired a car to take us back to the pavilion. All the way, the little boy’s image kept flashing across my mind – his bloodless face, his emaciated body barely covered by his rags, the way he pathetically kowtowed when given a few coins. Suddenly I thought how lucky I was – housed, fed, clothed in Peach Blossom, for free! I must be living in paradise without knowing it.

      I turned to Fang Rong and tried to lift the corners of my lips as high as the Heavenly Tune rooftop café. ‘Mama, thank you very much.’

      ‘Thank me by behaving like a good girl,’ she grinned, patting my arm affectionately.

      Then she addressed the three of us. ‘If you behave, you’ll have all the nicest clothes, tastiest food, and prettiest hairdos in the world. But if you don’t, you’ll all end up like that little hungry ghost robbing scraps on the street, and eventually being hit by a car. Do you want to be like that little bastard soon to be smashed into ground beef?’

      ‘No!’ we roared collectively.

      ‘Will you behave?!’

      ‘Yes!’ Our high-pitched voices slashed the air, while Mama grinned mysteriously, her face shadowed by the shade of the rickshaw.

       7

       The Jade Stalk and the Golden Gate

      The next day when I woke up in the morning, I felt both happy and sad – happy because of my good life in Peach Blossom, sad because of my recollection of the little boy. His hollow cheeks and protruding eyes clung to my mind like snails. Then I also remembered the foreign devil, and the gaze of his pale blue eyes.

      I СКАЧАТЬ