Miss Chopsticks (23 page)

‘I'm a cook, but this is the first time I've come across a worm that's been through hot oil and can still move. Now think about it, lads. The owners of this restaurant aren't here right now, but I'll bet that, as soon as they get back, they'll go straight to their mates in the police. That's right: their mates. These days you don't get to open a shop by sheer hard work: you need a bit of help from your friends. When the cops arrive, you guys'll be trapped here, and when they go through your pockets, they'll find the mud left behind from carrying that worm with you. Now, I'm sure it's our fate to be friends, and a good friend doesn't like to witness another in distress … If I were you I'd hop it while you've still got the chance …'

At that moment, Wang Tong's voice could be heard calling through the crowd.

‘Let me through, what's happened? Why are you all standing around gawping? Move over, let me in! What do you mean what am I shoving for? This is my restaurant! What are
you
shoving for? I'll call the police! What d'you mean bugs in the vegetables? Even if there was a ghost in the vegetables you still couldn't keep me out of my own restaurant! Out of the way, there! Three, Three!'

As soon as Three heard Wang Tong's voice, she dissolved into tears.

Wang Tong got out her mobile phone in a show of calling the police while the young man began shooing away the crowd of spectators. Three was so overwhelmed
by anxiety that she was hyperventilating and couldn't speak. By the time Wang Tong had ascertained from the young man what had happened, the three troublemakers had slipped away.

‘Why did you let them go?' she asked, distressed. ‘We should have handed them over to the police!'

‘Madam,' said the man as he rearranged the tables that had been shoved to the edges of the room by the crowd, ‘this is a terrible business and the police should be informed about it. But I'm not sure whether they'd have done anything if they'd come here. You know what the police are like: they can't cope with big things and won't deal with small things. I'm sure you've got good connections in the right places, but why draw them into a small matter like this? Odds are, someone hired those thugs to cause trouble. Things are changing fast round here and there are people who are jealous of the success and good luck of others. I'm from the countryside. Before I came to Nanjing, I used to think that city people were different from country people, but now I've worked here for a few years I've discovered they're all just the same. If someone is having problems, they all crowd round pretending to be sympathetic, but actually, deep down, they're quite pleased because it makes them feel better about themselves. That's why good news rarely makes it to your door, but bad news flies like the wind. If you ask me, today's business is a good sign: it is a measure of your restaurant's success that people are jealous of it. You might even attract customers now, because the clever ones will realise that the food you serve is free of pesticides. Have you heard? These days, rich people are telling their servants to buy vegetables
with
wormholes … Anyway, I think this girl here was really on the ball. Anyone else would have hidden in the kitchen while they smashed the place up. If she hadn't handled things so well, they could have destroyed your restaurant. She's very brave.'

Three looked at the man in surprise. She had never imagined someone would call her brave when she had been almost too upset to cry or breathe. Overcome by shame, she thanked him for his help, but begged him not to trouble himself any more.

‘That's right, we can manage, thank you,' said the cook who had suddenly reappeared. ‘I was in the toilet when those men started shouting, but I'm here now.'

Wang Tong and Three kept quiet. They were both certain that the cook, who had always been rather a coward and hated trouble, had hidden himself away during the fracas. But they did not say anything: for a Chinese man, losing face is worse than a beating.

It was only then that it occurred to Wang Tong to ask the young man's name.

‘Forgive me, sir,' she said. ‘I've been so angry that I forgot to ask what our benefactor is called!'

‘No need to apologise. The name's Ma, but everyone calls me Big Ma. I come from Anhui.'

Three's eyes lit up. ‘Whereabouts in Anhui? I'm from Anhui too!'

‘Well, they say that fellow countrymen greet each other with tears in their eyes,' laughed Big Ma, ‘but I think it means a different kind of tears!'

He had a big, infectious laugh and, to her embarrassment, Three found herself laughing too.

Wang Tong bustled around them arranging chairs. ‘Let's all sit down and have a drink together,' she said. ‘Since you're from Anhui too, Big Ma, that makes you practically family! I'll put up the Closed sign and Wang, our cook, can bring you a few dishes. We'll open again this afternoon, but for the moment we all need to get over the shock, otherwise our good luck won't return. Doesn't everyone say that “the God of Wealth doesn't find those who aren't easy in their minds”? Let's all raise a glass to our new friend Big Ma and our clever Three!'

Big Ma gave the hotel where he worked a quick ring and arranged to come back later. He confessed that he wasn't actually a chef, but a hotel driver, and had been out collecting the dry cleaning. Then they all settled down for an enjoyable lunch.

It was past two o'clock when they finished, but the suppertime rush wouldn't start until five. Wang Tong suggested that Three take Big Ma to his van, then go for a little walk before starting work again. Three was only too happy to go with her rescuer and followed him into the street.

It was the first time since Three was a little girl that she had accompanied a man through bustling crowds. She was very proud to have met Big Ma, but, at the same time, she was worried that, if someone she knew saw them, she would lose her reputation. After all, for a girl to walk by the side of a man could only mean one thing. She wondered what would happen if she met a customer from the restaurant and they asked her who he was and how they had met. How would she answer the question?

It was as if Big Ma knew what she was thinking.

‘You know, I was planning to buy myself a birthday lunch today, at the Kentucky Fried Chicken next door to your shop,' he said.

‘Is today your birthday?'

‘Yes, it's my birthday. And now you're the first friend in this city to know, apart from the personnel manager at the hotel who took my details for his records.'

‘Do I count as your friend?'

‘Of course you're a friend. Anyone from Anhui is a friend of mine.'

‘What gave you the idea of coming to our restaurant instead of going to Kentucky Fried Chicken?'

‘Well, it wasn't exactly my idea. I was walking past when I saw a big crowd and heard someone shout, ‘Seems like there's some fooling around going on in the Happy Fool.'
The name of the restaurant sounded familiar so I pushed to the front out of curiosity to see what was going on. At first I thought I ought to keep my head down because country boys shouldn't rub city people up the wrong way. I was just about to leave when an old guy next to me mentioned that the girl inside was from Anhui. Well, I couldn't not get involved then. So I tried a bit of bluff. I can't say I know much about cooking – apart from making myself the odd bowl of noodles and chopping up meat to eat in flatbread – but I could see that worm had been planted the minute I clapped eyes on it. It was obvious where they'd smeared the mud across the leaves themselves.'

‘
I
didn't see anything …' said Three, shamefacedly.

Big Ma laughed. ‘I thought it was strange that you hadn't noticed. Looks like you were scared out of your wits, getting picked on like that.'

‘How did you come to the city to work?' Three wished she could learn everything about this man at once.

‘Well, I used to love driving the tractor at home so I persuaded relatives to help me find a job delivering goods in the local town. It was great driving through the streets and looking around: one day there'd be a wedding, the next day a new general store would open. They were always putting up new buildings or widening the roads … You wouldn't believe how much that town changed in the two and a half years I was there. Later on I found a friend to help me take the test for my driving licence …'

‘Driving licence?' Three didn't know what he was talking about.

‘A driving licence is a little book that proves you've passed your driving test. You need it before you're allowed to drive on the roads otherwise you can get sent to prison.'

‘But why did you need a friend to help you get it?' Three asked.

‘We casual labourers don't get anywhere without a few friends in the right places. Those driving test officials
have deep pockets: if you don't have connections, you might as well throw your money into a bottomless pit. Of course, I'm not saying your friends can help you with the actual driving. When you do that test there are traffic police watching and it all has to be above board. But there's also a written test and, if you've got a friend, they can help you understand what the questions mean, and the examiner will turn a blind eye if you just copy out the answers.

‘Anyway, when I'd got my grown-up driving licence, I thought I should start earning some grown-up money. I knew you could earn big salaries down in the south, but you had to get someone to put in a good word for you. So I decided to start closer to home. I'd heard Nanjing was a rich city – emperors had lived there – so I went to check it out. My luck was in. The job centre near the big willow found me a position loading and unloading delivery vans for a chain store. But it was hard work. Every box weighed fifty kilos, and I had to lift more than five hundred boxes a day. Later on some of my mates heard I had a driving licence and helped me get myself into the small ads in the newspaper as a driver …'

‘Why did you have to be in the newspaper to find a job?' Three asked. She was embarrassed about all the questions she was asking, but Big Ma seemed to be a very patient person.

‘People pay attention to what's in the papers. It's a bit more reliable than the job centre. Anyone who advertises there is bona fide, if you know what I mean.'

Three wasn't sure that she did, but she was curious now about newspapers.

‘Where do you get this paper?' she asked.

‘You have to buy one, of course. The best one is the
Evening News
. It costs one yuan a throw.'

‘One yuan!' Three exlaimed. ‘You could buy half a meal with that!'

‘Too expensive for you, eh? It's not expensive if you find a good job. Take this five-star hotel where I work. The wages are more than twice what I got at the chain store, it's not tiring, and I get to drive; we have fixed working hours, and there are statutory public holidays.'

‘Statutory public holidays?' Three was in awe of how much Big Ma knew.

‘Statutory public holidays are rest days set down by the government. If you add in the days off that the hotel gives, that makes over sixty free days a year. We can take those days off at harvest time to go home and help bring in the wheat. Of course, we can go home for Spring Festival too if we want. But we can't always take the same periods off each year. It wouldn't do for all the staff at the hotel to be on holiday at the same time, so we have to rotate … And you? Do you go home for Spring Festival? How long have you been working in Nanjing?'

Big Ma listened carefully as Three explained that her uncle had helped her find a job in the city, but that he himself worked in Zhuhai. The next time she would see him would be when they both returned home for Spring Festival. Three was so busy talking about her new life at the Happy Fool that they made a complete circuit of the Confucius Temple without her noticing. It was only when Big Ma said that he ought to get back to the hotel that she realised the time.

‘Do you often come to the Confucius Temple for deliveries?' she asked hopefully.

‘Sure,' said Big Ma with a smile, ‘I'm over here a lot. There's a well-known dry cleaner's in Red Guard Lane. Our hotel sends loads of stuff there. When you have the same day off as me, I'll take you out. You can tell me all about the art of arranging vegetables. Can you arrange flowers too? City people really like flower arrangements!' Big Ma began fishing out his keys as he walked towards a white minivan. As he started the engine he shouted to
Three through the window: ‘I'll take you for a spin out to the Sun Yatsen Mausoleum sometime. Bye!'

Three raised her hand in farewell as the van sped into the distance. It was a long time before she let it fall. Then she rushed back to the Happy Fool to ask Wang Tong where she could find books about flower arranging. If Big Ma thought she should know what flower arranging was, then she should. Any craft Big Ma was interested in, she would learn.

Big Ma and Three saw each other several times over the next few weeks. Their conversations were slightly awkward because Three was so shy, but if they stuck to the subject of flower arranging, everything went well. Big Ma would do his best to reply to Three's torrent of questions: ‘Who takes care of all the house plants and flower arrangements in your hotel? Can you make flower arrangements in winter? What are hothouse flowers like? Why do foreigners like dried flowers … Don't they realise that flowers are at their best with the dew still on them? If city people love flowers so much why do they separate them from their roots? Can a flower stuck in a vase be as pretty as a flower growing in a field? If you put different smelling flowers together, won't the scents all get muddled up? Why do you say flowers are like women?'

The two of them visited parks and botanical gardens to look at the flowers, and went to bookshops in search of flower-arranging manuals. But there was one place that Three longed to see, but to which Big Ma never took her: his hotel. She thought of asking him, but felt too embarrassed. After all, her mother said that unripe fruit was good to look at but not to eat: you had to wait until it was ripe for it to be truly delicious. Three thought she ought to wait for the day when Big Ma offered to take her to see his hotel.