Miss Chopsticks (5 page)

Poor Uncle Two stepped back in confusion. In his village, people called him a ‘weak seed', barely a man at all, and yet now in the city they were accusing him of being a ‘big man'.

Five summoned all the courage she possessed to answer their question.

‘I … I've never been away from home, not even to the other villages, because the fields and the market are only two
li
away from where I live. But, even though I haven't been to the city, I'm a very good worker …'

‘Well said,' approved the fat woman. ‘Now tell us, what'll you do if you miss home?'

‘Cry, I s'pose,' answered Five.

Three tugged at her. ‘What's the good of crying? Tell them you'll get used to it.'

‘I'll-get-used-to-it,' Five repeated mechanically.

Both women spluttered with laughter and exchanged a glance, apparently thoroughly satisfied with Five's honesty.

‘So, what wage are you looking for?' the thin woman asked.

‘I … don't know …'

Five looked beseechingly at Uncle Two, but now that the two women had taken him to task, he didn't dare raise his head to look at them. By this point, Three was getting anxious. She realised that she had forgotten to talk to her sisters about what salary to ask for, and she was terrified that Five would lose this opportunity. With all her advantages, Six would have no difficulty finding work, but Five, inferior in appearance, education and intelligence, was another matter. The two women appeared to be genuine (only big companies supplied uniforms like that), and Five couldn't afford to let this piece of good fortune pass her by.

‘Well, this is what we are offering,' said the thin lady. ‘You'll start on an unskilled worker's salary. Food and lodgings are included, as well as tips. How does that sound? Shall we go and sort out the contract now, or would you rather go and see what else is available?'

‘Will you give me two minutes to explain all this to my sister,' begged Three.

The two women glanced at their watches. ‘Don't worry,
we'll come back for you later. If your sister decides she wants to take the job, then don't leave.' They began to walk away.

‘OK, I'll take it!' said Five, spreading her arms to block the women's path. She guessed that they were going to look around to see if there was anyone else suitable, and if they found someone better, they wouldn't come back for her. Five had lost out to her sisters too many times to stand by and watch this job being taken away.

‘Are you sure? In that case, we'll ask the office to draw up a contract straightaway. They can make a copy for your friends here too, so that they know where to find you, and can help you find a representative if you have any complaints. We have over a hundred workers at our Dragon Water-Culture Centre. This is our registration number.'

The thin woman began opening a big folder.

‘You might also like to know,' added the thin woman, ‘that Mr Guan is our guarantor.'

Three's face lit up at this information. ‘That's wonderful. Mr Guan found me my job too. I've been working at his younger brother's restaurant for two years now, we were just waiting for him.'

At this moment, the group of people queuing by the office began calling out ‘Mr Guan is here!' Seeing the number of people who seemed to know who he was, Three kicked herself for thinking that she could use her acquaintance with him to jump the queue. Reluctantly she told Uncle Two to wait under the willow tree and pulled Six to the back of the long line of job-seekers. Five was led by the two white-coated women to the queue for registration, which only had three or four people in it. Three was prepared for a long wait, but as Guan Buyu passed by on his way to his office, he stopped at the place where Three stood and gave her a smile.

‘Is that Three? What are you doing here? Come into my
office. There's something I've been wanting to talk to you about.'

Filled with pride, Three dragged Six by the hand and followed Mr Guan through the crowd and into the lobby of his impressive office. The lobby had two desks, one for registering job-seekers and one for sorting out contracts, and Three expected Mr Guan to sit down at one of these. Instead he led her through to the inner office where there was a desk that seemed the size of a bed, and a high-backed chair that dwarfed even the tall Mr Guan Although the office was small, three of its walls were covered in books.

Three immediately noticed on the desk the gift that she had asked the Tofu Lady to pass on to Guan Buyu – a piece of brightly coloured brocade. Because she didn't understand silk, she had asked someone to buy it for her from the well-known old silk shop, Rui Fu Xiang, and it had cost her half a month's wages. Her mother often said that if you fail to repay a debt you know you owe, you will be paid back in bad luck!

Guan Buyu picked up the piece of brocade.

‘Three, my sister-in-law says you've been doing so brilliantly at the restaurant, you've become her right-hand woman. I'm delighted. This is exactly what this office is for: helping you girls from the countryside find your feet in the city. But I don't like to see you imitating city people's bad habits and spending money on presents. I know this brocade is no use to your family, so I won't return it. But take this money for your mother instead, and when you want to thank me in future, thank me by being a good person and doing good deeds, do you hear? Now then, tell me, is this a friend you've brought with you?'

‘This is my younger sister Six. Another sister, Five, came with us, but she's already in the queue for contracts with two women in white uniforms from some water place.'

‘Well, that's excellent. The Li family is clearly very lucky. I'll be interested to hear how Five gets on.'

Throughout this conversation, Six had been entranced by the fact that Mr Guan seemed to be able to twist around on his chair without moving his body. When he suddenly span round to face in the opposite direction, she gave a gasp of shock.

‘What's the matter?' he asked.

‘I'm sorry,' mumbled Six, embarrassed at having drawn attention to herself. ‘It's just that I … I've never seen anyone turning round while sitting down.'

Guan Buyu gave a loud bark of laughter and looked a little closer at the girl standing next to Three.

‘Tell me about yourself, Six. What is it that you dream of doing?'

Six did not hesitate. ‘To work in a library,' she blurted out. ‘My teacher said that cities have a place where you can look at books, touch books, be with books all the time. It would be so great if I could work in a place like that.' Six's eyes shone with her yearning for books.

‘Goodness,' said Guan Buyu in surprise. ‘You're the first person from the countryside to want work as a librarian! How odd that, when so few city people have ever thought of such a profession, I should find a country girl with an affinity for books.'

Mr Guan appeared to be muttering to himself and Six was worried that she had said the wrong thing, but suddenly he swung round on his chair and gave her a huge smile.

‘Six, I can't find you a library to work in right now, and besides that kind of job requires a very particular kind of training. However, I've got a friend who's about to open a very special teahouse where the customers will be able to borrow books to read while they drink their tea. If you're willing, I could propose you as a waitress. That way you will be working surrounded by books, and will perhaps get
a foot on a ladder that will help you find other work with books later on. What do you say?'

Six felt her cheeks turn red in excitement. ‘Really? Oh yes! I would love a job like that, Mr Guan!'

‘Then take this note to the contracts people and they will draw up an agreement for you to sign.'

Guan Buyu stood up and offered his hand to Six: ‘I'm very pleased to meet you, Six. Now, off you go with your sister and promise me you will do good work and read good books.'

In all Six's seventeen years she had never before shaken hands with a man, but she knew from her books that she ought to do so as naturally as she could. ‘Thank you,' she whispered. ‘I promise I will be a good person, read good books and do good deeds.'

It was with huge excitement that the three sisters burst out of the doors of the job centre to find their waiting uncle. Uncle Two, who had been squatting next to their pile of luggage, watching the spectacle of the market and the crowds of people chatting and haggling over prices, was completely taken aback by his nieces' good fortune. He had never dreamed Five and Six would have found jobs by lunchtime and he was delighted for them. But he was also anxious. It was time for him to go and catch his train, and the two girls had been told to wait until their new employers could come to collect them. Would they be safe? He wouldn't see them again until they all returned to the village for Spring Festival.

Three told him not to worry. Then she reached up to the big willow and broke off a twig. Carefully pinching off the new shoots, she drew out the core so that, in her hand, there remained only a tube of willow bark. She pulled off a piece of the outer bark at one end to reveal the softer layer of bark beneath. In this way she made a mouthpiece for a spring willow-whistle of the kind their mother had taught them to make when they were children. Putting the
willow-whistle to her lips, she gave a quick toot and passed it to Uncle Two.

‘If you ever miss us, blow this,' she said. She hoped it would bring her uncle the luck of the big willow.

Three didn't make it back to the Happy Fool restaurant until later in the afternoon. She had waited until Five had gone off with her new employers and then she had started to walk back to the restaurant, which was in the bustling area of Nanjing close to the Confucius Temple. Preparations for the evening meal were already well under way when she arrived and Three had no time to take her luggage to her lodgings two streets away. Instead she put on her uniform and got straight down to work, pausing only to greet her employers, Guan Buyan and his wife, Wang Tong, whose little business had become her second home.

The Guan brothers, Buyu and Buyan, had no history of involvement in business. In fact, to be more precise, they belonged to a family who had, like many Chinese, looked down their noses at business people for generations (believing the old saying ‘Only the crooked engage in trade') and had considered themselves to be intellectuals. Their elderly father had never worked outside an institute of higher education in his life. Even during the Cultural Revolution, when intellectuals were condemned as ‘passers-on of useless knowledge', he retained a post in the university – albeit cleaning the toilets. His wife suffered paroxysms of anxiety at the time about his refusal to bow down to the peasant leaders. He was young and
strong-willed, and he knew that, because the peasants were illiterate, he could use his cleverness to make a mockery of them behind their backs. Like everyone, he wrote the required Letter of Resolution, saying that he espoused the aims of the Cultural Revolution, and pasted it up on the wall of his workplace. However, his had a double meaning.

Because some Chinese characters are pronounced in the same way, the language offers many opportunities for puns. For example, the sound of Five's name, Wu'mei, means either the number ‘five',
, or the adjective ‘charming'
. Old Guan made clever use of this possibility for misunderstanding when he wrote his Letter of Resolution. If you were listening to someone reading it out, and couldn't see the characters, it could mean this:

I resolve every day to clean away shit, to brush the white-tiled floor and not to forget the teachings of our peasant leaders
.

But if you were looking at the characters, you could also take it to mean the following:

Every day I must clean away History, get rid of the professional class and follow the dirty feet of our peasant leaders.

The peasant who had been put in charge of the university couldn't read, of course. When he saw that people were laughing at Old Guan's Letter of Resolution, he was perturbed and asked for it to be read out to him. Fortunately, he couldn't hear anything amiss because he had no concept of what a pun was. Old Guan was safe, and was saved the punishment of being sent to poverty-stricken North Jiangsu to plant sweet potatoes. However, his wife was so traumatised by the experience that, by way
of a warning to their first-born son, she changed his name from Yu (meaning ‘Speak') to Buyu (‘Don't speak'), and when she became pregnant with their second son, she decided he would be called Buyan (‘Be silent'). Sadly, she lost so much blood during childbirth that she died before she had a chance to name him herself.