Chilli Bean Paste Clan (9781911221111), page 19
‘I haven’t said a word about a blind date, because if I did he definitely wouldn’t come. OK?’ he added.
Zhong just said: ‘OK! No problem!’ After all these years, they knew each other inside out. Well, that was that done. Dad had fixed it for Zhong and got his brother to agree to come out to dinner. Relieved, he put the pen back in its pot and had another sip of tea.
The two West Street youths that everyone knew in the old days were Stutterer Qin and Withered Hand Duan. There was a story about Stutterer Qin: he once turned up at the food market’s knife-shaved noodles stall at crack of dawn. ‘You want a bowl of noodles?’ asked bar owner. ‘Yes ... yes ... yes ...’ stuttered Qin. The man threw a handful of noodles into the wok with a great sizzling. And Qin finally finished his sentence: ‘Yes, but not right now.’ The story they told about Withered Hand Duan (Zhiming) was that he went to the cinema one day and saw a very pretty girl sitting next to him. He moved close and let his very small hand rove all over her. The girl got annoyed and grabbed the hand and started to say: ‘Why’s no one looking after you, little boy ... Ai-ya! But you’re a grown man!’
Those two stories may have been urban myths but anyone who had grown up on West Street had heard them a thousand times and, every time they were bored, they brought the stories out one more time. And when it got to the punch line, they would chorus: ‘Not till this afternoon!’ or ‘You’re a grown man!’ They were a harmless bunch, the Pingle Town folk, with their corny jokes, wheeled out year after year.
Dad used to get angry. No one dared tell the Withered Hand Duan story to his face. That was asking for a thumping. Then Uncle went to university, and did not come back for a couple of months, then half a year, then two years went by without anyone seeing him. And Dad stopped caring. If anyone happened to wheel out the old joke yet again, he would laugh along as well. Just for friendship’s sake.
Dad felt there was no harm in the old joke, as he arrived at the Leaping Fish, and sat down in side-room number five next to Zhong, and opposite the willow-eyebrowed Ms Wang Yandan. Uncle had not arrived yet and Yandan was chatting about this and that, and then she asked: ‘Shengqiang, I hope you won’t think me nosy, but is it true that your brother has a problem with his hand?
This was the crunch, Dad could not avoid the question, and, anyway, he reckoned that if she was to be his brother’s girlfriend, she ought to know. So he not only admitted it, he turned it into a joke by telling her the old story about that roving little hand. ‘Even though my brother has one hand that’s on the small side, there’s nothing he can’t do with it,’ he finished.
Wang Yandan cracked up laughing and seemed reassured. She sipped her Sichuan ‘red-and-white’ tea and said: ‘Shengqiang, you’re too funny. Was Professor Duan really such a magnet for the girls when he was young?
‘Ai-ya! He certainly was. My brother was a handsome young man. Aren’t all boys a magnet for the girls?’ Dad looked at Yandan’s complexion, which had a sheen like lustrous satin. I suppose if you have your own beauty salon, you can really look after your face, he thought.
Yandan gave a tinkling laugh but refused to lob the ball back. ‘Now you’re joking, Shengqiang, it may have been like that in Pingle Town but those of us who grew up in the paper mill compound led very sheltered lives. We’d run a mile from boys like that!’
‘Of course you would, Yandan,’ said Zhong, with a brotherly air. ‘I remember you used to have a little, thread-like voice and anything could make you cry! But you’re fine now, you’re a big girl, you can handle it!’
‘You flatterer!’ Yandan reproved him gently. ‘I’m in my thirties and an old maid. And why are you calling me ‘big’?’ At the mention of ‘big’, Dad unconsciously found his eyes drawn to her breasts. He rapidly assessed them. She’s big, he decided.
Uncle had still not arrived but the conversation in the room showed no signs of flagging. Dad took his own pulse on the matter, and felt that it might well work with his brother and this woman. As Zhong had said, she was good-looking, open and pleasant in manner, and quite intelligent, and already well-disposed to Uncle. I can’t believe Duan Zhiming will turn her down, he concluded.
At that moment, his mobile phone rang. It was Uncle. He’d just parked up and was walking into the restaurant. ‘Which room?’ he asked Dad.
‘I’ll come and meet you!’ Dad said hastily and got his feet. He shot Zhong a look and went out.
Afterwards, Dad summed up what followed: ‘I’ve met some boorish men in my life, but I can honestly say I’ve never seen one quite as boorish as Zhiming! Never!’ And just to under-score his point, he added: ‘So fucking boorish!’
Be that as it may, Uncle cut an elegant figure as he strode in, dressed in a pinstriped blue-grey shirt and beige trousers. It would be hard to find anyone to beat his looks and style. When he saw Dad, he waved his right hand and trotted over.
‘I’m sorry, Shengqiang, I’m so sorry to be late,’ he said apologetically.
Uncle was heading for their side-room when Dad stopped him. ‘Hang on a minute, Zhiming, there’s something I need to tell you.’
Uncle stood stock-still and looked at Dad, a worried expression on his face. ‘What’s up with you now, Shengqiang?’ he asked.
Don’t you sodding blame it on me! It’s damn all to do with me! Dad thought sourly.
All the same, he had to give his brother some sort of an explanation: it was Zhong, or rather his mother, she was so warm-hearted, and Wang Yandan was a remarkable woman, and he (Dad) just hadn’t been able to get out of it…. ‘Anyway, you just go in and have a meal. We can all get to know each other, and make friends!’ he finished.
Dad thought he was being utterly reasonable and persuasive. He had brought the horse to water, how could it possibly not want to drink? To his astonishment, Uncle’s face darkened with anger: ‘Shengqiang, that’s very wrong of you! You should never have done something as important as this without discussing it with me! It’s not appropriate, not at all appropriate! I don’t think I should stay!’
And he really did turn to leave, until Dad stopped him. The pair of them stood deadlocked, in the doorway of the Leaping Fish, blocking some ugly-looking brutes of customers from getting in or out. ‘Zhiming, stay!’ said Dad desperately. ‘Don’t show me up! Come in, please! We can’t stand here manhandling each other!’
‘Stop pulling me!’ said Uncle obdurately. ‘I really want to leave. This is not on!’
Dad was almost weeping from chagrin. He felt like shouting: You weren’t so backwards at coming forwards back then with Baby Girl. Aren’t you a man anymore?!
With difficulty, he held his tongue and just at that very moment, Zhong burst from the side-room like a genie from the bottle. ‘Ah, you’re here, Zhiming, come in, come in, what are you doing standing in the doorway?’
Flanked on either side by Dad and Zhong, Uncle had no escape. Besides, he did not want to make a scene in front of an outsider. So he went inside.
It’s going to be OK now, Dad thought. After all, even Duan Zhiming had to be be won over by the delicately pretty Ms Wang. At least, they could have a friendly dinner, even if it did not last longer than that. It was all going to be OK. It would work out.
But it damned well didn’t work out, he reflected viciously later.
Uncle took a chair, and the Wang woman’s eyes lit up. Duan Zhiming really was very handsome and refined. She greeted him sweetly as ‘Professor Duan’ and went to pour him a cup of red-and-white tea with her lily-white hands.
But Uncle said brusquely: ‘I’ll serve myself!’, grabbed the teapot off her, filled his cup and tipped it down his throat. He looked as if he was a condemned prisoner eating his last meal.
It must have dawned on Yandan that Uncle felt he was here under duress. Luckily, she was a well-bred young woman, and just smiled and sat down. Turning to Zhong, she said: ‘Shall we order some food?’
Surely filling their bellies would lighten the atmosphere. There was a steaming, simmering hotpot of ribs, white fish head, chilli peppers and green Sichuan pepper, to which they gradually added pieces of swamp eel, brains and meatballs, potato and shitake mushrooms, and slices of bamboo shoot. Things got a bit more lively, and everyone found something to chat about.
Dad had to take his hat off to Zhong, who leapt from one topic to another with such acrobatic skill that their table threatened to levitate and spin in the air. He started by talking about Uncle, what a loyal band of bros he’d gathered around him back then. Even he, Zhong, had been drawn into the band, although he was a good bit older. Of course, everyone knew Zhiming had topped the league tables at his university entrance exams, there was no need to go over that again. And now he was a professor in mathematics at Yong’An City University. Yes, mathematics! He certainly had a high IQ, that man! He was often on TV as well, wasn’t that right? His career had really taken off! It couldn’t have been easy for him, but he had thrown himself into his work! And then there was Wang Yandan. She had been the true star of the paper mill school, one of the highest-scoring pupils in her class. She had all the young men in the school at her feet, but she was having nothing to do with them. She was a dutiful daughter, and when she was twenty and her father got cirrhosis of the liver and spent all his money on treatment, she went out to work instead of finishing vocational college. She worked so hard and now look at her, only in her thirties, with her own large beauty salon, two apartments, and a car of her own, and still pretty, and of unblemished character. A magnificent achievement
Zhong spoke in such glowing terms that Yandan kept exclaiming charmingly: ‘Oh please, Zhong, don’t exaggerate! Professor Duan will think I’m ridiculous! There’s nothing to say about me!’ And Dad gulped down a whole bottle of beer and began to wonder if Zhong was planning to divorce his own wife and marry Yandan. Uncle, however, listened carefully, then smiled and put in: ‘Quite an achievement indeed, Yandan. All those years of hard work!’
They all imagined that this comment was finally a sign that Uncle was getting interested. ‘Not a bit of it,’ said Yandan. ‘Don’t listen to Zhong. I just got on with running my business.’
‘So your beauty salon, it must be quite a big business by now,’ Uncle probed pleasantly, as if trying to draw one of his students into conversation.
Leave it out, Duan Zhiming! She’s a lovely girl, why are you interrogating her? You planning to marry and move in with her? What kind of seduction of technique is this? Dad wondered, suddenly anxious.
But he said nothing and Uncle carried on relentlessly: ‘So your salon is on two floors, right? With thirty or so employees? You must be turning over more than a million. Then there’s your two apartments, I think Zhong said. What’s the location? Hmm, not a bad area. At today’s town prices, they must be worth a million and a half, I’d say. Plus your car, what make is it? That’s a good one, wouldn’t go for less than half a million. Have you got any stock market investments? You’ve never played the stock market? You’re quite right, of course.’
Unsurprisingly, Yandan was bewildered. She looked appealingly at Zhong for help as she answered Uncle’s questions. Zhong was in a predicament. He had praised Yandan to the skies, and he could not take it back now. He wondered what devious tricks Uncle was up to. Surely this was not the way that university academics got off with women? No wonder Uncle had been single for so long.
Dad, on the other hand, swore silently and just wanted to bury his face in his bowl of hotpot.
‘So, Yandan,’ Uncle wound up, straightened up, ladled some pearly white fish soup into a bowl, sprinkled on some chopped spring onion, dipped his spoon in and gave it few stirs, then said reasonably: ‘I’m sorry to be so inquisitive at our first meeting, but we’re not children any longer, and we have come here in all sincerity to get to know each and make friends, so let’s not beat about the bush. Honesty is the best policy.’
‘You’re quite right, Professor,’ said Yandan, ‘We really should get to each other better. Ask whatever you want.’
‘I do have one more question,’ said Uncle, raising a spoonful of soup to his mouth, blowing on it then drinking it. ‘It might be a rude question, but I’m an intellectual, so perhaps I’m nitpicking, but now I’ve thought of it, I’d like to know the answer, I hope you won’t take offense.’
‘Ai-ya, Zhiming! You’ve just said it’s a rude question, so don’t ask it!’ Dad finally managed to get out.
‘It doesn’t matter, honestly,’ said Yandan. ‘Ask away, Professor. Feel free.’
So then Uncle put the bowl down, put his spoon down too, and placed both hands neatly on the table in front of him. ‘This is what I want to ask you, Yandan, you were born and raised in the paper mill, never finished vocational college, and started work in a hairdresser. You don’t play the stock markets in any shape or form, and you haven’t won any big awards. So I wonder how, as a woman in your thirties, you’ve managed to do so well. You’ve clearly got ability but I can’t make the sums add up. I’m curious about where your money came from? I find it hard to believe that your salon has earned you so much.’
Dad swears that he went scarlet to the ears when he heard these words.
There was total silence in the room, broken only by the cheerful bubbling of the fish head in its pot.
Yandan’s eyes reddened but, with an effort, she finally managed to hold back the tears. She put her chopsticks down, and took a deep breath. Dad looked at her, and wished heartily that he could disown his eccentric brother. Son-of-a-bitch, Duan Zhiming! You’ve got a nerve!
‘I can tell, Professor Duan, that your motives when you came to this meal were far from sincere. I had no idea you were like this, in fact I didn’t give it much thought. I just thought we could be friends. Obviously you feel differently, so I will go,’ Wang Yandan said, in a voice that quavered slightly. And without further ado, she got to her feet, picked up her bag, and left.
‘Yandan! Yandan!’ Zhong shouted, then went after her. Then, honest soul that he was, he could not help looking back and delivering a parting shot: ‘Zhiming, you may be a top professor and think she’s not worthy of you, but there was no need to be so rude!’
With Wang Yandan and Zhong gone, Dad was left in the side-room with Uncle. He said he had his fists clenched rock-hard on his equally hard knees.
Thinking back on that evening, Dad realized this had only happened to him a couple of times in his life. Once when Gran left him in the fermentation yard to stir the chilli bean paste for the first time. Another time when he discovered that Mum had cuckolded him, and again at the meal in Cornucopia Court, the day they buried Granddad. And today.
Every time it happened, Dad asked himself: What am I supposed to do? What the fuck am I supposed to do? Well, he could simply clench his fists, send the table rocking backwards and fling out of the room, leaving someone else to deal with the mess. Or sit it out, and take things as they came, listen and watch, watch the weird antics that these weirdos got up to. In other words, grin and bear it, though of course Dad would refuse to put it like that.
Dad swears that at that moment, he really was halfway to his feet, one fist raised in the air, about to smash Uncle’s face into the table, to hell with all the crockery, and shout: Are you sick in the head, Duan Zhiming? If you really want to undermine me, why go about it this way?’
He looked at Uncle. He was impeccably dressed and his steel watch glinted on his left wrist, but when he lowered his head, there were flabby wrinkles beginning to form on the back his neck. And with a great effort, he swallowed the words back, took a gulp of cold beer and said: ‘Zhiming, it’s not just me telling you this, you really went too far today. She’s just a young woman, why did you have to drag her through the mud like that?’
Uncle said nothing. He picked up his own beer and drank a mouthful. And sighed.
Dad heard the sadness in that sigh and his heart flipped. ‘Zhiming,’ he burst out, ‘You’ve been in the academic world all these years, and we know you’ve set your sights high, and you’re determined to do things your own way, but you have to understand that Mother, Sis and I can’t help worrying about you. You really ought to settle down, get yourself a wife and start a family.’
Uncle opened his mouth, then shut it again, then opened it, shut it, and finally opened it again: ‘Shengqiang, it’s not that simple. You’re the baby of the family, and you’re intelligent and capable, you’ve stuck by Mother all your life, she adores you, she’s always there for you, she’s always looked after you through thick and thin. It’s different for me. I was only a teenager when they kicked me out, I had to look after myself. You have no idea what a terrible mess I’m in, you really haven’t. Don’t you think I’d like nothing more than a wife and a family?’
Dad’s immediate reaction was, You do come out with some bizarre things! He wanted to laugh, but it stuck in his throat, he wanted to get angry, but it all seemed too absurd. Finally, he poured himself another beer and downed half a glass. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Zhiming!’ he protested. ‘You reckon I’ve never had it hard? You went off to university leaving your kid brother behind, stirring the bean paste in the fermentation yard day after day, washing out the vats, getting beatings, is that what you call Mother looking after me?’
It was Mum, as an outsider, who understood the relationship between Dad and Uncle best. ‘You see,’ she told me, ‘they complement each other. Your Dad jumps into everything feet first, without giving it a second thought, and your Uncle, he thinks so much, his head’s a labyrinth an ant couldn’t find its way out of. They make such a ridiculous drama out of things. All these years, and they’ve never stopped squabbling!’
Dad had to admit that Mum was quite right. ‘I’ve spent all these years being angry with Zhiming—whatever for?’ he said.
It all started in 1983. Before that, they’d been good friends, both cool dudes, hanging out together, even taking it in turns with Baby Girl. Then, in the blink of an eye, his elder brother was off to Yong’An City University to study, bedding roll on his back, thermos in his hand. And he, the kid brother, was left to moulder away, shifting chilli bean paste around the warehouse, getting hit over the head by old Chen for the slightest mistake. What the hell, he thought, maybe I brought it on myself, I wasn’t as good as Zhiming so I didn’t get into university. I was only good for factory work and getting beaten.
