End of East, The (3 page)
Authors: Jen Sookfong Lee
Mr. Yip pushes Seid Quan in the back until he stands up uncertainly and wavers slightly in place.
“C’mon, fella. Up the stairs, second door on the left. Enjoy.” The fat woman laughs wickedly and waddles back to her desk by the front door.
He goes up the stairs slowly, one foot in front of the other.
The plush carpet silences his approach, and the sweat on his hands leaves the banisters sticky and wet.
The plush carpet silences his approach, and the sweat on his hands leaves the banisters sticky and wet.
He stands in front of the door and breathes deeply. He knocks.
“Come on in!”
He opens the door—slowly, creakily—and pokes his head through the small crack.
On the enormous bed sits a woman. She wears a black satin robe and high-heeled slippers, her toes glinting red in the yellow light. Her hair is an impossible brassy orange colour, and her eyes are long, serpentine and lined in kohl. She pats the spot on the bed beside her.
“Have a seat, lovey.”
He sits on her bed, his hands steadying his body on the satin spread. She talks rapidly, giggling about her job and the other girls and what she tells her parents she is doing out west in her letters home. He listens carefully, trying to understand as much as he can.
“They’re such
nice
people,” she trills. “Dad practically kills himself working in that mine like he does, and Mum, she just raises her chickens and takes in washing, kind of like you people. So I tell them I work at the telegraph office, copying messages down and things like that. Mum would die if she thought I did
this.”
She drapes her arm around his waist and whispers, “What are you gonna tell your family?”
nice
people,” she trills. “Dad practically kills himself working in that mine like he does, and Mum, she just raises her chickens and takes in washing, kind of like you people. So I tell them I work at the telegraph office, copying messages down and things like that. Mum would die if she thought I did
this.”
She drapes her arm around his waist and whispers, “What are you gonna tell your family?”
“Nothing,” he mutters.
“Gosh, your English is pretty good compared to some of the others I see around here. I tell you, if I had ten dollars for every mute Chinaman I had to keep company with, I’d be a rich woman and not doing this anymore.”
He looks at her face covered in white powder, smells her
perfume of lilies and musk. He closes his eyes and tries not to think about who else has been on this bed, inside this whore.
perfume of lilies and musk. He closes his eyes and tries not to think about who else has been on this bed, inside this whore.
It is as if he is sitting on his marriage bed, and he sees the red-veiled face of his future bride looking down at her shoes. He can smell her freshly washed skin—lye and rosewater—and hear her breath. He imagines her hair, how it might feel, how blackly it might shine in the light. In his mind he reaches for her hand.
The whore giggles and thrusts her tongue in his ear.
Seid Quan’s long arms and legs have become tangled in the slippery sheets, in the long, dry clumps of her hair. He can smell sweat (his or hers or that of the man who was here before, he does not know, and does not want to find out), the heady odour of what he thinks must be gin. Her bony chest and ribs are pressed up against him, her white, white skin stretching so much he is sure it will be torn in two, revealing her bird-like skeleton, her blackened and diseased lungs. He places his hand over her face and lets out one high-pitched, razor-sharp cry.
“My God,” she whispers. “I thought you were going to snap my neck.”
The quiet of dawn helps Seid Quan forget the scratchiness in his throat, the fuzzy coating on the inside of his mouth. As he walks up the stairs of his rooming house, he rubs the back of his aching head. He wonders how badly he smells of whisky.
“I’ve been looking for you.”
Seid Quan jumps at the sound of an unexpected voice. He shoves his room key back into his pocket before he turns around. Leaning up against the window at the end of the hall is a young man, dressed stylishly in pleated trousers and suspenders. As Seid Quan squints in the early morning light, he
notices that the man’s hems trail loose threads on the floor and the knees are worn shiny and thin.
notices that the man’s hems trail loose threads on the floor and the knees are worn shiny and thin.
“Lim? Is that you?”
The young man walks over to Seid Quan, his arm outstretched. “It’s me, all right. Come and shake the hand of an old friend.”
“Is this your room, then?” Lim asks after Seid Quan has opened the door and offered him his only chair.
“Yes. It’s not much, but it’s dry and cheap.” Seid Quan smiles. “I should take you out to the café for some coffee and a doughnut, but first you must tell me how everyone is doing in the village. Have you seen my mother?”
Lim nods. “Yes. She wants you to know that she’s looking for a wife for you.” Lim laughs loudly. “I don’t know how you could manage a woman, old friend, when you can’t even say boo to a cat.”
Seid Quan blushes. “And how are all the others? Kam? How about Hon?”
“Kam went to Hong Kong, started working in a restaurant. Wants to find a lady to marry.” Lim snorts. “Hon, he went to America, lives in California. Doing laundry.” He brushes a piece of lint off his pants.
“All our friends gone,” mutters Seid Quan.
“Are you still cleaning shops?”
Seid Quan nods.
“Degrading jobs, all of them. I’m not going to stoop, though. If anyone is going to suck everything out of this country, it’s going to be me.”
Seid Quan raises his eyebrows. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to be the richest Chinaman in Canada, you wait and see.”
“How are you going to do that?”
“I’ll figure something out. I always do.” He grins widely, showing all his long teeth.
Seid Quan sighs. “You should go to the church, like I do, and start taking the English lessons. I can read some now, and I’m working on writing next.”
Lim laughs loudly. “I didn’t come all this way to go to school.” He stands up, adjusts his suspenders. “How about that coffee? Your treat.” He saunters out the door and down the hall, not even looking to see if Seid Quan is keeping up.
Mr. Lam watches Seid Quan as he mops the floor and manoeuvres around the empty barber chairs. Outside, the light is fading. The fish peddler dumps his cart of melted ice onto the street, leaving behind a slick, fishy puddle.
“How long did you stay at the gambling den last night, little brother?”
Seid Quan grins. “Just until nine. I don’t have much money to gamble.”
He nods. “No, I suppose not. You know how to save your money, don’t you?”
“Don’t we all? I don’t think anyone really has much of a choice.”
“No, this is true. How long have you been here now?”
Seid Quan looks up. “About a year.”
“How is your family? Your mother?”
“She’s doing well. Always busy, you know. My sisters keep her on her toes.”
Mr. Lam laughs. “Yes, I bet. Have you been looking for steadier work?”
Seid Quan shrugs. “I suppose. But finding good work is
harder than it sounds.” He looks down at the wet floor and the scuff marks on his shoes.
harder than it sounds.” He looks down at the wet floor and the scuff marks on his shoes.
Lim had come to him three weeks ago, early in the morning, dried blood like a snake down the side of his head. He had lain on Seid Quan’s bed, wheezing. It was only after he had slept for an hour that he had said anything.
“I went to the sawmill to look for work, and the boss, he said I could start the next day, but only at Chinaman wages. When I left, some of the white men working there followed me and asked if I needed a ride.” He stopped and covered his face with his hands.
“What did they do to you? Tell me.”
Lim swallowed hard. “I tried to get away, but they pushed me into the foreman’s truck and drove me out of town. They said if I ever came back, they would beat me even worse. Then they left me out in a bog, and I think I passed out.”
“Where were you?”
“I don’t even know. I woke up and just started to walk toward the mountains on the side of a road. Seid Quan, I walked for six hours.”
Seid Quan drops the mop head into the bucket and bends down to wring it out.
“How about coming to work for me?” asks Mr. Lam.
Seid Quan stands back up. “Here? In the shop?”
“Sure. You have steady hands. I’ll train you to cut hair and shave.”
“Really? But can you afford to pay me?”
Mr. Lam stands up, runs his hands over his pants. “You shouldn’t worry about that. I want to retire one day, go back to China and see my wife again. I would like someone I trust to buy the shop, run it like it should be run. In a few years,
maybe that will be you. But only if you think it’s a good idea. So, yes or no?”
maybe that will be you. But only if you think it’s a good idea. So, yes or no?”
“Yes, of course.” Seid Quan reaches out and grabs the barber’s hand. “Thank you.”
Mr. Lam reaches into a cabinet and pulls out a bottle of whisky. “You’re too serious, Seid Quan. This will lighten you up.
Later that night, sitting on his single bed in the rooming house, Seid Quan sips at one more glass of whisky from the bottle he keeps hidden in one of his boots.
My own shop
, he thinks.
That’s more than I ever thought
. He imagines his mother’s face as she opens the letter announcing the news, her voice as she shouts to his sisters, the speed with which the gossip will travel through the village.
My own shop
, he thinks.
That’s more than I ever thought
. He imagines his mother’s face as she opens the letter announcing the news, her voice as she shouts to his sisters, the speed with which the gossip will travel through the village.
The village.
He rests his face on his sharp knees.
How will I ever pay back the village?
He calculates how much money he will be able to save working as a barber and how much he will need to buy the shop. He shakes his head.
I will have to keep on cleaning at night as well, for as long as it takes.
He rests his face on his sharp knees.
How will I ever pay back the village?
He calculates how much money he will be able to save working as a barber and how much he will need to buy the shop. He shakes his head.
I will have to keep on cleaning at night as well, for as long as it takes.
He turns to his small desk and the long scrolls, brushes and inks he keeps on its surface. He walks to it, leans over his calligraphy and squints. He thinks of the hours he spent as a boy on the floor of his mother’s kitchen, crouched over old newspapers. He drew character after character with a dull pencil, imitating the grand strokes of the calligraphist he once saw in Guangzhou on a trip with his mother.
His mother, sighing, would always say, “If only your father were alive, then maybe we could afford a tutor.”
Now, he stares at his own, self-taught work. The mistakes are obvious. Seid Quan rubs at the foot of one character until the paper’s top layer comes away in small brown and black pills.
Smudged
, he thinks.
Of course
.
, he thinks.
Of course
.
He bundles up his papers and places them in an empty apple crate. He pushes it under his bed with his foot; clouds of dust puff up on the opposite side. Sighing, he reaches into his closet for a small broom.
“I am still a cleaner, after all,” he says to himself. When he turns back to his desk, he pulls out his English exercise book from the drawer and places it on the surface, so he won’t forget.
After three years in Canada, Seid Quan must return to China to marry. His mother has chosen his wife, and he has to consummate the marriage and impregnate the girl, all in the six weeks before he returns to Canada. His mother, in the letters she dictated to the local scribe, never asked what kind of girl he wanted and never mentioned whether the girl she eventually settled on was pretty. Seid Quan was afraid to ask. He reasoned that, since he hadn’t seen a Chinese girl in two years, anyone would look pretty to him.
The night before he leaves, Lim takes him to the Bamboo Terrace for dinner. He orders shot after shot of whisky and tells Seid Quan grandly that he can order anything he likes because money is no object.
“Where is all this money from, brother?”
Lim places his hand on the pocket of his jacket. “None of your business. I told you I’d make it. I’m going to buy a car before the year is out.”
“But how? The last time I saw you, you were driving the Canada Produce truck.”
Lim drums his fingers on the red tablecloth. “You don’t need to know, Seid Quan. Just eat your dinner and drink your whisky. It’s all taken care of.” Lim pats Seid Quan on the shoulder and grins.
Four weeks later, Seid Quan is back in the village. Everything looks just as it did when he left it: dusty roads, children everywhere, squat little houses filled with noise, the voices of women. He walks past the houses and waves at the people inside. Everyone asks him about Canada. They all want to know if it is as wonderful as it seems, if it is true that no one goes hungry because there are jobs for everyone, if the trees are so tall they are like mountains, if the mountains are so tall you can’t see the peaks, if people are happier there.
Seid Quan only says, “As long as I can send money home, that’s enough for me.”
The villagers are amazed by his humility and say that he is remarkably down-to-earth, even with all his success.
The night before the wedding, he realizes that the only men left in the village are old men. Seid Quan brings out a bottle of Canadian whisky; he had meant to have a party with all the young men left in the village, but instead, he finds himself sitting around his mother’s kitchen table with his great-uncle and all his friends, men with no teeth and stooped shoulders. His great-uncle says to him, “I’d go to Canada or America or even Hong Kong myself if it weren’t for my bad hip. I suppose I’m forty years too late now.”
It doesn’t take much to get them drunk, and by nine o’clock, everyone but his great-uncle has fallen asleep at the table, their heads cradled on brown, bony arms.
“So, young man, how do you feel about getting married tomorrow?”
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