The Scavenger's Daughters (Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters, Book One) (15 page)

A
t the parking lot of the government building Benfu hopped off his bike and wheeled it into a gap in the row of others. He really didn’t want to be there and debated turning around and leaving. Then he thought of his girls and, taking a deep breath, pushed back his reservations and climbed the steep concrete stairs.

Unlike the unkempt parking lot, the inside of the building was pristine. Benfu passed an elderly woman using an old rag mop to swipe wide arcs of soapy water back and forth across the hall. He did his best to walk close to the wall and keep out of her path, but she still muttered her irritation as he went by. He was relieved to turn down the next hall and be rid of the slippery feeling under his feet.

There his shoes echoed eerily and he shook his head at the extravagance around him. He thought it ironic that he was coming to ask for assistance to give his girls a decent holiday while the offices looked like a palace with their marble floors and artistic pieces of calligraphy art hung on the wall. He passed several closed doors until he came to one marked
CITY WELFARE OFFICE
.

He hoped they were still open. It was right before the New Year celebrations and most offices were being manned by only a skeleton crew while the rest of the employees left for their extended vacations. He hoped he hadn’t waited too late to come.

At the door he hesitated, then turned the handle and walked in. Benfu looked around to find the clerk sitting behind a large metal desk, instructing a couple in front of her on which sections of a form to complete. Benfu took a seat to wait until they finished.

“State your intent on this line,” she told them, pointing to a bold black line on the piece of paper.

“Intent?” the middle-aged man asked. He squinted at the woman, his eyebrows coming together in one straight line.

“Yes, intent. Why do you want to do this?”

“I already told you we want to earn some extra money to help pay our son’s university tuition. Our neighbor said we could be foster parents.”

“Then write that,” the woman sharply answered. “Finish all the other boxes and bring it back to me with both of your city resident permits.”

She waved her hand toward the seats around Benfu and the couple got up and joined him. The man handed the clipboard to the woman with him and told her to finish it. Benfu thought he looked more than irritated and that didn’t bode well for him. He wasn’t surprised, as he hadn’t been to the welfare office in over a year but remembered nothing ever went easy there.

“Next,” the clerk announced, not looking up from her paperwork. She picked up the red-handled chop from the pad at the corner of her desk and gave several hearty stamps to a sheaf of papers in her hand.

Benfu looked around to be sure no one was ahead of him, but it was still just the three of them, so he got up and approached her desk. He sat down in one of the chairs and waited for her to look up.

“Can I help you?” she asked, eyes still on her papers and her lips a tight, white line across her face.

Speaking quietly, Benfu leaned closer to the desk. He could feel his face heating up and hoped the couple couldn’t hear him. “Uh, yes. I’m already a foster father, but I’m here to ask for some help with our family festivities this year.”

The woman finally looked up. “There are boxes of oranges in the closet. You’re entitled to one box. Do you have your resident permit with you?” She
tapped her red lacquered nails on her desktop. Benfu thought she must have had a few of the oranges herself and they must be on the sour side, judging from the lines around her puckered lips.

Benfu pulled his
hukou
out of his pocket and put it on the desk. The clerk flipped it open and looked at it, then quickly shut it again and jotted his name down on a yellow piece of paper in front of her.

“
Xie xie,
I appreciate the oranges but I need more than that. I have seven girls at home right now and they need clothes, shoes and we need supplies for our festival dinner. I’ve been fostering for years and have never asked for help before. Can you make an exception this once?” Benfu asked.

With that long speech he fell into another fit of coughing, one of many that day. He was so ashamed that he’d had to come and he wished there were another way. He’d just felt so terrible lately that he hadn’t been able to make as many treks around the town to search for goods and his income had dropped dramatically.

The woman took a pencil from her canister and used it to scratch rapidly at her scalp, sticking it in the middle of her tight bun of hair. Benfu could see she was losing patience, but so was he, darn it. Behind him the door opened and another couple stepped through, this time with a small toddler trailing behind them. The clerk heaved a sigh of exasperation.

“The office closes in thirty minutes,” she said over Benfu’s head. The couple nodded and took a seat anyway. The toddler wailed and the quiet room turned into a tense prison.

“Now, back to you. Let’s get you finished up. Did you already receive your monthly stipend for the foster children approved by the state?”

Benfu nodded. “I did receive it, but we only get stipends for a few of the children and like I said, I have seven at home. The allowance is barely enough to keep a roof over their heads. I need a loan, an extension, or something. Don’t you have some sort of assistance program?”

The clerk shook her head. “Lao Zheng. I don’t know who told you that we are in the business of loaning money but they told you wrong. You chose
to foster the children and you know the rules. We don’t give special treatment to anyone. Now, I’ve got other customers waiting, if you don’t mind.”

“But I think I should get stipends for all the children in my care. If not for me, they’d be put back in the welfare system and you’d have to find a home for them anyway. The system is flawed.” Benfu hated that he sounded like he was begging, but she was his last resort, even if she wasn’t any older than the pair of rugged boots he wore.

“What you are talking about has nothing to do with me and my position. You will need to come back after the festival when the other personnel are here.”

With that she shut him down and Benfu got up. He grabbed his
hukou
and put it back in his pocket. With his face flaming, he made his way past the two couples and to the door. He didn’t look at them and hoped no one would speak to him. He’d never be back here again—they could count on that. The government officials hadn’t changed in all the decades since the Cultural Revolution; they still held all the power. It was a sham and Benfu despised himself for even asking for their help.

He was almost out when he remembered the oranges. He really didn’t want to take anything from them if he couldn’t get financial assistance, but he knew the girls would love to have the fruit. Backtracking, he looked around and saw the closet she had nodded toward and went to it. He opened the door and removed the top crate of oranges. Without making eye contact with anyone, he made his way out of the building and down the stairs.

Outside a beggar followed him, swinging his cup at him asking for money. Benfu was so upset he felt like slapping the cup out of the man’s hands, but then he stopped in his tracks. He was ashamed of himself. He wouldn’t let
them
change who he was! Carefully balancing the crate on one arm, he dug a yuan out of his pocket and dropped it in the man’s cup, then patted him on the shoulder. He held the crate out and invited the man to take a few. At least he had a warm home and a family to return to for comfort. The beggar probably had neither.

At the sight of the silver coin the beggar chuckled and nodded his thanks. He grabbed four oranges and practically danced on down the sidewalk. Benfu smiled briefly. He knew one yuan would buy several meals of steamed rice and that thought made him feel a bit better about his initial reaction to the man.

At his bicycle he sat down and waited until his heartbeat slowed. He could feel his blood pressure pounding in his ears and the nausea roll in his stomach. Now what were they going to do for the festival? He’d let his family down and he felt like a failure.

He stood. It was time to be a man and go home to tell the girls.

He backed the bike up, then set out for home. He thought perhaps if he rode slow enough and thought hard enough, some sort of idea would come to him on the long way back. Or more accurately, he
hoped
an idea would fall out of the sky. But at this point, he was all out of ideas.

B
enfu sat in Calli’s chair and watched the flurry of activity around the kitchen. It was a bittersweet day for him—on one hand he was pleased that his daughter had proved to be so responsible and was growing up. However, if he was to be honest, his pride was bruised that this was the first year someone else would provide for the spring festival treats and sweets. Linnea’s new business venture was proving to be much more lucrative than working for someone else. He couldn’t be prouder that she had taken a dream and was making it a reality.

After he’d told them the news about the tough year on their family finances, Linnea had stood up and said she’d take care of everything. With her profits from the last few weeks she had purchased all the supplies needed for their spring festival meal, even the cooking wine! But he wasn’t completely lacking in morals. He would swallow his pride and be thankful to the young man who had secured the proper loan for her, at least glad that she hadn’t been forced to borrow from shadow lenders—the groups of underbelly loan sharks that charged exorbitant fees.

Though he could easily see it in the sparkle of her eyes when she talked of him, Linnea still hadn’t mentioned if she was serious about the boy, and Benfu knew it was because she didn’t want to have to answer questions about him. Benfu didn’t tell her that he’d seen them in the park that day. So finally today he would meet him, and Benfu was curious to see what sort of fellow
could have transformed his stubborn Linnea so effectively into such a lovesick girl. It had happened with many of his daughters but he had not seen this coming with Linnea so soon. He also meant to dig a bit and see if the boy was truly up to his standards and good enough for his girl.

He’d never forget the day he’d found her wandering alone in the meat market. Most children didn’t even like to be around the hanging carcasses of dried ducks, snakes, and pig parts. Mornings there were crowded as all the
ayis
and grandmothers came early to get the best meats. Benfu hated how the sidewalks would be peppered with blood that leaked from the cheap plastic bags as they carried their prizes home. If it wasn’t scary enough to see so much blood around, the stench alone was enough to make them cry. He couldn’t imagine what Linnea’s mother had been thinking to pick that place to leave her little girl when there were many other more pleasant sites.

He’d found Linnea crying as she held the hem of her ragged shirt over her face. He’d bent down in front of her and asked her where her parents were. She had mumbled through her tears that she didn’t know and began sobbing loudly. Benfu had spent the rest of the afternoon carrying her from one end of the open market to the other, weaving in and out of the crowds as he called out, asking if anyone knew the girl or her parents. Everyone either turned away or gave him a curt shake of their heads. It was obvious that she was newly orphaned, but Benfu held out hope that he was wrong as he searched.