still running her fingers through his hair, looked up at the bedraggled attendants and asked in a loud, assured voice, “What time does the Pingdao bus leave, miss?”
Her perfect Beijing accent established her credentials, and Jinju, as if given a glimpse of Paradise, sighed appreciatively over both her good looks and her lovely way of speaking.
The attendants responded politely, “Eight-thirty.”
In contrast to the well-spoken woman in red, the attendants were beneath Jinju’s contempt. They began sweeping the floor, from one end of the room to the other. It seemed to Jinju that every man and half the women were puffing on cigarettes and pipes, whose smoke slowly filled the room and led to a round of coughing and spitting.
Gao Ma returned with a bulging cellophane bag. “Is everything all right?” he asked when he saw the look on her face. She said it was, so he sat down, reached into the bag, and pulled out a pear. “The local restaurants were all closed, so I bought you some fruit.” He offered her the pear.
“I told you not to spend so much,” she groused.
He wiped the pear on his jacket and took a noisy bite. “Here,” he said, handing it to her. “I’ve got more.”
A ragamuffin was walking up and down the rows of benches begging from anyone who was awake. Stopping in front of a young military officer, who glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he struck a pitiful pose and said, Officer, Colonel, could you spare a little change?”
“I don’t have any money!” the moon-faced officer snapped in reply, rolling his eyes to show his displeasure.
“Anything will do,” the young beggar pleaded. “Wont you take pity on me?”
“Youre old enough to work. Why don’t you get a job?”
“Work makes me dizzy.”
The officer fished out a pack of cigarettes, opened it, removed one, and stuck it between his lips.
“If you wont give me money, Colonel, how about a smoke?”
“Do you know what land of cigarettes these are?” The officer looked him in the eye as he whipped out a shiny cigarette lighter and-
“Foreign, Colonel-they’re foreign cigarettes.”
“Know where they came from?”
“No.”
“My father-in-law brought them back from Hong Kong, that’s where. And look at this lighter.”
“You’re lucky to have a father-in-law like that, Colonel. I can see that life has smiled on you. Your father-in-law must be a big official, and his son-in-law will be one himself one of these days. Big officials are well-heeled and generous. So how about a smoke, Colonel?”
The young officer thought it over for a moment, then said, “No, I’d rather give you money.”
Jinju watched him fish out a shiny aluminum two-fen piece and hand it to the beggar, who wore a pained grin as he accepted the paltry gift with both hands and bowed deeply.
Now the beggar was walking this way, sizing up people as he came. Passing on Jinju and Gao Ma, he went up to the woman in red and her permed young man, who had just sat up. Jinju saw skin show through the beggar’s worn trousers when he bowed.
“Madam, sir, take pity on a man who’s down on his luck and give me some spare change.”
“Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?” the woman in red asked sanctimoniously. “A healthy young man like you should be out working. Don’t you have any self-respect?”
“Madam, I don’t understand a word you’re saying. I’m only asking for a little change.”
“Would you bark like a dog for it?” the permed fellow asked the beggar. “I’ll give you one yuan for every bark.”
“Sure. What do you prefer, a big dog or a little one?”
The permed young man turned to the woman in red and smiled. “That’s up to you.”
The young beggar coughed and cleared his throat, then began to bark, sounding remarkably doglike: “Arf arf-arf arf arf-arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf, arf, arf, arf arf, arf arf arf arf arf arf arf arf! That was a little dog. Twenty-six barks. Ruff! Ruff ruff! Ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!! Ruff!!! That was a big dog, twenty-four barks. Big and little together comes to fifty barks, at one yuan apiece, for a total of fifty yuan, sir, madam,”
The permed young man and the woman in red exchanged glances, both looking quite abashed. He took out his billfold and counted its contents, then turned to his companion and said, “Do you have any money, Yingzi?”
“Just a few coins,” she replied.
“Elder Brother,” the permed young man said, “we’ve had a long trip, and this is our last stop. All we’ve got left is forty-three yuan. If you’ll give us an address, we’ll send the seven we owe you as soon as we get home.”
The young beggar took the money, wetted his finger, and carefully counted the bills-twice. Removing a red one-yuan note with a missing corner, he said, “I can’t take this one, sir. You can have it back, and I’ll take the forty-two. Now you owe me eight.”
“Write down your address for us,” the young man said.
“I don’t know how to write,” the beggar said. “Just send it to the President of the United States and ask him to forward it to me. He’s my uncle!”
With that the beggar bowed deeply to the handsome couple and laughed until he was rocking back and forth. Then he turned and presented himself before Jinju and Gao Ma. With a bow he said, “Elder Brother, Elder Sister, how about one of those delicious -looking pears? My throat’s dry from all that barking.”
Jinju picked out a big one and thrust it into the beggar’s hand. He acknowledged the handout with a deep bow before gobbling the pear up, one big bite after another, all the while humming a nasal tune. Then, as if there weren’t another soul in sight, he turned and walked off, his head held high.
Another announcement emerged from the PA system, sending more passengers to the gates to have their tickets punched. The woman in red and the young curlyhead rose and dashed off to the gate, dragging a suitcase on rollers behind them.
“What about us?” Jinju asked Gao Ma.
He looked at his watch. “Forty minutes more,” he said. “I’m getting a little impatient myself.”
By this time there were no more passengers sleeping on the benches, although people continued to enter and leave the waiting room, including an old beggar who quaked from head to toe, and a woman with a child in tow, also asking for handouts. A middle-aged man in a beaked cap and a uniform tunic, holding a half-empty bottle of beer in one hand, stood in front of the bulletin board and held forth, waving the bottle in the air for effect. His sleeves were stained and greasy, and there was a piece of skin missing on his nose, exposing the pale flesh beneath. Two fountain pens were clipped in his breast pocket; Jinju assumed he was some kind of party official. He took a swig of beer, waved the bottle once or twice to watch the foam rise, and began to speak. His tongue was thick in his mouth, and his lower lip seemed not to move at all.
“The nine editorials-refuting the Open Letter of the revisionist Soviet Central Committee of the Communist Party… Khrushchev said, ‘Stalin, you are my second father.’ In Chinese it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my true father’- in Paradise dialect it would be, ‘Stalin, you are my big fellow.’ “ Another swig of beer, then he knelt down like Khrushchev the supplicant before Stalin. “But,” he continued, “the heirs of perfidious people are more unbridled than their predecessors. When Khrushchev assumed power, he burned Stalin. Comrades, historical experience demands our attention “ Another swig of beer. “Comrade leaders at all levels, you must give it your full attention. Do not, I repeat, do
Mesmerized by the man, Jinju listened to him rant and rave about things she had never heard of before. The quake in his voice and the way he twisted his tongue around the name “Stalin” appealed to her the most.
Gao Ma squeezed her arm and said softly, “We’ve got trouble, Jinju. Here comes Deputy Yang.”
She turned to look and felt as if her body had turned to ice. Deputy Yang, her lame Elder Brother, and her bull- like Second Brother stood in the waiting-room entrance.
Grabbing Gao Ma’s hand in panic, she stood up.
The middle-aged official took a swig of beer, waved his arm in the air, and shouted, “Stalin…”
