Little Ah Zhen

"Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!" "Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!" At the Great Wall company dormitory, Chen Qi was taking a hot shower with thorough enjoyment. A Japanese gas water heater had been newly installed on the wall. A few months ago it hadn't been there; it had probably been put in specially for him. Gas in Hong Kong was supplied by the Hong Kong and China Gas Company Limited, a monopoly, and a business of the Li Zhaoji family. "A shower after a long journey—now this is comfortable!" "If I wanted a wash like this on the mainland, I'd have to sit in a tub holding Sister Xue..." Chen Qi dried himself and came out stark naked, big pendulum swinging. He took a bottle of Coke from the fridge and gulped it down, glug after glug. The distinctive fizz of the soda stimulated his slightly weary nerves and eased them all at once. He let out a long breath. "Wonderful. I'm a modern person again!" If he could, he truly wanted to buy a thousand-square-foot luxury flat in Hong Kong, and a car, a whole set of household appliances, a flush toilet when he went, toilet paper to wipe with—steak when he wanted steak, and Ah Zhen when he wanted Ah Zhen... A general toils for his country. What's wrong with sitting in a Maybach now and then? The property belongs to the people, doesn't it! This was the same room he had stayed in last time. Hong Kong's average temperature in February was only somewhere in the teens Celsius, and it wasn't very warm. He put on a fresh set of underwear, lay down on the bed, and looked over the materials he had compiled. A few books lay close at hand. Materials now available on the Japanese concentration camps in China were nowhere near as plentiful as they would be in later times. Fortunately, many foreigners had lived through it themselves, and after the war most of them published books and memoirs, setting this stretch of history down in scattered pieces. What Chen Qi wanted was the details. Only then could he write the script. "Men and women were locked up together, Chinese and foreigners held in the same place. For a toilet there was only one rough wooden bucket, set in a corner and left open, the stench overwhelming, shared by men and women... If anyone came down with boils, the Japanese injected them with a liquid something like mercurochrome. If anyone had an infectious disease, they were thrown at once into the cremation furnace." "By day we had to sit cross-legged and were not allowed to rest. Our heads had to stay lowered, facing toward Tokyo. Sometimes we were forced to kneel for hours on end. At night we might be woken at any moment. If anyone dared to resist, beatings and abuse were an everyday matter." "The foreigners could not bear the camp food. They traded their own rice to the Chinese children in the cells in exchange for having the lice picked from inside their clothes every day. The Chinese children, making what joy they could out of hardship, held contests to see who could catch the most lice each day." The author's name was Powell. He was an American journalist, brutally abused in the camp until both his feet were crippled. Later, when the international tribunal tried Hideki Tojo, Powell even took the stand to testify. After finishing this one, Chen Qi turned to an essay by Xu Guangping. Xu Guangping was that companion of Mr. Lu Xun's—the two of them never formally married, and Lu Xun's wife remained Zhu An all along. From December 1941 to March 1942, Xu Guangping was held in a concentration camp. The Japanese put her through electric torture more than ten times. "The world spun, as if heaven and earth were coming apart, and a sour ache ran through my joints. Two horseshoe-shaped iron rings were clamped onto my hands, with two electric wires connected..." "..." Chen Qi sorted through it all in silence, paying particular attention to stories in which Chinese people and foreigners crossed paths. The one above, trading rice for lice-picking, for instance, was very valuable. He worked at it for a long while, then suddenly shut the notebook, turned on the television, and started watching TVB, deliberately emptying his head and taking in nothing but entertainment. Otherwise it was all too easy to sink into gloom. ...... "Buy Carrian! Carrian's the real miracle stock. Buy today, sell tomorrow, and you can make money!" "What miracle stock is there in times like these? If the tanks roll in, it'll all vanish like smoke!" "Ai. Who knows when the talks will even start. My son's already gone to Canada. He says he'll bring me over to enjoy the good life. If the Brits can't hold out, I'll have to emigrate too!" In the afternoon, at a newsstand across from a secondary school, a few older men stood around with newspapers and racing forms, idly shooting the breeze. It was nothing but the stock market and the property market, horse-race gambling, and the question of Hong Kong's future. Back in January the mainland had already declared its position in public: Hong Kong is China's! The two sides should open negotiations as soon as possible! Chen Qi held a copy of the paper Rattlesnake, listening even as he read with great relish. As he was reading, the stallholder suddenly turned around and said, "Boss, you've been looking at that for ages. Buy a copy, won't you? It doesn't cost much! I've also got Classic Car, Tonight News, and the Red-Green Daily here, each one hotter than the last. You want any?" "You sell dirty tabloids right out in the open at a school gate, and nobody stops you?" Chen Qi said with a smile. "It's a legal business. Why should anyone stop me? Besides, I have my professional ethics. When students come to buy, I always sell to them on the sly. So are you buying or not?" Chen Qi was just about to answer when he heard someone shout from across the street, "Shifu!" He turned his head. Qiu Shuzhen, a schoolbag on her back, was waving hard from the other side of the road. In a red coat, she flew over like a cheerful little bird. "It really is you! I saw that car and just felt it was you. Why didn't you tell me ahead of time?" "I only got to Hong Kong yesterday. I came to see you today." "Hmph! That's more like it!" Chen Qi handed the paper back, took Qiu Shuzhen along, and got into the car. The stallholder spat. "Pah! You filthy lecher. Won't even part with the money for a paper, just copying people and picking up schoolgirls. Sooner or later they'll haul you in and shoot you!" Qiu Shuzhen had turned fourteen over the New Year. Girls of that age were right in the midst of the rapid growth of puberty, and she seemed to have grown a little more. There was no doubt she was overjoyed. She chattered on without stopping. "Shifu, how long will you stay this time?" "A few months again, I suppose." "You're here to shoot a film again? Is there a part for me?" "There's a part for you, but not the lead. A walk-on." "A walk-on's fine too. As long as I get to be in a film, I'm happy... Shifu, let me tell you, I really have been studying hard like you said. I'm still really dumb, but my grades truly have gone up a tiny bit. I read every day when I get home. Huh?" Qiu Shuzhen paused, drew her brows together, and asked, "Were you just reading Rattlesnake?" "I was not!" "I saw you! That kind of paper is my dad's favorite. How can you be like that too? Don't be like my dad, all right?" She pouted. "What's Rattlesnake?" Up in front, Xiao Mo had caught the sensitive word. "It's an extremely vile kind of paper. No standpoint whatsoever, vulgar taste, discriminates against women, thick with feudalism. In a spirit of criticism, I criticized it fiercely!" "Oh. Read less of that stuff. Hong Kong's unhealthy ways are far too strong. All of us have to stand firm!" said Xiao Mo. "Yes, yes, stand firm!" Chen Qi nodded. In truth Rattlesnake was only so-so, not as good to look at as Lung Fu Pao. A pity Lung Fu Pao hadn't even started publication yet. They drove to a restaurant. It wasn't the steak-rice place; they couldn't eat steak rice every time. Chen Qi treated Qiu Shuzhen to a meal and, while he was at it, corrupted Xiao Mo and Xiao Geng. "My film hasn't come out. My classmates were curious about me for a while, then they lost interest. At school I'm no different from before, except once in a while someone asks me for an autograph." "They want your autograph?" "How could they? They want Sam Hui's, and Zheng Shaoqiu's. Wah! Who do they think I am, that I can just get connected with big stars whenever I like?" Qiu Shuzhen bit hard into a piece of meat and asked, "Shifu, what kind of walk-on are you having me do?" "A ghost film, of course!" "Ah? You want me to play a little ghost?" "That's right. Will you?" "I will! Whatever you tell me to play, I'll play it. I do as you say." She looked at Chen Qi without blinking, her eyes full of a child's devotion and delight, a smile at the corners of her mouth. Young as she was, she was already, without realizing it, like a bud just beginning to open, with a hint of allure about her.