The Pidgin Warrior Read online

  Mister Liu Liu rubbed his hands together courteously, and with a loud voice, encouraged everyone to sign and join the Group. “Please, why don’t all of you become members?”

  He looked at everyone’s face, then stood and continued in oratorical style: “The national crisis has come to a head. The elite cannot but come to the salvation of the country… We go on a hunger strike to urge brethren of the entire nation to resist Japan and save the nation. There is power in a hunger strike. In India, didn’t that renowned great man, Mr. Tai… Tagore, go on a hunger strike for the salvation of his country? Even the English were afraid of him. As for us… we…”

  The orator licked his lips and paused…

  “What do you all think? Each of you is one of the elite families in China. If we go on a hunger strike then the brethren of the entire nation will surely be strengthened: It would be no laughing matter for the entire country’s great names to starve to death. If all the elite families starved to death, what kind of nation would it be? We would naturally strengthen the resistance to XX and national salvation. Please join, all of you, everyone please stop eating to save the nation.”

  Shi Boxiang scratched his head and probed, “Does one have any energy when one is starving? Are you…?”

  “I don’t eat a single grain.” Mr. Liu Liu answered quickly. “This morning I only had five poached eggs and drank a little tea with chocolate milk. At twelve, I had two bowls of noodle dumpling soup and dough noodle soup. At seven this evening, I did the same. Each day, if I get hungry, I just eat one or two Guangdong mooncakes, and that’s enough. Right before bed, I have a little fish porridge with a couple of eggs in it. That’s it and nothing more. I don’t eat a single grain.”

  Everyone looked at each other. That friend in the western suit stood and raised both hands high in the air. “The elite cannot but come to the salvation of the country. I plan on joining the Hunger Strike of the Elite National Salvation Group, but this luncheon today… this… this luncheon… We can’t snub Old Shi Bo’s generosity—this luncheon must be eaten. Everyone can sign up after we eat. But the characters on this book, I saw that Le Lezhai was writing Mi Shite’s characters with my own eyes… We’ll join after the luncheon.”

  “The entrance fee is five yuan. One year’s membership dues are seven yuan. VIP membership is thirty yuan.”

  Liu Fu came in to report the meal was ready.

  “Liu Fu,” the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang recalled, “Liu Fu, tell the kitchen to make two bowls of dough noodle soup for Mr. Liu Liu. Mr. Liu Liu will not eat a single grain… Zhaochang, go upstairs and have the women come down to eat.”

  Mr. Liu Liu was talking about the Hunger Strike of the Elite National Salvation Group, but Shi Zhaochang kept his lip curled: Other people are of the elite, they look down on him and he looks down on them. Farces like this were damned useless. If…

  “Move!” the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang yelled at Zhaowu: The boy had taken the place of honor at the table and wouldn’t budge.

  The guests stood aside at looked at the table, no one took a seat.

  The Mistress ever-so-carefully twisted her hair over her temple to cover her purple scar. With the other hand she tugged at Zhaowu.

  “Good boy, you’re so obedient. Let the guests sit down.”

  “No way.” Zhaowu said with a cracking voice.

  The guests urged the host to let the young master have the seat. But there weren’t enough seats. With him there one of the guests wouldn’t have a place.

  “I don’t need to sit,” Mr. Liu Liu said. “I’m on a hunger strike. I can eat the dough noodle soup next to the tea table.”

  Zhaochang wanted to make a cutting remark about his brother, but they fixed the situation by bringing in another chair.

  Talk moved from national salvation through hunger strikes to the Volunteer Corps.

  “Supposing the elite of the entire nation were willing to go on a hunger strike, the Volunteer Corps would certainly take part too, and the government would immediately dispatch troops.”

  “But the Volunteer Corps is useless.” Shi Zhaochang interjected.

  “Those XX weapons are just too powerful. The Volunteer Corps can’t do anything against them. We…”

  Zhaowu interrupted with a shrill shout, “When I’m a division commander, I’ll slaughter all of the XX devils!”

  “That younger son sure has spirit!”

  “When I’m division commander, I’ll lead soldiers to XX and beat them there!

  The Mistress began laughing, “It’ll be good enough if when next year comes along, you don’t forget this spirit.”

  “If next year when I’m a division commander I do forget, then I’ll be dog-fucked!”

  “Pei!” The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang spat out.

  The Mistress cooed, “A division commander at sixteen might be a little early after all, isn’t it? You have to be a little older to go fight the XX. Too young and it would be a little dangerous.”

  “I’m not worried,” Zhaowu chewed his food. “Dad’s a disciple of Lu Chunyang. He can call on him to help me. I’ll take the soldiers to fight the XX—Blam! Blam! Blam!”

  He mimicked firing a rifle, but as the bullets came out of his mouth with a “blam” something he was chewing fell out into Mrs. Liu’s wineglass. Mrs. Liu had been holding her chopsticks, eyeing a chicken dish, but the Mistress raised her glass in toast, so she rushed to put down her chopsticks, raise her glass and drank it down.

  The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang sucked at some soup that was in his three or four strands of beard and smacked his lips. Then he told everyone about the events at the temple to Ancestor Lu in Beiping.

  Zhaowu opened his red eyes wide. Hearing his dad’s descriptions had him entranced. His eyes popped out like a goldfish’s, with little black dots. His face was as sallow as an over-steamed Buddha’s hand fruit. His mouth was big, but it couldn’t compete with his gums: as soon as his mouth opened, his huge gums would come poking out.

  “Ancestor Lu must help me kill the XX,” he shouted. “I want dough noodle soup!”

  “Don’t make such a racket!”

  But Zhaowu had already snatched away the dough noodle soup that Mr. Liu Liu was in the middle of eating. Mr. Liu Liu was startled, and stared at the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang as if asking for help—but the others were talking calmly about how Ancestor Lu had taken him in and even given him a Daoist name, and even written calligraphy for him through a séance.

  “That,” the Elder Mister Shi Boxiang pointed at a gilded piece of calligraphy on the wall, “that was written by Ancestor Lu.”

  Mr. Liu Liu thought, “It doesn’t matter if I have one bowl less, I’ll just eat some fish porridge when I go back.”

  At this he felt relieved and followed everyone else in looking at Ancestor Lu’s calligraphy.

  Mistress was afraid everyone might not be able to read the characters near the top, so in a ringing voice she intoned, “…Where the mystery is the deepest is the gate of all that is sautéed and wonderful…”

  “’Subtle,’ not ‘sautéed.’”

  “Oh, ‘subtle.’ But the grass script ‘sautéed’ is written just like that. Grass script calligraphy is truly difficult to read, isn’t it, Mrs. Liu? I stared at the words at the top for an hour before I figured out what they were. When you get used to it you can read it. When I was at school I learned so many grass script characters. Nowadays at school they don’t pay any attention to that sort of thing anymore. The schools are just no good now. The people running the schools just have no sense of reason. Zhaowu went to that school in Beiping, Mrs. Liu you understand, I just had no way to deal with them. I said… I say, everyone please don’t be polite, please eat a little more. There’s not much left. Really, I had no way to deal with them. The school wanted to have Zhaowu held back a year. They said his work wasn’t good enough. It’s simply interference. I
thought, how can they blame our children? He’s just going through a confused phase. This is no way to go about things. I told them, “You just handle it. Let him go up a grade, and next year when he comes out of his confused phase, his work will naturally catch up.” Hmph! But they didn’t understand the sense of it. They won’t even talk sense with you! Zhaowu, he’ll be a division commander at sixteen, leading soldiers, his fate says as much, that’s why I wanted him to graduate from school. If he got left behind a year they he wouldn’t be able to graduate before sixteen, and wouldn’t that interfere with his future? I said, “Fine. You’re running a school and you can’t see sense. If there’s any interference in our child’s future, then it will all be on you teachers’ heads!” Hmph, I really gave them a bit of a harsh tongue-lashing… it infuriated me. People don’t see sense…Mr. Wang, you know… Ah, Mrs Liu, right? Schools nowadays, ah, really! Like that school we were in: Script, Grass Script, English Letters, even English cursive, Literature, Gymnastics, have to study all of those things! Grass script is terribly important. Zhaowu though, his father had him learn a few grass script characters. Zhaowu, you can read these characters, recite them for us…”

  Zhaowu had a mouthful of dough noodle soup and no interest in recitation. He just shook his head.

  “That child!” Mistress laughed reproachfully. “All good intentions, I ask you to recite and you won’t recite. He also taught his little sister to read grass script characters. When you’re an officer you’ll have to write grass script too. You’ll see. People who deal with official paperwork all write grass script. Before, when Shi Boxiang handled the official paperwork in the yamen he had to write grass script. He had to go through one hundred papers in a day, worked so hard he even forgot to eat. Eat, please eat as you like, there’s no need to be polite. Mr. Liu Liu, aren’t you a great drinker? Cheers! Finish off that bottle and then keep eating. Once you’re done eating, Ah… handling that official paperwork, there’s so much paperwork. And in the military there’s got to be even more. You won’t be able to play like this next year, Zhaowu. And in fighting the XX, there will be more and more paperwork. After you fight the XX, you’ll get promoted to brigade commander…”

  “A corps commander.”

  “Ah, corps commander. But a brigade commander and a corps commander are just about the same, aren’t they. Fighting the XX, as long as Ancestor Lu is willing…willing to help him…to protect him... so Ancestor Lu said there will be someone to come and save the nation and fight the XX and then go…”

  Liu Fu brought in a calling card and showed it to Mrs. Liu: There was a Miss He who wanted to see Mrs. Liu.

  The male guests looked to the door. The frosted glass made it so they couldn’t see anything.

  Mrs. Liu didn’t recognize the name on the calling card. She didn’t even have time to reply to Liu Fu before the door opened and in walked a woman. She looked somewhere between eighteen and thirty-eight—It’s so difficult to figure out the age of a person like this.

  Everyone stared at this woman. Shi Zhaochang even shuddered: was this a human or a demon?

  “Ya guys don’t recognize me?” The woman spoke through a thick Shanghainese accent. “I’m Mi-su He! He Manli—Mary Ho! The Southeast Daily has my pics in it like all the time la! Illustrated Beauties does to! Now who is Mi-suh-se Liu la?”

  “Mrs. Liu? Here.”

  “Do you recognize me, Mi-suh-se Liu? You have met Mi-suh-se Wang on Myburgh Road la. Mrs. Wang knows Mi-se-tuo Tao, and I’m friends with him, so I’m your friend too la! I want you to do somethin’ for me: introduce me to everyone here la!”

  Mrs. Liu’s face flushed. She didn’t know how to handle this, but that friend in the western suit broke through the difficultly:

  “Allow me to make the introductions…”

  This Miss He looked everyone over with a smile as she placed her hand on the back of Mrs. Liu’s chair so that she could twist her body. Then she looked down at her legs to see if the pose worked or not. She giggled, “Everyone’s so… Everyone here is a big wheel patriot la! I came ta ask for your patriotism la! Now, I’m the playwright, manager and public relations manager for the Modern Patriotic Song and Dance Troupe, and I’ve got one thing to say at ya…”

  Shi Zhaochang tugged at Mr. Liu Liu’s sleeve. “Why is she saying ‘la’ all the time? Is that Shanghainese?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Miss He’s speech flowed out like a waterfall. Now that the XX were fighting the Chinese, the Chinese people must use patriotic song and dance to save the nation, so everyone here should buy tickets to see her troupe.

  “Now in these times of national crisis, we’ve cut the price of our admission tickets twenty-five percent! The shows’re all fuckin’… They are very good patriotic operas, there’s The Improved Moonlight Evening. Li Jinhui wrote Moonlight Evening, but now I, ya know… improved it. Now Chang’e leads the women’s corps to beat the XX bloody! And there’s China I Love You, that one’s just savage good. It’s the tune of Sister, I Love You! Then there’s the Woman Warrior of National Salvation…”

  “Woman Warrior of National Salvation!” Shi Zhaochang was stunned.

  “Sure. That show is wicked good la!”

  “Woman Warrior!” The young man’s face flushed. “Is she skilled?”

  “Oh, she’s the darb!”

  “What?”

  “She is very skilled! That’s it.” Miss He walked over to him.

  “I would like…”

  Miss He moved in closer to him and pulled out an admission ticket to give him. There was an artificial scent about her, so thick he nearly fainted.

  Zhaowu suddenly broke out in cackling laugher. “Elder brother’s flirting with that girl! Elder brother’s flirting with that girl!”

  “Little kid’s a wicked beast la!” The woman said.

  But Shi Zhaochang’s face had gone even redder, and he glanced around at the other faces.

  “Elder brother’s…” Zhaowu was using his hands to imply something.

  “Bullshit!” Shi Zhaochang roared.

  “Elder brother’s flirting… Hahaha!”

  Shi Zhaochang stood up abruptly and Zhaowu dove under the table to hide.

  “Elder brother is so shameless! Flirting with that…”

  The table suddenly jumped up with a bang—dishes spilled all over and wine glasses all tipped over.

  “Get out from under there Zhaowu!” The Elder Mister Shi Boxiang called out.

  “That boy is so naughty,” Mistress smiled slightly. “Hiding under the table was fine, but to give it a bang like that. Look, the table is filthy.”

  All of a sudden Miss He cried out and jumped back because a hand had poked out from under the table and grabbed her pant leg. From under the table a great cackling laugher rose up.

  “Ahahahaha, hahaha… Elder brother flirting… Elder brother flirting… hahahaha!”

  Everyone broke out in laughter. Shi Zhaochang felt like uncountable millions of ants were crawling all over his body.

  “I was… I was…” he stuttered out. “She has the Woman Warrior of National Salvation… without the Woman Warrior, we can’t save China… China… so I…”

  Miss He, as if forgetting what just happened, said that now the Woman Warrior of National Salvation must absolutely be supported.

  “Women’re patriotic too, ain’t they? So of course we need women warriors, la!”

  Shi Zhaochang left the table and saluted Miss He with cupped hands. He was delighted to make friends with her. There was no one in the room that he could speak to. Only this out-of-nowhere warrior was his equal. China could only be saved by relying on warriors. Anything else was fucking useless! Ah. The Woman Warrior of National Salvation! He must pay her a formal visit. He couldn’t find anyone like Thirteenth Sister in Tianqiao, but in Shanghai?

  He then went on to tell Miss He of his grand
designs: What he had studied and what he planned to do.

  “I simply must find a girl like Thirteenth Sister and go to fight the XX with her. To fight back against injustice… Tell me is there a way to meet with this Woman Warrior of National Salvation?”

  “Well, it’s me, ain’t it!”

  “What?!” Shi Zhaochang put his hand against the wall for fear of falling over.

  “I’m the Woman Warrior of National Salvation.”

  Shi Zhaochang looked her over carefully. How? A person like this is…

  Her hair looked permed. There was thick rouge smeared on her lime-white face. Freckles could very faintly be made out. Big red lips. Her collar rose above the bottom of her ears. Her breasts pushed out. Legs like matchsticks.

  So thin? But people with internal gongfu could be thin or fat.

  “You practice internal gongfu, I assume?”

  “Sure!”

  “What school?”

  “What school?” The Woman Warrior didn’t understand.

  “There are all sorts of schools, like Kunlun School, like Shaolin School…”

  “Oh, I’m in the Romantic School!”

  He heard but didn’t hear. He quickly made a respectful obeisance to her, and they became friends.

  “You can come by and see me anytime!” Miss He smiled charmingly. “Our song and dance troupe would also like to have your donation!”

  “Of course, of course.”

  Shi Zhaochang walked her to the door. She wrote down her address and gave it to him.

  “You can call a rickshaw and come visit.”

  “Dicksaw?”

  “Rick Shaw!” She shook his hand suddenly, turned and left.

  He stood dumbly at the door for a while. His body felt like it was soaking in boiling water. He watched her back as she left. Then she turned quickly and blew him a kiss.

  How, what? Some kind of dart?

  But there was no flying blade.

  Suddenly something fell upon his head: a little mud-pellet, still damp.