Toward the North Read online

Two years ago, she had risen at three in the morning on Boxing Day, while her husband Zhong Li, ensconced in bed, refused to get up. Minmin had braved the cold, hard wind alone to line up in front of Leon’s, a local furniture store. Consequently, she was able to buy this set of table and chairs at half the regular price. Buying such pleasing furniture inexpensively had made freezing herself worthwhile.

  It was almost as if Minmin had digital memory in her head that retained the history of every piece of furniture: when it was purchased, the location of the store, and the price. Each item came as a result of careful comparison shopping and it had to match with the rest of the furnishings in the house. More than once Minmin had told Zhong Li that she had put her blood, sweat, and tears into their home.

  Zhong Li’s place across the dinner table was empty.

  Minmin had signed the divorce agreement the day before. For the sake of their former feelings for one another, Zhong Li had left Minmin some time alone to say goodbye to the house. Their daughter Maggie had just been sent to Minmin’s mother’s place in China for the summer holidays. Minmin would be less sad with her daughter gone. Zhong Li had arranged everything well—hiring a lawyer, the divorce, sending their daughter back to China, letting Minmin move out. He was good at planning.

  “Because I plan, I am successful,” were Zhong Li’s words.

  And Minmin had once been the woman behind the successful man.

  “Goodbye.” Minmin pondered these two words as she carefully peeled shells from the shrimp. Moving out from under Zhong Li’s shadow and leaving the house was a form of goodbye. From this point on she would not have him to shelter her from the wind and rain, but, of course, neither would he be there to block the sun; this too was a form of goodbye.

  Actually, Minmin and Zhong Li had not been apart very often; the longest was five years ago. After Zhong Li immigrated to Canada, he had tried his hand at various occupations, but eventually he could not make ends meet, so he decided to return home to blaze a new trail. By then China had become a paradise for risk takers. Unexpectedly, Maggie contracted a kidney infection. Medical treatment was free in Canada, so the wisest thing for Minmin to do was to stay behind with her.

  The night before Zhong Li was to embark, Minmin cried.

  “What is there to cry about? It’s not like I’m abandoning the two of you in some remote and desolate place,” Zhong Li said.

  Minmin could not stop crying. She was to Zhong Li like an apple to the earth: she had no way of resisting the force of his gravity. Now the earth was moving; how could she not feel the chilly fear of desperation?

  Two years ago, Zhong Li had returned to Toronto, much to Minmin’s relief. Their reunion had marked a satisfactory resolution to their previous parting; the suffering that had occurred between goodbye and reunion could be put aside. However, this time saying goodbye was completely different.

  The taste of the shrimp wasn’t bad. Minmin cooked shrimp in hot oil with fried garlic and dried chilli peppers; then she added a few drops of vinegar before putting them on the plate. Zhong Li had always liked this dish. He had an unwavering love of shrimp. However, after eating a few, Minmin had no more appetite. She proceeded to collect the dishes and attentively wiped the table. She was unwilling to allow her rival, that woman called Tan Chang, the opportunity to criticize her for being sloppy.

  Tan Chang had been waiting to move into this house for a long time. More than once, she had declared that she had given her virginity to Zhong Li and then had to wait with bitterness for more than four years before the fog lifted and she finally saw the sun. “Her virginity!” Minmin snorted. “If she had tried to catch a Western man with that line, it would have become the subject of jokes in bars.” In Tan Chang’s mind, Minmin and Zhong Li’s twelve-year marriage was of little significance. When comparing their love versus another’s, how many women under the sun wouldn’t believe the scales were tipped in their own favour?

  Just as she did each time she left the house, Minmin checked each window in each room, upstairs and downstairs, and straightened the curtains. Returning to the dining room, she blew out the candles. Two wisps of white smoke floated up; their fragrance seemed a little stronger.

  Minmin bit her lip, and left her dream home….

  The next day Zhong Li helped Tan Chang move into 98 Audrey Street. Zhong Li carried Tan Chang through the front door and directly up to the second-floor bedroom. Like peeling an onion, he hurriedly pulled off her clothes…. Tan Chang screamed as she rolled on the big, soft bed. She didn’t need to suppress her voice as she did in the apartment. She shouted out her happiness.

  When Zhong Li had returned to Beijing five years earlier, as soon as he disembarked from the plane, he discovered that the world had changed. The first thing his old friend Wang Shengming asked when he saw him was, “Are you still with the same old lady?” Zhong Li noticed afterwards that all the similar-aged men around him, whether or not they were divorced, were surrounded by a bevy of seductive girls almost a generation younger. He decided then that he was out of date.

  Zhong Li and Wang Shengming opened a consultancy together for those wanting to emigrate to or study in Canada and named it “China-Canada Bridge.” At the same time, Zhong Li and Minmin bought their first house near Toronto’s Chinatown. Minmin turned the house into a transfer station for new immigrants, and received China-Canada Bridge’s clients. Husband and wife working together—one at home, the other abroad—quickly built a thriving business.

  As a dishevelled Minmin drove a van all day, rushing between her own house and the airport and the hospital to look after Maggie, Tan Chang appeared in Zhong Li’s sights. She was a recent university graduate: fashionable, sexy, and with no inhibitions. Like a tornado, she drew Zhong Li into a vortex of passion. After only a few months, Tan Chang had started to plan for a future with Zhong Li, clearly indicating that she was hoping to live permanently in Toronto. The path to the future is never smooth; there are always a few roadblocks. Of course, the two biggest roadblocks in her path were Minmin and Maggie.

  Zhong Li returned to Toronto and sold the house in Chinatown. Then he and Minmin purchased the house at 98 Audrey Street, beginning a family life that seemed too perfect to be real. Zhong Li encouraged Minmin to stay at home to care for Maggie’s health and studies, and to give up her heavy responsibilities; Zhong Li would manage the business. Needless to say, Minmin was overcome with gratitude.

  One year later, Tan Chang quietly arrived in Toronto and began working at China-Canada Bridge. Zhong Li juggled his lover and wife for two years. Then he got tired and wanted to stop. He told Minmin that the competition was fierce; China-Canada Bridge had lost many customers and was facing bankruptcy. The only option was to mortgage their property to the daughter of a rich businessperson, Tan Chang. The loan would be used to support the company’s business operations. In reality, Tan Chang’s father was a shoe repairman who did not know where his next meal was coming from. Not long after, Zhong Li told Minmin that he wanted a divorce. Minmin discovered that their debts had surpassed the amount that they had invested in the house. She had no other alternative but to sign the house over to Tan Chang. Minmin hired an accountant to check the company books. The business showed losses for the past two years, but there were no suspicious items. Zhong Li and Minmin’s other property, such as the car, furniture, and appliances were worth seventy or eighty thousand dollars. Minmin did not want any of the household property, asking for only fifty thousand dollars in cash instead. Eventually the two sides reached an agreement.

  For men in Canada, there is probably nothing more expensive than a divorce; however, Zhong Li was fortunate that he was able to regain his freedom for so little a price.

  Tan Chang finally finished screaming and said, “Minmin really knows how to indulge herself; this bed is so comfortable.”

  Zhong Li, trying hard to catch his breath, haltingly asked, “Don’t mention her now, all right?”

/>   “Do you feel guilty?”

  Zhong Li shook his head. “It wasn’t her who made the mortgage payments these past two years.”

  “Still, she earned the money for the first payment. Plus, you lived together for so many years; she was entitled to at least half your property….”

  “Let it go, it’s finished; don’t mention it again. If you’re going to feel guilty, don’t move in.”

  “Ha!” Tan Chang let out a laugh that was neither warm nor angry. She extended her long leg and admired her newly pedicured, bright red toenails for a second. “Who has any greater right to move in than me?” Having said this, she jumped off the bed and toured every room in the house naked, like a victorious queen inspecting her war booty.

  She picked up the two candle remnants from the dining room windowsill and threw them into the garbage pail. Then she sat down in front of the dining table and saw her lovely face reflected in its surface. With defiance and determination she stated, “A new life is beginning.”

  After she returned from China, Maggie didn’t seem disappointed with the one-room bachelor apartment that Minmin had rented. Even Zhong Li’s disappearance did not seem to surprise her. Maggie was a child with a developmental disorder. She was slow in reacting to changes that took place around her and her ability to understand adult relationships didn’t match that of other eleven- or twelve-year-olds. Maggie lived in her own reality.

  Their one desk and bed took up most of the space in the apartment. Minmin cooked in a kitchen so small and narrow that she could barely turn around, and she and Maggie ate on a small round table. They had little contact with the outside world, and eventually the apartment became like a prison in a foreign land. Minmin felt guilty for having dragged Maggie there. And upon seeing Maggie’s accepting look, Minmin’s heart and even her breathing became heavy.

  Minmin finally found a job as a filing clerk in a non-profit organization helping developmentally disabled children. Although the salary was small, it was ideal for someone who did not have Canadian working experience and could not speak fluent English.

  The Friday of the Victoria Day weekend, many of Minmin’s colleagues left early to start enjoying the long weekend. She had one or two hours to herself, so she borrowed a copy of a book on the psychological counselling of children with developmental disabilities from the office library. She used an electronic English-Chinese dictionary to look up new words.

  “Is that book difficult to read?” A man’s mild voice came from behind her.

  Minmin turned to face a thirty-something white man. His appearance and clothes were nothing out of the ordinary: chestnut-coloured hair, brown eyes, a blue shirt, and matching blue jeans. His body gave off the fragrance of Palmolive soap.

  Could one know a man by his smell? Minmin used the same soap.

  Minmin nodded, a little bit embarrassed.

  The man continued, “How is it that you are interested in this book?”

  “Because my daughter….”

  “Oh.” The man nodded as if he understood clearly.

  “I am a mother. Do you know…?” Minmin stammered. Immediately she realized that she was stating the obvious, so she felt even more awkward.

  The man took a business card from his pocket and handed it to Minmin. “I am a child psychologist; I provide free counselling every Thursday here. If you need help, come look for me.”

  Minmin carefully read the name on the business card: “Ian Brown.” She waved the book in surprise. “You are the author.”

  This time it was Ian’s turn to be embarrassed. He nodded. “I should have made the book a little easier to understand, so you wouldn’t have to consult a dictionary. I didn’t consider immigrant readers….”

  “I am reading it slowly; I can understand it.” Minmin’s tone seemed to comfort Ian. He laughed casually, and without any hard feelings.

  After Minmin helped Ian find the file that he wanted, he said goodbye.

  “I nearly forgot to ask your name,” Ian said.

  “Minmin.”

  “What does it mean? I know that Chinese people’s names all have a meaning.”

  “Stone that contains jade.” Minmin shrugged her shoulders. “I probably will always be a piece of stone, a hard stone to crack.”

  “If one doesn’t crack open the stone, how does one find the jade?”

  As she watched Ian’s back, Minmin wondered if psychologists talked to all their clients like that or was he hinting at something else, something more personal?

  The house at 98 Audrey Street experienced an almost imperceptible change in the hands of the new mistress. In the beginning, it was just a faint fishy smell in the kitchen. Surprisingly, the smell progressed quickly from fishy to stinky, even though Tan Chang didn’t cook. She placed the garbage bin in the garage to try and get rid of the smell. But, the stink turned up in the dining room; then like a virus it spread to the living room, master bedroom, and the bathrooms.

  Zhong Li and Tan Chang turned the house upside down cleaning and rearranging things; no corner of the basement and garage escaped their attention. In spite of the cost, they had the sewer cleaned out and hired a specialty cleaning company to thoroughly wash the rugs.

  Whatever they did, it was of no use. There was no way to pin down where the smell came from, even though it was everywhere.

  The notoriety of this stinky house spread. Every time Zhong Li and Tan Chang invited someone over, they declined tactfully. Even the plumbers were unwilling to re-enter the house. It was like they had placed themselves inside a castle isolated from the rest of the world and were fighting a never-ending war with the smell. They could not see their enemy; they could only smell it. It was as if that smell was a shadow puppet master driving them from pillar to post, even torturing them to the point of exhaustion.

  In the evening, the stink was like a pack of invisible flies swarming above their heads, driving them insane. Compared to the other rooms, the stink in the living room seemed slightly less, so Tan Chang moved there to sleep and Zhong Li followed her.

  “Don’t follow me, all right?” Tan Chang said.

  “How can I bear to let you sleep alone?”

  “Don’t sweet talk me. It was you who destroyed me by moving me into this stinky house.”

  Zhong Li was angered. “Do you think you are a princess? Wasn’t the apartment that you lived in before stinky?”

  “Correct me if I am wrong, but the reason that I lived there was to wait for you to get a divorce.”

  “Who asked you to wait?”

  “It was you, down on your knees crying, that made me wait!” Tan Chang howled.

  “You seduced me in the beginning!”

  Tan Chang sat up and stared at Zhong Li for a long time. Finally, she squeezed out a sentence through the cracks in her teeth: “Get out of here!”

  As if words were knives, they each searched for the sharpest to stab the other.

  Zhong Li thought that he and Tan Chang had been cursed.

  He got up and left the living room in bare feet. He went into the kitchen, wanting a bottle of beer, but only found an empty refrigerator. The stink in the kitchen was becoming more difficult to bear by the day. The days when the kitchen was full of food and fragrance had gone and would never return.

  At Minmin’s request, Maggie agreed to accept Ian’s psychological counselling. Minmin was a little nervous the first time she took Maggie into Ian’s office, almost as if she was the one receiving counselling. She glanced at the reflection of her waistline in the window. Time is like a demonic mirror; as soon as one turns around, a willowy waist becomes a pot belly. If she had known that she would be returning to the singles market at nearly forty years of age, she would have found a way to preserve her figure earlier.

  A stick of incense on his desk gave off a wisp of smoke. A small island in southern China vaguely appeared to Minmin t
hrough the mist; there was a temple on the island. One year, on a quiet afternoon under the white glare of the sun, she had pushed open the temple’s door. She had lighted a stick of incense and selected a bamboo slip. On the slip were two lines of poetry: “The sound of quiet sobbing underneath the Chinese Goldthread tree; fortunately, a soul mate awaits over the wall.”

  “Your name is ‘Maggie?’” Ian asked.

  Maggie nodded.

  “Did you pick the name?” Ian turned and asked Minmin.

  Minmin said, “I read an American short story when I was in China called ‘The Gift of the Maggie.’” The look in Ian’s eyes told her that he had read the story too. “I was deeply moved by it.”

  “Why did you pick that name?”

  “Because the story was similar to mine and Zhong Li’s, except that the girl in the story had blonde hair….”

  “Who is Zhong Li?”

  “My ex-husband.”

  “Oh….” Ian’s tone seemed both sympathetic and suddenly enlightened.

  “Upon graduating from university, Zhong Li and I became Beijing ‘floaters.’ Do you know what Beijing floaters are?”

  Ian shook his head, bewildered.

  “Floaters in Beijing do not have Beijing household registration….” Minmin struggled to explain, but then could not help but laugh. “You probably don’t know what household registration is; it is one of China’s distinctive features.”

  Maggie also laughed; it seemed teaching this white uncle was an amusing matter.

  Ian immediately sensed a few threads of warmth, trust, even intimacy floating over to him from Minmin and her daughter. Charmingly, he said, “I am extremely interested in China’s culture; however, you must be patient with me.”

  In the next half hour, Minmin related her and Zhong Li’s story. After graduating from university, they grew weary of their hand-to-mouth existence and the monotony of small town living. They left for Beijing to seek better opportunities. Because they couldn’t find jobs, the only thing they could do was sell lamb kebabs on the street. Even today, when she encountered the smell of lamb, she wanted to vomit. She even pedaled a flatbed tricycle to pick up supplies when she was pregnant, and once, during a rainstorm, she fell into a gutter. Maggie was saved, but her brain was damaged…. They had saved a bit of money, so they started a business reproducing artwork. Later, they immigrated to Canada….