Chapter 16
澳洲：何木
“Who is that guy with you? Chunyan, tell me, is that Peter?” The voice, seethed with anger and desperation, followed her steps closely, stabbing her ears. She shook off the hands that had been trying to stop her, went straight into the shop, and then upstairs where she used it as her bedroom.
The bed was now her refuge. She dived into it and pulled up the quilt to cover her eyes. She needed silence, time and space to regroup her senses.
After about half an hour, the pleading of the wretched man had finally died out. The room was quiet, the blinded window fending off the buzzing noise of outside traffic.
“What have I done? What have I done,” she asked, as soon as she was ready to think.
Yes, Peter had kissed her and what a shame, she had kissed him back. And at the last minute, just as she thought there would be no more between her and Peter, Hetao had to stand there watching it like an episode in a movie!
She was caught cheating, red-handed...
Three years ago, like many school graduates in the countryside, Chunyan, Lily’s Chinese name, left her village intending to find a new life in Chengdu. Her first job was a waitress in Hetao’s hotpot restaurant. Once, at a Karaoke held by the restaurant, she drank more than enough and Hetao called a Didi for her, but instead of heading to her own place, she had arrived at his apartment where he carried her to his room and …
She should have reported him to the police the next morning, when she realised what he had done to her without her consent. But she hadn't, and even worse, her heart softened by his begging tears she had forgiven him, and later, had gone further, willingly or else, to become his girlfriend. Since then, she hadn’t thought of leaving him, as long as he still loved her, wanted her, as long as he did not try to hang out with other girls around him.
It had never been her intention to flirt with Peter, a gentle, and romantic young man, in great contrast to Hetao. So, it must have all been Peter’s fault. But really? Why had she not stopped his first attempt, like what she had managed to do to many other boys or men who had said they liked her, over the years ever since her middle school?
She thought Peter would be out of her life completely after yesterday's good-bye dinner. Why did Hetao stand there watching? Why hadn’t she behaved herself? Now it ended up with this unwanted mess.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have come to Chengdu in the first place. She could have just agreed to marry the village head, a university graduate who had come to her village with the ambition to help them become rich and prosperous.
So many whys and regrets… her head was spinning. She tossed the quilt away to take fresh air. Then she heard someone coming up, the footsteps creaking the wooden stairs.
She hid her face again.
“Chunyan, Chunyan…” He was calling her, miserably, as if he had lost something the dearest in the world. She didn't like her Chinese name, plain, earthy and not as romantic as Lily given by Peter. And now muttered in his teary voice, it had never sounded so annoying, and ugly.
She was not impressed with a man who had to beg for a woman's love.
Determined to ignore him, she stayed unmoved in bed, under the cover. Then suddenly, the quilt was blown away and she was confronting the pair of sad eyes above her.
“Chunyan, what happened, do you stop loving me, eh, eh?” He put his hand on her shoulder, shaking her. She turned her head away, shunning the intensity of his expression. But then, with one hand he forced her face back towards him.
Under his sad gloomy eyes, a sense of guilt went through her. Honestly, Hetao had been nice to her, loyal to her, and had spent money on her. It was not fair to treat him like this.
“Sorry, Hetao,” she said, “forget it, it was nothing, it was not what you might have imagined. True, I lied to you, I went to his dinner. But I just wanted to tell him very clearly, and for the last time, that we wouldn’t be possible, obviously, I already have you.Trust me, I have never meant to betray you.”
Hetao, lying beside her, was only quiet for a minute before his voice suddenly drummed out, as if from the depth of his body, “If it was nothing, why did you lie to me and go to his dinner? You think I am a fool? You told me months ago, you two were nothing. You are such a liar. What the hell have you been doing behind my back? Have you, have you…”
He trailed off, as if he dreaded mentioning the rest.
“No, Hetao, I swear I haven’t … we were no more than good friends.”
“Good friends? Good phuckking and kissing friends? Tell me everything, otherwise I am gonna kill you…” And as if to make his threats more credible, he began to beat the bed with his not very strong fists, and from his eyes, good looking actually, shot the light of jealousy.
“Okay,” Lily said, taking his nasty behaviour a little more seriously, “He just kissed me, that was all, kissed me goodbye.”
“And you? What did you do?”
“Me? I didn’t do anything.”
“Liar...”
For a moment, Lily had an urge to relieve herself by telling the entire truth, that she had kissed him back with the feelings of love she had never felt before. But restraining the reckless part of her she said solemnly, “Hetao, I swear it was the first time I had been out with him, and that was the end of it.”
“But I saw it with my eyes,” Hetao said, still beating the edge of the bed like a grumpy, sugar-deprived child, “now I am sure that you two had cuddled in the car for a long time. At first I thought, what a romantic couple, tangling and kissing shamelessly inside the car ...”
Lily wanted to pull up the quilt again, but Hetao stopped her, “You love me? You love me? You have never been quite willing to speak to me, and more so since you have known Peter. I know I did it wrong on our first night, but I was drunk… and how many times have I asked for your forgiveness? Sometimes I wonder if you will shed a tear for me if I die.”
Lily, fed up with the lengthy and meaningless and hopeless conversation, suddenly sat up and almost shouted at him with anger, “Hetao, stop whining like a woman. I said again it was nothing between me and Peter, otherwise I wouldn’t have agreed to marry you. Now, listen, if you don’t want me to change my mind, shut up and go and leave me alone.”
And seeing him not moving, she began to push him and kick him off the bed.
She thought, as usual, Hetao would have yielded to her bad temper and got lost from her immediately. But this time, she had mistaken the situation, underestimated the devilish power of a man soaked in shame and jealousy. For, like a mad man, Hetao sprang up from the floor, and with his arms that resembled dry and tenacious vines, he seized her body and suppressed her thrashing limbs. He even managed to tear off all the clothes on her, including the ones she had carefully attired for Peter.
But Lily was not to easily surrender. Her spirit was running ‘spicy’. She was not drunk and unconscious like that tragic night when he had been able to take advantage of her.
The mobility and animation of her white arms and legs were never so wild and dramatically powerful. Soon she broke away from him, and with all her might she slapped him across his face. And then once again, she kicked him off down to the floor, only harder.
No man could possibly force her when she was sober, not that village head who had once tried, not that self-important school boy who had tried to kiss her on her way back home.
She was gathering her clothes when Hetao suddenly jumped up and grabbed her again. He was absolutely crazy today. Perhaps her naked body, in addition to his jealousy, had aroused the most primitive nature of him. In spite of her tigerss spirit his evil energy had at last overpowered her, pressing her fully underneath him.
Her lips hurt badly, her breasts crushed, and although unable to take his own clothes off, because of his engaged arms and legs in controlling her, he had exposed himself just enough to force into her.
The pain was piercing, his rough shirt and pants rubbing her delicate skin. It was unimaginable a thin man like Hetao could have so much power, pounding against her like that. For a moment, she wondered if this man really liked her, or hated her, or simply wanted her flesh, treating her no more than a piece of meat.
Hetao did it much longer than his average. At last he was at the point of getting his ‘death’. He began to gasp quicker, his body shuddered, his face twisting and twisted.
He fell off, like a corpse after making ‘hate’ with her. The sheer end of it was no difference from his other numerous times, whatever origin of his sex drive might have come from.
She wished he were dead, she wished he had had a heart attack, she wished he had died from semen exhaustion.
Then suddenly he was crying, the voice squeezed out of a ghost.
“Go to hell, Hetao," she said weakly but firmly, "I will never see you again, don't ever think I will forgive you this time no matter how much pathetic tears you have."
Hetao muttered a few words, got up and arranged his clothes, ran down the stairs and finally the devil was gone.
The life without either Hetao or Peter was peaceful, which was what she wanted. She had asked other people to look after the website, and it was good that Peter hadn’t tried to contact her ever since she texted him her decision. ‘Poor Peter, how frightened he must have been when he saw Hetao standing up there,’ Lily recalled the scene, her nimble fingers picking the dead petals of roses.
Hetao had tried to see her a number of times, and begged for her pardon. But she was blind and deaf to him. It was all over. It was Lily’s decision to pay him back as soon as possible the money he had helped set up the shop.
However, as time went by, she began to feel very lonely in this big city. Life without Hetao was quite okay. Looking back she hadn’t really loved him. It had all been a series of mistakes, one leading to another. But, listening to her heart, she still missed Peter. What had he been doing? Why had he never contacted her ever since? Had he really loved her at all? These thoughts more and more came to distract her, when she was making flowers, when she was eating meals, causing her many sleepless nights.
One afternoon while she was thinking if she should find a plausible excuse to contact Peter, Bob, and a few other unknown men, suddenly stormed into her shop, yelling at her, “Lily, where is your boyfriend?”
Dumbfounded, it took her several seconds to utter a single word, “What?”
“Your boyfriend smashed our bar, and almost killed Peter. Where is he hiding?” Bob raged on, his face vividly bruised, his clothes stained with blood, his bear-like body advancing towards her dangerously.
“What happened, what happened? Killed Peter?” Lily cried out, now fully awake, her anxiety speeding her words, “Hetao isn’t here, he hasn’t come here...”
“Where is he then? In his restaurant? Okay, give me the address.”
After they got the address they bolted out the shop. Lily, anxious to find out what had happened, called Hetao immediately, but his mobile was offline. She tried many more times but still no luck. Then she called Peter, but no one picked the call.
The world seemed to stop moving. What should she do? What on earth had Hetao done to Peter? Then suddenly her phone rang. She jumped to it, it was from an unknown number. It must be one of those unsolicited calls, she thought, but in another second she decided to take it.
A familiar voice rushed over, “Chunyan, Chunyan, it is me, Hetao.”
“Hetao, Oh my god, where are you? Why didn’t you take my calls? And what had you done to Peter, they said…”
“Chunyan, it is a long story,” he interrupted her, “I will tell you if you allow me another time, but now I am safe, I am heading to other cities…”
“But why?”
“Look, Chunyan, I think, I think I, actually one of my friends, may have killed Peter, accidentally.”
“Accidentally?” Lily gasped, “Hetao, what have you done, what have you done? Were you crazy?”
“Chunyan, yes, I was crazy, but it was all because of you …now I have to go, the police are searching for me. When they come to the shop, you just say you don’t know...”
The line went dead.
“All because of me?” She murmured.
The siren was rocking the air. Two policemen got out of the flashing car and walked, unhurriedly, into the shop. Their methodical manner calmed her nerves a little.
“We just came here to ask you a few questions about Hetao,” one of them said politely.
“Yes, yes,” she replied, very nervous as it was the first time she had had anything to do with the police.
The inquiry lasted half an hour, during which she answered all questions truthfully, including the call Hetao had just made. In the circumstances she couldn’t think of protecting Hetao, now her ex-boyfriend, and also likely a criminal, a murderer. The fear that Peter might die, that she might never see him again, made her knees weak.
Her heart was aching for Peter. She closed the shop immediately and hailed a taxi heading to the hospital where Peter had been sent to, as told by the police.
An hour later, while she was speaking to the receptionist of the patient's ward, she saw two familiar figures coming down from the corridor.
She stopped to intercept them, “Hi Xiaobai, and Ming…”
“You, Lily?” said Xiaobai, frowning.
“Yes, yes, where is Peter?”
Xiaobai was hesitating, “Why do you want to see him? Don’t you, and your boyfriend, want him dead?”
“No, no, Xiaobai, I had known nothing until Bob came to my shop,” cried Lily, “please, please, tell me if Peter is okay? Is he okay? Where is he?”
“He is Not okay, he is still in a coma after the brain surgery.”
“Where is he, where is he?” Her tears, as quick as her words, spilled out her eyes and ran down her cheeks.
Slowly the hostility in Xiaobai’s face changed to pity. “Level 4, room 405,” Xiaobai said, walking away with Ming.
Thinking she couldn’t go to see a patient empty-handed, she hurried to a flower stall and bought a bunch of lilies, her favourite and also Peter’s as she believed.
She knocked at the door of room 405 carefully a few times until a middle-aged lady opened it.
“Yes?”
“Aryi…is Peter here?” she asked meekly.
“Yes, and you are…?”
Guessing this must be Peter’s mother, Lily became more nervous. “I am…I am ..” she stuttered, “I am Peter’s… eh… classmate.”
“Oh, are you?” Peter’s mum said doubtfully, her eyes in red. “Come in, come in, Peter is still unconscious.. Oh, my poor child...”
Lily placed the flower on the bedside table. On the pillow in the bed Peter’s head was wrapped in white, with two thin tubes threading out of his nose. His eyes closed, his lips closed, his face as white as snow. But thanks to heaven, he was still breathing, the respirator making rhythmic living noise.
So long had Lily been lost in her quiet sadness that Peter’s mum grew curious. “You said you were Peter’s schoolmate?”
Lily was taken aback and answered insincerely, “Ehm…”
“Really? You are so pretty, I have never seen you before.”
“Oh, I just, just came back from .. from Beijing,” she continued, avoiding the prying eyes.
Then suddenly, the mother blurted out, “Arh.. now I get it, you must be that Lily Girl, Peter had told me about you…” then, throwing a quick glance at the flowers on the table, she said in a very stern voice, “Yes, you are the girl, who… who… had made him suffer so...” and broke off to tears.
“Aryi, sorry, yes,” she stammered, her own tears brimming. “I am Lily, sorry, but I don't really know what happened…”
Embarrassment, awkwardness, and distrust filled up the room. For a minute or two they stood uneasily, unable to find a way to lighten the atmosphere. Then, the mother who seemed to have at last found the right target to vent her emotions, broke the truce in a shrill, scathing voice, “Lily Girl, why are you here? We don’t want you here, Peter ends this bad all because of you. Where is your murderous boyfriend, are you hiding him somewhere?”
Each word was like a knife cutting Lily’ heart. “Aryi… sorry, I am sorry…” Lily couldn't continue, and realising she was not welcome in the place at all, she gave Peter a final, worried look and headed for the door.
Outside in the corridor, she found a vacant seat where she hid her face in her hands and sobbed her heart out.
The next day, after a sleepless night, she couldn’t help but go to see Peter again. This time Peter’s father was also there. He was expressionless, and speechless, but his silence was blaming her even more severely than the mother’s reprimands. From the way they looked at her, she felt like an alien from another planet, or one with some contagious virus.
How much she wanted to hold Peter’s hands and told him she was sorry. How much did she wish that Peter would open his eyes and call her name again?
But she wasn’t given any chance.
To find out what had really happened and why, she went to the English bar trying to ask Bob or Xiaobai about it. But they had all been very cold to her and didn’t want to speak to her.
But she was persistent. And her tears had at last moved Bob who let her into the bar and agreed to speak to her.
“Your boyfriend,” he began, “and two other men came into the bar that afternoon. The bar was usually quiet during this period, so we were glad to receive them.
“Some time later, Peter came down between his lessons, to have his usual orange juice. Apparently he had recognised your boyfriend, and went to him trying to be friendly with him, while I went out to make some phone calls. Then in about ten minutes I heard the loud quarrelling back in the lounge. I rushed back in and saw the fight had already begun. The chairs were pulled up, the tables toppled down, the glasses and bottles being smashed. I ran to them trying to help defend Peter who himself couldn’t possibly fight against three. While I was dealing with two of them, including your boyfriend, the third one lifted a chair and slammed it down onto Peter's head. Peter melted down to the floor at once, bleeding. I stopped the fight immediately to attend to him. But he was not responsive. ‘Help, help,’ I cried, trying all I could to stop the blood. The culprits, also shocked and frightened by the scene, were escaping and soon disappeared. Half an hour later, the ambulance and the police arrived and we rushed to the hospital,” Bob paused, taking a large sip of the tea.
“What were they fighting for?” Lily asked impatiently, “What did they say to each other?”
“Sorry, I don't know,” Bob replied, “We thought you and Peter had already finished, although I knew he had been very low recently and had resisted his attempt to see you again. So it didn’t make sense that your boyfriend would have come to make this trouble. Peter told me about that dinner with you, but that was weeks ago, so.. only you, and of course your boyfriend, may have a better explanation, or wait till Peter wakes up.”
Lily sighed, “I can’t imagine Hetao could have done such a terrible thing. As a matter of fact, I have already left him weeks ago. Perhaps it was my fault, I shouldn’t have agreed to have that dinner with Peter…”
Bob, eyeing Lily suspiciously, drank his tea quietly for a minute, before he said again, “Let’s pray Peter will wake up soon and get well, I am so worried about him. His parents… Oh my god, their world had collapsed…”
Lily, recalling the faces of the parents, tears welled up again. “I am sorry, Bob, I really wish the tragedy had not occurred. I never thought this kind of terrible thing could have happened to me, and to my friends…”
Bob looked steadily at her teary eyes, indifferent to her misery. “Your friends?” he said mockingly, “is Peter one of your friends? Lily, please tell me honestly, do you not like Peter at all?”
Lily didn’t give a reply. She looked at Bob confusedly as if she hadn’t understood his question. Whom did she love? Hetao or Peter? For the minute, their faces took turns flashing in Lily’s mind. Then her feelings for one of them grew so strong that her answer had never seemed so apparent. Why hadn’t she been honest with herself before? Clearly she had never stopped thinking of him, since that night in the shop, whilst the other one had increasingly become a kind of nuisance to her life…
“Yes, I love him,” she said, dreamily.
“Him? Peter or…”
“Peter.”
Bob smiled a little. “Well, at least Peter had not been through all this for nothing.”
Two days later, Bob called her, “Lily, I have told Peter’s parents more about you, your love for their son. And we agreed that perhaps you are the only one who can help Peter recover his consciousness faster. So, his parents wanted your help, and hoped you could come often and talk to him? Doctors said this would definitely help.”
What a relief, if not exactly a joy! Without a second of delay, she called one of her casual workers and asked her to work full time so she could dedicate herself to the caring of Peter.
Peter’s parents were now friendly, or pretended so. And Lily was behaving like his girlfriend, though unannounced. “Bomu,” she said to the mother, calling her with a closer, more intimate title, “you may go home to have rest or go to your work, let me look after Peter.”
Then, alone with Peter, she stroked his hand, and whispered to his ears, “Peter, I am Lily, can you hear me? We haven’t talked to each other since the night we had dinner, do you remember Australian lobster? Peter, I should have told you how happy I was, but you see, I was not a brave and decisive person. I still remember how we met the first time. You were so funny, speaking English like that, so surprising, so amazing, like a breath of fresh air into my life. And the lily you gave me, which I later put in the water with flower-nutrition, had lived beautifully for another five days. Every time I came to look at it, touched it, I thought of you, with a smile. And just as I thought you would be gone from my life like another stranger, you came to my shop again and you wouldn’t imagine how happy I was ...
“Peter, can you wake up and speak English again to me? Send me another lily? See, I didn’t study well at school, but I liked English more than other subjects. I even wished I could take your class at your English centre, and be one of your students. I really want to see how you teach, see how happy you may be with me in the class.”
Lily put her hand on his forehead, and then upon his eyebrows, and then his lips, caressing them like petals.
“Peter, I have never thought things could have ended up this bad. Over the years, boys had been around me bothering me all the time until, until Hetao became my boyfriend. Since then I have been able to reject others clearly and decisively. But for some reason when you came to me I could only half-heartedly say so and even allowed you to give me the gift in the first place, and a few more times afterwards. Hetao had never sent me any flowers, though in a way he had given me a whole shop of them, because you see, he had helped me set up the shop…with his money.
“When he complained to me about you, I thought I needed to make it more clear so as not to hurt you, and him. Back then, I still thought I belonged to him, and that I loved him, simply because he had cared for me and helped me a lot. I now know, it was only a kind of possession in the name of love.
“I was too young to understand these things. I thought all the men were the same. But you were very different, you were gentle, and romantic, never forced me to do anything. And you know what, I was very disappointed that he had not contacted me after that dinner. I was afraid I would never see you again. Of course, I could always go to your centre to see you, if I wanted and if I was brave enough.
“Peter, I have seen your mum and dad, they are now nice to me, and how much we, and your friends, Bob and Xiaobai, hope you will wake up soon and talk to us again?”
Her ‘self-talk’ grew lower and lower until she fell into sleep, her head inches away from Peter’s, his hand holding hers.
She was woken up by Peter’s mum. “Lily, thank you for coming to accompany Peter,” she said, “I know it was not your fault, so please forget my harsh words I said to you the other day.”
“Bomu, it is all right,” said Lily tearfully, “let me look after Peter until he is well again.”
So, without a day being missed, Lily went to the hospital every day afterwards, breathing her slow, gentle voice to Peter.
On the fifth day, while speaking as usual, she felt his hand twitching once or twice. “Peter, Peter,” her heart jumped, “are you awake, it is me, it is me, Lily,” she touched his lips and cheeks with her fingers, then she bent down to kiss his eyes.
Peter was indeed responding. His eyelids, under her lips, fluttered. Then, to her greatest joy, the eyes, the windows of his soul, were opening.
“Peter, you are awake!” Lily cried out, cupping his face as the most precious thing in the world.
?
– To be continued –
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