got a lot of hard work ahead. You’ll be going to bed tired every day. But keep your heads down, do the job, keep away from those chickens, and in a few years you’ll be rich men. Then you can go home and play all you like. You’ll have tarts all over you. You’ll be set for life.’
What was a few years of hard work? It would pass in a flash. Ding Ming was not afraid of hard work. He asked, apologetically because he didn’t want to be seen as bothersome , ‘So could you give me some more details about where my wife has gone?’
‘She’ll be fine. She’ll be picking flowers, and that’s a simple job.’
‘It’s just that I worry.’
‘You’ll be able to talk to her in a couple of days.’
He determined to put it out of his mind for now. Talking to his mother had proved to be without obstacle, and she was much farther away. Black Fort patted his arm.
A man made a sly comment to his friend, on how the failed English teacher was everybody’s favourite. Ding Ming pretended not to hear. At that moment he wished that he did not speak any English, and that he had not spent so long at school when he should have been working. He saw that he had too much education to be accepted by people of his own class, and not enough class to be accepted by people of education . He did not fit in. And was that, he wondered, one reason he had been keen to go abroad? The idea was quite new to him. He was experiencing the benefit a distant perspective gives on the problems of home.
Black Fort headed back to the restaurant. Ding Ming watched him though the windscreen. How cool he was, his confidence visible in every stride.
Kevin burped and started the engine. As the van drove away, the headlights swept across a shuttered building, and Ding Ming believed he glimpsed a Chinese man, sitting in its porch. The stocky figure wore a black leather jacket with the collar turned up. The way he was settled, it looked like he had been there some time. He did not look like a tramp or a beggar, perhaps he had just lost his keys and was waiting for someone to come and let him in. It was strange but welcome , as in this vast unknown every sight of a Chinese person brought comfort.
But it was the briefest flash, so Ding Ming could not be sure he had not imagined the scene. Perhaps his tiredness was putting shapes to shadows. He put it out of his mind. The smell of food still hung in the air, and he wondered when he would be fed.
( 16
With the migrants buoyed up by their brief connection with home, the atmosphere in the back grew lively – it was like a work unit outing. Following the sighting of a black and white bird and some black and white animal dead at the side of the road, Ding Ming observed that although this nation seemed advanced in many things their animals had yet to make the move into colour. It worked better in his head than out in the open. The migrants looked baffled and when he explained that he meant an analogy with television it rather seemed to drain the observation of its humour.
He curled up and wished his wife’s body lay next to him. He recalled the smell of her hair and the feel of it against his face. If she were next to him, her lips would be just here – he put a finger to the spot, then traced the remembered line of her jaw. He let his hand slide down over her neck and collarbone , and he dropped the real hand and an imaginary one followed the rise of her breast, circling a nipple. The hand swooped and stroked and now he could hear her noises of delight, feel skin give beneath his fingers, feel her fingers running through his hair, feel—
The van pulled up. Kevin snapped his fingers. ‘Out.’ They were parked before a grand two-storey house. Kevin unlocked a door and hurried them in, snapping and pointing.
Ding Ming worried that Mister Kevin’s promise to provide a phone number for his wife’s work supervisor ‘as soon as they got there’ had slipped the man’s mind. Reminding himdid not seem an issue
What was a few years of hard work? It would pass in a flash. Ding Ming was not afraid of hard work. He asked, apologetically because he didn’t want to be seen as bothersome , ‘So could you give me some more details about where my wife has gone?’
‘She’ll be fine. She’ll be picking flowers, and that’s a simple job.’
‘It’s just that I worry.’
‘You’ll be able to talk to her in a couple of days.’
He determined to put it out of his mind for now. Talking to his mother had proved to be without obstacle, and she was much farther away. Black Fort patted his arm.
A man made a sly comment to his friend, on how the failed English teacher was everybody’s favourite. Ding Ming pretended not to hear. At that moment he wished that he did not speak any English, and that he had not spent so long at school when he should have been working. He saw that he had too much education to be accepted by people of his own class, and not enough class to be accepted by people of education . He did not fit in. And was that, he wondered, one reason he had been keen to go abroad? The idea was quite new to him. He was experiencing the benefit a distant perspective gives on the problems of home.
Black Fort headed back to the restaurant. Ding Ming watched him though the windscreen. How cool he was, his confidence visible in every stride.
Kevin burped and started the engine. As the van drove away, the headlights swept across a shuttered building, and Ding Ming believed he glimpsed a Chinese man, sitting in its porch. The stocky figure wore a black leather jacket with the collar turned up. The way he was settled, it looked like he had been there some time. He did not look like a tramp or a beggar, perhaps he had just lost his keys and was waiting for someone to come and let him in. It was strange but welcome , as in this vast unknown every sight of a Chinese person brought comfort.
But it was the briefest flash, so Ding Ming could not be sure he had not imagined the scene. Perhaps his tiredness was putting shapes to shadows. He put it out of his mind. The smell of food still hung in the air, and he wondered when he would be fed.
( 16
With the migrants buoyed up by their brief connection with home, the atmosphere in the back grew lively – it was like a work unit outing. Following the sighting of a black and white bird and some black and white animal dead at the side of the road, Ding Ming observed that although this nation seemed advanced in many things their animals had yet to make the move into colour. It worked better in his head than out in the open. The migrants looked baffled and when he explained that he meant an analogy with television it rather seemed to drain the observation of its humour.
He curled up and wished his wife’s body lay next to him. He recalled the smell of her hair and the feel of it against his face. If she were next to him, her lips would be just here – he put a finger to the spot, then traced the remembered line of her jaw. He let his hand slide down over her neck and collarbone , and he dropped the real hand and an imaginary one followed the rise of her breast, circling a nipple. The hand swooped and stroked and now he could hear her noises of delight, feel skin give beneath his fingers, feel her fingers running through his hair, feel—
The van pulled up. Kevin snapped his fingers. ‘Out.’ They were parked before a grand two-storey house. Kevin unlocked a door and hurried them in, snapping and pointing.
Ding Ming worried that Mister Kevin’s promise to provide a phone number for his wife’s work supervisor ‘as soon as they got there’ had slipped the man’s mind. Reminding himdid not seem an issue
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