Chapter 2: The Premium Chamber Opens

The line of red characters on the iron box floated under the oil lamp for a long while before it faded. Lin Wan spread the two dollars sixty in Hong Kong dollars across her knees — one one-dollar note, another one-dollar note, and then a fifty-cent note and a ten-cent coin — and counted them twice; it was still two dollars sixty. She stuffed the iron box into the broken fish basket under the bed, pressed two old shirts down on top of it, and lay down, but she could not sleep. The thatch on the roof rustled in the night wind, and through a gap the moonlight leaked down onto the mud floor in front of the bed, white as a layer of thin frost. Next door, Aunt Liu's snoring came through the thin boards, now high, now low. With her eyes open, she ran her mind over the edges and corners of those few Hong Kong notes once more. Hong Kong dollars. At the pier, the seafood buyer paid in Hong Kong dollars — but passing through the hands of a fisher girl, how many of them could possibly be left over? Outside, the tide beat against the shore, sound after sound. She turned over, and that sentence floated up in her mind again — just how big, in the end, was this iron box's appetite?

At the fourth watch the sky was still dark; only in the east did a line of grey-white show above the sea, with the stars hanging sparse. She carried two wooden buckets down to the tidal flats. The tide had just gone out, and the flats were crawling with sand crabs; the moment her feet touched down, those little creatures scattered sideways, rustling as they went. She was quick with her hands and feet: in half an hour she had dug half a bucket of sea snails, and felt out a few green crabs besides. The cake of soap she had drawn yesterday, she had not been able to bring herself to use; she had wrapped it in a rag and pressed it down at the bottom of the rice jar — a thing like that was a rarity in a fishing village, and worth keeping for when it would be useful. As the sun came over the hills she laid the snails and crabs out separately: snails were cheap goods and crabs were hard goods, as her father had taught her while he lived. She wiped her hands clean on her trousers, picked up the buckets, and headed for the pier.

The pier was already astir: fishing boats coming in to shore, porters calling out their chanties, the fishy smell mixed with diesel fumes rushing at her face. In front of the fish market stalls, the seafood buyer stood with half a cigarette dangling from his mouth and slanted a glance into her bucket: "Snails at twenty cents a catty, crabs at forty cents."

"Crabs at seventy cents," Lin Wan said.

The seafood buyer burst out laughing: "What would a little lass like you know about prices?"

"Yesterday the restaurant in town was taking them at eighty cents." She shifted the bucket behind her. "You offer forty cents here; I carry them into town, half an hour's walk, and earn thirty cents more. Worth it."

The seafood buyer stubbed his cigarette butt out on the stall board: "Sixty cents, and I'll take the lot."

"Seventy cents, and every one of my crabs is full of roe." She lifted the green leaves laid over the top. The seafood buyer bent his head and looked for a long while, then spat: "You're ruthless, all right. Snails at twenty-five cents, crabs at seventy cents — four dollars thirty in all."

Four dollars thirty in Hong Kong dollars, crumpled up and held in her palm. Added to the two dollars sixty at home, that made six dollars ninety in total. She stood at the edge of the pier and smoothed the money out note by note, pressing the edges down with her fingertips until everything was neat. How much would the Premium chamber want before it would open? The iron box had only written "Balance insufficient" — it had not given a number. Her heart tightened: if it wanted ten dollars, she would have to save for three more days, and over those three days, might the iron box change its mind? On the road back to the village she ran into Aunt Liu coming up from the ferry landing with a basket of salted fish; those eyes of hers landed first on the Hong Kong dollars in Lin Wan's hand, and only then on her face.

"How much did you sell them for?" Aunt Liu hoisted the basket up onto her arm.

"A little over four dollars."

"A little over four dollars?" Aunt Liu clicked her tongue. "Your aunt here dried this basket of salted fish for half a month, and when I sell it, it won't fetch even three dollars. And look at you — one morning's work." She paused, and her voice softened. "Wan, you live in this house of mine and eat my salted fish; your aunt isn't after anything from you. It's just that when your hands are a bit looser, you pay me back two dollars first — I need to keep money turning over on my side too."

"I'm keeping account of the salted fish," Lin Wan said. "I'll pay you back ten cents at a time; I won't welsh on it."

The little softness on Aunt Liu's face withdrew. "As long as you remember. And don't you go learning from those boat girls, money in hand and straight off to buy flowers to wear."

Lin Wan did not answer; she only pressed the Hong Kong dollars tighter into her apron pocket. Buy flowers to wear? She laughed inwardly — what she was buying was no flower. Back home she bolted the door, dragged the fish basket out from under the bed — the iron box was still there, cold to the touch — and spread the six dollars ninety in Hong Kong dollars out on the tabletop, smoothing them one by one. First she drew out five dollars and tentatively fed it toward the Premium chamber's slot. This time the slot did not flash "Balance insufficient"; the edge of the notes was bitten with a click, and a surge of heat rushed up from the bottom of the box, hot enough to make her fingertips flinch back.

The red light turned green, the lid sprang open half an inch, and a line of characters floated out: "Premium chamber — opened." Lying in the slot was an object: a copper tube, a little thicker than a finger, heavy in the hand, its body engraved with several lines of curving foreign script and a small cap at the top. She held the copper tube and turned it halfway round, pulled the cap off, and inside was a dark-red paste carrying a sweet fragrance. She dipped a fingertip into a little of it and rubbed it on the back of her hand; the red spread open, even as melted sugar.

The moment her fingertip touched the paste, a sheet of white light flared up in her mind with a whoosh. The light stung her eyes until they watered, and the pictures came one after another, too fast for her to take in. She saw a blonde woman with red lips, standing amid blinding flashes of light, foreigners holding cameras all around her. Below the picture floated a line of characters, which the iron box translated for her into something she could understand: Marilyn — this one stick on her lips could make a face be remembered from ten paces away. Then came several more pictures: the foreign woman's portrait pasted on the sides of trams, in newspapers, in shop windows, and that lipstick set in a velvet box, with a string of zeros after the price on the tag that she could not even count.

Lin Wan opened her eyes, her palms covered in sweat. She stared at the copper tube for a long time. This was no ointment; this was what upper-class foreign women put on their mouths, and one stick of it could be worth half a year of her father catching fish. But in the fishing village nobody knew the goods for what they were: Aunt Liu would only call it an iron whistle, and the seafood buyer at the pier would be even less likely to pay money for it. The people who knew the goods were in town. She thought of the foreign-goods shop at the entrance to the town; the shop's owner was a one-eyed man whose surname nobody ever mentioned — everyone called him the One-Eyed Boss.

At noon the next day, when the sun had climbed as high as a bamboo pole, Aunt Liu came over carrying a bowl of fish soup, and the moment she came through the door she saw Lin Wan sitting on the threshold, wrapping that copper tube in coarse cloth. "What is this?" Aunt Liu leaned in close to look. "You spent several dollars buying an iron whistle? Does it blow loud or not?"

"Ointment." Lin Wan tucked the corner of the cloth in properly, without raising her head. "Brought in on a South Seas ship. It treats chapped skin; one application and you see the effect."

"Ointment?" Aunt Liu snorted. "That little bit of money in your hands — wouldn't it be better spent on coarse rice than on ointment? You look like an honest girl, but your heart is higher than the sky. Your father was just the same when he was alive: earned one and spent two." Lin Wan's hands did not stop moving.

Once she had gone, Lin Wan spread the things out again: the copper tube wrapped in two layers of clean coarse cloth, and outside that another layer of oil paper — the very sheet that had lined the box when the soap was drawn. She found a thin wooden board and, with a charcoal stick, copied out a few of the curving characters from the foreign script on the tube's body; she copied them crooked, but they looked intimidating. When all that was done, she tucked the thing into the inside pocket of her clothes, changed into a blue cloth shirt with no patches on it, and walked to town. The dirt road along the river had been ground by ox carts into two deep ruts; she walked along the edge of the ruts, fine dust rising from the soles of her feet.

The One-Eyed Boss's shop stood at the entrance to the town, its storefront not large; in the glass cabinet were set a few bottles of toilet water, two boxes of matches and a stack of foreign socks, and the shop carried a smell of camphor mixed with kerosene. He was rubbing a pocket watch with a piece of buckskin; he raised his eyes, saw her, and that single eye swept her up and down once: "Buying what?"

"Selling something." Lin Wan set the cloth parcel down on the counter and unwrapped it layer by layer.

The One-Eyed Boss's hand stopped on the pocket watch. He stared at the copper tube for a full three breaths before he reached out and picked it up; he pulled the cap off, brought it close and smelled it, then picked up a little with a fingernail and rubbed it on the back of his hand.

"Where did it come from?"

"Brought in on a South Seas ship," Lin Wan said. "The men on the ship said this is what upper-class foreign women put on their lips; one stick lasts a year."

The One-Eyed Boss lifted the back of his hand into the light to look; that dab of red shone dazzlingly bright under the sun. He lowered his hand: "Twelve dollars."

"Thirty."

"Little lass, do you take this for gold?" He laughed. "The ladies in this town who know this thing can be counted on the fingers of one hand."

"The ladies who know it number more than one hand, too." Lin Wan drew the corner of the cloth back toward her. "Boss, that stack of foreign socks on your counter sells for thirty cents a pair, and the ladies who buy them and take them home still complain that they prick their feet. This thing is different — put it on and go out, and people will look at you twice, and afterwards they'll come and ask you whether you've got any more. If you think it's too dear, I'll take it back home with me; some other day, when a lady in town is having a birthday, I'll present it to her, and she may well reward me with more."

The One-Eyed Boss's single eye narrowed. He turned the copper tube twice between his fingers, then suddenly laughed: "You little lass, your mouth is sharper than this paste." He bent down and fished a tin box out from under the counter, opened it, and inside was a stack of Hong Kong dollars. He counted out twenty dollars and pressed them onto the countertop: "Twenty dollars, in cash."

Lin Wan looked at that stack of money and did not move. Her face showed nothing, but in her heart she turned that number over and over: twenty-five — how many times could that open the Premium chamber?

"Twenty-five dollars." The One-Eyed Boss drew out one more note. "Not one ten-cent coin more; weigh it up yourself."

"Deal." Lin Wan counted the money twice — twenty-five dollars, not a single note short — stuffed it into the inside pocket of her clothes, and pushed the cloth parcel over to him.

Once she was out of the shop door, the sun was fierce, baking the bluestone slabs white. She had walked a dozen steps or so when she suddenly felt a chill on her back — not heat, but that feeling of being watched. She bent down and pretended to tie her shoelace, glancing back from under her armpit. The One-Eyed Boss had not counted the money, nor had he put the cloth parcel away; he just stood behind the counter, his single eye half narrowed, watching the direction she had gone, his fingers tapping on the counter, tap after tap. The shop assistant behind the counter, having heard something or other, lifted the curtain and slipped into the back room.

Lin Wan straightened up and quickened her pace. As she turned past the old banyan tree at the street corner, its hanging aerial roots brushed across her shoulder, and she caught sight of the back door of the foreign-goods shop standing half open. Out of it came a young fellow in a black glazed-silk shirt with his sleeves rolled up to the elbows; he stood in the doorway and looked once toward the pier, and only then set off that way at an unhurried pace. She pressed the Hong Kong dollars in her pocket tighter, her palm covered in sweat. Twenty-five dollars — this money had come too fast. So fast that someone else had worked it out even earlier than she had: how would a fisher girl come to have in her hands a thing that only foreign ladies used?