英文小说：A Shadow in Surfers Paradise(51)天堂之影

洋八路

Chapter 51




In the late afternoon of a Sunday, after spending time in the library on his assignment, Bing came across Susan. She was sitting alone on one of the benches in the open ground featuring the water pools. It was indeed a surprise, a profound disbelief that he had not have seen her since their parting two years before in the bus station at Box Hill. He had expected to run into three of his first roommates almost every day, or at least once a week because of the fact they were at the same university, sharing the same library as well as those remarkable lecture theatres. But dismal as what had been, he had never had a glimpse of any of them.

‘Hi, Susan,’ he called immediately and delightedly.

Surprised and alarmed, she raised her head a little bewildered, ‘Ah, you …’ she fumbled for words, ‘sorry, I forget your name, but I remember you.’

‘No, you haven’t forgotten my name, because I have no name,’ Bing laughed gleefully. ‘Why does a person need a name so long as he can be remembered.’

‘Haha, yes, you are Wang, Wang Teacher,’ Susan smiled, not forgetting to touch her glasses. ‘It has been a long time. How have you been?’

‘Not too bad, not too bad, hehe, like you, still alive in the country.’
…
From her, he heard that the other two, David and Mei, had moved to Box Hill and Mont Albert respectively. She had their addresses, but had never visited them, and during the last two years she had only met them separately a couple of times. She herself was living in a flat in Glen Waverley with her classmates.

Although she was currently unemployed, Susan had had a number of jobs, as a cleaner, a waitress, a worker in a garment factory, and her last, a helper in a bread shop. With the range of experience she had accumulated in this period it wouldn’t be difficult for her to get another job, but finding anything better in terms of wages and working conditions was still painstaking.   

‘I could help you if you’d like to be a waitress in Chinatown,’ he said, after the idea came to him, ‘the restaurant I work in has a high waitress turnover.’

‘Oh, really? Could you?’ Gladness and hopefulness were apparent in her voice. ‘I am okay, so long as it is stable, and the boss is kind.’

‘Well, I don’t think the boss of the restaurant has the sort of kindness you would appreciate,’ he said easily, ‘but, hehe, I will be your supervisor if you work there.’

‘Wonderful,’ she made a grand remark, as if she had already secured the job.

‘Look, Susan, I will look into it and let you know when a vacancy is available.’ He wanted to cool her enthusiasm, ‘in the meantime, keep on looking by your own means.’

The day was turning to dusk. Bing suggested having supper together somewhere. But the bus schedule was not agreeable on Sunday evenings. So they exchanged contact details, promising to keep in touch, and departed to their respective residence.

A few days later, he called her and asked her to start to work in the restaurant the next day if she could. So Susan became a waitress, most of the time under his supervision. And one week later, she moved to his flat in Box Hill, living together with the two girls in the girl’s room.

The boys in the flat suspected Susan was his girlfriend, and teased him when the girls were not around, ‘Wang Teacher, maybe we need to make a room exclusively for you and Susan…’

‘Haha, no need to complicate that, I can always go straight into her room at night, and promise never to disturb the rest of you,’ he returned playfully.

But Jessica, the girl who had once shown a certain interest in him, seemed to be a little upset, often managing a cold face to him as well as to Susan, to his best understanding of jealousy.   

It was true that, when he and Susan chanced to go home together late in the night, very tired and worn out, she once or twice rested her head over his shoulder, and he would fondle her hair and her eyebrows, when his desire to kiss her or even to make love to her was momentarily real and evident by his then palpitating heart. But he knew he was treating her more like a younger sister, someone weak and vulnerable needing protection in the wilderness of the world. He had never kissed her, and she seemed to understand him, with her shy and half-disappointed smile on those moments. They were two individuals, drifting in a tide to a fateful junction, where they happened to meet, sharing warmth as a pair of good country-fellows would do.

Another term passed, and he was in the last semester of his three-year IT course. The light at the end of tunnel seemed to be glowing, for in about six months, as soon as he obtained his degree, he would, like most graduates, lodge his application for immigration. Three key criteria, English, Age and Skilled occupation, would then be in his favour.   

During this period, when the prospect of living permanently in the country came to light more frequently than ever, so did the image of his wife visit his mind. Indeed, as they had agreed prior to his departure, he should have tried to get her over to live with him through a Student Dependent Visa, but because he had never felt settled and secure enough in the place, and also because she had not mentioned this matter during their monthly phone calls, his former promise, as if forgotten by both of them, had not found a practical way or a definite time to be honoured. In his absence, she stayed with her parents, and once tried to run a small business selling clothes with her friends, but closed it after losing some money. He had asked her to study English as hard as she could, but he didn’t believe she could achieve much with it. But it wouldn’t matter, for, she would learn it here in Australia. Also, in time she would bear him a child, and be fairly occupied with motherhood.

Walking towards the station in a Saturday afternoon, his imagining of his future life in the country was as sweet and angelic as the beautiful sunshine. When at the moment, two horses, pulling a cart with a number of jubilant tourists, hoofing and knocking the ground in Swanston Street, came in his direction, his heart was flying with a sudden joy. In his vision, sitting in the cart, were he and Qiuyan, and their new-born baby, and yes, his sister, his mum and dad…

It was such a beautiful city; the happiness was too much as yet to speculate upon.

But then, as he strolled on, he saw the old man unexpectedly in this part of street. Since the time he had sat with him and went through the entire Er-Quan Ying Yue, he had become his friend, and every now and then, he would donate some dollars to his performance.   

Nearing him, he paused and waited until he had finished playing his piece.

‘Nihao,’ he caught his attention, ‘Mr. Zhang, how have you moved here.’

‘Oh, it is you, Mr. Wang,’ he lifted his head, putting aside his Erhu, ‘this is also my usual spot.’

‘I see,’ he was curious, ‘how many usual spots do you have?’

‘Three,’ he answered. ‘I will go to a place depending on the traffic, and also by judging the distance to other buskers in the street.’

‘Buskers?’ the word was unfamiliar to him; it sounded like ‘baskets’, but he could tell the difference. ‘What are buskers?’

‘A busker is a person like me in the street, playing music or singing songs, or juggling, to make fun for the public, even making a living by donations.’

For a quick moment, the scene in Mianyang, where a monkey-man entertained the public with two monkeys making love, came back to his mind. Chuckling inwardly, he said, ‘Haha, I didn’t know there was a special word for this; in Chinese, it is Jie Tou Mai Yi, selling art in the street, isn’t it?’

‘Sort of, but here they say busking,’

‘So, you are a busker,’ Bing was highly amused, ‘busking your Erhu for a basket of money in the street.’   

‘Haha,’ the man, sipping his tea, was undoubtedly at his most joyous moments of the day.

Bing said goodbye to him.  

On the train, he gazed out of the window, seeing and enjoying common things along the railway. Then, he suddenly missed his guitar. How long since he had touched it?

Whimsically he opened his palm and began to examine it. The lines and networks, much entwined and complicated, were as distinct as ever, but the flesh was thicker, the skin harder. He touched them, fingered and loved them alternatively with each other, as if testing their toughness and strength, as if recalling the tenderness and delicacy that had once caressed his soul through music. A thought drifted to him, clear and potent. ‘Why couldn’t I play again?’ and the idea marched a mile further, ‘I might even busk in the street, like Old Zhang.’

Instantly he subdued the idea of busking, before rejecting it altogether. That was too much to imagine.

However, he decided to buy a guitar to resume his old-time hobby. Looking at the bright sky, it was still early enough for this Saturday. He got off at next station, and took a train back to the city. He didn’t know where he could find music shops; he just wandered about the streets, thinking he would eventually run into one of them so long as he didn’t overlap his route.

In Burke Street, he found the shop. Most of the guitars were electric ones. In the end, he chose a classic guitar, similar to what he used to play, plus a bag and a strap, which cost a total of $129.

Back on the train, with the guitar snuggled on his breast, the comfort, content and emotion, were indescribable. He imagined it was like a mother cuddling the child she had lost and found. But rather than a turbulence or an outburst of sentimentality, it was a peace, a moment of tranquillity, a feeling of what he believed to be a kind of happiness transcending a living experience. No wonder that Ar Bing and the Chinese busker Mr. Zhang had regarded the Erhu as a device of their truer lives, as an agent, as a representative of their souls, for without the instrument,  life was perhaps a dreary repetition, meaningless, like a rat running in a wheel, like a sky never visited by stars and the moon.

Then, he wondered, ironically, what his soul had become in the years in Australia. Had his life in the period been meaningless? And in terms of ‘value’ and ‘worthiness’ of life, had his life become better, richer and thicker, like the texture of his hands? What would have been the difference if he had not come to this country, and instead stayed at the foot of Emei Mountain and continued his teaching and played his role as a husband or even already a father in the cosiness of a family?
Of course, he had seen more, experienced and endured more, in a place that was civilized so differently in many ways from his original country. But had he been happy or happier if thus compared to what he could have felt back in China? Had he smiled or laughed or entertained more here than there?

Admittedly and undoubtedly, his life was enriched with a lot of new things, but whether it was better, or happier he really didn’t know. However, a number of things were certain: he had to be very conservative when enjoying beer; he had never touched his guitar during his struggle of staying alive in the country; there had been no sexual activity involving women. On impulse, he tightened his grip on the guitar, like holding a woman’s slender neck and rounded body. Heaving a deep sigh, he closed his eyes, and for the rest of the trip kept his posture unchanged, though, inwardly, a stream of blood, warm and live and alluring, seemed to course and stir his organs and his groin; his penis suffered restlessly under the guitar’s pressure.

So from this day on, his everyday life, embodied in the number of hours, was partly allotted to his old hobby. A couple of weeks were all he had needed to recover his skills. He used any available timeslots he could find between his study and work; he practised at home, sometimes walking a long way to the Box Hill Gardens to pass luxurious hours of leisure, in the midst of the greenness and breeze and shades and children’s laughter, which he had often fancied as a sort of living paradise, especially after a couple of drinks.   

For the most part, he still played the set of classics he had played before, but would sing one or two songs on some occasions, such as when his roommate reached his birthday to celebrate the loss of a year, or the gain of a year if one thinks life is an endless line of sand outflowing from an hourglass. Then more people at Deakin discovered his guitar skills, and more celebrations demanded his contribution. His old days of campus glory seemed to have come back; his fellow Chinese, very nostalgic and sentimental and poetic as they could sometimes be, were rather generous in offering him applause as well as drinks.

Then he began to toy with the idea of performing as a busker, who, to his Chinese, conservative way of thinking, was more or less a beggar. It certainly required the kind of gut-power he never thought he possessed. But Mr. Zhang encouraged him passionately, agreeing to stay nearby where he could see him and give him eye-contact support. Well, he might try just once.

On the day, sitting beside Mr. Zhang, he gulped down two bottles of VB. However, just as he was about to move to the designated spot, his courage faltered, a nagging cowardice inflicting his mind. ‘Why? I don’t have to do this. Why should you invent this, behaving like a beggar in the street, in a country not your own? Is there nothing else you could do?’

‘Hehe…’ he hesitated, mumbling uncertainly to the man, ‘…maybe, well, it is just a fancy idea.’

‘So you are still scared?’ said Mr. Zhang, sipping his tea. ‘There is always a first time, like giving the first lesson as a teacher.’

‘But, this is very different from the stage fright,’ he said; a conflict seemed to split his interior, reminding him of his job-seeking experience. ‘It is almost like begging, people throwing coins to me…’ he was about to say like bones being hurled at a dog, but trailed it off.

‘Well, it is just another kind of performance, you only need to see the pedestrians as your audience. And you know better that, when you play, you tend to play to yourself, talk to your own heart.’ He looked at Bing humorously, his hand holding the tea bottle half way to his lips that seemed to be forever parched and dry. ‘Of course, you don’t have to.’

The battle continued, and Bing couldn’t pluck his feet away from the territory belonging to his friend.  Then, suddenly, Mr. Zhang said, ‘Why not just play here, in my place? Treat me as your only listener, won’t you?’   

To his new proposal Bing laughed at once, the first free laughter since daybreak. In the meantime, Zhang began to move his gear aside, leaving his space and stool, sweeping all the coins and notes on the cloth into his bag. ‘Let’s see how many coins you can get.’

Sitting on the stool - only then he realized he hadn’t even brought his own stool - he spent a few moments readying himself, before he announced to his audience: ‘Shan Zha Shu - Hawthorn Tree’, a Russian song well known in China, in his intent to entertain his elder friend.   

In the middle of playing, he glimpsed a passer-by pausing to put down a coin. He didn’t raise his head to attend to the people, nor could he concentrate enough on his performance. The flush of nervousness seemed to be still lingering in him; the noise of the street was very distracting.  

When he finished, he looked at his friend, embarrassedly. ‘Hehe, not very well.’

‘Oh, young man, that was beautiful,’ his comment seemed honest, rather than flattering. ‘This was the song I sang day and night in my youth.’  

‘Really? But I didn’t feel much into it.’

‘You played very much like a professional. How many years have you practised it?’

‘I began the hobby at my university, but haven’t played much since graduation. And for the last two years here I never touched it until just recently, since I made your acquaintance.’   

While they were talking, a lady placed a five dollar bill onto the cloth and walked away briskly without looking at them.
Bing was surprised. ‘What is it? She gave the money, not because of my music.’

‘Haha, see, that is the charm of busking; there are many things you could never expect,’ Zhang said indulgently. ‘And you can watch so many people, with different colours, forms and moods and gestures.’

‘No troubles at all?’

‘Of course, but nothing major, only when some drunkards or beggars come to bother you. It can be part of the fun and surprise.’

‘What? Fun?’

‘I once encountered a ragged drunk man, he shouted at me and spat at my feet, muttering something I couldn’t understand. I was shocked, but not very much scared, because it was late afternoon, still a lot of people in the street. I remained seated, only praying he would go away soon. And after raging out his moments, probably expecting no fun or fight from me, he went away, shouting all his way at other shops.’

‘How about night time?’

‘That is riskier,’ he said. ‘I have heard of a number of incidents, that the buskers were bashed and their instruments taken away. For me, only once, a vagabond grabbed all the coins on the cloth.’

‘Oh, that is terrible.’

‘Yes, but I rarely busk at night, except on festivities.’ Then, he reminded Bing, ‘Now, play more, let me enjoy.’
…

For the rest of the afternoon, Zhang lent out his spot entirely to Bing, who, his confidence gathering, played almost as naturally and comfortably as he had on other performances. The scattering notes and coins on the cloth, as they scooped them up and counted before leaving, totalled thirty-five dollars ten cents. For about three hours of his trial busking, this was about $11 per hour, a rate similar to his job in the restaurant. But this was about music, a kind of entertainment, not the dirty dishes or the unhappy customers or the slacking waitresses he had to bother. It was, indeed, both economically and spiritually, a rather worthy business.

Bing had difficulty in his wheedling effort to give the money to Mr. Zhang, who was firm and stern in his refusal. ‘Like you, I am not a beggar,’ he emphasized.

Later in the week, on the advice of his friend, Bing went to apply for a busker’s license from the Melbourne City Council with an annual fee of $20, and four days later he became a legitimate, licensed busker of the General Busking Class in designated streets.  


--End of Chapter 51---