Night Heron by Adam Brookes Page B

and white cap pulled low over the brow. The man’s face was a cascade of loose flesh, lit by blue flame from a roaring gas stove before him. The chef gingerly dropped dough sticks into crackling oil, his jowls wobbling with concentration. After a moment he’d fish them out and add them to a glistening pile. A kettle steamed. Peanut walked over.
    “I’ll take three dough sticks. And some tea.”
    The chef turned a pair of moist eyes on him.
    “Good morning to you, too.”
    Peanut stared at him. “Sorry. Good morning. Now three of your dough sticks and some tea.” He reached into the carrier bag.
    But the chef was looking straight at him. “On the way to work, are we?”
    “What’s it to you?” said Peanut.
    A sigh. “Whatever happened to manners?” said the chef.
    “They don’t have those where I’m from,” said Peanut.
    “Oh, yes? Where are you from, then?”
    “Not your business.”
    “You sound like you’re from right here, in Beijing.”
    Peanut looked at him again.
    “Wantsugar?” said the chef, unperturbed.
    Peanut nodded. The chef dusted the dough sticks with powdered sugar, and then looked Peanut up and down.
    “You can sit on the steps if you like.”
    Peanut took the dough sticks and a scalding glass of tea and sat on the tiled steps in front of the Blue Mountain, and ate, the grease running down his chin. Then a slow, luscious cigarette, as the light came and the street began to stir. Chef was doing brisk business now, passing out the little bags of dough sticks, cups of
doujiang
, the sweet soy milk, and tea. A little boy handed over a few tiny coins for half a cup of
doujiang
. There was banter with a vigorous, permed matron. Peanut watched the chef. There was a living there, a life, on a little street somewhere.
    But not yet.
    “Ask you something,” said Peanut.
    “Ask away,” said the chef.
    “The migrants, where do they all live?”
    The chef turned from the stove, eyebrows raised.
    “Big hostels, fifteen to a room, if they can afford it. Others have built shanties further out to the east. But those places are rough, I warn you. Wretched people.”
    He spat, and then grinned.
    “But good for business,” he said.
    Peanut probed.
    “This your business, is it?”
    “This place.” He gestured with his chin towards the Blue Mountain. “And that one.”
    Across the street stood the Blue Diamond Beauty Salon, its windows adorned with faded posters of lissom, pale girls. As if on cue, a steel shutter rattled and ran up, and out of the Blue Diamond stepped a girl teetering in red heels and tight black jeans. She held a mop and a bucket. Her hair was wet and hunglong down her back. She set the bucket down and with tiny mincing steps began to work the mop ineffectually across the salon’s tiled frontage.
    Peanut stood up.
    “I’ll do that, if you like.”
    Chef turned.
    “I’ll do your mopping if you let me use a bathroom for ten minutes,” said Peanut.
    Chef considered. The girl looked at Peanut, expectantly, let the mop drop to her side. She was seventeen or so, toothy and wan. Even at this time of the morning she wore some sort of shimmering scarlet lipstick. Peanut attempted a jovial smile.
    “Ten minutes, then, in the bathroom. And all the steps,” said Chef.
    Peanut moved to walk across the street, but Chef placed a greasy hand on his arm. “And no touching. You touch, you pay.”
    Peanut waited a beat.
    “Couldn’t afford it,” he said.
    So he mopped, reflecting that it was the first labor he had performed in two decades that would be rewarded in some way that he valued. A transaction. He worked for an hour. The steps gleamed. Peanut washed down the walls. He asked for some vinegar and newspaper, which Chef, bemused, gave him, and he began working the grime off the windows. From inside, the girls regarded him with puzzlement. The Blue Diamond, while not entirely losing its sordid air, regained the look, from the outside at least, of a hygienic establishment. Chef was