Les Interprètes Chapter 11
Qiao Fei
Finally in Shanghai, everything stabilized. A senior sister, a graduate student, accompanied the group, she was excellent, and very focused and serious. Besides the fact that she ignored me, there were no problems.
Finally we sent the foreigners off at the air port. I gave them my small red packets. I gave them all kinds of currencies from the Euro to the American dollar. Though it did not seem like a lot, when you added it all together there was probably around 2000 dollars. When I returned to Beijing, the travel agency boss Wu Xiao Ping paid me quite a lot, my heart eased some that I deposited it into a small card. At least, I would be able to pay for next semester’s fees.
Wu Xiao Ping was very satisfied with my work, he shook my head saying, “Not bad, girl, so I really did look down on you. In the future, if you need work you can come look here.”
I thought of this path of tiredness from rus.h.i.+ng around, but there was also the successful completion of the a.s.signment which brought experience and knowledge, and there was also the money issue. My heart no longer hated the Beijing accent as much as I used to, “Thanks, you can call me at any time.”
“There’s another person you should thank,” Wu Xiao Ping said, his expression saying “I know something is up with you two”. He recovered his annoying character, “Cheng Jia Yang kept calling me to ask if you returned yet.”
“Ah, right, I do owe him money.” I pretended to look disappointed at the realization, “See, my days are not easy, the creditors chase me very tightly.”
I returned to the school, fiercely washed my body, and fiercely slept for a whole day. I slept until my face was puffy, but I was woken by a call.
It was Cheng Jia Yang. The number was unfamiliar but I knew it was him.
“You returned?”
“Ah. You also returned from Canada?”
“I’ve already returned for more than a week. How was it, did you eat well?”
“It was okay, I can cope. It widened my knowledge by a lot, I had never went to those places. Plus, the pay was pretty good. Next semester, I’ll have no problem. Wu Xiao Ping also said that in the future if French tourists come, he’ll find me. Right, I should thank you.”
He laughed in the phone, “How will you thank me?”
I didn’t talk. My signal wasn’t that great, the phone made some “Zilazila” sounds. I took the opportunity to say, “What? I couldn’t hear clearly. What did you say?”
“…….Nothing, rest well.”
“Ok, bye.”
“Bye.”
“I collected my money and looked on the screen for the amount of time I had spent on the phone. 56 seconds. Continue to sleep.
My dreams were very strange. I partic.i.p.ated in the test, rolling up papers one by one. Immediately, the bell rang, but there were still endless papers that still weren’t done. I was scared, and sat up in a cold sweat. I found that it was a bit into the night, and outside the window was Zhang Lu’s face in the rock ledge.
I grabbed some potato chips and put them into my mouth. Then I said to her, “Bo Bo, please, when you’re online can you open the light? Your face looks like a ghost behind the screen.”
“Aren’t you afraid it’ll affect your rest?”
“Help me look it up, what has happened if you’re dreaming about tests?”
Bo Bo was a master at this, she opened the ‘understanding dreams’ webpage, and ghostlike, she read, “Not sure, not confident, apprehension and suspicion.”
The next period of time until the time when school would start, I lived a stable and relaxed lifestyle, I read books, studied and, memorized my homework. I called my neighbors. Auntie said that my father had been un-hospitalized and my mother had allowed her younger brother who lived in the countryside to live in my house to help care for him.
When it was almost time for school to start, I answered Wu Xiao Ping’s phone call. He said he had another French tourist group who had come to look around. I had to be with them for two days. That afternoon when I went to go meet him, I saw Cheng Jia Yang.
When I arrived I saw him sitting in Wu Xiao Ping’s office. His hair had become shorter, and his hairstyle had also changed. But I could still recognize him immediately.
Wu Xiao Ping, who was turned towards me, waved his hands, Jia Yang turned around. I saw that his color was very good. He looked at me and smiled.
I said hi to the two, and Jia Yang said to Wu Xiao Ping, “All right, I still have other business, Xiao Ping, you can call me.” Then, he said to me, “I thought you had disappeared.”
“I study daily at school.”
“Oh, bye then.”
“Bye,” I said.
Wu Xiao Ping escorted him out.
Suddenly I felt that my heart was empty. I realized that the only thing that me and Cheng Jia Yang repeated was, bye. Bye.
Wu Xiao Ping came back, and gave me the information packet with the touring information and the hotel and food vouchers. I grabbed it and left. I used the elevator to go downstairs. After I exited the writing floor, I walked very slowly. It wasn’t as if I had anything else I needed to go. The summer sun shone on my body, and my skin became itchy.”
“Qiao Fei.”
Cheng Jia Yang’s car stopped beside me. He was this kind of person. Just for one sentence, he would get off of the car to tell me. He wouldn’t be like those rich young men who approached young girls in the driver’s seat.
“Are you afraid? I’ll send you back to school?”
I said, “Don’t you still have things to do later?”
He shook his head, “I was waiting for you.”
I sat on his car. He played some very light music. Patricia Ka.s.s’s song “If you leave” softly hovered in the car. The sun penetrated the car and shone on both of us, s.h.i.+ning through Cheng Jia Yang’s slender fingers.
The music blurred, the leisurely sun shone, I just saw his hand at that point, and thought of something I shouldn’t have. PG-13*****[I thought of his fingers, his body buried inside my body]
I really liked his fingers.
I looked outside the window.
车子经过一家电影院时赶上红灯,我看见海报,正在上映一部最近炒得很热的美国动作片,讲的是三个美艳的女特工拯救世界的故事,叫“山姆大叔的天使”。
The car caught a red light right when it pa.s.sed by a cinema. I saw a poster of a hot movie that had recently been released. It talked about three glamorous female agents who saved the world and was called “Uncle Sam’s Angels”.
I pointed to the poster and asked Cheng Jia Yang, “Have you seen this movie yet?”
“No. I heard it’s very fun though.”
“Are you busy today? I would like to invite you to watch this movie ok?” I said, “I haven’t thanked you yet, and I’ve found such a great opportunity.”
“And dinner.” Cheng Jia Yang said, he looked very serious.
“No problem.”
In truth, my heart was beating very erratically. But my specialty was pretending to be calm.
“But, you must buy the snacks that we buy during the movie.”
Cheng Jia Yang turned the car and we entered the cinema parking lot.
The movie was about to be taken out of the cinema so there were not that many people. We held milk tea, potato chips and popcorn and entered the theater. We picked the middle seat, where you could stretch out your legs and the atmosphere was also very cool. For these types of movies, the graphics were very beautiful, there were a lot of shocking effects and you didn’t need to guess the plot, it was really a great entertainment piece. Among the scenes there was one particular scene that made people have a deep impression. The female lead was calling her lover, but then the phone was broken by criminals, she flew into a rage, punching one’s jaw and angrily said, “You know it’s hard to find a good guy nowadays right?”
Cheng Jia Yang and I laughed .
After the movie was over we went to the nearby Hunan flavor restaurant. Two people had a very good appet.i.te. We ate half of a soysauce duck, a plateful of fried asparagus, another plate of fish heads, and a plateful of Shaoshan pork. I found that even though Cheng Jia Yang looked skinny, he could eat a lot of fatty meat.
The Hunan food was very spicy. Even after I drank milk, I stuck out my tongue, saying “Chi la Chi la.” On the car, my life was saved when Cheng Jia Yang tried to feed me with drops of water.
At that time it had already become dark. Cheng Jia Yang looked at me and said, “Your reaction is too bad, I thought you Dongbei people could eat spicy food without a problem.”
“You are not allowed to make fun of me,” I said. This was a cla.s.sic line from Kong Ji Yi.
“Your mouth has swollen.”
“Then it can only be like this.” He watched me.
“Do you have any good ways to fix it?”
“I must kiss you. Really, for you, I must also kiss you. I must take that chili sauce and transfer it to my own mouth. I cannot see you in pain.”
Then I don’t remember what happened. PG 13[ I think that I must have hugged Cheng Jia Yang, our mouths glued together. We were professional French interpreters and kissed, we delivered the standard style tongue kiss, tongue intertwined, our noses touched. I leaned on the window behind me. But I was wrong. Cheng Jia Yang’s mouth was a lot spicier than mine. Thus I struggled until we were both out of breath. He lightly left my lips and began to kiss my face one by one. This was a pyromaniac.] I heard him say, “Fei, I miss you.”
I heard myself say, “Me too. When I dream, I dream of you.”