Women of Clay

Part 4

Sleeping together was out of the question. Lily slept on the double-decker bed in her nephew's room while the seaman slept alone in a spare bedroom.

He sent a message with his mobile phone after midnight telling her that he was waiting for her. Her reply stated that her period had just arrived so there was no way they could do it.

Had he knew from the start that he would not being able to have sex with her while they were here he probably would have not tagged along. What was he going to do in the middle of nowhere surrounded by a bunch of peasants who could not speak a word of English?

The sound of someone knocking on the door woke him up early the next morning. Lily's mom said something unintelligible before walking away. He went to the bathroom and took a dump on the squatter. The last time he had used one of those was seventeen years ago during military service. Even though he had heard about the health benefits of using a squatter, he found them very annoying. A few minutes in the same position caused pains on his thighs and ankles.

He took a shower afterwards and headed to the ground floor where everyone was having breakfast. Lily was already there, eating fried pancakes and drinking soy milk. The lack of coffee was another lethal blow for the seaman who did not anticipated that coffee was not a household item in rural China. A crisis committee was established and after a brief meeting Lily's husband in law took off with his scooter and returned half an hour later with a packet of instant coffee and a bottle of Coke.

There was no butter, jam or orange juice on the table, however the pancakes and the steamed bread were to his taste. After breakfast was over the kids headed to school and most of the adults to the field while the old folks went to their neighbors to play mahjong. Lily was going to help her grandmother and mom with the household chores.

The seaman hung around the house playing games on his mobile phone. Later that day, when Lily visited her friends and relatives, she dragged him along. She wanted to show him off to everyone she met, always emphasizing that he earned more than fifty thousand yuan per month.

The next day Lily was going to a nearby village to meet some of her ex-classmates. She asked him to tag along but he was not that enthusiastic about it. He decided to explore the countryside, and if possible, take a glimpse of the Goddess she had mentioned.

He took the main path and kept on walking until he was out of the village. There he met a man with a tricycle who offered to take him anywhere for ten yuan. The seaman gave him twenty and asked him to lead him to the cluster of green hills in the distance.

Upon dropping him off, the driver offered some advice to the seaman and drove away. The seaman took a path that led his directly up the hills. He walked for a few kilometres before encountering a stone gate. There was an inscription in what seemed to be ancient characters but there was no other human-made structure.

He passed the gate and walked for about two hundred meters before pausing again. There was a stream about three meters wide running through the grove. Flowers growing along the stream gave off a pleasant scent and there were frogs hopping around all over. Large insects flew around him while he could hear the songs of the birds nesting in the trees.

The place was full of life unlike the forests in his country with their stoical, deathlike, silence.