Free Spilled Water by Sally Grindley Page B

He’s harmless, but I’m frightened of him because I don’t understand him.’
    ‘How can you stay here and marry him then, Lu Si-yan?’ Xiong Fei could see I was about to cry, and put his arms round me,
     just as Mrs Chen came into the kitchen. He let go of me instantly to plant himself in between Mrs Chen and me.
    ‘What’s going on?’ demanded Mrs Chen. ‘What are you doing?’
    ‘I’m protecting Lu Si-yan from you, Mrs Chen,’ Xiong Fei replied fiercely. ‘Why do you treat her like a slave? Why are you
     forcing her to marry your son? What sort of people are you?’
    Mrs Chen gaped in astonishment. In the silence that followed Xiong Fei’s outburst, time seemed to stand still. At last she
     found her voice, chilling in its wrath.
    ‘How dare you! How dare you, a mere student, a mere nothing, criticise those of us who labour to feed and clothe you? You
     will finish making our meal, then you will leave, for good.’
    ‘No, Mrs Chen,’ Xiong Fei retorted, ‘I will not finish making your meal. I am leaving now. I will not work for people who
     mercilessly exploit young children. I only hope that Lu Si-yan will find a way to escape your clutches. She deserves better.’
    ‘Then you will leave without pay,’ snarled Mrs Chen.
    As he headed for the door, Xiong Fei turned and said, ‘I’m sorry, Lu Si-yan. I will try to find help for you.’ But even as
     he said it, I realised that there was nothing he could do. Mr and Mrs Chen were powerful people. They would know how to deal
     with anyone who questioned my status within their household.
    Things deteriorated even more from that time onwards. Mrs Chen was incensed by what she considered the treachery of her pet
     chef and my role in his departure. She quickly replaced Xiong Fei with a much older man, who was under strict instructions
     to keep me in my place and only to talk to me, if necessary, to tell me what to do. Mr Tian, as I was to call him, clearly
     thought himself far too important anyway to speak to the likes of me, though he was not beyond pinching my bottom when the
     mood took him. When he arrived in the evenings, he often smelled of alcohol, and left mess all over the kitchen which he expected
     me to clean up.
    Mrs Chen made me work harder than ever.
    ‘You have made your own bed, Lu Si-yan – now you must lie in it. I have tried to treat you well, but you betrayed my goodwill.
     It is for you to prove to me that I can trust you again and that you can achieve the standards I expect of my future daughter-in-law.’
    And so the weeks went by. I was allowed out of the apartment once a month to have my hair cut. The summer turned to autumn,
     then winter, but my only experience of the changing seasons was through the apartment windows. The river came and went, shrouded
     most of the time in dense smog, and screened too by heavy cloud or driving rain. I struggled to hang on to the idea that it
     might one day take me home.
    No task was too menial. I disinfected toilets, scrubbed floors, cleaned windows, laundered underwear, ironed sheets, on top
     of my original kitchen and light housework duties. I learned to get on with my work, to avoid any confrontation that might
     aggravate Mrs Chen still further.
    I stopped looking in my bedroom mirror. The alien being who stood there was nobody I knew.
    Sundays were the worst. The meals I cooked always failed to live up to Mrs Chen’s high expectations, and Mr Tian made no effort
     to help me. On top of that, I didn’t know how to deal with Yimou. He would gaze at me with fascination, as though I were some
     kind of rare species. He never spoke directly to me, but often talked about me in my presence. One day, he asked Mrs Chen
     if I could stay with them for ever and ever. Mrs Chen replied that that would be my decision, and glared at me tight-mouthed
     in case I should dare to contradict her.
    Another day Yimou looked at me all glassy-eyed, then leant across the table to Mrs Hong and whispered,