A Place Beside the Umbrellas

On the ninth day of the third month, Gu Qing brought her flower-drying trays to the Zhou family’s back courtyard. Two sections of old umbrella racks had been cleared there. Lu Ying had agreed to lend them for three days, with Gu Qing paying two cash toward water and fuel. The flower trays were kept separate from the white paper that had not yet been oiled, and neither took up the walkway. As soon as she arrived, she saw Zhou Jiping squatting on the ground shaving bamboo, a small bundle at his feet containing the meal his sister-in-law had saved him. He held a bamboo skewer between his lips. When he raised his face to speak, it nearly pricked his tongue.

Gu Qing teased him for making umbrellas even while he ate. He said that if he did the two separately, wouldn’t he lose half a day? She tapped the box with the botched blue buns in it. He took her meaning, lowered his head to take the bamboo sliver out of his mouth, and moved his lunch packet to a windowsill clear of shavings. Gu Qing fetched him a bowl. Seeing that he had only half a bowl’s worth of cold rice and beans left, she shared the radish she had brought. He asked whether it was the spicy kind Granny Shen made. She told him to try a bite and see. At the first bite his face went perfectly solemn, and he refused to admit it was hot.

They worked into the afternoon, when the sky suddenly darkened. Lu Ying called from the front shop to bring in the paper. Four racks in the backyard held umbrella canopies and silk petals, and there was no getting everything under cover at once. Zhou Jiping went first for the white paper, which was most vulnerable to water, while Gu Qing carried the flower trays into the gallery. Wind rushed through the courtyard gate, whipping the temporary rack's rope fastening aside, and one frame tilted toward the well.

“Let go of that end!” Zhou Jiping shouted.

She had already reached out to hold it up, and the bamboo pole bore down on her arm. The tray slid along the top, and the pale gold flowers rolled to the tilted edge. Zhou Jiping came running, kicked the foot of the rack into a gap between the bricks, then reached from right behind her to prop up the crossbar. Wet oil from his sleeve rubbed onto her shoulder. She flinched and snapped at him to stand farther away. He said he would like to, but the water vat was right behind him. How about they both take a bath?

Lu Ying came to take the trays from the top, finally freeing Gu Qing to pull her feet out of the mud. With one hand on the rack, Zhou Jiping used the other to fish his old hat from the water’s edge and casually put it on. Its brim was bent, and water dripped straight from the front onto his nose. He kept directing her to undo the left fastening. Gu Qing looked up, saw the hat, and laughed so hard her hands lost their strength. The rack sank again, and Lu Ying hurriedly scolded them: “If you want to look, finish moving it first!”

The rain only began to pound in earnest once the three of them had brought everything under the eaves. One of Gu Qing’s shoulders was wet and the other still dry, as if she’d been split down the middle. Zhou Jiping was in a worse state, the old hat jammed crookedly on his head and both hands smeared with paste and mud. With nowhere to wipe them, he could only let them hang. He said the hat was hers now, a reward for saving the flowers. Gu Qing pulled it off, emptied the water into a spare bucket, and jammed it back on his head. “I don’t accept goods that haven’t been dried before delivery.”

Lu Ying coughed once by the stove and told the pair of them to stop laughing before they dampened their own flowers. Gu Qing wiped the bamboo rack with a dry cloth. Zhou Jiping changed out of his wet outer garment and came back in an old jacket with sleeves that had grown too short. The rain was loud and there were few customers in the front shop. Lu Ying went to check on the hot water, leaving the two of them in the back courtyard. The crooked paper bird hung inside the door. The wind spun the new thread Gu Qing had put on it, and one wing rested against the wall.

Zhou Jiping brushed the bird aside and asked if she was still keeping the spoiled flowers on her rack. Gu Qing said she kept one especially to see where it would break when folded. Grandmother had taken two others, at the price of teasing her every day. He reached toward the oil on her shoulder, then stopped midway and asked if he could see how far it had soaked in. She turned her shoulder and let him dab it gently with a dry cloth. Through the damp clothing, the touch was only the faintest warmth.

She could have pulled away, but stayed where she was. After a while she said that if the stain wouldn't wash out, he owed her for it. Zhou Jiping said that was fine, they would keep it in mind. It was the first time they'd spoken of “keeping it in mind” without either of them thinking to reach for paper. Just then Gu Qing remembered the flower she still hadn't finished tying. She looked down for it, only to find its stem tucked behind her ear, where she'd put it in the confusion of the rain. Zhou Jiping looked at her for a long moment, then doubled over laughing. She swatted his sleeve, her own palm growing warm.

When the rain stopped, they lifted the empty rack together. The old catch needed replacing, and the rack needed a removable cross brace. Zhou Jiping drew two lines and had her try tying it with thin cord. She tied it once and asked on purpose whether it looked too ugly. He said a little ugliness was fine as long as she didn't jam it tight in one catch. He undid the knot to show her. She threaded it the same way, and sure enough the rack folded without catching. She was paying for the labor and materials for the rack, and he let the extra demonstration go without a separate charge.

On the eleventh, Zhou Jiping invited her to see the new shop they were about to rent. It was on the corner of South Street, closer to the warehouse than the old shop, with room for a small cart outside. Lu Ying still had to discuss the leaking awning with the landlord, so the lease was still pending. Gu Qing had only meant to see how carts would get there, but as soon as she stepped inside, a patch of light from the back window drew her over. No large tree shaded the window, and flower trays could stay in the sun into the afternoon. Standing there, she suddenly pictured moving her worktable in, and the first thing she felt was delight.

Seeing her stop there, Zhou Jiping grew more enthusiastic. They could keep this corner inside the door for her, he said. The umbrellas wouldn't hide the flowers, his sister-in-law had agreed to clear a rack, and with a little sign, people passing by would see them too. He was already setting two bricks against the wall to measure the length of her narrow table. “Once you've made up your mind, you can move right in,” he said. “It'll save you renting a stall in the West Market every time.”

The smile slowly faded from Gu Qing’s face. She asked when he’d spoken to Mrs. Lu. He said two days ago. Nothing had been settled, there was no harm in it, and now she could see it for herself. She asked again, “Who is she making room for? Did you say I was coming, or did you say you wanted me to come?”

Zhou Jiping was taken aback, then grew a little annoyed himself. He said he hadn't moved her table in, and asked if even saving a place for her was wrong. It wasn't often he came up with a way to spare her some running around, and a moment ago he had plainly seen her eyes light up. He pointed at the two bricks, his hand still in the air. “If you don't want to come, just say so.”

“I have thought about it,” Gu Qing said. The moment the words were out, they both went quiet. She pressed her palm to the windowsill, dust rubbing onto the pads of her fingers, before she went on. “But I haven’t finished thinking. What I’ll do with my courtyard, where Grandmother will spend her days, whether I’ll go south after the third month. You say a word to your sister-in-law for me, and suddenly it sounds as if all that’s left is for me to nod.”

Zhou Jiping went to the door and stood with his back to her for a while. He said he had only wanted to see her every day without always waiting for a delivery. He said it in a few words, his voice unexpectedly awkward. Gu Qing found that none of the arguments she had been saving up would come out. She stepped back from the window and looked down at the bricks. The light really was lovely, and she really had pictured herself sitting here. The wish hadn't been his alone.

“I like coming here too,” she said. “If I say I won't come today, it doesn't mean I don't like you.”

He turned to look at her. Gu Qing wished she could stuff the words straight back into her mouth, but she was already blushing. Outside, a seller of old bottles went by ringing a little bell. Neither of them caught the price he called out. Eventually Zhou Jiping bent and moved the two bricks under the gap in the door where the rain came in, saying they'd better stop thinking of them as feet for her table for now. Gu Qing came over to hold the door for him. Their shoulders touched, and neither moved very far away.

The shop could take more than a day to hand over. The landlord refused to mend the awning, saying the tea stall had been there for years and never complained of leaks. Zhou Jiping pointed out the old and new watermarks on the wall. The landlord just said an umbrella maker could mend it himself. From outside the door, Gu Qing heard for the first time how hard his voice could get when he talked rent. In the end he talked it over with Lu Ying and arranged to stay five days longer while he looked at another shop off the main street. Only then did the landlord relent and agree to split the cost.

He didn't come to the Gus' for those few days. Gu Qing found a problem when she tested the altered catch but let him finish his own business before calling him over. She moved the flower trays indoors and left the bamboo rack empty. The next time they met, he asked first where to move the hole. She made a point of asking about the awning first. Zhou Jiping said he hadn't got all he wanted and would still have to pay some of it himself. At least he wouldn't be trading the old shop's leak for one in the new shop. Gu Qing couldn't help laughing. He was serious about quoting her for half an inch of bamboo, and went to just as much trouble with other people. It was a part of him that went deeper than his liking for her.

On the fourteenth, Lu Ying heard what had happened that day. She didn’t speak up for her brother-in-law. She asked Gu Qing whether she wanted to borrow the drying racks for the rest of the spring. If she did, it would be once every three days as before. The rest was no business of hers. Gu Qing said she did and would pay the same as before. Zhou Jiping came by that afternoon with the altered detachable brace and said nothing about the corner of the shop. They opened the rack together. Gu Qing found that the top rung was too high and that she could reach it only on tiptoe, so she asked him to lower it by one hole. He drilled again to suit her height, and the shavings fell in a little ring on the ground.

Gu Qing picked up the paper bird from the rack and asked if he would take it when the new shop opened. Zhou Jiping said he would. Even with uneven wings, it could cover a bare patch of wall. She thought of folding him a neater one and had already picked up some scrap paper when she paused and set it down again. It was still the same bird, looking ready to fly when it turned and going still against the wall. She tied the knot a little lower so it would stop knocking against the door.

On the evening of the fifteenth, Gu Qing brought back the empty trays and stood for a while outside the new shop. The door had yet to be replaced, and old tiles covered the leaky spot for now. Zhou Jiping squatted alone under the window, planing wood. There was no space set aside for the legs of her table, though the clean piece of old cloth she had left that afternoon was still by the window. He looked up and asked if she wanted to sit for a while. She went in and sat on an empty wooden box. She had brought no flowers. The two of them listened to the plane pass over the wood again and again. After a while she put her freezing hands out toward the brazier. Zhou Jiping moved it half a foot closer and bent back to his work.