Selling in Russia, Six Buns Won Her Happiness

Miss, take these six meat buns. Eat them while they're hot. They're free today.

In the middle of a heavy snowfall, I pressed a bag of steaming hot buns into the hands of a blonde Russian girl.

Back then, I was just a down-on-my-luck man setting up a stall in the Siberian wind to hide from my debt collectors.

I didn't expect anything back from herafter all, it was only a few cheap buns.

But I never dreamed that those six steaming meat buns would completely change my fate in a foreign land, and hand me a life for my later years that I'd never even dared to imagine.

"Louis, that foreign girl is eyeing your big meat buns againshe can't pull her eyes away!"

Ronald Finch, who sold grilled cold noodles at the stall next to mine, jabbed me with his elbow and winked, lowering his voice.

I followed Ronald's gaze.

Out on the edge of our noisy open-air market, that blonde Russian girl was standing there again.

In the Russian Far East back in the early 1990s, the winters were cold enough to crack the marrow in your bones.

At more than thirty below, water froze the instant it dripped, and a single breath would turn to white frost on your eyebrows in a heartbeat.

We Chinese traders running small businesses over here were all bundled up like big bears, in thick military overcoats and dog-fur hats.

But that girl was dressed far too thinly.

She had on an old wool coat that was clearly years past its prime, the collar worn through, and a pair of old leather boots on her feet.

She wasn't wearing a hat. Her long golden hair was tousled by the cold wind, her fair, pretty face was flushed red from the cold, and her shoulders kept trembling faintly.

But her eyes were fixed on the big bamboo steamer in front of me, the one billowing rolling white steam.

There was a longing in that gaze that made your chest ache to see it.

My name is Louis Chavez. I got cheated in business back home and ended up buried in debt. With nowhere left to turn, I fled to Vladivostok with some fellow countrymen.

I didn't speak Russian and couldn't deal in bulk goods, so all I could do was fall back on the dough-making craft handed down in my family, set up a stall in the market, and sell buns.

Big pork buns, pickled-cabbage buns, plain steamed bunsthe aroma of Chinese food was what scraped me by in this frozen wasteland.

That Russian girl wasn't coming for the first time.

For the past week and more, she had shown up at my stall every day at noon, right on time.

She was exceptionally beautiful, with striking, sculpted features and eyes like blue gemstones.

But she never bought meat buns.

She would always stand a little way off from the steamer, watching quietly for several minutes, secretly swallowing a couple of times.

Then she would walk slowly over, dig a few of the smallest ruble coins out of her pocket, and say to me in halting Chinese.

"Boss, one, plain steamed bun."

Every time she bought that cheapest, unfilled steamed bun, she would cup it carefully in her hands as if it were some precious treasure, then turn and walk off into the wind and snow.

Today was the same.

She stood in the wind for a long time, and only after all the customers buying buns had drifted away did she rub her frozen hands and come over.

She lowered her head and rummaged for a long while through an old cloth bag washed pale with wear.

With two clinks, two coins dropped onto the wooden board in front of me.

"Boss... a steamed bun..."

Her voice was very small, with an unmistakable tremor, and even her lips had gone a little purple from the cold.

Looking at those two coins on the board, I suddenly felt an ache I couldn't put into words.

I quickly lifted the lid of the steamer, plucked out a piping-hot plain steamed bun with the tongs, dropped it into a plastic bag, and handed it to her.

She took the bag, and as she felt the warmth of the bun, her fingers, stiff with cold, curled in a little.

"Thank you."

She said it softly in perfect Russian, then turned to leave.

"Hey, Louis, how does a Russian girl who looks like a movie star end up in such a rough spot?"

Beside me, Ronald flipped his grilled cold noodles and sighed.

"I hear the economy over here in Russia's in a slump right now, and plenty of ordinary folks can't even afford to eat. This girl's probably run into some kind of trouble at home."

I kneaded the dough in my hands and watched her thin figure vanish into the wind and snow, my feelings all tangled up.

The truth was, seeing her reminded me of myself.

Back in the day, I'd been a small business owner riding high at homea car to get me around, someone always picking up the tab at meals.

Later I trusted the wrong person, watched millions go down the drain, and even had my house seized by the court.

Hounded by my creditors, I fled my hometown overnight, rode a slow green train for days and nights on end, and arrived in this strange, snowbound country like a drifter with nothing.

When I first got here, I didn't even have the money to buy a stove. All I could do was haul sacks for people down at the dockssoaked in sweat in the dead of winter, and the money I earned only enough for a bowl of the cheapest borscht.

That feeling of eating one meal with no idea where the next was coming from, your self-respect ground under someone's heelI knew it all too well.

So I could read the longing and the shame in that girl's eyes.

The next day, the weather here suddenly turned, and a rare blizzard rolled in.

The wind cut like a knife, and more than half the vendors were gone from the market, with barely anyone left to buy anything.

To sell a few more buns, I gritted my teeth and kept the stall open.

By a little past noon, when the wind and snow were at their fiercest.

That familiar figure appeared in front of my stall once again.

She looked even worse today than yesterday.

Her wool coat was covered in snow, her shoes looked soaked through, and she was frozen like a leaf in the autumn wind, swaying on the verge of collapse.

She walked up to the stall, stretched out a hand red with cold, and tried to fish some coins out of her pocket.

But her hands were so frozen that her fingers wouldn't obey her at all.

A few coins slipped through her fingers and fell onto the snowy ground, scattered with icy shards.

She hurriedly crouched down and dug through the snow with those frozen hands, trying to pick the coins up.

Watching her kneeling in the snow, looking so wretched, something in my heart suddenly snapped.

I just couldn't stand to watch it anymore.

I threw down the dough in my hands, strode around from behind the stall, and walked up to her.

"Stop picking them up!"

I shouted, my voice drowning out the howling wind and snow.

The girl jumped, startled. She looked up, those blue eyes full of fear and helplessness, tears brimming at the edges.

She thought I was annoyed she was in the way, or afraid she'd dirty my stall.

She quickly pinched a coin out of the snow, staggered to her feet, and tried to hand it to me.

I didn't take her coin.

I turned and walked straight to the steamer, then lifted off the big bamboo lid on top.

A rich meaty aroma, along with white steam, instantly spread through the freezing, snowy air.

I grabbed the biggest brown paper bag and quickly used the tongs to pull six of the largest, most generously filled pork-and-scallion buns out of the steamer.

Each of these buns was as big as a grown man's fist, the dough plump and white, the meat juices soaked right through it.

I twisted the bag shut, turned, walked up to the girl, and pressed the heavy, piping-hot bag of meat buns into her arms.

The girl froze. Holding the bag of buns giving off that tempting smell, she looked completely dumbstruck.

She looked at me, then down at the buns in her arms, and shook her head again and again.

"No... it's not enough... I only have enough for plain steamed buns..."

She refused in broken Chinese, trying to hand the buns back to me.

"Take them!"

I pushed her hand back and gave her a simple, honest smile.

"Miss, these six meat buns are yours. Eat them while they're hot. No charge today."

I gestured with my hand, pointing up at the heavy snow.

"This awful weather is too cold. You've got to eat something with meat in it, get some grease in your belly, or you can't stand the cold."

The girl seemed to understand what I meant.

Her lips trembled violently, and large tears suddenly welled up in those sapphire eyes.

She didn't refuse again. Instead she hugged the bag of steaming buns tightly to her chest, as if it were the only warmth in this frozen, snowy world.

"Thank you... thank you, good man."

She said it in clear Chinese, then bowed deeply to me.

Watching her turn and leave, I felt strangely at peace.

I'm a down-on-his-luck man on the run from his debts; I'm not actually well off.

Six big meat buns are no small cost for a little business like mine.

But in this place so cold it drives you to despair, if a few buns could give a foreign girl I'd never met a little warmth to keep going, I figured it was worth it.

Ronald, who sold grilled cold noodles at the next stall, looked at me and shook his head helplessly.

"Louis, oh Louis, you're just too soft-hearted. You're still buried in debt yourself, and here you are playing the great philanthropist."

I smiled, said nothing, and turned back to kneading dough.

I thought this was just a trivial little episode in my life as a street vendor.

Hand out six buns, and that would be the end of it.

But I never imagined that it was exactly these six buns that planted the seeds of an incredible bond.

After the blizzard that day, the Russian girl didn't show up for several days in a row.

Every day when I set up my stall, I'd catch myself scanning the crowd for her.

I didn't know why, but deep down I felt a faint worry.

With winds this fierce and snow this heavy, and her dressed so thinly, could she have fallen ill and collapsed at home?

It wasn't until the morning of the fifth day, just as I'd set the first steamer of buns on the stove.

A familiar figure appeared in front of my stall.

It was her!

Today she'd changed into a slightly thicker down jacket. Her face was still a bit pale, but she was clearly in far better spirits than a few days ago.

She walked up to me, and instead of reaching for her money, she pulled out something from inside her coat, carefully wrapped in a plastic bag.

She handed me the plastic bag, her eyes showing a hint of gratitude and shyness.

"This is for you."

I paused for a moment, wiped my hands on my apron, took it, and opened it.

Inside was a hand-knitted dark gray wool scarf, the stitches very fine, soft and warm to the touch.

"Did you knit this?" I looked at her in surprise.

The girl nodded and did her best to explain to me in Russian mixed with broken Chinese.

"The buns you gave me were delicious. They saved me and my mom."

"I don't have money to give you, so this scarf, I knitted it myself, it's very warm. It's a gift for you."

Holding that scarf, a warm current welled up inside me.

In this cold, foreign land, the weight of this handmade scarf was far more precious than any cold, hard cash.

"Thank you. This scarf is really beautiful." I tied the scarf around my neck right there and gave her a thumbs up.

When the girl saw me wearing the scarf, a bright smile finally broke across her face.

That smile seemed to melt away the whole Siberian winter.

What surprised me even more was that she didn't leave.

She walked straight around to the back of my stall and rolled up her sleeves as naturally as anything.

"My name is Katerina. From today on, I'll help you work, to repay you for the buns."

She pointed to the pile of unwashed scallions and the cutting board beside her, her eyes firm, her stance leaving me no room to refuse.

I quickly waved my hands. "No need, no need. Those few buns were nothing. You should hurry home now."

But Katerina wouldn't listen to me at all. She went straight to the basin, picked up a few scallions, and started washing them briskly.

Watching how deftly she worked, I could tell she was used to housework, so I stopped trying to stop her.

With an extra helper, things would be a lot easier for me too.

That day, my bun stall had a lovely new sight to it.

Katerina really was gorgeous.

She stood at the stall, and though she didn't understand much Chinese, whenever a customer came she'd flash a charming smile and greet them warmly in Russian.

Sometimes, when local Russian customers came by, she proved even more useful.

Before, those Russians had disliked that I couldn't speak Russian, communication was difficult, and they rarely bought my buns.

Now that Katerina, a local, was here, she introduced them in perfectly fluent Russian to this traditional Chinese food and how wonderful it tasted.

Those big Russian men were charmed into a daze by her and one after another pulled out their money to buy a few and give them a try.

Once they'd tasted them, they were won over by how delicious the meat buns were and instantly became repeat customers.

In just one day, the bun sales at my stall had actually doubled compared to usual!

As I was packing up, I looked at the empty steamers and the change box crammed full, and I couldn't stop grinning.

I pulled out a fifty-ruble note and held it out to Katerina.

"Katerina, this is your pay for today. Thanks to you, the buns sold really fast."

Katerina stared at the note, kept backing away, and flat-out refused to take it.

"No money. I told you, I came to repay the kindness of the buns."

"That won't do!" I stuffed the money into her pocket anyway. "One thing's one thing. The buns were my treat. You worked for me, you put in the effort, so you have to take your pay. That's the rule for us Chinese!"

Seeing how firm I was, Katerina had no choice but to accept the money.

She looked at me, an odd light shining in her eyes.

From then on, Katerina became the "official helper" at my stall.

Every morning she showed up right on time to help me wash the vegetables, chop the meat filling, and take the money.

When things slowed down, I'd teach her a little simple Chinese, and she'd teach me a few common Russian phrases.

"This is called a meat bun!" I said, pointing at the steamer.

"Meatbun!" she said, imitating my accent, dragging the words out in a rather funny way.

"This is called delicious!"

"Delicious!"

In that cold open-air market, the two of us communicated in this half-broken language, breaking into bursts of cheerful laughter now and then.

As time went on, I gradually learned her story.

Katerina was actually a college student.

Her father had died years ago, and her mother had suddenly fallen seriously ill half a month back and been admitted to the hospital.

To raise money for her mother's expensive medical bills, she'd had to drop out of school and work three jobs on her own.

That day, with the wind and snow howling, she had handed over every last bit of her money for the hospital fees, and hadn't had a full meal in two days.

Standing there in front of my stall, she really was about to faint from hunger.

If it hadn't been for those six steaming-hot big pork buns of mine, she might really have collapsed in the snow that day.

After hearing her story, I felt an even deeper respect and tenderness for this strong, devoted Russian girl.

I quietly decided that as long as she worked for me, I would never treat her unfairly.

To help her earn a little more, I doubled my daily output of buns.

Katerina worked especially hard; she even learned how to wrap the buns.

The pleats she pinched came out crooked and uneven, but she studied it so seriously.

The two of us worked together more and more smoothly.

I handled the dough, the filling, and the steaming; she handled drawing in customers, packing, and taking the money.

On the streets of this foreign land, the two of us were like two hedgehogs warming each other in the dead of winter, gradually drawing closer.

The way Ronald looked at me changed toono longer mocking, now full of envy.

"Louis, you lucky dog. A gorgeous girl like that, fresh as a flower, trailing after you working every single day. If you brought her back home, you'd make so many men sick with jealousy."

Every time he cracked that kind of joke, I'd tell Ronald to go to hell, then sneak a glance at Katerina hard at work.

The truth was, my heart had long since started to ripple.

Here I was, a down-on-his-luck old bachelor in my thirties, buried in debt.

Watching a young, beautiful, kind, hardworking girl by my side every day, it would be a lie to say I wasn't moved.

But I knew myself well enough. I knew I wasn't good enough for her.

All I wanted was to earn a bit more, pay off my debts back home as soon as I could, and help her out along the way.

But it seemed heaven had no intention of letting me live such a peaceful life for long.