God of Luck
Page 1
GOD OF LUCK
Also by the Author
FICTION
The Moon Pearl
Thousand Pieces of Gold
Wooden Fish Songs
NONFICTION
Sole Survivor
Chinese American Portraits: Personal Histories 1828–1988
JUVENILE
Pie-Biter
GOD OF LUCK
Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Copyright © 2007 by Ruthanne Lum McCunn
Published by Soho Press, Inc.
853 Broadway
New York, NY 10003
All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
McCunn, Ruthanne Lum.
God of luck / Ruthanne Lum McCunn.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-56947-466-2
ISBN-10: 1-56947-466-4
1. Kidnapping—China—Fiction. 2. Chinese—Peru—History—19th century—Fiction.
3. Forced labor—Peru—Fiction. 4. Agricultural laborers—Peru—History—19th century—Fiction.
5. Guano—Peru— Fiction. 6. Islands—Peru—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3613.C38665G63 2007
813’.54—dc22
2006051247
Designed by Pauline Neuwirth, Neuwirth & Associates, Inc.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In memory of
my parents
who, torn apart by forces beyond their control,
remained steadfast in their struggle to reunite.
Also for
Him Mark Lai and Philip Choy,
whose ground-breaking histories about Chinese America
continue to inspire me,
and who, with their wives,
Laura and Sarah,
have shown me unstinting generosity.
“The strong survive. The ones who are strong and lucky.”
—JOHN EDGAR WIDEMAN, Brothers and Keepers
“The function of freedom is to free someone else.”
—TONI MORRISON
Table of Contents
Note to the Reader
Prologue
Acknowledgment
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
NOTE TO THE READER
FROM 1840 TO 1875, multinational commercial interests operated a traffic in Asian labor to Latin America and the Caribbean. Of the estimated one million men decoyed or stolen from southern China, close to 100,000 landed in Peru.
GOD OF LUCK
PROLOGUE
A LONG-AGO emperor ordered dwarves enslaved for his amusement. The dwarves and their families wept. Fear swept through the kingdom that the bondage of little people would eventually lead to the servitude of all. Yet there were no protests. The emperor was too well known for his quick temper and cruel punishments.
Finally, one person found the courage to challenge the emperor in a petition: No one, not even you, has the right to enslave another.
The emperor bristled. The petitioner’s bravery, however, moved him deeply, and instead of unleashing his temper, the emperor freed the dwarves and renounced slavery.
Everybody rejoiced at their good fortune, and they immortalized the petitioner as Fook Sing Gung, the God of Luck.
THE FIRST THREE or four years of my life, even family members sometimes mistook me for my twin sister. So when Old Lady Chow, our near neighbor in Strongworm Village, swooped me up, crowing, “Moongirl,” I was not surprised.
“I’m Ah Lung.”
“Really?” Pinning my knobby elbows and scrawny arms against her chest with one arm, Old Lady Chow jerked open the front of my split-bottomed pants with her free hand. “You’re right! There is a dragon in here.”
Her grip and rough handling belied her kindly tone, and I squirmed, flailed my legs, butted my head against her chest, struggling to break free.
“A very little dragon, mind. So little, it looks more worm than dragon to me. I know! You make it grow, and I’ll believe you are Ah Lung.”
I was, of course, too young to understand her meaning.
But a chick needs no explaining to know it’s been snared by a hawk, and I sank my teeth into Old Lady Chow’s forearm, forcing her to release me with an angry shriek.
TWENTY YEARS LATER, I was in the market town downriver where my brother and I had gone to sell our family’s silk. Although younger than Fourth Brother, I was taller, broader in the shoulders, and well muscled. So I stood by the boat to guard our load of silk skeins while he took a sample into town to show buyers.
Suddenly, a stranger poked a sharp, long-nailed finger in my chest, demanding I repay him. This man was thin as a stick, his skin wizened as if he’d been fried in oil. But I was wearing the wide-brimmed bamboo hat, patched cotton jacket, and pants of a peasant; he wore the high-collared, side-slit robe and skullcap of gentry. I didn’t dare catch hold of his slender wrists with my large-knuckled hands.
Moreover, I was keenly aware our family was never free of debt. It wasn’t possible. Not with close to two dozen mouths to feed and greedy landowners squeezing us to fill their own coffers, to cover ever heavier taxes, the cost of building new dikes, the repair of old.
Ba only borrowed from the landlords in our village, however, and had I not been distracted by an acrobat tossing a stack of rice bowls into the air and catching them on top of his head, I’d have realized instantly we couldn’t owe anything to a stranger and defended myself.
Before I could gather my wits, two hardfaced strongmen had seized me by my arms and legs. Storming through the knots of people crowding the riverbank, they shouted:
“This man owes money.”
“We’re taking him to the magistrate.”
“Make way, make way.”
At mention of the magistrate, people fell back. I squeezed both eyes shut and prayed Fourth Brother would return to our boat directly, discover what had happened to me from bystanders, and give chase. His tongue, quick as mine was slow, would at least give me a chance against my accuser’s. Alone, I’d have none.
Abruptly, the strongmen threw me down. But there was no resounding boom from the magistrate’s gong announcing the arrival of a petitioner. Instead, the ground under me gave way, jolting open my eyes: We were on the deck of a boat, a sampan not much larger than my family’s skiff; my accuser’s clothes were almost as faded and threadbare as my own.
Recognizing then that the charge of debt was a deliberate hoax, I thrust out my arms and legs. One fist brushed grizzled skin, a heel sank into soft flesh, another met bone. My abductors, bellowing their fury, threw themselves on top of me. The boat pitched crazily. Something hard smashed my skull, and I tumbled into stupefying nothingness.
THE SUFFOCATING DARKNESS was absolute. But I knew from the smooth rocking sensation, the steady slap-slap of water against wood, and the distinctive sound of a stern-oar grinding against a bearing pin that I was still on a boat. A boat small enough to require only the one oar. And since planking with a fishy stink was pressing against me from above and a chill damp was seeping through my cotton jacket and pants from below, I guessed that I was stuffed into
the bottom of my abductors’ sampan, that the moans and bony pressure on either side came from fellow captives.
Something rough bound my wrists and ankles, biting into my skin, numbing my hands and feet, my arms and legs. A splintery piece of wood between my teeth forced my tongue back into my throat. My stomach, rebelling, repeatedly seared my throat with bile. My lips and jaws, prized open so unnaturally, ached.
Desperate for air, I poked and prodded the board above with my nose, straining to find a crack. I twisted my head from side to side, grazing one ear, then the other against wood slick with slime in hopes of hearing something, anything, that would indicate help was on its way for me and the sharp-boned captives wedging me in.
How could I have been so careless? The waterpeddlers who traded in Strongworm brought news as well as goods, and as a small boy, I’d listened, slackjawed, to their tales of foreign devils whose greed knew no bounds. Not only did these devils carry off our men to labor for them in faraway lands, but they’d deliberately weakened our people with opium, then made war on us until nothing of our fleet— not a fragment of a sail or an oar—remained.
Thousands were thrown out of work or off their land during these wars. Which meant that their end did not bring an end to the fighting. Just that the fighting, whether it was clan against clan or peasants against gentry, was now between our own people—and the foreign devils were buying prisoners taken in these fights. They also employed pirates to kidnap unwary fishermen and raid coastal villages for men capable of heavy labor.
I hadn’t been frightened. The clans in Strongworm and neighboring villages lived peaceably together, and we were far enough inland to be safe from pirates. After my twin, Moongirl, started working in Canton, however, she told us that men—city sophisticates as well as country bumpkins— were being stolen or decoyed, then sold as though they were pigs. And during her last visit home, Moongirl—her square face agitated, her voice weighted with concern—cautioned my brothers and me to be vigilant.
“Not only when you’re on the river or in the market town, but here in Strongworm. The streets in the city have become so dangerous that if I were a man, I wouldn’t dare step out of the house for fear of being kidnapped.”
“Ai yah!” Second Brother, snaking his arm behind Third Brother, tweaked Moongirl’s plait which hung down her back like a man’s queue. “I know spinsters only comb up their hair on ceremonial occasions. But aren’t you afraid you’ll be mistaken for a man? Maybe you should join our wives in the kitchen instead of eating with us.”
My brothers and I laughed. Moongirl, ignoring us, withdrew a paper from the inside pocket of her long, side-buttoned tunic, unfolded it. “Warnings have been posted all over.”
Ba set down his bowl, held out a work-worn hand. “Let me see.”
At his seriousness, our laughter faded. Moongirl rose, reached across the circular table, gave Ba the notice, and dropped back onto her stool. The clickety-click of chopsticks against bowls and dishes stopped. In the quiet, I realized there were no longer any sounds coming from the kitchen, where Ma was supervising Eldest and Fourth Sisters-in-law, or from the courtyard, where Second and Third Sisters-in-law were minding the children. Turning, I looked for my wife, Bo See.
She’d been serving. Now, motionless and beautiful as a jade carving, she was midway between the kitchen and the table in the common room where we were eating. Ma, her gaunt face more drawn than ever, hunched in the kitchen doorway. Behind her hovered plump Fourth Sister-in-law, lanky Eldest Sister-in-law; Second and Third Sisters-in-law, both similarly squat. Their eyes fixed on Ba, they were clearly waiting, as I was, for him to speak, to declare Moongirl’s fears for us unfounded despite a deepening in the furrows of worry that creased his forehead, the ominous grinding of his teeth.
Third Brother tugged at his beetle brows. Second Brother’s fleshy nostrils quivered. His eyesight too poor for him to read in the gray light of dusk, he made no attempt to peer over Ba’s shoulder the way Eldest Brother was. Beside me, Fourth Brother cleared his throat ostentatiously, as if to prompt Ba or Eldest Brother.
When neither spoke, Fourth Brother suggested, “The city is surely too far away for us to be affected.”
Ba’s chest, clogged with catarrh, rumbled, and he stabbed a finger at the double column of characters on the paper. “There’s a list of kidnapped men here that includes four from the Sun Duk district.”
“Our district, yes,” Eldest Brother acknowledged. “But they couldn’t have been from any village near Strongworm or our market town or there’d have been talk. Lots of talk. And now that officials are offering rewards for the capture and prosecution of man-stealers, those rogues will go after other game.”
Moongirl shook her head. “No sooner is one man-stealer caught and executed then another takes his place.”
Astonished, I blurted, “Have they no fear?”
“No fear and no pity either,” Moongirl said.
THAT MAN-STEALERS were without pity I did not doubt: only people without a grain of human feeling would act like beasts of prey. To beg my kidnappers for mercy, then, would be a waste of spit.
But from what Moongirl and the waterpeddlers said, the captains of the foreign devil-ships entered into agreements with brokers for a set number of “piglets.” These brokers, in turn, negotiated with crimps in nearby districts who sent out runners—like my kidnappers—to bring in the number specified. And since money was what these villains were after, why should they care whether it came from a broker or my family?
Ba wouldn’t have an extra copper to give them. But Moongirl was making good money in the city, and she would be willing to ransom me. Six years ago, she’d given Ba the bride price for my wife, and my kidnappers’ demands would be less than Bo See’s parents’ had been.
According to Moongirl, brokers were getting a year’s wages for each man delivered. But a runner’s share was no more than a few dollars. I would offer my kidnappers double. No, triple, to ensure their acceptance and my return to Bo See.
Just thinking about Bo See made my spirits rise. My manhood, too. In truth, after six years together as man and wife, I was as impatient for night and the privacy of our sleeping room as I had been as a bridegroom. No, more. For Bo See and I had been strangers when we married, shy and uncertain. Now we were intimately familiar with each other’s every curve and crevice, confident and joyful in our loveplay.
Rules of propriety forbade any demonstration of our affection except when we were alone. But they could not stop my eyes from seeking out my wife while I was bringing baskets of mulberry leaves into the family’s silkwormhouse, taking out the waste to feed the fish in our ponds, or sitting in our courtyard, smoking, talking to my brothers, playing with their children. And on those occasions I was reckless enough to let my stolen glances linger on Bo See’s wide, generous mouth, slender neck, sloping shoulders, delicate wrists, or long, supple fingers, the sparks of desire smoldering in me would crackle into blaze fast as a dry branch near a fire.
Once, about to stack dried mulberry branches in the kitchen for fuel, I chanced upon Bo See in the common room alone, setting up embroidery frames for herself and our sisters-in-law so they could begin their winter work. Usually the house was as crowded with family as it was cluttered with tools, large storage jars and sacks and baskets and chests. But Ba was in bed with a particularly bad attack of catarrh; Eldest Sister-in-law, exhausted from nursing him through the night, had been released to nap; Ma, now closeted with Ba, had told Second and Fourth Sisters-in-law to take outside any grandchild who wasn’t in the fields with my brothers or in school; and Third Sister-in-law had been assigned to go buy embroidery thread from the waterpeddlers.
My first thought was to invite Bo See into our sleeping room for play. But the few rooms in our house had been divided, then subdivided, as each of my four brothers and I married. None of the flimsy wood partitions reached the ceiling, and our sleeping room was adjacent to Ba’s.
Impulsively, I abandoned my chore, ripped of
f a button and, without removing my jacket, asked Bo See to sew it back on.
Her eyes glowing with a heat that matched my own, Bo See seized needle and thread, daringly suggested I unfasten the remaining buttons, murmuring, “That will make it easier.”
Although the autumn day was cool, my chest gleamed moistly from my exertions, and when Bo See, piercing the edge of my jacket with her needle, let her wrist slide across my skin while pulling the thread through, I shivered with excitement. Her fingers trembling, she plunged the needle back into the fabric—stabbed her finger.
Except for a sharp intake of breath, she made no sound as she extracted the needle. But I took her injured hand in mine, placed the wounded finger in my mouth, embraced it with my lips, caressed it with my tongue.
Then she did cry out. It was only a small sob, one of pleasure, not pain. . . .
“Wai!”
Our faces bright as the sun outside, we leaped apart. At the other end of the common room, Third Sister-in-law— her shock clearly as great as our own—dropped the chest of embroidery thread she was carrying onto the table with a thud. Quickly, I shrugged off my jacket as if that was what I’d been doing all along, handed it to Bo See.
“Thanks, I won’t wait,” I mumbled, bolting out through the kitchen into the courtyard.
Panting as though I’d run in from the fields, I collapsed in an untidy heap. Our chickens, terrified, flapped and squawked a hasty retreat. Too edgy to stay still, I jumped up, began snapping the slender branches of mulberry into more manageable lengths for the stove.