The Boat to Redemption

by Su Tong

  Frightened by the bullhorn, Huixian straightened up and gazed at the tugboat. She burst into tears and shrieked at me, ‘Tell me right this minute, where is my mama?’

  Given her youth, I saw nothing wrong with her crying and carrying on because she’d lost her mother. But she was staring at me, wanting me to produce her mother. That was too much. As for the other crews, instead of coming to my aid, they all just gaped at me, sort of stupefied, as if to force a cruel response out of me. I looked first at the barge, then at the shore, and finally down at the water. If anything, I was more puzzled than they were, and I couldn’t help thinking about my own mother. Strangely, the name Qiao Limin popped into my head, but for the life of me, I couldn’t conjure up a picture of what my mother looked like. As I looked at Huixian’s tear-streaked face, I knew I couldn’t tell her the truth, tell her not to keep looking for her mother. My mother’s a kongpi, and it looks like yours is too. She was too young to understand, I couldn’t put it into words. But I was also unable to escape a responsibility I hadn’t asked for. Then an idea came to me. ‘Look,’ I said, ‘here’s your mama.’ I held up a finger and drew a circle in the air under her nose, then pointed mysteriously into the air. That, I figured, was a good way to get her to understand the meaning of kongpi. I didn’t care whether or not anyone else understood the meaning of my gesture.

  Sofa

  HUIXIAN SAT on my father’s sofa in the cabin, agitated, wilful and gluttonous. She’d gone through all the snacks we had. That’s my earliest recollection of her as she began life on the river.

  Our fancy sofa was upholstered in blue corduroy with a sunflower pattern. A close look revealed its public-property origin. The wooden armrests were host to many cigarette burns and the back was protected by canvas with the words ‘Welcome to the Revolutionary Committee’ still legible. Given that members of the Sunnyside Fleet owned no private property, not even a chair, our sofa had long been considered the fleet’s most extravagant item. It also symbolized my father’s special status. When he was banished to the barge from the General Affairs Building, all he brought with him was his corduroy sofa.

  Safeguarding the sovereignty of that sofa took a lot out of me. None of the barge children could restrain their interest in it, and sooner or later every one of them chose a direct or roundabout way of asking to sit in it. ‘Let me sit in it just once, OK? Please.’

  My response never varied. ‘No,’ I said, with a vigorous shake of the head. ‘Not unless you give me half a yuan.’

  Now where would they get that kind of money? Besides, they wouldn’t part with it even if they had it, so that kept them out of our cabin. Yingtao’s brother, Dayong, tried to sneak inside once, but I dragged him out and wrestled him to the ground, which incurred the wrath of surprised adults on both sides. Embarrassed by the incident, Father invited Dayong inside to sit on the sofa, but the invitation came too late. Before the boy could step into the cabin, his father slapped him.

  ‘What makes you think you can sit on that sofa? A privy is more like it!’

  Dayong’s mother grabbed him by the arm and dragged him back to their barge, fuming, though not necessarily at her son. ‘What gives a useless brat like you the right to sit on a sofa? No wonder you asked me for half a yuan. Half a yuan just to sit on a sofa? Is it sewn with gold threads or something? Think you’ll get up with a gold-plated rear end?’

  That sofa was the last vestige of family honour in my safekeeping, and I was not about to give it up. Money had nothing to do with it. Someone came on board our barge one day and complained about my demand for money. Father nearly twisted my ear off my head. I knew he’d be the one to suffer from my actions and that the sofa would exacerbate our estrangement from the other barges, which was a constant worry to Father, who never stopped stressing the importance of our relationship with the masses. Over time, many of the fleet’s adults followed the example of Yingtao’s mother, forbidding their children from going aboard barge number seven. ‘What’s so wonderful about a sofa?’ they’d say. ‘For half a yuan you’d get your rear end squeezed on to it. Children need to develop a strong will. You’re not to sit on that sofa even if you’re invited to.’

  But the unexpected usually changes things. Huixian turned my strict control on its head. She broke all the rules. I still recall how she headed straight for the cabin, where she stuck her little nose up to the glass to see if her mother was there. Ours was the messiest and most mysterious cabin in the fleet. One wall was decorated with a picture of the martyr Deng Shaoxiang cut out of a newspaper. It was just fuzzy enough to lend it a mysterious, ancient quality. Huixian studied it through the window. ‘That’s my grandma!’ she blurted out. Everyone within earshot fought hard not to laugh at her absurd comment, while watching me for a reaction. I disappointed them.

  The next thing Huixian spotted was my father, who was sitting on the sofa, a book in his lap, looking back at the girl. He stood up, smiled at her, and pointed humbly to the sofa. ‘Want to try it out?’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  The invitation could not have come at a better time. Huixian dried her tears and darted inside. ‘Sofa!’ she cried out, loudly enough for everyone to hear. ‘Sofa! My papa’s sofa!’

  What nonsense! How could our sofa suddenly become her papa’s?

  ‘She says it’s her papa’s sofa!’ A bunch of kids mimicked, hoping to get under my skin.

  Not wanting to pick a fight with a little girl, I tried to assess the situation objectively. Her father had probably also sat on a sofa, which meant he might have been an official or someone who lived in the city. I watched as she jumped on to the sofa, like a fledgling returning to its nest. For some reason, the people outside greeted her achievement with applause and a flurry of whispers. They were obviously waiting to see what Father and I would do. His reaction was exactly what they’d expected: he stood close by, hands at his sides, like a doddering old king relinquishing his throne to a little girl. What piqued their curiosity was my reaction. They were eager to see how I’d deal with the girl. I knew that for some of them this would be a test of my fair-mindedness, while for others it was my kindness and decency that were under scrutiny.

  I instinctively reached out, just missing grabbing her braid. Before I knew it, she was on the sofa, draping one leg over the armrest as she sank with practised ease into the cushion, a look of satisfaction and gratification spreading across her face. I’ll bet her mother was the last thing on her mind at that moment, for I heard her mutter – more like an old woman than a little girl – ‘I’m beat!’ She looked up at me, then shut her eyes, looked up one more time and then shut her eyes again. This time they stayed shut, thanks to the sleep that had settled in.

  ‘Put your leg down,’ I said. ‘If you’re going to sit there, do it right, and don’t get our sofa dirty.’

  Past being able to open her eyes, she gave the armrest a little kick, and I noticed that she was wearing red cloth shoes, covered with mud. She was also wearing socks, one of which had slid down into her shoe. I turned to look at Father. ‘She’s asleep,’ he said. ‘Let her be.’

  I was OK with that, but I said, ‘Her shoes are muddy.’

  And so Huixian, like a mysterious gift dropped from the heavens, settled on to the river, on our barge. She was a gift that had come out of nowhere, for good or for ill, presented to the members of the Sunnyside Fleet, whose interest in her was all-encompassing; for the moment, however, no one quite knew how to enjoy their gift. When the fleet’s women and children were reminded of what awaited them, they ran excitedly to barge number seven and gazed at her through the cabin porthole, jostling for position, like a crowd at a zoo. No longer an object of pity, Huixian slept like a baby on my father’s sofa. He gestured to the people to keep the noise down as he covered her with a sweater. It was big enough to cover her from head to toe. Some of the women whispered pleasantly, ‘I’d never have guessed that Secretary Ku could be so big-hearted.’

  The children, on the other hand, saw this as an opportunity to ge
t even with me. With contempt in their eyes, they stared at me, wanting to say something I’d hate to hear, but not sure what that might be. Only Yingtao, who was still quite small, was too envious to let the opportunity pass. She stuck her head through the cabin door and glared at me. ‘I thought you wouldn’t let anybody sit on that sofa,’ she said, denouncing my hypocrisy. ‘How come she can sleep on it? How come she didn’t have to pay?’

  Standing in the doorway, I had no time to argue with Yingtao. I was too busy watching Father bustle around like an ant on a heated pan after giving up his sofa for her, relinquishing his sole trusty space. He sat down on my army cot, obviously ill at ease as he stared at the girl sleeping on his sofa, a look of anxiety and embarrassment in his eyes. Then he stood up abruptly, waved to me and said, ‘She’s worn out. Let’s go outside and let her sleep.’

  Father carried his journal outside with him. He’d begun keeping a daily journal the year he joined the fleet. He may have lost his official position but not the habits associated with it, and he recorded his thoughts religiously. In the wake of the incident that no one talked about, he seldom came out of his cabin, preferring to stay out of the sunlight. He had, as a result, become pale, presenting a stark contrast to the ruddy complexions of the other barge men. He was always ill at ease, particularly in the company of the other members of the fleet. Remorse filled his eyes when he looked at them. People had a pretty good idea why he was so ill at ease, but only I knew the true source of that remorse. He clearly regretted picking up those scissors and, in one rash moment, destroying what little self-respect he had left.

  Outwardly, the barge people maintained a measure of respect towards him. ‘Aren’t you coming out, Secretary Ku? You need to get some fresh air. Spending all your time in there is bad for your health.’ But their eyes gave away their secret. Their concern for his health was concentrated on one spot. No matter who was speaking – men, women, young and old – their gaze invariably travelled to his crotch, with either the purest of intentions or salacious glee, like the needle of a compass pulled by the earth’s magnetic field. Father dressed in grey nylon trousers, buttoned up and impeccably creased. But that did not satisfy anyone; their eyes kept roaming to his fly, and they wished they could see through the fabric to learn the secret of the severed penis.

  They could not, of course, and that fired their imagination. Six-Fingers Wang and Chunsheng would exchange looks and snigger. The women’s train of thought was slightly less vulgar and more veiled. Their gaze would move quickly down past Father’s crotch before they instinctively turned towards the shore; a moment later they would turn back again, and I once saw Yingtao’s mother stifle a giggle with her hand. Not knowing why she was giggling, Yingtao tugged at her sleeve and asked, ‘What are you laughing at?’ She received a resounding smack. ‘What are you saying? I’m not laughing.’

  Father would become even more pale than usual. He was dressed properly, but he might as well not have been wearing a shirt or those nylon trousers. His shameful genitalia were like an exposed target, inviting dart-like gazes from everyone. He could have worn a thousand pairs of trousers and still not have been able to keep his lower body out of sight. He would hold out as long as he could before thrusting his journal into his jacket pocket and, forcing himself to remain as calm as possible, say, ‘I haven’t seen you comrades for a long time. I hope you’re all well.’ They’d nod and mumble a response, gazing up and down, looking at him curiously. He knew what it was they cared about, but he lacked the courage to talk about it. So he’d gaze into the cloud-filled sky. ‘Nice weather,’ he’d say, just as thunder crackled, and the people would look skyward. Then they’d look back at Father with puzzled expressions and mutterings of surprise on their lips.

  Dayong, from barge number five, once cackled and said, ‘Is he seeing things? It’s going to start raining any minute, and he’s talking about nice weather!’

  That was more than I could take. I pushed Father back towards the cabin. ‘Go on inside,’ I said, like a father ordering his son. ‘Go in and read.’ Knowing what I was doing, he went and stood beneath the hatch, an embarrassed look on his face, as I turned my attention to the others. First I shoved Dayong. ‘Go on!’ I said. ‘Get off our barge.’ Then I pushed his sister. ‘Get off, go back to number five.’

  That had the desired effect on the adults, who wisely took their leave. ‘Time to go,’ they said. ‘Let the poor little mite get some sleep.’

  But Yingtao’s mother was determined to let me know that she was unhappy. She left a mystifying comment in her wake: ‘I’d like to know what that boy and his father have in mind, hiding a little girl in their cabin like that.’

  That really upset Desheng’s wife. ‘How can anyone respond to a mean, ugly comment like that?’ she said, trying her best to defend us. ‘Watch what you’re saying, Yingtao’s mother, or you might wake up tomorrow with your mouth twisted out of shape from a stroke.’

  The fleet’s mysterious gift was now under the protection, however temporary, of Father and me. We headed downriver with an unrelated girl aboard. Our corduroy sofa was now a boat within a boat. After we passed the duck farm, the river widened and there was less traffic, the sound of churning water in our wake a potent contrast to the deathly silence aboard the barge, silence that was abruptly shattered by our little passenger, who cried out in her dreams, ‘Mama!’ Father and I were startled by her shrill cry, but fortunately, she slept on. She rolled over, apparently agitated, but then lay peacefully again. One of her socks had fallen off; her pale toes, which were pointing at me, quivered slightly.

  We stood in the doorway keeping watch over the sleeping girl. Father seemed morose as he looked down at the water. I knew how fragile he was; humiliation greeted him each time he emerged from the cabin, and he was wallowing in feelings of shame. But I couldn’t keep my eyes off the muted light Huixian’s naked foot gave off, and had the sudden feeling that the light somehow broke through the loneliness and depression that never seemed to leave barge number seven. Father and I were each occupied with our own thoughts. For some strange reason, my heart was flooded with happiness, but in the face of Father’s dejection, I had to keep that to myself.

  Desheng and his wife came over to check on our passenger as we were passing Deer Bridge Village. I can’t pin it down, but there was something sneaky about their behaviour. ‘Is she being a good girl?’ Desheng asked.

  ‘She’s still sleeping,’ I said. ‘How am I supposed to know if she’s a good girl or not?’

  Desheng looked first at me, then at Father, then nudged his wife conspiratorially. ‘Don’t you have something to say? There’s no one around, now’s the time.’

  She glared at him. ‘I wasn’t serious,’ she said.

  Father looked at Desheng and his wife, not sure what was going on. ‘If you’ve got something to say, say it,’ he said. ‘We’re neighbours, one boat after the other, so don’t treat me like a stranger.’

  Desheng’s wife squirmed bashfully as she pointed to our cabin and smiled. ‘It’s nothing, really. It’s just that when I look at that little girl, for some reason I think about my own childhood, when my parents abandoned me on a pier, and my future mother-inlaw took me aboard their barge until I was old enough to marry Desheng. Everyone says she was a wise and benevolent woman whose good deeds earned her a daughter-in-law.’

  Desheng urged his wife to say what she’d come to say. ‘You’re evading the issue.’

  ‘Secretary Ku,’ she said, ‘please don’t think I’m meddling, but you really ought to have a woman aboard your barge. The way I see it, Fate has brought this girl and barge number seven together – or, more to the point, brought her and Dongliang together. I’ve never seen him be this good to anyone, and if you let her stay, who knows, when she grows up …’

  Father didn’t give her a chance to finish. ‘No,’ he said, ‘that’s not going to work. What you’re talking about is raising a child bride.’ Still smiling, he waved his hands to dismiss the idea. ‘I know yo
u mean well, but there’s a principle involved. We’re capable of overcoming any hardship, we’re materialists. We don’t believe in Fate and we definitely reject the feudal concept of valuing boys over girls.’

  The views of Desheng’s wife made me blush. I didn’t know what to make of them. She rolled her eyes at her husband. ‘You see, I told you Secretary Ku wouldn’t go along with it. But you forced me to say it.’ She cast a look of pity my way. ‘You men know nothing about girls. She’s going to grow up to be a real beauty.’ She sighed and stuck her head into the cabin to listen to the girl’s deep, even breathing. ‘Hear that? She’s snoring like a little piglet.’

  Desheng’s wife left a few ears of corn for Huixian, as the sky darkened over the river and night settled in. As the shore turned dark, so did our cabin. The little girl slept on. All of a sudden, a strange feeling arose between Father and me. I sensed that he wanted to explain something, but didn’t know where to start, while I felt like making something known, but was too embarrassed to do so. He hung up a lantern and turned up the wick, bringing light to the cabin. He had a worried look on his face as he bent down to get a closer look at the girl. ‘No good,’ he blurted out. ‘This won’t work.’

  ‘What do you mean, no good? What won’t work?’

  ‘It’s dark out, night’s coming. We can’t keep her on our barge.’

  I guessed what was on his mind, and was deeply disappointed. ‘Are you still worried that people will talk? She’s just a snotty-nosed little girl. Anyone who talks is full of shit!’

  In the lamplight I could see he was thinking hard. ‘Getting angry at me doesn’t solve anything,’ he said. ‘We have to go on with our tails between our legs. There’s nothing wrong with worrying. She may be little, but she’s still a female. She has to go.’