The Boat to Redemption

by Su Tong

  Gossip is a fearful thing. I couldn’t see all the possibilities, and knew I had to do as he said, so I put Huixian’s sock back on and patted her on the foot. ‘Wake up,’ I said. ‘It’s time to go.’

  She kicked me and mumbled, ‘Don’t bother me, I’m sleepy,’ before rolling over to go back to sleep.

  ‘No more sleeping,’ I said. ‘It’s dark outside and we have a tiger on board that comes out at night to eat little girls.’

  She sat up like a shot and glared at me. ‘Liar,’ she said. ‘You’re lying.’ She tried to lie back down, but, like a coolie, I picked her up and hoisted her over my shoulder. I felt her struggle briefly against my back, but now that she was awake, her first thoughts were of her mother. ‘Then hurry up and help me find my mama,’ she demanded.

  ‘I don’t know where your mama flew off to,’ I said. ‘I’m taking you to the authorities. They can find your mama for you.’

  Sun Ximing was our fleet commander, so I carried the girl over to his barge, crossing five others along the way and answering the same question at each one: ‘Where are you taking her?’ ‘It’s dark out, so I’m taking her to the authorities.’ Six-Fingers Wang’s daughters tried to block my way, chattering about how cute she was and begging me to leave Huixian with them, at least for the night. ‘No,’ I said. ‘Your barge is noisier than a nest of baby birds. Besides, a bunch of silly girls like you can’t be the authorities. I’m taking her to Sun Ximing’s.’

  The Sun family had just finished dinner on barge number one. Sun’s wife was washing the bowls and chopsticks under the muted light of the masthead lantern. When she saw me walk up with the little girl on my back, she bleated out in surprise, ‘Why are you carrying her over here? Crossing all those barges in the dark was risky. She was happy sleeping on your sofa – why not let her stay there? She can’t hurt it.’

  ‘Don’t blame me. My dad wouldn’t let her stay.’ I could only repeat what he’d said. ‘She’s a female, my dad says, so she can’t spend the night on our barge!’

  Sun’s wife doubled up laughing. ‘That Secretary Ku is really something. A female, he says! She’s such a little girl that the tongue of anyone who spread rumours would rot away. Your dad’s like the man who was bitten by a snake and shied away from ropes for ten years. A man can be too careful, too guarded. There’s no need to be ridiculous.’

  I wasn’t laughing. I thrust the little girl into Sun’s wife’s arms just as the rest of the family came up to see what was going on. It looked as if they’d be happy to take her. The children commented excitedly on Huixian’s braid and her clothes, until Sun shooed them away. ‘Bringing her here was the right thing to do, I guess,’ she said. ‘Without a woman on board your barge, there’s no one to look after her.’

  Now that she was no longer lying across my back, Huixian began to cry. But she was too sleepy to keep it up. By then Sun’s wife was holding her in her arms, but the girl struggled and fought to get down, and I could see the disdain in her eyes. But then the woman’s gold earrings caught her eye. She reached out for one and then the other.

  Sun’s wife pulled her hands back. ‘When you’re old enough to be my daughter-in-law,’ she said, ‘these gold earrings will be yours.’

  As I was heading back from barge number one, I crossed five more in my bare feet, each deck colder than the one before. A half moon had risen above the Golden Sparrow River, bringing evening to the water and rousing the frogs on the banks. By now the fleet had got under way, picking up speed in the darkness, the water churning fast beneath my feet. My unburdened back felt lighter, but the girl’s warmth remained, and I recall how, as I walked across Six-Fingers Wang’s barge, I snapped my fingers casually at his daughter, masking my feeling of loss. My back remained bent under the weight of an imaginary little girl. Freed of my burden for only a moment, I had already begun to miss her.

  When I reached our cabin, I saw the flickering light in the cabin. Father had gone back inside. The barge seemed a cheerless place for the very first time. I looked down at my thin shadow and discovered how lonely I was. I also felt the stirrings of love, which were more unfathomable than the water in the river.

  Huixian

  THE BOAT people planned to deposit the girl on the shore. Since even a found penny must be turned in, a little girl would surely not be an exception to the rule. So when the fleet reached Wufu, Sun Ximing and a group of women took Huixian to the authorities.

  Wufu was a town where the social order had broken down. It was overrun with refugees who had thrown up tents on the streets, where they slept, ate and deposited their waste. The government offices and compound had been virtually swallowed up by all the squatters, and the barge delegation only managed with great difficulty to locate the local civil administration office, which had been moved to an old earth god temple. A lot of good that did them. They were told to take the child back to where they had found her. ‘We’re too busy here to worry about Milltown,’ they said.

  So, their hopes dashed, the delegation headed back, grumbling as they went, ‘If we’d offered them a wallet, they wouldn’t have given a damn where we’d found it, and would have been only too happy to take it off our hands. I guess a human life isn’t as valuable as a wallet.’

  The fleet returned to Milltown a few days later, and this time we all believed we’d say our goodbyes to Huixian. To this end, people stuffed all sorts of things into her pockets – an egg, a handkerchief, even a handful of melon seeds – to show how they felt about her. Sun Ximing’s wife stuck a red flower in the little girl’s hair and pinned another to her chest; Desheng’s wife dabbed rouge on her cheeks and lipstick on her mouth. Rather than seeing her off the barges for good, you’d have thought they were preparing her for the stage.

  Having failed in our first attempt to have Huixian taken off our hands, this time Sun Ximing made careful plans. He came to barge number seven to talk my father into going ashore with them. ‘As a former official,’ he said, ‘you’re familiar with policy and you know what to say, Secretary Ku. You have to come. We don’t want to make things difficult for you, but we don’t know a thing about the girl’s background, and I’m afraid that if we say the wrong thing, we’ll be inviting trouble. They all think barge people have too many kids, as it is, and that we kidnap them.’

  ‘Rumours,’ my father said. ‘Wherever there are people you’ll find rumours.’

  ‘But it won’t be a rumour if they try to pin a kidnapping on us. Secretary Ku, you have to speak up for us. We’ll take the girl, all you have to do is talk to them. What do you say?’

  ‘No. I’m no longer a Party secretary, and no one will listen to anything I say.’ My father steadfastly shook his head. ‘Don’t think I don’t want to help, Commander Sun. But you know all about my troubles. I can’t go ashore.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ Sun said, ‘is how much trouble it can be to go ashore and talk to someone. You’ve got arms, Old Ku, and you’ve got legs, so what’s to keep you from going ashore?’ Sun’s anxiety showed in his eyes. His gaze darted downward until he was looking at Father’s crotch. The thought of his truncated penis reminded him of Father’s ugly nickname. ‘Tell me, Secretary Ku, what’s the real reason you won’t go ashore? Are you afraid of what people will say when they see you? Who cares about a bunch of smart-arse kids, especially a man like you? Come with us, and if I hear an unkind word from anyone, he’ll pay with his prick – the whole thing.’

  Father’s face darkened. ‘Old Sun,’ he said unappreciatively, ‘I don’t like to hear that kind of gutter talk from you. You can’t have a very high opinion of me if you think I’m worried about a bunch of kids. I’ve said before that I vowed to the ghost of the martyr Deng Shaoxiang that I’ll not step foot on land again until my case has been resolved and the verdict on me overturned.’

  With an embarrassed look, Sun Ximing grumbled, ‘It’s not like you to sulk, Old Ku. You have to tough it out. Even a fish winds up on land when the water rises. Don’t tell me you plan to spen
d the rest of your life on the water.’

  ‘I’m not sulking,’ Father said. ‘You don’t understand me, Old Sun. This isn’t sulking, it’s dignity.’

  Sun blinked as he considered what Father meant by the word dignity. A sneer of disdain accompanied a couple of pats on his leg. ‘Dignity, you say? Don’t you mean face? Old Ku, if you don’t go ashore, it’s because you’re ashamed to show your face.’

  But Father shook his head insistently. ‘You’re wrong, Old Sun. You really don’t understand. Face is face, and dignity is dignity. I’ve walked a bumpy road in my days and tasted everything life has to offer – sweet, sour, bitter and hot. Face means nothing to me any more, but I’ve got my dignity, and I’ll hold on to it, no matter what it costs. I’m not going ashore until my case is resolved!’

  Seeing my father’s eyes grow moist, Sun Ximing knew there was nothing more to be said. He was smart enough to leave it at that, so he turned to the next best thing to Father – me. ‘Then let Dongliang go in your place. He may not be the best talker, but he’s been to school. The authorities will want someone who can write, so he could prove to be of some use.’

  With a quick glance at me, Father said, ‘What good could he do? He can’t make things right, but he’s sure to mess them up. If you want to put your trust in him, I can’t be responsible. Ask him if he’s willing to go.’

  Seeing the hopeful look in Sun Ximing’s eyes, I quickly looked away and said, ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘What do you mean, you don’t care?’ Sun said doubtfully. ‘Do you want to go or not?’

  ‘“I don’t care” means he wants to go,’ Father said. ‘This boy doesn’t know how to give a straight answer to anything.’ He reached down, took off one of his sandals and smacked me with it. ‘Won’t you ever change?’ he complained. ‘I try to bring you up right, but you refuse to do what you’re supposed to. Can’t you give a straight answer?’

  Truth is, Father didn’t understand me. All he cared about was his own dignity, not mine. The reason I was being so difficult was because I had mixed feelings. I knew that taking Huixian ashore was the right thing for the boat people to do, but I hated the idea. Winds often blew clothes that were drying on the shore into the water, where the boat people fought to scoop them out, dry them and wear them as their own. And waves often picked up logs from the lumber yard and sent them downriver, where they were pulled up out of the water and hidden in cabins. The boat people would take anything out of the water, it didn’t matter what. Now that a lovable little girl had come to them, why wouldn’t they keep her? I was angry at Sun and the others, but there was no way I could tell them.

  So I stuck a pen into one of my pockets and followed the boat people ashore to give up the girl. She rode on Desheng’s shoulders, her face covered in rouge put on by the women, in high spirits as she sucked on a sweet. I knew why she was so happy – they’d told her they were taking her ashore to find her mama.

  Now that the floods had passed, much of Milltown was in ruins, with mud everywhere. Amid the dirt and filth, red flags and throngs of people lent the construction project a more exalted air than ever. The land around the piers had been opened up, rice-paddy style, although close-up it looked more like the trenches you see in war movies. There were people down in the trenches and above ground nearby. With shock-troop banners on poles dotting the ground, our delegation had trouble finding its way. One of the banners read ‘Sunflower Shock Troop’, which reminded me of my mother. Would she be a member of that troop? I climbed up a nearby hill to get a better look into the trenches, but didn’t see her down there. A woman was reading a commendation letter over the PA system, extolling the virtues of a labourer who had passed out on his work site. Time after time, he’d lost consciousness, then got up to continue digging, only to pass out again. I listened, not to what the voice was saying, but to how it sounded. Could that be my mother? No, it was the voice of a younger woman, crisp, but lacking the emotion I’d always heard in Mother’s voice. No, the PA voice belonged to someone else. A river flows thirty years to the east, then thirty years to the west. Mother’s revolutionary voice had been replaced by that of an unknown younger woman.

  The security group appeared out of nowhere and rushed towards our delegation, shouting, ‘Stop where you are! Stop, I said! You can’t come ashore!’

  Xiaogai and the others blocked our way next to a stack of drain-pipes. They’d been joined by a woman they called Wintersweet. She carried a truncheon like the others, but stood behind the men. She added her voice to theirs: ‘Go on back, you can’t come ashore.’

  The confused boat people, who had been backed up against the small mountain of drainpipes, darted glances all around. ‘This construction may be your business,’ Sun said, ‘but, as they say, well water doesn’t stop the flow of river water. Why can’t we come ashore?’

  ‘What’s all this well-water and river-water business?’ Scabby Five said as he grabbed Sun’s sleeve. ‘Sooner or later well water flows into the river. Didn’t you see the signs? We’re in the middle of a mass campaign, and the piers are a construction site, off limits to idlers.’

  ‘After all we’ve contributed to the project, how dare you call us idlers?’ Sun complained, knocking Scabby’s hand away. ‘We’re on our way to see the authorities. How do you expect us to get there – sprout wings and fly?’

  ‘You’re nothing but a raucous crowd,’ Xiaogai said. ‘Why choose this time to go looking for the authorities? And what do you want to see them for?’

  Before Sun had a chance to answer, Desheng said, ‘To report on a new trend in class struggle. And if you won’t let us come ashore, we’ll see that you’re made responsible for what happens.’

  Xiaogai glared at Desheng, then spun around to see if there was any reaction from Sun Ximing. Sun wore an enigmatic smile that indicated he liked what he heard. Xiaogai didn’t know whether to believe Desheng or not. ‘What trend in class struggle could you boat people have? Have you scooped a Taiwanese secret agent’s parachute out of the river or something?’ His tone of voice had changed from firm to cautious. Special circumstances called for special handling. ‘Come ashore if you have to, but you need to be registered. I’ll want names, time of coming ashore, and time of return to your barges.’

  ‘Whatever you say. Start with me,’ said Sun Ximing. Careful not to take this too lightly, he turned to the delegation. ‘Give him your names,’ he said with a wave of his hand.

  ‘I don’t need you to tell me. We know all about you people.’ Xiaogai looked at his watch. ‘Take out your family register, Baldy,’ he said. ‘The following boat people came ashore at ten-forty a.m.: Sun Ximing and his wife, Gu Desheng and his wife, Six-Fingers, your name is Wang Jinliu, right? Wang Jinliu, and Ku Dongliang. Write that down.’

  They missed Huixian, who was in the arms of Desheng’s wife, yawning sleepily. Only the sharp-eyed Wintersweet had noticed her. She walked up to get a good look at Huixian, then sniffed her neck. ‘Hold it!’ she cried. ‘There’s a stranger among them! This little girl doesn’t belong on a barge. I can tell by the smell. She doesn’t stink, she’s had a bath. Find out where she’s from.’

  Suddenly wary, Xiaogai and Scabby Five went over to get a good look at Huixian and reached the same conclusion: the girl definitely did not live on a boat. Their eyes lit up. ‘Where’s this little girl come from?’ they said at almost the same time. ‘So this is your new trend in class struggle. Where’d you snatch that kid?’

  ‘Trust you people to resort to slander!’ Sun Ximing complained. ‘What good would it do us to snatch a little girl? We barely have enough to feed our own kids. What would we do with somebody else’s – feed her river water?’

  ‘Don’t twist things around!’ Xiaogai demanded shrilly. ‘We’re not interested in your stomachs. Our job is to register people. Tell me, whose child is she?’

  ‘Now that’s a question we can answer.’ Sun scratched his head. ‘She came aboard on her own. Her mother … what can I say? … has disappeared
. We want to hand her over to the authorities.’

  Scabby Five glared impatiently at Sun. ‘You’re in charge of this fleet, so I expect straight talk from you. What’s the story with her mother? And no lies.’

  That’s when the girl spoke up. ‘I don’t know where my mama is. She’s gone.’

  ‘What do you mean, gone?’ Not sure he’d heard her right, Scabby Five turned back to Sun Ximing. ‘For the last time, where’s her mother?’

  Glancing over at the little girl, Sun swallowed noisily, determined not to say what everyone thought. As Scabby Five’s anger mounted, Desheng’s wife made a gesture of slapping his face. ‘We all know what’s in that head of yours, Scabby Five. Talking to you is like serenading a cow with a lute. We’re not going to tell you, and that’s that.’ Now that she’d dealt with him, she turned, took Wintersweet by the arm, and whispered something to her.

  Eventually the security group began to get a sense of what had happened to the girl’s mother. Lacking experience in situations like this, they huddled together, three concerned men and one woman. Finally, it was Wintersweet who took charge. ‘This girl,’ she announced, ‘is a mystery child.’

  Baldy Chen took out his register. ‘Should we record her name?’ he asked Xiaogai, unsure what to do.

  Xiaogai took the book and read out the instructions on the back cover. ‘Here it is,’ he said. ‘Item eight. “Pre-school children need not be entered.”’ Everyone breathed a sigh of relief.

  But Wintersweet wasn’t satisfied. She bent down and asked Huixian, ‘Have you started school, little girl?’

  Ignoring the frantic head-shaking from the delegation, she announced proudly, ‘Yes, I have. I know how to write, but I lost my blackboard.’

  ‘That means she’s not pre-school,’ Baldy Chen said with a frown. ‘She’s old enough to register.’

  Wintersweet took the register from Baldy, pointed to the words on the cover and said to Huixian, ‘I know you’re a smart little girl. Tell Aunty which of these words you can read.’