The Boat to Redemption

by Su Tong

  The sky above Milltown was clear and bright. The ‘critical times’ seemed to have come to an end, and East Wind No. 8 had apparently been completed, since the trench had been filled in and all the stacked pipes were now buried deep in the ground, along with their accompanying legends and secrets. The grand, seemingly endless construction project had produced early results: red banners flapped in the wind, proclaiming the vigour of the East, and the familiar Milltown now had the air of a boomtown, tinged with a sense of grandeur that infused its residents with veneration. A circular steel tower had been erected near the embankment, like a steel colossus holding up the sky; protected by a chain-link fence, it gave off an acrid odour of tar and metallic paint. I had no idea what it was for, whether it was intended for storing oil or in preparation for battle, but I instinctively knew that it was important. Xiaogai and Wulaizi of the security group no longer cared whether we came ashore or not. Now they stood guard on either side of the single gate in the fence, like a pair of faithful stone lions. A large, prominent sign affixed to the gate read: ‘HEIGHTEN VIGILANCE, PROTECT THE MOTHERLAND.’

  Handbills for Huixian’s lost mother, at odds with their surroundings, were still posted where crowds congregated:

  If you have any information regarding the missing mother of Jiang Huixian please leave your contact information here or contact the Sunnyside Fleet.

  Some were on propaganda leaflets, others on old newsprint, and all were in my father’s handwriting. Huixian knew better than I where they had been posted, so she ignored any commands that would have led her away from those spots, and kept running from place to place. If you’re no good at tending cattle, your only choice is to chase after them. I was forced to chase after her. When she walked up to the noticeboard outside the General Affairs Building she shrieked, ‘It’s gone! My mother must have taken it!’ I was still digesting this news when Gimpy Gu emerged from the gatehouse and said to Huixian, ‘Go and play somewhere else. This is a government building, not a playground. The officials demand quiet.’

  ‘My mama took the handbill that was here,’ Huixian said. ‘You’re in your guardhouse every day, have you seen her?’

  ‘Your mother didn’t take it,’ Gu said. ‘I did. This is a notice-board reserved for socialist announcements, not to help you find your mother.’

  ‘But what if she’s really lost?’ Huixian asked Gimpy Gu.

  ‘How should I know?’ he said. ‘I lost my mother at the age of five and I’m still here. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a mother. All you really need is the Party.’ Gimpy was obviously unhappy with the look in my eyes. ‘Did I say something wrong?’ he demanded. ‘How dare you stand there rolling your eyes at me! I know you hate the socialist system. You’re forever up to no good. What did you hope to gain by writing on the fourth-floor wall that time? By attacking Secretary Zhao you attacked the Party leadership. Understand? I’d have hauled you up for that long ago if you weren’t Qiao Limin’s son.’

  We had to move on. I had a job to do, and it did not include arguing with Gimpy Gu. ‘About turn!’ I ordered Huixian. ‘Forward march!’ But she kept turning back again. ‘Hurry up,’ I said. ‘What do you keep looking at? The old guy said your mama didn’t take it, he did.’

  With a scowl, she said, ‘He makes me so mad I could die! Why’s he so mean?’ What could I say? But then her thoughts took another leap. And this time she handed me a real hot potato. ‘The old man said something about Sister Qiao Li, Qiao Limei. Who’s she?’

  ‘There’s no Qiao Limei. It’s Qiao Limin – my mother.’

  With a surprised shriek, she said, ‘You’ve got a mama too? Everybody said you do, but I didn’t believe them.’

  My head buzzed. ‘Why wouldn’t I have a mama?’ I demanded. ‘Did you think I slithered out from between some rocks?’

  She knew she’d said the wrong thing. With a wounded look, she whined, ‘I never said that. But if you’re not trying to find her, that makes you a bad person. Why aren’t you looking for her?’

  Huixian might have been small, but she was no stranger to resentment. The minute I blew up at her, she stopped obeying my commands. When I told her to start walking, she stopped to rest, and when I told her to speed up, she slowed down. Somehow, we managed to make it to People’s Avenue and walked up to the general store, at the entrance to the marketplace, where there was always lots of traffic; that meant plenty of wear and tear. Half of her missing-persons poster was missing, the other half had been covered with writing. Someone had written ‘Three Cheers for the Revolutionary Committee’, another had written ‘Li Caixia is a tattered shoe, a whore’, and someone else had written ‘Down with Liu Shaoqi’, to which someone else had added Scabby Five’s name. None of these scrawled comments surprised me; what struck me as odd was that someone had drawn a fish – a very realistic fish – on the poster in chalk. Huixian gawked at the fish in alarm and asked, ‘What does that mean? Why did they draw a fish?’

  ‘Some kid,’ I said casually. ‘It doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Liar!’ she said. ‘It has to mean something. I think it’s telling me that my mama has turned into a fish!’

  Huixian was a lot smarter than I gave her credit for. Thanks to what she’d said, I really did start to wonder what significance that fish held. It must have been hinting at something. Fish live in the water; her mother was in the river and had turned into a fish. I took a long look at the drawing and had a premonition of imminent danger. The truth, which the boat people had conspired to hide, was not mine to reveal. Then I had a flash of inspiration. This was the perfect time for me to apply my skill at altering words and pictures. Reaching into my bag, I took out a ballpoint pen, leaned up against the wall and redrew the picture, neatly turning the fish into a sunflower.

  ‘That’s a sunflower!’ she shrieked. ‘What does it mean?’

  ‘A sunflower brings happiness.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  Never imagining she would ask me what happiness meant, I was stumped for a response. I realized that she was smart only some of the time, and dense the rest. Since I lacked the patience of a schoolteacher and the wisdom of a dictionary, a strange sense of dejection came over me. ‘You’re driving me crazy,’ I said. ‘I’ll tell you what unhappiness is, and you’ll know its opposite. You don’t have happiness, and neither do I. Now do you understand?’

  That earned me a blank stare. Not feeling like describing happiness in detail, or willing to sully the word, I put it in the simplest terms I knew. ‘Happiness is something that will come later; it’s what you’ll have when you find your mama.’ As soon as that comment left my mouth, my heart sank. What a damned lie. I avoided the puzzled look in her eyes, secretly regretting the cruel web of deceit I’d spun for her. Where had her mother gone? Where was her happiness? How could I even have said the word? What nonsense! Here were the two of us, Ku Dongliang and Jiang Huixian, actually discussing happiness!

  The noise level around the general store rose suddenly. Somebody riding past us on a bicycle slammed on the brakes, while people across the street pointed at Huixian and me. I turned round, and there was my mother, Qiao Limin, standing on the steps. How weird was that! I was trying to help Huixian find her mother, talking to her about happiness and unhappiness, only to run into my own mother. It had been a long time. After all this time, she and I had accidentally run into each other at the general store.

  She was paler than ever, but still dressed like a young woman. She had on an army cap, a red woollen scarf and a black woollen overcoat. Her hair was combed into a shoulder-length braid. From where I stood, she had the revolutionary romantic look Father had talked about. But as she walked up to me, I realized it was all an illusion. She had a debilitated appearance. She was just Qiao Limin, an amateur actress whose professional skills and looks had deteriorated. She reeked of face cream.

  ‘Run!’ I ordered Huixian. ‘I said run!’

  She didn’t get the message. She took one step and stopped. ‘Why?’ s
he asked, looking wide-eyed at me.

  I couldn’t think of an answer that made sense. ‘It’s a tiger!’ I blurted out.

  She looked around. ‘You’re lying again,’ she said with a stamp of her foot. ‘I don’t see anything but people. There’s no tiger.’

  Since she wouldn’t listen, I had no choice but to leave her standing there and run straight to the public toilet. I hadn’t planned on running away; I just didn’t know what else to do. When Mother had first left, I hadn’t known what to do, so I’d looked everywhere for her. Now here she was, coming straight towards me, disappointment showing in her eyes. And still I didn’t know what to do, so I ran off. I might as well admit it, I wasn’t just running, I was running away. My destination? The best place to keep us apart – the men’s toilet. At the moment that seemed the safest bet.

  Mother was holding a newspaper and had a red nylon bag slung over her shoulder. She started moving the minute I ran off, stuffing the newspaper into her bag and stepping spryly down the general-store steps. Holding the bag tightly, she started running too, her hips swaying. It looked as if she was chasing me while doing a dance with a red silk streamer, and that struck me as comical and depressing at the same time. First she ran up to Huixian, and her streamer stopped moving. I watched as she held up Huixian’s face with her fingers and studied it intently. She said something – maybe telling her how pretty she was or maybe asking a question – but I couldn’t hear what it was. I was concerned only about myself.

  First I stood at a urinal. But a strange thing had happened. The wall beside the urinal, which had been so tall, was now so short that my head showed over the top. What had they done to it? I wondered. My thoughts were interrupted by Scabby Seven, who came out of one of the cubicles, hitching up his trousers. He seemed to have shot up suddenly – he looked like a grown-up! And then it dawned on me. The wall hadn’t been shortened – I’d grown taller.

  Seven gave me a suspicious look. ‘Kongpi,’ he said, ‘what are you so flustered about? You haven’t come in here to write another bad slogan, have you?’ I ignored him and rushed into a cubicle, but he followed me in. ‘You didn’t come in here to do your business,’ he said. ‘I think you’re planning to write something dirty on the wall.’

  ‘I’m here to draw a picture of your dad’s prick,’ I said. ‘And your mum’s cunt. Here, let me show you!’

  ‘Big talk,’ he said, pointing his finger at me. ‘You just wait, I’ll get Five to take care of you.’ He started out of the toilet, but wasn’t through with provoking me. ‘You can’t do your business with your pants on. Pull them down and let me see. Your dad only has half a prick, let’s see what you’ve got.’

  That did it. I grabbed him by the arm and started pushing him out the door. ‘Seven,’ I said, ‘I don’t have time to mess around. Another word from you and I’ll stuff you down the toilet.’

  While I was struggling with Seven, I heard my mother shout from outside, ‘No fighting in there, Dongliang. Who are you fighting with? Who’s fighting with Dongliang? If you don’t stop this minute, I’ll call the police.’

  Seven ran outside. ‘I wasn’t fighting,’ he said. ‘It was Kongpi.’

  My mother immediately replied, ‘How could he be fighting alone?’

  Seven laughed. ‘He’s Kongpi, and a kongpi can fight with himself.’

  ‘Come out of there!’ Mother called. ‘Is this how you deal with things? Even other kids laugh at you. You must have done something very bad to be so scared of seeing me. You don’t have to hide in a toilet just because you’re afraid. It’s time you acted like a man. Ku Wenxian has been a terrible influence on you. Run away, that’s all you know how to do. The lower beam will always be crooked if the upper beam isn’t straight.’

  ‘Who’s afraid of you?’ I shouted out. ‘This is the men’s toilet, it’s where we do our business, not a broadcasting studio!’

  I hated it when Mother talked. I admit that I’d missed her when she wasn’t around. But now that she was, I’d only have still missed her if she hadn’t said anything. Everything changed as soon as she opened her mouth. I became agitated, and when that happened, I started hating her again.

  Mother couldn’t resist an opportunity to speak. ‘It wasn’t me who didn’t want to take care of you. You chose to go with your father. Your father has strong points, and you should learn from them. He’s willing to study hard, which shows in the way he writes, including his calligraphy. But stay clear of his thinking and his character. He cheated on the Party and he cheated on me. You must treat his lifestyle as a negative example. Don’t you dare let that happen to you.’

  ‘You can leave now, Qiao Limin. Go on, leave! If people see you broadcasting in front of the men’s toilet, they’ll think you’re crazy!’

  ‘Go ahead, be as nasty as you want, I don’t care,’ she said. ‘All the trouble I’ve been through has toughened me up. I carried you for nine months, and no matter what your attitude is, you’re still the one I’m most concerned about. I have the right to educate you. I used to think I’d have plenty of opportunities to do that, but my job transfer changed all that. I don’t know when I’ll get another chance to talk some sense into you.’

  And that was when I knew what this was all about. I didn’t say anything. It was quiet outside, and my agitation turned to melancholy. Where are you going? I came so close to asking her that, more than once, but I kept it inside me. I held my breath to listen to the sounds around me. I wanted to hear, but was afraid to at the same time. ‘Come out of there, Dongliang!’ It was Huixian. ‘Come out this minute!’

  ‘I can’t, I’ve got the runs!’ I shouted back. I was waiting for Mother to tell me where she was going.

  A minute or so later, a man walked in to use the urinal. When he was finished he asked, ‘Is that your mother and your sister out there? What’s going on? Your mother’s crying.’

  Truth is, I could hear her sobbing. She hardly ever cried – she’d never had any use for tears. Even when I was a boy she let me know that tears were a sign of weakness, so I found the man’s comment hard to believe. She’d been fine just a minute ago, but now, apparently, she’d broken down. My mother was crying outside a men’s toilet, and I didn’t know what to do. So I stood on my tiptoes to look through the window. I could see them both. Mother was crouching down, Huixian was eating a biscuit with one hand and drying Mother’s tears with the other.

  The man was a real busybody. He wasn’t about to leave, even after hitching up his trousers. He looked out of the door. ‘I’ve seen your mother somewhere,’ he said, ‘and your sister’s a little beauty. What’s up with you people? You should be taking care of family squabbles at home, not in a public toilet.’

  Strangely, that comment hit home. Did we really look like a family? Me, my mother and my kid sister? We did. Wouldn’t that have been great? But we weren’t. The man disgusted me. ‘Our family’s squabbles are complicated,’ I said. ‘I don’t know you and you don’t know me, so mind your own business.’

  Mother cleared her throat to start talking again after the man walked out, but her voice was raspy. ‘Dongliang,’ she said, ‘don’t come out if you don’t want to. But remember this: I’m being sent to the coal mines in Xishan. Propaganda work again, in charge of troupe rehearsals. Xishan’s a long way off, too far for me to look after you. From now on you’re on your own.’

  My heart sank. But what I said was, ‘Go ahead, the further the better. Who asked you to look after me?’

  The fact that I’d heard the news that she was going to Xishan while I was in the toilet was in itself kind of weird. But what I’m going to tell you now is even weirder. The minute I heard it was propaganda work at the Xishan coal mines, my gut swelled up and out it all came, like an explosion. I squatted down, engulfed in a terrible stench, accompanied by popping sounds from my backside, like a string of firecrackers going off at the wrong time. I felt awful, too awful for words. Between moans I kept saying, ‘Go ahead, go ahead. It’s just kongpi. Xishan, your job,
haemorrhoids, everything’s kongpi.’

  Then I heard Huixian crying out there, shrieking angrily. ‘Come out, Dongliang! I’ll leave if you don’t, and if I get lost it’ll be your fault.’

  Mother was gone by the time I walked out. Huixian was waiting for me across the street, holding the red bag. She was still angry, but didn’t say so right away. Then she held up the bag and said, ‘You’re so ungrateful. Your mother brought you a gift, but all you did was hide in the toilet and argue with her!’ She took a pair of cloth sandals out of the bag. ‘These are for you.’ Then she took out a tin of biscuits and waved it at me. ‘Half for you and half for me. She said so.’

  When the River Talks

  THE RIVER talks. When I divulged this secret to other people, they thought I was crazy. When I first went aboard, I was filled with an exuberant childhood desire to explore the world. Of all the things I spotted floating in the river, tin cans were the ones that really sparked my interest. Every time I saw one, I scooped it out, not just to hold on to, but to use for scooping other things out of the river. I’d poke two holes in them, then string wire through the holes and tie them to the side, dragging them through the water like a trawling net. When we pulled up alongside the piers, I’d yank the cans out of the water, like a fisherman, but they nearly always came up empty – no pleasant surprises. One time I caught a snail, another time it was half a carrot, and yet another time, to my disgust, I dragged up a used condom. I had no luck as a fisherman, but when I shook my tin cans the water inside sounded like me, but duller and more hopeless sounding than my own mantra: kongpi, kongpi.