by Russell
88 | WE SEE LIGHT
Dawn comes on the third day.
The first boat,
whose engine apparently had only minor damage,
has sailed away.
Our boat and the second one
remain adrift at sea.
Our captain makes a deal with the second boat,
that both captains will help each other
to repair the engines.
We see light at the end of the tunnel.
Our people pull the other boat
close to ours.
Our captain jumps over to the other boat,
to help repair their engine
as both captains have promised.
By noon, their boat is fixed.
People in the other boat
cheer.
Our spirits lift
as the other boat’s captain
comes to help fix our engine.
Several old people declare that
Buddha, the Heaven God, Duc Me, and Kwun Yum
haven’t left us.
They are still blessing us.
The two captains don’t stop working
as two groups of strong men, taking turns,
continue bailing out the water
nonstop.
In the evening, we hear the engine come to life.
All faces light up with hope
and people cheer,
“We can navigate now!”
But the engine sputters a few times
and dies.
“The engine can’t be fixed
without a replacement part,”
both captains announce.
There is silence,
like that of the dead.
89 | TOWING AGAIN
Our captain negotiates with the other captain.
They agree to tow us
without getting anything in return.
We are very thankful to their kind captain.
They tie two ropes, one on each side of our boat,
and begin to tow us.
But our boat is heavy,
and the water keeps coming in,
despite how hard the men bail it out
constantly.
On the fourth day,
we see a shadow far away.
It looks like we are close to land,
but, with regret, the other captain unties our boat.
They fear that they are going to run out of gas
from towing our heavy boat.
They say we are close to the shore,
and they will send someone to help us.
Then the boat motors away.
Our people are furious
and curse,
all except Auntie.
They ask,
“How can they find someone to help?
It is just an excuse to get rid of us!”
“They don’t honor their words.
They will all die in a hard way!”
“They are ungrateful!”
It is the captain who tries to cool
the boiling water down.
He says,
“Stop cursing and yelling.
It won’t help a bit.
I understand your concern.
But we can’t just let our boat drift.
We have avoided being attacked by pirates.
We have to find a way to let our boat make progress.”
“How?” several people ask.
“We haven’t figured that out yet,” he declares.
Some young men suggest,
“Let’s abandon the boat
and swim toward the shore!”
The older people reject that idea
and claim,
“No! We will drown for sure!”
The captain says to the young men,
“Swimming toward the shore
is not a wise solution.
It is much farther than you may think.”
“So, let the boat just drift?”
“No. We won’t let our boat just drift,”
the captain replies.
90 | THEIR SPIRITS ARE HIGH
Someone is breaking up
something on top of us.
Dee Dee goes to have a look.
“They are trying to get boards off the deck!”
he reports.
“Why?” people ask.
“I don’t know.”
Soon
there are about eight people
who were waiting for their turn
to bail out the water
paddling the boat
with the long boards
that they took from the deck.
They paddle in the direction of the shadow
that’s now far away.
Our boat is moving slowly forward.
People are smiling.
They praise the captain
and his crew members.
More men come up to join in,
giving the paddlers a hand.
Their spirits are high.
Together they bail, with the rhythm of the water bailing;
they paddle, with the rhythm of the paddling,
they chant, with the rhythm of their breathing,
despite their dripping sweat
mingling with the spray of the breaking waves.
When one group takes a rest,
another group comes up
without any interruption.
They continue to strike
toward the land,
toward victory.
91 | RELAXED
People in the cabin are more relaxed than ever.
They continue to eat their own food
and get water from the barrel.
Despite my seasickness,
I stumble to the storage room.
I use our pot to scoop out water.
But the water is being depleted quickly.
Compared to the last time I got the water,
there is less than half a barrel in both barrels.
Yet the rice is untouched.
I gently shake Auntie and implore her to eat
while Nam and Dee Dee are eating their food.
She refuses.
I beg, “Please, Auntie.”
Nam cries and threatens,
“If you don’t eat,
I won’t, either.”
It works.
Auntie and I eat together.
She eats one piece of cracker and
sips some water.
I am happy.
Nam is happier.
I grope my way onto the deck
with the water and food.
Uncle has been bailing out the water
and is now waiting for his turn to paddle.
He is so glad to see me.
He asks if Auntie is eating anything.
I tell him the truth.
“Good,” he says
and lets out a long sigh.
92 | MIDDLE OF NOWHERE
Strong winds rise
as dusk falls.
One paddler cries,
“Captain! We seem to have lost our direction.
It seems we are in the middle of nowhere!”
All the paddlers stop paddling,
as if they agree.
The shadow is no longer in sight!
The troop is defeated by unseen enemies.
They debate.
Some say one direction,
and others say the opposite.
Even the captain
is hard-pressed to say where they should head.
Our boat is surrounded by
water, wind, waves, and darkness.
We are alone.
We can’t distinguish where the edge of the sky is
from the edge of the water.
They look like they are
merged.
Our boat really is
in the middle of nowhere.
93 | THE BROKEN COMPASS
&nbs
p; The captain orders,
“NO
ONE
TURN
ON
A
FLASHLIGHT.”
He fears they might attract pirates.
The paddlers all come back down
to the cabin,
so discouraged that they don’t want to talk.
They only want to sleep.
And the strong men
who are bailing out the water
are getting slower and slower
in their task.
The old man in blue complains,
“Why didn’t they look at the compass?”
An angry paddler fights back.
“Shut up! It was broken long ago!
Why don’t you just move your butt
and paddle yourself!”
The old man in blue keeps quiet.
Dee Dee asks me,
“What are we going to do now?”
“Don’t ask me!” I snap.
My mood is as bad as the paddler
who told the old man in blue to shut up.
94 | THE OLD LADY IN BLACK
The old lady in black cries all night long.
“We are waiting to die!
We are being punished
because of our sins. . . .”
No one shouts at her.
I wish I could stick a cloth in her mouth
and shut her up.
She keeps ranting and runs up to the deck,
screaming,
“The Heaven God has punished all of us!
I am going to ask the Heaven God for mercy!”
Her daughter and son pull her back.
She grows much stronger.
They are unable to stop her,
until a couple of men hold her down.
For her safety,
they lock her in the storage room
after removing the water and rice.
We still hear her chilling cries.
95 | AUNTIE
With so much going on
and the screaming of the old lady in black,
Auntie, still lying there,
has not once opened her eyes
to investigate.
It’s as if she is in another world.
Her body shrinks smaller each day.
I fear that someday
she will just melt away.
I can’t believe that
she is the same gentle auntie
who cared for us
before.
I squeeze her bony hand for a second.
I do not know what to say.
I squeeze Nam’s hand.
He has been sitting next to his ma
the whole time.
I do not know what to say to him,
either.
96 | UNCLE’S WORDS
Uncle comes back to the cabin in despair.
He says to me,
“I should not have asked you
to come with us.
You might have already settled down.”
He sighs.
“I did it with good intentions,
but I am sorry
it has turned out like this.”
I express myself from the bottom of my heart,
“I am so thankful to you for taking us.
You and Auntie are like parents to us.
We will stay with you
no matter what,
without any regrets.”
“I appreciate you trusting us.
I hope everything
will turn out good,” he says.
“I know it will.
When the sun comes up tomorrow,
boats will spot us.”
“I hope you are right,” Uncle says.
He is exhausted,
but fears it will irritate Auntie
if he lies down beside us.
He finds a space away from her
and sleeps.
97 | A SMALL LEAF
We are alone.
We see no other boats—
no refugee boats,
no pirate boats—
all day long!
We just let our boat drift by itself
as if in circles through the open sea,
since we can’t determine
which direction we should go.
So
our boat is like a small leaf
floating in the huge South China Sea
without an anchor to settle it down,
without any guiding light to show it
where to sail,
with only the strong wind
that comes with the darkness.
It lifts our boat high and low,
like our cat playing with a helpless mouse
back home.
We scream.
At any minute,
our boat could be swallowed up and sink.
That is
what everybody
knows.
That is
what everybody
fears.
98 | ON THE FIFTH DAY AT SEA
On the afternoon of the fifth day,
the drinking water is gone.
The cabin is quiet,
as quiet as the dead,
except for the lady in black who
once in a while will wail
like a funeral dirge.
Some hours later, in the evening,
we hear voices yell for help on the deck.
Many people rush onto the deck.
Dee Dee, Nam, and I join, too.
The mist is very thick,
like a steam room that I once saw in a movie.
But the captain and two other sailors
are vigorously waving boards
wrapped with burning clothes above their heads.
A ship is half hiding, half appearing in the mist.
Still, we can see her white flag
with a big red rising sun
flapping against the wind.
“We will be saved at last!”
we all say, laughing,
despite the strong wind
ripping through us,
as if sending us
into the sea.
More men
take off their shirts,
smear them with engine oil,
and light them as a torch
to attract the Japanese ship.
The deck is so loud with yelling in
Mandarin, Cantonese, Vietnamese, and English.
Someone warns,
“Our boat is going to capsize.
Get the small children back to the cabin!
The boat is about to sink!”
Dee Dee, Nam, and the other small children
do not listen.
They are jumping up and yelling,
letting their energy out,
despite the wind that threatens
to knock them down.
But
the wind has swallowed our yelling;
the mist has obscured our excitement;
the waves have blocked our jumping
and even our boat,
for the Japanese ship is getting smaller and smaller.
At last, it turns into a dot
and disappears over the horizon.
Some curse,
some cry,
some scream,
some express regret.
Only Auntie
sleeps through the whole ordeal,
as if she would not wake up
even if the sky were falling down.
99 | DEE DEE’S QUESTION
Dee Dee asks,
with his lips cracked with blood
like a red caterpillar
clawing at his small face,
“Why didn’t the boat come to save us?
Why did they turn away?
Didn’t they see us?”
“They might not have seen us,
or they didn’t want to be bothered,” Uncle s
ays.
“Why? Are they bad guys?”
“No. They might have felt
it was too much trouble for them,”
Uncle says.
“Don’t worry. Sooner or later,
someone will rescue us.”
100 | ON THE MORNING OF THE SIXTH DAY
On the morning of the sixth day,
again there is a commotion
on the deck.
Fluffy white clouds dot the blue sky.
Far away, the surface of the water looks as if
it is embroidered with brilliant stars.
We can easily see a ship
with the Republic of China, Taiwan,
written in Chinese and English.
Our captain estimates that
it is even closer to us
than the Japanese ship had been,
and they can spot us.
A spark of hope spreads to the
single Chinese men
like a forest fire.
They raise their torches and yell
in Mandarin and Cantonese,
“Chinese! We are Chinese!”
“Chinese help Chinese!”
I am weak.
I still yell,
“I’m Chinese! Chinese help Chinese!”
Dee Dee jumps up and down and yells, too.
Someone’s torch burns out,
so another man raises one up.
We wait; we jump; we yell
and wait.
Again,
the ship gets smaller and smaller
after the flame of hope
has spread for about an hour,
and then dies down.
The whole cabin full of people
cry.
Some say they should not have come.
Some say they should have
died in their homeland
rather than be eaten by sea creatures. . . .
Some Vietnamese curse,
“The heartless Chinese . . .
they won’t even help their own people!
They will die in a hard way!”
For the first time in my life,
I am ashamed to admit that
I am Chinese.
101 | THE BURDEN
I feel so low.
It just dawned on me that
