Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

I had no idea where these two were from. In Milltown, food was supplied at the work sites, and when ration cards were handed out, personal information was dutifully recorded. So if Huixian and her mother had eaten at a public canteen, their details should have been recorded. But there was so much going on at East Wind No. 8 that no one had checked up on Huixian and her mother. Even if they had, who could say whether the data was reliable or not, since it was even rumoured that a murderer had managed to pass himself off as belonging to the shock troops? That made a mockery of recording personal details in the first place.

I watched Huixian and her mother closely, mainly because they must have had a shady background, but also — I forgot to tell you this — because the woman resembled my mother. I know it sounds strange, but I wondered if she might have been my aunt, a Horsebridge woman I’d never met. For three days the Sunnyside Fleet waited at the piers for orders. I had time on my hands while everyone else was busily running around; everything I needed to do had to wait till I was ashore. Until then, I was on my own. So I stood on the bow, hands on my hips, coolly watching the construction work at the piers.

The heavens opened and the sound of rain rose around us. Rudimentary tents popped up, occupied by labourers from the surrounding areas. Some ran up to our barge to borrow firewood or a bucket or bowl. I said no, but Father invariably overruled me, and I had to lend them whatever they wanted. But the borrowed items never made it back to us, and before long we were down to a single bowl, which Father and I were forced to share at mealtimes. When I complained, he criticized me for being small-minded. ‘A few bowls, what does that amount to?’ he said. ‘Sharing a bowl can be our contribution to the success of East Wind No. 8. You’re young enough to make a real contribution, so why don’t you go ashore instead of standing around looking down at what’s going on, as if it’s got nothing to do with you? That kind of behaviour will get you into trouble.’

Talk like that from my father went in one ear and out the other. He thought I got a kick out of watching people busily running around, never considering that I might be concerned about the loneliest people down there. I kept searching out the mother and her daughter. With the oversized army raincoat draped around her, from a distance it was hard to tell if she was a man or a woman. But up close she was obviously a woman whose face showed that she was sick. Instead of continuing down the road, she paced back and forth on the riverbank. The weary look on her face could not mask the fact that she was pretty, her eyes exuding a charm and warmth that was tempered by signs of resentment, as if there was an unpaid debt owed her; it was a heart-chilling look. She seemed more emotional than my mother, yet given to bottling things up. Every time she came near the water I felt like asking, ‘Are you from Horsebridge? Did your family run a butcher’s shop? Is your family name Qiao?’ But the looks she gave me, cold and resentful, made me shrink back rather than engage her in a conversation. I could see that the raincoat did more than protect her from the rain, that it had multiple uses, in particular providing a makeshift roof for someone on the move. All her belongings were hidden under that raincoat, not to mention her daughter, the skinny little Huixian, who was never without her grimy little doll; she’d poke her head out every so often and blink once or twice before slipping back inside.

Tents had been thrown up on the school playground, some clearly marked ‘women’, where women with children were welcome. Maybe because she had her child with her, or maybe because she was just too shy, she walked into one of them and walked right back out again. As I continued my observation, separated from them by a strip of water, I concluded that they had to be looking for someone. But who? And although they were looking, they were not finding that person.

The day before the incident, I watched the woman pace back and forth by the piers, shielding her daughter with the raincoat. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have thought she was just out for a walk or checking the lay of the land. And as darkness settled around us, the rain fell harder, swallowing up mother and daughter.

After cooking dinner, I took the food to Father in the cabin. ‘Have you ever seen my aunt, the one who lives in Horsebridge?’ I asked him.

‘Yes, back around the time of our wedding. I’d have liked to see her again after that, but I never did, since the sisters had a falling out.’ That’s not what I wanted to hear. Apparently, they hadn’t come looking for my mother after all. Why I felt bad I couldn’t exactly say.

The incident on the pier occurred the following morning. Our barge was loaded with broken bricks and tiles, and we were about to weigh anchor and head downriver when a shrill wail burst from the shore. The voice was crisp and clear, but obviously juvenile and hysterical, and loud enough to drown out the rousing voice coming over the PA system. From aboard the barge I spotted the little girl; she was holding her doll in one hand and dragging the army raincoat in the mud with the other as she ran madly back and forth. Running and bawling, she attracted the attention of everyone within sight and earshot.

Several of the female labourers chased after the girl. ‘Stop running!’ they shouted. ‘Your mother’s coming back!’ Someone near me recognized the girl and told me she’d cried and made a fuss all night. ‘She can’t find her mother. At first I thought she’d gone off on some sort of errand, but it’s morning now and the girl’s still all alone.’ That was when we knew that something was wrong. The woman in the raincoat was missing. The labourers, loving mothers all, went up to Huixian with toys, food, even some plastic flowers. She fought off all their pity and heartfelt sympathy and ran towards the barges, biting one woman’s hand and spitting in the face of another. She dodged in between the legs of the women trying to catch her, and when she reached the gangplank to barge number one, she stopped in her tracks. Then she came aboard. ‘Where are you going?’ they shouted. ‘Your mama’s not on one of those boats. They bring people here, they don’t take them away.’

I still recall how Huixian searched for her mother aboard the barge. Stumbling along with terror-filled eyes, she looked everywhere, crying out for her mother the whole time. The tugboat started up its engine, but then shut it off. ‘Whose child is she?’ people wondered. ‘Why is she running around like that?’ She’d changed into a red-striped shirt since the last time I’d seen her; her braid had been combed and was tied with a bow. I recognized her right away, though. I noted that she’d not only lost her mother, but that her canteen and little blackboard were also missing.

While some of the crew members ran after her, others shouted across to people on the shore, discussing what might have happened to her mother. Opinions differed on the water and on the shore. The labourers on shore came mostly from farming villages and, given their view that females were next to useless, assumed that the girl’s mother had abandoned her. Few of the barge people accepted that, probably because they spent their lives on the water and had seen their share of drownings, many intentional. Their initial reaction was that ill luck had found the woman. I saw Six-Fingers and his mother, one at the bow and the other on the starboard deck, crouching down to look into the water. Looking for what? Everyone knew the answer. The tugboat crew were on the roof of the engine room searching the water, shielding the sun from their eyes with their hands. I knew that everyone on the river was of the same sad but unexpressed opinion that the woman would not be coming back, that she’d taken the easy way out.