Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

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.’

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 .

Carrying my water-filled tin cans, I wondered if the river was echoing me. The river was so wide and so deep, how could it write me off with the single word kongpi ? I didn’t believe that was the voice of the river. I wanted to hear something else. So I divided the cans into three groups of five and attached them to both sides of the boat. They filled up with overflowing water, murmuring sounds that reached me in the cabin. I ran to the port side and listened. Come down , they were saying, come down . That was new, but what did it mean? Who was to come down? Was I supposed to somehow climb into the cans? I didn’t believe that was what the river was saying, so I ran to the starboard side, where the five cans had all come together and were saying, in a low but stern voice, Come down, come down .

Come down. Come down .