Su Tong - The Boat to Redemption

With a sneer, he said, ‘I know what you want to do with your freedom. Freedom is wasted on a boy like you. OK, you’ve cooled off, now get up here.’

I pulled myself out of the water, and the moment I was on deck I was drained of energy, and felt dirty. As I sat there without moving I discovered that I looked like one of those legendary water demons, my skin mottled, rust from the anchor on the backs of my hands, and clumps of moss from the bottom of the boat on my thighs; a rotting leaf was tangled in my hair, plus a golden stalk of rice straw, both of which had been floating on the surface. The really strange thing was that a snail was stuck to my shorts; I picked it off and tossed it back into the river, and when I looked up, Father was standing in front of me, a scowl of disgust on his face. He was holding a bucket in his hand. ‘Go up to the bow,’ he said as he gave me a shove. ‘You’re filthy, body and mind. After I wash you down,’ he said, ‘go into the cabin.’

I was as disgusted with myself as he was, but I couldn’t put my feelings into words. While he was washing me down I shot a glance at the riverbank, where girls from the boats had already hung wet clothes on drying poles; colourful cottons, polyesters and rayons sparkled in the sunlight. One bucket of water was all he needed to wash off the dirt, as I scoured the bank for Huixian’s flowery blouse. But the boat girls all dressed pretty much alike, and many of them owned flowery blouses with sunflower patterns, so I couldn’t tell which one was hers. The wet clothes seemed flecked with gold in the bright sunlight, and to me it looked like a row of sunflowers in bloom, a sight that brightened my mood. But it also instilled a sense of self-reproach, an understanding that I owed Father an apology. So I took the bucket from him. ‘That’s enough,’ I said as cordially as possible, ‘I’m clean enough.’

‘Your body, yes, but not your mind. It’s a shame I can’t clean that.’

Not daring to argue, I walked into the cabin, with him right behind me. ‘What are you thinking now?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘ Kongpi , that’s what my head is, just kongpi .’ Actually, if I told him what I was thinking, he wouldn’t understand. I was pondering a perplexing matter: how can a water gourd and a sunflower come together? Two diverse things, one at home on the water, the other on land, how could they come together? Could they ever come together?

NOBODY BUT me ever called Huixian a sunflower. The residents of Milltown all called her Little Tiemei.

When she was fourteen, Huixian and some of the girls on the other boats started playing a type of hopscotch called house-jumping. Crowding around lines of squares drawn in chalk, they giggled as they took turns jumping from square to square, competing to see who could acquire the most houses.

One day the girls encountered Teacher Song of the district’s propaganda troupe. Song was travelling from town to town and village to village, searching for an actress to play the part of Li Tiemei, the heroine of the revolutionary opera Red Lantern , and to ride in a National Day parade. The authorities had made strict demands: the actress chosen to play Li Tiemei had to be simple, unaffected and in good health; she should be old enough, but not too old; she had to fit the part, physically and in spirit; and her thinking was to be progressive. She would be required to stand in an open vehicle, holding a red lantern, for several hours. A delicate girl would not fit the bill. Song, who was searching the banks of the Golden Sparrow River, could not have come at a better time, for he had just arrived at the Milltown piers when he spotted the girls playing hopscotch. He stood to one side watching, mesmerized.

The girls appealed to him as simple and vigorous. They all had dark skin and heavy thighs, their feet were somewhat splayed, but their eyes were bright, their voices crisp and clear, and they appeared to be in good health. Naturally, he paid particular attention to their faces. He gave only a passing glance to those like Chunhua, Chunsheng’s little sister, with pointed mouths and sunken cheeks. People said that Huixian and Yingtao caught his attention at first, and that he kept looking from one to the other, unable to decide. But the attitude of the two girls, each from different boats, towards an obviously cultured man they’d never seen before could not have differed more. Song took a red paper lantern out of his bag and asked Yingtao to hold it up. She was a charming girl, but a bit ill at ease, guarded and shy in the presence of a strange male adult. Nothing he said could get her to hold the lantern up. She even went so far as to mutter, ‘Who do you think you are? You must be crazy to want me to hold up a lantern in broad daylight.’ Huixian, on the other hand, was not only confident and unaffected, but, thanks to her native intelligence, she sized the man up and knew that he was someone special. Instinctively grasping the opportunity, she straightened out her clothes, smoothed her hair with her hand and a bit of saliva, and held the lantern up high. She smiled at Teacher Song. ‘Comrade, is this how Li Tiemei would do it?’

Song’s eyes lit up. ‘Nice,’ he said. ‘That’s a good pose. A real-life Li Tiemei.’

Yingtao saw her mistake, but too late. The Seagull camera in his hand revealed his identity. He snapped one picture after another of Huixian holding up the lantern in a variety of poses, each meeting with his approval. ‘Good,’ he said, ‘that’s the right look and the right pose, just like Li Tiemei.’

I still recall the spectacular National Day parade that year. The theme was the eight revolutionary operas, each represented by a truck fitted with tractor tyres towing a miniature stage up and down the banks of the Golden Sparrow River. The important characters from each opera assumed their signature poses, in full make-up, as they stood in the truck beds. The Red Lantern vehicle was given the lead position. Huixian, I recall, was wearing a red padded jacket with a pattern of white flowers; her hair had been combed into a single long braid, her face was resplendent with dark painted eyebrows and heavily rouged cheeks. For a whole day, she stood on her truck, posing motionlessly with a red lantern held high over her head. She seemed somewhat nervous. ‘Pay attention to your expression!’ Song shouted from the street. He wanted her to open her eyes as wide as possible to display Li Tiemei’s determination to revolt. After blinking a couple of times, Huixian opened her eyes until they were as round as the mouth of a bronze bell, and that expression seemed to infuse her with greater strength; she held the lantern as high as her arm would allow, turning it into a torch. ‘Watch that lantern!’ Song shouted. ‘Be careful with it!’ This incarnation of Li Tiemei neither sang nor acted, but standing all day on a truck holding a red lantern over her head was no mean task.

I was worried she wouldn’t have the strength to strike her pose the next day, but she was up to the challenge. Li Yuhe and Granny Li, played by a strapping young man with a small horse lantern and a woman in a coarse apron, also stood in the truck, clearly at ease. The eyes of everyone along the parade route were on Li Tiemei, on Huixian, who had quickly and cleverly mastered the pose; she looked the part, just like the propaganda poster of Li Tiemei. People cheered her on; my hands were red from clapping wildly, even though I spotted a cold sore at the corner of her mouth that her make-up could not hide. It could have been caused by nerves or simple exhaustion. Worried that the authorities might find that reason to replace her, I shouted to her and pointed to my mouth to call her attention to the cold sore. Did I really think she could hear me? As it turned out, I needn’t have been concerned, since someone had been assigned to look after her. The parade route shifted to Horsebridge on the third day, but this time they were to ride in a miniature steamboat. The Sunnyside Fleet docked at the piers, where we watched the performers — male and female, in costume and full make-up — strut their way to the steamboat; we all recognized the skinny girl among them, and excitedly called out Huixian’s name. She was too focused on tying her red hair band to respond, so the tugboat crew broadcast her name — Huixian! — over a bullhorn. She lurched and cast a quick glance at the fleet before catching up with Li Yuhe and Granny Li.