God of Luck (14 page)
What I do feel is dismay at the numerous arms and backs that are crisscrossed with fresh wounds, old scars, the angry purple and red sores mottling skin. How long can I keep mine unbroken, sealed from infection?
In my exhaustion at day’s end, I sometimes lose my balance as receding waves scoop out the shells and stones beneath my feet, and were it not for the thick calluses on my soles, my skin would be punctured as I slip and slide. If I ever fail to break my fall, my legs, back, and arms will surely be pierced; beyond the reach of cooling water, my skin will be seared by the shale’s white heat.
More than once, while struggling to regain my balance, yelps have leaped unbidden from my lips. Whenever a buffalo bird peeps, the entire flock responds, twisting their necks and heads from side to side until they locate the source, then waddling and hobbling over as fast as they can, their wings sticking out like short, stiff arms. But at my bleats, diggers near me avert their heads the way I do when others cry or tumble. Whatever strength a digger has is saved for helping brothers, cousins, close friends, lovers. Mine are too far away to hear me, and since we’re paid in scrip, I have no means to send them a letter.
In truth, it isn’t only that which keeps me from writing but shame. My capture has surely added to my family’s burdens. How can I heap more worries on them by revealing my sufferings?
THE LAST COCOON reeled, my sisters-in-law, nieces, and I bring out our embroidery frames, silks, and needles for our winter work.
This is the season for visiting. But we still have no word from Ah Lung, and villagers, afraid our bad luck will infect them, avoid us the way they would a family in mourning.
I am not afraid that Ah Lung is dead. If he were, my heart would know it. But he must be suffering, otherwise he’d write. Aching with worry, I ask, “Husband, where are you? Are you suffering because there are no free Chinese near? I know from your sister that your contract cannot be broken. Given the means, though, could a free Chinese buy your freedom? Is there one who would?”
The distance between beach and sheds is a half-mile. Many trips are required. And since carrying the barrels does not excuse a digger from meeting his daily quota of guano, I’m impatient when, raising my hands over my eyes to shield them from the glare, I see the boat bobbing on kingfisher-blue swells like a seabird at rest.
At the same time, I realize the boat is where the swells begin heaving in ever steeper slopes, becoming the waves that crash against the rocks, this scrap of beach, and from maneuvering our family’s skiff in rough water, I know any boat attempting to rush in would swamp.
The boatmen from Pisco never hurry. Alternately resting and riding the rollers, they edge closer, then dart through the breakers in a final spurt that always lands them safely on the beach.
I believe Chufat was similarly masterful in handling his escape from the plantation.
PASSING THE DEVIL-
patron’s
house while walking back and forth from the sleeping sheds to the cane fields or the sugar mill, Chufat had noted the open cooking shed at the end of a breezeway, the side yard where the servants hung their own freshly washed clothes to dry. One by one and with months in between so as to avoid notice, Chufat stole a small, sharp knife, pair of white pants, shabby hat, patched shirt, and well worn hemp sandals, hid each item in his bedding.
He picked up Spanish words by eavesdropping on the servants, listening closely to the devil-
patron
and the devil-drivers, matching the interpreter’s translations to what they’d said. When protected by the din of the sugar mill, Chufat practiced saying the Spanish words out loud. Locked in for the night, he kept to himself. Discreetly studying the sleeping shed’s cane walls, he silently reviewed his expanding vocabulary, arranged and rearranged the words into sentences:
Un plan,
a plan.
Necesito,
I need.
Tengo,
I have.
Necesito un plan
.
Tengo un plan.
BACK IN THE close quarters of the devil-ship’s between-decks, talk was such a constant that I came to understand words from other dialects without making the smallest effort. Then, too, if I was slow rising from all fours at the cookhouse and a devil, pricking my neck with the point of his bayonet, snapped, “
Hurry
,” the meaning was clear. When Red barked, “Joe,” and a sailor whose skin gleamed like the finest black lacquer appeared, that had to be his name.
Yet I didn’t pick up any English beyond commands and names. While under the watchful eyes of the captain and Red, the crew didn’t, so far as I could determine, ever break the rule forbidding them to converse amongst themselves when on duty. And, with the exception of Joe, sailors sent below as guards protected themselves from the awful reek by tying cloths over their noses and mouths. To maintain order, they relied entirely on their bayonets’ sharp blades to speak for them.
There were times I could have sworn that Joe and Ah Ming were talking to each other. But whenever I cocked an ear for confirmation or shifted a little to see, Ah Ming would be making a remark to someone else; Joe would be nowhere near.
I could have questioned Ah Ming directly. Just as I could have asked him to teach me more English. Much as he might have scoffed, which I dreaded, he’d have obliged. He might even have taken me into his confidence. But I did not then understand what could be gained by knowing the language of our captors.
Now that I do, I wonder whether Ah Ming really was suffering the agonies of cholera when Joe hauled him, groaning, above or if the two were enacting a plan plotted in secret; for later that same day, the cooks issued hard biscuits and plain water in place of rice, then the hatch grating slammed shut and its bolts rasped, signifying the ship was headed into a port. So Ah Ming, once out of our hearing, might well have turned silent, and Joe, instead of carrying him to the sickroom, might have pretended he was already dead, thrown him overboard with weights deliberately knotted to fall away. Ah Ming could then have swum to another vessel or to shore and returned home.
IF THERE IS a digger on this dunghill who knows Spanish, I have not come across him. Nor does the devil-king employ either servants or an interpreter. Every unfortunate here is his servant, and he has no need for an interpreter since experienced diggers easily cover the essentials for new arrivals and the devil-drivers work us with their whips rather than their tongues.
During our daily meal break, the drivers flock together and chatter like raucous magpies, providing ample opportunities for eavesdropping. But by the time they call the break, we’ve been digging, shoveling, and delivering guano to the depot for six hours straight. Long after every digger has dropped his tools, I feel the repeated stabs of pickaxes from the soles of my feet to my skull, the muscles in my arms and legs twitch, sweat still streams from my every pore, and I am incapable of anything beyond falling on my meager ration of tepid tea and rancid goat meat in a mess of rice and beans.
As for the loaders, the closest I get to them is at the depot, a large area near the edge of a cliff that is enclosed by a wall of stout cane.
PLUMES OF GUANO dust leap above the depot’s wall like flames. As I approach, I stop a moment, take the rag from my neck and wrap it around my head so it covers my nose and mouth. Before stepping through the break in the wall that serves as the depot’s entrance, I narrow my eyes.
Instantly, I’m shrouded in a yellow fog. Dark shadows loom. Lithe black snakes hiss warnings, strike flesh. Howls are frequent as bird cries, the rumble of wheelbarrows, the pounding surf.
Feeling as if I’ve crossed the Yellow River into Hell, I bawl out my number to the burly shadow responsible for keeping tally of our loads, “
Cuatro!
”
Back home, we always avoided the number four since sei has the same sound as death. On this dunghill, the number is doubly cursed because it belonged to a digger now dead. True, every digger bears a dead man’s number, and
cuatro
doesn’t sound remotely like sei. Still a shiver chills my spine each time I give my number, and I offer up a quick prayer for mercy.
Mercy. The driver tallying loads could, on seeing a digger stagger through the entrance, show mercy by making two or even three checkmarks next to the digger’s number instead of one. Who would see him perform this kindness? How would the devil-king find out and fault him? Yet no digger, to my knowledge, has enjoyed any such benevolence from a driver. Certainly I have not.
Like every digger though, I’ve had to swallow the injustice of a driver declaring my load short, I’ve suffered the misery of making it up. So when the burly shadow raises an arm in acceptance and waves me on, I’m relieved.
Lurching forward, my gut tightens. Already I’m wheezing and grunting for breath under my cloth muzzle, blundering because I instinctively keep sealing my eyes against the hurtful dust, and before I can pitch out my load, I must descend a steep slope.
The ground here, covered with drifts of loose guano, is treacherous: One leg can sink as far as the ankle or calf, the other up to the knee. Fighting to keep a heavy wheelbarrow from becoming a runaway, my muscles strain and cramp; my arms threaten to yank out of their sockets. Doubled over from a basket of guano on my back, I stumble more frequently, bumping into other diggers.
More than once, I’ve come close to being buried in a headlong tumble. Even when I feel my limbs, all atremble, cannot be trusted, however, I don’t ditch my load sooner than I should. To be a lucky runaway like Chufat, I must remain unmarked, and devil-drivers, despite the blinding dust, manage to catch miscreants with their whips.
