The Boat to Redemption (16 page)

The noise level around the general store rose suddenly. Somebody riding past us on a bicycle slammed on the brakes, while
people across the street pointed at Huixian and me. I turned round, and there was my mother, Qiao Limin, standing on the
steps. How weird was that! I was trying to help Huixian find her mother, talking to her about happiness and unhappiness, only
to run into my own mother. It had been a long time. After all this time, she and I had accidentally run into each other at
the general store.

She was paler than ever, but still dressed like a young woman. She had on an army cap, a red woollen scarf and a black woollen
overcoat. Her hair was combed into a shoulder-length braid. From where I stood, she had the revolutionary romantic look Father
had talked about. But as she walked up to me, I realized it was all an illusion. She had a debilitated appearance. She was
just Qiao Limin, an amateur actress whose professional skills and looks had deteriorated. She reeked of face cream.

‘Run!’ I ordered Huixian. ‘I said run!’

She didn’t get the message. She took one step and stopped. ‘Why?’ she asked, looking wide-eyed at me.

I couldn’t think of an answer that made sense. ‘It’s a tiger!’ I blurted out.

She looked around. ‘You’re lying again,’ she said with a stamp of her foot. ‘I don’t see anything but people. There’s no tiger.’

Since she wouldn’t listen, I had no choice but to leave her standing there and run straight to the public toilet. I hadn’t
planned on running away; I just didn’t know what else to do. When Mother had first left, I hadn’t known what to do, so I’d
looked everywhere for her. Now here she was, coming straight towards me, disappointment showing in her eyes. And still I didn’t
know what to do, so I ran off. I might as well admit it, I wasn’t just running, I was running away. My destination? The best
place to keep us apart – the men’s toilet. At the moment that seemed the safest bet.

Mother was holding a newspaper and had a red nylon bag slung over her shoulder. She started moving the minute I ran off,
stuffing the newspaper into her bag and stepping spryly down the general-store steps. Holding the bag tightly, she started
running too, her hips swaying. It looked as if she was chasing me while doing a dance with a red silk streamer, and that struck
me as comical and depressing at the same time. First she ran up to Huixian, and her streamer stopped moving. I watched as
she held up Huixian’s face with her fingers and studied it intently. She said something – maybe telling her how pretty she
was or maybe asking a question – but I couldn’t hear what it was. I was concerned only about myself.

First I stood at a urinal. But a strange thing had happened. The wall beside the urinal, which had been so tall, was now so
short that my head showed over the top. What had they done to it? I wondered. My thoughts were interrupted by Scabby Seven,
who came out of one of the cubicles, hitching up his trousers. He seemed to have shot up suddenly – he looked like a grown-up!
And then it dawned on me. The wall hadn’t been shortened – I’d grown taller.

Seven gave me a suspicious look. ‘Kongpi,’ he said, ‘what are you so flustered about? You haven’t come in here to write another
bad slogan, have you?’ I ignored him and rushed into a cubicle, but he followed me in. ‘You didn’t come in here to do your
business,’ he said. ‘I think you’re planning to write something dirty on the wall.’

‘I’m here to draw a picture of your dad’s prick,’ I said. ‘And your mum’s cunt. Here, let me show you!’

‘Big talk,’ he said, pointing his finger at me. ‘You just wait, I’ll get Five to take care of you.’ He started out of the
toilet, but wasn’t through with provoking me. ‘You can’t do your business with your pants on. Pull them down and let me see.
Your dad only has half a prick, let’s see what you’ve got.’

That did it. I grabbed him by the arm and started pushing him out the door. ‘Seven,’ I said, ‘I don’t have time to mess
around. Another word from you and I’ll stuff you down the toilet.’

While I was struggling with Seven, I heard my mother shout from outside, ‘No fighting in there, Dongliang. Who are you fighting
with? Who’s fighting with Dongliang? If you don’t stop this minute, I’ll call the police.’

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.’

T
HE 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
.

This time I believed what I was hearing, maybe because the voice was so dignified, so stern.
Come down, come down
. After that, it was the sound of the river I trusted most.

In my father’s eyes, I was now an adult, and he disapproved of this sort of childish behaviour. I hid all my cans, but he
found them and threw them angrily into the river. ‘How old are you, Dongliang? I joined the revolution at the age of sixteen.
But you? You play with tin cans! Sailing on the river is a lonely life, so spend your time studying. And if that doesn’t appeal
to you, do some work. When there’s nothing else to do, you can swab the deck.’

Once, when I was swabbing the deck up front I saw Huixian and Yingtao playing with a skipping rope on Six-Fingers Wang’s boat.
Six-Fingers’s daughter was counting spiritedly, acting as a referee. Suddenly Yingtao shouted, ‘Not fair! How come everybody’s
siding with her? Anyone could see I did a hundred, but you only said ninety-five, and she only did ninety-five but you gave
her a hundred.’ Wang’s daughter went up to humour her, but it did no good. Yingtao stormed off in anger. I’d stopped working
and was waiting for Huixian to come to our boat. It always happened like that – she and Yingtao would have an argument, which
would end in her running over to number seven.

That didn’t mean she paid any attention to me once she got there. With the skipping rope over her shoulder, she walked towards
the cabin as if she owned the boat, her eyes on the sofa.
To her chagrin, this time my father was sitting in it. She stuck out her tongue to show her disappointment, then turned and
came back down the other side of the boat.

Maybe she’d heard too many grown-up discussions about us, but the moment she opened her mouth, out came the crucial question:
‘Is yours a martyr’s family or isn’t it?’

‘Who’ve you been talking to?’ I said. ‘Do you even know what a martyr is? We can’t be martyrs because we’re all still alive.’

‘I haven’t been talking to anybody. I’ve got ears, and I know how to listen,’ she said proudly. She pointed to our cabin.
‘Deng – Deng Xiangxiang, that’s her picture. Is she a martyr?’

‘Her name’s Deng Shaoxiang, not Deng Xiangxiang. She’s a martyr, I’m not.’

‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said. ‘She’s your grandma, isn’t she? So if she’s a martyr, then so are you. It’s a great honour.’

‘I’m a martyr’s descendant, not a martyr. My grandma is the honourable one, not me.’

She blinked, still not clear on the distinction between a martyr and a martyr’s family. Instead of trying to pretend she understood,
she took the skipping rope off her shoulder, shook it at me and said, ‘Cleaning the deck is boring. Let’s see who’s better
at skipping.’

‘Not me.’

‘See, now you look unhappy.’ She studied my face. ‘Do I make you angry?’

‘No. I may be angry, but not because of you.’

Abandoning the idea of getting me to skip, her eyes lit up as she blurted out, ‘Has your mama sent you any gifts lately?’

I said, ‘No. Who wants her gifts anyway?’

She looked disappointed. ‘She’ll send you gifts because she’s your mother and she cares about you. Animal crackers are my
favourites,’ she said. ‘Giraffes taste great. So do elephants.’

I knew how much she liked to eat, so I said, ‘If she sends things to eat, you can have them.’

She blushed and twisted the skipping rope in her hands. ‘That’s not what I meant. She’s your mama, not mine. If you want,
you can give me half.’

Any talk of mamas was a taboo that everyone adhered to. I didn’t want to talk about my mother, and definitely wasn’t about
to mention hers, so I decided to tell her my river secret. ‘You’ve been with us a long time. Have you ever heard the river
speak?’

She snickered. ‘Liar. The river doesn’t have a mouth. How can it speak?’

‘It doesn’t speak because you haven’t given it a mouth. Give it one and you’ll hear it speak.’

She gave me a blank stare. ‘You’re lying again. The river’s water. Give it a mouth and it still can’t speak.’

I probed the surface of the river to find its mouth, spotting a wooden spindle floating downstream that was coming slowly
towards our boat. It was barrel-shaped, with hollow ends, and seemed to be the perfect shape for a mouth. ‘See that? It could
be the water’s mouth,’ I announced earnestly as I scooped it out of the water with a net pole. ‘Now watch while I get the
river to speak.’

After drying off the spindle, I carried it to the starboard side, where I lay on the deck. Huixian followed me. ‘How come
you brought it to this side? Doesn’t the river speak on the other side?’

I told her that sunlight affected how the river spoke. ‘The sun has lit up the other side of the boat, and the river will
only speak over here. It’s too bright and too noisy over there. And even if it did speak, it would be lies.’

Only half believing me, Huixian put the spindle up to her ear and lay down on the deck to listen to the sound of the water.
‘Liar,’ she said. ‘The water’s flowing along, not speaking.’ She tried to get up, but I pushed her back down.

‘You’ve got to get rid of all thoughts of animal crackers and
focus on the river. Hold your breath and be patient. Give it time and you’ll hear it.’

So she quietened down and listened. ‘I heard it!’ she cried. ‘I did!’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Now tell me what you heard.’

She looked up, with hesitation and a bit of embarrassment in her eyes. ‘It said different things. At first it said,
Eat, eat
. Then it said,
Don’t eat, don’t eat
.’

Eat? Don’t eat?
That’s what she heard? How disappointing. ‘That’s all you know – eat, eat!’ I snatched the spindle out of her hand, gave
her back her skipping rope and said, ‘Go and skip. That and eating are just about all you know how to do.’

With a pout and an angry look, she said, ‘Then what did you hear? Why won’t you tell me that?’

‘Why should I? You wouldn’t understand.’

That upset her. She hit me with her skipping rope and took off running. ‘You’re a liar,’ she said. ‘My new mother told me
to stay away from your stinking boat, so I’m not coming over any more.’