by Andrew Kwong
She promised to keep the incense sticks burning until she heard of my safe arrival.
That evening, Baba took me to the cookie shop. As he did whenever we parted, he put his big arms around me and gave me a long hug. I’d grown to like the rich smell of Camel cigarettes on him, so unlike the crude Red Flag brand – no wonder the District Head had yearned for them.
Baba now spoke with a confident tone I’d never heard back home, and I liked it. ‘It’ll be fine, my son,’ he said, in the same manner as the locals. ‘We’ve gone through so much to get this far. We’ve many blessings from our ancestors. Go with courage but keep your eyes open. Remember not to stand under an unsafe wall. I’ll see you in Hong Kong next week.’
Now I felt calm. I believed everything Baba told me; I trusted him as he trusted me.
Baba then went to talk with the cookie-shop owner, a softly spoken man in his forties with a Shiqi accent. He assured my father that I should be in Hong Kong the next day, and repeated a few times that his team was the safest one operating out of Macau every week, and offered the best price. Baba seemed relieved. He shook the man’s hand before disappearing into the throng of Macau, without another word to me.
The cookie-shop owner took me to the back of his shop. There I met a young apprentice mixing and kneading dough, a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth. ‘Hello,’ he said in Cantonese with a distinctive, melodious Shiqi accent. ‘Going to Hong Kong?’ With a grin, he glanced at me with his narrowed eyes, smoke hissing from his nose and mouth. He didn’t seem to expect an answer and went back to working the dough with a big bamboo pole hinged onto the wall.
A few boring minutes passed.
‘Where you from?’ he asked.
‘Shiqi,’ I said.
His eyes widened in surprise that he hadn’t been able to tell where I was from. I felt glad that I must be speaking like a Macau local.
‘Ha, so we’re kinsmen,’ he said with interest now, a lot friendlier. He went on to tell me that he’d make the trip one day when he’d saved up enough for the fare. ‘Hong Kong is a big city,’ he said, as if he’d already been there and I needed to be warned.
I was more interested in the dough he was working on than the conversation. I liked the smell of blended milk, butter, sugar and flour – ah, so rich, so mouth-watering, reminding me of the New Gold Mountain biscuits I loved. I took in deep breaths of the pleasant aroma as I watched customers being served at the till and counted the many types of Chinese cookies. I admired the colourful cookie jars, tins and boxes in different shapes and sizes at the back of the shop, trying to take my mind off my trip.
*
After the shop shut for the evening, the owner took me to a small traditional Chinese lodge in a back street. The place was dim. We went upstairs to a room with old-fashioned Chinese furniture – more ancient than any I’d seen in China, where old styles had been thrown away to make way for all things communistic. A round rosewood table and four round stools occupied the middle of the room, making the atmosphere solemn. Though it had yellow stains along its edges, the inlaid marble tabletop was very much like the one in Third Aunt’s room back home. It was soothing to my sweaty palms, but it didn’t calm my racing heart. A bed with a mosquito net stood lonely in one corner. The cane-skin mat looked uninviting on bare boards, and a narrow tea table between two square rosewood chairs occupied the other side of the room.
Another man appeared with some small Chinese teacups and a pot of hot jasmine tea. He offered me a cup and suggested I take a nap as more people were due to arrive. Before long, a young couple turned up; like me, they carried no luggage. They sat down at the round table and helped themselves to the tea. There was no conversation. Only the intermittent arrivals of more people interrupted the stillness of the evening. I dozed off in the large rosewood chair.
It must have been after midnight when they woke me. The room was now crowded with young southerners, although I was the only child in the party.
A man with a well-weathered tan face spoke in Cantonese. He appeared fit and confident, and was as optimistic as the locals. He welcomed us, then told us to follow instructions closely and to keep quiet throughout the trip. He seemed to be looking at me as he spoke. ‘Everything’ll be fine,’ he said, before excusing himself from the room.
His assurance couldn’t stop my lips from going dry and my heart from galloping inside my thin chest.
Sometime later the man returned to the room and broke us into small groups. One group at a time, we left the lodge by taxi. I went with a man and a young couple. No one uttered a word throughout the short trip. We soon found ourselves standing by a beachfront. A cool breeze soothed me, for now, and the coarse warm sand was comforting beneath my feet. The calm surf added to my confidence. We stood quietly in the dark, staring at the black water and the silhouettes of police officers on patrol nearby. Thankfully they weren’t looking our way.
CHAPTER 23
Out of the dim night, a small sampan appeared on the beach. Three at a time, we were ferried across the gentle surf to a fishing junk about fifteen metres in length. It was anchored some fifty metres from the beach in complete darkness that to me looked sinister and threatening. The crew told us to keep quiet and sit low as we clambered aboard.
The shape of the junk reminded me of those I’d seen in storybooks about the olden days. Both the bow and the stern arched upwards, but the stern was somewhat higher so it provided a good view. The sails had been lowered, and an engine was idling underdeck.
We obediently stayed quiet while the boat pulled away from the murky shore into the blackness of the South China Sea. All I could hear were the gentle waves stroking the hull as the boat sliced through the calm sea with ease. The surrounding obscurity was no different from what I’d known for a long time when sitting on the levee wall looking into the night, so I wasn’t afraid of it. Other passengers kept to themselves, with occasional timid mumbles like those of a subdued audience at a sentencing meeting.
Hours later I woke to the soft light of dawn shining through the ropes and masts. Fishing nets were heaped to one side of the small deck; it was obvious no one had bothered to cast them. A half-moon appeared every now and again through the few low clouds. There must have been a dozen or so young men and women on board, all too well dressed for a fishing expedition. Some were asleep. Occasionally a shard of golden moonshine glittered on the boat’s well-oiled planks. The sounds of the sea slapping against the hull and the squeaks of the vessel complemented each other.
I was pleased to see a statue of General Guan Gong standing at the stern, as if he had just leapt off the enchanting story panels under the eaves of Great-Grandmother Good Arrival’s house in Shenmingting. I was relieved he was there to protect me in my endeavour. His beard was flowing and his long sword gleamed. Three incense sticks were burning in front of him. I knew I was in good hands.
*
The stretch of some fifty kilometres of unpredictable water between Hong Kong and Macau is known to locals in the Pearl River Delta as the Lonely Sea. Many people have been lost there to temperamental weather, including frequent typhoons. July was a calmer season, they said. However, there were lots of People’s Militia gunboats on patrol looking out for people trying to escape China. There were also the Royal Hong Kong Marine Police boats that guarded the colony’s waters from people smugglers. But Third Aunt said the snake teams were amazingly efficient in smoothing things out for these expeditions.
That morning I found myself leaning over the side of the boat watching the universe emerge around me, alive and promising. Here we were, somewhere in the middle of the Lonely Sea, hiding from the gunboats and the police as we were tossed gently in a tepid bath between two small weather-beaten islands, their ruggedness lessened by the jade-green radiance of sparse vegetation. Comforting reflections of the pearl and gold sky danced among calm swells. The water was exceptionally smooth, just as Baba and Third Aunt had wished for me. Hundreds of large jellyfish with long tentacles floated
by, so free. Seagulls hovered above, searching for their first meal of the day and sending out an occasional cry as they seized their prey.
There, between the two tiny islands, we whiled away the day. The old junk blended into the seascape with ease. There was nothing for us to do on board. Whispers ebbed like the docile ripples caressing the boat, but everyone kept their head bowed in the same way the adults did back home when talking with the comrades in charge of them. I wondered if Mama knew I was on my way to Hong Kong. Perhaps Baba had sent news to her through a trusted messenger like the cousin who’d met me at the border.
I hoped the District Head would not give Mama a hard time at the evening political meetings when he found out I had gone to Hong Kong. I prayed that she wouldn’t be dragged out to the town’s denouncement meetings at the sportsground. And Weng and Ping . . . how was Weng going to defend herself from the jeers and torments of those mean kids at school? And they might kick Ying out of the swimming team.
A soft voice interrupted my thoughts. ‘You afraid of the sea? And the darkness last night?’ Sitting near me was a young woman, in a bright floral blouse.
I half-nodded but didn’t answer for a moment, then recited what my parents used to say to console each other: ‘It’ll be light when the night passes.’ I wasn’t sure why I said this but it made me feel grown up. ‘My mother says that if you’re patient enough to wait for the clouds to disperse, the bright moon will be there for you to appreciate.’
‘Are you by yourself?’ She looked at me with wide eyes, clearly wondering why such a young boy was all alone at sea.
‘Yes, but my father will be coming over next week.’
‘Where will you go in Hong Kong until then?’
‘To stay with my grandmother and older sister. What about you?’
She didn’t answer me, just stared at the sea.
I was glad to have someone to talk to; it made me feel at ease. So I began telling her that I had two grandmothers in Hong Kong, my Grandmother Young and her in-law Grandmother Lee, whose daughter Bertha had married my Uncle Chong Young. I wasn’t sure if the young woman was listening, but to impress her I babbled on about the last time I’d been in Hong Kong.
‘I’m going to stay with my mother’s cousin,’ the woman finally said, interrupting my chatter. ‘Never met him before. He’s married with a young child.’ Her voice trembled a little in the warm breeze. She pushed her hair away from her eyes as she faced the endless stream of salty air. She reminded me of the young woman who’d lived at the last house in our street – and how her fairness had attracted a sojourner from the Gold Mountain. ‘I hope to get a job as soon as I get to Hong Kong,’ she said after a few minutes of silence. ‘I can use a sewing machine, and they say there are many machinist jobs in Hong Kong. Then I’ll go to evening school to learn English,’ she added, before turning to me. ‘So what are you going to do?’
I hadn’t thought about what I was going to do except go to school. And I’d never considered how I would afford it, and who would be responsible for my board and lodging. All I knew was that I was on my way to a new life. I shrugged and stared at her. She must have been seventeen years old, maybe eighteen. She looked so grown up; somehow, she exuded a determination I hadn’t noticed in others. Perhaps until now I’d never taken notice of people’s willpower and what it might mean. Her stare was intense. Whenever she spoke, I could have sworn her words were coming from a much older person.
‘I hope I can go to school – I want to go,’ I replied, with the first thoughts that came to mind. My English classes had inspired me. My Third Aunt had inspired me. The sudden appearance of my father had boosted my yearning for more education. I’d become confident, and I believed I might just be fortunate enough to be sent to school.
‘Lucky you,’ said the young woman.
She turned to stare at the deck. The varnish had peeled from the edges of the long planks here and there, exposing the coarse old timber. When our eyes met again, our glance acknowledged that we were both lucky to have left China. The trip was worth the risk.
Soon after, the snake head who’d given us instructions at the old lodge addressed his stowaways with the usual local optimism. ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said matter-of-factly, pointing to the lightening east. ‘We’ll be in Hong Kong for supper tonight.’
Without another word, he went to the stern and brought out our breakfast. After we’d each finished a bowl of shrimp congee and a baguette, he grouped us together and provided detailed instructions on what we should remember once we’d disembarked, depending on the district to which we were heading; the instructions included which bus to catch and what to say if stopped by a police officer. He had an intimate knowledge of the colony and seemed to know where each of us was going. He also told us titles of movies and operas that were playing, and at which theatres, so we could speak about them and appear to be locals.
The man’s confidence made me feel that I could just sit back and dream of a better time ahead. I felt my ancestors’ blessings, Buddha’s and Third Aunt’s also. Plus my twenty-eight credit points. I shouldn’t be afraid, I told myself, especially now I’ve made a friend.
*
At dusk we set off again. The sea had turned into a vast golden blanket. A few birds cawed overhead as the red landscape of the mainland retreated into the distance.
The chugging of the diesel engine was hypnotic for the tired mind, and I soon dozed off. Suddenly the District Head’s son was shouting at me, ‘Capitalist, son of counter-revolutionary, black element!’ Water hit my face, squirting from his green plastic water pistol: the toy Ping had brought for me on one of her trips home. I woke abruptly and remembered how the District Head had seen my precious toy and casually mentioned to my mother that his son would like to have one, as he put a tin of condensed milk into his pocket. Mama had asked me for the water pistol that night. Although I was upset, even angry, I surrendered it with little protest. I understood how important it was to keep our District Head happy.
I couldn’t get back to sleep. On several occasions, Chinese gunboats steered close to us and followed our boat at a short distance. They didn’t take their eyes off us. I wondered what they were thinking. Would they take us back to China? To them, we were just another boatload of deserters fleeing communism and the Motherland. We were the scum of China, and the many re-education camps were full of people like us. Thank goodness they didn’t stop our boat. Maybe they too were part of the people-smuggling network; I never knew for sure. The strip of sea that divided the capitalist and the communist worlds was narrow.
It was growing darker. The little lamp high on the mast looked tiny as it flickered in the dark, holding up our hope. There was hardly any sound on board except for the hum of the engine. Some people had dozed off, relaxed by the strange peace surrounding us; they slumped on the well-scrubbed deck like sack-loads of fish. The sails, probably raised during my nap, flapped occasionally as they filled with wind. The boat picked up speed in the open sea, powering towards our expedition’s end.
‘Quick, everyone!’ A quiet but urgent voice roused me from my somnolence.
The snake head hurried us down a small ladder to the lower level. We were now jammed onto a smaller deck, close enough to feel each other’s racing heartbeats. A doorway was open into the diesel engine compartment; on either side of it the walls were covered in wooden planks. The snake head removed a few panels near the edge of the boat on each side, exposing two entrances to narrow crawl spaces between the wall of the engine room and the outer hull.
Then he sought me out, where I hid behind the grown-ups, and told me to squeeze into one of the crawl spaces first. I stared at the opening, not much bigger than a dog’s kennel, then I looked at him, wondering how I would get in there.
‘Go right to the end,’ he ordered.
On hands and knees I scrambled over the slimy, damp floor until I could go no further, rocked by the waves underneath as I crammed myself into the pointed end. My heart skipped many beats as it
raced on.
Behind, I could hear frightened people mumbling to each other.
‘No, I can’t,’ came the voice of a young woman, my friend from the deck.
‘Yes, you can.’ The snake head wasn’t pleased with her.
‘I get sick in a small space, especially in the dark. Please—’
‘Quick. Hurry up. Now.’
‘No.’
‘Now!’
‘No.’
I could imagine her holding her head high, the young woman who’d told me she would work as a machinist during the day and go to evening school to learn English.
‘All right, step aside.’ An annoyed grunt from the snake head.
A few more people entered the crawl space behind me, looking apprehensive. I crouched down, squeezed against the wooden wall that kept the sea from entering the boat, and tried to stop shaking. I took deep breaths, but the air was thick with the smell of dampness, mould and diesel. Soon the stink of sweat and tears blended in.
‘Everyone keep quiet . . .’ Hammering sounds muffled the last words of the snake head as he nailed the exit. We whimpered. Some panicked.
‘Are we going to die?’ someone asked softly in the dark.
‘Please, Buddha, have mercy on us,’ cried another, among timid sobs.
I hadn’t heard the young woman’s voice inside the crawl space, and I wondered if she was in the other tunnel on the opposite side of the engine compartment. I didn’t know how she was coping, but it was too late now to find out.