Scritch-scratch, scritch-scratch, scritch. . . .
“Torch the ship!”
“You crazy?”
“Yut wok sook, we’ll all be cooked!”
“You want to visit the Sea Dragon? Go!”
“I’ll kill you first.”
“Lam ju sei lah, then we’ll die together.”
Metal clashing, hissing into flesh.
Grunts.
Shrieks of rage and pain.
The thick, hot smell of blood.
WHIFFS OF SMOKE.
Dark forms tinged red.
Blood-stained warriors?
Firebrands?
Fiends from Hell?
Savages maybe.
Or men acting savage in order to do good.
“FIRE!”
“Fire!”
Panicked hollers.
Blistering heat.
Harsh fumes from burning pitch, singed hair and skin.
Splashes and splatters.
Dense, suffocating smoke.
Cries for mercy.
Wordless wails.
Moans.
Rivers of sweat carrying me home.
PORK ONLY TOUCHED our family’s lips at festivals, when every adult male in Strongworm received a portion of the meat his clan used in ritual sacrifices to the Ancestors.
Where village elders and wealthy members of a clan could expect up to eight catties of this meat, the men in poor families like ours were limited to one.
“The wealthy already have plenty,” Moongirl had protested as a child.
“Plenty isn’t enough for them,” Ba had huffed. “They always want more. They make sure they get it, too, by forcing us deeper and deeper into their debt. . . .”
“Be thankful we don’t owe Old Bloodsucker,” Ma had cut in quietly but firmly. “Otherwise we’d have to surrender every scrap of our pork to him.”
Ba was, of course, thankful. We all were. But our family’s share of meat wasn’t enough to fill the cracks between our teeth, and the months until we’d taste pork again seemed to stretch forever.
Sometimes my longing for pork would grow so great that I’d keep an ear cocked for the squeals and screams of pigs. I’d race to watch them rounded up and slaughtered, then post myself where I could see the gutted pigs lowered into our Ancestral Hall’s large brick oven.
The firebox at the bottom of this oven was completely sealed off so no fire or smoke would touch the meat. Just above the firebox, there was a small opening for a pan to catch the drippings.
At the sizzle of fat on the metal, I’d savor the rich aroma from the roasting pigs. I’d imagine sinking my teeth into the pigs’ delicious skin, the hot fat squirting out, coating my tongue, sliding thick and warm down my throat as the crackling crumbled, giving way to velvet flesh.
Not once did I think of the pigs: how the animals selected for slaughter used to resist entering their holding pens; how they had to be tricked and prodded and struck; how the pigs’ struggles inevitably failed to save them from their fate.
IN THE BETWEEN-decks, my struggles ended when I was felled by the platform’s collapse. But there were men who, taking their lead from fleeing rats, wriggled out the airpipes. Others continued tearing away supports from platforms, then ramming the posts against the planks overhead until they crashed through to the deck.
After the boxing master wrenched open the iron bars to the waterpump and smashed it, some men squirmed out these holes as well. Cutting off the water supply to the devils’ hose did not really help our cause though. Men could only emerge onto the deck one by one, and the devils captured all as easily as if they were plucking onions out of a field.
In desperation, the boldest and rashest among us attempted to force our release by torching the ship. The devils, instead of throwing open the hatches, covered both the hatch grates and the holes in the deck. This turned the between-decks into a sweltering oven but did little to put out the fire, and had there not been men who doused the flames with piss then snuffed out the embers with wet jackets, the ship might well have burned to the water, and us with it. Indeed, I’ve since heard of captains and crews abandoning burning devil-ships and sailing to safety in longboats while men trapped in the between-decks either roasted or drowned.
I am grateful we were spared such horror. Before the devils uncovered the hatch grates, however, over one hundred of us had suffocated to death, and the survivors, to a man, were too weak to resist the devils’ probes for weapons—such as pins, razors, and blades—small enough to be hidden in hair, cavities, folds of flesh.
AH MING MAINTAINED that just as the devils were deliberately weakening those who accepted their offers of opium by smothering the smokers’ spirits, the captain had robbed the between-decks of air to extinguish the fire in us. Ah Ming also insisted our mutiny had been doomed from the start because the sails on foreign vessels cannot be manipulated from the deck like those on a junk.
Yes, mutineers had made the devil-sailors climb the masts at gunpoint, and I’d thought that sufficient to make true the glorious words, “The ship is ours.” But our helmsman, although a Tanka capable of navigating the ship, could not give the orders necessary for working the complicated maze of rigging. None of our men could. So our helmsman had relied on the captain and Red, which meant control of the devil-ship had never actually left their hands.
The captain, having crushed our mutiny, had the debris removed from the between-decks but did not repair any of the platforms, leaving us squeezed skin-to-skin in spite of our reduced numbers. He personally selected the strongest looking among the survivors of his slaughter for the full forty-eight lashes stipulated for mutineers, and he ordered the men whipped while lying face down on sacks of rice, then shackled in pairs and sent below.
Under Red’s supervision, sacks saturated with blood were quickly replaced; the devil-sailors carrying out the punishment were kept fresh through rotation. The prostrate men, beaten senseless, were revived with buckets of seawater, their raw backs salted and vinegared.
My own senses, lost in the platform’s collapse, had not then fully returned. But those who witnessed this punishment shuddered when speaking of it, and many screamed as loudly in their sleep as the men who’d been flogged.
The blood-soaked rice was boiled—without rinsing a single grain—for our meals. Anybody who refused to eat was force-fed through a bamboo tube, and the taste of blood, the men’s groans, the never-ending clank of chains underscored our defeat.
Armed devils took over the corporals’ duties. Through Twitchy, these devils ordered us to drop onto our haunches the moment we reached the deck. Moving forward on a sloping, rolling deck while squatting, we tumbled against them, each other, and to avoid the devils’ snarls and harsh blows, we had to approach the cookhouse on our hands and knees.
Once burdened with tea and rice for ten, we were allowed to walk. But the falling platforms had broken several of my ribs, and although Ah Ming had bound my chest tight with his extra pair of pants, breathing still felt like sticking needles into my chest. When I carried our rations, the needles turned into knives. Rasping as though I were winded rather than in pain, I made no complaint. I was too desperate for the brief release from the between-decks that my job as steward afforded.
Not for a moment, not even in my sleep, however, could I escape Moongirl’s lament which had, with the mutiny’s failure, begun sweeping over me in melancholy waves:
“Savages have taken you prisoner.
Once you leave the country, There will be no return.
You will strain your eyes
Looking for your dear ones,
But your dear ones will not appear.
You will strain your ears
Listening for your dear ones,
But you will not hear their steps.
Alone among strangers and barbarians,
Your sorrow will grow bigger than a mountain,
Your tears will fall like rain.
Only by clever planning
&nb
sp; Can the situation be turned around.”
WITH FOURTH BROTHER-IN-LAW working beside me in the wormhouse, there was, once again, only the clean odor of freshly cut leaves. There were no impatient worms clambering over each other in search of mulberry, leaving agonized writhing or stiff little corpses in their wake.
The worms did stop eating after a few days. Happily, it was because they were ready to start spinning, and from the short threads they’d been discharging when shifting to better grasp a piece of mulberry or cast off old skin, I knew the single long strands for their cocoons would be the best quality silk: glossy and strong.
As always, I alone examined our cocoons. Setting aside the whitest, smoothest, and thickest, I made sure I had the right proportion of the male, which were small and pointed at each end, and the female, which were round and soft. Then, while my brothers-in-law placed the remaining cocoons over a slow, steady heat, I began raising a new generation of worms. I also kept a close eye on the cocoons I’d chosen. And when the moths emerged, I removed the ones with crumpled wings, red bellies, or dry tails—any sign the creatures might produce less than perfect worms. I brought together the moths that emerged the same day to mate, then set the females onto squares of paper to lay their eggs.
I’d long ago counseled families in Strongworm to follow my strategy. “If you choose cocoons throughout a season rather than wait to get all from the final generation, you’ll have more of a selection and you’ll be certain you won’t get caught short.”
They’d protested that they were already stretched to the limit raising worms and had no time for culling cocoons or arranging the mating of moths until a season’s end. Some women had even suggested I was overanxious about eggs because I was still without child:
“You’re afraid you’ll stay childless.”
“With good reason since Ah Lung shared his mother’s belly with a girl. That was bound to have weakened his male energy.”
“Moongirl leaped out ahead of Ah Lung, you know.”
“Giving Moongirl the formal name Yuet Fung, Moon Phoenix, was alright but what was their father thinking when he chose Yuet Lung, Moon Dragon, for a son? The moon’s female influences were bound to further dilute the dragon’s manly energies!”
Ah Lung and I, confident of children in our future, had made a game out of this talk. Flushing hot, I’d brazenly ask him to pleasure me. He’d stammer that he couldn’t because he’d been unmanned. Ever so tenderly I’d stroke his dragon in pretended sorrow, and, ai, how he’d have to struggle to keep it from waking! How we’d laugh and play when he failed.
TWO BOWLS OF tea a day could not slake anyone’s thirst, and on those occasions the sky ripped open while I was fetching our rations or swilling teapot and bowls, I did not run for shelter as I would have in Strongworm. Like the other stewards, I threw back my head and opened my mouth so the rain could drench my aching throat as if it were a parched field. I’d savor the rain’s sweetness—even as growls, vicious pokes and prods from our guards were driving us below.
Some of these same devils were smuggling water into the between-decks for sale to those who somehow still had cash. Not surprisingly, thieves became as commonplace as the bugs sucking our blood. Bickering exploded into fierce quarrels, brutal fights.
Yes, thieves and fighters risked the lash. But devil-guards accepted bribes as readily as piggy-corporals, and those punished could count on their floggings to stop after twelve strokes, their lacerated backs to eventually heal. Thirst was a torture without end.
During storms, the crew dropped down buckets of hard biscuits without a drop of water and fit raincloths over the hatches, sealing us into suffocating darkness. Rain pelting the deck and the sea lashing over the ship’s sides gushed through seams in the planks, soaking us to the bone. Despite the steady wheeze and clank of the ship’s pump, bilge welled up from below.
There was water enough that men thrown into the walkways sometimes drowned, and many argued that the puddles in our berths, although brackish, were safe for drinking. But few managed more than a few licks: The ship was sheering in mountainous seas, threatening to capsize, and we were clinging to the platforms and each other, howling like the wind shrieking through the rigging.
Then, too, we all had raw patches from the constant grinding of skin against wood, and it wasn’t unusual for the punching and pounding to tear off long strips of soggy skin and mangle limbs beyond repair. Many a belly, heaving with the swells, actively rebelled, adding to our torments.
After the seas calmed and the crew peeled back the raincloths, waterlogged timbers steamed foul vapors for days. Since sunlight only reached wood directly under the hatches, most berths remained moist. So did men who never went above as stewards or for opium.
This damp gave rise to burning fevers, hacking coughs. Everybody suffered from loose bowels. With maggots infesting our blood-streaked rice, meat that was either souring or already putrid, some men started passing blood.
The doctor reserved the four beds in the sickroom for those with diseases that might spread to others. Compelled to stay in the airless swamp of the between-decks, few men recovered. Those who became too enfeebled to leave their berths or use a spittoon soiled themselves, the platforms, their neighbors.
While above, I frequently heard scraping and hammering. I spotted sailors mucking out the animals’ pens, toiling with brushes, stitching torn canvas, sewing new sails, taking apart ropes, or replacing worn rigging. I breathed air redolent with varnish, paint, hot tar. Yet the captain repeatedly refused our petitions for buckets, water, and brushes with which to clean below.
Washing up from meals, I’d slip into the water the scraps of cloth that Ah Ming had ripped from his pants after my ribs mended. On my return, I’d wipe the faces and the wood beneath the nearest invalids until the cloths, stiff with all manner of waste, did more harm than good.
Throughout the between-decks, other stewards were doing likewise. Nevertheless, filth crusted flesh and wood. Boils erupted. Sores festered, some oozed pus. Frightful odors of decay poisoned every breath.
Then cholera swooped down on us, and the doctor ordered buckets of purifying lime sloshed over the platforms, the slippery sludge of rotting straw, shit, and piss in the walkways. Ai, that lime bit into our skin, our nostrils! But it did little to loosen cholera’s grip: Even doubling men up, the doctor ran out of beds in the sickroom.
When attacked, men complained of burning heat although their skin felt clammy cold. Plagued by agonizing cramps that preceded violent bouts of vomiting and spurting bowels, their color turned from lead to a liverish red, then a dark, deep blue.
None of those felled survived. Death, though, came swiftly. In truth, were it not for my family, I would have welcomed it.
FOURTH BROTHER-IN-LAW confessed it wasn’t thoughts of worms but our being shorthanded that enabled him to remain calm in our wormhouse. “Going from one task to another has me completely absorbed!”
Pouncing on this insight, I brought enough workers back to the wormhouse to provide our worms with the best of care but not so many that anyone ever had an idle moment for disturbing thoughts or feelings to surface.
“Good,” Eldest Sister-in-law praised. “Now you can stop making do with the odd mouthful of rice and return to eating properly with us twice a day.”
Eldest Brother-in-law encouraged me to take longer, more frequent breaks, too. Outside our wormhouse, however, my mind hopped like a restless monkey, my heart pounded like a galloping horse: Were the captives on the devil-ship in rebellion? Had Ah Lung been injured or escaped unscathed? Had he reached Moongirl in Canton? Was he on his way home?
EVEN IF MY wife’s calm in the wormhouse prevailed, as I hoped and prayed it would, Bo See had no control over outside forces, and during the long silk season, heavy rains brought by big winds could last for days, days in which our worms would go hungry if the family failed to pick sufficient leaves or the fussy creatures refused to eat the stored mulberry because they preferred fresh. Often dikes
collapsed, flooding fields. Then the standing water could rot the very roots of the mulberry on which our worms depended. And landlords calculated rents on the percentage of an anticipated harvest. They collected every copper owed regardless of the actual result. In truth, they were constantly pressing their feet against our necks, sometimes lightly, sometimes grinding our faces into the mud. If I could survive the horrors of this devil-ship, though, Ba would have my earnings to pay off our debts and buy fields, throwing the landlords from our necks forever.
Already I could hear Ba, on receiving my first remittance, shout, “Come! Come quick!” to Ma, my brothers and their wives, my own wife, our nephews and nieces. “Ah Lung’s alive!”
Then, while Bo See and Ma lit incense to Heaven for keeping me safe, the rest of the family would gaze at the silver in wide-eyed wonder, exclaiming:
“Wah!”
“Ah Lung really took Moongirl’s lament to heart.”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember? Moongirl added the lines ‘Only by clever planning can the situation be turned around.’”
“She meant for Ah Lung to find a way home.”
“And he says in his letter that he will—but only after he’s made enough to turn our situation around.”
AGAIN AND AGAIN my eyes scoured the river, and at the shape of my husband’s head, the curve of his shoulders silhouetted on the deck of a sampan, my heart would fly out to meet him—only to stop dead when Ah Lung himself did not appear.
Fighting a burgeoning panic, I reasoned: Even free of his devil-captors, Ah Lung would be beggared, friendless, lost among foreigners. How could he make his way home as swiftly as we expected? He might not be back until our eggs hatched for the seventh and final generation of the season.
Or the worms entered their first sleep.
Their second.
Their third.
Their fourth.
Or they formed cocoons.
Or the moths burrowed out and mated.
God of Luck Page 9