To All Appearances a Lady

by Marilyn Bowering

  But by this time Lam Fan had begun to shiver. Her forehead dripped sweat. Her hands jumped in her lap as she unloosened her fingers to gather up her bundles. Her feet, which she had kept hidden beneath her long skirts as she sat, began to twitch and dance.

  It was unfortunate all around. For of course Fan’s condition was noticed. And recognized. So that as the passengers disembarked it was with some annoyance—grumbling, losing their natural reticence and politeness—for these were gamblers on the brink, about to try their luck, and Lam Fan’s state of nerves struck them as a bad omen. The women were jostled, elbowed, shoved aside as the gamblers moved off, led by a houseman, up the hill towards the gambling establishment. So that it would have been impossible, even if Fan and India had so wished, for them to go, too. So that the others, hurrying within a thunderstorm of dark emotion, cast angry looks at the two women. So that where the others turned left, the women turned right and found themselves at the market.

  Where waiting for them—that is, it appeared as if she were expecting them—was an old woman. Who came to stand there every day, at the intersection, scanning the faces of all who passed for signs of sickness. Not just any sickness. But that unique illness to be seen in Lam Fan’s face. With its ghastly hue, and expression of tremendous need.

  —

  The afternoon light was only just fading. The blank sun rolled along the horizon as if it would never set. Even the flies grew tired of waiting and stood still on the mats of debris that blocked the drains in the passageways. All the little houses, perched on the rock, tilted unevenly in the slowly dimming light as India and Lam Fan followed the old woman into the cool darkness of the Abode of Ten Thousand Happinesses. It was a place of business where, if not ten thousand happinesses, there was at least one: opium. Its odour permeated the cracked stone walls of this building that had been divided into a dozen rooms, all of them small, dark, and clean. A safe harbour for the women on this afternoon, where every action had been performed through a haze of tension.

  That is, what had just passed—the major’s death, the loss of the house—and what was to come—a journey thousands of miles in length to the edge of the ocean. Farewells to the past. Greetings to the present. Normal for a sailor, of course, but for two untravelled women…

  The old woman drew the curtains then went out. She returned with a tray containing pipe, opium, and lamp. India helped Lam Fan lie down on a platform, although it was difficult for Fan to keep still. She rocked a little, talking soundlessly to herself and licking her dry lips.

  Now India (for there was no time to be anything but practical) set to work. She wasn’t thinking, really, of what she did (although Fan was thinking of nothing else), but was doing it because it was required. Not out of habit, but because long ago she had made herself familiar with the ritual.

  “She did not like to do it,” says Fan quietly in my ear, letting her hand drop from the steering, “but she was my friend. She knew it was what I had to have.”

  “Poor Fan,” I almost say, but don’t. It isn’t the time, and I do have some tact.

  Now the wire on which India had lifted a small amount of the opium was heating over the lamp. She continued to warm it, and to dip the end into the jar; then she pressed the opium on the flat bowl of the pipe, turning it and working it on the end of the wire until it was a porous, swollen mass.

  India shaped this into a ring around the wire, then inserted it into the round hole of the pipe, and by twirling the wire around while withdrawing it, deposited the opium in the pipe. I know how to do it myself. I have watched often enough.

  She helped Fan to sit. Keeping the bowl of the pipe over the lamp, Lam Fan inhaled until there was only the dross. The yin shee.

  Complicity? Is that what it was? Or compassion? It is a hard question. Perhaps there is a moment when it is both, as the hands that give touch the hands that receive. I don’t know. But if such an instant exists, it is quickly over, swallowed up in this night that is not quite a night. Since one woman sleeps but does not rest, and the other is wide awake between the wall that faces the rock and the wall above the sea. India leans against the window, and smells the cooking fires, and hears the chattering of men sitting in small groups outside. Where, beside the straw-choked henhouses and the open water barrels, they watch the sky change from grey to red and to a deeper grey.

  She walks up and down. From time to time she glances at the bundle of silk that is Lam Fan, who lies still now, knees drawn up to her chin. India wonders, I imagine, just what it was she had taken on.

  Besides Lam Fan, there is the unknown. An empty land to which they are committed. With no plans, no diagrams, no working papers. No map to follow, no notes left them by the reformer. And no rule of thumb to trust, but solitude.

  The door handle turns and the old woman comes in. It is comforting to drink tea with her, to erase one ritual with another, to watch the tea steam in the cups, and drink, sip by sip, the whole story of curing, drying, patting, throwing, heaping, roasting, drying, and rolling. A labour of weariness for which children are paid six cents a day. A labour that is their life. From the white end of birth to the black end of death. A circle. (“Cheer up, Robert Lam,” says Fan, looking worried.)

  India drinks and waits, watching tea leaves curl in the bottom of her cup while the old woman, who has something on her mind, gives a lesson in patience. Time stretches out. As if this woman, who stands at a dividing line from which one shore of her life is growing far distant, has all of eternity in which to think.

  At last she speaks. It is about a son who is never there when he’s needed. It is about the problem this creates in an old person’s life. It is, in fact, about renewing the divan licence.

  The Abode of Ten Thousand Happinesses was not large as divans went, but it made up for its size with the numbers of its clients. For the privilege of offering its service, the divan keeper paid a fee to Her Majesty’s Government. But far away from the Lion Rock, in the British Parliament, it had been decided that too many licences were being given out, and that the numbers had to be cut back. Each divan owner was to be given the opportunity to present an argument as to why his or her licence should be exempt.

  But the old woman spoke no English. And the authority in charge spoke poor Chinese. The son, who should have attended to this matter, was away on his junk, on a trip through the China Sea; and although he would soon return, it would be days after the deadline. Who better, the old woman delicately suggested, to speak for the divan than an Englishwoman. It was a chance sent from Heaven. In return, perhaps, the grateful owners could do something for the strangers. For from the appearance of their luggage, and what they had told her, she had guessed they needed help on the next stage of their journey. Could her son not take them? He would have to voyage south soon anyway. What did India say?

  And so it was agreed, and India took the opportunity that had fortunately appeared. In return for a word with the Civil Service of Kowloon, they would sail on the junk to Saigon. There was no time to lose. And any route was better than none when your ship was leaving in less than a month from a thousand miles away.

  —

  A clap of thunder. Lightning, from an almost clear sky, touches the red roof of the lighthouse as we round the southwest tip of Cape Mudge. The flat line of the cape; the serrated edge of forest tipped pale green with new growth. A kingfisher spins down from a branch and dives into the sea not far from us. We are entering Discovery Passage, with Quadra Island to starboard. If the wind rises easterly or southeasterly, we are in trouble. But so far so good. Touch wood.

  THREE

  The navigation of Discovery Passage is very simple except in Seymour Narrows. Here, the tidal streams, which at some stages of the tide, attain a velocity of 14 knots, make careful navigation essential.

  Elsewhere in Discovery Passage, it is only necessary to steer mid-channel.

  Unless in possession of intimate local knowledge, the passage of Seymour Narrows should only be attempted at or near slack wat
er.

  At night, the greatest caution must be observed at all states of the tidal stream, even if in possession of most intimate local knowledge.

  BRITISH COLUMBIA PILOT, VOLUME I

  The killer whale has left us. We follow the low wooded western shore of Discovery Passage to the mouth of Campbell River, where, against Fan’s advice, I decide not to stop. She looks tired, sitting on deck with her back braced against the hatch combing, although she doesn’t seem to feel the cold that, as the afternoon light fades, makes me shiver and light the oil stove.

  Orange Point, with its red cliffs redder as the sun slides away to the west; Gowlland Island; Steep Island; May Island. We pass the last safe anchorage at Duncan Bay. Then the passage trends northwestwards on its eastern shore, with steep, copper-stained cliffs, followed by a rough rocky coastline fringed with boulders. As we near Race Point, I check the tide tables. The south-going tidal stream rushing past the point can reach up to ten knots, causing heavy overfalls and eddies, which extend for some distance eastwards.

  But still no easterly or southeasterly winds to get us in trouble.

  And I am a pilot, in possession of local knowledge. It should be a piece of cake. Although I haven’t tested the Rose like this before. Although a capability of seventeen knots would make me feel easier. Although the south-going tidal stream has increased since Canoe Pass was closed. If I even had thirteen knots…

  “Sperm whales, humpbacks, blue whales, finbacks, sei, and right.” Fan sets up a chant. Her toes stretch over the sill of the open wheelhouse door. “There she blows! There she blows!” she cries. When I look at her, hoping to make her stop, for I need to concentrate, she winks.

  “Many ships have been wrecked up here,” she says. “The U.S.S. Saranac, U.S.S. Wachusett, the whaling brig, Byzantium.”

  “Not the Byzantium, Fan,” I say, biting the pencil I have in my mouth—I could do with one of Fan’s cigarettes—we should be about four cables out as we round, and I am still too close to the point. “The Byzantium wasn’t sunk, it was stolen.”

  “Salvaged,” says Fan.

  “It was piracy. The Indians found her at anchor and hid her behind Malcolm Island.”

  “She was abandoned,” Fan corrects me. “The crew left her after she hit a rock in Weymton Passage.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Fan!” I burst out at last. “Please don’t argue. I need your help!” For suddenly—I had forgotten how suddenly it can come at the entry to Seymour Narrows, where the shores are high and rugged, and mist cascades through the blue-black forest—it is dark.

  We take the wheel together, the ghost and I, feeling our way around the heavy swirls, steering the Rose by instinct, as once I steered a merchant ship through ice in the North Atlantic, making that ship dance, when one slip would have sliced us through. I don’t know how I did it then, I don’t know how we do it now; but we round the point safely, the Rose, Fan, and I, with straining hearts and engine. For the Rose is alive, too. That is, while we’re in harmony.

  I sound the whistle, and listen for echoes, then steer the bearing for Stephenson Point.

  “It was a mistake,” says Fan.

  “I know, I know. Don’t rub it in. We should have anchored until daylight.”

  “I told you but you didn’t listen,” says Fan, not very helpfully.

  —

  So it was that a red-sailed junk, owned by the divan keeper’s son, called in at Kowloon, and with the old woman waving goodbye from a seaside window, set off with India and Lam Fan onboard.

  Their course lay south, with a short stop at Macau, then down through the South China Sea, keeping far enough offshore to avoid pirates or Ladrones. “There are many islands,” said their captain, encouragingly. “It will be very pleasant. We will have no trouble.” He smiled at his passengers, Lam Fan and India, and two others, Dutch merchants, whom the captain intended to land at Java. It was an ambitious program for a small boat, but no prospect seemed to daunt the optimistic skipper.

  “He must know what he’s doing,” India assured Fan, who, well supplied with opium, was evidencing some skepticism. “Why would he take us unless he was sure?”

  Why indeed? It was a question that neither really wanted answered. At 11 A.M., they made sail with a fresh easterly wind. At 4 P.M. the coast lay like a thick cloud, east and west, and the Ladrone Islands were disappearing in the distance. At sunset the islands were out of sight, and the junk was on the ocean, where north, south, east, and west there was nothing but water and sky. The passengers retired to their bunks in the fo’c’sle while the crew kept watch. In the morning the cook set out breakfast—rice and tea—on deck, and Fan and India were each given a basin of water in which to wash. Lines were trailed in the hope of catching fish, and the passengers occupied themselves with their private thoughts.

  The wind continued fresh and fair, and with her light cargo of sugarcane and rice, the junk sped over the sea like a tiger, the crew raising all sails, until no more could be spread. That night Fan took out her opium pipe and lay in her bunk, and India sat on deck, next to the rudder man. She watched the stars and hummed the songs of her childhood; she saw a crewman shake a black snake from a fishing pole, and watched a waterspout run alongside them, keeping pace until the junk altered course. The next morning they weathered an island, passing between two small rocks about a quarter of a mile distant and abreast of the island, the current obliging them to pass through this channel, while a crewman was sent aloft to watch for rocks and breakers.

  The wind moderated, and the weather became cloudy, remaining thus until the morning of the fifth day, when the wind veered round to the northwest with dark, threatening weather. Heavy black clouds rolled in from the west, and the captain took steps to secure the sails. At sunset a heavy cross sea rolled in from the northwest with severe squalls of wind and rain, accompanied by heavy thunder and flashes of lightning. One of these flashes lit up a rock, until then unremarked, that was alive with pelicans. The captain sent all who could be spared below, where most of them prayed.

  Not that prayer would have done much good if they were caught in the change of the monsoon—we nearly turned turtle once on the way down to Java in similar conditions after leaving the graving dock in Singapore; and that was on the Silverbell, which had power a junk could only envy. For prayer may make you feel a little better, but it won’t change the weather.

  “No, Robert Lam?” asks Fan, as we alter course in the narrows gradually to starboard, heading up mid-channel between Maud Island and Ripple Rock. “In any case I am praying now,” she says. For she has noticed, seconds before me, that the southeast wind we fear has made its appearance. And with a wind to oppose the tidal stream, the races and eddies in this vicinity become very dangerous: with treacherous whirlpools that seize small craft and pull them under. Moreover, it is dark. And the moon the wind has chased from behind the clouds gives only enough light to frighten me, and not enough to help. I open the throttle and the Rose labours against the flood, inching onward. If we can hold on until the Maud Island light beacon is abaft the beam, and edge towards the eastern shore…

  Fan clutches my hand while I pray, yes, I do, for the shuddering Rose to hold together.

  —

  The storm in the South China Sea continued all night, but on the morning of the sixth day, it cleared, and the wind shifted to eastward. The passengers poked their heads above the deck, and were set to clearing up the mess below. Everything unsecured—luggage, dishes, tables, and chairs—was upended, and all the passengers and most of the crew had been sick. But they had been lucky, all in all—since some of the cargo had shifted—that the junk itself had not overturned.

  The wind continued light but fair for the rest of the journey, and at last they began to see numerous seabirds, meaning they were approaching land. There were other ships in sight, as well, and soon they were in company with several junks. Sails in tatters, nerves frayed, but having endured, having travelled the first thousand miles of their journey. We are thro
ugh the narrows, past Ripple Rock and Maud Island. I am shaking with sweat and cold. Lam Fan, my spiritual pilot, has fallen quiet. I had put us in danger, and I should have known better. I only wanted to prove the Rose, I only wanted to show that I could do it.

  Which I have. But not without cost.

  I can feel the strain in the boat. Some of her planks have spread, and water is pouring into the bilge. I have set the bilge pump working. When we anchor, which we will do at Granite Bay, I will have to take a hand to the deck pump. The engine, a Chrysler Crown six-cylinder, is functioning at low power. We’ve blown, I think, two of the cylinders; and I am not looking forward to the work this means, cramped in a crawl space too small for a child, a ridiculous space for a grown man to manoeuvre in. I had thought I was out of the dirty jobs. I had thought that part of my life was behind me.

  “Yes, I know,” I say out loud, not giving Fan the chance to say it first, “it was my choice to buy the Rose. But why is there always trouble? Why do things never go well?”

  There is no one to feel sorry for me but myself. Fan isn’t interested: she shrugs as if it doesn’t matter.

  Well, let it go. It doesn’t help to dwell on one’s mistakes or on questions that can’t be answered. It is best to forget them all and get on with it.

  “No,” says Fan, unexpectedly. “You must not forget, you must remember. Else what you’ve done wrong you will do again, over and over.”

  And so, with a difference of opinion, not for the first time, we putter into Kanish Bay, where, at the southeastern end, there is an anchorage, plus the logging and farming community of Granite Bay, with its government dock, post office, telegraph and telephone, and gasoline scow. Nothing we haven’t seen before, of course, or that we won’t see again.