Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  The officer walked along the wharf, pausing at each boat. Zhou watched him carefully from the window, wondering what he was up to. Then the officer approached the Dawn Flower, walking her entire length along the pier, examining her. Zhou could no longer see him, but knew that he must be near the stern now. But doing what? Finally, the officer emerged from the shadows and walked back into the parking area.

  The sound of another approaching car could be heard nearby, wending its way between the sheds and warehouses. A minute later a pair of headlights appeared. It was Jun’s taxi. By the time Jun noticed the ‘Harbor Police’ emblem on the side of the other vehicle, it was too late; he couldn’t just turn around and drive away. He parked as nonchalantly as possible, eyes flickering nervously around trying to locate the occupant of the police vehicle. In the shadow of a nearby shed, the glow of a cigarette brightened as the officer took a fresh drag. He was watching Jun.

  Jun got out and opened Ping’s door, whispering to her to act natural. He took her hand, walking the frail lady across the gravel toward the boat, pretending not to notice the police officer. The gangplank had slats nailed crosswise at intervals to improve footing, but it was still difficult so Jun took her waist as well as her hand. As they neared the deck, a tiny wrinkled woman older than Ping appeared in a doorway. Zhou’s grandmother greeted Ping exuberantly, as though they had been waiting months to reunite. In fact, they had never laid eyes on each other before.

  Ping immediately picked up on the ruse and started chattering amiably. As the pair disappeared through the door into the crew area, they were cackling like old hens. Jun hollered ‘good fishing’ as he walked down the gangplank and back to his cab. In the shadow of the shed, the glow brightened once more. Jun turned his cab around and headed back out the way he had come. There were now happy sounds emanating from the fishing boat as Zhou and his family continued the contrived reunion. The harbor patrol officer stubbed his cigarette on the ground and walked back toward his vehicle. Those hiding in the Dawn Flower could hear its motor start and the gravel crunch beneath its wheels as it turned and left the parking area.

  The crew scarcely waited until it was gone before casting off. From below, the engine rumbled to life and began slowly tugging the boat backward into the harbor. With its bow now pointing toward the sea, Zhou turned toward the Americans, a conspiratorial smile on his face. Looking at Holly, he said something in Chinese, which his brother translated.

  “There’s someone downstairs to see you.”

  Holly stared at him, a puzzled look on her face. She couldn’t imagine who he was referring to, but she got up off the floor of the wheelhouse and started carefully down the steep, narrow stairway. When she reached the crew area, her heart jumped. There in the corner was the little cleaning lady. She practically leapt across the space, throwing her arms around Ping, hugging her with all her might. There were tears in their eyes as they stood back looking at each other for a very long time.

  Soon the old craft was chugging slowly toward the sea. It would take almost an hour to reach, so large is this harbor, but they were thankful just to be moving away from the city.

  ******

  By 6:30 am, more than two dozen Ministry of State Security officials and city bureaucrats had been informed of the ‘breakout’ but still had only a smattering of details. A tall American male had penetrated the hospital. There were probably several thousand tall Americans in Tianjin on any given day, if not more. It was a bit like saying a short American woman had visited the mall. The Chinese bureaucracy had yet to tie captain Davis to anything. As he suspected, his different name and place of residence had rendered him invisible thus far.

  Holly and Ray’s real names had been stripped by the conspirators and replaced with fake ones to facilitate what was being done. Only three people in Hong Kong actually knew what their real names were, and they weren’t exactly lining up to inform the authorities. In fact, the cruise company owner, who had already used some of his ill-gotten gains to buy a private boat, was at this moment motoring toward Viet Nam where his brother owned a restaurant.

  The nurse on the seventh floor had provided a description of Holly to State Security, but that had led to questions as to why a guard had been stationed outside the American’s room. The answers to her inquisitors’ questions were slowly burying her. The guard himself knew little other than what he was being paid. Even that level of complicity was soon to earn him an hour under the scalpel. A similar fate awaited the guard who opened and closed Holly and Ray’s locked rooms.

  The authorities now had good descriptions of Ray and Holly and a barely passable one of the captain, who had been in and out of the hospital rather quickly, but Tianjin is the sixth largest city in China and they couldn’t exactly televise artist renderings. ‘Two Americans resembling _____ wanted for _____ .’ So the most wanted fugitives in China had yet to even be named.

  Officers with descriptions were sent to train stations, but some early trains had already left, so other officers down the line would have to board and search them. Same for the airports and bus stations; but if they had already boarded a plane, they were by now long gone, a thought no one wanted to contemplate. Road blocks would be set up, but that would take more time; there are dozens of roads in and out of Tianjin. What if they had boarded one of the departing planes? What if they had fled first to Beijing, only a half-hour away? It was a nightmare.

  One thing was certain: someone was helping the Americans. The list was short. The nightmare scenario was that their embassy had somehow learned what was going on. If they had reached the embassy they were untouchable; the Americans could use the threat of exposure to force Beijing to allow them to leave the country. The embassy in Beijing is watched and video taped around the clock and it was soon learned that no vehicles had entered since yesterday evening. It was also not entirely inconceivable that the tall American was CIA. If that were the case, their chance of success was fairly high.

  The second possibility was that they were attempting to make their own way out of China. This seemed the least likely. Even assuming they could make it all the way to a border, they would surely be stopped by border guards.

  Finally, there were the dissidents. The questioning of the guards at the hospital had revealed nothing to indicate they were involved in any dissident activities; they were being paid to keep the Americans in and cared little where the money was coming from.

  But one interesting thread had been discovered and was still open. The lady who cleaned their rooms was not in her apartment. She had not returned home from work.

  51

  It wasn’t exactly open ocean, but they had passed through Bohai Bay and were well into the Bohai Sea. The area includes some of the most heavily congested sea lanes in the world where they hoped to be lost among the many tankers, freighters and other fishing boats.

  The ocean swells together with the stench of fish and diesel fuel were having a predictable effect on some of the passengers. Holly, Ray, Dr. Min and the ambulance driver, all had their heads over the rail. Ping and Jian, the police officer, were on the opposite side of the deck, sitting as far as they could get from those who were losing it over the side. On the bridge with Zhou, Captain Davis was looking over charts of the area.

  According to the charts, they still had almost two hundred miles to open ocean and another three hundred plus to the coast of South Korea. At eight to ten knots max, less than 10 miles an hour, it would be almost a full day before they were completely clear of the Chinese mainland and another day and a half to the South Korean coastline.

  Even if they succeeded in reaching South Korea, they couldn’t exactly expect open arms. In December, a Chinese fishing boat captain had stabbed two South Korean Coast Guard officers, killing one. Fish stocks were seriously depleted along China’s coast and Chinese fishermen had been forced to encroach on the protected waters of other nations. Incidents were on the rise and China was stubbornly defending its fisheries industry, another example of its aggressive
new stance.

  Zhou had been watching the captain as he looked at the charts. Having learned something about his background from the doctor, he was finding the man who had commanded one of the most powerful warships in the world quite fascinating. He only wished he had more English so they could communicate.

  Zhou had another problem. If he continued across the Yellow Sea without any pretense of fishing, it was likely at some point to be noticed. Attention was the last thing he needed, but fishing would slow them down dramatically. He found himself wondering what was happening back in Tianjin. Had there been a bulletin on TV? Had the harbor policeman seen it? Had the authorities discovered a connection to his friends, the other dissidents? If any of these things had happened, it would take minutes for a military helicopter to reach them from land or a couple of hours by fast patrol craft. He told himself there was little point in worrying, they were now committed to a course that would take them either to freedom or death.

  Holly was feeling well enough to stand up straight, more or less. There was nothing left to throw up. She walked unsteadily through the door in the superstructure to see if she could find something to drink. A crewman brought her some bottled water. He smiled and she said thanks in English, embarrassed at knowing no Chinese. She walked unsteadily out the door and over to the starboard side to where Ping and the policeman were and sat down beside them. For an instant, she struggled with rising panic at the sight of the officer’s uniform until she reminded herself that this officer had risked his life to save hers.

  She smiled weakly at Ping; it was all she could muster on a churning stomach. She wanted terribly to get to know the woman who had saved her and Ray’s lives, but for now all they could do was look into each other’s eyes. A little while later the doctor rose, apparently feeling better. Holding her bottled water up, she pointed inside. Soon he had emerged with his own and came to join them. At last she had a translator. But where to begin?

  Holly decided simply to ask Ping to talk about her life. At first the tiny lady seemed reluctant, or perhaps she too didn’t know where to begin. But after thinking about it for several minutes she looked up at Holly.

  “It was a village then,” she said. “It had been there longer than anyone could remember. Even my grandmother’s grandmother lived there. The houses were small, none more than two rooms, some had only one. The bricks for the houses and the tiles for the roofs were baked in a kiln that had been there longer than anyone could remember. Even the bricks for the narrow streets came from the ancient kiln.”

  “During the time of my great-grandmother and before, China was weak and the foreigners forced us to grant them concessions so that they might trade. Russians, British, Germans, French, Italians, Japanese, Americans and others came to trade. Each country had its own area and they built their homes and churches there. Goods from all over China were brought to the port and loaded on ships. My great grandmother said that in those days beautiful tall ships filled the harbor as far as the eye could see. Sometimes they had to remain at anchor for days before a pier was available.”

  “Around the docks, the trading companies and warehouses swarmed with workers loading and unloading thousands of crates bursting with goods and treasures from all over the world. My grandfather worked in one of the great trading houses. My grandmother said that he would come home with amazing tales of the things he had seen. Sometimes he brought special treats, delicacies that no one had ever tasted before.”

  “Some of the people from the village worked for the foreigners in their magnificent homes. They were so large that it took a dozen or more people just to keep them up. When I was very small, I heard many stories of the foreigners and their houses.”

  “It was said the French had mirrors on every wall and the most elaborate furniture you could imagine, so much so that some in the village didn’t believe it when they heard the stories. A few even claimed that their furniture was covered with gold, others swore it was only paint. The French ladies wore strange objects that looked like bird cages on their rears under their dresses. My grandmother said some thought it was because they had no behinds. We children laughed and laughed at the thought of people with no behinds.”

  “The Russians were enormous compared to us and we were afraid of them for that reason, that and their enormous beards and scowling eyes. Children ran away whenever they saw a Russian. The only thing that seemed to soften them was their music. They had an amazing invention called a Victrola that made music come out of a box. Sometimes, for reasons no one understood, they would play music on the Victrola and suddenly squat down and kick their feet out, looking as though they might fall over at any moment. My grandmother said it was hilarious, but of course we Chinese couldn’t laugh out loud, it would have been considered rude and they would have dismissed us, or worse.”

  “The British were stiff and aloof. They thought themselves superior and looked down upon us. For that and the fact that they brought the opium, which poisoned thousands, many disliked them. But they had a powerful navy when we had none so they could force us to do what they wanted. Everyone had to earn money, so we swallowed our pride and looked the other way, even when the British were abominable.”

  “The Italians seemed always to be waving their arms and gesturing. They were loud too, like the Russians, but not in the same way. It was as if their hearts were on the outside and they were always trying to keep them from escaping. They seemed to eat all the time and some of their women were very fat.”

  “Everyone hated the Japanese. They looked like us but thought they were better. In 1937 they attacked us because they wanted what we had. One morning we looked up when planes appeared in the sky. Tiny objects were falling from them. At first some just watched as they grew larger. Then we realized what they were. We had no defense; entire families were blown to pieces, many were buried when buildings fell on them.”

  “Their army was unspeakably cruel; they raped and murdered thousands. They would just leave the bodies in the street for us to pick up. My friend’s father didn’t come home one night and for many days his family waited for him, but they never saw him again. Later we learned that he had been shot by a Japanese officer, but no one knew why. They could do that then, just shoot you dead in the street and walk away.”

  “At first, they left the foreigners alone in their fine houses, but in 1941 when they attacked the Americans, everything changed, even for the other foreigners. When the Japanese were finally defeated, we were all so happy. Many Japanese soldiers who were trapped when the Americans destroyed their navy were murdered by the Chinese they had brutalized. We celebrated, even though we knew it was not right to do so.”

  “My grandmother said of all the foreigners, the Americans were the most kind. Everyone wanted to work for them. We never heard of any Chinese being beaten by them. If you did something wrong, they wouldn’t yell at you; they would just tell you how to do it better. But then the war started and the Japanese put them all in camps. Many died there. When we heard that some we knew had died, we were very sad.”

  “When the war was finally over, things got better for awhile because there was work rebuilding what had been destroyed. It was not happy work, though, because there were still so many bodies buried in the rubble. Sometimes the workers would fine someone they knew. It was very sad.”

  “When Mao took over, most of the building was done and there were no more foreigners to work for. The Communists controlled everything; it was supposed to be better that way, but the people were hungry. The Communists couldn’t even grow food. Can you imagine? They wouldn’t allow you to have your own garden; everything had to be decided by a committee and the committees couldn’t tie their own shoes. We would have laughed if we hadn’t been crying.”

  “We thought it couldn’t possibly be worse, but then it was. They told us we had to get rid of ‘the old ways’ but the new ways didn’t work. Anyone who was a teacher or was educated was sent to re-educations camps. Most never returned. The people were left in t
he hands of the Red Guards, ignorant thugs who were just as cruel as the Japanese. They brainwashed our children and turned them against us. Can you imagine that, children denouncing their mothers and fathers? It was worse than even the war; at least during the war we had our families. We couldn’t believe that our own people were doing this to us.”

  “Then in 1979, I think, the American president came to China. The Red Guard had taught us to hate the Americans. Now they were coming here. It was all so confusing! After that, things started to change. First they told us we could have our own gardens. Anyone who had two feet of dirt planted something. Even if it was very small, it was our own. Some even pried up paving stones to have a place to plant. You had to be careful not to trip over all the little gardens. Before we knew it, we could buy and sell things like the capitalists we were taught to hate. It seemed very puzzling at first.”

  “Then the tourists began to come. I will always remember the first time I saw one. He was an American, very tall, with reddish hair and wearing cowboy boots. I wondered if he was a cowboy back home. Soon there were so many tourists that they had to build better hotels. The foreigners didn’t want to stay in the old ones. For the first time almost since we could remember, we had good jobs again. We could go to work and on the way home buy fresh meat with what we had earned. Then those who had raised the animals had money too. No one had ever experienced that before and we thought we were in heaven.”