Two Peasants and a President

by Frederick Aldrich

  “My husband worked in a factory that made small tractors that you walked behind. Some people put wheels on little carts for the tractors to pull so they could sit instead of walk. Our village pooled their money and bought one of the little tractors. The government told us we could use a small field next to the village for a bigger garden. We even had enough to sell.”

  “I had a job in one of the new hotels. Every day I rode a bus there and cleaned the rooms. In the evenings I helped tend the garden. The days were long but life was good. Everyone in the village had enough to eat and we were happier than we could remember.”

  Ping paused and a shadow descended over her face. When she began to speak again, her words came haltingly.

  “We had a son. His name was Huang. He was studying engineering at the Poly Tech in Tianjin. We were very proud. It was his third year and he was doing very well. One more year and he would have a job that paid several times what my husband and I earned. Then perhaps he would find a wife and we would have grandchildren to love too.”

  “One evening a car stopped on the side of the road where our garden was. Several of us were weeding and we stopped and looked up. Three men got out and walked into the village speaking quietly to one another like we weren’t even there. When we asked what they were doing, they just said they were checking something, but they wouldn’t tell us what it was. It was very rude, you know, to just walk into our village without saying anything to anyone. We would never do such a thing.”

  “When Huang got back we told him about the men. He had a strange look on his face but said nothing. Two months later, they came back. This time there was an official from the city with them. He told us the city was going to buy our land for development and he left some papers with us. Our son took the papers to the university and spoke with someone there.”

  “One evening, about a week later, Huang brought a friend to see us. He told us that technically the government can take any land it needs because all the land belongs to the government anyway. He said that the law states that we must be compensated fairly, but the price they were offering was very low, a fraction of what it should be. This is how we learned that developers often make deals with officials by paying them under the table, that this sort of corruption is very common now.”

  “He said there was only one thing we could do: appeal to the municipal council, but not to be too hopeful. Huang and several others from the village went to the city to make an appeal, but when they returned they told us the officials seemed very evasive. So when we received their decision, we were not surprised to learn that our petition was denied. We didn’t know what to do; they told us we would have to leave the village and move into government apartments. They said we would be much happier there but by this time we didn’t believe anything they said.”

  “We didn’t know it at the time, but Huang had friends at the university who knew how the developers were cheating many villages, especially in the countryside. There was so much profit to be made that they could afford to pay the officials big bribes, more than they would make in a year. Huang’s friends sometimes went to these villages to help organize the people so they would resist. He and two others from our village went back to the city to demand that we at least be paid a fair price, but the officials became angry and told them to leave or they would call the police.”

  “The next Sunday we had a meeting; everyone in the village was there. Huang and the two who had gone to the city to protest said that the only rights we have are those for which we are willing to fight. They said that if we don’t make our stand here, there will always be some developer looking to make a profit at our expense. Because our families have lived in the village for generations, we were in the right and should refuse to leave.”

  “We were frightened, afraid that the police would come, but the others said our ancestors would revile us for giving away what they had spent their lives building. So in this way the village was convinced to stay together and fight. Because Huang was the most educated, he was chosen to be our leader. It was agreed that we would all put our names on a piece of paper and demand that we be allowed to stay. This we did and it was delivered to the city.”

  “Two weeks later, a police car came. They brought us a paper that said we must leave within seven days. We were afraid. Huang believed that when they came to move us, if we all stayed together and refused to go they would have to give in. But when they came they brought many police. Somehow they knew who our leader was, and they arrested Huang. My husband and I got down on our knees and begged them not to take him.” Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she had to pause. Finally she spoke again. “But the police said it was our own fault. They put him in the back of a police van and drove away. That was the last time saw our son.”

  “For two weeks we went to every police station in the city, asking for Huang. Each time it was the same; they told us he was not there and they didn’t know where we could find him. Then our supervisors fired us from our jobs. We knew the police had told them to do it. They were already moving people out of our village, a block at a time until we were the only ones left. We had no money then and almost nothing to eat. They had started tearing the houses down at one end of the village. We knew we had to leave.”

  “It was very hard to find work after that; if the police tell a supervisor not to hire you, then they won’t. We tried everywhere. Finally my husband went to work in a rock quarry, but he was too old to lift heavy rocks. At night he was so tired he could scarcely even eat and he would fall asleep after only a mouth full or two. In his sleep he talked about Huang, and I cried when I heard him.”

  “Then I found a job at the hospital; it was there that I learned what happened to Huang. Another lady who cleaned rooms and I were sharing our twenty minute lunch break. We had been getting to know each other and she was telling me about her children. Then she asked if I had any. I kept a picture of Huang with me always, and I took it out to show her. Instead of smiling, she looked horrified. I asked her what was wrong, but she just handed the picture back to me and said she didn’t want to talk about it.”

  Dr. Min suddenly stopped translating what Ping was saying. Holly looked up at him and saw that there was great anguish on his face. He put his hand to his lips as if to beg to be forgiven for not being able to continue. Ping seemed unsurprised by this, as though she had expected it, but then she too began to mirror his anguish. They were both silent for several minutes until finally the doctor cleared his throat and Ping, as if sensing his willingness, began to speak again:

  “Two days later when I got home from work, I learned my husband had died at the quarry. I wanted to go to the roof of the hospital and throw myself off, but we were not allowed on any but the lower floors. I cursed fate for not even allowing me to die. One of Huang’s friends from the university heard about my husband and came to comfort me. I stayed with his family for several days. They were so kind to me. On the third night, after supper, it was obvious there was something they wished to say.”

  “My son, I learned, belonged to a group of dissidents at the University. The members of the group came from all over, professors, workers, scientists, even the government and police. Their goal was to expose the corruption, theft and even murder that they had discovered through their jobs. One of them was a computer expert who understood how to share what they had found with others using the internet. He could, with some difficulty, even communicate with those outside of China.”

  “Of course, it was very dangerous. Many dissidents from all over the country had been arrested and imprisoned. The government employed people whose sole job it was to find and arrest them. When my friends had shared this with me, they asked if I would be willing to help. I was very surprised since I couldn’t imagine what someone old like me could possibly do to help.”

  “They looked at each other for a moment before beginning to speak. Then they told me what was happening on the upper floors of the hospital, that it was no longer just convicted crimina
ls they brought there, that some people came to buy life while others unwillingly gave it. I was shocked. I didn’t believe such a thing could be possible! My mind was churning with confusion when a most terrible thought rose up inside me. They could see that my eyes asked a question that my lips could not. They rose from their chairs and came to me as one, surrounding me with their arms. As the tears fell onto my cheeks, I saw that they too wept. In that moment, for the sake of Huang, I became a spy.”

  Ping looked over at Holly, the corners of her mouth turning up into the tinniest of smiles, and said:

  “And saving you, pretty lady, has made it all worthwhile.”

  A shout startled them as one of the crewmen rushed out of the wheelhouse and yelled to everyone to get inside. He told them to stay below the railings where they could not be seen. The small group of fugitives crawled or crab-walked their way to the wheelhouse door, disappearing inside. Captain Davis, coming down the narrow steps from the bridge, met them.

  “Chinese patrol boat,” he said as a crewman hurried them toward a passageway that led below decks.

  The Type 218 Chinese Coast Guard Cutter had been easy to spot from a distance, its white hull glinting in the morning sun. With twin heavy machine guns and a top speed of more than 29 mph, it was more than enough to intimidate any fisherman, but with so many fishing boats at sea, Zhou thought it likely that it would continue on its way.

  That was when he could still see the full silhouette of its port side. Now, with only the bow visible, the possibility of an encounter became very real. The Americans would fit in a space concealed between the fish hold and the engine room. It had been skillfully constructed and would not be easily discovered. But there was scarcely room for three – shoulder to shoulder.

  The Chinese passengers had been given spare fisherman clothing to wear and their own clothes had been sunk with weights. There were still two 9mm automatic pistols and magazines. However no one even briefly entertained the idea of taking on the Coast Guard boat, which had a crew of 23, not to mention the machine guns.

  With the Americans well concealed, his Chinese passengers were his primary concern. They had been instructed to pretend to be sleeping in the crew quarters except for Ping, who could pass for a member of the family. But in spite of their fishermen’s clothing, they did not look like fishermen. For one thing, aside from Ping, their hands were almost devoid of calluses. And if they were awakened and spoken to, they would most assuredly not talk like fishermen. Zhou told himself that while it was possible their papers could be checked, it was unlikely they would be searched. There was no reason – unless the alarm had been sounded. If the authorities suspected that those they were seeking had fled by sea, the officers on the patrol boat would demand to see everyone’s papers and his day would end badly.

  The Dawn Flower continued on as if heading towards its fishing grounds while the Coast Guard cutter maintained a heading that would soon intersect with it. Zhou could see that the cutter was now only a half mile away which clearly meant that it intended to interact in some way with his boat. This was confirmed minutes later when he was hailed and ordered to heave to.

  The stench of diesel fuel and dead fish which had earlier made them so ill was even more pronounced in the cramped and airless space where the Americans now waited. That and fresh memories of their last sea born horror had both Holly and Ray struggling to remain calm. When the coast guard boat came alongside, causing the Dawn Flower to lurch sideways, Holly almost cried out. Then she felt the reassuring hand of her grandfather on hers which gently reminded her that she must somehow keep it together.

  Clad in a crisply pressed uniform, a coast guard lieutenant jumped onto the deck of the Dawn Flower followed by a sailor with a Kalashnikov. Waiting for neither acknowledgement nor invitation, he entered the wheelhouse and mounted the steps to the bridge, leaving the sailor standing guard in the doorway below. From the bridge, Zhou could see a sailor manning the machine gun on the bow of the cutter, but he was at ease and the gun pointed skyward, a good sign. Without so much as a greeting, the lieutenant demanded to see the fishing license and paperwork for the vessel, which Zhou provided. After examining it carefully, he said:

  “Where are you fishing today, Captain?”

  “We intend to start about one hundred miles or so further east,” Zhou replied, “The stocks are too depleted here.”

  The young lieutenant knew this to be true, which was one of the reasons for his country’s bellicose stance regarding the rights of its fisherman to fish in what had heretofore been considered foreign waters. China’s coastal waters had been over-fished for decades and now offered little to keep its fishing fleet alive. If they did not seek waters where the fish were more abundant, they would perish.

  The eyes of the sailor standing just inside the door to the wheelhouse slowly traversed the room as he waited for his lieutenant. A small nook for cooking and a well worn table occupied one corner. Around the perimeter were several other small areas, more cubbyholes than rooms, where he could see rumpled bedding and filthy pillows. The heads of sleeping fisherman protruded from beneath the covers. Two old women, one of them ancient were preparing something in the tiny kitchen.

  “How many aboard, Captain?” the lieutenant asked Zhou, noting that counting the two youngsters and the elderly man in the wheelhouse with the captain, there were four. It was not a question Zhou had anticipated.

  After a moment’s hesitation he answered “Thirteen,” wondering if the lieutenant had noted the delay. The officer looked at him for a moment and then moved toward the door leading below.

  “Get me a count of those on board,” he shouted to the sailor below. “A rather large crew, don’t you think, Captain?” the lieutenant said. Zhou responded carefully:

  “I have a large family that needs to make a living; here aboard they can always be useful.”

  The seaman stuck his head into each cubbyhole, added the women to his count and started down the ladder to the engine room where he found one man. Then he made his way to the stern where he found two others mending nets.

  In the concealed space, muffled conversation, like that emanating from a confessional, was all the Americans could hear. It seemed too long for a routine boarding. They were struggling to get enough oxygen in the enclosed space and knew they needed fresh air soon. Holly thought she might throw up.

  The seamen shouted ‘seven’ up to the lieutenant in the wheelhouse. Then he noticed something unusual. The hand holding a blanket over a sleeping man in one of the cubbyholes had a ring on it. It was not a wedding ring, but had it been, it would still have been unusual because fishermen never wear rings due to the danger of snagging them on machinery or nets. Likewise, coast guardsmen are forbidden to wear rings while on duty.

  The seaman approached the sleeping man and was about to lift the blanket off with the barrel of his Kalashnikov when he heard footsteps descending the wooden stairs behind him. He turned to see his lieutenant beckoning him to return to the cutter. He thought briefly about bringing what had caught his eye to the attention of the lieutenant, but the heat and stench of dead fish along with the likely trivial matter of a ring made the choice of fresh air too appealing. He turned and followed the lieutenant out onto the deck.

  When the cutter had pulled away, the Americans were freed from their fetid and airless prison. Told to remain on the starboard side where they couldn’t be seen from the cutter, they ducked out the door and sat against the railing, gulping drafts of fresh air. Holly was feeling seasick again and began to vomit.

  ******

  As the giant red orb was slowly extinguished by a vast ocean, the passengers gathered on the deck to watch. To the Americans, it represented the closing of the most horrific chapter of their lives, or so they hoped. For the Chinese sitting together on the deck, a door had closed on their lives too, behind it their friends, their memories, their heritage, everything they knew, including many things they dearly loved. They would never be able to return but, unlike the A
mericans, their way forward was unclear.

  South Korea is not a terribly welcoming place for Chinese; it has its own problems, economic and otherwise and Beijing’s belligerent stance of late had endeared it to few in Asia. The new refugees could not even be certain that the Korean government would not simply return them to China where they would likely find themselves back at the very hospital they had just escaped – a horror beyond imagining. Captain Davis had assured them he would do everything in his power to help them emigrate to the US and they did not doubt his word. But what exactly did ‘everything in his power’ mean? The reality of the decision they had made now hung heavily in the air.

  Furthermore, though they had passed Dalian to the north and were now beyond the Liaodong Peninsula, they were not yet past the Shantung Peninsula which protrudes like a giant maw into the Yellow Sea to their south. So they were, by anyone’s definition, still well within Chinese territorial waters. Zhou had been monitoring the radio but didn’t really expect to hear anything about their escape. After all, China couldn’t exactly announce publicly that they were looking for escaped American prisoners from the hospital.

  By dawn, Zhou said that they would be in open ocean, well beyond the coast, but beyond the coast did not mean beyond China’s grasp. Given China’s bellicosity and the potential ramifications of their escape, it was not inconceivable that a Chinese warship might pursue them to the very shores of South Korea. In spite of a magnificent sunset, they were all on edge, occasionally lifting an ear as if hearing somewhere in the darkness the sound of a distant motor. Each tried to reassure himself that, as Zhou had pointed out, there are hundreds of fishing boats, pleasure craft, tankers and freighters of all descriptions plying the seas around them and, as far as Chinese authorities knew, they could be on any one or none of them.

  Holly was starting to feel better and sat quietly next to Ping, thinking about what this amazing lady next to her had been through. Other than her grandmother, Holly had yet to lose a close family member and the thought of losing not only Ray but a child they did not yet have was unimaginable. By contrast, Ping seemed so placid now; it was as if, having done her part, she had committed herself to fate. Holly knew one thing: she would never abandon this woman; she would fight to her dying breath to give her what she had earned and so richly deserved.