by Zoë S. Roy
“Push the ball onto your back, drop into the water, and then swim east.” Ray stopped rowing. “Hurry!” His voice was urgent.
Nina felt her body stiffen as she plopped into the water. She swallowed a mouthful of water and choked, but with Ray’s voice echoing in her ears, she managed to propel her arms through the water in the direction he had pointed. Turning her head, she noticed Ray’s boat moving in the opposite direction and heard the engine rattle away. Nina ploughed through the water until she touched several reeds.
Bang! Bang! Shots rose in the distance. She quailed and knelt into the sand. A chill spread through her limbs. She turned her head, her eyes wide open, but she could see nothing. The darkness blanketed the water and engulfed Ray’s boat, as did the terrifying sound of the engine.
Wiping water off her face, Nina listened carefully, but heard nothing suspicious. She removed the netted basketball and plodded through the reeds. Is Ray dead or alive? The question flashed in her mind like lightning running across a darkened sky.
As she staggered to the grass-covered shore, it began raining. She waded through mud and bushes and darkness for what seemed like forever. Several scattered houses about fifty metres away loomed ahead of her, and she shuffled toward one of them. The rain was pouring heavily by the time she reached some kind of wall. Just as she was about to lean her weary body against it, a huge dog darted out from a corner and jumped on her.
“My God!” Nina’s shriek held the dog back only momentarily; it flinched and then attacked her again. She stooped, groping at the ground with shivering hands. Before she could grab a rock, she felt the dog’s teeth penetrate her leg. She screamed, hitting the dog’s head with the stone at the same time.
The attacker yelped, then ran away, its tail drooping. Nina touched her leg and felt warm, sticky liquid mixing with the cool rain. Blood! She collapsed as if struck by a thunderbolt.
***
“Mom!” a child called out, “her eyes are moving!”
Nina slowly opened her eyes. A little boy was staring into her face. She could see that she was lying on a low bed in a strange room; she blinked hard, trying to remember what had happened.
“Don’t be afraid,” said a woman who looked to be in her thirties as she walked into the room with a bowl in her hand. “Did you slip through the border?”
Before Nina responded, the woman continued, “Last night I heard a dog barking, and then somebody shrieking. I rushed out and saw you lying on the ground.”
Nina sat up, feeling some pain in her left leg. She lifted the sheet draped over her leg and saw a bandage wrapped tightly around her calf, which triggered the memory of the dog’s assault. Looking up at the woman, Nina asked, “Did you bandage my leg?”
The woman nodded.
“Where am I?”
“Wu Kau Tang Village,” answered the woman, as she sat on a chair by the bed.
“Is this your home?”
“Yes,” said the woman. “Me and my hubby slipped from the Mainland in 1967. Now he’s working on an oyster farm.” She handed the bowl, with a spoon, to Nina. “You must be starving. Want some congee?”
Nina took the bowl gratefully. The warmth of the congee spread to her heart, which was still heavy with last night’s nightmare. She burst into tears. Where is Ray? How is Hai?
“Don’t weep.” The woman patted her shoulder. “You’ll feel better if you eat.”
“Thank you for helping me,” said Nina, wiping away her tears. “What should I call you?”
“Everybody calls me Gui’s Wife or Gui’s because my husband’s family name is Gui. What’s your name?”
“Nina.”
“Strange name.”
“It’s Russian.”
“You city people are always funny. Aren’t you afraid of being called a ‘running dog’ since the Soviet Union is revisionist?”
“The Soviet Union was our fraternal country when my parents named me.”
Nina spooned the congee into her mouth, devouring it as she had not eaten a home-cooked meal since she she had gone to live on the military farm. The pork congee tasted salty and sweet and was full of Chinese cabbage and lotus root.
Seeing Nina gulp the food, Gui’s Wife asked with a chuckle, “Want another bowl?”
“Yes, please. It’s delicious.”
“Mom, I want a bowl of congee, too,” said the boy.
“Go get it yourself, Bean.” The mother smiled.
Nina felt better after she swallowed her second serving. No longer dizzy, she wanted to get out of bed. “Where’re my jacket and pants?”
“Not dry yet. Try mine,” said Gui’s Wife as she pulled a blouse and a pair of slacks out of a closet.
“You are very kind,” said Nina hugging the clothes to her chest. “Do you know how to get to the Office of Resident Affairs?”
“You’ll have to ask Gui when he comes home. Don’t worry; you’ll get a resident card. Why don’t you get dressed now and join me in the kitchen.”
Nina took a few steps and was thankful that she was not in pain from the bite. She pulled on the baggy clothes and peered around the door. “Gui’s, can I help you with anything?”
“My goodness!” Gui’s Wife slapped her thigh, a broad grin on her face. “I forgot I was hanging kelp.”
Nina followed Gui’s Wife outdoors to a walled yard where half-dried kelp hung on bamboo sticks across a low wall, waving in the breeze that blew in salty air from the sea. Gui’s Wife stooped over a vat to pick up kelp, piece by piece, and along with her, Nina hung the kelp on available bamboo sticks. The kelp swayed slightly. With a deep breath, Nina felt the sea again, and its familiar odour aroused more memories in her.
***
Five-year-old Nina enjoyed ambling on the beach with her mother, where she gathered seashells and colourful pebbles into the toy bucket she was carrying. As she spied sails in the choppy sea, she thought about her father, who was always busy, working on a naval base in Hainan, another province, and who only returned home once or twice a month. She wondered which one was her father’s navy vessel and asked, “When will Daddy come home?”
“Perhaps in a week,” answered her mother. “Someday we’ll let you see what a navy vessel looks like.”
“It must be big. Like that?” Little Nina tilted her head, and her arms stretched widely toward the far-away sails. The pail in her hand fell. The shells and pebbles fell onto the sand.
“Much bigger,” answered her mother, with a wide smile. She helped refill Nina’s pail. “You’ll see.”
Nina did not see her father often, let alone his vessel. She was ten when she finally got the opportunity to visit her father on the vessel along with her mother.
Nina climbed with her parents onto a warship anchored at a military port, which looked like a three-storey building floating over the water. Together they had a seafood meal in a light blue dining hall. Nina imagined the table would shake if the water pushed the ship, so she jumped hard on the floor, but nothing budged. After supper, the family strolled along a path in the military compound. Holding her mother’s hand on one side and her father’s on the other, Nina bounced along kicking up tiny rocks with joy. She raised her head to look at a number of dark green, basketball-sized objects in the high palm trees. “My heavens, what are those balls?”
Amused by her old-fashioned exclamation, her father laughed out loud. “Oh, my silly girl. They’re coconuts.”
“But I’ve never seen big coconuts like these.” She pulled at her father’s hand.
***
“Nina, take a break.” Gui’s Wife’s loud voice dragged her back to the present. Turning around, Nina found the vat empty and all the kelp already on the sticks. Back in the living room, Gui’s Wife brewed a pot of herbal tea.
“Are you hot?” asked Gui’s Wife as she soaked the teapot in a basin of cold water. “In ten
minutes, we’ll drink cold tea. It’s really good.”
“You work very hard.”
“I learned to do all kinds of chores as a little girl. Gui is more capable. Kids in the country start working earlier. Not like city kids.”
“I didn’t learn about the hard life of farmers until I lived on a military farm.”
“Tea’s ready.” Gui’s Wife handed a tall glass to Nina. “Life on a military farm is better than our farmers’ life. We depended on the heavens. During years of poor weather we didn’t have enough to eat. This is why we decided to sneak into Hong Kong. We sure have a better life here. When Gui comes home, you can ask him anything you want about Hong Kong.”
***
The following day, Nina went into town by bus with the family. Gui first led her to the Office of Resident Affairs while his wife took their son to the mall. By the time they met again, Nina had received her resident card, and Gui had bought himself rubber boots, Gui’s Wife her favourite floral cloth, and Bean, a toy gun. The following week, Nina helped Gui’s Wife pick kelp on the beach. The collected kelp was then dried in the yard, and later, packed and stored. Every other week, Gui’s Wife sold the kelp packages to a vendor. In the evening, Nina taught Bean how to read and write.
Several days later, Nina visited the American Consulate on Garden Street and requested an application for political asylum. On the same trip, she bought a Chinese-English dictionary from a bookstore. With the help of the dictionary, she worked on the application form for several days, filling it out with the required information:
Applicant: Nina Huang, born in 1949. Student, 1956-68. Thought reform on the Number Five Military Farm, 1968-1969. Arrived in Hong Kong on August 28, 1969.
Father: Jim Huang, born in 1924. Studied at West Point Academy, 1946-48. Returned to China and worked in the Nationalist Army, 1948-1949. Joined the PLA in 1949. Served in the Chinese Navy, 1955-1966. Persecuted because of his training in the U.S. and died in October 1966.
Mother: Min Liao, born in 1925. Medical doctor at Guangzhou Children’s Hospital, 1950-1967. Labour Camp, 1967-69. Under house arrest, 1969-present.
She attached two additional pages describing why she was applying for political asylum and sent the package by registered mail. Several weeks later, she returned to the American Consulate for an interview.
She had written to Ray’s grandmother in Guangzhou to ask about Ray, but she had not heard back. Her letter may have been intercepted or Ray’s grandmother may not have dared to answer. The word “death” haunted her so much that she could not help but sob. Gui’s Wife would pat her shoulder and say in a quivering voice, “Crying is no help.” But she wept along with Nina, wiping her tears with the corner of her apron.
Often, Nina wondered about Hai. How would he be punished if caught crossing the border? What is he doing if he is in Vietnam? The questions were like worms eating away at her heart. She felt hollow, but she could not contact Hai or Dew for answers. Any letter from outside of China, to either of them, would create suspicion and make trouble for them. Praying for Hai and hoping he had survived was the only thing she could do.
Nina began to follow Voice of America’s “English 900” program on the radio. Listening to the English conversations provided her with glimpses into American society and culture. She imagined her future in that society. She would not be forced to read Mao’s or anybody else’s works; she would not be afraid of expressing a different opinion; she would not be judged by her family background and be regarded as the offspring of the revolution’s enemies. She would have the right to make choices in her own life. She wished someday, somewhere, that she might meet Hai again.
When, six months later, a package from the American Consulate arrived, Nina opened it with trembling hands. She had been granted a visa to enter the U.S. She was overcome with relief and sorrow. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and she could not keep her hand, which held the passport, from shaking.
“Don’t go. Those blue-eyed and high-nosed people are scary,” Gui’s Wife said, her voice quivering. They had become close over the past six months. “You’re educated and you will earn more money than us. You don’t need to go,” she pleaded, pulling on Nina’s arm. “Stay here, with us.”
Nina raised her head and looked deeply into Gui’s Wife’s eyes, knowing with certainty that she could not stay. The green sheet of paper that had unfolded in front of her, granting her asylum, looked shiny, as if a sparkling star had emerged in a starless sky.
Frog Fishing
ONE DAY AT NOON in early September of 1976, I stood on a ridge that bordered fields of rice paddies on the outskirts of a southern city in China and stared at the line hanging over the rice plants from the tip of my bamboo stick. I was fishing with Pearl for frogs during our two-hour lunch break. Once in a while I pulled my stick up and down, and the moth-like cotton shook around to lure a frog. The sun rose high in the sky and helped turn rice heads golden-yellow. The wind sometimes blew a gust of cool air – air that seemed to be whispering secrets.
“My God! A huge one!” Pearl’s scream startled me. “Lotus, help me catch it!”
I raised my head and scanned the rice paddies, but I couldn’t see Pearl. Had a giant frog dragged her into the water? I dropped my fishing rod and ran along the ridge in the direction of her voice. In front of me, locusts hopped on rice plants, and frogs jumped into the water.
Pearl was sprawled, face down on the ground, her arms outstretched, her hands pinning her grey jacket against the narrow muddy ridge.
“Be quick!” she shouted. “I can’t hold on anymore.”
When I bent over, my eyes met with hers – eyes that looked like those of a goldfish, pallid and desperate. Her face glistened with sweat.
I noticed a huge lump twitching under her jacket and imagined a big bowl of delicious soup. Excited, I inserted my hand under her jacket to pull the creature out. Finally, I touched something snappy and slick. Fumbling around with my fingers, I managed to grab hold of two slippery legs.
“You can let go,” I told Pearl.
As she loosened her hands, I pulled the wriggling thing out from under the jacket. It wasn’t a frog but a pudgy, fleshy toad. Before I had time to examine my captive, a spurt of liquid shot from between its legs toward my face. Gasping in astonishment, I flung the still urinating toad into the air. The animal, like a tiny aircraft, arced up into the air, then shot down, and, with a loud slap, hit a large stone.
After I wiped my eyes with a handkerchief, I found the pitiful toad lying on its back, its grey belly up, probably dead.
“Do you hear the school bell?” asked Pearl, who rose from the ground.
I listened. It was our bell ringing. Glancing at my watch, I answered, “It’s 1:19. We still have about forty minutes before the start of afternoon classses.”
“Who’s crazy enough to ring the bell that early today?” asked Pearl.
“Let’s go back to see what’s going on. I have a class to teach at two anyway,” I answered.
We collected our two short bamboo sticks and a plastic bag full of small cotton puffs that we used for frog fishing, and hid them under a bush near a rice paddy for the next time. I smoothed my clothes and walked back to school with Pearl, empty-handed.
When we reached the playground, we saw that other teachers were walking into the auditorium. We caught up to them and followed them inside, where our principal already stood on the stage. His face was long and narrow and so sombre that we’d long ago nicknamed him Long Face.
Eight years earlier, as the leader of a poor farmers’ group, Long Face had been sent to Grass Elementary School according to Mao’s policy to remould the teachers. In Long Face’s unique way of reading, he pronounced the word “monkey” as “money” and spelt “deadline” as “deadlion.” In any case, he was an appointed principal, so who dared to correct him?
“Attention! You bourgeois teachers,” the
sad voice of Long Face echoed – he enjoyed using words from propaganda materials. “Our reddest, Red Sun … he’s fallen from the sky, alas!” he sobbed.
“Chairman Mao?” I turned my head toward Pearl who sat next to me, and stared at her in disbelief.
She raised her eyebrows. “Dead?”
Then a dirge, punctuated with sobbing and whimpering, filled the auditorium. The grey-bellied toad came into my mind and a sense of mercy about death rose inside me. Before that moment, I’d often thought, like everyone in China, that Chairman Mao was immortal. “Long live Chairman Mao!” was the mantra heard everywhere in the country, all the time. Talking, even thinking, about the death of Mao was viewed as a sin, a crime.
The principal demanded we cancel all afternoon classes to begin the mourning process. Teachers were to organize the students into groups to make wreaths with white paper flowers for an altar and black armbands for everybody to wear.
After school, we created the altar on the stage in the auditorium where we’d hold a wake for Chairman Mao. The staff was divided into three-person groups. Each group would keep watch for a ten-hour shift until seven days had passed and Mao’s soul had risen to the heavens.
I was partnered with Jade, a middle-aged teacher of Chinese language, and Baton, a young teacher of Physical Education. Often, Baton’s ball missed the basketball ring, and the students would snicker at him behind his back.
That evening, according to the schedule, I walked into the auditorium for our assigned vigil at seven o’clock sharp. Jade was already seated in a chair facing the altar. Baton stood and leaned by a window, although all other seats were unoccupied. A lit cigarette between his fingers became shorter bit by bit as smoke drifted from his nose like fog in front of his face.
Jade waved at me to come over to her. I walked purposefully toward the altar and perched next to her. We sat tight without speaking for several hours. Jade was usually very talkative. Today she was silent. The door was ajar and the night breeze blew in, dissipating Baton’s cigarette smoke. The white paper flowers and ribbons decorating the huge wreath trembled slightly with the breeze. A large, black Chinese character painted on the diamond-shaped piece of paper in the centre of the wreath read “the spirit of the dead.” The surrounding ashen flowers poked out of the arrangement like grey bones. The word “dead” in the centre of the wreath seemed ready to leap out from the circle of grey bones.