Fortune is a Woman (30 page)

Annie glanced anxiously out the window again. It was snowing and her heart sank. Lai Tsin's eyes met hers and she knew he understood what she was thinking; that the doctor would never get through such a storm. Squaring her shoulders, she told herself babies got born every day, there was nothing to it. She could cope.

Francie winced as the pain grabbed her again. "Talk to me," she begged. "Tell me the rest of your story, Lai Tsin. Please."

He looked worriedly at her. "It is not the right time to hear my cruel tale," he said.

"Yes, please, it will help take my mind off things."

He shook his head, wondering
what
to tell her...
how
to tell her. There was only one way.

"I did not know it then, but I was at a place they called Little River, notorious for the savagery of its seas and also for the pirate ships bringing in illegal Chinese immigrants. The tide was surging rapidly up the small beach and I knew I was in danger. I looked around and saw where cliffs ran into an inlet and I followed them, searching for a place to climb out of reach of the racing tide. At last, far above me on the bluff I saw a few scrubby bushes and beyond, clusters of pine trees. I clambered up the steep slope, clinging to the stones, scrabbling upward inch by painful inch. My hands were bleeding and my neck ached with the strain of always looking upward because I knew if I ever looked down at the tide, already swirling and crashing on the rocks below, my courage would fail me.

"At last I reached the scrub. I grasped the thorny, brittle branches, hauling myself ever up, and then I was amongst the trees; the slope was less steep and there was grass under my feet. I flung myself down, sobbing with fear and exhaustion and shivering with cold. After a while I plucked up my courage and began walking through the forest, but the trees clustered together so thickly, they cut out even the black night sky. I was left in total darkness. I could not walk any farther. I curled myself up as small as possible, praying there were no fierce tigers or dragons or poisonous snakes in this American forest, and exhausted, I fell asleep.

"I was awakened by a thin gray light filtering through the tall pines. My wet clothes clung to my body and my belly was hollow with the craving for food. I began to walk again, upward from the shore. The forest was changing; as well as the pines there were lofty redwoods with trunks vaster in circumference than the arms of two men. Somewhere in the distance I heard the whine of a saw and knew I must be near a mill.

"Panicked, I sat beneath a tree trying to think what I must do. I was a Chinese child, small and terrified. I spoke no English. I had no papers that allowed me to be in America and no money to pay for food, even if I knew how to ask for it. I thought if the Americans found me they would kill me and I decided I must wait until nightfall and try to steal some food. I would walk each night until I came to the city and the Gold Mountain and then I would get work with my countrymen from Toishan.

"I crept closer to the sounds coming from the sawmill and finally I saw it through the trees. It was a tall wooden building perched on a bluff overlooking a rushing river. There was a strong smell of resin in the air and all around lay great fallen trees and planks of wood piled high and bound with rope. Men brandishing axes were hacking the branches from the big fallen redwoods while others jumped agilely on the logs floating on the river. I knew the ax-brandishing men were the
gwailos,
the foreign devils, and I shrank back with fear.

"I circled behind the mill and saw a small wooden shanty. Smoke came from the chimney and a woman in a black dress and a flowered apron was throwing crumbs to the few stringy hens roaming by the door. My heart lifted, where there were hens, there were eggs. If I were clever and silent enough, I would have a meal that evening. Then it sank as I saw the shambling black dog sniffing in the bushes. He would be sure to bark and warn his mistress.

"As the sun set, the whining of the saw ceased and the
gwailos
drifted homeward, shouting and laughing. I waited until the woman had gathered her hens together and locked them in their pen for the night. She called her dog and went inside and closed the door. I saw the light of a lamp through the curtained windows and my heart ached for the lamplit security of my poor village near the Yangtze—until I remembered my father and what he had done to us, and I knew that I had no home. I steeled my heart and vowed to go on. Somehow I would survive and one day I would return to my village a rich man. And I would destroy him the way he had destroyed my mother and Mayling.

"As dusk fell, I crept closer and sat behind a tree waiting for darkness. The birds sought their nests and fell silent and the rustling in the forest stilled.

"I crept stealthily up to the pen. The hens squawked loudly and I stood there, trembling, letting them get used to me. Then I quickly searched their nests and found two warm eggs. I couldn't wait. I cracked them open and poured them into my gaping mouth. I was ravenous for more. I scooped up the scraps she had thrown down for the hens and ate them. I found the dog's dish and scraped up the remains of its dinner, licking the bowl. And then, still hungry, I started to walk again through the forest.

"I do not know how many days I walked, or how far. I lived on berries and roots. I caught a young rabbit and killed it, scraping off its fur with a stone. Then I ripped it limb from limb and devoured it with its blood still warm. The forest thinned until I was in an orchard, and I chewed the wizened fallen apples and drank water from the brook.

"The hot daytime sun had dried my clothes but the nights were cold and as dawn came I could see my breath on the icy air. That next night it grew even colder and though I walked even faster it was impossible to get warm. I still had only my cotton trousers and smock and my thin cloth shoes were now full of holes. I saw a path and followed it and soon came across a long wooden building with a bell on top in a little tower. The door was open and I crept in. In the moonlight, I saw rows of long wooden benches and an altar table with a cross such as I had seen at the mission in Nanking. I realized it must be the
gwailos'
holy place and I prostrated myself and kowtowed to the foreigners' god, touching my head respectfully to the floor so that he would not mind my intrusion.

"It was a cold place but at least I was out of the freezing wind and I stretched out on one of the wooden benches and closed my eyes. It was the first time I had felt four walls around me since I left China. I felt strangely peaceful and secure, and I slept.

"I awoke suddenly. Sunlight was streaming in through a tall window and someone was shaking me by the shoulder. It was a man, dressed all in black, red-faced, with hard eyes of a pale water-blue such as I never saw in China."

Lai Tsin paused. He stared down at the floor, unwilling to go on, and Francie said comfortingly, "It's all right, you don't have to tell us."

He shrugged, "It is nothing. The man was a preacher. I did not understand what he was saying but I knew I was his prisoner. I looked wildly about me for an escape and the man laughed, a big booming laugh, like his deep voice. And holding me by the shoulder he marched me out of the chapel and along a path until we came to a small village. There were a dozen two-story houses and stores strung along a straggling road. It was early morning and people were about, women dressed like the one I had seen with the hens, in long, full-skirted dresses and flowered aprons. Some wore bonnets and capes, and I envied the men their warm woolen shirts and jackets. Like him, they were bleak, silent, hard-eyed men and women and they stared open-mouthed at the pastor and his strange captive.

"I did not understand his language but I knew what he was telling them. 'Found him in the chapel,' the pastor said, 'a young Celestial,
a heathen boy.
God has sent him to our little community to test us, and I shall take up the challenge.
I
shall teach this heathen boy the ways of our Lord.'

"The pastor's house was dark and musty. I had never been in a
gwailo
house before and it frightened me. It was so different from what I knew, full of ticking clocks and paintings of more hard-eyed men, with heavy, dark furniture and velvet curtains at the many-paned windows. But a big fire burned in the grate and as the man released me I ran toward it and held out my hands. I stood there, my cheeks stinging from the heat, feeling his eyes on me all the while. Then he said something and took me again by the shoulder. We went outside to a shed with a small zinc tub. He indicated that I should remove my clothes. I was frightened and refused. I tried to run away but he was too strong. He was shouting at me, red-faced with anger, as he ripped off my clothing and bade me climb into the tub. I stood there, naked and ashamed, unable to look at him. He filled a big jug with water from a nearby faucet and then he poured it over me. It was like ice and I yelled and wriggled but still he held me, his fingers digging cruelly into my shoulder. He gave me a bar of coarse, smelly lye soap and made me wash myself, then he poured the icy water over me again. When the ordeal was over he gave me a piece of sacking on which to dry myself and I wrapped myself in it, my teeth chattering with cold and fear. And then the door opened and a woman came in.

"She gasped when she saw me, but he quickly explained and she went out again and came back later with some clothing. I put on the
gwailo
clothes. Everything was gray, the undershirt, the flannel shirt, the trousers, the woolen sweater. But the boots were black. And big, with huge nails. I had only ever worn the cloth peasant shoes of China and these were hard and stiff and hurt my feet. They crunched my toes and rooted me to the spot with their weight.

"The woman heated some soup and put a steaming bowl in front of me at the table. I thought I would faint at the aroma. I picked it up and began to drink but she shouted at me. Though I did not understand her words I knew she was saying, 'No, no, you heathen child. You must use the spoon,' and she gave me a long-handled spoon such as I had never seen before.

"The man sat at the end of the table. His eyes never left me and he was smiling a strange little smile. He had fed me and clothed me, but I did not trust him. And I did not like him.

"When I had finished the soup the woman came to me. She folded my hands together and made me bow my head, and then she and the pastor did the same while he recited some
gwailo
prayers. Then the man took me by the shoulder again and we went up the narrow wooden stairs. He opened a door and thrust me inside. I heard a key turn in the lock and I was alone.

"I looked around me. The room was small, the walls were dark, and there were big chests and cupboards in heavy ugly woods. I looked longingly at the little bed covered in a white quilt. In all my life I had only ever slept on the floor on a grass bedmat. I had never even seen a bed like this before. I was exhausted and it lured me to it. But I sensed I was in danger. I could not stay. I ran to the window and looked out. There was a metal pipe running down the side of the wall just outside and for a small agile child it was an easy matter to wriggle through the window and climb down. I was on the ground. I slipped around the side of the house and slid like a shadow back into the trees.

"In a few minutes I was on my way again, hampered by my big boots and my unaccustomed clothing. But I was warm, I had food in my belly, and I felt stronger. And I knew I had escaped some evil I did not understand.

"I walked all that day and all the next night, stopping only to search for food, berries, roots, apples, mushrooms. I would have died happy for a bowl of steaming hot rice-gruel. I had no idea if what I was eating was poison, but I was so hungry I no longer cared. If fate willed it, I would live; if not, I would die.

"The trees thinned out and the landscape became more open. Instead of forest there were undulating grassy hills, meadows, and orchards. I hid myself in the hedgerows by day and walked at night. One morning, as dawn broke, I found myself on the outskirts of a village similar to the one I had seen before. Only this was larger, the houses were bigger, there were flower gardens and stores and all around the hills were strange-looking bushes planted in neat rows. And working in the fields were Chinamen.

"My eyes bulged from my head in astonishment. I thought to myself that this must be the Gold Mountain where the men from Toishan are making their fortunes. I stared around looking for the piles of gold and silver, but all I saw were the strange bushes and the men pruning them. I ran joyously toward them, shouting and waving my arms, and they looked up, exclaiming in astonishment at the little Celestial boy in the big black boots. There were dozens of them and they gathered around as I told my story, and they gasped with horror, cursing the
gwailo
ship's captain as an evil devil and the son of a whore. They told me this was not the Gold Mountain but a place where they grew grapes to make the barbarians' wine. Mostly they worked digging the caves under the ground, but because of the frost they had been sent to look after the vines that day.

"I looked hard at them. They were not dressed in the silks of rich men; they wore the coarse cotton smocks of the peasant. They were tilling fields the way they did at home and digging caves deep underground. Where then was the Gold Mountain? I asked them eagerly. They shook their heads. They had never found it.

"They took me back with them that evening to see their master. They said though I was young, I was strong and could dig harder than any of them. The master was big, like all the foreign devils. His shoulders were broad like the water buffalo's and I thought he could dig harder than all of us. But he wore elegant britches and a jacket of calfskin and he sat like a god astride his beautiful black stallion that danced so impatiently. He owned all the land we could see and now he owned us too.

" 'Put him to work then and we'll see,' he said coldly.

"I went with all the other Celestials to the long house where they ate and slept. A Chinese cook was ladling out bowls of rice and vegetables and the saliva poured into my mouth at its smell. I devoured two bowls and felt that my stomach would surely burst. Then, having no bedmat, I curled up in a corner and slept the way a child should.