Hawaii (79 page)

In a wicker basket Nyuk Tsin packed the food for the trip: soy vinegar, pickled cabbage, spices, dried fish, seeds to chew on and several chunks of flattened duck. The implements for cooking also went into the basket: chopsticks, a charcoal stove, one old cup and two old rice bowls.

The little room now contained only a bed and a poem. The former would be rolled up in the morning; the latter, which explained the manner in which the names of one Kee generation followed another, was contained in a red-lined book in which the genealogy was kept, and as the most precious of Kee Mun Ki's possessions, it would be the last to leave and would be carried by Mun Ki himself.

Surveying the quarters in which he had lived with reasonable happiness, and from which he had moved out to become a skilled gambler, Mun Ki sighed. Then, seeing Nyuk Tsin standing forlorn in the middle of the dimly lit room, he said, "You may undress now,"

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and when she untied her wrist and dropped away her clothes, and when he saw that the cord marks were disappearing from her body, he smiled and indicated that she could sleep with him. Since she had expected to be tied up again and thrown onto the floor, she came to him gratefully and was not afraid when he began quietly to enjoy her. He was the first man who had ever touched her with what could even remotely be termed affection, and she found herself reciprocating. They had a vigorous passage of love and Mun Ki thought: "In some way she's better than my Kung wife." When they were through he remembered to reach for the cord to tie her to him, but when he took her wrists she pleaded: "It is not necessary." He was tempted to believe her, but he knew that if she ran away he would not only look the fool but would also be required to refund the ten Mexican dollars plus whatever his boss had paid the kidnapers, so he lashed her wrists to his; but he did allow her to sleep beside him.

In the morning, when they were dressed, he finally threw away the rope, for he thought: "If I report to Dr. Whipple leading this girl by a rope, he will hardly believe my story that I am married to her," and on his ability so to convince the American depended the success of this voyage. But when the rope fell in the dust of the little room, Nyuk Tsin stooped down and retrieved it for tying her basket of food. When they left the room, Nyuk Tsin carried the tub and the heavy basket. Mun Ki carried the feather-light bedroll and the genealogy book, but after he had stepped into the filthy yard behind the brothel, Nyuk Tsin called to him and pointed to the wall above where the bed had stood and where a sign now hung that she could not read. Mun Ki whistled at his forgetfulness and recovered the omen of special good fortune: "May This Bed Yield a Hundred SonsI" Tucking it under his arm, he led his woman to the waiting ship.

At the quay Dr. Whipple stood ready to berate the only man he had who could converse with the Hakka, and as soon as Mun Ki appeared, the Cantonese interpreter started shouting at him, but he ignored the man and marched contritely up to the American. Bowing his head in feigned apologies he said softly, "I am a thousand times humble, sir, for having run away." Then, producing the overburdened Nyuk Tsin, he said simply, "I had to find my good wife."

"Your wife!" the interpreter stormed. "No women are allowed on this . . ."

Dr. Whipple, noticing the girl's big feet, asked, "Isn't she a

Hakka?"

"Yes," Mun Ki replied, and the American scientist, remembering how he had once idly considered the desirability of importing some Hakka women to Hawaii, asked, "Do you wish to take her with you?"

When this was interpreted, Mun Ki piously nodded and explained: "I could not bear to leave her behind."

"I'm willing to try it," Whipple announced. Then he warned Mun Ki: "But when she gets to Hawaii, she's got to work."

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"Shell work," Mun Ki assured him.

At this moment the hundred and fifty Hakka men saw Char Nyuk Tsin for the first time since her abduction on the Eve of Ching Ming, and they began to cry to her, and Mun Ki knew that if they explained who she was, his fanciful story would be exploded, but he also realized that no one on the quay but he could understand what they were saying, so he nudged Nyuk Tsin and told her, "Speak to them." Pushing her toward the Hakka, he followed behind and cried to the men, "This girl is my wife." And the Hakka saw about his waist a red marriage belt and they began to wonder what had happened. "Are you indeed married to the Punti?" they shouted. Mun Ki jabbed his girl in the back and whispered, "Tell them you are." So Nyuk Tsin informed her countrymen, none of whom had ever befriended her after her parents' death, "He is my husband." And the Hakka looked at her in scorn and would have no more to do with her, for their parents had often warned them about what had happened to the disgraceful Hakka girl who had married a Punti man in 1693.

This problem settled, quick-thinking Mun Ki now faced one far more serious, for Dr. Whipple was calling, through his interpreter, for the married couple to join him, but when Mun Ki and Nyuk Tsin started to do so, they had to pass through the Punti contingent, and these men were even more outraged at Mun Ki than the Hakka had been. They, too, had been well drilled in the evil that had befallen the Punti man who had dared to marry a Hakka girl back in 1693, and they drew away from Mun Ki as if he were unclean, but as he passed each group he muttered to those from whom he had borrowed: "Last night. Big winnings. Lots of money for you." And this softened their anger.

When he reached Dr. Whipple, the American said, "We will have to ask the captain of the ship if he will accept another passenger. And if he says yes, you will have to pay passage money for your wife."

He therefore sent a sailor in search of the captain, and in a moment a towering American loomed among the Chinese, a man in his seventies, with stout muscles and a sea cap jammed on the back of his head. He had fierce, dynamic eyes and looked at the men about to board his ship as if he hated each one of them with deep, personal anger. Brushing them away as he strode through their groups, he came up to Whipple and asked, "What is it, John?"

"Captain Hoxworth," the trim, gray-haired scientist began, "I find one man wants to bring his wife along."

"You willing to pay five dollars' passage money?" Hoxworth asked.

"Yes. I'll get it from the man."

"Then it's simple," the captain growled. "She can come."

Dr. Whipple conveyed the news to Mun Ki, who grinned happily, explaining to the interpreter, "A man would not like to leave his wife in Macao." Dr. Whipple was impressed by this sentiment and asked Captain Hoxworth, "Where will the couple sleep?"

In the holdl" Hoxworth snapped with some surprise that the

question should have been asked. "Where the hell do you suppose they would sleep?"

"I thought," Whipple began, "that with her the only woman, and three hundred men . . ."

"In the hold!" Hoxworth shouted. Then, addressing the Chinese, who could not possibly understand him, he roared, "Because when this ship sails I don't want to see one goddamned Chinee anywhere but locked up in the hold. I'm warning you."

"Rafer," Dr. Whipple began again. "In the case of this couple, couldn't they stay with ..." -

Captain Hoxworth turned quickly, pointed his long forefinger at his missionary friend, and snapped: "They'll stay in the hold. How do I know this rascal isn't a pirate? How do you know he's married? There'll be no pigtailed Chinee anywhere on this ship except locked below."

Reluctantly Dr. Whipple explained to Mun Ki that if he insisted upon bringing his wife along, she would have to share the hold along with two hundred and ninety-nine other men, but to his confusion Mun Ki evidenced no surprise and Captain Hoxworth observed: "It's nothing to them. They live like animals."

The moment had now arrived when the Chinese were to board the Carthaginian as it lay alongside the Macao quay, and Portuguese officers, in brilliant uniforms, took their places at the gangplank, checking off numbers rather than the names. The Cantonese interpreter said farewell, and the three hundred Chinese men and their one woman were left alone in two hostile groups, Hakka and Punti, with no one who could converse with the Americans who ran the ship and with only one man, Mun Ki, who could make himself understood to both contingents. However, their thoughts were diverted from their plight by the natural excitement involved in climbing aboard the schooner from whose mast flew the blue H & H flag. When the first Chinese stood at the top of the gangplank and saw before him the great open ocean, he hesitated in natural apprehension, which was increased when a sailor grabbed his pitiful store of belongings to stow them aft. The Punti started after his precious bundle, but he was halted by Captain Hoxworth, who grabbed him by the pigtail, spun him around and with a forceful kick sent him stumbling across the deck. "Get down into the hold, you stupid Chinee!" Hoxworth roared, and when the uncomprehending Punti stood in bewilderment, the captain kicked him again. The Chinese staggered backward toward the open hold, missed the ladder and plunged headfirst fourteen feet into the dark interior of the ship.

Instantly the remaining Chinese became tense, and Captain Hoxworth sensed this, for he whipped around, grabbed a belaying pin and took three determined steps toward the men climbing up the gangplank. Cursing them in a language they could not understand, he grabbed the arm of the next Punti, swung him about, and launched him toward the ladder. When the Chinese had sense enough to climb

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down, the big American roared, "There's gonna be no trouble aboard this ship!" And he brandished his belaying pin as the future plantation hands disappeared into the dark hold.

As they went below, the Chinese caught a last glimpse of their homeland, and unconsolable sorrows assaulted them, for it was a miserable thing when a man left China, and some sensed that never again would they see this great land; no matter how harshly China had treated them it was still the Middle Kingdom, the heavenly land suspended between mere earth and the residence of the gods: the sweeping plains, the rice fields in the spring, the glorious mountains, and the wild, cruel rivers. It was a land men could love, and for each who now deserted it, there came a memory of the village where his ancestral pavilion waited his return.

Just before it was Nyuk Tsin's turn to enter the hold, a thoughtful Punti climbed back out to advise Captain Hoxworth that the first man who had been thrown into the ship had broken his ankle, but when the good Samaritan reached the deck Hoxworth became furious and clouted the man with his bekying pin, knocking him back into the hold, where his friends caught him. "Don't any of you goddamned Chinee pirates come up onto my deck!" the captain bellowed.

Nyuk Tsin was the last person down the ladder, and as she prepared to descend, she saw Dr. Whipple smiling at her while Captain Hoxworth monitored her with his belaying pin. Beyond them she caught a last glimpse of China, and when she thought of the brutal way in which this land had murdered her parents, and of the near starvation in which she had lived, and of the archaic terror she had known with her kidnapers, she was glad to see the end of China. Since she was only a woman, her name appeared in no ancestral hall and there were no ties binding her to the mountains other than the memory of the animal-like loads her uncle had piled upon her, so as she saw her homeland for the last time she whispered to herself, "Farewell, cursed land. I shall never see you again."

Then she saw at the bottom of the ladder the young gambler, Mun Ki, the only person in many years who had been kind to her, and gladly she climbed down to be with him, and she was gratified when he extended his hand to help her; but she did not know that he was doing so to prevent her from breaking a leg, for an accident like that would seriously diminish her value when it came time to sell her in Honolulu.

As she reached bottom, the ladder was hauled out and heavy boards were dropped across the opening. When it became apparent that the hold was to be completely closed, the Chinese began a loud wail of protest, and Captain Hoxworth shouted, "Get the muskets!" When they were produced he ordered three sailors to kneel along the edge of the hold, then he shouted, "Fire!" Shots whistled past the pigtails and crashed into the bulkheads. The terrified Chinese fell to the floor and the last boards of the covering were hammered into place. Now only a faltering light filtered in through a narrow

grating, and there was no air, but a sail was rigged on deck so that when the ship was in motion, a breeze would be trapped and funneled below. There was no regular supply of water, only one foul bucket for slops, and such bedding as each man had brought of his own, nor were there any blankets for those who tried to sleep. It was in these quarters that Nyuk Tsin started housekeeping with her gambler, Mun Ki, and his two hundred and ninety-nine companions.

One thing was settled quickly. The Punti took their position forward and the Hakka aft, for naturally neither group wished to contaminate itself with the other, and for Nyuk Tsin there was a moment of hesitation when she felt that perhaps she ought to settle down with her own people, but they showed that they wanted nothing to do with a Hakka girl who had married a Punti; and at the same time the Punti made no effort to welcome her, so she took her position in a corner of the Punti terrain, and there she was left alone with her husband. The Punti did, however, bring to her their fellow with the broken ankle and they suggested in signs that she repair the damage. She studied the man's leg and concluded that the break was not complicated, so she made a splint of chopsticks and lashed it in place with ends of cloth. Then she borrowed bedding from others and made a rude mattress on which the man rested. If there had been water, she would have washed his face, too.

Now there was a motion of the ship, a swaying in the offshore breezes and finally the slow, steady roll of the ocean itself. Before long the hold was a confused agony of seasickness, with men vomiting everywhere and then rolling indifferently in it. Nyuk Tsin became so nauseated that she hoped the ship would sink, and in this stench the first awful night passed.