Journey Across the Four Seas (11 page)

If it hadn’t been for this good Samaritan, I don’t know how I could have survived the journey. After the war, when I met up with our mutual friend, I asked about the reporter. She told me he’d died a horrible death. A dog had bitten him in the leg while he was on assignment in the countryside. He’d thought nothing of it at the time, but soon after he went into convulsions and his mouth frothed like a mad dog’s. He died within days.

The moment the train pulled into
Liuchow
station, the siren started to wail. Enemy planes screamed down and strafed the station. I scrambled off the train into the air-raid shelter, muttering, "I’m really going to die in
Liuchow
now." The Chinese believed that the best place to die was
Liuchow
because the area was famous for its timber, the material for coffins. And here I was in
Liuchow
, huddled in a cave, with bullets showering overhead and bombs about to drop.

But my time hadn’t come yet. As abruptly as the planes came, they were gone. Locals told us that the Japanese loved to play tricks like this once every few days. They weren’t out to get anybody—just to serve a gentle reminder that our lives were in their hands.

The sun was setting when the next leg of our journey neared its end. The train chugged into
Kweilin
, where the mountains and waters were renowned to be the finest under heaven. Poets and writers had written volumes about it through the ages. Looking out from the train, I witnessed the view of the ancients, and knew that they hadn’t been lying. An enchanting landscape of limestone formations rose from the earth. Some of them stood straight and sharp like pencils; others lay rounded and smooth like velvet cushions; others seemed alive, drinking from the river in the shapes of elephants and camels. Meandering around the fantastic figures was the
Kwei
River
, flat as a red ribbon in the sun’s last rays. I felt I had entered a fairyland, where benign spirits dwelled behind every rock and inside every cave.

Night had fallen by the time we checked into a hotel. The sensible thing to do was grab a bite and turn in, but we were young and impulsive and had to experience for ourselves the most beautiful place in the world. Out we went again as soon as we had dumped our bags in the room. One of the boys suggested a boat ride, so we struck out for the river.

The five of us piled into a rental boat. The boys rowed until we were far from shore. Water shimmered all around, enveloping and submerging everything in its light. A quarter-moon lay on its back like a smiling mouth among the stars. A second moon gleamed at us, inviting us to scoop it out of the water. It all started with somebody telling the story of the poet Li Bo jumping into the river to catch the moon. Then it became a challenge. Before anyone could think of consequences, the boys were racing to peel off shoes, socks, shirts, and pants. Peter stood up, stripped to his underwear. I turned away, too embarrassed to look. Splash, in
he went. The others followed—headfirst or feetfirst, in style or not.

It took me one second to decide. I hitched up my cheongsam and jumped in. The cool water made me shudder and swim with all my might. I felt wonderfully reckless. I’d dodged Japanese bullets, sneaked past gunboats, and slipped out of the clutches of criminals. What harm could befall me in this placid river, surrounded by four bodyguards? I’d found my people; however far I wandered, I would never be alone again. For the first time since the Japanese invaded
Hong Kong
, I laughed. At the risk of getting a gulp of water, I opened my mouth wide and released a gurgle of joy from my heart.

We went dripping like drowned dogs into the hotel. I, especially, was reeking of the river mud caked to my clothes. The staff cried out when they saw us: "You swam in that water! The river in these parts is full of undercurrents. Many people have drowned here!" We thanked them for the warning and held back our giggles until we got to our room.

Lying in bed that night, I reflected on the irony of life. This chaotic period was the worst time of my life, and yet it was also the best time. So far the trip had been fraught with perils and hardships, yet nothing could stop the fantastic sights of this ancient land from unfolding before me. At those moments I was no longer a refugee, but a tourist feasting on the glory of this historic region.

The next morning, my friends and I hit the city streets. The train was leaving in the afternoon, and we wanted to make use of every single minute. To our delight, we discovered that
Kweilin
was a city of sweets. Dessert shops lined the streets, and we ambled from store to store, sampling the local recipes. My favorite was "lo cho egg," an egg poached in rice must. The taste was perfect, a subtle sweetness spiced with alcohol from the fermented rice. Believe me, there could be no better dessert in the world. My appetite—the lack of which had always annoyed Mother—became like a buffalo’s that day. I also noticed that the wheezing in my lungs had disappeared.

When a storekeeper told us of a hotel that charged close to nothing, we jumped on the chance to stay another night in this delectable city. The rates were indeed dirt cheap, and we decided to rent two rooms instead of one. As I was the only girl, it only made sense that I had a room to myself. "That’s unfair," the boys protested. "Why do four of us have to cram into the same room?" While Lo, the boy with the deformed ear, wasn't looking, the others pushed him into my room and locked the door. I ran out to the balcony and started crying.

"Open up," Lo shouted. "Flora is crying!"

"Why don’t you go and console her? You’re always carrying her bags and waiting up for her. Of all of us, you’re the only one with whom she wouldn’t mind sharing a room!"

Afraid that Lo would come out to the balcony, I wailed louder. Lo was so flustered he started pounding on the door. It opened suddenly, and he almost fell on his face.

After a week of close company, my bodyguards’ gentlemanly veneer had all but worn off. They spent the extra day in
Kweilin
bickering with each other. At every intersection they argued about which way to turn. The quarrel usually ended in a stalemate, with one going east, and the other south. "Where am I supposed to go?" I would say. The reply would be, "It’s up to you whom you want to follow!"

I was glad to board the train again. The next stop, which was also the last, was a desolate outpost called Gumsingong. This was the end of the railroad, beyond which rose an impassable mountain range. The only passage from hereon was a narrow, precipitous road. As bus service had been suspended, transport was limited to the coal trucks that plied between the villages. The truck drivers were more than willing to take passengers for a fee, which was usually determined after much haggling.

 
Communication among Chinese can be difficult. Every province has its own dialect, and within each province the dialects can vary so much from village to village that they sound like altogether different languages. The one tongue that unites the nation is Mandarin, which any educated Chinese should be able to speak. The people of
Hong Kong
, however, were most disadvantaged in this regard. As citizens of a British colony, we’d never been required to learn Mandarin. Our dialect was Cantonese, and the Chinese taught in the schools was also Cantonese.

You should have seen how we struggled to negotiate our fare, curling our tongues to pretend we were speaking Mandarin. After a long and excruciating harangue on our part, the driver turned to us and shook his head with contempt.

"What on earth are you trying to say?" he said in perfect Cantonese.

"You should have told us you’re Cantonese!" we flew back at him.

The negotiation became much easier afterward. We climbed onto the back of the truck, made ourselves as comfortable as possible next to the pile of coal, and began our bumpy ride. It wasn’t first-class transport, but a more exhilarating ride there could never be. Thousands of pages of Chinese history were imprinted in the rocky terrain, where every stone, every grain of dirt had been trampled on by the heroes and villains of the dynasties. Here in this rugged country lived and died the characters of
Romance of the Three Kingdoms
. The events took place two thousand years ago, when
China
broke up into three states. The rivals fought and conspired to swallow each other. There was nothing in human nature that these mountains hadn’t witnessed—courage and cowardice, loyalty and treachery, benevolence and cruelty. Traveling through them was like sitting at the center of a panoramic stage, watching literature and history enact their timeless dramas. The stories were true, the people were real, and I was treading on the same earth as they.

When the truck passed Wu Gong, the
Black River
that lived up to its name, a torrent of emotions overcame me. It was here on this shore that Hsiang Yu, the rebel leader who overthrew the Ch’in dynasty, killed himself. Enemy troops had slaughtered his men and pursued him to the riverbank. Crossing the river was his only hope, but as he drove his horse into the raging water, the animal froze with fear. The warrior had reached a dead end. Before cutting his own throat, he bellowed a last lament:

                
Mountains and rivers I move, my aura covers the earth

                
When the times are wrong, even the horses won’t neigh

                
The times, the times, what can one do about the times?

From my grimy seat on the back of the truck, I looked up at the cloudless sky and silently shouted the same question. We were both trapped in our times, the mighty Hsiang Yu and I, and there was nothing we could do about it.

On one arduous climb, the truck coughed black smoke. It went into a spasm and died. The driver fed the engine more wood to coax it back to life, but it just wouldn’t budge. As twilight was falling, he decided to stop for the day. There was no village in sight, not even a hut or shed. Sleeping in the open was our only option.

I looked around at the rock columns plunging down as straight as dead bodies dangling on nooses. It was no wonder that this place was called
Hanging
Corpse
Canyon
. The area was a notorious outlaws’ nest. I wasn’t nervous at first, but when the boys started spooking each other with scenarios of what would happen if bandits were to find us, goose bumps broke out all over me. Losing our belongings was trivial, but we could also lose our lives. For me, there could be worse fate than death. The bandits could rape me and sell me to a brothel. Seeing how scared they’d made me, the boys agreed to take turns in standing sentry. Their gallantry was reassuring, and as there was nothing else anyone could do, I pillowed my head on a rock and fell into a deep sleep on the stony ground. When I woke up the next morning, every one of my valiant guards was snoring away.

We made it up the hill that day. The driver left us in the city of
Kweiyang
at an abandoned house where we could spend the night. Judging from the layout, the building must have been an old dormitory or hotel. There were enough rooms for each person to claim one. The boys, however, wanted to stick together. I suppose they wanted to carry on tormenting each other. As for me, I wanted to get as far away as possible from them—well, at least as far as the next room. After all, the building was empty and the keys were missing from the door locks.

The room had no furniture, but after sleeping in the open, a roof over my head was a luxury. I lay down on the floor and nestled against my bag. Just as I was about to fall asleep, a scuttling caught my ear. In the dark I could make out the silhouettes of animals scurrying around. They were the size of cats, except these weren’t cats. They were rats! I bolted out of my room into the boys’.

I couldn’t see their faces, only their teeth gleaming in laughter. "What are you doing here? This is the men’s dorm. You wanted a room of your own. Now you’ve got it!" Ignoring their taunts, I curled up in a corner and slept.

My highlight in
Kweiyang
was the visit to a shrine dedicated to Yueh Fei, the Sung Dynasty general who was the hero of my childhood. Throughout the ages Chinese had idolized the general for his victories over barbaric invaders. Now that Japanese troops were marauding in Chinese territory, the veneration of Yueh Fei reached an all-time high. Hatred of his assassin, the traitor Chin Kui, was also intense. Outside every shrine to honor Yueh Fei stood a figure of Chin Kui, on which people could heap insults.

Although I was now a baptized Catholic, I thought there was no harm in lighting an incense stick for my beloved general. Paying homage to a brave man couldn’t be a sin as long as I didn’t worship him. My bodyguards delighted in another ritual—spitting on a life-size portrait of Chin Kui. The portrait also reeked of urine, but in my presence, the boys held back their patriotic fervor.

The next day we negotiated another lorry ride. From mountain to mountain we bounced along the treacherous roads, our hearts bursting with excitement.
Chungking
, the capital of Free China, was coming closer and closer. We had been twenty-some days on the road. The pocket money from Professor King was fast running out. Our clothes were dirtier than a beggar’s, our hair as disheveled as a madman’s. The war had taken everything from us—families, homes, our lives as we’d known them—yet we were the happiest people in the world. Our horizon had never been so wide, our minds and bodies never so strong. Adversity had brought out the best in us, and we were raring to take on the world.