Journey Across the Four Seas (19 page)

His solemn words dampened our spirits more than the rain. A hush fell over the room and the patter on the window grew louder. The war was over, but the Old Man in the Sky hadn’t stopped crying yet.

"But today is a day of celebration!" Baba’s oratory took an uplifting turn. "The Japanese have started to withdraw. From now on, the great land of our ancestors is ours again!" Baba shot out his cannon laughter. He went to the closet where his most prized liquor was stored, and got out an elegant carton with "
Cognac
" splashed across in gold letters. Everyone took a glass and toasted, "To victory!"

The toast I would have proposed was "To peace." This was no victory for
China
, for we didn’t vanquish our enemy. The Americans did it for us.

"Flora, what are your plans?" Baba said to me.

"Go home," I said, plain and simple, "to
Hong Kong
. From there I can get in touch with my mother and brother in
Thailand
."

Baba thought for a while. "I’ll be going to Nanking, but the rest of the family will return to
Shanghai
. You’re welcome to come with us, but I also understand your eagerness to see your family. It’s too bad that Hok-Ching can’t be here, but it’s very important to his future that he finishes his program. Next time you write him, you must encourage him to study hard and not worry about rushing home. When the time comes, I will make the necessary arrangements for your travel to
Hong Kong
."

I assured him that I would like to see Hok-Ching succeed in his studies too.

The rain continued into the next day. The drive down was even more treacherous than up. The car crawled at an ant’s pace, and at one point it had to veer awfully close to the edge to bypass a mudslide. At a military sentry we were told that all traffic to
Chungking
had been rerouted. The Yangtze had broken its banks and wiped away tens of thousands of homes.

"This peace is not a good one," Sam-Koo whispered to me. "There’s more trouble ahead."

*

Hok-Ching abandoned his studies and flew home in November. Baba was livid, but there was nobody else to blame but himself. If he hadn’t sent his son so much pocket money, Hok-Ching couldn’t have bought himself a plane ticket without consulting anyone. Relations between father and son were icy at first. Baba even gave me the cold shoulder because he saw me as the root of the problem. Hok-Ching had been telling people that he’d rushed home to take care of me during this unstable period of repatriation. The real reason, he confessed to me later, was that he was afraid I would run off with some other man.

Baba’s anger soon blew over, and he was back to arranging our lives. On our wedding plans, however, I couldn’t let him take over. In no uncertain terms I told father and son that the ceremony must be held in a church and the groom must be a baptized Catholic. Baba nodded agreement, saying that although he had no religion of his own, he believed that all religions taught people to do good. Hok-Ching also agreed. I immediately went to the Belgian priest who was to officiate at our wedding. He was most happy to give Hok-Ching intensive training in catechism.

The next big question was, who was to give me away? Ngai was my only male relative on the mainland, but he’d relocated with his university to
Peking
. With transportation still in shambles, he couldn’t possibly come to my wedding. Baba looked around and found somebody among his staff who had all the qualifications to be my father. He was an old man and a Catholic. What could the man say to the general manager? I suppose he bowed and said, "Yes, sir."

The wedding took place on
January 7, 1946
, in a church in
Chungking
. I’d never attended a Catholic wedding before, nor had anyone in the bridal party. Nobody knew what to expect. I arrived some minutes before the wedding and was introduced to my "father." We were ushered into the vestibule to wait for the guests to be seated. The church was packed, given the number of staff at Commercial Press and Baba’s political connections. I was rather nervous about the whole affair. Having worn only cheongsams all my life, the collarless gown made me feel naked and cold in the poorly heated church. The veil also kept sliding off, and Sam-Koo had to poke more and more pins into my hair.

The moment came. The organist struck the first notes of "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful." He didn’t know how to play the wedding march, so we’d settled on a Christmas carol. Cousin Helen, the bridesmaid, stepped forward to lead the bridal procession. Unlike me, she looked smart and modern in her pink dress. Thank goodness she was as daring as she was. People had often criticized her for being shameless and brassy, but now those qualities were being put to good use.

"The father, where’s the father?" somebody cried.

"I saw him go outside," another said.

"Go look for him."

"He was here just now."

"Where on earth did he go?"

I stood there, undecided as to which urge to succumb to—to laugh or to cry. Meanwhile, "Oh Come, All Ye Faithful" was reaching the end of the first stanza. Hundreds of pairs of eyes were trained in my direction. Hok-Ching was standing at the altar, his body pivoted toward me.

"Sam-Koo, why don’t you take her out?" Helen shrieked. The whole church must have heard.

"No, no, I can’t!" Sam-Koo shrank back. "I’m a Buddhist."

Helen looked around for volunteers. None came forward. "All right, I’ll give you away. Come on, Flora, let’s go."

She grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me out.

TAPE SIX

GOING HOME

1

Baba was right to caution against traveling too soon. Fighting with remnant enemy troops was still going on in some places. In others where the Japanese had withdrawn, bandits took advantage of the power vacuum to seize what they could. Reports circulated of groups of travelers being stripped of everything down to the clothes on their backs. Men and women were left cowering like pigs in their pink skins. Anxious as I was to see my family again, I had my new family to think of, including the unborn baby inside me.

I waited six months to leave
Chungking
. By the time I took to the road in March, the country’s reconstruction was well underway. Trains, buses, and ferries were all back on schedule. Compared with the coal trucks that brought me into the province four years earlier, public transportation was a luxury.

Sam-Koo, Hok-Ching, and I arrived safely in
Canton
. Baba had secured for his son the post of dean of physical education at
Chungshan
University
, which was located on the outskirts of
Canton
. My personal preference was to return to
Hong Kong
, but I also knew that my husband’s career came first.
Chungshan
University
had an excellent reputation, and the position of dean was the highest Hok-Ching could hope to attain at this point. Although the monthly pay wasn’t worth a sack of rice, I was confident that Baba wouldn’t allow us to starve.

We found an apartment in a quiet suburb close to the university. The neighborhood was beautifully landscaped with trees and flowering shrubs. Our ground-floor flat faced the street, giving us a nice view of the garden-like environment. The two-bedroom apartment couldn’t be considered big by any standard, but it was more space than I’d ever had in my life. To ask for more in a home, especially a first home, would be greedy. I felt as complete as a woman could be, as a wife, daughter, and mother-to-be.

There was only one flaw in this perfect home. Hok-Ching the husband turned out to be just the opposite of Hok-Ching the fiancé. Our courtship had lasted half a year, not a long time, but as I’d already met the family even before I met him, I felt I knew enough about his background to be confident of his character. His father was the celebrated Wang Yun-Wu, and his two mothers seemed quite normal. After all, wool comes from the sheep’s back—Hok-Ching couldn’t be too different from the people he grew out of. But since I woke up from our wedding bed, he’d dealt me one surprise after another.

I’d thought my fianc
é
was a gentle person, but the husband I got was prone to abusive explosions. When we were dating, he was kind to everyone regardless of rank or age. No sooner had we walked out of the church than he began to show his other side. If there were a speck of dirt in his bowl, if his handkerchief weren’t ironed to his liking, he would summon the responsible servant and berate her. He even yelled at Ah Ma, clashed with Wai-Jing, and talked back to Baba. But none of his tirades prepared me for the scene at the train station. The insults he hurled at the coolie were out-and-out barbaric. The boy, who was at most thirteen years old, blinked back tears. It had started when Hok-Ching tore into the boy for being slow in getting our luggage out of the train. Then he escalated to accusing the boy of scheming to steal our bags. He threatened to report him to the police and to the stationmaster, strip him of his job, and chase him out of town. On and on he went as if the boy were a pillow that he could punch and kick at will. Everyone born of a mother has feelings. How could my husband not see that?

I’d thought my fiancé was a brave man, with plenty of muscles to protect me from harm, but the husband I got was more cowardly than a woman. As I said earlier, the flat was on the ground floor. I suppose someone could pry open the windows and climb in if he worked at it. But the thought would never have occurred to me if Hok-Ching hadn’t come home with chains and padlocks, which he knitted into an impenetrable net over the windows. Sam-Koo and I got a bellyache from laughing at his handiwork. We poked fun at his antics every day until the first hot day arrived. We begged Hok-Ching to undo his gadgets so we could open the windows. His reply was, "It’s dangerous for two women staying home by themselves. Bad people can come in and kidnap you." Since he held the keys to the padlocks, Sam-Koo and I could only stew in our sweat.

I’d thought my fiancé was a fun-loving man, but the husband I got was a bore. Whenever I suggested an outing to one of the many scenic sites around
Canton
, he would invariably say, "What’s the point of going there?" Well, the only thing he saw a "point" to was to lock ourselves at home and pace back and forth like a soldier guarding a fort.

Before the wedding I’d thought we had plenty in common. After the wedding I realized that we were as incompatible as fire and water. Our fight over curtains summarized our differences. When I got up in the morning I always went around pulling apart the curtains. People are like flowers and trees: we need sun to stay healthy and happy. But Hok-Ching was built differently. The moment I turned my back, the curtains would be drawn again. Open, close, open, close—the game would go on until Hok-Ching went to work. When he came home in the afternoon, it would start again.

To tell you the truth, i
f Hok-Ching hadn’t left for
England
right after we got engaged, he probably would have exposed his dark side before we tied the knot. I would have changed my mind and called off the wedding. Unfortunately, events didn’t happen in that order. My discovery of his true face came after the rice had been cooked. I was already bearing his child, and had taken his name. There was no other choice but to carry on. Like a stream, I would meander around the boulder to get to where I wanted.

Sam-Koo and I were plotting a trip to
Hong Kong
, and we were keeping it secret until everything was said and done. Whether Hok-Ching liked it or not, we were going. The first step in our preparation was to get cholera shots, a requirement for entry into the British colony. At the clinic there were no forms to fill out, no questions were asked, and I didn’t think of telling the doctor I was four months pregnant. I took the shot and went home. That night, my body burned with fever. My stomach turned upside down and I threw up everything I had for dinner. The retching was so violent that I was worried that my baby was going to slide out. Indeed, it could have. Unbeknownst to me, pregnant women weren’t supposed to get the inoculation.

As expected, Hok-Ching didn’t want me to go. But when the tickets had already been purchased, and my baby had survived the cholera shot, there wasn’t much he could do to stop me. On a sunny day in June, Sam-Koo and I took the train to
Hong Kong
.

As I set foot on my homeland, my heart was painful with joy.
Hong Kong
hadn’t changed much, but I had. In my traveler’s eyes, never was there a city as appealing as
Hong Kong
. The streets were clean, the buildings were orderly, and the air was fresh from the sea. Compared with some of the sewer-smelling places in mainland
China
, Hong Kong was aptly named
Fragrant
Harbor
.

My happiness would have been complete had my mother and brothers been there. I’d been in touch with them after the war, and found to my relief that everyone was in good health. I wished I could fly to
Bangkok
, but the cost of one plane ticket was many years of Hok-Ching’s salary.

Brother Kin had wanted to meet me in
Hong Kong
. But business kept him back, and he sent a friend instead. The man updated me on Mother’s health and Brother Kin’s success in the rice trade. Then he took out something that looked like a brick wrapped in a rag and presented it to me as a gift from Brother Kin. It was so heavy that I almost dropped it. At his urging I unfolded the cloth. Two gold bullions winked at me. Each one was worth thousands of dollars.

We could all go to
Bangkok
now! The moment I got back to
Canton
, I sold the bullions and made travel arrangements for everyone. Hok-Ching agreed to come along, for as much as he hated to budge, he couldn’t let me out of his sight for so long. His only condition was that we go by boat. In his fearful mind, flying was too dangerous to contemplate.

The moment we set sail, our ship ran into the biggest typhoon in a decade. Giant rollers tossed us up and down. Hok-Ching squatted in the middle of the cabin, holding a mug in each hand. The right was for Sam-Koo and the left for me. Every time I heaved, I thought for sure the baby was going to pop out of my mouth. I had no idea what thoughts were going through Hok-Ching’s mind, but I remember clearly what was going through mine. "We should have flown," the words kept churning in my head.

The storm raged on. I clung to the bed rail to keep myself from getting flung around the cabin. At one point we heard voices outside. Hok-Ching teetered out to see what was going on. The cabin door flew open and there stood a passenger with whom we’d exchanged pleasantries. "The ship is going to sink!" he cried. "The captain has ordered his men to open all the bottles in the bar. The crew is drinking them all up. They’re preparing to die! We’re all going to die!" He flapped his arms and bounced from wall to wall down the corridor, shouting the message repeatedly.

My retching stopped instantly, and so did Sam-Koo’s. Our eyes met in fear.

"Don’t be afraid—" the voice came from the person least expected to utter those words. "The moment the ship starts to capsize, we’ll go up to the deck. I know where the lifeboats are. For now the best thing is to stay put. Running around in panic isn’t going to help."

I stared at Hok-Ching with disbelief. His face was greenish but heroically calm. My husband was truly an enigma. The mere suggestion of flying had kept him up several nights, but when confronted with extreme danger he’d shown that he had a stronger stomach than any of us. I felt I would never understand him, even if we survived the storm and lived together till our hair grew white.

Gradually the wind weakened. When minutes passed without my having to kowtow over the mug, I laid my weary head on the pillow. Just as I stretched out, little hands and feet pushed angrily against my belly. I smiled in spite of the thrashing the baby was giving me. This child of mine was one stubborn character. Neither a cholera shot nor a number-ten-force hurricane could make it surrender.

While Sam-Koo and I lay half dead in our bunks, Hok-Ching went out to see what was going on. He returned shortly and reported that we were lost. The captain, a red-bearded Norwegian, was sticking an instrument into the water to measure the depth. Hok-Ching explained that this was a method for figuring out our location—something to do with matching the readings with the depths written on the map. He also said that the crew appeared sober, and the bottles in the bar seemed quite full.

After a while, Hok-Ching went scouting again. This time he had good news to report. The captain had found his bearings. The ship had been blown north along the coast of
Swatow
, in a direction opposite to its destination. The detour would cost us three more days at sea, bringing the entire voyage to ten days. My thoughts went to Ngai, who’d bought a plane ticket with the money I’d sent him. He was probably sitting pretty in
Bangkok
, relishing the tastes of
Thailand
.
       

*

Walking down the gangplank with my big belly swaying, I saw a vaguely familiar face glowing at me. I could hardly recognize Brother Kin, who’d grown plump and fair and radiant with prosperity.

My brother’s fortunes represented everything the Thai government had done right by its people. For years before the war, the
Kingdom
of
Thailand
had played a smart game of cooperating with
Tokyo
. With its Asian Big Brother on its side,
Thailand
became the only country in
Southeast Asia
to escape western colonization.
Thailand
’s friendship with
Japan
continued during the war. By allying with
Japan
and yet not engaging in combat,
Thailand
not only steered clear of the ravages of war but also netted generous Japanese aid. Now in postwar reconstruction,
Thailand
was reaping another windfall.
U.S.
aid was pouring in to help the war-torn countries.
Thailand
, with its plentiful resources, became the source of food and raw materials for the region.

On the day I landed, I could see that Brother Kin had benefited from the windfall. He was working as a middleman for an American charity supplying food to
China
. By purchasing rice from farmers and selling it at a commission to the agency, he was earning top money. Instead of driving the car himself, he’d hired a chauffeur. Instead of living in a bungalow, he’d moved into an airy two-story house spread over a sprawling lawn.

I had a tearful reunion with my mother. She was heavier than ever, which wasn’t a good sign in her case. While most people gain weight in times of prosperity, Mother put it on in times of misery. Food was her replacement for happiness, and the more wretched she felt, the heavier she got. Her fine skin was rutted with worry lines. Five years was a long time to be separated from one’s children. She looked me over, her watery eyes searching out the oceans and fields I’d crossed on my own. I’d left home a delicate girl of ninety pounds, suffering from fevers and headaches; now I was a married woman, robust and big with child.