China 1937
The Japanese are coming. A current of unease
strokes my skin under the constant thrum of commerce beneath the canopy of the
open-air market. In the streets as I hold Mother’s hand, it is inscribed on the
faces of passing strangers as we nod our neighborly acknowledgments. Silent
exchanges between my parets at home confirms it is so. The Japanese are
coming.
They’ve come all the way from Manchuria, their
army. They snake their way down from over three thousand miles away, brutal
like fire through forest, fear and famine riding its winds. Beijing, Shanghai,
and Nanjing all have fallen by the close of 1937. And on our small farm in the
Panyu district of Guangzhou city where we grow sweet potatoes, greens for
drying, and rice, we work and we wait, knowing we are next.
At twelve years old, I let the country keep its
misery while I keep my dreams. I am embarrassed to say they are not very
original. It is the same young dreams of the older girls who have already
escaped the village for city life.
I listen, envious, to their familiar stories. A
neighbor’s niece, promoted to head girl at a textiles factory, makes enough
money to send home. Pretty Lian, my sister’s friend, marries an herbalist with
his own shop. Hong Shu, the granddaughter of the old man who trades for
firewood with Father, leaves to live with relatives who runs a profitable
bakery. They sell their goods to upscale restaurants, delivered in their very
own trucks.
I tally up my prospects in comparison and it’s
close to zero. Well, that’s not quite true, is it? There’s Tak of course. Li
Tak. A year older than me, he is sweet enough. His thick strands of hair,
rust-coloured in the sunlight. He once bought me a small bag of chestnuts, the
best from Pantang, and I like it very much when he brings me a basket of eggs
from his family farm.
He rides over on his squeaky too-small bicycle,
and we sometimes speak for a few minutes by the front fence. I thank him for
the treats and watch as he shakes his head and his hands insisting it’s no
trouble at all. He is bashful and it makes me blush.
Months back, he told me I was as pretty as a peach
blossom that bloomed in March. He waited, his words hovering between us and in
the end, I pretended not to hear him. It was the only compliment he ever
offered me and I was sad for it. But what would be the point in encouraging
such things? Life is bigger than compliments.
The day after Mother gave birth to me, she went
out to the fields to work beside my siblings. Father was bedridden with a bad
case of gout, and besides, she said, weather and time reigned supreme, never so
for the poor farmer, and certainly never so for the poor farmer’s wife.
She placed me beside her in a basket under the sun
and on her hands and knees she toiled, rags still stuffed in her pants from the
bleeding. Her story did not trouble me, but what did, was her tone. A flat
practical acceptance of suffering that curdled my insides.
I heard my heart whisper to my head that day. It
whispered a stubborn no. No to that kind of life.
The tricky thing is any street-corner fortuneteller can tell you one’s fortune
is not one’s to write. I don’t know. If it came to it, could I cheat fate if I
had to? I made a promise to myself that I would try.
I come home one day, dirt and sweat covering me
impressively, skin and clothes alike. It is planting time and I stink like a
pig.
Out of our house, Mother rushes, her strides
graceless, goose-like. She honks, “There you are, Daughter! I’ve been waiting
for you to come home!” Her brows furrow as she takes me in. “You look
terrible!” She sniffs me. “Go clean yourself! Hurry! Hurry! Re-braid your hair
too! Put on the nicer pants and vest you wore to last year’s festival.”
I am too confused to budge.
“Aiya! Suddenly you are a legless mute? We have
visitors! You must look presentable.” She returns to the house in the same
frantic manner.
I hasten to the wash area, wondering casually if
they are matchmakers with a proposal of a pairing. Perhaps Mother has noticed
me talking to Tak a little too happily and a little too much. But this does not
make sense. My parents surely have no dowry to offer.
I think I have much to offer though. I am strong,
big-boned, healthy, and accustomed to hard work. Tak’s mother once said I was a
good girl with a pleasant smile and of wonderful character. My childish pride
carries the memory of that praise and although I still hold tight to my own
grand plans, I am now curious and unexpectedly excited. I make sure to braid my
hair carefully before heading to the house.
An old woman, and one younger, around Mother’s
age, sit cross-legged at our low table, tea and steamed taro cake set out.
Mother notices me, shy by the entrance. “Daughter! What took you so long! Come,
come. Come meet acquaintances of Cousin Cheung.”
The women turn as I greet them, and I know then
that they are not the matchmakers I had assumed. It was a stupid, stupid
thought from a stupid, stupid girl. Tak’s family is less poor than mine, but
even families like his do not participate in such costly traditions.
The old lady. I do not like her – her face like
tree bark and eyes like flint. She looks at me and through me at the same time,
from the top of my head to my chest and hips, down to my shabby sandals.
Uncomfortable, I scratch my head and fidget with
my braids. Seconds pass before she acknowledges me and when she does, it is
only with a slight nod and a gaze that tells me she does not like me either.
The younger woman makes a better show of it. “So
glad to meet you Sai Mui!” She calls me by the affable
term, little sister, but her smile is as wide as it is
insincere. She has greasy hair and oily skin and bad teeth. “Your mother was
just telling us about you. We are so glad her cousin recommended that we call
upon your family.”
It seems the old woman is not one for small talk
and ignores the other woman’s efforts. It is clear she wants answers and her
questions come at me fast and pointed like darts.
“How old are you, girl?”
“Twelve, Aunt.”
“What are your jobs on the farm?”
“Anything I can manage. I can do more things every
day.”
“What is your sign?”
“Year of the Tiger, Aunt.”
“Hmm… stubborn, reckless…unpredictable,” she
mutters under her breath.
I stand taller and quietly brush away her
criticism. When I was four, Father showed me how to wrap sweet potatoes in
paper to make them last longer. He was in an exceptionally good mood as we sat
on the ground in front of our shed, laughing and eating roasted nuts. I laughed
so hard that I accidentally kicked over the bowl, and all the nuts tumbled into
the dirt. Seeing the wasted food, I started to cry.
“No need to cry, girl. I thought you were a Tiger.
You know, they are known as honest beings. You meant no harm, did you?”
I shook my head and sniffled as he placed one hand
on my shoulder and bent until our faces were inches apart and our eyes
level.
He smiled teasing, “Tigers are also quite
determined,” He rolled up his shirt sleeve and flexed his arm, slapping it with
his other hand for emphasis, “Like this, you are strong, born in the year of
power.”
I rolled up my shirt sleeve and flexed the same,
making him guffaw, his head tilted back in abandon. He squeezed my arms calling
them noodle arms and we carried on wrapping sweet potatoes in companionable
silence.
That memory is a favorite shawl. I wrap it around
my shoulders to keep warm, never to be soiled, certainly not by some wrinkly
no-nothing stranger.
“Can you read your characters and write?” she
presses.
I look down at my feet whispering, “No.”
“Do you have any illnesses?”
Mother pipes in, “Oh, no, no sicknesses at all!
She doesn’t eat much too but is an excellent cook. So smart, always fixing
things. You know, she built a pulley system for…”
Interrupting, the old woman brusquely stands up,
surprising me at how quickly she could do so from her sitting position on the
floor. She is not as old as she looks. She glances at Mother and requests to
check my teeth.
Alarmed, I quickly glance over at Mother too, but
she nods to open my mouth, her face blank as a newly painted wall. The old lady
shoves her index finger in my mouth and runs it along my gums, reaching all the
way back while I fight my reflex to gag. I taste filth and salted fish and
start to cry. Big fat tears of mine fall on the old woman’s bony hand causing
her to suck her teeth in annoyance as she continues her rooting.
My shivering gives way to panic, and at last, I am
forced to consider a possibility too horrible to imagine.
There are stories of girls who make it to the big
city. They find good jobs, beaus, and send money home. But there are stories of
other girls – the ones whose families have fallen on the hardest of times. The
ones who are more useful gone than at home. The ones who leave but not of their
own free will.
The certainty I am to be one of those other girls
strikes like a violent slap across my face. I bite down hard on the old lady’s
finger and collapse. Mother is selling me.
It is dark when I wake on my pallet. Mother kneels
and dips a cloth into a nearby bowl of water. She wrings the cloth out slow,
cools my forehead with it, her shadow wavering as a single candle flame
flickers nearby. I start to smile but remember and scramble to sit up,
recoiling.
“Daughter. Daughter, please try to understand.”
There is pleading in her expression, but her words are beyond me. My fists are
jammed over my ears and my cries devour all sound. I am hysterical.
Mother yanks my hands away from my head and grips
me in frustration, “Do you not see?! We cannot go on. While you have been
flirting with that boy and daydreaming, we are going to lose the farm! Do you
even hear me? Our crops have been bad these last years and we have already
borrowed so much money just to cover the rent. Your sister has two young boys
now! There are just too many of us.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and she tightens her grip,
shaking me fiercely, spitting out what I already know. The Japanese are
coming.
By now she is shaking too, “Those murderous
devils! We may only have a few months left. It will be so much worse then. If
we are lucky, they won’t murder us in our beds or burn our village down. But we
must pay our debts back. Father needs part-time help because of his foot. Your
brothers are not enough. Besides, I know you do not like the farm. This will be
better for you.”
I am incredulous, offended by her implication that
selling me like a prized ox would be in my best interest. Embarrassed, she lets
go, chastened and subdued. It does not stop her from speaking again though, the
depth of her pragmatism naked, unwavering, “The worst times are coming. This is
the only way we survive… all of us.”
I look her over with judgment, just as the old
woman judged me. I say nothing but everything in me makes sure she knows I find
her wanting.
Mother stands, agitated, pacing. Her movement
disturbing the candle flame, her shadow quivering in response. “I made them. I
made them promise to take you to Hong Kong. I took less than I could have
gotten for you. There are wealthy households looking for domestic help. They
promise that you will live in a big house, well fed, well treated.” She
hesitates. “They might give you a new name. They sometimes do when you join a
house like that.”
I turn my head away as she continues. “They almost
did not want to take you. The old cow is miffed about her finger, but I think
they see your worth. Send word home. You leave tomorrow.”
Stunned, I turn back and scream at her, “How can
you trust those rotten hags? They could hand me over to anybody for
all you know!” I kick the water bowl across the room, shattering it into pieces
as its contents splash every way, snuffing the candle out. The only light now
comes through the doorway, shining against Mother as she leaves the room. It
blinds me and obscures her, her silhouette a shell of herself.
Delivered soft and trembly, Mother’s parting words
hurt as if she bludgeoned me over the head with the flat side of the garden
spade, “Daughter, do not laugh so loudly as you usually do. It is unseemly.
Besides, rich people do not like to hear the servants.”
The two women come for me the next day and I am
ready. They wait by their wagon beyond the fences while I linger, caged and
desperate, out front with my bundle neat and secure on my back. My siblings
surround me, and we weep together.
Father, eyes red, tentatively pats my arm. I am
angry with him – the hot dry anger of a sweeping desert, a chance for
forgiveness endures but beyond the miles of sand that one can see. I give an
inch and grudgingly lean into him, unable to forsake a farewell.
I refuse to look at Mother though. My anger for
her, more like unyielding ice found on the windward side of a mountain range.
It cuts too deep knowing it was ultimately her decision and my forgiveness for
her is eternally lost to the squall.
Still, she reaches out, not daring to touch me.
“Do not forget how to make all the dishes I taught you. The one for
three-carrot soup is cooling and best for balancing energy. There is medicine
to help the pain when your monthlies begin. The first time is always the
worst.”
I start down the lane ignoring her entreaties. It
is a long walk and today it is a viciously lonely one. I look up and wonder how
the sky can be so blue, and I notice all the pretty shades of gold brown and
deep green that surround me. My vision blurs and nature’s colors meld as I try
to think on nothing.
I refuse to entertain how she feels
as she watches her girl-child walk away, perhaps for the last time. Her own
flesh and blood, borne from her womb and suckled from her breast, discarded as
a fisherman discards his smallest fish – tossed back into the churning river,
abandoned unlike the rest of the bounty kept after casting his net wide.
Behind my steps, Mother’s voice drifts like smoke,
ghostly tendrils nipping at my heels. “I packed my warmest coat for you! It is
too big, but you’ll grow into it.”
I concentrate on the rickety wagon and the
decades-old grooves and scratches on its surface as I climb in. The younger
woman helps me up, her grin exposing her decaying teeth.
The older woman ignores my presence. She stares
out at the acres of field, harsh and beautiful. Perhaps she ponders on how a
woman can sell her own child. Perhaps she ponders on what type of a woman can
sell someone else’s. I doubt it though. I recall her flinty eyes and know she
is beyond this type of reflection. She does not see the fields for what they
are, an ancient story of life or death depending on the seasons. She does not
see anything.
But I do. Her index finger is bandaged, wrapped
several times with a dirty piece of gauze, old blood crusted through to the
surface. It must have been a horrible bite, and I am glad. Tigers have teeth
and can bite again.
The wagon starts to roll, and I hear Mother cry
out my name, but it could just as easily be the morning breeze whipping through
the tall dry grass. We pick up speed and the turn of the wheels matches the
beats escaping my chest, and I start to believe I could make it through without
looking back.
I lose my nerve, though, as we approach the bend
in the road. I look back, searching, hoping to catch a glimpse of Mother’s
face. But her figure is too small by now and I cannot discern any of her
features. I continue watching her shrinking form until the wagon makes its
turn.
Author’s note: Inspired by unexpected
tidbits that I recently learned about my grandmother’s early life, my story
highlights the sometimes unimaginable difficulties both girls and women face
and how these struggles shape their dreams, their decisions, and who they choose
to, or are forced to, become.
N.J. Chan is a writer of short
stories, essays, and poems. Her work has been published in several anthologies
and journals. “A Long Walk Through Tall Dry Grass” was previously published in
the international editorial collective, NüVoices.
N.J.’s
accomplishments include a second place win with Flash Fiction Magazine,
and an honourable mention in 2023 Askew’s Word on the Lake Anthology (under the
name Natalie J. Chan). She lives in Toronto and holds an MBA from Simon Fraser
University.
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