Chu Ju's House (3 page)

At first I was pleased with the idea of disappearing. I thought of the excitement of starting out
on such a journey. I thought of the wonders of China we had studied in school—the great wall in the north and the huge cities where many of the houses had a
dian-shi
and around every corner was a cinema.

There were factories in the cities. Perhaps I could get a job, for I knew how to make silk flowers. In our village school our teacher had handed out silk petals to the children along with strands of wire and green tape. All week we worked at making silk flowers, arranging the petals, fastening them with a bit of glue and sticking them on the wire we had wrapped with the green tape. We made blue flowers and pink flowers and red flowers, flowers such as I had never seen. The teacher said such flowers would be sold in distant countries, and the money they brought would help our school.

When he heard of the flower making, my ba ba complained that instead of studying, our time in
class was taken up in making flowers for the school to sell; but the people at the school said such money was needed, for the school didn't have enough desks and there was no blackboard, only the wall that had been covered with thick black paint. Some whispered that we were lucky. In one school the children had made fireworks. There was a dreadful explosion and the whole school blew up with many children killed. There could be no explosion with silk flowers.

Why could I not disappear in a city, where I could make silk flowers and have a
dian-shi
, wear jeans, and go to the cinema? I thought again of the map and how far away such cities were. I remembered young men from our village who had gone to those cities and been sent to jail, for they went with no government permission and no proper government papers. I had heard stories—told in hushed voices by the village women—of young girls who
traveled to the cities and were never heard from again. I did not think I would go to the city, even for a
dian-shi
.

Hua was stirring in her sleep. When she was half awake, she made a small chirping noise like a little babbler bird. If I didn't disapper, Hua would disappear. I knew it would be me and I knew it must be soon, before I lost my courage, and before the next morning when the woman would return.

As I sat there in the dark, I made myself feel sad by thinking of what our house would be like without me and wondering whether I would be missed. I was sure my nai nai would not miss me. The only word she ever said to me was
budui
, wrong. She could not forgive me for being a girl.

Ma Ma might miss me, for we sometimes worked shoulder to shoulder in our garden, exclaiming over a rabbit hopping among the peas or a mouse's nest among the cornstalks. I wondered if
my ba ba would miss me. When I was small, he would take me by the hand and we would go to see what had sprung out of the earth in the night. He knew one bean tendril from another and one spear of garlic from the other, and they were like so many children to him. Still, when he looked at me, there was always a bit of sadness on his face, as if his eyes had fallen on some misfortune.

 

Against the leaving behind of my home and my ma ma and ba ba, I set the picture of Hua carried off, crying, her arms stretched out for me. The orphanages were so full of girl babies, there was hardly enough food for the babies to eat. Some of the babies were adopted by
waiguoren
, foreigners, but some were left hungry and uncared-for in crowded orphanages. There were even stories of selling girl babies to be raised as servants or laborers or worse. I would not let them take Hua. I would be the one to disappear.

I waited until everyone was asleep. When all was silent in my parents' room and wheezing whistles came from Nai Nai, I hastily rolled up a change of clothes and took my pencil box, saved from my schooldays. In the days when my parents could afford to send me to school, I had carried the pencil box with me to class each day. I tied the roll with a bit of string. I had a little pile of yuan I was saving in case the day should come when Ba Ba would change his mind about blue jeans. I kissed Hua's cheek lightly. She stirred in her sleep and I held my breath, but she did not awaken. On the courtyard table I placed a note I had written earlier. Only Ba
Ba would be able to read it. I had made it simple, for there were many characters Ba Ba did not know.

When I reached the edge of our courtyard, I stopped. In making my plans I had traveled no farther than this. As I stood there, uncertain of where to go, my ye ye's words came back to me.
“There is no end to where the river can take you.”

I hurried along the moonlit path to the deserted village, where the stalls were shuttered like so many closed eyes. I kept to the shadows. A woman disappeared around a corner. A man on a bicycle passed me. Then I was alone. When there are many people about, you are safely hidden in the
crowd. Now all the things I feared but could not put a name to were watching me.

At last I came to the river, where a little gathering of fishing boats was tied to the shore. One of the boats had a lantern; the others were dark. Tied to the fishing boats were small boats, each with a heap of netting. At daybreak the boats would pull up their anchors and move up or down the river to a place of good fishing.

I wished I might go with one of the fishermen, but surely he would have nothing to do with the taking of a strange girl onto his boat. I sat at the water's edge listening to the current of the river rocking the fishing boats. The next moment I was creeping softly down the riverbank and climbing into one of the small boats. Little by little I worked my way under the netting. It was no easy task, for the netting was heavy and smelled so strongly of fish, my stomach turned over. I was as tangled in
the heavy wet netting as any trapped fish. I would be discovered, but by then perhaps I would be in another place.

As I crouched beneath the netting and the hours passed, I began to see what a foolish thing I had done. I thought of hurrying back, tearing up the note, and climbing into my bed beside Hua. I peeked out and saw along the edge of the dark sky the thin bright line of the coming morning. The next moment I heard a stirring in the fishing boat. A boy with his back to me was peeing over the edge into the water. Hastily I ducked back under the netting. Moments later the boats came alive. There was calling back and forth. I heard the thud of the anchor dropping. Suddenly the fishing boat—with the small boat attached, and me in it—began to move downstream.

I could smell the charcoal burning in a stove and hear a woman calling out that the rice was cooked. I tried to stretch my arms and move my
legs a bit, but the netting was too heavy for me. Overhead the sky brightened and a bit of sun found its way to me. A moment later someone stepped on my leg and I cried out.

A boy shrieked, “Ba Ba! A devil is caught in the netting!”

I was afraid they would go after me with one of their sharp fishermen's knives, and I called out, “Please, I am only a girl and mean no harm.” The netting was pulled away. I looked up to see a man standing over me. I tried to leap into the water, but the man's hand was around my arm like an iron bracelet. He lifted me from the small boat onto the fishing boat.

“It is only a girl,” a woman called out. Two boys, one older than me and the other younger, stood beside the woman staring at me.

The man shook me angrily. “What are you doing on our boat?” he demanded.

While the shaking was going on, I could find no words. The woman said, “Let her be.”

The shaking stopped. “I've run away,” I said.

“You are a wicked girl,” the man scolded. “You must return to your home at once.”

I thought he was going to pitch me into the water. “No, please. My ma ma and ba ba are dead, and my nai nai is going to sell me to an evil woman.”

The man and the woman looked at me and were silent. Because of Hua, it was a story that had come easily to my head. Though they were for Hua and not me, the tears they saw were real tears, and the fear real fear.

The man said, “We can have nothing to do with such running away. We do not want your misfortune on our boat,” but his voice was not so angry.

“Let me stay. I have four yuan for my passage and I can help to clean the fish.”

“Four yuan buys nothing,” the man said,
“only the rice for a day or two.” He looked closely at me. “What do you know of the cleaning of fish?”

“My ye ye was a fisherman.” That was nearly the truth. “Until he died I cleaned hundreds of fish for him.” That was a lie. Ye Ye had cleaned the few fish he had caught, and I had closed my eyes while he had done it.

“Let the child stay for a bit,” the woman said, “until we find out how true her story is.”

The two boys only stared at me as if a demon had become tangled in their nets.

The man let go of my arm. “Take care of her, then. Our nets should have been cast long since.”

He gave me a push toward the woman. It was only a light push. The anger on his face was gone. He was a strong, stocky man, but I guessed that he would not use that strength unfairly.

With the small boat trailing, we drifted down the river. When man was satisfied, he dropped the
anchor. The fishing boat remained moored while the two boys, keeping as far from me as they could, joined their father in the small boat where I had hidden. A moment later they were moving down the river, the man standing at the back of the boat working the oars.

The woman asked, “What is your name, girl?”

I had used up all my lies and only the truth came out.

“Chu Ju,” I said.

“Chu Ju,” the woman repeated. “Tidy. Let us hope you live up to your name. I am Yi Yi, and my husband is Wu. The older boy is Bo, and the younger Zhong.” She bent over the charcoal stove. “Come and have a bit of rice. Then you can help me turn over the fish.” She pointed to a bamboo rack where hundreds of small fish were drying. I quickly ate the bowl of rice gruel she handed me and began to turn the fish. It was easily and quickly done.

Yi Yi thrust a bundle of twigs at me. “Give the deck a good scrubbing.”

I filled a pail from the river and began the scrubbing. The woman watched me, pointing out here and there where I missed some scales or bits of fish skin that had become stuck to the boat's deck. When I finished, the woman looked pleased.

“We are fortunate in having two sons,” she said, “but I would not mind a daughter to keep me company all day on the boat.”

Never before had I heard someone talk of her wish for a daughter. “But you already have two children,” I said. “You could not have another one.”

“No, no,” she said quickly. “It is only something I think of from time to time.” She gathered up some netting and began to mend a tear.

I watched how clever her fingers were at making knots. “Is that something I could learn?” I asked.

She looked at me for a moment. “Why not? I don't believe you are a stupid girl.”

I felt very stupid indeed, for my fingers were so clumsy that I only made the tears larger.

“No, no. Watch me,” Yi Yi said. There was no impatience in her voice, only a little amusement.

We worked all morning on the knots, stopping at noon for a bit of rice and fish. My knots were never like Yi Yi's, but in one way or another I mended the tears. Though I had all my worries of leaving Ma Ma and Ba Ba and Hua, and though I did not know at what moment I would be sent from the boat, still, sitting there on the boat was pleasant. A cooling breeze blew down the river and on either bank there was the bright green carpet of new rice shoots. From time to time an excursion boat full of
waiguoren
would pass. They would wave and call out to us in their strange languages, and we would wave back. When another fishing
boat would drift by, Yi Yi would hail the fishermen, asking after the success of their catch.

“Wu and our sons are just around the bend,” she would call to them. “I hope they will be fortunate. Yesterday's catch was no more than a handful of minnows.”

“Ours was not even that,” the other fishermen would reply, and I saw that there was no truth telling among the fishermen, for our drying rack and the drying racks of the other fishing boats were crowded with fish.

Yi Yi winked at me. “If we boast of our catch, we will have every fishing boat on the river casting their nets where we cast ours. When we pulled them in, our nets would be empty.”

At the end of the day Wu and his sons returned with nets alive with squirming fish. They emptied the nets into the boat. At once everyone went to work. The smaller fish would be cleaned and dried,
the larger ones taken whole to the market. I began to grab at the fish as well. Some had their gills caught in the netting and had to be pulled loose in a most cruel way. The fish were slippery in my hands and thrashed about, so for every fish I freed, Bo, who stood beside me, loosened ten. When at last the nets were emptied, the knives came out.

“Here.” Wu thrust a wicked-looking knife at me. “You say you have cleaned fish. Get to work.”

“Like this,” Yi Yi whispered. She picked up an unfortunate fish and slapped it against the deck. The unfortunate fish ceased its flopping and lay silent. With one swipe of her knife the fish was slit open. She reached into the fish's belly and pulled out such a handful of oozing, bloody innards, I had to look away. It was then tossed to Bo and Zhong, who sent a shower of scales over the boat.

I picked up as small a fish as I could find. As I raised it to slap against the deck, its eye fastened
onto me. It is a thing with fish that their eyes do not blink, so their stare is pitiful. It was the fish or me. I closed my own eyes and with all my strength slapped the fish against the deck. When I opened my eyes, the fish's eye was still fixed on me and its body moved weakly in my hand. Bo, who was standing beside me, stopped what he was doing and, taking the fish, quickly put an end to it. He tossed it back to me, and I went to work with the knife, sawing a ragged cut rather than the swift clean cut Yi Yi had made. I thrust my hand into that part of the fish I had no wish to know and tugged at the soft mess, tossing it, as the others had, into the river, where a hundred screeching gulls made a meal of it.

Not all the fish's insides ended up in the river. As we worked, the bottom of the boat became slippery with blood and innards. Still we worked on. Hour followed hour until the sun's blaze cooled
and the sun was no more than a gold ball slipping into the river. When the last fish was cleaned and pails of water had been thrown on the deck to clean it, I watched in amazement as Wu, Yi Yi, and the boys shed nearly all their clothes and jumped into the river. I stood there, smelly and as covered with scales as any fish. The next moment I was in the river clinging to the boat. The current and gulls had carried the innards away, and the water was nearly clean. The coolness was lovely on my sore hands and back.

Wu and Yi Yi were soon back in the fishing boat, but Bo and Zhong were like otters, slipping here and there, splashing each other and pushing each other under the water. I could not swim, and the river was large and deep. I clung to the boat trembling for fear they would come after me with their splashings and dunkings, but Yi Yi kept an eye on them, and when they came too close to me she
warned them, “Mind you leave Chu Ju alone.” And they did.

The fish meant for market were loaded into buckets filled with water and the buckets fixed on shoulder poles. Wu and the boys went off with them to the village while Yi Yi and I placed the cleaned fish on the drying racks. When Wu and the boys returned, we ate our evening rice and fish. There was talk of the next place for fishing, and soon the boat was loosed from its moorings and once again we drifted downstream. The fields and villages became hills and then mountains sliced into green steps. As my ye ye had said, there was no end to where the river might carry you. When Ye Ye had spoken, he had been eager for such adventure, but I saw only how far from home the river was taking me.

Yi Yi watched me and saw the sadness on my face. “Tell me about your home,” she said, but I
only shook my head, for I knew any word I spoke of home would bring enough tears to make my own river.

Wu paid no attention to me. I might have been a small dog underfoot. My lack of skill with the fish had not surprised him, and I was sure he was suspicious of my running away. Had it been up to him, I would have been put ashore long since. It was Yi Yi's pleadings that kept me on the fishing boat, and I believe it was her wish for a daughter that made her plead that I be allowed to stay.

Bo and Zhong did not know what to do with me. Zhong was slim and quick. He darted here and there, happy to startle me with his sudden appearances. In the river he would explode from the water, laughing to see the surprise on my face. I think he did not know what to make of a girl. Bo was more quiet than his brother, going seriously about his work, more a man in what he did than a
boy. He frowned at his brother's tricks and was kind to me, though I could see that he, like Zhong, thought me a strange creature.

I became quicker with my knife and less merciful with the fish.

“She earns her rice,” Yi Yi said to Wu when he talked again of putting me ashore.

“And if we are questioned as to why there are three children on the boat?” Wu asked.

Yi Yi shrugged. “When have the authorities come onto a poor fishing boat? Each day we are somewhere else. There is no time for suspicion.” Still, when we came into a village, Yi Yi set me a task inside the boat's hut.