Quach Loc followed him. “I am known here, and the storekeepers will give you a better bargain when they see you are my friend.”
We all waited silently for my father and Quach Loc to return. Our mother and grandmother didn’t take their eyes from the door, but Thant and Anh fell asleep, Thant with his head on my mother’s lap, Anh sitting against the wall, one hand holding on to me. I sometimes thought Anh was as much a part of me as my arm or leg.
I wanted to move closer to the girl, Kim, and maybe even talk with her. Ho Chi Minh City was a huge place. Much, much bigger than even Go Cong. I wondered what it would be like to live in such a city. I had a thousand questions to ask, but I didn’t want to awaken Anh by moving and I couldn’t catch the girl’s eye. Before I knew it my eyes fluttered shut and I was asleep.
When I awoke, my father had returned and was talking in a quick, hushed whisper to my mother. “It took all of our money,” he was saying, “and I know that thief Quach Loc got a commission on everything I bought.” He looked hastily in the direction of the kitchen, where Loc and his wife were also whispering together, but the look on their faces was one of satisfaction.
The man who was to take us to the boat arrived only moments after it grew dark. He was a small man with a crafty face like a monkey’s. Quach Loc introduced us. The man consulted a paper he held and, bowing before Bac si Hong, said, “From you, eight taels of gold for yourself and your daughter.”
I caught my breath. So much money! There was not that much in all of our village.
Bac si Hong reached into a canvas bag and took out a leather purse. One by one she placed the small gold coins into the man’s outstretched hand. As she was counting out the money, the man was staring at her hand. When she had finished he said, “Now I must ask for one tael to give as a bribe to the officers who guard the harbor.”
Bac si Hong raised her eyes and stared hopelessly at the man. “That is all I have,” she said. “We had to sell everything to get that much.” She held out the leather purse. “Look for yourself.”
“I will take your ring,” he said, pointing to a wide gold band on her left hand.
“But that is my wedding ring.”
The man shrugged. “If you don’t wish to go …?”
Bac si Hong began to tug at her ring. “I can’t give it to you,” she said. “It hasn’t been off for years.”
“Allow me,” he said. He grabbed her hand and began to twist the ring, but it would not come off. In disgust the man gave up. “What else do you have?” He snatched at her bag and emptied it onto the floor. Pushing aside a small heap of clothes, he took up a leather case. “What is in here?”
“Medicines,” she answered. “There may be sickness on the boat.”
“Medicine is scarce and sells well. I’ll accept it in payment.”
“Wait,” Bac si Hong said. “There is something of my daughter’s I could give you instead of the medicines.” I saw her give Kim a pleading look. “The medicines may save lives, Kim,” she said.
When Kim did not move, her mother reached over and took from her hand a long black case, which she opened. Inside was a thin silver object.
“What is it?” the little man asked greedily. He reached for it, but Kim pulled it out of her mother’s hand.
“It’s a flute,” she said, and lifted the instrument to her lips. She began to make the strangest, most beautiful music I had ever heard.
The man dropped his hand and stood staring at Kim while she played. The music sounded to me as if it ought to be played in pleasant gardens where there were fountains. When Kim finished, she put the flute back into its case and handed it to the man. He shook his head, indicating that she should keep it. But he was embarrassed by being caught in a kind act, and when he turned away, his voice was rough. “Come with me,” he ordered.
Quach Loc opened the door for us. He and his wife bowed low in farewell. Our family, with Kim and her mother, followed the little man. I had not liked the house of Quach Loc, but it seemed safer to me than the unknown streets of Go Cong.
5
The man led us through the darkened city toward the harbor. Our father walked ahead. Our mother followed with Thant holding her hand. It was rare for Thant to allow anyone to take his hand. Anh and I came next and behind us the grandmother and Bac si Hong with Kim. We were silent as we walked through the dark streets. Soon I smelled something strange. Although I had never smelled it before, I knew what it was. The sea. We were at the harbor. I could make out the shapes of sampans with their shrimplike tails curled over the backs of the boats. The lanterns that hung from the masts looked like they were floating in the air. The man had stopped. Ahead of us on a wharf a crowd of people huddled together. As we came closer, the knot of people pushed and shoved against us. I pulled back. When I had thought about the trip I had thought about being on the boat with my family. Then I had added Kim and her mother, thinking I would be glad for Kim’s company if Kim would just look at me or speak to me. Of course, I knew all along there would be other people on the boat, but I had never expected this many. “Is it a very large boat?” I asked.
“The boat is no more than forty feet,” my father answered. “All these people will not fit on such a boat.”
“But haven’t they paid their passage?” asked our mother. “They cannot be left behind!”
“If they are, who will they complain to?” said our father. “People are put in jail for trying to leave the country.”
“But they will have no money left for another boat,” I said.
“No,” our father replied gravely.
The little man had disappeared into the cabin of the boat. Now he came in search of our father. “You are to come aboard,” he said to Father. “The boat must leave before it is discovered, but the engine won’t cooperate. If you can’t do something with it in a hurry, there will be no trip.” The people around us heard the man’s words and quickly repeated them. A silence fell over the crowd.
“My family must be allowed to come with me,” Father said.
The man nodded. The people knew what my father was wanted for and drew aside to allow us to pass. As I hurried after my parents, I saw the frightened look on Kim’s face. Without thinking of what I was doing, I reached out and grabbed Kim’s hand, pulling her with us. Kim’s mother understood. She picked up their bundles and hurried after our family. A man guarding the entrance to the boat pointed to Kim and Bac si Hong. “Who are they?” he asked me.
I don’t know where I found the courage, but I said, “My aunt and my cousin.”
“Well, move quickly,” he said.
Leading to the boat was a gangplank so narrow there was room for only one person at a time. A lantern illuminated the boat. I thought there must be some mistake—the boat was so small. How, I wondered, would all those people on the wharf fit into it? The boat looked very old, as though it had been floating on the sea for many years.
The man told us to stay where we were and went off with my father. For the first time Kim’s mother spoke. “They are no better than murderers to send us off in such a boat. The first wave will crush it.” She looked in the direction of the wharf as though she were considering making her way back with Kim. A moment later the anger disappeared and the look of despair that had been on her face since we had first seen her returned.
Our grandmother was sobbing. “We will all drown,” she wailed. “The ma da will reach out of the water and pull the boat down to the bottom of the sea. We will drown and our spirits will never rest.”
My mother tried to comfort her, but the wailing continued. Thant and Anh began to cry. I felt tears in my own eyes and saw that Kim had buried her face against her mother. Bac si Hong looked at us and gently pushed Kim away. “Crying will not help.” Her voice was suddenly businesslike. “We must find a good place for ourselves before the others come.” She looked quickly about the boat. There was a small cabin made of planks that looked as if they did not quite fit together. Inside the cabin was the entrance to the
lower part of the boat where my father had been taken to work on the engine.
“Perhaps we should go down below,” my mother suggested. I knew she wanted to be close to my father. I agreed. I didn’t want to look at all that sea. My grandmother began to move toward the small cabin but Kim’s mother stopped her.
“No, the air in the hold will be stale and close. There are sure to be rats, perhaps carrying disease. Should anything happen to the boat, we would be trapped. The best place to be is where the food is prepared. That way we will be among the first to be served. Kim, you and Mai see if you can help me find the stove.”
I followed Kim, not really wanting to go. I kept looking back over my shoulder so I could make out the shapes of my mother and grandmother. It was dark and we had to move slowly, feeling our way as we went. I had never been on a boat, and the rolling motion felt funny. You put a foot where you thought something solid was but nothing was there to meet you. I could hear the sound of the small waves slapping against the boat, letting us know the water was out there. I tripped over a broken plank in the deck and bumped my head.
“Mai,” Kim called to me, “look.”
When I found her, Kim placed my hands on a large metal can. It was warm to the touch. We could see a grill on top and red embers inside. We called out to the others that we had found the stove.
Kim’s mother was pleased. “Good, we will make a place for ourselves here.”
There was a sound of sputterings and deep coughs from the engine. “Hurry,” Kim’s mother called. “Spread out your things to mark your place. Once the engine starts they will herd everyone aboard and cast off so as not to waste fuel.”
My mother seemed unsure. “It will be better to wait for my husband to choose a place for us.”
But Kim’s mother had already begun to settle into the spot she had chosen. I had never heard a woman give orders except my grandmother, and those were always given in a whining voice, not as a man gives orders. Still, everything Kim’s mother said made sense. I decided to arrange our things as well.
The sounds of the engine grew stronger, stopped, started again, wheezed, stopped. A long silence and then the whole boat shook with the sound of the engine. There were cheers from the shore and excited shouts from the crowd as they all tried to rush up the narrow gangplank at once. As people poured onto the deck, they were herded into the hold.
“Why are they making them go down there?” my mother asked, worrying that we had made the wrong choice.
“If everyone stays on deck the boat will be unstable,” Kim’s mother said. “People are needed in the hold as ballast. Besides, all the people would not fit on the deck. Now we must be very quiet so we are not made to go below. Once the hold is full, we will be safe.”
The people onshore were desperate to get on deck and would not stop pushing. Suddenly there was a splash, followed by shouts. “My husband!” someone was screaming. “My husband has fallen into the water!” For a moment there was silence, and the movement of the crowd seemed to come to a halt. Then it began again and the woman’s screams were lost in the rush of people crowding onto the boat.
Although I could no longer hear the screams, they echoed back and forth inside my head. I would have run from the boat, but people were pushing in against us from all sides, trying to find a bit of space. Our own space became smaller and smaller. “Lie down,” Kim’s mother told us. We lay down on the deck, hoping to keep enough room so we could stretch out at night and sleep, but it was no use. There were too many people. I felt someone sitting on my legs and quickly drew them up, losing the little extra space I had. Someone stepped on Thant. He cried out, and when my mother picked him up to comfort him, Thant’s space was lost to us. Soon we were huddled together with barely enough room to move our arms. Still the people came. I felt the breath and smelled the smell of strangers all around me.
The boat had been rocking gently. Now the engine gave a great wheeze, and I felt a lurch as the boat moved away from the wharf and made its way out into the harbor. There were terrible cries from those on the wharf left behind. Once the boat began to move, the jostling for space stopped. The movement of the small ship out into the darkness of the sea silenced everyone. We all held our breath, waiting.
Anh said, “Will the sea stop after a while? Will we fall over the edge?”
“No,” I told her. “There is land on the other side of the sea.” I tried to recall the picture on the postcard the Tien family had sent from the silver city. I heard my grandmother whispering to the duck, trying to quiet it. I knew from Thant’s light breathing that he was already asleep. The sound of the engine told me my father was watching over the boat. I felt my eyes close.
PART THREE
The Voyage
6
When I opened my eyes it was morning. My legs were cramped from being drawn up all night into so small a space. My hair and clothes felt damp and clammy. It was only a morning sun, but the light danced on the water and the heat felt like the middle of the afternoon. I looked around me. The boat was crowded with awakening people: old people, families with children, young men, people who were traveling alone, people who looked as if they came from the country, as we had, and city people like Kim and Bac si Hong. The boat was like a small, crowded village coming to life. In a few places where someone had edged into someone else’s space, polite arguments were going on. People were tying their straw hats on against the sun. Some had little tins of water and were washing themselves. A man was going about collecting from each passenger some rice to be boiled. Babies were crying. Some were being nursed. My grandmother and an old man were standing side by side watching the outline of the land grow fainter and fainter. I tried to guess at the number of passengers. Forty or fifty, I decided. It was hard to believe that with so many passengers the small boat could stay afloat.
Our father was trying to make his way toward us. With every step he took people had to pull in their legs or shift their body to make room for him to get by. My mother was standing up waiting for him. He took her hand. I had never seen my parents touch in public. My father rested his hand for a moment on each of us—Thant first, then Anh and me, and even our grandmother—as though he could not believe we were actually there in the boat until he had touched us. He nodded politely to Kim and her mother, embarrassed that they should see him show so much emotion. “It will be a wonder if the engine continues to run,” he grumbled. “It must be the first engine that was ever made, and the boat timbers are rotted and waterlogged. What’s more, the man who owns the boat, Captain Muoi, is a fool. This is the only map he has.” Father showed us a page torn from a book. I recognized our country and the South China Sea, even though their names were written in a strange language.
“It must be from an English geography book,” Kim said. “My mother taught me English.”
My grandmother looked at the strange printing, then at Kim as though she were a witch.
A voice boomed out over our heads. Looming above us was the biggest man I had ever seen in my life. He was like a great thick banyan tree. He wore an old cap pushed back on his head with bits of tarnished gold braid stuck here and there. Beneath his cap I could see his head had been shaved. Although he did not appear old, his tanned face was cross-hatched with wrinkles. He looked happy, as though he had something pleasant to tell us. “You are the most fortunate people on earth!” he shouted. “You are under the care of Captain Muoi and you are sailing on the finest ship in the China Sea. You must remember that I am your father while you are on my ship. We will all be one happy family. What belongs to one of us belongs to all. If you hoard food and do not turn it over to our cook, Le Hung, you will be a bad child and your father Captain Muoi will have to punish you.” He pointed an accusing finger at a woman who was washing her baby’s face and hands with a rag dipped in a small bowl of water. “There will be no washing with the drinking water. Our journey is a thousand miles, and water will be more precious to us than gold. It is only for drinking. A small ration will be g
iven out in the morning to each family. If you are good and obedient children you will find me the kindest father in the world. If not, we feed you to the fishes!” His shoulders heaved as he laughed at his wit. Then he stooped low to clear the cabin door and disappeared inside.
“Has he made the trip to Hong Kong before?” Kim’s mother asked my father.
“I don’t think he’s ever done anything in this boat but carry black market goods up and down the coast. I think he knows nothing about navigating on the sea.” My father saw our worried faces. “Never mind,” he assured us. “We’ll get there safely in spite of Muoi. Now I must go back. The engine needs constant watching.”
The passengers busied themselves with arranging their tiny living space. Mats were unrolled and laid on the deck. Other mats and bits of clothing were supported on sticks to make sun shades. My grandmother was secretly feeding a bit of rice to the duck. She had already argued with Le Hung, when he had come to collect our food. He was eager to take the duck. “Before I was put in prison for talking too much I was a cook in a restaurant in a town that would swallow ten of your villages,” he said. “I know how a duck should be cooked.”
The grandmother insisted the duck must be saved for the celebration of Tet, which was still many days away. “Can’t you see? The duck is a member of our family,” she told him.
Le Hung laughed loudly at that. He danced lightly across the sprawled bodies on the deck, joking with everyone. He was happy to have escaped.
Bac si Hong saw that our mother was shy in the presence of so many strangers and tried to make her more comfortable by asking her about our village. At first our mother was embarrassed to be speaking with a bac si, who was educated, but after a while she forgot her embarrassment in the pleasure of speaking about our village. Speaking of it brought it closer.
I did not want to talk of the village. I was eager to learn from Kim what Ho Chi Minh City was like. “What did you do in the city?” I asked her. “Are there movies there?” I had heard of such things.