“She saw for herself how hot the dormitory was,” Song Su said.
“I showed her my black-and-blue marks,” Ying said, “and she was very angry.”
After that the food was better, a fan was put in the dormitory, and Biting Dog only growled and no longer struck the girls. Yong was furious that such a letter had been sent, but she could not find out from the orphanage who sent it and she did not dare to punish all of us for fear there would be another visit from the orphanage worker. If the orphange sent their girls somewhere else, the silk farm would be in trouble, for where could they get such cheap labor?
Still, Yong knew the orphans could not write and she watched me closely. One day she came to me and, with a crafty look, said, “I don’t have enough time to keep track of the number of worms we get. Here is a notebook. You can put down the day the worms come and the numbers of worms. If you are careful with the records, I might pay you a larger wage.”
I shook my head. “I cannot write, Yong,” I said. “I am only a stupid country girl.”
She gave me a suspicious look but said nothing more. That night I found my pencil box had been stolen from my chest. I truly hated Yong and longed to go to her and demand that she return it, but I had told her I could not write.
The next day as soon as I entered the worm room, Yong said to me, “We have more girls than we need. You must leave at once. You can go back to the country. Doubtless you can find a job cleaning out pigpens. It is all you are suitable for.”
Song Su and Ling Li were watching. I longed to bid them zai-jian, but Yong forbade me to speak to anyone. As I reached the door, Song Su and Ling Li ran to me and put their arms around me until Yong hissed to them to return to the worms.
When I went to the dormitory to get my bundle of clothes, I was amazed to find the pencil box. Yong had returned it. I thought I had seen into Yong as far as a person could go, but I had not. There was yet a bit of heart in her, so when I left, I was not quite so afraid for my friends.
five
I don’t know how long I would have stayed among the worms. Though I had boasted that I might go where I wished, I knew of no place to go. I longed to return to the river and to Ma Ma and Ba Ba and Hua, but I made myself turn away from the direction of the river and my home.
Except to buy a bit of food, I kept away from villages, for the stories Jing had told about young girls being kidnaped frightened me. At night I slept curled up in a bamboo grove. As one day followed another, the whole countryside changed before my eyes. The rows of mulberry trees were gone. All around me were small and large rice paddies, the flooded paddies marked off by mud dams no more than a foot high. The paddies were dotted with the wide circles of bamboo hats as the farmers bent over to plant the new rice shoots.
The paths that wound through the paddies were muddy, sucking at my feet. I had no bamboo hat, so as the day grew hotter, the sun became scorching. The mosquitoes buzzed around my head. I longed to be back with the worms, where there was a roof over my head, food at the end of the day, and friends to talk with.
I stopped at each paddy to ask if a worker was needed. The farmer would look at me, and seeing I was only a young girl, he would shake his head. I had left the large paddies where there were many workers and had come to small rice fields separated by dams that held the few inches of water needed to grow the rice. Beyond the paddies was higher ground where fields of sugarcane and jute grew.
At one of the smallest paddies a woman and a man worked at tucking the young rice seedlings into the mud that lay beneath the water. The woman moved slowly, and from time to time she stood up to rest her back. She was dark from the sun, thin as one of the rice shoots, and though she looked to be no more than fifty, she was stooped from years of planting. I saw that she was watching the young man, a worried look on her face. The man went about his work as if he were furious with the rice seedlings, plunging them into the water as if he were drowning them instead of planting them.
Though it was only a small paddy and unlikely to need another worker, the woman looked so tired, I gathered my courage once more and asked of her, “Is it possible that you could use a worker here?”
The man took no notice of me, but the woman looked up from her planting, a puzzled expression on her face, as if she were searching for this worker I was talking of.
“I’m not afraid of work. I tended crops in a large plot.”
The woman smiled. “We could use the help, for even this small place is too much for me and my son, but we have no money for another worker, even for one so young as you.”
No grown person had smiled at me in a long time, and while the short, angry refusals of the other farmers had not hurt me, by now I was tired and miserable and the little kindness was too much for me. I burst into tears and began to run away.
“Wait!” the woman called after me. I stopped and looked back. The man and woman were arguing with each other. The woman waved me back.
“Chi fan meiyou?” she asked.
“Have you eaten yet?” is a common greeting, but I saw that she meant for me to tell the truth. I shook my head, for the food I had bought with the few yuan I had saved had long since been eaten.
“We have no money, but we have rice,” she said. “Rest a bit while we finish, and you can share our dinner.” The young man had gone back to his planting, punishing the rice shoots more fiercely than ever.
For an answer I took up a basket of shoots and asked how they were planted. The woman smiled again, and taking my hand, she guided it to the mud beneath the water and made a hole in the mud. “Like this,” she said, and placed two shoots in the hole, firming the mud about the tender roots. “You must be sure to see that the mud hugs the roots, or a wind will come along and the shoot will float loose.”
After the woman was satisfied with my work, she attended to her planting, but I caught the man looking at me from time to time as if he were considering me in a way I did not understand.
When the last of the shoots were planted, the woman and the young man stood in the path examining their arms and legs, pulling at something that clung to them. With horror I saw they were pulling off fat, black leeches. I looked at my own arms and legs, and discovering three of the ugly worms clinging to my skin, I began to scream. The woman hurried over and showed me how to sprinkle onto the leeches a bit of salt, which she carried in a bag around her neck. Salted, the leeches curled up and dropped away.
“After you have done it a thousand times,” she said, “you will think nothing of it.”
I had believed I was finished with worms. At least, I thought, the silkworms were satisfied with mulberry leaves and did not cling to you as if they wished to suck away your very lifeblood. Together we walked toward a wooden house. In the back of the house was a square of garden. The house was much like my own home had been, with two small rooms and a tiny courtyard. Everything was tidy. The bamboo mats on the floor had been swept. The two windows sparkled. Neatly braided strings of garlic and onions hung on the wall. On a small shelf was a picture of an old man.
Han Na, for I had learned that was the woman’s name, set a fire and put the rice on to boil while her son, Quan, brought water from a nearby well so that we could all rid ourselves of the mud from the paddy. While we stood in the courtyard, splashing ourselves, Han Na asked my name and where I had come from.
“Chu Ju,” I said. “I come from an orphanage.” It was a small lie, but when I had told my true story to Yi Yi on the fishing boat, she had wanted to take me back to my home. I would not make the same mistake. I could see that Quan resented every grain of rice I ate, and I was sure I would be sent on my way in the morning, but for now this good woman and her small nest were so pleasant to me, I didn’t wish to risk having to leave at once.
Han Na asked no more questions, but as we sat at our rice in the courtyard, she said, “It is a sad thing that so many of our country’s children should be scattered about like leaves.” She looked at her son, who threw down his chopsticks.
&
nbsp; “Of course they are scattered,” he said in a cross voice. “How are farmers to make a living when their land measures no more than five mu? After we pay our lease fees and taxes, there is hardly enough for the next year’s seed. How can a man live unless he leaves the land and finds work in the city? There you can make three times as much as you make on the land.”
Han Na said, “In the city you are one among millions, everything is unknown, and nothing is yours. Here every inch of the land is familiar. I could close my eyes and find my way anywhere on our land. Can you say the same for a city like Shanghai?”
Quan seemed taken aback by her words, but he answered, “Why should you not learn to know a city as well as the mud of a paddy?”
When the bowls were washed, though my back ached and my feet were sore, with no word I went out into the little garden beside the house and began to weed among the yam vines and the cabbage, pulling out the thistles and grasses that choked the vegetables and shooing the chickens that clucked around me. When I came in, I picked up my things, ready to leave.
“Wait,” Quan said. “If you wish, you can stay a few days. We can use help with the planting of the rice. There will be food and a bed.”
At the time I was surprised that the invitation came from Quan and that Han Na added no words of welcome. It was only at the end of the week that I understood why Quan wanted me to remain and why Han Na, kind as she was, worried at my staying, for Quan announced that he was leaving for Shanghai.
“You have no government permit to go to the city,” Han Na said. “What will you do when there is a cha hukou, a checking of residence permits? You will be arrested.”
“How can the police check everyone in a city of many millions?” Quan looked at me. “You have the girl now. She can plant and weed as well as I do. I will send you money each month, and one day you can leave this backbreaking labor and live an easier life.” His voice grew soft and pleading. “Ma Ma, it isn’t just that I have no wish to spend the rest of my days in the mud of the paddy, it is that I cannot bear to see you bent over from morning to night. If you go on like this, you will die working in the paddy as Ba Ba died.”
I had listened to only a part of what Quan said. I had not gotten beyond the words, “You have the girl now.” Were there to be days in Han Na’s house beyond this one? I put my hands in my lap so their trembling would not be seen.
“We have seen your pencil box,” Quan said. “Is it possible you read and write?”
“I am not greatly skilled.”
Quan asked, “You could read any letters I send?”
I nodded. “If they were simple.”
“I could write only simple letters.”
Han Na said, “It may be that your coming is a fortunate thing, seeing as how Quan is determined to go.” She sighed. “Or your coming may have brought closer the misfortune of Quan’s going. I cannot tell. I have very little, but what I have I will share with you for as long as you wish to stay.”
I hid my face in my hands. “As long as you will have me,” I mumbled.
There is a cuckoo that hides in the daytime but at night you sometimes hear his call. That night I heard the cuckoo calling and I took it for a good omen. I slept soundly. When I awoke in the morning to the crowing of the rooster, I was still in the house of Han Na but Quan had left.
six
Han Na went about with red eyes and so sad a face, I could not bear to look at her. Several times she went to the door and peered out as if Quan might return, but there was no returning of Quan. She rolled up Quan’s mattress and put it away, but she left his bowl on the table and there it stayed, a small bit of him, day after day.
In spite of her sadness she let none of her tears fall onto the rice seedlings. Han Na was up early in the morning, and by daybreak we were in the paddy attacking the weeds that grew faster than the rice and, had we not pulled them out, would have choked the rice to its death. Early in the mornings a mist hung over the paddy, so wading into the paddy was like wading into the clouds. Then the sun punished us. The only shade was the two moving circles made by our hats.
It was the time of the rains, and every afternoon a warm rain would fall, making little dimples on the water. When the rice grew to cover the water, the rain fell on the rice plants and they sprang up into a thick green mat.
Han Na was sad, but it was not all sadness. A little frog would jump out at us and I would see a smile come over Han Na’s face. The frog would go into her bag and its tender flesh would make our rice tasty that night.
Often Han Na would tell me to rest. “You are not used to such work. If Quan is not going to work the land when I am gone, what is the use of breaking our backs to save it?” Still, Han Na worked on. I saw that it did not matter how the land tired her out. It was her land, and every mu was precious to her.
The work was hard but I was not unhappy. Han Na was kind, sharing with me all that she had. After our evening rice we would sit in the courtyard, where there was a breath of air, and look out at the green patchwork of rice paddies and beyond the paddies at the hills where the clouds gathered. Often Han Na would tell me stories of the land.
“My family has always worked this land,” Han Na said, “but long ago all the land belonged to a very rich man and they worked for him.”
Han Na’s grandmother had told her of the great house in which the rich man lived. “The women were dressed in the finest silks, and around their necks hung jade and pearls,” Han Na said. “Their feet were cruelly turned back on themselves and bound until they were no larger than a child’s hand. They could only totter about and had to be carried everywhere. The landlord kept strange animals, monkeys and tigers. He had more wives than he could remember. The Revolution took the land from him, but not before putting him and his whole family to death. We have some of his land now,” Han Na said, “but we must wade in his blood to grow our rice.”
Even more wonderous to me than Han Na’s tales was the rice itself. Though my back never ceased to ache, I thought how happy Ba Ba would be to see the rice plants spring up, green and tall in the paddies.
While I marveled at the rice growing before my eyes, Han Na grew weaker and lived only for Quan’s letters. It was a month before the first letter arrived.
Honored Ma Ma,
I am now in the great city of Shanghai. It is larger than can be imagined. There are more people in this city than there are grains of rice in our whole province. The food and the language are strange, so you cannot be sure you are still in China. People get from one part of the city to the other by descending underground and riding cars through tunnels that have been burrowed into the ground. As yet there is no job for me, but new buildings rise everywhere, so labor must be wanted. Tell me how the rice is progressing. I send my greetings to the girl.
Your humble son,
Quan
Han Na had me read Quan’s letter several times, trying to find comfort in his words, but there was little comfort in the story of a son lost in a large city with no friends and no work and perhaps no roof over his head or food to eat.
Another month went by, and Quan’s next letter told of work and a room he shared with several other laborers. In the letter after that there were yuan notes wrapped in paper. “Buy a little meat to keep up your strength,” Quan wrote to his mother, “and a new quilt to take the place of the worn one.” But Han Na carefully put the yuan, still wrapped in its paper, into the chest where she kept her few clothes.
Once a week Han Na sent me into the village for salt or noodles or on some other small errand. The journey was pleasant, for the path into the village wandered among the rice paddies and I rejoiced in standing upright all day. I would stop here and there to compare the crops of the other paddies with our crop. I worried if another crop was further along than ours, and I was pleased if our crop was taller and thicker. I would exchange a word with the other farmers and learn from them. One farmer showed me a new way of planting the rice seedlings. “You throw the seedlings,” he said.
“Won’t they float away?” I asked.
“No. The weight of the small clump of dirt that clings to their roots will settle them into the earth. It is much faster.”
In the village the streets were crowded with bicycles. You had to step carefully, for the people of the village threw their refuse out of their doorways onto the walks, and there was much spitting. Also there was the smell of nightsoil coming from the privies behind the houses and shops. The holes beneath the privies were shallow so that the men who collected the nightsoil for crops would have no difficulty. Train tracks ran through the village, and if I was lucky, I might see one of the great beasts as it came to a screeching halt to unload or pick up passengers. Many of the trains rushed along without stopping, for our village was not an important one.
If I went early in the morning, I would be in time to see the villagers at their martial-arts exercises. Drums and gongs were sounded and the villagers practiced making war with clubs, swords, pitchforks, and even umbrellas.
I lingered among the shops. In one shop there were cages of quacking ducks. In another ribbons of live eels squirmed among the fish, and for a moment I was sad thinking of Wu and the boys and Yi Yi. There was a stall where keys were made and another where you could find bamboo hats in every size and shape. A doctor had set up a booth, and hanging on the wall of his booth was an acupuncture chart exactly like my ba ba’s. My favorite place was the Morning Sun Noodle Shop, where noodles, longer than I was tall, were cut from endless rolls of dough. Han Na always gave me a few yuan for a bowl of the noodles nestled in a bit of fragrant broth. I sipped the long worms of noodles slowly, making them last, and then I would stand a bit by the teahouse to look at the old men and their caged birds. I was fascinated to see how from a great distance the clever waiter directed the stream of boiling water into the cups. When I hurried home, I would tell Han Na all that I had seen in the village.