Chu Ju's House (7 page)

Ling gave me a worried look. “Chu Ju, I wish
you would let me go in your place.”

I shook my head. “And if they kept you as well? No. It must be me. If I am to go tonight, I must hurry home and prepare.” I took hold of his hand and thanked him for his help. A moment later I was running back to Han Na.

I was out of breath when I reached her. “Han Na,” I said, “I must go to see my parents. I leave today.”

Han Na's eyebrows flew up. “What, today! What has Ling said to you? I like the boy, but this suddenness is foolish. You are only sixteen. Wait a little until you have thought on it.”

I was happy to let her believe Ling was the excuse for my hurrying away, for what other excuse could I offer? “I promise I will take no foolish action with Ling, but I must see my parents.”

Han Na saw my determination. “If you must go, I cannot keep you here, but Chu Ju, I wish
you would wait a bit.”

I shook my head. “It is only for a few days. I promise to come right back. It is the quiet time of year for the vegetables.” Han Na sighed and said nothing more.

The worst part was yet to come. “How will you go?” she asked.

“By the bus from the village,” I lied, knowing that it was just the first lie I would have to tell.

“You must have some money for the trip,” she said. Han Na got out the package of money that Quan had sent and gave me twenty yuan.

I felt my face grow hot as I took them and thanked Han Na, knowing that I would have to find a way to take all the money before I left.

The way came when Han Na went out to pick some radishes for me to take on my journey. The money when I took it was like a poisonous scorpion in my hand. It would have been no surprise if it had
bitten me. Quickly I put it inside my jacket in a little pocket I had hastily made. I copied the address in Quan's letter. A moment later Han Na returned with the radishes, which she wrapped along with rice cakes and two hard-boiled eggs.

In the early afternoon I said my farewell to Han Na, unable to leave without shedding tears. Han Na cried as well. “With Quan away, you have been both a daughter and a son to me. This house is your house. Promise me you will come back.”

I promised, but inside I wondered if there would be any returning from such a journey. At last I set off for the village, the money burning the place next to my heart where it lay. Several times I turned around to wave to Han Na, who stood there watching me, her hand shading her eyes from the bright sun. Then I turned a bend in the road, and when I looked back, Han Na's house was no longer there.

To make myself look as much as possible like a young girl, I tied my hair into two untidy ponytails and put on a shirt that hid the part of my body that had become a woman. On the way to the village I made up my story. I would say that I was being sent to Shanghai to look after my grandmother, who was not well.

When I reached the station, I was afraid I would not be able to open my mouth to buy so strange a thing as a round-trip ticket to Shanghai, but I had practiced the words, and when I needed them the words appeared. The train came with many cars and many doors. I stood there puzzled as
to which door I should enter and terrified that the train might take off without me. At last I followed a woman into a car crowded with passengers. She pushed her way onto a bench, finding room where there had been no room before.

I looked to see if there was somewhere else to sit, but there was no space and no one willing to make one. I stood grasping a pole to steady myself and watched as mile after mile took me farther from Han Na and closer to Shanghai. The train stopped and a man got out of the car, but when he had left, his space quickly filled up. Still I knew the space had been there and I pushed my way until it opened again. After I was seated, I felt a little better and even began to look out of the window with interest.

We crossed the river and I looked for Wu's fishing boat, but the bridge was high, the boats small, and one fishing boat looked like another. As the
train rushed along, I thought of the map of China that had stretched across our wall at school. At last I was seeing China, and in spite of my worry over what was to come, I was excited and looked with amazement at the kilometers of countryside and the sizes of the towns through which we passed. I dreaded my arrival at Shanghai and wished I could stay on the train forever, watching as more and more wonders flew by.

After a little while the passengers brought out their dinners. The man next to me unwrapped a feast with little packages of this and that. The packages slid onto my lap and spilled onto the lap of the woman on his other side. There was much garlic on everything. He ate his way greedily through each package until nothing was left but a few small bones and the paper, which he threw on the floor. When he was finished and there was room, I opened my own small supper, but after watching
his greed and with my nervousness over the trip, I hardly touched what Han Na had packed for me. I began to wrap the food up again when the man, who had been watching me, said, “If you are not going to eat your dinner, so that it should not be wasted, I will eat it.” And before I could answer, he had snatched it from me.

The night was long. The bench was hard, and because of the darkness there were no sights to see. I was hungry and wished for the rest of my dinner. The man next to me with his full belly slept soundly, often on my shoulder, the smell of garlic all around me, and I thought of the silkworms and how they would have hated to have a man with such a smell beside them, and I wished Jong were there to chase him away.

When morning came, we were traveling through rice paddies. The rice in the paddies was green and tall. We were so far south now that
instead of winter vegetables the farmers could have two crops of rice—I had even heard that three crops were possible. It was warm and close in the car, but when the windows were opened to let in a little air, soot and bugs flew in as well. It began to feel as if I would spend the rest of my life hurtling along in the train.

As the train grew closer to the great city, there were no spaces on the benches for the passengers who boarded the train. The new passengers stood swaying in the aisles, bumping against one another. An older woman stood guarding a basket she had placed on the floor between her feet leaving her hands free to hang on to an edge of the bench on which I was sitting. She was old and tired looking, but patient, as if she had been shaken and rocked back and forth in trains all of her life. I signaled to her that she should take my seat, not wanting to get up until she was ready to sit down, for fear my
small space would disappear. With a weak smile she settled into the space, clutching her basket to her.

“You are going to Shanghai?” she asked.

I nodded.

She said nothing more but looked at me from time to time as if she were trying to guess what I was doing by myself. At last, in a voice so quiet I could hardly hear her, she asked, “You are traveling alone?”

My story was ready. “Yes, my grandmother is unwell and I am on my way to her.”

“She is fortunate to have such a kind granddaughter. Tell her for me you have done a kindness to an old woman.”

I smiled at her and hated my lie.

From the train windows there were frightening sights. A huge city was unfolding, one ugly thing after another. Great square cement buildings, some with windows that showed people must live in them, others with no windows where unfortunate
people must work, and perhaps where Quan had worked. I thought of Ling's wish to live where you might look out at the paddies and the hills.

The streets were crowded with bicycles and carts and taxis and more automobiles than I had thought possible. You could not see the sidewalks for the crowds of people. My heart sank. Was I to walk out into such a city among millions of people and find Quan? I took out my piece of paper. Before, the address had been a place; now it was only a single drop of water in an ocean. People began to collect their bags and baskets, ready to leave the train. Though I blinked my eyes, I could not keep back the tears. How was I to leave the train? I began to hate Quan for his stubbornness in going to such a city. I felt for my round-trip ticket, thinking I might stay on the train as it turned around and in less than two days be back with Han Na.

I saw the woman was still watching me, and
though no one else in the crowded car had noticed my unhappiness, for doubtless they had their own unhappiness at having to go to such a city, the old woman had noticed.

She stood up and put a gentle hand on my shoulder. In a soft voice she said, “Let me help you.”

I was desperate for such help. I showed her my scrap of paper. “This is my grandmother's address,” I said. “Could you tell me how to get there?”

When she saw the address she gasped, hastily handing the paper back as if it were a poisonous snake.

“Everyone in the city knows that address,” she whispered. “I can tell you how to go there, but it is no place for a young girl. Can your grandmother be in a detention center?”

I felt I must take a chance, for in minutes we would leave the train and I would be alone in the city. I told Quan's story.

“You are as good-hearted as I believed,” the woman said, “but you are foolish as well to take such a thing on yourself. Yet what kindhearted person does not have some foolishness about him? There is an underground train that will take you there. You can board it from the station. I will show it to you. I would go with you myself, but I am on my own sad errand. My daughter's child is sick, yet if my daughter does not leave her child each day to go to work, the two of them will starve. I am here to stay with the child.”

“And the child's father?” I asked.

In yet a quieter voice the woman said, “He is in a reeducation center, and no amount of money will pay his way to freedom.”

“What did he do?” I asked. I thought of a great theft or a cruel murder.

The woman's kind face became bitter. She looked about, but the other passengers in the
crowded car were busy with their belongings. “He spoke the truth,” she whispered. “It was a truth the government did not want to hear.”

Before I could ask another question, the train came to a jerking halt and we were all thrown against one another. The woman took my arm, and together we left the train. The station was so huge, and the crowd so great, I had no time to ask why a man should be held captive for speaking the truth or what that truth might be, but I thought of Ling with his books that spoke the truth and I trembled for him.

There were farmers and elegant city people, soldiers, and even families cooking food and sleeping on mattresses as if the station were their home. The woman and I pushed through the crowds until we came to a machine with a line behind it. “You will need three yuan,” she said. I gave her the amount. When our turn came, she put
the money into the machine, and for the money she received two slips of paper from the machine's mouth.

“Through there,” she said. “You must get on the train with this sign.” She pointed to a name on the map that was posted on the wall. “And you must get off when you see this sign. Count the stops. Here is your train now.” She gave me a little push toward the train and left me.

This train was more crowded than the train I had just left. There was no question of a seat, so I stood grasping an overhead handle for balance and peering at the station signs as we came to them. Unlike the first train, where there was something to see from the windows, the underground sped along through a tunnel of darkness. At each station there was the surprise of learning the world was still there.

After many stops we came to the station the
woman had named. I pushed my way out and climbed a stairway onto a street in the center of the city. I had been cast out into the midst of speeding automobiles, tall buildings, and thousands of people. I had no idea of where to go next. In our village if someone stood in the middle of the road, not knowing whether to turn this way or that, someone would stop to help. Here in the city it was like the trays of worms that cared only for the chewing of their leaves and nothing for the other worms. Hundreds of people passed me as if I were only a small pebble to be pushed aside or trod upon. Even the air was unfriendly. It had the smell of rotten eggs, and I dared not breathe deeply.

A great bus stopped, and when the door of the bus opened fifty
waiguoren
climbed out. Of course I knew
waiguoren
came to see the beauties of China, but why were they not taken to the paddies and the hills, where they could breathe the air and
see something pleasant? I was sorry for them. One of the
waiguoren
smiled at me and, pointing the camera at me, took my picture. I was so startled, I could only stand there as the
waiguoren
hurried away, following a woman holding a little banner.

Squeezed into one of the large buildings was a small noodle shop. I was weak with hunger. I did not want to spend a single yuan of Quan's money, but I thought with a few noodles in my stomach my courage would return. The man in the noodle shop smiled at me, filling my bowl to the top. Here was a surprise, a smile and generosity in the city. I watched him as I ate my noodles. There were generous portions and smiles for everyone. I stood in line again. He laughed. “What, more noodles?”

I shook my head and held out my scrap of paper. He glanced at the address and reached for my bowl.

“Two streets down,” he said. “The building
with the police at the door.” He began to refill my bowl.

“No,” I said. “I have no more money.”

“These are free noodles,” he said. “They were waiting just for you.”

The free noodles were as tasty as the ones I had paid for, and because of the man's kindness I walked out into the street with more courage. The building with the police was as he described. Many people were going in and also coming out. No question was asked of me at the door. Inside, long benches were filled with unhappy-looking people. I whispered a question to one of them, and she pointed to the desk. At the desk a young woman peered up at me. Her hair must have been cut with the help of a ruler and her clothes were also neat and unbecoming. She asked question after question in a loud voice, as if I might be too stupid to answer unless I was shaken out of my senses by shouting. “What is his name? Where is his village? When did
he come here? What was his address in Shanghai?”

Quan's record was discovered. “You must pay ninety yuan,” she said.

Never had I been so happy, for I had that many yuan and a little more left besides to take back to Han Na. I handed the loud woman the money.

“Wait over there.” She pointed to a bench.

An hour passed and then another hour. Every so often someone would be called to the desk or a door would open and prisoners would come out with uncertain steps, their eyes blinking, a startled look on their faces as if they had been closed into some dark place where no light came. I thought of the woman's son-in-law whose freedom could not be purchased. He had been brave indeed to speak the truth.

At last Quan came through the door. He looked many years older and put his hand on my shoulder as if he needed my support. The moment we were out of the building, he led me around the
first corner and away from the sight of the police.

“Quan,” I said, “there is enough left for your railway ticket and a little besides.”

“No, no. I am not going back.”

“But you have no residence permit. You will be arrested again, and there are not enough yuan to free you a second time. Anyhow, I would not make a second trip for anything.”

“I'm wiser now,” Quan said. “They won't catch me again. I have no wish to go back to the country. There is nothing there. Here there is money to earn and something happening every minute.”

“What good is the money if it must go to fines? What good is something happening if what is happening is bad?”

But Quan was stubborn. “It was good of you to make the trip, but I will stay here. When do you mean to go back?”

“This minute.”

“No. We will find a late train. It will soon be
dark, and you must see Shanghai by night.”

Though I protested, he would have it his way. Quan hurried through the streets, each one as familiar to him as our village streets were to me. Yet I saw that he took me along back streets and often looked over his shoulder. That is the way he will live, I thought, as if he were a hunted animal.

“Quan,” I said, “the woman who showed me how to find you has a son-in-law who was arrested for speaking the truth, and she cannot get him out.”