Little Emperors (29 page)

I agree. We sit and silently watch the other three continue their game under the dying flashlights. The steady roar and ebb of the ocean and the rhythm of the rain makes me sleepy. I can barely keep my eyes open. I look at my watch. It is 9:15.

“Oh, Connie, I have to go to sleep,” I say, and crawl into the tent.

I wake to a tapping on my shoulder. “The rain has stopped,” Connie whispers. “Let's go out!”

Half asleep, I lift my head off my pillow of rolled-up jeans and whisper back groggily, “What time is it?”

“It's midnight.”

“Oh, no. No, no . . . Too tired. You go . . .”

Suddenly, I am wide awake in the red light of our nylon tent. It is 7:00 a.m. I peek out the zippered door. Everyone else is up, but they seem quiet, moody. After a breakfast of fried noodles, fried eggs, and fried cabbage, we set off. We pass the fishermen wading silently in the calm morning surf, their nets stretched between them. I wonder if they ever speak.

“Oh, you should have come out last night!” Connie says as we step over the syringe. “We ran down the beach for an hour, full speed, chasing crabs! The moon came out, so we could see them run over the sand. We
caught them in a can and cooked them over the fire. It was so fun! So noisy! We stayed up chatting and laughing with the couple until four!”

The silent fishermen of Wallet Island work with their nets
.

“That sounds like fun,” I say, and momentarily regret my lazy ways. “But 4:00 a.m.? There's no way I could've done it!”

We walk up to the bluff. I soon bound ahead on the path back to the village, my weary, crab-chasing companions straggling behind in silence. Once we get to the village, we find an open but empty restaurant of plastic tables and plastic chairs, and each buy a can of Coke. Connie and I leave the others snoozing in the restaurant and go for a walk through the village.

We pass a tiny temple, a yellow schoolhouse, and a few shops; then we turn down a short street lined with two-storey houses. Posters of Chinese door gods are pasted to brightly painted doors. Some doors are open and reveal dark living rooms with TVs powered by turquoise generators. Kids ride plastic tricycles or squat to shit on the street. Dogs, cats, and chickens wander freely. Groups of women sit on doorsteps, staring and smiling as we pass.

At the end of the street, we turn and walk back through the village and out to the concrete pier. We walk to the far end, where I sit and dangle my feet over the water a metre below. Connie hesitates, then slowly shuffles forward and carefully sits down next to me. “So, Connie,”
I say, sensing her apprehension about sitting at the edge of the dock, “what do you think? Should I jump in and go for a swim?”

“Ha! That is why I am afraid at high places. At a tall building, I think if I go too close to the edge I will jump off. Not fall, but really
jump
! I have to control myself.”

I laugh and begin tossing pebbles at a plastic bag floating by. I look up at the green hill of the island, the short bushes that dot it, the little village nestled in the curve of the bay. Connie sinks the plastic bag with a small chunk of concrete, and our attention turns to tiny fish paddling by in the green sea water. Suddenly, his outboard engine buzzing like a mosquito in our ears, the boatman from yesterday appears, just in time for our eleven o'clock rendezvous. We go back to the village to wake the others and collect our things.

Back on the gravel pit road, we flag down the first vehicle to come along — a tractor-truck. We leap into the open back, kneeling in dried pig manure as the tractor-truck pops and sputters its way along the uneven road, its exposed fan belt whirring, bumping, and jarring us all the way back to the madam's dumpling shop.

The madam comes out of her restaurant, wiping her hands on a tea towel and greeting us like long-lost friends. While consuming plate after plate of dumplings, relieved to have something other than fried noodles, fried eggs, and fried cabbage, we listen to Billy and Jimmy talk. Kelly begins to pout. Connie looks angry. I am too spaced out to ask what the guys are saying. Connie is too tired to translate.

A tractor-truck provides a bumpy, uncomfortable ride on China's rural roads
.

We hire another minibus from another one of the madam's friends to take us back to the Zhuhai bus station. We are the only ones on the bus for the entire journey. Kelly sits up front, ignoring everyone. Billy and Jimmy stretch out across the aisle and fall asleep. Connie and I sit in the long seat at the very back of the bus. The driver seems to take great pleasure in flooring it over every imperfection in the rather imperfectly paved road. With every bump he sends Connie and I flying toward the ceiling, then crashing down onto the steel springs threatening to burst through the vinyl seat.

As we bounce along, Connie points at Jimmy and Billy, both sleeping soundly despite the jarring. “These guys make me so angry!” she says. “They complain the whole time about this trip. They say it takes too long. It is too hard to get to the beach. Jimmy complains that he wish we told him it was in Zhuhai, then he could have brought his cell phone because he can use it here!” We sail toward the ceiling again, nearly banging our heads on its torn canvas lining. “You know, back at the dumpling place, these guys were talking about how weak women are,” Connie continues. “They say that no woman has ever been successful in the world. They say that even Margaret Thatcher failed in the end. They made me so angry, but I was too tired to argue. Now Kelly is really pissed off at them!”

I frown. “Sometimes I think it's a good thing I don't understand much Cantonese.”
Whatever happened to Mao's idea of women “holding up half the sky”?
I wonder. I decide to stop being friendly to them.

“I am so happy I can speak English with you in China,” Connie says, grinning mischievously. “It is like our secret language. I can say whatever I like!”

We finally reach the Zhuhai bus station, where we have to wait half an hour for the bus to Guangzhou. Billy and Jimmy sulk with their headphones on while Connie, Kelly, and I munch happily on M&Ms, ignoring them.

The bus arrives. Our seats are near the front of the packed bus, directly behind the driver and near the hump under which the rapidly heating engine grinds and roars. As soon as we are on the road, Kelly moves to an empty seat in the back to get away from Billy and Jimmy. I doze off, my head resting against the rattling, half-open window. I sleep soundly and barely notice Kelly's return to the front of the bus an hour later.

“Be careful of your bag!” Connie hisses into my ear. “There is a man at the back of the bus with a knife. Kelly saw him.”

“Really?” I turn to see if I can spot the bad guy.

“Don't look around!” she hisses again. “Where is your hat?” she demands. “Where is your hat?”

“It's in here,” I say, unzipping the front pouch of my bag to show her. “Why?”

“Put it on!” she commands. “So he can't see you are a foreigner!”

The minutes and kilometres creep slowly by. I know we are in for at least another three hours on the bus, but that doesn't stop me from looking longingly for Guangzhou's smoggy skyline around every corner and over every horizon. It begins to rain. The bus's lone windshield wiper ticks back and forth like the pendulum of a manic grandfather clock. The rain pelts through the window I can't shut. We stop to let people off and pick others up from the side of the highway. We slow and pass the scene of a bus-motorcycle accident. We stop to pick up more people from the roadside and let the alleged knife-wielding thief off. We slow as traffic grows more congested in built-up areas and, at long last, we cross over the bridge onto Guangzhou Da Dao, straight into the comforting familiarity of a Guangzhou Sunday afternoon traffic jam.

On Monday, seven of the eight kids in my Grade Five class roar into the classroom shouting, “Lisa! Lisa!” Jacob stands in the centre of our tiny room and mimes being hit in the forehead, goes cross-eyed, then falls backward onto the floor.

I ask Connie what's going on.

The kids shout at her from all angles, yet she manages to piece together a translation. “On Saturday,” she explains above the kids' competing voices, “a truck hit Lisa when she was riding her bike near the school. It hit her when it turned the corner in front of the post office. A screw from the truck went into her forehead.”

“Oh, my God. Is she okay?”

“Yes, but she is in hospital. She might need surgery to remove all of the screw.”

On Wednesday, the Grade Fives come into class screaming, “Lisa! No hair! Lisa! No hair!” They all mime their heads being shaved, going
“Bzzzzzzz bzzzzzzz”
over their scalps with imaginary razors. Lisa's accident was serious enough to require surgery, after all.

We ask the kids if it is possible to visit Lisa in the hospital. Yes, they tell us. They plan on going together to see her Saturday morning. Connie and I have to work Saturday morning, so we tell the kids we will go see her Saturday afternoon.

Saturday after work, Connie and I buy a bouquet of pink carnations and yellow roses, as well as a plush Snoopy doll, and head off to Zhongshan Hospital. We jump out of the sweltering cab, cross busy, dusty Zhongshan Lu, and enter the hospital gates. We walk along a path of cracked pavement, past a row of fruit and snack vendors selling food to patients' families, then stop when the path branches out in several directions.

“Which one is it?” I ask, turning around and looking at the concrete buildings surrounding us.

“I don't know,” Connie says. “I will ask someone.”

A tawny construction worker pushes a wheelbarrow full of sand past us. A pregnant woman, her medicine-ball belly silhouetted through her white nightgown, walks down the path on our left. A group of grey-haired women carrying bananas saunters up the path on our right. Finally, a young doctor in spectacles and a white coat walks past. Connie hops in front of him and asks where we might find a ten-year-old girl recovering from head surgery. He points up the path to the right, the same way the ladies with bananas went. We quickly follow.

Connie and I pass through another gate and enter a concrete building. The elevator is busy or broken, so we take the stairs. The entire building seems deserted, hushed, and dark. Rectangles of sunshine from tall windows light the bare walls of the stairwell. On the fourth floor, we see two nurses sitting behind a reception desk, starched cotton kerchiefs covering their heads in triangles of white. Above them, a wooden box painted emergency red is fixed to the wall. It contains two rows of red light bulbs, each with a room number hand-painted in black above it. Connie inquires about Lisa. The nurses quietly reply, pointing toward a hallway next to the stairs.

We follow the pale green corridor. A pile of swept garbage, mostly dust and leaves, but also a drink box and one blackened banana peel, sits in one corner. Two men play Chinese chess on a bench near the windows, the smoke from their cigarettes slowly curling through the mid-afternoon light. At the end of the hallway, a set of swinging doors greets us. Above them, a sign in Chinese and English reads
OPERATING ROOM
.

“I don't think she's here,” I say.

We turn and approach the men on the bench. Connie asks in Cantonese if they know where we might find Lisa. One man fixes Connie with a stare and sucks on his cigarette, his sharp fingernails gleaming in the sun.
“Gong putonghua”
— “Speak Mandarin” — he tells her. Connie tries her question again in Mandarin.
“Bu zhidao,”
mutters the man, shaking his head and returning to his chess game.

“No one seems to know where she is,” I say as we return to the head of the stairs. My hands are sweating from the bouquet's cellophane wrapping.

“Let's try this way,” Connie suggests, and I follow her down the hall in the opposite direction of the nurses' station. As we walk, we peek into each white room. Rows of iron-frame beds hold black-haired people sleeping or staring silently out the windows at the sunshine in the trees.
With Connie's bright blue T-shirt and my flowered dress and our bouquet and our voices, I suddenly feel we are too colourful, too loud,
too alive
for this place. I become acutely aware of the vibrant, healthy spirits that pulse through our two bodies. The hospital air smells faintly of bandages.