Old Town (37 page)

2.

W
HEN THE COMMUNIST
army came down from Old Ridge, the Guomindang’s Youth Corps organized a withdrawal of the students of Old Town’s two technical colleges to Taiwan. These students were now waiting at the docks of the fishing harbor for boats to take them there.

Late that night, the bookshop owner, whose identity as the local department head of the Communist Party’s ministry of youth work had already surfaced, rushed to the harbor, taking with him a group of progressive young people to persuade the students to return to their homes.

The two Lin brothers were told to quickly get in the group at the head of the West Floodwater Bridge. Beyond the bridge was a market town, and beyond that was the bay. There, by the side of the dock were some twenty or thirty small vessels packed with students. A number of other students had already been taken to the small island opposite the harbor. The students didn’t know that a life of exile was now beginning and that hereafter they would forever be separated in life and death from their families.

In one night, the boss of the rice shop at West Gate lost two sons who had been studying at the technical college. Then, after enduring more than twenty years of bitter waiting, he and his wife both hung themselves. Many years later, the two sons returned to Old Town. They knelt right there in the street in front of the door of the rice shop, wailing and lamenting. There was no one at West Gate, man, woman or child, old or young, who failed to shed tears at this scene.

Baoqing went aboard a pitching and rocking small boat. Following his leader’s instructions, he cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the students. “Old Town has been peacefully liberated! There won’t be any fighting! Whatever you do, don’t go into exile with the Guomindang! Just go home! Your parents are waiting there for you!”

He didn’t know that at the other end of the craft, the boatman was already moving the scull. The students in the boat were all bigger than he was and nobody paid much attention to what this boy was shouting.

On this evening the wind was in their favor and the boat moved fast. Baoqing shouted and shouted. Then abruptly he turned his head and discovered how far away he now was from the docks. He ran from the prow to the stern of the boat to find Baosheng and figure out what to do. When he realized that his older brother wasn’t on this boat, he felt totally helpless. “Uncle, I want to go home. My ma is waiting for me,” he said mournfully to the boatman.

“Just sit down in the boat nice and quiet and wait for me to send the students to the island there, then I’ll take you back home,” the boatman replied.

“No! If I don’t go back with my older brother, my ma will be worried crazy!”

Baoqing’ face was all twisted up and he was just on the point of tears. The students sitting behind him let out a roar of laughter.

With the wind behind it, the little boat scudded along in good time. The docks of the fishing harbor were now far off in the gray first light of dawn. Baoqing stood frozen there beside the boatman. He thought of his mother’s worry-filled eyes. He thought of that nightmare when his sister had been kidnapped and sold in Nanjing County several years before.
No! I can’t let my mother suffer another shock
. He went to the side of the boat and looked down at the billowing waves and then again at the distant docks. He took a deep breath of air and threw himself over the side. But just as he was in midair, the boatman grabbed hold of him by his collar and flung him back onto the deck.

“You want to die, huh? Jump in and let the fish eat you up so that there won’t even be one bone left for your ma?”

Baoqing rolled over and sprang up from the deck. “Uncle, when can you bring me back home?” he pleaded.

“The quickest would be tomorrow afternoon. But if a storm comes up, it’s hard to say.”

Baoqing lowered his head dispiritedly and for the very first time he thought of God and of praying for a safe return home. He remembered his mother teaching him that when he prayed he had to say “In the name of Jesus the Lord.”

Suddenly, a girl student stood up in the middle of the boat and came over to Baoqing. “Baoqing! Are you Baoqing?”

Baoqing looked blankly at this pretty student.
I haven’t even started praying yet and God is already showing his powers?

“Baoqing, I’m Baolan.”

Imagine meeting one’s own relative in the midst of danger! Much against his will, Baoqing’s eyes filled with hot tears.

Baolan was his cousin, the only daughter of his father’s third brother. She had distinguished herself by her intelligence ever since she was little, and she excelled in chess, calligraphy, painting, and plucking the
qin
. Even in grade school her writings were frequently published in Old Town’s afternoon news. The children in Dr. Lin’s family greatly admired this gifted female scholar-cousin of theirs, though these past two years they hadn’t seen much of her. Now the two cousins were on the same small boat and had almost not recognized each other.

“Baoqing, how come you’ve jumped on board this boat?” Baoqing remembered his mission and hastily drew himself up with as much dignity as he could muster. “Baolan, sister! Old Town has now been peacefully liberated! Whatever you do, don’t go to Taiwan with the Youth Corps! If you do, you’ll never see Third Uncle and Third Aunt again!”

Baolan gazed transfixed at the water. She had left Old Town only yesterday afternoon and by the time the evening skies darkened she was already feeling homesick. She had always been somewhat lacking in animal vitality. All year round her hands and feet would stay cold. Every evening her mother heated up a pan of water for her to put her feet into, and she would sit there reading a book as her feet warmed up in the hot water. She would do this until her whole body was glowing with heat and only then blow out the lamp and go to bed.

Baolan went back among her schoolmates. “How come I’ve got the feeling something’s not quite right? The school brought us out to escape danger. If there really had been fighting and chaos and we needed to seek refuge somewhere, we ought to have been with our parents and families. If we now go away for a few months, or even a few years, and can’t get back, then what?”

Baolan had a lot of influence among her schoolmates. The words she just spoke were like drops of water falling into a red-hot frying pan, for they burst like bombshells on board the vessel.

Taking advantage of the changed situation, Baoqing came up and fanned the flames: “Peaceful liberation! No fighting! Let’s hurry back home! Don’t, whatever you do, go with them to Taiwan!”

Somebody shouted at the boatman, “Turn around and go back!” The boatman let go of the scull. “Think hard now. There’s still time to go back, if you want to.”

Baolan raised her hand. “I’ve decided to go back!”

A male student who was then pursuing Baolan immediately raised his hand to follow suit. Out of twenty or thirty students, the majority clearly indicated that they wanted to return home. The rest of them mostly had come from other places to study in Old Town and as far as they were concerned, it didn’t matter where they went.

The boatman furled the lofty sail, and with a laugh took Baoqing by the ear. “Little brother, today you can go back home to pout and make eyes at your ma!”

Nor was it at all peaceful for Baosheng on his boat. A Youth Corps student pushed him off the boat, and Baosheng, thrusting himself out of the water, grabbed him and pulled him in, and the two of them grappled with each other in the shallow depth next to the dock. As they tussled fiercely, Baosheng realized that their boat was moving and, breaking free of his opponent, turned and climbed back on board. Then he dashed over to the boatman and tightly grabbed hold of the moving scull. The Youth Corps student, following close behind, now rushed forward and the two of them began pushing and shoving. The vessel rocked back and forth like a cradle and the female students on board shrieked in terror.

The boatman watched in bemusement as the fierce struggle went on in front of him. He didn’t know what was going on in the outside world. Over the last few months the people of the fishing villages no longer put out to sea for fishing but were busily transporting people and cargo to that small island opposite them where big cargo ships waited to take them on to Taiwan. While the several dozen small craft of the fishing villages were thus sculling back and forth, did no one give a thought to what this was all about? The dynasties come and go, but these people whose livelihood was the sea never changed from one generation to the next.

No one knew whose blows first drew blood, but now that the faces of these two students fighting each other were streaked with it, the boatman saw this as bad luck. People like these fishermen whose lives depended on the sea were very superstitious. In such villages, every household worshipped Guanyin Bodhisattva and believed that she manifested her divine powers at sea. Every time before setting out, the whole household would burn incense to Mother Guanyin and kneel in prayer beseeching her for a safe voyage. No one could say or do anything that was inauspicious and the sight of blood was inauspicious to the extreme. So without the slightest warning the boatman exploded in rage, and with a great roar pulled apart the two students and thrust them aside. Baosheng and that other student each fell overboard from either side of the boat.

At this time, there were boats continuously returning to harbor. Those young people still standing around at the bay swarmed down to the shore. One of the boatmen shouted out, “Don’t! Don’t go! Soldiers are going to seal this place off. Once they do that, we won’t be able to get back home!

When Baosheng once again pulled himself back on board, the vessel had already cast anchor near the shore.

Grandma said she slept right through Liberation. She never knew how she got from the parlor to the bedroom, nor did she remember waking up several times during that period. The one thing she clearly remembered was that long and gentle dream of her father. He seemed to be holding a little child. He held her on his knees and said, “Second Sister, you are my good daughter.” She wanted to look around and see her father’s face clearly, but for some reason she wasn’t able to do this. Grandma guessed that was her Father in heaven whom she would someday meet face-to-face.

That evening, Second Sister opened her eyes in a tumult of sounds. The house had always been quiet. Such loud noise was against the rules of a home “fragrant with books,” as the dwellings of the scholar-gentry were often described. Off and on she heard a lot of terms like “communism,” “revolution across the land,” and “liberate the entire people.”
Had Baosheng and his revolutionary party friends come home to hold a meeting here? The voices are so loud…aren’t they afraid of getting their heads chopped off? This child is getting bolder all the time
. She hurriedly put on her jacket and going outside, was surprised to see Ninth Brother sitting animatedly in the midst of a group of young people. She also saw that the front gate was wide open, and panic-stricken she rushed out to bar it shut.