Love and Other Consolation Prizes(4)
Yung’s eyes grew wide as he gazed up at the massive freighter, with four masts and an enormous funneled stack. Everyone spoke of the Chang Yi, but he didn’t know if that was the ship’s name, or if they were referring to the man who was not his uncle.
Swirling black smoke from the stack muddied the sky, turning the sun a ruddy orange, and Yung wondered how such a stout ship could move. Then he felt his legs tremble from the vibrations of a great steam engine. His body was haggard, weary and numb from the march, but he was grateful to be upright as he watched a group of Chinese stevedores pulling an oxcart bearing a dozen elegantly dressed girls with bound feet. Yung heard a shrill whistle as they were unloaded, limping, while a white marine officer parted the crowd and began yelling in broken Chinese, “Line up and be silent!”
The officer pointed and snapped his fingers as Yung queued up and they were poked and prodded, noses counted.
The officer culled those with rickets or those with stooped backs. That group was herded away from the ship, back toward the heart of the city. Yung watched as the boys and girls obviously stricken with lice and mites were doused in foul-smelling waters, given a change of clothing, and then taken to another vessel.
Yung overheard the sailors chattering back and forth in Chinese, Portuguese, and English, which he understood just enough to gather that they were blackbirders.
His mother had once talked about these men—sailors who sold poor Chinese to plantations in Hawaii, outlaws who smuggled workers into the western world, and brokers who delivered brides to lonely men in the gold mountains of Gum Shan—the rich and mysterious frontiers of North America.
Despite those warnings, Yung’s heart quickened as he began to smell real food—roast chicken, garlic, and other savory spices, emanating from the ship, wafting on the breeze.
The officer yelled boarding instructions, and Yung was ushered onboard with his tiny knapsack of clothing. He could see another gangplank leading up to the front of the ship, where the man who was not his uncle had donned a coat and top hat and was hosting elegantly dressed men and women, Asian and Anglo, on a forward deck. There were men in military uniforms and a host of Chinese officials. Yung stared, his mouth watering as he watched them eat, and drink wine from long-stemmed glasses. He and the other children and teens were herded below, through narrow hallways, past crew cabins, and beyond rows of bunks crowded with shirtless Chinese sailors who sported brands on their chests and scars on their backs. Yung followed as they were taken down into what felt like the bottom of the ship, to a cargo hold that smelled of coal dust and stale urine. And there was a constant mechanical thrum coming through the walls that he could feel as well as hear.
As his eyes adjusted to the dimly lit space, Yung could see that the cargo hold had been converted into a living quarters, divided into racks of bunks and rows of low-walled pens, with woolen blankets and straw mattresses. He was assigned to a pen with five other boys, who looked at him warily. A group of peasant girls, some with bound feet, perhaps eight or nine years of age, were put in pens directly across from them, while the teenagers in silk cheongsams and lacy European dresses, with high necks and tight collars, were put in a locked wooden paddock toward the rear of the room. The iron bars suggested the place had previously been used for storing precious cargo. Yung watched the sailors regard the comely girls the way his mother and he used to hungrily stare at street vendors cooking fresh siu mei. That’s when Yung realized the well-dressed girls had been locked away for their own protection.
“You will sleep here, you will live here, and you will spend the entire month at sea belowdecks,” barked a Caucasian man in a dark blue uniform. He spoke English, which Yung assumed only a handful of children understood. The man removed his cap and rubbed his chin, feeling the blond scruff of a close-cropped beard. He introduced himself as the ship’s chief medical officer. “You will stay here, otherwise you risk catching and spreading a coughing disease.” The doctor pointed to his chest. “I will conduct daily health inspections. If one of you gets sick, or is stricken with a rash that bleeds, you will not be allowed to threaten the rest of the passengers—you will be thrown overboard. No exceptions. There is no mercy at sea. Is this understood?”
Yung nodded, wide-eyed as a Chinese crewman translated the doctor’s words. The boys in his pen, the ones who had been lounging on the floor, immediately sat upright. Yung looked around, wondering who might be sick. He didn’t dare sneeze for fear of being dragged back on deck and cast over the side.
There were hushed whispers followed by a nervous pause.
Then a horrible wailing began as the young doctor drew a long, hooked knife from a satchel and went about the room, cutting the soiled cotton bandages that bound the feet of many of the girls, both the rich and the poor. Yung could hear their crying as the girls’ painful feet were touched, moved, the popping of bone and cartilage as they tried to flex and put pressure on their lotus-shaped stumps. For the younger ones he could tell that this was a euphoric feeling of freedom and relief, but for the older girls, their feet long since broken again and again, this brought more pain than comfort.
“You will feel better in a few weeks,” the doctor said as he threw the dirty bandages into a wooden bucket. The cotton smelled like blood and herbs and rot.
As girls sobbed, the elegant teens in the paddock sniped at them, “Stop mewling. You’re embarrassing yourselves. Show respect.”
Even as a little boy, Yung recognized their Yue dialect and understood they must be merchants’ daughters, of a higher quality than the rest of the children. A few of the poor girls spat back at the teenagers until the sailors began hitting them with rattan sticks.