The Man From Beijing Read online

  ‘Is he ill?’

  The man laughed.

  ‘They all look like that. As white as corpses that ought to have been buried ages ago.’

  The brothers continued through the dirty, foul-smelling city. San observed the people all around him. Many were well dressed. They weren’t wearing ragged clothes like he was. He began to suspect that the world was not quite what he had imagined.

  After wandering through the city for many hours, they glimpsed water at the end of the alleys. Wu broke loose and raced towards it. He plunged in and started drinking – but stopped and spat it all out when he realised that it was brine. The bloated body of a cat floated past. San observed all the filth, not just the dead body but also both human and animal faeces. He felt sick. Back home they had used their faeces to fertilise the small patches of land where they grew their vegetables. Here, it seemed that people simply emptied their shit into the water, despite the fact that nothing grew there.

  He gazed out over the water without being able to see the other side. What they call the sea or the ocean must be a very wide river indeed, he thought.

  They sat down on a see-sawing wooden jetty surrounded by so many boats that it wasn’t possible to count them all. Everywhere they could hear people shouting and screaming. That was another thing that distinguished life in the city from life in the village. Here people seemed unable to shut up, always having something to say or complain about. Nowhere could San detect the silence he had been so used to.

  They ate the very last of the rice and shared the remains of the water in the flask. Wu and Guo Si eyed him hopefully. He would have to live up to their expectations. But how would he find work for them in this deafening, chaotic maelstrom of humanity? Where would they find food? Where would they sleep? He looked at the dog, which was lying with one paw over its nose. What do I do now?

  He could feel that he needed to be alone in order to assess their situation. He stood up and asked his brothers to wait where they were, together with the dog. In order to put their minds at rest, and convince them that he wasn’t going to disappear into the mass of people and never return, he said, ‘Just think about that invisible rope that binds us together. I’ll be back soon. If anybody speaks to you while I’m away, answer them politely, but don’t go away from here. If you do, I’ll never be able to find you again.’

  He explored all the alleys, but kept turning back in order to remember the way he’d come from. One of the narrow streets suddenly opened out into a square with a temple. People were genuflecting and walking with bowed heads towards an altar laden with offerings and incense.

  My mother would have run forward to the altar and bowed down there, he thought. My father would also have approached the altar, but somewhat more hesitantly. I can’t remember him ever setting one foot before the other without hesitating.

  But now he was the one who had to make up his mind what to do.

  There were a few stones scattered around that had fallen from the temple wall. He sat down on one, feeling somewhat confused, thanks to the heat, the mass of people and the hunger he had tried to ignore for as long as possible.

  When he had rested sufficiently, he returned to the Pearl River and all the quays that lined its banks. Men bowed down by heavy burdens were staggering along rickety-looking gangways. Further upriver he could see big ships with lowered masts being towed by tugs under bridges.

  He paused and scrutinised all these men carrying burdens, each one bigger than the last. Foremen stood by the gangways, ticking off all the loads being carried aboard or ashore. They slipped a few coins to the porters, who then vanished into the alleys.

  An idea hit him. In order to survive, they would have to carry. We can do that, he thought. My brothers and I, we are porters. There are no meadows here, no paddies. But we can carry things. We’re strong.

  He returned to Wu and Guo Si, who were huddled up on the jetty. He stood there for a while, observing how they were clinging to each other.

  We are like dogs, he thought. Everybody kicks us, we have to live on what others throw away.

  The dog noticed his arrival and ran up to greet him.

  San didn’t kick it.

  11

  They spent the night on the jetty as San couldn’t think of anywhere better to go. The dog watched over them, growling at any silent, tiptoeing feet that came too close. But when they woke up the next morning they found that somebody had succeeded in stealing their water flask. San was furious as he looked around. The poor steal from the poor, he thought. Even an empty water flask is desirable to somebody who has nothing.

  ‘He’s a nice dog, but he’s not much good as a watchdog,’ said San.

  ‘What shall we do now?’ asked Wu.

  ‘We shall try to find work,’ said San.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Guo Si.

  San shook his head. Guo Si knew just as well as he did that they didn’t have any food.

  ‘We can’t steal,’ said San. ‘If we did, we might end up like the trio whose heads are on those poles at the crossroads. We must find work, and then we’ll be able to buy something to eat.’

  He led his brothers to the place where men were running back and forth carrying their burdens. The dog was still with them. San stood there for a long time, watching the men on the ships’ gangways giving the orders. He eventually decided to approach a short, stocky man who didn’t beat the porters, even if they were moving slowly.

  ‘We are three brothers,’ he said. ‘We’re good at carrying.’

  The man glanced angrily at him but continued checking the porters emerging from the hold with heavy loads on their shoulders.

  ‘What are all these yokels doing in Canton?’ he shouted. ‘Why do you come here? There are thousands of peasants looking for work. I already have more than enough. Go away. Stop bothering me.’

  They continued asking at wharf after wharf, but the response was always the same. Nobody wanted them. They were of no use to anybody here in Canton.

  That day they ate nothing apart from the filthy remains of vegetables trampled underfoot in a street next to a market. They drank water from a pump surrounded by starving people. They spent another night curled up on the jetty. San couldn’t sleep. He pressed his fists hard against his stomach in an attempt to suppress the pangs of hunger. He thought of the swarm of butterflies he’d entered. It was as if all the butterflies had entered his body and were scratching against his intestines with their sharp wings.

  Two more days passed without their finding anybody on any of the wharves who nodded and said that their backs would be useful. As the second day drew towards its close, San knew that they wouldn’t be able to last much longer. They hadn’t eaten anything at all since they’d found the trampled vegetables. Now they were living on water alone. Wu had a fever, and was lying in the shadow of a pile of barrels, shaking.

  San made up his mind as the sun began to set. They must have food, or they would die. He took his brothers and the dog to an open square where poor people were sitting around fires, eating whatever they had managed to find.

  Now he understood why his mother had sent the dog to them. He picked up a rock and smashed the dog’s skull. People from one of the nearby fires came to investigate, their skin was stretched tightly over their emaciated faces. San borrowed a knife off one of the men, butchered the dog and placed the pieces in a pot. They were so hungry that they couldn’t wait until the meat was properly cooked. San cut up the pieces so that everybody around the fire had the same amount.

  After the meal they all lay down on the ground and closed their eyes. San was the only one still sitting, staring at the flames. The next day they wouldn’t even have a dog to eat.

  He could see his parents in his mind’s eye, hanging from the tree that awful morning. How far away from his own neck were the branch and the rope now? He didn’t know.

  He suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. He squinted out into the night. There really was somebody there, the whites of h
is eyes gleaming in the darkness. The man approached the fire. He was older than San, but not especially old. He smiled. San thought he must be one of those lucky people who didn’t always have to walk around feeling hungry.

  ‘I’m Zi. I saw you eating a dog.’

  San didn’t answer. He waited to see what would come next. Something about this stranger made him feel insecure.

  ‘I’m Zi Quan Zhao. Who are you?’

  San looked around uneasily.

  ‘Have I trespassed on your territory?’

  Zi laughed.

  ‘Not at all. I just wonder who you are. Curiosity is a human virtue. Anybody who doesn’t have an enquiring mind is unlikely to live a satisfying life.’

  ‘My name’s Wang San.’

  ‘Where do you come from?’

  San was not used to being asked questions. He started to be suspicious. Perhaps the man calling himself Zi was one of the chosen few who had the right to interrogate and punish? Perhaps he and his brothers had transgressed one of those invisible laws and regulations that surround the poverty-stricken?

  San gestured vaguely into the darkness.

  ‘From over there. My brothers and I have been walking for many days. We crossed two big rivers.’

  ‘It’s great to have brothers. What are you doing here?’

  ‘We’re looking for work, but we can’t find any.’

  ‘It’s hard. Very hard. Lots of people are drawn to the city like flies to a honeypot. It’s not easy to make a living.’

  San had a question on the tip of his tongue, but decided to swallow it. Zi seemed to be able to see through him.

  ‘Do you wonder what I do for a living, as I’m not dressed in rags?’

  ‘I don’t want to be inquisitive about my superiors.’

  ‘That doesn’t bother me in the least,’ said Zi, sitting down. ‘My father used to own sampans, and he would sail his little merchant fleet up and down the river here. When he died, my brother and I took over the business. My third and fourth brothers emigrated to the land on the far side of the ocean, to America. They have made their fortune by washing the dirty clothes of white men. America is a very strange land. Where else can you get rich from other men’s dirt?’

  ‘I’ve thought about that,’ said San. ‘Going to that country.’

  Zi looked him up and down.

  ‘You need money for that. Nobody sails over a great ocean for nothing. Anyway, I wish you goodnight. I hope you manage to find work.’

  Zi stood up, bowed and disappeared into the darkness. San lay down and wondered if he had imagined that short conversation. Perhaps he had been talking to his own shadow? Dreaming of being somebody else?

  The brothers continued their vain search for work and food, walking for hours on end through the teeming city. San had decided to rope himself to his two brothers, and it struck him that he was like an animal with two youngsters that kept pressing up against him within the large flock. They looked for work on the wharfs and in the alleys overflowing with people. San urged his brothers to stand up straight when they stood in front of some authoritative person who might be able to offer them work.

  ‘We must look strong,’ he said. ‘Nobody gives work to men with no strength in their arms and legs. Even if you are tired and hungry, you must give the impression of being very strong.’

  Any food they ate was what other people had thrown away. When they found themselves fighting with dogs over a discarded bone, it struck San that they were on their way to becoming animals. His mother had told him a story about a man who turned into an animal, with a tail and four legs but no arms, because he was lazy and didn’t want to work. But the reason that they were not working was not that they were lazy.

  They continued to sleep on the jetty in the damp heat. Sometimes heavy rainfall would drift over the city from the sea during the night. They sheltered underneath the jetty, creeping in among the wet timbers, but they were soaked through even so. San noticed that Guo Si and Wu were beginning to lose heart. Their lust for life shrank with every day that passed, every day of hunger, torrential rain, and the feeling that nobody noticed them and nobody needed them.

  One evening San noticed Wu hunched up, mumbling confused prayers to gods his parents used to pray to. That worried him for a moment. His parents’ gods had never been of any help. But then, if Wu found consolation in his prayers, San had no right to rob him of that feeling.

  San was increasingly convinced that Canton was a city of horror. Every morning, when they set out on their endless search for work, they noticed more and more people lying dead in the gutters. Sometimes the rats or dogs had been chewing the faces of the corpses. Every morning he had the nasty feeling that he would end his life in the gutter of one of Canton’s many alleys.

  After yet another day in the damp heat, San also found himself losing hope. He was so hungry, he felt dizzy and was incapable of thinking straight. As he lay on the jetty alongside his sleeping brothers, he thought for the first time that perhaps he might just as well fall asleep and never wake up.

  There was nothing to wake up for.

  During the night he dreamed yet again of the three severed heads. They suddenly started talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they said.

  When he woke up as dawn was beginning to break, he saw Zi sitting on a post, smoking a pipe. He smiled when he saw that San was awake.

  ‘You were not sleeping soundly,’ he said. ‘I could see that you were dreaming about something you wanted to get away from.’

  ‘I was dreaming about severed heads,’ said San. ‘Maybe one of them was mine.’

  Zi eyed him pensively before responding.

  ‘Those who have a choice choose. Neither you nor your brothers look especially strong. It’s obvious that you are starving. Nobody who needs workers to carry or drag or pull chooses anybody who’s starving. At least, not as long as there are newcomers who still have some strength left and food in their rucksacks.’

  Zi emptied his pipe before continuing.

  ‘Every morning there are dead bodies floating down the river. People who don’t have the strength to try any more. People who can’t see the point of living any longer. They fill their shirts with stones or tie sinkers to their legs. Canton has become a city full of restless ghosts, the souls of people who have taken their own lives.’

  ‘Why are you telling me this? I have enough pain to bear already.’

  Zi raised his hand dismissively.

  ‘I’m not saying it to worry you. I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t have something else to add. My cousin owns a factory, and many of his workers are ill just now. I might be able to help you and your brothers.’

  San had difficulty believing what he had just heard. But Zi said it again. He didn’t want to make any promises, but he might be able to find them work.

  ‘Why are you singling us out?’

  Zi shrugged.

  ‘Why does anybody do anything? Or not do anything? Perhaps I just thought that you deserved help.’

  Zi stood up.

  ‘I’ll come back when I know,’ he said.

  He placed a few fruits on the ground in front of San, then walked away. San watched him walk along the jetty and disappear into the crowds of people.

  True to his word, Zi returned that evening.

  ‘Wake your brothers,’ said Zi. ‘We have to go. I have work for you.’

  ‘Wu is ill. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’

  ‘Somebody else will have taken the work by then. Either we go now, or we don’t go at all.’

  San hastened to wake up Guo Si and Wu.

  ‘We have to go,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll have work at last.’

  Zi led them through the dark alleys. San noticed that he was trampling on people sleeping on the pavements. San was holding Guo Si’s hand, and in turn he had his arm around Wu.

  Soon San noticed from the smell that they were close to the water. Everything seemed easier now.

  Then ever
ything happened very fast. Strangers emerged from the shadows, grabbed them by the arms and started to pull sacks over their heads. San caught a punch that felled him, but he continued to struggle. When he was pressed down to the ground again, he bit an arm as hard as he could and managed to wriggle free. But he was caught again immediately.

  San heard Wu screaming in terror not far away. In the light from a dangling lantern he could see his brother lying on his back. A man pulled a knife out of his chest, then threw the body into the water. Wu was carried slowly away by the current.

  The shattering truth struck home: Wu was dead, and San had failed to protect him.

  Then he received a heavy blow on the back of his head. He was unconscious when he and Guo Si were carried onto a rowing boat that took them to a ship anchored offshore.

  All this happened in the summer of 1863. A year when thousands of Chinese peasants were abducted and taken across the seas to America, which gobbled them up into its insatiable jaws. What was in store for them was the same drudgery they had once dreamed of escaping.

  They were transported over a wide ocean. But poverty accompanied them all the way.

  12

  On 9 March 1864, Guo Si and San started hacking away the mountain blocking the railway line that would eventually span the whole American continent.

  It was one of the severest winters in living memory in Nevada, with days so cold each breath felt like ice crystals rather than air.

  Previous to this, San and Guo Si had been working further west, where it was easier to prepare the ground and lay the rails. They had been taken there at the end of October, directly from the ship. Together with many of the others who had been transported in chains from Canton, they had been received by Chinese men who had cut off their pigtails, wore Western clothes and had watch chains across their chests. The brothers had been met by a man with the same surname as their own, Wang. To San’s horror, Guo Si – who normally said nothing at all – had begun to protest.

  ‘We were attacked, tied up and bundled on board. We didn’t ask to come here.’

  San thought this would be the end of their long journey. The man in front of them would never accept being spoken to in such a way. He would draw the pistol he had stuck into his belt and shoot them.