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.
The older girls looked on, smiling proudly. Better to be a caged peacock, they must have thought, than to live free as a pigeon.
Yung sat down and noticed that the group of peasant girls across from him had kept to themselves. A few of them wiggled their toes for the first time in months and nursed the pale skin on their feet, but none of them cried.
The boys in his pen mocked them and sneered as they shouted, “lou geoi,” laughing until a crewman snapped at them.
Yung didn’t know what lou geoi meant, but he knew the words were an insult of some kind. His mother used to fight back tears whenever Chinese men or European sailors whistled and called her that on the rutted streets of their village.
Yung noted how the girls all styled their hair in long braids and they wore dirty clothing made from hemp and ramie. They looked like the lowest of the low—poor girls whose parents had bound their daughters’ feet in an effort to dress them up. Only one of the girls’ hair was unbraided, and she also stood out because of her faded blue robe and wide belt.
Yung was beginning to ache for his mother when sailors brought rags and buckets of fresh water to each pen. He waited until the older boys were done cleaning up and then took his turn. As Yung washed his face and teeth, he gazed into the half-empty bucket of dirty water. His reflection rocked back and forth, swaying as the ship began to move.
He glanced around and noticed that one of the older boys had snatched the bucket from the nearby girls, who had just stared back in contempt. Yung thought about the sister he’d had for a brief moment, and then he carried his bucket to the peasant girls’ side and offered it to them. They all looked at him strangely, suspiciously as he urged one of them to sit at the edge of the mattress. He knelt, placing one, then both of the girl’s feet in the cool water. Yung had once watched his mother treat a cousin this way. He rubbed the arch of her foot; then pushed her toes back, stretching them gently with his small hands. As he washed the girl’s feet with the damp cloth, she winced for a moment, inhaled deeply, then relaxed. He wrung out the towel and handed the cloth to another girl, before returning to his pen. There he found an unoccupied corner of the mattress as the boys looked at him with scorn.
—
THAT NIGHT, YUNG woke as the steam engine rumbled loudly along with his empty stomach. He sat up and realized that the other boys were snoring and that the oldest, a stout bully name Jun, had taken many of the blankets, including Yung’s, for himself. The cargo hold was cold now, and he clutched his knapsack on his small corner of the shared mattress. And as the ship rocked and swayed on the open sea, he realized that with each minute, each hour, he was being carried farther from his village, away from his mother, forever. He wiped his eyes, and in the glow of a single, wall-mounted lamp, Yung could see that some of the girls across from him were awake, staring back. They whispered among themselves and then lifted a corner of the blanket they were sharing.
“Little brother.” One of the girls motioned. “Come over here.”
Yung glanced at his sleeping bunkmates. Then he stepped lightly, nervously, with bare feet on the cool wooden floor. He hesitated, worried that this might be some kind of cruel joke. Then one of the girls reached up, tugged his sleeve, and pulled him beneath the covers. They made room as he nestled among them. He felt cold feet next to his, hands and arms, as they patted his chest and shoulders.
“It’s okay.” A girl spoke in a small voice. “You’re one of us.”
Yung looked at the girls. “What do you mean?”
The girl in the blue robe sat up partway and peeked over at him as if the answer were obvious. She spoke Chinese with a thick accent. “Nobody wants us either.”
Yung swallowed the bitter medicine of truth. He nodded, closed his eyes, and felt the tickling of their hair on his cheeks, on his neck, as they all settled in beneath the covers. Despite the sharing of the wash bucket, their clothing smelled old and musty, like his—reeking of weeks of smoke and dust. Yung didn’t mind. Nor did he care what the other boys would think in the morning. He was used to people staring at him on the street—the villagers who’d spat at him or laughed. But for now he felt safely surrounded, comforted, as he drew a deep breath and melted into the girls’ kindness.
THE WATER TRADE
(1902)
If Yung had worried about being harassed by his former bunkmates and Jun in the morning, he had little to fear. Seasickness kept everyone in bed, eyes closed, groaning—everyone but Yung, that is.
The doctor told him his sea legs were a natural advantage of being the littlest, the smallest. Yung nodded and watched as the older boys and the young women turned pale and retched up the broth they’d been given. Vomit now speckled their clothing, their shoes, their shimmering gowns.
Yung busied himself by emptying the reeking pails of night soil, washing dinner tins, and ministering to the girls in his pen, helping them take sips of the ginger tea they’d been given to ease their nausea. His new bunkmates were always grateful, whispering, “Thank you, Little Brother,” which had become his de facto name. They’d introduced themselves one by one as Gwai Ying, Quan Gow Sheung, Wong So, Leung Gin, Fong Muey, Mui-Ji, Hoi, and…something else, but he couldn’t possibly keep track of who was who. They’d explained that the curious girl in the blue robe was Japanese and had been sent to China by her family, sold to an inn where she’d been working as a maid until the owner died and her contract was bought out. The strange girl smiled and spoke Chinese, but when she said her name, Yung couldn’t understand the words. He addressed all of them as Big Sister.
On the fourth day, when most were beginning to recover—to sit up and walk about, to play cards or games with string—they were given solid food—the first real meal Yung had tasted in more than a week. The simple offering of sticky rice balls and dried fish made everyone moan with delight. Yung wanted to savor the salty rice, but like everyone else, he ate furiously, almost violently, chewing, swallowing, and gulping as though the food might be snatched from his hands at any moment.
Yung was licking his fingers after dinner when the doctor appeared with a crewman and made his normal round of inspections. Everyone stood as tall as they could, arms at their sides; no one dared to cough or sniffle or even breathe in a manner that might be confused with illness. They waited as the doctor slowly walked by, leather heels squealing on the floor, nostrils flaring. Occasionally he would stop to look into a mouth, or a shirt would be removed so he could examine the skin on a child’s back.
Yung chewed his lip as the man, whose breath he could smell, stopped in front of him. Then he lit a cigarette and pushed Yung aside as he directed his attention to the girls, especially the one in the blue robe. He ran his fingers along her neck, removed her wooden hairpins, and toyed with the tresses that hung about her shoulders. He shook his head and then turned back to Yung, who stood out among the girls. The doctor patted him on the shoulder and moved on. Yung listened as the doctor chatted amiably with the other boys, telling them to stay out of trouble. He slapped Jun on the cheek and jerked his ear, playful, but hard enough to make his point. Then the doctor stopped at the paddock of older girls.