Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [105]
“I did not understand his language but I knew what he was telling them. ‘Found him in the chapel,’ the pastor said, ‘a young Celestial, a heathen boy. God has sent him to our little community to test us, and I shall take up the challenge. I shall teach this heathen boy the ways of our Lord.’
“The pastor’s house was dark and musty. I had never been in a gwailo house before and it frightened me. It was so different from what I knew, full of ticking clocks and paintings of more hard-eyed men, with heavy, dark furniture and velvet curtains at the many-paned windows. But a big fire burned in the grate and as the man released me I ran toward it and held out my hands. I stood there, my cheeks stinging from the heat, feeling his eyes on me all the while. Then he said something and took me again by the shoulder. We went outside to a shed with a small zinc tub. He indicated that I should remove my clothes. I was frightened and refused. I tried to run away but he was too strong. He was shouting at me, red-faced with anger, as he ripped off my clothing and bade me climb into the tub. I stood there, naked and ashamed, unable to look at him. He filled a big jug with water from a nearby faucet and then he poured it over me. It was like ice and I yelled and wriggled but still he held me, his fingers digging cruelly into my shoulder. He gave me a bar of coarse, smelly lye soap and made me wash myself, then he poured the icy water over me again. When the ordeal was over he gave me a piece of sacking on which to dry myself and I wrapped myself in it, my teeth chattering with cold and fear. And then the door opened and a woman came in.
“She gasped when she saw me, but he quickly explained and she went out again and came back later with some clothing. I put on the gwailo clothes. Everything was gray, the undershirt, the flannel shirt, the trousers, the woolen sweater. But the boots were black. And big, with huge nails. I had only ever worn the cloth peasant shoes of China and these were hard and stiff and hurt my feet. They crunched my toes and rooted me to the spot with their weight.
“The woman heated some soup and put a steaming bowl in front of me at the table. I thought I would faint at the aroma. I picked it up and began to drink but she shouted at me. Though I did not understand her words I knew she was saying, ‘No, no, you heathen child. You must use the spoon,’ and she gave me a long-handled spoon such as I had never seen before.
“The man sat at the end of the table. His eyes never left me and he was smiling a strange little smile. He had fed me and clothed me, but I did not trust him. And I did not like him.
“When I had finished the soup the woman came to me. She folded my hands together and made me bow my head, and then she and the pastor did the same while he recited some gwailo prayers. Then the man took me by the shoulder again and we went up the narrow wooden stairs. He opened a door and thrust me inside. I heard a key turn in the lock and I was alone.
“I looked around me. The room was small, the walls were dark, and there were big chests and cupboards in heavy ugly woods. I looked longingly at the little bed covered in a white quilt. In all my life I had only ever slept on the floor on a grass bedmat. I had never even seen a bed like this before. I was exhausted and it lured me to it. But I sensed I was in danger. I could not stay. I ran to the window and looked out. There was a metal pipe running down the side of the wall just outside and for a small agile child it was an easy matter to wriggle through the window and climb down. I was on the ground. I slipped around the side of the house