Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [97]
“They put chains around our ankles so we could not escape and the junk took us back to Nanking, where we were to join the peddler’s own ship. I looked back once as we stumbled down the gangplank onto the jetty, but there was no sign of our father.
“We were thrown into the evil-smelling hold of the peddler’s junk and we huddled together in the darkness, listening to the scurrying of the rats, waiting for what was to come.
“A long time passed and then suddenly the hatch was lifted and we saw it was daylight. A coolie lowered a rope with a little basket containing a bowl of rice and a hunk of steamed bread and a flask of water. And despite our fears we ate the food like hungry little rabbits, scooping the rice into our mouths with our hands as fast as we could, afraid they might take it away. We took great gasps of the fresh morning air until the coolie came back and closed the hatch and left us in darkness again.
“After a few days of this a ladder was lowered and we were ordered on deck. Our chains cut cruelly into our ankles as we clambered up the narrow ladder and as we were accustomed only to darkness, the sunlight blinded us. To our surprise our chains were unlocked and we were told to go inside to the cabin and wash ourselves. We looked at each other doubtfully as we obeyed, wondering what was to come. But no one came to see us and we crouched on the floor of the cabin, waiting.
“A long time passed. At dusk the junk hove-to by the riverbank. Night fell and the moon came up and still we waited. Suddenly the flesh-peddler appeared. He laughed when he saw us, cross-legged on the floor in the moonlight. Then he grabbed Mayling’s pigtail and pulled her to her feet. I leapt up to defend her, but he cuffed me away and a crewman sprang at me, holding me back as the peddler dragged her screaming to his cabin.
“The crewman stood over me, a knife in his hand, and I crouched helplessly back on the floor, the echo of Mayling’s screams ringing in my ears. But they were not just an echo, or a memory. My little sister was still screaming, locked away in the cabin with the flesh-peddler.”
Lai Tsin covered his face with his hands, hardly able to go on, but at last he continued. “I waited and waited, but Mayling did not return. Eventually, the crewman put me back in the hold. He replaced the hatch cover and I was alone in the darkness with my terrible thoughts. Days passed; occasionally rice and water were lowered to me but mostly I was just alone, hungry and frightened in the darkness.
“After an eternity passed I heard sounds outside and realized the junk was mooring in some big port and knew it must be Shanghai. Now at last maybe I would see Mayling again. The hatch was flung open and a coolie appeared, silhouetted against the gray sky. He let down the ladder and I climbed up, filling my lungs with the sharp, salty sea air, narrowing my eyes against the light, and looking quickly through my slitted lids for any signs of my sister. But the deck was full of crewmen busily taking down sails and tying thick ropes to the bollards on the jetty. The coolie slid the chains around my ankles again, but his eyes met mine and I must have stared so piteously that he hesitated—after all I was only a boy of nine years, and as poor as he was. What harm could I have done? He shrugged and took the chains off and hid them under a coil of rope, indicating that I should remain where I was. And then he left me.
“Minutes later I saw the flesh-peddler hurry down the gangplank and climb into a waiting rickshaw. I waited until he had gone, and keeping out of sight of the busy crew, I slipped into the masters’ cabin to look for Mayling. But she was not there, nor was she in the tiny galley or the saloon. I ran around that little junk searching every corner, my heart gradually sinking into my shoes. I knew that after paying so much money for Mayling he would not have killed her and thrown her overboard, because then he would have lost his profit. I realized she must have been sent