Hawaii - James Michener [278]
One evening when the faltering light no longer permitted gambling, Mun Ki looked at the girl he was convoying to the brothel keeper in Honolulu and reflected: "Perfect Jade! Not exactly perfect with those ugly feet." In comparison he recalled his soft young wife from the Kung village, well brought up and with small feet, and he would recall the enchanting manner in which a girl with bound feet walked, not like a man at all, but swaying in the ambient light like a flower, her hips moving in a special way calculated to drive a man crazy with desire. Thinking of the subtle poetry with which his young wife moved, he next recalled his remarkable days of playing with that delectable girl, and he reconstructed the things they had done together in the silken bed. He became tumescent, and before night fell with its utter darkness, he studied Nyuk Tsin and thought: "But she can be fun, in her own way, too." He drew her to him and tried to slip his hands under her clothes, but the Punti were so crowded in the filthy hold that instinctively she drew away, for many were watching her. "They are looking," she whispered.
This irritated Mun Ki, so impulsively he stood and announced: "I am a married man and it is outrageous that I cannot sleep with my wife. I am going to build a corner." He unrolled all of his bedding, and with the point of a knife began tearing slivers of wood from the bulkhead until he got two stout ones started upon which he could hang his partitions, and before night fell completely, he had cut off a private corner, and when he brought Nyuk Tsin inside he told her that now she could undress, and when they lay locked together on the rough boards of the floor he told her, "Except for your disgraceful feet, you are almost as good as my Kung wife."
Thereafter, whenever the gambling declined in interest and the long dreary days ended in shadows, Mun Ki would announce: "Well, I am building our corner again!” And the other men, Punti and Hakka alike, honored his arrangement and during the daylight hours treated Nyuk Tsin with increased respect. On the bulkhead Mun Ki hung his good-luck sign: "May This Bed Yield a Hundred Sons." And although he was unaware of the fact, the sign was effective, and in due course Nyuk Tsin would bear him a son.
AT THE BEGINNING of the second week it became obvious that the broken ankle of the Punti man was not going to heal, for some of the splintered bones had caused wounds that were now well festered, and a dangerous blue line had begun to form along the man's leg. Therefore, one morning when the grating was opened to haul up the slop bucket, one of the Punti men swung himself aloft with the intention of asking the sailors for help, but when they saw his ominous yellow face and the long pigtail appearing on deck, they panicked and began to shout, "Mutiny! Mutiny!"
The first mate came rushing forward, grabbing a pin as he ran, and Captain Hoxworth left the bridge, leaping swiftly down the ladders onto the deck. By this time one of the sailors had swung a powerful fist at the startled Punti, knocking him toward the first mate, who brought his pin down across the man's skull with full force. This knocked the Chinese unconscious and into the path of the onrushing captain, who, when he saw the fallen mutineer, began to kick him in the face, driving his heavy leather shoes into the inert man's cheekbones until there was a sickly collapse of the man's facial structure.
When the terror ended, the captain shouted to his sailors, "You, there! Throw this damned pirate back into the hold." Two sailors grabbed the inert Punti and tossed him headfirst down the opening.
"Goddamnit!" Hoxworth shouted in frustration. "We should never have sailed without someone who can