As they were taking off my belt, I looked through their legs and saw Old Cui standing against the wall, covering his face with a towel. I wanted to yell for him to come and help me, but I couldn’t, not after hitting him in the face with a bottle. Besides, it wouldn’t have done any good, not with those three ganging up on me. So I sought out Little Chen, who was sitting to one side, enjoying the show. When our eyes met, he jerked his head away and I saw the blood where my bottle had hit him. As I lay there, the person I really wanted to help me was Huixian, but I couldn’t see her anywhere. Someone was choking me, so I couldn’t even call out her name. I lay there, unable to move. I was like a pig under the butcher’s knife.
I saw a glint from Old Seven’s electrician’s knife, which was moving back and forth in front of my privates. ‘Get hard! Stick up! Hurry up, so we can carry out the procedure!’ There in front of everyone in the barbershop he began teasing my genitals with his knife. I felt a sharp, cold pain. I forgot that I was lying on the floor, and saw myself lying in my bed on the boat. The faces of my three tormenters swayed in front of my eyes, all a blur, but the face of my father appeared in the space behind them, the crows’ feet at the corners of his eyes and the age spots on his cheeks clearly discernible. There were tears in his eyes, but the trace of a smile floated on to his aged face. ‘Go ahead and cut it. Then I won’t have to worry any more.’
I was paralysed with fear. Who were these men? And who had sent them? Was it Wang Xiaogai? Or was it my father? With my eyes opened wide in despair, I waited for my salvation. Now it was all up to Fate. I couldn’t stop them from molesting me, couldn’t keep them from humiliating me. ‘Can’t get it up, is that it? You can’t get it up when you ought to and can’t keep it down when should. Without a hard-on, you lose big time. If we can’t get a good measure, we might remove the whole thing, and then you’ll be worse off than your old man, who at least has half a dick.’ Then, with rising excitement, he said, ‘Bring Little Tiemei over here. That’ll give him a hard-on for sure!’
A hush fell over the barbershop. The hands and legs that were pinning me to the floor went slack as Huixian emerged from somewhere, angry as a hen. I heard a string of vile curses burst from her mouth, mixed with tearful howls. ‘Here I am! I’ll give you all a hard-on! Get it up, get it up!’ She swung a hairdryer at Old Seven’s head. He ducked, and the dryer hit one of the other men in the arm. ‘What do you think I am, a sow, a bitch, a whore? Don’t you dare think I’ve fallen so low that the likes of you can take advantage of me! The person who can do that hasn’t been born. I know who you are. You might feel like hot shit today, but tomorrow I’ll call Commander Wang at Division Headquarters and have him send a squad of riflemen to take care of all three of you!’
Huixian’s anger stunned Old Seven and his friends. They backed off, grinning, and said, ‘What’s got into our Little Tiemei to make her so mad? We’re doing this for you. Once we take care of him, he won’t come around to bother you ever again.’
‘Don’t you try to toss me on to a manure pile. I don’t even know you. If you want to do something for me, then get the hell out of here!’ Then she turned and hit me with her hairdryer. ‘Why are you still lying there, stupid? Nobody on the shore likes you or wants to help you. For that you need the people in the fleet, so get yourself back on your boat.’
I tried to get up, but couldn’t, so she reached down, took my hand and pulled me to my feet. Old Seven came over to stop her. ‘Little Tiemei, you’re a miserable little bitch,’ he cursed. ‘We come to your aid, just so you can help him. He’s not the good little boy you think he is. How’d you like him to rape you?’
Huixian spat in his face, then spun around and said, ‘Old Cui, Little Chen, are you men or aren’t you? How can you stand there watching at a time like this. Get over here and help him. Help me!’
I took advantage of the confusion to run out of the door. Old Seven ran after me and kicked me on the hip. I couldn’t get out of the way fast enough. One of his friends picked up a cut-throat razor and ran outside, then threw it at me; luckily, it whizzed past my ear. By then I was in the middle of the street. The old man and woman from across the street were standing in front of their shop. ‘Three against one, what kind of—’ she swallowed the rest, clearly frightened by the looks of the men. Then I heard the old man trying to get them to stop. ‘Let him go,’ he said. ‘You don’t have to get involved with the likes of him, he’s not right in the head.’
I still hadn’t got over my terrible fright, but there was nothing wrong with my head, which was clear enough to recall the adage that a wise man doesn’t fight against impossible odds. But strange as it may sound, in the midst of the fix I had found myself in, I had suddenly longed to see my mother. I’d be safe if she were here. I ran through the intersection and past the general store, followed by curious stares from everyone who saw me. Some even attempted to stop me. ‘What’s wrong, Ku Dongliang? What are you running from?’ Kongpi. All those voices at once, just a jumble of noise. I turned and saw the propaganda poster on a wall and conjured up the image of another mother, a deeply anxious mother holding a faceless child. As I passed the public toilet on People’s Avenue, I caught a glimpse of my mother, Qiao Limin, standing beneath a parasol tree, which she was hitting with the sole of a plastic sandal. ‘You useless son, you see what’s happened to you? You’re just like your father. Why aren’t you running? Run as fast as you can, and come home!’
I ran down the path behind the steel warehouse and instinctively headed for the piers. And when I looked up again, my mother appeared on the path ahead. She had emerged abruptly from the dark recesses of the warehouse gateway. ‘Where are you going?’ she demanded, shaking her sandal in my face. ‘Don’t go back to the boat, not after disobeying him and causing all that trouble. He’ll kill you if he lays hands on you. Go home instead! Go home!’
I stumbled to a stop, and, strangely, my mother faded away. Go home instead! Go home! I wanted nothing more. But where was home? I had no home on the Milltown shore. After eleven years on the river, no home remained on land. All those familiar streets and houses and gates and windows belonged to other people; they had homes, I didn’t.
This was the first time I was willing to do as Mother wanted. Too bad I couldn’t make sense of what she was saying. With nowhere to go, I loitered in the warehouse area until I heard the sound of a bell off to the northwest, telling me that school had finished, and that sound triggered a memory of my childhood and the path I’d taken home at the end of the school day. With no clear purpose in mind, I headed for the scrap-metal heap beside the warehouse. That had been my shortcut. I walked past stacks of prefabricated concrete slabs and wove my way in and around piles of discarded sheet metal and oil drums, until the path opened up on to a familiar street. There it was, Number 9 Workers and Peasants Avenue, my childhood home.
Twilight accentuated the most peaceful street in the heart of Milltown. Workers and Peasants Avenue was no longer worthy of the name. Ordinary residents had moved away, effectively handing the street over to officials. A Jeep and a Shanghai sedan parked in front of houses were testimony to the neighbourhood’s exclusive nature. The cobblestone road had been paved over, and the tightly shut doors were accentuated by the shade of parasol trees, a sign of the elite families inside. The roof and walls of Number 9, my childhood home, had been refurbished — no more birds’ nests and mossy eaves. The red roof tiles were brand new, the walls had recently been whitewashed and were covered by lush loofah gourd vines. The roses my mother had planted were gone.