The woman stopped her husband from saying more and handed me my bag and the cotton stuffing. ‘You’ve read that announcement,’ she said, pointing to the barbershop. ‘They asked me to tell you to stay away from now on. They don’t want you in there any more.’
I took my bag and felt around inside. My diary was missing, which proved something my father often said: You’re sure to lose anything you don’t want to lose. All the jars and cans were still there, everything but my diary. ‘Where’s my diary?’ I blurted out in alarm. ‘Who took my diary?’
My panicky shout gave them a fright. The man crouched down to help me rummage through the bag, while his wife, obviously upset, frowned and headed back into the shop, muttering unhappily, ‘This town’s full of bad people. We were being nice, keeping your bag for you, just so you can accuse us of stealing your stuff. We may be poor, but we’re not so poor we’d take your diary!’
Punishment
FATHER’S PUNISHMENT was unavoidable.
Someone in the fleet must have heard about the scandal I’d caused in the barbershop or had seen the announcement on the door. Either way, they couldn’t keep it to themselves and just had to tell my father. Standing on the bow, rolling pin in one hand and a coil of rope in the other, he was waiting for me.
Everyone could see that he was fuming. ‘What’s the rope for, Old Ku?’ someone asked, probably already knowing the answer.
‘I’m waiting for Dongliang. Have you seen him?’ No one had. ‘Don’t worry about it,’ Father said. ‘I think I know where he is.’
‘But what’s the rope for?’ they asked. He was about to say something, but stopped, reluctant to publicize a family scandal.
Sun Ximing, having heard that Father hadn’t had anything to eat, brought over some food. ‘Dongliang will be back soon to make dinner,’ he said to comfort Father. ‘This will tide you over for now.’
Father rejected the overture. ‘I’ve got too much anger in me to eat. I’m not waiting here for lunch. The audacity of that boy — he’s five hours late.’
‘Dongliang’s not a boy any more,’ Sun said. ‘Something must have come up to keep him ashore. Maybe he had a date. He’ll be back sooner or later, so what’s the problem? You’re not thinking of tying him up, are you?’
‘You may not know this, Old Sun, but minor errors often grow into major ones. There are rules for a country and rules for a family. His thinking and his moral character are flawed, and if national laws don’t apply, domestic law has to. He must be tied up!’
Bag and cotton stuffing in hand, I arrived at the piers where the barges were moored. The first thing I saw was Father standing on the bow with the coil of rope in his hand. Some people on the other barges had gloating looks on their faces, others were waving to keep me from going aboard. Father was fuming. I’d done the one thing he could not tolerate: I’d defied his authority. I was five and a half hours late, and I knew I was in for a punishment. Five slaps in the face, maybe, or five hours on my knees. Maybe he’d make me write a five-thousand-word self-criticism. It all depended on my degree of contrition. I’d never even considered the possibility that he’d actually be planning to tie me up. I was twenty-six years old. Six-Fingers Wang’s daughters were watching me, so was Chunsheng’s sister. Li Juhua could have been peeking at me out of the oil-pumping station for all I knew. My hip was sore, I was tired, and he was planning to tie me up! If I let him do that in front of all those people, I’d be ashamed to show my face anywhere after that. I’d be better off tying myself to a rock and jumping into the river.
I decided to stay where I was until he’d cooled down enough to put down the rope. I called Xiaofu over to take the quilt stuffing on to our barge. But then I changed my mind. What if he wouldn’t let me come aboard? The stuffing would come in handy. So I decided to hand him my bag instead. But then I thought, what if he wouldn’t let me go aboard ever again, and I had to start a new life on the shore? I’d need the bag on my travels, by train or bus, so I decided to keep it with me for the time being.
My abnormally hesitant behaviour began to unnerve Xiaofu, who complained, ‘What do you want me to help you with? You’re driving me crazy.’ So I took the jars and cans out of the bag for him. He picked up the soy sauce and vinegar bottles and took them up on to the barge, laying them at my father’s feet.
‘Thank you, Xiaofu,’ Father said politely. ‘You’re a good boy.’ He didn’t seem so angry, after all, but the moment Xiaofu turned back to me, Father picked up the bottles and flung them back on the shore. ‘You coward!’ he shouted. ‘What is it you don’t have — legs or guts? Why don’t you come aboard instead of having somebody else act as your porter?’
The soy-sauce bottle shattered at my feet, spilling its contents on the ground and splattering my trouser legs. Now I was the angry one, as I wiped it off. ‘You’ve got legs, haven’t you? If you want to tie me up, come over here and do it if you can!’
I regretted the provocation the moment the words were out of my mouth. It only made things worse. Father’s face turned almost green with rage. ‘You think I won’t come after you, is that it? I haven’t turned into a fish, not yet, so dry land doesn’t scare me. I’ll come down there, all right, and I’ll tie you up.’
He’d been on the barge so long he’d forgotten how to use the gangplank. He rested one foot tentatively on the edge to see how springy it was, then the other foot. But that’s as far as he dared go. He stood there, looking strangely awkward as the gangplank bounced up and down. ‘Careful!’ I shouted. Straining to keep his balance, and gasping for breath, he pointed at me. ‘Don’t give me that,’ he said. ‘If I fell into the river and drowned, you’d be free. Too bad for you, I’m not going to die that easily. I’m still your father.’
Desheng jumped aboard our barge and pulled my father off the gangplank. ‘Don’t get worked up, Old Ku. Don’t try it. You’re not used to it any more. If you try walking on it, you’ll be in the river for sure.’
‘What do you mean, not used to it? I used to walk on it all the time, even carrying a sack of rice.’
‘I know that,’ Desheng said, ‘but you haven’t done it in years. Even if you made it across, you’d get motion sickness on land.’
The fear in Father’s eyes was unmistakable as he looked nervously at Desheng. ‘What do you mean by that? You’re making that up. Why would I be unsteady on land?’
Desheng began to sway, holding his head in his hands and rocking it back and forth. ‘Being unsteady on land and on the water are the same. People not used to being on a boat get motion sickness on water, just like people who aren’t used to walking on land are unsteady on the riverbank. You’ve been on the river so long the barge is your land and the land is your barge. That’s why you won’t be able to walk on the shore.’
I could see that Father’s mind had begun to wander. He cast a wary eye to the shore, blinking rapidly as he pondered what Desheng said. But then his gaze bounced back to where I was standing. ‘Are you coming here or not? Are you waiting for me to wobble on the gangplank or on the ground?’ He twisted the rope around his hand and shouted, ‘You’re acting awfully brave, putting up a desperate struggle with your back to the wall.’
‘And I’ll keep struggling if you’re set on tying me up,’ I said. ‘Hand the rope to Desheng, and I’ll come up.’
‘Why should I? He doesn’t represent the government, and he’s not your dad. I am. You’ve done a terrible thing today, and I’m going to punish you by tying you up.’