A Superior Man Read online

  She was a prize tale for home, for men in teahouses, for idlers squatting around the market. Returned sojourners would revisit moments spent in her bed, summon memories to restore saliva to their now dry mouths. She alone soothed years of anguish in Gold Mountain because coolies could never afford a woman of her high calibre in China. Her day was just starting; the bed-sheets and her wit should be fresh.

  I had to find a place to dump the boy.

  She withdrew and a road packed with men’s jutting hopes emptied out.

  Any worm would gladly watch the boy for a few pennies, but a smart one might sell the boy for thirty cents.

  The dry goods store was dark as a latrine with a dank, airless smell. Pricks of light glowed from incense sticks. The house gods stood duty on their gilded altar, calmly watching the piled-up canvas, stacked blankets, and shelves of dishes and tools. By the door, when I hefted a grindstone, its shadow left sharp lines in the thick dust. What did this fool storekeeper think he was doing? Hoarding rice until a famine came along to raise his prices?

  He prodded us to the back, crowing that no other shop in Chinatown sold children’s clothing. “All Native people come here because redbeard shops scorn their business. Look at those people: lots of children running everywhere.”

  I used Mother’s words to show my expertise. “Only well-sewn clothing, with room for growing.”

  “This your son?” The merchant beamed. “Strong ox, tall horse.”

  “I take him to his people.”

  “A superior man!”

  “No choice.” I mentioned Council’s new rule.

  “They’re not the emperor.” He would boost me onto his shoulders and wipe my shit-hole if asked to do so.

  The brat shook his head at the shirts and pants that the merchant put against him. He grabbed brighter colours with thicker cloth and higher prices.

  “How can I find his mother?” I asked. “She is near Lytton.”

  “Native people are angry there. Redbeards steal their land.”

  “Who can help me?”

  “Everyone is leaving.”

  “And Soohoo?”

  “He has time to die but no time to get sick. Go see Goddess and enjoy yourself.”

  Too bad I had just made a solemn vow to the boy, during the last leg of the boat trip. It was an about-turn. I planned to learn where Mary lived and take the boy there.

  Not right away. My pole bobbed up at the prospect of Goddess. Good thing I wore snug western pants. If not, everyone would have seen my jut and known my eagerness.

  “You can trust me.” The merchant grinned. “Native women leave their children here while they visit the other stores.”

  I went off.

  When the brat had napped on the boat, I didn’t lay him down for fear of waking him. His breath was soft and steady as a maid fanning a tyrant mistress. He kicked and stirred in his sleep, thick eyelashes twitching. He smelled of river mud and fish. In China, village grannies used colourful sashes to sling grandchildren on their backs with heavy, dozing heads. The women stayed in the shade and avoided the river.

  My son, my bone and flesh, would be dead if not for Grey Beard. That cowboy saved a life; he acted as a superior man. When places lack law, heroes emerge tall.

  The redbeards here owned no dogs that would lick up smelly shit. Instead, they found scrawny cats like us for the dirty job. They claimed that fleas with diseases leapt from our clothes to infect everyone. They hated how we ate pickles from China instead of chewing local beef. They called us heathens for bowing to ancestors instead of singing songs to their Heavenly Father. They said our lower wages cheated redbeards of their rightful jobs.

  Screw their mothers, we told ourselves. Our people had rules for trade and business, clan and country. Redbeards prospered in China; why shouldn’t we do the same here? We knew hard work, and how to open a shop with scraped-together capital.

  But, when Grey Beard had jumped overboard, all such thoughts flapped off like a startled bird. Up to that moment, I was set on getting rid of the boy. Even if I had known how to swim, I would have backed away and muttered good riddance. That brat had entered my life suddenly; he could leave it in the same way.

  Now, I needed to become a superior man and soar with the gods. Had I learned nothing from five years in Gold Mountain? Did I want to bring home nothing but the shit stains inside my pants? Didn’t I want to be better than the shit-hole redbeards? This would be the best story to tell, the one with a great surprise. The boy must be raised well, safe from spiteful stepmothers. He shouldn’t be taunted about his Chinese father. He ought to be embraced by those aunts and uncles who loved him. He should be fed well, and have warm clothes to wear. The best and only person to do this was Mary.

  The merchant proved honest about Goddess but not his child-minding skill.

  “He ran off! I rushed outside but didn’t know which way to go. His people live over there!”

  China men were leery of Native villages, fearful of sudden death, or worse, being outsmarted by the locals. I hurried around cabins and plots of vegetables. A black chicken with a bright red comb scuttled through fresh laundry hanging among wood smoke. At weather-beaten sheds I smelled straw and dung, heard horses stirring. The village was quiet. People were fishing at the river. Maybe the boy had come here with his mother and knew people he could hide with.

  I called out.

  Did the brat even know that he had an English name? Good thing it was one that I could pronounce.

  An old woman sat in front of a house, weaving a basket. A nearby dog barked and lunged at me, but its sturdy leash held.

  I greeted the woman in Chinook. She calmed the dog and dismissed me with a wave.

  By the river, I spotted the red and blue of Peter’s new clothes. Children were pitching pebbles into a ring of white stones. With every toss, a child shouted.

  I went from behind to nab the brat with one swoop and avoid trouble. His shoulder was thin as paper; his shirt was gritty with sand.

  “We go eat.” I spoke in Chinook, cheerful as possible.

  He pulled away. His dark eyes hardened.

  “We go to Mother,” I said. “Go home.”

  I scooped him up. He screamed and punched my face. I twisted my head from side to side, wanting to slam him to the ground. How dare he hit an adult? Was he loose in the brain? This demon!

  A man ran up, shouting in Chinook. “Put down! Let boy go!”

  “My son,” I declared.

  “Boy not China.”

  He yanked the boy away and set him on his feet. I shoved the man aside and took the brat’s hand. As we headed off, the man leapt from behind and threw me to the ground. We sprawled onto the rocky sand, hands clawing at each other’s neck, bucking to get on top. The children squealed in delight. I rammed my fist into his face. He slammed his elbow into my gut. He was bigger and stronger than most China men. We grappled and twisted, panting with effort. He smelled of sweat and fish.

  I was still trying to flatten him when the dry-goods merchant shouted, “Sam, this man buy clothes for boy! Sam, this man buy clothes for boy!”

  We rolled away, cursing each other, as the children danced off. I grabbed the boy and checked my clothes for rips and tears. He brought nothing but trouble.

  New voices arose farther down the river, where Chinese rail hands and Native men shoved and shouted, fighting over something. With faces painted red and yellow, the Native men and their beast-skin clothes were fearsome. They towered over my people, brandishing stone-head clubs that took both arms to wield. They could have saved their strength; sledgehammers weren’t needed to smash sparrow eggs. My attacker ran to join them. Clearly the fool enjoyed fights. The China men backed off.

  I dragged the boy away from the water. At the Chinese camp overlooking the beach, rail hands had emerged from makeshift tents.

  One barefoot fellow muttered, “Hungry dogs fight for vomit.”

  “Whose vomit?” I asked.

  Bare Feet opened his mouth, b
ut a sudden wracking cough bent him over.

  “Another stupid thing ‘ran off,’” said a second man.

  “The Natives, they don’t care about us,” I pointed out.

  “Their river is holy. They keep it clean.”

  He pointed. A beam from a collapsed dock had snagged a corpse by a shirt sleeve. It floated face down, its pigtail sliding on the water surface like an eel. The feet were bloated and dark. Wide pant legs flattened out like oars.

  “Last week, some stupid thing filled his pockets with stones, tied a rock to his neck, and walked into the river. Two brothers carried him onto land and buried him. Four days later, one of the brothers ‘got fragrant,’ even though he had been eating well and laughing. Now, another stupid thing ran off. Of course, no one will touch the body.”

  “They need to pay someone,” I said.

  “It’s fish season. Any Native who touches something dirty can’t go near the river.”

  “Three gone in one week means angry ghosts all around,” said Bare Feet. “You don’t know who sleeps beside you, a man or a piece of wood.”

  “Me, I like salted fish,” I said.

  “Don’t call them that, you pig head,” he said. “Those who run off, they have clout. Back home, my landlord passed away smoking opium in town. The grannies said, ‘Dirty things will follow him to the village.’ ‘Hold the funeral outside the gates,’ said the elders. But the landlord’s people pushed their way in and brawled at the funeral. Everyone lost face. Then, three women gave birth and each baby died before a full month.”

  In my village, the pigs and chickens sickened and died, one year. The feng-shui man blamed a family after one of its members threw out corpse-washing water by the bridge. After a long quarrel, that family hired a priest to cleanse the village. Only then had the livestock flourished.

  At the river, the China men tried to leave, but the Natives blocked the way. As the shouting and shoving resumed, two old women hurried up, grumbling and shaking their walking-sticks.

  I recalled my friend Poy and said, “A superior man doesn’t fear the dead.”

  “That’s why they’re so few,” Bare Feet sneered.

  I marched the boy to the beach. The tallest China man wore a mashed brown hat.

  “Let me handle that.” I pointed to the river. “How much will you pay?”

  Mashed Hat backed away, his eyes darting and wary. The Native men stared at Peter as though he was a three-legged chicken. They chatted and gestured among themselves. The boy tugged at me to go but I stood firm, unafraid to fight again.

  “Your lucky day!” Someone clapped Mashed Hat on the shoulder. “This one isn’t scared to touch corpses.”

  The man called Sam spoke fluent Chinese.

  He wasn’t Native, he was jaap jung, mix-blood. He seemed to know Mashed Hat, or at least how to get him to take action on the matter.

  “Get the big wheelbarrow. Let him bury that thing. Look at the sky, it darkens. But you need money to pay.”

  “How much?” Mashed Hat asked me.

  “A dollar.”

  “No one has money.”

  “Something must be paid. You know that.” I tightened my grip on the brat’s hand. To slap him in front of his people would only bring me grief.

  “Anyone with money has left already,” said Mashed Hat.

  “My shovel goes deep,” I said. “I put heavy rocks on top.”

  “A dollar, it’s too much.”

  “Animals won’t dig up anything. The one who ran off, for sure he’ll approve.” I was certain of winning.

  “No one takes a day to dig a grave.”

  “These people will harass you until you do something. Pock-face lady looks in a mirror; the more she looks, the madder she gets. It’s time to put an end to this.”

  “Bury him,” said another rail hand. “I’ll go ask men in the stores to donate.”

  The crowd dispersed. I looked Sam up and down and said, “Who’s your father?”

  He squatted to talk to the brat, and patted his head before stomping off without answering.

  Another win for me.

  My friends and I often asked mix-bloods that question. We looked past the man facing us and inquired instead about his father, that man’s name and village, and when he had come to Canada. All mouth and no heart, we pretended to have known his father, or kinsmen from his home village, or stories they had told. But both sides knew full well that most such fathers were long gone with little left behind.

  Mashed Hat’s men brought a cart rolling on a wheel squeaky enough to waken centuries of the dead. With a scarf around my nose, I waded into the water, using a rope and rake to snare the corpse. I held my breath against the stench. Even wet, the man weighed no more than a head of lettuce.

  I loaded the cart and called for the boy. He didn’t move, as if he was deaf. Chinese children knew better than to dawdle, knowing that a tight slap or hard knuckle waited close by. I looped a rope around my waist, tied the other end to the boy’s wrist, and yanked him toward the graveyard.

  I thought about telling this burial tale at home, in the market. People would cringe and slip away, of course, ever fearful of killing airs. But they also respected sojourners, who were hearts and lungs for families crushed by debts or crippled by bad luck. People knew full well that life abroad was bruised and swollen with the anguish of their men. Those lives were wrapped in far too much shame to ever be discussed, aloud or in whispers. It was much easier to listen to an account of a no-name stranger and picture his tragic end.

  The China men at the camp scurried away, seeing ghosts ahead and thieves behind, so scared that they never thanked me for diverting the anger of the Native people. I should have let the Natives beat them soundly. Maybe the China men wanted that: bloody deaths instead of ones by starvation.

  Victoria was home to mix-blood men and women like Sam. They looked more sullen than their mothers’ people, whose men eked a life from fishing and chopping wood, whose women went door to door, selling berries and handmade baskets. Redbeard children hurled mud balls and rocks at them, and then ran to hide behind their parents.

  The mix-bloods who lived among us had swaggered about with their noses high in the air. Some had Chinese faces but they never asked about China. I kicked them out of the game hall because they never had much money. Wong Jun hired one to tend his horses, but the fellow kept staring at the ground, as though fearful of seeing his own face among the men of Chinatown. He lasted two weeks at the job and left without asking for his wages.

  Redbeards loudly disdained the Chinese as being one and the same as Native people. We China men never let that pass. They didn’t weave cotton or silk but wore animal skins. They didn’t grow rice or wheat to make noodles or bread. They ate instead whatever grew wild. Without earthenware, they served food on mats. Without writing, they didn’t make books. Mind you, our esteemed homeland produced plenty of fancy cloths and dishware but couldn’t stop the redbeards from trouncing us at war. We weren’t even strong enough to piss at them.

  3

  A FEAR OF CORPSES ON THE RAILWAY (SPRING 1881)

  Fire in my stomach woke me. I lay among the snoring men and prayed for the pain to go away. I wasn’t a coward, but the forest’s rustling and crackling never stopped, not even during daylight. Creatures darted through the bushes and yelped after quick battles. Birds swooped in on silent wings. Strange voices wailed under the moon. Trees grew higher and fatter than those of China while tatters of white fluff hung from them like mourning banners. We heard stories of giant bears, as tall as two or three humans and as wide as temple doors, slashing open men’s bodies from neck to cock with one swing of the paw.

  I took a candle and went out, blanket on my shoulders, boots loose on my feet. The cool damp night hinted at more rain. At the latrine, I set my light on a log. It was still too dark to see my hands, but I squatted and held my pants off the mud. When hot liquid gushed out, I cursed Head Cook. He told us the drinking water was boiled, yet we crewmen always
suffered loose stomachs.

  Something hurtled through a crash of branches. A jagged howling pierced the air, rose and fell without stop. I covered my ears, but it sounded as though a woman was wailing, bent over a coffin and rubbing her hair against the wood. Her bawling lamented a coming life of anguish. It begged Heaven for strength and pity. It hung in the night until my candle suddenly went out. I lost my breath and then tried to run, but my body refused to move. The dark was so deep that I had to touch my eyes to see if they were open or closed. I forced myself to breathe and waited for death.

  In the morning, Long Life brayed over the tents. “Hok, was that you weeping and praying like a little girl to the Ghost Subjugator?”

  “Someone had a foul dream,” I said. “Wasn’t me.”

  The crewmen called me a maiden with dainty feet. It was my shit luck that Long Life had the bed spot next to mine. Poy slept on my other side but he kept quiet.

  “Hok went to the latrine,” Long Life said, “but got scared. He soiled his pants!”

  “Screw you, it’s mud.”

  When Pig Boy died that afternoon, I knew that last night’s howling had foretold his death.

  I had pegged him for an early end. He came here alone, so family and friends were avoiding him, for good reason. His eyes twitched. He talked to himself. If someone called, he stopped and squatted, as if he needed to think, no matter if he was walking or working.

  We were at war with giant trees that fought back. Our work chopped down too many of them, draining and sapping the ground of its male yang forces. The day before Pig Boy’s passing, a saw ripped through Four Square’s hand when tree bark snagged his sleeve and his partner daydreamed. Blood spurted out. Poy fell last week from a springboard jammed high in a tree where he chopped at the narrower trunk. The pain in his shoulder still made him groan. And when Salty Wet pushed a giant log, the wedges sank into the ground and the tree rolled onto his ankle.