The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong Read Free Book Online Page B

thumping to them.
    I was generally repelled by the way they lived. They were sloppy dressers. In cold weather they overdressed, with reds and
     greens and yellows and blues all thrown together and layered collars sticking up around their necks. Then when summer gave
     way to autumn they were underdressed, sometimes to the point of being half-naked. Barefoot and shirtless, the men were so
     dark that from a distance they looked like Africans. They wore coarse, homemade white shorts, the material for which came
     mostly from Great Harvest flour sacks. Wide in the crotch, the tops were rolled over at the waist and tied with drawstrings.
     The women were slightly better, in a bizarre way. Married women wore their hair in a bun, adorned with a magnolia or a gardenia.
     Above thewaist, they sported a variety of attire: some fancied the faddish Peter Pan blouses, others wore men’s white T-shirts, and
     others still preferred short granny jackets. But below the waist they were more conservative and unified: they wore baggy,
     knee-length rayon trousers, black or dark blue, sometimes decorated with an embroidered peony on the leg. Owing to frequent
     childbirth and nursing, and since they were not in the habit of wearing brassieres, their breasts sagged in defeat, large
     and unwieldy. They swung from side to side when the women walked the decks of the barges, a grumbling badge of honour. I was
     not impressed. Even when they were exposed, they held no interest for me.
    The barge children usually ran around butt naked, both as an economy measure and as a sort of identification mark. There was
     no fear of their getting lost ashore, for anyone who found them invariably returned them to the piers. Boys, of course, were
     favoured over girls. They wore little pigtails, bracelets on their wrists, and long-life necklaces around their necks. The
     girls, on the other hand, went without jewellery, and their mothers cut their hair haphazardly and unevenly, leaving them
     with little haystacks on their heads. Adolescent girls covered their private parts with belly warmers made of white handkerchiefs
     sewn together. Older girls wore either their mother’s or their father’s hand-me-downs, which meant they never fitted. Though
     they were more or less unloved, that had no effect on their sense of family duty. All day long they ran up and down the decks
     doing chores, hollering at their mischievous little brothers and sisters.
    The only truly pretty girl in the fleet, Yingtao, was so intent on playing the role of a mother that she carried her baby
     brother strapped to her back with red cloth, day in and day out, going from family to family. She once walked up to the stern
     of barge number six, where she watched me steely-eyed, like a sentry.
    ‘What are you doing here?’ I said. ‘Go away.’
    ‘I’m on barge number six,’ she said, ‘not yours, so mind your own business.’
    ‘I’m not interested in minding anybody’s business,’ I said. ‘I just don’t want you watching me.’
    ‘If you weren’t looking at me,’ she said, ‘how’d you know I was watching you?’
    ‘OK, I won’t look at you, and you don’t talk to me.’
    ‘Who said I want to talk to you?’ she replied. ‘You spoke to me first.’ She was too quick for me, so I just glared at her
     with the fiercest, most threatening look I could manage. It didn’t faze her. Instead, with an enigmatic smile she said, ‘Don’t
     act so cocky. I know all about your family. I’ll let you see my brother’s backside. He’s got a birthmark, and it’s a fish
     too!’ She untied the cloth holding her brother and exposed his tiny rear end to me. ‘See! See that birthmark. It looks just
     like a fish!’ I could hear the pride in her voice, while the boy, who was now in her arms, began to fidget. ‘Don’t you dare
     snap it off,’ Yingtao said, raising her voice. ‘I said, don’t you dare! You can go on the potty in a little while.’
    Seeing that the child was