Fortune is a Woman (62 page)

"I will tell you the true story of Mayling. But to do so I must first reveal the Untruths. Let me explain it to you now.

"Mayling was thirteen years old and Lai Tsin was nine when they were sold by their father. The selling of women was big business in the Chinese provinces. Men made fortunes abducting young girls who would then be sold and resold many times. Despite her harsh life and the violence of her father, Mayling was a joyful, happy little girl with merry dark eyes. Her hair fell a smooth glossy black to her waist, and she wore it braided, the way all Chinese girls did. Sometimes she would fantasize about how she would look when she became a woman, and she would comb her shiny hair and sweep it into a bun, stabbing it through with blades of straw in place of ornamental jade combs to keep it in place. She would pretend she was wearing a beautiful silk cheongsam, and saunter elegantly up and down, imagining she was a great lady, the Number One wife of a rich and kindly man, with servants to care for her and children of her own to play with. Sadly, it was only a dream.

"When the flesh-peddler tore Mayling away from her brother that night on the junk at Shanghai, her whole life changed. And when he took her to his cabin and touched her secret places she screamed so much he struck her across the face. And still she screamed. He put his hands on her throat, contemplating strangling her, he was so angry, but then he remembered how much he had paid for her and thought greedily of his profit. There were a hundred other girls he could have who would cause less trouble than Mayling, and besides, if he sold her as a virgin his profit would be even higher.

"He struck her a few more blows around the head to teach her a lesson, then he flung a piece of sacking over her and carried her, wrapped like a dead dog, off the junk and into a sedan chair.

"Mayling's ears were still ringing from his blows, her head was bursting with pain and she lay stunned on the floor of the sedan chair as it jogged through the streets of Shanghai. She prayed for escape, but it was not to be. The sedan stopped and the man flung her out onto the dark street. He dragged her by her pigtail inside a dark building and down an ill-lit passageway. In the room at the end an old man was sitting at a table. He had a wizened face and eyes so narrow, Mayling wondered how he could see, but she still felt his appraising stare.

"The flesh-peddler jerked her pigtail, forcing her to stand taller. He prodded her flesh with his fingers, extolling her qualities and especially her virginity, until she blushed with shame. The old man behind the desk named his price and the flesh-peddler harangued him as a thief, but after much shouting a bargain was struck and he left her alone with her new owner.

"Mayling cowered back against the wall, but the man did not touch her. Instead he bade her to follow him and she was too frightened not to obey. He led her down some steps into a cellar and left her there, bolting the door so she could not escape. Mayling sat on the steps in the dark, crying. A rat rustled past her and she screamed and leapt to her feet, but nobody came to save her. She thought of her brother and knew she would never see him again. She was alone in an evil world she did not even understand.

"When the cellar door finally opened again, she was too stupefied with fear to cry or scream anymore, and she followed the man obediently into a waiting mule cart. Her hands and feet were bound and she was covered with straw and the cart moved slowly out of the city streets into the countryside.

"Mayling did not know how many hours it was before the cart stopped and she was bundled out again, but she saw they were on the outskirts of a large village. The driver took her to a wooden hut and thrust her through the door and bolted it. She heard a sound and peered into the darkness. A dozen pairs of eyes looked at her. She shrank back with a cry of fear and a girl's voice said gently, 'Do not be afraid, Little Sister, we are his prisoners also.'

"Someone came toward her and took her hand, Mayling could scarcely see her it was so dark, and though the girl's hand felt rough her voice was gentle. 'But you are so small,' she exclaimed, 'and still with a pigtail. You are only a child.'

" 'I am thirteen years,' Mayling admitted, clinging to the girl's work-roughened hand.

"She heard her sigh. 'I myself am fifteen,' she replied quietly. 'I was abducted from my village. And the other girls, too, though some were lured away from the rice fields with promises of employment as servants in rich households in the city, and some were sold by their fathers because they did not want to pay for a dowry and a wedding feast. We are all worthless females and now who knows what is to become of us?'

"She took Mayling to sit beside her and offered her rice from a small bowl. Despite Mayling's despair and her aching head she craved food, but she knew it was all the girl had and she politely took only one mouthful. The other girls generously offered her their bowls and from each one she took a single mouthful, bowing respectfully and thanking them. Then exhaustion overcame her and she lay down with her head in the older girl's lap and slept.

"They were awakened by men brandishing whips, commanding them to get on their feet and go outside. Mayling followed the others. It was dusk and a cold half-moon peeked over the straggling trees that ringed the small town, glinting on the smooth, deep, dark river that flowed nearby. The men ordered them to remove their smocks, but the girls hung their heads and refused until they felt the lash of the whips and then, screaming, they did as they were told. The men prodded them into line, laughing mockingly at their shame as they tried to cover their nakedness. They twisted their arms behind their backs and tied their wrists so tightly that the slightest movement cut deep into the flesh. Then the evil old one hung a placard with her price around each girl's neck, and urged on by the whips, they forced them down the road to the village.

"Mayling walked last in the line, her head bowed and tears stinging her eyes, grateful for the darkness that hid her nakedness. But the road outside the village was brightly lit with a dozen lanterns. A stall had been set up selling rice wine, and groups of men, already half-drunk, turned to stare as they approached. The girls stumbled and hesitated but the stinging lash sent them forward again, down the middle of the road, past the silent gaping men. Then with a sudden gutteral roar of lust they lunged at the screaming girls. Those who tried to run were lashed unmercifully and they stood, trembling, while the men examined them.

"Mayling wanted to run and hide, too, but like an animal at the slaughterhouse she was rooted to the spot with fear. Men walked past her, eyeing her naked immature body and laughing. They pinched her flesh and felt her most secret places with their dirty hands, checking on her virtue, spitting contemptuously into the dust at her feet as they haggled furiously over her price. Mayling's head sank onto her chest, her shame was so deep she wanted to die. A tear trickled down her cheek into the corner of her mouth and it tasted as bitter as she felt. A filthy middle-aged Hakka peasant bargained shrilly for her, laughing toothlessly as he made his deal.

"Mayling's eyes met her new friend's for a second before she was dragged away. The girl's eyes were dark with sympathy, expressing the pain and sorrow of women who for centuries had been subservient to men, to be used and abused, to be bought or to be sold. She shook her head and whispered good-bye as the Hakka dragged Mayling away. He threw her still naked into the back of his bullock-cart, covering her with filthy straw. Then he drove her to his wooden hut in the fields.

"The Hakka was a cruel, ignorant peasant, his body stank and his teeth were rotting in his mouth. He took her as he would an animal, leaving her dumb with shock and pain, covered in her own blood and vomit.

"The next day he put her back in the bullock-cart and sold her to another peasant for a profit. This one was younger, but no less ugly, no less cruel. He, too, had meant to have her for a single night and then sell her, but he enjoyed his new 'child bride,' he liked her glossy black hair and her budding breasts, and he liked the way she screamed whenever he took her. He was on his way to Shanghai, taking a ship from there to America and the Gold Mountain. He decided his new little 'child bride' should go with him. When he tired of her he could sell her. There were few Chinese women in America and she would command a good price. He shaved the front of her head like a boy's and braided her hair into a queue. He dressed her in a coolie's smock and trousers and told her if she ever spoke a word to anyone he would kill her. And then he took her with him onto the ship.

"The voyage took four months and was very hard. Mayling sat silently at her captor's side, afraid to speak. She was the only female on board and she knew what would happen if the men found out about her, or if the peasant decided to sell her to them. She longed to drown herself in the merciful sea, but he never let her out of his sight until the captain ordered her to be his cabin boy and then she had to endure his drunkenness and abuse.

"When the typhoon struck she prayed the ship would be wrecked, but fate was not that kind. And when the storm came up off the coast of Mendocino she leapt into the sea with the others, thinking that finally she would be reprieved and allowed to die. But as she sank beneath the icy waves, deep inside her was the ancient instinct for survival. She kicked frantically to the surface just as the god of providence sent a piece of driftwood floating past her. She clung desperately to it, gasping for air, staring around her at the heads bobbing in the water. Suddenly the peasant was beside her. He grabbed at the driftwood, kicking her away, cursing her. 'You are worthless,' he screamed, prying her desperate fingers from the wood. 'You are only a girl. Your life means nothing.'

"She heard the roar of a great wave as it surged toward them, then she was engulfed in dark, icy water, her lungs were filled, they were bursting, she was choking, she was dying. There was a great pain all over her body as she was flung onto the shore and the wave receded, leaving her on a scrap of shingle at the foot of a cliff. She heard a cry and looked behind her. The peasant was striding from the waves. In the glow from the phosphorescence she could see his face, livid with rage—and behind him the sea surging outward as though drawn back from the shore by some giant force.

"Mayling scrambled to her feet and began to run, clambering up the side of the steep cliff, clinging to the rocks and little ledges. Her feet slipped on the loose stones and her hands were bleeding. She heard him behind her and looked down. He was running across the strip of shingle and she sobbed with fear, she knew soon he would catch her and he would kill her. She wished she had drowned with the others rather than be killed brutally by him. The sea roared ominously and the peasant turned and looked behind him, puzzled. The ocean had receded a long way, leaving a strip of shingle fifty yards wide, but now it gathered itself together into a single towering wave and roared toward the shore, higher and higher, faster and faster. It hurled itself onto the rocks, engulfing the peasant.

"Mayling clung to her ledge on the cliffside, staring down as the wave receded again, but there was no one. The peasant had gone along with all the others. Only she had survived.

"Too frightened to move she waited for the ocean to come and claim her, too, but it was suddenly calm, as glassy as a summer lake under the moon.

"Mayling clambered up the cliff. She rested that night and then began to walk. She lived on fruits and berries and what she could steal and kill with her own hands. The nights were cold and when she came to the little wooden chapel she curled up on the bench and slept. The pastor who found her was red-faced, sly-eyed and blustering, full of phrases of 'the Lord.' She understood not a word, except that when his hand fell on her shoulder, he was another man. He took her to his cottage. He lived in a community of bleak, hard-eyed men and women and he told them piously he was saving the heathen by taking her into his house, 'the Lord's house.' That night he made her kneel beside him while he drank whiskey, intoning long, loud anguished prayers. And then he did to her what all the other men had done.

"She was clothed like a boy in foreign devil's clothing and kept locked indoors. Despairing, she climbed from the window and made her escape. Much later, to her surprise, she came across a group of Chinese, working in the fields and she hid behind in the trees, watching them. They were Chinese, but they were also men, and she was afraid. The coolie had told her what a price she would fetch from the men once he got her to the Gold Mountain, and she knew he was right. But her belly was churning with hunger, she was dropping with exhaustion and she knew she could go on no longer. She could find a quiet place in the forest and curl up under a tree and wait for death to take her. But then she would never see her little brother again, and she so longed to see him.... There was only one thing she could do.

"She thought over the idea carefully. She was already wearing boys' clothes, even though they were foreign devil's clothing. She was young and still undeveloped enough to pass as a boy. The coolie had shaved her head at the front, and with her long queue she looked just as they did.

"Mayling took a deep breath. She knew that if she were to survive in this world, she must live as a man. She must become Lai Tsin.

"Beloved one, for two years Mayling worked alongside the men from Toishan. Every day was an ordeal because every day she thought she would be discovered. She was young and slender and looked like a boy; she was careful always to keep her body modestly covered, but each month, now that she was a woman, became an ordeal of concealment. The work was brutally hard but she did not complain. She watched the men carefully. She learned to talk like a man, to act like a man, to think like a man. Mayling lived like a man until she no longer remembered what it was to be a young girl, only what it was like to suffer abuse at the hands of men.

"When the work finally came to an end she drifted off with the others, through the many fertile valleys of California to Santa Clara, San Joaquin, Ojai, and Salinas, picking cherries and almonds, lemons, oranges, and lettuces, and when the season finished and winter approached, she went to the big city. She took whatever small jobs came her way, but mostly she paid for her food and shelter from gambling.