Chapter 2
Chapter 2
I clutched the old yellow dog on the stone steps and refused to move.
Father surged out of his wicker chair. He was tall and carried an air of menace, with a smell of blood that never quite washed away. That was odd, since he was no butcher and was fastidious about cleanliness.
He beat and ordered his wife and daughter around like cattle, yet never allowed Mother or me to wash his clothes. One room was kept apart for him alone, and no one else could enter even to clean it.
Even while beating someone, if blood spattered his hands, he would stop, wipe them clean, and only then continue.
The villagers feared him for it. There was something uncanny and sinister about him.
The village head saw him rise and hurried over, afraid he would start hitting me. “No, no. Don’t spoil her face.”
Stooping kindly over his long white beard, he told me, “Little Tai, Grandpa is taking you to a wonderful place. Fine clothes, rich food-and if fortune smiles on you, you may even climb high enough to become a mistress!”
I stared at him without expression and spat in his face.
“If it is so wonderful, go yourself.”
Father flew into a rage. He hauled me up and slapped me.
The old yellow dog snarled and tried to bite the man’s powerful arm, but Father had pulled all its teeth years ago. He flung the dog aside in disgust, ripped off the sleeve smeared with drool, and threw it away.
My ears rang so loudly in the chaos that I could hear nothing. I only saw the old village head looking mournfully at my face, as if reproaching Father for striking me at the wrong time.
He drew out a handkerchief and signaled to Father.
My nose was bleeding. I could barely stand.
When the oddly scented cloth came down over my face, I tried to run.
By the time I woke, it was night.
A fierce spring wind swept across the paddies, turning the rice into dark waves. An unlit tallow lamp swung at the front of the ox cart.
Three or four girls about my age huddled inside. Only my hands and feet were tied.
I leaned against a post and gazed through the narrow window at the high vault of the sky.
The river of stars wheeled like a dream, so miraculous that an immortal maiden might truly have been up there, drawing out her hairpin to cast a spell.
Watching it, I touched the pages of Mother’s “magic writing” hidden inside my robe and silently called “Mother” three more times.
No answer came.
The ox cart rattled through the fields until dawn, when it reached a ferry landing.
The human trafficker came to “inspect the goods.”
She turned the girls this way and that as if examining livestock: checking their hair for lice, their teeth for soundness, their skin and flesh for quality.
Seeing me bound and bruised, she knew I was “unruly.”
But the village head kept insisting, “This one is truly first-rate!”
The old woman pushed aside my tangled hair. The instant she saw my eyes and brows, a gleam crossed her face.
She had meant to put on airs and bargain, but now she stopped haggling. She ordered the village head to untie me and take me aboard.
Once he had his money, the village head became even more “kindhearted.” He thoughtfully warned her, “Keep her tied. She’ll run!”
The woman gave a dark chuckle. “No fish has ever escaped Granny Wang’s net.”
Such old procuresses had spent a lifetime practicing wicked trades. For money, they would sell their own mothers and daughters.
Granny Wang was worse than most.
Her boat was large and had two decks. The pretty girls were locked upstairs. Those with plainer faces had ropes tied around their ankles and were strung together like salted fish below.
She did not harm the girls on the upper deck. Instead, whenever screams rose from below, she forced us to look.
Those girls were savagely beaten every day. Anyone who tried to flee lost a finger on Granny Wang’s orders; afterward, such a girl could be used only for begging.
Kill the chicken to frighten the monkeys. The girls upstairs soon learned obedience.
I looked at the bleeding girl with the severed finger and called out once more in my heart.
Mother, save them.
There was no answer.