‘He’s a nice dog, but he’s not much good as a watchdog,’ said San.
‘What shall we do now?’ asked Wu.
‘We shall try to find work,’ said San.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Guo Si.
San shook his head. Guo Si knew just as well as he did that they didn’t have any food.
‘We can’t steal,’ said San. ‘If we did, we might end up like the trio whose heads are on those poles at the crossroads. We must find work, and then we’ll be able to buy something to eat.’
He led his brothers to the place where men were running back and forth carrying their burdens. The dog was still with them. San stood there for a long time, watching the men on the ships’ gangways giving the orders. He eventually decided to approach a short, stocky man who didn’t beat the porters, even if they were moving slowly.
‘We are three brothers,’ he said. ‘We’re good at carrying.’
The man glanced angrily at him but continued checking the porters emerging from the hold with heavy loads on their shoulders.
‘What are all these yokels doing in Canton?’ he shouted. ‘Why do you come here? There are thousands of peasants looking for work. I already have more than enough. Go away. Stop bothering me.’
They continued asking at wharf after wharf, but the response was always the same. Nobody wanted them. They were of no use to anybody here in Canton.
That day they ate nothing apart from the filthy remains of vegetables trampled underfoot in a street next to a market. They drank water from a pump surrounded by starving people. They spent another night curled up on the jetty. San couldn’t sleep. He pressed his fists hard against his stomach in an attempt to suppress the pangs of hunger. He thought of the swarm of butterflies he’d entered. It was as if all the butterflies had entered his body and were scratching against his intestines with their sharp wings.
Two more days passed without their finding anybody on any of the wharves who nodded and said that their backs would be useful. As the second day drew towards its close, San knew that they wouldn’t be able to last much longer. They hadn’t eaten anything at all since they’d found the trampled vegetables. Now they were living on water alone. Wu had a fever, and was lying in the shadow of a pile of barrels, shaking.
San made up his mind as the sun began to set. They must have food, or they would die. He took his brothers and the dog to an open square where poor people were sitting around fires, eating whatever they had managed to find.
Now he understood why his mother had sent the dog to them. He picked up a rock and smashed the dog’s skull. People from one of the nearby fires came to investigate, their skin was stretched tightly over their emaciated faces. San borrowed a knife off one of the men, butchered the dog and placed the pieces in a pot. They were so hungry that they couldn’t wait until the meat was properly cooked. San cut up the pieces so that everybody around the fire had the same amount.
After the meal they all lay down on the ground and closed their eyes. San was the only one still sitting, staring at the flames. The next day they wouldn’t even have a dog to eat.
He could see his parents in his mind’s eye, hanging from the tree that awful morning. How far away from his own neck were the branch and the rope now? He didn’t know.
He suddenly had the feeling that he was being watched. He squinted out into the night. There really was somebody there, the whites of his eyes gleaming in the darkness. The man approached the fire. He was older than San, but not especially old. He smiled. San thought he must be one of those lucky people who didn’t always have to walk around feeling hungry.
‘I’m Zi. I saw you eating a dog.’
San didn’t answer. He waited to see what would come next. Something about this stranger made him feel insecure.
‘I’m Zi Quan Zhao. Who are you?’
San looked around uneasily.
‘Have I trespassed on your territory?’
Zi laughed.
‘Not at all. I just wonder who you are. Curiosity is a human virtue. Anybody who doesn’t have an enquiring mind is unlikely to live a satisfying life.’
‘My name’s Wang San.’
‘Where do you come from?’
San was not used to being asked questions. He started to be suspicious. Perhaps the man calling himself Zi was one of the chosen few who had the right to interrogate and punish? Perhaps he and his brothers had transgressed one of those invisible laws and regulations that surround the poverty-stricken?
San gestured vaguely into the darkness.
‘From over there. My brothers and I have been walking for many days. We crossed two big rivers.’
‘It’s great to have brothers. What are you doing here?’
‘We’re looking for work, but we can’t find any.’
‘It’s hard. Very hard. Lots of people are drawn to the city like flies to a honeypot. It’s not easy to make a living.’
San had a question on the tip of his tongue, but decided to swallow it. Zi seemed to be able to see through him.
‘Do you wonder what I do for a living, as I’m not dressed in rags?’
‘I don’t want to be inquisitive about my superiors.’
‘That doesn’t bother me in the least,’ said Zi, sitting down. ‘My father used to own sampans, and he would sail his little merchant fleet up and down the river here. When he died, my brother and I took over the business. My third and fourth brothers emigrated to the land on the far side of the ocean, to America. They have made their fortune by washing the dirty clothes of white men. America is a very strange land. Where else can you get rich from other men’s dirt?’
‘I’ve thought about that,’ said San. ‘Going to that country.’
Zi looked him up and down.
‘You need money for that. Nobody sails over a great ocean for nothing. Anyway, I wish you goodnight. I hope you manage to find work.’
Zi stood up, bowed and disappeared into the darkness. San lay down and wondered if he had imagined that short conversation. Perhaps he had been talking to his own shadow? Dreaming of being somebody else?
The brothers continued their vain search for work and food, walking for hours on end through the teeming city. San had decided to rope himself to his two brothers, and it struck him that he was like an animal with two youngsters that kept pressing up against him within the large flock. They looked for work on the wharfs and in the alleys overflowing with people. San urged his brothers to stand up straight when they stood in front of some authoritative person who might be able to offer them work.
‘We must look strong,’ he said. ‘Nobody gives work to men with no strength in their arms and legs. Even if you are tired and hungry, you must give the impression of being very strong.’
Any food they ate was what other people had thrown away. When they found themselves fighting with dogs over a discarded bone, it struck San that they were on their way to becoming animals. His mother had told him a story about a man who turned into an animal, with a tail and four legs but no arms, because he was lazy and didn’t want to work. But the reason that they were not working was not that they were lazy.
They continued to sleep on the jetty in the damp heat. Sometimes heavy rainfall would drift over the city from the sea during the night. They sheltered underneath the jetty, creeping in among the wet timbers, but they were soaked through even so. San noticed that Guo Si and Wu were beginning to lose heart. Their lust for life shrank with every day that passed, every day of hunger, torrential rain, and the feeling that nobody noticed them and nobody needed them.