One evening San noticed Wu hunched up, mumbling confused prayers to gods his parents used to pray to. That worried him for a moment. His parents’ gods had never been of any help. But then, if Wu found consolation in his prayers, San had no right to rob him of that feeling.
San was increasingly convinced that Canton was a city of horror. Every morning, when they set out on their endless search for work, they noticed more and more people lying dead in the gutters. Sometimes the rats or dogs had been chewing the faces of the corpses. Every morning he had the nasty feeling that he would end his life in the gutter of one of Canton’s many alleys.
After yet another day in the damp heat, San also found himself losing hope. He was so hungry, he felt dizzy and was incapable of thinking straight. As he lay on the jetty alongside his sleeping brothers, he thought for the first time that perhaps he might just as well fall asleep and never wake up.
There was nothing to wake up for.
During the night he dreamed yet again of the three severed heads. They suddenly started talking to him, but he couldn’t understand what they said.
When he woke up as dawn was beginning to break, he saw Zi sitting on a post, smoking a pipe. He smiled when he saw that San was awake.
‘You were not sleeping soundly,’ he said. ‘I could see that you were dreaming about something you wanted to get away from.’
‘I was dreaming about severed heads,’ said San. ‘Maybe one of them was mine.’
Zi eyed him pensively before responding.
‘Those who have a choice choose. Neither you nor your brothers look especially strong. It’s obvious that you are starving. Nobody who needs workers to carry or drag or pull chooses anybody who’s starving. At least, not as long as there are newcomers who still have some strength left and food in their rucksacks.’
Zi emptied his pipe before continuing.
‘Every morning there are dead bodies floating down the river. People who don’t have the strength to try any more. People who can’t see the point of living any longer. They fill their shirts with stones or tie sinkers to their legs. Canton has become a city full of restless ghosts, the souls of people who have taken their own lives.’
‘Why are you telling me this? I have enough pain to bear already.’
Zi raised his hand dismissively.
‘I’m not saying it to worry you. I wouldn’t have said anything if I didn’t have something else to add. My cousin owns a factory, and many of his workers are ill just now. I might be able to help you and your brothers.’
San had difficulty believing what he had just heard. But Zi said it again. He didn’t want to make any promises, but he might be able to find them work.
‘Why are you singling us out?’
Zi shrugged.
‘Why does anybody do anything? Or not do anything? Perhaps I just thought that you deserved help.’
Zi stood up.
‘I’ll come back when I know,’ he said.
He placed a few fruits on the ground in front of San, then walked away. San watched him walk along the jetty and disappear into the crowds of people.
True to his word, Zi returned that evening.
‘Wake your brothers,’ said Zi. ‘We have to go. I have work for you.’
‘Wu is ill. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?’
‘Somebody else will have taken the work by then. Either we go now, or we don’t go at all.’
San hastened to wake up Guo Si and Wu.
‘We have to go,’ he said. ‘Tomorrow, we’ll have work at last.’
Zi led them through the dark alleys. San noticed that he was trampling on people sleeping on the pavements. San was holding Guo Si’s hand, and in turn he had his arm around Wu.
Soon San noticed from the smell that they were close to the water. Everything seemed easier now.
Then everything happened very fast. Strangers emerged from the shadows, grabbed them by the arms and started to pull sacks over their heads. San caught a punch that felled him, but he continued to struggle. When he was pressed down to the ground again, he bit an arm as hard as he could and managed to wriggle free. But he was caught again immediately.
San heard Wu screaming in terror not far away. In the light from a dangling lantern he could see his brother lying on his back. A man pulled a knife out of his chest, then threw the body into the water. Wu was carried slowly away by the current.
The shattering truth struck home: Wu was dead, and San had failed to protect him.
Then he received a heavy blow on the back of his head. He was unconscious when he and Guo Si were carried onto a rowing boat that took them to a ship anchored offshore.
All this happened in the summer of 1863. A year when thousands of Chinese peasants were abducted and taken across the seas to America, which gobbled them up into its insatiable jaws. What was in store for them was the same drudgery they had once dreamed of escaping.
They were transported over a wide ocean. But poverty accompanied them all the way.
12
On 9 March 1864, Guo Si and San started hacking away the mountain blocking the railway line that would eventually span the whole American continent.
It was one of the severest winters in living memory in Nevada, with days so cold each breath felt like ice crystals rather than air.
Previous to this, San and Guo Si had been working further west, where it was easier to prepare the ground and lay the rails. They had been taken there at the end of October, directly from the ship. Together with many of the others who had been transported in chains from Canton, they had been received by Chinese men who had cut off their pigtails, wore Western clothes and had watch chains across their chests. The brothers had been met by a man with the same surname as their own, Wang. To San’s horror, Guo Si — who normally said nothing at all — had begun to protest.
‘We were attacked, tied up and bundled on board. We didn’t ask to come here.’
San thought this would be the end of their long journey. The man in front of them would never accept being spoken to in such a way. He would draw the pistol he had stuck into his belt and shoot them.
But San was wrong. Wang burst out laughing, as if Guo Si had just told him a joke.
‘You are no more than dogs,’ said Wang. ‘Zi has sent me some talking dogs. I own you until you have paid me for the crossing, and your food, and the journey here from San Francisco. You will pay me by working for me. Three years from now, you can do whatever you like, but until then you belong to me. Out here in the desert you can’t run away. There are wolves, bears and Indians who will slit your throats, smash your skulls and eat your brains as if they were eggs. If you try to escape even so, i have dogs that will track you down. Then my whip will perform a merry dance, and you will have to work an extra year for me. So, now you know the score.’
San eyed the men standing behind Wang. They had dogs on leads and rifles in their hands. San was surprised that these white men with long beards were prepared to obey orders given them by a Chinaman. They had come to a country that was very different from China.
They were placed in a tented camp at the bottom of a deep ravine, with a stream running through it. On one side of the creek were the Chinese labourers, and on the other side a mixture of Irishmen, Germans and other Europeans. There was high tension between the two camps. The stream was a border that none of the Chinese passed unnecessarily. The Irishmen, who were often drunk, would yell abuse and throw stones at the Chinese side. San and Guo Si couldn’t understand what they were saying, but the stones flying through the air were hard; there was no reason to suppose that the words were any softer.