Free The Boat to Redemption by Su Tong

her rant on as I pinched my nose and held my breath. Go ahead, yell
     at me, I thought. Anything you say goes in one ear and out the other. It’s nothing but
kongpi
! I sat down to dinner to a chorus of scolding, and for some reason the word ‘exile’ popped into my head. Maybe that’s what
     I was, an exile. But one thing I knew for sure was that Mother’s cramped dormitory was no home for me; it was just a way station.
     The words ‘mother’ and ‘son’ meant nothing here. I was a guest – and an unwelcome guest at that. Mother supplied me with three
     meals a day, but every grain of rice was saturated with her sadness, and every vegetable leaf was infused with her disappointment.
     If I lived with her like that, either she would die and I’d go crazy, or vice versa. And I wasn’t alone in feeling that way
     – she did too.
    Mother was on the shore, but I had no home there, and had to head back. Note that by heading back I meant back to the barge,
     back to the Sunnyside Fleet.
    One morning a week later, the fleet was returning from its latest mission and I was on the pier, waiting anxiously for them.
     I could not say if I was waiting for my father’s barge and his home to return to, or if I was waiting for the return of
my
barge and
my
home.
    So I stood there, bag in hand. It was wet underfoot after a foggy morning, almost as if it had rained. With a bit of hesitation
     the sun broke through, lighting up part of the pier and leaving the rest to fend for itself. Fog hung over the mountain of
     coal,the piled-up commodities and the many cranes. There were spots where the sunlight was nearly blinding and others so dark it
     was hard to see. I waited in the darkness. Someone was moving near the embankment, but I couldn’t tell who it was. The person
     was heading my way from the transport office, nearly running, and dragging a shimmering white light behind. It had to be a
     stevedore. When he was close enough to hear, I shouted, ‘Do you know when the fleet is expected back?’
    As soon as the words were out of my mouth I regretted them, for it was the general affairs typist, Zhao Chunmei. Ah, Zhao
     Chunmei. She was Zhao Chuntang’s younger sister, and her name appeared in Mother’s notebook at least ten times. She’d been
     one of my father’s lovers. Some of the words Mother had written after Father had told the truth floated into my head. They
     did it! They did it on the typing desk. They did it on a window ledge. They did it again and again! The description was particularly
     detailed in one spot. They were in a room where cleaning gear was kept, doing it, when the caretaker opened the door. Never
     one to lose control in the face of danger, Father covered himself with a broom and a mop and held the door partially shut
     with his shoulder. ‘You can take the day off,’ he said. ‘We are doing some voluntary work in here!’
    I recalled seeing Zhao Chunmei in the office, and my abiding image of her was how fashionable and haughty she seemed. She
     wore milky-white high-heeled shoes virtually every day of the week, a sight rarely seen in Milltown, or – rarer still – purplish-red
     ones. Both made a loud click-clacking sound when she climbed the stairs. The other women in the building hated her, Mother
     included. They felt that her shoes served two purposes: to show off to the women and to tempt the men. I can still see that
     come-on look in her eyes, flirtatious as hell.
    But no longer. She knew who I was, and the look she gave me was unusually cold, the sort of look a policeman might give acriminal, her eyes glued to my face. Then she looked down at my bag, as if it contained evidence of some crime. At first I
     was tempted to look away, but that would have been too easy. Then I recalled my father’s line about voluntary work, and felt
     like laughing. Suddenly she shuddered, which surprised me. I swallowed my laughter and kept my eyes on her. She was giving
     me the most hateful look I’d