A DREAM OF RICHES ON THE RAILWAY (1881)A DREAM OF RICHES ON THE RAILWAY (1881)
Our first runaway was the cockhead least expected to show any backbone: Old Skinny, the opium addict. He waited for the full moon, then grabbed his blanket and clothes, and strolled off.
“Had I known that the bastard was leaving,” Little Touch said about his friend, “I would have followed him.”
In town, he had overheard the addict ask about the border but doubted the fool had the gall to go.
I kicked myself. I should have been first to leave. If I had been nicer to that cunning bastard, then he might have asked me along. He could have used my help. But he was a frail old man, and I didn’t want to carry him on my back. America was about freedom. I wasn’t his slave.
To reach America, all I need do was to follow the river. When it swung west, it was time to leave the water and go south.
When our ship had docked in Victoria, the men were thrilled to hear that America lay close by, just a short boat ride to the mainland and then a quick hop south. No wonder armed watchmen guarded the pier and locked us in a stockade of sturdy logs. They snarled at us as if we were slaves of war plotting to escape even after being dragged far from home.
We cursed Old Skinny on our way to work that day. He made us all look like one-legged ducks, and now the bosses would watch that others did not flee.
“That turd won’t get far. He fears the dark, wouldn’t squat alone at the latrine.”
He had bought himself a tin lantern to ensure his candle stayed lit.
“A Native will jump out and scare him to death. He’ll die without losing any blood.”
In the forest, the cur had whispered to me, “Look after yourself first. Always walk in the middle of the line. Let those who rush to the front or lag at the back face the danger. Wild animals, redbeards, or angry Natives—who knows that they want?”
“At least he’ll find better food out there.”
That was the best reason to run. Head Cook, the other cockhead in our crew, was as useful as dropping your pants to fart. All he did was boil water, throw in rice, and add ground-up dried salmon, the cheapest meat. Second Cook mentioned one day that Native hunters had brought wild birds to trade for tea but Head Cook refused them. What an idiot: our tea was so low grade that we would have come out ahead.
Three days later, Bookman told us to pack, to leave that very morning. Poy crowed like a child, keen to see more of Gold Mountain as if he were here on a tour of scenic spots. He didn’t grasp that the Company wanted to move us away from the border.
“Path hasn’t been cut through yet,” I said to Bookman. “Why move?”
No answer.
I dawdled over my scanty packing as men hurried to dig up caches of liquor. The bottles were heavy but no one thought to discard a drop. Salty Wet had carved himself a wooden pillow; it was too hefty to take. He left it by the fire pit for some blockhead in the next crew.
I prayed for a delay to let me dash to the border that night. It seemed likely at first when the men fought Bookman over carrying the tools. The long saws were awkward to move, but Bookman insisted thieves were lurking and ordered us to lug them to the warehouse in Emory Creek.
“Who would steal them?” we demanded. “They’re only useful for the Company’s shit work.”
Then the men threw down their loads and denounced Head Cook. All the heavy cooking pots had been put in the packs of the non-brothers. He in turn quickly blamed Second Cook and shuffled the items around. We folded the tents, coiled the ropes, and started our trek at midday. We were idiots, moving too damned fast for our own good, always trying to prove to the redbeard bosses that we were hardworking and willing, as if they might suddenly smile at our efforts and treat us nicely.
I wanted every man to break off and run to the woods. The bosses were too few to chase everyone, so some of us would reach America. Too bad there hadn’t been time to plan this.
I lagged at the tail, hoping to melt into the woods, but Bookman made a point of walking behind me. When I stopped at every chance, he cursed but couldn’t force me to go faster. I was bigger than him.
Chinese miners stood knee deep in the river and shovelled for gold, rocking their battered sieves with quiet patience. I called out greetings, but no one waved back.
“They hate newcomers,” Bookman muttered. “They say you cause redbeard tempers to explode and singe every China man’s eyebrows.”
The railway camps were quiet; the crews had gone to work. A boy squatted by the shore, scrubbing cooking pots with bare hands and sand. I asked for boiled water, but he shook his head, eyes wide, as if scared of strangers.
The river held low-riding barges piled with machines, and smoke-belching sternwheelers laden with fares. A few children shouted and waved at us. Native men and women paddled dugout canoes. Those boats took them anywhere they wanted, while we coolies obeyed like dancing monkeys the Company’s every whim.
Wide fields of tree stumps, their white flesh bright against dark bark, led to a landing half-built on footings, half-floating. We crowded onto a small boat. I boarded last, hoping to be left behind. I thought to escape when the men wanted to kick me off, shouting in panic, afraid of sinking. Too bad we pushed off without incident.
Low hills closed in as the vessel slid sideways against the current. We gripped the bulwarks to stay standing. Around a sharp bend, grey-black cliffs rose straight to heaven, leaving no ledges for even the smallest creature to grip. China had failed to warn us of such menace. Back home, feeble brown paintings showed distant mountains and aged them into misty hollows that sheltered the huts of hermits. If cranky oddballs could clamber up and thrive there, then mountain ranges were hardly risky for normal men.
At Yale, we boarded a train loaded with square, smooth-planed lumber and then we choked from the engine’s black smoke. When it cleared, great walls of mountains surrounded us. The railway was squeezed in a narrow throat of rock where the river rushed in a breathless gulp toward the coast, the ocean, and China. Along smooth cliffs, men hung from ropes and ladders, flies on a teahouse wall. They dangled long tapes and weighted lines to take measurements. Bold splashes of yellow and red paint marked key spots. They drilled holes and planted blasting powder. Their feet scrabbled for traction as they pulled on thick ropes and the goodwill of fellow workers.
We bemoaned our fate until Bookman assured us that our jobs were less daunting.
A crew of China men had already claimed the site. Their tents lined the narrow beach, latrines behind a low wall of boulders. My workmates hurried to pitch shelter, always keen to show the bosses how quick and clever we China men were. Screw them. I looked up to study the newly blasted rock face, a vast sheet of jagged edges, a steep slope bare of stops. The thud and crash of explosions boomed through the canyon. Our bandit gang had once rolled boulders onto a convoy of packhorses and caused panicked whining, so I knew the deadly mix.
The headman of the other gang came by, chewing a wad of tobacco that slid from one sunken cheek to the other. He told us to call him “Old Fire” and offered advice: “Inside the tunnel, when you little chickies hear a krrr-krrr sound, flatten yourself against a wall and make yourself thin. Stay still and don’t run, unless you want to ‘get nailed.’ The ceiling is breaking loose, but it could be a few grains of dust or tons of rock. It has no conscience and crushes men and animals alike. When redbeards leave the tunnel, you always follow them, no matter if you hear their whistle or not. If you can’t see them, let your nose track their stinking sweat. The tunnel is dark, so no one can see who is who, or who is moving. Stay alert and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
As Old Fire left, my workmates sputtered and spat.
“That bastard mentioned nails to pound them into our coffins.”
“He wants us to get fragrant first.”
“That old thing didn’t come to help. He came to taunt newcomers.”
Me, I was glad for the advice. The mountain mouth could swallow several houses at once. Arches of rock supported the craggy ceiling, ridden with humps. No telling which were anchored and which had been loosened by blasts. The ground was cratered with pits and ridges that maimed and killed those who fell badly. The tunnel was black as midnight mud, but oil lamps in small tins studded the floor. When they burned out, they didn’t get refilled right away. We offered to top up the oil but were turned down. The Company needed to save money wherever it could.
We were ants being flicked at a fortress city. We drilled holes to poke black powder into the rock, but the granite let us advance only fifteen inches a day. It was the bosses who complained about that because we coolies saw no progress in the dark. We worked in pairs: one man held the drill bit in place while the other swung the sledgehammer. We made sure to blow the grit from the hole. Scaffolds slung between shaky ladders let us climb the rock face. Higher up, even less light was available. Each blow rebounded with a shudder; the hammer man clawed the air for balance. Good thing I worked with Poy, not clumsy fools with bad aim who clubbed their partners’ elbows and shattered them.
High Hat warned us, “Stand with your feet wide apart and bend at your knees.”
Redbeards tamped black powder into the holes and installed blasting caps. When they were lit, three rules were supposed to be followed:
Blasters leaving the rock face must blow their metal whistles.
Blasters going to the tunnel mouth must alert any China man seen along the way.
Lastly, lamps at the rock face were to be brought out before the blast, as a final warning to men in the tunnel.
Trust the redbeards? Better to call a wolf to guard the chicken coop.
After the blasts, we filed in, convicts to the execution ground, our noses twitching from the acrid smell of explosives. With our shoulder poles, we took out baskets of debris, sometimes two loads to one man, sometimes one load between two men. We hoisted rocks with bare hands and ropes. Big boulders were drilled and blasted apart for removal. When they told us about a second crew digging toward us from the other end of the mountain, we shook our heads in disbelief. Two deaf mutes groping in the dark could only land on different continents.
Crew bosses and bookmen watched us at the tunnel mouth. To show fairness, as if it was commonly found throughout Gold Mountain, every coolie got time drilling the rock face and lugging debris. This was meant to prevent complaints and unrest on the job because hauling rubble inside the tunnel was more dangerous. But men keen to keep their good health paid their way out. They cited prior injuries or poor eyesight and waited at the tunnel mouth to buy baskets of rock to lug to the dump. Redbeards disdained them, calling them cowards. We crewmen saw a fair deal, a chance for men to trade freely. In any business, a man willing to take more risk deserved more reward.
I took on extra duties but it was safe work: writing and reading letters for men willing to pay a few pennies. It was easy work, full of basic four-word phrases: your latest letter received, hard labour long days, or best efforts press forward.
Not everyone used me. Men guarded their lives from workmates who gloated over the bad luck of others, who dwelled upon people’s misery to lighten their own hardships. They read scandal into simple matters. A father urging sons to tend to their mother was said to have raised useless scoundrels. A son telling his old bean to eat well and wear warm clothes was said to be atoning for past cruelty. Someone advising his brother to replace the roof and repair the dikes was seen to be managing from afar a family damned by inbred madness.
There was one line that all my customers praised: Received your keen advice, etched it on my bones, carved it on my heart. They wanted this in their letters, even when the home folk had sent them no guidance. They were even willing to pay extra for the sentiment.
One day Poy and I plodded back to the tunnel mouth and found the two crews milling there. A man from Old Fire’s gang lay moaning on the ground, dirty blood caked on his face and clothes. Ceiling rock had crushed two workers. Redbeards brought out the second man slung in a tattered blanket while another carried heavy pickaxes. They lay the body before the bookman and crew boss and pulled back the cloth.
I saw the torn shirt and flesh of someone’s chest. Where a man’s head had been was now a red, pinkish mash of bone, brain, and rubble. I vomited and regretted wasting my meal. When the bookman nodded, the men hauled away the corpse. We backed off, bumping into one another, and averted our faces.
High Hat was impressed. “The redbeards move it so quickly.”
“Only to get us back to work,” said Number Two, his second-in-command. “Otherwise we get paid for standing here and doing nothing.”
“Time to move!” Bookman shouted. “Back to work!”
The wily agents in China had never mentioned danger. All they said was that we would be building a road. How hard could that be? We thought that meant outside work. I should have known then that a dollar a day was a dream wage. Yes, it sailed far above a coolie’s pay in China. But the tunnel was dark and ghostly, all honed edges and rigid corners. Their silent master, the mountain, loomed over us, solid and menacing, all male yang power. It came alive when sudden light threw bobbing shadows against the walls. We wretches drilled tips of iron into the core, sapping its gleaming strength. Of course the mountain gods despised us. We were as doomed as piglets caught gulping golden coins.
That evening, workmates asked what had caused me to throw up. I refused to say.
“Hok, come.” High Hat pulled me away. “I want to see Old Fire. If he needs a grave-stick, then you can earn some money.”
“The last man we lost,” said Old Fire, “it was the blaster’s fault. That bastard ducked into a new corner to dodge flying rock. He said he never saw our fellow walk by. We wanted to kill him; we chased him into the river and pelted him with stones. The shit-hole prick almost got nailed, shivering from the cold.”
“Was today an accident?” High Hat asked.
Old Fire shrugged and offered a brown jug of rice wine. I accepted, politeness be damned.
“Redbeards take the body and we don’t see it again,” he said.
High Hat asked for details, but we heard, “Don’t know, don’t care. Three men got fragrant so far. Who can handle so many?”
“Do the rites and let their spirits protect you.”
“The mountain is stronger. Better to light incense and kneel before rocks.”
“You don’t care if they throw grass on the body, leave it for animals, or heave it into the river?”
“Back home, bodies float down the water, bloated and blackened. No one buries them. They’re lucky to get fished out.”
“No one knows them. Here, the bookman knows every name.”
“Go find a runaway monk,” Old Fire said. “Get him to chant sutras.”
I reported this to Poy, who looked up from washing clothes. “This makes you happy?”
“We need to get to America.”
“We have debts. I want to do right.” He wrung out grey water. “Otherwise my life won’t get better.”
“Our luck will change in America,” I said. “Don’t let Shorty frighten you.”
“Forget luck. It’s about right and wrong.”
After Pig Boy’s funeral, Poy and I grew wary of one another. He didn’t hand me the Iron Hit liniment to rub into his bruised shoulder, and I stopped inviting him to toss garments into my wash bucket. If we worked outside, sometimes I partnered with Old North, and Poy went with Old South.
“You owe me,” I insisted. “I saved your life on Centipede Mountain.”
“You owe me. I saved your life in Hong Kong.” He snatched his wet garments and walked away.
Damn him, a wet hen in a soup pot, kicking at the lid.
I needed to remind him about riches south of the border. What if the bumpkin thought America was the same as what we saw here in Canada?
We had glimpsed America’s bounty long ago, when a bandit raid netted us fancy goods from abroad. A sojourner had shipped strange products, puzzles to me until I reached Hong Kong and Canada. A lightweight box on thin metal wheels served as a baby carriage. Two wooden rollers and a handle squeezed dirt from clothes. An iron barrel turned out to be a pot-belly stove. We threw away tinned food until someone took an axe and split open a shiny can.
One day I saw armed militia sneaking up Centipede Mountain. I ran to warn the bandits, keen to win their favour, but found only Poy and two others. The rest had followed Shrimp Boy and Cudgel on a mission. We four wasted no time fleeing. The militia, rival bandits who had switched sides to become law-abiding mercenaries, waited overnight in the forest to surprise our gang and slaughter them. All their severed heads were thrust atop poles in the county capital. Poy wept at seeing our comrades’ surprised faces. When the most corrupt magistrate in the region posted a reward for the four missing bandits, Poy and I raced to Hong Kong.
We found scant work, loading and unloading the ships. Then, angry co-workers put aside their hauling ropes and wheelbarrows to go on strike against a new government tax. After police arrested the strike leaders, 20,000 dockhands occupied the harbour and halted all shipping. Hong Kong was a big port; cargo had to be moved. But streets and alleys were barricaded to prevent headmen and their thugs from reaching the piers. Wet sewage was hurled at the comprador merchants sent to placate the workers. Armed British soldiers barged in but were driven back. We China men welcomed any effort to regain face from the redbeards who had shamed us in war.
Poy and I were too new to be trusted by the strikers, so we let merchants hire us to bypass the strikers under cover of night. Our sampan drifted slowly to a great ship. We unloaded goods on the far side of the freighter, out of sight. But as we tried to return to shore, word leaked out about our contraband cargo. Angry strikers shouted and hurled stones and bricks at us. Our boat capsized, along with all the cargo. Poy, a swimmer, had kept me afloat in the dark until we were rescued.
Next day in the tunnel, the man ahead of me screamed and fell back. The gods in the roof were still dancing. I landed on the shuddering ground as my laden baskets tipped over. The floor lamps were snuffed. Blind and bruised, we crawled over mounds of rubble until faint light glimmered ahead.
It was stir-shit-stick Shorty who had heard the creak above and warned us.
“Had I known it was you,” he sniffed, “I wouldn’t have bothered. You deserve death.”
He followed me around, whining to anyone who came close, “The universe has no justice. Hok should rescue me; he owes me half a dozen lives!”
Most crewmen ignored him. No one worked at his lazy pace; everyone sought to stay out of trouble with the bosses. His only friend, Onion, had fallen alongside us in the roof collapse and lay in bed for days, bleating in faked pain.
When I passed him by the latrine, he grinned. “Take time off, Hok. You work too hard.”
Once, Bookman lost his temper and threatened to reduce Onion’s wages to punish his tardiness.
“If you fine me,” he said, “I won’t work.”
A coolie who didn’t work didn’t get paid. It also meant that the Company’s long fingers couldn’t claw back the ship’s passage or any cash that had been advanced. Then, Bookman barred Onion from the cooking tent, trying to starve him into line. But Onion had his own money to buy food in town.
When Bookman got cornered and lost face, he said the contractors would confront Onion’s family in China.
Onion chuckled. “You think they are rich enough to sway my people?”
Rumours of danger followed Onion. He had insulted a corrupt judge. He had seduced a general’s mistress. He had caused officials to lose face after bragging about his windfalls from high-stake gambling sessions. Here in Canada, Onion laughed even when he lost money, no matter what the game, no matter what the stakes. If he hadn’t been Shorty’s friend, then he would have been mine.
In town, the general store was crowded with railway men gambling on a rest day. I asked about America.
“You need money.” The merchant slid close and lowered his voice. “The ones who reach America, they hire Native men to guide them through forests and mountains. They avoid the river and railway where the Company has eyes.”
“I’ll be fragrant by the time I save money.”
“You take risks?”
“Want to report me to the Company?”
“Sell whisky at camp. All you need is a hiding place.”
The Company forbade liquor in the railway camps, so workers hiked miles to town to slake their thirst. Noisy saloons, open twenty-four hours a day, offered women as well as other delights. Chinese pedlars trekked through the camps selling bootleg but were driven off by crew bosses ordered by bigwigs to keep their men sober.
“And end up in jail? I’ll get nailed there!”
“And the laws of China?”
He meant fight evil with evil. Our Emperor had issued bans against opium, but the redbeards unleashed cannons and dispatched warships to protect the shipments and maintain the trade. Lacking human decency, they sold the drug everywhere. Stricken wives and naked children of addicts wailed and starved in the streets. Fleshless corpses, all bone and skin, of addicts who couldn’t buy another pipe piled up in front of opium shops as though those firms were also coffin makers. The Yen mansion and its famed rock-and-water gardens collapsed after the master died and his two sons, both addicts, lost the family business. Every stick of furniture, every rag of cloth, and every piece of art had been pawned by the time remaining family members fled.
So I bought my first case of whisky and tied it to my back. At work, I watched the redbeards until I saw one fellow sneaking a drink. I went to him with a phrase learned from my merchant supplier: “Wanna whisky? Two dollah.”
I pointed to myself and said, “Me, Hok.”
After that, redbeards knew whom to seek in camp. As for Native customers, the merchant passed my name and place to them. Onion was a client, but if Shorty came to buy, I refused him. He had to send someone else with his coins. My bag of cups and small bottles let me sell diluted whisky in smaller portions.
One day after dinner, Bookman yanked me from the tent. “Didn’t I warn you not to trade with Native people?”
Government laws forbade anyone to sell liquor to them. My merchant had failed to mention this, so of course I was surprised. Didn’t every man need a drink at some point in his life?
Two sturdy Native men were waiting. My buyer was the leading hunter of his tribe. He looked chagrined that evening, carrying no weapons. His men preferred to buy in the railway camps because informers in town helped the Indian Agent arrest drinkers and peddlers. My merchant had told the hunter that I accepted only cash and nothing in barter. The hunter always came in western dress, and the other man wore an animal-skin tunic, painted in colours and bristling with bear claws. Under a hat of fur and stiff feathers, his eyes were stern.
“Your customer told his chief about you,” said Bookman. “The chief says stop selling whisky; if not, he’ll tell the Indian Agent.”
“It’s hard to say no to this one,” I said. “He carries a rifle and weapons. He won’t take no for an answer.”
“You can’t say this to the chief,” Bookman said.
“Then tell him what he wants to hear.”
After the visitors left, Bookman grabbed my arm. “Don’t sell to Native men. They have wives and children. Redbeard men don’t have families here; they can spend their money any way they want.”
“If I don’t sell, then customers go buy elsewhere,” I said.
“You make us all smell bad.”
“I sleep by the latrine. I’m used to the stink.”
Poy and I were on ladders squinting into the rock face when we heard shouts that High Hat had fallen off the scaffolding. By the time we pushed our way through the crowd, his eyes were closed and his body limp. The dim circle of gathered lamps showed a deep gash on one side of his neck and blood on the ground glowing and slick. Number Two raised his arms and a hammer to stop redbeards from coming near. He promised to pay Old South, California, and Poy if they helped him carry the body to camp. The rest of us followed. I dragged my feet: Poy was going to get polluted by killing airs and infect me too.
Our cantankerous lot agreed that High Hat should not have died. He had set up the brotherhood. He challenged Old Fire over the death rites. He settled petty spats between Bookman and the crew. If gods and spirits didn’t protect such a worthy man, then there was little hope for sons of concubines like us.
Near camp, Old Fire’s men blocked the way, shoulder poles in hand, ready for a fight.
“Don’t bring that dirty thing here,” said Old Fire.
“I need to buy water,” said Number Two, “for our Eldest Brother.”
“Put him down and go fetch it. Don’t bring him closer.”
“He has to go past his tent one last time to tend to unfinished business.”
“Do filthy things ever get carried through other villages?” Old Fire gestured at his tents.
Number Two conceded that they didn’t.
“Then turn around and go bury him. Find a spot in the woods before it gets dark.”
“We must set up an altar and pay respects. He was a righteous man.”
“Do that here, and be quick.”
“This is the road, not our home.”
“That thing won’t pass through and pollute us.”
Poy stepped forward. “You won’t let us through because you look bad shirking your duties.”
“If we carried filthy things past your kitchen,” Old Fire replied, “your cook would chop us dead with his cleaver.”
“If you passed away, you would want a funeral,” Poy said to the other crew. “You would want to cross safely to the other side. No one wants to wander between the two worlds, bothering common folk.”
Old Fire addressed them too. “We are far from home and need to stay alive. People get fragrant here but we must keep a safe distance. It has always been thus.”
“Everyone gets a funeral at home,” Poy pointed out.
“The family gets benefits, so of course it does the rituals,” retorted Old Fire. “But we have no families here, so nothing can be done.”
Number Two turned to consult his brothers and Poy was pushed aside. No one talked to him, so he came to me.
“Why didn’t you speak?” he demanded. “You have schooling!”
“Without a funeral master, nothing can be done.”
“A few things can make it right.”
This wasn’t about right and wrong. These were scared men clutching at the frayed edges of dignity. They had muscles and brains, words and opinions, but were reduced to numbers on the payroll, ink scratches in an account book. They had families and abided by clan honour, but the rock was supreme here. It did not need to be kind or righteous; it did not need to recognize anyone. Men owed it respect but had lost their senses, thinking those foreign peaks were more powerful than those of China. In town, I had met men from other crews who followed Old Fire’s ways and observed no rites.
“We only want to go home safely,” was what they said.
Poy had scowled and stalked away, an old man who knew only one way home.
In the end, the brothers told Number Two to appease Old Fire. If this death wasn’t their Elder Brother’s, I suspected the men would have walked away without a backward glance.
“There’s no grave-stick, so we can’t bury him.” Poy tried to delay things. “If the spirit isn’t guided by its name to its owner, then it stays and haunt us.”
He sent me a sideways look that everyone saw.
“His surname was Liu,” I called. “The word has fifteen strokes. It will take time to etch it.”
“Write it on paper.” Old Fire sneered again. “Set it on the grave under a rock until the stick is done.”
He went on to list how the rites could be shortened. Number Two nodded, as if he too wanted a quick burial.
“Old Fire, we are not animals.” Poy spoke loudly. “We will do as you suggest, on one condition. You must bow to High Hat and toast him with a cup.”
“We never spoke!”
“Liar,” I said. “We talked after your man died.”
Number Two ran to the river to buy water and dabbed his wet bandana on High Hat’s forehead. He murmured words of comfort as fast as he could. The handlers tied the blanket around him, after placing slabs of wood under his back and atop his chest to take the place of coffin walls. Our entire crew showed up for the ritual, not for High Hat but to send Old Fire a signal never to meddle again in our affairs.
Poy called each crewman to step forward and pour wine at High Hat’s feet. I was surprised. Usually an older man called the order; his age showed respect to the deceased. Poy gestured for all to step forward and bow. He led us in three large circles around the body before handing each man a penny. Then the handlers lifted the wrapped body and headed to the forest. In the meantime, a small fire was stoked on the ground. Each man stepped over it before heading back to camp, where right away he washed his hands and face.
I had new respect for Poy. But before we could talk, two armed lawmen rode into camp on big brown horses and seized my bottles. In front of the crew, they emptied the liquor onto the ground and arrested me. Along the march to jail, I wondered who had fingered me, Shorty or the Native headman. Grandfather’s words from long ago came to me: no revenge, no rest.