TWENTY-ONE

 

 

Three Weeks Earlier

 

 

Finally, someone moved the cabinet aside and opened the hole, letting in light. It was a fat Cantonese man in a greasy brown work shirt and trousers. He had a large bowl of rice and jugs of water to refill our barrel. Except for a girl who'd hit her head quite hard in a fall the day before, we all ate the rice with our dirty hands until we could stuff no more down our throats—until we felt ill. I even snuck a tiny ball of rice into my tunic for Snow to eat. The girl who'd hit her head ate nothing. She just sat, quiet, as if unaware of the present, her eyes looking like they were focused on something beyond the walls of our little secret room.

In the light, we saw that the wooden cask that had previously broken loose had a big crack in it. We could see inside. It was full of something dark brown that looked like tar and smelled like damp earth and roasted nuts. I wondered if it was something I could eat.

Seeing the cracked cask, the fat man cursed, then went and got a tarp and rope to wrap the cask and lash it back down with the others. In a dialect I barely understood, he told us not to touch the casks. That anyone who touched the casks would be punished.

As we ate, he stared at us like a hungry dog, looking each of us over one at a time. When we were done eating, he pointed to one of the girls and gestured for her to come with him. She asked why. He became angry and shouted, so she did as the fat man wanted and climbed out the hole. Following her, he slid the cabinet back into place, closing the hole and leaving us in darkness once again.

As I sat back down against the cold, damp wall, unable to see anything, a vision came into my mind of my father weeping as I left our house. I began to wonder if I would ever see him again. I missed him terribly. I missed sharing tea with him in front of the house while watching the sun rise over the distant hills. I missed his crafty look like when, every year, he snuck me a bigger piece of sweet nian gao than he gave to my older brothers on Lunar New Year's Eve. I missed his laugh. His kindness.

Some hours later, the fat man brought back the girl he'd taken away. Before he closed the hole, while light came through from the next room, I could see that she looked terrified. Terrified and sad. Whispering, I asked her what was wrong. She would not speak. Not at all. I asked if she was hurt—if the fat man had hurt her. She said nothing.