The Year of Rice and Salt

Finally she relented, and they hurried out the front gate of the compound, sloshing immediately into knee high brown water that poured into the compound until they closed the gate against it. It was a strange sight indeed to see the whole town become a shallow foamy brown lake. The sedan chair was piled so full with books and papers that it took all the servants jammed together under the hoist bars to lift and move it. A low, hair raising boom of moving water shook the air. The foaming brown lake that covered both rivers and the town extended into the hills on all sides, and Lanzhou itself was completely awash. The servant girls were crying, filling the air with shrieks, shouts, screams. Pao was nowhere to be seen. Thus it was that only a mother's ears heard a single boy crying out.

Kang realized: she had forgotten her own son. She turned and hopped back inside the gate that had been pushed open by water, unnoticed by the servants staggering under the loaded sedan chair.

She splashed through rushing water to Shih's room: the compound itself was already floored by the opaque brown flood.

Shih had apparently been hiding under his bed, and the water had flushed him out and onto it, where he curled tip terrified. 'Help! Mother, help me!'

'Come quickly then!'

'I can't! I can't!'

'I can't carry you, Shih. Come on! The servants are all gone, it's just you and me now!'

'I can't!' And he began to wail, balled up on his bed like a threeyear old.

Kang stared at him. Her right hand even jerked towards the gate, as if leaving ahead of the rest of her. She snarled then, grabbed the boy by the ear and jerked him howling to his feet.

'Walk or I'll tear your ear off, you hui!'

'I'm not the hui! Ibrahim is the hui! Everyone out here is hui! Ow!' And he howled as she twisted his ear almost off his head. She dragged him like that through the flooding household to the gate.

As they passed out the gate a surge of water, a low wave, washed into them waist high on her, chest high on him. When it passed the level of the flood stayed higher. They were now thigh deep in water. The roar was much greater than before. They couldn't hear each other. No servants were in sight.

Higher ground stood at the end of the lane leading south, and the city wall was there as well, so Kang sloshed that way, looking for ber servants. She stumbled and cursed; one of her butterfly shoes had been sucked away in the tow of water. She kicked the other one off, proceeded barefoot. Shih seemed to have fainted, or gone catatonic, and she had to put an arm under his knees, and lift him up and carry him, resting him on the top shelf of her pregnant belly. She shouted angrily for her servants, but could not even hear herself. She slipped once and cried out to Guanyin, She Who Hears Cries.

Then she saw Xinwu, swimming towards her like an otter with arms, serious and determined. Behind him Pao was wading towards her, and Zunli. Xinwu pulled Shih away from Kang and whacked him on his reddened car. 'That way!' Xinwu shouted loudly at Shih, pointing out the city wall. Kang was surprised to see Shih almost run towards it, leaping out of the water time after time. Xinwu stood at her side and helped her slosh up the lane. She was like a canal barge being towed upstream, bow waves lapping at her distended waist. Pao and Zunli joined them and helped her, Pao crying and shouting 'I went ahead to check the depth, I came back and thought you were in the chair!' while Zunli was saying something to the effect that they thought she had gone ahead with Pao. The usual confusion.

On the city wall the other servants were urging them on, staring upstream white-eyed with fright. Hurry! their mouths mouthed. Hurry!

At the foot of the wall the brown water was streaming hard by. Kang struggled against the flow awkwardly, slipping on her little feet. People lowered a wooden ladder from the top of the city wall, and Shih scampered up it. Kang started to climb. She had never climbed a ladder before, and Xinwu and Pao and Zunli pushing her from below did not really help. It was hard getting her feet to curl over the submerged rungs; indeed her feet were not as long as the rungs were wide. She could get no purchase. Now she could see out of the corner of her eye a big brown wave, filled with things, smashing along the wall, sweeping it clean of ladders and everything else that had been leaned against it. She pulled herself up by the arms and pegged her foot down onto a dry rung.

Pao and Zunli shoved her up from below, and she was lifted bodily onto the top of the city wall. Pao and Zunli and Xinwu shot up beside her. The ladder was pulled up after them just as the big wave swept by.