their eggs. He loved it, especially chasing them away from
where they were sitting in case there was an egg hidden underneath them. We giggled at his shrieks of laughter while we tidied
the house and prepared our lunch.
On washing days, while Mother went down to the river, I walked into the village with Li-hu, pushing him in his cart, to do
the shopping. Sometimes the shopkeepers would give us a piece of meat or fish, or an extra portion of noodles.
‘Take it,’ they would say. ‘We know how hard it is for you and you deserve a little help.’
Others would come up to us and tell us how much they missed my father and what a wonderful man he had been. It made me feel
happy to know how much my father was loved. I always told Mother what had been said. She would nod and smile and her eyes
would go all misty with pride and missing him.
Mother began to use Father’s rickshaw. We filled it once a week with all our freshly-picked vegetables and rode to the market
in the next town, not bumping, but singing loudly all the songs that Father used to sing. We left Li-hu back in the village
with friends, and these were the times I relished the most, just being with my mother and being a team and doing our best,
which was good enough.
What saddened me the most was that I could no longer go to school. We couldn’t afford it any more, and there was too much
else to do with helping my mother and looking after Li-hu. I didn’t resent it, but I missed my friends. Once, though, I bumped
into my teacher in the village. She gave me a book to read and said to take it back to her when I had finished it and she
would lend me another one. Whenever I had a spare moment, I read that book. As soon as I had finished it, I collected another
one. Reading became my escape. I loved losing myself in adventure stories, away from the harsh demands of the adult world
into which I had been plunged.
Uncle stopped by once a week. He looked more and more affluent, more and more aloof, as though we were rather inferior to
him, and as though calling to see us was an irksome duty he was obliged to carry out in spite of himself. I thought he was
like a spy, and I felt that he wanted us to fail, though I had no idea why. He would stride over Father’s terraces, prodding
the ground with a stick and bending down to inspect the undersides of our crops. He would poke around in the shed, counting
the root vegetables we had stored there. He would walk round the yard, lifting the straw to see how fresh it was. Then he
would go indoors and pass his hand over the table and chairs, checking for dirt.
Uncle still expected us to feed him when he visited, though he never brought anything to the meal. He seemed taken aback when
we served him meat, and had to admit, grudgingly, that we were managing.
‘Of course,’ he said, ‘it’s early days yet. The weather has been kind. It won’t be so easy for you when the weather changes.’
Not once did Uncle offer us any sort of help, and I began to wish that he would just stay away. If he wasn’t a spy, I thought
to myself, he was like a vulture waiting to pick over the bones of some poor dead animal.
Chapter Ten
Sold
I was so numbed by what Uncle had said that I did as I was told and followed him like a sheep up the track and into the barn. ‘Your mother can’t afford to keep you You have to go What little money you fetch '
I don’t know what I expected to find there, but nothing prepared me for the shouting and laughter, the stench of stale sweat
and the clouds of cigarette smoke that assaulted me as we went through the doors. Uncle too looked taken aback, but he spoke
rapidly to a man standing by the entrance and handed him some money.
Then he turned to me and said, ‘We’re here to find you a job. Take this notice and come with me.’
He gripped me by the elbow and led me across the room, through the hordes of men who were milling around. As we went by, they
eyed