Times were hard, and the local people were eager for work. An Chu became the center of attention and the center of many townspeople’s lives. On days when there were no shipments, An Chu often found himself trailed by a group of ragged men, aimlessly begging for any job that might be coming up.

  “Comrade An Chu, please, I need a job. Anything, anything will do. My wife is sick. I need money to get her some herbs.”

  “Big brother An Chu, I know you have a big heart. My wife is expecting our second child, and I don’t have anything to feed her.”

  “I need a job. I have six small children at home and there is nothing to eat.”

  Every man that followed him had a story to tell, a tale of hardship and poverty. An Chu did have a big heart, and he took the time to listen to each one of their stories.

  Although he could not save all of them, he did what he could for those who approached him. Being poor most of his life, he sympathized with these people and knew their needs well. Whenever a shipment arrived, An Chu chose a handful of “stars of the day” from the big pool of eager candidates.

  “Liang, you go. Xiao Long, not you—you just worked two days ago. Let everyone have a chance. Da San! Let Da San go. His wife is due any day now …”

  One day An Chu’s searching eyes fixed on a disappointed and desperate face. He looked unfamiliar. Another hardship case when there are so many already, he thought.

  The strange man was buried under a shapeless, bulky jacket with a straw rope tied to his waist. He looked more like a scarecrow on a stick, except his toes were peeking out from his oversized shoes. He was an old man, thin and worn out, too weak to compete with this fierce group of hungry job-seekers. Only his eyes, wide and unblinking, silently begged An Chu for help, and even then, they shyly shifted away when he realized he was being examined.

  “You, what is your name? You, you …”

  “Arh Bun,” the old man finally managed to utter his own name out loud, quickly, like a sneeze.

  As if surprised by his own courage, Arh Bun shifted his eyes again and concealed his nerves by staring at his toes instead of the crowd around him. His hands crawled into each other’s sleeves.

  “Arh Bun, tell me, why did you come? Do you know that the only jobs here are to lift heavy boxes?”

  An Chu’s questions only managed to elicit a few nods from him. But his feet did not move. Arh Bun just stared at the ground with stubborn determination.

  A couple more lucky names were called. Then An Chu said more softly, “Arh Bun—you, too. Come with me.”

  Carrying freight from a truck to the drum tower posed a physical challenge even for an able-bodied man. An Chu stayed on the truck and lifted one giant box at a time onto the back of a man waiting below on the ground. With several hundred pounds of goods on his back, the man then climbed a set of steep stone steps up into the tower to a storage area in the deep, dark chamber. A worker had to be strong to carry round after round of freight. An Chu chose only the smallest and lightest boxes for Arh Bun. But even those were too much for him. His legs were shaky, and he could barely move forward once he was loaded up. After only the second round, he was out of breath, and was ordered to sit aside to wait until the shipment was done. Finally, the empty truck kicked up a cloud of dust and drove away. The workers chatted and waited for their pay permits, which they would take to the accounting department to turn into cash.

  Everyone who worked for An Chu knew his rules. They all worked together until the job was done. The stronger people carried more, and worked more. And everyone had to do the best he could. If necessary, An Chu himself would carry boxes deemed to be too heavy for anyone in the crew. After a shipment was done, everyone was given a pay permit for the same amount. All of them—not just the strong men, but the weak men, too—needed to feed their families. An Chu always made sure of that.

  As the last slips were handed out, Arh Bun got the pay permit he didn’t think he would get. Not a man of words, he used his eyes to show his gratitude: a lingering look at An Chu and tears of joy. Afterwards, he wiped his eyes with the edges of his prodigious sleeves and dragged his tired feet forward, following his co-workers to the accounting department.

  An Chu turned off the lights and locked up the warehouse with two giant-sized padlocks. His duties for the day were over. It was his turn to head back to the workers’ barracks. Shipment arrivals often meant long hours of intense work for An Chu and days of sorting out and moving the new merchandise to the particular storage places for each department. There were slow days, too, when he had little to do. Then, he dropped off the new supplies and visited with the shop clerks at their different counters.

  After a while, An Chu got to know almost everyone in the store. They all called him “Old Sun,” a description well-matched by his appearance, if not his age. He had extra thick layers of wavy hair piled up high on his head, crying out for a cut, set off by an unusually dark, bushy beard that was growing willfully in several different directions. He was never concerned about how he looked or bothered by the nickname “Old Sun,” even though this honor was bestowed on him at the ripe old age of twenty-three. Most men his age spent lots of time grooming themselves. An Chu was different. Dressed in his baggy blue uniform with his signature metal pocket ring holding fifty keys, An Chu seemed happy the way he was. Indeed, the shiny, jangling hoop was his only fashion accessory. Every step he took set off a cheerful chorus of rhythmically dancing and chiming keys. They kept him company in his otherwise rather lonely workplace.

  Sometimes, when An Chu had finished up his tasks, he wandered into the housewares department, and chatted with his friend, Mr. Gu, or helped out if everyone was too busy to talk.

  One day, to help out a sick co-worker, Yan was juggling two sales counters. There were more customers than she could handle and with little food in her stomach and the nonstop work, Yan felt dizzy. She gasped for air as she struggled to keep up with her workload.

  Yan heard a voice over her shoulder: “Xiao Mei … Little Sister! Mr. Gu told me to come and help you.”

  She gave a quick glance in the direction of the voice while her hands kept on working—packing up a dozen glasses for a customer.

  “I was wondering who ‘Xiao Mei’ was and it turns out it’s you, Yan, the ‘Swallow’!’’ the voice said. “Remember the train platform when we first got here? But you seem to have many names … I also heard you were ‘Er Jie’ (Second Oldest Sister) in your dorm.” The man cheerfully went on and on, like an old friend.

  Yan remembered meeting him at the station and how he helped others getting off the train when they first arrived, and then seeing him around the store. It was “Old Sun.” Others were always saying good things about “Old Sun.” And now, here he was, trying to help her out. Yan felt the presence of a lucky star over her. She gave a grateful nod of acknowledgement toward An Chu and playfully replied, “Forget about ‘Xiao Mei.’ Just call me ‘Er Jie,’ okay?”

  She felt older already. She was secretly pleased with her own response, for she was always eager to appear more grown up.

  An Chu and Yan worked well together. She did not have to run between the two counters anymore and even had a few minutes to sit down and get her strength back.

  Yan liked An Chu. What a good fellow he is, Yan thought. The world would be a much better place if all men were like him.

  They worked side by side until he was called away to fetch some stock items from the warehouse. Right before he left, An Chu teased her: “I’ll call you ‘Er Jie,’ but I hope you won’t regret it because everyone calls me ‘Old Sun,’ which means you have to be even older than me.” At that, they both gave a hearty laugh.

  An Chu’s joking promise was kept for the remaining forty-two years of his life. From that day on, he always respectfully called her “Er Jie.” Later, he found out that, despite her deceptively young looks, she was two years older than him. She was not joking with him after all.

  That night, when Yan went back to the dorm, she praised “Old Sun” to her roommates for having saved her day. Da Jie, the oldest girl in their room, had never heard Yan praise a man and decided to give her some gentle words of caution: “He sounds great. From what I’ve heard, he always helps everyone out and does everything so well. But just remember one thing … don’t ever fall in love with him because he already has a girlfriend, and she is a loose woman. She would do anything to keep him all to herself.”

  Yan felt nervous and embarrassed. Her face was flushed, and she could not look back at Da Jie. Though she admitted that she had lots of good feelings toward An Chu, Yan did not think she was in love. So, she calmed herself down and replied, “Don’t you worry. I think I will never get married. I want to stay single all my life.”

  Da Jie laughed. “I was just teasing you.” She saw that Yan was getting too serious.

  Chapter IV

  A Brush with Death

  Life in the desert took a toll on Yan’s health. For one thing, she could not get used to the food. The local diet of unprocessed grains disagreed with her stomach. Yan craved rice, something she had never lived without before she came here. How she wished to get hold of some rice, even if she had to trade, or bribe, or beg, or steal. After a few months, she became desperate. Just the idea of a bowl of plain white rice covered with pickled vegetables—something any Shanghai peasant took for granted—would make her mouth water. But that was too much to ask, for rice was nowhere to be found. Rice was not a local crop. The northern plains were too cold and dry to grow rice. And since the country was in an economic depression, no spare rice trickled northward.

  Yan kept swallowing the half-bowls of indigestible millet porridge they handed out twice a day to keep herself going, but she started to have dizzy spells, cold sweats, and stomach cramps. Sometimes they were so severe that she had to curl her body into a ball and rock herself back and forth to conquer the pain. At night, she was tormented by hallucinatory dreams that startled her with wild and frightening images and bathed her in cold sweat, soaking her clothes and sheets. She often woke up and spent the rest of the night fidgeting, restless and cold, trying to figure out the meaning of the terrifying dreams she was having.

  Most nights, they were about pirates and kidnappings. Sometimes, Yan saw herself surrounded by water, drowning in loneliness. Other times, she struggled in raging waters, trying to save herself by holding onto a log and trying to get to shore. She screamed as the log was smashed into small pieces by the force of gushing water. Her yells broke the still night air, frightening the creatures scurrying under her bed as they searched for a midnight snack and disturbing her roommates. Once, Yan became terrified as the water in her dream got thicker and thicker, and she realized she was stuck in a tar pit. Yan panicked, kicking with all her strength. “Help! Help me!” she screamed.

  Then she heard a voice calling: “Er Jie … Er Jie …” The voice persisted and gradually grew louder and sterner.

  “Yan Gu!”

  Yan heard it this time. It was loud enough to break her eardrums. It was the dorm mother, Da Jie. She opened her eyes and found the supervisor’s face only inches away from hers. In her hand was a flashlight, projecting an unsteady flood of yellow light at her.

  “Yan, you got me really worried,” she said. “I’ve been shaking you for a few minutes already. I thought you’d never wake up.”

  Yan sighed with relief.

  “Another bad dream?” Da Jie asked as she brushed the sweat-soaked hair off Yan’s face.

  Yan nodded, shaking with cold. She tried to sit up and found herself all tangled up in her bedding. She must have caused quite a commotion in her sleep.

  “I’m sorry, Da Jie,” she apologized when she finally liberated herself from the sheets. “I’m sorry for all the noise I’ve been making lately.”

  “That’s all right. You can’t help it,” Da Jie whispered as she picked up Yan’s pillow from the ground and brushed it off. “It’s not your fault.”

  “I’m so afraid of going to bed these days because of these bad dreams,” Yan admitted as she stood up.

  “I can understand it. But maybe the more you’re afraid of them, the more they’ll come back. We need to stop these bad dreams so you can have a good sleep once and for all.” Her soft, sweet words comforted Yan.

  “Thank you. I’ll try.”

  After rearranging the bedding, Da Jie tucked Yan back into bed. With a pat on the back and some kind words, Yan managed to fall asleep. That night, she had a few hours of peaceful rest.

  But nightmares still haunted her most nights, even after she told herself not to be afraid of them anymore.

  One morning, Yan woke up after a terrible night of struggling in her sleep. This time, though, instead of evaporating when she opened her eyes, the nightmarish feeling lingered. She felt paralyzed and nauseous. She could not get out of bed. Her face was pale white, and the sweat beads on her forehead were the size of pearls. Numbing pain seemed to be coming from her stomach and she realized she was very ill. Her friends carried her to the only source of medical aid in this remote corner of China—a local army field hospital. A sleepy doctor, reeking of garlic, cigarettes, and last night’s wine, poked her roughly with his fingers and announced with obvious annoyance that Yan had appendicitis and would need an operation right away. He stood up and shouted for Chen, who was outside fixing the transmission on the doctor’s truck, to come inside. Chen, who doubled as the camp’s anesthesiologist, ambled in, sized up the situation and soon reappeared holding a well-used syringe whose point was as thick as a knitting needle. He wiped his oily hands on his pants, delivered the painkiller, and went back to his other patient outside. Though he looked rough, Chen had seen much action during the war of liberation and did his job like a professional. The surgeon, however, failed in his efforts to locate her appendix.

  The operating room quickly turned into a chaotic scene, accompanied by Yan’s panicked screams for her father. The entire medical staff of the hospital rushed to help. Nurses managed to pin down her arms and legs. Yan could not move. She was desperate, paralyzed by the fear that she would soon die here in this strange room, without any familiar faces or family to hold her hand. She was conscious of the doctor searching inside her with her appendix nowhere to be found. Tears streamed down her thin cheeks although she could not hear herself crying. She did not know which was more overwhelming, the pain or the fear.

  Could I die? Could I leave the world just like this? She wondered about her fate, and suddenly had flashbacks to her mother’s deathbed scene. She lost track of reality and gasped when her eyes caught a ghostly figure in white holding a tray floating toward her.

  “Your name is Yan Gu, correct?” the nurse asked, placing down her tray. She delivered the question in a muffled monotone, as if it were directed more toward herself than the patient.

  Before Yan could reply, a medicated cloth was picked up with tongs and placed on the lower half of her face.

  Then, everything went black.

  Two days passed before Yan woke up, utterly disoriented. The room looked surreally white. Everyone around her was dressed in white. Where was she? Was this a dream? Perhaps this was where people ended up when they died. Weren’t angels all dressed in white? She thought of her dead mother. “Mother?” she croaked, and searched the room for Jin Lai. But Jin Lai wasn’t there. What is this place? She tried to move her arms and legs. They did not feel like her limbs. A wave of panic swept over her. Maybe I’m paralyzed!

  She tried to scream, but all that came out was a low groan.

  Silence.

  If only someone would answer her.

  “Daddy! Where are you, Daddy?”

  She wanted to shout, but her voice was still too weak to be heard.

  There was a row of faces in front of her, all happily sharing the news among themselves.

  “She is alive! She opened her eyes!”

  “She has come back!”

  “She made it!”

  Yan could see their lips moving, their faces animated with smiles, and their heads nodding. But no one spoke to her.

  “You are all devils, devils in white! Give me back my daddy and my brother!”

  Her sudden thundering exclamation startled everyone in the room. The surgeon went up to her and tried to hold her hand and calm her down. She resisted fiercely with her small strength, calling him a “devil.” But the “devil” would not respond with anything other than a smile, which just made her angrier.

  Having used some physical energy stimulated the awakening of all parts of her body. She felt a twinge in her stomach and before she realized what was happening, a gush of foamy, sticky white stuff came out of her mouth and splashed all over the doctor’s uniform, her bed, and the floor.

  Exhausted by her own emotional storm, she fell asleep as the nurses cleaned her room and changed her sheets. Yan now knew where she was and how she got there.

  When she woke up again, she was calm. Surveying the blank white walls around her, she forced her memory to run backwards. She remembered that she was in severe pain when she was carried to the clinic. She still could feel the agony and fear when the doctor could not find her appendix. She recalled the sweet, sickening feeling when she lost consciousness. But she could not remember the two long days and nights when the doctors failed to wake her after the anesthesia wore off, and they had to hold their breaths and wait for a miracle.

  Eventually, she was told what had taken place while she drifted between the worlds of life and death. Yan felt very fortunate to be alive. For the rest of her life, she always claimed that there was another world after life and that she had personally experienced it, although she refused to describe any details of it for fear of bad luck. She always remained a faithful Christian, despite what happened to her in life.