Chao and his son stood in front of their tiny store and gazed along the empty stretch of sun-baked road that extended down the mountain slope to a narrow valley. They were watching for the bus that made two daily round trips from the town in the valley to the village farther up the mountain. They were not going to take the bus. Watching for it killed time. Its comings and goings broke the monotony.
The wall clock in the store chimed three. Almost on the dot, the bus appeared, rounding a curve and trailing a cloud of dust. It panted and trembled as it made the ascent. Still, it was a splendid sight.
"Old faithful bus, always on time," Chao said in Taiwanese dialect, smiling at the boy.
"Why doesn't it come early or late?" asked the boy, looking up at his father. To him, it was magic. How could the bus match their clock so perfectly, day after day?
"The bus company people can't disappoint the passengers, can they?" There was a touch of pride in the father's voice.
The bus, now almost to the store, suddenly braked to a stop.
"It stopped, Father, it stopped," the boy called out excitedly. The father was surprised, too. Few people used this stop, and especially not when the bananas were still green.
Then the bus was on the move again. Standing in its legacy of dust was a tall man, suitcase in hand. He was a stranger and in his mid-30s. He wore dark sunglasses, a striped shirt, and a pair of tight pants. He looked like a mainlander.
When the dust had settled, the man walked toward Chao, who still stood in his doorway. He saw Chao was staring at him and asked gruffly in Mandarin1: "Anything wrong?"
"No, no, I was just curious. The bus doesn't stop here very often."
"The stranger had a scar across his jaw. He shifted his eyes from Chao to the sundries inside the store. He was about Chao's age but had an air of authority. The silence made the shop owner uneasy.
"My store. Not much business," Chao said without being asked. "This is my son, Hsiao-ming. He's ten."
"Do you know a man named Li Chien-hsun?" The man's voice was strong and it made Chao nervous.
He ... lives behind the hill, down the lane you see over there."
Without saying anything else, the man walked into the store, sat on a wooden bench, and changed into a pair of canvas shoes that he took from his bag. He dusted off his leather shoes and put them in the bag. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief as he went outside again.
"I don't like this place ... hot, dusty, and stifling," he said.
"It sure is hot these days. Looks like we are going to have a shower." Chao sounded apologetic, as if he were to blame for the weather.
"When does the bus come back?"
"In about half an hour. The morning bus downhill passes here at 10:30."
"I guess I'll have to take the one tomorrow morning. I want to get out of here as soon as possible."
Chao was unable to restrain his curiosity any longer. He braced himself and asked: "Is Li Chien-hsun your friend?"
"No, I have never seen him. You might say I'm his enemy."
"Enemy?" Chao didn't understand.
"I came from Taipei to settle something with him." The man started across the road. Then he stopped and turned. "How come you speak Mandarin so well?" he asked.
"Oh, I've been around," Chao said. "I was on the mainland, too."
"No wonder." Then the man was gone. He did not turn again.
"Hsiao-ming," Chao said to the boy, his voice tense, "take the back lane and see if you can get to Uncle Li's ahead of that man. Tell Uncle Li an enemy is on the way to see him."
The mountains were not so high but they were steep. A few houses dotted the lesser slopes. Most of the farmers grew bananas. They worked hard.
Li Chien-hsun was one of them, past 40 and of medium stature. He was standing on the slope behind the house, studying the rugged terrain he was going to reclaim.
"Uncle Li! Uncle Li!" He turned and saw Hsiao-ming.
"An enemy is coming to see you, Uncle Li." The boy was panting hard.
"What do you mean?"
"I don't know. My father told me to come and tell you."
"Some one here to see me?" "Yes, a tall man, from Taipei."
Li couldn't think of anyone. Not many people came to see him and he had quarreled with no one. He remembered a man in Taipei, but he wasn't tall. Besides, that was over years ago.
"Look! He's here." Hsiao-ming said in a lowered voice. "I must go. I can't let him see me."
A man was climbing the hill. Li went around the house and stood at the edge of the yard, waiting. The man was a stranger. He was whistling as he climbed.
"A lot of bananas," said the man, stopping on a stone step a few feet from Li but not looking at him.
"No, my farm is still small." Li's attitude was polite.
The stranger took off his sunglasses and turned toward Li. "You are Li Chien-hsun?"
Li nodded. He didn't seem to notice that the visitor had omitted the "mister" when addressing him. "I don't think I have seen you before," Li said.
"No, we have never met. My name is Wang Yun-tung."
"Yes, Mr. Wang." Li stretched out his hand but the man didn't take it.
"I may not be welcome here," he said. Putting his bag on the ground, he took out a wallet and produced a photograph about half the size of a postcard.
"You recognize this?" Wang held the picture in front of Li's eyes. The faded picture showed a man, a woman, and a baby boy on the woman's lap. "Your friends gave me this so I could recognize you," Wang said.
Li tried to grab the picture, but the hand that held it was withdrawn too quickly. Then it was back in the wallet and in Wang's pocket.
"Who told you to come?" Li's voice trembled. He had to mention names he did not want to remember. "Ho Li-feng or Chang Huai-teh?" Ho, the woman in the picture, was Li's former wife, now married to Chang.
"Both of them. Now, where's the boy? I was told his name is Chih-ping."
"What do you want?" Li demanded.
"He has finished primary school?" "Yes, this year."
"I'll take him to his mother."
Li's eyes were angry. He stuttered as he spoke. "What... what does it have to do with you?"
"His mother wants him and I've come to make a deal with you. They'll pay you 50,000 dollars2. That will about take care of what you have spent."
"Impossible! I wouldn't let anybody touch him." Li was shouting, his fists clenched. "That shameless woman!"
"It's none of my business what you think of these people. All I want is the boy."
"You can't have him. But why didn't they come themselves?"
Wang said: "They didn't dare see you, not before some understanding. That's why they sent me."
"Yes, they sent you ... you no good rascal, you professional blackmailer!" Li was furious, his face red. He wanted to grab the man by the neck and push him down the slope.
"Call me anything you want. Everybody has to make a living." The man from Taipei was calm. He was not even looking at Li.
"Is that the boy?" Wang motioned with his head.
Li looked back and saw his son with the two daughters his new wife had borne him. They were watching the two men.
"Mother, we have a guest!" It was the elder daughter calling. Mrs. Li appeared in the doorway. A guest was a big event. The children were smiling and talking with their mother.
Li shook his head and said to the visitor: "Sorry I lost my temper. We'll talk about it later, perhaps after supper. You're my guest, anyway."
"Thank you!" Wang stretched his hand. "Now you are beginning to talk sense."
Li and Wang sat silently in a small storehouse that stood apart from the main house. Supper was over and a makeshift bed had been set up for Wang. An oil lamp flickered between the two men and their shadows swayed and danced on the walls.
"It's a long time since I saw shadows made by an oil lamp. We used to sit around a lamp like this one." Wang was talking to himself, really.
"Where are you from?" Li asked.
"Hopeh province. Tung-hsien is where I was born."
"You have a home now?"
"Thank God, I don't." Wang saw Li was smiling. The smile turned into a chuckle. "What's so funny?" he asked.
"When we first met this afternoon, I thought you feared nothing. But you don't even dare have a home."
"Home?" Wang sneered. "A place like this is worse than no home."
"No, you don't understand," Li said. "You wouldn't know how much toil and sweat have gone into every bit of this place and everything we grow. We have built our home and our life, all with our own hands."
Wang was silent. But he was listening.
"Ten years ago when I first came here," Li went on, "the whole place was covered with rocks, trees, thorns, and grass. But I've made farm land out of it and built a house of my own. You may not like the way it looks, but I'm proud of it."
Wang raised his head and asked: "What are you telling me all these things for?"
"Because you're trying to destroy what I've built."
"Don't cry on my shoulder. You've made a splendid speech but I still don't think you have done anything. It has taken you ten years to build just this little. How many ten years do you expect to have in your life?"
"Of course, we have had hard times," Li argued. "Not every year was a good year but we always had hope and we kept working. When I'm gone, my son will still be here. There'll be grandsons, too."
"Why don't you let your son go and live in the world outside. Man is born not just to toil. He should enjoy himself. In the cities there are easier ways to get money, wine, and women ... "
"I have seen that kind of life and I don't like it. Ho Li-fen is the kind for that sort of life. She ran away because I couldn't satisfy her hunger for this and that. She left the boy with me. She doesn't have any right to him."
"But they'll pay you," Wang interrupted.
"No, I won't sell the boy and I don't want any of their money. And I don't like the idea of your working for them."
"I'm not working for them," Wang said. "I'm working for myself. All I want is money."
"Money? How much are you going to get out of this?"
Wang hesitated a moment, then said: "I guess it doesn't matter telling you this. I was promised 5,000 NT if they get the child."
"You should be ashamed of yourself, Wang. What you are doing isn't right."
"I'm not a judge or a preacher." Wang got to his feet and stretched. "I may have to use force. I don't give up once I set my mind to something."
"Ja, you should drop dead," Li said. "Deep in the mountains here, a man can be killed and buried quietly. No one outside may ever know."
"Thanks for reminding me. I think I can protect myself."
Li got up. He looked into Wang's eyes. "No, I guess we shouldn't let things get that serious." He wasn't a coward, but he knew fighting wouldn't help, and not merely because Wang was taller and appeared stronger. "Give me a day to think it over," he said.
"All right, just one day. You know very well that I can't stay here forever."
Dawn broke the following morning with Li's mind unchanged and his wife just as adamantly opposed. Fifty thousand dollars was a lot of money to poor farmers, but they knew they were not going to part with the boy, not for any amount of money. Mrs. Li loved Chih-ping as her own and he had never been told she was not his mother.
But how were they to handle the man from Taipei? He wouldn't leave empty-handed.
Wang Yun-tung came out of the shack and walked to the edge of the yard, indifferent to Li. He raised his head and gazed at the sky. The rising sun had turned the distant mountains into waves of gold. There was no breeze but the air was fresh. The banana trees stood silently in their robes of emerald. It was a lovely vista and even Wang felt better.
"Don't touch the boy until I give you word." Li was standing behind him.
"Okay, but what do you want me to do, sit in the shack all day?"
"Come and watch me work," Li said.
"Work? Didn't you say last night you were going to think the matter over?"
"I think best when I work. Besides, I have to clear the back slope and turn it into farm land."
"That slope?" Wang followed the farmer's eyes. "You can hardly stand on it."
"That's right, but I want to grow more bananas and bananas don't grow in the sky."
After breakfast, the two men went to the slope. Trees had to be felled, brush removed, and earth turned. It was not easy work and progress was slow. After his second cigarette, Wang was bored. He got up from his perch on a rock and asked Li for a hoe. "I want to have a try, just for fun," he said.
By mid-morning, the two found themselves engaged in a silent competition. Wang was not familiar with the work but he caught on fast. He was younger and stronger. Li bent to his labors; his unyielding spirit kept him hard at it. But when lunchtime came, it was obvious that the townsman had cleared and tilled the wider area.
Wang ate a great deal and downed a whole bottle of rice wine. He was still wearing the mud-stained work clothes he had borrowed from Li and he was soaked with sweat. But he didn't mind at all. He enjoyed the chicken and vegetables. He talked a great peal about Taipei and the places he had been.
Li had little to say. Mrs. Li had a worried look when she came in to see if anything was needed. The children had been told not to bother the two men.
When lunch was over, it was Wang who urged Li to get back to work. He seemed to have a personal interest in what he was doing. "Let's hurry, or we won't accomplish much today," he said.
The wind that had started up late in the afternoon was blowing harder now. It was almost dark but Li was still on the slope, working alone. Wang had gone back to his shack, tired but high-spirited. He had done a real day's work and deserved a rest.
Mrs. Li thought she, too, would talk to Wang about the boy. After he had washed up and came in for supper, she knew it was time to speak.
"Please drop your plan about the boy," she pleaded.
"Why are you so upset? He isn't even your own son."
Mrs. Li's voice was low and sincere. "No, but he's the only boy we have."
"You are still young and may have a son yourself," said Wang.
"No, that would be another thing. Chih-ping has been our hope. When I met my husband ten years ago, he had nothing but the boy in his arms. We have brought up Chih-ping together and found hope and happiness. Life hasn't been easy here but we have saved enough to send him to middle school. We want to see our plan through."
"You and your husband are big fools," Wang said. "The boy can have a much better life away from here."
"But we can't let our boy go. I haven't had much schooling and I don't know how to argue with you, but we are happy the way we are. We have built a home together. We can't let it fall apart."
"But think of the money. Maybe you can ask for more."
"Money. Of course, money." It was Li Chien-hsun. He had just come in. "I should have thought of it before." To Wang he said, "If you care only for money, what if I give you ... say, 10,000 NT? That's twice what you have been promised. The boy will stay with us, but you won't be going back empty-handed, right?"
"You must be out of your mind, Li. Where will you get the money?"
"We'll have some cash when the bananas are ripe in a month or so."
"But you'll suffer for it, if you pay me that much. You are expanding the farm and need the money." No one seemed to notice that Wang was talking against his own interests.
"Never mind. We can wait for another harvest."
"You people are crazy," said Wang, almost shouting. "I knew something was wrong from the beginning. Take the man at the store ... he has been around ... to the mainland ... but he comes back to a place where no sensible man would want to stay."
"This is his home, isn't it?" said Mrs. Li. "No, I still don't understand," said Wang, shaking his head.
Let's talk about what you can understand—money. What do you say about the ten thousand?"
After a moment of reflection, Wang said:
"All right. You're crazy but money is still money. When do I come back?"
"A month from now. You give us the picture and we give you the money. Then you'll not bother us again."
"All right. All right. But I still don't understand how you people can be such nuts." Wang kept shaking his head. He didn't seem pleased at the prospect of doubling his fee.
"Don't think if you don't understand." Li's voice was light. He sounded almost victorious. "Lees have our Supper. We'll finish the few bottles we still have. "
That night the wind turned into a storm. The drizzle of supper time became a torrential, driving rain before bedtime. It was unmistakably a typhoon, one of those destructive howlers from the Pacific. The wind roared. It was fierce, relentless, murderous. It shook the wood-and-brick house and brought in torrents of water through cracks and under the doors.
The typhoon kept the Lis awake. Li Chien-hsun moved about in the pitch-dark house, trying to keep windows and doors secure. He knew what the typhoon could do to his' bananas but there was nothing he could do. "Oh, God, not this time," he kept saying.
Mrs. Li calmed the children and gazed into the blackness. The wind made her shudder. "What can we do? What can we do?" she asked herself.
It was not the first time nature had exacted a high price from the Lis. The farm had suffered severe damage before. But this time the money was for the boy. Li was out at the first sign of dawn, doing what he could to salvage the crop. At least half the bananas were gone. Depressed, Li went back to the house. There he found Wang helping Mrs. Li clean up the storm's debris. He, too, wore a worried look and said nothing as they ate breakfast.
The meal over, Wang stood up and said: "I guess I'll take the bus downhill this morning, if there is any bus."
Li looked at him. He had to say something. "I ... I guess we'll have to let you take the boy to Taipei. Perhaps it will be right for him."
"No, not this time," Wang said.
"The harvest isn't going to be much. I'm afraid we can't raise the money ... "
Li didn't finish the sentence. Wang hit him in the face. Caught off guard, Li stumbled and fell.
"Pick yourself up," Wang said angrily.
"I thought you were a man, but now you've turned coward just because of a typhoon."
Wang went to the shack and came out with his bag. He was smiling. Li and his wife stood in the yard. They didn't know what to say.
"Remember that I helped you clear that piece of slope back there," said Wang, nodding at man and wife. "I want to taste the bananas you are going to grow on that slope. When can I come back for the fruit and a few drinks?"
"Banana trees take three years to grow," said Li.
"Oh, yes, I almost forgot one thing," said Wang, searching in his wallet. He pulled out the picture and handed it to Li.
Wang started down the stone steps, whistling as he had come. The sky was overcast but the clouds were moving fast. Everything in the countryside looked clean and fresh.
As Wang Yun-tung's figure disappeared below, Li Chien-hsun turned to his wife and children and called out vigorously: "Come on! Let's get busy. We've got so many things to do."
1 The principal dialect and national language of China. In rural Taiwan, many members of the older generation do not speak it.
2 NT$50,000 is equivalent to US$1,250.