Distance created by history

I stand on the prow of the ferryboat, letting the sunlight, unbridled, swing on my body. I can smell the salt from the sea and feel the breeze mumble the familiar folk song. 

My thoughts go with the waves and meet every inch of my homeland. “Seventy-one years. I am back,” I murmur to the wind. My memory flows with the breeze back into the past, into a time when I had lost the key to my heart; I missed my home.

***

I left my home when I was fifteen years old, the memory of my father’s death at the hands of hungry soldiers still clear as day. After we had run out of the basement, my view was occupied by red, and the potent smell of blood pierced my nose. After that day, I took responsibility for my younger sister and my sick mom. My anger towards my father’s murderers never left me, though, and so I eventually became a soldier.

When Japan announced its surrender, the shadow of war enveloping China strengthened within its own borders. A civil war erupted. Following strict instructions, I boarded a ferryboat to Taiwan, where I would fight against my own people. Although my memory has faded, I can still draw on that visceral feeling when I first stepped onto the boat. I thought only of the end of the war, my mind buzzing with dreams for the future. I would build a new house for my family and spend the rest of my life on farmland. It didn’t take long to wake up abruptly from this dream when Chiang Kai-shek arrived, announcing the isolation between Taiwan and the mainland.

My desire to return home was like the withered leaf that wished to be back on the branches where it had once thrived. Despite strenuous efforts, the borders of Taiwan became my fences and my cell bars. Eventually, I succumbed and built my own life there, growing into the age of my own grandfather. Every day, I watched the war scar on my face be slowly covered over by wrinkles. In the mornings, I’d walk with my granddaughter along the coastal line, and stand on the side of the sea to look into the distance.

“Grandpa, what are you looking at?” 

I answered my four year old granddaughter in a steady tone: “Towards my home.”

I held her hand, the sea breeze blowing around us. 

“Home?” She had that puzzled expression on her forehead I loved so much.

I replied: “Well, promise Grandpa, okay? If Grandpa leaves you one day and you find the way to cross the gullet, that you will take my spirit with you.

She tilted her head and with a firm tone declared: “Grandpa will never leave me. ”

We all laughed, and I stroked her head. 

***

The call of the seabird interrupted my reminiscence. I opened the old album that I packed in the innermost of my package, my fingers brushing over the yellowing photos as I worked my way to the one I sought. It was the photo that had 1987 written on its right. I chuckle and whisper: "in that year, I almost achieved my dream."

***

The isolation between Taiwan and the mainland broke at last in 1987, when I had become a middle-aged man wearing a formal Chinese tunic suit and a well-shaved face. At last, my chance to return home had come. 

When I stepped back onto that land, I could barely recognize it. Over the years, things had changed so much that all I could clearly remember was the name of my village. 

I used an eager voice to ask a passerby: “Do you know where Yang village is?” 

“What? Village Yang? I have never heard of it. Are you a foreigner?” The man looked at me quizzically.

I didn’t respond, and so he continued talking: “Here has changed a lot over the past few years. The village names too.”

My eyes drooped, and I tightened my lips when I responded: “Thanks.” 

That man had seen my upset, he said again: “If you need it, you can go to the village to register your information. They will notify you when there is news.”

I nodded, and when I left the village, I could see the afterglow of the sunset. It felt like the sad closing of a door on a home that felt like no home of mine. 

I went back to Taiwan after that and slowly, more wrinkles climbed up onto my face and towards my eyes. My hair faded like the old photos. As my youth marched away, I continued to walk slower along the beach, always overlooking my homeland and wondering: how had my family fared? Would I ever know what became of them? 

And it was as if the wind had brought that question back over the sea when the phone rang not long after.

A gentle woman’s voice enquired: “Are you Mr. Chen?”

“Yes I am, what can I do for you?”

I discerned a distinct smile on her voice: “We are following up your registration for information about your family - we have news.”

My heart was like an arrow on a drawn bow - taut and ready - and as the lighthouse illuminated the fact of my family’s survival, I could see again.

I ran back to my house, encouraged by the sunlight sprinkled on the street that tapped on my shoulders. My white hair was coated with a layer of colored glaze. I ran like a young kid coming home from school. Today and the past overlapped. 

***

Now, I look into the calm sea and hear the sound of waves beating against the hull. Over the water, I can see the familiar land, my old friend. When I hear the rhythm of the folk song, I know I am home.