Days of Little Togetherness

Back on the mountain with Ah Hsueh, after a hard day I was very grateful she had helped me carry such heavy things from below the mountain back up. The next day, while the child slept, I wrote a letter to my husband telling him how mother and son were faring on the mountain.

When he received the letter he was very glad and wrote back saying he missed his son and wondered how big he was now. Receiving my husband’s letter, I thought: should I take the child to have a photograph taken and send it to my husband, so his father could see how dear the child had grown!

By then the child was three months old. I decided to take my son down to a photographer on Dadu Street below the mountain for a set of pictures to send his father.

The next day, everything ready, I carried my son on my back, humming a little tune happily, and went down the mountain for the photographs.

Both sides of the ox-cart road were acacia woods; the round trip took more than two hours, and when we got home everyone was worn out. A week later a friend was going down the mountain; I asked him to bring the photos back for me. The village shop had a postman who came to collect mail; at the shop I posted the letter and photos. Besides the child’s photos I had a set of myself taken too and sent one to him as well.

The photo on the right is the one I sent my husband. In the picture the clothes and shoes the child wears were all sewn by my hand stitch by stitch; the hat was bought earlier at the market. Because I decided on the photographs at the last minute I did not dress specially—I only loosely plaited my hair. With my husband not beside us, those who helped mother and son most were Sister Wenlan at the village tail and her husband, Mr Wang.

Mr Wang often came to the house to hold the child and play, so I could do housework. Where I did not understand I asked them; Sister Wenlan always taught me carefully—for example how to make clothes for the child, cloth shoes, and so on. Later Sister Wenlan even asked me to move in and live with them, saying it would be more convenient to look after things, rather than me at the village head and them at the village tail running back and forth wasting time.

I was very grateful to them and really did move in to live with them.

My husband had been away from us half a year and came back only twice. The first time was not long after I sent him the photographs; one evening past nine he suddenly came home—I jumped and said, “Why are you home so late?” At that time transport was inconvenient: from Pingtung on the first bus to Linbian, then the express north to Dadu station on the railway, took twelve hours; it was already dark.

Then he still had to walk up the mountain; by the time he reached home it was truly very late. Seeing the trousers my husband wore, both knees torn with two big holes, in such a wretched state, my heart truly ached. My husband said because he had not known the posting would last so long he had brought only two pairs of trousers—not enough to change.

My husband’s shift was inside the radar vehicle (photo on the next page), climbing up and down, so trousers were easily worn through.

My husband saw his son, teased him to play; the child would smile at Father and was not shy at all—my husband was delighted. But the time together was brief; on the fourth morning he had to hurry back to work. I carried the child and saw him to the door and said goodbye. When I turned back, tears fell.