Homesick Read Free

case what? Just in case. That’s all he’d say.
    The concessions didn’t look like the rest of China. The buildings were solemn and orderly with little plots of grass around them. Not like those in the Chinese part of the city: a jumble of rickety shops with people, vegetables, crates of quacking ducks, yard goods, bamboo baskets, and mangy dogs spilling onto a street so narrow it was hardly there.
    The grandest street in Hankow was the Bund, which ran along beside the Yangtse River. When I came to it after passing the beggars, I looked to my left and saw the American flag flying over the American consulate building. I was proud of the flag and I thought maybe today it was proud of me. It flapped in the breeze as if it were saying ha-ha to the king of England.
    Then I looked to the right at the Customs House, which stood at the other end of the Bund. The clock on top of the tower said nine-thirty. How would I spend the day?
    I crossed the street to the promenade part of the Bund. When people walked here, they weren’t usually going anyplace; they were just out for the air. My mother would wear her broad-brimmed beaver hat when we came and my father would swing his cane in that jaunty way that showed how glad he was to be a man. I thought I would just sit on a bench for the morning. I would watch the Customs House clock, and when it was time, I would eat the lunch I had brought along in my schoolbag.
    I was the only one sitting on a bench. People did not generally “take the air” on a Wednesday morning and besides, not everyone was allowed here. The British had put a sign on the Bund, NO DOGS, NO CHINESE. This meant that I could never bring Lin Nai-Nai with me. My father couldn’t even bring his best friend, Mr. T. K. Hu. Maybe the British wanted a place where they could pretend they weren’t in China, I thought. Still, there were always Chinese coolies around. In order to load and unload boats in the river, coolies had to cross the Bund. All day they went back and forth, bent double under their loads, sweating and chanting in a tired, singsong way that seemed to get them from one step to the next.
    To pass the time, I decided to recite poetry. The one good thing about Miss Williams was that she made us learn poems by heart and I liked that. There was one particular poem I didn’t want to forget. I looked at the Yangtse River and pretended that all the busy people in the boats were my audience.
    â€œ ‘Breathes there the man, with soul so dead,’ ” I cried, “ ‘Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land!”’
    I was so carried away by my performance that I didn’t notice the policeman until he was right in front of me. Like all policemen in the British concession, he was a bushy-bearded Indian with a red turban wrapped around his head.
    He pointed to my schoolbag. “Little miss,” he said, “why aren’t you in school?”
    He was tall and mysterious-looking, more like a character in my Arabian Nights book than a man you expected to talk to. I fumbled for an answer. “I’m going on an errand,” I said finally. “I just sat down for a rest.” I picked up my schoolbag and walked quickly away. When I looked around, he was back on his corner, directing traffic.
    So now they were chasing children away too, I thought angrily. Well, I’d like to show them. Someday I’d like to walk a dog down the whole length of the Bund. A Great Dane. I’d have him on a leash—like this—(I put out my hand as if I were holding a leash right then) and he’d be so big and strong I’d have to strain to hold him back (I strained). Then of course sometimes he’d have to do his business and I’d stop (like this) right in the middle of the sidewalk and let him go to it. I was so busy with my Great Dane I was at the end of the Bund before I knew it. I let go of the leash, clapped my hands, and