I am, they feel, she does, they love, he speaks, she sees, I know

It’s my first day out alone on my bamboo raft; I feel nervous. The river is calm today, so it should be a simple day. A passenger approaches my boat, abruptly communicates his destination, hands me coins and boards. The oar makes me wince as I grab it, a splinter, but I can’t stop now there’s a customer, so I push the pole against the riverbed.

I catch his sombre blue eye and smile. His cragged face is hard and bitter, intimidating.

‘You on vacation?’ I stutter as I push us along past the wooden huts on the shore.

‘Just passing through,’ he says, his voice gravelly; American. I let the silence stretch before I go on. My grandpa always said that silence was just as important as the words in a conversation.

‘Dragon River, first time?’ I ask. It’s my first day, but grandpa said they’ll always come back if I build a good rapport with customers.

‘Listen, kid. I’m not someone you wanna know. Just wake me up when we get there,’ he said and lay his head back, tilting his beret down. I felt my heart thumping harder in my chest every time I looked at this man’s face. I had only seen eyes like his once before when I was a boy. They were my uncle’s when he returned from the war; when he looked at me, I hid behind my mother’s leg.

Though I felt a little tension in his presence, the customer was no trouble, and as I docked the raft at his destination, he curtly nodded before lifting his duffel bag and leaving.

Passengers were not exactly lining up to get a raft down the river, and grandpa told me that it was best to dock for a while and rest after each drop-off. I checked the list of hotspots he gave me along the river, and there was one close by.

‘Hey, mister!’ A child said as a ball crashed at my feet. I looked up to see a group of children playing in the river by the shore. They were skinny with huge smiles and missing teeth. I was barely a decade older than them; I was sure of it, though, to them, I may as well have had a long grey beard and balding hair. I threw their ball back in the water, and they pounced on it as soon as it hit the surface, splashing each other and dunking each other under the water as they laughed and screamed. Two skinny legs pointed skyward as another scrawny girl jumped off the highest ledge into the river with a gleeful scream. It had been years since I had played like that, and as I watched them, I wondered if I still had it in me to be so carefree. I was lucky enough to be given this opportunity as a boatman, to earn myself some money and maybe move to a big city. Then I would have all the fun every day; once I had my own apartment and a big bank account. Fifteen years should be enough time for me. I’ll still be a young man by then, only thirty-five. That’s young, isn’t it? More children leapt into the river and a couple of teenagers too, maybe I would join them.

‘Excuse me!’ I turned to see a woman in a black suit standing behind me. ‘Do you go as far as here?’ she said, showing me a note with the name of a nearby town. I nod and smile, but she boards without giving me another look. I push us out and begin the short trip.

She has not stopped working since we began on our way. She has been tapping away on her laptop, only stopping to answer her cell phone, making me jump every time. I wonder what she is doing down here; perhaps she is one of the business people that own one of the hotels or something. I’ve often heard my grandpa complain about newcomers integrating our culture into the western people’s. I have seen some changes in my life, but it’s not all bad if you ask me, though I wouldn’t let my grandpa hear me say that. I wonder how old this businesswoman is and if she was from around here. I think of the children playing earlier and question if she was like one of the little girls back there, at least at some point in her life. People really do change; scary.

We finally reach her destination, and she steps off the raft before I even get to say goodbye. As she disappears among the busy crowd, a couple holding hands ask me to take them down the river to one of the biggest hotels there; of course, I agree.

As we coast down the river, which is only possible with me pushing the pole off the riverbed, they sit close to each other, holding hands. Like the movies, they would sometimes gaze into each other’s eyes. I had never seen a relationship like this before. I glance at them now and again but try not to stare. Even though I had never had a girlfriend and only kissed one girl in my entire life, I knew these two were in love.

‘How you meet?’ I ask, trying to sound casual. One of them smiled, and he looked up at me.

‘We met in a bar in Rome,’ he said, rubbing his partner’s hand; his voice didn’t sound American like the first customer I spoke to today; maybe he was from Canada.

‘Rome? Rome in Spain?’ I ask, they chuckled, but it wasn’t in a mean way.

‘Italy,’ the other man said. He had an accent.

‘How is Rome like?’ I ask.

‘Beautiful, busy with a lot of historic buildings,’ the man with an accent said.

‘Oh, no like here?’ I ask, smiling. I wasn’t offended. I wondered why he would come here from a place like Rome.

‘Of course! I love it here, good people, good weather, beer, and the love of my life. I can’t ask for more,’ the accented man said as he rested his head in his partner’s lap. Their behaviour was beautiful to me. Not even my parents showed this much love to each other, not even on their best days.

‘You two marry?’ I asked, and they laughed, again with humour not mockingly. Then one of them showed me a ring he had tied around his neck. I know from movies that western people wear rings when they marry.

‘Congratulation,’ I smiled.

‘Thank you, young man,’ the Canadian said. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Zhang Wei. English name, Lee,’ I say.

‘I’m Elliot, and this is Luca,’ the Canadian says, and I smile.

‘Elliot, where from?’ I ask, his name is difficult to say, but I think I managed.

‘I’m from the UK, have you visited?’

‘Oh, no, no, no,’ I chuckle. I couldn’t afford to go there.

‘Well, if you do, look me up online, Elliot Strood,’ he says, and I smile.

The journey went on in silence. Elliot and Luca sat chatting; they kept a hand on one another throughout.

Once we reached their destination, they both gave me a big hug and a tip. I saw the two men join a group of their friends. I had never been this close to this hotel; it looked costly.

As I finish eating a snack from my packed lunch, another man asks to board my boat and hands me some coins.

‘If you don’t mind, could I join you? I’m going further up that way,’ an older woman said.

‘Oh no, no,’ I say.

‘Sure, it’s no problem,’ the first passenger said, helping her onboard. As he seemed to be okay with it, I pushed away from the shore as they both got comfortable.

It had been a few minutes before anyone spoke, and the man was the first to break the silence.

‘So you been a boatman long?’ He asked, and I shook my head. ‘First job, right?’

‘Yes, how you know?’ I asked. This man seemed intelligent. Handsome, smartly dressed, and I liked his voice.

‘Call it a gift if you will. Name’s Wise, Fred Wise. I run a business here on Dragon River,’

‘What business?’ I asked. Mr Wise sat up a little, and the older woman sat, closing her eyes; she seemed asleep.

‘What do you want to do?’ Mr Wise asked.

‘I don’t know. I want money,’ I say.

‘You seem like a smart boy. I’m sure I could find you something to do at Wise Communications.’

‘My English no good,’ I say.

‘No worries there, son. I could put you in an English class as you work for me, free of charge,’ Mr Wise said, stretching his arms as if to hug me.

‘Oh, good, where is job? How much you pay me?’ I ask.

‘The job is back at the hotel. You’ll be cleaning rooms and waiting tables.’

‘Cleaning, how much you pay me?’

‘We all gotta start somewhere. It may be difficult for you to believe, but I started as a shoe shiner when I was your age. But with some blood, sweat and tears, I was able to work my way up to where I am today,’ Mr Wise said, smirking to reveal his silver canines.

‘Okay, okay. When I work?’

‘Whatever suits you, you can do four days a week, five, hell, you can work every damn day if you’d like.’

‘How much you pay me?’

‘We can arrange that during the contract signing. How much do you earn here? Ten? Twenty dollars a day? You’ll be on at least fifty dollars a day if you come work for me, what d’ya say?’

‘That all sounds well and good, Mr Wise, but the young man simply wants an actual amount of his wage. Surely that isn’t so much to ask now, is it?’ The older woman sat up and said.

‘Well now, you do have me at a disadvantage, Mrs?’

‘Just Abiba will do,’ she says.

‘Abiba, you Moroccan, Egyptian?’

‘Sudanese, so what about the boy’s wage Mr Wise?’ Abiba said, her dark brown eyes were kind, yet she had a toughness to her that was more than anyone I’d ever seen, more significant than the soldier customer from before.

‘Well now, what’s your name, son?’ Mr Wise said, turning to me.

‘Zhang Wei. My English name, Lee,’ I smile and notice Abiba smiles at me but turns serious again once she returns to Mr Wise.

‘Lee, so if you want to take the cleaning job, I’ll pay you eighteen dollars a day.’

‘Eighteen?’

‘Now hold on now, that’s just a probationary period, which lasts from three to six months, and then I’ll increase your wage depending on your skill and reliability, of course,’ Mr Wise said. We arrive at his stop, but he pauses and hands me his card.

‘Now, here is my email and phone number. Or come by the hotel and ask for me, see you around, son. Abiba.’

‘Travel safely, Mr Wise,’ she said, watching his every step. The potbelly man tipped his trilby as he stood ashore and watched us drift away.

I pushed the pole into the riverbed, taking Abiba further up the river, thinking intently about Mr Wise’s offer. Even though my instinct told me not to take it, it would be an excellent opportunity to make more money while practising my English every day. I would also meet many foreign people like Elliot and Luca. The only thing I was sure of was that I didn’t want to be a boatman for more than a year and how many more opportunities like this would present themselves.

‘Zhang Wei, it’s a good name,’ Abiba said.

‘Thank you.’

‘Wei, brilliant, outstanding, first-rate,’ Abiba chuckled. I didn’t know what she was saying but smiled and nodded at her anyway. I pushed us along as the silence settled, and I looked ahead, greeting other boatmen that passed.

‘Mr Wise has employed many young men like yourself. Do you suppose that you will work for him?’ Abiba asked.

‘I don’t know, I want more money, but,’ I say, still unsure of if I should listen to my instinct or take a chance.

‘More money can be good. Don’t you like being a boatman?’

‘Yes, but no good money,’ I say. She nods and goes silent again as we go downstream. I glance at her, and she reminds me of the children playing in the river, the businesswoman on the phone; her demeanour is calm, yet she seems as though she could accomplish anything.

‘What your job?’ I ask.

‘Job?’ she chuckles. ‘Well, I’ve done many jobs in my long life, but right now, I don’t have a job,’ she said it coolly as if it didn’t matter.

‘Really? How you live?’ I ask, and she laughs aloud, but like Elliot and Luca, it was not an unkind laugh but a friendly one.

‘I try to take each day as it comes,’ she said and took a sip of water from her bottle.

‘I no understand,’ I say.

‘Well, I survived by exercising a skill that I liked, which is that I work as a designer for a company. In the same way, I adapted to the world as it developed and can now work remotely from anywhere in the world.’

‘Oh, good,’ I say.

‘It is. But I do try to have fun as often as I can, living in the moment, keeping my work-life balanced, loving others, loving myself while seeing through the bullshit. That last one I’m certain you can do already.’

‘Oh,’ I say, this woman had it altogether more than Mr Wise or the businesswoman. I wonder why it didn’t seem so at first glance.

‘I don’t like to speak ill of others, but I also believe in speaking the truth. And Mr Wise is a man who will say anything to get what he wants, Zhang Wei,’ she said with a knowing smile, and I nodded.

‘I need more money and practice my English,’ I say, which was true, but what she was saying was true too, Mr Wise’s offer wouldn’t make me any better off. I am sure he would be late paying me or not stick to any previous agreement. I have seen swindlers like him before. We say they have a forked-tongue.

‘What do you like to do?’

‘I like play basketball. I like watch tv, and I like English,’ I say.

‘Do you attend English classes?’

‘No, expensive.’

‘Would you like to take a class?’ She asked, and I nodded fervently. ‘Well, if that’s so, I know of a new little school opening. If you let them know Abiba referred you, I’m sure you can work something out. They’ll be happy to have students.’

‘Oh, thank you, Abiba,’ I say as she notes down the address and hands me the slip of paper.

We finally reach her destination about ten minutes later, and I help her onto the shore.

‘You know Zhang Wei, whatever you choose to do, remember to live and don’t replace your good name for the sake of others,’ she smiled, and with that, she was out into the crowds.

My grandpa was never the richest or the poorest. He worked as a boatman all of his life until the end of his days. I never heard him complain about anything, and he seldom was without a smile. He would speak about being a boatman as if it was the best thing in Asia. I wonder if he was somewhere better now? I wonder why I remember this all of a sudden? I feel Mr Wise’s card in my pocket; leaving it there, I study at the address of the English school Abiba gifted me. It was about half an hour from my town. I push away from the shore and make my way home.