Chapter 3 Chapter Two Starts the Journey of Chasing Profit

Amanda made a sharp turn around the corner.The whole harbor was before us—two long green coastlines embracing the azure water, and the little waves sparkled in the sun and danced heartily. "Amanda..." I began, "at the post office just now..." The shriek of the ship's whistle drowned out my voice. "We have to hurry up." The car stopped.Amanda opened the car door all of a sudden, "Porter!" A black youth grabbed my two boxes.We staggered after him, through a warm, empty customs house, to the hot, glitzy pier. Shouts came from the crowd of longshoremen who were hoisting a large, heavy box on cargo slings.The box was made of wood, and the dark green outside seemed to have been painted not long ago.There was a small opening in one side of the box and it was covered with thick barbed wire.Through the barbed wire, I couldn't see what was inside.But just as the box swayed over the gap over the ship's side, something behind the wire fence moved suddenly like a flickering flame.

"Your ticket," Amanda called, "and your passport." I fumbled wildly with my hands.A sailor by the bridge glanced perfunctorily at the paper, perhaps because he recognized Amanda. The ship's familiar smell of sea water, tar, brass polish, and disinfectant water greeted us as a welcome to the public promenade deck.A flight attendant took the bag from my hand.I gave him the compartment number. I was about to follow him down the cabin when Amanda yelled, "Tony!" I turn around.Tony Brooke was leaning against the rail on the deck, looking down at the pier.He raised one hand, and the silver coin he tossed glistened in the sun.Six pairs of little brown feet flew by in the wind, and six little black boys jumped from the pier into the water.

My feelings for Tony have always been that of a brother or nephew.Our parents were neighbors when they lived in Westchester many years ago.I first met him when I was nine years old, a bald, blue-eyed baby in a pram.Now, he's grown up--an innocent and straightforward boy, with all the good qualities in the world reflected in him.He was very young, just the right age to exempt him from military service in this war.When a college romp suddenly ended Tony's student days at Princeton, it was Rupert who helped him get a job at Bank of America's Questia branch, making him a newbie at the bank.

The work in the bank did not change his easy-going personality, but St. Andrew's summer-like weather all year round helped him improve his tennis skills. His hair was faded from the hot sun, and it was short and upturned. The nose was tanned cherry red. "What are you doing?" Amanda asked. "Have fun." Tony grinned at us. In the clear green shallows between the boat and the pier, black boys are swimming in the water, naked except for a native belt, which the French consider as embarrassing as briefs .On the white sand beach, two people got together and they had a little argument.The one who won the fight stood up triumphantly, with a brightly colored object clenched between his teeth, and quickly crossed the water.He spared no effort to walk towards the pier.

"People who travel by sea find it very interesting to do this." Amanda wanted to say that on the one hand, the residents here in winter look down on "travelers", and on the other hand, Americans who come here on vacation also hate "locals". Then, she said: "The engine is about to start, the propeller..." "Won't sail unless everyone is on board." Tony raised a hand again, the coins glistening in the sun.This time, the coin made a wide circle on the ground before falling with a ring on the coral-rock pier. The three boys raced after each other.The smallest one gets the prey first.The other two immediately came forward to grab it.The little boy was punched by the brown-skinned boy and fell to the ground with a little blood on the corner of his mouth.The older boy snatched the coin.

"Stop!" Tony yelled angrily, "That little guy got it first." The boys didn't seem to hear him at all.They wrestled together, kicking and biting and scratching, as if that was how they made their living. "Stop!" Tony yelled again. "I'll pay a shilling if you stop." They don't fight anymore.The six boys turned to look at Tony.He tossed another coin onto the pier.The biggest boy jumped up to grab the coin, but missed.He landed on all fours, crawling among the white coral dust until he found the coin.The other boys moved slowly towards him.He stood up and growled suddenly at them, lifting his upper lip and showing his canine teeth like a beast.The other boys flinched.He ran away.Others chased behind while throwing things.Around the corner of the customs hut, the figures of the six boys disappeared.

"Is it fun?" Amanda raised her delicate eyebrows. "I just want to watch them dive." Tony's disappointment is amused.Amanda looked at him thoughtfully, "How much cash do you think they'll see in a week? Or in a month?" "I know, but . . . like that, for a shilling, about twenty cents, like a . . . a . . . " "A race for profit?" Amanda sneered slightly. "The best way to start a profit-seeking journey is to spread money in front of people. Anyone, whether he's black or white; any currency, whether it's pounds or dollars." .”

"But what I'm giving them isn't money at all," Tony said stubbornly. "It's just pennies." "That's money—to them," Amanda replied, "money is relative. When you throw thousand-dollar bills around, we're all on our knees fighting over it. The one in Greek mythology Wasn't the apple that caused the dispute made of gold?" "Really?" Tony pushed back the pale yellow Panama hat. A hat like this would cost an average bank clerk about two months' salary. "Oh, I never thought they'd fight over it!" His regretful expression made me laugh.

"Well, Tony, you must have heard or read that there is a thing in this world called poverty." "It's just an abstraction to him," Amanda said. "It's like when you tell him about the circles on Saturn or how far the earth is from the sun. He knows that thing exists." , I just don’t want to believe it.” A woman steps onto the bridge, followed by a man.The woman was petite, round and muscular, with smooth skin the color of a biscuit.She wore a well-chosen voile.Two broad Mexican silver bracelets inlaid with garnets fastened like handcuffs to the slender wrists.She was wearing a crimson straw hat with a wide brim covering her face, and she was stopping to wait for the man behind.

The man was short in stature, with a mellow voice, and he was dressed casually, in stark contrast to the woman.The wrinkled linen suit stretched across the curves of his corpulent figure.He held a black bottle in his arms, which was conspicuous in the sunlight. The crew member standing at the end of the bridge greeted him cordially: "What is that, Professor Harry? Dry red wine?" "No, sir." His words were terse, slightly pedantic, "it's blood. It's for the vampire Dracula. Of course, it doesn't contain fibrin." "Is this professorial humor? Or insanity?" Amanda whispered.

"They weren't laughing." Tony watched the two men walk up to the deck.Amanda shrugged. "You meet some of the weirdest people in the world on this passenger cargo ship. I'm glad Tony was on board with you." The two men walked towards us, and neither of us spoke again.The woman looked our way for the first time as she reached the high threshold of the foyer.The false innocence in her large, round eyes is reminiscent of a Persian cat.That pursed mouth and small chin would conjure the same associations.She doesn't look younger anymore.Her silver-gray hair, the color of her bracelets, was artificially curled and laid flat under a crimson hat.For a moment, I smell a very special fresh scent of lemon verbena.She walked into the lounge, followed by the man. The crew came towards us. "You are not a passenger, are you, my lady? I am afraid you must disembark. We leave in five minutes." We said goodbye hastily.Amanda disembarked at the last moment before the step bridge was retracted.The boat under his feet suddenly moved.And so my vacation is over. "Are you sad?" Tony's insight surprised me, but it's really hard to hide your true feelings from someone who knows you so well. "It was a nice vacation," I said with a sigh. "But, now, you're going to Washington for a summer job," Tony added, "and in an office with no air conditioning." I nodded.My first job in Washington was public relations in the wartime treasury department of the Treasury Department, which seemed interesting, one of the few exciting things about wartime.Now that I'm a copywriter for an ad agency, Washington has returned to normalcy -- a small, provincial equivalent of a "corporate town," much like Hollywood, only "corporate" "Business" is not a movie but politics. "Why doesn't the lord let you come here in winter?" Tony went on, "so you can stay in the ice and snow, and make the fellows who have to stay in the north feel inferior to you." My answer was sharp, and I didn't even think of it myself. “During that season, Amanda had friends of her own. I’m glad she and Rupert are here this June. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t have been invited at all. Anytime of the year, as long as I can get from I feel very lucky to have slipped out of the office for a month." "I know what you need!" exclaimed Tony with the delight of an inventor who has discovered a startling new idea, "a drink. There's no bar like we usually go to on a ship like this, but the purser There’s usually a couple of loose bottles in the lounge. How about a daiquiri before dinner?” "Okay—as long as I can still find my way to the compartment and make sure my big box doesn't stay in the hold." The sun was shining brightly on the deck, but the light inside the boat was much darker and it was very cool.I asked a flight attendant where my compartment was.He told me to go up to the main elevator and walk along the first corridor until I came to the cross corridor.My room is the last one on the port side.I never really understood the nautical terms either.I must have turned to the starboard side of the boat.Because the door of the last compartment was open, there were already people inside. She turned around in amazement, and I was equally amazed.Her sudden turn caused an open suitcase on the luggage rack to drop to the floor.The contents inside were scattered all over the place. "Oh, I'm so sorry!" I started to help her pick things up.The contents of the suitcase were scant—two women's dresses, a few toiletries, and a few underwear, that's all.Not even a book to fill the long hours of boredom on board.No real personal items either—no letters, or anything I wrote myself.This suitcase was the only piece of luggage in the compartment. She frowned: "I'm looking for my passport. It was still there when I got on the boat just now." I turned my head and looked at her carefully.Her complexion is between ivory and amber.The eyes were large--bright black irises attached to restless white eyeballs that were restlessly moving, with the same silent anxiety found in the eyes of a doe.She wore sportswear made of corn and linen, but the harsh Western lines of the clothes didn't match the curves of her breasts and hips.She should be wearing harlem pants or a saree.Her gestures carry the elegance of an oriental dancer.Her mind, more perceptive than her senses, seemed to pick up the slightest sound in the temple. Even when I'm writing that down with a pen now, I can still see that image clearly, she was rummaging through the box with her short and thick hands like starfish.Suddenly, I had that weird feeling that everyone gets sometimes—as if this had happened to me before.The nervous, rummaging hands—the suspicion and caution in the dark eyes, the hot sun at the porthole—it has all happened in this way, and the smallest detail is not bad—even in the sun. The twinkling lights in her ever-moving eyes were all the same. I didn't see it all - just remembered it.I'm not foreseeing - just realizing that it happened. In an instant, I could recall almost everything.After that, the memory gradually slipped away from the consciousness, leaving only a faint and inexplicable sense of discomfort——it frustrates the heart, and the things that should be remembered have no impression.I know I've never been on this boat before.So, this has never happened before... French psychologists have a name for this experience—the feeling of déjà vu, as if you've seen something similar before.They used to think that this feeling was caused by the two parts of the brain being out of sync in time, and why the brain got out of sync was unknown.Now, they understand that time is just a superficial phenomenon, and that this explanation has no basis.Perhaps when that feeling of déjà vu came, the mechanisms the body uses to perceive time were momentarily out of focus, like eyes having double vision.The briefest glimpse of the future can make the present seem like the past, and such experiences are always fleeting. "Do you have any other luggage?" I asked. "No more. Just this, a box." "Perhaps the passport is in your wallet?" "Maybe……" She opened the handbag top down and dumped everything on the bed.There was not much except a handkerchief--trimmed with machine-made lace and very scented--a powder compact, a lipstick, a coin purse, and a few dollars in change.Among them was the missing passport, with a gilt American eagle on its red cover. "Oh!" Her relieved smile seemed exaggerated, "Thank you very much!" She continued to organize things, and I went to the other side of the corridor and entered my cubicle.It was larger than hers, and surprisingly comfortable, all blond maple and pale green calico covers, upholstered armchairs, and a divan that doubled as a bed, It can be used as a living room during the day.The bathroom next door even had a shower. I looked at the shower with reluctance and decided not to take a shower.I don't want to keep Tony waiting too long.I just washed my face and hands, and combed my short-cropped hair.Beside the open porthole, the white curtain swayed lazily and slightly with the movement of the ship. The room was still hot, and I left the door ajar for ventilation. I emptied the trunk to find a clean handkerchief.I was about to snap the lid off when something I had forgotten caught my attention—Rupert's package, protruding from the side pocket of the case.Damn it!Haven't I never learned not to offer to do chores or odd jobs for others?Of course, this time, no matter what, I can't shirk it.As soon as Rupert found out I was going back to Washington, he started making it clear to me. Should I leave the package with the purser during the voyage?It doesn't look that valuable and shouldn't be needed.Inside the package are only some documents related to the latest engineering plans of Western companies.These documents must have been very important to Rupert, but they were of little use to anyone else.He is also confused about this kind of thing.Maybe it's because he realizes that any blueprint is a bastard to me, so he let me do it for him. I decided to put the package in a desk drawer along with my passport and traveler's checks.That way I'll see it when we dock in America, and remember that I promised Rupert to get the papers out by Friday night at the latest when we get to Washington. Holding the lid of the box with one hand, I grabbed the package with the other.The package was big and heavy—as thick as five hundred sheets of printer paper, two-thirds the length and width of a ream of paper.The wrapper was a large, strong manila envelope with the bag sealed at one end.Questia's climate seriously affected the stickiness of the glue.The corner of the cover is no longer sticky.It was this unsealed corner that I caught on the sharp edge of the padlock hasp when I yanked the package out of the box.Tony was still waiting for me to drink the daiquiris and I was already late.The cover should have been lifted carefully, but time was running out and I tore impatiently. Suddenly, I heard a tearing sound.The whole cover is cracked.The envelope was opened, and the contents were scattered everywhere. I stood there quietly, one hand in the air, still holding the torn envelope in my hand.The other hand gripped the lid of the box tightly.The contents of the envelope were not blueprints or engineering plans—they were like giant confetti falling on boxes, sofas, armchairs, floors, everywhere.All are one hundred dollar bills.There are hundreds of them. It seemed to me again that I saw a few brown children kicking and biting and scratching for a few silver coins and making dust everywhere.I seem to hear Amanda's cynicism again. "The best way to start your journey to profit is to..." I forgot the compartment door was still ajar. Suddenly, almost in my ear, someone said in surprise, "My God! Did you rob a bank?"