“Yes, yes, yes! I’ve already heard that,” the widow chimes in. “We’ll say that’s why we don’t have bedbugs.”
“Now we have two enemies,” the cobbler continues, reaching out his arms so he can have a turn to hold the baby. “We must fight Soviet revisionism while continuing to fight American imperialism.”
Their logic makes no sense for many reasons, including that we’ve already been told the Soviets brought bedbugs with them and then left the pests to torture us, but then little makes sense anymore. The announcer on the radio tells us many things: that the USSR may join forces with the USA in the UN to further ostracize and diminish the PRC. (I was born in America and lived there for nineteen years. My family was victimized by red-scare tactics. I cannot imagine a single way that what we’re being told could ever come to pass.) In the meantime, other things are happening. Foreigners from countries other than the USSR have also been sent home. In fact, this is the smallest number of foreigners in China in centuries. All publications—except for two propaganda papers—have been barred from leaving the country. In other words, China has cut itself off from the rest of the world. What word escapes our borders, no one believes, as May pointed out in her letter. People inside China, including those right here at the breakfast table, try to look behind what we’re told to find the truth. Right now, the gossip turns to Mao Tse-tung, who recently relinquished his position as chairman of the People’s Republic of China to Liu Shao-ch’i.
“It’s said that Mao made his own self-criticism in front of a gathering of seven thousand Party officials,” one of the dancing girls whispers conspiratorially.
“Maybe he stepped aside to avoid blame for the Great Leap Forward,” the cobbler counters.
Samantha starts to fuss, and he hands her off to the widow. As the mother of two daughters, she knows exactly how to calm a baby, putting Samantha on her shoulder, swaying, and rhythmically patting her back. I set a platter of bitter cakes on the table, and the boarders quickly snap them up, all the while chattering.
“So what if Mao’s retired as head of state?” the widow asks. “He still maintains supreme command. Nothing has changed.”
“Except that we’re hungry.” This comes from Cook.
The boarders still don’t fully realize how lucky they are.
“Who could have guessed that rats would disappear from Shanghai?” The dancing girl leans forward, and everyone edges in to listen as she reveals in an awed tone, “People have eaten them!” Then she turns to the widow. “It’s my turn. Give me the baby.” She holds Samantha under her arms, so she can practice standing. Samantha’s still weak, but she’s surprisingly stubborn and persistent. Her little legs wobble, but she flaps her arms excitedly, a big smile on her face. The dancing girl steadies Samantha and then turns to me. “We’ll come with you to the Lunghua Pagoda to collect leaves the next time you go, if you’d like.”
“I’d like that very much.” (Except I’ll be gone.)
Dun and my mother duck out of the kitchen first, taking Ta-ming with them. The dancing girl hands me the baby. As the others file out, they chuck her chin or give her a delicate pinch. Everyone leaves their dishes for me to clean. I pour Cook another cup of tea.
“You should rest,” I tell him. “Little Miss doesn’t want you to be too tired for your duties later today.”
He nods, takes his cup, and shuffles toward the stairs. I hurry past him to the room I share with my mother. She stands before the mirror, staring at herself critically. She wears her work trousers and an ironed white blouse. Her hair has been brushed and tucked behind her ears.
“You look beautiful,” I say. “A perfect bride.”
“Little in my life is how I imagined it,” she says as she turns to me. These are not the words of regret that were always so much a part of my mother’s makeup. Although she’s longed for a big wedding with the dress and banquet—first for herself and then for me—she’s still not going to get it, yet she’s smiling and happy. Life is what it is, and she’s living it as a Dragon should—never accepting defeat.
As she puts on her paper collector’s jacket, I go to the window, open it, and bring in the box we’ve stored on the sill to keep the contents cool and safe. I sit on May’s bed and carefully lift the lid. Inside are a dozen eggs given to us by Z.G. Today my mother will go to her work unit and tell her supervisor that she wants to marry a professor. She will promise her supervisor a dozen fresh eggs if he will accompany her to the government office at one o’clock, where they’ll meet Dun, who’ll be coming from his morning classes. Her supervisor needs to approve the marriage: verify that she doesn’t suffer from disease, that she’s a helpful member of the proletariat, and that she and Dun are not blood relatives up to the third degree of relationship. The officer will have my mother and Dun sign some papers, and then they’ll be given a marriage certificate. My mother will hang on to the eggs, however, unless her supervisor also agrees to let her have the afternoon off for her honeymoon. We’re sure he’ll accept this bribe, since none of us have seen eggs in months and their protein is a good safeguard against the swelling disease.
I rotate the eggs so they’ll look perfect, replace the lid, and hand the box to my mother. I give her a kiss and a hug. “I wish I could be there with you.”
“I wish you could be too, but everything must appear as matter-of-fact as possible. I learned that from Auntie Hu,” she tells me.
Then she’s out the door with her dozen eggs.
Keeping to our usual schedule is important, so at nine I pack up the baby and Ta-ming and we take a bus to Z.G.’s, as we’ve done every day for the last two months. Tao is still living with Z.G. I wish more than anything that I didn’t have to see Tao, because I hate him and because nothing is more dangerous than an uneducated peasant—someone who can claim redness while painting black the people who helped him—but I have to see him to make our actions seem normal. “You just have to tolerate him awhile longer,” my mother often reminds me. I have, but it’s hard.
One of the servants lets me in, and I go straight upstairs to a bedroom Z.G. recently converted to a studio. Light streams through the window. Easels with canvases or watercolors in progress painted by Tao, Z.G., and me are propped around the room to take advantage of the natural light. Tao is here already. He’s still handsome, no doubt about that, but he doesn’t smile to show me his beautiful teeth or even turn to acknowledge my presence. He waits until I put Samantha in a baby tender—a wooden box that allows her to move around but not escape—and then he wanders over to pat his Ah Fu’s head.
Ta-ming goes to the window seat, where he can look out on the walk street below. The poor boy is not the same happy child I first met in Green Dragon. He doesn’t talk about his mother, the villa, being hungry, or that terrible time he spent in the dark by himself in the trunk of Z.G.’s car. He rarely smiles, but I guess that’s to be expected. Dun asked a friend of his, who teaches Western music at the university, to give the boy some simple violin lessons. He says the landowner’s violin is quite old and quite valuable. Now the things that make Ta-ming happy are his violin lessons and the time he gets to practice in our room at night. The rest of the time he’s quiet and pensive.
Z.G. enters the room. “Good morning,” he says. “Is everyone ready to paint?” He strides over to Tao, and they talk about what he’s working on. “I like the way the fields look so raw and cold …”
In many ways, our time together reminds me of when Tao and I had our private lessons with Z.G. in the villa, minus our crazy love, of course. Z.G. still treats Tao and me differently. He admires Tao’s work, praising him for the model artist he’s become. It’s a charade that helps to build my husband’s inflated opinion of himself. Z.G. teaches me the rub-and-paint technique he once used to paint the beautiful-girl posters of my mother and aunt—working carbon powder over an image and then applying watercolors to get the warmth and depth for cheeks, fabric, hair, furniture, and sky.
In my work, I’ve been trying to achieve
what Z.G. told me when I first arrived on his doorstep is the true essence of Chinese artistic striving: depict the inner world of the mind and heart. I was physically saved by my mother and Z.G., but in my most hopeless moment I found my true voice, which saved my heart and soul. Art for art’s sake is not what motivates me. Certainly politics are not what motivate me anymore. Emotions are what motivate me. Of those emotions, the strongest is love—love for my two mothers, my two fathers, and my baby. During the days of my recovery, I began to see something. I remembered moments from my childhood: stringing peas with my grandmother, walking with my grandfather through China City, playing dress-up on movie sets with my aunt. And, of course, anything and everything my mother did with me: pinning me into a jumper she’d sewn, helping me spell the names of all the kids in my class on my Valentine’s Day cards, taking me to church, to the beach, to Chinese school, doing all those things that helped turn me into the person I am.
It’s the New Year’s poster—where beautiful girls once and still reside—that has become my art form and the way for me to realize my vision. The painting I’m working on shows my two mothers—the one who gave birth to me and the one who cared so much for me that she chased me all the way here. I’m between them—the link, the secret, the one who was loved. We’ve gathered together to stare at a baby girl, Samantha, who’s just learned to sit on her own. We’re three generations of women who’ve suffered and laughed, struggled and triumphed. My New Year’s poster is my heart’s thank-you for the gift of life. That I’ve painted it in the style perfected by Z.G. during the beautiful-girl days makes me happy. My two mothers have creamy complexions, tinted lips, eyebrows like willow leaves—all unmarred by time, worry, or Socialist Realism. They are as they are meant to be—forever beautiful.
My watercolor will never leave this house. We decided it had to stay here, along with all my other work, as proof to the authorities that Z.G. and Tao never suspected I was going to escape. When others do see it, I’ll probably be accused of worshipping foreign things, of being bourgeois—referring to the United States—or revisionist—referring to the Soviet Union. But it won’t matter, because I’ll be gone, gone, gone.
Z.G. comes to my side. “In the West, they say beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” he says. “Here, in China, beauty is defined by politics and realism. But what are the most beautiful things I know? They are the emotions of the heart—the love you feel for Samantha, the love you feel for Pearl and May. These things are pure, true, and unchanging.”
His words seep into me. I loved my father Sam, and that will never change, but Z.G. is my father too. The time, patience, technique, and color sense he has given me have changed my life in ways I haven’t even begun to understand.
“I used to believe that ai kuo—love for China and our people—was the most important thing in life,” I say. “Then I thought being able to call someone ai jen—beloved—was the most important.” I glance at Tao. His back stiffens at my words, but he doesn’t turn my way. “Now I realize love is something much bigger. Kung ai—encompassing love—is most important.”
“You’ve shown that in your painting,” Z.G. observes. “Art is the heartbeat of the artist, and you’ve found your heartbeat.”
My father continues to praise me, saying my painting is the best he’s seen in years. After he leaves the studio, Tao and I work silently. At one thirty, I gather up the baby and Ta-ming. Tao begins crating his and Z.G.’s paintings to take to the trade fair. At the door, I take one last look at my painting. Yes, I most definitely feel my heartbeat.
AT TWO THIRTY, we meet back at my mother’s house. We pull together the various documents, photographs, and other papers we’ve been required to fill out. Then we take a bus to the Foreign Affairs Bureau to pick up our passports. We approach the window and are greeted by Comrade Yikai, a wiry woman with a surprisingly pleasant manner, who’s been meeting with us weekly for nearly six months. We show her our documents, which she’s seen dozens of times, but now she has our last requirement in her hands. She beams when she sees my mother and Dun’s marriage certificate. “Finally!” she exclaims. “All good wishes!” She leafs through the other papers, barely glancing at Ta-ming’s and Samantha’s recently issued birth certificates. How did we get those? I was able to claim, accurately, that I never received papers for Samantha from the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune. My mother lied, saying she adopted Ta-ming after she found him abandoned in a pit by the side of the road.
“You are a good comrade to help the child,” Comrade Yikai praises my mother, as she does every time we come here. “And besides, every woman should have a son.” But one issue still vexes her. “China is the best country in the whole world. Why would you want to leave, even if it’s just for a visit?”
“You’re so right, Comrade Yikai,” my mother agrees. “Chairman Mao is our mother and father, but don’t you think it’s important for blood relatives to see each other too? I want my sister—long lost to the capitalist West—to observe our good family.” She motions to Dun, Ta-ming, the baby, and me. “Once she does, surely she’ll want to return to the motherland.”
Comrade Yikai nods her head solemnly. She stamps five passports and slips them to us under the window.
“Everyone on your block will be proud if you bring back your sister,” she says. “Have a good trip.”
As planned, we return to the house to get Cook, because Superintendent Wu has asked that someone vouch for us. Together we walk to the police station, where we bypass the line of people hoping to get travel and exit permits. We go straight in for our appointment with Superintendent Wu, who’s been questioning my mother since she first arrived in Shanghai. He treats Director Cook deferentially, offering him a chair and tea. Then he gets right to business.
“We’ve been considering this travel request for several months. We have just a few more questions, which I’m sure you can answer.” He nods to Cook, who nods back, understanding the seriousness of the situation. “Would you say that Comrade Pearl has joined with the workers, soldiers, and peasants to help build a better society?”
“She has cleaned her own nightstool and washed her own clothes,” Cook answers, his voice quavering with age.
It was a gamble bringing Cook here. No one knew exactly what he would say, but this is perfect. I could kiss the old man, but that would be unseemly.
Superintendent Wu turns to my mother. “For a long time, I was suspicious of you. You answered my questions the same way every time we met. How can that be? I asked myself. You responded to the call to return to the motherland, but you had nothing to offer since you weren’t a scientist or an engineer. I told the higher-ups that we shouldn’t feed, house, or tolerate American imperialists like you, but you’ve proved me wrong. Now my superiors ask me if they think you’ll use this opportunity to return to America.”
“I’d never go back there,” my mother says.
“This is exactly what I told my superiors.” Superintendent Wu grins. “I told them you’re too smart for that. The Americans would never accept you. They’d take you out and shoot you.”
We’ve heard all kinds of things like this these past months. It’s the same sort of propaganda my mother and I were told before we came to China.
“A one-day trip to Hong Kong?” The policeman sneers and then adds staunchly, “In a few more years, Hong Kong will be part of China again. We just need to know that you’ll be welcomed there. We have no wish to place burdens on our little cousin.”
As we have for the last six months, my mother hands him Auntie May’s letter of invitation. Then she shows him her new marriage certificate and the passports.
“What about this marriage?” Superintendent Wu asks, even though he’s known it’s been coming for a while.
“This is to be expected,” Cook volunteers. “They are two people of the same age, living under the same roof. They have known each other for more than twenty years. The girl’s mother was quite fond of the professor. I’d say it’s about t
ime.”
Superintendent Wu stares at the marriage certificate with a bemused look. “A bachelor marrying a widow.” He chuckles and then addresses Cook. “The widow will show him what’s what, no?”
Cook bristles. Worried that he’ll start to say things to protect Little Miss’s reputation, I quickly put Samantha on his lap to distract him.
With no one to join in the traditional wedding banter, Superintendent Wu shakes his head in disappointment. “Everything is in order,” he says. He slides five exit permits across the desk, ruffles Ta-ming’s hair, and makes a few unprompted bawdy comments about the nuptial couple and what Dun might expect tonight. As we leave his office, he calls out to my mother, “See you at our usual time next month!”
The hardest and most dangerous part of our trip is behind us. Standing on the front steps, we’re ecstatic but careful not to show it. Still, the people waiting in line regard us enviously. At least we got in the door.
When we reach home, my mother stops in the garden, as she always does. If all goes well, this will be the last time she’ll ever pinch dead blooms, trim scraggly twigs, or rearrange the pots in her family’s garden.
The cobbler comes through the gate. “Are you picking flowers for us to eat or for one of your vases?” he asks.
“I want to get the last flowers before the first frost,” Mom answers lightly. “I think these might look nice in the salon, don’t you?”
The cobbler doesn’t respond, but I know my mother’s thoughts on this. She’s talked about visiting her friend’s house and seeing the dead flowers in a vase on a table. They made her believe that Madame Hu was coming back. Mom hopes her actions now will make everyone think we’ll be gone just a few days. As with Z.G., we don’t want anyone to get in trouble after we’re gone. When the police come to question the boarders, they’ll be able to answer truthfully that they didn’t suspect a thing. They’ll point to my mother’s flowers as proof.