A Hundred Flowers

  “Permission has been granted for you to see your son,” he said, thrusting a thin yellow piece of paper toward him.

  It took Wei a moment to realize what Clerk Hu was saying.

  “You found him?” Wei asked.

  “Of course,” Clerk Hu said. “I told you it would take a bit of time.”

  He could see his son. It meant Sheng was alive in Luoyang. Alive. “Alive,” he whispered, looking up at Clerk Hu.

  Until that moment, Wei hadn’t let himself think otherwise. But as the days wore on, he’d begun to lose hope. He even imagined that Sheng had died because of his cowardice. Then what would he tell Kai Ying and Tao? Now that he knew his son was really alive, Wei felt warmth spread through his body, and for the first time in almost a week he didn’t feel cold.

  Wei stood up and grasped the piece of paper, struggling to find his voice. “Thank you,” he finally said, although Clerk Hu was already halfway back to his cubicle.

  The City of Ghosts

  November 1958

  Wei

  Wei was scheduled to see Sheng the following afternoon at the Ruyang district correctional facility, an hour’s distance from Luoyang by public transportation. Clerk Hu said it was a town near the stone quarry where Sheng worked and on the city bus line. It was the most helpful he’d been all week.

  When he and Tian left the public security bureau and walked down the crowded street, Wei felt as if he were a completely different man from the one who had entered the building a few hours earlier. Sheng was alive. The thread of hope they’d all clung to for almost a year was now a reality.

  “What would you like to do now?” Tian asked.

  Wei wanted to tell Kai Ying and Tao the good news, but decided to wait until he’d actually seen Sheng.

  “Can we check on the bus schedules for Ruyang?” Wei asked. “I would hate to come this far, only to miss the bus that takes me the final distance.”

  Tian smiled. “I don’t believe anything would make you miss that bus tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say another word,” Wei said, “we don’t want to tempt the gods.”

  “I believe the gods have already spoken.”

  Wei laughed. “Then we don’t want them to change their minds.”

  * * *

  The bus to Ruyang left every other hour according to the schedule. From there Wei could walk to the correctional facility. Wei told all of this to Tian, half expecting him to say he would accompany him, but he simply nodded in response and otherwise kept silent. That afternoon as they walked through the Wangcheng Park, visiting the famous peony garden, Wei learned that Tian would be returning to Guangzhou early the next morning. By the time he’d be boarding the bus to Ruyang, Tian would already be on a train heading back to Guangzhou.

  “I’m sorry,” Wei said. “I’ve taken up so much of your time here in Luoyang.”

  “Not at all.”

  “It can’t have been much of a trip for you, babysitting an old man most of the time.”

  “I welcomed the company,” Tian said. “Sometimes the best lessons are in the journey, regardless of the outcome.”

  Wei watched him light a cigarette. Tian was everything he wasn’t.

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” Wei asked.

  “I found there’s nothing left here in Luoyang,” Tian said, inhaling on his cigarette. He blew out smoke and smiled. “So, yes, I found what I was looking for. Returning helped me to finally realize that the Ai-li I knew and loved no longer exists.” Tian cleared his throat. “We used to come here all the time to see the peonies, but even they seemed brighter in my memories.”

  “I’ve been a master at living in the past,” Wei said. “It’s a very lonely place. Take my advice, if you will: go home and live your life.”

  Tian smiled and nodded. “Yes,” he said.

  They came to a fork in the path and Tian guided him to the left.

  “You’ve been such a big help to me,” Wei said. “I don’t know what I…”

  “You would have done exactly the same thing on your own,” Tian said.

  “Why is it that I can speak so easily with you, while I have no idea what I’m going to say to my own son when I see him?” Wei asked.

  “The fact that you’ve traveled all the way to Luoyang to see him already says a great deal,” Tian said. “The rest will come naturally. So come now, let’s celebrate by having a nice meal.”

  The sky had lightened as they emerged from the park, although Wei’s spirits remained somber at the thought of Tian’s departure tomorrow. It felt as if he were letting go of one son for another.

  Suyin

  Almost every afternoon while Mei Mei slept, Suyin stole back downstairs to the fragrant, steamy kitchen. During the short lull right after lunch, Kai Ying continued to teach her about herbs. Suyin took every opportunity she could to learn. The more she understood, the more fascinated she became by the meticulous process, thankful that Kai Ying put up with her, always beginning the lesson with the same mantra, “Always remember, if you keep the immune system healthy, you can avoid illnesses before they begin. It’s the foundation of all herbal medicine.”

  Suyin heard the words in her sleep.

  She’d begun to help Kai Ying package the basic herbal ingredients that patients came to buy for their everyday use. Suyin learned that along with the basic ingredients of ginseng, wolfberries, Chinese yam, and astragalus, other herbs, such as licorice root, ginger, and ephedrine were added to soups, depending on what area of the body was lacking in qi, the energy that kept all the vital organs working smoothly. The ingredients were all simmered together with a piece of lean pork or white fish for added flavor, if you were lucky enough to have the money, or could find them at the market.

  Suyin carefully took down several jars and extracted the herbs, measuring them out onto the white sheets of paper, wrapping them up into two perfect square packets.

  “Good,” Kai Ying said. “Mrs. Wong will be coming by to pick these up at any time now.”

  Suyin beamed. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being in school and learning. Kai Ying was the first person since then who took the time to teach her, and she wanted more than anything to prove that she was a worthy student.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “I should be the one thanking you,” Kai Ying said, “for distracting Tao the night after Lo Yeh left when he was asking so many questions. Sometimes I just don’t have all the answers.”

  Suyin watched her take down a glass jar from the top shelf and take out a more complicated-looking dried fungus that she thought resembled a shriveled ear.

  “I have two younger brothers,” Suyin suddenly blurted out. It was the first piece of family information she’d volunteered since she arrived. “They ask a lot of questions, too.”

  Kai Ying stopped what she was doing and looked at her. “No wonder you’re so good with Tao,” she said.

  Suyin felt herself blush, the warmth coloring her face. Her two younger brothers were close in age, and she never thought of herself as anything but an older sister who broke up their fights and threatened them when they were bad. They were always the most difficult during the long afternoons after school when she was in charge of watching them. Suyin wondered if her mother ever thought she was good with her brothers. If so, she’d never once told her. Still, everything had been fine until her mother remarried.

  “My ma ma raised the three of us for several years on her own,” Suyin continued. The words she’d kept to herself for so long suddenly fought to push their way out. “My ba ba left for work one day when I was eight years old and he never returned. My mother remarried when I was twelve.”

  “Is your family in Guangzhou?”

  Suyin hesitated. Perhaps Kai Ying would want her to return home if she knew they lived in Old Guangzhou. And yet, it seemed pointless to lie now; Tao had already seen her brothers. “Yes,” she finally answered.

  “Does your mother know about the baby?”

  Su
yin shook her head. “I left when I began to show.” She tasted a tart bitterness on her tongue and tried not to think about her stepfather.

  Kai Ying put the jar of fungus ears back up on the shelf and turned to her. “So she has no idea where you are, or how you are?”

  Suyin shook her head again.

  “Or that she has a granddaughter?” Kai Ying asked, her voice rising slightly with the question.

  Suyin remained silent. Her hand unconsciously rose to her cheek, the rough patch of skin barely detectable now. Suyin felt a dull ache in the middle of her stomach, knowing that her time in Dongshan was coming to an end. What was she supposed to do now; she was fifteen years old with a little baby. She couldn’t return home and live in the same apartment as that monster.

  It was Kai Ying who spoke again. “We’ll work something out,” she said, before she reached over and gently pulled Suyin’s hand away from her cheek, holding on to it.

  Suyin didn’t move. It had been such a long time since anyone had held her hand. Kai Ying’s hand was warm and soft and Suyin held tightly on to it as if she were falling, as if the wall she had built up so meticulously during the past year was suddenly plummeting all around her.

  “He came home drunk one afternoon,” Suyin began. Her heart raced. “I didn’t know what to do. Before I knew what was happening, he had grabbed me and pushed me to the ground and was on top of me,” she said in one breath.

  “Who?” Kai Ying asked. “Who hurt you?”

  In the weeks following the rape, Suyin daydreamed that she had fought back, that she had reached out and gripped one of her father’s old hammers and swung with all her strength, hitting her stepfather again and again until he no longer moved, pushing his bloody deadweight off her as the room spun around and the daydream ended with a moment of pure relief before the feeling disappeared again.

  “My stepfather,” she said, spitting out the words.

  Suyin didn’t dare look up when she felt Kai Ying’s hand suddenly pull away. She stared down at the table, her tears falling on the stained, scratched wood, realizing her hunger wasn’t just about food. All these months she’d been starving for warmth and shelter and family. Suyin couldn’t stop crying until she felt Kai Ying come over and wrap her arms around her, pulling her in from the cold.

  “It’s all right,” Kai Ying whispered into her ear. “You can stay here for as long as you like. You’ll always have a home here.”

  Suyin tried to say something but all that emerged was a choking sound. A home, she thought, which made her cry even harder.

  Wei

  The day began bittersweet. Wei suggested they stop for breakfast on their way to the train station. It would be a nice walk before Tian’s long trip home. Wei memorized the streets so he wouldn’t get lost when he was alone again. They had already arranged to meet back in Guangzhou when Wei returned. He’d forgotten that life could still surprise an old man, how he had to travel all the way to Luoyang to find a new friend from Guangzhou.

  At the train station, Wei didn’t think it would be so difficult to part with someone he’d barely known for a week. “Thank you, Tian, for all you’ve done for me,” Wei said. “Your guidance has been invaluable.”

  “I did nothing,” Tian said. “I’m only sorry I won’t be here to hear about the reunion with your son.”

  “I’ll tell you all about it when I return to Guangzhou.”

  “I’ll look forward to it.”

  Wei shook Tian’s hand and the younger man boarded the train, turning back to wave before he disappeared into the car. Through the windows, Wei could see scattered passengers sitting throughout. He watched Tian move past them, choosing a window seat toward the back of the car, seeking quiet away from the others now that his story had found an ending.

  Wei turned when a woman selling greasy fried donuts tugged at his arm, but he shook his head and pulled gently away from her. Discouraged, she tapped on the train windows, hoping a passenger might buy something from her. Wei stepped back and waited. When the train began to move slowly out of the station, he looked for Tian but no longer saw his friend sitting by the window. Still, he raised his hand to wave anyway.

  Tao

  It was Little Shan who approached him first in the school yard one morning. Although it wasn’t very cold, Shan was bundled up in a sweater, padded jacket, and a woolen scarf wound around his neck. Tao knew it was what his grandmother always made him wear every year after the Mid-Autumn Festival, whether it was cold or not. He was reminded of the heavier Little Shan he once knew.

  “What is it?” Tao asked bluntly.

  “I think we should call a truce,” Little Shan said. He kept his hands in his pockets, shifting from one leg to the other as if he really were cold.

  Truce. It was what they always said when they were still friends and had a disagreement, neither of them wanting to give in and say they were sorry.

  Tao thought about it. Little Shan had betrayed him to be one of Lai Hing’s stray dogs, and now he wanted to be friends again. Mao would have sent him away for less, just like he did his ba ba. He looked up and studied Little Shan’s face, trying to understand what had happened during the past few months, how his entire life had been turned upside down ever since he’d fallen from the kapok tree. Yet, here he was, standing upright. Little Shan hadn’t totally abandoned him, having saved him from being pummeled by Lai Hing and his gang. Best friends are hard to come by, his grandfather had said. His ye ye was hard to come by. There would never be anyone else like his grandfather, and Tao wanted him back, but until then, Little Shan stood bundled up and waiting in front of him.

  “Truce,” Tao said.

  Kai Ying

  Kai Ying kept to a regular schedule, trying not to think beyond what she needed to do from day to day. She waited anxiously for another telegram to come from Wei telling her Sheng was alive and well, but there had only been another week of suffocating silence.

  She found her most fulfilling moments came every afternoon when she taught Suyin about the herbs, watching her listen intently to everything she said, quizzing her on simple remedies and basic treatments. They had fallen into a comfortable rhythm and Kai Ying enjoyed teaching. She now understood the satisfaction that Wei and Sheng must have received from their students, as each day her lessons with Suyin grew a little longer.

  “What herb would you prescribe for a sore throat and fever?” she asked Suyin.

  The girl’s face grew serious in thought. Kai Ying saw a moment’s hesitation, which quickly turned to certainty.

  “The root of the Chinese foxglove,” Suyin answered.

  “Yes,” Kai Ying said, and smiled.

  Suyin’s face lit up with joy.

  “Why would you prescribe the root of the foxglove?” Kai Ying asked.

  She didn’t hesitate this time. “It helps to remove the heat from the body and cool the blood.”

  Suyin was a natural.

  At the end of their lesson, Kai Ying went upstairs and searched through her bureau drawer, finally finding the cotton pouch. In it were the pearls she had taken from Herbalist Chu when she studied with him. Kai Ying always meant to put them back, but she knew now she’d kept them for this very reason, to pass on to the next student.

  Downstairs, she poured the tiny translucent pearls into the palm of her hand.

  “What are those?” Suyin asked.

  “Each pearl represents the time it’ll take for you to learn the basics of herbal work.”

  Suyin looked confused.

  “Do you remember the skin cream I gave you?” Kai Ying said.

  Suyin nodded, her fingers brushing across her cheek, the once dark patches now almost undetectable.

  “The pearls are the secret ingredient I told you about,” Kai Ying said, placing a small pearl in Suyin’s hand. “By the time you have collected all these pearls in the palm of your hand, twenty-four months will have passed, and you’ll have learned more about herbs than you ever wanted,” Kai Ying explained. “That’s if
you want to,” she added.

  “Yes,” Suyin said, closing her hand around the pearl. “I want to.”

  Wei

  Wei left for Ruyang on the noon bus. He checked and rechecked his pocket for Clerk Hu’s permission slip from the camp managers to visit Lee Weisheng at the Ruyang correctional facility that afternoon. Seeing his son’s name printed on the slip had instantly brought Sheng back to life, making it all a reality. On Wei’s lap was a bag that contained the woolen sweater he had carried all the way from Guangzhou. He had no idea if his son was allowed to accept anything from him, but he was determined to give him the sweater one way or the other.

  The bus was crowded and noisy with day laborers going to work. He sat by a window near the front and closed his eyes for a moment against the bright sun. Since his first night on the train, Liang hadn’t returned to him. His greatest sorrow was that he loved her better in death than in life.

  Wei opened his eyes and gazed out at the flat, dry plains surrounded by tall mountains in the distance. He wondered if the famous Longmen Grottoes and the Fengxian Temple, with its many carved stone Buddhas, were over there. It was the first time since arriving in Luoyang that Wei thought about it once being the cradle of Chinese civilization, where many of the finest Chinese poets and writers also gathered and had produced great works of literature. At one time, Wei’s heart would have raced with joy to know that he was so close to so many ancient art treasures, but now it was only an afterthought, a distant place where Sheng had been taken to be reeducated.

  The correctional facility was a three-story, whitewashed building surrounded by a high wall trimmed with barbed wire. Wei held the letter of permission nervously in his hand, then watched as it was passed from one uniformed officer to the next, until he was finally ushered down a darkened passageway and told to wait in the room at the end of the hall. “Your son will be brought down shortly,” the woman told him in a flat, tired voice. And then she was gone.