Time passed slowly. Early one morning, as I walked along a foggy riverbank, I realized that my life had reached the point where I knew that I would never give up, even if I failed to make it to America. I would not give up. And that was all I expected of myself. I was very happy with this discovery. When I got back to the hospital, I looked at myself in the restroom mirror. I laughed at my reflection. The mirror showed a typical northern Chinese peasant. She had dusty hair that stuck out like a wild plant. She had dark brown skin with heavy cheeks like steamed breads. Her eyes sank in her head like two fish whispering nose to nose. Her nose was a potato. She didn’t look afraid. She looked a little silly, but confident and proud.
* * *
Ten days after I got back from Shanghai, a telegram came. I showed my passport to the post office clerk and he passed me the green envelope. I was afraid it might be bad news. Maybe Katherine sent the wire to say that she had tried and failed and decided to give in to fate. I tore it open.
I took out the telegram. The characters appeared blurred, then gradually came into focus.
US CONGRESSMAN SPOKE UP FOR ME IN BEIJING. PROBLEM SOLVED. VISAS, IMMIGRATION PAPERS, AND TICKETS AWAIT YOU AT CONSULATE. WILL MEET YOU AND THE CHILD AT THE AIRPORT. LOVE, K
An extraordinary silence ran through the space of my mind, and I exhaled.
* * *
Little Rabbit opened her eyes slowly. She looked up at me. Touching my cheek with her little fingers, she asked, “Zhe-shi-shi-me?” What’s this?
I waved the telegram at her.
“Mama?”
I nodded.
“Is Mama coming back for me?” Little Rabbit’s red eyes widened, her eyebrows knotted as she stared at me, waiting for my reply. Before I could open my mouth, her focus faded and she slid away.
I took her little blue and purple hands, bruised by needles.
The line on the electrocardiograph drew the irregular patterns of her heartbeat.
A round-faced doctor came in and checked her pulse.
“Are you the mother?” he asked, his eyes on his watch.
“Yes.”
“She’s grabbing hold of herself. She’s fighting hard. I think she’s going to pull through.”
Outside the room, nurses were carrying out a stretcher with a little body wrapped in a white sheet.
No crying, only the sound of footsteps on concrete ground.
“Tomorrow,” the doctor said, and threw me a smile as he walked away.
My tears choked me silently. I took out Katherine’s Walkman and covered my ears with the headphones.
Born in Shanghai in 1957, Anchee Min came to America in 1984 with the help of actress Joan Chen. She has worked as a waitress, a house cleaner, an assistant on contruction sites, a fabric painter, a messenger, and a model while attending English as a Second Language classes. In 1990 she received a Masters of Fine Arts Degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, where she studied filmmaking and music. Her memoir Red Azalea, written over eight years, won the Carl Sandburg Literary Award, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 1994, and was an international bestseller, with rights sold in twenty countries. Her second novel, Becoming Madame Mao, was recently published in hardcover. She lives and works in California with her husband and daughter.
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Anchee Min, Katherine
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