{ Chapter 22 }
All my life I had been a soldier whose job was to kill pain. I was proud of being strong. It became my second nature to pull the plug as soon as I sensed an undercurrent stirring inside me. I locked up memories and allowed no place in my heart for feelings, because I believed that I could not afford to be weak. I told myself that I didn’t have a legitimate reason to complain about anything. I had survived China and was now living in America, a place people risk their lives to come to.
And yet as I struggled to write, I discovered that my soul had a mind of its own. It wandered to the wrong neighborhoods as I followed a memory I was trying to capture. There, as the hidden pain came to the surface, I was disarmed. When I felt as if I had been shot, I ordered my soldier self to take over. In darkness, silent and wounded, I watched myself flat on the ground enduring the internal bleeding.
Writing made me feel vulnerable. The soldier inside me surrendered. I didn’t know what to do.
I continued to write for the sake of improving my English and to see if my memories would become a story. The process was difficult and unpleasant. I composed my writing first in Chinese, then translated into English. This helped me catch the memories and also to exercise the translator in my head. My English did seem to improve, and this was important if my goal was to get a job as an office secretary. Finding the story was harder. I was borrowing from some of my old writing that I’d done for Dr. Guenther, and I had new stories and lots of not-quite stories. Finally, I brought my mess of pages to a new independent study with Dr. Guenther and asked her for help. The tutorial went by in a flash and Dr. Guenther had to kick me out. I begged her for more time and she sympathetically arranged for me to meet with her colleague Mrs. Watson. Both of them asked me lots of questions about my characters. And they wanted to know what would happen next, and this encouraged me.
Before I knew what was happening, I couldn’t escape my memories. I might be listening to a professor lecturing on contemporary American art while seeing myself carrying a hundred-pound load of manure to the rice paddy. I would be on a Chicago rapid-transit train hearing the pounding of Chinese drums along with shouted Cultural Revolution slogans. Memories flooded my mind and dominated my waking hours and even my dreams. I began to write like a mad person. There became no day or night. Qigu moved downstairs to get away. He slept in the hallway, which we closed for an extra room. It was extremely cold, but at least he was undisturbed.
I had never tasted the bitterness of guilt, regret, and remorse until then. I was haunted by those whom I had left behind, those who were part of my life, and those who were dead or as good as dead. I thought that I had long buried them, but writing brought them back. They were with me every day. We began to have conversations. Among them were my labor camp comrades Little Green and Yan. Little Green died when she was eighteen. I was the one who discovered her drowned body. No one was held responsible for her death. Nothing about her was spoken or written.
Yan was alive and was living in China, but she was as good as dead. On my last trip to China she had finally agreed to meet me. We sat sipping tea in a park across from one another. She did not want to remember the past, but it was eating her up. She seemed ghostlike, the most real thing about her was the gloves she wore to hide the scars on her hands from working in the fields. She had been a Communist boss at the labor camp. She used to be my heroine, my role model, my best friend and love. I couldn’t face the fact that I had failed to rescue her. I felt that I had betrayed her and let her down. I had escaped to America to a good life while she faded and was forgotten.
As Yan and I drank our tea, an opera club that had come into the park sang the famous lines of an ancient poem:
When young we hadn’t the taste of sadness
We climbed the city wall to get inspirations
For the sake of composing a new poem
We described sadness as if we understood such feelings
Now that we are old and gray
We have tasted every bitterness and sadness
Once again we climbed the city wall and arrived at the top
Instead of composing poems we smile and say, “What a great autumn day!”
My heart began to burn with the desire to tell the stories of Little Green and Yan. I began to write down what I remembered of them. I wrote on buses, on subways, in between classes, during work breaks, in the middle of the night. My pockets were filled with paper notes. The backs of my hands and my forearms were covered with ink characters in Chinese. “Nice tattoo,” my schoolmates commented.
It made me feel noble and my existence justified when I wrote. I embraced myself for committing to the task. I felt fortunate that I lived to do this. I forgot my goal. I no longer cared if I ever became an office secretary. Mentally, I had to write to survive. Through writing I wanted to help Little Green and Yan achieve immortality. Through writing I wanted to purge my own ghosts and ensure that I didn’t become a ghost myself.
I lost myself in chasing the images. When the ink touched the surface of the paper, I felt alive. I began to notice changes in my thoughts, feelings, and perspective. I was writing what I would never have dared if I had still been living in China. I wrote about how we risked our lives to love.
When I finished my manuscript, I sat on the attic floor and looked out the window. I was struck by the beauty of the white night. Growing up in Shanghai, I had never experienced a grand snowfall. I let the pure silence of the whiteness seep into my soul. As I turned to look at the stack of papers sitting on my desk, a thought came to me: No publisher or literary agent would accept a handwritten manuscript. I didn’t dare to think about buying a typewriter. Qigu and I could barely afford to eat after the mortgage and property tax.
One Sunday morning at the flea market on Maxwell Street, we happened upon an old-fashioned typewriter on sale for six dollars. Qigu and I bargained the owner down to five. Thrilled, I carried the typewriter home as if it was my newborn.
I sat down and began typing. Nothing appeared on the paper. The ribbon was dried-up. There was no place that sold old-fashioned ribbons. Qigu and I searched all over Chicago’s junk stores. Finally we discovered a pair of ribbons.
With the new ribbons, I tried to type again. This time I was stuck with a different problem. Every time I typed an N, P would come up at the same time. Now I had to buy a bottle of Wite-Out to get rid of the P’s.
I mailed out my manuscript to a dozen publishers and agents but received no response. I ran out of money for copying and mailing. After I spent my last dollar, I returned to work as a plumber.
One afternoon I received a postcard from a literary agent whose two lines of handwriting I was unable to read. With the help of the local librarian, I deciphered what was written on the postcard. The first line told me that the agency did not accept authors that were unpublished. The second line suggested that I try to get a shorter version of my work published in a magazine first.
I was grateful for the postcard. Qigu and I visited a local bookstore, searching for advertisements for writing contests. We located the ads in the backs of magazines such as Writer’s Digest. The problem was that there was an entry fee. It was too expensive for me. Twenty-five dollars to enter a short-story contest was more than I could afford.
I kept looking and discovered a contest that charged a cheaper entry fee. The magazine was called the Mississippi Valley Review. It was its “20th Anniversary National Writing Contest.” It would cost me only five dollars. Another magazine I discovered later was even better; it required no entry fee at all. The magazine was called Granta.
I mailed my story “Wild Chrysanthemums” to the Mississippi Valley Review and another story, “Red Fire Farm,” to Granta. In three months, I received news that the Mississippi Valley Review would publish my piece as a reward for winning the contest. After six months, Granta informed me that it would publish “Red Fire Farm.”
With these publication credits, I contacted publishers and agencies again. No one responde
d. After a year and a half, I figured that it was not meant to be. Respecting reality had always been my virtue. I was disappointed, but I was American enough not to take it as a personal disgrace.
Mr. Lin Po was Qigu’s old friend. He was a sophisticated man and was regarded as a great critic of art and literature among the Chinese. When he heard from Qigu that I had been trying to write, he said, “Who do you think you are, Mao Zedong’s daughter? What makes you think you deserve to tell the story of your life, when your life is as plain as millions of Chinese? Why do you think you might succeed while every other writer from mainland China has failed to break into the mainstream American market? For heaven’s sake, they are veteran writers who are well published in China.”
I didn’t bother to argue with Mr. Lin Po. He meant well. I knew I didn’t have the luxury to sit around and write. Qigu and I were behind in our mortgage payments. Qigu said that the Chicago Art Fair was coming up. It would be an opportunity to earn a few dollars if we got lucky.
We set up a booth selling Chinese brush paintings again inside the downtown Bloomingdale’s. Although there was traffic, few paid attention. Qigu told me that I was a lousy salesperson because I couldn’t help but point out the flaws in my paintings to people who were interested. By the time the fair closed, we barely made back the booth fee.
A week later, the phone rang. I was in the middle of fixing a leaky toilet. A lady’s voice on the other end asked for “Ahjeih.” I was not sure if she meant me.
“Who are you?” I asked. It was too late to correct myself. I meant to say, “Who is this please?”
The lady didn’t mind and introduced herself as Sandra Dijkstra.
Between the distraction of regretting my bad phone manners and juggling my plumbing tools, my mind missed the translation. I didn’t understand what the lady was saying.
“Who is this, please?” I kept repeating. I knew my pronunciation was good. The trouble was that it made people think I was fluent in English. They would start to talk fast, like this lady now, and I had to guess what she was trying to say.
“Sandy Dijkstra, Sandy, from the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency …”
“Par- … pardon me? Your name?”
“My name is Sandy.”
“Sandy what?”
“Sandy, from the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency.”
Agency? What kind of agency? I was glad that I caught the key word. She sounded like an authority figure. Could she be from a government agency? Might she be an immigration officer calling to inquire about my visa status? A police detective? Had I been followed? Did this mean that my time in America was up? My thoughts got ahead of me: Was I to be deported?
A thought in my head buzzed so loudly that I could no longer hear the lady.
“Hold on.” I put down the receiver and went looking for Qigu.
With my heart racing, I ran up and down the staircase. But I couldn’t locate Qigu. I knew he was fixing a broken electric switch somewhere. He must be downstairs in the basement. I needed his rescue, needed him to tell me what to say to the lady on the phone. I must not give a wrong answer. I was afraid of getting myself in trouble with immigration, and the lady on the phone might try to trap me. I’d be fooled and then arrested. I must think quickly about why I had not renewed my visa.
“H- … hello, this is Anchee Min,” I said.
Again I missed what the lady was saying.
My fear was paralyzing me.
There was a silence. Is the lady waiting for me to answer her question?
I collected my English. “How did you know my phone number?”
“Well, do you remember about a year and a half ago you submitted …”
“My English is not good.”
“Excuse me?”
“Would you please speak slowly? My English is no good.”
The lady slowed down. “About a year and half ago, you submitted your manuscript titled Red Azalea to our agency …”
Of course I remembered.
“Do you remember the Sandra Dijkstra Literary Agency, my agency?”
“I submitted my manuscript to twelve places.”
“Anyway … I am Sandy, a literary agent. I am interested in meeting you.”
With effort she helped me understand that she was on her way to New York, stopping by in Chicago for a night. She would be available for a breakfast meeting at eight in the morning at her hotel.
“I’ll come,” I said.
“Fabulous!”
“Your name again?” I wanted to make sure.
“Sandra Dijkstra.”
“How do you spell it? One syllable at a time, please.”
She did.
I started to feel that I might be hallucinating. I didn’t trust what was happening. How would I know that the person on the line was who she claimed to be?
“So, good-bye for now, and I’ll see you tomorrow, Ahjeih? Or Annjeih?”
“It’s Anchee.”
“Excellent, Anchee.”
“Did you say you read my manuscript?” I asked before hanging up the phone.
“Well, I have just started, but my reader did.”
“Your reader?”
“I hire readers to work for me at the agency …” She was talking fast again and I lost her.
I tried not to interrupt. I began to guess. She said something about the person she hired. Something about the individual whom she assigned to read my manuscript and who finished it and gave a report. But it was not a great report. Something about the reader who “didn’t fall in love” with my manuscript. Finally something about an evaluation that crossed her desk months later.
“I was intrigued,” I heard her say. “So I decided to give the manuscript a shot …”
“Qigu! Qigu!” I screamed as I hung up the phone. I ran all over the building, but he was still nowhere to be found.
I phoned my friend Joan Chen in California. “Do you know Sandra Dijkstra?”
“Of course I do,” Joan Chen replied calmly. “She is Amy Tan’s agent. Remember, you once asked for the agency’s address? The one in Del Mar, California?”
Now I remembered sending my manuscript to Amy Tan’s agent. I remembered “Del Mar” because the manuscript was at first returned to me as “undeliverable,” for I had given the wrong address. I wrote one “Del Mar” instead of two. The correct address was “Camino Del Mar, Del Mar, California.”
“Anyway, Sandy Dijkstra called and arranged to meet me tomorrow morning!” I told Joan Chen about the phone call. “Please advise me, Joan. What do I wear? Do I dress up? Do I tie my hair back or let it down? What if Sandy Dijkstra finds out that I am a country bumpkin? Think this: My manuscript has gone through years of revisions. But in person she will find out that my English is a wreck. She will be disappointed. I am afraid …”
“Just be yourself,” Joan advised. “I don’t think she’ll care that your English is not perfect.”
“But what do I say to her?”
“Let her do the talking.” Joan Chen convinced me that there was no need to be nervous. “The quality of your manuscript is the only thing Sandy will be concerned about. She wouldn’t waste her time meeting you if she didn’t think you were worth it. Trust me, she knows what to do. It’s her business.”
Qigu returned. He shared my excitement. The only thing I worried about now was our car. The Chevrolet had been unreliable. There was no way to know if it would start tomorrow. The temperature had dropped below zero again.
I took a hot shower and washed my hair. I tried to ensure that the stink of the sewage wouldn’t follow me to Sandy Dijkstra’s hotel. I took out my Chinese cotton coat and ironed it. I also cleaned my worn boots the best I could.
By dawn I was up. Qigu was still in his dreamland. I was relieved to find that the snow had stopped. Luckily, after much huffing and puffing, the car engine came up. I left the engine running and cleared the snow from around the car. I retaped the car’s broken window with cardboard.
At six A.M., I
pulled into the street and headed toward downtown Chicago.
Like a spring breeze, Sandra Dijkstra walked into the hotel’s restaurant. She was a handsome lady in her forties with a youthful look, bright eyes, and an affectionate smile. Her short damp hair told me that she had come from a morning shower, or perhaps from swimming. Her face lit up as she greeted me with a “Good morning, Anh-chje!”
I didn’t know she was pronouncing my name the French way. She looked at me with beautiful crystal-clear eyes. The waiter led us to a corner table. Sandy said, “How nice it is to finally meet you. Correct me, please, is it Anh-chje?”
I told her I enjoyed the accent, though I had no idea what kind of accent it was.
She told me that she had a Ph.D. in French literature. “I got up at dawn this morning and reread your manuscript. Fantastic work, I must say. I would like to try your luck in New York. What do you say?”
I told her that I didn’t know what else to say but thank you.
She took out a piece of paper and told me that it was an author-agent contract.
I forgot how I drove back home. Upon returning, I excitedly described to Qigu my meeting with Sandy. “I don’t expect anything to come of this, though,” I concluded.
“We must get back to fixing the plumbing,” Qigu agreed. “The tenants are threatening to move out.”
It took me a while to calm down, to stop dreaming of Sandy calling. It was good that I never really believed that anything would happen.
Life quickly went back to normal. The weather warmed up and Qigu and I were forced to fight a new battle—termites. They were discovered in our building and the city had issued a fine. We had to hire a professional pest-control company, which meant more debt. In the meantime, we had been doing the mortar ourselves. I carried buckets of cement up the stairs from dawn to dark. I passed the bucket to Qigu, who stood on a ladder three stories high.
Qigu was unhappy because I wouldn’t let him work on his art without getting the property fixed first. “We are in this together,” I said to him. “And I am a woman doing a man’s job.”