“I didn’t come to America to be a slave,” Qigu protested.
Sandra Dijkstra phoned again. This time I recognized her voice.
“How are you, Anchee Min? What are you doing?”
I was not sure if I should tell Sandy that this was the second time Qigu and I had had to work on the building’s plumbing. The new joints leaked because the solder paste we had used was too old. Qigu and I were mad at each other because we should have spent the $1.29 to buy new solder paste. We were ruled by the desire to save every penny and were in the middle of taking apart the entire plumbing system and resoldering it.
“Are you sitting down, Anchee?” Sandy continued.
“Would you like me to sit down?” I wondered why she would ask. What difference would it make, sitting down or standing up? I was only talking to her on the phone. Should I let her know that Qigu was waiting? That he was holding the propane torch? That I just pulled an inch of solder wire out of its spool and was getting ready to feed it to the pipe joint? “I can sit down if you want me to, though I have to sit on the floor, because there is no chair here.”
“Never mind,” Sandy said. “Listen, I am in the middle of auctioning Red Azalea. Five publishers have joined the bidding. I have narrowed it down to the final two—both are great houses. My question to you is which publisher would you like me to go with—Random House or Knopf?”
How could I possibly have any idea? “Will you … Sandy, will you kindly decide for me?”
“Sure. And there is an author’s advance,” Sandy said.
“What does ‘an advance’ mean?”
She started to explain what an advance was.
I asked Qigu for a pen and piece of paper. The cold had made my fingers stiff. I could barely hold the pen. I was not sure I caught the amount Sandy mentioned. I wondered if she meant five thousand dollars or seven thousand. I had a feeling that I was translating the number wrong. It couldn’t be this much money. “Is it one zero or two zeros after the number seventy-five?” I asked.
“Three zeros, honey.”
{ Chapter 23 }
My mind kept playing a particular scene from my childhood. My mother was on her back on the floor. Mrs. Bao, our downstairs neighbor, was on top of her. Mrs. Bao was holding a pair of scissors and stabbing my mother. I stood next to them, frozen and terrified. I was five years old. I remembered struggling to breathe.
My feet were beside my mother’s head, but I was unable to move. My body felt like a tree stump. My younger sister was near my mother’s feet. She was pulling on Mrs. Bao’s legs, trying to help Mother. Although I desperately wanted to help, I could do nothing.
Mother was losing her strength. She tried to push Mrs. Bao off, but Mrs. Bao was too strong. Then I heard my mother’s cry.
Mrs. Bao’s scissors slashed across my mother’s face. Blood seeped between her eyes and nose.
There were people outside. Someone banged on the door.
Mrs. Bao got off Mother and ran downstairs.
With blood crawling like earthworms down her face, my mother rose.
Seeing that she was alive, I was able to breathe again.
I heard Mrs. Bao open the downstairs door. She shouted to a gathering crowd.
I went downstairs and saw Mrs. Bao telling her story. She was waving both of her fists above her head. To my surprise, I saw blood oozing from her wrists.
“An anti-Mao incident has just taken place!” Mrs. Bao cried at the top of her lungs, “A bourgeois intellectual denied a proletarian worker a toilet!” She told the crowd that my mother had cut her wrists.
“Justice!” the crowd yelled. “Blood debt must be paid with blood!”
My mother rushed downstairs. Although she had cleaned her face, blood still seeped from the wound. She was unable to convince the crowd that Mrs. Bao had lied.
Three generations of the Bao family lived downstairs without a bathroom. A wooden chamber pot was all they had. Every day Mrs. Bao waited for the sanitation truck to come and empty the chamber pot. The revolution erupted and the sanitation truck stopped coming. The Bao family had taken to dumping their waste at the end of the lane under a tree. The neighbors complained of the stink. My mother felt bad that the tree was dying.
Against my father’s wishes, my mother invited the Bao family to share our toilet. We had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.
Our toilet started to back up, for it was not designed to swallow the contents of a chamber pot filled with the waste of eleven people all at once.
My father had to manually break up the turds. He used a pump to push and flush the waste. It got worse. The sewage pipe was clogged. Every time we flushed the toilet, it would flood. The feces spilled over the toilet and covered our floor.
The Bao family demanded possession of our toilet. One taste of the comfort and they were driven to believe they were entitled. “You have two toilets and we have none, and revolution is about fairness.” They told my mother that times had changed. The proletarians ruled.
My mother refused. The Bao family decided to teach my mother a lesson. They came up with their chamber pot and emptied it over our beds and sheets.
There were no police, no courts. Under the control of the “proletarian dictatorship,” Shanghai was chaos. Mao’s teenage Red Guards began looting the city. My mother couldn’t get any help. She and my father had to wash the soiled blankets and clean the neighbors’ feces every evening when they returned from work. Soon we had to sleep with our clothes on because we no longer had any dry sheets, blankets, or bed mats. Eventually we were driven out and relocated, to a place with no toilet of our own.
I was witnessing my life change before my eyes. I could hardly believe that I was signing a book contract from one of America’s leading publishing houses. The sad days were over. I would never forget the time when my family shared one towel, and when we were bullied by the neighbor over use of the toilet.
With the money I earned, I wrote to tell my mother that my first wish was to get her a toilet. She had dreamt one day that she might have her own toilet. I was thrilled to make this dream come true. Also, with the advance I would be able to pay off my debts, and more important, I went to see an immigration lawyer, who told me that, with the proof of a book contract, I stood a good chance of qualifying for a green card.
Qigu came home with unexpected news—the US government had just decided to grant political asylum to all Chinese students in America who participated in the 1989 democratic movement in Beijing or abroad. We would all be granted a green card, and in five years American citizenship.
Sitting on his rocking chair bought from a Chicago flea market for four dollars, Qigu recited an ancient Chinese poem:
The worry seems no end
When it comes to searching for your heart’s desire
Even by wearing out your shoes made of iron
Yet without one’s slightest effort
Fate strikes
Opportunity lands on your lap
Overnight we were legal immigrants. We walked out of darkness to breathe in the sun. Although I was not religious, I prayed for God to bless America. To repay with a well for a drop of water during drought was a Chinese virtue. I wanted so much to be deserving of the kindness.
I felt uneasy over my good fortune. We had done nothing to actually help the students in China. I had taken part in the protest and shouted slogans calling for democracy, but I didn’t risk my life like those at Tiananmen Square.
My father let me know that I had just lifted a crushing weight off his chest. He was so happy that he hummed the newly learned tune of “Yankee Doodle Dandy” over the phone. I told my mother that the money for her private toilet was in the mail.
A year later, my father sent me a photo of my mother sitting on her new toilet. “Your mother wants you to know that it was her happiest moment,” he wrote.
My mother dressed in her best clothes for the photo. She had her hair done. She beamed like a child having her picture taken in front of D
isneyland.
Once again Qigu asserted his trust-in-fate theory. “If it is meant to be yours, it will be yours without you fighting for it. That is the essence of Zen and Taoism.”
Watching him slip into his sage mode, I tried not to show irritation. I believed in the early-bird-gets-the-worm theory. I was not a Christian, but I liked what the Bible said: “God helps those who help themselves.” Fate and luck play a role in one’s life, I agreed, but expecting rice to rain from the sky was crazy. What about one’s obligation toward the less fortunate?
When the author’s advance payment arrived in the mail, I paid off our mortgage. There were still many repairs to be completed on the building, but we now owned the property free and clear. Without the pressure of monthly mortgage payments, everything became manageable. We were able to provide our tenants with major repairs and improvements. I expected Qigu to work on finishing the apartment while I revised the manuscript Red Azalea.
Perhaps it was the lifting of the stress, perhaps it was that we could now afford to eat our favorite Polish hot dogs three times a week, or perhaps that ticking of my biological clock was growing louder—whatever the reason, for the first time in my life, I asked myself, “What do you really want, Anchee?”
A child! The thought was so clear, overwhelming, and powerful. The next day I found myself in the library reading self-help books on pregnancy. I wished that I knew how to tell Qigu that I could not wait any longer. I was turning thirty-five. I wanted to have a child of my own. But I didn’t know how to properly speak to Qigu about this. We had been together for six years. The right time to mention wanting a child would be after his proposal. But there had been no proposal. Not even a hint of it. What could I do but wait? I had been my best self. Qigu was a nice guy. My mother believed that a decent man like Qigu would propose to a woman of my quality. What went wrong? I wondered.
I finally decided to ask Qigu, for the last time, what he thought about us having a family.
Qigu sighed and sang the old song: “How can I support a family when I can barely feed myself?”
Telling me the truth was a sign of a good character, I convinced myself. Qigu was only trying to be responsible. Qigu loved to recite Confucius—“Men are born weak”—but I thought that awareness was the sign of a strong man.
The dilemma was: How long should I continue to wait?
The concern seemed to be mine and mine only. I realized that I was at a disadvantage after spending so many years being what Qigu praised as a “liberal-minded” woman.
On New Year’s Eve of 1991, I approached Qigu with a Chinese book The Science of a Female Body. Feeling sorry for me, Qigu attempted to calm me with his usual tactics. But they failed to work this time. Qigu kept excusing himself as a “weak man.”
“You accomplished jumping over the dragon gate to America!” I challenged. “One cannot afford to be strong in China, but we can in America. We are green card holders. We can afford to be strong, and be whoever we want to be! It is the privilege of being an American!”
Qigu shook his head. I realized that he would not propose marriage, now or perhaps ever.
On the surface, I was my normal pleasant self, but underneath I was a raging storm. The crisis was reaching a critical point. I knew that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I robbed myself of the chance to be a mother. I decided that I could endure not getting a marriage proposal, but that I could not go on without trying to have a child.
Qigu was beyond devastated when I broke the news to him that I was pregnant. He claimed that he was the victim of my conspiracy. What he thought had been a romantic evening was a trap. He was willing to accompany me to an abortion clinic.
I refused. “I will not go to the abortion clinic.”
Qigu was upset and called me irresponsible and sneaky. “How can you bring a life into the world unplanned?”
I had long been planning. I felt responsible for conceiving before turning thirty-five. “I did this to avoid the increased risk of birth defects that occur after a mother turns thirty-five. Thirty-five is where the line is!”
Qigu let me know that he didn’t want to be forced into fatherhood. He felt that I was manipulating him. “It is a mistake!”
I felt bad about dragging Qigu into fatherhood, but I had no choice—he wouldn’t get off the pot, and I couldn’t date other men. We had been a couple in reality. Although Qigu never said that he loved me, he never said that he didn’t love me, either. According to Qigu we were practicing love the Chinese way, although deep inside I had doubts.
I was selfish in wanting this child. But I also thought living with a man for six years was a solid foundation for a family. Usually, I felt secure about our love for each other. What was more romantic than fighting to achieve the American dream? Qigu was a man of great potential. He was a work in progress and a piece of art.
In retrospect, I would see that Qigu and I didn’t share the same values, which most immediately included an interest in creating a family. We needed each other because neither of us could afford to take time off to meet people and to date, to break up, to make up, to pick and choose a truly compatible life partner.
I rarely had the time to stay in touch with my girlfriends. All they knew was that I had been living with Qigu. My pride kept me from admitting that I was in a mess, even that I was unhappy about not being proposed to. The way I dealt with it was to be an ostrich and bury my head in the sand, all the while praying for things to go right.
I feared that Qigu might leave me if I pressed him too hard on marriage. I was convinced that no man would want me. My beauty had faded and I was at a loss about what else I could do. I felt my only option was to squeeze my dream and make do with what I had.
Being pregnant was the first thing I ever did for myself. It was my act of rebellion against the world, and I found it exhilarating. Falling deeply in love with the baby growing inside of me, I couldn’t say that I was not worried or frightened. I was, but I also had never felt so empowered, so charged with energy and strength. If I wasn’t experiencing romance with Qigu, I was with my baby. Each day became a song, each day a blessing.
Although Qigu and I no longer had the mortgage to worry about, we had vacancies. Our neighbors protested when we rented one of the units to two black students from the Illinois Institute of Technology. We ignored the threats. We saw no reason not to rent to the black students.
As a result, our car windows were smashed. More threats were posted on our door.
We didn’t report the incidents to the police because we felt that the entire neighborhood was against us. We feared, however, the police might not come to our aid if something should happen.
Qigu and I discussed the hostility with our black tenants. We told them that we didn’t feel comfortable as Chinese living in the area either. Once, Qigu was pelted with stones on the street, not just by whites but by blacks as well. Another time, a group of teenage gang members from the projects on the other side of Thirty-fifth Street attacked us. We let the tenants know that we feared for their safety. They were welcome to stay, but we couldn’t guarantee their safety.
The black students finally decided to cancel their lease and move out.
We felt terrible, but what could we do?
After I mailed the manuscript off to my editor in New York, I joined Qigu on the job. I was aware of the risk of a miscarriage. My thinking was: Chinese peasant women continued to work in the rice paddies, carry manure, and feed the animals while pregnant. I saw myself doing the same. I was careful climbing ladders. I wore a mask when applying drywall joint compound. I continued to paint the walls and clean up debris. I made sure not to overload the buckets of cement when I carried them to the third floor.
Morning sickness was dramatic for me. I didn’t mind. I considered it a sign of the fetus’s vitality. I kept eating and kept throwing up. I grew used to my face hanging over the toilet bowl. For weeks, I couldn’t get my stomach to take food. My energy dropped and I wanted to rest, but I cont
inued working. It was important to help Qigu as much as I could before my belly got too big.
In the meantime, I had a secret. I had prayed that my child would be a boy. I was not discriminating against females. As a Chinese female, I simply understood that I belonged to a discriminated-against class. My whole life had been proof of this. I had hit hurdles that men never had to face. Those hurdles were both physical and mental. Chinese culture was deeply prejudiced against females, even under Communism when women were supposed to hold up half the sky. I did not want my child to be born with any disadvantage if I could help it. Being male meant respect and opportunity. Though to a lesser degree, I saw that this was true in America as well.
I visited dusty Chinese herb stores and purchased ingredients to help boost my body’s chemistry. The fragrant contents of the little bottles promised to create an “environment” that would “welcome” a male. I followed the herbalist’s instructions on washing my behind each night with a special formula of herb water. If there had been a Buddhist temple in the area, I would have gone to pray.
When Qigu voiced his resentment and sang his I-am-a-starving-artist song, I told him that the baby would be my responsibility alone.
“We are not married anyway,” I said. “I will register the child as being born to a single mother.”
{ Chapter 24 }
Qigu said, “Let’s get married. I don’t want the baby to follow your bad example.”
I found myself trying to survive the moment. We were putting away the tools after the day’s work. Realizing that I was hurt, Qigu explained that he had meant humor.
What I felt was that Qigu saw no reason to hide his true feelings. It was nevertheless a marriage proposal. An official one. The one that I had been waiting for for six years. I tried not to break down in front of Qigu. I never imagined that the marriage proposal I would receive would be like this. I wished Qigu had not proposed. I wished that he might have made an effort to fake a proposal.