The essence of a good life, according to Qigu, was to go with the flow. “The catch is that one must let life happen, at its own pace, its own rhythm, and run its own course. All you need to do is be receptive. One must not rob oneself of the opportunity to experience life’s magic.”
I might not have been knowledgeable about ancient Chinese philosophy, but I did know one thing—I wouldn’t have landed on American soil if I had practiced “doing nothing.” Life’s magic would not take place if the fuck-you boys remained uneducated. I didn’t want to miss the boat in helping Lauryann to become the kind of human being she deserved to be.
I told Qigu, “The hell with do-nothing and your nothingness.”
As our relationship deteriorated, everything became a bother. For example, I could no longer stand Qigu’s habit of putting off the dishwashing till the next day.
“It’s not that I refuse to clean the dishes,” Qigu tried to justify. “I just don’t want to do it right after dinner. I don’t want to ruin the enjoyment, the aftertaste of a good meal, a moment of relaxation. I’ll clean the dishes in the morning.”
“You invite cockroaches and rats!” I yelled. “It is disgusting!”
As time went on, Qigu lost his charm in front of me completely. I was bothered by his messy hair, his made-in-China cheap slippers, his stooped posture, his pajamas topped by a down vest. He was no longer the handsome man I used to know. He looked pathetic wearing the sweatpants his mother hand-knitted, which didn’t have a zipper in the front, leaving his crotch open.
I thought, I must move on before Lauryann is permanently pickled in her father’s jar. I suffered great anxiety when Lauryann sucked her thumb staring at the TV. She was sitting beside her father, who hadn’t dressed or washed since morning. What pained me was that Lauryann was having fun. I could visualize her “relaxing” her future away.
Qigu said, “The baby needs to de-stress from her crazy mother.”
It upset me that Qigu didn’t care what kind of school Lauryann would attend. “What’s the issue?” he asked. “Isn’t it an American school? There are millions of people on this planet who dream of attending an American school!”
Lauryann began to side with her father before she could talk. She hung on to Qigu’s arm like a spider when I tried to drag her to play outside in the sun. She continued to glue her eyes on the TV set, and screamed and kicked when I tried to remove her. She had discovered that her father would come to her rescue, so she erupted in dramatic tantrums. In the end, she always got her way with Qigu present.
“I can’t bear Lauryann sitting around all day,” I protested.
“What’s wrong with sitting around?” Qigu said. “Spending time in meditation and self-reflection is part of a good life, be it in front of a TV set or on your knees in a temple. It is the spirit of Taoism. Our daughter is blessed by the wealth of the Chinese culture. She will inherit from me a priceless fortune—that is to say, if you’d stop corrupting her with the American culture of stress.”
After I put Lauryann to sleep, I went to look out the attic window. Outside, the tree had turned bright yellow and the wind was blowing the leaves off the branches. I thought about how for thousands of years autumn had been the favorite subject of Chinese artists. To them, autumn meant inevitability and destitution. Autumn was the embodiment of aging, lost beauty, the absence of life giving. Symbolically, autumn taught people that you can’t stop the leaves from falling. Autumn predicted the impending brutality and death of winter.
Mourning was what Chinese artists did best. Famous Chinese paintings, poems, and novels featured either escapism or living in acceptance of fate. Mental indifference was grace, and sacrifice a virtue.
I learned to appreciate the true culture of China as an adult during the time of opening after the Cultural Revolution. Long-suppressed books suddenly became available, and I devoured them. My favorites included the Tang dynasty verse “Song of Forever Regret,” collections of Song dynasty poems by the female poet Li Qingzhao, the classic Qing dynasty novel Dream of the Red Chamber, and the most popular Chinese opera, The Butterfly Lovers.
I remember weeping when I read the “Song of Forever Regret.” My heart went out to Beauty Yang. The artist had composed the verse as a eulogy from the viewpoint of Emperor Tang, who had ordered his lover’s hanging. The emperor was given a choice between Beauty Yang or his generals who threatened an uprising. The emperor chose to sacrifice Beauty Yang. In the beautiful, melancholy verse, he expressed his great sorrow and regret.
I had shed more tears for the housewife poet Li Qingzhao, who wrote poems in self-imposed confinement. I had admired the novel Dream of the Red Chamber and its female protagonist Lin Daiyu, who was good at nothing but poem composing. I shared her dream of marrying the love of her life, Jia Baoyu. I regarded their grandmother as a monster who destroyed the couple’s love. The Chinese Yue opera The Butterfly Lovers taught me that there was no better way to live than to die for true love. Chinese were trained to appreciate tragedy. I was steeped in tragedy. I identified with tragic characters.
It was only after being exposed to American culture and society that I realized that there was not much to it to glorify tragedy. I was able to see for the first time that indulging in tragic thinking was a Chinese way of life, but not a healthy one.
Qigu was right about my being “corrupted” by American popular culture, although I replaced the word corrupted with inspired. Never before had any Chinese classics lost their appeal to me. They were my old clothes, which I had changed and Qigu had not. He was still in love with the old culture. It soothed him, comforted him, and fitted him. We grew to disagree over the fact that Chinese had been living in mental and physical cages as a race, culture, and civilization.
Never before had I realized that the Chinese thinking instilled and promoted the notion that life could not be changed. Looking back, it was impossible for any individual to change his or her life in China before the 1980s. It was not only a collective self-expression, but also a need, an emotional necessity, to dwell on the literature of misery, exile, imprisonment, and despair.
“Your life is how you set it up to be,” was what I learned in America. “Settling is temporary, while change is permanent,” had become my new adopted mantra. This perspective had not crystallized until now. It brought back the memory of when Qigu and I first discovered the abandoned collection of photo albums of the possibly Polish immigrant family. It never occurred to me that perhaps it was meant to be tossed in the trash. To part with the albums could have been a conscious decision made by the albums’ owner. To let go of things associated with the past was part of an action for the family to move on. To be an immigrant was to leave behind part of you and take with you only the essentials.
Scarlett O’Hara in Margaret Mitchell’s novel Gone with the Wind had become my new heroine. I read the book to learn English. I found myself captured not by the love story between Scarlett, Ashley, and Rhett Butler, but by how Scarlett survived as a female. I reread the passages in which Scarlett had to fight alone. She sacrificed. She did what was necessary to keep her mill running. She was the provider for her family and a woman of incredible resilience. She did not sit around and cry about her circumstances and misfortune, as a Chinese character in her shoes might have done. Scarlett did not compose poems, or jump into a well to end her misery. Instead she fought. She married men whom she did not truly love and who were below her in intelligence and appearance. When she needed to, she picked up a gun and shot the Yankee who broke into her house and threatened her life. She climbed onto the horse and rode from town to town to sell her products. At her lowest point, Scarlett did not pray for nothingness. She fought on by telling herself, “Tomorrow is another day!”
Scarlett showed me the way to fight for my life. I owed Lauryann that much and more.
Qigu told me that he wouldn’t consider a divorce unless I gave him Lauryann. He knew that I would rather die than be separated from Lauryann. I knew Qigu didn’t mean that he w
ould take care of Lauryann on his own. I asked him how he would raise the baby without a job or help. “I’ll send her to my parents,” Qigu replied. “She’ll be raised in China, where everything is cheaper.”
I couldn’t imagine Lauryann being raised in China, although I didn’t doubt that her grandparents loved her. My in-laws had not asked for the job. They ought not take on Qigu’s responsibility. I imagined the grandparents spoiling Lauryann. Discipline was already a strange concept to her. If she went to China, she would be raised the same way Qigu had been raised. She would be brainwashed by the do-nothing-is-to-do-everything culture. She would learn her “place in life as a female.” Instead of becoming a fighter, she would accept injustice as her fate.
“Lauryann must grow up in America,” I said firmly.
I placed my cheek gently against Lauryann’s forehead. She was sleeping soundly. My heart was filled with tenderness. If I walked out of the marriage, Lauryann would be the one who would be hurt the most. Her sky would be overcast with shadows. Yet I couldn’t afford not to walk out. Staying with Qigu and living in Bridgeport would not be in the best interest of Lauryann. Single motherhood and lack of financial means weighed on me, but I would not let it claim me.
Qigu and I agreed that for the sake of Lauryann, we would try to make the marriage work one last time. We negotiated. I asked him to bring home an annual income of no less than $15,000. I figured that he should be able to earn this amount by working minimum-wage jobs. He could be a waiter, a cab driver, a pizza-delivery man, or a handyman. There was no shame or disgrace in making an honest living. I said, “I must see my man making an effort to provide.”
Qigu promised to try, but there was no action. He avoided me. One day I ran into him in the basement. He looked nervous, as if he was hiding something. I found out that he was only trying to put away an antique instrument he had been playing. “I’ll work on my paintings,” he said in a pleading tone.
I felt a sudden rush of self-disgust, followed by a profound sadness. I saw how I was preventing Qigu from pursuing his dream. I had made him feel guilty about doing what he loved to do. Now he was forced to steal moments from me, to hide himself. I was a monster. I was responsible for killing the artist in him.
I knew what he wanted from life. He wanted to live the life of a sage. He wanted a cabin high in the mountain hills, a waterfall spilling into the valley below. He wanted to paint pines, cliffs, and clouds. He desired a life doing little else but composing poems, making paintings, and enjoying the company of his friends.
I had once teased him. “How will you get water and food up to the mountain? What about a shower and plumbing? How will you deal with an emergency or medical needs? What about your daughter’s education?”
I left the basement and walked upstairs.
Qigu followed me.
I stopped and turned around. I was face-to-face with him. “I want a divorce,” I said.
“It’s all in your head,” Qigu said. “You are crazy.”
“You won’t contribute to this marriage.”
“There are different ways to contribute,” Qigu argued. “Why can’t a woman be the bread-earner? You were a Communist, a product of women’s liberation. Why can’t you consider changing places? I wouldn’t mind being a stay-at-home dad.”
“I mind!” I yelled.
I was a woman who took it as my duty to compromise and sacrifice, but I couldn’t help but feel that I was simply being taken advantage of. I stopped arguing because I knew that at the end of the day Qigu would win. I was sick of a fight that would change nothing.
“It’s not that I don’t work,” Qigu said. “It’s not my fault that my paintings are not selling like doughnuts.”
“You must bring home fifteen thousand dollars a year,” I said.
“You are turning into a money worshiper!” Qigu yelled. “Karl Marx was so right about capitalism being a monster with its every hair dripping blood! Talk about contributing—I supported you when you wrote your book, didn’t I? I believed in you when nobody else did, didn’t I? I am entitled to your advance as well!”
I could only say that I was sleeping in the bed I had made. Qigu had never promised to change in the first place. It was I who had chosen to imagine the man that he might become. He just wasn’t that man.
“It’s not the end of the world,” Margaret said to me. She understood. She was a divorced woman herself. I asked if I could stay with her for a couple of weeks before I found a place to live. “Can Lauryann and I sleep on your floor?”
Margaret welcomed us into her condo. She told me that she was in the process of adopting an orphan from China, a little girl Lauryann’s age. “I’ll get to learn what it’s like to be a mom with Lauryann first,” she said. I asked Margaret her future daughter’s name.
“Fooh-Fann was her Chinese name,” she said.
“‘Lucky Flower’?” I asked.
“Yes. Lauryann and Fooh-Fann will become sisters.” Margaret was excited. “I’d love you to teach Fooh-Fann Chinese.”
I told Margaret that it would be my pleasure. But right now I wanted to complete the divorce before Lauryann became too aware of what was going on. Qigu was refusing to sign the divorce papers. He said he would over the phone, but he wouldn’t do it once I met with him. Lauryann was confused. “She is accustomed to Qigu’s ways,” I told Margaret. “I can’t say that Qigu doesn’t have Lauryann’s best interests in mind—he just has a different vision. He will convince her to be proud of being homeless. I can imagine him saying to her, ‘Look, Buddha used to be homeless—so did Jesus Christ.’ ”
Margaret said she knew a good lawyer named Linda whose office was located in downtown Chicago on LaSalle Street.
I shook my head. “I don’t have the budget for an expensive lawyer.”
Margaret convinced me to make an appointment with Linda for a one-time free consultation.
It turned out that Linda was a godsend. She was an honest and capable lawyer who charged reasonable fees. She said that the child support would be a tough issue in my case. “It is the only concern of the judge. If Qigu refuses to work out an agreement with you on that, the divorce can drag on.”
I doubted that Qigu would agree to pay child support. He wouldn’t split the house fifty-fifty with me, although his original investment was less than 5 percent. All I wanted was Lauryann, I told Linda. I’d let everything else go.
Linda was efficient. She got things moving for me and set the court date. I faced Qigu at the same Chicago city hall where we had been married. I remembered the day clearly, and I remembered the judge.
As Linda had predicted, the divorce-court judge focused on the child-support issue. When Qigu said, “I’ll do my best,” the judge was dissatisfied.
“We are talking a monthly payment here, sir,” he said to Qigu.
“I am an artist without a salary,” Qigu responded. “It is impossible for me to commit to a monthly payment.”
The judge did not grant the divorce.
The second time I was alone in front of the judge. Qigu refused to show up. Linda spoke on my behalf. She let the judge know that I was willing to waive the child support.
The judge took off his glasses and stared at me. “I want you to understand that you are filing for shared custody,” he said, “which means you are entitled to child support.”
Linda translated the judge’s words to me. I responded that I understood my rights. Still, I wanted to waive child support. It was the only way to get Qigu off my back. I wanted to get the divorce over with as soon as possible. Qigu would find a way to avoid paying child support regardless of whether or not he was required to by law.
The judgment arrived. I was given physical custody of Lauryann. I was immensely relieved to gain control of Lauryann’s life. She needed structure and order. In the past few weeks I had received repeated calls from Lauryann’s nursery school teacher. She notified me that my daughter had been late every day that Qigu had her. Instead of arriving at 8:30, Qigu brough
t her in at lunchtime. As a result, Lauryann missed morning lessons.
Qigu thought that the teacher was overreacting. I simply saw it as Qigu robbing Lauryann of learning time.
“Why are you so serious?” Qigu protested. “It’s only nursery school.”
“It is about foundation building,” I said. “Good habits help build sound character. Lauryann needs discipline.”
Qigu didn’t go to sleep until after midnight. Lauryann stayed up with him. She was turning into an owl by the power of her father’s example. She was active and spirited at night and couldn’t get out of bed when the sun rose. Her teacher reported that during the day she was sleepy. “Lauryann has trouble concentrating,” she said. All the discipline work I did with Lauryann was reversed the moment she went back to Qigu.
It became clear to me that as long as Qigu remained a presence in Lauryann’s life, I would be wasting my time trying to teach Lauryann anything. Lauryann was already a pleasure seeker, and she was not shy about letting me know that she preferred her father. Lauryann fought with me when I attempted to give her a simple lesson. Instead of learning to count from one to ten, Lauryann sucked her thumb and ignored me. Qigu cheered at her behavior. He found it amusing and entertaining.
I had started to dream of moving with Lauryann to California. The challenge was that the law was not in my favor. The law required that, unless I had written permission from Qigu, we must remain within fifty miles of each other. The law served to protect the child’s right to be close to both parents.
I knew Qigu would never give me his permission to take Lauryann and move to California. I feared that my custody rights would be revoked if I dared to defy the law. Nonetheless, I was desperate to free Lauryann of her father’s influence and began to move forward.
I didn’t realize that in America my action would be described as “kidnapping.”