Dreams of Joy (29 page)

“Don’t say that—”

“And I know I’ve handled this badly, but I hope you know that all I’ve ever wanted is for you to be happy.”

“Oh, Mom.” She gives me another hug.

I should tell Joy what to expect on the wedding night, but all I have time to do is whisper, “Always show the greatest kindness to the ones you like the least. If you show kindness to your mother-in-law, who like all
women has been bred to hate her daughter-in-law, then you will create an obligation she will never be able to repay.”

Joy pulls away and looks at me in surprise. I draw her close again. “Remember what you learned in church too. No matter what you’re feeling or how desperate you become, always take a moral position. If you do that, God will watch over you.”

People file out of the house, coming to get the bride, sweeping her away. I follow right behind, determined to be a proper mother of the bride, no matter what I feel inside or what memories the shack stirs up in me. Jie Jie, Tao’s fourteen-year-old sister, hangs red couplets outside the door to what for this night has been designated the wedding chamber. One side reads:
SONGS FLY THROUGH THE AIR
. The other side reads:
HAPPINESS FILLS THE ROOM
. People step forward with gifts. Some have brought red azaleas picked in the surrounding hills. Others give packets of tea grown on Green Dragon’s slopes, a jar of pickles, a piece of embroidery. Brigade Leader Lai presents a gift from the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune: a hundred feet of cotton cloth for Joy to make wedding quilts.

“When your children are born, you’ll get another fifteen feet,” he proclaims.

Yong offers the bride and groom a Golden Cock alarm clock. Tao and Joy won’t need an alarm clock, not with the loudspeaker and all the small children in this house, but the gift is both generous and mysterious. How did Yong acquire it? Was it preserved from happier days with her husband?

The time arrives for us to enter the bridal chamber. The room has been decorated with red paper cutouts: carp for harmony and connubial bliss, orchids for numerous progeny and the superior man, and peaches for marriage and immortality. In contrast, a couplet has been pasted over the single lattice window, which reads
WITH MEN AND WOMEN EQUAL, WORK GOES WELL. FREE MARRIAGES ARE HAPPY MARRIAGES
. Another large sheet of red paper has been pasted over the platform that serves as the bed for this family. In the old days, the paper would have been painted with the character for
double happiness
. Instead, Z.G. has written in his elegant calligraphy something to match the times:
THE MANDARIN DUCK AND HIS MATE SWIM IN THE REVOLUTIONARY OCEAN. MARRIED COUPLES ARE COMRADES
.

Two red candles flicker, sending shadows dancing on the walls. A couple of young men give speeches, making the usual suggestive comments about Tao’s prowess in the bedroom and the bride’s blushing ways. No one asks me or Z.G. to speak, but Kumei addresses the crowd with her customary cheerfulness.

“Why did we love weddings? We went to weddings to rejoice in the happiness of others and to swell our own joy.”

Then Yong sways forward. “Heaven created the world,” she says, “but it forgot to make happiness. This is especially true for women. When I married, my father hired people to cry. He wanted so many people to cry that the Yangtze would overflow its banks. For seven days, broth was my only sustenance, so I would be weak and obedient. A veil covered my face. When my husband lifted it, I saw a stern face. This was to make me understand that I needed to be compliant. Only since Chairman Mao came have we found happiness. I wish all gladness for Tao and Joy.”

A few more bawdy jokes, unrefined quips, and rowdy laughs erupt from the guests. More cups of rice wine are drunk. Then it’s time. Everyone but Tao and Joy backs out of the room. The door is closed. The young men go outside. They clap their hands, whoop, and bang together whatever they can find to make noise—all in an effort to break their friend’s concentration and prolong the duration of the husband-wife thing. The young women, with Kumei and Jie Jie as their leaders, linger by the door to the wedding chamber to eavesdrop. They begin to giggle. Have they heard something already?

THE NEXT DAY
is the end of Z.G.’s assignment. Today we’ll be going south to another commune. We pack our bags. I wrap a scarf around my camera and the few rolls of film I brought with me. I walk up the hill to where Joy lives. It’s early, and the bamboo mats and bedding for most of the family still cover the floor of the main room. The children stand around in their birthday suits. They seem even grimier with their clothes off.

The door to the other room is still closed. My mind shies away from the thought of Joy in there with Tao and what they did last night. Joy emerges. She has a look on her face I don’t understand. Doubt? Confusion? Disgust? I wonder if Joy’s father-in-law is going to examine the wedding sheets for bloodstains as my father-in-law did so many years
ago. At least that doesn’t happen. Either the tradition is gone in the New China or this family owns no sheets.

Tonight will Joy and Tao sleep in the main room with the other children? In the future, when Joy and Tao want to do the husband-wife thing, will they sneak out of the house and find a spot in a field? I catch Joy’s eyes. The gleaming light that shone from them last night has disappeared. I remember the feeling of disappointment I had after my wedding night—is that what all the fuss is about?—but my circumstances were very different. Joy insisted she was in love. So maybe the husband-wife thing isn’t the problem. Maybe she woke up this morning in a small village in the middle of nowhere in the second room of a shack that’s home to twelve people and finally realized what she’s done.

I want to ask her what’s wrong, but I don’t feel like I can. Instead I say softly to her in English, “One last time, I ask you to come home with me. It’s not too late …”

My daughter—tremulous and uncertain—stares out the open door. A sheen of sweat glistens on her upper lip. She stands very still.

“Walk out of here with me, Joy,” I continue in English—a language that seems so open and free to me in this claustrophobic place. “Please.”

When she shakes her head, I give her my wedding presents—my camera, film, and the scarf. “Take some photographs,” I say. “Send me the film and I’ll get it developed. I’ll send some of those pictures to May. She’ll want to see you here.”

Joy walks me down the hill to the villa. Z.G. and I pick up our bags. Then she escorts us up the hill that leads out of the village. Above us, clouds like fish scales drift across the sky. Cicadas screech. We say our good-byes at the welcome sign. My girl doesn’t cry and neither do I, but looking into her face I see not the gloriously strong bride of last night but someone unsure. Z.G. and I are halfway down the other side of the hill when I glance back. I expect to see my daughter still standing there, but she’s already started her journey to her husband and her new life.

Z.G. continues along the path. He’s loaded down with his suitcase and various other satchels. The art supplies and all the posters that were done in the commune were sent ahead of us in a caravan of wheelbarrows earlier this morning. I want to say that I’m torn between my daughter and going off alone with Z.G. for the next several weeks, but this decision is easy.

“Z.G.,” I call. He stops and looks back at me. I set my bag in the dirt and hurry to him. “I’m staying here.” He unburdens himself of his bags, preparing for an argument. “I can’t leave Joy,” I rush on. “I’ve come this far, and I love her too much.”

He regards me, clear-eyed. What I’ve learned these past five months is that, while he may not be the best father or give the best advice, he feels some connection to Joy.

“I wish I could stay here with you,” he says at last, “but my status is too unstable.”

“You don’t have to explain. Dog today, cat tomorrow,” I recite, quoting his servant from when I first arrived in Shanghai. The success he’s had with his New Year’s poster and his recent Mao portraits helped get him out of the political trouble he was in, but that could change on a whim.

“I’ll return in three months to take you to the trade fair in Canton. I used my
guan-hsi
to get permission to bring both you and Joy with me. Joy probably won’t want to come. In any case, she can’t because she’s married into the countryside. You’ll need to attend the fair with me though.”

Or else he’ll be in trouble again.

“I understand,” I say, “but I may not want to leave.”

“You say that now, but by then you’ll know if Joy is happy. If she can show you that, then you’ll be able to come with me.”

For the first time, I feel something like admiration for Z.G. He’s finally beginning to understand the kind of woman I am. He puts his hands on my upper arms and squeezes them. He stares into my eyes. I hold his gaze.

“Pearl.”

“Yes?”

“You’re a good mother. I can never thank you enough for that.”

He lets go of my arms, picks up his satchels, and heads down the path toward the road, where he’ll catch the bus. I watch for a few moments, then turn, walk back to my suitcase, and continue on to Green Dragon Village.

BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG
.

I roll over and pull the pillow over my head. I had another restless night, getting woken up a couple of times by the sound of someone prowling through the corridor outside the building where I sleep in the villa. I could use a little extra sleep.

Bang, bang, bang, bang
.

It’s no use. The loudspeaker hasn’t even come on yet to tell us to get up, but the Campaign Against the Four Evils—sparrows, rats, insects, and flies (which, for some reason, have their own special category)—isn’t for lazybones. The worst of the evils are sparrows. They’re said to devour seeds and grain, and now they must be eliminated. If the masses make enough noise—beating drums, clapping sticks, clanging pots and any cooking utensils that haven’t already been fed to the blast furnace—then the sparrows will keep flying, never landing, until they fall from the sky, dead from exhaustion. I put on a smiling face and leave my room.

Kumei and her little boy are in the kitchen. Ta-ming holds a small slingshot, and he bounces from foot to foot eagerly. Kumei smiles.

“Do you want to walk with us this morning?”

She always asks the same question, and I always answer the same way.

“Of course!”

We leave the villa, turn left down a cobblestone path, cross a moss-covered footbridge, turn left again, and then follow the shaded creek. After about a half mile, we veer down a new path lined with poplar trees. It’s barely dawn, yet from the hills around us we hear banging. Apart
from the noise, which is as unsettling as it’s supposed to be, these early morning walks along the stream are pleasant. Kumei is a nice young lady, and her son is quite dear. He’s only five years old but earnest. He stoops to pick up a small rock, which he loads into his slingshot and shoots into the trees, hoping to hit a sparrow.

“I missed again, Auntie Pearl!”

“Don’t worry. You’ll get one eventually. You just have to keep trying.”

We pick up food at the canteen and then hurry back to the villa, where Kumei dashes inside to drop off breakfast for Yong and Brigade Leader Lai. She returns a moment later, and we wait for Joy, Tao, his parents, and his eight siblings to make their way down the hill. Together we walk from the village to the main part of the commune to receive the day’s work assignments.

Mothers drop off babies and toddlers at the nursery. Older children grab younger brothers’ and sisters’ hands to go to school. Ta-ming puts his slingshot in his pocket and joins his classmates. Everyone else separates to follow their red-flag leaders, marching with their knees thrown high and singing Great Leap Forward songs as they head off to their workstations: some to the sewing room to make blankets, trousers, and blouses; some to the leadership hall, where letters, telephone calls, and telegrams are processed; and some to the fields. Today the farmers’ assignment is one I hardly believe: crushing glass sent from Shanghai and then working it into the soil as a “nutrient.” It’s ridiculous to me, but the farmers do it because the Great Helmsman can’t be wrong.