Dreams of Joy (43 page)

“Are your relatives workers, peasants, or soldiers?”

“I guess peasants, but I really don’t know.”

“Let’s turn to your daughter. Is she still on the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune?”

“Yes, she is. As you know, I finally heard from her. I have a granddaughter now. She’s ten weeks old. I’d still like to visit—”

“Tell me about your family in America.”

“I have a sister. I hope one day for family reunification.”

And on it goes. The exact same questions.

After two hours, I’m allowed to leave. The February air is bitingly cold. I pull my hat down and my muffler up. When I get home, I hear arguing coming from the kitchen. I glance in the salon and see Dun reading a book. He wears a coffee-colored sweater and loose brown pants. He’s lost weight; we all have. He sees me and smiles.

“I have something for you,” he says.

I glance around to make sure no one is looking, and then I slip into
the salon. He reaches down on the other side of his chair and pulls up a bouquet of pink flowers.

I kneel by his chair and kiss his cheek. “Thank you, but where did you get them?”

It’s now against the law to sell anything privately. Unauthorized peddlers are sent to jail. All the selling songs and trills I used to hear on the street have disappeared.

“There are ways to buy things,” he says, “if you know where to look.”

“I don’t want you to get in trouble.”

“Don’t worry,” Dun says. “Just enjoy them.”

But I do worry.

“Are we visiting Madame Hu tonight?” Dun asks. “I bought flowers for her too. They’re the first of the season.”

“She’ll like that,” I say.

How is it that his doing something nice for an old woman can make me feel such openhearted affection for Dun? His thoughtfulness and kindness to my mother’s closest friend have been more meaningful than all the gentle caresses he’s given me. I blush and look down. Dun puts a finger under my chin and lifts my face. He looks into my eyes. Somehow he understands what I’m feeling and thinking. He moves his hand to my cheek, and I rest it there for a moment, soaking in his tenderness.

On my way to the kitchen to get a vase for the flowers, I stop to straighten a painting—something I bought from a woman in the old French Concession last week. Lots of people are selling treasures, family heirlooms, and porcelain these days in back alleys and from their kitchen doors. Other people’s hunger has been a way for me to slowly bring my home back to what it was. Again, no one is supposed to be selling—or buying—privately, but we all do it to one extent or another.

Entering the kitchen is like stepping into a typhoon. The arguing never stops. Dinner tonight is rice, wilted cabbage, and two six-inch-long fish steamed with a little soy sauce. Our food must be divided among six people who’ve lived together for over twenty years but are not family and me. The biggest fights have to do with our main staple—rice—its scarcity something unheard of in a country that won the hearts of the people on the promise of an iron rice bowl, meaning reliable and promised food for life. Our other starch comes from flours made from sweet potatoes, sorghum, and corn. Meat and eggs are impossible to find.
We’ve been told that Premier Chou En-lai’s wife, to show solidarity with the people during what the government is calling “these years of bad weather,” now serves tea made from fallen leaves to her guests. Other leaders plan to plant vegetable gardens as soon as the weather warms. Even the Great Helmsman says he’ll turn his flower beds into a vegetable plot—or so it’s been reported. This news and our constant hunger make us jittery and on edge. What’s coming next?

“You aren’t putting your fair share of rice into the cooking pot,” one of the former dancing girls complains to the cobbler. Two weeks ago, she caught him sneaking rice in the middle of the night and she hasn’t been able to shake her mistrust of him.

The cobbler shrugs off the accusation. “You don’t count out portions fairly.”

Cook, who is the reddest among us and has the ability to report any one of us to the block committee, doesn’t like the bickering. “Stop fighting. I’m too old to listen to all this noise,” he orders, trying to muster the command he had when I was a little girl. “I’ve told you before to use this scale to make sure everyone gets an equal amount of food.” It’s a good idea, except that Cook’s eyes are bad, which only causes more squabbling.

Otherwise, life goes on. I continue to collect paper, Dun teaches at the university, the dancing girls go to their factory, the cobbler labors at his stand, the widow collects her stipend and knits for her grandchildren, and Cook sleeps for most of the day. Every morning and every evening—out of habit and wishful thinking—I still walk along the Bund, plotting a way out of China. I’ve come to the conclusion that escape down the Whangpoo and out to sea would be impossible. Over a thousand vessels come and go from Shanghai every day, and the waters are filled with inspection cruisers. Inspection Cruiser Number Five won a “model” prize last year for most stowaways caught trying to leave the mainland. According to the local newspaper, the crew has vowed to top those numbers this year. The river and the sea are just too risky.

But people
are
leaving, just not by choice. The city isn’t as crowded as when I first arrived. The police have done a good job keeping country bumpkins outside city limits. Those who managed to enter two years ago, when new factories were opening, have been sent home, relinquishing that work to the locals. Troublemakers have been sent to labor camps. At the same time, the People’s Government, which has been anxious
to expand trade with Hong Kong, has granted some exit permits for family reunification for those who have relatives there. People lucky enough to receive those permits are allowed the equivalent of five dollars to take on their trip, ensuring they have only enough money to visit their families and then come home. If Joy were with me, I’d be going to the police station every day to ask Superintendent Wu for permits. May would be waiting for us in Hong Kong with the money to take us all the way to Los Angeles. What’s that American saying? Hope springs eternal?

At five, Cook calls everyone in for dinner. To show camaraderie with the masses in communes—but what is really a way to make sure no one gets more food than he or she deserves—we eat together in the dining room. We’ve all lost weight. We all look pale. We simply don’t have enough to eat.

Ten minutes later, after dinner is over, the others go to their rooms, too weak to do much else. I go upstairs to change into clothes more appropriate for visiting Auntie Hu. I meet Dun downstairs; we put on our jackets, boots, hats, and gloves, and then step out into the freezing air. We take the bus across town to the Hu residence. Usually lights brighten the front windows, but tonight all we can see is a single light flickering from a back room. Dun holds up his bouquet. I ring the bell and wait. I peer through a window, but I don’t see anyone. I ring the bell again and knock a few times. Finally, I see someone coming down the hall through the shadows. It’s not Auntie Hu. I would recognize her lily gait. It’s not one of her servants either.

A tall, surly man opens the door. “What do you want?”

“I’m looking for Madame Hu,” I say.

“No one here by that name. Go away.”

I glance at Dun. Could we have the wrong house? Then I peer down the hall. I see Auntie Hu’s favorite etched glass vase with flowers past their prime in it, her furniture, and the pictures on the walls. No, this is the right place. I look back at Dun and watch as cold steeliness comes over his features.

“Madame Hu lives here,” Dun says in a hard voice. He pushes past the man and into the house. I follow. Dun and I call out for her. People emerge from darkened rooms, some carrying oil lamps, some carrying candles. Nails—squatters—have somehow gotten in the house. I catch a glimpse of one of Auntie Hu’s servants peeking out from around the edge of a doorjamb.

“You! Come here!” I haven’t used that tone since I had servants of my own. The girl steps from her hiding place. She has enough shame to keep her eyes lowered. “Where is she?” It’s less a question than an order.

The girl sucks her lips between her teeth as though that will somehow keep me from getting an answer. She doesn’t know how many people I’ve lost. I raise my hand, ready to hit her.

“Where is she?”

“She left five days ago,” the girl whimpers. “She has not come back.”

“Did she get an exit permit?” Dun inquires. “Is she visiting her sister?”

The girl shakes her head. “Madame Hu didn’t tell me anything. But the next day, the gas and electricity were turned off.”

The surly man who opened the door jabs a finger in my shoulder. “You have no rights here. Get out!”

Dun takes a step, but I put a hand on his arm.

“Let’s go. There’s nothing here for us.”

We go back into the frigid night. We walk almost to the end of the block before I let Dun take me in his arms. I bury my face in his padded jacket, fighting tears.

“Auntie Hu wouldn’t have left without telling me,” I say.

“She would have if she didn’t plan on coming back or if she didn’t have an exit permit. She wouldn’t have wanted you to get in trouble.”

“But she left flowers—”

“A decoy, don’t you think, to protect you and her servants? You can tell the police you didn’t suspect anything.”

This can’t be. “Do you really think she’s tried to escape? She’s an old woman.”

“She’s just sixty, maybe a little older, maybe a little younger.”

“But if she’s caught, she’ll go to prison for a long time. She’ll never survive that.”

“She has a brave heart, just as you have a brave heart, Pearl. We must pray that she is safe and that she gets out.”

A brave heart? It feels like a swollen and aching thing in my chest.

“Let’s get some tea,” Dun says. “You’ll feel better.”

He takes me to a government-run teahouse. We sit as close as we can to the charcoal brazier, but even here cold air whistles through cracks and swirls around our feet. We sip our tea in silence. I stare into my cup, but I’m aware of Dun watching me. I’m surprised by the depth of my
sadness. My mother and father are both dead. My sister is far away. My daughter and granddaughter are physically near but could just as easily be a million miles away, since they can’t come to Shanghai and I can’t go to the commune. Auntie Hu was one of only a few links to my past, and now she’s gone.

“Pearl.” I look up and see concern in Dun’s eyes. His expression makes me want to cry. “We don’t know what will happen in life. This is why it’s important for us to move forward, to live, to buy flowers, to—”

“What are you saying?”

“Look at Auntie Hu. She lost everyone, but she acted. Wherever she is, she’s trying to find a better life.” He pauses to let me think about that. Then, after a few moments, he slips off his stool to one knee. The teahouse’s proprietor hurries to our table in concern, but Dun waves him away. “We are not so young, you and I, and things will not always be easy, but would you do me the honor of marrying me?”

The tears that have been threatening finally come, but the drops that fall contain not sadness and loss but great joy.

“Absolutely,” I say.

Dun pays for our tea, and then we’re once again on the street. We’re too happy to go straight back to the house, where we’ll have no privacy. Our best way to be alone is right here, strolling among hundreds of people along Huaihai Road. But we don’t go far before a limousine pulls to a stop just ahead of us. The door opens, and Z.G. gets out.

“I saw you walking,” he says. “I had to say hello.”

Dun puts a hand on the small of my back—a gesture of reassurance or possession? Z.G. gives us an amused smile.

“I’m on my way to a dinner,” he goes on. “They’ll be showing a movie too. Would you like to come? You’re just the kind of people they want, probably more so than me.”

“We’ve already eaten,” I say, even though it was a small meal.

“And we’re on our way home,” Dun adds.

“I won’t hear of it.” Z.G. steps between us, loops his arms through ours—just as he used to do with May and me years ago when we walked together down the street—and leads us to the limousine. “Come, come. Get in the car.”

Z.G. has always had the ability to sweep people along with him, and soon we’re speeding through the streets, the driver honking at pedestrians and people on bicycles.

“Where are we going? What’s the occasion?” I ask.

“There’s a delegation here from Hong Kong,” Z.G. replies. “We’re to show them that China is doing well, that no one is starving, and that they should do more business with us.”

“A delegation from Hong Kong?” Dun asks, perplexed. “That’s a British colony.”

“I know,” Z.G. responds, world-weary. “It’s to be one of those events that’s so vexing in the New China. On the one hand, England is considered an ultraimperialist country, since it was the first foreign power to invade China and it still occupies Hong Kong. On the other hand, England is one of the few countries that recognizes the People’s Republic of China … even though it still aligns itself with the United States—the most ultraimperialist of all countries—in the United Nations to keep China from membership. We must do what we can to win over the few capitalists we’ve got. Ah, here we are.”

The car pulls into the grounds of the Garden Hotel, what used to be the French Club. The brightly lit façade and the walled garden bring back memories of parties I attended here with my sister. It feels strange to walk up the steps and enter the lobby with its crystal chandeliers, sweeping staircase, and marble walls and floors. The art deco grandeur looks dilapidated and musty, but young men and women dressed in old hotel uniforms take our coats, usher us through the lobby, and guide us upstairs to one of the banquet rooms. Inside, the people are divided into three groups: those in the usual gray suits of Communist China’s elite, those in colorful Hong Kong–made
cheongsams
, and some—like Dun and me—who wear Western-style clothes of twenty years ago.

Dun and I accept glasses of French champagne. As Z.G. scans the room, looking to see who’s important, Dun and I tip our glasses in a silent toast. He smiles. I smile. It seems we have a way to celebrate our engagement after all.