Dreams of Joy (47 page)

“Why doesn’t she show the baby?” I ask. “I’m the grandmother. I want to see her.”

Despite my impatience, Z.G.’s friend hangs each of these prints on the line. The next photograph shows Joy standing before what looks to me like Jesus on the cross, but maybe I’m seeing things. Once again, the photographer shakes his head. Is he worried for my daughter’s safety or his own? Then he places the last photograph in its chemical bath. He swishes the paper with a pair of tongs. The image that comes into focus is one I won’t forget as long as I live. Joy has taken off her jacket and unwrapped the baby. The person taking the photograph has come close so I can see my daughter and granddaughter. If I didn’t know this was Joy, I wouldn’t recognize her. She looks more like a ghost than a human. We stand in silence for a long moment, each of us absorbing what this means. Dun is the first to speak.

“We have to get her. We have to get her now.”

“He’s right,” Z.G. says. “We have to go out there. We have to get her.”

“But how?” I ask.

“We could submit applications for travel permits, but …” Dun hesitates, not wanting to state the obvious. Even if we applied for travel permits, there’s no guarantee we’d get them. If we did get them, it would probably be too late.

“We could walk,” I suggest.

“It’s a long way,” Z.G. says. “About four hundred kilometers.”

I won’t let that stop me. “My mother, my sister, and I walked out of Shanghai.” I hear the desperation in my voice. But even if I could walk the 250 miles or so, we’d never get there in time. I stare at the photographs, despair creeping over me. Then it hits me. “She’s also sent a hint for how to get her in an official way.”

The others eye me questioningly.

I gesture to the photographs of the mural hanging around us. “Joy said it is a ‘model project made by a model commune.’ ”

Z.G. pinches his chin, slowly nodding, deep in thought. “We’ll get permission to see it,” he says at last. “We’ll go to the Artists’ Association as soon as it opens. We’ll make them send us.”

That seems unlikely, but I have to trust Z.G. or else I’ll go crazy. He pulls the photographs off the line and hands them to me.

“Go home,” he continues. “Get some clothes and—”

“Food,” I finish for him.

“We have some rice,” Dun says.

“And I’ll get more,” I add. Dun frowns. He knows about the special coupons I get from the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission, but I haven’t told him how much American money I have or that I use it to buy food on the black market. “May has also sent some food. I’ll bring that and what I’ve saved—brown sugar and—”

“You’re a mother,” Z.G. cuts me off. “You know what Joy and the baby will need.” He looks at his watch and frowns. “It’s one now.”

Which means no buses are running. We’ve already hit our first obstacle.

“We’ll go back to your house now,” I say. “We’ll leave at five, when the city buses start running, gather everything, and be back at your house by eight.”

We thank the photographer and retrace our steps to Z.G.’s house. We should sleep, but we can’t. When Dun and I go back to my neighborhood
a few hours later, the early morning rhythms are in full swing. We purchase what foodstuffs we can find. We’ll buy ginger and soy milk when we get closer to Green Dragon.

The boarders are suspicious, as well they should be.

“Why are you taking rice from the bin?” the widow asks. “You aren’t allowed to do that.”

“Are you running away together?” Cook inquires. “That kind of thing will not be tolerated in the New China—”

“You’re going to get us all in trouble,” one of the dancing girls complains.

I can’t and won’t listen to them.

We’re back at Z.G.’s by eight. We leave our bundles in the entry and the three of us walk to the Artists’ Association. When the doors open, Z.G. asks to see the director and we’re shown into his office. This man was pudgy when I first came here looking for Joy and Z.G.; now he’s gaunt and gray. Z.G. lays photographs of the mural—minus the ones showing the owl, the Christ figure, and Joy and the baby—on the desk. I read Joy’s letter praising the commune and in particular her husband’s role in launching this particular Sputnik.

When I’m done, Z.G. says, “You should bring Feng Tao and his wife to Shanghai.”

“Why would I want to do that?” the director asks, skeptical.

“Because the boy is one of Chairman Mao’s favorites,” Z.G. answers. “His work was submitted to the New Year’s poster contest two years ago.”

“The contest
you
won,” the director notes.

“Yes, but Feng Tao was my student, and this is a model project from a model peasant,” Z.G. goes on. “If you bring him to Shanghai, then our branch of the Artists’ Association will get the credit, since what he’s accomplished is an outgrowth of your wisdom.”

“Your punishment, you mean,” the director observes wryly, not giving an inch.

“I’ll spend even more time in the countryside teaching the masses,” Z.G. offers, “if that’s what it takes.”

I have a different idea. I open my bag and hold out American dollars. The director takes them, just as he did when I came here the last time.

“You and the woman will go to the countryside to deliver the good news that the mural will be submitted to Peking under the Shanghai
Artists’ Association’s auspices,” the director announces. “Bring the boy and his family here. I will send word ahead to the commune cadres, so they’ll know you’re coming. But only four travel permits. This one”—he points to Dun—“has no reason to go.”

I want Dun—I
need
him—to come with us, but the director won’t be persuaded otherwise.

IT’S NOT GOING
to be easy to get to Green Dragon. All boat and train travel has been curtailed. Z.G. has a car but he doesn’t know how to drive, and we can’t ask the chauffeur to take us because he doesn’t have a travel permit. After some discussion, Z.G.’s servant girls dress me in one of their uniforms so I’ll look more like a chauffeur and our appearance won’t be questioned. By noon, Z.G.’s Red Flag limousine is packed and we’re ready to go.

“Be careful,” Dun says. “Come back to me.”

“I will,” I tell him. As we embrace, I whisper in his ear, “I love you.”

Then Z.G.’s chauffeur hands me the car keys. I open the backseat door for Z.G. Once he’s inside with the blue curtains drawn, I walk around to the driver’s side, get in, start the ignition, and put my foot on the gas pedal. At the corner, I look in the rearview mirror for one last glimpse of Dun.

On the outskirts of Shanghai, we pass a camp that’s been set up to hold peasants who’ve been captured trying to enter the city illegally. From here, the drive is extremely slow. The roads are terrible—at times almost impassable with mud and ruts—but roadblocks are our biggest problem. We’re stopped every few miles to have our papers checked. We’re going against the tide. The roadblocks are to prevent even more peasants from leaving their villages to come to cities—and how many people we see being turned away and sent home. Even though we’re going in the opposite direction, my hands sweat and my heart races at every checkpoint.

We reach Tun-hsi around midnight. We check into a guesthouse, but how can we sleep? The next morning, we go downstairs for a meal. It’s a crisp spring morning and we sit outside at a table under a tree. The innkeeper won’t accept our city rice coupons, so we can’t have porridge. Instead, we’re served a soup made with water greens and water. Then it’s like one of those scary movies Joy liked to watch on television. People—walking skeletons, zombies—begin to emerge from corners, alleys, and
homes. They stare at us as we eat. The minute we stand, a couple of them bolt from the crowd, grab our bowls, and lick them clean.

A FEW MILES
out of Tun-hsi, a nightmare landscape appears before us. People dressed in rags crawl by the side of the road. Dead bodies lie splayed in the fields and dot the road. The smell should be atrocious, but the corpses have no blood or meat left to decay. They’re like mummies—gray and emaciated. Wild dogs are plentiful, and they feast on the dead. I drive slowly, swerving from one side of the road to the other in an effort to miss the gruesome obstacles. Z.G. sits behind me. We could still be pulled over, and the master would never ride next to the driver. I keep glancing in the rearview mirror. Z.G.’s eyes are wide with shock. We’re both terrified for Joy.

I come around a corner and brake as hard as I can. A couple lie in the center of the road. I can’t drive around them. We sit in the car, the engine idling.

“What should we do?” I ask, my hands gripping the steering wheel.

“Let’s give them something to eat. Maybe we can move them that way.”

I don’t want to get out of the car, but I do. Z.G. and I look in the trunk and pull out some crackers. We walk tentatively toward the couple, both of us holding our crackers at arm’s length. The man reaches forward to grab Z.G.’s cracker and then collapses, dead. The woman takes the cracker from my hand, clutches it to her chest, and curls into a little ball to protect it.

“You should try to eat it,” I say softly. The woman stares at her dead companion, her eyes unseeing, her treasure protected. It’s as though I’ve given her the most precious Christmas gift possible, something that should be saved and cherished—never broken, let alone eaten.

Z.G., showing nerve I didn’t know he had, grabs the dead man’s heels and pulls him to the side of the road. Then I help him move the woman. As soon as we’re done, he gruffly says, “Come on. We need to keep moving.”

Several more times, we have to stop to move the dead or dying from the road. The sun shines resplendently overhead. Always I expect silence when I get out of the car—no singing, no sounds of working in the fields, no braying of animals, no birds trilling—but cicadas, immune to the concerns of humanity, drone steadily. Then, at one of our stops, cutting
right through the cicadas—and piercing into my soul—children and babies yelp, sob, and whimper. Z.G. and I scan the fields, searching for the source of these sounds that seem to come at us from every direction.

Ahead of us something moves—bouncing angrily—not far from the side of the road. It’s a small girl’s head and shoulders. The parents have dug a hole deep enough to prevent escape and abandoned their daughter in it. They must have hoped someone would stop and take her home. I take a few steps forward so I can see down into the hole. The girl’s naked. Her skin hangs like wrinkled tofu skin, and her belly is swollen and purple. Then Z.G. grabs my shoulders.

“Look.” He points to different spots in the field.

Other children and babies have been abandoned in these pits too. They’re everywhere. I think I’m going to be sick.

“This is horrible, but we have to go,” Z.G. says.

“But—” I gesture to the field.

“We can’t help them. We have to get Joy and her baby.”

I’m overcome with despair. If I save even one of these children, then I might be too late for my own flesh and blood. I close my ears and my heart, get back in the car, and continue driving.

Finally, we reach the old drop-off point for Green Dragon Village. Since the director of the Artists’ Association called ahead, I expect to see a welcome party, as we had the last time we came. Instead, the road is ominously empty and quiet, while the footpath we used to take to Green Dragon has been blocked with sawhorses and other junk. A sign with an arrow to the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune points to a new road that cuts through the fields and veers around Green Dragon’s enveloping hills. The commune’s cadres wouldn’t have done this unless they wanted us to see Joy and the baby there—at the site of the mural.

I take the road to the center of the commune. Here’s the Happiness Garden for the aged, the nursery, and the clinic. The canteen’s cornstalk walls, however, have broken apart and the roof has collapsed. And there, just as in the photographs Joy sent, is the leadership hall with its critical but stunningly colorful mural. Next to the hall, small children jump and play on piles of what looks to be freshly cut hay. They clap their hands and cry out, “Welcome! Welcome!” They perform as though their lives depend on it, and maybe they do, because their stomachs are distended from hunger and the look in their eyes is not something anyone should see. A group of adults, clean but grotesquely thin, hold signs with words
of gracious salutation and sing the usual Great Leap Forward songs, but there’s no honest enthusiasm—or energy—from them either.

Brigade Leader Lai steps forward. He looks the same as when I last saw him. He greets us and gestures for us to enter the building. I hurry inside, expecting to see Joy. After all, she wrote the letter. It could only have come with the brigade leader’s knowledge. In fact, now that I think about it, he probably took the photographs of her and the baby. A round table is set for a banquet.

“We have prepared a twenty-course banquet for our honorable guests,” Brigade Leader Lai announces.

The table is set for three.

“Where is my daughter?” I ask.

“She and the artist are at home. There is no need to see them. Enjoy! Enjoy!” He clasps his hands expectantly. “After dinner, Li Zhi-ge can present his award.” He bows his head deferentially. “I hope I’m not presuming too much—”

I run back outside. The men, women, and children, who moments before were jumping, waving, and singing, sit on their haunches, shoving small balls of rice—presumably a reward for their performance—into their mouths, while a guard keeps watch. I can reach Green Dragon on foot in about ten minutes. If I drive back to the original crossroads and then walk, it’s a few miles.

Z.G. takes my arm. “Let’s go.”

We hurry along the path that runs next to the stream. In minutes, we cross the little stone bridge and enter Green Dragon. Bodies lie everywhere. The smell wasn’t so bad on the road, but here the odor of death and decay is noxious. I look up the hill to Tao’s family home. I don’t see any signs of life, but then the whole village is deathly quiet.

Z.G. dashes up the hill. I follow close behind. The door to the house stands open. The outdoor kitchen looks like it hasn’t been used in some time. Three rusty wheelbarrows tilt against the wall. That same broken ladder still lies at a haphazard angle. No one has righted it since the first time I came here.