Dreams of Joy (51 page)

“You are a good comrade to help the child,” Comrade Yikai praises my mother, as she does every time we come here. “And besides, every woman should have a son.” But one issue still vexes her. “China is the best country in the whole world. Why would you want to leave, even if it’s just for a visit?”

“You’re so right, Comrade Yikai,” my mother agrees. “Chairman Mao is our mother and father, but don’t you think it’s important for blood relatives to see each other too? I want my sister—long lost to the capitalist West—to observe our good family.” She motions to Dun, Ta-ming, the baby, and me. “Once she does, surely she’ll want to return to the motherland.”

Comrade Yikai nods her head solemnly. She stamps five passports and slips them to us under the window.

“Everyone on your block will be proud if you bring back your sister,” she says. “Have a good trip.”

As planned, we return to the house to get Cook, because Superintendent Wu has asked that someone vouch for us. Together we walk to the police station, where we bypass the line of people hoping to get travel and exit permits. We go straight in for our appointment with Superintendent Wu, who’s been questioning my mother since she first arrived in Shanghai. He treats Director Cook deferentially, offering him a chair and tea. Then he gets right to business.

“We’ve been considering this travel request for several months. We have just a few more questions, which I’m sure you can answer.” He nods to Cook, who nods back, understanding the seriousness of the situation. “Would you say that Comrade Pearl has joined with the workers, soldiers, and peasants to help build a better society?”

“She has cleaned her own nightstool and washed her own clothes,” Cook answers, his voice quavering with age.

It was a gamble bringing Cook here. No one knew exactly what he would say, but this is perfect. I could kiss the old man, but that would be unseemly.

Superintendent Wu turns to my mother. “For a long time, I was suspicious of you. You answered my questions the same way every time we
met. How can that be? I asked myself. You responded to the call to return to the motherland, but you had nothing to offer since you weren’t a scientist or an engineer. I told the higher-ups that we shouldn’t feed, house, or tolerate American imperialists like you, but you’ve proved me wrong. Now my superiors ask me if they think you’ll use this opportunity to return to America.”

“I’d never go back there,” my mother says.

“This is exactly what I told my superiors.” Superintendent Wu grins. “I told them you’re too smart for that. The Americans would never accept you. They’d take you out and shoot you.”

We’ve heard all kinds of things like this these past months. It’s the same sort of propaganda my mother and I were told before we came to China.

“A one-day trip to Hong Kong?” The policeman sneers and then adds staunchly, “In a few more years, Hong Kong will be part of China again. We just need to know that you’ll be welcomed there. We have no wish to place burdens on our little cousin.”

As we have for the last six months, my mother hands him Auntie May’s letter of invitation. Then she shows him her new marriage certificate and the passports.

“What about this marriage?” Superintendent Wu asks, even though he’s known it’s been coming for a while.

“This is to be expected,” Cook volunteers. “They are two people of the same age, living under the same roof. They have known each other for more than twenty years. The girl’s mother was quite fond of the professor. I’d say it’s about time.”

Superintendent Wu stares at the marriage certificate with a bemused look. “A bachelor marrying a widow.” He chuckles and then addresses Cook. “The widow will show him what’s what, no?”

Cook bristles. Worried that he’ll start to say things to protect Little Miss’s reputation, I quickly put Samantha on his lap to distract him.

With no one to join in the traditional wedding banter, Superintendent Wu shakes his head in disappointment. “Everything is in order,” he says. He slides five exit permits across the desk, ruffles Ta-ming’s hair, and makes a few unprompted bawdy comments about the nuptial couple and what Dun might expect tonight. As we leave his office, he calls out to my mother, “See you at our usual time next month!”

The hardest and most dangerous part of our trip is behind us. Standing
on the front steps, we’re ecstatic but careful not to show it. Still, the people waiting in line regard us enviously. At least we got in the door.

When we reach home, my mother stops in the garden, as she always does. If all goes well, this will be the last time she’ll ever pinch dead blooms, trim scraggly twigs, or rearrange the pots in her family’s garden.

The cobbler comes through the gate. “Are you picking flowers for us to eat or for one of your vases?” he asks.

“I want to get the last flowers before the first frost,” Mom answers lightly. “I think these might look nice in the salon, don’t you?”

The cobbler doesn’t respond, but I know my mother’s thoughts on this. She’s talked about visiting her friend’s house and seeing the dead flowers in a vase on a table. They made her believe that Madame Hu was coming back. Mom hopes her actions now will make everyone think we’ll be gone just a few days. As with Z.G., we don’t want anyone to get in trouble after we’re gone. When the police come to question the boarders, they’ll be able to answer truthfully that they didn’t suspect a thing. They’ll point to my mother’s flowers as proof.

I make dinner. Everyone sits around the table in the dining room. We listen to the day’s gossip. One of the former dancing girls got a promotion at the textile factory. This has infuriated her roommate. The two bicker as only two women who have shared the same small room for twenty-three years can. Yes, everything is exactly as it should be. Even when Cook announces the marriage between Little Miss and the professor, no one seems particularly surprised.

“There are no secrets in this house,” the cobbler says, as he raises his cup of hot water for a toast.

My mother looks from face to face. She takes in the faded wallpaper and the art deco sconces she bought at a pawnshop. Her fingers glide along the surface of the dining table, memorizing it. I can see she’s fighting back tears. I have a momentary fear she’ll give away everything, but then she blinks, clears her throat, and picks up her chopsticks.

I LEAVE MY
family home almost as I arrived. The boarders crowd around me in the hall, offering words of advice. They part when Cook enters. The knowledge that I’ll never see him again burns in my chest, but I say, “Take care of things until next Tuesday.” Then I address everyone. “Don’t forget the cleanliness campaign. I don’t want to come back and find—” “We know, we know,” the others sing in chorus. Then I pick up the bag I brought into China and walk out the door and down the steps into the garden. Joy carries the baby. Dun holds Ta-ming’s hand. I open the front gate for the others to pass. I don’t look back. Then together we go to the corner and board the first of a series of buses that will take us to the airport.

As a paper collector, I spent a lot of time on the Bund, watching ships go up and down the river, trying to figure out if there was a way to leave Shanghai on the Whangpoo. Even now, I would have guessed we’d take a boat or train to Canton, but Z.G.’s superiors at the Artists’ Association insisted that he, Tao, Joy, the baby, and her amah fly to Canton. Plane tickets are expensive, they told Z.G., but we’d be gone for a shorter time and they wouldn’t have to provide us with as many rice coupons. I used my money to buy additional seats for Dun and Ta-ming.

We wait six hours in the terminal. Some of us exchange worried glances. Z.G. and Tao are to give their demonstration at the fair’s opening festivities first thing tomorrow morning. What if the plane doesn’t take off today? If we can’t be in Canton by tomorrow morning, then there’ll be no reason for Z.G. and Tao—and therefore the rest of us—to
go to Canton. We wait and wait. Babies wail, children fuss. People huddle together in layers of padded clothes—taking extra clothes in a way that won’t look suspicious, except it does. The acrid smell of damp humans, dirty diapers, cigarette smoke, and pickled turnips is sticky at the back of my throat. The linoleum floor is a mess of spit, nicotine-flecked phlegm, bags, baskets, and satchels. Soldiers patrol the aisles, stopping occasionally to check papers and photo identifications. The wait, the anxiety, the worry every time the armed soldiers pass is nerve-racking. Even so, pallid faces and hollow looks have been replaced by glimmers of hope. Maybe things will be better in the south.

Finally the aircraft is ready for departure, but flying on a Chinese propeller plane is not at all like my transpacific Pan Am flight. Samantha screams the entire way. Ta-ming holds his father’s violin case in his lap, handing it to me just before he leans over and throws up in the aisle. Tao and Z.G. smoke nonstop, as do most people on the plane. It’s a long and bumpy ride. I stare out the window, watching China’s mainland pass below.

When we step off the plane in Canton, the first thing I notice is how much warmer it is than Shanghai. It feels like Los Angeles, and I love that. Then I hear Cantonese. I look at Joy. This is the sound of Chinatown. We’re still in China, but we’re getting closer to home. We both grin and then just as quickly compose our faces, remembering we must seem as though there’s no particular reason for us to be happy.

We take double-seat pedicabs to the hotel. Refugees are everywhere on the streets, with their bundles, children, and treasured goods. Everyone wants to get out. But the hotel is just as I remember it. I remember as well the things I did with Z.G. here. When he catches my eye, I know he’s recalling those things too. Embarrassed, I look away and edge closer to Dun. We’re given three rooms: one for Z.G., one for Tao and Joy (poor thing), and one for the children, Dun, and me, since I’m here as the amah.

Tao barely reacts to the lobby. He’s come a long way from washing rice in the toilet. However, I can see, for the first time, a trace of nervousness in him. Everyone speaks Cantonese. He’s become relatively proficient in the Shanghai dialect, but Cantonese is nothing like Mandarin, the Wu dialect of Shanghai, or his home dialect from Green Dragon Village. We all have to remind ourselves that Tao cannot suspect
a thing, but I just can’t express how exciting it is to be only one hundred miles from Hong Kong.

IN THE MORNING
, Joy comes to our room, and together with Dun we go over our plan one last time. We wear clothes appropriate for the opening festivities. Joy—wife of the model peasant artist—in the simple cotton blouse and pants she wore when I pushed her in a wheelbarrow out of Green Dragon Village; Dun in an ill-fitting Western-style dark suit, which we hope will give the impression that he is a Hong Kong Chinese visiting the fair; the children in matching black outfits to show they’re from the countryside; and I wear what I wore out of China, back into China, and, we hope, back out of China later today—the peasant clothes May bought for me many years ago. “I’ll carry the baby,” Joy recites.

“I’m responsible for Ta-ming, and I have our money in my pants,” I say.

“I have our papers right here.” Dun pats his jacket. Then, “We all have to be present when the painting exhibition opens at nine.”

We agreed we had to do this, but it will be hard when we’re so anxious to flee. However, it would look strange to Tao if we didn’t show up and stranger still to the fair organizers, who invited Tao, his wife, and their baby girl to this special event.

“Once Z.G. and Tao’s demonstration begins, we’ll sneak out of the hall and go to the train station,” Joy picks up. We’re talking about something terribly dangerous, but she sounds calm and determined. My Tiger daughter is leaping yet again.

“And then it’s just two hours to Hong Kong,” I say, gathering courage from Joy.

We head downstairs to the dining room, where we join Z.G. and Tao. Z.G. wears one of his most elegant Mao suits, befitting his status. Tao also wears a Mao suit, but of inferior fabric and cut. Unlike Joy, who still must appear a peasant wife, Tao is showing the world that he is Z.G.’s protégé. He walks proudly erect with a big smile on his face.

The fair is international, and so is the buffet: hard-boiled eggs, yogurt, and savory flatbreads for attendees from India and Pakistan; stewed tomatoes, bangers, limp bacon, and toast with butter and jam for the English; and porridge, pickles, and piles of dumplings for the Chinese.
It’s crucial for the government to project that nothing is wrong in the country; the Great Leap Forward is great! Ta-ming loads his plate with more food than he could ever eat, but then so do we all.

Just before nine we walk to the fair entrance, where we’re greeted by the organizer, an officious man with a shiny, round face. He escorts us into the great hall. On the stage at the front of the room are several easels draped with red silk.

“As soon as the doors open, we’ll make the introductions, and then your paintings will be revealed,” the organizer explains in Mandarin, a cigarette dangling from his lips. He pauses and frowns, concerned. “Members of the Canton branch of the Artists’ Association will give you proclamations, and then you’ll do your demonstration. But please make all of this fast. People have come here to buy our products, and they’ll want to go on to the exhibition floor quickly.”