Dreams of Joy (53 page)

“We’re looking for troublemakers,” the driver says. “Have you seen them?”

“There are many people on the road,” I answer. “How can I tell which ones are troublemakers?”

“The man was well dressed, like a three-pen cadre.”

“Three-pen cadre? I’ve never heard of one of those. But if you say one man looks like our great Chairman, only thinner, then yes, I saw him and the others. They went that way.” I point to my right—giving a completely
different direction than Joy did—and hope that my shaking hand and my nervous sweat aren’t too noticeable.

It’s early evening when we enter Yin Bo. To me, it looks like any other small village—low houses made from gray brick, openings where glass windows should be, and pigs, ducks, and chickens wandering the alleyways. Maybe three hundred people live here, maybe fewer. A young mother with a baby on her hip comes out of her shack to stare at us. Soon others—a few children, a teenage girl, two farmers with piles of hay strapped to their backs—stop to ogle us.

“Excuse me,” I say. “Can you help us? We need some food and a place to stay. My name is Zhen Long—Pearl Dragon. I was born here. My natal family name is Chin. You are Chins too. I am part of your family. We’re all related.” But these people are too young to remember me. “Is there a grandmother or grandfather I could talk to?”

They stare at me slack-jawed. No one wants to risk doing anything wrong.

“You are Chins. I am a Chin,” I repeat. “My father was born here. I was born here. This is my daughter and my granddaughter. I may have uncles or aunts still living here. They would be my father’s brothers and their wives. I need to see them.” When no one moves, I point to the teenage girl. “Go get the headman. Do it now!”

Then we stand there, waiting, as the girl runs down an alley on her bare feet. A few minutes later, she returns with not one man but several men—all of them older, all of them crowding and pushing each other to get to the front of the pack. This is my father’s home village, so it doesn’t surprise me that the men—again, all of them Chins—resemble him. They have his slightly bowlegged gait, weak jaw, and slope to their shoulders.

As they near, one of the men hurries forward. He’s older, probably the headman. He extends his arms and calls, “Pearl?”

I shake my head, trying to dislodge memories that have no place right now.

“Pearl, Pearl.”

The man stops a couple of feet in front of me. He’s shorter than I am. Tears stream down his face. He’s countryside old—his skin wrinkled and brown from the sun—but there’s no question it’s my father.

“BABA?” I SAY
, stunned. The man before me can’t possibly be my father. I know he can’t. But he is. “I thought you were dead.”

“Pearl.”

When I was a girl, my father never once hugged me, but now he puts his arms around me and holds me tight. Not in ten thousand years could I have imagined this reunion, not now, not ever. I have so many things I want to say and so many questions I want to ask, but I have the others with me and we’re in a desperate flight. Reluctantly, I pull away from him.

“Baba, I want you to meet some people. This is your granddaughter, Joy. The baby is your great-granddaughter. And you must remember Z.G.”

My father looks from face to face. His tears don’t stop. Now others around us weep too. Family reunification isn’t about processing forms and getting permits. It’s about this. Four generations together after too many lost years.

“Where is May?” Baba asks.

His question hurts. May was always his favorite.

“May and I made it to Los Angeles—”

“Haolaiwu,”
he says, nodding. That’s what he planned for us. Then comprehension comes over his features. “But why are you here?”

“It’s a long story and we don’t have much time. What’s important is that May is waiting for us in Hong Kong. We’re trying to get to her. Can you help us?”

“Maybe,” he says. “Come with me.”

We follow him down an alley. The gawkers trail behind us. I should be more worried about that. When the police come, I don’t want these people to tell them everything. But then this is my ancestral home. Would they rat out one of their own?

We enter my father’s house. Several villagers crowd in as well. The longer we’re here, the more show up to listen to and stare at their cousins. I’ve always hated the poverty of the countryside, but I don’t see that now. The house is small, but it has actual windows. The furniture is nice. Jars, cans, and bags of food fill the cupboards. I haven’t been here since I was three, but little memories pop into my mind. I remember the basket that hung from the ceiling. I fell on that step and skinned my knee. I liked to sit on the footstool next to the carved chair where my grandmother rested her feet.

Someone pours tea. Joy mixes a bottle of formula for the baby. My father hands Ta-ming an orange. An orange! What an incredible sight after all these months of privations. My father squats on his haunches and starts talking. He may live in a village now, but he was once a Shanghai businessman.

“They say about a hundred people cross the border illegally every day,” he begins. “But if you talk to a guard or a policeman, he’ll tell you they catch many more than that every day too. Even more die in the process of trying to leave.” He pauses to let that sink in. “How much money do you have?”

For the first time, I suspect my father’s motives. Can he be trusted?

“If you have money,” he continues, “you could take the train and bribe the guards.”

“I tried that,” Joy says. “It didn’t work.”

“I imagine things are different down here,” Baba responds. “Gangs organize escapes by train, but you need to pay—”

“Oh, Ba, don’t tell me you’re involved with a gang again.”

He pretends not to hear my comment. “You could hire a sampan or fishing boat to take you down the Pearl River to Macau or Hong Kong,” he suggests, “but that traffic is also controlled by gangs.”

“The Pearl River,” Joy echoes. “Surely that has to be a good omen.”

My daughter, so anxious to get out, isn’t thinking clearly.

“We’d have the same problems here as we would have had in Shanghai,” I remind her. “Do you know the schedules of the patrol boats?” I ask my father.

He ignores my question to offer another idea. “You could stow away on a ship, but that doesn’t sound practical with so many of you. Some people prefer to float down the river on an inner tube or a piece of driftwood—”

“You seem to know a lot about it,” Z.G. cuts in. He is forever a Rabbit—cautious and reserved.

My father juts his chin diffidently. He used to do that when he didn’t want to discuss something unsavory with my mother.

“But how are you going to float down the river with a baby and a little boy?” my father continues after a pause. “And it’s the dry season and the river is low. And you still might be caught by the patrol boats.”

My shoulders sag. We’ve come so far. What will happen when we’re caught?

“There is another way,” my father says. “Our village is part of a twenty-village commune. Our villages have ties to Hong Kong and Macau that are centuries old. Those ties have not been broken just because the Communists have taken over.” He sounds like the man at the family association in Hong Kong, which gives me renewed hope. “Goods still need to pass over the border. People from our commune cross into Hong Kong’s New Territories every day to sell our products and then buy and bring back other provisions.”

“Your products?” Joy asks, dubious since the Dandelion Number Eight People’s Commune didn’t make anything to sell.

“We process and make ingredients used for Chinese herbal medicine,” my father answers.

“Chinese herbal medicine?” Joy echoes doubtfully.

“Didn’t your mother give you traditional medicine when you were a little girl?” Baba asks. Then he turns to me. “Your mother would have been disappointed to hear you didn’t raise your daughter properly.”

My face heats with resentment and exasperation. This man abandoned us. His gambling led directly to May’s and my arranged marriages, to May, my mother, and me having to flee Shanghai, to my mother’s death and my rape, to May and me having to leave our home country …

“Of course, Mama gave me herbs and tonics,” Joy jumps in, defending me and protecting him from my anger. “I hated them.”

“So how do you think those ingredients got to
Haolaiwu
?” Baba asks.

He’s right. Even after China closed, people in Chinatown bought
ginseng, powdered deer antler, or some other terrible-tasting ingredient to cure a cough, indigestion, or trouble in the marriage bed.

“We grow and prepare ingredients for traditional medicines,” he goes on. “We sell our goods at the wholesale market in Hong Kong. We also sell pigs, chickens, ducks … Our commune has several trucks, and we cross the border at the Lo Wu Bridge almost daily. Peking wants and needs foreign exchange with Hong Kong. We’re some of the people who provide that.”

“What are you saying? That we can just drive to Hong Kong?” Z.G. asks, sounding even more skeptical than Joy.

“More or less,” Baba answers. “The border is about eighty Western miles from here. I think we can get you over the border and into the New Territories. Once there, you ought to be able to take a bus the last twenty miles into Hong Kong proper.”

“Why didn’t you tell us that in the first place?” Joy demands indignantly.

My father gives me a look.
Have you not taught my granddaughter any manners?

But Z.G. agrees with Joy. “That’s right. Why didn’t you tell us? I mean, if it’s so easy, then why haven’t
you
left China?”

Baba stares at me as he answers Z.G.’s last question. “I deserted my family, leaving them to an uncertain fate. I was a no-good man.” (He won’t get an argument from me.) “I’ve stayed here because this is my ancestral home. The fallen leaves return to their roots. I have a house. I stay out of trouble. I do my work—”

“Baba, the police are after us,” I interrupt. “They’ll come here—if not tonight then in the morning.”

“Then we’d better hide you,” he says, “because it’s too late to leave today.”

He packs some food, hands us quilts, and walks us far out into a field. “You’ll stay here tonight. Try to keep the baby up as long as possible. She’ll need to be asleep for the crossing. I’ll get you in the morning.”

“Baba, can’t you stay? Don’t you want to talk?”

“Maybe stories and memories are destined to be incomplete,” he answers. “Besides, it will be safer if you remain here. If the police come, we’ll shout and make noise to alert you. If that happens, go south and hope for the best. In the meantime, our other family members and I have to get things ready.”

With that, he heads back to the village. We spread out the quilts. It’s chilly but not unbearable. Joy paces back and forth with the baby, bouncing her, trying to keep her awake. I put my arms around Ta-ming. “Try to sleep a little,” I say. “Close your eyes.”

I stare at the stars. My father is alive, but can he be trusted?

I WAKE WITH
a terrified start just before dawn. I stay still for a few minutes, waiting for my heart to stop pounding. I’m afraid of what will happen today, and of course I’m in terror for my husband. It takes all my strength to quash those emotions because I need to be strong today.

Z.G. is already up, standing a short distance from the quilts, staring south. I get up and walk over to him.

“Z.G.?”

“This is as far as I can go,” he says quietly.

This is not a moment to get riled up, but I’m outraged. “You aren’t going any farther? Are you kidding me? Dun took your place to keep the blood part of the family together and now you want to go home? Besides, you can’t go back. They’ll blame you for Joy’s painting and for helping us escape.”

“I know, but I’ve been thinking about what your father said last night. Maybe leaving China isn’t the best thing. This is my home.”

When I say, “You and I have never really talked about May,” he turns his back to me. I pull him around to face me. “You cannot stand there and tell me you don’t love her. I know you do.” He doesn’t try to deny it. “May is a few miles from here. Whichever direction you go has an uncertain future, but one of those ways has May.”

“What if she doesn’t want me? I was as bad as your father—”

“Don’t be stupid!” Again, that came out a little louder and harsher than I intended. I address his second point first. “You’re not like my father. You didn’t desert your family. You went to war, believing in a cause. And you didn’t know May was pregnant, right?” When he nods, I say, “And of course she wants you. She’s always wanted you, just as you’ve always wanted her. Finally, when we started all this, I could understand why you didn’t want to come, but I’ll say this again. You
can’t
go back. You
have
to leave.”

With that, I return to wake up the others.

As the sun rises, we see two trucks on a roadway in the distance. When they stop, we crouch low so we can’t be seen. Then I hear my father’s
voice calling, “It’s us. It’s time.” He’s brought with him a man—Hop-li, a cousin. We’re given food to eat. My father hands Joy some liquid to pour into Sam’s bottle to help her sleep.