Wish You Happy Forever (11 page)

The ringing woke me at 11:00
P.M
. It was ZZ.

“I figured out how they bug the rooms,” I said.

BEFORE HEADING TO
Changzhou, we planned to visit some potential toy and materials suppliers around Shanghai. We hailed a cab and headed toward a paint factory that manufactured “environmental” paint. One of our supporters had kindly equipped me with lead-detection swabs and I intended to swab every surface, toy, or product before allowing it into our new children's centers. ZZ called the factory manager to tell him we were on our way.

“My boss is coming with me,” she told them.

“Is she Chinese or a foreigner?”

“Foreigner.”

“No foreigners can come.”

“She's Chinese, sort of. She does good work to help China.”

“Tell her not to speak any foreign language.”

We arrived at the factory. It was situated in what had to be the most polluted pocket of metropolitan Shanghai. The air was opaque.

The cab pulled up to the gate. It didn't open. The cab driver honked. The guard stood inside his little guardhouse talking on the telephone—I assumed to our friend, the factory manager. The cab continued to honk.

ZZ called the manager again on her cell phone.

“He says you must remain in the cab,” she reported.

I decided that now would not be the right time to pass ZZ my lead-detection swabs.

ON THE WAY
to Changzhou, our next stop, ZZ told me that Xinmei was looking forward to seeing me.

“Really?” I said, feigning indifference. “I'm not sure we should tell her about the adoption. What if they turn us down?”

“We Chinese know we must accept life as it is.”

At two years old?

When we arrived, Deputy Director Small Cloud Zhang greeted us in front of the Changzhou orphanage with Xinmei bundled in her arms. Xinmei looked adorable, all gussied up for the occasion. She didn't have much hair, but what was available had been fashioned into a pert little topknot, secured by pink butterfly clips.

Small Cloud Zhang passed the baby to me, cooing, “Mama! Mama!”

I took her, of course. I couldn't turn away my little daughter-to-be. “Xinmei,” I whispered. “Please forgive me if this doesn't work out.”

Xinmei tolerated me for the ten minutes I got to hold her. Just another
ayi
to her. I tried to pretend she was just another kid. I was almost relieved when we arrived at the children's activity room and an actual
ayi
came to take her away. If she was to be my child, this didn't feel like the right way to get acquainted. The minute she was out of my arms, I felt sick that I'd been so hard-hearted. I watched her toddle alone across the barren room lined with sad little chairs and too-quiet little children. I turned away, trying to imagine a preschool in that dreary space.

 

SMALL CLOUD ZHANG
led us into the orphanage reception room. Madame Miao and Mr. Shi were waiting for us there.

“We have good news!” Madame Miao said.

“We agree to change the pilot institution from Shenzhen of Guangdong Province to Hefei of Anhui Province,” Mr. Shi said. “The needs are more great there.”

“The Association has good relations with the institution,” Madame Miao said. “And the director of the Provincial Civil Affairs Bureau is my relative! Tomorrow we will go there and meet him for dinner.”

“This is wonderful!” I said. “Dear Madame Miao and Mr. Shi, you have saved the day. Wait . . . can you translate that?” I asked ZZ.

“
One sings—all follow.
We are happy to have agreement,” ZZ said.

Not to be outdone by the Civil Affairs director of Anhui Province, the Civil Affairs director of Changzhou's Jiangsu Province invited us to a very special banquet at a
famous
scenic spot.

“We will drive some distance,” ZZ said. “We must finish our work quickly.”

A meal always takes precedence in China. Per instructions, we were ready to climb into the minivan by 11:00
A.M
.

“How far is this place?” I asked ZZ.

“Oh look, Xinmei will join us!” she replied.

Small Cloud Zhang scuttered toward the minibus in her spiky heels, Xinmei bobbing in her arms.

“Oh . . . but—” I murmured. And then that little baby was on my lap and there was nothing to do but hold on. She looked up at me curiously.
You again?

I touched her soft hair and whispered, “Hello, sweet baby.”

 

THE ANSWER TO
my question was that the place was far. It was easily a two-hour drive. We drove through a hilly, denuded landscape. Every now and then, giant billboards would appear, promoting something that looked a lot like Yosemite and nothing like the current view. Then we arrived.

Our destination was a reservoir ringed by neatly clipped and stunted trees and shrubs. The minivan stopped beside a small dock. Some men were waiting there. Cigarettes hanging from their mouths, they were holding aloft bright orange life vests. There was even one for Xinmei.

Obediently, we tugged and tied on our vests. When everyone was suited up, we all climbed into a skiff with an outboard motor. There were eight of us in that little boat. The two smoking guys took us for a spin around the “lake.” Everybody but Xinmei and me was talking on a cell phone. We raced from one shore to the other. Xinmei was petrified.

After multiple circumnavigations and high-speed sprints, the boat pulled up at the opposite shore.

We were escorted to a small building and into a dining room with a smudged plate-glass view of the “lake” and the boat. Thankfully, our minivan was parked in front; we wouldn't have to get in that boat again. The air inside was thick with cigarette smoke. I worried about Xinmei's little lungs but figured she'd probably breathed worse.

The moment she was seated in a baby chair next to me, Xinmei started crying. I tried holding her; I bounced her; I slipped her bits of food. She was inconsolable. Small Cloud Zhang took over and Xinmei was instantly silent. She sat on the deputy director's lap and ate every bite proffered. The Jiangsu Provincial Civil Affairs director was charming, I'm sure. I can't remember. I had descended into kind of a dazed, smoky stupor.

 

AFTER THE MEAL
, I squeezed into the back of the minibus for the long ride home. Xinmei was plopped on my lap. She looked like she was about to cry again. “Shh . . . shh, Xinmei. It's okay,” I whispered.

I smoothed the mussed little hairdo. Snuggled her into my arms. Hummed a little.

Then she pinched me.

It was definitely a pinch. I pulled back, looked at her. She wouldn't look at me. She inched to the very edge of my lap, where she sat for the rest of the trip. Seat belts are not a Chinese thing.

When we finally arrived at the funky-but-with-a-certain-charm Changzhou Binguan (guest house), Small Cloud Zhang sprang her next surprise. She grabbed my arm and presented me with a knotted plastic bag.

“What's this? What did she say?” I asked ZZ.

“She said that Xinmei will spend the night with her new mama! She wants to know if you're happy to do so?”

Well, exhausted is what I was (day three of jet lag is my worst), and my throat was sore from all the cigarette smoke, and Xinmei and I weren't exactly hitting it off. But Small Cloud Zhang was now beaming.

“Oh . . . yes. Sure!”

I PULLED MISMATCHED
flannel pajamas and a disposable diaper from the plastic bag. Xinmei watched me warily from the bed. I tried to make conversation as I peeled off her jumper, T-shirt, and other assorted layers.

“So this must feel really, really strange, huh, Xinmei? Here's this funny-looking person you don't even know, and now you find yourself in a hotel room with her—whatever a hotel room is.”

I took off her soggy diaper.

“Oh God—”

Two years of neglected wet diapers tied tight with rope rags had caused bone-deep scars on her hips.

“Oh . . . poor baby . . . oh, let me—”

I tried to gently clean the still-raw wounds. She rolled away from me.

“No? Okay . . . it's okay . . . it's gonna be okay . . . C'mere, little one.” I pulled her close, quickly slipped on the disposable diaper. “There now . . . that's better, isn't it, Xinmei?”

And she slapped me in the face.

I'm ashamed to say my instinct was to slap her back. Instead, I sat there, staring at this strange little creature, my hand in midair. My daughter? She spat at me. That stopped me cold.

My hand fell against my mouth and the tears came. Mine, not hers. She watched me from across the bed. A safe distance. And from there, I could see her little bare feet. They were scarred as well—burned to the ankles, evenly on both sides, like bobby socks.

When a child is naughty, holding her in scalding water teaches her not to misbehave again, someone told me later.

“Who did this to you?”

I took a deep, shuddery breath. “Okay. All right. Don't worry, Xinmei, we'll work it out.”

I sure hoped that was true. We spent the night on opposite sides of the bed. She cried out in her sleep. I longed to hold her, to try to soothe away the sadness that filled the room. But I didn't dare pull her to me. I reached across and stroked her back as she slept.

China was breaking my heart.

Chapter 6

A Good Beginning Is Half the Journey

Berkeley, California
June 2000

The next month flew by in a frenzy of preparation for Half the Sky's first build and training. My garage was piled high with newly purchased toys and art supplies and princess dresses and tiny high heels and tutus. Along with their birthday money and lemonade stand proceeds, children adopted from China sent us dress-up clothes to fuel the dreams of their little sisters.

I sorted the treasures into boxes lined up in the driveway to send along with our first volunteer building crew. I picked up a cheap plastic diamond tiara and imagined it perched above Xinmei's sad little face.

When I was a child there was a delivery van always parked in a driveway down the street. A boy named Andrew lived in the house belonging to that driveway. He would let us look inside the truck sometimes. Its walls were lined with little toys in cellophane bags. Andrew's father drove the truck to deliver the toys to the wire racks that tantalized small children in grocery stores and five-and-dimes. And sometimes, if we helped him, Andrew's father would let us choose a toy.

One day, when I was seven years old, I was heading home from school with my house key on a chain around my neck. I'd been a latchkey kid for only a few weeks.

Andrew's father was in his driveway, working in the van. He called out to me and said I could choose a toy. I climbed into the van. Before I could select a toy, he told me to close my eyes for a surprise. I did. He put his hand on me and he said, “It makes me sad that I don't have a little girl like you to love.” I kept my eyes closed, listened to a song in my head about camels and bears and ponies prancing on the merry-go-round, and thought about how I should feel sad for Andrew's father.

Do you love me? he said.

Yes, I said.

Did I? Is this what love is?

Then he was angry. He pushed me out the door of the van and told me never to tell. I never did. I didn't know who I could tell. After that day, I went straight to the library from school. I read books there until my parents got home.

What Andrew's father did to me was unforgivable, but far from the worst thing a grown-up has ever done to a child. Perhaps the greater hurt was that I didn't know who I could tell.

Three years later, a girl on my street reported that Andrew's father was gone. She'd told her parents what he did to her, she said, and he'd been sent away. It had taken three years for a child to speak out.

Now I stood in my driveway full of toys and dreams for the future and thought of the children waiting in China. The secrets. Xinmei, her scars. No one to speak for her. Not for any of them.

I knew I couldn't speak loudly in China. The doors would be closed again if I did. But we would find a way to be a quiet voice for those children. There is a Chinese saying, “Whispers on earth are thunder in heaven's ears.”

We would quietly make thunder.

 

To our first-ever Half the Sky volunteer crew—

We can't wait to welcome you to China! It's hard for me to believe, but it's been two long years since the idea of Half the Sky began. And, as you can imagine, it's been an extremely delicate operation to get access to the children in China's orphanages in order to help them. We don't want anything to happen now to shake the trust that has been placed in us.

So here comes a necessary little speech:

I hope that when you are in the orphanage, you will think of yourselves as ambassadors of Half the Sky and of all foreign adoptive families. You are there to work—to give your loving energy to help the children. You are not there as sightseers. Please save your cameras for excursions outside the institution. Orphanage administrators are very protective of the children and their surroundings.
Dying Rooms
–type coverage has made them justifiably worried about the image of the care they give the children and how it is portrayed. They really are doing the best they can. The fact that they are allowing a bunch of foreigners in to revamp and reorganize the children's lives is proof of their concern. So, rule number one—no cameras!