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THE KITE DIPS and whirls. Ta-ming holds the controls, but the pull of the wind against the kite is so strong that Z.G. stands behind the boy, steadying his shoulders. This isn’t just one kite at the end of a string. Z.G. and Ta-ming have put up a whole school of goldfish, each one with unique tails and fins. Next, it might be a flock of butterflies with wings that flutter or maybe a flock of cranes against the brisk fall sky, soaring and diving on the breeze.
It’s the beginning of November and it’s been seven months since my mother and Z.G. rescued us. We are ghosts brought back from the dead, and today is a vision of what life can be. We have a need to forget, if only for a few hours. When I leave China—if we’re able to get out—what I’ll remember most are Sundays, the one day of the week when we’re free to do more or less as we please. We’ve come to the Lunghua Pagoda. I’ve been told that Z.G., my mother, and my aunt used to fly kites here years ago. Back then, the pagoda stood in empty land taken over by young Chinese soldiers, waiting for battle. Later, the Japanese had a detention camp here for British citizens. Now it’s a park. Elm, ginkgo, and camphor trees—green and lush—breathe life. Peddlers sell little toys—paper lions for good luck and dragons mounted on sticks that dance and writhe. A musician plays an erhu, singers warble folk songs, and jugglers, contortionists, and magicians awe with their mysterious ways. Old men shuffle along with their hands behind their backs. Old women sit on stone benches with their legs spread wide, their hands on their knees. If you have enough money, and we do, you can buy a little treat—a toffee, a chocolate bar, or an ice sucker. The Great Leap Forward continues elsewhere. Vast numbers of people are dying, but here we are happy … and healthy.
I glance at my mother, who stands by my side. She shields her eyes as she stares up at Z.G.’s kites. Then she looks at me and smiles.
“True suffering has taken away my taste for brooding about the past,” she says. “Look at what I have here on earth. My daughter, my granddaughter, Z.G., Dun, and Ta-ming are all right here with me. We’re a family. More than that, maybe we’re the family …” She stops to laugh. “Maybe we’re the families we were supposed to be all along.”
She raises her arms as though embracing the world. What she calls out tells me just how American she’s become—and remained here in China—with her open expression not only of her feelings and physical demonstrativeness but also her desire for happiness, as though it’s her right. “This is joy, and I want to hang on to it for as long as possible!”
I do too.
Nursing Tao, Ta-ming, Samantha, and me back to life must have been agonizingly slow and terrifying for my mom. Ta-ming was the first to regain energy, although he still doesn’t say much and his bones are crooked and weak from undernourishment. Maybe that will be permanent, but I hope not. The baby responded quickly to bottles of formula and fresh soy milk, although none of us know what the consequences of malnutrition will be for her down the line. If she has problems, well, then … My uncle Vern had problems too, and we all loved him. I presented the most worrisome case. I ate little and said little. I wouldn’t release the baby to anyone but my mother. How could I with Tao nearby? Z.G. and my mom thought they were doing the right thing by bringing Tao back to Shanghai, and for a while I was too weak to tell them otherwise. Even so, several times I asked my mother to take me to her family home.
“But there’s so much more room here,” she always answered. “When you’re well enough to climb the stairs, you, Tao, and the baby can go to your room. You’ll have servants here. It will be more comfortable for you.”
We had variations of this conversation several times, but she never caught my hints and I wouldn’t say anything in front of Tao out of fear of what he might do. It wasn’t until Tao got up from his couch in Z.G.’s living room and volunteered to wash the rice for dinner—what my mother, Z.G., and Dun considered a huge turning point in his recuperation—that I had my chance. As my husband wandered off, I motioned for my mother to come to me. Just then, Tao called for help. Dun, Z.G., and my mother followed Tao’s voice and found him in the downstairs bathroom.
“I’m having trouble washing rice in the rice washer,” he said.
I’ll say he was. He was washing rice in the toilet! I could hear them all laughing like crazy. When my mom returned to the salon, leaving the men to clean up the toilet, I told her about Swap Child, Make Food. Mom had the baby, Ta-ming, and me out of Z.G.’s house and in her childhood room within an hour.
“Let Z.G. deal with Tao!” she fumed.
“But tomorrow, I’ll—”
It was all I could do to keep her from reporting him to the police. That’s when I told her what I really wanted.
“Forget about him,” I said. “Let’s go home.”
That night, in the room my mother once shared with my aunt, we began to plot. Obviously, the first thing to do was contact Auntie May.
“I’ve waited a long time to write this letter,” Mom said as she put pen to paper. “Joy and the baby have returned to Shanghai,” she read to me as she wrote. “How wonderful it would be if we could have a family reunification visit at our old home in Hong Kong.” She looked up and explained. “She’ll know I’m talking about the hotel we stayed in twenty-three years ago.”
I had to trust my mother’s judgment on this, because it didn’t seem all that clear to me, but then my mother and aunt have always communicated in a way I’ve never fully understood.
“From our Hong Kong home, please send an official invitation for family reunification,” Mom continued. “Ask for a twenty-four-hour visit. As soon as I receive it, I’ll take it to the police station and Foreign Affairs Bureau to request travel permits. And one more thing …”
My mother put down her pen, put her hands together, and laid them in her lap in such a prim and decorous way I was tempted to laugh.
“I’m going to ask my sister to include Dun in her invitation. He’s asked me to marry him, and I’ve accepted.”
“Mom!” I was totally surprised.
“I don’t want to leave here without him.”
I could have been upset—why wasn’t she more loyal to my father?—but her face radiated happiness in a way I’d never seen before, which in turn gave me the purest feeling of joy. So one of the first things that would need to be done as part of our escape plan would be for my mother and Dun, whom I’d met only a few times, to start filing the papers for permission to get married—a process far more difficult in the city than in the countryside.
“What about Z.G.?” I asked. “Won’t he want to come too?”
Here’s how much my mom loves Dun: she didn’t even flinch at the idea that May and Z.G. might be reunited.
“Let’s ask him,” she responded. “But I don’t think he’ll want to come, do you?”
I didn’t think so either, not when he’s so famous here. In America, he’d have to start at the bottom. Maybe my mom would give him a job as a dishwasher in the café. I didn’t see that at all. And even though he clearly still loves May, a Rabbit is not born to fight for what he wants. He’ll choose what’s easy, comfortable, and familiar every time. Which is exactly what Z.G. did.
“It’s better if I help you with your plan,” he said.
In fact, he’d be playing a pivotal role, but we didn’t know that at the time, and my mom, who was writing the letter, said, “Let’s not bring it up to May just yet. I don’t want her to be disappointed.”
