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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.
Pearl
A PLACE OF MEMORY
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.”
Hundreds of attendees are let in. Tao sticks close to the organizer, probably hoping to make connections, while the rest of us wait for the program to begin. Naturally, there’s a little more to it than we were told. A dragon dance with clangi
ng cymbals, banging drums, and colorful costumes sets a celebratory tone. Then the organizer, with Tao still trailing him—not for the first time do I look at my son-in-law and think what a greedy, foolish man—steps up to the podium.
