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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, nodd
ing. 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.
