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“Come, come, auntie, this is not a day for hard feelings. This is still new to Mama. We must give her time.”
“She shouldn’t get too comfortable here, you know. Pretty soon they’ll come through and mark our homes ‘to be demolished.’ Then the bulldozers will arrive and we’ll all move away. I say, Let’s go before they kick us out like old dogs! We’ll go someplace modern. Get a dishwasher.”
“We won’t have to do that, auntie. They won’t demolish our hutong. Our paramount leader lived only a few blocks away. No one will destroy his neighborhood.”
“But Deng’s dead.”
“His home will become a pilgrimage site. The government will want to keep everything just as it was during his lifetime.”
“Um,” the old woman said thoughtfully. Then she clapped her palms on her widespread knees to signal a change in subject. “No matter what happens I must continue my duties as Neighborhood Committee director.”
“Of course,” Hulan agreed.
“And as such I have come to visit you today.” She hesitated, hoping Hulan would confess of her own accord and save her from this accusation, but the young woman only sat there, her hands folded calmly in her lap, her eyes focused on her mother in the garden. Madame Zhang cleared her throat. “I have not seen you bring home female products in many weeks, nor have I seen their remains in your trash.” Hulan did not deny this. “You know our one-child policy,” the older woman continued. “You have not applied for a pregnancy permit. You also know how our government feels about children outside of marriage…”
Without shifting her gaze from her mother and Uncle Zai as they sat under the jujube, their heads together as they recalled some happy memory, Liu Hulan reached out and patted the old woman’s hand. “You worry too much,” Hulan said. “It is almost spring and the harshness of winter is over. It is time for us all to begin new lives in China.”
