A Hundred Flowers (20 page)

Wei reached over for the bottle of liquor in Tian’s hands, swallowed a mouthful, and handed it back to him. But instead of taking a drink, Tian simply cradled the bottle in his hands.

“It was closer to three months by the time Ai-li was ready to come to Guangzhou,” he continued. “On the Friday she was to arrive, I left work early and hurried to the train station to wait. I still remember the feeling of anticipation that raced through my body. When the train arrived, I searched for her in each window and then waited and watched as each passenger stepped off, thinking surely she would be next. But she never was.”

“What happened?” Wei asked, although he already knew Ai-li had never boarded a train.

“My first thought was that she must have missed the train. I contacted her work but no one had seen her. She had few really close friends except for those in the Party. Her family lived far away in the countryside, near Fuzhou, and I had only met a cousin of hers in all the time we were together. Ai-li often said she didn’t really belong anywhere. But she belonged with me. I waited for the next train to arrive, thinking she might have transferred along the way and was coming in on another train. It was dark when the last train arrived, and Ai-li wasn’t on it.”

Tian shook his head as if he still couldn’t believe it. He dropped the cigarette butt to the floor and stamped it out with his sandal.

“What did you do?” Wei asked.

“By then I was frantic. I returned to my room, half out of my mind with worry, believing that something must have happened to her. I remember it being so hot that night; the room seemed to suck all the breath from me. I lay on my bed sweating, just waiting to catch the first train that left the following morning for Luoyang. The last time I saw her, everything between us had seemed fine again. She had dropped the Party façade and was the same sweet, gentle young woman she always was. During our last week together, she was happy and filled with plans to make the move to Guangzhou. I’ve replayed every moment of our time together and there’s only one detail that keeps on returning even after all these years. When Ai-li left me at the train station, she didn’t look back as she always did. She walked straight down the steps, turned the corner, and was gone.”

Tian stopped talking. He looked past Wei and out the window as if he were still searching for her.

Wei sat back and rubbed his shoulder, feeling the dull throb of his scraped elbow. Hadn’t he felt the same fierce desperation? The raw, frenzied emptiness of having his son simply vanish. Ai-li had most likely chosen to disappear; Sheng wasn’t given a choice. Why hadn’t they heard from him in such a long time? Wei wondered if Luoyang was a city of ghosts. He glanced across the aisle to see that Tian had closed his eyes. Was he dreaming of seeing Ai-li again? It was her memory that he still loved. Wei, of all people, knew what a strong hold that could have. He leaned back and pulled his
mein po
tighter around him. The world was a harsh place for brokenhearted men.

Kai Ying

Kai Ying quietly made her way downstairs. She heard movement down in the kitchen and thought for a moment that Wei might have returned, but instead, when she turned on an oil lamp, she saw Suyin rifling through the cabinets.

“If you need something, all you have to do is ask,” Kai Ying said, her voice even and firm.

The girl turned, startled, the light catching the surprise and fear in her eyes. “I didn’t mean…” she began.

“I need you to promise me that it stops here and now,” Kai Ying said.

“I was afraid…”

“Promise me,” she repeated.

Suyin looked as if she wanted to cry. “I promise,” she said softly.

Without another word, Kai Ying turned around and went back upstairs.

*   *   *

Kai Ying tossed and turned in bed, unable to sleep. She was upset, disappointed rather than angry at Suyin. She liked the girl, but if Suyin was going to stay in the house any longer, Kai Ying needed to be able to trust her from this night forward. Kai Ying hoped she’d made the right decision in giving her another chance, but she couldn’t imagine what would become of a fifteen-year-old girl and her baby, alone, and out on the streets again.

Song

Even Song’s garden couldn’t provide solace. The day was just beginning, the dirt still damp and cold as she dug up old roots and turned over the soil with thoughts of her spring planting already in mind, but even visions of long beans and
gai lan
couldn’t ease her mind or alleviate her restlessness. She hadn’t felt this nervous churning in her stomach for a long time, not since the days of Old Hing, when she never knew if he was going to flare up and find fault where there wasn’t any. Song always felt as if she were standing on thin ice, ready to take the plunge into the icy depths at any moment, the frigid water filling her body, coursing through her veins, and stealing the last of her breath. She had to do something to take back her life before it was too late.

Song had never told anyone, not even Liang. It would remain her burden. She did return to see Herbalist Chu during those difficult days after she met Kai Ying, only it wasn’t about a way to end her own life. “A rat problem, I suppose,” Herbalist Chu had said. He looked at her knowingly, and then asked her if she was sure of what she was doing. “Yes,” Song said, without a moment’s hesitation. She had never been so sure of anything in her life.

It all happened much quicker than she had expected, a bit of
chuan wu
in Old Hing’s food, and by the second day he was bedridden with difficulties breathing, struggling for air as his heartbeat slowed, and by the third day—stopping altogether. Only once, after he had lost his voice, did she see him watching her, his gasping breaths filling the room. She could see him wondering if she’d had the courage to end his life, his dark, angry pupils revealing all, coming to the conclusion that she was too weak, too stupid to have poisoned him. She could read his thoughts.
“Yes, yes it was me,”
she said, leaning close to his ear and making sure that he had heard her.

He died that evening.

Old Hing was nearing eighty-five years old and most of their neighbors chose to believe he’d died of natural causes. A lucky man, they told her, to have gone so quickly, although she knew some wondered how such a vile man could be taken so simply in his sleep and without suffering. Song had waited, ready to take whatever punishment came her way, but weeks and then months went by before she quietly assumed her new role as a widow.

*   *   *

Song had compartmentalized all those feelings of dread and despair that had shadowed so much of her life. Now another kind of fear enveloped her, only this time it was for Wei. Song prayed to Kuan Yin that he would find his way safely to Luoyang. Why hadn’t she called out his name when she’d seen him leaving the other morning? She might have been able to stop him, or at least talk some sense into him. There was no use lamenting now.
He’s a smart man,
she thought,
he’ll find his way,
but even she wasn’t completely convinced. Song looked up at the overcast sky and couldn’t help but think she’d let Liang down.

Wei

The train lumbered on through the night. Sometime during the long pause, both he and Tian leaned back on the hard seats and slept for a few hours. Wei closed his eyes and had dreamed of Liang. In the dream, she was angry at him but he didn’t know why. He woke feeling uncomfortable, knowing that they were on the verge of an argument. Their arguments never lasted long—angry words, disappointed sighs, followed by a silence that usually ended a few hours later. Thinking back, most of their disagreements originated with something he had refused to do. Only once in their long marriage did her anger remain palpable for days.

It was just before the Communist Party came into power, and he had purposely lied to Liang when she asked him to go to a political rally with her. He had told her that a new shipment of antiquities had come to the university and he needed to receive and catalogue them. In truth, he didn’t want her to go; she of all people knew he had no interest in political matters. As long as his research continued, he was a happy man. He also feared the Party had eyes everywhere and he and Liang would later be considered agitators. He’d hoped Liang wouldn’t go without him and she hadn’t. She’d been quiet the next morning at breakfast. When he asked her if everything was all right, she had replied in a controlled voice, “I just wanted you to give me one evening of your precious time for something I believed in. I’ve given you a lifetime.”

Tian’s story had brought it all back. Why hadn’t he told her that he was afraid for them? As with everything else in his life, it was too late.

*   *   *

Outside the window the sky had begun to lighten to a deep gray and he heard the soft murmurs of the two women in front. Wei stood up and stretched his stiff back. He was hungry. Most of all, he had to relieve himself, but he was uncertain where the toilet was in the still dark car. Wei walked slowly, unsteadily to the back of the car looking for the toilet. Unable to find one, he stepped outside to the narrow walkway between the attached cars, then braced himself against the iron bars, relieving himself quickly onto the tracks below. Afterward, Wei stood watching the shadows of the sleeping countryside emerge, breathing in the frigid air until he was fully awake and numb from the cold.

Back inside the car, the air felt warm and stale. Wei had lost track of time. He’d been riding the train for almost a full day, but it felt as if he’d left Guangzhou a week ago. He checked his satchel to make sure the rest of his money was still there. He wondered if Kai Ying and Tao were still so angry at him. Could time and distance offer some forgiveness? Now that he was farther away from them and closer to Sheng, there were other matters to begin thinking about. Wei stretched again before he sat down. Then he turned toward the window and waited for the day to come.

*   *   *

When the train pulled into Linxiang, Tian was sitting up and staring ahead. What must he be thinking? Wei thought. What kind of peace did this long trip back to Luoyang give him after eight years?

But when he turned toward Wei, Tian clearly had something else on his mind. “What shall we eat? I’m starving.”

Even so early in the morning, the vendors were set up and waiting for the train to arrive. They bought
jook,
fried donuts, and green onion pancakes, and washed it all down with cups of hot tea until it was announced their train was about to leave. Only then did they reluctantly board again.

Tao

Tao sat in his classroom staring at the blackboard while his grandfather was on a train going to a place called Luoyang. He’d been gone for two days now. Tao worried that his
ye ye
was not paying enough attention, that he was closing his eyes and drifting off into his own world. What if something happened to him during one of those times? He once told Tao that when he closed his eyes, his grandmother came to him. “Does she talk to you?” he asked. “All the time,” his grandfather said.
Don’t close your eyes, don’t close your eyes,
Tao repeated silently to himself. His
ye ye
was an old man who was a long way from home, and he needed to keep his eyes open at all times.

*   *   *

Tao had a hard time returning to the everyday rhythm of school. It was what his mother wanted more than anything, so he didn’t tell her that everything had changed. He was easily distracted now and hardly listened to Teacher Eng’s droning voice. It was as if there were a barrier between him and the rest of his classmates. Tao no longer cared what Lai Hing said about him, which made Lai Hing eventually look for someone else to bully. He also tried to ignore his persistent limp, and his classmates’ taunts of “Old Man Lee, Old Man Lee,” whenever he trailed behind them during physical education, or when his leg cramped up from sitting too long at his desk. He learned to block their voices out, move at his own speed. Still, Tao exercised every day hoping to keep up, to be rid of his limp by the time his father and grandfather came home. As he walked to school and back, he could feel his leg growing stronger, and it was only at the end of the day when he was tired that he felt the dull ache in his bone return, his leg dragging just a bit behind.

Without much effort, Tao had caught up with his classwork and moved quickly back up to the third seat, sitting right behind Little Shan and inadvertently gaining the upper hand. Little Shan was so uncomfortable, he was constantly turning around to see what Tao was doing and getting into trouble with Teacher Eng. Watching Little Shan squirm was the one thing he did enjoy at school now, tugging at the back of his shirt or sticking notes on his back that said
Excuse my farting
or
I’m behind in everything.
It was the perfect seat for him to stay in for as long as possible. Tao was good at tormenting Little Shan, a talent he hadn’t realized he had. These were all things he couldn’t divulge to his mother, who would only tell him to behave himself, so he stored up all his stories about Little Shan for when his
ba ba
and
ye ye
returned.

Suyin

Suyin put the baby down in the bassinet for her afternoon nap. She watched her squirm, turning from one side to the other before settling down to sleep. Each day with her daughter made it more difficult to give her up. It frightened Suyin to think what might have happened to them if it weren’t for Kai Ying. Her recovery was all due to her strong teas and soups after the baby’s birth, while she had so foolishly returned her kindness by stealing from them. Their life in the Dongshan villa with Kai Ying and her family had grown even more tenuous now, and there was no one to blame but herself.

Suyin’s small stash of food hidden under the bed felt like a thorn in her side. Since the night Kai Ying had caught her stealing, they’d been uncomfortable with each other, speaking, but not speaking. She would have expected it with the old professor, but not with Kai Ying, never with Kai Ying.