A Hundred Flowers (24 page)

Suyin bought a piece of pork from a woman who had once given her a bag of soup bones, not thinking she didn’t have any means to make soup with them. She had gnawed on the bits of dried, raw meat, sucked out the bone marrow, and had given what was left to a hungry dog afterward. The same woman now pushed the wrapped package of pork at her and took her coins without a second glance.

*   *   *

From the marketplace, Suyin began walking in the direction of Old Guangzhou. It was still early. Ever since she’d seen her brothers, she longed to see her mother again. If Suyin hurried, she might catch a glimpse of her
ma ma
leaving the apartment for work.

It had been more than eight months since Suyin set foot in Old Guangzhou, the only home she’d ever known. The familiar streets she knew so well lay before her: the Qilou buildings with their shaded corridors, lined with the cramped and cluttered shops of her childhood, the pulsating mix of voices and smells and people who all lived together in the small, teeming area.

Suyin paused across the street from her family’s two-story apartment building and stood behind a pillar, hidden away in the shadows of the overhang in front of a vegetable market her mother sometimes shopped at. The foot traffic had picked up, early-morning shoppers and people on their way to work. Suyin inhaled and exhaled slowly, trying to stay calm, knowing that at any minute her
ma ma
would come out the door and she would be no more than fifteen feet away from her. All Suyin had to do was walk across the street, throw her arms around her, and tell her she was a grandmother. The thought filled her with hope when the door to their building opened and her mother appeared, looking thinner and older. She was smiling and talking to someone following her down the stairs. Suyin wondered if it was one of her younger brothers.

Suyin stepped out from behind the pillar and the words
ma ma
rose to the tip of her tongue, just as her mother turned back toward the doorway. In that instant, Suyin saw him. Her stepfather came bounding out to the sidewalk after her mother, and just seeing him again brought back the ugly memories: the look on his face, his sweaty palm over her mouth. Suyin felt sick to her stomach as she watched them walking down the street together. She leaned against the pillar and couldn’t move. A cool breeze had picked up and she felt the cold hand of winter coming. Suyin knew now that she’d never be able to return home. She pulled Kai Ying’s sweater tighter as she walked away from Old Guangzhou.

Kai Ying

Kai Ying found the nights were always the most difficult, lying in bed in despair with the darkness wrapping around her. In the daylight, everything appeared as it always did. Kai Ying worked hard to make it stay that way for Tao, though there was hardly a moment she hadn’t felt anxious since they’d received Wei’s telegram last week saying he’d arrived in Luoyang.

Kai Ying didn’t dare allow herself to hope for news of Sheng. What if it was news she didn’t want to hear? What would she do then?

Sometimes, she could almost feel Sheng’s body pressed against hers, his breath on the back of her neck, the coolness of his skin. She missed his touch, his hand on the curve of her hip. It frightened her to think that she and Sheng might never know that same intimacy again. There were no herbs to make time stand still, to retrieve the time lost. They’d each been through so much in the past year, created their own individual histories that veered away from the life they once shared together. Would they still know each other? Kai Ying knew she was just feeling sad, but the distance and the silence had also brought along dark thoughts. If only she could heal her fear and restlessness as easily as she did indigestion or constipation.

Kai Ying sat up when she heard a faint cry and then nothing. Sometimes Mei Mei slept through the night, or else Suyin, who was becoming a very good mother, was there to pick her up. Kai Ying loved having a baby in the house, another new life to make them think of the future. She couldn’t help but wonder if things might have been different now if her other baby had lived. The child would have been three years old now. Kai Ying had miscarried so early, she never knew if it was a girl or another boy. Would two children have changed their fates? Kept them all too busy to attend political meetings or write letters to the Premier? It wasn’t like her to feel sorry for herself, and still she did. Kai Ying knew how fortunate she was. All she had to do was look at Tao to be reassured that Sheng was always with her.

Tell me he’s alive,
she thought. She lay back down and closed her eyes, willing Wei to hear her.
Tell me he’s coming home soon.

Wei

For two days Wei sat and waited on a hard wooden bench in the drafty hallway of the public security bureau. He felt perpetually cold in Luoyang, his
mein po
buttoned all the way up to his neck. He found if he sat very straight, his back hurt less. The cot he slept on at the boarding house was too soft and after his first, exhausted night of sleep, he hadn’t slept well since.

Most of the time, Tian kept him company, although he frequently went out for walks, often returning with something for Wei to eat. Who could blame him? All Wei had done since he arrived in Luoyang was sit at the bureau and wait. Wei closed his eyes, hoping Liang would come and comfort him, but she didn’t. He opened his eyes and looked around the dreary building, too distracted by the despairing thoughts and the constant noise in the busy hallway to concentrate. Why was everything taking so long? If Sheng was right there in Luoyang, wouldn’t they have found him by now?

*   *   *

Clerk Hu had told him that he would first have to locate Sheng, and then have someone authorize Wei to visit his son. He also reminded Wei that there were others already waiting ahead of him for authorization. But rather than remain antagonistic, Wei decided to change his tactics and thanked the clerk politely. “Yes, of course, I understand,” he said, almost cordial.

“I see you’re learning,” Tian had said, leaning in close and teasing him.

It surprised Wei how easy it was to talk to Tian, who had been a stranger to him less than a week ago.

Wei cleared his throat and said, “Have you heard the saying,
‘The wise adapt themselves to circumstances, as water molds itself to the pitcher’
? It seems I’ve been the pitcher most of my life. I’ve forgotten how to be fluid. It feels as if I’m finally learning now,” he said.

Tian smiled. “You remind me of my own father,” he said, “although I’m afraid he never did learn.”

*   *   *

By the morning of the fourth day, when Tian had gone out to get them something to eat, Clerk Hu stood up from his cluttered desk in his small cubicle and approached Wei sitting in the hallway.

“Permission has been granted for you to see your son,” he said, thrusting a thin yellow piece of paper toward him.

It took Wei a moment to realize what Clerk Hu was saying.

“You found him?” Wei asked.

“Of course,” Clerk Hu said. “I told you it would take a bit of time.”

He could see his son. It meant Sheng was alive in Luoyang. Alive. “Alive,” he whispered, looking up at Clerk Hu.

Until that moment, Wei hadn’t let himself think otherwise. But as the days wore on, he’d begun to lose hope. He even imagined that Sheng had died because of his cowardice. Then what would he tell Kai Ying and Tao? Now that he knew his son was really alive, Wei felt warmth spread through his body, and for the first time in almost a week he didn’t feel cold.

Wei stood up and grasped the piece of paper, struggling to find his voice. “Thank you,” he finally said, although Clerk Hu was already halfway back to his cubicle.

The City of Ghosts

November 1958

Wei

Wei was scheduled to see Sheng the following afternoon at the Ruyang district correctional facility, an hour’s distance from Luoyang by public transportation. Clerk Hu said it was a town near the stone quarry where Sheng worked and on the city bus line. It was the most helpful he’d been all week.

When he and Tian left the public security bureau and walked down the crowded street, Wei felt as if he were a completely different man from the one who had entered the building a few hours earlier. Sheng was
alive.
The thread of hope they’d all clung to for almost a year was now a reality.

“What would you like to do now?” Tian asked.

Wei wanted to tell Kai Ying and Tao the good news, but decided to wait until he’d actually seen Sheng.

“Can we check on the bus schedules for Ruyang?” Wei asked. “I would hate to come this far, only to miss the bus that takes me the final distance.”

Tian smiled. “I don’t believe anything would make you miss that bus tomorrow.”

“Don’t say another word,” Wei said, “we don’t want to tempt the gods.”

“I believe the gods have already spoken.”

Wei laughed. “Then we don’t want them to change their minds.”

*   *   *

The bus to Ruyang left every other hour according to the schedule. From there Wei could walk to the correctional facility. Wei told all of this to Tian, half expecting him to say he would accompany him, but he simply nodded in response and otherwise kept silent. That afternoon as they walked through the Wangcheng Park, visiting the famous peony garden, Wei learned that Tian would be returning to Guangzhou early the next morning. By the time he’d be boarding the bus to Ruyang, Tian would already be on a train heading back to Guangzhou.

“I’m sorry,” Wei said. “I’ve taken up so much of your time here in Luoyang.”

“Not at all.”

“It can’t have been much of a trip for you, babysitting an old man most of the time.”

“I welcomed the company,” Tian said. “Sometimes the best lessons are in the journey, regardless of the outcome.”

Wei watched him light a cigarette. Tian was everything he wasn’t.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” Wei asked.

“I found there’s nothing left here in Luoyang,” Tian said, inhaling on his cigarette. He blew out smoke and smiled. “So, yes, I found what I was looking for. Returning helped me to finally realize that the Ai-li I knew and loved no longer exists.” Tian cleared his throat. “We used to come here all the time to see the peonies, but even they seemed brighter in my memories.”

“I’ve been a master at living in the past,” Wei said. “It’s a very lonely place. Take my advice, if you will: go home and live your life.”

Tian smiled and nodded. “Yes,” he said.

They came to a fork in the path and Tian guided him to the left.

“You’ve been such a big help to me,” Wei said. “I don’t know what I…”

“You would have done exactly the same thing on your own,” Tian said.

“Why is it that I can speak so easily with you, while I have no idea what I’m going to say to my own son when I see him?” Wei asked.

“The fact that you’ve traveled all the way to Luoyang to see him already says a great deal,” Tian said. “The rest will come naturally. So come now, let’s celebrate by having a nice meal.”

The sky had lightened as they emerged from the park, although Wei’s spirits remained somber at the thought of Tian’s departure tomorrow. It felt as if he were letting go of one son for another.

Suyin

Almost every afternoon while Mei Mei slept, Suyin stole back downstairs to the fragrant, steamy kitchen. During the short lull right after lunch, Kai Ying continued to teach her about herbs. Suyin took every opportunity she could to learn. The more she understood, the more fascinated she became by the meticulous process, thankful that Kai Ying put up with her, always beginning the lesson with the same mantra, “Always remember, if you keep the immune system healthy, you can avoid illnesses before they begin. It’s the foundation of all herbal medicine.”

Suyin heard the words in her sleep.

She’d begun to help Kai Ying package the basic herbal ingredients that patients came to buy for their everyday use. Suyin learned that along with the basic ingredients of ginseng, wolfberries, Chinese yam, and astragalus, other herbs, such as licorice root, ginger, and ephedrine were added to soups, depending on what area of the body was lacking in
qi,
the energy that kept all the vital organs working smoothly. The ingredients were all simmered together with a piece of lean pork or white fish for added flavor, if you were lucky enough to have the money, or could find them at the market.

Suyin carefully took down several jars and extracted the herbs, measuring them out onto the white sheets of paper, wrapping them up into two perfect square packets.

“Good,” Kai Ying said. “Mrs. Wong will be coming by to pick these up at any time now.”

Suyin beamed. She hadn’t realized how much she missed being in school and learning. Kai Ying was the first person since then who took the time to teach her, and she wanted more than anything to prove that she was a worthy student.

“Thank you,” she said.

“I should be the one thanking you,” Kai Ying said, “for distracting Tao the night after
Lo Yeh
left when he was asking so many questions. Sometimes I just don’t have all the answers.”

Suyin watched her take down a glass jar from the top shelf and take out a more complicated-looking dried fungus that she thought resembled a shriveled ear.

“I have two younger brothers,” Suyin suddenly blurted out. It was the first piece of family information she’d volunteered since she arrived. “They ask a lot of questions, too.”

Kai Ying stopped what she was doing and looked at her. “No wonder you’re so good with Tao,” she said.

Suyin felt herself blush, the warmth coloring her face. Her two younger brothers were close in age, and she never thought of herself as anything but an older sister who broke up their fights and threatened them when they were bad. They were always the most difficult during the long afternoons after school when she was in charge of watching them. Suyin wondered if her mother ever thought she was good with her brothers. If so, she’d never once told her. Still, everything had been fine until her mother remarried.