Calls Across the Pacific (10 page)

The woman looked at Nina with interest. “Really? That's a relief. There've been too many political movements in China since 1949.”

“It's easy to manipulate those who grow up under the red flag. I was a Red Guard, but they threw me out because my father was labelled an American spy and a traitor to the revolution.”

“Why was that?”

“He graduated from West Point Academy. Once he worked for Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalist Army before joining the People's Liberation Army.”

“So he betrayed Chiang Kai-shek's government but not the communist revolution. The people who persecuted him suffered from a problem in logic,” the knowledgeable librarian said as they went into the library. She patted Nina's arm. “It was so nice talking to you. I'll see you around.” She walked into an office.

On her way to the reading room, Nina paused at a catalogue cabinet, pulled a drawer out, and searched the cards for books on the Chinese Land Reform Movement. Her mind returned to the elementary school where she had learned that poor peasants were contented to denounce landowners who had exploited them for centuries. But now she had heard a story from the other side — the tale of a landowner's daughter. On a scrap of paper, Nina copied down a couple of call numbers for books she had found. A glance at her watch reminded her that she had to finish the groundwork for her course on American Political Thought before she could explore the politics of China.

She placed the list into her folder, then turned and headed to the bookshelves with a stack of periodicals and government documents in her hands.

10.
BAMBOO STICKS

L
ATER THAT FALL,
Nina attended a presentation in one of the university's multi-purpose halls. Ajax, a fellow student, stood on the podium. He was talking about his personal experiences in the Vietnam War.

“I've never spoken of this until now,” Ajax said, starting his story. “I need to get it off my chest. I want people to know what we Vietnam veterans are going through. The Americans may be withdrawing, but the war is still raging and the memories are fresh and painful.”

Nina followed his story attentively and pictured a battlefield in the mountain bamboo groves of Vietnam. On a June afternoon, during the late stage of a Tet Offensive in 1969, a group of American soldiers had stooped under the bushes to search for a path to move ahead. Their alert eyes and sticky faces shone in the sun; their heads were hidden under twig wreaths; their uniforms were soaked in sweat mixed with dirt.

“We groped around,” Ajax said. “Suddenly, gunshots were fired from behind a hut about twenty metres away. A fellow next to me collapsed, and blood trickled over his face. All of us immediately dropped to the ground, and some of us shot back. I remembered what I'd learned during training, so I felt the pulse of my fellow soldier. He was dead. ‘Son of a bitch,' came out of my trembling mouth. I grabbed a grenade and hurled it into the hut. I was fighting for my own life and my fellow soldiers' lives. In the explosion, smoke and fire erupted. You can bet that the sniper's gunfire was silenced, but then I heard a child scream from inside the shelter. One soldier dashed to the burning spot. A minute later, he leapt out of the flames, carrying a little boy under his arms. It was my buddy, Lenard! Before he could place the kid on the ground, he sank into a patch of ankle-high grass. I jumped up and ran over to Lenard to help. I took the child and laid him under a tree, but my buddy was stuck in a punji trap: a couple of sharp bamboo sticks pierced his body. He was soaked in blood, his eyes half open — I have never forgotten that stare. It was a close stare, right in front of my eyes, and yet it looked a thousand yards far away. Pain twisted his face. He mouthed the words, ‘Shoot me!'

“I was shaking all over, but I pulled the trigger. I heard the blast of the gunshot, but I dared not open my eyes. I felt as if my own body had been blown apart, as if my own flesh and bone had just been splattered all over the ground. I threw my rifle away in disgust. I fell to the ground and vomited. My empty stomach expelled only water and mucus. The finger that had pulled the trigger went numb. Lenard vanished in my fuzzy vision, and I passed out.”

“
Let's sharpen bamboo sticks. We are preparing them for the American enemy
.” Nina remembered these lines from a song she had learned in a music class as a ninth grader in 1965. That year, the Vietnam War had become more intense, and more American combat troops had been dispatched to Vietnam. Since China had sided with Hồ Chí Minh's North Vietnam, all Chinese schoolchildren had been taught songs and poems to support North Vietnam. Nina's class had also performed a show that admired the North Vietnamese soldiers and humiliated the U.S. Army. Nina had acted as a member of a group of Vietnamese women and children making sharp bamboo sticks for punji traps.

Nina trembled from her memory of singing and performing as a Vietnamese fighter. The image of the bloody figure stuck with sharp bamboo sticks made her feel as if she were the killer of Ajax's friend, Lenard. She shook her head incredulously as she thought about the naiveté of her adolescent years. She looked up at the podium and thought Ajax must be about twenty-four years old, her age. She shivered to think that in 1969, only four years ago, Ajax had been thrust into the cruelty of the Vietnam War.
That was the same year Dahai left for Vietnam, if he ever made it there.
The thought startled her. Her fingers pushed through her loose shoulder-length hair, and her hands pressed on her forehead. The student next to her asked with concern, “Are you all right?”

“I'm okay. Thanks.” Nina's tension loosened, but a pang of guilt surged through her when she imagined Lenard's bloodied body ripped open by the punji stake.

Ajax's voice brought Nina back to the present. “Before the war, I longed to be a patriot. After surviving the war, I changed. I often ask this question to myself: Should America have entered the Vietnam War?” He paused, eyeing the attentive audience. “And my answer is yes. As in
WWI
, we used the war to try and stop the war. We wanted to stop the Viet Cong from killing more innocent people. I think we made a difference.”

“I disagree!” a student shouted from the audience, her hand up in the air. “If America hadn't gone to the war, thousands of young men like your friend, Lenard, would still be alive. Their families would not have suffered.”

More listeners participated in the heated discussion that followed. The war in Vietnam was still raging and the debate questioned whether the Americans had actually done any good. Nina listened intently and finally understood what freedom of opinion and expression meant.

After the presentation, she walked over to Ajax and thanked him for his story. “It reveals so much of what we don't know about the Vietnam War.”

Ajax looked at her and asked without hesitation, “Are you from Vietnam?”

“No, I'm from China,” Nina answered. “I learned about the war as a schoolgirl. I was told the Americans invaded Vietnam.”

“Do you still think so?” Ajax asked.

“No. I've heard different stories from the other side now. In addition, I truly dislike communists from any countries. I think America's participation in the Vietnam War has helped raise awareness of the imperative to put an end to dictatorship and communism.”

“Interesting,” Ajax said, grinning, the tension in his face dissolving. Then he added, “My friends who died or were injured in Vietnam would be more than happy to hear that.”

Another student then approached Ajax, so Nina bid him farewell, feeling much better after having talked to him, even briefly.

Nina took a course of East Asian Politics, and when it was her turn to make a presentation, she talked about her father's death during the Cultural Revolution and her attitude toward communist rule in China. In addition, she talked about her understanding of American policies in the Far East. Many listeners asked questions such as:“Why did your father choose to study at the West Point?”, “What is the functional difference between the Nationalist Army and the People's Liberation Army?”, “Do you think Nixon's visit to Beijing introduced capitalism to Communist China?” Nina responded as best she could, even though she felt she did not have clear answers to some of those questions.

The enthusiasm and thoughtfulness of Nina's fellow students touched her very much. But what truly made her day was the positive feedback from her professor.

On New Year's Day, 1974, Nina boarded an Amtrak train from Portland for a visit to the United States Military Academy to dig up her father's past. She wanted to understand what had led to the accusations that labelled him as an American spy. Several hours later, she arrived at Penn Station in New York City. The Academy was located at West Point, some fifty miles away from the city.

The next day, at the archives of the Academy, she presented a letter from her professor and her student
I.D
. to ask for permission to do her research. An archivist rummaged through the stacks of records from more than two decades ago and placed a copy of
1948
USMA
Howitzer Yearbook
on the counter. “You can check the photos of the graduates from that year,” he suggested.

She thumbed through the pages of portraits, her fingertips slowly tracing the names under each photograph. Her heart pounded as she scanned each graduate's face, wondering when she would come upon her father. Finally, she shook her head in disappointment. “His photo isn't here.”

“Don't give up so soon,” said the archivist as he cleaned his lenses. “He may not have sent his photo to school. I'll check other resources for you.” He entered a large storeroom. Several minutes later, he returned with a few copies of other journals:
Official Register of the Officers and Cadets in 1946
, and
Pointer View
, Vol. 1, 1946. The archivist pointed at the desks in the hall. “You can take these over there and look them over. If you need any help, please ask me.”

She made herself comfortable at a large table, turned open the official register, and examined the listed names of students carefully. When her gaze fell on the name, “Huang,” her throat tightened. She narrowed her eyes at the first name.
It's Marvin Tian!
My father!
Nina drew in a deep breath, tracing his name with the tips of her fingers.

She had never heard her parents talk about her father's background until a hot September afternoon in 1966. The Red Guards, made up of high-school students, had broken into her home and denounced her father as a traitor to the revolution and an America spy. Before taking her father away, one of them had cut the red band off Nina's left arm. “You no longer deserve to be a Red Guard,” he had hissed.

The Red Guards had wreaked havoc through the entire house. Looking for evidence of anti-revolutionary activities, they had opened and trashed the contents of closets, and suitcases and drawers had been turned over and emptied, chairs tossed and broken. Clothing, torn books and magazines, shattered dishes, and broken knick-knacks were scattered all over the floor.

Nina had asked her mother, “Why didn't you tell me about Father's connection with America?”

Her mother had held Nina's shivering shoulders and said, “Because you were too young. We didn't want to confuse you. We assumed working with the People's Liberation Army would have proved his loyalty to the Communist Party. Your father is innocent. Believe me. He's never passed any information to any American even though he graduated from the West Point Academy.”

“West Point? It sounds like a spy institution.”

“It's a military academy. He majored in engineering.” Nina's mother had wiped her tears with a handkerchief.

“But why did he only stay for two years instead of four?”

“He was a student in the Huangpu Military Academy in Guangzhou. When he was a sophomore, he won a scholarship. Thanks to an arrangement between the two academies, he began his studies as a junior.” Her mother had gathered and piled a stack of magazines that had been strewn about, and then perched on the only chair that had not been broken. “Do you remember Dr. Xu, the director of my hospital?”

“Sure. She used to tell us kids fairy tales,” Nina had said. “What about her?”

“She grew up in America and worked as a medical doctor in Los Angeles. The news of the establishment of New China excited her, so she resigned from her high-paying job and gave up a comfortable lifestyle, because she'd longed to help her motherland — China. A while ago, she was under suspicion for being an American spy and eventually was put behind bars. I told your father about her arrest, but he never thought the same thing could happen to him.”

“Dr. Xu came from the U.S.? She looks like a clerk from a local Chinese herbal store. She is always in plain clothing,” Nina had said, her mind working hard to link characters from the few American movies she had watched to images of her father and Dr. Xu, but she had not been able to form any single picture that would indicate they were spies.

Nina's mother continued. “It's true that your father could be considered a traitor to the Nationalist Party but not the Communist Party. The Red Guards need to learn a little bit of modern Chinese history before they label people.”

“But why did he betray the Nationalists?”

“When I knew him, he was already working with the
PLA
. He told me he wanted to help the New China grow stronger.”

“Do you think America is our enemy?” Nina had asked again.

“That is a hard question. If we are to believe what we've been told, I should say yes, but personally, I don't think so. There are good people and bad people in any country. Whether a country is friend or foe is a political issue. Have you heard from your Soviet pen pal recently?”

“No. We've been discouraged from corresponding with Soviet students.”

“You see, yesterday's friend becomes today's stranger and even enemy.” Her mother had paused. “Don't tell anybody what we've talked about. It will definitely cause more trouble for your father and for us.” Then, she retreated to the messy kitchen to throw together a simple meal.

After supper, her mother had taken the framed portrait of Mao off the wall, removed the cardboard on the back, and then retrieved a small manila envelope hidden behind the frame.
What's that? Secret codes? Money?
Nina had thought as she kept her eyes on her mother's fingers.

“It's your father's graduation photo,” her mother had murmured as she passed it to her. Nina had opened the envelope to reveal a wallet-sized photo of a handsome young man in a grey uniform. On his dress cap was the crest of an eagle with its wings outstretched. The black-and-white photograph had yellowed, but her father's eyes were dark and intense as they looked back at her. That night it seemed that she had grown a few years older and was better able to understand her father.