Dreams of Joy: A Novel (9 page)

I’m exhausted, but I sit down and write two letters: one to Louie Yun in Wah Hong, giving him my address, and the other for him to send to May, saying that I’ve arrived, that I haven’t found Joy, and that I’m in our old home. I also explain how she’ll send mail to me. Then I stand and go to the bed, where I fold back the coverlet, trying to keep the dust within its folds. I stretch out on the cool sheets and glance at the other bed—May’s bed—before turning away. I’ve come here in search of my daughter, but I’ve also run away from my sister. And yet May is here, staring at me benignly from the walls. I look into her eyes and say,
I’m
home.
I’m in
our
room. Can you believe it? We never thought we’d see this place again. And, May, oh, May, it’s just the same
.

I GO BACK
to the Artists’ Association several times. Even after I give the woman in the lobby a bribe, she insists she doesn’t know where Z.G. is. All she can tell me, finally, is that he was struggled against by the membership and that he left town. I’m tempted to ask again about Joy, but I already know she’s with Z.G. and I’m afraid of bringing unwanted attention on her. I slip the woman more money, and she arranges for me to meet the Artists’ Association’s director—a pudgy man with hair graying at his temples. I pay his bribe, and he tells me that Z.G. went to the countryside to “observe and learn from real life”—whatever that means.

“But where in the countryside?”

“I wasn’t given those details,” he responds.

“Do you know when he’ll return?” I ask.

“That’s not for me to decide,” the director answers. “The case is no longer in my hands. It is being handled by people in Peking.”

I leave the Artists’ Association feeling both worried and let down. What did Z.G. do to be in such obvious trouble, and why did he have to drag my daughter into it? I’ve done everything I can think of. Now all I can do is wait, because they’ll return one day. They
have
to return. As everyone keeps telling me, everyone returns to Shanghai. I did.

I clean and wash everything in my room. No one helps me. Why would they? Our former boarders are now assigned to live here, paying the equivalent of $1.20 a month for rent, and they don’t want to be perceived as helping someone from the bourgeois class. And Cook? I’ve met Z.G.’s servants and have seen other servants at the market or doing errands for their masters, but Cook has established a place in my family home as a member of the new elite and honored masses—to be respected, not caring for his former Little Miss. Besides, he’s too old anyway. He can’t beat the dust out of the carpets, polish the floors, clean the windows, or wash and iron my bedding. I do all that myself, and now May’s and my room looks almost as it did the day we left. It’s eerie and comforting at the same time.

Then one evening, a week after I arrived in Shanghai, someone bangs on my bedroom door. It’s a policeman. My insides constrict with fear.

“Are you the returned Overseas Chinese who was born Chin Zhen Long?”

“Yes,” I answer tentatively.

“You must accompany me right now.”

I’m paraded downstairs and through the hall to the front door past the other boarders, who gawk, point, and whisper among themselves. Did one of them report me? Did Cook turn me in?

I’m taken to a house that’s been converted to a police station not far from here. I’m ordered to sit on a wooden bench and wait. Several people pass by on their way to register births, deaths, arrivals, and departures. They stare at me with curiosity and suspicion. Once again, I’m thrust back in time to Angel Island, where May and I had to wait in a fenced area for our interrogations. I’m scared to death. I take a deep breath. I have to appear calm. I remind myself I’ve done nothing wrong.

Finally, I’m shown into an office. A young uniformed officer sits behind a utilitarian desk. The room has no windows. A fan circulates hot air.

“I am Superintendent Third Class Wu Baoyu,” he says. “I’m in charge of your case.”

“My case?”

“You’ve been making a pest of yourself at the Artists’ Association. Why are you asking about Li Zhi-ge?”

I don’t want to say anything about my daughter, because again I don’t know where that will lead or what the implications might be.

“I knew him years ago,” I answer. “I wanted to reestablish our acquaintance.”

“You should be careful about whom you associate with. This Li Zhi-ge has been struggled against. You are newly arrived, and I will let this go one time, but I must warn you that bribes are no longer permitted.”

My insides constrict even more, and my hands start to sweat.

“Now, let us begin,” he goes on. “Where were you born?”

For the next hour, he goes through a list of questions on a clipboard. What relatives do I have still living in my home village, what kind of work do they do, who are my friends in China, and how often do I meet them? Suddenly, an announcement blares from a loudspeaker. Superintendent Wu stands, tells me to wait where I am, and leaves the room. A few minutes later, I hear loud chanting. I peek out the door to where a group of uniformed men and women, holding Mao’s
Little Red Book
, shout slogans together. I close the door and go back to my seat. A half hour later, Superintendent Wu returns. His questions shift from those about my family and my life to my return.

“Why haven’t you reported to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission?”

“I hadn’t heard of it until now, so I didn’t know I needed to report.”

“Now you know and now you will go. It is there that you will learn to have a patriotic spirit. It is there that your remittances from abroad will be processed.”

“I don’t expect to receive remittances,” I say, lying. I don’t want my money going through a government agency. What if they don’t give it all to me like the man in the family association said? “I prefer to work.”

“To work, you need a
danwei
—a work unit,” he says. “To get a job, you need a
hukou
—a residency permit. To get a residency permit, you need to register with the local government. Why haven’t you registered?”

All this frightens me. It’s been only a week, and I’ve been caught and singled out. Now that the authorities know about me, it’s going to be much harder to get around. That is, if they don’t throw me in a cell right now.

“Can you help me with those things?” I ask, trying to mask my fear.

“You will be given a residency permit to stay in your old home, but I must stress this is not
your
home. It belongs to the people now. Understood?”

“I understand.”

“You’re also going to need coupons,” he continues. “The government has taken over the distribution of all essentials. The government buys directly from farmers and manufacturers, so that city dwellers across the nation must use coupons to buy basic necessities—oil, meat, matches, soap, needles, coal, and cloth—from government-run shops. Rice coupons are, not surprisingly, the most important. As soon as you get a job, come back here and I will help you get your coupons.”

“Thank you.”

He holds up a hand. “I’m not done. Rice coupons are local. If you travel, you’ll have to apply for special national coupons. If you don’t have these coupons, you’ll have to eat your meal without rice. As a returned Overseas Chinese you may travel but you may not leave the city without my permission. You have returned to China. You must do what we tell you to do. Understood?” he asks again.

“Yes, I understand.” I feel as though walls are being built up around me.

“You are fortunate,” the policeman goes on with false amiability. “Peasants are treated harshly upon their return to China. They’re sent back to their home villages in their native provinces, where they’re assigned to agricultural work in a collective, even if they brought enough money from America to retire comfortably. But it could be worse. Some unlucky returnees are sent to the far west to reclaim and cultivate wasteland.”

The room is hot and stuffy, but I’m cold with terror. I can’t be sent to a farm somewhere.

“I’m not a peasant,” I say. “I don’t know how to do that work.”

“The others don’t either, but they learn.” He looks at his checklist. “Are you ready to confess your links to the Nationalists on Taiwan?”

“I don’t have any.”

“Why were you so friendly with American imperialists?”

“My father sold me into an arranged marriage,” I say. It’s the truth, but it hardly conveys what really happened.

“Luckily, those feudal days are over. Still, you’ll have to go through many struggle sessions in an effort to cast off your bourgeois individualism. Now, let’s see.” He glances at his list again. “Are you a returning scientist?” He gives me the once-over and decides I’m not. “If you were, I’d have to make you sign a confession admitting that the Chinese moon is larger than the American moon.” He sets his clipboard on the table. “The fact is, you’re in a different category. You’re wealthy.”

He thinks I’m rich, and in the New China I suppose I am with my U.S. dollars.

“Upper-class Overseas Chinese are accorded every consideration,” he continues. “You are privileged to have the Three Guarantees. You may receive and keep remittances sent to you, as long as you have them processed through the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. You may exchange your remittances for special certificates, which will allow you to pay for living expenses, travel, and funerals. You’ll also be allowed to buy goods at special shops, where you can use the certificates you get in exchange for your remittances.”

“What if I don’t want the certificates?” I want to keep control of my money, but I don’t say that.

“You won’t have to deposit your remittances in a bank unless you want to.” Which doesn’t answer my question. “And your secrets will be kept.” All this sounds like more than three guarantees, but I don’t mention that either. “You will come here every month and we will chat. You will also report to the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. If you don’t go, I will know. I will also visit the place where you live and question the comrades who reside there. Do not think you can hide your bourgeois ways from them or from me.”

He thumps his pencil on the desk and gives me a hard stare. “It is one thing to come back to China, but you must follow our rules. I hope you have learned your lesson, and I hope you will behave accordingly.” He stands, crosses to a side table, and returns with some pamphlets, which he presses into my hands. “Take these and read them before our next meeting. They contain the fruits of thought reform. I will be asking you to review your past from a revolutionary standpoint. I will not accept an unconvincing confession. You must be honest. You must plunge yourself into the furnace of socialist construction and patriotic reeducation.”

A few minutes later, I push through the front door. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly. I wasn’t expecting to be hauled off and questioned by the police, and it’s left me feeling terrorized and panicked.

“Are you all right?” someone asks. I look up, and there’s Dun-ao. I’m very relieved to see him, and surprised too that he would go out on a limb for me. “I followed you here. I waited to make sure you would come out.”

He’s voicing my exact fear—that I’d been arrested. If that happened, no one would ever know what became of me. Worse, I’d never find Joy.

“Let’s go home,” he says. “We’ll have some tea. Maybe I can help you.”

When we arrive home, I make tea for the two of us. I tell Dun-ao about Joy’s running away, my following her, Z.G.’s problems, my need to wait until they return, and all the rules the policeman told me I must follow. I do it because I’ve been intimidated and scared and I’m not thinking properly. Dun—as he says he prefers to be called—informs me that I’m actually quite lucky.

“You’ll have to attend thought-reform sessions, as we all do,” he says, “but as long as you aren’t labeled a backward element, you’ll have many benefits. You’ll have your special certificates. You can get an exit permit promptly and without delays or questions.”

“But what about my daughter?” I ask. “I won’t leave without her.”

“It’s better that you’re both here,” he responds. “It’s a well-known fact that the regime treats Overseas Chinese families as hostages to extort remittances from abroad. That’s the whole purpose of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission. They exploit people here, so their relatives will send more money to use to build the country. For this reason, they’re reluctant to allow family members to leave China.”

“But you just told me that Overseas Chinese can easily obtain exit permits.”

“Ah, good point. Applications for exit permits which are considered prejudicial to the regime’s interests are not granted.”

“Well, which one is it?”

“Maybe both,” he says, unsure.

“In any case,” I go on briskly, trying to sound confident, “those requests for remittances are blackmail. Still, if I were in Los Angeles and Joy were here, I would send every dollar I had, hoping to get her out. Now I have to think about how to get the two of us out. I can’t be perceived as being rich, but I can’t be perceived as being poor either. I need to stay in Shanghai so I can wait for Z.G. and my daughter to return from wherever it is they’ve gone. I need coupons to live, and I also need to appear invisible while doing those things.”

But the police know about me, and in days the Overseas Chinese Affairs Commission will be familiar with me too. Quite apart from that, the last thing I want is to act like a widow by being invisible, a coward, or a victim. It’s against a Dragon’s nature to wait, but that’s all I can do. I need to be a wily, quiet, and cautious Dragon.

“You’re going to need a job,” Dun recommends.

“I told Superintendent Wu I wanted one. Maybe I could go to work with the dancing girls. They make pens modeled on the Parker 51.” I reel off the factory’s slogan, which the girls recite whenever they have a chance. “Catch up with Parker!”

“I have a better idea. You should become a paper collector.”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“We have always had a reverence for lettered paper,” he explains, sounding professorial. “In the Song dynasty, Lettered Paper Society members collected paper with writing on it, burned it in special ceremonial fires, and then ritually stored the ashes. Every three years, members escorted the ashes to a river or to the ocean, where the ashes would be plunged to be reborn as new words and images. Do you remember the bamboo baskets that used to be on street corners here in Shanghai, where people could properly dispose of their lettered paper?”