The Distant Land of My Father (46 page)

But things with him had a boomerang effect. Three weeks after I sent the package, I heard from him again.

My dear Anna,

I am an ingrate for waiting so long to write. But notwithstanding my sloth in writing, I do appreciate the gifts. You were very generous, and I am feeling quite dapper. The aftershave is so refreshing that it just about makes shaving worthwhile, and the cologne has made me far more pleasant to be around—at least I hope so! All thanks to you. Who knows—maybe I’ll be a gentleman yet.

Thank you, Anna.

With love,

your Dad

I handed the note to Jack. “Another letter from my pen pal.”

Jack read it quickly and laughed. “I’d say his timing is off,” he said mildly.

“Oh?”

He handed the letter back. “When you want him around, he’s not. When you don’t, he is.”

I laughed. “That’s a kind explanation. I, on the other hand, just keep thinking,
What does he want?
”

Jack smoothed my hair from my forehead. “Looks like the man wants to get reacquainted with his daughter,” he said.

I felt my cheeks darken with embarrassment at my distrust of my father. “Are you suggesting I actually befriend him?”

Jack shrugged. “I don’t see what ill can come of corresponding with him. From all I’ve heard, you’re all right as long as you don’t get too close.”

“Simple as that,” I said sarcastically.

He nodded. “Yep. Simple as that.”

I turned twenty-five on the seventeenth of January 1956, and when Jack brought me coffee in bed, I gave him the unbirthday present I’d bought the week before: another box of cigars. He looked startled, then scared, then happy, and he had to ask me over and over again when the baby was due—
August 7
—and how was I feeling—
just tired
—and how long had I known—
two weeks.
We opened a bottle of champagne even though it was seven o’clock in the morning and neither of us would be able to drink much of it. We toasted me, we toasted him, we toasted Eve, and we celebrated the idea of a second child while our first one walked shakily around our bed, grinning with delight with her ability to entertain us.

At seven-thirty, Jack left for Flintridge to teach American history to rowdy eighth-grade boys. I wished him luck, then bundled Eve up and met my grandmother at Mass. When we got home, I gave Eve mashed bananas and warm milk, and she fell asleep at nine o’clock, as exhausted as though a day had passed.

I was determined not to miss my mother too much on this first birthday of my life without her, and I’d come up with a plan for how to do that. I’d stay out of the garden, which never failed to remind me of her. I wouldn’t be alone in our bedroom, which now and then still seemed to smell faintly of Cashmere Bouquet soap, though Jack said I imagined it. I would keep busy, I’d decided. I’d finish reading
The
Quiet American,
I’d write a letter, iron shirts, sweep the cobwebs on the broad front porch, clean out closets, work on a crossword, just about anything at all to keep me from dwelling on my mother’s absence.

So when the doorbell rang sometime after eleven, I was grateful for the diversion. Eve was still asleep and the house was too quiet. I’d felt as though I were sinking.

And then the day changed, for when I opened the door, I faced my father.

He wore khaki trousers and a pressed white shirt, no tie. He looked healthy—ruddy faced and barrel chested, and he’d put on some weight since my mother’s funeral, which somehow made me view him as a traitor. Only his hair was the same: the same short blond hair that was his trademark.

He cleared his throat and held a dozen white roses out to me as tentatively as a shy suitor. “For my girls,” he said gruffly, and he took a try at a smile.

I wanted to say that we weren’t his girls, but I didn’t. I just nodded as I took the flowers. I breathed in their scent and said, “They’re beautiful. Thank you.”

He nodded. “No trouble,” he said, and he stared at me closely. “If I’m not mistaken, you’re a year older today.”

I smelled the roses again. “I am,” I said. “It was sweet of you to remember.”

“I always do,” he said quickly, and then he laughed grimly. “I just haven’t been so great about letting you know.”

I nodded but did not meet his eyes.

“And this is for you,” he said, and he held out a small package wrapped in white tissue paper. “I’m not much of a gift-wrapper.”

“Thank you,” I said, and I tore the tissue paper away and found a bottle of perfume: Evening in Paris. I loosened the top and breathed in a strong floral scent that was a little heavy for my taste. “It’s lovely,” I said.

He nodded. “That actress wears it,” he said. “That young French girl, very pretty, with your eyes. Do you know her?”

I shook my head.

He tapped his forehead. “Sometimes things take a while to surface,” he said, and then he grinned. “Jeanmarie,” he said. “That’s all she goes by. The photographs of her remind me of you.” He paused. “Wear it in good health, Anna, for a long time to come.”

I heard Eve’s tentative waking cries then, cries that would quickly grow into full-fledged yowls as she woke and found herself alone. I looked at my father and thought,
You can leave now.

He nodded as though he’d read my thoughts. “Go ahead, go ahead,” he said, and he waved me on, as though he were giving me permission. Then he stepped into our house and closed the front door behind him.

I could only nod, stunned at the ease with which he’d entered my life. As I walked toward Eve’s room, he called, “Take your time. I’m in no hurry.”

Hardly music to my ears. “All right,” I said, my voice tight, and I went into Eve’s room and closed the door carefully behind me. As I took my time changing her diaper and dressing her in a turtle-neck and a blue corduroy romper, I whispered my complaints to her—”I cannot believe him, just showing up, saying he’ll wait, acting as though he owns the place, and what am I supposed to do with him now, just sit and talk and pretend we know each other?” Eve smiled at me and touched my nose and said, “Ohh.” And then we heard whistling, and Eve looked surprised and interested. She pointed to the door and said, “Out,” and she began to squirm in my arms.

“Here goes,” I said, and I smoothed her wispy dark hair away from her face and looked into her brown eyes and thought for the thousandth time how beautiful she was. “You’re gorgeous,” I whispered, and she grinned as though she knew it.

My father was sitting in the old Morris chair that he’d liked during the months that he’d lived with my mother and me so long ago. He stood up when he heard my steps on the hardwood floor, then he turned to face me and started to speak. But he stopped in the middle of a word and just stared at Eve and me, his expression a mix of affection and wonder and interest—a look I’d known but forgotten.

“This is Eve,” I said. She was staring at him and a part of me wanted to warn her about him.
Don’t love him,
I thought.
Don’t get attached.

He whistled softly. “Would you look at her,” he whispered, and he walked to us tentatively, as though we might startle and bolt if he wasn’t careful—which we would have if I’d done what I wanted. “Isn’t she the beauty,” he said. “A perfect mix of you and your mother.”

“With a little of Jack thrown in, I hope.”

He laughed. “I’m sure there is. I just don’t see it. What I see are your mother’s beautiful eyes and that determined expression of yours. You looked so much like that when you were this age,” he said. “I’d forgotten how—” he started.

“Yes?” I asked quickly, perfectly willing to play the role of inquisitor.

He shook his head. “I’d forgotten a lot of things,” he said. “More than you want to know.” Then he gently smoothed Eve’s hair and made a soft clucking sound. Eve watched him warily for a moment, then grinned, then hid her face against my chest and clung to me.

“She’s a little shy,” I said.

He shrugged it off. “No matter. Doesn’t even know me, I’m a complete stranger. Which is something I’d like to fix. If you’re free for lunch, I thought I’d take you two out. There’s a place nearby with
chiaotzû
that are pretty good. New Moon, over on Fair Oaks.” He paused and cleared his throat, waiting for my answer and watching me in that sizing-you-up way of his.

I had no intention of going, but as I stood there searching for a good excuse or a plausible lie, good manners won out and I heard myself say, “We’d love to.”

He beamed, and I wondered if I was imagining a look of triumph on his face.

“I’ll just get changed,” I said, for I was wearing an old red pullover and a pair of Wrangler jeans that I’d had since college, clothes that I loved more than ever once I could fit back into them after Eve’s birth.

My father shook his head as he looked me over. “No, no, you look just fine. Like a schoolgirl. We’re not going anywhere fancy.”

I had not heard my father speak Mandarin for nearly ten years, and I had forgotten both the sound of the language itself and of his voice, speaking it, so that when a young waiter came and handed us menus and my father handed them back and began to speak Chinese, I was almost as stunned as the waiter was. The waiter was almost indignant as he rattled off what I guessed were questions having to do with why my father spoke so well. My father answered his questions at some length, and the waiter’s expression relaxed, and I could see that my father had won him over. It was five minutes or more of conversation before the waiter ran out of questions and took our order. The moment was familiar: my father, the hero, the man about town, though we were only in a small Chinese restaurant in South Pasadena, and I was surprised at the pride I felt. I was charmed, even if reluctantly so.

It was clear that he’d charmed our waiter as well. He took our order to the kitchen, then returned with two other waiters so that my father could entertain them as well. Judging from their laughter, I guessed he was quite the raconteur, though I had no idea what he was saying. Finally he turned to me and I heard the first familiar word:
“Nüerh,”
he said—daughter—and I smiled as though I’d understood everything else as well. The waiters bowed and smiled and said something about me, I thought, and I, too, was a guest of honor simply by association.

When they had gone and my father faced me again, he was transformed. His eyes were a brighter blue, and he looked younger and happier, more like the man from my childhood. “They’re always surprised,” he said, and he laughed softly. “They never expect me to know what they’re saying.” He gestured toward the kitchen, where we could hear strains of Mandarin. “That youngest one—he said you were a real beauty, by the way—he’s from Shantung province, where I was raised. His parents are still there, at least he guesses they are. Nobody knows with the Communists in charge.”

I nodded, and then we were quiet for a moment, and I thought he was thinking about the past, and I hoped he would talk about it. But then he asked, “Do you still practice?” and he eyed me carefully, as though this were a test.

“Practice?” I asked.

“Your faith,” he said. “Do you go to Mass, receive, all that?”

His question surprised me. “Of course,” I said, “I never stopped,” for it was as though he’d asked if I still breathed.

He nodded. “That’s good. And you’ll raise Eve in the Church.”

“Yes,” I said, and I tried to keep the irritation out of my voice. I could remember going to Mass with my father on Christmas Eve, and that was it. Even then, he didn’t receive—my mother was the believer. What possible concern was this to him?

“That Pope you’ve got, Pacelli, he’s not so bad as people think.”

This comment surprised me. My grandmother was Pope Pius XII’s constant albeit respectful critic. “What is it you like?” I asked.

It was his turn to look surprised, and he waved my question away. “Oh, there’s plenty. What’s not to like? That aloofness that bugs everybody is a small thing, just his manner. He’s worked toward good all along. Tried to prevent the war, then tried to stop it. Saved hundreds of thousands of Jews. And he’s figured out that communism in Eastern Europe is no small thing.” My father shook his head. “He’s on the right track, that guy.”