Kai Ying would never forget the sight of her pale little boy lying on the courtyard pavement, his leg twisted beneath him. A broken branch, she thought, a crushed leaf. He wasn’t moving. At that moment, she realized he might never move again and a feeling of terror overwhelmed her, stopping her abruptly and rooting her in place. […] She stood there while her heart raced so fast her whole body shook. He can’t be, she thought, he can’t. And try as she might, Kai Ying couldn’t think of one tea or soup that could bring the dead back to life. Her father-in-law, who was usually calm and in control, turned back to her, his eyes wide and frantic, his hands waving wildly in the air as he yelled for her to get help from Neighbor Lau, who had the only flatbed pedicab in the neighborhood.
It didn’t take long for Kai Ying to realize that they were both prisoners of the past, though each pursued his desires and preoccupations differently. While Wei’s sole interest was in preserving China’s past through its art, Sheng believed that if the Chinese were going to forge a stronger nation with a vibrant future, they would have to move past their history and learn from their mistakes.
Sheng never shied away from […] politics and […] problems. […] Kai Ying had often heard Wei counsel her headstrong husband, “You should always look for the quiet within the storm, and then you’ll find the answers to your questions.” Afterward, she watched Sheng turn away from his father with an almost imperceptible shake of his head. She knew what he was really thinking. No, no, you’ll only find the answers to your questions by walking straight into the storm.
[H]is grandson was alone somewhere in the hospital and there was nothing he could do but wait. Wei wondered if it was some kind of retribution for his years of self-absorption. He had always been too involved in his own work, never taking into consideration how it might affect those around him. Rather than going into business as his father had wished […] he concentrated on his art history studies, preoccupied with teaching and research. He was thirty when he finally married Liang, and […] Sheng came along unexpectedly almost ten years later. Through it all, Wei continued to work long hours […] He told himself that his work was a part of all their legacies, but was it? By the time he paused long enough, Wei had missed so much of Sheng’s childhood that he had little memory of what his son was like as a boy.
What Tao would never tell anyone, including his father, was what he really felt the day he fell from the kapok, how for just a moment he was flying instead of falling, and how happy it made him feel. Even now, he envisioned soaring through the gates and beyond the Ming garden wall, high above the narrow, crowded alleyways where he used to run and over the wide, tree-lined streets that led to far-off places he’d never seen. Tao felt so certain that if he had just kept on flying, he’d have reached White Cloud Mountain.
Now he sat down at his desk and flipped through the worn pages, the book opening naturally to the poems where the spine was broken. He read the first stanza of a poem aptly titled “Thinking of My Boy,” written for the poet’s favorite son.
Comes spring once more,
Pony Boy, and still we
Cannot be together; I
Comfort myself hoping
You are singing with
The birds in the sunshine…
Wei stopped reading, suddenly angered. He knew Sheng wasn’t where he could be singing with birds in the sunshine […] Two months [after his arrest] they received word that Sheng had been sent to be reeducated in Luoyang in the western Henan province […] more than a thousand miles away by train, another world away.
The lines were burned into his memory. If China is to become a stronger nation, the Party must open its eyes and see that power comes from free expression. What freedom we do have in a Communist society if artists and intellectuals are tortured for following their hearts? What freedom do we have if art and ideas and politics can’t be appreciated and openly discussed? How can there be strength in suppression?
Wei had written his thoughts with such truth and clarity, as if a light had suddenly flooded a long-darkened room. Now these very same ideas had turned to needles pricking his skin, and the truth he’d written had condemned his son to hard labor. After a lifetime of keeping to himself and remaining closemouthed, what made him write the letter and sign his name? A moment of vanity and conceit, a need to feel important again […]
The beginning of the story always remained the same: Huoyi was commanded by the Emperor Yao to use his archery skills to shoot down nine of the ten suns to keep the earth from burning up. Upon completing the task, the emperor gave the famed archer a pill that granted him eternal life. Knowing its value, Huoyi left the pill at home with Chang’e when he was sent away on another mission for the emperor. From there, they story of why Chang’e swallowed the pill of immortality splintered off into different versions. So far, Tao’s favorite account was Chang’e having to protect the pill from Peng, one of Huoyi’s apprentice archers, who forcefully tried to take the pill from her. Knowing that she was unable to fight him off, her only choice was to swallow the pill herself.
“Do you want to hear the story of Huoyi and Chang’e now?” his grandfather asked.
Tao turned around and shook his head. “There’s no moon,” he answered.
“There’s still the story.”
“It’s not the same without the moon.”
His grandfather stroked his whiskers. “But we know the moon is still up there, beyond the rain and clouds.”
What good was the moon if you couldn’t see it? Tao thought. If it wasn’t there to help his ba ba to find his way home again? But, he nodded and limped back to the table and sat down, no longer caring which version of the myth his grandfather was going to tell him.
This young woman had eased her pain, made her feel human again. Then, for the first time, Song told a perfect stranger about her husband, Old Hing, calling him a violent monster, an angry pig, a festering tumor. Once Song began to talk, she couldn’t stop, even with the pain.
Wei felt suddenly vigorous and confident again as he hurried off to fetch Mrs. Lu. As he fought against the wind and rain, slowly making his way down the street, the line had returned to him again, Even so, the world intrudes. It must have been a line from some famous Tang dynasty poem he had long ago memorized. It bothered him even more that he couldn’t remember the lines that followed. When Wei returned home, he would scour his books of poetry until he found the poem. He’d spent most of his life avoiding the world, but ironically, it had landed right there at their doorstep.
By the time he returned with Mrs. Lu, the baby had already come into the world.
Cheng paused for a moment and looked her up and down. “Your husband is a lucky man to have a wife so devoted to him. Of course, I too am a family man, and I hate to think of your son so upset. You must be very lonely with your husband gone; perhaps we can find a way to make this situation work, while helping each other at the same time?”
It took a moment for Kai Ying to understand what he was saying […] She felt sick to her stomach and wanted nothing more than to run out of the hot, suffocating room. Instead, [she] steadied herself and ignored his question. She held out a red envelope, which contained a hundred yuan she had saved. She knew it was the way things were done, and hoped it would be enough for this vile man.
He glanced out to the courtyard and the kapok tree. When he turned back to Tao, he saw Sheng again at the same age, always so formal and closemouthed around him. He remembered all the times he heard Sheng talking to Liang, joking and laughing, but as soon as he entered the room, it was as if the air had changed. He and Sheng hadn’t learned to be friends until late in his life. Now he only wanted his son home again.
“I know…” Wei began, realizing the words that followed would change all of their lives forever. “I know because it was me. I was the one to write the letter, not your ba ba.”
Wei felt as if he’d been falling for the past year and had finally hit the ground. He stared down at the table and couldn’t look at either Kai Ying or Tao.
Wei pulled at his tunic collar and felt the room spinning, but he didn’t look away [… Kai Ying’s] dark eyes were unrecognizable, filled with something worse than anger: disappointment. […]
Outside came the singsong voice of the fruit peddler calling out “Bananas! Oranges! Mangoes!” […] He wanted to run out and buy all the fruit in the peddler’s basket as an offering, although he knew the sweetest fruits in all of Guangzhou couldn’t buy him forgiveness.
[…] Tao had stayed seated at the table. His grandson was no longer crying, but watching him with the distant gaze of a stranger. Wei hoped the boy would understand that he never meant for any of this to happen. But before he could say anything, Tao scraped back his chair and stood up.
“Tao, I’m sorry,” Wei said.
[…]
“I hate you,” Tao said, “I hate you.”
Kai Ying saw it all so clearly now, the guilt that had to be consuming Wei each day as he retreated more and more into himself. As difficult as it was, Kai Ying understood why Sheng had taken her father-in-law’s place when the police came; Wei would have never been able to survive outside of the villa, much less at a reeducation facility. But why hadn’t Wei told her the truth? Why did he allow her to suffer for over a year, not knowing if there really was a letter, letting her believe that Sheng was the one to jeopardize everything they had? And how was she ever going to forgive a man who would let his pride betray his family?
“I’ve been such a fool,” he said, his voice barely a whisper.
“My father used to say that the only fool is the man who can’t admit he’s one,” Song said. “Can’t you see Sheng knew what he was doing? It was his choice.”
“And my weakness,” Wei said. “I stood by and allowed him to be taken away in my place.”
“He knew what he was doing,” she repeated.
“I should never have put him in that position!”
“You know nothing about your own son […] and that should be your biggest regret. You’ve lived in the past for so long you can’t see what’s right in front of you. You make a mistake, an unintentional mistake. Who in this life hasn’t crossed that bridge? […] Sheng would never have allowed them to take you. He’s young and strong, he’ll survive.”
Wei avoided the crowded main boulevards, instead turning onto the smaller side streets as he walked in and out of the narrow alleyways. He found himself following the same route he had walked for over forty years of teaching and Lingnan University. Old habits were a way of life for him. He knew the maze of intimate streets by heart and couldn’t bear the large crowds and bicyclists that used to push him along in directions he didn’t want to go. Wei was never comfortable being around too many people outside of the classroom, and over the years, he’d found ways to avoid them and move along at his own pace while remaining as inconspicuous as possible.
When Wei came to the darkened walkway under a bridge, he stopped to watch a lone middle-aged woman practicing some sort of dance. Unlike everyone else, who was dressed in the drab gray or green tunics of the Party, she wore a bright red flowing outfit, lifting her leg high into the air and sharply snapping a red fan open in perfect unison […] Still, Wei was intrigued with her precise movements, her total concentration; the effectiveness of the red fan as it opened and closed in unison [with her legs]. She paused once and glanced in his direction before she began the next set. Wei watched with admiration and wondered what it must feel like to be that agile, to move with such ease and grace through life, unafraid to perform a dance she loved, a remnant of bourgeoise decadence.
Wei told her Sun and Moon had worked for his family ever since they were young women. Before then, they’d been silk workers from the village of Shun-de. When Wei was a boy of nine or ten, Sun and Moon were already middle-aged, and had been working for his family for over twenty years. “They were as different as the sun and moon,” her father-in-law said, and laughed. “There was hardly a time when they didn’t disagree about something. They would have argued about the time of day if they’d had the time!”
When Wei was not yet fifteen, Moon fell ill. Sun devoted herself to taking care of her until she died, six months later, Afterward, Sun stayed on until she became too old, but she was never the same.
For as long as he could remember, his ma ma had always been the one to teach him about what was right and wrong […] Even when he was a very little boy, she reminded him it was important that he always be able to take care of himself. Tao had wondered why, when she and ba ba and ye ye were there to take care of him. “Because there will be a time when we aren’t […] Not now […] “but a very, very long time from now.”
[…] Tao wanted to tell her that he wasn’t ready to take care of himself yet. Instead, he pressed his lips together and held the words in […]—I’m still a little boy and it hasn’t been a very long time like you promised, so why are both ba ba and ye ye gone?
He was secretly happy Suyin was waiting for him after school. She wasn’t so sickly-looking anymore and her skin had cleared. Walking next to her, he realized she was almost as tall as his mother and thin all over. […] She usually wore a dark cotton tunic and pants and he recognized one of his mother’s sweaters that she was wearing.
Tao liked walking home with Suyin; it made him feel older. He liked the way she nodded at him without saying a word, without making a fuss the way Auntie Song did trying to help him with his books or forcing him to put on his jacket as the days grew cooler. Suyin kept things simple and to the point. If he didn’t feel like talking to her, she never pushed.
“Ready to go?” she said.
Tao nodded that he was.
Dongshan appeared different now that she was actually living there, the villas behind the tall walls no longer a mystery. They were filled with families and problems just like in Old Guangzhou. But instead of the multitude of voices screaming all at once from the crowded apartments, there was a quiet seething just below the surface in Dongshan. Upon closer scrutiny, she saw the cracks in the stone walls, the big houses crumbling slowly behind them in need of repair or paint or new tiles. All Suyin’s illusions of grandeur had suddenly disappeared. She would never be the same wide-eyed schoolgirl walking down the street for the very first time, and the thought brought both a sigh of relief and a moment of sorrow.
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.”
Tao thought about it. Little Shan had betrayed him to be one of Lai Hing’s stray dogs, and now he wanted to be friends again. Mao would have sent him away for less, just like he did his ba ba. He looked up and studied Little Shan’s face, trying to understand what had happened during the past few months, how his entire life had been turned upside down ever since he he’d fallen from the kapok tree. Yet, here he was, standing upright. Little Shan hadn’t totally abandoned him, having saved him from being pummeled by Lai Hing and his gang. Best friends are hard to come by, his grandfather had said. His ye ye was hard to come by. There would never be anyone else like his grandfather, and Tao wanted him back, but until then, Little Shan stood bundled up and waiting in front of him.
“Truce,” Tao said.
Do you remember, he heard Liang’s voice ask him, when Sheng was a little boy and he was determined to fly his dragon kite even when there was no wind? He nodded at the memory, at the calm, cool watery sound of Liang’s voice, and how she had finally returned to him after so many weeks. Yes, he said. Wei could see her smile. Remember how he ran up and down the street trying to get enough wind until he finally gave up, she reminded him. And how you were the one who told him the wind would return again in no time, but he had to be patient. The wind will return again, Liang said. You’ve come this far, just listen to your own words.
Wei wanted to reach out for Liang, but was afraid she would disappear if he did, and remained content to feel her there beside him again.
“I should be the one in here, not you.”
Sheng shook his head.
[…] Wei continued, “[…] I’ve created a world of grief for all of us.” He swallowed.
“Ba ba, you don’t need to explain—”
Wei waved his hand to interrupt. “You’re here. I’ve seen you, touched you. At least I can bring that back to Kai Ying. But can you ever forgive me for writing the letter?” he asked. His fingers felt for the gouge in the table, following it to the edge.
“Forgive you? You don’t need to ask for forgiveness for writing the truth. I would have done the same, given time. I’m here for the both of us. We’re more alike than either of us knew.”
Wei saw the color return to Sheng’s face again as he spoke. We’re more alike than either of us knew. His words hung in the stale air […]
For the very first time since Tao had fallen from the kapok tree, she paused in front of it. It seemed as if an entire lifetime had passed in the five months since. […][Now] the tree stood skeletal, the branches remaining bare until […] the spring. […] Although Kai Ying knew it was foolish, she still dared to hope that they would all be together again by then.
Kai Ying stepped closer to the tree. At least let her hear from Wei again soon, she thought. The gash that her father-in-law had left in the trunk was a scar now, slightly deeper in color and hardly noticeable if you weren’t looking for it. Kai Ying’s fingers graced the smooth wound. She thought of it as just another example of nature’s genius; the kapok tree had healed itself.
From the kitchen, she heard Tao’s and Suyin’s voices and smiled.
