“I’m sorry. I wish I could. Are there no good doctors here?”
From the look he gave her, she could see what a stupid question that was.
“Have you tried Shanghai?”Paul asked. “There are surely highly qualified neurologists there.”
“D-d-definitely. But we can’t afford to pay them,” Da Long replied. “Besides, it’s too late. Everything happened so quickly. How am I supposed to bring her to Shanghai in this state? And even if we managed it, the doctors said that with the test results from here, no hospital would take her. A hopeless case.”
They heard the quiet grunting again. Da Long got up hurriedly and Paul and Christine followed him.
It was not a pretty sight. Min Fang lay stretched out on her back, her gaze fixed on the ceiling, her mouth half open, her face distorted in a grotesque grimace. Her fingers were twisted and stiff, like large crow’s feet, Christine thought. She could not imagine what kind of woman Min Fang had been a few weeks ago. Attractive or ugly, graceful or clumsy, fat or thin; the illness had turned her into a helpless heap of a human being. Da Long sat on the side of the bed and stroked his wife’s face, looking at her. Christine heard a hissing sound. He switched the music off and held his ear very close to her mouth. A distant rattling. Like a sound from another world. He stayed close to her mouth, as though he just had to be patient enough.
“She’s trying to say something and I can’t understand her.” He turned to them and said again, “I just can’t understand her. After nearly forty years. How can that be? My own wife.”
The despair in his voice moved Christine. She reached for Paul’s hand behind her back.
An unpleasant smell rose from under the blanket.
“I have to clean her up,” Da Long said, wiping his face with his hand. “Yin-Yin, perhaps you can show them the village in the meantime. It won’t take long.”
Paul and Yin-Yin walked back toward the square where they had been dropped off. Christine followed a few meters behind. She did not feel like talking. She felt exhausted. Her head was heavy and she wished she could lie down. She wondered how she could help her brother but she could not think of anything. She was not a doctor. She did not know any neurologists in Hong Kong whom she could ask for advice. She did not have enough money to fly in the best doctors to treat her brother’s wife. She could try researching on the Internet, but for what? They didn’t even have a diagnosis. She did not know much about medicine but the father of a friend of hers had had a severe stroke last year and her friend had told her about similar symptoms and episodes. Maybe there were drugs that could alleviate Min Fang’s suffering, if it was not too late already. But if she was being honest with herself, she did not think that anything else could help this crippled, blind, and probably mute woman.
A loving heart never gives up. A loving heart does not even accept death. That sounded beautiful, but she doubted her brother was right.
Christine had lost sight of Paul and Yin-Yin. She came to a fork in the way, hesitated, and took the left-hand path. She was suddenly in a narrow shaded cul-de-sac. She heard voices from a television turned up loud from one house and the clatter of pots and pans from another. A gray-haired woman dressed entirely in black was sitting in front of a doorway on a rusty wheelchair. Spit was dribbling from her half-open mouth down her chin and falling into her lap in long strings. The fingers of her left hand were gnarled and her right arm jerked uncontrollably. She had heard the footsteps, and turned her head very slowly. Before their eyes could meet, Christine turned and hurried away, finding Paul and Yin-Yin, who had been looking for her, after a few steps. Christine told them about the sick woman she had seen.
“That’s Mrs. Ma,” her niece said. “She’s a friend of my mother’s. She had a stroke a few days before her, but she’s doing better. As far as I know she can no longer speak properly and is partially lame, but compared to my mother she’s been lucky.”
They crossed the sandy square, walked down the road for a little while, and turned into a footpath over the fields that led to the top of a hill. The expressway sliced the valley into two parts; the fields looked neglected; the farmers had probably given up on cultivating them long ago. In the distance they could see factories, housing settlements, and a railway line. It was so hot that they had to rest in the shade of a pine tree.
“I wanted to show you this view,” Yin-Yin said. “This used to be our playground. When we were little there were many children in the village; there was even a school. We used to play outside every day. In the fields, in the woods, in the ponds. I learned to swim in a pond full of fish on the other side of the valley. Then the first few factories arrived. The expressway cut through the valley. The young people all moved to the cities, to Yiwu, Shanghai, Xiamen, Shenzhen. You can see what is left. In a few years it will all be gone. The entire village. The plans have been finalized.”
“The entire village?” Christine asked, astonished.
“Yes. Any of the old folk who are still alive will be allocated an apartment on the outskirts of Yiwu. I stood at this spot with my brother three weeks ago. He was fine with it. We have our memories, he said, and the village wasn’t worth keeping. Ramshackle old houses and homes with no air-conditioning; too hot in the summer and too cold and damp in the winter. Those things won’t be a problem in the new homes with air-conditioning and heating, and there will be shops and doctors’ clinics nearby. The move will be a good example of China’s progress. He’s probably right.”
“What’s your brother’s name?”
“Wu Xiao Hu. We call him Xiao Hu, Little Tiger. He’s four years older than me, born in 1974, the year of the tiger.”
“Are you close?”
“Yes,” Yin-Yin said. “We’re very different though. People who know us both can’t believe that we’re brother and sister.”
“How is he different from you?” Paul asked.
“He was always a top student. Very diligent, very ambitious. I was slow and dreamy. When we played in the river he used to build dams to hold back the water while I stared at the fish. I hate confrontations but he doesn’t avoid them. I’m not interested in politics but he is, extremely. I’ve wanted to be a musician since I was little while he wanted to be a member of the Communist Party of China. We’ve both got what we wanted. But I must admit that I’m not as successful a musician as he is in the Party. He accuses me of not being ambitious enough. Maybe he’s right. But I respect him a great deal. He’s a good brother and a good person.”
“Why isn’t he here today?”
Yin-Yin looked down at the ground and shoved a bit of dirt into a little pile with the tip of one foot. “Papa and him don’t get along too well.”
“Why not?” Christine wondered.
“I don’t know exactly. It was different before. I used to be jealous of Xiao Hu. He was the first-born! The son. Papa did lots of stuff with him and even took the time to help him with his schoolwork. He never once did that with me. Xiao Hu was meant to come top of the class, and he did. Papa was always very proud of him. My little tiger will grow up to be a great big one, he often said.”
“When did things change?”
“Last year, practically overnight. They had a big fight. They didn’t speak to each other for months and Xiao Hu refused to visit my parents. Mama was desperately unhappy about it. She tried to mediate, and they did eventually start talking to each other at least. But it’s no longer the way it used to be. My brother is very hard on Papa. And I also get the feeling that Papa is uncomfortable with Little Tiger, as though he is scared of him.”
“Why should he be frightened of him? What did they quarrel about in the first place?” Christine wondered.
“I have no idea. I was in Shanghai at the time, and neither of them will tell me what it was about.”
“They haven’t given you the slightest clue?”
“No. And on top of that they got into another argument two weeks ago over Mama. My brother is on the doctors’ side. He thinks there’s no point hop
ing for her to recover. He wants to try to find a hospital or a nursing facility for her to stay in. His salary from the Party could make it possible. Papa won’t hear of it. I think that when Xiao Hu refused to back down, Papa threw him out. Since then they haven’t been speaking to each other.”
“And you? Whose side are you on?
Yin-Yin cast her aunt a blank look. “On my father’s, of course.”
“You think that your mother will recover?” Paul asked in amazement.
“I don’t know about that. I’m not a doctor. But if my father wants to care for her at home then we have to accept that and help him with it. I am his daughter; his wishes matter to me. After my second audition for the symphony orchestra I’ll take time off and move back home to the village for at least three months to help him.” She looked at her watch. “There’s not much else to see here. I think we can make our way back now.”
Da Long was waiting in front of the house. He was sitting on a bench in the shade, smoking. Paul crouched down next to him. A fat gray rat scurried across the courtyard. Da Long watched it until it disappeared under the pile of wood. “Ever since the cats died the rats have been plaguing us again,” he said.
“The cats died?” Paul asked, curious.
“I don’t know. We had a dozen cats in the village. They all died last month. Ours fell into the fountain and drowned. Other cats got cramps and died, foaming at the mouth. Probably a virus or rabies. Who can find out what it was? Our neighbor called the police but they said it wasn’t their responsibility. Then someone contacted the health authorities. They said the same thing. No one wants to know. Who cares about our cats?”
They went into the house. Da Long had cooked a noodle broth with chicken and won ton dumplings. They sat around the table and started eating without saying another word. Christine found the silence uncomfortable. Did they have nothing to say to each other after forty years? She wanted to make a start, so she started describing her life in Hong Kong. She talked about the first few years after they fled there, about the nine and a half square meters in Lower Ngau Tau Kok Estate. About Mama’s work as a seamstress. Not about tears unshed. Not about things unsaid. And also not about men in blue shorts on which you could see every stain.
Her brother listened while he slurped away and smacked his lips. Without asking any questions. She was not sure if he was paying attention to her. She told him about her tourism degree in Vancouver, about her son Josh, her wedding, and the failure of her marriage. He carried on eating, nodding from time to time, spat a bit of gristle out onto the table, and turned away once, quickly, to blow his nose loudly. Christine watched him. A small old man bent over his soup, sunk in his own little world. She felt that her brother had been taken from her for the second time. They had nothing in common. No roots. No memories. No worries about their parents. They did not even speak the same language. There was no “do you remember?” Not with him. Now was all there was and she would have been glad not to have had it.
She waited. She waited for him to say something about himself, for him to ask a question, to show interest. But Da Long yawned, said nothing, and poked away between his teeth with a wooden toothpick.
She wondered if she should simply ask him something. Where did you meet Min Fang? How did you get back to the city? What did you train as? What did you work as? Did he want to be asked or did he not want to share his life with her if he could help it? In his letter he had started with such a familiar tone – where was that now? Was the memory of how she had learned to walk holding his hand a trick to move her? Had she been summoned here only in the hope that she could do something for his sick wife? Now that he knew he was mistaken was she to go again, the sooner the better? The longer the silence dragged on, the angrier she became.
“Why didn’t you try to find Mama and me earlier?”
A difficult question. Why didn’t you try? Most of the time, when we ask questions like these, we could just as easily ask them of ourselves: why didn’t I? But Da Long didn’t try to fob her off that way. “Th-th-ey were difficult times,” he said. “Dangerous times. It was a black mark to have relatives in Hong Kong or anywhere abroad. Many people had to go to prison for that. Or to the labor camps. Because a few crazy people in their families had swum to Hong Kong. What could they have done about it? But that was how it was then. They could easily have declared me an enemy of the state or a counter-revolutionary. When the Party told me that the two of you had escaped to Hong Kong, I had to write a five-page letter denouncing you. I cursed you as traitors, bourgeois vermin, class enemies, and dissociated myself from Mama and you, whom I called miserable wretches, forever.”
“That was a long time ago.”What right had she to accuse him?
“That’s right.” He was silent. Christine did not know if he was finding this conversation uncomfortable or if he was searching for an explanation himself. “We were too caught up with our lives. We moved from Sichuan to the coast, then shortly after that to this village. The children had to get used to a new place twice and we had to adjust to our new work. Min Fang gave a few small concerts and the time passed. Before we knew it, another year had passed. You know how it is. Apart from that, I had no idea where to look for you. For a long time I thought you had migrated to Australia or America after Hong Kong.” He looked at Paul, and then at his sister, as though he wanted to make sure that his words were reaching her.
In his eyes he saw the question that she did not want to hear: And you? Did you try to look for me?
“It was the same for us,” Christine said. “We were convinced that you hadn’t survived the Cultural Revolution. Mama tried everything but all her attempts to find out about what happened to you didn’t lead very far.”
Paul translated what she said. As he spoke slowly, brother and sister exchanged a long look for the first time. Christine was not telling the truth, only a part of it, and she suspected that it was no different for Da Long. They both knew that they were lying, and they both needed to forgive each other. This, Christine thought, is how secrets that are passed from one generation to another are born. This is how families bury their demons. With things unsaid, half-truths, with unprocessed grief. Until they rise again. Bigger, more alive, and more powerful.
In reality, she had not spoken about her brother to her mother since she was a child. Even in their nine and half square meters, with his photo under a pillow, she could not remember having had a significant conversation about Da Long. Why not? Why had Mother not tried to find her son? Why had she assumed that Da Long had died in the chaos of the Cultural Revolution? Had she any information, witnesses, or other sources that Christine knew nothing about? How could someone not say anything about a person for nearly forty years? Because she did not want to be reminded of him. Because the pain was unbearable. The pain of loss? Or something else? She too had never asked about him, let alone searched for him. She had settled into a new city, into her life without a brother. But was there something that her mother and Da Long shared that she did not know about? She could ask him now, but did not dare to. Not now, not today. She had to ask her mother first.
Paul broke the silence. He asked about the music that was playing in the background. Christine was not interested in that, but it did her good to hear his voice. It was Mozart, violin sonatas. An amateur recording from the conservatory with Yin-Yin on the violin. Da Long was convinced that it helped his wife to hear it. Let the doctors think what they may. Paul praised Yin-Yin’s playing and they started talking about music, about violin pieces by Brahms, Bruch, and Mendelssohn, names that meant nothing to Christine, about Chinese composers that even Paul had not heard of. Da Long got up, fetched a harmonica and started playing it. He closed his eyes and his cheeks puffed out as he played, swaying his head in time. Paul clapped. It was the first time that Christine had seen Yin-Yin and her brother smile. Her thoughts slid away from her as if from someone on the verge of falling asleep. She felt as if she did not belong there, as if she was sitting with them at the table but se
parated by an invisible wall. She could barely wait for the taxi to come and take them to the hotel.
In the car she realized how much the past few hours had taken their toll on her. Her head was pounding and her shoulders were so tense that even Paul’s tentative attempts to massage them hurt. She leaned against his shoulder and he put his arms around her. She hoped he would say something, ask her a few questions that might help her to bring some order to her thoughts and feelings.
After a few minutes they had reached the outskirts of Yiwu, and were only able to proceed at snail’s pace because the road was jammed with a long line of lorries. It was no different with the traffic coming from the other direction. A convoy of yellow, red, blue, green, and brown container lorries was traveling in both directions through the country.
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