Dreams of Joy

by Lisa See

  Then I actually see her.

  Joy!

  She’s walking purposefully toward me, unafraid of the dark, as though she’s stepped down out of a poster, as though she knows the city. She’s wearing May’s coat, the one my sister supposedly lost. Z.G. must have had it all these years. My stomach roils with that knowledge, but I ignore it because my daughter has returned to Shanghai! She looks right at me, our eyes meet for a fraction of a second, and then she keeps walking. She doesn’t recognize me. Have I changed that much? Did she refuse to see what was right in front of her because she couldn’t imagine I’d be here? Or maybe she couldn’t recognize me dressed in layers of padded clothes with a knit hat pulled down over my hair and ears and a scarf tied around my neck and up to my nose.

  I turn and follow a safe distance behind her. A part of me wants to run up to her and take her into my arms. But I don’t do that. I just worked all day, and I look like the paper collector I am. I can’t let her see me like this. I can’t let Z.G. see me like this either. That’s right. I’ve come all this way to find my daughter, and when I see her I’m filled with vanity. How will Z.G. look at me after all this time? For years, I’ve known he existed somewhere in China. I’d never believed I’d encounter him again, but seeing Joy means that I’m about to see Z.G. again too. I have an urge to hide behind the bush across from his house, watch them through the windows as they move in the rooms, and wait until I can get my thoughts and emotions together before knocking on the door, but I can’t do that either. Z.G.’s servants know about me. I don’t want Joy to hear about me from them. But it’s more than that. I suddenly don’t know what to say to her.

  We reach Huaihai Road. She turns right, walking toward the Whangpoo River. I know what I want to say—you’re coming home with me right now—but I also know that would be absolutely wrong. I’ve been a mother for nineteen years, and I know a few things about motherhood, and my daughter. I’m disappointed in her for being so rash and stupid as to come here, but as she passed me she didn’t look sad or disheartened. Far from it. So, what tactic do we, as mothers, use with our children when we know they’re going to make, or have already made, a terrible mistake? We accept blame. In my case, I can legitimately accept some blame for having lied to her all those years. I’ll tell her about the regret I feel for having failed her. And then, and then … Please come home! That method isn’t going to work either.

  I stop walking, watch my daughter disappear into the crowd, and then make my way to a bus stop. When I get home, I bathe, pin my hair into a bun at the nape of my neck, put on some makeup, and go to the closet. I stare at my clothes, all of which are mementos of the past. I see a fox stole. I see my fur-lined black brocade coat, the twin to the one Joy was wearing, the one I wanted so badly, the one Baba tried to make me give May. I pull out a dress Madame Garnett made for me—dark green wool crepe cut on the bias with jet buttons sewn at the hips as decoration. Twenty years ago, Mama said it was too sophisticated for me; now I think it will be just right—modest, a little old-fashioned, and the color will accentuate my black hair. Z.G. might like to see me in the brocade coat, but I can’t go that far. I tell myself I don’t care how I look after twenty years, but I do, of course. I tell myself that no woman should allow a man to see the scars on her breast or in her heart.

  I want to do something to remind Joy of home and that she’s been loved and missed. I’ll bring a present. (What kind of mother would I be if I forgot her at Christmas?) I take an old perfume bottle off the vanity and wrap it in one of my silk scarves. I bundle back up in my padded jacket and put the gift in my pocket. I pull on my work gloves, but I throw a red scarf made from baby cashmere from my old life around my neck. It’s the first time I’ve worn something this nice on the street, but most of it is hidden under the jacket.

  I take a bus back to Z.G.’s neighborhood, walk to his house, and ring the bell. One of the servants answers the door. She nods, as though she’s been expecting me, and shows me into the salon. I take off my jacket and gloves. Z.G. enters a few minutes later. I think he’s still an extraordinarily handsome man, and I’m hoping he’ll have a similar reaction to me, but the first thing he does is look over my shoulder to see if May is with me. In an effort to keep myself composed and not betray a hint of disappointment, I adjust my jade bracelet on my wrist.

  “My servants said you were here in the city,” he says, and his voice cascades over me like water over rocks. A Rabbit is always gracious and soft-spoken.

  “I’ve come to get my daughter.” I blurt it out.

  “Your daughter?”

  His question tells me Joy hasn’t been honest with him.

  “Joy,” I say. “She’s mine. I raised her. May gave her to me.”

  “May wouldn’t have done that, and Joy hasn’t said anything—”

  “You’d be surprised what May would do.” My words sound harsher than I want them to be. I twist my mouth into a smile to show I’m not the bad person here. “Joy believed I was her mother and my husband her father her whole life. When she found out the truth, she ran away and came here to look for you and … I don’t know what.”

  “Joy has been lying to me—her own father?”

  It’s disconcerting to hear the disbelief in his voice. He doesn’t know Joy at all.

  “Sam Louie, my husband, was her father. He’s dead now.”

  Z.G. takes that in, considers, and says, “I’m still her father.”

  “You lost that honor a long time ago.” I hear sarcasm creeping into my voice, but I can’t stop myself. Too many years of heartache have passed for him to claim fatherhood. Still, he looks at me without comprehension. “When I came to you that night to say that May and I were going into arranged marriages to men we didn’t know, you didn’t try to stop me, stop us. Why didn’t you do something? Why didn’t you say something?”

  Twenty years of anger and disappointment bubble up in me, but he still doesn’t seem to understand. The worst part is I can’t stop staring at him. My old passions—despite everything I now know about him and my sister—make my breath shallow and fast. My heart beats so hard it feels like it’s going to break right through my chest. And lower down—even though I’m a widow, even though I loved Sam—there’s a warm sensation I never felt for my husband. I always thought it was because of the rape, but now I see it’s not. I’m ashamed, guilty, and still angry.

  “May knew you had feelings for me,” he says at last. “She asked me not to tell you about us. She didn’t want to hurt you. I didn’t want to hurt you either. I just wanted to take care of May.”

  “She was a Sheep,” I say bitterly. “Everyone wanted to take care of her.”

  During our last fight, May said that she and Z.G. used to laugh at the way I acted around him. Which story do I believe? I’ve come all this way to find Joy, but what’s flickering through my mind is whether or not I might still find love with this man who’s been in my heart all these years. It’s been only six months since Sam’s death, but is it possible I deserve a second chance?

  Wait a minute!

  “What do you mean you wanted to take care of May? You got her pregnant and then you didn’t do a thing, not one single thing, to help her. You let her go into an arranged marriage. You left the city. You—”

  “She never told me she was pregnant.”

  That gives me pause, because how could it be?

  “When you were painting her and she was”—I close my eyes against the memory of it—“naked, couldn’t you tell?”

  “Did you know?”

  “I didn’t, but I wasn’t making love to her. What did you think was going to happen?”

  “I wasn’t thinking,” he admits. “At least, I wasn’t thinking properly. In those days, I was caught up in the movement. I was filled with ai kuo—love for our country and its people. I thought I could help change China. I didn’t think enough about ai jen—the love I felt for May. We were all young. None of us thought about the consequences of anything we were doing.”


  The doorbell rings. We know who it’s going to be. I straighten my dress and tuck a few strands of hair into my bun. Z.G. broadens his chest and clasps his hands behind his back. We stand there like two statues as one of the servants hurries to the door.

  Joy swishes into the room, all dazzling energy, her cheeks pink from the cold. Even though it’s February, I can tell she’s spent time in the sun. She pulls off her hat, leaving her black tresses tousled and unkempt. She hasn’t cut her hair since leaving Los Angeles.

  Joy absorbs Z.G.’s dour look, and her eyes scan the room to see what’s wrong. Her delicate eyebrows, pretty nose, and full lips register absolute astonishment at seeing me. Her eyes widen and become even brighter. Then I see not happiness, sadness, or even anger that I’m here. It’s worse than any of those. The cool shadows of indifference fall over her features. She stares at me but doesn’t say a word.

  I smile and say, “Hello, Joy.” When she doesn’t respond, I hurry on. “I brought you a Christmas present.” I go to my coat, fumble in the pocket to get the wrapped perfume bottle, and offer it to her.

  “I don’t celebrate Christmas anymore.”

  A long silence follows this declaration. She knows that I’m a one-Goder and that this would hurt me.

  “Joy.” The appeal in my voice is strong. She’ll have to respond.

  “I don’t want you here. You’ll ruin everything.”

  “Don’t speak to her like that,” Z.G. says in the calmest voice possible. “She’s your auntie.”

  I drive my nails into my palms to keep the pain of that from overwhelming me.

  “And you’re my father,” my daughter retorts. “That’s much more important.”

  I feel all the things I’ve wanted to say to her about being ungrateful, cruel, spoiled, and self-centered—-just like your birth mother—pushing to fly out of my mouth. Z.G. steps forward. I put up a hand to stop him from coming closer or speaking.

  “I love you very much, Joy. Please can we talk about why you ran away?” Of course I know the reason—she didn’t want to deal with two mothers who had lied to her—but I need to get her to open up. “We never had a chance to talk that night. If you tell me what you felt, then maybe you’ll feel better about everything. And maybe I can help.”

  And like that, my daughter is once again five years old. She pulls her upper lip between her teeth and bites down hard to hold in her emotions.

  “Tell me, honey. Tell me so I can understand.”

  When she shakes her head, I know that I’m approaching this the right way. We are back in a pattern we’ve lived as mother and daughter so many times.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t do more for you after your baba died,” I say. “I apologize for that. We both loved him.” Tears begin to roll down Joy’s cheeks. “We should have been holding on to each other.”

  But what she says takes me by surprise.

  “You were right to ignore me after what I did.”

  “What did you do?” I ask, confused. Again, this is not at all what I expected. My brain hurries to catch up.

  “Oh, Mom, it was all my fault. Auntie May and I talked after your fight. She explained everything about Dad being a paper son—”

  “May always puts blame on someone else.”

  “No, Mom, listen to me. The FBI and INS never would have looked at our family if I hadn’t been involved with that group in Chicago. Agent Sanders approached Auntie May because of me. She was trying to help our family. She was trying to get you and Dad amnesty. She didn’t realize I was the real target. If you’d told me the truth about Dad, I would have been more careful, I wouldn’t have joined that club, and the government wouldn’t have noticed us.”

  She’s right. If Joy hadn’t joined that club, it would have made a big difference. Still…

  “That doesn’t change the fact that my sister betrayed us.”

  “But Auntie May didn’t betray you! She was trying to help you in the best way she could. Amnesty, Mom. Do you even know what that means?”

  A part of me thinks, Even here, even after everything that’s happened, Joy takes May’s side. But another part of me actually hears what my daughter has said. I’ve blamed May for everything, but what if she wasn’t to blame?

  “Honey, your dad’s suicide wasn’t your fault. Don’t ever think that. Yes, maybe the FBI used you as a pawn, but they were always going to win the game.”

  “Nothing you can say or do will change what happened, what I did, or where I’ve ended up. You can never punish me as much as I’ll punish myself.”

  “Is that why you came here?” I ask. “To punish yourself? But this is too much punishment for anyone.”

  “Mom, you don’t understand a single thing. I want to be part of creating something bigger than my own problems. I want to make up for all I destroyed—Dad’s life, our family. It’s my way of atoning.”

  “The best thing you can do is come home. Uncle Vern misses you. And”—this is hard for me to say—“don’t you want to get to know May in a new way? And even if you are right—which you aren’t—Red China is not the place to atone.”

  “Pearl is correct,” Z.G. says. “You should go home, because you don’t understand what you’re seeing and experiencing. Lu Shun wrote, ‘The first person who tasted a crab must have also tried a spider, but realized it was not as good to eat.’ You’ve only tasted the crab.” He glances at me and then back at Joy. “The last time I saw your mother was twenty years ago. I didn’t know about you. I didn’t know what happened to your mother and aunt. Why? Because I went to join Mao. I fought in battles. I killed men.”

  He begins chronicling his hardships over the past two decades, because somehow he thinks this is about him. I guess we’re supposed to believe he’s really telling us his life story, but I once knew Z.G. very well and I can see there’s a lot he’s not revealing. And why would he? He’s only just met Joy. It’s nice to have your daughter look at you with eyes of love and respect, but I’m tired of lies.

  “You ran off,” I say to him. “You became a famous artist and you destroyed May’s and my lives.”

  “Destroyed? How?” Z.G. asks. “You got out. You got married. You had a family. You had Joy in your life. Some might say I’ve been successful in the regime, but others might say I’ve sold my soul. Let me tell you something, Pearl. You can sell and sell and sell, but sometimes that’s not enough.” He turns to Joy. “Do you want to know the real reason I went to the countryside?”

  “To teach the masses,” she answers dutifully.

  “I can try to teach all I want, but I cannot teach the uneducated.”

  Did I forget to say a Rabbit is also a snob?

  “Maybe you’re a bad teacher,” I say.

  Z.G. gives me a look. “I’ve been teaching my daughter, and she’s learned a lot.”

  “And you taught Tao too,” Joy adds.

  I hear a sudden lightness in her voice as she says that name. “I praised him because I had to praise someone,” Z.G. says. “He’s not very good. Surely you see that.”

  “I do not,” she says hotly.

  Her face radiates indignation. It’s a look I recognize from when she was a very little girl and she was told something she didn’t want to hear. Her reaction makes me want to know who this Tao person is, but Z.G. asks again, “Do you want to know why I went to the countryside?” This time he doesn’t wait for an answer. We’re going to hear it whether we want to or not. “Last year, Shanghai was very different than it is now. Jazz clubs reopened for people like me—artists and, well, those who were part of the old elite. We also had dancing, opera, and acrobats. Then Mao launched Let a Hundred Flowers Bloom.”

  I remember how excited Joy was about this and how she got into fights with her uncle Vern, who believed the campaign would come to “a no-good end.”

  “We were told we could say what we wanted without fear of recrimination,” Z.G. continues. “We criticized the things we thought hadn’t worked in the first seven years of the regime. We
aired our views without reserve, and the complaints covered everything: that there should be a rotation of power, that cozying up to the Soviet Union was a mistake, and that contact should be renewed with the United States and the West. Artists and writers had their own list of complaints. We wanted to liberate art and literature from the Party. We didn’t feel that all art and all writing should serve workers, peasants, and soldiers. By May, Chairman Mao didn’t want to hear criticism. By summer, he didn’t like it, not one bit. When he made a speech about ‘enticing snakes out of their lairs,’ we knew the Campaign Against Rightists had begun. The spear hits the bird that sticks his head out.”

  I’m not sure why Z.G. has gone off on this tangent, but Joy is mesmerized. She sits down and listens raptly. His story is hitting her in some deep place, that very place that so far I’ve been unable to reach. Is he sharing his miseries with Joy, who he’s just learned has tragedies, sorrows, and guilt of her own—whether justified or not—to give her perspective? I join Joy on the couch and force myself to listen more closely.

  “When rectification began, some cadres were sent ‘up to the mountains and down to the villages’ in remote areas to take up unimportant posts or work in the fields. It was even worse for writers and artists. When someone asked Premier Chou En-lai why this was happening, do you know his response?”