Patriot Number One

by Lauren Hilgers

  Karen watched her roommate shed a few silent tears, then twist her hair back and busy herself in the kitchen. Once the woman arrived, Karen’s roommate would prepare food and take it over. She would help the reunited family however she could. It was the practical, warmhearted thing to do.

  Then the roommate found a new boyfriend—a masseur in a nail salon—and protected him jealously. One night Karen overheard him asking her roommate whether to invite Karen to join them at dinner. “No, she’s busy,” said the roommate. Karen laughed at the thought that she might steal the boyfriend. He was older! And while she didn’t have anything against working in a nail salon, she couldn’t imagine dating a man who worked in one. “I don’t think it’s bad to work in a nail salon,” she told me thoughtfully. “But how could I be interested in a man like that?!”

  Karen had chatted with a handful of men online, but most of them were working at restaurants outside the city, circling back to New York every few months. The opportunity to actually meet anyone was slim. Karen’s friend Isobel, the woman she had first encountered at the immigration agency in China, met a Chinese man online and had to move to Florida just to start dating.

  Little Yan watched Karen sympathetically. She remembered what it was like to be young, she told me. “If Karen was in China, she’d have no trouble! She’s smart and pretty. People would be lining up to marry her.” Little Yan’s own frustrations were of a different kind. She was responsible for cooking, cleaning, earning, studying, and worrying about their son. She was posting articles on WeChat, arguments not only for divorce but for forgoing men altogether. “My husband thinks I’m his maid!” read one. “More divorced women are choosing to stay single!” said another. “When someone is bitten by a snake once, they’ll be afraid of coiled rope for years.”

  * * *

  • • •

  In the summer after their second semester, somewhere in the fog of holding multiple jobs and doing homework, both Karen and Little Yan received letters. Karen had been waiting for months, in suspense, for her letter, and when it was delivered to her Flushing apartment, her heart jumped when she opened it. It was her green card. The card had a dull green banner across the top and featured the passport photo she had sent with her application. It wasn’t much to look at, but she beamed at it. She did not celebrate in public; that would rub it in the face of all her friends who were still waiting. But she had achieved, in three short years, one of the most sought-after milestones in Flushing. With her debt paid and her status in the United States secure, she officially had no one but herself to worry about.

  The letter for Little Yan and Zhuang arrived at Zhuang’s father’s house in Wukan in early June. Zhuang’s family put it in a clear plastic sleeve, and someone took a photo of it with their phone, forwarding it to Zhuang. The couple peered at the document, which had Kaizhi’s name at the top: “The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Citizenship, and Immigration Services has approved admission into the United States for the above named alien.” Little Yan carefully deciphered each line, then came to a spot in the middle of the second paragraph: “Presentation of this document will authorize a transportation line to accept the named bearer, whose photograph is attached, on board for travel to the United States on or before July 31st, 2016.” She looked at it again, read it out loud, then glanced at the date in the corner. Kaizhi would have to leave for the United States within the next two months or lose his chance.

  16

  Strangers

  陌生人 / Mòshēngrén

  JUNE–JULY 2016

  Little Yan and Zhuang had often imagined what it would be like to bring their son to the United States. They had expected it to happen after they had both been issued green cards and were free to travel. At first they had imagined going to Hong Kong together, sometime in the late fall of 2016, asking a family member to accompany Kaizhi on the ferry from Shenzhen. And then they had pushed the date back a little, to the lunar new year in 2017. Zhuang hoped his business as a personal shopper would be established by then, and he hoped to have his green card. When Little Yan had time off from her job, she went with Zhuang to the outlet mall, helping him buy shoes and bags. She laid their purchases out on the floor of their room, took short films of what they had bought, and posted them on WeChat. “We’re sending this to friends in China,” she wrote. “Our room isn’t big enough for all the stuff. We need a bigger room!”

  When the letter came giving Kaizhi official permission to travel to the United States, Little Yan worried again that Zhuang needed a real job. Trying to grow a business that was barely legal seemed insecure. Little Yan pushed Zhuang, again, to look into driving for a car service, either one based in Flushing or an online option. She left the house at eight each weekday morning and didn’t get back until close to eleven at night—a punishing schedule even without a child to take care of.

  Little Yan still hoped to be able to spend a week or two getting to know her son again before hopping on an airplane with him. They visited their lawyer again to ask if she could. “I think it should be safe for Little Yan to travel to China,” Zhuang argued. “It’s me who needed the asylum.” But he again warned against it. It could affect her green card application. “What do I do?” she asked. “Between a green card and my son, can I only choose one?”

  Finally, Little Yan sent messages to her acquaintances on WeChat—was anyone in China planning to come back to New York in the next two months? A woman Little Yan had known briefly from her home health aide classes answered. She had traveled back to her hometown, Wenzhou, and was planning to fly back to the United States in late July. She would bring Kaizhi. But in exchange, Zhuang and Little Yan would have to pay for her plane ticket. The woman agreed to travel to Guangdong and pick Kaizhi up.

  It was the best option they had, but Zhuang worried about his son. He would be alone with a stranger in Wenzhou for a few days before getting on the plane for New York. What if the woman’s house wasn’t equipped for a child? What if she turned out to be unreliable? Zhuang decided to send his father and sister-in-law with Kaizhi to Wenzhou. They would ease Kaizhi’s transition and could report back if the woman seemed unfit. Zhuang sent money for the train tickets.

  Meanwhile Little Yan set about checking prices for two plane tickets to New York. It was going to cost them over a thousand dollars for each ticket. She worried that they were spending the last of their savings just before their son was to arrive. “If we keep going down this road,” she worried, “we will not be able to pay for ourselves.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Zhuang had his own list of worries. They would need to move, he predicted. The Tudor-style house where they were living was close quarters. The landlord’s two children were friendly but sometimes rambunctious. It was important to their father that they study in the evenings, and a little boy to play with might be deemed a distraction. The two tenants living in the basement were unfriendly. If Kaizhi cried all night when he arrived, if he was rowdy or played too loudly, he might keep everyone awake.

  In Zhuang’s ideal world, he would rent a new apartment directly. He had built up his credit score by now, adding to his selection of IDs with a carefully chosen stack of credit cards. In an apartment, he could rent out one room to another immigrant, and his family could have the run of the rest of the place to themselves. He would take care of Kaizhi while Little Yan went to work and took classes. “It’s an investment,” he explained. “When she graduates, she will be able to get a much better job.”

  When they fought, he wondered whether Little Yan really believed he was lazy. That he didn’t want to go to school and study himself! But she would never support him as he supported her! She thought only about herself, he groused, while he had to think about himself and her. He still hoped he could grow his personal shopping business and make three or four thousand dollars a month—more than enough for everyone. But he needed time. And once Kaizhi arrived
, he wouldn’t be able to drive to the outlet malls three times a week.

  Zhuang, who himself had been shuttled back and forth as a child, thought practically about space and discipline. Kaizhi was used to the village and would need space to run around. He might make messes. How would he get Kaizhi to listen to his mother and father—two people he barely knew? “In the United States,” he mused, half-joking, “you can’t hit your kids. I will have to think of other strategies.”

  Zhuang’s father had been to Wenzhou and approved of the woman’s apartment—her sister had children, and it was well equipped. The ticket that Little Yan purchased was for July 27, three days before Kaizhi’s window to enter the United States would expire. The night before, she couldn’t sleep. She had read too many new reports, lately, of airplanes falling out of the sky. “Airplanes are safer than cars!” Zhuang told her. But it didn’t help. She was awake early, and went through the motions of her day, sitting in class at the hour the plane would be taking off from Wenzhou. She had the woman’s WeChat contact but was letting things be. She counted the hours the plane would be in the air. And then a message came through over WeChat. Little Yan didn’t see it until the class took its daily break.

  “Your son was too loud, and they wouldn’t let us get on the plane,” the woman had written. He was too difficult to handle, she complained.

  Little Yan’s stomach dropped. She called Zhuang and left LIBI to head back to their room.

  “She can’t keep a child quiet for ten minutes to get on the plane?!” Zhuang said, when Little Yan arrived back home. He called his father to try and get the whole story. Little Yan forgot about airplanes. What if her son was about to be kidnapped? She listened as Zhuang’s father’s voice buzzed in the background.

  “Late?” Zhuang said. As Little Yan listened, he told his father, calmly, that he would buy a ticket for the next day’s flight. He would do it immediately. And that she couldn’t miss the plane.

  He hung up, then exploded. “Late!” he said. “She showed up at the airport late! With a child!” She had tried to blame it on their kid. “Her friends gave her too much to carry! She got stopped at security. She’s traveled before, she should know what you can and can’t carry on!” After the woman went through security, she had so much luggage to carry that she could not manage even to hold Kaizhi’s hand. He had been forced to trot after her as she ran through the airport, crying louder and louder the farther they went, too upset to keep up.

  Little Yan couldn’t think about it. She chose not to. She had made so many compromises, and it had all led to this—her son getting dragged around behind a stranger. Zhuang seething with anger, started making calls, spending the last of their savings to purchase two last-minute tickets for the next day. If the woman missed that flight, Kaizhi would miss his opportunity. Little Yan would just move back to China.

  She couldn’t take the suspense.

  * * *

  • • •

  The next day Zhuang and Little Yan took a handful of friends out to lunch before driving to JFK airport. She had not been so calm this time. She had sent message after message to the woman, making sure the pair of them got on the plane. In the end, the woman was contrite and arrived hours early, before the airport even opened its doors.

  Zhuang dressed up that morning, wearing nice jeans and a blue Beatles T-shirt. He pulsed with energy, calling his family in China, pouring tea, laying out the schedule for the day. He didn’t want to be late. He told everyone he wanted to leave for the airport an hour and a half in advance of the plane’s scheduled arrival. He didn’t want to be stuck in traffic and miss his son. He picked out a noodle shop a few blocks away, on Kissena Boulevard. It was good and served food quickly. They wouldn’t have time, today, to linger over tea.

  Little Yan ate quickly. “Young kids are really adaptable,” she said to the table. “He won’t even remember the trip over.”

  “You’ll see,” Zhuang said. “He won’t know us when he gets here—that’s natural. I think he’ll feel at home, though, within three days. It won’t take very much time at all.”

  Zhuang had prepared a handful of toys—mechanical cars that played disco music—to present to Kaizhi when they all got home. Little Yan had bought a set of new clothes. It was normal, in China, to leave a child behind with grandparents. It would be an adjustment for Kaizhi, they told themselves at lunch and piling into the car, but a quick one. Kids that age are resilient. As long as they feel safe, they don’t mind where they are. Zhuang had already installed a carseat in the back of his tiny Honda. He had put it in the middle of the seat, so he would be able to see Kaizhi in the rearview mirror while he drove.

  As the pair of them drove to the airport, they imagined their son into being. He had been quiet on the train ride up, happy as long as he was with his grandfather. “Of course he cried at the airport!” Zhuang said, tapping the steering wheel nervously at a red light. “You can’t expect to just drag a little kid around like that!”

  “He’s only three,” Little Yan said. “He can’t be that naughty.”

  “He wouldn’t be naughty at all if he had just stayed in Wukan!” Zhuang said, suddenly defensive, pulling into the intersection. “Your parents didn’t know how to raise him!”

  “And yours did?” Little Yan said.

  “My father knows how to raise grandchildren!” Zhuang said. “It was too late by the time he got to Wukan!”

  “I felt better when he was at my parents’ house.”

  “You don’t know anything!”

  “Well, you know best.”

  “I do know best!”

  “Well, I don’t know where all this wisdom comes from.”

  Zhuang was yelling at the traffic in front of him. “You don’t have to know!”

  * * *

  • • •

  When Zhuang and Little Yan arrived at the airport, they lingered for a moment under a sign that read WELCOME TO JOHN F. KENNEDY INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT, WHERE AMERICA GREETS THE WORLD!

  The drive had taken less than half the time that Zhuang had allotted, and the couple arrived well before Kaizhi’s plane. The arrivals board listed the flight from China as landing, and it would continue landing for the next half hour. Zhuang pushed his way through a crowd waiting along the barrier that separated the arrivals from the people waiting to greet their loved ones. He leaned against the barrier nervously, squinting at the people flowing out into the hall. Little Yan stood farther back, her phone clutched in her hand. She had texted the woman from Wenzhou when they parked at the airport but had decided to wait for the flight’s status to change before she tried again. She shifted from foot to foot, waiting.

  “It has been landing for a half a day,” Zhuang murmured, grinning at his nervousness. “We should text her and go find a place to sit down.” Just then the flight status changed: on the ground. Little Yan texted madly, asking the Wenzhou woman about the flight. It had lasted fifteen hours. She hoped Kaizhi had been able to sleep. “Tell her to call us when she gets through customs,” Zhuang said over her shoulder. “Tell her we’re going to go sit down.”

  Wandering through the airport, Zhuang had met an acquaintance from Flushing. She was waiting to pick up a tour group from China and invited everyone to sit down at a table with her. She had worked at the karaoke place where Zhuang used to park cars, and they joked about it while Little Yan hugged her small Calvin Klein backpack, staring at her phone.

  “They make all the valets say, ‘I’ll take it to the parking lot in the back!’ ” Zhuang said. “And there is no parking lot in the back!” He was doing a fair imitation of relaxation, laughing too loudly, stealing glances at Little Yan’s phone. He told the woman he would be moving to an apartment soon.

  “You could rent out your living room,” she offered. “I’ve got someone staying in my living room right now, and they pay me four hundred fifty dollars.” The supermarket with th
e wall of room listings had closed, she told him. He should try the other wall, near the bubble tea shop.

  Little Yan’s phone rang, and the whole table fell silent. “Where are you?” she asked. She grunted a few times, then hung up.

  “Did you tell her to text us?” Zhuang asked.

  “I did.”

  Zhuang clicked his tongue—a barely audible tssk—and said he was worried that they might miss her coming out. “You never know with this woman,” he said. “And you didn’t tell her.”

  The group sat in relative silence, Zhuang’s friend talking about her job and pending asylum case.

  Finally a text came through on Little Yan’s phone. “They’re coming out!” she said.

  Zhuang pushed through the crowd to the barrier again, trying to get as close as possible to the spot where people were coming out. Little Yan again stood farther back, peering around a limo driver holding up a sign. Her eyes ran over every person who emerged, and she stretched her neck to see if there was a child hidden behind anyone’s legs. Then her phone rang again, she answered, and then she was running toward the door to the outside. She looked up and down the crowded sidewalk.

  There was Kaizhi, dwarfed by suitcases, his arms held stiffly down his front, one thumb gripped in the fist of his other hand. Little Yan ran to him but then slowed to a stop a few feet away, as if she were approaching a wild animal. Kaizhi stared up at her, his eyes glistening. Both his tear ducts were blocked, like Zhuang’s right one, and it made him look plaintive, on the verge of tears. When Little Yan reached her hand out to him, he shook his head and backed up a step. He looked up at her as if she were a giant.