Valley of Amazement (9780062107336)

by Tan, Amy

  Two weeks after he began, he presented the painting to me with an inscription on the back with both Chinese and English words: “For Lucia, on the occasion of her 17th birthday.” My actual birthday had passed while I was on the ship. The painting was both beautiful and disturbing. I was set against a black background, in a formless empty space, as if I did not belong anywhere. My shoulders were milky white on one side and cast in shadow on the other. The painting extended to my waist, and over my breasts was a lustrous swath of satin, held up by one hand, conveying the erotic sense that I was both modest yet given to indecency. My green irises were thin rings, and my pupils were large and black, as black as the nameless place in which I sat. They reminded me of the first time I had looked close into Lu Shing’s eyes and saw that his eyes were so dark I would never be able to see into them and know who he was. Anyone who saw the painting would confirm that I was the girl in the painting. While it was well executed, I did not want to be that girl with those blank eyes, unable to see anything but the painter, as if he would always be my entire world. This was not my spirit but what remained after losing it. Lu Shing did not know me. And what frightened me more: I did not know myself. He loved a girl who did not exist. He was not my intimate. Yet the thought of giving him up was inconceivable, because then I would have to destroy what was in the painting of the green valley: It was love for myself.

  “You’ve made me beautiful,” I said. I was glad we were in the dark, so that he could not see that my neck was flushed pink. I marveled over the painting, finding as many good things as I could to cover my disappointment. I then asked Lu Shing to paint over the name he had given me in English and Chinese. “It should read, ‘Lucretia Minturn,’” I said. “If the painting is passed along to future generations of your family, they should know my true name.” I watched for his reaction. He did not look at me.

  “Of course,” he said.

  I asked for another painting. “The painting of the valley,” I said. “Can you paint it from memory?”

  He brought the painting to me three days later, leading me to suspect he had given me one of many copies he already had on hand, many depictions of where my true self could be found.

  THREE MONTHS PASSED and I grew too large to wear the clothes I had brought. Danner and Golden Dove had a tailor make me new dresses and loose gowns. The ones I felt most comfortable in were like Danner’s, loose-fitting pajamas and robes. The baby had become real to me, not simply a solution to gain acceptance into Lu Shing’s family. My future lay with this baby, no matter what happened. I could not allow myself any expectations beyond that. Lu Shing might visit every night for a week. Rarely did he stay until morning. Just when I felt I could accept the arrangement, he would disappear for a week and I would feel cast into the nether world of the abandoned. When he returned, he always provided good reasons for his absence. He had been obligated to accompany his father as translator for an important meeting on treaty exemptions. His mother had fallen ill and called upon him for daily fortification of hope. I was suspicious of his truthfulness, but did not want to further question him and perhaps find that the queasy suspicions had been justified.

  Over time, our lovemaking became distanced. I reasoned it had to do with my pregnancy, that he did not find a ballooning woman an attractive consort. But I also noticed that he seldom stayed longer than a few hours. He seemed hurried as he dressed. I could guess what he was hiding, and the truth knotted in my throat. I forced myself to be calm, to tamp down tears and cool my head and the blotches. When he stood at the door to say good-bye, he was awkward and wore a guilty face that belied his promises to be truthful.

  “Are you married?” I asked with little emotion.

  He paused and came to me. “I did not want to tell you until I was certain you were able to hear this news. But you were either in a sad mood or an extremely happy one. The time never seemed right.”

  The truth was upsetting but his reasoning was flaccid and insincere. “When would I have ever been able to hear it? When the baby was in my arms?”

  “Lucia, you knew I had a contracted bride. The marriage changes nothing between us.”

  “Don’t call me Lucia anymore. That girl doesn’t belong to you anymore. My name is Lucretia.”

  “I was made to marry a girl I do not love. But you could still be my wife.”

  “A concubine.”

  “You would be known as Second Wife. It is not necessarily a weaker position if you provide the first male of the next generation. With our son, you could live in your own house, and the family would still recognize you as my wife. The arrangement will be far more comfortable than living in the house as First Wife. Ask Golden Dove if this is not true.”

  “And if the baby is not a male?”

  ”You cannot think that way.”

  Golden Dove confirmed the truth of what Lu Shing had said about my becoming Second Wife. “However,” she added, “there is a difference between what is possible and what is realized, especially when it is the man who says what the possibilities are. I have learned from experience. Maybe your possibilities will not be like mine.”

  On the evening the baby was about to be born, what would have been the American observance of Lincoln’s birthday, Danner sat downstairs, waiting for Lu Shing’s coolie. Golden Dove had been with me all day, calling out in English: “Be brave. Be strong.” After I had endured ten hours of pain, I could bear it no longer and I screamed and gasped. All her soothing English words were replaced with frantic Chinese ones I could not understand, which made me wonder if I was going to die. Finally, the coolie came back with the familiar cream-colored envelope and Lu Shing’s neatly written message: He was obligated to attend a banquet and festivities for the sixtieth year of his aunt’s birthday. “The sixtieth is one of the most important birthdays,” he wrote.

  A number was more important than being with me when our baby was born? The only acceptable reason he could have given was that he had died. Danner gave the coolie a note that I was moments from giving birth to our child.

  An hour later, the Chinese midwife solemnly announced that my baby was a girl. She placed her in my arms. When the baby wailed, I wailed with her. I cried for the pain she would share with me. I cried that my hopes had evaporated. And then, while looking at me, she stopped crying, and I fell in love. I would protect her, care for her. I would not neglect her as my mother had me. I would not change her. She would know that I loved her for who she was. She would be like the violets I had planted in the garden when I was a child, the ones my mother deemed a weed that should be pulled out. I nurtured them to grow free, far and wide, and they spread, unhampered, until they were everywhere.

  Danner was delighted to have a “miniature queen” among us. He would be her most loyal subject. When I told him that I had decided to name her “Violet” after my favorite flower, he said violets were among his favorites as well because they had beautiful and expressive little faces. He said he would send out a servant in the morning to find violets that we could plant throughout the garden.

  Danner’s nebulous note to Lu Shing had the desire effect. Within two hours, Lu Shing was running up the stairs. He came to me with eyes wide in expectation. A moment later, he knew the truth by my expression. When I unfolded the quilt around her, he did not move as he stared at her, and it was not with awe but with the slight hesitation that expressed his disappointment. He could not disguise it.

  “She is beautiful,” he murmured. “So small.” He struggled to find other meaningless pronouncements on the features of an infant.

  He glanced toward me with a questioning look. He was waiting for me to acknowledge what the birth of a girl signified for my future. I hated him at that moment. He thought I was disappointed that our baby had been born without a penis and that she was the reason I had lost my chance at being accepted by his family. And then it occurred to me that he saw Violet as the reason for his troubles. She was the reason I had come with him to Shanghai. I resolved I would not let Violet beco
me anyone’s disappointment. She would be welcomed for who she was. She was my child, my daughter, whom I now loved more than anyone in the world, more than Lu Shing.

  “I named her Violet,” I said, and without looking at him, I added, “I love her far more than you think.”

  He nodded. He did not ask why I had named her “Violet,” nor did he comment on my declaration of love for her.

  The following day, a woman arrived, who informed me that Lu Shing had sent her to be the baby’s amah. I was heartened by the expression of love. Or was that love? An amah? I was bothered that I had to question everything that Lu Shing did. Each time Lu Shing visited, he brought her gifts, and I watched his face as he held her. He did not show delight. Later, when she learned to laugh, he delighted in her, but I still did not feel he loved her as I did. If he had, he would have fought to have her accepted by his father. When she cried with a red face and balled fists, he was concerned, but he did not feel her distress, as I did. He did nothing to soothe her.

  “No father has those instincts,” Danner said later.

  “If he loved her, why would he not want to put his name on the birth certificate?”

  “It would permanently cast her out as his offspring. Until you have an official position within the family, you should wait.”

  “Is it better for her to bear the stigma of being an illegitimate love child if I never have a position in his family? I can’t let Violet go through life with others thinking less of her.”

  “I have a solution,” Danner said. He left the house. Two hours later he returned with a wedding certificate that stated I had married Philo Danner. It was dated months before Violet’s birth. He then held up a birth certificate for Violet Minturn Danner. “I’ve already had her registered at the American Consulate,” he said. “She is an American citizen and will be required to sing ‘My Country ‘Tis of Thee.’”

  I was crying. He had given Violet the gift of legitimacy.

  “If you would rather be married to someone else,” he said, “I can go to the same man who made the certificates. He is one of the best in Shanghai—all the proper-looking forms, red name seals, Chinese characters and English gibberish.”

  To celebrate his fatherhood, Danner bought Violet a bassinet and a silver rattle with a tassel. “My Puritan prayers have been answered. At last, I am a father.”

  Like me, Violet had brown hair and green eyes. Her skin was pale, but the shape of her eyes made her look more Chinese than white. Danner disagreed. He said she took after Teddy’s Italian side of the family. As if by his decree, Violet changed over the next year. Strangers who saw and admired her guessed she was half-Italian or half-Spanish.

  DANNER AND I had the life of a married couple in many ways. He would arrange for us to have our meals together. Golden Dove joined us as Violet’s auntie, and we three took turns fussing over Violet. We noted everything new she had done, what she had shown interest in. When Violet was eleven months old, she called Danner “Daddy,” and he cried and said that was one of the happiest moments in his entire life. When we took walks, we discussed her future—the schools she should attend, the boys she should avoid. We worried over her health together and disagreed over the best remedies to quell red-faced crying.

  Danner carried her into toy shops and bought whichever object was the first thing she reached for. I finally told him that twelve jack-in-the-boxes were quite enough. She clearly loved him and laughed when he walked around, bouncing her on his enormous belly. But Danner, I noticed, tired easily with any amount of extra weight. He had to quickly sit down to catch his breath. I worried over his health and exercised the prerogative of his wife in demanding he lose weight.

  By May, not even a year after I had arrived in Shanghai, Lu Shing had fallen into an unsatisfactory pattern of haphazard visits. He might be with me for three days and then I would not see him for a week. He had taught Violet to say “Baba,” for father, but she did not lift her arms toward him when he arrived as she did to Danner. The disappointments I had with Lu Shing had been softened by Violet, who consumed most of my thoughts. She had given me the gift of fullness in my heart. When she fluttered her hands, she waved away anger. She crawled over the mounds of violets in the garden. Seeing her laugh in those pillows of flowers made my heart squeeze often with the surprise of happiness.

  On a warm day in May, the Double Fifth, the alley was much quieter than on most afternoons. Most of the denizens—the Chinese and the foreigners—had gone to Soochow Creek to watch the Dragon Boat races. In that serene garden, as Lu Shing stood with Violet in his arms, I told him my news: I was pregnant again.

  LU SHING TOLD the amah to serve me foods that would strengthen the baby growing within me. He did not say the word boy. I knew we both should have had a cautious heart. But I was happy to let hope reemerge. It was not just for my chance to be accepted into the Lu family. I wanted Violet to be acknowledged as Lu Shing’s daughter.

  The baby came on November 29, 1900, Thanksgiving Day. Lu Shing had told me he would be away during that time to assist his father. Yet he came within three hours after my announcement had been sent. He held the baby and stared at his face, commenting on the great future that awaited him. He gloated that his son had been born on a special day, the day after his grandfather’s birthday. Lu Shing would say that the closeness of the birthday marked one generation to the next. When he compared the resemblance the baby had to him, he described it as “the Lu family brow,” “the Lu family nose.” He caught me watching. “It’s important that they see the resemblance,” he explained, “so they know without a doubt that the baby is my son.” He kissed my forehead and thanked me.

  The next day, he returned laden with gifts. Chinese baby clothes, a silver locket, a rich silk blanket. He said that the baby should look Chinese when he presented him to his mother. He should look like he already belonged to a wealthy family.

  He held the baby up to his face and talked to him: “Your grandmother has been waiting impatiently for you. She’s made daily offerings. She was afraid she would have only granddaughters …” Lu Shing had spoken without caution, and suspicion immediately rose and made me ill.

  “Did your wife give your mother a granddaughter?”

  He was not apologetic. “Let us be happy today, Lucia. Let’s forget everything else and believe that our fate has changed.”

  “You intend to make me your Second Wife?” I said.

  “I am ready to try. We now have a better chance.”

  “What is your assessment of your family’s acceptance of me? Warm embrace? Tolerance? Resentment? Be truthful. My happiness depends on it.”

  “It may take time.” He spoke of his plans to approach his mother, to petition that I be recognized.

  I was not listening. I had been thinking over the past hour of how my life might change once I moved out of Danner’s house. I had freedom here and no one who governed what I did. Violet adored Danner, and he adored her. And Danner, Golden Dove, and I had become true friends who could count on one another without question.

  ”I prefer to keep the arrangement we have now,” I told Lu Shing. “You can give me whatever position you want in your family, so long as both Violet and our son are accepted and also recognized as mine. I’ll continue to live here in Danner’s house and with our children.”

  Lu Shing looked relieved. He spoke again about his chances of winning his family’s approval once he showed them our son.

  “Until they are both accepted into the Lu family,” I said, “they will be considered Danner’s children. I will have an American birth certificate that says so. And even if they are accepted, the children will continue to live with me.”

  “Our son should spend time with his grandparents, especially on important occasions. That will secure his legitimate station in our family.”

  “What about Violet?”

  “I will ensure she is accepted and treated well. But I cannot change how my parents view the first male of the next generation.”

 
I never would have agreed to this arrangement two years ago. But I saw now that it had been folly and pride to foist myself on Lu Shing’s family and suffer from their rejection. My proposal was not a compromise, but my wish. I could let go of my resentments and Lu Shing his secrecy. That day, he lay on the bed with our son between us. He spoke tenderly with all the endearments I had not heard for a year. He would inform his family that he would divide his time between their home and the other we had on East Floral Alley. Despite our excited talk over the future, I was clear-eyed. His parents might not accept our son as the legitimate first male. And if that was the case, it would not matter. I would still have my two children. I might continue to be disappointed in Lu Shing, but I would not be dependent on him for my happiness. Danner was more a true husband than Lu Shing could ever be. He was more a father than my father ever was.

  After Lu Shing left, I told Danner about my plans. “He declined to live here as Second Husband,” I said. “So with you as First Husband and me as First Wife, our family will be just Violet, the new baby, and us. Lu Shing will come visit with us as before. Lu Shing can name the baby whatever he wants. But his American name will be Teddy Minturn Danner.”

  Danner was so overcome he sobbed to a state of breathlessness.

  Lu Shing arrived early the next morning while Danner, Violet, and I were having breakfast. I could tell he was impatient to see his son. “The baby is sleeping,” I said, “and can’t be disturbed.” Lu Shing asked to speak to me privately.