“Welcome to Winnipeg,” my father says cheerfully. “Clear and bright.”
Qingming used to be my favorite festival—I loved the chilly picnic, the finger food, the crazy tribute of burning money. I even liked the orderly open rows of the graves. When Celeste questioned the whole “cooking for corpses” thing, I didn’t point out that her First Nations relatives ancestor-worship with the best of them.
Last year, I looked up the origin of this “no fire” cold-food occasion, which apparently comes from a legend about an emperor and his former aide, Jie Zitui. The emperor wanted to reward the aide for his past loyalty, but the aide had become a hermit who refused all visitors except his mother. So the emperor set fire to the forest where they lived, hoping to drive them out and justly honor them but instead burning them both alive. Henceforth, no fires shall be lit on this day, the emperor announced, in honor of my faithful servant, Jie Zitui. I’ve never really felt the same way about Qingming since. I’ve forgotten my sunglasses, and there’s a sharp north wind. I’m just thankful we no longer do the kite thing. For years, my parents would present me with a new Qingming kite, as is tradition, so we could get it to fly high enough that we might cut the string and watch it float up to the heavens. But mostly it would involve my father racing back and forth, tossing it aloft with all the grace of a born academic, while my mom and I watched it nose-dive as he hurled obscenities.
This time, my mother struggles just to keep the picnic blanket flat while my father happily unpacks his basketful of goodies: hunks of roast chicken and duck, hard-boiled eggs, fruit salad, iced tea. He carefully lines them up on his in-laws’ graves like he’s expecting a buffet crowd any second.
Kneeling awkwardly on the blanket, my mother sets up our little shrine: a framed photo of my father’s parents; a small jade burner in the shape of a Buddha-like panda; the worn-out cardboard poppy box I used to cherish like a teddy bear. She places some incense in the panda’s outstretched paws.
“Ah, my dear ma and pa, Scottie and Faye,” my father says in his bad Scottish burr. “What a pair ye were.”
My dad’s parents have no graves for us to clean, since they were both cremated before I came along and their ashes thrown into the creek behind their beloved farmhouse. My father lights the incense, but he refuses to burn the money, because he says poor Scottie would’ve thought it a sacrilege. My father has a hard time taking any kind of ritual seriously. He claims it’s because he knows ritual is both necessary and ridiculous, which is why he put the panda burner in my Christmas stocking.
My mother rests the burner on top of the poppy box and takes both of us by our icy hands. “Thank you, Chinese ancestors, for allowing us our Faye. We are forever grateful.”
My father passes me the flame igniter and a twenty. It’s my turn to speak, and I’m glad I don’t have to think. I can just repeat the same glorious sentiment I came up with when I was ten. “Thank you for life. Thank you for this life. May I make you proud with all that I’ve been given.”
My father kisses me on the top of my head, and when I squeeze my mother’s hand, she seems so grateful it’s pathetic. She places some red carnations by each of her parent’s headstones, then lights up another twenty. She is always quiet when it’s her turn, as if she’s not willing to share what this charade might mean to her or to her parents, two devout Catholics who died with last rites. They’re probably rolling in their graves as the money turns to swirling black smoke in the wind.
I force myself to eat some duck, but the fruit salad is practically frozen and we agree to save it for later. When we get home, my father presents me with a hand-painted kite in the shape of a dragonfly. He spied it in Chinatown on his last trip to Vancouver and couldn’t resist. “I thought you could hang it from your ceiling. It’s got most of your colors.”
It is truly beautiful, a work of art, but all I can think of is having those bulgy insect eyes staring down at me as I sleep.
That night my phone rings twice more, caller ID unavailable. The second time, there’s a male voice. “Who is this?”
“Who is this?” I ask, and he hangs up.
Afterward, I dream I’m playing Tchaikovsky’s Valse Sentimental, my fingers flying over the strings like sparrows flitting from branch to branch, when all goes silent, and Sasha and I are walking along our back lane. It’s summer, and garbage cans fill the air with a putrid sweetness, but we don’t care because we only smell each other. He bends his great height like a young tree in a gale-force wind and picks up a seashell.
“Shhh,” he says and holds it to my ear. I obediently listen to the primordial churning while he whispers sweet nothings into my neck.
At school on Monday, I do my best to fly beneath the radar. Carson is getting clingy, and Celeste mostly wants to plan out her next move. I respond to every text but beg off anything more, feigning further stomach trouble. I check my messages. Though it’s been over a week since we talked, I do not call Bev.
On Tuesday, my mother decides we should “do lunch.”
“I’ll pick you up at school,” she says. “We can go anywhere you like.”
I can sense there is no squirming out of this, so I choose the Greek restaurant a few blocks away, because I always choose the Greek restaurant. I love it because it’s called the White Tower even though it’s in a one-story strip mall adorned with fake orange brick. I order my usual—the chicken lemon soup—and my mother cheats on my father and orders black coffee and fries.
“So have you heard from Kris lately?” she asks.
I tilt my water glass and fish out an ice cube with my fork, well aware that she has not brought me here to discuss my former cello teacher’s battle with a mood disorder. “No.”
She reaches across the table, and her sleeve ends up in a tiny puddle of water beneath my glass. “Okay, so then let’s talk about you. You don’t seem yourself, Faye. We’re a little worried.”
There is part of me that wants to bury my face in that generous Polish hand I know so well. How many times has it reached for me?
“Listen, Faye,” she goes on, “you’re at a difficult age. Lots of adopted kids have trouble in their teens.”
Somehow, she thinks I will find it comforting that I’m a stereotype.
“Your dad and I were talking,” she says. “Maybe we could plan another China trip. There’s so much we didn’t see last time. Things are still exploding over there, and I could probably even find some angle with the paper. I mean, pretty soon you may not even want to come with us anymore.” She takes a sip of coffee and makes a face. “What do you think?”
I shrug, big and exaggerated, shoulders reaching for my ears.
She stares at me, forlorn. She covers inquiries into murdered children and violent rape cases without batting an eye. I am the only person who can make her look like this.
“I don’t know,” I say. “We were just there.”
“Okay,” she says. “It doesn’t have to be Asia. You put so much pressure on yourself. Maybe you need a break from all the lessons and exams. Let’s go somewhere, just the three of us. Cuba. Finland. Disneyland. You name it.”
“Disneyland?” I repeat.
“Come on, Faye,” she says. “What happened to my gypsy? People used to marvel at what a great traveler you were as a kid.”
“Russia,” I say.
It’s her turn now. “Russia?”
I can’t believe I said it, but I say it again, slowly this time. “Ru-sha.”
The waitress comes with the food, and there’s a brief reprieve. My mother’s fries are too hot and she has to spit some out into a napkin. For my sake, she tries to be game. “The paper just sent Gerald to the western borderlands. They’re not so much worried about nuclear fallout anymore as all the dirty fuels, like coal.”
I don’t mention that of the sixteen most polluted cities in the world, fourteen are in China. “I don’t know. It’s just an idea.”
“Okay,” she says. “Ideas are good. Your dad may be really into it. He’s
always wanted to see the Hermitage.”
My phone rings. It’s Celeste, so I let it go. “You can get that,” my mother says.
After all these years, I’ve finally figured out that if you want Celeste’s attention, you just have to ignore her. I guess if I were really nice, I’d sneak in and write that over a urinal in the guys’ bathroom and save a lot of them a lot of time.
I shake my head. “It’s just Celeste yanking my leash.”
My mother begins downing her fries with the abandon of a naughty child wolfing candy. I try and remember how to do the Heimlich.
“Come on, Faye,” she says with a full mouth. “We’re worried because we love you.”
After school the next day, the house is blissfully empty. Bev phones and I let it ring. Then I head upstairs and check my email.
Hello Little Bird. How are you? I am melancholy for quite a long time. I wish to be away from here. My life is not good. My future is not clear. Maybe I see you again some time, maybe no. I miss the snow. Can you believe? I trust you are well. Sincerely, Alexander Natieff (Sasha)
At first, I am flying with vindication. My Sasha is real. I did not imagine his big warm hands, his silly formality, his bright-blond belly hair. And then I crash with astonishing inevitability, a helpless sparrow going smackbang into a spotless window.
Sasha is trapped in a place of screw-ups and heartache. He was the most interesting thing that ever happened to me, and now there’s nothing I can do for him because this world is too big and too nasty.
There’s a Chinese folk tale about true love that’s popular with parents like mine who spend thousands of dollars and travel to the other side of the earth to create their families. According to the story, lovers are born with a magical thin red thread that connects them by their ankles, and no matter what they do or where they go, it’s just a matter of time until they find each other.
“In those first days,” my mother used to say, “you were so skinny, and with the bronchitis, you sounded like a seal. I was scared out of my wits. Then I noticed that every time you were upset or uncomfortable, you dug your tiny fingernail into your thumb and made an okay sign. It was like you were telling me things were going to be okay, and I knew it was impossible to love anyone more than I loved you. It was like everything in our lives had led us to you, and you to us.”
Sometimes we went to the farmers’ market in St. Norbert, and afterward I’d lie in bed and imagine my birth mother carrying me around the stalls in her best willow basket. She would move quietly through the crowd, taking quick, sure steps with her petite feet until she found the perfect spot. She would set me down between my two favorite stalls—the one with free samples of rye bread and dill pickles and the one where they let me play with little Russian nesting dolls. As I gurgled, she would pull a red ribbon from her black hair and tie it to my ankle. Then my birth mother would flit away as quick as a hummingbird and my own mother would be there, twisting the other end of the ribbon around her wrist the way she fidgets with her watch when she’s impatient. Then my mother would lift me in her arms, and I’d give her the okay sign and we’d go home.
I knew this was nothing more than a waking dream, but I didn’t care—only the romance mattered. I let myself believe in the red thread for a long time, even after Bev told me that Santa wasn’t real.
“My dad told me,” she said. “He dresses up every year at the restaurant. He said it’s just a good excuse for old guys to have girls sit on their laps.”
“You can’t see the real Santa,” I said. “He’s invisible. He comes when you’re asleep.”
“Your parents buy you the presents,” she said. “I know. My mom keeps them downstairs, stacked behind the freezer.”
But I didn’t stop believing, even when I glimpsed the lies grown-ups tell themselves, like the time I did a little experiment over at Bev’s place.
My mother, who is not naturally tidy—like most oldstyle journalists, her desk is a disaster of phone numbers on paper scraps, discarded story drafts and weeks-old newspapers—was forever wiping my face with her spit. It’s like she lived in fear of someone thinking, That child has dried milk on her face. She must have a bad mommy.
So one time I was outside at Bev’s. She was busy drawing little hearts on her pink skin with a stick while my mother sat on our front porch, editing a story. Now and then she would look up and wave, as if she couldn’t care less that I was picking my nose the whole time. I was standing in the middle of the lawn, picking away, and she was fine with it, as if what happened at Bev’s stayed at Bev’s. As if it wasn’t her concern.
Still I remained sweet, dutiful-by-nature Faye. I was studious and well-adjusted, with borderline OCD. I was best friends with perfect Celeste, descendent of the mighty Métis who mastered this frigid, mosquito-plagued flatland. My parents and I were three peas in a pod. I remained sweetly innocent for so long, like it was my due, when all the while I was being lied to by omission. I grew up with a “best of ” propaganda reel of the Eastern Empire. It wasn’t until I was old enough to look for myself that the fuller picture emerged.
I open the electronic file I had created before we left for China. Everything is ordered alphabetically. I scan a few entries, looking for some sign, something that ended the romance once and for all.
Re: Cultural Revolution
During the Cultural Revolution, music teachers were sometimes beaten to death by their own students for being “tainted artists.” Many artists sent to the countryside for “re-education” resorted to cannibalism to survive.
Re: Demographic problems
Due to the selective abortion or abandonment of hundreds of thousands of girls over the course of China’s one-child policy, the country is already suffering from a challenging shortfall of brides. By the middle of the century, it’s estimated that surplus grooms will number in the millions. This sex-ratio gap has already led to a reported rise in the kidnapping and trafficking of marriageable women.
Re: Imperial culture
The Chinese traditionally conceive of heaven as but a mirror image of life on earth, a rigid hierarchical society administered by a giant bureaucracy in the sky.
Re: Suicide rates
Today, China is the only country in the world where more women kill themselves than men. Most use what’s at hand, often agricultural chemicals.
Did it take nothing more than a few nights spent online, stockpiling historical notes and statistics, to snap me out of the dream? Or did I have to see it for myself, trudge through the suffocating humidity and hubris of the New China looking for a past that didn’t exist?
By the time we got there, I knew the Chinese believed crickets to be lucky, but that they also thought it was fun to watch them fight to the death. I knew Chinese women had been treated like cattle since the empire began, knew individual human life had never held much value there. Confucius preached that family and duty came before all personal wishes. Duty to your family, to your godlike emperor, to your godlike state—so it’s gone on through the centuries.
At least it was clear what my parents were hoping to find: a giddy trip down memory lane. My mother would rush to some god-awful, peach-colored hotel with a bootleg DVD stall out front. “There used to be a department store here where we got you that little knit jacket with the duck pockets. Little old ladies kept coming up and gesturing that you must be cold.”
“It was twenty-one degrees,” my father added, “and they were only happy if you were wrapped in wool.”
Or my mother would make the taxi pull over. “There was a stall here where we went for noodles. We took a picture of you here, the one with a noodle hanging out of your mouth.”
But I knew damn well this wasn’t the whole story.
Re: TB and other orphanage illnesses
Common afflictions Westerners encountered while adopting baby girls from China: infected sores hidden beneath diapers, intestinal viruses and tuberculosis.
Re: True cautionary stories of international adoption
My parents loved to go on about how much the Chinese love children, and I saw it for myself. Wherever we went, families were happily out and about with their little ones, encouraging them to check out the foreigners, proudly pushing them forward to say, “heyyo.” So the million-dollar question is, how can they treat some children with such affection and others with such callousness?
When we tried to visit the orphanage where I spent my infancy, officials claimed it had been torn down and so took us to the deluxe model Emma and her family had gone back to renovate using church donations. They proudly showed us the rows of bright white cribs. Back at the original place, the one that is supposedly rubble now, they wrote little bios of us that were cherished like baby booties but probably mostly made up. Chang is easily contented with her bottle and small rattle, mine read. She is very aware of her surroundings and likes music.
My phone rings. It’s Bev, so I let it go.
It rings again. Caller ID unavailable. When I pick up, there are street sounds—something big, like a bus or a truck. “Who is this?” I ask.
Nothing, then, “Why is Bev calling you?”
“Who is this?” I ask again.
“It doesn’t matter,” he says. “How do you know Bev?”
I hang up.
I dream of Dakota Forrester’s Sonatina for Cello and Piano I. The bow takes on a life of its own, and the notes float in the clear mountain chill so sweetly and so sadly that it leaves Sasha and me breathless. All the weeping in the world is being distilled into those sweet, sad notes. They are the sound of pure sorrow, and so beautiful all you can do is let yourself surrender.
Your Constant Star Page 5