The Distant Land of My Father

by Bo Caldwell

  At Midnight Mass, surrounded by both our families, I prayed silently for the one who wasn’t there, the one who was always somewhere in my mind, and for a few moments, I let my feelings of love for him win out over the anger and frustration and hurt. Keep him safe, I prayed, the same words I’d used in Shanghai so long ago. Protect him, guard him, keep him safe.

  In January of 1954, on the first Monday of the new year, the phone rang too early to be anything but news. Jack and I were lying in bed, listening to the sound of the rain. He reached for the phone and said hello, then handed it to me, and I knew from his proper tone it was my mother.

  “Good morning,” she said quickly. “I know it’s early, but I wanted to get you before you left the house. Look at the Times, Anna. There’s something about your father on page five. He’s been released and he’s in Hong Kong. You can read the rest.”

  “Thank you,” I said, as though she’d held a door open for me.

  “We’ll talk later, if you want,” she said, and then she hung up.

  I pulled on a robe and went outside for the paper, which I spread out on the kitchen table. I turned to page five and found what I was looking for in the top right corner: AMERICAN FREE AFTER 3 YEARS IN SHANGHAI JAIL. “A 47-year-old China-born American businessman, lame and nearsighted from beriberi, arrived in Hong Kong yesterday after spending three years in a Shanghai jail,” the article read. “Joseph Schoene told newsmen he was released without explanation last Monday from Shanghai’s notorious Ward Road Jail.”

  The article went on to say that Schoene had been released with five other prisoners, three Russians and two Italians. He said that other Americans were still held in Shanghai, but that he didn’t know how many; that death and suffering were rampant in the jail; that new prisoners were being brought in at the rate of six to eight a day; and that firing squads were shooting them.

  Mr. Schoene, the article said, had been arrested in April of 1951 on what he said was a trumped-up charge of owning illegal firearms. He had not been tortured, though he had spent most of the past year in solitary confinement, where he had subsisted on a diet of watery rice. His weight had dropped from two hundred to eighty-five, and he had suffered from beriberi, although he had gradually recovered the use of his legs.

  He did not know the reason for his sudden release. “I was just rolled out of Red China,” he was quoted as saying, “I have no idea why.” The day of his release he had been taken from his cell to the warden, who told him that he was to appear in the People’s Court at noon that day. At the courthouse, the judge informed Schoene that he had three days to leave China, that he could take only minor personal effects, that any funds he’d had in Chinese banks now belonged to the People’s Republic, and that he was expelled from China for the rest of his life. Schoene said he left the jail and walked to the British Consulate, where he was given passage on the SS Fernside to Hong Kong. Then he went to what had once been his office, where he gathered the few possessions he still had, several account ledgers from his business and a few personal items. He left Shanghai the next day.

  Jack had come in while I was reading. I had finally told him about my father a few months before we were married, and now he stood next to me, looking over my shoulder. When I finished reading I said, “He’s all right.”

  Jack put his arms around me and held me and asked, “Are you?”

  I nodded. “Relieved,” I said. “I’m glad he’s safe, and I’m glad I won’t be hearing about him again.”

  But I was wrong. That article was only the first of many over the next four months. My father apparently caught the interest of the Los Angeles Times, which printed the AP accounts of his situation and kept us posted about his life with the regularity of a soap opera serial. All that winter and spring, I opened the morning paper with an unpleasant mix of fear and anticipation—What has he done now?—a feeling that was familiar where my father was concerned, as I pieced together what had happened.

  When my father was released from prison in Shanghai, the British Consulate there issued him a visa for a seven-day stay in Hong Kong. The authorities in Hong Kong admitted him on humanitarian grounds, and he then applied for and received a six-month restricted passport from the United States Consulate. He intended to stay in Hong Kong for good. Once he regained his health and strength, he borrowed some money and bought the Glenbrook Poultry Farm in Aberdeen, on the south part of Hong Kong Island, a few miles south of Victoria.

  But just a few weeks after that, he received unwelcome news: he was ordered to be expelled from the colony and deported for life. The only reason the government would give was that his presence “was not conducive to the public good.”

  My father was outraged. It was a great injustice against him, he said, as well as an infringement of his human rights as set out in the Charter of the United Nations. He had not violated any of the laws of Hong Kong, he had committed no crimes to warrant deportation, he would be unable to earn a living in the United States. And, he said, why should Hong Kong object to his presence? The U.S. Consulate had no objection to his remaining in Hong Kong. (“I’ll bet they didn’t,” my grandmother commented dryly when she read that piece of news. “They’re in no hurry to get him home.”)

  When he received no satisfactory answer to his question, he fought the deportation order. He hired a lawyer and contested the validity of the order. He went so far as to petition Queen Elizabeth to stay the deportation order, but, he said, he “had no reason to believe she would help me out.” His attempts were unsuccessful, and finally, on March 5, he lost his action before the Supreme Court, and the government ruled that the deportation order was valid and final.

  But he wouldn’t leave.

  His lawyers informed him that everything had been tried and that there was no recourse for objecting, but still he wouldn’t leave, and when, by the end of the month, he was still in Hong Kong, he was arrested and taken to the Upper Level Police Station. AMERICAN BUSINESSMAN JAILED IN HONG KONG was the headline this time. The next day there was more: SCHOENE REFUSES TO EAT, it said. The day after his arrest, he had begun a hunger strike. Five days after that, he was taken to Queen Mary Hospital.

  There was a photograph this time. There was my father, casual as Saturday morning, wearing a dark-colored sport shirt and light-colored trousers and reclining on a cot. A glass of water and a radio were on the table next to the bed. The caption read, “Schoene is little the worse from 6-day fast.” As I stared at the photograph, all I could think was, He’s crazy. And even though by that time my name had been twice changed—from Schoene to Shoen, and then from Shoen to my married name, Bradley—a part of me still wanted to wear a sandwich board around town, or to publish something in the paper that said, He’s not my father. I don’t even know him.

  The government had made arrangements for my father to travel on the same ship that had taken him to Hong Kong, the Norwegian vessel Fernside, which was to sail for the U.S. three days later. But luck was with my father: the ship developed engine trouble and had to be taken to the docks for repairs, and when it sailed, my father was still not on board because the government felt he should be on a ship with medical care, and the Fernside had none. He would be deported as soon as a proper ship was available.

  Then, just as suddenly as he’d begun his fast, he broke it. The paper did not say why, only that there were rumors of a visit from a friend recently arrived from Shanghai, but there was another photograph. This time my father was sitting up and eating congee and chicken soup.

  Finally, on April 30, 1954, the last article:

  SCHOENE LEAVES QUIETLY, OUSTED BY HONG KONG

  An unheralded departure from Hong Kong was made by American Joseph Schoene, 47, aboard the Swedish American Lines vessel Wangaratta, bound for Vancouver, B.C., and Seattle. Schoene boarded the ship at 5:30 P.M. yesterday. “He left quietly and of his own accord,” a U.S. Consulate official stated. Schoene said that he had “run out of legal options in trying to offset the Hong Kong government’s decision” tha
t he must leave the colony. He called the actions of Hong Kong’s government “a shame, a disgrace, and a gross injustice. I tried to pick up the threads of my life, breaking no laws and endeavoring to make a living. But I found out democracy is only preached, not practiced.”

  Schoene said he will be visiting relatives in the United States. He will not pursue any further legal action. He has left his share of the Glenbrook Poultry Farm in Aberdeen to Miss Leung Mancheung, a longtime friend from Shanghai, who arrived in Hong Kong last week.

  I knew from experience that if my father had left Hong Kong on April 29, he would be arriving in Seattle three weeks later, somewhere around May 20. As that day drew closer, I found myself as nervous as if I expected him to show up on my doorstep. Though I knew it was irrational, sharing a continent with him made me anxious, and the only thing I could do was try not to think of him, and, when I did, to change the subject in my mind as easily as I changed it in conversation on those rare occasions when his name was mentioned.

  My mother insisted on having a party for Jack and me for our first wedding anniversary. She said we’d had everyone over to our house far too many times for newlyweds, and that it was only right for someone else to play host once in a while. And so on the eighth of July, Jack and I went to her house for dinner. It was supposed to be a barbecue, and my mother had said to dress casually, but “casual” to my mother usually meant “dressy” to everyone else. Jack wore khaki trousers and a white shirt and plaid bow tie, and looked like he was nineteen. I wore a navy blue sundress that I loved, never mind the fact that it was a little tight in the waist.

  We walked from our apartment to my mother’s house, Jack carrying half a dozen roses he’d picked from our backyard for my mother. When she met us at the door, I was speechless, for she wore a fitted dress of pink and gold brocade and she looked beautiful. Cheongsam, I thought when I saw her, the word a surprise, for I had not thought of it for years. The dress was familiar, though from long ago. When my mother saw my look, she shrugged.

  “It’s from Shanghai days,” she said. “I’ve lost a little weight, and I was curious about whether or not it still fit.” She looked down and smoothed her dress and seemed shy and almost girlish for a moment. “It was my favorite dress, a long time ago. Does it look silly?”

  I shook my head. “No, it’s beautiful,” I said. “You’re beautiful. You look like a movie star.” And I was surprised to see her blush. My mother had never been one to need compliments.

  Jack nodded. “That’s some dress. You look great, simple as that. And you sure don’t look like a mother-in-law.”

  My mother beamed like a schoolgirl, and I squeezed Jack’s hand, grateful that he’d made her smile, for there was a frailty about her that worried me.

  When everyone was there, Jack and I were toasted with my grandmother’s sangria. Jack’s father grilled hamburgers on the patio and there was sweet corn on the cob and more fruit than anyone could eat—watermelon and peaches and Bing cherries and strawberries, all bought from a fruit stand at Farmer’s Market that my grandmother insisted had the best fruit in Southern California. It was the kind of party where the guests were like a big family. People wandered in and out of the house the way they wandered in and out of each other’s conversations, and the sound of talking and laughter was constant, always to a backdrop of whatever record Jack had put on—“Mr. Sandman” by the Chordettes, “Hey There” by Rosemary Clooney, “That’s Amore” by Dean Martin. Everyone knew each other, at least from our wedding if not before, and when Heather, in the middle of conversation with Peter Shelton, a friend of Jack’s from UCLA, called to me, “Anna, when did you and your mother move to South Pasadena?” I had to think for a minute, for it seemed I’d been there all of my life. Shanghai was like something imagined.

  Late in the party, when only a few friends and Jack and my mother and grandmother and I were left, I went outside. The others were talking in the living room, but I was tired and wanted to just sit for a while, so I went outside to look at the garden I’d worked on so long ago.

  I stood on the patio and listened to the crickets. There was a fingernail moon that was just a white scratch against the dark sky, and there were more stars than I’d seen in weeks. I had only stared up at the sky for a minute before I saw a shooting star, and I heard my mother say, “Did you make a wish?”

  I turned and found her sitting on the chaise lounge, her back to the house, hiding her from view. The air had grown cool the way it does at night in Los Angeles, and she had wrapped a white shawl around her shoulders. The light was dim, but I saw that she was smiling. “Well, did you? You don’t want to waste a wish.”

  I sighed. “I’m too tired,” I said. “And I can’t think of anything I want that I don’t have.”

  She nodded and seemed pleased. “That’s wonderful. I think that’s called happiness.” Then she patted the chair next to her and said, “Sit with me for a while?”

  “Gladly,” I said, and I sat down and pushed off my sandals and tucked my feet up underneath me.

  The garden was lovely, overgrown and wild, fragrant with roses and jasmine and eucalyptus. In the light that spilled out on the patio from inside the house, my mother seemed ethereal and lovely and otherworldly in her beautiful cheongsam, so much like she had seemed in Shanghai that I found myself staring, as though she were someone I hadn’t seen in a long time. Apparently she could tell, even with her eyes closed. “You’re staring, Anna,” she said softly. “Have you forgotten your manners?”

  I felt my cheeks redden, and I feared I might even cry as though I were a child who’d been reprimanded. “I’m sorry,” I mumbled.

  She waved my words away and smiled at me. “Don’t take everything so seriously,” she said, and she looked at me closely. “You are tired.”

  I sighed. “The party. I feel like I could fall asleep right here.”

  She nodded, and then she was quiet for so long that I was thinking she’d fallen asleep when she cleared her throat and said, “You should probably see this.”

  She held a folded paper out to me, which I took. “It’s a letter from your father,” she said, and when I winced, she laughed softly. “Don’t worry. You don’t have to see him. He’s only asking to borrow some money, but you might as well know about it. I wouldn’t put it past him to ask you next.”

  “What happened to his money?”

  “It’s gone,” my mother said simply. “I think he spent quite a bit before he was imprisoned. The Communist government kept the rest.”

  I unfolded the letter and held it up so that the light from inside fell on it. Eve, it began, I’m well and living near Santa Barbara in Carpinteria, a little place not far from the beach. Am raising chickens, something I learned about in the not-so-good days in Shanghai and briefly in Hong Kong. The enterprise will be all right, but getting started is tough. Could you see your way clear to helping me out with a short-term loan? A thousand dollars would turn everything around for me. I’ve been unable to recoup anything from before the—

  I turned the paper over, looking for the rest of the letter, and I looked at my mother. “Where’s the rest?”

  She shook her head and waved vaguely toward the house. “It was just talk,” she said coolly. “I’ve misplaced the second page.”

  “You aren’t going to give him any money, are you?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. He supported us for a long time, and now he doesn’t have anything. I don’t need much anymore, and it seems only fair to give back some of what was his.”

  “What possible reason can you have to trust him? Maybe he’s bluffing. Maybe he has plenty of money.”

  She laughed. “I doubt that. He’s working as a school janitor until he can get the chicken farm going.”

  I felt ignorant and in the dark. I asked, “And how would you know that?” and I hated the accusation that I heard in my voice.

  “Another letter. He keeps me posted about his goings-on. I don’t know why, really. Habit, I guess.”

&n
bsp; “You shouldn’t correspond with him,” I said, and then I forced myself not to say more, because I had the oddest feeling. I felt jealous, even betrayed, and I didn’t know why.

  My mother said, “We’ve known each other for a long time, Anna. We had a child together. Those are hard ties to break. If your father wants, for reasons of his own, to remain in touch with me, I won’t say no.”

  I considered my options and said nothing for perhaps a minute. I mainly wanted to say, You can’t!, and stamp my foot and throw a fit, and to get her to promise that she would have nothing to do with this man I considered dangerous.

  And then my mother said, “I want to tell you something. I thought for a long time I’d keep this to myself, but apparently my old age is getting the best of me.”

  “You’re forty-four,” I said.

  “It was a joke,” she said dryly, and she glanced at me. “What’s happened to your sense of humor?”

  I shrugged. “A casualty of my tiredness, I guess.”

  She nodded. “Fatigue will flatten a sense of humor pretty quickly. Take the air right out of you.” And then she took a deep breath and said, “I owe you an apology.”

  I started to speak, but she held her hand out, silencing me. “Just let me keep going. I haven’t rehearsed this speech much. As I said, I didn’t really plan on giving it.” She turned slightly in the chaise so that she faced me. “I’ve always felt that apologies don’t count unless you look the person in the eye. Don’t you agree?”

  I nodded stupidly, afraid of what was to come.

  “I shouldn’t have taken you to Shanghai so long ago. It was selfish and stupid of me, and my only explanation is that I didn’t realize just how bad things would be. I’m sorry for putting you through all of it—the trip, the weather, the filth. Your father.” She squinted at me, as if trying to understand something in my expression. “I shouldn’t have brought you along.”