by Zoë S. Roy
“You, too.” He smirked. When he followed her into the bedroom, his gaze fell onto the book lying on the table. He muttered, “Am I bothering you, busy girl?”
“Sorry. I didn’t expect you to come today,” she lowered her voice and closed the door. “After class, I went straight to work.” She held his arm with her hand. “Where have you been?”
“Do you care?” he answered. “I met a woman at a bar. Had fun.”
“You…” She felt her throat tighten, and she could not speak. Her hand on his arm loosened.
“You’re always studying,” he added. “Don’t blame me.”
“I have an exam tomorrow. I can’t discuss this now,” she said. “You know college is important to me. I don’t want to fail.”
“So you’re going to study tonight,” Bob said. “Your dorm will be closed soon. Are you going to come to the motel with me?” Seeing Nina shake her head, Bob left alone, in silence.
The next morning, Nina got up early and thought about phoning Bob at the motel, but she was afraid of waking him up, and besides that, she didn’t have much time to talk, so she did not call.
At the motel, Bob could not sleep. He searched his mind and tried to get a clear picture of the past few months. From time to time, he had lowered his expectations of her, anticipating that Nina would soon have more time to be with him. He had not been able to get used to her lifestyle, and he needed more. He made up his mind, picked up a pen, and scribbled a note: “Dear Nina, it’s better for us to say goodbye to each other. I don’t want to suffer or to wait hopelessly for you to have more time for me. We are through now.”
After her exam, Nina returned to her apartment and rushed directly to the telephone. She called Bob, thinking she would invite him to lunch, but nobody answered. When she called the front desk of the motel, she learned that he had checked out. She turned around and spotted a note lying on the floor under the door, almost hidden by the door mat. She read his words twice before she understood what he meant. Her mind went blank; she crumpled the note slowly with her trembling hand, held the wad of paper tightly for a while, and finally tossed it into the garbage bin. Tears trickled down her cheeks. We are through. Bob’s words resonated, and her head throbbed.
Though she had misspelled a number of words and made a bunch of other mistakes, Nina passed her exam and was thus qualified as a Political Science major for the following school year.
Nina got a full-time summer job as a cashier in a department store located in a shopping centre. On the first day, the manager showed her how to use the cash register. Then she was trained with an experienced cashier.
Two days later, she started to work at the cash register on her own. The store was having a large sale and business was brisk. Registering the discount off the regular price into the cash register slowed her down. You just need more practice, she told herself.
After work, she dragged herself home. Wearily, she lay flat on her bed, stretching her sore back and rubbing her stiff fingers. For a few evenings in a row, she reviewed working with the cash register in her head. The visual practice helped her perform better at the actual job and within a couple of weeks she was as fast as her fellow workers.
One morning, after several customers checked out, a young man hastened over to her. Strangely enough, he tossed a pack of pink hairpins on the counter. “How much is this?”
They’re nice hairpins for little girls, Nina thought while she pressed a few keys and pulled the hand crank. “That will be one dollar and four cents, please,” Nina said, as she looked at the display. The fellow gave her a two-dollar bill. As soon as the drawer of the register popped out, the youth lunged toward the machine and grabbed a few stacks of bills from the register’s slots with one hand and pointed a knife at Nina’s face with his other hand. Nina froze, her knees weak. The robber dashed away. A thought flashed in her mind: It’s more than three hundred dollars. That’s almost two months’ rent for me!
“Stop him!” she shouted, whirling around the counter to chase him.
She sped up but suddenly a hand gripped her arm. “Stop!”
She turned around and saw the manager standing in front of her, panting. “Are you crazy? Money is not that important!”
“What do you mean?” asked Nina.
“Your life and safety are more important!” the manager said. His face was pale, and his eyebrows rose. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. Don’t do that again!”
At that moment, she remembered Bob’s answer to her question about being robbed: “I’ll give him my wallet and run away as fast as I can.”
Thinking about Bob touched her weak spot, and she felt tears welling up.
“Are you okay?” her boss asked, patting her on the shoulder.
“I’m fine, thanks,” Nina said, feeling relieved. “I appreciate your help.”
“Don’t worry about the money.” The manager comforted her. “You don’t need to pay for it.”
Back inside the store, the manager called the police immediately and reported the robbery.
That night, when she lay down in bed, Nina recalled what had happened during the day. She became frightened all over again when she imagined the robber slashing her throat or even killing her. Bob’s words about life being more important than a wallet crossed her mind again.
The next day was Sunday. She hesitated for a moment and lifted the phone receiver. Before she finished dialling, she stopped and perched herself on the edge of the bed for a moment while a memory of Bob flooded her mind. Finally, she picked up the phone and punched his number.
She held her breath as she heard a young female’s voice say, “Hello?”
After a second of hesitation, Nina asked, “May I speak to Bob?”
“He’s still in bed. May I take a message?” the woman said with a yawn.
“No, thanks,” Nina answered and hung up the phone. Flopping onto her bed, she knew she had completely lost him. Pierced by an acute loneliness, she sobbed. Their paths had crossed briefly and the only some nice memories would remain. She reached her hand out to the night table and pulled out a tissue from its box to wipe away her tears.
In September 1973, Nina started her junior year. When she didn’t have any classes, she went to the library to read. Sometimes, she took notes for later use from a pile of periodicals. One day, she hurried along the hallway and passed an Asian woman, who spoke to her. “Are you going to the library?”
Nina slowed down and smiled back. “Yes, are you?” The woman was in her forties and looked familiar to her. She scoured her memory for where she had seen her before.
“I work in the library. I often see you in the reading room. Seems you’re always busy,” the librarian became talkative. “I came from China.”
“Me, too,” Nina said. “Did you come here a long time ago?”
“My family escaped to Hong Kong after the Communists took over Mainland China. I was just a little girl when the landowners were denounced. I still remember how scared my parents were since they were landowners themselves.”
“I don’t know much about that period. But I know enough about the political persecution during the Cultural Revolution.” Nina then asked, “How do you feel about your life now?”
“I’m quite happy. Now the relations between these two countries have improved. I’d like to visit China someday,” said the librarian. “But the Red Guards are really terrifying.”
“I think most of them have been sent to the countryside. They were used by Mao to attack his political rivals. They may’ve learned a lesson by now.”
The woman looked at Nina with interest. “Really? That’s a relief. There’ve been too many political movements in China since 1949.”
“It’s easy to manipulate those who grow up under the red flag. I was a Red Guard, but they threw me out because my father was labelled an American spy and a traitor to the revo
lution.”
“Why was that?”
“He graduated from West Point Academy. Once he worked for Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army before joining the People’s Liberation Army.”
“So he betrayed Chiang Kai-shek’s government but not the communist revolution. The people who persecuted him suffered from a problem in logic,” the knowledgeable librarian said as they went into the library. She patted Nina’s arm. “It was so nice talking to you. I’ll see you around.” She walked into an office.
On her way to the reading room, Nina paused at a catalogue cabinet, pulled a drawer out, and searched the cards for books on the Chinese Land Reform Movement. Her mind returned to the elementary school where she had learned that poor peasants were contented to denounce landowners who had exploited them for centuries. But now she had heard a story from the other side — the tale of a landowner’s daughter. On a scrap of paper, Nina copied down a couple of call numbers for books she had found. A glance at her watch reminded her that she had to finish the groundwork for her course on American Political Thought before she could explore the politics of China.
She placed the list into her folder, then turned and headed to the bookshelves with a stack of periodicals and government documents in her hands.
10.
BAMBOO STICKS
LATER THAT FALL, Nina attended a presentation in one of the university’s multi-purpose halls. Ajax, a fellow student, stood on the podium. He was talking about his personal experiences in the Vietnam War.
“I’ve never spoken of this until now,” Ajax said, starting his story. “I need to get it off my chest. I want people to know what we Vietnam veterans are going through. The Americans may be withdrawing, but the war is still raging and the memories are fresh and painful.”
Nina followed his story attentively and pictured a battlefield in the mountain bamboo groves of Vietnam. On a June afternoon, during the late stage of a Tet Offensive in 1969, a group of American soldiers had stooped under the bushes to search for a path to move ahead. Their alert eyes and sticky faces shone in the sun; their heads were hidden under twig wreaths; their uniforms were soaked in sweat mixed with dirt.
“We groped around,” Ajax said. “Suddenly, gunshots were fired from behind a hut about twenty metres away. A fellow next to me collapsed, and blood trickled over his face. All of us immediately dropped to the ground, and some of us shot back. I remembered what I’d learned during training, so I felt the pulse of my fellow soldier. He was dead. ‘Son of a bitch,’ came out of my trembling mouth. I grabbed a grenade and hurled it into the hut. I was fighting for my own life and my fellow soldiers’ lives. In the explosion, smoke and fire erupted. You can bet that the sniper’s gunfire was silenced, but then I heard a child scream from inside the shelter. One soldier dashed to the burning spot. A minute later, he leapt out of the flames, carrying a little boy under his arms. It was my buddy, Lenard! Before he could place the kid on the ground, he sank into a patch of ankle-high grass. I jumped up and ran over to Lenard to help. I took the child and laid him under a tree, but my buddy was stuck in a punji trap: a couple of sharp bamboo sticks pierced his body. He was soaked in blood, his eyes half open — I have never forgotten that stare. It was a close stare, right in front of my eyes, and yet it looked a thousand yards far away. Pain twisted his face. He mouthed the words, ‘Shoot me!’
“I was shaking all over, but I pulled the trigger. I heard the blast of the gunshot, but I dared not open my eyes. I felt as if my own body had been blown apart, as if my own flesh and bone had just been splattered all over the ground. I threw my rifle away in disgust. I fell to the ground and vomited. My empty stomach expelled only water and mucus. The finger that had pulled the trigger went numb. Lenard vanished in my fuzzy vision, and I passed out.”
“Let’s sharpen bamboo sticks. We are preparing them for the American enemy.” Nina remembered these lines from a song she had learned in a music class as a ninth grader in 1965. That year, the Vietnam War had become more intense, and more American combat troops had been dispatched to Vietnam. Since China had sided with Hồ Chí Minh’s North Vietnam, all Chinese schoolchildren had been taught songs and poems to support North Vietnam. Nina’s class had also performed a show that admired the North Vietnamese soldiers and humiliated the U.S. Army. Nina had acted as a member of a group of Vietnamese women and children making sharp bamboo sticks for punji traps.
Nina trembled from her memory of singing and performing as a Vietnamese fighter. The image of the bloody figure stuck with sharp bamboo sticks made her feel as if she were the killer of Ajax’s friend, Lenard. She shook her head incredulously as she thought about the naiveté of her adolescent years. She looked up at the podium and thought Ajax must be about twenty-four years old, her age. She shivered to think that in 1969, only four years ago, Ajax had been thrust into the cruelty of the Vietnam War. That was the same year Dahai left for Vietnam, if he ever made it there. The thought startled her. Her fingers pushed through her loose shoulder-length hair, and her hands pressed on her forehead. The student next to her asked with concern, “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay. Thanks.” Nina’s tension loosened, but a pang of guilt surged through her when she imagined Lenard’s bloodied body ripped open by the punji stake.
Ajax’s voice brought Nina back to the present. “Before the war, I longed to be a patriot. After surviving the war, I changed. I often ask this question to myself: Should America have entered the Vietnam War?” He paused, eyeing the attentive audience. “And my answer is yes. As in WWI, we used the war to try and stop the war. We wanted to stop the Viet Cong from killing more innocent people. I think we made a difference.”
“I disagree!” a student shouted from the audience, her hand up in the air. “If America hadn’t gone to the war, thousands of young men like your friend, Lenard, would still be alive. Their families would not have suffered.”
More listeners participated in the heated discussion that followed. The war in Vietnam was still raging and the debate questioned whether the Americans had actually done any good. Nina listened intently and finally understood what freedom of opinion and expression meant.
After the presentation, she walked over to Ajax and thanked him for his story. “It reveals so much of what we don’t know about the Vietnam War.”
Ajax looked at her and asked without hesitation, “Are you from Vietnam?”
“No, I’m from China,” Nina answered. “I learned about the war as a schoolgirl. I was told the Americans invaded Vietnam.”
“Do you still think so?” Ajax asked.
“No. I’ve heard different stories from the other side now. In addition, I truly dislike communists from any countries. I think America’s participation in the Vietnam War has helped raise awareness of the imperative to put an end to dictatorship and communism.”
“Interesting,” Ajax said, grinning, the tension in his face dissolving. Then he added, “My friends who died or were injured in Vietnam would be more than happy to hear that.”
Another student then approached Ajax, so Nina bid him farewell, feeling much better after having talked to him, even briefly.
Nina took a course of East Asian Politics, and when it was her turn to make a presentation, she talked about her father’s death during the Cultural Revolution and her attitude toward communist rule in China. In addition, she talked about her understanding of American policies in the Far East. Many listeners asked questions such as:“Why did your father choose to study at the West Point?”, “What is the functional difference between the Nationalist Army and the People’s Liberation Army?”, “Do you think Nixon’s visit to Beijing introduced capitalism to Communist China?” Nina responded as best she could, even though she felt she did not have clear answers to some of those questions.
The enthusiasm and thoughtfulness of Nina’s fellow students touched her very much. But what truly made her day was the positive feedback from her prof
essor.
On New Year’s Day, 1974, Nina boarded an Amtrak train from Portland for a visit to the United States Military Academy to dig up her father’s past. She wanted to understand what had led to the accusations that labelled him as an American spy. Several hours later, she arrived at Penn Station in New York City. The Academy was located at West Point, some fifty miles away from the city.
The next day, at the archives of the Academy, she presented a letter from her professor and her student I.D. to ask for permission to do her research. An archivist rummaged through the stacks of records from more than two decades ago and placed a copy of 1948 USMA Howitzer Yearbook on the counter. “You can check the photos of the graduates from that year,” he suggested.
She thumbed through the pages of portraits, her fingertips slowly tracing the names under each photograph. Her heart pounded as she scanned each graduate’s face, wondering when she would come upon her father. Finally, she shook her head in disappointment. “His photo isn’t here.”
“Don’t give up so soon,” said the archivist as he cleaned his lenses. “He may not have sent his photo to school. I’ll check other resources for you.” He entered a large storeroom. Several minutes later, he returned with a few copies of other journals: Official Register of the Officers and Cadets in 1946, and Pointer View, Vol. 1, 1946. The archivist pointed at the desks in the hall. “You can take these over there and look them over. If you need any help, please ask me.”
She made herself comfortable at a large table, turned open the official register, and examined the listed names of students carefully. When her gaze fell on the name, “Huang,” her throat tightened. She narrowed her eyes at the first name. It’s Marvin Tian! My father! Nina drew in a deep breath, tracing his name with the tips of her fingers.
She had never heard her parents talk about her father’s background until a hot September afternoon in 1966. The Red Guards, made up of high-school students, had broken into her home and denounced her father as a traitor to the revolution and an America spy. Before taking her father away, one of them had cut the red band off Nina’s left arm. “You no longer deserve to be a Red Guard,” he had hissed.