Calls Across the Pacific

by Zoë S. Roy

  “Did the young man survive?” Roger asked.

  “He burst out shouting, ‘Long live Chairman Mao!’ Thirty seconds later, he opened his eyes. The horse was standing by him, and its sniffing nose made him sneeze loudly.”

  Roger breathed a sigh of relief. “He must’ve been hurt, but still managed to remember the slogan. Then what did he do?”

  “Then he climbed up and out of the ditch, and went back to his cart,” Nina paused, and taking a breath, she let go of the branch she was leaning on and stepped forward.

  “Be careful. There’s a bridge in front of you!” Roger called out behind her, but it was too late. Nina had slipped. Unable to keep her balance, she tumbled off of the bridge.

  Roger came down to her quickly. “Are you all right?” he asked as he bent over and stretched his hand out.

  “Long live Chairman Mao!” she yelled, eyeing his face.

  Roger hesitated for a second and then replied, “Long live the Red Guard!” He held her hand and pulled her up.

  Nina leaned on him as she balanced herself on the skis once again. She laughed until she had tears running down her face, the echo of her laughter resounding in the valley.

  “Maybe I understand the Cultural Revolution a little bit more now,” Roger said under his breath while a cluster of birds hopped among the branches.

  They returned to his apartment in the afternoon. Nina’s limbs were sore and stiff after skiing. Instead of exploring the town, they elected to stay home. Nina slumped on the couch and listened to Roger play his favourite songs on his guitar: “Nature Boy” by Eden Ahbez and “All You Need Is Love” by John Lennon and the Beatles.

  The melodies, like a creek, flowed down through a zigzag path, woven with episodes of Roger’s life in the past: as a Colombia University freshman, he had recited some parts of Jack Kerouac’s novel, On the Road and Allen Ginsberg’s poem, “Howl;” he had marched among the students’ anti-Vietnam War protest; the stoned Roger had made love with his ex-girlfriends and had danced with his friends; and as a passionate journalist, he had interviewed fishermen in different villages and written reports about their lives.

  Suddenly, Roger’s voice quivered. “Darling, you’re free to leave, I won’t stop you. But I hope you’ll stay.” His eyes seemed sad and his ponytail shook slightly.

  “What’s this song about?”

  “I composed it to commemorate ‘The Summer of Love’ in 1967. You want me to tell you about it?” She nodded, so he stopped playing the guitar to tell his story. It was his last year at university. With his fiancée, a university student, Roger had joined a hippie gathering in New York, and they had played music and taken psychedelic drugs. Inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speech, “A Time to Break Silence,” given that April, Roger and his friends had made public speeches against the Vietnam War. During the gathering, they had also practised sexual freedom. “To me, at that time, sexual freedom meant I could have sex anytime and anywhere I desired. My fiancée and I enjoyed those days together, but because of the drugs, we both went overboard. My girlfriend got together with another man, and, stoned or high, I had sex with a lot of other women. In the end, my girlfriend and I broke up. And it really upset me.” He tried to explain that though he had lived through the sexual revolution of the ’60s, his natural tendencies actually lay more on the conservative side.

  His fingers stroked the strings of his guitar randomly, then suddenly stopped. He returned to the present. “What would you like for dinner?” he asked.

  “Anything is fine,” she said, her mind still processing everything he had told her.

  He ordered some takeout and after supper, Roger cleared the table and Nina washed the dishes. “You don’t have to rush. I’ll drive you back. Okay?”

  “What if I don’t need a ride?” she asked, tilting her head toward him, a smile spreading across her face.

  “I’ll drive you to the terminal now. Or you’ll miss the bus,” Roger repeated.

  “Or, I could leave tomorrow.” Nina was interested in getting to know him more.

  Roger’s face lit up. “That’s great!” he said. “Want to watch TV or play Scrabble?”

  “Play Scrabble.”

  The whole weekend left Nina with sweet and ecstatic memories. She enjoyed everything about him — his words, his wit, and later, his body.

  After returning to school, she started to write down the tale of the handler with his horse-drawn cart since Roger persuaded her to do so. He had said that many Americans would be interested to know what was behind the closed door of China. Even though Nixon’s visit had left the door slightly ajar, most of life in China was still cast in mysterious shadows.

  She finished the writing and sent it to Roger. With his suggestions, Nina made changes and corrections. After polishing it, she submitted her essay to a few local newspapers.

  Not long afterward, the Chinese-American librarian told Nina that she had applied for a Chinese visa to visit her brother in China but her application had been rejected. Nina listened and shook her head sympathetically. The door of China is still closed, she thought.

  Nina had not seen her mother in over six years, ever since she left for the military farm in 1968. She also had no way of knowing if her mother had ever received any of her letters, so her mother might not even know that Nina had moved to the U.S. Nina wondered how much longer she would have to wait for the opportunity to see or speak with her again.

  12.

  BLUEBERRY PIE

  The year 1975 was a turning point for Nina, who had her first article published in Portland Press Herald. It was the piece Roger had encouraged her to write about the man and his horse-drawn cart. This boosted her confidence and she continued to write small pieces that she sent out to local newspapers with varying degrees of success. She was pleased to be able to hone her skills and to gain some experience in writing and publishing. In September of that year, Nina started the final year of her university degree, and she threw herself into her studies. She and Roger continued to date, and to slowly get to know each other, although her studies and his work often conspired to keep them apart for longer periods of time than either would have wished.

  At the end of the fall term, Roger agreed to take on the position of editor at The Yarmouth County Vanguard and he moved back to his birthplace, Yarmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada, which was a five-hour ferry trip from Portland. Immersed in her school work, Nina could not get to Yarmouth often, but they talked to each other on the phone as often as they could.

  Nina graduated in April 1976, but she did not apply to enter the Master’s degree program even though her professor had encouraged her to do so. She thought she needed to do something practical rather than continue with her studies.

  She sent her resume along with applications for many job positions but was disappointed not to even get an interview. After a couple of months of trying, Roger suggested she move to Yarmouth and stay with him. He suggested that she could try her hand at more freelance writing as she hunted for a job.

  On the phone, Roger said, “Don’t worry about money. The cottage is my father’s gift to me. You don’t need to pay the rent until you’re making money.”

  “But I need a permit to work in Canada.”

  “As a freelance writer, you can try to get your writing published anywhere without a permit. Maybe…”

  “Maybe what?”

  “Maybe later, you could become a Canadian citizen if you wish to.”

  Nina could imagine his face beaming and his blue eyes sparkling. She thought about how hard it was becoming to keep up their long distance relationship, and then decided that living together would give them an opportunity to see if they really fit well together. “Yes!” she said to Roger, who replied that she had made him a happy man.

  When Roger came to pick her up, she had her B.A. in Political Science tucked into her briefcase, and all her persona
l belongings inside two small suitcases.

  They arrived at Roger’s cottage located on the seashore at the end of the Bay of Fundy. The one-and-a-half storey bungalow was surrounded by golden yellow daffodils and wild, white daisies, and at the back, the grassy beach spread all the way out to the ocean. Roger brought her to the bedroom on the main floor. “This room is yours now. I can sleep in the attic. Come on in.” They were still shy with one another and he did not want her to think that his offer to live in his house carried any obligations on her part that she might not want to fill. He carried her suitcases into the room and then placed them down in the closet. “Would you like to take a look upstairs?” he asked as he came out of the room and started to climb upstairs.

  “Sure.” Nina followed him to the attic, which was filled with the light of a golden-red sunset that penetrated through the window in the west wall. Everything looked smoothly glazed. “What a gorgeous view!”

  “In the morning, the east window takes in the sunrise, and you can view its fantastic light over the water. Roger led her over to the east window and pointed out to the ocean. “Tomorrow, I’ll wake as if in a dream. If…” Roger paused.

  “If what?” Nina asked.

  “If you are still here.” Roger said, turning to cup her face, which glistened in the light of a gentle sunbeam. “If you need me,” he whispered gruffly, “we can go to your room.”

  His hands were warm and his eyes soft and inviting, as his lips bent to hers.

  “I need you now,” she whispered. They kissed each other long and slow, their hands exploring each other as if for the first time. Once unbuttoned and unzipped, their clothes in a heap on the floor, their bodies joined under the flamboyant light of the sloping sun. Nina kissed Roger’s neck and mouthed the words, “I love you,” as he groaned against her and covered her mouth with his own.

  “I love you, too,” he sighed.

  Afterwards, both spent and content, legs entwined, Roger gently brushed the hair out of Nina’s eyes, and kissed the tip of her nose. Smiling, he said, “Now, how about some of my very special blueberry pie?”

  Every day after Roger went to work, Nina would sit down to write. When she needed a break, she would go out of the house and stroll along the beach where seagulls flew over the mirror-like water in search of prey. From the seashore, she could spot the roofs of a few houses in the tangle of woods that bordered the narrow headland and that were home to hundreds of birds. To relax, she would amble to the point and sit on a large rock to watch the currents move and to listen to the cheerful chirping of the birds.

  One afternoon, she finished an article about her father’s persecution, which led to his death during the Cultural Revolution, and mailed it to several newspapers both in Canada and in the U.S. After she returned from the post office, she felt relaxed and happy. She decided to get started on dinner: tomato sauce and paste added to ground beef in a pot would make a good spaghetti sauce.

  When Roger came back from work, he sniffed the sauce in the pot. “It smells so good.” Then he took a newspaper out of his briefcase and passed it to Nina. It was folded open to a specific page. “I thought you might like to see this piece in The Globe and Mail. Go ahead and read it. I will finish dinner.” He filled a pot with water and placed it on the stove.

  Nina sat down at the kitchen table and scanned the story about the visit of some Chinese-Americans to China. “This is interesting,” she said, her face shining with excitement.

  Roger dropped two handfuls of spaghetti noodles into the bubbling water and covered the pot with a lid. “They got their visa from the Chinese Embassy in Ottawa instead of the one in the U.S. You could try that, too.” More excited than Nina, Roger tapped a long wooden spoon on the lid. “Don’t worry about money. It’s not a problem,” he said as if he had guessed what was in her mind.

  “I’ll write to the embassy and request an application,” she said. A flicker of hope appeared in her eyes as she looked over the article once more. It would take one or two months to get a visa, so she had some time to make some money and plan for the trip.

  That evening, Nina imagined visiting China and finding her mother, Dahai, and Rei whom she had left behind seven years earlier. When she thought about seeing Dahai, her heart felt heavy. What should I tell him? Should I tell him I have a lover? They had sworn to each other that their love would never die. As the Chinese saying went, “The heart remains the same even if the ocean dries out and the stones crack.” But Nina knew that she had changed tremendously. She was not even sure if her mother would understand her now — she who had made love to more than one man and was currently in a premarital relationship. In China, such was considered immoral. Sometimes, people lost their jobs or reputations as a result of such behaviour. She tossed and turned, and had trouble falling asleep.

  The next day, that same thought haunted her as she wrote to the Chinese Embassy and her eagerness about the possibility of going home and seeing her beloved ones lessened.

  Roger noticed her despondent mood when he returned from work. Assuming she was worried about not getting a visa, he said, “Honey, don’t worry about something unknown.”

  “You’re right. I should enjoy the time we’re together.”

  “What? You sound like it’s the end of the world,” said Roger. His hand stretched to the table calendar and turned it to face her. “Today’s Friday. Let’s go to a movie.”

  “Why not?” Nina said, trying to smile.

  They decided to watch the musical, Funny Lady, the new sequel to Funny Girl. The story of the comedienne Fanny Brice cheered Nina up, and by the time they returned home she was feeling lighthearted again.

  That night, when she and Roger made love, all she could see were the faces of Dahai and her mother hovering over her. Her body stiffened involuntarily and Roger’s hands on her back loosened. “What’s the matter?” He caressed her face and saw a flash of discomfort. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No, no,” she said, stroking his shoulders. “I am just worried about something,” she said, then told him what had been bothering her.

  Roger listened to her carefully and said, “Let me ask you some questions.” He sat up and leaned his back on the headboard. “Do you enjoy sex with me? Tell me the truth.”

  Seeing Nina nod, he asked another question. “Does that hurt anybody?” Nina shook her head. Roger went on. “You think Dahai is hurt. Do you know where he is? Are you his wife? The answer is no. Is having sex with a lover against the laws or social norms? The answer is the same. So you don’t need to feel guilty about your sexual relationship. You’re an adult living in Canada now. You loved Dahai and promised him something, but under the circumstances, you don’t even know if he’s still alive. You can’t wait for him forever. There’re some things beyond our control in this world.”

  “Understood,” answered Nina, who appreciated his candour. When he spoke, his hand moved as if he were scribbling in the air; his chest muscles vibrated along with his hand and his blonde hair fell over his forehead. His sinewy body reminded her of Michelangelo’s David, and she reached out to touch him, pulling herself out from under the blanket to sit up next to him. “When you make love to me, don’t you feel guilty about your ex-girlfriend?”

  “I loved her then, but that’s history now,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. He pulled her onto his lap. “I’ve never cheated on any woman. I always trust my own feelings, too.” He gently cupped her breasts in his hands. “We both enjoy each other. It doesn’t hurt anyone. Your body tells me that you enjoy being touched by me.” He bent his head and pushed away her shoulder-length hair. His warm lips caressed her neck, and his thighs trembled under her. Feeling herself melt in his arms, she turned and wrapped her legs tightly around his waist. Her guilt slid into the darkness that belonged to an invisible and remote world.

  Nina learned to make blueberry pie from Roger and decided she could earn some money by sellin
g the pies at the farmers’ market on weekends.

  On a Saturday morning, Roger helped Nina make pies from scratch. He blended flour and Crisco to make pie pastry while she followed a recipe to make the blueberry filling. By the time the second load of four pies came out of the oven and joined the first pies on the kitchen table, half a day had already passed. Hungry enough, Nina felt she could eat up two pies by herself.

  After lunch, Roger picked up a calculator. “Let’s see how much money you can make.” While he looked at the recipes, he keyed in all the costs. “Altogether it costs us fifteen dollars to make the pies, plus free labour. Tell me how much a homemade pie sells for.”

  “About two dollars,” answered Nina. “So, if we sell eight pies we will make sixteen dollars. Oh well, our profit is one dollar if we sell them all.”

  “Plus the few hours you may spend in the market.” Roger snapped his fingers. “Do you still plan to sell them?”

  “Definitely not!” Nina picked up a knife and sliced a pie into four pieces. “Let’s enjoy them by ourselves.”

  “Yes!” Roger jumped up from his seat. He took two small plates from the cupboard and placed them on the table. “We’ll freeze some for next week.”

  “Maybe I should think about preparing some Chinese food instead. That might sell well.”

  “For example?” Roger mumbled as his mouth was full. He took a tissue to clean the purple stains off his fingers.

  “Chinese-style ravioli. Dumplings, really.”