A Hundred Flowers

by Gail Tsukiyama

  He ushered them out to the dank hallway to talk. Black scuff marks traveled along the walls from the gurneys and wheelchairs carelessly knocked against them. From somewhere, Kai Ying felt a slight breeze whispering against the back of her neck. Her throat was parched and she felt her father-in-law standing closely beside her, waiting. While she listened, she couldn’t take her eyes off of the brownish stain on the sleeve of the doctor’s otherwise white coat. He told them that Tao also had some deep bruising and lacerations and would be watched closely overnight for any signs of head trauma. But it was the leg that was of concern. At Tao’s age, it was the growth plate fracture he worried about; it needed to completely heal in order for the bone to continue to grow normally. If it closed as a result of the fracture, it would leave his right leg shorter, causing a limp for the rest of his life. They had already reset the bone, sewn up the outer wound, and put a cast on him. It would be followed by a week to ten days’ stay in the hospital. “Your son’s very lucky,” the doctor added, glancing up for the first time. “His leg took the full impact of the fall. Otherwise, we would be having a different conversation right now. You should be very thankful he’s alive.”

  Kai Ying’s mind raced. Alive. She swallowed the word as if it were some healing medicine. She immediately thought of the herbs she needed to buy to help Tao’s fracture heal while he recuperated. She had the astragalus roots, tienchi ginseng, and tangerine peel, but needed safflower and Eucommia bark from the herb shop, which she wouldn’t be able to buy until tomorrow when Tao was awake and would need the soup to strengthen his qi, the healing life force that kept the blood flowing from his kidneys to the fractures.

  She turned toward her father-in-law, who stared intently at the doctor while he spoke. “We’re thankful for the good news,” he said.

  She heard the edge of relief in Wei’s tone.

  “May we see him?” she asked, her eyes finally moving from the doctor’s sleeve to meet his gaze.

  The doctor peered over his clipboard at her for a moment too long, as if noticing her for the first time.

  “I want to see him,” she said again, louder. Only for Tao could she find the courage to insist.

  “Of course,” the doctor answered.

  As they followed him down the hallway, the doctor assured them Tao was sedated and resting comfortably. He should sleep through to the morning, and the doctor advised them to go home and get some rest. “Tomorrow will be another long day,” he reminded them.

  She nodded politely, all the while thinking it couldn’t possibly be longer than the day she had just lived through.

  * * *

  Tao’s room was small and bare. It was dark in the late-afternoon gloom. He seemed to be swallowed up by all the tubes and a machine attached to him that monitored his heart rate with a beeping sound that filled the room. Alive, she thought each time it beeped. She stood by the bed and watched the steady rise and fall of his chest. He had always been thin, full of energy and curiosity, a sweet long-limbed boy whose recent spurt in height made him appear older than he was. Now he looked so young and helpless. His bruised and tender body seemed too thin under the white sheet. There was a tube in his left arm, a clear liquid dripping slowly into it, while his other arm was bandaged and resting on a pillow. His right leg was in a cast, propped up and held together in a sling contraption that kept it from moving in any direction. It all looked torturous, but the drugs allowed him to sleep. She hoped he wouldn’t wake in the middle of the night frightened and in terrible pain.

  A fan whirred in the corner, moving the hot air around. She asked the doctor if she could stay the night with Tao, but he was adamant that she go home and get some rest. “You can return first thing in the morning,” he added, his voice softening. In that moment, she knew he was at least capable of understanding her fears, which put her at ease.

  “Will he make a full recovery?” her father-in-law suddenly asked. He stood at the other side of the small room by the window and his voice reverberated through the air.

  The doctor looked over at him. “We’ll know more after we take the cast off,” he answered.

  Wei cleared his throat in response and turned back to look out the window.

  * * *

  Kai Ying bent over again and kissed Tao lightly on the forehead, her fingers hovering just above the spiderweb of scratches on his cheek and chin. She wished she could make them all disappear. Tao’s even breathing made him appear as if he were simply asleep, as when she checked on him every night before going to bed. With his eyes closed, she missed the life that gleamed from his quick, darting eyes. He never missed a thing. She stood quietly and watched him, searching for the same threads of connection that made Sheng and him father and son. Instead, she saw herself in her son’s sleeping face; he had her high cheekbones and double-lidded eyes, blended together with Sheng’s straight nose, and the Lee family height, for which she was very grateful.

  Kai Ying looked down at Tao, his face so uncomplicated in sleep. He alone had kept her sane during the past year. Every time she looked at him, she was reminded of youth and hope and the joys of pure innocence, even in her darkest moments. Sheng had told her once that his parents had given up hope of ever having a child, and were married for nine years when he was finally conceived. How that moment changed everything. Kai Ying couldn’t imagine what her life would be like if there were no Sheng. No Tao.

  * * *

  In the year since Sheng’s arrest, life had suddenly shifted for her and Wei. She tried to conceal her misery, but it was impossible for Tao not to feel her constant dread, the thin shadow of fear always standing right behind her. She knew he was curious as to why his father had been taken away, but she and Wei had decided he was too young to fully understand what had happened. They would tell him when he was older, after Sheng returned. Now he only occasionally asked when his ba ba was coming home. “Soon,” she answered, “when ba ba is finished with his work.”

  For the first few months after Sheng was taken away, Kai Ying went to the public security bureau every day to find out where the police were holding him. Finally, all the authorities would tell her was that he had been sent up north to be reeducated. He would be able to contact her once he was settled. Kai Ying knew that being “reeducated” was like falling down a black hole. Some were never seen again, while others returned defeated, deadened by the experience of hard labor, illness, and starvation. She willed for him to hold on, to return to them. She didn’t allow herself to think of what they were going to do if Sheng never returned, if she never heard his voice or felt his touch again.

  * * *

  Even after the doctor had left them alone, her father-in-law continued to gaze out the small, grimy window at the facing building. A narrow alleyway separated the two buildings and the dingy, gray wall across looked dark and ominous. Kai Ying knew Wei loved art and color, and she couldn’t imagine why he preferred to stare at the drab wall for so long, rather than hover over his grandson.

  Wei finally turned to face her. “I don’t suppose there’s much sunlight in this room past noon.” His voice sounded as if he’d just awoken from a long sleep.

  Kai Ying could feel his eyes on her, as if she were one of his students from whom he awaited a response. “No,” she answered.

  He finally stepped over to the bed and touched Tao’s hand, so small and fragile next to his. When she saw Wei’s eyes fill with tears, she glanced away and was surprised when he spoke again.

  “Tao should have a room that gets plenty of sunlight,” he said. “I’ll have a talk with the doctor about it.”

  Like a plant, she thought. He’ll need the sunlight to grow strong again.

  “Yes,” she agreed.

  Suyin

  BY the time Suyin left the hospital and walked back toward Dongshan Park, it was nearly dusk. The rain had stopped and the streets were quieter now, but it remained hot and sticky and the red rash of pimples on her cheeks both stung and itched. Out of habit, her hands rested on the hard sphere
of her stomach. Suyin hoped the baby was all right, tucked away in her dark womb on this airless night. Unlike other days, she hadn’t felt any movement at all. She was seven months pregnant and it both frightened and amazed her that she would be giving birth in a few months.

  As her time approached, Suyin’s only plan was to leave the baby at the hospital after the birth. She trusted the doctors and nurses would find the baby a good home. She only wished it would be with someone like the woman she had sat watching in the waiting room that afternoon. She recalled the woman’s face, both stricken and beautiful as she sat beside an old man. From their conversation, she knew the woman’s little boy had been hurt in a fall. Even in distress, Suyin thought she looked young and vital, completely devoted to her child. The kind of mother she hoped to be one day. She looked down and stroked her stomach. At fifteen, she was too young and unprepared to care for this little being.

  Suyin’s own mother had been beaten down for so long, she’d forgotten her ever being young. Her father had disappeared years ago, leaving her mother struggling to bring up three children alone in a small, two-room apartment in Old Guangzhou. Three years ago, her mother had married her stepfather, a man she disliked from the moment she met him. Suyin had left her family when the baby began to show. She couldn’t stay in a neighborhood that was filled with gossiping busybodies. Her mother didn’t deserve such shame after working so hard to keep their family together. And she couldn’t bring another mouth into the house to feed. Suyin was completely alone now and she would find a way out of this mess by herself.

  For the past four months, she’d been living on the streets. By day, she begged near Dongshan Park, away from the Old Guangzhou district where someone might recognize her, and where there was no such thing as empty space as the crowds breathed collectively. Suyin’s mother cleaned houses and her real father had been a carpenter who did mostly odd jobs. When she was a little girl, her mother was full of life and had big plans for their family. “One day, we’ll have a nice house in the Liwan District,” her ma ma said, dreaming big. It was where the foreign dignitaries had big, gated houses on wide, tree-lined boulevards much like those in Dongshan. Her mother had once cleaned in one of those grand houses and she’d never forgotten it. She would tell Suyin and her brothers the same story over and over, always ending it with, “This crowded apartment is only temporary, just until your ba ba finds steady work.” The thought of her mother and brothers brought tears to her eyes.

  She remembered being a little girl when her father had taken whatever jobs he could, sometimes going away for weeks or months at a time working on construction jobs in other cities. While he was away, they had to make do on their mother’s meager salary, and it seemed that most of the time, they were simply surviving on watery rice soup. In their small apartment, Suyin and her brothers slept in the little alcove off the kitchen on bunk beds her father had built, Suyin in the lower one, her two brothers in the upper. With barely enough room to fit the beds, the ceiling was so low her brothers had to slide in and out of their bunk one at a time. The last time her father went away was eight years ago. He hugged them all good-bye just as he always did and told them to be good. “You help your ma ma,” he said to her.

  She never saw her ba ba again.

  * * *

  When it began to rain earlier that afternoon, Suyin had walked into the hospital waiting room and sat down. Her pregnancy gave her an air of legitimacy where no attendant or nurse told her to leave. Weeks earlier, she’d discovered it a safe place off the streets to catch her breath. It was the one place everyone seemed as vulnerable as she was, their faces anxious and unaware of what was going to happen next. Suyin had felt immediately comfortable sitting across from the woman and the old man, as if she were there waiting with them. When they were finally called away to meet with the doctor, she sat in the waiting room until the shadows lengthened and the room emptied, but they never returned.

  * * *

  By night, Suyin slept in the back doorway of a curio shop near the park, where the old woman shopkeeper had taken pity on her. Every morning the woman left a bucket of cold water out for her to wash. She knew she was luckier than most. It was almost completely dark by the time Suyin approached the park, a yellowish glow of lights in the distance. She saw a man standing on the corner smoking a cigarette and wondered if he might give her a few fen to buy something to eat. Her stomach rumbled at the thought. “Please,” she said as she approached him, holding out her hand, wrapping her cotton jacket tighter around her belly. In the darkness, she could just see the tilt of his head as he looked her up and down.

  “Get away,” he sneered, and she felt his spittle on the side of her face.

  His anger felt like a slap, and Suyin quickly turned away, stung, but not before she regained her voice and said, “You bastard!”

  “Come back here and say that to me, you little whore,” the man yelled after her.

  Suyin kept walking. She rarely approached people for money, and ordinarily waited for someone to take pity on her as she stood outside the park gates among the other beggars, holding an old bean paste can. She usually made enough for a bun or two, occasionally a bowl of noodles. Today she had spent all afternoon in the hospital, hoping the hunger would go away. She wiped the spit off her cheek with the sleeve of her jacket and felt the tears pushing against her eyes. The past few months of begging on the streets had taught her that most people turned away if she approached them. Or worse, they would look right through her as if she were a ghost. But today, the woman in the waiting room had been different. She held on to her gaze for the longest time and for a moment, Suyin felt real again.

  Kai Ying

  Wei hardly spoke on the way home from the hospital. It had stopped raining and the air was thick as a blanket. Kai Ying had long since shed her sweater, and her cotton tunic was damp against her body. She had lost weight in the past year, and sometimes felt as if she could actually feel her bones shrinking. The pedicab weaved in and out of the congested streets, the shops and restaurants crowded with people who had just gotten off work, buying something to eat or rushing to catch a pedicab or bus home to their families. Kai Ying wondered how many of them had little boys like Tao, who were happy and healthy, not lying in a hospital bed attached to a machine. In that instant, she felt jealous of all of them.

  As they rounded the corner, they passed the Pearl Restaurant, where Sheng had taken her several times. Occasionally, they left Tao home with Wei, or Auntie Song, and had dinner out alone. It could be something as simple as noodles or a plate of rice and vegetables, but it made her feel light and extravagant. Now, as they passed the Pearl, she felt sick to her stomach. At the same time, she remembered they hadn’t eaten all day.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  Wei shook his head.

  * * *

  When they arrived home, Kai Ying paused in the courtyard to catch her breath as Wei walked quickly into the house. She found herself standing near the spot where Tao had fallen. There was no trace left of where his body had lain that morning. There was no blood, for which she was grateful. Such a stain would be hard to remove, and if it remained, it would always be a reminder of the fall. She didn’t want Tao to have nightmares every time he saw it.

  Kai Ying looked up at the tree, which she had loved from the first moment she entered the courtyard to join the Lee household. She remembered being stunned by its beauty. It was a constant reminder of her hometown, Zhaoqing. She’d grown up across from a beautiful lake, surrounded by mountain crags and trees. In comparison, Guangzhou was all cold, hard edges. The kapok tree had not only provided its leaves and flowers for medicinal purposes, but seeing it always nearby made her feel less homesick during those early years.

  What in the world was Tao thinking, trying to climb the tree? He knew better. She thought of Sheng’s impulsiveness and a tinge of anger overcame her fear. The sky was darkening and the courtyard had turned to shadows. The scent of peanut oil filled the air as evening meals wer
e being prepared. Kai Ying was relieved that the villa would be all theirs during this difficult time. Earlier in the week, they’d received word that the Changs, who lived downstairs, were staying in Nanjing through the New Year with their daughter and her new baby. All around her was the buzzing of joyous mosquitoes after the rain. A stray voice, which sounded like Auntie Song, floated through the night from a neighboring villa. It might have been just like any other evening, only it wasn’t.

  Kai Ying heard Wei rummaging around in the kitchen and wondered what he was looking for. A moment later she saw him walking quickly back toward her and the glint of something shiny in his hand. Before she realized what was happening, Wei raised his arm and swung a meat cleaver at the kapok, with a quick thwacking sound as the sharp, thin blade struck the grayish brown trunk. He grunted and pulled the cleaver out, leaving a three-inch gash. Kai Ying watched the silver blade rise again, then grabbed his arm and held tightly on to it. The kapok not only produced Guangzhou’s city flower, but was also the official city tree. China’s recent and turbulent history had taught her to avoid any trouble with meddling neighbors who might tell the authorities. Kai Ying wasn’t about to let the kapok hurt another member of her family.

  “Enough!” she screamed at him. “Enough!” Her voice sounded harsh and foreign as she hung on to his arm.

  The courtyard felt airless but for Wei’s labored breathing. He murmured something into the dark, but she couldn’t quite make out what he had said. Slowly, Wei lowered his arm and she reached for the cleaver and took it away from him. He stood there, arms at his side, his shoulders slumped. She had recognized the months and months of his fear and grief and frustration in the wide swing of the cleaver. Hadn’t she felt the very same way herself? She gripped the solid weight of the cleaver in her hand, but she wasn’t about to give in now.