A Hundred Flowers

by Gail Tsukiyama

  There was a time when Song had longed for a moment such as this. Her marriage to Old Hing was another lifetime ago, and much of her anger had faded. Still, once in a while that bitter taste rose up to her mouth. It did again now as she held the baby. Almost fifty years later, she still remembered the searing pain in her abdomen where Old Hing had punched her. She should have known better than to provoke him, though it never took much to stir up his rage: a wayward look or the tone of her voice. He was like a piece of cinder; Song never knew when he would flare up. Her pregnancy had lulled her into a false sense of security. She began to hope and plan. Old Hing had left her alone the first half of her pregnancy, so she’d made the mistake of becoming complacent, thinking he wouldn’t hit her while she was carrying his child. Even now, Song wondered if she might have done something differently. She should have turned and run when he came after her, rather than raise her arms to shield her face. She should have protected her baby more or fought back harder. She accepted her responsibility, too. But Old Hing only became more infuriated and hit her harder. Song miscarried in her sixth month. Her dead baby was a little girl. For years after, Song consoled herself knowing that at least her child would never have to know Old Hing as her father.

  * * *

  “Who are you?”

  The girl’s voice startled Song. She looked across the room at the girl lying in the bed watching her. Usually the girl slept while Song watched the baby.

  “My name’s Song,” she answered. “I live here with Kai Ying, the woman who delivered your baby, and her family.”

  “I’m Suyin.”

  Song smiled. “You told us your name, just before you had the baby.”

  “My baby?”

  “Right here.” Song stood up and brought the baby over to the girl.

  “I don’t remember if it’s a girl or a boy.”

  “A little girl,” Song said, placing the baby into Suyin’s arms. There was a sour odor coming from the girl and her hair was oily and pressed down on one side of her head from sleep.

  Suyin held the baby awkwardly in her arms and stared down at her. Almost immediately the baby woke up and began to cry. The girl shifted positions, trying to comfort the baby, but it didn’t seem to matter. Her crying grew more frantic and so did Suyin’s rocking movements. “Take her, take her back,” she implored.

  The girl had so much to learn about becoming a mother, Song thought, as she leaned over and reached for the baby.

  Tao

  Everything had changed at school, different from the first moment Tao limped into the dimly lit, chalky-aired classroom to find his seat one row over and several chairs behind Little Shan and Ling Ling. He had expected to sit right behind his friend, or at most, one or two seats behind him. The fact that so many other students had also surpassed him came as a surprise. Teacher Eng’s voice droned on and on and Tao had a hard time concentrating. By the end of the first day, his leg felt weak and sore from trying to keep up, and when he saw his grandfather standing at the gate waiting for him, he took a deep breath and tried to smile.

  “How was your first day back?” his ye ye asked.

  “It was all right.”

  “How’s your leg feeling?”

  “A little tired.” He pulled at the collar of his shirt. The sky was clear, the sun shining.

  His grandfather took his book bag from him. “It’s going to take a little while, but everything will become normal again.”

  Tao remained quiet.

  “Don’t you think so?” his grandfather asked.

  Tao knew it was rude not to answer his ye ye a second time, but he couldn’t bring himself to say anything for fear he might start crying. He wasn’t a baby. But he knew now that nothing would ever be the same, not since his ba ba was taken away. Instead, he looked up at his grandfather and nodded before he reached over and took his hand.

  * * *

  Tao was welcomed home by his mother and Auntie Song with his favorite coconut tarts. They asked him question after question he didn’t feel like answering, but did, so they wouldn’t see how unhappy he was. Each day was harder than the one before, and by the end of the following week, Tao didn’t care if he ever returned to school again. Little Shan had found new friends while he was gone, and as much as he tried to fit in, he couldn’t understand why Little Shan would like the same obnoxious boys who used to pick on them for being “scared little girls” and the “teacher’s pets.” It seemed everything about his friend had changed, not just his appearance. Now that Tao was back, he could only hope Little Shan would see what a mistake he was making and return to the way things were.

  * * *

  Each morning Tao struggled down the stairs, his leg still stiff. He leaned up against the banister for support, hoping his mother would tell him to stay at home and take a day off to rest his leg. But she never did. Instead, she seemed to care more about the strange girl and her baby. He’d hardly seen the girl in the weeks she’d been there. She didn’t come downstairs in the morning until after he’d left for school, and spent most of the evenings in Great-Auntie Shu’s room. The first time he did meet Suyin, he thought she looked just like any young schoolgirl and couldn’t imagine her having a baby. She was pale and thin, as if she hadn’t eaten in a very long time. Her skin was bumpy and her eyes looked cloudy, although she greeted him pleasantly enough when they were introduced. Still, he looked hard for any small thing about her that he could immediately dislike.

  For one thing, Suyin was selfish, whether she knew it or not; she took up so much of his mother’s time. Every morning his ma ma was coming or going to the market or herb shop for something to make the girl a tea or soup. This morning when he came downstairs, she was in the kitchen rinsing pigs’ feet, she said, to add to the black vinegar and ginger soup. Women were supposed to drink it for two weeks after they’d given birth. “It has plenty of nutrients she needs now,” his mother added. He watched her drop all the ingredients into a pot, a sour, tangy smell rising with the steam. When he didn’t say anything, his mother finally looked up.

  “Is everything all right?” she asked.

  Tao looked up at her, and before he could say anything, he felt all the tears he’d been holding back rise to the surface and flow freely down his cheeks.

  “What is it, what’s the matter? Is it your leg?”

  He wanted to tell his mother that he hated school, he hated the girl living in their house, he hated walking with a limp, but it was one of his classmates, Lai Hing, he hated most of all. They’d never gotten along, but had always chosen to stay out of each other’s way. But now Little Shan followed him around like a starving dog, and there was nothing he could do. The day after Tao returned to school, Lai Hing had yelled, “Are you crippled for life?” across the classroom for all his classmates to hear. Tao felt his face grow hot and it took him too long to answer. By the time he did say something, it was lost in the laughter and voices of his classmates.

  And then yesterday, while they were in the yard, Lai Hing had asked, “Where’s your father?”

  “He’s away working,” Tao answered.

  “My father said he was sent away because he’s a traitor and not a true comrade of the Party.”

  Lai Hing wasn’t much taller than he was, but he was big-boned and stocky. He reminded Tao of a little bull.

  Tao stepped forward, his anger rising to the surface. “What does your father know?”

  “He knows plenty, that’s what. My father works at the public security bureau’s administrative offices, and he says your ba ba was sent really far away to a work camp for traitors who speak against the Party.”

  “You’re a liar!” Tao yelled.

  He could feel the blood rushing to his head. In the distance he could see Teacher Eng at the other side of the yard. Without thinking, he balled his fist and swung at Lai, missing by a foot. Never let your anger rule your actions, his grandfather had once told him. He didn’t quite understand him then, but he did now. Lai pushed him hard and Tao fell b
ackward, his tailbone hitting the pavement first. He felt a sharp pain shoot all the way up his back. Instead of defending his ba ba, he had only let him down.

  When Tao tried to get up, he felt a twinge of pain in his leg. He heard Lai Hing and his friends laughing at him. Take a breath. Be calm, he thought to himself. There’s no hurry. Tao slowly stood up, straightened, and waited a moment until he swung again, this time hitting Lai Hing hard and squarely in the stomach. The boy doubled over. The laughing had stopped, and in the next moment, Tao was shoved away by one of the other boys, who threatened to hit him. Hit me! Break my leg again, Tao thought, both of them if you like! This time he wouldn’t mind staying home forever.

  Instead, Little Shan stepped in between them and steered Tao away from the others. For the moment it felt as if his old friend had returned to him.

  “What are you doing?” Little Shan asked. “Lai Hing will knock you out with one punch.”

  “He’s a liar,” Tao repeated. “I don’t like him.”

  Little Shan took a step back and stood easily a few inches taller than Tao. He paused a moment before he said, “Well, I do.”

  * * *

  The memory made Tao cry harder now. Little Shan could do whatever he wanted, he didn’t care. The bruise on his tailbone would go away. Through his tears he saw his mother coming toward him and he quickly stepped just out of her reach; he was still angry at her for ignoring him. What he really wanted to know lay hard and bitter on the tip of his tongue. The tart smell of the soup made him feel queasy. He took a breath and wiped his nose with his sleeve. “Tell me…” He choked down another sob. “Tell me why the police came and took ba ba away.”

  Wei

  Even before Wei entered the kitchen, he felt an edge of panic rise in him. Tao was distraught. The boy was crying, pulling away from Kai Ying and refusing to go to school.

  “What is it?” he asked. “Tao?” Looking at his grandson, he saw misery. The vinegary scent of Kai Ying’s boiling soup hung heavily in the air.

  Tao was crying so hard he hadn’t heard him. Kai Ying held on to him, looking tired and pale. She’d lost even more weight in the past month.

  “He wants to know why his ba ba went away,” Kai Ying said. “Something happened at school…” she started to say, but the words caught in her throat and she didn’t finish the sentence.

  Wei wished he could start the day all over again. The irony was that he had awoken that morning feeling better than he had in a long time. It was a beautiful day, clear and bright, a rare morning in which the heaviness in his heart and mind felt lighter. Wei knew the truth was always there waiting to show itself, he just hadn’t expected it to surface this morning. He should have known better.

  Wei felt as if he couldn’t breathe in the hot, steamy kitchen. The door facing the courtyard was open, and every so often, a cool breeze blew in a whisper of relief. He swallowed his fear and steadied himself against the table, then reached out and touched his daughter-in-law’s arm so that she stepped aside.

  “What’s the matter?” Wei asked. His voice was surprisingly calm. He seated his grandson at the table and sat down next to him. Tao looked at him and tried to stop crying, his hiccupping breaths calming.

  “I don’t want to go school,” Tao answered.

  “Just last week you couldn’t wait to return to school.”

  “It’s different now.”

  “What about Little Shan?”

  “I hate Little Shan.”

  “Best friends are hard to come by.”

  “He isn’t my best friend.”

  “Then what’s this about your ba ba?”

  Wei knew he would never be able to turn back now. He wondered if Sheng would ever forgive him for what he’d done to his family.

  “There’s a boy in my class who said ba ba was a traitor, and that’s why he was sent away.”

  “Is that what you believe?”

  Tao shook his head.

  “That’s good, because your ba ba did nothing wrong,” Wei explained. “The authorities accused him of writing a letter criticizing the Party, when in fact, he never wrote such a letter.”

  Wei glanced up at Kai Ying, who had reached over for his empty teacup, listening.

  “How do you know?” Tao asked.

  Wei had never lied to his grandson before. He might have embellished a story here and there, but the only secrets he kept were the ones the boy was too young to know. Wei had never outright lied to him and he knew he couldn’t now. He glanced out to the courtyard and at the kapok tree. When he turned back to Tao, he saw Sheng again at the same age, always so formal and closemouthed around him. He remembered all the times he heard Sheng talking to Liang, joking and laughing, but as soon as he entered the room, it was as if the air had changed. He and Sheng hadn’t learned to be friends until late in his life. Now he only wanted his son home again.

  “I know…” Wei began, realizing the words that followed would change all of their lives forever. “I know because it was me. I was the one to write the letter, not your ba ba.”

  Wei felt as if he’d been falling for the past year and had finally hit the ground. He stared down at the table and couldn’t look at either Kai Ying or Tao. He suddenly felt exhausted and wanted only to lie down and close his eyes. The kitchen was suddenly quiet, as if everything had stopped. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure if he’d really said the words aloud.

  “It was you?” Kai Ying finally said. Her words reverberated against the walls and returned to him. He felt her standing just behind him.

  He looked at Tao. “Your ba ba had nothing to do with it,” he said again. “He’s a good and courageous son who assumed my blame. His only fault is having a coward as a father.”

  “I don’t understand. Why? Why would you have written the Premier a letter?” Kai Ying asked, her voice rising with each word. “You never paid any attention to politics before. How many times did you tell Sheng to mind his own business and to stay out of trouble?”

  Wei shook his head as if that were an answer. He stood up and turned to face Kai Ying, who stood stone-still holding his teacup.

  “Kai Ying, I’m so sorry,” he said, trying to explain what couldn’t be explained. “I don’t know what possessed me to write the letter. I don’t know why. Sheng seemed so certain that the Party wouldn’t do anything this time, and I thought…”

  “You thought?” Kai Ying interrupted. “You thought?” Her eyes narrowed as her voice rose with fury, edged with a hard, cold precision. “You thought you wouldn’t be touched because you’re the great Professor Lee from Lingnan University. You thought you were smarter and better than everyone else. That’s what you thought!” Kai Ying shouted. She stepped back and hurled the teacup, shattering it against the wall, startling them all.

  Kai Ying’s angry words hung heavily in the thick air. She had always been the peacemaker in the family. Wei pulled at his tunic collar and felt the room spinning, but he didn’t look away from Kai Ying, a small vein pulsing angrily on the side of her forehead, her entire body trembling. Her dark eyes were unrecognizable, filled with something worse than anger: disappointment. Every little sound suddenly seemed magnified, the soft bubbling of the soup boiling, the clock ticking, the pumping of his thin, warm blood from his heart to his brain. And for just a moment, Wei wondered if it were possible to drown from the inside out.

  Outside came the singsong voice of the fruit peddler calling out “Bananas! Oranges! Mangoes!” Every morning he went up and down the street, carrying two heavy baskets of fruit balanced on a wooden pole across his back and shoulders. Wei thought he had the best lichee and mangoes of anyone at the marketplace. He wanted to run out and buy all the fruit in the peddler’s baskets as an offering, although he knew even the sweetest fruits in all of Guangzhou couldn’t buy him forgiveness.

  When the baby’s cries suddenly drifted down from upstairs, Kai Ying looked away, and just as quickly she rushed out of the kitchen.

  Tao had stayed seated at the table. Hi
s grandson was no longer crying, but watching him with the distant gaze of a stranger. Wei hoped the boy would understand that he never meant for any of this to happen. But before he could say anything, Tao scraped back his chair and stood up.

  “Tao, I’m sorry,” Wei said.

  “You made ba ba go away.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “I hate you,” Tao said, “I hate you.”

  After

  October 1958

  Kai Ying

  It took all Kai Ying’s strength to pretend nothing had changed, when in fact, their entire world had. Even the air she breathed seemed tinged with bitterness. There was a letter and Wei had written it. Kai Ying’s thoughts simmered as she put on the rice and washed the mustard greens Auntie Song had brought over. She sliced a small piece of pork and the lotus roots and scallions and then minced the garlic. She lit the fire and poured peanut oil into the wok and waited for it to get hot. Her hands moved without any thought as to what they were doing. They had to eat, didn’t they? They had to find a way to live with this truth, didn’t they?

  Kai Ying saw it all so clearly now, the guilt that had to be consuming Wei each day as he retreated more and more into himself. As difficult as it was, Kai Ying understood why Sheng had taken her father-in-law’s place when the police came; Wei would have never been able to survive outside of the villa, much less at a reeducation facility. But why hadn’t Wei told her the truth? Why did he allow her to suffer for over a year, not knowing if there really was a letter, letting her believe that Sheng was the one to jeopardize everything they had? And how was she ever going to forgive a man who would let his pride betray his family?