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The Dissident

Page 41

by Nell Freudenberger


  The bush baby had backed herself into the vegetation, and was feeding on the curled brown head of a fern.

  “You’re back,” Cece said. “Are you all right?”

  The bush baby stared at her with those oddly human black eyes. Fionnula couldn’t have returned on her own. Someone had to have opened the cage, set her inside, and then fastened the latch. For a moment, Cece thought of Phil, but for all she knew, he was already back in New York.

  “Where were you?” she demanded, and then felt foolish. She looked behind her, in case someone was listening, but she was alone.

  Cece found the house keeper waiting for her in the den. Max and Jasmine were sitting on the leather couch, having a snack and watching television.

  “Fionnula is back!” Cece could not help telling them, although she was sure they didn’t care. “It’s like a miracle. She just appeared in the hutch.”

  Lupe smiled. “You see, Missis?”

  “Lupe—where did she come from? Did you find her?” It was not until then that Cece noticed the house keeper was glaring at Max’s girlfriend. Jasmine uncomfortably picked the salt from her pretzels.

  Lupe said something angrily in Spanish. Jasmine gave Cece a nervous look. Today her eyes were an uncanny turquoise.

  “It’s OK,” Cece said. “Tell me what happened.” But Jasmine seemed close to tears.

  “It’s my fault,” Max said. “I said we should set her free.”

  “Set her free!” She wasn’t questioning Max’s explanation, but as sometimes happened, he credited her with more insight than she actually possessed.

  “OK—it wasn’t exactly to set her free,” he admitted.

  “But how did she come back?”

  “Jasmine didn’t want to let her go. She said a dog would get her.”

  “I didn’t steal her,” Jasmine said.

  “Of course not,” Cece said. “No one said you did.” She looked at Lupe, who was suddenly very busy dusting the stereo.

  “Jasmine saved her,” Max said. “She’s been taking care of her.”

  “But where was she?”

  “At my house,” Jasmine said. “My stepfather’s good with animals.”

  “I thought you didn’t get along with your stepfather,” Cece said automatically. Max winced and shook his head just slightly, but whether he meant to say that he’d been wrong about Jasmine’s stepfather, or that things had changed, or simply that Cece shouldn’t have mentioned it, she didn’t know. Had Jasmine actually said that her stepfather made her “uncomfortable,” or was that Max’s word? And if it was Max’s, had he chosen it, consciously or not, because he knew it would make his mother respond? How could you ever know the truth if each successive person translated it into a new vocabulary?

  Jasmine seemed relieved that Cece wasn’t angry at her. “My stepdad’s OK. He fed her a lot.” Jasmine giggled. “Did you know Fionnula likes carne asada?”

  “Well, you’ll have to thank him for us,” Cece said calmly. “Max, can I see you in the other room?”

  Max looked up lazily. “Now?”

  “Now.” Max seemed surprised by her tone, but he got up and followed her, through the living room and into her study, crowded with pets. Cece hadn’t changed the cages this week, and of course no one else had bothered to do it.

  “Tell me why you let Fionnula out.”

  Max reached into his pocket and extracted a rubber band. He began stretching it between his fingers, almost to the breaking point.

  “Was it because Uncle Phil gave her to me?”

  “No.” The rubber band sailed across the room. “I just didn’t want her.”

  “But the thing is, it doesn’t matter whether you wanted her or not,” Cece said.

  Max looked up for a second, confused.

  “Because I wanted her. She was mine.”

  Max didn’t say anything.

  “What if I didn’t want your stereo? Or your video camera, or your comics—”

  “I don’t like comics anymore,” Max began, but Cece ignored him.

  “And so one day when you were in school I just went in there and threw them out?”

  “OK, sorry,” Max intoned. “Jeez.”

  “It’s not OK yet.”

  Max exhaled a short, exasperated breath. “Are you going to ground me again?”

  “No,” Cece said, making a snap decision. “I hate grounding. No, I want you to take these animals up to your room. I’ll keep the birds, but you take Ferdinand and Freud.”

  Max gave her a disbelieving look. “Why?”

  “Because I don’t have space for them here.”

  “But I might kill them. Not on purpose, but, like, I’ll forget to feed them and they’ll die.”

  “That’s your decision,” Cece said briskly. “Love them, kill them—just get them out of here, so I have some room.”

  Her son picked up one of the cages and shook his head, as if he suspected she’d gone completely crazy. Cece didn’t have time to reassure him. She put the other cage in the hall, and closed and locked the door. Then she sat down at her desk. The first thing was to come up with some kind of plan.

  76.

  WHEN GORDON GOT HOME, HE INSISTED SHE CALL HARRY LIN. AS SHE’D expected, the professor hadn’t seen the dissident since DNA-ture.

  “I can’t understand how he could just disappear,” she said. “He hardly knows anyone besides us.”

  “I’m sure he has a good reason,” Harry reassured her.

  That Mr. Yuan might have a good reason was exactly what Cece was worried about, but of course she couldn’t confide that to Harry Lin. Didn’t Mr. Yuan understand that the last thing to do was run—that, at least in America, it was always the guilty person who fled the scene?

  “Xiao Pangzi wouldn’t want to worry you, unless it was absolutely necessary.”

  “What did you call him?” Cece asked.

  Harry laughed. “It’s a nickname—from when he was young. Younger, I should say. It means ‘Little Fatty.’”

  Cece didn’t see anything amusing in the situation, but Harry’s casualness reassured her. Only when she mentioned that Gordon wanted to contact Missing Persons did the professor sound concerned. Harry was adamant that they should wait a few days, since the police were sure to contact the Chinese consulate, and that could cause problems for Mr. Yuan at home.

  “I’ll let everyone here know,” Harry said. “And of course you’ve notified your daughter’s school?”

  “If they see him, I’ll hear about it,” Cece had said, which was as truthful as she could be under the circumstances.

  Gordon had reluctantly agreed to wait until Friday to notify the police of Mr. Yuan’s disappearance. At breakfast on Wednesday morning he reminded Cece that they would need a current photo, as if he had already lost hope of Mr. Yuan’s returning on his own. Cece berated herself silently for not having taken out the camera a single time since the dissident had arrived, even at Thanksgiving. If they did have to go to the police station, she would be forced to take the newspaper clipping she’d Xeroxed for Joan: the grainy photo of Yuan Zhao in Tiananmen Square, with his long hair whipping in the wind.

  Cece didn’t sleep on Wednesday night, and by early Thursday morning, when the palm trees in the backyard were just gray shapes, and the first birds had begun sounding uncertainly, she was sitting at her desk in the study. When she heard Gordon’s alarm, she went upstairs and dressed as if she were going to St. Anselm’s. Then she made her family breakfast. It was not until they were all off to their various destinations that she got into her own car, took Mountain Drive out to Sunset, and headed east.

  She had copied the address from the student directory, and it took her some time to find the house. Olivia had once had a friend who lived up the hill alongside Griffith Park, but Cece got turned around in the grid-like streets of the flats. She stopped twice to consult her Thomas guide, noticing each time the pleasantness of the neighborhood. It seemed to be an area full of young families: a pair of Indian women cr
ossed in front of her with strollers, and on every block were lawns littered with bright-colored plastic toys.

  The Wangs had a dry but neatly clipped lawn, with gray concrete stepping stones leading up to the front door. Although it was daytime, Cece noticed the red and green lights around the living room window, like the ones they’d used to decorate the old house in Westwood. For the new house they’d purchased strings of flame-shaped white fairy lights, planning to illuminate the trunks of the trees along the driveway. When Gordon had tried to install them, however, he’d taken a bad fall from the stepladder (onto grass, thank God) and Cece had put a stop to the whole project. The smaller, more elegant lights never seemed as festive to her anyway.

  It occurred to Cece, as she touched the doorbell and put on a preparatory smile, that this visit was a gesture of faith. Mr. Yuan would return, and as soon as he did, he would need to defend himself. Or to be defended: Cece was not at all confident that the dissident could handle this situation on his own. That was why she was beginning to gather evidence on his behalf. The question of what sort of evidence, for or against, she brushed from her mind. It would be Emily’s word against June’s, and what ever June’s shortcomings (the fact that she’d been expelled from high school, or her tendency to make artwork out of seafood), she was nevertheless a quiet Chinese student, who lived in an up-and-coming part of town with her old grandmother. How could you help but trust her?

  Cece had been expecting a tiny, white-haired old lady, perhaps wearing a traditional silk blouse, and so June’s grandmother was a surprise. Mrs. Wang was dressed in a purple velour pantsuit, accessorized with a large moonstone pin, pink ballet flats, red socks, and, most incongruously, a set of navy blue sweatbands around her wrists and her neck.

  “May I help you?”

  “Mrs. Wang?” she began. “I’m Cece Travers. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

  “Hello,” Mrs. Wang said, but she did not open the door any farther. “Are you from the school?”

  “Yes,” Cece said, and then corrected herself. “I mean, I’m a parent at the school. I also volunteer in the internship office, but only three days a week. I’m here on my own—is what I’m trying to say.” How was Mrs. Wang going to understand her, if she kept going on like this? Cece forced herself to slow down. “I didn’t have your phone number,” she lied. “I wonder if you might have a minute to talk?”

  “Please come in,” June’s grandmother said, but it was not an effusive welcome. Cece stepped directly into a dim, carpeted living room, decorated with a type of 1950’s Americana that made her nostalgic for her childhood. Pale blue wall-to-wall complemented the mustard-colored upholstery and matching drapes. A brick fireplace (apparently unused) housed potted bonsai with smooth, twisted trunks and lanceolate leaves. Behind the trees were several large bags of birdseed. An eclectic assortment of packaged goods was stacked along the other three walls, still in their boxes or plastic wrappings.

  “Please excuse the mess,” Mrs. Wang said.

  “Not at all,” Cece said. Given the sheer number of things being stored there, the Wangs’ living room was remarkably neat. “You have a lovely home.”

  Mrs. Wang brushed the compliment aside. “It’s been a difficult time.” She lowered her voice and put a hand on Cece’s arm: “They’ve made a terrible mistake.”

  Cece was startled: she had been thinking so much about Mr. Yuan that, for a moment, she assumed Mrs. Wang was talking about the accusations. But of course June’s grandmother couldn’t know about the Aldermans’ complaint. She was completely focused on her granddaughter’s expulsion, and what she had to do to get June back in school; if she was interested in Cece at all, it was as a potential ally in this fight.

  “I know,” Cece said carefully. “That’s why I came here today.”

  Mrs. Wang smiled and seemed to relax. “How embarrassing, I have nothing to offer you. Maybe you would like an iced tea? Before you arrived I was showing my granddaughter how to make sesame cakes. June has been interested in Chinese cooking lately. But maybe this type of cake is not your taste?”

  “I’d love to try it,” Cece said. “Probably just a small piece though; I try to watch myself with cake.”

  “So skinny!” Mrs. Wang said, appraising her. “Like a girl. Anyway these cakes are not fattening, not like American cakes.”

  Mrs. Wang disappeared into the kitchen, and Cece was able to look around. Most of the cartons along the wall were open: there were more sweatbands and slippers, water purification filters, shower caps, thermometers, eye cream, and vitamin packets with Japanese writing on the box. The ceiling in the living room was low, and there were footsteps moving back and forth upstairs. A moment later a door slammed, and Cece heard water running. The visit wouldn’t be a success unless she was able to talk to June.

  Mrs. Wang returned with a bowl of round, golden cakes, and a pitcher of iced tea with flowers in it.

  “Oh,” Cece exclaimed. “How beautiful.”

  Mrs. Wang frowned, barely concealing her pride: “The food June makes always looks nice, but how it tastes…”

  “Will she come down and join us?”

  Mrs. Wang set the tray down carefully on an antique table, polished to a high gloss. Except for a scroll painting hanging next to the fireplace—a cheap one, Cece thought, like a tourist souvenir—the table was the only explicitly Chinese thing in the room.

  “I’m afraid June isn’t feeling well,” she said. From the curt way Mrs. Wang delivered this information, Cece had the feeling the complaint was psychological rather than physical.

  “I’m so sorry about everything,” she told June’s grandmother. “I firmly believe that children shouldn’t be punished for any kind of creative enthusiasm, even if they sometimes go a little far.”

  But Mrs. Wang was shaking her head. “Not creative,” she said. “For an assignment. For the one hundred and fifty years.”

  Cece was momentarily confused. “For the sesquicentennial, you mean?”

  Mrs. Wang nodded slightly, coughing discreetly into her sleeve—as if she was reluctant to say anything unpleasant. “For the center of it.”

  Cece had taken a bite of cake, and her mouth was filled with a sweet, gluey paste. She struggled to chew and swallow: “For the Sesquicenterpiece. Oh, I didn’t understand at all!”

  “June was going to win the prize.”

  Cece thought of the Sesquicenterpieces she had seen: the felt banner, for example. It was impressively done, the result of careful planning and hard work, but the fish-blossom tree was on a different level. It was hard to imagine a project less like the Sesquicenterpieces Laurel Diller had ordered, and yet Cece thought that if it were up to her, June would indeed have won the prize.

  “The other parents were envious,” Mrs. Wang confided. “That’s why they expelled her.”

  “I don’t think it was the parents,” Cece began, and instinctively looked up: June was standing at the top of the stairs. She was wearing rainbow-striped wool knee socks, a pair of navy surplus culottes, and a yellow vintage T-shirt that read, “Mr. Yi’s Karate Palace.” She had done her hair in tiny braids, each secured with a red band.

  Cece felt herself blushing, but Mrs. Wang didn’t seem bothered by the fact that her granddaughter had overheard their conversation.

  “Feeling better?” she asked her granddaughter. “Look, Mrs. Travers is eating your cakes. Much tastier than last time.”

  Cece stood up. “You must be June. I’m Cece Travers, Olivia’s mom. I’ve seen you in Mr. Yuan’s class, but I don’t think we’ve really met.”

  “Come down here,” Mrs. Wang said. “Shake Mrs. Travers’s hand. She’s come all the way here to help you go back to school.”

  “I don’t know how much I can do,” Cece began.

  Mrs. Wang was looking at her expectantly.

  “I’ll certainly try, though,” she heard herself saying.

  June was making her way very slowly down the stairs, running her hand along the banister behind her. The ge
sture reminded Cece of Max, and the way there always seemed to be two of him: one who would do your bidding, and at the same time another who vehemently disobeyed.

  “Hi,” Cece said, taking June’s reluctantly extended hand. “Your grandmother tells me there was some misunderstanding about your Sesquicenterpiece.”

  June let go of her hand. “Did you see it?”

  “It was very original,” Cece said. “I think the only problem was the firecrackers, but maybe if I—”

  “They were safe firecrackers!” Mrs. Wang interrupted. “Made in Japan! I imported them myself.”

  “Maybe if we explained that to Ms. McCoy?” Cece suggested.

  June was drawing a triangle in the carpet, going over and over it with her toe. “Thanks. But I’m not going back there.”

  “June!” her grandmother said.

  “I understand why you would feel that way,” Cece began, but this was clearly between June and her grandmother. Neither one was paying her any attention.

  “I want to get my GED,” June said. “And then I want to go to art school.”

  “Well, well,” said Mrs. Wang. “Now your heart is stuck on art school?”

  June groaned. “Set on. Not stuck.”

  “Mr. Yuan says you’re very talented,” Cece said.

  “You don’t need to tell her.” Mrs. Wang feigned exasperation. “She knows.”

  At this June could not suppress a small smile.

  “I would love to see some of your artwork,” Cece said, feeling only slightly dishonest. She did want to see June’s artwork, and she also wanted to go upstairs, where the two of them could talk in private.

  “Here,” said Mrs. Wang, piling two more of the heavy, fried cakes on Cece’s plate. The old lady gave her a gentle shove in the direction of the stairs, as if she were a friend of June’s, rather than a parent. “Take your time,” she said. “You can enjoy.”

  June’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. One wall was on an angle and the ceiling sloped; it had probably been designed for storage. The room was very light, however, and from the bed you would be able to watch clouds and planes against the muted, smoggy sky. Cece thought of how her children had fought over the smaller room in their current house. There was something about the coziness that they liked; it was a myth that children needed lots of space.

 

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