The Cooked Seed: A Memoir

by Anchee Min

  Should I say that it was strange that I felt hurt? The fact that Qigu was capable of passion confirmed that he had never been in love with me. It took six years and my pregnancy for him to propose. I remembered clearly how reluctant he was. I recalled the morning when I dragged him out of his bed so that I could take a photo of our “wedding day.”

  “Will you have a ring this time?” I asked.

  He smiled. “I already booked a trip to take her on a honeymoon to the Grand Canyon.”

  “What an improvement!” I tried to be sarcastic.

  I carried Lauryann outside so that she could wave good-bye to her father. I watched Qigu climb into his rented car and drive away. Lauryann saw my tears and asked to be let down. She ran into the house and returned with a tissue box.

  Part Four

  { Chapter 28 }

  When the publishers first rejected Becoming Madame Mao, my income dropped to zero. I understood that most authors in America supported themselves by working other jobs. Since I was not able to get any other job, I decided to do what I had done before. I bought a run-down four-unit apartment property and set my mind to fix it. I took out a loan and put in every dollar I had saved as a down payment.

  Lauryann helped me even though she was only six years old. In the beginning, it proved to be a challenge, because she had been raised as an “American princess.”

  “I don’t like my tomatoes touching my potato,” she would say. She was scared of flies as if they were assassins. “The sun hurts my eyes!” She would cry as we drove. She hated vegetables and drank soda instead of water.

  “I helped my mother as a child,” I said. “At the age of five, I was responsible for picking up my three siblings from different nursery schools and kindergarten. I was in charge of buying food for my family at the age of six. As an eight-year-old, I carried a forty-pound bag of rice. I took my brother to a hospital when I was nine. I remember the doctor asking, ‘Where is your parent?’ I stepped up and said, ‘I am the parent.’ ”

  I had been driving around the neighborhood in the evenings with Lauryann beside me. I tried to locate the nearest park with a public restroom in case we had to live in the car. “It’s always wise to prepare for the worst,” I said.

  Lauryann had to adjust to a new school every time we moved. I didn’t ask her if it was okay. I knew it was not okay with her. It hurt me to see Lauryann lose friends and the teachers she loved. But we had to live below our means and go where the rent was cheaper. Lauryann was forced to adapt. She learned to engage quickly with her new teachers and schoolmates. She tried her best to keep the friendships. As the years went by she would visit her old friends, especially her teachers. I drove her to those visits before she got her own driver’s license. Lauryann shared with her teachers aspects of her life that she didn’t think I would understand. She didn’t trust that my advice would actually work for her.

  For a period of time, Lauryann slept in a closet. Years later, she told me that when she was scared of the darkness, she imagined herself as a friend of Harry Potter. She also said the reason she quit complaining was because she was sick of me pulling “the labor-camp stunt.”

  “You are not deprived,” I would say to her. “What do you mean that you don’t have dance lessons? You can learn dancing from the videotapes I bought you. You can learn singing from playing the cassettes. Don’t you dare say I never take you to the movies. Didn’t I play you the Little Mermaid I recorded from the TV children’s channel? So what if it had commercials? You’re just too lazy to press the fast-forward button to skip the commercials.”

  Lauryann and I finally figured out Michael Jackson’s moves from a videotape. Although we couldn’t quite make the moonwalk steps, I kept saying, “We saved another fourteen dollars by giving ourselves this lesson!”

  The air was filled with the smell of fumes. The property I had been trying to fix was in a working-class neighborhood. Stolen shopping carts were scattered on the streets and behind the buildings. The tenants drank beer in their cars, especially in summer and winter, leaving the car idling and the air-conditioning or heat running. They threw their cigarette butts everywhere. Part of Lauryann’s job was to pick up cigarette butts, beer cans, and liquor bottles. Tenants also stripped off the smoke detectors and fire extinguishers we had installed. The carport wall was caved in—the work of a drunk driver.

  Income-wise the tenants were poor, but they had expensive habits. They gave lavish birthday parties and went on family vacations to Disneyland while short on rent. Stuffed animals filled their kids’ rooms from floor to ceiling. The kids’ birthday gifts included TV sets and video games, which made Lauryann envious.

  On Lauryann’s birthday, I took her to Home Depot. My gift to her was Home Depot’s free lesson on how to use an electric power saw, and how to install ceramic tiles. I also bought her two books, Plumbing 1-2-3 and The Complete Fix-It-Yourself Manual.

  Lauryann did not want to wear the child-size orange Home Depot apron on which a clerk wrote, HI, I AM LAURYANN.

  Lauryann let me know that she wanted what other kids had at their birthday parties. She preferred to dress up like a princess and receive “normal gifts.”

  My answer was, “You are not going to make me slap my face making it swell so that I’ll look well fed!”

  Lauryann helped me clean clogged sewage lines, spray and scrub mold, lift sheets of drywall, and carry bags of concrete. She came to call her time with me “jail time.”

  Every hour, she would request, “Mom, I’ve got to pee!” She knew I would have no choice but to release her. She took a long time inside the bathroom. When she stepped out and faced my disapproving look, she would say flatly, “Sorry, I was pooping.”

  “Compared to millions of children in China, you are living a fantasy life!” I said to Lauryann. “You get to shower in hot water, and you get to pee sitting on a toilet. You get to go to school. For a dollar, we get to purchase packs of noodles—hunger is a strange concept to you!” I found myself strangely speaking in the tone of Communist teaching. “There is pleasure in serving the people! There is honor and satisfaction! How can you not feel it?”

  Lauryann turned her head and made exaggerated yawns.

  Originally, I hoped it would be a great experience for Lauryann to witness the lives of America’s working class. It would help me fix what was lacking in Lauryann—the understanding of how rough life could be—and help her develop a sense of gratitude. I thought that after she witnessed what poor children didn’t have, she would appreciate what she had.

  My plan backfired when Lauryann witnessed the opposite.

  I asked Lauryann to mix cement while I tiled the floor in one unit. During the summer, we worked from morning until midnight. Lauryann was given my old paint-stained clothes to wear. She was with me on the construction site seven days a week.

  Lauryann started her battle against me first by telling me that I looked nothing like a “regular American mom.” “People have reasons when they ask you, ‘Are you a landscaper?’ or, ‘Do you work at the Home Depot?’ ” Then Lauryann complained about the fact that I had her walk in the rain. “American moms never let their kids walk in the rain,” she said. “They drive their kids to where they ought to be. I have no raincoat, or an umbrella, and you expect me to walk in the rain. You don’t care that I could get wet and get sick.”

  I pulled out a trash bag and cut one hole on the bottom and two holes in the sides to turn it into a makeshift raincoat. I made one for myself too. “Here, your raincoat. It works great!”

  “Mom, people are going to laugh!”

  “Why should you bother with people’s opinions? Why should you be affected by people’s foolish and nasty comments? Walk your own path, daughter. Cheer up. It’s a nice day.”

  “But the TV weatherman said it’s a bad day.”

  “I have a real problem with the American TV weatherman,” I snapped. “Rainy days are the best days. A Chinese weatherman would congratulate the farmers. He would say that the
rain is good for agriculture. The crops need a deep soak. It’s a gift from heaven. I love rainy days. At the labor camp we got no breaks except when it rained. I am not talking about average rain. Average rain didn’t count. It had to be pouring so hard that the rice shoots we just planted floated back up … I prayed for the rain to never stop …”

  Lauryann rolled her eyes.

  Lauryann and I worked as a team. While I unloaded construction material from the car, Lauryann carried tools into the unit. To avoid inconveniencing the tenants, we worked around their time schedules, which meant we often had to skip lunch and dinner. It was also because we couldn’t afford to let the mixed concrete harden or the water-pipe holes stay exposed.

  On the way home, Lauryann would fall asleep soon after climbing in the car. I felt bad working her like this. How I would have loved to see her playing with other kids on bikes and scooters. I had to stop this train of thought from going further.

  The tenants would say to Lauryann, “Oh honey, you poor thing. Your mother ought to take you to Disneyland. Listen, a kid’s job is to have fun.”

  I would have encouraged Lauryann to have fun if she didn’t have to struggle to get decent grades. Lauryann had demonstrated slowness in certain areas, such as mathematics. She could barely do second-grade math as a fourth grader. For example, she was unable to figure out the answer to 0.39 times 10,000. It was the Fourth of July and we were having dinner at a friend’s house. The friend had just gotten his real estate agent license. He needed to mail out ten thousand letters at thirty-nine cents each to introduce himself to the community. Nobody meant to embarrass Lauryann. The man addressed the question to her because it was an easy question and he wanted to give her a chance to participate in the conversation. It surprised everyone when Lauryann took a long time and counted with her fingers. Finally she shook her head and broke down in tears.

  I told Lauryann that it was not her problem that she didn’t have the smart genes. “I didn’t give it to you. It’s Mommy’s fault.” I told her that I was proud of her effort. “Thanks for being brave.” Her best effort was good enough for me. She relaxed and trusted that I meant what I said.

  After the math incident, I received well-meaning advice from my friends. They all noticed Lauryann’s “slowness” and were concerned. They encouraged me to enroll Lauryann in an art school, since she was good at dancing.

  I didn’t want to enroll Lauryann in an alternative school without putting up a fight. “I don’t see why you can’t follow in my steps,” I said to Lauryann. “I taught myself English.”

  I loved American public school teachers. Every one of them offered my daughter a chance. Lauryann crawled her way to the top. I made “How can I make it right?” Lauryann’s motto. She was getting used to falling to the bottom before climbing out of the “grade pit.”

  “If you can fix broken toilets, reconnect pipes, become a floor master and a locksmith, you can make anything work,” I encouraged her.

  A tenant named Ruth asked Lauryann, “What would you like to be when you grow up?”

  “A plumber,” Lauryann replied. “Mom thinks that is a good idea. Right, Mom?”

  I gave her a look of approval.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Ruth shook her head. “Grow up to be a plumber? Is this your American dream? Come on, Mrs. Min, I don’t know what to say! I mean, I am in disbelief! How could you do this to your daughter? She’s so pretty. She can be a model, an actress, or the next Miss America.”

  “Well, there is no limit to what she can dream,” I said. “I just don’t want her to set herself up for a crash.”

  “What do you think her best option would be?”

  “Joining the army can be a good option if I haven’t saved enough for her college by the time she turns eighteen,” I replied.

  Ruth gave an exaggerated jaw-dropping expression. “You might as well kill her! What the hell are you thinking?”

  “Well, the army provides free college tuition. I have learned about the benefits of serving in a US military hospital. A guaranteed job. Of course, Lauryann has to go through nursing school first. Nobody can rob what you put inside your brain. The army pay is decent and you’d be covered by VA medical care for the rest of your life.”

  “But your daughter can come back in a body bag!”

  “Well, I look at it this way: Auto accidents kill on average fifty thousand a year in this country, while the total number of American soldiers killed in the recent war is only in the thousands.”

  “You sound crazy to me, Mrs. Min,” Ruth said.

  “Well, my daughter could also become the one who figures out a cure for AIDS.”

  Lauryann asked Ruth’s daughter Candy what her dream was.

  “I want to be a fashion model,” Candy said, chewing gum and admiring herself in a mirror. “Or a movie actress. Maybe a veterinarian, ’cause I love animals.”

  “I am so proud of Candy,” Ruth said.

  Driving home, I said to Lauryann, “Did you notice that there are no books in all four units? I have never seen any of the children do homework and she talked about becoming a veterinarian.”

  “Mom, you are not supposed to talk like this behind people’s backs,” Lauryann said. “People can do anything they like in America. It’s none of your business!”

  “These parents don’t love their children,” I continued. “I mean, not enough.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They don’t prepare their children.”

  “Well, the parents might not have the time to prepare their children.”

  “You think I have time? I make time! I will park on your back if you bring home a low grade without a good reason! I make you do homework in the car, in the stores, at the construction site, that’s how you get A’s. Maybe the Americans need a Communist system, so the mothers can have labor-camp experiences …”

  “Watch your mouth, Mom!”

  I struggled to find time to work on my manuscript. I wrote through the night until I came down with the flu. It was hard to drag myself out of bed with a pounding headache. I knew I couldn’t afford to be sick. The mortgage company, the IRS, and the property tax had to be paid, regardless of the fact that I was unable to get the tenants to pay their rent.

  I shut myself in the tenants’ bathroom to throw up. The construction tool I was using started to feel heavy. I knew I was about to pass out. I feared accidents because I had no medical insurance.

  When Lauryann saw my face turn pale and my shirt drenched in sweat, she brought me water. At the end of the day, I was unable to drive home. I had to sit in the car to catch my breath.

  Still, I felt blessed that I had the right to work. In the meantime, I couldn’t help but think that if Lauryann hadn’t had me as a mother, she would have been having a good time at a summer camp. She could be traveling the world or attending dance classes or playing piano. She could have her friends sleep over and watch movies. Instead she was stuck with my troubles.

  It often happened that I received two A.M. calls from tenants complaining about sewage backups. The police also phoned about a domestic violence incident in one of my units. I had to leave home immediately to fix the problem. Returning from the property at dawn, I tiptoed into Lauryann’s room. White paint stains were still in her hair and her chin was scratched, but my daughter was sound asleep. My love for her recharged my strength.

  I felt overwhelmed by guilt. Was I denying my little girl the American childhood she was entitled to? I had denied her water and food the previous day because we were in the middle of caulking a bathroom. What option did I have? I had cut the sealant tubes open, and the caulking had to be used immediately or wasted.

  On Thanksgiving and Christmas evenings, I played Lauryann movies that I had bought in China dubbed in Chinese. I considered this an education. Because I could not afford to pay for Lauryann to attend a Chinese language school, she would learn by watching the films. In the meantime, I sent her moral messages through the movies.

>   The White Haired Girl, filmed in China in the 1960s, was one of my favorites. The Girl Who Sells Flowers was another favorite, a North Korean movie produced in the 1970s.

  Lauryann enjoyed the movies but had trouble believing the stories. “Why is every landlord portrayed as heartless, cruel, and evil?” she questioned. In The White Haired Girl, the landlord raped the peasant’s daughter because the peasant was late on his rent. The daughter escaped into the mountains and lived like an animal. Malnutrition turned her hair snow white. Later, she was saved by the Communists and returned for revenge. The landlord was executed at the end of the movie.

  The North Korean flower seller sang the most beautiful yet the saddest songs. She belonged to a family of tenants who were unable to make the rent and suffered at the hands of the landlord. The tenants were forced to sell their children in order to come up with the rent.

  “This is Communist propaganda, Mom!” Lauryann protested. “Look at you, the real-life landlord! Your tenants walk all over you!”

  Lauryann and I were on ladders. We had been repairing a ceiling damaged from a bathtub leak on the second floor. We had taken down the old, soaked ceiling drywall and were trying to replace it with a new sheet. We were having difficulty lifting the drywall sheet into place. The weight was crushing us, and my strength was failing. I asked Lauryann to hold up the drywall by using her head as a stabilizer. Standing on the ladder, she tried to push the drywall sheet toward the ceiling.

  I grabbed my drill and climbed back onto the ladder. Driving in the screws, I started to fasten the drywall onto the ceiling joists. My arms were shaking. Lauryann was losing her strength. “Almost there!” I cried. “Push the drywall up, Lauryann! Harder! Push all the way!” She was in tears as I drove the last screws in.