“I helped her at great risk to myself. She did what the Party asked of her and gave evidence against your father. She had to leave the Ministry, of course. Her marriage to your father and her conduct up to that point had disqualified her from the service. But by turning in your father, she saved herself and the two of you. I tried to help her as much as I could after she left the Ministry, finding her temporary jobs and accommodation. But in those years, sometimes I couldn’t even protect myself and my own family.
“Toward the end of the Cultural Revolution, when I was hard up myself, I happened to come across your father in prison. I had always known him as someone smart, cultured, if not a bit arrogant. So it was a shock to find him a broken man. To this day, I remember him sitting in the corner coughing, or limping around the prison yard. Whenever there was a loud noise or the guards came near, his eyes would twitch, and his body would shrink. He was like a terrified bird trapped inside an invisible cage.
“I tried to talk to him as one prisoner to another. But your father didn’t want to listen. He wasn’t the kind of man who forgave easily. Hatred had planted roots within him that had grown deadly knots. I could see it was killing him from the inside.
“I wasn’t in prison for long. After a few months, I was transferred, and I was released when the Cultural Revolution ended.
“It was not until I came back to Beijing that I heard about your father’s death. The official account was that he had died of illness in prison. I went to see your mother. It was the only time she agreed to see me. She wanted to know everything about him. What kind of food did he eat? Was he in good spirits? Was he thinking of the girls? What did he say about her? Why didn’t he write? I didn’t think she had ever had any information from him. So I told her everything. A lot of it didn’t come as a surprise to her, but she still took it very hard. When I told her that your father had said he would never forgive her, she cried.”
The elegant man paused, taking a sip of Wu Liang Ye to wet his throat. Mei thought that she saw sadness glistening in his eyes.
He drew a long breath and recovered. “Have you met my son?” The corners of his mouth lifted in a bitter smile as Mei shook her head. “You haven’t missed much. He’s a real horror, and he despises me. All he wants from me is the use of my car and protection whenever he or his pal Big Papa Wu gets into trouble. I was told that this bar is one of his favorite haunts. We don’t see much of each other these days. He goes out late, chasing women, and then sleeps all morning. I know that I have a bastard for a son, but what can I do? He’s all I’ve got.
“In China, what matters is power. Money couldn’t get your mother into Number 301 Hospital, but I can, my power can. But power doesn’t last. One day I will die, and what then? What will happen to my son without me to protect him? He won’t survive prison. He could never tolerate suffering. He’s one of those people with a weak head. In the Cultural Revolution, he was sent to the mountains to be reeducated. He might have died if not for Big Papa Wu.”
Song tipped his head back, emptied what was left in his cup, and wiped his mouth with a crisp white handkerchief. “People like Zhang Hong ruin lives, their own and those of the people around them. Someone had to take a stand. Our society is better off without people like him.
“Why are you looking at me like that? No, you can’t judge me. You haven’t the right. I did what I needed to do, just as your mother did what she needed to do. There was no room for morality at the time of the Cultural Revolution. You survived at any cost. You young people don’t understand. You always act as if we were monsters.”
Song tried to push himself up. He wobbled as though something inside him were lost, something he needed in order to steady himself. On the second try, he got up slowly, with the care of a man who has had too much to drink.
“Please go and be with your mother. I talked to the hospital before I came. They told me that she was going to recover.
“Sooner or later, our time will come. All we have left now is waiting. But you know what? This waiting has been harder than I thought. Every wrong you’ve done in your life catches up and eats into you. Maybe that’s how we’ll all go when we have no heart left to suffer.”
He walked toward the door. Mei got up, too, and reached out to help him. Song pushed her away as if she were a morning rose, too thorny to touch. He straightened his body. His hands shook a little, but he was steady now.
“No, it doesn’t matter. Not anymore. But I do want to protect my son and to leave him something that could set him up for a long time after I’m gone. I heard money is all you need in America.”
He grabbed one of the rosewood doors and pushed it open. “Stop looking for the jade. It doesn’t exist anymore.” He turned around. “Chen is a coward, always letting other people do his dirty work. That is why your mother could never love him. But he hung around, always the shapeless shadow, the sensitive ear, always around. He’s never gotten anywhere and never will. If he wants to get me, tell him to come and use his own hands.”
Mei watched Song walk through the empty bar with small, precise steps. He held his back straight. When he came to the door, he opened it and walked into the rain. The wind had slowed. His driver ran from the bank of the canal, holding up an umbrella to shield his boss.
THIRTY FOUR
MEI MOVED THE CHAIR CLOSER to her mother’s bed and sat down.
A tube was taped just below Ling Bai’s nostrils. Long color-coded cables, like subway routes on a map, linked her to a monitor with constantly changing numbers.
Though Ling Bai was much the same as when Mei had last seen her, Mei had a feeling that underneath the facade something remarkable had happened. Her mother’s breathing was quiet and steady. The expression on her face had softened. There was a kind of moisture, perhaps even a slight hint of color, in her cheeks.
Mei sat and watched her mother for a while. Then she tiptoed to the window where Little Auntie was dozing. Mei tapped her arm. “Little Auntie,” she said, “why don’t you go home? I’ll stay with Mama.”
Little Auntie opened her eyes. “I’m all right. It’s almost daybreak.”
Both of them decided to stay. Little Auntie added hot water to old tea leaves in her cup and handed it to Mei. They sat by the window and shared the tea, separated by a generation and bonded by love.
Little Auntie pointed to the body in the other bed. “Brought in a few hours ago. Suicide; a soldier.”
“Where is his family?”
“It doesn’t look like he has family in Beijing.”
The body groaned a little.
Mei looked at her aunt. Like Mei, she had inherited the strong nose from their ancestors. Wrinkles had begun to claim her face. Veins spread across her arms and the backs of her hands like ivy.
Little Auntie did not notice Mei’s gaze. She sipped tea and watched the lights change color on the monitor. She didn’t know how Mei’s heart ached from the secret she harbored.
“Did you,” Mei started timidly, “ever question?”
“Question what?”
“All that stuff that happened in the Cultural Revolution. The things you did and the choices you made.”
“Of course we did. The whole nation questioned for ten long years after the Cultural Revolution ended. But what’s the point of dwelling on the past? No one can change anything.” Little Auntie passed the cup to Mei. “We were like sheep being herded around. We didn’t have much choice.”
“Is that really true? Everyone made choices. Mama took us out of the hard labor camp but left Baba there. Baba chose to believe in his ideals. Some people killed, some betrayed family and friends. We all make our choices.”
“But you can’t compare what you have today with that of your ma or ba. We lived in a very different time. It was like a civil war, full of life and death. Most of the time we had no control.”
“But what if you had control? What if you knew that you were sending someone to die?”
“What are you talking about?”
&nb
sp; Mei wanted so much to tell Little Auntie what she knew. But she could not say a word. The burden of her mother’s secrets, now hers to keep, bore down on her. Mei was cursed. She had been raised on poisoned love, and now her love was poisoned, too.
Mei turned away, breathing hard. “I don’t know. Everything seems wrong. I always thought truth and love would make me happy. But they didn’t. Now I have some difficult choices to make myself. Do I turn in a murderer who is my family’s savior? Ancient wisdom says one life is worth another in exchange, but what about justice? What about justice for the one we lost? Can we forgive an assassin even if she had the best reasons?”
Little Auntie looked at Mei, confused and worried. “Who is this? Someone I know?”
Mei didn’t answer. She returned the teacup to Little Auntie and walked to her mother’s bed.
There, by the side of the woman who had given Mei life twice, she sat down. Mei laid her face on top of her mother’s hand and felt the touch of her skin, warm and tender. Mama opened her eyes a little and then closed them again. Mei thought she saw a fleeting smile.
The night was as silent as Mei’s tears. She wondered whether love could be condoned without justice.
“I’m sorry, Mama,” she whispered.
From beyond the dark window, Mei heard the first cry of the morning bird. Soon the day would awake, and morning would arrive like waves upon an unspoiled shore. Light would rise from behind the horizon. It would bring the touch of paradise.
POSTSCRIPT
In the summer of 1999, a Han Dynasty jade seal was sold in New York to an anonymous collector. The amount paid was never disclosed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank Marysue Rucci and her team at Simon & Schuster for their faith in me.
I thank Jennifer Joel at ICM for making dreams come true.
My affection goes to my beloved Beijing, to my sister, my father, and my friends.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Diane Wei Liang was born in Beijing. She spent part of her childhood with her parents in a labor camp in a remote region of China. While attending Peking University in the 1980s, she took part in the Student Democracy Movement and was in Tiananmen Square. Diane has a Ph.D. in business administration from Carnegie Mellon University and was a professor of business in the U.S. and the U.K. for more than ten years. She lives in London with her husband and their two children.
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