The Lost Daughter

by Gill Paul

  The temperature grew warmer by the day, with blinding sunlight bouncing off the water. Val had been expecting to see lots of South Pacific islands, but apart from a glimpse of one of the Solomon Islands, the only view was interminable ocean and sky. Every nautical mile took her closer to the mother she hadn’t seen for twenty-three years, and she thought about her constantly, wondering what to expect, cautioning herself not to set her hopes too high, just in case . . .

  One morning there was a kerfuffle. Straight after breakfast, sailors in fancy dress began rounding up passengers who had never crossed the equator before; Val was spared only because of her nausea.

  She followed with Nicole as the others were led to an area on deck where a court had been established: King Neptune sitting on a throne in a long white beard, holding a triton; two men in brown bear costumes; a surgeon with a glistening knife; a policeman; and another sailor dressed as a woman, with a mop head for hair. There were nervous giggles as each passenger was summoned in turn while the court assessed their eligibility to become a “shellback”—sailors’ slang for someone who had crossed the equator.

  “I want to do it!” Nicole cried, and a grinning sailor led her to the front of the pack, whispering something to the surgeon, who passed it along the line.

  Neptune rose to his feet and addressed her in a booming voice. “Is it true, Nicole Doyle, that you have not stopped talking since this voyage began? That you are what some would call a chatterbox?”

  Nicole looked a little cowed as she replied. “Yes, Mommy says I am.”

  There were titters in the crowd.

  “Is it true that you do not like eggs and have refused to eat them on this voyage even though they are good for you?”

  She agreed that was true too.

  “A soaking for her!” Neptune cried, and Nicole screamed as she was sprayed with cold water from a hose, which drenched her clothes and hair. Val worried that she might get scared or upset, but instead Nicole laughed out loud as she wrung her wet frock, and beamed with pride when she was awarded a certificate stating that she had passed the Crossing the Line test.

  How did she become so brave? Val wondered. Perhaps it was because her confidence had not been beaten out of her by a cold father and a violent husband. Val hated herself for feeling anxious, but she couldn’t help worrying about the rest of the journey. How would she locate the train to Harbin when she spoke no Chinese? What if her mother was already dead when they arrived? At the same time, she felt proud of herself for getting so far, and she grinned when she imagined Tony discovering the theft of the check.

  One day there was an eerie rumble as a squadron of planes flew overhead, like angry hornets, and Val felt their vibrations rippling through the displaced air.

  “American warplanes,” a fellow passenger commented. “Heading for Vietnam.”

  The US was supposed to have withdrawn from the conflict following the Paris Peace Accord but they still had a lot of troops there. Val peered after the planes, wondering how many of their occupants would return home, and how many Vietnamese they would kill. In Sydney, she often saw American soldiers on leave from the fighting. They tended to hang around the bars of the King’s Cross district, where there were prostitutes in micro-skirts and white patent go-go boots on every street corner.

  Still there was no land in sight as the ship nudged into the East China Sea, until the day they were scheduled to dock, when suddenly a huge industrial port materialized from nowhere. Cranes teetered like long-legged insects above concrete platforms stacked with multicolored shipping containers. The water changed from dark blue to sludgy green as they drew closer, the ship’s horn sounding a bleak warning.

  Val packed all their belongings ready to disembark. When she asked a sailor how to get to Peking, he told her to take a taxi to Tianjin station and catch a train. They were frequent, he said. Val did not have any Chinese currency, but the ship’s purser changed some Australian dollars for her, handing over a stack of colorful notes with Chairman Mao’s improbably round face on them.

  Her taxi driver spoke no English, but she managed to make herself understood by drawing a picture of a train beside a rectangular building. The journey was short, and at Tianjin station, when she went to a ticket office and repeated “Peking” several times, the woman gave her two tickets and pointed to a platform. As they boarded the train, Val thought: so far, so good.

  Everything looked foreign: the passengers wearing colorful cotton jackets and clutching chickens in cages; the workers in fields outside who wore conical hats. These were her mother’s compatriots. Val had only the vaguest memory of her mom’s appearance: a rope of thick black hair coiled on her head, creamy skin, and a pretty face that lit up when she was happy. Looking around the railway carriage, she wasn’t convinced she could have identified her mother were she there. Would she know her on sight? She felt a bubbling of excitement at the thought of introducing her to her granddaughter. Everyone loved Nicole.

  An hour later, the train pulled into Peking’s main station and all her confidence evaporated. It was a vast hangar, with hundreds of people bustling around beneath a giant noticeboard where all the destinations were written in Chinese characters. She couldn’t see a word that looked like “Harbin” and nothing that resembled an information desk. Panic rose like a flutter of moths, but Nicole was unfazed as she peered around.

  “Why are they all hurrying, Mommy?”

  “Just trying to catch their trains,” Val replied, staring at the prebooked tickets she had been given by the Sydney travel agent as if inspiration might lie there.

  Suddenly a young Chinese man stopped beside them. “Are you English?” he asked in a halting voice. “May I help you?”

  Val showed him their tickets and he nodded and said, “Come with me.” She had no option but to trust him as he led them to a platform some distance down the concourse, explaining that he was studying English at university and it was good to have some practice.

  “Harbin,” he said, indicating that they should board the train. “Have a safe journey.”

  Val wanted to kiss him. Instead she clasped her hands and bowed her head in thanks, and he bowed too.

  The Harbin train set off at exactly the time it said on the tickets, as the big station clock ticked around to the minute. An inspector came by and punched a hole in them, then Val and Nicole sat playing I Spy as they peered out the window: cloud, tree, motorbike, temple, cow. Val was surprised when the first station they stopped at, after an hour of travel, was the exact same one in Tianjin that they had set off from earlier. They could have boarded the Harbin train there; clearly the travel agent back in Sydney had not realized that.

  It got darker and Nicole’s head sank onto Val’s shoulder, then her lap. Val stayed awake peering out at the lights flashing past, followed by long periods of complete blackness. This vast country didn’t feel real; was she truly here or was it a complex dream? I’m coming, Mom, she whispered in her head, but her eagerness was tinged with nerves. Something might still go wrong.

  Just before dawn, when the sky was gray but with pinkish streaks brushing the horizon, the ticket inspector came past. “Harbin,” he announced, pointing out the window at a station that was just coming into view. Nicole was barely awake and Val had to support her with one arm while dragging their suitcase with the other. Outside the station the road was empty. There was nothing that remotely resembled a taxi stand, and the only person in sight was an old man sleeping in a rickshaw decorated with gaudy plastic flowers. Val cleared her throat, but he didn’t stir.

  “Excuse me?” she said out loud, and he sat up, stretching and yawning. She handed him the letter her mother had sent, on which her address was written in Chinese characters.

  The man nodded and said something incomprehensible, then brushed down the plastic-covered passenger seat and indicated that they should climb in. Val lifted Nicole in first, then put their case on the floor and squeezed in after her. The driver mounted the bicycle in front and began to cy
cle, the contours of his calf muscles standing out.

  This is it, Val thought. She was about to be reunited with the woman who had given birth to her.

  The driver pulled up outside a single-story shack with weathered wooden walls and a tiled roof. Was this the place? Val wasn’t sure, but she climbed down and went to knock on the flimsy door. It was opened straightaway by a stooped older woman. Was this her mother? She didn’t think so. The woman seemed to be expecting her, though, and motioned for them to come inside.

  Val put down her suitcase as the woman led her toward a back room. There, lying on a mat on the floor, covered only by a sheet, was her mom. Ha Suran was paper-thin and frail-looking, but instantly recognizable.

  Val gave a cry and ran to her.

  Chapter 30

  Harbin, June 1974

  AS THEY HUGGED, VAL COULD FEEL HER MOTHER’S shoulder blades jutting through her loose nightgown.

  “Valerie,” Ha Suran whispered into her hair, shaking with emotion. She didn’t let go for a long time, and when Val eventually drew back, she saw that her mother’s skin and eyes were a bright, unnatural yellow. It must be jaundice. Why did she have jaundice? It seemed too soon to ask what was wrong with her.

  “This is your granddaughter.” Val beckoned Nicole to join them.

  Nicole crouched and whispered, “Hello, Grandma,” and Ha Suran touched her arm and smiled but did not seem to have the strength to talk.

  Val sat on the floor, holding her mom’s hand, and began to describe their journey. Some chickens trotted into the room, pecking at the dirt floor, and Nicole screeched in excitement.

  “Look, Mommy! They’ve got chickens for pets!”

  The old woman gave her a handful of seeds, motioning for her to sprinkle them around, and Nicole watched entranced as the chickens squawked and flapped their wings while gobbling them up.

  Val looked at the surroundings. She had felt as though she was living on the bread line in Sydney, with a one-bed flat and a cleaning job, but the poverty her mother’s family endured was much more fundamental. The walls of the two-room shack were thin, with gaps where the boards didn’t quite meet. There were mats arranged along the walls, presumably for sleeping on; she counted six altogether and wondered if two were meant for her and Nicole. A cooking pot hung in a fireplace, but apart from that and the mats, the family seemed to have few possessions.

  The old woman was stirring something in the pot, and before long she served them bowls of rice and vegetables, along with some chopsticks. Val could tell there was an egg stirred through the rice but did not mention it to Nicole, who ate with clumsy enthusiasm, using the chopsticks like a spoon. As soon as she finished, the woman gestured for her bowl and refilled it, and Nicole beamed her thanks. They might not have a language in common, but they were becoming friends.

  Ha Suran didn’t take any food. She closed her eyes and Val couldn’t tell if she was asleep or just resting, but she did not want to move from her mother’s side. It seemed a miracle that she was here, at last, after all these years, and for now she was prepared to be patient.

  * * *

  It grew hotter inside the shack as the morning progressed, and Val used a magazine to fan herself. Nicole and the old woman were playing a game, trying to throw stones into a tin can placed a few feet away and giggling at their successes and failures.

  Suddenly Ha Suran opened her eyes and reached for Val, squeezing her hand tight.

  “You will stay awhile, won’t you?” she begged. “I’m sorry we don’t have proper beds . . .”

  “This is fine. I’m planning to stay three weeks, so we have plenty of time to catch up. Is that your mother?” She pointed to the old woman.

  “My aunt,” Ha Suran said. “Your great-aunt, Li Suran.” She called across the room to the old woman, who smiled and nodded confirmation.

  “Will you have some food, Mom? I can help you to eat.” Val could see there was plenty of the rice and vegetables left.

  Ha Suran shook her head. “Maybe some water.”

  Val poured water from a jug she found near the cooking pot, then held the glass to her mother’s lips. It still felt odd to call her “Mom.” She felt like a stranger, but one for whom Val had a vast amount of affection.

  Ha Suran lay back, worn out by the effort of a couple of sips. “You must have so many questions for me, as I have for you. But first I will explain what happened when I left Sydney.”

  Val shook her head. “Dad said you walked out on us, but that never rang true.”

  “As if . . .” Ha Suran closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them to look Val in the eye. “You must remember how close you and I were.”

  Val got a lump in her throat as she thought back to that time, when she had been so sad and lonely and mixed up. “I tried to ask about you, but Dad would never answer my questions. After a while he banned me from mentioning you. He said I was being a nuisance.”

  Ha Suran spoke in a rush, as if trying to get the words out before her energy was expended. “Your father bought me a ticket home to visit my family in Harbin because I had not seen them since before the war. I thought you were coming with me so you could meet them, but at the last minute he said you couldn’t be taken out of school. I nearly didn’t board the ship—I had a bad feeling—but I yearned to see my parents. As soon as we set sail, I missed you so badly it was as if my heart had been wrenched from my body. I willed the time to go faster so I could get back to you.”

  She put a hand over her eyes and there was a long pause, so long that Val wondered if she had fallen asleep, but then she continued. “I caught the train back to Tianjin, found the ship, and tried to board, but they told me my return ticket had been canceled and the money refunded. I argued till I was demented, but they would not relent: there was no ticket. Your father knew I could never raise enough to pay for it myself. You see how my family lives.” She gestured at their surroundings, and a tear rolled down her cheek.

  Val could imagine the sense of panic, then the terrible anguish. She couldn’t carry on living if she lost Nicole and there was no hope of getting her back. She had often thought she would kill herself rather than live without her. “But why did he do it? Was your marriage unhappy?”

  “Your father was always an unhappy man. I hoped that family life would lift his spirits, but it was his nature to be miserable and he couldn’t change.” She paused. “I have thought about this often and I’m still not sure I can answer fully why he got rid of me. I was an obedient wife but I was not the wife he wanted. I think perhaps he was ashamed of me. The Chinese were not popular in Australia at that time.”

  Val remembered some of the racist comments she had heard her father make over the years, and frowned. “But he married you. He must have loved you once.”

  “No.” Ha Suran shook her head. “I don’t think he ever did. You see, there was another woman he loved. One back in Russia whom he had been forced to leave behind. And to tell the truth, I don’t think he ever got over her.”

  “What was her name?” Val asked. Her father’s words in the nursing home came back to her: “I didn’t want to kill her.” Had the woman he loved died? Had he been suspected of murdering her? Maybe that was why he left Russia, and that was what haunted him right at the end of his life.

  Ha Suran closed her eyes. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I must rest now.”

  * * *

  While her mother slept, Val took Nicole for a walk around the neighborhood in sticky afternoon heat. There was a market where bedding and old clothes were sold alongside rice and vegetables. A toothless stallholder held out a roasted scorpion on a stick, and Nicole screamed and scurried behind Val’s back. Everywhere there was a smell of drains and rotting garbage. It was clearly the poor quarter of town.

  When they returned, a Chinese doctor was crouched by Ha Suran’s bedside. They sat on the floor and waited quietly as he took her pulse and looked into her eyes and mouth. Nicole gasped when he began inserting long needles into her flesh, starting
at her feet, between the big toe and the second toe.

  “Doesn’t that hurt?” she whispered to Val.

  Val replied that it was called acupuncture and it was often used to treat illness in Chinese medicine. She didn’t think it would hurt.

  “Will it make Grandma better?” Nicole asked softly, and Val shrugged and said, “I hope so.”

  After the doctor left, she asked Ha Suran what he had diagnosed.

  “The illness is in my liver.” Ha Suran coughed, and winced in pain. “The doctor says it was caused by the misery of being separated from you all these years, but he hopes I might improve a little now we are reunited.”

  “Have you consulted a Western doctor? Maybe they would have drugs that could help.” Val thought of all the medical advances of recent years: chemotherapy and radiotherapy for cancer; artificial hearts and prosthetic limbs: they could do wonders.

  “There is a Western clinic in town but it would cost thousands of yuan. My doctor works on barter. We give him eggs,” Ha Suran explained.

  Val only had another fifty dollars’ worth of yuan to last the remainder of her stay and knew it would not be enough to pay for medical treatment, but she resolved to redouble her efforts to get her father’s inheritance once she was back in Australia. He owed Ha Suran after what he had done to her.

  Later that afternoon, a cousin came by who spoke a little English. He offered to take Val and Nicole for a ride around town in his open wagon, pulled by a donkey. It was bumpy in the back and they had to cling to the sides, but Nicole squealed in delight. This life of poverty was new and exciting for her.

  “Ha Suran seems very ill,” Val said to the cousin, whose name was Wang Suran.

  “Yes, she is dying,” he told her in a matter-of-fact tone.

  She had said as much in her letter, but Val was still shocked. “Can’t anything be done?”