by Li, Veronica
The director, a local with cold lizard eyes, received me with aloofness. From the beginning I could tell that he had no intention of helping me. He’d agreed to see me merely to save face with Dr. Struther. Rather than turning me down with a flat no, the director shadowboxed with a Chinese response: "We have no beds at the present moment. We will notify you once a space opens up." I went back to the dorm and waited. More than a week passed, and there was still no word. In the meantime, Ngai had arrived and was paying for room and board at an inn. His money was running out, as well as his remaining strength. He was a shadow of himself, his ambitions gone and replaced by a vacant stare.
I was most disappointed in my own kind. When Dr. Struther, a foreigner, could be kind and compassionate toward us, how could a fellow Chinese be so heartless about our plight? I went back to Dr. Struther. In my presence he picked up the phone and asked for the director of the city hospital.
Ngai was admitted the same day. He was placed in a public ward with many other patients. The room opened out to a courtyard where laundry women did their chores. All day long they cackled and called to each other. The patients could hardly rest, and rest was what a TB patient needed most. I reported the situation to Dr. Struther and pleaded once more to have Ngai moved to the university hospital. Again he explained that the facility was open only to students of the area. After some thought, he came up with a suggestion. There was a sanitarium right outside the city. It was a bit out of the way, but the air was fresh and the environment peaceful. His description sounded good to me, and I agreed to have Ngai transferred.
I discovered just how "out of the way" the place was on my first trip to visit Ngai. First of all, a pedicab took me out of the city. After watching the driver’s legs pump up and down for an hour, I got off at a village. The driver told me that he couldn’t go any farther. From here on I would have to go either by foot or "rooster cart."
While I was wondering what a rooster cart was, a farmer rolled out a wheelbarrow and beckoned me to sit on it. So that was the rooster cart! Can you imagine riding on such a contraption? You’re sitting on the lip of the tub. Your feet are dangling, and you have to keep a straight back because there’s nothing to lean back on. Every time there’s a bump—and there were plenty in the fields—you have to grip the edge for dear life. That was the most uncomfortable vehicle I’d ever ridden on—although, I have to admit, it was far better than the other alternative. If I’d tried to walk, I would have gotten hopelessly lost among the stretches and stretches of farmland. They all looked the same to me, and there wasn’t a soul around to ask for directions. The only markers were the burial mounds scattered here and there. I’d rather die than wander alone among the dead.
The sanitarium was a long, flat structure that appeared to have dropped from the sky into the fields. The walls were whitewashed concrete and as austere as a prison. But as Dr. Struther had said, the air here was fresh and the environment peaceful. With adequate rest, Ngai was sure to recuperate.
I found my brother in the middle of the east wing. Like most of the other patients, he was lying in bed but not sleeping. His coal-like eyes were burning a hole in the ceiling. A wan smile appeared on his withered lips when he saw me. I touched his forehead. It was hot.
I spent only a couple of hours with him that day. As I didn’t know that the trip was going to take two whole hours, I’d started out late. I promised I would visit the next weekend, every weekend, until he was well enough to return to school. His lips quivered at the thought of leading a normal life again. A lump was rising in my throat too, but for his sake I had to be strong. "Don’t cry now, you’re going to bring me bad luck," I said in Mother’s tone of voice. In spite of himself, he made a guttural sound that could pass for a chuckle.
I kept my promise for three months. But one weekend I had to stay back to study for finals. When I resumed my visits the following Sunday, the sight of Ngai gave me a fright. His face was greenish white and his lips were ashen. My brother burst into tears. He’d been suffering from a fever of 106 degrees for the past ten days. I felt awful. Ngai was dying, and I’d been too busy to be by his side. We held hands and wept.
"Don’t be afraid," I said to him. "No matter what, I’m going to get you cured." The moment the words left my lips, I realized how presumptuous it was of me to make such a promise. I was no doctor, I had no money. How was I going to cure my brother?
When I got back to the city that night, I went straight to church. Darkness swallowed me as soon as I pushed open the heavy wooden door. A lone candle flickered at the far end. I groped toward it and found myself standing in front of a statue of Mother Mary. I fell on my knees. Please save my brother’s life, I implored her. The flood of dammed up tears broke loose, and I had to clamp my hands over my mouth to muffle the sobs. When I looked up again, Mother Mary was watching me, her eyes bathed in sympathy.
I lost track of the number of rosaries I fingered through. My knees were feeling bruised, but I wasn’t getting up until Mother Mary gave me a sign. It finally came, a gentle radiance seeping through the stained glass window above Mary’s head. Her counsel became as clear as daylight. I half ran to Dr. Struther’s home. How crazy of me to be ringing somebody’s doorbell at the crack of dawn! The doctor’s wife opened the door, dressed in a morning robe. With no preamble I told her about Ngai’s condition. She immediately went upstairs to fetch her husband. Dr. Struther appeared, and once again I pleaded with him to admit Ngai to the university hospital. Otherwise, my brother would certainly die within a week. Dr. Struther was moved to action. He wrote an order to transfer Ngai.
The moment I heard that Ngai had arrived, I went with guarded joy to the university hospital to see him. His life was hanging by a fine thread, and as reputable as these doctors were, they were no miracle workers. Ngai looked consumed, as if a fire had gutted his inside and left a brittle shell that would crumble if somebody so much as touched him. His sunken eyes emitted the strange green light of a person who was already seeing things on the other side of hell’s gate.
To hide my distress at his state, I chided him for not taking care of himself. I told him not to disappoint me now that I’d gotten him into the best hospital in the country. He should listen to the doctors and nurses, eat and sleep, and not worry about a thing. Shame on him! He was supposed to be looking after me, and now I was looking after him. He better get well soon or I was going to get very mad. I jabbered on and on, afraid that the moment I stopped he would leave me.
A tall man in a white coat pulled me aside. He was Tang Hon-Chiu, an intern who was the fiancé of my cousin Helen. He and Helen had traveled from Hong Kong together. He’d resumed his studies at Chilu while she, a trained nurse, found work at another hospital.
Once we were out of Ngai’s hearing, Tang said, "The professor took us on his rounds this morning. He deliberately brought us over to Ngai’s bed and…." My eyes were fixed on his huge Adam’s apple, which had stopped moving for a moment. "I’m telling you this so you’ll be prepared for the worst. The professor told us that Ngai was a hopeless case. The TB has spread to the pleural membrane." He explained what that was and spouted more medical terms. I didn’t understand everything, but the main point couldn’t be more explicit—Ngai was dying. The pleural membrane was the last defense; when that went, the battle was lost. I also understood that the doctors had run out of remedies. The only measures they were taking were palliative.
"We sucked out a big bowl of water from his lungs today," Tang said. "The fluid is still clear at this point, but the moment it turns to yellow pus, his days are numbered."
I directed my gaze at the tip of his shoes so he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes. Tang promised to keep me posted.
For several weeks Ngai carried on in the same state, getting neither better nor worse. "Ngai," I said to him. "I know you’ve never had any religious training. But at a time like this, you have to rely on a higher power to pull you through." I then told him the miracle of the rosary at the river crossing from Ma
cau. "Mother Mary listened to me. She may listen to you too if you pray to her with sincerity. Will you obey your big sister and say the ‘Hail, Mary’ with her?"
His eyelids fluttered once. My poor brother, who had thought that I couldn’t survive the hardships of a refugee’s life, was now fighting for his own. He whispered the words after me. I could see that none of them made sense to him, but when we reached the final supplication, Ngai’s eyes glimmered with comprehension: "Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death." We were both sobbing so hard we couldn’t go on.
Tang accosted me again. The extraction from Ngai’s lungs had turned a sickly yellow. It was the pus that he’d warned me about.
During the next week, I spent every waking hour by my brother’s side. While he dozed on and off, I prayed or chatted about the past or simply held his hand. I didn’t care whether he heard me or not, I just wanted him to know that he wasn’t alone. Sometimes his eyelids twitched, which I took as a sign that he’d heard me. Other times he lay very still, hardly breathing at all. His blanket lay flat on the bed, as if there were no body underneath it. The doctors had ceased all intervention. They were expecting him to be gone in a few days. But Ngai hung on until the time came to have his lungs drained again. Neither water nor pus came out of the tube. His lungs had dried up. If you don’t call that a miracle, what would you call it?
The doctors had no answer. They were amazed that his lungs could clear on their own, and even more amazed when the infected tissue showed signs of regeneration. Most TB survivors needed surgery to remove dead tissue from their lungs, such as in the case of the girl Ngai had befriended at the hospital. Her body listed to the left because one of her lungs had died and had to be taken out. Ngai’s tissue, however, was very much alive, and the doctors were hopeful that he could reach full recovery.
3
Just as Ngai emerged from crisis, I fell in love. He was a student of YenchingUniversity, a northerner and the man of my dreams—tall, handsome, fair, kind, and intelligent. His last name was Yang. He was from an educated family, his father being a professor at PekingUniversity. There was one problem, though, which made me wary of the attachment from the very start. He’d signed up with the Air Force, which meant that the moment he graduated he would go to India for training, and afterwards to the battlefront. I did a quick calculation on our first date and realized that six months were all we had.
We were members of an intercollegiate study group. Although it was called a study group, we did much more than that. The real purpose was companionship. We were all "foreigners" from outside the province. If we didn’t band together and offer each other comfort, especially during holidays such as Chinese New Year, the loneliness would have been unbearable. One afternoon Yang sought me out at the library and invited me for a walk. Strolling along the stream, we chatted about our families, our dreams and aspirations. He wanted to save the country, but all I wanted was for Ngai to recover quickly and pick up the pieces of his life. Before we parted, Yang mentioned that he was going on a boat cruise down the river and asked if I were interested. Without thinking where the trip could lead,I accepted. My life had been revolving around sickness for too long. I was dying for a breath of fresh air.
On a crisp, sunny morning, I went aboard with Yang. My heart was full of excitement and misgivings at the same time. For once I was going somewhere, but I also knew that there were risks involved in this ride. Two hearts were going to break in the end. Once the semester was over, we wouldn’t see each other for as long as the war lasted—however long that would be.
I was rather aloof in the beginning, but as the ferry puttered along the luscious backwoods, my heart let go of its worries. I felt I was sailing in a Chinese landscape painting. Jagged peaks pierced through layers of mist. Wispy streams coiled down the mountainside, and tucked away in a valley rested several straw huts, as tiny as thumbnails in the distance. I used to think such scenery existed only in the artist’s imagination, but seeing it in three dimensions convinced me it was real.
Through Yang, I began to live again. Since my arrival in Chengtu, the hospital had been the only site I’d visited. Szechwan, home of one of the Three Kingdoms, was famous for its historic sites. However, a person needed money to get around, and I lacked money most of all. My tuition was paid by student loans and my living expenses were Renee’s spare change. While others went on tours, I was stuck at the dorm. On days when my roommate came home raving about the fantastic sites she’d visited, my eyes would redden with envy. Now Yang was taking me places. My feelings for him grew out of gratitude, and once in a while I had to hold them back so that they didn’t develop into anything more.
The inevitable day arrived. Yang and I graduated in a fanfare of festivities jointly held by the universities at Chengtu. Despite my weak legs, I was chosen to escort WestChinaUniversity’s standard-bearer in a parade around the stadium. What a spectacle it was—the track was ablaze with banners and solid blocks of colors, each representing a university. A band played patriotic music, and students and faculty rose to deliver thunderous applause. I marched next to my flag, legs raised in long strides and arms swinging with pride.
Afterwards, sitting on our usual bench by the stream, Yang proposed. He asked me to wait for him. When he finished his duty to the fatherland, he would come back and marry me. His Mandarin was melodious and pure Peking, unlike the tainted Mandarin everyone else spoke. As I’d said before, he was handsome, tall, and fair. But given the circumstances, how could I promise him my hand? Who knew how long the war was going to last? If he could tell me how long to wait—one year, two, even three—I would have given him my commitment. But the wait was indefinite. How could I stake my life on a single throw of the dice? Only fools would take that gamble.
I’d suspected this was coming and had crafted a diplomatic answer. I told him to put his whole heart into serving the country. As for the rest, well, the future would take care of itself. If we were destined for each other, no war could pull us apart. If the contrary were true, no peace could force us together. He didn’t press further. We promised to write each other, and thus we parted. I cried only when he was out of sight.
*
Finding a job became a matter of urgency. I tapped into my friendship with two Szechwanese women, both classmates at WestChinaUniversity. I thought that being natives, they would be familiar with the lay of the land. Indeed they were, and it didn’t take them long to report back with good news. One of their brothers, a military man, told his sister that the Air Force was beating the gong in search of English speakers. At the time, Chengtu was the base of American B-29 bombers, the type of plane that would drop the atomic bomb on Hiroshima. English-proficient personnel were needed to facilitate communication between the Chinese and American Air Forces. As such talent was in dire shortage in China, a person like me, Chinese and bilingual, was a hot commodity.
I submitted my application and was hired without so much as an interview. My supervisor was Colonel Wong Suk-Ming of the Third Regional Command. People said I was lucky to be working under him, for he was Madam Chiang’s protégé and was going places. As a translator in his office, my rank, pay, and benefits were equivalent to a second lieutenant. The only difference was that I was exempt from wearing a uniform. I reported to work in my usual blue cotton cheongsam.
My first major assignment involved a group of Chinese soldiers destined for training in India. They were to be transported by U.S. planes, but before they were allowed to board, they needed to show their identification papers. At three in the afternoon, I was told to prepare certification in English for more than two hundred soldiers. They were leaving the next morning.
I sat in front of a typewriter and dove into the paperwork. The colonel’s secretary, Miss Chan, offered to lend me a hand. She was a Cantonese who knew a bit of English, but was unable to type. The only assistance she could give was moral support. My task was daunting—more than two hundred certificates, the original plus two carbon copies apiece, each
one listing the person’s name, title, and experience. I worked late into the night by candlelight. Because of the fear of Japanese bombers, blackouts were strictly enforced at Air Force headquarters. Squinting in the dim, wavering glow, I was tired, hungry, and feeling sorry for myself. Tears streamed down my face. I wiped them away, but more came pouring. I went on typing, stopping occasionally to blow my nose or wipe away a tear before it fell on the paper. Miss Chan, who was a mature woman in her forties, was quite amused at my childishness.
The next morning, the colonel summoned me to his office. He was a squat man in his forties, round and thick as an old tree stump. This was my first encounter with him. Up till then, I’d only caught glimpses of him marching in and out of his office. While I stood in front of him, he burst into a guffaw. "I heard you’ve been crying," he said in an earthy Shandong brogue. "Such a big girl and you still cry! Miss Chen said your tears almost flooded the office." I didn’t think it was funny, but he couldn’t stop laughing.
As reward for my labors, he gave me a ration coupon for a pound of butter. You should have seen Ngai’s face when I brought it to him at the hospital. He held the paper-wrapped block in both hands, sniffed it, admired it, and stroked it as though it were a priceless treasure. Fat was scarce in our wartime diet. Ngai, who was still recovering, needed the nutrition more than I.
A second occasion propelled me to the colonel’s attention. On October 10, our national day, Chinese and American forces got together for a celebration. The hall was packed with uniformed men and dignitaries from both sides. Among the guests were the Chinese defense minister, the governor of Szechuan, and the U.S. ambassador. As I was watching the scene from the sidelines, the colonel muscled through the crowd toward me. He pointed to me, mouthed something about "fan yi," and beckoned me to follow him. I marched out bravely behind him. At the sight of the podium, my knees turned into jelly. I was to stand in front of hundreds of people and translate the colonel’s speech off the top of my head!