Katherine

by Anchee Min

  She could not bear the scene; she became breathless. “Someone has to do something,” she murmured, and was about to break up the fight. I grabbed her arms and told her that this must happen every day and there was not much she could do about it.

  “But they’re hurting her, don’t you see? She’s mute and maybe deaf too. This is crazy. I’m not going to stand here and do nothing.”

  “Yes you are,” I said. “Don’t be stupid. This is China.”

  Suddenly Katherine spoke with such emotion in her voice. “I want her to be my child.”

  I looked into her eyes and saw a strange bright light.

  “That’s the one I want to adopt.”

  “But she’s dumb, and who knows what other problems she has.”

  “Maybe I could care less,” said Katherine.

  The headmistress reappeared. The girls scattered as if nothing had happened. The bully girl put on a sweet face and greeted the mistress with a humble bow. The younger girl stayed in the corner and quietly wiped her tears. She looked like she was used to this type of beating. The headmistress waved Katherine over and introduced her to the bully girl.

  “This is Mei-mei, the girl I recommend you take for adoption. Look how cute she is. She’s my favorite. I really hate to let her go.”

  Katherine took a step back and tried to smile. She failed. She took a deep breath. “Sure, of course, I can see that,” she said as she pinched my thigh. She wanted my help.

  I thanked the headmistress for her wonderful recommendation. “Mei-mei indeed is an excellent choice,” I said. “But Katherine has a religious problem.”

  Both Katherine and the headmistress looked at me puzzled. “What’s that?” Katherine asked in English.

  In English I responded, “You fool, I’m trying to help you.”

  In her funny Chinese Katherine said: “That’s right. It’s a religious problem. I am so sorry that I neglected to bring it up during our meeting.”

  I began making up stories for Katherine. I was nervous, but I made the director believe that because of Katherine’s religious beliefs, it would be better if the girl were mute. I told her that Katherine’s mother had been mute, so she was sensitive to the special needs of a child unable to speak. Then I said something about how Katherine believed that it was her religious obligation to be the communicator between God and a child, how she was especially devout. I didn’t understand it much myself, I told the headmistress, but Americans believed in such things. I spoke for about fifteen minutes. The headmistress seemed vaguely to understand me. Katherine nodded from time to time. I concluded with Mao’s teaching about making friends with proletarians around the world. I said that it would be the Party’s wish to help Katherine find a mute for adoption, thus uniting the world’s proletarians. It would be the orphanage’s contribution to the world’s revolution.

  The headmistress promised to see what she could do to meet Katherine’s religious needs. I said that we didn’t have much time. We were hoping for a quick decision. The woman said that in fact she did have a mute in the class. She called for the poor little girl Katherine was trying to protect.

  “What’s her name?” Katherine asked.

  “Xiao-tu,” Little Rabbit, the headmistress said.

  Katherine took Little Rabbit’s hands. The girl didn’t move; she let Katherine hold her. She gave the bully girl a sideways glance and let her hands rest in Katherine’s. Katherine had tears in her eyes. “You will be my baby,” she said in English. “Would you like that?” Little Rabbit nodded as if she understood.

  The headmistress said, “Let’s start the paperwork.” Katherine asked how long it would take. The headmistress said at least six months to get all the stamps needed and to investigate Katherine’s records and financial situation. “Just routine procedure, nothing to be worried about.” Permission was granted Katherine to spend time with Little Rabbit on holidays.

  On our way back to Shanghai, Katherine thanked me for making her a “complete human being.” She said that she was all of a sudden starving. I took her to a noodle restaurant next to the bus station. The name of the restaurant was the #1 Taste Under Heaven. We ordered two big bowls and Katherine finished hers quickly. “I never had such great noodle soup in my life,” she said, and insisted on going to the kitchen to see how the noodles were made. We went out back and peeked through a fence. Hundreds of flies were parked on the dough, breeding.

  Lion Head made me paints with egg yolks. When I went to his place to pick them up, he served me tea. He showed me his recent attempts at a “faceless self-portrait.” In the photos Lion Head’s face looked like the worn sole of a shoe. I thought they were very good.

  He began to talk about how he was able to see through the skin to people’s hidden natures, like Katherine’s, for example. A phony American who was good with her mouth but came from a culture devoid of history was therefore doomed to be shallow.

  “I saw how infatuated you were with her in the beginning. How do you explain that?” I asked. He replied that it was only a way to conquer her, and by conquering her he was conquering imperialism. “It was almost a political action.”

  I reminded Lion Head that Katherine was my good friend.

  “But we are Chinese,” he said. “We are the better people. We invented the rockets, not them. We are the ones with genius genes.” He waved his arms in the air and spoke in a high-pitched voice.

  I looked at his small eyes filled with bitter rage. I said: “It’s just because you are not tall enough to pick the grapes that you say they are too sour to eat. Your weakness disappoints me.”

  “You’re not on her side, are you?” His voice turned cold. “You don’t want to be her running dog, do you?”

  I told Lion Head that I thought his heart was only as big as the eye of a needle. “You once told me that your heart was big enough for a ship to sail through. What’s happened to you?”

  Lion Head looked at me. “Do you despise me?”

  I did not say yes.

  “Let me tell you something,” said Lion Head. “You have a severe psychiatric problem. Truly, the devil is beginning to eat up your mind. I can see how you will be destroyed.”

  “Save yourself first,” I said, getting up to leave.

  * * *

  I saw gifts on the table. Clothes and toys. I told Katherine that she would spoil things by sending Little Rabbit presents. Equality was what this country was supposed to be about. The Cultural Revolution promoted fairness—kids from poor families were allowed to beat kids from rich families because they felt unequal. I convinced her that the gifts would bring more harm and no peace to Little Rabbit.

  Katherine took my advice. She told me that the hospital she was sent to for her checkup for the adoption had asked her to come in for another blood test.

  “The government wants to make sure you don’t have a sexually transmitted disease,” I explained.

  “Why? That’s practically an insult!” Katherine gestured broadly with her hands. “And even if I did, what business is it of theirs and what does it have to do with the adoption?”

  “Well, to China, if you have that kind of disease, you are considered a bad person. You are not a good example for the child.”

  “All right, all right.” Katherine tried to breathe evenly. “What else should I be prepared for?”

  “I don’t know—they might want you to get a letter from the United States police department to prove that you have no criminal record and that you were never involved in selling children before.”

  “Are you serious? That’s absurd.”

  “Do you want Little Rabbit or not?”

  Katherine blinked her eyes at me.

  “So you have to deal with the shit. You better sing our song since you are climbing our mountain.”

  * * *

  Lion Head told me he had gone with Jasmine and Mr. Han to visit her grandparents. He was officially a soon-to-be-son-in-law.

  Lion Head said he was literally thinking about murdering
Mr. Han. He told me that he had become sexually abusive of Jasmine because of his frustration. He made her call herself all kinds of horrible names during the act. But she mistook it for love and asked for more. Now Jasmine had to wear a scarf to cover her bruises.

  “What can I say? She’s a woman in love. Deep down, though, she knows that I am not with her when we’re together,” Lion Head sighed. “But she is determined to beat me. She’s strong-willed that way. She is Mr. Han’s daughter. She will win.”

  * * *

  Katherine and I sat on stools in front of the hut at sunset. The adoption was going through slowly. Besides the paperwork I’d guessed the government would want, there was one more request to be dealt with: Katherine had to provide a letter of proof that her family had not committed any crimes for “three (must be biological) generations.”

  “I don’t even know my biological parents, let alone my grandparents and great-grandparents, so how am I supposed to come up with this?” Katherine looked at the paper in disbelief.

  “Make it up,” I suggested. “No one in this government can check on you in America, so why not say whatever will make you look best?”

  “Like what?”

  The sky became bloodshot. The wild plants were bouncing their heads, giggling in the wind. Katherine was in her brown sweater. She leaned over to watch me prepare her family tree.

  “They must be proletarians, of course. Are there peasants in America?” I had been wondering about this for a while.

  “Peasants? Well . . . not really. Can’t we just say they were farmers or something?”

  “No, no, no. ‘Farmers’ sounds like they were landlords. Who worked for farmers in your grandfather’s time?”

  “What, slaves? Is that what you’re asking?” Katherine wore a strange expression.

  “Good! We’ll say they were slaves and . . . beggars! That’s good.” I wrote it down. “Now, one more. What else? We should make it something brave and productive.”

  “I know!” Katherine said. “Coal miners!”

  “Very good.” She watched me write it down and bent over her knees laughing.

  After I finished the letter, I went to wash my hands in the pond. When I came back, I found Katherine gazing into the long grass. I went to sit next to her and asked softly what was bothering her. She made no answer. I asked if it was that she missed her homeland. She smiled and said that it wasn’t about her homeland. It was something else. I asked what it was. “You’re going to think it’s silly,” she said. “But the games Chinese play, it’s like chess, every day, watching my every move. It’s draining me.”

  “I wish I could quit too,” I said. “But if I quit, I lose. The reality is that I have too little space, can’t work, can’t relax, can’t be alone. Every inch of space I have to fight for. That’s China. That’s how we’ve become inhuman. So many mouths to be fed. One is born to be deprived here unless one is strong enough and can play the games well enough. The irony is that we consider ourselves the most civilized nation. We do everything with elegance, including man-eating.”

  We sat and chatted the evening away. Katherine cooked two bowls of rice. She used the chopsticks well except she held them too close to the bottom. “Do you think I can pass?” she asked.

  “For a Chinese? No,” I said. “You are not humble enough.”

  She laughed and went off to clean the kitchen and outhouse. She used to tell me that, as a typical American, she was obsessed with tidiness. Her bathroom had to be spotless. I told her that would be my ideal. But where I lived ten people shared one bathroom. To keep it spotless was like trying to keep one’s fingernail from growing. I wondered if there would ever be a chance in my life that I would have my own bathroom. I would keep it neat the way Katherine did hers.

  * * *

  After we made ourselves comfortable in her living room, chewing sunflower seeds with our legs on the table, Katherine asked if I thought we were best friends. She lit dynamite, I thought.

  What did she want? Out of nowhere I could suddenly hear Lion Head’s voice. I turned to face Katherine, her auburn hair, lynx eyes, vaselike body, a combination of beauty and cruelty. I thought of Lion Head’s Chineseness. I couldn’t help but picture the two, Lion Head and Katherine, the locked bodies clinging to ivy. I had been trying to bury that image but it shot straight toward my forehead.

  “I am sorry,” she said. I was sure she had detected my thoughts. But it was too late for me to hold back.

  “Would you like to talk about it?” she asked gently.

  “What is there to talk about?”

  “I was . . . well, I guess everyone has their weak moments . . .”

  I interrupted her. “Tell me that you were never attracted to Lion Head. Tell me that you never wanted to have a Chinese man. Tell me you have sought no pleasure in China at my expense. Tell me nothing ever happened between the two of you that afternoon on the mountain, and now tell me we are best friends.”

  She was cornered in a most awkward position; her mouth opened and closed. She swallowed her saliva.

  I stared into her crystal-clear eyes, the color of the Yellow River in the sun’s shadow, inlaid with shining spikes of the sunset.

  “Can you handle the truth?” she asked.

  “I want nothing but the truth, Katherine,” I said firmly.

  “Look, my regret is beyond a simple apology. All I can say is . . . it just happened. It was one of those things. At the very least it was unethical. What else can I say? I know I’ve hurt you . . .”

  I took in her words, swallowed them slowly, making sure they did not cut me too hard. And still I felt the edge of an invisible knife. “You foreign bitch. You played with him. You didn’t care about anything but your own pleasure. You are a selfish animal.”

  “Say what you want, but remember,” she said, “whatever it was, it was between Lion Head and me. It took place for a reason. I excused myself because I thought you didn’t love him, or did you? In any case, it doesn’t make me feel less guilty either way.”

  “But it’s not about whether I loved him or not.” I gulped the words. “It’s about how you teased and betrayed me.”

  “Well, you don’t have to make me feel any more terrible than I already do. The truth is that Lion Head and I were once attracted to each other, just like you and he . . .”

  “No!” I yelled. “Lion Head hates you!”

  “How do you know that?” asked Katherine, almost smiling.

  “He told me so,” I said. “He told me so last night. He said you were a phony American.”

  “Oh, well.” Katherine sighed. “I guess actions speak louder than words. Do you want me to prove he’s a liar? Lion Head and I have a date tonight. Would you care to come along? Only if you can behave civilly, of course.”

  I stared at Katherine.

  “If you decide not to speak to me again, there is nothing much I can do,” she said, folding her hands under her armpits.

  “I don’t know you, Miss America.”

  “Cut the shit. Nine-thirty tonight at Red Peony Park, in the abandoned Lord Temple behind the olive tree. You’ll see who’s your friend.”

  * * *

  I had a headache. I wandered the streets after I left Katherine’s hut and sank myself in the sea of people. I walked without purpose. What would I see tonight? Was there anything more to shock me? I imagined the two bodies ironing each other. Would Lion Head take her home? How did her skin look in the dim light of his room? How would he feel, touching her breasts again, tracing the curve of her waist, smelling her foreign fragrance, and hearing the way she moaned? I thought about Lion Head’s excitement and his betrayal of me. I was jealous.

  I got on a suburban bus with about a dozen passengers and dozed off until the conductor woke me up at the end of the line. I got off the bus. The moon was riding the wind, passing black clouds at high speed. Thunder rolled in the distance. The universe felt like an ancient stage.

  I was in the open fields of the Cha-hua Gardens, the hom
e of a kind of wild mountain rose. They were vast in numbers. The buds bloomed like fire-balls during the day. When the flower withers, it tumbles and turns to ashes almost instantly. Happiness and sadness in the same moment. My spirit was lifted by the beauty of the flowers, but I couldn’t avoid seeing the cha-hua wither. The beauty jumped on my face, took away my breath, and then beat me up. Petals, scattering like snowflakes, piled up at the flowers’ roots. It made one feel honored and deprived at the same time. Katherine. Lion Head. I had no way of knowing myself but through them.

  * * *

  I passed the garden’s Foreign Friendship Gift Shop. The lady behind the counter called out, “I’m closing,” as I stepped into the shop. A banner hung from the ceiling that read PROLETARIANS UNITE! LONG LIVE THE WORLD’S REVOLUTIONARY FRIENDSHIPS! The shop displayed imitation traditional robes to fool China lovers and Peking opera masks, also for fools. Something glittering under the counter caught my eye. I leaned over the counter and looked at the pairs of earrings, stone-shaped, shell-shaped, diamond-shaped. My ears were not pierced. Modern Chinese women no longer did things like that to enhance physical beauty and please men.

  My grandmother’s feet were like rice cakes, I remembered. I used to sleep holding them. Her crooked toes gave me nightmares. Grandmother told me that her mother made her do that. She was told that no one would marry her unless she bound her feet. I once asked Grandmother how painful it had been. She said that every day she felt like an animal on a slaughtering block. The sharp pain went on for years, from age three to sixteen. The pain didn’t stop until her body stopped growing. There were infections. The feet mildewed. It smelled like spoiled porridge. She had to stay in bed most of the time. Her room was full of wrapping cloth. Then, when she was seventeen, men thought she was beautiful. The way she walked—ruo-bu-jin-feng, too weak to withstand the wind—made her a perfect beauty. She was married off that same year. Her parents were very proud.

  But the pain in her heart never went away. She showed me her right foot. The toes curled into the ball of the foot. She could not walk far. If she did, her feet would hurt and swell. She still remembered her mother’s tears as she bound the little feet every day. I would rub my grandmother’s ankles. She tried not to show her pain, but I knew she was suffering.