Good Chinese Wife

by Susan Blumberg-Kason

  I must be pregnant.

  The bus crept toward Lion Rock Tunnel while I leaned back against the worn vinyl bench seat, enjoying the serenity of the mountains ahead and the sun setting next to them. By the time we had entered the calm New Territories, I felt certain. The nausea and recent loss of appetite qualified as symptoms, but what about the itchy discharge? Maybe that was a pregnancy symptom I hadn’t learned of through books or movies. Wanting to share the news with Cai, I also knew it was too soon to make the phone call. I’d tell him after I met with Dr. Levy that Saturday.

  When the day of my appointment finally arrived, I still felt nauseated and without appetite, but I forced down a bowl of cereal. If I were really pregnant, the baby would need the nutrition. I rode into Tsim Sha Tsui well before my ten o’clock appointment.

  Flipping through Chinese gossip magazines at the doctor’s office, I glanced up a couple of times after two women returned from the examining rooms, announcing with joy to their companions that they were pregnant. I couldn’t wait to get my good news, too.

  A nurse finally called my name and led me to the same room where I’d met Dr. Levy the previous Saturday. She pointed to a padded chair as she made to leave. “There’s no need to undress.”

  Moments later, I heard two knocks and Dr. Levy strolled in. She leaned against her desk, not bothering to sit.

  “Have you had a lot of sexual partners recently?”

  What? Unable to open my mouth, I sat there in silence, my vision suddenly blurry.

  “Susan?” She spoke like a strict schoolmarm.

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. I’m sure.” I gripped the sides of the chair, trying to stop my hands from shaking. Something was very wrong if she asked about sexual partners. My mind shut down as I answered Dr. Levy’s question like a robot, straightforward and without emotion. “I’ve been married for a year and a half, and there hasn’t been anyone but my husband during that time.”

  “Well…” She exhaled and put her hand on my shoulder, her eyes turning tender. “Then you’re going to have a long talk with your husband. You have trichomoniasis, a sexually transmitted disease common with women who’ve had many partners.”

  Too stunned to speak, I sat there, my mouth as open as a panting dog’s.

  “Your last name is Cai. Is your husband Chinese?”

  “Yes, from China.” I could barely hear myself speak.

  “In Chinese culture, men who are unfaithful often still love their wives. It’s not mutually exclusive.”

  I gazed at her like a lost puppy. Since she worked in Hong Kong, she had probably seen quite a few patients whose husbands had strayed. And I thought back to all those mainland students in grad school who cheated on their spouses. Cai was surely above that, especially after his troubled marriage to Wei Ling. Wouldn’t he appreciate a trusting, faithful relationship after going through his divorce?

  He couldn’t have cheated.

  “You need to talk to him. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t love you.”

  “But he wouldn’t do this. I know him.” It was true. I could almost hear our conversation in the dorms two years earlier when he revealed that he knew about my roommate Na Wei and her adulterous relationship. He had seemed too embarrassed to talk about it. No, I reasoned, Cai couldn’t have cheated. “Is there any other way I could have gotten it? Like from a toilet seat?”

  “I guess that’s always possible, but it’s usually transmitted sexually. I’m going to give you a prescription that will cause you to feel even more nauseated than you’ve been. Your husband has to take it, too. I think you should have an HIV test because with diseases like trich, others such as HIV sometime accompany it. I’d recommend your husband get an HIV test, too.”

  “He’s in China now.” Tears welled in my eyes. “I won’t see him until mid-November.” That was still a few weeks away.

  She nodded gingerly. “I’ll give you a bottle of pills for him. He must finish the whole course. After you complete yours, you need to be retested. Sometimes people need two courses of medication before the parasite is gone. Do you want that HIV test now?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. This was all too much for me to digest. I just wanted to call Cai so that I could hear him tell me he’d never cheated. Hadn’t Dr. Levy claimed it could be contracted in other ways than through sex? I’d know for sure as soon as I heard his voice on the phone. But how to contact him? I didn’t even know where he was in China.

  “I’ll call you on Thursday with the HIV test results,” Dr. Levy said before she left the room. “One more thing. If you want to have a baby, you should try soon. I’m afraid if you wait, your uterus will become scarred from this parasite and you’ll have a hard time conceiving. Some women become infertile from trich.”

  I don’t remember leaving the building or how I found my way to Nathan Road. It seemed like one minute Dr. Levy was telling me that Cai had cheated and the next minute I was wandering like a zombie, aimlessly roaming Nathan Road, every step a chore. Bus exhaust blew into my face, but I didn’t turn the other way. People passed me, chatting animatedly in Cantonese, but nothing sounded familiar. No matter how much I tried to clear my mind, one thought remained: when I really considered it, I wasn’t so confident that Cai hadn’t cheated. It was a serious kick to the stomach.

  For the first time, I felt alone in Hong Kong. It was as if six million people had finally let me in on an inside joke. Was this what people meant by cultural differences? I could handle things like eating sea slugs or using squatter toilets. But a cheating husband was a cultural difference I hadn’t bargained on.

  Listlessly boarding a double-decker bus to Sunshine City, I hoisted myself up the spiral stairs, collapsed onto the coveted first-row seat, and stared out the window, oblivious to the crowds swarming Nathan Road or to the traffic jam on Waterloo Road. It seemed like ages ago when I’d taken this same bus ride, believing I was pregnant and filled with hope for the future. Even when we reached the calm luxury of Kowloon Tong, I didn’t gawk at the love motels or the turbaned Sikh guards out front. None of that held any interest now. All I wanted was to burrow under my comforter.

  I slept all afternoon and didn’t bother with lunch. When I woke up later on, I thought it must be the next morning. My watch read four thirty. But when I peered out the window, the sun was too high over the horizon for it to be early morning. It was still Saturday afternoon and I still had trich. I needed to call Cai.

  He hadn’t given me his itinerary in China, and we had only spoken on the phone once since he left Hong Kong, when he went to a post office where he could use a long-distance calling card.

  I flipped through my address book until I came to Mama and Baba’s number. Theirs was the only phone number I had for Cai in China. After I dialed our long-distance code, I stumbled on China’s country code and had to start over. But this time I couldn’t even get the long-distance code right. I was in a nightmarish dream where I was trying to dial a number, but couldn’t punch in the correct buttons. Finally on my third try, I completed the number. I heard a slow, low-pitched dial tone. On the fourth ring, Cai’s father answered.

  “Baba. Ni hao. Wo shi Susan.”

  “Su Shan, ni hao, ni hao.” I could hear the warmth in Baba’s voice even through the static that mingled with our words.

  “Cai Jun zài ma?” I tried to steady my voice, afraid I’d break into tears.

  “Bùzài. Zuótiān wanshàng tā dào Wuhàn qū.”

  My heart skipped a beat when Baba revealed I’d missed Cai by a day. He’d left for Wuhan the previous night. I asked Baba for the main number at the Wuhan Conservatory. Although Cai’s apartment at the Conservatory didn’t have a phone, the main switchboard operator must be able to relay a message to him.

  “Tāmen kěnéng guānmén. Xīngqī yī zài kāi.” He warned that the operator had probably left for the day an
d wouldn’t be back until Monday morning.

  “Xièxiè, Baba.” Thank you.

  In a way I was relieved that I would have to wait two more days to speak with Cai. I needed time to figure out what I would do about my marriage. But one question gnawed at me more than others: Where in the world had I contracted this STD? In the background I suddenly heard a phone ring. Could it be Cai? I willed myself to answer it.

  My dad’s voice was on the other end. In the chaos of the day, I’d forgotten all about my parents’ weekly Saturday evening phone call, which was Saturday morning their time, a cheap time to call overseas. As with Janice, I always relayed positive news to them: Cai’s postdoctoral research, my new job, the friends I’d made at work, where I went on the weekends now that Cai was in China. But now my mind froze.

  “What’s new?” my dad asked.

  Should I start divulging this side of my marriage now? I could tell my dad about the STD and admit I’d married the wrong person. Or I could tell my dad about the STD and try to convince him that Cai was probably innocent and that I just needed to get his story and wouldn’t be able to do so until Monday, so please don’t jump to any conclusions. Or I could just do what I’d always done and say everything was fine.

  And in those two seconds, I knew if I told my parents, they wouldn’t doubt how I’d contracted the STD. They wouldn’t doubt it because I didn’t doubt it. Yet if there was even a one percent chance I could have picked it up from a toilet seat, then I owed it to Cai—and to my marriage—to first find out the truth from him. If it were the other way around, I’d certainly want Cai to talk to me before impetuously telling his parents.

  Yet part of me desperately wanted to confide in someone. Was Dr. Levy correct? Was infidelity par for the course in Chinese marriages? Or was it just Cai? Until now I thought the strains we’d had in our marriage stemmed from cultural differences. But now I was beginning to consider whether the problems might be due to character, not to culture. What if he didn’t love me the way I loved him?

  If I told my parents about the STD, they would convince me to leave Cai—and Hong Kong. The last thing I wanted was to suddenly run back to Chicago, advertising my failed marriage and my inability to live abroad. I didn’t know what I’d do in Chicago, and living at home after having been married for almost two years seemed like a huge defeat. Besides, I couldn’t leave Hong Kong. It was home.

  Those two seconds felt like twenty minutes.

  “Not much is new,” I finally replied, covering my eyes with one hand. “How about you?”

  Chapter 21

  Red Alert!

  On Monday morning I woke with a lump in my throat, wishing I could turn back the clock to a time before Dr. Levy had given her fateful diagnosis. Today was the day I had to confront Cai. I was usually the first person at work, which for most started at 8:30 a.m. I counted on the Conservatory’s operator starting work at eight and felt relieved when she answered on the second ring. It didn’t take long for me to explain in Mandarin that I was looking for Cai Jun. She asked if I was his foreign wife.

  “Can you please give him a message to call me at home tonight after eight?” Tears pooled in my eyes just thinking about what I’d have to ask Cai that evening.

  Later that morning, I tried to concentrate on a manuscript I was editing about new Hong Kong tax laws, but found myself turning the pages without remembering what I had just read. My phone rang, breaking my trance. Without looking at the long number on caller ID, I reached to pick up the receiver.

  It was Cai.

  I tried to hold my voice steady. Zara and other English speakers surrounding my workspace would understand everything I said in English. And within hearing distance were countless Cantonese coworkers, some of whom also understood Mandarin. There was no way I could speak to Cai about this at work in either language. “I can’t talk now, but can you call me tonight at eight?”

  “Sure. Actually, can you call me? I’ll be at my friend Mr. Chen’s. I’ll give you his number.”

  I wrote the phone number on a piece of paper from my recycling pile. After I read it back to Cai and he confirmed it, I folded the paper and placed it in my back pocket.

  “I love you.” Cai sounded as though he missed me.

  “I love you, too,” I mumbled. “Sorry, but I have to get back to work.” I was afraid I would cry if I didn’t hang up right then.

  At home that evening, my watch seemed to be stuck between 7:00 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. Nothing to pass the time seemed appealing. I didn’t want to eat, read, watch TV, or call a friend. Even flipping through Hong Kong gossip magazines seemed like a chore.

  If I had to put money on his response, I still wouldn’t know which one to choose. When I quickly looked up trichomoniasis on the Internet at work, I learned it was most often contracted through sexual contact, but some cases involved transmittal through damp towels, bathing suits, or toilet seats. The incubation period was eight to twenty days, which fit Cai’s travel timeline. I felt more confused than ever and didn’t want to throw away my marriage over a false accusation.

  Then something else came to mind. When we traveled to China, Cai was always quick to criticize me for feeling isolated or not adjusting to the cold. My problems were always mine, never his. What if he blamed me for the infection and accused me of sleeping around? As much as I wished we could avoid discussing it altogether, I knew I would get sick again if he didn’t take the medication.

  My watch read 7:50 p.m. I opened the paper with the number Cai gave me and took a few deep breaths. Relax. I’d waited this long; I could certainly hang on for another ten minutes.

  7:56 p.m. My pulse quickened. I could start dialing in a couple of minutes and maybe stretch out all those numbers to last a couple more minutes. Or maybe he had not arrived at his friend Mr. Chen’s place yet.

  7:57 p.m. Perhaps the clock in Chen’s apartment ran a few minutes fast. Or perhaps I could act like it was eight and just call a few minutes early.

  7:58 p.m. My throat throbbed and I felt like I was going to vomit. To calm myself down, I went over my game plan again. No matter what Cai’s reaction was, I would try to work things out. I would explain that I recognized this as a cultural difference, but we had to be faithful from this point on or else our marriage would fail. He would probably view it as a lesson to learn from, not to be repeated.

  I lifted my hand, which felt as heavy as an old wok, and started punching Cai’s friend’s number. I heard static on the other end of the line, followed by a leisurely low-pitched ring tone. Cai answered on the second ring. I could hear the delight in his voice. He recounted his visit with Mama and Baba and described the many lunches and dinners he’d planned with old friends at the Conservatory.

  “Cai,” I interrupted him. “I need to ask you something.” My voice broke. Determined to go on, I cleared my throat and tried to keep a serious tone, not an accusatory one.

  “I need to ask you something,” I repeated. “I’m sick and have a xìngbìng, a sexually transmitted disease. I have to know. Do you have a girlfriend on the side or something?”

  “What? Absolutely not! No.”Then, all of a sudden, he started crying.

  I’d predicted denial, but crying was a surprise. My first thought was that only someone guilty would cry. If he were innocent, I’d imagine he would be sympathetic and soothing to me, not upset. Why then was he denying he had a girlfriend? But then again, he had never cried before, and it caught me off guard. Perhaps he hadn’t had an affair on the side, and perhaps my accusation had just upset him. My head spun.

  “I would never do that. Never,” he repeated.

  “Really?” My voice cracked again. He seemed adamant that he was telling the truth. But if he hadn’t cheated, how else could I have gotten it? And what about the incubation period that corresponded to his different trips to China last month? I felt more confused than before I had phoned him.

  He
sighed sadly and sympathetically. “Of course. I love you.”

  And that’s when my own resolve cracked. “Shh. It’s okay,” I consoled him gently, quickly forgetting that this was my crisis. I couldn’t bear to hear him so upset.

  “Susan, I’d never do that to you. You know that, don’t you?”

  My temples felt heavy, like they were about to cave in. Each heartfelt plea of innocence, along with his sobbing and sniffling, tugged at my heart. I didn’t want to answer yes because I was no longer convinced of his faithfulness. I also couldn’t say no—that I didn’t believe him—because the rest of my head was starting to hurt from this conversation, his crying, and my conflicted feelings. So I turned to another matter.

  “I have to take a very strong medicine and you have to take it, too, even though men don’t get any symptoms. I’ll bring it next month. I have to get tested again and will have to take more medicine if it’s still there. My doctor said I also need to get an HIV test, just in case.”

  He started sobbing again.

  “If you don’t take the medicine”—I struggled to keep from crying myself—“then I’ll keep getting infected again and again, no matter how much medicine I take.”

  “When will you take the AIDS test?” he asked urgently.

  “I already did. I’ll get the results Thursday.”

  “Thursday? Call me at this number as soon as you return from work that day. I’ll be here at six. I’m going to get tested tomorrow for xìngbìng.”

  His alarm over the HIV test should have told me something, but I was too scared to ask why he flinched at this mention of HIV/AIDS. Was he simply afraid to catch this scary disease, as he’d been on our wedding night with the hotel-issued towels? Or was he genuinely frightened he might have contracted HIV and unwittingly spread it to me?

  I should have phrased my question differently, not asking about a girlfriend, but simply another person. But I had been sure I would be able to discern the truth as soon as I asked Cai. It never dawned on me that I should have worded my question another way.